"Morning, Mike."
Quinn's voice woke him up. He stretched his arms before he answered, "Morning, sis. How long you've been awake?"
"Just under one hour, I think."
"I see you have a really good night sleep."
Quinn would deny it but Mike saw that she blushed. "Well, it was nice," she mumbled.
"Where's your 'boyfriend'?" he asked.
"He went home. He needs to go to the office so I told him to go," she said as she went to the other side of Melrose's bed.
"And you kissed him goodbye?" Mike teased.
Again. Mike swore that he saw Quinn went red. "I have to…" she mumbled again.
"Quinn, you need to stop that."
"Stop what?"
"Whatever you're doing with Sam."
"I'm just pretending to be his girlfriend while I'm finding the truth about my so-called family. Nothing more."
Mike rolled his eyes. "You seriously don't have any idea of how dangerous it is, do you?"
"Of course I do. I could blow things up before I even started. He was suspicious at one point but I managed to fool him just fine."
"But that's not what I'm talking about, Quinn."
"Then what? Oh, save it. I'm not going to argue about this in front of Melrose."
"You're avoiding it. Besides, Melrose is still asleep."
"She's going to wake up real soon."
Just as Quinn said that, Melrose stirred in her sleep and slowly opened her eyes. "Mommy?" the little girl called.
Quinn mouthed the word 'See?' to Mike and went for her daughter. "Hello, sweetie. You're feeling better?"
Melrose nodded. "I want to go home."
"You will, honey. But the doctor need you to stay for a while."
"You will go home with me, Mommy?"
Quinn didn't have the heart to tell her daughter that she probably won't be home for a while but she couldn't lie either. So she immediately thought of a more save answer.
"I'll try to be home as much as I can, okay?"
"You're leaving again?" In those words, Melrose started to tear up.
Quinn's heart broke. "No, sweetie. Mommy's not leaving. Don't worry, I'm not leaving you again, okay?"
"You promise?"
"I… uh-"
Quinn was cut by the sound of the door opened. The doctor came to check on Melrose.
"Good morning, Mrs. Fabray, Melrose," he greeted them.
"Morning, Doc," Quinn greeted him back.
"I'm going to check on Melrose first if you don't mind then we'll have some talk."
"Okay."
The doctor went and checked on Melrose. The little girl just lay there; playing with her doll that Mike brought her yesterday.
"Well, seems like Melrose is doing well. She can go home later today. But she needs to continue drinking her medicine until at least 3 more days," he said when he was done.
"Thank you," Quinn said. "You heard that, sweetie? You can go home today."
"Yay!" Melrose cheered and Quinn couldn't help but smiled. She loved seeing her daughter happy even though she wasn't in her best condition.
"She looks happy," the doctor smiled too. "Anyway, I'll check one more time before she go home. So, I'll see you later."
The doctor then left the room. Before Quinn could sit back in her seat, she saw a familiar figure in front of the door, waving at her.
"Er… Mike? I'll go outside first, okay? Sam's here," she said.
Mike groaned and rolled his eyes. "Fine. Go to your boyfriend."
Sam greeted her with a kiss on her cheek. "Morning, Beautiful."
Quinn smiled through the kiss. "Morning, you. What are you doing here?"
"I'm bringing you some clothes to change," he said as he showed Quinn the bag he's been holding. "And… I want to have breakfast with you."
"That's so sweet of you. Thank you," Quinn kissed his cheek as she grabbed the bag. "Now that you mentioned breakfast, I'm actually starving."
"When was the last time you eat?" he asked as he took her hand and walked the two of them to the cafeteria.
"Hm… yesterday morning?"
Sam stopped abruptly. "Yesterday morning?"
Quinn just winced. "Yeah…"
"Luce, you know what happen when you forget to eat. Do you want to faint again?" Sam sounded so concerned.
"I know… I just–"
"No excuse. You're going to eat now before you faint. Come on!" he pulled both of them towards the cafeteria.
Once they arrived, Sam wasted no time and ordered some food for him and Quinn. They seated themselves on a booth in the corner. As they eat, they talked.
"So… you're going to stay here again today?" Sam asked as he reached for Quinn's hand.
Quinn took his hand and interlaced it with hers. "Well… you wanna know something?"
"What?"
"The doctor said she can go home today. That means she will leave the hospital at noon. I was thinking maybe I can go to the orphanage just to be with her. Are you okay with that?"
"I'm totally fine with that… as long as we're having dinner together. How's that sound?"
"Okay. I'll be back for dinner."
Quinn took a sip of her tea. Suddenly she remembered that one problem she had. The hospital fee. It was pretty expensive since Melrose received a slight procedure due to the loss blood. Sure she had Lucy's paycheck with her. She could totally use that but it still didn't cover anything. And she didn't want to bother the Changs for this. After all, Melrose is her daughter, her responsibility and the Changs had helped her so much. She couldn't ask for more.
Sam noticed that something was off with his girlfriend so he asked, "Luce? What's wrong?"
Quinn was taken aback but she answered, "Nothing…"
"Come on, Luce. I know something is bothering you. Mind to share?"
Quinn contemplated for a while. She knew she couldn't hide it, but it wasn't like she could tell the truth too.
