Lee caught up with Amanda in the hallway, slipping his hand onto her back as she walked, turning to stare at her in confusion at the way her body stiffened at his touch.
"You okay, Partner?" he asked.
"Just tired," she answered in a short tone, softening the terseness with a small smile when she felt his hand shift further around her waist and tighten around her. "Lee, do you know if Mr. Melrose really had my house tented? Because if he didn't, the neighbors are gonna tell my mother, but if he did, I don't know if I can go home. Although I suppose it's not like they really did anything, so it would be safe to sleep there, I guess, just kinda dark but that won't be a problem until morning right? And I won't need to worry about Buck peeping in the windows, will I?"
Lee couldn't decide if she was babbling from sheer exhaustion or to hide something. "I'll follow you home and we'll find out together, okay?"
"You don't have to do that, you're just as tired as I am and if I get there and it's under a tent, I'll just find a hotel room or something."
"I could probably get you another room at the Cumberland if you need one," he teased. "Or you can come to my place."
"No!" She knew the minute his step hitched that she'd been too vehement.
"Amanda, it's okay," he said soothingly, bumping his hip against hers. "It was just a joke. Let's just go back to your house and take it from there, okay?"
"Okay," she sighed, surrendering to the concern in his voice. "That sounds nice."
Lee glanced back at the door to Francine's room and pursed his lips. She hadn't been kidding – Amanda was on the knife's edge and, he noticed suddenly, she was stumbling slightly as she walked.
"You shouldn't be driving – I'm going to drive you home," he said firmly.
"No, Lee, it's fine. I mean, my car is here," she protested, a little too faintly.
"We'll take your car and I'll cab back for mine later," he said, knowing that would be much later. Francine's right; I have to figure out a way to stay and keep an eye on her.
"Okay," she capitulated. Maybe I can figure out a way to get him to stay so I don't have to be alone.
The house wasn't tented but there was fake paperwork on the counter explaining that analysis showed the "termite infestation" had been limited to one part of the foundation and had been dealt with. Amanda had to smile when she saw the signature at the bottom, 'E. Beaman'. The Fabrications department had done a perfect job – her mother would believe it without question. She sagged with relief; it was so good to be home.
"Hey," said Lee's soft voice behind her. "How about you go change clothes and I'll cook you something to eat before you go to bed."
"Oh, you don't need to do that," she said.
"Have you eaten anything since we got back to the Agency this morning?" he asked with a knowing expression.
She had to think about that. "Yes," she said finally and watched his brow quirk up in disbelief. "I had some of Francine's chocolates."
"Amanda!" he groaned. "You're supposed to be the smart one in this relationship." He didn't know why her eyes shuttered at that but pressed on. "Trust me, if you don't eat now, you'll wake up in the middle of the night hungry and it'll be ten times worse. Besides, I'm hungry too – it's no trouble," he finished in the wheedling tone he knew she couldn't resist.
"Okay, okay, you're right. I'm going to go shower, but you don't need to cook – just order something," she sighed tiredly.
"I'll deal with it, just go." He turned her on the spot and gave her a slight push toward the stairs. He headed for the kitchen, certain that, even without having been able to go grocery shopping, she'd still have enough in the fridge for him to throw together an omelette, when he thought he heard her from the top of the steps.
"Don't leave me alone."
She was gone by the time he looked back.
"So what are you going to wear to your reunion?" he asked, watching her pick at the last few bites on her plate.
"Reunion?" she looked up confused.
Lee nodded to the fridge where the invitation was front and center, held up by a magnet. "It says you're supposed to dress up. And I'm pretty sure you didn't have time to find anything at that shop yesterday."
"Oh, I'd forgotten all about that," she replied. "It seems like a million years ago."
"High school?" Lee's grin was lazy and sweet and warmed her, even more than the simple dinner he'd thrown together despite her protests.
"No, yesterday." She lapsed back into silence again, staring at her plate and replaying her conversation with Francine in her head. Suddenly she felt her hand engulfed in Lee's warm fingers and looked up to see that his smile had been replaced with a look of concern. You should talk to him, he's your friend. Before she could act on that thought, though, Lee stood up and began to carry the plates to the sink.
"You should go get some sleep. You head upstairs and I'll tidy up, okay?"
"You don't need to do that," she protested.
"It's fine. I'll just do them while I wait for the cab," he said brightly, laying the trap he was pretty sure she couldn't avoid – and to his relief she didn't even try to.
She stood up and followed him to the sink, carrying their glasses. "Well, you're just as tired as me – do you want to stay here tonight?" She paused when she realized what that sounded like. "I mean, the place feels so empty with everyone gone and I mean, I'm not afraid or anything but…"
"It's okay, Amanda, I can stay if you want me to."
