Chapter 36 Note: I swapped what I wrote for 37 with 36. I wanted to go out of order and then back in time with Joan, but for the sake of flow, this works better. . . let me know what you think. It's setting up more of Annie's current state-of-mind.

Ryan awakens just as he had fallen asleep to a nurse arriving to check on Annie. "Excuse me sir, we need to take Miss Walker to X-ray."

"I'd like to accompany her." It was just like Ryan to make a statement rather than ask for permission.

"I'm afraid not, you can wait here, but visiting hours will be over soon. She might not be back by then, there are quite a few X-rays ordered for Miss Walker."

"I planned to stay the night here with her."

"Are you family?"

"Uh, no, she's uh, she's my. . .we're getting married does that count?"

"I'm afraid it's immediate family only," says the nurse looking at Annie's chart. "Actually, it says Joan Campbell and August Anderson are the emergency contacts and the only approved visitors."

"It's okay, I've been here with her for a few hours already."

"That was a big oversight on our part, I'm sorry, I need to follow hospital policy sir." Ryan is pissed, but he knows making a scene isn't the answer.

The nurse and x-ray tech push Annie's bed out of the room and head to a different floor via elevator. Annie's guard follows which gives Ryan some relief. He takes out his phone as it rings. It's Joan Campbell. Good, thinks Ryan, he wanted to talk to her to find out how he can be added to Annie's emergency contact list.

"Joan."

"Your associate says you can't come to Langley tomorrow morning, I'm calling to say it's not a choice. You're needed tomorrow at the DPD for a debrief your recent mission." Just like Joan, all business.

"You got the version of events from Jim already, he represents McQuaid Securities. I won't leave Annie alone."

"I contracted the job out to you and part of that contract includes making sure you close the loop, I need you down at Langley for that or it's the last contract McQuaid Securities will see from me. Auggie is just getting his hands on that laptop and the cell phones your operatives collected. There's a lot to square away, the NCTC will be waiting too, you know Kravec had ties to Belenko and it brings back questions about Mueller."

"Joan, you didn't witness Annie go through the ringer here and without any painkillers, I'm afraid she's. . ."

"She's what?"

"She just seems completely on the edge of a breakdown or something. I need to be here for her, she needs someone, you of all people should know what your operative has been through since returning from the dead."

Sadly Joan knew more details about Annie's state of mind and health than Ryan and more than even she ever wanted to know. She had been keeping tabs on Annie's movements and progress through the posted security guard. She hated being a bitch and tearing Ryan away from Annie, but it was what needed to be done and Joan was always good at getting down to brass tacks.

"Ryan the best thing you can do for her is the come down to Langley, complete your after action report and give us what we need to keep Kravec in U.S. custody."

"You mean after everything that bastard has done, there's a question of whether he'll be locked away for life or not? Give me the key and I'll destroy it. What the fuck Joan? You can let him get away again."

"I couldn't prevent it last time and I sure as hell am going to try this time, but the guys at State are unpredictable, you know that. It's all political with them and they don't prioritize our operatives, instead they deny their existence. They have a different function than us, that's why I need your eyewitness accounts to use if it comes to that. I need unassailable proof that Kravec is dangerous to our operatives not to mention he's connected to a dozen terrorists."

"Dammit Joan, don't we have that already, we cut him loose and look at what he's done, how's that not enough proof?" asks Ryan angrily, his blood is boiling. This is why he hated doing anything with the State Department, their were a bunch of ass kissing ass covering yahoos.

"Ryan, I've been in this long enough to know the politics, I'm just anticipating here, preparing for the inevitable, we're on the same side. I need your help to protect Annie."

Joan was a pro, she knew just what weaknesses to exploit to get what she wanted and doing it to someone who really was on the same team, was no different. She viewed Ryan as an asset to be turned and she knew she had him. On his part, Ryan was so distracted by Annie's condition and his own physical pain that he didn't even notice he was being worked by Joan.

