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


Interlude - Mission of Gold

Somewhere, deep in his subconscious, something twanged, and his dreams began to break and scatter. He clung onto them for a little while longer. They had been nice, comfortable dreams, of a home and a future and Amanda lying beside him.

But his eyes opened to pitch darkness without meaning to, and the dreams fled and melted into waking life.

It was Saturday morning. They were going to fly out to California at ten.

Hold on. They? Or had that been part of his dreams, too?

He yawned and stretched, and his left hand hit a wooden headboard with a surprisingly loud metallic thump.

He didn't have a wooden headboard. This was promising.

He shifted a little and sat up. It was too dark to tell where he really was, but the air of the room was crisp and cold. The air movement and the whispering of the drapes told him that a window had been cracked "just about that much", and his heart soared.

He felt his left hand, and there was his wedding ring. It was not a dream or a fantasy. Relief swept through him.

Where was she, though?

In answer, the door to the bathroom creaked open, and he heard shuffling footsteps approaching.

"Amanda?" he whispered.

"Lee! You're awake!" she whispered back, sounding pleased. "Hello."

"Hello to you too. Any plans for the day, Mrs. Stetson?"

She giggled.

"I'm flying to California with my husband," she said, a little louder. "You might know him."

"Oh?" he chuckled, as she climbed back into bed with him. Now there was a sentence he had wondered if he'd ever get to say.

"But first I want to watch the sunrise," she whispered, snuggling up to him and wrapping her arms securely around him. "It's our first one as husband and wife."

He could barely make out her face in the darkness, but he thought he could see her eyes shining.

"I know just the place," he said, and he slipped out of bed before she could protest, glancing at the graying morning outside their window.

He drove the limo — which they would have to return to the agency at some point — to a rocky outcropping overlooking a gently rolling valley. They climbed up on the hood of the huge car, spreading out a blanket and pulling out a thermos of hot coffee. Amanda had thought of everything.

It was a lovely winter sunrise, despite the cold and the light snow that was falling, all ribbons of pale blue and light pink shot with pure, pale gold on the edges of the dark, forbidding sky.

They went straight to Dulles after the sunrise, ditching the limo in the parking lot and leaving a message with the airline to call Billy at IFF at noon and inform him that "Mr. Steadman had parked it at the airport at 5:30pm the preceding day just as he had been directed".

Let them try to figure that one out.