This is canon-compliant. The story begins in the late summer of 2007. It will continue on through to late 2008.

Close and Continuing

August Anderson was by no means a vain man (though he was proud of his hair), but he did spend at least ten minutes in front of the mirror every morning.

Eyelids tensed and silted, jaw tight and ridged, back straight but slightly forward, August (or to his friends, Auggie) glared at his reflection. After a second, the expression relaxed into stoicism before curling into happiness. From happiness it melted into fear, then surprise before he reached for his toothbrush.

An hour later found Auggie swiping his badge at the CIA front security desk.

"You shouldn't be wearing that."

Auggie glanced behind him and took the coffee cup out from between his teeth where he'd been holding it while he searched for his ID. "Joan," he said by way of greeting. "Why?" Auggie looked down at his slightly ruffled black suit and the rather obvious green striped tie an old forgotten ex had given him for his birthday. "I've worn this tie to the office plenty of times and you've never commented."

"You're not working in the office today." Joan handed him a white file folder. "You're going to solidify your new cover."

"I have a new cover?" Auggie opened the file while graciously holding the door open for his boss.

"Security hacker."

"Really?" Auggie flipped to the next page of the file before looking up and grinning at his boss. Auggie loved computers and he'd always prized himself on his hacking abilities. They'd gotten him into MIT and the other agents to take him seriously (when he'd first arrived at the Farm, everyone had laughed and called him a wannabe. That was until he hacked into the mainframe and… well, it's classified.).

"You should have been at the security conference an hour ago."

~OOOO~

It took all of Auggie's not inconsiderable emotional control to keep the excitement out of his expression. If the other agents ever found out just how much Auggie felt at home there, in the middle of cyber-wizards' heaven, he'd never hear the end of it.

He tried not to think about why he was there (to check out possible security threats, among other things) as he gazed around at the bustling conference hall jam-packed with buzzing computers, Star Trekkies, and emo hackers.

He mentally rubbed his hands together. It was time to get to work.

Auggie sidled up to the nearest security tech (evident by the polo, or so his friend, Scott, from technical operations, told him). "What have you got?"

He mentally winced. Not the best way to start a conversation.

The woman, no older than twenty, Auggie guessed, but that was nothing special in the cyber community—Auggie himself had been a certified computer wiz at twelve—had straight, sickly brown hair and a nasally voice that grated on Auggie's eardrums. "Security," she answered gruffly.

Auggie nodded in a semi-polite manner before picking up one of the woman's pamphlets and walking away. There was no way she'd ever be a possible asset.

He spent the next couple of hours bouncing around the booths, picking up a pamphlet here and there if the conversation wasn't stimulating, listening to a few sale-pitches, and generally getting back into the nerd lingo he'd be so isolated from since college.

He was just getting into the finer points of prime-number based encryptions with a possible up-and-coming hacker named Greg, when he noticed the time. He was thirty minutes late to checking in with Joan and the rest of the DPD, not to mention he still hadn't checked into the hotel. It was a miracle they hadn't sent in the cavalry.

As he hung up the pay phone (he'd been instructed to call his "mother", a.k.a Scott from tech ops) and prepared to leave, he cast his eyes around the room again, not really focusing on one thing in particular, until his gaze landed on the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen.

Her hair was a coppery red that was so dark, it was almost black, and it fell against her back in smooth ringlets. Her lips were a deeper, bloodier red. She was, for lack of a better word, perfect. Then his dilated pupils fell on her clothes, or more specifically, her sweatshirt. Her male sweatshirt.

Auggie suddenly didn't feel all that sorry to leave.

~OOOOOOO~

It was almost three weeks later and Auggie was back in his overpriced apartment, swearing at his ominously hissing washing machine, and praying his favorite t-shirt wasn't about to burst into flames, or as it was more likely, come out looking like a relic from the seventies.

Ten minutes later he knew he shouldn't have tried to save money and electricity by modifying the water pressure and heating coil. He also knew that there was no way in hell his machine would ever quite recover from its ordeal. With a sigh, he left his favorite (and now ruined), once-nice T-shirt in the sink to dry and bundled the rest of his laundry into an old gym bag.

He swung the bag over his shoulder and locked his apartment door, mumbling under his breath about going green and turning red and useless mechanic classes. He knew he shouldn't have been cocky enough to put his favorite shirt in with the testing load.

