Sorry for the delay in updating today. This chapter is especially for Jensy25. Love, IJKS xxx

Chapter Four Hundred and Eight

"What the hell is going on here?" Charlie demanded, her voice shrill and furious.

She marched into the room and snatched the wine bottle away from her daughter. Indi and Ruby looked equally stricken.

"I um…" Indi faltered.

"You, um, what?" Charlie demanded. "You were selling alcohol to an underage girl for what reason exactly?"

"I…"

"And you!" Charlie snapped, shooting her fury at her daughter. "After everything we've been through? You're still drinking?"

"It's not what it looks like, Charlie!" Ruby protested. "I swear! It was for…"

"What on earth is all this shouting about?" Joey asked, appearing from the kitchen and looking confused.

She looked between Charlie, the bottle, Indi and Ruby. Nothing good could be going on, judging by the look on her girlfriend's face.


"So, Dex has a crush on you?" Sid asked.

He had invited Marilyn round to the farm, relishing having the place to himself for a change. Indi was working at the restaurant and Dex was meant to be staying on at school to work on a project. However, with this new information in mind, he wondered if his son might suddenly appear at some point. Marilyn's theory certainly explained a lot about why he had been hanging around like a bad smell recently. The whole thing was very odd.


Back at the restaurant, Angelo felt more than a little awkward as he busied himself with wiping down tables and generally keeping quiet. He was still nursing his bruised ego from the argument he'd had with Joey earlier in the day about his dalliance with the journalist, although he was also still looking forward to his date.

But currently, Charlie was shouting at Ruby and Joey had taken Indi into the kitchen to lay into her about serving an underage customer.

"I don't believe a word you're saying!" Charlie shrieked from the corner that she and Ruby were holed up in.

"But I'm telling you the truth!" Ruby insisted.

"How could I even know that?" Charlie asked. "Everything that seems to come out of your mouth is a lie, Ruby! You said you were over Liam and all along you've been getting drunk and throwing yourself at him! You've been sneaking out, staying out, lying, drinking…"

She shook her head. Ruby was deflated at her mother's level of disgust.

"I feel like I don't even know you anymore."


In the kitchen, Indi wasn't faring much better with Joey. The restaurateur, who was still angry with Angelo for his earlier antics, was furious with her barmaid for breaking the law.

"How did it even occur to you that it was okay to sell alcohol to a seventeen year old?" she demanded. "I mean, regardless of which seventeen year old it was, how could you? It's against the law, Indi! I could lose my licence!"

"She said it was a present for you and Charlie!" Indi protested.

"It could be a present for the Queen of England and it wouldn't matter!" Joey argued. "It's still illegal! You can't serve alcohol to someone under the age of eighteen! Why don't you understand that?"

"I do!" Indi said. "I just… Ruby said…"

"No," Joey snapped. "It doesn't matter what she said. You know the law. You know the rules. You broke them. There are no excuses for that."

She marched out of the kitchen to get Angelo's attention.


Sid reluctantly broke away from Marilyn's lips when his phone rang.

"If that's Dex with some dodgy excuse to muscle in on my time with you, I'm going to kill him," the Doctor warned.

Marilyn let out a tinkle of a laugh, glad that her last days on earth seemed like they would be spent happy.

"Hello?" Sid said, answering the phone. "Angelo?"

Surprise was evident in his voice.

"You need me to pick Indi up from work? Why? Is she okay? What's happened?"


"Are you okay dealing with this while I take her home?" Charlie asked Joey, who had escaped to the kitchen, looking stressed.

She hated upsetting anyone but having to reprimand two staff members in one day was too much for her.

"Yeah," she sighed, exhaustion evident in her voice.

Charlie stepped closer, encircling her waist. She held her tight and kissed her lips.

"I can stay if you need me," she offered.

"No," Joey said. "It's best you get Ruby out of here. Sid's coming for Indi. And then I'll try and get some cover and come home early. I've had enough for one day."

"Get a cab, okay?" Charlie instructed. "And I'll be waiting for you."

Joey nodded and took a moment to gaze into her girlfriend's eyes.

"I love you," she said.

"I love you too," Charlie replied, kissing her softly on the mouth.


Out in the main restaurant, Indi sat waiting for her father in a shroud of shame. She turned away, the moment she saw Ruby approaching her.

