The warm water washes over Annie and she brushes her wet hair back from her eyes. Squirting out a sizable amount of shampoo from the mini hotel bottle and gulping in the calming scent of eucalyptus, she tries to think about what she's supposed to do now. She doesn't even recognize the Auggie that's just a few feet and a wall away from her. He isn't anything like the solid friend and partner she had back in her Agency days.
Briefly, cynically, almost heartlessly, she wonders if this is the same Auggie as after the explosion that took his sight. Even worse, her mind betrays her and tells her to run, to leave, to go as far away as fast as possible. She wasn't lying when she said she had a good life with Ryan. Was it the life she wanted to lead forever? She doesn't have the answer to that, not definitively anyway, because sometimes she just gets so bored with domesticity that she feels like calling Joan and taking her up on that long-forgone offer.
Annie rinses the rest of the suds from her body and wraps a fluffy towel around her waist. She wipes the steam from the mirror and takes a good hard look at herself. It's an uphill battle from here on out, and right now is the only time that she could even feasibly walk away. It would make her a terribly disgraceful friend, but her mission was to find Auggie and report back on his well-being. She can't honestly conclude that he's doing well, but he is alive. If she wants to walk away from it all and go back to her cozy, albeit mundane, life in D.C., she needs to make that decision now before she tries to help Auggie.
She's ashamed of her thoughts, of course, but Auggie doesn't need her abandonment. Again, her mind reminds her, and every other time she walked away and left Auggie on his own flashes before her eyes. Annie wants to laugh, because despite giving these thoughts fair consideration, her decision had been made the second she booked her flight to Sri Lanka. Everything else was a formality and a natural continuation of every emotion she has ever felt for Auggie.
It's not love anymore, not in the way they had when they were dating, but she can't fairly discount that possibility from ever happening again. She loves Ryan, without a doubt, but the more time she spends away from him, the more she notices how the spark of attraction from their dangerous operations together is missing. Annie doesn't quite know what to do with that.
The sun is streaming through the open curtains on the far side of the room and Auggie is leaning against the open sliding balcony door when she exits the bathroom.
"How long are you planning to be here?" He asks and she's relieved that there isn't any venom in his tone. A twinge of annoyance, maybe, but she already knows that's because he sees her presence more as a babysitter than a caring friend.
Squeezing out the excess water from her hair, Annie sits down on the disheveled bed. The bed that they shared last night. It's somehow both been too long and not long enough. They aren't in a decent place, and she's well aware of the part that she played in that. Annie opts for politeness, hoping for some kind of reciprocation.
"I didn't buy a return ticket," she offers. They're both spies, no matter how removed from the game, but it doesn't take a spy to hear the non-response to his actual question. "But I'm willing to go back whenever."
Auggie glances briefly in her direction, turning his head away from the light breeze ruffling his hair. "If I told you to leave right now, would you leave? Would you go back to D.C. and never look for me again?"
"Is that what you're asking of me?"
Author's Note: Thank you for reading and reviewing!