Disclaimer: I don't own anything affiliated with Covert Affairs except for some DVDs and a passion for writing fanfiction! Story title is from the Florence + The Machine song of the same name (however this is NOT a songfic.)

Characters / Pairings: Auggie/Annie (eventual, or at least that's the plan), some Auggie/Parker, and others can be expected to appear as well.

Author's Note: Apologies for having to take a writing break. I had a birthday and New Years is always a pretty busy time for me for some reason. Hope there is still interest in this story! And thanks for all the reviews so far! Reviews are writer fuel, so feel free to leave more! No flames though! =)

WARNING/Rating: Strong T. I initially thought to change the rating to M, but I think this is about as bad as it's going to get for now, and I want people to still be able to find it since I didn't have a chance to warn that the rating might go up. Thinking it over, I'm comfortable rating it a strong T with a caution for trigger topics: torture, beating, drugs.

Heartlines

Chapter 3 - Interrogation

Light haloed around her head, refracting from her hair in golden gleaming flashes even as the backlighting obscured her face. Always a tease. He had to be dreaming again; only in dreams could he see, and he remembered reading somewhere that you could only ever dream of faces you had once seen. It was his hearing that was off now, though; she was saying something, a muffled murmur that faded in and out, and he struggled to make sense of it even as he tried to see a face he knew he never would.

He wanted to tell her he couldn't hear her, but words wouldn't come, as though his throat was frozen. Which was odd, really, because he thought he could hear someone screaming, and he was pretty sure it was him.

The light started to fade to black as he came back to reality, his body humming from the arc of electricity generated by, he guessed, a car battery. Or maybe not. Times like this, guesswork was all he had to go on, what with being blind and all. He almost laughed at that, inappropriate as it was, because how many other people could think of other times like this? Granted, torture at the hands of terrorists was hardly run of the mill, even for him.

A closed fist struck him, snapping his head sideways abruptly; gone were the days when he could see a punch coming and roll with it. He tasted blood as his teeth tore the inside of his cheek. Shit. He must have let that laugh out after all. Between that and the lingering fuzziness in his head, he was beginning to think they may have drugged him. A person probably shouldn't feel giggly after being electrocuted, right?

"I'll ask again, who are you, and who do you work for?" a clipped voice demanded, and Auggie couldn't be bothered to place the language. For all he knew it was English; all he knew was that he understood it. That sure narrowed the field. He wasn't up to Annie's par in the language department. More pressing was the fact that he felt the pressing urge to speak. Definitely drugged, he thought. He had no concept of how long this had even been going on.

"What did you give me?" he said lazily, feeling a wide and undoubtedly bloody grin crawl over his face. "It's pretty good stuff."

The question was repeated, and emphasized with pain as an unknown something conducting live current brushed over his skin. Just a light touch, not enough to send him into the daze from which he'd surfaced previously but enough to inflict pain. He fought the cry that rattled up his throat. He lost.

"Formidable," the voice commented. "You are requiring a great deal of effort to break. But I can assure you that you will break. Never doubt that."

Auggie dug deep; he was sure he remembered a few regionally popular curses that involved the subject's parentage, and his feelings on that were a truth he had no problem with telling.

His reward was another jolt strong enough to send him back down the rabbit hole, where all he saw was Annie.

xxxxx

Annie woke with a cold shiver, the first she'd felt since her arrival in the desert. It was long into the night, and the temperature had dropped noticeably, although that didn't completely account for the chill that had run through her. Eyal had suggested she try to nap while she could, and she had listened, but every time she woke up her head and her heart were filled with the fact that Auggie was out there somewhere, certainly hurt and possibly worse, and with an accompanying dread that they might never find him.

