Thanks for all the reviews everyone, and I promise things will start picking up. Africa's coming up in the next few chapters. So will a future return from Steve.

And to Laura, thanks for pointing that out about Steve! I appreciate it.

May 21st

"Mooooo-oooooo-ooooom. How much longer? Can we just go already?"

Sam shot a glare at her son, who had just given off the most annoying whine in the history of his nine year old life. "If you want to make it to see your tenth birthday, zip it."

"But—"

"Alex! Now!"

"This sucks!" He loudly kicked the leg of Sam's chair. "Why are we here in the first place? That line is so long!"

"Because-I-have-to-get-a-passport!" Sam hissed at him through her gritted teeth, all in once jumbled sentence. "I really don't want to be here much more than you do, but tough! So just suck it up like I am, let me finish filling out this form, and we'll be out of here in hopefully another hour, okay? I'm sorry."

"Where are you going anyway?" he started to whine, crossing his arms roughly over his chest. "You're going on some stupid vacation with Luka and leaving me home, aren't you?"

"Somewhere. Now let me finish these forms."

Sam sighed, continuing to write down the important information on her passport application form. Was this the best way to spend a Friday afternoon at three o'clock? Definitely not, and Alex was certainly sulking about it. She set the form aside, with a menacing glare from Alex, to pull out all her documentation to present—her birth certificate, her driver's license, the pictures she was using for the passport itself, the check she had written out for the cost of the passport, and her social security number. "Come on, I need to bring this up now."

"No."

"Move it, Alex," Sam instructed, hands on her hips. "We're almost done."

"This is a really sucky way to spend a Friday, you know that?" Alex argued as he followed Sam up to the clerk's window. "This sucks."

"Shh."

"What time does Luka get off?"

"He should be off right now. We'll see him later tonight."

"Good, because I'm telling him how crappy you've treated me today!" Alex whispered loudly at her.

"Fine," Sam replied. "Go sit over there then. On that bench. Do not move. Got it?"

"Whatever."

"Don't move."

"I heard you the first time!"

The woman clerk smiled warmly up at Alex as she checked all of Sam's information and took her application form. "Is that your son?"

"Yeah. Only on good days, though," Sam laughed.

"I know what you mean. I have four of my own. You look so young though! How do you do it?"

"Sometimes I really don't know."

The clerk gave her a quick, understanding smile before turning back to the paperwork. "Okay, so you want an expedited passport then, correct?"

"Uh, yeah. I need to have in before I leave in about three weeks."

"For?"

"Africa. The Congo."

Sam tossed her apartment key into the basket strategically placed on the counter while checking on the frozen pizza in the oven. It was five-thirty, and Luka had called from his cell phone saying he had just left his apartment and was about ten minutes away. Hopefully, Alex would get into bed early and the rest of the evening would go…pretty well.

Tonight she would finally get a chance to talk to Luka about Africa again. Just because she had applied for her passport didn't automatically mean everything was settled, but to be on the safe side, she had it rushed and learned that she would be receiving it in about a two-week period. Sam would have never considered something like this before, but even though she knew Luka could take care of himself, she would feel better if she were there with him. This way, she wouldn't have to worry every minute of the day about what he was doing or whether or not he was safe. Instead, she would be worrying about Alex.

Sam didn't want to leave Alex behind, and who was taking care of him for those three weeks was still up in the air. If she absolutely had to, she'd ask her mother to take care of Alex, but she didn't want him flying by himself to New Jersey from Chicago, and Sam was already angry enough at the stunt her mother had pulled the weekend before at the restaurant. If she and Luka decided for her to go, she'd have to do some serious thinking about someone to take care of him. She'd miss him like crazy, too.

Regardless of whatever doubts Luka had about her going, Sam knew that in the end, she would probably win out and travel with him and Carter to the Congo. Yes, she hated flying, but maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Maybe she'd sleep through most of the flight, and get a good window seat so she wouldn't panic about flying over water. Or, she could end up squished between Luka and Carter on the plane. It wouldn't be so bad—at least she'd have two good shoulders to sleep on.

"Mom, what are you smiling about?" Alex grinned at her before picking out a can of soda from the refrigerator. "Cause Luka's coming over?"

"Maybe."

"You like him way too much," he laughed, popping the top on the can and tossing it into the trash. He sipped the soda and sat down at the table, staring at her. "So when are we moving?"

"Next weekend."

"Does this mean I'll have to take the bus next year instead of carpooling with Mikey?"

Sam grabbed the oven mitts out of the drawer and pulled the pizza out of the oven. She set it on the wooden carving board so it could cool off. "I don't know. We'll figure that out in August."

"So I have to take the bus?"

