Chrlotte got suspended from school for three days halfway through fourth grade for fighting. Tamsin had gone to pick up the seven year old from the principal's office, as Lauren wasn't able to get away from the lab. The Nordic woman navigated her truck through the bight afternoon streets silently, occasionally casting glances over at her melancholic daughter who was staring out of the passenger's side window and twisting one of her golden braids around her fingers. The elder Valkyrie shook her head slightly and focused on the road in front of her. Lauren was going to have a fit that Charolotte was riding in her truck because the vehicle didn't have a backseat, but she hadn't exactly had a choice.

"So whaddya wanna tell your mother?" Tamsin aksed. Charlotte had been silent since Tamsin stepped into the principal's office and saw her sitting with her head down in a chair across from the administrator's ornate desk.

"I want to tell her what really happened." The little girl replied, her voice firm.

"Soooo, when your principal told me you beat up three kids, he was lying?" Tamsin asked skeptically as she pulled up to a stoplight. She was about to ask how she intended on explaining the red swollen skin on her cheekbone that indicated she'd been hit by a closed fist when the girl spoke again.

"No, I did." Charlotte admitted, her voice completely devoid of remorse. "But you and maman always tell me to stick up for people, right?"

"Yeah, we do." The elder Valkyrie agreed carefully, moving back into traffic. "Is that what you were doing?"

Charlotte nodded solemnly. "Those guys always pick on Alice since they found out she's adopted."

"And you didn't tell your teachers?" she chided, rolling her eyes slightly as she realized she was channeling her wife.

"I did, mor! Honest! And the teachers said to ignore them and they'll go away but they didn't, they got worse and today at lunch, they pushed her down and were going to beat her up and Alice doesn't know how to fight, so I went to help her and…" she trailed off, knowing her mother had heard the next part of the story in the office. "Mr. Durant said I started it, but we all got in trouble. Except Alice."

Tamsin smiled in spite of herself, she wasn't happy that Charlotte wouldn't be going back to school until Monday, and honestly, she knew Charlotte wasn't happy about it either but she was pleased that her child was so selfless when it came to protecting people. "Do you think what happened today'll make the problem go away?"

Charlotte shrugged and kicked her legs back and forth against the seat. "Yeah. Unless they like getting beat up or something."

"That's my girl." Tamsin chuckled as they turned onto their street. She cut her eyes at the small blonde. "Don't tell your mother I said that." She added hastily, pulling into their driveway. "And if she asks, we had a really stern talk about how to handle bullies through brains and nonviolence or something."

"You think she'll believe that?" Charlotte asked flatly as she jumped down out of her seat once the car was turned off.

Tamsin wrinkled her nose in half in mock annoyance, half because she was right and ruffled the child's hair before unlocking the door. "Hey, if you wanna sit through a lecture about impulsiveness and thinking things through, go ahead, but I gotta warn you, I've heard that one a lot and it's super boring."

"I'm telling maman you called her lectures boring!" Charlotte play threatened loudly as she darted past her mother and into the house.

"You don't scare me, you little urchin." Tamsin called over her shoulder as she locked the door. "I tell her they're boring all the time. Go get started on your homework."

"Mor…" Charlotte whined as she had just flopped over on the couch and was reaching for the television remote. "I don't even have to go to school until Monday."

"You've still got a pile of homework for the next three days plus your mother's birthday is on Saturday and you're not doing it all on Sunday night. This ain't a vacation, kid." She pat Charlotte on the shoulder as she shuffled past her to get her book bag. "Anyways, you know your mom loves it when you do all that work ahead of time. Makes her feel like she's been instilling good values in you or something."

"But I just got suspended." She pointed out, dragging her bag behind her towards the dining room table.

"Yeah, and she'll probably blame that on me." Tamsin replied, smirking.

Lauren had naturally been disappointed at the suspension, but she too was glad Charlotte stood up for her friend. Tamsin and their daughter insisted that the older Valkyrie had given her a stern what for and even though the doctor didn't believe that for a second, she decided against lecturing the girl and instead made her favorite dinner. She would be a little put out at work for having to rotate days off with Tamsin to watch Charlotte, but she didn't mind nearly as much as the lab techs would.

