Here's the final chapter to his story.

My sincere thanks to fbobs and Mandy58 for their assistance in this chapter and the story as a whole.

I only own my own storyline and version of Annie and Auggie.

Auggie braced himself for the day; not that he expected anything that would be jarring to him, but a good spy was always prepared. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he scrubbed the sleep from his eyes with the heels of his hand, and then ran his hands through his shaggy mop of hair. He made a mental note that when he got back home to DC he'd have to make an appointment to get his hair trimmed; it was getting a bit too long for his liking even though no one had yet said anything to him about it. Usually Annie kept him advised of such things, but she had been rather distracted the last few days. His mother had said something when they arrived on Tuesday, but then she almost always did; she'd never been fond of his longer hair. He sighed a bit and rose to pad quietly into the bathroom. Even though he'd napped for several hours the afternoon before, he had slept well and felt surprisingly more refreshed than he had the previous two mornings. Even Annie had seemed to sleep soundly, none of the tossing and turning of the previous night. They were traveling today and that went better when neither of them were fatigued.

When he'd finished in the bath Auggie exited to find his wife up and moving about the room. "Good morning, sweetheart. Finishing packing?"

"Mine. Do you want me to finish yours?"

Auggie stopped and pondered the offer for several moments. Even though he was meticulous in keeping his things together in one place, things often went astray anyway. Did he feel like dealing with looking for them? This morning the simple answer was, 'No'. "That would be wonderful," he said and flashed his wife a broad smile. Moments later something soft hit him in the head. "What was that for?" Auggie asked in surprise.

"I would have finished your packing without the cheeky smile. That was overkill," Annie retorted quickly.

"I can't smile at my beautiful wife?" Auggie flashed Annie another quick smile as he removed the article from his head. He examined the item and quickly determined it to be a T-shirt. It was almost too small to be one of his and slightly too big to be one of Annie's. "Yours?" he asked holding it out in the direction it had sailed in from.

"No, not mine. Jessica's. Tony loaned me one of her new ones that she'd just bought the night that the forensics person wanted the one that I was wearing. Did I forget to tell you about that?"

"Must have, but the last few days have been somewhat discombobulated. And I'm sure telling me something like that wasn't on the top of the 'Auggie Must Know This' list."

"Yeah, definitely not a priority. You go and get your coffee. Everything is mostly packed so it will just take me a few minutes to finish getting your stray stuff back into your bag."

The T-shirt was taken from his hand so Auggie turned and left the room. A few minutes later he was sitting at the breakfast table sipping a cup of coffee. In the kitchen his mother was puttering about making breakfast for her family; Auggie heard and smelled the sausage pan frying, eggs being scrambled, and something was in the toaster – wheat toast or English muffins was his guess.

"Auggie, honey," Abigail said maternally, "How long before you think Annie will be down? I don't want to finish up the eggs until everyone is down. All I have to do is call your dad and Alan in from the yard."

"Good morning, Mom, I'm here now," Annie said as she came in from the main hallway.

"Ah, there you are," Auggie announced.

"Yes, here I am," Annie cooed as she settled into the seat to Auggie's left; the one in the back of the alcove.

The sizzle of eggs in a hot skillet reached Auggie's ears. He rose and made his way to the patio doors. "Dad? Alan? Mom's finishing up breakfast," he announced loudly through the opened door. Both Alfred and Alan responded with an answering, "Coming."

Two hours later, just after 9:30, Annie guided Auggie through the main concourse of O'Hare toward their boarding gate. Much to his relief, check in had gone smoothly.

A few minutes later they arrived in the boarding area and he felt Annie guide him to a seat near the gate. He knew they would get an early boarding call.

Once seated, he relaxed and let his mind both look forward into the day and review the week. In an hour or so they would be on their way back to DC. In a few more hours they'd be home in their condo in Reston. Auggie wasn't sure about Annie, but he would be very glad to be home with the last few days behind him. Not that he'd disliked the time with his family – that time was very enjoyable, made much more enjoyable ever since his first visit with Annie – but the extra added excitement associated with the home invasion and the backyard incident he could easily have done without. He was sure Annie could have done without it too. Especially the part where she'd had to kill the three home invaders to protect him and his family. He felt a rush of pride in her capabilities and the homage to them that was present in how the family spoke and acted around her since those two events. He couldn't see their expressions, but he could hear them. What he heard was not fear of her, but deference to her, an element of respect and appreciation that hadn't been there before. He knew Annie was accepted by the family, welcomed and loved before this happened, but he could feel a difference now. She had become 'Family' with a capital 'F'.

