Sam and Mercedes were cuddled up on the couch, as had become their routine in the recent weeks. Sam had become a particular proponent of it, always wanting to be close to her. Whenever they moved to the couch like they had today, if she didn't find herself a spot nestled into his chest, he would pull her onto him until he was satisfied with their position. Mercedes thought it was funny and sometimes a bit much, but she never protested because truthfully, she wanted to be close to him as well. Some days, he'd come home to find her and Claire on the couch and just plop down, resting his head in her lap while Claire lay at her feet. After a really long day, he'd do that and then wrap his arms around her waist, drifting to sleep without so much as a word other than them exchanging greetings. It was so familiar yet also so new, for the both of them. He always knew they belonged to one another but now, she really felt like home for him.

It made it that more heartbreaking that this was her last week in Lima.

She hadn't wanted to talk about their plans for after he left, and he understood. Still, he kind of wished for some sort of idea of how things were going to work now. He contemplated leaving with her, but he knew she wouldn't go for that. He had an entire life here and no plan for out there. He had no job prospects, he knew next to no one, and he couldn't just leave his home at a moment's notice. She'd probably shoot him daggers just for bringing it up. Plus, he had the kids and he needed to lead them to Internationals. It felt like their relationship was once again suffering from what he had come to call "Wrong Time Syndrome."

He loved her. He loved her a lot. And he was so excited for them to be something he could talk about so that he could love her in public and they could finally do things the right way. Then, he was excited to marry and spend the rest of his life with her. But even with all of this, there was one big thing that slowly occupied his every waking thought: Dani. He was still holding onto that situation and it was high time he let go, so he just went for it. In every sense of the word.

"I'm going to try this again," he said after a period of silence between them, "and I know it's an awful time because we've been having a nice evening and your dad has surgery tomorrow and whatnot, but I'm running out of time."

Mercedes sat up some. "What's this about?"

"Dani," he said, not wanting to beat around the bush.

She shook her head, already not liking where this was going. "Sam. Why?"

"Why? Is that a serious question? Why? Mercedes, because you leave in three days and you're acting like nothing is happening or has happened. I've been trying to bring this up for weeks now. Weeks. I'm just saying that I have two big things that I need to talk about. That we need to talk about. Like, big. Also, we haven't talked about us. And I know we said we would cross those bridges when we get to them, but I feel like there are some bridges that we've gotten to and haven't even begun crossing yet and instead, we're trying to dangerously zipline over to the other side somehow."

"Sam—"

"I don't mean to ramble, I know you don't like it when I do that. I just, I've come to realize a lot of things over the past week or so and I'm not comfortable with you leaving us the way that we currently are."

Mercedes studied him. She didn't want to deal with this, but she also knew she never would. Sure, she could tell him now that she wasn't leaving, but that would just allow them to push it off further. They needed to do this now. "Go ahead."

Sam was a little shocked. He thought he was going to have to fight harder for this. "Okay. Well, I just want to officially preface this all by saying that I deeply, deeply regret not telling you things as they happen and from here on out, I will be instituting our open and honest policy at all times."

"Babe. Just come out with it."

"Okay, yeah. So, me and Dani, I told you that I didn't tell you the whole truth about us."

"You did." She watched him expectantly.

Under her gaze, Sam immediately wanted to retreat. "Our relationship was more than just flirtatious jokes." He gulped. "A lot more."

Mercedes tilted her head. "A lot more?"

He took a breath. "We kind of were… involved. Romantically."

She finished sitting up, her brows furrowed.

"We didn't do anything! But I did have feelings for her."

"Wow."

"And we also were supposed to go on a date the week that you flew into town," he said quietly before beefing up in his defense. "But I called it off the night that we got back together, I swear."

"Are you pulling my leg or something?" She asked, hoping it was true. "Because this is… why would you not tell me this?"

"I tried, I did. But things always kept happening. We kept getting interrupted or someone was in the hospital or you just didn't want to deal with it at the moment—"

"So, you're blaming this on me? And my dad?"

"No, no. I'm not doing that. I'm to blame and I should've told you from the beginning. It's just that my timing hasn't been the best and I've been trying to give you the space to process the events of these last few weeks. I decided that I would just wait for the right time, but the right time never came and now you have just over 72 hours left in Lima and this is beyond crunch time."

