A/N: Here we are ladies and gentlemen. The first chapter where things start to get a little bit interesting. I'm doing my best to write new chapters as often as I can, but I am struggling to find the time. Fear not, I don't plan on leaving this story any time soon (even if my lack of updates may seem like I am). Enough rambling. Enjoy chapter five, and I'll see you guys at the bottom!

Chapter 5: Overtime

Sara walked toward the nurse's station to answer a page. She was exhausted. She'd been at work for almost 36 hours after a school bus full of kids crashed into the side of an elementary school. The ER was full of injured children, and Sara was working overtime to be able to save them. It made her miss her own kids. All she wanted to do was go home and hug her kids and husband who were probably sitting down to a nice Saturday-waffle breakfast right about now.

When she arrived at the nurse's station, she was confused as to why there were no doctors in sight to receive a consult or interns to deliver test results.

"Hey, Rachel," she called out to the floor nurse on call.

"Dr. Scofield," she said in response as she turned around and walked to wear Sara was standing.

"I just got paged to the nurse's station, but there's no one here. Do you know anything about that?" Sara asked.

"Oh, sorry. That was my bad. You were supposed to be paged to room 421. I must've put in the wrong code," Rachel said.

"It's not a problem. Thank you, Rachel," Sara said, heading to the fourth floor.

Sara got to room 421, reviewed the patient's chart, and sighed. It was another bus crash kid who came in appearing to only have superficial wounds, but was diagnosed with internal bleeding. He was 7 years old. She loved her job, but traumas like these made her feel for the kids' families. She couldn't imagine going through that.

She opened the door chart in hand, reviewing some final things as she entered.

"Hi, I'm Dr. Scof—" she said before looking up from the chart she was reading and seeing who was in the room with her.

"Hi mommy," Mikey greeted her with a big smile from his place on the hospital bed.

Michael looked over his shoulder toward the pair and smiled before turning back to the window and listening to Jake as he babbled on about the parking lot.

"Hi, buddy," Sara greeted, walking to sit next to Mikey on the bed. "What are you doing here?"

"We missed you, so we brought you waffles. We're gonna have a picnic," Mikey said proudly pointing to the blanket and basket of food on the floor in the corner.

Sara looked over at Michael and smiled. She knew he had arranged this whole thing.

"Well, baby, that is so sweet of you," Sara told Mikey pulling him into a big hug.

"Why don't you go set up for us, and Daddy, Jake, and I will be over in a minute."

"Got it, Mama," Mikey said giving her a thumbs up before heading over to the blanket to set out the food for the 'picnic.'

"Hey," Sara said, calling Michael's attention away from the window. He turned toward the center of the room.

"Mama," Jake reached for her. She took him in her arms.

"Hi, Jakey," she said kissing his cheek. She pulled him close to her and pressed her forehead to hers. There was a boy not much older than Jake that Sara had to declare brain dead earlier that day. It was cases like those that really hit home for her and made her want to hold her boys a little tighter and hug them a little longer whenever she had the chance.

"Hi, babe," Michael said, leaning over to kiss his wife. "I've missed you. I know things have been crazy here, and the boys really missed their mama, so I thought we'd swing by for a visit. Plus, this way I can make sure you're still taking care of yourself. You have a tendency of forgetting to do that when you get big traumas."

Sara smiled at her husband. She was so lucky.

She leaned over to kiss him again.

"Thank you," she said, running her fingertips over his buzzed hair. "This is exactly what I needed."

It had been a brutal couple of days. Even though she hadn't lost many patients, seeing the angst on all of the families' faces was enough to exhaust her emotionally, and running around from consult to consult and surgery to surgery was enough to exhaust her physically as well.

"How long until you're off?" he asked, leading her to the picnic blanket where Mikey sat. Michael pulled their oldest son into his lap, while Sara sat with their youngest in hers.

"If everything goes according to plan, I'll be home tonight. Things have settled down since the initial accidents, thankfully. Most of my patients are either stable or being discharged soon," she said with a smile.

"Well, I hope everything goes according to plan. For the kids' sake and for mine."

"Mama, let's eat," Mikey said impatiently from Michael's lap.

"You got it, dude."

Sara got home at 6:45 that night, absolutely drained from the almost 48 hours she had spent at the hospital. She headed toward the kitchen where she saw a light on. Thank God her husband knew how to cook.

When she got to the kitchen, she saw Michael at the stove making some sort of pasta. She walked up behind him, wrapped her arms around his waist, and placed a kiss to his shoulder blade.

Michael smiled, covered the pasta, and turned off the stove before turning to pull his wife into his arms. Sara snaked her arms around his neck, and Michael rested his hands on her hips.

