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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Annie felt a swell of emotion at his admission and was quiet for a long moment before she lifted her head to look at him. Her eyes lingered on his before she leaned over to kiss him softly.

"There's something I want to say," something she was unaware she'd already said, "but I don't want to scare you or freak you out or... if it's too soon..."

She'd probably already given herself away.

"Annie, I don't think anything you'd say would scare me off."

She did say she loved him already. What else could there possibly be?

It was the being aware that she'd said it part that was eluding her.

Propping her elbow on the back of the couch, she couldn't help the blush that filled her cheeks when she spoke again. She did manage to keep herself from looking at her lap, though her free hand played with a loose string on the hem of her shirt.

"I'm falling in love with you."

"I know, you said that this morning before I went to work." Clay smiled though before holding Annie's hand that was playing with the loose string, "I love you too."

He'd always been a little quick to throw that phrase around in relationships, though unlike Mac he was sure Annie meant it.

"I did?" The way he responded as if he firmly expected it and it was kind of a given and then said that he loved her too... it took a huge weight off her shoulders and she grinned at him, squeezing his hand. "Oh."

Suddenly, she felt a little giddy and leaned over to kiss him, dropping his hand so she could cup his face with both of hers.

Clay returned her kiss, wondering if this meant she was going to stay another night.

"You don't remember?"

"I was really exhausted when I got in, I must have slept right through you leaving," she admitted.

The fact that her subconscious has confessed her love before she'd meant to had to have meant something, right? "I guess even my not-quite=awake self knew it was time to tell you how I felt."

"I guess so and I didn't mind you sleeping in, it looked like you needed it."

He wondered how much she slept during the mission, and hoped that too little sleep while working in the field wasn't normal for her.

"It was a long mission," she confessed as she settled against him again, her hand sliding into his. And though she'd been contemplating leaving, she found herself not wanting to now.

For one, it was probably considered bad form to leave after confessing your love for someone. For another, now that she had, she simply didn't want to go.

She just didn't know how he felt about her staying another night.

Clay did say he was in no rush to throw her out. As long as she was comfortable staying another night, he was comfortable having her stay another night.

"Sometimes they are. Even the short ones feel long a lot of the time."

And since she'd already agreed to stay, worrying about it now simply because she'd told him she loved him was a little silly. It just made her self-conscious to know that he'd known it before she'd really meant to say it.

"There was just something about this one. A lot of waiting. A lot of thinking. A lot of just sitting."

"Sometimes those happen too. The worst is a mission with a lot of action followed by a period of sitting, thinking and waiting."

That's when he usually got into trouble. Thinking after a life altering mission.

"I prefer to get in, get out and with as little fuss as possible. No fighting and hopefully, no bullets."

Missions with bullets were Annie's least favorite.

"Don't we all."

He didn't usually mind bullets, as long as they were coming from his gun and aimed at someone else.

"I never seemed to have that kind of luck."

"Me, either." She actually chuckled as she said it, shaking her head and resting her head on his shoulder. "My first day? Bullets. Lots of them. It wasn't a pretty picture."

"My first four years were pretty bullet free. I did some other things I'm not proud of, but not too many bullets. I didn't even have to fire my gun on a mission until seven or eight years in."

That was, coincidentally, the same year he killed someone, but he wasn't planning on getting into that right now.

"I'm guessing you did a lot of things you can't talk about, either," Annie said quietly, her thumb moving back and forth over the back of his hand.

She wasn't going to ask, but she could imagine. Actually, she probably couldn't imagine, and that was worse.

"Let's put it this way, Joan, Arthur, and myself were three of Henry Wilcox's favorite agents. We all did a lot of things we can't talk about."

Annie had no response to that. She tightened her hold on his hand and took a deep breath, but she couldn't think of anything at all to say to his declaration. Everyone at the Agency knew about the horrors Henry Wilcox had inflicted upon his agents.

"Honestly, I'm surprised we outlasted him. I'm glad we did. We can change everything we didn't like about the way things were back then. I hope we have been."

He knew there was a lot more they could do, but this was a start.

"I've heard horror stories. I'm sorry you were ever a part of that. The Agency during the Cold War doesn't sound like it was easy," she said in her soothing voice.

"No, it wasn't but at least we knew what we were dealing with back then. Now it's different. Your job is a lot harder than mine was back when I started."

He was being honest. The new field agents had a much more challenging time ahead of them than he ever did.

"No, but we have you guys to watch out for us," Annie pointed out as she looked up at him with a quick grin. "That makes us a little luckier. The older agents have some serious experience."

Older, yes. She said it.

If his eye roll could have caused a breeze it would have, "Older and experienced, right."

"That's not what I meant." She sighed as she sat up and settled into a more upright seat on the couch. "I just meant that with the older agents looking out for us, we'd be okay."

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

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