Si Cela Est Noël
AnniKay

Sam/Mercedes/Puck

Disclaimer: I own Nothing…Murphy, Falchuk, and Brennen along with Fox and others own this fandom and all the characters there in…Anything you recognize obviously belongs to them

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Summary: Winter Break for the College Sophomores of the Learning French Series.
A time to reconnect with family and friends.

Silver Bells

Sue Sylvester PoV

I had to admit, things were going pretty damn well in the life of Sue Sylvester. In the years since I had lost the National Cheerleading Title for the first time in a decade, I had managed to claw my way back to the top. I had run William 'I'm an idiot by choice' Schuester, not just out of McKinley, but all the way out of Ohio. In fact, through the many and varied contacts of Mr. Sue Sylvester, aka Don Motta, I'd even found out that Brillo-head was living the low life as a sex worker. Though, to be fair, he was a sex worker for an elite gigolo service that may or may not have been owned by one of Don's cousins on the less than legal side of his huge Italian and Egyptian family. Perhaps it was somewhat cruel of me, but I rather enjoyed knowing how far the man, and I used that term loosely, had fallen. I didn't feel bad very long however, According to Don, Schuester was gaining a certain level of popularity among women of a certain age who were not able to find, or had no desire for, a long-term relationship. I was still very proud of the fact that I was part of the reason for his current degrading employment. After all, I had made sure that he would never get another job in education. Yes, I was quite happy cross that name off my list of enemies to be crushed under my thumb. I didn't have to ever think of William 'Moron' Schuester ever again.

I was even happier about how things were going in my professional life. In Lima, I had managed to wrest control of McKinley from the overly niggardly hands of Aloysius Figgins. Though, I couldn't take all the credit. He had basically done it to himself. His stupid austerity measures had negatively impacted the wrong people and he was demoted so far that I was able to keep him on as one of the janitors just to allow him to see my success rise from the shadow of his failures. Once I had complete control of McKinley, I forced the school board to give me a budget that was comparable to that of the other high schools in the area and I made sure to reclaim the parts of the winnings of the Cheerios, the New Directions and the Titans that the school board had taken as their due. With those funds in hand, I could make the changes that I had seen as needed for years. But first I had needed to consolidate my power.

Becky had reached the age of twenty-one, which meant that she could no longer attend McKinley as a student. So I formalized the position she had held for the previous four years as my personal assistant. She was now paid to make sure that my schedule ran like an imported Swiss timepiece. She also acted as a go between for me with the B and C Cheerio squads. She made sure that the two secretaries in the administration office maintained all the necessary files and paperwork that came with running a school. I also had her monitoring the internal grade book system to make sure that there was no tampering with grades by anyone who shouldn't have had access. I'd heard rumors that one of Figgins' secretaries had been stupidly easy to manipulate or blackmail. I hadn't been sure if it was the one with the face even a mother would have had trouble loving or the one who was old enough to have taught math to Pythagoras. So, I'd gotten rid of them both. One had been encouraged to retire and the other was shifted over to Shawnee High. I'd culled two of my former Cheerios who were working in the secretarial pool over at the Board of Education to fill those spots.

I'd also found two vice principals, one to work with Pillsbury and myself on curriculum and the second to work with me handling student discipline. Harvey Miranda was culled from Lima Catholic High. He had taught every grade level from seventh through twelfth. He understood how to arrange schedules and curriculums to the biggest benefit for our students. His wife of forever had worked loyally for Don for over a decade…I desired two things in my people; intelligence and loyalty. He had both. So too did the young lady that I hired to oversee student discipline. Victoria Bennings had graduated the year before Fabray the Elder. She'd been smart and idealistic…but more ruthless than one would have ever believed. Before Becky, she had been the best enforcer I'd ever had on the Cheerios. She'd recently graduated with a Master's in education administration. One of the first things we did was sit down and go over the McKinley Teacher handbook and rewrote the discipline section to be more easily understood and to clearly state the levels of punishments for common and uncommon infractions and a few that I knew were rare but that Schuester had let go despite the fact that they almost caused someone great bodily harm. Together we removed the ability for arbitrary or over reactive penalties. Justice would always be equal across the board as it always should have been. Though I did leave myself and my staff some room for negotiation. Teenagers came up with the stupidest ideas and thought they were good ones. I preferred to not be too boxed in when having to deal with their 'brilliant ideas'.

I also got the guidance department back up to par. Little Miss Golden Marmoset now had two underlings to counsel the students on all the messy things like emotions and relationships. She'd be able to counsel them on academics and college and career planning. It was a much better set up than expecting one guidance counselor to handle the academic and emotional needs of thirty-two hundred students. The department also had a secretary and an online scheduling system that would allow students to schedule time to see their choice of the three counselors. In a year or two I would add another counselor and assign them each a grade level to manage. I was mentally pushing that back to two years because midget-Barbara Gordon had come back from Thanksgiving wearing her Corn-fed Hal-o-saurus' ring. I'd known immediately that that bad boy was more than just a pretty bauble and I'd need a new head of the guidance department and career counselor by the end of the summer.

The other changes were both big and small. The school had an actual security system rather than a whole bunch of empty bubbles. I'd hired a retired cop from Cincinnati, who'd been a friend to Don, to watch the feeds for signs of bullying, drug deals, sexual activities or harassment…basically all the things that didn't belong in a school though they'd been happening at McKinley for years. All the locks in the school, other than those of the April Rhodes' Auditorium had been changed, Baby Puckerman would have to find a new office. The key his big brother had bequeathed to him upon the elder 'sex-shark's' graduation wouldn't work anymore. I'd shifted out more than a few teachers Figgins had hired because they were willing to work cheap. They'd not known their subjects and a few of them were only teachers because they couldn't get any other job. When you had morons for teachers, all you produced was more morons. I'd hired some new teachers too. After bullying the idiots on the Board to raise our beginning salary to something more able to compete with some of the larger districts in the state, I was able to pick and choose from a better crop of teachers. Lima City could afford it. People paid enough in property taxes, they shouldn't have had to deal with sending their students to crap school. The fact that McKinley had been one of the better schools in the district didn't mean it wasn't still a crap school. With the new teachers, we no longer had any unused classrooms which also meant that we had smaller class sizes.

I went over my mental list; better security, teachers who actually knew their subjects, i.e. foreign language teachers who were fluent in the language they taught, a wide range of student activities that built more than just physical aptitude, a guidance department that could really serve the needs of the student body, oh…the nurses. I'd hired two of them, Laverne Roberts, RN and Katherine Ann Foreman, LPN who preferred to be called Kitty for some god awful reason. Her husband was much more my type of person though. Those two were great. Students wanting to check out for medical reasons had to make it past one of the two of them. Roberts was a total hard ass, she once set a kid's wrist in a splint and sent him back to gym to walk the rest of the period because all that was going to happen otherwise was his parents would have a major ER bill for a nurse there to do the same thing. Foreman seemed all sweetness and light, but she knew the raunchiest jokes I'd ever heard and when a kid came in wanting a pass they'd better be bleeding, vomiting or have a fever that bordered on febrile seizure range or they were shit out of luck.

