The Regurgitation
Emma and Beiste stared at each other for a moment, but Sam quickly became impatient and said, "I think that you know much more about me than I do at all about you. Well, that was fine and dandy for you to conduct life that way when you were actually a counselor. But today, you say that you're just the owner of a bed and breakfast, so… Please, tell me what I need to know."
Emma stammered over her words and said, "Well, the thing that has to be taken into consideration with all of that is that things aren't always what they seem to be…" Sam gave her a distrusting sideways glance, then looked at Beiste to see if she was going to be as equally full of it. "Things sometimes seem…"
"Emma, just calm down and tell the man," Beiste said. "I'll be right here, if you need any support." She sat down in the chair in front of Emma's desk, knowing that Emma herself would have to pace as she talked. Emma took a deep breath. She never really had to speak about her own life, before. One of the privileges of being a counselor was the fact that she did not have to share who she was. She could be anybody, but everybody who would look at her would never ask her who she was, because they would be too busy talking about themselves.
Emma was always interested in other people's problems and concerns. It was no different for her when the other person was her parents' friends' son – Will Schuester. The Pillsburys did not particular care for Emma's habits and hobbies. Their daughter simply had not been involved in the things that they thought a young lady her age should be involved in. One thing that she did love to do and they were grateful for, was ice skate. She and Will were partners in competitions when they were children, but as he grew older, he went on to focus on other things and Emma did, too – to a certain extent. But they were always "partners."
While she currently could not be too proud of this fact – she and Will made this excellent team when it came to picking up girls. They started it when they were about fifteen. It was sort of a game, at first. "Will Schuester, I could get a girl to fall in love with me before you could," she taunted when he confessed to her that he had a crush on Terri Dimonico, and wanted to make her fall in love with him.
"I don't even know why I said anything to you," he complained. "You always tear people down. You're never encouraging, but I guess with parents like yours, it's hard to ever do or say anything positive, he stabbed. It stung, but she kept a cool face on.
"You can't PAY her to fall in love with you. Will, you couldn't even trick a girl to fall in love with the son of the most ravenous pervert in town. Your father sleeps with every woman that his eyes touch and your mother is a drunk. Now, while we try not to talk about such things in high society and the common people are none the wiser, parents who matter tell their kids who to avoid. A girl's got to consider the genes that she wants to help her conceive a baby," Emma told him.
"I'm sure that I could trick someone into falling in love with me. I'd just need an avenue, some kind of angle and an opportunity…" he said, looking at Terri, not too far away. She was in her cheerleader's outfit, standing with other cheerleaders, laughing and talking about the upcoming pep rally.
As Will and Emma passed, the red head began to degrade him very loudly, "Furthermore, your constant need to shower me with gifts, declare your love and passion, and be so serious about our relationship is tiresome and pathetic. I don't think that there is a bone in my body that is not sick of seeing your face, Will. So, why don't you just take your sad little heart out of my handbag and throw it in the sea… because nobody is ever going to want you!" She flanked 360 degrees and stomped off. Will stared after her, shocked and shamed. He could hear the cheerleaders snickering and one of them called him a 'loser.'
But then, he heard it, "Leave him alone. He's sweet." He turned to face the girls and saw Terri's sympathetic smile as she waved her fingers at him and said, "Hey, Will." He waved back nervously, then took off in Emma's direction. That little red head had gotten into her father's car and left the school, without so much as waving at him!
"I should kill you," were the first words out of his mouth when he finally saw her at school the next day.
"Will, please don't tell me after that tremendous sympathy set up that you still struck out with all of those cheerleaders," Emma complained when she stopped walking and faced him, exhausted. She had another argument with her parents about wanting to be the towel girl for the girls' lacrosse team and was not ready to deal with Will's failures today. After all, the main reason that they were "partners" was because their parents kept forcing them to do things together, even though they no longer hit the ice together.
"Terri smiled and waved at me, but this was after I was called a loser!" Will said. "I've never been so humiliated."
"And you really should be, because that was the perfect time for you to make up a lie about how much love you have in your heart and how bad that you want to share it and you might need a friend to talk to in your time of heartache. That's what I would have done with that set up," she complained and stopped at her locker.
