MASK: Legacy Saga Interludes: Cross Turns and Other Traffic

Chapter 3

Author's Notes: Thanks to Susan, Miratete, and Zarius for the wonderful reviews. Thanks for your support while I play!

Some references to our earlier Daddy's Girls fic in this one. Please keep reading and reviewing. Annie's mine-everything else is theirs.

** One Week Earlier-Turner Residence **

"Do you have anything you want to tell me?"

"Like what?"

Brad Turner sighed and wondered, not for the first time, why his daughter was so obtuse. "I've been to the mansion, Annie."

For the second time in as many days, Annie Turner closed the hatch of her Jeep and turned to confront another of the men in her life. "Dad, you're meddling again."

Brad leaned stoically against Annie's driver's side door. "That's what happens when I can't get anything out of you after you've pulled a disappearing act."

Annie sighed deeply and raggedly. "I didn't want to get you involved. I still don't."

** Present - Lake Tahoe, Nevada **

"Did my Dad put you up to this?"

Annie heard just a hint of a drunken slur in her own voice as she watched the empty beer bottles pile up on the coffee table. She'd lost count of how many she'd already had, which didn't stop her from opening another one as she waited for Cross Country to answer.

"Your Daddy only suggested it. So it was either come up here and talk to you, or shine bolts for the rest of the afternoon. I took the most pleasant option. But we ain't talkin' about me or your Daddy, we're talkin' about you. Now, you got somethin' to tell me or not?"

Cross Country tilted his head toward Annie in an attentive manner as he threw his right arm over the back of the couch. She accepted his non-verbal invitation and scooted over to rest her head gently on his right shoulder as she bent her legs and folded them onto the middle cushion. She carefully cradled her open beer as his open arm fell down over her shoulder.

"My story doesn't have a happy ending."

"Most don't."

"It's long."

"I got time."

"It's complicated to explain."

"I'm listenin'."

"It's..."

"Annie, stop stallin' and just spit it out, would ya?"

"Awwright..." Annie took a large gulp of beer and found it half gone. "Scott...blindsided me when I went to tell him I was done with MASK. 'We're through, I'm joining G.I. Joe' turned into 'I've found Roxy, I'm going to get her, are you coming or not?'."

She paused for a moment but no reaction came. She peered up at Cross Country to find him calmly sipping his beer. She decided to just keep talking and drained the last of her own brew, hoping it contained the words and liquid courage she didn't currently possess.

"He would have gone alone-I could see it in his eyes. I also knew right then and there that he'd come back dead or not at all if I didn't go with him. There was no question in my mind. Next thing I know he's in Thunderhawk and I'm following him on Phoenix."

The clang of empty beer bottles resounded through the silence that had fallen. Cross Country had only set down his empty, yet Annie immediately sensed the change in his body language.

"What you just told me," Cross Country emphasized slowly, which was not completely from the alcohol, "is that Falcon was right and you were lyin' through your teeth."

"Yeah," Annie said softly. The liquid courage was turning to ice in her veins. "I was."

"Why the hell would you do somethin' so incredibly stupid?" Cross Country questioned in a distinctly drunken country accent.

"I've been asking myself that same question for a week," Annie slurred back from the vicinity of his shoulder. "I told you it was complicated."

"I ain't so drunk I can't listen," Cross Country retorted. "How 'bout you try me?"

Silence reigned for a moment as Annie considered her words. "I was ready to turn Roxanne in...until I realized that she was a victim in this entire cat and mouse game. When I looked at her and thought about all the things she did, I saw the person I could've been if the tables had been turned."

"Whaddya mean?" Cross Country looked genuinely puzzled.

Annie froze up as her drunken memory conjured up visions of Mexico from so long ago.

** Contraworld Base-Mexico-about ten years ago **

"Annie?"

Jess started to get up to comfort her long time friend and make sure she was okay, but Buddy held a restraining arm out as he got a good look at Annie's pale features and haunted eyes. Whatever had happened had scared her to death; she was white as a sheet, and he wasn't going to risk Jess or Roxy upsetting a very delicate balance.

Satisfied Jess was going to stay where she was, Buddy got up and started walking toward her, asking gently, "Annie, what happened?"

Annie backed up against the cell door and stared at him like he was the devil incarnate. "You knew…didn't you? You knew…" she accused shakily as she started to cry.

"Annie…" Buddy kept his voice even and soft as he reached for her hand, "What did they tell you?"

"That I…" Her tears fell harder as she looked into his concerned brown eyes, "…that I should've…" She couldn't look him in the eye any longer, so she let her eyes drift to Jess sitting in the corner looking as frightened as she felt. She felt the room start to spin when her eyes locked onto Roxanne sitting in the other corner, and the revelation of what might have been hit her fully. "…I could have been you…" Annie muttered to Roxanne before her legs gave out completely and the room went dark.

Buddy managed to catch her just before her head hit the ground. He fell to his knees with Annie hanging limply in his arms and pushed her hair out of her eyes. He knew she couldn't hear him, but he felt the need to say anyway, "I'm not going to let that happen."

** Present-Lake Tahoe **

"Annie?" Cross Country prodded again.

She started to shiver against him as the old feelings redoubled back to her, worsened by her drunken state. "If Vanessa hadn't left me with my father when I was a baby, I would have grown up as an agent of Contraworld. If things had worked out like they should have, G.I. Joe would be hunting *me* down...not Roxanne Trakker."

Cross Country's mouth dropped open as the final puzzle piece fit itself into their story. He looked over at Annie shuddering beside him and pulled her into his arms while she scrunched herself as close to him as she could. Her head ended up resting in his lap as he smoothed her hair away from her face.

"To this day I can still remember the fear of facing down Miles Mayhem."

"The only mistake you made," Mayhem continued angrily through Vanessa's internal thought process, "was trying to hide this from me! You know the rules as well as I do…your daughter should have been a member of ContraWorld, just like my son and my nephew."

Uncontrollable tears started running down Annie's cheeks. "When I think about what could have happened to me...I couldn't let that happen to someone else...and I've..." she choked up drunkenly, "...I've destroyed my own life because of it."

"Aw hell Annie..." Cross Country muttered quietly.

He didn't have the words. There weren't any. The only thing left of the conversation were Annie's broken sobs as she trembled in his lap and finally let out all her pent up angst. When the worst of it seemed to be over, Cross Country scooped Annie up and walked down the hall to her bedroom. He shoved the door wide open with his foot and walked inside, setting Annie down and supporting her with one arm while pulling the blankets of her bed back with the other.

"Come on darlin'...it's late and you're drunk. Time for bed."

Annie didn't argue or resist him when he gave her a gentle push. She slid right under the covers of the double bed and tugged on Cross Country's arm for him to follow. He pondered what to do for all of ten seconds, then climbed in beside her to spoon. She locked her arm around the one he'd slipped across her waist and passed out almost immediately.

"All right doll, just for a little bit..." he yawned, "then I'm gettin' up..."