"This is ridiculous," complained Lee, sitting at his kitchen table, waving a slice of pizza around. They'd ordered in when it became apparent that after a week in training camp, absolutely nothing in Lee's fridge was still edible. "I don't need you to watch me like a child."

"Yes, you do," said Amanda, firmly. "You heard the doctor. You can only nap for short periods and I need to wake you up every hour and make sure you're still with it."

"It's ridiculous – you could just call from home," he pointed out.

"And then have to explain to my mother why I'm waking up all night to make mysterious phone calls?"

"You could tell her the truth, like you said," he fired back. "That you're checking on a friend with a concussion."

"She'd know perfectly well that if that were true – which it is – then I would be keeping an eye on them in person and making sure nothing happened to them – which I am. So you can just stop complaining because I'm not leaving."

Lee sighed in resignation. "Fine. Well then, at least tell me everything that happened since last night."

Amanda began to fill him in, about how the goons had stopped the cab just long enough to throw him in the trunk, how despite that, Price had turned out to be relatively harmless, how Bela had sent help for them and finally, how he'd injured himself a second time saving the Prime Minister of Liechtenstein. Throughout the tale, she watched him carefully, hoping something would spark a memory, but there was no sign of it as he kept asking questions.

"So Phil really had no idea he was being set up? I know the guys called him Big Dumb Phil, but it's hard to believe anyone is that dumb."

"He's not dumb," said Amanda. "I think he's had too many knocks to the head. Kinda like someone else I know," she added with a raised brow. "It's not great for decision making, apparently."

"Oh come on, I may have lost some of my short-term memory but you still couldn't get me to murder somebody," Lee replied, testily.

"Of course we couldn't," Amanda agreed. "Dr. Glaser already proved that, didn't he?" She smiled to let him know she was teasing. "But Phil doesn't seem like he was that bright to start with, and once they convinced him that the Prime Minister was plotting against America… Well, he thought he was saving the President or something – he was really confused when he got arrested. I feel kind of sorry for him, actually."

"Of course you do. So when Price had us locked up, did we even try to get away?" he asked. "Even with the straitjackets?"

"Of course we did," Amanda smiled. "You almost had us out there too when they came back for something. They almost caught us, but we were-". She stopped abruptly and took a large bite of pizza.

"We were what?" Lee asked, sensing she had been going to say something else.

Amanda chewed slowly and swallowed. "We were hiding in the closet and made them think we'd already escaped," she said. "Boy, this pizza's good. I was starving after not eating since last night."

Lee gazed at her, not sure what she could be hiding about a simple escape attempt, unless… she'd done something she was embarrassed to admit. That must be it, he decided. But we got away so it can't have mattered.

It wasn't until they'd cleared the dishes and he was getting ready to go to bed that he realized she was setting herself up to sit up in the living room all night.

"You're kidding, right? This is not what they meant when they said to keep an eye on me."

Amanda looked up, surprised. "No, I told Mr. Melrose I'd wake you every hour or so, and the best way to do that is to just stay up. I have a book and a pot of coffee. It'll be fine."

"Amanda, take the bed at least. I can crash out here."

"Lee, you're supposed to be recovering. You can't do that without at least getting a little sleep."

"I can't just leave you sitting here," he fretted. "You need your sleep too."

"Lee, just go to sleep for a bit. You need the rest – and I'll be fine. If I get too tired, I'll just grab a nap on the couch and set the oven timer to wake myself up to check on you." He opened his mouth to protest and she cut him off. "Just go lie down. Please? For my peace of mind?"

"I hate it when you pull that card," he groused. "It's not fair."

"That's what moms do – we use your kryptonite against you," she smiled up at him from where she'd curled up in the arm chair.

"Moms and partners," he agreed. "Eric was just as bad."

"But I'm not your partner," she teased him.

"Or my mom," he countered.

There was an uncomfortable silence for a split second and then they both spoke at once.

"I should get some sleep."

"You should get some sleep."

Lee gave her a look like he was going to say more before turning abruptly and disappearing into the bedroom, then reappearing with a pillow and blanket.

"Lee, I told you…" she began to reprimand him.

"I can sleep out here just as well as in there," he said, cutting her off. "And besides my head still hurts too much for me to sleep anyway, even with the painkiller. I'll just watch TV or something."

