A/N:Tests are done, new semester has started, college aproaches in the future!

Thanks to all who still follow this story. I appreciate it so much :D

This was degrading; Sherlock could come up with no better word to describe his current situation.

"Story!" Raven squealed, clutching the glass of water that she had insisted she needed to sleep. He was beginning to find that if he gave in, she would stop asking for things, and silence would resume for a few minutes.

He drew the line at the story.

"You don't need a story to sleep," he replied adamantly, staring crossly at the girl sitting up beneath the covers. "You just need to close your eyes and sleep."

"I need a s'ory!" She protested, sticking out her lower lip in a pout. Seeing that her temporary guardian wouldn't give in, she sniffled. "I need a s'ory," she repeated, this time in a weepy voice as her tiny face collapsed into sorrow. Tears escaped from her eyes as she rubbed them with the back of her hands. "I need a s'ory!"

Sherlock rubbed his temple and sighed. "All right. Stay here."

He could have sworn he heard a cheery "okay!" as he walked into the hall.

In the common room, his eyes flickered over the titles of the books. He didn't have a fiction collection, let alone anything remotely child orientated. And why would he? Children were never in any plans that had ever crossed his mind. He liked challenges, things that made him think. The thought of a child made his mind feel numb.

And there was currently one sitting in the extra bedroom upstairs, waiting for him to return.

The thought of not returning to her did cross his mind, but he quickly dismissed it. She'd only get impatient and come looking for him, requiring him to coax her back up the stairs and into bed, wasting even more time.

Logically, giving her a quick story would free him of her for a few hours while she slept.

But what to read?

"Sherlock?"

His hand grabbed the first book it touched and he flew back up the stairs.

"Story?" She asked eagerly as he re-entered the room.

"Yes," he replied shortly, sitting down in a chair across from the bed.

Raven's mouth turned to a frown. "I wan' to see!" She said, straining forward to make her point. "Si' here!" She pointed to the empty space beside her in the large bed. It had been just fine for a grown man while John had lived there, but the little girl looked as though she were drowning in a sea of sheets and blankets.

"No." Sherlock hoped his tone made it clear that he wasn't about to debate the issue.

"Here!" Raven yelled, pointing insistently to the spot beside her.

He sighed. Just give in. Giving in meant less of a fight, less of his time used with her. Reluctantly, he pulled himself from the chair and sat rigidly beside her on the bed. As if unaware of his displeasure, Raven curled up against him and leaned against his arm. "Wha's it called?"

His eyes dropped to the title. "It's… a story about the brain," he replied simply. Grabbing a medical book perhaps wasn't his best action. He flipped open to a random page; it wasn't as if she actually cared about what he was reading anyways. Besides, it was never too early to educate a child, in his opinion. "The features that define a neuron are electrical excitability and the presence of synapses…"

"Where are the pic'ures?" Raven asked, clumsily turning the page.

He swatted her hand away and went back to the previous page. "There aren't any. Not in this part of the book." There were medical diagrams later on, but she wouldn't find them particularly interesting. He didn't want to risk her wrecking them with her fingers either; he'd never seen someone chew on one of their own limbs for so long.

"Go to a dif'rent part!"

"No. Presence of synapses, which are complex membrane junctions which are used to…"

"This is boring!" Raven declared, crossing her arms.

"This is educational," he corrected.

"Wha's that?"

"It makes you smarter," he replied through grit teeth.

The girl actually seemed to ponder this. "I could be smar'er than you or Mis'er Mycroft?"

Not likely. "Smarter than Mycroft, perhaps, if you listened."

She settled back against the pillow with an intrigued and contented look upon her face. "Keep reading."

Sherlock raised an eyebrow, but didn't argue. She wanted to be smarter? Fine, he'd make her smarter. He would make her the smartest child in London, smart enough to outwit Mycroft at his foolish games. "In vertebrates, the majority of neurons belong to the central nervous system…"

"Wha's a ver…ve…ver…."

It may take a long time. At least she wanted to learn, he supposed, even if it was just so that she could say she was smarter than others.

"We'll learn about that another night. Tonight, we'll just learn the parts of a neuron." Flipping to another page with a diagram, he pointed to part of the image. "That's a dendrite."

Raven giggled. "Looks like a thpider!" Her giggling turned the 's' sound into something barely recognizable.

"Spider," he corrected. "But it's not. This would be the axon. Covering it are Schwann Cells, and they make up the myelin sheath."

"They work 'ogether?"

"Yes."

"Like a team?"

"I suppose, yes."

Raven hugged his neck tightly. "I's smart! Thank you, Mister Sherlock," she beamed, pressing a kiss to his cheek before dropping down under the blankets and closing her eyes. "Goodnight!"

What had just happened? "Good night," he answered, getting up from the bed almost hesitantly. Children were such strange creatures. He scarcely believed that he was ever one of them.