"Something smells good," Amanda commented as she walked into Lee's apartment. No sooner were the words out of her mouth than her stomach began growling loudly. "Is that chicken I smell?"
Lee closed the door behind them and answered, "Yeah. I was in the process of making some chicken broth for you. You know, just in case your stomach can't handle anything more solid."
"Oh," Amanda nodded in understanding as she started to move further into the room, but was halted when her eyes fell on the coat rack just inside the door.
"What is it, Amanda?" he asked, the almost panicked look in her eyes worrying him.
"My sweater," Amanda replied as she pointed to the pale blue cardigan hung beside his leather jacket. "B-B-Birol...he...uh...he took it from me." She shuddered slightly at the memory of him brutally yanking the sweater from her arms, knocking her against the wall in the process.
"Oh...uh...yeah," Lee hedged slightly. "I know. He...um...he tried to trick me with it too, dressed Nightcrawler up as you to trap me."
"You mean Mara?" she questioned with a knowing look. "Don't you?"
Lee glanced at her in surprise. "H-how do you know that? I mean, I know Birol dumped her in the room with us, but he never said her name and neither did I."
Amanda shook her head as the memory came to the front of her mind, "I...um...I remember he...just before he h-h-hit me, he...he said something about his lieutenant, Mara, being Nightcrawler." She shuddered as she thought of it; how it felt like it had only moments later that she'd pleaded with him not to hurt her baby and then when Lee had arrived and Birol pointed the gun, she'd cowered behind Lee. She hated herself for the weakness of her behavior. What kind of agent was she, if she couldn't handle a little conflict? In her years in the field with Lee long before she'd begun agent training, she'd never acted that way. She'd always been stronger than that. She lightly stroked her abdomen and thought, But everything's different now. Having a baby made it different.
"Huh," was Lee's reply as he abruptly turned to head toward his kitchen in an attempt to hide the hurt he knew must be showing on his face that she remembered that, but didn't remember him asking her to be his wife. He reached into a drawer for a serving fork, slamming the drawer shut and began pulling the now cooked bits of chicken from the pot on the stove, jabbing at them violently in his frustration and lobbing them at the serving platter that he'd laid out on the countertop earlier.
"What'd that poor chicken ever do to you?" Amanda quipped from the doorway in an attempt to lighten the mood.
Lee dropped the fork onto the counter and guided her out of the kitchen and into the dining room. "You...uh...you should sit down," he said trying to remember what Francine had told him about being patient with Amanda.
"Lee, come on," Amanda pleaded. "I don't feel good, but I'm not an invalid."
"I know you're not, but you should be taking it easy, resting..."
"I've been resting for the past twenty-four hours since I was checked into the infirmary. They wouldn't even let me shower and only let me out of bed long enough to pee, even then, only with supervision. It...it..." She looked down at the floor, fiddling nervously with her hands, picking at her cuticles.
"Amanda..." lee said in a probing tone as he hooked one finger under her chin, raising her head up to make eye contact with her.
Amanda yanked her head from his light grasp unable to take the intensity of his questing eyes. She nodded toward the table and commented, "Pretty flowers."
"Amanda, don't," he warned as he lightly took both of her hands in his and stepped in front of her forcing her to look at him again. "I wanna' know what's going on in your head. I wanna' help you get better, but I can't do that if you won't talk to me."
Amanda sighed as she gripped his hands tightly, looking down at their entwined fingers, thinking about Francine's questions to her about Lee, her surprise at the discovery of their secret romance, thinking of her comments about not remembering if Lee proposed or not. "Lee...Are...are...w-w-we..." She took a deep breath and looked up at him. "Are we engaged?"
"Amanda, tell me what's bothering you," Lee replied more insistently, dodging her question.
