freshoffthefarm | [AU] ... from the 'meet at a different time' meme

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[AU] ... from the 'meet at a different time' meme

After two years at the Agency, Annie's job hadn't gotten any better (or worse). Sure, it had it's downsides - namely, being shot at (or being shot), but the biggest one had to be the Agency parking lot.

She could never, ever find a parking spot.

Of course, the morning that she'd gotten up early and proceeded to spill coffee on her first outfit, had to jump start her car and then fill a tire with air? She managed to get behind the chatty son-of-a-bitch in the compensation car at the guard shack. She sat there, plotting the ways to key his car without actually getting caught and then he'd moved on.

Smiling at the guys in the shack, she showed her ID, waited until they'd looked under her cars with mirrors, and then picked up the pace on the way to the agent parking lot.

It just wasn't her morning.

The short cut she took through the visitor lot took her right past the spots in front for all the diplomats and the Agency hotshots. She didn't see Mr. Compensation trying to adjust his parking until she'd plowed into his rear bumper.

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"There's a spy thriller at three-thirty, some random movie at four and a horror movie at four-fifteen," she told him. "I'm a little undecided, so I thought I'd leave it up to you."

Spy thrillers left something to be desired, but they were fun to pick apart, bland meant boring and horror movies were so cliche. She didn't even mention the romance movie for a reason. "Or we could skip it and do something else entirely."

"Any of those options are fine, but if nothing seems interesting to you, we may as well try to think of something else. We could watch something one of us owns."

As far as Clay was concerned, spending money on something that they could both find boring was silly. He just wanted to spend some time with Annie.

Annie turned to look over her meager DVD collection and gave it a little shrug that he couldn't see. "That sounds entirely do-able. You're more than welcome to come over and take a look at what I have and if something catches your eye, then we're set."

He knew where she lived, so that was a given.

"That sounds great. What time?"

Hopefully, it would be enough time to take a shower and grab a bottle of his favorite merlot.

"That depends on whether you want to do this in the afternoon, the evening, or sometime in between," she offered as she looked at her still half-unpacked suitcase and unmade bed.

"How about this evening? I'll bring dinner."

It'll be a quiet evening in to complement their respective quiet days in.

"Sounds perfect. Dress casual." She was maybe teasing him a little, too. "I can't promise I have the most comprehensive collection, but it's not that bad, I promise."

She was definitely going to have to do her laundry and clean up. "See you around six?"

"I'll be there."

He decided that six would give him enough time to take a shower, cook dinner, and get to her apartment. Hopefully, his car wouldn't cause too much of a scene.

In the time in-between, Annie did laundry from her trip, washed her sheets, did her dishes and even took a nap. Then she vacuumed. Once she was satisfied with her apartment, she took a shower, got dressed and dipped out for a bottle of sparkling wine, just in case he was the kind of man that enjoyed something like that with dinner.

She thought he might be.

By five-fifty, she was back in her apartment, dressed in jeans and a v-neck shirt, waiting. Pacing. Trying not to be nervous.

Clay arrived exactly at 6 and rang Annie's bell. He brought dinner and his favorite red wine, and even managed to throw in a bunch of flowers for her. What can he say, he got a little carried away.

He even managed to dress on the casual side, just like she'd said.

Whatever he was doing, it had the effect of causing her to sigh contentedly when she saw him, a soft smile appearing on her face.

"Hi," she said, reaching out to relieve him of the wine and the flowers. Shutting the door behind him, she leaned over and kissed his cheek, though it came closer to the corner of his mouth. "I'll just put this in the fridge and these in water, if you want to come with me."

The tour of the apartment was small: the living room, which they walked through on the way to the kitchen, and her bedroom and bathroom in the back.

Her apartment was a lot smaller than he remembered, but no less open. He put dinner on the counter, all of it still hot.

"At least we get to end our respective quiet Saturdays with an evening in."

"Did you do much of anything today?"

She asked the question as she removed plates from the cabinet above the counter, setting them down for him before she went to find a vase for the flowers.

"No, not really other than make dinner."

Honestly, he was just glad to stay out of the office this weekend.

"Sounds like it was an exciting day," she said once the flowers were arranged and she turned to face him. "Around here it was just laundry and dishes."

"Sounds just as exciting."

He decided to kiss her hello properly, after he put dinner on the counter.

If he kissed her like that again, then she was going to forget about dinner and the movie and declare the date over so she could end the tour in her bedroom.

Instead, she pulled back and nodded. "It's picking up now that you're here. Dinner looks good."

Clay was not planning on winding up in Annie's bedroom, but if things progressed that way, he wouldn't object.

"Thank you," he found himself smiling again, "Enjoy."

He wasn't planning on it, and really, neither was she. Which was why he had to stop kissing her like that.

Dinner was good and she enjoyed it a lot, as evidenced by the fact that she ate most of what he put on her plate, though she didn't have an actual dining room table, so they were forced to eat it while perched on her couch. She tried to keep the conversation light.

"So, do you have brothers and sisters?" She had a feeling that he knew about hers, given the fact that he'd gone through her file.

"No, I'm an only child." His father died when he was eight, and he never asked his mother if she always intended for him to be an only child, viewing the topic as in poor taste.

"I know you have a sister, Danielle right?" He said it in a way that he wanted to know a little more about her family.

"Right, just Danielle. I have two nieces, though, Chloe and Katia. They're six and eight." She had no problems talking about her family to Clay. "In fact, when I first moved to the DC area, I lived in her guest house for a couple of years."

"I'm sure they love their Aunt Annie." She'd mentioned her nieces early on, so he imagined they were pretty important to her.

"What made you move out?"

"Um," she paused and looked down at her plate, pushing the remaining food around with her fork. After that slight hesitation, she looked up and flashed him a quick smile that didn't go to her eyes. "I had to read my sister in. She hadn't known I was CIA and it kind of didn't go the way I hoped it would."

He nodded a little. Clay'd heard that sometimes when family was told, it ended that way. He supposed he was lucky in that respect. His mother knew about his application being accepted before he did, through her own network of connections. None of it came as a surprise.

"Is it getting better now, at least?"

"She's finally talking to me at least."

Annie set down her plate, appetite gone, though she sat back on the couch and explained. "She didn't feel safe with me being so close to her family, which I suppose I can appreciate. I'd put them in danger and..." She gave a small shrug. "She didn't want me there anymore."

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