Unfinished Business, Unresolved Feelings chapter 34

"I don't like some of what I see in myself and I'm determined to change my life. I'm a work in progress…will you be patient with me for a little while longer", Lee asked Amanda hopefully.

"I love you", Amanda said as she took Lee's hand in hers, "I waited four years to hear those words from you; I'm not going anywhere now that you've finally said them." They shared a tender kiss but Lee sensed that Amanda had more to say in response to his question.

"There's a but coming; isn't there", Lee asked nervously.

"It's not really a 'but'; it's just that I love you the way you are, why do you want to change yourself?"

"You accepted my spending time with your mother yesterday and you're willing to let me meet the boys but can you say that you're completely comfortable with the prospect of them getting to know me", Lee asked as he took a step back from Amanda. "Do you really want your family to be exposed to the great Scarecrow?"

"Of course not", Amanda blurted out.

"I-, Lee began to reply before Amanda interrupted him.

"Let me finish what I was trying to say to you. I wouldn't want the boys to be exposed to Scarecrow but you aren't Scarecrow, you're Lee and there's a huge difference between the two", Amanda said as she stepped closer to him in order to close the physical distance he'd put between them.

"I'm not so sure about that. Did you know that there are people that I've worked with for ten years and they've never called me anything but Scarecrow or Stetson? What does that say about me?"

"It says that you're not the easiest person to get to know but the people who've made the effort to get to know you care about you a great deal. Mr. Melrose and Francine would do just about anything for you", Amanda argued.

"And look at how I just treated them when they tried to help me. I've been taking a very hard look at myself and I don't like what I see. A few days ago you watched me kill a man in cold blood; doesn't that bother you", Lee quietly asked a shocked Amanda. Lee and Amanda walked in silence to a deserted grove of trees so no one would be around to overhear the rest of their conversation.

"You shot Thomas Blackthorne in self defense and to protect me; that is hardly what I'd call a cold blooded killing", Amanda answered, and was surprised that Lee would see it any other way.

"Yes, at that moment I had to shoot him, but it shouldn't have gotten to that point. I could have, should have, gone there with other agents and had Blackthorne taken into custody for his crimes. He would have been tried for the crimes he committed, that would have been justice, and he would have spent the rest of his life in prison. Instead he's dead and I have his blood on my hands; his and so many other peoples", Lee said with a haunted look in his eyes.

"Have you ever killed anyone when it wasn't in the line of duty", Amanda asked, confident that she knew the answer.

"No, I haven't but that isn't what's bothering me. The first time I killed a man I threw up at the scene and then had nightmares about it for weeks afterwards. The second time I didn't throw up but I came close and I replayed the moment in my mind over and over again for days trying to think of some way in which I could have done things differently. What bothers me is that each time I killed it bothered me less afterwards; what kind of person gets accustomed to killing other people."

"I refuse to believe that you've ever taken a life if there was any other alternative and we wouldn't be having this conversation if you weren't still troubled by killing people. You aren't a hit man; you're an agent who acts in the line of duty", Amanda tried to reason with Lee.

"I think I might take more comfort from that thought if the Agency was still being run the way Harry Thornton ran it. Harry founded the Agency with certain ideals in mind; it had a patriotic mission that wasn't to be changed to suit the countries day to day politics. I joined the Agency because I wanted to follow in my father's footsteps in the intelligence community and I believed in the work that Harry was doing. The Agency hasn't been living up to the mission that Harry set for it for years now but I tried not to dwell on that."

"Are you saying that you want to leave the Agency", Amanda asked, alarmed by the prospect.

"I'm not going to go in tomorrow and resign. I know the Agency is very important to you; we wouldn't even have met if it weren't for the Agency, and I won't make any decisions without taking your feelings into consideration. I've been living my life in response to an event that took place more then thirty years ago. I've been blaming the state my life is in on my parents' deaths and the way the Colonel raised me but I've been on my own for a very long time and I can see now that no one but me is responsible for the state my life is in. I know I'm pretty old to be trying to figure out who I want to be when I grow up but that's where I find myself", Lee concluded with a shy smile.

"I think I do understand what you're feeling. I've spent my entire adult life being different things to different people; I've always tried to put what I thought was best for other people first. When I met you that slowly started to change; I started to chase my own dreams again. I guess we're both works in progress. We both have a lot of life altering decisions to make and I'm glad that we're finally really talking to each other again."

"I understand that whatever choices that we make will affect the boys and your mother as well, we need to take this slow and make sure that we get it right. Your family is already very important to me. There is a very important question that I want to ask you when the time is right; are you willing to be patient with me for a little while longer?"

"I love you; I'm willing to wait for you but now that my mother has met you I'm not sure that she'll be that patient with you. She wants to see me happily married", Amanda said with a bright smile.

"I see a happy marriage in our future but I think I should get to know your sons first, don't you", Lee said as he took Amanda into his arms and kissed her. They would face new challenges in the weeks and months ahead but they took comfort in the knowledge that they would be facing them together.

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Author's note: I had originally intended for this to be a relatively short story but my imagination kicked in and this story didn't turn out to be short. I've chosen to end this story here, a few days after the events of Unfinished Business, even though I have a lot of ideas for how this tale could continue. I'd rather leave readers wanting more rather than have readers wondering why I don't know when enough is enough.

Thank you to everyone who stuck with this story over the last few months. I hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I'd like to offer an extra thanks to everyone who took the time to post reviews.