It's not just the contracts that he cared about, he couldn't let Kravec go free. So he relents, "Fine Joan, I'll be there first thing in the morning, but let's keep it brief."

"It's okay, Annie will be fine. She's tough. We have a guard outside her room. There's no more immediate threat. I'll even have Auggie go there before work. He's been itching to see her, I've just had to keep him hear all day, it's all hands on deck."

"That reminds me Joan, can I get added onto Annie's emergency contact list?"

"Uh, she'd have to do that herself, its' protocol."

The CIA and their protocols. Ryan was frustrated, but he wasn't going to give up.

"I'll see you tomorrow."

Ryan ends the call and looks up a number and dials it.

Ryan puts in a call to his college buddy who is Chief of Medicine at Walter Reed, Captain Bennett Wong, M.D. Bennett sees who is calling him and picks up, "Hey Q, you up for 18 on Saturday?"

"Golf sounds good, but after I nurse the gunshot wound in my shoulder."

"Man, Q, you're past your prime, isn't it time to stop dodging bullets? When am I going to meet this woman who has kept you from our last two tee times? You can't keep sending Jim, he's not got the patience for it."

Ryan says, "I'm working on it old friend. Actually she's why I'm calling. She's here at your hospital and I can't get in to see her." He and Bennett had great times as cadets at Annapolis, he loved making fun of his nerdy friend. Bennett tried for Annapolis to pay for medical school and see a bit of the world before having the life his immigrant parents wished for him. His form of rebellion was to go to the Naval Academy. He had his life planned to the minute. Bennett wasn't fit for the life of a soldier. But Ryan had pulled him out of a makeshift hospital in Fallujah before it took mortar fire, if Bennett wasn't already grateful to Ryan for standing up to redneck idiots who always tried to jack Bennett because he didn't fit the typical Annapolis profile, he was after Fallujah. Wong also knew Kelly, they were lab partners in bio before Kelly realized a life in medicine wasn't for her and went down the pre-law path.

Wong says, he'll have Ryan added to the visitors list as Annie's fiance, "as long as she's really into you too, you're not stalking her like you used me to get to Kelli are you?" Ryan chuckles reminded of how he would always ask Bennett where he was going to be only because he knew he was meeting Kelli to study for bio. "No, she's just the only woman after Kelly to get under my skin you know?"

"Absolutely, anything for a fellow Captain and friend. I have rounds at 0700, text you for some joe after that and I'll take a look at your gunshot and your girl?"

"Sounds great man. Thanks."

Ryan goes back to the nurse's station. "Hi, can you check again, I'm sure my name is on Annie Walker's visitor's list."

And "Ryan McQuaid" was on the list as Bennett promised he would do. Ryan stays in Annie's room waiting for her to return from X-ray.

Meanwhile Joan meets Annie at X-ray, she was actually in the hospital when she spoke to Ryan, she knew from the posted guard where Annie was located. Annie is still groggy from the pain medication and valium. Joan manages to be alone with Annie while she awaits her X-rays. After Joan rouses Annie, she holds a straw to her mouth.

"Since you're not going to eat anything for at least another 24 hours, I brought you a milkshake."

Annie still groggy, takes a few sips.

"I'm going to keep McQuaid at the DPD for as long as I can tomorrow, everything is falling into place, tomorrow is show time if you're still sure this is what you really want."

Annie nods and with a hoarse voice from not drinking anything and from the screaming earlier during her D & C. "This life has finally caught up to me, it's taken away more than it's given to me now, it's time to call it quits."

"Annie, as much as I know this will fall on deaf ears, you can quit the CIA without leaving your life behind."

"I've made up my mind, I need a clean slate."

"All right then, can you keep up the depressed and distraught ruse until then?"

"What ruse Joan? It's all real."

Joan looks at Annie sadly, "Right, I'm sorry, that was insensitive. The plan hinges on them ordering a psych consult, you need to do whatever it takes to get a transfer order. Then things will move into motion from there."

