Three weeks has passed since Nationals and school was starting up again in a few days. Usually he looked forward to the start of school, not because he missed the lessons or anything, but because by then he was usually missing his friends and his routine. However, this year he wasn't looking forward to it so much. When school had ended in the summer everyone had known that Rachel was pregnant and that he was the father, but now it was different, they'd actually be able to see it. She wasn't huge or anything, her dancing had kept her mostly lean, but the bump definitely there and he wasn't sure how people would react. Would they throw slushies or just stare? He hoped it was the latter. He knew that Rachel could cope with either, but he really didn't want to have her to, and he especially didn't want to argue about it. Since they decided to keep the baby on the plane home from Nationals things had been amazing. He would go to her house nearly every day, sometimes bringing Stevie and Stacey with him and they'd lie in her garden and talk. They'd talk about their future, what they thought their son would be like and he couldn't remember the last time he'd been this happy. He knew it would be hard, but Rachel's Dads had promised to help out, and told him that they understood his situation. Life was good.

Until he walked into school with Rachel on that September morning.

Everyone was staring, and while she didn't say anything or look at him he could feel her hand clasped tightly around his, and he could see her bottom lip trembling. He could hear the names that girls were whispering as they passed by, and the glares they were getting. He tried really hard to not let it bother him but it was hard. This had never really happened to him before. He squeezed her hand tightly in his own

"Sam."

Sam frowned as he stuffed the last of his books into his locker and looked up to meet Quinn's hazel eyes.

"Uh, hey." He muttered, smiling slightly.

"Can we talk?" She raised an eyebrow slightly and nodded towards the empty choir room.

"Sure, I guess." He replied easily, slamming his locker shut and walking beside her.

"Thanks," She looked away, "I just really need to talk to you."

He nodded, and shut the choir room door behind them.

"So, what's up?"

Quinn hesitantly took a seat, and spent a moment smoothing out her skirt. Finally she took a deep breath and looked up.

"It's about the baby."

"Right," Sam said slowly, "the baby." He paused, "My baby?"

"Your baby." Quinn clarified, looking down again.

"What about it?" Sam said, smiling slightly at the absurdity of the conversation.

"You know about Beth." Quinn said after a pause, "My baby."

Sam sunk down into the seat next to her, smile gone.

"Well, yeah."

"And how I gave her away," Quinn continued, still looking at her lap, "to Rachel's mom. And everyone told me how I was doing the right thing."

She looked up at him, tears glistening in her eyes.

"I think about her all the time. Every day she's on my mind. What does she look like? What she's doing now, all that stuff. And it hurts so, so bad and it just doesn't go away."

A tear slid down her cheek, and she immediately wiped it away.

"What I'm trying to say Sam, is that I don't want you to make the same mistakes I did. I don't want you to feel this way, because I know you can do it. You and Rachel can keep your baby and raise it and love it. You have her parents support and you'll be fine."

"Quinn..."Sam said softly, rubbing her arm gently, but she shook him off and stood up.

"You don't have to spend the rest of your life wondering." She smiled weakly and disappeared through the door.

He watched her leave in silence and realised that that was perhaps the first – and only- time Quinn Fabray had ever volunteered information about her feelings to him.

He needed to talk to Rachel.


Later on that evening Rachel was lying in bed reading her book with one hand softly cradling her stomach when her phone went off.

"Hello?" She asked softly, checking the time on her clock: 11:05.

"Rach, it's me, Sam"

"Oh" She replied, her tone brightening, "I didn't see you today"

There was a pause.

"Yeah, I'm sorry. I just had...I had things on my mind"

"Oh yeah?" She gently laid her book down, cradling the phone against her ear, "Like what?"

There's a silence, but she can hear him breathing down the phone.

"Sam?" She asks, frowning a little, "What's wrong?"

There's another pause but he finally speaks;

"What you said in New York," His voice sounds strange, pained almost, "About the baby. About keeping him. I mean, you still want to, right? You haven't changed your mind?"

Rachel's silent for a moment. She wasn't expecting that and honestly, she doesn't know what to say. She would be lying if she said she hadn't been thinking about it. That she could just have the baby and give it to someone else, someone who really wanted him, who would love him, who was ready to be a parent. But she doesn't know how to say that, and she knows it shouldn't be a conversation they have over the phone.

