When I ended Fumbling Forward I thought that was it for me for a good while. But then I missed the characters. I think I also worried about continuing to write something that followed Joan & Arthur while USA played out their own script for the characters, because even though what I'm writing is fanfic, it's still a little hard for me to think about getting invested in the show story line and another one that could be way off since I just tune in each week to see what's up with the Covert Affairs cast. In the end I decided to dive in and start a new story that picks up a little while after Fumbling Forward left off. I might go back and forth with the time. I'm not really sure where this will take me. And if everything gets too wonky in my own head I'll probably wait until the season is over or a mid-season break to pick back up again. But I'll try to give some warning if that's going to happen. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy where this new story takes Joan, Arthur, and Maia. & as always, thanks for reading along!

Chapter 1: Crisis Management

"Joan," he called out as he walked straight into her office without waiting for her to respond to his knocking.

She put down the file she was flipping through - irritated that he always acted like any news he had was an emergency that meant he could leave all professional courtesies behind when he came into her office. "One day I hope you'll surprise me and actually knock and wait for me to let you in here," Joan reprimanded him as she swung around in her desk chair so that she was facing the only person in The Agency who would just barge right into her office. As she swung around she put a flirty smile on her face, because as irritating as she found some of her husband's impulsive and borderline arrogant actions, she still loved him just as much or more than she did on their wedding day. As her eyes met his, however, the smile on her face vanished. Arthur was clearly trying to hold everything together. His dress shirt and suit were still crisp and fit him perfectly, and as he'd stormed down to Joan's floor and through the DPD everyone who watched him pass by thought nothing of his appearance. He looked like a powerful man on a mission. But Joan saw that the urgency with which he burst into her office, coupled with the wild, anxious way his eyes looked were much more informative than his overall appearance. Something was most definitely wrong. And for a man trained to handle crises, and who had handled quite a number of crises, something must be very very wrong for him to be this worked up. She took a sharp breath in before asking him, "What is it? What's wrong?"

Striding over to her desk and putting his palms flat on the surface Arthur allowed the desk to bear some of his weight as he took a couple of breaths.

Standing up on the other side of the desk, Joan reached out and put a hand on her husband's shoulder, rubbing it as she asked him again, "What's wrong Arthur?" She'd seen him worked up at work before, the nature of his job was such that sometimes everything just sucked and was a crisis all at the same time. But usually he was unflappable, and even when he succumbed to emotions he didn't get quite this worked up.

Pushing himself back up so he could look at his wife, he paused and watched her. Usually he had trouble just looking her in the eye; his own eyes always wanted to spend some time taking in all the rest of her. But as he stood up and looked at his wife's face his gaze stuck there. Furrowed brow and a pressing, worried look in her eyes he could see that she was clearly concerned about what was going on in his head. "Joan," he said to her quietly again, "We need to talk."

Cocking her head to one side as she tried to figure out what was going on, Joan looked into Arthur's piercing blue eyes and where there was usually deep emotion of some sort, what she reflected there now was exhaustion. "Okay," she spoke to him gently, "do you want to sit down?" Usually very much in charge of just about every situation she was in, Joan felt nervous now, unsure of how to help her husband, unsure of what was eating at him.

He shook his head and straightened his tie. But then he walked over to her office sofa and tossed himself onto it. Positioning himself like he was some sort of cartoon version of himself laying on a therapist's couch, Joan watched him with concern but also amusement. She wasn't used to seeing her husband this much of a mess. "Arthur - are we going to be talking about politics, work, us, Maia, some scandal - what? Give me a little something to work with so I can at least prepare myself for what's about to come," she demanded- pressing him for some information.

"I don't know. All of it?" he called out from the sofa.

"Ar-thur! You can't just burst in here and say we have to talk and then just lay on my sofa and not talk. What is going on?" Joan asked him - irritation creeping into her voice.

"I just got off the phone with our daughter," Arthur blurted out after sighing deeply.

"AND?!" Joan practically shouted at him, her own anxiety shooting through the roof once she knew they were talking about their daughter. A moment later she realized what Arthur had said about what they were talking about, "How is you talking to Maia connected to everything else?-you said it was about all of - politics, work, a scandal, and us?" Joan was getting worked up and she still didn't even know why. Maia was only 14. How anything about her connected to all of that in a way to get Arthur this worked up was outside of Joan's realm of possible understanding.

"We've lost her," he said dramatically.

Joan shot out of her chair then, "WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? HOW? WHERE?" she shouted at him. Before he could even respond she added, "WHY ARE YOU JUST LAYING THERE - GO FIND HER!"

"JOAN!" Arthur finally hollered back at her, as he sat up on the sofa.

"Oh don't you dare "Joan," me!" she shouted at him derisively - a hard edge in her voice. As she threw her hands up in the air to indicate to her husband just how urgent the situation was.

