A/N: Glee belongs to Ryan Murphy, Fox and anyone else who holds rights to the show.
As mentioned in the summary, this is a repost. It was originally a multi-chapter but I decided to shorten it and post it as a one-shot instead.
I really had fun writing this so I hope you enjoy it too!
Santana had never been a happy child. Since she was not genetically predisposed to sadness, she was not a sad child either. All she knew was that she felt like poo whenever her parents were away from home. And that happened a lot.
She learned to entertain herself with her countless baby dolls, and play teacher with them. She learned to put herself to bed and sing herself to sleep. Most importantly, she learned that when she expressed to her Mami and Papi that she felt like poo because they were never home, she got everything she wanted. Because Santana was a clever child, she used that to her advantage. She threw tantrums, she cried, she chose to be bratty so she could get more and more and more... even after coming to the realisation that more was never enough.
Still, she clung on to hope, and to her imaginary rainbow of happiness. If she could just reach the other end, that lump in her throat might stop appearing whenever she saw her classmates' mummies drop them off at school with hugs and kisses; or that urge to kick something when she saw her classmates' daddies pick them up in their arms when it was time to go home. Instead, she got Mister Stevenson, the family's old and portly driver. He was nice but he wasn't mummy or daddy and as hard as she tried to pretend he was, he just wasn't.
She didn't understand why her parents never hugged and kissed her, or held her when she had nightmares. Was it because she wasn't pretty enough? Was it because she still occasionally sucked her thumb at five? Was it because she was naughty? Was it because she wasn't lovable enough?
So she tried her hardest to be the lovabalest and the prettiest and the bestest so that her parents would love her. She read more books because her Papi favoured intelligence. She chose her daily attire with the most careful diligence because her Mami loved pretty clothes. She did grown up things like spray nice-smelling water on her neck and drink coffee at the breakfast table, because while her Papi and Mami didn't always speak to her, they always, always spoke to big people.
But night after night, her dreams always ended the same way. No matter how hard or fast she ran up the rainbow, she could never make it past the arch. Sometimes, the colours of the rainbow would meld and swirl into a massive black hole that swallowed her whole and she would go tumbling through an endless tunnel. Sometimes, the rainbow would buck and writhe such that despite her best efforts, she could scarcely hold on. And then she would wake up, gasping and panting because she was falling, falling, falling...
She always wondered what would happen if was allowed to fall till she hit the ground, but as hard as she tried to stay asleep, she would always wake up to reality, alone in the middle of her king-sized bed.
So it was that at five and a half, Santana realised the difference between loneliness and being alone. By the time she entered kindergarten, she had gotten used to being alone. In fact, she was really good at being alone. Being an only child for over five years would equip you with that.
Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said for loneliness because try as she might, loneliness was still a feeling that she couldn't shake off and that she really didn't want to feel. (It was only after she met Quinn that she realised loneliness was something no one got used to.)
That said, she tried really, really hard to rid that missing in her heart. She chanted under her breath, like her Mami would do when she really wants the cars on the road to disappear. She attempted to regale her classmates with chatter and play but that made it worse. That missing in her heart just seemed to grow bigger so she stopped (none of them were good enough for her company anyway, maybe except for Noah; she did enjoy his company somewhat, when he wasn't being a dummy.)
She just couldn't find anything to plug that hole in her heart.
But then, when Santana was five and a half years old, one good thing and one bad thing happened that would change her life significantly.
She learned that a rainbow wasn't like the flower in her garden, or the television in her house, or the road outside which she was prohibited to play on. It wasn't hard or tangible or touchable so she couldn't actually run up a rainbow and get to the other side.
The good thing was that Brittany Susan Pierce became a student at Ohio Kindergarten.
The first thing that Santana noticed about Brittany was not her blue eyes or her brilliant smile or her cute little dimples. It wasn't the way she danced or the way her whole body literally vibrated when she was excited. It wasn't even the way she hugged everyone she met (Santana latched onto that immediately because her personal space was about 5 feet wide and her walls doubly high). It was her bubble (she would later come to learn that a better term was aura).
As someone who didn't like to mingle much with the other kids, Santana spent a little of her play time scaring other kids off the swing and most of her play time depositing different sized and coloured bubbles over her classmates' heads from her prime spot on her swing. For instance, Noah's bubble was a navy blue, the black fat girl was a royal purple because she was such a diva and the Jewish girl with the large eyes (and larger nose) was a bright orange. Because she was so loud and energetic all the time, Santana gave fruit girl's bubble a free upsize. When fruit girl walked around the playground, Santana imagined her humongous bubble scaring other children out of the way. Nobody wanted to get their bubbles popped after all. And maybe that was why Berry was like her, always alone. (Or maybe it was because no one wanted to be friends with a fruit; Berry was a stupid name.)
