Les Âmes Soeurs

AnniKay

Sam/Mercedes/Puck

Disclaimer: I own Nothing…Murphy, Falchuk, and Brennen along with Fox and others own this fandom and all the characters there in…Anything you recognize obviously belongs to them

****THANKS to everyone who has taken the time to review! Your encouragement helps more than you know!****

Even with the finale, they couldn't give us a real good ending for Mercedes, Rachel got married and a Tony…but they alluded to Mercy's world tour, but they said nothing about a Grammy or a love interest for Cedes. RIB and his writers can still each collectively and individually kiss my big black ass. SamCedes is EndGame. If they can't see that then they need new, not stupid, eyes.

Thank all of you for being avid readers & reviewers of my stories

Special thanks to KayBee80 & Illiandyanndra who have been Beta rock stars for all of my thirteen stories
Anyone who is interested in applying to Beta the Learning French Series going forward, please PM me. I need one to two new betas. Please & Thank you.

Summary: The gang has moved to New York. College and career are on the horizon…Are the Original New Directions ready for what all the future holds?

Chapter 10
Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For more information, contact: Atty Ethan Harris (317) 777-9573 or Deborah Jergens (212) 555-2481

KAMA SPEAKS: CALLS FOR MORE TOLERANCE, LOVE & ACCEPTANCE

Mercedes Jones, Noah Puckerman and Sam Evans, known collectively as KAMA, wish to thank all those who have offered words of support and encouragement online and via phone calls to radio stations, call-in shows and the like. They offer no apologies to their dissenters. Yes, KAMA is and will remain a polyamorous triad. They have absolutely no desire to ever change that. They have been together for almost two years and are not entering their commitment lightly. They are happy and remain committed to each other. They chose to express this commitment by exchanging rings and pledging their fidelity to each other. Most of the population is never called upon to define what marriage means: it means total sexual and emotional fidelity, 'til death do us part'. In life, many people find that the ideal is near-impossible to sustain: not everyone gives up on making their relationships work, but many cheat, and many more languish in their refusal to admit that they attempted to have all of their needs met by the wrong person, forever. Yet, despite what statistics show, many other people find their soulmates and stick with them through thick and thin…through hell and high water. Mercedes, Noah and Sam have found, in each other, the persons they are destined to spend their life with. They refuse to allow small minded, bigoted people to ruin what they have.

While strides in understanding the concept have been made, the reality of polyamory is often misunderstood by the general public and the media. To the average person, the idea of a polyamorous relationship invokes images of swing parties and clubs with people sharing carnal relations in dark corners or polygamous families with men controlling unhappy sister wives and lots of children. These images perpetuated by Hollywood are not polyamory, nor do they usually represent the 'swing lifestyle' or polygamy accurately. However, the truth of polyamory is simply loving and being loved by more than the 'traditional' number of people at one time. Sometimes that means a triad, sometimes that means a quartet…or even more. Few polyamorous relationship view fidelity as an option…for them it as much a necessity as it is in a traditional monogamous couple. There must be commitment, communication, respect, trust and love in any polyamorous relationship just as there must be in any more traditional relationship. Feel free to visit .com(backslash) polyamory (backslash) for more information.

KAMA would also like to remind those champions of the 'right'…those proponents of family and Christian values that have come forward to denigrate and bash their relationship…of the words of Christ as stated in John chapter eight verse eight. "So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." To the pundits who are readying their slingshots; four marriages, one of which with the definite stain of infidelity beforehand and further advocating for allowing infidelity with in a marriage by stating that in a successful marriage 'a wife should let the husband do whatever he wants' would constitute a sin in the eyes of any reasonable person. Also remember that polyamorous relationships stretch back to biblical times as is illustrated by the fact that King David, 'a man after God's own heart' (1 Sam 13:14), the beloved of God, had a multiple wives.

####

Breakin' Shit (Limp Bizkit)
Mercedes PoV

Wednesday evening I was so proud of both Kurt and Jamison but I was also a seething cauldron of pure, terrifying rage. How dare anyone try to say that loving Sam and Noah or them loving me or them loving each other was wrong? Still, I was not going to let the thoughts of bigots ruin my time celebrating my friends' accomplishments. Concentrating on that thought made sure that even with everything that was going on with us we had a blast having dinner with everyone. I kind of felt sorry for our poor waitress…probably her bosses should have sent her with backup. But her service was damn good considering that it was just one of her and like twenty of us. Since we'd all been out late the night before, everyone was glad to call it a night immediately after dinner. Granted for everyone else, that meant going to bed or getting some 'quality time' in with their respective love one or ones. For Sam, Puck and me, it meant basically 'all hands on Skype' while we worked with Uncle Ethan, Mr. Antwan, Deborah and one of the Warner legal team to hammer out a 'personal' press release from KAMA. It took us three hours to get a workable statement. Primarily because between the seven of us, six of us wanted to handle it three different ways. The Warner guy stayed out of the main thrust of the argument, just jumping in to tell us what we could and couldn't say.

Both Deborah and I wanted to use the opportunity to educate and to teach others about tolerance and polyamory and love. Puck and Uncle Ethan both felt that it was a great opportunity to make a few pointed comments about the hypocrisy of Limbaugh and Gingrich and their ilk. All those people who claim to be the only proponents of Christianity or family values or whatever while having three or more marriages under their belts. Those people who though that 'thou shalt not commit adultery' applied to everyone but them. They wanted it pointed out that while those people claimed that they only had one spouse at a time, in most cases they didn't necessarily wait for their previous spouse to leave them before moving on to the next one. Even when said 'previous spouse' was terminally ill. Sam and Mr. Antwan were completely fed up; they basically just wanted to say fuck you to the whole world. But in Sam's defense, he'd seen an interview with one of his dad's relatives and it had clearly shown why Sander and Gabby kept their children separated from Sand's relatives. Antwan understood that probably better than either Puck or I could.

We managed to cull out something that pretty well did all three while appeasing the legal eagle too without any of the expletives that Sam and Noah were throwing around all over the place. Finally Sam and Noah were able to get some rest. Thursday they had their last finals. Despite not getting a whole lot of sleep the last couple of nights, I woke up with them. I worked out…but that didn't clear my head enough, so I cleaned our bedroom and did our laundry. Then I gave all the bathrooms, not just ours…but all the bathrooms on our side of the duplex not locked behind Kurt and Blaine's bedroom door, a deep cleaning, even going so far as to scrub the grout with a cheap toothbrush we kept just for that purpose. That didn't take as much time as I was expecting it too…it also didn't burn through as much of my inner anger as I had hoped either. So I moved onto the kitchen. By the time I got that Martha Stewart clean, I was starting to feel a little better. I looked around, trying to find something else to clean to rid myself of the anger and betrayal I was feeling but as I was contemplating getting out the vacuum cleaner, Mom texted me and told me to turn on the TV to CNN.

I was shocked to see that one of their journalists had already made the connection between Uncle Bryant and me and asked him about KAMA and our commitment video. You could tell that he'd been evading her questions, but with that one he stopped and looked dead into the camera. "Mercedes is my niece. I love her very much and have since the day my little sister told me that she was on the way. I think she is amazingly talented, smart, and beautiful. I have met both of her young men and known them for the better part of the last two years. Both of them treat her with all the love and respect an uncle could hope for ask for. They have never hidden their relationship because they respect it too much. They have nothing to hide. I am quite proud of all of them or how they are handling their studies, their career and this situation. I refuse to hear an ill word against them." He looked back at the reporter. "Now if you will excuse me, I'm going to be late for a meeting."

"Just one more question, sir." He looked at her with a glare. "What do you say to Samuel Saia's comments that your constituents should rally against you because your support of your niece exhibits a lack of moral fiber."

Uncle Bryant's smile became cold, predatory. "I say that if supporting and loving my family loses me anyone's support then I neither wanted nor needed it in the first place. Long after I've run my last race and before I ever entered politics, Mercedes has been one of the best nieces a man could ever have. No matter whether I'm ever reelected or not, family is the most important thing. To all those pseudo family rights blowhards, I am New Jersey. I chose to become just as Jersey as any native born son of the state. Come at me…fine, but try to harm my family, by word or deed, and you will not like the results." With that he turned and walked away before old girl could get in another question.

