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Chapter 16

"So that's it? I wake up from a coma with a serious brain injury and you just drop me because you don't like I can't remember you?"

"I would have given my life for you, stuck with you through anything. This is not about your memory loss. It's about me finally standing up for myself. I deserve better than this. You were cheating and lying before the accident and now you're still doing it. I'm not some doormat, not someone you can abuse because you know I'll keep coming back. From day one you toyed with my feelings because you knew I was a sucker when it came to you. You knew I'd do anything for you just to have to the chance to be near you. But that's over. You can go to hell."

Mercedes swayed on her feet, Sam grabbed her elbow to steady her but Puck was already there holding her up against his body. He dropped his hand, feeling the bitter sting of being unneeded.

"Cede just calm down," said Puck as he stroked her hair. "You're going to make yourself sick."

"I can't calm down Puck." She was sobbing, her words garbled and choked through the steady flow of tears. "My Sam is gone for good and he's never coming back. My whole life is over."

"Don't say that. Nothing's over. Come on Cede."

Sam's stomach twisted in knots as he watched her cry in Puck's arms. He needed to be the one to hold her. He felt powerless and useless, discarded and pushed aside. If this is what it felt like to be left by her, he didn't like it. He couldn't take her not needing him anymore. He didn't like the idea that she would no longer look at him with those eyes, and silently ask him to make everything okay. Somehow losing that felt wrong, which was crazy, because letting go was the only thing they could do. He couldn't be with her and Quinn at the same time. He didn't even really know Mercedes, so why did he feel like he should be fighting to keep her by his side?

Everything he wanted was falling into place. Mercedes had stepped aside, bowed out gracefully, he was free. He should have been running at full sprint toward Quinn, getting down on his knees and declaring his love for her, and not letting her push him away this time. This was it. Their big chance was looming, and yet he was stuck standing in the middle of his bedroom fighting the urge to touch his wife.

"Mercedes can't we just talk about this alone?" Sam asked clearing his dry, scratchy throat.

"I can barely stand to look at you," she said her voice muffled by her tears. Puck pulled her closer to him as he shook his head at Sam.

"I know," he said softly as he watched her press herself into Puck's torso. His chest tightened as he saw her so relaxed in his cousin's arms. He should be the one hugging her not Puck.

Puck was just going to have to get over his protectiveness, because right now nothing was going to stop him from holding her. Sam reached out tentatively, hesitating halfway, before he let his hand rest on her arm, testing her reaction to the contact. She immediately stiffened, holding her breath, watching him warily out of the corner of her eye, but she didn't pull away.

"Puck can you please give us some space?" asked Sam. Feeling bolder he let his hand run down her arm to intercept her fingers, hooking one pinky through hers.

Puck shook his head. "I'm not leaving the two of you alone. "No way," he said resolutely.

"Puck please. I just want to talk to her." Their fingers were intertwined now, just a little tug and she'd come to him.

"Look at her Sam. She's a wreck over you," said Puck, clearly exasperated that Sam would even suggest that he'd leave.

As far as Sam could tell Mercedes had been wrecked over him long before tonight. All of this was about more than just one paparazzi photo of him with Quinn. This pain was years in the making. Not being able to remember the specifics didn't make him feel it any less. Every word she'd thrown at him tonight had felt like an iron fisted blow. His partial amnesia didn't save him from any of it.

"I get that. So can you give me the chance to make it right?"

He looked down at Mercedes so pretty in her tight green dress, her face patterned with the streaks of her tears. She looked so incredibly young, since her tears washed away her makeup, so vulnerable, her fiery spunk drowned in her stream of tears. This was what he couldn't handle, the sad defeat. He liked her fighting with him, challenging his behavior, not cowering in Puck's arms. This was not her.

"Come here," he whispered as he pulled her hand. He wasn't sure she had heard him at first. She didn't respond, but then almost in slow motion she turned, looking up at him with questioning eyes. Grabbing the back of her head, he brought her to him, cradling her against his chest. This is what he should've done all along.

"Cede, I'll be just outside that door. Okay?" said Puck.

She nodded against his chest. Sam couldn't believe she was letting him hold her like this when minutes before she was ready to throttle him. Yet another thing about her he couldn't figure out.

"I was hoping we could talk about things calmly," Sam began once Puck left the room.

"There's nothing to say," she said stopping him before he could go on. "I want out. You win. You get to be with Quinn free and clear." She stepped away from him finally, uncoiling herself from his arms, only to wrap herself in her own.

"If only that were true," he sighed taking a seat on his bed. "It'd be so simple. I'd be with the woman I remember, you get to kick a man that keeps hurting you to the curb, but somehow I don't think it's going to go down like that."

"It can if we let it." Her voice sounded so small, the tears had stopped but she still seemed so sad.

