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

"So where were you Friday night, anyway?" Kenny asked, flipping the bouncy ball at the wall.

Jamie caught it on the rebound and shrugged before sending it back. "Home. Grounded, remember?" Not that he'd been thrilled with the idea of going out partying anyway since the spring weather had shifted again and it was back to getting cold after the sun went down. And if it hadn't exactly been rainy last week, it had been sort of generally gross and damp. It was one thing to hang out on a roof for a few hours in summer or fall when it was decent out and he could head for the park if—when—some of the guys got a little too drunk for his tastes, but in this kind of weather he was bound to end up trying to find an empty corner in the apartment of whoever had thrown the party long before the night was over. And not only was that never a sure thing, it usually wasn't a comfortable thing either. Alex might not let him watch movies when he was grounded, but he never took away dinner or even hot chocolate, and the couch was easy to fall asleep on even without a boring documentary. Alex mostly didn't even wake him up to make him go to his room.

Kenny scoffed. "When is this guy going to get rid of you so life can get back to normal?"

Jamie shrugged again. "I'm here, aren't I?" He was supposed to be grounded through next Thursday, but Alex was in the middle of a shift at the hospital right now and said he'd be going straight from there to the station a couple hours after Jamie's shift started so Jamie figured it was safe enough to not sit around and be bored. And definitely not sit around and write stupid reports. "It's just kind of hard to sneak out when he's sitting right there, you know?"

"I guess." He bounced the ball off the wall again. "Still, none of your placements ever last more than a couple months so he's got to be planning on it soon."

Jamie accidentally threw the ball back at the wall harder than he needed to, and Kenny swore as it bounced too high for him to catch without expending some effort. Something clearly not in his plans for the day.

"What the hell, man?" he demanded.

"Where have you been, anyway?" Jamie asked, ignoring his question. "You were only at school, what, two days this week?"

"Oh, come on, no one cares and you know it. Probably nobody but you and the others even noticed." A snort. "Well, unless one of my teachers decided to throw a party or something."

"There's only so many days you can miss before someone starts noticing, though," Jamie had to point out. "Like truant officer type noticing." Kenny—well, both of them if he was being honest—had gotten into some trouble with that freshman year. Of course, given how good Kenny's mother was at talking without actually saying anything it hadn't come to much for him, and Jamie's foster parents at the time had just used it as an excuse to dump him on someone else, but still.

"Fuck it, I cannot wait until I turn eighteen and all these assholes stop thinking they can control my life," Kenny said, flopping onto his back with his arm tucked behind his head, toy apparently forgotten.

"What do you think you're going to do then, anyway?" Jamie asked curiously, shifting around so he could lean back against the wall. No matter what Alex said about it he knew he wasn't college material, but he was pretty sure that Mr. Valda or Micah's uncle would vouch for him being a decent mechanic and he'd be able to pick up a full time job that way. But Kenny wasn't at all mechanically inclined, and as far as Jamie knew the kind of odd jobs the neighbors paid him for sometimes weren't the kinds of things you could support yourself on. Then again, he hadn't missed that Kenny hadn't answered his question. He didn't really want to think too much about what that could mean.

"Win the lottery, maybe?" Kenny waved a hand vaguely. "Who cares? As long as they leave me alone, I don't."

Jamie sighed. There was no point in even trying to talk to Kenny when he got like this. "Want to head down to the old motel on the corner and see if we can find any glass left to break?"

Kenny rolled to his feet. "Sure, why not?"

Jamie's boots caught him before he could skid across the garage, and he ducked into the station. "Not late!"

Hank looked up from whichever of his school binders he was flipping through—because of course he was, Hank was nice and all be he was absolutely going to grow up to be at least as much of a dork as Alex—and rolled his eyes, but Jamie was reasonably confident that he wouldn't say anything to Alex about the minute hand that might be slightly past the hour on the clock. "Hey, Jamie."

"Hey. Where are Tyler and Val?"

Hank jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Apparently we got a whole crate of IV stands in, and Brooke drafted them to help her rearrange boxes so we've got room for them in the big storeroom."

