A/N: I was going to do a meet-cute. Meet-cute got postponed for Pete needing to sleep on a couch at Fort Worth Social Services. I'm pretending that it's actually in Fort Worth, but in reality it's not. In the 70's, it could have been?
Week 5 - UDC 10 - The Break Room Couch at Fort Worth Social Services
21. Astray
It was late in the day on a Friday when she was passing by the break room and something caught her eye. Pausing, she looked in, only to frown at the small, sleeping teenager in a JROTC uniform on the couch. Sheila stared for a minute, then snagged another case worker as they were passing by. "Any of your kids in the JROTC?"
Frank frowned at her as he stepped to the door and looked in. "Oh. I'll go get Al."
She stared after him, a frown forming. One of Alan Jenkins's problem kids, which explained the sleeping on the couch in their break room.
22. Temerity
A gentle shake to his shoulder, and Pete was groggily awake, blinking up at Alan. "Hi."
Alan sighed. "That bad?"
"That bad, what?" He followed Alan's hand to one of the bruises on his arm, then lightly brushed the healing black eye. "Oh."
"Yes. Oh. How did those happen?"
Pete sighed. "There was more than one, and I wasn't fast enough."
Alan stared at him, then nodded. "When was this?"
"Tuesday."
"And what did Mr. and Mrs. Tatham say?"
"They didn't ask."
"No?"
Pete shook his head. "Mrs. Tatham simply offered me a steak for my eye."
23. Nuance
Another Friday, and Sheila frowned at one of her co-workers standing at the break room door as she passed it. "Tell me there's not a teenager in there asleep on the couch."
Dorinda nodded. "Not alone this time."
Sheila blinked in surprise and looked in, to find two teenagers on the couch this time, Pete Mitchell's head on the other's lap. "Oh. Is he... singing?" The blonde, lanky teenager shushed them, and Sheila wanted to laugh, but didn't dare because he looked absolutely serious. "Right. I'll get Al." That song had sounded awfully familiar.
24. Duress
It was an odd thing, to be sitting on the couch in the break room at a Social Services office, with a sleeping Pete Mitchell curled up to him, only to realize that the odd thing was actually a woman watching them with an amused smile. He wanted to ask her what was so amusing, and why Pete was singing in his sleep after he'd convinced him to take a nap when he'd started yawning, but was afraid extra noise would wake him. Among other questions he had... if Pete was this tired in the afternoon on a Friday, was he getting proper sleep?
"Thank you, Sheila," a man's amused voice said, and Nick looked up again to find that the woman had been joined by a man, maybe the same age as his father or older, standing there studying them. "So that answers the question I had about Harry's notes involving singing Sitting on the Dock of the Bay. I wondered."
25. Perception
Nick frowned at that. Who was this guy, that he didn't find this out of the ordinary? "Sir?"
The man sobered and entered the break room and pulled a chair over, closer to the couch, and then sat down. "Pete doesn't normally bring anyone with him to his standing Friday appointment. Your name, kid?"
"Nick." Standing appointment?
The man held out a hand, which Nick shook, eyeing him with suspicion. "Alan Jenkins. I'm his Social Services Case Worker. Known him long?"
"Two weeks, sir."
Jenkins nodded, pausing when the singing stopped. "Oh, good. I might still risk a panic state, but less so now."
"Why?"
Jenkins paused. "Would you believe that every time Harry woke him up while he was singing like that, Pete would ask where his mother was and then have a panic attack?"