For several seconds there was nothing, then he realized he wasn't in his bed anymore. Well, not completely anyway. Somehow he'd managed to get his legs tangled in his bed sheets while the rest of him was free. One knee had hooked around his bedpost, the other was being kept on the bed by the sheets, and his shoulders, head, and arms were on the floor. Faint pain in his shoulders made him think he'd fallen out of bed several minutes earlier, maybe longer. Sighing he tried to pull one of his legs free, gave up, and failed to pull himself back onto the bed.

His door was flung open, violently bouncing off the wall, to reveal a very tire looking redhead and he could hear someone pounding on the front door. Shit! Redoubling his efforts to free himself, ignoring his roommate's angry comments, he finally managed to pull his legs free. Scrambling up from the floor he sprinted down the stairs. Crap! He had what, ten seconds? As quickly as he could he unlocked the door and pulled it open, only to watch as a car that had obviously pulled out of the driveway sped away.

A tiny squeal of delight made him look down. There, sitting down on the doormat next to a small bag, was his baby sister, Hope. She was in one of his old baby dresses that had faded to a pale pink. With another squeal the little girl held her arms up. Scooping his sister up with one arm and her bag with his other hand the teen couldn't fight the huge grin that spread across his face.

Unlike her mother and brother, Hope had bright hazel eyes and jet black hair that had been cropped short since the last time he saw her. She happily nuzzled her brother, glad to be away from the chaos of her mother's apartment. Using his foot to close the door, Timmy tossed the bag into a corner of the living room, there wouldn't be anything in there he didn't already have anyway.

"What the hell?"

Vicky was halfway down the stairs to ask why someone had tried to bang down the front door when she noticed the child in the teen's arms. A tiny whimper came from his arms as Hope hid her face from the woman.

Frowning, the brunette did his best to comfort the child in his arms. This fear of girls she'd developed worried him, there was no telling what had started it but he was certain it was his mother's fault. Even Wanda scared her, and the woman was nothing but nice to the girl. Try as he might, nothing seemed to make her trust anyone who was female.

"Who's kid?"

"She's my sister."

"Seriously?" The redhead seemed skeptical to think a woman well into her 40s would have another child. With her arms crossed she walked to his side so she could look at the little girl.

"Vicky don't, she doesn't like girls."

To his surprise the black haired child peeked at the redhead. With a smirk Vicky said hi, and his sister didn't go back to avoiding eye contact like she normally would. Instead she let a bit more of her face show. Unlike the few other girls Hope regularly came into contact with, Trixie, Veronica, Mrs. Dinkelberg, and unfortunately Tootie, Vicky didn't baby talk to Hope or really talk to her any different than she would any other human. It wasn't something the child was used to, not from a girl anyway.

"What's your name cutie?"

Once again the child hid her face but he could feel the little smile on her face. He couldn't help but chuckle. "Just my luck, only girl she isn't terrified of is the one that made six years of my life hell."

HOLY SHIT!

The look he received from his roommate dashed any hopes that he hadn't actually said the words out loud. However he had and there was no taking them back.

"Thanks Twerp." She said sarcastically before ruffling the little girl's hair and giving him a playful smack on the head. "Go make me breakfast."

"And I would do that why?"

"Because it's your fault I got woken up so freaking early."

"Not my problem." Setting his sister down on the couch, he went upstairs and returned with a baby gate and some of Hope's favorite toys. For the moment he just set the gate up at the bottom of the stairs, left most of the toys on the floor, and sat on the floor in front of the couch holding up a stuffed bear. The poor toy had been through a lot. It was the Frankenstein's monster of toys, none of its original limbs had survived, they were all a different color, one of its ears had been replaced with a panda's, two buttons had been sewn on after its eyes fell off, but the rest of the head and torso were still intact. For now at least. Poof had magiked it into Hope's crib the first night she spent the night and she'd cried so much when Timmy removed it that he just left it there. Back then it had been in rough shape and soon began to fall apart but every time he tried to throw it out it made its way back into the crib. So he'd tried to fix it the best he could. His fairies had fixed it brand new with magic a few months ago but the resulting tantrum made him ask for it to be returned to its mutant state. Despite the freakish look of the bear Hope loved it. She happily cooed when he handed it to her.

"That is….one interesting teddy bear."

Looking back at the woman he saw that she'd set up the baby gate.

"She loves it." He shrugged.

"Breakfast." The older woman half ordered, half whined. "I'll watch her."

They exchanged a knowing look, she knew what was going through his head, and they both started laughing. Her because it was funny to see the look on his face and, well, Timmy had no explanation for why he was laughing other than having his sister around made him happier.

Knocking on the door cut their laughter short. The redhead peaked through the window before making her way back upstairs.

"Change your mind?"

"Don't feel like dealing with your lame ass friends."

Moving his sister to the floor, he opened the door to find a group of people standing on the doorstep. Chester stood at the front of the group with the other guys, Trixie, Veronica, and Francis behind him.

"Dude!" pushing past his friend the blonde looked stoked about something, "you are never going to believe this."

The others filed in after him, the girls sat on the couch, and he closed the door to look at the blonde.

"So I was talking to Seth an– Hey Hope!" Immediately Chester forgot what he was about to tell his best friend something exciting in favor of sitting next to the little girl. Hope giggled and started tugging on his hair. He let out a playful yelp.

"When did she get here?" A.J. asked.

"About ten minutes ago." A faint blush spread across the teen's face. He'd completely forgotten that he'd invited the group to his house the day before. He was in nothing but his pajama pants.

"Well that explains you attire."

