Stef's POV

I take a deep breath and try to pull my thoughts together before I walk out of the bathroom. This outing wasn't going to do either of us any good, if we just kept arguing with the girl.

She was just as stubborn as we were, if not more.

Lux's words kept repeating in my head, It. Doesn't. Matter.

I knew that she was probably planning on leaving again, and that's why she thought our problems were irrelevant to her. She didn't care about what we were saying to her tonight, because she assumed it'd be the last time she'd ever see us.

So, I knew I had to do something to save this outing, and I had to do it fast.

By the time I walk back toward the table, I see Lux and Mike both sitting in silence. Mike was watching me as I walked back and Lux was sitting with her legs laid out on top of the booth, her back against the wall, and her arms crossed over her chest. She glanced at me quickly once she saw I was coming and then looked over at the window in the same direction, as if she hadn't seen me at all.

As soon as I sit down beside Mike, I knock my knuckles gently on the table two times. "Sit up for me, love," I tell her nicely, as if it were more of a question than a request. I didn't want her to think that I was really trying to control her. I knew that playing the bad cop all of the time would only push her away even more. But my wife was right. I had to be honest with her and I had to be honest with myself.

And there was no way in hell, I would let her ride around on the back of some drop out's motorcycle with a criminal-record and his own apartment.

She was fourteen.

Point blank.

She looks at me strangely for a second as if she has no inclination to sit up.

"Please," I add, in the softest voice I could muster. I needed to show her that she had some control, very little, but some. And in order to do that, I had to show my vulnerability a bit, even though I really didn't want to. How could I ask her to do the same, if I wasn't willing to do it myself?

I watch her as she sits up reluctantly, and I give Mike a look so that he'd hopefully catch onto what I was trying to do. By the look on his face, I'm not sure he actually does. But I just hope that he'd be smart enough to let me take the lead.

"Okay…" I start awkwardly as I fold my two hands over each other on the table, "We have some things to talk about, obviously…" I pause and wait for Lux to contribute to the conversation, but not surprisingly she doesn't. I suddenly want to slap Mike for telling her that she didn't have to say a word once we got inside, if she didn't want to. "And well, first and foremost, I'm sorry about what you heard Lena say earlier. She didn't—"

"I honestly don't care," she interrupts, while quickly shrugging her shoulders and taking a sip from her water.

"Let me finish," I continue sternly, causing her to look up at me with both eyes in bewilderment, "…Lena didn't mean anything by it. She was just upset because Callie and Jude—"

"Don't feel safe," Lux finishes for me. "Yeah, I got it. Which is exactly why you should sign the—"

"Do not say sign the paper, Lux. I specifically told you not to ask me that again, remember?" I ask sternly. I hated that she kept mentioning it and I hated myself for promising to sign it before I knew the truth.

"I didn't ask you. I'm just—"

"Suggesting it. Yeah, I know… But I already told you that your father and I weren't going to sign them, yes?" I ask her as I raise my eyebrows, so that she'd get the message.

She lets out a frustrated sigh and crosses her arms over her body again, a typical defense position for her.

I run my fingers through my hair as I try to muster the words to continue, "Look, honey, I know that you are not used to being told what to do… And I can imagine how difficult it is, to suddenly wake up one morning and have two new people in your life, who are trying to do their best to parent you… But we are only trying to do what we think is best for you…" I pause when I see Lux roll her eyes. She wasn't going to make this easy for me and I knew it.

"What's wrong?" Mike asks in an annoyed voice, and I pat my hand on his knee under the table so that he would stop talking. I needed him to realize that she might feel threatened if we both were arguing with her at the same time. I was trying so hard to diffuse the situation, and I knew that Mike's attitude would only make things worse.

"What's best for me is to be with Tasha and Bug," she answers matter-of-factly.

I nod my head, "Lux, I know that you care about them very much—"

"They're my family," she says without a second thought.

"And we're not trying to take them from you," I assure her. "We wouldn't dream of doing that, because we know how much they mean to you—"

She shakes her head slightly, as if she didn't believe a word I was telling her, "Then, why were you trying to arrest Bug for no reason?"

"He put his hands on me, Lux. It's what I'm trained to do," I try to explain.

