Situations and Circumstances Chapter Four
Title: Situations and Circumstances
Fandom: Covert Affairs
Rating: T+
Warnings: Angst, Suicidal thoughts, mentions of alcohol abuse
Pairings (if applicable) Annie/Auggie
Character(s) (if applicable) Annie, Auggie,
Story Summary: That's all our life is, you know, the situations an circumstances we find ourselves in. "100 Situations" Challenge.
OneShot Summary: "Death" "Auggie is not dead!" she screamed. If her previous scream wasn't enough to attract the attention of the
entire DPD division, the second guaranteed it.
Notes: First part of a Two-parter.
"No. . ." she whimpered, biting down on the inside of her cheek. "You're lying to me. Why . . . why would you do that?"
There was something wet and salty running down her face. She wouldn't realize until later that it was her tears.
She bit down harder, more purposefully this time.
"No!" she screamed. Annie was standing in the middle of the tech office - Auggie's office - when Joan broke the news to her. To be honest, Joan had been kind about, offering Annie a cup of tea and giving her a shoulder to cry on. Joan was often nicknamed "Mother Goose", because, though she often didn't act like it, she knew when to employ the underused maternal side of her.
"Annie," Joan soothed, placing a comforting arm on the younger blonde's shoulder. Annie flinched and turned away as if it had burned. Who knows, maybe it did.
"Auggie is not dead!" she screamed. If her previous scream wasn't enough to attract the attention of the entire DPD division, the second guaranteed it.
Closer to the door - no one was quite enough brave to enter the office - were Conrad, Stu, and Jai. At the moment Annie despised them a bit more than was warranted.
"Annie," someone spoke, and at that point, Annie couldn't tell who. Her tears were blurring everything, her eyes were unfocused, and her ears were mixing the sounds to the point in which she couldn't hear anything, much less tell any of the voices apart.
She bit down harder, repeating her slurring mantra in her mind. Auggie is not dead.
She tasted red.
And she saw black.
xXx
"Annie."
"Annie."
"Annie."
"Annie."
She wasn't completely conscious, but at least she could now identify that there were four distinct voices attempting to rouse her awake.
"Auggie," she whimpered, in a voice so weak, that everyone else in the room exchanged worried glances.
The second thing Annie realized was that she had a bitter copper taste in her mouth. Oh, that was blood.
Her blood.
Her eyes drifted open, but it hurt. It hurt to see, it hurt to think.
She backed up against the leg of the desk until she couldn't anymore. Staring at her apprehensively was Joan, Stu, Jai, and Conrad.
Annie spared a glance through the glass walls. Every agent in the expansive office seemed to be dutifully focused on something. But every now and then, they would spare a glance at the tech office.
For being CIA, they really weren't subtle.
Annie groaned mentally, for her vocal cords seemed too worn from screaming. She was the DPD's newest attraction - the newbie that had the mental breakdown.
Sluggishly, her eyes moved towards the four silent people in office. Why were they here? In her mind, they didn't care about her. She looked towards the glass walls again and grimaced at her translucent reflection.
Her mascara was no longer perfect - nothing was perfect, anymore - as her tears had caused it to run down her face in elegant streams. Her eyes were red and cloudy with tears. Her mouth was dripping thin crimson blood.
She looked like hell.
She tried to meet their eyes, but turned away when she saw what was in them.
Pity. Sympathy. Guilt. Though the last one was more evident in Jai and Joan's eyes than anyone else.
She now knew what Auggie meant about not wanting to be pitied. Shakily standing up, she supported herself by placing a hand on the glass desk. Someone placed an arm on her shoulder - it was a man, she could tell that much - but she recoiled instinctively. It seemed that anyone she got close to got hurt, or worse.
If Annie had looked up again, she would've seen Jai's guilt intensify, but she didn't.
"Annie," Joan murmured soothingly to the disheveled blonde.