"Shut it."

A few minutes later the brunette was back in the living room now in fresh clothes, talking with the others. Francis had Veronica on his lap on one end of the couch while Elmer and Trixie sat on the other. Elmer, Sanjay, and A.J. sat on the floor with Timmy, Chester, and Hope. The young genius was upset that Chester wasn't taking his summer classes seriously but his remarks went unheard. Chester was like a second brother to Hope so he was too busy playing with her to listen to his friend. They talked about throwing a smaller party before school started back up, the girls talked about shopping, and Chester pestered his friend about Ryan.

"Chester, did you not have something to tell Timmy?" Sanjay asked after a while.

"Oh yeah!" The blonde exclaimed as the child threw a ball she'd been playing with at him. Rolling the ball to his best friend, "so Seth said you and Ryan were going on a date soon –"

"It's not a date really, we're just gonna hang out for a bit."

"Like, that's totally a date!" Veronica shouted. "Where are you taking her?"

Once again blushing, "I don't know yet."

To keep her friend from pestering him, Trixie spoke up, "well why not go hang out at the mall? You can do some window shopping, grab lunch, and it'll be easy to find something to talk about."

A shrug was the only response she got. In truth that's what he'd been planning to do all along but he didn't feel like talking about it. His insides were already in knots at the thought of being alone with her and trying to keep a conversation going. The others could see the nervousness on his face. With Tootie being his only other relationship it didn't surprise them that he wasn't sure what to do. She'd been the one to decide where they would go on dates, even to places he didn't really like, but he'd gone anyway because that's what she wanted. All they could do was offer encouragement and hope things went alright.

"No worries man! She obviously likes you so just be yourself and things will be fine."

With a weak smile the brunette handed the ball to his sister but she dropped it. It rolled over to the couch. Trixie picked it up and held it out to the girl.

It seemed her easiness with Vicky had been a fluke event. When Hope looked at the older girl she looked scared even though Trixie was smiling at her.

"Don't you want your toy back?" she asked gently.

Looking back at her brother the little girl's eyes asked him to get it for her. For months his friends had been trying to help him ease his sister's fear but they hadn't made much progress.

"I'm not getting it for you. You know Trixie, she's nice."

Again the child looked at Trixie. Timidly she shuffled a bit closer and took the toy.

"See I'm not so bad." But the girl rushed into her brother's arms to hide her face. Well, at least she'd taken the toy. Before she would have cried until someone else gave it to her or just go get another toy.

Silence followed but Elmer decided to speak up.

"So…how long is Hope staying with you?"

"No clue."

"Dude what about your date-that's-not-a-date with Ryan?"

"It'll have to wait until she goes home."

That didn't sit well with the blonde. His friend was getting better thanks to the little blonde, who knew how long she'd patiently wait before moving on? "I could watch her for a few hours, it's not like she doesn't love me."

Rolling his eyes Timmy looked at his friend, "well, maybe."

"No maybe! My dad will help me out so you're going on that date."

There was no point arguing with him once he made up his mind. Chester had watched Hope for him before and it was better than leaving her with Vicky. She wouldn't treat her bad but he'd still rather her not be left to babysit his sister.

His friends didn't stay much longer, they were afraid the redhead would come downstairs. As soon as they were gone she came downstairs looking pissed off. Sighing, the teen took his sister upstairs to lay her down for a nap. If she had wanted to come downstairs to get something she could have. She was paying rent so she had every right to walk around the house even if his friends came over. If she wanted to prove that she wasn't the same evil bitch as before then she would have to face some of the people she'd wronged eventually.

For the remainder of the day he stayed upstairs with his fairies and sister. Poof was happy to have his playmate around again. There was a lot of accidental magic and two giggling children who refused to listen to the teen and two adults. In the end a loud bang in the hallway, the result of Poof trying to keep his parents from taking his wand, was what finally put an end to the toddler's antics. The fairies only had a few seconds to magic themselves inside their fish bowl before the bedroom door slammed open.

"What the hell Turner?!"

"I uh…." He had no idea what Poof had done so he didn't know what kind of excuse he needed to calm the woman.

She had a magic eight ball in her hand that he assumed had been the cause of the bang.

"Um…sorry?"

Angry at having her sleep disturbed twice in one day she threw the ball at him. A tiny giggle came from the child on the bed. Okay so her earlier fondness of the redhead wasn't a onetime thing. This wasn't going to be a good thing if his sister started liking Vicky.

"Stupid Twerp."

"Bitch."

Ignoring him, Vicky walked over to the bed to where Hope was. To everyone's surprise, his fairies were watching from their bowl, the little girl raised her arms up to be picked up. What was more surprising was that she picked the child up.

"Hey Twerpette."

"Please don't call her that."

"Well I don't know what her name is. You gonna tell me your name?"

Hope cooed. Since the woman had her hair down the child did what she did best, tugged on a lock of red hair. His hair was too short to pull on but since Chester never reprimanded her when she pulled his hair she didn't think it was wrong to do. Hissing at the sudden tug, the redhead pried the child's hand off her hair. "No." she told the little girl firmly.

He tried and failed to stop himself from chuckling, "yeah Chester's got her thinking people don't mind having their hair pulled."

"Remind me to kick his ass for that. Whoops."

"Don't worry about it, she probably hears worse at my mother's house. Besides she doesn't talk much."

Again the child tried to tug on the woman's hair only to be told no.

"So what's her name?"

"Hope."

"So little Twerpette is staying for awhile?"

"Yup."

Grinning at her roommate mischievously, "so wanna let me babysit?"