in this city that never sleeps (it's your heart that i want to keep)
chapter one
She wakes up as she often does these days: feeling alone, even though there's a lithe, warm body next to her, breathing slowly and deeply, blonde hair spilled across the large, soft pillows piled haphazardly against the headboard. She's been trying too hard, for too long, to erase the memory of one particular blonde with a virtual parade of other blondes, ones who are Not Her, and now, as she becomes aware of where she is and how she got there, she's beginning to realize that this particular blonde was probably the worst choice she's made yet.
This one's her teacher, for God's sake. What the hell was she thinking, getting drunk and falling into bed with Cassandra July, a.k.a. "Crazy Cassie," the one-time scourge of Broadway, and current terror of Dance 101 at the New York Academy of Dramatic Arts? That Cassandra July?
She bites her lip to stifle a groan and shifts away carefully, trying to put as much space between herself and the sleeping dance instructor as possible. Her eyes scan the dimly lit room as her brain kicks into gear, trying to formulate an escape plan that will enable her to get out of here without Ms. July ever noticing. Where the fuck are her clothes?
Ms. July stirs. She freezes, then relaxes when the movement stops, letting out the breath she'd been holding in a long, slow exhale. She's safe for the moment, but she really needs to vacate these premises before her luck deserts her.
Connecting the dots – shoes over here, panties over there, dress flung half-over a chair, half on the desk in front of it – she slides soundlessly out of the bed and pads across the plush, carpeted floor to retrieve the various articles she needs and dresses more quickly than she ever has before. She needs to use the bathroom, but figures she can wait until she gets to the diner down the block, where she'll try to sort out the wreckage of this latest bad decision over coffee and a bagel.
This won't be a walk of shame so much as a sprint, she thinks.
"Leaving so soon, Lopez?"
She curses herself silently for stiffening at the sound of the voice. She can practically feel Ms. July smirking, hears the bed creak when the woman rises out of it, the subtle swish of the sheets as she wraps herself in them.
"Didn't your mother ever tell you it's rude to leave someone's home without saying goodbye?"
She sighs, turns around, resigning herself to the cat-that-ate-the-fucking-canary smile on Cassandra July's smug, satisfied face.
"Um, yeah – I kinda have – you know, homework and stuff, so..." her voice trails off.
"I'm sorry to hear that, Lopez. You showed me such a good time last night, I was hoping we could go another round now. I must say, you're not all that on the dance floor, but between the sheets? Hot." Cassandra licks her lips. Her eyes are dark."You're...skilled beyond your years. Your high school girlfriend taught you very well, or you taught each other well. Whatever."
"I...had a good time too, um, Ms. July, but I -" Christ, I have just got to get out of here.
"You what, Santana?" Cassandra's voice is so sharp it could cut glass. "You want a grade from me, is that it? Well, you've got to work just as hard in here as you do in my class to earn it." "So I suggest you stop looking around for your purse, step out of that insanely tight little dress, and get back to work. You'll have plenty of time to attend to other things later. Right now, though, you need to attend to me."
She lets Cassandra take her face in her hands and crash their lips together, rough and hard, and she feels a little ashamed at the fact that it kind of turns her on. Her body responds automatically to the touch of the woman's hands, her tongue, her teeth, her skin heating even as she wishes it wouldn't, and her brain shuts off – but not before she wonders, absently, what Brittany would think of her if she knew what she was doing at this moment.
When Cassandra finally deigns to allow Santana to leave the apartment, she notices that Rachel texted her a few minutes earlier to ask if she would like to meet for lunch. That's one of the things she likes about living with the little hobbit: she never asks questions about where she goes at night, and with whom. She considers declining the invitation, because she really does have homework to do - but on the other hand, she hasn't eaten since last night's dinner, and after the morning's...activities...she's starving.
She texts her affirmative reply, and they quickly agree to meet at a place that's halfway between where she is now and the apartment she shares with Rachel and Kurt. She still can't quite believe that she's living and going to school with two of her former high school classmates. If someone had told her four years ago that she would be in this city now, with these people, and actually enjoying it, she would have laughed and thrown a giant-sized frozen drink in his or her face, then walked away without looking back.
Yet here she was, in the Big Apple, the city that never sleeps, and she'd found that it was a lot like her: loud and bold, brash and tough, always ready to take anybody's best shot. It's a place that loves winners, and if Santana Lopez was anything, she was a winner.
