Thanks to everyone who read and to Ghostwriter and Callisto's Moon for reviewing.

Alex tapped the reset button on the answering machine. Jamie had left a message, and if it hadn't been the most comprehensible that Alex had ever heard, at least he'd gotten the point across that he'd missed his bus and would be home late which was what Alex expected.

Well, no, what he expected was for Jamie to be home on time, but at least Jamie had done what he was supposed to do after he'd missed his bus. A definite improvement over a couple weeks ago, especially since the timestamp indicated that the message had been left around the time he'd missed said bus rather than an hour later.

What exactly Jamie had been up to that had caused him to be late Alex was curious about, though, because now that he thought about it he was pretty sure that this Micah had been mentioned once before when he'd missed curfew.

He heard shuffling behind him as he finished his dinner—just soup, but he didn't feel like anything particularly heavy anyway—and he turned to find Jamie standing at the far end of the table, hair still damp from his shower. And the suspicious dark mark along his hairline gone, so apparently it had been just a grease spot. Good. "Are you hungry?" he checked. "There's enough for another bowl on the stove."

Jamie shook his head quickly.

"Then have a seat" he said, gesturing to the chair nearest Jamie and taking the chair at the opposite end of the table himself. Jamie would be more likely to eat something after this was settled if past experience was anything to go by. "First of all, thank you for leaving a message."

Jamie looked up, expression more than a little wary. "Does that mean I'm not in trouble?"

"Well, that'll depend why you were late, and I mean more than just that you missed the bus. You know the bus schedules a lot better than I do. But even if you are, it'll be a lot less trouble than you would have been in if you hadn't left a message."

Jamie grimaced but didn't argue the point.

"So what happened?"

He shrugged and dropped into the chair, picking at the tabletop with one hand. "Micah's uncle had a job—well, jobs—for us, so after we had dinner and his mom left for work we went over and got started. And I swear I set the alarm on my watch, but then mine ended up being really messy and I wasn't finished when it went off. And I told Micah I couldn't finish and tried to clean up and leave a note at the desk so someone else could get it done tomorrow, but then the bus drove past right as I got outside, and it didn't even stop at the stop, and there was nothing I could do but go back and wait."

"Okay, slow down and back up a little," Alex said, shaking his head. He'd gotten most of that although Jamie had been picking up speed by the end of the explanation, but it didn't clear much of anything up for him. "Who's Micah's uncle?"

Jamie frowned. "Micah's uncle. Mike something. I don't know his last name, it's his mom's brother."

Alex shook his head again. "I meant, how do you know him. Is Micah one of your friends from school?"

"Yeah."

"And that's how you know his uncle, I assume. What kind of jobs does his uncle have you doing?"

"Car repair. Fluid changes, engine repair, whatever his crew can't done at the shop during the day. I can't do any of the fancy stuff with the computers, but I can do most everything except that."

"Okay, so he's the one you got your motorcycle from." That at least connected a few of the dots.

"What?" Jamie shook his head quickly. "No, that was Mr. Valda. His shop is way up north on the edge of town and I can't even get there from here without my bike. Well, at least not without like three different buses and it taking all day. But Micah's uncle lets me do jobs for him sometimes too when he's got extra work, and his place is pretty close to the school so it's easy to get back and forth."

"Wait, why didn't you take your motorcycle tonight?" Alex asked curiously. That would have solved the problem of him getting home on time right up front, and if it was still cold out, the roads were plenty clear. Actually, now that he thought about it, he didn't recall Jamie having taken his motorcycle out at all in at least a week. Jamie might have been grounded, but Alex hadn't forbidden him from using it to get to work or to the station or anything like that.

Jamie flushed and traced something on the tabletop with his finger. "No gas. Or almost no gas, anyway. That's why I needed to pick up a job in the first place."

Alex opened his mouth and then shut it again. That hadn't even occurred to him. "Don't you get an allowance?"

This time Jamie was the one who looked surprised. "An allowance from who?"

"I don't..." He trailed off with a shake of his head. "I have no idea. I guess I was thinking social services or something like that. I mean, it's not just gas, you've got insurance to pay for, I imagine you like going out for lunch like every other kid sometimes, that kind of thing." He knew Jamie didn't have a regular job since that would have disqualified him from volunteering at the station given the number of hours that the squads were on call, but he had to be getting money from somewhere.

Then again, shoplifting was what had landed Jamie at the station in the first place, even if Alex had never personally seen any behavior like that.

