Lee stared at his former love in utter shock and said, "Dorothy, what the hell are you doing here?" not so much surprised to see another ghost after what had already happened to him today, but by whom the ghost was.

"Hello to you too," Dorothy said dryly.

"Sorry," Lee said sheepishly. "I...um...I'm just surprised to see you. Although, I don't know why anything surprises me today."

Dorothy laughed and said, "I always was good at surprising you, though not as good as Amanda."

Lee looked at her a little guiltily and in a hoarse voice questioned hesitantly, "You know about Amanda?"

"Of course, and stop with the case of the guilts," Dorothy said. "I know that you loved me, just like I know that you love Amanda now. I don't begrudge you moving on with your life. We had our moment, but it wasn't meant to last. It was meant to lead you to where you are now. I think she even knows that now that you've told her about me."

"I...I...I seriously need a drink," Lee said with a sigh.

"No, you don't. What you need is to come with me. We've got a lot of ground to cover," Dorothy said taking the bottle from his hand, setting it on his desk, then taking his hand.

In the instant of Dorothy touching his hand, he was once again at Amanda's house, this time in her cheery kitchen where she and Dotty were chatting while they watched Joe with the boys in the den. "The boys sure seem happy to have their father home," Dotty commented.

"Yes, they do," Amanda said with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.

"Amanda, Darling, what's wrong. You don't seem happy to have him home and you're not your chipper self the way that you usually are at this time of year."

"No, Mother, I'm fine," Amanda answered but didn't sound convincing.

"Is it because your gentleman friend wasn't able to make it to dinner?" Dotty probed with a knowing look. "You know that I've suspected for some time that you had your eye on someone from work and I'm guessing now by the glum look on your face that it's this Mr. Steadman."

"I do not have a glum look on my face, Mother, and his name is Stetson," Amanda corrected.

"Stetson? Hmm, I could have sworn when I talked to your gentleman friend on the phone that he said his name was Steadman."

"Well, it's not. It's Stetson and he's not exactly my gentleman friend. He made that perfectly clear when I stopped by the office today to deliver the Christmas cookies," Amanda snapped bitterness evident in her voice as she folded her arms across her chest.

Lee began to approach her wanting to reassure her that he was her "gentleman friend" as Dotty had called him, even her "special friend" as she'd called him earlier, but was stopped by Dorothy's hand on his shoulder. He turned at the contact.

"You can't interact," his lost love warned him. "Just watch and learn," she added echoing the words of his parents.

Lee turned his attention back to Amanda and her mother to hear Dotty saying, "Well, I'm terribly sorry to hear that, but remember what I told you a few years ago, when one door closes, another one opens." She then nodded knowingly toward the den where Joe was approaching them with a wad of torn wrapping paper in his hands.

"I can see that their exuberance for tearing into Christmas presents hasn't changed," He said with a laugh as he reached around his ex-wife to throw the wrapping paper into the trashcan.

"Oh, would you look at that," Dotty gasped in mock surprise pointing upward toward the ceiling, "Mistletoe. You know what that means." She smiled at the two of them. "I think I should go make sure the boys aren't making too big a mess."

Amanda laughed awkwardly and said sarcastically, "Well, that was subtle."

"Well, it is Christmas tradition," Joe said as he leaned in and lightly brushed his lips to hers then slid his hands to her waist pulling her to him for a deeper kiss.

Lee turned from the scene in disgust that Amanda was kissing her ex-husband when she'd just told him that she'd thought the two of them were dating. "What the hell is she thinking?" Lee grumbled to Dorothy. "Why did you bring me here to see this? The last thing I need to see is her all over her ex. What exactly am I supposed to learn from this, that I missed my shot with her?"

"Just keep watching, Hotshot," Dorothy said as she forcibly turned him around. Lee cringed as he watched Amanda sliding her hands to her ex-husband's chest while Dorothy whispered in his ear, "Just watch."

Amanda raised her hands to Joe's chest and pushed firmly, breaking the kiss and saying, "Joe, stop," She said as she quickly scurried away from him, hastily grabbing a paper towel from the roll and dabbing at her mouth with it.

"I'm sorry, Amanda," Joe apologized with deep sigh. "I got a little carried away. I don't know what got into me."

"A little too much rum punch, maybe?"Amanda teased, "Me too."

"Maybe," Joe mused. "Maybe that combined with a little too much loneliness. That, and that you and I have always been comfortable together, even during our divorce."

"Yeah, but we learned the hard way that "comfortable" doesn't work for us. I think we both need more than that and we lost that a long time ago."

