A/N: After some consideration... we shall continue. I had toddlers on the brain, and then I actually got plot bunny attacked by something earlier than that. (I also tried making Harry Burrows seem like less of a jerk, but it was kind of a wash...)

Week 20 - UDC 1 - A call-back to '71... and it seems that Alan was understating a thing...

96. a light in the dark

The small kid sitting at Frank's desk as he walked by with a stack of files to review wasn't unfamiliar, Alan realized as he considered the visible bruises on his arms. He was reading a textbook, which Alan discovered as he inched closer was for Biology. He looked from the kid, to Frank, and back again, and realized that another thing was off here... "Frank?"

Frank glanced up, frowned at him, then nodded and stood and led him a little distance away. "Lieutenant Carpenter is here, having a discussion with Harry. Kid hasn't so much as spoken to me since Harry sat him down."

Alan continued to study the kid, wondering at the textbook and how small he was. "This is one of Harry's?"

Frank nodded thoughtfully. "I wasn't going to try to get him to talk if he didn't want to. Not when he's crying silently like that."

"Nine or ten?"

"Hard to tell," Frank mused, wincing when the boy glanced up at them with a glare.

"Ten," the kid hissed and then returned his attention to the textbook.

"Good hearing, too," Frank observed.

The kid blinked at the textbook, then shook his head. "I'm worried about Juliana."

Alan glanced at Frank, who shrugged helplessly. "Right. Conference room?"

97. steer by the stars

In the conference room, Harry was taking notes and reviewing everything with an exhausted Lieutenant Carpenter when the door opened. They both looked up and Harry frowned at Alan. "What?"

Alan studied them both, then motioned to the door he'd just closed. "You've got a ten year old out there crying and worried about someone named Juliana is the what, Harry. Not sure where he got a high school biology book, but..."

Carpenter chuckled, but the sound of it was raw and made Harry wince. "My oldest let him borrow it, actually, and Juliana is my wife. She's in the base hospital for observation, since yesterday."

Harry sighed and wrote down a few more details. "Are you sure this placement isn't working out?"

"I can't have my kids at odds with Pete, Harry, while I'm not there. I can't do that to my wife right now, and it would be unfair to do so to Pete and you know it." Carpenter sighed and looked at Alan. "Deployment."

"And I sat him down with Frank because I didn't want him left alone," Harry explained tiredly. "He'd try to fix the coffee maker or something."

Alan stared at both of them, processing through all of that. "File." Harry froze at his icy, crisp tone, and then handed it over. "Who were you going to be handing this kid off to, if you're moving to Arlington?"

Harry sighed again. "I was hoping this placement would work, and now I have no idea. He's yours, if you want him, because I don't know what to do with him anymore."

98. shake the heavens

Sighing, Alan sat down at the conference table and opened the file, only to blink, startled at the details. "How reactive was he, Lieutenant? Also, why didn't you report the bruising?"

"Because then I'd be here all the time," Carpenter said honestly. "If it's not my kids taunting him 'till he reacts, then he's getting it from the older kids at the junior high school. And I know that sounds bad, but Juliana has called a few times to report things to Harry, and I can only do so much about behavior. We both have. It's just... you know the saying about scuttlebutt, right?"

Alan nodded. "I do, especially on a military base. When do you deploy, Lieutenant?"

"Too soon for my liking."

Alan turned back a few pages, read and then sat back and studied the Lieutenant. "How soon?"

"Three weeks."

99. beneath these hands

The kid was still emotional and hiding it badly when Frank noticed both Lieutenant Carpenter and Alan. "So?"

"So I'm keeping him for three weeks," Lieutenant Carpenter said as he tapped the kid on the shoulder. "Let's go see about Jules, huh, Pete?"

"Three weeks?" Pete frowned at him, then looked past him to Alan. "I don't understand."

"Harry turned you over to me," Alan explained calmly. "And you're going home with Carpenter until he deploys."

The expression of panic that swam across the kid's face in that moment made Frank want to take him home himself. "Oh."

100. the path and the walker

He waited until Lieutenant Carpenter had managed to coax the kid up out of the chair and out of the building before looking at Alan again, only to find his expression stony. "So was it that Harry is moving to the Arlington office, or something else?"

"It's a lot of things, and Harry was, is, dismissive. Frankly, if it would have calmed him down, I'd have let the kid fiddle with the coffee maker all he liked." Alan took the file from under his arm and stared at the cover momentarily. "Ten, nearly eleven in a month... reading a high school biology book, and now I want to pepper Harry with questions."

Frank watched as he turned on his heel and went to do just that.