Disclaimer: I would never be creative enough to come up with Annie and Auggie on my own :)

The road was coming at her in a clear ribbon of yellow and black. Everything else was a blur, but the road wound a solid, comforting line in front of her. Where was she going? She didn't know. What was she going to do? She didn't know that either. She knew that the wheel stopped the shaking of her hands that had become quite frequent in the past couple of days. She knew the noise of the engine drowned out the shot that had been echoing in her head long after its echoes had faded across the ocean. She knew Auggie's smell, dulled by the sharp air hitting her nose, cleansed the acrid stench of gunpowder.

She also knew that the longer she followed this comforting yellow line, the further she drove from the only person she could truly talk to. The person who could provide a permanent fix to the confusion and hurt that the car only temporarily healed.

Screw the Agency shrinks. She was sure one conversation with Auggie would be worth more than a whole therapy program.

And now he was on a plane to fucking Africa and here she was willing his stupid car to go faster, faster, faster because that's what he'd told her to do and dammit if she stayed there one more second she was going to cry. And she didn't think she could deal with him brushing her off for the third time in the space of five minutes.

No that wasn't fair. He hadn't meant to. He hadn't seen. Hadn't seen the way she winced when he told her the Agency "had people she could talk to". Hadn't seen the pleading in her eyes when she gripped his hand. She forgot, sometimes, that he didn't see. It wasn't so much how well adjusted he was; it was just that she liked him so much and trusted him so completely that his disability faded into the background. But he hadn't seen and now he was going and she was left with only Danielle and the long silences that still hung between them.

Why had she grabbed his hand? She didn't love him. She trusted him. In her experience the two didn't mix. Danielle's words had messed with her head, and in one moment she made herself vulnerable by holding his hand. Just so her own damn hands would stop shaking so much.

"Your voice changes a little when you talk to him." Of course it did. Around Auggie, she didn't have to guard herself. She trusted him more than she had trusted anyone. Ever. That didn't mean she loved him. He wasn't like Eyal – she didn't want to jump him every time she laid eyes on him. He wasn't like Ben.

But he was leaving for fucking Africa. NO! He wasn't like Ben.

So why did she suddenly want to know all about this Parker girl? Because she was embarrassed, that's why. Because she'd held Auggie's hand in a way that was different even than the occasional chaste kiss on his cheek, and he'd told her he was in love. With Parker. And he was going to Africa. And he had given her his car.

Which she was driving now to god-knows-where as she concentrated on just following the steady black ribbon which seemed to be the only solid guide in a world that was steadily spinning out of control. This was how she felt when Ben left.

And that's what did it. She slammed her foot down on the brake, skidding to a stop in a move obviously perfected by months of training.

This was absolutely ridiculous. When she joined the Agency, she had sworn she wasn't going to get burned again. And Auggie hadn't even betrayed her. He owed her nothing. Come to think of it, she owed him bigtime – both for the car and for getting her safely out of Stockholm yet AGAIN. He was still her best friend. She would still trust him with her life, but she didn't need to all the time. She could fight for herself, and she could patch her own wounds. She needed to get a grip.

She started the engine again, and smiled in satisfaction at the sound. Auggie was right: there was nothing quite like it. She gently pressed the gas, and although the car still shot forward with barely contained power, the wind was no longer gusting in her face. The world had ceased to be a blur, and as she headed back, she admired the bleak grass that was made golden by the evening sunlight.

She would probably like Parker. If Auggie liked her that much, she was probably really awesome. And she had joined the Peace Corps. That's what Annie would have done if the CIA thing hadn't worked out.

She sped up, but this time it wasn't an instinctual flight that drove her onward. She wanted to get back for dinner with Danielle. And she needed to set up a Skype account.

AN: So this is my first time posting anything here. I hesitated for a while because I wanted to write something that I thought really did the characters justice as they are at this point in the show. (I'm still not sure I got it quite right.) So this is Annie's response - I hope both that you like it and that I did these amazing characters justice. I'm going to add Auggie's perspective, but I'm taking my time on it because there's a lot I want to include.