A/N: So sorry this is later than expected! I got serious writer's block, and I'm a slow writer. I can probably update once a week, but I really can't promise anything. Sorry! Also, this is becoming uncanon because Joy's coming back already, and I honestly thought it would take much longer, so this is quickly becoming a "what if she didn't come back for a long time" type story. Hope you like this chapter!

Nina and Joy heard the footsteps again. Nina was silently crying still, but Joy was just curled up in a ball on the floor, trying to work things out in her head. The two girls were completely silent as the footsteps reached the top of the stairs, stopped, and started again a few seconds later.

Fabian sighed as he reached the top of the stairs, taking a deep breath before heading to Nina and Amber's room. He knew that was the best choice.

Joy listened attentitively to hear where the boy went. She didn't know whether to feel surprised or angry or shocked when they headed away from her room and towards Amber and Nina's. After all, she had no idea to who the footsteps belonged.

Nina heard the footsteps approach her room and she hoped that it was Fabian, even though she didn't want to. She hardly wanted anything to do with him, though, in the back of her head, she knew that she still liked him.

Fabian reached Nina's room and knocked on her door. He heard a muffled, "Come in," from the interior of the room.

Nina didn't know why she had just given whoever it was permission to enter her room. It must have been the back of her head telling her that it was Fabian, and that she wanted to see him more than anything. She was consiously trying to push those thoughts away as the door opened and the footsteps entered her room, stopping for a moment. She had a feeling that whoever it was was observing the scene before him.

Fabian entered Nina's room and stopped to see what state she was in. As expected, she was laying, face down, on her bed, her head buried in her pillow and what was visible of her cheeks was bright red. He walked over and sat on the edge of her bed, near her waist.

Nina heard the boy walk towards her bed and sit down beside her. Surprisingly, she felt his hand slowly reach over and grab hers, which was sitting on her pillow beside her head.

"Nina," Fabian whispered.

Just as Nina had suspected, it was Fabian. Her head still in her pillow, she asked, "What do you want?"

Fabian grasped Nina's hand and intertwined his fingers with hers. "Nina, I need to explain," he said. Nina pulled her hand out of his and turned herself onto her back, sitting up and moving to sit near Fabian, but not as close as she usually would. He sighed. This would be harder than he thought.

"Well?" asked Nina, impatient for an explanation.

He sighed. "Nina...before you got here, Joy and Patricia were my two best friends. Joy obviously had a crush on me, and you could say that Patricia played matchmaker with us two. It was starting to work, and I was starting to develop a crush on Joy, but then she disappeared and you showed up. And...well...I didn't know how to feel at first. I missed Joy, and I wanted more than anything to find out what had happened to her. That meant forming a friendship with you to have someone to work with on the mystery, and you had already begun to figure it out. And, along the way...well, you know...our friendship...took a weird twist, you could say. We became inseparable, and I started to forget about Joy. But as we drew near the end of the mystery, I realized that having her back would cause something like this. But I didn't want her to die, so I went through with completely figuring out the mystery, alongside you and Amber. But with what happened just now...that was completely Joy. She dragged me out to the common room, and I was an idiot to not let go of her hand. There's nothing going on between me and her, just like there's technically nothing going on between me and you. I have to explain to Joy as well - Jerome said to her, once you ran away, that I had found myself a girlfriend, which technically wasn't true. So Joy got upset, and this huge mess happened." Fabian was surprised that he had told her so much, but she seemed to understand.

Nina crossed her legs and sighed. "I guess I understand...and that definitely sounds like Jerome. So I'm guessing you're going to go give the exact same talk to Joy?"

Fabian smiled at her. "No. I'm going to tell her something different. But, for now, lay off the flirting, okay? I'm going to ask her to do the same. I need time to think."

Nina smiled back at Fabian. "I understand." She gave him a quick friendly one-armed squeeze before he stood up.

"I guess I should be going to go talk to Joy. Thanks for understanding." He flashed another quick smile at Nina before he left her room.

Joy heard the footsteps leave Nina's room and head down the hall towards her room. She was almost certain that it was Fabian, though she couldn't be sure. However, when the door creaked open. it was definitely Fabian's voice that said, "Joy? Are you okay?"

Fabian entered the room and saw Joy sitting on the floor, her feet crossed and her knees bent up to her chest. Her face was hidden, buried in her knees and chest. "Oh, Joy...I'm sorry. You know Jerome was kidding, right?"

Joy looked up at him. She was calm, which was surprising even to herself. "I know that, but why was Nina so upset?"