"I don't know. Probably. Luka lives about fifteen minutes away from Mikey's house."

"Ugh, I hate the bus! The bus sucks!"

She rolled her eyes as the cordless phone started ringing. "I'm sorry. I said we'll figure it out at the end of the summer."

"This weekend is really starting to suck," Alex whined.

Sam grabbed the phone and jogged out with it into the living room of her apartment, Alex on her heels. "Hello?"

"Sam? Hey…it's Claudia!'

"Claudia? Hey, oh my god! How are you? I haven't heard from you in god, a few months." After all the time they had spent apart, Sam was relieved to hear her old best friend's voice. The last time she had talked to her was months ago, and since then they had really drifted apart. She hadn't visited for over a year.

"Yeah, I know. I've been meaning to call, but I've been really busy. I moved about two months ago out of Santa Monica to Willowbrook with Bobby. We have an apartment about ten minutes away from his parents in Joliet. We've been trying to get settled, and Bobby's been on leave for a while because he ended up having to have surgery on his shoulder and back. I've been trying to get a job too, but it's been really hectic. I called your mom, and she gave me your number here. How is everything with you?"

Sam was practically ecstatic to hear that Claudia lived only twenty minutes away from her own apartment. "Everything's pretty good."

"How's Alex? I can't wait to see you guys!"

"He's great. Being sort of a pain in the ass right now, but that's Alex for you." Sam heard Claudia laugh on the other end of the line.

"He wouldn't be Alex if he wasn't a pain in the ass sometimes. Anything new?"

"I have a few things to tell you, but I'll save them for when we can meet up."

"Sounds good. So, have you met anyone? Are there any cute doctors at County?"

Sam heard the key turn in the lock and the front door open. Luka walked in, dropped his keys on the coffee table, and smiled at her. "They're not too bad on the eyes. But yeah, there are some cute ones. And yeah, I have met someone. He's…really great." She felt Luka's eyes on her and turned around to kiss him on the cheek.

"Finally! I'm happy that you met someone. What does he do?"

"He's a doctor at County."

"How old is he?"

Sam laughed. "He's going to be thirty-seven."

"Thirty-seven!"

Alex came in between Sam and Luka and started tugging on Sam's shirt. "Mom! Is that Aunt Claudia? Lemme talk to her!"

"Clauds, Alex wants to talk to you. Hold on a sec."

"Okay."

Sam handed the phone to Alex, who immediately ran out of the living room and into his bedroom, closing the door behind him. "Hey, sorry about that."

"That's okay. Who was on the phone?" Luka pulled Sam in for a quick hug and kiss before following her into the kitchen.

"My old best friend Claudia. I think I told you about her?" Sam made her way over to the cooled pizza and started cutting it with the pizza slicer.

"Yeah, I think you mentioned something." Luka grabbed a soda out of the fridge and sat down at the kitchen table with it.

"She moved from Santa Monica to the suburbs about two months ago with her boyfriend. We met in middle school and she was there for me from then on and all through high school, when I was with Steve and when I was pregnant with Alex. She's Alex's godmother. We'll probably meet up sometime soon, but Alex kind of stole the phone away from me."

"He called me in work today."

Sam spun around and rested her hand on her hip. "What?"

Luka smirked, amused. "Yeah. He said something about you dragging him to get your passport and how he was having, in his words, a "sucky" weekend because of it and for me to come here and cheer you up as soon as I could."

"I can't believe he did that! Did he bother you in work? Seriously, I've been meaning to have a talk to him. He's being really stubborn lately and I don't know if it's just because he's moody or an after effect of Steve leaving. I'm really sorry," she apologized. "I'll tell him not to call again."

"No, it's okay," Luka grinned. "It was pretty slow today anyway. So uh, you got a passport?"

Sam looked down at the floor and nodded. "Just in case."

"Oh. Yeah. That was a good thing to do, so you wouldn't have to deal with all that last minute, if you had to get it then."

"Yeah."

"So, do you want to still come with—"

"Mom! Aunt Claudia wants to talk to you again!"

"Sorry," Sam apologized again. "Hold that thought, okay?"

"Sure. We'll just talk about it later. It's not a big deal," Luka smiled, ruffling Alex's hair as he walked into the kitchen. Once Sam left the room, he handed Alex a slice of pizza before taking one for himself. "So what can we do to make this weekend better?"

"Make my mom stop being a jerk," Alex replied.

Luka laughed again. "Don't worry, I'll take care of that."

Review!

Slight A/N on the last chapter: According to episode 10.21, "Midnight", Steve was twenty-three and Sam was fifteen when they met. Not fifteen as I originally assumed, or eighteen. I thought he was eighteen though. Writer's fluke, maybe?