Disclaimer: Scarecrow and Mrs. King is the property of Warner Brothers and Shoot the Moon Productions. I've borrowed the characters for entertainment purposes only.
Changed Roles, chapter 1
Francine was collating the reports that Billy would need to distribute to the agents that would be attending the morning's staff meeting. As she stood at the long table in the conference room she found herself thinking that during the past couple of months she was finding her job less and less satisfying. I didn't join the Agency and work my tail off for all these years just to be a glorified secretary most of the time; even if that's as far as my father thought I'd get in the intelligence community. Francine looked up from the mountain of papers that she was organizing and watched Lee stroll through the entrance to the bullpen and across the length of the room; seemingly not noticing that the eyes of every woman in the room had followed his progress to the desk he sat down at.
Francine tried to return her focus to the task in front of her but found that her eyes had returned to Lee. She wasn't fantasizing about what it would be like to be with him; she'd experienced the Scarecrow's charms first hand and was now quite comfortable with considering him to be her best friend. I never would have believed that a house wife from Arlington could land the great Scarecrow if I hadn't watched it happen. Lee looks so…content…and Amanda is the reason why. Is there a right person out there for everyone? Is Michael that person for me? I want to trust him but now I'm not sure that I should. Francine made a concerted effort to push her thoughts about her personal life aside and focus her attention on what she had to accomplish before Billy arrived.
Billy was nothing if not a creature of habit; everyone in the DC field section knew what time he arrived in the morning. This morning he arrived fifteen minutes early and walked straight through the bullpen to his office without acknowledging any of his subordinates. Francine needed to brief Billy on the contents of the interagency overnight activity report before he called the morning meeting to order so she walked to his office, knocked on the door, and entered as others in the bullpen speculated about his early arrival.
Five minutes later a visibly pale Francine exited Billy's office with a new sheaf of papers that she'd need to make copies of and then add to the reports that she'd already collated. The tension in the bullpen ratcheted up even further because Francine had exited Billy's office not looking like her usual unflappable self. The only people in the bullpen who were oblivious to Francine's growing state of agitation were Lee and Amanda who were exchanging their morning greetings beside the coffee station.
Francine turned from the copy machine with a precarious grip on the papers she was holding and collided with Lee; who was hurriedly following Amanda across the room. The papers flew in all directions and Lee stooped to pick them up.
"I'm sorry, Francine, let me help you with these", Lee apologized, "I should have been paying more attention to-"
"You should be paying more attention to the work we're all here to do and less attention to your girlfriend", Francine yelled and then rushed off without the papers. A shocked Lee was about to go after Francine when Amanda came up behind him and put her hand on his arm to stop him.
"Let me go after her; you stay here and see if you can get the papers organized", Amanda suggested and then rushed after Francine before Lee could respond. Lee was left to pick up the papers while the other people in the bullpen were whispering about what Francine had yelled at Lee. Amanda caught up to Francine as she was entering the ladies room.
"If you've followed me here to demand an apology for embarrassing you, you can forget about it, your boyfriend walked into me", Francine said in a huff.
"I didn't come for an apology; I came because I thought that you needed a friend", Amanda offered.
"A friend, huh", Francine responded with an unreadable expression on her face.