Nationals in LA! Mercedes never thought she'd be at Nationals again. After last year's fiasco this year was a breeze, their presentation went perfectly, she wouldn't have changed a single thing. As usual, Will's team engaged in a lot of last minute foolishness before settling on a Rachel/Blaine duet. Big surprise there. Actually, the big surprise was how little chemistry Blaine and Rachel have together. On the other hand, they didn't have to worry about an ill-timed kiss, that was for sure. Their presentation was professional, cold but professional. Shelby's team pulled out one of the four songs they had prepared weeks ago. Shelby's team was polished, prepared and happy and it showed on stage. There was nothing to do now but wait for the judges, which was something she could do in her mom's hotel room while playing with Jack. She was waiting for the elevator when a pair of hands covered her eyes.

"Guess who?" a familiar voice asked.

"I give up. Who?"

"Guess again!"

She felt the hands covering her eyes. She had mapped those hands! "Sam!"

"In the flesh. Hey darling." he drawled.

She kissed him like she had the last time she saw him, like she'd never expected to kiss him again. He was back! But wait a minute! She took a step backwards. "Why are you here?"

"I sing you know. I'm in a club representing Tennessee. Probably didn't notice me, in the back row with brown hair."

"And your girlfriend?" Yes, he had Jack's hair.

"That kind of fell apart. I guess there's only one girl for me and she lives in Ohio." He looked at her new, slimmer body. "I almost didn't recognize you up there on stage. I liked your curves but I could get used to this. I've got a summer job lined up in Lima. See, you can't get rid of me!"

"Sam..." she started.

"There's somebody else, isn't there?" He looked devastated. "Hell, why did I just assume you'd be free? Look at you! I'm sorry for pawing all over you." He looked down and then back into her eyes. "Is he good to you? That's all that matters, that you're happy."

"He makes me very happy." she said smiling.

"Well then, that's that." He started to walk away. "Well, it was nice seeing you again. Tell you folks I said hi."

"My mom's here as a chaperone. You can say hi yourself. Come on up!"

Sam could think of a hundred things he'd rather do than be in a hotel room with this beautiful girl who has a boyfriend. But she looked so excited, and her mom would be there. "Okay."

They stared at each other in the mirror while they rode up in the elevator. He was a little heavier, or maybe it was muscles. His hair was brown, cut and styled, not long and wild like before. She was thinner, not skinny but definitely thinner. Her hair was shorter, softer. She looked like she'd aged more than the almost year since he'd seen her. Not aged, matured.

"You haven't been sick, have you?" he asked.

How do I tell him this? How do I tell him this? "What?"

"The weight. You haven't been sick, have you?"

"Yes, I was sick for a while. I'm okay now."

"How long ago? When you were sick, how long ago?"

"Around Thanksgiving, Christmas. Like I said, it's all over now." Stop asking me questions.

"That's when I called you to ask how you were. Around Thanksgiving was when I told you about Shanna."

"I remember." She said noncommittally.

"That was dumb. Why would you want to hear about that?" He wondered what her boyfriend looked like. "Is your boyfriend a football player, like that other guy?"

"No, he's short." She was smiling just thinking about him.

"Short? Shorter than you?"

"Yes. This is my floor." She knocked on the door and her mother answered. "Mom, you remember Sam."

"Sam?" her mother looked shocked, and then happy. "It's really good to see you again." She hugged him. "Really good." She said something to Mercedes and left. Sam couldn't believe she was leaving already. Mercedes was picking up something on the other side of the bed.

"Sam, meet Jack. Jack Samuel Evans Jones."

Sam tried to process the thoughts running through his brain. He was a father. A father! Evidently he's been one for four months and he didn't know it. Shouldn't he have felt something? Jack was beautiful. He was laying in Mercedes' arms as she did what the very first mother did for the very first baby. This beautiful brown woman was holding a golden tan baby to her breast and he was drinking. Now that was a miracle, right there, that she knew how to do that. And that slight edge of tension he'd noticed earlier seemed to be draining from her. Of course she had a lot to be tense about, she'd been keeping a hell of a big secret from him for a hell of a long time.

Here" she said handing him the baby.

Sam stared at the gurgling baby. The baby stared back with big green eyes. "His name is Jack? Who's he named after?"

"Nobody, He's just Jack."

"Just Jack. And the reason you didn't tell me is..."

"First off, I didn't know, not for a long time. But when I started to get suspicious, I was with Shane and..."