Mercedes rose from her spot on the couch to look down at him. "I asked if there was anything between you two and you flat out told me no."

"Because there was nothing, Mercedes. I promise." He stood to meet her and went to grab her hands, but she pulled away. "I swear it was—"

"You just told me that your relationship was 'a lot more'. Those were your words, Sam. Thirty seconds ago. You lied to me," she said, honestly bewildered. "That's what this is. It's not you telling a half-truth or keeping something from me or whatever else you said. It's a lie."

"Mercedes-"

"No, it's my turn to talk now," she said sternly. "We sat right here and you told me it was nothing more than jokes. You said that. You also said that it never went anywhere because you didn't have the same feelings."

"It didn't go anywhere, didn't you hear me? We didn't go on any dates. We never even so much as held hands. There was nothing."

"That's not how women work, Sam! We don't just let a good man we like walk out of our lives for no reason. And either way, you had feelings for her. You still lied to me." She had simmered down for a brief moment, but Sam could now see her temperature rising as she spoke. "You completely brushed me off and told me I had nothing to worry about. And even when something told me that there was something there, I believed you. YOU let me go on and on about being open and honest! And then you lied! Had me believing that I was the crazy one."

"Mercedes, it's not like that, okay? If you'd just let me explain."

"Explain? Can you explain how much I tore myself up over this because I felt so bad for not being honest with you? Or how badly I let myself get caught up in this Daniella situation, when you told me nothing happened? You know what, better yet, can you explain how and why you listened to me tell my conversation with her, lied to me, and then after having an entire dialogue about being open and honest, PROPOSED to me knowing that you were lying? Sam, do you have any idea how deep this goes? You don't." She answered her own question. "You can't. Even if you thought so, you couldn't because you have no idea what happened between us." Mercedes took a breath from chewing him out, squeezing her forehead and temples.

"Us? As in me and you?"

"No, as in me and her. She has it out for me because of you!"

Sam shook his head. "That's not true."

"Yeah, yeah it is."

"Babe, I'm telling you, it's not. Dani and I talked and we're cool, all three of us."

"Cool?" She then provided him with every little detail of the rehearsal situation. "Does that sound cool to you?"

"No, but that doesn't make any sense. Look, I'm going to talk to her about that, but do you see what I'm talking about? How things happen and there's never a right time to bring it up?"

"Um, no." She looked at him as if he grew another head. "Because I told you that something happened and that I just didn't want to talk about it. I wasn't phased by it because I thought that she was just being a bitch. You told me that you never had feelings for her, so after thinking about it I figured it was just her being spiteful. But she did it to make me look bad in front of you. That's worlds different from me asking you something and you making a conscious decision not to tell the truth. Do you know how embarrassing that is? That I went into her office with a smile on my face when the whole time, you two had had a budding relationship that I knew nothing about?" Ugh!" She gave an angry grunt. "What else do you have to tell me? You said there was another thing."

Sam felt his heart rate double in speed when he remembered the Michelle debacle. "I'm not really sure if I should."

"So you wanna lie about something else? Just get it out before I rightfully decide not to give you the chance."

Sam ran his hand through his hair and walked over to the wall, leaning on it. After telling her about what happened with her mother and seeing her barely react, he wasn't sure what to do. "That's why I told you that I wouldn't let anyone or anything come between us."

"So much for that, huh?" Mercedes shook her head. "Why is it that whenever something happens with you, your immediate reaction is to keep silent or tell a different version of it and when it happens with me, you're doing your absolute best to squeeze it out of me?"

"The whole thing with your mom just happened, Mercedes. Barely two weeks ago. That was obviously not the right time."

She chuckled ironically. "And to think I'm going to be dealing with months more of fighting against not only your coworker but my mom now too."

"What?" Sam frowned.

She nodded, remembering that he didn't know yet. "Oh, yeah. Well, it was supposed to be a surprise, but I'm not leaving Lima on Friday. Surprise!" She said unenthusiastically.

"Why?"

"Self-imposed indefinite hiatus. I'm staying at least until my dad is out of the woods." She looked down before saying the next part. "And I needed more time to understand what was happening between us."

