"Daddy!" Kenzie called from her bedroom, way to early in the morning.

"Your daughter is awake," Eddie mumbled as she rolled over and curled up in Jamie's arms.

"I got up with your son at 2am."
"But she doesn't want me. She's yelling for you."
"But you're a better parent than me." They both chuckled.

"Flattery is getting you nowhere. I'm exhausted."
"How about if we pretend we're still asleep? What are the odds she'll also go back to sleep?"
Neither of them moved as they both closed their eyes and were just about to drift back off to sleep. "DADDY!" Kenzie yelled again. "Come here please!"

"Ugh! I'm up," Jamie yawned as he stumbled out of bed and grabbed his pajama pants, a tshirt, and a robe. He made his way down to Kenzie's room. "Hey, Bug. What's going on?"

"Whatcha doing?"
"Sleeping. How do you feel?"

"A little better."

Jamie put a hand to her forehead. "Feels like your fever is down. Ready to get up?"

"I'm still tired."
"Well, how about we go back to sleep for just a little bit longer? I bet you'll feel even better when you wake up."
"Ok. Will you hand me Bear?"

"I sure will," Jamie smiled as he straightened out her comforter and handed her the teddy bear that had fallen in the floor. "I love you." He leaned down and kissed her forehead as she reached up and gave him a hug.

"Love you too."

Jamie walked in and checked on Finn before making his way back to the bedroom. He slipped off his robe and crawled back in bed. "She not up?" Eddie asked, not even opening her eyes.

"Fever's down. She said she wants to sleep a bit longer. I assured her that would be just fine. Finn's good too. Which means…"

"Mama has another hour to sleep," Eddie smiled as Jamie wrapped her in his arms and sighed. She let him lay there a minute, thinking he was going to get nowhere. "I'm kidding," she giggled as she kissed him and dove under the sheets.

When Kenzie woke up the second time, she was feeling much better and was up for good. Jamie offered to take her down to cook breakfast while Eddie and Finn took it a little slower.

"Pancakes?" Jamie asked as Kenzie smiled and nodded her head emphatically.

"Daddy, can we go to the park today?"

"The park? You feeling good enough to go to the park?"

"Uh huh."
Jamie looked at her slyly. "I don't think so. We need to wait a little bit longer until you're feeling a whole lot better."
"Are you going to stay here today?"
"No. I have to go to work."
"But I don't want you to."
"Mommy will be here."
"But I want you…." she whined.

Jamie took a deep breath as he turned to face her. "Sorry, but I have to go to work and you have to stay here with Mommy. And I expect you NOT to give her a hard time. Just rest and take your medicine. Understand?" Kenzie nodded her head. "Good girl. You and me will hang out when I get home."

By week's end, Kenzie was back to 100% and she and Connor were both invited to sleepover parties. While Eddie and Jamie were both quick to say yes to Connor, the were equally as quick to say no to Kenzie.

"Well that's not fair!" Kenzie pouted.

"No ma'am. We don't know Lizzie's parents. You're not going off to someone's house that we've never met and we don't even know where it is. Besides that, you're still on antibiotics. No."

"But Connor gets to go!"

"Connor is going to Liam's house. We know Liam's parents."

"But that's not fair! Call them on the phone and then you'll know them!"

"End of discussion." Eddie wasn't about to sit at the breakfast table and debate with a seven-year-old. "Daddy will pick you up right after school."

The longer Kenzie sat at school, the madder she got, which is why when the final bell rang, she found Lizzie. "Ready for my party?" Lizzie asked. "My mom has to work so we're going to have to walk home."

"Sounds good."

Kenzie joined the group of three and headed right out the door. They had made it a whole fifteen feet from the school when Jamie drove up.

"Kenzie Reese, where are you going?"
"Um… to Lizzie's party?"

"No ma'am. Mommy told you this morning you had to come home. Get in this car. Now."
"But Daddy, it's not fair! Connor got to go home with Liam."

Jamie got out of the car and made his way over to where Kenzie was standing on the sidewalk with her arms crossed. He knelt down in front of her and spoke in a low, firm tone, out of earshot of the other girls. "You have a choice. Get in this car right now and we'll go home and discuss this calmly or continue to be defiant and you're going to get a spanking when we get home and you still won't be going to a party."

