Thank you for your patience where this story is concerned. Also, thank you for your words of comfort, for your general concern and for your continued support. I appreciate it.
I do not own Glee or the characters and I honestly do not own The Game Plan.
Epilogue
Five Months Later…
"Do you need anything else?" Mercedes asked, absently rubbing her large belly.
Sam rolled his eyes playfully as he placed his hands on the wheels of his wheelchair and rolled away from the table.
"I'm fine, Tinkerbelle."
"Are you sure?" she asked, walking over to the refrigerator to make sure that everything was within his reach.
Once she'd made sure that he could reach the beer and soda to watch his game, she moved onto the counters and double-checked that he could reach all his favorite snacks and medication.
"Tink..." he said in a chiding tone with a touch of exasperation. "I'm fine. Go take your shower."
She glanced around the large country kitchen of their new house and sighed at the stacks of boxes that she still needed to go through and nearly groaned.
She should really go through a few more of these boxes but she was so tired. All she wanted to do was take a shower, curl up in bed and sleep for the next two days.
But there was just too much to do.
She and Sam had been back for almost two months, but it felt like only two days. And it seemed as if she'd been going non-stop since the moment that she came out of her drug induced haze.
Sam's diagnosis was a broken back in three places and he had needed around the clock care and two additional surgeries to fix everything.
She too needed surgery to fix her hand, and a week after she'd had it, she made the choice to stay with him in Florida while he recovered.
She'd taken an indefinite leave of absence from work and prepared herself to be fired, but instead, her boss had found a way for her to run the library from Florida, thus saving her job.
In those times, when she wasn't sitting with Sam, holding his hand and trying to distract him from the pain, she was working and trying to fit in a few hours of sleep.
And thanks to both their dads, she hadn't had the additional stress of worrying about anything. They'd even rented her a house down in Florida so that she could have a place to rest when she wasn't at the hospital with Sam.
But they didn't stop there...
The two amazing men moved all of her things into Sam's apartment back home, took care of their vehicles, made sure that all their bills were paid and even found an old colonial farmhouse that needed a bit of work.
Mr. Evans and Travis bought the house and all the men in their family...including their cousins up in New Hampshire...had spent the next two and half months repairing the house, making it livable and handicap accessible for them.
When the family had discovered that Mercedes was pregnant a month into her and Sam's stay down in Florida, they had tripled their efforts. Because not only was she pregnant, she was carrying twins.
They made sure that there was always at least two people staying in the house with her at all times to help with Sam and to make sure that she was taken care of.
Unfortunately, they hadn't been able to do anything about the morning sickness...
Or the exhaustion...
Or the raging hormones...
Or the insatiable appetite...
Or the spontaneous crying...
And about a hundred other problems that went along with pregnancy that managed to turn the men in the Evans family into mother hens.
They did their best to take care of her even when it was obvious that they wanted to run away screaming.
They'd been great, but even with all of their help and babying, she had still been exhausted and that hadn't changed since Sam was released from the hospital.
If anything, she was even more exhausted now.
But the Evans family weren't quite done...
It seemed like one minute she'd been helping Sam into his wheelchair and waiting for his discharge papers and the next, he...along with his relatives...had been kidnapping her, whisking her off to Nevada, sneaking her into Vegas and marrying her.
From there he'd whisked her off for a honeymoon that had drained every last ounce of energy she'd had left. But it had been amazing.
After they had finally come home, things had only become more hectic. Thankfully, her dad and Mr. Evans had taken on the task of boxing all their stuff, but they had a new house that needed to be organized and set up in their own way, so that Sam could get around it easily with his wheelchair.
Then there was making sure that he made all of his appointments, running back and forth all day between the library and home to make sure that he was okay and trying to set things up for the babies.
She was just so damn tired...
"Go take a shower. I'm fine," Sam told her with a reassuring smile.
"I'll only be a few minutes," she promised him, leaning down so that she could kiss his cheek.
He shot her a wink as he pushed away with his wheelchair and rolled towards the living room, leaving her standing there, wondering if she should follow him to make sure that he had everything that he needed.
With a shake of her head, she forced herself to walk to their bedroom and strip her clothes off while she ignored the incredibly comfortable bed only a few feet away.
She needed a shower and more importantly, a shower would help her wake up so that she could make a run to the store, pick up Sam's medication, come home, make dinner, do the laundry and prepare something decent for him to have for lunch tomorrow before she helped him with his shower.
