"Make yourself comfortable," John took a detached look at the room and saw it for what it was rather than just his home, "or as comfortable as you possibly can in a room like this. I guess I should be apologizing for the mess before anything."

"No, it's great," Quinn assured him, "Rather homey. That's a nice skull, was he an old friend?"

Sherlock ignored the question, "If you're going to live here then I don't want you to complain about my violin, experiments or food or lack thereof."

"Fine but I don't want you to complain about my restlessness at night."

"It's my flat, I can complain about whatever I bloody want."

"It's partly John's flat too."

Sherlock stiffened at the use of John's first name in the mouth of an adolescent. "Okay, John, I'm going to work on getting this girl out the house so take her and disappear for a couple of hours while I think."

John smirked, "Don't sulk, Sherlock, it's not pretty."

"Oh, piss off, John."

Quinn glared at the wall, a frown distorted her graceful features but as soon as Watson appeared at the door, it vanished.

"Hey, I'm back and I got the cake, just like you asked. Double chocolate, hardly any icing and big enough to share with the whole neighborhood," he chuckled as he held it up.

She was stared stupidly, her mouth half gaping.

Watson noticed her reaction with dismay, "Sorry, you did say a lot of icing, didn't you? I kept on second guessing myself, I really should have called."

"No, no, it's perfect," she stood and relieved him of the cake, "thank you so much, John. To be honest, I... Didn't expect you to get it. It was more like a passing remark."

"Oh," surprise bloomed across his face, "I had no idea."

She chuckled shyly, "Obviously."

He smiled, "No matter. You enjoy that."

"You don't expect me to enjoy it alone, do you?"

John took another look at the cake, "True. What would you like to do then?"

"Don't you and Mr. Holmes have acquaintances you would like to share with? We could have a small party."

"A cake party just for the heck of it?"

Quinn nodded, her smile slowly growing.

"Sure, sounds like fun. I'll see how many people we can get on short notice and we'll do it tomorrow."

"Mr. Holmes wouldn't mind?"

"God, he'll hate the very idea but you need some fun. It's not right for you to be caged up in the house all day with hardly any human contact."

She laughed, "In that case, I've been living my life all wrong. Where is Mr. Holmes?"

"He must be out working on your parents' case. I would think examining the needle you showed him."

"I see," her smile dropped for a moment before she resumed it, saying, "I would have loved to have joined him."

"Then I'm glad I left early," Sherlock appeared behind John, a deep scowl ingrained into his pale face. He stopped at the sight of cake. "Oh, god, you're not planning to celebrate your parents' death, are you?"

"Sherlock," John exclaimed angrily.

She just laughed and shook her head, "I guess it looks like that, doesn't it? John was kind enough to buy a cake for me and we decided that we were going have a party while I'm trapped here."

Sherlock said bitterly, "If you don't like it here then I can pull a few strings to get you into prison."

"Mr. Holmes, I am so confident that you can do that that I'm not going to test you simply because I like it here. It's my preferred prison."

"Your preferred prison is my home."

"Yes, ironic, isn't it? That I'm rooming with a sociopath."

Sherlock ignored her and went to receive his violin.

"Hello, all, thank you for coming on such short notice." John closed the door behind Molly and looked at the turnout. Mrs. Hudson, of course, Lestrade, Molly and Sally, shockingly but Sherlock was missing.

Lestrade sat with his hands in his pockets, "What is this about, John?"

"Well," John went into the kitchen and brought out the enormous cake, "Do you all like cake?"

The girls lunged at the cake happily, all except for Quinn, who watched with a cryptic smile while sitting below the window. John explained as they cut slices, "I bought this for Quinn but once we saw the size, we realized that we needed to bring in reinforcements so voila, free cake for everyone."

Lestrade looked at the girl who seemed perfectly content in the discreet corner of the room and whispered to John, "How is she getting along with Sherlock?"

John chuckled, "Horribly."

"That's good. Speaking of him, how is he doing with the case? Any new developments?"

"Speaking of developments," Quinn stood and sat next to Lestrade, "Have the police made any new developments with my parents' murder?"

Lestrade answered nervously, "Not quite. Sherlock hasn't told you anything?"

"No, his general answer to all my questions is 'piss off' and when he's not saying it, he is thinking it so getting any information from him is nothing less than improbable if not impossible. I can't help but feel that he doesn't like me for some reason. It must be because I'm monopolizing John."

"Don't even pretend like you didn't add that just because you saw me walk into the room," Sherlock looked around with a disgusted frown, "God, John, you really are having a bloody party." He nodded at Molly and hugged Mrs. Hudson then totally ignored Sally and Lestrade's outstretched hand.

"Okay, Mr. Holmes, I admit it," Quinn was snickering as she admitted, "I wasn't going to say that but when I saw you walk into the room, I realized that I had to. There was no other option."

Sherlock scoffed at her, "Are you trying to be illogical on purpose just to irritate me?"

She feigned sadness, "Mr. Holmes, you always assume the worse of me." She looked up and at John with a grin, "There is honestly no one more fun to irritate than Mr. Holmes."

"I agreed," Sally was smiling in the corner with a piece of cake in her hand, "It is fun seeing Sherlock irritated."

Sherlock announced arrogantly to the both of them, "When you can outwit me then you will truly see me irritated but until then."

"I think I can do that."

Sherlock leered at Quinn, "Please do."

