AN - Happy Friday! As always I do not own Covert Affairs or any of the characters I'm playing with in this story. We are finally starting to really diverge from canon here, main characters are still the same, including a brief intro to Lena and Simon. I hope you all enjoy this!

Dreaming Through Regret

Chapter 6 pt 1 - Heaven Can't Help Me Now

Annie woke up to the sound of the alarm on her phone the next morning still safely wrapped up in Eyal's arms. As much as she wanted to stay there for the rest of the day Annie knew that she had to get up and head to work. Eyal woke up as Annie pulled out of his arms.

"Morning" He murmured to Annie before yawning.

"Morning" Annie replied, "Go back to sleep, I'll be back as soon as I can."

"You have to go to the office? No rest for the weary at the CIA huh?"

"Yeah, Joan said she wanted to see me first thing this morning. I need to swing by my place and change before heading out to Langley."

"Okay, but pack some of your things up to bring over here after work, Neshama."

Annie leaned in to give him a kiss as she pulled on her blouse from the prior day. "I will, but I really need to go now. I'll see you tonight?"

"Definitely Neshama. I'm here until I get called for another op."

"Good. I'm glad to get to spend time with you." Annie said as she pulled on her shoes and grabbed her bag. "See you later, Eyal."

Luckily Annie had left early enough in the day to make the drive from Eyal's apartment to Danielle's Georgetown house before rush hour traffic was in full swing. She quickly changed into a new suit and blouse before packing about a week's worth of clothes, along with toiletries and a book she had been reading, in a duffel. She was about to head out to her car again when Danielle emerged from her kitchen.

"Where were you last night?"

Annie turned around, ready to reply to Danielle but was interrupted "Oh my god Annie, what happened?"

"I'm okay Danielle, I promise. I was with Eyal last night, he's in DC for a bit."

"That doesn't answer my question Annie! How did you get that cut on your forehead?"

"Oh, um... I can't really say Danielle. It's work related."

"Annie, really? I thought we were passed this?"

"I know Danielle, I just don't want you to worry so much. I was at the Vesta diner yesterday."

"No. Annie, tell me you weren't there when that explosion happened?! It wasn't just a gas main issue was it?"

"That I really can't answer Danielle. I'm okay, I got off pretty easy honestly. Just this cut and some ringing in my ears."

"I'm glad Annie. Thank you for telling me what you could. Where are you going?"

"I was going to stay with Eyal for a few days, we don't normally get extended amounts of time together and I want to spend as much time with him as possible."

"Oh, of course Annie. I'd want to spend as much time with that man as possible." Danielle replied with a smile. "Can we do dinner together sometime while he's in town?"

"Maybe, but it will have to be out somewhere if we do it. I don't think I'm typically being watched but it might be possible after that explosion that I've got eyes on me, for additional security. No one can know that Eyal is here."

"Yes, I remember that. Just give me a call either way, please?"

"Definitely Danielle." With that Annie got in her car and headed to Langley.

Annie was surprised when Joan met her at the entrance again, though it didn't look like she came bearing good news.

"Walk with me Annie."

Annie fell into step with Joan who oddly led her away from the DPD and up to the 7th floor. They stopped outside Jai's old office and Joan led her to a seat in the empty waiting area near the secretary's desk.

"Annie, against my wishes, you've been reassigned."

"What? Why?"

"I don't know Annie, but I did fight for you to get this assignment over the other options on the table."

"This is Jai's old office. Special Projects, right?"

"Yes, but it's not Jai's department anymore, Arthur has appointed Auggie to head up the department now. I felt this was a better assignment for you than Lena Smith's department. Lena and I go back all the way to our time as field agents. She's become reckless with her operatives."

"I don't know what to say, Joan. I really would rather stay in the DPD, but I guess that's not really an option is it?"

"Not right now Annie. My door is still open to you, whenever you need it. And the DPD will partner with Special Projects as needed. Should it ever become an option I will fight to get you back in the DPD, I need agents like you Annie."

"Thank you Joan, I appreciate the candor." Annie sat back in her chair as Joan stood to leave. Auggie entered the office suite as Joan was leaving.

"Take care of her, Auggie"

"Of course, Joan." Auggie assured her and then turned to Annie. "Morning. Welcome to the Office of Special Projects, Annie."

"Morning, Auggie. When did this happen?"

"Yesterday while you were in polygraph. Arthur tracked me down and tasked me with finding out what got Jai killed. I asked him directly to have you assigned to my department when I found out you were being moved away from the DPD. I need your eyes Annie. Help me find out who killed Jai?"

"Of course, Auggie. Let's do this."

Annie and Auggie walked into Auggie's office and Annie noticed that two long tables had been set up in the corner. They held at least a couple dozen boxes, each labeled with a mission.

"I guess we start by going through the boxes then? Any idea which one we should start with Auggie?"

"Read the names off to me? And tell me about the boxes, are they worn, any additional info on the outside?"

"Okay, starting on the right we have… Spartacus, ZYZYX, Sentinel, Lynx two boxes for that one, the next three only have what looks like the big dipper on the outside…"

"Wait, no actual project or operation name?"

Annie pulled the boxes down to the floor so she could see all sides. "No Auggie, just a drawing of the big dipper. But honestly the orientation is wrong, it's turned like 30ish degrees from the normal depiction of the constellation."

"This is not good Annie. All our long term missions have names, I've never heard of or seen a mission with just a symbol before. Are there other boxes on the tables with this image on them?"

Annie got up and walked up and down the tables where she ended up pulling 2 more boxes to join the 3 she had already pulled.

"Looks like 5 boxes in total, Auggie."

