Hi all, I hope you all are well and still in a celebratory mood. Last day of 2020...wow! Time sure flies, although, many around the world wasn't and isn't having fun. Anyway, I would like to take this opportunity to wish you and yours the very best for 2021 and beyond. I wish you peace, joy, happiness, contentment and so much love, you'd have no choice but to share it. Blessings to all of you, always.

Thank you for your continued patronage, well wishes and everything in between.

I do not own Glee or the characters, neither do I own Head Over Heels.

Last chapter, but a short epilogue will follow.

"If they don't have good adventures in heaven, I'm not going."

Mercedes Jones

Every muscle in Sam's body tightened, as he heard Mercedes' attempt at a hoarse scream and then the beep of the call being cut off.

After that, a dozen horrible images raced through his mind, but he curtailed them, swerving around slower cars as he called Agent Fletcher.

The DEA agent was still pissed at him for not being available, when he'd been needed last night, and when Sam told him he wasn't waiting for backup, as he raced towards Mercedes' last-known location, the man started to tear him a new one.

But Sam didn't give a shit.

The job, the bust, the drugs, none of it mattered.

The whole world could go fuck itself if something happened to Mercedes, he thought.

He waited for Agent Fletcher's rant to end, confirmed the location one more time, and clicked off.

There was no stopping him.

Rick Milano, had been the missing link, the big dealer the DEA had been looking to nail. It all made perfect sense.

Sam knew Fletcher's team would get Milano on the road or at his compound. In fact, he was certain of it.

What he wasn't certain of...what he was terrified of...was what was happening to Mercedes right this very second.

He wasn't far from the B&B, but every second felt like an hour.

'If that fucker touches one hair on her head, he's going down,' Sam thought.

He had no more mercy left.

He cut the sirens and the lights as he approached the turnoff.

When he pulled up at the inn, Tessa was standing on the porch holding her cell phone.

"Mercedes called," she said. "I think she's in trouble."

"Which trail?" Sam asked, his face a mask.

Right at that moment, Tenny came around the corner.

"I'll show you," he said and both moved off.

The guys moved to the marina building, and poor Tenny was doing his best to keep up, but he was breathing hard.

"There," he said, pointing the way. "That one."

Sam knew the trail all too well.

It was the same one, that he, Jackson, and Noah had taken the night they'd seen the odd flare.

It was also the trail to the hidden clearing, where he and Trent had partied through their high school years.

"Stay here," he said to Tenny. "More people are coming. Tell them which way I've gone."

At that, he drew his gun.

No matter what happened, Mercedes was coming out of this in one piece, but he made no guarantees about anyone else.

Trent had his arm across Mercedes' throat. Just tight enough, that a regular person would have trouble breathing.

But she'd passed trouble, halfway to his truck.

"This is just great," he muttered, dragging her along with him. "Fucking great. I spent a year trying to get your fucking attention, and you could give a shit. And now that I'm headed out, you want a piece of me."

"I don't..."

He tightened his grip on her, cutting off her words.

He smelled of sweat and fear, and his body shook with tension, as he walked her forward.

There was a gun in his free hand...a semiautomatic, Mercedes noted...and hoped the safety was on, because he was swinging it around like a laser pointer.

"I'm not going back to jail," Trent said, his jaw pressed to Mercedes'. "Not even for your sweet ass. But I can't let you go, either."

"Yes, you can. It's Milano, right? It's all him. You..."

Again he tightened his grip, and she choked.

"Shut up," he said. "Shut up and listen. I'm not taking the fall for Milano. Hell, no! And I'm not narcing him out, either. The fucker is crazy. He'd kill me for sure."

"No..."

"You should be worried about you, Mercedes," he said. "Our fun is over. I could've had you that day at the mud springs. That pisses me off. You were hot for me up until then, but something changed."

"I was never hot for you," she managed.

