Author's Note: So I wrote this a few days ago… It'll probably be a two-shot. Please, give an opinion. I need them because I kinda know where this is going, but… Idk. I'll just stick it in the M-rating just because. Anyway, this is what I would have liked to entitle "Hey bitch who used to talk down to me all the time and now, years later, you can't say shit because I was beautiful all along and you were just jealous and insecure and I got this beautiful man who would never look twice at your ass so Pow! in your face, Honey boo-boo child!" but unfortunately that's too long and it really has nothing to do with the main theme of the story. Le sigh. –DMH
I don't own Glee or the I Can't Help Falling in Love lines I paraphrased.
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The Most Important Lesson
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Wise men say only fools rush in, but Sam Evans truly couldn't help it.
Mercedes Jones was a force; she always had been and she persevered to remain so. Her body was short and thick – sturdy, she called herself, and Sam understood why. In his worse times, he could curl himself around her, ground himself in her steadiness when everything else was falling apart. He had done it in high school when his family lost their home and he had done it in college when they lost his father. And she always welcomed him with warm arms wide open and small hands ready to sweep away every tear he wished to hide.
He spent many a night in his dorm room learning what a force she was. He admired her, was inspired to be a better person because of her and she was always teaching him something new. Whether it was staying up all night on her Xbox or studying or making love or talking about their future together, he learned how to be a man in the process of learning to be Mercedes' man. And that would remain the most important lesson he ever learned.
Her voice alone had enough power to bring him to his knees, whether with a whisper or a shout and every song she sang to him was gospel – no one could tell him she wasn't singing him the truth. Her feelings were always evident in her song, her soul was unmistakably in her range – higher and higher and higher it flew. All consuming in matters of his heart.
She was his tsunami, his hurricane, his earthquake, a godly creation that swooped up his natural disaster of a life, like a miracle, and made everything better all of the time.
So when he awoke in the middle of the night, rolled over to cuddle with his fiancé and found her sitting at the edge of their bed, sniffling and sobbing into her fist, he knew he had failed.
"Baby," he rasped, instantly hating himself for his sleep-roughened voice because she jumped at least a foot into the air before turning to him. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Baby, what's wrong?"
She rubbed at her cheeks and reached over to turn on the lamp on the nightstand. Her puffy red eyes told him that her tears had been going on for a longer time than the forced smile on her face wanted him to believe and he cursed himself silently again. He immediately crawled to her side of the bed and wrapped himself around her; her back to his front, his legs cradling hers, his face pressed to the side of her own.
"Tell me, baby. Please?" he begged, squeezing her around the middle tight even as she hunched her back in what felt like an attempt to get away from him. "Please?"
"I got a… phone call… About an hour ago. My granddaddy's gone," she whispered between shuddering intakes of air.
He slept through her tears for an hour? "I'm so sorry, baby. I'm so sorry. Why didn't you wake me up?" She shrugged and he turned her in his arms until she was curled on her side, cradled against his chest. "Mercedes?"
She sighed. "I'm sorry, Sam. I just didn't want to wake you."
"Jesus… Wake me up whenever you want to, okay? And especially wake me up when you need to. Do you know how scared I was waking up to you crying in the dark?" Her next small voiced apology broke his heart and he made a mental note to berate himself later for guilt-tripping her at a time like this. "No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. Do you need to talk?"
She sniffed and shook her head. "Just keep holding me like this."
Yes. Yes. He could do this.
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Her father's side of the family was not something she often talked about.
In fact, she only brought up the subject while consulting her Maid of Honor and wedding planner about the seating arrangement. As many times as the three women had shuffled and debated and rearranged the orders, Sam noticed that the Jones clan was usually situated farthest away from the Bride and Groom's table as possible.
Mercedes never introduced him to anyone from her father's side and the more he thought about it, the more he thought it strange that he never felt the urge to ask her about them. Perhaps it was because of the size and boisterous nature of her mother's family. They were loud, they were large, they were gracious and they were too much. It would be easy to forget she had other relatives when he already knew all twenty-three of her cousins and their parents and their kids.
So when she told him that they were going to West Virginia to go to her grandfather's funeral, he was somewhat surprised. He didn't even know she had family in West Virginia.
