If you can read this, congratulations! Friday night there seemed to be some sort of glitch in which the file didn't upload. Bummer. If you're reading this, then that means it's fixed!

Established Annie/Auggie relationship.

Annie needed Auggie's help. One of the passwords he gave her was outdated, and access was the last leg of her immediate work for the day. The only thing standing between herself and an early exit home, was the fact that she couldn't find him.

"Hey, Barber, where's Auggie?"

Barber wiped his chip-crumb covered hands on a napkin and furrowed his brow. "He went home sick."

"That's impossible," Annie countered. "Auggie doesn't get sick."

"Well, he went home sick at two, so I guess there's a first for everything."

Annie frowned. No way. "Did he say where he was going?"

Barber shrugged. "He said he was sick. I guess you could call him."

Annie stepped outside and dialed his home number on her cell. He answered on the third ring.

"Hey, where are you?" she asked, a certain amount of panic in her voice.

"I'm at home. I'm fine," he said in a voice that wasn't.

"Barber said you were sick..."

"Annie, I'm really all right. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

He wasn't, not remotely, no matter how he tried to make it sound that way, but he hung up before Annie could protest. She could never tell how bad things were with Auggie because he constantly pushed through and skimmed over his problems, but he was audibly in pain. She recalled the times she'd been sick or hurt, how he'd come and taken care of her.

At the very least, this move would make her look like a crazy person, but she was willing to risk it.

He'd given her an emergency key in their second month of dating.

"What constitutes an emergency?" she'd asked.

"Fire, flood, injury, sex," he'd listed with a smirk.

She wasn't sure which one of these this was, but she was declaring an emergency.

"Knock-knock," she said, sliding the front door open gently.

"Annie?" he lay on top of the made bed, a rag over his eyes.

"Hey," she whispered, going over to him. The apartment was creepy-quiet. "You don't look all right."

"Headache," he managed.

When Auggie got headaches, he really got headaches, but she'd never seen one bad enough that it had taken him out of work. From what Annie understood, his blindness had very little to do with his actual eyes. When the IED exploded, the reverb of the blast threw his brain against the inside of his skull. The swelling and impact left him totally blind, a rarity in the realm of visual impairment, but he also got sudden, excruciating headaches.

Like this one.

"What are you doing here?" he asked softly.

Annie leaned over, put her hand on his arm and ran her thumb back and forth, a soothing move she learned from her mom. "I just wanted to make sure you were all right. You sounded pretty bad on the phone."

She was overwhelmed with guilt for coming. Auggie never wanted anyone to see him like this, and there was nothing her presence could possibly help. It was a matter of waiting out the storm, and he could do that better in silence.

"I'll get out of your hair," she whispered, standing again. She squeezed his hand, but he squeezed it back, pulling her back towards him.

"No, Annie," he removed the rag and sat up. "Stay." He patted the bed beside him.

She hesitated. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

She lay down beside him. After a moment, he rolled over onto his side and she wrapped herself around him. It felt natural. She felt his muscles relax slightly against hers.

"I'm glad you came," he said finally.

"I almost didn't," she admitted. "But then I thought about how you always barge in when I'm sick, so I thought I'd give it a shot."

"This was not a fire, flood, injury or sex," he reminded her, a hint of a smile on his face.

"Are you going to take away my key?" she asked playfully.

"This is strike one."

They lay there, atop his bed, in the pitch-darkness, and she realized she really loved him. It wasn't the first time she'd thought it, they'd been saying it for months, but this time it really hit her. Love was lying in the dark with a guy with a headache. Love was being the only person he would ever let see him like this. Love was holding him until he felt better because you know he'd do the same if the roles were reversed. This was love.