"Of course you can, Sweet – Joe," Amanda amended herself mid-sentence. Lee had stopped giving her that side-eye thing when she called Joe 'Sweetheart' out of habit, but Carrie had looked positively stunned the first time she'd heard it and Amanda was really trying hard not to do it again.

She glanced over at Lee but he seemed to be deep in his own paperwork and not really listening to her phone call.

"Which day do you need it?" she went on.

"Well if we go Saturday, then we have Saturday night or all day Sunday to decorate it, I guess," Joe answered.

"Well, that sounds like fun. The boys will enjoy that."

"You should see Carrie – she's been buying enough stuff to cover three trees," chuckled Joe.

"Well, I've got a little something for her for the tree when you're done, so make sure the boys have it when you pick up them up."

"Will do. Thanks, Sweetheart!"

Amanda couldn't help chuckling as she heard the groan he gave off right after saying that; it seemed like she wasn't the only one trying to cure themselves of that habit.

Lee looked up as she hung up. "So what did Sweet Joe want?" he teased.

"You heard that, huh?" Amanda wrinkled her nose in a grimace.

"From all the way over here, three feet away?" Lee's eyes were twinkling at her as he got up to cross those three feet and sit on the corner of her desk. He leaned down to kiss her lightly. "And although it doesn't bother me half as much as it used to, thank you for trying to not do that."

"I'm sorry…" she started to say.

"Amanda! You wouldn't be who you are if you weren't the kind of person who can honestly say she still loves her ex, and if you weren't you, I wouldn't love you so much. Okay?" He waited for her to laugh and nod before going on. "So what did Joe want?"

"Oh! He wants to borrow the wagon on the weekend. He and Carrie are taking the boys up to that place that lets you cut down your own tree and his car doesn't have a roof rack."

"Wow, Carrie really is getting into the spirit of the thing, isn't she?" Lee grinned down at her, absent-mindedly playing with her hand.

"Oh well, I think she's doing a little bit for Joe really – she knows he missed a lot of Christmases when he was away and it gives them a chance to do something with the boys."

"And she gets to decorate?"

"Yeah, that's pretty irresistible too," smiled Amanda. "But it's not all one-sided – he's been going to temple with her every Friday when he doesn't have the boys over."

"The things we do for love, hey?"

"All part of being a normal person, Lee."

"Well, I can't argue with that now, can I?"

"Oh hey Lee, I wasn't expecting you to be here. I mean… I don't mean..."

Lee gave him a grin as Joe tried to dig himself out of that conversational hole. "It's okay, Joe. I actually wasn't supposed to be here, but Amanda went to help out with something for the sets for the school play, so I said I'd meet you here to give you the keys."

"Oh well, thank you. Are the boys ready to go?" The words were barely out of his mouth when Phillip and Jamie came thundering down the stairs.

"Got your toothbrushes?" Lee asked automatically.

The boys exchanged guilty looks and all the adults shared a knowing smile.

"Don't worry, Lee – I picked some up last time I was shopping. No more excuses," said Carrie, shaking a warning finger at the boys.

"You're catching on," teased Lee. "Took me way longer to start keeping stuff like that at my place."

The identical smirks he got from Joe and Carrie told him he'd walked into that one. "For the boys," he added, laughing along as he blushed.

"Well, who else would you have them for?" asked Phillip, straight-faced. "Do you have a lot of friends with teeth problems, Lee?"

"So Lee, what are you up to today?" asked Carrie, skillfully interrupting Phillip's line of questioning.

"Oh I'm just going to hang out here. Amanda has my car so I figured I'd just catch up on my reading until she gets home."

"Why don't you come with us?" asked Carrie, impulsively. "I mean, if you want to," she added uncertainly as both men looked at her in surprise. "It'll be fun."

"Well, that's kind of you," Lee started to say, but was interrupted by Jamie.

"Yeah, if you come, we can get a really big real tree for the house, like we used to when we were little!" he said excitedly and then Phillip added the clinching argument: "Mom would love it! Please?"

"I don't think so, guys. This is supposed to be your time with your dad."

"He doesn't mind, do you, Dad? Please Lee?"

Lee looked over at Joe, who grinned and shrugged. "I know when I'm outgunned, Lee – and I won't lie, it'll be nice to have someone extra along who can actually help lift the damn thing onto the roof!"

"Well, how can I resist an offer like that?" Lee grinned. He looked at the boys. "Okay," he gave in. "Lemme grab my coat."

"Now I'm really glad we brought you along," laughed Joe as Carrie made Lee stop beside yet another tree. "You're the perfect yardstick for knowing what's going to fit in a room with an eight foot ceiling."

"Glad to be of service," Lee gave him a mock salute as Carrie nudged him closer to the tree and stood back to look at him thoughtfully.

"That should be good," she said with satisfaction. "We should start small the first year and practice before we get a big tree next year."

"Or a fake one," teased Joe. "You wait until you're trying to get rid of all the dropped needles for months afterwards."

"Joseph King, don't you rain on my Christmas parade" scolded his wife. "Dropped needles are part of the experience!"

"Yes Dear, No Dear," answered Joe, leaning into kiss her cheek. "Sorry Dear." The wink he gave Lee suggested he wasn't all that sorry. "Okay Phillip, you grab that saw and start working on this one while Jamie helps Lee find one for your house."

"I've already spotted one," said Jamie enthusiastically. "Come on, Lee!"

