A/N: Wow! Exciting reviews. I appreciate your feedback. The second half of this chapter was written months ago and is the idea on which this story was based. I hope it answers some of the reviewers' questions.

Chapter 21

After dinner, while Annie and Sam were folded into the family discussion of the best Christmas movies, Auggie asked Max to join him on a quick walk. His brother complied.

"What's up?" Max asked once they made it down the driveway to the street.

"I'm thinking about leaving my job." Auggie told him.

Max's eyes narrowed. "The one I don't know that you have?"

Auggie nodded slowly. "Yeah. That one." They kept moving against the cold. "I think I'm going to have an opportunity to work for my former boss. I don't know this for sure, but between him, his son and me, we have a certain skill set that would be useful to corporations or individuals looking to secure their current operations or move into international business. It struck me when we were talking about finding Sam that you also have skills and expertise that these clients could use. I don't know what you're planning, and I'm not sure when we'll be up and running, but I'd like you to keep us in mind."

"Who's your boss?" Max asked, not breaking stride.

"Max," Auggie started, then stopped. He'd have to tell him sometime. "Arthur Campbell."

Max stopped cold and Auggie slammed into his side. "Jesus, Auggie. That's what you've been mixed up in these past few months?" Henry Wilcox and Arthur Campbell's names had been all over the news in the aftermath of Henry's takedown.

He nodded. "I'd say it wasn't that big of a deal, but it actually was." He turned to face his brother. "Annie was in danger and I couldn't help her. That's happened a few times before, but this was different. Maybe because I love her. I hope that's all it is." He shook his head, almost embarrassed to say the next words. "She's living the life I thought I'd have, and don't get me wrong, I'm grateful to have been able to go back and contribute, but I think I need to go now. I think it will be easier if I don't know all the details." He hoped it would be, although the memory of the months she spent with Lena and Simon didn't fill him with any ease whatsoever. "I'm too close to be her handler, and I'm not going to be a director, so that's that."

Max quickly recognized the finality in his tone as he concluded. "Does she know that you've made up your mind?"

"I brought it up in Costa Rica, but not the right way, and I didn't really say what I meant. I started talking about her not me – lots of projecting." He shook his head again. "I've been hinting around for a while, but I think that day I effectively buried the lead by contracting Dengue."

"It's hard to have no power over what the person you love does." Max conceded. "Believe me. I know how much it sucks to have to stand on the sideline and trust that they'll be okay. At least you know the people Annie will be working with. Do you trust them?"

Auggie sighed deeply. "I do. Our department head and the director above him are both trustworthy, but there's no guarantee that things will stay the same."

"Seriously?" Max shoved his brother slightly.

Auggie chuckled just a bit. "I know. That's such a dumb argument."

"It really is." They started moving again. "She's good at what she does?"

"One of the best."

"You wouldn't have it any other way, you know?" To Max's knowledge, Auggie had never settled out anywhere other than the top.

Auggie took another deep breath. "It's almost like starting from the beginning again." His voice wavered. "Do I have to do all that again?"

Now Max felt the heat in his own face. "I'm so sorry, Aug. I should have been there. No matter what was going on with me, I should have been here for you."

"It was a long time ago."

"I know it was, but Troy and I talked some today, and Rhett's tried to tell me for years, but I wouldn't listen. I need you to know how sorry I am about that and how much I regret the time that we've missed."

"I appreciate the apology, but you don't have to keep making it. You really don't. I want to try to put it behind us and go forward from here, if we can."

"I'd like that too." Max agreed. "Should we head back?"

"Think they're looking for us?"

"No."

"I love how we're already old news."

"Gotta bring something exciting to the table in this family, I guess." Max joked with a playful shrug of his shoulders.

"Pathetic must not count, because I don't know how I could be any more pathetic." Auggie ducked his head in a self-deprecating gesture. Max laughed and gave him a healthy shove, but he kept his balance as they moved back up the sidewalk and back toward the house.

Annie glanced around the room, finding Auggie to be very conspicuously absent. She glanced over at Sam who shrugged. It seemed that Max had also disappeared. Before she could move in Sam's direction, Gwen touched her arm.

"We haven't really had a chance to talk the entire time you've been here, Annie. I trust you've been well."

"Always busy, but yes, doing well." She sipped water from the glass in her hand. "Auggie's been good, too. Before all this, I mean. I know sometimes he feels like he has to put forward a brave face no matter what, but it really hasn't been like that for a while."

"He was always like that." Gwen nodded.

Annie smiled. "Ruth mentioned today that you had a recent publication. I'd have read it if I'd known. Not that I would have understood much, I'm sure."

"Oh, I don't know." Gwen smiled. "It's a little different from my previous work."

"Oh, how's that?"

She rubbed her finger around the rim of her wineglass as she spoke, almost avoiding eye contact with Annie. "I've been working on nanogel technology for creating a new scaffolding for transmission of impulse for central neurons. Specifically the optic nerves."

Annie found herself almost speechless. After a second she asked, "Does he know you've been working on this?"

Gwen shrugged, a contented smirk briefly crossing her face as she looked up. "I'd guess he knows about as much about what I do as I do about what he does."

Annie laughed, a little uncomfortably. "Oh?"

"He's not the only who can keep secrets."

"Gwen."

"I'm not asking you to tell me things you can't Annie, but I think we all know that he doesn't design the interactive features of the Smithsonian website or whatever he supposedly does. I thought it may have something to do with the Pentagon given his military history or the NSA because I have an idea of what's he's capable of at a computer, but now that we've met you, there's no doubt in my mind what he does or did. It's pretty obvious that they have you working people not codes."

"Gwen," Annie almost pleaded. "This is really a conversation you should have with him."

"And I will at some point. Can you just tell me if he's safe? I know you obviously can't know that every minute, but in general."

Annie thought about her answer for a long time before she spoke. "Yeah. He is. And more than that, he keeps me safe. You should know that he's the best we have and maybe in the world at what he does. You should be really proud of him."

"Oh, Annie, I'd be proud of him for designing that website."

"I know that. But I'm saying in every way that you should be."

Gwen nodded. "He loves a strong woman. That's hard to do, so I've been told."

Annie smiled now. She knew the conversation that night in Costa Rica was more about his insecurities about leaving the job that had given him so much security than about her coming into her own at the Agency. "He learned that from you and Jim. He's genuinely happy in my successes, and you're right. That's not an easy thing to find."

"You didn't have to tell me all of that." Gwen knew Annie had come close to, if not crossed, a line she hadn't intended to even toe.

Annie blushed in her own recognition of this. "I shouldn't have told you that, but he's more modest than he has to be. Especially about work."

"What will you do?"

"I'll marry him, and we'll go from there. I'll support him in whatever he wants to do, but I'm going to continue to build my career." She waited a second. "I'd ask if it's okay with you, but at this point I'm all in. I don't think I could walk away now."

Gwen smiled "That's the right answer, Annie."

TBC