Anniversary

Annie stowed away her tray and put her seat back in the upright position to prepare for landing. She sighed aloud and closed her eyes as she leaned back in her seat. It had been a very long day and her adrenaline and caffeine were running out.

Her mission had been a success and it had gone relatively smooth, especially for her. The brush pass had gone down and whatever top-secret information she had been transporting had made it's way to the appropriate hands. And now, more then 20 hours since she had last slept, she was completing the final leg of her journey as the plane touched down in D.C..

Slowly, the plane taxied to the gate and Annie willed some of the stress to leave her body as she took a couple of long breaths and rolled her shoulders. It wasn't the mission itself that had her nerves so high-strung, but the complete lack of contact with her usual handler and best friend, Auggie Anderson.

When Annie started at the DPD, her and Auggie had hit it off almost immediately. There was something about him that made her comfortable, he just 'got her'. And she understood him, she never considered that he should be treated any differently because of his handicap; and that was one of the things he loved about her. They had known each other for less then a year, but already thought of the other as their best friend. Rarely a day went by without them seeing or talking to each other.

This had been the first time that Annie had gone out into the field without Auggie in her ear and while Stu had done a fabulous job, it was still unsettling to her that Auggie hadn't even been there to see her off. She had tried to call him from the car on the way to the airport, but had gotten no response. And now, almost two days without talking to him, she was starting to worry.

She tried his number again as she climbed into the taxi, headed back to the DPD and decided that as soon as she was done being debriefed, she would go to his place and check on him.

The debriefing was thankfully rather short, although to Annie it felt like hours. She tried to keep her eyes on the mission brief in front of her, but her gaze kept wandering through those damn glass walls and landing at Auggie's empty desk chair in the Tech room. Annie did try her best to stay focused and made sure to sing praises over Stu's amazing job, but she was only relieved when the meeting finally started to wrap up.

By then, it was rather late in the evening, on a Friday night, and most of the office had already cleared out. The other people in the meeting had hurriedly grabbed their papers and headed out, eager to start their weekend and maybe hit the Tavern on the way home. Annie's immediate superior, Joan was collecting her own papers into a manilla folder as Annie tried to rush past her out of the room.

"Plans for the evening, Annie?" Joan asked non-chalantly.

"Oh. Well, I thought I might go see what Auggie is up to, I haven't been able to get a hold of him the last couple days." She made herself shrug and tried to act like it wasn't of the utmost importance for her to see him as soon as possible.

Joan looked up from her folder and smiled her approving, yet stern look towards the young agent.

"I'm glad to hear that. I would rather think he could use some company." Her tone was casual, as if she had been discussing the weather, but that didn't make Annie feel any better.

"Oh?" She asked perplexed, hoping that her boss would divulge more information.

"He usually disappears for a few days this time of the year, in fact I was hoping that by assigning you a mission, it might convince him to change his plans… but since that didn't work, I'm glad that he has a friend to talk to."

The worry that Annie had been feeling over Auggie suddenly turned into a deep sense of dread.

"What is it? What's wrong?" Annie asked, unable to hide her concern any longer.

"I'll let him explain things, but just know that this is a difficult time for him." She walked to the door and held it open for Annie, her way of indicating that the discussion was over.

"Thank you Joan." Was all she could think to say as she quickly left and drove straight to Auggie's place.

Annie pulled up and parked outside of Auggie's apartment and climbed out of her car. Looking up to his window, she wondered if he was even there, although it was hard to tell, since he normally didn't turn on any lights unless he had company. She opted to jog up the few flights of stairs, knowing she would just go crazy waiting for the elevator. Within minutes she found herself knocking at his door and getting no response.

"Auggie? It's me Annie, are you home?" She hollered through the door, not really caring about neighbors.

When the second round of knocking still failed to yield results, Annie started to dig through her purse. All the while her mind was racing through all of the things that could have happened to him.

Searching along the bottom of her bag, her fingertips found the object she had been looking for, Auggie's spare key. He had given it to her after the whole Natasha debacle, stating that it would help him "save on door lock replacements from her lock picking skills." But she had known at the time, that it was really his way of saying, "you can trust me."

She wiggled the key in the lock and slid the heavy door open. Annie peered into the dark apartment and could hear some muffled rock music coming from inside. Suddenly, she was overcome with the fear that she was walking in on Auggie entertaining a female guest. She wasn't sure where that jealous thought had come from, but quickly dismissed it, knowing that it wouldn't excuse his complete lack of response over the last couple of days.

"Auggie?" She called out again hesitantly.

Her fingers danced along the wall beside the door frame until she found the light switch to flip on before closing the door.

"Auggie?" She called again as she scanned the living room and kitchen area for any sign of him. Nothing seemed out of place, to a stranger, it might even look as though the apartment was unlived in, but Annie knew that Auggie's blindness necessitated the orderly way he kept his home.

