"Good morning, sunshine!" Mercedes greeting out to her old friend Kurt Hummel as he opened his front door.

"Good morning yourself." Kurt answered back. "I've got the cookbook and the ice cream maker."

"And I have milk and eggs." She shuddered. "Vegans! I intend to dine on a member of the animal kingdom every day that I'm here. Rachel's a vegan, isn't she?"

"Yes, but I'm here to get away from thinking about Rachel. It's time for friends and family, not Kurt in the land of 101 roommates."

"Good enough." She put down the bag of groceries she was holding. "And I'm only a vegan due to laziness. I could cook if I want to."

"That's one, the only, good thing about Santana barging in like she owns the place. Girl can cook, I'm glad of that. I guess I ought to mention it before we get started." He looked at Mercedes uncertainly. "Sam's coming back sometime today, so if you want to work on this back at your house..."

"Typical Sam, always showing up unexpectedly. I don't have a problem with Sam, we talked at Nationals. I don't know why some folks think just because you have history with somebody you can hit it anytime you both happen to be in the same town. Once we got that cleared up..." She looked at Kurt's beet red face. "Or maybe I'm wrong about how many folks think that. Is Blaine likely to come strolling out of the shower? I'm definitely gonna tell Chandler," she joked "because I'm thinking he's bi. He did a lot of staring at the club the other night and I've got a thing for blondes."

"Jesus, babe. Where to start? Chandler and I? Ain't going there." He smiled in a way that made her want to follow up on that subject. "And yes, Chandler does occasionally sleep with girls, but mostly guys. Don't judge but I know that from personal experience. And no, Blaine's not here but the last time I saw him was Valentine's day and we both had a bit to drink and one thing led to another..."

"You mean Schuester's train-wreck wedding? Hell, was I the only person in Lima who didn't get laid that night?"

"What, you're keeping score?"

"No, but now that you mention it I should check in with Tina and see if she got any." She spread the ingredients she'd purchased on the kitchen table. "I talk to Finn every now and again and he keeps going on about his endgame. That's what he calls Rachel, endgame. So what about the guy she's shacked up with I asked. Wild oats, he said. Just a matter of time before Rachel comes to her senses and kicks him to the curb. He's sure because the night of the almost wedding one thing led to another. You know how that story ends."

"Hmmmm." Kurt said noncommittally. "So you're not going to get flirty and/or murderous when Sam walks in?"

"Like I said, we've talked more in the last month than we have since..." she thought about it. "Maybe not since I've known him but definitely since the last time he breezed into town. Shit, another time he thought he'd show up out of nowhere and pick up where we left off."

"But you two got back together, right? It wasn't like it was a one night thing he had in mind."

"Suppose so." It was her turn to be vague.

"Well, speak of the devil." Kurt nodded at Sam as he walked in.

"Hey Kurt." Sam put his backpack down on the kitchen floor. "Mercedes. You look pretty. Like the hair." He nodded in her direction before opening the refrigerator.

"Thanks. How was Kentucky?"

"Great! They all said hey. The twins got the presents you sent. Expect a thank you card in the mail. Don't laugh at the artwork because I drew it. It's supposed to be an elephant, they're both into elephants this year."

"Indian or African?"

"African but why aren't I surprised that you know the difference?"

She shrugged. "I just always liked elephants."

"So what brings you to town?"

"A wedding. My brother's getting married Saturday and my boss scheduled something in Columbus for right after that."

"A wedding?" Sam sat down next to her at the kitchen table with a glass of orange juice. "Shit! You're not the singing sister are you?"

"The singing sister?" She laughed. "Nobody's ever called me that before."

"No, I'm serious. I'm a wedding singer for a company out of Columbus. I never met them, the couple getting married, my boss deals with all that. But the groom's sister sings and is from out of town."

"Yeah, but there's lots of weddings, probably not the same one."

"Marc and JoAnne on Friday night at the Lima Country Club?"

"Yeah." She answered glumly. "That would be them."

Sam had been worried that he'd have to cover for some girl who couldn't carry a tune. Now he was worried about losing the gig entirely. "If me being there is awkward for you they can get somebody else to do this job."