In the year I'd had the helm, truancy was down. Disciplinary actions, both student and teacher, were down across all grade levels. We hadn't had a shop class accident all year. Replacing that alcoholic, neo-nazi who had less fingers than the angry squid from Spongebob had made a world of difference. Our coaching staff was happier. Beiste, Black Sue, Tselios, the hockey coach, and myself, we all had actual assistant coaches, which made managing our teams and teaching…which we all had to do…a hell of a lot easier. Besides the assistant coaches were full time teachers as well so it really did work out. It made controlling the hormones of a bunch of idiot cheerleaders and ball players a hell of a lot easier. I'd also hired a basketball coach, Taylor Griffith, and a Baseball coach, a MLB washout named Jeremy Giambi. Beiste was a great football coach, but real team development took too much time for her to be able to coach basketball too. The students had expressed an interest in resurrecting the defunct baseball team…and both Griffith and Giambi came pretty cheap since they were each part-timers.

There had been those who disagreed with my placement as principal of McKinley considering that many, many of the teachers who had washed out as educators had cited me as a primary reason…but there was no arguing with results. McKinley's graduation rate, grades and test scores were up. Our football, synchronized and individual swim teams, hockey, debate and Mathletics teams were all state champions. We held national titles in cheer, show choir, and -thanks to David Martinez-academic bowl. Thanks to having Shelby Cochran and improving academics, we were pulling people into our cluster, which was increasing the board's coffers.

Damn it felt good to be me. As great as things were going for me professionally, my personal life was even better. In Don I had found a man who was just as strong, ruthless, loyal and intelligent as I was. We shared similar interests and a few of the same fetishes. He and I both loved who we loved and hated pretty much everyone else. It had taken a hell of a lot of time for Sugar to grow on me, but watching how much she loved Jeanie…I couldn't help but love that kid. Her sense of fashion was freaking atrocious, but she could dance her ass off and adding her to the Cheerios had turned out to be a benefit rather than a hindrance when it came to planning routines. With the improvements at the school, I was able to actually have a life outside the Cheerios. As much as I loved winning, without Jean, I could have seen myself becoming increasingly bitter and losing even the joy I found in crushing others to my will and beneath my heel. Having Don and Sugar and Jeanie to come home too…it was beyond nice.

The holidays were interesting. There were a lot of traditions in a family like the Mottas. Traditionally the men in the family spent the days of Thanksgiving and Christmas with their wives' families. For us that actually meant spending them with the Jones, because the food was worth being around that much happiness for that long. Well the food and the fact that Jeanie loved the kids in their house and hearing Mahalia sing never failed to not only bring smiles to my girls faces, but to get Don in to mood for love. However, while the day of was for the wife's family, the Mottas had a big ass family event the day before Thanksgiving and on Christmas Eve. It was held at the family compound in Rumson, New Jersey. The house, which the family called Hidden Acres, was huge and there was room for EVERYONE. Don's mother and her sisters cooked a meal full of Italian and Egyptian delicacies. I wasn't expecting the immediate acceptance that I received…or that they gave to Jeanie.

We went on Tuesday and left on Thanksgiving morning to head back to Lima. I was so stuffed, we didn't eat again until dinner at the hotel ballroom they had rented to host the seventy-five people they considered family. I was shocked that everything tasted just as good as it had the previous two Thanksgivings. I expected that as they added more people into the fold, they would hire caterers or something…but nope. They had fed their family, expansive as it may have been, from their hearts. It was a great feeling to be included in all that love, though I'd never admit it to a soul. Friday morning, Sugar had me up and out at four so we could be in Columbus at six to go shopping for Christmas. I let her have her way. It felt good in a strange way to be the mother to her that my own had never been to me. As we shopped, she and I talked about her future. "I know that I did well on the SATs and my grades are good and everything, but I just don't think I want to go to college right out of high school."

I gave her a hard stare. "Give me three good reasons why not."

She did take a moment to think about it. "Okay, the first one is that I'm kind of burnt out. If I went immediately, I'd probably do something stupid and end up flunking out. The second reason is that I haven't got any idea where I actually want to go to college. Nonna wants me to go to school in New Jersey. Daddy wants me to go to OSU. But I don't really want to go either place. The third is that I really want to do something wild and crazy before I settle down to college…maybe something as weird as actually figuring out what I want to do with my life before I start paying tens of thousands of dollars a year to start to train for it."

I couldn't argue with her on any of those points, other than the fact that the first and the third were almost the same argument. "So what would you do if you took a gap year. And that is what it would be. You know your father fully intends for you to go to college and be able to take over his empire one day."

Sugar nodded. "I want to go to college. I'm not someone who cannot go to college. I just don't…Tessa and Joe and Regina and Chase…they are all so enthusiastic about where they applied and anxious about hearing back. I sent off two applications. One to Cal Tech and one to Harvard, I only sent off those two because they are almost impossible to get into."

"And even if you managed to get into Cal Tech, no way would your father let you go off to Pasadena by yourself." I understood her reasoning on those two schools. "I still want to know how you plan to spend the next year if you don't go to college?"

"I was gonna talk to Momma Mercy and see if KAMA needed another dancer." She finally admitted.

I gave her another look. "You know Evans and Puckerman are as overprotective of the women in their lives as your father and uncles are. It will be work, hard work and Mercedes Jones will not go easy on you just because she likes you. S-Lo says that their practices and shows are run like military maneuvers."

Sugar's smile was beautiful. "I know. I won't be able to get away with anything. Daddy spoils me rotten, Sue. I think I need some boundaries and time with rules before I go to college and have to figure it all out on my own."

"You go to OSU and MegaTon and El Gigante will be just as bad as Lady-Lips and Jailbird." I said honestly.

"Lauren might be, but Finn is very soft hearted and easily confused that makes him incredibly easy to manipulate." She pointed out.

Again, I agreed. I pulled down a soft green sweater that would look good on my elder daughter and held it up against her…gratified to see I was correct. "We'll talk it over with your dad. If…and I mean If…you are working with Aretha, Lady Lips and JailBird…then maybe you can take a gap year. But only if your Dad is okay with it and only if it's spent with them."

We continued shopping and I found gifts for Don, Jeanie, Sugar, my mother-in-law and Becky. I was done. Sugar had a list a mile and a half long. She was just so happy to have friends…I did manage to get her to limit herself to fifteen bucks per person by reminding her that others couldn't spend as much as her and they might feel bad. I sighed internally. She could be so like her father sometime, and yet she still had far too much kindness in her heart. When we got home, we did have the talk and Don agreed that if KAMA had a place for Sugar to dance with them, then she could take a year off. However, she would have to live with her cousin who had an apartment in a building with a doorman on the upper west side. They reached another compromise that I'd not have allowed, but it was a good idea. If the job with KAMA didn't work out, she could stay in Lima for a year, but she would spend at least four hours every day volunteering at the Allen County Long-Term Family Shelter and she would need to take online classes to transfer them to whatever college so that she wouldn't lose a year of education.

The days between Thanksgiving and Christmas flew by. I was busy at work, Don was busy with a project he was trying to get off the ground. I may have given him a little inside information about a development on the other side of Lima that was about to get a major face lift and had the potential to bring new businesses and people to the city. From there he looked at the area and got the idea that a boutique hotel was needed nearby. "They are building houses for young couples and young families. Young couples and young families have family come visit. When we start going wherever to visit Sugar, we won't want to stay in a hotel all the way across town." It made sense to me.

The last day before the winter break was interesting. There are always quite a few substitutes that day. I decided that over the summer, I was going to have create a substitute pool just for McKinley and have them come in for a couple of days of training. The ones that we had in place that day, half of them were regulars and they knew what they were doing. The other half couldn't tell their asses from a hole in ground. There were so many write ups for stupid shit that could have and should have been handled in class, I finally had to get on the PA and threaten the entire school with detention that very afternoon to get order restored. I'd have done it too and they all knew it. There wasn't a single write up or problem after lunch.

