Chapter 2

Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed the first chapter. I know it's a little slow moving right now, but we've gotta set things up! Hopefully it'll start getting more reviews once it gets going.

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Sam was wading his way through the sea of bodies swarming in the hallway, trying to make his way to fifth period English class, when he felt a tugging at his elbow. At first, he ignored it. Unlike the small boys' school he had attended in Tennessee, this school was so big and crowded that it was impossible to switch classes without feeling assaulted on some level. But the nagging was persistent, like a small dog nipping at his ankles. He stopped and turned around, discovering that his feeling of being trailed by a yapping dog wasn't far from the truth.

He looked down into the smiling face of Rachel Berry. Despite the smile spread too tightly over her face, Sam could tell something was wrong. Her eyes were wide, and she looked nervous as she tugged at the hem of her skirt. Sam backed out of the steadily flowing stream of students and leaned back against a row of lockers, reaching out to take Rachel by the arm and pulling her along with him.

"What's up Rachel?" he asked, wondering what could possibly be on her mind that she was coming to him. Although they were starting to build a more comfortable relationship with each other, he remained cautious around her.

He wasn't usually Rachel's first choice of people to bear her soul to. In fact, up until a few weeks ago, she didn't really seem to like him much at all. After his newness to the club wore off, and after she was fairly certain that he wasn't going to bail on them and leave them without enough members to compete, she treated him like any other of her potential competitors. Just another male vocalist who was a threat to cut in on her rule with Finn. Rachel rarely spoke to him or about him, and when she did, it was to complain about him getting a solo in a competition song, to try to bribe him to go to prom with her, or to accuse him of cheating. And some pretty impressive sexual deviance, too, since she accused him of cheating with both Quinn and Kurt at the same time.

Once she had found out the truth about his family situation, though, Rachel had been genuinely apologetic. She had been very sweet in helping Finn and the rest of the glee club buy back his guitar, and if it weren't for her and Mercedes, he would have been in the embarrassing position of delivering pizzas to all of his drunken friends at their post-prom parties. As nice as Rachel had been to him in the last few weeks, though, she and Sam still regarded each other with caution, as if they were from two different planets. To Rachel, Sam was the cute, homeless boy with a bright smile and sad eyes who she had to walk on eggshells around, never sure if she would say something unintentionally offensive. To Sam, Rachel was the most talented person he had ever met, but so talented that he often wondered if she knew that other people existed. Or maybe they all really were minor players in Rachel Berry's universe.

"I'm really worried about Quinn," she blurted out suddenly. She looked away suddenly, fiddling with the buttons on her cardigan.

"Ok?" Sam waited for the explanation. When Rachel didn't provide once, he gave in and asked, "What's got you bothered about Quinn? She slapped you at prom didn't she?"

"Oh, well yeah," Rachel started, trying to look casual, as if getting slapped was the most natural thing in the world. "That wasn't a big deal. I just, I feel so bad for her. She's so smart but she thinks being pretty is all she's got going for her."

Rachel was starting to get worked up, and she began waving her hands emphatically.

"She's got perfect grades, and you should see her SAT scores. They're like almost perfect! But she thinks all she's got going for her is that she's so pretty. She thinks she's going to stay in this town forever, being a wife and a mom and maybe a real estate agent, and the best moment of her life, the one thing she's going to look back on forever, is going to be winning prom queen."

Sam paused for a moment, thinking. "Yeah, that sucks, I guess."

Rachel looked up at him, waiting. When he didn't say anything more, she raised her hands, her expression contorting into a mixture of shock and annoyance. "That's it?"

Sam slipped out from between Rachel and the lockers he was backed up against and started walking towards his next class, the hallway flow a bit lighter now. Rachel obediently fell in stride behind him, hurrying to match his pace with her much shorter legs.

"I don't know what you want me to say, Rachel," Sam started, looking straight ahead, the life drained from his voice. "I mean, yeah, I care about Quinn, and I want her to do good things with her life. But I'm not her boyfriend anymore. It's not my place to step in and save her from whatever it is you think she needs saving from. Shouldn't you be talking to Finn about this, since he's her real boyfriend?"

