Thanks to everyone who read and to MelsieR for reviewing.

Alex sighed and gave up on trying to sleep in any more, stitting up and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. At which point he couldn't help a wince as his back protested. Being able to lie flat for a few hours had mitigated the damage somewhat, but the couch had done him no favors last night.

Between the conference overbooking that had forced him into a hotel right next to the highway and a presentation that had been even more irritating to give than he'd expected, he'd been happy to cut things short and leave early. He hadn't expected to get home and find Jamie gone, though. Or, more to the point, Jamie gone and no note or anything else to be found.

He was a reasonably smart man and between the missing Jamie and the missing motorcycle it hadn't taken a lot to deduce that Jamie must have gone off to visit one friend or another, but as curfew and then midnight and then a few more hours had passed without even a message on the answering machine...even if he'd suspected that Jamie had just decided to spend the night somewhere else, that was worlds away from knowing, and he still had no contact information for any of Jamie's friends.

He ran a hand through his hair. The whistling wind and snow blowing every which way hadn't done much to put his mind at ease, and at a quarter of three he'd finally given in and checked with the hospital. They'd had no one matching Jamie's description brought in, which had been a marginal relief although not as much of one as he might have expected, and Alex had ended up dozing on the couch—never a great idea for him—until the rumble of a truck had awakened him.

The real relief he'd felt at Jamie's return had been laced with anger at the kid for scaring him like that, and he hadn't done much to hide it. Especially after he'd recognized the mix of smoke smells on Jamie's clothing. Which...it hadn't been a great reaction and he wouldn't claim that it was, but if Jamie hadn't understood before that he'd messed up, he'd certainly been clear on the point by the time Alex had sent him to his room.

The rest of the house was quiet, as was typical given the hour, and Alex took a quick shower and then went to do a survey of the contents of the refrigerator. Given the lack of milk they'd need to go to the store at some point today, but for now he settled for putting on a pot of coffee and pulling out some eggs. He'd get breakfast going before he woke Jamie up; they'd both be better with some food in them.

Not that he knew what he was going to do with Jamie once he was up. He cracked the eggs into the pan and considered. The kid was grounded, that went without saying, but Alex didn't have any more chores to give him now than he had the last time Jamie had come home late. And trying to ground him for more than a week or two was likely to be more headache than it was worth anyway. Jamie might cooperate for a bit, even if he didn't like it, but after that he was basically guaranteed to start testing, and if Alex wasn't home to catch him at it—and realistically he wouldn't be, given his schedule—grounding him wouldn't end up meaning anything anyway.

And even if Alex did catch him ignoring his grounding, what was he supposed to do then? He could take away Jamie's keys, he supposed, but that would mean so much more coordination when it came to getting him between here and school and the station that it would probably be more of a hassle than anything else.

Although it might be worth that hassle if it got the point across.

He frowned as he realized that Jamie's motorcycle wasn't even here, someone had dropped Jamie off last night. Had something happened to it? Jamie was a good rider, but it was winter and the streets weren't in the best shape.

Shit. He flipped the eggs quickly and then went to wake Jamie. He couldn't remember asking if Jamie was hurt last night, and even if that was absolutely the sort of thing that Jamie should have mentioned immediately, Alex wouldn't care to bet on him knowing that.

Jamie's bed was empty when Alex opened the door, and when the bathroom, study, and once again couch proved to be empty as well he groaned out loud. Another round of disappearing teenager was not something that he was up to dealing with right now. He was debating who he should call—not that he'd learned any of Jamie's friends' phone numbers in the last four hours, but his social worker was a definite possibility since not only might she know some of them, unlike last night it was almost a reasonable hour to be calling—when he heard a quiet thump.

Jamie's comforter had already been off the bed the first time he'd looked into the room, he just hadn't thought much about it, but now that he was paying more attention he realized that it was partially on top of Jamie who had somehow wedged himself between the bedside table and the far wall in a half-sitting position that Alex probably couldn't have mimicked if he tried. "Jamie?" He circled the bed quickly. "Jaim?"

There were no visible signs of injury, but as he watched Jamie twitched and muttered something unhappy, one hand knocking against the bedside table in an echo of the first thump that Alex had heard.

Alex reached down to give his shoulder a quick shake. "Come on, Jamie, it's time to wake up. Why are you on the floor?"

Jamie shifted again, a little more purposefully this time, and one hand came up to swipe at his eyes. And then he looked up, and Alex would have to have been blind to miss the look of terror that crossed his face as he jerked up his arms to shield himself.

