Part II

2 Weeks Later

"Auggie!" Someone thumped heavily against the sliding metal doorway of Auggie Anderson's studio style apartment. Deep inside the one-room living area, the blind man lay in the middle of his bed. His hair was sticking to his oily skin in a matted array, his skin was a pasty pale tone as if he had avoided the outdoors in weeks, and his sweaty clothes stuck to his skin like he hadn't bathed in a few days. Passed out with one arm extended beneath him and the other dangling off the edge of the mattress, his barely audible snoring and light moisture building around the spot his slept on let out the obvious red flags that he was neither sleeping peacefully, nor for very long.

"Ok man, your door is unlocked so I'm just going to let myself in now…" The much larger tech sounded off carefully as the heavy metal door began sliding carefully open. Eric Barber carefully poked one head into the apartment and cringed a little. The AC wasn't on, the window were closed, the apartment was still torn apart from the sweep months ago, and by the looks of it, Auggie had stopped paying his cleaning ladies months ago too. "Oh man," he muttered loudly as he finally stepped inside the once impressive apartment.

"Auggie," he half shouted in the apartment. From feet away, Auggie's sightless eyes finally snapped open. His blind brown irises scanned around for a moment, like he almost always did when abruptly awoken, before calming down and setting on nothing in particular.

"Man, you're a mess," Eric's voice reached Auggie's sensitive ears as the bigger man finally spotted and turned to the direction of his colleague and once superior. He took a step closer to the bedroom part of the studio and frowned at the mess he saw of this man he'd once considered a friend. "I brought you a coffee," he said slowly as he watched Auggie stiffly raise himself from his disheveled bed. "Which by the looks of it I probably should have brought you some aspirin too." It was painfully obvious from the odor, appearance, and empty bottle beside his bed that Auggie Anderson had been drinking, and not lightly either.

"Joan sent you to babysit me." It wasn't a question, but a statement and spot-on observation that the blind man croaked as he attempted to navigate to the restroom.

"I want to lie to you and make up some other reason for being here, but by the looks of it, she had every instinct right to send someone to check up on you."

"Get out, Eric," Auggie yelled gruffly from behind a closed door of the bathroom.

"If Joan finds out I left you in the current mess you're in right now, she's going to demote me so low, I'll be working below the mail room. She already knows all the off-the-book things we ran for you before..." The man's voice trailed off. Before Annie died.

"Then do whatever you need to do to convince Joan I can come back to work in a week and leave."

Eric didn't say anything else for a moment as he silently scanned the room. As a tech, agent Barber had not had all the same extensive training as a field operative. Nonetheless, anyone who worked for or in the CIA did have to have many training skills fine-tuned before they even got to be briefed on the inner workings of clandestine services. At the moment that he had stepped into the torn apartment, all those training tips and skills started to kick in, an unpleasant picture was forming inside the tech's head. "Can I ask you something?"

Auggie wanted to roll his eyes, but with the pulsing that was emitting behind them at the moment, and the uncertainty of whether or not Eric was even facing him, he didn't bother. "Do I have a choice?"

"I heard that when you had your accident you were a suicide risk for some time." The room grew deathly silent. "Is that true?"

Auggie remained silent, his cold, empty expression unmoving, but it was answer enough.

"You know you're not alone, Man. There are people out there for you…"

"If you want to make yourself useful, you can dig through my mail and tell me if there's anything important in it," Auggie interrupted the other man roughly. "I haven't gotten around to scanning any of it to read it.

Eric made a noise that was muffled in his shuffle back to the impressively sized box of papers and envelopes beside the apartment's front door. An uncomfortable silence fell in the apartment then, only broken by Auggie's stumble over a discarded item in his path to the kitchen area, and the string of cursing that erupted from his mouth the next instant.

The other tech frowned as he glanced up from rummaging through nearly six months of letter, bills, advertisements and flyers. He watched with a look he'd never admit as pity as Auggie stumbled to brew himself a pot of coffee.

"Oh, I brought you a coffee and a muffin on the way here. It's at your island." Auggie didn't verbally respond to his guest's gift, but his guest also didn't need one. From back at the apartment's couch and coffee table, Eric Barber watched his friend take a first tentative sip of the hot sustenance and close his eyes for a moment as it seeped into his dry and sore throat. Eric was grateful to see the tiny glimpse of peace as Auggie enjoyed the coffee, but the moment was also bittersweet.

For months rumors had spread throughout Langley of a romance between the late Annie Walker and the currently on-leave Auggie Anderson. Just a few weeks before her death, Eric Barber, finally asked Auggie about his relationship with the stunning operative, only to be left with more questions than answers.

And then he heard the live feed of Annie Walker's last transmission. He remembered hearing Auggie's voice on one end of the line, and Annie's on the other as nearly all of the DPD listened in on their phone conversation. Watching her in that elevator, the dark looming fear of what was to come seeping into his mind, he felt like part of his own heart was being sacrificed as he thought about what was about to happen to his blind friend more than anything else. Then those three unpredicted words seeped out between them, the words that confirmed all of his suspicions, and it tore through him even deeper than he had expected. It was a wonder than this tortured man before him now was even as functional as he still was after everything that had happened to him before and since that horrific night. Taking the verbal abuse and lending his eyes for a few hours to help with such a mundane activity as sorting mail, was the least he could do to offer assistance to someone who rejected even the notion of it.