She smiled shyly at him. "That'd be nice."
There was a moment of silence and then they both smiled, hearing the echo of their conversation from the night before.
That was just last night. Less than 24 hours ago Lee and I were sitting in the Cumberland having a normal conversation just like this one.
That was just last night. Less than 24 hours ago, I was staring at her and wondering if she had any idea how beautiful she is.
"Francine thinks I should have a session with Dr. Joyce," she found herself saying, flinching when she saw him scowl. "She wasn't saying it to be nasty – she was trying to help," she rushed to add.
Lee's shoulders sagged slightly as he answered. "No, no, I know that. I'm just mad I didn't think of it myself. I'll remind Billy to set something up when I see him tomorrow." He paused, then added, "You'll like her, she was my shrink after Andy was…" He glanced over to meet Amanda's look of concern. "She's one of the good ones."
And I'll have a little chat with her ahead of time too – give her a bit of a heads-up.
He caught Amanda looking around as if she'd lost something. "What's the matter?"
"I didn't think... when I asked you to stay..." she was stumbling over her words.
"Where was I going to sleep? Well, that's not a problem, is it?" he asked and watched her face freeze into something he recognized with a flicker of alarm as her flight reflex - except why would she want to flee from him? "I'll just grab the pullout – I've done it before, right?"
She looked around the room, her exhaustion making her confused. "Yes, of course. I forgot." She shifted uneasily. "That's ok? I mean…"
"As I recall, it's a lot better than your garage," he teased. "And besides, if I'm down here, I can get out fast if your mother has a fight with her sister, or remembers she forgot something, or whatever it is that brings them home early, right?" He left it unsaid that he'd also be between her and anybody breaking in, but something in the way she sagged with relief made him think that was part of the problem. "I know my way around – you go to bed, okay?"
"Right," she mumbled. "Okay."
He watched her disappear up the stairs, then turned to quickly wash up the dishes for her. If her family really did come home early – and past experience made it seem likely – there couldn't be any evidence he'd ever been here. Even exhausted as he was, Lee couldn't go to sleep right away, instead moving quietly through the ground floor of the house for a few minutes, checking that all the windows and doors were locked. Amanda might like to sleep with the window open, but there was no way in hell he wasn't going to double-check everything to make sure she was safe. He huffed quietly to himself at the realization that the last time he'd wandered around her house like this, he'd thought Amanda was a double agent – and she'd come after him with a baseball bat.
And I was lucky she didn't keep swinging after I told her why I was there.
Back in the family room now, he found himself in front of the bookshelf, taking this unusual opportunity of time to study the family photos that were so plentiful they almost completely hid the books behind them. School photos, team photos… all that was something regular people did. With only his uncle as family, there'd been no one to get those photos for in Lee's life. He wondered idly if there was any evidence of his existence in his uncle's quarters. Probably not.
His eye continued to skim the family photos – noticing for the first time that they included one from her wedding to Joe. He couldn't help the slight grimace that crossed his face looking at that one – he didn't dislike Joe but he'd be lying if he didn't admit to not liking him as much since Amanda had explained why her marriage had ended. He'd made her cry – and knowing how much it took to make her do that – well, that was unforgiveable. Lee sighed as he looked at the happy couple on their wedding day – Joe looking at Amanda almost the same way he'd looked at her that day outside the boarding house - that look that said he'd come home.
He'll want her back said the voice in his head. He'll want her back and she'll be tempted. She'll want the boys to have a happy childhood with a mom and dad like she did. She'll want to try again and fix what went wrong.
"Shut up," he said out loud to that little whisper, wincing at how his voice seemed to carry in the silent house.
His eye settled next on a snapshot of Amanda and her mother, both of them beaming at the camera, identical dark eyes sparkling with laughter, their affection for each other obvious in every bit of their body language. God, he envied her that – not just having had parents but the certainty of being loved. He'd had that - once that he could remember, once that he couldn't - but he'd lost it twice over and oh, how he longed for it again.
I think there's someone at work.
Now that had been vintage Dotty – he'd spent the last two and a half years listening to her through the window, the matchmaking, the heavy hints – and Amanda had always just brushed them away as easily as water off a duck's back with a gentle "Oh Mother" in that quiet tone of reprimand that always defeated the maternal pressure. In the early days, he knew it was simply Amanda needing time to mourn her marriage, but since Dean, she'd rarely dated seriously in all the time he'd known her. He winced mentally - Not since Munich.