Tiredly, Annie looked up. She was numb, and she couldn't feel anything. All she wanted to do was go to bed, close her eyes, and fall into a black abyss, never to wake up again.
She wondered if Auggie had a gun somewhere.
"Annie," Joan repeated, "Why don't you take some time off? Come back when you're up for it, okay?"
She nodded robotically.
A knife would do.
xXx
"Auggie, c'mon, you can't be serious."Annie laughed awkwardly.
For the past hour, she had been trying to convince him not to go to Iraq.
"C'mon Annie, you think you're the only one who gets to have fun?" Auggie's tone was kiddingly, but it still threw a pang of hurt at her.
"No but . . . . You could get hurt," she responded lamely, adding the reason as a last resort.
"Annie, don't worry. I'm invincible, remember? Besides, both Jai and Joan fully support me working on this mission. Jai even recommended me to Arthur. I mean, it's only because I served there and I know the culture. But this is what I've been wanting, a chance to be out in the field, again. I mean, mostly, I'm running tech, there, but I still get to be in on the action and everything!"
'Jai doesn't know what he's doing,' Annie thought, but plastered on a smile that looked more like a grimace and nodded.
"I guess."
xXx
She locked herself in the guesthouse. She told Danielle and Michael that she needed time alone, to figure herself out. They said "of course", and patted her arm with a sympathetic smile. She returned it, but it tasted like acid in her mouth.
She leaned her head back on the pillow, and dropped her arm below her bed to find the bottle of Patron Auggie had given her. "It's for safe keeping" was what he had said.
No one she loved actually stayed safe.
She turned her head to the side. The picture frame that once held a picture of Ben, now held a picture of her and Auggie. They were smiling, unaware that a photo was being taken. They looked like there wasn't a care in the world.
She stood from her bed, the bottle still in her hand, with a fourth of it gone already, and held the picture frame in the other hand.
"We were so naïve," Annie murmured. Her angry tears wet the glass on the frame. She stepped back until her knees hit the mattress. With the frame in her hand, she heaved it, and watched it sail across the room.
She closed her eyes briefly as it crashed against the wall and broke.
The sound was satisfying.
xXx
Annie had kept to herself; so much so that Danielle had told her daughters that Aunt Annie was on vacation.
They saw the lights on at night sometimes, but convinced themselves otherwise.
It was easier to believe that their aunt was on a warm sunny beach somewhere, than in their guest house, depressed and disconnected with the rest of civilization.
xXx
It was midnight when she looked at the clock again. She winced; she had thought that it was only ten. For the last fifteen minutes, she had paced the entire layout of her home, trying to control her breathing and dizzying thoughts. She shook her head, trying to clear it of chaos.
Giving up, she paced to the bathroom, and opening the mirror covered cupboards, rummaging for the bottle that contained little oval white pills. She found it, with "Xanax" written on it in purple cursive.
It was for her anxiety and panic disorder, another side effect of Auggie's death. She didn't mind that it helped a bit with the looming depression.
Despite all of that, she still hated what it did to her. Annie had gone to the doctor three days after finding out about Auggie's passing. He had explained to her the side effects, and warned her not to use it too often.
She did follow his orders, taking the pills only when she needed them. In the nearly two weeks she had had them, she had only taken two.
She didn't take so few of them because she rarely needed them, but rather because the side effects were too horrid for her to continually take them.
Annie had hallucinated him. It wasn't everyday and all the time, but just for the briefest moments, when she could swear that he was in the passenger seat of a car, or speaking with a burly man in the mall.
Anytime she saw him, and even sometimes when she thought about him, she could feel her resistance waning, and her eyes roll back into the darkness.
Closing the cupboard door, she found herself staring at her reflection in the mirror. She had lost weight, too much, as she had more or less lost her appetite. Her eyes were encompassed in dark raccoon-like bags.
Her once glowing skin was now dull and pale grey. Her wavy dirty-blonde hair now lay limp around her shoulders.
