Chapter 21

His legs felt like jelly, wobbly and loose as he walked around the room with Beth in his arms. He hadn't even realized how tense he had been with Quinn until he left her and suddenly the weight was removed from his chest. Sam couldn't remember the last time he had seen Quinn so upset, all the tears, her face flushed a deep red, her whole body shaking with emotion. Postpartum depression was a subject he knew very little about, but if it could reduce Quinn to a puddle of tears and frayed nerves then it was a damn scary disease.

Quinn had stood up to the merciless teasing by her classmates at her old school in Carmel and when she first got to McKinley, head held up, unflinching. All the drama with her parents didn't break her either. She handled all of that, and him, while maintaining perfect grades. Forced stays in the mental hospital by her mother tried to take her down and she stared it in the face, taking it head on. She was courageous and fearless, a shoulder for all of her friends, Sam had always admired how she managed all the struggles in her life with quiet strength and dignity, but now it seemed Quinn was the one that needed someone to lean on.

Thinking about Quinn being terrified of seeing Beth unnerved him. How could she believe that their baby hated her? Quinn was the most beautiful, sensitive, loving person he'd ever known, there was no way she was a bad mother. The drinking part confused him though. Quinn had never been one to indulge in alcohol, not that he could remember. He was having a hard time picturing her as a barfly. It had to be the PPD.

Maybe it was too soon to bring her with Beth, perhaps she needed her doctor or time to adjust to being back in Lima before he just foisted their baby in her arms. But Quinn still seemed so convinced that Beth didn't love her, Sam couldn't let another night pass with her feeling that way. Coaxing her into the nursery was the first idea that popped into his head. Once she saw her baby, held her, all those fears would melt away, or so he hoped.

"Okay Beth now remember, be a good girl for your mommy. No crying," he said to the baby in Irish.

Sam looked up and saw Quinn in the doorway, nervous and wringing her hands. Forcing himself to smile, to put her at ease, while inside he was knotted with pain, his heart breaking as he watched Quinn cling to the door in uncertainty.

"What were you saying to her before?" she asked from the doorway. "I heard you through the monitor." She looked down at her feet, seeming embarrassed she even brought the subject up.

"A nursery rhyme my dad used to say." It actually was a Celtic prayer that was said over babies to help them pass from the sleeping realm into the waking one.

"Hard to imagine Dwight doing something like that. I could see him reading you the financial news first." Quinn tried to appear casual, as if they were just chatting normally and not stuck in some awkward standoff that had her trapped at the door.

"He did that too. I actually don't remember my dad telling me nursery rhymes. I was too young, but my mom had a video. I used to do this with my niece Maria, tell her stories or poems when she first woke up, sort of easing her back into consciousness. You're giving me a look. You think I'm strange don't you?"

"No. I think you're pretty wonderful," she said with a small smile, her eyes only meeting his for a moment before glancing away.

Just like that he was sixteen again, in awe that she was here with him, spending time let alone giving him compliments. Quinn always had this way of making him feel like a champion just with the simple act of caring about him. He must have lucked out and stole someone's good fortune unknowingly along the way, because there was no way he deserved a woman as special as Quinn in his life.

"Why are you standing so far away from us? Come here."

Sam stood his ground keeping himself planted to his spot with Beth balanced in his arms. He didn't want to spook her, make any sudden moves and risk her retreating back down the hall. Patience and control were in order, two things Sam didn't have in abundance. He had always been a man of action, attacking early and quick, dominating a situation so he could take the lead. Following was never his style. It was amazing he made it in the military where all he did was take orders.

"Sam this is so wrong, if I get caught in here…" Her voice trailed off as her hands went to her hair nervously tucking imaginary strands. Shifting her weight from one foot to the other, she was skittish, her eyes darting around the room as if she expected an agent from Child Protective Services to pop up from behind the crib.

"You won't." Sam assured her. "Nobody's around." He took a step forward. "Look at her Quinn. When's the last time you've seen her?" All the time in the doorway she hadn't looked at Beth, her focus on everything but her.

"The day you woke up," she replied quietly.

Finally with a slow deliberate motion Sam watched her eyes settle on their son and something broke within her, green eyes filling with tears, a smile spreading across her face as she walked into the room. Sam extended his hand, holding it out until she finally took it. Once he had her he latched on tight, cupping her hand in his.

"That's too long sweetheart," he said letting go of her hand to rub her cheek. "Our baby needs you. Here just hold her."

"I can't Sam, I'm not allowed, and she doesn't like me. She'll cry." She shook her head, backing away, but Sam caught her by the elbow, stopping her retreat.

"Oh no, Quinn. Beth loves you. She's not going to cry. Trust me." Sam moved closer, the three of them almost in a group hug.

