And the reunion begins in earnest! By the end of this part, there are NINETEEN characters in the 'scene' and I suddenly have a lot more respect for the challenges the Glee writing team may have faced over the years. I legit used an interior design app to map out the furniture in the room and then made a seating chart so I could keep track of where everyone is. So I hope it all makes sense. Hope you enjoy - please let me know!

One other quick side note - I picture Quinn's husband Ty as played by Joshua Jackson. He's probably a smidge too old, but I've decided Ty was a bit of non-traditional student and a little older than those in his class. I haven't determined his exact challenges yet but I feel like that's one of the things that drew him and Quinn together. Anyway - happy reading!

Saturday evening, Hudson-Hummel Home

Sam walked out the back door of the Hudson-Hummel house with Artie – there was a sidewalk from the patio that sloped down to the door of the basement and they'd long ago figured out that this was a much easier way for Artie to get into the basement, as opposed to carrying him down the stairs.

Sam loved the Hudson-Hummel basement. It was fully finished and on the side of the room where they were entering, there was a small kitchenette – a fridge, a sink and a microwave, plus a bar-height table and bar stools. At the other end of the room, if you came in the room from upstairs, you stepped right into the living area which had a huge L-shaped couch, a slightly smaller regular rectangle couch, a loveseat, an armchair and some beanbag chairs and an ottoman that was almost big enough for three people to sit on. There was a huge TV on the wall and over the years, especially when he'd lived here during his last two years of high school, he'd enjoyed many evenings of movie watching or video game playing in this room.

It was different from Rachel's basement – he associated that space with wild parties and drunken antics and kissing girls that he no longer particularly wanted to think about having once kissed. This basement was for chill evenings, for planning glee club performances, for cozying up with your girlfriend or boyfriend. He thought about what Carole had said a few minutes ago, about the six of them – the three boys who lived here and their significant others had spent a lot of time here that spring of everyone but him and Blaine's senior year. Sometimes all six of them, sometimes just one of the other couples and on one rare occasion, just him and Mercedes, snuggled up on that huge couch, sharing sweet, almost innocent kisses and not much else, but he hadn't cared, he was just so glad to be kissing her again. He hadn't known for certain then that she was still a virgin, but he'd suspected, since he was one of the only two serious boyfriends she'd ever had and he obviously knew she hadn't been with him and he had a feeling that if she'd slept with Shane, there would have been a much greater chance that she would have stayed with him. But it had taken so long to win her over again that he hadn't pushed or even brought up the issue – he'd thought they'd had plenty of time and he didn't want to risk losing everything by making her feel pressured so early on. And then she'd moved to LA and the issue was out of his hands.

He was shaken out of his thoughts by the sound of footsteps clattering down the stairs.

"This party just got a little sweeter, y'all, because Sugar is HERE!" Sugar announced as she appeared at the bottom of the stairs. "AND – look who I brought with me!"

Coming down behind her on the staircase were Joe and Rory, who both waved.

"Oh, wow, hi! I didn't think either of you were coming!" Sam said happily as he greeted all three of them with hugs and Sugar then jumped on Artie's lap and kissed his cheek. "Shh," she laughed, "Don't tell Tina."

"I heard that, Sugar Motta," Tina said as she came down the stairs, Jake in tow.

"My God, Tina, you have hearing like a BAT," Sam said, shaking his head.

Tina grinned. "How do you think I got to be the biggest gossip in this club? Because I hear EVERYTHING."

"Okay, but really," Artie said. "How are you two here? You both said you couldn't come."

Rory had gone back to Ireland after his year in the States and now worked in an office in Dublin. "Yeah," he said in his lilting Irish accent, "I didn't think I could. Flights from Ireland are like, a ridiculous cost. There was just no way, not on my pitiful salary."

"Yeah," Joe agreed. "Same for me – not only are flights from Guam crazy expensive, they're just hard to get in general." Joe, to absolutely no one's surprise, had gone on to seminary after college and was now serving as a missionary in Guam. "But Sugar reached out and said she'd make it happen, just let her know how much each of us needed to get here."