You cannot let yourself think like that, she chided herself sternly. Auggie would never give up on you, so you can't give up on him. She let herself think what Auggie would be doing if their places were reversed: barking into his headset to anyone he could get to listen, greasing palms and pulling favors, taking charge of a satellite or three… maybe he'd even get on a plane and try to come after her himself. The thought made her smile faintly, even though the idea of him trying to go after her in the field was horrifying. The only thing that could be worse than one of them being lost in the field was the notion that he might take such a risk for her sake, but she had smiled because she knew Joan would never let him off the ground. It wasn't funny, exactly… more reassuring that Auggie would be kept safe if it came to that. It was a comfort to her, and it allowed her to function.

This, though… it was difficult to think, to plan, with her heart beating around the knowledge that he was out there somewhere, decidedly not safe, and that at any moment it could already be too late and she wouldn't even know it. She was not a superstitious person, but every time she woke from her light sleep with that chill ghosting down her spine, she wondered if that, somehow, was the moment in question.

And then she packed it back down, and did her utmost to keep up the appearance that she was holding up. If she told herself often enough that she was okay, it might actually become true, right?

She realized soon enough what woke her; the jeep had slowed noticeably, and now Eyal pulled off the road.

"Why are we stopping?" she asked quietly, knowing that Eyal and Jai were both alert enough to the situation to hear her.

"The moon is getting too low. We need the light to watch for IED's on the road," Jai replied.

A brief flash filled her mind of when Auggie had first told her how he'd lost his sight, approaching what he thought was a dead dog. There was so much more to the story than that, but she had no doubt that his simplified explanation echoed the experiences of other soldiers in the field.

"We might see some as we get close to the encampment. Or at least where we think the encampment is," he added, glancing at Eyal.

"It will be there," Eyal replied. "Mossad keeps track of these things quite efficiently. And your own people even verified our intel via satellite, remember?"

"We verified that something is there. Could just be an old goatherd's hut for all we know," Jai snapped.

"It will be there," Eyal repeated confidently as he pulled the jeep to a halt in a depression that was reasonably disguised from the main road. "We should use the hours before dawn to plan our route to best avoid any patrols we may encounter. And to rest. Should I take first watch?"

Jai bristled visibly, but before he could say something more to bait Eyal, Annie interrupted.

"I will. I've already slept."

"Then it's settled," Eyal replied as he eyed Jai smugly, and set about making camp.

xxxxx

Annie stared across the desert, washed a faint blue in the fading moonlight. Once morning came, it would once again be that seemingly endless tan color of sand, sand, and more sand, but now it was still and silent and all the more eerie for that. The desert night seemed to hold secrets, like where Auggie might be and what might be happening to him. Those were secrets she hoped it could be made to give up.

The sound of sand shifting behind her made her jump, but when she turned, she found it was only Eyal.

"Jai's still asleep?" she asked, almost pointlessly, because if Jai had been awake he'd no doubt still be dogging Eyal. It was plain to Annie that Jai didn't trust the Israeli one bit. Not that Eyal was to be completely trusted; their governments were friends, which in the intelligence community essentially meant friendly rivals. But she trusted him not to kill them or betray them, and that said a lot even if he couldn't be trusted with classified secrets. Annie scoffed; the way this game was played, he probably already knew anything they might need to hide from him. Of course, that couldn't be assumed, and so the game went on.

"Yes, otherwise…" Eyal began, his lip curling in annoyed amusement.

"Yeah, I know," Annie smirked back.

They lapsed into silence for a moment before Eyal spoke again.

"So, Annie Walker, tell me: who is this August Anderson, really?"

She gave him an assessing glance. "What do you mean? You've read his file."

"I've read what Mossad was given, which is enough to tell me there are a lot of holes in his background," he replied. "If I were to guess, I would say that he was military intelligence, and now CIA. After all, why else would you be here?"

Annie said nothing, which she knew Eyal would take as confirmation.

"But…" he continued, drawing out the word and letting it hang in the air for a moment, "there is another reason you are here, isn't there?"

"Yes," she said quietly.

"You know him? He is a… friend?" Eyal guessed.

"He's my handler," she said abruptly, putting an end to the guessing game. "And a friend."