Beth looked up at Quinn with wide eyes, then she touched her, one hand on Quinn's arm, as if she was testing her. Sam held his breath watching the scene play out, feeling like he did as a child when he tried to pet the cottony tails of the rabbits that played in his yard. They always scampered away before he could make contact, but he hoped this time it would be different.

With shaky fingers, Quinn rubbed Beth's little chubby hand that rested on her arm. Perfect timing, a decidedly Evans trait, Beth made some unintelligible baby noise and leaned closer to Quinn, and that was it. Eyes closed, inhaling deeply as she pulled the baby up toward her shoulder, stroking the back of her head. Beth was in her arms and Sam couldn't think of a sight more perfect. Until Beth squealed, her little head moving back and forth, and Quinn froze, her face paling and the fear back in her eyes.

"You better take her back Sam. She's getting fussy," said Quinn trying to hand Beth over to him.

Rubbing her back with one hand and Beth's with the other, Sam silently begged for his daughter to keep calm in Irish, hoping that somehow she not only understood the language but was also telepathic. "Relax. She's okay. See she's settled down already."

Stepping a few feet away, as Quinn gained confidence, Sam watched them. This was his life, his future, he finally had a family of his own. Down the rabbit hole and popped up in Neverland, his nine month journey had led him here, to them. Emotions surged inside him and tears stung behind his eyes as he watched Quinn holding their baby.

"Hi Beth. It's mommy. Do you remember me? My sweet little princess, you've grown so much since the last time I held you. I think she's gained weight Sam."

"Probably has. She eats all the time. She gets it honestly though."

"Are you always hungry like your daddy?" she asked Beth in a sweet sing song voice.

"I'm going to have to make her a bottle soon. Do you want to sit?" He led her over to the bed before she could respond.

"It's so good to see you and to hold you baby girl," said Quinn taking a seat, and then adjusting Beth on her lap. "I just want to kiss you all over." Which she did, little pecks all over her cheeks, her hands, her belly, Beth squirmed and drooled but kept her gummy grin.

He needed a camera to capture this, Quinn and Beth all smiles together. Who knew when it would happen again? The warnings had not been lost on him, although he tried to downplay the seriousness of the situation, he knew Quinn had a hard road ahead of her. He knew CPS didn't usually cut any breaks no matter a person's standing in the community. He could only imagine how much harder they might be on Quinn, especially with her recent hospital stay.

"Hey! Save some of those kisses for me." Sam laughed planting a kiss on the top of Beth's head and then stealing one from Quinn, a quick on the lips catching her off guard, her cheeks tingeing with color.

"Daddy's so greedy he wants all the kisses," she said holding his gaze for a beat, before returning her attention to Beth. "But we are going to tell him no way. All my kisses are for my little princess Beth." Quinn continued her assault on their baby, kissing and tickling her all over her black footie tuxedo.

Had he ever been this happy? "I can't wait until this is our life. The three of us always together." He announced out loud, purposely, like a declaration, like a promise, as if voicing it would guarantee it came true.

"I used to dream about this, the three of us, while you were in a coma."

"Really?" he asked feeling amazed that he had surfaced in her dreams.

"I had this fantasy, probably more like a delusion really, that you would wake up and everything would be better. You'd be with me and Beth and our baby would finally be happy and stop crying. I pictured us together in a house with a swing set out back and we'd have picnics."

"And you would sing to us?" She had been a fixture behind his closed eyes for years, so many nights he drifted off to sleep, Quinn softly singing in his head.

"How did you know?" she asked hiding her smile against Beth's head.

"You always sing in my dreams. I love your voice. I've missed hearing it."

"You're so sweet and way too good for me."

"I think you have that backwards," he said with a smile.

"No I don't. I'm a terrible person." Tears filled her eyes that were so bright moments before.

"How can you say that?" Sam asked wiping away her tears with his thumb. "Do you see Beth? She's not crying, she loves being with you." He thought they had gotten past this and that she had relaxed. Everything had been going so well.

"I'm not talking about Beth, well not only about her. What I just told you about my dream was wrong. I shouldn't have said it."

Sam didn't quite know what to make of these sudden emotional outbursts. Quinn had always been so even in temperament. He was experiencing a whole other side of her since picking her up at the hospital. Although it was different, it wasn't necessarily bad, in some ways it made him feel closer to her, as if she were letting him in more, letting him see emotions she normally would hide.

Sam was man enough to admit that he had always been the emotional one in their relationship, heart on his sleeve, sudden fits of temper, the occasional compulsion to spew poetry. Quinn had always been more aloof, shielding herself from him, only showing her innermost feelings when she sang. The music was where he could find her, see her heart, but now there were no songs, instead revelations came in tearful displays.

"I'm glad you did. That was a beautiful dream and we're going to live it one day."

"It's a stolen dream Sam," she sniffled. "You should have the house and the baby with your wife. It's what you always wanted."