"And I'll bet that you would have done it with that set up with the same group," he said. "You know, Emma – I'm probably the only person around you close enough or I suppose I should say frequently enough to notice the things about you that you get to hide from everybody else. Maybe you should watch how you handle me," Will threatened.
"Why, what'll you do?" Emma asked, as she tried not to be too distracted by the girls passing by them. After a moment, she rushed away from her locker, crying and covering her face. The girls turned and looked at an angry Will, storming off with his arms folded, then went to follow her into the girls' room to check on her.
"Hey, Sweet Pea… are you alright?" The dark haired girl asked her. Emma sobbed and rushed to hug the girl, burying her face in her chest, as she did. "Hey, there, there… I don't know what he did or said. But, you shouldn't let ANY guy make you feel this bad." Emma milked that situation for all it was worth, earning a phone number, a date, disguised as a cheer up event and even a sleepover, in which she worked her magic. Some girls had it in them and just needed a little push. Emma figured that she could always confirm, within three interactions, whether a girl had it. This Shelby babe had it and Emma gave the older girl the time of her life.
After the first time, she found Will, to gloat. "How are things going with Terri?" She wondered. No success, slow progress. The two of them took their gig to social settings. They would pick up girls from other schools, or girls from school that they never talked to before, with their little show of lover's quarrel/best friend brawl, whichever and score with however many girls that they could – telling them some short time after the fact that they appreciated the girl's kindness, but they weren't ready to get into anything else (or that they had worked things out).
That really wasn't Emma's situation with Shelby, though. The truth was that Emma had a crush on the upperclassman for a while and always wondered if she might be interested, too. Shelby never had boyfriends, but she did seem to have a lot of dates. She was a looker, after all. She was in the glee club and one of its stars. She was magical and Emma was pretty sure that she was in love with her by the time Will announced that he didn't care to play the game anymore. "I finally have a chance at Terri and I just want to work on that."
Emma could empathize. They had been playing the game for a year and while she and Shelby were not officially involved, the two still saw each other and she cared about her. When Will dropped out, she thought it a good time to confess her truest feelings to Shelby. Shelby sadly smiled at her and told her, "I've watched you pull the same trick on several other girls for the past year and I let it slide, because you kept things up with me. I figured that maybe I did mean something to you. But, when you never said anything, especially knowing that I'm graduating, I figured that I'd been wrong."
"You weren't," Emma told her. "We've got a chance, now."
"I'm sorry. We don't. When I turned 18, I made a contract with this adorable older gay couple to have a baby for them. I'm pregnant now. I won't be showing by graduation, and after graduation, I'll be living with them, so that people won't talk. Then, I'm using the money that they give me to go to New York and live out my dreams. I didn't leave any room for you and your games, Emma. I hope that you and Will have fun, though." The girl hugged her and moved on.
It was almost graduation time. Terri and Will hadn't worked out. They dated for a few months before Terri decided that he was interested only in her for sex and determined that she would not be that type of girl. He was nothing like the boy that Emma had complained about that loud verbal argument. When she saw that he and Emma were closer than ever after their break up, she washed her hands of him, altogether. Emma had been depressed after Shelby left and her parents tried to remedy her sorrow by forcing her out on several miscellaneous dates with their friends' sons – decent God fearing red haired boys that they knew from the country club, at first. Soon, it became any teenage or young adult male that they knew had a wealthy and impressive family. To eliminate that, she begged Will to pretend that they were courting. Initially, he agreed, because he thought it might make Terri jealous. Didn't work, but he stuck with it, and they had been living that falsehood all of this time.
Shortly before graduation, Will overheard his father arguing with Mr. Pillsbury and could not help but to eavesdrop. "That Emma is a LESBIAN, so I don't even see why you are so concerned about this!" Mr. Schuester said.
Pillsbury fussed, "Emma knows how her mother and I feel about this supposed thing with the girls. That's why she's even going out with your son. But, he's a young man with needs and she may try to pretend that she's something that she's not in order to please us. Can you really live with that? With the two of them getting in bed together, KNOWING that she's his little sister?" Will gasped at those words. He had just been about to ask his father about an upcoming hunting trip – if he should use his new hunting knife… He waited to hear more.
