The Fosters isn't mine, and that really sucks.

Jesus gripped the straps of his backpack tightly, his knuckles turning white from the desperately firm hold. He knew he was being paranoid. No one was going to know what he had buried deep under his math textbook and pencil case. No one would even know that the crumpled and crinkled paper was there unless they had X-ray vision which, as much as Stef tried to convince him she had, he knew wasn't possible.

He slowly climbed into the clunky Suburban, crushing his backpack under the seat and buckling his seatbelt. His shoulders slumped forward, his head hung down as Lena pulled out of the elementary school parking lot.

"Hey guys!" Lena greeted as she began driving away from the school. "How was everyone's day?" she asked routine question.

Brandon and Mariana responded with the equally routine answers "fine" and "good."

"What about you, Jesus. Everything good?" Lena asked, peering into the rearview mirror in order to glance at Jesus sitting in the backseat.

"Yeah," Jesus said unconvincingly. His forehead began to get hot and he began to sweat. Mariana looked over at him with a questioning look; Jesus just shook his head in response and returned to staring at his hands in his lap.

Brandon, completely oblivious to the silent conversation that had just taken place between the young twins, continued to babble about his weekend plans.

"So then Aiden said that I could go to his house after school and play with him and I told him that I wanted to but I would have to ask you guys first so do you think I could go?" he said quickly, excitement evident in his voice.

"I think that would be fine," Lena replied from the front seat, still glimpsing back every-so-often to try and determine what was going on with Jesus. It wasn't like him to be so quiet. Usually he was the one going on and on about what had happened at school that day. She shook her head and decided to figure that out later. Right now she should give her full attention to the street; they would have bigger problems if her distracted driving veered them off the road and into a ditch.

"Okay great!" Brandon replied. "So can you drop me off now? His house is really close to ours so it's not very far away," he asked convincingly. Lena swore that kid was going to grow up and be a lawyer. Or a miniature Stef. Lena didn't know which she feared more.

"I suppose so. And since it's Friday you don't have to worry about getting homework done. Sure, I guess that'd be okay. Do you have his address?" Lena inquired.

Brandon rambled off the address, along with what was on the itinerary for his and Aiden's play date.

"I'll walk you up to the door, B," Lena said as she put the car in park in the Huntington's driveway. "Be back in a minute, guys," she told Mariana and Jesus, who were still buckled in the backseat.

"What's wrong?" Mariana asked as soon as Lena was out of earshot. She knew something was going on with her brother, she could feel it, but she didn't want to make a big scene about it in front of their foster mother. She had accidentally been overheard by one of their previous foster parents talking to Jesus about how he had to stay in for recess because he had forgotten his homework. Big mistake.

"Nothing," Jesus said, the sharpness in his tone a defensive mechanism. He was ashamed and embarrassed and he didn't want to tell anyone about it. Especially not Mariana.

"Jesus, I'm not stupid," Mariana said. Although she was incredibly shy and extremely quiet around Stef, Lena, and just about everyone else, she could be feisty when she wanted to be, a side of herself she usually reserved for Jesus.

Jesus sighed, knowing that she was going to break him down eventually. She could always tell when something was wrong with him, and she knew all the right buttons to push to get him to talk.

He opened his mouth to speak, but he couldn't even say it. He was too humiliated. Instead he grabbed his backpack from under the seat and dug out the disgraced paper. He shoved it into her hand and looked out the window, unable to bring himself to watch her reaction.

"Jesus! You failed your spelling test?" Mariana exclaimed, her mouth dropping open at the sight of the big red 'F' at the top of his paper. He had gotten almost every problem wrong, most of his numbers having glaring, crimson X's through them.

"I didn't mean to," he said, ripping the paper out of her hands and stuffing it back into its place of shame at the bottom of his bag. "I couldn't help it, okay? I can't focus. No matter how hard I try I'm just too stupid to do anything right. You're lucky you're the smart one," he replied bitterly.

Mariana bit her lip; almost feeling guilty about the 'A' she had received on her test, complete with a glittery smiley face sticker that said 'Great Work!' "It'll be okay, Jesus," she reassured him, patting him on the arm. These were the roles they fell into; he protected her when she was scared, and she comforted him when he was nervous. It had been the way it always worked, the two-way street of looking out for each other.

Jesus kept his head down, but was thankful that Mariana wasn't giving him a hard time about it. It's not like he didn't try. Lena had quizzed him as much as, if not more than, she had quizzed Mariana. It was always just so hard to focus when his mind was going a million miles a minute.

"Do you think I should tell them?" Jesus brought up the question that had been on his mind all day. He knew he would be in trouble either way, and he was feeling so guilty that he wasn't sure he would be able to keep it to himself much longer.

"No!" Mariana cried, looking at him wide-eyed. "Are you crazy, Jesus? You cannot tell them, you're only going to get yourself hurt and in trouble," she said. She had a point. Coming clean would definitely mean getting into trouble, whereas if he could hide it maybe they would never have to know and everyone would forget about it.

"But-" he began to protest, the guilt still eating him on the inside.

"No," Mariana cut him off sharply. She hated seeing Jesus get hurt. Having to see pain inflicted on him was almost worse than enduring it herself. "Jesus, just don't, okay?"

"Fine, fine, I won't," he promised. He knew how hard it was for Mariana to have to witness the consequences of the trouble he often found himself in.

"Good," Mariana replied, ending the conversation just in time for the car door to open and Lena to retake her place in the driver's seat of the vehicle.

"All right, guys, anywhere else we need to stop before we head home?" she asked. "No?" she confirmed, getting no response, taking their silence as a negative. "Okay, home we go then," she said, tightly gripping the steering wheel. Something was obviously going on with these two. The problem was she hadn't a clue what it was or how to find out.

What did you guys think? Are you enjoying this so far? Leave me a review and let me know! This will probably be about a four-parter. I hope you guys are liking it! Thanks for reading! =)

Special thanks to justliziam and obsessedatopia for betaing and letting me bounce ideas off of them. Nothing would get done without either of those lovely ladies!