I hit Moma back. "Kinda loving your brother right now."

She sent back. "Don't tell me; tell him, but me too."

So I called and left him a long love and gratitude filled thank you voicemail. However, seeing Uncle Bryant's reaction made me even more curious about Sam's relative's reaction. Google was not my friend that day. I found the clip quickly, though ultimately I kind of wished that it hadn't. I'd made the assumption that the 'mouth breather of a cousin' Sam had mentioned was like one of his dad's cousin or even one of his granddad's someone too old to know better. But Chadwick Evans looked like he was only a little older then Kevon. He actually shared a few of Sam's features though not enough to make him handsome. He didn't have Sam's lush, pink lips and his eyes were smaller and squinter. He looked kind of mean.

The news caster had apparently done one of those 'new rockstar has ties to the local community' stories earlier in the month; which to be honest had probably been a part of Christophe and the press team's plan of action for getting us recognition. Unfortunately Rachel's little tantrum had turned some of that building momentum against us. Chadwick's comments were full of pejorative language and just vitriol. He pretty much hated everything about Sam; the fact that he wasn't in contact with that side of the family, the fact that I was black, and thick, and had dark skin, the fact that Puck was Jewish. He actually looked sick to his stomach when he talked about the video. My rage returned with a vengeance, so I dusted everything that could possibly have a speck of dust on it. When that wasn't enough, I vacuumed the downstairs, and the stairs themselves. I was still pretty pissed off so I decided to do up a big dinner for the whole house, it wasn't a bad idea since everyone other than Sam, Noah and I would be leaving the next morning.

I was just getting going in good in the kitchen, pulling out all the ingredients to make homemade chicken pot pies and a lemon pound cake, when Kurt, Carole, Burt and Finn got back from their sight-seeing. As I started separating the chicken meat from the skin and bones, Kurt and Carole washed up and joined me at the counter. Well so did Burt and Finn, but really they sat at the stools and cut a little bit of veggies and such. While Kurt handled making the pie crust, Carole took over the cake and I worked on making the thick, rich and creamy chicken and vegetable chowder that comprised the pot pie insides. "You okay, Lil Mercy?" Papa Burt asked once we'd gotten a rhythm established. "This place looks clean enough that you don't even need a dining table anymore."

I shrugged, but answered honestly anyway. "I'm still having rage issues. I just don't get it. I don't think about Rachel anymore. I…she is pretty much a non-entity to me. Why does she do shit like this? We weren't doing anything to her."

Finn shook his head. "That's exactly why she is doing it. You weren't thinking about her at all. She wasn't getting any attention. Rachel cannot handle that we're all living our lives without her. The fact that you're not just living your life not caring at all about her and what she is doing but excelling beyond she could ever hope or dream to achieve…it is running her crazy. As far as I can tell from conversations with my counselor…that's gonna be a pretty typical reaction of someone with NPD…because somewhere deep inside, she knows that you're the one who has the level of talent she believes that only she has. She has to punish you for being as good as or better than her. At least in her mind she does."

"You know…I want to feel bad for her, really I do…and maybe I used to…but the more I hear about her 'condition'," Kurt said with the required air quotes, "the more it sounds like an excuse some p-sy-hrink came up with to excuse poor behavior."

Burt shook his head. "I was feeling that way too. Then last month while I was waiting at the doctor's office for my quarterly stress test, I happened to see an article in Psychology Today about NPD. There is a real genetic basis for it. They have isolated the gene and everything. Apparently if you have one parent with the trait then it probably won't actually manifest…you'd be like your parent, just another carrier of trait. But if you're like Rachel, then you're destined to fall somewhere on the…they call it a spectrum. It ranges from borderline personality disorder to malignant personality disorder. Believe it or not, she may actually not have gotten bad enough to be considered malignant."

"She still went too far this time." Kurt grumbled.

None of us disagreed, but we tabled the subject when Brittany joined us in the kitchen. I'd actually texted her before I started pulling out my ingredients to have her bring me all the small to medium ceramic ramekins and bowls they had. I had eight but I needed twice that amount to have enough to make individual pot pies for everyone. Brittany had taken Rachel's actions very hard. So we weren't gonna mention it around her. She was really, really confident though that the twerp wouldn't get what she wanted. To be honest I took comfort in that. I was pretty sure that Brittany's lack of measurable intelligence was because she was like the real life Luna Lovegood. Kurt and I carefully placed pie crusts in each ceramic dish then I filled them first to the halfway point with sautéed chicken meat, peas, carrots, corn, diced green beans and baby lima beans. Then I ladled in the rich creamy sauce. To make the sauce, I'd boiled chicken stock with the bones and skin I'd cut away to cook the meat for the pot pies. Once that had boiled down until the remnants of chicken meat came off the bones, I'd strained it before bringing it back up to a boil adding just a touch of marsala wine and a whole lot of whole whipping cream along with just enough roué to bind it together and make sure it would thicken correctly in the oven. As soon as I did that, Kurt came behind me and place at crust topper on each. Working together we pinched the bottom and top crusts sealed, making them all pretty and scalloped. After giving them an egg wash to make sure that they baked up golden brown, we cut two or three slits in the top crust, put them on baking sheets and slid them into the pre-heated oven to bake. Once that was all taken care of, I was shooed up to my room to relax. Carole said that she was going to make an Asian chopped Kale salad with edamame, carrots, and avocado. She'd seen the recipe in a magazine she'd read on the plane, and since we had all the veggies for it, she was determined to give it a try. It would be a good, healthy side dish or an alternative if someone wanted something vegetarian.

I climbed the stairs to our bedroom thinking that I would run a bath. But when I got there I realized that Sam and Noah would be home pretty soon. The thought barely finished running through my mind when the bedroom door came back opened and closed hard. Sam was looking like I'd felt most of the day. "Get naked." He growled. I guess that I wasn't moving fast enough for him because the next thing I knew, I was flat on my back on our bed, my shirt had been ripped down the front and Sam's hands made short work of killing one of my comfy soft bras too. Sam's kisses were damn near bruising in their intensity. His fingers cruelly pinching and twisting my nipples and I reveled in the violence of his actions. All day I'd needed to hit something, well fucking was apparently the only alternative that would fill that need. "I'm gonna fuck you, Mercy. It's gonna be hard and fast. I'm not even sure that I can take the time to get you ready."

"Shut up and fuck me already, Sam." I growled back. I needed to be fucked every bit as much as he needed to fuck me.

Anything he might have come back with was cut off but the sound of ripping leggings and our missing love joining us. "Oh, good…Cede's mostly naked already." Puck smirked as he shed his clothes. "I either need to fuck the shit out of her or go back to campus and punch some paps."

Before I could ask what he meant, my mouth was full of his tongue and my pussy was full of Sam's cock. From there it was a wild, frenzied exchange of passion, lust, love and desire. For the following hour or so, I was filled constantly. I used my teeth locked into the flesh of their shoulders and chests to quiet my screams of animalistic pleasure. My nails racked down the skin of their backs and arms. But even with the overall 'violence' of our lovemaking, I could feel the rage and anger and hurt and betrayal flowing out of me and Noah and Sam refilling me with love and happiness and purpose and joy. We probably would have lay there basking in the afterglow for a while, but almost in concert our stomachs let out three loud growls. After a less frenetic quickie in the shower, we threw on some lounging clothes, I gathered up the tattered remains of my earlier outfit and we headed downstairs for dinner.

Everyone else had already assembled in the dining room. Seth had even gotten there already. Thank God I always planned for him. Sometimes it meant leftover…but not often. "You guys have, like, a massive amount of hickeys on you." Seth said in lue of hello. "It's kind of a good look for you. But why hickey Mercedes on the cheek, that's gonna be hard to cover."

Kurt rolled his eyes. "Amazingly enough, Cedes is rather practiced at covering love bites on that particular expanse of skin."

