I wasn't going to post until this coming Sunday, but decided that I really want to get this story finished so that I can move on to something else. I'll be posting another chapter every morning until it's done.

To girlwithoutfear - I've fixed the wording that you pointed out via DM in the previous chapter. To resourceress7 I've also fixed the words that you pointed out. I can't believe that I did one of them; must have been a formatting error on the second. But thanks to both for caring enough to call me on them. I do appreciate that.

Disclaimer: I don't own Auggie. As much as I'd like to, I don't even own Christopher Gorham who plays Auggie so well. Auggie belongs to the writers of Covert Affairs, and Anel Lopez Gorham owns Christopher. Lucky woman.

I don't exactly own Summer Dawn, or Autumn Grace, but they are close to my heart. I do own the rest of the characters that live in my head.

Chapter Fourteen – Of Hearth and Home – Part Two

Saturday, September 6, 2008 – 6:15 AM

Auggie sat on the swing suspended from the rose arbor in his parent's back yard. He sipped on his cup of coffee. He'd made the pot before he'd come out into the yard. He'd pulled on his jean shorts, but was still wearing his pajama top. His feet were bare. It was early on his first full day back home. Even the birds were just waking up. He could hear them twittering and chirping sleepily about the neighborhood. Somewhere, off in the distance, a train whistle sounded forlornly. He heard the sliding glass door from the family room onto the deck open and close. He wondered which one of his parents was up this early. Slippered feet shuffled their way down the short flight of stairs from deck to patio and then shuffled along the path and stopped before the lawn chair directly across from him. They settled into the cushioned chair.

"Rough night?" his father asked with concern.

"Not really. Just used to getting up this early. I'd forgotten how peaceful it was out here at dawn." Lying was coming naturally to him once again. He wasn't sure if he wanted to admit to anyone just how trying the morning had been for him already.

"How's it going, son?"

"Fine, Dad. Just fine."

"No, son, really. How are you doing? Your Mom's not around you can be honest with me."

After the aborted conversation over dinner, Auggie paused for a long moment by taking another sip of his coffee as he considered how to answer that question. Finally he spoke. "Some days are still very hard. I was anxious a lot yesterday in the airport terminals – so many disorienting sounds. I didn't know where I was much of the time and I didn't know if I could really trust the person guiding me, but I didn't have much of an option there." He paused and took another sip of coffee. "Mornings can be hard when I first wake up, too. I'm still occasionally bewildered when I open my eyes and there's nothing there. Sometimes the tears still flow when I realize that it's real and I'll always wake up that way. Day or night, it's all the same to me." He set the swing in motion again. The gentle movement calmed him – always had. There was something about the gentle back and forth movement that had brought him comfort when things in his young world had been tough. The swing had always been one of his favorite places; especially in spring when the roses were in bloom.

"How about nightmares about the incident?" his father asked quietly.

"I've had them. Don't like them. They rattle me."

"Have you talked to someone about them?"

"Yeah. The psychiatrist at the center. They're normal and mine aren't as bad or as frequent as some. Those first few weeks were bad, almost every night, but not so much now. Now it seems to depend on how bad the day was." He took another sip of coffee and pondered his next words carefully. "Truth is I had one this morning. That's the real reason I'm up so early." The memory of that fateful day four-and-a-half months ago was still so fresh in his mind. He hated that one of the few things he was able to see vividly in his dreams was the one that had left his waking moments void of images.

"They'll get farther apart as time goes on, and less intense, but they'll probably never go away completely. I still occasionally have them about stuff I experienced in Vietnam."

For the next half-an-hour, until they were called for breakfast, father and son talked. Well, Alfred Anderson mostly talked about his latest wood-working projects while Auggie listened. Now Auggie almost wished that he hadn't opted out of the shop class at the rehabilitation center. It might now be helpful to be able to join his father in his passion. But, he reasoned, he was now a fairly proficient Braille reader. The computer codes were still hard for him to make sense of at times, but he was gaining on them.

After a light breakfast of a mushroom omelet, wheat toast and fresh cantaloupe slices, Auggie ambled back upstairs to shower and to get dressed. As always, he shaved carefully using the technique that he and Alan had come up with back in Germany. It was essentially the same one that Jane had shown him back at the rehab center – lather up good, then shave one side of his face at a time with overlapping strokes of the razor, then his neck. Then to check with a fingertip for lather still left and shaving it away.

He arrived back downstairs just in time to go with his parents back to O'Hare to pick up Alan. His tour in Iraq was finally over and he was on a 30-day leave. Auggie dozed in the backseat of his mother's Volvo for most of the forty-five minute trek to the airport. His late night and early morning had caught up with him. He only awoke when the vehicle stopped.

"Where are we?" he asked groggily as the vehicle jerked to a stop.

"We've stopped to pick up Alan. He's almost to us now," his mother said from the front passenger seat. "Pop the trunk, Fred."

Behind him Auggie heard the trunk latch come undone and then two thuds as something was deposited inside. Another chunk as the trunk lid was slammed shut followed soon after.

Moments later the door behind his mother popped open and Alan settled into the car and slammed the door. "Hi, Mom, Dad! How's it hangin' Auggie?"

