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Wind whistling overhead woke Alex, and it took him a moment to focus. And then to remember why he was in bed when his clock indicated that it was only about five in the afternoon. Back, head, storm. And a holiday. And Jamie. Right.
He braced himself and sat up slowly, glad that while his back objected, it was with less ferocity than it had been earlier today, and there was only the lingering remains of a headache. Which didn't change the fact that what sounded like a nasty storm was still raging outside, and there was a teenager that he had no idea what to do with in his living room.
For a moment when he entered the living room he thought that Jamie had taken off, which was not an improvement considering said storm, but when he looked over the back of the couch he found Jamie curled on his side fast asleep. He should have seen that coming given that Jamie had fallen asleep in an open bus stop earlier. At least Jamie had gone ahead and changed into the sweat suit that Alex had tossed him. Even if it didn't fit quite right given their differing builds it was dry.
The television was on albeit muted, some brightly-colored animated movie playing, and Alex retrieved the remote from the low table in front of Jamie and switched over to the weather channel. Rain had finally given way to snow that was getting heavier by the hour, no surprise there, and Alex wasn't surprised by the city-wide recommendation that no one without pressing need go out on the streets. Not everyone would listen, there were always a few idiots convinced that they knew better than anyone else, but the fewer people on the roads the fewer people likely to lose control and hit something and require his teams to go out.
Per the report the storm was supposed lighten again by tomorrow morning but not pass entirely for twenty-four to forty-eight hours after that, and he looked at Jamie again and then pushed himself to his feet and went to check his fridge. He believed in staying indoors when that was requested, but while he had plenty of food on hand if he was just feeding himself, he wasn't sure how well equipped he was to deal with a teenager. Jamie was still young enough to be eating half his weight in food a day.
He looked pretty well supplied, though, in fact there were a few things that would need to be eaten soon or he'd have to toss them. He should really stop picking up takeout on the way home.
A quick call to the station was enough to confirm that all of their afternoon callouts had all involved accidents on rapidly-worsening roads, although fortunately nothing more severe than bruises and lacerations at this point, and after a reminder that they'd probably start seeing some exposure cases soon he hung up and checked the time. Still a little earlier than he usually ate, but unlike Jamie—at least he hoped unlike Jamie, since he'd pointed the kid at the sandwich supplies before heading for his bedroom—he'd skipped lunch.
He sorted out the vegetables that would need to be consumed soonest. Stir fry was a good use for the mismatched lot and reasonably quick as well, and he put some rice on before starting to chop.
The vegetables had just started to sizzle in the pan when a quiet voice from behind him drew his attention. "Hey."
"Hey," Alex returned, turning to look at him. "How are you feeling?" Jamie was pale, but that was nothing new, and even if he was still rubbing sleep from his eyes he didn't look quiet as exhausted as he had earlier.
"Okay," Jamie said quietly. "You?"
"Much better." He indicated the pan on the stove. "Are you hungry?"
Jamie shrugged.
"Words, please. Do you like stir fry?"
"I like most everything."
Alex nodded. "Then pour us something to drink—there's milk and orange juice in the fridge or water if you prefer; water for me, please—and set the table. Glasses are up there," he couldn't remember if he'd told Jamie that before and he nodded to the cabinet to the left of the sink, "and silverware is in the drawer to the right of the fridge."
Jamie stared at Alex for a moment before nodding and turning to do as he said.
Alex wasn't used to Jamie being so quiet, but this was a weird situation for both of them, and he decided to focus on finishing the food. Talking could come later. When he figured out what the hell to say. Although, if Jamie didn't have parents, foster or otherwise, presumably Alex should talk to his social worker if only to let whoever that was know where Jamie was staying. "Do you have your social worker's phone number?" he asked after Jamie finished filling two glasses with water.
"Yeah. There's no point in calling her, though. She'll find me a new place as soon as she can." He hesitated. "I mean, thanks for bringing me back here, but I don't need to stay here and bother you. I can go to Kenny's or wherever."
Kenny's—wherever that meant—was where he'd been avoiding going earlier, Alex recalled, and based on the 'or wherever' comment he wasn't really thrilled about the idea now either. "They're telling people to stay off the streets, and I have no intention of ignoring that given the ice sheet that has to be under the snow," he said. "And since the buses aren't running and you don't need to be walking anywhere in this weather, I'm afraid you will be staying here for at least another day or two. Don't you think she'll want to know where you are until then?"
Jamie shrugged. "She's known me for a long time. I always turn up in one piece eventually."
