Quick A/N: In case you were wondering, the song in at the end is "Another Lullaby" by Art Garfunkel


Aubrey knocked on Mercedes and Sam's bedroom door. "Aunt Cedes?"

Sam groaned quietly into his pillow, ignoring Mercedes chuckling at him. "She's calling you," he mumbled.

"I know." She went to get up, but his arm around her waist stopped her. "I would love to go and say good morning to her. Maybe see what she wants."

"Don't go. Just a few more minutes."

They were officially on Christmas break and Sam and Mercedes had had quite the night. And morning.

"Have you not gotten enough yet?" She asked him.

He looked up, not taking her question seriously. "Have you?"

She slinked back under the covers and gave him a sensual kiss. "I could never."

He growled. "You're gonna get us in trouble." He drifted over to her before planting kisses on her neck, her sweet spot, then taking them further downward.

"Sam, stop. You know the rules."

No sex when the kids were awake.

If the kids wake up and they need us, we have to stop.

He hated the rules.

"Damn those rules. I need you."

"You don't need me, you want me. There's a difference."

Another knock at the door. "Uncle Sam?"

She asked him through a moan, "How on Earth could you be in the mood with our niece at the door?"

"Simple. I occupy my mind with… other things." He smirked before his head slid under the covers.

Mercedes gasped. This was definitely against the rules. "Sam," she breathed.

He poked his head out and spoke to the toddler outside, "Give us a minute, Bree. We're coming." He looked back at his girlfriend. "Only one of them is awake. She'll be fine for a few more minutes. Promise."

As he went back down, the baby monitor alerted him to the contrary. Mercedes reached over to look at the video monitor. Melissa was awake. And probably hungry.

Aubrey knocked for the third time. "Aunt Cedes, the baby is crying."

"Oh, come on," Sam cried out, prompting a laugh from Mercedes. He plopped back down beside her. "When we have our own kids, we're getting an around-the-clock nanny. You can afford one of those, right?" He scoffed at his own statement. "Who am I kidding? You have more GRAMMYs and AMAs than I do impressions in my back pocket; of course, you can."

She smiled and planted a kiss on his forehead. "Don't worry, babe. Just 2 and a half more days. Then, they go back to their parents and we're off to Cali. Where it's sunny and warm and we have a really big house all to ourselves." She gave him a suggestive look before getting out of bed.

He sat up at this, completely alert as she picked up their niece. "Any chance we could change our flight to first thing in the morning?"


Sam laid Melissa down in her crib for her nap before searching for Mercedes. He found them in the home office, Mercedes sitting at the desk, and Aubrey laying on it? He inched in undetected to get a better look, and he was right. She was laying across the desk and drawing while Mercedes was writing in her songbook.

He smiled. "Well, would you look at that? My two creative geniuses."

They both looked up at him at the same time with the same face and he swore he could've died happy right then and there.

"Aunt Cedes is writing a song and I'm drawing. Look!" She held up a picture with shapes Sam couldn't identify.

Luckily, Mercedes came to his rescue. "Tell him what you drew, Bree."

"This is me and you and Aunt Cedes and Liss," she gleamed as she pointed to the 4 blobs, "and this is your house," she pointed to a square with a triangle on top. "Aunt Cedes helped with that one."

"I sure did. And tell him what you're about to do with it now."

She squealed, "Color!"

Sam gasped, feigning surprise. "Color? You're gonna color that all by yourself?"

Aubrey nodded excitedly before studying her picture. "With green and orange and purple and blue."

"What color will I be? Can I be blue?"

"Mmm," she tapped her chin with her pencil and yelled, "ORANGE!"

Sam almost felt slighted. Orange was so not his color. "Orange? But I wanna be blue!"

She pointed at her aunt. "She'll be blue. And you'll be orange."

Mercedes laughed before sticking her tongue out at him.

"Oh, you're gonna make me blue." He brought her down to the ground and started tickling her. "Make me blue!"

Aubrey laughed as she tried to get away from him, but resistance proved futile. "No!"

"I'm not gonna stop until you say you'll make me blue!"

"No!" Her giggling grew louder and louder.

