Hi guys! This is lovesjak again! I just wanted to thank everyone who put this fanfic on their alerts and give a shout out to wishyouknew22, my 1 review! (Hopefully this number increases…^^;;) There are a lot of characters in this chapter but I know I don't like having to read through profiles and whatnot so I've put profiles at the bottom if you want to refer. Anyways, here is the next chapter of "The Finder's Apprentice!"

Disclaimer: The only people I own are Stan and his family…sigh.

Recap:

She stared out of the window. They had long passed the "Welcome to Mississippi" sign and now they were arriving at some dirt roads with lots of trees on either side and houses occasionally peeking out from the overgrowth of trees.

He smiled at her. "And here we are!"

CHAPTER 2: New friends?

Stan had parked in a modest sized, two story house painted white with a grey shingled roof. Blue curtains prevented Willa from peeking in, but she could still see the shadow of the profile of who she thought was a male, looking like he was sitting, possibly typing on a computer, on the window of a room on the second floor. Her stomach started twisting and squirming; would they be nice to her? More importantly, would they believe her? Stan had believed her story, her life as Cassandra Proud, but what would his friends think of her?

"Let's go!" Stan exclaimed enthusiastically.

Willa felt her feet dragging as they went up to the door. 'You've dealt with Walter," she told herself. 'What could be worse than him?'

"I'm home!" Stan shouted.

All of the sudden, footsteps crashed down a hallway to the left of the entryway Stan and Willa stood in and a girl a couple of inches taller than her with long, straight brown hair wrapped herself around Stan. Stan chuckled and hugged the girl. "Hey D," he said into her hair.

"Ftan," she said, her words muffled by the fabric of his t-shirt. "I miffed you fo much!"

"I missed you too," he told her. "Look here!" he said, gesturing in Willa's direction.

The girl's brown eyes turned on Willa. She stared at her coldly, and that put Willa on defensive immediately.

"This is Cassandra Proud. I picked her up en route, in Florida. Cassandra's lost her only family and wants to start over so I thought I would help her out here." Stan explained. "Cassandra, this is my girlfriend, Deanna."

Willa nodded and after a moment of awkward silence, Deanna stuck out her hand. "Nice to meet you," she told Willa, but the look on her face told Willa that Deanna would be happier to have met Willa's corpse.

"Likewise," Willa responded.

"Deanna's a 3rd year student here at the University as well," Stan explained. "But she's in nursing. She doesn't live with us because her parents love her too much to let her go, but you'll see her around enough to believe that she does stay in the house with us."

Deanna gave Stan a tight-lipped smile. "I think I'm going to see how dinner is going. I suppose I'll have to make enough to feed one more?"

"Thanks, D." he said. He gave her a kiss on the cheek and a squeeze around her waist. "I'm going to go introduce Cassie to everyone else!"

Stan then proceeded to drag Willa down the hallway Deanna had just come from. Willa had never felt more blessed to be manhandled in such a fashion.

"What's her problem?" Willa asked Stan.

Stan laughed. "Deanna doesn't take to new people too well. I'm sure after a couple of days she'll warm up to you and you two will be the best of friends."

'Yeah,' Willa thought. 'If the best of friends always give each other death glares then that's exactly what we'll be.'

Stan took her into what she assumed was the living room. It had a chocolate brown couch, a glass coffee table, and a couple of light brown ottomans scattered here and there. A guy with black hair and tan skin sat on one end of the couch, with his legs facing the TV and the rest of his body facing a rather voluptuous blonde dressed in a shirt that was too tight and a skirt that was too short. "Got a minute?" Stan asked.

The guy turned. "Oh hey Stan," he said. Then his brown eyes found Willa. "I thought you were still with D. She's not going to be happy…"

Stan rolled his eyes. "Of course I'm still with D. This here is Cassandra Proud. I found her stranded in Florida when I was coming from helping Jack move all of his crap to Miami. She wanted to leave the state and start a new life and I wanted to help her so she's staying with us for a while."

"Cool," the guy said. Then he smiled at Willa. "The name's Giovanni, Giovanni Russo. I'm a 3rd year here, studying biochemistry, and from Jersey," he told her, "But I ain't one of those jack-ass oompa-loompa guidos you see on TV." He gestured at his tan. "One hundred percent sun and melanin, no spray."

Willa laughed. "Damn it, I was hoping you knew JWoww. She's my favorite."

He wiggled his eyebrows at her. "Oh she's mine too. Who wouldn't like a girl like that?"

