"Get the hell out of here," Lee growled.
"Now, Lee, I know we didn't agree on Amanda's course of treatment, but I'm here to help," Dr Quidd replied. "Weren't you the one who said I spend too much time in my office?"
Lee stood in his doorway, not moving and not allowing the doctor entrance to his home. "Did you hear what I said? You are NOT coming in here. Not just turn around and go back the way you came."
At hearing Dr. Quidd's voice, Amanda said, "No," as she felt a wave of nausea grip her. "NO!" she screamed and went tearing toward the bathroom.
"Amanda!" Lee called after her. He glared at Quidd and found himself torn between ripping him a new one and helping an obviously frightened Amanda. He made his decision in a half-second and followed his fiancée' needing to know what had set her off again, nearly knocking Francine over who'd exited the dining room to see what was up.
When he reached the bathroom, he found Amanda crouched on the floor, retching violently and shaking uncontrollably, tears streaming down her face.
"Amanda?" he said softly as he knelt to reach for her and was startled by her jumping at the sound of his voice and scooting away from him, pressing her back against the tub.
"Leave me alone," she cried in terror. "Don't touch me, don't hurt me, don't hurt my baby."
Lee cautiously crept toward her, trying not to scare her further as it was clear that at the moment, she didn't recognize him. "It's me," he said in a soothing tone. "It's Lee..."
"No," she argued with a shake of her head. "no, no, it's not. you're not Lee. Lee isn't here." She tried to scramble away from him but had no place to go. "M-m-my mind is playing tricks on me. He-he told me you're not here."
Lee took her hands and placed them on his face as he'd done when he'd arrived to rescue her and repeated the words he'd said to her then "Go on feel it. It's me."
"It's you?" she questioned warily as she caressed his face. "You're here?"
Lee breathed a sigh of relief as he saw the recognitions in her eyes. "Amanda, it is really me." He then pulled her into his arms and held her close, wondering what had sent her down this path again, Leland's words about thinking inside the puzzle once again running through his mind. What piece of the puzzle was this? He'd thought after last night that Amanda was on the road to recovery and that her fears had been lifted, but now...
"Don't let him hurt our baby," Amanda cried as she shuddered against him clinging to him tightly.
"Shh, Honey," Lee tried to soothe her. "I won't let anyone hurt our baby. You can count on that." He placed a tender kiss to her forehead and asked her, "Who do you think is going to hurt our baby?"
"B-B-Birol, h-he said I gave him the perfect tool to use against you. that if y-you didn't give him N-N-Nightcrawler, he'd-" she broke off abruptly unable to complete the sentence.
"Amanda, Birol can't hurt you or that baby. He's locked up in a holding cell at the agency."
"No." Amanda shook her head. "I-I-I heard h-him. He's out. H-h-he came back to hurt me, hurt our baby, to t-t-take me away again."
"No, Amanda," Lee said in a firm tone. "Birol's not here. He's far, far away and I promise you, he will never hurt you again, never hurt our baby. That's Dr. Quidd in there." As he said the words, he began to piece together what was going on in Amanda's mind.
"Quidd?" she questioned as she closed her eyes and tried to clear the fog in her brain, reflecting back on her time in the infirmary. As she did, she found that images of her calling for Lee in the infirmary overlapped with images of her calling for Lee while in Birol's hands, Quidd's voice saying, "Lee isn't here," mingling with Birol saying the same words when her hallucinations were at their worst. She tried hard to concentrate on separating the two in her mind, but the bare white walls of both rooms blended into to one as the voice in her head comingled. She sobbed against Lee as her panic increased at hearing Quidd talking about drugs that could hurt the baby, Birol talking about the drugs he'd given her and how they might affect Scarecrow's baby, gleefully laughing about it. "Quidd wants to hurt the baby, wants to drug me, wants to keep me prisoner. W-w-when you disappeared after St-St-Stemwinder was b-b-blown; he wanted to drug me then t-t-too."
"I'm not going to let that happen. Listen, you stay here. I'm going to get rid of Quidd once and for all, okay? I promise you, he won't drug you and he won't hurt you or the baby." He attempted to extract himself from her arms, but she only clung to him tighter.
"Don't' go," she pleaded, terrified that if she let him go, she'd find herself alone in the white room with Addi Birol again. "B-B-Birol will drug me again and hurt the baby."
"I'll be back, I promise. Let me go take care of Birol, okay?" He wasn't sure if going along with her delusion was the best thing to do, but he had to try something now that he had another piece of the puzzle in place. He kissed her firmly to remind her that he was real and quickly rose to make his way back to his living room to find Francine arguing with Quidd and blocking his path.
"You are NOT going in there," Francine stated adamantly. "Did you see her?"
Francine, I got this," Lee said as he approached the shrink, a look of pure fury etched on his face, his hands balled into fists. "Just what part of 'Get the hell out of here' did you not understand?"
"Now, Scarecrow, listen," Quidd said as he backed away from the irate agent coming toward him.
"No, You listen and listen good!" Lee spat. "You are not going anywhere near her. Do you hear me?"
"Lee, back off," Francine warned with a hand on his arm as she sensed that Quidd was in for a pummeling.
"Do you have any idea what you did to her?" Lee was a bomb ready to explode. "You keeping her locked up in the infirmary, telling her that I wasn't real, wasn't there for her, that the things I said to her were a figment of her imagination, all of that has only made her worse. She thinks you and Birol are one and the same!"
"All the more reason that she should be back at the agency and undergoing some intense therapy, so she can sort out what's real and what's not. She needs more help than you can give her."
