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

Alex glanced at his briefcase, but the idea of turning, lifting it, pulling it out of the car, especially with his laptop and a stack of files inside... Yeah, no thanks. Not tonight. All he wanted to do right now was go lie flat for awhile. Seven or eight hours would be nice.

He'd actually have preferred to have been lying flat for most of the evening, but the last foster class had been tonight and he hadn't wanted to miss it. Most of it had been a formality where he was concerned since he already had Jamie—reviewing what was supposed to happen in the first hour, twenty-four hours, and week after a child was placed was officially a lost cause—but there had been some final paperwork to fill out and a home visit to schedule. Or reschedule, rather, since they'd tried twice before and both times Sonja had had to cancel for other work. Apparently social workers had even more erratic schedules than doctors which he hadn't thought was possible.

She'd told him that she'd bring Jamie's files by when she did the home visit too since obviously he hadn't gotten them before: school, juvenile, all of that. Although at this point he figured that the only ones he really needed were the medical ones, and even those wouldn't be of much use until he found a pediatrician for Jamie. He did need to get going on that, because if the way this spring was starting was any indication, those allergies he'd mentioned were going to be kicking in pretty soon.

His back twinged even as he turned just enough to shut the door behind him. He'd do that later, too. Ask around at the hospital, there were enough people that had kids that someone would have a good recommendation.

The main lights were off when Alex entered the living room, but the television was still on and he wasn't surprised to find Jamie curled on his side on the couch. He hadn't worked tonight so he'd already showered and changed for bed, and Alex gave a mental headshake at the sight of the worn sweatsuit in the flickering light from the screen. Not that Jamie hadn't been welcome to keep it, but it was not well sized for his frame.

Alex knew perfectly well that Jamie hadn't had many clothes when he'd arrived, about half a duffel bag full and those not particularly neatly packed, but there was money in Jamie's account now if he needed to add to his wardrobe. Not a lot, granted, most of the first check had gone to meet the savings account minimum and then start paying back insurance—Alex would have been fine if he hadn't, especially for that first payment, but Jamie got upset enough when money was mentioned that he'd decided not to push just yet—and the second wouldn't come for a couple more weeks, but there was certainly enough to replace a sweatsuit.

Then again, he had a feeling that it was going to take some pushing before Jamie would spend any of that money except on something like insurance.

Alex fixed the blanket over Jamie and then reached down, slowly and stifling a groan as he did so, to grab the remote.

"Alex?"

"Hey." He gave up his effort to bend. "Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up."

"It's okay, I wasn't really all the way asleep anyway." Alex stepped back a little automatically, and Jamie sat up and frowned. "Are you okay? You don't look very good."

"I'll be fine, it's just my back. The weather might be okay right now, but I'd say there's a pretty ugly storm on its way."

Jamie pushed himself up off the couch and then hesitated. "You need a hand?"

Jamie was more than strong enough to be helpful when Alex really needed a shoulder, but he wasn't quite to that state tonight. Just stiff. "Nah, I'll be all right. Although, as long as you're awake, could you do me a favor and go get my briefcase out of the car for me? It's on the passenger seat."

"Yeah, sure."

Jamie was back before Alex made it to his room which didn't do a lot to bolster Alex's claims that he was fine, but he just waved Jamie in ahead of him. "On the desk, please."

"So the class is done now?" Jamie asked, leaning against the desk as Alex started to take his tie off.

"Officially, yes. They're going to have monthly check-ins for a while, but I am now apparently qualified to foster a child. I'm not sure I'd make that claim, but..." He started to shrug and then experience made him stop before he disturbed his back any more. The class had spent far longer on how the system itself worked than any specifics about how to deal with the children involved, and if Sonja had assured him that they'd be getting into those specifics more at the monthly checkins since he wouldn't be the only one with an actual placement at that point, it all still seemed very backwards to him.

"It's not like for-real parents get classes," Jamie said.

"I suppose that's true enough." Not particularly comforting, but still true. And the two of them had been muddling along okay so far. "You had dinner?" he checked. "And your homework is done?" The former was far less of a concern than the latter where Jamie was concerned, and Jamie's immediate groan backed that up.

"It's boring. Seriously, we were reading one section out loud in class, and I just about fell asleep right there. Kenny even started snoring."

"If you're falling asleep in your classes you need to start going to bed earlier," Alex pointed out, ignoring the reference to his friend. Or sometimes friend, or whatever he was. He still hadn't talked to Jamie much about where he went after school when he wasn't working. "What's so boring?"

"Shakespeare and all his stupid plays. Or a lot of them, anyway. And supposedly there's a whole essay test at the end."

"Ah." Alex wasn't exactly a fan of Shakespeare himself, at least when it came to reading the plays rather than seeing them performed, but that didn't mean that he was going to let Jamie out of doing his homework. "Well, if you've got a test on it you'd best stay on top of the material, shouldn't you? Remember math?" Which was still not Jamie's best subject, but he managed well enough when he actually did his homework consistently as far as Alex could tell.

Jamie started to roll his eyes and then apparently thought better of it.

"Thank you. Dinner?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I ate at Caitie's house. And then I had the rest of the chicken when I got back."

That sounded about right. "You said she likes writing, didn't you? What does she think about Shakespeare?"

He scoffed. "She's in advanced English with Val so they did this stuff last year. When I told her what we were doing she started talking about how symbolic it all was." He made a face. "Girls. I don't care about symbolic; the only cool part about any of it was the skull."

"Right." Alex had a vague recollection of something like that, although he had no idea which play it was from off the top of his head. "Well, keep reading and maybe you'll find something else interesting. All your other homework is done?"

"Yeah, yeah. All the other homework wasn't much anyway."

"Thank you. Oh, on an unrelated note, but before I forget, you need to be home by noon on Saturday, okay? I know you've got work at two, but your social worker is going to try to come by to finally get that visit done, and I know she wants to talk to us while she's here." Jamie didn't usually go out much in the morning on the weekends unless he was going down to visit his grandmother, but if Alex forgot to mention it it would end up being one of those occasions.

"Is she going to make it this time?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," Alex admitted, "but I know she wants to make sure all the official stamps are on everything now that I've finished with the class."

"It'd be easier if you were planning to strangle me in my sleep," Jamie said after a minute. "They check up on people sooner, then."

"Eh, that sounds like it might involve bending. Not high on my list of things to do right now." He waved a hand in the general direction of Jamie's room. "It's late. Why don't you go on to bed, and I'll see you in the morning? And you get your homework done tomorrow or you'll be doing it this weekend."

Jamie groaned again but didn't argue. "Night."