"Good thing too. They are supposed to be at Warner at the ass crack of dawn for that meeting." Santana reminds us. Who needs a manager or an admin when you have a Santana.

"We know Tana." Puck shoots back, taking the words right out of my mouth. "What time is everyone else heading to the airport?" he turned the subject to travel plans.

"Well some minor miracle has all of us heading to Lima on the same flight." Artie smiled knowingly. He knew exactly what Puck was trying to do and he'd stepped up and in for his bro. "Then again it could be less of a miracle and more of how many flights are really going to Columbus Ohio from LaGuardia on any given day."

"Probably more than are going to Columbia, South Carolina." Jamie laughed. "I guess I could have flown into Atlanta and caught a connecting flight…but the last time I tried that I flew into one gate and flew out of another one that felt like it was about seven states away."

Ben smiled over at Ryan and Seth. "We're lucky there are like a million choices for flights into SEA-TAC and LAX. Hey Jon, are you going down to your grandmother's or out to your dad's?"

"I'm taking the train down to Baltimore. Grandma and my Aunt Day are hosting Christmas at Grandma's house since Dad refuses to let Uncle Will into his house. Dad still wanted me to fly to Sacramento, then back to the east coast with them and back again only to fly back to school from Cali. Thankfully Grandma, Aunt Lissa and Aunt Day all told him he was being stupid and that was too much flying for no damn reason."

"What about your mom?" Sam asked confused.

"Mom lets Dad control everything. She grew up in one of those super religious sects down in Utah, so for her Dad is pretty permissive." Jon said with a shrug as if he was completely used to it. "Don't get me wrong, she's a great mom…just sometimes she forgets that it isn't nineteen fifty something and that she is allowed to have an opinion. Anyway, enough of my sick, sad world, what's you guys meeting about?"

I fielded that one, despite the hoarse raspiness of my voice. "We're supposed to film two videos over the break. Tomorrow we're gonna storyboard them and probably figure out how to move forward from the scandal." We passed around the salad that Carole had whipped up for us. It tasted like summer and was probably a little more filling than she thought it was going to be. We all loved it, and Kurt and I both demanded that she leave us a copy of the magazine recipe. Of course as soon as I mentioned that we'd be planning out our videos, the dinner chatter quickly turned to talking about the best music video concepts any of us had ever seen. Carole and Burt both agreed that nothing topped 'Thriller'. To which Mike and Artie launched into a major campaign to convince the table that 'Scream' had in fact done so. Seth and Jamison were unconvinced by either argument feeling that 'Beat It' was far more ground breaking and therefore better. Kurt chimed in that the very simple 'Single Ladies' was an epic concept in its simplicity. He was shot down so fast that his head spun. Sam tossed in Johnny Cash's 'Hurt' video like a grenade and just sat back and watched as everyone started arguing about how it was pretty damn good, but not better than their particular choice…then just as that settled down Santana did the same thing with Madonna's 'Like a Prayer'. Puck advocated long and loud for Red Hot Chili Peppers 'Give It Away Now.' Ryan agreed, though he was the one to mention the Police's 'Every Breath You Take' should be in the running. Blaine thought it should go to either Janet Jackson for 'Rhythm Nation' or to Prince for 'When Doves Cry'. When things seemed to be winding down again, Jon laughed, "I cannot believe that no one has mentioned 'Waterfalls'. Mercedes…Jamie…you two know that you're wrong for leaving that one out."

I shrugged. "See the thing about TLC is that, for the most part, you can't pick one of their videos without picking all of them 'Unpretty' was just as influential as 'Waterfalls', 'No Scrubs' was just as visually groundbreaking for the time as 'Dear Lie' was fashion forward. See in reality the most visionary and fantastic video concepts aren't a song by song/video by video type deal. We should really just be talking about which artists are known for their consistently dominating music videos. Michael Jackson…God rest his soul…TLC, God rest Left Eye's soul too, Missy Elliot, Madonna, Chili Peppers even Guns N Roses were pretty damn good for the time period and genre."

"Oh sure, ruin a fun argument with logic." Ben spouted off.

"I can toss some more pee on your parade, too. We're not going to be doing anything that hugely major because we're not gonna end up like poor TLC, in hock to our label until we're old and gray." I shot back licking my tongue out at him for good measure.

Ryan spoke up quietly. "If whatever you guys do come up with is even half as good as this chicken pot pie…it's gonna be video of the year for sure. I don't know if I knew that you could make pot pies at home."

"Sexy Mama, these are 'mazing." Puck agreed. He and Ryan exchanged a long telling look. They shared more than any of the others…the way they had grown up in similar homes. The two of them were probably the most familiar with the fifty cent variety of pot pies available at any big box or grocery store. Finn had missed out on them, only having had one at Puck's house once. Carole had always left Finn with babysitters and casseroles or the more expensive hungry man microwave dinners. But there were times when money was so tight that Puck was the only babysitter that Becah could afford and working double shifts to try to keep her head above water, she'd not had the time to make and freeze casseroles. She had been pretty amazing at hiding their financial straits from her mother and older brother.

"So Puck, Sam…what set you two off this afternoon? You were pretty much over it when we headed out this morning." Blaine asked after everyone finished complimenting the cooks.

Sam rolled his eyes. "TMZ and a bunch of various and a sundry papz have figured out where we go to school. My guess is that they tried Columbia first. We weren't on campus there but somehow, some way they tracked us to Juilliard. They were waiting on us when we got out of our last exam. Total ambush. TMZ was about the best of one hell of a bad bunch. Their rep was a skinny black guy who just asked how you were doing and where you were. That seemed to set the rest off. They started shouting that you'd left us because of all the drama and the trauma."

"So we answered the little muthafucker from TMZ, sorry Ms. Carole, Just said that you were a little upset still that the world had seen our private moment and that the whole world was now sticking its collective noses into our personal business." Puck continued.

"That jerk though that he was funny. He apologized, completely insincerely, then pointed out that we wanted to be famous and this was all part and parcel of our career choice. So Puck told him that making great music that people would love for years to come was our career choice and being a bottom feeding parasite on the ass of humanity was theirs." Sam chuckled.

Puck smirked. "Gotta give the dude credit, he just rolled with it. Said that he was at least a little better than the rest of the dicks out there…he was feeding on buttcheek while they were feeding straight on the asshole." He shook his head in consternation. "Thing is he was telling the truth. At least he didn't follow us once he had his soundbite. The rest of those jackasses followed us on the train so much that we had to change trains three times to get rid of all of them…stupid leeches. They actually thought we were stupid enough to let them follow us home."

"Good thing the property is in the name of the incorporation rather than your names." Burt commented. "They won't be able to find you through any of the public records."

"Can we keep it that was even after we can afford to take over the mortgage?" I asked thoughtfully.

"I don't see why not. Your lawyer and accountant are already a part of the group. I'm sure they can figure out a way to do it." Burt answered.

We changed to more normal subjects for dinner conversations after that talking about everyone's plans for over the break. After dinner was eaten, Ben, Seth, Jamie and Blaine took care of the after dinner cleanup. Then we all decided to veg out in the family room and pull up all the videos we'd talked about earlier. We had a blast. Santana, Artie and Brittany managed to stick it out for almost an hour before they mumbled some excuse, like we didn't know they were just going to get their freak on one last night before they had to sleep separately for a month. Then Seth got a phone call from Summer so he dipped out to take that. Ryan didn't stay too long after that. He'd grown bored. He wasn't as huge into music as most of us and since Sam and Puck were too busy trying to hid the fact that they were surreptitiously getting me hot and bothered to chat with him enough to keep him with us. Jamie and Jon had both still needed to pack so they left soon after Tana and her crew had disappeared. To be honest, we probably needed to pack ourselves. I said as much to the guys and they blushed bashfully.

