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

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[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."

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"I will always know you really well, Director Webb," Annie told him as she stopped next to his car.

Giving him a lingering kiss, she pulled back and patted the center of his chest. "I'll walk. If I get a ride because I'm feeling lazy, then I'd always get a ride. Next thing you know, we'd be commuting and then what?"

She winked and started off toward her car.

Edited 2012-07-17 20:36 (UTC)

"People would start to think we're married or something," Clay said before opening his own car doors.

As Annie started off to her car, he headed out to his condo. Her walk might give him a few minutes to start dinner and straighten up before she got there.

"We can't have that," she teased as she practically skipped around a car a few lanes down.

It took her a few extra minutes to get to his condo, but once she was there, she knocked and waited patiently. When he opened the door, she looked around the doorframe and then at him. "Does that mean I get a key now?"

"I guess it does." He hadn't thought about giving her a key but she had a point. They were married and his was the public residence.

"It's in my safe," Clay said before turning on his heel and heading back to ~~his~~ their bedroom. A few seconds later he produced an extra key to the condo, "I need to teach you the alarm codes again too."

"Clay."

She didn't stop him from going to get the key, but she didn't move into the condo any further than she already had, except to set her purse down and shrug out of her jacket. Left in her work suit, she looked around and saw that nothing else had changed and it brought a small smile to her lips. He always was so steady.

When he came back into the room, she said, "You know we don't have to do this all right away, right? We're not required to live together right now. I was only teasing."

More than anything, she didn't want him to be uncomfortable.

"It's okay we almost lived together nine months ago. Now, you just have a key."

Clay figured the less he was able to return to life as it was, the less he'd have to change to accommodate life as it is. Then he handed her a key to his condo.

He might be uncomfortable, but he assumed Annie would be too since they were in this together. Each one of them had the possibility of being uncomfortable.

She wasn't nearly as uncomfortable as he was, obviously, and it was one of the few times that he was wearing his emotions on his sleeve. But she took the key wordlessly and attached it to her keyring.

"So, what's for dinner, darling?" Anything she could do to lighten the mood, she was going to. Up to, and including, stepping forward and kissing him on the cheek.

He returned Annie's kiss before answering with, "Chicken." Clay hoped it was okay, it was all that was left in his freezer.

Her use of "darling" made him chuckle though.

"Sounds like it's going to be the staple for most of our dinners in," she told him as she moved to sit on the couch. And even though she was teasing, he'd have to admit that he cooked chicken a lot while they were dating, not that she minded.

Looking around the condo, she called out, "Clay? Is there a reason you want to find a place that isn't this?"

"It was the only thing left in my freezer. I didn't go food shopping yet." It was an excuse as he did know how to cook other things. After a quick trip to the kitchen to check on dinner and pour two glasses of wine, Clay joined Annie on the couch.

"I feel like we should get something we both like. This is more me than us."

Annie took the glass with a murmured 'thank you' before looking around again, then giving the man in front of her an appraising look, too. She finally settled for taking a long drink from her glass and finally explaining why the question.

"I just can't imagine you living in a place that's not set up just like this. All shadows and black leather. You're kind of that guy."

He wasn't exactly sure how he should take her comment.

"And you don't seem like the kind of person who would be happy in a place like this. It's too dark for you."

Clay hadn't kept tabs on whether or not the job changed Annie's personality from who she was nine months ago. Annie's decorating style was much more uplifting than his own. It might not be a bad idea to find somewhere that had both elements.

Annie's expression softened when he talked about her style preferences and she rested her hand on the back of the couch so she could stare at him some more.

"You know, you might be surprised. I'd be a little disappointed if I were to take the master spy out of his natural environment." She was teasing him, but it didn't show on her face.

Clay smiled a little bit, "You're better at this than I was when I started. out of the two of us, I think you're going to be the master spy." There was no question that he was being 100% sincere.

As far of their living arrangements went, "You're welcome to live here." and that was that. If they had a family they would certainly need to move somewhere else, but Annie was right. There was no rush to run out and by real estate.

"Maybe. But it doesn't matter. If you don't want to move, we don't have to. If you want to, we can. I was only teasing," she assured him before taking another drink from her glass. "I just don't want you to feel uncomfortable because of a decision you made in Las Vegas."

It was a subtle hint that he still had options.

"I think living arrangements might be one of the most difficult things we have to tackle."

Living arrangements and everything else he was sure they didn't talk about before saying 'I do.'

"You said you wanted a place with a view of the Capitol. I don't see why that isn't a possibility." Hard to come by, sure but they had a place to live until they found something they both loved.

"The rent on a place that overlooks the Capitol would be twice this place, at least," Annie said. "That's why I always dreamed about it."

She wouldn't be one of those wives, even if something had clearly happened to make him think she wanted forty grand on her hand. "What else do you think we need to talk about?"

"And we have two incomes," meaning he figured that her view could be a reality.

"Probably that fight." That fight. The one about kids, Annie's career, his career, Ben, their future. It wasn't going to be an easy discussion for either of them that much was for sure.

Annie promptly drained her wine glass.

Any discussion that was going to cover all of those topics was going to need liquid courage. Also, she was going to need to draw on her actual courage and her desire to hold firm before she wilted and ran away.

"Okay."

Clay did the same. They touched the subject briefly in the airport, but now they could really talk. He imagined at some point all of this was going to de-evolve into anger. Cooler heads would have to prevail later. The first step was to get it all out there.

"Like I said yesterday, I was terrified of our relationship."

"Right. I'm guessing that the basis for that hasn't really changed since..." She set the glass down so it wouldn't become a projectile later. "I'm still a field agent, you're still a Director and now, here we are."

She made a face in the direction of the window and then looked at him. "So, what do we do?"

"Well," he sighed as a way to fill the gap while he came up with what he had to say, "You said you weren't planning on getting pregnant. I assume that's still true?"

His fear rested with what would happen to their children. If children weren't in the plan right now, then it wasn't really an issue at the moment.

"I want to have kids eventually, especially if my husband is fifty years old." It came out snippier than she intended and she sighed, looking at the couch. "I'm sorry."

Her first thought was that it wasn't going to work. None of this was. "I don't want to wait eight or ten years."

"I don't want to either. I'd be too old to sit in those little kid chairs and stand up again." It wasn't a joke he was completely serious.

Clay looked at Annie for a solid minute while he weighed the information he knew. She'd been shot at, shot, beaten up, thrown into any number of death defying situations and walked out of them alive. Odds were she would continue to do that.

He spoke again, as if he was working something out out loud, "I just don't want our kids to wonder what happened to you for their entire lives. It's a terrible position to be in and would almost guarantee that they follow in our footsteps. I don't know if I want that either, he paused, "But you're a good agent. You've been okay this long and all of that is not luck." Some of it was, there was no denying it. It's how things worked out for all of them. "I have to believe you're going to come home."

"I am a good agent," she responded very matter of fact, very proud of herself and the work she'd done over the three years she'd been an operative. "I like my job, Clay. I'm good at my job. Being a mother wouldn't change that, but it would probably change me. And I can't promise that I'd want to stay at home, but I might. I might not. I can't promise one way or the other, but I don't want you to resent me if that's what I want to do. I can transfer to other areas in the Agency, too, you know."

She took a breath. "I have to believe I'm going to come home, too. I know I have a few good people back here making sure of it."

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