Thanks to everyone who read and to frxstguardian for reviewing.

"Jamie's back on duty on Saturday, right?" Val asked, sticking her head in Alex's office.

"Jamie will be back on Saturday," Alex agreed, his tone not encouraging any more questions. It hadn't just been Hank earlier in the week, Tyler had asked when they'd come on shift this afternoon what had happened to get Jamie suspended. Alex appreciated the loyalty, but none of the teenagers were very good with the concept of 'confidential' as it related to their personal interactions. If Jamie hadn't told them what had happened himself, Alex certainly wasn't going to.

She took the hint and said goodnight before moving along, buttoning up her coat as she went. From the wind that whistled past as she stepped outside, it was going to be another ugly night, which reminded him that he needed to dig around and see if the coat he'd ordered a few years back that had ended up being a size too big was still in a closet somewhere. He was pretty sure that it was since he knew that he hadn't bothered to return it and didn't remember ever donating it anywhere either, and it should be a little more useful for Jamie than the leather jacket that seemed to be the only one he owned.

He looked down at the book in front of him and shook his head, putting a scrap of paper in to mark his place before closing it and sticking it in his laptop bag. He was only halfway through, but it was a sobering read, and he had a feeling that the other two books he'd picked up on the subject weren't going to be much better.

He hadn't really thought about how foster care worked before. Kids who were without their own families for whatever reason got placed with other families and life continued on. Recent events had made it a bit more relevant to him, though, and... He shook his head. Jamie's description had been concerning enough even if Jamie was looking at it from the inside and the perspective of a teenager so hardly unbiased. After all, he'd obviously been telling the truth about having nowhere to go. Then the original questions from Jamie's social worker had been worrying as well even if Alex didn't know her or have any background for why she'd been asking the things that she had. But he'd had a second conversation with her this morning, an even more unnerving one giving some of the things she'd implied, and this time he'd gone down to the library and actually looked into it.

He pushed himself to his feet and shouldered his bag. Calling the book sobering was being polite. Neglect was a given where Jamie was concerned although he wouldn't have thought to put that name on it before. Leaving aside the lack of a place to stay, Jamie had all but admitted to going hungry on occasion and not just when he was between homes. His lack of decent outerwear for the winter weather was another symptom of the same thing. Alex very much hoped that none of the chapters on the various types of abuses applied to Jamie, but the statistics there were downright frightening. Given Jamie's age when he'd entered the system and the number of homes he'd been through, it seemed almost impossible that he'd managed to avoid everything. Some of the comments by Jamie's social worker had hinted in that direction as well, and damned if Alex had the first idea what he was supposed to do about it. Obviously he'd never hit Jamie, but he'd never have hit Jamie anyway.

The wind almost took his breath away when he stepped outside, a temporary distraction, and he hurried to his car. No new snow yet, but the way the clouds were rolling in it wouldn't be long in coming.

The light was on in Jamie's room when Alex pulled into the driveway, and he put his coat away and dug out the other one from the front closet before going to tap on the closed bedroom door. "Jamie? Can I come in?"

"I…sure," Jamie said, hesitation clear in his voice.

Alex frowned. He hadn't seen any dirty dishes or anything like that sitting out in the kitchen when he'd passed by—it had only taken one quick conversation earlier in the week to clarify expectations there—and he didn't have much of anything that could have gotten broken so he wasn't sure what might be wrong. "It's getting bad out there again," he said as he opened the door, "and I thought—what happened to you?!"

Jamie shook his head and refused to meet Alex's eyes, and Alex took the two steps to the bed and reached out a hand. And froze when Jamie flinched back. He didn't want to think that it meant anything, but given what he'd just been reading he didn't know. "Jamie?" he asked quietly.

"It's not…." Jamie shook his head again, sliding a little further down the headboard away from Alex. "Sorry. It's nothing."

"It's a pretty nasty bruise from what I can see," Alex corrected, lowering his arm. Check the injury first; he could worry about Jamie's reaction later. "What happened?"

Jamie shrugged.

"Scoot back over here and let me take a look at you, please."

