Lee's jaw clenched and he squeezed his wife's hand tighter as he contemplated everything she'd just told him. After a long moment, he let out a long breath that he hadn't realized he'd been holding until he began to feel a burning in his lungs. He shook his head, looked deeply into her eyes and said, "I love you," as he pulled her to him for a long, lingering kiss tangling his fingers in her thick curly hair.

Amanda enjoyed her husband's attentions for a moment, but then pulled back and looked at him a little disconcerted. "I love you? That's your reaction to what I just told you, to what she did to you?"

"Yes, that's the most logical reaction I could come up with because what Candice did just makes me love you even more, makes me appreciate you even more because you would never do something like that. You'd never be that deceitful, that selfish, that heartless."

"But aren't you angry?"Amanda asked in surprise.

"Of course, I'm angry. What Candice did to me is just as heinous as that of a serial rapist, but what good is being angry going to do me? She's dead and it's not like she can be punished for it now."

"Oh, I'd say she's been punished," Amanda said. "Her obsession with you and with keeping me away from Leah, a child that she used the most disgusting means possible to create is what led to her death. I couldn't think of a more fitting punishment." Amanda thought about what she'd just said and how it sounded, then backpedaled, "That's a horrible thing to say and I know I shouldn't feel happy that she's dead. In a way, I feel partially responsible for her death. If I hadn't tried to force her into giving up Leah to us, maybe she wouldn't have put herself in a position to be in the path of that grenade."

"No, don't you dare take the blame for this," Lee said angrily. "You were just trying to do what you thought was right for my daughter in doing that. That's just one more thing that makes me love you more. You saw that Candice is clearly not fit to be a mother to her and you took steps to rectify that."

"But I did it for partially selfish reasons. I really just wanted her to leave us alone and stop trying to interfere in our marriage and since I tried to blackmail her, that makes me no better than her. It's just when I figured out what she did to you, it...it just made me so sick to my stomach that I just wanted...I wanted her to hurt as much as she hurt you. God, I'm a terrible person."

"No, Amanda, you're not," Lee said gently. "You're very far from being a terrible person. There's your problem. You care so much, that it tears you up to see people hurting and you saw Leah hurting already by the awful environment that Candice was raising her in, then found out what she did to me and you wanted to bring her to some kind of justice, just like you do with any other criminal we chase down. Make no mistake about it, what she did to me was definitely a criminal act, but like you said, in a way, she's been punished for it."

"I was thinking that maybe when you get out of here, you should make an appointment with Dr. Pfaff to deal with this, maybe even recover some of those lost memories."

"No," Lee said adamantly.

"Look, I know you don't like psychiatrists, but it might help."

"No, I don't think so. What good would it do to recover those kinds of memories, to dwell on the past? What I want to focus on right now is making new memories with you and our family and starting a real future together." He then pulled her in again for another deep kiss and this time, she didn't pull back.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The next few days were filled with a flurry of activity for Lee and Amanda, with the two of them having a sit-down with Leah once she was released from the hospital and explaining to her that her mommy was in heaven and wasn't coming back. Instead of crying as they expected her to, Leah quietly pondered the information for a moment, told them that her mommy had told her that that might happen someday. Then in typical four-year-old fashion peppered them with multiple questions, which Lee and Amanda answered as best they could and the conversation finally ended with one final question that threw both of them.

"'Manda, does that mean you're my mommy now?" Lee and Amanda looked at each other questioningly, neither quite sure how to answer. "Well?" she asked impatiently.

"I suppose I could be your mommy, if you want me to be," Amanda answered. "But it's okay if you still miss your real mommy."

"Of course, I miss her, Silly," Leah said as if that should be obvious. "But I still need a mommy and you're a good mommy."

Lee couldn't help but laugh and said, "Yes, she is. In fact, she's going to be a mommy again very soon."

"And you, Little Princess, are going to be a big sister," Amanda said with a smile.

"I am?" she said excitedly as she bounced up and down, "Oh boy!"

They spent the rest of the day buried in paperwork, Amanda to finally legally change her name to Stetson, while Lee, with Joe's help, did the same for Leah, and had papers drawn up for Amanda to legally adopt his daughter. They then had to file an insurance claim on the house to repair the damages, while Dotty arranged to stay with Captain Curt in the meantime, while Lee and Amanda planned to stay at Lee's apartment, Leah sleeping on the couch. They had bought her a set of Wonder Woman sheets to make up the couch with, had tucked her into her makeshift bed with Lois-Ann before turning in for the night themselves. Since she'd taken the new of her mother's death so well, they thought everything was going to be okay until she awoke an hour later screaming.

Lee and Amanda both rushed into the room to hear her crying, "'Manda' help me," the same way she had during the attack on the house.

Amanda, reaching her first, pulled the shaking girl into her arms holding her tightly and whispering, "I'm here, Sweetie. Shhh. it's okay, it was just a bad dream."

"The mean man," Leah whimpered.

