Title: Tell Me Why

Author: Beth Pryor

Rating: T

Summary: Auggie's day gets rough, but Annie's there to help. Finally the other way around for once.

Disclaimer: Covert Affairs and its characters belong to the USA Network.

A/N: As I was writing this, an old 4-H Camp favorite was running through my head. I'm borrowing its title above for this little offering.

Tell Me Why

"Auggie?"

Annie knocked as she entered with her key, trying to give him some semblance of privacy in his own home. It had only been about 5:30 when she left work, and his office appeared to have been shut down some time before that. Evan was gone, too. The security guard revealed that car had been waiting for him promptly at five. It was Friday, and some people did have lives outside the office, but was she missing something? She still hadn't synced her calendar with the new phone he'd given her. He gifted her with a new prototype about every three weeks, though. So really, if she was woefully late for some plan they'd made, it was his fault.

His things were on the floor by the door, carelessly discarded. Not at all like him. The cabinet in the kitchen where the carefully-labeled medicines and first aid supplies were located was hanging open, boxes and bottles strewn about the counter. Not good. Then she heard him retching violently through the open bathroom door. She climbed the steps to the lofted master suite. He went at it again. Not good at all.

"Auggie?"

She approached softly, dropping to the floor beside him. Hair hung limply across his waxy pale forehead as he coughed again, gagged and dry heaved into the bowl. He held a white-knuckled grip on the toilet seat that he hadn't bothered to lift but instead leaned against for support to keep his head from falling into the bowl completely. She reached out and touched his shoulder lightly. He startled but could do little more than moan in reply.

"Just fucking kill me," he groaned in a hoarse whisper, his hand briefly releasing the toilet and raising to his right temple, grazing the skin before instantly pulling his fingers away as though burned. He winced.

She stood and grabbed a folded rag from the shelf, soaked it in cool water and placed it on the back of his neck.

She knelt beside him. "When did it start?"

"Tuesday morning," he croaked back.

"Auggie!" She scolded softly, fully aware of his extreme sensitivity to sound.

"Didn't get bad until noon today." He gagged again. "Fucking Imitrex didn't touch it."

"Numbness and tingling?"

"Yeah." It hurt him to talk but even more to nod. "And that smell of burnt rubber aura right before things got real."

"Why didn't you take the Treximet?" She'd heard him say he preferred the pills to the nasal spray.

"I'd been keeping it at bay with Ibuprofen for four days. Figured my stomach lining couldn't handle the Naproxen on top." He raised it head and smiled weakly. "Made it home before I puked, though."

"Do you need the ER?" She knew a bit about migraines and about his headaches – some kind of mutant hybrid of a migraine and a cluster headache with what sounded like a touch of trigeminal neuralgia going on today, but this was by far the worst she'd seen.

He gave a quick shake of his head, then dropped it back into the toilet bowl. His voice echoed inside the porcelain. "There's some Reglan in the cabinet. Ten milligrams in the ass usually kicks it."

"Okay." She stood. In the kitchen, she found what he'd apparently been rummaging for – a small box containing vials of medication and sterile syringes and needles. She pulled up the dose he'd instructed and grabbed an alcohol wipe.

In the bathroom, he was struggling to pull down his pants to reveal his gluteal muscles. She wiped a spot clean and injected the medication into his backside.

"It takes a few minutes to work," he answered her question before she could ask. He jerked his pants back up over his bum and started to stand. Annie placed the syringe and needle on the edge of the sink, turning just in time to grab under his arms as he swayed.

"Hey-Seuss." He fought back another wave of nausea.

"Bed?" she asked, grabbing the trash can on the way.

"Yes."

After she was sure he was asleep, she exited the bedroom as not to wake him, retrieving a book from the nightstand on "her" side of the bed. She distractedly attempted to read Graham Greene with little success while he slept for the next hour and a half. When she heard him rousing above her, she walked through the kitchen toward the bedroom. A lone amber bottle on the island caught her eye. As she read the label, her brow furrowed. She took it along with a glass of water to see if he was awake and hopefully feeling better. By the time she made it to his side, he was sitting on the edge of the bed, still pale but a whole hell of a lot more lively than when she'd arrived.