Before long, Mercedes put an end to the tickle attack. "Calm down, you two. You're going to wake up the baby. Bree, can you go get your crayons? We can color together."

The girl ran off excitedly.

With her gone Sam leaned up against the desk and bent down to kiss Mercedes.

She kissed him back before asking, "Can we agree that she's way too linguistically advanced to only be three?"

"Oh, yeah. It's scary."

"You're telling me. Yesterday, we were playing with her dolls and she made them get married. Vows and all. You should've seen her."

He laughed. "What are you writing?" He knew, but he never failed to ask anyway.

She looked down at her notebook and her mood instantly changed. "Lyrics. The label now says I have to record five songs while I'm in L.A. They want to release them as singles for my next album. You know, the one I haven't even started on yet?"

"Yikes. Is it at least going well?"

"Eh." She picked up the book and flipped through some of the pages. "I'm mostly going back and editing some of my unrecorded ones, but," she hesitated, "I have been working on something new."

"Yeah?"

She nodded before hesitating some more. "It's, uh, it's about someone that you really love. Kind of."

He frowned at the "kind of".

She said, "It's about a baby."

After a brief silence, he asked, "Can I read these lyrics about a baby?"

She handed the book to him.

Then, she ran her hand through her hair nervously. "So, there's really no way to ease into this. I'm overdue for an appointment with my gynecologist. One of the things we usually talk about at my visits is how my birth control is working."

"Okay. Wait, but you were a virgin until a few days ago."

"There are other reasons to go on birth control, babe." She decided to just come out with it. "Should I ask her to take me off of it?"

He looked up from the lyrics, unaware that this was that kind of conversation. "Oh."

"I know. It's too soon. Crap, I'm so sorry for asking." She shook her head and went back to writing.

"No," he placed his hand on hers, stopping her. "it's not. I just didn't know you were really serious about starting a family. I mean, I knew you were serious, but—"

"It's something about keeping the girls this week. And watching you, too. These last 6 days have been crazy, but I feel a lot more prepared than I thought." She shrugged. "I don't know, I don't need to get pregnant like tomorrow or anything. Parenthood is definitely something we should take seriously and we shouldn't rush it."

"I agree. But it would be nice. Living together in L.A. with a baby on the way. Imagine if this time next year, we were pregnant. Or maybe even parents already?" He smiled fondly at the thought.

She grinned. "I'll make sure to let my doctor know, then."


That evening, Mercedes took Melissa with her for a trip to the grocery store.

"Okay, beautiful," she said, sitting her down into the shopping cart. "Your uncle/godfather and I grossly underestimated how much food the four of us would eat, but it doesn't make sense to fill up the fridge when we're about to be gone for two and a half weeks, so we need something for us all to eat over the next 48 hours and some change. Got that?"

Melissa looked up at her emptily.

"Yeah, I know. Just get back to me." She started scanning the aisles for dinner ideas. Just as she figured what she would make tonight and sent a text to Sam for ingredient inventory, she got a call from her dad. "Hey, Dad."

"Babygirl! How are you doing today?"

"Pretty good, actually. Sam and I are officially on winter break, which is nice, but these kids are just short of running us ragged."

"Oh, yeah? How old is Kurt's baby? 11 months?"

"9. Well, 8.5." She smiled as Melissa reached for her hands and started playing with them.

"Yup. That's it. The not-so-golden gap."

Mercedes chuckled. "Come again?"

"Your mom and I had Mason and then we had you about two years later. We thought we'd be in the clear since his twos proved not to be so bad when we were pregnant, but your brother skipped his terrible twos and went straight to his terrible threes. So when he was raising all types of hell like most toddlers, you had just hit your nine-month sleep regression. And you were teething, hated being apart from either of us, oh, it was chaos from both of you. Chelle and I were exhausted from work every day and we'd come home to a madhouse. What a time that was."

"Ahh. So what you're saying is this is just a taste of what will happen when me and Sam have kids."

Her dad asked a somewhat serious question, "Are kids in your near future with him?"

She nodded, though he couldn't see her. "We've been thinking about it. Heavily."

"Interesting."

She poked her lip out confusedly. "You don't sound too happy at the prospect of more grandchildren."