"That's silly. Why shouldn't you do it? It's a job and you're one of the best singers I know, present company excepted." She added for Kurt's benefit. "I talked to Marc, by the way, you're more than welcome to crash the wedding."

"Can't. I need to get back to New York on the cheap. Hitched a ride with Finn but we're leaving Friday." Kurt didn't look pleased at all.

"Really?" Sam asked. "Finn didn't mention it and he's usually good about that."

"Rachel called him last night and asked him to come visit us." Again with the frown Mercedes noticed. What is wrong with him? Oh well, she'll pry it out of him later.

"Endgame." Sam and Mercedes said at the same time.

Friday night

"What do you think of that wedding singer?" Annie Monroe reached over a speared a shrimp from Mercedes' plate. "God, he's hot! Do you think he's gay?"

Mercedes looked at her new sister-in-law, a 22 year old raven haired Native American beauty. Even in the bright blue bridesmaid dress Annie's trim athletic body was evident to anybody. She was definitely Sam's type, even though Sam claims he's sworn off girls in favor of concentrating on earning money for college expenses next year.

"He's not gay." Hilary, Mercedes's cousin and bridesmaid sitting on the other side of her answered with a smirk. "Mercy knows that for a fact."

"Spill!" Annie demanded. "I'm family now."

"You've been family for 10 years, it just took this long for Marc to drag Jo down the aisle." She stared at Sam until Annie shoved her arm. "He's a friend from school."

"A friend from high school? That increases his odds of being gay." Annie decided on a roundabout approach. "Whatever happened to that guy you used to bring down to the farm?"

"He lives in New York." Yes, she thought, let's talk about Kurt. "He has this great loft, and he's in this special performing arts school, and..."

"Ok!" Annie held up her well-manicured hand. "You're boring me. What's his name?"

"Kurt?"

"You know I don't give a damn about Kurt! I'm talking about Goldie there."

"Sam." Hilary filled in Mercedes' silence. "His name's Sam. They used to go out."

"Girl! You let something that looks like that and sounds like that get away? What the fuck?" She considered Sam some more. "And you're sure he's not gay or bi or something?"

"Totally gay, no. Bi? I don't think so. He's only dated girls that I know of."

"See, here's the thing." The three girls leaned close together. "I got here early to help set up and he was here too, setting up amps and shit. So of course I changed into shorts and a tank top and offered to help him. Mom had a fit because I was supposed to be helping her. Anyway, I'm crawling around on the floor, pushing my boobs in his face, making sure he got a good look at my ass, and nothing. He's totally ignoring me. That creepy little waiter, on the other hand..."

"Jacob. His name is Jacob and he can't help it if he comes from a long line of players."

"How old is he? 13? I'm not about getting arrested for statutory rape." Annie declared.

"16. I think. Yeah, maybe you better leave that alone." She pointed to Puck standing at the carving station. "How about that one? His older brother and total man-whore. Believe me, he'll catch a hint. No, maybe you'd better leave that alone too. God knows where it's been. Shit, can't you do without for one night?"

"Suppose I'll have to." Annie focused on the singer providing background ambiance for the dinner portion of the reception. How could Mercedes sit there like nothing when her ex has been standing there crooning love songs for the last hour and a half? He wants a woman, a lover, a friend does he? Well, Annie figures she could provide two out of three on his list and she would too if it wasn't for her new sister. Sexy guys really aren't that rare and Mercedes is family.

"I gotta say he's way better looking than that guy you dragged out of the woods last summer."

"Annie!" Mercedes looked around to see if anyone had overheard. No, the guest were too busy eating and catching up with friends and family. Marc and Jo went all the way back to the summer of senior year in highschool. Before that even because Marc and Mercedes spent every summer at their grandfather's farm in Georgia where Jo and Annie lived next door, so this was more like a family reunion than strangers meeting for the first time. "A – he wasn't some random guy I found in the woods and B – people here know him and he's kinda embarrassed about the whole thing."

"My bad. All I'm saying is this one's cute. That other one, well he was okay once you got him cleaned up but he wasn't much for conversation."