"I thought I heard you," he said. She stood on her tiptoes to kiss her husband.

"Hi," she said.

Michael kissed her again.

"Hi," he said back. "I'm happy you're home. Being Mr. Mom is hard."

"Oh, I'm sorry, baby," she told him. "But you've done a great job. Both of the boys are happy, the house is clean, and you made dinner. I may just have to show you how grateful I am," she said huskily, pulling his face to hers.

"I'm starving," Sara said, abruptly pulling away from the kiss. She made her way to the other side of the counter.

"Yeah, I bet you are," Michael responded, watching her closely. She looked frail and every bit as exhausted as he knew she was.

When she stumbled on her way to bar stool, Michael was at her side in an instant, steadying her with a strong arm.

"Maybe you should go lay down for a minute. Dinner will be ready in 15 minutes. I'll wake you up then."

"What about the boys?" Sara asked.

"Upstairs in the movie room watching The Incredibles. Go," he said kissing her forehead. "Rest."

Hours later, the kids were tucked in, and Sara was relaxing on the couch. Michael came out of the bathroom, freshly showered, and took his spot next to her. He picked up Sara's feet and pulled them into his lap, giving her a much needed foot massage. Sara leaned her head against the arm rest of the couch and sighed. Her husband truly was the best.

"You scared me earlier," Michael said, massaging her right foot.

"How do you mean?" Sara asked, raising her head and opening her eyes to meet her husbands.

"I thought you were going to pass out cold. Seriously, Sara, did you take any breaks?" he asked switching from her right foot to her left.

"I couldn't," Sara admitted. "Those kids needed me. Every time I thought about taking a break, I would get another page, and every time I thought about passing off a patient to another doctor, I would put myself in the kid's parents' shoes, and I would just think about how if that were my kid, I would want to feel confident in knowing that his doctors were doing everything that they could for him. So, I drank lots of coffee and took a ten-minute power nap while I waited for MRI scans to pull up."

"I know why you did it, and your heart and need to help others are two of the main reasons I fell in love with you," he started and she smiled.

"I thought you fell in love with me because of our mutual love of Gandhi," Sara joked. "That too." Michael added kissing her on the forehead.

"That being said, you have to remember to take care of yourself, okay? The boys and I need you just as much as those kids do."

Sara removed her feet from Michael's lap and scooted over to lean against his side. He wrapped an arm around her and kissed her temple.

"Now, what do you say I take you to bed and show you just how grateful I am for your stellar job as Mr. Mom," Sara whispered, nibbling on his ear lobe.

"I say, that sounds like the best news I've heard in two days," Michael said with bright eyes. "But I thought you were tired."

"I've suddenly found a surge of energy," she said, crawling over to sit on his lap. "So, what do you say, Mr. Scofield."

"What are we still doing out here?" Michael asked, with a wink. He picked Sara up off the couch, throwing her over his shoulder and emitting a squeal from his wife, and walked toward the bedroom.

"Mama," they heard a small voice from behind them that stopped them in their tracks.

"Put me down," Sara said quietly, gently hitting Michael's back.

"Hello, sir, what are you doing up? It is way past your bedtime," she said as she met the blue eyes of her older son.

"I had a bad dream," he said rubbing his sleep filled eyes.

"Come here, baby," Sara said as she walked toward the couch and motioned for Mikey to follow. She picked him up and sat him on her lap so he was facing her. Michael sat down next to her.

"Do you want to tell us what your dream was about?" Michael asked.

"A man," Mikey said, nuzzling into Sara's chest and wrapping his arms around her neck. Ever since he was born, Mikey always felt safest in his mother's arms, and even though he was five-years-old, that hadn't changed.

"Can you tell us a little bit about this man?" Sara asked gently.

"He was scary," Mikey mumbled against her skin.

"Well, what made him so scary, buddy?" Michael asked, bringing a soothing hand to his son's back.

"He was hurting Mommy," Mikey added.

"Oh, baby," Sara said kissing the top of his head. "I know that was probably really scary, but I'm okay. I'm not hurt."

"That wasn't even the scariest part," Mikey said, squeezing her and trying to get even closer to his mom.

"Well, what was the scariest part?" Michael asked.

Mikey released his grip on Sara's neck and pulled away, meeting the eyes of his mother and father.

"He had weird hands. One was normal, but the other was weird. It was all rubbery and fake."

A/N: Dun dun dun dun. What does this dream mean? What will it do to our favorite family? I hope you all enjoyed this update and would love to hear your opinions in a review! XOXO