Chapter 14

The last time Joan had stood on this tarmac in the wee twilight hours had been to send Calder with Annie and Auggie to Hong Kong. Now she was here again, watching Eric Barber and a handcuffed, ankle-tracker-wearing Oliver Lee board the Learjet roaring to life on the runway. The winter cold had returned to DC, and she curled into the warmth of her coat. She and Calder stood side by side this time, both in solemn silence, braced against the challenge that now rose before them. It was a moment of pause before the plunge.

"I don't trust him, Calder." Joan muttered darkly as Oliver's tall frame disappeared through the loading door. All her instincts went vehemently against what they were about to do - use a foreign operative in their custody as bait. It was an extremely risky and dangerous play to make. They were trusting Oliver to bat for their team when there was really no certainty where his loyalties resided, or what his endgame was. But her operatives were in danger. And not just operatives, but people she cared for, and had come to love despite what her sometimes sharp and scathing demeanor might have suggested. Joan's hands were tied; they were in more danger if she did nothing. She refused to leave Annie to the wolves again.

"I never trusted him." Calder replied with a gruff laugh. "But you made the right call. We will finish this, and they will come home."

"I'm not done getting information from my contact." Joan added, not wanting to linger on the what-ifs and uncertainties ahead of them. "I'm not entirely convinced all we see is all that is. This feels like more than a MSS witch hunt."

Ever since her meeting with Jennifer, Joan had questioned the MSS and Mai Shin's motivations. The chain of events, and the information Jennifer had revealed about Mai's own connection to Henry Wilcox, did little to explain why they were targeting Annie. She had made certain to forward what intel she had gathered so far to Auggie, but knowing that he had it did little to settle her misgivings. Justifying an assassination because of the conflict that Annie's presence had created in Hong Kong seemed excessive given the circumstances. Not to mention Mai Shin's moral compass was severely skewed - another matter entirely that had red flags practically flying through Joan's subconscious. No matter how hard she tried to make sense of it, the equation did not add up.

Calder nodded in agreement, hardly oblivious to the fact that they were possibly walking into a trap. The CIA stood on thin ice as it was with the Chinese, and now the added conflict with the MSS was causing that ice to give. They had to intervene before they got out of hand and took a turn for the worst. Calder could not help but shake his head internally; Annie and Auggie were never able to do things the easy way. He was almost convinced at this point that they did it to make his job difficult. He took on a more serious expression, brow furrowed as he turned to face Joan, arms crossed in contemplation.

"I have to wonder," he mused aloud, "Since when did you start trusting me?"

This time Joan was the one who laughed, exasperated eye roll included. She glanced at him, and narrowed her eyes with a mischievous glint that made Calder curious as to what really went on behind those icy blue eyes. She gave him her best smile, the white of her teeth cutting through the black of the night along with her words.

"What makes you think I have?"

"How can you just sit there like that?"

Danielle was mesmerized as she watched Eyal stitch up Annie's arm with uncanny deftness from her front row seat on the safe house couch –her morbid curiosity piqued. The Israeli grinned, but remained focused on the task at hand. Annie attempted a similar carefree facial expression, but her dilated eyes and locked jaw did not have the same cheerful effect. It was hardly as pleasant as the last time Eyal had played nurse to her random flesh-wounds, in Zurich, all those years ago. Annie could not help but think a glass of wine would have been incredibly useful at that moment. Or an entire bottle.

"Practice." Memories assaulted Annie in a wave of bitter nostalgia. Teo in Medellin, removing the bullet from Auggie's shoulder. Then later, she and Auggie together in the hotel room, stitching him up; another late night, her sitting on his kitchen counter, a "misplaced" bandage on her forehead- that kiss. Annie sighed. "Lots of practice."

"Too much practice." Auggie echoed.

"Almost done." Eyal announced.

Annie was sitting on top of the safe house's wooden kitchen table, indian style, while Eyal worked. Her eyes remained on the fire now glowing in the hearth across the room, consuming the remains of Joost's blood stained jacket. The irony was not lost on her that she was now in need of yet another wardrobe; a tank top and jeans hardly constituted winter wear in the Netherlands. Obtaining new clothing seemed to be a never ending problem for a spy on the run. Ignoring the pin-pricking sting and tug of Eyal's pulling the needle and thread through her skin (a sensation that made her stomach churn), Annie's eyes wandered across to Auggie. He sat next to her at the table, laptop and phone in front of him, headphones on and folded-up cane to the side.

Annie's attention lingered longer than she intended, as it often did, and just long enough for Danielle to smile with satisfied and smug I-told-you-so smirk firmly in place.

Despite the many reasons she could have come up with for wanting to stare at him, the reason Annie watched Auggie now was hardly for her own benefit. She was worried about him. He had taken Joost's death with as much poise manageable, but she was not blind to the fact that it had rattled him. While life as a spy left no guarantees and time was never certain, it did not lessen the blow when you were forced to face the loss of a friend. What rattled Annie, though, was the small twist of fate that could have caused things to end so differently. Auggie had gone to Joost's flat first, before heading to his shop at the bar. If Auggie's decision had been reversed, Joost's body would not have been the only one waiting for them when they got there. She hastily drew away from such thoughts.