He'd felt her moving and heard her handling the suitcases this morning without making sounds like it was a strain, or painful, so he hoped her bruising and other injuries from the two fights had started to heal. With Annie it was hard to tell sometimes. She had exactly zero sense of self-pity.

His musing was interrupted by the first boarding call. He felt Annie rise and followed her actions. She brushed his hand, he took her elbow and she guided him toward the gate. He'd kept his cane unfolded which helped her by alerting those around him that he was blind.

The flight went smoothly and shortly after they landed the car service picked them up at the airport and delivered them to the condo. But even though they weren't scheduled to return to work for another two days, as soon as Annie and Auggie got their bags into the condo they headed to Langley. That was Auggie's idea, but Annie didn't object; Auggie wanted to check on an ongoing mission that he had assigned before they took off on Tuesday morning. Now it was Friday mid-afternoon and he felt compelled to check in on the status of the mission. It should be complete and the officer on her way home, but, as he remembered from Annie's earliest days, sometimes the simplest of missions went all Tango Uniform.

# # #

Once on the campus of the CIA, Annie parked in one of the 'Visitors' spots near the main entrance. With Auggie on her arm, she worked her way through security and up to the DPD. A few moments after she pulled the glass doors open and she and Auggie entered the bullpen, everyone seemed to glanced toward the door and then as one they stood up and applauded. Annie wondered why they were doing that and then became acutely embarrassed. Her only thought was: How could they possibly know? Beside her Auggie stiffened, then relaxed a little, released his hold on her arm and began to move off toward his office.

Before Auggie had taken three steps, Joan popped out of her office. "Annie. Auggie. My office. Now." The applause stopped.

Together Annie and Auggie climbed the stairs to their boss's office. Once inside and the door closed, Joan offered, "Annie, I just want to say how proud I am of you for the way you've handled yourself these last few days. Remarkable. And Auggie, you've trained her well. For that we all thank you. Agent Parker was meticulous in her report. She did a thorough job and left no detail out. Even down to the fact that she had to serve papers on an overly intuitive martial arts instructor and a trauma surgeon who said he'd seen people hit by a truck with less damage. She said the martial arts instructor was quite surprised to get a visit from her, but sincerely hoped to be able to train some of your relatives, Auggie. Agent Parker thought that even without the gag order his code of ethics would not allow him to betray what he thought was a confidence.

"Now, Annie, there are two things that you have to do for me before I can send you out. You have an appointment with the agency psychiatrist first thing Monday morning. And then I want you to see one of the agency physicians to determine your physical fitness for duty. And if either of them determines that you need some sort of therapy, you need to complete that, too. Do I make myself clear?"

"Crystal," Annie responded submissively. "But I'm fine, really. Of course I'll keep the appointments, but I think they're a waste of time."

"I'll make sure that she keeps every appointment," Auggie stated firmly. From the look on his face Annie knew that he'd do just that.

The door to Joan's office opened and her husband and Director of Clandestine Services, Arthur Campbell, stepped into the room. "I've seen the reports, Annie. Auggie. Even though it was well outside the scope of your normal duties you did a wonderful job in dealing with those two incidents. But I must agree with Joan on one point. The man in the second incident, why didn't you put him down so that he couldn't get back up again?"

"For a number of reasons, but the main one is that I knew I couldn't justify that course of action to the local law enforcement personnel. Like I told Joan before, as long as I had the advantage of surprise, the second man wasn't a dangerous threat to me. He might have been to my father-in-law, but I knew I could intervene before he became a true threat to Auggie's dad. Yeah, he was big, and I was a bit off the top of my game, but I knew I could get him down and contained. I needed help to contain him, but I had plenty of willing assistance for that."

"And if containment hadn't worked?" Arthur asked pointedly. "His rap sheet was part of Agent Parker's very detailed report. He could have hurt you – and anyone within reach – very badly. We would not have been pleased if that had happened."

"I understand that. I didn't know his pedigree before I engaged him. Even if I had, I'm not sure that I'd have changed my approach. I didn't have an array of options. It was basically kill him in the air on his way to the ground or put him down and contain him. If I'd tried to just damage him I'd have lost control of the situation. It was pretty much all or nothing. I did tell him that if he got up I'd have to kill him – the hold I had him in I could have snapped his neck in a second. He must have believed me because he stopped struggling as much. The police were most appreciative of my efforts. Finally, I didn't think of it at the time, but if I'd killed the second guy, it would have been the second one with my bare hands in two days and that would have gotten a lot more attention than I'd have liked to deal with. We had the guy dying on the operating table already, and the two I shot, but those were a lot easier to explain than breaking this guy's neck would have been."