We said good night to everyone. We took a second to hug and say our goodbyes to the gang. We told Ben to be safe and give Socks and Sam our Christmas well wishes. We told Kurt, Blaine, Finn, Burt and Carole that we'd see them soon as we got settled when we were home. Packing was actually a lot more straight forward than it probably could have been. We'd already taken care of almost all of our Christmas shopping online and had everything delivered to Mom and Dad's, or George's or Becah's. Not to mention that we'd be home with access to a washer and dryer. We just needed to pack enough clothes, shoes and sundries for two weeks. We'd each have one piece of large checked luggage, one carry on each, the guitars and one shared big ass checked bag that would contain our dress clothes on it on the way home, but it was mainly gonna serve as a way to bring home our Christmas gifts. We needed to keep it to a manageable level so that we could move quickly through the crowds.

Once we'd finished that chore, we laid out something comfortable but business causal for our meeting the next day. I was too sore to make love for real again…so Sam and Noah made love to each other while I watched then they used their hands and mouths to send me into orbit again. By the time the boys grabbed a quick wash up and came back to bed I was barely awake. I fell asleep sandwiched between them; right where I belonged…no matter what anyone else thought.

Video Killed the Radio Star (The Buggles)
Sam PoV

Despite having a really full day that Thursday, we'd still made it to bed at a decent time so it wasn't that hard to get up showered, dressed and out the door at a reasonable time the next morning. Since it was almost Christmas and therefore cold as hell in New York, we were all bundled up. Mercy was wearing a pretty, burgundy sweater dress that had a wide belt which cinched in her waist and matched the tall black leather boots she pulled on over the tights and black leggings she'd donned to protect her beautiful legs from the cold. Puck had dug out a navy blue sweater Moma Dani had given him last winter…just because she saw it and thought it would look nice on him. She was right. Seeing him in that sweater made me want to be late to the meeting. Noah had put on a pair of navy 'dress; cargos with it and a lighter blue polo under it. For shoes he'd grabbed his favorite black motorcycle boots so I knew that meant he would be wearing his leather moto jacket rather than his trench.

I looked down at my own business casual look and realized that I really could have been auditioning for the roll of Steven Grant Rogers if it hadn't already been cast. My khakis were pleat front in the darker beige hue preferred by Captain America in the movies. I'd donned some of my nicer Chuck Taylors, green to match the color of the crew neck sweater I'd pulled on over my basic white dress shirt. I grabbed my black wool blend peacoat and made sure that Mercy had both Noah and my tablets with her iPad in her burgundy Marc Jacobs tote. We were all hella serious about the meeting. We had ideas and wanted to be full, active parts if the discussion. Mercedes was so serious that she was actually bringing her laptop too. It was still dark when we headed out. It was a good thing that we'd said all out goodbyes the night before because the house would be totally empty when we got home.

We took the subway to the Warner offices and walked past a few papz that were bold enough to camp out there. Our heads were held high and while we weren't overt with our affection but it was easy for any one with eyes to see that we were solidly together. The receptionist knew us without our even saying anything this time. She looked up and smiled, "Hello Mercedes, Sam and Noah. Ms. Jergens will be down in a minute. I buzzed her as soon as the paparazzi started going nuts." She looked around a little then lowered her voice. "I just wanted to day that I though the video was really adorable. I hope that you guys show those naysayers that real love is out there even if it doesn't look exactly like what all those holier than thou types think it should look like."

"Thank you Amy." Mercedes said with one of her beautiful smiles. I wondered for a second how on earth she knew the woman's name, before I saw a small plaque on the desk.

Deborah came out of the elevator bank greeting us with a harried smile. "We have tons to get done today and Mr. Cohen wants to see you there first. By the time he is finished talking with you, breakfast should be here. We ordered from Einstein Brothers, if that's okay?" We nodded as we hurried to keep pace with her long strides. As we rode up to the offices, Deborah gave us an overview on what we were going to be talking about once we got back down to the conference room.

She ushered us into Mr. Cohen's office and for just a second I worried that we were going to get reamed out for the current predicament. But I should have known better. "Mercedes, Sam. Noah thanks for agreeing to seem me this morning. I'm sorry that this has happened to you. But I have to admit the only way it could have happened at a better time is if it had happened right before your record drops in the spring."

We all looked at each other. "Glad something good came out of it." I muttered.

"Yeah, but what good came of all this?" Puck asked looking as confused as I felt.

Lyor Cohen looked happily evil. "The debut single for the soundtrack, 'Who You Are', hit over a hundred thousand on the over nights, by the end of the first week its sales were at five hundred and twenty thousand plus…we pulled the numbers last night to see the exact effect the current situation had on the sales…when we look at all methods of digital purchase, that single alone is at over seven million units sold. The video is at almost fifteen million views and seventy nine percent liked. The soundtrack over all is at ten. Your single 'The Fighter' had a respectable first week of digital sales at over four hundred and fifty thousand downloads. We were quite happy with that. It was, to be honest, higher than we really expected. Now the single is number three on the digital charts behind 'Royals' and Mercedes and Jill's duet. The first week numbers had us roll forward 'The Fighter' video shoot and asking that you go forward with the video shoot for 'ColorBlind' as well."

"Wait, I thought that 'Rescue Me' was going to be the first single off of Necessity?" Mercedes spoke up.

Mr. Cohen smiled. "Given everything that has transpired, we think that a love song would be the best way to follow the soundtrack songs. Besides of the songs from the Halloween concert that have been posted on YouTube, it has the most number of views and the highest views to likes ratio."

"Okay," I said with a smile. "So need a concept for 'ColorBlind' instead of 'Rescue Me'…by the end of the elevator ride down three flights…we can do that."

Our boss laughed and rubbed his hands together. "You guys will be fine. You don't have to do it alone. Deborah, Anika and a few other people are waiting on you downstairs who can help you with getting your music to people." He saw us to the elevator and we headed down to the meeting room.

Mr. Cohen must have decided that we'd been around the office enough times that we could find our way ourselves. And I guess it was true, because Puck led us unerringly to the conference room we'd met Anika and Christophe in. waiting on us there we found Deborah, Anika, two other women and a tall thin, visibly British man.

Deborah took control of the introductions. "Mercedes Jones, Noah Puckerman, Sam Evans, please let me introduce Denise Lee; she will help us with storyboarding and determining our casting needs." Ms. Lee was an older woman, older than the Moms…maybe even older than Bubbie Ruth, but younger than Grandma Mae. She was short too. I think she may have even had to look up at Mercedes she was so short. She was dressed in all black, but the outfit looked classic and yet contemporary at the same time. Other than the fact that her hair was a stock of fiery red curls not a sleek black bob, she kind of reminded me of Edna Mole from the Incredibles. But I didn't say that out loud. "Next to her is Valerie Willthorne. Valerie is here to help us developing the concept and to begin the process of ironing out what is feasible wardrobe wise from what isn't." Ms. Willthorne was a tall and slender blonde woman who looked like she was just a little over thirty…she was also looking at Mercedes like she was the last piece of cheesecake in Eileen's. "And last but not least the gentleman is Mr. Nick Knight director of Lady Gaga's 'Born This Way' and Kanye West's 'Black SkkkinnnHeads'."

"Whoa, I'm surprised to see you out and about during the day, Mr. Knight." I blurted out despite the fact that he looked nothing like Geraint Wyn Davies. "Do you drive a sixty two caddy too?"

"Did you know that model really does have the biggest trunk of all modern vehicles?" The tall, thin, so white you knew he was British just by looking at him, man stopped and gave me an assessing look. "There is no way you are old enough to know about that show."

"Trust and believe that if it is obscure sci-fi or fantasy…he knows. His dad weaned him on X-Files and Star Trek: the Next Generation." Puck teased.

"Besides, that show was awesome. Detective Nicholas Knight of the Toronto Police Department was Angel before Angel was well Angel." I defended staunchly. "Oooh for our video, we could do Puck as Angel and me as Nick and have a 'Remorseful Vampire' grudge match."

"You can't do that…there is no way you can have a 'Remorseful Vampire' grudge match without including Louis from Anne Rice...and I don't look anything at all like Brad Pitt." Mercy pointed out.