Everyone said their greetings as the Volvo slowly started to move.

Alan leaned over and stage whispered to Auggie, "I see you've gotten rid of your military cut. But don't you think you should run a comb through it every once in a while? You've got some serious bed-head going on there. Oh, and you missed a spot shaving this morning."

Despite knowing that he'd done a thorough job of dragging the razor over his face and neck, Auggie's right hand flew to his face and began to search his cheek and jaw for the patch of beard his razor might have missed that morning. Beside him Alan roared with laughter. Auggie flung his arm in Alan's direction and was rewarded as he soundly connected with Alan's chest. "That was mean." He snarled and then broke into laughter, too.

"Boys! Care to share the joke with the rest of us?" their mother reprimanded.

"Private joke, Mom," Auggie said. Alan had gotten him good. He'd have to come up with a way to get him back. Back in Germany, that had been a running joke with them. It had been the only thing that he'd been able to laugh about then.

His laughter quieted and Alan said, "It's good to see you again, Auggie. You look so much more together than the last time I laid eyes on you." He softly struck Auggie on the arm with a loose fist.

"I am much more together than then." Auggie turned his head slightly towards his brother, "I really wish that I could lay eyes on you, but …"

"Hush about that. I'm just glad that I was able to be with you those first few horrible days. You seem to be so much more at peace now, too."

"I am, Alan. I am." Alan squeezed his hand firmly, and then let it go as quickly as he'd take it up. "I wish that I could show you all the cool computer stuff that I've learned how to use …"

##########

Saturday, September 6, 2008 – 6:15 PM

"Jenna, so good to see you again," Auggie gushed as he embraced his newest sister-in-law. "Whoa! Austin, my man, why didn't you tell me that you and your lovely bride were expecting again? When are you due, Jenna?" Auggie asked as he placed a hand on Jenna's very large baby belly.

"I'm supposedly due in two weeks," Jenna replied proudly. "It can't happen soon enough for me. This pregnancy has been so much different from Summer's."

"We were so busy when I was out, that it just never came up. Sorry, honey," Austin whispered apologetically to his bride of almost five years.

"Boy? Another girl?" Auggie queried of his sister-in-law.

"Another girl we think. Autumn Grace if it is," Jenna quickly replied.

"And where is Summer Dawn?" Auggie asked.

"I'm right here," a small voice in front of him said indignantly. "Can't you see me?"

Auggie squatted down, "No, Miss Summer, I can't. My eyes are broken."

"What did we talk about in the car over here to Nana's?" Austin said to his three-year-old daughter.

"I don't 'member," the little girl said shyly.

Austin knelt down to his daughter's level. "Remember we told you that we were going to meet a man who couldn't see and we needed to be careful not to get in his way when he was walking 'cause he might step on us?"

"Yes, daddy. I 'member now. Do you need a Band-Aid for your eyes? Daddy said your eyes got an owie."

Auggie stifled a laugh at the little girl's seriousness. "No, Summer, I don't need a Band-Aid for my eyes. The owie happened a while ago and they don't hurt anymore. They just don't work now."

"Come on here with Nana. Let's go into the kitchen," Abigail said to Summer.

"Wow, she's got quite the way with words for a three-year-old!" Auggie exclaimed as his mother and niece moved off into the other part of the house. "Last time I saw her she was just a toddler; seems she's quite the young lady now."

"We were worried that she'd never learn to talk and now we have a hard time getting her to stop," Austin related.

"Takes after her mom in that respect," Auggie teased nudging Jenna in the arm with his own.

"Oh," Jenna groaned. "Baby just kicked me in the rib. I'm heading off to make sure Summer doesn't annoy her Nana too much." She headed off down the hallway to the back of the house, too. Austin and Auggie trailed along behind her into the kitchen.

6:45 PM

"Spaghetti, Mom? You really are challenging me this weekend, huh?" Auggie teased his mother as she drained the pasta. He'd known that pasta was going to be served for dinner when he smelled his mother's sauce simmering on the stove most of the afternoon. Spaghetti had never been high on his list of favorite foods, but he'd learned to manage it without problem when it had been served during his days in rehab.

"I'm sorry, August. I didn't think when Summer said that she wanted it for dinner," Abigail said with alarm.

"It's okay, Mom. I can deal with spaghetti. Anyway I think that I can." A broad grin lit up his face. "You still got those lobster bibs hanging around? I probably could use one of them."

Behind him he heard someone rummaging in one of the kitchen drawers. "Here," Alan said placing something around Auggie's neck.

Auggie's hands investigated the object around his neck and falling to his waist – the aforementioned lobster bib. "Thanks, Alan. Now with a towel for my lap, I won't need to change my clothes after dinner. Wouldn't want Summer to show me up."

From the doorway he heard laughter – female laughter. Moments later, when her laughter had died down, Jenna asked, "Auggie, what on earth are you doing?"

"Getting ready for dinner. Don't want your daughter to show up the blind man by having cleaner clothes after spaghetti."

"August! Would you stop with the jokes already?" His mother was not laughing at the antics of her sons.

So, what do you think? Do I post the last three chapters?