Thanks to everyone who read and Ghostwriter and Callisto's Moon for reviewing.
"Jamie, help!"
It wasn't exactly the first thing that Jamie had expected to hear stepping into the station, but Brooke wasn't in the habit of randomly calling for help and he ducked into the stockroom quickly. "What—" What was wrong was obvious enough that he didn't bother to finish the question, dropping his backpack onto the nearest shelf and hurrying to add his weight to the box threatening to fall onto Brooke's head. It was heavier than he'd expected for being up where it was—obviously heavier than she'd expected too—and he braced himself and shoved it back into place. "What the heck is in that?"
"It's should be bandages, according to this," she said, retrieving a clipboard from the floor. "But it hasn't been officially inventoried yet."
"Are they making bandages out of metal, now?" Jamie rocked the box a little to get a better idea of it's weight and then waved Brooke backwards so he could lift it down properly. "It feels more like it ought to be IV bags or something."
"Those are usually smaller boxes, though."
She wasn't wrong, and he knelt and ripped the box open. "I guess I might have been right about the metal, but those definitely aren't bandages."
"More IV stands?" Brooke groaned as she dug through the plastic that was keeping the tubes separated and confirmed that they were the only things in the box. "Alex is going to be mad."
"Didn't we get already get a giant box of them a couple weeks ago?"
"We did, and we weren't supposed to get those, either. Well, we were supposed to get one more for each ambulance, but someone somewhere saw an extra zero that wasn't anywhere on our forms, and..." She sighed. "Did Alex come with you? The lady at the supply store wouldn't listen to me before, and I don't think she'll be happy to find out that we got another box of parts we don't want even if this one isn't half as big."
"Sorry, he just dropped me off. He had some errands to run, and there were some people he had to talk to at the hospital, and then I guess he was supposed to call his sister for something. I don't know, but he said he didn't expect to get here until after four."
"Alex has a sister? That's so weird."
Jamie shrugged. He would have said the same thing a couple months ago, but he was pretty used to Alex being a regular person now. A regular person who thought that documentaries about shark migration were as good as movies about killer flying sharks and didn't understand why they made Jamie fall asleep on the couch as soon as he finished his hot chocolate, but whatever.
"Well, the ambulance in bay two still needs a bandage restock." She looked up at him. "I know the boxes over there have been inventoried."
"Yeah, yeah, I'll take care of it. Where are the others, anyway?"
"Hank isn't on today, he's taking his SATs. And Val and Tyler are finishing the reports they owe me from Tuesday."
She gave him a pointed look, and she wasn't Alex so he rolled his eyes. "Too bad for you, I have to go restock an ambulance."
"Oh, wait, can you help me get that box, that box, and that box, down first?" She indicated three other boxes stacked on the same shelf as the IV stand parts had been. "Just in case? Ryan signed them all in at once."
And Ryan was almost a head taller than Tyler and wouldn't have thought anything about the weight. "I guess if I let you get squished it'll just mean more paperwork." Which didn't stop him from checking the other boxes before he lifted them to the floor just to make sure that nothing was going to squish him, but none of them came anywhere near the weight of that first one. Once they were safely on the ground he left them in Brooke's capable hands and grabbed a box of actual bandages, heading for the ambulance.
Val and Tyler were in the kitchen with their heads together, and he was just as glad that he wasn't going to be joining them just yet. He'd talked to Caitie some last night—well, mostly she'd talked because apparently the fact that he was fine wasn't something that anyone believed him about—and while he thought he'd finally convinced her that Alex wasn't abusing him because he was Alex and that was ridiculous, he'd also found out that she'd talked about this craziness with Val too. And granted that Val would have told her that accusing Alex of anything was just crazy too, but it was still a conversation he didn't ever want to have.
Another ambulance pulled in as he was finishing, and he waved to the squad coming off duty.
"Hey, Jamie, if those are bandages do you mind filling this one up too?" Dave asked.
"Sure." He glanced back towards the kitchen. "Want me to rinse it down too if you guys are trying to get out of here?"
"We'd appreciate it. Apparently today is the day for spring cleaning gone wrong."
Jamie smiled and waved it off, tossing the somewhat depleted box of bandages into the ambulance and jumping up after it before Dave could clap him on the shoulder. "It's no problem."
