Chapter 7

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Erika Hernandez never imagined that something as mundane as giving her husband a haircut would cause her so much trouble. She didn't even want to give him a hair cut in the first place. She had thought he looked fine, albeit a little scruffy, but absolutely fine if he just brushed it a little. Jon on the other hand didn't think he looked fine. He was leaving for another three-week conference in a few hours and didn't think the Starfleet Chief of Staff should look scruffy. Erika had mentioned that a haircut wasn't going to fix that and her husband had threatened to assign her to join him on the trip.

"Come on, Rike!" he pleaded with her as she alternated between throwing clothes at him and throwing them directly in the suitcase. Getting a hair cut wasn't the only thing he had left for the last minute.

"Pack, Jon! Pack! Your shuttle is leaving soon and I swear to god…"

"I can't go like this!"

"Just brush it! I'm sure it will be fine."

"I'm sure it won't," he sighed, collapsing on the bed and sending articles of clothing everywhere.

"Jon!"

"You used to cut your brothers' hair, didn't you?" he looked up at her hopefully.

"Yeah and I nearly took Simon's ear off," she muttered, trying to corral the clothes back into some semblance of order.

"I don't need ears."

"You are going to a conference where you will be spending 75% of your time listening," she said as she handed him a clean uniform. "You are going to need ears. And don't just shove that in your bag."

"Erika, I wouldn't be asking if it wasn't a last minute emergency. Just a trim, okay?"

"Fine," she huffed. "I'll cut your hair, you stupid moron. Sit down before I change my mind."

"Thank you," he said with a smile. He handed her a pair of scissors and eagerly sat down in the nearest chair.

"You really are worried about this conference, aren't you?" she asked as she began to work. Of course he was. Everyone was. After the success of the Coridan Conference, the political leaders of the Coalition wanted to take advantage of the strong spirit of cooperation and community. They had been talking about expanding the Coalition for years, ever since its inception in fact. Her husband had been one of the first to contend that a mutual assistance and defense pact was a fine starting point but realistically, the four main separate governments of the group would have to be integrated in order for real progress to happen. At first, no one else had seen the need. Earth was perfectly fine keeping to itself and so were the other Coalition members. But the war had changed all that. The governments and economies of four separate systems were struggling to recover and learning to rely on each other more and more. Each year it seemed that the Coalition treaty was amended to call for new cooperative endeavors, each time bringing them closer and closer to a unified system. And now it was time to figure out if a federated system could really replace the Coalition.

So a series of four conferences had been set up, one on each of the major partner home worlds. The first, the one that Jon was worrying about, was on Vulcan. The Earth delegation was made up of their council members, government leaders and Jon, who had been championing the idea all along. Jon was also there for another important reason, one that Erika didn't like to think about. Should the alliance give way to a unified system of government, Starfleet, the organization that she had devoted her entire career to, would change permanently.

She shook her head and focused her attention back on her husband who seemed to be doing a very good job of sitting still for a long amount of time.

"You used to wear your hair like this," she said, running her fingers through his brown hair.

"Back when I was a captain?" Jon laughed. "I didn't have time for haircuts."

"And you do now?" she gave him a slap across the shoulder.

"Ow! Most of the time I do!" He sighed. "Thank you, Rike, really. I just didn't want to go in there looking…"

"Looking like you hadn't been out of the captaincy for almost a decade?" she smiled. "You want to impress them."

"Most of the Vulcans remember my father and still think of me as that eager little kid itching for adventure."

"I liked that guy."

"I'm not sure he's the one who can organize a new interplanetary government," Jon frowned.

"And you think the guy with lopsided hair can?"

"Yes I…" he stopped. "Rike!"

"I told you I was no good at this. Just brush it back a bit. It'll be fine."

"Actually," he said, looking in the mirror. "It looks very nice."

"Thank you. Hold still," she took the mirror away from him, "I'm not done yet."

She felt Jon turn his head at the sound of a thump and was just about to scold him when she realized what was going on. Ben was sitting on top of his father's feet, happily playing with his shoes and trying to eat a random sock that Erika was sure she had packed already. Jon bent down and lifted their son up onto his lap.

"Hey buddy," Jon said as Ben smiled up at him. Ben reached one chubby hand up as Erika's own hands made one final check over her handiwork. Everything looked good.

"Did Mama cut my hair?" Jon asked Ben who was still entranced.