"It's not that. It's just that you and Sam haven't been together for too long—"

"7 months, Dad."

"And you've had a great 7 months. And you know I love Sam like he were my own son. In fact, I like him more than my own son most times."

She smiled. That was nice to hear.

"But I want you two to make sure that you've had enough time to enjoy just being two people in a relationship. Children are a big responsibility and before you say anything, I know you know that. But you both need to be ready for them and not just in terms of resources or finances. When you have a child, they come first. It's important to be everything you can for them, so you may not always be able to be everything for your partner. So, just make sure you take some time to think before you make any big decisions, okay?"

"I will, I promise." As she turned the corner, she saw a camera flash. She knew that posting about Sam and being back in Lima was going to generate some unwanted attention that she spent so long purposely avoiding, but she wished it had taken a little longer to do so. There was no moving to the next aisle; she'd already started coming down that one. She waved the cameraperson down. "Hi."

A woman, no older than 25, smiled giddily. "Hi. You're Mercedes Jones. I've been seeing your IG posts saying you were back in Lima. My sister's been saying there's no way I was going to see you. Ha! Wait until she here's about this. I'm Clara, by the way."

"Clara, nice to meet you. Listen, I'm really just here to get some groceries, okay? So, if you don't mind, could you keep that picture to yourself? It's just a privacy concern, you know? People knowing where I get my milk and stuff."

Clara's cheeks quickly grew red. "Oh, yeah. Sorry. I'm just going to show it to my sister if that's okay. She won't say anything. Could I maybe get an autograph?"

Mercedes swallowed the sigh that rose in her throat. She really just wanted to get her food and get out. But if there was one thing you didn't want to do for a fan who was promising to keep your whereabouts a secret, it was deny them an autograph. She smiled. "Sure, of course."

After sending Clara on her way, Mercedes spoke into her earphones. "Dad, you still there?"

"Yup. Seems like people are already catching wind of you being back in Lima."

"You are correct. Where were we? The babies."

"Yes. Speaking of parenthood and parents…"

Mercedes immediately shook her head. "No, Dad."

"Christmas is right around the corner, Mercedes."

"Great. And?"

"And this is going to be the first time in a long time that we don't all spend Christmas under the same roof."

She scoffed. "That is not true."

"Maybe not, but it is the first Christmas that you and your mom aren't on speaking terms. You should talk to her, Babygirl."

"Has anyone bothered to tell her that she should talk to me? I may have been the one who kicked her out, but only because of the horrible things she's said and done way before that." She threw a box of pasta into her shopping cart with an attitude.

"Actually, both your brother and I have been talking to her, yes. Christmas is in a few days. You need to talk to your family, tell the people you love that you love them. Isn't that what the holiday season is about?"

"The holiday season is about the birth of Jesus," she deadpanned.

"Aha! Who especially would've been nothing without his parents! Am I right or am I right?"

She huffed. She should've seen that one coming. Still, her dad was no God and her mother was certainly no Virgin Mary.

"How about you just stop by on your way to the airport on Sunday? You don't even have to stay long?"

"The only way I'm stopping by there is if Mom is working late at the firm or you get bad news from your doctor. Speaking of which, you still haven't heard anything, right?" It was officially Christmastime and the entire family had been waiting on pins and needles to learn whether or not Marvin was officially in remission or still had cancer.

"You know you'll be the first I call after your mom."

She took a breath. "Okay. Look, I've got to go. I'll call you again before we head out, alright? But no Mom stuff. Love you."

"Love you too, Babygirl. Talk to you soon."


Mercedes and Melissa arrived home from the grocery store to find the living room a complete mess. "Oh, dear God."

Sam, Aubrey, and their dog had clearly been having way too much fun at a tea party.

Sam jolted up from his spot on the ground, his tiara tilting slightly. He smiled wide and gestured to the scene before them. "Tea and crumpets?"

Aubrey jumped up next with her teacup and saucer in hand. "I'm the princess and he's my prince!" She cleared her throat at Sam, motioning for him to pick up his teacup.

"Oh!" Sam shot down to get his tea and shot back up with the same smile.

"And Jr. is our loyal royal dog."

