"Will you two get a move on! We're going to miss the flight!" Dylan called to Andy and Gail as they dragged their weekend bags through the bull pen.

"We're coming!" Gail snapped back as they bundled themselves out of the front door and into reception.

"Have you got everything?"

"I think so." Andy replied.

"Passports?" he asked.

Andy and Gail held up their passports and put them into their left jacket pockets.

"Tickets?"

Gail looked at Andy who was patting down her pockets.

Andy snapped her head up and looked at Gail before rushing back into the bullpen. She saw Sam perched against her desk, his arms and legs crossed holding the plane tickets in his hand. She ran up to him, skidded to a stop, placing a hand on Sam's chest to stop herself from taking him out. She gripped the tickets out of his hand and pushed off his chest before barrelling her way back to reception. She got there to find Dylan and Gail had gone to the car to put the bags in and were waiting for her.

She climbed into the passenger seat and Dylan gunned the car and headed for the airport.

"Sammy, you coming to the Penny for a drink tonight?" Oliver called as he saw Sam look for an incident report on Andy's desk as she and Gail made their way to the front door. He knew they were running late because he and Andy had sneaked into the interview room and said goodbye for the weekend.

"No, I have plans this weekend remember." he said, before his hands passed over the plane tickets Andy would no doubt be looking for. He picked them up and dug his phone out of his pocket, crossing his arms and leaning against the desk, waiting for the phone call that was sure to come.

He was surprised when Andy ran back in to the room and towards him. He laughed when she skidded and used his body to slow down her momentum and felt the increase of pressure as she ran back out the door she had just come in.

"Are you ever going to tell me what your plans are?"

"Nope."

"What about where you've been spending most of your nights?"

"Nope!" Sam repeated, grinning and popping his dimples.

Jerry entered the bullpen from the office he shared with the detectives and walked around the outskirts of the room. He was clearly on the phone and not enjoying the conversation. He saw Sam and Oliver and diverted his course towards them.

He pulled the receiver away from his ear and covered the microphone with his hand.

"Poker?"

"I'm in."

"Can we do next weekend? I've got plans." Sam suggested.

Jerry looked at him while Sam and Oliver could clearly hear the person on the phone getting angrier by the second.

"Sure, we can do that." Jerry said, shrugging his shoulders before returning to his phone call.

"And on that note, it's time I wasn't here." Sam said, pulling on of the fasteners to his vest loose and heading to the locker room with Oliver watching his back.

Half an hour later Sam pulled up at his house, not knowing down the street Oliver and Jerry had pulled up too. He climbed out of the truck and walked up the steps to his front door. It felt like a lifetime since he was last here. He knew he had twenty minutes before Sarah would arrive with Katie and mentally ran over the things he had to do before then: Change the bedding, place the fire guard, put some food on, locate his secret stash of Disney DVD's and find Katie's favourite blanket.

He slipped his key into the lock, hoping Oliver had held up his end of the deal and left the place tidy.

He slipped in the door, flipped the lock and pushed it to. A quick look around and he was satisfied that it was clean and he wouldn't have to sort it. He strolled into the bedroom and saw Oliver had stripped the bed down and left some clean sheets on the end.

There was a note pinned to the sheets:

'You said you were entertaining, but just in case you are your usual grumpy self I've half changed the sheets.'

Sam laughed, grabbed the note and shoved it in his pocket before picking up the sheets. It took him five minutes to make the bed before moving onto his next task.

He descended the stairs into his cellar, which he used as storage for things that didn't get used very often, like the fire guard Sarah had given him the time Katie had spent three hours sat in front of the fire in his living room watching it transfixed. He moved a couple of boxes Oliver had moved in and found it tucked in a corner. He carefully carried it back to the living room and set it in down. He lit a fire, even though it wasn't overly cold and placed the clear screen in front of it.

Moving on, Sam headed to the kitchen and opened the cupboard that contained his pans, except, while he'd been away, Oliver had reorganised. He looked through all his cupboards trying to find the items he wanted and by the time he had put the pan of pasta on the stove he heard a soft knock at the door.

"Jerry, get off the phone. He's leaving!" Oliver hissed.

"Look, I have to go. I'm about to go on a stakeout. I'll call you later."

Jerry dialled Frank who was watching out for Sam in the locker room. He put the phone on loudspeaker so Oliver could hear.

"He's changing. You have about five minutes to get into position."

Jerry hung up and he and Oliver made their way out to Oliver's car. They had agreed it was less conspicuous than Jerry's.

They moved so they could see Sam's truck and waited until they saw him leave through the Sally Port door. They ducked down so he wouldn't see them and waited until he was a reasonable distance in front of them. They followed him to the store and then he went directly home.

They had been sat maybe 15 minutes when they saw a black SUV pull up outside Sam's place and a pretty brunette got out of the driver's seat.

"Well that's not McNally." Oliver said as Jerry sat in stunned silence. Neither of them noticed that their phones were ringing.

They watched as the brunette opened the back door and leaned in. Both of their jaws dropped when she pulled a small girl out of the car and set her down on the pavement. The girl seemed to know where she was as she ran up Sam's walkway and knocked on the door while the woman rummaged in the trunk of the car for a bag.

Sam opened the door and the girl immediately jumped into Sam's arms.

They saw the woman haul the bag out of the car and walk up to join Sam, kissing him on the cheek as she passed him.