They walked to the Corvette hand in hand. Amanda was quiet. Not unhappy, but contemplative. Her smile was genuine when he handed her into the car, so Lee left her to her thoughts.

As they crossed the Key Bridge on the way to Arlington, Amanda finally started talking.

"Lee, my best friends from high school know you now. You put yourself square in the middle of my reunion of your own free will, and used your real name, and practically everything you told them was true enough that I won't have to keep up with some absurd, made-up story. The next time I talk to Terri, you will just be Lee. We really work together, my paycheck says IFF. We really travel. We met at the train station, and you pulled me out of a job interview at Honeycutt Typewriter, for crying out loud. You completely sold the story that I will end up having to tell my mother and my boys. Everything I worried about from the moment I walked out my back door tonight - for the last three years, really - you just wiped away like it was nothing."

A wave of pride washed over Lee, knowing that he'd done something to help, rather than muddy up her life. But then a strange look crossed Amanda's face and was gone.

Lee briefly leaned over to catch her eye, but by then she was looking out her window. "Was that the only reason you didn't you want to go? You didn't want to have to edit your life for the people you grew up with?"

Amanda pursed her lips and sighed. "That, and it's never great having to re-hash the end of my marriage. Somebody always has to ask. 'Where's Joe? What happened? How are the boys handling it?'" she listed out in a sing-song tone. "Thank heaven, for once, Terri's penchant for gossip did me a favor. Do you realize that nobody really asked?"

Lee shrugged. "It would have been a little awkward to dig too much with your date sitting right there."

She nodded. "One more point in your favor - everyone was too distracted to dig for details with you there charming their socks off." Amanda looked at him, and with a glum little sigh, added, "It's never fun telling my friends how my marriage failed."

"It's not your fault that Joe's priorities are out of whack."

"Making sure people in poor countries have enough to eat? That's not the dream job of people with messed up priorities. It's not hard to look like the problem when my ex is off feeding starving children."

"Not that I have to tell you this, Amanda, but he literally walked away from his own wife and kids to have his overseas adventure. People can see that."

She sighed and put a hand on his arm. "Lee, I want you to know…just…what a good friend you are to me. I'm so thankful to have you on my side. And I had the best time tonight. You can't know how much it means to me that you worked so hard to make me happy tonight. My friends really, really liked you."

"There was no work involved, Amanda. I'm glad I went. I really like your friends. I'm happy you let me go with you. It's the most normal I've felt in ages, in a life where normal is hard to come by. I'm only a little sorry it ended it on a down note. You deserve way better, and it offends me that Joe didn't make sure you got it."

"Lee, this isn't a down note. I reconciled myself to Joe's issues long ago, even if I dread other people's questions. Tonight, I got to spend time with dear friends I haven't seen in a long time. I'm grateful for that, and I'm grateful to you. I would have missed it, and missed fixing things with Marcie, but for you, and your fringe jacket and your love beads." Her expression turned quizzical. "Where the heck did you get that outfit anyway?"

Lee smiled as he turned the Corvette onto Maplewood Drive and glided to a halt across the street from number 4247. Out and around at the passenger door, Lee helped Amanda from the car and wrapped her hand around his arm in particularly courtly fashion. There was still a light shining downstairs. Meeting Dottie wasn't on the agenda, so by unspoken agreement, they circled around the back of the house to the gazebo.

Amanda hooked a finger through Lee's necklace and tugged gently. "The outfit?"

"Well, you know we have a sizeable costume selection at the office."

"Lee, I've been in that room a dozen times, and I've never seen that jacket."

"Well," Lee began, leaning in like he was relaying a great secret, "Leatherneck keeps special items set aside. The shirt is out of the closet and the coat came out of his stash. But the beads are from the Lee Stetson collection."

"Really? The Army man is a closet hippie?"

Lee smirked. "Definitely not. But Uncle Robert hated them."

Amanda laughed softly, "So you wore them a lot."

Lee's smile grew wider. "Every chance I got."

"Poor Robert!"

"Poor Robert, my six!"

They both laughed at that.

"Hey, you know what?" Lee asked. "I do have one complaint about tonight."

Amanda leaned back a little so she could look Lee in the eye. "Lee, you can't take Brad seriously."

"Oh, I absolutely take him seriously! If he came gunning for me, they'd never find my body." Lee's mouth clamped shut and the strangest expression settled on his features. "Sooooo, speaking of Brad…do you trust him? Like, trust trust him? With your life, the lives of your family. That kind of trust."

"All day long and twice on Sunday." Her eyes narrowed. "Lee…whyyy do I need to trust Brad?"

Lee's wry smile calmed her racing heart, albeit a very little. "Brad and I sort of…sat…through…the uh…same top-secret briefing on a carrier in the Black Sea in 1979. He remembers me and Eric. He knows I'm a spook." Lee winced. "His word, not mine."

Amanda gasped and made a couple of squeaky attempts to form words before she cleared her throat and finally spoke. "Brad knows you're in intelligence. And Brad knows we've worked together for years."

"Yeah, he was really hoping you were my secretary, but…" Lee shrugged. "I told him I'd have to tell you and report it to our superior. I think Brad and I will be going for a beer very soon."

Amanda looked heavenward, and after a moment of contemplation, nodded. "Wwwwell, while forty-nine percent of me is trying not to hyperventilate, fifty-one percent of me thinks Brad is exactly the kind of guy who would make you an excellent friend. You're never going to meet a more trustworthy man, and he will absolutely understand where you're coming from."

"I kinda thought the same thing." He looked Amanda in the eye, and she smiled.

"Oh! But that's not my complaint," Lee said, taking a step closer and wrapping an arm around her waist. "My problem is, I never got my last dance with you."

Amanda's felt her cheeks flame. "Is that so?"

"Yep. Awful shame."

"That is a terrible oversight," she agreed. "It's too bad we don't have any music."

"Oh, no?" Lee asked, his eyes twinkling in the low light. "Listen carefully."

She went willingly when Lee pulled her to him and started to sway. Amanda closed her eyes in concentration. Through the sound of crickets and a lightly blowing breeze, an old, familiar tune drifted faintly through the open kitchen window.

Laying her head on his shoulder, which was rapidly becoming her favorite place to be, she smiled. "Mother was going to watch a Fred Astair and Ginger Rogers marathon. This late, I bet she's asleep in front of the TV."

"No more talking," he admonished. "The song's already half over."

Amanda laughed and snuggled closer as they drifted back and forth across the gazebo.

Night and day
You are the one
Only you beneath the moon
and under the sun
Whether near to me or far
It's no matter darling
where you are, I think of you.
Night and day.

###

That's it kids, thanks for reading!

Unless I get distracted by another smaller project, my next story is about 500 words shy of a 42k word completed first draft in the same universe as my first three. Generally, I try to fill in gaps and not alter canon too much, and I hope to stick to that…ish. After failing miserably to timely finish a story years ago in another fandom, I won't start posing anything that big until I have the whole thing. Shooting for a mid-November start.