A/N: Question: Is it typical to respond to every review here? I started to do that when I realized that all responses get sent to your email and inbox instead of done forum-style. Two emails for one variant of "Thank you! I am so happy you liked the chapter" plus or minus a sentence or two for most of the equally-sized reviews seems kind of...excessive. I don't mind replying, I always have, but I'm just wondering if it's normal.
I WOULD like to say, either way, that all of the story alerts and everything as well as the reviews ABSOLUTELY make my day. I don't really mind if people reply - though I swear, they make me so happy that it's a little sad - or not, but truly, it makes me a little bit googly-eyed to see the response to this so far. You guys are awesome! Anyways, this is less fluffy than the first two. Woo!
Disclaimer: Still not mine. Woe, woe is me!
. . . . . . . .
Perdition
1: eternal damnation
2 : hell
. . . . . . . .
Dear Sophia,
You'd think that the President had been bombed with all of the traffic in DC right now. I wish you were here to see it! How is Seoul? I hear that it's hotter than the surface of the sun right now.
Keep in touch!
Affectionately,
Lisette
Thunking her head dramatically to her desk for possibly the tenth time in an hour, Annie heaved a massive sigh, closing her arms over her head and hoping in an overdramatic kind of way that she might smother herself. It was totally not uncalled-for, because seriously, that was the sixty-eighth boring email that she had translated in the last two hours, and if Joan sent her any more of these, she was going to consider mutiny. Well, treason. They weren't floating and she was pretty sure Joan could take her down if she tried to directly assault her boss. Annie didn't have all that many issues with thinking she was more awesome than she was - at least, when it came to her boss.
She respected Joan. She trusted Joan. She even liked Joan.
But if she had to translate one more email from a bored, boring Russian living in DC she was going to go out in a blaze of glory trying to drive a stapler through her boss's eye.
This was punishment. It had to be. She had discharged a weapon that wasn't even her own; killed a man in Sweden and almost caused an international incident in the process. She had cost herself and Joan both a lot of paperwork, not to mention Auggie - not that he'd know. He was in Africa. She didn't even really want to think about that, though. The confusion between amazement at the gift of his car and weary unhappiness at his dismissal was probably going to drive her insane before he got back, whenever that was.
It wasn't like she was doing interesting things, either. She had taken the mandatory week off and mostly...well, mostly she didn't remember the last week except waking up yesterday surrounded by bottles of cheap tequila and six half-gallons of a colorful assortment of ice creams. It was overdramatic and probably stupid, but hey, she had felt a little more sane and rational (not to mention clean, after an hour-long shower that had left her skin heated for an hour afterward and still a little sore now). She had felt that way, before she realized that Joan had no intention of letting her do anything useful ever again. She was grounded. Desk duty. Chained to it, or she might as well have been.
Just as her pity party ramped itself up, she was distracted by whispers over by tech ops, her name the first thing that stood out to her and distracted her from the party. They probably thought they were being quiet, too. She scowled.
"You do it!" One hissed. "No way, man. You've been here longer." Another; this one not-so-familiar, unsurprisingly. There was a pause. "Rock-paper-scissors." The first - Stu? - whispered. They argued back and forth for a few more seconds, and Annie's ire grew tremendously. Fortunately, before she had time to work up enough energy to berate one of them or put the stapler to work on them, footsteps clopped across the bullpen. Paused.
When they'd stayed paused for longer than was normal, she eventually worked up enough of a care to lift her head up to see what the hold-up was. Arthur Campbell's curious blue eyes met hers, and she blinked slowly, feeling a little like a mouse in front of a lion. The feeling was shaken quickly, though; while she didn't underestimate Arthur, and she didn't entirely trust him, he didn't scare her. Too much. "Sir?" With as much innocence as she could muster, she straightened, trying to look for all the world like she had been searching for something on her desk. One of her boss's boss's gloriously rampant eyebrows drifted upwards sharply, and he smirked, crossing his arms over his chest and shaking his head briefly. "I thought that I would stop in to see how you are on your first day back. Clearly, you're doing well." His smirk grew as he spoke. Annie considered that he looked a little bit like a little boy who thought he could get away with anything.
Which was, in large part, why she straightened even further and returned his smirk. No sense letting him think he had the jump on her. "Of course I am." She forced a bubbling tone and a grin, tossing her hair - mussed from her arms over her head - over her shoulder and glancing back at the computer. "Keeping the country safe, one letter to a friend at a time, sir." It was almost tempting to toss in a mock-salute, but, probably best not to push her luck. She had just gotten back from 'vacation' after causing everybody a lot of hassle, after all.