Life was going smoothly over the next few days. Sugar and I did have to chime in on a small twitter kerfuffle over some entitled little, airbag having, want to be relevant loser who thought she could try and have a go at my Grammy Nominated Cheerio. That was not something I was going to allow. Especially when the millennial, Kewpie doll of a hipster was completely wrong for trying to get an autograph in those circumstances…not even Sue Sylvester is evil enough to hold up little kids needing to go to the bathroom. Adults maybe…seeing a grown man pee his pants was always kind of amusing. But not a child. Still other than getting to troll morons on the internet…the only reason I engaged in social media at all…things were going well. We flew out to Jersey on Tuesday morning. Tuesday evening, Don got a call from one of the managers of one of his subsidiaries. I went to stand to give him some privacy to take the call, but he pulled me in close and put the damn thing on speaker. "Mr. Motta, we have a problem…the Lima Mall is requesting information on how to cancel the contract with our security firm."

"What triggered this inquiry?" he asked as he threaded his fingers through my hair.

The manager explained the incident at the Kay's Jewelers that had happened just hours before. I reached over and grabbed my phone and saw I had missed a text from Chili or Chase, if I had to be technical about it. I looked at Don and as soon as the manager stopped trying to cover his own ass, I spoke up. "Who did your employees harass and hold at gun point?"

"Three African American males. The truth is that they were justified, but given the current climate the mall is being very reactive." The man on the phone continued after a long pause.

I shook my head and showed Don the texts I'd exchanged with Chase, Rebecah Altman and Danica Jones. Don sat up angrily. "Harold…you're fired. You're fired and so are both of those security guards and when I get back to Lima…I'm replacing your entire training structure."

"What? Why the hell am I fired?" Harold shot back belligerently.

Don laughed meanly. "First of all because either you're a racist prick and you lied to me, or you hire racist pricks who lied to you…either way, you aren't a good manager for one of my companies. The victims of your security guards were three young men that I personally know well. They had done absolutely nothing fucking wrong. The second reason, I'm firing you is because I can. If we all get to treat other people exactly as we can because might makes right, then my might makes it my right to fire you and make sure that you never get another job in the security field ever again."

Harry said some other shit that pissed me off because Jake was one of my kids. He was one of my students he was a damn good kid and if he had any record it was probably a sex crime. The only things he'd ever stolen in his life was other people's girlfriends. "Harry…you know who I am?" I asked before Don could verbally eviscerate him.

"I'm assuming that you are Mrs. Motta." He said snottily.

"I'm Sue Sylvester-Motta. I am the principal of the school Jake Puckerman attends and I was a teacher there when both Devon and Kevon Jones attended. Not one of those kids needs to steal shit. I can guarantee you that, considering that you almost ran that company of rent-a-cops into the ground, the Doctors Jones could have bought and sold your ass three times over before their daughter started having platinum selling albums. Now, you've lost control of your company and you've even lost your job with the company and since it was with cause, you won't even get a golden parachute. Now you have a choice on how to handle this. One you can accept it gracefully…maybe go back to college and learn something that helps you become a better human being and a better businessman. Or, and this is the one I'm fairly sure that your under-endowment in the genital area and the ensuing asshole ego that accompanies that condition is going to make you chose, you can try and mess with Don and claim that the boys and young men deserved what they got and that those security guards were just doing their jobs. Now should you take the second option and, we'll all just be real, you are stupid enough to do so…you will draw my direct ire directly onto you. I actually have space on my 'Sue Sylvester will ruin your life' list. I have space because I just moved a person from that list to my 'Sue Sylvester HAS COMPLETELY RUINED your life' list."

"You can't-"

"Ha. I ruined more lives by my early twenties than you've done in your whole life. I can and I will and should you try to get back at me, I am reasonably confident that you will prove as inept at revenge as you've proven at owning a business, running a business and pleasing a woman in bed." I said cruelly. "You keep cheating on your wife with women young enough to be your daughter and they each leave you after one or two encounters."

"How do you know? I don't know what you're talking about." Harry tried to bluster.

I rolled my eyes even if he couldn't see it. "I married Don Motta. I am a firm believer that anyone who holds power in his companies could be a problem for him. I made it my business to learn all I could about every single one of you. I'm a problem solver. You've been solved. Now go away, because my husband has a look in his eyes that I want to take full advantage of."

He sputtered for a few seconds, but then Don hit a button and away he went. Two hours later Don got up and went to take care of his business. The next morning, I found out that the jerk who started the whole mess had been one of my former Cheerios. So, I blackballed him and let the entire network know that he was to have no support at all…ever, or they would join him in ostracization. The rest of our time in New Jersey was nice and unfettered by business obligations. We spent two days in Lima, enjoying Christmas with the 'family'…Jeanie got way too many new clothes and toys…really she had more than enough, but Don made me thank them all graciously then Sugar and I took all her 'old' clothes and toys, meaning having been purchased in October, to Lady-Lip's homeless shelter. Saturday, we flew to Miami for a family vacation. We all enjoyed ourselves. We have a ton of pictures of Jeanie enjoying the water and even more of the faces she made when she encountered the sand. She didn't like beach sand at all. It was nice.

There may have been one less, pants around his thighs, trying to sound black, white boy on the beaches after a prick hit on Sugar by suggesting that she leave Jeanie somewhere to be picked up and taken 'wherever those f'ed up kids go to die' and hook up with him. The Mottas had connections everywhere…I liked Miami…forensics were almost impossible to find after a shark enjoyed a late-night snack. I wasn't serious…no really, I did not have the waste of humanity killed and his body turned into chum. When I'd jokingly said that to Cochran and Pillsbury after the break, I could only laugh to myself when I realize that they'd believed I'd had the kid killed more than they believed that I hadn't. I couldn't understand why people never believed me when I said things like that. The truth was that Sugar's second cousin once removed, Antony, who also acted as her bodyguard when they traveled outside of Lima and who had a baby sister with Downs, had heard the exchange. Now, the punk hadn't been seen on the beach again, but that may well have just been a coincidence.

I had accomplished a lot in twenty-fourteen. I was waiting on twenty-fifteen to see if my power base needed further consolidation before I forced the school board to begin to improve schools across the district. Personally, I was happy in a way that let me know for sure that there was a heaven and Jean had made it there. She was still looking out for my happiness, even when I didn't know it. Don was suggesting maybe after Jeanie turned two we should adopt another DS baby…give them love when their parents wouldn't or couldn't; so, twenty-sixteen was looking pretty damn good for Sue Sylvester too.

Shelby Cochran PoV

My life was nothing at all like I thought it was going to be. I never won a Tony. I never won a Grammy. I never went bungee jumping. I never did so many of the things my twenty-year-old self had hoped and dreamed of. Instead I'd become a vocal and performance teacher and a world renowned one at that. I had become a mother and a wife. I had an interesting and expansive family. My parents, while in their later sixties were in good health. I had met and married a man who was everything I had ever hoped for and yet never believed I could find in a partner. He loved my daughter and all the accompanying souls that came with her every bit as much as I do. He treats her birth mother and aunt as well and with as much kindness as he treats his blood nieces. He behaves with her birth father and his loves with the same joyful playfulness that he exhibits with his younger siblings. Not that he didn't have enough family of his own, David came from a boisterous Puerto Rican and Cuban family who enveloped me gently into the fold.

In the time since I adopted my daughter, I had been adopted by her entire birth parent's families. Through Beth, I had blessed with co parents, pseudo siblings and a new 'aunt'. To be honest, since I hadn't had much family growing up, I was very, very happy to have so many people who I considered and who considered me and Beth to be their family. They enveloped my mother and father as much as my parents were comfortable with, which basically involved them exchanging phone calls, emails and recipes with MeMaw, Gramma Mae and Bubbie Ruth and my dad having a golfing buddy in Benton whenever they came to town.

