Author's Note: Well, this was unexpected. After seeing the new US tour last week, I've definitely been on an Annie kick (again), but I wasn't planning on starting a new story quite so soon. Enter Markaleen, who had the first draft of this story saved from when I sent it to her back in 2016 (dear God, writing that makes me feel old). Rereading it, I realized it had potential, so today, I fixed up the first chapter, and voila. Since the second I fell in love with this movie, I've always loved thinking about what happens after Annie ends. I've written several iterations over the past few years, but none properly. Now that I have time, I might as well get it done. So... here we go. Dedicated to Markaleen

one

"It'll be fine—nothing to fear. She'll be as happy as she was here. Things have worked out, much better than planned. It makes you smile when fate takes a hand. And I know I'll forget how much she meant to me—and how she was almost my baby… maybe."

Oliver Warbucks stood overlooking the third floor balcony of his mansion, a cigar in hand as he watched Annie drive off with the parents she'd been dreaming of all her life. For the girl, it was the moment where everything had finally fallen into place. For the billionaire, it was the one where everything crumbled again, but in a sense that told him he'd likely never recover. Annie was supposed to be the missing piece to a puzzle he hadn't even realized wasn't completed. For so many years, he convinced himself he was fine. He had the biggest house in all of New York. Hell, he had a house that rivaled the acreage of the White House. He was on top of the world, financially, but it wasn't until Grace had brought Annie home that he realized how lonely he truly was. And, now, she was gone—alongside the future he'd been planning. He could feel the fragments of his heart being ripped from his chest.

It was all so strange. For years, he'd only been known as ruthless—all work, no play, and certainly no room for love of any sort. It was his coping mechanism, one he'd put into place the second his younger brother had passed when he'd been a child. Watching Jimmy go through the illness, losing him over a series of days, each worse than the last, it was a pain he had no interest in ever reliving. He just wouldn't love. He'd work, and he'd get himself on top, and then he'd stop.

And then, Annie. Annie, who mirrored Jimmy's spirit so perfectly. Down on her luck, she was still the happiest girl in any room. Sad and heartbroken, she hardly allowed it to show. It was then, he supposed, he couldn't find the strength to look away. Was it a sign, from Jimmy? Was it the universe bringing him someone, not just in the form of a little girl, but in the form of someone to love and watch over her with?

Grace. How she'd become Grace to him over the past several weeks, he had no idea, but that was the only way he could imagine her now. She loved Annie so freely. He couldn't fathom it. Tucking her in that evening after the movies, it seemed as though she was always destined to play the role of mother. And that blasted yellow dress… He'd never had a favorite color before that morning, but he did now. A favorite color because of a person who was quickly becoming his favorite companion.

But that was absurd. There was no Annie now. They couldn't possibly pursue anything, not with there being no reason for it. What would everyone say? He couldn't let his time with Annie close in a scandal; it'd be disgraceful—disrespectful to her.

But how could he let Grace go, too?

How was he supposed to survive without Annie?

For too long, he remained on the balcony, hoping to catch a glimpse of her, as though she were just playing in the garden rather than on her way to New Jersey. He knew it was inane, which was why, when he saw multiple little girls running towards the mansion entrance, he didn't move. The brandy was strong this evening. So, too, perhaps was his exhaustion.

"Sir?" he then heard. Whirling around, startled, he found the Asp standing behind him, eyebrows furrowed.

"Tell Mrs. Pugh to have dinner ready in an hour," he said gruffly. "Miss Farrell and I will have to start making up for lost time afterwards."

"I'm afraid that may not be possible, sir," the Asp glanced back at the house. "Annie's friends from the orphanage have arrived just now. They're very insistent on speaking with you. It sounds as though we've been conned."

"Conned?" Oliver could feel, at the same time, hope rise within him alongside a flurried panic. "What does that mean?"

"Follow me," the Asp nodded solemnly, walking purposefully back inside. Oliver wasted no time, and as he appeared at the top of the staircase, he was met with the sight of six little girls, all dressed in grubby clothing, all dirty and tired-looking.

"What now?" he asked, the panic in his chest rising. Had they walked from the orphanage? For that level of determination, something had to be seriously wrong.

"Sir…" one of the girls started.

"I think he's a highness," another interjected.

"Your Highness—"

"We're friends of Annie's,"

"Annie's gone," he said, eyebrows furrowing as he took note of the concern in Grace's eyes, two little girls' hands in each of hers. "Her parents came and took her away."