Amanda looked down again, taking long gulping breaths as she tried to fight back the fear that was building again as she thought of her day in the infirmary right on the heels of her abduction. "The...the way they kept me from doing anything for myself, it...it...it was like I was still a hostage," she finally admitted softly without looking up. She pulled her hands from Lee's and stammered awkwardly. "I-I-I...Um...I need to take a shower," then made a hasty escape toward the bedroom, Lee hot on her heels.
As he followed the woman he loved, Lee tried to get a grip on his own emotions, knowing that he needed to be strong for her. He reached the bedroom door, just as she reached the door to the bathroom. He let out a deep breath and said in a much calmer tone that he felt, "Top drawer of the dresser, you'll find some clean clothes that I brought from the house for you."
"Thank you," Amanda replied as she turned toward him, giving him a grateful smile for his thoughtfulness and then turned toward the dresser to get clean clothes. "I...Um..." she hesitated as she tried to pose her question in a way that wouldn't sound as if she were ungrateful as she really did appreciate all the effort he'd gone to.
"What is it, Amanda," Lee asked gently.
"I...Um...I think it's great that you made sure I had some of my own things here, but...um...there's...um...there's one thing missing."
Lee looked at her in alarm wracking his brain to try to think of what he might have forgotten in his haste to escape her mother's cross-examination of him. "I...I...I'm sorry. What did I miss?"
"Um...my robe?" she answered with a chagrined look on her face, feeling enormously guilty for even bringing it up. "You...um...you forgot my robe. I...um...if I'm going to be here a few days, I'd like to have it."
"Oh," Lee said, smiling at her. He planted a quick kiss to her lips and then walked to his closet, pulling a flat box from the top shelf. "I...Um...I didn't forget. I just didn't think you would need it." He handed her the box. "I...I bought this for you a week or so ago. I was going to give it to you this weekend anyway since we'd already planned to spend the weekend together since Joe's got the boys."
Amanda set the box down on the bed, lifted the lid, set it aside and peeled back a layer of tissue paper, smiling at what she saw. Nestled inside the layers of delicate tissue paper was a pale peach-colored satin robe. "It's beautiful." she whispered as she ran her hand over the light, cool fabric.
Lee nodded with a smile. "I'm glad you like it. I thought of you when I saw it and that satiny nightgown you wore the last time you spent the night here. I thought that would come close to matching it." He paused for a beat, and then added, "And I thought keeping it here might make it a little easier for you than carting that heavy terry cloth one around every time you want to spend the night." As he explained the reasons for his impetuous purchase, he felt the ring box once again burning a hole in his pocket; wondering if now would be a good time to tell her about his other purchase for her, this one not so impetuous.
Lee sighed in frustration as he entered his fourth jewelry store that afternoon after leaving the office, hoping that this would be the last one, thinking desperately about his date with Amanda at Emelio's that night and how much he wanted to have just the right ring for her before then. He fidgeted nervously as he walked to the glass case that held a variety of diamond rings, unable to believe that he was about to do what he was about to do, but it was long past time. He needed to lay all his feelings all out on the line, let Amanda know once and for all that she was it for him, that he was desperately, hopelessly, painfully in love with her and wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. What better place to do that than Emelio's since it had sort of become "their" place? He smiled at the thought of it, of how he was finally ready to admit to her that he loved her, but also kicking himself for not doing it sooner.
His thoughts were interrupted by a pleasant female voice asking, "May I help you?'
"Uh...I...Um." He took a deep breath and tried to calm his jangled nerves. "I'm..." He nodded down toward the rings on display and spit out, "I'm looking for a ring for my girl."
The clerk smiled warmly back at him and inquired, "Any particular style that you're looking for."
Lee smiled back, thinking her question was a good sign. He'd left the last two stores in a huff due to pushy salespeople trying to goad him into buying the flashiest, most expensive ring in the place even after he'd argued that they weren't Amanda's style. He didn't need that extra aggravation when shopping for an engagement ring was nerve-wracking enough as it was.