"He only put his hands on you, because you put your hands on me first!" she snaps. "Is that something else they teach you in the academy?" she asks rhetorically.

I take a deep breath before I continue, in an effort to calm my nerves. I couldn't let her get me worked up, and it was getting harder and harder to control my emotions when it came to her comments. "I'm sorry about that, Lux. I really am. I'm sorry about Bug too, and I have no problem telling him that, okay? …I just completely lost it when I saw you about to get on the back on his bike, with all the motorcycle-accident scenes that I get called to at work, I just—"

"Hold on," Mike said with both confusion and anger evident in his voice, as he put his hand in the air to keep me from talking.

"Mike—" I tried to stop him.

"You were going to get on the back of some kid's motorcycle?" Mike asks Lux accusingly.

"Bug isn't just some kid. He's my boyfriend. And it's not like I haven't been on it a thousand times before. Bug is a very good driver."

I bang my knee against Mike's so that he wouldn't make the same mistake I made earlier. Now that I had time to think about it, I've calmed down some, but I knew that Mike would probably say something stupid if I didn't put a stop to it.

"He may be a very good driver, Lux, but after going to a bunch of motorcycle-accident scenes in my line of work, being a good driver can have nothing to do with it. And when I saw you about to get in back of one, I just… well it worried me—"

"But why?" she asks as if she really had no idea.

I pause awkwardly, as I start to move my fingers around my coffee mug, a nervous habit that I've had for a while now. I just didn't understand why her two-word question would cause for such a heart-sinking inner reaction from me.

Did she really believe that we would be going through all of this, if we didn't really care?

"Because we care about you, Lux," Mike answers as if he had read my mind. And fo once, I'm suddenly grateful for his intervention, because I felt my throat dry up.

"You two just met me," she says skeptically.

"So we can't care?" Mike asks rhetorically.

But Lux doesn't realize that she's not supposed to answer the question. "No... It's weird," she says flatly.

Mike and I both have to laugh at her honesty and it catches her off guard.

"What's so funny?" she asks in confusion, as she gives us a flattened expression.

I smile at her, trying to come off as non-threatening as possible, "The fact that you think it's weird that we care about our own daughter…"

I watch as her body becomes tense and she gazes away from us, and I knew that what I said made her feel uncomfortable for some reason, which was the complete opposite of what I wanted to do.

So I try to get back on track with the entire purpose of this outing, "So… Mike and me don't want you to feel like we're trying to control everything you do, and I know that after being on your own for so long it might feel that way now. But… whether you want to admit it or not, you're fourteen, Lux."

"So?"

"So, that's really young," I answer making an emphasis on the really. "Too young to be living on your own or living with your boyfriend for that matter. Come on," I answer obviously.

"Who said anything about living with her boyfriend?" Mike asks.

"Mike," I warn again, but I can see how Lux is looking at him, with a slight sign of fear in her eyes, and I take that as a good thing. "What we are trying to say is that we know that you have been living a… different kind of lifestyle, an unhealthy one, considering your age... and we're just trying to—"

"Change it?" Lux asks in an annoyed voice.

"In the best possible way," I add. "We understand that this is going to be difficult for you, but considering the circumstances we would really appreciate it if you worked with us on it. We know that there will be objections and we're willing to listen to what you have to say, and we want to… but in the end you are—"

"Fourteen," Mike finishes and I can tell that he is still struggling to get passed everything he had just heard about, and I knew that it was upsetting him even more than it had upset me. He was always more strict about everything than Lena and I were when it came to parenting Brandon, so I knew it would be even harder for him, when it came down to Lux.

"I was going to say our daughter. But yes, Lux you are fourteen, as we've discussed," I say as I give Mike a 'duh-we-went-over-that-look.'

"So…" I direct Lux's eyes back toward me. "What we need to hear from you is, that you're willing to make this work, despite how hard things may get… And that means not asking us to sign the papers, not running away, not giving us an attitude every time we say something to you, and most importantly, we need you to stop fighting us on everything. We need you to put your guard down just a little, sweets…" I stop when I realize that I had screwed up again. "I'm sorry… Lux," I correct, letting her know that it was going to take a while for me to break the habit of using that word to refer to one of my daughters.

She lets out a small laugh, which catches Mike and me by surprise, "Okay… I mean, I guess I can try."