Sorry about the late update, guys - I started this chapter, but I never finished it. I got busy and then I lost my 'writer's inertia...' I'll try to be more regular now. Hope you like this chapter. It's nice and long, sort of as an apology, lol.

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Mrs Johnston, with Cassidy right behind her, got back home an hour later, almost right after Sherlock had finished his book. It was excellent timing.

When they pulled into the driveway, Mrs Johnston honked her horn, an obvious summons. It worked, too; Sherlock could hear everyone shouting all the way from behind the house in the woods, where he'd been reading. He was pretty sure that everyone was out front, now, except him.

He waited until they had gone inside, then he snuck around the house to the front door and went in as quietly as he could. It sounded like everyone was in the family room. Shoot. So were the stairs. He'd have to go the long way, all the way around the house.

He peered into the family room from the kitchen. They were sitting on the couches, all their attention on Cassidy, who was telling some story. Suddenly everyone laughed; a funny story, then.

Cassidy was a short, heavy, black girl with long curly hair held back by a bright red hairband. It wasn't doing a very good job of holding her hair back. There was a lot of it, and it kept spilling over to her face. She brushed it away almost absent-mindedly, obviously used to it doing that. She was grinning, a broad grin that took up her whole face and made her look like she was absolutely overjoyed with the world at large.

She looked nice.

Sherlock immediately didn't trust her.

He knew her type. They seemed nice, friendly, excited to be your foster sibling - for about ten minutes. Then they forgot about you, went somewhere and 'forgot' to invite you along, never spoke to you at school like they didn't know you - he knew her type.

As quietly and unobtrusively as he could, he slipped up the stairs and hoped no one would notice him during his very brief cameo in the family room. He had almost made it - only a few steps left - then he was safe upstairs where they couldn't see him. Into his room he went, shut the door, and went to pick up his chemistry book, only then realizing that he still had the book he'd borrowed from the shelves downstairs. He'd have to take it back down later, maybe tonight when everyone was in bed and no one would see him.

His ankle twinged just then; he ignored it, as he had all day.

Lunch was late. Sherlock wasn't called down until one o'clock. And, queerly enough, instead of sending someone else up to tell him it was time to eat, Mrs Hudson came up herself.

"Lunch is ready, Sherlock, and we need to talk real quick," she said, sitting down on the end of his bed. "I want you to come down for lunch and say hi to Cassy. You don't have to make conversation or linger over the meal or anything, but I want you to say hi and be polite. Can you do that for me?"

He nodded, somewhat less than excited at her edict. Still, he had made a promise to at least try... even if that meant giving everyone a chance.

"Thanks, Sherlock," Mrs Johnston said warmly, obviously relieved. She leaned over to him and wrapped him in a hug; Sherlock didn't wriggle away, which was all he could do at the moment. Finally she let go of them and they headed downstairs to eat.

Sherlock waited a minute after she had gone into the kitchen to enter, then, while everyone else was busy, he slipped in and sat down by Mycroft, thinking himself unnoticed. He was wrong.

As soon as he had sat down, Cassidy turned to look at him and said "Hi, you must be Sherlock! I'm Cass. It's great to meet you!" He nodded politely.

"It's nice to meet you too," he said. Then, thinking he could show them all that he was in fact trying, he said "How was camp?" She grinned, obviously pleased he had asked.

"It was great! That was my first time at a proper summer camp, one that lasted more than a week long, so I was really worried at first - what if I got homesick? What if the showers were really gross? But it was really great. We did a lot of fun stuff. How's your summer going?" she said, turning the conversation to him. Sherlock had not been prepared for this. He hadn't expected her to ask him anything. He had supposed that she would be perfectly content to talk about herself. He scrambled for an answer that would be ambiguous and flip the question back on her.

"It's been fine. I've never been to camp before, what's it like?" he asked. Inside his head, he smirked, pleased with himself. That would keep her occupied.

"Honestly, I couldn't tell you," she said. "I've only ever been to girl's camps, and Michael says that his camp experience was always really different from mine. He went to Boy Scout camp, though, and I only went to camp camp, so Boy Scout and Girl Scout camp might be really similar, I don't know. Hey Michael!" she called. He turned to look at her. He had been on the other side of the room helping Mycroft and Mrs Johnston make what seemed to Sherlock to be a ridiculous amount of sandwiches.

"Hey, Cassidy!" he called back.

"Sherlock says he's never been to camp, not Boy Scout camp or anything. What's it like? How is it different from a girl's camp?" she asked.

"Well, for one thing, there are no girls at Boy Scout camp," he said. She laughed.

"No duh. That's not what I mean."

"I know," he chuckled, and began telling Sherlock and Cassidy what had to have been every single detail about every camp he'd ever been to in his life. Sherlock thought he must have talked for fifteen minutes. This was Cassidy's doing, he knew. He thought he had control of the conversation, but she had managed to turn everything he'd said around and back to him in some way. And he was supposed to live with her.

After lunch, Sherlock stood up from the table to put his plate and glass away. Before he could do it, though, he felt someone grab his arm and pull him back into his chair.

"Here, let me get that for you," offered Cassidy, who was now finished with her own lunch. She picked up all of their dishes, as well as Charlie's and Mycroft's, and took them over to the sink. While she was distracted, Sherlock tried to make his escape upstairs, only to have her corner him just before he was about to climb the staircase.

"Are you going to go get something? I heard about what happened to your ankle and I know you're supposed to take it easy. I can get it for you, if you'd like," she said. Sherlock gritted his teeth. What was she playing at? He didn't want her to go through his things.

"I can get it myself, but thank you," he told her.

"Here, let me help you walk upstairs, then. I can see you're limping and I bet your ankle is killing you." She grabbed his arm and pulled it over her shoulders, walking him upstairs as though he were a toddler. When they got to the top, Sherlock shrugged his arm off her shoulder and said "I can walk the rest of the way myself, thank you very much."

"Are you sure?" she asked. "Are you intending to go back downstairs? I can help you down if you want." Sherlock had had enough.

"Just leave me alone! I can do it myself, I don't need your pity!" He spat the last word out with enough force to finally, finally get his message across. She looked hurt. Good. Maybe she would let him be in peace now, he thought, ignoring the twinge of remorse he felt at yelling at her.

"Well, if you're sure-"

"I'm sure!" he said, stormed into his room, and slammed the door. He had been good and loud, too. It was satisfying, but if Mrs Johnston hadn't heard his shouting before, she had certianly heard the door slam now. He was in for it.

Well, at least he was alone.