"Why do we need a crate of IV stands?" They already had two or three on each ambulance, and it wasn't like IV stands went bad.

"Got me."

Jamie stuffed his jacket and keys into his locker and was about to go see if they needed more help when Hank groaned and dropped his forehead down onto the paper in front of him.

"What's wrong?"

"I don't even know what I'm trying to say anymore," he mumbled into the page. He lifted his head again. "Have you finished your French paper yet?"

"It's not due until Tuesday."

"You know that's the day after tomorrow, right?"

"Sure. So I'll do it tomorrow."

Hank shook his head.

With a roll of his eyes, Jamie dropped down into the seat next to him, craning his neck to look at what Hank was writing. It was way harder to read French than to speak it. "Yeah, no, that doesn't make any sense at all," Jamie agreed after a moment.

"Thanks." Hank rubbed his forehead. "I am so doomed."

"What are you trying to write about, anyway?"

"The fishing trip my dad took me and a couple of my cousins on last summer. I was going to ask Monique to help me read through it tomorrow and check pronunciation and stuff, but I have to get something written first." A pause. "Plus I'd rather she didn't think I was a total idiot and I don't think I've done a very good job of convincing her of that so far."

Jamie was vaguely aware that Monique was a senior about a million miles away from his social circle, but beyond that everything he'd heard about her was from Hank. And if she was stupid enough to think that Hank was stupid just because he wasn't very good at French she wasn't worth the fuss, but whatever. "Okay. Uh, cousins is just 'les cousins' so I have no idea where you got that from," Jamie said, pointing to the middle of the first sentence. "And I don't know what the right word is, but you definitely can't stick an 'ing' on poisson and make it fishing."

"Well, I knew that, I just haven't got around to looking up what the right word is," Hank said, making a face. "But we haven't exactly covered the fishing trip vocabulary list in class yet and I forgot my dictionary. Any chance you've got yours?"

"Oh, sure, I carry a French dictionary everywhere I go." He didn't even have a French dictionary since the school only provided textbooks, but whatever. He managed okay with the vocabulary lists at the back.

"Right. Thanks." Hank dropped his pencil, flexing his fingers. "What are you going to write about, anyway? I mean, when you do get around to writing it."

"I don't know. It's not like I've ever really gone anywhere."

"What about your grandmother? You visit her, right?"

Yeah, right, like he was going to talk about visits to a nursing home with twenty-some random classmates, most of whom he didn't even know never mind like. "Nah, that's boring. I'll probably just do something about going up to the city and visiting the zoo or whatever." Not that he'd ever actually been to the city, or the zoo—he hadn't been kidding about never going anywhere—but it was something that just about everyone else had done, and he'd heard enough about them over the years to be able to write up the thousand-ish words the assignment required no problem. Hell, he could probably waste nine hundred of them just talking about random animals. "I mean, that's boring too, but we haven't talked about a lot of lions or tigers or bears in class so Monsuir Le Bon will probably be happy."

"Yeah, that works," Hank agreed. "And at least it should take a day or two for everyone to read through their reports so we might get away without a vocabulary quiz this week. I swear I spend more time on French than I do most of my other classes combined."

Skipping homework was an easy way to fix that problem, but Jamie didn't even have to say it to know how well that idea would be received.

"Hey, what happened on Community Night, anyway?" Hank asked, apparently deciding that he was done with French for the moment. "I mean, I know you're on kitchen duty for taking the kids up on the roof or whatever, but when I got here this morning Jennifer and one of the guys from Dave's EMT squad were talking about the mayor coming by to yell at Alex the other night. Some kind of angry letter she got, I think, and apparently she was so mad they could hear her all the way on the other side of the station."

"What?"

"I don't know, that's why I'm asking you. What happened?"

"I don't know anything about angry letters or anybody yelling at Alex," Jamie said. "But the whole Community Night thing...well, he said to keep the kids occupied so I took them up on the roof with some old IV bags. We were dropping them onto the pavement over by the trash cans, and then all of a sudden there were people there. One guy got hit in the shoulder, and I guess a couple others got splashed pretty good."

