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

Life of the Party

For the sake of argument, if there had been a betting pool two years ago on who would save the Scarecrow and Section Chief William Melrose by charming a bloodthirsty mob boss with a penchant for torture and a fearsome kill list, he wouldn't have put his money on Amanda.

But apparently times had changed.

Mr. Frankie Columbus had been a figure of legend for years. He was absolutely untouchable by the law, despite everyone knowing full well that he was a dangerous, sinister character. For one thing, anyone who crossed him, was rumored to cross him, or was in a position to testify against him ended up mysteriously dead.

It had taken the Burling brothers to break through the legal barriers and offer the agency, willing or not, a firsthand account of Columbus' operation.

Now Malcolm Burling was dead, and his brother Vic was strung up by his wrists in a meat processing plant while Frankie and his goon Paulie discussed how to kill him.

For that matter, so was Billy. And so was Lee.

His wrists were killing him. The slash in his belly wasn't helping matters.

Through a haze of pain and fear, he saw Amanda walking into the lions' den with her head held high, radiating calm and complete unawareness of the situation.

"Hey. Who the hell are you?" demanded Frankie Columbus, and her reply came back with perfect calm and assurance, and just the amount of hesitation a cold and unscrupulous woman might have at walking into murder preparations.

"Uh, Amanda King, sir."

She's good. I'll give her that. But what, precisely, does she hope to gain by becoming a witness to mob murder?

Columbus voiced what Lee was pretty sure they all wanted to know. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, sir, I was supposed to pick up some papers at the, uh, party tonight."

Unexpected corroboration came from Paulie as he spoke up. "That's right, Mr. Columbus."

"Yes, sir, Mr. Columbus."

There was a pause, probably while Columbus assessed the threat she posed and wondered if he had a spare meat hook.

"How long you been working for me?"

"I just started, Mr. Columbus."

Columbus switched from wary mob boss to overly friendly mob boss with terrifying speed. "Hey, call me Frankie."

Yeah, he was definitely planning on killing her. And here he was, the Scarecrow, known for daring escapes, and utterly helpless to do anything about it.

Amanda was unfazed by the sudden change, and merely said, "Frankie; thank you."

"I like you."

Huh? This was new. Had she actually managed to charm the snake? Or was this still a blind?

"Well, thank you, sir," Amanda said, as if he were nothing but a parent inviting her to his ten-year-old son's birthday party.

"Listen. Forget what you see here."

Oh, because that would be so easy. There was no way he was planning on her walking out of here alive. She glanced at Lee, and he saw her eyes slide to the slash in his shirt and the wound underneath, but her face betrayed nothing.

"I don't see anything, sir."

"I like you," said Columbus, again, and he patted Amanda's cheek.

Lee saw red. Possibly it was due to the uncomfortable position he was in.

"Thank you, sir."

America's most wanted mob boss turned away for a fraction of a second, and the Arlington housewife with two little boys clocked him on the back of the head with an enormous pan wielded with deadly accuracy. He buckled and went down.

And then it was all a blur. He found that he could stand, on a cart that Amanda pushed under their feet. Francine was there, now, and they were all - Billy, Francine, he, and Amanda - fighting for their lives against men who had everything to lose.

It was instinct against instinct, agency against organized crime. Somehow he found that he had Paulie lying unconscious in a cart of stinking intestines. A fitting end to a fight with a butcher's henchman.

Billy had Frankie Columbus subdued, now.

But something still felt wrong.

"Nicely done," said Vic Burling, reappearing with a gun trained on them. "Now. Don't anybody move."

They didn't, but a side of beef swung outward suddenly, knocking him over. He hit his head on the floor, as the side of beef swung back into place and Amanda came into view.

He wanted to laugh from sheer relief. Who knew that pans and beef made such effective weapons? Forget guns; Leatherneck should make this mandatory training.

But it would have hurt too much to laugh, and it didn't seem very funny anyway.

Amanda approached them, looking for all the world as if she was expecting a lecture.