"Liar! But after that, Sam had you. That pissed me off, too. You're not his usual type."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know what it is about you, but you jump knee deep in shit all the time and still come out smelling like a rose. I fucked with the boats at the marina," he said. "I told everyone that you were pissed off at your sisters and wanted to get out of this place. I thought everyone would blame you, but no one did, no one even believed the rumors. Nothing sticks to you. Too bad you can't teach me that trick," he said almost wistfully.

"I don't..."

He tugged viciously on her hair.

"We're gonna load up now, and then we're getting the hell out of here. Just be a good girl. That's all you gotta do."

Todd marched her passed a burnt-out tree, then headed for a wild mass of Manzanita bush, canopied by two-hundred-foot pines.

There was something different about the lush growth. It looked like the rest of the forest, but then it kinda didn't, and Mercedes struggled to inhale again.

She didn't know what would happen if she passed out...Trent wouldn't lift a finger to help her...that much she knew.

"Stay," he said, and the minute he removed his arm from her neck, she dropped to her knees.

She was gasping, shaking, sweating, and freaking out in general, but he pointed the gun at her, and she sat back on her haunches.

"Jesus. I'm not gonna hurt you, as long as you shut up."

"I…can't...help it."

"Do you have to gasp like that? I'm not even touching you. Shut the fuck up!"

She was trying.

Not that she believed him about not hurting her.

God, she hoped Tessa wasn't following the trail at this moment, trying to find her.

Or Sam.

She was afraid Trent would shoot anyone who came upon them. Hell, she was afraid he'd shoot her.

She was going to die, either by Trent's hand or by suffocation, and she hadn't told anyone how she felt about them. She hadn't said the words, because she was a goddamn chicken, and now she was gonna die, and they'd never know.

Not Sam, and not her sisters.

It wasn't right, and she was so mad at herself and Trent right now, that she could shoot him herself.

"Get up," Trent said. He was holding several bundles in his arms. "Mercedes I fucking mean it! Get up or I'll drag you."

If she could, she would. She'd get up, punch his lights out, and run like hell.

Except, she couldn't run.

Not even on a good day, which, this wasn't shaping up to be.

She couldn't do anything, but attempt to inhale. And she certainly couldn't get any more terrified, which sucked.

And here she thought, she'd been afraid of three little words.

What a joke.

Trent dropped the load in his truck and turned back to Mercedes, just as she caught some movement out of the corner of her eye.

At first, she thought it was a deer, but then she realized it was Sam.

It had to be.

In front of her, she heard the unmistakable sound of a belt being pulled loose from denim.

For a second, she got frightened in a whole new way, then realized, Trent was going to tie her up using his belt.

Still holding his gun, he moved behind her.

Her vision started wavering, so she closed her eyes and concentrated on the little air that she was getting, waiting for an opportunity to help Sam.

Mostly, she wanted to get Trent before Sam shot him.

She wanted first blood, dammit.

The snap of a twig sounded as loud as a gunshot, making Trent grab Mercedes by the throat and spin her around.

"Let her go, Trent," Sam said, stepping right into his line of sight, his gun aimed, his face so fiercely determined, that Mercedes forgot to breathe...

Until Trent squeezed her throat again.

He hadn't gotten her hands tied as yet, and she clawed at his arm around her neck, her vision graying at the edges.

"Drop your gun," Trent grated out. "Or I'll shoot her dead."

'Not going to be necessary,' Mercedes thought hazily.

"There's no reason to hurt her," Sam said, moving slowly but steadily forward. "The DEA is five minutes away. And they've got Milano. They got him on the highway and he's in custody. It's over, Trent. Don't make things even worse."

"Worse? How could it be worse? You've fucked me over for the last time, man. I'm not going back to jail. You know what they did to me in jail? You were still seventeen. Why the hell didn't you tell them that you were driving? All you had to do was say you were driving!"

"I was unconscious, you asshole! We both were. They found us in the car. We never should have been drinking and driving. You know it as well as I do. And you were driving!"

"Yeah, well, easy for you to say. You got juvie, and I got hard time for second-degree murder. You think I ever had a chance for anything after that? Eighteen, and my life was fucking over."