"Wow. Okay, yeah, I guess that would do it. Why would you take them on the roof, though?"

"He said keep them occupied," Jamie repeated.

"Yeah, sure, but what's wrong with the television?"

Jamie rolled his eyes. Water ballooning IV bags was way more intersting than some stupid cartoon, and it wasn't like he hadn't been being careful. At least with the kids. He still didn't think it was his fault that someone had decided to go inspect the trash cans.

"How long do you think you're going to be staying there, anyway?" Hank asked hesitantly.

"What?"

"How much longer do you think you'll be staying with Alex?"

"Oh." Jamie shrugged, trying to focus on Hank's paper again. "I don't know. Until he gets rid of me, probably." No one wanted to foster some random teenager, especially one who got in trouble as much as he did. Apparently even more trouble than he'd thought, although Alex hadn't said anything to him last night. Or whatever night it had been; he'd only yelled that first night in his office and Jamie knew the mayor hadn't been anywhere around then.

"Seriously?" Hank looked surprised. "I mean, you aren't trying to plan your escape? Or he's not planning to, I don't know, pack you off to live with your grandmother or whatever?"

"Why would he do that? Or why would I do that?"

"I don't know. I just figured you guys weren't exactly a match made in Heaven, and you landing him on the mayor's bad side can't have helped. Alex hates anything that makes him look bad."

"I don't know anything about that," Jamie repeated. "And it's not...he's strict and whatever, but it's been okay." Alex drank water or sometimes tea at night, not beer, and even if book reports were boring it was nothing like he could have done. And it wasn't like Jamie tried to make trouble for him either; he even did his homework sometimes. Maybe even most of the time, now.

"If you say so."

Hank looked more than a little skeptical and Jamie found himself trying to object again without even knowing what he really wanted to object to. And then the alarms went off and he didn't have any time to think about it anymore as he and Hank grabbed jumpsuits and headed for the ambulance.

TThere were three callouts in a row before they were able to finally get back to the station, and then Jamie did the kitchen cleanup like he was supposed to before climbing up onto the bunk bed, deliberately avoiding the rest of the squad who were clustered around Brooke's desk looking at something. He could see Alex in his office, but he looked busy, and Jamie figured it was better not to bother him. Maybe definitely better not to bother him.

The rest of the shift was pretty quiet, only one more callout, and then since Jamie had his bike he headed for home—Alex's—without bothering to wait for him. Knowing Alex it would be a while before he got there, and he grabbed his guitar almost automatically.

"Jaim?"

Jamie jerked out of his reverie quickly and immediately put his guitar back in its case. He hadn't realized that Alex was home. He never played his guitar when Alex was home. "Sorry. What?"

"It's getting late, come help me with dinner."

Jamie hesitated and then shook his head. "I'm not hungry."

"May I come in?" Alex asked after a long moment of quiet.

No. "Yeah. Sure."

The door opened, and Alex stepped in, frowning. "Are you feeling okay?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Did you eat when you got home? Everything in the dishwasher looked clean."

Jamie shrugged and then shook his head. He probably should have emptied that. It wasn't exactly one of his chores but he was usually the one who did it. He hadn't even thought about it.

Alex tilted his head and then gestured at the bed. "May I?"

He shrugged again, scooting to the far side and moving his guitar case down to the floor.

"Are you sure you're feeling okay?" Alex asked as he sat down.

"Yeah."

Alex reached out slowly, and Jamie froze automatically as he touched the back of his hand to Jamie's forehead. "Well, you don't feel warm. Did you guys have a bad shift?"

"No. It was fine. A kid with a concussion, a guy who cut his hand kind of bad while he was trying to fix his lawnmower, some lady who accidentally set some rice on fire, and then an old guy who fell and his wife called 911 even though he seemed okay. Nothing special."

"Then what's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"I'm not much of a mind-reader, kiddo, but you aren't one for skipping meals unless you're upset about something."

