Lee slipped quietly into the bedroom he shared with his wife, tiptoeing so as not to wake her, but found himself startled when the bedside light suddenly snapped on. "Hi...I...uh...I'm sorry if I woke you. I was trying not to."

Amanda sat up and responded, "You didn't wake me. I couldn't have slept if I tried...not after..." Her voice trailed off as she bit down on her lower lip.

He shrugged out of his jacket, tossed it aside and sat on the edge of the bed beside her. "I'm sorry," he told her contritely. "I haven't been really listening to you. You know...I...um...I'm beginning to wonder if everyone at the office isn't right about me, you know? That after so many years of being a loner, I'm just not cut out for marriage."

"Lee, stop," she scolded him lightly as she took his hands in hers.

"Do you know they're taking bets at the office on how long it'll be before we end up in divorce court?" He hung his head and let out a deep sigh. He raised his head to look deep into her soulful brown eyes. "What if they're right?"

"Stop," she repeated.

"What if I'm just not-"

"Sweetheart, STOP!" she stated more forcefully. When he gave her a startled look, she gazed at him questioningly. "Do you honestly think that I don't have the same doubts that you do?"

Lee snorted in response. "What the hell are you talking about? You're one of the most confident people I know."

"No, I'm not," she admitted. "I'm scared to death."

"Please," he scoffed.

"No, really. I mean it. Think about it...I mean, really think about it." She let out a deep sigh. "When we were planning our wedding, we didn't plan any of this. We weren't planning on telling anyone about our marriage, remember?"

When he nodded, she continued, "We didn't plan to have everything out in the open or for you to move in and we certainly didn't make any sort of plans for how to manage to merge our marriage with our work partnership. Now, on top of that, we've got not just one, but two babies on the way and that's going to be another challenge." She paused for a moment to take his hands in hers. "I have the same fears that you do," she assured him. "I know that you don't like to hear about my past with Joe, but I-" She sighed again as she thought of how to get her point across. "It's like I told you before, I'm not sure that I'm cut out for marriage either. When I was married to Joe and we started fighting all the time about his travels...I-" She licked her lips nervously. "After a while, I just stopped fighting. It got to the point that there was just no fight left in me."

He chuckled a bit. "You coulda' fooled me."

"It's the truth though and I did some things in those days that I wasn't so proud of...I felt like we kept going around and around and around over the same issues and we could just never agree, so I just stopped telling him how I felt about things. During the times he'd come home, I didn't want the boys seeing us fighting, so I would just shut up, pretend everything was okay, and I'd welcome him home with open arms and-" She flushed slightly at the memories and clammed up.

Lee blanched a little at her confession as he reflected back on their encounter in the dining room. "You used sex as a weapon."

She looked down at their joined hands gave a slight nod. "Like I said, not something that I'm proud of, but after so long, that was really all that Joe and I had between us and I-" She looked back up at him. "That's why I'm afraid," she stated honestly. "When you kept pushing me to talk about the stuff that I didn't want to talk about, I...I guess I kind of fell back on old habits." She frowned as she thought of just how far she'd gone to shut him up. "I don't want us to be like that, but I was so scared that if I told you the truth...that you're part of the problem, it would end up being like Joe all over again. It's stupid, I know because you're not Joe and you're nothing like him, but you're so quick to get angry and you've been hurt so much in your life that I didn't want to do anything else to hurt you."

He clenched his jaw tightly, trying his best not to get angry again and responded, "But you could have given me a chance, Amanda. Don't you see? In trying not to hurt me, you DID hurt me. I have felt so shut out of what's going on with you. Now you wanna' shut me out even more by kicking me out of your therapy sessions just so you can bitch to Quidd in private about your problems with me when you should be talking to me about it."

Amanda shook her head. "That's not why I don't want you in my sessions anymore," she explained. "You and I are in a unique situation. Dr. Smyth even said so. In the entire history of The Agency, there's never been a married couple who were partners, not field agents anyway and it's hard to balance that; it's hard to separate our work partnership from our marriage because we spend so much time together now."

"You say that like it's a bad thing," Lee grumbled. "I love that we're spending more time together, that I get to see you every day, go to sleep beside you every night, wake up next to you every morning-"

She pulled one hand from his and silenced him with a finger to his lips. "I love those things too. Please, don't ever think that I don't. I love you with all my heart, Lee, but the problem is that when we step into the office, we can't be Mr. and Mrs. Stetson. We have to be the professional partners that we're supposed to be when we're on the clock. That means that I need you to start treating me like you would any other agent, like you would Francine...or Fielder...or Beaman..."

"But you're not just any other agent," he protested. "You're my wife."

She shook her head again."Not when we're at work. You have got to stop thinking like that...and I do too. That's why I've been going so crazy over this shooting. I can't help thinking that if I weren't your wife and thinking about being your wife, maybe...maybe my first thought wouldn't have been shooting her, but trying to disarm her or talk to her. You know me, talking's my thing." She smiled at him.

"Oh, believe me, I know that," he replied with a laugh.

She looked down again, not daring to face him. "I wanted to ask you about something," she stated hesitantly.

He cupped her chin and nudged her head up to look at him. "Anything."

