A/N: So the dish is a Southern (and regional) one popular in Texas and Oklahoma. Pete doesn't recognize the ingredients for it because he's never actually watched someone make it, if someone did indeed make it while he was around. Nick, on the other hand, is probably wondering why his father was suddenly "oh, we should do this!" in the middle of meeting people, but he totally knows what it is. But I'm getting really off track and rambling, so back to story...
(2) My apologies to any military clerks at Fort Worth Naval Air Station, fictional or not, who seem to be getting a bad rap in this story any time they're mentioned.

Week 10 - UDC 1

46. bell

Outside in the bright afternoon sunshine, Nick stopped walking and waited for both his father and Noah to turn and look at him. "Did Ma just put us in time out?"

"Yes, and I was about to suggest the same thing," Walt answered as he looked at his son, then glanced at Noah, who was looking back at the store with a frown. "Mr. Finney?"

"I'm fine," Noah muttered, then shook his head. "It's one thing to arrange a meeting, entirely another to have it happen and forget myself in the middle of it. I... why are you looking at me like that, Mr. Bradshaw?"

Walt nodded back toward the store. "You're about as fine as that kid in there, I think. He got mad on Friday night when he realized that Alan was actually doing a home study with us on the spot. Something about having witnessed one before, when Harry didn't think he was paying attention?"

Noah paused, absorbing that information, and glanced back toward the doors again. "That was the next day, after... you know. After. We didn't want to make the trauma worse, so we consented to a Foster Care interview with him right there. Of course he was paying attention, even if he wasn't reacting." He glanced at Nick. "Even at nine, he was the homework king."

"Still is," Nick said with a grin. "Even at lunch time. You have a box for him?"

"We do. Come on."

47. book

"I can't really imagine him silent for a month solid," Nick mused as Noah unlocked the trunk of his and Chelsea's car. "Hesitant to talk, sure, but..."

Noah opened the trunk and stood there a moment, lost in thought. "Until Nora died, I wouldn't have been able to imagine it, either." He blinked and looked down at the box, Aviator jacket folded on top, only to blink again, startled when Walt tapped him on the shoulder. "What?"

Walt pulled his keys out and handed them to Nick, then lifted the box when Noah moved, and handed that to Nick, too. "Go put it in the trunk?" Nick studied them, then nodded and left them alone. "I think my son forgot himself, too. In fact, I think we all did."

"I'm not opposed to talking about those days," Noah said as he closed the trunk and then leaned against the car, arms folded across his chest. "It's just... hard. One minute we were concerned because no lights had come on over there across the street when we knew they were home, and basically the next, I was holding a child who was in shock and repeating the Pi sequence, and Chelsea was calling the police." He chuckled suddenly. "I don't know why I'm finding it funny right now, but one of the things we found when we were cleaning out the house? Recently checked out library books, some even over due."

Walt nodded slowly. "Which would be funny, because?"

"Because at first I'd thought that Nora had checked them out for herself, and then the librarian told me that it had been Pete and he was a regular and had been for at least a year."

48. candle

Walt didn't really find that detail odd, given that the boy in question had apparently been put through learning assessments and then skipped several grades to end up a high school freshmen at twelve. "Right. Because he had to pick up the Pi sequence from somewhere, if he was repeating it like that."

"That, and the fact that he'd have been at Grumman around engineers while they were working on the Lunar Module," Noah added with a shrug. "Clerk at the base wouldn't tell me much when I tried asking for more than Pete's dependent file, but Duke Mitchell? Test pilot before returning to active duty, but it wasn't the Apollo program that they were in Bethpage for. Might have been testing planes that the engineers were working on, but that kind of thing the Navy gets touchy about if you ask too many questions. Also, there's the whole cloud of him being MIA under whatever circumstances it actually happened in, which they're even more touchy about." They stood there in silence for a few minutes before Noah looked at Walt to find him frowning thoughtfully. "Something about all of that bothers you, doesn't it?"

