This is my first Fan Fiction offering. With the long hiatus for Covert Affairs, I started wondering this fall what Auggie and Annie would be doing with the holidays coming up. We know quite a bit about Annie's family, but very little about Auggie's. I'd like to introduce you to my version of the Andersons. I own nothing except my imagination and admiration for the dramatic talents of Chris Gorham and Piper Perabo who bring these characters to life.

Flight 642 - Chapter One - Amanda and Frederick

Amanda Anderson sighed as she surveyed the storeroom tucked under the foyer in her family's home. Thanksgiving was less than a week away, and in addition to the usual family traditions and meal planning, she was organizing the Christmas decorations for the newest Anderson tradition. As the grandchildren had grown, the new family tradition included decorating Grandma and Grandpa's house after dinner for the Christmas season.

The spacious two-story grey brick home sat on a corner near the Glencoe Country Club where the five Anderson sons caddied on the golf course and waited tables in the club house dining room through their high school and college years … not that the boys "had" to work – their parents felt that they needed to learn to appreciate how to earn a living and respect the importance of a strong work ethic.

Amanda and Frederick Anderson raised their sons with high expectations, discipline and a lot of love. Amanda and Fred met when they were students at Northwestern. She was studying literature and drama. Fred was a fist-year law student and Amanda was in her second year of undergraduate studies.

Fred was (and continues to be) a pragmatic realist. A student of the facts, he was a bottom-line kind of young man who also had the kind of legal mind that allowed him to find solutions to obscure quandaries in the corporate legal maze. He had earned his undergraduate degree at Northwestern with scholarships and some part-time work. Fred's plans had always been to go to law school, so he took a year off to work in a law office, make money for school and to make sure the law was where he wanted to spend his career. Fred's parents were educators, so he had a great love of learning, but not a lot of extra cash.

Amanda's family helped to establish the Glencoe Village, the exclusive lake shore suburb north of Chicago. Her family epitomized old money and the self confidence and dignity that comes from growing up in that world. She was a warm hearted idealist who carried with her the lessons from her youth:

Set a good example for others.

You are fortunate in your circumstance, but never feel that you are ever any better than anyone else.

You have a responsibility to help others.

And so … the idealist and pragmatist began to test the theory of opposites attracting. Their university friendship developed into a lasting love that endured through Fred's being drafted into the Army after law school, his early years in the law firm and the roller coaster life they led together raising "the team."

"The Team" as in basketball … that's what Amanda called her brood of rambunctious boys beginning December 14, 1976, the day she brought August Philip Anderson home and placed him in the basinet that had cradled his four older brothers over the past eight years.

Amanda slid a decoration-filled carton across the floor, sighed and leaned against the door frame. "Concentrate, focus," she thought to herself. "Hold yourself together and this will be the best holiday season the Andersons have had since 2005 when the entire family was together, happy and whole."

"What a blessing our lives were then," Amanda whispered to herself. "And we didn't even take time to realize it. Well, it's 2010, and the Andersons have a new normal. We will be just as happy. I will make this work."

"Oh, come on Mom … you want me to fly out to Glencoe for Thanksgiving? That means flying out Wednesday afternoon and coming back to DC on Friday … it'll be a travel nightmare for me."

"We both know you are not afraid of the devil himself," Amanda said sternly in her best Mom Voice. "It's time you stop hiding behind your bank of computers and rejoin our family and the rest of the world outside of that protected enclave of your office."

Not even considering taking no for an answer, Amanda said, "I've already booked your flight and have you in First Class both ways. They are direct flights from Reagan to O'Hare, so there's no concern about missing a connection and having to spend the night in Cleveland," she teased.

Amanda prevailed. She wore him down.

"Ok, Mom, email me the ticket information," Auggie huffed.

'It's going to be a magnificent holiday, Auggie. Everything will be perfectly fine, son … you'll see."

"Mom, I don't get to see anything anymore." The split second the last syllable rolled off his tongue, Auggie regretted his verbal tantrum. Taking a deep breath, he apologized, "Mom, I'm sorry. That was out of line … even for me."

"Apology accepted. I'll see you at O'Hare the night before Thanksgiving. No excuses."

"Ok. I'm looking forward to it," Auggie said with a hint of a chuckle in his voice.

"Amanda Anderson is probably the most tenacious person in my life" Auggie thought. A smile broke out as he thought about Annie and realized she is just as tenacious as his mother. "Note to self. Never allow those two to inhabit my universe together," he laughed to himself. "I'd never have a chance."

"Wait," Auggie told himself, "you can't have this conversation with yourself. Amanda Anderson and Annie Walker ever meeting is an unrealistic fantasy. Control yourself, Anderson.

"What have I just done?" Auggie asked himself aloud. "It's the Friday before Thanksgiving, and I just told my mother I'd go home without clearing it with Joan." Auggie turned down the volume on the Mingus he'd been enjoying and speed dialed Joan, who answered on the second ring. "Hello, Auggie. What's the problem?" (Auggie never called Joan at home unless there was a problem.)

"Not too big of a problem, I hope … just a personal situation."

"Oh, and that would be?"

"It seems my mother has taken it upon herself to purchase tickets for me to fly home for Thanksgiving. I'd be leaving on Wednesday afternoon, but I can be back in the office late Friday afternoon."

"Well, since you haven't taken a holiday off since you came back to take over Tech Ops, I think it's time for you to spend a holiday with your family. Stu's family is all in the DC area, so I'm sure he won't mind sitting in for you if something comes up while you're in Illinois with your family," Joan said. She was trying to be reassuring and level, not wanting to betray how pleased she was that Auggie was taking a step to reconnect with his family.

Shifting back into DPD Director mode Joan said, "Just be sure to take your encrypted phone with you so we can have secure conversations, if something comes up."

Joan returned to the family room. Arthur looked up from the NCIS rerun he was watching and asked, "What was that?"

"Oh, Auggie's mother staged some sort of coup, and he's finally agreed to go home to Illinois for a holiday."

"It's about time." Arthur said under his breath. "He needs to get reacquainted with the life he lived before the explosion. He's one of the best we have, but that doesn't mean he's not dealing with more issues than the New York Times."

Joan laughed and snuggled down on the sofa next to Arthur. "It's not like we couldn't be the CIA poster children for people with issues."

Across town, Auggie sat on his sofa alone in his dark apartment with the sounds of Mingus gracing his sound system. Holding his head in his hands, he kept saying to himself, "Oh, man what the hell did I just agree to?"