Back at Mission Creek High much sooner than expected, Skylar mills around in the lobby while Bree circles the room pointing out hers and her brothers' old lockers and telling various half-anecdotes. "And that's where Leo got crushed by the beam… and that's where I got glued to my locker… and that's where the hot tub used to be…"

Skylar, meanwhile, paces and panics as she wonders how to deal with Naomi. Discipline is important, she read that in a parenting listicle online. But what kind? How much? And what if she supports the fight Naomi got in? After all, she's been in plenty of scraps, as Skylar Storm and as Connie Valentine. How can she punish Naomi if the kid was just doing something she's done countless times?

Skylar decides she just needs the full story. And she's about to get it. A secretary pokes her head out the door of the main office. "Principal Perry would like to see you now."

Bree whirls around, face suddenly white. "Perry? What is she doing here?"

The secretary looks bored. "She works here, ma'am," she says dully before vanishing once again.

Bree looks pale. "I cannot deal with this," she whispers to Skylar as they walk toward the office like they're walking toward their own executions. "I thought for sure Perry was in Canada touring with her Sumo group. What is she doing here?"

At that moment, a short brunette with severe bangs sticks her head out of her office and barks, "Hurry up, Slowpoke Sallies, I don't have all day!"

As Skylar and Bree scurry into the principal's office, Bree breathes a sigh of relief. "Thank God," she murmurs to her wife, "it's not Principal Perry."

"Guess again, Mom Jeans," the woman says as she slides behind her desk. She scowls at Bree and holds up her nameplate as proof: Principal Kerry Perry. Bree recognizes her now, all grown up and just as vicious. Perry's niece. The littlest nightmare Bree ever dealt with.

"Y-you're the principal now?" she chokes out, barely registering Naomi and the boy sitting in chairs in front of Kerry's desk.

"You bet your monobrow I am," Kerry sneers, hitting a lever on her office chair so that she rises higher. "Go ahead and sit down," she says, gesturing to three extra seats beside the students. "I caught this little miscreant violently assaulting another student."

"Naomi would never do that," Bree says defensively before glancing at her sister. "Did you do that?"

Naomi bites her lip. "Well, kind of."

"C'mon, work with me here," she whines before sinking into a seat next to Skylar. "Kerry, just tell us what happened. And be fair. And tell the truth."

"You're making too many unrealistic demands," Kerry sighs theatrically. "Technically, we're still waiting on this innocent victim's father, but-"

"He is not innocent," Naomi interjects, glaring from the boy next to her to the principal. "He was kicking the crap out of Thomas McGill."

"A likely story," Kerry says. "Unfortunately for you, there are no witnesses."

Skylar raises her hand like she's in a class. "Um, Thomas McGill? Might be a witness?"

Kerry glares at her. "Yes, well, he went home with a head cold."

"He doesn't have a cold, he's got a black eye," Naomi says, popping out of her seat like she's got half a mind to lunge across the desk toward Kerry Perry. Skylar grabs her by the shoulder and hauls her back into her chair. "This isn't fair."

"Life isn't fair," Skylar says automatically. "So, ah, Mrs. Principal Perry…" Kerry shoots her an odd look. "I mean. Your Honor. Your Most Honorable Principal, ma'am, what, um, allegedly, did Naomi do?"

"She ran across the cafeteria and shoved Brent here into a wall," Kerry explains, gesturing to the boy in the room. He continues to sulk sullenly in his chair and says nothing. "It came out of nowhere-"

"He was messing with Thomas," Naomi says. "I didn't shove him into a wall, I shoved him away from the kid he was pummeling. And then he pulled my hair!"

"Yes, Brent did react in a very natural act of self-defense-"

"My hair didn't do anything to him!"

At that moment, as Bree and Skylar try to mentally sort out the chaos, Kerry's secretary sticks her head in the office. "Ma'am, the boy's father is here."

"Excellent," Kerry says. "Send him in."

Bree glances at Brent, the kid she hasn't really paid attention to yet. He's got dark brown hair and a stocky build. She wonders who his dad is.

And then his dad walks in the room, and Bree stops wondering. "Oh my God," she groans. "This day just keeps getting better and better."

"Whoa, blast from the past," Trent says, looking her up and down. "Dooley's sister! Man, you got old." Trent smirks at her and drops into a chair next to his son, balancing on the back legs. "So what'd my little angel get in trouble for this time?"

"This weird girl's trying to say I was beating up a kid named Thomas," Brent rolls off, suddenly talkative. "But I don't know a kid named Thomas! Alls I know is some prissy guy who took the last piece of cornbread in the cafeteria."

"So you punched him?"

"I might have!"

Trent looks at Kerry. "Well, as long as that's cleared up," he says, trying to be charming. Kerry stares him down until he sits again. "What? What's wrong?"

"Well, while I see violence as a form of character building," Kerry says irritably, "the school board frowns upon it. And that means Brent gets de-ten-tion." She sings the last word.

Bree sags against the back of the chair. "At least she's being a little fair," she mumbles to Skylar. Kerry, apparently, hears her.

"And so does Na-o-mi," she says in the same sing-song tune.

"For what?" Skylar says, standing up in a fit of righteous annoyance. "She was defending another student."

"She was threatening a student," Kerry argues, standing up as well. "This isn't about Tommy Whatshisface McGooley, this is about Naomi and Brent."

"Really?" Skylar says, and the fire that lights up her eyes reminds Bree of the way she used to strike down criminals in their Elite Force days. "Because it seems like it's about you and this weird little grudge you have against my family. Naomi's not getting a detention."

