DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN CSI:NY OR ANY OF ITS CHARACTERS. I DO HOWEVER OWN SAMANTHA FLACK AND THE FLACK TWINS.

A/N: I WAS TOLD TO GIVE A WARNING FOR THIS CHAPTER. NO SMUT FOLKS. BUT YOU MIGHT NEED KLEENEXES….

HUGE THANKS TO ALL OF THOSE ADDING ME TO ALERTS AND FAVS!

BLAME THE MUSE FOR THIS CHAPTER FOLKS….AND MAYBE LAURZZ, TOO

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!


Way too soon

"Baby why'd you leave me
Why'd you have to go?
I was counting on forever, now I'll never know
I can't even breathe
It's like I'm looking from a distance
Standing in the background
Everybody's saying, he's not coming home now
This can't be happening to me
This is just a dream."
-Just a Dream, Carrie Underwood


She'd been in the house for an hour when she heard the front door swing open and then closed again, followed by the dull click of the dead bolt being set. She continued to watch The Sound of Music on the television across the room as she sat in a pair of flannel Care Bear pyjamas in the middle of the rumpled queen sized bed, leaning back against the headboard as she ate a bowl of Lucky Charms. Trying to pay attention to Julie Andrews sing about raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, despite the muttering and cursing that drifted up from the bottom of the stairs as her husband attempted to hang up his coat and kick off his shoes while in an alcohol fuelled oblivion. She said nothing as his heavy footsteps climbed the stairs, casting a quick glance towards the bedroom door as he came into the room, stumbling slightly.

"I can't believe you let me sleep in the car," Flack grumbled, as he began peeling off his clothes, his head spinning and his stomach ready to rebel any second.

"Well I couldn't exactly carry you inside, Donnie," Sam said, spooning cereal into her mouth and watching as he struggled to get his shirt over his head. "You're twice my size."

"You could have woke me up," he informed her, finally managing to get his shirt off and tossing it across the room in the direction of the laundry hamper.

He unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans before slowly sitting down on the edge of the bed and yanking his pants off. Worried that if he'd stayed standing and attempted to undress, he would have fallen over and passed out on the bedroom floor. He felt nauseous and dizzy as he pulled off his socks before allowing himself to fall backwards onto the bed.

"I tried to wake you up," his wife told him. "Twice. But both times you just kept on snoring. So I figured you were comfy where you were and left you there. No big deal."

"I would have froze to death out there," he complained. "Imagine how bad you would have felt if you'd come out in the morning and found me dead. You would never get over something like that."

"I was either going to come out and wake you up after my movie was over or at least take a couple of blankets out to you," Sam reasoned.

He snorted.

"You wouldn't have froze to death, Donnie. All that alcohol would have kept you warm for at least eight hours. You were in no danger of dying of exposure."

"What if someone had have come along and car jacked me?" he asked. "You would have felt like complete shit then."

"Are you not a cop? Do you not know how to fend people off and save your ass? You would have been just fine. Don't be such a damn baby."

"Leave me out in the car while you get the entire bed to yourself," he mumbled. "Thought you said you had a hard time sleeping by yourself."

"I do," she said, popping some Lucky Charms into her mouth. "But I have a worse time sleeping when you're drunk. You snore bad enough when you're sober. But when you're drunk? Intolerable."

"I am not drunk," he informed her, blindly reaching out to rub her foot through the mounds of blankets. "I'm tipsy."

She laughed. "You're drunk, babe. Stop living in denial."

He sighed heavily and rolled over onto his side and draped his arms over her legs. "Sammie…"

"Shhh…" she placed a finger over her lips. "It's back from the commercial. I love this part."

"How many damn times have you seen this movie? I know it's your favourite, but come on. You watch it every Christmas at least three times and I bought you the DVD for your birthday that first year we were together. Is it really that important to watch it tonight?"

"Do you see anything else for us to do?" she asked. "I'm sitting here, minding my own business, watching my movie and eating my cereal. What else is there for me to be doing?"

"I can think of a few things," Flack replied, pushing his way up the bed and snaking his arm around her waist and resting his chin on her thigh. "And none of them involve watching television and all of them involve me having a midnight snack."

She rolled her eyes and snagged the remote from the bedside table and turned the volume up.

"Come on, don't be like that, baby," he said, using his free hand to being popping open the buttons on her pyjama top. "I was good all day. I behaved myself."

She arched her eyebrows.

