A/N: Hola! :)

Vicky, I just wanted to answer the question in your review—especially because I think people will benefit from it. It's hard to make it obvious that something is a dream without making it blatant and cheesy (like italicizing the whole thing, or something). In the opening scene of chapter 11, Auggie was asleep, in wee early hours of the morning, and he was dreaming. In his dream, it was 4:17 in the afternoon. I wish I knew of a way to make things like that more clear, but I hope it makes sense now. :)

Disclaimer: I don't own Covert Affairs… lalalala…

Chapter 13

Annie woke to the feel of the spring sun shining on her face and a familiar hand holding hers, caressing it lightly. She stifled a yawn and blinked a few times, trying to orient herself to the waking world.

She grinned into her pillow when she saw how close Auggie was, just sitting in that chair by her bed, his gaze settling on a spot on her pillow just to the left of her head, like he'd long ago made a habit of watching over her while she slept. He was so… perfect, sipping his coffee while he waited for her to wake, caressing her hand like that. "Hi," she whispered, and she loved the way he grinned back at her.

"Morning, babe," he said, and she wondered just how long he'd been waiting to say those words and have her know he really, truly meant them. He deposited his coffee on the nightstand by the bed, and reached over, instinctively finding the side of her face. He lowered his lips to hers, kissing her sweetly, briefly.

When he pulled away, she sat up in bed, hugging her knees. "Aren't you getting brave, kissing me when we're not even undercover?" she teased, grinning up at him. She wondered if he would notice if she stole some of his coffee.

His eyes twinkled right back at her. "I think I heard Tess just walk in the door."

Annie snorted. "I thought being blind was supposed to enhance your hearing, Aug." She snaked her hand out, stealing his coffee cup off the nightstand, and she took a long slurp.

"Hey!"

She stared back at him innocently. "What?"

He rolled his eyes. "That's my coffee!"

She laughed as she deposited the mug on the nightstand again. "I knew you wouldn't let me get away with it." She leaned back against the mountain of pillows behind her as Auggie scooped up his mug of coffee, sipping it protectively.

She smiled softly to herself as she watched him, loving that she didn't have to hide anything from him anymore. It was so freeing. She reached her leg out, nudging his knee with her bare toes. "So how was the couch?"

After Auggie had called Jai, Jai had raced to the apartment, a small congregation of CIA agents on his heels (posing as crime scene investigators, of course). While Jai pulled the details out of Annie and Auggie, the other agents collected evidence for Joan. Once everything wrapped up, at nearly 1:30, Jai insisted they stay at his apartment until theirs could be fixed up properly. Since Jai was under the assumption that they were still only friends (and neither Annie or Auggie felt like sharing their little development with the world yet), Annie took the bed in the guest room, and Auggie got the couch.

He reached out, holding onto her foot, caressing the top of it gently, as he made a funny face. "Let's not talk about that."

She laughed. She'd forgotten how easily Auggie could make her laugh. She hadn't laughed as much in the past four months, and she'd missed it. "Oh, let's," she countered, her eyes twinkling. "What was so terrible about this bed, anyway?"

He rolled his eyes. "Well, first of all, it wasn't a bed. You got the bed, remember? I got the lumpy couch. The lumpy, scratchy, too-short couch that made my neck permanently bend like this?" he said, pointing to his neck, angled comically to the side.

She covered her mouth with her hand, but still her laughter filled the room. Auggie sent her an annoyed look, but it didn't faze her. "You do realize that I probably slept more in this chair, waiting for you to wake up, than I did in that infernal couch?"

Annie's laughter filled the room again. "Do you want me to kiss it better?" she teased.

Their light banter suddenly turned more serious as Auggie thought about the implications of that. Auggie didn't want to think about that kind of intimacy. Not yet. They had barely admitted that they had feelings for each other, and, yes, they had a ton of time to catch up for, but he wanted to take it slowly with Annie. She deserved having something real, something true and beautiful, after all the disappointment Ben—and other guys—had given her.