"It'll only be for two or three days, Sammy," she told him as they packed the morning of their flight – as if trying to convince him to go with her regardless of the fact that he had already said yes two days ago. "They're having the wake at the family's original church, but the funeral will be at the church in Charleston. So it's good we got that hotel reservation, right?"
"Yeah, we don't need to inconvenience anyone by staying in their house, if that's what you mean," he said, tossing a few pairs of socks into her bag because he knew she would forget otherwise. What she muttered sounded somewhat affirmative, but he dropped the slacks he was folding anyway and rounded the bed to pull her into his arms. There was just something about her voice… She confirmed Sam's suspicions by crumpling against him immediately, abandoning all attempts to remain the cool-headed pillar of productiveness she had been for the last couple days. She had been determined to keep herself busy and to stay on top of things and it killed Sam that she never once stopped. "Talk to me."
"Not right now, baby. Okay?"
"Okay," he agreed for possibly the fifth time since the night before. "When should we talk?"
As he could have predicted, she yanked away from him and moved back to their luggage. "I don't know," she said with a heavy sigh. "I just don't want to talk about it right now, Sam. I'm busy – We're too busy for this! We should have packed last night. And please put this in something; you're not folding your suit and stuffing it in a suitcase."
He took the offending pieces of clothing from the arm she had thrust into his direction and did not say another word on the subject.
She was cool towards him during the trip to the airport and somehow, once they got onto the plane, into seats that forced them in even closer proximity, she seemed even more distant. He could have been a stranger for all she cared and his theory was only proven when a young stewardess attempted to flirt with him after giving him a drink. He glanced towards Mercedes, who was gazing absently out the window, and grabbed her hand, intertwining her fingers with his, flashing her ring to the flight attendant and politely shooing her away. After that, Mercedes leaned into his shoulder, but didn't stop watching the clouds until they landed.
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"Oh my God, where are we? Why is it so dark?" whined Sam as he attempted to cruise their little rental up and over the mountains of West Virginia. She giggled at him and assured him that she knew exactly where they were and where they were going. "But how? There are no street lights here. You're leading us straight to the Deliverance people, I can tell."
"Hush," she chided, placing a hand on his knee. "Just keep a look out for a red marker on the side of – there it is! Turn left." He followed her instruction and suddenly they were in civilization again, no matter how meager it appeared. A singular streetlamp stood in front of a small white building lighting their way and illuminating a long row of cars, each parked more haphazardly in a gravel lot than the last.
He carefully parked their rental next to an old Buick and she was quick to climb out. All the amusement at Sam's freak out in the car that had colored her expression up to this point had vanished as she muttered, "We're so late. We probably missed everything. Come on! Come on!"
She practically dragged him to the tiny church, an action that made him both anxious and impressed him (due to her apparent talent in walking over extremely unleveled ground in high heels). She stopped him from opening the door for her, opting to straighten his tie and fix his hair instead.
"Alright already," he said, pulling her hands away. "Let's go."
He opened the door, followed her inside, noting absently that it was clear that they had indeed missed whatever service there had been and suddenly he felt something he hadn't felt since high school: the sensation of being on a stage for the first time with hundreds of eyes on him… Or the first time he realized he was the only white guy in a room full of people.
He didn't think they were that loud upon entering the church, but that lack of noise did not seem a factor in the turning of every head in their direction. Even the people standing in the aisle, other latecomers to the wake, had turned to stare at the couple. He took a moment to consider his own paranoia towards meeting his fiancé's family for the first time, but when Mercedes' shaking hand took his own, he was assured that she felt the same sensation that he did.
However, the moment they walked up the aisle and got into the queue for the viewing, Sam's attention was snatched away from the whispers and stares… Mercedes was already crying.
It started with a few silent tears. She gripped his hand a bit tighter. They took a step forward and she sniffled daintily. He offered her his handkerchief, commending himself for having the sense to even bring it and she accepted it with a tiny smile, beautiful and sad. They took another step forward and she gasped. Closer and closer to the casket, they travelled, her cries growing into sobs as she attempted to hide her increasing hysteria behind a square of cotton.
Sam wrapped an arm around her waist when it was their turn to view her grandfather. Suddenly, her body refused to budge any further, so he set his mouth into a grim line of determination and pushed her towards the coffin.
