You Can Open Your Eyes Now

By Hazelmist

Summary: Thanks to Annie, Auggie's having a rotten day. But perhaps she can make it up to him…

A/N: SPOILERS FOR 2.07. I really thought that the flight attendant's name was Rizoli or something like that, haha, I think I'm seriously going deaf cause all of the websites I checked are telling me her name is Franka so Franka it is.

Auggie Anderson was ready to kill Annie Anderson, even if she didn't technically exist. Not only had she ruined his plans for a wildly romantic evening with a sexy British flight attendant by dragging him back into the CIA headquarters, but for the last six hours he hadn't been able to get a single thing done. And it was all her fault.

"Oh, my god! What happened?" The girl at Starbucks gasped. Auggie lied and told her he'd been in a fist fight on a bad ass mission in Tokyo.

"Does it hurt? You look like you're in pain." Barber observed with his mouth full of food as usual. He didn't seem to grasp the fact that Auggie was glaring at him because he'd left cheetos on his keyboard.

"Are you okay?" Margaret asked nervously. "I could get Annie – or the first aid kit? Okay, I'll just go now."

"Do you need me to kiss it better?" Bea asked breathily, leaning so close that Auggie started coughing as he was engulfed in a cloud of her cheap perfume.

"Did you get arrested again?" Joan had to ask. "Auggie, please tell me you weren't off trying to get yourself killed again like the last time I gave you a vacation."

Jai didn't say anything at all, but he did walk by Auggie's office at least fifty times and each time Auggie could hear him sniggering at him. Each time Auggie had to pick up something to squeeze just so that he wouldn't ring the smug bastard's neck.

It was Annie Walker's reaction though that had ultimately derailed him, which made sense, considering how he had gotten into this mess in the first place. He was still in shock. She hadn't sniggered, interrogated him, propositioned him, pitied him, or ran for cover when she heard him coming. Instead she tucked her arm through his and walked him into his office, chattering about how terrible trivia night had gone with Danielle as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. She had him laughing by the time she was forced to retreat back to her desk. Auggie was so blown away by her reaction or rather lack of reaction that he wondered if maybe Annie was the one that was blind or if he was missing something important. For the rest of the day he was unable to focus on anything but Annie. It was disconcerting. He was supposed to be furious with her, but he wasn't and he could not for the life of him understand why.

She had ruined his day, beginning with the ten A.M. wake up call on the second day of what had been shaping up to be a very enjoyable and satisfying vacation with an incredibly sexy British flight attendant he'd met in Istanbul. They'd been right smack in the middle of "catching up" again when Franka's phone rang for the third time. Auggie had silenced his phone the night before after he'd realized that Annie really was going to text him every time they got a trivia question that stumped her and Danielle (which turned out to be every three minutes), so he was surprised when Franka finally answered and then immediately handed the phone over to him.

"I think it's your wife again," Franka informed him. Auggie rolled his eyes skyward but took the phone, already knowing exactly who was on the other end.

"Annie." Auggie Anderson sighed into the phone, stepping just out of earshot of the attractive British flight attendant. "Now's not really a good time."

"So, that's why you've been ignoring my last six calls, my fifteen text messages and that email. I had a hunch," the familiar voice drawled.

"Annie, I'm really busy right now," he hissed under her breath. He could practically feel Franka suspicious gaze burning into his back.

"Well, so am I. Joan ordered me to get a hold of you three hours ago but since you've been screening your calls, I'm on her shit list."

"I'm on vacation," Auggie grit out, though he knew it was futile. He already knew what was coming.

"And it was my day off but that didn't stop them from dragging me in so I could track you down," Annie huffed.

Auggie closed his eyes and ran a hand through his hair. Sometimes he really hated his job.

"When?" he asked resignedly.

"Well, they wanted you here three hours ago but I bought you some time. They think you went to visit your brother in Philadelphia and you're in a car on your way back… So, that gives you roughly-"

"An hour," Auggie finished, pressing his watch just to be sure of the time.

"Auggie, I'm sorry but I had to tell them something. I was afraid I wouldn't get a hold of you in time." Annie sounded so apologetic that Auggie found himself actually feeling guilty for snapping at her.

"Thanks for covering for me, Annie," he said gratefully. "I promise I'll make it up to you. Drinks tonight?" he offered.

"You're buying," she told him.

Auggie laughed and hung up.

He turned and dropped the phone on the hotel bed.

"Sorry, I have to go. That was my-"

"Wife?" Franka finished for him. It wasn't a question.

"She's not my wife. I don't have a wife," he said again but he could sense that Franka wasn't listening.

There was a rustling sound and Auggie heard her getting up and out of the bed.

"She's just someone I work with," he tried to explain but that wasn't quite the truth. Annie was more than just a co-worker. She was one of his closest friends.

"Instead of coming back here to spend the night with me – after I flew all the way to D.C. just to see you – you're going for drinks with your co-worker?" The Brit snorted contemptuously and he could hear her gathering her things and shaking her head. "No, I don't buy that. I've been with enough men like you to recognize that look on your face."

Auggie knew enough about women to know that at this point he should've promised to ditch Annie or made up some elaborate excuse as to why he had to go, but he was distracted by what she had said.

"What look?" Auggie asked, abandoning his search for his clothes.

"I have no qualms about sleeping with married men, but what gets me is when their wife cares enough about them to track down my number just to see if they're alright, and then I realize that stupid bastard is just as in love with her as she is with him. I can't tolerate that kind of idiocy," she snarled, tossing his jeans at his feet. Auggie made no move to pick them up.

"Wait." He folded his arms over his chest and grinned. "You've come to the conclusion that that Annie and I are married and love each other, based on a phone call?"