Even though Rachel was behind him, out of his line of vision, Sam could tell she had stopped moving. Damn, he thought, damn I didn't mean to hurt her like that. He stopped, drew in a deep breath, and turned. He found her exactly as he expected—shoulders tense, breath halted, eyes wounded. He exhaled, his shoulder deflating.

"I'm sorry, Rachel, I didn't mean to—"

"It's ok, Sam, I just . . . Finn is just . . . He doesn't . . ." she stopped, trying to order her thoughts. Sam watched as she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and tried again. "Quinn has been really good to you, Sam. I mean, not with the whole cheating thing, but with your family. She wasn't your girlfriend, but she still cared about you enough as a friend to help you with the kids and keep your secret from all of us for months. Look, I'm not saying you need to like, try to win her back from Finn or anything, just talk to her or something. She lets you closer than anyone else."

Sam sighed. Majorly guilt tripped. And the worst part was that she was completely right. Quinn had been good to him. He did still care about her. And he needed to learn how to be a good friend to her regardless of the fact that she had chosen someone else to be her boyfriend. It would probably hurt. It would hurt a lot, if he was being honest, but he needed to try for her.

"You're right, Rachel," he conceded, pushing a strand of her hair back over her shoulder affectionately, "I'll talk to her. Of course, since your little stakeout with Finn, he'll probably think I'm cheating and try to kick my ass."

Rachel smiled, her battle won. "Nah, Finn's a big softie. If you can take a shot in the face from Karofsky, you can handle Finn." The expression on her face made it clear that she was still hurting. He figured it would never stop hurting. Or at least not for a long time.

Sam turned to enter his English class before that tiny presence on the back of his elbow stopped him again. She was nothing if not relentless. He turned back to her, anxious as the bell rang, signaling the start of fifth period. A slight smile curved across Rachel's face.

"I had a really nice time at the prom, Sam. Any girl would be lucky to have you."

Sam smiled back at her, thanking her before she hurried off to her own class. Mercedes had seemed genuinely happy with him as a date, and he was glad that Rachel wasn't angry with him for leaving her to her devices with Jesse for most of the night. He hustled into class and collapsed into his seat. In the back of his mind, he wondered if Rachel wasn't just working him up to try to get between Finn and Quinn so that she wouldn't be accused of doing it herself. If he was responsible for breaking them up, that would leave Finn free to come back to the mothership, after all.

But he forced those thoughts away. He needed to stop assuming that girls were manipulative, that there was a motive behind every word they said. Before he got to this school—well, before Quinn, really—he had been the most trusting person in the world. Naïve, maybe, but he didn't think so, because it was a conscious choice he made to trust in people, not an inability to see what was happening right in front of him. He didn't want to lose that aspect of himself over a girl. So, until proven otherwise, he would believe that Rachel Berry was genuinely concerned about Quinn and needed him to help.

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The next morning, Sam sat in the front row of the funeral home, watching with wide eyes as Coach Sylvester's face crumpled. Her eyes squeezed shut and her nose wrinkled up as she choked out the words "I miss my sister." Her eyes were closed too tightly to form proper tears, but her cheeks were wet, the water pooling in the fine lines around her eyes and mouth. Her hands shook at the podium, and a mournful cry was forming at the back of her throat.

Sam had never realized that this other side to her existed. He had always seen her as some kind of a cartoon, a caricature. She was mean always, at times ruthless. She had stolen presents they collected to give to children at a homeless shelter and destroyed a Christmas tree. She had pitted all the Cheerios against the rest of the club and tried to shoot Brittany out of a cannon. Sam wasn't her primary target, but still, she had accused him of cheating on Quinn with his football coach and had called him a hobo on multiple occasions. He didn't know her very well, and he just assumed she was always like this. He didn't know she had a sister, a sister with Down's Syndrome who she loved and cared for deeply, until the poor woman was already dead.

Sam had lost a lot this year—his friends and his life back in Tennessee, a girlfriend he thought he loved in Quinn, a friend he thought he made in Finn, his home, his stability, his childhood. But he had never lost something like this, never lost someone he loved. Not even a grandparent. His dad's mother was gone before Stevie and Stacy were even born, and his dad didn't talk to his father very often. His mother's parents were happily stowed away in a senior community in Tennessee, where they went on morning walks, watched movies, and played heated games of shuffleboard.