Walt nodded. "My father was Navy, Mr. Finney. Submariner. That the Navy would do something to shame a child of someone gone MIA, no matter the circumstances..."

49. bowl

Sitting on the curb near the entrance to the grocery store, Nick watched from a distance as his father and Mr. Finney continued to talk, the latter's tension seeming to fade from his posture the longer they did. What was it, he wondered, about all of this, aside from the obvious, that had made the man suddenly lock up the way he had?

His thought process was derailed when someone sat down beside him and melted to his side, and Nick froze for a moment before looking down and realizing who it was. "Oh, it's you. You okay?"

"Tired," Pete told him without opening his eyes and Nick put his arm around him.

"Physical or emotional?" At the moment, it could be both, but it made more sense if it was emotional, given how much see-sawing he'd seemed to do inside the store.

It took him a moment, then he looked up. "Emotional? We got to the check stand and I just couldn't anymore."

Nick nodded slowly. "And that's okay. It's okay not to be okay about things, Pete."

"He okay, son?"

They both blinked, startled, and then Pete was laughing against his chest, and Nick looked up to find a man and... "Oh. Bart, is this your father?" Bart nodded, and Mr. Tomkins glanced at him in question. "Mr. Tomkins, he's fine. It's just been an emotional weekend."

Mr. Tomkins continued to frown, and then Bart tugged at his shirt sleeve. "What?"

"Can I stay out here for a few minutes, Dad? I actually did want to talk to Pete."

Mr. Tomkins stared at him, then leaned down to their level and waited until Pete had calmed down again. "Is that okay with you, that Bart stays out here with you two?" Pete nodded, and then pointed past them to where Nick's father and Mr. Finney were still talking. "Oh, good. Supervised. Bart? Behave. I'll go get the things that Sheryl wanted. Shouldn't take long."

50. blade

As Bart joined them on the curb, Nick studied him with a frown. Pete hadn't looked at him again, but... "So."

Bart shook his head and waited for Pete, and when he still didn't react, Bart sighed. "That tired. What is your name, anyway? You were there, for some reason, when Mom finally got around to giving that," he motioned to the adornment on Pete's wrist. "...to him, but... aren't you a new transfer or something? And I know for a fact that he's in at least three Honors classes and not with the rest of us lowly Freshmen." Pete snorted in laughter at that. "You really are a smarty pants, Pete. We all call you that because it's true."

"Nick, and yes. Recently transferred from Tennessee." Nick paused, checking on Pete, to find that while he was laughing, it was probably coming from a place of utter exhaustion with everything right now. "Hey."

"I'm fine-"

"Pete," Nick interrupted. "I know you're not, so do not try to tell me you're fine right now. This was a lot."

Pete nodded tiredly. "Blonde lady is staring at us."

Nick glanced up, noted the puzzled-seeming woman and her kids, nodded to her, and then turned his attention back to Pete, then looked at Bart to find he was frowning at her. And then he realized she wasn't staring at THEM, but Pete himself, as if she was trying to figure something out.

"Lady, he really doesn't like being stared at," Bart told her. "And even I can see he's tired, so-" He shut up when she glared at him and then motioned for her kids to stay where they were.

She joined them and crouched down in front of Pete. "Now I remember who you are, kiddo. Bookworm boy, practically wouldn't leave your grandfather's side unless you had to go to school. How's your mother? She doing okay? I remember that she was so, so sick right after he passed, and-" She paused, frowning at Pete's reaction to burrow his head further into Nick's side. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you further." She caught that Nick was frowning at her, and then looked at Bart. "Which one of you is he with?"

"Me, Ma'am," Nick answered. "You are?"

"She's a nurse," Pete mumbled and Nick winced internally at how worn he sounded now.

The doors opened and Nick glanced back to see his mother and Miss Lowell exit with Nicky and Maggie and he'd never been so happy to see her in his life. "Ma, I think this lady needs to talk to you."

The woman stood up, looked down a them again, and moved to talk with his mother quietly. Whatever it was she said made Miss Lowell stand up straighter and join in the conversation.