Jamie snorted. "Foster parents get money for taking us, but no one gives us any of it." One shoulder twitched. "It's not that bad most of the time. I'm good with cars, and sometimes Grandma slips me a twenty or whatever when I visit her too. And I used to be able to bother Peter when I got really desperate, except then he moved into an apartment off campus and didn't tell me his new phone number so I'm pretty much down to finding bottles to return if there's nothing else." He made a face. "Almost nowhere pays for bottles anymore."

Alex was vaguely aware that bottle return had been part of a recycling initiative a few years back, but he hadn't paid much attention either to when it had started or if it had ended so he couldn't comment.

"Sonja will let me into social service's clothes donation closet if I need it, though," Jamie continued. "Well, except I couldn't find a coat this year which kind of sucked since the thrift stores didn't have any either. And I get free lunch at school so even if I can't buy coffee or dinner or whatever it's not that bad. And insurance is for adults."

Alex frowned. There was a lot to deal with there, not least convincing Jamie that clothes and basic meals were in no way his responsibility, but that last statement was more than a little terrifying. "Jaim, you got insurance when you got your motorcycle, right?"

"No."

Alex closed his eyes. "Go get me your keys."

His head jerked up. "What?!"

"Insurance isn't an adult thing, Jamie, it's an anyone who drives thing."

"But that's not fair! I didn't even know!"

"This is not a punishment for not knowing, but you still aren't taking your bike anywhere until I can get you on mine. Driving without insurance is an excellent way to lose your license or worse, especially if you were ever in an accident."

"But—"

"Jamie, this isn't up for discussion. It shouldn't take more than week or so, but until then you aren't taking your motorcycle anywhere. Gas money or no. Is that understood?"

"No one's ever cared before," he muttered.

"No one's ever checked before, I imagine. It only takes once." He gestured towards Jamie's room. "Go get your keys."

Jamie scowled.

"Do you want me to ground you and give you another book report for being late to keep you occupied?"

That was enough to send Jamie stomping to his room, or at least as much stomping as he could manage in socks, and Alex shook his head. Hopefully it wouldn't be too hard to get Jaime on his insurance. He very much doubted that the insurance company would care as long as the premiums got paid, but he had no idea what the actual rules were in this situation so it was possible that he'd need to get something official from Jamie's social worker about fostering him first. And he'd worry about what the premiums were—and more to the point how to talk about that cost with Jamie—later. He didn't disagree that children should be responsible for some of their wants, especially once they got to be Jamie's age, but Jamie clearly already had a skewed enough vision of that sort of thing that he had no idea how to bring it up. Clothes and food... He shook his head. At least Jamie was eating regularly here, and while he didn't seem to have a lot of clothes, he had enough to last between washings so that discussion could wait for another time too. Maybe that was a topic that foster parent class would cover at some point. Or if not he'd bring it up himself because there was no reason that if he was getting money for taking care of Jamie some of that money shouldn't go to Jamie himself.

Of course, he'd have to convince Jamie to take it, and that was already a fight when it came to the emergency money that kept reappearing in Alex's room.

Jamie returned with his key, and while Alex strongly suspected that he had a second one, he also trusted that Jamie would be smart enough not to use it. He took the key with a nod and put it on the kitchen shelf with the cookbooks. "Thank you. Once the insurance is taken care of you can have it back."

Jamie slumped back into the chair. "So am I grounded too?"

"No." He hesitated. "This is the kind of thing you could talk to me about first so you wouldn't need to worry about it at all, but you did what you were supposed to and let me know when you knew you were going to be late so we'll let it go. This time, mind. Staying out late without talking beforehand better not become a habit."

Jamie shrugged and then nodded. "I really thought I'd finish long before curfew. That kind of job isn't...it's not like mopping floors or doing inventory at the station, you just don't know how long something will take until you get into it, and Micah's uncle won't pay unless the whole thing is done so it's hard to leave on the hour. Or on whatever the bus schedule is."

Alex frowned. Jamie should be getting paid for the time he worked whether he finished a complete job or not. Of course, he shouldn't be getting paid under the table, and Alex would bet just about anything that that was what was happening here. He looked at the clock. That was a talk for another day too because he had no doubt that if he asked he'd hear that taxes were for adults as well.

"Where did you learn so much about cars?" he asked instead. "You said that you already knew how to do things when you met Micah?"

Jamie nodded, although his focus was suddenly on the table again. "My dad was a mechanic. Sometimes, anyway. The garage he worked at was just down the street from our apartment so I used to go with him on the weekends."

That was the first time that Alex had heard Jamie mention his father, at least since he'd told Alex that the man had gone to prison for some unspecified offense when Jamie was eleven, and Alex hesitated. "Do you ever see him? Your dad, I mean?"

His head jerked up. "No. Not ever, and I don't want to."