Disclaimer: of course I don't own Scarecrow and Mrs. King. But I felt that they needed a bit more fleshing out just after "All That Glitters".
It had been agony. An hour ago, Elisa Danton had taken Amanda by the arm and dragged her into her hospital room "to talk", shutting the door on him - and, as Lee admitted ruefully to himself, that was a first.
Who knew what Elisa was telling Amanda in there. Was she coyly reminiscing about the violinist and the limo? How much damage control would he have to do?
He started pacing up and down the hall again as he wondered uneasily if he would be able to do damage control at all. Was she lying about what she had done with the famous Lee Stetson over the past few days? Worse yet, was she extrapolating some horrific signs of secret longing and passion from the bits and pieces of half-hearted intelligence gathering he had forced himself to do?
He stopped pacing outside her door, and listened hard. Whatever the two women - the one from his past and (please, please, God) the one for his future - were talking about, they were doing it in such hushed voices he couldn't hear a thing.
He bit his lip and was ready to knock when the door opened. Amanda was getting ready to leave, her head turned over her shoulder. Elisa lay back in her bed.
"Now, you rest. You'll be fit as a fiddle in no time," Amanda said, her motherly tones giving no indication of the conversation Lee was dying to hear about.
"Thank you, darling," said Elisa. "Come back soon and we'll have a really lovely chat."
"Sure," Amanda said warmly, then turned and almost walked into Lee, who still stood, frozen, desperately unhappy, and anxious at the door.
"Oh, Lee," she said, "were you out here this whole time?" Her tone held no recriminations, no anger - that was promising!
He tried to speak, but could only mouth something. He wasn't sure what.
"Come on," she said, "we'll get you back to the agency and have Dr. McJohn take a look at you."
She slipped her arm through his. Dimly he registered that Elisa had said something to him - possibly a goodbye or a "see you around, darling".
"Yeah," he breathed to Amanda, reaching behind him and firmly closing the hospital room door.
Amanda held his arm as they made their way through the hospital, chatting lightly about this and that, with no mention whatsoever of Elisa. He barely heard her.
What does she know? What does she think of me? How can she still love me? What if she doesn't?
In a daze, he found they had reached the car. He opened Amanda's door and then got in himself.
There was a moment of silence - a century to Lee, a second to Amanda - before she reached out and grasped his hand.
"Lee?" she asked. It was all he needed.
"Amanda," he said, desperately clutching her hand, his only lifeline to safety and normalcy and laughter and love and worth. He cleared his throat and tried again.
"Amanda, I swear to you that whatever she told you about my past is not who I am now. I'm not proud of it. It's something that eats at me every day. But I swear that whatever she told you about these last few days wasn't true. Amanda, Elisa is part of my past. But you are my future. I promised you constant faith and devotion and I intend to keep that promise."
He ran his fingers through his hair and swore.
"Amanda - what did she tell you?!"
He forced himself to meet her eyes, and to his surprise they were soft and warm, and her smile was like a breath of fresh air after the stifling heat of a blast furnace.
"Oh, Lee," she said, her breath catching a little in her throat. "Oh, sweetheart…"
His heart leaped. Sweetheart?!
She leaned over and kissed him gently on one cheek, then the other. She reached up and tilted his head down to kiss his forehead and then softly, gently, sweetly, she kissed his lips.
"Amanda," he croaked, "what in the world did she tell you?"
She laughed. "Oh, she wanted to know if I could tell her anything about the woman who, and I quote, 'Took the great Lee Stetson off the market for good'."
"What?" he spluttered, starting to laugh himself.
"Oh, yes," she said, grinning. "She was so shocked that you didn't respond to her advances that she apparently went straight to Billy and asked him why." A small smiled flitted over her face. "She asked if the woman was rich, or astonishingly beautiful, or a host of other things. And he told her that he was certain it was a classified secret, but that the woman was lovely, and that you couldn't have done better than her."
"He's right," Lee said at once, still clasping her hand, so solid and reassuring. "What did she say?"
"She wanted to know if I knew who it was," Amanda said with a self-deprecating laugh. "She doesn't think I'm lovely, apparently!"
"And?" Scarecrow asked, softly.
"I told her you've been a private person for all the time I've known you, and that I don't think you've told anyone anything about this woman." She laughed a little. "She wants me to visit her again this weekend and bring photos of all the women you've been seen with."
"Will you?"
"Oh, no. Jamie and Phillip have a game this Saturday, and I told her I wouldn't be able to come." She fell silent for a moment, stroking his hand absentmindedly.
"Lee?" she said, tentatively, "she didn't try to make me think anything happened this time. She was so flustered by her failure that she only wanted the truth." She brought his hand up to her lips and kissed it. "She didn't mean to, I think, but she made it very clear that you've changed completely. Thank you."
She let go of his hand, and he started the car. He drove back to the agency in silence, touching her hand every now and then to reassure himself that she was here, now, still in love with him. He couldn't speak - the tears were too close to the surface - but he couldn't stop stealing glances at her, at this beautiful woman who had agreed to spend the rest of her life with him.