Thanks to everyone who read and to haikwoshevo and Ghostwriter for reviewing.

"Jamie come on, time to go," Alex called in the general direction of Jamie's door.

"Just a minute."

"It was a minute five minutes ago. I want to get the grocery shopping done before your appointment," Alex returned. The grocery store was bad enough in the morning on the weekends, he didn't even care to contemplate dealing with it after noon.

"I'm fine, Alex, honest," Jamie said, finally exiting his room. "It's just headaches sometimes, it's not like I haven't—"

"Jamie, what did I tell you?" He didn't wait for a reply. "Random headaches are not okay. We're going to see the optometrist today, whether before or after the grocery store, so dragging your feet isn't accomplishing anything except annoying me and making our day longer. And if the optometrist doesn't find anything wrong, we'll see about a regular doctor's appointment." Jamie should have been having those on a yearly basis anyway, especially given his asthma, but Alex would deal with that later since he was almost positive that a pair of reading glasses would solve the immediate problem.

Jamie scowled but had better sense than to argue further.

"Where's your coat?" Alex asked as he turned for the door.

"One minute."

"Jaim..."

"A minute for real," he grumbled.

Despite Jamie's attempt at delaying them, grocery shopping went more than quickly enough with the two of them splitting the list for them to get to the optometrist with a few minutes to spare. Dr. Talbott wasn't actually Alex's optometrist, but she was Dr. Connor's partner in the practice, and he had a feeling that Jamie would be a lot more comfortable with her standing over his chair than with him. It was something to consider when it came to finding a doctor for him as well.

It was a Saturday so there were several other customers in the office, and Alex got Jamie signed in and then sent him to go look at glasses frames while they waited. Which lasted about five minutes, and Jamie looked more than a little distressed as he came back to the line of chairs where Alex had taken a seat to wait.

"They're expensive," he said with a shake of his head, not even waiting for Alex to ask. "It's not—I don't—"

"Jamie. Enough. If you somehow managed to pick out several-hundred dollar frames, which I don't even think they carry here, then we'd need to have a talk, but glasses are just like medication or meals or blankets or that kind of thing. You aren't responsible for them."

Jamie scoffed.

"Jaim. You are not responsible for those things." Any more than he should be responsible for in-case-of-emergency money, but Alex had found that tucked under his laptop last night. Or a fold of money in the exact same denominations, anyway, and since he didn't typically carry cash it wasn't hard to guess where it had come from. He still hadn't decided how he was going to deal with that and didn't particularly want to try right here in the optometrist's office—as it was he was trying to keep his voice low to avoid attracting attention and wasn't sure how well he was managing—but he was absolutely not letting Jamie avoid getting glasses if he needed them either. "I don't know what's happened before," he acknowledged. "And I suspect if you tell me I won't like it. But right now all you need to worry about making sure the optometrist knows what does and doesn't work for you. All right?"

Jamie shrugged, looking considerably less than convinced, but before he could argue further one of the assistants called his name and a distinctly deer-in-the-headlights crossed his face.

"Is it okay if I go in with you, just in case they've got more questions about the paperwork?"

Alex winced a little as he shifted his briefcase to his other hand and his back twinged. The woman giving the CPR lesson in the foster parent class tonight had been woefully out of her league, and his own perfectionist tendencies had had him demonstrating and re-demonstrating more times than had probably been necessary. Certainly more times than his back had appreciated. And if it had been up to him he still wouldn't have passed half the would-be parents there.

At least it had taken his mind off the first part of the class, though. The introductions had been fairly standard, he was one of about twenty-five people—admittedly mostly couples—starting the class this week, and among them was one woman who was also taking the class to get custody of a particular child so that was somewhat reassuring. He got the impression that some of the other people were a little idealistic about the children they might get, but really, what did he know? It wasn't like he'd done this before either.

It was the social worker who'd spoken after that that had left him a little unsettled. The fact that she'd felt the need to run through a list of all the things that foster parents were not allowed to do, among them hitting children with or without objects, denying them food, locking them in—or out; had they not seen the temperatures this time of year?—had not been comforting. Nor had the stubborn expressions on the faces of a few of her audience members, especially since Alex had initially assumed that everything she was saying was simply a formality. He was aware that his own childhood had been more than a little unusual and his perspective was probably somewhat skewed because of it, but obviously no one would actually do those things.

Alex shook his head. He couldn't do anything about any of it, and presumably the social workers had ways to weed people who would violate those prescriptions out. Even if they clearly weren't always successful, judging by how Jamie sometimes reacted to him. He made no claims to sainthood and most definitely got loud when he was angry, but getting violent wouldn't even occur to him.

The light was on in the living room, but he couldn't hear anything, just as well since Jamie wasn't supposed to be watching television while he was grounded, and when he entered he found Jamie asleep on the couch. His new glasses were still on his face, and there was a book under his head.

Alex carefully slid the book free and put it on the coffee table. Science, it looked like, but the book Alex had assigned him a chapter of was on the table as well which he took to be a good sign. Jamie hadn't said much about his book report since he'd foolishly tried to give Alex something he'd scribbled out without actually reading anything, but Alex had already decided that if he made a decent attempt to finish this weekend they'd call the matter settled. It had only been two weeks which was considerably less time than he'd originally intended to ground Jamie for, but he was only sixteen. And he did generally try to behave. And frankly Alex would rather be able to praise him for behaving himself over the course of his punishment than having to extend it because Jamie had done something that he shouldn't have because he still had no idea what else he could enforce. It was something that he hoped the foster parent class would get to at some point.

Jamie only shifted a little when Alex pulled the blanket down over him, but removing his glasses was trickier, and he winced as Jamie grimaced and then one hand came up to rub at his eyes. "'lex?"

"Yeah," he said quietly, folding the glasses and putting them on top of the book. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up."

Jamie shook his head. "'s okay. I didn't mean to fall asleep."

Alex moved back a little so he wasn't standing over him. "How was your day?"

"Okay." Another swipe at his eyes. "Science is stupid."

Alex's lips twitched. "Science is not stupid."

Jamie grumbled a little, and then his eyes started to drift shut again.

Alex smiled and shook his head, heading for his room. He'd see if Jamie wanted him to take a look at his science homework before school tomorrow.

After he put his things away he went to the kitchen to make some tea and was surprised when Jamie joined him.

"Hey," Jamie said quietly.

"Hey." Alex pulled down a second mug and the canister of chocolate without bothering to ask if Jamie wanted any. "I thought you'd fallen back to sleep."

Jamie shrugged. "Was it bad?"

"Hm? Was what bad?"

He flushed and shrugged again, eyes on the ground. "The class."

"No, it was fine." He paused and then decided that talking about it was probably a good thing. Especially since he and Jamie hadn't actually talked any more about Jamie officially fostering here, at least not beyond Alex reminding him that he'd be home late tonight. They should have, and Alex knew it, but Jamie had already admitted that he didn't have any other options, and he had yet to figure out what he could say that that didn't amount to rubbing salt in an open wound. Talking about the class in general might help with that, or at least he could make the point that he genuinely didn't mind the requirement. "It was mostly just some introductory stuff today, and then they had a trainer come in for the first aid stuff that they apparently expect all foster parents to be qualified in. For the record, if I ever catch any of you kids—you kids or anyone else at the station, for that matter—being that sloppy with your CPR you're going to be retraining for a month."

"Yeah, right, we know better." He looked a little more sure when he said that though, and Alex nodded.

"I would hope so. He tilted his head. "And speaking of knowing better, how is your book report going?"

"Alex."