Disclaimer: I do not own Higher Ground or any of the characters from the show. The only one I made up is Janey.

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Sitting on his desk, Peter faced off with Scott. Scott matched his favorite teacher's look of disappointment and concern with a defiant one.

"Scott, what did I tell you?" Peter asked, sighing.

"Watch my step or get shuns," Scott said. He looked away.

Peter cleared his throat. "Look, I'll cut you a deal." Scott turned back, surprised. Peter wasn't one for cutting deals. At Horizon, it was more 'Peter's way or the highway.' Peter nodded. "You talk to Janey for ten minutes and you're off the hook."

"Talk to my sister?"

"Uh huh."

"About what?"

"Anything," Peter said. "But you gotta keep your temper."

Scott debated. Shuns meant no Shelby, no talking, no hanging with his friends. But this new option meant spending time with Janey. Neither sounded pleasant.

"Scott?" Peter prompted.

"Janey," he said quickly, before he could take it back. Shelby was the most important person in his life right then, and he wasn't about to give up his talking privileges with her.

"Good choice," Peter said, relieved. He nodded to Scott. "You can go…unless you want to talk?"

Shaking his head, Scott took off. Peter leaned back, still balancing on the desk edge, and Sophie entered, glancing after Scott. She frowned slightly.

"Someone's in a hurry. He okay?"

"Yeah. Took the 'Janey option.'"

Sophie sighed. "Good." She dropped into the chair Scott had just occupied. "Peter, about Janey though…"

"Hmmm?"

"Right before you came out, I tried to calm her down. She pushed me away. But she accepted you. I'm picking up on a potential issue."

"Women," Peter agreed bitterly. "Like Scott. She's uncomfortable around women. Uneasy, can't trust them."

"Exactly," Sophie confirmed. "I'll bet that's why she lashed out at Shelby. She was worried that Shelby was hurting Scott like her own mother hurt him. And why she doesn't want anything to do with me. And why she's been pushing Juliette away."

"And why she's scared to be left alone at night with her dorm of female roommates," Peter added. "That's what she was talking about the night she ran."

Sophie stood and leaned her back against her husband. He wrapped his arms around her comfortingly. She leaned her head back on his shoulder.

"Why are some parents so rotten to their kids?" she mused sadly. "Do they not realize how badly it scars them?"

"I don't know, Soph."

"We'd never be like that to our kids."

"No. We wouldn't."

Juliette lay on her back on the ground. She knew that she was probably absolutely filthy, but she didn't care. She turned her head slightly and was able to look directly into Auggie's shining dark eyes. His were laughing at her silently, picking up on her giddiness. They lay on the ground slightly in the woods, side by side. They had sneaked out there immediately after Sophie had come to dismiss the group, explaining that Scott was in Peter's office, and Janey needed some time alone in the girls' dorm for a while.

"Jules, what is it?"

"I don't know," she said, grinning. "I just feel so…content. Ever feel like that?"

"Yeah," he replied, leaning in to kiss her lightly. "Whenever I'm with you."

Juliette laughed. Auggie rolled over onto his stomach, propping his upper body up with his forearms. He stared at Juliette, his own heart rejoicing to see her so happy.

"Jules," he paused. She looked at him expectantly. Taking a deep breath, he tried again. "About what you said earlier. The thing we feel guilty about."

Her smile faded. Auggie blinked hard, but he knew they needed to talk about it. He continued, "The beauty contest. And your diet…"

She faced him sadly. "Auggie, I…"

He sniffed slightly and looked at her deeper. "Tell me the whole story."

Juliette nodded. "I was, I don't know, nine? Ten? My mom entered me in the Little Miss Oregon Pageant. For two months beforehand, I only ate salad and apples and only drank water. Then, the day before the pageant, my mom went shopping. She was going to get be hair-ties. To clip up little bits of my hair, one for each side, right above my ears. She had it all planned out. I had this beautiful dress. Pink, kinda iridescent."

She glanced at Auggie. He had leaned on one of his elbows, lying now on his side, turned toward her. She smiled slightly. "It was a beautiful dress."

"I'm sure it was," he agreed, his face calm and reassuring. She knew he wouldn't rush her.

"While she was gone, I went out to the freezer in the garage. My stepfather at the time loved ice cream. There were gallons and gallons in the freezer. I knew it was off limits, but…"

"Sometimes," Auggie murmured. "That makes it all the more appealing."

"Yeah," she said softly. "I took a carton. It was huge, a whole gallon, more than most people'd eat in one sitting. And I took it inside, and I ate it all. Completely gone. It was mint chocolate chip flavored." She opened her eyes wide, taking the sky in. "And then I felt so bad. So guilty."

"Jules…"

"I bagged the carton up in five different bags, so that my mom wouldn't smell it, and threw it away. The next day, I put on my dress, went to the pageant. But I lost. And I was just so sure that it was because of the ice cream. I'd screwed up my special diet Mom'd made for me. I felt fat and…and ugly."

She blinked back tears. "Then I went home. And I threw up. For the first time." She breathed deeply, her eyes avoiding Auggie, seeing only the sky.

