Thanks to everyone who read and to MelsieR for reviewing.

And thanks—I really liked this show when it first came out, and then I ran into it again on Youtube a couple years ago. There had been some old stuff I'd written way back when that never went anywhere, but rewatching it I remembered again how it had just sort of ended with a lot of open possibilities (still not sure what was up with that; it seemed like Disney kept shows that were a lot worse around a lot longer). I figured I'd go back and write how I'd wanted it to go, and if other people enjoyed it too, then great :).

"Stairs are stupid," Jamie said with a groan as he pulled the car door shut. Even that hurt after the day they'd just had. "Weren't elevators invented like a billion years ago?"

Tyler grinned as he buckled himself in on the driver's side. "Come on, they're not that bad. You could always join Hank and I the next time Coach has us running them at practice."

"I'm sorry, I thought I just heard you say both 'run' and 'practice.'" Jamie's legs—and arms, and back—ached from having to carry that stupid stretcher up and down about a billion flights today; the fact that Tyler and Hank did that kind of thing for fun was just insane. "It's against my religion to do either of those things. Uh, left out of here, and then a right once you hit third."

Tyler's grin turned into a laugh as he started the car and turned out into traffic. What little there was of it at this time of night. "I don't think history class covered that religion."

"I just invented it."

"Yeah, good luck with that on the test tomorrow." He made a face. "Which I still need to study for given that we've been running all night and I haven't even had time to take my book out of my backpack. Time for another cram session in study hall, I guess."

Jamie groaned again. "Did you have to remind me? Anyway, who gives a test the week after we get back back from vacation? Giving us homework was bad enough!" Not that he'd done a great job of paying attention in history class before the break, at least not beyond the minimum he'd had to to pass, but expecting anyone to remember anything after two weeks off was insane. Plus it was a test on a Friday.

"Yeah, tell me about it," Tyler agreed. "And I guess my mom was talking to her sister over Christmas—my cousin's a senior this year—and now every other word out of her mouth is about colleges and GPAs and whatever. I mean, I know it's coming up, we're already getting fliers for summer SAT prep courses and all of that, but the way she's been going on if I freak her out with the horror of a bad grade I'll probably end up locked in a library for a month."

Jamie snorted. At least he didn't have to deal with that. Not that he had a clue what he was doing after next year, but at least college admissions weren't anywhere on his list of concerns. Although he was willing to bet that Tyler had never gotten an actual bad grade in his life; it was the kind of thing that the super squad didn't have quite the same frame of reference about as everyone else. "Oh, another left at this next light," he said quickly before Tyler could miss it.

"You're really still okay living with Alex?" Tyler asked as he made the turn. "I mean, he didn't not come to the station tonight because you murdered him and stuffed him in a closet or anything, right?"

"What? No, I didn't murder Alex. Or stuff him in a closet. We're fine." As weird as that still seemed. "The message said something came up with one of the other doctors and the hospital asked him to stay and cover the shift. Or part of it, anyway. I know he wasn't planning on it, he was talking about getting a bunch of old paperwork cleared out of his office, but..." He shrugged, or started to before remembering that his shoulders hurt too. Stupid stairs. And he was glad that Tyler had offered to give him a ride home after he'd gotten that message because after all the running up and down they'd been doing the last thing he'd wanted to do was be stuck waiting for a city bus. Their shift had ended at ten so it wasn't that late, but the buses that ran at this time of night were few and far between and he probably wouldn't have made it home until close to midnight.

He needed to do something about his bike soon. Or, rather, he needed to do something about his bike's empty gas tank because even if he hadn't been planning to catch a ride with Alex when he came back to pick up his boxes, he still wouldn't have been able to ride over. Not without risking running out of gas halfway through the trip, anyway. The last job he'd picked up had been for Micah's uncle before Christmas, and although his grandmother sometimes slipped him a few dollars when he visited—he was pretty sure that it was part of the 'spending money' the nurses gave all of the residents when they took a bus to the local shopping centers for an afternoon—last time she hadn't, and the only things in his wallet right now were his bus pass and his ID.

Which...it wasn't a huge deal. He could get around on the buses until he picked up another job. He'd done it before, and that was without Alex giving him rides on the really late nights at the station. It was annoying, though.

"Next turn?"

