SMK Chapter 19 - Day 11; A couple of hours later…

Her head ached a little, but it was so nice to be eating out that she chose to ignore it.

"How's your mother?"

"Hmm?"

Lee smiled. "How's your mother?" He'd forgotten to ask earlier; they'd picked up where they'd left off when the phone rang.

"Oh," she smiled back at him and took a sip of her water. "She's fine. Having the time of her life."

"When's she planning on being back?" Lee popped a piece of the succulent steak into his mouth and slowly closed his eyes. "Hmmm. This is excellent!"

"Not until the middle of August."

"Well, I'm glad you got a chance to talk with her. I know you miss her."

Amanda smiled again despite the headache. "Yeah. It's been several years since we've been away from each other for this long."

Lee took another bite of his steak. "Well, I think it's great that the two of you are so close."

Amanda gazed sympathetically at him. It was difficult to imagine what it would have been like to never have her relationship with her mother. Of course, they'd grown especially close since her divorce when her mother had come to live with her in order to help with Philip and Jamie.

"Yes. It's very special." Her stomach wasn't enjoying the dinner. She set her fork down gently beside the plate, trying not to draw attention to how she was feeling. She didn't want Lee to worry any more than he already was.

"So," Lee reached across the table for her hand. "Remember a couple weeks ago when you asked me when I knew I had fallen in love with you?" He waited for her to nod her head. "I'd love to hear your side of the story."

"Ah, Lee," Amanda hedged.

"Oh, come on. Humor me."

"Well, I guess I was lonely. My divorce was only a year old, and I was still hurting. I was bored at home, and I was settling for someone just because he was steady and dependable. Then you barreled into my life and quite literally sidetracked me."

"Wait a minute," Lee frowned. "Are you saying I was an escape?"

Amanda laughed outright but involuntarily grimaced and reached up to her head.

Lee squeezed her hand gently. "Hey," his thumb skimmed her knuckles. "You okay?"

"Hmm?" Amanda's eyes snapped up to his. "Oh, yeah, I'm fine. Just a little headache."

Concern flashed through his eyes. "Is that a pregnancy symptom?"

"No, I don't think so. At least, I don't remember it being a symptom I've ever had before."

"Maybe we should get you back to the Agency." Lee folded his crisp, white napkin and laid it on the table.

Amanda squeezed his hand. "No, I'm not ready to leave yet, please, Lee?"

He sighed, but acquiesced.

"Anyway, no. You were not an 'escape'." Amanda picked her story back up. "But I guess it does explain why I agreed to do something so dangerous when you first snatched me at the bus station."

"Snatched…" Lee chuckled and shook his head as he popped another succulent morsel into his mouth.

Amanda's eyebrows rose. "Do you have a better word for it?"

"No, I guess 'snatched' works," He chuckled again.

"I was attracted to you pretty early on," she admitted. "And it was exciting being a part of something so much bigger than myself, but you didn't even try to hide the fact that you didn't want me around."

"Yeah, I know." He took a sip of his water. "You know, it's taken me a long time to figure it out, but my parents were "normal" people. I mean, I know they were spies, but they lived every other part of their lives like…well, like normal people. Then they left me at such a young age. I guess I decided that having and then losing that 'normal' family life was an experience I didn't want to repeat."

She smiled tenderly at him. "You know, it was the little glimpses I would get on occasion of something deeper inside you that kept me coming back." She reached to rub the back of her neck. "That and feeling like I was doing something important to help my country."

Her headache was getting worse, and her vision was getting fuzzy around the edges. Maybe she was dehydrated? She reached for her glass of water to take another sip. "I'd see you drop your guard now and then, and I knew how much you cared about people – including me."

"I did care about you," he watched her carefully. Something was off.

"Well, eventually we actually became friends." Amanda picked up the napkin and dabbed the corners of her mouth, then laid it back down. "I grew to admire you, trust you, depend on you…I always knew you had my back, and I felt safe with you." A slight cramp wafted across her belly. "It crept up on me, but I think by the time we'd been working together for a couple of years, I knew I was in love with you."

"It took that long, huh?" Lee looked at her with growing concern.

"Well, I was divorced, Lee. I wasn't going to give my heart very easily." She rubbed her belly in a circular motion. It wasn't feeling very comfortable, and the room started spinning just a little bit. She was going to have to say something.

"Amanda, you okay, Honey?" Lee leaned toward her.

"Um, Lee, I'm not feeling so great." She looked up at him, but his image swam before her eyes. "Can we go?"

"Of course." Lee looked around for a waiter, but didn't see one immediately available. He reached into his pocket, pulled more than enough cash from his wallet, and tossed it down on the table.

Amanda stood, and the room spun around her. "Lee?"

