Disclaimer: Glee and its characters and all associated material are not mine. I'm just having fun.

9 months earlier...

"Sam, I need you to go get your brother from practice."

"I can't, Mom. I have wayyyyy too much homework to do."

"Samantha. It will take you fifteen minutes, and I can't get him either. You know I have to prepare food for the critic tomorrow."

"Mom. They'll love your food, even if you lose 15 minutes of prep time. I seriously am swimming in homework right now. This project's due on Monday, and then I have Spanish from when I was out sick and- "

"Okay, okay," Sam's mother sighed. "I will go get him. But you owe me. Dishes later."

Sam smiled at her mother. "Deal."

The phone call came 45 minutes later. Her dad picked up the phone. "Pearson residence. This is Frank." His face went white. "When? …I'll be right there." He turned to Sam, who had been watching him from the kitchen table. "Your mom's in the hospital. We have to go." Her heart dropped into her stomach. This couldn't be happening.

When they arrived at the hospital, her father ran up to the reception desk and demanded to see someone. A tall, dark haired doctor approached him, guiding him to the side gently. Sam went over to them. "…..and I'm so very sorry Mr. Pearson. But your son was killed upon impact." Sam felt like she had been punched in the stomach. Her vision blurred. Mark? Dead? It wasn't possible. It was literally only 3 hours ago that he had been harassing her about a hoodie she had borrowed from him. She needed to sit down. But first…what about her mom? She had to know.

"What- what about my wife?" Her father seemed to be thinking the same thing.

"She's in surgery. They're operating on her now. There was…a lot of damage to her internal organs, and she lost a lot of blood." The doctor said gently. Sam walked slowly over to a chair in the corner and sat down. Mark was dead. Her mom was in surgery. She couldn't let herself think about Mark right now. She couldn't. Her mom had to pull through this.

She had to.

After two agonizing hours of refusing to think about anything but her mother, the doctor came back out. Her father stood up, and walked over to him.

Sam stayed where she was. If the news was bad, she didn't want to hear it. She watched her father's face, and then the doctor's as he slowly shook his head. She didn't make it.

She didn't make it.

She didn't make it.

The funeral was on a grey, miserable day in February. It snowed. Sam didn't cry. She was done crying. She had done all of her crying at the hospital. Her father hadn't cried once, and since the hospital, neither of them said a word to each other. When they had finally gotten home, her father had gone into his room and closed the door.

Her mother's best friend, another chef from the restaurant, had dealt with the funeral arrangements. For the next few months, Sam and her father tried to deal with the world that had come crashing down around them.

Finally, when Frank couldn't take it anymore, he started to drink.

Sam had stopped crying now, and instead just looked sad and lost. Brittany was drawing little circles on her leg, as though she was trying to send Sam some comfort through her skin. Santana instinctively reached out and grabbed her hand. "I am so... so sorry….How come you never mentioned it?"

Sam smiled weakly. "You never asked. It's not something you just bring up in a casual conversation."

Santana rolled her eyes. "Yeah, but Jesus Christ, Sam. You could've said something."

Sam shrugged. "Hold on." Quinn spoke up. "You still haven't told us where the bruises came from."

"Well…" Sam said slowly. "Like I said. He started to drink. And then...he started to hit me." She paused. The cheerleaders all had varying looks of anger and indignation on their faces. "He's been beating me for a few months now. I'm pretty sure he blames me for the whole thing. I mean, who can blame him? If I had only stopped worrying about school for one goddamn second – "

"Hey. Stop. Now." Santana interrupted. "This is not your fault. None of this is your fault, okay? Your father – " she said, looking angry now, "is a piece of shit that deserves to rot in Hell for the rest of his miserable life. No one deserves what he did to you. Especially not you." Sam didn't say anything. "I'm seriously gonna kill him." Santana said.

Sam looked up. "NO. Don't. Look, I'm not even living there anymore so I don't even see him…"

"Wait, what?" Quinn asked. "Where are you living?"

"Um…my car?"

"Ay, de mi." Santana ran a hand through her hair. "That's bullshit. You're living here. I have more than enough room."

"What?…no, I can't."

"Can and will. My parents are never home, so it's not like they'll notice, and you can have the spare bedroom next to mine. Besides, the one time they met you, they spent the next half hour after you left telling me what a nice girl you are." She rolled her eyes. "So I don't think they'll care."

Sam was quiet for a moment. "Okay. But you have to promise not to tell anyone."

Quinn disagreed. "Sam. He hit you. I don't care if it's not happening anymore, that's not okay. You have to tell someone."

Sam looked at her. "And then what, Quinn? Which parental unit will I live with when Child Protective Services hauls him off in handcuffs? I don't have any other family. Both sets of my grandparents are dead and my parents were both only children. They'll send me to an orphanage in Cincinnati or some shit and then I'd have to move. Again." Her voice broke. "I just can't – I can't deal with that."

Quinn looked like she was about to argue when Brittany spoke up for the first time.

"Why don't we let Sam have some space? She can move in with Santana, and then she'll tell people when she's ready. This is kind of a big thing, and pushing her isn't what she needs right now." Quinn looked unhappy, but she let it go.

"Thanks Britt."

"So..um…" Santana shifted uncomfortably. "Now that I've made you spill your guts everywhere…you wanna finish our movie night? With a different movie?"

Sam chuckled through her tears. "Yeah. I'd like that." Brittany stood up and deposited Sam next to Santana.

"I'll make popcorn!" she volunteered, and ran into the kitchen.

Sam took a deep breath. She was going to live with Santana. He wouldn't hurt her anymore. Everything was actually going to be okay.

Yay...no more angst. For now. Don't fret though, this isn't even close to the end of the story, no matter what it sounds like.