Sequel/spinoff to "Six Months Dark" which can be found on my profile. Not necessary to read to understand, but it'll certainly clear up a few things. =]

Location: Washington D.C.

One would naturally assume in an agency known for clandestine services that stretched to a global scale and so secretive its very members were often invisible, that any given individual working in such an environment could keep a secret. Unfortunately, this very assumption was as off kilter as Auggie Anderson when he first returned to Langley after his accident some years ago left him one-sense-shy of the average human being. Perhaps, the idea of a secret in the walls of Langley was even worse now that the blind man pondered it.

14 hours ago an ordinary commercial flight landed in an ordinary fashion on the ordinary Reagan National Airport, and 300 ordinary passengers disembarked in an ordinary fashion on an ordinary schedule. Twenty minutes after the third from the last passenger exited the plane. Four new individuals entered the near-vacant craft, and the last two passengers were escorted off shortly after. A ghost had entered the United States, and this particular agency wanted to keep the news as hidden as the two individuals past year and year-and-a-half overseas.

Of course, water-cooler office gossip was not so patient when it came to timing the reveal of information, especially when it involved two of the agency's operatives who had vanished from the face of the Earth for over a year.

An hour later the two individuals were split, one to the newly appointed head of clandestine services, and the other to security. A whisper was emitted on an unknown floor of the mainly unknown building. A ghost had returned from the grave.

Five hours later, polygraphs were given, and interviews by the handful in between. A whisper had passed, seeping between desks and cubicles, sliding up and down halls and floors like a slow spreading fog gaining momentum as dusk progressed.

At nine hours later, three others were collected from within the Langley walls, and a new set of interviews, polygraphs, and reports were given. One individual was reintroduced, and a dead life, resurrected. Calls were made, and new information gathered. The fog of the whisper that began early that morning condensed into dew that spread into a slowly flowing stream throughout the remainder of the building as everyone heard the news: the betrayer was now the betrayed, returned home at last.

At thirteen hours later, stories were reported, recorded, and sealed; information was collected, processed, and sealed; backgrounds were investigated, reviewed, and sealed; and sealed documents were reopened, certificates destroyed, destroyed documents recreated, an identity reborn, and a life recreated. The other individual remained in an office, where every story, sentence, word, and syllable was written down for reference to be hidden away for only the highest security eyes.

At the fourteenth hour past the initial landing of that ordinary plane on this anything but ordinary day, an even less than ordinary set of events unfolded. Two individuals, the original two from that early morning flight were finally released into the halls of Langley to wade through the roaring flood of the once whisper. One went one way, the newly living citizen exploring privacy to make a very important call to a very important individual that a year and a half to the day believed she buried her little sister. The other however, the man with a striped cane, familiar smirk on his face but very unfamiliar pep in his step took down the halls to his finally reappointed office space.

Auggie Anderson smiled a familiar smirk with an unfamiliar twinkle behind it as he rounded the corner of the DPD. Whispers fluttered around him, proof that at least half of the flood of gossip roaring through the building was true: Auggie Anderson was back from his one-year absence.

Someone said hello as he passed, and the blind man returned the pleasantry as he passed, the light taping of the cane following the familiar path down the carpeted halls. Another individual uttered gratitude to see the man again, and the blind man only smiled in response. Finally, at the 15th step since the last corner, Auggie Anderson stopped in his spot and took a deep breath. He was well aware the door beside him was glass and completely transparent, but even with the knowledge in mind he felt like he needed a small moment just to take in one last easy breath before he could slide the doors open and be greeted by his much missed friends and techies who two of which in particular had helped him more in the past year than he knew he deserved.

With one firm hand on the edge of the door, Auggie took his one last breath before finally putting in the force necessary to slide the door open. For a second, the room was dead silent, the only sounds emitted from the space being the tiny beeps and hums of machinery in the space. And then, after a very long moment in which the blind man even second-guessed if he were in the correct room, voices erupted all at once.

"Auggie!" It was a chorus of at least two voices, and before the blind man even had a moment to respond to the welcome, once strong arm hit him across the back in an awkward half-hug that successfully knocked him slightly off balance.

"The news is true! I had to see it with my own eyes," Barber's voice reached his ears with an audible excitement in it.

"Great to see you back," the second calmer voice unmistakably Hollman's.

"News?" Auggie quipped as he finally was allowed space to cross the room to his desk. "Gossip in a building full of spies," he quipped at the irony but didn't progress further. His outstretched hand came into the contact with the cold, smooth edge of his desk top and he guided himself around to where the seat rested in its customary position and he sat his sore bones in the cushions. It was great to be back.

"So…" Barber's voice finally emerged again after several moments of silence. There was an awkward pause after the single syllable and a sly smirk spread through Auggie's face. He knew what was coming. "...Is the other half of the gossip true?"

The smirk widened, the undeniable peace and strangely foreign glow in his skin becoming ever more obvious to anyone glancing towards the blind tech. "Depends what the other half of the office gossip is." Auggie could almost imagine the roll of eyes he was probably getting from his fellow techie.

"Come on man, you know what I'm talking about." The obvious frustration and search for news made the smile on Auggie's face just ever more present. Half of him wanted to toy with the eager gossipers more, but he knew how much he owed the two men after all they had done for him and Annie over the past year and a half, and even more before them.

"Annie is currently getting re-fingerprinted and photographed for new social security, IDs, and a reinstated badge. She's going to come by when she's done."

"And Wilcox?" It was Hollman's voice this time.

Auggie simply smirked. "Above your clearance," he responded back with a sly voice. "Although I can say that Annie may or may not have had an enormous part in that development."

"Wow," it was a syllable emitted so low and uncharacteristically Auggie wasn't even quite sure who had made the sound.