Early Thursday afternoon, during Tamsin's turn stay home with their daughter, the Valkyrie shuffled her only child out the door and drove her (in Lauren's car which the doctor had left in place of Tamsin's truck) to the mall to shop for Lauren's birthday. Charlotte had been begging to go for that purpose for the better part of two weeks, but Tamsin had always hated malls; nevertheless, she had to go out and pick up the gift she'd ordered anyway so she brought the little girl on a last minute excursion to swing by the mall afterwards.

"You better make it an 'I'm sorry I got suspended' present too, just to be on the safe side." Tamsin advised as they wandered past the shops. She frowned slightly at how crowded the huge building was. It was in the middle of the day on a Thursday, didn't people do stuff during the weekday?

"What are you getting maman?" Charlotte asked, tugging her mother's hand when she felt the older Valkyrie was walking too fast.

"What do I need to get her anything for?" Tamsin scoffed playfully, tossing back her hair and slowing her pace. "She's married to me."

Charlotte snorted disgustedly and rolled her eyes. If she hadn't looked like such a perfect balance between her two parents, there'd be no denying she was Tamsin's child from that simple action alone. "How much money can I spend?"

The Valkyrie shrugged and let herself be pulled into a brightly lit bookstore. "Whatever. Just don't get too crazy, I don't make the kind of money your mom does."

They ended up spending more time in the bookstore picking out things for Charlotte to read than looking for a present, but Tamsin didn't mind and let the child get an armful of books, several of which were currently over her head, but she knew Lauren would want to read them to her. They trekked through the rows of shops on each level, stopping any time there was a free sample so Charlotte could taste things and resting their feet at the food court so they could eat. Much to Lauren's chagrin, Charlotte had inherited Tamsin's penchant for largely eating junk food but even though her wife wasn't around, she still insisted their daughter have at least a few bites of salad before she tucked into the pile of bread, grease and cheese in front of her that was supposed to be a slice of pizza.

Charlotte vetoed everything in every store they went in and her frustration was beginning to affect her attitude. Tamsin was about to suggest they take another break before the girl stressed herself out too much when she felt herself being pulled urgently into a jewelry store. It was much quieter inside the store as there were few people there aside from the salesclerks, which Tamsin was grateful for. She let go of her daughter's hand and let her wander around while she followed at a respectable parental distance, humming in agreement whenever Charlotte pointed out something that she liked.

"Mor!" Charlotte said excitedly, bouncing on the balls of her feet and tapping on a display case. "I want to get this one!"

Tamsin slid up behind her daughter and leaned over her to see what she was so enthusiastic about. Resting around the black velvet display bust was a thin, finely crafted silver necklace with a small pendant attached. The pendant itself was a reflective honey brown citrine encircled with silver bands that were reminiscent of wings.

"The brown part is me," Charlotte explained before dropping her voice. "And the wings part is you."

Tamsin smiled gently at her daughter even though her gaze was still fixed on the necklace and racked her brain for a way to approach the child on why it was a thoughtful and touching gift but it probably wasn't a good idea. Once Lauren was no longer required to wear a symbol of her slavery, she had eschewed necklaces altogether and once her slavery had ended permanently, she had found it difficult to wear any kind of jewelry for longer than a night. In fact, when they had gotten married, Tamsin was even reluctant to suggest her wife continue wearing the thin platinum wedding ring she'd gotten except during the wedding and reception, but the doctor insisted. Even though it wasn't a status of slavery, having a piece of jewelry she wore constantly had given her a lot of apprehension the first few months of their union to the point of anguished panic attacks when she felt like she couldn't take it off fast enough whenever her anxiety was rising to unbearable levels.

Tamsin was all for having the doctor not wear it at all; as long as she had it, that was all that mattered, but they had worked through it and excepting for those first several months, Lauren only ever took the band off when she showered or washed her hands. Still, the blonde human had been very nervous about the idea of necklaces, particularly ones made of silver but she wasn't sure how to broach that with their daughter. Charlotte was vaguely aware that things weren't always like they were now in the Fae world just as she was vaguely aware that the reason for that had a lot to do with her Aunt Bo and her little extended family. She was just essentially unaware of the specifics. They really hadn't planned on talking to her about it until she was older but definitely they had planned to have this conversation as a family and not in a mostly empty jewelry store on a Thursday afternoon sans Lauren.

"Don't you think that's kind of fancy?" Tamsin tried. "Maybe we could get earrings like that, you think?"

