I Don't Know You
The morning is still and so is she. Annie stands on the runway and soaks in the sunlight, enjoying the slight breeze, breathing in the smell of summer mixed with jet fuel. Exhaustion creeps and hovers, a fog. She feels like she could melt into the ground at her feet, disappear and sleep for centuries.
"Welcome home, Walker."
McQuaid sidles up beside her, just as ragged as she imagines she must look. And yet he doesn't act like a man who's just flown half way around the world. His same insatiable smile is still in place, and the same bright, sky blue eyes peer at her with the characteristic mischief she's started to associate with him. How he manages to retain his childlike enthusiasm is beyond her, and as vexing as it makes him, it's almost endearing.
"You're sure you don't need a ride?" He asks, shouldering a bag and looking from her to the waiting sedan parked in one of the bays where Dex, Fitz and Jim are gathered.
"Joan's sending a car, actually." Annie explains. "Maybe next time."
"You're going back to Langley?" McQuaid seems surprised.
"Y'know, reports, the usual, being the good soldier I am." She shrugs.
"Reports can wait." He replies seriously, arms crossed. "Don't forget to take care of yourself."
It's normal to remind anyone that they need to think of themselves from time to time. Except Ryan's words are more than just a reminder that she should rest: he knows her secret. The way he looks at her, how he can't quite manage to hide the worry, makes her stomach twist and her head feel light.
It's been a long time since anyone's looked at her like that.
"I will." She says quietly.
She's not sure either of them believe it.
"You know Joan would've let the debrief wait."
Annie is startled out of her blank stare at the computer screen in front of her. It's all she's managed to do to keep herself from falling asleep, and there's hardly anything on the word document except for a heading. A shower at the gym and a fresh change of clothes from the go-bag she keeps there hadn't helped much.
She looks up from her desk, pleasantly surprised to find Auggie sitting on the edge of it.
"Hey. I didn't see you." She runs her fingers over her temples and squeezes her eyes shut, yawning.
"I noticed." Auggie grins. "I've only been here for a minute. Maybe five."
"Sorry." She leans her forearms against her desk, head tilted to the side, her tone apologetic. "Once I've had some real sleep you won't be able to sneak up on me so easily."
"I've always been able to sneak up on you easily." Auggie insists. "I was thinking maybe we could grab drinks later, but…"
"Yeah. Maybe not tonight."
Auggie nods. He understands. It's painful though, the distance between them, and she can feel it, the gaping emptiness. It hurts knowing that she's the reason it's there in the first place. She left behind so much damage when she left, and despite her fractured attempts to put the pieces back in place, some of it is beginning in to feel irreversible.
Annie watches Auggie, watches his face, and wonders at how he's always so calm - unreadable. She's spent hours in the past conjuring ideas, trying to imagine what it is he might be thinking. She's always taken for granted that he can't see the way she looks at him, that he can't see her studying him.
At the same time she's glad, because if he could, she's not sure how much she could have hidden from him all these years. She's not sure she could have hid anything from him now especially.
"I'll make it up to you." She reaches and grabs his arm.
"Deal." Auggie reaches for her hand, squeezing it. "Now go home."
If only it were that simple.
Joan finally forces Annie to leave when she finds her asleep on her desk an hour after Auggie's first attempt to reason with her.
She's always had to learn the hard way.
When she does get home though, she can't settle down, and idle hands are the devils plaything.
She keeps her phone close, and her computer at her fingertips. She finishes her report, scours the files she has on Borz for the thousandth time, and waits to hear something from Auggie on The Postman. She scavenges for pieces of information on McQuaid Secrutiy's website that she might have missed the first time, and she conducts her own background checks on McQuaid's three musketeers.
She's memorized his public biography line for line.
When she exhausts those options, she double checks her nitrate supply, takes her second hot shower of the day in an attempt to cleanse herself of any Venezuelan remnants, and debates on what she'll eat for dinner. The only things in her fridge are water and a six pack of wine coolers, so she orders take out.
Later the knock on her apartment door catches her by surprise. It's too soon for it to be the delivery guy. Annie hesitates, and then sets her laptop back on the coffee table next to her phone and the now empty bottle of Smirnoff ice.
She can't see any immediate figure through the frosted glass of her front window, but that only makes her more wary. She takes a breath and slowly unlocks the deadbolt, the doorknob, and the bottom latch before cracking the door open.
The package on her doorstep with a McQuaid Security logo is the last thing she expected.
She picks it up carefully and steals back into her apartment, securing her system of locks behind her. She saunters over to the kitchen island, examining the hand written scrawl on the brown paper wrapping - her initials. She sets it down, her expression quizzical, and gingerly opens one end.
Recognition hits her when she pulls the black leather case out and she reads the note on the stationary taped to the top of it.
Hope it fits. R
When she opens the case a brand new Beretta PX4 Storm is waiting to greet her. She goes from hesitant to giddy in a matter of seconds, a spy in a proverbial candy store. Annie doesn't hesitate, grabbing the gun in one hand and the magazine (ammo already included, a nice touch) in the other. She loads it, pulling back the slide to put a round in the chamber. Using the standard two-handed grip she lifts it into ready position and lines up the sights.
The fit is perfect.
She tries not to smile, but fails miserably.
Of all the calling cards she's ever gotten, this - by far- is the best one.
Ryan must have remembered their conversation in Caracas, when she'd told him that she'd had to ditch her gun in Maracaibo. His gesture, whether it be a peace offering or an apology, stirs up a whirlwind of emotions that she can't quite explain. There's mostly gratitude, but there's also curiosity. It's the same question she continues to find herself asking about almost everything the man does.
Why?
Annie's built so many walls around herself, locking up her heart and throwing away the key, a retreat into a vacant, empty world of solitary existence. She has compartmentalized the very emotions that had once been at the center of her universe - who she was. Lost, alone, she's managed to justify her exodus on the grounds that she is protecting the people she loves.
As long as they don't know she's sick, they will be safe.
As long as they don't know the truth, she can't hurt them.
Yet Ryan, a perfect stranger up until a few days ago, now knows more than anyone. The weight of that realization steals her breath away. How is it that one man is suddenly foiling her convictions entirely?
How is it that she continues to fall, knowing it might break both of them?
AN: Look Epona3, there's actually an Auggie appearance! Lol. Annie and Auggie's relationship is so complicated now, and they're so out of sync from where they used to be, especially after shit went sideways with the whole Helesa plot in S4. Which is why it's become hard for me (personally) to justify them being together. I think Annie feels out of sync with everyone though, and Auggie is just the prime example. That's why Ryan is intriguing to me as a writer, and I think to Annie as a character. There's no baggage from everything she's been through connected to him, but most importantly he's not the Agency. He's the possibility of the life she could have outside of it.