Bill adds a leaf to the large dining table so it can be set for seven, complete with three candles down the middle, fancy cloth napkins that were a wedding gift from some friends of the Adama family, and new crystal glassware that was a gift from Laura's grandparents. Ellen and Saul show up first with a dinner salad and two different kinds of homemade dressing, one a vinaigrette that Ellen says is an old family recipe, and the other a creamy white dressing with chunks of cheese and a hint of anchovies.
Dave drops Sandra and Cheryl off next and they bring cookies for dessert, Cheryl putting the frosting on them herself. Dave doesn't stay due to a work meeting, but he intends to pick his daughters up on his way home, certain he will be done in a few hours. Sandra invited Craig, and he meets them at Bill and Laura's place, which was Dave's idea since he's not too keen on Sandra and Cheryl being alone with him until he figures out if the young man may be pretending to be something he's not.
Jean had already made a date for the evening but Laura arranges for her to join them later in the week for dinner so they can touch base again. She's determined to maintain contact with her friends after having gone so long without them because of Richard's controlling nature. Soon she will set up a girls' night out with the entire gang.
"So, you and Craig, going strong?" Laura whispers, hoping to get the scoop from Sandra as they prep the food in the kitchen.
"Yeah, I like him," she replies bashfully as she catches Craig's eye from the living room. "Cheryl doesn't seem to, though. Did Daddy talk to you about that?"
"No, but you know how Cheryl can be with strangers. She's suspicious of almost everyone until she gets to know them. Except for Bill, and Saul and Ellen. She'll come around. I wouldn't worry too much about it."
"I don't know, Laurie," she sighs. "I wasn't worried at first, but something seems really off between the two of them. Craig thinks it's because she's jealous of the time we spend together, but I know Cheryl, and I think it's something more than that. I worry about her."
The main topic of conversation over dinner is the beautiful location that Bill and Laura spent their honeymoon, Laura going on and on about the clear water in the lake and how quiet and peaceful it was. Saul and Ellen had only spent a few minutes there, just long enough to carry in the luggage and place it inside of the cabin, before heading back to work the day before the wedding. He suggests to Ellen that they spend a weekend there, but she says she would prefer to stay at the new luxury resort and receive complimentary massages and drink fine wine in the high-end restaurant.
Cheryl spends the entire time pushing food around her plate, barely eating anything, occasionally glaring at Craig.
"Maybe when you turn seventeen, we could go there," Craig suggests to Sandra, clasping her hand in his. "With your father's permission, of course."
Cheryl rolls her eyes and pushes her plate away with a huff, crossing her arms and leaning back in her chair.
"Cher, you've barely touched your food," Laura says giving her a concerned look.
"Not hungry," she mumbles with a pout on her face.
"How's school?" Laura asks, trying to include her in the conversation at the table, realizing that maybe talk of the honeymoon location is boring her.
Cheryl gives a quick shrug of her shoulders, her eyes cast downward toward the table.
"It's not like you to not eat," Bill remarks. "Try a meatball," he teases, flipping one onto her plate. This brings a crooked grin to her face as she recalls how she earned her callsign from him. Her smile lasts for only a few seconds before she breaks eye contact with Bill and goes back to staring dourly at the table. "Hey, sweetheart, what's going on? Is something wrong at school?" he gently asks.
Her eyes lock on Craig before she speaks. She's had no success in breaking him and Sandra up, and she's still upset about her father not believing her when she told him about seeing Craig snorting tandercaine. There's one more thing she can try, and since she has everyone's undivided attention, she decides she has nothing to lose.
"There's a girl at my school that knows someone who's using drugs. He's going to hurt someone that she loves, but nobody believes her when she tells them about him because she's just a little kid. I'm so worried that it makes me sick to think about it. What can she do?"
"Um, well, she needs to keep telling people about this. Someone will eventually listen to her," Saul replies, a look of shock on his face that this very young child is talking about such an adult issue.
"Has she told a teacher or the principal?" Laura asks, imagining what she would do if one of her kindergarteners told her something like this.
"She told a counselor. And her dad. They didn't believe her. She's so upset about it that sometimes she cries, and she barely sleeps at night."
"Is she sure he's using drugs, or could it be a misunderstanding? Lots of people take medication for things and maybe she doesn't understand that," Craig says trying to downplay the conversation.
"She's sure," Cheryl replies narrowing her eyes at him. "The drug is tandercaine and she saw him sniffing it into his nose. His eyes were huge afterwards and he went from being nice to being really mean. That's what happens when someone uses baby powder for a long time."
"Excuse me," Sandra says pushing back from the table and walking to the half bath off the dining area. The sudden sinking feeling in her stomach leaves her feeling dizzy, and she stands before the mirror splashing water on her face. Thoughts of Craig repeatedly explaining away Cheryl's behavior as jealousy fill her mind, along with the two packages she delivered to the scraggly man on campus.