"I mean - we didn't physically lose her - just otherwise," Arthur said - trying to explain himself a little but doing a pretty poor job of it.

"Arthur," Joan warned - her voice no longer raised, but instead tense, icy, and uncharacteristically low, "If you don't cut the crap and tell me exactly what you are talking all hell is going to break loose in this office, and I won't care one iota that everyone in the DPD will be able to see me take you out." She stood there then with her arms crossed across her chest, glaring at her husband. If a look could force an action to occur, this was a look aimed at forcing Arthur to clear up what he meant when he told her that they'd lost their daughter.

Arthur rubbed his hands over his face and gave himself a moment to mentally pull himself together. "She wants to go out with an older guy who I frankly think is some kind of pedophile! I mean who else tries to seduce a fourteen year old?!" he finally shouted at his wife, "I can't believe this is happening!"

Joan kept her harsh stance across the room from her husband. Huffing a little, she spoke again - just as icily as before, "Arthur Campbell, I'm going to ask you one more time - what the hell are you talking about?"

When Arthur didn't respond right away she tapped her foot a little to pressure him to talk. "She called me. She asked me if, as the daughter of two CIA employees, she was allowed to date a foreign national!" he exclaimed as he flopped against the back of the sofa.

Joan smiled then, and not too slowly that smile grew to a grin. Crossing the room, she stood over Arthur. Looking down at her husband - who was clearly in quite the anguished state - she raised a single, perfectly shaped eyebrow at him before gently asking him, "Are you trying to tell me that our daughter got asked out on a date?" When all Arthur did was nod at first, Joan rolled her eyes and then let a laugh escape.

"I'm sorry Arthur," she said not too seriously as she sat down next to him on the sofa. "I don't mean to be laughing at you," she said as she continued to laugh, "but you really made me think that either we were on the brink of nuclear war or that our daughter had been kidnapped by some terrorist organization. But the only thing that has happened is that some boy likes her?"

"You say it like it's a good thing!" Arthur exclaimed, "Do you know what boys do with girls? Do you know why boys ask girls out? I think I should tell her she's not allowed to go."

Joan looked at her husband, unabashedly amused at just how much the prospect of his fourteen year old daughter dating bothered him. "You didn't give her an answer to her question?!" Joan asked him as she gave him a little glare then.

"Definitely not!" Arthur told his wife, "Why would I give her permission to date anyone - let alone a foreign national! I told her I'd have to check out the policy and that I'd get back to her!"

"Your daughter gets asked out on what is presumably her FIRST date and you tell her that you don't know if she can GO?!" Joan nearly shouted at him. "Arthur you're terrible! This is a big deal to her and you're just freaking out and ruining it!"

"So you want our little girl to go and let some boy we don't even know get to know her in, you know, Biblical ways?" Arthur asked his wife. His voice and actions suggested that the alarmist and overly dramatic ways he was talking were actual reflections of his feelings, and that he had completely gone over the edge on this.

"First, I am willing to bet you whatever you want that Maia is NOT asking you if she can go have sex with some boy. Second, Arthur Campbell what has gotten into you? From the guy who started dating his second wife while he was still married to his first wife, it's pretty ironic that now you're referring to sex as getting to know someone Biblically," Joan told her husband as she tried to help him see just how insane he was acting.

"I cannot believe you are so calm about this Joan! Did I mention that he's a JUNIOR?! He has a car!" Arthur protested, "You want her to - fine, I'll say it - have sex with some random boy?" He shuddered as he said the last phrase.

Joan squeezed Arthur's knee then and told him, "No. I do not want her to have sex with any random boy, but I think she's just asking if she can go on a date, not do anything more than go somewhere with a boy from school." Pausing there to see if any of what she was saying was sinking in, Joan continued after not getting any more crazy claims from Arthur.

"Who is the boy anyway?" Joan then asked.

Arthur thought for a moment before saying, "I don't know." He realized that when Maia had asked her question about dating a foreign national, he'd flipped out so much that he hadn't even asked who the boy was. "I didn't even ask," he admitted out loud.

Rolling her eyes Joan smacked him on the thigh then, "Seriously?!"

"Seriously," he repeated back to her - this time as if he was in a daze.

Joan just stared at him, not quite sure what to do next with him. She could clearly see that she was going to need to follow up with their daughter - not only to smooth out whatever mess of a way Arthur had handled the actual call, but also to get information from her about who the boy was and whatever the plans were for this date. Adolescence, Joan thought to herself, was clearly going to be a rough ride for her husband. Sighing a little and smiling to herself she leaned back on the sofa so that her shoulders rubbed up against Arthur's. "She has to grow up you know," she commented quietly.

"Maybe," Arthur finally admitted. "But I don't like it. I want her to stay little and uninterested in boys forever," Arthur lamented.