"It's only over if you don't walk away from this. Let Mercedes go, and I'll do what I can for you. I swear it, Trent. I know you didn't mean for our friends to die. Nobody wanted that. For what it's worth, I'm sorry it was you driving. I really am."

Mercedes' eyes drifted shut.

She felt Trent look down at her, and she used the last of her strength to twist and bring her knee up, hard between his legs.

He let out a strangled, high-pitched cry, and then she was free.

Free to tell Sam that she loved the stupid kid he'd once been, that she loved the man he'd become now, and that she always would.

But free of Trent wasn't the same thing as home free.

She fell, bracing for the hard ground rushing up to meet her, but she never felt it.

Sam had spent lots of time in the ER.

He'd brought in injured suspects, he'd gone to interview witnesses, and he'd been there not three months ago, after a power tool incident, when Noah had accidentally stapled his thumb to a shelving unit he'd been building.

But until now, Sam had never sat in a tiny, cramped ER cubicle, with panic gripping him by the balls.

He stared at the woman in the bed.

Pale and clammy.

Him not her.

Though she was ambit ashen.

Her hair still had flecks of dirt in it. The silky strands had long ago escaped the hair band, to riot around her face.

He might have stroked it back, but the nurse was hovering, moving like a busy bee around them...giving Mercedes a breathing treatment, hooking up the monitors, checking the nebulizer, and supervising oxygen levels.

And all the while, the nurse's mouth was moving, too, though she may have been speaking Chinese, for all Sam was paying attention.

He couldn't do anything but look at Mercedes, because, if he took his eyes off her, she might stop breathing again.

So he pulled a chair as close as he could get next to her bed and watched her struggle.

Even with the nebulizer and the corticosteroids and the Beta-2 agonists, she still wasn't out of the woods. But at least her lips weren't blue, and she was starting to get some color back.

Christ, it'd been close, too fucking close, and he'd never been so scared in his life.

And hoped never to be...ever again.

The nurse finally left and in her wake were the beeping monitors, hissing oxygen, and the steady patter of people moving up and down the hallways, on the other side of the curtain.

Momentarily, Mercedes opened her eyes, and Sam felt as though, he'd taken his first real breath, in the past hour of hell.

He had no idea what to say.

And he was still struggling to think of something, when she pulled the mouthpiece of the nebulizer from her mouth and spoke first.

"Did I miss the Jell-O? I really like it when they give me Jell-O."

His throat constricted.

"I'll get you an entire tray."

Mercedes reached out and took his hand, running her icy fingers over his knuckles, which were raw and red and a little swollen, from where he'd punched the outside wall of the hospital.

That was his form of stress relief.

"Mercedes..." he said, but her eyes were closed again.

She'd replaced the nebulizer and fallen back to sleep.

Two minutes later, Tessa and Maylene arrived.

And Tessa sat in the chair that Sam vacated for her, while Maylene moved to Mercedes' other side, the two of them staring down into her face.

"She's so damn much a part of me, that I feel like I can't breathe either," Maylene whispered, her hand to her own heart.

"Luckily, she's stubborn enough to breathe for the both of you," Tessa said.

Sam nearly smiled at the truth of that statement, as he looked down at his vibrating phone.

Agent Fletcher was here and needed to talk to him...code, for yell at him.

Sam rose and met him in a hallway, where he spent the next ten minutes, explaining exactly why he'd broken protocol and hadn't waited for backup.

Fletcher listened, both pissed off and acknowledging that Sam had nailed Trent.

Of course, it hadn't been him at all, but Mercedes, and a well-placed knee, leaving Trent in possession of one dislocated nut and in the process, relieving him of possession of his entire stash.

The DEA had their case and the drugs, and there were a lot of drugs.

Milano had been even bigger than they'd thought, and he was already singing.

Trent had been making some side deals, storing most of his own shit in his duplex attic, but when Mitchell ratted him out, he'd had to change his plans and quick.

So, he rigged up some duck blinds in the woods, the way they'd done with their booze when they'd been kids, covering it with the military camouflage netting.

It was a stupid idea. But Sam was done wasting a single second of his time, thinking and worrying about Trent.