"Oh, uh, take a right up here. Where the streetlight is. And then it's the third house on—yeah, that one." Tyler was actually pretty good about the fact that he was staying with Alex when he thought about it. Crazy questions about murdering Alex aside, he was definitely better than Val or Hank who still sometimes asked too many other questions. Some of that was probably just that Tyler was sensitive enough about his own father and that whole mess that he wasn't about to ask questions about Jamie's lack of family, but...well, Jamie would take what he could get.

Tyler pulled to a halt in the driveway, but judging by the complete lack of lights Alex still wasn't home. Jamie grabbed his backpack from between his feet and opened the door. "Thanks a lot for the ride."

"No problem. See you at school."

"See you."

Tyler drove off as he let himself in the front door. No Alex meant leftovers for dinner...he kind of wanted spaghetti, and he kind of thought that he could manage it, but on second thought he wasn't about to touch the stove without Alex there. Just in case. Anyway, there was still some pork from the other night that had been pretty good.

He was hungrier than he'd thought and finished it in pretty much record time, and after a mug of hot chocolate he went and buried himself under his blankets where even if his muscles were still complaining, at least he didn't have to move. They weren't on again until Sunday. Hopefully he'd be recovered by then.

He must have drifted off a little because the next thing he was aware of was the sound of the garage door opening. He was debating whether he should get up and go say hi to Alex when there was a light tap at his door.

"Jamie? Are you still awake?"

"Yeah."

"May I come in?"

"Sure." He actually kind of thought Alex might listen if he said no, but there was no good reason not to talk to him.

"Are you feeling okay?" Alex asked as he pushed the door open. "It's only a little past eleven, that's pretty early for you to be asleep."

"Yeah, we just had to carry that stupid stretcher up and down about a billion stairs today. I think every elevator in the city decided to break for its New Years resolution. And then every callout was up on like the sixth floor." He scowled. "I didn't even know that there were that many buildings with six floors in this city."

Alex's lips twitched. "Ah. Well, is that something that cookies might make better? Someone brought a whole platter of them to the hospital and I grabbed a few on my way out."

Cookies were more than enough to make Jamie wriggle free of most of his blankets and hold out a hand for the napkin Alex offered. And then offer it back because he did have some manners. "Do you want one?"

"I had plenty at the hospital, thanks. Was there anything serious in those callouts?" He gestured to the head of Jamie's bed, and Jamie shook his head and took a bite of the first cookie even as he slid over to make room for Alex to sit down. "Nah. Well, one guy fell and messed up his knee really bad—like it was gross how many angles things were sticking out at—but other than that not really. Just a lot of up and down and broken elevators." He hesitated. "What happened at the hospital?"

"Oh, one of the other doctors had a family emergency upstate. I guess her father fell this afternoon and even though he should be fine she needed to go handle some things. Carter was going to take the whole shift, but then he couldn't find a babysitter to cover until his wife got home, so..." He waved a hand. "Anyway, the usual coverage will kick in tomorrow, this was just a one-time thing. Now, just to make sure, you haven't had any more headaches or anything like that?"

"Nah. There wasn't really time to try to read at the station anyway." And history test aside, unlike Alex his teachers knew better than to expect that kind of thing from him.

"Did you at least get your homework done?"

Although they might start expecting things if Alex kept making him do homework. "Some of it, I guess," he hedged.

"Jamie."

"I'll do it before school tomorrow," he said with a groan. Or he'd do what he absolutely had to to keep any notes from getting sent home, at least, even if that meant joining Tyler for study hall. Ick.

"Thank you. And I talked to your social worker, and we'll go to the optometrist on Saturday and get that all sorted out."

"For real?" That was a surprise. "Usually it takes them months to approve anything."

"Well, we're going to cheat a little. You're old enough to agree to some stuff for yourself, and I can deal with the paperwork side."

Part of him kind of wanted to laugh at the idea of Alex—Alex, of all people—cheating on rules, but he was pretty sure that that really meant that they hadn't approved paying for anything. "I'll be fine, really," he said with a quick shake of his head. "It's been like this as long as I can remember."

"That doesn't make it okay."

He picked at the blanket with the hand that wasn't occupied by cookies. "But it'll take them forever to reimburse you. Like forever forever. It takes long enough even when you've got approval." He'd heard plenty about that from previous foster parents whenever they'd had to give him money for anything, even if it had been approved.

