DISCLAIMER: Unfortunately
they're not mine, they belong to Warner Brothers and Shoot the Moon Production
Company. I promise to play nicely with them, and put them back where I found
them when I'm done.
SPOILERS:
None, really. This is just a short vignette, set after Burn Out. Ever notice
how Lee always shows up at Amanda's place whenever she's in trouble?
Coincidence? I think not...
RATING: G
Big thanks to
Alliana for beta-reading this. :-)
Feedback:
Always welcome - JenC
NIGHTLY RITUALS
I. Lee
Lee Stetson
blinked and rubbed at his eyes. The data in the reports he was supposed to be
collating seemed to crawl across the page. With a sigh he flipped back through
the sheets of computer printouts until he recognized something. Dammit, he
thought, at this rate I'll be here all night.
"You look
beat." Francine stopped in front of his desk, Billy close behind.
"I'm just
not seeing the connections."
"Why
don't you call it a day? It's not like we need it immediately," Billy
said.
"I really
want to finish it--"
"That's
an order, Scarecrow. You aren't doing any good if you're only reading it with
half a brain."
"Fine."
The
exasperation he felt at Billy's dismissal quickly gave way to relief as he rode
the elevator up to street level and waved goodnight to Mrs. Marston's evening
replacement. Once a problem started nagging at him, he hated to put it aside,
but the thought of a solid night's sleep tempted him.
He stifled a
yawn as he steered his car out of the parking lot. The trip home never took
much of his attention; he drove mostly on autopilot, his attention still held
by the printouts he'd left behind.
The light at
the next intersection flickered to yellow and he braked, then stared at the
street sign. This wasn't the way he'd meant to go, he realized. How had he
ended up here? Clearly this little detour had become too much of a habit.
He cursed
under his breath and gripped the steering wheel, ready to pull a highly illegal
u-turn as soon as he was clear of the intersection. Then he shook his head and
forced himself to relax. He was almost there already; it would only take a
moment, and after that, he could go home.
* * *
The Corvette
purred to a halt and Lee flicked off the lights. Everything looked normal in
the little house across the street. Lights glowed, casting golden pools on the
lawn, though soon after he parked, the upstairs windows went dark. He checked
his watch. Bedtime for the boys. Right on schedule.
He studied the
house and yard. No broken windows, mysterious vans, poisonous reptiles, booby
traps, or lurking shadows marred the peaceful scene. No white slavers, enemy agents, mob thugs, mercenaries or
evil-twin assassins troubled the night. In fact, when he rolled down the
driver's side window, he could hear crickets whirring in the bushes.
"Mother!"
He smiled at
the faint call that carried in the darkness. If she's got the laundry all
folded, he thought, she'll fix herself a cup of hot cocoa and sit down with her
mother to watch some TV.
At that
moment, she'd be in the kitchen, running hot water in the kettle. No doubt she
wouldn't be surprised if he popped up in the window, but he didn't have a
reason to be there and was too tired to think of a pretense.
Sometimes he
wondered what it would be like to come home to a warm, bright, slightly chaotic
place where someone waited to share hot chocolate and ask about his day. Once
in a while he wished he didn't have to skulk in the back yard; there were
moments, standing in the shadows staring into Amanda's kitchen, that he almost
couldn't remember why he had to stay outside.
"This is
a bad habit," he told himself, not for the first time. But what harm could
it do, just to keep an eye on her? Even now, he didn't think she realized how
dangerous their work really was, how ruthless their enemies could be.
"Maybe
that's my fault. Maybe I've been protecting her too much." After two
years, she ought to understand the risks. Then again, he'd thought of it as a
game himself, until the first time someone he cared about died. As he started
the car, a host of faces slipped through his mind: his parents, Dorothy . . .
all the ones he couldn't save. He couldn't change the past, or protect the
world, but he sure as hell could be certain that this little corner of
Arlington would be safe, tonight.
Humming under
his breath, Lee made one more loop around the block, then headed across town to
his own apartment.
II. Amanda
"Mother!
Do you want some hot cocoa?"
"You go
ahead, Amanda." Dotty bustled through the kitchen with a garbage bag and a
cardboard box. "I thought I'd clean out the hall closet."