Things were going wonderfully in my personal life. I was at the top of my game professionally. I had a better relationship with my 'boss' than I'd ever had before in my career. Sue Sylvester was a difficult woman to get close to, but once she considered you hers; it was forever. Since she took over the management of McKinley, it was running like clockwork and was very much a teacher's dream school. Good teachers got all the administrative support they wanted and needed and bad teachers weren't suffered. Sue even managed to retire or relocate three school secretaries that were, quite honestly, standing in the way of digitizing the student records. With the changes she put in place, the school was running efficiently and even the parking lot situation was better. Students and teachers fighting over the same parking spaces had never been a good idea and was now a thing of the past.

Going into that winter break, I was organized. I had my lists of people who I had to get gifts for and knew just what I was getting for each of them, if I didn't already have it ready and waiting by then. Some of them were easier than others. David's nieces all got KAMA CDs and a nice sweater or top. His sisters got copies of SongBird along with a nice scarf or blouse. His brothers I gave a new tool or tie, depending on what they did for a living, I also gave them each an iTunes or Amazon gift card. The nephews got a GameStop gift card and a cool shirt. His mother loved bedding. It baffled David and his brothers why she loved getting new bed sets for her queen bed. But I kind of got it, my preference was shoes, hers was comfort. I got her a great eight piece reversible bed in a bag from Macys, a pretty pajama set, a sleep mask and a copy of both the KAMA ChristmaKah and debut albums. I loved lying in bed listening to music on a quiet morning. I thought she might enjoy the same. His father got a tie, a tool, a Blue ray DVD player, both KAMA CDs and a SongBird DVD and a nice pair of his pajamas…it took all of that to equal what I'd spent on his wife. As per his usual tradition, David bought every person a fifty or twenty five dollar gift card, depending on their age, and a card. I signed the cards too and we used his cards to tell everyone which gift went to which person.

When it came to my side of things, shopping was much harder. I coordinated with Danica, Becah, Gabby, Quinn and Mercedes to make sure that none of us got Beth the same thing. I made sure that David, Quinn and Francine agreed to my twenty- five dollar limit on the gifts the four of us exchanged. I got each girl a nice dress. Thank goodness they were on sale, otherwise I'd have completely shattered my own rule. David and I each got each other something to open in front of the girls on Christmas Morning, but we also got each other a fun gift that was a little sexy and just between the two of us. We had a lot of fun with those gifts Christmas night.

With such a big and well convoluted family we decided that we'd have to create our own traditions. We spent Christmas Eve in Columbus with the Martinez family. Come to find out my Mother-in-law, didn't just like to receive bedding, it was her favorite thing to give as well. She gave Que and Frannie each a gorgeous, hand knitted afghan that was big enough for a full to queen sized bed. Beth got a pink and purple handmade afghan blanket as well as some pretty dresses. David and I got a new bedding set that was amazingly gorgeous and, ironically, the other set that I was going to get for her. The evening was fun. The food was amazing. The company was more than just pleasant. I found that I got along well with David's sisters, the sisters-in-law were included in their number, and brothers. His father and I spent almost an hour singing some Motown classics together. He made me promise to introduce him to Mercedes if I ever get the chance. "I haven't heard a voice like hers in a very long time. She makes the soul feel joy."

We went home stuffed to the gills and with enough food to make it through the New Year without ever having to cook. Beth had us up and at the Christmas tree before seven. Quinn loved the shimmery teal tank dress I got her and the Marc Jacobs purse that Frannie and David pooled their money to get her. It was a few seasons 'old' but it had classic lines and a light brown color so really, who would know. Francine's burgundy, cowl neck, shift dress was a big hit too. Quinn had gotten her a pair of small, crisscross, hoop earrings that were cute and elegant. The leopard print infinity scarf David got for Frannie seemed a little more Mercedes than Francine, but she said that she had the perfect outfit to wear it with. David's public gift had skirted the line just a little bit…and considering that the beautiful, floor length nightgown was real, quality silk, I was pretty sure that he had over spent the limit.

But that was fine…we were only supposed to spend a hundred bucks each on Beth. I spend two and half times that and that was not counting her Christmas Eve pjs. But even with the massive amount of toys and clothes and shoes that we'd gotten her…her haul was nothing compared to all the stuff she got on Boxing Day. Of course, there were clothes and shoes in a wide variety of sizes, but there were also a large number of toys, none of which were the same as what she already had. We moms had coordinated well. David and I had gotten her a backyard play house set that would be built soon after the new year. Dani and Benton had gotten her a really cute kitchen set to go inside it. She got dress up clothes and costumes. She got the only kind of pet she was really ready for, an electronic one, from Hudson. A Kindle Fire for Kids from her Abah, Papa and MeDe. But the thing I think she enjoyed most was the room she was to share with Nikki whenever her big sister was in town. David and I were enjoying watching the two sisters interact when Sam handed us what felt like a shirt box with both of our names on the tag.

I let David open it. Inside was a gold folder with a single word on it in silver. "Honeymoon," David read aloud. "You guys didn't have to…"

"We wanted to." Puck cut him off.

I pulled the folder from the box with shaking hands. Inside I found information about Mango Bay Resort and Spa in Barbados. "A whole week." I breathed. I'd known that my co-parents would certainly do something to recognize my marriage. I'd even known that they would give me something for Christmas. But I hadn't ever thought that it would be a week at an all-inclusive resort in a three hundred and seventy-five buck a night suite.

"Yeah, we thought that you could spend your Spring Break having a nice, relaxing honeymoon somewhere nice and warm." Mercedes gave us a happy smile. "We're really happy for the two of you."

Puck quickly agreed. "Yup…you're happy…we're cool…but you wanna know what would make us really happy?"

I chuckled and wiped at the tears on my cheeks. "Let me guess…our spring break is at a time when you three will be home and you are about to offer to keep Beth for us while we go and enjoy some fun in the sun?"

"Yeah." Sam nodded. "Did you see there is a half day of sailing and snorkeling in there?"

"Ohhh, and a couple's massage." Mercedes added.

David and I just laughed. "You knew we'd say yes. That why there are three tickets to New York with a return to Dayton, and two to Barbados with a return to New York."

"Well, we were hoping." Puck said sheepishly…well almost…the cheeky grin kind of ruined the humble thing he was trying for.

I knew that David was just as good with it as I was. "You guys can have Beth for the week. How are you going to handle classes?"

"Oh, Tee and Jake are coming to New York that week. We're going to chill with them and Beth around our class schedule. It's gonna be really awesome too because Nikki's out that same week. So, they will have plenty of time to play together and we'll have every evening with them." Sam started getting excited.

Heck we were all excited. There may have been hugging and jumping and over all joy. The next few days flew by and before I knew it, we were in Manhattan getting ready for the family picture. The color of the year was blue. Coordinating sixteen women and girls in finding blues that looked good on twelve or thirteen different complexions and silhouettes that looked good on seven or eight different body types was almost ridiculously hard. But Ruth Mayzer was a shopping GURU. She was amazing. It was only a few hours before everyone had exactly the right dress for their coloring and body. Then there were the shoes. We all agreed on black heels for the over twelve ladies and black flats for those too young for heels. Somehow Sarah talked us all into letting her get a pair of pretty blue heels that she swore she'd wear more than any black ones. Then Tessa talked everyone into letting her get a pair of flat boots. They looked good, but they did set her apart. Which was a good thing for her. Beth, Mara, Maea and Nikki's dresses all looked very similar, though in different shades of blue, which I thought wouldn't work…but then, with the four of them on the very front row with Sloane standing in the middle…it was absolutely perfect. The guys all got new outfits as well, mainly though they all went with the same exact look; black or khaki slacks, white tee, blue sweater and black boots or shoes.