~OOOOOOOOO~

The crammed laundry bag slammed into his back with every step. Auggie wished he'd thought ahead and grabbed a couple of extra bills for a cab fare. As ridiculous as it might sound, Auggie had considered it a kind of promotion to have his own personal washing machine; he found it almost embarrassing to be searching for a laundromat.

She saw him first, though he was too busy dashing to the nearest machine to notice. She watched him dump his bulging gym bag three machines down from her spinning socks and white collars. She saw him glance around, and forced her eyes back to her somewhat less interesting book.

Auggie noticed her after he shoved the last of his almost ripe gym sweats into the machine. She was in the far corner, the last seat by the window, her feet pulled up, cradling a semi-worn paperback. It took him less than a second to remember those luscious auburn locks (now pulled into a sloppy ponytail). His heart did a strange kind of flop while his brain locked in a minor schizophrenic argument for and against approaching her.

She turned the page, giving him a flash of the cover that ended the internal debate. Snow Crash. He'd recognize that yellow-brown, blue centered cover anywhere. It was the final straw. Whether she had a boyfriend or not, he couldn't not go up and introduce himself to the most perfect woman he'd ever run across.

He pooled all his courage, drawing on the information from his seduction class at the Farm and experiences in the field, and put his best foot forward.

And promptly stumbled over his hastily dumped gym bag.

Auggie caught himself just before he took a nosedive into the tiles, barely managing to contain the heavy blush he could feel creeping up his shoulders. He glanced over at the woman and was thankful to see that she was still absorbed in his favorite book. He coughed under his breath, using the action to further regroup.

He sat with a chair between them and counted to ten before glancing around as if he'd just realized he had nothing to do. Almost causally, he leaned over the empty chair and said, "Is that Snow Crash?"

The woman looked up and Auggie was struck again by the deep brown of her eyes. He'd always been a sucker for brown eyes.

"Yes," she replied with a heavy, but not thick, accent. Auggie's trained mind immediately classified it as Russian, probably raised near St. Petersburg. Darn. Russians were always hard to date. The Cold War might be fading from civilian memory, but not the government's.

"Do you like it?"

The Russian goddess seemed to be studying him. Auggie didn't flinch as her eyes racked over his causal blue jeans and second-favorite t-shirt. After a couple of moments, she decided he was worth a few minutes of her time and replied. "Yes. It is one of my favorites."

"Yeah, one of mine too." Auggie mentally cringed. He didn't get it. He'd passed the "flirting" course at the Farm with flying colors, so where was the charm now? He glanced down at the paperback again, noting the wear-and-tear. "What did you think about the virus? I hear some people thought it was impractical."

Auggie was half-surprised when, instead of shrugging and snubbing him, the woman smiled almost slyly and said, "It is new."

Auggie grinned back. "Yeah, that's what I thought." He paused, weighing his chances, before holding out his hand. "I'm August—Auggie. Auggie Anderson. Broke computer tech."

He knew he'd judged right when the woman's lips twitched again. "Natasha Petrovna."

"Didn't I see you at the DataTech conference a couple of weeks ago?" Not the smoothest line August Anderson had ever used, but it seemed to do the trick.

"Did you?"

Auggie grinned. "Yeah, I did."

Natasha might have been about to answer, but the ding of the dryer distracted her. Auggie watched as she loaded her laundry into her basket, hypnotized by the curve of her back and the way her legs tensed as she heaved her load up onto the nearest washer for sorting. He only regained his senses when she glanced back at him. She smiled, close-lipped, before picking up her basket again.

Auggie blinked to clear his head, then, noticing she'd stopped at the exit, rushed to open the door for her. "Are you going far, 'cause I have a car," he spouted before his brain had time to remind his libido that he'd lugged his way to the laundromat.

"I am not so young that I accept lifts from strange men," Natasha replied, her tone almost too playful to be serious. "Especially from men who do not have their cars with them."

Only Auggie's training saved him from looking like a fish as Natasha exited the laundromat and disappeared around the corner of the building.

A/N: Well, here it is. I've been struggling to write this since Communication Breakdown. I have the next couple of chapters outlined, but any prompts would be greatly appreciated. I've hit a stonewall too many times for this story to not ask for help. I will finish this story, I must, it's been in my head too long for me not to. So while updates might be slower than you or I would like, they will come.