Thanks to everyone who read and to Scififan33 and 1983Sarah for reviewing.

The doorbell startled Barry just as he was about to break, and he frowned and headed upstairs. Given their general lack of visitors it was probably his parole officer, it had to be about time for one of those unannounced home visits that he was supposed to be receiving, and he didn't figure that it would be a good idea to keep the man waiting.

He realized that his pool cue was still in his hand just as he started to open the front door, and his attempt to set it aside quickly and unobtrusively ended up sending it clattering to the floor, leaving him wincing as he finally met his visitor's eyes.

Detective Burkhardt—Nick—blinked. "Hey. Are you okay?"

"I—yeah. Sorry. Hello." Barry hesitated and then decided that it was probably better not to mention that the man looked like he'd lost a fight with a pile driver at some point in the recent past unless he brought it up. "May I help you?"

Dinner the week before last somehow hadn't been a complete disaster, and Dad had made some noises about asking Nick back again, but so far nothing had come of it. Barry wasn't sure if it ever would, although he wasn't actually sure that it wouldn't, either, because while he was painfully well aware that he didn't have any friends except for Jason and TB, he hadn't realized until Nick had asked about Wesen that Dad didn't really either. Except for dinners with his business associates and Mom's fundraising groups the only people they'd socialized with had been Mr. and Mrs. Colbert, and given that Dad hadn't even mentioned them since Barry had arrived home, Barry had a feeling that they were at least as out of reach as the twins.

Of course, how a Grimm wasn't the absolute worst possible choice of people to hang out with he wasn't sure. Especially a Grimm who'd clearly been fighting.

"I just wanted to get this back to you," Nick said, holding out the book that Dad had allowed him to borrow after their dinner discussion had finally wrapped up. "Tell your father thank you and that I'm sorry that it took me so long to return it, would you? Things got...unexpectedly busy recently."

"Sure," Barry said, taking the book with a nod of agreement. It wasn't a particularly detailed text, more an overview of the intertwined histories of Old World Ursine Wesen—from the Jagerbar perspective, obviously, which was what had interested Nick—and while Mom would have had fits at the idea of allowing a Grimm to lay eyes on it, Dad had said that if they had a Grimm who was actively trying to avoid hurting anyone it only made sense to do what they could to assist. Barry could kind of see his point. "Did it help?" he asked, surprised to realized that his curiosity was genuine.

"Well, it definitely helped me rule out some things with one of our more recent cases," he said. "Although..." He hesitated. "I did have a couple questions. I was going to give your dad a call sometime and see if he had a few minutes, but maybe if you had some time I could ask you? It's fine if you'd rather not."

"Uh, yeah, I guess I don't mind," Barry said after a moment. It wasn't like he was doing anything else this afternoon. And he was supposed to help the police, even if he was damn sure that no parole officer had ever considered this situation. "Do you want to come in?"

"That'd be great. And sorry in advance, I'm sure that some of this was in the book and I just missed it, but my Old-ish English isn't the greatest, and that's nothing compared to my lack of German." He smiled. "You'd think when my aunt was helping me pick classes once upon a time she might have suggested a little more emphasis on languages."

Barry had no idea what he was supposed to say to that, but fortunately Nick didn't actually seem to expect a response as he followed Barry into the living room, wincing slightly as he sank down on one of the couches.

"Are you okay?" Barry asked cautiously.

"I'm fine, just a little stiff." He waved a hand vaguely at his face. "We've had a few visitors through Portland in the last week that I'd really have preferred had bypassed us entirely."

There wasn't much that Barry could say to that either so he set the book down on the coffee table and took a seat himself. "What do you want to know?"

As it turned out most of Nick's questions were extensions of things straight out of the book, details about how the different species had adjusted their customs and variations on customs to the Americas rather than anything personal that might make Barry uncomfortable, and Barry felt himself relaxing as they went on. Nick had said that he was glad that Barry was out, and he wasn't treating him as anything other than another person even though Dad wasn't here, which was nice. Kind of weird, but nice.

The questions only took fifteen or twenty minutes, and then Nick pushed himself to his feet again, offering a hand. "Thanks. I really appreciate it."

"No problem," Barry said.

He paused on his way to the doors, nodding at the fallen cue stick still lying on the wooden floor. "Is that what fell when you answered?"

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt your game."

"It's not...," Barry shook his head and tried not to flush. "It was fine. Really. I was only playing against myself anyway."

Nick hesitated and then glanced at his watch. "I don't need to get back to the station to meet Hank until one-thirty. Do you want some competition?"

"Really?" And maybe it came out a little more desperately than he might have preferred, but he was doing well to get three or four community service rotations a week which left him with a lot of downtime. And while he still thought hanging out with a Grimm was probably a horrible option, it wasn't like he had a lot of others.

"Barry?" Dad asked, stepping into the game room.

"Hey, Dad." Barry lifted his head from where he was sprawled on the floor in front of the screen. "Do you need something?" Dad had gone up to his room after dinner like usual—Barry thought that he was actually doing more work these days than he had before Barry had gone to prison, and that was saying something—and he wasn't sure why Dad would have come downstairs now.

"No, I...do you mind if I join you?"

Barry blinked and sat up. "No, of course not." He waved vaguely at the screen. "I was just going to watch a movie." He'd done a bunch of calculus review after dinner since the section test was supposed to be posted tomorrow afternoon and he'd managed to grab a community service rotation in the morning so he wouldn't have time to study then, but he was at the point where it felt like his brain was about to start leaking out his ears. It was time for some mindless entertainment.

"A movie sounds good." Dad took a seat at the end of couch, looking stiff and more than a little awkward.