She looked like she felt - disheartened, depressed, and unenthusiastic.
She spared a disgusted glance to the bottle of Xanax. Flipping the top open with her thumb, she dumped them into the toilet.
Her eyes followed the pills as they were flushed down the toilet.
It she were to really think about it, those pills were a perfect metaphor for her.
xXx
She looked in her closet and found it. The black dress. The black dress that she promised she would wear on a special occasion. This was a special occasion, wasn't it?
Danielle drove her to the funeral.
Annie hadn't driven since the day she found out about Auggie's death. She hadn't done much of anything, in fact. The entire car ride there, Annie stared out the window, tracing the lines of wet humidity with her fingers.
The sky was dark and ominous. It resembled the proverbial cloud over Annie's head.
She realized that the car had stopped when Danielle had tapped her on her shoulder. Annie had learned how not to flinch when somebody touched her.
She just pretended it was Auggie.
"Annie, we're here," Danielle murmured quietly to her. Annie turned slightly, and with a blank gaze nodded.
"Do you . . . do you want me to come with you?" Danielle asked her.
"I'll be fine, Dani," Annie replied hoarsely, stepping out of the car.
"Okay," Danielle nodded, "Just call me when you want me to pick you up."
Annie nodded bleakly.
Danielle drove away in her car, thinking that Annie had improved. At least today she responded to something in a full sentence.
xXx
The funeral was closed-casket. The body was so badly burned in the explosion that, they told her, DNA was the only way to positively identify him. The funeral took place three weeks after his death, for his body had to be autopsied and then sent from Iraq to DC.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Auggie's family. His four brothers, two with their wives, and his mother and father stood together in a huddle. Auggie's nephews were being taken care of by one of his sisters-in-law's sister.
She didn't meet their gaze, and had this been another situation, she would have gladly introduced herself.
She knew all the names of his brothers - Parryson, Donovan, Bernard, and Cortley, and could more or less figure out which one was which.
She didn't try to, though.
After the ceremony, the forecasted rain had come in a torrent. The heavy drops pelted her pale skin, and the small bits of hail left purple welts on her neck and arms.
Joan and Arthur politely offered her a ride, though she declined, stating that her sister was picking her up.
Jai looked like he wanted to say something to her, but relented, shaking his dark hair in guilt and walking away.
She was the only one there now, and she pulled out her cell phone, preparing to call Danielle. Her finger hovered on Danielle's speed dial.
She walked home.
xXx
For a moment, she was glad that it was raining, that way no one could see how her tears blurred her sight, and how the salt from those tears rubbed her face raw.
Her foot hit against a part of the pavement, and she looked up. This wasn't her house, nor was it anywhere near it. Looking up, Annie saw that she was in the West End. The West End where Auggie lived.
Pivoting her head slightly, she caught sight of his apartment. She glanced down. Stupid feet, why did they have to lead her here?
Leaving what was left of her sanity behind, she made her way to his apartment. Who knew, maybe his lease wasn't up yet.
She fumbled for the copy of the key he had given her, and turned it into the lock, twisting it until it clicked. She pushed the metal door open, and padded into his apartment.
She closed her eyes as she felt for something to hold onto. She took quick, sharp breaths as she struggled to breath. He knees felt like they couldn't support her any longer. Her eyes were defocusing again, and she felt lightheaded. A choked sob rang out in the motionless apartment.
She collapsed sobbing against the wall, her strength and her pride fleeing her body. She lifted herself up, leaning on the wall for support.
Stumbling as if she was intoxicated, she made her way to his bed. She fell, her face burrowing into a pillow. It smelled like him.
Holding another pillow to her, she pulled the covers over her and, for a moment, she thought he was here with her.
She could look for his gun tomorrow. She wasn't moving now.
