Real food. Real honest food. Of all the perks that came with terrestrial life real food had to be Miles' favourite. Sure there wasn't exactly the farmland space on Earth in the 24th Century that there had been in centuries past but what there was produced some of the Federation's finest foods.

As Miles brought the last bite up on the end of his fork he looked happily around the table; from his loving wife Keiko, to his growing-up-too-fast daughter Molly and in a high chair opposite the latest addition to the O'Brien brood; Kira-yoshi. (Nah) he decided, the best thing about terrestrial life was sharing it with your family.

"You seem in a much better mood this morning," Keiko remarked, finishing her last mouthful and turning her attention to their infant.

Miles had come home the evening before with something on his mind. He'd always tried not to bring work home, a pledge he'd never been able to deliver on whilst aboard a starship or the station, but here on Earth in his more civilian guise he was hoping to finally make good. But on this occasion he'd failed. The conversation with Doyle had been playing on his mind from the end of it until he found himself sitting up in bed at a very late (or was it early by that time?) talking about it with his true confidant (Not Julian).

Miles gave his usual wry smile and dry chuckle. "Surprising what a good breakfast can do."

"Have you decided what you're going to do?" Keiko asked, she was trying to negotiate a spoonful of some sort of mash into Yoshi's mouth. Molly had finished eating and was about at the age where she was becoming interested in her parent's conversation. She sat listening intently.

"I have," Miles said.

Keiko stopped with the spoon and looked up at her husband. And with her eyes in a way only she could said: "And?"

"It's not my place to – " he began. But Keiko was frowning. "Miles Edward O'Brien, you should at least try to talk with this student." She spoke with years of teaching experience. Miles might've been a veteran of several wars, but it hadn't prepared him for surviving classroom dynamics. This wasn't the first time he'd sought Keiko's counsel.

"I…" he looked down at his empty plate, but now risked meeting Keiko's stare. He already knew what expression she'd be wearing.

"Oh alright," he relented.

"I just think you've got a real opportunity to help someone who clearly needs help."

"Maybe Starfleet just isn't for him?"

"It might not be, but you'd better make him be damned sure."

Keiko turned back to the baby, who since losing the attention of his mother had become incredibly interested in the spoon and it's contents.

"I best be making a move," Miles said rising from the table and pushing his chair back in one motion. Their kitchen, the heart of their home, was clinical and white. A stark contrast to the dark tones of their Cardassian-inspired quarters on DS9, deliberately so. The dining table, at which they always ate when the four of them together, dominated the centre of the room. A small work top with a sink and other traditional cooking apparatus was off to one side and fitted into the wall opposite was a dual replicator outputs.

He went to pick his plate up and asked; "What time were you leaving with the kids?"

Keiko had a few vacation days, one of the quirks of starting a new role midway through the year, and she was using them up to take Molly and Kira-yoshi to stay with her parents. Even with the global transporter network allowing for instantaneous travel to anywhere on Earth or Luna it was still nice to stay away from home when visiting, especially with young children in tow.

"Sometime this afternoon. We'll be gone before you finish work."

O'Brien had decided not to commute in and stay at home, in truth he'd been itching for a few free evenings to tinker with a few personal projects.

With his plate deposited into the replicator for recycling O'Brien kissed them all goodbye and made his way to work.

O'Brien shuffled idly through a PADD behind the podium of the amphitheatre style lecture hall. Doyle was to be in his first class of the day so he'd try and catch the young man after the lesson ended. He still wasn't 100% if it was his place or not to try and "talk some sense" into the young man but he was sure he wanted to at least try.

It wasn't long before students began to fill the hall, most meandering haphazardly to a seat of their choice. O'Brien monitored those inbound, hoping to see Doyle and make a connection. But as the clock struck the hour and his lecture began there was no sign of the young man. (Maybe I'm too late?) he worried.

After the class ended he caught one of the students he'd seen talking to Doyle a few times, assumed they were friends, and asked if they'd seen him.

"Sure," the cadet said, "We room together, I left him asleep. I don't think he's coming back."

Miles nodded, attired in his practiced 'thanks for the bad news' half smile.

"That's that then," he said to himself as the din from the students leaving had died down. Then he heard Keiko's nag, he caught himself – Keiko's persuasive voice in his head. "Fine fine," he said.

He'd made up his mind. O'Brien would go and call on Doyle; one last try. If he could make an engineer out of a Ferengi, then he could make a Starfleet Officer out of a Ferengi… and if he could do that then he could damn well make this kid, born and bred on Earth, become one as well, or at least be sure if he didn't want to.

One of the consequences of an organisation made up on over 150 different worlds and a combined population numbering in the trillions choosing to put all of their potential officers through one centre of training and education was that housing them all during term time was a particular problem.