"Fine…but that's it. Cause those twinkling bastards do not exist in my frame of reference." I shot back.

Deborah, Ms. Lee and Ms. Willthorne all agreed heartily. "While I love the enthusiasm, I have to say that we probably should table that one." Mr. Knight chuckled. We all took seats around one end of the large conference table. We grabbed bagels and schmere, coffee and juice and knuckled down to work. It seemed that by unspoken agreement, we were working on 'The Fighter' video first. "Okay, do we want to go subtle yet on topic, subtle and abstract, overtly on topic or overtly abstract?"

"I don't know what most of what you just said means…" I told him honestly. "I mean, I get the meaning of the individual words, but I guess I'm not getting the context."

Thankfully Deborah realized that the question really had been framed for someone like Gaga or Kanye, someone who'd been in the business for more than a hot minute. "Well, I can share with you the concept I came up with. I consider it subtly overt…meaning that lots of people will feel like it is completely on topic and others just won't get it. What I'd like to do is see you guys in the halls of your old school. You'd make it look like a typical day of what did you call them, 'Slushie facials' and being tossed into garbage cans….Really shine a light on what is going on in too many of our schools. Maybe even set up a scene where Mercedes is in her room looking at her computer and dealing with cyber bullying, really make it something so kids will identify with you."

"Oh, I guess that is good, but Puck and I came up with an idea. All three of us could be in a gym, like Mighty Mick's gym from Rocky. We can be you know hitting the heavy bags and jumping rope…but not Mercy…she can't really jump rope anymore without hurting herself. She learned that when she was trying to teach Stacey and Sarah how to double Dutch. Anyway…we can either look like we're getting ready for a fight, or sparring, or something."

"Or, rather than actually fighting, maybe we can each be dressed as fighters going to the ring. You know that long hallway walk from the locker rooms to the gym." Puck chimed in.

"That could be good." Ms. Willthorn said looking up. "We could have you each singing into an old school interviewer's mic." She started making notes on her iPad. "You know what though instead of you entering an arena and going into a boxing ring, you should enter a regular looking high school gym…bring in Jergens' concept a bit as well, we can set up a boxing ring in the center."

"A metaphor that transfers the literal representation of them as fighters into something more abstract. They aren't fighting each other or their home town or their past, instead they are fighting to make it out of childhood and into adulthood." Mercy summarized the thought process. "It's perfect except, I don't see how I fit in which would be fine if we were talking about 'Rescue Me' where I'm mainly background vocals. But this one is three part harmony."

"I bet you would make a sexy as hell reporter." Puck smiled. "Oh hell yeah, put you in a suit and one of those keyhole dress shirts with a tie really show off your tatas."

I nodded. "You could be the one holding the mic for me and Puck and then when we're in the ring, you can be dressed as s sexy referee."

"You know…rather than go with 'Rocky'; we could go with 'The Wrestler'." Nick said thoughtfully. "If we go with the wrestling concept, they often do interviews where the two combatants are interviewed at the same time by the same interviewer. We could do the walking to the ring shots for Sam and Puck's alternating verses and the three of you in an interview scene for the harmony portions."

Ms. Lee looked up from her pad. "Okay, does anyone have another concept that is fleshed out enough to put forward?"

Mercedes looked up. "I think that my concept is something that could stand alone, but it would work even better at the end of either of the two that are on the table. Kind of a 'this is how good better can be' for the first one and a big F you for the second one. We're a year out from being bullied and slushied and dumped on…well more for me than Sam or Puck, so we show them a glammed up KAMA at the end performing to a large crowd."

Ms. Willthorne chuckled. "I love that. It really is especially important to show that at the end of Deborah's proposal."

"I agree." Deborah chimed in. "I really like that. Maybe we can rent out a club or something. Granted it would need to be a teen club, but there has to be one somewhere nearby, maybe Dayton."

"Lima actually does have an eighteen and under club, Club Exxcess…we have a pretty good relationship with the management. Probably that won't cost us very much at all." I told them truthfully.

Nick was making notes on both of the two ideas. "You came from a show choir right…would they want to act as extras?"

"We couldn't pay them; anything more than dinner and they'd lose their ability to compete." I told them.

"That would actually really help our budget." Deborah chimed in. for the school. "We'll need at least ten to fifteen faces, the people who will be the bullies, the people who might even have a line or something."

"We might be able to help with that too. A couple of our friends were major bullying assholes before they learned the era of their ways, they and the rest of our clique will all be in Lima for their winter breaks too." I pointed out. Azimio could always use the money and I'm sure that Dave wouldn't mind a little extra spending money.

"I bet if we work with Amir and Dougie, they will let us have the club for the night for free as long as we pay for the catering and let them keep all the proceeds from the bracelet and food sales." Puck pointed out.

Mercedes laughed. "They would love that. They'd make all the money from the night's door, the food and beverages and get some pretty damn good publicity."

I looked around really thinking about what was being proposed. The more I thought about it the more I realized that I didn't really like the idea all that much. "Okay, I'm just gonna say this. We just got out of McKinley…I do not want to be one of those people who keeps popping back up at their old high school all the time. Besides, Mercy, do you really want to relive that stuff?"

She looked thoughtful for a second. "You know, I don't mind…even if it does dredge up some bad memories, what if it really helps some kid going through hell everyday at their own school? Isn't that part of what we said we wanted to do with our careers, with our fame…be a beacon?"

I guess Anika saw the look on my face. I didn't give a damn about being a beacon, if it upset Mercedes I didn't think it was worth doing. She also could tell that Mercedes would like that as much as she would like some stranger talking over her food. "Why don't we look through the cost associated with each concept…look at doing it in Lima versus Chicago as originally planned…and we can move forward from there?" she suggested, totally defusing the mounting tension.

Ms. Lee pressed a button and a screen descended from the horizontal bar in the ceiling. She tapped something on her laptop and a spreadsheet was projected onto the screen. "Extras will run us a hundred to a hundred and fifty a head per day. Two fifty to three hundred for the actors with lines."

"Umm excuse me, but how are we going to get the extras?" Mercedes asked curiously.

"We'll go through an agency probably one out of Chicago so that we can get a nice large pool from the same agency." Ms. Willthorne explained.

"Oooh can we use the Gray Talent Group? There is a lady there…Audrey something…Morgan maybe. She was a judge for Regionals last year and she was one of the people I auditioned in front of for the role of Lillian. Every time she has been involved in my day something great has happened." Mercy told them all with a grin. "I'd love to have her involved in the video too. Plus, if they work on commission…couldn't hurt to throw some business her way."

Ms. Lee made a note in her file. "We can certainly look at Gray's and see if they have the type of talent pool we need. Now, to me this shoot sounds like a two day shoot…or we could do it in a day but it would be a two batch shoot, we won't want the same faces in both other than possibly the bullies. With careful planning and costume changes, we can probably get away with getting just about five hundred, and let the real students at McKinley fill the rest of the club. Probably for free. Which puts our casting budget at eighty thousand, now that being said, if we can get the school for less than ten and keep our catering budget under control, we can stay under two hundred to two hundred and fifty thousand."

Good lord that is a whole lot of money. "Whoa." Noah and I groaned simultaneously.

"Don't worry; based on your contract, you're only responsible for ten percent, twenty-five thousand dollars worst case scenario." Deborah said in what I'm sure she thought was a soothing tone.

Puck, Mercy and I exchanged a look. We'd used most of our budget paying for our studio time. I watched as Mercedes started to chew her lower lip, Noah started drumming a beat on the table, only then did I realize that my leg was shaking nervously. "We do don't have…"

Deborah rolled her eyes. But it was Anika who spoke up. "I thought that Mr. Cohen told you about your returns."

I nodded. "He told us that the numbers had been a lot better than they though on the first week and like through the roof now." I summarized.

"Yeah, and you get paid sixty five cent every time someone pays to download your song on Rhapsody, iHeartRadio or Spotify and sixty cents for every iTunes download. And that isn't even taking into account the song writing credit residuals from 'The Fighter'. Since you won't get any of that until just before we film; we can just take your portion of the two videos out before we deposit the money." Deborah said with a smile.