"No, you won't," she scolded. "That will just keep you awake."

"Well then…" he looked around the apartment.

"Oh for heaven's sake - just lie down and close your eyes," ordered Amanda.

"Amanda!"

"Lee!"

They glared at each other in a standoff until Lee finally flopped down on the sofa and wrapped the blanket around himself.

"What are you reading?" he asked sulkily.

Amanda held up the paperback. "One of your spy books."

Lee squinted across at her. "The Ipcress File? Yeah, that's a good one. I remember reading it the summer I was 13."

"Is that what made you want to be a spy? All the danger and intrigue?"

"No," Lee answered, closing his eyes. "I read it because I wanted to be a spy like my dad."

"Your dad was a spy?" Amanda couldn't help asking.

"Yeah, during the war," said Lee. "My uncle always said he couldn't resist the lure of being the Lone Ranger."

"You mentioned your uncle today," Amanda ventured. "When you were at the football field, you were worried he'd be mad at you for getting hurt."

"That figures," said Lee, rolling onto his side and opening his eyes to look at her. "I spent most of my childhood with him being mad at me over something or other."

"He brought you up?" Lee talked so little about his past that Amanda wasn't sure he'd answer her.

"Yeah, after my parents died."

"I'm sorry."

Lee waved off her sympathy. "It was a long time ago. I was five – I don't remember them."

"Oh Lee, that's awful."

Lee shrugged under his blanket. "Like I said, it was a long time ago." He gave her a questioning look. "You didn't know that?"

"You don't talk about yourself much," she replied. "I mean you've dropped a few things, but I don't like to pry."

Lee's mind flashed back to their conversation a few weeks before about his late partner, Eric.

"I guess everyone thought I must already know all about it because we spend so much time together", she'd said and here they were again, Amanda putting aside her own problems and looking after him without any expectation that he'd share any part of his life with her. He felt a rush of shame for every time he'd taken her friendship for granted – he owed her so much more than that.

"How are you ever going to train up to be my partner if you don't like to pry?" he teased.

"Well, I'm not, I guess," she answered looking surprised. "I mean, I help you out from time to time…"

"You do more than that," he interrupted. "You're someone I can count on in a business that doesn't allow for that much. You're smart and quick and…"

Beautiful, his mind supplied along with a flash image of Amanda looking up at him, flushed cheeks and eyes dark with emotion. Where the hell did that come from?

He realized Amanda was looking at him to finish that sentence. "And you should look into some of the civilian training the Agency offers. Billy's obviously keen on using you more – you should make sure you take advantage of that and ask to take them – driving courses, codes, that kind of stuff."

"Really? You think I could?" she asked, sitting up with an interested expression.

"That's what they're designed for – you're not the first civilian we've recruited, you know."

"I… I don't know what to say," stammered Amanda. "I mean I'd love to but…"

"But nothing," Lee stopped her. "I'll talk to Billy about it." He paused and came to a decision. "In fact, tell you what – we can start tonight."

"What do you mean?" Amanda was startled. "You're supposed to be resting!"

"I can rest while we're doing it. We'll play Twenty Questions," he answered. "You have to wake me up every hour or so and make sure I'm with it, right? Okay, so every time, you ask me three questions about myself, two about the past, one about the present, and give me a report on it in the morning – how does that sound?"

"Intriguing," she admitted. She tilted her head and bit her lip thoughtfully. "I can ask you anything?"

"Sure," he said. "Within reason," he added quickly. "I reserve the right to plead the Fifth."

"That's fair," she nodded. "But I get another question if you do."

"Deal." He grinned sleepily at her. "And next time, I get to do the same."

"Deal," she smiled back at him.

And so it went through the night.

"Name three places you've lived outside Washington." "Cherbourg, Guam, Milan."

"What's your favorite food?" "Chili dogs"

"What year is it?" "1983"

.

"When did you join the Agency?" "1973"

"Where did you go to college?" "Michigan"

"What's your doorman's name?" "Feller"

.

"Why did you live in so many places?" "My uncle was in the Air Force, we didn't get a choice."

"Did you like that?" "Not much"

"Where did we meet?" "Train station"

.

"Have you ever been married?" "You know I haven't"

"Have you ever come close?"

"Fifth," he grunted after a pause.

Amanda looked up from where she'd been keeping her notes. "Really? Don't you think that sort of answers the question?"

