Disclaimer: none of these characters belong to me; they belong to Shoot the Moon Enterprises and Warner Bros to whom I am eternally grateful for the opportunity to take them out for a spin and bit of light humour.

Author's Note: This is a continuation of my AU series "The Sundance Stories" which was developed from a writing challenge to write a story with the premise "What if…" You may need to read the others for this one to make complete sense, but feel free to try it without!

Glazed and Confused

"Mr. Beaman? Can you hear me? Can you open your eyes? No don't try and get up. Just stay still – the ambulance is on its way."

"I don't need an ambulance." Why would anyone think I need an ambulance? he thought and then opened his eyes to find himself staring fuzzily at what he thought might be the coffee shop ceiling. Okay, that might be why.

Despite the advice, he moved to get up, only to find a firm hand pushing him back until his head rested again on some kind of makeshift pillow.

"Honestly, what is it with you guys and always saying you don't need an ambulance?" came that laughing voice again. "Talk about your super-hero complexes."

He looked around for the source of that voice. It was a woman, kneeling on the floor beside him, dabbing a cold cloth on the side of his head. "Why does this keep happening to me?" he heard her say to herself. "Although I suppose I should be happy I'm never the one on the floor."

"I can't see," he muttered thickly.

"Oh my gosh!" said the kind voice, now slightly panicky. "You did hit your head pretty hard but I didn't think-"

"No, I mean - where are my glasses? I can't see anything without them."

"Oh!" She sounded relieved and he watched her fuzzy outline search around the floor, then blessedly, he felt his glasses slide onto his face and everything came into focus.

"I know you, you're Amanda King," he muttered up at his benefactor.

"Yes I am, and I guess it's a good sign you know that since it means you probably didn't hit your head too hard, but I have no idea how you know that because I don't think we've ever actually met."

He paused, trying to take in that extremely long sentence before saying thickly, "You talk a lot, don't you?"

Amanda chuckled, glad to see his mental faculties were still working. "That has been commented on, yes." She shifted to get more comfortable, because her legs were starting to cramp up from kneeling beside the injured agent. "Do you remember what happened?"

He concentrated for a minute, not used to the sensation of having to work for a memory. "It was Walt Kimball. The guy from Munitions? He came into the coffee shop looking like a man who'd seen a ghost and started waving a gun around. A couple of us tried to jump him but he was taking swings at all of us and I think he managed to catch me with the butt of his pistol and I don't remember anything after that."

"Well, I can tell you that part at least – he came tearing out of here, jumped in his car and took off."

"Has anyone called the Agency to alert them?"

"Yes, I'm sure at least one of the half-dozen agents in here called the office," answered Amanda, wryly.

"Ok, good," said Efraim, completely missing the light sarcasm as he concentrated. "Why does my head hurt so much? He only got in the one lucky punch."

"I imagine it has something to do with the giant goose egg you have from when you hit the floor."

"Oh." He lifted his hand to try and feel the bump she'd described only to drop it back to his side with a gasp of pain.

Amanda leaned forward immediately and began carefully feeling his arm, until she reached his elbow, where her gentle prodding provoked a yelp. "I think you may have hit this on something when you went down too."

"Ya think?" Efraim couldn't help snapping.

"Oh good," murmured Amanda under her breath. "Another easy patient." She looked up at the sound of sirens. "That'll be your ride coming now."

"I don't need an ambulance!" complained Efraim again. "I just need to get off the floor."

"Humour me," said Amanda lightly. "I'll get in trouble with Mr. Melrose if I don't make sure you're looked after. And he's already going to be annoyed that I haven't come back with his coffee."

"Fine," grumbled Efraim. He lay there, bracing for the inevitable fussing from the ambulance crew. "Why are you even here for Melrose's coffee? He gets his coffee from the bullpen machine every day at exactly 11:15."

"Well, he does when the machine is working but Fred Fielder managed to do something to it this morning and shorted out that entire corner of the bullpen. Mr. Melrose was going to come over himself but Mr. Belmont needed him for something so I offered to do a coffee run."

"Fred Fielder. Of course he did." Efraim managed to get a wealth of feeling into those few words.

"And why were you here?" asked Amanda trying to distract him.

"Avoiding…" Efraim began before lapsing back into silence.

"Francine?" guessed Amanda. "Why are you avoiding her?"

"I'm not." He peered up at Amanda through half-closed lids. "I'm letting her avoid me with dignity."