At William McKinley High School back home in Lima, Ohio, she'd won national championships with the Cheerios, the finest high school cheerleading squad in the country, and with the school's Glee Club, the New Directions - and if she was being honest, she would have to admit that she was more proud of the latter than the former – and then she'd gotten into the most selective performing arts college in the country, beating out hundreds of other applicants to claim one of only thirty available seats in their class. So yeah, total winner.
Now she called a spacious loft in Brooklyn her home, splitting the rent three ways with her two best friends, fellow Glee Club members and McKinley alumni Rachel Berry and Kurt Hummel, and to the surprise of the rest of the New Directions, with whom they remained profoundly close, had not yet committed double homicide.
They regarded their former classmates' shock with amusement. After all, none of them could possibly know how deeply she had bonded with Rachel and Kurt in the aftermath of her breakup with Brittany.
As she walks briskly in the cooling air of the bright September afternoon, having decided not to spend money on cab fare, she fights to tamp down the surge of emotion that wells up inside her at the thought of Brittany. Before the Cheerios, before the Glee Club, before anything, there had been Brittany. Tall, blonde, blue eyed and beautiful, the most amazing natural dancer that anyone had ever seen, Brittany S. Pierce had been the owner of Santana's heart forever. Before the New Directions had taught her how to dream, Brittany had been her sole desire, the one person she loved more than anything else in the world.
She had risked everything for Brittany when she'd agreed to join the Glee Club simply because Brittany and her other best friend Quinn wanted to. They were the three best cheerleaders on the squad, the most popular girls in school, on top of the social pyramid, rulers of all they surveyed. By contrast, the Glee Club was a sorry bunch of misfits, oddballs and losers, bottom feeders who existed at the very lowest level of the McKinley social hierarchy. Why, she had argued, should they risk everything they had worked so hard to achieve just to sing and dance around with a bunch of outcasts?
Because at some point Brittany's happiness had become the most important thing in the world to her. If she wanted something, anything at all, Santana moved heaven and earth to give it to her. So, despite her misgivings and against her better judgment, she'd relented and agreed to give the New Directions a chance. After all, people had done far crazier things for love, she reasoned.
It turned out to be the best decision she'd ever made.
Through the Glee Club she discovered that the people she'd previously dismissed and derided as freaks and geeks were actually the most amazing human beings she could ever hope to know. She also discovered a love for performing that she never would have found without them. Before long, she'd been forced to admit that Glee was the best part of her day, and no one in the group had looked particularly intimidated when she'd glared at them and said that if anyone ever repeated that statement, she would deny it.
They were there for her when she'd struggled with her sexuality, with the realization that what she felt for Brittany was far more than close friendship, beyond mere physical attraction. They were there for her when she and Brittany came out as a couple, never judging or condemning, only ever giving them unconditional support and encouragement.
And for nearly three years, they were happy. Insanely, deliriously, wonderfully happy.
But in their senior year, when Britt had begun to withdraw and grow distant from her as talk of plans for college began to dominate the conversations among the members of the Glee Club, only Rachel and Kurt had noticed.
Only they had seen the way Brittany was growing closer and closer with Tina Cohen-Chang, a year younger than them, sharing the kind of secret looks and smiles and laughs during Glee meetings with the Asian girl that she had once shared only with Santana.
And only they were there when the news of Brittany's perhaps inevitable betrayal had sent shock waves through the group. Santana can't help but shiver at the memory of how Rachel had held her as she'd cried through the night, singing to her softly, drawing soothing circles on her back, running her fingers through her hair to calm her, how Kurt had taken her hand and told her that her life wasn't over, that there was so much more in store for her if she would only just believe in her own future.
In those moments, their friendship had become something deeper than anything they could name, and Santana knew beyond doubt that she would always be able to count on them no matter what.
It wasn't a surprise to her when Quinn and Rachel had been the next to announce that they too had become a couple. She was truly happy for her fellow cheerleader and the Glee Club's unquestioned leader and star performer, having seen the way they had spent the first two years of high school running hot and cold with each other, getting closer and drawing back, stealing looks and glances when they thought no one else was watching. Now Quinn was at Yale, after having survived more than her own share of high school drama, and she and Rachel were making their relationship work even with the two-hour train ride required for them to see each other on weekends.
