A/N: Yes, I know it took forever for me to update but it was just a really slow process with work and other distractions. I've learned that handwriting my chapters has got me a lot farther and typing. Maybe it will help me along with the next one! Comments are going to help me SO MUCH with how this story progresses! It really will! Keep that in mind while you read! Enjoy!
Mercedes leaned against the kitchen window that framed what looked like a picturesque Christmas scene. Houses blanketed in snow, decorations behind windows that glowed with warm light. She could feel the chill from outside on her shoulder and her temple that pressed against the cold glass. The rest of her body was enveloped by the warmth of the house and the mug of hot chocolate in her hands.
It was a perfect Christmas moment, but for some reason she felt... like something was missing. The warmth that relieved her from the winter's cold usually brought her that familiar Christmas cheer, but it was as if that warmth didn't suffice. She closed her eyes trying to focus on that feeling...
All of a sudden she felt the sensation of two arms wrapping around her from behind, a chin resting lightly on her shoulder. A smile lightly graced her face.
"Hey Mercy..."
Mercedes' smile grew. "Yes, Quinn?" She opened her eyes and turned to the head resting on her shoulder.
"The gingerbread cookies are in the oven and your best friends want your attention now." The blonde chuckled.
"Mercedes!" The boy wearing a green and red fedora nearly barked. "Were you even listening to what I was saying for the past two minutes?"
Mercedes turned to give Kurt a wary smile. "Um... you said something about the mall?"
Kurt sighed exasperatedly. "I was talking about something that happened at the mall."
"What happened?" Mercedes walked over to the kitchen island and seated herself on a bar stool. Quinn closely followed.
"Well, I was going to get to that, but then I realized you weren't listening." Kurt rolled his eyes as he grabbed a candy cane and used it to stir his hot chocolate.
"It's not like she needed to listen. You took a long time to get to your point which we still haven't gotten to by the way." Quinn spoke up sardonically as she dipped a finger in the green icing bowl.
"Just setting the scene because that's what I do." Kurt gave a half-shrug.
Mercedes leaned in further against the marble counter. "So you went to the mall... and?"
Kurt planted both hands on the counter top and gave them both a pointed gaze. "Guess who I saw?"
"Santa Claus."
The boy waved the joke away. "Blaine."
The girls simply shared a look. "And?" Mercedes pressed on.
Kurt's blue eyes darted from Mercedes to the floor. "Um, he came up to me. We talked a little... He's moving to New York for an internship... we wants to meet me at Lima Bean for coffee so we can catch up some more..."
Mercedes and Quinn remained quiet for a moment. From the look on Kurt's face, it seemed like he was having a conversation with himself.
Kurt cautiously began again as he looked at the two girls in front of him. "So... This is where I let my friends go ahead and talk about what I just said."
Quinn gave him a faint smile. "What do you want us to say?"
Kurt opened his mouth for a moment before anything managed to come out. "I don't know. I guess... you should tell me whether or not it's a good thing."
Mercedes shrugged. "Well, I don't see how meeting him and catching up could be a bad thing. Why would it be a bad thing?"
Kurt shifted restlessly in his seat. "I... guess it isn't."
Quinn tucked a hair behind her ear as she raised an eyebrow. "Then why are you feeling uncomfortable about it?"
"I'm not." Kurt quickly countered.
"Yes, you are." Quinn fired back. "Why would you want our advice if this wasn't an issue?"
"I guess I'm nervous about it." Kurt stared at his nails.
"Because you still like him." She quipped bluntly.
Kurt leaned back startled. "I didn't say that! I mean, we have history but-"
"You two didn't resolve your relationship."
"We did... I think."
"No, you didn't."
Kurt threw his hands up in the air. "Jeez, Quinn, why are you stuffing words in my mouth?"
Quinn tossed her hair nonchalantly over her shoulder. "Look, I'm trying to help you out. You know I went through a lot in my life. And I've learned that beating around the bush is just a waste of time. Clearly you have a problem with this and bringing it up means you want our honest opinion."
Kurt rested his head in his hand as he mulled over the words. "You're right... I guess I'm really nervous. Maybe... just maybe... when I see him and really get to talking to him again that the feelings will come back. You never know."
"And what's so bad about that?" Quinn tilted her head.
Kurt didn't answer as he got lost in his own thoughts. Mercedes looked on at her best friend with an uneasy feeling. Whatever he was thinking, she felt a bit of déjà vu herself... an ex suddenly comes back into your life and you don't know where to go from there. You want to act like there is nothing to it... but there is. It's treading into dangerous territory. Something that is familiar but unknown. It could fail again and go crashing down, even harder than before. For Mercedes, walls were built up and she didn't feel ready to tear them down just yet. Could she ever let anyone in again?