"To be honest, I'm wondering why you're so wound up about it. I mean – Emma's not even your daughter. She's mine and I'm not worried about a thing. Will is as interested in your little ginger monster as she is in his penis," Schuester said, awarding him a punch in the face.
"I was at all of the appointments with her mother! I raised her and tried to give her the guidance that you never would have!" Pillsbury fussed. "And I'm not going to let her make a mistake that might damage her for the rest of her life! I'm going to tell her, and while I'm at it, kiss your chances at being a political powerhouse goodbye, because everyone is going to know how you had an affair with my wife, the two of your covered it up for years and how I found out from your drunk wife trying to have sex with me. I wonder what people would think about a man who is not only a liar but would allow his kids to have sex to protect that lie!" When the man came storming out of his old friend' s office, he rushed right into the edge of the hunting knife. He groaned, stammered, clawed at the young man in front of him and fell to the floor.
"Rusty, don't be so melodramatic…" Will heard his father say, but the man became silent when Will entered with blood on his hand. "Will! What did you do?"
"Is it true, Dad?" Will wondered. "Emma's my sister?"
Senior Schuester was more concerned about the blood on his son. "Did you kill him?" He asked and went to check on Rusty Pillsbury. "We need to call Karofsky. Will, what have I taught you about reacting out of emotion and on impulse. Had you given me time, tomorrow, Rusty's body would have been discovered with some worthless nigger's prints all over it, motive, weapon, the works – hook, line and sinker. It's harder to stage after the fact."
"IS EMMA PILLSBURY MY SISTER?" Will screamed out.
"Yes!" His father hissed as he rushed to his phone and called up the guy that Will hardly ever saw or knew anything about. All that Will knew was that this guy cleaned up and made messes when they needed them, that he was young, not as young as Will, but not nearly as old as Old Man Schuester, and that he enjoyed his work. Will was getting ready to storm out, but his father called, "Don't you dare take a step! You have to wait for Karofsky to fix our problem before you go off making a bigger mess of things." Will waited.
Emma was crying and hugging her pillow when Will came inside her bedroom. She quickly sat up, frightened for a moment, then sighed when she saw him. "I almost asked if you're okay, but of course, you're not."
"Will, I've known that I was different since I was five, maybe even earlier. But that was the first time that I can remember being drawn to breasts and wanting to touch them," she chuckled. "My parents have always wanted me to not only hate people who weren't like us, but they wanted me to be with a red haired man to ensure that they had red haired kids and Will, they never approved of you. My mother hates you and my father just insisted that I needed a red head. I've thought it was just silly, but I never cared, because I knew that the minute I left this place, I was not setting out to find any type of man, so it didn't matter what kind of man they wanted me with." She sniffled. "I'm so upset right now. My father drove me crazy and he was very offensive to people like me and other different people, but he was my dad… or at least the only dad that I've ever known."
"What do you mean by that?" Will asked.
"He wasn't my biological dad. My mom had an affair. I don't know with who, but I found out when we started high school and had to do a genealogy project. It asked questions about where we were born and all this stuff and in some roundabout way, when I was asking my mom questions for it, she fumbled up. She quickly lied and fixed it, but I was curious and began doing research like crazy. Then, I finally just went for it and had a test taken with money from her emergency stash." She shrugged and said, "But, it didn't matter to me."
Will now sat next to her on the bed and said, "Emma… my… dad is your dad," he told her.
"What?" She asked.
"My dad told me when we first got together. He was worried about us doing something and wanted to make sure that neither of us ended up scarred. Well, since I was only protecting your secret, anyway – I decided not to mention it. I knew that there was enough trouble between you and your parents, for all their trying to change you and I didn't want to add to it. Plus, like you said, Russell Pillsbury is the only dad that you know…"
Emma's lip quivered and she cried, "So, he's known all this time, but he never made any attempt to reach out to me. I'm sure it has nothing to do with not wanting any little red headed grandchildren." She shook her head, "You know what, it doesn't even matter, Will. You and I would have been like brother and sister, anyway." She reached out and hugged him tightly. Her mother entered the room and cleared her throat. "Mom, Will was just checking on me," Emma said as she stood up.
