A/N: This is a SEQUEL CHAPTER to chapter 6: Next Door so there's background info there if this chapter confuses you a bit!

Through the Window (All Human):

Adrian was put out. The one time he was having an actual study session, his parents decided "they wouldn't have it" anymore.

He knew that rule would disappear before the end of the week, but he was still pissed.

And now he was confined to his room. What was there to do up here?

He looked around the clutter free space. Walking to one corner, he opened the closet he'd stuffed every odd and end that surfaced in his room come cleaning day. Back when there'd still been a cleaning day.

Old paper ninja stars and broken pencils lined the shelves along with spare magazine clippings. It was almost as bad as under his bed.

He could pull out the old gaming system, but hooking it up seemed like more trouble than it was worth.

Adrian hadn't realized just how much he relied on other humans to fill his time.

He looked over the shelves again—considering defeat, about to turn to a nap—when he came upon a life saver.

Well, life saver might be an exaggeration. More like something that caught his attention for more than a second and held it.

The sketchbook from his middle school art class. He pulled it off the shelf, surprised he'd kept something like this, and started flipping through the pages. It was what you'd expect: the typical hastily done drawings of shoes and rooms.

But, in between those drawings were doodles. Doodles he didn't remember ever doing. They were kind of good.

On the last page, his seventh grade self had pasted a list of prompts and due dates. Some of them were crossed out, and some of them were undone—contributions to the many zeros in Adrian Ivashkov's grade book.

Well, he had nothing else to do.

He plopped down in a chair and began reading through the prompts.

Something that makes you grin.

Why hadn't he done this one? It was so easy!

He flipped to a blank page and retrieved a pencil stub from the closet. Then, he just sat and looked around the room. Plenty of things amused him, plenty of things made him smile, but what made him grin?

Now that he really thought about it, there wasn't much. He was beginning to see why he'd skipped out on this assignment.

His eye caught movement in the window, and he leaned a bit, and couldn't help the laugh that escaped him.

He had his answer.

The window, the one that gave him VIP access to Sydney's room, hadn't really come in handy until now.

What he saw made him swear to never ignore that window again.

Sydney, who always spoke so seriously. Sydney, who insisted on checking his homework, even though she was just 11. Sydney… who was dancing.

If that didn't make a guy grin, what could?

-0-

Sydney watched as the shadows played across her room, cast by the light across several feet of lawn.

There were two people, most definitely, and that had kept her from opening the window for a while. She wasn't an idiot, she knew what kind of things Adrian liked to do at night.

But… the shadows. Distorted as they were by the angle, and as faded as they were by the blinds, she could still make out vague details. They weren't touching that much, and they weren't on the bed. She wouldn't have been able to see them at all if they'd moved to the bed.

So what was going on?

Sydney finally gave in to curiosity and lifted herself from the covers. She padded over to the window and peeked through the blinds.

Pale blue moonlight was eliminated by the bright golden hue pouring out from his window. His curtains were pulled wide open, and her line of sight was unobstructed by the trees that lined the side of the road.

She saw the scene perfectly before her:

Adrian Ivashkov and Avery Lazar; him with a bottle to his lips and she without a shirt.

She knew he drank and she knew he'd had girls over before… but for some reason this combination, with the added factor of Avery Lazar, made her chest tighten a bit.

Sydney winced and pulled away from the window, telling herself He's 16. He can do what he wants to. I'm hardly his mother. I just made it into high school, what do I know?

She knew that she didn't like it when he threw caution to the wind like this. She knew it was unhealthy. And she knew that telling his parents wouldn't get any of them anywhere.

His dad would yell, his mother would cry, and Adrian would just be mad at her. Again.

Sydney decided then that she would talk to him. Screw his superior life experience (words he'd used the last time she'd reported a nasty habit). What he was doing was wrong and she knew it. It didn't matter that he was older. In the morning, she would give him the scolding of a lifetime.

Steeled with that resolve, she settled back into bed.

-0-

Adrian didn't know when he'd become so protective.

It must have been a result of growing up with her, and a build-up of missing her while he'd been away for college, because there was no way an emotion this strong could mount in a second. There was no way he could immediately distrust someone on sight like this.

But he did. Oh, yes, he did.

That boy, with his tucked in shirt and uncrinkled jeans, was trouble. Adrian just knew it, and he regretted letting Sydney go off with this boy for a month without bothering to check him out—college or no.

Come to think of it, he didn't even know the guy's name. Brody? Brandon?

Adrian shifted his gaze. There was Sydney.

She was talking animatedly, making hand gestures with an exuberance that showed only on occasion. What was more… she had a small smile on her face.

Sydney laughed, laughed, at something he said and turned away from the window.

A malicious plan bubbled up in Adrian, but he forced it down.

She looked really happy. Maybe…

Adrian tapped the window, unwilling to finish the thought. A witness to so much of their friendship, that window.

It had been there when they'd first met. When Sydney'd had a girl's night and, in retaliation, Adrian had invited all the neighborhood boys to his house. Every time she'd felt like a midnight snack, but didn't want to risk a downstairs trip, it had been a portal linking his snack stash to her stomach. It had been there when she'd told his parents about the cigarettes hidden under his bed. It had watched silently as he made faces and rude gestures through it in the nights after she'd tattled. It had been there as they slowly reconciled. Then, as Sydney took matters into her own hands.

It had been there every time he'd snuck a drink, and Sydney threw a ball of paper, just to let him know she was disapprovingly watching. It had seen the end of that tradition when, one night, he'd tossed back a rough sketch of her 11-year-old dancing self.

Every damn minute it had been there, and now it was showing him this.

He was watching his neighbor go off with that guy.

… maybe he should just let her be happy. She looked like she was really enjoying his company.

He strained his neck to see as she perched on the edge of her bed, bending over what he presumed was a homework assignment.

And that bastard sat down next to her.

No. He had to go.

AAAHHHH TFH comes out in two days and all I can do is think about it! I am writing like a madwoman. Expect more fics soon (unless TFH kills me, of course).