A/N This chapter was so hard to write...trying to figure out how to make the situation realistic while everything in me is screaming that I want Annie and Auggie together. Love you all for the reviews and alerts :)

Disclaimer: Alas, Covert Affairs is not mine.

3 months later

Annie sat back in her chair and smiled. Her first non-date with David 3 months ago had been exactly what she needed. He was charming, funny, and treated her like a princess. He opened the car door for her, paid for everything, and didn't try to make any moves on her. Not to mention that accent. Seriously, the accent was the best part.

So when he had called her after a few more non-dates to tell her that he had had so much fun with her that he wanted to be more than just friends, she was intrigued. And when he told her that although he was willing to wait until she was ready, he wanted her to know how he felt, she had decided she was ready. She agreed to a date with him.

It felt nice to be wanted, even if the commitment-phobe side of her was screaming that this was a bad idea. She dismissed her fears as relics of an unstable upbringing and fear of settling down. After all, David was the perfect guy. He called when he said he would and he was always there for her when she was having a bad day and just needed a hug. He even sent flowers to the Smithsonian addressed to her.

It was maybe a little over the top for 3 months into a relationship but she should feel loved and appreciated, right? That was how healthy, well adjusted women felt when a man sent them flowers. Maybe she was just irrevocably damaged from her military brat travels. Maybe settling down was never going to make her 100% happy. But 95% happiness was all anyone could really ask for in life. She knew she needed to at least try to work through her commitment issues. Or so David informed her every time she tried to break up with him.

He would tell her that her anxiety was normal for anyone considering a serious long-term relationship. But that he was sure that once she had calmed down again and had some time to think it over, she would realize that she was just pushing him away because she was scared of how deeply she felt about him.

Her anxiety got so bad that she no longer knew how she felt about anything, her emotions had shut down. Did she love him? Did she even like him? Sometimes she wasn't sure. Maybe he was right and she was just crazy to even consider that there might be something else out there for her. She had a perfect guy, why did she feel the need to sabotage the relationship?

She began to realize that the reason she had been so attracted to Ben was because he was emotionally unavailable. He would never have provided any long term stability which was easier for her - it meant there was no chance of having to give up any of her independence to be with him.

David, on the other hand, was offering her a whole life. Financial security and stability. A family. The option of never having to work again if she didn't want to. All things which terrified her, but maybe it was part of growing up. She needed to learn to how to settle down like a normal person.

Auggie watched from the sidelines as Annie became more and more anxious and depressed. She no longer wore Louboutins to work, instead she would turn up in sneakers. She didn't bother spritzing her grapefruit scent on anymore. He tried to talk to her about her unhealthy relationship with David but the Brit had some sort of hold over her. She said that she had been weak and vulnerable and going through a bad time and that David had been the one who helped her put herself back together. She owed him.

Auggie knew that the reason she had been vulnerable was because of his own behavior and it destroyed him inside. He wanted to hit the pretentious prick in the face but Annie refused to let him get close enough to her to even tell her to break up with him. Ever since she agreed they could be friends again she had kept him at arms distance. He would ask her to go out for drinks and should would say she was busy but maybe another time. When he stopped by her office to chat she always seemed to be 'just leaving.'

When he bought her coffee it sat on the desk, ignored and forgotten. She was so tied up in her relationship that she forgot to make time for any of her other friends. And it was killing him. Watching her with another man was slowly tearing him to pieces.

They were all part of the same social group because of their jobs, well, not Annie's real job, but her cover job. So every time there was a work event he would be forced to hear the sound of Annie flirting with David. Annie kissing David. Annie with a man who was not him. And yet part of him knew that she didn't love David. There was something in the way she was too defensive whenever someone said something bad about him, like she was trying to convince herself that he was more than he really was. Something in her tone of voice sounded different. It was not the way a woman in love gushes about the object of her affections. She spoke about David as something practical. An advantageous marriage option. Someone who would provide for her no matter what. Someone who could always be relied on. She was settling for the safe option. Or at least that was what she appeared to be doing. The few times she had opened up enough to tell him what was going on in her life he had read between the lines to realize that she was not staying with David because she loved him, but because she felt like she needed him.

Watching his best friend get dragged down and convinced she was not in her right mind simply because she did not love a man was torture to him. He knew he had lost any right he once had to give her advice on it, especially considering that any time he tried to say anything about David she would tell him the conversation was over and not speak to him for days on end. She had not forgiven him, and although he had tried everything to gain her trust back, she seemed determined to never let him in again. He threw himself into the task of trying to forget about her.

So when he turned up at her apartment late one Thursday night it was because he had had enough. Auggie had finally snapped. He had also had slightly too much to drink at the evenings congressional celebratory party. He was so sick of those parties that he no longer kept track of what they were celebrating. And to make matters worse, he had run out of women to sleep with while trying to forget the one woman he had messed everything up with. The one who still haunted his dreams and nightmares

He knocked on her door heavily demanding that she let him in. Not politely.

"Annie, lemme in righ' now." He slurred his words, consonants running together. She opened the door a crack,

"Auggie you're drunk, what do you want?"

"Jus' lemme in, please. I need to talk to you." She frowned but opened the door for him and he felt his way into her apartment.

"Auggie, I was already in bed. We can talk in the morning. You can sleep on the couch, you clearly aren't in any state to get yourself home before you pass out." She sounded annoyed. Peeved even. And definitely not happy to see him. Too bad, this time he was determined to break through her emotional walls and tell her how he felt. He was sick of her keeping him at a distance.

"No, I need to talk to you now." He spoke the sentence as an order. It was a tone no-one else dared to disobey. Apparently though, she was immune to it.

"I'm going to bed Auggie, its 3am and you woke me up." She turned to walk out of the room pausing when she heard a broken whisper from behind her.

"Annie, I still love you."