Thanks to everyone who read, and to M1ssUnd3rst4nd1ng and 1983Sarah for reviewing.


Barry sighed as he tossed his phone onto his nightstand, staring up at his ceiling. He needed to talk to Dad, but at this point he was starting to think that it'd be better for everyone if he just crawled into a hole and pulled it in after him instead. At least for the rest of the week.

Thus far Monday had included losing it over a holiday that was still a month away and then flipping out at Dad. On Tuesday things had remained awkward with Dad, plus he'd totally screwed up one of his quick-response writing assignments by missing one of the precisely three bulleted requirements. He still had no idea how he'd managed that. And today, well, today there was a good chance that he'd just completely terrified the only friend that he had. After dropping the whole holiday thing on him despite knowing full well that he'd recently lost his only parent because he was just Mr. Sensitivity, apparently. Not that Roddy had sounded all that put out never mind terrified—seriously, he'd said that he didn't get along with his classmates, but he'd yet to get more than even mildly annoyed with Barry—but still. Describing the Roh-hatz in detail would have been bad enough even without the whole holiday mess.

Barry rubbed his head. And misdirected, unintentionally-directed, whatever conversations with Roddy aside, he'd gotten off the phone because he'd heard Dad in the hall, and that awkwardness kind of had to be dealt with before Nick came over tomorrow.

That didn't mean that he was looking forward to it, though, and he groaned and had just started to push himself up off his bed when there was a light knock at the door. He sank back down. "Come in."

"Hey," Dad said, opening the door. "I wasn't sure if you were still awake."

It wasn't like it was that late, but Barry just shrugged. "Yeah. Was talking to Roddy."

"Oh. How is he?"

"Pretty good. Uh, he got his solo."

"That's good." Dad gestured towards the foot of the bed. "May I?"

"Yeah. Sure."

"We need to talk."

"Yeah."

There was silence for several minutes after Dad sat down, and then, "There isn't—"

"I'm sorry," Barry blurted at the same time.

Two 'sorrys' echoed on top of each other immediately after that, and a ghost of a smile crossed Dad's face as he gestured for Barry to go ahead.

"I'm sorry," Barry repeated again. "I mean, about the other day. I didn't mean to freak out like that." He shook his head. "I was just thinking about Mom. And Christmas."

Dad sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "I suppose that is coming up again."

Under other circumstances Barry might have pointed out that it was a yearly thing, but the obvious wasn't very funny right now. "I don't...it's not going to be the same. Not without her." He shook his head again. "And I couldn't even skip it in prison, so I don't think my odds are good out here."

"No," Dad agreed. "I tried to avoid it last year too, except for seeing you of course, but it's a very pervasive holiday. More than I realized despite knowing that the courts are shut down for everything except emergency proceedings between Christmas and New Years' and that a good part of the rest of the city follows suit. You and I don't have to do anything, but I don't think there's any way to pretend that it's not happening." He hesitated for a moment. "And you can't react the way that you did towards me with anyone else. You know that, right?"

"Yeah. I mean, I didn't mean to react like that at all, I just..." He shook his head. "It just happened." Maybe it was a good thing, at least for the time being, that he wasn't particularly friendly with anyone on any of his volunteer shifts.

"Would it help to talk to someone?" Dad asked. "I can't say that I've found it to be the sort of thing that helps me, but there are professionals we could contact. I'm sure we could find one open to phone consultations."

Barry shook his head immediately. There had been a counseling group thing that he'd been required to attend in in prison for a few months, but while a couple guys had seemed to find it helpful—that, or maybe they'd just appreciated the opportunity to run their mouths twice a week—he'd learned pretty quickly what the absolute minimum was that he'd had to say to keep the facilitator off his case, and he'd been just as glad when they'd finally signed him off as having completed the program. He didn't see talking to some random person now doing anything other than making things worse.

"Well, if you ever change your mind, it's an option."

"Sure."

Both of them were quiet again for a minute, and then Dad spoke. "I know you're trying to get through as much of your community service as you can before your house arrest is lifted, and I think it's a very wise idea, but maybe you should back off a little in December. Target opportunities that are a little more solitary."

"That hasn't been much of a problem so far." Not that Barry couldn't see where Dad was coming from considering that he'd been thinking along similar lines not two minutes ago. "But I'll try."

Dad nodded slightly. "And we might not be able to go far, but there's no reason we couldn't set up the tents on the property the week of the holiday either. Maybe try a little fishing, although who knows if the pond will have any ice. They keep saying that it's supposed to be an unusually cold winter, but thus far I haven't noticed any significant difference from years past."

It wouldn't be much of a camping trip if they had to stay within jogging distance of the house, but it would guarantee no Christmas crap in a way that staying inside wouldn't. If nothing else, the streaming sites were bound to be holiday heavy with advertisements and holiday movies and whatever. And Barry liked winter camping well enough as long as it didn't rain the whole time. He echoed Dad's nod. "Yeah, sure, I guess that'd be good."