"Alright, seems this is where we start digging in."

Auggie and Annie spent the rest of the day sorting through the documents in the five boxes. As they tried to organize the contents they both noticed that a name kept popping up. Simon Fischer. They also determined that they only seemed to have portions of the files kept for this operation. Large chunks of time were missing from the pages they had pulled from the 5 boxes.

"What do we do Auggie?" Annie asked after they'd been bouncing ideas around regarding next steps for a couple of hours.

"I think we need a new set of eyes Annie. Can you go see if Joan is still in the building?"

"On it Auggie. I'll be back in a few minutes."

Annie headed towards the elevator and then selected the second floor, as that was where the DPD was located. It was close to 4pm when she entered the DPD area and saw that Joan was one of the only people there. She headed quickly across the bullpen and then knocked on Joan's door as her secretary was not there. Joan's head popped up slightly in surprise.

"Annie, I know I said my door was always open but I didn't think you'd be here so soon." Joan said with a slight smile.

"Hi Joan. Auggie and I think we may have found something but we'd like a second set of eyes on it before we start to plan out our next steps."

"Of course, Annie. Give me another 20 minutes to wrap up what I'm working on, then I'll be right up."

"Thanks Joan. I'll let Auggie know." Annie turned to head back up to O.S.P. when she heard Joan call her back.

"Annie, thanks for coming to me with this, I know that there are a lot of other people you and Auggie could have gone to regarding this."

"We wouldn't have chosen anyone else, Joan." Annie replied with a grin as she finally made her way out of the DPD.

Annie took the time between getting back up to Auggie's office and Joan entering to clean up the other boxes, piling them in a corner for them to review later. She placed the piles of paper she and Auggie had sorted through in order on the two tables that the bankers boxes had occupied so that they were easier to go through with Joan. Just as she was setting the last pile on the table Joan knocked on the door as she entered.

"Hello Auggie, Annie. What have you two found?"

"Hey Joan, so with some help from Annie we were able to narrow our search down to one set of boxes related to a mission Jai was running. All the other boxes contained information regarding missions that O.S.P. has paperless files on, I verified that all the related documents for those missions are stored on a server the CIA manages. But this project, well there is nothing about it anywhere that I could find, and it's only identifier is a symbol that Annie tells me looks like the Big Dipper."

"Auggie, you know as well as I do all operations handled here at the agency are given names, nothing gets just a symbol."

"Exactly Joan, that caught my attention as soon as Annie mentioned there was no name. I just wanted to clear out any possibilities related to the other projects O.S.P. was working on. Annie sorted through the papers in the 5 boxes we found that were labeled with that mark. But we are missing a ton of information. Annie, can you walk Joan through what we've found?"

"Sure Auggie. Alright, so we have 5 different points in time in these boxes, with each one containing a very specific period of time. The first dates back about 10 years and covers about 2 months of 2001. The next set of data starts about 18 months later and covers about a month of 2003, then we jump to 4 months of 2006, with 3 months of 2007 in the fourth box, but the last box is the most compelling. That box contains information from last month."

"There are definitely pieces of information missing here. No mission would have such large gaps of intel in it."

"We think they are stored somewhere else Joan. I think that is what Jai was trying to show me yesterday. I think he has the rest of the files stored somewhere offsite. Auggie thinks that this is not an O.S.P. mission as much as it was a Jai mission."

"Joan, I think this is what got Jai killed and Annie almost killed. There is a name that pops up in all the boxes that I think we need to run down."

"What's the name, Auggie?"

"Simon Fischer."

Joan sat down in one of the chairs in front of Auggie's desk. She mulled over all the data the two agents had presented to her. She finally came to a decision about what guidance she would give them before standing up to pace in front of them.

"Have you tried running the name through the Agency database?"

"No, we weren't sure if that was wise given our theory on this information getting Jai killed."

"Smart, very smart. Let me see about getting you set up with equipment that you can use to create a backdoor into the database. You'll have to do this offsite and very carefully, nothing can be traced back to you."

"I can do that, but I'll need a secure place to work from, my apartment address is in my personnel file."

"I have a place you can use Auggie. I have a safehouse here in the city."

"Since when do you have a safehouse Annie?" Joan asked.

Annie sighed before replying, "Since I read Danielle in after the radioactivity incident. She did not handle that well and asked me to move out of the guest house. I found a place a couple days later and set it up as my safe house."

"Good, that's good. Don't let anyone other than the 3 of us know where it is, actually don't even hint that you have a safehouse period. Auggie, will that work for you?"

"Yes, Joan. That will work for me."

"Alright, I'll go requisition equipment for you so it's not channeled through O.S.P.."

"Thank you Joan, for everything."

"Of course, keep me in the loop when you find something out."

Joan left Auggie's office a few minutes later after looking through the paperwork on the tables a little bit more. Annie and Auggie boxed up the files and then locked up Auggie's office before heading home themselves.

"You doing okay Walker?"

"Yeah, I think so Auggie. A few more days of solid sleep will help."

"Wanna grab a couple beers at Allen's?"

"Raincheck? I'm still getting over the ringing in my ears and the noise at Allen's is just too much right now."

"Of course. See you tomorrow, Annie." Auggie then headed over to the shuttle that would take him home and Annie headed for her little red VW, ready to head back to Eyal's. As she battled DC traffic on her way to Eyal's Annie ran through the events of the last two days in her head. For the first time since joining the Agency she was worried, scared even, that she had gotten herself into something beyond her ability to handle. She was looking forward to being able to talk it all out with Eyal that evening, he always managed to help her put things into perspective.