Thanks to the transporter network that allowed instantaneous travel from anywhere on Earth and Luna this housing could be built anywhere. Many students lived in the orbital platforms suspended like a child's mobile above the Earth, giving homes to millions that needed or wanted to be near the Federation's capital without using up valuable real estate planetside. Some others lived in the domes built at the poles, or on one of the many floating cities that dotted the now placid oceans. But the vast majority still lived within the Greater Bay area.

Having searched the student accommodation records he found Doyle lived with a few other students in a shared house in Oakland. A quick teleport, and a hop and a skip and O'Brien found himself standing on a street corner looking at a row of houses that seemed to date from the late 21st or early 22nd Centuries, definitely post war anyway. The street was wide, the gardens of the houses well kept, and there was a low din that sat comfortably in O'Brien's eardrums. A good number of people, both young and old; human and alien, meandered along either sidewalk adding to the respectful noise levels coming from the open windows on many of the dwellings.

O'Brien did his own meander along, the sun was still shining even this late in the day and now he was a little further in land the wind that seems to be omnipresent in San Fransisco was little more than a slight breeze. Noting each house number as he went somehow made the journey seem longer, and just as it seemed he was going to be wandering forever he saw Doyle coming out of the next house along.

O'Brien stepped up his pace just a little. He was about to call out the young man's name; when he came close enough to O'Brien that the old Chief Petty Officer could see his expression. Doyle looked worried, as if a man who'd done something wrong at work and just been caught by a superior.

Just as O'Brien's brain was about to discount this expression as Doyle's worry about the big decision he was making, the truth was revealed. Following Doyle out of the house a few steps behind was two men wearing Starfleet uniforms. The colour: gold, either engineering… or security.

Both men were non descript. Brown hair, no facial hair. The larger of the two was a man that O'Brien didn't know yet, but would see again. They were at a pace slow enough not to be a run, this would draw attention to themselves, but fast enough that they were gaining ground on Doyle. It was what is commonly known as a "Dad Run", the appearance of haste without much speed.

Doyle turned out onto the street in O'Brien's direction but his eyes didn't rise from the ground. He turned over his shoulder to see the hastening men in pursuit.

"Doyle." O'Brien was finally close enough to call out without it being considering yelling.

It stopped the younger man in his tracks. He made eye contact with O'Brien and without a word they conveyed several emotions: surprise that his engineering tutor was here, relief that maybe he'd have some support, and fear; that O'Brien may get involved in something he shouldn't be.

O'Brien wouldn't interpret this emotional communiqué until his reflection later. His focus in the immediate was the events that unfolded before him. O'Brien was unused to being a helpless bystander, he was always the one developing the plan… building the device… taking back the station, but everything happened so fast.

(Did they actually happen fast or have your reflexes gotten slower since you arrived back on Earth?)

Doyle recognizing O'Brien had caused a slow in his pace, one that would prove damaging in his apparent speed walking contest with the two security officers. The larger of the two, the one with whom O'Brien would meet again, was the first to turn the corner from the house's plot onto the street. As he did so he raised his weapon, it wasn't a phaser but looked menacing nonetheless.

O'Brien saw it the split second before it fired. The weapon let out a small projectile shaped like dart, but no larger than a child's thumb. As it drove lightly into the torso of Doyle the young man vanished into a glow of a transporter beam.

Despite his years in the Transporter room of the Enterprise it took O'Brien a moment to process that Doyle HAD been beamed away, not vaporised by a Jem'Hadar disruptor. (Was the war really ever over, in your mind?)

"Hey!" he cried out, it was instinctive and not particularly effective.

The officer who'd fired holstered his weapon as he saw O'Brien.

"What do you think you're doing?" O'Brien demanded, he'd moved cautiously closer.

"Sir. This isn't open for discussion. Federal Security."

"Federal wha – " O'Brien let his sentence die as both officers had already slapped their combadges and disappeared, leaving behind only that familiar mist.

O'Brien was left alone. The street's hum hadn't subsided and as other pedestrians walked along the opposite side of the street it was as if nothing had happened.

Miles did a 180, then another, then looked side to side. He said nothing but his face read as: "Was it just me? Did anyone else see that?"

When he saw no one else to shared his experience with he threw his arms up in the arm in both frustration and astonishment.

As he let his arms back down he simply said: "Oh bloody hell."

:::::::::

"Commodore Barrett will see you now."

O'Brien had been pacing outside the office of the Chief of Security for Starfleet Academy for what seemed like an eternity. He'd managed to get this far without hindrance but a bright eyed young Bolian, serving as Commodore Barrett's administrative aid, had thrown up one final hurdle.

His mind was so focused on the wait, the pacing and the worry, O'Brien didn't even hear him.

"Mister O'Brien?" the Bolian said again, rising from behind his desk.

"Ah," Miles stopped pacing, his mind returning to the present.

He dispatched with the few steps behind where he'd drawn to a standstill and the Commodore's office quickly and stepped through the door as it slid open.

