The Wedding Singer,
Written by WickedSong.
Disclaimer : While I don't actually use lyrics in this, I still feel compelled to tell you I don't own the song Someone Like You by Adele or Can You Feel The Love Tonight from The Lion King by Elton John. Oh, and I don't own Avatar either.
Chapter Twelve.
Mercedes greeted her former high school teacher with a hug that next day. While in his early forties now - and his face slightly reflected those eight years that had passed - he still looked like the same old Mr. Schue who would walk into the choir room with a big smile, sheet music and a ton of new ideas. Some good, some not so good. Mercedes and the rest of the former New Directions had had plenty of laughs over the years while remincising about some of the ideas that had passed through the room in those years.
Mercedes had arranged to meet Mr. Schue in the choir room during his free period that day, where he was arranging the music for the Nationals solo. A slow, controlled yet emotional performance of Someone Like You by Adele. A classic, he had insisted, that would score them big points with the judges.
When she asked why he had decided to go back to the usual formula of a ballad and then group number, he explained that it was due to that being the winning formula for the years that they had consecutively taken the Nationals trophy. He was looking for that trophy to find its way back to McKinley this year.
Looking over the music, Mercedes felt the past hit her. She had sung this exact song, eight years ago in front of the glee club, having to find some way to let her feelings show in a medium that they would understand. Of course none of them had got the gist of the song and why she was singing it. In the end they had just thought it was because she could, because it was a good song, not because it could relate to anything that had happened in her life at that point. That was all part of the pretending it never happened though, wasn't it?
Once the pair had decided on the arrangement, talk floated to that of the changes that had taken place within the school in the past eight years. Most of the staff were still there. Coach Sylvester was still the same but she took a more active role in encouraging glee club rather than trying to destroy it every other week while Coach Beiste still coached a winning football team successfully and Ms. Pillsbury (although she was really Mrs. Schuster now but no one had ever gotten used to that) was still the guidance conseuler. She and Mr. Schue had a son even, a four year old, named after his father.
A lot had changed but a lot had also stayed the same.
It was funny that life had a habit of doing that. Changing so much yet so much staying the same, all the alternations making you oblivious to everything that was still around you, never changing, never leaving, always the same, dependable, reliable.
Mr. Schue asked her about her wedding plans and she told him the details that he asked about - the usual that people would wonder about, the church, the reception hall, the food, the usual things - and he told her that he and Mrs Schuester, along with their son, were looking forward to it.
The bell rang and she said her goodbyes to her former teacher as he went to his Spanish class and she left the school building. As she left she heard her phone ring in her pocket and quickly checked to see it was Sam phoning her.
She found herself smiling - perhaps a little too wide - as she answered.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Sam, what's up?"
"Caller ID?" he asked quickly. She nodded but then realised that he couldn't hear her so quickly replied with a yes. "Should have figured. Or maybe you have those mind reading powers too."
She laughed. "Like I said before, and I'll keep saying, you're crazy." Her tone was full of humour and he laughed at this, over the line.
"I don't have a lot of time to talk. Waiting for Stacy and Stevie to meet me so I can take them home," he revealed. "I came up with a song that you might want for the ceremony - or the first dance, I'm not sure."
"Ok," Mercedes asked, sounding unsure at first but then telling him, "Go ahead."
"How cheesy do you think Can You Feel The Love Tonight would be really?" he asked, sounding unsure as well but gradually more confident in his selection of that song.
"The Lion King? Really?" Mercedes stood out in the sun, leaning on the door of her car now, looking down at the concrete under her feet before answering, "I actually kinda like that."
"Really? I thought you'd tell me it would be too..."
"Cheesy?" she asked, reiterating his word he had just used to describe it. Yes, it was a song that was probably overplayed at weddings or any other romantic event and while it may have never been her first choice she had to admit that it sounded quite perfect for the occasion. "Aren't all the songs for the first dance kinda cheesy anyway?"
"Yeah, but they're classics, romantic, aren't they?" Sam replied, challenging her point.
