A/N: Ugh, it's so weird writing after CA has finished for the summer! I already miss it. :*( Oh, well! On to the story… we're almost done! Probably three or four chapters left, including this one!

I am aiming to have this done by the time I head back to school. Which is officially August 30. Soo. I think I can probably get two or three more chapters posted by then. :)

Also—I have no clue what President Obama is like in real life. He just comes across as very charismatic to me, and I just mixed that with how I always thought a kind and generous president would act. haha. So if you've met him in person and I'm way off, please excuse me. :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Covert Affairs…

Chapter 18

Annie ambled into MCA's gymnasium on the night of the banquet, her hand tucked into Auggie's familiarly, and she slowed to a stop, taking in the banquet set up before her. She and Auggie had left four hours ago to shower and get dressed, and the kids had transformed the gym since then.

Annie stared in awe at the transformed room in front of her. When they'd left, it had looked nice, but this—this was like a five-star restaurant. Where had they gotten all of this? Thick, plush pearl-white carpet covered the gymnasium's floor, and the walls, usually drab, were now smooth and painted a solid white. Annie had known about the walls—the paint would have been nowhere near dry if she hadn't—but where had they gotten the carpet from? Long tables filled the gymnasium, white silk table cloths covering each one. In the middle of each long table, displayed evenly, were three beautifully arranged bouquets of flowers, predominantly jasmine and freesias. A table setting was prepared for every guest, and place cards displayed everyone's seating assignment in an elegant font. Brilliant cranberry-colored candles—there must have been at least three hundred of them—lined the tables and the walls, giving the room an elegant, romantic aura.

"Wow," Annie whispered. How had fifteen kids done all of this?

Aurélie skipped over to them, beaming brightly. Her face positively glowed from her excitement about the evening's festivities. She looked sweetly pretty and grown up, her dark hair swept back into an elegant bun, a few strands hanging loose around her face. She wore a beautiful sleeveless white taffeta dress, flowing out from her waist, a cranberry sash framing her petite waist. A matching cranberry bolero covered just enough of her upper arms to satisfy the school's dress code requirements. "You came back!"

Auggie rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well, you kinda didn't give us a chance."

She beamed back at them. "Look at all the people that came! Can you believe it?" She managed to wriggle her way in between Annie and Auggie, and she looped her arms through both of theirs, grinning up at them. "I think I'm going to be famous."

Annie and Auggie burst out laughing. Ever since they'd both left to get ready for the evening, their nerves had been a little on edge with their worry for the end of the mission, but Aurélie's sweet personality brought out the good in them, as always.

Before they knew what happened, Aurélie had flitted out from between them, and she was pulling on Annie's forearm insistently. "Mrs. Anderson! C'mon! You have to meet somebody!"

Annie smirked over at Auggie, who was already grinning back at her (How did he do that? Completely mirror her own thoughts without even being able to see her?). She reached out, threading her fingers with his, and he struggled to keep up with her. She pulled Aurélie into a slower walk, and Annie smiled to herself at how closely Auggie was walking next to her. He was softly ghosting his thumb over her knuckles, and she wondered if he even knew how adorably protective he was being.

She loved the way that he was already insisting on staying close, hovering, like he really was the doting, overprotective, sweet husband he'd pretended to be for the past four or five months.

When they came to a (rather abrupt) stop in front of a senator and his wife, Annie looked up at Auggie fondly and slipped her arms around his waist, hugging him close. He automatically wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close, tucking her against his side, and his other hand came up, holding the arm that snaked around his stomach. As Aurélie introduced both of them to the senator, Auggie caressed her arm lightly, and she snuggled deeper into his arms.

Yeah, being Auggie's girl was definitely one of her favorite things ever.

"Welcome to tonight's banquet," President Obama's voice boomed through the microphone, and all the guests, scattered around the gymnasium, watched him with respectful interest. Annie leaned her back farther against Auggie's chest, reaching up to hold his arms that were wrapped around her shoulders protectively in place. She lightly caressed his arms as she listened to what the president had to say. Never in a million years would she have imagined she would work for the CIA, much less find love as sweet as this and meet the president of the United States America, all during one confusing, eternally long, wonderful op.

As the president began his small speech about the fifteen students' accomplishment, Auggie leaned down a few inches and brushed a gentle kiss against the crown of her head. She grinned up at him like a fool, craning her neck to look up into his eyes, and she held one index finger to her lips. "Shh! I'm trying to hear the president!"

Auggie just smirked down at her and rested his chin on her head as he listened. Annie turned her attention back to what Obama was saying. "… I would like to invite the fifteen students who worked so hard on this project to make it a reality."

He waited while the fifteen students, all glowing and slack-jawed with surprise, filed up onto the stage, and Annie grinned while she watched them. She knew those kids, all fifteen of them, and this was, no doubt, the highlight of their lives. Seeing the president of the United States acknowledge them for their brains and charm, it made her feel good. They deserved this, whatever this was.