"Ar-thur," Joan scolded him sweetly, "You can't keep her little forever. And you can't worry so much. She's a good kid; she'll make good decisions." She hoped that his silence after she spoke was a sign that he agreed with her.

Arthur tried to hear what his wife was telling him, but he was still worried and sad that Maia was growing up. "But Joan, what if she doesn't make good decisions? Or what if she does and some boy hurts her?" he asked - the concern clear in his voice.

"Well," she said thoughtfully, "Then that's what you and I are here for."

"I hate being the response team," Arthur huffed.

Joan chuckled at Arthur's perspective. Then with a cautionary tone she told him, "But Arthur if you freak out about her even asking about going out with a boy it'll make it harder for her to come to us if she gets hurt, or if she needs advice. You've got to relax a little."

"I can't," he sighed.

"You have to. But for now - just let me handle things with Maia so I can clean up anything you did when you talked to her," she suggested as she sat up and looked down at Arthur who was still laying against the sofa with his eyes looking straight up at the ceiling.

He didn't move and so she slapped him lightly on the knee before standing. "Arthur - get up and go back to work. It'll all be fine," Joan told him as she reached her hand out towards him. He took her hand, and as she pulled on it he relented and got himself back in the upright standing position.

"Thanks," he said softly as he looked at his wife.

"You're welcome," she said as she pecked him on the cheek, before turning him around and giving him a little push toward the door. "Now pull yourself together and go back to being the boss!"

He turned his head and flashed his wife a grin. "Maybe later I can boss you around in other ways?"

"Maybe later you can thank me for cleaning up your parenting messes," she told him before waving her hand at him to shoo him out the door.

He rolled his eyes then, "You're a piece of work Joan Campbell," he said as he opened the door. She stopped then and stared at her husband who seemed to be back to his normal self. "Only because I have to be married to you," she replied. Then she turned away from him and walked back to her desk chair. He watched her walk, enjoying the way her charcoal dress hugged all the curves on her body. She could feel his eyes on her. "Work Arthur!" she called out without even lifting her eyes to look at him. Sighing again, but for a different reason than all the sighing he'd done about Maia growing up, Arthur shook his head and let himself out of her office.

As he closed the door softly behind him, Joan shook her head and smiled. Her husband was pretty adorable, even if he was also causing unnecessary drama in their daughter's life. Still, Joan appreciated how protective Arthur was of Maia. Arthur had panicked when they'd found out they were having a baby girl Arthur. He was sure he wouldn't know what to do with a girl. Joan had reassured him then that he could do the same things he would do with a boy, and that he'd be a great daddy to a little girl. He hadn't believed her initially, but once Maia was born absolutely everyone could see just how in love he was with his daughter. As Maia grew up he'd been amazed by everything she did, and it became apparent to everyone then that Maia was equally head over heels for her father as he was for her. The father-daughter duo did just about everything together when he was home. He taught her about sports, how to ride a bike, and engaged her in conversations about geopolitics before she even could say the word geopolitics - teaching her about politics and countries, and the function of context. A lot of the time he was teaching, but not always. He also let her be the leader; he attended countless tea parties with her dolls and stuffed animals, and he let her and her cousin do his hair and put make up on him. He'd spent hours coloring with her or playing outside with her, and whenever they were vacationing, he was the one in the pool tossing her around, racing her, and playing with her while Joan lounged on the side and watched them.

Pre-adolescence and adolescence were harder on Arthur than Joan. Maia didn't play so much anymore, and so he couldn't just join her games. They'd still watch TV and sports together, but while sports viewing remained the same, Maia wasn't watching cartoons anymore. Instead she was watching shows that addressed more serious issues - whether comedies or dramas relationship issues, drugs, alcohol, mental illness and ethics were common themes. And so instead of laughing on the sofa together and cartoons, they were having to navigate how to watch these more serious issues together and Arthur was having to figure out how to respond to Maia's questions and judgments of the characters that weren't always in line with his own. Their conversations got more serious and complex outside of TV too; Maia could hold her own in a lot of current events conversations now, and she had a strong emerging set of principles that she let guide her debates with her dad about world events and current events in the States. But she was also spending more and more time with her friends or online, and so the time she had to have these conversations with her dad was getting less and less. Dating was just one more thing that was going to take Maia away from him, and thinking about it this way Joan could see why it was all so hard on Arthur. Before Maia'd even gone on a date Arthur could see all that he stood to lose. Joan sighed again and decided that she'd have to talk about this with Arthur later - and also maybe with Maia. Maia and Arthur were great buddies and Joan wanted to do what she could to help them preserve that part of their relationship. She sent her daughter a quick message saying that she'd talked to her father and there were no Agency policies regarding her dating life, but that their might be family ones so they should talk that evening. Then realizing that might have come off too cold, Joan sent a second message saying that she was excited for her being asked out on a date and that she wanted to hear all the details that evening too.