After their fifteenth year together, Tommy was eleven, Jamie was five, and their house was the epitome of an "organized chaos." Danielle visited three times with her new husband, Annie took her son's fifth-grade class on a Smithsonian tour, and Auggie stepped on his daughter's play-doh dog.


Auggie Anderson sighed heavily, one hand rubbing his useless eyes and sliding over to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Jamie...honey, daddy is really, really sorry. Please come out." He dropped his hand and let his forehead rest against the flat pane of his youngest's bedroom door. He knew the door was unlocked, he hadn't heard it lock since he'd been kicked out of the room, and he also didn't think a hysterical five-year-old would think of locking her door at that moment when she already knew she wasn't allowed to.

"What's wrong with Jamie?" Tommy's voice came to his ears from behind.

"Nothing, she's just upset with me." He knocked on his daughter's door again.

"What did you do?" Tommy persisted, getting a look from his father. Auggie couldn't see his son's reaction to the look he threw him, but when he listened to the light footsteps walking away, he figured his bright 11-year-old understood fully.

"Jamie?" Auggie carefully turned the knob of the door opening it slowly. He cautiously put one foot through the doorway and it came into contact with something soft before he could even finish the step.

"Don't step on her!" The five-year-old suddenly yelled, causing another cringe from her father.

"Honey, daddy can't see," he tried to stay patient even though he was running low on that ingredient this morning. "if you don't want me to step on anything, you're going to have to help me out here." He listened, trying to see if she would take the bait, but when only silence filled the room, he figured his daughter hadn't moved.

"Could you at least tell daddy what he did to make you so upset?" He tried again, this time more gently. The young girl mumbled something low that with anyone else would have been inaudible. Luckily for her, her father had very good hearing.

"I stepped on your what?"

"My dog!" She finally cried. "He was my puppy!"

The father was thoroughly confused. "What dog, Jamie?"

"My play doh dog," she said much softer now. A little sniffle escaped the young girl's mouth and her father frowned. He knew it was a bad idea that could possibly make matters worse, but talking to his 5-year-old from across the room wasn't getting either of them anywhere, so with a leap of faith that there wasn't anything too breakable in his path, Auggie carefully and slowly made his way towards the back wall of the room where he knew his daughter's bed was.

"Jamie?" He reached his hand out when he knew he was close to the bed. His fingers came into contact with the fluffy comforter top...sheets...and finally he felt his daughter arm whip away just as he touched. "Jamie, daddy is really, really sorry."

The child still didn't say anything, so instead of pushing her, Auggie just stayed quiet, waiting for her to say something first. Several moments passed, and from afar a soft tickling of a clock somewhere could be heard, which the father counted. He had just broken 300 when the little girl finally spoke up.

"How come you never step on Tommy's stuff?" She asked in a small voice. Her father almost laughed.

"Oh I've stepped and broken a lot of your brother's things in the past, its just something everyone has to deal with." The horrific memories of his son as a toddler shrieking into the night when he once accidentally broke his favorite toy car came to mind. In fact, a lot of memories came to mind, the only difference between then and now was he was a few years younger and his reflexes were a few grades faster. "Ok Jamie, how about we make a deal?"

"Are you dying your hair?" Annie heard his voice so suddenly she jumped, just as she had been touching up her roots. Her vision snapped to the corner of the mirror before her and she saw her husband lean against the doorframe, arms crossed in front of his chest, that classic Auggie smirk on his ever handsome face. It didn't matter how old her husband was, every time she looked at him he seemed as handsome today as the day they met. Maybe this was because he was aging remarkably well, having taken such good care of his body when he was younger. Maybe it was just because he still had the ability to make her a little giddy inside every time he smiled at her.

"I've been dying my hair since long before we even met, Auggie. You know that."

"Giving yourself highlights and dying your hair are two different things." He replied back cheekily.

Annie rolled her eyes. "We'll, I know you can't see it, but I'm not the same young, beautiful blonde you met almost 20 years ago." Annie moved away from the mirror to rinse the dye from her hair in the master bathroom's shower. Auggie listened to the shower sprout to life, the uneven splashing of water as Annie rinsed her shoulder-length hair, and the echo of the double-pane glass shower doors as she accidentally knocked into them with her elbow, the squirting noise her conditioner made as she tried to make use of the last bit in the bottle, and the finally the sound of the water being cut, her hair being twisted to remove most of the water, and the softer tones as she twisted it into a towel.

Annie stood back, balancing the twisted towel on her head, and opened her mouth to say something else unimportant when Auggie's hands caught her by surprise as they wrapped around her from behind and he rested his chin over her partially bare shoulder.

"Annie Walker Anderson, whether you want to believe this blind husband of yours or not, you are still, and always will be the the sexy, secretive, and deadly talented spy, partner, mother and wife you always have been, and even if my brain still worked well and I could see out of these two useless things in front of my face, I can't imagine finding you any more or any less beautiful than I already made you out to be. Blonde hair, grey hair, blue or black, you'd look great in anything. And I have multiple male acquaintances who can vouch for that if you'd prefer an opinion from someone sighted."

Annie's smile grew widely, giving in to his words. "Ok Romeo," she turned in his arms, keeping her hands over his so he wouldn't remove them until her chest was against his. She brought her hands up to either side of Auggie's face and he instinctively leaned into one of them. "You've made your point and got me to smile." At her words, a smile graced his lips too and Annie took the opportunity to lean into him until their lips in one of those warm, slow, and sincere kisses they hadn't shared in a long while. When their lips finally parted, neither backed away and instead Auggie let their foreheads rest against each other in one of those silent moments they used to have back whenever Annie was being shipped off on a mission or something particularly stressful was trying to tear them apart. They stood like that, in complete silence yet having a conversation between them that no one else could ever dare understand.

How did they ever even get this far? Annie often stopped herself and wondered that very question. They had been together now for over 15 years, and even after all that time, all those ups and downs and turnarounds, they were together and they still had this strange but strong connection that was undeniable.

"Mommy?" A voice finally snapped the parents attention. Annie laughed while Auggie turned his attention slightly away from his blushing wife trying to find the exact direction from which he'd heard his daughter's voice.

"Yes Jamie?" Her father replied with some amusement.


Author's Note:

Sorry about the delay. I wrote this chapter 3 different times and then ended up taking half of two iterations and putting it together. Great thing is, the 20-year mark was actually written before the 15-year one, so very little wait time. (And I adore teenage Tommy.)

Leave me love!

-Liz