Author's Note: I do not own Covert Affairs or its characters.

Chapter 20

"Progress to be Made"

After Joan left to head back to Langley, Annie and Auggie sat on the couch. Auggie had his arm around Annie, while Annie had her head on his shoulder. .

"Would you like some lunch?" He asked quietly.

"That would great. I'm feeling much better than I was. Thank you for helping me. It was nice being held like that." She said shyly.

"Would you like anything in particular to eat?" Auggie asked.

"Whatever you can find will work. I'm not sure what's in the kitchen right now. I'll be glad when I can finally get up and move around my own house." She grumbled.

"I'll see what I can find. I think Danielle dropped off some chicken for dinner tonight that's in the fridge, she might have brought something for lunch as well, if she didn't I know there is sandwich meat and bread." He said getting up from the couch.

As he walked over to the kitchen, he glanced over at Annie, she was looking a lot better than she did earlier. He had been shocked when Annie had revealed who she was hearing on the recording. Annie appeared to be much calmer than she had been when Auggie first tried comforting her, but he was still worried that she might continue to struggle with the knowledge that she was at the center of this spy mission. He had noticed tears in her eyes a few times since Joan left, but she didn't have any other signs yet that she was still distraught.

Auggie made quick work of making sandwiches for himself and Annie. He also found chips in the cabinet, apples in the refrigerator that he sliced, and tea he could make to warm them.

Walking back into the living room, he found Annie petting Silke.

"She came over as soon as you left." She told him.

"I think she knows you don't need to be alone right now." He told her bringing in the two cups of tea first. "Your tea is directly in front of you on the table. I'll be right back with the sandwiches."

As Annie heard him walk back into the kitchen, she gave Silke a command to go lie down. She reached forward slowly for the tea. She sipped on the tea as she listened to Auggie move around in the kitchen.

"We have turkey and cheese sandwiches, chips, and some apple slices." Auggie said coming back into the living room.

"Thank you." Annie said as Auggie placed the plate of food on her lap.

"Your sandwich is at 12, chips between 4 and 6, and the apple slices at 8." He told her the placement of her food using the face of a clock as a reference.

"Thanks" Annie replied. She was still at times amazed at how quickly Auggie had adapted to her needs. So far, he had not slipped up once since he had been basically living with her. He seemed to be in tune to her varying requests and requirements for how her life was now.


After they finished their lunch, Annie decided it was time to just get the recording translated once and for all.

"Auggie, can you set the computer up again? I need to get this recording translated and move on from it." She told him.

"Are you sure? We can wait a few more hours if you need to take a break from it Annie." Auggie said, still worried about her.

"I'm sure Auggie. I need to just get past this. You guys need to know what is being said so you can stop them. I'm the best change you have for that. I can do it."

"Okay, let me clean these dishes and I'll set everything up again." He told her.

"Here, I'll set the laptop up, I'm more familiar with it anyway. Can you just put it on my lap?" Annie asked.

"Of course." He said placing the laptop on her lap before gathering their plates and tea cups.

Annie made quick work of setting her laptop up for what they needed. While Auggie worked in the kitchen, Annie mentally prepared herself for the task ahead. She sent Silke back to her bed and stretched as much as she could. Taking a few slow deep breathes, she calmed her mind the best she could. Now she was going into this with a little more preparation and understanding of what she was going to hear. She hoped this would help her be able to prevent another panic attack.


Once they were both seated on the couch again, Auggie had the laptop on his lap as before and Annie had headphones around her neck. Same as last time, I will verbalize the translation, if you can type it word for word then we will go through it again and check for mistakes.

They spent the next hour going over the translation, Annie was all business now, Auggie never once heard even a small hitch in her voice as she listened and translated the recording. They decided to go a third round with the transcription where Auggie read off what he had wrote. Normally Annie would have just used her screen reader for this purpose, but she had to admit, Auggie's voice was much nicer to listen to than her computer's robotic voice.

When they were satisfied with the work, Annie did as she usually did, and emailed the document to Joan. This time adding an additional message to the email, "Please let me know if you need to discuss this further. –Annie"

Annie let out a long breath she didn't realize she had been holding when she finally set the email to Joan.

"All done." Annie said after another few moments of silence. She didn't want to reflect on what they had discovered. She didn't want to think about the weapons on their way to the United States and more importantly, she didn't want to think about the men involved in the own conspiracy.

"That was a lot. Are you okay? You seemed to take all that in stride much better than I anticipated." Auggie said.

"I'm fine. I was mentally prepared for what was coming at me, so to speak. I could take the emotional aspects of the initial shock out of the equation." She said turning to face him.

"You did quite well. I think that will help the CIA stop these guys once and for all. There was a lot of details we were missing in there. You really should take Joan up on her offer for a job. You could be an invaluable asset for us."

