Lee leaned back in the armchair, legs stretched out in front of him, coffee cup balanced on his chest and surveyed the room through half-lidded eyes. He was blissfully full of turkey, sweet potatoes and something he couldn't quite place for a moment. He let his eyes drift around the room, Joe and Carrie at the kitchen table playing Trivial Pursuit with the boys and beating them mercilessly despite Curt hanging over them and whispering the more obscure answers; Lillian, Dotty and the Colonel raucously comparing favorite old movie stars; Amanda deftly moving among them, topping up coffee cups and contributing to each conversation as she passed. That's when it hit him - that thing he couldn't place was contentment.

"You did good, Scarecrow."

He looked to his right; Francine was lounging in a chair beside him – she'd obviously been watching the rest of the room as well.

"I did?"

"Did you ever imagine yourself like this?" she asked, waving her hand gently at the noisy crowd. "Sitting in the middle of a Norman Rockwell Christmas cover?"

Lee's lips twitched. "There may possibly have been a time I thought this was the definition of Hell."

"And I would have been there, right alongside you," agreed Francine, grinning.

"Would have been? Not anymore?" he asked.

"Well, I can see the charm now, and while this still isn't what I'd want, it looks like it suits you down to the ground," she replied.

Lee looked around, unable to keep from grinning. "I wouldn't have believed that a few years ago, but you know what? It does."

"So what is it about all this that appeals to you? The noise? The crowd? The nosy older relatives?" she asked archly, then dropped her voice. "The generosity and stamina of the American housewife?"

Lee leaned in and looked her right in the eye, dimples on full display. "Yes."

Francine couldn't keep a straight face any longer and burst out laughing.

"You never thought about anything like this?" he asked, honestly curious.

"Not really, no." She stopped and reflected on that for a moment. "I mean, I had a lot of fun with Efraim's family the other night and today's been great but I couldn't do this all the time – I like my quiet, and not having to answer to anyone."

"Well, it's not like this all the time," said Lee, seriously. "Mostly it's just…us."

"Us?" she echoed quizzically, reaching out to pat his hand. "That sounds so cozy."

"What he's not telling you is how he hides at his apartment when he can't take it anymore," Amanda leaned in conspiratorially as she caught the tail end of the conversation.

"One time," Lee said defensively. "I hid out one time!"

"For a whole weekend," Amanda added, with a wink at Francine.

Francine looked back and forth between the partners. "And you weren't mad?"

"Only that he hadn't asked me along," chuckled Amanda.

"Well, if I'd invited you along, I wouldn't have been alone, would I?"

"That's true," said Amanda, eyes twinkling. "And to think people always forget that the Scarecrow actually had brains all along." She ruffled his hair, then moved off to clear some of the dessert plates that were scattered around the room.

Francine watched as Lee's eyes followed her automatically. "You should marry that woman."

His eyes shifted from Amanda to meet hers. "I did."

Lee was no fool – he knew that if Billy and Dr. Smyth knew, it was only a matter of time after the holidays before Francine knew too. But if he'd thought he was going to get a reaction to that though, he couldn't have been more wrong.

"Yeah, I thought you might have," said Francine. She couldn't help smiling at way his mouth fell open. "After California, you were…" She turned to watch Amanda flit around the room – happy and healthy now, but nonetheless changed from the woman she'd been before that day. "Different," she finished. "It seemed kind of inevitable after that. But I still wish I'd seen it."

Lee stood up and gestured to the front hall. "Come and get some fresh air."

Francine stood up and followed him as he grabbed their coats and called out, "Amanda, we're going to go walk off some of that dinner. Wanna come?"

Amanda glanced between the two of them, reading the body language there. "No, you two go along. I'll put on fresh coffee for when you get home."

Lee helped Francine on with her coat, then led her out the front door. By some kind of agreement, they didn't speak for the first few minutes, almost as if they both wanted to be sure to be far away from any possibility of being overheard.

"That's not why we got married," said Lee finally.

"No?"

"I didn't marry her out of pity or whatever it is you're thinking." He chanced a look at Francine as she trudged along beside him through the light skiff of fresh-fallen snow, watching her eyes narrow as she considered that. "We were married before we went to California."

Her head swivelled, her eyes lifting to meet his. "Before you left?"

Lee nodded. Francine turned her face back to stare straight ahead.

"I'm oddly relieved to hear that," she laughed. "It's better knowing you didn't finally get married for such a terrible reason. So how come you're telling me now?"

"Dr. Smyth found out. We're going to have to come clean – and I didn't want you to find out from anyone else." he admitted. At her intake of breath, he rushed on. "I'm sorry."

"As you should be. You should have known I'd keep that secret for you." She let that sink in for a moment before adding, "But I think I get it. When I see you back there…" she pointed her thumb over her shoulder back at the house. "That's a pretty tangled web you two have built yourself, but when I said you were different now, I didn't mean that was a bad thing."

"No?"

"No." She slipped her arm through his and tugged him in close to her side. "It suits you."