"Not necessarily," he yawned, still half-asleep. He peered at the clock: 3:00 a.m. "But it pre-empts your next one," he went on. "It could be no, and you'll want to know why, and I won't answer that or it could be yes, and you'll want to know what happened, and I'm not going to tell you that either" He yawned again. "That's why you need to ask your questions carefully."

"Like a genie and the three wishes," she commented.

"Exactly," he slurred, most of the way back asleep.

"But I get another question then – since you wouldn't answer that one."

"Yeah, ok, but remember, in real life, you won't get a second chance."

Amanda nodded. She chewed her lip and tapped her pen against the pad while she thought. "Okay, have you ever told a girlfriend what you really do?"

Lee opened one eye and huffed out a laugh. "Better."

"Are you going to answer?"

He closed his eyes and for a moment, she thought he was going to ignore her and go back to sleep, but then he suddenly spoke again. "Yes. Once."

Lee braced himself, waiting for the inevitable consequence of answering truthfully. This, he thought, might have been a bad idea. The silence stretched out and then:

"What's your favorite way to cure hiccups?"

Even half-asleep, Lee had to chuckle. "Ice cube down the back."

There was a long silence and then a quiet sigh, "Okay, you can go back to sleep."

Lee woke on his own, not sure why. He didn't move while he did a mental inventory, and decided that his head was no longer pounding as much as it had last night. His shoulder was painfully stiff though, and he ran through all the possible reasons why. It might have something to do with the fact he'd spent the previous night in a straitjacket. Or spent the last few days being tackled by behemoths. Or because he was sleeping on the couch.

Why am I sleeping on the couch? And what is that damn noise?

He opened his eyes and squinted around the dim light of the apartment, slowly realizing that he was hearing the faint peeping of the oven timer Amanda had set to make sure she woke him up every hour. He twisted to look for her and realized she was sound asleep.

Lee sat up and swung his legs off the couch, and went to turn off the timer. 5:15 announced the oven clock. It had been 3:00 when she'd last woken him so she hadn't just slept through the 5:00 alarm – this had to be the 4:00 one. He walked back into the living room, but Amanda still hadn't stirred, despite looking incredibly uncomfortable, curled tightly in the chair and her head falling to one side at an unnatural angle. He felt a pang of guilt – she'd been along for this crazy ride for as many hours as he had, and with probably less sleep, if you counted the hours he'd been knocked out. Knocked out twice, he reminded himself. He wondered how often she'd done this with her kids, stayed awake and alert to keep watch over someone. She hadn't even stopped to consider before she'd made the offer to stay with him – just as she hadn't stopped to think when she'd saved him from those guys on the train platform all those months ago – wading into battle with nothing more than her purse and righteous indignation.

He sat down on the coffee table in front of her, smiling fondly at her as he recalled all the times since then that she'd done something similar. He didn't think he'd ever met anyone in his life who was as unthinkingly brave as Amanda. He noticed she was still clutching her pen and paper from making notes on her questions all night so he reached out to gently pry them from her fingers and glanced down to see what she'd written. His lips pursed in a soundless whistle; there was some solid Class C stuff here and the notes she'd added to his answers were pretty damn insightful too.

I should let her finish this when she wakes up.

He was startled that he'd even thought that. He'd always kept his personal life close to the chest, even before he'd landed in this career – too many new schools, too many friends left behind – he'd learned early that it was best to just keep it to himself.

He studied the list again. She'd obviously brainstormed a lot of ideas in the first few hours when he'd been sleeping, but he was intrigued to see that there were some she'd crossed out. He moved closer to the one light that was still on so he could make them out; it wasn't easy because she's crossed them out with several strokes as if trying to erase them even from her thoughts. Lee, however, had been an agent for too long to be defeated by such basic tactics and held them to the light at an angle so that they were slightly backlit.

How did your parents die?

What do you remember about them?

Why come you never talk about them?

Definitely questions he would have hated answering. Like a truffle hound, she'd known unerringly what questions to ask to get to the heart of him – and had then chosen not to. Despite the fact she could completely have taken advantage of him being half out of it to do so, despite having been given carte blanche to ask what she liked, she had unerringly known what not to ask.