Whatever mess they'd had to deal with, the ambulance itself wasn't really in bad shape, and it didn't take him long to get it cleaned up and restocked. Which was just as well because a call for them came in as he was closing it up.
He grabbed his jumpsuit and pulled himself back into the back as Tyler and Val hurried in, taking the cab. "What is it?"
"A man fell off a ladder cleaning out his gutters," Val said. "Landed on pavement. According to the dispatcher he's currently conscious but disoriented and with multiple possible broken bones."
"Here, catch."
Brooke caught the towel Tyler tossed lightly in her direction and the dropped it with a squeal. "Gross! What happened to you, the attack of the Swamp Monster?" She scrubbed her hands against her jeans. "Where did you even find a swamp to fall into?"
"Technically it was just a very messy fountain," Val's jumpsuit was considerably less of a mess than Tyler's or Jamie's, but she'd helped pull them out and hadn't gotten off scot free either. "The last call was from one of the maintenance people trying to clean out the big one in the city center so they could start it running again. There was a bunch of leaves and crud built up and he slipped and twisted his ankle too badly to put any weight on it so Tyler climbed in to help him out but he pulled Tyler down instead, and then Jamie tried to help them both, but..." She waved a hand in their direction.
Unlike Val who'd mostly gotten slimed with leaves, and debris, he and Tyler were soaked to the skin from the water that had remained in the bottom of the fountain over the winter, and Jamie grabbed the towel from the floor and tossed it into the bin for washing. "I just know that I want to grab a shower before another call comes in." Well, mostly he hoped another call didn't come in for the next hour until they were off duty, but he knew better by know than to tempt fate by saying that out loud.
"That makes two of us. I hope I've still got a change of clothes here," Tyler said.
Jamie definitely did, but now that he thought about it he was pretty sure that the shirt was one of the ones that Alex had deemed too gone for work or school. Not really a great choice to bring in retrospect. And it was going to be a little hard to avoid Alex entirely when Alex was his ride home.
Fortunately Brooke always had a list of things to be done, and since there wasn't another call he was able to keep himself out of the way in the back storeroom until it hit six o'clock and he was off duty. Which probably wouldn't stop Alex from giving him a look, but at least he couldn't say that Jamie had worn it out on a call or anything like that.
There was no Alex in his office when Jamie went looking, though, and no car when he glanced out into the lot, and he caught Brooke as she was hurrying out the door after Val. "Hey, did Alex say when he thought he'd get here?" Because inappropriate work shirt or not, Jamie was starting to get hungry, and the hamburgers were waiting in the fridge at home.
"What do you mean?"
"His car's not here so I figured he was running late. He didn't call?"
"No, the office phones have been quiet all day. Oh, I did leave a note on his desk that he has to call the supply place and tell them they sent even more IV stands that we don't want, though."
"Brooke, come on," Val called. "Mom wants us to swing by the grocery store on our way home."
"Coming. See you Monday, Jamie."
"See you."
Jamie went back to Alex's office, but it was just as empty as it had been a few minutes ago, and the note Brooke had mentioned was propped up against the back of his nameplate so it wasn't like Alex had been here and left.
It wasn't...Alex got held up sometimes, especially when he had hospital shifts. But if it was for more than twenty or thirty minutes he called. Always.
Maybe he'd called the house? It didn't make sense that he'd do that when he knew that he was Jamie's ride home, though.
Shit. Brooke and Val were gone, and he was pretty sure that Tyler had been out the door as soon as the clock had hit six so there was no way he could hitch a ride home with one of them. Taking the bus was going to take forever, especially since he'd have missed the six-fifteen by now.
He looked at the office phone for a minute, but even if Alex had his cell phone he might not like it if Jamie called. And Jamie could get home fine by himself anyway, especially since Alex knew when his shift ended and would probably meet Jamie there.
He was right about the time it took, though, it was almost eight when the bus finally reached his stop, and it wasn't exactly reassuring when there weren't any lights on anywhere. And no message on the machine here either. He wasn't getting worried, exactly because Alex was a grownup who could take care of himself, but he wasn't so hungry anymore either.
And then it was after nine, too, and there was still no Alex and he tugged at the blanket he'd pulled from the back of the couch. It was...maybe Alex wouldn't be angry if he called? But if he was still at the hospital it would just bother him and he wouldn't be able to answer anyway so there wasn't really any point.
