A/N: Mid/late season 3, post-Triumvirate. At that point, Amanda was well accustomed to being in close quarters with Lee, and he had started making excuses to spend time with her. But definitely before Stemwinder/no actual defined ship yet. Just…potential.

This story is the longest I've ever written, ringing in around 45k words. Still trying to figure out how to break up chapters, but it's basically done. Also, sometimes I write a lot of dialogue and not enough exposition. Oops. Sorry.

Rated T because a bad thing happens that isn't wildly graphic, but there's more blood than they typically showed on the series.

WEDNESDAY

In the airspace over the Aegean Sea, Lee turned to the next page. He groaned and drew his partner's gaze from a half-finished crossword puzzle.

"Tell me that doesn't give you vertigo you never knew you had." Lee angled the in-flight magazine, so she had a better view. The deeper into the article he went, the more absurd the pictures became, as one adventurer after another clung to the tiniest of handholds, over the sheerest of cliffs.

"Good heavens!" Amanda closed her eyes, head shaking a little. "Nope. Huh uh."

"I've done a little rock climbing, but that guy," Lee stabbed a finger at the image of a middle-aged man clinging to a rocky crevice with one hand and waving at the camera with the other "…that's not a man, that's a mountain goat."

"Please tell me there's not a course like that in my future. Leatherneck can't be that cruel."

"No. No goat lessons."

"Good. Because I'd be typing 80 words a minute and making coffee forever if that's a requirement." Amanda studied the pictures again, her nose scrunched up like something offensive was in the air. He watched her up close like this, more often these days. Especially when she was busy doing something else and wouldn't notice.

"Coffee and typing?" he asked.

"Hmmm?" She was still engrossed in the magazine.

He nudged her across the arm rest. "You passed up just coffee and typing a while back."

A small smile. "That's true."

The aisle seat gave him a pretty good view of the other passengers. He glanced around the cabin and back at her, pausing briefly to see what the man across the aisle was reading - some kind of financial report, full of rows and columns of numbers that would give him a migraine. Lee leaned in close enough to whisper his next words against the slash of her cheekbone.

"Tell me about him," he asked, tipping his head in the direction of the man across the aisle.

Amanda glanced at Lee, and the passenger in question. "You're testing me."

"Just passing the time." But his smile told her she was more correct than not.

Fine.

She plucked the magazine from his hands, closed it, and stored it in the seat pocket, squaring the corners so an even line of the front cover showed along the top. The crossword book and her pen she put in the carry-on by her feet. Then with no hesitation, she flipped up the armrest and turned toward him, threw her arm across his stomach, and settled with her chin against his shoulder just under his ear, like she belonged there. Lee smiled to himself at the ease of it, how naturally she fell in beside him.

The low rumble of engines, chatter and the squeak of the beverage cart fell away as he strained to hear her whisper.

"He's in finance somehow. He's studying that report like cramming for finals. The man in the seat in front of him is his boss, someone he wants to impress. His shoes are new, but the suit has been altered to fit him. Not the jacket, but you can tell the slacks have been taken up in length a little and the tailor didn't press the bottom seam very well. You can see the faint outline where the old hem won't lay flat and makes the new one look kind of bulky. They were turned up but not cut off, a cheap job," she added. "The briefcase is a nice one but worn around the edges - he's covered it with shoe polish and buffed it. The engraving on the latch doesn't match the name on his boarding pass. Probably not a sentimental hand me down, but a second hand find. The first letter of the last name doesn't match, and besides, he doesn't do sentimental. He removed his wedding band in the boarding line before he started chatting up the redhead in aisle nine, and he hasn't put it back on."

Lee smiled into the crown of her head. "That's why you're not making coffee in the bullpen right now."

Amanda hummed in satisfaction against his shoulder. Lee threw his arm across her shoulders and hugged her a little closer, the two of them both settling in just right. Part of their cover, after all.

"Also, he cut himself shaving this morning and the redhead thinks he wears too much Hai Karate."

"Ugh."

"What?"

"Speaking of Hai Karate, the last time Billy assigned this run to me, it was in the company of Fred Fielder."

"Oh, come on," she countered. "He's not that bad."

"I would rather play Francine's bag boy at Paris fashion week than spend one night in a Buffalo motel with Fred Fielder. Do you know that he never packs enough underwear for a trip? He washes them in the bathroom sink and hangs them to dry. You haven't lived until Fielder's black silk boxer shorts have fallen off the towel bar and landed on your toothbrush."

Amanda shuddered. "Oh no!"

"Oh yes. Just ask Francine. Barcelona '81. Fred had just read a book about the Spartans and decided to keep sharp he should do calisthenics in their room. Pushups, sit ups-"

"NO." Amanda insisted.

"-jumping jacks. All in his famous black silk boxer shorts and knee-high black socks. Francine sequestered herself in the bathroom."

"I could have lived without that picture."

"So could Francine, she won't do married with him anymore."

"He seems like a nice man," Amanda says, puzzled.

"He is, he's just oblivious. Fred has uncanny observational skills and a tireless, keenly analytical mind. He's happily married to a lady as odd as he is. Just not to Francine on assignment."

With the thumb of the same hand, Lee fiddled with the wedding band he wore. A year ago, Leatherneck quit requiring that their matching bands be checked in and out of the property room. The solitaire was another matter. But the plain, 10 karat gold hardware he and Amanda had used a couple of dozen times now spent its down time in a little black velvet box in Lee's desk drawer. When he put it on now, he'd soon forget it was there. Even Amanda could fall into the close quarters of a married scenario these days without a backward glance.

"Good agents, bad fit?" Amanda asked.

"You either need two people who are good actors but all business, so the proximity just isn't a consideration, or two who have enough history and respect for each other that the acting is just a natural extension of their regard. And it has to be believable on the surface. Fred is an oddball, and Francine is a debutante. They just don't sell."

"They don't sell, huh?"

"Nope. Total mismatch," Lee concluded.

"Well, not everybody has the…aaaaahhhhh—" A yawn cut off her off mid-sentence. "Goodness, sorry!"

"You tired?"

"Just a little jetlagged I'm a little out of my time zone."

"Sit up just a sec." Amanda moved back, and Lee stood to pop open the overhead bin. Lee unfurled a soft, blue blanket airline blanket and shook it out over Amanda and handed her a little pillow. "We have a couple of hours to go. We should catch some sleep."

"I'm not gonna argue."

He pushed his seat back to get more comfortable as Amanda turned off the overhead lights.

With the armrest up, they scooted together again. and her pillow ended up on his shoulder. He tucked her arm under his, and they huddled together with the edge of the blanket over Lee. Lastly, he took her right hand in both of his.

Amanda laughed softly to herself.

"What?"

"Fred and Francine…not enough history, respect and regard on earth to make this work," she whispered.

Then they were both laughing.