Sam closed his eyes and tried to think of what it would feel like to lose his mother. He visualized what life would be like without her. Mornings at the breakfast table where he would bicker with the kids, trying to get them to eat their cereal before he rushed them off to the bus stop. Saying grace before dinner without his left hand covering hers. Coming home from a bad day at school without her fingers running gently through his hair to soothe him. The sorrow washing over him crept down from his constricting heart and hit him deep in his stomach. He felt like he had been punched. When he opened his eyes, Sam had to fight back tears that he refused to allow to fall. Even trying to explore Coach Sylvester's agony was too much for him; he couldn't imagine what it actually felt like for her.

When he had safely suppressed the feelings of impending heartbreak and forced his knees to steady, Sam turned to glance at the girl beside him. Stoic. That was the only word Sam could think of to describe to look on Quinn's face. Her lips were sealed lightly, her face smooth, her eyes unblinking. Not an ounce of tension distorted her perfect features. He peeked over his shoulders at the others. Kurt was discreetly brushing away tears, Mercedes and Tina were leaning on each other for support, crying openly, and even Puck and Finn looked glum and moved. But Quinn was the face of perfect serenity, as always. She was paying attention, sure, but not even a trace of emotion stirred her—not a frown, not a word, not a tear.

That's what scared Sam the most. If her coping mechanism was to block it all out by not paying attention, sure, he could understand why she wouldn't be feeling much. But she was listening intently to Mr. Schue as he read Coach Sylvester's speech, taking in every word. That could only mean that her defenses were buried more deeply than anyone had even suspected. Sam had to fight the urge to reach his hand over to her arm and pinch her immediately, intentionally trying to inflict pain and see if she responded to it at all. She couldn't like, actually be a robot sent from another planet to spy on them, could she? No, no, Sam pushed the thought from his mind and scolded himself for even allowing it to enter his consciousness at a time like this. But maybe . . . no. He would just have to talk to Quinn, see what was going on with her, just like Rachel begged him to do a day earlier.

But by the end of the service, Quinn was slipping out with Finn's arm wrapped around her shoulders, comforting her from a pain she apparently never felt. Sam hung back with Mercedes and Tina, stepping in to help where he could by offering each of them an arm to curl under and a shoulder to cry on. Eventually, Mike came for Tina and Mercedes' tears dried up. She looked up at him with glistening eyes, and offered a small, wavering smile that fell away almost immediately.

"It's all just so sad, ya know?" she whispered.

Her arms crept around his waist and she leaned her face into his chest, much as she had done at the dance. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and gave her a gentle squeeze, leaning down to kiss the top of her head. Stacy loved when he did that. He wasn't really sure what to say, not sure what he could say to make the sadness and the hurt go away. He remembered his experiment with imagining a loss similar to Coach Sylvester's and wondered if Mercedes was doing the same thing. Or maybe she really had experienced a loss like that. He squeezed her tighter before stepping back, examining her at arm's length.

"Thanks Sam," she said, giving him that same, unsteady smile. "I'll be ok now."

After making sure that she was actually ok and seeing her off with Kurt, Sam stepped out of the funeral home, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the bright morning sunlight. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the cool, sweet air of early May. It was a welcome change from the stuffiness and suffocating stench of flowers inside. He had planned on trying to talk to Quinn after the service, but she was already seated in Finn's truck; he could see them talking from across the lot. Sam kicked his feet around a bit, wandering here and there and looking for Puck to see if he could catch a ride with him back to the motel.

Just as he spotted Puck and was about to head over, a slamming car door stole his attention and he turned just in time to see Quinn sprinting across the lot in the direction of the funeral home's small garden. He watched her run until she disappeared inside the hedges, then turned back to see Finn starting the truck's engine and backing out of the lot. Sam sighed, stuffing his hands into his pockets as he began to walk in the direction he saw Quinn running.

When he ducked between the hedges, he found her sitting in the grass just in front of a small wishing pond, plucking dandelions from the ground and setting them adrift on the rippling water. She stared in, mesmerized, as the sunny blooms turned her reflection in the water a pale gold. Sam eased up behind her quietly, not wanting to disturb her in her moment of solitude. She must have felt his presence, because she began to speak without looking away from the pile of dandelions she was beginning to weave into a garland.

"If you're here to say you're sorry, it's gonna take a little more than that this time," she said, voice low but clear. Somewhere between sullen and menacing, Sam thought.

