.
Fandom: Covert Affairs.
Title:
Abi gezunt, neshima.
Author: Keenir.
Summary: Annie and Eyal keep running into each other.
Characters: Annie, Eyal, Auggie; mentions of Danielle, Jai, Liza.
Rating: PG-13.
Warning: One character dies.
Spoilers: 2.01, 2.02.
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Annie runs into him in Miami, and the two of them nearly end up on a boat to Cuba. But fortunately, they complete their missions without needing to go that extra mile.
**
He shows up at her sister's door one day, and by the time Annie gets home, he's befriended Danielle and the girls who want to know all about her friendship with this patron of the arts that Annie met at work.
Eyal even fixes dinner for the five of them plus Eyal himself. Cynically, Annie thinks how this would be a perfect way to get rid of a spy and any witnesses; then she thinks Auggie was right about paranoia.
Ultimately, Annie can escape long enough to either ask Eyal outright what he's doing here, or to inform Auggie that Eyal's at her sister's.
Auggie's quiet longer than Annie would like. But as soon as the question 'Auggie?' is on her tongue, and before she can ask, Auggie tells her "I'll make some discreet inquiries, and you do realize we have to tell Joan."
"I know," Annie says right before Danielle pulls her back to dinner.
**
They keep running into each other. Not on every single field op Annie goes on. But on enough of them that Jai jokingly asks her if there's something she wants to declare when she crosses paths with Jai at the Ohio airport.
Only two people believe Annie when she says there's nothing going on, that its purely platonic. Three, if you count Liza Hearn.
Annie's bumped into Eyal in western Mexico, in Japan, and in New Jersey, where he was mistaken for an Italian. "It really isn't that funny," Eyal says, but Annie can't stop laughing.
**
"How long do you expect we can keep doing this?" Annie asks him one day. "Abi gezunt?"
'As long as you're healthy?' Eyal translated the Yiddish. "Always, neshima. And even when you're not."
Annie paused, not sure whether he meant 'I'm always healthy' or 'we can do this forever.' "I'm never unwell."
"I've seen your taste in handbags."
She mock-swatted him, both because it was in character for this mission, and for what he said. "Hey."
**
Turning assets in the field only got easier for her as she got older. Auggie attributed it to people never suspecting that the kindly old senior citizen hobbling around the world, was in fact a cunning spymaster willing and able to subvert the youth of any nation to her ends. Jai was more politic, but he essentially said the same thing.
"What are you doing in Perth?" Annie asked Eyal when their tour guides were distracted. Groups were a good place to camoflage in, she had learned years ago.
"Very likely the same as you, neshima," Eyal said with that same easy smile. "Keeping warm and enjoying my company."
"Ego, Eyal, ego," Annie muttered with a shake of her head, trying not to chuckle.
"Its only ego if it isn't true."
"That's hubris. And am I therefore to assume that the archeological smuggling ring isn't of interest to Mossad?"
"You can," Eyal said.
Annie fixed him with a look. He wanted to let her assume she was right - so either she was wrong, or she was right. "You do know I have ways of making you talk, don't you?"
"I'm counting on you knowing that I know you do."
**
Annie attended the funeral in a role as Auggie's sister-in-law. Auggie was here in a role as Liza's husband. Liza was here because her grandfather had fought alongside Eyal's. And because Auggie had asked for her help.
One hand in her pocket, Annie felt the pebble she had brought all the way from home, intent on leaving it atop Eyal's nondescript gravestone. And with a smile in her mind but not showing on her face, Annie grinned at the contrast - simple, plain, and unadorned stone...vs the quick and handsome and clever man she had known.
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The End