Mercedes giggled as she picked the baby up from her stroller. "We'll both join in a minute, but Sam, I need help bringing groceries in so I can get started on dinner."

"Kind of incapable at the moment, babe." He glanced to Aubrey beside him.

Mercedes rolled her eyes and squatted down to Aubrey's eye level. "Bree, could Uncle Sam—"

"It's Princess Bree," she said.

She sucked her teeth. "Princess Bree, could Uncle Sam—"

"Prince Uncle Sam," Sam interjected, wincing at the glare his girlfriend gave him.

"Could Prince Uncle Sam please be relieved from his duties so he can help me bring in some groceries so that you can eat tonight?"

Aubrey thought about the request. "Hmm. Did you get cheese sticks?"

"I did, yes."

She made an about-face to Sam. "You are hereby allowed to bring in the cheese sticks!"

Sam bowed to thank her, placed down his teacup and tiara gently, and went outside to meet a very not-so-but-also-slightly-amused Mercedes at her car.

"That was the most amazing thing I've ever seen," she said, clearly mocking him.

"You try saying no to that face! It's nowhere near possible." He took the bags that she handed him.

She smiled. "Are you going to be this weak-willed when we have our own baby girl?"

"Of course." He set the bags down and put his hands on her waist, pulling her close. "You know I can't say no to the women in my life." He brushed his lips against hers before doing a double-take as he looked up. "Hey, dude."

Mercedes turned her head to see a man filming them from the street.

Sam let Mercedes go. "What do you think you're doing?"

The stranger pointed to Mercedes. "You're Mercedes Jones, right?"

She went to answer and ask him to leave them alone, but Sam's temper beat her to it.

"I don't give a damn who you think she is." He moved her to the side gently.

"Sam," she warned quietly.

"You don't just take pictures of people you don't know on their private property. Especially not when they're clearly with someone. That's an invasion of privacy. Who raised you? And who are you?"

He shrugged again. "I live in the neighborhood. I was taking a walk."

"I know everyone who lives in this neighborhood and I've never seen you a day in my life, man. Get lost."

"You can't tell me what to do."

Sam scoffed and puffed up his chest. Not a good sign.

"Sam, just calm down, okay?" Mercedes asked cautiously. "Let's take the food inside."

"Get lost, bro. I'm not gonna ask you again. I wouldn't suggest you test me, either."

"You never asked me in the first place. You want me to leave?" The man not-so-subtly pressed record on his phone and aimed it at Sam. "Make me."

Sam ripped off his jacket with a huff and went to march over to him.

"Sam, stop." Mercedes knew exactly where this was going. "Sam!" She hissed, jumping in front of him and pressing her fingers into his torso to stop him.

He looked down and caught her apprehensive glance at the door and back at him. He turned his head to see his niece standing in the doorway, clearly aware of the commotion outside. Sam glared at the man and said lowly. "You have 10 seconds to find your way back to wherever the hell you actually came from or I'm calling the police." He snatched the grocery bags from the ground and led Mercedes back into the house.

Aubrey was eager to get back to her game. "Prince Uncle Sam, can we play now?"

"Give me a second, Bree." Sam narrowly concealed his irritation in his tone as he brushed past her.

Mercedes gave her a cheese stick. "Let us put the groceries up, okay?" She followed Sam into the kitchen, where he was already pacing. "Sam."

"God, I can't believe that guy. Can you believe that guy?"

She began taking ingredients out of their bags. "I actually can, yeah."

"Thinking he can just stroll up and gawk at us?"

She let him continue to pace and ramble while she put everything in its place. Then, she leaned back onto the counter and crossed her arms. "You can't flip out on people like that, Sam."

He stopped pacing to look at her. "The hell do you mean I can't flip out on people like that? I can't flip out on people who are taking pictures of us and recording me kissing my girlfriend in my freaking driveway?"

She nodded. "That's exactly what I mean, yeah."

"That's bogus, Mercedes. Are you kidding me?"

"It's what I signed up for. And it's what you signed up for when we decided to be together." She placed her hands on his arms. "Baby, I told people about us. I told the world about us. Hello, I have over 27 million followers on Instagram. Did you really think there weren't going to be any of them in my hometown who wanted to find out where I was? They've been showing up here since Sunday. I'm surprised it took almost a week for the super crazies to come out."

