A/N: I have been getting so much amazing content from Rontora, Keshbeastwrites, Pretty Little M, Vespera384, Nicolez722, and Da'khari that I haven't felt the need to add anything over the holiday season. I got writer's block with my last offering and have to let EEAE stay where it is for a while, but I will eventually come back when inspiration hits. Over the holidays, I had a middle school student in my community commit suicide due to bullying, and I really needed to just escape in fanfiction. Thanks so much community for keeping Samcedes not just alive but thriving. Please read, review, encourage, and support these authors.
This will be either one long work like Tailspin from rorowrites, or I may do three different works since it's based on a trilogy by Darynda Jones. Part One is basically A Bad Day for Sunshine rewritten with a Glee and HSMTMTS twist. I just needed something that addressed bullying and youth suicide. If kidnapping, child abduction, bullying, and suicide are triggers for you, please read the following work with caution, and be free to skip that content. Nothing wlll be graphic, but I had to take a break when I was rereading the original work and try not to cry over some chapters. And I think that fanfiction is grand that we can change things, so this work will have a happy ending. This story is set in the same region as Lima River and the same area and hairstyles of the HSMTMTS Season 3 Camp Shallow Lake.
As always I own nothing. And this is dedicated to that very young special lady and hopefully it will inspire others to prevent and end bullying! I think a law should be passed that prosecutes students and their parents who bully students and the student ends up taking his or her life. I don't know if there will either be a solution, but may be awareness, education, and support for those who bully and are bullied can be more widespread to make a difference.
Part One Characters and Face Claims Yes, I am sure I left some people out like characters used once like Carlos and Natalie from HSMTMTS:
1. Em, Mercy, Cedes, and any other derivative of Sheriff Mercedes Love Jones Porter is of course my go to heroine: Mercedes Jones (Glee)
2. Hunt, Hunter: Hunter Clarington (Glee) Chief Deputy Sheriff and Mercedes' childhood best friend
3. Jay, Jayne Hayward: Jane Hayward (Glee) Sniper for the Lima Springs Sheriff's Department
4. Gina, Regina Grace Porter: Gina Porter: High School Musical: the Musical (HSMTM) Mercedes Love Jones and Spencer Porter's daughter
5. GeeGee, Minnie: Minnie Jones (OC Face Claim Nia Long) Mercedes' mom
6. Big Poppa, Malcom: Malcom Jones (OC Face Claim Laurence Fishburne) Mercedes' dad
7. Sam Menkins, Samuel Evan Menkins: Sam Evans (Glee) son of Mary and Dwight Evans biologically, but a Menkins due to Mary's marriage.
8. Ricky Lopez-Bowen: Ricky Bowen: High School Musical: the Musical (HSMTM) high school student with a deaf parent
9. Stacey, Stace Menkins: Stacey Evans (Glee) Sam's half sister
10. Ash, Ashlyn Caswell: High School Musical: the Musical (HSMTM) will be more of a playable character in Part Two
11. Debbie, Deborah and Dennis Caswell: High School Musical: the Musical (HSMTM) parents of Ashlyn Caswell
12. Lily Lynn: High School Musical: the Musical (HSMTM) with Glee parents 13. Kitty Wilde and Ryder Lynn no Ryder in this story just Kitty Wilde Lynn.
14. Artie, Arthur Abrams: (Glee) Deputy in charge of cyber crime and technology at the Sheriff's office
15. Quinn Fabray: (Glee) will be in part two but small role as a medical examiner/forensic pathologist
16. Sandy, Uncle Sandy, Sander Ryerson Menkins: Sandy Ryerson (Glee) There were five Menkins brothers: Sandy, Cooter, etc.
