"Are we back to that again," Amanda asked tiredly. "I'm no longer the naïve civilian who used to follow you around and blindly do whatever you told me to."

"I think that your memory is failing you, you were never blindly obedient."

He flopped down at the table and picked up the coffee cup that he'd been drinking from earlier. Wincing at the cold temperature of the beverage that he relied on to keep himself going, he irritably put the cup down.

"If I had followed all of your orders to the letter, you wouldn't have survived our first year together," she replied smugly, while placing a steaming cup of coffee in front of him despite her own exhaustion.

"Touché." He sipped from the fresh cup and smiled at her appreciatively. "Thanks," he said in a gravelly voice, and with an all encompassing flourish of his left hand. "I don't know where I'd be if I didn't have you looking after me."

"Your welcome, that's what partners…and wives do." She kissed him tenderly, and then sat down across the table from him.

"You told me once that you're stronger than you look, and you're right-I've come to draw so much of my strength from the bond that's developed between us."

He reached across the table top and placed one of his hands over her smaller ones. Their eyes locked momentarily before she withdrew her hands and looked away sadly.

"You're giving me too much credit; you were a strong person and a great agent long before you ever met me. If anything, I've become your Achilles' heel…Mr. Melrose and the others think that my moderating influence over you has been a positive thing, but I'm not so sure anymore. Maybe, you broke your own rules because I-"

"This isn't about you," he interrupted, roughly pushing back his chair and stalking away from the table. "Well, not exactly, it's about you and your family…our family and how getting to know all of you has changed me. I'm not the man that you met at the train station, and now I can admit to wanting things that I was never willing to acknowledge before. I love being a part of a real family again."

"Lots of agents have strong family ties so I don't understand how getting close to us has diminished you as an agent. I know that worrying about protecting the boys, and Mother, can be distracting, but it's nothing that we can't deal with together."

"You don't get it," he grumbled, as he violently raked his hand through his hair and began to pace back and forth.

"I'm trying to understand-"

"But, I'm not explaining myself well. I've been protecting them from potential threats from the outset, you were a civilian and it was a part of the job." Ah hell, that didn't come out the way I meant it to.

"I'm sorry that I was a burden," she began with hurt etched on her face and tingeing her voice.

"Stop, you were never a burden," he uttered contritely.

Realizing that he'd inadvertently put his foot in his mouth, she decided to lighten the mood in hopes of drawing him out further.

"Maybe, I was a nuisance or an irritant at times?"

"I won't argue with you, but we're getting off-topic. As I got to know you, and by extension them, better I became more and more interested in your lives. I was fascinated by your normal existence, and I had to grudgingly admit to myself that there was far more to life than the Agency…and I wanted more for myself."

"I still don't see where the problem lies."

"When we became…more than partners…I got greedy. I wasn't satisfied with just a little life outside of the Agency, no, I wanted the whole package and my career which had been my whole life for so long wasn't my top priority anymore."

"What's wrong with that?" How did I manage to go from being married to one man who let his professional ambitions destroy our marriage, to listening to my second husband lament that he's let our life together become more important to him than his career?

"Any agent that doesn't consistently put business first is a danger to everyone around him. I've lost my focus-I don't obsess over every case and I don't aspire to die in the line of duty. Hell, I never thought that I'd ever feel this way, but I'd like to live to a ripe old age. If my head had truly been in the game over the last few days, Jessica wouldn't be dead now."

"That's simply not true," Amanda rebuked her despondent husband, her brown eyes flashing angrily. "I heard you out, and now I expect you to listen to how I remember how this case played out."

Author's note: Thanks for continuing to follow this story! Stay tuned for the conclusion which will be coming later this week.