Kenzie frowned as she threw her hands in the air. "EITHER WAY I DON'T GET TO GO!"

Jamie raised his eyebrows, signaling Kenzie that he'd had enough. "Get in the car, now." She gave it a moment but decided not to test him. He looked pretty serious. She couldn't remember ever getting spanked. That was normally reserved for Sawyer who was the very strong-willed-Danny Reagan – like wild child. She threw her backpack into the back of the car as hard as she could and then got in and slammed the door.

Jamie took a deep breath and then got in the car as well. Neither of them spoke on the short ride home.

"MOMMY!" Kenzie yelled the moment she walked in the door.

"What in the world?" Eddie asked as she sat in the livingroom with Sawyer. "Why are you shouting?"
"Daddy said he was going to spank me!"

"What?" Eddie was utterly confused. Level-headed Jamie barely ever reached that level with Sawyer and he definitely never reached it with his precious first born. "What happened?"

"I caught her leaving school with a group of girls for the sleepover."
"The one I specifically told you that you could not attend?" Eddie asked, her tone matching Jamie's. Kenzie immediately knew she was wrong and it probably wouldn't end well for her. "Well, I guess you're lucky Daddy picked you up instead of me because I wouldn't have waited until I got home."

"But."
"Go upstairs and wait in your room please," Jamie said with eyebrows raised.

"But…"
"Right now, unless you want a spanking from me first," Eddie said, pointing to the stairs. "Go."

Kenzie huffed as she took off in a sprint and ran upstairs, slamming her bedroom door shut and throwing herself down on the bed. "This isn't fair!" she yelled.

"What in the world?" Eddie asked. "I thought we agreed no more running off."

"I have no idea," Jamie shrugged. "I think this was just more straight up defiance than her actually wanting to escape. She was just mad Connor got to go and she didn't. I didn't even know the kid she was going with. We'd have never found her!"

"Do I need to go up there and handle her?" Eddie asked, offering to be the disciplinarian so poor Jamie didn't have to be.
"No. No. I've got it. I'm just going to give it a little bit of time. I need to calm down a little myself. She pitched a fit on the sidewalk and then threw her backpack across the back of the car and literally everything flew out of it and slammed the car door so hard I thought the window was going to shatter."

"You have the patience of a saint."

"Is this what the teenage years look like?" Jamie chuckled.

"Daddy, we go to get icees?" Sawyer asked.

"Not today. Maybe tomorrow," Jamie smiled as he picked up his younger daughter. "Did you help Mommy with Finn today?"

"Uh huh. I made him quit crying."

"You did?"
"She did," Eddie smiled. "She was a big help. Finn didn't want to wait on his bottle and Sawyer made funny faces at him until I could get it ready, didn't you sweet girl?"

Sawyer nodded emphatically. "Well, I think that does deserve a trip to the icee store tomorrow."

Jamie gave it a few more minutes and decided he probably needed to head upstairs and deal with Kenzie.

"Kenzie in trouble," Sawyer told Eddie as Jamie sat her down and headed upstairs.

Shortly after Jamie left, there was a knock at the door. "Let's see who it is," Eddie smiled, leading Sawyer over to the front door. "Oooh. It's Uncle Danny!"

Sawyer flung the door open and squealed with excitement. "D!"

"Hey! There's my favorite three-year-old!" He picked her up and threw her up in the air. Danny always had a special affection for Sawyer. She was just as hard-headed and stubborn as he was. "Hey Eddie. Where's the kid? We've got some stuff to go over for this undercover gig."

"He should be down in a minute."
"Kenzie getting a spanking," Sawyer whispered to him with wide eyes.

"What? Is one of you always in trouble?"

"She decided to run off again to a sleepover after we told her she couldn't go," Eddie clarified.

"Oh really? I may need to have discussion with her of my own when Jamie's done."

"If you'd have been here about three minutes ago, you could've dealt with it. You know Jamie's no good at being bad cop when it comes to Kenzie. I'm not really sure which one of them will come down in tears."

It was only a few minutes before an angry Kenzie stomped back down the stairs with Jamie right behind her. "Go sit at the table. I'll go get your homework in a minute," he directed. "Oh, hey Danny."

"Hold it," Danny said as Kenzie attempted to stomp past him. "What is this I hear about you running off again?" Kenzie cut her eyes up at him but didn't answer. "I thought you and I talked about that, young lady?"

