A/N: I'm back! I've been a fan of the Samcedes relationship since it began, and I do hop it continues. This is a futurefic taking place after the Glee club graduate college. I hope you enjoy reading it, as much as I do writing it. If you have any suggestions, critiques, or praise please feel free to leave it. This story is loosely based on the film Just Wright. I do not own any of the music, the TV show, or the film. I'm just playing with the future of the cast.

Prologue: She Works Hard for the Money

Mercedes Jones spent years working her way back to the top after falling so hard. She did it all right in the beginning. She graduated from Lima High in 2012, and spent four years at the University of North Carolina Greensboro majoring in business with a minor in music appreciation. She knew she would make it big, and she wanted to be a quadruple threat when she did.

After signing her first deal and marrying her linebacker sweetheart Shane out of college they were a force to be reckoned with. They true power couple. She was the epitome of a diva in public. He was a famous football player, they had it all. She spent three years making a name for her self and unlike most of the women in show business she did it on her terms in public. Behind closed doors she was a scared and young wife. She took all the cues from Shane, and the people he hired to manage her. She didn't trust herself and always relied on Shane to make wise financial decisions, and be the head of the house. She trusted him during her early years; she married him at 20 after she signed her first record deal. Leaving everything she had in the care and keeping of his people. She was always taught to let the man take the lead in family matters. That only left her emotionally broken, and financially broke in the end.

It all lead to a messy and very public divorce after three years of marriage from her high school and college sweetheart linebacker for the San Francisco 49ers Shane Tinsley. She saw who he truly was. The prenup turned out to be in his favor. Shane walked away from their marriage a very rich man with a new "video girl" wife. He took their home, their cars, and their life with him and gave it all to the narrowed ass hoe he called a wife. He left her almost penniless and with only the small spark of fire she had to rebuild her life, and a head full of smart business moves that a few years of making all the wrong ones could show you.

It was an uphill battle to put her life together but she believed in what she had to offer the music industry. She took her old friends with her for the rise this time. They proved to be valuable, and trustworthy, two things that were a commodity in her industry. After the pitfall of dealing with strangers she put together her "dream team". Seeing the success she had only made her dream team the "it" team to have in Hollywood. She signed a new contract with a company she trusted, and made her come back after three years of solitude. She spent that time perfecting her craft writing the kind of music that could make Adele stand up and take notice, and beats that rivaled Florence and the Machine.

Kurt and Blaine married out of college and easily became stylists to the stars. They made sure she always looked her best, and she never wore anything a very successful Brittany designed twice. Tina became her personal assistant. Mercedes was famous for never being anywhere on time, but Tina made sure she was always where she needed to be. Mike became her beloved choreographer; she was a full figured size 14 and that didn't mean she couldn't have moves to show the world. Mike always made sure her shows were action packed; she could easily go toe to toe with the likes of Beyonce and Gaga. Together they ran a dance studio just outside of Los Angeles. Artie handled her lighting, sound, and production. He also ran a music studio, which happened to be located right next to the studio she co-owned with Mike. Quinn was her trusted accountant. Mercedes could have handled it herself, but she needed someone to make she her beans were counted and recounted. Mercedes made sure to always sign off on every expense, and every penny spent. She learned her lesson before. She wanted to know where her money was going and when it was coming in. Santana, Puck, and Lauren were heads of her security detail. After a run in with a terrible and very dangerous stalker she knew she needed to have the best around her. They even went into business protecting other celebrities, and high powered men and women. Rachel Berry-Hudson decided after a long stint on Broadway that the kind of life she wanted was quiet, and she decided to take a step back and raise her family with Finn. She needed a job to earn money while Finn finished culinary school and in that time she became Mercedes' publicist. After a year the job stuck, and she started her own firm. Mercedes was her first and favorite client.

Her dream team was exactly that. She made sure they all knew just how much they were appreciated. They were a team, one never being able to work without the other. She made sure they didn't feel like employees, they were a family. Mr. Schuester always made sure to ingrain into each of them they were a family. They were a family of outcasts who rose to the top together both personally and professionally the second time around.