"Got it."

Joan tries to give Annie the protocol she set up for getting in touch with her if needed. Annie refuses. She says to really disappear she doesn't want Joan to know where she is or to maintain contact. "I want to know you're okay." Annie says, "I'm far from okay, but don't worry Joan. I'll get there eventually.

"That makes me sad Annie, I'll miss you, many people will miss you. Auggie, Ryan, Barber, and Calder too. Will I ever see you again?" but Joan is never one to dwell on things.

"If I can help it, I won't see you until Mac graduates from high school."

Joan is sympathetic to Annie, especially since the guard reported to her the circumstances behind her D & C.

"Here's a key to a safe deposit box located in Basel and another in Maracaibo." The key was held on a chain. It reminded Annie of the key, Simon's sister gave her.

"Maracaibo? I won't be going there anytime soon and Basel?"

"They belonged to Teo. Venezuela being next to Columbia was a place Teo kept a box and Switzerland was his base for a stint after he trained with Auggie in Italy. I could only get you enough cash to start out with on short notice, your contact will have it after he gets you out of here. I'm sure Teo's box is filled with euros and US dollars, probably a gun or two and his contacts. I'm not sure what else. Remember his mission was black, off the books, none of it can be traced back to the CIA."

Annie looks at Joan, eyes narrowing, wanted to ask questions herself, but all she could muster was, "Thank you Joan, this means a lot that you'd help me."

"Believe me, there were times when I had the opportunity, but didn't and I regret that. Yeah, Teo's things. If there's anything personal, please send it to me if you can. Arthur never had the heart to go empty his safe deposit boxes and neither did I. Figured it would come in handy one day. He has others scattered throughout Europe and South America and I have a few, but in former Soviet republics, not places you want to be."

Joan is trying to figure out where Annie may land. Annie senses this immediately.

"You have a place in mind?"

"Even if I did, it's best that you not know."

Joan had to give it a try. Annie had been to many places during her time as an operative. She knew many cities well and spoke over a dozen languages well enough to get by living in countries that spoke those languages. It would be awfully hard to figure out where Annie would go given all her options.

"Okay then, you remember the plan? You contact will have a go bag and clothes for you, enough cash to get by for about two months. You'll have to build up your own cover with whatever contacts you can make, I'm nearly done securing your passports and IDs."

"Who's going to be on the other end?"

"It's best that you don't know that now."

"Ok, thanks Joan."

Joan gives Annie a hug and squeezes her hand, "I hope I see you sooner than you said. Good-bye Annie."

"Thank you Joan for coming through for me."

Joan removes the lab coat she was wearing and leaves as stealthily as she came, but with a heavy heart.

Annie has a chest X-ray taken of her ribs, one of her collar bone and jaw. There are fractures at numerous locations. The radiologist reading the films orders a sling and bandaging for Annie's ribs. She would have a couple of weeks of recovery on her hands. Annie's main doctor orders a liquid diet due to the fractured jaw and missing molar.

When the X-ray tech and nurse returns Annie to her room, McQuaid was happy to see that she was awake. "I was about to go looking for you, that took a while."

Annie manages a weak smile. "What did they say?"

"A bunch of fractured bones, nothing broken," says Annie flatly. Ryan relieved. "Well, I'm glad nothing is broken," says a smiling Ryan.

Again with his positive puppy dog eyes and outlook. Early on, it amused Annie, intrigued her even, she is reminded of the time when every cop in Venezuela was after them and they were trying to escape the country. Ryan had said, it was times like that when he felt like the luckiest man alive. Some of his sunny disposition had rubbed off on her, they both were so looking forward to becoming parents, they spent their nights at the beach reading baby care books and looking online at nursery furniture. They even agreed on a set after some debate and McQuaid ordered everything, the crib, dresser, changing table, and rocker to match along with a cozy wool rug. Annie is stirred from her memories by the dull pain developing in her pelvic region. Slowly all the drugs they had given her were wearing off.