"Lucy?"
"Well… the orphanage was sort of short on money. They didn't have enough funds to cover Melrose's hospital fee. So… I was thinking that maybe I could help them to pay?"
There was hesitation in her voice. She brought her gaze to meet Sam's and surprised when she saw what he did.
Sam grabbed his wallet, pulled out one of his credit card and shoved it to Quinn's hand. She was partly expecting Sam to oppose the idea and got mad at her, so she was really taken aback.
"What are you doing?" she asked confused.
"If you're helping, then I'm helping too. Just use this, kay?"
"But–"
"No buts."
"Sam, you can't–"
"Luce?"
"Yeah?"
"Just use it. I don't want to argue about this, kay?"
Quinn just nodded. "Thank you…"
"Don't worry about it, Luce," he smiled at her. "But anyway, you really cared about this Melrose girl, right?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Well… maybe we can adopt her?"
Quinn was shocked and her eyes went wide. "WHAT?"
"Luce…"
"No no no! We can't do that."
"But why? You really cared about her as if she's your own child. We want to build a family right? So why don't we just adopt her?"
Quinn almost blurted out that Melrose was indeed her daughter but she stopped herself. She was thinking about what to say to Sam when he called her.
"Lucy, why?"
"I… I just… I just think we're not ready for that," she mumbled.
"Why?"
Quinn sighed. "Look, are we really ready to build a family, Sam? I don't think we're even this close before," she paused before she asked, "How long we've been together?"
She was asking this more for herself than just confronting Sam. She knew nothing about Sam and Lucy's relationship and before she made a mistake with that, she needed to pick up the missing pieces of puzzle.
Sam took a deep breath before he answered. "Two years… but it's not like we even want to be together at first, right? It's a freakin' arranged marriage," he paused as he ran a hand through his hair. "We were forced to be together. You don't even want to wear an engagement ring because we're not even dating before."
"And you're right about we're not even this close before. Not just intimately, but personally," he continued. "We've tried our best to love each other and I think we're finally heading that way when you pushed me away few months ago and it's freakin' annoying and frustrating!"
He was starting to be frustrated when he saw Lucy brought her gaze down, avoiding him. Just when he was about to say something Lucy beat him to it.
"Why are you getting mad at me? I'm just asking for God's sake!"
Sam sighed then he moved himself next to Lucy, took her hand and cupped her face with his free hand. "Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be mad… It's just… Everything is just frustrating, you know?"
"I'm aware of that," she mumbled, still avoiding Sam's eyes.
"Hey, look at me," he titled up Quinn's head and brought their foreheads together. "I love you, Beautiful. And I–"
"You love me?" she whispered, slightly panicked.
"I love you," he assured her. "I know that our relationship wasn't ideal before. We've only had this normal and ideal relationship for a few days but I'm sure that I love you."
"But I–"
"You don't have to say anything right now," he smiled at her. "What you need to do right now is go and pay for the hospital bills, they'll appreciate it. I need to go to the office now, so I'll meet you for dinner?"
Quinn nodded. "But Sam–"
"And let's just pretend that my crazy idea for adopting Melrose never happened, kay? You were right though, we're not ready to build a family, at least now."
Once again she nodded and Sam kissed her lips. Quinn melted herself to the kiss but when she tried to deepen it, Sam pulled away, making her groaned.
Sam chuckled. He stood up and kissed her forehead, "I'll see you for dinner, kay? I love you."
After he said those words, he went out from the cafeteria, leaving the dumbstruck Quinn alone.
She was still trying to process the fact the argument she just had with Sam and what he said after that when she felt her phone rang. She looked at the called ID and answered it.
"Mike?"
"Where are you? Melrose is awake and she's looking for you."
"Mike… I'm in trouble…"
"What? Where are you? What happen? Did Sam hurt you or something?"
"No… no, it's not that."
"Then why are you in trouble?"
"He said he loves me…"
Hello everyone! Sorry if this is overdue. Things has been really crazy for me. College and work, mashed it up together and you'll know it.
SamEvans17: Hey there! Thank you for reviewing. Glad you like the previous chapter. Sorry, it takes so long but I hope you'll enjoy this one too :)
Ahlisia'sFavorite: Hey dear. Thanks for the review. I'm honored that you love this story and I'm going to say this again, THANK YOU :D Hope you'll enjoy this chapter :)
Ashley: Hey Ashley! Thanks for dropping by. This one have more dialogues instead of description but I had to do it that way. Hope you'll like it :)
RJRRAA: Hello there. Thanks for the review. Sucks they can't bring Melrose home with them but as you read in this chapter, Sam had those thoughts in his head, right? Hope you like it :)
DMCC: Hello there! Thank you for reviewing. For Sam to know who Quinn really is now is a bit tricky, you know. Quinn needs to find her answers first. And if Sam finds out now, it will be even more difficult for Quinn cause she needs Sam's help for that. Sorry it takes so long but I hope you'll like it :)
Anyway, thank you for sticking around with this story. Leave me some reviews. Tell me, whether you like it or hate it. Hope that you won't have to wait too long for the next chapter :) See you soon!