Sugar shrugged. "Anything is possible if you have enough money. And thank goodness, my daddy still has plenty."

Sam shook his head. Sugar and Jake were the other two alumni who still lived in Lima, so he saw them both a lot. Jake more than Sugar, as he was a dance teacher at McKinley. Their competitive dance team had won state championships the last two years and Jake was fairly sure they were going to take Nationals this year finally. Sugar was basically still just doing whatever she wanted, living on daddy's money, and when she got bored and invited the two of them to join her at dinner or a movie or whatever, they were happy to go, since it was always her treat. Her heart was even bigger than the Motta bank account and that was saying something.

Blaine and Marley came down the stairs then and another round of hugging began. Marley had gone to the main Ohio State campus in Columbus and had stayed there after graduation, working customer service in the office of a national retailer that was headquartered there.

"Got a text from Ryder," Blaine said. "He's stuck in traffic from an accident on 75 – he should have been here by now but it'll be another twenty to thirty minutes." Ryder had moved to Toledo after college at Bowling Green.

Sam glanced at his own phone to check the time. "Oh! We need to get the Zoom meeting started for Kitty and Unique."

'"Yes," Blaine said, getting the TV turned on and switched to the web. "Everyone make yourself at home while I get this going. There's drinks in the fridge – beer, wine, soda, water – and tons of snacks over there," he said, waving in the direction of the kitchen area and everyone started moving in that direction, making plates of food and pulling drinks out of the fridge.

"Pass me one of those, will ya?" Jake said to Sam, who was leaning into the fridge grabbing a bottle of Sam Adams.

"Sure," Sam said, handing over a bottle with his left hand.

"Thanks," Jake said, then adding as his brain registered what it was seeing, "Wait, man, are you wearing a wedding ring?"

It was weird, Sam thought. He'd actually already become so accustomed to it that sometimes he forgot it was there. "Oh. Yeah, I got married the other day," he said, deliberately casual.

"What?" This from Jake as well as several others close enough to hear.

"Is that why I had to help Will cover glee practice on Thursday?" Jake asked and Sam nodded.

"Yeah. We got married on Wednesday and I took Thursday as like, a one-day honeymoon."

Before Jake or anyone else could ask who 'we' was, the Zoom meeting connected, Kitty and Unique's faces filled the screen and everyone's attention turned to the TV.

"What's up, bitches?" Kitty said cheerfully and Unique added, "The party is officially fabulous now!"

"It would be more fabulous if you were here in person," Marley said from the spot she had claimed on the couch.

Kitty and Unique looked at each, grinning mischievously. "She's not wrong," Kitty said.

"No she is not," Unique agreed.

Blaine frowned, really looking at the screen. "Wait – where are you guys? Are you in a car? Or getting out of a car?"

"Maybe," Kitty shrugged, the camera wobbling all over the place, Unique popping in and out of the frame.

Then they heard a male voice from off-camera. "Kitty? Unique? Is that you?"

"Was that Ryder's voice?" Joe asked. "I swear it was."

"Are they here?" Blaine said, confused.

"I think they're here," Marley said, pointing at the TV as Ryder's face entered the frame and he said, "Hey guys! Look who I found outside the house!"

"Well, shit," Kitty said. "Ryder blew our surprise. So, surprise! We're here! Somebody come let us in!"

Sam was already halfway up the stairs as Kitty hit 'leave call' and the TV screen went black. The three new arrivals soon appeared on the stairs, although Sam was not with them.

Marley jumped up from the couch to hug Unique, while Tina launched herself at Kitty and Jake came over to bro-hug Ryder.

"I can't believe you're here!" Tina said. "We had lunch just last week and you never said a word!"

"Well, we didn't decide until this week," Kitty replied. "We were figuring out where we were gonna meet to do the call and suddenly we were like, why are we not just going to this thing? Why are we going to be the only ones not there with everyone? And then we thought it'd be fun to make it a surprise." She shrugged. "So here we are!"

"Wait, did you guys lose Sam?" Blaine asked, realizing that he hadn't returned.

"Yeah, like four more cars pulled up as we came inside, so he was waiting to see who that was," Ryder said.

