Jamie smiled awkwardly as he was ushered to the table. Mary, Erin, Linda and even the youngest girl, Nikki, he thinks her name is, are crowding around him, cooing and questioning and mother henning. Jamie looks over to Danny, who laughs at his overwhelmed and helpless expression. "Come on ladies, give the kid some room to breath." Jamie sighs in relief, it seems Danny wasn't going to leave him hanging after all. Danny smirks, "Hey, don't expect a rescue next time. You'll be on your own. I only did it this time because I'm hungry and we'll never eat if they don't stop questioning you so we can pray."

Jamie looks a bit hesitant, which Mary picks up on, "That's alright isn't it? Do you go to church?"

Jamie looked down at his folded hands in his lap, embarrassed and self-conscious, "Not in a long time ma'am"

Mary gives a nervous smile, "That's alright, you can come with us next week."

Jamie smiles, raising his head to look at his mother, "That sounds great ma'am."

Henry chuckles, "Ma'am..." He turns to Joe and Danny, "Now why aren't you two that polite?"

Joe laughs, "I'm not even sure if Danny and polite belong in the same sentence."

Danny mock glares at his brother, "Ha ha, very funny. Seems a bit kettle and pot to me, now which one are you?"

Jamie laughs slightly at the brotherly banter before Frank's voice sounds above the din, "Everyone, let's pray and start dinner before we all die of hunger." Mary lightly hits Frank on the arm, giving him a look that screams of reprimand and only a mother could pull off. Frank shrugs sheepishly as heads are bowed but doesn't take his eyes off Jamie as he speaks, "Thank you for this meal we can have as a family. Thank you for returning our son to us, our brother, uncle and grandson. We thank you for that blessing and all others. Amen." The last word was echoed around the table, then everyone set about filling their plates.

Sean looked around nervously, "So Uncle Jamie, are you a cop too?"

Jamie looks up, a bit surprised by the sudden question, "Um, yeah, I am actually."

Sean's eyes widen, "Wow! That's cool, did you always want to be a cop?"

Jamie looked over to Danny a moment, "No, actually. I wanted to be a lawyer, even graduated from Harvard Law."

Erin looked up, "You graduated from Harvard then became a cop? Why?"

Jamie looked down, speaking softly, "My fiancée was murdered, I felt I could do more good stopping crime then prosecuting it."

Danny shot him a sympathetic look as Erin blanched, "Oh, I'm sorry."

Jamie shook his head, still looking at his plate, "It's fine. That was over a year ago and going through the academy helped, gave me something to focus on." Jamie felt a hand on his shoulder, squeezing comfortingly and looked up to see Joe next to him, offering silent support. Jamie nodded to him in thanks as the room lulled into a momentary silence.

"What precinct are you working out of?" Jamie turned his head at the sound of Henry's voice.

Jamie smiled, silently thanking the man, "The 12th."

Henry smiled, "I know some of those guys, good cops. Who's your training officer?"

Jamie smiled wider, "Sargent Anthony Renzulli."

Joe looked surprised, "You're kidding, he was my TO!"

Jamie smiled, "Yeah he talks about you a lot. Said you were one of the best rookie's he's ever trained."

Danny laughed, "He couldn't have been talking about Joe then." Danny pointed at Joe with his thumb, "This guy trips over his own feet. Did it once while cuffing a suspect and almost knocked over a hotdog vendor."

Jamie laughed, "Well, he didn't mention that story."

It was Joe's turn to laugh, "He wouldn't, because when I tripped, I knocked into him and sent him into the hotdog cart. Needless to say, we didn't have hotdogs for lunch after that." The table laughed at the image.

Mary smiled, "So what are you career plans? I'm sure with the amount of student loan debt you have you don't plan on staying a patrol cop."

Jamie blushed, "Well, I would like to be a detective but I was hoping one day to have a shot at being Commissioner."

Henry laughed, "Another Reagan as Commissioner, they just can't get rid of us can they."

Frank smiled, "Those are some high goals. From what I've learned of you though, I'm sure you would make an excellent Commissioner."

Jamie smiled, "Thank you sir."

In the silence that followed, Nikki decided to ask the question on everyone's mind, "So, where have you been? I mean, they said you were kidnapped as a kid. What happened? Did you escape? Did somebody find you? Who raised you? Did you have a family?"

Erin glared at her daughter, hissing a warning, "Nikki."

The girl shrugged, "What? Everyone wants to know."

Jamie let out a breath, "It's alright, those kind of questions had to start sometime. To answer them, I have no idea what happened. I don't have any memory of being kidnapped and anything before when that would have happened is vague and incomplete. I pretty much raised myself, even though I was adopted."

Jack stopped eating, "So what were your parents like? My friend Sam a school was adopted and his parents are awesome. They bought him a new game system for Christmas last year."

Jamie looked down, fiddling with the food on his plate, "My parents weren't that cool. If you don't mind, I'd rather not talk about them. Besides, you guys are my family, right?" Heads were nodded, but Jamie could see the looks that passed between the adults at the table and knew there would be a lot of questions about that later, when the kids were gone. Jamie smiled when Joe's hand made it's way back to his shoulder, a physical anchor to keep him out of the thoughts the question brought up. Jack opened his mouth to ask another question but a stern look from his mom changed his mind.

The rest of dinner followed in a similar fashion, questions and joking and heavy silences, Jamie was almost glad when it was over. almost, because now he had to face the Reagan men while the kids played and the women talked. Jamie felt the dread blanket him as they sat in the living room for a drink and knew he had reason to dread with the first question out of Frank Reagan's mouth.

"Would you tell us about the people who adopted you?"

~*~*~*~*~* BB *~*~*~*~*~

A/N- Bit of a cliffie, yeah I know, I hate me too. Hope you like the chapter, up next we see if Jamie takes the chance to confide in the Reagan's or if he pulls away or maybe a bit of both. Stay tuned to find out. I hope you read that last sentence in your announcer voice, I know I did.