Fabian sighed and sat on the floor next to Joy, crossing his legs. "Well...it's a long story. You see, when you disappeared, Nina and I started searching for clues to figure out where you had gone. We would sneak out every night and go to the attic, where most of the mystery unfolded. Eventually, I began to like her as we used to like each other - more than a friend. And she felt the same about me, after a while. It's kind of like when you disappeared. You and I were so close to admitting our feelings; in fact, we kind of already had, though unintentionally. Nina and I are best friends now, and we were getting really close to admitting that we liked each other, but then...you reappeared and everything got so much more confusing. So what you see as innocent flirting...well, it's actually seen as just that. And Nina's jealous, because she's not used to anyone else flirting with me. Just like you're probably jealous of Nina. I've asked her to lay off the flirting until I work out my feelings; I'd like for you to do the same."

Joy listened to his speech intently. "I guess I can do that."

"And one more thing?" asked Fabian.

"What is it?"

"Never, ever listen to Jerome when it comes to anything about me and Nina. Most of it isn't true," Fabian requested.

Joy laughed. "I never do listen to Jerome anyways; it shouldn't be too hard to keep doing what I already do." She gave Fabian a slight smile. "Thanks for explaining everything."

Fabian nodded. "I'll see you at dinner, 'kay?"

"'Kay."

Fabian headed back down the stairs to see the weirdest thing he had ever experienced, at least when it came to relationships. Alfie was making a move on Patricia.

Before Fabian came downstairs, Alfie had walked over to the small couch Patricia was sitting on. "Hey, mind if I sit here?" he asked her.

Patricia looked up at him. "Whatever," she replied. Alfie plopped himself uncomfortably close to her.

Patricia was already at the very corner of the couch, so she couldn't scoot away from him. Instead, she just ignored it.

Alfie had more plans. Patricia was working on her homework, but since she was right handed and Alfie was on her left side, the hand closest to him was free.

Just as Alfie grabbed Patricia's free hand, Fabian walked in. He froze at the bottom step, having absolutely no idea how in the world to respond.

Jerome was laughing his arse off, while Patricia quickly pulled her hand away from Alfie and stood up, all of her books and homework falling on the floor. "You creep!" she screamed. She walked over to sit on the big armchair that no one was occupying, though she continued to glare daggers at Alfie.

Fabian couldn't help but laugh at how badly Alfie had screwed up. That seemed to draw everyone attention to him.

Amber looked up and saw Fabian on the last stair. "Well, what happened?" she asked.

Fabian went to go sit on the couch next to Alfie, whose brain was still trying to work out what had just happened. "I talked to both of them and explained everything. They're both okay. They'll be down by dinner time." He turned to face Jerome. "You're lucky I don't room with you, or you'd have to sleep with one eye open tonight."

Jerome feigned shock and laughed his signature "really?" laugh. Fabian rolled his eyes at the prankster.

Nina sat on her bed, thinking over what Fabian had told her. No more flirting for the time being... She hadn't really viewed her interaction with Fabian as flirting, but, looking back on it... Deciding that she wasn't getting anything done sitting in her room, she decided to start heading back down to the common room.

Joy was sitting on the floor of her temporary room, just as she had been when Fabian left the room. She had almost resolved to not go down until dinner so she could think more, but just sitting on the floor was getting boring. And it was starting to hurt her bottom. So she stood up and left her room.

The two girls exited their rooms at the exact same time and nearly rammed into each other when they reached the stairs, each of the two not noticing the presence of the other. Nina glared at Joy, and Joy glared right back at her.

"Watch where you're going," snapped Joy.

"Maybe you should watch where you're going," replied Nina. Not the best comeback, but...

"Maybe you shouldn't steal my boyfriend," shot back Joy. Nina's expression changed from angry to a mixture of furious and hurt.

"I didn't steal him! There's nothing going on between me and him!" defended Nina.

"Oh, don't give me that rubbish. I know you fancy him," accused Joy.

Nina had no good response to that, but she manged to reply with, "You disappeared for months, Joy. Did you really think he would wait for you when you weren't even officially together?"

Joy looked down at her feet. "What if I did? What if he and I were so close to admitting that we liked each other that it would have happened later the day I disappeared? What if you ruined the perfectly good friendship Patricia, Fabian, and I shared? What if you were never supposed to come to this school? What if the scholarship was a mistake?" accused Joy quietly, but loud enough for Nina to hear her. She looked up. "What if you're a mistake?"