Arthur laughed, still grinning boyishly, then waggled his eyebrows a little. "You do your country a great service, Agent Walker. Now, tell me, where can I find my wife. She's not in her office." ...like she was supposed to know? Was she Joan's keeper? Had Joan tried to tell her? Panic!
"She went to lunch." Stu slid into the conversation evenly, favoring Arthur with a polite smile. "Sir. She asked me to inform you that she would, ah, be eating and running because she has to conference with the Director of Polish -" The DCS waved one well-manicured hand and nodded, expression businesslike again. Stu somehow managed not to sweat, though Annie knew for a fact that both Campbells intimidated him. She wasn't entirely sure why. When he wasn't whispering about her behind her back, he was a good agent. Nonetheless, he held his ground as Arthur glanced thoughtfully towards her office. "Hmm. Alright. You're filling in for Anderson, right? Come with me."
With that, they both wandered off. Stu cast a 'you owe me!' look over his shoulder and she tried to grin thankfully at him. Actually, she was thankful - she was pretty sure she would have been busted if he hadn't stepped in. Maybe Joan had been right in making her take time off. Maybe she wasn't up for coming back to work yet.
Resolving to work harder, she stood, stretching stiff muscles. Coffee. She needed coffee. That would help her to focus on the busy work that had suddenly become maddening where it had mostly just always been boring. Usually she would get a coffee for her and a coffee for Aug, and he would somehow manage to make her want to do the busywork. She had no idea how he managed to keep her focused, but she could damn well focus without him. She could, and would, and never mind anybody who said she needed anybody else's presence to be productive. She was Annie Walker, translator extraordinaire. Annie Walker, Jedi of Good and Reader of Foreign Languages. Annie Walker, CIA.
The pep talk lasted all the way down to the in-house Starbucks. She even smiled at the barista, chatting aimlessly with her until her coffee was handed to her. Paying, she turned to grab a snack of some sort. After her week-long icecream binge, she didn't really feel like eating anything sweet, but...most food just didn't appeal to her. Meat smelled too - bloody - and vegetables were too cold, unpalatable. Bread was okay, but one couldn't really survive on bread alone. Eventually settling on a cup of mac 'n cheese from one of the smiling cafeteria workers, she sat down at one of the tables to quickly eat that so the coffee wouldn't upset her stomach.
Coffee was okay. Coffee would always be okay, no matter what sudden phobias about eating she'd developed and was hoping would disappear given a few more weeks. The mac 'n cheese was actually surprisingly good, but before she could go back for seconds, it had already soured in her stomach.
That wasn't the food's fault, though. That was the memory of the texture of the assassin's chest above the entry wounds; somewhere between hamburger and wet farfalle. It wasn't grainy like hamburger, but it sure had looked like it, and Annie...well, let's just say she wasn't going to be eating a burger any time soon. She shuddered, honestly, just thinking about it. She had only been meaning to have entire certainty that the guy was dead - not leave her with nightmares about zombies and an allergy to all things food. Taking a deep breath to calm the rampant thudding in her chest, since her heart seemed to be trying to escape through between her ribs, she stood and exited the cafeteria swiftly, clutching her coffee. The macaroni danced a little jig in her stomach as she swiftly fled the cafeteria, making a beeline for the bathroom. It had gone from discomfort to red-flag emergency in the span of a few seconds, but she was used to that.
After spending a few minutes worshiping the porcelain God, she wobbled over to the sinks, leaning over one with elbows on either side and groaning. Her hair looked horrible, but honestly, she really just didn't care about that OR the fact that her mascara was making tracks down her cheeks. Swiftly tying her hair back in a messy bun, she toweled off as much of her makeup as she could, then rinsed out her mouth a few times and grabbed her coffee from on top of the towel holder. After a few rounds of self-affirming nodding at her reflection, she strode out calmly, head held high.
This would usually be about the time that Auggie found her, miraculously. He'd appear, as if out of thin air, and determine that she had been heaving up her guts and probably that she hadn't actually been eating much at all. He would probably already have saltines on him and a pep-talk ready to go. Bereft of that presence, she steeled herself like she always had before August Anderson and gritted it out. If she was damned to perdition, she was going to do it in style. Ignoring the funny looks of the male agents and the curious gaze of the females, she strode confidently right back into the cafeteria and stole most of the saltines from the salad bar. Then she absconded with them, marching back to her desk.
Annie Walker didn't need anybody. She could take care of herself. Could and would. And when Joan came back from her lunch and her meeting, she would find her Best Damn Agent (not rookie, no) hard at work, not whining. Because Annie Walker, CIA Agent Extraordinaire might not be able to stomach mac 'n cheese without heaving up her guts but she could damn well do her job. Could, would, did.
Even if that job drove her completely and totally over the edge into madness by the end of the day.