"So you and Shane?"

"Yes, twice. I'm sorry."

Well, it's not like she was cheating on him. They had agreed to break up when he left. It's not like he hadn't slept with his girlfriends. He just didn't like to think of someone else touching her that way. He tried to look supportive. "It's okay. Go on."

"I think I was trying to recreate what we had. We used protection but anyway, about a month after that I missed my period. They'd been light all summer but I didn't think anything of it, but this was a miss. So I took a pregnancy test, which was positive, and we went to the clinic."

The nurse looked at the couple sitting opposite her. Normally she didn't see many boys. Of course, there was always a boy involved but most of them seemed to think an unplanned pregnancy was the girl's problem. This boy in the football jacket had his arm around the heavy girl. Was she always this heavy or is that from the pregnancy? The boy was talking marriage, the girl was talking options. Options is typically code for a potential abortion. They think she's 6-8 weeks pregnant.

"So when is the due date?" the boy asked.

"January 25th, according to the sonogram." the nurse answered.

"January 25th?" they both asked.

"Plus or minus two weeks."

"That's like, three months from now!" the girl said shocked.

"That can't be right." the boy said.

Damn, the nurse thought, he's not the father and they both know it. The nurse excused herself from the room but stayed where she could see both of them through the glass wall. That's why the wall as glass in the first place, you'd be surprised how many guys will hit a girl under these circumstance. The girl was crying, the boy put his arm around her and said everything would be okay.

"So Shane was willing to go along with it, be supportive, at first. Then he saw a picture of last year's football team. That changed things, he hadn't realized you were white. That there was no way people would believe it was his baby. Not that we were getting married, we'd just go through the motions until he graduated at the end of the year. He was still nice, nicer than a lot of my so-called friends, but we officially broke up."

"And the reason you didn't call me was..."

"Well, then I got sick, and Shane was the only one who knew why. He took me back to the clinic and they gave me some medication. I was sick as a dog but I dragged myself to practice anyway and Schuester went off on me. He practically called me a fat lazy pig in front of the whole club. And you know who stood up for me? Nobody, that's who! So he's like 'if you walk out now, don't bother coming back'. I walked. Then I saw Shelby in the hallway-"

"Who's Shelby?"

"The other glee club coach. We have two clubs, two coaches. One's competent and the other's an ass."

"Go on." Sam gently stoked Jack's hair. Sam had unbuttoned his shirt and Jack, wearing just a diaper, was laying on his chest. Skin to skin.

"So Shelby had me, Tim who's in band but he's a pretty good singer, Alice, who's a friend from church, also in band, and she dances, and this new girl Sugar. Yes, her name really is Sugar. Sugar's a mediocre singer but she's stinking rich. Also, Coach Sylvester will lend Shelby dancers if she needs them so Shelby's set member wise. Almost nobody knew I was pregnant, just that little glee club, Blaine and Shane. You remember Kurt's boyfriend Blaine? Anyway Blaine found out accidentally. Everybody else just thought I was fat. You remember that sneaky little kid that ran a gossip column in the school newspaper? Somehow he figured it out.

"Bad news, Mercedes." Tim said at the next meeting of Shelby's glee club. "Jacob asked me to do a sketch for the school paper. Olivia Newton John in the black catsuit like in Grease, pregnant out to there. Well, it was for an article called "Summer Loving" that's all about who got knocked up over the summer. Lots of girls it turns out. But anyway here's the important part. And I quote: "What plus-size diva owes her extra poundage to a summer diet of Tennessee lamb? Cocoa babies? I think not! I'm guessing more like Tupelo honey. She gave him love, love, love, love crazy love." I deleted it so it won't be in this week's paper but it's just a matter of time before it gets printed"

"But Shelby had thought of that too. She's a genius. She bought a sponsorship for the morning announcements and I sang Danny' Song, kind of like a birth announcement. People smile and tell me I'm the lucky one, we've just begun, I think I'm gonna have a son. Except I didn't know it was a boy. Jack or Jackie was all I knew."

"So now the whole school knew. And you didn't tell me because..."

"There were complications, and I got really sick."

"Around Thanksgiving?"

"Yes, around then."

"I called you around then. I asked you if you were okay."

"But then you started talking about how great your life was going. How things were finally falling into place. Your new girlfriend."

"But you could have told me then." He was starting to get upset with her endless string of excuses. But the baby became restless so Sam softened his voice and took a few deep breaths until Jack settled down. "You should have told me then."