"Oh, okay then." Mercedes said way more calmly than I felt. I personally wanted to stand up and do a damn dance. I didn't know how much that was without getting out a calculator, but I knew it meant a whole lot of money.

"So what are we looking at for the second concept?" Puck asked quietly. We all mentally tabled the 'whoa did we really make as much as she just said we made' discussion for later.

Ms. Lee pulled up a second tab on the same worksheet. The metrics already in place were the same as the first sheet, but she put in a different series of numbers. "Well, first of all, that will definitely be a Chicago shoot. But for casting, we'd only need twenty to fifty extras. That pulls the casting budget down to seventy five hundred dollars. However, it would increase the rest of the budgets across the board. This one would probably be around three hundred to three hundred fifty thousand."

Ms. Willthorne nodded. "We'd need to supply costumes for all the extras for the second concept. The first we can just have them bring several outfits to choose from. That will put the wardrobe cost for the wrestling or boxing video three to four times as high as the one for the high school concept."

Nick saw that we were trying to think everything through and make a final choice right in that moment, so he cleared his throat. "Why don't we think about it for a while and get back to that decision later. We should take a bathroom break and stretch out. Give the big decision sometime to ruminate. The biggest decision we should handle right now is what we want to order in for lunch…I suggest sushi."

"Sorry, I am genetically predisposed to not eating sushi." I told him honestly.

He looked like he was tempted to ask how one can be genetically predisposed to not eating something, but wasn't sure if he wanted to follow my line of thinking. Mercy laughed one of her infectious giggles. "Sorry, but like his father and his father's father before him, Sam does prefer his seafood to be as southern as he is. You know beer battered and deep fried."

"Hey, it doesn't have to be beer battered…just regular batter is fine and you know I love Chinese seafood…shrimp stir-fry is one of the best things in the whole wide world." I defended.

"Can we at least all agree on seafood?" Deborah said calmly. She knew from previous experience that we could argue about food forever.

Ms. Lee shrugged. "I'm not supposed to eat shellfish." She smirked over at Puck. "He isn't either."

Puck grinned. "Unless it's one of the high holidays, I never let that stop me."

"Oh good, I do so hate to be being a bad Jew in front of good ones." She chuckled. "I could definitely go for some shrimp. Sam has inspired me."

"Why don't we order from the Seafire Grill and send one of the interns down to pick it up?" Anika asked with a smile.

"Okay, but we have to order something for the poor schmuck, you're sending into midtown Manhattan during lunch rush." Puck said pointedly. "Do they have decent steaks? I want something that used to have a face."

"See now you've done it. I was thinking I wanted seafood…but a steak sounds like it would be amazing." Mercy groaned. "You know how impressionable I am when it comes to food."

"You're musically impressionable, food impressionable and there is very little we suggest in the bed room that you don't hop all over." I leaned close to her ear to tease. "What aren't you impressionable about?"

Her elbow impacting me in the side was her only answer. She pulled up the menu even as Ms. Lee did the same on the projector. In no time we'd all decided what we were going to get. In their effort to create the perfect lunch surf and turf, Noah was ordering the sliced sirloin open faced sandwich with onions, Swiss, and served on a focaccia roll and Mercedes was getting the top loader lobster roll. Their plan was to cut each in half and share. I'd noticed that since I'd moved to New York, I was eating more like Mercedes and Noah and really just exercising to keep myself in the condition I preferred. Though I wasn't exercising obsessively anymore either. Mom had said over Christmas that I was growing into a more manly shape because my shoulders were getting broader and my biceps were solid and growing. That had made me wonder if it was just a step in my body's natural maturation or if my obsessive eating habits before had been holding me back from growing like I was supposed to. With that thought in my mind, I decided to go for what sounded best to me. I ordered the bone in NY strip steak, for some reason it was only then that we realized that we needed to order sides separately. I went with the lobster mac and cheese, while both of my lovers went with the herb fries. Ms. Willthorne took down everyone's' choices, then asked. "Am I the only one who wants an appetizer too? I'm starving."

Mercedes sighed heavily. "Oh thank God." Noah and I both gave her a surprised glance. She didn't usually care about what she ordered. "Look, I'm good with my body but I cannot be the big girl in the room ordering more food than anyone else. That is not an attractive look. Can I add the jumbo lump crab cakes?"

Nick grinned. "I was doing the same thing. Only I was feeling self conscious about ordering more food than Sam and Puck. You two are both very buff guys. I'm tall and scrawny and my Mum swears I was born with a hollow leg. Put me down for the lobster bisque."

I had been trying to avoid being the one to spend more than anyone else, but if everyone else was adding an appetizer than I could jump all over it. I added the Madagascar garlic prawns, and the calamari but that was for both me and Ms. Lee to share. Puck added the oysters Rockefeller. In the end we ended up with at least order of one of each of the appetizers. In fact the only one sticking with just their entrée, a chilled lobster salad which barely counted as an entree in the first place, was Anika. Then we remembered that we needed to pick out some food for whoever was going to have to go and get the order. As we weren't really sure who it would be, and Deborah was fairly certain it would end up being two of them we ordered the SFG burger with everything on the side and an order of herb fries and a blackened chicken Caesar salad. Since we had to wait for the food to come and Mercy, Puck and I all wanted to see the full budgetary picture for both of the video concepts on the table, Ms. Lee and Ms. Willthorne worked together to get them all fleshed out.

It was kind of crazy all the stuff that went into the pre planning stage of the video making process. Like determining location and venue and what things they would have to rent and what things they could use contacts to bring to bear. It was really kind of awesome. They even did a second budget for the concept if we did boxing over wrestling. Boxing was the cheaper alternative, but it would mean less camera time for Mercedes and since she is KAMA to both me and Puck, no matter how much she disagrees, we both agreed that unless we could figure out how to change that. We'd leave the boxing one to the wayside and focus on deciding between the wrestling and the walk down memory lane.

Once that was complete, Ms. Lee sent it to all of our pads and Mr. Knight came over. "Okay, so now that we have the economics settled. Why don't we look at the emotional, the visceral, reasons you would have for choosing or not choosing each option."

"I want to have some fun," I said honestly. "For me and Puck this is our first, 'making a music video' experience. I mean, 'ColorBlind' isn't gonna be the most fun experience ever. It's going to dredge up some pretty not happy memories all by itself."

Puck agreed. "The only reason I'm leaning to the whole 'walk down memory lane' video concept is because it lends itself more towards adding shots to tie it back into the movie. It is a song from a soundtrack so we're going to have to pull the two together somehow."

"Oh yeah, I hadn't thought about that." I mumbled. "Too bad we can't make both. That would be awesome."

"Well, what you can always do is create a concept portfolio. Have the one you don't use held back and if you write or record a song that it would be perfect for, you can use it then." Ms. Willthorne suggested.

"Alright, now, tell me the story behind 'ColorBlind'. Help me understand where your head space was when you wrote it." Mr. Knight asked with a smile.

"Mercy wrote it." I told him honestly. "Puck and I helped with building the music, but she wrote the lyrics."

Mercedes patted my arm soothingly. I hate thinking about that time. I don't like thinking about any of our fights, but that one sucked the absolute most. "Sam and Noah were having a communication problem. They were both feeling some resentment and having some issues, but they weren't talking to each other about what was going on between them. On top of that, they weren't just pulling away from each other, they were pulling away from me and the more they pulled back, the more it seemed like my world was getting darker and grayer."

