Apologies for all the spelling/grammar errors in the previous fic. I was typing it up until literally the last moment before I had to jet off to work, and I didn't make time to go back and spell check or anything. Anyways…enjoy this next chapter!

December 2011

"Okay seriously, Sam? Who taught you how to wrap a present?"

Sam blushed as he stared down at the gift box between his legs. Puck, Lauren and Abby were over; he and Puck got in a little bit of work done but took a break for lunch and a little Christmas present wrapping. Lauren was standing over Sam with Abby on her hip, wondering what sort of contraption Sam had turned Mercedes' Christmas gift into.

"No one taught me," he admitted, pursing his lips at the present. "Does it really look that bad?"

"Well…" hesitated Puck.

"Yeah," answered Lauren. She shifted Abby and held her out to Puck, "Here, hold Abby for a sec while I fix this."

Puck held their sleeping daughter in his lap while Lauren bent over and swiped the present from Sam. He watched her tear off the gift wrap, snatch up the roll scissors and start over. "Thanks, Lauren," he muttered, still embarrassed.

"Yeah, yeah. It's a good thing you had the department store do it for you with her present last night."

Puck chimed in and asked, "What'd you get her this time?"

Sam shrugged in an attempt to seem nonchalant and told him, "Just a necklace. I noticed she wears them a lot so I figured she might like it."

What he left out in talking to his friends was that he'd spent a solid twenty minutes staring at necklaces in Macy's. There were so many he thought she'd like but the one he settled on—the one he felt she would love the most was a sterling silver necklace with tiny, alternating pearls and heart pendants. Each little heart allowed for a charm to be linked to it.

"So what's up with you two? You're acting more and more like a couple. Are you two official now or what?"

Sam looked to Puck and briefly wondered the same thing. He and Mercedes acted very much like a couple at work; sitting on each other's laps, poking one another's cheeks, treating one another to little snacks or flowers and sometimes sharing lunch. After work ended, sometimes Mercedes would stay a little longer to get a little homework done, or she and Sam would take a little walk to the park nearby. One time, he talked her into sitting on one of the swings and he gently pushed her while trying out one of his impressions on her.

"'Look at the stars. The great kings of the past look down at us from the stars.'"

She laughed while asking him, "Boy, there aren't any stars out right now. Are you making fun of my dad? I know he's got a deep voice and all but—"

"No! N-no, no, no, no," he laughed, "That was James Earl Jones."

"James Earl Jones?"

Right away, he grabbed the swing chains to stop and looked down at her. "You don't know who James Earl Jones is?" When Mercedes stared blankly at him, he went on to list, "Star Wars? Lion King? Coming to America?"

"So what was that quote from?"

"The Lion King! Mercedes, you not knowing James Earl Jones made me die a little inside. Thanks a lot."

She laughed, triggering a smile on his face, "Well I guess we'll have to watch The Lion King again and refresh my memory, huh?"

"Hellooo? Earth-to-Sam?"

He snapped out of his memory, becoming attentive to Puck's snapping fingers waving in front of his face. "Sorry, um…we haven't really made anything official. But…I'm usually pretty old fashioned about dating and I can tell she is too."

"How?"

"Well, she's not big on PDA in front of her parents. I can respect that. And I don't wanna just decide for us that we're dating. I want to ask her first if that's what she wants. It's kind of why I got the necklace."

"Y'know…" Lauren interjected again, "I may not be bffs with Mercedes—we hung out a little bit and I did the glee thing one year with her—but one thing I can tell you is she's definitely not Janelle."

At the sound of his ex's name, he internally snarled. He had seen her for a moment the previous night while they were celebrating with Mercedes.

"You really don't like Breadstix, do you?" she'd asked him.

Only then had he realized he was grimacing but he shook his head and offered her a faint smile, "It's not the restaurant. Just…my ex works here as a line chef. Things didn't really end on good terms with her."

"Was that on her or you?"

He was a little taken aback by her bold inquiry, but he quickly answered, "Her. She's insane. We kept fighting, and…it just wasn't working."

"Yikes. Well, remind me of her insane self the next time I suggest we come here."

He smirked at her and said, "Don't worry—I will."

Returning to the present, he told Lauren, "Yeah, I know she's not. Trust me."

"So then don't feel like you need to constantly buy her stuff. Mercedes seems like a genuine girl who likes genuine things. I can tell she's already falling for you, so don't try so hard to impress her with clothes and jewelry all the time."

"She's right, Cap." Sam looked over as Puck said, "Dig back to your dating ways, pre-Linda Blair."

Lauren snickered and Sam smirked. He hadn't realized that he'd been so…changed by Janelle but his friends were right. Buying gifts all the time was not his way of impressing someone he wanted to be with. It wasn't really who he was; he'd been more fond of making gifts to give, and thinking a little more out of the box to show his affection whenever possible.

"Hey, you guys wouldn't mind if I tried getting a start on that today, would you? I think I know how I can show Mercedes me—the 'I'm a pretty simple guy who just wants you to know I care about you'-me."

"Oh yeah?" asked Puck, "What's your plan?"

"He pointed to the fireplace and said, "Popcorn, hot cocoa with a fire and just us talking and enjoying each other's company. She and I can figure out what we are, and maybe I'll play us a little Christmas music."

"Hmm…romantic," noted Lauren with a casual tone. "We'll be outta your hair soon, Sam. This will give Puck and I a chance to get on the road with Abby before the traffic to Chicago gets nuts. And here." She held out the long, narrow neatly re-wrapped necklace box.