"Nurse Walker," he grinned meekly. "Is it time for the rest of my sponge bath?"

She joined him on the bed and touched the glass of water lightly on the back of his hand. He took it and drank slow, small sips. After a moment or two, he felt sure it would stay down.

"You look almost alive," she whispered, stroking his left arm lightly.

He reached for the nightstand and placed the glass there before he found her fingers and let his interlace hers.

"That was a bad one. Worst for over a year. At least." He lifted her fingers to his mouth and kissed them lightly. "I'm sorry you had to see that."

"Auggie."

"The triptans usually work, so I'm not sure what's up with that." He stood slowly, testing his balance and walked back to the bathroom. She waited on the bed while he finished up. He poked his out the door, toothbrush in mouth after she heard the toilet flush. "Although, I know it works best if you take it at the start, and I was about four days in, but still." He spit and rinsed and joined Annie back in his bedroom. He took a seat beside her on the bed and reached for her hand. Instead, she dropped the little bottle into his.

"What's this?"

"You tell me."

He ran his fingers across the Braille label. "Imitrex. Why?"

"Hm. That actually explains a lot."

"What do you mean?"

Annie sighed a triumphant little huff as though she'd just solved the Murder on the Orient Express. "I know why this didn't help your headache."

"Care to fill me in?"

"This is Flonase."

"What? Seriously?"

"That's what the printed label says." She shook the bottle and sprayed it into the air. "Smells like my Flonase. Kind of like lilacs. Have you used this bottle before?"

Auggie racked his brain, but he still felt fuzzy. "I don't think so. It's been months since I've needed something strong for a headache, and I usually take the Treximet - the Imitrex with the Naproxen. It works better."

"Do you have a prescription for Flonase?"

"Yeah. For the spring, but I haven't used the new bottle yet. The Giant pharmacy delivers the automatic refills with my groceries."

"So we should probably check the other box for the actual Imitrex then?"

Realizing this could be problematic, Auggie swallowed hard. "Um yeah."

She returned with the other box and the true Imitrex inhaler – labeled in Braille as Flonase.

"I guess that explains why my sinuses have never been clearer," he stated, completely defeated by his labeling fail.

"So I'm thinking we should just go through everything in the cabinet to make sure you aren't taking rat poisoning instead of Vitamin C or anything like that." He nodded and followed her meekly into the kitchen.

After they'd gone through every box, bottle, and vial in his first aid cabinet, Annie felt sure that Auggie was again safe in his own apartment.

"Okay, Love. I think that's the last one, and it does in fact appear to be multivitamins." She replaced the final container and he settled his hand on top of hers to feel where she'd deposited the bottle. His hand trailed down her arm. She swiveled on the counter so that she was facing him straight on. He found her other arm, then her waist, then the rest of her. She leaned down into his embrace.

"Thank you," he breathed between kisses. "For coming here tonight, for doing this, for everything always."

"You don't have to thank me, but maybe now I owe you a million minus one."

He sobered and swallowed hard again. "I can't promise it will ever be any better than this, that I will be any better than this."

Annie reached down and kissed him again. "You know that doesn't matter to me, Auggie. I love you."

"But you shouldn't have to look out for me, take care of me when I can't keep it together, making sure my labels are straight and my tie matches my shirt and all that." He turned away from the counter and took a seat on the top step leading to the bedroom.

She slid off the counter and followed him. "Auggie, that's not fair. Those are just human things, things that people do in relationships or for people they care about. You do the same types of stuff for me all the time and don't think twice about it," she protested.

"It's different, though. I'm your handler. I'm supposed to look out for you."

"And you do an amazing job of it, but you don't really ever need my help at work. So would you please just let me take care of you once in a while to keep the score a little closer to even?"

She could see the same insecurities rising again in him, the shame as he hung his head and whispered, barely loud enough to be heard.

"But what if you get tired of it? Of me?"

She dropped to the floor beside him and nestled her head against his neck. She'd tell him again and a million more times if he needed to hear it. "I pick you, and I always will."

She wasn't going anywhere.

FIN