Ryan notices her face, a wince and a moan. He goes to her IV and pushes the morphine. "What did you just do?" asks Annie with accusation in her voice.

"Just taking care of you Walker, figured I'd do it before you told me not to. You know, 'ask for forgiveness, not permission' so to speak, says Ryan trying to be light-hearted.

"You forced them to give me the painkillers and to sedate me didn't you? You had no right Ryan!" He could see she was still her stubborn fiery self.

Ryan sighs, "I'm not going to apologize for it, you needed to stop suffering whether you wanted it or not."

"It's what you needed McQuaid, not what I needed."

Ryan sighs, "I don't want to argue Annie. Just let me take care of you."

"How are you feeling?" asks Annie choosing to ignore the subject while she tries to reach for the morphine to disconnect the feed into her IV tube causing a beeping noise to start.

"I'm not the one in the hospital."

"You should be, you know. You don't look too good."

"I bounce back quickly, like I know you will. Listen, I want to be added to your emergency contact list. Can you do that?"

Annie looks away. It's harder than she imagined. Ryan continues sarcastically, "Protocol demands that you be the one to add me and I figure since we're getting married, I need to be listed as your emergency contact."

Annie keeps looking out the window for a few seconds, Ryan waits on her response, "About that Ryan, there's no reason for us to get married anymore and you can cancel the nursery furniture we ordered last week too." Tears roll down Annie's eyes. Ryan is stunned, first, he wasn't even thinking about the furniture and second, what was Annie saying?

He grabs a tissue and hands it to Annie.

"The baby wasn't the reason I want to marry you Annie, you KNOW that and if you really didn't know that, hear me now, I love you Annie Walker and I want us to get married."

Annie keeps looking out the window trying not to break down. She can't stand hurting him, but this is for the best. She convinces herself that he's better off without her, without the heartbreak that she would surely bring him. For Annie, the thought of being with a man was sickening to her, the thought of not giving McQuaid any physical love or affection would need explaining and she just couldn't do that to him.

"Annie, I know you are hurting, I am too. I understand grief, hell, I lived with it for about five years before I really started to live, and it was another five years before I let myself fall for someone. I want to be here, I wish you would let me, we're together remember? Please let me take care of you, let the doctors and nurses take care of you."

"What's the point? There's no me left. You're a smart man, it's time to cute your losses Ryan."

Ryan grits his teeth and lets out a deep sigh, he rubs his forehead and right temple with his hand before responding in a lowered voice. He was trying not to come off as irritated, "Damn it Annie, you can't let Kravec win, you are alive, you got out! Don't let him do this to you. You're grieving, I understand, we can grieve together. It will take time to get over the loss, especially since we were so thrilled to have the baby and spent those weeks making plans, but we will get through this. We'll take it day by day."

Hearing Ryan talk about the baby and their hopes put a painful ache in Annie's heart. When she met him all she had was her life as a covert operative, it was what was left of her identity at the time and she clung to it tightly until Ryan broke through her walls. Hiding her heart condition and maintaining her life in the field seemed like a lifetime ago, she got over that hurdle in her life to find a few weeks of peace and contentment with Ryan before all of it was shattered by Kravec. Those weeks with Ryan were beautiful, she found a new path, a new purpose for her life that didn't include being a spy, guns, running or lies. She started to look into a change in roles at the CIA and rehearsed a reunion with Danielle, writing draft after draft of letters and speeches, but mostly she was looking forward to being a mom. Annie had been surprised by Ryan's small yet romantic gestures in the past, but watching him engrossed in pregnancy and baby care books and tracking the baby's development week by week was what made her wonder where he had been all her life. It wasn't going to be easy to get over Ryan McQuaid. Annie used the sorrow she felt at losing what she and Ryan were supposed to have together to address Ryan.

"Don't you get it Ryan? He did win! He took away any chance we had at a happily ever after," spat Annie.