Byron Jordan had come close, he thought – no matter how much she'd downplayed that in light of the events that followed, she might have started to open herself up again then, getting away from the Agency and the bad memories, – and where had that gotten her? Right back in another jail cell. It was no wonder she seemed to have given up dating after that, concentrating on her family and her job. He'd watched guys at work approach her – usually with one eye on him to see his reaction - but he'd also watched her turn aside any advance so deftly that they'd never realized how charmingly they'd been turned down. He could see the looks – he knew what people thought their relationship was – but he wondered if she was as oblivious as she seemed. She certainly seemed oblivious to his feelings for her; he'd dropped flirtatious hints to see how she'd respond, but her reaction was always the same: a fond smile, a laugh, a pat on the hand… like she was reassuring him that she was in on the joke, sometimes even flirting back the way she had that day she'd pretended to blackmail him with that embarrassing Christmas party photo. Despite her tactics, that dinner had been much like any other of their evenings out together: fun, relaxing, perfectly platonically unromantic. Lee sighed, puffing out a breath of frustration. As much of a relief as it had been to watch her start to shed the brittleness she'd had after Munich, he wouldn't give in to the temptation to make the first move, not with that lingering between them. He didn't know if she was even conscious of the way she still avoided dating, he just knew he couldn't bear it if any advance he made set off the flight reflex again. If he lost her friendship because he'd misjudged her feelings… He shook his head, no he couldn't take that chance.
He couldn't help his frustration though; he would swear Amanda knew him better than he knew himself most days, but in the most important way, she never looked past the protective Scarecrow shell he'd built.
And whose fault is that?
It had been so easy to let her step into that gap – confidante, partner… beard… But could there be more?
I think there's somebody at work...
It hadn't been all that different from anything Dotty usually said, but listening to her mother talk about her to someone else, that had flustered Amanda to no end, and as much as his heart had soared at the implication – even if it was just Dotty being her usual hopeful self – he'd felt a twinge of guilt. He'd put her in the position of spying on her mother and when he'd tried to tease her out of her discomfort with that misleading comment about marriage, he hadn't realized where Dotty was headed with it. Cringing at her mother's innuendoes was nothing new, but this had been a whole new level of embarrassment – he'd jiggled the buttons on the radio to make it sound like they were losing the connection so she could escape the car before it got worse.
He reached up to move one of the pictures so he could see the one behind, but managed to knock it instead, starting a domino effect of toppling frames, cascading off the shelf. He flailed, trying to catch as many as he could, but one of them hit the floor with a crash. He froze for a moment, holding his breath to try and hear if the noise had woken Amanda, but there was only silence. He carefully placed the pictures back on the shelf, and bent to pick up the other one. After carefully checking it for damage and to his great relief, finding none, he went to place it back in its spot, only then realizing it was that same photo of Amanda and her mother – so happy, so vibrant, so full of energy.
His brow furrowed as he thought how different she'd looked over dinner – drawn and grey with fatigue – not his Amanda at all. Something still niggled at him though, some vague worry about why she looked like she'd regretted asking him to stay. He was overcome with a pressing need to make sure she was really okay and slipped silently up the stairs. Her bedroom door was slightly ajar and he pushed it open, just enough to peek in.
Amanda was curled in a ball facing the door, already sound asleep and the worried frown starting to fade as she relaxed. He knew he was staring, just like he had at the Cumberland last night but this time he didn't stop himself from giving into the impulse; he stepped closer and leaned forward to brush a curl of hair off her face, then let his fingers trail along her cheek. She turned toward his touch and then, in that instant, her eyes opened and she looked straight at him. He froze, not sure how to explain his presence, and then she simply smiled and closed her eyes again, never having really woken up.
He was surprised at the overwhelming relief. Whatever it is she's afraid of, it's not me.
Amanda was woken by something in the dark of the early morning – a door opening or closing, she thought. Her heart pounded with fear as she lay still, straining to hear anything. The clock on her bedside table said it was 5:30 – too early for the newspaper boy, probably too late for any bad guys. It took her a few seconds to remember Lee was in the house and the rush of adrenaline caused by the fear subsided, replaced by a serene calm. She slipped out of bed and padded downstairs, only to find it empty, except for a folded up blanket, a pair of $20 bills and a note.
'Called a cab while it was still dark so neighbors didn't see me. The money is for groceries before your mother and the boys get home. Don't come in today – we'll call if we need you.'
She shook her head – how could he possibly have remembered after all this that she hadn't been paid yet? She picked up the blanket and held it to her face; it still held the scent of his cologne and she stood for a long moment, hugging it to her chest, struck by a sudden vivid memory of last night's dream of Lee standing in her bedroom, gazing down at her with warm eyes.
Don't kid yourself, Amanda. Francine has got your brain scrambled with her stupid office gossip.
She sighed and took another deep breath, inhaling the lingering scent before finally wrapping it around herself and going back upstairs to bed.