For the first time in three weeks, Annie slept. For a moment, a ghost of a smile tugged at her lips, but only for a moment.
xXx
Fandom: Covert Affairs
Rating: T+
Warnings: Angst, Suicidal thoughts, mentions of alcohol abuse
Pairings (if applicable) Annie/Auggie
Character(s) (if applicable) Annie, Auggie,
Story Summary: That's all our life is, you know, the situations an circumstances we find ourselves in. "100 Situations" Challenge.
OneShot Summary: "Death" "Auggie is not dead!" she screamed. If her previous scream wasn't enough to attract the attention of the
entire DPD division, the second guaranteed it.
Notes: First part of a Two-parter.
"No. . ." she whimpered, biting down on the inside of her cheek. "You're lying to me. Why . . . why would you do that?"
There was something wet and salty running down her face. She wouldn't realize until later that it was her tears.
She bit down harder, more purposefully this time.
"No!" she screamed. Annie was standing in the middle of the tech office - Auggie's office - when Joan broke the news to her. To be honest, Joan had been kind about, offering Annie a cup of tea and giving her a shoulder to cry on. Joan was often nicknamed "Mother Goose", because, though she often didn't act like it, she knew when to employ the underused maternal side of her.
"Annie," Joan soothed, placing a comforting arm on the younger blonde's shoulder. Annie flinched and turned away as if it had burned. Who knows, maybe it did.
"Auggie is not dead!" she screamed. If her previous scream wasn't enough to attract the attention of the entire DPD division, the second guaranteed it.
Closer to the door - no one was quite enough brave to enter the office - were Conrad, Stu, and Jai. At the moment Annie despised them a bit more than was warranted.
"Annie," someone spoke, and at that point, Annie couldn't tell who. Her tears were blurring everything, her eyes were unfocused, and her ears were mixing the sounds to the point in which she couldn't hear anything, much less tell any of the voices apart.
She bit down harder, repeating her slurring mantra in her mind. Auggie is not dead.
She tasted red.
And she saw black.
xXx
"Annie."
"Annie."
"Annie."
"Annie."
She wasn't completely conscious, but at least she could now identify that there were four distinct voices attempting to rouse her awake.
"Auggie," she whimpered, in a voice so weak, that everyone else in the room exchanged worried glances.
The second thing Annie realized was that she had a bitter copper taste in her mouth. Oh, that was blood.
Her blood.
Her eyes drifted open, but it hurt. It hurt to see, it hurt to think.
She backed up against the leg of the desk until she couldn't anymore. Staring at her apprehensively was Joan, Stu, Jai, and Conrad.
Annie spared a glance through the glass walls. Every agent in the expansive office seemed to be dutifully focused on something. But every now and then, they would spare a glance at the tech office.
For being CIA, they really weren't subtle.
Annie groaned mentally, for her vocal cords seemed too worn from screaming. She was the DPD's newest attraction - the newbie that had the mental breakdown.
Sluggishly, her eyes moved towards the four silent people in office. Why were they here? In her mind, they didn't care about her. She looked towards the glass walls again and grimaced at her translucent reflection.
Her mascara was no longer perfect - nothing was perfect, anymore - as her tears had caused it to run down her face in elegant streams. Her eyes were red and cloudy with tears. Her mouth was dripping thin crimson blood.
She looked like hell.
She tried to meet their eyes, but turned away when she saw what was in them.
Pity. Sympathy. Guilt. Though the last one was more evident in Jai and Joan's eyes than anyone else.
She now knew what Auggie meant about not wanting to be pitied. Shakily standing up, she supported herself by placing a hand on the glass desk. Someone placed an arm on her shoulder - it was a man, she could tell that much - but she recoiled instinctively. It seemed that anyone she got close to got hurt, or worse.
If Annie had looked up again, she would've seen Jai's guilt intensify, but she didn't.
"Annie," Joan murmured soothingly to the disheveled blonde.