"No I always wanted those things with you. I've wanted a life with you since high school."

To most people it might seem silly to have been so set on one person as a teenager, but Sam had never been more sure of anything before or since. The one truth he always knew was that Quinn was the one for him.

"You had moved on, your dreams changed," Quinn said, looking pained to be saying the words.

Things couldn't have changed, not this much, even when he was married to Brittany he still secretly held out hope that he would find a way back to Quinn. She had become one of those secret dreams he kept locked away, hidden but always in the back of his mind, along with the others like playing one on one with Michael Jordan, crewing his own yacht around the world, making his father truly proud. Of course he never expected any of those dreams to come true, but he still held them, just in case he did happen upon a genie in a bottle or a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. There was no way he would have let go of Quinn and that dream. It had brought him through many dark, lonely nights, at times the only thing that preserved his sanity.

"Obviously they didn't. Here we are over 10 years later and I still want the same thing, to spend the rest of my life being with you. Maybe what happened between then and now is that we took some wrong turns, hit some dead ends, so it took us awhile to find our way here, but I knew we always would make it back. You and I have always been meant to be."

"You make me want to believe that," she said wrapping her hand around his thumb. "But I remember before, how you were at the Beacon, how much you loved Mercedes. I can't just block those things out like you can."

His heart sank and a lump formed in his throat as once again reality threatened their perfect moment. "I'm not blocking anything out. I know I felt a certain way about Mercedes before, but that has nothing to do with us right now."

"You are only saying that because of your amnesia. If you had your memory, you wouldn't even be here with me." She dropped his hand to wipe a tear from the corner of her eye.

All the air had left the room and he was suffocating from all the pressure. He wanted to tell her that having his memory back could never change how he felt, but how did he know that for sure? He wanted to promise her a certain future, a destined forever, but how could he when his dad could pull his puppet strings at any moment? If wishing it could make it so they would be set for a great life, but hopes and wishes would get him nowhere in the world of Dwight Evans. He was stuck under his father's thumb, for now, but she didn't have to be.

"How do you know that? This might be the way things were supposed to end up. I want you to do me a favor." He rubbed Beth's back, as he leaned forward to rest his forehead against hers. "Be selfish," he urged and he prayed she would take his advice.

"What?"

It wasn't just about him. His family, his wife, his daughter, all were counting on him to act a certain way, live up to their expectations. He wasn't allowed to run off into the sunset, following his dreams, with Quinn by his side, not yet. Even if his father hadn't put him in this difficult position between two women, he still ultimately would have found himself in the same place. Ignoring the feelings of his family was not an option, not after they had been waiting for his recovery for all of these months. He owed it to them to at least try to be the Sam they remembered, some semblance of the man they lost. Quinn would have to dream for the both of them while he remained grounded by his responsibilities, at least until he could figure out how to have the life he wanted without hurting everyone he cared about in the process.

"You hold on to me, to Beth, to that beautiful dream and never let it go, because that's the only way we're going to survive the next nine months. We've got to want it bad enough. Do you want it?"

Maybe Quinn was right, maybe this dream was stolen and he would have felt differently if he had his memory intact, but at this point Sam didn't care. Quinn needed this as her lifeline, something to hold on to while she worked on getting back her life and their daughter. Sam had been pretty close to where she was now, after he came back from his second tour in Afghanistan, critically injured, only to return home to discover his wife now belonged to Santana Lopez, he had fallen into a pit probably far worse than any coma. He was numb and empty, he had nothing and didn't care. He couldn't let that happen to Quinn. He had let her down during her PPD, but he could be here for her now, to help her get strong and back on her feet, so she could live that beautiful dream, with sweet songs, picnics, and smiles that once again reached her eyes.

"I do want it. Very much but…"

"No buts, that's all I needed to hear, so no more doubts, no more pushing me away like you did last night."

"Okay no more doubts, but we've got to be patient. We've got to do this right. We need to respect your father's wishes for the time being."

"Ah Quinn," he sighed, falling back on the bed. "I screwed up. Mercedes' not going to stay married to me." He had been rejected swiftly and thoroughly, nothing short of a lobotomy would get Mercedes to stay. She simply didn't like him as he was now, post accident.

"You'll just have to convince her."

Quinn said that like it was the easiest thing in the world. Didn't she know he was terrible at winning hearts? He had tried to win hers in high school, well win it back and had failed miserably.

Sam sat up when he felt Beth touch his leg. The baby was leaning forward trying to get to him. He wanted Quinn to have every minute she could with her, so he didn't pick her up as she seemed to have wanted, but gave her his hand to play with instead, the wedding band on his finger capturing the girl's attention.