Mercedes pondered this but before she could reply, she heard other voices on his end. "Is that the little rascals themselves?" She grinned at using the nickname she hadn't used in so long for the younger Evans' siblings.
"Not so little and not so cute anymore, trust me," Sam replied. "Can you two be quiet for a second while I say goodbye!" He exclaimed this to the two, Mercedes assumed and she gave a hearty laugh, remembering that he had always been as parental and strict with his siblings as he had been loving and caring to them. It was what made him such a good big brother.
"Well, tell them I said hello. I'd better let you go now."
"Yeah, I'll talk to you later. I'm planning on coming down to Ohio in a couple of weeks. Rachel invited me to that glee reunion party, so we can talk then about the song," he said back to her.
"Sounds great." She hung up and got into her car, all the while humming the tune to the song he had suggested happily as she drove home.
"Who was that? And you're going down to Ohio again? It seems like you're never home anymore." Stevie bombarded his brother with questions almost the moment he was off the phone and Sam held his hands up in mock surrender, before starting the truck and driving in the direction of the apartment.
"It was none of your business, again none of your business and I have stuff I have to do. You'll understand one day," Sam replied, simply, trying to avoid the topic.
Stacy spoke up. "It wasn't Danielle, was it?" She sounded genuinely concerned, or was that hopeful, that it wasn't his ex girlfriend.
Sam shook his head. "Nope, Danielle and I...we're different. She's a great girl and she's gonna find some awesome guy but I'm not that guy."
Stevie punched his brother in the arm playfully, probably not the best thing to do while he was driving, but Sam shook it off quickly. "You are awesome, Sam."
"Yeah," Stacy piped up from the back. "But if I can say, Danielle was alright. Sometimes she'd be really nice, other times she'd be over, seeing mom or dad while you were out of town and asking where you were, who you were seeing, all that stuff." She shrugged.
Sam sighed. "Well, that's part of the reason we broke up, Stace," he revealed. "Look, let's just not talk about it." He didn't feel at all comfortable having this conversation with his brother and sister at the present time. "If you must know, it was Mercedes and yeah, I'm going back down to Lima but not for a couple of weeks. Rachel, you remember Rachel, is having a New Directions reunion. She asked if I wanted to go and I said yes."
Stevie made an 'ooooh' noise, like the kind of one an immature child would make, before launching into a verse of that song that went 'sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g' but Sam was spared the singing from his brother - and his sister for that matter. "Do you still like her?"
"Who? Danielle? I thought I told you that I-"
"No, 'Cedes," replied Stevie.
Sam had been hoping he had meant Danielle, even if would have meant explaining something he had just told them a couple of moments ago.
He shook his head quickly. "No, no, we're just friends." He looked at his brother, quickly, before turning his eyes back to the road. "Why would you ask?"
Stevie shrugged and Stacy was the one to answer. "Look, I know it's been a lot of years since you've seen her or talked about her but when you do now, you get this kind of glow about you. No wait, that's not how to describe it. Stevie, help me out."
Stevie gave a grunt. "You look happier than you did with Danielle sometimes. Or any of your other girlfriends. You two would have been something awesome."
Sam was stunned into silence by their observations but quickly regained his speech just as they pulled up in the apartment block's parking lot. "Guys, I know it seems that way but we're two different people now. Not to mention the fact that she's engaged and I'm the one singing at her wedding. There's nothing there."
Stacy sighed as if it were a lost cause. "Quinn was right about you two."
"What does Quinn have to do with this?" Both of his younger siblings looked away from him innocently. "Guys, tell me."
Stevie shrugged his shoulders again. "Just that you two ran around in circles. She ran away from her feelings after you left and you just did the same when you didn't go to Quinn's party in Lima." Sam was about to ask how they knew about that. "We like Quinn. We still talk to her."
Sam spluttered, trying to find words but he couldn't. Obviously his younger brother and sister were a lot more insightful that what he gave them credit for. "Well, that's just not true. Just go, tell mom and dad I'll be in in a minute. Have to make a call."
He got his phone out as Stevie and Stacy left the car.
Quinn answered surprisingly quickly. "Hello." She sounded cool, confident, clear.