"Oh, no!" the girls began to chorus, alongside a litany of other protests. Then, the littlest spoke.

"But they wasn't her real parents, mister!" she yelled, looking up from her spot in Punjab's arms. Why she was there, he hadn't the slightest clue, but it wasn't anything he could question at the moment. "They was bad people's!"

Not her real parents? She could still…

Be my baby?

"Leaping lizards!" He threw his arms up, not even sure where the phrase had come from. Oliver Warbucks didn't say that. But, hurrying down the stairs, he didn't care, instead only wanting any and all information he could glean from the girls. "Come, all of you. We must move quickly. Tell me everything you know."

Everything morphed into a blur as he and Grace moved the girls to the office. From the older ones' recollection, everything started clicking into place. No, Annie's real parents were not the couple that had come to the mansion earlier. The imposters, instead, glommed onto the one piece of leverage they had—the fact Miss Hannigan was "Mr. Mudge's" sister. All of a sudden, the birth certificate, the details, everything, it made sense—and Oliver's heart broke when he realized what the possession of the other half of the locket must mean. They weren't Annie's parents; they were simply disrespecting their memory.

He had no idea how he was going to have that conversation with the girl.

Never was he more thankful for all his connections than he was this evening. For once, the White House wasn't a dreaded call—rather, he was desperate to get through to Franklin directly. He knew he wasn't coherent as he spoke to the president, the panic surging through his body making it so difficult to think clearly he almost forgot Annie's name, but Franklin took over as soon as he heard the word "kidnap". The FBI kicked into high gear, the NYPD, too, alongside both Punjab and the Asp, the former of who took the autocopter to survey the city from above. Meanwhile, Oliver decided he and Grace would do a sweep of their own. He rarely drove these days, in fact, he couldn't remember the last time he'd been behind the wheel. For Annie, though, he'd swim across the ocean. If she wasn't safe after this…

He couldn't even finish that thought.

Hearing they were on the bridge almost killed him. He nearly slammed on the breaks, nearly shut down completely, and somehow, Grace was the one to bring him back from the edge. Seeing the panic in her eyes, he knew he couldn't let her down. If he was this much a wreck at the thought of losing the child, how was she going to cope? She'd been Annie's mother, in a sense, essentially since the moment she took the girl from the orphanage. Oliver had dealt with a loss like this before—he'd survived, just barely, and he'd do it again. Grace, though…

He would never let her know that pain. Not if he could help it.

He kept driving, and he kept himself together, but the second they arrived at the bridge, all bets were off. Annie was climbing up to the top. There was nothing to keep her safe—on the contrary, there was a madman following afterwards, intent on killing her. He could feel all the color drain from his face. Grace quickly began to cling to him, and he wrapped his arm around her, allowing her to bury her face in his shoulder.

"Dear God," he whispered, unable to keep his eyes off the child. "Don't let her fall. Don't let anything happen to her. Please. Keep her safe."

"I can't watch," Grace said, voice muffled. "Oliver, what if—"

"Don't," he shook his head, wrapping his arm tighter around her. "She'll be alright. She's tough. She's alright."

His heart slowly began creeping further up into his throat. Annie just kept climbing, climbing to nowhere. Eventually, there was no bridge left, only a drastically tall drop beneath her. She was hanging on by her fingertips now. The only thing between her and death was her ten-year-old strength—and he didn't even know if he'd have been able to hang on himself. It was at this point that he felt the tears in his eyes.

"Please," he whispered again. "Please keep her safe."

"Is that the autocopter?" Grace pulled away now, glancing upwards. He did the same, a weight seeming to lift off his chest at the sight of Punjab. The man, the first bodyguard he'd ever felt safe with, he was far too loyal for his own good—to the point where he was lowering himself from the seat of the copter with nothing but his turban keeping him from the ground. It was a risky move, especially considering more weight would be added when he grabbed Annie. Now, he and Grace were both watching, wide-eyed, so scared they were breathless. The second Annie wrapped her arms around Punjab's neck, she squeezed his hand, but he only allowed his to lay limp. They still had to get back to earth—and anything could happen.

What if she fell?

What if he dropped her?

"Please," he whispered again as the autocopter slowly began lowering to the ground. Around him, he was aware of the Hannigan brother being put into handcuffs, alongside the girlfriend, but all capacity he had to care at the moment had been eroded away. Tomorrow, he would ensure the man was handed as severe a punishment as the state of New York would allow—even if that meant he had to make sure new laws were put into place for this very case. Tomorrow, he would handle the press and the legalities. Tonight, he just needed his girl.