"Yes, I should have, but then I got sick again."

Mercedes was laying in bed, listening to Kurt ramble. Shelby's fundraiser had been fun, he wanted to do another one. Blaine had the brilliant idea of finding out what charities the board of NYADA supported and donating money to them. Time it right, Blaine had said, and the donation and your application hit their desk at the same time. Kurt wouldn't shut up and she was tired and kept dozing off.

"Hey Kurt, I'm really tired. Can I call you back tomorrow?"

"Sure. Are you sure you don't want me to come over and keep you company till your folks get back from Columbus? I don't mind. I could sneak out right now."

"If you were sneaking out my house is the last place you'd come." she said laughing. "I'll call you later."

Later turned out to be 3 hours later.

"Hey, Kurt." she whispered into the phone. "can you-" He heard the phone drop to the floor. When she woke up he was sitting next to her in the ambulance.

"It was too early, they gave me something to stop the labor and I was in the hospital for three weeks. Then there was no holding him back. He came about a month early."

"So you had three weeks to call me. Why didn't you?"

"I don't know. Shelby and my mom nagged me about it constantly. I just...I just didn't."

"Were you very sick?"

"Yes. I almost died. They said I stopped breathing for a minute or so. But a lot of things they said might happen never did, so..." she trailed off.

"You almost died, having my baby, and you didn't think I'd want to be there?" He was silent for a few minutes, feeling the baby's chest rise and fall against his. "And you lied to me." She opened her mouth to deny it but then changed her mind. "Was he born around Christmas?"

"He was born on Christmas day." She picked up the sleeping baby and put him in the crib. She stood there a minute looking at the baby and then she sat down on the edge of the bed.

"I called you right after Christmas. I started to tell you about a dream I had about you. On Christmas eve. You started a fight, practically called me a stalker. Why didn't you tell me then?"

He looked at the woman sitting on the bed, for she was no longer a girl, she was a woman now. Where was this woman hiding his Mercedes? His Mercedes didn't have defenses. Maybe her weight was her shield, it had certainly kept her hidden from him for months. This Mercedes had a fortress built of evasions and half truths, stories that wandered and diverged and doubled back and answered every question except one. Why had she kept this from him?

His Mercedes didn't lie. She was sweet and generous. Her generosity was why they'd started spending time together. Once he really knew her he couldn't help but fall in love with her. She wasn't at all what people thought, she was actually quite meek. She only went off when she felt...felt...

"You must have felt really misunderstood." he said softly.

"What?" Did he say misunderstood?

"The way you describe it, it must have been pretty obvious that you were pregnant. I mean the throwing up and all. You'd think Quinn, at least, would have spotted it right away. But nobody did, because none of them could visualize anybody falling in love with you, wanting to be with you. So they just said the worst thing they had ever thought about you, that you were fat and lazy."

Mercedes looked at him suspiciously. Sam was a good listener, that's one of the things she had loved about him. But no, he'd breached her defenses once and see how that turned out. No, not again.

"And then, when it all came out, people acted like you were a stupid slut. So desperate for affection that you didn't even know who your baby's father was." He moved next to her and put his arms around her. "And the only people who helped you were Shelby and Blaine. 'Cause they didn't really know you so they didn't see you like everybody else did." She started to shiver as he tore down her defenses. "You didn't even have that one safe place in school, the choir room. That was the most painful place. And you couldn't let anybody see how hurt you were, you had to be strong for Jack. And you didn't tell me because..." he paused, waiting for her to supply the answer.

"I was afraid you'd be like them. I thought I could count on them, we were supposed to be friends." she started to cry. "I was afraid you'd say you didn't want to come. I was afraid I didn't mean as much to you and you mean to me. I'd rather not ask and assume you would have if you could than risk hearing you say no."

"Mercedes, I would have moved heaven and earth to get to you, don't you know that? You must have been terrified, and so alone. I love you." he took her hands in his. "Please, never lie, or tell me a half-truth, or pick a fight, because you're afraid to tell me something. Maybe we don't know each other as well as we think we do. My last day of school is June 7th. I'll be on your front step on June 8th. Ready to start over?"

The End

That Jacob ben Israel put the pieces together was inspired by Dissonance by iKashii

Tennessee Lamb reference is to – Dixie Chicken (Little Feat)

Tupelo Honey, Crazy Love – title of two songs by Van Morrison

Danny's Song – Kenny Loggins

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