Sighing, Mercedes resigned herself to the long night ahead and turned the shower on.
She waited for a few seconds for the water to get hot and when it did, she placed her hand on the wall and carefully moved to climb into the tub.
Just as she placed her foot on the bottom of the bathtub, she slipped...
She barely managed to get out a startled gasp when she found herself falling backwards...
Suddenly, she was in the arms of the man she loved.
"It's okay. I've got you," he said. He brushed his lips against her neck and she opened her mouth only to sob and shake her head, because it was indeed okay...
She was exhausted and nearly fell...
She could've hurt herself or their babies, but that wasn't why she was crying...
He was standing. Sam was standing and holding her in his arms...
He was also completely naked.
"I was trying to surprise you," he said with a rueful smile as he carefully turned with her in his arms.
"Well, you did," she said around a sob that was borderline hysterical as she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly.
"Dad suggested that I should wait until I got the all clear from the doctor tomorrow, but I couldn't wait," he said, pressing a kiss against her forehead as he turned on the water to help her bathe.
"I'm glad," she said with a watery smile as she forced herself to release him.
"Now," he said, placing a hand on her belly, "I get to take care of you and the babies."
"I don't need anyone taking care of me," Mercedes said with the most pathetic sniffle that he'd ever heard. "I'm fine," the little liar said.
"Too goddamn bad," he said, carefully helping her out of the shower. He went to lift her but she protested saying,
"I'm too heavy. You could hurt your back..."
He gave her a soft kiss and replied,
"For the record, you will never be too heavy for me to carry, baby, pregnant or not..."
She sniffed.
"But I just got you back and I don't want you to get hurt again."
"I understand. And I won't, I promise. I just miss doing stuff like this."
"I know, but humor me this time and just walk with me to our room, okay?"
"Okay."
Sam helped Mercedes out of the shower and into their room where he assisted in drying her. Next, he helped her onto the bed to take a much needed rest.
After drying himself off, he decided to join her but had to bite back a wince when his legs and back protested...although, not nearly not enough for him to be worried, not when he was able to crawl into bed with his wife for the first time on his own and pull her into his arms.
"Go to sleep, baby."
"But..."
"Sleep."
She stubbornly shook her head and tried to sit up, but he wouldn't let her, not when he knew that she was planning on babying him.
He appreciated everything that she'd done for him...more than he could ever say...but those days were over. He wasn't a hundred percent yet, but he was at the point where he could say fuck it and take care of his wife.
He didn't give a rat's ass if rushing his recovery meant that he would never be able to run like he used to, or that he would have to accept that job offer from his uncle to be a field supervisor, because he'd fucked up the bulging discs in his back and couldn't pick up anything heavier than a gallon of water for the rest of his life.
His wife was exhausted and she needed him. She needed him to step up and put his own shit aside and take care of her.
And that is exactly what he was going to do.
"Go to sleep, Tinkerbelle," he said, gently guiding her onto her side so that he could curl up behind her.
"But I need to go to the store and get your medicine and..."
"No," he said, pressing a kiss on her neck. "You need to rest, sweetheart. Just rest."
"Which bedroom am I taking?" Storm asked as he ripped open another box.
"You can have the master if you want," Sam said, pressing a hand to his back as he walked stiffly towards the kitchen counter where Mercedes kept all his medicine.
He ignored the major painkillers and grabbed the bottle of Advil liquid gels and swallowed two dry.
"Are you sure?" his brother asked, glancing down at the bottle of Advil, but he didn't say anything.
"Yeah, we're not going to need it for a while," Sam said. He walked over to the refrigerator and grabbed one of the ice packs that his wife kept on hand for him and pressed it against his lower back. "I don't want Mercedes climbing the stairs."
"Good idea," Storm agreed with a nod as he grabbed another box to unpack. "Why don't you go lie down for a while?"
Sam frowned. He hated how much he needed to do just that, but he knew that if he seriously messed up his back that it would only make things worse.
"Call me if you need anything," he said, heading for the kitchen door, pausing along the way to pull his little brother into a one armed hug. "Thank you."
"Don't mention it," Storm said, returning the hug. "Go get some rest. I've got this."
Nodding, Sam released his brother and continued the long journey back to his bedroom.
When he walked past his wheelchair where he'd left it against the wall, he forced himself to keep going.