If the fear hadn't been enough to startle Alex into stepping back, the sharp motion would have been, and he held up his hands quickly. "Jamie, relax! It's just me!" He was still standing over Jamie, albeit a foot or two away now, and he moved a little further back and then crouched down to Jamie's level, ignoring the twinge in his back. "Jamie, it's me," he repeated, lowering his voice. "It's Alex. You're okay. You were just having a bad dream, that's all. I'm sorry I startled you."

He took a chance and reached out slowly, and Jamie tried to burrow further into the wall, wrapping his arms around himself.

"Okay. Okay." He pulled his arm back. "No touching. Can you look at me?"

Jamie's eyes flicked up for a second and then away.

That hadn't been what Alex had been going for, he'd wanted a good look at Jamie's pupils. A nightmare was still Alex's initial conclusion, but under the circumstances he wasn't accepting that without some proof. "Jaim, this is important. Do you know where you are? Can you tell me if you're hurt anywhere?"

Jamie looked up again and then shook his head quickly. "I don't—I'm okay. I'm at your house. I didn't..." He took a shaky breath and pulled his arms in tighter.

"Didn't what, kiddo?"

"Please."

"Jamie, I don't understand what's wrong." The kid was still terrified, anyone could see that, but Alex couldn't even begin to guess why. "Can—shit." The curse escaped as he suddenly recognized a burning smell in the air, and Jamie cringed again. "Jamie, I—" He couldn't keep talking to Jamie right this second, that was what he couldn't do unless he wanted a fire in his kitchen, and he looked at the door and then back at Jamie. "Jaim, the eggs are burning and I need to go take them off the stove. I'll be right back, okay? Try taking some deep breaths."

Jamie didn't move, and he braced a hand on the wall and sucked in his breath as he stood, his back protesting. He made it up, though, and when he got to the kitchen he was relieved to find that nothing was actually on fire yet. The eggs were probably burned beyond saving, but that wasn't his primary concern at the moment, and he moved the pan to a cool burner and shut the stove off before grabbing a glass of water. He'd deal with something else for breakfast after he got Jamie calmed down.

Jamie was still on the floor in the corner when he returned, and he sighed. "Kiddo? Hey. No more burning eggs, but do you think you could come up and sit on the bed for a little bit? My back is giving me some trouble at the moment."

Jaime looked up again, and Alex was relieved to see that at least a little of the panic had faded as he nodded slightly. Even he couldn't have been too comfortable on that floor judging by the wince he gave as he pushed himself up with the assistance of the bedside table, but he didn't say anything as he took a seat against the headboard.

Alex smiled and sat down by the foot. "Thank you, that's much better." He held out the glass of water. "How about a couple sips?"

Jamie reached out hesitantly and took it.

"Can you tell me what's wrong?" Alex asked as he put the glass to his lips. "Are you sure you're not hurt at all? I noticed that your bike isn't in the garage."

"No, it's...I'm good. My bike is parked over by Isaac and Cory's." He took a surprisingly shaky breath and set the water down on the bedside table. "I went over yesterday afternoon and we were just hanging out, I swear, and then the wind started picking up and I didn't notice how late it was getting and then Isaac said he could give me a ride when he left for his shift and you weren't going to be home so I didn't think it would matter and—"

"Hey. Breathe," Alex said firmly, interrupting the stream of words that were rapidly becoming an avalanche. "It was smart of you not to go out on your bike if you didn't think it was safe."

Jamie shrugged.

"It wasn't so smart not to leave a message, though, was it? We've talked about that."

"I though I was just going to be there during the day. I didn't know I was going to stay overnight until it was too late."

"I've got an answering machine, Jamie."

Jamie blinked and then shook his head. "Oh. Yeah. I guess I didn't think about that. And I didn't think it would matter since you weren't supposed to be home until later today."

"That is not a good answer," Alex said sternly. Although not thinking about the answering machine, he could understand. He wasn't happy about it, but he could see how it could happen. "And all that smoke?" he prompted. Since they'd apparently moved on to talking about last night.

Jamie flushed. "Some of Isaac's friends came over and they were..." He shrugged. "It was too cold for them to open the windows or go out on the roof or anything so it was all just everywhere."

"His parents were okay with that?"

"They're not really around too much."

Alex felt his jaw tighten a little, but he couldn't say that he was surprised. "Drugs aren't a good idea any more than drinking, Jamie, you're smart enough to know that."

"Well, I didn't know they were going to until they were already..." Another shrug. "And that was after it had already gotten bad outside, and I sure as heck wasn't going to ask for a ride home from one of them."