There was silence and disbelieving looks from both Joan and Arthur. Beside her Annie knew from Auggie's slightly ragged intake of breath that he felt the meaning of the silence and Annie quickly added, "Okay, I just reacted. I had less than a second to react in. It was a purely gut reaction, instinct, but I am convinced it was the right way to handle him and I can't think of anything you can say that would change my mind. If that's bad, so be it."

Arthur looked at her for a few moments and said, "Annie, Agent Parker sent us the video your niece took. I know few people, including myself, who could have done what you did at that moment. I realize you have to trust your instincts in situations like that. But in the field, make sure they can't get back up. You are pretty much on your own out there, not surrounded by brothers-in-law and a husband as backup. If they come at you, you put them down hard."

Annie said, "Message received."

"And understood?"

"And understood."

The Director finished by saying, "Well done to both of you," and then left closing the door behind him.

Joan turned to Auggie and asked, "I saw the video, too, and it was impressive. Just exactly how good is she?"

Auggie said, "There isn't anybody in the department she can't take down including me. I've taught her everything I know, and she's really good at it. Sparring with her is like being in a train wreck."

Annie said, "I'm standing here you know."

Joan turned to Annie and said, "I hadn't realized you were at that level. I should have, but I didn't. I'm not anxious for your expertise in hand-to-hand combat to be general knowledge. If it's a surprise, it's a huge advantage and it helps make up for your small size. Please don't share the details beyond the newspaper stories with people who don't have a need to know. I'm going to make a note in the compartmentalized part of your file and that video won't see the light of day and it won't be in the part that is reviewed as part of mission assignment evaluation by those outside the department. Stuff like this will eventually get out, but the longer we keep it a surprise, the better."

Annie said, "I understand."

Auggie quickly added, "Absolutely. We usually train by ourselves so that shouldn't be a problem."

Joan smiled agreeably and remarked, "Okay, get back out there, say 'hi', and then don't come back till Monday morning as planned."

When they left Joan's office, Auggie lightly took Annie's arm and she guided him down the stairs. She was glad that he'd done that because some of his co-workers were clustered at the bottom of the stairs and she knew it would be difficult for Auggie to navigate. They would have made way for him, but it was slightly easier this way.

Over the next few minutes they discovered that Stu and Barber, had somehow learned the whole story. At least, it seemed, that they had managed to go online and download every newspaper account and then put two-and-two together. Auggie and Annie answered general questions, talked about the good visit with Auggie's family and generally deflected questions about the two fights until Auggie finally said with some exasperation, "Guys, we don't want to talk about the fights. Okay?"

Stu answered, "Okay, okay, we get it," and after a moment added, "But we are really proud of you two, and very glad you are back safe after that deadly home invasion attempt."

Annie turned to Auggie and said, "My desk top is piled with stuff I don't want to see until Monday. How about we get out of here?"

Auggie said, "Give me five minutes in the tech center and I'm good to go."

"Five minutes, starting now."

Auggie sauntered into his office and was back in a few minutes. When he returned to the bullpen, Auggie was able to confirm the mission had ended well; the operative was in the air on the way back home. While Auggie was gone Annie was advised that there was a call for her on her Smithsonian line. Reluctantly Annie picked up the call and discovered it was only FBI SSA Vincent Rossabi. Even though Agent Rossabi had called in on Annie's Smithsonian line, he never once mentioned that institution during the conversation.

Annie ended the call and Auggie asked, "What was that about?"

Annie smiled at the hint of disapproval in her husband's tone of voice and offered, "Rossabi called to welcome his favorite spook back to DC. Apparently Agent Parker gave him a copy of her very detailed report to Joan. He actually sounded like he was impressed. I decided I really need to get a copy of that report and see what's in it. So I asked, and he agreed, to send me one at home. I didn't want it to come here and have somebody other than Joan see it by accident. To his credit, he didn't mention the Smithsonian once."

"You gave him our address?"

"I didn't have to, he already had it. They are the FBI and we don't live in a safe house."

Auggie sighed and replied, "Okay, Annie, let's get out of here. Probably best if you drive."

"Right with ya," Annie replied hip checking him in fun as they turned to head for the exit.

The End

It's now a completed story. To tell the truth, I'm very glad to have it finished. It turned out to be much longer than I thought when I began it. I'm sort of working on an addition to my 'Happily Ever After' saga, but am not sure when, or even if, they will be posted.

Thanks for reading and for your comments. TTFN