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T'Pol knocked again on the antique wooden door, awaiting her daughter to finally answer it.

Nothing.

"Elizabeth, I insist that you open this door."

There was a slight banging sound as something, it sounded like a shoe, was thrown roughly against the door on the other side near the position where T'Pol's head would have rested if the door had been open. The former Science officer found herself forcefully restraining her own arm to make sure she didn't punch a hole through the door like it was cardboard. She had grown tired of Elizabeth's constant misbehavior and of her foul mouth and inappropriate dress. This had to end.

Obviously, if her daughter desired to spend time in her room then the logical path of least resistance dictated that Elizabeth could stay in her room.

Indefinitely.

Feeling the beginnings of yet another headache squeezing her skull like a vice, T'Pol suddenly felt the urge to meditate quietly in her room for a few hours. "I shall return shortly before dinner, if you still can not bring yourself to face me by that time then please consider yourself confined to that room."

As expected, the thump of Elizabeth's other sneaker colliding with the door was the first sound that followed her speech.

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Trip waited anxiously for his transmission to moved through the security encoding program and download on to the inter office subspace net. A slight buzzing feeling settled in the bottom of his stomach, a certain anticipation churning around with his afternoon coffee.

When his transmission was finally approved Trip tried not to notice that the buzzing feeling had leaped into his throat and rested on the edge of his tongue, ready to jump out at the first victim he wanted to aim a barb at.

"Morning, Tri-"

"If you wanna make it a good morning, Mayweather, you can get my son outta his god damned jail cell!"

Admiral Travis Mayweather just sighed and pushed all the other paper work on his desk off to the side. He had been expecting this call ever since he'd first heard the news from Deep Space One last night. "Please lower your voice, Trip." He asked as diplomatically a voice as possible, "The last thing I need is for my secretary to call security when I'm the only one in the room."

Trip fumed but did lower his voice to a angry hiss. "Ta HELL with your secretary, what about my son?"

"I'm looking in to it now, alright? I want to know the details as much as you do."

"They're talking about court martialing my son, Travis!"

Mayweather slammed his fist on his desk and pointed at his side of the view screen, his temper now in full display. "Nobody is saying anything about a criminal trial, it's being investigated and Charles is in the brig on a different charge, okay?"

None of this calmed Trip down. The yelling, the pointing, the subject matter itself, all it did was make Tucker want to explode at his former subordinate and take out all the very angry feelings of parental responsibility on him.

"Other charge?"

"Dereliction of duty, the kid was purposefully late to his shift because he was seeing this girl." Mayweather didn't let trip interrupt him, just kept talking in the hopes that something he say would calm Trip's nerves a little. "You have to understand Trip; this wasn't just some local girl hanging around the station. This is royalty, the daughter of a foreign dignitary. Men aren't even allowed to speak to her on her planet and your son was…well, they found them curled up in a Jeffries tube for god's sake."

Trip shook his head, trying to clear his brain. Already he could tell this was going to be a long day. "Travis", he asked a little calmer this time as he massaged the tension out of his temples, "Exactly how much do you know about what happened?"

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Charley had been waiting for the transmission from his father, Trip could tell because he hadn't really moved from the same view screen in the station brig he had sent his first message to his father hours ago. The mean looking guard that had been standing in the background of the last transmission was gone at least; Tucker thanked the universe for small favors at least. He didn't really want anyone overhearing what he was about to say anyway.

"Dad-"

"Cram it!" Trip almost regretted yelling at the boy when he saw the crushed look on his face "Is what Admiral Mayweather's been tellin' me true, boy?"

There was a moment of hesitation on his son's part and then "Yeah, probably."

"Unbe-fucking-lievable! You mean to tell me you actually blew off your duty shift, allowed a foreign civilian into a restricted area and then had sex with said civilian in SAID RESTRICTED AREA!? What the hell were you thinking?"

Charley looked like he was going to cry and Tucker started feeling guilty again about yelling at him. But this was just so unexpected. His son had never exactly been a very outgoing or confident kid. He didn't speak his first word until he was five years old and even then it was only in a nervous stutter. Frankly, Tucker simply couldn't picture his son even talking to girls let alone doing something like this.

"You gonna answer your father or what?"

Tucker watched as his son stared, inhaled with a sigh, and rose from his chair. "Or what Dad."

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Dinner at the Tucker house was uncharacteristically quiet that night. Ordinarily, Elizabeth would have been talking their ears off about something that happened at school or after school or on the way to school. But now she was upstairs, locked in her room.

And while Trip would've normally filled the void teasing his wife or smile at T'Mir but tonight he didn't feel like talking. He hadn't told T'Pol about what had happened with Charles. She had been so stressed lately, wound so tight. He was hoping he could spare her the knowledge that her baby boy was stuck in a jail cell orbiting another star. Maybe he could think of a way to take care of this without anything even getting back to her. "Listen, I just found out I need to go to deep space one for a few days," He began to feel guilty before he even finished lying. "Brass thinks their reactor might need an overhaul and they want me to do a little evaluation."

T'Pol took another sip of her soup then responded with detached interest. "Give my regards to Charles while you are there."

"Are you leaving tomorrow Daddy?" T'Mir looked up at him with veiled disappointment and tried not to sound sad. "Because tomorrow is picture day."

Trip smacked his forehead in remembrance before smiling at his youngest daughter. "Aw shoot I almost forgot about that! I'll have to reschedule my flight out so I can be here."

T'Pol watched her husband and daughter conversing happily but distantly she wondered if having reporters within her home was such a good idea when she couldn't even get Elizabeth to come down the stairs.

Almost as if in agreement, a loud thump sounded from Elizabeth's room.

T'Pol took another sip of soup.

To Be Continued