As the teenagers stood on the stage, fidgeting in their nervous curiosity, the president reached for a pile of nicer-than-average folders, and he began handing them out to each student with no question as to who any of them where. "As the fifteen of you can see, the certificates inside of each of your folders include a scholarship that has been set up in honor of what the fifteen of you have accomplished. This scholarship will be given to fifteen worthy students each year who have used their skills, time, and intelligence to work to better the United States of America. This scholarship will be given to only the most deserving high school students, and will be accepted in any college or university within the U.S. with no regard to the major you decide to pursue. The United States government—along with many other governments around the world—are thoroughly impressed with what the fifteen of you have done, and we hope this gesture begins to show you the amount of gratitude we feel for saving the lives of so many people."

The room erupted into dainty applause, and Annie did likewise, applauding a little louder than all the others. She felt like letting loose an impulsive "woohoo!" but thought it might be out of place, in the midst of all the senators, government leaders, leaders of dozens of government agencies from across the world, and international dignitaries. Nonetheless, she beamed with pride.

Those were her kids getting full scholarships to the schools of their choice, before they even reached their senior year of high school.

As the applause died down, the students began to file off stage, one by one (after shaking the president's hand, of course), but Obama snagged Aurélie's arm, indicating she should stay with him. He handed her the hand-held microphone setting on the podium, and she fidgeted nervously as she accepted it.

Annie flashed her a smile, hoping she caught it, before Obama began speaking again. "Now, young lady, you're name is Aurélie Perrot, is that correct?"

She nodded a bit shyly. "Yeah."

"And you're in charge of this group, right? I mean, you were the one that organized the whole project and kept it going?"

Ari shrugged. "Yeah, I was the one that came up with the idea, if that's what you mean. But it was Mr. and Mrs. Anderson who helped keep everything organized and flowing smoothly."

The president looked out into the audience. "Mr. and Mrs. Anderson? And who are they?"

Aurélie beamed out at the audience, more confident now that the spotlight wasn't on her so much. "Well, Mrs. Anderson teaches French here at MCA, and Mr. Anderson is the librarian. They came here in early December, after Mrs. Marais went on maternity leave. They'd been needing a librarian all year until then, and when they hired Mrs. Anderson as the French teacher, they also hired Mr. Anderson as the librarian. They were really nice to me when they first got here—Mr. Anderson's super smart, and Mrs. Anderson's just so kind and helpful—and I thought they would be great sponsors for our project. The faculty insisted that we have a faculty sponsor, and when Mrs. Marais left for her maternity leave, we didn't have a sponsor anymore. They just were so perfect."

Obama grinned first at Aurélie, then at the audience. "What do you say—do you think we should get them up here, too?"

Aurélie beamed back at the president and nodded, and Obama called into his microphone, "Mr. and Mrs. Anderson? Are you out there?"

Annie groaned as she glanced up at Auggie. True, Secret Service, FBI, CIA, NSA, Scotland Yard, MI6, and Mossad agents filled the room, eager to hear more about the device fifteen high school students had created to save thousands of lives, not to mention countless agents from France, Germany, Russia, Greece, Italy, Mexico, Argentina, and Poland. This was probably the safest place to be, for the whole duration of this deep cover mission, but she couldn't help feeling like she would be exposed and vulnerable to an attack by Bill or Baptiste up there, standing on the stage with President Obama, Aurélie, and Auggie.

But when the room interrupted into applause, and Vivian nudged them toward the stage, Annie stepped forward, taking Auggie's hand. When they stepped up onto stage, Aurélie hugged both of them impulsively, and the audience cooed.

"So you're Mrs. and Mrs. Anderson, are you?" Obama asked, and Annie nodded, accepting the microphone from Aurélie.

"So, what led you to take part in such an amazing endeavor?"

Annie glanced from Auggie to Aurélie to Obama. She wanted to groan. How did she get caught up in all this press-and-politics, good-publicity mumbo-jumbo crap? That was never who she was. "It wasn't such an amazing endeavor to us, Mr. President," she said sweetly. "We just wanted to help where we could, and we couldn't let such a worthy project get shut down just because Aurélie had no faculty sponsor."

She handed the microphone back to Aurélie, hoping both Aurélie and President Obama got the hint. Thankfully, the president did. "Thank you, Mrs. Anderson," he said graciously. "You may step off the stage, if you like."

Annie guided Auggie off the stage, and they stood off to the side, listening and watching as Aurélie answered a million questions about where she'd gotten the idea, why she thought Annie and Auggie were so amazing (especially the blind librarian who also was a pro at creating computer programs), why she'd believed in the project so much, and why she wanted to hand the program over to the U.S. government, rather than France, her home country. As the president wrapped up his questions for her, Aurélie announced, "After we finish our dinner, we would like to give a short demonstration of how the program works. Please enjoy the meal we've prepared for you in the meanwhile."