Auggie grunted something from across the room about the mail and it successfully snapped the other tech op's attention back to the impressive pile before him.

"Anything in particular I should be looking for?" Eric asked after a few minutes as he inspected what appeared to be about a dozen electric bills, two notices from the apartment complex's owner, and what seemed to be a very strange amount of advertisements, flyers and catalogues.

"Mail," Auggie replied coldly without much thought, but his guest did not take offense as he continued inspecting the strange medley of papers before him.

"Hey, maybe you should adopt a dog," Eric's voice popped up amidst the sound of flipping papers and cards. Auggie raised an eyebrow at the strange outburst but didn't answer; luckily, Eric was watching the blind man and caught his look of confusion. "You have a few advertisements here about lost dogs being found and needing new homes."

Auggie felt a strange string of thoughts fluttering through his mind, like there were memories and thoughts in head trying to connect but not quite catching in his hangover-muddled brain.

"Do you like collies or something?"

And then it caught. The thoughts made sense.

Found: One Female Collie. House-trained. Not Spayed. Contact E.

Auggie's attention abruptly snapped, and he stood up from his slouched over spot so quickly, there was an audible pop in his spine as his sore body fussed over his movement.

"Eric, I need you to leave," Auggie said loudly. Eric glanced his way with a strange expression on his face, and noticed immediately that Auggie had a look that didn't fit his words. Eric was ready to refuse when Auggie cut him off abruptly. "Now."

"What?" Eric began questioning as he looked up to his sightless co-worker.

"Now!" Auggie reiterated. Eric stood, moving everything he had in his hands over and started heading for the front door when he noticed Auggie doing the same. "Bring the mail," he barked roughly. Eric watched Auggie run his hands over the table directly in front of the door and frown as he felt it empty.

"I need my cane," he said simply. Spotting it just to the left of the table, Eric gave a quick instruction to the sightless companion and as soon as Auggie had the aid in had, they both exited the front door. Auggie closed the sliding door quickly with a resonating boom before beginning down the hall without a single word.

"Where are you going?" Eric's puzzled voice followed him down the hall.

"I need to check something out, but I don't trust any technology in that apartment." He navigated all the way to the end of the hall before pausing. "If you really want to help, I could use a pair of eyes. Are you coming or what?"

4800 miles away

A dark stranger hid from view in the seclusion of a spare room. A master at this game of hiding, if he wished to not be seen, he was not seen, and if he wished to remain hidden, he would never be found. It was simple as this: unless this man wanted to be known, he was invisible to every machine, person and view. He was a master at his own game, and it was both a game of cunning as it was danger.

The man's eyebrows were slightly furrowed as he studied the digital letters on the screen before him. He'd been at this new level of his game for over a month, waiting for a sign that his breadcrumbs were going through, but always finding empty replies and messages. He wasn't hearing the call, and if he made it any more obvious, eventually she would end up finding the trail of crumbs herself, and that would be ill-advised until she gave him the call.

Part of him knew something was going to happen soon. He'd been in contact with her only thrice since her own identity fell off the face of the Earth with a falsified death certificate, but he was watching her operation closing, eyes planted everywhere around her target, and he knew she was closing in. So he reached out to the other person on Earth he knew needed to know what she was doing even more so than himself.

The man prepared to close the small computer before him, ready to surrender to any thought of his messages going through when a message came in. The small icon hidden in the corner of his screen illuminated indicating a reply to his posting. A few clicks and a login later, and the reply he'd been waiting for the past six weeks finally revealed itself.

Looking for one adult, female collie, up to date with vaccines, ready for adoption.

The translation was almost perfect, but the message was clear as could be: Auggie Anderson had heard his call.

The man only hoped his mission could run its course now. With one last reply and a twinkle in his dark eye, the man closed the computer and slid it back into its black sleeve. In the silence of the night he slipped through the open window, leaving that spare room like he'd never been there at all.

One female in the litter, not yet ready for adoption, dark chocolate coloring, awaiting veterinary update. Standby for adoption details.

Back to the capital of the United States, Auggie Anderson froze in his spot. Oversized phones over his ears, and eerie blue light casting shadows in the empty room, he felt his entire body freeze over. His heart pounded like thunder in his chest, blood froze deep in his veins, blind, sightless eyes glazed over, mouth sandpaper dry, words curdled thick in his throat and his head went light as the words in his ear spelled out a message he'd never expected to hear again. Everything around him disappeared as his mind roared like a tsunami over the news.

"Auggie?" Eric Barber's unheard voice spoke up startled as he watched the other man almost sway under the pressure of the words he hadn't yet heard himself. Clueless to the situation before him and the hidden lines between the strange posting, he watched with wide and alert eyes as all the color drained from his superior's skin.

"She's alive," the words barely escaped the blind man's lips. Eric's alarm erupted in his expression clear as day, but it did little to ease his nerves over his friend's sudden glacial appearance. Auggie looked like he was about to crumble to the floor before him, and Eric didn't wait another moment to stand abruptly in case the smaller man fell.

"Who's alive, Auggie? What is going on?" His fuzzy voice didn't even penetrate Auggie's mute mind. He could only process four words at that moment, four words he'd dreamed and hoped and prayed more than he ever imagined he would for and knew he'd never hear or believe again.

Annie Walker is alive.

Author's Note:

Leave me your thoughts and a lovely review. It fuels my writing. ;)

- Liz