Annie laughed a little, let her foot drop to the floor, and leaned in, kissing him briefly before a little voice interrupted them at the door. "Wanna play House?"

Annie pulled away from Auggie, wishing they'd had more time together. Now that they had each other, all she wanted was to be able to spend time with him. Her hand still resting on Auggie's knee, she turned around to see Hannah standing in the doorway, her dark hair in two loose French braids, dressed in a light pink dress, holding one of her dolls by its ponytail. Annie grinned over at her. "Hey, Hannah Banana."

"Hi," she said shyly, hiding most of her body behind the doorway.

Annie reached her hands out to her. "C'mere, sweetie," she said, and she watched as Hannah hesitated for a moment, then ran into Annie's arms.

Annie scooped her up, setting Hannah on her lap, and she snaked her arms around the little girl on her lap protectively. "Can we play another game first?"

Hannah twisted around in Annie's arms, staring up into her eyes. "What game?"

Annie's stomach growled loudly. "Breakfast."

Annie could hear Auggie laughing at her growling stomach next to her, but Hannah scrunched her nose up at Annie. "That game doesn't sound very fun."

Annie laughed. "You can help me make breakfast."

Hannah shrugged. "Okay."

As Annie stood to her feet, lifting Hannah to her hip, she reached down and grabbed Auggie's hand, pulling him with her. As she guided him out the room and insisted on making him an omelet just like she knew he liked, he couldn't help but think about how much he loved sharing his life with Annie.

Clichéd though it sounded, they fit perfectly together, like two pieces of a puzzle.

Joan Campbell was briefing her small team on the results from the night before when she saw Felix Williams sauntering through her bullpen like he owned the place. Despite Arthur's best intentions, she still wondered what he was thinking. The DPD already had Jai—they didn't need another seventh-floor suit snooping in her business.

"Felix Williams," she called out, her voice catching everyone's attention. They all turned to look. The young man with the English accent and only Armani suits to his name stared right back, his grayish-green eyes assessing her as much as she was him. He folded his arms over his chest as he studied them, coming to a stop at the edge of the little circle. "What can I do for you?"

"Oh, nothing." He nodded to Jai. "I have a message from Arthur to Jai."

Joan squinted at Felix. She'd never quite trusted him. Besides, if Arthur had a message for Jai, he would just meet with him. What was Felix up to?

Joan flicked her hand toward them dismissively. She trusted Jai to be able to take care of himself. "Go. I can brief you later, Jai."

He nodded and the two men disappeared around the corner.

Later that night, when Joan had dinner with Arthur, she asked him why he sent Felix to give Jai his message. Arthur just shrugged. "It wasn't my idea. Felix is obsessed about the new girl in the DPD."

Joan frowned. "Elsa?"

Elsa was shy. She worked in tech ops with Bowman and Stu. She was reserved, smart, bookish. Joan couldn't imagine Elsa and Felix would make a good match in any stretch of the imagination. Felix was cocky, proud, saucy, charismatic. Felix did what he wanted, when he wanted, and he always had an ulterior motive. Elsa was sweet. Kind. Demure. The only reason Felix would show any sort of feelings toward someone like Elsa was if he was playing her.

Besides, Elsa had taken a leave of absence for the past month to help her parents move into an elderly care facility. What was Felix up to?

"Yeah. He's smitten." He shrugged. "I was just going to call Jai, or have Lucy call him, anyway, and have him come by, to make sure he's holding up okay with everything. But Felix is always snooping around, looking for some reason to go see Ella—"

"Elsa."

"Elsa, yeah, so I let him. I didn't see the harm. It sounds like someone like Elsa would be good for him."

Yeah, maybe someone like Elsa would be good for Felix, if he really did have feelings for her. Joan wasn't so sure he did. Someone was messing around with her people, and she wanted to know what he was up to.

Baptiste didn't even wait for anyone to answer his pounding on the door. The front door was unlocked, and Baptiste stormed in. "Niko!"