While I could have stopped the photoshoot about two hours before it ended, I couldn't deny that I loved the fact that they included me and David. They really could have just had us bring Beth, but to them my new husband and I were just as much a part of their family as our daughter was. After gaining a real understanding that no matter what you called Her, God knew what He was doing…I was not meant to be famous. Mercedes, Noah and Sam were laughing at the rest of us and pointing out that it had been a really easy shoot for them and they had to do the damn things every other month it seemed like. I would never have made it as a singer if that was part of the job. Over dinner, everyone talked and chatted. There were discussions about the next steps the fresh college graduates were about to undertake. Tessa and Jake talked with them and the current college students about picking and choosing the best college for their futures. Saul, Benton, Sander and George were discussing a property venture and if I was understanding it correctly, they were trying to figure out how they could bring David and I in on it and stay within their organization's bylaws. Their wives were talking with Ruth about how she planned to travel a lot over the summer or something. Overall it was a great, family dinner and I left feeling cocooned in more family love than I'd ever had growing up in the small family I'd had.

The next morning we slept in late and then went sight-seeing. As we were in the final cab of the day, my thoughts turned to the New Directions. We'd won Sectionals handily. The theme had been 'Losing My Religion', which had been very much open to interpretation. It had taken me some serious research to figure out the angle we were going to take. I'd given Roderick a lead with Hozier's 'Take Me to Church'. It was a song that seemed, on the surface to be advocating religion, but it really more of a condemnation of the current, traditional ideas of most organized religions. Then I had Chase and Tessa take the lead on Lenny Kravitz's 'Are You Gonna Go My Way'. Very few people realized that was actually a song about whether or not people were actually following the dictates of Christ. For the final song, I went with a song by the group who sang the theme song. But I decided to change 'Driver 8' completely. It was rearranged into a gospel influenced R&B song and had Unique handling the leading vocals. All four of the leads had taken first in several of the individualized categories. And, ultimately. we had a group set that we were all very proud of and that gave us a definitive win.

We were in the preparatory stages for Regionals. With the theme being 'Fame', we'd again had a somewhat difficult time with song selection. There were lots of songs about the joys of fame and many others about the hazards. But one could also point out that there was a movie and remake of the original movie called FAME and one could well think to pull songs from the movies' soundtracks or even from nineteen eighty and two thousand and nine, the years the movies were released. I was really not sure about any of those angles. It had taken an off handed comment from Jessica to help me decide to once again take one from each possible. It had worked for us at Sectionals and allowed us to show off a very wide range of musical knowledge and aptitude.

I picked Jane to lead a newer song that outlined the fame for fame's sake culture that was very prevalent for my students. Plus, Nickelback was just a favorite of mine and I knew 'Rockstar' backwards and forward making it the easiest of the three songs to rearrange for the female lead and group accompaniment. I had scoured both the movie and it's recent remake's soundtracks and other than the title song, none really seemed to be anything that worked for our show choir except some of the true classics from the newer one. But it just wouldn't have worked for what we needed to do to win. And we never rested on our laurels. It would have been embarrassing to only be going to Nationals because we'd won the previous year. Instead I turned Air Supply's 'Lost in Love' into a duet for Unique and Ryder. It was a song about the effects of the band's fame on their home lives and loved ones. But there was a chance that that decision could possibly come back to bite me on the ass, but the likelihood of anyone seeing Unique on a stage and knowing that she was transitioning was so small as to be almost impossible. I knew her and sometimes I forgot. The last song was going to be an adaptation of Kanye West's 'Heartless'. I was still going back and forth between Joe and Jake for the leads on that one. It would be more along the lines of the Kris Allen cover, but I wanted it very much a soul song. Either young man would be great in the lead…then again a second duet wasn't out of the question.

The way Sue ran the school, each club was given our budget at the beginning of the year. That allowed us to plan far ahead for anything that cost large amounts of money. For any show choir, the biggest costs were performance costumes, transportation and licensing fees. While I couldn't pay the licensing fees until we determined our set lists, I had booked and paid for our tickets to Atlanta, where Nationals were being held that year, in September when there was a sale going on at Delta. By booking early and in a group, I'd been able to get the thirty tickets I'd needed for the choir and the six adults accompanying the twenty-four teenagers for just under six grand and that was round trip. I'd booked the hotel then as well. Nine rooms for four nights at the Hilton Garden Inn, just two blocks from the Georgia World Congress Center where the competition was to take place, cost us less than five thousand. So, it had taken me a fifth of my budget for the year, which was honestly only so large because it included three years of our portion of the prize money from winning the NHSSCA national competition…but we were all booked for our biggest transportation expense.

Before Sectionals, I had worked with Chase, Spenser, Alistair and Jake to pick out the costumes for Sectionals, Regionals, and both rounds of Nationals. Doing so early had allowed me to order using the 'in bulk' discounts that the New Directions would not have qualified for otherwise. Since I'd ordered the clothing and shoes early, we had all four costumes including shoes for under ten thousand for twenty-six kids. I always ordered one just in case costume in each gender. So, we were a full month out and had already ordered, arrived and altered our outfits. The young ladies would each wear a stretch satin tank style dress with bold silver foil swirl design. The bodice was capped with band of solid black satin and for a little extra swing and swirl the dress was finished with a Titan red petticoat and a fish line hem. The guys were in black shirts and slacks with suspenders and ties that matched the girls' dresses. To give them a pop of the red as well, we'd meticulously painted the hardware of the suspenders and added red leather belts. The look actually worked very well. Two of the things I loved most about the New Directions were the fact that I never had to shoulder the work of the show choir myself. they always chipped in and they were already to make decisions with me. Granted as their teacher and advisor, the final decision rested with me, but I knew that they were being prepared to lead themselves too. That made the educator in me very happy. The other thing I loved about the NDs was that I never had to explain to them how to draw audiences in. They loved what they were doing so much that telling them to 'give me a look so optimistic it could cure cancer' would have been redundant and therefore it was completely unnecessary.

Our choreography was only waiting on the final determinations of the leads; the moves that the entire choir would do had been ironed out. Sugar, Jessica and Jake were as good at determining our staging and dance moves as Brittany, Mike and, amazingly enough Lauren, had been and on their worst days they all out shined Dakota Stanley on his best day. They had a gift for creating elaborately simple choreography that looked deliciously complex and filled the stage despite our numbers, most importantly they did all that while keeping it easy for all of them to learn. Best of all Sugar, Jessica and Jake were in almost constant contact with Brittany and Mike so it was really like I had five choreographers at any given time. Jessica was hoping to follow Brittany into a dance school. Her parents, however, had been determined that she go to a 'real school' so I had helped her find and apply to five actual colleges with extensive, world class dance programs. She was hoping to get into either Oberlin or the University of Arizona. I was a little worried about what I felt were her parent's unrealistic expectations of her, but by the same turn, I hoped that I was underestimating the dancer.

The rest of our time in New York went by so very quickly. When the rest of the family went back to Lima, David and I took Beth for a visit to my parents' home in Cincinnati. It was a lovely weekend, but when it was over, it was back to school for all three of us. We'd had a remarkable two-thousand-fourteen. I hoped and prayed that two thousand and fifteen was at least as good.