They both sat down, him on the couch and her in the recliner across the room, saying nothing. He was staring aimlessly up at the ceiling while she had practically burrowed her head between her knees. Even the dog, having hidden when things escalated, had not left her spot around the corner of the kitchen counter.

Mercedes broke the silence in a calm voice. "Sam, just tell me one thing. How long…" She paused, sitting back in the chair. "If I had left for Lima on Friday, do you think we would've made it? Honestly?"

Sam looked back at her, knowing that she already knew his answer.

"Me neither," she said. "You know why? Because I've felt it. This." She gestured to the space between them. "Sam, the last two months have been amazing, but I've felt this distance growing between us. And that's the other reason I stayed. If I'm feeling this distance now, how would we survive 2300 more miles of it?"

"We're stronger than that."

"Are we? Are we stronger than half-truths and lies and leaving things out for the sake of convenience or bad timing? And you're not the only one at fault here, but you can't ignore how awful this is."

"I don't want to. I don't want to lose you, Mercedes. I wasn't lying when I said that. I never want to have to let go of you ever again. And no matter what I have to do to ensure it doesn't happen, I'm going to do it, distance or not."

"Did you know I came back to you because I realized that our dysfunction was my fault? I realized I was the one who always slapped an expiration date on us, I was the one who always made things out to be harder than they should've been, and I was the one who wasn't bringing my all to our relationship. I dropped the ball every time."

He shook his head. "You didn't."

"But I did." She nodded in opposition. "And in the last 8 weeks of trying not to drop it again, I also realized that that was how it happened in all of my relationships here. Not only was I a bad girlfriend, but I was a bad sister, a bad aunt," she felt a lump in her throat, "a bad daughter. All because I wanted to sing. And so, when I felt this distance between us, I thought it was my fault. Because to my knowledge, you had done nothing wrong. You were the outstanding gentleman you've always been. And when you proposed…" She felt tears coming to her eyes and she looked up at the ceiling in a wasted effort to dry them away. "When we fought and you told me that you went out that same night to go buy the most," her tears fell as she closed her eyes, holding the ring against her chest, "beautiful engagement ring to propose to me with, I thought that that was just how much you loved me. And that might still be true but in hindsight, I think that it was something more than that."

"It was me not wanting to lose you like I said," Sam said desperately. "And wanting to work together through whatever came our way." He realized how that made him look and wanted to make sure she understood his intentions. "But Dani wasn't a part of that then. She was never supposed to be. She didn't, we couldn't, I," he stuttered, "I never meant to keep this from you for that long, Mercedes. You have to believe me."

"I do."

He sighed a brief sigh of relief. "You do?"

"Sam I love you so much. And you mean everything to me." She smiled even as her eyes became wet with more tears. She wasn't sure if it was from her overwhelming emotional state, her love for him, or what she was about to do. "So many of the good things in my life are things I have because of you. But I'm realizing now that we're broken. This," she gestured between them again, "is broken." She stood up and walked closer to him. "I think we jumped back into this way too fast, I think we relied on our past to carry us into the future," she said shakily, "and I think," she took a shallow breath, not that it helped, "I think that we've been trying to repair this broken bone of a relationship with this band-aid of an engagement."

"What does that mean?" Sam asked, hoping that he had genuinely no clue. He wiped away the tears that had come to his own eyes as she spoke. When she gave him no response but a sad look, he repeated himself, "Mercedes, what does that mean? What does any of that mean?"

Still keeping her silence, Mercedes, crying, slowly brought her hands up to the back of her neck, shakily trying to unclasp her necklace despite Sam's protests.

"Mercedes, no."

She kept trying.

"Stop."

She kept trying.

"Mercy, please," his voice cracked.

She shook her head as he continued attempting her task, praying to God for him to shut up while she still had the strength to do this. In an instant, the necklace was unclasped and off of her chest. She reclasped it and held it in the palm of her hand, extending it slightly toward him. "Take it," she whispered.

"No."

Mercedes closed her eyes tiredly. "Sam."

"It's yours, I'm not taking it. Put it back on," he said adamantly.

"Sam, take it!" She raised her voice as she fully extended her arm toward him.