Usually Baptiste Perrot was a mild-mannered man—everyone could attest to that, even when he was in a bad mood—but this was the last straw. Bill was about to murder them both, and Aurélie said the project was completed, turned over to a professional laboratory for a final test. The date where his very own daughter would turn over the research to the president of the United States was little over a month away, and if that happened, none of them would live to see the light of day. Not Niko, not Alexander, not Baptiste, and especially not Aurélie.

Bill didn't play around.

Baptiste ran into Alexander before he ran into Niko. He almost tripped over the boy, and Alexander ran away, looking almost terrified. "Where's your uncle?"

Alexander shrugged and shook his head, running up the stairs to his room. "I don't know!"

Baptiste snorted and continued on his way, finally stopping when he found Niko Petrakis sitting in his study, surrounded by papers.

"How did you not find anything?" Baptiste demanded. He and Niko were in over their heads here—doing the work of muscle men, not arms dealers—trying to convince their own flesh and blood to give up their hopes and dreams without even a hint of what could happen if they didn't. After Baptiste sent Benoît to follow the Andersons to no avail, he'd convinced Niko to break into their apartment to see what he could find, only Niko said that he hadn't found anything.

They were grasping at straws, here, and he couldn't be grasping at straws. He was Baptiste Perrot, respected arms dealer, but he had no clue what he was dealing with.

"I—I looked! Everywhere! There wasn't anything there!" Niko was angry now. "It's not my fault I couldn't find anything. You're the one freaking out about what they're hiding! There's nothing for them to hide, Perrot! They're just normal people, and you're wasting time! Aurélie is not giving her affections to them instead of you, and the Andersons are not some mastermind-genius sort of couple, trying to bring you down! The Andersons are a regular couple, happy together and in love! You were like that when you first married Liliane, if you remember."

Baptiste sent Niko a long, hard look. Niko had no reason to bring Liliane into the conversation. Liliane did not compare to Anaïs Anderson. Not at all.

"Maybe it's not that there's anything wrong with the Andersons. Maybe it's you that something's wrong with. Stop wasting time, Baptiste! We have little over a month left to get that technology, and you're wasting time suspecting two people who are more innocent than we are guilty. Be a man! Find out where the technology is being stored. Then destroy it. It's that simple!"

Baptiste stared at Niko angrily for one more moment, and then he stalked off. Niko would not get away with bringing up Liliane like that and then accuse Baptiste of being a loony-bin. That's just not how things work around here.

"Annieeee!"

Annie poked her head out of the bedroom door of their apartment and laughed. Auggie looked like an impish little child, sitting there on the arm of the couch, tapping his foot impatiently as he waited.

"Ree-lax," she drawled from the doorway. "Just because you can get dressed in 0.2 seconds and look like a model doesn't mean I can look good that fast."

She studied him from the doorway. He did look good in that sage green dress shirt and black dress pants. He'd rolled up his sleeves a little, and she could see the muscles in his forearms when he crossed his arms over his chest.

A slow, cheeky grin inched up the corners of his mouth at her words. "You think I look like a model, huh?"

Her cheeks burned crimson. "No, I didn—that's not—pshh… naw," she finished lamely.

"Annie thinks I look like a super-duper model," he chanted from the couch, beaming back at her.

She groaned, sauntering over to him. She was half-tempted to push him over the edge of the couch. She couldn't help grinning as she imagined his little yelp as he went over, his feet flying in the air. When she glanced up, she saw his smug grin shining back at her, and she rolled her eyes and shoved his chest a little, but not enough to send him flying backwards.

He was cocky and incorrigible and just a little ridiculous sometimes, but he was her cocky, incorrigible, ridiculous Auggie, and she wouldn't trade that for anything.

He reached out, pulling her back before she could escape, and snaked his hand up to find her face, tugging her closer a few seconds before his lips met hers. The kiss was short, sweet, but Annie was grinning like a fool when she pulled away. "I love you," she whispered, like it was the most natural thing to say.

