When It All Comes Crashing Down

Author Note: Wow, thanks for all the reviews and story watches. I appreciate it So this chapter is going to explain a more of what happened actually to poor Auggie that day. I don't own any of the characters mentioned and I am not making any money off of any of this. Enjoy!

"Auggie... what happened?"

"What's that saying about women scorned?" Auggie asked.

"You mean hell hath no fury?" Annie replied eye brow raised,

"Yeah that one," Auggie said as he sat up on the couch. He leaned his elbows on his knees and held his head in his hands. Annie waited patiently for Auggie to begin.

"I was ending it. The ops, the relationship, what ever it was. I couldn't help myself. Every time she was around me I just kept thinking of what you had said, about James Bond, and being a lonely old man. And then the whole thing with Tash. I just, I just felt dirty and complete slime ball for what I was doing. Then the other day, I don't know, she was talking and there was this tone in her voice. It was this sound of happiness and being content, and I never meant for it to become like that with us. I don't want to be her version of what I went through. That kind of heart break, I can't be the cause of that. So I decided to end it. Tonight. No intel is worth that price."

Annie couldn't help but both admire and feel heartbreak for her friend. He was doing the right thing, the thing she had wanted since she had first found out about this whole Liza Hearn thing. And at the same time, he didn't like what he had become, a man totally about the agency, about the mission. And she knew deep down that wasn't Auggie, at least not now. It might have been, at some point, but not her friend. He wouldn't do to a woman what Ben Mercer had done to her.

"So I take it, it didn't go well?"

"No, it didn't go well, at all."

Annie scooted closer to her friend, side by side, and put her arm around his shoulder, pulling the blanket from the couch up around his shoulders. "Tell me".

"There isn't that much to tell. She came over last night to my place after work. I was already home, when she walked in, I told her we had to talk. I didn't give her details, I just told her this wasn't going to work out. That I wasn't what she needed or wanted me to be. First she accused me of using her for the agency, trying to get intel out of her..."

"Which is exactly what you were doing," Annie pointed out.

"I know that, but I couldn't let her know that. Treason is a pretty tough ticket. So I went with a more general guy out." Auggie sort of half smiled, the beginnings of the familiar smirk Annie was so use to from her friend.

"Which was?"

"That I met someone else."

"Owww, ouch! Harsh."

"Yeah she thought so to. Then she started ranting and raving about who it was."

"Really, any good names on that list?" Annie asked innocently.

"A few." Auggie replied vaguely.

"Hmmmm," was Annie's only response.

In fact there had been only one name on the list from Liza. a certain blonde operative who's couch he was sitting on. Liza had flown off the handle when Auggie had mentioned another woman. "Let me guess, its your little blonde seeing eye dog, isn't it?," Liza had said, using the same term Tasha had. "You may be blind but your not stupid Auggie, I've seen it and heard it. The way you talk to her on the phone, the way you gravitate to her in a room. I should have known."

Auggie decided to leave that part of the conversation out for now. He had enough to deal with, without thinking about any of that.

"Ok so you tell her you are seeing someone else, how does that change into Joan finding out about it all?" Annie asked.

"Honestly Annie, I'm not really sure. She left after our conversation, I thought it was over. You know a couple of threatening phone calls in the middle of the night, maybe a late night knock at more door next week. Instead I get Joan pounding on the door to my apartment that night. Yelling at me to let her the hell in or so help her she'll send me on a mission to Siberia for 10 years."

"Hmm tough choice, Joan in your apartment or 10 years in Siberia. Both are pretty cold," Annie deadpanned.

Auggie turned his head to look remotely in her direction. "Look I know you and Joan have cracked heads here, but she really does mean well. She worried about all of us. She just has an odd way of showing it."

Annie didn't make a verbal response, just a little noise that assured Auggie she wasn't exactly on the same page as him about that.

"Ok," Annie said. "So Joan's at your door, then what."

"She comes in ranting about something I didn't quite catch. I think I heard something along the lines of, 'of all the stupid, idiotic things I've done, this one takes the cake'. So I asked her what she was talking about. She said information had recently come to her attention that I was the leak at the CIA."

"But your not..." there was a slight questioning tone in her voice, Auggie knew he heard.

"No Annie, I told you before I'm not. I promise you with everything I am, I am not the leak."

There was moment of silence. Auggie could tell Annie was weighing her information and making a decision whether or not to believe him. "I trust you Aug, I told you that, Annie assured him. For a little assurance, she leaned over a placed a friendly peck on his cheek. Auggie felt the warmth radiating from the contact. Maybe Liza hadn't been so off after all. "So what happened next?"

"I told her everything. About meeting Liza by chance and jumping on the opportunity to try to find the leak. How my plan was to find the intel and report back to her. I told her every piece of information I had so far."

"And?"

"And she said it didn't mean anything. That Liza was naming me as the source personally. That should have told her what I was doing earlier, that this could have been avoided. That unless I found out who the real leak was, and soon, I was going down and there wasn't anything she could do to protect me."

"And that's it, everything?" Annie asked.

"What more do you want Annie? My life is over, there is a strong chance I am going to jail for this whole thing, and the only job I see in future involve the words, would you like fries with that?"

Annie mulled over the information Auggie had given her. So Liza hadn't taken the ending of the relationship very well at all. Annie supposed she wasn't one to throw stones. She still had that stupid bracelet after all. But it didn't make sense. Obviously Joan didn't think Auggie was the leak, or she wouldn't have warned him. But the missing piece here was how in the world did Joan know and not Arthur? And how long before she told.

A second knock at her door in the middle of the night caused Annie to jump. This was light but far more authoritative.

"Geez Annie, some sort of late night party at your place tonight?" Auggie asked.

Annie looked over to the glass door. Standing there hands on her hips, looking perfectly put together despite the late hour stood her boss.

"Joan." Annie simply stated.