Title: I Need You Now

Category: Glee

Pairing: Sam/Mercedes

Genre: Romance/Angst

Rating: T

Disclaimer: I do not own Glee or any of its characters. The song is Need You Now by Lady Antebellum (again) and I do not own it either.

A/N: So this chapter is a lot longer than planned but hopefully it will be ok. I attempted to write angst, so I hope it works. Also, I tried to clear some loose ends up in this chapter because the next one is going to be the last one. I haven't been in a hospital in at least 8 years and I have no idea how they work so I apologize for my incorrectness. I know there is such a thing as visiting hours, and you probably can't just walk in to the ICU but whatever. Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

Chapter 5 –

"NO! NO! NO!" Mercedes cried, dropping her phone in her shock and heartbreak. "He HAS to be okay. He CAN'T die!" Mercedes was crying hard now, her body wracking with sobs.

"Miss?" the police officer asked. "Miss, are you still there?"

Mercedes tried to take deep breaths before picking up the phone again. "Yes," she said, though her voice still cracked. "Please tell me he's ok."

The police officer hesitated. "Well, he has been taken to St. Rita Hospital and he's in critical condition. He's in the Intensive Care Unit and it's not looking well. I'm really sorry, miss."

"NO!" Mercedes wailed into the phone. "Thank you, officer, for letting me know." Mercedes attempted to calm down a little bit so she could think clearly enough to grab her keys and drive to the hospital.

As she drove, Mercedes tried to picture Sam's smiling face. She always ended up seeing their seven year old selves, building sandcastles, or swinging on the swings. As she tried to picture Sam as the twenty year old he is now, she could only come up with the mental image that her mind had just created upon being told about the accident. Knowing that her best friend, or the best friend she'd had all those years ago actually, could die at any minute caused a fresh wave of tears and hysteria to come over her. She ended up having to stop and attempt to calm down when she was still a few blocks from the hospital.

Upon arrival at the hospital, Mercedes headed straight for the receptionist, where she asked which room Sam Evans was in. It took a bit of convincing before a nurse pointed her in the right direction, and she hurried up two floors and down a hall to reach Sam's room.

The Intensive Care Unit was bustling with activity, doctors and nurses rushing in and out of rooms with concerned and concentrated expressions on their faces. When Mercedes reached Sam's room, it seemed a lot quieter than the others.

She looked inside and noticed that Sam was lying on a hospital bed with his eyes closed and his head, and arms extremely bandaged. The rest of his body was plastered and bandaged too, but Mercedes couldn't tell because of the light blanket that covered his still form. On either side of Sam were two people that Mercedes would have recognized anywhere, Sam's parents.

Mercedes squeezed her eyes shut and reopened them. She couldn't believe that this was actually happening. The boy she had been in love with for the last 13 years (fine, she'd admit it to herself) was lying in a coma in the ICU at a hospital. His parents, that she hadn't seen since the family had moved away 8 years ago, were right there but once again, they are in a hospital. "I can't do this," Mercedes said. She went to turn away from the room but her body had other ideas and before she knew it she was slipping into the room.

Sam's parents looked up at her, hoping it was a doctor to bring them good news. What they saw was almost as big a shock as the phone call they had gotten telling them Sam had been in an accident. "Mercedes?" Sam's mom asked, staring at her with red-rimmed eyes. "Is that really you?"

"Hi Mrs. Evans," Mercedes whispered. She had this weird feeling about talking too loud in a hospital. "How is he doing?"

"Not too well," Mrs. Evans replied before sobbing into her husband's chest, unable to keep talking.

"Do you mind if I talk to him?" she asked, hesitantly, knowing that they hadn't seen her in 8 years and were probably wondering what on earth she was doing there on top of them wanting to stay with their son as long as possible.

"Sure, Mercedes, we were told it is good to talk to him. To try and get him to wake up, it helps," Mr. Evans informed her. "We should probably go and get something to eat quickly anyway. It doesn't look like anything is going to change too much in the next few minutes."

"Thanks," Mercedes said, slightly shocked that they'd agreed.

As Sam's parents exited the room, Mercedes went and sat in the seat that Sam's mother had previously occupied and took a hold of his hand. She started to sob again when it felt limp in her hand, but it was warm so she had hope.

"Hey Sammy," she said, squeezing his hand. "Please wake up. Everyone is counting on you to be here still. You have to hold on; you have so much that you still need to do with your life. Twenty is WAY too young to die. I want to ask you to wake up for me, but I know I've been a real jerk to you these last few days, so if not for me, wake up for your friends. I know Blaine needs you, and Puck, and Mike and Tina. They're all counting on you to be there for them as the amazing friend I remember you to be and the amazing person I know you still are now.

I was only a jerk to you because I was angry. I was mad that you could possibly forget me when you promised that you would NEVER forget me and what we had. I put all of my faith in you and you just threw it in my face. I was so angry because you called once about a month after you moved but not again after that. I waited for you for 5 years and then I just had to give up because I knew you would never come back to me. I couldn't believe you had ditched me to hang out with some rich snobs when you had promised me that money would never affect you or your judgement. I looked up to you and I admired you and you let me down. I just couldn't forgive you right away for all those years that I waited for you just to have you forget about me.

And then I heard about your band. That you had not only joined a band with your rich friends, but that you guys were famous and you were starting to take your money for granted. At that point I was so angry, but Kurt was so set on seeing you guys in concert that I had to go. Then we ran into each other and you had no clue at all as to who I was. I couldn't believe that you were so stuck up that you couldn't even remember your best friend. Now I'm starting to feel that maybe I can forgive you, and let you explain your side of the story, but it might be too late and I feel like I'm losing my best friend all over again."