"I need to pee," Cheryl states before leaving the table and walking down the hallway to the master bath in Bill and Laura's bedroom. Instead of getting a good answer to her problem, she got several concerned stares, Saul's advice to keep telling people the only true response and not a very good one in her opinion.
"My turn now," Craig says leaving the table and walking down the hallway toward the bedrooms.
He glances in the guest bedroom and notices the bathroom door is wide open and the light is out, so he turns into the master bedroom and bumps into Cheryl coming around the corner.
"What the hell are you up to?" he seethes at her as he closes the door so no one can hear them.
"Get away from me!" she exclaims turning back toward the bathroom.
His hand grabs her forearm, spinning her around to face him. "Stop with your stupid little games!" he warns her, squeezing her arm so tight that pain shoots down to her wrist.
"Let go of me!" she cries trying to pull away, hitting him with her other fist. When he doesn't release her, she bites through his shirt cuff as hard as she can, forcing him to yelp from the pain and shove her to the floor.
"You stupid little bitch! Mind your own business!" he orders as she crawls away as fast as she can toward the walk-in closet. He watches her go inside and shut the door, then he leaves, uses the guest bathroom, and returns to the table just as Sandra is seating herself there.
"Is everyone ready for dessert?" Laura asks, glancing around and noticing empty plates.
"I'm sort of full," Sandra says. Craig reaches for her hand, but she moves it away toward her drinking glass, preventing him from holding it.
"Did you see Cheryl back there?" Laura asks Craig, wondering why her sister hasn't returned to the table yet.
"Nuh-uh," he replies innocently.
"I'll check on her," Bill offers, leaving the table and walking down the hall. After glancing to the guest bathroom, he goes to the master bath, but it finds it empty as well. Then he notices light coming from beneath the closet door, so he gently opens it. "Cheryl?"
There's a rustling of some dresses on the left of the closet, so he pulls them apart to see Cheryl crouched down hiding behind them. "What are you doing in here?"
"Thinking," she replies with her arms wrapped around her midsection.
"Can I think with you?" he asks, nodding at an empty spot on the floor next to her.
"I suppose."
He eases down next to her, leaving the closet door slightly ajar. They sit in silence for a minute, Cheryl avoiding all eye contact with Bill, still clutching her midsection.
"Do you feel okay?"
"My tummy hurts."
"You can tell me what's going on."
Following a sniffle and a shake of her head, she replies "You won't believe me."
"I believe there's something bad happening with you right now and I want to help. You can trust me."
"I'm the girl at my school," she says beginning to cry. "I know someone doing drugs and nobody believes me."
"Who is it?"
"If you ask him about it, he'll just say I'm jealous and then you won't believe me," she cries, wiping some tears from her cheek onto her shoulder.
"Who is he?" Bill asks, tilting her chin toward him so he can brush her tears with his handkerchief.
"It's Craig. I saw him snorting drugs in JJ's office at the reception. I didn't know what he was doing at first and I told him I was going to tell Sandra. He got really mad and hurt my arm. Persephone figured out what the drug was, and I told daddy but he didn't believe me because I told a lie to try and break Craig and Sandra up. I shouldn't have done that. Maybe he would've believed me if I hadn't done that."
"He actually hurt you?"
"Yes. And he hurt me again a few minutes ago," she says holding her arm out and revealing a fresh mark on her forearm in the shape of several large fingers. "He called me a stupid bitch and shoved me down after I bit him on the wrist because he wouldn't stop hurting me. I crawled in here to get away from him."
"Bill, what are you doing in there?" Ellen asks pulling the closet door open. "There you are, sweetie," she says when she sees Cheryl is with him.
"Ellen, I need you to stay in here with Cheryl. Shut the door. Don't come out until someone comes back here."
"What's going on?" she asks confused.
"Just do it, please," he says urgently, his jaw clenched in anger at the thought of Craig harming Cheryl.
"Okay. Here sweetie, why don't you sit on Aunt Ellen's lap?" she asks squeezing into the spot Bill vacated. "Where did you get that bruise?"
Sandra and Craig busy themselves with loading the dishwasher while Laura and Saul clear the table. Just as Craig stands up from placing several plates on the bottom rack, Bill rounds the corner into the kitchen.
"What did you do?" he fumes walking past Sandra toward Craig.
"Hey, I don't know what she told you," Craig says backing up with his palms out toward Bill, "but she lies a lot. She's jealous because of all the time Sandra's been spending with me."
"I'm going to ask you one more time. WHAT. DID. YOU. DO?"
"Nothing!" he exclaims.
"Bill, what's going-" Laura begins to ask, but before the question leaves her mouth, Bill slams Craig up against the wall, holding him there with a stiff arm to his chest. Sandra shrinks back to the dining area, watching the scene unfold.