17. Will, William Schuester: (Glee) Former Sheriff of Lima Springs County
18. Mike Bowen: High School Musical: the Musical (HSMTM) not Mike Chang! Hearing impaired dad of Ricky Lopez-Bowen
19. Matt Rutherford: (Glee) US Marshall his partner only mentioned rarely is Shoshandra Shelby Rabara
20. Rupert Campion: (Glee) FBI Agent
21. Kourtney Greene: High School Musical: the Musical (HSMTM): a possible friend of Gina Porter
22. Jet: High School Musical: the Musical (HSMTM) a student at Lima Springs High
23. Steven, Stevie Menkins: Stevie Evans (Glee) Stacey's son and Sam's nephew
24. Fugitive Ramon/David Martinez: (Glee) A Fugitive from the law or is he?
25-infinity. Mason McCarthy, Cooter Menkins, Kurt and Burt Hummel, Blaine Anderson, Roz Washington, April Rhodes, Dani (Danielle Sonato), Brenda Castle, Marcia Dean, Herb Duncan, Holly Holiday, Harmony, Brittany and Whitney Pierce, Gunther, Andy Collins, June Dalloway, Lillian Adler, Biff McIntosh, Rachel Berry, Anthony Rashad, Dave and Paul Karofsky, Matt Rutherford, Bastian Smythe, Ken Tanaka: (Glee)
One
Welcome to Lima Springs,
a town in need of God's mercy,
It does have some good things,
Like little pollution and lots of smiling faces.
(Not counting the five or six old and young farts who choose violence daily.)
Mercedes Porter pushed down the butterflies in her tummy and the uneasy feelings in her chest and wondered, yet again, if she were ready to be sheriff of a county even the locals called the Seventh Circle of Hell. The county seat was the town she grew up in, Lima Springs. The town she'd abandoned. The town that held more secrets than all the politicians in DC.
Was she having second thoughts? Now? After all the weirdness and wonder of winning an election she hadn't even entered or campaigned for?
Hell to the yeah, she was.
But after her night of partying—a.k.a. her last chance to let down her hair before the entire county became her responsibility—she thought she'd vanquished her concerns. Exorcised all of them. Wrapped up and buried them under the rocks and shale of the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Either the Hennessy she drank last night instead of the beer had lied to her and given her a false sense of security, or her morning cups of coffee were affecting her more than she thought they could.
She eyed the second cup suspiciously and took another sip before looking out the kitchen window toward the redwood trees in the distance. The snow had stopped last night, but it had restarted before the sun had risen. Snowstorms weren't uncommon in California, especially in the more mountainous regions, but Cedes had been hoping for good weather on her first day on the job.
Cedes was back home in Lima Springs. After almost fifteen years, she was back in a place that she never wanted to return for long.
But how long would she play along with this fallacy?
No. That wasn't the right question. Somewhere between her karaoke version of Flo Rida's "Low?"—which bordered on genius—and her fifth shot of liquor, she had figured that out the night before as well.
This was the opportunity she'd been both anticipating and dreading. Since she had a job handed to her on a silver platter, she would stay until she found the man who'd kidnapped her when she was seventeen. She would stay until he was prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. She would stay until she could shed light on the darkest event of her life, and then she would put this place in her rearview mirror for good.
The right question was not how long she would stay but how long it would take her to bring her worst nightmare—literally—to justice.
She tucked a braid that hadn't got caught up in her braided bun behind her ear and looked at the guesthouse her parents had built, studying it for the twentieth time that morning. The two-bedroom two bath apartment flat felt bigger than it was thanks to the vaulted ceilings and large windows and open kitchen and living area.
All things considered, it wasn't awful. It was shiny and new and warm. And the fact that it sat on her parents' property, barely fifty feet from their back door, was surprisingly reassuring.
She'd worked some long hours as a detective. Surely, as a sheriff, that wouldn't change. It might even get worse since she would be in charge. It would be good to know that her daughter, the light of her life, would be safe.
Her baby girl felt as much at home in the small tourist town as Cedes did, having spent every summer and holiday break in Lima Springs with her grandparents since she was a baby. The fact that she'd twirled through the guesthouse when they first saw the inside of it like a ballerina was also a strong indicator she would be okay with the move.
More than okay, Gina loved it, just like Malcolm and Minnie Jones knew she would. Cedes' parents were nothing if not stubborn.
And she and her daughter had inherited that stubbornness. Even though she had capitulated and was living in the guest home her parents had built. A guest home that her parents had built specifically for Cedes and Gina despite their insistence it was for their guests. They never had guests being the only children of only children. And as for guests that were not family, none had never stayed overnight with them her entire life. The building of an entire living space when their house was four bedrooms and two and a half baths and were more than roomy enough for visitors was just one more clue they'd been planning this ambush for a very long time.
