Los Angeles!

Sam had never been west of the Mississippi before, although he had been to Memphis a few times, and that was on the Mississippi. Blaine had been to California with his family, but the closest he'd ever been to L.A. was Disneyland.

They got in at night, but they had the whole next day before the competition started. Unfortunately it was scheduled pretty tightly: rehearsing all morning, lunch together at the hotel, sightseeing together all afternoon, dinner together at some restaurant no one had ever heard of, then back to the hotel for one hour of free time—to be spent in the hotel—and then bed and lights out.

The rehearsal went well but it was tiring, especially so for Sam. He had shared a bed with Blaine the night before, which was distracting. Artie and Joe were in the same room as them, so they hadn't been able to do anything more than a little discreet kissing and some blatant spooning. If they'd been able to do more, they would have fallen asleep right away afterward. On top of which, Sam had already had three nearly sleepless nights before that. Finn was home from college and Sam had to sleep on the hideaway, which was extremely uncomfortable for anyone taller than about 5'4".

After lunch the New Directions barely had time to go to the bathroom before getting on one of those double-decker buses for a tour of Hollywood. And it was fun. Blaine sort of felt like he should look down on it as a very unsophisticated touristy thing to do. But everyone else was enjoying it, including Sam, who was adorably excited when the Hollywood sign first came into view. They sat together on the top of the bus holding hands, and after a while Sam pulled Blaine onto his lap "to get a better view," although the view had been just fine where he was.

The bus let them off at the Chinese theater—the one with all the handprints in the cement—and they were going to spend a little time there and then walk to a nearby restaurant for dinner. "Let's get out of here," Blaine said to Sam. He'd been waiting for his chance and this seemed like it. "There's somewhere I want to take you."

"Mr. Schue will be pissed."

"Yeah, but what's he gonna do? Not let us sing tomorrow?"

"What if he calls the police because he thinks we've been kidnapped?"

"I'll send him a text so he knows we're all right," Blaine said. "Come on. Do you trust me?"

The question that needed no answer, because duh. It was really crowded outside the theater, what with tourists taking pictures and looking around for actual celebrities (because obviously this was where they all probably hung out), so they were able to get in a cab without anyone noticing. Blaine asked the driver to take them to the Santa Monica Pier. He waited until they were a few blocks away before taking out his phone to text Mr. Schue. "What should I say?" he asked Sam.

"Something innocent, like what you'd say if we didn't know we weren't supposed to leave the group. He'll text back that we have to turn around and come back, but, darn, your phone battery died and you didn't see it."

"You are really devious, Sam." He typed a message to Mr. Schue and read it out loud before sending it. "Sam and I are going to dinner on our own. Hope that's okay. See you back at the hotel."

"Take out the 'Hope that's okay' part. We gotta convince him that we had no idea it might not be okay. In fact...delete that whole message. If we're gonna play dumb, it'll be more convincing coming from my phone."

"Sam, you're not—"

"It's okay, Blaine. Sometimes I can use what people think of me to my advantage." He sent the text to Mr. Schuester and then turned off his phone.

"Even if you're right, how are we gonna explain how I didn't know any—" Blaine's phone rang; it was Mr. Schue. "Shit! What do I do?"

"Answer like normal but hang up before he has a chance to really say anything. Then turn it off."

Blaine answered. "Hey, Mr. Schue. Sam and I are—" He hung up and turned the phone off. "Darn! Dropped call!" he said, and they both broke into a giggling fit.

"And we are going to say that this was all my idea, and the only reason you went along with it is that you were so blinded by love that you couldn't think straight. I mean—rationally."

Blaine unbuckled his seatbelt, scooted over to Sam's side of the backseat, and rested his head on his shoulder. "It's true, you know. I am so in love with you that I can't think rationally."

"I can tell. The rational thing to do would be to leave your seatbelt on." He kissed Blaine sweetly. "You know, rational thinking was never my strong suit to begin with, but I'm crazy in love with you too."

When the cab let them out, they both just stood there for a minute, taking it all in. "Wow," Sam said. "I mean...wow! That's the ocean! That's the Pacific freakin' Ocean! This is so worth it even if Mr. Schue does yell at us."

"But your devious plan..." Blaine said.

"Yeah, well it's not guaranteed to work. Come on, can we go in the water? I've never been in an ocean!"

"No!"

"Just a little. We'll take our shoes and socks off and roll up our pants and just wade in a little bit."

"We can," Blaine said, "but not yet." He turned his phone on to check the time. "We have to get in line for the Ferris wheel right away." He took Sam's hand and led him, running, to the end of the pier. He bought four tickets and they got in line.

"We're riding twice?" Sam asked.

"Yeah. I mean we probably won't have to if you don't want. The second set is so just in case we need them we won't have to stand in the ticket line again." His phone rang. It was Finn.

"You forgot to turn your phone off again," Sam observed. If Blaine's mom were there, he thought, she'd call him Captain Obvious. But, no, that was Blaine, so Sam would probably be whatever's below a captain. Lieutenant Obvious?

But Blaine said he hadn't forgotten; he needed the phone's timer. He just silenced it and set it to send all calls to voicemail.

