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

There was the bang of a door at quarter past the hour, and then, "Alex?"

"In here, and there's no need to be slamming things."

"Sorry." He came into Alex's room a minute later still in his jacket and helmet and with his backpack slung over his shoulder. "Hey."

"Six, Jamie," Alex said, swiveling in his chair.

"It's mostly six."

"You want to try that again?"

That got a sigh, but Jamie also muttered an apology which Alex would take since he really wasn't that late. Wouldn't have been late at all except that Alex had picked up one of his once-in-a-blue-moon overnight shifts at the hospital and had asked him to be home earlier than usual because of it. "Thank you. How was—what is that?"

Jamie paused with his helmet in his hands. "What?"

As usual Jamie froze when Alex touched him, but the tension disappeared when Alex showed him the sticky, blue, and somehow glittery substance that came away on his thumb, and he groaned. "I told Brianne that dispenser thing was defective." He swiped at his jaw and grimaced when more glittery blue whatever came off on his hand too.

"What is it?" Alex asked, scrubbing his fingers against each other and then grabbing a tissue.

"Fancy art glue. Supposedly, anyway. Brianne's in the middle of some project, and Caitie got drafted to help after school, and then they grabbed me after detention since they aren't tall enough to reach the top pieces without standing on the chairs and the art teacher kept making them get down."

Not allowing people to stand on chairs sounded like a perfectly reasonable policy to Alex, but he didn't appreciate the blue coating that was now all over his fingers. He tossed the tissue in the trash and grabbed his bag in his non-gluey hand, fishing around for an alcohol wipe. Fortunately that seemed to do the trick, and he found a second one for Jamie. "Here."

"Thanks. I can't believe one of them didn't say something when I left." Jamie cleaned his hand as well and then scrubbed at his cheek before starting to turn for the door.

"Hang on a minute, you know I didn't want you to come home early today because of glue." Alex dug around in his bag again, this time for the case he'd picked up from the hospital pharmacy. "I want to get this dose done with plenty of time before I have to leave."

"Do you have to?"

"Have to, no, but allergy shots won't do anything for your allergies if you don't take them." He paused. "You're allowed to say no if you've changed your mind, but I seem to recall you looking forward to breathing a little easier this fall. And if you want to go ahead with it, it'll be just like before, a quick pinch and then we're done for the week."

"It's not a pinch, it's a shot," Jamie informed him, but he put his helmet down and let his backpack slide to the floor at the same time, and Alex didn't bother to hide a smile.

"You'll live, kiddo." Alex slid his computer back and patted the edge of his desk, indicating for Jamie to take a seat.

Jamie shrugged out of his jacket and did as he asked. "Why can't it be like a vitamin or something?"

"I'm afraid we're not quite that advanced yet. Roll up your sleeve for me."

Despite his complaint Jamie had never shown any fear of needles, and he pushed his t-shirt sleeve out of the way without any more commentary, watching as Alex prepped the injection and swabbed his upper arm quickly. He didn't even look away for the injection itself, and Alex sealed the needle away for disposal and put a probably-unnecessary band-aid on the injection site as soon as it was done.

"All right, just like we talked about before. Thirty minutes and then you can go find your friends again."

Jamie shifted a little, eyes suddenly focused on the floor.

"What?"

"It's almost dinnertime."

"It is. I was planning on chicken stir fry." He paused. "You're don't have to go anywhere, Jaim, I just need you to remember that you can't right after the shots until we know that you aren't going to have a bad reaction. Okay?" It was unlikely that Jamie would have any problems, but there were no guarantees for this kind of thing. Anyone giving allergy shots kept an epi-pen on hand for very good reason.

"Oh. Okay."

At least he was better at recognizing when Jamie was starting to get upset now, although he really wished that he wasn't. Between the doctor's office and then that mess last weekend...he'd assumed that leaving a message at the nurses' desk asking them to notify the station would be enough, but he knew as well as anyone how quickly a hospital could go from dead quiet to a dozen back-to-back crises that left no time for anyone to do anything and he damn well should have thought to make a call himself before he'd started the drive back. "Tell you what," he said after a minute. "How about you go put your backpack away and clean up your helmet and then you can finish whatever homework you've got while I get dinner ready? We can pull out the M&Ms and play cards afterwards until I have to leave for work if you don't have anywhere else to be."

Jamie's head lifted again, and he nodded quickly. "I don't have very much, just reading a couple chapters for English."

"Good."

Stir fry and rice were pretty quick, especially since Alex had remembered to take the chicken out to thaw this morning, and he very much doubted that Jamie was actually done with his reading by the time it was ready. The fact that Jamie only shrugged and muttered something incomprehensible when asked supported that.

"I don't think I caught all that," he prompted as he handed Jamie his plate.

