Title: Rewind

Author: Beth Pryor

Rating: K+

Summary: A post S4 one-shot drawing on recent world events and inspired by my re-viewing of episode 2x07 "Half a World Away." Auggie reflects on Istanbul and Iraq as tensions rise again in the Middle East.

Disclaimer: Covert Affairs and its characters belong to the USA Network. I just didn't like what they did with them, so I'm doing my own thing.

Universe: Follows the Covert Affairs Season 4 universe of my previous stories "Eyes That Know Me" and "With Wind at Our Heels." If you haven't read those – no problem. What you need to know is that Henry was taken down without Annie going dark and Teo's still alive (but not in this one). There's more, but those are the basics. Oh, heck. Just read them :-)

A/N: I've asked myself many of the questions Auggie poses here. I don't have answers, either.

Rewind

Auggie sat working in his new office when Annie breezed through the front door on a Wednesday night in the middle of June. She'd been away, traveling for a little under a week on an assignment in Venezuela. Calder was running point on the mission while they broke in a new analyst who was set to be her handler going forward. Auggie had been pulling double duty for the past five months, but even he had to admit that was wearing on him. That, and Annie really could handle herself in the field. He realized it was time for him to back off a little.

As he imagined, he'd struggled initially with the changes at work and at home. After much searching, they'd finally decided on a house on Q St NW, south and east of the boundary of Kalorama Heights just off Embassy Row. They really couldn't afford it, but Annie loved it and his parents had insisted on helping. As it was only a few blocks south of Auggie's old place, he'd found success in navigating the neighborhood over the past six weeks since the move. But his body still bore the bumps and bruises from many miscounted steps and unknown corners still being explored. The open floor plan made the front room sound like Grand Central Station, and apparently amazing natural light streamed in from the wall of windows in the kitchen at the back of the house. But the house also had six mantles, three flights of stairs and a really funky downstairs bathroom sink. He'd smacked his knee on that thing two times since he'd gotten home that evening alone.

He heard her open and close the fridge before she came to find him. It didn't take her long to locate him, even in the dark. He'd set up most of his stuff in the den on the first floor and had made himself a quite comfortable workspace there. He sat in the glow of the monitor, listening intently, when she came up beside him.

"Hey," he said, looking up as he pulled off his headphones. "Trip go okay?"

She reached down and kissed him. "It was productive. The report is on your desk."

"I'm glad you're home," he stated, turning his chair away from the computer and toward her. She plopped down on his lap and snaked her arms behind his neck.

"What are you working on here?" she asked nodding toward the desk.

"It's nothing."

She glanced at the illuminated screen and back at him. "Screen's on, Babe."

He reached for the switch, but her hand covered his.

"Let me look for a second."

"It's nothing, really."

Several stories about the recent POW prisoner exchange as well as Department of Defense plans to send military personnel back to Iraq amid recent unrest peppered the screen. She let her fingers slide between his. "Oh, Auggie." Her head leaned forward to rest on his.

He sighed heavily. "I mean, we had to get him home, but I just keep thinking about the guys who brought in the Taliban Five and the guys they lost in the initial pursuit." He pushed her gently off of his lap and stood, going toward the stereo system. He started one of the recordings he'd made during his last trip to Istanbul – the one that had let him know that Khani, the terrorist embedded in his unit who had been responsible for the death of Auggie's men as well as Auggie's own injuries, was still alive. He glanced back to where he assumed she was still sitting. "I'm having a hard time letting that go."

She moved beside him, recalling that last desperate phone call with him before he boarded the cargo plane in Turkey in pursuit of Khani. When the call ended, she wasn't sure if Auggie planned to kill the other man or turn him over to the FBI for prosecution. He'd ultimately chosen the latter. "You got justice for you guys, Auggie. You made the right choice."

"But what about the guys who brought these five in? They had to be expecting that the 'dangerous terrorists' would be held accountable for their actions and punished accordingly, not released to go right back at it when our national interests changed. It was war; they could have killed them."

She rubbed his back. "You can't do anything about that."

"What if it all goes right back to how it was before? What if everything we did there means nothing?" He closed his eyes and shook his head, trying to shut out that thought.

She took his hands and directed them both to the overstuffed couch in the back of the room. She opened her mouth to answer as she sat beside him but wasn't sure what to say. She just listened as he continued.