"Okay…so I drank a little too much and I may have been a little too loud out on the street and I may have passed out in the car. But none of that warrants punishment. So why don't you be a good little girl and just let me have some fun?"

"Do you mind?" she asked, pushing him away from her when he managed to get her top open and press a kiss to her stomach. "Don't go ruining my Captain Von Trapp fantasy."

He frowned and placed his lips against her warm skin once again. "Don't be like that," he said, reaching to undo the ties on her pyjama bottoms. "Don't torture me like this. You turn me on by kissing Monroe like that and then expect me to not jump you when we get home?"

"You've had way too much to drink," Sam informed him. "And when you have way too much to drink, two things happen. Either you can't seem to get things to work properly, or if you can it's sloppy. And I'm not in the mood for sloppy."

"It won't be sloppy," he assured her, sliding his hand along her smooth stomach and up to gently caress her breast. "You tell me whatever way you want it and I'll give it to you that way. I promise. You just can't be going around French kissing your best friend and not expect me to desperately need sex after something like that."

"When don't you desperately need sex?" she asked with a dramatic sigh, her eyes riveted on the television.

"Can I help it if you make me horny? If I am massively attracted to you? That I find you the most beautiful, sexy, alluring woman in the entire world? I can't help that. It's just the power you have over me, baby. You don't have to do anything and I'm ready to just attack you. You look at me a certain way or kiss me a certain way or touch me a certain way and that's it. I'm ready to go. I mean, I've been the way for eight years? Why would it change now?"

"Could you at least wait until my movie was over?" she asked.

Propping himself on his elbow, Flack looked in the direction of the television. Christopher Plummer was currently giving Julie Andrews shit for letting the kids come into her bed, and for singing, in the middle of a ferocious thunderstorm. The guy was a dick, as far as Flack was concerned. He treated those kids like they were soldiers under his command and ran his house like it was a damn army barracks. And it was so damn obvious right from the get go that meek and mild Maria, who had so desperately wanted to be a nun, actually wanted nothing more then to get laid by the Captain.

"Why not just cut to the chase and fuck each other and get it over with?" Flack asked. "I mean seriously. If it was me, I'd be like you wanna decide whether or not you wanna be a nun? Wanna see if you're destined to live a life of celibacy or you want to get laid every night? Baby, I'm your man."

Sam rolled her eyes. "You're so damn full of yourself," she said. "And why do you have to ruin my favourite movie with your running x-rated commentary?"

"Because it's so damn obvious they want each other!"

"Well people didn't do things like that back then, Donnie. They didn't have sex before marriage."

He laughed. "Bullshit. People were having sex before marriage from the beginning of time."

"He's a strict Catholic and she's studying to become a nun! They're not just going to fall into bed with each other! And why do you care?"

"It's not that I care. I'm just saying that it's obvious they got the hots for each other. So do something about it. Quit skirting around the issue and tell each other already. Or kiss her or something. Don't play these stupid little games with one another."

"Oh…you mean like someone I know who waited an entire year to quit playing his stupid little games?"

"That was entirely different," Flack told her and laid his head on her thigh once again. "I had no choice."

"You had plenty of choices," Sam said, finishing the last of the cereal and drinking the remainder of the milk in the bowl before setting her dirty dishes on the nightstand. "You just didn't make the right ones. Instead you waited a year before you.."

"Showed up on your doorstep and waited there for three hours like some pathetic, grovelling bastard," he finished for her.

"Well I wasn't going to be mean about it. I was just going to say that you waited a year before getting the balls to do anything about it."

"It's not that I didn't have the balls," Flack argued. "I was just confused."

"What was there to be confused about?"

"I don't know. I guess I was worried what the team was going to say when I suddenly dumped Angell and hooked up with you. I guess I was worried that the thing we had going on at work, the whole good cop, bad cop thing we had going on and the way we seemed to gel and work so good together would suddenly go down the shitter. And we had the cool brother and sister, best friend thing happening for us and I was worried that if we hooked up and it went bad, we'd lose that friendship thing too. And having you as a friend and a little sister type was better then not having you at all."

"You're rambling," Sam said with a grin, running her fingers through his hair.

"Maybe…but that's why it took me so long. But what does it matter now, babe? That's a long time ago. It all worked itself out in the end. I mean, look at us. We've come a long way, don't you think? From the night you chased me down the rain and I told you I was falling in love with you until now. We've come a long way."