A slow, proud smile lifted the corners of his lips, and his hands, resting lightly on her hips, pulled her a little closer. He loved the feel of Annie in his arms. His thumb caressed her side gently, and his eyes, focused on a point just over Annie's left shoulder, shone with his own love. "Yeah, me, too, baby," he whispered.

It was moments like this that made him in awe—in awe of the fact that the precious, adorable, beautiful, smart, happy, sweet girl in his arms really, truly loved him, in awe of the fact that one impulsive, sleepy moment had brought him so much happiness. He felt like he'd been on a perpetual high since Wednesday, when they'd returned from Cape May.

Annie grinned back at him shamelessly, loving the way his whole demeanor transformed at those three words. She would have been content to stay in his arms for a few more hours, but he'd made a big deal out of this, making sure she knew how much trouble he'd gone to and how perfect their first date would be. Besides, he was all dressed up, and she loved seeing him so excited about this.

She leaned in for another quick kiss, and as she pulled away, she said, "I'll be ready in a few minutes. I promise."

As she retreated to the bedroom, Auggie called after her, "Aww, you're gonna be a super-duper model, too?"

She glanced back at his beaming face, and she laughed and kept walking. When she reached the bedroom, she slipped into her dress—a simple, floral dress that flared just above her hips. It wasn't exactly her style, but it was Anaïs's, and that's about all she had to work off of at the moment.

She touched up her make-up a little and messed with the last few ornery curls. Grabbing her sweater and flipping off the light as she went, she slipped out of the room. "Auggie, are you ready?"

He looked up and his gaze settled somewhere around her left ear. "C'mere," he said, reaching his hand out to her. His hands ghosted up her arms, over her hair, and came to rest on her face, cupping it as he leaned in to kiss her softly. "Now we're both super-duper models."

She giggled and reached for his hand, pressing gently into his side. "C'mon. Let's go."

As they walked out the door and Auggie locked it behind them, he turned to her, his eyes twinkling with mischief, and he whispered, "Are you ready to be mesmerized?"

She snorted and kissed his cheek. "You really need to work on your pick-up lines, Aug."

He grinned back at her. "Who do I need to pick up? I've already got you."

She rolled her eyes for show, but she warmed at his words. Sometimes, Auggie just knew the right things to say.

Baptiste tiptoed past the bathroom door on his left and the coat rack on his right, covertly peaking into his daughter's room before he tiptoed inside. He'd insisted she have a fun afternoon, at the mall with some of her friends, but one could never be too careful. He wasn't sure who he expected to be in his daughter's room (especially since she was across town shopping with half a dozen other teenagers), but he peaked anyway.

Though Aurélie had agreed, she'd given him a strange, confused look as she stepped out the door, and she promised to return soon. Just what he was afraid of.

As he surveyed the order and cleanliness, he cursed the fact that Aurélie had inherited Liliane's love for order.

He reached for her backpack first. How had he gotten himself into this mess? He'd gone from well-respected (well, at least well-feared) arms dealer to a lousy brunt man, searching through his own daughter's backpack in hopes that he can save all their lives. How had Aurélie even come up with this idea, anyway?

He shuffled through all her books, folders, and notebooks, hoping to find some evidence of where her new technology had gone. Nada.

He moved to her laptop, scouring the files, to the papers in her desk, to the boxes under her bed, with increasing frenzy. It had to be here—it had to be. He wasn't the world's best dad ever—everyone would attest to that—but there was no way he was going to let Bill get to his daughter. They had to make it through this.

He was in the middle of digging through her closet, searching for anything that would remotely relate to physics, bombs, and saving the world, when he heard a car door slam just under Aurélie's bedroom window. Crap.

He pushed everything back to where it had been, as best as he could, and he scrambled out of her closet, sliding the door shut, just as his daughter ran up the steps and burst through the door. "Daddy, I'm home!"

Greaaaat.

Because a mission with no goal, with no solution, was such a wonderful thing.

A/N: Soooo, review please! :)

Ohhh, and again, sorry if there are any grammatical/etc. errors, sorry in advance! I'm literally out the door to leave for vacation right now, but I wanted to post this for you all before I left! :))))