Barry couldn't help but feel awkward as well as he went back to scrolling through the list of available movies, searching for something that might appeal to both of them. They didn't exactly have the same tastes. Or he didn't think that they did; he couldn't actually remember the last time they'd watched a movie as a family. "Is there something in particular you'd like to see?" he offered.

"Oh, no, whatever you'd like is fine."

Barry eventually picked one of the random superhero movies that had come out over the last couple years on the grounds that it should at least have enough action to hold their attention and then shifted around to put his back against the couch as the various warnings started to scroll across the screen. "Are you done with work?" he asked, looking back up over his shoulder.

"I just thought I'd take a break." Dad hesitated. "I didn't really think about you being alone here all day."

Barry flushed. Dad had assured him that he'd done the right thing by inviting Nick in and answering his questions and all of that, but he'd seemed surprised that Nick had stuck around to play a couple games of pool afterwards. And that Barry had enjoyed it. Not upset, but...guilty, maybe? It didn't make any sense, Dad did everything for him and Barry knew it, but he wasn't sure how to say that so he just shook his head. "I'm fine. Really. I just got a little bored and he happened to show up. Being here is a million times better than—than anywhere else."

Dad nodded, although he didn't look all that convinced, and Barry was just as glad when the movie finally started to play.

They were only about ten minutes in when the phone rang, and Barry frowned as he reached over and dug it out from under the calculus notes on the side table at the opposite end of the couch from Dad. Calls to the house number weren't really a thing these days, and that was on top of the fact that it was a weird time of night for anyone to be calling anyway, but...

He found the phone before it stopped ringing and put it to his ear. "Rabe house, Barry speaking."

"Hey, Barry, this is Nick."

"Hey," Barry returned, and then looked at Dad. "It's Nick." He put the phone back to his ear. "Did you forget something?"

"No, no, I wanted to talk to you, actually. I've got kind of an odd question for you."

"Um, okay. Dad's right here too, is it all right if I put you on speaker?" He didn't have a clue what a Grimm would consider an odd question, but he'd feel better in general if Dad wasn't left out.

"Yeah, of course."

"Thanks."

"Hello," Dad greeted, shifting down beside Barry as Barry suited actions to words and then put the receiver on the arm of the couch.

"Hey, how are you?"

"Fine, thank you. Yourself? Barry mentioned that you'd had a busy week."

"Yeah, but things are starting to get back to normal. But like I told Barry, I've got kind of an odd question. Or a couple of them, I guess. Barry, it sounded like you were a little bit bored, and maybe a little bit lonely without your friends around. Is that about right?"

Well, that was blunt, especially since Dad closed his eyes and looked abruptly sad again. Unfortunately Nick wasn't wrong. "A little, I guess," Barry said cautiously.

"May I ask why you're asking?" Dad said, opening his eyes and cutting in before Barry could say anything else.

"It occurred to me that I know another kid about Barry's age who could also use a friend. He's just a little bit younger—he won't turn nineteen until early next year—but he's very mature for his age." A pause. "He lost his father in an accident at the end of the summer, so I'm afraid there are a few points in common."

A dead parent was kind of a horrible thing to have in common in Barry's opinion, but Dad spoke again before he could say anything.

"Is there a reason that he doesn't have other friends?"

Nick sighed. "He got a scholarship to Von Hamelin when he started high school, but it's on basically the opposite side of the city from his place so he leaves early and gets home late and I don't think sees very many people from his own neighborhood very often. Definitely no one who he seems all that close to. And Von Hamelin might be an excellent school for music and academics, but it's not a real accepting place for a kid on a scholarship, and that's without throwing in the fact that he's Wesen while most of his classmates are not. Left to his own devices I think he'd probably turn himself into a hermit, and while Monroe and I both spend time with him when we can, my job doesn't always leave a lot of time. And occasionally we're both involved in things that no kid should be within ten miles of, as the last week and change has proven."

A hermit was a pretty good way to describe Barry right now, although in his case it wasn't by choice, and he couldn't help but be a little curious. "What is he?"

"He's a Reinigen."

Reinigen were part of Mom's general classification of 'vermin' as Barry recalled, and that was about all that he knew about them, but Dad's lip curled.

"Surely he has plenty of family that he could find friends among."

"It's not my story to tell, but definitely not." A pause. "Look, it was just an idea. If you're not interested it's fine."

"Do you think he'd even come here?" Barry asked before Nick could hang up. "I mean, I can't really leave, and somehow I don't think a Reinigen is going to willingly walk into a Jagerbar's house."

That actually got a laugh. "The only person that I know that he considers a friend is a Blutbad, so while I'm sure he'd have something to say about it—he's got a mouth and a temper, don't get me wrong—I suspect I could convince him to come along at least once."

"Suspect?" Dad asked.

"I haven't asked him. It was just an idea, and I'm certainly not going to invite someone over to your house without your permission."

Dad looked at Barry for a moment. "Do you mind if we get back to you?"

"Sure, no problem. Have a good evening."

Barry's goodbye overlapped with Dad's, and then Barry put the phone back on the charger. "Well, he was right about it being an odd question, I guess. What's the deal with Reinigen?"

"I had a few as pro bono clients at work back when we were building up the firm and still took the criminal defense cases through the public defender's office, and and to a man they lived up to the reputation of being dirty, lazy troublemakers. I have no idea what he's thinking."

"It's one kid, and he's not a defendant for anything," Barry said, feeling surprisingly defensive. Then again, he'd been a defendant not that long ago. "What would it hurt to meet him?"

Dad blinked. "You want to?"

Barry hesitated. He didn't really like going against his parents. His father. He might not tell him everything, but...