Tiredly, Annie looked up. She was numb, and she couldn't feel anything. All she wanted to do was go to bed, close her eyes, and fall into a black abyss, never to wake up again.
She wondered if Auggie had a gun somewhere.
"Annie," Joan repeated, "Why don't you take some time off? Come back when you're up for it, okay?"
She nodded robotically.
A knife would do.
xXx
"Auggie, c'mon, you can't be serious."Annie laughed awkwardly.
For the past hour, she had been trying to convince him not to go to Iraq.
"C'mon Annie, you think you're the only one who gets to have fun?" Auggie's tone was kiddingly, but it still threw a pang of hurt at her.
"No but . . . . You could get hurt," she responded lamely, adding the reason as a last resort.
"Annie, don't worry. I'm invincible, remember? Besides, both Jai and Joan fully support me working on this mission. Jai even recommended me to Arthur. I mean, it's only because I served there and I know the culture. But this is what I've been wanting, a chance to be out in the field, again. I mean, mostly, I'm running tech, there, but I still get to be in on the action and everything!"
'Jai doesn't know what he's doing,' Annie thought, but plastered on a smile that looked more like a grimace and nodded.
"I guess."
xXx
She locked herself in the guesthouse. She told Danielle and Michael that she needed time alone, to figure herself out. They said "of course", and patted her arm with a sympathetic smile. She returned it, but it tasted like acid in her mouth.
She leaned her head back on the pillow, and dropped her arm below her bed to find the bottle of Patron Auggie had given her. "It's for safe keeping" was what he had said.
No one she loved actually stayed safe.
She turned her head to the side. The picture frame that once held a picture of Ben, now held a picture of her and Auggie. They were smiling, unaware that a photo was being taken. They looked like there wasn't a care in the world.
She stood from her bed, the bottle still in her hand, with a fourth of it gone already, and held the picture frame in the other hand.
"We were so naïve," Annie murmured. Her angry tears wet the glass on the frame. She stepped back until her knees hit the mattress. With the frame in her hand, she heaved it, and watched it sail across the room.
She closed her eyes briefly as it crashed against the wall and broke.
The sound was satisfying.
xXx
Annie had kept to herself; so much so that Danielle had told her daughters that Aunt Annie was on vacation.
They saw the lights on at night sometimes, but convinced themselves otherwise.
It was easier to believe that their aunt was on a warm sunny beach somewhere, than in their guest house, depressed and disconnected with the rest of civilization.
xXx
It was midnight when she looked at the clock again. She winced; she had thought that it was only ten. For the last fifteen minutes, she had paced the entire layout of her home, trying to control her breathing and dizzying thoughts. She shook her head, trying to clear it of chaos.
Giving up, she paced to the bathroom, and opening the mirror covered cupboards, rummaging for the bottle that contained little oval white pills. She found it, with "Xanax" written on it in purple cursive.
It was for her anxiety and panic disorder, another side effect of Auggie's death. She didn't mind that it helped a bit with the looming depression.
Despite all of that, she still hated what it did to her. Annie had gone to the doctor three days after finding out about Auggie's passing. He had explained to her the side effects, and warned her not to use it too often.
She did follow his orders, taking the pills only when she needed them. In the nearly two weeks she had had them, she had only taken two.
She didn't take so few of them because she rarely needed them, but rather because the side effects were too horrid for her to continually take them.
Annie had hallucinated him. It wasn't everyday and all the time, but just for the briefest moments, when she could swear that he was in the passenger seat of a car, or speaking with a burly man in the mall.
Anytime she saw him, and even sometimes when she thought about him, she could feel her resistance waning, and her eyes roll back into the darkness.
Closing the cupboard door, she found herself staring at her reflection in the mirror. She had lost weight, too much, as she had more or less lost her appetite. Her eyes were encompassed in dark raccoon-like bags.
Her once glowing skin was now dull and pale grey. Her wavy dirty-blonde hair now lay limp around her shoulders.
