A/N: Wanted to post this quick before the In Plain Sight finale tonight. Hope you like-ey! Review, please!

Disclaimer: I do not own Covert Affairs.

Chapter 16

Annie glanced over at Auggie, clutching the laptop close to his chest. It was the afternoon after Jai and Vivian's wedding, and they were on their way back to the school after picking up the computer program the students had designed. The car was relatively silent.

Annie smirked as she glanced at him again. As she turned her attention back to the road, she teased, "Expecting a hostile takeover, there, Aug?"

Auggie jolted out of his thoughts, turning to give her a cheeky grin. "Not unless it's from you, Miss Walker," he teased back, reaching out for her hand. When he found it, he grinned softly to himself and intertwined their fingers. "You know," he said, "it's probably a good think Ari didn't come with us this time."

Annie turned to look at him for a moment, frowning. "Why?"

He laughed. "Annie, haven't you heard Ari around us? Every time she gets in our car, she always says, 'Aww, you guys are the cutest couple ever!'"

Auggie batted his eyes in Annie's direction in attempt to perfect his Aurélie impersonation, and Annie burst out laughing. "What was that supposed to be?"

Auggie gave Annie a faux-indignant look, which she only laughed harder at. "That's my Ari impersonation!"

Annie reached over and patted his leg. "Well, Aug, I hate to break it to you, but Ari doesn't look or sound anything like that."

There was a slight pause, and then, "Oh, har."

Annie burst out laughing and then let the silence settle between them comfortably. A few moments later, Annie realized what Auggie just said. "Hey!"

An amused smile covered Auggie's face. "What?"

She frowned at him. "Why can't be the cutest couple ever?"

This time, Auggie burst out laughing. He reached over, and, finding her cheek, he caressed it lightly with his thumb. "We can be the cutest couple of infinity if you want, Annie."

A shiver of warmth and delight traveled through her body. How was it possible that one sweet, charming, strong, beautiful, amazing, perfect man could love her so much? She was tempted to pull the car off to the side of the road, just so she could kiss him.

She glanced over at him, love welling in her heart, and she reached over, caressing his cheek, much like he'd just done for her. She glanced at the road for a moment but quickly tore her gaze back to him. "I love you. You know that, right?"

He flashed her a grin, part boyish charm, part proud teasing. "I know."

She could have snorted at that, and she turned to focus back on the road, muttering, "You know, you should try and be less charming when I'm driving. As you're a driving hazard and all."

He snorted, but she could feel his unfocused gaze settling somewhere near her right ear. She could imagine he was grinning over at her, and she turned to check.

A terrifying thud rocked the Civic, and metal grounded on metal. Annie tore her gaze from Auggie, just in time to see a larger-than-life black SUV muscle them off the road and down the hill.

Time stopped for a moment as Annie locked eyes with the masked man in the driver's seat, completely dressed in black spandex. He was tall—probably 6'3"—muscled, and his grey eyes pierced Annie's. This was not an average, run-of-the-mill, car crash.

Then they were moving again, tumbling down the hill, spinning and jolting and rolling, as the little car flipped one, two, four times.

Annie reached out desperately for Auggie as the car rolled the first time, catching her hands around his neck. "Auggie!" she screamed, filling the air with her frantic voice. The locked seatbelt dug into her collar bone and ribcage, and the airbag exploded against her, but she didn't care. Why wasn't he saying anything?

During the last roll, Annie banged her head against the seatbelt mechanism that held the seatbelt over her shoulder, and the world began to spin. "Auggie?" she whispered, shaking him feebly.

Then, the sound of glass breaking against metal echoed in her ears, and she looked up in time to see the masked man breaking through Auggie's window and wrenching the laptop case from his tight grip.

Her last thought before darkness enveloped her was that maybe she should have been worried about a hostile takeover, after all.

Annie woke to the sound of sirens approaching. She glanced down—or rather, up—at herself, hanging from the floor by her seatbelt. Her head was still throbbing, but otherwise, she seemed to be unaffecte—oh, no.