President Obama and Aurélie stepped off the stage, and, as the guests milled about, finding their seats, Aurélie found Annie and Auggie quickly, throwing herself into their arms. "Did you see? I got a full scholarship to whatever school I want to go to!"

Annie beamed as she held Aurélie close. She would have done the same for Gavin, or Zane, or Isaiah, or any of the other fourteen students they'd been encouraging and nurturing for the past five months. "I heard," she laughed. "So where are you going to go?"

Ari snorted. "As if I know that yet. Puh-leese. I still have a whole year to figure that out."

Annie just laughed. "Well, that's true." Ari made no effort to move, and, as Annie's stomach growled loudly, she asked, "So I don't suppose you're in any hurry to get to your own spot at the table?"

Aurélie jolted in surprise, grinning. She reached out, tugging on both of their hands, and she guided them to the table. "C'mon. We put you right next to Arthur and Joan Campbell. They're in the CIA! Isn't that exciting?"

Felix Williams leaned over next to Stu and said, "Hey, bud, isn't that Auggie Anderson? As in, the head of the tech ops, you know, your boss?"

Stu shrugged as he glanced over at Annie and Auggie settling down in their seats across from Joan and Arthur. Felix was CIA, after all, and nobody was around. "Yeah, but—so what? What is with you lately?"

As Stu glanced up, he discovered that Felix had already disappeared.

Weird, he thought.

Annie watched as a few of the students set up the laptop projector on the front stage, her arm wrapped loosely around Auggie's waist. To the outside world, she looked like any supportive teacher, proud of her students' accomplishments, but on the inside, Annie's mind was subconsciously on a million other things—Joan had made sure to warn them that Bill and Baptiste would likely strike today, and there was a million ways in which they could do it. Half of them Annie didn't even know how to predict.

She studied Auggie out of the corner of her eye. His attention seemed to be focused on the stage, as well, and he was listening for anything out of the ordinary, it seemed.

He turned to her, instinctively reaching up and cupping her face with his left hand. He smiled at her gently and kissed her for a moment. Caressing her cheek lightly, he whispered, "You're not freaking out too much about this, are you?"

She shook her head immediately, and he smirked.

"Yeah, well, I know you too well to know you're not worried about tonight."

She studied his face for a moment, studying the subtly tense lines around his eyes and mouth. "Well, it's not like I'm the only one that's not worried."

He grinned back at her. "Touché." He leaned in and kissed her forehead gently. "But try not to worry too much, 'kay, babe? This room is filled with good guys."

She smiled to herself. She loved how he always made her feel better, more confident, so effortlessly. "Okay," she sighed, scooting her chair closer to his as she hid in the crook of his arm. She rested her head against his shoulder, watching to the people talking and milling about her, listening as he told her (what had to be) made-up stories about his techies.

There was just no way Stu was that much like Spiderman.

Annie was just starting to think that this could be any average night, and that she could be any average woman, in love with the most amazing man in the world, when the microphone squawked from the front stage. "Excuse me? Can I have your attention please? The program is set up and we're ready to begin…"

Annie sat up a little straighter in her chair but didn't make any effort to pull out of Auggie's arms. She watched as the laptop's screen popped onto the display screens hung midway between the ceiling and the floor.

Zane and Isaiah walked everyone through the home screen for the program, explaining its various features and how the program worked. Just when they were about to explain what they would see when an actual bomb was detected, the laptop in front of the two boys began beeping loudly, and Adele Francisco, sitting in one of the vacated seats near the front of the gymnasium, whispered, "You've got to be kidding me."

The whole room watched, in growing horror, as the numbers started to run down the left side of the screens, and the revolving world narrowed in first on the United States, then on the Washington, D. C. area, and then, the computer dinged as its discovered location flashed on the two screens.

Mercy Christian Academy.

Adele was already breathing like a guppy fish, and her friend, Ethan, was bent over her, trying to get her to take even, deep breaths. Annie watched for a minute as everyone in the room began to get more and more frantic, each trying to determine the best course of action. Her heart broke as she watched her fifteen kids, looking so helpless and confused. All their accomplishments hadn't prepared them for this.

Then suddenly, Annie was up out of her chair, and she kissed Auggie hastily. "I gotta go."

Fear, worry, and confusion struggled for dominance on Auggie's face. "Where?"

"I know where the bomb is."

Fear grabbed Auggie by the heart. "You know where—what? Annie, no, you can't go!"

She cupped his face gently between her hands, stroking his cheeks. "Auggie, I have to. I'm the only one who can do anything. If Bill or Baptiste put one of Bill's bombs in this school, there is only one place it would be. Just let me go. This is why we're here. To make a difference. Let me make a difference."