"It was in her voice and it's all over your face. I don't know why I let myself get dragged into this again. I should've seen it the last time."

Auggie laughed at the absurdity of the situation. He shook his head.

"Franka, Annie's just a friend."

His shoe came out of nowhere, smacking into the left side of his face so hard that Auggie swore. Good thing he was already blind.

"Prick," she spat, hurling the second shoe. Auggie heard it bounce off the television behind him. "I can't believe I just wasted my mileage and time on some blind idiot."

And then before he could even figure out what just happened, she was gone.

"How'd you get Franka's number?" Auggie asked, setting his beer back down on the table hard enough to rattle Annie's glass. It had been a long night at the DPD but Auggie had worked hard to make sure that he finished up in time to buy Annie the drink that he'd promised her just so that he could get some answers for the questions that had been plaguing him ever since Franka stormed out of that D.C. hotel room.

"That's classified," Annie replied smugly.

"Annie, I'm walking around with a black eye because Franka was so adamantly convinced that you were my wife that she threw a shoe at me." Annie gasped as he leaned toward her. "I need to know what you did to get that number."

"Auggie, I'm so sorry," Annie apologized again, closing her hand over his. "Joan told me to think creatively and so I told her that I was your wife and that it was an emergency. It was the fastest way I could think of to track you down. And since it worked so well that first time…" Annie trailed off, leaving Auggie to fill in the gaps.

"Well that definitely explains a lot," Auggie said after a pregnant pause. He picked up his beer and drained the remainder of the glass in one gulp.

"Are you mad?" Annie asked in a small voice.

"No," Auggie admitted, shocking both him and her. There were easier ways to get a phone number at the CIA. It would have taken Auggie less than three minutes to hack into the airline's employee database but there was a reason why they'd kept Auggie on even after he was blind.

"I'll buy the next round," Annie offered quickly.

"I think that would be a good idea," Auggie agreed, nodding.

"So, you're really not mad…?" Annie asked again when she returned with their beers and set them down in front of him. She nudged the cold glass against his fingertips and he carefully rearranged his hands to accept it. He took a long sip of his beer, before lowering it to the table and shaking his head.

"Nah, she was obviously crazy."

Annie laughed weakly.

"And she had very good aim," she observed. Suddenly, her cool fingers were against his face gingerly touching the spot where the flying shoe had struck. He froze, allowing her to gently trace the bruised skin. She sucked in a sharp breath as he automatically flinched when her fingers got too close to his eyeball. "She could've taken out your eye, Auggie!"

"Fortunately for me I'm already blind in both eyes," he reminded her bitterly. He batted her hand away before she managed to poke one of his useless eyeballs out.

"I know that you're blind," Annie sighed. "But I still love your eyes."

"Now, you sound like Bea. She wanted to kiss it and make it all better."

"Did it work?" Annie asked.

"I don't know." He shrugged. "I inhaled so much of her perfume that I started choking."

Annie giggled and Auggie smirked as he took another drink from his beer. He went to put it down and found Annie's hand instead. She took it from him, setting it aside.

"Hey, that's my beer," he protested, trying to reach for it without knocking any of the glasses over. "Drink your own."

"Relax," Annie chuckled, and he was suddenly aware of how much closer she was. "You can have it back in a minute. I just wanted to try something."

He felt her hand cup the side of his face, her thumb brushing over the black eye. Her breath tickled his face as she leaned closer and his eyes instinctively closed. She pressed a feathery kiss to his right eyelid.

"Wrong eye," he whispered when she started to pull back.

"Shh." She pressed a finger to his lips. "I'm getting to that." Her lips then ghosted over his left eyelid, so lightly that he wondered if he was just imagining it. The gesture was so tender that Auggie swallowed.

"There," she whispered, letting her hands slip from his face. "You can open your eyes now."

Auggie opened his eyes slowly, half expecting to see her for the first time. But he was met with darkness, the same darkness that he had been plunged into four years ago in the desert. Or was he?

"Feel better?" she asked quietly.

For the first time since he had met Annie Walker, he finally saw her. After almost two years of hearing and smelling and feeling this woman every day, he finally saw what everyone had been able to the moment they first walked into the DPD together.

Annie Anderson may have been a figment of her over reactive imagination, but the British flight attendant had been right about one thing. He had been completely blind to the fact that he was head over heels in love with Annie Walker. But now he could see it.

"Auggie?" Annie touched his arm.

Auggie inched forward, slowly, hesitantly, following the scents and sounds that had become so accustomed to him that he had taken it for granted. When he found her face, he kissed her. Annie stiffened and Auggie wondered if it had been a mistake. Maybe it was too soon. Maybe he had misread everything. Maybe she was blind to it too. She pulled away from him.

"Do you have any idea how long I've been waiting for you to do that?" she asked him.

Nope, apparently he was the only blind idiot.

"Sorry, I'm sort of blind," he joked, gesturing to his eyes. "But someone finally opened my eyes for me."

"You're lucky that you've got pretty eyes or maybe I wouldn't have been so forgiving."

He kissed her again before she could change her mind. By the time they broke apart, hastily paid the bill, and disentangled themselves long enough to allow Annie to drive them back to his apartment, Auggie was feeling a lot better and had already decided that there was definitely going to be a Mrs. Annie Anderson in his future.

A/N: Thoughts? I know Annie probably used Joan to access Franka's number (I still can't get over the fact that I thought her name was Rizoli) but I still started to wonder how she got that number. And again maybe I'm going deaf but I giggled when she thought that Annie was Auggie's wife. Foreshadowing maybe? I wish. Annie and Auggie were so friggin cute in the summer finale! I'm going to miss the weekly Auggie/Annie moments.