"Will, your murdering father called and wants you to come home," Rose said.
"Mom!" Emma said.
"So, I suggest that you return before he has the rest of us killed, just like he had my husband killed. Emma and I don't stand a chance, but I'm sure that's not your problem," the woman ranted.
Will approached her and said gently, "Nothing is going to happen to either of you."
The woman swished the wine in her glass around as she gave him a glare. "What do you even know? You're still a pup. I'm glad that Emma never had to know all of the mess that she might have married into if the two of you had stayed together." She glared at him up and down. "Get out of here, please. I would like for your father to kill us according to his scheduled plans."
"Mrs. Pillsbury, please don't say things like that," Will urged, but the woman simply nudged her head towards the door. He looked at Emma, "I'll see you," he said and left. He rushed into his father's office, where he was in a meeting with some toughies and his young assistant, an intern named Fabray, and some legal associates. "Dad, can I talk to you?"
Will was determined that nothing happen to Emma, partially because she was his best friend, and partially because she was his new sister, when he had always been an only child. He also felt terrible for killing her father and knowing that it hurt her so much. His father made him the promise that he wouldn't harm Emma, but Rose simply had to go because she knew too much and was too bitter. But, if Emma ever were to become a problem for the family or the cause, Will was expected to handle her. "Of course, Dad."
"Of course, with family like ours, things hardly are ever just said or even told. Usually, you have to find things out or sneak around to learn them. I didn't want that kind of a life and I certainly had no usage for things of the, you know – the ugly nature."
"Do they know that he's your brother?" Sam asked, pointing in the other room.
"Of course not. If any of them knew and Will found out, he would do something terrible. The truth would hurt his family name and his reputation. Not only was I the product of an extramarital affair, but I am a known lesbian and I dated him in high school for about two years. Had Will been the man that he is today, I would have been dead, just as my mom suggested."
"How do you sleep knowing who he is and what he does and protecting him?" Sam asked.
"By taking an interest in people whose lives have been affected by him and his causes and trying to help those people. You, Tina, Quinn, Shane…" Emma cleared her throat and put her head down as she mumbled, "Mercedes."
"Mercedes?" Sam asked. "What do you mean Mercedes' life was affected by him?"
"Her family had a really nice piece of property that should have done really well, but for all of his sabotaging the shop, they began to fall under. To make some extra money, it was Will's father who brought Mercedes' father in to do some work for him – hands dirtying type work." She shook her head. "I don't know whether they had him locked up or not, or if they were responsible for that abandoned house that he was sleeping in burning down, but I would not be surprised. Those kids have no idea what kinds of things my brother and his father have done to affect their lives. I was too afraid to stop it, so I did the only thing that I could muster up the courage to do – that was try to help them get over it." She finally sat on her desk as she admitted, "Will thought that I was just keeping an eye on them. When he realized that I was actually nurturing them and trying to help them do better, he pulled me out and made sure that I was never able to work in another facility again. Then, tried to make up for it by buying me a huge home." She shrugged her shoulders.
"You have to tell people what you know," Sam urged. He didn't know if he was pissed off at her in general or because of the glorious mess that keeping the Schuester family secrets had caused so many people that he cared about, including himself. Then again, maybe her opening up would have only resulted in a few speculations about Will's character, then her untimely and gruesome death.
"The fact that I haven't is the main reason that any of these people are still alive. You finding your way to us is nothing short of fate. When Mercedes called and asked me if I had any openings for you, I told her that I didn't. It's always easiest for me to reach out to someone when she's had the chance to soften them up a bit with her incredible personality… but I had no idea that she would have this affect on you." Emma let out a deep breath and said, "I know that I could try to sell my brother out, but at the end – he's just so powerful and has so many connections. Do you know what happened to the last person who tried to come up against him?" Emma looked right into Sam's eyes and told him, "Yes, you do, because you were there."
"It's time that we take this to the others," Sam said. "Until we can all pull together and work against these guys, we'll never escape their reign of terror."
Mercedes was rendered speechless by everything and decided that she didn't want to be left out again. "Luckily, we have Will drawing some attention to the terrible things that have been happening to us since that flier circulated," Quinn said.
