Sorry for the delay, been busy with life. Here's Auggie's letter, finally, he reveals the contents to McQuaid.
Through the intervention of his friends, Ryan went back to work full-time two weeks after he found Annie's letter. He drowned his sorrow in work and turned his focus on house training Ruby.
Approximately four months later. . .
Ryan and Auggie meet for drinks about four months after Annie's dramatic escape from the ambulance transporting her from Walter Reed to a psychiatric hospital. They had not seen each other in a month. The bar where the two men agree to meet is abuzz and festive. The entire establishment is full of patriotic young Americans drawn to the District of Columbia for work and graduate studies. It's completely adorned in red, white and blue to celebrate the 4th of July. Ryan and Auggie are the few remaining patrons when most of the others file out to view the fireworks.
"To Annie and her favorite holiday" says Auggie raising his glass in McQuaid's direction.
Ryan grits his teeth as he raises his glass to clink Auggie's glass.
"To Annie, may she be well wherever she landed," says McQuaid.
The two men sit side by side each conjuring up memories of Annie. Auggie remembers Annie's radiance, he never saw her, but she exuded energy he could feel when she entered a room. That radiance was gone when she first returned from Hong Kong, as well as any chance to start over, she had made that clear. But Auggie was okay with that, he'd gotten over her romantically, like he'd gotten over Helen, Tash, and Parker before her, but he wasn't over their friendship. No matter what they were friends first. Good Friends. Even though she betrayed his trust more than once, Auggie would always have her back. From time to time he wondered why she kept him in the dark about leaving. Maybe he'd been too harsh towards her over the Tash incident in Paris. The op in Paris where Annie engaged Kravec was a mistake on so many levels.
Ryan remembers Annie's inner strength and resolve. She was stubborn and so sure of herself. She was so sure she didn't need anyone until she needed him and he needed her too. During the missions he worked with her, he saw her unique skills as a field operative, her refusal to give up, and her dedication to the op at hand. There was so much fight and sass in her, but Kravec snuffed it out, he beat her until her body could no longer carry their child and it shattered her into a thousand pieces. Annie Walker was broken and he didn't even know where she was to help pick up the pieces. Knowing that and knowing that he didn't save her from Kravec still grieved McQuaid.
Ryan breaks the silence, "You know I'm still pissed at the CIA for trading Kravec in the first place."
"Yeah, I get that, you were pretty hard on the team your guys worked with on that recent op. But you know it's complicated, we owed it to some operatives and assets, it was necessary. If Annie were one of them and traded for Kravec you'd feel differently. You gotta cut Joan some slack. You can't be more pissed at Joan than Kravec himself."
"No, that's not a fair comparison. I'd wrap my hands around his neck and inflict the same pain he caused Annie if I could."
"You and I both know that's not the man you are McQuaid."
"One can fantasize, I had a chance to put a bullet through his skull, but I didn't."
"You ever think about visiting him?"
"I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of knowing that he didn't just torture Annie, but caused her to miscarry and abandon her life."
"So you're not even a little ticked at her for leaving you?"
"I tried that, didn't work. I know her thought process, she left to save me from herself. It was an act of love and sacrifice however misguided. The only person I'm angry at is Kravec."
Auggie thinks about the multiple times he has lost this temper.
"I do that, get angry and react violently, landed in lock-up once after this girl broke up with me. Really didn't know what came over me, I couldn't stop myself."
"It wasn't Annie was it?"
Auggie chuckles, "No, before her time."
McQuaid grunts. "She is something else. I saw this part of her that was haunted. She felt she was too dark, too messed up, too scarred to be with anyone. I thought I got her to see otherwise, but when she lost the baby, all that darkness came back a hundred fold and took over."
Auggie nods. She was different when she returned from being dark, but he didn't quite get the reasons at the time. She kept her innermost thoughts from him, shielding him from her darkness, but he saw a change in her and McQuaid nailed it. She was filled with self-loathing and believed she'd crossed a line, so she might as well keep crossing it. When it came to Tash and that op in Paris, he was so angry with her for putting aside her emotions and for only caring about the end and not the means.
"Well, we know she's still alive so that's a good thing."
"Something I heard at mass struck me,"
"Ryan McQuaid goes to Mass?" laughs Auggie.
"I go when I can to light a candle for Annie. . . anyway, the reading was about the sheep and the shepherd how the sheep know the voice of the Lord and ignore the voices of thieves and bandits, I pray that Annie hears the right voice, the voice that tells her to come home, the voice that tells her to chose an abundant life in the light."
"I was never a religious person, so I have no idea what you're talking about, but I'll drink to Annie returning to the light."
They lift their glasses to each other and drink their Patron.
"Where do you think she could have gone?" asks Ryan.
With a sigh, Auggie replies, "You've asked me that before. . . she loved oceans and tropical environments, but she also loved the energy of cities and the allure of exotic far to reach places. She could be in Timbuktu for all I know."
Again the men sit in silence.
Ryan breaks this round of quiet, "Knowing she came back after four months away, I was hopeful, as if four months was a magical amount of time to be gone. I started looking at the airport, train and bus stations feeds. It was stupid, I know."
"I thought you had given up looking."
"It may not consume me like it did when she first left, but I'll never give up on her."
"Anything new then?"
"No, nothing, all my feelers have turned up nothing."
Auggie supposes he's not surprised.
"So tell me about your letter again?" asks Ryan.