"It was us!" Kurt said cheerfully as he, Mike, Quinn, Ty, Rachel and Jesse came down the stairs.

"What are you guys doing here?" Blaine asked as he went to greet Kurt with a kiss.

"That party was awful," Quinn explained. "I don't know why we even bothered to go."

"So we know this is supposed to be a 2013 glee party, but you're going to have to deal with the original 2009 to 2012 members too," Rachel said with a shrug.

"Well, they let me crash, you guys should definitely be allowed," Rory spoke up and at that point the room devolved into chaos again as rounds of hugs and hellos started up again.

"Wait, Sam is still missing," Blaine said.

"And Mercedes," Tina added. "Are they off making out somewhere?"

Kurt threw her another of his patented WTF looks. "They're talking to my dad and Carole."

"Wait," Marley said, "Why would they be making out? Since when are they together?"

"Since they apparently got married the other day," Tina said, just as Sam and Mercedes appeared on the staircase.

Kurt and Quinn started humming, "Dah dum da dum, dah dum da dum" and everyone else quickly joined in, even those that had no idea what was going on. Mercedes covered her face with her hand while Sam just grinned and offered her his arm to escort her the rest of the way. She rolled her eyes but put her arm through his and they wedding-marched the rest of the way down the stairs, to cheers and applause.

"So, we have some news," Sam said, "Obviously."

"Yeah, all our friends are crazy people," Mercedes added, deadpan.

"That's not news," Kurt said, "that's just facts," and Mercedes nodded her head in concession to this statement.

"Yeah," Sam agreed. "So, anyway, if you haven't already heard, Mercedes and I got married the other day."

The announcement was almost anti-climactic at that point, as those that didn't know had kind of figured it out by then, but they were still swarmed with congratulations and well-wishes as people went back to greeting those they hadn't yet said hello to, getting snacks and drinks and trying to figure out where everyone was going to sit.

Artie gave Mercedes a fist bump when he learned that she had asked Sam ("Yeah, girl. Go for what you want!") while Joe hugged them both and declared that he would pray that the Lord would bless their marriage. Unique stared Sam down for a minute after stating that "I hope you are worthy of the fabulousness that is Mercedes Jones" to which Sam just laughed, and said, "Yeah, I hope I am too!" which brought a genuine smile to Unique's face.

"Well, it's about damn time," Jake said when Sam wound up in a cluster with him, Ryder and Blaine.

"Cheers to that," Sam replied as they clinked beer bottles.

Across the room, Tina was admiring Mercedes's ring. "It's beautiful! But how did he have a ring for you if this was spur-of-the-moment and you asked him?"

"It was his great-grandmother's," Mercedes explained. "His mom gave it to him on his twenty-first birthday, to give to his wife one day. That's why it's amethyst, not a diamond. It wasn't necessarily meant to be an engagement or wedding ring, but it worked out perfectly."

"I was wondering about that too."

"Anyway, he said he'd always hoped it would be me he got to give it too," Mercedes said, smiling.

"Oh!" Tina said, giving her a hug. "I'm just so happy for you! I just can't believe you didn't tell us right away!"

Mercedes laughed. "I didn't tell anyone." She pulled out her phone and pulled up the picture from their wedding, of her and Sam with the judge. "This is it," she said, "us and the judge and two random courthouse employees – those are the only ones who knew for the first twenty-four hours."

Quinn veered over to their conversation then. "Oh, let me see – you didn't show me any pictures earlier," she said, taking the phone from Tina so she could get a better look at the photo.

"Because there's only the one," Mercedes replied. "Quick and simple, it was perfect."

Tina grinned, a little devilishly. "As long as you're just describing the wedding and not your wedding night, it does sound pretty perfect. So how was that part, the wedding night?"

"Tina!" Mercedes hissed, feeling her face flush as Quinn stifled a giggle.

"What?" Tina shrugged. "Someone has to ask, Santana's not here to do it."

"That's a fair point," Quinn agreed. "At least she's asking privately, Santana would have made it a conversation for the room at large to participate in."