"You think it'll be that easy to walk away? Just cut all ties?" He rested his elbow on his leg, his hand propped on his cheek, watching her as she hugged herself in the middle of the room.

She nodded, but Sam didn't believe her, something was holding her here just as it was holding him.

"I was going to do it before…" She paused, sniffling. "Before the accident."

"You think I would've let you?" She gave him a puzzled look. "I found the letters Mercedes. All the letters I wrote you, begging you to come back to me. I read every one of them." So pathetic, yet so him. He could almost feel himself ready to beg right now. Anything to get her to stay.

"Those letters didn't change anything. I still filed for divorce."

Maybe she would have divorced him last year, she would have been justified given the circumstances, but his instincts were telling him that a little piece of paper wouldn't have been enough to truly end what was between them. Granted he had felt the same way about Brittany and their marriage and he had been so wrong, she packed up her lingering feelings and left for a life with Santana. Quinn had left him too. Perhaps Mercedes was right when she said no woman wanted to keep him long term.

"Are you sure? What about this one?" He pulled the folded sheet of paper from his pocket, holding it out to her so she could see it.

"Why do you have this?" she asked, letting her fingers lightly ghost over the words.

"I wanted to ask you about it." He stood up and walked over to her. "I sort of really needed to know the answer to what you wrote right there." He pointed to her handwritten line. "Did we ever get that dance Mercedes?"

"I told you already. It's not who we are. Our first time gets broadcast over the internet, our wedding is interrupted by you collapsing, our romantic night out ends with revelations about adulterous affairs. We didn't have a fairytale Sam. We weren't meant to. Waking up from a coma still in love with your high school sweetheart that you share a child with, the girl you serenaded, carved initials in trees for, danced with under the stars, there's your magic. I just didn't want to face it before, but it's true. Your fairytale life is with her."

He agreed with her. His winding history with Quinn always felt like it would end in forever to him. Deep in his heart, he knew that somehow, someway, they'd be back together. But if this was happily ever after, he was totally getting screwed over, nowhere in his dreams did he ever picture himself stuck with a wife he didn't want, but just couldn't shake. Mercedes seemed like the last obstacle in the path to happiness with Quinn. The mental hospital, his mother's hate, memory loss, not even his father's vendetta against Quinn were enough to hold him back from finally getting his fairytale with her after all of these years. Yet somehow one short dark haired woman was proving to be the ultimate challenge, the proverbial dragon he needed to slay. Problem was he liked her, and he kind of wasn't ready to vanquish her from his kingdom just yet.

"I didn't marry her though," he said taking the letter from her hand, his fingers grazing hers.

"Sam why are you doing this?" she asked pushing him away from her, one short shove against his chest, as if suddenly he'd gotten too close, though there was at least a foot between them. "You're trying so hard to convince me you want to give us a chance, but I know you don't mean it."

"I keep telling you things aren't that simple."

"You want another woman." Her lower lip trembled as she spoke. "That's pretty black and white to me," she said, her voice shaking.

Sam knew it would have been wise to just drop the conversation entirely. He had caused her enough pain, and going here with her would just make it worse, but he couldn't help himself he needed all of this out in the open, once and for all. If there was any hope of him salvaging things and keeping Mercedes in their marriage, he was going to have to come clean. The thing was once he came clean with Mercedes, he would be forced to do the same with Quinn. How was he supposed to convince an already reluctant Quinn to hang with him for nine months while he honored the terms of his father's deal once he admitted that he felt more for his wife than he had initially let on?

Desperation was starting to set in. He couldn't let Quinn get sent back to the hospital, and he couldn't pretend anymore with Mercedes, she was too smart to fall for that anyway, and frankly he didn't think he was strong enough to keep blocking his feelings from her. Something had to give, and that something was him.

"Why did you leave that message for that other guy on our wedding day?" he asked her not really wanting to hear her answer, though he already knew what it would be.

"What?" She looked confused. "What does that have to do with this?"

"Was it because you had feelings for him too and you weren't sure if you were making the right choice in marrying me?"

Shane Tinsley was just a man shaped blob in his mind, a non-entity really, but he hated him all the same. He'd had a hand in creating the mess they all were in, yet he seemed to be off somewhere completely unscathed. Didn't seem right that he got to create so much carnage and just be able to walk away from it all.

Running her fingers through her hair, she sighed, tilting her head as if she were weighing her response carefully. "Something like that. My heart was pulling me in two directions. There was always you, that never changed, but Shane sort of crept in there unexpectedly."

"I understand."

"Okay," she said with a blank stare.

"You don't get it. I understand because I feel the same way about you and Quinn."

Her mouth slacked open in shock as she stared back at him for a moment, then slowly her eyes narrowed and her face twisted into a frown.

"Yeah right," she said crossing her arms.