"Indi, I'm really sorry for…"

"I don't want to hear it," Indi snapped.

"I just…"

"I'm not interested!"

She screamed loud enough to stun staff and patrons alike. Then she turned and looked longingly at the door, hoping that Sid would hurry up, not that she expected him to be nice to her at all.


"Are you okay, Joey?" Angelo asked, genuinely concerned, once Indi had left with Sid and Ruby had left with Charlie.

"No," Joey admitted.

It felt like it had been a really long day.

"Anything I can do?" he asked.

"Don't tell the papers all about it?" she snapped.

He looked crushed. She apologised.

"Look, if you need to go home, I can hold the fort," he told her.

"What about your date?" Joey asked. "And you'd have literally been working all day."

"I can rearrange," he told her. "And I don't mind pulling the extra hours. Paid obviously."

He grinned. She laughed.

"Are you sure?" she checked.

"Of course," he promised.

She opted not to ask a third time.


Indi felt like her soul had been crushed by the time she arrived home. After the verbal bashing from Charlie and then Joey, she had endured loud yelling from her father for the entire car journey. Now, she couldn't hold back her tears.

"Look, I didn't mean to make you cry," Sid said, rather helplessly.

"I'm not crying," Indi lied, turning towards the window of the passenger side of the car and wiping her eyes, once he had parked.

"I'm just so disappointed," he said. "I thought better of you."

Indi hurried out of the car and away from the house. She ignored Sid's pleas to stop.


"This is it, Ruby," Charlie said firmly.

Once they'd got home, the police officer had refused to let her daughter slope off to her room. Instead, she'd forced her to sit at the table and begun to lay down the law.

"I've been too relaxed with the rules," she decided. "Joey and I have trusted you too much, let you keep your own hours, we've haven't parented you properly. That's why this has happened. But that's it. Your freedom is out the window."

Ruby looked alarmed.

"What do you mean?" she asked cautiously.

"I mean you're grounded until further notice," Charlie stated. "I mean I'm taking you to school, I'm picking you up, your social time will be pre-arranged. No more just wandering around, hanging out with your mates…"

"I don't have any mates anymore," Ruby mumbled.

"No spending time at the beach, no parties, no drinking," Charlie continued firmly. "You go to school, you come home, you eat with us, we check your homework, we know exactly where you are at any one time."

"Charlie…"

"I'm serious, Ruby," Charlie warned. "You'll be lucky if you can have a bathroom break without permission."

Ruby felt like her life was over.


At the farm, Sid was feeling fretful. Indi had run off and was refusing to take his calls. He'd been sharp with Dex and sent him to his room, irritated that he wanted to hang around Marilyn all evening. But he'd deal with his son later. At least Dex was harmless and just a bit odd. He had no idea what he was meant to do with Indi. But he feared he had been too hard on her.

"Indi!" he called, leaping out of his seat when his daughter eventually came home. "Where have you been?"

"Just out walking," she mumbled glumly.

"Look, I'm sorry if I was hard on you…"

"No," she said. "You were right to be disappointed. I expected better of me too."

She sloped off to her room.


"Just remember, firm but fair," Joey instructed that night, as she and Charlie curled up in bed together. "This whole thing escalated because she didn't talk to us about what was really going on in her head. We need to keep tabs and everything and I totally agree with the grounding and taking her to and from school and restricting social time, but we can't alienate her either."

Charlie nodded. Now that her anger had dissipated somewhat, she was calmer and felt much more in control of the situation. By the time Joey had returned home, things were almost civil.

"Yep," Charlie agreed, sighing heavily and closing her eyes. "Firm but fair. I can do that."

Joey grinned and kissed her temple.

"I know you can," she agreed.

"I'm not convinced I could do it without you," Charlie added. "But fortunately that's not something I have to worry about."

Joey kissed her on the lips.

"You could do it without me," she said certainly. "But I'm glad you're not."

Charlie shook her head.

"You make me a better person," she told her. "The person I always wanted to be but could never quite reach. When I met you, my world became complete. And I know now that there's nothing we can't face so long as we're facing it together."


Next time… Charlie, Joey, Indi and Ruby face the repercussions of the alcohol incident, Joey and Angelo fall out again and Penn causes more bother…