Paris III
Living on the brink of exhaustion is something she's done her entire life.
There was Annie the army brat, the dare devil, the little sister and baby of the family, the son her father never had. A wild, invincible and reckless little girl, but emotionally torn between two parents who couldn't reconcile their differences.
There was Anne Catherine Walker the scholar, Georgetown graduate with a BA in Russian Literature and a double major in international affairs, who had a penchant for spontaneous travel. Sleepless nights studying turned into sleepless nights riding buses and backpacking across the world, working in refugee camps in South Ossetia, West Africa, Syria, and Vietnam. She spent summers near the ocean, and holidays in internet cafes skyping with her family instead of trekking home. Embracing the uncertainty of the future ahead of her was somehow easier than embracing her past.
There was Annie Walker the rookie agent. Fresh off the farm with something to prove, even if proving something meant putting her Russian skills to use as a call girl in 5 inch Louboutin heels. She remembers just how terrified she was when that hotel room exploded into gun fire, and how she couldn't sleep for weeks after it happened, and how unnatural it had felt to hold a gun months later for the very first time - let alone be asked to shoot it.
There was Jessica Matthews, dark haired and dark hearted, who burned everything she touched with the fire she left in her wake. This woman carried a pistol without blinking, hotwired various vehicles at the drop of a hat, and would not hesitate to pull teeth, or nails, or take part in any other method of torture to get what she wanted. Desperate for answers, hungry for revenge. She had been consumed by a vendetta that began in Colombia seeking justice for the people she loved. It ended in an alley in Hong Kong when she put three slugs in Henry Wilcox's chest.
Now there is this Annie, who's begun to wonder if all the pain and suffering that led her here was really worth it. Fighting against the inevitable, and constantly losing ground. A fractured version of her former self, physically and emotionally, exhaustion finally overwhelming her - broken, battered, and burnt out. She's lost between the invincible girl she remembers and the jaded person she's become.
Annie groans, blinks, but doesn't see anything. Her knees are pulled to her chest. The golden glow of a flickering streetlight suddenly reveals the world to her; a car trunk opening over her head. The world is spinning in and out of focus, and she wants to throw up, bile rising in her throat. The zip tie around her wrist cuts into her skin and a tire iron digs into her back.
A dark shadow hovers above her. It laughs, malevolent and monstrous. She tries to move, but her reflexes refuse her, the drug still wrecking havoc on her body. Fear settles in her chest, an innate understanding that she is completely alone, and the finality of that realization is sobering. She hadn't been alone though, she remembers finding Ryan. She remembers, distinctly, how his hands had felt against her face.
Did he leave her?
Even if he did, why do you care?
"You're CIA, yes?" The shadow asks her.
She doesn't answer. She stares at the blank space beyond the reality in front of her. Her breathing is ragged, her heartbeat sluggishly slow. She's freezing cold. It's the last thing she feels, ice running through her veins, before the darkness swallows her whole.
When Ivan finally drags her from the trunk of his car, Annie starts fighting the remnants of the GSB that's still in her system. She immediately surveys her surroundings, a side street somewhere in Paris, taking note of the gun in his hand. When he pins her against the hood of his car her head spins, and a sickening wave of terror hits at his mention of Lefortovo prison. Memories of that place are almost enough to make her panic as they walk toward another SUV further down the street. She continues to feign innocence, trying to distract Ivan long enough with her pleas to figure out an escape.
That's when gunfire breaks out over the top of her head.
She's not expecting a savior, but she's more than welcome to let Ryan McQuaid play the part.
Ivan pulls her back down the street, firing rapid gunfire in their wake that prevents Ryan from following. His right shoulder is hit, and blood is quickly staining his designer suit. She'd like nothing more than to rub salt in the wound, or at least shoot him again. First she needs to get away from him, and she can't wait for Ryan again, because every second that passes is another second dooming her to the fate awaiting her in Moscow. With the cards up, Annie pulls a Hail Mary. No longer trying to hide who she is, she distracts Ivan just long enough with her Agency bullshit to knock him in the side of the head.
Unfortunately his legs are still working, and when she breaks free and runs, he gives chase. He continues to fire his gun until he runs out of bullets, the shots ricocheting off the stone walls around them, and when they break the threshold of a Parisian courtyard with a fountain he overtakes her and tackles her to the ground. Annie thrashes, but Ivan's weight pins her to the cobble stone street, and his right hook to her stomach leaves her stunned and unable to breathe. Her vision swims, and when he shoves her head into the concrete she can taste blood in her mouth.
He drags her backward, yanking her to her feet by her hair. Annie cries out just as he spins her around and into the edge of the fountain.
He shoves her head first into the water.
She thinks she'll die here, drowning. Ghosts of her past come back to haunt her, a reverie of the torture she'd been made to endure at Lefortovothe last time she'd been captured. Just as the edges of her periphery begin to blacken, and her chest burst into fire, the muted sound of gunfire echoes above her head. Seconds later, Ivan's hold on her vanishes, and he appears in the water beside her. Annie propels herself backward, soaking wet, coughing up water and gasping, quickly sucking the frigid night air into her deprived lungs.
The first thing she sees is Ryan.
He quickly closes the gap between them, gun still in hand. Two other men step out of the shadows on the other side of the courtyard, armed and dressed in tactical gear. Annie, her adrenaline still running high, eyes them warily. Her mind is screaming at her to flee, but her body is in no state to do so. She's so out of her own head that she doesn't even realize Ryan's holstered his own weapon, and is standing right next to her. She jumps when he touches her arm.
"Hey." His voice is calm, level. "It's ok. They're mine."
Annie watches, still frozen in a state of shock, as one of the men hands Ryan a knife. He quickly cuts the ties from her wrists, his eyes lingering on the angry red lines etched into her skin.
"Go sit down." Ryan gestures to a bench several yards away, and then back to where two men are now pulling a still breathing Ivan out of the fountain. "We'll take care of this."
Annie nods, but when she tries to turn too quickly her knees buckle and her legs give out. Ryan grabs her arm before she can fall, pulling her back. The motion is nauseating, and it hits her hard, along with a flood of emotions from the past hour, and all the memories that resurface with them. She'd been seconds away from going back to the place her nightmares are made of. She feels like she's drowning all over again.
Annie doubles over, trying to move away, dry heaving onto the street.
Ryan stays with her.
He waits, holding her steady, making sure her hair doesn't fall in her face.
AN: Season 3 was always and still is one of my favorite seasons, but I was always disappointed that the show never dealt with Annie's time in Lefortovo. I was glad to hear it's name again in this particular season 5 episode (506), even though we really didn't get any emotional fall out from it on Annie's end. The scene with her and Ryan on the bench after he saves her was stellar though, and Piper really conveyed a lot of emotion with so little effort in it. Anyways, call this satisfying my head canon. Thanks as always to my lovely beta Primmadona. She puts all these awesome ideas in my head! ;)
Edit: Heartbroken that CA was canceled. That doesn't even describe my emotional status as I type this. Ugh.