"I remember telling Franka that the musicians were speaking to each other about the struggle to stay hopeful after loss, believing that something better is also possible. I want to believe that, Annie. I do believe that most days."

Annie gazed across at him, the tumult obvious even as the streetlight shaded the contours of his face. "It's the only time you've ever said goodbye to me," she recalled. "When I called Franka's phone, you said it was too late to change your mind, but something did."

He nodded. He'd thought this question would come from her at some time in their relationship, and he'd actually come up with the answer a little while ago. "I thought I knew what I was going to do, but you remember what I told you about the picture of me and the guys and how it was the one thing from the war that seemed pure? If I'd killed, if Khani had died, I think I would have lost that, too."

She squeezed his hand as she leaned up against him. "I'm glad you made that decision, and I'm glad you let me in that night."

"You deserved an explanation – then and now." He reached around her shoulder and twisted his fingers gently through her hair. "I hadn't told anyone the whole story before. Not Ben Rosen, not Joan. No one."

Annie smiled, thinking back to that evening at Allen's. "I was so attracted to you that night."

His eyebrows shot up. "Yeah?" This had been years before either of them had made a move for the other.

She snuggled a little closer to his side. His arm tightened around her. "You were like a real-life superhero that day. Still are, actually."

He smiled, genuinely for the first time that night. "Oh you know me, using my powers for good rather than evil."

Annie laughed before she turned serious again. She smoothed his hair. "I'm so sorry about all of this."

"Anderson Cooper is in Baghdad." He rarely turned on the TV, but when he did tonight, that little snippet of knowledge punched him squarely in the gut and had driven him to where Annie found him now.

"Why don't you call Ben Rosen or Dr. Strake?" This was getting a little over her head.

"I'll think about it." He sighed. "I want to mull it over a little more on my own first," he thought before he changed the subject to keep her from worrying too much. "So Venezuela, huh? Anything exciting?"

She knew him well enough to know that he was done talking about what was bothering him for now, although it still bothered him. "Not really. Everyone was watching the World Cup the whole time. Seems like if anyone needs to run an op in South America, now's the time."

He chuckled. "So has everyone at the office. Did you know that Barber was 1/16th Dutch? Apparently he feels that entitles him to watch soccer all day."

Annie laughed as Auggie shook his head. "The US has a team, too, you know."

Auggie shrugged his shoulders and rolled his eyes. "You see what I'm dealing with here." The jazz track ended, and he stood to turn it off. "Did you eat?"

"Nope. Wanna grab something?"

He didn't really want to go out. "I have some leftovers from the last few nights in the fridge if you want to look there first."

"Sounds great." She stood and kissed him again. "I'll take my stuff upstairs to change and meet you in the kitchen."

"I'm really glad you're home." He wasn't used to her being gone without him controlling the minutiae of her missions. It presented yet another opportunity for change and growth. Auggie hoped he was about done growing.

She smiled. "Me too."

When she met him in the kitchen about five minutes later, and idea had sprung into her head and she couldn't wait to tell him. The sight of his bottom sticking out of the refrigerator nearly knocked her off her train of thought. She'd missed him, too. He backed out from between the doors with several containers in his hands.

"There's Chinese, Italian and Greek, I think." He deposited the boxes on the island and turned to grab some plates.

"Why don't you go to back to Istanbul next month?" she blurted, not able to hold in her genius idea any longer.

Auggie swiveled back toward the counter top, two plates in hand. "What?"

"You haven't been for a couple of years. I didn't know if it was a matter of timing or something more."

He'd tossed those options around in his mind more times than he could count since his last trip to the festival. He hadn't come up with an answer that he liked yet.

"This isn't a great time," he offered.

She reached for his hand then inched up his arm. He leaned closer to her. "That's a dumb excuse," she whispered.

"I don't know if I want to go back." He did, but it was another place and memory now complicated by the past.

"I could come with you if you want. Some new recordings wouldn't be the end of the world, either." She hoped the Khani ones would make it to the trash sometime soon.

He kissed her now exposed shoulder. "I appreciate that, but you can't take any more time right now."

"I would, though."

He turned her around to face him. He wanted to look her in the eye, so to speak. "Let's get married instead."

"Yeah?"

He nodded as he pulled her close to him. "You pick a waterfall, a day and a time. I'll be there."

"That," she decided between dotting his face with kisses, "Can definitely be arranged."

FIN