"Ah… the one you were so desperate to reach when we first worked together," Eyal replied as though she'd just said something enlightening.

Annie, however, suspected he'd already figured that out. She let his assertion stand.

"And?" Eyal prodded.

"And what?" she countered, suddenly feeling troubled that he might suspect more.

"And you have… personal feelings? Something more than friendship, I think?"

"He's like my best friend. That's all," she replied, faltering slightly.

"But that isn't all you want it to be," Eyal guessed again, rewarded when Annie's face flashed a betrayed look before shifting back to a mask of neutrality. "You don't have to answer. You have a very expressive face for a spy."

"Why do you want to know this?" she asked, her voice tinged with anger.

"I just want to know everything that could have an impact on our mission," Eyal answered lightly. "And you've been wearing your heart on your sleeve since you arrived."

"I just… I have to get him back, that's all. There are things I still have to say." Annie ducked her face, hiding a sudden welling of tears she wouldn't allow herself to shed. She would not show weakness, would not…

Eyal draped an arm across her shoulders, slowly, giving her a chance to balk. When she didn't, he pulled her against his side.

"Let it out now, Annie. Before we meet resistance. Confront your fear and find a place for it. Tomorrow, you will need to focus. You will do him no good if you falter and get yourself killed."

It was not his voice or his words but the way he said them that reminded her of Auggie, and she broke. She cried silently, heaving breaths muffled in Eyal's shirt. It was the last and only time she would allow herself to break down; when first light came, she would stop allowing her fears to rule her.

xxxxx

Auggie shivered in spite of the heat. He was sweating, disoriented, and flailed wildly for a moment trying to get his bearings. A hand grabbed his arm, not to restrain him but to let him know someone was there. He held onto that and let it drag him back to reality.

"Where am I?" he murmured, though it came out in a slurring mumble.

"Auggie? Oh, thank god," the person replied desperately, and he recognized her voice through the fog clouding his mind.

Parker. So he was back here in their cell. Heat meant it was probably daytime again, sweating and shivering meant he probably had a fever. As to how he'd gotten back here, it was all so hazy, so vague. The last thing he remembered was the torture, and then Annie. He had thought Annie was here, but he must have dreamed it…

"Auggie, what… what did they do to you?"

He tried to sit up, ignoring Parker's protests, and a wave of nausea crashed over him. He retched and vomited what little was in him, then heaved gasping breaths as he let Parker push him until he was leaning against the wall.

"God, just… sit still, please?" Parker pleaded. "Do you remember anything?"

He remembered pain, and he remembered thinking Annie was standing over him. He remembered hoping he'd been found and wondering if he was dead.

"Remember some," he muttered. "Think they drugged me. And everything hurts."

"After they brought you back, you had a seizure…" Parker said hesitantly, stumbling over the words. "I think you bit your cheek, there's a lot of blood…"

"That was from before," he replied. He remembered that part, at least, and some of what happened around it.

"Oh god…" Parker moaned. "They tortured you… we're going to die, aren't we?"

"Can't start thinking like that," he said firmly, struggling to speak clearly through the muffled feeling the drugs and the seizure had left in their wake. "We have to hold on. Someone will come looking for us."

"You mean someone like Annie?" she asked.

He froze. How did Parker…

"You said her name when you were coming around," Parker explained. "It isn't the first time either. I wasn't going to say anything before because the situation was bad enough, but now… is there really someone looking for us?"

He reached for her hand where it rested on his arm and clasped it tightly.

"We will be rescued. We just have to hold on," he replied. He felt her shake, then sob as she slumped in relief. She believed him… now if only he could convince himself.

Just then, the door barring their cell swung open with a bang, and with angry shouts from their guards Parker was snatched from his side and dragged from the cell, crying out in fear. Auggie launched himself after her but was knocked roughly to the ground.

As the door slammed shut, cutting off Parker's terrified screams, he pounded his fist on the floor. Parker was going to be interrogated, and there was nothing he could do about it. He could only hope she would be brought back alive.