AN: Happy Friday! Here we go again! I'm so happy to be back writing this again. As always, I do not own Covert Affairs or any of the characters. Reviews and constructive criticism always welcome!
Dreaming Through Regret
Interlude - Home (Michael Bublé)
After finishing his perusal of the intel on Simon Fischer, Eyal pushed away from the table to pour a measure of whiskey. He took the glass and his encrypted phone to the sofa in his living room, ready to see what Annie had sent him over the last several weeks. The screen on the phone lit up as the passcode was entered and notifications started popping onto the screen.
The first message was the one he had heard arrive as he walked out his front door to head to his Kiddon mission.
'Laylah tov, Bayit. I love you.'
For a passing moment Eyal regretted not taking the two minutes to read and respond to this message, but he recalled how hard it had been to leave the phone to begin with. He recognized that if he had read this message he would have been unable to convince himself to lock the phone back in the safe again.
The next message came with a thumbnail, and as he opened it Eyal was greeted with a photo of a sunrise. Noting the date and time he realized it was from Annie's first morning in Egypt. Taking in the image for a few seconds before he continued scrolling, he almost choked before smiling at the next text, as he could sense the playfulness in it.
'I hereby dub you my fiancé! Building out my cover story for this mission and I decided that the best way to keep Fischer professional was to already have the position filled by someone else.'
Eyal was impressed by Annie's out of the box thinking on this. Her awareness of what she was and was not willing to do for this mission was clear, and to come up with such a simple fix showed that she was able to think on her feet. He'd certainly played the role of lover before in many of his missions, but getting to play that role to his real lover would be a change for the better.
The next several messages were just photo thumbnails of the places she had been, almost a photo trail of her mission, digital breadcrumbs for him to follow if the worst happened. First came a snap of waves washing over her toes and Eyal could almost hear the surf surrounding him. That photo was followed by one of the Monastery at Mount Sinai, the tan sand of the desert, a clear departure from the blue of the coast, reminded him of the Negev Desert and his promise to take Annie there.
Following several more photos of Egypt, some captioned with short 'I love you' or 'Missing you' messages, another text came through sans photo. Competing feelings of relief and pride flowed through him as he read the text.
'No Fischer in Egypt. But did get the experience of a lifetime here. Next time we will have to come here together. Heading to Algiers next Bayit. Ani ohevet ot'h'a.'
His feeling of relief was driven by the knowledge that she hadn't encountered Fischer in Egypt, despite knowing Annie could handle herself. Knowing what he knew now about Fischer, a part of him hoped that she never actually found him. His pride however was driven by two things, Annie was creating her own plans and carrying them out incredibly well, as well as knowing just how much to share with him. There had not been a single message that conveyed that she was doubting herself or her capability to execute on this mission.
The next text he read came once Annie was in Algiers, and it was the first to truly communicate to him just how much she missed him.
'Missing you Bayit. Safe in Algiers though it seems to be yet another dead end. I hope you are safe as well wherever the wind has taken you today. My desire to see you grows each day and I am waiting as patiently as I can for the day we meet again.'
Once he read that text a couple times through, he remembered his own journals and how he had used them to fill the time waiting in the Heights by writing about what he was seeing and feeling. Eyal placed his phone on the low coffee table in front of him and retrieved his pack. It took a few minutes of rifling through it to find his journal, slightly banged up after their frantic departure post completion of the mission. He grabbed his phone once more to reference the date that Annie had sent her text and then flipped to the same date in his journal.
'I find myself impatient with this mission Neshama, we are a week in and have found nothing to validate the concerns that Mossad has. It has been many years since I have had someone waiting for my return and it makes it much more difficult to withstand the lack of intel. I miss the feel of you in my arms, the sweet scent of grapefruit surrounding me, and the joy of your smile and laughter echoing in my ears.'
Eyal left the journal open on the table before retrieving the phone to read the next several texts from Annie. Most of them were similar to her texts from Egypt, photos with short messages attached, though there was one message she sent lamenting the loss of her only head scarf during her second trip to the Tikjda National Forest. He could almost picture her look of indignation at the scarf being blown beyond her reach.
Annie's final text from Algiers left him once again relieved that she had not found Fischer and alternately proud of the work she had been doing to track down and validate the buyers of these parcels of land. It also left him worried about what would happen in Marrakech.
'So far I've come up empty handed in the search for Fischer, Bayit. I have, however, found a plethora of places that I would love to someday visit with you. I had always known that there was a depth of history and a breadth of natural beauty in Northern Africa, but experiencing it for myself has been wonderful. I am both eager and hesitant about what awaits me in Marrakech. I worry that even though my skills are honed and solid at this point, that I won't be able to convincingly deceive Fischer. I wish you were here with me, if only to tell me I'm underestimating myself yet again. Stay Safe, ani ohevet ot'h'a.'
Not two messages later all Eyal's fears came true and his head dropped to his hands. A litany of curse words erupted from him, and while he intrinsically understood that finding this man was the desired outcome of this mission he couldn't believe that the CIA would have sent Annie on it alone if they'd had the additional information Mossad had found on him.