He led him a few rows over to where he'd found what Lee had to admit looked like a perfect tree. He eyed it up – it seemed to be about a foot taller than him, so it should fit, if Joe was right about eight foot ceilings. "Yeah, okay, you go grab the other saw and you can do the dirty work while I supervise."

Jamie was gone and back in a blink, with an energy level Lee could only admire and attempt to recall from his youth. It wasn't until Jamie was halfway through the trunk as Lee held it steady that a question occurred to him.

"Um, Jamie? How come your mom stopped getting a real tree? Was it the mess and stuff that your dad talked about? Because maybe this isn't a good idea."

Jamie shimmied back out from under the low boughs and leaned back on his elbows, looking up at Lee. "Nah, it was because of Dad, I think – or not Dad, I guess." He pushed his glasses back into place and wrinkled his nose. "Most of the years Dad was away, we were really little, and it was just Mom and Grandma – and it was a lot of work, I think, so she just got the fake one because it was easier." He wriggled back under the tree but kept talking as he continued to saw. "We managed to talk her into a real one a few years ago back when she was dating this guy named Dan - no, wait, it was Dean, not Dan. I get mixed up – he wasn't around for long. Anyway, we asked if we could come out and cut down a real tree and you know what he said?" Jamie leaned back out from under the tree and looked at Lee indignantly. "He gave us this whole speech about how trees cleaned the atmosphere and we shouldn't be cutting them down because they were good for the climate!" he shook his head in disgust. "As if they weren't being grown in places like this just to be cut down anyway! I think he just didn't want to have to pay for it because he knew Mom couldn't. In the end, Mom got one from the tree lot at the grocery store but it was only a medium sized one. I mean, it was nice and everything but this one is going to be awesome."

Lee grimaced, remembering exactly how often Amanda had been strapped for cash when they'd first met – and what a hardship it had been when she'd missed a paycheque or had two payments due at once. Or had her accounts frozen when the bank thought she was dead. He shook his head - she had almost certainly done without the expense of a real tree if it meant getting the boys the items on their Santa list.

"Right then, let's get this sucker down," he said. "Your mom needs a real tree."

Thank goodness Amanda had been roped into helping stage manage the play as well since TV shows had certainly misled Lee on the inherent difficulties of putting up a tree in a small space like the family room. It had only been luck that Joe had remembered as they drove back into town that he didn't have a tree stand, and with no idea if Amanda still had one, Lee had followed him into the hardware store to get one as well. The boys and Joe had been a godsend as well, helping manhandle it into the family room but that was when they'd discovered that the stand added height to the tree, and once installed the tree top bent sideways along the ceiling.

Down it had come again, while they sawed off some of the lower branches and part of the stump before trying again, all of them heaving a sigh of relief when it fit on the second attempt.

"Don't forget to put water in the base!" shouted Jamie helpfully grinning at Lee over his shoulder as he followed everyone else back out to Joe's car. "That's what keeps the needles from falling off!" He stopped before he got in the car to add "And don't decorate until we get home! There's rules!"

"There's rules?" Lee repeated. "For tree trimming?"

"Yeah, Mom'll tell you all about it. See you tomorrow!"

"Okay," said Lee doubtfully.

And so it was that when Amanda came home, it was to a dark family room, although she was pretty sure Lee was somewhere in the house.

She stepped into the house, and paused to listen carefully – she hadn't been around spies this long without learning that a quiet house when it wasn't supposed to be was usually a bad thing. "Lee?" she called out quietly and hardly was the word out of her mouth when the room lit up with the twinkling lights on a huge tree in the corner of the family room.

"Oh my gosh!"

"You like it?" Lee stepped out from where he'd been hiding behind the tree. "I was told I wasn't allowed to do any decorating but I thought maybe lights wouldn't count."

"Oh Sweetheart, it's beautiful! How on earth…?" Amanda stared at it raptly as Lee walked behind her and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her to lean back against his chest.

"I was dragged along to the tree lot by the boys. I think Jamie may be trying to take advantage of having divorced parents," Lee's chuckle against her hair took the sting out of the comment, "But I thought it was a pretty good idea."

"It was a wonderful idea," breathed Amanda. "I haven't had a proper big real tree for… years." Her voice was a bit scratchy like she might be about to cry.

"So I hear," said Lee. "But they waited until after we had it set up to tell me there's rules for this. Is this some kind of normal people thing again?" He sounded suspicious. "Are there really rules for decorating a tree?"

Amanda's laugh gurgled out, almost cancelling out the threat of tears. "Not real rules, just family rules, traditions I guess you'd call them." She reached out to run her fingers along the bough tips. "Which decorations go on first or last…how everyone gets to put their favorite ones on… kinda silly stuff, I guess."

"Nah," Lee murmured into her ear. "It sounds nice."

"It is nice," she agreed, turning within the circle of his arms to pull his head down for a kiss. "But the nicest part of family traditions is adding new ones."

"Mmmmm, well, if we're not allowed to decorate it and we have the house to ourselves… I can think of a tradition we could start right now. But you're a little overdressed." Lee's voice was husky and warm as his hands began to slide her winter coat off.

"Oh, I think I like the sounds of this new tradition," Amanda smiled against his lips. "Is that a branch in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"

"Oh, I'm always happy to see you," purred Lee, dimpling as Amanda let him pull her down onto the sofa. "But I'm pretty sure I could be happier."