Auggie sips his beer, he somehow knew McQuaid would ask again, so this time he brought it. He took the letter Annie wrote to him out of his jacket inner pocket.
"You can read it for yourself," says Auggie as he hands the letter over to Ryan.
"Are you sure? I figured she wrote stuff you didn't want me to see, so I stopped asking."
"Listen man, I don't know why I didn't just share it like you shared yours, I guess I wanted to hold on to a part of her that you didn't have, but I want to follow through with her wishes,"
"What wishes?"
"Read the letter."
Ryan takes the letter Annie wrote to Auggie.
Dear Auggie,
I'm sorry to leave this way, so abruptly. After everything we've been through, you deserve an explanation and a proper good-bye from me. When I came back from being dark, I wanted things to go back to simpler times, when we were just operative and handler. In hindsight that was naïve, I had an emotional attachment to you my first day when you came into the ladies room after me. You were my anchor, my security, my friend, and ally. I know I trampled on our relationship with the choices I made. I know it was hard for you to see me evolve as an operative. It was hard for me too, but it happened in a flash and before I knew it I didn't recognize the reflection in the mirror. "We're all standing in the mud," remember? Well, the mud has stained me, it's under my nails and in my pores, I've drowned in it and the only way to keep from dragging others into the mud with me is to leave.
You were right, trust is at the heart of any relationship and we were broken before I left. I guess it's an excuse to say I had good reasons, I know you had good reasons too. Auggie, I'm asking for that trust back. Please trust my reasons for leaving and help Ryan to see them too. Be his friend like you were mine. I know he'll have a hard time, but I know you'll help him understand. Thank you for having my back even when I kept things from you. I didn't want to burden you again, so I'm making my own way. I will miss you in my ear.
Good-bye,
Annie
When Auggie senses that Ryan has finished reading the letter he opens with, "It's about time you really move on Ryan. It's what she wanted."
"That's the difference between the two of us, you gave up on her, you're willing to accept her self-inflicted punishment, but I'm not."
"What's this reference to standing in the mud?"
Auggie thinks.
" I didn't think of it as a reference."
Auggie continues to reach into his memory, when did Annie talk about standing in the mud? She hadn't brought it up in a long time.
"When she first started, she would often be conflicted. You know all the talk about duty, but no one tells you how to manage it when you have to make tough choices. She didn't always color outside the lines so easily, she used to be bothered by using people and lying and manipulating them. She asked me pretty early on how dirty she was going to get. There were times she thought she wouldn't last, but it turned out she matured into one hell of an operative, but it tore at her being."
"What was the mission?"
Auggie thinks back. "She had to use a man's grief and desire for revenge to get him to do something the agency needed and she didn't feel good about it, but Langley needed her to do her job."
As Auggie said that he realized something. . . could Annie have gone to McCauley? McCauley and Mercer hadn't met as far as he knew, but Mercer did have a connection to Chris. . . He needed to keep Ryan from looking, so he keeps his realization to himself.
"Thanks for showing this to me," says Ryan passing the letter back to Auggie.
"Sure," says Auggie as he finishes his drink.
The pair part ways, Ryan dropping Auggie at his building while he headed home to Ruby.
Approximately 6 Months
Ryan dates
Ryan had a rough couple of days concentrating as what would have been Annie's due date approached. He went into his safe and took out Annie's letter. He went into the bedroom that would have been the baby's room and starred at the rocking chair, the only piece of furniture for the baby he had assembled. He sat down let himself sink into it and opened the letter. He read it a few times though he had it memorized by now.
Ryan woke up a couple of hours later. He decided he would venture to the beach house that weekend. He didn't enjoy what was once a relaxing refuge for him, but it was where he last spent time with Annie.
When Ryan pulls into the driveway he sees shades of blue near the tree. He's surprised to find a bouquet of flowers by the tree Annie planted. He knew immediately she must have sent them. Tracing the origin of the flowers was easy, but not information regarding who paid for them. She was still elusive. Close, but so far away.
Jim started hounding Ryan about getting back out in the field and he didn't mean for missions. He wanted Ryan to go on a blind date with his latest girlfriend's roommate. Jim always poked fun at McQuaid for showing little interest in hooking up with women. He told Ryan his problem was he hadn't gotten laid in more than six months.
"I've been sober and I've brought in half a dozen new contracts since . . . since I've been back at work, what do you care what I do with my personal time?" asks Ryan who never had interest in random hook-ups.
"It's not natural to go so long without sex my friend and I kind of like this girl, come on, just some drinks, she's bringing her roommate."
The girls were in grad school at Georgetown, in their mid 20s. Too young, but Ryan relented one night. It was the most boring inane time he had in years. He couldn't stay any longer and went home to Ruby. He told his canine companion all about how his date spent the evening complaining about her classes and one professor's unwillingness to grant her an extension on a paper she couldn't write because she was in a wedding a couple of weekends ago. Annie Walker would find his date amusing. He couldn't fathom finding another person he wanted to talk to about his day. It was still too soon for him to move on. He still missed Annie and wondered what life would have been like if Kravec hadn't kidnaped her. He fell asleep dreaming about completing the nursery with Annie before Annie goes into labor. In his dream, Annie was her usual tough self, braving the pain of childbirth without an epidural. In the dream she was sweaty, panting, and just plain beautiful as she used all her strength to push. They both cried when they saw their son whom they had finally agreed to name, Ryan Patrick McQuaid Jr. Ryan woke up deflated as soon as he realized he had been dreaming. His visions of Annie were just so vivid.