She nodded and continued to comb her fingers through his short, and increasingly greying, hair.

"You ever thought that night, standing there in the rain, that we'd be where we are right now?"

"Eating Lucky Charms in bed while watching The Sound of Music? Uh…no."

"That's not what I meant and you know it. I mean did you ever think that eight years later we'd be where we are in our lives? That we'd have our own house and both be driving nice cars? That we'd be husband and wife and have two beautiful little girls? And a wiener dog? Named Wiener. I mean, come on. How screwed up is that? Did you really think that we'd be here?"

"In a way," she said. "I used to think about it when we were just dating and then living together. I didn't dwell on it or anything. I knew I wanted us to get married and have babies together one day. You didn't see us here?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "I was happy with us just living together. And when things started going bad, I thought we'd never end up together in the end."

"Yeah, well…" she sighed. "When things go bad for us, they go really, really, really bad."

He nodded. "But we're good now, right? We're happy? Things are good with us?"

"For the most part," she responded.

"What's that suppose to mean?" he asked, frowning. "For the most part?"

"It means that for the most part, things are amazing between us. But there's still times you do some things that are questionable."

"What?" he sat up and looked at her. "Like what?"

"I mean, we've been living together for almost eight years, married for nearly seven, and you seem to still have a hell of a hard time throwing your dirty clothes in a laundry hamper. I'm constantly going around picking up dirty underwear and socks and having to remember to take your suits to the dry cleaners. And then there's the toilet seat. You'd think that living in a house with three females you'd remember to put the seat down."

"Hey, it's not all the time," he defended himself. "I do that every once in a while. To keep you on your toes."

"Mm-hm," she said.

"Okay…so I'm not the greatest husband in the world. I don't pick up after myself like I should and I don't fix things around the house in a decent time frame and I'm allergic to house work. And I may forget to put the seat down from time to time. But I try hard. Damn hard. And that has to count for something, right?"

She smiled and leaning sideways, kissed him softly. "It counts for a lot," she told him. "And trust me, I can overlook the socks and underwear on the floor and the repairs that wait half a year before they get done. You're a great husband and an even better father and you don't give yourself enough credit. I don't know what I'd do without you, Donnie. Everything would fall apart if you weren't here."

"You're a strong woman, Sammie," he said, pressing a kiss to the spot below her ear. "You'd be okay without me and you know it."

She nodded slowly and solemnly. "I just don't like thinking about things like that," she sighed. "I just want to think that we have a long, long life together ahead of us. That everything's going to be okay and that we're going to…"

He silenced her with a long, slow kiss. "We're going to be okay," he told her, skimming his knuckles along her cheek. "Everything is going to be just fine. Alright? Me, you, the girls. The damn dog. We're all going to be okay. Once we get out of New York and start off new somewhere else, things will pick up. I promise."

"Just everything has seemed so hard in the past five years," she said. "It's been one thing after another and if one more crappy thing happens to us, I don't know if…"

He kissed her again. "I just said that everything is going to be fine. You trust me, don't you?"

She nodded. "You're the only person I do trust, Donnie. You know that."

"I know things haven't always been easy for us. I know that shit just keeps piling up left, right and center. But moving to Jersey will be the best thing for us. For our family. And you'll probably love working for Stella again. The two of you always got a long great and she really took you under her wing when you started here. And I know for a fact you missed her like hell when she left New York."

"It was hard when she left," Sam agreed. "Stella was always one of my greatest allies against Mac. She left and I seemed to have a permanent spot on the top of his shit list."

"Wasn't personal. He just thought you weren't challenging yourself enough. Putting everything you had into the job."

"It's hard to put everything into a job when you're at home putting everything into a marriage and kids," Sam said. "And I love the job and the people there. It's just that…" she sighed. "…I think getting let go was the best thing for me. Because I need a change. I needed a change a long time ago. I need to get away from there."

"And that's what we're going to do," Flack told her. "Get the hell away from there. 'Cause you know what? It's time to move on. Away from that place. Away from the department. Because it's starting to break me down, babe. And I don't like that feeling. I don't like feeling suffocated there. It kills me just having to get up in the morning and go to work. And I never felt that before."

"You never used to talk like that either," she said, running her fingers through his hair and letting her hand settle at the back of his neck.