"And that was absolutely right." Not that Alex was thrilled about Jamie staying there with that sort of thing going on, but it wasn't as if he could have called Alex for a ride—or he hadn't known that he could, anyway—so Alex could see how he had found himself stuck. Alex had never even thought to make sure that Jamie had emergency money for a taxi or anything like that. "You didn't do any smoking?" he checked. "Not at all, of either type?"

Jamie squirmed a little. "Cory offered me a puff on his—just a regular one, I promise—and I didn't really think about it, but then one of them tried to give me one for myself and I said 'no.'"

Judging by the way he was shifting around, he already knew that that wasn't acceptable, and Alex sighed. "You know better, Jamie."

"I don't—I didn't mean—please—"

"Jamie? Hey, breathe." He started to reach out again, only to have Jamie jerk away with fear in his eyes. "Jaim, stop," he said firmly, taking his hand back. "Deep breath. Okay?" He waited until Jamie had done as he said. "Now, I need to you tell me what's up. I'm guessing you were having a pretty ugly nightmare when I woke you up, but you know where you are now, right?"

"Yeah."

"And you know that nobody's going to hurt you here."

"It's not...I can take it," Jamie said, fingers digging into the sheets. "I can. I'd rather the belt than..." He shook his head quickly.

"Than what, kiddo?" The words were out before Alex processed the first part of that statement, and then it was his turn to shake his head as he realized exactly what Jamie was afraid of. And why it wasn't going away along with his nightmare. "Never mind," he said before Jamie could try to finish his sentence. "I've never said this before, and I think maybe I should have, but let me make this very clear right now. There is no hitting in this house. Not now and not ever. Certainly not with a belt, or anything else either. It doesn't matter what you did, no one, not me or anyone else, is ever allowed to hit you or hurt you. Is that understood?"

Jamie's shoulders twitched, and Alex shook his head.

"Kiddo, I need words on this one. This is important. No hitting. Not ever, no matter what. Okay?"

"'kay." His eyes were still down, and it definitely wasn't the resounding agreement that Alex would have preferred.

"Jaim? Hey. Think about it this way. Even if I wasn't against hitting kids—or anyone else for that matter—just on general principle, which I am, and even if I hadn't taken a very serious oath not to do harm to anyone, which I did, it would be pretty damn stupid to hit someone who's just about as strong as I am, has a longer reach, and doesn't have a bad back. Right?"

Jamie's head jerked up, and he looked absolutely horrified. "I wouldn't Alex, I swear I wouldn't, not even—"

"Of course you wouldn't," Alex interrupted. "Neither would I. That's my point. You're in trouble, yeah, but you've been grounded before. It's not something to be afraid of, is it?"

"No," Jamie agreed after a minute.

"Good. And this time you're going to have a book report to do too, but I know you've done those for school and survived them just fine."

"A book report?" The fear started to fade into a different kind of distress. "But Alex, I already have homework."

That, at least, sounded closer to the Jamie that he knew, and he nodded. "Fortunately you'll have plenty of time to work on this right alongside it while you're grounded, won't you?" The book report idea hadn't occurred to him until a few minutes ago, and on second thought he didn't really like the notion of making reading a punishment, but on the other hand he had plenty of dry medical texts that were just about that even for med students. And he didn't have any better ideas. "You'll do a good job on it too because this smoking thing is going to stop, is that clear?"

"Clear," Jamie mumbled.

"Good." He tilted his head. "Are you going to be okay?"

"Yeah. I'm sorry, I didn't...I didn't mean to freak out. I just...you've never been that mad before and then you didn't say last night and I couldn't sleep and then when I finally did I started dreaming about..." He hugged himself again quickly.

Alex nodded. He'd figured that it would be better to take some time to cool off before he said anything specific, but obviously that hadn't been a good choice where Jamie was concerned. "There's nothing to be sorry for. That was my mistake. I'm sorry, and I'll try not to do it again. Can you try not to scare the heck out of me again?"

Jamie's forehead wrinkled for a moment and then he nodded.

"Good." He hesitated and then decided that a change of subject would be the best thing for both of them right now. "Are you hungry?"

"Not really."

That wasn't exactly a surprise given how shook up Jamie had been—and probably still was to some extent—and Alex patted the mattress lightly. "All right. How about you lie down for a little while longer and try to get some sleep that doesn't involve nightmares or being wedged into a corner. I've got some feedback forms to fill out for the conference," mostly the ones he'd skipped out on by leaving early, "and unpacking to do, but I'll wake you up in a couple hours and we can do some grocery shopping then. Okay?" That would give him some time to dig through his medical texts for what he was looking for, too, and it would be easy enough to check in on Jamie a few times to make sure that his sleep stayed peaceful.

"Okay," Jamie agreed quietly.