A little one to make you smile :) thanks for all the support, as always!

Roger gathered up some papers quietly, moving through the house on tip-toes so that he wouldn't wake his napping baby in the other room. He silently opened the briefcase on the table. Roger and Jonah had mainly been living on the payment of child support from Samantha—which was agreed to by divorce settlement. Jonah was still her biological child, after all. In addition to her monthly contribution, Roger was generating quite a substantial income from his shares in the stock market and his investments. Both raked in high stakes. They could live comfortably yet still have room for unexpected purchases (like a new puppy). Recently though, Jonah was learning how to play by himself. He became obsessed with certain toys and never put them down. And most importantly, he had Doggy to play with. As much as Roger hated to admit to the grinning redhead that he was indeed right, that Jonah would be less demanding of paternal attention if he had a friend to keep him occupied, he had to give it to Jack that he'd thought correctly. So while the boy was busy, Roger needed something to occupy his time now. He picked up working from home as an account and financial record-keeper—something he'd done while he was married and was quite good at.

Roger set to work on the papers; filling out the blanks, doing quick addition in his head, occasionally reaching for a simple calculator when necessary. He liked his work. He really did. It gave him the sensation that problems were being solved, and that he was doing the computations all on his own. When being encouraged to choose a path just before getting discharged from the asylum, he'd told his nurse specifically that he wanted to fix things and control issues that arose. So she'd set him up as an apprentice at an accounting firm. Ever since then he stuck with it, and ever since then it provided him with a fresh outlook and a satisfied desire.

Roger didn't know how long he'd been working, but after a while he heard a deep panting sound coming towards him. Doggy strode into the dining room. The small puppy stopped at his water bowl and took a big drink—something he always did after rigorous playing and long naps. But Roger furrowed his brow; the dog never left Jonah's side. He sometimes wondered if it would rather starve itself or die of thirst before leaving its favorite little master. So where was Jonah? Before Roger could stand up to go check on him, he heard a tiny body clamoring up onto the chair across from his. "Jonah?" the man asked quietly. Doggy immediately hurried over to let Jonah step one foot on his back so that he could get on the chair safely. Jonah's hair was complete bedhead—he'd clearly just awoken. But he then swung his little suitcase up onto the table, and set a piece of paper before himself. He grabbed one of his crayons. Sleep still clouding his eyes a bit, the boy yawned and began coloring scribbles on the sheet. Roger waited a few moments before speaking. "Jonah, what are you doing?" he asked. The boy smiled at nothing in particular. "Write," he answered.

"That's very good but…why now? And why did you bring an empty suitcase to the table?"

"…Dada have suitcase."

"What?"

"Dada have suitcase on table."

"…Darling, this is my briefcase. It's not a suitcase. It's for work."

"Jo-Jo work."

"What do you mean?"

"Jo-Jo work like Dada."

Suddenly, it clicked to Roger. Jonah must've seen his father sitting at the table with his briefcase, constantly writing on papers and filing them away. He knew it as work. He was trying to imitate. Roger just stared at his son, grinning from ear to ear. As weird as it was, he was so proud to see that Jonah was mimicking something he was seeing—it showed that he was becoming a little more conscious of the world around him. Dr. Rodolphus would be so pleased to hear about this. Roger completely abandoned his work to watch Jonah scribble senseless lines with the blue crayon. Silence ensured for a while. Eventually, Roger decided to reward Jonah with a cookie and a glass of milk and he went to grab himself a cup of tea. He left the room quietly. Jonah just looked so focused and busy…

It took a few minutes to brew a cup of tea because Roger didn't know that Jonah had abducted the little pan and set it in line with all his stuffed animals in the playroom. Why he'd selected to bring the pan, Roger would never know. When he returned to set the snack for the two businessmen on the table, he was shocked to find that Jonah was gone. So was Doggy. "J-Jonah?" he called out, all but throwing the food down and darting towards the playroom. As he ran, he heard a tiny voice coming from the hallway. "Uncle Jack?" it asked over and over. Roger ran towards the source. Eventually Doggy met him halfway and practically led him to where Jonah was—he could tell his older master was panicked.

