Thanks to everyone who read and to Ghostwriter and Callisto's Moon for reviewing. None of the other EMTs are in this chapter, but they will be showing up again in the future :).

"And then the lab caught fire and we all went home, the end."

Jamie snorted, leaning back and stretching out an arm to give the merry-go-round—and coincidentally he and Caitie—another spin. "It's so weird, I don't even remember a fire."

"I know, right." She groaned and sat up, sliding the notebook towards him. "Come on, I wrote the intro, you get to do the stupid copying."

He rolled his eyes but sat up as well, shifting to put his back against one of the posts. "What does this accomplish, anyway? Hey, if I randomly go around adding chemicals to petri dishes and then dropping pennies in, they turn different colors. What a totally useful thing to know."

"Well, I mean, I sold one to my cousin for a couple bucks."

"Does he want mine?" Jamie shook his head and began to flip back and forth, copying the tables they'd had to make during the lab. It wasn't like chemistry was completely horrible, the labs themselves were actually sometimes kind of cool especially when they did get to set things on fire, but writing them up afterwards was always boring. Especially since Ms. Walker kept insisting that they had to 'support their work.'

"What are you doing?" Bryan asked, climbing onto the merry-go-round with them.

"Homework. Go away," Caitie told him.

He stuck his tongue out at her. "You were doing homework before. Come play with us."

"We're always doing homework," Jamie informed him. "We're in high school. Anyway, isn't that why your friends are here?"

"Three people playing tag is boring," Bryan informed him seriously.

Experience said that he wasn't going to go away, and Jamie sighed and looked at Caitie. "I'll try to get the tables and graphs and whatever done at work tonight and get it back to you tomorrow to add the conclusion?"

"Works for me," she said with a nod, and then turned to look at Bryan. "Fine, brat. Fifteen minutes, though, and then we're going back to the house."

He grinned and then slapped Jamie's arm before running to the other side of the merry-go-round and jumping off. "You're it!"

"Are you sure your aunt would be mad if I strangled him? Just a little?"

"Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow," Jamie said, swiping at the scratch on the back of his arm with the washcloth. No wonder there had been so much blood on his arm when he'd taken his jacket off, it was a lot deeper than he'd thought. And he really hoped that he hadn't ended up with too much blood on the inside of his jacket sleeve...he hadn't been wearing it when he'd fallen into the fence, but he'd put it back on before they'd started the walk back to Caitie's. He probably should have paid some attention to his arm first, or at least taken Caitie up on her offer of a band-aid before heading home.

"Jamie?"

The sleeve of his t-shirt started to slide down, and he pulled it back up onto his shoulder. "In here. Ow." It was a crappy angle and the jagged edge of the cut made it hard to scrub away the dirt without making it hurt worse, and he was focused on that enough that he didn't realize his mistake in leaving the bathroom door open until Alex was suddenly beside him and turning his arm.

"What on Earth happened to you?"

Jamie had frozen automatically at his touch, and he would have pulled away if he hadn't been trapped between Alex and the counter.

"Easy," Alex said, lowering his voice although one hand remained under Jamie's elbow. "I didn't mean to startle you, but that looks pretty ugly. Can you sit down for a minute so I can take a look?"

It wasn't like Alex's hand hurt or anything, but Jamie shook his head anyway. "It's not that bad."

"Medical thing, Jaim. It'll just take a minute. Please?"

Jamie sighed and then nodded, shifting to rest his hip on the edge of the counter.

"Thank you." He released Jamie and washed his hands quickly before holding out a hand for the washcloth, rinsing it under the tap again. "What happened?"

"Caitie's aunt asked her to get her cousin and his friends out of the house earlier so she could get some work done so we took them down to this old playground where they could run around while we finished our science report. Bryan started bugging us to go play with tag with them towards lunchtime, and I guess I tripped over something on the edge of the old blacktop or whatever because I fell pretty much straight into the fence. There must have been a broken wire or something because when I was pulling myself back out I realized I'd done that." He gestured at his arm. "It didn't seem too bad at first, and since it was time to go anyway I just put my jacket back on, but then when I got back here there was a lot of blood on my arm."

"This happened on a playground?" Alex asked with a frown, carefully cleaning away the dirt.

Jamie craned his neck. Still gross. "Yeah, the old one by her house. I think maybe it belongs to the apartments beside it or something? I don't know, it's pretty run down."

"I would say that's an understatement. It's a good thing it scratched your arm and not your eye." He put the washcloth on the counter and reached down to pull the first aid kit out from under the sink. "I'm sorry, kiddo, but this is going to sting."

Jamie grimaced, but he wasn't stupid. If Alex wasn't here he'd be the one dumping antiseptic on the cut. At least Alex would be careful about it.

"Your foster parents did get you the list of shots you were required to have before you joined the squad, right?" Alex asked suddenly.

"Sonja did. My foster parents before then got rid of me pretty quick after I got into trouble, and like always it took awhile to find another placement, but there was one day in between where she picked me up after school and took me to Walgreens or whatever and some lady gave me three or four different ones." It had been some kind of pharmacy, anyway, and a lady in a medical outfit, but he'd been more worried about getting needles jabbed into him than paying attention to where it was happening or what was on the labels.

"Well, I'll check your medical file to make sure, but at least that should mean that tetanus isn't a concern."

Jamie's lips curled at the reminder that Alex had that information, but anything he might have said changed into a hiss as the damp cotton ball brushed the edge of the gash.

"I'll be as quick as I can. Hold on to the edge of the counter."

Jamie did as he suggested while Alex cleaned it out, relaxing again when Alex finally threw the bloody cotton balls into the trash can.