He frowned at her. "Wait a minute. You mean to tell me you've seen people like that guy before today? Why didn't you say anything?"

She pursed her lips at him. "Why? So you could knock their lights out in front of our niece? Um, yeah, no thanks."

He blushed and scratched the back of his neck, his anger fading very slightly. "I was kind of wild out there just now, huh?"

"Yes, but subtract the 'kinda'." She laughed before cupping his cheek. "You wanted to protect me and there's no way I could do anything but love you for that. But this is a part of your life now that you're going to have to adjust to. I'm not a struggling artist like I was the last time we dated. People look for me, they find me, and sometimes, they get really carried away. It's tough at first, but you get used to it. And you learn that if you try to go after every single weird fan that just won't leave us alone, you won't have any time left in the day."

He placed his hands on her waist again, pulling him to her like before. "It just pisses me off that you have to deal with that stuff."

"I know. Pisses me off, too," she said simply. "But it comes with the territory, baby. We'll be fine. Just chill out."

He gave a disgruntled sigh. "Fine. But I'm getting a gun. Two. And if any of those creeps step one foot onto our property, this Prince Uncle Sam is turning into Prince Yosemite Sam."

She gave a hearty laugh. "I guess I couldn't ask for anything more."


Sam decided to make dinner and cool down while Mercedes became the queen of Aubrey's tea party. Once dinner was ready, the four of them ate around the table. Melissa actually let Mercedes feed her for the second day in a row, which was nice for everyone. Sam and Aubrey spent a little too much time playing with their food, but Mercedes couldn't help but laugh and smile at them. Sam was truly great with her. With both of the girls.

After dinner, Mercedes was washing dishes while Sam was playing with Melissa in his lap.

"I need something to do," he said after some time of silence.

"You could help me wash the dishes we all just dirtied," she quipped.

"I mean about the fans." He stood beside her, rocking Melissa on his hip.

"What are you talking about, babe?"

"I can't just sit by and do nothing while people treat you like some exhibit for them to photograph at their will. I need something to do."

"You could just ignore them. I'm rarely in any actual danger. They may be creepy, but they're not violent."

"How is it that we've been able to fly under the radar at a high school full of teenagers for the past five months?"

She folded her lips together. "I mean, you can't really vow to expel full-grown adults from a school they don't go to if they're caught pointing a camera at me," she reminded him of the policy that had been set at McKinley at the beginning of the year. "You'll get used to it Sam, I promise. But if it makes you feel any better, you can just hold my hand."

"Hold your hand?"

She nodded and spoke to him through Melissa, "Instead of threatening to punch, shoot, or otherwise harm helpless idiots with cameras! Yeah! Isn't he so silly? He's so silly!" She laughed at the baby giggling before planting kisses on her cheeks.

"Aunt Cedes?" Aubrey ran into the kitchen.

Mercedes turned to look at her. "Princess, you've got to slow down. No more running in the house, okay? We only run outside. What's up?"

"Sorry. Did you wash my blanket?"

Her faithful blanket had gotten apple juice on it the day before, and Mercedes promised to wash it since Aubrey absolutely 100% could not sleep without it.

"I did. I'll get it for you when I'm all done in here." She shook her head as the toddler scurried off happily. "She's a mess, that one."

"No kidding," Sam said. "I asked her why she wanted to be a princess for her tea party instead of a queen. Do you know what she told me?"

Mercedes asked him with a look.

"'Queens have to do all the work. Princesses just get to sit around and look pretty.' How in the world is your brother raising her?"

She grinned. "Don't let my mom hear her saying that. She'll stage an intervention for us all about goals and aspirations."

Seeing as how she brought up her mom, Sam went to continue that conversation, but she could see his look from a mile away. She put up a finger.

"Uh uh, Sam. No. I know I brought her up and I kind of walked into it or whatever, but I don't want to talk about her. I got enough of that from Dad today." She redirected her attention back to Melissa, blowing soap bubbles at her.

The baby's jaw fell as she marveled at them.

