freshoffthefarm | [MEME] -- #5, the AU from Hell

[From here, as requested by

fakes]
--

It was an op in Vegas, which was so weird since most of her domestic ops stayed in the DC Metro area, and Annie had done her job well. The extra babysitting had been extra annoying (when wasn't it?), but he'd come along to visit an old friend... or so he'd said.

She hadn't seen hide or hair of him during her mission, but when she went to have a drink in the bar at their hotel late the night before they were supposed to leave, she found him sitting in a dark corner. When didn't he sit in dark corners, really, but she rolled her eyes and put a smile on her face to join him.

Their breakup and subsequent dealings had been difficult, and after that State Dinner, she'd gone out of her way to keep her distance from him as much as possible. That didn't mean they couldn't enjoy a drink or two (or seven) while in Vegas.

Unfortunately--

When Annie woke to the pounding in her head, she almost couldn't open her eyes. When she finally managed, she ignored the immense nausea she felt and peered at the walls in the hotel room she was in. She hadn't been given this nice of a room, not on the Agency's dime, no. This was something else. Turning, she caught sight of a man's head and her eyes widened, causing the pounding to pick up and she clenched her eyes shut again with a groan.

Clapping both hands, right over left, on her head, she felt something heavy and lifted them again almost immediately. Seeing the wedding ring set on her left hand, she gasped.

"Oh, my God."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I got that impression during that state dinner." It wasn't said in any sort of way that would be construed as snide. He was just stating a fact.

Almost forty thousand dollars of jewelry had to mean they thought, last night, that none of these issues would prevent them from having a happy marriage.

"I think we can work through it all. I like you, and I love you."

The state dinner dig stung and she inhaled deeply to avoid making her own snarky comment in return. Even if he didn't mean it to come off snidely, she couldn't help but take it that way. Part of it was tiredness, part of it was that night.

Then he told her that he loved her in those words and she looked up at him. "I love you, too," she whispered, then leaned over to kiss him. The flight attendant chose that moment to appear and ask if they needed anything.

Clay returned Annie's kiss until he heard the flight attendant, at which point he turned to look at her and smiled, "I think we're fine for now. Thank you."

Then he turned back to Annie, "Do you want to stay married?"

"I do." The irony wasn't lost on her and she grinned before sitting back in her seat to look at him. "Where do we start? I mean, your mother, my sister. Work? Living arrangements. There's a lot to do and we have..."

Annie looked at her phone again. "Four and a half hours to get a plan put together."

"Let's worry about living arrangements later. Right now we can do what we were doing before." His goal was to break up their tasks into smaller doable pieces.

"I say we tell your sister first, then my mother after we get that photo developed."

"Right." She shouldn't have been offended that he didn't want to live with her, but she figured that it went back to trust and what they did and didn't have. After all, after a year and a half of dating, they'd only shared a closet.

None of it showed on her face or in her tone. Instead, she nodded along and made notes in her phone. "Danielle first, but not tonight. She'll want to stay up all night and talk about what happened and what we're going to do." In that aspect, his mother might have been better. "What about tomorrow and the office. I have a debrief to attend and Joan's going to want answers."

It wasn't so much that he didn't want to live together, more that he wanted a place that was theirs, not his or hers. Buying real estate always took time.

"I would just be honest, and decide what you want to do about your name. Are you going to be Agent Walker or Agent Webb?"

"Oh."

It was the one question out of the myriad of questions they'd lobbed back and forth that she honestly hadn't even considered. The baffled look on her face was probably comical in it's confusion and she blinked at him.

"I honestly don't know. I always thought when I got married that I'd just be Mrs. Agent Whoever, but..." She paused. "What are your thoughts?"

She really, truly, wanted to know.

"If I was still an Agent, I'd say keep 'Walker' but since I'm not, 'Webb' is just fine. I enjoy calling you Mrs. Webb." He smiled briefly at that last bit of his thought. Anne Catherine Webb.

"No, now you're a Director, which is going to bring a lot of looks when I show up as that Mrs. Webb that you love so much." Her headache was coming back. She took a breath. "Joan's going to have a fit. You've definitely poached her agent."

She snickered a little and then shook her head again. "You want me to use Webb because you're really pleased with yourself, aren't you?"

That got a laugh out of him. "That's a way to put it."

"I'm extremely pleased with myself, I got the girl."

Smug, thy name is Clayton Webb.

The smug look on his face told her everything that she needed to know: now that he'd gotten her, no matter how he'd gotten her, he wasn't going to let her go as easily as he had before.

It was a comforting thought. Her own smile wasn't quite as smug, but she grinned nonetheless. "Then maybe I will be Agent Webb, even if it will draw looks."

Clay wasn't ever going to let go of Annie if he could help it. The next part he said only for Annie to hear, "Director and Agent Webb." though he did have a feeling that it was going to be Directors Webb before he retired.

"It can draw as many looks as it wants. You're Mrs. Webb."

[MEME] -- #5, the AU from Hell

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