They'd always wanted her back in Lima Springs. Cedes had known that since the day she'd left with her baby in hand and fear and hatred in heart. She didn't fear or hate her parents. What happened to her at seventeen had not been their fault. The resentment that had been eating away at her for years stemmed from a hatred with life in general.
But if she were honest with herself—and she liked to think she was—the agonizing torment of being hopelessly devoted and loving someone who didn't love her in return may have played a part in her desire to leave town forever.
So, she ran, and how far could she run with a baby and a high school education? Not far at all.
She'd originally fled to McKinleyville, only an hour and a half from Lima Springs. It was where she got a job online and got a degree in criminal justice. When she finally graduated at the age of twenty-four (it took her six years to get a masters because she didn't trust anyone to take care of her baby but herself), she moved to Eureka and got a job first as a police officer, then three years later as a detective for the Eureka Police Department. She'd only been forty-five minutes from her parents, and she'd hoped the proximity would make her abandonment of all things Lima Springs easier on them.
It hadn't. And now Cedes would pay the price for their conniving desperate attempt to pull her back into their household. As would her daughter Her beautiful Gina. The fact that they didn't take Gina's future into consideration when coming up with their scheme irked her to the extreme. Just enough to cause her to have high blood pressure every time Cedes thought about it.
Gina's voice broke her out of her musings. "Your uniform looks really good on you."
Cedes turned. Her daughter was taller than her and stood in the doorway to her room, pulling a hoodie over a T-shirt while appreciating Cedes' uniform.
Instead of acknowledging the compliment, Cedes took a moment to admire the girl who'd stolen her heart about immediately after she was born. Which also happened to be the moment Cedes had declared her daughter the most beautiful girl this world had ever seen.
Then again, Mercedes had just given birth to an eight-pound extremely long alien. Her judgment couldn't have been trusted.
In time her judgement had proven to be correct. She was gorgeous, and her baby girl had the ability to confuse people of her age by the time she was three and was already four feet tall. Her looks were deceptive and added to the way she talked, she was always considered older than her true age, and nobody thought she could be her daughter. Sister from another mister maybe, but daughter who was already taller than her mother in fourth grade. Never. Sadly, she owed none of her height to Mercedes or her grandmother who was even shorter than Mercedes. They were both judged younger than their actual years never older.
Gina's curly hair was reddish brown with sandy blonde highlights which she wore in braids down her back for the first day of school. During the summer she had experimented with copper red goddess braids, and she had them removed for school to wear hair in its natural curly state. Then, for Christmas break she wanted red cornrows for the season before settling on her more natural color for her braids for her start at a new school. Whereas Mercedes's hair without an intensive wash and go was a tangled mess of dark curls which was under control only if it was straightened or was braided in the same style of her daughters, as it was now.
Her daughter's dark eyes were also breathtaking as well. Gina's skin tone was of someone of Native American ancestry. Her bronze skin was the same whether she was out in the sun or indoors during winter. It was only her hair color and texture that prevented her from being mistaken as being part of the many tribes that lived around the area. Mercedes, on the other hand, was the darkest person in her family. Both her parents were lighter skinned than she was. If her mother wasn't so short, she would think that she really was adopted.
"Mom," Gina said, "you're doing it again."
Cedes quickly snapped out of her thoughts and gave her daughter a smile from behind her cup of coffee. "Sorry Ladybug."
She dropped her gaze to the new uniform she'd decided to wear today. As the newest sheriff of Lima Springs County, Cedes got to choose the colors she and her deputies would wear. For both their tactical and dress uniforms, she chose black. Black was a power color and also hard to detect at night if stealth was required.
And because she wanted to look her best first day on the job, she'd opted for her dress uniform. She ran her fingertips over the badge pinned above the front pocket of her button-down. Inspected the embroidered sheriff's patch on her shoulder. Marveled at how slimming black trousers really were on her voluptuous body.
"I do look like a bad mama jama, don't I?"
Gina put on her boots and offered a knowing smirk. "All that matters is that you think you look that way."