'I found Fischer, Eyal. I've convinced him of my cover so far, but there are 9 more days to go, and each one is full of close quarters with just him as we tour Morocco. I would much prefer those days to be spent with you. Laylah Tov, Bayit. All my love.'
Imagining his Annie spending days of time in the sole company of this man, a man he knew to be a real threat to anyone who got in his way, and potentially a death threat to another operative, sent his frustration into overdrive.
The following messages did nothing to allay his concerns, despite the utter normalcy of them. Snapshots from her day sharing the places she was visiting and increasingly melancholy notes of how she missed him. None of them gave him any reason to believe that she felt compromised by Fischer. In Eyal's mind that only proved just how good an agent Fischer was, that Annie, one of the best agents out there in regards to picking up on subtle clues about her targets, did not sense anything off about him.
9 days worth of messages were all totally devoid of true concern on Annie's part, until the last one she sent from Marrakech.
'Bayit, I thought I had Fischer convinced that I was just an employee of the ILCN, but now I'm not so sure. The words he spoke to me as we parted ways on the last day were innocuous, but the way he said them… it sent chills down my spine. I can't help but think he knows EXACTLY what I am. I leave for home tomorrow, though I worry that I will lead him right to my family. Oh Eyal, I wish I could hear words of reassurance from you right now. Ani ohevet ot'h'a.'
Eyal shot up from his sofa and began pacing the empty space in front of it. His hands ran through his hair sending a bolt of pain from his left shoulder down to his fingers, reminding him of his injury. Rather than let frantic thoughts run free in his mind, he took a deep breath and pulled the phone in front of him once more.
He scrolled through a week of messages all coming from DC. The tension left his shoulders as each one alleviated his worry that Fischer had followed Annie there. Eyal could sense the sadness in her words, the worry for her safety and that of her sister and nieces evident. He was pleased to see that she had spent at least one night at his safe house in DC, since he knew that no one was aware of its existence. It was Annie's last text that had him flying into action.
'Shalom Bayit. I miss you more than I can say, and I hope to see you soon. I leave DC tomorrow to head to Tallinn, where we have tracked my target. The more I learn about this man, the more I wish you were here to make me feel safe. I love you, Eyal."
That text was timestamped for that morning which was her prior evening. meaning Annie was likely getting on a plane within the next few hours. Rather than send a response Eyal decided that he wasn't leaving her to run the rest of this mission on her own. He knew that her CIA team members were unable to be with her in the field, Auggie for obvious reasons, and Joan because she was a department head. Eyal absolutely believed that Annie could handle herself on this mission, but they worked so much better together, each of their skill sets enhancing and up-leveling the other's.
Eyal reached for his personal laptop, suddenly thankful for the forced leave from Mossad, as he wouldn't have to explain his absence from work. He booked himself onto the first flight he could into Tallinn, which looked like it would arrive less than an hour before the flight Annie was most likely to take in from Dulles. His flight would depart early in the morning the next day, so after confirming his tickets and checking into the flight he headed towards the bedroom to begin packing.
As he pulled together what he needed for this trip, he started putting together a plan in his head. Not knowing what to expect in Tallinn Eyal's bag was an assortment of casual and dressy options. It was more than he would typically bring with him on any of his own missions, but not being read in on this part of Annie's mission he figured it was better to plan for all contingencies. He did know that Annie was traveling on her own passport, and that led him to his current conundrum. Did he travel on his own passport as well or would that potentially risk exposing their relationship to both their agencies. After weighing the options, he decided to travel on his own passport and take the risk in exposing their relationship.
Eyal zipped his bag shut and placed it by the front door before heading to his laptop one more time. Since he decided to travel on his own passport he needed to let King Saul know that he was headed out of the country. Eyal did not want to deal with the questions that would inevitably come if he did not alert them beforehand. He also ordered a taxi to take him to the airport at 3:00 the next morning, preferring not to leave his car parked at the airport for an unknown amount of time.
Eyal ran through his plan one last time, making sure that he had taken care of everything he needed to before leaving, before he closed his laptop. His almost empty pack was still next to him on the sofa, and after emptying it completely he placed his laptop, both phones, and all his travel documents in it. He placed the pack next to his suitcase and then headed for bed.
Annie stood waiting in the security line at Dulles airport, which was moving slower than usual that afternoon. Her nails drummed on the top of her carry-on suitcase in a steady pattern as she tried not to reach for her phone to check the time again. Instead she mentally calculated the days since she had last seen or even heard Eyal. A week in Egypt, followed by another week in Algeria, then two weeks in Morocco, and another week back in DC. 5 weeks. 35 days, 840 hours. It felt like an eternity, but Annie also knew that his mission could last at least another week if not more.
Her resolve failed her as she sat in her seat after she boarded her flight to Munich. She typed and sent out one last short message before the flight attendants closed the cabin doors.
'I need you, Bayit.'