"You and Molly," She tossed an apologetic smile at Molly, "Something happened between you two where the almighty Sherlock had to apologize for his actions. I assume most witnesses have forgotten because of something distracting that happened later but you would never forget since it made the almighty Sherlock apologize. It must have been horrible too since you usually disregard everyone's feelings and/or right to have feelings. Especially Molly, with her being something of a mousy person causing you to right her off as insignificant in your all powerful mind. You probably enjoyed humiliating her with your analysis until you did something that not only made you look like an arse but a new arse that no one ever saw you as, which is shocking enough considering everyone already thought of you as an arse. Was it something about her feelings for you, her being one of the only people who can actually stand you? It was her dress, wasn't it? And something with more sustenance. A gift. She was giving you a gift that you took as a gift for a romantic interest, humiliated her by announcing that, took the gift, found your name on it. Sherlock Holmes, you saw for yourself how much of an arse you are and Lestrade is probably still wondering what I'm talking about," Lestrade gave a brief exclamation, "I started that countdown too early. Anyway, I think it's safe to assume that this was during a Christmas party?"

The room froze, everyone's breath hung suspended in the air except for the laughing girl's, which stopped momentarily after seeing the room pale.

"Was I that right?"

Sherlock seemed oddly pale as he asked, "How on earth did you deduct that?"

She smiled as she explained, "You're a sociopath who likes to keep the skull of a dead guy in your flat, you obviously don't like guest with the exception of Mrs. Hudson and John, who actually lives with you. The moment you saw people in here, you scowled and your reaction to people you think is insignificant is to ignore them but you actually nodded at Molly who has a small, mousy personality that you despise. Something happened, your subconscious was bothered by something you did to her so you were uncharacteristically nice. You love deducing things about people and that's the main problem everyone has with you, other than your awful overall personality. Small, mousy, and practically defenseless but talking to a hawk like you, of course you're going to attack everything you can about her, it's in your nature. Therefore, you deduced something that you shouldn't have deduced. Then, seeing her struck that memory again, not because you still feel bad about what you said but because something memorable happened afterwards, something that stuck to you. She's not going to do anything that you would think is worth remembering but you did do something. What did you do? Well, it's only natural that you apologized but it was so unnatural that it is now committed to memory. What did you deduce? The only signs that you can use to both humiliate her and realize her feelings are tangible. Tangible, what else but how she dress but that's not enough to tell you her feelings so it was something directed towards you, it must have been a gift. She was dressed nicely, giving you a gift, Christmas party. In conclusion, you're an insensitive arse. Are you irritated now?"

Sherlock snarled, "Remarkably so," before disappearing into his room.

John relieved the resulting silence with a "bloody brilliant. All that from a nod?"

Quinn nodded, shying away from the praise, "I was afraid I was reading too much into it for a bit."

"No, that was our Christmas party exactly," John exclaimed.

Quinn grinned with pleasure, "I hope I didn't sound too much like Sherlock, it just seemed too fun to show him what he was doing to everyone else. Would you mind comforting him and lessening his hatred for me?"

"That's not an easy task but I guess I'm up for it." John smiled and followed Sherlock into his room.

A moment later, Quinn asked the room, "So how much are you betting that they're a couple?"

Lestrade had twenty on 'no', Sally had thirty on 'yes', Mrs. Hudson had twenty-five on 'not yet' and Molly refused to participate.

"Oh, please," Lestrade argued, "I'm pretty sure Sherlock is antisexual."

Sally shook her head, "There's no way John could handle living with him if there wasn't some primal attraction."

Mrs. Hudson giggled, "Even if there were an attraction, those boys would be too stubborn to accept it so soon, they need more time."

Lestrade asked offhandedly, "What do you think, Quinn?"

Quinn hid her pleased smile after being invited into the conversation. "I have to say that I'm with Mrs. Hudson. For John to go so far for Sherlock, there must be a reason and for Sherlock to think so much of John is nothing less than suspicious but the process towards them actually accepting such feelings would be insanely long and annoying and might not even happen." She began to wonder who she was agreeing with but the group seemed to understand.

"Sherlock," Watson took the tall man by the arm and shook gently, "You couldn't possibly be upset. You do that to people all the time."

"I know," Sherlock snapped, "But what I don't know, the part that is really irritating me, is if she was one of the murderers."

"What?" John's hand dropped, "Sherlock… what?"

"Exactly, John, it's incomprehensible that the murderer would want to live with the man investigating the murder but it's also incomprehensible that a newly orphaned girl would take her parents' murder so gracefully, you would think that it happened years ago. She's not even pretending to be upset."

"Sherlock, you saw the teddy bear beside her bed, she's just a girl."

"Exactly, John, it was beside her bed, an odd place for the teddy bear, implying that she felt that it was totally unnecessary to have it on her bed because she knew that she was planning to cuddle it like so many girls do with their bears. It was merely decoration yet not a decoration for show, simply one that she kept around."

"She had it, Sherlock. Why would she keep it unless it meant something?"

"That's the baffling part, John, just when you think she's showing emotion, it's all wiped clean by some other incomprehensible action. If the bear really meant that much to her, if it would have helped lessen her grief by being some sort of memento, she would have brought it along and at least spared it a glance but not once did she do either before leaving the room."

"She's just a young girl, Sherlock."

"One that you compared to me repeatedly because of her intellect alone."

"But why would she kill them?"

"I don't know, John," Sherlock sat at the edge of his bed, "That's the most irritating part. Of course she wasn't close to her parents but that's no reason to kill them, I know that yet her every action induces some sort of suspicion on my part."

John laid his hands on Sherlock's shoulder and massaged absently, "Sherlock, I want to you to throw your whole reputation in my hands and trust me when I say, 'She did not do it.' Her sadness is one of those things that you would never see unless you're not looking. I think this is really tearing into her, so much that she can't even feel it."

"You always want to see the good in people."

"I can only see the good in her because she reminds me so much of you. If I hadn't met you then I would probably be just as suspicious as you are."

Sherlock fell silent, enjoying the gentle movement of John's hands. After a while he relented. "I'll look in a different direction. It'll be a waste of time to look into proving her guilty only to find that she's innocent."