Jamie really wished he'd decided to burrow under the blankets instead of playing guitar. At least Alex couldn't look at him if he was under blankets.

"I know Hank was worrying about a French paper," Alex said after a minute.

Jamie scoffed. "That's not even due until Tuesday."

"You mean the day after tomorrow?"

"Whatever. It's not..."

"Not what?"

"Everybody today keeps saying you should get rid of me," Jamie muttered. And thinking about it now, he couldn't exactly come up with a reason why Alex should keep him.

"What? Who says that?"

"Kenny. And Hank." He paused. "Well, Hank mostly said it was my fault that the mayor got mad and yelled at you, but it's kind of the same thing."

"What?" Alex repeated, and then shook his head. "Never mind. First of all, you don't worry about the mayor. I have no idea what people were saying, but she and I don't see eye to eye on plenty and what you do or don't do isn't likely to change that. I'm the one who works directly for her so anything she has to say is on me to deal with."

Jamie's fingers tangled in the bedspread. "But he said they said someone sent her an angry letter and she was yelling."

Alex sighed. "Do you know what you did wrong?"

"I guess." Even if he still thought it was kind of stupid, if people got mad at Alex about it...well, it was still stupid but that was a lot worse, somehow.

"And you know what your punishment is?"

"Yeah. Duh."

That got a look, probably for his tone, and he flushed and ducked his head.

"Sorry. Yeah."

"Then the matter's been dealt with and that's all you need to worry about, okay? The mayor is my problem."

Jamie shrugged. It still didn't seem right.

"And as for the rest of it," Alex continued, apparently taking his shrug as acceptance, "I don't know your friend Kenny, but as far as I'm concerned there are two people—three, I suppose, counting your social worker, but I don't get the impression that she has any objections—who have a say in whether or not you stay here. Do you want to stay?"

Jamie kept his focus on his bedspread but managed a quick nod, even if that wasn't the kind of thing you were ever supposed to admit. Really ever if you were some stupid teenage boy that no one wanted anyway.

"Good. And I like having you here, so that's settled," Alex said firmly. He was quiet for a minute, and then, "Kiddo, I can't predict the future any better than anyone else, but when I said I'd foster you I didn't mean just temporarily. I know you're been through a lot of different foster parents, but that doesn't mean that I like it. You're a child, not a library book." A pause. "A child who's probably about to find himself grounded for an extra week, but definitely not someone I plan on returning so never mind what people who don't have any say in anything think about it. All right?"

"But..." Jamie lifted his head. He didn't exactly want to argue with most of that, even if he wasn't allowed to admit it, but he didn't much like that part in the middle. "Why am I grounded a whole other week?"

Alex met his eyes evenly. "I know you and Hank had plenty of time to chat today, but I'm very curious how you managed to talk to your friend Kenny if you were at home all morning like you were supposed to be. Did you call him?"

Oh. Shit. Oops. "Um..." He hadn't exactly been prepared to lie, and even if he did it wasn't like Alex couldn't hit redial—assuming he wouldn't just ground Jamie for being on the phone since Jamie knew from the times that Caitie had been grounded that phone calls usually weren't allowed either—and Jamie wasn't sure who had been called last but since it obviously wouldn't be Kenny it didn't really matter. "No."

"That's what I thought." Alex sighed. "There are only the two of us here, and I need to be able to trust you, Jamie. Do I need to start calling to check up on you when you're supposed to be home?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

Jamie squirmed a little because he didn't even have to look to know he was getting another look. And he kind of sort of did deserve this one. "Sorry," he muttered.

"All right. I warned you what would happen if you 'forgot' again; you're grounded for another week and after you get some work done on that French paper this evening you'd best get started on that book report because I expect at least two extra pages. And if there's a repeat of this, not only will you be calling to check in, you'll lose the keys to your bike for the rest of the time you're grounded as well. Are we clear?"

"Clear."

"Good." He pushed himself to his feet. "Now come on. No one is getting rid of you, and I'm getting hungry so you ought to be starving."