"Yeah, well, this all feels like a fevered dream. And if it's not, it has to be illegal on several civic and judicial levels." How her parents got her elected as sheriff when she'd had no idea she was even running was only one of many mysteries the peculiar town of Lima Springs had to offer. "Your grandparents are definitely going to jail for this. And so am I, most likely, so enjoy my stint as the head of local law enforcement while it lasts."
"Mom!" Gina threw her hands over her ears. "I refuse to hear any of this."
"You think you will be charged as an accessory?" she asked, confused. "They won't waste time trying to prosecute you. You didn't have anything to do with this mess. Besides, you haven't done anything illegal that I know of."
"I am talking about GeeGee and Big Poppa going to prison. Surely they wouldn't arrest them, they're too old."
Unfortunately, they were not too old. Not by a long shot. Her mother was only fifty-eight, and her dad was sixty-three. "Election tampering is a serious offense."
"They didn't tamper. They just, you know, made sure the best person won."
Cedes' expression over her daughter's words were the epitome of what the hell. "I'll be sure to tell the judge that. Hopefully before I'm sentenced."
Gina had been about to grab her jacket when she threw her hands over her ears again. "Mom!" she said, her glare the stuff of nightmares. The stuff that could melt the faces off of zombies at fifty yards. "You can't go to prison, either. You'll never survive there. The inmates will smell the stench of a cop all over you and force you to be Big Bertha's bitch before they shank you in the showers because you dropped the soap."
She had apparently put a lot of thought into this.
Cedes set down the cup of cooled coffee, walked to her daughter, and placed her hands on the teen's shoulders, her expression set to one of sympathy and understanding. "You need to hear this, sweetie. You're going to have to take care of yourself soon. Just remember, you get an education or win the lottery to be self-sufficient, never make out on a first date or marry in haste, and when in doubt, don't commit, or eat or drink anything left at a restaurant or bar or anywhere."
Regina paused before asking, "What does that even mean?"
"I don't really know, but that is how I have lived my adult life, and it should guarantee you at least twenty more years on this earth." She walked back to her coffee, took a sip, almost choked, and stuck the cup into the microwave to warm it back up.
"GeeGee and Big Poppa can't go to jail either."
Cedes turned back to her little spitfire and crossed her arms over her chest, refusing to acknowledge the apprehension gnawing at her gut. "It is probably what they deserve."
"No, Mom," she said as she put a jacket on and zipped it to her neck. "It is not."
Cedes dropped her gaze. "Well, then, it is what I deserve for not turning them both in." The microwave beeped. She took out her cup and blew softly, having left it in long enough to scald several layers off her tongue, as usual. "But first I have to go and check out my new office that they bought for me."
While she'd been sworn in and taken office on January 1st, she had yet to step foot inside the station that would be her home away from home until the next election in four years. If she wasn't forced to resign or quit on her volition.
She and Gina had taken an extra week to get moved in after spending Christmas with her parents. They finally said goodbye to their old lives on New Year's Eve and resolved to make the best of this crazy situation that they now found themselves in.
"I need to decorate our temporary home," she continued, losing herself in thought. "You know, make the space my own. Do you think I should put up my Harry Potter clock? Would it send the wrong message?"
"Mom, no Hogwarts stuff in here, please… Harry Potter is so out because of that lunatic author and her beliefs. What do you think of my fit?" Gina twirled around. She wore a rust-colored jacket over a green hoodie, stretchy black denim jeans, and a pair of dark brown boots that went up to her thighs.
Cedes lowered her cup. "You look gorgeous as always. Gina Porter future supermodel."
Gina gave a half-hearted grin, walked to her, and took the coffee out of her mother's hands. That kid drank more coffee than she did. Warning her it would stunt her growth had done nothing to stop the girl's taste for all kinds of coffee since she was two. Especially when the girl turned out to be several inches taller than her mother. She was five-eight and according to her pediatrician, still growing. Her projected height would be around five foot ten.
"Are you nervous?" she asked her daughter who was having to start a new school during the middle of the school year.
Gina lifted a shoulder and finished the cup before answering, "I really don't know. Maybe just a little."
"You and me: SAME. You are definitely my child and not switched at birth even though you have asked whether or not you are adopted since you learned the meaning of the word."
"It's weird, though. I am not wearing a uniform for the first time in my life."
