Thanks to everyone who read and to Yazzi for reviewing.


"Really, you're welcome to come inside," Barry said. "We can leave the door open if you want." The cold wasn't particularly bothering him, especially with the house blocking most of the wind, but Mr. Marin looked awfully chilly. Especially since he was just standing there searching for Barry's email on his phone. And realistically, if Barry wanted to do some damage—not that he would, obviously, but if he wanted to—neither inside nor outside would make the least bit of difference as far from everything as the house was.

"That would be against policy," Mr. Marin said. "I'm fine."

His call, Barry wasn't going to argue, but still. It seemed like freezing ones parole officer wasn't a great way to win points. Especially since he'd just been walking down a list of yes or no questions, the same as his last visit, or at least he had been up until Barry had mentioned the email he'd sent yesterday morning. And it had been just as pointless as his last visit, too. Yes, Barry was still following his parole restrictions, no, he hadn't had any contact with anyone from the prison, yes, he had had interaction with law enforcement, but that was pretty much a technicality because it was just Nick, etcetera.

"Ah, here it is," Mr. Marin said. "Now, you were saying…."

Barry stayed quiet as he read the email. There wasn't much to it, just a question about the classes that he and Dad had discussed, plus one more about working in the writing lab if they'd hire him.

"They're are all through the same college that you did your last set of classes with?" Mr. Marin asked.

"Yeah." Dad's whole idea of him changing schools wouldn't happen until next fall at the earliest, and by then the worst of this should be behind him.

"Well, nothing here looks problematic. Make sure that you send along your schedule when your class enrollment officially goes through, and don't forget that if there's any group work required outside of class hours you'll need to get the time approved in advance."

"I will. And if I'm able to get a job at the writing center for a few hours a week? Like around my classes?"

"As long as it's organized through the school that would be acceptable. But you'll need to send in a copy of your contract or employment letter prior to starting, and make sure that your hours are on file. And similarly to classwork, any overtime will also need to be approved in advance."

Barry nodded.

"Also, don't forget that you still have the five hundred hours of community service to complete. I don't have the listing with how many hours you have left on me today, but it should be in your records, and the courts won't look favorably on letting that slide."

Barry nodded again. He knew there was an option to apply for an extension to twenty-one to complete his required community service hours, it had been one of the things that Kevin had walked him through leading up to his release, but his count was actually below 400 now, and he was still hoping that he could get them done around his classes and just be done next September.

"Did you have any other questions?" Mr. Marin asked. "I believe I got through all of mine."

He was also visibly starting to shiver, and Barry shook his head quickly. "No, that was all, thanks."

A nod, and Barry waited politely for him to get back into his car and get it started before heading back inside. The whole home visit thing was ridiculous when all they did was stand around and Barry answered questions that he could have answered just as easily over the phone or on one of his trips to the parole office, but whatever. It wasn't like anyone had asked his opinion.

He had a couple hours left before Dad should be home, but he also had a history test coming up this Friday, and since history was the subject that he practically forgot that he was taking half the time, he flung himself down on the couch and spent some time flipping through the material. He figured he'd be fine, it wasn't like there was anything new in any of this—new in the sense that he hadn't covered it back in high school history or as part of some event that Mom had dragged him to, anyway—but it was the responsible thing to do. And it was better than the calc problems that were also on his list for this evening.

He was still paging through his notes when he heard the garage door opening, and with a yawn he flipped his book shut and headed upstairs. "Hey, Dad."

"Hello. How was your day?" Dad handed over a bag of takeout.

It smelled like Indian tonight, and Barry snagged a piece of naan quickly before moving it to the counter. "Pretty good, food bank this morning and then Mr. Marin stopped by this afternoon for one of his home visits." He frowned. "I thought it was the November one, but I guess it's December now, isn't it?"

"As I understand it, the parole offices are perpetually understaffed and overworked so I suspect he'll count it as both," Dad said, putting his briefcase on the counter. "I assume no concerns?"

"No, he said the classes looked fine and to send in the official enrollment notification when I got it. And also to keep up with my community service and all of that, but Mrs. Young said today that she'd try to put some longer shifts into the food bank system if I wanted them so I might be able to get some eight hour blocks done over the next few weeks."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Apparently they normally ask for four hour shifts because they don't want to overwhelm their volunteers, but…." He waved a hand, and Dad nodded because it wasn't like anything they were asking him to do was difficult. Not for a Jagerbar, at least. Lonely, maybe, since he kept getting assigned to work on things by himself, but not difficult. "Anyway, all of the big donations that started coming in before Thanksgiving have picked up again and they're supposed to keep coming through the end of the year, and everyone is scrambling to figure out what has to be distributed quickly before it can go bad and what can be stored and doled out through the early parts of next year when donations are a lot more limited. Or at least that's what I keep hearing from Mrs. Young when she's sending me off to work somewhere, and it sounds like they're happy to keep me busy with the storing and truck-loading part as long as I'm available."

"Getting a large block of your community service out of the way this month would be an excellent idea," Dad agreed. "But what about your current classes?"

"They're winding down anyway. I was just doing some reading for my history test this Friday, but according to the syllabus the last unit is on Westward Expansion, and I know I've got that covered." In fact he probably had that more than covered just based on all of the lectures and exhibits and everything that Mom had dragged him to that had been focused on the local indigenous peoples and how they'd been affected by said expansion. "And there's only one big paper left for English. We haven't got a lot of details yet, just that it's some sort of self-assessment, but I'm usually fine for English anyway."

"What about calculus?"

Barry made a face despite himself. "I'll get through it, if only so I never have to do it again." Probably not with an A unless someone added a pretty steep curve, but a B seemed doable. If it got too ugly he could always try bugging Roddy for some help again.