"Granddaddy," she whispered thickly, reaching out to stroke a finger along a deep wrinkle on an ashen brown cheek. "I love you." She let go of Sam's hand to bend forward and drop a kiss on the cooled forehead. "'Til we meet again."
Sam followed behind her as they walked to the pews, practically rushing to keep up with her fast pace. He frowned when he saw her choose a seat towards the back, behind everyone else, but said nothing as he took the seat next to her and pulled her into his arms. He rocked them back and forth as she sobbed into his shoulder, pressing kisses into her hair, stroking a hand up and down her back – anything to calm her. With her cries reduced back into little sniffles, he took over handkerchief duty and carefully wiped her tear streaks away.
A hand suddenly clasped him on the shoulder, accompanied by the booming voice of Dr. Isaiah Jones, "Sam, good to see you guys made it. Is my baby doing better?"
"Mommy!" Mercedes suddenly gasped, shooting out of her seat and into her mother's arms. Sam tossed a grateful smile towards his future father-in-law for waiting until he had calmed Mercedes down to approach them as he stood and shook the man's hand.
"Yeah, she's doing a little better, but you know how she likes to keep things to herself."
Isaiah nodded as he stared over Sam's shoulder towards his wife and daughter, a frown further deepening the grooves of wrinkles in his dark forehead. "Sounds like my Mercy. Always worrying about not worrying others."
"Exactly," agreed Sam. They stood in silence for a moment, just watching their girls, but internally Sam was debating whether he should bring something up with Isaiah or not.
Just when he opened his mouth to address Isaiah, the other man said, "She's going to need you, Sam. She's going to make you feel like she doesn't, but she does and you need to make her realize that. Now take her over to see her grandmother."
"Uh… Yessir."
Though she was surrounded by people and despite Sam never laying eyes on her before, Mercedes' grandmother was easy to spot and easy to recognize. She was in her seventies, thin with skin the color of the pages of a worn, old novel. That light skin hung and sagged on her frame in a way that made Sam somewhat fearful that any sudden movement could send those sharp bones ripping it apart like old paper. Her hair swung long and thick behind her, in a braid of silver and brown. Her head was tilted away from them, her chin held high in what looked like its preferred position, her lips set in a firm frown no matter who was saying something to her or what was being said.
She did not look nice.
He couldn't help but think that there was no likeness to Mercedes as his fiancé led him to her, but when she turned to the couple and when the old woman's eyes met his, he knew the resemblance. The matriarch's brown gaze froze him rigid with a power he initially attributed only to Mercedes. She looked at him like she knew everything about him and she looked like she had the authority to judge him for it. Without this woman in her blood, Mercedes surely wouldn't be the same force he knew her as.
"Hi Mamma," Mercedes greeted with a small smile. The matriarch didn't stand from her pew in the front row, only reached her arms up to receive her grandchild's hug and kiss. She smiled briefly, an uneasy curve of lips that Sam thought she should put more practice into and she said, "Who are you, girl? And who is this man?"
"I'm Isaiah's baby? Mercedes?" The woman nodded sharply at the reminder and turned her chin to Sam. "And this is Sam Evans, my fiancé."
Mamma then looked him up and down in such a way that he felt like a cockroach covered in horseshit voting Republican. Then she sighed, "Alright. So it's y'alls wedding we going to at the end of summer, hmm?"
"Yes ma'am," he said after a Mercedes' elbow-shaped pain bloomed in his side. He stepped forward and held his hand out to her. "It's very nice to meet you, ma'am."
Her hand, slender and fragile, wrapped around his and tugged him closer with a strength he should have expected. "Your voice got a twang – Where you from?"
"Tennessee. Born and raised in Nashville," he replied with a smile that only widened upon seeing the slight approval in her eyes.
"Southern boy? I like that. I like him. You got real pretty girl," she told Mercedes, her gaze gaining even more approval. Sam was surprised at the quick change of subject and the speed in which words were racing from her mouth. He wasn't used to people talking so fast. "Like your pretty mother – Did you see Natasha here with your daddy?"
"Thank you, Mamma, and yes I saw her a few minutes ago."