"What?", from Ryan's perspective Kravec who was locked up, probably for life was the loser in this scenario. He was stupid enough to think he could grab Annie from the States, ferry her off to Cuba to be tortured and then sold to Russia. In Ryan's book, Kravec's mission was thwarted and the good guys won. They lost their baby, but not Annie. He could live with that. But Ryan didn't know the extent of what Annie suffered at Kravec's hands.

"He took my baby, he took a part of me that I'll never get back. He won by destroying me."

Ryan was speechless at first, the once strong and powerful woman he fell for had disappeared, she was in such a desperate and hopeless state-of-mind, he wanted so badly to figure out a way to get her out of it. At the same time, anger was boiling inside him. Ryan was doing everything he could to control himself from punching a hole in the wall. He took a deep breath before saying, "He was my baby too, he was our son, we can grieve together, we'll plan a memorial once you get of here. We don't have to worry about Kravec anymore, he'll be away forever. I'll make sure of it. He'll never hurt you or me again."

Annie just shakes her head through her tears. "You have no obligation left to me Ryan. Please just go, I mean it. I don't have strength left to fight anymore."

Ryan can't hide his frustration anymore, he raises his voice to her, "You are not an obligation! I love you, it won't be easy, but we'll get through if we lean on each other. I refuse to lose you Walker, you hear me?"

Annie is just zoning off, she's not herself and Ryan does not understand it. This is her way of coping, her initial reaction, always to push away. As much as he was feeling hurt, he changes the subject. He knows once he gets her out of the hospital and back home, she'll come around. Maybe tomorrow when he got done with Langley, he would fill the room with hydrangeas. She needed some cheering up and sadly Ryan was naïve enough to think he could do it.

He softens his voice and kisses Annie on the forehead, she moves her head away from his lips, the movement causes a rippling pain in her collarbone and shoulder.

"Okay, we don't have to talk about this now. Let's see what they left for you here. While you were at X-ray, meal service came by." Ryan walks to the food tray and brings it closer to Annie.

"Apple sauce, vanilla pudding, creamed spinach, some chicken noodle soup, it's still nice and hot Annie."

"No thanks."

"Is it your jaw?"

"It's fractured."

"There's a straw here for the soup". Ryan brings the bowl closer to Annie, but she keeps refusing to have any.

"I'm tired Ryan. As she lifts her arm out of her blanket to swat away the bowl, he sees more of her injuries, the cuts and bruises on her arms.

"If you would eat, you would have some energy, you need food to heal."

A nurse comes in, "How's dinner coming along?"

"We're working on it," says Ryan.

"I'm tired and really not hungry, can I be left alone?" The nurse says, "Of course, you've had a long and hard day, come on sir, let's step outside," says the nurse as she pulls the blanket for Annie and change out her antibiotics on the IV stand.

She doesn't say anything. If anything she is still good at deception. She can't look at him anymore, it would make it harder to carry out her plan.

Outside, Ryan is feeling helpless and worried. Then he overhears the nurse report that Patient Walker is not eating and expresses concern over Annie's mental status. The doctor says, "Try again in another hour, we'll consider scheduling the feeding tube if the patient continues on like this. She can't afford to not eat. We're suppose to discharge healthy patients not sick ones."

The staff is all worried about her state of mind. The doctor looks through Annie's files on the computer. "We can order a psych consult tomorrow if Miss Walker persists in refusing food, might be acute depression or it could be more long term PTSD or something like that, best to get the shrinks involved."

Ryan walked to the nurse's station to ask about Annie's prognosis. He wanted to speak to the doctor about her. The doctor asked who he was, he said she's his fiancé. The doctor replied, "The only visitors and people privy to information are a Joan Campbell and August Anerderson, are you Mr. Anderson?

"No, but I am her fiancé."

"Than I'm afraid, I can't divulge Miss Walker's information." Ryan is beyond frustrated, but all he can do it go out to the waiting area where he eventually gives in to exhaustion and falls asleep for a couple of hours.