"Uh...yeah," he answered. "She...um...when it comes to jewelry, she has very simple tastes so I...um...I don't want anything too gaudy or...or too flashy." After a beat, he hastily added, "But I don't want cheap either. I...um...I don't care about the cost. I..." He sighed. "I just want something that she'll like."
The woman's smile grew. "She is a very lucky lady. You must love her very much to put so much thought into her ring. Too many men think about the price tag and not enough about the thought behind it."
"Yeah?" Lee questioned wondering how that could possibly be. Shouldn't a man think about the woman he was about to marry in deciding what ring to buy?
She nodded. "It's sad, but true. I've been doing this for fifteen years and you wouldn't believe the number of guys who think they're more likely to get a yes based on how expensive the ring is or how elaborate the setting is. There are a few like you though, who think about what their prospective mates actually like. So, it sounds like you're looking for maybe a solitaire, not a cluster, maybe even one with smaller diamonds in the band. We have some nice ones over here." She gestured to the next case over indicating for him to look. After a few minutes of watching Lee gaze at the rings, she saw his eyes light up and said, "See something you like?"
Lee nodded, pointed and said confidently, "This one. This one's my Amanda."
He'd left the store several minutes later, whistling jauntily as he mentally steeled himself for their date that night. His confidence began to wane that night, once he'd been sitting on the barstool at Emelio's for what he felt was far too long.
Norman must have sensed his growing agitation because he said, "Relax, Lee. She's always ten minutes late."
Of course, the whole mood had been ruined by the arrival of Sonja Chenko and the fact that he'd had to explain his suspicions of who she was with Amanda once she'd finally arrived. How was it that even on their off time, something work-related always interfered? He'd tried to recreate it by relaying to her Norman's use of the word "regulars' in describing them only to be deterred by Amanda's reply of not thinking they were regular at all, sparking a slight debate over it which he'd finally ended by saying, "We will be," but he wasn't as sure of that then as he had been earlier in the day when purchasing her ring. He'd decided to hold off on proposing for a while longer until the mood was right.
Amanda turned, smiled affectionately at him, and brushed her lips lightly against his to reward him for his thoughtfulness. "That's really very sweet of you. I love it!"
"Good, I'm glad," He replied with a smile back at her.
"I should really get in the shower," Amanda pointed toward the bathroom. "I feel like a big mess."
"Well, with what you've been through, you look amazing to me," Lee said flirtingly, though he couldn't help the worried look that crossed his face as he once again caught sight of the bruise on her face and her paler than normal skin.
"You're sweet. You're a terrible liar, but sweet." She planted another quick kiss to his lips, then plucked the new robe out of its box and headed into the bathroom.
Once the bathroom door was closed behind her, Lee made his way back to the kitchen to finish preparing the chicken broth for her. While he worked, he contemplated their situation, the baby that they hadn't planned on, Amanda's fragile emotional stated, her memory lapses, then thought of his conversation with her mother, how she'd pretty much told him that she knew he'd gotten her daughter pregnant. He knew that the next question from her was going to be what he intended to do about it or what his intentions with Amanda were in general, but he hadn't let her get quite that far.
The chicken broth finally done, he turned the burner to low to keep it warm for Amanda and then once again pulled the ring box from his pocket. He gazed longingly at it, his brow furrowing as he did so, debating again on when he should give it to her, Francine's warning about patience replaying in his mind, but also her warning about not breaking Amanda's trust in him creating a conflict. Amanda had asked if they were engaged and he'd evaded her question. Wouldn't he break her trust by not being truthful? "Screw it." He said as he set the ring box down on the counter for a moment, and then rooted through his kitchen cabinets for place settings, walking back and forth as needed to set the table.
Hearing the sound of the shower stop and knowing she'd be joining him in a few minutes, he filled a soup bowl for her, carried it to the dining room to add to her place setting. He made one final trip to the kitchen to pour a glass of apple juice for her, setting it down on the table and the ring box beside it, just as he heard Amanda's breezy voice saying, "I feel so much better now."