There was silence again, and this time Barry sort of figured that it was his turn to break it. "Was that all that you wanted to talk about?"

Dad sighed. "No. You'd mentioned that you were going to start looking at courses to take next semester."

"Oh. Yeah. I haven't done it yet, but I need to."

"When is the deadline?"

Barry rocked a hand. "Well, I was mostly talking about the spring term, but technically it depends what I'm signing up for. There's a really short January term when I could take a class, but the way it's compressed into a month most of them meet practically every day which might make volunteering difficult. And I already missed the first wave of sign-ups for that anyway, although I can still get in if something I want has open slots." Assuming that he could find one online or get his paperwork sorted with the parole office before the first class, at least, and given how long it had taken just to get the single expanded community service form signed—and that had been without holidays in the way—he wasn't sure he cared to bet on that. "But the main spring term starts at the beginning of February, and that registration opens the second week in December. Why, did you have some ideas?"

Dad sighed again. "I don't...this isn't what I wanted for you."

Barry blinked. It wasn't like this was what he'd wanted either—not that he'd exactly had plans, but at least he'd had a direction—but he'd pretty solidly screwed that up a year ago so he had no idea why Dad was bringing it up now.

"But all you can do now is try to get back on track. And while I know that you could stay at the community college for a second year to finish an associates degree, I really think it would be better if you transferred to a four-year university in the fall instead. You won't even need to request parole modification as long as you stay in the Portland area, and while I don't know the reputation of any of the Portland universities when it comes to acceptance rates, it would be good to start looking soon at what schools make sense as well as what classes will transfer."

"Yeah." Yet another thing to think about that he hadn't considered before, what schools would even accept someone with a felony conviction, but while he'd tried to make sure that he had transferable classes, it had been more of a general feeling that that was a good idea than anything that he'd been particularly selective about.

"And you'll also need to decide on a major since that will also affect what transfer credits are accepted. Political science is probably the most common undergraduate major, but as I recall neither English nor communications were that uncommon if that's what you'd like to focus on."

Barry had no idea where that had come from since he didn't remember even thinking about never mind mentioning political science, but he was still opening his mouth to ask when Dad continued speaking.

"Law schools tend to place some emphasis on history and philosophy as well, but those are courses that you can take alongside most other majors. Criminal justice is another common field, but..."

Wait, law school acceptance? Not that Barry didn't agree with his assessment of criminal justice as a field of study, not when he'd had a little too much personal experience recently, but all of this suddenly implied that Dad still thought that he could go to law school. That was...something?

"Admissions will also give more weight to the courses that you take at a full university as opposed to a community college," Dad went on, apparently not noticing Barry's surprise, "and given that, it would be a good idea to get the requirements that are primarily just checking boxes out of the way first rather than trying to transfer credits in areas that you expect to carry forward as a focus."

Barry was still trying to reorder the conversation in his head since he'd barely even been thinking about how his community college courses could lead to a four year degree never mind trying to get accepted to a law school for post-graduate studies, but while more math didn't exactly thrill him, it wasn't like he couldn't see where Dad was coming from. He wasn't planning to take more math than the minimum anyway, and while it seemed sort of weird to focus on things that a law school would care about now, getting the classes out of the way was getting them out of the way regardless.

"And it would be wise to look at how you spend the rest of your time as well," Dad said after a moment. "I'm not saying that you shouldn't spend a few hours working in the college writing center this spring if that's something that interests you, but in the fall it would look better for admissions if you came to the firm for an internship. I'm sure we could find something for you even as an undergrad, Andrew's daughters did internships while they were in school, and I know that it was good for their careers."

Andrew was one of Dad's partners, and Barry had a vague memory of two girls five or six years older than he was who also used to get dragged to various parties at the firm, but there had been enough of an age difference that he hadn't interacted with them much, and he had no idea where they'd ended up. And from his perspective hanging out at Dad's office making copies or whatever—even he knew that he couldn't help with much if he wasn't even in law school yet—didn't sound anywhere near as interesting as helping with papers and that kind of thing, but... "I guess," he said after a minute.

Dad nodded. "Since you don't expect to have much to do over the holiday, why don't you take a look at the different schools in the area and what's available as far as classes at the community college, and then we can talk it over when you're ready? I think I already told you that I'll have to work through Wednesday, but then I'll be off for the long weekend."

Barry would be utterly shocked if Dad could actually go four days without working, but he already knew that he needed someone to talk through class stuff with, and Dad was pretty much the best option that he had. Well, Dad was pretty much the only option that he had, but anyway. "Yeah, sure."

Another nod. "All right, then. I was thinking about picking up Mexican for dinner tomorrow since we had Italian the last time Nick came over. What do you think?"

"Sure," Barry agreed again. He was generally pretty okay with whatever.