The Commodore was of half Human, half Denobulan origin. Which resulted in a pretty much Human appearance, baring a few raised ridges along the sides of his cheeks, but the ability to go a significant amount of times between sleep cycles. It was great for someone like Barrett, who was a self confessed workaholic, but not so great for his immediate subordinates who endured a micro-manager who worked 24/7.

"Commodore," O'Brien said offering his hand.

Barrett was standing in front of his desk, waiting to greet him and took the hand extended hand warmly.

"Chief," he said acknowledging O'Brien's former rank. The two had a decent enough relationship. They had a shared background having briefly served together aboard the Rutledge during the Cardassian War. Barrett's tactical expertise quickly came to the fore in a conflict environment and had been rapidly promoted to Chief Strategic Officer at Starbase 375.

"To what do I owe this pleasure?"

O'Brien thought back a moment over the events that had led him here. He'd been ready to simply give up and go home after his failed attempt to see Doyle at his home, and whilst something didn't sit right at all with him about the way those security officers had acted his overwhelming trust in Starfleet overrode his sense of injustice. His mind had been swayed once he'd returned to an empty house, Keiko away visiting her parents, and had fired up his interstellar communicator…

"Julian!" O'Brien exclaimed when the, not so young anymore, face of Deep Space 9's Chief Medical Officer appeared on the screen.

"Chief!" Julian returned the jovial greeting. The men often "called" each other, but this had quickly fallen into a routine of being conducted on a Tuesday night, so this unexpected call was certainly exciting.

"Julian I'm sorry if I'm interrupting. Heck, I'm not even sure what time it is out there anymore – "

"You don't have to apologize Miles, you don't need to stay on station time anymore. The days are ONLY 24 hours back on Earth aren't they?"

"They are, they are! I don't know how I get anything done."

"You know me; I'm not stickler for the rules Miles, but don't we usually call on a Tuesday?"

(Straight to business eh? Must have a date with Ezri…)

"I'm sorry Julian, I just… just…"

"Oh out with it man!" Julian joked, he didn't need his genetically modified genius to figure out that O'Brien was struggling here.

O'Brien forgot immediately that his friend was potentially in a rush and proceeded to tell his entire story up to that point. Ending with his machinations about who the red suited officers may have really been.

"Fake Starfleet Officers?" Julian asked rhetorically. "On Earth?"

"It's been done before."

"Sure by Changelings… during the war. Not now, not with the Dominion sent back to the Gamma Quadrant."

"Maybe. Maybe they really were security officers, but what the heck were they doing with Doyle? Sure the guy didn't want to join Starfleet, but since when was that a crime?"

"You don't know the full extent of his dissention Miles. Maybe he was… acquiring Starfleet property that didn't belong to him as a parting gift to himself?"

"Stealing? Julian this isn't the frontier, it's the land of plenty."

"Didn't you say," Julian was using his perfect recall now, "That the Head of Security at the Academy was an old war buddy?"

"I wouldn't say Buddy, but we did serve together briefly during the first Cardassian war."

"Can't you just simply ask a friend for help?"

O'Brien smiled, both at the fact that maybe Julian had pointed out the obvious and fixed the problem: but also at the rapidity that Julian's wide-eyed, almost youthful, enthusiasm for the good in people had returned since the war had ended. O'Brien had been concerned the war had aged him beyond his years, and maybe it had, but there was still a little room for that young Lieutenant he'd first met after disembarking the Enterprise almost a decade ago.

… "And that brings me to you," O'Brien had finished telling his story to Barrett, skipping the parts with Julian in it.

He'd mulled over what he thought Barrett's response was going to be on his way over here. He'd decided the Commodore would probably deny those officers were his, which alone wouldn't send Miles' investigation in a totally different direction. The determining factor was 'how' Barrett denied it. Would his answer imply that actually they WERE his men on his orders and he didn't want O'Brien to know. Or would it imply that they genuinely they weren't his men, or at least he wasn't aware of the operation.

Barrett didn't disappoint. "I sure don't recognise your description of those two." (Right on cue)

"But let me check my records, see if there was a warrant out for Mister Doyle or anything of that nature."

Barrett turned to his highly polished and totally minimalist matte chrome desk and spun a wireless terminal around. After manipulating the controls for a moment he turned back to O'Brien.

"Nothing Chief. Mister Doyle hasn't so much as a jay walking offense."

"Is that just offenses on campus or…"

"I have his entire record, he's clean." Barrett was blunt for the first time during the meeting.

There was a slight frostiness now slowly creeping into Barrett's answers. It hadn't been there to begin with and it's progress was so slow that O'Brien had only just noticed it.

"So why – " O'Brien was cut off. "He's clean Miles. They weren't my men out there. I can't help you."

O'Brien gave his characteristic "huh." Clearly he wasn't going to get anywhere with the Commodore. (This was the Barrett I remember) Miles thought to himself as he turned to the door nodding.

"Thanks anyway Commodore."

And as if on a switch Barrett's responses changed tempo and pitch again. Much friendly again. "Say hi to Keiko and the kids for me, and you take care."

O'Brien left without another word.