"Mr. Schuester?" Mercedes said and cringed at hearing his name. "What's he been doing?"
"He's getting his family's firm to make Matt leave us alone and trying to see if he can't stick him with some type of inciting people to harassment," Quinn said.
"Quinn, we don't need Will Schuester's help," Mercedes said.
"Yes, we do," Quinn said. "He's got a reputation and he is a skilled lawyer. This will help his platform against cyberbullying and slander, so he's the best choice that we have for help."
"He's been great," Blaine added.
"I don't want his help," Mercedes said.
"Why the hell not?" Quinn wondered.
"Look, I am making an executive decision that Will Schuester is to in no way shape or form be involved at all in anything that deals with Pieces of Mercy," Mercedes said, only just realizing that she was no longer bawling about the news of what her friends had been going through while she was having a fun and fancy free time in Kentucky. "Have you talked to Puck?" She asked. Quinn smiled, softly and the others began to go off into their own little talks while Quinn caught Mercy up on Puck's current experience and progress.
When Sam, Emma and Beiste returned, it was not to announce Emma's ties to Will. That simply exposed her too much and Sam didn't want to make her feel that uncomfortable. So instead, she just told them that she happened to know for a fact that Will Schuester was one of the main culprits in all of the madness. Shock reverberated all throughout the room. Quinn looked at Mercedes and said, "That's why you didn't want him helping us."
Mercedes said, "Sam knew him from before and I didn't trust him." Then she asked Sam, "What is it that you think that we can do by getting together? Are we going to all go after him or just run our mouths, or what?"
"You have no idea what we are capable of. You have no idea how far out and how deep inside we can reach," he said, under his breath and Mercedes paused and tilted her head, "It's something that they tell people when they intend to strike." He put his hands over his mouth and took a deep breath. "They do a few more things to shake people up, for the next couple of weeks, then they'll do one big thing to really impact the target."
"Are you the target?" Mercedes asked Sam, with a worried voice.
Sam forced out a labored exhale and said, sadly, "No. You are." He reached for her hand and said, "I'm not going to let them get you, though. I don't care if I have to take you all across the country. I won't let anything happen to you."
"Why am I the target?" She asked.
"I was thrown away. I was supposed to die or kill myself inside. That didn't happen. I know things. I have secrets. I'm a threat to certain people. You are clearly the thing that matters to me the most. They're attacking your friends to try to sift you out, because you've disappeared from their radar and they want to sift you out to get to me."
"So… are these your old white power crew members, or is this Matt's followers? I am so confused. I don't even know who's against us, right now."
"I'm sure that was intentional. They would have sent in others to draw attention from themselves. There are usually at least two other scapegoats set in place. Misdirection is extremely important and effective with these kinds of things."
"They've been doing some petty things to my friends. Kurt and Tina have been harassed, Santana threatened, Lauren hit, and that huge cross that decorates the front of the community center has been cut down and stolen; they burned it on this lawn. So far, nothing has been extremely harmful… Do you think that they want to kill me?" Mercedes asked.
"I think that they want me to know that they will, if I don't play along." Sam said as Quinn covered her reddening face with both hands and Kurt began to ramble about how nobody was going to let Mercedes or anyone else die. "I'm not going to let anything happen to Mercy. I'm sorry that I couldn't keep everyone safe from this, but the fact is that this is how these people do things and we need to try to figure out a way to protect ourselves and each other."
Mercedes spoke up, "You know how this works better than we do. It would be childish of us to insist that we do it in the way that we want to do it." She took a deep breath and told him, "I trust you." Sam smiled, for a second. His moment of joy was overshadowed by the fact that people's lives were on the line. People that she loved and he cared about. Schuester's mom could have just as easily killed Lauren or permanently damaged her and though he wasn't familiar with "Thad," he knew that it took a special kind of crazy dedication to be willing to threaten someone face to face, and anyone that bold meant to cause very real danger and harm to their target.
