"No" The young woman's piercing green eyes stared boredly into the furious brown of her headmaster.

"Excuse me?" His nasally voice grated against her ears in an unbelieving tone.

In order to appear more intimidating, subconsciously, the headmaster placed both hands firmly on the table. A sad attempt to appear bigger that his average frame actually was.

Sighing, the girl explained as though it were obvious "I see no need to apologize to a prat like Jameson."

"Young lady!" Headmaster Martin's eyes narrowed behind his glasses "Here at Queen Ethelburga's College, we do not go around punching our peers."

Turning her head so that she could lock eyes with Kyle Jameson, who sat in the wooden chair to the right of Adelaide. The young man was holding an ice pack on his cheek, and as their eyes met, he glowered over to the brunette. Her lips twitched upwards in satisfaction at the young man's pain. Adelaide turned back to the head master, whom frankly, she was tired of being forced to remain in his presence. She decided to end this conversation quickly.

"Headmaster Martin, bullying is against the code of conduct, is it not?" She asked.

"Of course, that is why you are in here." The man looked at her like she was stupid to even ask the question, which only was adding fuel to the burning fire she had felt since this morning.

"Then wouldn't you say that the constant insults that this twat over here makes towards Holmes can be classified as mental abuse which is, as you say, bullying?"

"I haven't heard of any-" Automatically the young woman cut the infuriating headmaster off.

"Do not take me for a fool headmaster," her words were becoming as heated as her veins felt, "I watch as you come into class to watch Professor Holbrook and pretend as though you do not hear Jameson and his lackeys make the crudest, and most foul comments to Sherlock. While you allow it to go on to get revenge, on a fourteen year old boy, may I add, all because Sherlock pointed out the obvious affair and infatuation that you are having with our professor."

"How dare y-" The headmaster nearly screamed in outrage.

"I will not be lectured when you are the one who is acting like a petulant child Professor Martin!" Again, the young woman cut him off. "I was simply reprimanding Jameson when he finally broke the camel's back."

Red with anger the professor glared over the table at the 14 year old girl, "And what exactly did he do?" he grit through his teeth.

The young girl turned her head once more to look at the smarted boy, but now her green eyes narrowing with disgust.

"He made Sherlock Holmes cry."


The wind that hit her once she was out of that damned office caused her to tug her royal blue jumper closer to her body. Adelaide Holt angrily marched out of the red brick building, knowing that she needed to calm down and become in control of her emotions once more. Her narrowed eyes quickly searched around the campus for an empty place where she would be able to clear her head. Finding a satisfactory area, she started making her way towards a more grassy part of the school yard. Becuse of her heated gait, it took mere moments to reach the predetermined place. Once she reached the cool, damp grass, she all but threw her book bag down and promptly laid on the ground next to it.

She closed her eyes, shutting out all of the pointless chatter from the peers passing by, and took several deep breaths, regaining control of her mind. After the passionate anger started abating, she allowed herself to go over her feelings and determine if they were appropriate or not.

"It's mostly anger," She mumbled to herself, eyes still closed. "which is completely normal." She cared deeply about Sherlock and it made her blood boil when someone continued to throw mental blows at him.

"I would have to agree with you on that." a familiar monotone voice sounded over her.

Startled out of her processing, Adelaide opened her eyes to see Mycroft above her, his calculating blue stare reading her over. She was accustomed, after 2 years of attending the college with them, to the piercing eyes of the Holmes boys. Due to the time together Adelaide was fairly adept at reading into their emotionas as well. While most would feel like Mycroft was cold and critical, she was able to see a warmth and the slightest amount of mirth in his blue eyes as he looked down on her.

Knowing that he wanted to talk, she patted the grass next to her. "Care to join me, Mycroft?" She offered.

He scoffed "And ruin my trousers?" He looked at the ground with a bit of disgust, then put on his false smile, "I think I'll have to pass."

Adelaide smirked "Yes, wouldn't want people to think you were actually outside enjoying yourself if they saw a spot of grass on you."

Nevertheless, knowing that her friend wanted to discuss the events of that morning, she pushed herself off the ground and dusted off her uniform. Mycroft had grabbed her book bag off the ground in the process.

"Cheers." She said taking her bag from the older boy. "All right?" She asked, having no problem staring straight into his eyes. At the age of 14, Adelaide was just slightly taller than most boys, being 5'8", but that would probably start changing within a couple of years.

Mycroft offered his arm to the younger girl, which she knew meant he wanted the conversation to be more on the private side. Obliging, she wrapped her slender fingers around his bicep,and they started walking away from the group of students that were walking about the grounds. She waited patiently for him to deem that his surroundings were satisfactory enough to begin talking.

"What is this I am hearing about a... row... occurring between a certain young lady and my brother's tormentors?"

"I am sure you already know what happened, Mycroft." Adelaide responded, still facing forward but a small smile made its way to her lips, knowingly.

"I would like to hear it from a more credible source." He offered bluntly, now walking them past all of the red brick buildings to a court yard.