"Don't worry," Jamie assured him. "We just had our own talk about it."

"We weren't talking," Kenzie grumbled.

"Mad you got in trouble?" Danny asked. Kenzie nodded angrily. "You better be thankful for your dad and not me. If I was your dad, you wouldn't be sitting down tonight. Stop running off. Understand?"

"Yes sir," she grumbled again as she stormed past him and over to the kitchen table.

While Danny and Jamie went over their case and Eddie worked on supper, Kenzie worked on the spelling words she was supposed to write three times each. Much to her dismay, when she finished, Danny took a piece of her notebook paper and her pencil. At the top of the paper, he wrote, I will not ever run away again, then handed it back to her. "I want thirty of these written by Sunday dinner."
"What?"
"Uh huh. If you don't do it, I'm going to tell Grandpa what you did today… and I think you know what he will do."

"But, D!"
"We can call him right now if you want to," Danny said as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. "I have no problem inviting him and his slapper over here to…"
"No, no, no," Kenzie backpeddled as she reached up and pushed his phone and his hands down. "I'll do it."

"Good. No more running off. I'm not saying it again. Heard?"
"Heard," she muttered as she and Danny did their special handshake.

After dinner, the kids all got showered and pajamaed and settled in the livingroom for a movie. Kenzie made her way over to Eddie and cuddled up beside her while Jamie held Finn and Sawyer stretched out on the pallet in the floor.

"Mommy, will you wrap my hair with string like they do at the beach?"

"Yeah, I could probably do that. Let me see if we have any string." Eddie got up and returned a few minutes later with blue, green, and purple. "What color would you like?"

Kenzie's eyes lit up. "All of them!"
"Ok," Eddie chuckled. "Want to sit on the floor in front of me?"
"No, I can't. The floor's hard and Daddy spanked me," she said as she frowned at Jamie.
"Shouldn't have run off after we told you not to," he said flatly.

"How about you just lay down and put your head in my lap? Will that work?" Eddie asked.

Kenzie nodded as she stretched out on the couch. Eddie had a feeling if she could get her still, she could get her to sleep, and she was right. It only took about ten minutes and both Kenzie and Finn were sound asleep. "I'm going to put Finn down," Jamie whispered, "then I'll come back and get her."

Eddie finished wrapping Kenzie's strand of hair while Jamie put Finn in his crib. When he got back, he found Sawyer, stretched out in his chair. "Hi, Daddy," she smiled.

"Hey," Jamie smiled. "Wanna sit with me for a little while?" Sawyer nodded. "Ok. Let me get Sister up to bed and I'll be right back." He walked over and picked up Kenzie. She yawned as she rested her head on his shoulder.

Jamie gently placed Kenzie on the bottom bunk and tucked her in for the night.

"Love you, Bug," he whispered as he kissed her forehead.

"Daddy, are you mad at me?" she mumbled.

"Not even a little bit," he smiled. "What did I tell you earlier about why you got a spanking?"

"So that I'd listen to you and stop running off."
"Right. Because if you run off and something happens, Mommy and me wouldn't know where to find you so that we could help you. And what's my number one job?"

"To keep us safe."

"That's right. And I will do anything in the world to keep you, Mommy, Connor, Finn and Sawyer safe. You know why?"

"Why?"
"Because I love you very, very much."

"I love you too." She thought for a minute as he tucked her in. "I'm sorry, Daddy."

"It's ok. You know what Grandpa would say?"

"What?"

"It's what you do next that counts."
"I think I'll go to sleep. I'm tired."
Jamie chuckled. "Good choice."

"She go down without a fight?" Eddie asked when Jamie returned to the living room.

"Yep. We had a good talk. This one sack out?" he smiled as he looked down at Sawyer, sound asleep in his chair.

"Yeah. She tried to stay awake, but it took you too long."

"Poor thing. Let me take her to bed and you and I can…"
"Go to bed too? That's exactly what I was thinking. You owe me a foot rub in the worst way."
"I was going to say finish this amazing kids' movie together," Jamie managed to say with a straight face, only to crack up seconds later. Eddie rolled her eyes as she got up and picked up the various cups and bowls scattered throughout the livingroom.

"Meet you upstairs in three minutes."

"Hurry," he whispered. "And bring the wine."