Jamie made a face. "It's not like Ms. Persinger cares. She's just going to spend tomorrow telling the whole class what the chapters were about anyway. It's all themes and symbolism and whatever." He gave a vague wave with the serving spoon.

"Themes and symbolism and whatever are probably a lot easier for her to talk about when her students have their reading done," Alex pointed out, taking the spoon when Jamie was finished.

Jamie groaned. "Alex."

"Jamie." Alex couldn't have mimicked Jamie's boneless drop into his chair if he'd tried, and he set his plate down and took his seat a bit more normally. "I'll play cards with you until I have to leave, but you get your reading done before bed, clear?"

"Fine."

"Thank you. And while we're talking about school, I don't suppose you'd care to tell me why you ended up in detention?"

Alex looked up from his book as Jamie entered from the garage and flopped down on his back on the couch without a word, throwing a hand over his eyes.

"Busy shift?" Jamie must have left right at the top of the hour to be home now; Alex hadn't expected to see him before he had to leave for his meeting with the Croms.

Jamie lowered his arm and tilted his head back to look at Alex. "Only two callouts so the answer should be not really, but that only works if you ignore paperwork demon. Can't you make her stop finding new forms? Or inventing new forms?"

"I'm afraid Brooke is far less dangerous in that respect than government and hospital oversight committees. Did you get caught up?"

"Yeah. Hank and Val too."

"Not Tyler?" Alex had thought the whole high school squad was on for the Saturday day shift.

"Almost, but he spent most of the time between callouts trying to help Brooke with something on the computer." A scowl. "My fingers hurt."

"Well, at least you're finished for now. And I made it to the grocery store while you were at work so we're stocked up if you want a snack that isn't leftover pizza."

Jamie sat up. "Cookies?"

"There are some cookies." They weren't something that Alex bought every week, but he didn't have a problem with adding a box to the grocery list every now and again.

Jamie grinned, pushing himself to his feet and heading for the kitchen. There was rustling from the cabinets, and then, "Do you want any?"

"No, thank you."

He returned with cookies and milk a couple minutes later looking considerably happier. "Oh, Jennifer said to ask you can you please check your email before Monday morning because somebody wants to tour the station next week and she wants to make sure you're available before she sets it up."

Because the last tour had gone so well. Alex sighed. If there were any children involved, he was going to make sure Brooke was there to ride herd on them this time. "Thanks for letting me know." A quick check of the time. "That'll have to wait until I get back, though, I think."

Jamie's scowl returned.

"What?"

"Why do you have to meet with them anyway? It's stupid."

"It's not stupid, Jaim, it's part of being a foster parent. Unlike me, they've done this before."

He scoffed. "Most of my foster parents had been foster parents before. It didn't make them any use."

While Alex appreciated the implied confidence, Jamie was...well, he wasn't in the best position to judge. "Would you like to come with me?" he offered as he set his book aside. "I'm sure the Croms would like to meet you."

Jamie hesitated and then shook his head. "Nah, I'll just find something to watch on TV."

"Are you sure?"

He nodded. "You'll be back for dinner, right?"

"By six at the latest. Do me a favor and check the fridge and see what looks good, okay? And I don't mean the entire box of cookies."

"Yeah, yeah."

Michael and Rosa had the girls they were fostering were with them this weekend, but neither of them were in any way interested in some random adult who'd come by to talk to their foster parents, and Michael waved him into a seat as they escaped to their room after greetings were exchanged.

Alex took it with a nod of thanks, accepting the offer of a glass of water from Rosa.

"So how have you been?" Michael asked as he and Rosa settled in as well. "Are things still going well with you and Jamie?"

"It's been an interesting couple weeks," Alex admitted. "The doctor's visit didn't go as well as I'd hoped, and then there was a mix-up last weekend that upset him quite a bit. He's doing better now, or at least I think he is, but it's been a little rough."

"Did something happen?" Michael asked. "I mean, if you needed to take him to the doctor?"

"Not 'happened' as far as an injury or anything like that, but on bad days his allergies are severe enough to trigger childhood asthma that he hasn't quite outgrown, and I wanted to see if they could get him started with allergy shots and make his life a little easier. And it had been a few years since he'd seen a pediatrician anyway."

"That's not uncommon, unfortunately," Rosa said. "Especially when children are moved between homes a lot."

In Alex's opinion it had more to do with people not bothering to pay attention, but Michael spoke before he could voice that thought. Which was probably just as well.

"So he's not a fan of shots, then? Can't say that I blame him."

"What? Oh, no, he's not any more fond of shots than anyone else, but he's not afraid of them or anything, and I'm more than qualified to give him the injections now that they've been prescribed." Alex hesitated for a moment and then pressed on. He still wasn't comfortable sharing Jamie's personal details without his permission, but Sonja had assured him that all of the mentors in the foster care program were familiar with the confidentiality policies and that his concerns were exactly the kinds of thing that he should be discussing with them. "He has scarring, though. On his back. He was pretty upset that the doctor didn't give him a chance to refuse to take his shirt off, and I gather she asked him some questions that he didn't want to answer—knowing him he probably didn't answer—after I left the room."