"I don't know when it happened or how. But I woke up one day and felt like I wasn't a human being anymore. Like I'd lost everything that was good inside me. Any compassion and sensitivity that I ever had felt like it had disappeared over night. And I'm worried if I don't get out of here soon, that's going to be me outside of the job, too. And I don't want to be that way with you or the girls."

"And you think that working somewhere in New Jersey will help bring that all back? That it was this city that took those sides of your personality away from you?"

Flack's eyes narrowed. "Don't psychoanalyze me, babe. I don't need a therapist."

"I'm just asking if…"

"This city has fucked me up, Samantha. It's screwed with my head. All the years on the job, seeing the things that I've seen. The goriest of gory and the lowest of the low. Child molesters and baby killers and junkies that kill their own mothers to get money for their next hit. Guys that kill their pregnant wives or their mistresses. And the list goes on and on and on. All the innocent people that deserved to live long, happy lives that were cut down just 'cause they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I've dealt with the scum of the earth for nearly two decades and I can't handle it anymore. There's got to be some good out there, right? Somewhere?"

"You're still going to see that kind of thing in New Jersey, Donnie."

"But not like I see it here," he said. "Nowhere close. I need to get out of here, Samantha. To save myself. You understand, right?"

She nodded and pressed a kiss to his forehead. "Why is it we have our deepest conversations when you've been drinking?" she asked, a teasing quality to her voice, her eyes sparkling.

"For some reason, I'm more lucid with alcohol on me. I make more sense."

"Actually," she said. "I think it's because you get some liquid courage in you and you get loose lips and spill your heart and your soul and get all sensitive and emotional on me. How many times have you gotten drunk and come home and started rambling about something and bawling your eyes out?"

"Let's keep that between me and you, okay? No one else needs to know I'm a sensitive drunk. And besides, I'm not that drunk. Just a little buzzed. I didn't drink that much."

She smirked.

"Okay. So maybe I did. But it is the holidays and I figured seeing as I don't have to get up early with the girls, I might as well get a bit polluted. Just a bit, though."

"Speaking of the girls," she said, pushing him back against the headboard before climbing onto his lap.

"Oh God…what did they do now?" he asked, wrapping his arms around her waist.

"I was just going to remind you that we are looking after Amanda from the morning of the thirty-first to the afternoon of the second. Danny and Lindsay are having their weekend away and DJ and the baby are going to Danny's parents."

"We couldn't take the boy? So it brings me to an almost level playing ground with all the women around here?"

"We said we would take Amanda with us to Disney on Ice. Remember?"

"I agreed to that? That I'd go to Disney on Ice?"

Sam nodded. "You were the one that told me to buy five tickets. Three children and two adults."

"Yeah…but I meant the second adult ticket to be for anyone other then me."

"Well that's just to bad," Sam said, running her hands up his chest and across his shoulders. "I guess you're just shit out of luck, aren't you."

"Please don't make me go to Disney on Ice," Flack pleaded. "Please, babe. If you love me, don't do that to me."

"They're your children too," she reminded him, and leaned forward, her breasts flattened against his chest as she pressed kisses along his neck and up to his ear.

"Don't you use that against me," he said, shuddering and squirming under the touch of her lips and tongue on his ear and the sensitive spot below.

"I'm not using anything against you," Sam told him innocently. "I'm just telling you that we are going to Disney on Ice. And by we, I mean me and you."

"How can you be so evil?" he asked, slipping his hands up the back of her pyjama top and skimming his fingertips along her soft skin. "Seriously. How can you do something like that to the man you say is the love of your life? Your forever. Your devoted and loving husband who worships and adores you. Who gave you two beautiful daughters. How can you possibly do something so mean to him?"

"Because I can," she answered, licking her way around the outer edge of his ear, feeling his fingers biting into her hips. "Because you love being tortured. You always come back for more, don't you? You're still here when you could have left so many times."

"I don't want to leave," he told her, groaning as she ground her lower body against his aching erection. "Ever. I don't want to go anywhere. I couldn't live without you. You know that."

"So that means you're up to doing anything I want or say," she said, and nipped at his ear lobe.

"Anything," he vowed. "Anything."

"Including going to Disney on Ice with your wife and three little girls."

"Please don't make me. That's inhumane."

"Fine then," she huffed and stopped rubbing herself against him and made to climb off. "You're loss."

He flipped her onto her back, catching her off guard. "You're such a goddamn tease sometimes," he told her, covering her body with his and capturing her lips in an intense kiss. "I like it when you tease me like that, baby. You know that, right?"