"Oh, I'll make sure that she gets the therapy she needs, but it won't be by you. You are not to go near her ever, ever again. You got me, Pal!" Lee jabbed a finger into the older man's chest. "If she needs more help than I can give her, I'll take her to Claudia or to Pfaff, but not you! Now, you're going to turn around and get the hell out of my house and you are never," he placed both hands on Quidd's chest to push him toward the door, "never..." he shoved him again, "...to so much as even look at her again."
"You're making a mistake. you saw her just now, the terror, the confusion..."
"...Brought on by you. she was already terrorized and you just terrorized her further. She was perfectly coherent and we were talking and laughing until you showed up here. She heard your voice and it sent her into a tailspin again."
"He's right," Francine concurred with a nod.
"All I did was try to drive home a hard dose of reality to her, something you oughtta' try if you want her to get better and stop feeding her delusions of a happily ever after!"
"Delusions? I'll show you delusions," Lee snapped as he pulled his fist back, only to be stopped by Francine's hands gripping his arm.
"Lee, don't," she warned. "He's not worth losing your job over."
Lee took a deep breath and realizing she was right, relaxed a little. "Get out of here." He then turned to head back to Amanda only to hear a thunk behind him. He spun around quickly to find Quidd shaking his head and Francine shaking her hand.
"You heard him," Francine said coolly narrowing her eyes at him.
"Don't think I won't report this to Melrose, Desmond," Quidd said as he rubbed his jaw where she'd hit him.
"Be my guest," Francine said nonchalantly with a wicked smile.
"And you too, Scarecrow, for refusing to allow Amanda to get the treatment she needs."
"She doesn't need your kind of treatment," Lee countered as he gave the doctor one more shove and slammed the door in his face, turning the dead bolt behind him. Once done, he turned to Francine, a look of amusement on his face. "What happened to 'he's not worth it'?" he questioned.
"Well, given the situation, You couldn't very well hit him without it looking bad for you at the agency, but I could," she explained with a smirk. "I'm not as close to Amanda as you are."
Lee couldn't help chuckling a bit at that, but his laughter soon died as his thoughts turned back to Amanda, "Thanks, but I...Uh..." He nodded toward the bedroom.
"Go, I'll stick around in case you need me."
As he walked toward the bedroom, he paused for a moment, turned back to Francine and said, "I'm grateful."
"You should be," she said archly as shook her hand again, and then held it up for him to see. "I broke a nail for you."
Lee chuckled again, shook his head, and then took a deep breath to steel himself for which Amanda might be waiting on the other side of the door for him. He walked softly through the bedroom and re-entered the bathroom to find her now standing up at the counter, her knuckles white from gripping the edge of the sink tightly staring straight ahead at the open medicine cabinet, a glazed look in her eyes. "Amanda?" he whispered, not wanting to startle her again. When he got no response, he approached her cautiously, reached for her hands to release her grip on the sink and said a bit louder, "Amanda."
Lee soon found himself to be the startled one as Amanda whipped around and punched him squarely in the face, knocking him backward. "You bastard!' she shouted. "You lied to me! You're not Lee! You-you-you're HIM! You just wanna' drug me too, kill my baby!'
"Amanda, no, it's me, it's Lee," he protested completely thrown by her violent reaction.
"I won't let you hurt my baby," Amanda hissed through clenched teeth as she raised her fist to hit him again, but this time it was caught expertly by Lee's hand.
Lee gripped both of Amanda's hands tightly in his and said, "No, Amanda. it is me. It is really me." Shifting to clasp both of her hands in one of his, he used his other to softly caress her face. "Remember? Last night, you had a nightmare and I touched you just like this, brushed your hair away from your face like this," he demonstrated by smoothing her rumpled hair away from her face. "Remember how I kissed you?" He lightly brushed his lips against hers. "Remember how we made love?"
Amanda closed her eyes and tried to focus her scattered mind, "No, Uh-uh," she said as she opened them again.
"Yes, Amanda," Lee countered. "Think, Amanda, remember."
"Then explain those," Amanda nodded toward the prescription bottles in the medicine cabinet.
"Remember, I told you Dr. Kelford prescribed a sedative for you in case you needed it to sleep? Remember, you said last night that you didn't need it because..."
"Because making love was a better sedative," Amanda replied.
"Yes, Amanda, yes, that's it," Lee said encouraged by her response.
Still looking skeptical, Amanda stammered, "W-what about the other one?"
"Prenatal vitamin, for the baby," Lee answered. "I didn't give it to you last night because Dr. Kelford's instructions said to wait until we were sure you'd keep it down."
Amanda nodded in understanding, visibly relaxing. "Okay."
"Ahem," came Francine's voice from behind them. Lee turned to her and noticed she had a serving tray in her hands as she said, "Everything okay in here?"
"Yeah," Lee answered. For now, he thought dismally.
"I...uh...put this together for her. I thought..."
"Thanks, Francine," Lee said. He turned back to Amanda and said, "Come on, you need to eat and then you need to rest," He guided her out of the bathroom and to the bed and he and Francine helped her get settled and then Lee walked back to the bathroom for her prescriptions, this time deciding that Amanda was going to take the sedative so her mind could rest whether she wanted to or not.
As her returned to the bedroom with him, Amanda eyed him warily and he quickly responded, "Vitamins, for the baby," cringing a little bit for only being partially truthful with her, but feeling it was necessary for her health.
Thirty minutes later, Amanda sound asleep, he and Francine exited the bedroom with the remnants of Amanda's breakfast and toward the kitchen. Once there, he turned on Francine and demanded, "What the hell did Quidd do to her during the Stemwinder mess?"