Mercedes scooped some leftover bubbles on her finger and plopped them onto Melissa's nose with a, "Boop!"

For a moment, the baby looked confused, crossing her eyes to look at the bubbles. Then, the two of them laughed. Mercedes followed suit with her own face. Melissa reached out to grab the bubbles from her face.

"Oh, you wanna grab them, huh? How about this?" She took some bubbles and without warning, plopped them all over Sam's face.

Sam couldn't have prepared for the onslaught of baby hands if he tried.

"Okay! Okay!" He took Melissa off his hips and jutted her into the sky as she and Mercedes found themselves in stitches. He then laughed himself before looking over at his girlfriend. "How could you do that to me? I thought you loved me?"

"I do, which is why I also love messing with you so much." She embraced him from behind and rested her head on the side of his shoulder.

"She really warmed up to you," he told her.

"She did. You were right. I just had to stop making it about me and think more about her. I also had to stop stressing so much."

"See? Look at that. And when we have our own kids, it won't be half as hard getting to know them as it was her."

"Yeah." She grinned as he brought the baby back down. Truthfully, she hadn't worried nearly as much about them having kids when she remembered that he was going to be with her. His being there every step of the way made it seem much less daunting.

"Hey, could you say that again?"

"I needed to stop stressing so much."

"No, the first part."

"You were right?"

"HA!" He leaned back with the baby in his arms. "Hey Bree," he yelled, walking out of the kitchen to find her, "did you hear that? I was right!"


The couple got the kids bathed and ready for bed. Aubrey didn't want to go to sleep with Melissa still awake, so she lay on the couch with them and her blanket while the infant had her last bottle and Sam played video games (with coaching from his niece, of course).

After beating a random level for the 50th time, Sam looked over to see all of them asleep. Even the dog. He smiled to himself. Mercedes started the week worried about Melissa not liking her and what that said about her as a potential mother, and she was ending it with the baby asleep on her chest. She'd done an incredible job this week and he was going to make sure he told her countless times. He turned the tv and lights off, picked Aubrey up, and tapped Mercedes gently with his foot.

He whispered, "Babe, wake up."

Mercedes opened her eyes with a breath. "Shoot. How long was I out?"

He shrugged. "10, 15 maybe. I'll put her down," he nodded to the toddler in his arms. "You got her?" He nodded to the baby in hers.

She nodded. "I'll meet you in bed."

They went their separate ways and tucked the girls in. When they got into bed, Sam immediately spooned her and kissed her on the cheek. "You were amazing today. I mean, you've been amazing all week, but even more so today."

"Thank you, baby. Same to you. I have to admit, I thought Melissa was going to be the death of me a few days ago." She chuckled and turned around to face him. "I couldn't have done any of it without you."

"Ditto."

They shared a few Eskimo kisses before he looked out of the window across the room and smiled.

"Hey, it's snowing."

She took her previous position as the little spoon and rested her arm on his. "It sure is."

"Maybe we can take the girls out for a little snow day tomorrow?"

"Maybe," she said doubtfully. "If it sticks."


The next morning, Sam assembled Aubrey and Jr. at his bedroom door while he held Melissa. "On your marks, get set," he whispered before yelling, "go!"

All at once, they ran into the bedroom and jumped onto the bed, startling Mercedes awake.

Mercedes let out a scream before seeing how everyone in the house plotted against her. "Sam, if you ever interrupt my beauty rest like that again, you will live the rest of your life alone and lonely." She smiled as she poked her niece, who'd snuggled under her, in her side. "And if you ever do that again, I'm calling Santa Claus and tattling."

Aubrey laughed, clearly not as frightened by the threat as she should've been, "Noooo!"

"Yup. Don't let Uncle Sam trick you into getting coal for Christmas." She kissed her on the forehead.

Sam laughed in her face. "Yeah, right. You love me; you'll never leave and neither will I. Don't listen to her Aubrey. Empty threats are what those are." He gave her a good morning kiss. "Guess what?"

"Hmm?"

He nodded to the window.

She looked out and saw a winter wonderland in their backyard.

"It stuck!" He shouted.

"Aunt Cedes, can we go play in it? Please? Pretty please? Pretty pretty please with ice cream and sugar and chocolate and cherries on top please?"