"I knew there was always more to you two than you were letting on."

"Office rumors didn't even scratch the surface of this," Andrew Hollman's voice chimed in much more subtly.

"I'm glad you found her man," Eric's voice was as sincere today as the day he sent him off on a flight across the world with little information on what was to come a year and a half ago. "It was horrible seeing you in the state you were before that day I came over."

Auggie smiled again, this time an unusual underlying tone under his smile.

"I can't believe no one read me in to all of this until you were already on a trans-Atlantic flight." Hollman's words sounded like they should have had a hint of bitterness in them, but there was none audible to Auggie's perceptive ears.

"Well I'm glad even after all the double agent duties you guys pulled for me I can still count on you."

The sound of sliding glass office doors erupted then, successfully silencing the three men in the office space as the woman they had all just been discussing, back from the dead like a ghost herself, finally stepped into the office space.

Annie Walker looked in most ways exactly as she had the day she died 18 months ago, but in a few ways entirely different. Her hair was still blonde, a golden hue similar to her natural hair, but just a few tints off. Her eyes had the cool brown color to them that showed off her skillful spy nature. She had the walk of Annie walker, the face of Annie Walker, and the upscale attire and fashion sense of Annie Walker, all the way down to her killer kitten heels she knew put a certain stir in her partner's head when he heard the sound of them on hard flooring.

But her expression...something about the smile of her face, and glow in her skin, and twinkle in her eye was entirely different too. It was like she was physically playing the part of Annie Walker, but somehow was a stranger in the woman's skin too.

"Speaking of which," Auggie's voice broke the silence as she turned towards the doorway and stood up as she smiled wider and walked towards her man.

Eric Barber and Andrew Hollman watched with wide eyes as the blonde crossed the room in silence, and without a word met the blind man at his spot, snaked her hands around his middle and pulled him into a kiss so deep and full, it made their heads spin, even as such talented CIA agents as they were. It was clear what was different in both these individual ghosts now: each other.

The two separated after a hot moment, the smiles on both of their faces never leaving, Annie's left hand never leaving Auggie's side either as she turned more towards the other two men in the room. "So how much office gossip have I missed?"

Auggie smile fused with a smirk. "Apparently we've been most of the water cooler chatter today."

"Really?" she feigned surprise. "And I don't suppose you've ironed out any of the kinks in the stories yet, have you?"

Auggie's smile brought a moment of quiet in their exchange and when he spoke again it was several levels lower. "Only a few."

Annie's unoccupied right hand silently found her badge dangling from her neck, fresh off the printer with a new photo and name.

"So you're back for good?" It was Eric who finally broke the silence. His impatience to get the full story was clear in his voice.

"Reinstated as of thirty minutes ago," the woman said back proudly. Whether intentionally or instinctively she somehow gravitated closer to Auggie's side as she spoke. "Although I I'm on desk duty and going to be drowning in paper work for most of the foreseeable future."

"At least until Joan gets a new mission she needs you on," Auggie quipped back.

"Well Joan always has been the one to change the rules of my assignments," the blonde smiled back a little lower, completely ignoring the four eyes watching her discussion the pointless matter.

"And to think, she's going to be your interim handler until you get a new assignment."

Annie smiled. "Are we pretending you're going to follow the rules and not contact me on missions?"

"Are we pretending I'm not going to pull any string I can to get reassigned as your handler?"

"Calder will never let you."

"Calder owes me."

"Anderson," a new man's voice boomed from the suddenly open doorway.

The pair instantly turned towards the door, a simultaneous "Yes?" emitting from both of their mouths at the name.

"Both of you, in my office in ten minutes. Joan needs me to process your legal paperwork." There was a pause and everyone shy of the visually impaired individual saw a smile soften the speaking man's features. "And welcome back Agent Anderson."

From across the office, Eric Barber's brows furrowed, his mind piecing together a strange puzzle.

"Its great to be back," the blonde woman responded.

And then the puzzle clicked.

It made suddenly sense what the couple had left out of their story and were delaying reporting to the two techies in the room.

Annie Anderson finally turned back towards the two men whose wide eyes and slightly ajar mouths gaped at in surprise. Eric's eyes immediately dashed towards her exposed left hand and on her fourth finger were something he'd never noticed before.

"You know that both of us being Agent Anderson is going to get old, quickly, right?"

Auggie Anderson smirked. "Its a confusion well worth it."

"Auggie Anderson and Annie Anderson…we could be a pack of batteries with all those A's."

"Hold on," Eric Barber's voice rose without warning to silence the still bickering couple. Everyone's attention in the room turned to him. "You're married?"

Annie's response was a smile first. "Legally. It was a lot easier to just be reissued ID's as Annie Anderson now than go through all the paperwork again in a few months to get a name change."

"She still plans on forcing me to feel my through a ceremony," Auggie quipped, properly receiving a slap on the shoulder from legally, his new wife.

"Besides Barber," Auggie finally piped up. The smile on his face never made more sense. "You were the one to tell me I needed to marry her."

Author's Note:

As always, I thrive off of comments, reviews, and any and all feedback.

If you haven't read "Six Months Dark" you missed that Barber did in fact tell Auggie (as he was 30,000 feet in the air) to find Annie, bring her back and then marry her so he could finally get the entire story straight. Well, Auggie jumbled up the order a bit but decided to take his advice. You also missed (if you did not read "Six Months Dark") the fact that Annie disappeared with Auggie thinking she was dead, only for him to figure it out 6 months later, fly across the world to find her, find her, take a one year leave from work and spend it with her helping her take down Henry Wilcox. [and a little romancing in the Galapagos.]

Leave me love,

- Liz