"What did Rutherford have on Schuester?" Sam wondered. "If I can find that out, I can expose him, like Rutherford was going to. Whatever it was had Schuester super-duper spooked, at the time. None of you would have to get involved, and everyone else can still be safe. If I perish, I perish," Sam said, wondering why he was in such a biblical mood (probably because of the prayer, because now that he thought about it, he hadn't read his Bible probably the entire time he had been gone.) "That was a quote from Esther," he told them. "It's a book in the Bible." Mercedes smiled to herself at him, even at a time like this. He could be so goofy.
Emma said, politely, "They get rid of things, so that no one can find these things out," she told him. "Whatever it was that you boys killed the Rutherfords to protect will be long gone, now."
"I find that hard to believe for a couple of reasons," Sam said. "For one, I knew Jesse and I met Schuester several times, in a different atmosphere than any of you have ever met him. He gave my dad work, when he couldn't find any. He's smart and brutal, but he's also human. That means he's prone to mistakes, like anyone else. That means that whoever else is in his net would have some kind of arsenal of insurance on him. When I say arsenal, I mean like… Tina told me that Judge Fabray drudges up people's dirt and hammers them with it. I find it hard to believe that when someone defects or something that they just "find" a mountain of evidence, all of a sudden to bury these dudes."
Beiste said, "Well, sometimes they just make things up and fabricate those mountains."
Sam nodded and said, "Yeah, but wouldn't it be more effective when someone is stepping out of line to be able to remind them of what you actually have on them than to have to resort to trying to make them fear the fake mountain of evidence?"
Mercedes commented, "A good enough debater can shoot down real proof, it'd take a genius to always be able to convince a jury that piles of falsified info is beyond reasonable doubt. That might work without fail with undesirables, but when dealing with the cream of society and all of their accomplishments and money – a pile of real evidence can be hard to get people to believe, much more a dupe."
Sam fist pumped at his lady's comments. "These guys are lawyers, judges, politicians – their super-villain status works better when the threat is real," he added. He held up two fingers, "Reason #2 that I don't think that the evidence was destroyed – because I've spent several days looking at and reading Matt Rutherford's website. If Matt's father was half as smart and resourceful as that guy is, then the man left something somewhere for someone to find. The problem with that is that we would need someone who knew him really well to be able to figure out where that is."
Now, he saw disappointed faces all over the room. Beiste chuckled and shook her head, "You really are something special, Sam. That's some genius thinking, and I hope that you're right… but how would we even begin to find any of that? And if we simply can't, what would our options be?"
Sam took a deep breath and said, "The option would be that I just come forward with everything that I know." Outrage and disbelief sounded all over the room now, but Sam quickly explained, "What these guys are involved in would be on the level of federal crime. I could testify against Schuester and get in witness protection."
"What kind of a life is that, Sam? It'll be like you're still in prison," Kurt whined.
Sam shook his head and said, "Trust me, it won't. AND, I'll beat another stint in prison, because the things that I will give him up for will be what I've already done time for and am on parole for. They won't try to bring up additional charges for withholding evidence or anything. Besides, if there are charges brought up on Schuester, I'm sure that at least Rick would be willing to cut a deal, so that he can at least have his sentence reduced to life, instead of the death row sentence that he's serving. He'll most likely be executed within the next five years, if he doesn't."
Blaine offered, "Sam, all of this sounds great, but these men have obviously been doing this for ages. They're probably steps ahead of you and they probably mapped out all of the possibilities of things before they even set wheels in motion for a plan."
Sam said, "You know what they wouldn't have mapped out? Matt Rutherford working with us, especially not now, with all of the bad blood between him and us…"
"Know why they wouldn't have mapped that one out?" Mike asked, letting the question and everyone's faces and sounds answer the question for them.
Sam turned to his lady and said, "Mercy, could you come here, please?" She nodded once and got up, allowing her friends to help steer her to him. Sam pulled her into an embrace and whispered, "Do you trust me?"
"With it all," she said, softly.