"Oh my God," Mercedes muttered, glaring at her so-called friends. "Fine," she finally said, unable to keep a smile from creeping onto her face, "It was one-hundred-percent worth the wait, okay?"

Tina smiled. "Good. You deserve that and I am genuinely, sincerely happy to hear that."

"Happy to hear what?" Sam asked, unfortunately choosing that moment to come up beside Mercedes and put his arm around her waist.

Tina couldn't help herself. "That you made sure Mercedes did not regret finally letting go of her V-card with you," she said with a grin.

"Tina! Oh my GOD!" Mercedes was ready to disappear into the floor. "That is not what I said."

Sam wanted to ask her what she had said but figured that might not be the smartest move at that particular moment, so he kept his mouth shut.

Tina shrugged. "It's what I heard."

Quinn gave Tina a coolly appraising look. "I'm starting to wonder if you aren't actually channeling Santana right now. Like, I wouldn't put it past her to get to the afterlife and figure out how to actually possess someone."

Tina shrugged again. "I don't know. That actually would not surprise me either."

"Me either," Sam said. "Wherever she is now, Santana is totally running the place."

Mercedes managed a laugh, even amid her lingering embarrassment. "I totally believe that."

"Alright, well, San-Tina, go find someone else to haunt, okay?" Sam said. "You've messed with my wife enough for one day."

"Aww," Tina and Quinn said together, imitating him, "My wife."

"Listen to him," Tina added, patting Sam's cheek. "So smitten. Taking care of her. Dedicated to meeting all her needs."

"Okay, Tina, that's enough," Quinn said. "Leave him alone too."

Tina rolled her eyes but wandered off into a conversation with Kitty, Marley and Unique while Quinn leaned in to whisper "sorry!" to Mercedes and went to talk to Joe about his missionary work and introduce him to Ty. Their Sunday School class had agreed to be one of his mission sponsors and she was excited to be able to go back to their church next week and give them an update straight from the man himself.

This left Sam and Mercedes alone in the midst of the group and she looked up at him, making a face. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't be broadcasting our private business to everyone," she said quietly.

"Something tells me that's not exactly what happened. So what did you say?" he asked with a grin.

Mercedes sighed and admitted quietly, "She asked about our wedding night – I told her it was worth the wait."

Sam grinned, but leaned in close to ensure she was the only one who could hear him when he replied, "Yeah, telling two of your best friends that you enjoyed our wedding night is not exactly broadcasting our private business to everyone. It's not like you gave them a play-by-play or told them I'm a sex god or anything."

"Sam!" She was laughing but made a move as though she was going to smack his arm and he put his other arm around her and pulled her in close against his chest before she could.

"I'm glad you all decided to ditch that other party," he said.

"Yeah, me too," she said, smiling up at him as he gave her a quick kiss.

"Gross," Kitty said cheerfully as she walked past them to the kitchen area. "I don't care if you are newlyweds, this is not a make out party."

"Thank you, Kitty, we accept your congratulations!" Sam called after her and she waved a dismissive hand in their direction.

Mercedes laughed as she took a step back and Sam shook his head. "Want something to drink?"

"Yes, please. Hard cider if Blaine got any, otherwise –"

"-just a Coke," he said. "I know."

There he was, paying attention to details again, Mercedes thought as she went to sit down beside Kurt on the couch. He was back in a few moments with a bottle of Angry Orchard and Kurt moved down the couch so that Sam could sit next to her.

As she took a sip, Mercedes looked around the room at all these weird, wonderful people that she loved so much. Rachel and Jesse had claimed the loveseat while on the big couch with her and Sam were Ty and Quinn and Blaine and Kurt. Tina, Sugar, Marley, Unique and Kitty were squashed in together on the smaller couch, Artie's chair parked next to the end where Tina sat. Rory, Joe and Ryder were in the beanbag chairs and Jake was sitting sideways in the armchair, legs dangling over the armrest. And Mike was sitting on the floor next to the ottoman, using it as a table, as were several of the others. In some ways, she almost thought it couldn't get any better than it already had – and then the 'do-you-remembers' started up and they were off and running.