"He was depressed, he'd just gotten kicked out of the army!" Mercedes whispered. "Can we just drop that?"

"Sure. Just please, please, please tell me you're not going another round with Drew."

"A girl could do a lot worse." A tall groomsman sitting next to Annie said.

"She's family now, little brother." Annie stood up and pulled one of the groomsmen to his feet. "Let's get this party started."

On the other side of the room

"You hanging around for the rest of this?" Tom Jenkins asked, peering at the soundboard in front of him. "They just wanted you for background music, right?"

"Yeah, the want recorded music for the dancing part. I figured I'd stay and help you out on breaks and stuff. Plus I wanted to hear the best woman sing."

"Best woman!" Tom chuckled. "First time I've seen that. At first I thought she was a lost bridesmaid."

"Kinda sweet, don't you think?" Actually Mercedes in a strapless black dress and sporting a blue necktie to match the groomsmen was the hottest thing Sam had ever seen.

"No. I've got a sister getting married next year. Man of honor? I don't think so. She'd put me in a dress just for spite." Tom looked up at the singers. "She's good, the sister. Had me worried at first, that she'd be bad and the guests would blame us."

"No, she's fantastic, isn't she?" Sam watched while Mercedes and a dark-haired groomsmen led the bridal party in acapella version of "Always." Everybody else watched Marc and Jo's first dance. Sam stared at Mercedes, lost in that summer of junior year.

Girl, you are to me, all that a woman should be,
And I dedicate my life to you always.

Oh boy I love you so,
I can't find enough ways to let you know
But you can be sure I'm yours, for always

And we both know, that our love will grow
And forever it will be you and me
Ooh you're like the sun,
Chasing all of the rain away,
When you come around you bring a brighter day
You're the perfect one
For me and you forever will be
And I will love you so for always

"You know her?" Tom asked, distracting him.

"Huh?"

"Do you know her, from all that singing you did in highchool?"

"Know her?" Puck suddenly appeared behind them, "They went at it hot and heavy."

"Shut up Puck."

"And suddenly, just like that. It was all over. Then a year later, one conversation with her and he's turning down all this, a room full of soon to be drunken bridesmaids."

"Shut up, Puck!"

"Oh, I'm so afraid." Puck said sarcastically. "More for me." He eyed the raven haired girl standing next to Mercedes. "I'm sure I won't go home empty handed."

And it didn't look like Mercedes was going home empty handed either, the way that groomsman she'd sang a duet with kept chasing her all night, grinding up against her every time he caught her. And she let herself get caught, Sam noticed as he watched them slow dance to...he looked at Tom's monitor. More Atlantic Starr, Send For Me.

If you ever need me baby, send for me
I'm just a telephone call away, send for me
Put a message in a bottle baby, send for me

He was whispering in her ear and she was giggling. So what Sam thought. She's a friend and he's happy for her. Woulda, coulda, shoulda is a waste of time.

After the reception

Sam sat in the passenger side of Tom's van, dividing tonight's tip. Mercedes' brother was an excellent tipper, probably because his sister's in the business so between the tip and the referrals sure to come his way it had been, all in all, a great night.

He was surprised to see a familiar car pull into the parking lot. "Hey!" Mercedes, now dressed in jeans and a leather jacket, breezed past him and into the empty reception hall. Sam looked around for the dark-haired groomsman, who'd been introduced to him as her new brother-in-law, but she was alone.

"Everything okay?" Sam asked, following her back into the hall after saying goodbye to Tom.

"Yeah, sure. When I got home I realized I lost my phone." She peered under the table she'd been sitting at. "Got it!" She crawled under the table to reach the phone.

Sam crawled under the table with her.

"You're getting to get your suit all dirty." Mercedes laughed.

"That's okay. This just reminds me of playing hide and seek with Stevie and Stacey. Remember how much fun that was?"

"Yes." She slipped the phone into her coat pocket. "That was a lot of fun." She started to crawl out from under the table.

"Wait a minute." He reached for her arm "Since we're here, sitting under this dark table, I want to say something. I remember you used to like that, talking in the dark." Dimly he saw her shrug her shoulders and sit down. "Thanks. First, I want to apologize"

"For what?"