"I'll give you a detention," Kerry threatens. "Can I do that?"

Trent says, "Yes!" at the same time Naomi says, "No!"

"I'm not gonna stand here and watch you treat Naomi like a criminal when she was behaving in a way that is kind, in a way that is courageous-"

"Oh my God, just shut up, Caped Crusader," Kerry groans, giving up and sinking into her office chair. "Fine. Detention for Brent. And for Naomi… cafeteria clean-up duty." Skylar's eyes flash. "What do you want? She's not getting off scot-free. I'm not running a zoo here. Except on Sundays. Don't tell animal control."

"We'll take it," Bree says, standing up and grabbing Skylar's elbow before she gets into an actual war with the school principal. "Come on, Naomi. Let's go home."

The three of them step as fast as they can out of the principal's office and head for the doors and freedom. Behind her, Skylar can hear Kerry issue Brent his detention days and dismiss him and his father. When Skylar and Naomi get outside, though, Bree turns around. "I'll be right out," she says. "I need to have a little, uh, high school reunion."

She's gone for about two minutes, and when she comes back she looks marginally more satisfied. "Okey-dokey," she says, grinning as she grabs Naomi's hand. "Let's go home."

Naomi's hair is a wreck.

Not because of Bree superspeeding her home- no, that she's gotten used to. And hair's very important to Bree. She knows how to run in a smooth pattern, ducking between the jetstreams to avoid tangles and knots.

Naomi's hair is a wreck because that neanderthal Brent yanked out a sizable chunk of it during their scuffle. After they get home, Bree and Skylar go to the kitchen to figure out dinner while Naomi wanders upstairs. Instead of going to her new bedroom, though, she stops in front of one of the hall mirrors.

There it is- a sad little gap in her otherwise luxurious locks. Her scalp stings. Infuriatingly, she feels tears spring to her eyes. It's just hair, she tells herself. It grows back. But the memory of watching Brent beat up some defenseless kid, the helplessness, the pain and fear she felt when Brent reared up and pulled… Naomi wipes at her eyes and goes running for Bree and Skylar's bedroom.

When she was little and her parents would take her to the island or to Centium City, she used to do this when she got upset, crawl into Adam's capsule, or Chase's or Bree's. Part of it was, for some reason, she used to think that the glass was one-way when she was in it. She thought she could see out but no one could see her. It didn't make sense- she could definitely see her siblings when they were sleeping, and she had to have known that then- but the feeling remained.

And it was more than that. Despite all of her father's esteemed technology and cleaning protocols, the capsules always retained a little bit of their tenant. Adam's smelled like chocolate and always had a stuffed animal or two tucked into the bottom. Chase's smelled like soap and the dry-erase markers he used to write little notes and equations on the inside of the glass. Naomi used to sit with her legs crossed and read all of her brother's rambling math and science, trying to make sense of it.

Naomi climbs into Bree's capsule and shrinks down to the floor, pulling her knees into her chest. It smells like flowery shampoo, and Bree's pajamas are folded neatly (probably by Skylar) on the bottom. Naomi counts to three and then she pulls out her cell phone and calls her mom.

"Hey, girl," Tasha says the moment she answers the phone, and her voice is like a balm. Naomi hadn't realized how much she missed her parents. "How's the Creek?"

And Naomi tells her everything.

Bree goes looking for Naomi once Skylar's done with the grilled cheese sandwiches. She tries Naomi's new bedroom and the lab basement, but no such luck. When she finally ducks into her own room on a whim, she's only a little surprised to find Naomi curled up at the bottom of her capsule.

"Hey," Bree says, letting the door slide up. "What's up?"

Naomi looks at her, all wide eyes and worry lines. "Nothing," she lies. "Just… thinking."

"Uh-huh," Bree says, and then extends a hand to help her up. "C'mon." Bree leads her little sister to the bed and sits down before hugging her from behind. "I'm sorry your first day was a total disaster."

Naomi fidgets. "It wasn't a total disaster," she says. "I liked history class. And art class. And I got to have lunch with Toni." She sighs. "I guess that's over now."

"Yeah, Kerry's kind of a monster," Bree sighs. "We'll deal with it." She looks down at the top of Naomi's head, finding the place where Brent ripped her hair out. "I need to learn how to do your hair."

"Oh, I can do it," Naomi tells her. "It's not a problem."

"Yeah, but I should learn," Bree says stubbornly. Chase, Adam, and Leo all have different hair than her but she at least knows what to do with it. As a kid, Bree used to try out hairstyles on Chase and Adam (Adam loved experimenting; Chase always went to the sink afterward and spiked his hair back up to normal.) On the island, Bree took over cutting Leo's hair. She should learn how to do Naomi's.

"What did you talk to Brent's dad about?" Naomi asks her suddenly, picturing Bree turning and running back into the school.

"Oh," Bree says, her fingers suddenly stilling in Naomi's hair. "Oh, you know. I told him I was glad we could sort things out peaceably, like adults." She laughs dryly. "And then I charged up a proton ring and threw it into the wall. Just so he knows."

Naomi snickers and leans around to hug her big sister. "Thanks, Bree."

"Anytime, Gnomey," Bree says, hugging her back. "Now let's go get some grilled cheese."

A/N: Hope y'all are enjoying this so far. Sound off in the reviews to let me know what you think about Kerry and Trent showing up. Poor Bree! Thanks for reading.