Annie kept moving into the apartment, peering through the darkness as she moved away from the entryway light. She rounded the corner from the kitchen into the bedroom and stopped in her tracks. There was Auggie, flat on his back, laying on the floor at the foot of his bed, scattered books and various other things strewn around him.

"Oh God!" Annie yelped.

Her immediate thought was that he had been attacked by an intruder, but seeing all the items on the floor, she wondered if he had fallen. Her mind then switched to really frightening thoughts, is he okay? Is he conscious? Is he breathing? These all barely had time to flit through her mind as she raced to his side.

Not until she knelt down closer to him in the darkened room, did she vaguely recognized that he was wearing his headphones. And just as she reached to pull them off, his whole body sprang to life. He reached up and grabbed her by the shoulders, flipping her over in one swift movement and pinning her to the ground beneath him.

"Umph!" Annie let out a low moan from the wind being knocked out of her.

Straddled above her, Auggie froze. Almost visibly he sniffed the air and then slowly reached up to pull off his headphones, dropping them by his side.

"Annie?" He asked confused, his blind eyes darting around the room.

"Yeah, it's me." She managed to choke out.

He scrambled off of her and clumsily fell back to sit on the floor, leaning his back against the edge of his bed.

"Sorry." He mumbled quietly. "You startled me."

Annie pulled herself up to sit, her heart still racing from the fright she just had. The forgotten headphones lay beside them, the heavy guitar she could just barely hear before, now blaring out of them. No wonder he hadn't been able to hear her calling him.

"Auggie what happened?" She managed to ask, feeling very confused.

"You snuck up on me." He answered in another mumble.

"That's not what I mean, and you know it!" She half shouted frustrated and angry. "I've been trying to get a hold of you for two days now! I was worried sick and then I finally find you and you're just laying on the floor listening to music?"

"I've also been doing a fair amount of drinking." Auggie added. He had a slight grin and appeared to be almost amused by Annie's outburst.

"Oh, you think this is funny do you?" She growled back at him and got to her feet. She was ready to storm out, but tripped as her foot connected with one of the items on the floor. It looked to be a book and being the curious type, she reached down to pick it up.

Her eyes had started to adjust to the lack of light, but it was still hard to see. She reached over and flipped on the light switch, the corner lamp filled the room with a warm glow. She vaguely noted that Auggie had turned off the music still blaring from the forgotten headphones.

The book had a simple black faux leather cover and she could tell by the shape of the spine, that it had a 3-ring binding. All at once she knew what it was; even before she opened to the first page to see a picture of a young baby August.

"A photo album?" She wondered out loud.

She looked around and quickly identified the other items scattered on the floor. Another couple of photo albums, a year book, what looked to be some old handwritten letters, a few frames and a mostly empty bottle of tequila.

Her mind quickly put together the clues, as well as Joan's cryptic comments. The anger she had felt bubbling within her just minutes before was gone. Auggie was a relentlessly positive person and always took his blindness with stride. She was so used to his blindness being part of who he was, that she never really thought about how hard it must be for him some days.

Not knowing what to say, she looked over at Auggie who was still sitting on the ground looking defeated. His arms hung over his knees and his gaze was directed downward.

Stepping around the precious items, she knelt down beside him, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"It was five years ago today." He said quietly. "Five years since my eyesight was taken from me."

"And all of this?" Annie asked softly.

"This is how I celebrate my 'anniversary'." He used his hands to gesture around the room. "I pull out this box of memorabilia and pretend like it helps me remember things." His statement ended with a short cynical snort. "Obviously, looking at photos doesn't really do me much good. Which is probably why I got frustrated and threw it all on the floor."

"Auggie, why didn't you tell me? You shouldn't be alone right now."

"Well maybe I wanted to be alone, did you consider that?" His voice was suddenly full of anger as his sightless eyes glared ahead.

Thrown off by the sudden change in demeaneor, Annie retracted her touch and sat back on her heels.

Auggie felt around on the floor beside him, finding the tequila bottle he unscrewed the lid and took a large swig, draining the bottle.

"Look Annie, I didn't ask for you to come over here." He paused as he stood up, swaying a little from the rush of blood to his head mixing with the booze in his system. "In fact, I thought I made it painfully obvious that I didn't want company."

He stumbled out of the room, leaving Annie fuming with anger. She grabbed her purse that had been tossed aside during the commotion and prepared to storm out of the apartment, granting Auggie his wish to be left alone.

...

End chapter one

A/N - Sooooo? What do you guys think? It's a little more angsty then my usual stuff, but I just couldn't resist once the idea popped into my head. I figure there will probably be only one (maybe two) more chapters and it will definitely have a happier ending.

And does anybody know how long ago in the canon timeline Auggie had his accident? I looked around on a few sites and wasn't finding anything, so I guessed that it was probably 3-4 years before he met Annie, and then adding in their first summer together, I guessed it was around 5.

Please REVIEW! It's literally one of my favorite things, to read reviews and see what people are liking (or not liking) about my stuff. Thanks so much for reading!