She looked like she felt - disheartened, depressed, and unenthusiastic.
She spared a disgusted glance to the bottle of Xanax. Flipping the top open with her thumb, she dumped them into the toilet.
Her eyes followed the pills as they were flushed down the toilet.
It she were to really think about it, those pills were a perfect metaphor for her.
xXx
She looked in her closet and found it. The black dress. The black dress that she promised she would wear on a special occasion. This was a special occasion, wasn't it?
Danielle drove her to the funeral.
Annie hadn't driven since the day she found out about Auggie's death. She hadn't done much of anything, in fact. The entire car ride there, Annie stared out the window, tracing the lines of wet humidity with her fingers.
The sky was dark and ominous. It resembled the proverbial cloud over Annie's head.
She realized that the car had stopped when Danielle had tapped her on her shoulder. Annie had learned how not to flinch when somebody touched her.
She just pretended it was Auggie.
"Annie, we're here," Danielle murmured quietly to her. Annie turned slightly, and with a blank gaze nodded.
"Do you . . . do you want me to come with you?" Danielle asked her.
"I'll be fine, Dani," Annie replied hoarsely, stepping out of the car.
"Okay," Danielle nodded, "Just call me when you want me to pick you up."
Annie nodded bleakly.
Danielle drove away in her car, thinking that Annie had improved. At least today she responded to something in a full sentence.
xXx
The funeral was closed-casket. The body was so badly burned in the explosion that, they told her, DNA was the only way to positively identify him. The funeral took place three weeks after his death, for his body had to be autopsied and then sent from Iraq to DC.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Auggie's family. His four brothers, two with their wives, and his mother and father stood together in a huddle. Auggie's nephews were being taken care of by one of his sisters-in-law's sister.
She didn't meet their gaze, and had this been another situation, she would have gladly introduced herself.
She knew all the names of his brothers - Parryson, Donovan, Bernard, and Cortley, and could more or less figure out which one was which.
She didn't try to, though.
After the ceremony, the forecasted rain had come in a torrent. The heavy drops pelted her pale skin, and the small bits of hail left purple welts on her neck and arms.
Joan and Arthur politely offered her a ride, though she declined, stating that her sister was picking her up.
Jai looked like he wanted to say something to her, but relented, shaking his dark hair in guilt and walking away.
She was the only one there now, and she pulled out her cell phone, preparing to call Danielle. Her finger hovered on Danielle's speed dial.
She walked home.
xXx
For a moment, she was glad that it was raining, that way no one could see how her tears blurred her sight, and how the salt from those tears rubbed her face raw.
Her foot hit against a part of the pavement, and she looked up. This wasn't her house, nor was it anywhere near it. Looking up, Annie saw that she was in the West End. The West End where Auggie lived.
Pivoting her head slightly, she caught sight of his apartment. She glanced down. Stupid feet, why did they have to lead her here?
Leaving what was left of her sanity behind, she made her way to his apartment. Who knew, maybe his lease wasn't up yet.
She fumbled for the copy of the key he had given her, and turned it into the lock, twisting it until it clicked. She pushed the metal door open, and padded into his apartment.
She closed her eyes as she felt for something to hold onto. She took quick, sharp breaths as she struggled to breath. He knees felt like they couldn't support her any longer. Her eyes were defocusing again, and she felt lightheaded. A choked sob rang out in the motionless apartment.
She collapsed sobbing against the wall, her strength and her pride fleeing her body. She lifted herself up, leaning on the wall for support.
Stumbling as if she was intoxicated, she made her way to his bed. She fell, her face burrowing into a pillow. It smelled like him.
Holding another pillow to her, she pulled the covers over her and, for a moment, she thought he was here with her.
She could look for his gun tomorrow. She wasn't moving now.
For the first time in three weeks, Annie slept. For a moment, a ghost of a smile tugged at her lips, but only for a moment.
xXx