"For not listening to you, for not hearing what you tried to say when I came back to Lima."

"Sam, that's ancient history."

"Maybe so but I still want to apologize. You were 100% for me, always and about everything and the one time you asked me for something..."

"Sam, it doesn't matter anymore..."

"The one time you asked me for something I said no. When I came back to Lima you tried to tell me what being in the TroubleTones meant to you and you asked me, you said if last spring meant anything, I'd sit out the competition. That Schuester would have time to draft another random kid, somebody else who needed extra credit in Spanish. You never asked me for anything before but you asked me for that. And I said no. I made up some lame excuse about owing Finn. And when you asked a second time I said if last spring meant anything you'd dump Shane. I'm sorry for saying that because it wasn't true and I knew it at the time. How could you dump Shane? He listened to you. He was there for you after the competition. I saw you guys standing there after the winner was announced, trying to stay classy. And when you left the stage Shane was standing there with flowers. How could you just dump somebody like that? And later, after we tried to start over? Well, if you weren't ready to have sex again you weren't ready. I shouldn't have gotten an attitude and slut-shamed you over Shane. I'm the one that left after all. Anyway, I'm sorry about all that. I didn't realize how much that whole thing hurt you until we talked in LA."

"And talking to me for ten minutes in LA made you see all that?" she asked skeptically.

"Not just that. That was the last piece in the puzzle. One piece of winning class president. That surprised me, I always knew I was likeable, not to brag but I'm pretty easy to like." Mercedes snorted at that. "But so is Britt so winning was about something more than that. Trust. After last year kids don't trust Britt anymore but for the first time I felt like people respected me, trusted me to make the right decision. The second thing was Marley. She got sick at sectionals but actually she was sick before that. I asked her why she didn't say something earlier and she said it was because we only have 12 members. She didn't want to be the one that made up have to forfeit. It turns out she was the one but I can't hate her for having issues, God knows I can't. Anyway, Patrice? I know you know her and she was my math tutor last semester. Well, she was also in Troubletones and I asked her why she didn't come back for New Directions. Even a handful of dancers would be a big buffer. So, she had a couple of reasons for not coming back, most of which relate back to you."

Mercedes visualized Patrice, a tall black girl who danced for the Troubletones, the first girl Mercedes had recruited for Shelby, one of the few that wasn't a Cheerio.

"First she wondered why I was asking her that, so late in the school year. If we gave a damn about them we would have gone to them in September is how she saw it so she figured I brought it up because I wanted to pad our numbers. Patrice said she never really felt like she was in New Directions because she's just a dancer." Sam continued. "I asked what was wrong with being a dancer and she said Schuester didn't want kids who only danced. He wanted singers who didn't fall of the stage, even if they never were going to get a chance to sing, even though he wasn't interested in teaching them how to sing. That you were the best singer in New Directions and if Schuester had his way you'd never get to sing more than two notes in a row. Schuester only wanted singers and Finn was following Schuester's rules. She was particularly irritated about those guys from band Schuester recruited last year when he needed to get to 12 members. One of them was her boyfriend and she said he felt used when the competition was over and we all went back to ignoring him. She said you and Shelby always treated them with respect, like they were important, part of a team. After Nationals when Schuester took us out and you said you felt too sick to go? She told me that you hung out with them instead and how much they liked you for that, that you were nice even when you didn't have to be. You know, not one member of New Directions even noticed they weren't there. But even with all that I didn't see the whole picture until you mentioned the Troubletones when we talked in LA. Then, finally, I understood what you'd been trying saying the whole time. I saw how you felt about them, how they felt about you, what an ass I am. Sorry."

Mercedes stared at Sam, speechless. Hadn't she spent half the night explaining to Annie how immature and superficial Sam was? And she hadn't even started in on that idiotic Mayan marriage. Who was the man, sitting there showing depth and insight!

"Well, that's it." Sam crawled out from under the table and held out his hand to help her up. "You mind doing me one last favor? Can I hitch a ride home? If you have some time we could talk."

Mercedes took his hand as she rose to her feet. "Yes, we could talk, or something."

Always, Send for Me - Atlantic Starr