A/N: Thoughts are in italics.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

OOOOOOOO

As soon as she stepped into her house, Casey was met by Derek. He was sitting on the couch, looking about ready to explode; his face was red and blotchy and contorted into a mask of anger. Casey could've kicked herself for not checking the garage before she walked in—Derek never parked in the garage unless it was hailing—so when she hadn't seen his car in the driveway she'd assumed that he'd gone to work as usual. Boy had she been wrong.

Derek didn't just look angry, he was angry. He was pissed, and if he had been being reasonable he might have realized that the amount of anger he was feeling far outweighed the amount the situation warranted. But he was feeling anything but reasonable. Ever since he had checked his voicemail the evening before and found out that not only had Casey taken Nate to visit Emily, but that she also planned to spend the night at the woman's house, his imagination had been running amuck. All he could think about all night—he hadn't been able to sleep—was that his wife and son were spending the night in hostile territory. Emily didn't like Casey, and though Derek never claimed to be clairvoyant, he would bet his last dollar that Emily's kids probably didn't like Casey either.

Nathan had only seen his parents really argue a few times in his life, and it looked like there was about to be another fight to add to that list. Out of reflex, he took a step closer to his mother—he hadn't let Tony get away with being mean to his mother, and he wasn't about to let his father get away with it either.

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Derek took in his son's protective stance. The boy's actions were commendable, but, really, it was about to be 'grown up' time, Nate had to go. Sending the teen a meaningful glance, Derek held his gaze a moment before tossing his head in the direction of the stairs.

Nate looked like he wanted to argue, but when his mother gave him a nudge he headed up the stairs. If last night had taught him nothing else, it'd shown him that in the oddest of situations his mother could hold her own, and besides he had other things to worry about at the moment.

Once she was alone with her husband, Casey held up her hands to ward off Derek's verbal assault.

"Just let me say something before you jump all down my throat," she entreated.

It took a huge effort on his part, but he leaned back into the couch and gestured for her to continue. After all, as angry as he was at what she'd done, she was still his princess and there wasn't much he would deny her. And besides, he could yell at her just as well after she spoke as he could right then.

Exhaling loudly, she pulled an index card out of her pocket—while Nate had driven, she'd concentrated on what she was going to say to Derek when she saw him.

Clearing her throat, she began reading from the card. "Derek, the only thing I'm sorry for is that I waited so long to actually go see Emily." That was a little ballsy on her part, but she knew Derek; if she showed too much repentance he would milk it for all it was worth. "I had fun with Emily—the most fun I've had in a long time—and that is something I will not apologize for."

Derek folded his arms across his chest, defensively. "I never said I didn't want the two of you to have fun together, I just want you to use your head when you're around Emily," he said, forgetting his resolve not to interrupt her. "I mean, for all you know, she's just pretending to like you again, setting you up for some big fall or something." Now Derek didn't really think Emily was as mean as that, but a woman scorned was capable of almost anything.

"Humph," now her own arms were folded, the index lay forgotten on the floor. "I think I'd be able to tell if she was faking the smiles and laughter, we were friends for years."

"So everything went just perfect during your visit?" he asked. He found that just a little hard to believe.

"Not exactly, but—

"I knew it." Standing, he smiled triumphantly. "So did you two fight then laugh and smile, or was it the other way around?" It was obvious from his tone that he suspected she had been exaggerating Emily's behavior earlier.

"Oh, shut-up." She huffed. "I'll have you know Em and I didn't fight once." The 'so there' was implied.

"Well who got into a fight then, Nate?" He had only been joking, but when Casey didn't give him some snappy comeback, he knew he was right. His bluster returned in full force. "Did Sam touch my kid?"

"Calm down, papa bear," she said, rolling her eyes. "Sam's still not even living there. Nate got into it with Emily's son, Tony," she explained.

"Oh," he visibly calmed, "who won?"

Casey almost smiled at his question. "Why is it that whenever a kid gets into a fight the first thing their father wants to know is, who won?"

"I don't know," he shrugged, "I guess it's one of the great mysteries of the world," he said, sarcastically. Turning serious, he sighed and asked, "He didn't hurt this kid too bad did he?" The last thing they needed was to be in even more debt with Emily.

"No. By the end of the night the two even seemed friendly."

"Really?" he said, skeptically.

"Well, no." She shook her head. "But Nate was being friendly with the sister, Lauren." She smiled at the thought—'wouldn't it be so cute if they got together.'

Derek could see the matchmaking gleam in his wife's eye, and he immediately knew that he had to nip that in the bud. He may not be able to do anything about Emily's and Casey's budding friendship, but there was no way he was going to let his son become even more caught up in this drama. A talk with Nate was going to be necessary, or at the very least a talk with Casey.

Deciding that in this case it would be wise to chose his battles carefully, he smiled serenely—well as serenely as he could manage—at Casey.

"I'm glad things are better between you and Emily," he told her, lying through his teeth. "Just, next time leave a little more information in your message, or at least don't turn your phone off so I can't call you back."

Slickness was obviously a gift she had not inherited, and at the time she'd thought that the turning off her phone idea was very ingenious. And, considering he'd caught on to that, she was even more taken aback by his sudden mellow mood.

"Why the sudden change of heart? Why are you suddenly Emily's and mine number one fan?"