Amanda opened her mouth to answer but before she could question him further, the ambulance crew arrived and began to check him over. Amanda moved across the room and righted one of the overturned tables and pulled up a chair. She wasn't sure of the protocol, but she was pretty sure she should stick around for some senior agent to come take charge. If she'd learned anything from that day at the train station it was not to leave a crime scene. At least this time she was warm – and dressed, she chuckled to herself. She looked around the coffee shop, feeling terrible for the poor owner who was gaping at the destruction. It did look a bit like a tornado had blown through. There were another agent being checked by the ambulance crew – it seemed like he had a broken leg from the way they were splinting him but every other agent in the place had taken off in pursuit of Walt. She looked over at the sound of light cursing coming from the paramedic who was dealing with Agent Beaman.

"Ma'am, do you know this man?" asked the paramedic desperately.

"Yes, well, sort of, I mean I work in the same office," answered Amanda.

"Well, he passed out when we tried to put his dislocated elbow back and since he's a federal agent, we're not allowed to take him anywhere unconscious unless he's accompanied – security reasons, you know how it is. Anyway, we can't get hold of anyone at the number he gave us – but if you could come with these two, we can get them moving."

"I'm not really the type of person you need – I'm just a secretary." Amanda wavered, not sure what she should do, but then looked down at the unconscious agent and came to a decision. "Alright, but can you at least try to get a message back to our office to tell them where I've gone? And get someone more official to come?"

The paramedic's face was a study in relief. "Absolutely!"

"Well then, let's get going," she said.

As they walked outside, she glanced down the street towards IFF – all she could see was a sea of people and the flashing lights of emergency vehicles. She wondered if they'd managed to catch Walt yet but at least with that amount of activity going on, no one was going to miss her in the steno pool for a few hours.

Fifteen minutes and an ambulance ride later, Amanda was sitting in a small room off the Emergency department with a still unconscious Agent Beaman. Nurses came and went while she sat flipping through a year-old copy of People magazine. Fortunately there was a phone directly outside the room, so she'd been able to call the Agency and leave a message about the two agents' whereabouts and now she was just waiting for someone to come and relieve her. She was a little worried about Mr. Beaman because he kept waking up and then drifting off immediately with a light snore; she was pretty sure that bump on his head was going to turn out to be more serious than it looked. When they'd came for Agent Bledsoe to take him off for x-rays on his leg, she hadn't been sure what to do but he'd waved her off and told her to stay with Efraim.

"You don't need to look after me – my wife is on her way," he'd said. "But I don't think Beaman has anybody so he'll need company."

And so she'd sat, not really taking in anything from the magazine, wondering how long it was going to take before someone from the Agency came. Even through the closed door, she could hear the sudden ruckus out in the hall. She strained to hear but couldn't make out anything except the fact that someone was trying to shout the place down and someone else, a woman, was giving as good as she got.

"Somebody's unhappy," said a drowsy voice from the gurney.

"Mr. Beaman, you're awake! Oh thank goodness!" Amanda turned to find him blinking at her sleepily. "The nurses will be happy to see that." She walked over to the wall and pressed the call button by the door. "How's your head feel?"

"Like I got dropped on it from a great height," he murmured, closing his eyes again with a grimace of pain.

"No, no, no, don't go to sleep," said Amanda frantically, as she grabbed his hand to try and keep him from losing consciousness. The door swung open and a nurse stuck her head in. "He's woken up, but I think he's going out again."

"I'll go find the doctor," said the nurse. "Try and keep him awake." She swung the door open until it rested against the wall. "And yell if you think he's going out again."

Amanda was now rubbing his arm gently. "Stay with me, Mr. Beaman. They don't want to give you anything for the pain until they get your medical history and you need to be awake for that."

"Why are you here?" he asked, squinting up at her, pain etched on his face.

"They couldn't get hold of anyone else at the Agency to accompany you, so I got recruited. Now, do you think you can try to stay awake until the doctor gets here? You've been out of it a long time, Mr. Beaman. I was starting to worry."

"If we've been dating long enough for you to hold my hand, I think we're on a first name basis by now, Mrs. King. Call me Efraim."

Amanda gurgled with relieved laughter at that quip. "Only if you call me Amanda."

They lapsed into silence which meant that when the couple down the hall began arguing again, they could hear it fairy clearly through the open door.

"No! You are not getting up and going to look for yourself! I don't even know why you think she'd be here! Now don't move, don't get up and lie still!" There was a shriek of annoyance and then "I said don't move!"

"That's the first thing Francine ever said to me," chuckled Efraim from the bed. "If you don't count her screaming 'Get Down!' right before the gunfight started. That woman sounds just like her."