Lee sat with them on the couch, stroked her wild blond hair, and said, "The mean man is gone. He can't hurt you ever again. Amanda took care of him."

When her sobbing subsided, they took her into the bedroom with them tucking her and Lois-Ann between them both of them holding her tightly until she felt safe enough to go to sleep again.

The next morning while Leah was in the bathtub and Amanda was fixing breakfast for them, they got into a slight argument as Lee has suggested taking her to Dr. Pfaff to help her deal with her nightmares after her ordeal.

"Oh, I see, it's okay for your daughter to go to a psychiatrist, but not you," she said incredulously.

"Amanda, I don't need a shrink. What I need is just to move on and I'll be able to do that a lot better once we get our family settled. While we're on the subject, it wouldn't hurt for you to make an appointment with him too."

"Me? Why me?"Amanda asked.

"Because, that confrontation with Leah's "mean man" is the first time in your career at the agency that you've ever had to shoot to kill. I know from experience how hard that can be to deal with."

"It's not hard at all," Amanda said. "I did what I had to do to save that little girl's life and I would do it all over again, just like I would for Phillip and Jamie."

"That's just denial, which will come back to bite you in the ass if you don't talk to someone about it."

"You go, I'll go," Amanda said challengingly.

"Amanda," Lee said in exasperation.

"Lee, the woman raped you," Amanda reminded him.

"I think that's a little harsh," Lee argued.

"Really? That's funny because just two days ago you compared her to a serial rapist."

"Okay, okay, I know what I said, but I was kind of in shock then. Now, that I've had time to think about it, it's not that big a deal. I mean, after all, I had to be involved somehow. I'm physically stronger, remember?"

"Now, who's in denial?"Amanda fired back. "It doesn't matter that you're physically stronger. That's why she had to resort to the use of drugs to get what she wanted. Those drugs left you incapable of thinking for yourself, fighting off her advances and saying no to her. That makes it rape, whether you want to call it that or not. Addi Birol pumped me full of mind-altering drugs when he held me hostage, not to mention that I was out of my mind from sleep-deprivation and starvation, having vivid hallucinations that you were there with me. If he'd made an advance like that on me, I wouldn't have had any power to resist him in the state that I was in. I might have even thought he was you. You would have considered that rape, wouldn't you? I mean, technically, you could say I might have given in willingly, since I wouldn't be fighting him..."

Lee looked at her in shock, "Did he...?"

"No," Amanda said. "But I think you get my point."

"Okay, yes, I get your point, I'll go," Lee conceded.

On a warm summer day, a few days later, Lee and Amanda stood at Arlington National Cemetery, Leah between them holding their hands, Francine and Jonathan to their right, Billy to their left, a few other mourners scattered here and there as they said good-bye to Efraim Beaman. They watched as his casket was lowered into the ground. "You know, he really was a good trainer," Amanda said thoughtfully.

"Yeah, though I'm not sure he belongs here," Lee said. "This place is supposed to be for heroes." He glanced off in the distance where he knew his parents were buried.

"We'll go see them before we leave," Amanda said sensing his thoughts. "As for Efraim, he may have done some shady things, but he did die a hero. He died trying to protect our family."

When the graveside service was over, they walked to the Stetsons' graves while watching Francine and Jonathan wander toward Candice's. Lee muttered, "She's the one who really doesn't belong here."

"I don't know. Maybe, in a way, she died a hero too. We couldn't have closed that case and stopped Congressman Mattson and his men without her case files."

"That's stretching it a bit," Lee said.

"Maybe," Amanda said. "But I read all of her case reports through her entire career with the agency and she did do a lot of good work. None of that excuses what she did to you, but she helped a lot of people in her time and saved a lot of lives." She glanced briefly at Francine kneeling at her friend's grave, glad that she and Lee had decided not to tell Francine the truth about Candice. Amanda had destroyed her makeshift file. If someone else in the future would put the pieces together from the pieces of other files as she had, so be it, but since Candice was dead, she felt no need to bring her crime to light. It was better to let her rest in peace since she'd had no peace while she was alive.

"I guess," Lee said as they reached his parents' gravesite.

"These two, though, they were real heroes," Amanda said.

"You mean, because they died for their countries?"

"Yes, but also because they brought you into the world," Amanda said with a smile.

The day after laying Efraim to rest, Billy had offered Amanda his old job for the duration of her pregnancy to keep her out of the field, which she happily accepted while Jonathan helped Lee out in the Q Bureau as he became acclimated to his new job, Amanda still helping from time to time in between her classes.

February 12, 1988

Lee walked to the front door of the Colonial-style house that he and Amanda had moved into with their family the previous summer, setting the alarm before making his way up the stairs. He purposefully walked into each of his children's rooms, one by one, as had become his nightly ritual since moving their family into their new home.