"Don't get me wrong," there was only so much goodwill he could fake, "I still don't think that it's a good idea to hang out with my ex girlfriend, but if you're happy, Princess, then I'm happy."

She wasn't blind, he was far from happy, but he was at least willing to fake it, and after months of living with him and his very vocal opinions about Emily she could appreciate that. So she hugged him and let the whole argument die, like he hadn't looked ready to thoroughly chastise her when she'd walked through the door only minutes earlier. She was too tired to participate in a long argument anyway. She was going to take a nap, then maybe call Emily.

OOOO

When Emily awoke for the second time that morning, she nearly jumped out of her skin. Sam, who was lounging on the chaise in one of the corners, had scared the mess out of her—he was the last person she'd been expecting to see. In fact, she had sort of been hoping for an afternoon to herself. After Casey had woke her up, Emily had roused her kids and made sure they got off to school before settling back into bed herself. It had been a long night.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, stretching languidly.

"I was worried about you." She arched an eyebrow, so he explained further. "I called your job to see if you wanted to go to lunch, and whomever I spoke with said that you had called in sick."

She glanced at the clock. "You should've been back to work a while ago," she noted.

"Well when I got here you were still asleep; I didn't want to wake you up, but I didn't want to leave you without knowing if you were gonna be okay either," he told her.

"That's so sweet," she said, almost surprised. It wasn't like Sam was incapable of doing something sweet, but he was very career oriented, it wasn't often he played hooky.

He got up from the chaise and joined her on the bed. "So are you okay?" The concern was evident in his voice.

"Oh, I'm fine. I was just too tired to go to work—I was up most of the night."

"Why?" The kids weren't home, so neither of them could've been sick. And if it wasn't a sick kid and she wasn't sick, then Sam really couldn't think of another reason Emily would've been awake all night.

"Casey and I were up talking and goofing around most of the night so—

"Wait- what?" He couldn't have looked more shocked if Emily had told him that she turned into a werewolf every full moon.

"Casey and her son, Nate, spent the night here, and we hung out."

He was still reeling from the news, but he dug a little deeper. "And everything was just peachy?"

"Well, minus the fight—

"Who got in a fight?" He almost hoped it was Casey and Emily, but he knew he wasn't that lucky. Besides if the two women had got in a fight, he knew somebody would've called and told him already.

"If you would let me finish a sentence," she said, annoyed by the constant interruptions. "Look," she was dreading telling him this, but she couldn't just lie outright, "when Tony and Nate met they exchanged some words and uh… ended up slugging it out. But in their defense, they were just standing up for their mothers." She wasn't in favor of Tony fighting, but it could be worse: she could've raised a punk.

"Who won?"

Emily rolled her eyes. That was such a 'guy' thing to say. The few times her little brother had gotten into fights, before her father gave him a punishment, he always asked who'd won the fight. And, really, what boy was gonna tell his father he lost?

"Does that really matter?" she said. Might as well let him wonder about it.

"No," he said, flatly. "What really matters is that you had Casey and lil' Derek," his voice was mocking, "in our house. What were you thinking?" he asked, incredulously.

"Wait a minute." She sat up straighter. "It's not like I picked up the phone and invited her over for a 'girl's night'—she just showed up. What was I supposed to do, kick her out? Make her and her son drive home in hazardous weather?"

"Well, yeah; she should not be in our house."

"I'm glad she was here." His bluster and disapproval was making her even more defensive. "We had fun."

"So, what- you guys are cool now?" he asked in disbelief. "You're friends with Casey again, yet I'm still sleeping at my brother's house."

"First off, Casey and I are not friends again. We've hung out like one time that actually counts." Those 'tell me how you screwed me over' meetings weren't exactly what she would call hanging out. "And besides, even if we were friends again, what does that have to do with me and you?"

Sam blew out a frustrated breath. He had wanted to have this talk for a while, and now that he kind of had an opening he figured he might as well go for it.

"It's just, as much as you deny it, and as mad as you were when you found out about Winter Formal, it's like I can still see that your relationship with Casey is drastically improving." She seemed to want to interrupt, but he held up a hand to ward her off. "And I see you a few times a week, I call you every day, I'm always telling you how much I love you and how much I want things to work out, and you seem receptive, but…" he trailed off.

"But you want to know where we stand, if our relationship is improving?" she guessed.

He nodded. "Don't get me wrong, I don't want to rush you—I'll stay in this limbo forever, but I'm gonna lay it all out today. I love you, and I want to move back in," he grabbed her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze, "I want us to be a real family again."

It could've been the fact that he took off work to sit with her, or maybe it was that he sounded so sincere. But, in the end, she knew that it was because she was tired of punishing him, tired of punishing herself—she missed her husband. More importantly, she loved her husband. Plus, he did kinda have a point: if she could start to forgive Casey, why couldn't she start to forgive him?

"Sam," she gave his own hand a squeeze, "get your shit, and get back in this house," she deadpanned.

His mouth dropped open a bit, before the both of them dissolved into laughter. Trust Emily to use the same words to kick him out and ask him back.

They spent the next hour in bed, catching up on lost time.

TBC…

A/N: If this chapter completely put you to sleep I'm sorry. But it was just one of those chapters that were necessary to the progression of the story.

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