Barry paused to look up from the book he'd been reading when the familiar sounds of children being gathered around for a new potential adoption reached his ears. In the couple of months he'd been in the home, he'd learned to identify what the sounds during the gathering of the children meant. The flutter of giggles amongst some members of the staff meant that the potential adopter was single, relatively well known and respected in the community and male, the stern chatter from other members of the workers told him that, in this case, single might not mean available, so the potential adopter was possibly not interested in starting a relationship just yet, though Barry wasn't yet observant enough to figure out why.

Still thinking of other things he might be able to add to his list for the new man coming to adopt a child, he jumped as one of the staff he hadn't noticed coming to get him suddenly tapped his shoulder. He recognized her as Sally. She, like most of the staff, was nice to the children under her care, though, when it came down to it,Sally and a few others were a little closer to him than other workers, mainly due to the fact that she'd been one of the first to pick up the phone and bring it to Barry when an overexcited Iris had first been given the news that she was allowed to call him at the home.

Following her to the main room, he listened to the snippets of gossip amongst the staff and the children, and added a few more points to his growing list about the potential adopter, the person was recognizably smart, and a few more comments seemed to point to the man being into the sciences. Listening further, he noted that the person was probably in his late thirties or early to mid-forties, but he was still considered handsome by some of the younger staff members.

Suddenly he paused as the latest snippet reached his ears. The potential adopter had suffered a severe personal tragedy. For a few seconds, he stood still as memories of his parents crowded into his mind. Sally let it go for a few moments, but eventually she gently nudged his shoulder.

"Come on then." She said gently. "It's nearly time."

Letting her pull him back towards the main room, he found himself just managing to get in his seat before the boss brought the new adopter out to look at them.

Everyone in the room eyed the man as he walked along the line of children sitting in front of him, every now and then, he seemed to enquire about a particular child. However, Barry was still surprised when the man seemed to stare at him for a few seconds before turning back to the boss. Nodding his head a few times, the man turned back to look at Barry for a little longer before exchanging a few more sentences with the boss, he'd learned to tune it out when they talked about his fathers' so called involvement with his mothers' death and walking her back to the office to fill out paperwork.

There was a small fuss as the children happily split into their prefered groups, the few other children Barry was willing to hang out with aside from Iris quickly gathered around him along with Sally, and a cacophony of voices rose up.

"Did you see that Barry, he was definitely interested in adopting you."

"Oh, He is such a cool nerd, not that being a nerd is bad anyway."

Their was a pause as Sally's voice of reason broke through the conversation for a little while.

"We will have to wait for the background check to be completed."

Before the other voices once again rose to fill the gap.

"Maybe, but I'm pretty sure it'll come back good, a lot of people are interested in him, so I doubt he could hide much to begin with."

"True, he was even honest about the tragic loss of his wife when he was asked."

The conversations regarding the potential adopter lasted until bedtime. Feeling tired, Barry decided not to think about it too hard, the fact was, they would only really know what was going to happen when it happened. So it was easier to push it out of their minds until then.

Following this belief faithfully, Barry found himself being surprised when he was called into the office for a one on one supervised meeting with the man. Knocking on the door, he waited until he was told he could come in before opening it and finding a place to sit.

The man and the main caretaker talked for a bit longer, before the man turned to Barry.

"Hello Mister Allen."

Barry thought for a bit, before deciding to return the greeting.

"Hello Sir."

The man smiled at him, and although he was sure he was just imagining things, Barry felt that the smile took a little too long to reach his eyes.

"Mister Allen.. Barry, my name is Harrison Wells, I heard about what happened to your mother... I lost someone important to me as well... I think we may just be able to help each other heal."

Barry searched the other mans' face and found what he thought was a genuine amount of sorrow and regret in his eyes.

"OK Mister Wells, but I can't lose touch with Uncle Joe and Iris."

Once again, Barry thought he'd seen Mister Wells's face freeze, but he put it down to his imagination again as a smile moved across it once more.

"Of course Barry, we wouldn't want you to lose contact with your friends... besides, they'd probably tear this town apart looking for you if you suddenly dropped off the radar."

"Probably Sir."

"And, even though I hope we'll both be able to at least use each others' given names after a while, I'm usually referred to as Doctor Wells by most people, so you may use that if you'd prefer not to address me on such a comfortable level just yet."

Barry, responded with a quiet. "Yes Doctor Wells." as the man turned back towards the desk that held the paperwork needing to be filled out to finalize the adoption.

There was a few minutes of signing and shuffling before Doctor Wells turned back to face Barry.

"Don't worry Barry, I think you and I will get on very well once we get used to each other. After all, I'm always right about these things."