But the difference between her and Berry was that while she would deliberately pop other children's bubbles, Berry would not. Berry was nice and just...a social abnormality. (Santana really had no issue with Berry till high school. When she grew older, she would learn two things about Berry. The first was that the social abnormality was the fact that Rachel had two dads. The second was that Berry was actually a last name; Berry really went by Rachel.)
Now Brittany.. Brittany had a different bubble as well. Hers was multi-coloured and fluid like her movements. Sometimes, it was blue like her eyes. Other times, it was a bright yellow like the sun or white like the little daisies peppered around the playground. But her absolute favourite had to be when Brittany's bubble became all shimmery and glittery, swirling with waves of light and psychedelic art.
But what was most special about Brittany's bubble was that it was indestructible. It must have been that for there was no other way to explain why Brittany would otherwise approach Berry or herself - it was because her bubble couldn't get popped. Either that or Brittany was very, very brave. (Santana would eventually conclude that it was the second.)
So even though Santana didn't know how to make friends with her ten feet wall and her permanent scowl, it didn't matter. Because Brittany would always run up to her with her flapping pigtails and flashing dimples to ask if she would like to play catch with the ducks or watch the clouds together on the swing. It didn't matter if there weren't any ducks to catch or that she didn't know what a Tubbington was supposed to be shaped like because she loved sunshine and rainbows and Brittany was sunshine and rainbows. More importantly, when she was with Brittany, she forgot what it felt like to have the missing in her heart.
(In the years to come, she would have cause to remember and forget and remember and forget, but that would be a story for another chapter of her life.)
Instead of that constant ache in the chest and that bump in the throat, she was able to feel nice things, like Brittany's warm hand around hers when they ran around together, or that safe feeling she got when Brittany hugged her tight and told her she was her best friend, or the general lightness she felt when Brittany was with her. It all just felt really, really good and she didn't feel alone and she was just so happy all the time.
Brittany didn't expect her to be perfect or grown up or smart or good or everything she couldn't be and didn't want to be. At five and a half, Santana wasn't able to understand that the reason she no longer felt alone was because for the first time in her life, someone was able to appreciate and love her without any expectations, and to accept her wholly for who she was, and to still love her despite her flaws.
What Santana could understand at five and a half, was that Brittany would still talk and play with her even when she misbehaved and was being a brat. When she pushed Ashton off her swing and made him cry, Brittany simply frowned and gave Ashton her lunch cookie so that he would stop crying. When she snatched the blue crayon from Becca so Brittany could colour the sky on her drawing paper, Brittany used the blue crayon to colour Becca's sky instead. There were no angry glares or silent treatments or harsh words.
What Santana could also definitely understand at five and a half, was that she had never felt more loved than when she was with Brittany and that Brittany made her want to be a better person.
So, she learned to trade Ashton her lunch cookie for the swing, and to colour Becca's sky for her in exchange for the blue crayon. And the best part of it all? Her actions made Brittany beam with pride and nothing was better in the world than seeing her smile because Brittany had the prettiest smile in the world.
One of the things Santana hated most in life was to see Brittany sad. (She also hated lizards and thought the world would be better off if they all choked on their own tails and died.)
When Brittany was sad, both her shoulders would slump a little and there would be a tiny, minuscule crease in between her brows. The changes were unnoticeable if one didn't know her well.
But having known Brittany for close to six years now, Santana considered herself a master at reading the Brittany language. Brittany was a born dancer and so her body told Santana everything she needed to know about her best friend.
When Brittany was happy, there was a little more skip in her step and swing in her arms. That one was easy enough to tell. Even a blind person would be able to feel joy radiating off Brittany when she was in a good mood and that was most of the time. Her Brittany was an effervescent ball of happiness and optimistic energy who made Santana smile when others couldn't. Brittany would grin when people would smile. She would laugh when people would
grin. She was always ahead of everyone.
When Brittany was tired or bored, she would become very, very still and stop blinking. It was like she was sleeping with her eyes opened. The longest she had kept her eyes opened for was two minute and two seconds. Santana knew because had she kept time in one of Mrs. Miller's dreadful social studies lessons. She had watched intently, counting the seconds as they passed even as she admired Brittany's long lashes and the specks in her eyes.
