Lee and Amanda were sharing bathroom space as they were getting ready for work, Amanda was brushing her teeth and listening to the soft singing he always did while drying his hair from his morning shower. She finished brushing and while rinsing out her mouth, reached into the medicine cabinet for her morning pill just as her husband switched off the hair dryer. As she extracted her daily dose from its package, she said, "Hey, remind me that I need to call the doctor's office soon. I'm getting low on birth control and I'm out of refills. I need to do it soon before he closes his office for the holidays, especially since the boys agreed to the trip."

"Or maybe I don't remind you," he replied and slipped his arms around her from behind just as she swallowed her pill. He lightly brushed his lips against the tender skin of her neck. "Maybe you should just let them run out."

"Oh, sure," she scoffed as she set down her cup and turned in his arms. "I'm sure that would thrill you since you love wearing condoms sooo much."

"That's not what I meant, Amanda. I mean, why not stop taking precautions altogether?"

"Lee," she began in a soft, crooning voice as she rested her hands on his chest. "I know you want a baby, but-"

He shook off her touch, backed up against the wall and crossed his arms. "What's wrong with that? You know how much family means to me." He couldn't understand her reaction. She was acting as if having his child would be the worst thing ever, yet she seemed to love being a mother, so what was the problem?

"I know that, Sweetheart, but I don't think you understand just how hard having a baby is under normal circumstances, let alone working in the kind of business that we do."

"Come on, Amanda, it can't be any worse that you raising two boys by yourself, four years of that while you were working at the Agency. In fact, it should be easier now when there are two of us."

"And two teenagers in the house," she reminded him.

"Your mother's here too. Couldn't she help out as well?"

"Well, sure, once the baby's born and if the anvil-sized hints she's dropping since she found out we were married are any indication, I'm sure she'd be thrilled to have another grandchild, but you're missing my point. I'm not just talking about after the baby's born; you have no idea what pregnancy does to a woman's body, the bloating, the fatigue, the morning sickness, gas, hemorrhoids, stretch marks, swollen feet, swollen ankles, swollen...everything...and that's not even adding in the tremendous hours-long pain of labor and delivery and as much as you may want a baby, I'm the one who would have to endure all of that."

"Do you think I wouldn't be there for you through all of that?" he questioned. "I'm not Joe, you know."

"Of course, I know you'd be there for me through it all; that's not even an issue and I don't see why you're bringing up Joe when he has nothing to do with this at all."

"Oh, I think he does," Lee countered and dropped his hands to his sides in irritation. "You were perfectly willing to have his children, but not mine, and you got burned with him so now you think I'll be the same way, don't you?"

"No, Lee, not at all. The thought never even entered my mind, but now that you bring it up, I was a lot younger then. I was 22 when I had Phillip and 25 when I had Jamie; that's a whole lot different than 37. Not only that, but as I mentioned last night, I've finally been released for active field duty again and I'm done with my training classes and finally have full agent status. After how hard I've worked and how much I've studied to get there, why should I just give all of that up now? And furthermore, why would you expect me to when you've always said how much you admired me for it?"

"Don't you think you're being a bit selfish?"

"Selfish? Me? I'M being selfish? Listen to me, Buster, and listen good. It's all well and good for a man to want a baby, but it's the woman who has to do all the hard work. Even after giving birth, there's postpartum depression and breastfeeding and walking the floor in the middle of the night when the baby won't stop crying and trying to lose the weight you gain from having the baby and-"

"So, you're saying you won't even consider it? I thought you said you'd at least think about it."

"I did say that and I will, but you putting all this pressure on me doesn't help the thinking process all that much." She blew out a long breath to calm herself and in a softer tone continued, "Lee, I have two children already that are practically grown. Phillip's already in high school, remember? Don't you see how hard it would be for me to start all over again?"

"Huh," he snorted. "I just thought...I thought you loved being a mom."

"I do, Lee...I really do, but I don't want that to be all that my life ever was. Now, that the boys are older, I'm finally starting to be able to have a life that doesn't revolve solely around them and I'm really enjoying it and I thought you were too."

"I am. I love our life together, but I'd love it a lot more if I had a kid of my own."

"So, what are you saying? Phillip and Jamie aren't enough for you? I seem to recall how stressed out you were about making a connection to them when we first got married. I don't even know where this is coming from all of a sudden when we never even discussed the idea of having more children "

"I was stressed out about it because I wanted that connection to them and it's great, but we did talk about kids. Don't you remember when we were trying to plan our wedding and were talking about buying a bigger house and-and horses and-" He broke off as he recalled with vivid clarity how she'd shot down all those ideas and in a melancholy voice questioned, "Didn't you understand why I wanted all those things?"

