Amanda tossed fitfully in her narrow bed in the Agency infirmary, her thoughts in a whirl. Every time she closed her eyes, she remembered the sting of Birol's hand across her face and him screaming at her about nightcrawler.

When he reappeared later, he moved as if to strike her again and she shrank away from him in the corner of the room drawing her knees up to her chest protectively and cried, "Please don't." For the first time since her imprisonment, she felt tears slipping down her cheeks. "Please," she pleaded. "Please don't hurt me anymore. I-I-I-"

"You what?" Birol demanded. "You afraid?"

"Y-y-yes," she stammered. It was the first time since her captivity began that was actually admitting out loud that she was afraid, "B-B-but not for me."

"For your lover? For Scarecrow? Is that it?" He loomed over her menacingly, leering at her as he said, "You should be."

Amanda shook her head, "Please, if you have any compassion at all." She took a shuddering breath. "Don't...I-I-I'm going to have a baby." With the words finally out, she dissolved fully into tears, sobbing as she pleaded, "Please don't hurt my baby."

"Oh, this is just too good to be true," Birol crowed as he laughed at her. "My dear, Amanda, you've given me just the bargaining chip I need to get to your lover." He then exited the room as quickly as he'd come, leaving her once again to her hallucinations and her memories of Lee.

"Lee," Amanda said softly as she opened her eyes and laid a hand on her flat stomach, hoping against hope that there had been no harm done to their unborn child by her abductor. How would she explain to the man she loved that she'd lost their child before he'd ever even known it had existed? He'd never understand why she didn't tell him right away, but she'd only just gotten the news that same morning that Edna D'Angelo had arrived in the Q Bureau with Lee's benefit information talking about a "new bird in the cage" and "bringing on the rice."

She had tried to contain her smile at the other woman's words, but when Lee had walked in, she couldn't control herself. She found herself continually stealing glances his way while he went through the paperwork that Mrs. D'Angelo had left behind and when he'd caught her staring, she'd looked dutifully down at her desk, but still couldn't help the glowing smile on her face. She'd known without a doubt that Lee would be there for her once he learned that he was going to be a father and she'd planned to tell him right away. However, after hearing that he was already thinking of proposing, she had decided to wait, not wanting to put any pressure on him to ask her before he was ready, not wanting him to feel that they HAD to get married. She knew from experience with Lee that he was the kind of man who had to do things in his own time. She closed her eyes again trying to focus her mind on more pleasant memories as she thought back to the conversation they'd had on her back porch once the whole Stemwinder mess had been wrapped up.

Lee was leaning in for another kiss when they heard her mother cry out through the open kitchen window. "Amanda, did you get him?"

Amanda couldn't resist teasing Lee. She looked him in the eye, her arms still around him, and called back to her mother, "I'm working on it!"

"You're working on it, huh?" Lee replied with a mirthful grin. "You know you don't have to work on anything, you've got me," He tightened his grip on her, leaned in and kissed her softly.

"Do I?" Amanda queried with a mischievous grin once their kiss had ended.

"I meant it when I told you that I love you. That hasn't changed just because we're home and safe now." He lightly caressed her face, brushing a loose lock of hair away from her face, touching his lips softly to hers again.

"Good, because I meant it too," Amanda replied as she slid her hands up to rest on his shoulders, and just barely grazed his mouth with her own. "I love you, too, Lee."

"God, I hope so," He said with a chuckle, his eyes alight and then added, "I would like to think that you don't throw yourself at all men the way you threw yourself at me in our little hideout," he teased.

"What? I didn't throw myself at you," she said slapping him playfully.

"NO?""

"No," she answered firmly.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk," He shook his head. "I don't know, Amanda. I've been around the block a few times and-"

"Oh, I know that," Amanda cut it with a teasing lilt in voice. "More than ONE block."

"-And as such," Lee continued undeterred by her interruption, " I've learned a thing or two about how to tell when a woman wants. And,...hmm...let's see...you knocked me to the floor..." He stepped in closer to her, pressing against her so that she was backed up against the house. "You kissed me passionately..." He demonstrated by kissing her firmly, nudging her lips apart with his tongue, eliciting a low moan from her and then raised his head for just a moment. "Then you started nipping an my neck like so..." He lowered his lips to the sensitive pulse point at her neck, teasing her for a moment, then whispered low in her ear, "and begged me to make love to you." He took her earlobe between his teeth suckling at it, causing her to gasp.

Amanda tried in vain to keep her body from responding to Lee's enticing touch, knowing that her mother was within earshot. She pushed on his chest to put a little distance between them and while she did succeed at that slightly, Lee still kept his hands firmly locked on her waist. She took a halting breath and said, "Okay, first of all, I didn't exactly beg and you didn't exactly protest too much."

"Okay, true," Lee replied with a nod, "And I wouldn't change a minute of it." He paused as if lost in thought for a moment, his expression changing from the teasing one to a concerned one.

Amanda looked at him quizzically and inquired worriedly, "What?" When he was silent, she tried again. "What is it? You don't sound too sure of that. Are you having regrets?" She thought back to his protest that he didn't want either of them having any regrets and felt a tiny glimmer of fear developing.