"Saul! Pat him down," Bill barks.
"What am I looking for?" he asks as he approaches Craig and begins to pat on his pockets and along his torso.
"Drugs."
"Gods, is that what she told you?" Craig snorts in disbelief. "You won't find anything because there's nothing to find!"
"Show me your wrists," Bill demands.
"Why?"
"NOW!" he roars.
"Fine," Craig mumbles, pulling his sleeves up. A few inches above his right wrist are indentations that look like a fresh bite mark.
"You said you didn't see her when you came back from the bathroom. Where did those marks come from?" Bill growls.
"She bit me! I didn't say anything because I didn't want to get her into trouble!"
"I'm not finding anything, Bill," Saul says after completing the pat down.
"I told you so! Gods, you'd actually believe her over me?" Craig asks.
"How did she get the bruise on her arm?"
Craig opens his mouth to speak, but then shakes his head because the words don't come to him.
"How? Answer me!" Bill glares at him.
"Okay, she was running around in the bedroom, and I grabbed her arm to talk with her and maybe I squeezed it too hard because she was hitting me. Then she bit me, and I let go. I swear!"
"His jacket," Sandra says quietly after clearing her throat. "Check his jacket."
"Not you, too!" Craig exclaims as Laura goes to the entryway where the coats are hanging.
Sandra sprints down the hallway to the master bedroom, notices the light coming from beneath the closet door, and flings it open. Cheryl is curled up with her head pressed against Ellen's chest, her bruised arm on full display.
"Cheryl! I'm so sorry," Sandra states, tears stinging her eyes.
"Bill," Laura says holding her hand out, a cylindrical unmarked vial containing powder in her palm. It rolls so that she almost drops it due to her hand trembling in anger.
At the sight of the vial, Bill pins Craig even harder against the wall. With his jaw clenched, he breathes heavily trying to control the rage inside of him. He wants to punch this guy into tomorrow, maybe even next week, and it takes Saul's hand on his shoulder to bring him back to reality.
"What are we going to do here, Bill?" Saul asks in a calming tone.
"You son-of-a-bitch!" Sandra shrieks marching around the corner and landing a left hook to Craig's face, causing his knees to buckle from the blitz attack.
Bill removes his arm from his chest allowing him to drop to the floor where he covers his face with both hands and shouts "What the frak, Sandra?!"
"The packages, Craig! What the hell was in those packages you had me deliver to Stuart?! I'm gonna kick your frakken' face in if you don't answer me!" she yells moving toward him.
"Sandra! No!" Laura says getting between her sister and Craig. "Come with me. Let's put some distance between you two," she says pulling her along by the arm back to the bedrooms. Saul nods his head at Laura, letting her know he won't let Bill beat this kid to a pulp while she's gone.
"Get up," Bill growls.
"Why? So you can finish the job for Sandra?" Craig asks, a look of fear on his face.
"Get up and find out," Bill replies towering over him. "First you're going to call your brother and tell him what you've done. Then I'm going to call the police."
"Go ahead! I can tell them how Sandra punched me and have her arrested for assault! She can go to juvie for all I care!"
"I didn't see anyone punch you," Saul says. "Did you, Bill?"
"No. You hit your face on the cupboard door when you were cleaning up the kitchen. I'm sure Sandra and Laura saw the same thing. You really think someone's going to believe you over the word of two military officers, a schoolteacher, and your ex-girlfriend?" Bill asks with a noticeable smirk on his face.
The restaurant is lit solely by candles, Dave waiting at an intimate table for two. Violin music plays in the background at this upscale location which is half full on this Sunday evening. He's dressed in his best suit, black with a blue shirt underneath sporting a fancy silk tie. Men can't get through the door of this establishment wearing anything less than a pricey suit, and women's typical attire is a designer label dress. He sips on his glass of wine while he waits, checking his watch and seeing that his partner should be arriving any minute.
Then he spots her at the door speaking to the waiter, her hair swept into an updo, dressed in a tasteful but form fitting navy dress with a low-cut neckline. Her eyes light up when she sees him, and he stands from his chair, pulling hers out in a gentlemanly gesture.
"I was surprised when you called," she says pressing her lips on his cheek, then using her thumb to brush away the smudge of lipstick left behind.
"You look lovely," he replies, returning the gesture and kissing her cheek. He pushes her chair in when she takes her seat next to his.
"Would you care for a wine list?" the waiter asks.
"I'll have what Dave's having," she replies eyeing the glass of red in front of him.
"Excellent choice. I'll return with your wine and some menus."
"I'm feeling a little self-conscious," she admits with a smile, a small blush creeping up from her neck to her cheeks. "You're staring at me."
"Forgive me. I can't get over what a beautiful woman you've become, Jean."