Sighing, Adelaide began to recount the morning to her friend, "Jameson, the one who is constantly after Sherlock, had some how found out about Redbeard, probably because of some plans that they might have seen having to do with him. They started teasing him about it saying that they were astonished that he could care about something or that something could even care for him. They actually started to get a rise out of him so they pushed further, saying, 'Your dog is the only one who will ever love you, I wonder what would happen if suddenly it disappeared.'" Her eyes narrowed angrily and her grip on the boy's arm tightened as she recalled the situation, "And then they saw a tear fall and they started tearing into him, he was leaving right as I gave the arse a swift punch to the face."

A small upward twitch of Mycroft's lips, showing through the deepened frown due to the recounting, let Adelaide know he appreciated the justice she had dealt to the Jameson boy.

"Yes, I could see how Sherlock would be a bit emotional about it, Red Beard did pass away just over the weekend." Mycroft hummed, to which Adelaide was able to pick up a bit of sadness behind the disguise of boredom the boy usually had.

"I was able to assume that something happened. Sherlock is usually pretty good about just ignoring idiot or shutting them up by reading something off of them, so the act of this emotional outburst, well, outburst by Sherlock's standards, lead me to believe that something did happen to Red Beard." She said cocking her head slightly as she told her thoughts to her friend.

Mycroft looked over to the young woman on his arm through the corner of his vision for a brief moment. She was able to tell that he was pleased over the fact that he had intelligent company walking with him, and that she was ever observant of his brother. Slipping into silence which Adelaide knew was just Mycroft's way of appreciating her for what she had done. If he was upset he would usually inform her that her actions were childish.

The young man gazed at the sleek black watch on his wrist before his gaze turned to her, "Shall we go get him?"

She nodded, "Chemistry lab, or library?"

"With this incident, I think he will actually be in the gardens." Mycroft frowned. She immediately frowned as well, knowing that Sherlock would only ever go to the gardens when truly distraught.

Adelaide nodded stiffly and the teens both picked up their pace as they walked to the greenhouses. After about two minutes of a brisk pace, they were opening the door to the green house. The air was warm and moist with all of the flora and greenery. Adelaide's hand dropped from Mycroft's arm as the teenagers' gazes wept the massive plexi-glass building. Once her green eyes landed on a dark, lanky figure, starting at the varieties of plant life in the south corner of the building.

Again, Adelaide gripped Mycroft, who was still searching, by his arm, and lead him over to Sherlock. Once they reached the sulking boy, they stood in silence for a good minute or two, Adelaide just waiting for Sherlock to be ready to speak.

"How hard?" The boy asked quietly.

She smirked a little at the question, "He has a black eye."

"Suspended?" His blue eyes held a hint of worry as they met her for the first time since they arrived.

"No, I may have threatened that I had photographic evidence of 'The Martin and Holbrook scandal'"

Both of the young men in her presence couldn't help but make a small sound of amusement, or the actual grins the spread across their faces. Adelaide had always known what strings to pull to get the emotion and the reaction she wanted. It was easy to manipulate the Headmaster into letting her walk free. After another few moments of silence, and after she saw that Sherlock's smirk was gone she stepped closer to him.

"Can I?" Adelaide asked her friend.

Sherlock's blue eyes looked at the young woman, not calculating, but almost pleadingly. Taking his gaze as her answer she walked over to him and wrapped her slender arms around him. She didn't expect Sherlock to react, especially since his brother was there, but she just wanted to hug him to make him feel happy again.

After about 20 seconds, Adelaide let go, and Sherlock's eyes were no longer sad, they were back to the ever calculating gaze. Though Adelaide took note that she could see a spark of happiness in them.

"Right," Mycroft coughed awkwardly to what Adelaide could only assume was his discomfort with watching physical touch,"Are we off then?"

Both Sherlock and Adelaide looked to each other for a moment before they nodded in agreement, both walking over to the oldest of the bunch with eyes that contained mirht.

"He needs one too" Sherlock simply said sticking his hands in his coat pockets while looking at Adelaide.

She smirked "Of course he does, he's a fool if he thinks he wasn't getting one." Adelaide stated in agreement before turning to Mycroft. She wrapped her arms around the torso of the oldest Holmes boy before he could object.

She could practically hear Mycroft's grimace as he held his arms away from his body to avoid the contact, "Yes, great, do get off Adelaide."

"Sorry, you know the rule Mycroft." She grinned up at him, holding tighter. "It has to be twenty seconds. That's when the oxytocin is released."

"I am neither stressed nor upset." He informed her indignantly.

"Your finger nails would say otherwise" Sherlock tutted, "Bitten down almost to the bed, what will mummy say when she sees?"

Adelaide released Mycroft after, what she knew Mycroft considered agonizing, twenty seconds were up. As soon as she stepped back the two brothers engaged in the constant bickering that she was used to. Smiling, knowing everything was well again, she latched on to an arm of her friends, and they all walked back to the dining hall, together.