"Good, good. You two come sit next to me now – Ant! Get up! Your cousin needs a seat."
"Oh! That's alright!" Mercedes said, apologizing with her eyes to her cousin Ant, a tall man with eyes like hers. Sam chuckled at her resigned expression as they settled in next to her grandmother. The woman had Mercedes' hand clutched tight between both of hers and brought their joined hands to her lips.
"You got hands like my mother," Mamma said absently before snapping back from her memories to call out, "Earl! Earl! Come say hi to Isaiah's baby! Earl, you remember this girl? You remember? She had them lil' afro puffs, her 'n Alexus?"
A sea of family members parted and Earl, who was an older gentleman that Sam saw a lot of Mercedes' father in, shuffled forward with a cane in one hand and a young woman on his other arm. "That sho' is Mercy! C'mere girl!"
Mercedes leapt up obediently and wrapped her arms around the man with a bright smile "Hi, Uncle Early!" Then she turned to the young lady, a tall, lean woman with chocolate skin like hers, and the authenticity diminished in her smile. In a flat voice, Mercedes said, "Hi Lexus."
Sam frowned and moved to stand, but a bony hand on his arm stopped him. He turned to Mamma, who gave him a wicked smile and leaned forward to tell him, "Watch this."
"Mercedes," the woman, Alexus, purred. "I see you're looking well. Did you lose a little weight? A little?"
Sam couldn't see his fiancé's expression, but he could see the squaring of her shoulders which made his own body tense.
"Actually no, Lexus, I didn't," Mercedes replied coolly, tracing a hand up her thigh until it settled on her waist. "I guess I must be vain, wanting to keep my curves. You know?"
Alexus nodded like she knew, but her twiggy legs, boyish hips and pursed lips said otherwise. She crossed her arms, frowning briefly when Mercedes mirrored the action and purposely pushed up her generous chest. "Well, that's nice, I suppose. So, Daddy tells me you're getting married, cuz," she said through her teeth as her fake smile grew smug. She made a show of having to look around Mercedes' body, glancing everywhere behind her, but somehow managing not to catch Sam's glare and she asked, "So where is the lucky groom? He didn't want to come down with you? Shame."
Mamma's hand dropped from his arm and he felt a moment of kinsmanship with the Kraken as he leapt out of his seat and wrapped an arm around his love. With a crooked grin, he held out his hand to Alexus and told her, "I'm Mercy's fiancé, Sam. Nice to meet you."
She was only an inch or two shorter than he was, but she sure took her time meeting his eyes. He fought to keep the frown off his face at her disrespectful leering of him and, after she released his hand, he had to resist the urge to wipe it clean across his pant leg.
"Nice to meet you, too. I'm Alexus. So, I guess we're going to be cousin-in-laws," she told him with a cute grin and a giggle.
With his own grin, he said, "Technically, but I don't think that's something anyone really says anymore, so I guess not."
As the smile melted from her cousin's face, Mercedes tugged him down and kissed the shell of his ear. "Sam, this is my Uncle Earl. He's Daddy's older brother."
"Nice to meet you, sir," Sam said as he received a firm handshake by the grinning man.
"Nice to meet you, too! Sam, right?" And as if a spotlight had been shined on him, every single family member and friend was walking up to Sam, introducing themselves with thick accents and fast words, shaking his hand, telling him how lucky he was to have himself a Jones girl and congratulating them both with kisses and hugs that initially felt foreign, but ultimately became familiar.
When they finally sat down next to Mamma, Mercedes was in tears again.
"Girl, are you pregnant?" Mamma asked sternly, glaring over her granddaughter's bowed head at an alarmed Sam.
"No ma'am," she whispered, careful to bow her head and avoid the other woman's eyes.
Suddenly, a knowing look softened Mamma's sharp features. She pulled Mercedes into her bony arms, kissed her hair and rocked her slowly. Sam thought the gesture looked so easy, like something practiced more regularly than Mamma's smiles. How many times had Mercedes been rocked in those arms as a little girl with afro puffs?
"Aww, baby," Mamma sighed and she took Sam's offered handkerchief to wipe Mercedes' fresh tears away. "We missed you, too."
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A/N: Next chapter whenever. Kanye-shrug to the fullest. –DMH