In a way, Santana reflected, the breakup had actually turned out to be sort of a good thing, despite the nearly unbearable emotional pain she'd suffered. For so long, dreams had seemed to be something for other people. She'd lived with expectations, but never dreams. Brittany had really been her only dream for most of high school, and then when she'd discovered another dream – the dream of coming here and going to NYADA with Rachel and Kurt – the girl had broken her heart. Maybe Brittany, with her often childlike reasoning, just hadn't been able to see any other way to set Santana free, to let her go without anything holding her back.
That didn't excuse her, of course - or Tina, who was certainly smart enough to know better.
She got it, though. Brittany wasn't passing any of her classes, wasn't going to graduate with most of her friends in the Glee Club – not with her and Quinn and Rachel and Kurt. Not with Mike, the tall, handsome Asian boy who was the only person she'd ever seen who could dance nearly as well as Brittany; not with Mercedes, the sassy, brassy diva whose powerful voice was nearly the equal of Rachel's; not with Finn and Puck, best friends and football stars who had been forever changed by the Glee Club too. So she latched on to the younger New Directions: wheelchair-bound Artie, hair gel addict Blaine, Irish leprechaun Rory, rich girl Sugar, country bumpkin Sam. And Tina, the smart, shy girl who was almost as good a singer as Rachel and Mercedes, but lacked their confidence and willingness to fight for the solos they felt they deserved.
It was only because of Rachel's fierce determination to not let the breakup with Brittany cause problems with the rest of the club – she didn't want anyone to feel as though they had to choose sides - that Santana had somehow managed to keep up a tenuous, fragile friendship with both Britt and Tina via the occasional text and e-mail. Talking to either of them would be far more than she could handle, still.
Damn them. Damn them both. And damn the weakness for blondes that had led her to flirting over dinner and drinks, and then into bed, with Cassandra July.
She wipes her eyes free of the tears that she refuses to let fall as she approaches the little cafe where she's to meet Rachel. Through her blurry vision, she sees her standing outside, wearing a white sweater, a long black skirt and a red beret, her dark hair flowing down past her shoulders. The girl smiles brightly, and Santana's heart warms.
But as she gets closer, she realizes that while they look somewhat similar from a distance, the smiling girl isn't Rachel. She's taller, for one thing, and lacks Rachel's distinctly 'ethnic' nose. And while Rachel is certainly attractive, this girl is, well...gorgeous. Like, insanely pretty.
Something inside Santana stirs. Her heartbeat quickens even as she chides herself for reacting this way to nothing more than a pretty face, a cute button nose, a pair of beautiful ice-blue eyes and a dazzling smile.
She gets to the door. The girl speaks. Her voice is soft and lilting, a little shy.
"Santana, right?"
"Um, who wants to know?" she replies, taken aback by the girl's forthrightness.
The girl laughs a small, self-deprecating laugh, looks bashfully down at her black shoes. "Rachel sent me outside to wait for you. She had to use the bathroom when we got out here, and she didn't want you to come in, not see you, then get mad and leave. So she told me to come out here and watch for you. I have to say, her description was dead on. 'Striking Latina' were the words, I think."
Santana's eyes widen. Once again, she's glad that her caramel-colored skin makes it nearly impossible for people to tell when she's blushing.
"That sounds like something Rachel would say. Yep, that's me. Santana Lopez, striking Latina at your service. And you are...?"
The girl extends her hand for Santana to shake. Absently, Santana notices she's wearing purple fingerless gloves, and her nails are unpainted. She looks up at the girl's face and is struck by the fact that she's wearing virtually no makeup, yet she's still absolutely stunning.
Santana grasps the girl's hand, and she laughs again and says, "Oh, right. Of course. I guess Rachel didn't tell you I was coming along. My name is Marley. Marley Rose."
Their hands remain connected as Santana opens the door for them to enter the cafe.
"Pleased to meet you, Marley Rose," she says, and means it. "Well, then - why don't we go inside and get better acquainted?" She bows at the waist with a flourish, drawing a melodious giggle. She finds the sound to be extraordinarily pleasant. She wants to hear it again.
Marley walks through the door, then turns and beams at her, and Santana is sure she hasn't seen anything this lovely in a long, long time.