"Oh, my goodness. How about you get some breakfast first and then we'll talk about a snow day?"

"Okay!" She hopped off the bed and ran into the kitchen.

Sam smiled as he laid down next to her.

Mercedes stared at him. "Can we even take her in the snow?" She pointed at Melissa.

"Sure we can. You like snow, don't you, Liss?" He smiled at her. "You love the snow, don't you? You're too cute not to! Yes, you are!"

"Are you sure it's safe?"

Sam shrugged. "We'll ask somebody." He reached over for his phone.

"Who? My brother and his wife are on vacation, as are Kurt and Blaine. That's everyone we know with kids."

Sam grimaced. "Yikes. You're right. We'll just look it up."

"Oh, no." Mercedes grinned as she facepalmed. "We're gonna kill Klaine's baby," she joked. "We made it so far. So far."


They ended up calling Sam's mom, who said that it was fine as long as it was "bundled and brief," meaning Melissa had to be kept warm and they shouldn't keep her out for too long. She also demanded that they take family pictures and send them afterward. Sometime that afternoon, the snow had stopped, leaving a fresh white blanket across the lawn.

Mercedes decided that for their last night, she'd make vegetable soup after their snow day. She'd just put it on the stove when Sam came out with the girls fully dressed.

"We're ready when you are!"

She scanned the three of them, Sam and Aubrey in their triple layers, both two jackets and two pairs of pants each, probably on top of tank tops and sweatpants, judging by Sam's air of utter preparedness. And, of course, Melissa in her bright white snowsuit that Kurt and Blaine somehow predicted she'd need.

She doubled over in laughter.

Sam's face fell. "What's so funny?"

She could barely talk, "You… and Bree… and the baby… oh, my gosh, the baby… she, she looks like… a mini Michelin Man. Oh, my gosh. I can't! My stomach! I can't!" Her knees gave out and she went down.

Sam started chuckling before taking a look at Melissa and laughing just as hard as she was. "She kinda does, huh?"

She rested on the floor as she caught her breath, holding her side. "Oh, man. Don't tell Kurt I said that, he'll kill me."

He joined her on the floor. "Gotcha. Just don't tell Blaine I laughed."

Mercedes got dressed and everyone finally went outside. She hissed at the windchill. Living in L.A. for the past five years hadn't exactly done wonders for her cold tolerance. Snow was a lot colder than she remembered.

As per Mary's orders, they didn't stay out for long, but they still had fun. They made snow angels, built snowmen, and Sam and Mercedes even had a snowball fight. Actually, Aubrey helped Sam make snowballs with one arm while Melissa was in the other so that they could throw them at Mercedes, who was helpless. But everyone except Mercedes loved it. When time was up, Mercedes very gladly went inside with Melissa so that Aubrey and Sam could continue to enjoy the snow. Later that night, they had dinner, even though Mercedes was having to practically shove the food down her niece's throat.

"I don't want carrots!"

"Bree, you can barely taste the carrots." She'd gone light on the carrots when making the soup for that very reason.

"I can! I don't like them!"

Sam tried to encourage her while he fed Melissa, "But they'll help you see? Don't you want to be able to see really good? You don't want glasses, right? Glasses are ugly."

"Sam," Mercedes called him out.

He shrugged, signaling that he was trying.

"Glasses are not ugly," she said more to the child than to him. "They're very pretty and there are a lot of people who wear glasses and they love them."

"I don't care about glasses. I don't want carrots." She crossed her arms.

"Alright, how about this?" Sam handed the baby and her food to Mercedes. "I'll take them out. Will you eat them then?"

Chuckling at Aubrey's wide smile and hard nod, Mercedes warned him with her voice the way she always did. "Sam Evans."

"What's a little less carrots in the soup? I took stuff out for Liss!"

"Liss can't have most of the veggies in there. Aubrey can have them, so Aubrey is eating them."

Sam swiped the bowl off the table and quickly started picking out the carrots.

Mercedes rolled her eyes and refused to fight him on it.

In bed that night, a half-asleep Sam had his arm around Mercedes, who was wide awake on her back. "Are you going to tell me what you're thinking about?"