Joe Hart PoV

Many people had a very hard time understanding how I could so celebrate God's place and works in my life. For the most part, they listened to other's interpretations of the Bible rather than reading it for themselves. I had faith that God was Lord and Jesus was His son, the resurrection and the light to illuminate the way to Heaven. I followed the ten commandments and the laws Christ laid out for us during His three years of ministry. I took care to never follow anyone telling me to hate or judge. I loved my family and I loved my friends like they were family. I treated every human being equally and tried to treat them all with God-like love. Knowing that I was doing my very best to live the type of life God wanted of those who said they loved Him gave me leave to celebrate my religion.

Besides, everywhere I looked I found blessings. He had blessed me with an amazing family, wonderful friends and, at seventeen, He had already showed me the woman he set forth to walk this earth by my side. A lot of people were surprised that Tessa and I had gotten together. I knew that there were those who liked to call her the Mary Magdalene to my Teen Jesus. Very few of those people knew anything about Tessa other than she was a Cheerio and had red hair and was Puck and Jake's sister. So, we didn't let their insinuations bother us. But I could tell that something was getting to my beloved girlfriend as we neared Christmas break. I had worried that she thought less of me for listening to my father's advice on enjoying some small bit of the pleasures of the flesh without going into that ocean all the way. After fretting and maybe moping a little, my mother pointed out that the only way I would know anything was to ask Tessa.

It took me another two days to find to courage to ask her if it was something that I had done that had her so off kilter. I found out exactly what was on her mind, all of it. "You didn't do anything wrong. You're perfect and you're so good. I guess I just…I'm so not good enough for you. Seriously, I have mean, evil sarcastic thoughts like most guys our age have spontaneous erections. I guess, I had this idea in the back of my head that even though I was falling in love with you, some day you would realize that I'm so not good. I mean, I'm not a bad person…but I'm not bone deep, good like you. When I wake up in the morning, my first thoughts, and usually the second ones, are almost always selfish."

It took a lot not to laugh. There was something very funny and yet very sexy about Tessa Altman when she got into one of her rants. "Tessa, you aren't perfect. Neither am I. My first thought every morning, at least for the last year or so…have been of you. They haven't been selfish unless the thought of bringing you to your passion's crest is selfish…which it may be…because I really love watching you tumble into pleasure. But then I get up and I pray that the Lord will give me strength to live a right life. It is a daily battle. No one is as good as you think I am and, while your belief in me makes me feel beautiful, I know I'm not anywhere close to that good."

"But you are. You volunteer at your church. You volunteer at the family shelter. You help counsel other students in the God Squad at school. You never miss a Sunday of going to church…I pretty much changed religions just to not have to get up early on Sunday morning."

I rolled my eyes in exasperation. "Tessa, you are the one who told me that they needed more volunteers at the family shelter. A fact you only know because you volunteer there too. You don't volunteer at my church…because you think most of them are sanctimonious blowhards…but you are always there whenever any of the New Directions need advice or even just an understanding ear. So maybe you have 'mean' thoughts, but unless someone is mean to you first, they usually stay in your head. But let me understand what you just meant by that five-minute word salad of self-doubt and recrimination. You thought that one day I was going to decide that you weren't good enough and I was going to walk away. But now that you know that I'm planning a future with you because I know that not only are you good enough, but you are better, because maybe good doesn't come as easy to you as it does to me but you still do so many good things. I love you. I am deeply truly in love with you and I am secure in the fact that you love me too. You are my present and my future. It is every man's right and obligation to secure their future. For me that means going to college where you go…believe it or not, most colleges have at least decent theology and music departments. Your major is slightly more complex. So, I'm going where you go. Now, if you should happen to decide to go somewhere with a great theology department, I'll be very happy. But it's not imperative. We can make our future anywhere. Now, you were patient and kind with me when I had my moment of doubt in my worth to you, so I'm returning the favor. But know this, if it happens again, if you allow yourself to doubt my love for you again once you are fully and truly mine…well, I'll just have to punish you won't I?" I asked her with a naughty grin on my face.

I loved the look that came over her face whenever I even thought the word punishment. It was like she really, really wanted to feel my hands turning her ass pink. I had to admit there was a part of me that was just as enamored of the thought. In moments like that I was always grateful that as religious as my parents were and as much as they raised me to live in God's word, they had always made sure to remind me that God didn't set unreachable or unattainable rules for living a right life. When I'd awoken covered in my own seed, my father had explained what was happening to my body and even explained masturbation to me. He'd never made it seem wrong or disgusting. So, I took myself in hand when I needed to. Very often it was to fantasies of Tessa's bottom across my lap and me turning it the prettiest shade of red. It was very good to know that she loved that thought as much as I did.

She cuddled into me and somehow I knew that we hadn't quite reached the root of her anxiety. "What else is bothering you, Tee?"

It another half hour of wheedling, teasing and using kisses as incentives before, finally, Tessa shrugged. "I'm not…it…okay, I lied about how many schools I applied to. Well not really lied, but I didn't tell you about all the ones I sent over Thanksgiving break."

"Let me guess, you sent them to all the schools on that 'Best Colleges for Creative Writing Majors' list you found online didn't you?" I sighed. "Tessa, I really wish that you could have the same faith in yourself that others do. If you weren't just that good a writer, do you really think Coach Sylvester would have allowed you control of the Muckraker? Do you think she would have restarted the literary magazine and given you control over it? She may not be a nice person…sometimes I wonder that she isn't actually a minor demon sent to earth to plague mankind…but she is really, really, really good at seeing and nurturing talent in others. Then helping them cultivate that talent in themselves to make their dreams come true. Any college would be glad to have you and none of them are going to turn you down with Sue Sylvester in your corner."

She nodded. Then she shook her head. Then she nodded again. She was so damn beautiful to be so freaking adorable. "I guess…I just have some issues. I mean, when I was little, I kind of…internalized Alex leaving. Kids are really mean little fuckers and if you had to hear as often as I did that it was probably my fault my mom had left or that if I was prettier or smarter or better or whatever she would have stayed…you'd probably have a few issues too, ya know."

"I know. But I want you to know…it wasn't anything you lacked that made your birth mother leave you and your dad. That was all on her. Some women just aren't meant for motherhood. It is better that they don't have kids rather than abandon them later or worse abuse them. I'm guessing Alex was always insecure in her relationship with George because she knew that she wasn't first in his heart. She tried to make herself more to him by giving him you. And because your dad is an epic father, all she really did was push herself further down his hierarchy. She couldn't take being third or fourth. She had other issues that had nothing to do with you."

"Yeah, I know that now, but these things don't just disappear." She sighed. "I thought that I was over it. But apparently, it snuck up on me."

"Yeah…insecurities will do that. I sometimes worry that you will get fed up with all my 'religiosity' and find someone who can give you what you need…" I trailed off.

She laughed at me. So sensitive, my Tessa. "Joe, you don't just give me everything I need…you give me things I never thought I wanted let alone needed. You give me hope that if someone as good as you sees something in me to love that I really am worthy of good things."

"Tessa you are worthy of all the things." I told her honestly and sincerely.

"You will never know how much it means to me that you don't just say things like that…you really mean them." She cuddled into my side.

