I've been struggling with this chapter, it just didn't want to come together. Then I read chapter 8 of annielovesauggie's awesome story "Different" this morning and all of a sudden my muse was super cooperative. That take on Auggie's family had never crossed my mind 'til I read it, like "my" Annie I've always seen his family as this picture perfect suburban family; white picket fence and all. annielovesauggie's take opened up so many possible storylines.

Disclaimer: I don't own Annie, Auggie or any other part of Covert Affairs. This take on Auggie's family was annielovesauggie's idea and I've (shamelessly) borrowed that idea and given it my own spin. I really hope you don't mind. xoxo

-4-

They arrived back at Auggie's apartment little after 7 pm, Annie was carrying the pizza they'd picked up on their way home and Auggie was pulling the suitcase she had brought from the storage unit. They'd made it back there little after five in the afternoon and Annie had sorted through the things she had there and had packed a suitcase of clothes, a couple of pairs of shoes and some other personal belongings. Auggie put his cane away and shrugged out of his leather jacket before he brought the suitcase up to the bedroom area. He left it at the foot of the bed and headed into the bathroom. Annie set the pizza on the kitchen island and got plates, napkins and a beers for them while he used the bathroom.

"I figured we could eat by the island," she said when Auggie came down the steps from the bedroom a few minutes later.

"Sounds good to me," he shrugged. He took a seat on one of the stools and Annie brushed a beer against the back of his left hand.

"Beer," she said. "Pizza at your eleven o'clock."

Auggie placed the beer to his right and grabbed a slice of pizza. They were both hungry and finished their meal in silence. When they were done Auggie cleared away their dishes and placed the leftover pizza in a plastic container in the fridge. He grabbed fresh beers for them and joined Annie on the couch.

###################

"What was it like to grow up with four older brothers? I only had Danielle and that was intense sometimes…"

"Well, my four older brothers are actually half brothers. They're from Dad's first marriage and the youngest one is about eight years older than me. They lived in Massachusetts, with their mother."

Annie was stunned and it took her a moment or three to process what Auggie had just said. It was so far from the picture she'd had of his family. She didn't hide the puzzlement from her voice when she finally spoke. "Wow, I always pictured your family as this perfect suburban family, white picket fence, a dog and all of that stuff for some reason…"

"Really? What gave you that impression?" Auggie was genuinely surprised; they hadn't talked much about their families and he wondered why she fought that.

"Umm...It's not like we've talked a lot about our families, so I don't actually know why I thought that." Annie replied after a few beats of silence. She didn't really have an answer for him.

Auggie decided to be honest and tell Annie the full story. It wasn't something he was ashamed off or felt he should hide. It had just never come up in conversation between him and Annie. "Dad met his ex, Sylvia, at Harvard. They married right after they graduated from their undergrad studies and six months later my oldest brother was born. Dad's parents are pretty well off and they helped them financially so Dad could continue his studies; he'd been accepted to law school at Harvard, but Sylvia ended up staying at home. They had three more kids over a period of five years or so. After graduation from law school Dad got a job at a big law firm in Boston. A few years later he started working at their Chicago office a couple of days a week. Mom was a secretary there."

"And they got involved?" Annie interjected incredulously. It sounded a bit too 'Harlequin-romance' to be true.

"I guess. Sounds like a bad romance novel, doesn't it?" Auggie said with a wry grin. "Anyway, Dad's first marriage wasn't a happy one, he once told me he and Sylvia married mainly because she was pregnant and his father told him it was the right thing to do. Their relationship had been rocky for a while by the time he met Mom. When he got offered a partner position at the Chicago office he decided to leave Sylvia and move back to Glencoe where he grew up. From what I've heard the divorce was a messy affair."

"So, he moved back to Illinois, married your mom and then you were born?"

"Pretty much yes. I also have a younger brother and sister, Aaron and Abigail, they're twins and about two years younger than me. The three of us were pretty close. We hated it when our half-brothers came to stay in the summer and other breaks. They lived in a small town outside Boston with their mother and they really hated Mom and they weren't too fond of us three either. In a way it was us against them."

"Sounds rough…"

"It was. Especially because us kids didn't really understand what was going on and our parents never tried to explain. Mom was always very tense when Matthew, John, Stewart and Christian came and the rest of the family were on tenterhooks to make sure things went smoothly. Which they hardly ever did."

"What about now? Do you have any contact with your older brothers?"

"No, not really. They're all in their forties, married, kids, successful careers…we've never been close and I don't think we ever will be. I don't really care. The only one that contacts me from time to time is Stewart. He's a doctor, ophthalmologist actually, and he's always pestering me about taking part in the studies he's involved in. I've told him repeatedly that I'm not interested in being his guinea pig, but he doesn't seem to take the hint. I guess he means well. The thing is; I've never really seen them as brothers. Because they lived so far away and they were only around for a few weeks of the year they're more like distant relatives to me."

"I get that, but it can't have been easy for them either," Annie said.

Auggie shrugged. "Probably not, I've never really thought about it to be honest."

"You've never thought about how you would have felt if the roles were reversed? If your dad suddenly left you and started a new family in a different part of the country with a new wife and you only got to see him a few weeks a year?"

Auggie was quiet. He'd never really thought about how things were for his older brothers, how hard it must have been for them that their father had left and then started a new family somewhere else. Auggie had always had a pretty good relationship with his father, they'd had their clashes over the years, but despite that his father had always been there for him and Aaron and Abigail. He hadn't been there much for Matthew, John, Stewart and Christian, apart from financial support.

"I've never really thought about that," he finally admitted. "But I see your point. I'm sure it was hard for them."

"What about your younger siblings? Are you three close?"

"We kind of drifted apart after I graduated from high school and moved away to go to college. The CIA recruited me pretty early in my freshman year and between keeping up with my schoolwork and CIA training I was pretty busy. I barely went home for the holidays."

"I thought college was busy without adding Agency training to the equation," Annie said.

"Anyway, after I graduated I moved to DC and started to work as a field officer, initially I worked mostly stateside. I finished my training at The Farm. Since I'd done ROTC in college the Agency encouraged me to go through SERE training and I spent a few months at Fort Bragg to do that. Then I was stationed in Istanbul for a while, until Arthur assigned Helen and me to train Teo in the Czech Republic. I wasn't around much, so the distance grew even bigger."

"So you're not close to them either?"

"Well, after Helen was 'killed'," Auggie air quoted the word killed, "I was transferred back to DC and a couple of months after I got back I was assigned to work Natasha as an asset. After she was arrested I went to Iraq and you know what happened there. After the explosion in Tikrit I was first flown to a base in Germany, then to Walter Reed before I was finally transferred to the Hines VA hospital in Illinois. It's only about an hour away from where I grew up and both Aaron and Abi came to visit a lot. I guess one of the good things that came out of the accident as that the three of us reconnected."

"So you're close now?"

"Close might be taking it a bit far, but we keep in touch on a regular basis and try to get together a couple of times a year. Why are you suddenly so interested in my family?"

"I don't know…trying to figure out my own…"

...To be continued...