Auggie could tell by the fervency in her voice that there would be no convincing her. Besides, he had always known, deep in his heart somewhere, that he could never come between Annie and justice.

He sighed. "Okay. Okay." He heard a little whoosh, and knew she was already on her way. He reached out and snagged her arm before she could get away. "But just—Annie. Promise me. Take Jai with you."

Annie's expression melted with his worry. Despite the bomb, and the frenzy, his only concern was her. She gave him a gentle, impulsive kiss before she pulled away. "I will." She stepped away from him a few feet, and held up her cell phone, wiggling it at him. "Keep your phone handy! I'll call you with any news."

And with that, Annie was gone.

Annie led the way down the back hallway, flashlight in hand, with Jai right behind her. Somehow, she felt safer with Jai there. They had only ever really been friends, but Jai always helped her feel safe. He'd rescued her and Vivian in London, and her and Reva in Poland, and countless other times. Jai was like a fortress, when he wanted to be.

"So, how does it feel, chasing down the bad guys again?" Jai whispered into the stillness of the night.

Annie smirked over at him. Truth be told, she'd missed this, the adrenaline, the sense of justice and goodness, fighting the bad guys. True, she'd been fighting the bad guys all along, but everything had seemed a lot—safer. "Good. Really good."

Jai nodded and flashed her his megawatt smile. "Well, we're glad you're almost back."

They both stilled when they heard a footfall behind them. Jai aimed his flashlight and gun toward where the sound of the footfall had come, but no one was there. Annie reached into her pocket and held speed dial 1. She could faintly hear the sound of Auggie's voice asking if she was there, and then his silence when he realized what she was doing.

She couldn't risk explaining to him what was going on, but she needed him to know if something happened.

Sighing, a little bit more on edge, they moved forward.

Aurélie watched with curiosity as Annie and Jai disappeared from the crowd and down toward the basement of the school, beneath the gymnasium. Where were they going?

In an impulsive decision, she stole away from the group of politicians, dignitaries, and government agents. It really wasn't hard to follow Annie and Mr. Wilcox—they weren't trying to hide themselves, and the light gave them away. She'd discarded her shoes at the entrance to the stairs leading to the basement, so they didn't even hear her heels clicking on the linoleum floor.

She listened, confused, as Mrs. Anderson and Mr. Wilcox talked about Annie coming back to work, or something. What was he talking about? Mrs. Anderson worked here. At MCA.

Annie and Jai reached the bottom of the stairs when Aurélie heard a footstep directly behind her. She turned to look, to scream, because, really—what good thing could be behind her when she was snooping around, probably looking for Bill's bomb, on the night when they were practically ruining his chances of terror?—but a hand clasped over her mouth before she could even open her lips.

White-hot fear seared through every bone of her body as her frenzied, wide eyes rolled back into her head as she tried to look at her captor. She kicked and grunted in attempt to escape, to no avail. The man who held her in his grasp would not relent.

As Annie and Jai disappeared around the corner, all Aurélie could hope was that they could get away in time.

Annie turned to grab Jai's arm. She knew she probably shouldn't worry about such things, like keeping him close for protection, but as the thick darkness surrounded them, and the suspense and worry grew, she couldn't help it. "C'mon," she whispered. "It's right through these doors."

Before she could pull the door open, she heard a hissing bzzzzt slice the air, and she swung around, flashlight lighting her pathway, until she came face-to-face with the man who had tased Jai. She froze, surprised, at the man who stood in the pathway of her light.

"Annie Walker," Felix Williams called out, as if he were pleased to see her, one side of his lips quirking up in an amused, self-pleased grin. "I've been looking for you."

Before she could even think to fight back (really, what had happened to her in the past five months, that she couldn't even put up a fight against a bad guy?), he'd spun her around, binding her wrists with plastic restraints he'd had in his pocket. A shiver of angry fear flowed through her body, and when he leaned close to whisper something in her ear, she kicked back and threw her head back as hard as she could. She could hear the crack of skull on skull.

Felix cursed loudly and thwacked the butt of his gun into Annie's head. As everything faded to black and her eyes slipped shut, she couldn't help wondering, How in the world would she get out of this?

Back in the gymnasium, Auggie heard Felix's voice waft through the speaker in Annie's phone. "Annie Walker…"

His throat constricted. Felix? Felix Williams?

His stomach twisted at the sound of skulls cracking and a soft body slumping to the ground.

Felix had Annie.

A/N: Ohhhh, weren't expecting that, were you?

Okay, maybe you were, and maybe you weren't. :) But I wasn't expecting me to scare myself so much with this! Bahahaha. I suppose it wasn't the best idea to write such suspenseful scenes at midnight in the dark, though. lol.

Hopefully more is coming very soon, and hopefully you liked it so far!

Please leave me a review and let me know!