"I love you, Tessa Jane Altman. Of course, I mean it when I say you are good and special." I pressed a kiss to her hair. We talked more working through issues, working through non-issues, just listening to the voice of our love until it was time for me to go home. The next day was the last day of school before the break. The day was interesting. There were a lot of teachers who were already checked out and I guess a lot of kids forgot they weren't dealing with Figgins anymore. Coach Sylvester came on before lunch and told us all that she could and would keep everyone for a two hour detention after school if she got one more unnecessary write up. Not even Wayne Nelson was willing to risk that. After school, Tessa and I said goodbye. We wouldn't see each other again until after the New Year. While her family was only going away for the weekend, my family was heading to Missouri.

Every year the Hargis siblings and their families all come together at Christmas. Great Grandfather Hargis had made sure that the farm he owned there would not leave the family. Since the place was huge and not as associated with his scandals and sins as the Oklahoma properties, that was where we all came together. Our family wasn't leaving until after church Sunday afternoon, but since Tessa wouldn't be home until late Sunday, we knew we wouldn't see each other until after the holidays. Before we parted I handed her the Christmas gift I'd gotten her. No one would expect me to have gotten her what I did. But I loved seeing her in the pajamas she'd worn at our sleepover the night of the AMAs. So, I got her something I wanted to see her in even more than those. The pale ivory chiffon and satin pajamas I'd found for her online at Nordstrom were a pretty camisole and shorts set that I knew would be beautiful on her and make her feel pretty. I found that I hoped she liked it almost as much as I hoped that I would someday see her in it.

After my heart left for Ann Arbor, I was expecting to have a quiet weekend. All that I had planned was to take over Tessa's shift volunteering at the Family Shelter on Saturday. There was absolutely nothing in my plans for what happened as I headed towards my parent's van after finishing the five hours I spent helping with preparing and serving dinner to the twenty-two families who called the shelter home. Aidan Harding and I had been friendly though not especially close during my first two years at McKinley High, but since he had dated Tessa while we were friends and choirmates, I could certainly identify him easily. There he stood against the front of his car, parked next to mine. I looked him over. He'd cut his hair into a haircut that reminded me of Eddie Haskell. He had gained quite a bit of muscle mass. I suppose that was a necessity when playing college ball. I walked over and said hello.

"Well, I guess you're happy now?" he said in return.

I gave him a long look but chose not to pretend I didn't understand why he'd made that comment. "Yes, I'm pretty happy now. My life has been blessed." Yet neither did I explicitly acknowledge the reason for it either.

He rolled his eyes. "You know what I mean. Or do you really think that I didn't see you always looking at Tessa…wanting her…wishing she was with you. I guess you're really happy now. Did you even wait a full day after you found out we'd broken up to ask her out?"

"Actually, as I understand it, I waited almost three months. Your relationship with Tessa ended at her older brother's wedding, very sensitive move that one, by the way. I didn't ask her out until September nineteenth, two days' shy of a full three months later." I stated calmly. I was a little shocked that Aidan seemed angry at me. He'd been the one to initiate his and Tessa's breakup. "but from the perspective of when I found out that you two were going to 'just be friends'," the implied quotation marks were almost palpable. "I waited just about a month."

Aidan glared at me. "I love Tessa. I hated having to break things off with her. She means the world to me and she and I have already planned to get back together after college."

I looked at him and said nothing until I was sure that he was done with the unwitting lies coming from his mouth. "I will admit that yeah, you probably do love Tessa…but you don't love her enough. You don't love her the way she deserves to be loved. You don't love her enough to value her and her family as much as you do your own. The love you have for Tessa is an immature, selfish love. That kind of love can never last."

"Oh please…we're teenagers. All our loves are immature and selfish. That doesn't mean they can't last. And what do you mean I didn't value her and her family as much as my own? I was always helping her with Triple S and then Mara, Maea and Sloane." He said defensively.

"Mama-Cedes, Sam and Puck have been together for the better part of three years. Santana, Artie and Brittany almost as long, Kurt and Blaine, Tina and Mike for even longer. They all got together as teenagers, do you think they would still be together if they had an immature, selfish love?" I pointed out. "And yeah you helped her babysit…sort of. If you were such a big help, why was she so shocked the first time I helped her change the babies. If you cared so much for her family, why did you never make time to go with her to any of her family events, I know that she asked you to. If you valued Tessa so much, why did you let your mother treat her like shit for decisions you both made. You know that is not a worthy way to behave for any man to another person yet alone the woman he claims to love."

"I do love Tessa." He all but shouted.

"But not more than you love yourself." I shot back. "There is no way on God's great green earth that I would let my family bully me into walking away from her. You did it for an easier time at college. Did you even try talking to your grandparents and sticking up for her, the woman you say you want to get back together with and, I'm assuming, marry one day? Of course not. Your Grandparents probably would have respected you for being a man and respected the love Tessa gave you so freely that you didn't even have the fortitude to return in full measure."

"Tessa gave me everything in full measure. You must hate knowing that she isn't still 'pure'. That she gave me something that you can never have."

I couldn't help but laugh. If I looked at things the way most of the men of my church did, maybe I would have felt that way. But I was raised by two people who, while very religious and mainly conservative, they didn't believe in the patriarchy inherent in the way our religion was usually practiced. "If you are referring to her virginity, that was Tessa's to give. I'm kind of grateful that she isn't still a virgin. You have her pain. When she and I are finally together, I won't have to hurt her. All we will share is pleasure."

"That just shows that you don't know Tessa at all, she likes pain." Aidan threw out as if it mattered.

I just gave him an unconcerned shrug. "If that's true, then we will have a lot of fun exploring that avenue of pleasure too. But it still doesn't matter to me that she gave you her virginity. I've heard from my father and uncles how much being with a virgin can hurt her…it's the blessing and curse of all the men in my family. I never wanted to do that to the woman I love and now thanks to you I will never have to."

"Really," he rolled his eyes. "I suppose that you think you'll be able to satisfy her…give her the things she wants and needs…I bet you are still saving yourself for marriage. But that's fine. You'll see how hard it is to keep up a long-distance relationship when you're still here or in some backwater, religious college and Tessa is in some real school who knows where. She never wanted to go to the same school as me. She thought that it was weird that Sam, Mercedes and Puck are going to school together."

I'm sure if I were as good as Tessa was convinced I was, I'd have been able to keep the smug smile off my face and the next words hidden in my heart of hearts as I should have…but I was no angel. "Actually, Tessa and I have applied to a lot of the same schools and she and I are both very hopeful that we both get into her first choice. We've talked about it a lot."

His jaw was scraping the asphalt. "There is no way in hell…"

"Yeah…not hell…heaven. You may have loved Tessa as much as you are currently capable…but I prayed for her. God put her in this world to be the other half of me. I knew that and I made sure that what is between us is rock solid. You see I took the time to make sure that my family and hers got along. No, not just got along…that they've integrated almost as much as Mama-Cedes, Sam and Puck's families have come together to make up her family. I took the time to meet her extended family. The Jones aunts, I met them. They like me. Tessa didn't want to go to college with you because, even if she couldn't admit it to herself because she loved you with her whole heart, she knew you are still a little boy who was playing at being her man."

Angrily he pushed himself up off the car and stalked towards me. I said a quick prayer that the Lord would cloak me in His full armor. I wouldn't start anything, but if he started it…I wasn't going down without a fight. "I should kick your ass." He growled.

"You're welcome to try. But not only do I not think you'll manage it, but eventually Tessa will find out. Then you won't even be able to claim to be her friend. But you've not been holding up your end of the friend bargain, have you? You don't email or text her back and whenever she calls you, you're too busy to talk to her for more than a minute. So if you hit me now, you'll just be speeding along the process of killing even the friendship you two had." I said honestly. He looked surprised, like he was shocked that I knew how he was behaving with regards to my girlfriend. "Tessa and I talk. We share pretty much every thought that goes through our heads. You should know better than anyone how honest and forthright Tessa is in her relationships. Besides, having a friendship that is hidden from your significant other isn't healthy for either relationship."

