Disclaimer: I don't own the situations or characters portrayed herein. I'm just playing with them for a while.

Charity Begins at Home

He couldn't have said why he was so irritated with her.

Maybe it was because they had expended so much time, money, and energy to get even close to the exhibition, and she had driven right in.

Maybe it was because she got him into the Equidome, but as a bartender named Carlos, he couldn't do anything now that he was in.

Either way, he was irritated, and she wasn't helping - asking about glasses and ice and who knew what else. He was here to keep a lookout, not —

The most grating, obnoxious voice broke into his thoughts.

"You are a little late in setting up the bar, aren't you, Amanda?"

Um, no. They were early. Did this woman not know how long it took to set up a bar?

Amanda's reply held none of the cheery welcome he was used to hearing. "Hello, Mrs. Coleman," she replied, and he heard her anxiety.

"Yes, I was beginning to worry," twittered Mrs. Snide Concern. There was a Significant Pause before she asked, "Do we have enough ice for all the bars, Amanda?"

"Four hundred pounds, Mrs. Coleman," Amanda said, patiently, with no sign of gritted teeth or venom.

Lee, on the other hand, was insulted on Amanda's behalf. Did this simpering, twittering, insulting woman have any idea how much work Amanda had put into this?

"I keep remembering, uh, last summer. The concert. Warm martinis. Not that it was your fault, Amanda. Really, I should have handled it myself instead of entertaining the prominent sponsors."

That did it. It was one thing to find fault. It was another to blame-shift. No one accused Amanda of failing in her assignments. She always gave 200% of her effort and energy. It rarely turned out the way she intended, but that didn't matter.

He turned toward the woman, knowing that she was the type to ignore Amanda as soon as a handsome man noticed her. It was a sacrifice he was willing to make.

It worked like a charm, too.

"Oh! I see that you have found a replacement for Mr. Saunderson. I'm sure you'll do very well, Carlos."

Ugh. She really was insufferable. He'd have to have a long talk with Amanda about saying NO more often.

"Yes, ma'am. Uh, would you like a drink?" He could think of several drinks that he could make perfectly but that she would not like.

"Oh, no. No, no. Not while I'm working." Ha! Working, did she call it? She wouldn't know work if it punched her in the face. "I don't see any cocktail napkins, Amanda."

"Oh, we were just going to put them out, Mrs. Coleman."

She was way too nice.

With all the condescension of a princess reluctantly training a beggar girl to be her footstool, Mrs. Insufferable pointed out, "One doesn't leave this sort of thing to the last moment."

Amanda emerged relatively unscathed from this less-than-friendly interaction, but Lee was getting anxious. His full attention had been diverted from his surveillance work to that odious woman, and that couldn't happen again.

He would have to walk around.

He couldn't count the number of times he'd been stuck in a freezer over the last 10 years, but this one looked like it would be the last time. No one would come.

Billy was out by the stables. He didn't have a partner to watch his back. Amanda was back at the bar like he'd told her —

Wait. Amanda never listened to him. Maybe she wouldn't listen to him this time, either. He could only hope.

But as the seconds turned to minutes, and the minutes dragged by, he had to admit to himself that she wasn't going to come this time.

His hands were turning blue, and he couldn't even pace to warm himself. He leaned against one of the slabs of meat, weak from cold and lack of air.

Maybe fate had destined him to die in a waiter's costume. He'd escaped death last time, due mostly to Amanda, but the Grim Reaper had only waited in the wings, watching for the next act when the waiter would return to the stage.

His mind wasn't making sense anymore.

There was a dull clang beyond the freezer door. Maybe it was the Reaper's sickle. He bowed his head.

But it wasn't the Reaper that stood there when the door opened.

"Ooh," came Amanda's voice. "Come out."

He could only breathe her name, a sort of benediction or prayer of gratitude. He inched toward her, hunched almost double, his hands frozen under his arms to shield them just a little from frostbite.

"Come on," she encouraged him, her voice golden and warm. "That's the way."

"Oh, thank God you came," he panted. He had been spared.

She closed the door on that room of death, while he leaned against the kitchen wall, groaning feebly. Amanda reached out for him, and began to rub some feeling back into his arms. "Don't try to talk. This is the standard treatment for hypothermia."

He'd never been so grateful for anyone in his life.

"I'm so brittle, I feel like something could break off." It was a poor attempt at a joke, and to his relief she understood.

"That's a good sign. You still have your sense of humor. Give me your hand."

He couldn't move, but she tugged his hand out from under his arm and began to rub it industriously. It hurt.

"Amanda, don't worry about me. Get his gun." He had just noticed the guard on the floor, either knocked out cold or dead of a broken neck - he couldn't quite tell.

"Get his gun?"

"Yeah. Grab the gun."

"Put your little hand back in." She stuck his hand back under his arm, and he felt a sudden surge of fondness that had nothing to do with gratitude.

"Here's the gun." How exactly did she expect him to take a gun when he couldn't even move his fingers? "Ah, never mind." She stuck the gun in his left pants pocket.

He would have to get her some gun training.

Some warmth was stealing back into his body, but he still couldn't move right now. She would have to be his hands. "All right. Now get him undressed."

He could see that this offended her deepest principles, but there was no help for it. He had to be inconspicuous, and what could be more inconspicuous than a guard?

"Okay. I'll do everything except the pants," she agreed, unwillingly.

"Suit yourself." He could move his hands enough to start blowing warm air onto them.

He was so glad she had come.

He had just gotten the Porsche back from the mechanic. It had needed repair not long after their return from Austria, and even though he had managed to get his hands on a nice rental car for the past month, it wasn't the same as driving his own car.

He should have spared himself the expense, he thought ruefully, as what remained of the Porsche came up the cliff to meet him in a mushroom cloud of fire, ash, and debris.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I know how much you loved your car."

"Oh, Amanda, you don't love a car." Love is too strong for a car. Love is for people, like Billy and Francine and you. "But you sure do get attached to one."

He was so excited to show her his new car. He'd picked it up and driven it straight over to her house.

"I was out testing it out and I sort of, uh, wound up over here."

It was a terrible, absolutely transparent excuse, and he hoped she would agree to a ride.

"And, uh,... Well, I mean, you know, you were, you were there when I lost the other one and I thought maybe, uh..."

When had he gotten so tongue-tied at asking a woman to go for a drive?

"Oh, well, you know, I'm really glad that you came over and told me about it, and maybe sometime I'll get to take a ride in it."

That was a no, then. But it wasn't an absolute refusal.

This was Amanda. It wasn't a date. It wasn't meant to be a date. So why was he so disappointed?

"Oh, yeah. Yeah. Count on it." He sighed. "I mean, we will be uh, working on another assignment."

He hoped she heard what he meant to say - that she wasn't just an emergency anymore. That he wanted her to work with him, and he didn't just tolerate her on Billy's orders.

But he didn't think she heard him. She only heard the offer of a drive.

"Right." She paused, and then said, "I'll count on it."