Jonah was on the telephone.

How he'd even reached the receiver or known how to dial when he wasn't even familiar with numbers yet, Roger would never know. But there he was, holding it to his ear and asking repeatedly for 'Uncle Jack'. Roger seized the phone away from him. "What are you doing?" he hissed. He put the receiver to his ear. "Hello?" he asked into the device.

"Sir, is there an emergency?" the voice responded. Oh God. Jonah had dialed 9-1-1.

"N-No…no there's no emergency. I'm sorry—my son must've grabbed the phone and called….it was an accident, I promise."

"Sir, you know you could be penalized if a child is using a telephone unsupervised and calls the police, right?"

"I'm very sorry, sir. It won't happen again."

"Very well. Just don't let it happen again, and keep an eye on him."

"Yes, sir. I'm sorry, sir. Have a good day."

After Roger hung up, he whirled around to look at Jonah. The boy had big eyes full of surprise and confusion. "What did you do?" Roger asked. The boy nodded. "No, Jonah. What did you do? Tell me with your words what you were thinking when you picked up the telephone!"

"Dada make phone calls."

"Yes, but Dada is doing his job. Little boys don't need to do that kind of job."

"Jo-Jo was work just like Dada."

"I know, but you can't just dial numbers on the phone! You need an adult with you!"

"Jo-Jo want to call Uncle Jack."

"Baby, Jack's at work too. We can't call him right now. Can you promise me you'll never use the phone without Dada's help again?"

"Jo-Jo promise."

"Do you mean it?"

"Yes,"

"Good boy. No more telephone."

"Ok,"

"Oh, Jonah? While we're talking about rules and no-nos, why did you take the tea pan out of the kitchen and put it with your toys?"

"Ok,"

"Can you not do that again? It took Dada a very long time to find it."

"Ok,

"Now let's go back to work, alright? No more stealing, no more telephone."

"Yes,"

Well, it almost worked. Jonah did steal the tea pan out of the kitchen two more times after that, and he even pinched a measuring spoon. Roger would find little hidden things like this all around the house—he sat down and something poked him from under the sofa cushion; a spoon. He tucked Jonah into his cradle at night and slipped on something left on the floor; a rolling pin. He looked everywhere for the lid to the jar of olives after he'd used them to cook dinner; found it in the laundry basket. He didn't know why Jonah was into moving objects around, but he knew it needed to stop before Jonah stuck a knife under the toilet seat or something. The boy didn't mean to hide this stuff in weird places. And he certainly never meant to hurt Roger. But things just never really clicked in his brain, and he couldn't be blamed for that. So Dr. Rodolphus came up with a tally chart idea: every time Roger found a stolen object hid around the house, he put a tallymark on the big chart he'd created. And if Jonah got to ten tallies, he lost a toy for a week.

It took one set of ten tallies to make Jonah realize his father wasn't kidding.

After losing his stuffed giraffe for a week, Jonah didn't pinch any more objects. And he took very good care of that giraffe once he got it back. But he never tried to make excuses or even blame Doggy for moving the things around—which was how Roger knew it wasn't the dog, it was the boy. If he was being honest, he would've cried and begged and pleaded. But Jonah simply explained that he took the rolling pin to 'vacuum the carpet' and other nonsense like that. Sometimes Doggy would even present a missing object to Roger, just laying it at his feet and looking up at him with concern in his eyes, if that was even possible. Funny how even the dog knew stealing was wrong. But even though Jonah had his weird habits, he always sat down across from Roger with his suitcase on the table whenever he saw his father working from home. It was like clockwork. Every single time. Roger never minded; it only made him happier. Jonah would always be unique, but at least he was learning and seeing how things worked.