She reached for her leg, pulling weakly, trying to free herself. During the damage of the car flipping, somehow the metal of the car had mashed itself around her legs, locking her feet and ankles into place.

Tears blurred her vision and she glanced over at Auggie, hanging next to her. Broken glass covered him, and she could see where it had created little cuts all over his body. One of his fingers hung from a painful, unhealthy angle, and his eyes were drooped shut. He didn't appear to be pinned, but there was no way she was releasing his seatbelt, not when he appeared to be unconscious still, and he had no way of protecting his neck when he fell.

She beat her arm feebly against her own window. "Help!" Her voice barely rose above the sound of a hoarse whisper, and she cleared her throat, trying again. "Help me! We're stuck!"

It was no use. No one would hear her outside the car.

Holding her throbbing head with one of her hands, she searched frantically for something—anything—that would deflate the airbag. Nothing.

She turned back to Auggie, fresh tears forming in her eyes. She nudged him. "Auggie? Auggie, wake up. Auggie… speak to me. Auggie!" She jerked his arm fearfully, afraid of the worse. Tears coursed down her cheeks, and above her sobs, she pled, "Auggie, please… baby, please… Wake up. Auggie…"

He coughed and sputtered for a moment, and his eyes fluttered open. Fresh tears filled Annie's eyes, and she reached out for him, caressing his cheek lightly. She didn't want to worsen the little cuts that covered his body. "Auggie…"

He turned toward the sound of her voice and gave her a weak smile. "Hey, babe."

She wished she could reach over far enough to kiss him. Or smack him. "Don't ever scare me like that ever again!"

He chuckled slowly, and she could tell it hurt him. "So you mean I am a driving hazard?"

She did smack him then, as hard as her fist could manage. She was still weak from the adrenaline rush, waking up, and the pain. "Not funny."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the paramedics and cops charging down the hill, and she relaxed against the back of the seat—as much as she could hanging upside down, anyway. Help was here.

Vivian was relaxing in the passenger seat, her feet propped up against the dashboard, her seat reclined, her left hand loosely entwined with Jai's when the call came. They'd been on their way back to their Manassas apartment for the last three hours, and Jai hadn't let go of her hand once they'd settled into their car. He'd been apologizing profusely before the call came, dreaming up the perfect honeymoon for them to take together once the dust settled. He had promised he'd make it up to her completely, but she'd long ago stopped worrying about accepting his apology. She loved the various scenarios he was coming up with, and dreams of getting lost on some exotic beach with Jai seemed more than perfect. Maybe Annie could watch the girls again?

When her phone rang, she started, sitting upright. As she fished around in her purse for her phone with her right hand, she glanced up at him, kissing his hand entwined in hers. "Hold that thought," she whispered, her eyes twinkling back at him happily. She flipped open her telephone, settling back against her seat. "Hello?"

Jai watched her curiously as the car filled with silence for a moment. When Vivian's face fell, and she whispered a worried, "Are you kidding?" Jai went on high alert.

"Vivi, what is it?"

She didn't answer him, and that frustrated him all the more. Whatever was being discussed on the end of the telephone line wasn't good—he was sure of that. He glanced back and forth from the freeway in front of him to Vivian, trying to gauge her reaction. When she closed her phone a few moments later, he glanced back at her, and this time, his face held his grimness. "Vivi, what is it?"

She glanced at him worriedly. "Someone attacked Annie and Auggie. Rammed into their car, sent them over the side of the road. Auggie has a broken finger, and Annie has a concussion. They had to cut them out of the car."

Jai didn't need to hear anything else. Squeezing Vivian's hand tighter, he pressed his foot on the gas, maneuvering around traffic. It appeared they weren't safe anymore.

Aurélie settled into her seat at the dinner table, surprised that her father had cooked them dinner. She studied the spaghetti, spaghetti sauce, and meatballs in front of her. Baptiste Perrot never cooked, and, more importantly, he never cooked Italian. What was up with him?