"You don't think she'll like it." Charlotte said disappointedly, her face falling.

The Valkyrie rested her hand on her daughter's shoulder and pulled her into a slight side hug. "I think she'll love whatever you give her." She responded seriously figuring that they would probably have that talk with Charlotte earlier than anticipated.

They had Lauren's birthday dinner at the Dal. Normally, anyone the young Valkyrie's age wasn't allowed in, but Trick had been a sucker for Charlotte ever since she'd taken to referring to him as 'pépé.' They were all sitting around a wooden table; Lauren, Tamsin, Charlotte, Bo, Kenzi, Hale and Dyson with Trick going back and forth between their table and taking care of bar patrons. Lauren hadn't really wanted to celebrate her birthday with any of their outside friends. "Just family," she had said, which was generally her attitude for her birthdays since she'd started celebrating them again the year after gaining her freedom.

They had eaten well and richly, laughing and joking through the meal and had just gotten to the part where presents were being opened. Trick had given her a small, worn-leather book whose yellowed pages were filled with Medieval French written in careful script in black ink that had long since faded to a purplish brown with the comment 'you didn't get this from me.' Dyson and Hale had pitched in to get her a vintage inverted microscope which she had gushed over, Bo and Kenzi offered any two weekends in the upcoming year in which they would take Charlotte off their hands (which the youngest member of their little family thought was more of a present for her than her mother, but she didn't say so in case they changed their minds) while Tamsin had given her a 1700s edition of Utopia in the original Latin along with softly whispered promises in her ear that made her blush in spite of herself.

"Mine now!" Charlotte crowed happily, having insisted that her present go last since she was sure it was the best.

Lauren smiled warmly at her daughter and leaned down to one side to drop a kiss on her downy blonde head before reaching for the small square box that Tamsin had been more than willing to pay to get wrapped in the store, but Charlotte had insisted on doing herself which ended up being sheets from her ever present drawing pad crowded with (mostly purple) designs of her own making.

The doctor had started to peel away the paper carefully, wanting to save it, but Charlotte insisted on opening it like 'a proper present' and that she'd make her more drawings any time she wanted so Lauren reluctantly tore the paper quickly to get at the silver box inside. Smiling in anticipation, she lifted the lid of the box and cast it on the table to peer at what was nestled on top of the bed of cotton. Her smile faltered and a look of raw nervousness flickered on her face for a moment while there was a collective sharp intake of air from the rest of the table who were watching her carefully for her reaction as she lifted the item from the box.

"I should have listened to mor." Charlotte said after a moment, frowning. "She tried to tell me to get something else."

The comment seemed to break Lauren out of her stupor and the smile that blossomed on her face was genuine. "I'm glad you didn't listen." She said, hugging her daughter tightly who returned the embrace happily. "I love it." She straightened up and handed the necklace to her wife, pulling her hair to one side.

"You want to wear it now?" Tamsin asked, her tone indicating that she had really been asking if Lauren was sure about what she was doing, her eyes saying they could talk to Charlotte about this later.

Lauren glanced around the table at her friends, her family, her smile widening as she rested her gaze on her daughter who seemed to be growing up too fast, even for a Valkyrie and turned back to her wife, nodding firmly. "Absolutely." She replied, rotating her body slightly to make putting the necklace on easier.

Tamsin put the necklace on her carefully, pressing a quick kiss to the nape of her neck as she pulled away. "How does that feel?" she asked, knowing it was a loaded question.

Truthfully, Lauren expected some amount of emotional heaviness when the chain was put around her neck, like she had felt all those years while being forced to constantly wear the symbol of the Ash at literally all times, but she didn't. She just felt a kind of love she couldn't convey in words, so in answer, she linked her hands behind Tamsin's neck and pulled the Valkyrie close, hoping her feelings could be felt in the kiss she gave her. She pulled away from Tamsin with an amused laugh after Charlotte made a loud disgusted noise when she felt her mothers' display of affection had gone on too long and kissed her daughter's check which was slightly puffed out from having shoved huge forkful of cake into her mouth. The celebration resumed and continued into the night, ending with Tamsin collecting their daughter from Trick's downstairs room and carrying the sleeping child to the car while Lauren trailed after her, rolling the pendent of her necklace between two fingers and smiling.