DISCLAIMER:
This story is based on characters copyrighted by Warner Brothers and Shoot the
Moon Productions. This story is meant for enjoyment purposes only and cannot be
redistributed without permission from the author. I retain the rights to the
plot, not the characters. No infringement is intended.
AUTHOR: Kate
SYNOPSIS: Filler that takes place between Lee going to
bed and them searching Frank Bodine’s house.
THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD
Amanda King finished drying up the
last of the dishes and put them back into their respective cupboards. Still thinking about the earlier
conversation with her 'husband', secret agent, Lee Stetson, she walked back slowly to the lounge and
stared at the less than comfortable looking couch that was to be her bed for
the night.
"The senior agent always gets
the bed," she muttered angrily to herself, recalling Lee's words from
earlier. "So much for good old
fashioned male courtesy."
She walked over to the couch then
picked up the cushions and fluffed them with more fierceness than was necessary
in order to arrange them into comfortable pillows at one end. Job done, Amanda's annoyance rose another
notch, but this time at herself, as she looked around the room and realised
she'd forgotten to ask Lee to bring her down a blanket.
She glanced at her watch and saw that
it had only been fifteen minutes since Lee had gone upstairs. 'He won't be asleep yet,' she thought to
herself, 'I'll call up and get him to throw one down.'
Amanda walked out into the hallway and
stood at the bottom of the stairs.
"Lee?" she called out and then waited. Nothing.
"Lee, can you hear me?" she called again, louder this
time. "I need a
blanket." Still no reply.
"I don't know how he survives
sneak attacks if he can't even hear 'me' calling him," she muttered as she
stomped angrily up the stairs.
Once standing outside the bedroom
door, it took all the willpower not to grab hold of the door handle and barge
straight in unannounced. Instead, she
raised her hand and knocked loudly on the door. "Lee," she called, "can I come in? I need a blanket for downstairs." The silence that met her enquiry, finally
snapped her remaining patience.
"Fine, well, I'm coming in anyway."
She opened the door and stopped to
let her eyes adjust to the darkness inside the room. Using the light shining in from the hallway, Amanda found the
light switch and flipped it on. Her
eyes narrowed as she looked at the bed and saw Lee sprawled out on his back in
the middle of it apparently sound asleep.
"Nice to see someone is getting
some rest," she mumbled crossly before walking over to the built in
closets to search for a blanket. When
she found nothing in the first closet, Amanda couldn't resist the urge to slam
the doors shut with a loud bang. She
looked over at the bed but the only reaction from the figure laying there was
the sound of a soft snore.
Lips pursed in indignation, Amanda
opened the other closet and found what she was looking for. Having retrieved the plaid blanket from the
shelf, she again shut the doors loudly and looked to the bed with the hopes of
waking him up. After being rewarded
with yet another gentle snore, Amanda stalked over to the light switch and
turned it off. "Sweet
dreams," she muttered sarcastically to herself then left the room,
slamming that door after her as well for good measure.
Inside the bedroom, Lee opened his
eyes and couldn't stop the chuckle that escaped him once the room door had
slammed shut. He'd been awake the whole
time and had found Amanda's anger an interesting side to her he hadn't yet seen
properly. Turning onto his side, he
shut his eyes again and let his body relax in readiness for sleep. A smile lingered as he thought how good is
was to know that Amanda had a certain amount of fire in her. 'Maybe there's more to her than I realised,'
was his last thought before drifting off to sleep.
Downstairs, Amanda had turned off the
lights and was laying on the couch trying the get herself comfortable. She turned onto her left side and shut her
eyes hoping that sleep would come quickly.
It didn't. Instead, much to her
annoyance, her mind seemed to want to dwell on the enigmatic man who was fast
asleep upstairs.
Irritated, Amanda turned over onto
her right side and tried to empty her mind but she wasn't successful. With a sigh of resignation, she turned onto
her back then opened her eyes and stared up at the ceiling. She obviously wasn't going to get any rest
until she'd thought a few things out and those 'few things' were obviously ALL
about Lee Stetson.
Ever since he had suddenly appeared
in her life just two short weeks ago, her entire world had been turned upside
down. When she looked back over that
brief time, her life seemed to have turned into something out of a James Bond
movie; car chases, piloting helicopters, Russian agents.
She groaned, "Oh come on,
Amanda, don't romanticise this. You're
laying on an uncomfortable couch that has bullet holes in it's cushions, you're
covered by a blanket that's itching you all over and it's gone midnight. This is 'not' how James Bond does it in the
movies."
She sat up and pushed the blanket
away from her body in disgust.
