Disclaimer: I don't own the situations or characters portrayed herein. I'm just playing with them for a while.
Author's note: I've gone with this order of episodes to explain away the disappearance of Amanda in the later episodes. This almost reversed order means that she is still recovering in A Matter of Choice, but she's almost back to normal in One Flew East.
Interlude - A Matter of Choice
"You spent your vacation working. Take this next week off," Billy had said, and he hadn't needed to be told twice.
"Thanks," he'd said, and hung up the phone without so much as a second thought.
He spent the week after their ruined honeymoon in her hospital room, spending her few waking hours just talking or playing Scrabble with her and her mother (who was the biggest cheater he had seen in his life). It was nice to have a chance at normalcy, even if it was torture being unable to kiss her or plan for their future in front of Dotty.
While Amanda rested, he and Dotty went for long walks at the harbor or around the hospital. She had a disconcerting knack for asking the right questions, but, strangely, he didn't mind. He told her as much about himself as he could, without breaching his oath of secrecy or giving her embarrassing or identifying details.
By the end of the week, she knew him better than most people probably did. She knew he was orphaned at five years old when his parents died in a car accident. She knew about the Colonel. She knew he had traveled the world as a young man, and she knew he did classified stuff for the government.
She knew he was serious about her daughter, and she knew that he had his eye on one particular diamond ring. She promised to help him with the boys, and to help make his transition from stranger to "mom's boyfriend" as smooth as possible.
He was thinking wistfully that it was a shame he had to leave just when he was really getting to know her, when the phone rang on his last morning at Barney's house, and it was Billy.
Nathaniel Brody had escaped from prison.
He had killed two of Lee's Barnstorm contacts, too: Peters, and Sally Wong.
