AN: This chapter is dedicated to Marie King, who asked for a sequel to the 'Moving' chapter :) Thank you, Marie!

Dinner Party –

Annie wore a simple black dress, but very elegant, along with her classic Louboutins . For the first time in years she chose Auggie's outfit too.

She had put light make-up on, but enough to look a little younger and less tired. He hair was up, tied in a little bun.

"Don't you think you're taking this way too seriously?" Auggie smiled as he put on the pair of jeans she had chosen.

"Come on, Auggie. I don't want the other kids of the neighborhood making fun of our baby. Don't you think it all starts with their parents talking crap about us?" She helped him with his tie.

"I see your point, Annie, but you should relax. Let's just be ourselves out there. Well, our Smithsonian selves, but still."

"Alright." She looked at her watch. "We're late."

She waited until he put on his blazer and fixed up his tie, and pulled him towards the living room. They instructed Zarya's nanny, a sweet twenty two year old girl, and left. Annie trusted in her completely. They crossed the street and rang the doorbell. Annie took a quick look at Auggie, to check if he had all clothes in place – and to admire his slim figure as well –, and soon the door was opened by Nora.

"Hey! Glad you could make it! Did you need a map?" She teased and Annie grinned.

"Hey, Nora. This is my husband, August." She didn't want the woman to feel intimate enough to call him 'Auggie'.

"Oh!" Nora exclaimed as she realized Auggie was blind. Annie already knew that night would be a blast. "Nice to meet you, I'm Nora Walters."

"August Anderson."

"Well, Nora, we brought you this bottle of Bordeaux. Hope you're a fan of wine." Annie smiled.

"Of course!" She took the bottle. "Let's come in?" She entered the house and Annie followed her.

They sat at the living room and Nora's husband came from the kitchen to greet them.

"Hey! I hear you're the new neighbors! Nice to meet you, I'm Joseph." He shook Annie's hand first and then she put Auggie's hand in his. "So, would you like some wine?" He asked as he sat down.

"Sure." Both of them answered in unison.

Joseph was feeling awkward because he didn't know how to act around a blind guy, so he just handed everything to Annie so that she could hand them to Auggie. It pissed Annie off, but Auggie didn't really mind, as long as the wine got delivered to him in the end.

Nora came from the kitchen holding a tray of snacks and put it on the coffee table, in front of them. She sat by Joseph's side.

"Are those your kids?" Annie asked as she noticed a beautiful family portrait on the wall, hanging above the fireplace.

"Yes. Trevor and Jennifer." Nora smiled. "But this picture is a little old, it's from three years ago. They're already ten and eleven now."

"And where are they?"

"At my mom's." Joseph answered. "Nora tells me you have kids too."

"Only one, a two year old." Auggie smiled. "Her name is Zarya."

"Yeah, I was going to ask… Where's that from?" Nora asked Annie. "It's, uhm, an interesting name."

Annie took a deep breath. She knew very well what Nora meant with 'interesting'. "It's Russian. It means 'sunshine'."

"Beautiful." Joseph said. "I wanted to give our kids unique names too, but Nora insisted we kept it traditional."

"Well, traditional never gets out of fashion." She defended herself.

"Fashion?" Annie raised her eyebrows and was about to start a speech on picking your child's name over 'fashion', but Auggie discretely touched her knee, so that she wouldn't. "Well, I picked Zarya's name over personality." She crossed her legs and straightened her shoulders, to look more imposing.

"Everyone has a reason, baby. Trevor and Jennifer are beautiful names." He slid his hand to her thigh and typed 'stop' in Morse code, while he smiled at the couple.

They heard a 'ding' from the kitchen and Nora and Joseph stood up. Saved by the bell, Auggie thought to himself.

"Dinner's ready." Nora said as they headed to the oven.

Annie and Auggie got up as well and he pretended to kiss her, but in reality he was scolding her.

"Are you insane? So much for looking normal, huh?" He whispered and let her go.