Sam accepted it back and nodded, "Thanks," before sticking it underneath his sad-looking tree. All the presents bagged under his three-foot Charlie Brown tree were gifts for his friends, as well as several he'd be taking with him when he went to Kentucky for Christmas.

"When are you gonna tell her?" asked Lauren. "You know, about you being the baby's dad and all."

Sam watched her prop what remained of the gift wrap near his tree while he told her and Puck, "I was thinking once I got back from Kentucky, so…next week, just after Christmas."

"In person, right?"

"Yeah. I don't think this is the kind of bombshell you should drop over the phone. Plus the whole point of me waiting in the first place was not to freak or stress her out more."

"Well," spoke Puck, "That and you were worried she was gonna think you had some crack-headed addiction to being a dad, or something. Right?"

"That too," added Sam. He knew his desire for kids at such a young age was unusual, but it was also unusual to go through the events he had gone through at his age. But no matter his reason for wanting a family at the present, he had been as genuine with Mercedes as he possibly could be, ever since he first met her in the park.

As Lauren got Abby's things together, Puck stood up and made to say 'goodbye' to his best friend. "Enjoy your Christmas, Cap. Abby, Lauren and I should be back from Chi-Town before New Year's Eve. "

He and Sam exchanged a one-armed hug and Sam pressed a gentle kiss to the top of Abby's wisps of dark brown hair. "Have fun, Abbster."

"Oh and put your Hanukkah gift to use," ordered Puck while walking to the front door. He followed Lauren out and Sam escorted them from behind.

"Will do," he said with a smirk and then closed the door. On his way to picking up his cell phone off the couch, he grabbed the book from the coffee table; Be Prepared: A Handbook for New Dads, gifted to him from Puck. He took it with him upstairs to put in his bedroom and add to the other baby books he owned, all the while listening to the dial tones and waiting for Mercedes to answer.

"You need to talk to him, Mercedes."

"I don't know if I can," she replied in a near inaudible tone. "Not yet." She was lying curled up in her bed, feeling bogged down from the restless night with hardly any sleep. Her phone was resting on one side of her face while her hand kept rubbing her stomach in a soothing manner. "What if she really is right?"

Kurt sighed, "Mercedes, I know all that stuff his ex told you sounds…kind of plausible but you've got to hear it from him. At least give him a chance to explain and then decide for yourself."

"But what if he lies to me, Kurt? If she's right, then he's been lying to me all this time; God knows how long he's known…" She froze and then quickly sat up. Realizing yet another thing, she sighed, letting her head fall into her hand.

"What?"

"Kurt I'm such an idiot," she whimpered—her eyes filling with tears again. "I've been working with him almost every day. How did I not see? And after I told him…she's right. After I told him about the baby, he started buying all this baby stuff and he'd always ask me 'how's the baby?'" she made a sad attempt to mock his voice at that question. "And if he'd known before I told him then of course he wouldn't say anything until I said something."

As she groaned into the microphone end, she heard Kurt say, "Okay you're not an idiot. And I still say you need to talk to him. Why are you gonna let his ex ruin everything for you when you haven't even given him a chance to explain?"

"Because what she said all made sense." She sniffled and went on to say, "It made sense for why we ran into him at the clinic; it makes sense why he's so interested in my baby, and why he's been so nice to me—offering me a job and buying me things."

"Alright I'm still gonna play Sam's advocate since you seem bent on believing his ex. Maybe she's right about him being at the clinic for a surrogate. So what? He wants kids, and remember he had cancer so maybe he's livin' la carpe diem life or something. And you've seen him with Puck's little girl, right?"

"Yeah?"

"So that shows he's at least good with kids. Then there's his interest in the baby. If the baby is his, then why wouldn't he be interested and why wouldn't he want to make sure you're both well taken care of? You'd be the mother of his child."

"It's my child too," Mercedes vehemently declared.

"I know, Mercedes," Kurt replied calmly. "I'm just saying, from his point of view…this baby has two parents and yes you're one of them but Sam could be the other. And what if he hasn't known all along that you were the one who got injected with his swimmers, hm? He could just be trying to make up for all the time he hasn't been around to help you."

Mercedes sighed, running her hand through her hair, "Why can't you be on my side, Kurt?"

"You know, because you're pregnant right now, I'm going to forgive your momentarily lapse into sounding like Rachel Berry and just remind you that I am on your side. I'm trying to help you figure this out without having tunnel vision. Look, the worst that could happen is that yeah—Sam turns out to be a selfish, manipulative dick with a fetish for fathering a child. But what if he's not, Mercedes? What if he really didn't know before? And what if he just wants to take care of you and your baby as best he can?"

"It still doesn't explain why he wouldn't have come out and told me when I told him I was pregnant last month. He's known for almost a month, at least about this baby. Why wouldn't he say something to me? Even if he wasn't sure he was the father but at least thought it might be him?"

"I don't know. But that's all the more why I keep saying you need to talk to him."

Before she could reply, her phone beeped one long tone, grabbing her attention for the moment. "Speak of the devil," she mumbled while glancing at the caller ID.

"Talk to him," insisted Kurt. And without giving her a chance to respond, her call with Kurt dropped.

Please leave reviews! Posting the next chapter VERY soon. Also if anyone's curious about a Charlie Brown tree…just Google "Charlie Brown tree" to get a visual of what Sam's tree looks like. If I remember to, I'll explain my little bit of foreshadowing about his tree, for those who may not catch it by the end of this chapter.
Also, I'm not sure if I PM'd everyone who wanted the Taco Soup recipe but if you asked me for it and I haven't sent it to you yet, PM me again and I'll get it sent to you!