Mercedes ran a thumb over the scar on her arm. From her peripheral, she noticed Quinn move closer to her and squeeze her hand. Mercedes looked at her friend who simply gazed back at her. In silence, her eyes simply reflected what she wanted to tell her. Soon after Mercedes had that encounter with Jeffery, she talked to her best friends about it. Although Quinn couldn't relate, she did understand Mercedes' sudden loss in the ability to trust. Mercedes didn't have the heart to tell her parents about this problem yet, so Quinn and Kurt were all she had.
But now Sam knew about it too.
You're my biggest distraction.
Upon reflection, she realized that she left him with those words and didn't bother hearing a reply. Not that she ever sought him out for it. In the remaining weeks of the semester, she practically ignored him. It wasn't until the last week that she mustered up the courage to acknowledge him. Sam seemed to respect the distance that she requested. Other than giving her a smile when they were passing by, he made no move to force his presence on her.
But sometimes she wish he did...
Mercedes had gone years without him, but now not talking to him on a daily basis left her with that odd feeling that something was missing. Just talking to him for a few minutes or sitting with him at their usual coffee table did something to complete her day. She couldn't help but think about that one fall day when they just sat silently on her favorite bench. Just being there... together.
But she knew she did it for a reason. She knew that she was walking a fine line with him, especially after that night at the club. They knew they were attracted to each other. Feelings still remained. And that was the problem.
As much as she hated to admit it right now, she was pretty vulnerable at this point. Broken was her own word for it. She wasn't ready to put herself out there just yet. She wanted to be able to stand on her own two feet, not have to seek the comfort of a man in an attempt to heal the wounds that another man gave her. She was vulnerable but that didn't mean she was weak and incapable of making herself strong. She was determined to become stronger than before. She wanted her wounds to become an advantage. But she wasn't quite there yet.
How long would it take? What would it take?
Mercedes looked up to meet Kurt's gaze. From the gleam in his blue eyes, she could tell the focus wordlessly shifted to her. Quinn and Kurt clearly were giving her their vow as her friends that they would be there for her no matter what she decided to do. No doubt that she would do the same.
With her free hand that was not in Quinn's grasp, she reached across to hold Kurt's hand. "I say going to see Blaine wouldn't hurt. But it's up to you, hun. You know that if anything goes wrong, you always have us." Quinn nodded in agreement as Kurt weaved his fingers through Mercedes'.
"I know..."
A couple hours later, her friends said their goodbyes so they could spend the rest of their limited time at home with their families. Mercedes currently was in an empty house because her parents were out doing their own Christmas shopping. At times like these, an empty house in the winter, she went to her reading nook in the upstairs common room. The comfy sitting area by the tall window was the perfect place to just bury herself in blankets and curl up with a good book and a cup of hot chocolate.
She was planning on moving on to other British literature that she was missing out on during her incredibly busy week, but something in her school bag that she brought home caught her eye.
Sam's manuscript.
She promised Sam that she would continue reading his manuscript and give him feedback. She wasn't sure she could keep her promise, at least not right now, not given the current status of their relationship. But she convinced herself that reading it didn't change anything about that. At least she could fulfill a part of the promise now. It wasn't much of an obligation anyway considering that she thoroughly enjoyed his writing even from the first chapter. School kept her from continuing it but now there was nothing stopping her now.
With the glow of a winter's day lighting the reading nook, Mercedes opened the manuscript and began to read. A smile never left her mouth. She was swept back into the story right from where she left off.
It was detailed, in-depth. It was an epic story that took the reader far away into another world. At the same time, she felt some sort of familiarity. It was as if he was telling her the story himself just as he did when he narrated his favorite super hero story. As she read she could imagine Sam telling it to her. It was amazing that someone with dyslexia could write such a phenomenal story. Then again, dyslexia didn't hinder one's imagination. It certainly did not hinder his.
Sam was going places, she was sure of it. Now she could truly empathize with him. Why was he being limited to some other path when he had a whole world of potential elsewhere?
An hour later, she was still rooted to that very spot, this time with the edge of her blanket lifted under her eyes leering intensely at the page in front of her. She bit nervously at the fabric as her eyes flew quickly over the words. They were probably not going fast enough for her liking because she was so eager to know what was going to happen. What the hell was going to happen in the end?
Ding dong.
She was dragged out of the imaginary world by the loud noise echoing in the empty house. Mercedes let out a long sigh, very reluctant to leave the comfort of her warm blanket.
She quickly descended the stairs hoping she wasn't keeping her visitor waiting. She figured that it was a neighbor or a family friend coming to drop off gifts for the Jones family. But when she grabbed the doorknob and threw the door open, she wasn't prepared for who was standing before her.
"Hey, Cede."
The big smile she had at the ready slowly slid away from her face at the sight of the very familiar blonde. His crooked smile grew as hers faded.
Sam chuckled. "Not who you were expecting, huh?"