"I'll keep thinking about it, I can't make any promises. I'm pretty good at this teaching thing, despite only having one semester officially under my belt. Speaking of which, remind me tomorrow to look over the lesson plans the CIA came up with for my courses, I want to make sure my students are being as challenged as they would have been from me." She told him.

"What should we do the rest of the day? Joan shouldn't have to come back over today and I put the chicken in the crock pot when I was cleaning the kitchen earlier, it has another 6 hours to cook.

"Auggie, I need to get out of here. I need to go do something, anything, just out of this house." Annie confessed, surprising Auggie.

"Oh, okay, yeah, where do you want to go?" Auggie asked.

"Do you have a car here?" Annie asked embarrassed that she didn't know.

"Yes. I have a 66 corvette." He told her, not sure why he had never mentioned it before.

"Ummm, well, it might be too cold to ride with the top down in the middle of January, but do you think we could take it for a spin? Maybe stop by the park, just to get some fresh air."

"That sounds nice, do you want to change clothes or anything?" He asked.

"No, if you'll just get my coat from the closet, I'll take a blanket to put over my legs when we are not in the car. It doesn't really affect me what people think of my appearance anymore, I don't see their reactions."

"That makes sense. Can you tell me how to get to the nearest park?" Auggie asked realizing he wasn't as familiar with the area as he probably should be given that he had been living here for the last couple weeks.

"There's a park a few blocks down on Washington Circle. I'm used to walking there now, but I used to take my nieces there in the summer time before I went to Africa. It's been years since I was in a car heading there. I'm sure we can find it without too much difficulty."

"Okay. Let me grab your wheelchair from the hallway. Do you need to use the restroom or anything before we leave?"

"No, I'm fine for now. Thank you for asking though. Do you know when Danielle plans on coming back?" Annie asked.

"I don't know, she didn't mention anything when she was here earlier. I'm sure she will be back later to check in on us. She seems pretty dedicated to your well-being."

"She is, I don't know how I would have got through this last year without her. Even without her knowing everything there is to know, her support and help has been unfaltering and irreplaceable. She's a very good sister, much better than I probably deserve. Sometimes I feel like I'm taking advantage of her, especially after I've been lying to her and needed her almost every day since I arrived back in the states. She never complains though-never once."

"I'm glad you have her." Auggie said coming in to the living room with the wheelchair. "Which blanket do you want to take? I'll grab a couple bottles of water as well." Auggie replied.

"The blanket on the back of the couch is fine. I think its blue, but I could be wrong." She said, surprised that she genuinely wasn't sure what color the blanket was.

"There's a dark green one here." Auggie said.

"Oh, yeah, that's the one. I guess it's just been too long since I've seen the blanket, that I forgot its color." Annie said slightly embarrassed. That blanket had held its spot on the back of her couch for years. Now, like so many other things, she was forgetting what things looked like and had trouble remembering basic things like colors, faces, and other visual concepts she had once depended on.

"Annie, it's okay. Don't be embarrassed because you didn't know the color of a blanket. It doesn't matter." Auggie said trying to comfort her.

"Maybe not to you, but you're not the one forgetting what your nieces look like, you are not the one struggling to know you that in your mind's eye they will always be 5 and 7 years old. I'll never again know what they look like. Heck, I'll never even know what my own face looks like, how it changes over time. The color of the blanket is just the tip of the iceberg for what I've lost and will continue to lose."

"I'm sorry Annie. I didn't mean to imply that it isn't awful that you have to be blind or that it is insignificant. That's not at all what I meant to say." He said looking down at his feet.

"It's okay Auggie, I guess I'm just a little defensive today." Annie confessed.

"I understand, Annie. You're allowed to have bad days you know." Auggie said handing her coat over to her from the closet after helping her get into the wheelchair.

"I know."

"Are you almost ready?" he asked after she was settled in the wheelchair with her blanket over her lets and coat on. She had chosen to take her arm brace off and endure a little pain as she put her coat on over the cast. Her collar bone seemed to be healing fairly quickly and it pained her much less than it had been.

"I'm ready." Annie told Auggie

As they headed out, Annie was instantly feeling better, just knowing she was outside and not in the confines of her home. She wasn't used to being cooped up all the time. Her blindness had not been nearly as disabling as these current injuries were. For that, she was grateful.


After helping Annie into the car and putting her wheelchair into the trunk, Auggie got into the car himself and they set off towards the direction Annie indicated the park was in.

After five minutes of driving, Auggie turned, went down a few streets, turned again, and then turned again, ending up back on the street Annie's house was on.

"We shouldn't be there yet, why did you make those turns? Where are we now?" Annie asked suddenly quite confused.

"Annie, I don't want to alarm you, but we are being followed. I need to call Joan." Auggie said seriously.

Author's Note: So, who do you think is following them? Do you think I'll go with the obvious or surprise you a bit? :)