His baby.

Finally, after a painfully long amount of time, Punjab and Annie arrived back down on the ground, neither the worse for wear aside from Annie shaking rapidly. He and Grace both crowded the pair at once, Grace kissing both Annie's face and Punjab's while Oliver just hugged the girl as tight as he could. She was safe. She was alright. Nothing had happened.

She was still theirs.

"How did you know how to find me?" Annie asked once the embrace had broken apart. Sitting with Oliver and Grace on the back of a police van, she was shivering, wrapped in a blanket while Grace held her close.

"Your friends from the orphanage paid us a visit at the mansion," Oliver replied, a smile tugging at his lips. "Quite a far journey for such little girls. There aren't many kids out there who'd make that trek on foot."

"They walked?" Annie's eyes just about bugged out of her head. "All of them, even Pepper?"

Grace smiled. "Pepper's the tall one with the short hair, yes?"

"Leaping lizards," she breathed. "I didn't know Pepper had it in her to care so much!"

"She was the one who informed us Miss Hannigan had a brother," Oliver answered, a grin tugging at his lips, as well. "Maybe I should be giving her a special award, now that I think of it."

"So, what's gonna happen to them, anyways?" Annie glanced over at another police van, where Rooster, Lily, and Miss Hannigan were all being questioned. "Do they go to jail now?"

"Oh, not just jail," Oliver shook his head. "Prison. And it'll be a miracle if any of them see the light of day ever again."

Annie's face fell. "Even Miss Hannigan?"

Grace wrapped an arm tighter around her. "Is there something wrong with that?"

"Well, it's just…" Annie bit down on her lip. "She may have gone along with it, but I don't think this was her idea. When her brother started following me, she tried stopping him. She hasn't always been bad, neither. She used to be nice, actually. I think it's just when the Depression started that things got hard. She started drinking a bunch then."

Grace and Oliver exchanged a glance, both surprised by the change in attitude towards Miss Hannigan. One thing was for sure—the girl between them was more forgiving than either of them would ever be.

"Does that mean you don't want charges pressed against Miss Hannigan?" Grace asked. "You understand she won't go to jail or prison, then?"

"Then, maybe she can get help," Annie looked at Oliver. "Maybe you can even find her someplace to live. She's not going back to the orphanage, right?"

"Certainly not," Oliver said firmly. "I also don't know about that, Annie. Maybe she had a change of heart at the last second, but she was still planning to drop you off somewhere once you got out of town. I don't necessarily think I want to help out a woman who was going to do that."

"Drinking makes it hard to think properly," Annie said wisely. "Pepper told me that. It's kind of like love, right? It all gets blurry when you're in love, and it all gets blurry when you're drinking."

Oliver set his lips together. He hated the logic of that statement.

"We'll see," he said amicably. "For now, how about we get you home?"

"That sounds good. I'm sleepy." She yawned, as though to illustrate this. Then: "Hey, Mr. Warbucks. Do you think I'll get in the paper again for this? I forgot to get a clipping the other day, I'm sad about that!"

He chuckled, immensely relieved to see her—more or less—back to her old self. "I can assure you're they're burning the midnight oil right now to have the story out by dawn," he said. "I think we can arrange for it to be framed, would you like that?"

"Leaping lizards, would I!" She broke out into a wide grin. "It's a better story, anyways. A happier ending. They said my parents are gone, that they have been a long time. I'm kinda glad to hear that, honestly, because it makes sense now why they haven't come back for me. I wanna visit their grave, someday, if I can. But this means I can live with you, right, Mr. Warbucks? For good?"

Oliver smiled again, almost unable to contain his emotions as he and Grace got back into the car, Annie sandwiched between them now and the Asp driving.

"I'd like that very much, Annie," he said, reaching for Grace's hand behind the girl's back. "I think we both would."

"Leaping lizards," she said again, snuggling deep into Grace's side. "What a crazy night."

"I'll say," Oliver chuckled, leaning over to kiss Annie's head. "Let's get home now."

The Asp began driving with this, his usual safe demeanor even more prominent this evening. And, as Annie slowly fell asleep and Grace stroked her hair back from her face, Oliver felt something within him repair itself.

Yes, this was what he'd been needing.

This was the start of something brand new—and so wonderful.