"She?" Rosa asked. "I'd expect a teenage boy to be more comfortable with a man."

"Jamie's father is the one who abused him, and he's not particularly comfortable with men in general. Certainly not when it comes to physical contact." Privately Alex suspected that at least one foster father had gotten physical as well given some of the notes in Jamie's file, but there was no way to confirm that short of Jamie talking to him. He didn't see that happening anytime soon. "He tends to freeze or flinch away when I reach for him; there's no way he'd let a strange man complete a full exam."

"If it's that bad I'm surprised that he was placed with you," Michael said.

"I'm sure he wouldn't have been if he hadn't already been living with me." Of course, it would never have occurred to Alex to consider fostering him in that case, but so it went. "It's not...he's fine being around me, he just doesn't react well to being touched. Medical stuff is one thing, but that's about as far as it goes. Anyway, he spent quite a bit of time hiding in his room after the doctor's appointment, and then last weekend there was an emergency at the hospital and I couldn't meet him at the station to give him a ride home like we'd planned. The message never got to him, and when I finally did get to the house he was pretty upset."

Michael frowned. "Upset because he was stranded somewhere, or something else?"

"Upset because I wasn't there. Getting home was no problem for him, he just took the bus, but I'm generally careful about keeping my schedule up to date, and I guess..." He trailed off with a shake of his head. "He was almost panicked which isn't something I've seen from him, not even back at Thanksgiving when I took him to my place the first time." The closest had probably been after New Years, but that had been a very different kind of fear. "Please don't get me wrong, I would have completely understood him being worried that I wasn't where I was supposed to be. I'd be worried myself in the same situation, and Jamie's an EMT so he's seen his fair share of accidents. But this went beyond that."

"Children who haven't had a lot of stability tend to latch on to what they can get and don't necessarily handle surprises well," Rosa said. "If he's used to you always being where you say you'll be and then suddenly you weren't...well, there's a good chance that he wasn't expecting to react like that either even if something like a car accident never crossed his mind."

That was possible. Jamie had certainly tried to pretend like nothing was the matter after his initial outburst, even if no one with eyes or ears would have believed him.

"Can I ask what happened after you did get home?" she continued. "Beyond him being upset, I mean."

"Nothing, really. When I found out he hadn't gotten my message I apologized for scaring him and told him he could call me if anything like that happened again, and then we had dinner—he doesn't eat when he's upset so he hadn't eaten on his own—and he fell asleep on the couch."

"And is that normal?"

"What? Dinner or falling asleep on the couch?" Although the answer to her question was really the same in both cases. "He's usually home for dinner although sometimes he'll go back out with his friends afterwards, and it's not uncommon for him to fall asleep if I'm watching something that doesn't hold his attention." Which, admittedly, was a lot of what Alex watched. "I couldn't do it, at least not if I wanted to be able to move the next day, but the couch doesn't seem to bother him so I don't usually bother waking him up to go to his room."

She nodded. "Do you think he's feeling better now?"

"He was sticking pretty close to home for a couple of days afterwards, a lot like after the doctor's visit, but he's started spending time with his friends again after school so I think so?" He shook his head. "The problem is that I got it wrong with the doctor's visit to the point where I had a sixteen year old girl showing up in my office to accuse me of abusing her friend, and with this coming barely more than a week later...I just don't know. I'm out of my depth."

She smiled sympathetically. "It probably doesn't help, but I'd chalk it up to a learning experience for both of you. Learning experiences, rather. Even with the best of intentions things are going to go wrong and all you can do is work through them."

Alex wanted to argue, but it was a fair point. He knew as well as anyone how fast life could go sideways. Witness him ending up with a sixteen year old foster son in the first place.

"Time and attention help build security," Michael said. "Tell me, if something like this had happened with one of your parents when you were a kid, what would you have done?"

"Catch a ride with someone else or wait until one of them showed up. But I grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere so the situations aren't exactly analogous." Especially given his parents loose acquaintance with things like schedules. Alex had learned early not to expect them to be on time anywhere anyway.

"My point was more that it didn't even occur to you to question if someone would show up eventually," he said. "Children in foster care don't have that kind of automatic belief, and I know it sounds a little ridiculous when you're talking about whether or not you'd show up at your own house, but fear isn't always logical. Tell me, are there any activities that you and Jamie do together? It sounds like you eat together, at least?"

"Breakfast and dinner, usually, yes. And we'll watch movies or play cards or I'll help him with his homework sometimes."

"Then I would focus on those. It takes time to build trust, especially when you're talking about someone who hasn't had a lot of reason for it."