Sam could only feel like he had been completely ambushed by her telling his siblings about the party. He had, all those years ago, just told his parents it had been cancelled and they had never bothered to follow it up with any other questions. "Circles, Quinn? We run around in circles? What does that even mean?"
"Excuse me?" she asked but then she realised what he was talking about. "Oh," she replied. "So Stevie and Stacy were talking to you then? Look Sam, I'm sorry. It was a couple of months ago, when I was visiting and I told them she was engaged. They're not little kids anymore. I'm not going to give the excuse of you had to move and she moved on because it's not as clear cut or simple as that. Life isn't as clear cut and simple as that."
"Just a little heads up would have been nice," he countered. "Plus, when did it become their business or even yours?"
"I'm not just your friend Sam. Mercedes is my best friend. So it became my business then. And when you paraded it in front of everyone at Nationals. You're lucky there was the whole issue with the kiss otherwise your hug would have been the gossip fodder," Quinn replied harshly. She didn't mean it to be so mean but she had to get her point across. "And it's because neither of you have even dealt with your feelings. Have you told her yet how much it hurt to know she had a new boyfriend after you left and so quickly? And I'm sure she's not explained how crushed she was."
"How do you pick up on these things?"
Quinn didn't reply straight away. "I can't just see it. This isn't over for her, Sam, and it isn't over for you either, not by a long shot. Three weeks, three months, three years. It doesn't matter how long. All that matters is that you may have moved on, but all you did before that was push everything to the bottom."
Sam knew she was right. "Why are you just a fashion columnist? I thought at this stage you'd be an agony aunt or something?"
Quinn gave a small laugh. "I have to go now. Michael's coming in from Chicago and we're going on a date so promise me the next time you're in Lima, you'll have a proper conversation with her."
He sighed in defeat. "I promise Quinn."
"Thank you."
With that the pair said their goodbyes.
Sam looked down at the steering wheel and thought it over in his head. It had been eight years and he was finally going to have to go after the resolution he had been searching for all this time.
"Woah, this movie is old," Shane commented as he walked in to find that Mercedes was watching Avatar on the television.
"Take a break from packing and come watch with me," Mercedes replied with some enthusiasm. She did enjoy this film, although she hadn't watched it in years so she couldn't remember exactly what it was about it that made her so eager to watch.
Shane complied and sat down next to her, wrapping her up in his arms and the two nuzzled close together to watch.
Finally it hit Mercedes and she felt incredibly awkward being so close to her fiance while watching it.
She quickly shot out of the hug and stood up, turning the T.V off while doing so. "You know, I just remembered that we haven't finished the forms for the reception hall yet. We really should do them now." She hastily turned to the table where the forms lay.
Shane looked at her confused. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," she assured him.
He took this as her just being nervous and anxious due to everything going on.
Little did he know the truth.
"I hope you're happy that you have me watching this," Mercedes announced to Sam, as they snuggled closer on her couch and watched her brother's edition of Avatar. It had been raining, odd for the summer time but raining all the same, and she had suggested they watch it, after he had mentioned in the passing that he had had to sell his own copy of the DVD during the financial problems of his family.
"Oe ma lrr hu nga," had been his reply in the made up language, and they continued to watch the movie, Mercedes not wanting to ask what it meant but knowing it was sweet.
Mercedes looked at her fiance, as they filled in the forms and Quinn telling her that she had to deal with her feelings for Sam, that she had only pushed away, not actually got rid off, came back to her.
She knew she had to. And soon.
Because she couldn't help but grin when she thought of Avatar, and the made up language and those made up words.
When she had asked what he had said he had replied, "I am happy with you."
She had never smiled so hard in her life.
Ooooh, long chapter is long. And yeah, we're now hitting 'they're gonna have to deal with their stuff now' so that is good. Yet again, I love Quam/Fabrevans friendship! And Quinncedes friendship! And bonding with the siblings. And Samcedes! Especially Samcedes watching Avatar. I've never seen the film myself though.
Erm, not a very long author's note since I'm all worded out with this chapter. Hope you enjoy,
WickedSong x