But what was most telling of Brittany's feelings were her hands. She had expressive hands; hands that Santana could spend hours watching. Like how Britt's fingers would do some sort of tango on her thighs when she was peckish, or how her arms gesticulated all over the place when she was excited, or how she would always, always hold Santana's hand when she was sad. Occasionally, in moments of morbid marvel and heartache, Santana wondered if Brittany only touched her so that she could share the hurt but that was a ridiculous thought because her Brittany was the sweetest person who would never wish anyone harm.
In fact, if Santana could siphon off Brittany's hurt into herself and transfer all her happiness over to Britt, it would be the best thing in the world that could ever happen to her, after Brittany herself. It would make for an awesome superpower and she would do it in a heartbeat. Besides, Brittany created most of her happiness so rightfully, she should have access to all
of it.
But Brittany was definitely sad now and it caused Santana grief to know that she couldn't help by taking her hand because Britt had the chicken pox and Santana had never gotten the chicken pox and Mrs Pierce wouldn't let her see Brittany. The worst thing was that it was Boxing Day. They were supposed to open their presents together and skate on the lake, just like they had for the past five years. It was tradition!
But when she had cycled over to the Pierce's house two streets away, her skates packed neatly in her basket and her heart thumping away in excitement, Mrs. Pierce had for the first time in memory turned her away and told her to return two weeks later.
The rejection had hurt, even if it wasn't a true rebuff, even when she had seen Brittany venture down the stairs, scratching at the angry red spots on her arms to see who was at the door. Brittany had barely managed to get out a greeting (A very sad "Hello Santana, I have the chicken pox. It itches real bad.") before she was sternly sent back to her room by Mrs. Pierce.
That Christmas without Brittany was the bluest Christmas she would recall for ages.
On New Year's and the sixth day of Brittany's quarantine, Santana unable to stand the stifling stillness and boredom without a companion, would end up sneaking out and into Brittany's room on the second floor by scaling up a tree. While Brittany would refuse to hold her hand because of her contagious infection, she would eventually concede to hooking her pinky to Santana's as a compromise.
That visit would ultimately earn Santana a month's worth of grounding and the chicken pox. But whenever Brittany would wind her pinky around Santana's, she would remember that it was also what set in motion a new tradition, and that it was totally worth it.
Santana had always been a stubborn and aggressive child. What she wanted she got, and what she couldn't get she fought tooth and nail to obtain.
An absent father and verbally abrasive grandmother had done nothing to soften those traits, cultivating instead an independent, ambitious streak that would serve to embellish her rough edges.
At thirteen, the year before she graduated from junior high to McKinley High School, one of her cousins had given her the best Christmas gift ever - words of advice from a graduating high school queen bee.
She remembered Shay's exact words to be "High school is a big deal but a bigger deal than high school? The first day of high school. It's the day you make it or break it. The first day of high school Santana, determines if you are a loser or a winner. And so far, in our family? No one has been a loser. I'm not betting on you being the first to break tradition. And you better not be or I'll scratch your eyes out, because I'm actually putting fifty bucks on this. Alex can eat shit on this one."
So with the wrong words turned into gold from the wrong role model, it was no wonder that when Santana entered high school, her window of life shrank drastically to include just herself and of course Brittany. (That had never been up for dispute. As far as she was concerned, it had and always would be BrittanyandSantana.)
A week before high school commenced, she consulted Google on the 'yes's and 'no's of McKinley High School. All the nerd clubs were 'no's. No surprises there. Band was almost okay. The female swim team was okay. Track made the 'yes' list and so did volleyball, but cheerleading? Cheerleading was the goldmine.
1. Cheerleaders were at the top of the school hierarchy.
2. The skirts were short.
3. The uniform was predominantly red and everyone knew red looked awesome on her skin.
4. Santana liked to win and the Cheerios had so far won four consecutive Regional and National Championships, and placed third at the International Championship in North Korea.
5. The daily insane trainings would allow her to spend most of her time with Brittany.
What was there not to love?
It hadn't been difficult to convince Brittany to join the cheerleading team with her. All she had to say were "flips", "somersaults", "cheer camp", and Britt had been sold. Come to think of it, perhaps she should have been worried that those were the keywords needed to sway Britt but truth be told, she was too busy feeling relieved that she didn't have to choose between Brittany and cheerleading.
So with that settled, she entered high school with the priority of making queen bee. Since perfect Quinn made that goal impossible to achieve, she settled for queen bitch, which she honestly was happy to be as long as Brittany was by her side.
Under Sue's tutelage, she grew to become more manipulative and vindictive. She learned what society viewed as superior and learned how to use the exact words to persuade or in most cases, threaten people to do things her way.