The line was long and slow. Blaine started timing stuff and doing calculations almost immediately. He held Sam's hand the whole time, but he wasn't totally with him mentally. But that was okay. Whatever he was doing was obviously important to him, and Sam didn't want to distract him.

Sam played that game with himself where you look at a random group of people and decide, if you had to pick one and only one, which one would you sleep with? But even though there were plenty of good-looking people around (and plenty of not-so-good-looking ones too, of course), he could only think about sleeping with Blaine. They were still waiting for it. And since a couple extra nights weren't going to hurt, they'd agreed to wait until after their performance. Just in case there was any soreness afterward that might affect the choreography.

When they were almost at the front of the line, with only about six groups in front of them, Blaine turned and smiled at the woman standing behind him. She had three kids with her, the youngest of whom was getting very restless from standing in line. "Would you like to go before us?" he asked.

She smiled but shook her head. "Oh, thanks, but we couldn't."

"No, seriously, you'd actually be doing us a favor. Otherwise we won't be ready when it's our turn."

"Yeah, please," Sam said.

"Oh, really, we're fine..."

"I'm completely serious that we want you to go first. In fact, I was about to ask the group behind you to go before us too." The group behind them—two couples about their age or a little older—had been listening and didn't have any qualms about moving ahead in the line, so Blaine and Sam moved and stood behind them. The woman with the kids thanked them profusely.

"That was so nice," Sam whispered in his ear. "You are so sweet."

"You're sweet to think the best of me and say that," Blaine whispered back, "but I'm actually being selfish." He looked at his phone again and let the next two groups go before them too.

When it was finally their turn and they got to the top of the Ferris wheel, Sam saw why. The view was spectacular, and it featured by far the most beautiful sunset he had ever seen. The clouds and the sky and the water were brilliant shades of purple and pink and orange. "I can't believe you timed it so perfectly," he whispered.

"I'm pretty surprised it worked out, actually," Blaine said.

"This is the nicest...You're the best...I love you."

They didn't make it back to the hotel until about an hour after lights-out time. They probably would have been on time, more or less, except Sam really wanted to go in the ocean, and the water was nice and it was the ocean and what were they supposed to do? Walk in up to their ankles and then turn around and leave right away? When would they have another chance like this? And then they had that second set of tickets for the Ferris wheel, and now that it was dark the city probably looked amazing with all the lights, and it did look amazing with all the lights, and they kissed at the top, and they couldn't regret any of it even if it did make them a little late.

Joe and Artie were in bed when they walked into the room—Joe was in their bed!—but Artie was awake playing games on his phone. "You guys are in so much trouble," he sang. "You better go to Mr. Schue and Finn's room."

"What makes you think we didn't already talk to them?" Sam asked.

"Because I didn't hear any yelling."

Blaine grabbed Sam's hand and clutched it tightly before they knocked. Finn opened the door and all but growled at them, "Get in here!"

"Is that them?" Mr. Schue called from the bathroom. He stepped out and looked at them, and his face turned red with rage before he even started yelling. "What the hell did you guys think you were doing, going off like that on your own? Not telling anyone where you were? Not answering our phone calls?"

This was where the story about their phones' batteries dying could have gone, but neither one of them could bring themselves to say it. It didn't seem like Mr. Schue was likely to buy it anyway.

"Do you have any idea how dangerous it is, two kids wandering off in a strange city? At night? It is almost midnight! Do you know how close I was to having to call your parents and try to explain this? How close I was to having to call the police?"

Blaine and Sam glanced at each other, then down at the carpet.

"Do you have any idea how stupid that was? How irresponsible? I've always put a lot of trust in you kids, but this just shows me that..." He lowered his voice and continued, "...that that trust was misplaced. I never expected something like this from either of you." He stared at Blaine, then at Sam. "Well? What do you have to say?"

"We're sorry," they said.

"You're sorry? You're sorry!? Get the hell out of here and go to bed. Finn, would you walk the children to their room, please?" It was only two doors down, but they didn't try to object.

Finn led them out into the hall. "That was seriously not cool, guys," he said. They nodded and went into their room.

"How'd it go?" Artie asked.

"Pretty well, I guess," Sam said. "Nothing got thrown."

"We're not off the team," Blaine added.

"You would have been if it wouldn't have disqualified us from competition," Artie said. "Or at least that's what Mr. Schue said during his rant at dinner."

"Well, thank God we have just enough members to qualify," Blaine said.

"Artie, dude, we're going to sleep," Sam said. "You gotta move to the other bed."

"Uh...no."

"Suit yourself, but I'm a very cuddly sleeper," Sam told him.

"No! I don't mind sharing with Joe. He's quiet at least and doesn't move around too much. But I need to sleep here. It's the only place my wheelchair will fit next to."

They tried to wake Joe up to tell him to move, but he was out cold, so Sam just picked him up and deposited him in Artie's bed. They changed into PJs and brushed their teeth and then curled up in bed, with Sam as the big spoon and Blaine as the little spoon. Right before they fell asleep, Sam whispered, "I don't care what Finn says. I thought tonight seriously was cool."

"Me too," Blaine whispered back.