When Leryn arrived in her classroom the next day, Ryan slid into the seat next to her. "So how much trouble did you get into?" he asked.

She laughed. "Do you know what being grounded is?"

"Not from personal experience. How long?"

"Two weeks. I'd never heard of it before. Apparently I can't go to any of my friends' quarters, I can't hang out in the mess hall, and I'm not allowed to do work-study for at least a week."

"Ouch. So my name is connected to your first grounding? I don't think that's what I want to remembered by."

Leryn smiled. "Don't worry about it."

"I'm really sorry you got hurt. We should have been more careful."

She shrugged. "No permanent damage. I'm really glad we got to see that waterfall. I'd never seen anything like it before in my life."

"Really?"

"Nope. If I could live next to something that beautiful, I wouldn't mind being on a planet for a long time."

Ryan smiled. "Life planetside isn't THAT bad, you know."

"I know. I just haven't ever really experienced it for that long. I like being in space."

Their teacher moved to the front of the room. "All right," she called over the noise of her dozen talking students, "Let's get started."

Although she'd tried to shrug off her punishment, Leryn was still upset with her parents – especially her father – for making her miss the activities around the ship that she'd wanted to be a part of. After two days of getting nothing but one-word answers from her oldest daughter (and often not even that), Nyota decided to try using the carrot instead of the stick. She got up early to make breakfast and invited Leryn to help, just like they used to do when she was younger.

"So you really wanted to spend time with your friend, huh?" she asked at one point. Leryn wordlessly shrugged. "Do you like him?" Another shrug. "I'm fluent in a lot of languages, sweetheart, but your father's the mind-reader. How about you try something I'm going to understand?"

"I guess…I don't know…"

"Well that's a start."

Leryn sighed. "All of the girls in my class think Ryan's cute. They talk about him a lot."

"I see."

"It was really cool when he asked me to go with him. I was the person that everyone else wanted to be."

Nyota smiled. "Mmm, that can be a pretty nice rush."

"Yeah…I felt grown up. I liked it. You and Papa always treat me like a kid; I'm not little like Amanda anymore."

"I'm sorry to break it to you, sweetheart, but in some ways, you still are a kid. Your father and I are adjusting to the fact that you're getting older, but you are still fourteen. And just barely."

"I didn't ACTUALLY just have my birthday, you know," Leryn pointed out. "That's just my birthday for you guys. I was probably already fourteen."

Nyota hated when she brought up things like that. Leryn had learned early that reminding her mother that she wasn't REALLY her mother was an easy way to bring discussions to a quick end. "Just for us, huh?" she quietly asked. "You know, maybe we – or at least I – have trouble thinking about you getting older because I feel a little bit like I missed out on a full childhood with you."

Leryn frowned, aware that she was probably flirting with a line that shouldn't get crossed. "Sorry, Mom. I guess I never thought about it that way."

She smiled a little. "We're working on it, I promise, just be patient. And you can help your own case, too. If you don't want to be treated like a child, then don't act like one – throwing that robot across the room was the kind of thing Amanda might do."

She sighed. "I know. I get so frustrated when I try to talk to Papa about anything. He's like a tritanium wall! It makes me so mad. Sometimes I wish I could just yell and scream or something until he shows some emotion."

Nyota smiled. "I can sympathize with that. We don't always agree on everything, and I also used to get easily frustrated arguing with him. I'd suggest talking about it with him."

Leryn shook her head. "He wouldn't understand."

"You won't know until you try." Leryn was noticeably silent, and Nyota decided not to push. "Can you go get your sister while I put everything on plates?"

"Sure."

That evening, Amanda was playing with a puzzle when her father approached her. "Do you know what happened to this?" Spock asked as he showed her his lyre. A few red and blue marks ran across the wood base of the instrument.

Amanda shrugged, though not very convincingly. "I don't know…maybe?"

It wasn't as if he was asking questions he didn't already know the answer to. "Did you use it?"

She slowly nodded. "Yeah."

"Had you been working on an art project earlier?"

"Yeah…I'm sorry."

"You know that you are to ask permission before using something that does not belong to you."

"You weren't home," Amanda pointed out.

"There was nothing preventing you from waiting until I was off duty to practice. You would not like it if someone took one of your toys without permission and soiled it, would you?"

Amanda looked down. "No…I'm sorry." At the time, getting some extra practicing had seemed logical – her father would be happy with the progress she'd made. However, she had apparently miscalculated and had the opposite effect. How was she supposed to figure this out?

"If you would like to practice, you may, but please be more careful."

"I will," she promised.

Spock headed off to see if he could clean the instrument, and Amanda went over to the computer terminal. After calling up one of the educational programs, she searched for the definition of logic: reasoned and reasonable judgment. She scrolled through all of the other applicable meanings for the word, but none of them told her HOW to guarantee that she was always logical. That was the key she needed if she wanted to avoid making her father unhappy again.

As she thought about their conversation a few minutes earlier, she realized that perhaps there was something else she needed. Her father had certainly been upset with her, but didn't show it at all, in his voice or his expression. No one else she knew stayed that calm. Maybe not showing emotions made him have "reasoned and reasonable judgment." It was at least worth a try.

TBC...