"It's why I do it," she admitted.

"I'll tell you what," he drew away from her and pushed her pyjama top open. "You give me a little of your time and I will go to Disney on Ice with you and the girls and Amanda. And I won't even bitch about it the day of. Sound good?"

"Depends on what you're going to do with the time I'm giving you," she said.

"Oh I don't know…." he trailed kisses along her collarbone. "A little bit of this…" his lips moved over the swells on both breasts before settling on the valley in the middle of them. "A little bit of that."

She groaned loudly and arched underneath him as his mouth closed on one of her nipples.

"We got a deal?" he asked, looking in her eyes as he flicked the tip of his tongue over the painfully erect nub.

She gave a small squeak in response and nodded.

"Let's show you what kind of drunk I really am," he said, his voice husky as he drew the nipple into his mouth and sucked roughly at it.

She cried out at the sensation, her fingers buried in his hair as his warm, moist mouth moved away from her breast and travelled down her body. Her eyes closed as she felt him tugging at her bottoms. Lifting her ass for him as he peeled them off and tossed them aside. Parting her legs to his gentle hands and letting out a long, loud groan as she felt his tongue touch her clit.

From there on out, all rational thinking had deserted her. All that mattered was the two of them. Of giving each other the most intense pleasure either of them had experienced in a long time.

Enjoying each other. Their lives together and how they made each other feel.

Living every moment to the fullest.


The ringing of the phone on the bedside table cut into the silence of the early morning hours. It was loud and obnoxious as it shattered the deep and comfortable sleep that both Flack and his wife had fallen into following two hours of consistent and powerful love making. Their sex had had an edge to it that hadn't seemed to exist for nearly six years now. A hardcore and rough feeling to it that they had enjoyed while living together and through out their first year of marriage. A pleasure that dangerously bordered on pain. A craziness that took their breath away and shattered their souls.

Without their children in the house, his wife became relaxed and uninhibited. Open to just about anything. Things that they had tried many a time, and tremendously enjoyed, but had vanished once the kids came along and love making had to be as quick as possible. Which in turn, wasn't the most enjoyable or memorable. When you were too busy worrying about who was going to come knocking on the door in the middle of the things, it was hard to put your all into it. Never mind not being able to make a damn sound without waking one, or both the girls up.

That night Samantha had been completely at ease. Which had been a good thing for both of them. The noises that had come out of her had both spurred him on and let him know just how much she was enjoying things. His shoulders and back bore evidence of how amazing things had been. Of the multiples times he'd made her orgasm. The scratches that crisscrossed his back and the bite marks on his pale skin a testament that he still had what it took to reduce his wife to a sobbing, quivering mess as she clung to him and marked him during her powerful releases.

And now the phone. It had felt like only minutes had passed since they'd fallen asleep. Completely naked and drenched in sweat, their limbs entangled and their bodies and the room smelling of sex. Flack rolled over onto his right hand side and fumbled in the dark for the cordless phone on the table next to his head. Scooping it up, he checked the illuminated call display before bothering to answer. Dispatch. 6:13 am. He'd left his cell phone off. He wasn't scheduled to go into the office until the afternoon and wasn't on call. His plan had been to spend the morning with his wife. Make them breakfast and eat it in bed. Take a long steamy shower together. Two showers if the first one turned out to nothing but pure sex for the hell of it.

"Donnie…" his wife mumbled, her skin brushing against his as she shifted alongside of him.

"It's okay, baby," he whispered, rolling onto his back and reaching out to rub her back softly. "I'll get it."

"Okay…" she said with a sigh and turned onto her side facing him. Her hair over her face, her hand falling on his stomach.

He cursed the dispatcher on the other end of the line and pressed talk. "Detective Flack," he said in way of answering. His voice heavy with sleep. He listened quietly to the information being handed out to him, a forearm over his eyes. "Is there no one else?" he asked. "I'm not even on call and had something planned with my family. Is there no one else you can possibly call in on this?" he sighed heavily as he was given a firm and blunt negative response to that. "Alright. I'll be there as soon as I can."

"What's going on?" Sam asked groggily, propping herself up onto her elbow and looking at her husband in the dark as he pressed end on the phone and tossed it onto the bed.

"I gotta go in," he replied. Reluctance in his voice. "There's a homicide in Astoria and all the detectives that are on duty and the ones on call are already at scenes of their own. And seeing as Astoria is only a few miles away…"

"You were the first person on their list to call and you just couldn't say no," Sam concluded and rolled away from him. Presenting him with her back.