Scratching her arms, she stood up and walked into the kitchen. She turned the lights on then flipped the
switch on the kettle. Tiredly, she sat
down at the table and waited for the water to boil.
As she listened to the hum of the
kettle, her thoughts went back to Lee.
Amanda couldn't remember ever having met someone that pushed her buttons
the way he did. She prided herself on
her patience but somehow, Lee always managed to get her madder, quicker than
she had realised she was capable of.
What was it about him that irked her most? His constant desire to be rid of her or the total disregard he
seemed to have of her as a person in general.
She shook her head. 'Probably the lack of respect', she
acknowledged unhappily.
Although, what she'd ever done to
upset him so much she was at a loss to understand. After all, it wasn't her fault that Lee had picked her out that
day at the station, it wasn't her fault that there were twenty men in red hats
on the train and it certainly wasn't her fault that Mr. Melrose had decided to
take her on part time.
All she wanted to do was help out,
couldn't Lee see that? She shook her
head again. No, all Lee could see was a
person that he had been forced to work with when he didn't want anyone around
him at all.
She wondered briefly about Lee's
previous partner. It was obvious from
the way he spoke that they had been close.
It was also just as obvious that Lee felt that 'he' should have been the
one to die.
Amanda felt the sadness and sympathy
wash over her at Lee's misplaced guilt.
Although she didn't know the details, she felt certain that if he could
have, Lee would've prevented his partner's death whatever the cost.
True, she'd only known Lee a short
time but she trusted her own judgement and every fibre of her body screamed
that Lee was a decent, trustworthy and honourable man who for all his cold,
uncaring outward façade, hurt as deep as anyone else when it really came down
to it. And hurting he definitely was
when it came to his partner's untimely death.
That's what made Lee so interesting
she acknowledged to herself. His sudden
outburst that day had shown a side of him she doubted he very rarely exposed,
especially to someone he hardly knew.
Sure, he was good looking and charming but one of the main reasons she
stuck around was that she wanted to get to know the real man underneath.
She laughed derisively at
herself. "Like that's ever going
to happen, Amanda. He'll be shot of you
the first opportunity he gets."
She shook her head in resignation and looked at her surroundings. Was getting to know him better really worth
going through all this? She had a
lovely family and a loving boyfriend, so what on earth was she doing here, at
twelve thirty in the morning, thinking about a man who didn't even want to
acknowledge she existed? "Lack of
sleep. It makes you do funny
things," she said aloud and then raised her eyebrows in realisation before
adding, "like talking to yourself".
The switch of the kettle clicked off
making her jump and she got up and poured the hot water into her cup, stifling
a yawn. She padded back to the kitchen
table and sat down again, enjoying the warmth emanating from the mug that both
of her hands encircled tightly. She
raised the drink to her lips and took a sip then put the mug back down as she
yawned again, her eyes feeling heavy. 'I'll just finish my coffee, then try and
get some sleep,' she thought tiredly.
At three in the morning, Lee came
downstairs and entered the living room.
He stopped by the couch but found only a crumpled blanket. Puzzled, he looked around and spotted the
light coming from the kitchen.
"Amanda," he said as he walked in, "it's time to…"
He stopped and gazed down at the
sleeping woman in front of him. Amanda
was sitting down and bent forward, her head resting on her left arm, her right
hand clasping a nearly full mug of cold coffee. He smiled softly and gently took the mug from her hand, placing
it on the other side of the table out of the way. Then he reached out to shake her awake but his hand stilled just
before touching her shoulder.
She looked so peaceful and yet so
vulnerable that he just wanted to leave her there and keep her out of harm’s
way. He wanted to protect her he
recognised with some surprise. It was a
feeling he hadn’t had in a long time and he wasn’t about to welcome it back
with open arms. The smile left his face
and was replaced with a mask of cold indifference. He leant forward and shook her firmly. “Amanda. Amanda, wake
up. It’s time to go and check Bodine’s
house.”
“What?” she mumbled groggily.
“It’s time to go, Amanda,” Lee
reiterated in a louder, more annoyed voice and shook her again.
"All right, all right, I'm
awake, don't shout," she grumbled as she lifted her head and blinked away
the last vestiges of sleep.
"Come on, I'll make you another
cup of coffee while you get ready," he offered in a kinder tone and took
the mug over to the sink to rinse it out.
"Oh, thanks," Amanda
replied in pleased surprise. 'Maybe
that's his way of saying sorry,' she thought as she yawned and got up slowly
then headed towards the door.
"And don't be long!" Lee
called after her as she left the room.
Amanda stopped where she was, looked
heavenwards and gritted her teeth as she mentally counted to ten. "Maybe not".
THE END
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