"I thought you'd be mad at us." He still wounded worried.

"Lee, I've been walking in on you two in compromising positions for years – did you honestly think I was going to faint away from shock at finding out you're married? And like I said, you did good." She gave a little laugh. "So that time I told you I couldn't let you be normal? I was already too late, wasn't I?"

"Kinda – we'd been married a couple of months by then," he grinned down at her and watched her face light up with laughter.

They reached the corner and turned to continue around the block. The two friends strolled in companionable silence for most of it but when Lee unconsciously picked up his pace as they got closer to the house, Francine started to laugh. Lee looked at her as she stopped and beamed up at him.

"Just look at you, Scarecrow! There's no place like home!" she crowed, clicking her heels together.

Lee had to laugh along with her, even as he gazed at 4247. The lights he'd helped put up were twinkling gently in the dusk and every window was lit up with a warm glow that reflected the warmth he knew was waiting for them inside. "No, there isn't," he agreed.

Much later, long after everyone had left, Lee and Amanda were curled up in a family room armchair, enjoying the peace and quiet. Francine had offered to take the Colonel and drop him at the Officer's Club where he was staying - despite Lee's protests about having room at the apartment - and Dotty and Lillian had long since gone to bed, but the boys were flaked out on the sofa where they'd fallen asleep in the middle of a movie marathon.

"That was a good day," said Lee, tired contentment audible in his voice. "Thank you."

Amanda lifted her head from where it had been tucked into his collarbone and looked at him with surprise. "What are you thanking me for?"

"I don't know – for making it so nice, I guess. I mean, this year… it's different. I feel like I belonged."

"Lee Stetson!' Amanda slapped his chest lightly with mock outrage. "You have always belonged." She pressed back into him and nuzzled his cheek. "To be specific, you belong to me."

"Ditto," he smiled and turned his head to take her lips with his.

Several languorous kisses later, Amanda snuggled back into his body with a happy sigh. Lee knew she was perilously close to falling asleep in his arms, and that he should probably make a move to rouse the boys as well, but for now, just for now, he looked around the room, reflecting on that wave of contentment that had hit him earlier.

He hadn't been entirely truthful earlier when he'd told Francine this had once been his idea of hell. He'd spent more Christmases than not feeling a little bit like the Little Match Girl: on the outside, looking in – but he'd never lost that echo of a happy family buried somewhere deep inside. He could still remember that insane moment on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial years ago when Amanda had asked him if he had anywhere to go for Thanksgiving and he'd wanted – just for a moment, but a moment nonetheless – wanted so badly to say he didn't and take up whatever invitation would have inevitably followed.

"What if I had?" he found himself thinking, looking around the quiet room. "Would we still have ended up here?" He laughed softly into Amanda's hair. "Not a chance."

He remembered what he'd been like back then – if Dotty and the boys had met that Lee Stetson, he'd have been politely tolerated for the duration of the meal and then gently deposited back into his old life never to be seen again and spoken of only as a bad memory.

"Oh Amanda, remember that time years ago you brought home that awful man you'd helped from being mugged? So good looking but so rude! What were you thinking?"

"I don't know Mother. I was just being polite – I never thought he'd take me up on it."

"Well, at least he didn't like Dean either – boy, you sure could pick 'em, Mom…"

He chuckled out loud again, this time loud enough to make Amanda lift her head and smile sleepily at him.

"What are you so happy about?" she smiled, running a fingertip along the dimple in his cheek.

"That I didn't come home for Thanksgiving that first time you invited me," he answered and watched her face light up with laughter. It didn't even surprise him anymore that she'd instantly understood what he meant.

"Can you imagine?" she said. "Mother wouldn't have known what to do with herself with the old Scarecrow."

"I bet I wouldn't have been shanghai'd into protective detail on a shopping trip," he chuckled.

"You might have," she teased. "Mother does like having a big strong man on her arm. Just like me," she went on, interspersing her words with light kisses. She paused and gurgled with laughter. "I'm glad you had a good Christmas – remember last year when you thought everyone would wonder what you were doing here? And just look at you now – this year they'd all have been upset if you hadn't been here."

"Well, that's all you."

"No, it's all you," she said, poking him in the chest before snuggling into him again. "It's not like I could force them to like you, but they do - and now it wouldn't be the same without you."

Lee looked around – at the tree he'd helped cut down and decorate, at the figurine of lovers he'd picked out knowing it would make Amanda give that long low laugh of pleasure, at the Santa photo the boys had blackmailed him into… She was right - somehow, without Amanda doing a thing except love and encourage him, somehow he'd been woven into the fabric of their Christmas traditions just as Dotty had told him would happen.

He looked over at the boys who were dozing three feet away, mouths slightly open and looking much younger than they did when they were awake. The rush of fierce protective emotion surprised him just as it did every time. He wanted to belong here, he wanted to be here, he wanted… this.

When Amanda yawned again, Lee sighed. "I should head home," he murmured against her cheek.

"Don't be silly," she said, half-asleep already. "You are home."