Mr. Knight looked thoughtful for a very long moment. Then he went totally into his zone. He grabbed a notepad, a real paper notepad, from some magical, extra dimensional pocket, and started literally sketching out his idea. "I want to start with Sam and Puck in workout apparel, we'll need to get a choreographer and work out a physical demanding faux fight scene. Both of them fighting each other and pulling at Mercedes even as they push her away." yeah we weren't exactly present for him. It will start off in full color, leaching more and more not just color but color and light from the scene until at the end they are in three solo spots, the only color in the scene will be their skin." The scratch of his pin against the paper was the only sound in the room as we all waited with baited breath for him to continue. "Two wardrobe changes, three full outfits. First outfit, something pretty and feminine for Mercedes, colorful…a maxi-dress maybe, diametrically opposed to the workout clothes for Puck and Sam. Change one takes Mercedes to something more severe in a shade of gray, the guys in something similar. Their surroundings are darker, more forbidding. Second change takes Mercedes to something completely outside her usual comfort zone… all black, maybe gothed all the way out, the guys in black slacks and shirts very, very dark gray. The three of them spread far apart in the same room, each in their own spotlight, the skin is the only thing not a shade of black or dark charcoal gray."

Mercedes said quietly, "I'm really good with that one. That sounds amazing."

There wasn't a single voice of dissent. It didn't take us any time at all to work through what we would need to make that happen. Heck Mercedes, Ms. Willthorne and Anika were totally ready to jump on wardrobe and costume design when a guy and a girl not too much older than us entered pushing a rolling cart filled with large, rectangular black take away boxes on the top shelf, plates, real ones, napkins and cutlery on the second shelf and a whole buttload of different drink choices in some ice buckets on the bottom. They set places down at the other end of the table which allowed us to leave everything set up. They seemed confused at the two extra place settings and boxes of food once everything had been set up…they even took the food from the to go boxes and plated it for us. "You two are free to join us, there is a burger with everything on the side for you Tony and Gina, we also got a chicken Caesar salad…or vice versa." Deborah told them nicely. "Be sure to thank KAMA, they were determined that we provide lunch for whoever trudged into the cold to get our food."

"Wow, that's pretty awesome of you guys. Nice to know that I was defending good people on my twitter feed." Gina smiled. "Thanks."

Tony nodded shyly. "You guys are all kinds of cool. Umm, so are we to eat silently while the grown up talk or can I ask you some stuff?"

I shrugged. "I don't care if you talk. In fact, we could probably use some input from our target demographic on which of the video concepts sounds coolest." I told them as they plated their food and took seats near us. I almost geeked out at the thought of having a target demographic…but I kept it under control.

Puck and I sat in our usual position bracketing our lady. Once they completed their sandwich sharing, each sampled a bite of my steak and let me have a taste of their sandwiches, Puck turned to Tony and asked "so what is it you want to know?"

Tony shrugged and finished chewing the French fry he'd just popped into his mouth. "Oh, sorry…I just, I wanted to know how did you guys decide you could be open to something like this. I mean…I just. It's something you've gotta open yourself up to. How did you know that this could work for you?"

Mercy smiled, "the same way that two people in a relationship open themselves up to the fear of being hurt, the fear of rejection. When you feel that connection, that sense of rightness, why would you not open yourself up to it…just because it isn't between one man and one woman? Because it isn't a couple. Because it isn't what people say is correct, say is allowable. No. You love who you love. One day, when you find that connection, you make sure that you do whatever you need to do to nurture it, to care for it, to make it grow and last."

"So you really think you guys are going to last?" Gina blurted out. I couldn't put my finger on why, but something about the enthusiasm with which she asked that question bothered the hell out of me.

Puck gave her one of his quelling looks and nodded. "We don't think it. We know we're going to be together until we are all old and gray."

"How can you be so sure?" She pressed. "The divorce statistics are bad enough for a traditional couple."

"How can we be so sure, how can you be so sure that you are gonna graduate? Because you're working for it. Because you are determined to get your paper. Yeah…the statistics are crap. But that doesn't mean shit for us. People divorce for a whole host of reasons. Infidelity, never gonna happen. That whole growing apart…that's a bullshit excuse. People choose to grow apart, because they aren't willing to put in the work to grow together. We're gonna grow together, we're gonna live in each other's pockets, live together, work together, be together and play together. Don't feel worried about whether or now we're gonna make it last, feel really fucking bad for anyone who tried to separate us."

Gina exchanged a look with Tony. "Okay…I guess that you guys are going to make it. Sorry I impugned your honor." She teased. "So tell us about the concepts you need us to help you decide between."

It didn't take us long to go through the different concepts on the table. I wasn't sure why, but I was also all kinds of annoyed by how quickly Gina jumped all over the boxing concept, to the exclusion of all others. "If you really feel like you have to obviously bring in the movie, as you walk from the locker room to the ring, just have movie stills on the walls as posters." It bothered me that she didn't seem to care that Mercedes would pretty much be left out of the video if we used that concept. However, while the female intern was focused what had become my least favorite concept, I liked the wrestling idea the best, her male counterpart was all about the 'walk down memory lane'. His reasoning was so on point that he, more than anything else that had been said thus far, actually started to change my mind.

"Okay, so here is the main reason that I really like the 'message' video, is because you all need to get two videos done in a very short period of time…that's planned, setup, filmed and edited within the next thirty days. The wrestling concept would take at least twice that long to plan since you would need to reach out to, at the very least, the WWE…but more likely the WWE, TNA and Ring of Honor to see if you can get some of their low card wrestlers because you are not going to find regular extras or models who can really pull off the look. The boxing one would be even worse. Not only do you not have any way to showcase Mercedes yet, but you still need to figure out the logistics of what, exactly you would need for the location. The high school one would be easiest to plan remotely. It will also be fairly easy to do the wardrobe and costuming. Casting would be a lot more straight forward. You say that you already have a great place for the club shots. It sounds like this one could be ready to go before you leave here today."

Deborah, Mr. Knight, Ms. Lee, and Ms. Willthorne launched into a bunch of industry speak that seemed to boil down into a detailed analysis of Tony's points. Mercy had looked like she was thinking really hard about something ever since. "If we do the 'memory lane' concept, we'd be filming in Lima, and I know exactly where we can film 'ColorBlind' also. The stage and the build zone of the April Rhodes Theater…I can even give all the necessary permissions, because I'm one of the seven people April named on the endowment as one of the trustees."

Nick looked up. "I'll have my assistant gather my usual crew and make the arrangements for us to spend the thirteenth through the seventeenth." He grabbed his phone and sent off an email, while Ms. Lee and Ms. Willthorne called up a host of thousands. They released us five hours later…the wardrobing was already started. The locations, McKinley, Club Exxcess, the theatre and some botanical gardens that Nick decided was the very best place to do the full color scene for 'ColorBlind' but I'd never even heard of, and a house that they were renting to do the cyber bullying/bedroom scene, were all secured, and in the necessary places prepaid. Puck and I were pulled to the side and our brains picked about what kind of dance ability we each had, but to be honest, we didn't really understand a lot of what they were asking. Thank God Mike was home when we Skyped him in. Then he and the choreographer dude, Ms. Lee had called up from who knows where, made a date to for them to work together to teach me and Noah the moves we'd need for the 'ColorBlind' video a couple of days before the filming. Mike, traitor that he was, even told the guy not to worry about Mercedes, because she picked up steps in a heartbeat.

When we arrived at the building that housed the Warner offices the sun hadn't risen, when we left the offices, it was dark again because the sun had already set. We made our way on the subway to head over to the AMC Empire Theater where we were scheduled to meet up with Mills, Saul, Neil and Francesca. As we'd gotten to know Ms. Jarrard better, I'd stopped actively wanting to push her into traffic. I still thought that she needed to get over her body image obsession even more than I had, but I didn't sit and seethe whenever she talked anymore. I didn't really want to sit through the movie looking like I had just left the office, a sentiment both Mercy and Noah echoed, but when we arrived and found Saul and the rest were still in their work clothes too. Of course, Neil had the best reason. He was on call so there was no point in him getting out of his 'I'm a doctor' apparel just to, possibly, have to get right back in it.