"No, I..." Mercedes stumbled. "Why are you in Lima?"
"Oh, that..." He stuffed his hands into pockets of his brown leather jacket. "My family is visiting my aunt in Kentucky not too far away from here. I decided to take the opportunity to visit my..." He lifted his eyes to meet hers, "...friends."
"Ah..." She nodded. "Did you see some of the others?"
Sam leaned against the door frame and crossed his arms. "Yeah, I saw Mike and went to Finn and Kurt's for a little bit."
Kurt. She left her phone on vibrate in the kitchen. He must have left her a text message about this. Not that it mattered anymore.
"So..." Mercedes struggled to keep the conversation going.
"So... um," Sam bit his lip before continuing. "It's winter break. So I was wondering...if I could distract you for a little while." A small smirk played on his face.
Mercedes felt her heart jump. "What? What do you mean?"
Sam gave her a half-shrug, "I know it's pretty cold out, but I was wondering if you would like to take a walk with me. You know, at the park. Like we used to do."
Distract you for a little while. Mercedes continued to dwell on it before, she gave her answer. "I... guess so." What else could she do? "Come in for a while. I need to pick up my coat."
Once they set off for the park, they fell into casual conversation, how their semester ended, what they were going to do in the next semester, how their families were. Mercedes couldn't help but marvel at how easy it was. None of the awkwardness that she dreaded. It was like nothing changed. It relieved her and yet it unnerved her.
In her attempt to keep that thought at bay, Mercedes realized there was something she meant to talk to him about. She unthinkingly swatted him in the arm. "That manuscript! It's so amazing, Sammy!"
Sam looked up from his arm that she hit. "Really? You think so? You're still reading it?" His face lit up.
"Yeah, I was about to finish it before you rudely interrupted me twenty minutes ago." Mercedes nudged him. She made a quick note to herself to stop touching him. She'd be sending him the wrong signals. "I'm serious when I think you need to try to get this published! I'm positive that someone will pick it up!"
"Positive?" He raised an eyebrow.
"Yes. Positive." Mercedes looked at him pointedly. "It would be a waste if you didn't."
Sam scoffed. "But people say it would be such a waste if I didn't go to the NFL."
Mercedes stopped walking and stepped in front of him. "In the end of the day, whose happiness depends on this decision? Yours. Not theirs. Sure, people are going to talk about it for a little while, but you will look back on your life thinking 'did I do the right thing?'"
Sam let out a long breath, letting her words silently hang in the air. His green eyes pierced through her holding her to her spot. A small smile grew on his face, and then he let out a quiet laugh.
"What's so funny?" Mercedes suddenly felt self-conscious about what she just said.
"Nothing. It's just that" Sam looked back up at her, the amusement leaving his eyes. "you're amazing, you know that?"
Mercedes could almost feel the weight of those words literally take hold of her. It completely paralyzed her.
The silence made its presence known.
Sam seemed to notice how those words affected her. His eyes flew off of her and on to the scenery of the snow covered park. She didn't realize that they arrived until now.
"It's been a long time. Last time I was here, it definitely wasn't covered in snow." Sam mused.
No, it wasn't. It was summer. That summer. Their summer.
Their eyes rested on the tallest tree in the park.
Sam would joke that the tree was like the home tree from Avatar, that they connected to it somehow. The observation never failed to earn him a diva eye roll.
"Stop swaying like that, you dork butt!" Mercedes kicked Sam's thigh with her ballet flat clad foot. "You can't talk to the tree that way. You're just going to make everyone in this park think that you're ready for the asylum!" She threw her head back laughing heartily.
Sam made a face as he tipped over with this warms flailing and fell on the dense green grass. "Thanks for being a killjoy!" He chuckled and crawled back onto the blanket they laid out and flopped on his stomach next to Mercedes. "But for your information sitting under here, closing your eyes and focusing isn't so pointless."
Mercedes sat up, propping herself up with her elbows. "Oh really?"
"Yeah really." Sam nodded. "This is my thinking tree. When I have the time and I just want to get my mind off of things, I come here and... think."
"Think about what?"
"About.." Sam's eyes shifted nervously. "I think up stories."
"Stories? Like you make up stories?"
The blonde avoided looking at her, a blush rising on his cheeks. She knew about his dorky tendencies but this was a whole other level. So he was really surprised when she started talking again instead of just giving him a judgmental stare.
"I do that too. Well, I used to when I was ten. I thought up this whole story about how I was in a royal family from another galaxy that somehow got stuck on Earth and was wiped of their memory, but somehow we were getting those memories back and were planning on returning to our kingdom out in space." She realized she was spewing out a memory that normally she would have considered to be social suicide, but from the look on Sam's face, it seemed like she was the coolest person in existence.
"Yeah! Stories like that!" Sam smiled brightly.