Except maybe Alex wasn't at the hospital? It wasn't raining, and that was usually when Alex's back hurt, but not always. Jamie pushed himself up from the couch and hurried to check Alex's room quickly, just in case, but it was as deserted as the rest of the house. And so was the garage when he looked.
As far as other places Alex could be...it wasn't a weekend when he met with the Croms, and Jamie didn't exactly know Alex's friends but he knew that they were mostly other doctors and they didn't seem to do much hanging out like Jamie and his friends did.
And Alex was always home when he said he would be.
Jamie was fiddling with the remote when he finally heard the garage door, and he pushed himself to his feet and hurried into the office. "Alex?"
Alex shut the door behind him and turned, smiling. "Hey, Jamie. How was your day?"
"You weren't here!"
Alex stopped. "Jaim? What's wrong?"
"It's late, and you weren't—" He cut himself off as his voice cracked, before Alex could do it for him because he sounded like an idiot. Alex was right here and fine and he was just being stupid. Alex could do whatever he wanted.
"Kiddo? How about we go sit down?"
"It's not..." Jamie backed up quickly, shaking his head. He was being stupid and he knew it. "It's nothing. I'm tired. I'm going to go to bed."
"Jamie, it's not even nine-thirty. Talk to me."
Jamie shook his head again, but Alex was already out of the room after him, and with where Alex was standing now he couldn't get to his room anymore without actually pushing past Alex. He gave in and headed into the living room, shoving the blanket he'd been fiddling with away and taking a seat at the end of the couch.
"Now, what's wrong, kiddo?" Alex asked, sitting down at the opposite end.
"You weren't at the station. And you weren't here."
Alex frowned. "No, the hospital had a patient who needed an emergency airlift and I was there reviewing some case notes when they discovered a mix up in the paramedic schedules. It was going to take half an hour for one of their regulars to get there, and since I'm both qualified and was on-site, I went instead." He sighed. "The flight out was fine, but the drive back took a lot longer than I expected."
"But you call when you're going to be half an hour late. This was forever."
"I asked the nurses' desk to leave a message for you at the station. You didn't get it?"
"No, Brooke said nobody called. And she doesn't mess stuff like that up."
"No, she doesn't," Alex agreed. "There must have been a mix-up at the hospital. I'm sorry, Jamie. I didn't mean to scare you."
"It's not...I can take care of myself." He was being stupid, and he knew it, and he dropped his head and grabbed the blanket again.
"I know you can. That doesn't mean that you're supposed to have to. Pretty sure we've talked about this."
Jamie froze at the hand that brushed his hair back, his eyes snapping back to Alex's.
"You need a haircut, kiddo."
That wasn't what Jamie had expected to hear. "Do not!"
"Well, I suppose that's not the most pressing thing at this point," Alex said with a smile. "But you know my phone number, right? For my cell phone?"
"I guess," Jamie said after a minute. "It might bother you, though."
"What? If you call? Jaim, if I'm somewhere where I can't or shouldn't answer like the hospital or on the road or whatever, I won't. If I'm at the hospital I won't even have it on me. But you can always leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Okay? Much better than worrying yourself to pieces."
"Was just stupid," Jamie muttered.
"Well, I guarantee I wouldn't be happy if you disappeared for more that five hours without a word. In fact I'm very sure I've already been not happy under those circumstances once. You're allowed to get upset too. So you call, okay?"
"Okay," Jamie agreed after a minute.
"Good." Alex pushed himself to his feet and winced, and Jamie stood as well.
"Alex?"
"It's nothing, that was just a little long for me to be sitting in a car without a break. Can you do me a favor and put my briefcase in my room while I put some water on for tea? And chocolate?"
Hot chocolate sounded a lot better now that Alex was here, and Jamie nodded quickly. "Hamburgers?"
"You haven't eat—no, you wouldn't have," Alex said. "All right, water on, and burgers on the stove too. One will be plenty for me, but I'm guessing you'll need a couple."
That was probably true, and Jamie put Alex's briefcase on his desk quickly and then went to the kitchen to help. Not that hamburgers were a lot of work, but if Alex's back hurt it might be better if Jamie did it now that Alex was here to make sure the house didn't burn down. Alex could just stand if he needed to.