Willa shook her head and laughed again and Stan smiled. "Okay," he said. "We're going to have dinner soon but we understand…" and he broke off.

"No," Giovanni said. "Gina was just going to leave."

Willa smirked. "Sure doesn't look it," she said, making Stan laugh and Giovanni roll his eyes.

"God, all I ever try to be is a good little Italian American boy!" he exclaimed. "Why doesn't anyone believe me?"

Gina just nodded and petted his bicep, which Stan and Willa took as their cue to leave. They went back down the hallway and then up some stairs to the second floor. "This is the second floor, Stan explained. "Most of the bedrooms are here except for Giovanni's and Gavin's. You'll meet Gavin later."

As they got off the landing, Stan pointed out each room. "Here's one of the bathrooms; there are four total. One for the guys and one for the girls on this floor, one on the first floor, and one in the basement. This one's for the guys. And this room is mine," he said, while pointing at a door next to the bathroom. He opened it and beckoned Willa inside.

The room was of average size and had a bed, a built-in closet, a lamp, a desk with a laptop plugged into the Ethernet jack and a bureau. The desk sat facing a window that looked out into a backyard, with the laptop on top and a bunch of books, while the closet was tucked into the left corner of the room and the built in closet to the right of the door. There was a band poster or two, but most of the decoration consisted of photos, mostly of people Willa couldn't recognize. All in all, it wasn't too bad.

They left Stan's room and went back into the hall. To their right was another door. "This is Grigori's room," Stan told her, and he knocked until he heard someone say, "Come in!"

"Hey Grigori!" Stan greeted.

"Stan, you are back!" Grigori said warmly. The he noticed Willa. "Hello, my name is Grigori." He extended his hand.

"Cassandra, Cassandra Proud," she replied and took his hand. His hand was warm and firm, with calluses on his fingers.

"As you can see Cassandra, all of the rooms have the same layout. We're too lazy to change it and it works so we don't really care."

"What brings you here, Cassandra?" Grigori asked.

"I'm here to get a sort of, well, fresh start," Willa explained. "I lost all of my family and was trying to leave Florida when Stan picked me up and offered to let me stay here."

Grigori gave a sympathetic nod. "Well, we are glad to have you here. As I said before, my name is Grigori. I am a 3rd year student here hoping to major in computer engineering."

Willa smiled and looked at the room. There were little Russian trinkets scattered around; a flag and a picture of a set of matrushka dolls decorated the walls. But what really caught her eye was a beautiful chessboard on his desk. The pieces had beautiful, delicate details and seemed to be crafted of ebony and ivory.

Grigori followed Willa's eyes and saw that she was looking at the chessboard. "Ah, my board. It was a gift from a chess competition I won back home. Do you play?"

Willa blushed. "I've never learned how, actually."

Grigori smiled, "I can teach you if you'd like?"

Willa looked into his blue eyes. "I'd like that."

Suddenly, they heard a voice calling. "Dinner!"

Stan stomach rumbled loudly at the same time. Grigori laughed. "Ladies first," he said, while gesturing Stan towards the door.

"Oh I couldn't possibly," Stan said, exaggerating his posture to seem like a swooning lady.

Willa rolled her eyes. "Get on with it," she said, as she pushed Stan out the door.

All three of them were laughing when they went downstairs and down a hallway opposite the living room. "Here's our kitchen slash dinning room," Stan said as they entered the room.

One side of the room was a huge window entryway into the backyard. The rest of the room was taken over by a table with a kitschy assembly of chairs, which Willa assumed were from a garage sale, complete with a jumbled assortment of plates and cutlery, as well as ordinary kitchen appliances, including a toaster, oven, sink, refrigerator, and drying rack.

Stan's girlfriend. Deanna, was carrying bowls off the stovetop and onto the table while another girl Willa hadn't met was taking out loaves of bread from the oven. Deanna shot Willa a glare but the other girl just rolled her eyes and gave Deanna a light jab in the stomach with her elbow. "Cut it out D," the girl said. She turned her brown eyes to Willa. "Sorry, my name is Adriana. You must be Cassandra." Adriana gave Willa a smile.

Willa was about to answer when two arms snaked around Adriana and Adriana smacked a practiced hand away from the bread she was carrying. "Gav,' Adriana scolded. "We'll be eating in a minute!"

A guy with red hair and bright blues gave a lopsided grin to Willa. "That's a minute too soon!"

Adriana rolled her eyes. "Have you met Cassandra?"

The guy turned to Willa. "Oh sorry! The name's Gavin. I'm one of the guys who lives here and I'm a 3rd year focusing on ecology while my lovely girlfriend carrying the bread is a 2nd year thinking of going into physics."