"I tried. I pulled out all the stops. There's nothing more I can say." Sam felt bad, he knew his deal with his father was riding on this, but there was only so much he could do with the hand he was dealt. If Mercedes wanted out, he couldn't force her to stay. Hopefully his dad would listen to reason and let the whole thing go. It was a long shot, but he was willing to take it.

"Mercedes is smart you can't try to play her or con her," said Quinn, emphasizing her point with a wave of her index finger. "You need to be direct and honest."

"I was. It wasn't enough. I'm just not who she wants to be with."

She had taken a chunk of him when she left earlier, maybe from his esteem, maybe from his heart. It was unsettling how much her walking out the door bothered him. Failing at marriage again was one thing, but it was more than that, more than just losing a wife, it was losing her. Mercedes was his little nurse, she had taken care of him for months, had practically lived in his hospital room, when he felt like he had no one else, he had her. The constant chatter, the sad brown eyes, those unexpected smiles that sprung on her face, her arms so strong as she held him up, held him together. She felt like a friend and he didn't have many of those, so to lose one so quickly hurt.

"Not buying that for a second. Mercedes worked too hard to finally snag you. No way would she just give you up."

"But she did, even after I told her how I felt and I kissed her."

"You kissed her?" she asked, the expression on her face unreadable.

"Well you see…" he started, mentally kicking himself for even bringing the subject up.

He wanted to take back the words as soon as he said them. He hadn't meant to reveal that much to Quinn. Not that he wanted to lie about it, but it could have been said with more sensitivity. It had felt natural telling her, easy, and maybe even safe. Quinn understood him, and she always made him feel comfortable to reveal his real self, the parts he tended to hide, with Quinn he was free. But things were different now, because there were now parts of him that would hurt her if he shared them.

"It's okay Sam, you don't have to lie."

"I wasn't going to lie, but maybe I shouldn't have said anything."

Hugh Hefner he was not. Some guys might consider his predicament to be a gift from the gods, but Sam was convinced he was drifting toward the gates of hell. Two women, one his wife, the other the mother of his child, both wanted him - possibly, and he wanted them - definitely, the problem was he couldn't have them both, at least not without feeling like scum afterward.

Juggling was never his thing, one true love was all he ever needed or wanted to be happy. Despite Quinn telling him that he was casual with her while dating another girl, he still held to that belief. Sam wanted to be with only one woman and build a life with her. He didn't need more than that.

"Why not?" She shrugged. "Husbands and wives kiss. I'm going to have to get used to seeing it for the next nine months."

"I don't think you have to worry about that. Kissing me seemed to make her run away faster."

On the surface, it was so simple, he wanted Quinn so all he had to do was divorce Mercedes and sail off toward his future, and that had been the plan up until earlier today when he visited the house he shared with Mercedes. That was when it hit him, like cold water in his face, he had actually been living the life he always wanted, only with the wrong woman. Which made him question if all his dreams would come true if he essentially swapped out Mercedes for Quinn? Was it the window dressing or the woman that created a happily ever after?

The endless debates were pointless, he knew he'd be with Quinn in an instant if she said the word. That had been the case since he was sixteen, she had always been it for him. Yet a part of him still couldn't help but wonder why losing a wife he never wanted had left him feeling so gutted?

"Flight response, totally natural. She thinks you and I are having an affair thanks to that photo right?"

"Yeah, she does."

"That explains it. Mercedes doesn't want to want you right now. She has her pride. She's probably somewhere crying and having flashbacks of that kiss you gave her."

"She said she didn't feel anything after I kissed her."

A statement he wasn't willing to believe. Mercedes had been into that kiss, just as she had been into every other kiss they had shared since he woke up. Maybe he acted differently now than he did pre-accident, perhaps he really wasn't the same man she married, but physically he still got to her, whether she was willing to admit it or not.

"Did you feel anything when you kissed her?"

It was getting hot, like the thermostat had been raised by ten degrees. Sam adjusted the collar of his shirt, letting some air hit his neck. "What are you asking me? Are you asking if I have feelings for her?"

"I want to know if the kiss you gave her was real."

Sam was completely lost. He didn't know if she wanted reassurances or if she legitimately wanted a play by play of the kiss. Either way he really wanted a subject change.

"Quinn, I don't think we should be talking about this."

"We used to before," she said standing Beth up on her lap.

Before, from all he'd been told, he wasn't trying to be in a relationship with her. He could spill his heart to Quinn back then and not feel a bit distressed, but now he had to watch what he said, one wrong word could destroy his chances with her. He had come too far to get to this point with her. They were talking about shared dreams and a future, he didn't want to wreck it all before he even got to enjoy it.

"Look Quinn, I'm not trying to upset you with all this."

"I'm not upset. I don't want to go back to the hospital. I want to stay in Lima, reclaim my life, raise my child and be with you. I can't do that if you don't keep your marriage intact. So answer my question. Did you mean it?"

Which would it be? Truth or consequences?