Jamie didn't look happy, but he didn't object as Alex put the coat down on the bedside table and beckoned him back over. Not that Alex would have put up with objections. Jamie hadn't had a black eye when he'd left for school this morning.

"What happened?"

"I don't know," Jamie said as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed, turning so he was facing Alex directly. Or he would have been if he'd lifted his head, anyway.

"You don't know how you got hit in the face?" Alex asked skeptically, making no attempt to touch him. "If you took that hard a knock, we need to go to the hospital."

"I got in a fight, okay?"

"No, but we'll talk about that in a few minutes. May I take a look at that eye?"

"Whatever."

As reluctant as he seemed, he didn't flinch away this time when Alex reached out, and Alex tilted his chin up gently to get a better look at the bruising. It was swollen, no surprise there, but the skin wasn't broken and there was nothing that wouldn't heal in a week or two. "You iced it?"

"Yeah. Not that I much needed to after being outside in this weather."

That was true enough, Alex supposed. He shifted to the side a little and took a seat on the edge of the bed beside Jamie. "You want to tell me exactly what 'got in a fight' means?"

"Gee, I don't know, what do you think it means?" Jamie muttered.

"I suggest you try that again," Alex said. He wouldn't tolerate that tone, and Jamie knew it.

Jamie's eyes flicked sideways to meet his for an moment and then he flushed and looked away again. "I got punched."

"By who? When?"

"After school. Kenny."

"I thought he was your friend." Not that Alex had seen much evidence of that thus far, and he remembered again what Hank had said.

"He is. I don't know what happened. I mean, he was in a bad mood about something after school, he wouldn't say what, but then Brianne started picking at him about it, and all of a sudden he turned around and shoved her. And not like he was playing, either. She hit the ground pretty hard, and Caitie started yelling at him, and I grabbed him before he could hit her too but then the next thing I knew…." He shook his head and gestured at his face.

"Did you hit him back?"

"Probably would have, but he took off while I was still trying to figure out what happened."

The unmarked state of Jamie's knuckles backed up that assertion, although Alex appreciated the honesty. "Just as well. I assume that none of your teachers were around?"

"Nah, school was long out by then. Brianne and Caitie had had detention so Kenny and I had been hanging out and waiting for them."

Which was probably just as well also. Given that Jamie tended to be in and out of detention himself he wasn't sure that Jamie's teachers would have accepted the explanation.

"Am I in trouble?" Jamie asked quietly.

"Not for getting hit. And you wouldn't have been for defending yourself, either, for the record." He paused. "You will watch your mouth, though, is that understood? You know better than that."

Jamie looked over and then away again. "Sorry."

Alex nodded in acceptance of the apology. He couldn't think of any chores he could give Jamie by way of reprimand off the top of his head anyway. "Okay. Just to make sure, when he hit you it didn't knock you into anything, right?"

He shook his head. "It just rocked me back some."

Alex nodded. Not good news, but better than Jamie getting his head slammed into something. "Do you feel okay? Any nausea or blurry vision?"

"Nah, no concussion. I've had them before, I know what they feel like."

Not all concussions were obvious and Jamie should know that, but given what he'd said about the hit Alex let it go. No doubt it had rattled him, but it didn't look like it had done any serious damage. "You let me know if that changes, all right? Did you have dinner?"

"I wasn't really hungry."

That wasn't normal, and Alex tilted his head. "Are you sure you don't feel sick?"

Jamie shrugged. "Not that kind of not hungry."

"Why don't you come have a sandwich, at least? And I want you to try that coat on." He indicated the one he'd put on the bedside table. "It's too big for me, but I think the sleeves might be long enough for you."

"My jacket's fine," Jamie said, frowning.

"For normal weather I'm sure it is, but for what we've got coming down now?" He gestured towards the windowsill where snow was starting to build up again. "At least give it a try. If it doesn't work it doesn't work." Alex would find him another heavy coat if that was the case.

Jamie hesitated for a minute and then nodded, and Alex pushed himself up off the bed.

"Good. Do you have any homework?"

Jamie looked vaguely horrified. "It's almost Friday."

"I don't think that prevents teachers from assigning homework."