He kissed her on the forehead and announced, "I am going to face Matt…" Everyone objected, except for Mercedes. Sam waved his arms and told them, "It has to be done, anyway. The worse that he'll do is tell me to rot in hell and continue on the path of trying to ruin my life. Because you know what he isn't going to do – kill me or put his hands on me, in any way, shape, or form. Do you know why he won't do it? Because he believes that any soldier's strongest weapon is his mind. I've read like hundreds of his blogs and gave myself a major headache, because I'm dyslexic and he uses ridiculously big words, like a lot. I even had to get a dictionary, because that was easier than toggling, to me. But, my sister suggested a thesaurus…"
"Topic, Love," Mercedes said.
"Thank you," he said, gently and continued his spiel, "Matt wants to destroy me from the inside out. Death or even physical pain is too good for me, in his mind. We need to be willing to take it to the limits with this, if we're going to get Will Schuester."
"And Russell Fabray," Quinn added, confidently nodding her head.
"And Paul Karofsky," Tina said. Sam started laughing (not because anything was funny) and Tina looked very confused and hurt and afraid. "Please don't tell me that you knew him too," she begged.
"I knew Dave," he said.
Shivers went down Kurt's spine at the mention of that name. "When I attempted to go to Carmel my freshman year, Dave Karofsky terrorized me. I ended up going to Dalton. I heard he killed himself a few years ago."
Tina looked embarrassed as she said, "Yeah… yeah, he did. Guys – Dave was Paul's son, and Paul's… the guy. He's my, he.."
"Her father," Mike finished and rubbed her on the back. Sam nodded knowingly. He presumed as much when she mentioned the man.
Now, Artie spoke up and spoke out loudly, "Hold up! Hold up! Is MY dad a part of this, too?" When Sam chuckled, Artie said, "Naw, I'm dead serious, right now."
"No, he isn't," Emma answered.
Artie sighed deeply and covered his heart. "Y'all don't understand. I love Pops. I thought it was about to be over between us."
Everyone headed for bed, at different times. Sam was writing notes on his scratch sheets of paper and busy thinking when Mercedes asked, "Are you coming to bed?" He smiled and let her know that he had to work on more on his approach to Matt, but held her closely and tightly, kissed her and thanked her for her support. Tina escorted her to the room that they would be sharing with her and Mike, then found her way back to Sam.
Sam looked up and held his hand out to the seat beside him. "I'm not going to ask you anything," he said. "But, if you want to tell me something."
"I thought that Dave was a better guy than our father. He seemed so nice when we met him. He seemed really sweet and caring and like he wished that he could know my sister and I. He found us, after my mom killed herself. I had moved out of Mercedes' POM apartment and gotten my own place and my sister came to live with me. He gave us his condolences and told me that he was trying to get a handle on some things in his life. A girl from high school had been stirring up trouble for him and he had people angry with him. I followed Mercy's lead. I did what I thought she would do. He seemed so nice, Sam and even though I hated Paul, this was supposed to on some level be our brother…" the tears started to fall, but her voice was alarmingly still as she said, "He snuck into my sister's room in the middle of the night, while she was asleep, silenced her and attacked her. She has been in the institution, since. I visit her every other day and she still does not want to leave that place and come out into the world. I found out where that bastard was staying, I went there with my weapon and my rage and I busted the window open. I climbed inside and I found him in there, masturbating to some gay porno."
She laughed and shook her head. "I told him that I would tell everyone and I can be so convincing… He was so worried. I told him that I'd come to kill him, but ruining his world would be just as good, to me. Then, he tried to apologize for what he did to our sister – like there's an apology for doing that to someone." She tried to throw Sam a 'no offense' look, but continued, "He wrote his note and he hung himself. He had tons of gay stuff in that place that he thought I was going to clean up for him. I called the police and told them how I found him…"
"Wait… you were there?" Sam asked.
"Well, I held the weapon, to make sure that he didn't lose his motivation. It was his choice - to die or have everyone find out the truth about him. He preferred to die." Tina leaned forward and clasped her hands in her lap. "No one ever even suspected me, because no one knew about who he really was… except for those girls and women that he hated so much. My father probably knows, but Dave's suicide boosted his reputation. He got a lot of sympathy support and some of the gays in the area donated money to his campaign out of respect to David." She looked at him and asked, "Did you really not know anything about any of that when you came to me for help?"