Gina had been in private school her entire life. She'd loved the magnet academy in Eureka, but she'd been excited about the move to attend public school, the same school her mom had attended. At least, she had up until a few days ago. Cedes had sensed a change. A dampening of her joy that she swore it was all in her mother's overprotective detective nature, but Cedes knew her daughter too well to dismiss her feelings.
She'd sensed that same kind of thing with her daughter almost seven years ago, but she'd ignored her maternal instincts. That decision almost cost her daughter's life. She would not make that mistake again.
"You know, you can still go back to the academy. It's only—"
"Thirty minutes away. I know." Gina handed back the cup and grabbed her coat, and Cedes couldn't help but notice a hint of apprehension in her daughter's expression. "This'll be great. We'll get to see GeeGee and Big Poppa every day."
Just as her parents had planned. "You would still get to see them, they would probably be the ones taking you to school and picking you up. Are you sure you want to go to high school with new classmates and new teachers?" Cedes asked, unconvinced.
She turned back and gestured to herself. "Mom, I get to wear comfortable and stylish clothes."
"Okay."
"I swear, I'm never wearing navy sweaters, khakis, and plaid skirts and stockings to school again."
Cedes laughed and got up to put on her own jacket.
"You love plaid."
"Correction." After she picked up her backpack, she held up an index finger to emphasize her point. "I loved plaid. I found it adorable. Like I did bunny rabbits. Or any cute baby animal when I was younger."
"Oh yeah. Those are so cute even now."
"But the minute plaid's forced upon you almost every day and you have to look at other people wearing it daily? It's overkill."
"I understand."
"Okay," Gina said, facing her mother to give her a once-over. "Are you sure you have everything?"
Cedes frowned. "I think I do."
"Keys?"
Cedes patted her pants pocket. "Check."
"Badge?"
She tapped the shiny trinket over her heart. "Check."
"Gun?"
She scraped a palm over her duty weapon. "Check."
"Sanity?"
She moved around, searching the area for her sanity. She only had the one nerve left. She couldn't afford to lose it. "Dang. Where was I when I had it last?"
"Did you look under the recliner?"
Keeping up the game, Cedes dropped to her knees and searched under the chair.
Gina shook her head. "I swear, Mom. You'd lose your head if it wasn't attached."
Cedes straightened. "Do you think that is the first time I have ever heard that?"
When her daughter only guffawed, she got up and followed her out. They stepped onto the porch, and Cedes breathed in the smell of the trees and fresh snow and burning wood from fireplaces all over town.
Regina took a moment to do the same. She drew in a deep breath and turned back. "I think I am going to love it here, Mom."
The affirmation in Gina's voice eased some of the tension twisting Cedes' stomach into knots. Not all of it, but she'd take what she could get. "I hope you do, sweetheart."
Maybe it was all in her mom's intuition, but her daughter hadn't seemed the same since she'd let her go to the supposedly secret gathering for New Year's at the lake. The annual party that the parents and police weren't supposed to know anything about. These same people who began the tradition in the first place guaranteeing that all the adults knew about it.
She'd only allowed Gina to stay for a couple of hours. Could something have happened to her while she was there? Gina hadn't been the same since that night, and Cedes knew what could happen when teens gathered and someone there was different. The atmosphere could change from crazy-fun to bullying and violence in a second.
"You know, you don't have to start school today. You can stay home for a couple more days. I can tell by your breathing that your asthma has been kicking up, ladybug. And your voice is a little raspy. And—"
"I'm okay besides I don't want to get behind in my classes," she said.
"Do you have your inhaler?"
Gina reached into her coat pocket and pulled out the container. "Yes, mother."
A voice called out to them at the very moment. The source was a short and energetic woman with black shoulder length straightened hair with a few hints of gray at the roots and one of the most self-reliant people that Cedes knew. "Top of the morning to you, two!"
They turned as Minnie Margot Jones trudged through the snow toward them, followed by her very own bodyguard and partner in crime, her debonair husband of almost thirty-five years, Malcolm Reginald Jones.
Cedes leaned closer to Gina. "Did your grandmother just greet us like she was a leprechaun? Should someone tell her just because she's short; she's not some Irish mythical creature?"
"Hey, GeeGee. Hey, Big Poppa," Gina said, ignoring her mother.