Life was too short.

Mercedes woke up with a little start.

"I got him in the nuts!"

Tessa and Maylene, both seated at her side, smiled.

"You sure did," Tessa said. "Proud of you, sugar."

Mercedes smiled, relieved it was over.

"So, is it that you don't have enough work at the B&B and the spa, that you had to add crime fighting to your résumé?" Tessa asked.

Mercedes choked out a low laugh.

Then, she sat up a little, testing her lungs, and was relieved to find herself in relatively good working order.

"I...um...thought of something when I was out there."

"Before or after you spoon-fed Trent his left family jewel?"

Mercedes smiled, pleased with herself.

"Before. Actually, way before. I thought of it a while back, but…well, to be honest, I can't explain the why or how, of what took me so long."

'That's how love works,' she thought.

It was confusing and messy and wonderful and real.

God, so real. And she'd meant it.

It had been growing in her for a while. But right here, right now, looking at her hodgepodge family crowded around her, she felt it expanding inside of her even more, like her chest was going to explode.

In a good way for once.

"In the mud springs last night, Tessa teased me for having an epiphany. And she was right, I was having one," Mercedes said.

"You 'bout done with it yet?" Tessa asked.

"Yeah, I believe I am. But I want you to know, once I tell you, it's not an all-access pass to any group hugs. Those need to be put on the schedule in advance."

She drew a deep breath, or as deep as she could anyway, and said,

"I love you. I love you both."

"Well, would you listen to that." Tessa's tone was dry, in direct contrast to her suspiciously wet eyes. "You just emotionally compromised yourself and lived to tell the tale."

There was a knock on the open door, and they all looked up at Sam standing there, his eyes locked on Mercedes.

Yes, she'd just emotionally compromised herself.

And she was about to do it again.

"The nurse says you'll be out of here in less than an hour," Sam said. "Need a ride?"

Mercedes looked at her sisters, and Maylene jumped up, grabbing Tessa by the hand.

"Oh, that would be great. We're expecting a few scheduled guests, and…"

"Just say good-bye, sugar," Tessa said, shaking her head. "And remind me, to teach you how to lie better than that."

And then, they were both gone.

An hour later, Mercedes was dropped down on Sam's couch and was gruffly told to "hang on."

She sat on the couch, shivering.

"I'm n-not c-cold. It's just what happens sometimes after a bad asthma attack and all the meds," she said.

Her heart raced, too, like it was trying to get outside of her chest, and it pissed her off.

Sam returned and wrapped Mercedes in a blanket, then carefully lifted her into his arms.

She cuddled in, absorbing his body heat, even as her eyes zeroed in on the nebulizer on the coffee table.

"What's that?" she asked.

"A nebulizer."

"I know that. I mean, what's it doing here?"

"I bought one," Sam said.

And her heart squeezed.

"When?" she asked.

"What does it matter?"

"When, Sam?"

"A few days ago."

Mercedes stared into his eyes.

"Why did you buy a nebulizer if you were going to dump me?" she asked.

"I believe you dumped me," he said lightly.

Her jaw dropped.

"Okay, we're going to circle back to that in a minute. Sam…"

She looked around at the living room. The walls were painted and there was new furniture.

"Up until a week ago, you didn't have anything in here, and now you have a nebulizer. Do you know what that means? It means..."

She went on, without waiting for an answer,

"...that you like me." She smiled, feeling the warmth of the knowledge chase away the chill. "You really, really like me."

"Don't get excited. I like all my house painters."

He nestled her head against his chest. And she knew he was giving her time to settle. And also, she realized, as he stroked a big hand up and down her back, he was giving her his heat, strength, and reassurance...the last of which, wasn't exactly second nature to him.

She knew his job didn't allow for much softness, or a lot of emotion for that matter.

Obviously, he'd let that spill over into his life, but she knew he was trying his damnedest to offer her, what he thought she needed.

'Damn!'

She was a goner.

She curled into him, tracing little patterns on his stomach with her fingers, enjoying the hard ridges of his abs.