He frowned at the paper, looking further down the page to see what she had left on the list. Two columns, past and present, most of them the simple things he'd have been able to answer easily as part of a concussion check, but as the list went on, she'd obviously started to ponder the bigger questions.

Where were you the happiest in your life?

How did you get partnered with Eric?

How did he manage being an agent with having a family?

Off to the side of the page, away from the rest as if it wasn't intended to be asked, more just a sidetrack she'd been on.

Have you ever had a best friend?

What's the difference between a partner and a friend?

Lee stopped dead and re-read those last ones. If anyone had asked him that six months ago, he probably would have answered that without thinking.

No, no friends – this isn't a business for that.

He and Eric had worked well together, it was true - they had trusted each other at a level beyond the usual pairing of agents, but Lee had carefully held himself apart from the other part of Eric's life – never accepting the invitations to weekend barbecues or family occasions or any of the other things people were supposed to do with friends. He hadn't been rude, just aloof, unwilling to make the connection to a partner again the way he had with Dorothy. So he and Eric had been friendly but not friends - he'd made sure of that. He wouldn't make that mistake again.

He let his hand drop, paper still clutched in it and turned to stare at Amanda again.

What's the difference between a partner and a friend?

How had she blurred that line so thoroughly that, by the time he sat up and took notice, it was already gone? She'd been his friend from that first day, protecting him as fiercely from Russian agents and gun runners as from his own self-doubt about his part in Eric's death. Never intruding, never inquisitive – just there, with unconditional support.

But when, along the way, had she become the one person he turned to without thinking for help? How was it possible that the one person he trusted at his back was an untrained, often naïve suburban mom armed with nothing more than a quirky intuitive way of looking at things and unquestioning faith in him? It should be a recipe for disaster and yet…

What's the difference between a partner and a friend?

Nothing.

He walked back and perched on the coffee table again, carefully tucking the pad down the side of her chair cushion so that she wouldn't know he'd peeked, before reaching out to gently rub Amanda's arm.

"Hey, Sleeping Beauty, wake up."

"Mo-ther," Amanda grumbled in her sleep.

"Amanda," he cajoled. "Wake up."

She came to slowly, blinking sleepily at him for a beat and then sitting up quickly, wincing as she discovered the crick in her neck. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Lee chuckled. "You slept through the alarm you set."

"What?" She looked at her watch, eyes widening in shock. "Oh Lee, I should have woken you over an hour ago!"

"Well, no harm, no foul," he grinned. "Maybe we both just needed the extra sleep, hey?"

"You're feeling better?" she questioned. "How's your head? Is your memory back?"

"I'm feeling much better," he answered. "But no, still no magical memory restoration. In fact, I only woke you up so you could move to somewhere more comfortable."

Amanda rolled her head in a circle with a slight grimace. "Yeah, I might regret this later." She gave another stretch. "So you're going to go to bed properly and leave me the couch now? That would be more comfortable for both of us honestly."

"No, I'm going to send you to the bedroom to get a couple of more hours of sleep while I go out and grab us some breakfast from the all-night diner."

"You don't eat breakfast," she pointed out, barely containing her yawn. "Or did you forget that too?" she teased him.

"I don't but you do, and right now I don't even have cream for coffee in the fridge, let alone food. I may not even have coffee," he winced. "Anyway, you go lie down in my room and get some more sleep and I'll go get some fresh air and bring us back something."

"Oh, that's okay, Lee – I'll just take the couch."

"Now who's being ridiculous?" he asked. "Why would you put a perfectly good bed to waste?"

"I couldn't-" she began to argue.

"Amanda," he said in good-natured exasperation. "I don't know where your mind is going right now, but I promise this is not some weird seduction technique – come on, you know that." He paused, concerned. "Don't you?"

"Of course I do!" she answered instantly. "You would never take advantage, not even after-"

And then she stopped and a look flickered across her face that Lee couldn't place – it wasn't fear or indignation or disappointment – it was just the ghost of a smile as if she'd thought of something, although what that something was, he couldn't imagine.

"What?" he asked, all suspicion now.

"Nothing," she said, getting to her feet. "You would never take advantage, that's all. But I am going to take advantage of your offer and get some more sleep before I have to go home and face my mother with the usual collection of half-truths and outright lies." She gathered up the blanket he'd left on the couch and headed for the bedroom.

Lee watched her go, still feeling uneasy about that flicker of expression.

Not even after… what?