"I'm so fucking angry at you," Auggie concluded, emphasizing each word grimly. Or he could start by addressing his emotions before the mission.
His face was unsettlingly blank, but the way his fists clenched until his knuckles were white belied his relaxed features. "And I don't know if that anger will go away any time soon. I'm so furious at you, at everything that happened, everything you chose to do these past months."
"You have every right to be," Annie acknowledged gracefully, hiding the hint of bubbling anger that threatened. Auggie stood up and started pacing from the kitchen island to the couch and back. Precise, swift turns on the balls of his feet at each end.
"You said 'Fuck it!' to everything we had going for us, before you went dark without consulting me and after you shot Henry. And after everything I did for you, everything I sacrificed, you didn't have the common courtesy to shoot me a warning text that you weren't coming home!"
"Everything we had going for us? Auggie, I did this for us!" Annie exclaimed, shocked that Auggie couldn't see that everything she did, every sin she committed, was for them.
"Really, Annie? I never asked for this! I never asked for any of this! We could have found another way!"
"No, we couldn't have. Not the one with this outcome!"
"What outcome? You faking your death? Do you know what it felt like when I told Danielle? Do you want to know what her screams sound like, the kind that didn't stop for hours after I told her that her little sister was dead? Do you know how fucking exhausting it was, playing the grieving boyfriend under the suspicious watch of an agency full of trained spies? You shooting Henry in a back alley? I heard you on the phone. You sounded dead. You not coming home? Did you even want to come back? You refusing to tell me the truth about why you weren't coming home? You know I could have done something if you'd told me someone was after you! Which outcome are you talking about?" Annie scoffed throughout Auggie's interrogation, suddenly letting that anger emerge.
"As if I didn't have my own problems to worry about! I couldn't afford the luxury of thinking about anything but the mission and keeping myself alive! And if you could ever forgive me," Annie started sarcastically, "the truth is complicate—" Annie stopped short, her stomach dropping suddenly. The truth is complicated. Forgive me. Ben's note. A whimper escaped her lips.
"Ha," Auggie snorted bitterly. "You finally figured it out, didn't you? You have been running around for the past 8 months thinking your actions did not affect anyone. You have been living on the thrill of catching Henry, of completing your mission, going around thinking that you are alone in this world. Your actions are not your own. Your life is not your own. You have people, Annie, and you let us go for your own mission."
Annie tried to suck in a breath but nothing could help the blackness that shrouded her vision. "It wasn't just my mission. None of this—"
"It was your self-appointed mission, Walker. A file and go-ahead from Joan wouldn't have mattered. No one's approval mattered and you still won't accept that this whole shit show came from you making the split-second decision to hunt down Henry Wilcox on your own."
"No, no. You don't get to put the blame on me. I didn't choose this. This is Henry's fault!"
"Yeah. This started with Henry. But the path you chose..." Auggie scrubbed his face and swallowed hard. Annie already knew the next words were going to hurt. "It was always Mercer's fault, when he left. It was always his fault, his choice, not something he was required to do. Not until you were in his shoes, then it was the mission's fault, not yours. It was required from you. You think you were never given a choice," Auggie continued, far more calmly, which was somehow even worse. "You are always given a choice. Mercer was given a choice. You chose to leave, Walker."
"It's not the same."
"It's funny, you know," Auggie said, both of them knowing that whatever he'd say couldn't be farther from funny. "It's all about him choosing the Agency, his mission, over you. And you can't see that you're doing the exact same thing."
"I didn't know Ben was CIA. I didn't know he was going to leave. You knew what I was going to do," Annie tried to defend weakly.
"Doesn't mean I wanted it to happen. Doesn't mean there wasn't a fallout." Auggie blinked back tears. "Doesn't mean it didn't– doesn't hurt."
Oh, Annie knew all about that hurt. She closed her eyes and saw the parallels now, clearly and distinctly, and tried not to heave. Ben Mercer had his reasons for leaving her in Sri Lanka, not that she knew them at the time. She tried to justify that it wasn't the same: Ben lied about his work and left her with nothing but a note; Auggie knew what she was getting into and even supported her. Except he didn't, he didn't want her going anywhere. He provided tactical support, but he didn't agree with her decision. She chose her mission over her love. She turned in to Ben Mercer. She was Auggie's Ben. That was almost too much to handle.
"Maybe we should go to bed. Talk about this in the morning," Annie suggested softly, feeling a darkness overtake her body. She was so tired. Annie uncapped her water and forced herself to swallow the cold liquid. She needed time. She needed space to think about everything. She refused to cry, but, damn, did she want to. How the hell am I supposed to move on from this? I became everything that ever broke me. How is Auggie not more broken?
"Why not put this discussion off? Actually, maybe I'll just head home and let you work this shit out yourself. Tell Joan and Calder I couldn't find you. You live your happy little life under whatever alias you choose. I'll try to move on. Hey, maybe I can join a spy organization to try to make up for getting burned by my ex-lover! It turned out so well for you," Auggie spat out, vicious sarcasm laced through his words.
His eyes flashed with regret as soon as the words left his mouth. Anger wouldn't help them. But he wanted to hate her. He wanted to hurt her, make her feel like he had for all the time she was dark. He kept pacing and waited for her to say something. He cleared his throat and muttered, "Sorry."
She seemed almost resigned in her silence, but then she murmured, "When I first started, Henry Wilcox said something to me. He said we were all in the mud."
"Yeah, I remember." He remembered that conversation. He remembered asking her if it bothered her. He remembered Annie confessing that she was scared of going too far down a path she wouldn't be able to recover from. He wondered if she was too far gone now.
"And I wanted to know how dirty I was going to get. I never thought it would be this dirty. I never wanted it to be this dirty. Auggie, I never wanted to hurt you. That was never my intent."
They sat in silence for a few minutes. The words were all out there. Now it was just a matter of how to move on from here. If they could move on. If they could ever really forgive each other.
"Joan and Calder have been on my ass about where you went off to and why you didn't contact me. We have different methods of protocol, Walker. A lot of them. And I have been racking my brain for an answer to why you didn't use any of them," Auggie interrupted her thoughts quietly and took his seat at the island again. It seemed that the hateful part of their talk was over. Out loud, anyway. Annie still felt Auggie's animosity toward her and her actions in the air.
"I didn't want to get in contact with you because I thought it would compromise my location. If Henry's Lexington guy even glimpsed which boat I was on, where I was headed... I needed to protect you. I still do."
"I was an operative just the same as you! I don't need protecting!" Auggie bellowed unexpectedly.
"What do you need, then, Auggie?" Annie inquired gingerly, taken aback at his outburst.
Auggie put his head in his hands and emitted what sounded suspiciously like a sob. "You. I need you, Annie," Auggie whispered to his hands. But then he looked up, his eyes nearly meeting Annie's perfectly. "I never need anyone, but I need you."
Annie gasped at his confession. Her fingers twitched toward Auggie, but he looked so fragile that she thought if she touched him he would break. Just like everything else she touched. God, I am death.
"I need you, Annie. But I also need to figure out how I need you. If I need you as a friend or something more. But I know I need you in my life, Annie, and I'm willing to fight for you and beside you."
Annie's mind did not make the instruction that her body followed when she lunged forward into Auggie's solid body. "Okay. Okay. Okay," Annie repeated like a plea into Auggie's soft cotton shirt. She felt his body shake as he wrapped his arms around her and realized she was shivering too. No, she was sobbing. Loud, snotty, gasps for breath, trying to relieve the weight that threatened her chest and locked up her throat. And so was Auggie.