There was a great deal wrong with that statement, starting with the fact that it was a sixteen year old boy making it, and Alex debated how much to press. At least until hot oil spattered out of the pan and landed on his hand, distracting him momentarily. "Get a couple plates, please. That cabinet up there." His back was being a little more cooperative now, but he didn't plan to push it.
Jamie handed them down wordlessly.
"Thank you." He pushed the wok off the hot burner, handed one plate back to Jamie and dished himself a decent helping of the stir fry and rice. Jamie hesitated but did the same thing when Alex gestured for him to do so.
He took the seat as far from Alex as possible at the table, no surprise there, and didn't show any inclination to talk any more, but unfortunately for him Alex still had questions that needed answering.
"How long have you been in foster care?" Alex asked after Jamie had settled a little and taken a few bites. "What happened to your parents?" Jamie had given him what sounded like a list, but it hadn't been a pleasant list from what little he recalled. Something about not knowing and prison among others.
"Since I was eleven. Mom took off a long time before that, like around the time I started school, and Dad ended up in prison, so…." He shrugged. "Not a lot of other options."
"I thought you had a grandmother." The camera she'd given Jamie had contributed to the whole wallet fiasco, as he recalled, even if he—Alex—damn well should have known better by then.
"I do, but she's in an assisted living place down in Crossville. Some kind of dementia that no one will give me a straight answer about except that they don't think it's Alzheimer's."
"They might not know," Alex offered. "Dementia isn't the easiest thing to quantify."
"Maybe that's it. Anyway, sometimes she's okay, like she remembered my birthday this year, but other times she thinks I'm my brother or the neighbor or no one. They moved her there before everything happened, after she set a couple fires in her kitchen by forgetting about things, so going to live with her was never an option."
"What about this brother? Is he older or younger?"
"Older. He's in college, or he was last I heard, anyway. Dropping out's not really his style so it's probably still true, but I think he'll graduate soon."
"You can't stay with him? Although I guess that is kind of young." Not as bad as Jamie wandering the streets himself, maybe, but someone in what was probably his early twenties trying to raise a teenager would be a pretty rough situation. Probably for both of them.
Jamie scoffed. "They asked. Hell, they asked the day he turned eighteen, and they keep asking although I'm not supposed to know that. He keeps saying 'no.'" Another shrug. "We're not close."
Alex opened his mouth and then shut it again. That was…he didn't even know what that was. He had an older brother and a younger sister, and even if he wouldn't say that the three of them were especially close, that didn't mean that they didn't look out for each other. He'd never have left Cathy with no one when she was a teenager, and Pete wouldn't have done that to either of them. "So what happened with your foster parents to leave you on your own this weekend?" he asked rather than pressing further on the subject of family.
He didn't intend it to be anything more than a simple question, but Jamie hunched inwards and went from eating to pushing his food around the plate. "You don't like me, and you only see me a couple times a week. You seriously think anyone is going to keep me around for more than a couple months if they have to see me every day? I doubt they'd even take me for that long if it wasn't the fastest way to rotate to a kid they might actually want." One shoulder twitched. "This set got a better option last weekend so that was it."
"What?"
"What what?"
"What do mean, better option?"
"Oh. See, foster parents get kids faster if they say they'll take anyone, but the only kids anyone actually wants are the cute little ones. Mostly the really little ones, the babies that aren't screwed up yet. Thing is, there aren't all that many babies floating around, so they get stuck with one of the rest of us, they let us hang around for a couple months until they can come up with some reason that it doesn't work, we rotate out, and the next kid rotates in. Rinse, repeat, maybe they eventually get the kid they want. The little girl placed with the Jamisons last week is pretty young, and they were decent as far as foster parents go, so maybe this is their good one."
"Jamie, stop." Alex shook his head, trying to figure out where to even start with that. "First of all, I like you just fine."
"Yeah, right."
"Hey. I'm not in the habit of saying things that I don't mean, you should know that by now." He frowned. "Look at me please. You might drive me a little crazy sometimes—I suspect I do the same to you—but that doesn't mean that I don't like you. Okay?"
Dark eyes met his for a moment and then Jamie went back to poking at the food in front of him.
It wasn't the response he'd have preferred, but under the circumstances he doubted that pushing would get him any more results. And given everything else he'd just heard...well, the important thing was still what was going on with Jamie right now so he focused on that. "So right now you're waiting for a new foster family, and your social worker is okay with you just wandering around between placements? Sleeping at your friends' houses or wherever?"
"Not really, but when the group homes are full it's either that or juvie. And they're always full if you're over ten. Even she'll admit that crashing on someone's floor is a hell of a lot better than being locked up."
Alex sighed. "After you finish dinner, you get me her number. At the very least she should know that you're not staying with your friend at the moment."