"Tina, if I had known, I wouldn't have even felt comfortable asking you for help and opening up those wounds for you. I learned my lesson when I tried to apologize to Aphasia. I guess, some part of me wished that my attackers would have at least come to me and apologized, if ever they felt remorse. I have a greater need for forgiveness, so I'm more likely to forgive than someone who needs none from anybody. I was thinking of her in my shoes and not the other way around and it really hurt me to know that I brought back all of that to the surface, because at that time, I had learned how she felt."
Tina was shaking as she said, "This stays between us." Sam gave her a crooked smile and put an arm around her. Tina touched his arm, affectionately, then removed it, cleared her throat, and said, "If you ever get a chance, I think that you should come to the crisis center with me. You're a very good example and might give them hope. If even a man whose had this happen could grow like you have…"
"I'd love to, sometime. I guess, after all this with Matt," Sam said.
Tina reached out and grabbed Sam's hand as she said, "Sam, Joe told Matt that it would be a month. You need to wait until he's expecting you. If you surprise him, he may count that against you, from the start. Besides, Mercedes sounded really excited about being able to cook and bake with your mom and to laugh and listen to music and books with your sister. She didn't have the chance to have a real family for long. I think that its doing wonders for her. She's like a new woman. Of course, the dick might have something to do with that, too…" Sam turned vivid red. "I heard about the three condoms, of course."
Sam shook his head, frustrated and said, "Why was she counting them?"
"She went to try to dump it out and they were stuck," Tina laughed, so she had to get some tissue and grabbed them to put them into the bag!" As embarrassed as that made Sam feel, he laughed. Tina added, "I keep having this vision of her trying to sleep at night and jumping up out of her sleep crying out, 'Condoms!' Because, I know that the thought of Mercedes and anyone having that type of connection scares her silly." She shook her head and said, "It's really hard for her to have to let go of Mercedes, at a time like this."
"I know… but she has to do it," Sam said.
"I know," Tina replied. She had known Mercedes longer than Quinn, having been her roommate for several months before Quinn was brought into the institution.
"Know what I'm getting her for my birthday?" He asked, highly enthusiastic, with this childlike grin that just warmed Tina's heart that a man felt that way about her friend, finally!
"What you're getting her for your birthday?" She repeated, to be sure.
"Yeah. I mean; I've got her, that's the only gift that I need, so I figure I'd get her something special. It's been on order for a while, because of course, I've been trying to woo her for a time. Santana had to set it up and take the payments out of my checks…"
"Don't tell me! I want to be surprised," Tina said. "I missed the whole blind gift thing you did for her birthday…"
Tina awoke to the feel of someone collecting her and opened her eyes to see Mike grabbing her from the couch. She and Sam had talked until she'd fallen to sleep… and she had needed it, because she had hardly had a decent night's sleep in the past week. Sam had checked to see if Mike was awake, first, then was going to pick Tina up and carry her to her bed himself… but he was unsure if Mike ever really gotten used to him, after that whole big secret thing that he knew for a fact that Mike still did not know about, and never would. So, he called him on his cell phone and asked him if he wanted to come get her. "I figured that she could use her sleep."
Mike said, "I really appreciate that." He stood up, holding Tina in his arms and added, "I also appreciate the things that you said about her. Sometimes, I think that she gets so underappreciated and underrated with this bunch. Don't get me wrong, I love them and I know they love her, but I don't understand why she always has to be the strong one." Mike carried his woman to the room and Sam followed behind to climb into bed with Mercedes. He even let the dogs stay there. He wasn't going to be able to sleep. He felt like for the first time in his life, he understood what people meant when they said that they had a "calling."
He felt that he had been led to these people to be the key to their freedom from a life of imprisonment. Even though he and Mercedes would be returning to Kentucky tomorrow night, as planned, he knew that he would be back and when he came back, it would be to work. When he came back, he didn't care what it took, he was going to help each and every one of these people get the feet of their oppressors off of their necks. He immediately got off of the bed, fell to his knees, began to pray, and promised God that he would make a better effort to get back to his former dedication. When he got back into bed, the strangest thing happened. God must have been waiting for him to pray to help him with Matt, because he received a text: I think that you are the only person that can help free Matt from what he's in, and I think that I can help you to do it…It was from Aphasia.