"Whatever." Aidan grumbled. But he did back off. "Look, I…I do care about Tessa. I love her, whether you believe it or not."

"Aidan, you love Tessa…but you still have things about her that you think you can or should change. Tessa doesn't want to have kids. But rather than just being like 'okay, Ethan can carry on the family name' you convinced yourself that eventually she would change her mind. That's the biggest example, but there were others. How can you build a future with someone when you enter the relationship wanting to change fundamental parts of them?"

"So you don't want to change her? She's pretty much Jewish now. She's a sexual deviant of the first order…nothing that she won't try and if she likes it, she wants to do it all the time. She expects you to spend way too much time with her family. None of that even fazes you?" he threw out.

"No, I don't want to change any of the things about Tessa that makes her. Yeah, she is learning about Judaism…she helps me understand a different aspect of my own religion…after all Christianity is rooted in Judaism. Tessa and I are exploring our sexuality together, as far as we can until marriage, there is nothing she has put forth that I've found abhorrent…nothing she could have done or wants to do could ever make me think less of her. Our families have spent Thanksgiving together, are planning on spending Easter together. We'll blend where we can and take turns where we can't. I love her family from Bubbie Ruth, MeMaw and Gramma Mae all the way down to Amara, Amaea and Sloane. She loves my family, she's even kind to my sister Mary and I want to smother Mary with a pillow half the time. Like I said…you had the chance to have a real relationship with Tessa, but you chose to let your mother treat her like the whore of Babylon. You were both in that bed. Yeah, you made lip service to defending Tessa, but you never forced the issue. You took the easy way out, because you figured you were in enough trouble. From then on, you were lucky for the rest of the time you had with her. Now, if you'll excuse me, my family has a really long drive tomorrow. I need to get the van checked out and gassed up."

Aidan gave me a hard look and turned away. I let him leave. I'd not said anything that wasn't true. If he didn't like it, well, the only people we can actually change are ourselves. I completed the things I needed to do and that night when I talked to Tessa, I simply told her that Aidan and I had had a long talk outside the family shelter. Thankfully she let it go at that. We had to be up early the next morning, so I was asleep by ten. We pulled out of Lima as soon as church let out. We stopped for lunch on the road and arrived in Neosho, Missouri at the Hargis family farm at half past ten that night. The next five days were filled with family…lots and lots of family. Billy James Hargis had had four children, each of his children had had three or more, each of his grandchildren had had more than a few kids of their own. Thankfully the 'farmhouse' was huge and there were three really large 'bunkhouses' and a couple of cottages on the property. There were beds for everyone. My family was really nice. Despite how textbook, Christianity based religious Mom and Dad were, there was a huge variety of religions in the family. Uncle Charlie had decided to convert to Buddhism and his kids were raised in that faith. Great Uncle Billy James had been a Christian preacher too, but after he died, one of his daughters went atheist, another agnostic and his son had become a Taoist. My other Uncle Lee was a Muslim and my Aunt Karen and her family practiced Wicca, which wasn't exactly a religion, but it wasn't exactly not one either. Maybe that was why my parents were so much less restrictive in how they taught us to be good Christians than the rest of the people in our congregation.

Over the next four days there were discussions about all the goings on and happenings in everyone's lives over the year. On Christmas morning, we all met up in the 'farmhouse' to exchange gifts. Every person got exactly one gift. Everyone put their contributions to the gift pool in after Christmas, then over the course of the next year Great Aunt Heather and her husband went shopping and bought everyone a gift. Those two had the uncanny ability to fine everyone a gift that usually turned out to be the perfect gift. They had gotten me my guitar the Christmas after my tenth birthday. That Christmas I got a set of two monogramed YETI thirty ounce ramblers. A pretty awesome gift for a soon to be college student. I was looking forward to having my ice water stay cold all day.

Then later on, while everyone was busy talking and showing off their cool gifts, my Great Grandmother Betty pulled me to the side. "Joseph, last night I had a dream and the Lord put something on my heart. She reached a strong, but old and thin hand into her pocket. "This is the ring Billy James gave me in nineteen fifty-one. It had been his mother's before him. I gave Billy James the Third the one his daddy gave me to replace this one when he got money. But I always liked this ring best. It won't make a modern girl a good engagement ring…it's too small to let her know your serious. But it might be a good token of your esteem or a promise ring. In my dream, God showed me your Tessa. When I was young, I had hair that same shade of red. She's a beautiful girl with a better heart than she will probably ever realize. You'll know when the time is right to give this to her."

"GammyBee, why are you? Why now?" I asked with a tight throat, afraid I knew the answer.

She just smiled and patted my cheek. "I'm seventy-nine years old, life last and nothing happen, I'll still be up and about to dance at your wedding. But when God commands, I listen. He wanted me to give you that today, so there you go." Her eyes twinkled as she smiled, "now, show me what your pretty lil redhead gave you for Christmas." I pulled the gift I'd been wearing since before I left the bunkhouse that morning. My Christmas gift from Tessa had been a really masculine and all together very nice cross. It was made of black ion plated stainless steel and had a small cross of black diamond chips inset in the metal. It hung on a black metal chain just long enough to hang down into my shirt. "Oh, I like it Joe. She's got a good eye that one." She teased. We talked a little while longer and I told her about how we were all getting together with Tessa's whole family at Easter. "See if there is room for me and Ms. Lilly at that table. I want to meet your heart's family."

I chuckled. "GammyBee…I will come and get you if you need me to." I laughed. "Because if Mama-Cedes and Mrs. Dani hear the you wanted to come and I didn't make sure you were there and felt welcome, Mama-Cedes would take me to the carpet for real. They live for company."

"Okay, it's a date then. We'll work out the details later." She smiled big and bright. "Now, tell me all about this Unique your sister has been all up in arms about. You know Mary don't have much love in her heart considering that she gave her body around so freely. Back in my day when a girl was a little loose in the drawers, we said that she had a lot of love to give."

"Mom keeps saying that she's just overreacting to all that happened and soon she'll get her mind right." I sighed.

GammyBee rolled her bright blue eyes. "Yeah, we'll see. She is Billy James' blood. She should just acknowledge that and move on." I guess that was that, because she turned the subject back to finding out all about my friends. It was a great holiday. As always happened, we almost hated to go. We got back just in time for me to go to the pot luck with Tessa, Nic and Eli came with us and they had fun with Sarah, Stacey and Stevie. I think Eli had a crush on Stacey, that was really cute. The rest of the holiday passed pretty quickly. We cleaned the house from top to bottom and had the traditional good luck foods on New Year's. As I was eating the black eye peas Mom only cooked on that one day of the year, I couldn't help but think they had certainly brought me luck in twenty-fourteen. I hoped they would do the same the next year too.

Prayers & Well Being to all my fellow Americans.

All my friends tell me that we have to give Trump a chance.

I reply that I did & he chose to appoint Bannon, a racist, misogynist asshat as his chief adviser. I was willing to give him a chance...not a pass.

Well on to happier thoughts.

Let me know how you like the chapter. I love writing for Sue, but I think softer Sue may have been a little too soft. Do you agree...disagree...discuss.

What should the KAMA kids do to celebrate her nuptials?

How do you think I did on Joe's voice?

Drop me a review.

Folle Sagesse will resume next week.

TTFN,

Anni (Wearing a safety pin on her blouse ever single day for the next fifteen hundred and ten days)