"Thinking," she answered. Brooke nodded and reached up to touch Sam’s cheek. She didn’t like that Sam’s skin seemed cooler than it should but she was glad that Sam seemed to lean into the warmth of her hand.

"About what?" Sam shrugged slightly with the baby on her chest. Mac snuggled closer to her brunette sister, still comfortably asleep.

"Nothing important," Sam said quietly but Brooke could see it wasn’t the truth. She watched haunted shadows chase themselves across Sam’s brown eyes and it hurt her to see that pain and fear in Sam. Sam was supposed to be the strong one, the confident one. But she simply seemed broken at the moment. Like her springs popped and her battery had run down. Brooke knew she needed to find a way to respark Sam.

"Wanna go out?" Brooke offered. Sam arched an eyebrow in question.

"What about your Dad?" Sam asked, a tinge of fear coloring her voice. It made Brooke’s heart ache to hear.

"Technically, I’m supposed to be out on a date with some guy he set me up with," Brooke explained with a wry grin.

"Technically?" Sam echoed for clarification.

"Well, it turns out he would rather be out with his girlfriend and I would rather be out with mine. So we figured, why not double up since we were stuck together anyway?" she giggled. "So we were thinking mini golf, a movie, dinner…that sort of thing. What say you, Gorgeous?" Sam laughed, waking Mac up. The baby blinked fuzzily at Brooke and then yawned. Then recognizing the blonde, she held out her arms and Brooke gladly scooped her up.

"Hello, little one. How are you? I miss you," she cooed as Mac played with her hair and nose. At hearing Brooke’s voice, Mac laughed and clapped happily.

"Looks like she missed you too," Sam pointed out. Brooke smiled broadly.

"I’m glad," she sighed. She turned back to Sam as Mac played happily in her arms. "So Sam, what do you say? Would you like to go out with me?" Sam seemed to think for a minute and Brooke was afraid that she was going to say ‘no’. Then a slow smile spread across Sam’s face.

"I’d love to."

**

As promised there was a round of mini golf, won by Tyler and Catherine because Brooke and Sam were too occupied with each other to pay close enough attention. A quiet dinner followed and then they went to a late movie. An enjoyable time was had by all but although Brooke could see that Sam was having fun, she could also see a distinct lack of energy about the girl too. Her smiles didn’t reach her eyes, her laugh wasn’t as deep and there wasn’t as much bounce to her step. To a casual observer it would have gone mostly unnoticed, but not to Brooke. Brooke had every one of Sam’s nuances memorized. She knew when something wasn’t right.