This was never part of the plan. You were never part of the plan. The plan was to work for the CIA until she was so old she had to work a desk job or until she died, whichever came first. She had dedicated her life to the CIA, she had dedicated her life to leading covert operations. Now she’s in her late forties, retired, and she’s never been happier. It’s all your fault.

After Kate fell in love and married you, you never once even asked her to consider retiring. You understood that you married a working woman and accepted that. You still wore her down. You wore her down with the way you’d hold her extra close when she came home from a particularly long mission. You wore her down when she would come home to you asleep cuddling her pillow and wearing one of her hoodies.

Her breaking point was when she had sent Price to your shared home in the countryside to lay low for a few days. She had been so stressed about how to solve things that she forgot to tell you that you’d have a visitor. Having someone show up at your door in military uniform and introduce himself as a close friend of Kate felt like all of your nightmares were unfolding. After an explanation you calmed down and managed to be a proper host but that fear stuck with you. You always knew it was a possibility that you wouldn’t get the chance to hold her again but you’d managed to repress that fear quite well until that moment.

Price told Kate how your face just crumpled, how you instinctively prepared yourself to hear the worst, how he heard you cry yourself to sleep as the realisation of how quickly your whole life could be changed so fast set in. So she retired. She retired and started dedicating her life to you. She thought it would be harder than it is. Retirement suits her more than she’d ever care to admit.

She loves waking up with you to go collect eggs from the coop, she loves watching you do the whole homestead thing. It didn’t take long for you both to settle into a routine. She’s never been happier. Hell, her cat has never been happier than he is now. Retiring really was the best decision that she ever made.

It led to mornings like this one. Mornings where Kate sneaks out of bed early to collect eggs from the coop to make breakfast. Her sneaking out of bed doesn’t wake you up every morning and you’d had a very busy day yesterday so Kate thought that there was no way you’d wake up so easily. That’s why she doesn’t notice you following her out a few minutes after she gets to the coop. She’s too busy cursing out one of your feistier hens who rarely lets her eggs go quietly.

She doesn’t notice you until she leaves the coop. A basket of eggs in one hand, and one of your ducks who managed to sneak in under her other arm. It’s a sight that you’ll never get tired of. Your badass, ex CIA wife caring for the animals that you care deeply about. You know she used to think that the whole homesteading thing was a little strange, she was raised in the cities and never thought of doing things differently, but she’s adapted quite well.

“I’m beginning to think Arnold believes he’s a chicken instead of a duck.” Kate says as she carefully puts the duck down. Arnold doesn’t even spare the nearby lake a second glance and instead books it right back into the chicken coop. “Or maybe he just enjoys the warmth of the coop.”