"Don't be like that, babe," reaching out, he stroked her hair softly. "I probably won't be gone for very long. Just supervise for a bit, make sure things are under control and secure, then come home."

"We were suppose to do things," she told him. "We were going to have breakfast and stay in bed all morning. It's why Lindsay agreed to keep the girls overnight. So we could spend some time together. Alone."

"And we will," he promised, moving onto his side and wrapping his arm around her from behind.

Pulling her into him, he buried his face in her hair and inhaled her intoxicating scent. There was nothing more he wanted to do then lie there with her, their warm bodies pressed up against each other. He had no desire to leave that bed. To leave her. He wanted to stay there all morning. All day, preferably. But that wasn't real life. Real life came with bills to pay and responsibilities to attend to. And the job was the thing that was keeping real life on track.

"I won't be gone that long," Flack told her, his lips against the back of her head. "A couple of hours. I'll make sure of it, okay? I'll do what I got to do and pass the case off to another detective and come home. Plain and simple. I'll be home before you even start to miss me."

"That's not likely," she mumbled.

"I wouldn't go in if I didn't feel I had to babe," he said, kissing her cheek. "I promise you I'll be back as soon as I can. Once I do what I gotta do, I'll be on my way home. And then I'll make us some breakfast," he placed a kiss to her ear. "Some of my famous banana pancakes you love so much. We can have breakfast in bed, make love a couple of times before I have to start getting ready for work or Linds brings the girls home. Whatever comes first. Sound good?"

She nodded.

"You were incredible, you know that?" he pressed his lips to her shoulder. "I missed that side of you. That wild and crazy sex goddess side. The one that isn't afraid of trying things or making noise."

"It's hard to be all raging sex goddess when there's two little girls in the house that are light sleepers that ask for a dozen glasses of water during the night and want to come in to our bed every time they have a bad dream. But you know what? I missed that side of me, too."

He smiled and tightened his grip on her. "We need to send them away more often," he said. "Find a way to have more mommy and daddy time."

"That would be nice," she agreed with a dreamy sigh. "That kind of time is few and far between unfortunately."

"We should find a time to go away for a few days," Flack said.

"Where would we go?" she asked, softly rubbing his arm.

He shrugged. "I don't know. We could just take off. Maybe we can combine it with going to look at houses in Jersey. You said you had a couple of the smaller cities in mind. We can go on the 'net, look up some real estate listings in them cities and drive down for a few days. Stay in a hotel or a nice little bed and breakfast. Spend twenty percent of the time looking at houses and the other eighty staying in bed and making love all day."

She smiled and hugged his arm to her. "Now that's my kind of road trip," she said, and giggled in the darkness of their room as the tip of his tongue teased the inside of her ear. "Don't be doing that now," she scolded. "You know what that does to me."

"That's exactly why I'm doing it," he chuckled, taking her ear lobe between his teeth and biting down gently.

She moaned at the sensation and raked her nails along his forearm.

"What I wouldn't give to just take you right now," he told her, his voice low and seductive against her ear, making her shiver.

"Trust me, what I wouldn't give to let you just take me right now," she said. "But…"

"Always a but," Flack complained, and with a heavy sigh, flopped onto his back.

"Someone has to make a living out of the two of us," Sam reasoned, rolling onto her stomach and moving towards him. She draped her one arm across his torso and placed the other on his shoulder as she rested her chin on his broad chest.

"I know…" he said, bringing a hand up to stroke her hair. "It's pretty bad when you use to love to get up and go to work and now the sheer thought of it makes you sick to your stomach."

"Soon," she told him and placed kisses along his chest. "Soon."

He nodded and twisted his fingers in her hair and tilted her face up towards him. He seized her lips in a long, intense kiss that left them both breathless. "I love you, baby," he whispered as he pecked the tip of her nose.

"I love you, too," she said in return. "But now it's time for you to go be a police man. Then you can come back and be all sex maniac, horny husband again."

He laughed at that and she kissed him. The kiss was softer then before, but no less passionate or promising. "I should go," he said with great reluctance.

She nodded and gave the cross around his neck a gentle, playful tug before rolling away from her. She'd bought the white gold Celtic protection cross and the thick white gold chain it dangled from as a wedding present. And had the department chaplain take it to the archbishop of New York and bless it two days before their flight to Turks and Caicos. That cross had gone around Flack's neck the night he became her husband, and had only taken it off twice in almost seven years. Aside from his wedding ring, it was the most precious thing he owned. And he felt naked if either items were removed.