Sam shoved his hands deeper into his pockets, picking at the lint. This was a really bad idea. Following her, that is. It was none of his business. She probably wanted to be alone, and he should have left her.

"Quinn, it's um, it's me, Sam," he stated awkwardly.

Quinn's fingers stilled over the dandelion stalks and she turned her head over her shoulder, not far enough to really look at him, but just far enough for him to see that her eyes were red rimmed. She must've been crying, Sam thought. And not those few crocodile tears she had forced out at the funeral. Actually crying. She turned back to her pile, piercing a bleeding stalk with her nail and sliding another through the opening.

"Oh."

Sam shuffled closer to the pond, leaving a good three feet of space between himself and Quinn. In case she bit, or something like that. Sam wasn't exactly an expert with pissed off or heartbroken girls.

"Mind if I sit here?" he asked, hovering over a spot of grass near the edge of the water. She shrugged without looking at him, and figuring that was the best he was going to get from her, Sam lowered himself to the warm, mossy earth. He pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, staring up into the bright sky. Minutes passed, and as they sat in silence, Sam realized that between the warmth of the sun, the stillness of the air, and the presence of someone he considered a friend, he was the most relaxed he'd been in a long time. By the time Quinn opened her mouth to speak, Sam wasn't nervous anymore.

"What are you doing here? Why did you follow me?" she asked.

"I don't know," Sam replied truthfully. "You just looked like you needed a friend."

Quinn paused for a moment to consider that. Her words were calm. "Just because Finn and I broke up doesn't mean I want you to swoop in and try to get with me. That's not what I need right now."

"I don't wanna get with you."

"What?" Quinn was clearly thrown by his response.

"I told you I cared about you, Quinn, and I still do. I think you need some time to take care of whatever's going on with you. I'm just trying to help you because you're my friend. You've been a pretty good friend to me lately, I figured I could try to return the favor."

Quinn raised her eyes from the strand of dandelions she had finally linked into a crown and looked at him uneasily. The sun was glittering in her golden hair and bringing her hazel eyes to life. Sam had to stop himself from pushing a strand of hair out of her eyes and behind her ear. He shouldn't touch her. He wasn't great at recognizing his mistakes before he made them, but this was one he saw coming clear as day. He really shouldn't touch her right now.

"You can't do this alone forever, Quinn," he stated.

"Do what?" she asked flatly, the question gone from her tone.

"I don't know, what are you doing?"

Her eyes flitted down to the yellow flowers in her lap. Weeds, really. Five more minutes passed as Sam watched her fiddle in silence.

"They keep trying to beat me down, Sam," Quinn whispered, her eyes never leaving her hands in her lap.

"Who does?" he asked, confused.

"Everyone," she answered, her eyes seeking out his for the first time since they began talking. For the first time in a long time, really. A very long time. "Everyone can't wait for me to slip up so they can jump all over it. So they can rub it in my face how not perfect I am. When I got pregnant they were like vultures. Now I have to be even more perfect just to keep afloat. And there's so much pressure. They want me to get fat, or get a bad test grade, or lose prom queen to a gay boy," she scoffed, looking away. "Guess they got what they wanted."

Sam sat silently, chewing at the corner of his lip. He understood. At times, he had felt the same way himself. He hadn't even wanted to join the glee club at first even though he loved music because he was afraid of what everyone else would think of him. But for him, his inner nerd always won out. He always gave in and ended up being himself, as much as he often desperately wanted to be someone else. Quinn, in a way, was stronger than him. She never let the inner nerd, or the inner glee clubber, or the inner scared little girl win. Perfect, ice princess Quinn won almost 100% of the time.

As usual, Sam wasn't really sure what to say to make it better. Words weren't really his thing. Reaching out slowly so that she could tell him to stop if she wanted him to, Sam removed the dandelion garland from Quinn's lap, holding it gingerly so as not to break its delicate chain.

"You never did get your crown, did you," he said, placing the blooms on her head with a smile. He dropped his hands away and sat back to examine her. "Wow, Quinn, you must really love butter, you're completely glowing!"

The color rose in Quinn's cheeks, and her lips curved into a smile. No teeth in this one, but Sam could tell by the sparkle in her eyes that it was the first genuine smile she'd had in a while.