Note: This started as a short character study and got much longer. My muses also really wanted a different ending, but the promo clearly has their face-to-face reunion in the halls at Langley, and I like to stick to canon. Oh well.

The essence of true friendship is to make allowance for another's little lapses" –David Storey

Annie paid the taxi driver with the last of the money Eyal had produced from who knows where in Sweeden and shuffled up the driveway to the brownstone. She was home. After more than a month of hell in Russia, she was returning with little more than the clothes on her back. Hopefully there was still a hide-a-key rock in the bushes. If not, she wasn't sure what she'd do. Call Auggie? Kind of hard without a phone. Her encrypted phone was in pieces in that asshole interrogator's briefcase, and her civilian phone was up in her room. While she'd stood on the sidewalk outside the airport, she'd considered telling the driver to take her to Auggie's apartment, but she changed her mind. She needed to decompress first, she thought, though she was less convinced of that now than she had been an hour ago.

Kneeling on the concrete, she fished through the fallen leaves under the bushes until she found the fake rock. Danielle had insisted on hiding it very well, because she never really needed to find it. Annie had to resort to the rock several times. Pushing hard with her thumb, she got the thing open, and pulled the old, rusty key from the puddle it was sitting in. Please still work. It stuck a little, but it opened the door.

She trudged up the stairs. Everything hurt. A long hot bath was calling her. She started the water immediately, shedding clothes throughout her bedroom as she searched for her civilian cell phone. It was surprisingly where it belonged, on the charger on her bed table. She wanted to at least text Auggie that she was home. She wasn't up for a phone call. She was just so damn tired. The sleep she'd gotten in transit hardly made up for a month of deprivation and however many time zones.

She closed the door and caught a glimpse of herself in the door mirror. Ugh. Eyal was right, she had lost weight. Her ribs had never been this prominent, and her face was drawn. Older. Bruises in various stages of healing speckled her body. Her knees were scabbed. And her scar, well, it hadn't healed well to put it mildly. After the stiches had been removed, she'd done too much too soon and part of the closure had popped back open. What had been a clean line was now puckered and jagged. And oozing. Still. She was going to have to get that looked at.

The hot water was a shock at first, but Annie sank in to her chin. She didn't want to get her hair wet, not when she intended to go right to bed. She closed her eyes, resting her head back against the porcelain. Her life had changed so completely in the last few months. She fell in love with her target. She had been betrayed by a mentor. Simon died, she was shot, and spent a month recovering. She avenged it all and almost lost her life again for it, in a Russian prison. Eyal had done the boots on the ground part of her rescue, but Auggie had engineered it. She knew where his allegiance was. The other back home, she wasn't so sure about. More to ponder.

She really should text Auggie. It was a little lame—okay, it was really lame—but she couldn't muster the energy for more than that. After fishing her hands out of the warm water, she wiped them on her towel and picked up her phone. There was no way to convey all her gratitude in a text message. They needed a very long, face-to-face sit down. Tomorrow.

She settled for: Just got home safe:) See you tomorrow.. She had just set the phone down, hands not yet in the water again, when he called back. She should have realized that would happen. "Hey…" she answered.

"A text?!" He sounded kind of pissed off. Rightfully so. "A fucking text?"

Annie sighed. "Sorry. I'm kind of fried."

"You had to know I would call you back."

"Makes sense now."

"I haven't talked to you in weeks! Weeks where I…," he faltered, then came back in with, "Weeks that I wasn't even sure I'd ever see you again."

She hadn't thought about how this all might have affected him. Again, she should have realized. Now she really wished she'd gone over there. "I wasn't really thinking." She took a deep breath. "I owe you a lot more time than I have the energy to give tonight."

He exhaled. "I just would have liked to see you tonight—well, you know what I mean."

"I do," she told him. She hesitated for a moment before she admitted, "I almost came over. From the airport. Without calling, cause I had no phone."

"I wish you had," he said softly.

"Yeah…" Annie rolled her head back and forth against the hard back of the tub, holding the phone above the level of the water. She almost asked him to come over after all, because he sounded so sad.

"Are you okay?" he asked after a long silence.

"More or less," she answered quickly, grimacing down at her bruised, skinny body.

"Is it more, or less?" he asked, with a tone that had her picturing the familiar scowl of concern on his face.

"Somewhere in the middle," she told him truthfully. "It's been a tough few weeks-"

"—Months."

"Months," she agreed. "I'm exhausted-"

"Don't fall asleep in the tub-"

"How did you-?"

"I can hear the water splashing. And I know you like your long baths."

She laughed. Always looking out for her. "I won't fall asleep. Promise."

After another silence—in which her eyes were getting heavy- he asked, "You're coming to work tomorrow?"

"Mmmhmm," she replied, pushing herself out of the water. He was right, she was going to fall asleep there if she stayed in much longer. So much for a long bath. "Hold on." She put the phone down and wrapped the towel around her. "Okay. Back. I was drifting off."

"I noticed."

"Uh-hunh. I'm out now" She padded into her bedroom, jacking up the heat at the thermostat along the way.

"I should let you sleep."

"I'm sorry," she yawned. "We will find time to talk—really talk, face-to-face-"

"Soon."

"Definitely soon," she agreed. "I'm sorry I was lame and texted you. It's good to hear your voice." More than she realized, again. It seemed she was continually underestimating how much better he made her feel.

"So good," he exhaled. She yawned again. "Get some sleep," he told her.

She crawled onto the bed and pulled the covers up. "Climbing in now," she assured him. "Mmm...a pillow. I haven't had a pillow in so long."

"Cozy?" he asked.

She smiled, wishing for a moment she was curled up in his arms. That was always a nice fantasy. She wished he were here. Not that snuggling up in bed was something she generally did with Auggie—the only times she'd ever slept in his arms had been sitting up on his couch—but, it sure sounded nice. She sighed.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing…"

After a beat, he asked, "You want me to come over?"

"I…" Yes. But that was selfish.

"I can."

As eager as he sounded, she could barely keep her eyes open. "That's tempting," she admitted. "But, no. I'm hoping to be asleep before you could get here."

"I knew I should have started walking when the text came in," he chuckled.

She laughed. He seemed to understand though. "I'll see you at work tomorrow, okay?"

"Night, Walker."

"Good night."

Annie set the phone down on the bed table and closed her eyes. He had her back. Always. Things weren't as easy for them recently as they had always been before, but they cared for each other more than ever. Come to think of it, that was probably why things weren't as easy. It was hard to keep things light and fun all the time when feelings started getting involved. On some level, she was still very attracted to him, but with all that had happened in the last few months, she couldn't afford to think like that just yet. Her heart had been broken—literally and figuratively—and she still needed to process that some more. And he was still dealing with his issues over his own heartbreak. They needed to get their friendship back on track before they could entertain something more. He was way too important to her to mess this up.