Lee stopped first at Phillip's where he found the almost-fifteen-year-old asleep with a car magazine lying on his chest. He smiled as he pulled it from his stepson's grasp, tossing in on the nightstand, as he thought of all the subtle hints Phillip had been dropping about the fact that he'd be old enough to get his learner's permit in a few months. He thought that if his grades continued to stay on the positive track they'd been on since beginning his freshman year of high school last fall, he might reward him by letting him take the 'vette for a spin around the track, only with him beside him, of course. He gazed at him for another moment before turning off the table lamp and making his way into the next room.

He had to smile again at seeing Jamie also with his light still on, a photography book clutched in his hand and his glasses askew. He bent and gently removed Jamie's glasses from his face, taking the book from his hands and setting them both aside. He pulled the covers up over the sleeping twelve-year-old, brushed a soft kiss to his forehead, thinking of how much harder everything had been on him, having been so young when his father all but abandoned him and now having to deal with all the drastic changes that had occurred in the past few months. Jamie, being the more sensitive and observant of the two brothers, he'd unselfishly pushed aside his own feelings and had thoroughly embraced his role of big brother to Leah. His smile widened as he reached for the lamp and his eyes fell upon the framed coloring book page of Superman, which he now proudly displayed as a reminder of his new role as big brother. He snapped off the light and exited the room, traveling further down the hall.

He stopped in the doorway of Leah's room and just watched her sleeping by the gentle glow of her Wonder Woman nightlight when he was startled by a pair of arms sliding around his middle and Amanda's voice saying, "Making your nightly rounds?" She knew it had become his habit to check on each of their children and make sure that they were safely tucked in their beds before going to bed himself.

He jumped slightly and turned to face his wife. "You're getting way too good at that," he said at her ability to surprise him. He slipped his hands to her ample curves, still rounder than normal from having just given birth six weeks ago.

"You're just going to have to hone those observation skills a little better," Amanda teased.

"Speaking of observation skills," Lee said with a nod toward their sleeping five-year-old, "How do you think she's doing, really?"

"Honestly, I think she's going to be just fine," Amanda answered confidently with a warm smile, "She's stopped having nightmares and Dr. Pfaff says she doesn't seem to have a lot of conscious memories of most of the bad stuff that's happened to her."

"Yeah, he said something during her last session that kids don't retain a lot of memories of things that happened to them before the ages of three or four. I guess maybe that's good thing." He glanced again at his daughter sleeping so peacefully, sighed and said, "I just can't help worrying about her."

"I know," Amanda said, "You wouldn't be the great dad that you are if you didn't worry a little."

"You don't think sending her to Dr. Pfaff is too much do you?" He asked worriedly.

"No, I think it's been good for her. Besides, she adores him," Amanda said.

"That's probably because he always has a freezer full of ice cream," Lee said with a chuckle.

Amanda laughed and said, "Could be." She gazed at Leah for a moment longer and said, "It's been a long road."

"Yes, it has. You know, I was just thinking...Even though she's calling you "Mommy" now, there's going to come a day when she'll want to know about her real mom, about where she comes from and I...I just don't know how we're going to answer those questions, knowing..." His voice trailed off as he became disgusted again at the thought of how she came to be. It didn't change a bit how much he loved her, but the thought of her mother's brutal violation of him that had led to her creation still crossed his mind from time to time, though his own therapy sessions with Dr. Pfaff had been helping just as Amanda had predicted that they would.

Sensing his thoughts, Amanda replied, "I think when that time comes; we'll just be as honest with her as we can. I think we should just focus on the good things about Candice, how she fought so fiercely to protect her for the first four years of her life and while she may have done some unconscionable things in her time, she really was a very good agent. The fact that she was targeted for her case files proves that. I think we should leave out the details of her conception, though."

"Agreed," Lee said as he slipped an arm around her waist and they walked into the nursery together. "Speaking of conception, now that the doctor has released you to resume all of your normal activates, what do you say, when we're done checking on the kids, we go to bed ourselves and start working on the next one," he said with a mischievous grin as he lightly nuzzled her neck.

Amanda wriggled from his grasp, walked to the side-by-side cribs in which infant twins, Matt and Jennie slept. She checked on each of them in turn, making sure that they were covered up, and said, "You don't think five children is enough? We have our hands pretty full now as it is."

Lee crossed the room, grasped his wife firmly by the waist from behind again nipping at the tender skin of her neck, and then said, "Why not make in an even half-dozen."

"Well, Mother and Captain Curt did agree to stay with the children tomorrow night so we could get away for a night to celebrate our anniversary."

"And we are long overdue for some real celebrating," Lee said. "When I think of everything that we've been through together in our first year of marriage, I sometimes wonder how we not only survived it all, but came out on the other side stronger than ever."

"That's was real love is all about," Amanda said firmly as she turned in her husband's arms and kissed him. She thought briefly of poor, dead, Candice and how her dreams of having real love in her life had led to her death before shaking off that thought, turning her attention back to her husband, "Come on, let's go start working on that even half-dozen." She linked her hand with Lee's as they walked to their bedroom together happy in the knowledge that they finally had the life together that they'd both wanted for so long.