Four weeks, one day, and a handful of hours was the longest Sarah had gone without seeing Stefani for over two years now and to be completely honest, she was fucking miserable. One might think she lost a whole appendage with how dramatic she was about the whole thing, her co-stars certainly thought so. Between books, spontaneous furniture rearrangements, and all the Bravo she could consume, the first few days weren't so bad. In fact, most days she was able to distract herself enough to ignore her heart sobbing like the little bitch baby it was, but the nights? The nights were where she really felt the absence of her wife. Usually when the sun went down, the two women spent their quality time together doing every stupid idea they came up with, it was what Sarah looked forward to every day. And as sad as it was to admit, she found it extremely difficult to get a decent night's sleep without the insane pillow talk and the heat radiating from her tiny blonde wife as she slept next to her. The night before she left for Italy was no exception and for some reason, it was worse than all the sleepless nights that preceded it, but after tossing and tuning for a good ten hours, it was finally time.

Traveling to a different country wasn't the easiest on it's own, but now that Sarah's arm was out of commission and in a cast, she previously broke the news to the other woman that she would be making the long trip without their furry children. However, that was a lie. When she arrived at the hotel, hours earlier than she was expected, she had three very excited frenchies in tow. After the emotionally draining situation that Stefani had been put through with the dogs, not to mention her friend nearly dying, all while she was thousands of miles away, there was no way in hell that Sarah was going to show up without the pups. It was the very least she could do and basically one of the only surprise she'd be able to pull off for her birthday this year. And thanks to a few sneaky, but helpful glam squad memebers, she was able to get them all into the hotel room while their mom was hard at work filming for a few more hours.

A huge smile formed on her face as soon as she shut to the door behind her and caught the scent of her wife's perfume in the air. After hours of travel and over a month of being alone, she felt so much relief wash over her. It felt like home, though they were far from it. She took a few moments to relax and wash the plane off her body before she and all three of her little helpers got started on the rest of the surprise. Thankfully, Stefani's friends not only got them into the room unnoticed, but they helped arrange for a pasta feast and flowers to be delivered to them too. Nervously checking her watch for the time every five minutes, Sarah was able to set the table up with candles, the flowers (for looks, not for snacking) and put the food out nicely before time was up. Just as she set the decent sized gift box down on the table, filled to the top with Reese's eggs of course, her phone rang.

"Okay, thank you so much. I appreciate you more than you know," She told the other end of the line as she tried to wrangle all the dogs into the bedroom. Hanging up, she was somehow able to get them all to sit nicely on the bed. "Your mom is here so I'm going to shut off all the lights and we're going to be really quiet in the dark, okay? We've come this far, don't blow our cover now, guys." Thankfully, all the practice Sarah put them through while she was bored at home paid off and they happily stayed silent with little doggie party hats on long enough to hear the door to the hotel room open. "Happy birthday!" She shouted as Stefani turned the corner into the bedroom, all three dogs barking and rushing to get to her. "They wanted to come celebrate with you." Wasting no time, Sarah followed the little meatballs to greet her. Wrapping her arms around her, she squeezed her wife tight and had no plans on letting go until she absolutely had to. "Hi, babu. I missed you so fucking much."