"You don't quite need stitches, but I'm going to wrap it up, and if it starts giving you trouble at work, you tell me. Here, hold that for me."

Jamie nodded and reached over with his other hand to hold the gauze pad in place while Alex washed his hands again. "You're going to the station today?"

"Yeah. We need to make some room for the new supplies that are coming in, and I know there are some old medications that need to be disposed off that I'll need to sign off on. Do you want a ride?"

Jamie nodded and then moved his hand away as Alex began to wrap over the gauze neatly. Not that the cut was in a place where he usually put a lot of pressure when he was riding his bike, but if he had to make a sharp turn or something like that it could happen.

"Okay." Alex tied off the bandage and stepped back, at least as much as he could in the small bathroom. "You remind me tonight so I can check it again, okay?"

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

"Thank you. Before you got skewered, did you finish your homework?"

That deserved the face he made, no matter what Alex thought. "I still have to copy in all the details from the experiments we did and then get it back to Caitie to finish up. Like the teacher wasn't standing right there the whole time."

"Documentation is important, especially in science."

In case he'd needed more proof that Alex was kind of a dork.

"Go change into a shirt that won't confuse the hospital staff about who the patient is, please."

His sleeve wasn't that shredded and bloody, and he'd have his EMT uniform on over it anyway, but he sighed and headed for his room. Where he found that he had a slight problem. Alex usually did laundry on Thursdays, but Jamie sometimes—well, lots of times—forgot to throw his stuff in. It wasn't the kind of thing that got him in trouble, but it did mean that he had to remember to do laundry on his own since he didn't have enough clothes to last for more than a week. Especially since he'd managed to wear through another shirt to the point that Alex had told him he wasn't allowed to wear it to work anymore last weekend. He was pretty sure there was an implied 'or school' there, too, even if he hadn't tested that yet, but while he'd figured he could do laundry tonight, right this second that wasn't going to help him. He probably couldn't get away with re-wearing anything in the pile of stuff that needed to be washed, either.

He pulled his sleeve around so he could look at it again. It really wasn't that bad. Only a little torn up at the bottom, and there wasn't too much blood. He could probably scrub most of it out. A quick glance at the clock said he didn't have much time if he didn't want blood and water to end up soaking through his EMT shirt, and he needed to grab some lunch sometime too since he hadn't eaten at Caitie's, but—

"Jamie?" Alex asked, pausing in his doorway. "Is something wrong?"

He flushed.

"What?"

"I need to do laundry."

"What do you mean? I thought the washer was running when I got home from work on Monday?"

It had been because he'd had to hold off on his shower, and Jamie shrugged.

"Come on, I'm sure I've got a t-shirt you can borrow, but I think five shirts is cutting it a little close, yeah?" Alex asked. "Maybe it's time to stop by the mall?"

Jamie shrugged again, following Alex towards his room. He didn't exactly shop at the mall too often, but he probably should hit the thrift store. Or talk to Sonja about getting into the foster kid closet again, but he wasn't sure when he'd see her next, and it was always a question if he'd find anything useful there anyway. He was old enough to be too tall for a lot of what was donated, as proven by his inability to find a winter coat when things had started getting cold last year.

"We don't have time to go today before your shift today, and I'm sure the shops will be closed before its done, but we should have time to go tomorrow," Alex continued.

"You don't have to take me."

"Will you go if I don't?"

Jamie wasn't planning on going to the mall anyway, so he muttered something noncommittal.

"Here, this ought to work," Alex said, pulling a shirt out of the dresser and tossing it to him. "Tomorrow, though, got it? Wherever kids currently buy clothes if not the mall. You're more than old enough to go alone if you'd rather, but you ought to have at least a full week's worth of appropriate things to wear. You've still got your debit card and the register to track purchases in, right?"

"It's not...I mean, I can just..." He shook his head. "I've got some money left from my last job." He'd planned to use it to fill up the gas tank at the end of the month, but he could manage.

Alex sighed. "Jamie, we've been over this. That money is yours and to be used for you, and clothes are definitely in the category of things that it should be spent on. If you were bringing home hundred dollar pairs of jeans we'd need to have a talk, but you shouldn't be walking around in rags, either."

It was supposed to be Alex's, though. Jamie had had more than enough foster parents to know that. It was one thing for Alex to take insurance money out of the account, Jamie still figured that insurance was an adult thing anyway, but using it for other stuff just seemed weird.

"Three shirts, Jamie." Alex said firmly. "At least. And any other clothes that might need replacing, clear? Otherwise we're back to having that discussion about you getting stuck with things that are to my taste."

Which sounded just as horrific now as it had before, even if the shirt Alex had given him looked pretty plain and normal. Except that it had a collar. The only thing Jamie ever wore with a collar was his EMT uniform, and that was mostly because he had to. "Fine."

"Thank you."

He headed back to his room and changed, checking out his t-shirt sleeve again. Maybe it was torn a little worse than he'd thought. Not too much bloodier, though; he'd see if he could fix it and scrub it clean later. It'd be better if it wasn't white, but so it went.

And maybe he could figure out how to ask the super squad if it was normal for parents to buy clothes and stuff. It was kind of hard with most of his friends since Kenny had to scrounge as much as he did and Caitie's and Micah's moms were always strapped enough for cash that they just used whatever money they made from babysitting or working in the auto shop or whatever for what they needed too. And Tom pretty much got whatever his older brother was done with like Jamie used to from Peter before everything, but maybe that had changed since Tom had to be as tall as Kevin by now.

Then again, when it came to the super squad, they were...different...sometimes than most of what he was used to. Like Tyler's parents, or his dad, anyway, buying him a car. Kind of crazy different.

"Jaim, do you want a sandwich before we go?"