The usually unflappable August Anderson sat listening intently to the information his headphones were currently feeding to him, his slightly rigid, hunched shoulders betraying an underlying tension. Annie debated reaching over to touch him - something she had resisted doing the entire ride back to the safe house, despite their not-so-chaste reunion, and despite the overwhelmingly close proximity with which they had sat side-by-side in the back seat. Now, Annie had deliberated too long and Auggie beat her to it - she was startled out of her trance when his hand found her knee.

"Look." Auggie pushed his laptop toward her so Annie could see it, and she used her left hand to spin the laptop around and adjust the screen from where she sat. She was unable to ignore the lingering burn of disappointment when he moved his hand away, but she shook off the ghost-like feeling his fingers had left behind and diverted her attention back to the matter at hand. She studied the information dossier and pictures on the screen, an intel gift from Joan and Calder back in DC. Eyal finished the last suture, leaning close and using his teeth to cut the makeshift thread while Annie read through Mai Shin's profile. Danielle, still restless and on edge from the events just a couple hours prior, stood from the couch and wandered over to join them at the table.

"I don't get it." Annie pulled back, running her hands over her face, pressing her fingers into her temples, fighting a headache. "It doesn't make any sense."

"Get what?" Danielle sat next to Auggie, legs and arms crossed, trying her best not to appear distressed and flustered amongst the company of spies she was in.

"The woman who's targeting us," Auggie had an uncanny ability to say exactly what Annie was thinking. "Her motives aren't adding up."

Eyal read through the dossier as well, and Annie slid past him and clambered off the table top. She turned to face Eyal and Auggie, eyes pensive as she stared past them and tried to run every possible scenario she could think of through her head. Mai Shin had just as much reason to hate Henry Wilcox as Annie had- more reason, perhaps. Her baby brother was dead, and that was something that no amount of revenge or justice could ever really change. But why was she hunting them? Did she realize that Annie was the one who had finally put an end to the man who was responsible for her brother's death? Was her sense of loyalty to the MSS so ingrained that she refused to question them? Or was there something else they were missing driving her actions to hunt them?

So many questions, so little time. Annie felt like she was suspended in an endless game of Russian roulette.

"It's never going to stop, is it?" Annie sat back on the edge of the table, eyes listless, She looked to Auggie and Eyal for some sort of answer. What she found staring back at her was nothing but uncertainties. Taking a deep breath, eyes closed, she tried to ignore the burning sensation of her cheeks that accompanied the threat of tears. "We keep running," she opened her eyes again, folding her arms across her chest. "We keep trying to end the cycle, thinking that at some point something will give, that we'll finally reach a breakthrough." Anger and resentment coated her words, the slump of her shoulders defeated, exhausted. "Why do I feel like the only thing we're breaking is us?"

"No-one here is broken." Annie was surprised when Danielle stepped forward and grasped her wrist, forcefully disputing her sister. "Right, Auggie?"

A quick upward quirk of his lips, eyes glinting with something akin to admiration, Auggie grinned. Danielle, though not a spy, had more resilience than he would have previously credited her with, and her determination was admirable. He recognized Danielle's spirit, her sometimes stubborn doggedness. There had been a time when he had seen the same qualities in Annie as well.

"No." He finally replied. "No-one's broken."

There was something revealing in Auggie's voice that gave Annie pause, and despite the cluttered, cloudy wavelengths that ran between her heart and her head, she could almost imagine that he was speaking to her. Just her.

When would she finally speak back?

Much to Annie's chagrin, she was glad that Auggie could not see her face. She knew in her heart that, if he could, he would have read her like an open book, no insecurity hidden or doubt uncovered. And yet part of her wished that he could. Her strong instinct for emotional safety warred with that tiny part of her that, from time to time, if she was honest with herself, missed the possibility of just that kind of exposure: eye contact; glances between the two of them –filled with everything left unsaid. It was an internal battle that sometimes snuck up on her, a purely selfish want for herself and no one else.

Two people in the room, however, were not as unaware of her turmoil. Danielle observed her little sister with narrowed, attentive eyes, while Eyal half-smiled with deliberate knowing despite the otherwise somber circumstances surrounding the conversation.

"Calder will land at Rammstein airbase by tomorrow afternoon, and rendezvous with the ops team." Annie shifted gears by stating the obvious, trying to backpedal as quickly as possible away from the quicksand of her emotions and feelings. "If the plan is to meet him there, we should get some rest."

She stood, pulling out of Danielle's grasp, and then she did what she had always done best.

She ran.

A/N: Annie, Annie, Annie, what ever are we going to do with you? She needs to heed her sisters old advice and put down some roots instead of running from all her storms. Hope you enjoy, readers. As you can see, something sketchy is going on. Stay tuned! Thanks for all your wonderful reviews and questions, I love getting them! I try to take to respond to each and everyone of you; your thoughts and comments are so appreciate, they make me a better writer! xxx