"Cassandra," Willa said. "I'm originally from Florida but I lost all of my family and was trying to hitch a ride to some new place to start a new life when I ran into Stan who offered to let me stay for a while."

Giovanni came in. "Alright! Soup beans with cornbread!"

Stan gestured for Willa to sit across from him and Deanna took his right while Giovanni sat across from her. Gavin and Adriana faced each other as well and Grigori sat next to Gavin.

Adriana started ladling soup for everyone while Gavin took a huge chunk of corn bread and passed down the rest. After everyone had some food in front of them, they started eating. People mostly turned to talk to Willa throughout the meal.

"What do you like to do?" Giovanni asked.

"Well, you know, I like surfing the web, online window shopping, taking walks, and watching of course, "The Jersey Shore."

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry we forgot to ask you before, Cassandra," Adriana exclaimed. "Are you allergic to anything?"

"Not that I'm aware of," Willa replied.

"Are you interested in furthering your education?" Grigori enquired.

At this question, Willa remembered how she had almost ruined her credit trying to get student loans from Timo. She smiled, remembering how Timo had basically complimented her for her thinking skills.

"Cassandra?" Gavin asked.

"What? Oh, sorry!" she said, jumping back to reality. She thought of a quick lie. "I really want to but I can't afford it," she told them. "And I don't want to take student loans in case, well, you know."

The group nodded and the rest of the meal proceeded in this fashion until everyone had finished. Giovanni and Grigori moved to clear the table and Willa jumped up to help them when Adriana noticed and protested. "Cassandra! Just leave them to it! It's their turn to clean anyways!"

Willa blushed. "But I feel bad. I mean, you guys are letting me stay here and I…"

Deanna wholeheartedly agreed. "It's unfair for you guys to have to take care of everything while she just does whatever!"

Grigori noticed Willa's discomfort and came up with a solution. "Why don't you work with Adriana when she clears the table?"

Deanna interjected. "But Adriana's my partner!"

Gavin, however, agreed with the plan. "Well, you can't always make it here and it's hard for Adriana to do all of the work by herself so I think it should be fine."

Deanna rolled her eyes and pulled Stan and Adriana away. Stan tried to disentangle himself, saying that he needed to show Willa where she was sleeping but this only made Deanna more upset and pull even harder.

"Well someone just loves me," Willa muttered.

Grigori and Giovanni laughed as they washed the dishes and wiped down the table. "She's just jealous," Giovanni explained. "She thinks you're gonna steal Stan from her."

Willa's eyes widened. "But I'm not! I don't even like him that way!"

Grigori gave Willa a smile. "Yes, but when your boyfriend shows up with this girl you have never seen and says he wants her to stay in his house, one can assume a lot."

Willa remembered what Stan had been saying before he'd left her. "Stan's right though—I really haven't seen the rest of the house."

"I'll show you," Giovanni volunteered. "Geek boy probably has some genius thing to solve."

"Like you can say much Mr. Biochemistry," Grigori retorted.

Giovanni then ushered Willa out into the entryway and down a set of stairs she hadn't noticed before.

"And here, is our basement!" Giovanni made a sweeping gesture. "The best place in the house!"

Willa raised an eyebrow. "And why is that?"

"Because, dearest Cassie, it's where I live. And where Gavin lives. But who cares about Gavin?" Giovanni replied.

"Shouldn't you be getting back to Gina?"

"Who's that?

"The blonde who looked like she would be covering more with a small bath towel then what she was wearing?"

"Oh her. No, she and I just hook up. We're not like Adriana and Gavin or Deanna and Stan."

"I thought you guys were pretty close from the way you were sitting," Willa commented.

"Please, girl, you of all people should know what happens in a relationship. You lose all of your freedom and even if you see a hot chick you can't hit on her. Why would I want someone to do what Deanna does to you?" Giovanni answered. "Anyways," he said, changing the subject, "Here's my room!"

The room was exactly the same as upstairs but there were a variety of plotted plants and pictures of various rather curvaceous women in various states of undress along the walls. "What is this supposed to be?" Willa asked. "A twisted, modern interpretation of the garden of Eden?'

"What are you talking about?" Giovanni asked. "This room here is my shrine, my place of worship of the female figure as well as my precious plants."

"Yeah, yeah," Willa snorted. "Moving on."

"Of course you couldn't appreciate what I see in suck works of art," Giovanni said. "How could someone so young—"

"Enough!" Willa said. "I don't need to hear all your blah-blah-blah explaining why you have porn on the walls! Let's see Gavin's room!"