Francine said it first, her voice almost unrecognizable with admiration. "Amanda. Terrific." She held out her hand, which was, for Francine, essentially an apology.

"Well, I guess together we're a pretty good one-two punch," said Amanda, pleased. Perhaps she knew what Francine was really saying. She was good at that.

Dimly he heard Billy and Francine making plans to get Columbus and his men to the agency, but he only had eyes for Amanda.

He couldn't live with himself if he didn't say, right here and right now, precisely what he meant. "She's absolutely right. You were... You were great, Amanda."

"Well, I really didn't do so much."

"No, no. You were absolutely —" Fantastic. Wonderful. Calm, cool, collected. Brave. Courageous. Fearless. Strong. Lovely as ever. Resourceful.

Words failed him, so he pointed to the side of beef. "That was great. That was great!"

They reached for Vic at the same time, hoisting him up to carry the unconscious man to the van as well.

"I mean, look. You went undercover. You kept your eyes open. You got Francine, you followed us here tonight and—"

How many times would he be dead if it wasn't for her?

"Look, I mean, it took a lot of courage to walk into this room, Amanda. Really it did, and uh— Well, I uh... I just wanna say that, uh—"

What was wrong with him? Couldn't he just tell her how proud he was of her, how thrilled he was that she had blossomed in her role as trainee agent, how much better she was at this agent stuff than he had been at the beginning, that she had a knack for it?

Apparently not. He was as bad at putting his feelings into words as he had ever been.

"Well, your bravery... saved my life."

It was so inadequate.

She beamed up at him, at a loss for words herself.

Back when this whole thing had started, at the party where Johnny Salinas's papers had been stolen, she had said something that got him thinking.

He had apologized for not being very much fun that night. He'd been tired, anyway, and even more tired of all the women who had been flirting shamelessly with him while Amanda stood right there, resplendent and beautiful.

"Oh, that's all right, Lee. We never have much fun."

That had hurt. Didn't they have fun together? He enjoyed her company, delighted in her smile and her laugh, and adored her scrunch-nosed grin that he was beginning to see more and more. He was having the time of his life. But maybe she wasn't.

She had realized how it sounded, when she looked at his face and saw his expression.

"Well, I mean, no, we're not really supposed to. I didn't mean it the way it sounded. I know that I'm your cover, and that you're on to something."

He'd have to get her out more, take her to more places, not always have to have the agency as an excuse.

But in the meantime, he could make her laugh.

He finished tying the bow on a gold gift box. It looked like a million bucks, like a bouquet of long-stemmed roses from a secret admirer.

He had been waiting to give it to her until Amanda got there. And here she was. Perfect timing.

"Hi," he said, remembering how she used to complain that he never said hello.

"Well, somebody's birthday?"

"No, just a little something I picked up for Francine."

Her face fell, and he would have kicked himself if this gift hadn't really been for her.

"Oh, well, she did a good job."

He couldn't keep the grin off his face. "Yeah."

"Everybody did a good job," she went on, noticeably emphasizing her part in it. "You broke up the Private Party ring, and you arrested Frank Columbus."

Francine walked in practically glowing. "What a great morning. I got to have the pleasure of personally arresting Mrs. Flanagan." Her voice had the sound it always took on whenever she started discussing chocolate. "Yes! And during the booking, I got to ask her height, her weight, and her age. Oh, it was wonderful!"

He picked up the box, seeing Amanda's disappointment reappear at once. "Francine, this is for you. A little memento of the case."

Francine was still beaming from her triumph over Mrs. Flanagan. "Oh, Lee, thank you. Oh, that's sweet. Thanks."

Amanda's eyes followed the gift, and he had to bite his finger to keep from laughing. She watched as Francine removed the lid, and started to chuckle as she saw the contents: a long handled feather duster.

She started to laugh in earnest at Francine's massive eye roll, and her nose scrunched right up the way he had been hoping it would, and he couldn't help but join in.