Amanda was at a loss for words for a moment as she reflected back on the time frame he'd mentioned and how he'd gushed about wanting his kids to have horses, but she'd thought he had just meant for the boys. It had never even occurred to her that he might want a child of his own someday. "So, you really are saying that what we have-the family life we've built here-it isn't enough for you? You won't be happy unless we have a baby together?"

"No, that's not what I'm saying. I am happy," he insisted. "Especially now that everyone knows we're married and we can finally live together like a husband and wife should, but I just...I just always thought that if the day ever came that I settled down, I'd have kids of my own and I can't think of a better mother for my kids than you. I see you with the boys and how great a mom you are and I want that for my kids."

"Kids? So, now you want not just one kid, but more than one? And you seem to be saying that you chose me to marry because I'm a good mom? Or maybe because you want me to be a human incubator?"

He let out a sigh and raked his hands through his hair in frustration. "No! I married you because I love you and wanted to spend my life with you. As for the kids part, I don't know about the 'more than one' part, but I'd like at least one."

"I see and I suppose it doesn't matter to you that I don't? Did you even plan on discussing this with me before you made this decision?"

"I am discussing it with you now," he argued. "I'm not trying to make any decision without you like you're suggesting, but it's something I've been thinking about ever since we got engaged. There was just never a good time to bring it up after we decided to keep our marriage hidden." He looked at her sadly and asked again, "You won't even consider it?"

She shook her head. "I already told you I would consider it, Lee. I love you with all my heart and I want to make you happy, I really do, but this...having another baby, I just...I just don't know. I told you, I need time."

"How much time? I mean, we started this conversation last night."

"Well, it's a big decision, so I don't really know how much time I need, but I certainly need more than 12 hours. If you could just try to understand where I'm coming from, it would help a lot with the thinking process. I thought I was done having children years ago. I've been on the pill since just after Jamie was born because Joe and I struggled so much when he was still in law school and then when we got divorced, I just thought..." She let out a sigh. "I thought that was it. I never even thought about having another baby and I never would have imagined you were a baby guy with the way you struggled around kids going all the way back to Alexi Kalnikov. That's not to mention your wisecrack about never being a Bombers' father and then how you struggled again with Jamie, so you'll have to forgive me if I feel a bit blindsided here. This feels like it's coming out of nowhere." Amanda felt a stabbing pain in her heart when she saw him looking so wounded.

"You really don't think I'd be a good father, do you?" he reiterated his worry from the night before, but this time rather than being accusatory, it was born of fear that she really did feel that way. Why else would she have brought up those past incidents?

"Lee...no...I never said that. I think you'd be a wonderful father. You have so much love to give and I see how amazing you are with Phillip and Jamie."

"Then why, Amanda?"

"For all the reasons I already gave you, the boys are so close to being grown, I'm finally getting somewhere in my career which is something I didn't get to have when I was married to Joe-"

"Oh, so I'm being punished because you couldn't have a career when you were with him?"

"I'm not trying to punish you, but do you really want me to give up everything I've worked so hard for?"

"Who says you have to give it up? There are tons of agents with families."

"Okay, yes, but they're mostly men; how many female agents do you see going back to fieldwork after having a baby? Besides that, I'm don't know that I could do that with the demands a new baby puts on you and I'm not even sure I'd want to."

"If you wouldn't want to go back to fieldwork, then what's the problem?

"Oh, I see where this is going. You want me to go back to being a stay-at-home mom and housewife," she suggested coolly. "Uh-uh. No way. Not a chance."

"I never said that, Amanda. The last thing I'd want is for you to leave the Agency. I'd miss you too much as my partner."

"We're supposed to be partners in everything, but it seems like you want to make all the decisions here about expanding our family and don't want to even consider other options...or a compromise."

"What kind of compromise, Amanda? We either have a baby or we don't, there is no in-between."

"Not necessarily. There are tons of kids out there in the foster system that need good homes. Maybe we could adopt...maybe an older child so there wouldn't be such an age gap with the boys like there would be if we had a baby. I've done enough volunteer work to know that they're often the ones who get overlooked by prospective adoptive parents because most people want babies or toddlers."

"I suppose..." he replied skeptically.

"It's a fact, Lee. They do get overlooked."

"I didn't mean that. I meant..."

"Listen, I'll agree to thinking about having a baby if you will agree to think about the alternatives."

"Yeah, I guess that's fair."

"In the meantime, I do still think it's a good idea to start house-hunting soon; maybe after the holidays because you were right about needing it for the boys so they can have their own space. Plus, since the boys agreed to the trip, you've got some planning to do."

"Me?"

"Well, it was your idea, so..."

"Okay, I'll make some calls when we get to the office."

"Good. And can we please table the baby discussion until after our trip? Maybe, I don't know, see how our first real family vacation goes first?"

"Yeah, I can do that."