"Sam," She whispers gently in what she hopes is a reassuring tone, "I just...I... I don't know, I'm just confused."

He doesn't reply.

"I think you should come over, we can talk about face to face."

"I think," He says in a low voice, "I think you've made your feelings pretty clear."

Her mouth drops open.

"Sam!" She says, but he's already hung up.

She considers calling him back or perhaps driving over to the motel but she's too tired. She doesn't want a fight and maybe if she gives him some time to cool off it'll all be okay. Because she doesn't know what she wants. She knows that she loves the baby that's growing inside of her, she knows that she wants to keep him and watch him grow up. But she also knows that she's 17, barely an adult, maybe still a child herself. She's in high school, in Ohio, and she keeps her son then she'll never leave. Sam was right, New York is no place for a baby.

She turns her phone off and curls up into a tight ball on her bed, both hands on her round stomach. She just needs to explore all the options, to know that she's making the right choice for herself, for her son.


Sam doesn't show up to school. She sends him a text asking where he is but he doesn't reply. And she's mad, because everyone is making comments and pointing and laughing and he was meant to be here with her, and instead he's being a jerk and has left her all alone.

All she wants is to go home and curl up with West Side Story and pretend she's a little kid again, not an adult who has to make all sorts of scary grown up decisions, like whether or not to keep her baby. But she knows that rationally she is going to miss a lot of school later in the year, so whilst she can still go she should. But still. It sucks.

When she gets home after glee (the only class she actually enjoys at the moment) Sam is sitting on her doorstep.

"Rachel," He says when he sees her, standing up and running a hand through his messy hair, "I'm sorry."

She wants to hit him and tell him that she hates him, and that he's acting like a total jerk.

She hates herself when she falls into his arms instead and lets him hold her and stroke her hair like she's a little girl.

"You're such a jerk" She murmurs against his shoulder, but clings on anyway.

"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry." He says instead, holding her close, "You're right, I'm a jerk. But I'm so sorry".

Eventually she pulls away and lets him into the house. It's only when they're sitting on her bed in silence that she realises the significance of the conversation that they're going to have.

"I don't want to give our son away." She finally says, looking down.

Sam looks like a kid on Christmas, his smile lights up his whole face.

"Oh thank God," He says, leaning over to kiss her, "I was so worried. I knew you wouldn't, I knew it!" He's grinning at her, and she tries to return it, but she can't.

"But," She whispers softly and he looks at her accusingly, his gaze narrowing. She feels like she's going to vomit but she needs to say it;

"But, I think it might be best."

She closes her eyes and braces herself for his reaction. There isn't one.

She opens her eyes and he's just looking at her, his face completely blank.

"I just think," She continues desperately, she needs him to understand, "that maybe someone else would be better for him. We're so young and there's still high school, and college, and I just think that maybe he would be happier with someone else. Someone older, someone who is ready to be a parent."

"No one is ever ready to be a parent," Sam says, his voice painfully low, "It just comes naturally when they're born. You step up because you have to."

"But don't you see Sam, we don't have to!" Rachel crawls over to him, forcing him to look up at her, "We could give him to a nice family, with a house and a dog and we could be kids again!"

He shakes her hand off, and gets off the bed, pacing up and down her room.

"Do you hear yourself?" He asks venomously, "We're talking about our son, our little boy, not some thing we can just give away and pretend never existed! How can you be saying this Rachel? I thought you loved him, I thought you wanted him."

She pushes herself off the bed, tears threatening to spill down her face.

"I do!" She yells, "So much. And that's why I have to think about this! I have to do what's best for him, and maybe that's not us"

She wipes away a tear and looks up at him.

"I don't want to give him away. But we're so young." She whispers.

He hates to see her cry, and he hates that he made her cry, but God. She can't give away this baby, his baby. She just can't.

"Rachel," He whispers softly, pulling her towards him, "We can do this. I know you're scared, but I promise you we can. It's going to be okay, we can do this."

She looks up at him with a tear stained face and he looks so sure of himself, of what he's saying that she believes him.

"Okay" She whispers softly, "You're right. We can do this."