Note: I updated Chapter 6 a while ago, but it never showed up as updated. Not a ton of changes since the first version of it was up, but some of them are important.
Chapter 7: Dragon Slaying and Other Fairy Tales
December 24, 1982
Christmas music playing in the background, a cup of eggnog in his hand, Lee looked around the room uncomfortably. With a lack of other plans for the holiday, his new, and really his first, partner, Doug, had invited him over. Doug's parents lived in Palo Alto, California and his wife's parents lived in Ft. Worth, Texas, so they generally had small celebrations with just the two of them and their three young daughters: Kelly, the youngest at two, Samantha, at four, and Abby, who was seven. Doug joked that between them and Madaleine, his wife, Lee would be doing him a favor by increasing the male ratio in the household. So, Lee found himself within this family unit for Christmas Eve.
Still, family life made Lee uncomfortable. He'd never spent much time with families. Even with Amanda, while he'd spent time with her and Joe, once Philip was born, he barely ever saw them.
So, standing awkwardly in the doorway, Lee surveyed the scene around him. Madaleine really did a wonderful job of decorating, and the tree was perfect. From there, Lee's gaze fell to the stockings hung up on the mantle and for a fleeting moment, he wished one of them was for him. The thought made him miss Amanda as he knew that had he spent the holidays with her, that would have been the case. But Doug didn't know much about Lee's past, didn't know that he hadn't had a Christmas stocking since he was four. To Doug, Lee was a great partner, a nice guy to have a beer with, but someone who seemed to be enjoying the bachelor's life too much right now to settle down.
Lee was gazing blankly at the fireplace when he felt something smash into his legs and turning around, Abby smiled up at him. "Sorry, Uncle Lee," she giggled.
Unable to respond in any way except with a smile at the little girl's impish grin, he said, "That's okay."
Abby, who was already looking nearly straight up to see Lee, tilted her head just a tad bit more and giggled again. "We're under the mistletoe," she said in awe.
Doug came up behind him and teased, "I think that means you owe her a kiss, partner. But try to remember – this is my little girl, not Candi!"
"Very funny," Lee muttered, as he handed Doug his eggnog and leaned over to pick Abby up. He placed a light kiss on her cheek and she replied in kind.
When a minute later, Maddy called out that dinner was ready, and Lee went to put the child down, she whispered shyly, "Can I have a piggy back ride to the table?"
Still unable to refuse her, Lee lifted her over his head and onto his shoulders. Somehow, although he was unsure how, this whole interchange calmed his nerves and he found himself enjoying the evening. Maddy was a great cook, and Doug had a wonderful family. It was hard not to feel the love in the house and feel just a little bit of it for yourself, just sitting there at the dinner table.
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Lee was still coming off of his buzz – both from champagne and spending several hours with Doug's family, when he got home. Opening the door, it stuck slightly. He pushed a bit harder, and when it finally opened, found a manila envelope on the other side.
Picking it up, he walked to the couch. Pressing the button on the answering machine, he sat down as he began opening the envelope.
"Hi, Lee," Candi purred. "I hope you're having a very merry Christmas. I wanted to give you your gift tonight." There was a slight pause and then a very typical, but enjoyable nonetheless, version of "Santa, Baby" came over the answer machine speaker.
Lee smiled to himself as he spilled the contents of the envelop into his hands.
But as little as a thirty seconds later, he was no longer aware of Candi's voice in the background. The envelope was completely paperwork. And really nothing all that out of the ordinary. The paper on top bared the insignia of the FBI. But that wasn't what caught Lee's attention away from his answering machine. He saw FBI paper work on a fairly regular basis. It was the name on the top of the file. Jennifer Stetson. Why did the FBI have a file on his mother?
Lee pored over the papers in his hand for the next hour – long after Candi's voice had faded into Mindi's, Salli's, Heidi's, and finally silence. There wasn't a lot there, more bits and pieces, and really more information that tended to create more questions than answers. He still was unsure why the FBI had a file on his mother. It seemed like she had a connection to an agent for the CIA codenamed Fox, but it was not clear who Fox may be or what her relationship with him/her was.