"Is Mama ever going to cut your hair again?"

"Rike!" he sighed as he stood up and brushed off the last little bits of hair. "Thank you, darling."

"Do you feel better now?" she asked, placing a hand on his chest.

"Enough to take on the whole Coalition," he smiled as Ben tugged on his ear.

"Good."

Ben reached up to ruffle Jon's hair and his father returned the gesture, leaving their toddler with a tussled mess of brown hair. Jon looked up at Erika and raised an eyebrow.

"You know…"

"No!"

"This little guy could use a haircut too!"

"Jon!"

By some miracle, Jon had made it to the shuttle on time. All in all, giving her husband a haircut hadn't been so bad. If only it had stopped there. She had almost forgotten about the whole thing until she was trying to get all three children out the door to watch the conference's opening ceremonies.

"Girls!" Erika called, balancing her son on her hip. "Let's go! Daddy's broadcast is starting soon!"

They had been waiting for this. Jon had left three days earlier and now after hours of preliminary negotiations, the conference was about to officially open. All the seating arrangements had been agreed upon, the official languages set, even the beverage list had been open to debate, much to Jon's frustration. But today was the day they actually got to begin work on what had become the most important and captivating story in the news. Starfleet was transmitting the ceremony live to their largest auditorium and Erika had a feeling that every single news crew was going to want to get a shot of the chief of staff's wife and three children eagerly watching the broadcast. If they ever got out the door.

Erika checked her watch. "Addie! Frankie! Let's go!"

"We're coming!" One of them called down the stairs. At this moment, Erika wasn't sure which one of them it was but she honestly didn't care. They were late.

She headed up the stairs, Ben pulling a lock of her hair out of its careful clip. She gave him a look but he only gazed back at her with the same goofy grin as his father. This was probably the first time she had worn her dress uniform, heels and all, in months and it was definitely the first time she had tried to wrangle up all three of her children in a skirt.

She got to the door of Frankie's room and stopped. It was empty, never a good sign. "Frankie?" she called hesitantly.

"In here!" came the reply from the direction of Adalie's room. Erika sighed, adjusting the toddler on her hip and made her way to the door. She froze when she looked inside. Adalie had Frankie sitting in a chair and was in the middle of cutting her hair…

Oh no.

"Addie! What are you doing?"

"Giving Frankie a haircut."

"I can see that," she said, looking down at the uneven locks of hair scattering the floor. "Why?" she asked, carefully taking the scissors out of her seven year old's hands.

"Because she needed one," Adalie said simply.

"Right now?" Erika winced.

"You said we had to look nice for the broadcast."

"Frankie looked fine the way she was," Erika said, trying to keep the alarm out of her voice.

"No I didn't!" Frankie stomped her foot on the floor, sending tufts of hair everywhere. "My hair needed to be cut."

"Really?"

"Yes really!" Frankie folded her arms and frowned, a gesture that seemed all too familiar to Erika.

She turned back to Adalie. "So you decided to cut your sister's hair?"

"Daddy said that you had to cut his hair because he didn't have time to get someone else to. You've been telling us all morning that we are out of time so…"

"So you thought this would help."

"Yeah!" Adalie smiled, but then frowned when she saw that her mother wasn't smiling too.

Erika sighed and put Ben down on the floor, carefully away from the scene of the crime. "Let's look at the damage," she said as she placed her hands on Frankie's shoulders and looked her over. It was pretty bad. Several chunks of her long brown hair had been chopped off at the shoulder on one side, and all in varying lengths. At least Addie hadn't tried to give her little sister bangs though, she thought with a shake of her head.

"Okay, girls," she finally said. "When we get home, we are going to have a long talk about haircuts and scissors. For now, Frankie, how do you feel about short hair?" Frankie nodded enthusiastically. Carefully and as quickly as she could, Erika trimmed the rest of her daughter's hair to be at least one length. Frankie giggled as the long locks fell to the ground. Adalie, to her credit, made sure Ben didn't try to eat any of it.

Finally, it was done. They could deal with the mess later. For now, they had to leave.

"Mama cut my hair just like Daddy's!" Frankie proclaimed loudly as Erika bundled her into her coat.

"And you still have both ears, don't you kiddo?"

Frankie reached up and grabbed both ears triumphantly. "Yes!"

"Well, when your daddy gets home from saving the world we can blame him for all of this."

"Okay!"

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