They walked out of the room. There was another corridor leading away that Giovanni pointed out. "Down there is the L of the GTL process."

"Alright G."

"And here is Gavin's room."

Gavin's room was decorated with various pictures of animals and maps. "He needs a whole ton of space for his ecology work," Giovanni explained. "But there's still enough room left for Adriana's physics stuff."

"I don't know how," Will commented. "There's so much stuff."

"One of the greatest mysteries of the world," Giovanni solemnly noted. He then winced after Willa punched him on the arm.

"Not so strong now that Gina isn't here to rub your boo-boos, huh?" Willa teased.

"Oh Cassandra Proud, you have done it!' Giovanni shouted as he chased her up the stairs and into the living room. She managed to hide behind Grigori before Giovanni caught up.

"Could you two be any louder?" Deanna asked annoyed. "We're trying to watch something here."

Willa looked at the screen. "I didn't know you were so into butt-busting work out regimes."

Deanna blushed as Giovanni snickered and Grigori smiled. "I, that—"

Stan turned to Willa. "Hey Cassie, do you have any idea of what you're going to do?"

Willa had actually, even in the midst of such chaos, been considering what she should do. "I was hoping to help out at a café or something," she told the group.

Stan smiled. "My parents have been looking for someone to help them out with the small café they run. I'm sure they'd be mor ehtan willing to have you help"

Willa gave Stan a smile. "Thanks!" Deanna scowled at her.

"You must want a shower and whatnot," Adriana chimed. "I'll lend you some of my clothes and stuff and we can also go shopping tomorrow. Wait here and I'll be right back to show you to your room and give you some clothes." Adriana ran down to the basement and soon came back with the clothing.

"Let's go," she beckoned.

The two went back up the stairs and Adriana gestured to the two doors Stan hadn't shown Willa. "This room—" she pointed to the one next Grigori's—"is the bathroom the girls only use. The other room is the guest bedroom. It already has a bed and sheets and a desk and whatnot so I think you'll be fine. Stan told me he put your bag in there for you. There are towels and shampoo and stuff in the bathroom for you to use. And here are the clothes."

She then went back downstairs, presumably to Gavin and the group, leaving Willa to shower.

After showering, Willa was about to go back downstairs when she heard them talking about her.

"I don't trust her Stan," Deanna was saying. "There's something about her that's suspicious. And she's a complete stranger!"

Giovanni interjected. "You just don't like her. I think she's funny."

"Really Giovanni?" Deanna answered. "I thought she was going to be your new flavor of the week."

Adriana stopped the fight. "Stop it D. And Gio, you know better than to let this get to you."

Willa had heard enough. 'Maybe this wasn't such a great idea,' she thought. 'Maybe I should just leave tomorrow and stay at a homeless shelter and try to take things from there.' She had been so deep in thought that she walked into Grigori and almost fell.

Grigori caught her. "You should be more careful Cassandra," he said but stopped when he saw her biting her lip. "What's wrong?"

She turned her head away. "Nothing," she lied.

Grigori heard the faint murmuring of voices and guessed, "It's Deanna, isn't it?"

Willa winced and tried to hide it but she knew Grigori had noticed. "Yes."

"Don't let her get to you Cassandra. She is just jealous," he told her "I know both Giovanni and I would be very upset if you left us. Don't think about it and go to bed and wake up well rested tomorrow. Then head out for your job application."

She smiled. "Okay."

She left Grigori and went to her room. It was decorated in soft blues. 'The color of Timo's eyes,' she thought absentmindedly. Then she realized what she was thinking about and talked herself out of it. 'Stupid. He only sees you as a kid. He's probably happily married with Magdalena right now and forgotten about you. You need to focus on getting the job and-"

The tiring day got the better of her overworked mind, and Willa fell asleep.

Here are the profiles!

Deanna (Stan's girlfriend)

-3rd year nursing student

-doesn't live in the house

-doesn't trust Willa

-brown long hair

-green eyes

-Giovanni

-3rd year biochemistry student

-Italian, from Jersey

-seems tough but is really caring

-huge flirt

-black hair, brown eyes

-Grigori

-3rd year computer engineering

-Likes playing chess

-blonde with blue eyes

-has a girlfriend in Russia

-Gavin

-red hair, blue eyes

-3rd year ecology student

-Adriana (Gavin's girlfriend)

-black hair, brown eyes

-2nd year physics student

-one of Deanna's friends but won't take her friend mistreating Willa

Next will be meeting the Papadakis family!