AN: *Rose Dawson voice* It's been eighty-four years...

'Shuffled some things around and fudged some unclear events together to move the episode along.

/

"That was the worst movie I've ever seen."

Amanda and Lee tramped into the den through the back. They'd scoured the hotel room from top to bottom. Aside from a short scuffle and a sojourn in the bed, the trip yielded little. Lee pried a box off the back of the television set, and Amanda found an unused ticket. And that was how they ended up at the local drive-in, parked in front of a Buzz Blade film.

Even if the lead didn't pan out, the ticket stub was worth Lee putting his arm around her.

Lee tossed his jacket onto the back of the couch. He'd ditched Dean's plaids somewhere in the Porsche. He sank into the cushions, hitched one heel over an ankle, and began flipping through a docket. He ran a fingerpad down the printout.

"Maybe the killer's a Russel Sinclair fan."

"Who?" Amanda asked.

"Russel Sinclair, the actor. Remember his TV show in the sixties? Buzz Blade: Secret Spy?"

"Oh, yeah." She closed her eyes against a tide of cheesy one-liners and over-the-top plots. "Gee, whatever happened to him?"

Lee snorted to himself. "That movie. He left the series to make it. It was a real bomb. He disappeared right after the premiere."

"Why would they rerelease such a bad movie?"

"'You kidding? The place was packed. People come to have a good laugh- hello?"

Eyes brightening, Lee latched onto something on the document. Amanda leaned forward expectantly. After a beat, he passed over the docket so she could skim over the section in question. It didn't make a lick of sense to her—just titles and times.

"What am I looking at?"

"This is from the Neeman Company."

"The people that do the TV ratings," Amanda remembered. She'd dropped the black box off at the Agency without a second thought. According to this, the TV was turned to Buzz Blade: Secret Spy at one-thirty in the morning, almost two hours after Jean-Claude's murder. That was one heck of a coincidence.

Lee nodded. "I had Billy send it over. Now we're just waiting on an overview of the Agency's personnel records."

Amanda lowered the folder and frowned at her lap. She'd almost forgotten their latest clue. Another murder, this time in the office itself. More and more it looked like the killer might be one of the Agency. She sighed and smoothed a hand over the slight swell blooming under her sweater. With all the twists this case was taking, her own problems seemed inconsequential. Lee took to patrolling up and down the room, apparently as lost in thought as she was.

"Burning a track in my carpet won't make Billy call faster," she said in her best scolding tone.

"I get fidgety." He swerved and stared into the hall, like a hound on a scent. "Are you going somewhere?"

Amanda craned her neck over the couch, following his gaze. Her eyes honed in on a pile of luggage strewn by the staircase. Instantly, she went white as a sheet. Alarm bells blared in her skull.

Right on cue, footsteps pounded above them. A chorus of "Mom?"s carried down the staircase. Lee leapt into action before the boys made it halfway, darting out the doors and slinking along shadows. The boys' feet grew louder and louder until they showed at the sitting room step.

"Mom!" Jamie cried, hopping onto the couch. He and Phillip were pajama-clad, wobbly-legged but wriggling with energy as they jockeyed for a spot by her side. Still stunned, she flung an arm around each gambolling boy

"You two are supposed to be asleep. What am I saying? You two are supposed to be in Williamsburg," she said.

Both boys scrambled to answer first. The back and forth between them was a tangle of non-sequiturs.

"We were sightseeing-"

"-fancy church-"

"-when all the sudden-"

"-this wicked storm-!"

"-nearly washed Grandma away-"

"-on its way now-"

"One at a time, one at a time," Amanda chided them. She ruffled Phillip's hair affectionately and sifted through snatches of exposition. Motormouth was a trait inherited from her side of the family.

She gathered something about a storm and made a mental note to check all the windows. Dotty must be asleep upstairs, then. Just as she had this thought, Dotty shambled into the room in a housecoat and rollers. Her hair clung to the rollers in frizzy clumps and bags drooped under her eyes. Amanda tallied all the signs that the boys had run her ragged over the weekend.

"Evening, dear." Dotty turned a stern eye on the boys. "What are you doing up? Never mind, never mind, back to bed with you. Vamoose."

Jamie and Phillip fled the scene in a rout, jostling shoulders like a couple bumper cars. Once they were gone, Dotty crossed to the back doors and locked them. Her fretful energy was familiar and comforting.

"Did you come in this way?" she asked.

"Yes I did."

"Amanda, there's a man's jacket on the sofa."

"I know, I've been, uh- organizing clothes. Dean must've left it behind. I planned on returning it, but, y'know." She shrugged helplessly.

"I don't remember Dean wearing something this nice. Well, when you make a living on the airwaves, one ought to invest in a sensible wardrobe. Appearances are important. That's what I always told your daddy." Dotty paused to survey her daughter up and down. "Speaking of appearances, I haven't forgotten that promise you made about the boys. If it wasn't so late…"

Amanda had lived with Dotty long enough to know what she was getting at. She slipped into the kitchen and closed the window above the sink. This was not how she wanted Him to find out.

"Mother, the boys aren't even unpacked yet."

"But they will be."

"Could we table this until tomorrow? I'm really not feeling well and I thought I'd have more time."

"You're not getting cold feet are you?"

"No- I mean-"

"You're biting your nails."

"I have an overgrown cuticle." This time the fib slid easily from her lips. But Dotty knew her too well to be fooled.

"Siblings can be weird about these things, but they'll get over it," she said, waving a hand. "Remember when Phillip lured Jamie into the washing machine? Thank heavens we caught him in time. But the boys are much older now. More mature. I'm sure-"

Amanda was spared by the phone ringing off the hook. Ignoring Dotty's pointed look, she sprinted to the other side of the room and snatched the receiver. Billy's voice sounded in her ear, asking where Lee was, and updating her on the progress of the employee review. Never before had an interruption been so welcome and so inconvenient at the same time.

While Amanda struggled to keep her replies natural and unassuming, Dotty mixed herself a cup of milk and Galliano. She put everything back in the fridge then took the nightcap upstairs, stealing furtive glances at her daughter. Only when Amanda was alone did she dare to talk freely. She promised to pass along a message to Lee, hung up, and peered at the dark, damp garden.

Perhaps her family's early return was a sign. Lee couldn't sleep under the same roof as them. He shouldn't—couldn't—stay here much longer. Not unless she was prepared to do something she would soon regret. She didn't know if she could stave off his advances again. Forbearance was in short supply when he was around.

'Truth was, she liked him. A lot. If she didn't, she wouldn't have taken that package, she wouldn't have tracked him to Mrs. Welch's, and she wouldn't have spread her legs for him. It took a special sort of man to elicit that response. When she'd learned he didn't feel the same it had crushed her. She couldn't relive that embarrassment.

Again, she glanced at the kitchen window. The sink was still full of crockery from their meal before. Outside, clouds rolled in, a gelid breeze rocked the laundry line, and thunder rattled the windowpane. Everything was shaping up for an inclement evening. Even without her sons' warning, she knew Lee would get soaked.

A doleful head popped up behind the pane. Sodden strands of hair stuck to his skin and a single fingernail tapped the glass.

"The garage it is, I guess," she muttered to herself.

/

AN: To the wonderful guest who called me "sad and immature", I know you are but what am I? C: Unfortunately, my life does not revolve around fanfiction, and all my fics were put on hold for a few months because Life. Not just this one.