There were times when Mercedes was alone with her thoughts and a glass of pinot and she thought about her life, and the lives of her friends. Tina and Mike had been married for years. Blaine and Kurt were also married, and raised two wonderful children fathered by each of them. Santana and Brittany were married as well. They also had children. Artie and Quinn made their way to each other after college. Finally seeing that between his easy humor and her neurotic tendencies they truly were a match made in the stars. Finn and Rachel were on their third child. Rachel decided to ignore the naysayers. She proved to everyone she could have it all even in college. She balanced work, school, and married life with finesse. When her career broke after college right along with her water she balanced baby, work, and marriage like the kind of woman Mercedes knew she wanted to be one day. Love was the one thing she didn't have. The only man she could honestly say she ever loved was Samuel Evans. Her heart still skipped a beat when she thought about his green eyes, and full lips. She Googled him every once in a while to keep up with his career but she never made a move to contact him. What would she say after all this time? She knew the last thing he wanted to hear about was he failed marriage and the struggle to put it all together again, especially when the man she cheated on him with the man she ended up marrying. He was also the same man who shattered her heart. She never loved even Shane the way she'd loved Sam Evans. Her momma told her time and again true love could strike at any age. She didn't expect it to strike at 17.

Sam didn't come back to Lima after the regional competition senior year. With the help of he and Mercy they took home the first of what would be many wins. He tried to stay in touch with the gang but they all paired up and pulled apart. He heard about them through magazines and Google over the years but he never spoke to anyone directly. He and Mercedes tried to make their relationship work during college. They knew a love like theirs was special and worth holding on to. Over time college life got the best of them, the visits became few, the phone calls fewer and eventually infidelity on both parts drove them to end it and never speak again. Long distance left them broken hearted and bitter after less than a year. Their last fight still burned bright in his mind, and it was enough to make his heart constrict. He hadn't loved another woman as strongly as he did Mercedes, and it would take a lot for him to find someone that could make his body and mind work in time like she did. He never forgot Mercedes Jones. The love they shared in high school and even tried to continue in college was one of a kind. He followed Mercedes' career from the fantasy beginning to the crash and burn, to the phoenix like resurrection. He attended her shows when she came to a town he happened to be in, always sitting on the floor in the tenth row so that he could look up at her and admire all of her hard work. He knew after singing Human Nature with her that her name would go up in lights. He felt like seeing that marquee behind her on her first tour was a signal to him that she made it.

He wanted to call her when he saw the news of her divorce from Shane. The thought of answering for himself left him cold, and unable. There were so many questions unanswered between them. There were so many things he wanted to say after all the years that passed, none stronger than "sorry, Mercy". Sam knew that if he even heard her voice there would be nothing to keep him from dropping it all and running back to Mercedes Jones and begging for forgiveness for leaving her to the world, and the arms of Shane Tinsley.

Sam couldn't complain about his life from a financial standpoint, but he felt like there was a void in it emotionally. After all the years of struggle he was able to give his family a life they deserved. He made sure Stevie and Stacy went to the best schools money could buy, and had everything they could ask for. He made sure his mom was always taken care of. Shortly after returning from Kentucky, Sam's dad suffered a stroke and passed away from complications. It fell to Sam to take care of the family. He didn't do it begrudgingly he enjoyed knowing his family was always cared for and loved.

There were a string of NBA cheerleaders he had affairs with to take the edge off. He even managed to have longer but still brief and casual relationships with some of the empty headed pretty girls he chose. But he knew his heart only beat for M.J. Sam kept his life private never painting the tabloids with his affairs. He was well known in the professional sports arena as a determined and very sexual playboy. He was god amongst his colleagues. His youthful looks and fast cars were sure to have the ladies face down on his mattress by the end of the game. If Sam Evans wanted you, Sam Evans was going to have you.

Sam decided on sports medicine after college. He loved to help people, and gave up his dreams of being an athlete long ago. He knew the best way to stay around the sports he loved, and to still make money was to do something with medicine. He made a name for himself in the NBA as the best psychical therapist money could buy. It took years of hard work and determination, but he became the highest paid therapist in the NBA. His techniques were unorthodox but highly effective. He earned the nickname "Mr. Fingers" amongst his staff and colleagues. He was able to put almost any player back on the court in two months fully healed and ready to play. He's the locker rooms best kept secret, and he knows it.

Little did he know as he sat there swirling a tumbler of scotch in his hand that his life was getting ready to crashing into hers and nothing may ever be the same again?