"No, NO," Lee stated firmly. "Not about us making love, but..." He sighed, pulled back from her, ran a hand through his hair and said, "But there is one thing...We...Um...we didn't talk about...We took off in such a hurry and I-I never imagined that we'd-" He broke off, sighed again and leaned against the picnic table. "I didn't think...I-I-I mean, I wasn't prepared..." He sighed again, ranked both hands through his hair this time and then finally spit out, "We weren't safe, okay? I've never...not once...ever failed to take the proper precautions."

"Ohhh," Amanda answered softly, his point hitting her like a runaway freight train. "I...Um...I guess I didn't think about it either. I mean, it's..." This time it was her turn to sigh. "It's...um...It's been so long that I-" She took a deep breath. "I wasn't prepared either. I haven't needed to be."

"Yeah," He replied in agreement. ""I haven't either. It's...um...it's been over a year."

"Really?"Amanda said in surprise

"Come on, Amanda," Lee said looking a bit affronted her the look of shock on her face. "You and I have been seeing each other since last fall, almost a year ago. You didn't think that I-" Lee broke off again and instead of posing his thought as a question, changed hears to make it a definitive statement. "I haven't even been on a date with anyone except you since last October."

"I haven't either, not since Alan Chamberlain, but that was really more for the job, so I-" She licked her lips nervously. "I haven't been thinking about things like that."

"Huh, not what you said that other day. I seem to recall you saying something about fantasies," He jested as if trying to get them back to the lighter mood they'd both been in.

"Okay, yes, but that's all it was until-"

I get it," Lee nodded, "And the thing is, we weren't just reckless once, but..."

"I know," Amanda replied as she thought about the fact that they'd made love the rest of the afternoon and well into the night before falling into a sound sleep wrapped in each other's arms.

"I mean, this doesn't change anything...between us, I mean. I meant every word that I said. I love you and I want to be with you and no one else, no matter what. I-I-I- Hell, I don't know. I've never been in this situation before."

"Well, I have." When Lee looked at her curiously, she added, "Mother of two, remember?" Lee nodded in confirmation, as she continued, "And you know what? It's way too early to do anything about it right now. Why don't we just agree to cross that bridge when we come to it?"

Lee breathed an obvious sigh of relief and replied, "Yeah, I think that's a good idea." He approached her, took her hands in his and added, "Amanda, I want you to know that I'll stand by you, no matter what."

"I know that," she said confidently as she pulled her hand from his and lovingly caressed his face. She was just about to kiss him when her mother's voice sounded again, this time coming from the direction of the back door that Amanda had slipped out of earlier.

"Amanda, are you ever coming back inside? Haven't you caught that dog yet?"

Amanda turned toward the sound of her mother's voice, thinking that now that her relationship with Lee was becoming more serious, it was time to introduce them. She was just about to do that when her mother questioned, "Was that Mr. Stetson?" Amanda turned to find Lee gone, thinking just how much she hated it when he did that. When she turned back, it was to find her mother with a teasing grin on her face. "So, is that the real dog you were after?" she quipped.

"Mother, really," Amanda said with a roll of her eyes as she placed her hand on her mother's shoulder and guided her inside.

"Now really, Amanda, is that such an insane question to ask? You spent all this time with him, God knows where, doing God knows what and you won't talk about what happened. What's a mother supposed to think? You just took off with this man. You tell me that federal agents are going to show up and when they do, there you are, climbing down the trellis with him from your bedroom, Makes me wonder just what he was doing in your bedroom in the first place." While her mother rambled, Amanda busied herself with the remaining dinner dishes, throwing in an occasional, "Mother," here and there, but it didn't deter Dotty. "Then you make an excuse tonight to sneak out to the back yard and don't think that I don't know what you were really doing out there when you came back in her with your clothes all rumbled and your lipstick smeared..."

As her mother continued, she caught a glimpse of Lee slipping through her mother's flower bed along the side of the house. He paused for a moment to grin at her and she gave him a see-what-I-have-to-put-up-with look. Lee chuckled softly, winked at her and then was gone, leaving her to sigh over her sinkful of dishes, but was grateful that her mother had at least stopped asking awkward questions about the agency and had moved on to her love life.

"If you really like this man, I don't understand why you're hiding him. I mean, from what I saw, he seems to be a pretty attractive man. Not that I got to see much, of course, because it was dark and he took off so fast... That just leads me to another question. What kind of man is this Mr. Stetson of yours that he would just ask you to take off with him, that he would want you to sneak around with him?" When Amanda still didn't answer, Dotty said in a huff, "Amanda."

"Yes, Mother?" Amanda replied innocently.

"Darling, have you heard a word I said?"

"Yes, Mother," she answered simply. "I heard every word," but didn't give her mother any more information that that, a tiny smile crossing her face at the memories of the time that she and Lee had spent together alone.

The memories of her mother's interrogation caused Amanda to sigh in her bed again as she wondered what her mother would think, how she'd react if she'd known everything that had gone on while she and Lee were on the run, if she knew that it had resulted in the conception of her third grandchild. She'd just deal with that another time. Right now, she just wanted the doctors to tell her what was going on with her baby, if there still was one, that is. She desperately wanted to see Lee, but not before she knew if she had some news for him or not.