She was more or less happy with her status and state of life, or would be had she been prepared for the necessity of man candy. No one had told her the other major part of school life - boys. And honestly, it wouldn't have been that huge of a problem if Santana liked boys. Unfortunately for her, she quickly discovered that something was not quite right about her, in that she never developed that liking for boys she was supposed to. So she waited and waited and waited, and her feelings for Brittany grew and grew and grew until it finally hit her. But the realization had arrived a little too late for her to stop it - she liked girls the way she was supposed to like boys.
Again, man candy may not have been too much of a problem but unfortunately for her, being popular apparently meant you had to have an equally popular jock slung across your arm. Both Sue and Quinn had insisted on that.
Throughout kindergarten and junior high, it had just been her and Brittany. And it had been enough. She hadn't needed anyone else.
When they had accepted Quinn into their duo, it had been done grudgingly on Santana's part, not because she felt threatened by Miss Perfect but because unholy trinity was just different from dynamic duo. But when Brittany had joyously introduced Quinn to Santana on the first day of cheer camp, there was no way she could extinguish that spark in Britt's eyes by saying no.
Sure, she had eventually befriended Quinn, even sincerely enjoyed her company since Miss Perfect's resume also included "expert in witty banter and condescending insults", two things that never came naturally to Brittany. But if Brittany was her angel, then Quinn was her devil counterpart.
Guileless Brittany made it possible for her to be herself, to be whoever she wanted to be, encouraged it even when she felt that she had to conform. Popularity was secondary; being true to yourself was what was fundamental.
Quinn on the other hand, was the exact opposite. She was devious and though Santana hated to admit it, more manipulative than Santana could ever hope to be. She dangled boys on her fingers and controlled the school population with an arch of her perfect brow and a snap of her manicured fingers, all while maintaining a perfect 4.0 GPA and her spot at the top of the Cheerios pyramid both figuratively and literally. It was disgusting and what disgusted Santana more was that she came to realize that when it came to Quinn, it was as difficult to say no to her as it was to Brittany, but for all the wrong reasons.
So when Quinn decided she would date Finn, Santana would date Puck and Brittany would date Mike, she said yes. When Quinn decided that the unholy trinity would join her ridiculous Celibacy Club, she said yes. When Quinn said she spent way too much time with Brittany and she should make some time for Puck, she said yes. Even though every inch of her screamed no.
No, she did not want to date Puck; she definitely did not want Brittany to date Mike. No, she did not believe in being celibate till marriage, not when she could not marry Britt. No, she did not want to make time for Puck – did he open his blabbering mouth to complain?
Yes, she wanted to date Brittany. Yes, she wanted to do all sorts of dirty and unchaste things to and with Brittany. But everything screamed that it was wrong and abnormal and unacceptable, especially Quinn who went to church promptly at 9am every Sunday without fail. She wanted to be with Brittany but she was so afraid of the talks and the looks and she was so scared all the time of people knowing, especially Brittany. Brittany could never find out or she would lose her.
Perhaps, it wouldn't have been so bad if she didn't have to date Puck. Perhaps then, she didn't have to say yes so much when she meant no, and no when she meant yes. But over the course of the year, she had started living a double life – one in her head and one in reality, and so often, she mixed it up and feared that people would see through her slip-ups. Whoever said "practice makes perfect" was an idiot. So she snapped and bitched and clawed and bit at any threat.
At the end of her first year, Shay got her fifty bucks. But on top of being popular by the end of her first year, Santana also found herself to be exhausted and furious all the time.
Everything was so fucked up. The world was fucked up. The school was fucked up. Her parents were fucked up. And nobody would understand, not even Brittany.
Brittany was brave and had an indestructible bubble but for all her bravado and her acidic tongue, Santana had never left that scared, little, insecure girl behind.
For the first time in her life since meeting Brittany, Santana felt the hole in her heart make its presence known once again. It was as if her heart was saying to her, "This is what you get for baring your soul. This is what you get for leaving me open and vulnerable. You left me alone to wallow in my pain so now, I'm welcoming you back to my world with a hundred times the ache."
You see, the thing about patching a hole is that you have to be conscientious about it. You have to fill up the hole then seal it up. But what Santana had done was to cover the cavity without actually fixing the root of the problem. She had simply laid a canvas over such that if you had stepped over it unknowingly, you would still have fallen in.
When she was with Brittany, she was whole because she saw herself through Brittany's eyes but with anyone else, she was a broken, lost girl, insecure and unable to love herself because of her imperfections.
Similarly, the thing about heartache was this: No matter how long it has disappeared, you would never mistake heartache for anything else except for what it was if you don't fix it right. And having experienced happiness, Santana could not feel heartache as anything less than heartbreak.