What was clear from the papers was that the author thought that Fox had been murdered, and it was possible that Jennifer's death was related to this murder as well.
Lee sat back, trying hard to sort out the information he had just read. A lot of it didn't make sense to him. Looking at the clock, he noticed it was 2am. Yawning, he decided to sleep on it and deal with the issue in the morning.
March 8, 1983
Amanda sighed as she moved towards the stairs. She had finally done it. It had taken years for her to decide to date again. It was ridiculous. In the nine years since he had left, Joe had never called. But without being divorced, she felt it was wrong to date. Two months ago, her mother had finally convinced her that it was time.
Things had been going well, although slowly, with Dean. Slowly as that was what she wanted. Last night she had suddenly panicked, realizing how much had changed since Jamie was born. Jamie and Philip had grown up so much. She hadn't talked to her husband in years. She hadn't talked to Lee in even longer. Her mother lived with her. She was dating someone else. And it had begun to get serious. Last night, he had asked her to take him to the train station this morning. She had almost said no, that seemed to imply a level of closeness she didn't want to have reached. But she realized that she had reached it whether or not she wanted to and so, she had agreed.
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Lee glanced behind him. Those two thugs were gaining on him and he didn't know what to do. He really needed to get on the train but didn't know how he could do that without them seeing. Damn! He really needed to get rid of this package.
He was still trying to figure out what to do when he saw her. Despite how unwise it was, instinctively, Lee stopped in shock. But quickly his training took over and as she nearly passed him by, he grabbed her arm. "Walk with me," he said quietly.
She tried to pry her arm from his, hissing, "I most certainly will not."
"Please," he pleaded and stopped to look in her eyes.
Her arm still struggling, Amanda turned to face him. And then went slack. "Lee?" she asked incredulously.
"Please," he repeated. "This is a matter of life and death, Amanda. Please get on the train. Give this package to the man in the red hat. You can get off at the next station and go right home."
"Lee?" Amanda repeated.
"Go!" he ordered, pushing her on the train. Then he took off.
Amanda got on the train, but leaned out to take one last look at her old friend. The men that were chasing him caught up to him and she had to look away after the first punch was thrown.
Moving into the train car, she scanned the scene in front of her, taking in the other passengers. She quickly spotted the man with the red baseball cap and made her way over to him.
April 1, 1983
Lee sat on his couch with a sigh. It had been a horrendous four months. Coming into work the day after Christmas the word was out. Over the holiday an agent had been murdered. Everyone free had been put on the case, and the strain had only increased as more agents got killed. Lee himself had been the last target. If Amanda hadn't gotten that package to Doug, no one would have cracked the code and determined that somehow Francine's cooking lessons were the secret. Lee, and probably several other agents, would be dead now.
Lee had not had a chance to stop and think at all in these four months. First his energy being poured into tracking down the killers, then in somehow getting away before they killed him. Reviewing the missing time from his life quickly, he stopped on the face in the train station. The face that clearly belonged to Amanda. And her response when he grabbed her arm. "I most certainly will not!" The voice had clearly been her and there was no doubt he'd been mistaken since she'd known his name. But her response had been so strong, so …, well, so spunky. Amanda had been so meek last time he'd talked to her. Alright so that had been nearly a decade ago and people change. But this was almost unbelievable.
Realizing that even after all these years, even though it was clear that she had changed, thoughts of Amanda made him all warm inside, Lee turned away from them afraid to go down that path again.
And then it came to him in this strange moment of clarity. That morning four months ago when they had found out that Stinger was dead, he'd planned on spending the day tracking down information on that file of his mother he'd received Christmas Eve. He had gotten sidetracked with the deaths and then as they came closer to him he had managed to forget it completely. But now it was back.
The whole thing had him confused. He had spent some time digging in that week between Christmas and New Year's before the case had gotten too time consuming, but what he found was confusing. Fox was someone named Matthew, but little description was given of the man. Little enough that Lee had trouble deciding if his first guess – that Fox was somehow his father, could be correct.
