Lee and Amanda were working in the Q Bureau re-organizing their case file since their caseload was light for once after several hectic months. They worked in symmetry, Lee half-sitting on the edge of his desk dictating from hand-written reports and case notes while Amanda typed furiously before printing the hard copies, collating the files and placing them neatly into their proper homes in the vault.

Lee stretched and let out a deep sigh. "Do you mind if we take a break for a bit? I feel like I'm going cross-eyes staring at these."

"Well, maybe if your handwriting weren't so sloppy…" she teased.

"Ha, ha," he responded dryly, but then placed a hand over hers with a tender caress to stop her data entry. "Seriously, I need a minute." He gave her a pleading look. "Besides, there's something I kinda' wanted to talk to you about."

Upon hearing the seriousness in his tone, she paused in her work and turned to face him, giving him her full attention. "Okay, I'm listening."

"About Christmas…" He began hesitantly. "It's coming up soon and I-"

"Oh, no you don't!" she scolded. "You're not signing us up for more work again; not this year, Buster! I've had all I can take of being held hostage or…or being shot at on Christmas!" She stood up to stare down at him, a look of forceful determination of her face. "Besides, Billy already approved us taking a week off because this is our first real Christmas as a family and you promised-"

"Amanda, stop," he interrupted her as he rose to his full height and met her eyes as he took her hand in his. "That's not what's happening here. I'm completely on board with a family Christmas. I want that more than I've ever wanted anything. You know very well that I never had that after my parents died because there just wasn't any family left to have it with, but now that I've got my own family, I-" He paused and shook his head. "Listen to me and what you've done to me; I'm even starting to babble like you do. But the point is that I'm not bailing on the family Christmas. In fact, it's just the opposite. I want to do something really special with the boys this year."

"Such as," she questioned warily.

"Well, I was thinking; you and the boys love camping…"

"Not in December," she pointed out. "It's freezing in the woods in December."

"Will you just let me get this out?" he asserted in mock annoyance.

"Okay, okay. I'm sorry." She sank back down into the chair. "I said I was listening and I am." She mimed zipping her mouth shut.

Lee couldn't help chuckling at her action. "Good. Now, I wasn't thinking of camping exactly, but maybe the next best thing." He pulled a glossy, brightly-colored brochure out of his pocket and leaned in close to show it to her. "This place in the Blue Ridge does Christmas vacation packages, cabins with all the amenities; the townies go all out for the holidays for tourist season; they even let you choose and cut down your own Christmas tree to put up." He tapped the brochure. "See? They grow them year-round just for this."

"So I see. It all looks very nice, but-"

"But what? You already know Joe's not going to be around because his parents are springing for that big trip to Europe as a belated wedding present for him and Carrie…"

"Which they wanted the boys to go on too," she chimed in.

"And they chose not to," he reminded her. "They both said they wanted to stay here and spend Christmas with you...or...us, I should say." He still wasn't quite sure how he fit into the whole equation as far as the boys were concerned.

"Yeah, I know." She sighed. She'd hated putting the boys in the position where they had to choose which parent to spend Christmas with, but the elder Kings with their whirlwind trip had left her no choice, so being the conscientious mother that she was, she hadn't said they couldn't go. Instead, she'd decided the boys were old enough now to make that decision for themselves and without her prompting in the slightest, they'd politely turned down their grandparents' invitation.

"So, what's the problem with my idea?" He dropped the brochure in her lap and started counting off on his fingers. "There are a ton of reasons to do it. One, we're not expected at work for a whole week; two, the boys don't have to split their time between parents this year; three, your mother's off to be shacked up with her boyfriend for Christmas..."

"Shacked up? I think it's a little more than that. They've been seeing each other for over a year now and he wants her to meet his family. That's a good thing."

"Okay, maybe that's the wrong phrasing, but either way, it amounts to the same thing; she's not going to spend Christmas with us." He took a breath and continued with his counting off on his fingers, "Now, fourth, my uncle's on assignment in some place he can't even talk about so he won't be joining us for Christmas either and finally, we never did get to take another trip after our honeymoon was ruined, so why not do a family vacation for the holidays?"

"Gee, I don't know, Lee. Things like this can get awfully expensive."

"And we've got the money my uncle gave us as a wedding present once he found out we got married. He even said we should do something fun with it since we didn't get a real honeymoon, so why not this?"

She eyed him suspiciously. "Why are you so keen on doing this? I mean, in all the time I've known you, you've never been one for really getting into the Christmas spirit. So why now?"

"I already told you," he huffed impatiently. "It's our first Christmas together as a real family, so why shouldn't we do something together as a family?"

"I understand that part of it," she explained in a soothing tone as she reached for his hand and began lightly stroking it to appease him. "But we could have a perfectly nice family Christmas right in our own home."

"Sure..." he scoffed. "In the home you shared with your ex that doesn't really feel like it's our home."

Amanda let out a melancholy sigh. "So, that's it, huh? How many times do I have to tell you that you don't have to be jealous of Joe?"

Lee shook his head. "It's not about being jealous, Amanda. It's about the fact that you and the kids have all these memories of being a family with Joe...in that house and I - well, up until a few months ago, I was just on the outside looking in...literally." He perked up a bit and asked, "While we're on the subject why don't we go back to the idea of buying a new house...one that could really be ours? I mean, I know it wasn't really an option when we were still keeping our marriage a secret, but why couldn't we do it now? For that matter, if we're going to be looking at houses, why not look for one big enough that we could..." He hedged a bit as he worried about just how to bring up the next topic.