Amanda
squeezed her eyes shut, trying to remember if she'd left anything incriminating
there. Nope, should be okay. "Are you sure you want to start that now,
Mother? It's late."
"I've
been putting it off for three weeks. I'll sleep better if it's done."
"Do you
want any help?"
"No,
you'll just hover and tell me not to throw things away."
"Well,
I'll just be in the kitchen, then. If you need me." Amanda smiled. If
anyone was guilty of not being able to throw things away, it was her mother.
Fighting the
yawn that had been sneaking up on her for the better part of an hour, she ran
hot water in the kettle and turned on a burner on the range. She spooned cocoa
mix into a mug and added three mini marshmallows, then leaned against the
counter where she could look out the window.
The kettle's
whistle a few minutes later startled her--she'd been waiting for a quiet rap on
the door.
"Silly,"
she told herself, but she didn't look away from the dark patch of night over
the sink. Of course, he never showed up when things were quiet, but he did
always seem to appear when someone was trying to kill her. "I shouldn't
complain."
"Did you
say something?"
"No,
Mother. Just thinking about tomorrow."
She finished
the hot cocoa and licked a bit of melted marshmallow off the rim of the mug.
She really should straighten up the den, or find a book to read or a show to
watch. When had staring out a window into an empty backyard become so
fascinating?
"Bad
habit." She shook her head and carefully set the mug in the sink. No
matter how often Lee Stetson showed up at her back door, it didn't mean he was
falling for her. It just meant he still thought of her as a hapless amateur who
needed constant supervision. And he's right, she thought, remembering all those
bad guys over the past two years who'd just walked right into her home.
"What is
this?" Dotty's voice rose to a squawk. "I wondered what you'd done
with that sweater I gave you for Christmas. You know, the pink one?"
"Oh. My.
Gosh." Amanda darted toward the front hall. She'd forgotten about the pink
sweater--she'd stuck it way in the back of the closet, knowing she should throw
it out but not wanting to because--
"Amanda,
this looks like a bullet hole."
"Mother."
Amanda grabbed the sweater. "Why would one of my sweaters have a bullet
hole in it? Besides, no blood. If someone had shot me, there would be lots of
blood."
"Well,
what *did* you do to it?" Dotty narrowed her eyes, her voice still
suspicious.
"It's
just a snag."
"I've
never seen a snag like that."
"Well, it
was very strange. I was working, doing a . . . shoot. Down by the old
quarry."
"Dare I
ask what IFF was shooting at the quarry?"
"You
wouldn't want to know."
"Probably
not. You couldn't find a film company to work for that hires Robert Redford or
Paul Newman?"
"No,
Mother." Amanda smoothed her hand over the rough, bumpy knit of the
sweater. She knew she ought to get rid of it, but every time she tried, she
pictured Lee winking and brushing his lips across the backs of her fingers, and
then her stomach did somersaults and she just couldn't throw that sweater in
the trash. "Anyway, I tripped and fell, and it caught on some bushes, and
when I got up, there was the hole."
"Amanda.
You've always been so rough on clothes."
"Some
people are worse." One person in particular she could think of,
especially. The man's dry cleaning bill alone must run into six figures.
"Yes,
well, you aren't some people, you're--"
"My
daughter," Amanda concluded with the ease of long practice. "I'll try
to be more careful, I promise."
"Well,
it's ruined. Let me put that in the bag." Dotty reached for the sweater,
but Amanda held it close.
"I want
to try to fix the snag. If that doesn't work, I'll get rid of it myself."
"What did
I tell you? You can't throw anything out."
"Well,
some things just deserve another chance, that's all." She tucked the
sweater under her arm and went into the darkened living room to check the locks
on the windows. She never used to do that, but lately she'd found herself
double-checking security when she thought her mother was otherwise occupied. It
never hurts to be careful, she thought.
As she pushed
on the latch at the top of the first window, she glimpsed movement out by the
street and jumped back. A moment later she laughed silently as she realized it
was just a car pulling away from the curb across the street.
Silly, she
told herself, and then she got a good look at the car's low-slung profile as it
passed under the street light.
Hugging the
sweater tightly, she smiled and watched the red tail lights of the Corvette
disappear into the darkness.
~Finis~
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