"What were yours about?" Mercedes laid back down, her head resting on her big purse.
"I've made quite a few of them but..." He quickly sat up. "I've got one." He reached across her to grab something from the bag that held snacks for the kids and themselves.
"Okay." He crouched down close to Mercedes' side. "Once upon a time there was this boy named Samwise."
"Samwise?" Mercedes raised an eyebrow. "Isn't that from another story?"
Sam held a hand up. "Questions are for after the story. Work with me here!"
"Okay, okay fine. Go on."
"So this Samwise guy traveled from a far away land in hopes to find fortune and fame and even friendship..." Sam brought out an animal cracker and placed it on Mercedes' stomach pretending like it was trotting along.
Mercedes laughed at his little makeshift play. "Samwise is a giraffe?"
"No! Samwise rides a giraffe!" Sam retorted in mock agitation. "It's way cooler than a horse. Anyway, he eventually finds all that he wants. All the citizens of the land know his name, he holds a place of honor in the royal court, he even had a beautiful maiden of that court. He thought that life was perfect... but suddenly everything was taken away from him..."
"How?" Mercedes look at Sam, searching his features.
He looked back at her and smiled solemnly, "He never found out. Could have been some evil magic, could have been just life screwing him over.
"So..." The giraffe cracker trekked higher up her stomach. "Samwise, in a deep state of depression wandered aimlessly trying to search for some hope, any kind of hope that he could hold on to. He traveled mountains so tall." Sam smirked as the giraffe trotted up Mercedes' right breast causing her to giggle madly. "And valleys low..."
"Sam!" Mercedes held back a squeal and weakly slapped his arm as it basically went down her cleavage.
He ignored her protests and continued. "And over more mountains!" The cookie trotted over her left breast down the slope to her collarbone. "It was during these aimless travels that he found what he least expected... a mystical being of sorts. But he liked to call her his guardian angel." Sam's eyes lifted to meet her. "She helped him see his worth even without all of the fame and fortune. She was a true friend to him... and so he fell in love with her." He touched the little giraffe muzzle to Mercedes' lips.
Mercedes couldn't say a word. Her chest clenched so tightly that she was worried tears might start forming in her eyes. He fell in love with her.
Sam chuckled and threw the animal cracker into his mouth. "Okay, so that wasn't one of my best stories. They're usually are more developed and don't sound like a kids' fairyta-" He was cut off by a pair of soft full lips that flew onto his. Before he could think to respond, Mercedes pulled back slightly to that she could look at him straight in the eye.
"You're amazing, you know that?" She whispered before slowly leaning back in for another kiss.
A chilly breeze brought Mercedes out of the summer memory. She turned to Sam. His hands stuffed in his pockets, his eyes looked unfocused as he gazed into the distance yet they had a mischievous glint to them. His lips, especially red from the cold, were formed in the ghost of his lopsided grin. These past few years did a lot for him, but the things about him that were burned into her memory remained unchanging. He was the same boy she loved that summer.
Deep in her thoughts, Mercedes didn't realize that he already turned and was looking back at her. "It's amazing how coming back to a place can bring back so many memories." He said quietly.
Maybe he was thinking the same thing. Mercedes could help but smile at the thought. "Yeah, it is amazing."
A few weeks later, Mercedes was at Richter trying to get back into the routine of her spring semester. Of course she was dreading the workload that was about to pile on, but the one thing that she could look forward to was being with her closest friends for Goldtones rehearsals. Throughout her break, she kept in contact with Tiffany thinking up some awesome numbers that they could use for their upcoming performances. She was more than ready to share it with the rest of the group.
Andrew spun around the piano bench and spoke up over the chatter in the choir room. "So! Are we going to start any time soon?"
Tiffany laughed. "Yes, we are going to start." With that, everyone took their seats at the stools formed in a circle. "Thanks for stepping up, Andrew."
He winked back, "Someone has to if the leader isn't going to."
"Shut ya pie hole, I got this... So welcome back guys! Everyone ready for this semester?"
"Not really." Joey coughed and few others nodded.
"Well, whether you're going to be a super senior or not, Joey, it doesn't really matter here, but I can assure you guys that the Goldtones are going to bring it even harder than before. Mercedes and I thought up some amazing song lists. Do you have them, Mercedes?"
Mercedes smiled brightly, "Of course, right here." As she reached down for her bag on the floor, the door loudly creaked open, she continued to search through her bag figuring it was another member coming in late.
"Oh." Tiffany began. "Hey... You looking for someone?"
"No." Mercedes froze at the sound of the voice then suddenly whipped up and turned around.
There stood Sam by the door with a bright smile on his face. "I was wondering if you guys did open auditions." He pointed to the guitar strapped to his back.
Oh god... what was he thinking?
A/N: Plain & Simple. Reviews=Lifeblood! They're greatly appreciated!