Wriggling to get comfortable, she pressed her face into his throat and inhaled him, then rested her head on his chest.

But, unlike her, he wasn't trembling or shaking at all.

"Sorry," she murmured. "I can't stop shaking."

"It's okay. Must be adrenaline letdown."

"What about you?" she asked. "You ever get adrenaline letdown? Because, I just can't imagine anything getting to you."

Sam tugged her hair until she met his gaze, his own clear and unguarded.

"You," he said, shockingly gently. "You get to me. You scared the hell out of me today, Mercedes."

"Makes two of us."

His grip tightened on her.

"If anything had happened to you…" He shook his head and left the statement hanging.

"I'm okay." She touched his scruffy jaw. "You make a comfy chair, Sheriff. Sure you're a little hard in spots, but..."

"Mercedes..." He laughed and pressed his forehead to hers. "You get to me," he said again quietly. "I want you to know that. You get to me, just the way you are." He leaned in close. "Don't ever change."

Mercedes absorbed the words, as she'd absorbed Sam's heat and felt a weight lift from her shoulders.

"What if being myself isn't always pretty or polite?" she whispered.

"Well, I hope not," he said. "Polite is fucking exhausting. Mercedes, listen to me, baby. You being you, is who I fell for. Now, as for who you fell for…"

He drew in a deep breath.

"What Trent said today, about when we were teenagers..."

"I don't care. It doesn't change how I feel about you," she said.

"Be sure. Because most of it was true."

He ran his thumb over her fingers.

She stared down at his large, callused hand against her much smaller, brown one, which looked almost frail in his.

"It's not easy to talk about," Sam said.

"It's me, Sam. You can tell me anything. You know that, right?"

"I do now. But until recently, my life was all about work. Only work. I figured I owed it to everyone here, for the second chance the town gave me."

"Sam, you do realize, that the reason no one talks about your past...and the reason it's not plastered all over the damn social media...isn't because they're asking for penance. It's because they're protective of you. They care about you and respect you."

She hugged him, tight.

"So stop punishing yourself. It's over and done."

Sam went quiet for a moment. And then,

"Is everything over and done?"

Mercedes' breath caught, and she pulled back to look into his eyes.

"I don't want it to be."

"What do you want?" he asked.

"To know you," she said without hesitation. "All of you. I want to know what makes you feel good."

"Your laughter," he said without hesitation. "Feeling your hands on me. The way you look at me, whether I've been a complete dumbass, or just made you come..."

With a laugh, she ducked her head, but he dipped his down, until she was looking at him again.

"You want to know what scares me?" he asked.

"Yes."

He leaned even closer and slid a hand to the nape of her neck.

"The thought of never having those things with you again. I'm a little slow, but I'm not an idiot, Mercedes. And I learn from my mistakes."

He cupped her jaw.

"I love you, Mercedes."

"Dammit!"

Sam blinked.

"That wasn't quite the reaction I had expected."

"No, it's just...I meant to say it first!" she said.

He stared at her.

"You could say it now."

"I love you. God, I love you." She let out a breath. "Whew! That's more exhausting than an asthma attack."

Sam smiled.

A real slow, glorious, sexy-as-hell smile.

"Maybe, it just requires practice," he said.

Mercedes returned Sam's smile, feeling so light and happy, she could float to the ceiling, although, that might have been all the drugs in her system.

"Or confirmation."

"Confirmation?" she asked.

She pulled out her phone, and Sam appeared puzzled.

"You say I love you to me, and it reminds you that you have to make a call?" he asked.

"You knew loving me was going to require patience," she said.

Then she accessed her Magic Eight Ball app.

"How about it?" she said to the screen. "Me and Sam. Yes?"

"Christ, Mercedes." Sam straightened with a scowl. "You know what it's going to say, what it always says when it's referring to me."

"It's been right every single time with us." She looked at him. "Are you scared?"

"No. But if it says Try Again Later, it's going out the window."

She smiled widely, as she showed him what was on the screen.

Absolutely yes!

Have a wonderful New Year, but keep your celebrations safe!

Happy 2021!