"Well look at this way," Flack said, as he slipped out of bed, wincing slightly as his bare feet hit the ice cold floor. "You've got the whole bed to yourself for a while."

"And I plan on enjoying it," she told him, laughing as he tossed the heavy duvet over her head.

"I'll call you if I'm going to be later then I thought." Flack said, as he headed for the ensuite bathroom.

"If I'm sleeping before you leave…"

"I won't leave without saying so long," he promised her from the doorway to the washroom. "I never do."

"You're a good man," she said. "I've trained you well."

He gave her a playful wink before disappearing into the bathroom.

She heard the light flick on, followed shortly afterwards by the shower curtain being pulled across and the water taps between turned on. It was less then a minute that he spent adjusting the temperature of the water -cursing about how crappy the pressure always seemed to be at that time of the day- and she heard the curtain being yanked across once again and the shower being turned on.

She had dozed off by the time Flack had taken a quick and less then satisfying and invigorating shower. He dressed quietly. Deciding to forgo the usual suit and tie and opting instead for a pair of jeans and a black Henley top. He wasn't going to be that long and had no plans on going into the station afterwards. He was doing his thing and passing the case off as soon as possible to someone else and getting his ass home. And no one, or nothing, was going to get in his way.

He yanked on a pair of socks and climbed into his jeans. Doing up the button and the zipper he quickly snagged a belt from the rack at the back of the walk in closet and slipped it through the loops on his jeans. He was used to dressing in the dark after eight years of sharing a bed with someone and getting call outs at the oddest hours of the day.

He buckled the belt and moved to the dresser and opened the top drawer. Where he kept his badge, holster and the lock box that held his service weapon and a full clip on ammunition. Any other bullets were kept in another secure container at the back of the closet on the highest shelf possible. He punched the combination into the small padlock dangling at the front of the box, waiting for the dull click before removing the lock all together and opening the lid.

Securing his holster in place on his right hip, he snapped the clip into his weapon, set the safety and slipped the gun into the holster, fixing it in place with the small leather strap that kept the piece where it was until he was ready to use it. Surprisingly enough, the longer he spent on the force, the less times he'd actually had to pull his gun, never mind actually use it on someone.

The latter was never a pleasant decision to have to make. Even if it was completely necessary.

He put the lock box back into the dresser and closed the drawer. Clipping his badge to the waist band of his jeans, Flack walked over to the bed. He stood watching his peacefully sleeping wife for several minutes. She looked so innocent with her long, dark eyelashes falling on her pale cheeks and her mouth curved into a dreamy smile.

Crouching down at the side of the bed, he reached out and smoothed her hair away from her face and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

"Sammie…" he whispered.

Her eyes flickered and slowly opened.

"I gotta go now," he said. "I'll call you if anything comes up, okay?"

She nodded. "Please be safe, Donnie," she pleaded, bringing a hand up to gently touch his face.

"Always," he assured her and kissed her softly. "I love you, baby."

"I love you, too. See you soon, okay?"

He nodded and kissed her once more before standing up. "Get some sleep," he told her, and headed for the door.

"Donnie?" she called to him.

He paused in the doorway. "Yeah, babe?"

"No matter what time you get in, you owe me some wild and crazy sex and then some banana pancakes. Think you're game for that?"

"Absolutely," he told her, and with a wink, slipped out of the room.

Samantha sighed and rolled over onto her other side and reached for his pillow. Pulling it tightly against her, she buried her face into it and breathed in his scent.

Anything to keep him close.


The doorbell chiming throughout the house woke Sam from her deep and peaceful slumber. Her eyes snapped open and she was greeted by not only bright sunshine streaming through the curtains and tumbling across her body, but to a cold, empty bed. She bolted into a sitting position and reached across the bed for the old fashioned Big Ben style alarm clock that sat on the night stand. Her eyes immediately falling on the white gold Tag Hauer watch that sat next to the clock.