"We could what?" she questioned and raised an eyebrow in alarm.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly and then said all in a rush, "We could...I don't know...maybe talk about expanding our family. I mean, I know when we were talking about our future when we first got engaged, we didn't really talk much about the idea of us having a kid together...or at least...well...you didn't, but I sort of brought of the subject when I was talking about how I always wanted my kids to have horses and I-I-I- thinks it's worth at least seriously talking about. What do you think?"

"Wow," she replied incredulously. "I...um...I don't know what to say to all this, Lee."

At seeing the stunned look on her face and the frown that accompanied it as she abruptly released his hand, Lee quickly began to backpedal, "You know what? Never mind all that. It was a dumb idea. It would never work with what we do for a living. Forget I said anything about it at all."

"No..." She gave him a half-smile. "Sweetheart, I don't want to forget you said anything. If this is something you really want, we definitely should talk about it, especially since I...um..." She trailed off unable to complete her thought for fear of hurting his feelings.

"You what, Amanda?" He pressed. When she merely looked down at the floor and didn't respond, he questioned uncertainly, "You do think it's a dumb idea, don't you?"

She finally raised her head to meet his eyes again and replied honestly, "No, I don't think it's a dumb idea at all. What I do think is dumb is that we never discussed it before we got married because when two people are thinking of starting a whole new life together, that's something that they really should talk about and make sure they're on the same page." She shook her head and scolded herself aloud, "I should've thought about it too because I learned that lesson all too well with Joe. He and I didn't really discuss what we wanted out of life. I wanted family and a home and he...well, you already know that he didn't or at least not as much as I did and now, it's just the opposite-" She stopped speaking abruptly and clapped her hand over her mouth, wishing she could take back that last statement when she saw the way her husband's face fell.

"You don't want to have a baby with me?" he sniffed, the hurt evident on his face.

"I-" She hesitated as she tried to think of a way to undo the damage. "It's not that I don't. I just...I never really thought about it in any kind of serious way because...like you said...because of what we do for a living. I didn't think it would really be an option...or at least not a wise decision to make. I'm sure you remember that the whole reason we hid our marriage to begin with was because we were worried about how our jobs might affect our family. You even said yourself that one day our family could get into trouble just like Khai's did."

He shot her a skeptical look. "But that's not all of it, is it? You know very well from our conversation with Billy when we first came clean that the Agency does everything in their power to protect families. So, what's really holding you back?" His expression soon turned into one of accusation. "You don't think I'd be a good dad, do you?"

"Lee, Sweetheart, no!" she protested adamantly. "I think you'd be a wonderful father. In fact, you already are to Phillip and Jamie." She grimaced as she thought of what could happen. "This isn't about you; it's about me," she finally admitted. "I'm not sure I want another baby, not because of the Agency or because I don't think you'd be a good dad. It's more because I'm just really getting somewhere here at work. I'm finally considered to be a real agent and no longer an agent candidate now that I've finished all my coursework. Plus, after months of being on light duty after being shot, I'm finally approved for full-time fieldwork again and...and...well, if I were to get pregnant right now, that would set me back again."

"Huh." he snorted as he stepped away from the desk and began pacing. "You're starting to sound like Joe...choosing career over family."

"That's not what I'm doing," she argued as she rounded the desk to meet him mid-step and halted him in his tracks. "But, Lee, you're not being very fair to me by just dumping this on me and expecting me to make a huge decision like this on the spur of the moment."

"You didn't seem to have any trouble accepting my marriage proposal on the spur of the moment. OR for that matter, deciding to keep it a secret pretty damn fast."

"And both of those things are very different from having a baby," she countered. "Look, it's all very good for a man to want a baby and I think it's really sweet that you feel the way you do about it, but it's the women who has to do all the really hard work."

"So, you're saying no, just like that?"

"No," she assured him. "I...um...I'm not saying no...not yet anyway. What I'm saying is that it's not an easy decision to make on a moment's notice. I need some time to think about it. Can you give me that please?"

He was disappointed that she wasn't as excited about the idea as he was, but he conceded, "Yeah. Yeah, sure I can do that. But what about the house thing? Can you a least consider it? Even if we don't have another kid, it wouldn't hurt to shop for a bigger place anyway.. With the boys getting older, they're getting to the point that they're sometimes ready to kill each other with sharing a room. It might be nice for them to have their own space."

"Of course," she readily agreed. "Besides, I don't like the idea of you being uncomfortable living there either. I guess I never really thought about how awkward it would be for you to live in a house I bought with Joe. And as for this trip, I'll make you a deal. We'll put it before the boys just like we did with Joe's trip to Europe and if they're okay with it, then I'm okay with it. I just really don't want them to feel forced into it because then they won't enjoy themselves and that will make Christmas miserable for all of us."

"Okay. That sounds fair. The last thing I want is for our first Christmas together to be lousy for the whole family," he concurred.

"Good. So, we'll talk to them about it tonight at dinner." She gave a nod to the stack of files still on the desk. "But until then, we should get back to work if we want to get all this done. I'm not taking a chance of Billy revoking our leave time because we're behind."

Lee made a sour face, but nodded anyway. "Yeah," he groaned. "You're right. Let's get to it."