"It wasn't totally on purpose that time," she admitted. "I think eating too much had something to do with it. But I'd done it. And I erased it by throwing up."

"Aw Jules," Auggie interrupted.

"That's how I felt, Auggie," she said sadly. "I thought that throwing up undid it. But, you know what? It didn't. It just made my problems worse." The sky was so blue, so cheerful. She had lost that feeling. "I—I never felt so ugly in my life. That dress and everything."

"Juliette, look at me," Auggie commanded gently. She turned her head slightly, seeing his anguished face. "Listen good, Twig. You aren't ugly. You are the most beautiful people I know. Both outside and on the inside. And if the judges couldn't see that…their loss. It had nothing to do with a carton of mint chocolate chip ice cream."

He sat up slowly, kneeling, then pulled her up to her knees. He took her into an embrace, and she lay her head on his shoulder lovingly. He had meant every word of what he'd said. She felt tears running down her cheeks and onto his shirt. He didn't seem to care, holding her even tighter.

Closing her eyes peacefully, she whispered into his ear, "Thank you."

Shelby had been waiting for Scott outside Peter's office. When Sophie came by, going to the office, Shelby hung back in the shadows, not wanting Sophie to warn her off. When the danger passed, Shelby came out of hiding and sat on the steps of the main office.

Shortly after, Scott came barreling out of the building. Shelby stood and moved in pace with him. He seemed surprised and glad to see her. Checking over his shoulder, he grabbed her hand and jogged over to the shade of a building nearby, effectively shielding them from view.

He then turned to Shelby and kissed her, a deep kiss. She pulled back first, her hands still on his shoulders, her eyes still glued to his face. She smiled teasingly.

"Shuns?"

"Nah, Peter let me off," Scott said, trying to pull her in again. Shelby held out.

"What's the deal?" she asked.

"I gotta talk to Janey tomorrow," he said quickly. "For ten minutes."

"Scott," Shelby began carefully. "Why didn't you tell me? About Janey being your…stepsister? I never even knew you had a sister. Or that Elaine had a daughter."

Letting go of Shelby, Scott ran his fingers through his hair, a habit he had when he was nervous about something. He paced. "It never came up."

"That's no excuse," Shelby said, trying to hide her hurt. She thought that they had shared everything from their past. "You had a stepsister. You got her on drugs, Scott. You think that's something to just…glaze over?"

Scott turned on her angrily. "You think I'm proud of this? You think I wanted to shout it out to the world? You think, we're having a normal conversation one day, I'm just gonna come out and say, 'Oh, hey, by the way, I have a sister and it's my fault that she's a druggie.' Yeah, that's a good one, Shelb."

"Not like that, Scott!"

"Like how, then?" Scott sank down onto the dirt.

"I don't know," Shelby said, feeling her anger retreat. She hated seeing Scott looking insecure and worried, maybe even scared. She sat next to him, rubbing his back with her hand.

"Shelby, I'm sorry."

"It's okay."

"I should of told you," he insisted. "You told me about your sister."

"It's not a big deal," she said, concerned with his upset manner. "You wanna tell me about her now?"

"I guess," he agreed unenthusiastically. She leaned into him. "She and her mom moved to Seattle when I was a sophomore. I saw her at school, but she was a freshman, and sophomores don't really hang out with freshmen. Our parents started dating very shortly thereafter. So I got to know her. She was nice, kinda a tomboy. I taught her how to play football, and she got me into soccer. We hung out a lot."

"She looked up to you," Shelby added tonelessly, remembering what Janey had said during group earlier.

"Yeah," Scott said quietly. "She did. When Dad and Elaine got married, she became my sister, and we stayed friends. She'd love it when I'd invite her to play football with me and my friends or offer to watch a movie with her or something. I don't know why I made her take the drugs."

"You were protecting yourself," Shelby said. "By making her get hooked, she wouldn't tell."

"Yeah," he said again. "I guess." They were silent for a minute. "It just hurts me to see her here, like this."

"Know what I think?" Shelby asked.

"Huh?"

"She's a lot like you. And that's why it hurts you so much. She's sixteen, a junior, same age as you were when you came. She's suffered through Elaine, just like you. She's been on the same drugs. Same problems. She's very similar."

Scott nodded slowly. "I never knew she knew."

"What?" Shelby asked.

"About me and Elaine."

Shelby didn't know how to respond to that. She shrugged gently, wrapping her arms around Scott, entwining him in a comforting hug.

"Why are you so mad at each other?" she inquired, pulling his head onto her shoulder.

"The last time we really talked consisted of me yelling at her, her yelling at me, me beating her up, and both of us getting high." He sighed, his voice muffled by her shoulder. "After she got into the drugs, she would just come get her stuff on Monday, and we'd ignore each other for the rest of the week. Occasionally, she'd cross my path; I'd get pissed, she'd get pissed, and I'd beat her up."

Shelby winced.

"I just don't know what I'm gonna say to her tomorrow."

"How about…" Shelby hesitated. "I'm sorry."

Scott acted as if he hadn't heard. He sat with his head buried in Shelby's shoulder and didn't move. Slowly, she stroked his hair. Her hatred for Janey ebbed as her understanding grew.