He never forgets his watch, she thought, scooping it up and running her thumb over the face. She had purchased the watch their first Valentine's Day together. While they had dinner at The Russian Tea Room. That was nearly eight years ago now. He said it was the first time that anyone had ever bought him jewellery. Especially a woman. Jewellery to him had always signified that there was something serious between him and whoever he was in the relationship with. And until her, jewellery had been completely off limits. And he'd given her that dimply smile and leaned across the table and kissed her long and soft much to the chagrin of the diners around them. Then he'd sat back in his chair and took off the watch he already wore -something cheap and simple he'd bought himself a couple years before- and slipped it into his suit jacket pocket and put on the one she had given her.

Sam couldn't remember a time that she didn't see her husband with that watch on. Even when he was just hanging around the house, he always wore it. And looking down at it in the palm of her hand, her head was filled with a sudden sense of dread. The watch felt as if it weighed a ton as the doorbell continued to sound. Something in her heart told her that the two were connected. The watch in her hand and the visitor at her door. But her mind couldn't seem to fit the pieces together so that connection would make sense.

She jumped out of bed and threw on a pair of track pants and a sweatshirt and hurried from the bedroom and down the stairs, still clutching her husband's watch in one hand as she combed the fingers of her other hand through her messy hair.

"I'm coming!" she called to whoever stood on her front porch ringing the bell repeatedly. She flicked open the dead bolt and pulled the chain across and yanked open the heavy wooden door.

Her heart stopped at the sight of the two men before her.

A solemn looking Chief of Detectives Brigham Sinclair and a teary eyed Danny Messer.

"Can we come in Samantha?" Danny asked, his voice quiet and choked.

She nodded and reached out with a trembling hand and unlocked the screen door. Backing up as Danny opened the door and the two men stepped into the small foyer. She felt closed in. As if she was suffocating. That her entire world was closing in around her.

"Mrs Flack…" Sinclair began in an ominous tone.

She shook her head. Feeling sick to her stomach and light headed. There was only one reason for that man to be at her home. No words needed to be said. It was all in Sinclair's presence. All in Danny's haunted eyes.

"No…" she was unsure if she actually spoke the word or just thought it. But she felt her legs threaten to buckle and she reached behind her for the wall.

"Samantha…" Danny stepped towards her. Unable to catch her before her slender body slid down the wall and she sat on the floor at their feet.

"No," she cried, shaking her head, gripping that watch as tight as she could. "No…nothing's happened to him….he's fine…Donnie's fine…"

"Mrs Flack…" Sinclair began again. "I'm sorry to have to come here and tell you this. But there's been an accident."

Her entire body trembled, tears spilled down her ashen face as she wrapped both of her arms around herself and began rocking back and forth. "Don't do this to me," she pleaded, looking up at the men standing above her. "Please…don't do this to me…"

"I'm sorry, Brooklyn," Danny said, as he crouched down in front of her and placed his hands on her shoulders. "There was an incident. Don was heading a raid on a perp's house and they were ambushed the second the door was kicked in."

"No!" she screamed and shoved Danny away from her. "He's fine! You're wrong! He's fine! He's fine and he's going to come home any second!"

The CSI shook his head. "No…he's not. He was shot twice. Both bullets went through his vest and…."

"Get the hell out of my house!" she shrieked. "Don't come here and fuck with me like this! Don't do that to me, Danny!"

"I'm so sorry," he whispered, taking her face in his hands. "But EMS did everything they could. They tried their best to save him, but he didn't make it. He died on the way to the hospital."

"NO!!!" she cried. "You're wrong! You're both wrong! He's coming home. Any second now. He's coming home and he'll prove you both wrong! He's going to come home!"

Danny shook his head slowly. "He's not, Samantha. He's gone. He's not coming home now."

She drew in a choking breath and sobbed his name. The one true love of her life. The man who had taught her that true love didn't hurt. That when you loved someone wholly and completely and unconditionally, anything was possible. Who had taken her wounded heart and soul and healed it and claimed it for his own. Who had given her two beautiful daughters and the best eight years of her entire life.

"I was counting on forever," she whispered. "And now I'll never know…"

This can't be happening to me, her agonized brain shouted at her.

This is just a dream.


Thanks to everyone that is reading and reviewing!! I appreciate each and every one of you! Even the lurkers! But please, please, please leave me a review folks! Consider if making my New Year extra happy! Now someone pass me the tequila!

Special thanks to:

Laurzz

muchmadness

Hope4sall

Laplandgurl

Delko's girl 88

Forest Angel

Soccer-bitch

Bluehaven4220

Wolfeylady

Twinkeyrocks

IluvPeterPetrelli

Afrozenheart412