"Just mulling over song ideas."

"Babe," he said tiredly, "you don't even have your book with you. Do you have to think of lyrics right now? Go to sleep."

"It's not just lyrics. I have melodies and stuff to write. We leave in a little over a day and I'm behind schedule. If I don't have five songs ready to record by the time we touch down on Sunday, my ass is grass."

"You need some inspiration?" He laid some kisses on her sweet spot. "Because I could help with that."

She giggled, squirming. "No, and you need to calm down, Mr. Magic Man. Making carrots disappear and whatnot."

He smirked. "Oh, boo. You're still mad about that? It was hours ago."

"I'm not mad, but you should know that you're not going to be getting off that easy when we have our own kids. None of my babies are having any nutrient deficiencies."

"Both Aubrey and our unborn children will do just fine with a smaller amount of carrots in their diet. Now, back to my inspiration." He traced his fingers along her jaw and turned her face to his. "Your next album needs a love-making song and I can provide you with some excellent source material."

She watched as he zeroed in on her lips, his fingers quickly finding their way underneath her top. "Shouldn't we try to keep it PG? It's our last night with the girls."

"Mercedes, I love you and those kids, but hell no. Come here." He all but yanked her under him, commencing his attack on her. He laughed darkly at the squeal she let out. Before he could do anything else, Melissa made her unhappiness known with a wail. "You can't be serious."

She snickered.

"Every time, Mercedes. It's like they have a telepathic connection to me and every time they feel we're gonna do the no-pants dance, they can't go a single second without letting us know what they need."

She shrugged. "That's life with babies, baby." She went to go check on Melissa and came back with her in her arms, already fast asleep again.

"You have a baby in your arms," Sam pointed out. "Why do you have a baby in your arms?"

"If someone's not holding her, she's just gonna cry all night and keep us all up. Kurt said so himself when they dropped her off."

Once the three of them were settled and Sam got over his annoyance because of how cute Mercedes looked with an infant on her chest again, there was a small knock at their bedroom door.

"Aunt Cedes?"

"Come in, princess."

Aubrey pushed the door open and stood in the doorway, blanket in her hand and tears in her eyes.

Sam shot up in bed, but Mercedes couldn't because of the baby. She asked, "What happened? Did you have a bad dream?"

The child nodded.

"You wanna come sleep with us?" Sam offered.

She didn't react, almost as if she was hesitant to.

"It's okay, come on." Mercedes scooted over to make some room and beckoned her with her hand.

Sam lifted Aubrey into the bed and placed her in between him and Mercedes. He hugged her while Mercedes kissed her on the forehead.

"Do you want a lullaby?"

Another nod.

Sam placed his arm around her while Mercedes sang softly:

Close your eyes, my pretty child,

Though the night is dark and the wind is wild,

I will stand beside your bed,

Tonight there is nothing you need fear or dread.

You can sleep now, go to sleep,

The rain falls and the windows weep,

I'm standing by to sing a lullaby.

Sam reached for her hand. Even when it was a disaster, the past week with the girls had been nothing short of amazing. Mercedes was incredible with them. Motherhood seemed to come so naturally to her. He liked to think that he wasn't so bad himself. That wasn't to say they were perfect; he still didn't quite know how to say no to them and she was still a little… high-strung. But no parents were perfect, right? And they weren't even pregnant yet, so they always had another nine months at least.

With both the babies asleep, Mercedes smiled tiredly at Sam. She was admittedly worried about kids with him before, especially with what her dad said yesterday. She decided to keep that to herself until she did some more thinking on it. Also, she would be lying if she said that looking after the girls for a week hadn't made her more tired than she'd ever been, but it was a good tired. No, it was a great tired.


Finally back with another update! I've got to say, I ended up hitting a bit of writer's block with this story because I'm trying to find a way to bring it to an end sooner rather than later. I've got some other stories in the works and don't really want this one to go on for too much longer. But I think I've figured some things out, so updates will be (a little) more regular from here on out. I hope y'all enjoyed the Samcedes parenting. The next few chapters will be in L.A. while Sam and Mercedes are on vacation. Thanks for sticking with me!