"Amanda?" He reached her just as she began falling to the ground. With both his arms around her, he lowered her to the floor and looked frantically around. "Someone call an ambulance! Please!" He looked back down at her face; it was deathly pale. "Amanda!" He brushed her hair away from her forehead. "Amanda, can you hear me?" He patted her cheeks. "Amanda, Honey?" He felt for her pulse; it was there, but thready.

"Dear God!" He hadn't meant it as a prayer, but suddenly, it was. He cradled her closer to him. "Dear God, no. Please, no." He was about ready to pick her up and carry her to the car to rush her to the hospital when paramedics arrived on the scene.

"Sir…" A man clapped his hand on Lee's shoulder. "Let go of her, Sir. Let us help her." Lee looked up at the young man but was unwilling to let go of her. "Sir, we can't help her if you don't let go."

Within moments, she was on a gurney and was whisked into the back of an ambulance. Lee sat in the back with her while one of the paramedics worked on her IV. The doors slammed shut behind them, and the vehicle raced out of the parking lot, sirens blaring.

"Is…is she going to be okay?" Lee's eyes never left Amanda.

"That all depends, buddy." Lee's eyes jerked over to the paramedic just in time to see the tip of a syringe coming at him. It was the last thing he remembered.


He'd been lying there listening with his eyes closed for a while – he wasn't sure how long. He only knew he couldn't hear anything beyond his own breathing. Slowly he began to open his eyes. It was pitch black, so black he closed his eyes and opened them again just to be sure they were really open.

"Amanda…" his harsh whisper seemed to scream loudly into the emptiness surrounding him, but there was no answer. He took a mental inventory of his body as he slowly sat up. Nothing seemed terribly bruised or battered.

"Amanda," he called out a little louder this time as he sat on the edge of the mattress. There was still no answer.

A light turned on above his head. He looked up, but the brightness blinded and disoriented him. Covering his eyes with a hand, he tried to stand only to realize he was inside a cage; the ceiling was too low.

Gradually, his eyes adjusted to the light. His vision was blurred, but he was able to look around the room and make out objects. There, on the other side of the room, was another cage. He looked around at his own enclosure, comparing the two; they were identical.

His memory was fuzzy. How did he get here? Where was his wife?

"Amanda!" Trying to stay calm, he wrapped his fingers around the mesh wall of his cage. "Amanda!"

He shook his head, trying to clear his vision, then looked back over at the other cage. He could see what looked like someone lying on a bed. "Oh my God, Amanda!" He rattled the wall of his cage. Why wasn't she rousing?

"No, no, no, no, no…" What was wrong with her? What had they done to her? "Dear God, no, please no. Please let her be okay." He sank back onto the bed searching his mind for every possible trick in his extensive repertoire to get out of the cage. He reached up to his collar-stay. Damn. The lock-pick was gone. He frantically felt along the rest of his collar. The thermite wire he'd used to escape from Mrs. McMerdy's was missing. Breast pocket of his sports jacket? No pen with acid ink to melt the hinges.

"She's alive, Mr. Stetson." The mechanical voice permeated the room so loudly that Lee clamped his hands over his ears. He frantically looked around for the source. "Don't bother looking; you won't find me."

"Who are you?" Lee demanded toward the ceiling. "Why are you doing this? What's wrong with her?" His blood boiled. "Come out and talk to me like a man, Damn it!"

There was only a chuckle. "Now, now, Mr. Stetson. No need for all of that. After all, I'm going to set you free."

"You're going to set us free? Then what's the point of all this? What game are you playing?"

"Oh, I'm playing no game, I assure you. And I said I was going to set you free. Not her."

Whatever drug they had given him was still playing with his ability to think. This wasn't making any sense to him. "What do you mean not her? I promise you, I'm the one you want. Let her go. She can't have possibly done anything to you!"

"Oh, I promise, you are the one I want. That's why I'm keeping her here. So you'll know where she is and what's happening to her. Even now there is a video feed going into your apartment; you'll be able to see her at any time – day or night. You'll see what we're doing to her when you cooperate…as well as what we're doing to her when you don't."

Lee rattled the cage. "You can't be serious, man! Why would you do this to her?" The lights went out, and the speakers went deathly quiet. "Where did you go? This is insane! Do whatever you want to me but let her go!"

No response.

Nothing.

"Amanda! Can you hear me?" Lee fell to his knees on the cramped floor. "Oh, God." His fingers entangled into the wire mesh again.

A slight hissing sound tickled his ears, but with everything so black, he couldn't see where it was coming from. Without any other warning, the substance hit his eyes and his nose. "What the hell?" It burned like the dickens and he struggled to breathe. He tried to cover his nose and mouth, but he knew it was no use.

Amanda! Her name screamed through his mind even as his eyes grew heavy and closed.