"What's the occasion, Daddy?" she asked, staring across the table at him. He seemed in an unusually happy mood, and she wasn't sure why. It should make her happy, but instead, it just worried her. Baptiste Perrot wasn't ever this cheerful, either.

He shrugged. "No occasion. Do I need an occasion to have dinner with my daughter?"

She shrugged back. "No. We just usually get our own dinner. I was just curious."

He served her a helping of the food, and, as he gave himself a healthy serving, he asked a little too nonchalantly, "So, how was school today?"

She shrugged, already twirling her spaghetti on her fork. "Mr. and Mrs. Anderson were in an accident today," she said around her first bite.

"Oh?"

"Yeah. Apparently Mrs. Anderson has a concussion, and Mr. Anderson broke a finger! They're keeping them in the hospital overnight just to make sure they're okay."

"That's terrible."

Aurélie glanced up at her dad, surprised by his sympathy. "I know. They were on their way back from picking up the computer program, too. Someone stole the laptop it was on."

"Oh, no! Aurélie, does that mean you don't have the program anymore?"

She grinned back at him. "Oh, no, Daddy. They had a back-up copy at the lab, in case something happened to our copy. Miss Long—I mean, Mrs. Wilcox—and her husband picked up another copy when they got back to Manassas. We had about twelve copies made, and they're hid in a bunch of different places, just to make sure nothing like that ever happens again."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I don't know where they all are, but I think Mr. Wilcox knows what he's doing. Mrs. Wilcox says he's some kind of government worker or something."

"Oh."

They sat in silence for the rest of the meal, but when Aurélie rinsed out her dinner dishes and locked herself in her room to finish her homework, Baptiste pounded the table and cursed.

How in the world did they have such bad luck?

Annie glanced up at the sound of the rhythmic scraping against the floor. She was grinning even before she saw who it was. It didn't matter that he now held his cane in his left hand, to accommodate his broken right index finger, so the wide sweeping noise was less graceful and a bit more jolted. She still knew it was Auggie.

It just seemed wrong to keep a "married" couple away from each other after what they'd gone through, but seeing Auggie waltz into her room at 11:00 at night helped. Her visitors had long since left for the night, and she'd been left with crappy TV and her thoughts.

And she didn't want to think about what happened that afternoon.

There was nothing she could have done to stop it, and they still had the computer program, even if someone else did, too. Annie had, by a stroke of good luck, noticed the license of the SUV while it had still been farther away, and Jai was tracking it down. There really was nothing they could do. Besides, if she were a gambling woman (okay, well, sometimes she was, but not when thousands of people's lives hung in the balance), she would say that whoever was in that car would lead directly to Baptiste Perrot.

"Hi, Auggie," she said softly, letting her voice guide him to her. "Watch out for the chair. It's about three feet in front of you."

He reached out, skirting around the chair, and he dropped into it and scooted it to the edge of her bed. His eyes twinkled with his little caper, and he reached out, feeling for her hand. "Hey, babe."

She grinned at the excitement in his eyes. Only Auggie would be so excited about escaping from his hospital bed. "Escaped from prison, I see."

He laughed. "There was no reason for me to stay there, anyway. I figured you'd need me to keep some monsters at bay."

She was touched that he'd even stopped to think about how the accident would affect her. By some stroke of luck, she'd managed to live nearly 30 years without being in a single car accident, until now. Now she couldn't keep the images, the memories, from her brain. She kept reliving every horrible moment, and all she wanted was for the world to stop flipping upside down.

He stroked her hand gently at her silence, offering her a sympathetic smile. "You okay, Annie?"

She shrugged against the pillows that propped her up. "I've never been in an accident before. Not once. Did you know that?"

He lifted her palm to his lips, kissing it gently. "Yeah, baby. I know."

She pushed the thoughts from her mind. She didn't want to think about those things, especially not when Auggie had come to cheer her up.