The movie was just as good the second time as it had been the night of the premiere…though the audience was a lot noisier and talkative in the real theater setting. I was it to bursting with pride for my Mercy at the appreciative words of the audience around us. It was also really surreal. I mean, I was watching a movie on the huge screen and for well over a third of the scenes the woman I loved, who was sitting right beside me, was up there on the screen. Around us, I could hear younger women applauding her in the scene where she stood up to her mother, demanding the right to make her on choices. I could hear the men shuddering in dread, and from the sounds of things some were shivering in arousal, when she read her absentee father the riot act for barely being present in her life and then expecting her to be so happy and forgiving whenever he did pop up. I could hear the younger men in the audience talking about her beauty and how Mercy and Jill together would be the ultimate mom/daughter fantasy. Though that one really threw me. I mean, who had those…mother daughter fantasies. Maybe it was the whole southerner stereotype sensitivity thing, but I didn't like the thought of even quasi-incest…it was really gross.

Since Neil's pager hadn't gone off, we decided to get some dinner together before we headed home. Our flight the next morning was pretty early and we still needed to talk about some of the things we'd learned that day. We stopped into a little place Mercy had wanted to hit because she'd seen it on Diners Drive-ins and Dives. They did have some awesome pitas and the tzatziki sauce was just wow. The fact that they both delivered and catered was like the cherry on the best day ever. We had a great time over dinner, Mills and Francesca had fun making Mercedes blush at all the attention the guys in the theatre had given her character. Saul was telling us that Mrs. Abrams was trying to convince him to take over our portfolio planning. As our accountant on record, she had gotten the same numbers Mr. Cohen had given us, so she was trying to get the right people in place before our album dropped and things went really crazy. I couldn't help but pray that those thoughts went from her lips to God's ears and we continued to be popular once the controversy died down.

Dime, Quarter, Nickel, Penny (Nappy Roots)
Puck PoV

We really didn't think anything about being out and about. Supposedly in New York, no one cared about that kind of thing. That was all well and good in theory, but it was complete and total bullshit in action. After eating a dinner worthy of the Olympian gods, we walked out of Gazala's Place 9th Avenue location and were besieged by new fans, cameras and mics. It took Mills, Saul, Francesca, Neil and three of the restaurant's bus boys to force them back far enough that we could hear ourselves think let alone the questions people were asking. Cede manifested sharpies from her bag and we signed autographs for the fans who asked nicely. Sam and Cede ignored the mean spirited or overly perverted questions certain paps were tossing out and answered a few harmless ones. They even introduced our family members to the slavering hordes…I was busy glaring at the ones looking at Mercedes like she was nothing but a big butt and a smile. Apparently they wanted to know our opinions about the sales of the soundtrack and how the movie's opening night numbers were pretty big for a movie with a predominantly black cast. Though, I wondered for a second who still counted Gary Owens as white. I'd talked with the guy on set one day enough to know that it wasn't like he still wanted be among that category. His reasons were boss too. He got sick of people not realizing his kids were his damn kids. Hell, I was ready to defect my damn self. The second Cede gave me and Sam a pretty little mocha-latte little pumpkin or cute little caramel badass, it was deuces to being anything but their daddy. I forced my mind back to the present before someone caught a picture of me looking at my lovers with a stupid, dopey smile on my face. I was just in time to her one of them say that given the early first night box office returns SongBird was looking like it was going to have a bigger opening weekend than the second Fast and Furious movie or 8 Mile. That rendered all seven of us speechless, which seemed to set off a bomb among the paps and they were all shouting and clamoring again.

The boys in blue arrived and created order from the chaos. They gave us an escort to the nearest train station so the paps couldn't even try following us home. We said goodnight to Neil and Francesca, confirmed our meeting details with Saul and Mills. Even with the delay, we still made it home by midnight. We had a lot to talk about but we also needed to relax in the worse way, so Cede decided that we all decided to run a bath. It wasn't bad. She put in some of that awesome eucalyptus bubble bath that the jets made super frothy. As per our 'clean room' rules, we got undressed in our closet making sure that dirty clothes went into the proper hampers. I wouldn't be shocked if they all made their way into the big, mostly empty, suitcase we were taking home. Cede would hate to leave dirty clothes in the house given how long we were gonna be gone. The night before, she had even told Artie and Brittany to make sure they put all their uneaten food in the freezer if it wasn't going in the garbage.

It was only after we'd been soaking for a while that we finally confronted the massive white elephant that had been sitting among us since earlier that morning. "So…um…are we rich now?" Sam asked quietly.

"Not as rich as Jessie is. She has the songwriter credit for 'Who You Are'…singers make good money, but it's the song writers that get the real, continued residuals." Mercedes said languidly. "Still, our song writer credits for 'The Fighter' aren't gonna be too shabby."

I rolled my eyes. Neither of my lovers were great at math so they weren't able to do the figures in their heads like me. They didn't realize the sheer amounts of money we were talking about. "Right now, before taxes we've cleared about a million or so each, not including the artist cut. That's just our songwriter credit."

"So we can pay the parents back for the house already?" Sam asked sounding confused. I understood the confusion. It was never supposed to be this soon. I'd been thinking that maybe after our whole album returns came in, we'd be able to take the burden off the grown-ups, not off one song on a movie soundtrack.

"No, they won't want us to end up like MC Hammer so no way will they take the whole thing yet. We can give them maybe a year's worth of mortgage payments, but they won't let us give them everything off this first check." Mercedes said still sounding shocked and dazed, but coherent. "We won't let them continue to pay for everything for school though. We'll give back in the ways they won't be able to turn down."

"Kev and Tricie's honeymoon can be one way. I saw this boss ass Sandals package that I wanted to look into saving up for to give to Mom and George, but we can give Sandals to Kevon and Patrice and send Mom and George to Hawaii." I said happily. "Maybe we send Saul and Mills to Monte Carlo…some place where gambling is legal other than Vegas and Atlantic City."

"That's perfect. Then once we get our real returns from our album, we can see about maybe doing something outrageous for them like buying them all brand new cars…or something." Sam chimed in.

Cede's laugh was loud and bounced off the tile and walls. "I'd say we can buy your parents their own house but no way is Momma letting them get away with Sloane let alone Stacey and Stevie."

"Okay, so I say we handle this money like we would if it was a grand rather than a millie. We put some into the college funds for all the younger siblings and Beth. We pick one fun thing we want for ourselves, we set some back for taxes and we save the rest." I said carefully. "Oh and the bomb ass gifts, but we limit those to two hundred and fifty thousand total so a little over eighty three grand each on the gifts, and we can each put ten grand in and divide that among the college funds, keep a limit of what five grand on ourselves, but no new gifts for each other because we just did the rings…that's a good budget right."

Mercedes and Sam both nodded. "Yup, now…enough talking about money, we all know we don't consider really real yet, I say we just celebrate the fact that we're already a third of the way to having a single we wrote go platinum." Cede said her voice a low, seductive purr. So we did. We boned in the tub, then in the shower, then once on the floor in front of Cede's closet because we didn't make it to the bed, and finally once in the bed, because hey, it was our intended destination for the previous round and we kind of felt we should actually use condoms for at least three quarters of the rounds that night.

The next morning we put the house in total lockdown mode, called Rangeman and let the control room know that it would be empty all the way until Kurt and Jamie had to be back on the eleventh, and we still managed to catch a cab and make it to the airport by our predetermined meeting time of eight am. We looked bleary eyed and I prayed that there weren't any paps anywhere nearby cause Sexy Mama would have lost her shit if they put up a picture of her looking like she'd been rode hard and put away wet, especially since she had totally forgotten to cover up the hickey on her cheek when she got dressed that morning. Going home always felt awesome, but it was even more so considering the news that we had to share. I still couldn't believe what our lives were becoming. I was just really happy to be celebrating our second Christmas together, one big ass, badass happy family.

AN:
The next update for this story may be a little while coming. I'm on the home stretch in the work I'm doing for the Out With A Bang challenge over at AO3 and I'm writing a seven chapter side story showing every one the Christmas/Winter break for our beloved New Directions. I'm not going to post it until all seven chapters are ready. So keep an eye out for Si Cela Est Noël, (So This is Christmas) coming soon. Then we will return to this installment with chapter 11.

Thanks for your continued support and patience.

Please continue to read, enjoy and review. (Remember 1 Review/1000 words=author happiness)

TTFN,
Anni