You would think that her daughter was competing for the Best Granddaughter of the World Award the way she hurried toward the couple for a hug like she didn't just eat dinner with them last night and the night before and so on. "Mom's worried you guys are going to get arrested and locked up for the rest of your lives."
Minnie laughed and pulled the tattletale into her arms.
"Tattletales go to jail!" Cedes called out to her.
"Your mother's been thinking that for years," Minnie said, "and we haven't been to the big house yet or even been taken in to be questioned for any crimes, my darling girl." She let her go so Gina could hug her grandfather.
"Hi, Big Poppa."
Malcolm took his turn and enveloped his tall but thin granddaughter into his large arms. "Good morning, baby girl. What exactly are we going to jail for this time?"
Gina looked up to him. "Election interference and tampering."
"I should've guessed. That entire election was due process." Malcolm motioned toward the guesthouse with a nod. "What do you think of the new place?"
"It's absolutely wonderful, Big Poppa."
His face glowed with appreciation as he looked at Cedes. "And it's better than paying two thousand a month for a condo, right?"
He did have a point. Eureka was nothing if not pricey. The increasing number of the homeless population was making the once ideal town a depressing place to live. The rent was astronomical. Her rent was supposed to be more but the landlords liked the idea of having law enforcement on site and gave her a big discount. "You got me there, Dad." She gave them both a quick hug, then headed toward her department issued SUV, it was one of three vehicles that she was given possession of during her tenure as sheriff. This one was black with the word SHERIFF written in gold letters across the sides. The other one was a gold jeep for driving off the road with the words SHERIFF in black letters, and the last one was a black car with the same lettering in gold letters.
"Mercy, baby, wait," her mother said, fumbling in her fur coat pocket. "We have to take a picture of you both. It's Regina's first day of school in Lima Springs."
Cedes groaned out loud for her mother's benefit, hiding the fact that she found the woman all kinds of adorable. She was still angry with them. Or trying to be. They'd entered her into the election for sheriff without her knowledge or consent. Actively campaigned for her. And she'd won. She didn't come and do any press events or went around asking for votes. She couldn't understand how she won the election.
"We're already running late, Mom." She tried to appeal to her mother who took forever to take a picture on her phone because she couldn't find the phone app.
"You know we don't have traffic here." Minnie reminded her daughter as she searched her phone trying to find the camera app.
"I will do it." She got her mom's phone and swiped to the home screen, clicked on the app, and held the phone up for a selfie. "Come in and smile, everyone."
"Oh my!" Minnie said, delighted to be included in the picture. She wrapped an arm into her husband's. "Get closer, love."
The cold air had all of them alert. Cedes snapped several shots of them and then herded her daughter toward the SUV, her father quick on her heels.
When Gina went around to the passenger's side, Cedes turned to face him.
He offered her a knowing smile and asked, "Are you sure you are okay with all of this?"
She put a hand on his arm. "I've got no choice but to be, Daddy." She hoped and prayed she would be okay. "But don't you think for a second that you're off the hook."
"I rarely am with you or your mother. You two are so much alike. It's just, I know how much you enjoyed leaving here and that you had no plans on ever returning."
"I was eighteen when I left." She thought back. "I was a teenage mother who was trying to run from her problems. Thinking distance would work. Leaving never solves anything even if it makes you feel better at the time."
He cleared his throat apparently he was not finished with the conversation. "Well, it's good that you understand that now," he hedged before asking, "And how are you sleeping here? Is it like it was before? Are you having those nightmares?"
So, that's what this was about. Cedes turned back and offered him her most reassuring smile. "No nightmares, Daddy."
He nodded and opened the door as Minnie called out, "You and Regina have a good day. And don't forget about the meeting!"
Cedes looked over the hood of her SUV. "What meeting?"
Minnie sucked in a sharp breath. "Mercedes Love Jones Porter."
She hopped inside the SUV before her mother could get any further with that sentiment. Nothing good ever came after hearing her entire legal name.
She gave her observant dad one last smile of reassurance as he closed the door, then she carefully backed out of the snow-covered drive, feeling more confident she'd done the right thing. Telling him the truth would only increase the guilt she could see eating at him every time he looked at her. There was no need for both of them to lose sleep over something that happened in Lima Springs so very long ago.