She turned to study him, taking in the little cuts all over his body. She scooted to the edge of the bed, crossing her legs Indian-style, and she ghosted her hands over his face and arms. Most of the little cuts weren't large enough or deep enough to warrant bandages, but there was enough of them that the sight of the hundreds of little cuts made her a little queasy at the thought. She still couldn't believe someone would do anything like this to them, much less Auggie. Sweet, kind, adorable, perfect Auggie. "Do they hurt?" she whispered, watching his face for any hint of pain.

He shrugged. "Not really. They burn a little. They tell me that after they start to heal, the cuts will start to itch like crazy."

She lifted his right hand, studying his finger in the metal splint. "What about your finger? Does it hurt?"

He laughed and reached for her hands, capturing them in his own. "Annie…" He let go of her hands to cup her face with both his hands, and he pulled her closer, capturing her lips in a gentle kiss. When she pulled away, he caressed her cheek lightly. "Annie, I'm fine. Okay? I've seen lots worse, and I'm not going to die. Okay, baby?"

She smiled softly at the insistent look on his face. "Okay."

His exploring hands found the hospital table, and, resting on the edge, the TV remote. "So is your TV any better than mine?"

She laughed. "I don't think so." But she moved over anyway, making room for him on the bed, and she patted the spot she'd vacated. "Here. C'mere."

He gave her a curious look for a moment, but climbed up onto the bed anyway. Annie rearranged the pillows to suit them both, and while Auggie flipped on the television, Annie curled herself into his side, resting her head on his chest and wrapping her arm around his waist lightly.

Auggie stilled as she adjusted herself against him, but when she stopped moving and all he could hear was some infomercial and the even cadence of Annie breathing against him, he slowly adjusted himself and wrapped his left arm around her, holding her close. Annie belonged in his arms—it was as simple as that.

When he made no move to change the channel, she reached for the remote, changing the channel until Auggie recognized the voice of David Boreanaz. He only recognized it because his mom had been obsessed about the show Angel just after he joined the Army, and every time he visited home, she made him watch it with her.

"Oh, I love this show!" Annie squealed in his ear, and he laughed, smoothing down her hair and kissing her temple.

"Shhh," he whispered. "The nurses are gonna hear and kick me out." They fell back into silence, and Auggie listened a little bit, trying to figure out what was going on in the show. "Please tell me you're not addicted to Angel, too."

She craned her neck to look up into his eyes, and she scowled. "Angel? Ew, no. This is Bones."

He relaxed a little, focusing back on what was going on. At least Annie had better taste in TV than his mom did.

They'd turned on the television barely after eleven, but it didn't take long for Annie to succumb to the pressure of the day. The stress, long hours, and worry had worn on her, and all she'd needed was an excuse to fall asleep. She soon had relaxed limply against him, and Auggie smirked when, in the middle of an especially suspenseful moment in the episode, Annie snorted loudly and snuggled closer to him.

He listened to the episode for a few more minutes, and, when he felt himself falling asleep, too, he clicked off the television, letting his head drop down to hers protectively as he drifted off to sleep.

The next morning, Annie and Auggie woke to the sound of a nurse's shriek as she entered Annie's hospital room. "Mr. Anderson!"

Annie and Auggie stirred, and Annie groaned at the interruption. "Mr. Anderson, did you know the nurses have been looking for you since eleven o'clock?"

Auggie lifted his head off the pillow and turned in the direction of the annoying shrieking. "I was right here."

The nurse rolled her eyes. "Yes, I can see that." She marched over to them both, grabbing Auggie by the arm. "Come on. Dr. Izor wants to see you."

As the nurse dragged Auggie away, barely giving him time to retrieve his white cane, he glanced back at Annie, grinning brightly. "See you later?"

Despite the fact that she was still half asleep, Annie laughed. Sometimes, Auggie knew how to make everything better.

A/N: Tada! Review, please!

Oh, and yes, I'm completely aware that it's unlikely anything in the hospital would happen that happened in this chapter, but really, if I wrote it realistically, it wouldn't be anywhere near as cute. :)