Biting back a groan, he pulled his shirt off and pushed his pants and boxers down, then he slowly crawled back into bed and curled up behind his wife.
He wrapped his arm around her, kissed her shoulder and slowly exhaled, forcing his mind away from the pain.
Two months after that...
"You don't have to wake up," Mercedes informed her husband as she shifted, careful not to fall over thanks to her very large belly, and slowly impaled herself on his thick erection.
Sam chuckled sleepily and reached for her as he slowly opened his eyes. He gently cupped her hips to help guide her.
"Couldn't wait?"
Licking her lips, she shook her head and reached down to grab onto his arms to steady herself.
"You were taking too long," she moaned, using her hold on him to raise herself, only to slide back down.
He felt so good...
So damn good...
Over the past two months she'd been able to get more rest, so her stress was practically gone. And Sam was doing so much better that she'd finally been able to enjoy being pregnant.
She ate anytime and whatever she wanted, slept anytime and whenever she wanted and had sex anytime and whenever she wanted...which was admittedly a lot.
She'd quit her job at the library, which had actually helped quite a bit with her stress.
Well, she hadn't so much as quit the library, but Sam had been called in to come get her because she wouldn't stop crying. The realization that she actually hated her job had been kind of depressing.
When she'd earned her Master's degree, she'd never thought she'd have to use it to decide between French roast and Arabian roast coffee to sell at the coffee bar that she was forced to manage, so that the library could generate some income for the City Council.
She hated it... just hated it...
So when Sam had come to get her a month ago, he'd sighed heavily and quit for her.
She'd been so happy to finally be free of that place that she hadn't argued with him. She allowed him to bring her home, tuck her into bed and curled up with her.
Then spent the next two days mostly sleeping.
When she woke up at three in the morning on the second day, she went to her desk and started writing that historical romance novel that she'd been toying with in her mind for years.
Presently...
Mercedes couldn't imagine doing anything else and thanks to Sam, she didn't have to. He'd been amazingly supportive about her writing. He'd even bought her a MacBook so that she could work wherever she wanted.
He'd turned the large old den that he'd been planning on turning into a man cave, into an office with a large comfortable sitting area and play area for the babies so that she could continue to work after their children were born.
He was such a sweet man and such a wonderful husband. And she knew without a doubt that he was going to be an incredible father.
"More research for your book?" he asked, sitting up so that he could wrap his arms around her and hold her as she slowly rocked herself on him.
"Mmhmm," she murmured against his lips. "You're a very helpful man."
"I do my best," he said as he reached between them and started rubbing her seductively. The soft moans that escaped her were music to his ears.
Oh how he wished that he could flip her over unto her back and pound into her non-stop, but that wouldn't happen for a while, so instead, he'd settle for this...
For his wife to...
"That's it!" Storm announced, throwing their bedroom door wide open. "We're moving!"
A horrified shriek from Mercedes pierced the air...
"Get the fuck out!" Sam shouted, grabbing the comforter and yanking it up to cover her, because in her current state she was in no condition to jump off his lap and hide... And he knew she really, really wanted to hide at this moment.
At the same time, Mercedes opened her mouth to beg Sam to roll her off the bed, when the smell hit her...which caused her to promptly shut her mouth.
She grabbed hold of the comforter and yanked it completely over her head and buried her face against his chest...right above the tattoo of Tinkerbelle... and hoped like hell that it was enough to block that odd rancid odor.
Sam shot a murderous glare at his brother...
"Why are you covered in garbage?" he demanded.
Mercedes struggled not to gag...
"That...woman!" her normally loveable and considerate brother-in-law snarled, making her smile.
Now she knew what was happening and then it dawned on Sam.
"Problem with the new neighbor?" Sam asked, sounding amused. Mercedes bit her lip, trying not to laugh. "Do you want me to go have a word with her mommy for you?" he asked in a mocking tone that had Mercedes chuckling.
"I hate you, you heartless bastard!" Storm shouted dramatically as he turned and slammed the door behind him.
Mercedes sighed happily and pushed the comforter off her head...
"I love our new neighbors."
Sam smiled.
"Me too. Now where were we..."
Hey all, as I said on another update I want to thank you for your concern and your comforting words. This has been and is still a rough time but I'll get through it. Everyone does, only at different stages. Anyway, I appreciate you all and I hope this update finds you and yours happy and in great health. Much love to you.
Stay safe!