One of the arcade security guards had recognised her from boxing, the price of fame she thought bitterly as she sat on the couch with the cops questioning her. She admitted to getting frustrated about sinking nearly double the credits that the prize was worth without reward and resorting to hacking the machine. Described how surprised she'd been that it had worked and how she'd got carried away by the thrill of it. Argued that by throwing the toys away before leaving the building they hadn't technically removed them from the property and so it wasn't really stealing, even offering them the chance to search the house for proof (Luckily Percy the purple penguin was stashed on the other side of town with Trish). Before finally explaining how she had since deleted the hacking program from her omni-tool.

Fortunately the burly security guard she'd 'assaulted' didn't want to press charges, presumably not wanting to give evidence in court about how a girl had knocked him over by throwing a giant, fluffy, pink bunny rabbit toy at him. Throughout it all Nikki kept her eyes on the floor in shame. The shame was genuine enough, she had felt the wave of disappointment that washed through her father when the police had made their purpose at the house known, but it was also in the hope they wouldn't catch her lying through her teeth... so far no-one had been able to identify Trish.

"If you didn't know her before that day then why were you hanging around together?"

"She's pretty, why wouldn't I agree if she asked to hang round with me?" After a long, disbelieving silence in which she refused to break, everybody looked over to Thomas, Nikki with bated breath.

"I'm sorry, I've not been paying as much attention as I should to who the kids have been hanging around with lately. That will be changing obviously." Nikki was careful not to allow the relief to show on her face, at various points of her life her father had claimed he would always be there for all his children, but she hadn't been convinced that would include lying to the police on their behalf. No, she suddenly realised with even more pride, technically NOT lying. Just being extremely careful with the use of words. He didn't actually clarify what he was sorry about, or explicitly state he didn't know who she was with.

In the end she was lucky; her young age, never being in trouble with the law before, the rest of the Shepard clan's pristine records and good standing within the community, her willingness to admit guilt and show remorse, outstanding acting skills, and extenuating circumstances you what? allowed her to escape with a ban from the arcade, a note on her file that would disappear when she reached 18 if she hadn't committed any further crimes and whatever punishment her parents deemed suitable. Nikki stayed in the lounge as her father showed the police out, one of the officers lingered and she could hear their conversation in the hall.

"Thanks for using the kid gloves Ken, I appreciate it."

"No problem Tom, can't be easy for them with Hannah in the hospital." Wait, that's the extenuating circumstances? That's not why- Nicola nearly stormed out to inform them her actions had nothing to do with Mom, but was wise enough to stay put. She was in enough trouble right now. "How is she?"

"Good... I think. Shouldn't be too much longer before she can come home." There was an almost disbelieving chuckle and Nikki could picture her father shaking his head. "Strange to think aliens hadn't even been discovered when we got married, now they're helping us produce experimental treatments for medical conditions that don't even affect non-humans."

"Welcome to the new age, Tom. Sure as hell beats shooting the crap out of each other."

...

It was a couple of days later that the red convertible crunched its way up the drive. Nikki had been rather despondent since being grounded but had yet to voice a complaint. Thomas was finding it rather difficult, he'd always felt his role as father was to make his family happy. Sure some would argue that his role should have been to raise them into responsible adults and he tried to do that too, but it simply ate him up inside that his child's misery was a result of his actions.

It would have been easier if she'd shouted and screamed at him about it not being fair, that way he could put his foot down and point out that actually, nearly being arrested really did warrant some kind of punishment. But she just accepted her fate in silence and he wasn't sure how much longer he could hold out.

It hadn't taken long for the missed calls and messages to start piling up on her confiscated omni-tool, all from the same number. He hadn't opened any of them but the subject headings had progressed from the likes of 'hey', through to 'are you OK?' and finally into 'at least tell me you're not dead?' He'd almost felt sorry for the girl on the other end until he remembered she was the reason his darling daughter was in this mess in the first place. Not even dating for a fortnight and he was already getting a visit from the police, that was beyond unacceptable.

He caught the brief glimmer of hope and happiness that shone in Nicola's eyes at the sound of the car but as she looked at him and saw his face and body language practically demanding: 'stay inside while I deal with this' the light had faded from her face and she slunk off to her room.

...

Thomas stood with his arms folded outside the front door watching the teenager carefully. He recognised her from that day in the field and was regretting ever having pointed her out to his daughter. She was older than Nikki and had a confident air about her, that had probably helped with leading his daughter astray. When it became apparent he wasn't going to speak and no-one else was coming out the brunette's confidence seemed to fade ever so slightly and she tentatively made her approach.

"Hi, is Nikki there?" He nodded his head in silence, it was a couple more beats before, clearly struggling to retain an eye roll, she asked: "Well can I see her?"

"She's grounded." A couple of emotions passed over the teen's face among them relief and understanding that her messages hadn't simply been ignored. She limited her response to a simple:

"Why?"

"We had a visit from the police, she confessed to hacking the machines in the arcade." He shrugged as if it was nothing, keeping his tone neutral, trying not let his anger out.

"What? Why? She didn't..." The confusion faded into something stronger as the brunette straightened and looked him in the eye. "Well you can stop punishing her Sir. She didn't do it, I did."

"If she didn't do it then she lied, and is still grounded." Thomas stated evenly, still managing to hide his emotions. He'd been certain Nikki hadn't done it but had no choice but to punish her when she confessed, now his mind couldn't decide whether to be relieved that she was innocent or frustrated that she'd been willing to risk everything for this good for nothing temptress- Who would have got off scott-free if she hadn't just come clean to you... Dammit, they're as bad as each other! It was all too easy as children to get carried away and have little pranks snowball in severity, he recalled a few the boys had got caught up in, and as for his own youth... He suppressed a sigh, analyzing the girl in front of him's reaction as he tested: "Would you be willing to repeat that in front of police officers?"

...

"What you doing?" The enquiry came round the open door frame, aimed at the disgruntled body flopped on its back on the bed.

"Nothin' I'm grounded ain't I." Came the reply before Nicola suddenly shot up into a sitting position, eyes wide in surprise as her brain suddenly processed what her ears had heard. "Trish! What are you doing here?"

"Your father let me in." Confusion swept across the youngster's face.

"So... am I not grounded anymore?"

"Oh no you're still grounded, but your dad felt I should remind you that the exact wording of your punishment was that you were 'confined to the farm except when required to leave for school or work' and apparently the farm is pretty big..."

...

Author's note:

I have no idea what happened in the last chapter, when I first came up with the idea of this story it was for a civilian love interest having to put up with all the weird stuff Shepard goes through while helping keep her grounded, she was supposed to be the calm dependable one and I just wanted to do a little back story for them together on Mindoir to explain how she actually managed to spend enough time with a civilian to have something more than a one night stand. But here we are and Trish keeps being a cocky little rebel.

Hopefully now Shepard's dad's stepped in and had a word she'll sort herself out. I'm aware you don't really get much of their conversation but I was really struggling to get believable dialogue for the scene, rest assured they had a deep and meaningful conversation before he let her in the house.

Anyway hopefully we can get back to the nice relationship building up between the two, the next chapter certainly has promise if I can pull it off, after that the chapters are going to start having more time passing between them in world so don't be surprised if there seems to be jumps of progression in their relationship. As always let me know if there's anything in particular that you like or dislike and I hope you're still enjoying it despite it's slight detour.