He jumped up to meet her, folding her hand over to contain the necklace, and raising his voice, said, "No! Put it back on!" As he held her hand and brought her other one on top of it, he leaned down to put his forehead against hers. Her forehead was tilted slightly back and her eyes were closed. It was like she was wishing this was a nightmare as much as he was. "Please, Mercy, just put it back on." He pleaded as if his life depended on it.

His efforts, however, were fruitless. Mercedes reluctantly untangled them, pulling away as Sam resisted, and gently set the necklace and ring on the table beside the couch. She walked over to Claire, bending down and scratching behind her ear the way she knew she loved. "Hi sweet girl." She smiled through her tears again. "I'm going to go, okay? I love you so so much." She gave her air kisses all over her face, another of the things that had become their favorite to do. She stood up and walked to the door, ignoring Sam's protests.

"Mercedes, wait." He beat her to the door. "Where are you going? Please. Don't go. We can still work this out, Mercedes. You know we can. Please."

But it was still no use. She struggled against him, but eventually, Mercedes grabbed her keys, made her way out of the door, and left in her car.


At the hospital, Mason and Marvin were embroiled in a faux-heated debate when Mercedes knocked lightly on the door.

"Hey, Dad." She smiled at her dad before looking at her brother. "Nerd. What are you two arguing about now?"

"Actually, sis, I'm glad to see you for the first time ever; I feel like you'll agree with me here."

"Oh, well in that case, let me stop you right there. I'm on Dad's side, get out." She chuckled.

He mocked her laugh. "What do you mean get out?"

"I mean get out, what else would I mean? I'm on Dad duty tonight." She held up the overnight bag she had been keeping in her car for tomorrow's surgery.

"Tonight's my night, though." He frowned.

"Welp, you've been reprieved. Move it." She walked in and stood in front of him.

"But I thought you had tomorrow night?"

"Gosh, Mason. I will gladly have two nights in a row. I did not sign like 10 different nurses' notebooks to get up here for you to resist me. Don't you have a wife and child at home for you?" 2, if you included the secret one she wasn't supposed to know about yet.

He raised a point of his own. "Don't you have a boyfriend and dog at home for you?"

She sucked her teeth. Her brother was so stubborn and usually she could withstand going toe to toe with him, but tonight was not a usual night. "Mason, go."

"Fine." He began gathering his things. "I was just trying to help you out, sheesh. Pop, rest up, love you, I'll see you tomorrow." He stopped walking when he stood beside his sister. "Medusa."

"Better not look me in the eye on your way out, then." Mercedes turned her head to see him staring at her. "Oop! Too late," she said, the hint of a smile on her face.

He nodded, laughing. He nudged her side with his. "I'll catch you tomorrow."

"Mmhmm." She finally walked over to her dad. "Hey, Daddy. How you feeling tonight?"

"Daddy? What happened?" He asked expectantly.

She pretended to be confused. "Nothing."

He deepened his look.

It took all the strength she had not to break down right there. She did feel a few tears come to her eyes, though. Her resolve was already dwindling. "Sam and I. I don't think that we um," her voice trailed off and she shook her head, willing it away. "Tonight is not about me. You're the one who's sick. You have the biggest day of your life tomorrow, I should be looking after you," she said.

"And that's where you're wrong because the biggest days of my life were when you and your brother were born. As such, looking after you two is my #1 job as long as I'm able, Babygirl. I may be laid up in this hospital bed and my body may be trying to kill me, but I'm still able." He opened his hand for her to take.

There was a moment after she accepted his hand that she thought she could keep cool, but the look her dad gave her broke her. She immediately went to blubbering like a baby, leaning her head onto him lightly.

"It's really over this time."


Oh no! What do y'all think this means for Samcedes? Are they really over? Has the last 2 months led up to this? I have to admit, reading that back, it felt a little Malcome & Marie-ish. That was not on purpose lol! Do you think Mercedes is justified in her actions and her reactions? Do you think that Sam should've seen at least some of it coming? The next chapter will be a small time jump and I won't tell you much about it, but I will tell you that we're going to learn more about how both of these people have come to understand their relationship. Also, it will be close to the holiday season!

I wanted to thank all of y'all for the support you've shown this story! It's my first and it means a lot that so many of you enjoy it. I'll be working on my other one for a little while (it's a high school fic and will be up later today), but I'll be back with another update here before you know it!

-Lily 3