"Was it? That sounds like an interesting meeting – why don't you tell me about it while we wait?" Amanda was grasping at ways to keep him awake.

"Oh it was a real movie moment, let me tell ya. I was still with the FBI then and I wandered into the middle of her and Stetson chasing some guy down on the Mall. Shots were fired, ketchup was spilled – it was ridiculous really."

Just then, the argument began again and Efraim's eyes met hers as they both recognized the man's voice at the same time.

"She went for Billy's coffee and she didn't come back! They said Walt went there first and that they had to call for an ambulance but nobody can remember seeing her anywhere! Now l don't care what you say, if you aren't going to do it, then I am getting up and I am going to check every damn room in this hospital myself!"

"Fine! I'll go but do not make me handcuff you to the bed!"

"Mom and Dad sound mad," commented Efraim dryly.

"Yeah," said Amanda, lips quirking up. "I think I may have missed curfew."

Despite the smile, Efraim could see she was torn about staying with him. "You should probably go calm him down. I hear he's a terrible patient."

"I can vouch for that. I met him when he was unconscious and that was the last time he was easy to deal with." She couldn't stifle a giggle even as she looked longingly at the door. "He kept trying to get up too."

"It's a guy thing," said Efraim. "You know he's going to keep fighting her until you go down there right?"

"Yeah," she sighed. "But he can wait until the nurse gets back."

Just as she said that, however, a frazzled looking Francine appeared in the doorway. "Amanda! You are here! Oh thank God! Lee said you went for – Efraim!" Her eyes went wide and then dropped to where Amanda was still holding his hand. "Why are you here?"

"Getting my tonsils out," he answered laconically. "Did you bring me ice cream?"

"What?" Francine was obviously so shocked to see him that for a split second she'd taken him seriously.

"He banged his head after Walt knocked him out and he's dislocated his elbow," said Amanda with a reprimanding look at Efraim as she stood up. "Did I hear you say you were handcuffing Lee to the bed back there?

Francine dragged her gaze back to Amanda. "Uh yeah, I threatened it but he's not going anywhere – Walt tried to run him over and he's got a broken knee, we think."

"Walt tried to what?" Amanda headed for the door before suddenly stopping and pointing at Efraim. "Can you keep him awake and talking until the doctor gets back?" She didn't wait for an answer; she barely took in the expression of Francine's face before she hurried out of the room and down the hall in the direction of Lee's upraised voice.

"I'm not asking you for confidential information! I'm just asking you as a matter of national security to find out if she's listed as a patient! There can't have been that many of us brought in by ambulance."

"And I've already told you – there were only three agents brought in, including you, and they were all men."

"But she's not an agent, she's a civilian!" Lee's voice suddenly dropped to a wheedling tone. "Look, how about you just turn your back for a second, and I'll just go check…"

Amanda stepped into the room just as he was trying to slide his way off the gurney, and escape the frustrated nurse. "Don't even think about it, Butch! Get back up there or Francine won't be the one who handcuffs you in place!" She walked forward and pressed him back onto the raised bed. The nurse took one look at the way he was obeying this new entrant into the field and fled, with a backwards look of gratitude.

The look of relief on his face would almost have been comical if it hadn't been so heartfelt. "Oh thank God! Amanda! Where have you been? Are you alright? Why are you here?"

"I came with Efraim Beaman and Rob Bledsoe because they were hurt at the coffee shop, and I've been sitting here ever since, waiting for someone to show up and relieve me from babysitting them, only to find that someone is an even bigger baby than them!" She tried to sound stern and keep the laughter out of her voice, and apparently succeeded, although to be fair, Lee was somewhat distracted by the searing pain in his knee. "Now can you please explain to me how I can never leave you alone for five minutes without you ending up flat on your back?"

Meanwhile back in the room she'd just left, there was a strained silence as Francine crossed to sit in the chair. Efraim had leaned back and closed his eyes, the flush of embarrassment creeping into his cheeks.

"You don't have to stay, you know," he finally said, gruffly.

"Actually I do," she answered quietly. When he opened his eyes and looked at her with an inquiring expression, she shrugged lightly and went on. "Billy put in a new rule since Lee almost died from a dose of penicillin a few months back: no leaving an agent alone in the emergency room until they are either admitted or discharged."

"Oh." He considered that answer for a moment. "Well, rules are rules, I guess."

"I would have stayed anyway," she muttered into her lap, but when she looked up, Efraim had slipped back into unconsciousness.