"You let me worry about that part. I know you're a tough kid, but you still owe me a book report, and I don't want you hurting yourself trying to do the reading. Or the homework that you're going to be doing over the weekend if it doesn't get finished tomorrow."

Jamie made a face. The easy way to fix that was to not make him do the report or the homework at all, but he didn't have to be a genius to know how well that suggestion would be taken.

"This is for you too," Alex said, digging something else out of his pocket and handing it over. "Emergencies only, but if you get stuck somewhere like you did last weekend, you use it. Clear?

Jamie frowned and then immediately pushed the fold of paper back at Alex when he realized that it was money. At least a twenty, maybe more. "I don't—I can't—"

"Jaim, it's for you," Alex said. "For emergencies, like I said. Put it in your wallet. If you don't need it you don't need it, and if you do you'll have it. I don't want you getting stuck somewhere you shouldn't be because you don't have a way out."

He shook his head again.

"It's not a suggestion. It goes in your wallet for emergencies. Is that understood?"

Alex pretty clearly wasn't going to relent, and after a minute Jamie dipped his head. And decided he'd sneak it back onto Alex's desk sometime when Alex wasn't looking because he wasn't...Alex shouldn't do things like that. He could take care of himself.

"Thank you." Alex nodded to the almost-empty napkin in his hand. "Considering how fast you're going through those cookies, did you have a real dinner at any point?"

"Yeah, I had the rest of the pork and vegetables from a couple days ago when I got home. You didn't want them, did you?"

"No, I ate at the hospital," Alex said immediately. Which Jamie kind of appreciated because even if he knew that Alex wouldn't be angry about him eating the leftovers, it was a habit to be careful about that kind of thing. "I talked to your social worker about some other stuff, too, though, besides the optometrist," he continued after a moment. "That's what I really needed to talk to you about."

Jamie felt his breath catch a little. Alex had said that he could stay until whoever he was going to end up with finished their class, and he wasn't likely to change his mind at the same time he gave him emergency money and was planning to take him to the eye doctor and all of that, but Jamie had had plenty of situations go wrong before.

"What would you think about staying here after February?"

"I...what?" He wasn't sure what he'd expected to hear, but he was definitely sure that that wasn't it.

Alex shifted a little. "Well, when I talked to your social worker earlier, she invited me to the first of those foster parent classes. I guess they start next Thursday. And despite what happened tonight, Thursday evenings are usually free for me."

"But you don't want a kid. Why would they make you waste your time like that?" Alex already all kinds of stuff on his calendar with the station and the hospital and all of that; it wasn't fair to make him do stuff he didn't want to in the free time he did have.

"Well, I don't want some random kid," Alex agreed. "But I don't have any arguments with the one I've already got. Or, rather, we've had plenty of arguments, but we've managed okay, haven't we?"

Jamie shook his head as he realized what Alex was saying, letting the last cookie fall as he struggled to get free of his remaining blankets. "You don't want me. Grown-ups never want me."

"Jaim?" Alex frowned. "If I didn't want you to stay, I wouldn't have asked."

"No!" Another shake, and Jamie pushed himself backwards again, kicking at the loose loop of bedsheet around his ankle.

"Jamie, stop," Alex snapped.

He froze.

Alex lowered his voice. "Kiddo, you're going to fall off the bed and hurt yourself if you keep scooting back like that. Come on." He patted the mattress beside him. "Come sit. I'm starting to think that maybe I should have waited until this weekend to talk to you."

Jamie shrugged and then shook his head again as he moved to where Alex indicted. Or an arm length or so away, anyway; he wasn't very interested in being within grabbing range right now and never mind that Alex didn't grab.

"Yes, I want you to stay," Alex said firmly. "But I can't force you and wouldn't try if there's somewhere else you'd rather go."

"There isn't anywhere. You know that." His fingers gripped the blanket hard enough to make his hands go white, and never mind that that made the muscles in his forearms ache again.

"So why don't you think about it?" Alex asked. "You don't have to decide right now. The offer isn't going away."

"But they'll make you take stupid classes and shit," Jamie couldn't help but point out. Alex was busy and he was trouble and no one ever wanted teenagers. Especially teenage boys. Doubly especially him.

"Language, and I'll manage."