"You're right," he admitted with a nod. "Besides, it's obvious to me that you're in love with someone else."

"Joe, no," Amanda denied as she shifted uncomfortably.

"Oh, come on, Amanda, this is me you're talking to. We've known each other since before we were legally able to drink. It's Lee Stetson, isn't it?" Amanda didn't answer and instead only looked down at the floor as she nervously twisted the paper towel in her hand. "That's why you've been in such a funk, because he declined your invitation to dinner. It was right there in my face the first time I saw you two together when he helped me clear my name a couple of weeks ago. Then the way you talked about going forward, the way your attention shifted when he walked into Dooley's that night." When Amanda was still silent, he held up his hands in surrender. "You know what? It's none of my business. Your private life is your own, but if you won't be honest with me, at least be honest with yourself."

Amanda finally looked up at him and confessed, "Yes, I love him." Lee's heart soared at hearing these words from her. "After what happened between you and me, it took me a long time to trust in love again, but I think…or thought anyway that I could again with Lee. I mean, with the job we do, I've trusted him with my life, so why shouldn't I trust him with my heart?" She sighed. "I've loved him for so long, longer than I wanted to admit..." she sighed again and bit down on her lower lip, "...but it doesn't matter. He doesn't love me in return. I...I thought for a little while that there might be...I don't know...a chance, but he made it clear today that there's not. He doesn't share my feelings. I'm beginning to think that I made a mistake in trusting him with my heart, after all."

"Yes, I do, Amanda," Lee tried to interject as he watched the utterly heartbroken look on her face rivaling the one he'd seen on his trip to the past and had seen her grieving her failed marriage. He'd wanted to kill Joe King in that moment for hurting her, but he was starting to realize that he was doing the same thing to her. "It wasn't a mistake. You can trust me with your heart."

Dorothy said softly behind him, "She can't hear you, Genius," as she touched his shoulder and the scene faded to be replaced by another one, this one not as pleasant as Amanda's warm, inviting home.

Lee looked around startled to find himself in an industrial district filled with rows of warehouses. "You guys should really give me some warning when you're going to do that."

"Sorry, but your time was up there and there's one more thing you need to see before our time together is up as well," Dorothy said with a nod toward the nearest warehouse.

As they approached it, he noticed his 'vette parked nearby. "What the hell is going on?" He asked for what felt the like the hundredth time today.

"Come on," She said tugging on his arm to lead him into the warehouse where he saw himself in the same clothes he was wearing now, crouched behind a large packing crate and heard the distinct sound of bullets being fired. Lee instinctively crouched down and reached for the weapon he normally kept as his back. Dorothy stopped his action and pulled him to his feet, saying, "Relax, Hotshot, you're not in any danger," then glanced to the Lee Stetson crouched behind the crate, "He is."

"But he...is me," Lee protested beginning to panic as he watched the other him pull an empty clip from his gun and grunt in frustration and seeing another empty clip as his feet.

She shook her head adamantly. "He's not you, not yet."

"Damn it," the other Lee swore looking around wildly as the enemy still fired on him.

Dorothy and Lee looked on together as the under-fire Lee dove for a different crate to hide behind as the hooded enemy rounded the corner firing on him again hitting him squarely in the center of the back, dropping him instantly.

"NO!" Lee cried as he watched himself fall and heard the other him softly say, "Amanda," before succumbing to his wound.

He made a move toward the fallen body just before he once again felt the slamming-into-a-brick-wall feeling and was back in the office again.

"Damn it! Would you people quit doing that?"

"You people? Is that what I am? We were once very special to one another," Dorothy spat at him caustically.

"Look, you know what I mean. First, my parents, then you, you're always pulling me away from where I need to be. I…I mean…he…me…he needs help."

"No, Lee, you're pulling yourself away from where you need to be or haven't you figured that out yet?" When Lee just looked at her blankly, she said, "One thing hasn't changed. You're still so adorably dense when it comes to matters in your personal life." She then leaned in to kiss him softly, whispered just as softly, "I'll be seeing you," then vanished as quickly as she'd arrived.

Lee let out a deep sigh as he tried to put all the pieces together, sinking wearily into his desk chair to find the bottle of scotch still there where he'd left it. "I really need that drink now," he muttered but just as he reached for it, he was unceremoniously yanked from his seat by a large bony hand around his throat causing the bottle to drop from his hand and shatter on the floor.

As he gasped for breath, he looked at his assailant seeing the same hooded figure that'd just shot him.