He needed to talk to someone about this. Someone with a little distance, but who? He considered talking to Doug, but wasn't sure how to broach the subject. How do you start a conversation with someone who for all intents and purposes is your best friend and say, "I think I may have forgotten to mention this before, but my parents died when I was five. I think my dad may have been an agent, but I just learned that four months ago. What do you think?"
Sighing heavily, Amanda's face appeared in his mind's eye and he briefly considered talking to her. But then he realized that the face he saw was from nine years ago, not the face of the woman in the train station. The woman he barely knew anymore. He couldn't talk to Amanda after all this time.
April 13, 1983
Lee knocked on the door timidly, almost afraid someone would answer. When no one did he turned around and went down the walkway. He had almost reached the driveway when he heard a voice behind him.
"Hello? Mister?" the voice called. Lee turned around to see a small towheaded boy, about seven or eight calling to him.
"Hi," Lee responded quickly. He paused for an instant, trying to determine what to say, still unsure why he was here after having firmly deciding it was a mistake the other night. Finally settling on the most obvious, he asked, "Is your mother Amanda King?"
The boy nodded yes, and then ran inside calling up the stairs, "Mom, some man is here to see you!"
Amanda came bounding down the stairs. "Jamie King! What have I told you about screaming?" she asked as she reached the door.
Jamie looked at the ground suitably embarrassed. "Sorry, mom," he mumbled.
Amanda reached out, tenderly tousling his hair. "It's okay. Why don't you go to the backyard and join Philip? He's looking for someone to play football with."
Jamie broke out in a grin and dashed away.
Looking up, Amanda caught sight of her visitor and gasped. "Lee," she said quietly. "Hi."
"Hi, Amanda," he said as he made his way back up the walkway. "How are you?"
Amanda laughed – a full-throated, head-thrown-back laugh. Lee watched her not sure what her reaction meant, when she finally looked at him and said "Good. Really good. Different, but good." When Lee didn't immediately respond, she went on, "So what brings you here? I hope nothing went wrong with that package?"
"No, the package went fine. Thanks for taking care of it for me. I actually came by as… well, I know it's been awhile, but I needed to talk. Can I come in?"
Wordlessly, Amanda moved aside and then closed the door behind them, moving them to the couch.
Three hours later, Lee had poured his story out and Amanda had listened quietly, asking intelligent questions, but saying little. Before either knew it, Dotty was calling out that it was dinner time. When Amanda admonished her for not asking for help, Dotty insisted that she didn't want to interrupt the two.
Lee was home hours later after an active dinnertime at the King household before he realized that he had never asked about Joe, where he was, and why Dotty was there.
It was only a few days later that Lee discovered the truth about his parents. They had been killed in the line of duty, a plot by a man named Blackthorne. As painful as it could have been to discover it, it all ended well. Lee was glad to finally have answers to why his parents had disappeared so suddenly, and for some reason he wasn't clear on, wasn't too surprised to learn that his parents had worked for the CIA. While initially he had harbored quite a bit of resentment toward Blackthorne, some more digging showed his to be behind bars as his plot against the Stetsons had been discovered shortly after their death.
The strange thing was that Lee had never questioned why he had received the papers so suddenly. But through his digging he determined that the papers had been sent by the leak that had been responsible for the agency deaths, and was a ploy to divert Lee's attention away from the case.
Sitting at his desk in the bullpen, Lee was making plans in his head for going over to Amanda's and telling her what had happened as well as determining what happened to Joe when Doug came over, the grin on his face unmistakable. They had another case.
April 22, 1983
Lee woke up trying to clear his head. Last night had been a blur. All he could recall was loud gunshots, screaming, and Maddy's tear stained cheek against his shoulder as he held her. But that was all he needed to recall. Just remembering how heartbroken Maddy had been, how scared Kelly, Sam, and Abby had looked at their mother's cries, he recalled all too clearly why he hadn't spoken to Amanda in so long. It had been the right decision, and he had been a fool to contact her again. He wouldn't make the mistake twice.
To Be Continued …