Dad smiled. "All right, if you're sure. I'm going to go get changed. Why don't you set the table?"


"Hours," Roddy said dryly. "I could probably have gotten the bass part down in that amount of time."

"Are you even tall enough to play a bass? I mean, they're the big ones, right?"

"Fuck you, I can play anything in the orchestra. Not like I can a violin, maybe, but I can at least get a tune out of it."

Barry laughed. "Just checking. So how much time do they have left to get it right?"

"Pretty much none. The first performance with the ballet is tomorrow afternoon. Well, okay, officially it's the dress rehearsal and the first real show is Sunday, but the idea is that both the orchestra and the ballet performers know what's up going in, so they only have to fuss around about the staging and timing and whatever." He sighed. "Like, I knew Neil and Terry graduated last year and what's-her-face was the only experienced bassist left to help the incoming freshmen, but if they fuck up when we're at an actual performance Dr. Warren is probably going to have a heart attack. Or murder them. Or both."

"It'll be fine, just call it a side show." Barry flopped onto his back, stretching as best he could on the couch. "But if your dress rehearsal is tomorrow and then the real shows start Sunday, I'm guessing there's no way that you'll be able to make it up here over the weekend."

"No chance. Probably not for a couple weeks, sorry."

"'s okay." Barry had kind of suspected that from what Roddy had said over Thanksgiving, although he still wasn't entirely happy to have it confirmed. But it wasn't like he couldn't entertain himself, he'd just sort of gotten used to not having to have to all the time. "Any idea if you'll free up at all before Christmas?"

"Well, I'm around for chatting in the evenings, or at least I should be unless we have to break in a new conductor and-or bass section, but otherwise our last performance is the Friday before the holiday so anytime after that works for a visit for me as long as it does for you. Right now I've got nothing from the weekend before Christmas until the Monday after New Years courtesy of my classmates' international vacations or some shit." He paused. "As long as you're not planning on dragging me out camping or anything horrible like that. If you're planning on camping, I'm really busy with not getting eaten."

Barry grinned. "Don't worry, considering how much convincing it took just to get you to go look at a pond, I didn't figure you were up for sleeping down there." Besides, even if wild predators were absolutely no threat with him or Dad around, he kind of doubted that their tent would be warm enough for Roddy. "Dad has to work right up until Christmas so we probably won't leave until that morning, and we'll be back for sure the weekend after since Dad'll be going into his office the next Monday too. I can't imagine him starting a workweek without making sure he's caught up on all his email and correspondence."

"Isn't correspondence just email too?"

"Probably, but that's what he always calls it." Really, even if Dad wouldn't insist on being caught up before work on Monday, Barry kind of doubted that there would be enough fish in that little pond to entertain the two of them for more than a day or two anyway. Heck, they could probably take some breaks from fishing to do some hiking around their property and still not eat up more than a few hours here or there. And they wouldn't even have the dartboard or a pool table down by the pond.

"What about the food bank?" Roddy asked.

"Well, they've got plenty going on to keep me busy now, but I think right before the holiday and probably between holidays it'll end up being like Thanksgiving where all the work involves the local pantries and the main warehouse is pretty dead. Want to just plan on you coming up the Saturday or Sunday after your last concert and then if something happens for either of us we can always change it?"

"Saturday works for me, sure, but that's still stupid. The food bank, I mean. Like, are the little old ladies who volunteer at the pantries somehow better at moving boxes than you? Cause I'm thinking not."

He wasn't wrong, but Barry shrugged anyway. "No one's asking us, I'm afraid. Although now that I'm thinking about it, I could use some more music if you've got any more CDs that I can rip. Whenever we see each other, I mean."

"I don't have much more in the way of CDs, especially since I gave Sammy his turntable back, but I'll bring my computer over the next time I come and you can pull whatever you want. And if you can tell me which tracks you liked the best I can point you at more like them specifically. I'd offer to email some stuff, but the internet here is pretty crappy, and I'd get bitched out for sure if I tried using the school's network like that."

"No worries, whenever I see you next would be great." His phone beeped, and he frowned. "Shoot, that's Jordan. I told her I'd help her figure out a theme for her final English paper—it's this whole self-assessment thing, but one of the things the professor really focused on when he was walking through the rubric with us was having an overarching narrative—so I'd better go. Talk to you next week?"

"Next week," Roddy confirmed. "I'll let you know if any of the basses survive the weekend, and we can discuss again how nuts people who like English classes are."

"Ha ha, very funny. I'm going to laugh when it's your turn to pick classes next year and you don't get to pick everything music, just saying. But good luck. To you and the bass section."

"Thanks."

Roddy disconnected, and Barry accepted Jordan's call quickly. "Hello?"

"Hey, I was afraid I'd missed you."

"No, sorry, was just catching up with a friend and had to switch over. You wanted to talk about the final English paper, right?"

"Yeah. I don't...I wish we could do this in person."

"It might be an option next semester," Barry offered.

"Oh, there is no way that I'm taking another English class after this one as long as I pass," she said immediately. "I'm taking the rest of my nursing-track classes and never writing another opinion paper again as long as I live."

He bit back a laugh and wondered if he should introduce her to Roddy. "Understood. But you've got the note slides, right? What the professor was talking about in the last lecture?"

By the time he'd talked her through some possible theme options and how to structure the rest of the paper around it he'd actually worked out a pretty good outline for himself, too, and when they disconnected he scribbled some notes down quickly and then headed upstairs to see what Dad was up to. Maybe Dad would have some ideas about what else they could do while they were down fishing.