Nina was shocked that Joy would say all those things to her. The words pierced her like daggers. Joy was a nice person...at least when she wasn't around Nina. Nina had no idea what she had done to make Joy this angry, except for the fact that Fabian had found a friend in her. "And what if your return was a mistake? What if I thought that you might actually be a nice person? What if Fabian and I searched and searched and searched for months trying to bring you back to Anubis safe and sound? What if we actually cared about bringing you back?" Nina's voice raised in volume until it peaked. She paused before she continued and lowered her voice back down to its original level. "And, most importantly, what if Fabian moved on?" With that, Nina turned and headed downstairs, leaving Joy completely speechless and fuming with anger.

Before Nina came down, the whole house had been listening in on the conversation. When Joy mentioned the part about Nina stealing her boyfriend, Fabian smacked himself on the forehead and Alfie sighed, handing Jerome a ten pound note. After Nina asked if Joy really expected Fabian to wait that long, Joy's voice got so quiet that only Amber, who was sitting right by the stairs, could hear her. Amber's eyes widened as Joy continued talking until Mick gave her arm a squeeze. "Ams, what's wrong?"

"Shh!" she hissed. At that point, Nina's voice was dominant, and it was raising to a level where the whole school could hear her. The entire house went dead silent when Nina said, "What if we actually cared about bringing you back?" The house was so quiet, everyone could hear the last statement Nina made, even though it was hardly louder than a whisper. "What if Fabian moved on?"

The next thing they heard were footsteps, storming down the stairs. Nina came into view, but she didn't enter the common room. She headed out the door into the late afternoon sun, not even thinking about grabbing her jacket, which would have been smart as it was early March and it was still cold in the late afternoon and evening.

Fabian heard muffled sobs from the top of the stairs, and he knew that Joy was still there. He attempted to stand up, but Alfie grabbed his arm and held him back. "It's no use, mate. Nina hurt her too much. She has to calm down on her own." Though he didn't like it, Fabian had to agree with Alfie. He sat back down.

Jerome was completely confused. "Fabian, how is it that you, of all people, get not one, but two girls fighting for your affection, while I, being much better looking and cooler than you, am stuck with nothing?" Fabian gave Jerome a it's not as fun as you think it is look.

When Jerome began to speak about having no girls chasing after him, Mara couldn't help but think, That isn't true... But she didn't dare voice it. That would have caused major awkwardness, especially since everyone thought she still liked Mick. Which was kind of true, but he and Amber were back together, so she had no chance...again...she couldn't help but think that those few days she spent as a "bad girl" were the closest she had ever gotten to being Mick's type. And yet he had told her that she was further from his type than she had been when she was herself.

Joy sat at the top of the staircase, just crying. She had no idea that the whole house could hear her. She had expected a warm welcome when she got back, and what had she gotten? A girl who had completely taken her place. Her crush, crushing on someone else. The rest of the house siding with them. Only Patricia was still on Joy's side, and even she was friends with Nina.

Twilight was setting on the campus. Nina sat in the middle of the grass in the courtyard. She had her back to a tree and was secretly crying, though she was pretending to be reading. It wasn't a very good cover, seeing as she had nothing to read. For the ten minutes she had been sitting at the tree, she had been half hoping for Fabian to show up and comfort her. But she knew that he was just her friend, nothing more. There was no difference between him and Patricia and Amber and Jerome. Yet, in Nina's mind, the difference was still there. She tried to bury it; tried to keep him as just a friend, but she knew that it would resurface soon. And then what? Her fight with Joy had been vicious, and that was just because of something Jerome said. If Joy saw Nina flirting with Fabian...well, it would be similar to the catfight Mara and Amber got in over Mick. Involuntarily, Nina shivered. It was colder than she expected, and she had expected it to be cold. Being cold without a jacket reminded her of Fabian and the several times he had given her his sweatshirt when she forgot hers...

Back at the house, Joy straightened up. Her resolve was set. If Fabian wanted her to stop flirting, she would stop flirting. But if Nina physically or mentally set a finger on him, she was going down. Absolutely no one flirts with my Fabian, thought Joy as she headed down the stairs, a smile plastered on her face.

She walked into the common room to see the one thing that absolutely no one had ever anticipated. Patricia was sitting next to Alfie, unusually close, and she had her arm around his neck, and she was leaning in...

A/N: So what happens next? XD Even I don't know at this point. This thought just randomly popped into my head. I don't know if I want Patricia to slap Alfie or kiss him or something like that. :P Well, hope you liked the chapter! Another one should be up within the next week.