They sat down and Nora served them. Homemade pasta. Hmmm, Annie hadn't eaten it since Danielle had moved to California. Joseph poured them some more wine.

Just as they were about to eat, right after they had prayed, Annie's phone rang.

"I'm so sorry, I have to take this." She got up. Nora shot her a disapproving look.

"Is that… that?" Auggie asked.

"Yep."

She went back to the Walters' living room and picked it up.

"Hello?"

…

Auggie tried to avoid the awkward silence while Annie didn't come back.

"I'm sorry, it's from work." He said as he took a sip of wine.

"Work? Isn't it 9 o'clock already? Where does she work?"

Just as Joseph finished his sentence Auggie's phone rang as well.

"I'm sorry, I have to take this too."

"Feel free." Joseph shrugged while Nora exchanged looks with him.

Auggie found his way to the living room and answered his phone.

…

"Auggie, what should we do? If we leave now it'll look like we're giving up." Annie whispered.

"Annie, do you realize how ridiculous that sounds?" He laughed.

"Ok, I told Barber we could take a while to get there. I think we have a window."

"Yeah, but I just told Joan we were already going."

"Why, Auggie, why?"

"You seriously want to postpone national security because of a dinner party?"

"Ok, we tell them we had a problem with our nanny and we need to leave in…" She looked at her watch. "…half an hour."

"Alright…" He gave up and took her arm, back to the dining room.

They sat down again.

"I'm so sorry about that. We had a problem with our nanny; she'll have to leave in about 30 minutes, so we'll have to leave too."

"I thought you said it was work." Nora asked. Annie froze. Damn! It was so easy lying to criminals and FBI agents, why couldn't she make up a good lie to her neighbor? Jesus!

"Well, it was work on Annie's phone. Mine rang because our nanny called." Auggie saved the day.

"Well, why don't you enjoy your meal for these last 30 minutes, then?" Joseph suggested.

"Thanks." Annie smiled. "The pie was delicious, by the way." She told Nora.

"Thank you!" She pretended to be flattered.

"So, Annie, where do you work?" Joseph asked.

"We work at the Smithsonian." She took Auggie's hand in hers when she said 'we'.

"Oh. What do you do there?"

"I'm a tech geek, and she's with acquisitions." Auggie explained.

"Acquisitions?"

"Yeah, I make sure the pieces from other countries get delivered safely to the Smithsonian."

"You travel a lot, then?"

"Umhm." She nodded. "Perks of the job."

After that, dinner was followed by an awkward silence. No words until Nora decided to open her mouth again.

"Can I ask you something? Have you always been blind?"

Annie choked on her wine.

"Babe!" Joseph kicked Nora's leg under the table.

"It's ok." Auggie said. "And no, I haven't; I went to Iraq."

"Oh. A patriot." Joseph tried to fix up Nora's mess – impossible, but at least he did try.

"Well, I think we should go." Annie patted Auggie's leg wearing the biggest fake smile ever. "Thank you so much for dinner. It was delicious. I could never cook like that."

"Oh, I'm sure about that." Nora casually replied and got another kick from her husband.

They said their goodbyes and left. They got home only to ask their nanny to stay through the night and to say goodbye to Zarya, then they left again, heading to Langley. In the car, Auggie's phone rang again.

"Hey, Joan… Yes… Sorry, we had a little problem on our way out… ok… We're already in the car… Ok." He hung up.

"I'm actually glad Joan called us back to work… I don't think I've ever been more uncomfortable in my life. Ever." Annie chuckled at the memories of that fiasco.

"Yeah, you didn't make any effort to make it better either." He laughed.

"Come on! You know me. I like it spicy."

"Well, at least it's over now, Mrs. 'I-want-to-look-normal-to-the-neighbors'."

"I told you I didn't want to go in the first place."

"Alright, alright. You were completely friendly and tolerant. It's all my fault. All of it." He smirked.

"You know it is." She stopped at the red light and took the chance to kiss him soundly; but they soon had to stop due to the other drivers honking behind them.