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"Jamie, up," Alex ordered. "School."
"'s cancelled," Jamie mumbled, barely audible from underneath a pile of blankets.
"Not today. Up." School had been cancelled yesterday, extending the long weekend slightly, but they'd had the plows running twenty-four hours straight, and the roads were looking much better this morning.
Jamie groaned but his head emerged from the blankets a moment later, one hand scrubbing at his eyes.
Alex hid a smile. Jamie was not a morning person by any stretch of the imagination. "Come on. Come have some breakfast."
Jamie came out of the bedroom in his own clothes rather than one of Alex's spare sweat suits a few minutes later, making a beeline for the coffee pot. Alex privately thought that he was a little young to be drinking coffee regularly, but when he'd asked Jamie had looked at him like he had three heads and had said something about his mother putting coffee in his cereal. And it wasn't like the kids didn't drink just as much coffee at the station as the other teams did.
After coffee Jamie's focus went to the tabletop, and Alex pushed a cereal bowl in his direction. Once Jamie was awake, he tended to be a lot more hesitant, and never mind that Alex had insisted that he eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day that he'd been here. "Have some breakfast," Alex repeated, "And I'll drop you off at school."
"You don't have to," Jamie said in surprise, finally looking at him. "If you can point me at a city bus stop, I can get there."
"About two hours late if you're lucky," Alex said. "At least the way the busses seem to run in this neighborhood. I need to be at the hospital by nine anyway." He also needed to spend some time at the station today since he hadn't gone last night. He would have if Jamie hadn't been suspended since Jamie would have needed a ride, but people had finally taken the hint to stay indoors so it had been quiet anyway.
Jamie's expression was more than a little suspicious, but eventually he nodded and muttered a thank you. Alex poured himself another cup of coffee—probably just as well that he hadn't commented on Jamie's—and debated what he was about to say. He'd never had much luck understanding children, not even when he'd been one, and Jamie was far more inclined to make trouble than the few other teenagers that he did deal with on a regular basis. But he still wasn't a bad kid, and as much as the whole foster care-turned-to-staying with random friend situation bothered Alex, some of the questions that Jamie's social worker had asked bothered him more. He'd have said that it was the nature of society today that had made her concerned about a teenage boy staying alone with a man, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized that her questions had been pretty pointedly about Jamie and if Jamie was okay with staying with him.
Jamie's behavior had been a little odd, too. It wasn't…doctors and first responders were mandated reporters, and he kept that training up to date along with everything else, and nothing about Jamie's behavior had approached that level. He hadn't been comfortable, but then, neither had Alex. But there had been a wariness there that Alex wasn't used to from him.
Then again the two of them rarely interacted one-on-one, and when they did it was generally some kind of adversarial situation, so maybe Jamie's reactions made sense. It wasn't like he'd avoided Alex or anything, he'd just been quiet. And very hesitant to ask questions or do anything that Alex hadn't suggested first.
"Jamie," he finally said.
Jamie's head jerked up from his cereal.
Alex held up his hands in the standard no-threat gesture. That had come out a more harshly than he'd intended. Mostly because he still wasn't sure what he was about to say, even if he couldn't see a lot of other options. "I don't know what your plans are as far as staying with one of your friends, but whatever they turn out to be, you let me know," he said, lowering his voice a little. "If you don't have my phone number, I'll give it to you. And if it doesn't work out, you can come back here until your social worker finds something more permanent. Okay?"
Jamie stared.
"Jamie?" he prompted.
"You're serious." A pause. "Why?"
It wasn't a question that a sixteen year old should have to ask, but Alex answered anyway. "Because you don't need to be wandering the streets at all hours of the night. Or day, for that matter." It was one thing to know, intellectually, that there were homeless children out there; it was another to actually know the child in question.
Jamie stared for a moment longer and then shrugged and looked away. "I'll be okay."
Alex didn't argue the assertion, although he did repeat the offer and made sure that Jamie took one of his cards before they got in the car.
His hospital shift kept him busy until mid-afternoon and then he headed down to the station. The long weekend had given him enough time to get caught up on paperwork—temporarily at least, more was bound to appear by the end of the week—and he submitted what he needed to and was about to pack up and head out when he saw Hank heading down the hallway. "Hello," he called from the office. "I didn't expect to see you here today."
"Forgot my math book last night," Hank said, taking a few steps back to look through the doorway. "Just stopped by to grab it."
"Ah. It looked like things went all right last night?"
"Yeah. Two minor accidents, but nothing we couldn't handle. Not too many people were on the roads besides the plow crews."
Alex nodded. That matched up with the reports he'd seen. "Thanks. Have a good evening."
"You too."
"Hey," Alex said as Hank turned to go. "Quick question if you've got a minute. Do you happen to know a kid named Kenny? I think he's a friend of Jamie's."
"Yeah, I know him," Hank said with a grimace. "Or at least I know who he is. They hang out together. He's bad news."
"What do you mean?"
Hank shrugged. "Jamie'll smart back or do little stuff he knows he shouldn't, but he's not…I didn't realize it until he started working here, but he's a pretty nice guy. I mean, he'll go out of his way to help most anyone, even when he probably shouldn't. Kenny, on the other hand, he's just nasty." He shook his head. "I haven't seen it personally, but he's got a reputation for picking fights and fighting dirty, and some of that I heard from people I trust. And I know that he comes to school high or drunk more than occasionally and that he's been caught smoking at school a few times. I've never seen Jamie doing any of that and I'm sure he'd never hurt anyone."
"Why are they friends, then?" Alex asked.
Hank shrugged. "Got me. Is Jamie suspended for the week because of Kenny?"
"That's private," Alex reminded him. "You can ask him if you want to."
Hank hesitated for a moment and then nodded. "Sure. See you Thursday."
"See you," Alex echoed as Hank continued down the hall, reaching for the bag by his feet. It didn't take him long to pack up, and he couldn't help a quick check of his phone as he did so. No messages so nothing from Jamie. And Hank's information was…not good news. Alex had caught Jamie smoking once, although never after that—admittedly, he'd told Jamie off pretty harshly for it so maybe that wasn't a surprise—and he'd certainly never seen any signs of drugs or alcohol. He'd never tolerate either around the station. Going to a house with that kind of thing going on, though, presumably including a parent or parents who either allowed it or didn't pay enough attention to end it…it might be a better situation than juvenile detention, and it was certainly an improvement over sleeping out in the snow, but not by as much as Alex might like. Especially if this kid really did have a habit of being violent because everything he'd seen from Jamie matched what Hank said. And what had Jamie said? He and this Kenny were 'usually' friends?
The traffic now seemed to be making up for quiet over the weekend and it took him longer to get home than it should have, but he was glad that the light hadn't faded completely when he saw the figure sitting on the floor of the porch as close to the house as he could get. And then realized that he was an idiot and should have given Jamie a key if he was going to offer to let the kid stay here because freezing on Alex's porch wasn't any better than at than a bus stop.