"While I do need to deal with my own feelings on this shooting by myself, I think that it might be a good idea to have us...as a couple, I mean...have our own sessions. I know you're not a fan of Dr. Quidd's, but it wouldn't have to be with him...Maybe Dr. Pfaff or even Dr. Joyce. You know, she helped me a lot after what I went through with Birol and I...I was just thinking that it might do us some good to be able to talk with one of them about the struggles we're going through in trying to blend our two separate lives. I don't mean just the work stuff, but the couple stuff. We've both been alone for so long that that makes it even harder to adapt and I- I understand how you feel about shrinks, but-"

It was his turn to silence her with a soft kiss to her lips. "Consider it done."

Her eyes lit up. "Really? You'll do it?"

He nodded firmly. "Yeah. If you think it'll help, absolutely. Just tell me when and where and I'll be there."

She gave him a disbelieving look. "Are you sure?"

He nodded and looked down to where he had one hand still clasped with hers. "Um...but I...uh...I need to ask you something now."

She lightly caressed his face and urged him to look at her. "You can ask me anything."

He looked at her doubtfully. "And you'll answer me honestly? Even if you think it might hurt my feelings?"

"Yes," she promised sincerely.

"Billy said some things..." He let out a deep sigh and ran a hand through his hair. "It's similar to what you said, but he put it a bit more bluntly than you did. I need to know if you really feel that way or if it's just Billy getting-"

"Just ask me," she probed.

"He...um...he said that I'm suffocating you. Am I? I mean, do you really feel that I am?"

She took a deep breath and nodded. "Yes." At seeing the downcast expression on his face, she quickly added, "But only at work...and with work-related stuff. Not here at home. There have been times...too many times to be honest that our work life has crossed over into our home life. I admit that I'm just as guilty of that as you are and we both need to figure out how to stop bringing the office home with us."

He nodded firmly. "I'll try."

"I will too. You know, it was easier for me to keep work away from the house before we were married; when Mother and the boys didn't know anything. Now, that everything's out in the open and you're my husband and not just my partner, it's different. It's harder to separate those two roles."

"And I've lived for nothing but the job for so long, it was just always habit to take my work home with me. I wasn't like you. I didn't have anything else at home."

"I know, Lee. Which brings us back to getting some help to deal with it because let's face it, we're not doing so good on our own here."

"You're right. I-" A guilty look crossed his face. "I'm sorry for taking off on you tonight. I think you know by now that I don't deal well with hurt feelings. My instinct is to run..."

"And bury your feelings," she finished for him. "Yeah, I know. Mine is to put everyone else's feelings ahead of my own which is why I didn't say anything to you before."

"Well, in a way you did. I just wasn't listening," he admitted.

She looked at him curiously. "How so?"

A few months ago when you were working on that Statik Aerospace review for Beaman's class. You were so excited about it and you even said it made you feel good to do something on your own..." He swallowed hard. "..without me."

"It really did. That's not to say that I want to stop working with you or for us to stop being partners. That's the last thing that I want. I just need you to treat me more like an equal. I know you're the senior agent, but I'm not a rookie anymore and I need you to respect that."

"I'll make you a deal," he suggested.

"I'm listening."

"I'll work harder at not sheltering you so much, if you agree to be honest with me from now on about it. Sometimes, I may not even realize that I'm doing it. Billy pointed out several times that I didn't even really think that was what I was doing, but now I see-"

Amanda interrupted his statement with a tender kiss. "Thank you, Sweetheart."

He ran his hand down her face and commented, "You look tired. I should let you get some sleep and we can talk about this more in the morning."

"You need to sleep too," she pointed out.

"I just wanna' jump in the shower real quick and I'll join you soon."

"You sure you don't want me to join you in the shower?" she teased.

"I think that's the last thing either of us needs right now," he replied pointedly.

"Probably right," she nodded as she released his hand, gave him one more quick kiss, snapped off the light and slipped back under the covers.

As he showered, Lee continued to turn all the events of the day over and over in his mind, from Billy's lecture to his chat with Quidd; from the fight with Amanda to the conversation they'd just had. All this time, he'd been thinking that he was doing the right thing by her in trying to keep her safe and out of the line of fire, but now... His thoughts continued to torment him as he dried his hair. How could he have been so wrong in his thinking? Was he really hurting her more by not letting her spread her wings a bit? It certainly seemed so.

He knew he needed to make a change, but how? He'd lost so many people close to him in his lifetime...nearly everyone he'd ever loved. He thought back to that horrible day when he'd seen Amanda in the rental car gushing blood from the gaping hole in her chest and that imagery would never leave his mind or the image of her flat-lining; his terror in that moment that he'd lost her forever. How could he forget those things or at least push them aside enough to do what she was asking?

As he left the bathroom, he paused for just a moment to gaze longingly at the peacefully sleeping form of his wife. Could he really do it? Let her experience the more hazardous side of the job they did? Would he be able to set aside his fear for her safety and his fright of losing her enough? That thought filled him with dread, but would he lose her in a different way if he didn't? Her marriage to Joe had fallen apart because he didn't seem to have any respect for what she wanted. Would they end up going the same way? He thought of the two tiny lives she carried inside her. They'd be at risk too if he gave in to her, but their marriage might be at risk if he didn't. Would he one day be having the same arguments that she was currently having with Joe over when he could see his children? NO, he told himself. He wouldn't let that happen. He'd made her a promise and he intended to stick to it.

He finally slipped into bed beside her and the moment that he did, she cuddled up to him, threw an arm across his chest and without fully waking, sleepily murmured, "I love you."

He patted her hand, scooted closer to her, and responded, "I love you too." He wrapped himself around her and held on tightly as he fell into a tortured sleep, his thoughts of losing her plaguing him for the rest of the night.