Mercedes finished her speech with tears streaming down her face. "Please, Sammy, please wake up." She laid her head down on the side of the bed, continuing to hold Sam's hand, and cried.

A few minutes later Sam's parents walked back into the room. They were holding hands and seemed to want to talk to Mercedes about something. They pulled up another chair and the three of them kept a vigil at Sam's bedside.

"Mercedes," Mr. Evans stated. "We should probably explain what happened all of those years ago when we moved away. I know Sam would want you to know, even though we know he couldn't remember you."

Mercedes looked at them. "What do you mean? Did something happen to him that made him not remember?"

"Well," started Sam's mother, looking to Sam's dad who squeezed her hand reassuringly. "When we first moved, all Sam wanted to do was call you and talk to you for hours on the phone. He missed you so much but we wanted him to try and meet kids his age in the new neighbourhood so we convinced him to keep his calls to a minimum. A few months after we arrived, he got the flu. At first it didn't seem that bad, he had gotten the flu before, but this just wouldn't go away. He ended up having to go to the hospital and be put on oxygen and a lot of really strong medications. He was really close to dying for a while. But then, one day he woke up and seemed bright and chipper and happy. We were so happy that he was ok. We also knew that something was wrong because he couldn't remember anything that happened before he had gotten the flu. He had no idea that we had just moved, and he couldn't remember you at all. It made us really sad that our little boy had lost all of that, but we also knew that he would be able to start adjusting to his new life, because he wouldn't be constantly asking to go back and live with your family. We didn't know it would end up as bad as it did. We thought it was one of those amnesia stints that last for a few weeks or months so when it didn't go away we were shocked. We immediately tried to remind him of you and his past life, we knew that you were probably expecting some sort of contact from him, but he now had no interest in trying to remember anymore. He wanted to keep moving forward with his life."

Mrs. Evans took a deep breath to steady herself after she finished the story. "We're really sorry, Mercedes. We didn't know that it was going to end up like this. If we had, we would have attempted to get him to remember sooner."

Mercedes wasn't sure when, but sometime during the story, silent tears had started cascading down her face. So Sam hadn't willingly forgotten her, she thought, he had been very sick and just couldn't remember. She felt terrible, because this whole week she could have attempted to mend their broken friendship but instead she had been so angry at him that she had pushed him away, and now he could die.

"Thank you for telling me," Mercedes said calmly. "It's good to know what happened."

Mercedes continued to sit there staring at Sam's serene face, willing him to open his eyes, but nothing happened.

"Honey," Sam's mother said. "You should really get some sleep, you'll have to be strong to try and convince Sam to wake up tomorrow."

Mercedes yawned. "Thanks for everything, Mrs. Evans." She got up and slowly left the room, giving one last longing look to Sam's still form before turning around. She really hoped it wouldn't be the last time she saw him.

Mercedes hardly slept at all that night. Every time she closed her eyes she kept picturing Sam in that hospital, or crumpled on the ground after the accident. She was just so afraid that he would die while she wasn't at the hospital with him.

The following morning she awoke at 6am and hurried to her car, knowing that she may not get to see him for a few more hours. She went to the hospital anyways in hopes of good news.

When she arrived, she headed straight back to Sam's room in the ICU. It looked exactly as it did the night before, and Sam's parents were still there.

"Hey," she whispered. "You guys should really get some sleep. I can stay here and call you guys if anything changes."

Sam's dad looked up at Mercedes with tired eyes. "Thank you, Mercedes," he said. "For everything you're doing and have done for Sam."

"We promised each other years ago that we would be best friends forever, and I keep my promises." Mercedes mustered up a supportive smile for the Evans' as they got up to leave the room.

She once again took Mrs. Evans' chair and squeezed Sam's limp hand. "Oh Sammy, please come back to me."

As she looked at him, she started to sing:

Picture perfect memories
Scattered all around the floor
Reaching for the phone 'cause
I can't fight it anymore

And I wonder if I
Ever cross your mind
For me it happens all the time

As she sang, Mercedes remembered Sam singing these exact same lyrics to her only a few days earlier. He hadn't even remembered who she was, but he had still sung to her as if some part of his subconscious remembered her and wanted her forgiveness. Now she was singing, asking for HIS forgiveness and for him to come back to her from whatever dark oblivion he was lost in.

It's a quarter after one
I'm all alone
And I need you now
Said I wouldn't call
But I've lost all control
And I need you now

And I don't know how
I can do without
I just need you now

When she finished the song, she started to weep again. She slowly leaned over to place a soft kiss on the back of his hand. "You were and always will be my best friend, Sammy. I love you."

After saying these words, Mercedes heard the machine that was monitoring his heart start to beep erratically and then he flat-lined. "SAM!" she screamed. "NO!"

After a second, the beeping (and Sam's heart) started again at a regular, healthy sounding rate. Mercedes had tears streaming down her face as she clung to Sam's hand like it was a life line.

She didn't miss when she felt a weak squeeze back or when she looked up to see Sam's eyelids flutter. He blinked blearily at her before saying, "'Cedes?"

"SAMMY!" she cried before flinging her arms around the boy.

A/N: So here it is! Normally I would probably have made him die (that's just the way I write) but I could not kill of Sam (he's one of my absolute favourite Glee characters, and I don't have any storyline if he were to die). I think it was obvious, but I never actually said that it was a car accident, so in case anyone was confused, that's what it was. I hope you guys liked it and that my efforts at angst were adequate. As I said, the next chapter is my last one and I want to thank everyone that has been reading so far. I love reviews! So please let me know if you liked my writing and if you would read if I attempted another fanfiction. Thanks! Please review :)