So feeling that much pain, Santana reacted the only way she knew how. She lashed out at everyone and anyone, and pushed away any care or concern she received, even Brittany.
It was only when she had lost the best thing that had ever happened to her that she even realised what she was doing.
Indigo had always been Santana's least favourite colour in the rainbow, like what the fuck sort of colour was it even. It was bluish-purple, purplish-blue who the hell knew? But the point was because indigo couldn't decide if it wanted to be purple or blue, it got people so confused. And based on personal experience, when people got confused, they became angry. That was why Brittany almost never got mad and why Santana was always mad.
Okay no scratch that, Santana was angry because indigo was placed right smack in the middle of blue and violet. If it had been positioned in between say green and yellow, nobody would give two hoots about whether indigo was more blue or more violet. But because of its strategic location between its colour brothers, it received all the unnecessary attention.
"Nobody really cares about that sort of thing Santana."
"Really Brittany? Because we just walked past Mercedes and Kurt in the middle of a very heated debate about whether peach was more orange or pink."
"That's because orange goes better with green. People only care if it affects like their wardrobe or something, or if there's a worm on the orange because it's green. Now, can you tell me where my Spanish class is again? I forgot if you said left or right."
Okay, scratch what she had said earlier too. Time to make an amendment - Brittany could get confused. Sometime, she couldn't differentiate between her left from her right. Other times, she mistook dolphins for sharks. But she never was confused about stuff like whether or not she liked girls or boys, or if it was okay to like girls or boys. In Britt's case, she liked both girls and boys. But again, that wasn't the point. The point was that Brittany was never confused about the important things (like when Santana had said "I'm like a lizard. I need something warm beneath me or else I can't digest my food," Brittany knew that what she really meant was "Can we please not talk about what's going on between us? You know I hate lizards and if we talk about this, I'm going to hurl.") Brittany was brilliant that way; she was only confused when it came to the irrelevant things in life.
Santana liked to think that Brittany sometimes spoke funny because she spent all her time and energy thinking only about issues that were meaningful and paramount in her life. But people didn't get this, and thought that Brittany was stupid and dumb. That always riled her up because she knew how smart her best friend could be; Britt always knew exactly what was going on, long before Santana could figure it out herself. For example, she spent most of her freshman year trying to hide her feelings from Brittany but she had known all the time. Brittany had just been letting Santana work things out at her own pace, only stepping in when Santana had gotten physically sick from all the worrying. And in sophomore year, Brittany had known all the while that Santana was a lesbian and was just waiting for her to admit it to herself. So there were a lot of things that Brittany knew but didn't say.
Just because the other kids couldn't get Brittany didn't make her stupid or any less smart. It just made her different, unique, special and everything right in the world. That was why whenever the other idiots did or said anything that would make Brittany feel small, she would not hesitate to go all Lima Heights Adjacent on them, because they were wrong and they had no right to think they were better than her girl.
No, not her girl but Brittany. Just Brittany because Brittany was not Santana's girl, despite how much Santana wanted her to be. Only that was her fault.
Santana knew she had hurt Brittany in ways she had sworn never to do. The same girl she had promised to keep happy was the one person she had took for granted and took advantage of. She was a liar, a cheat and a hypocrite so now, all she could do was wait.
She had been angry at first, when Brittany had chosen Artie over her. She had felt spurned and scorned. But what had hurt the most was that she had been rejected by the only person she had bore her heart to and whom she loved with her entire being. She had never felt so alone as she had in that one moment.
When Brittany chose Artie, the cut made was so deep and so wide that Santana doubted it would ever heal. It was a tangible pain, so penetrating that her muscles throbbed and her bones ached, and her whole body became so heavy she could barely move.
Since young, Santana had always been a scab-picker. It was a thing she used to do out of wonder - how fascinating it was to see her knee whole again after scraping away the brown scab. But as she grew older, it became an act she did out of habit. And since young, it had always been Brittany who would gently chide her or push her fussy hands off of her scab.
It would either be "Don't do that. It'll scar," or "If you keep picking at it, it's not going to heal all the way," or just simply, "Santana." And whatever Brittany said, she would stop because it was Brittany, who did or said everything out of love.
So, had Brittany not been in her life at five, she would have eventually moved past the bitterness of solitude and resolved that loneliness be her companion. But because life had blessed her with a gift as a child, it was only now that the crushing weight of what she had avoided for more than a decade returned with twice as much ferocity.
If she thought she had been lonely at five, what she experienced at seventeen would have been enough for her five-year-old self to recede into a ball and want to regress into a fetus, where no worry, pain or heartache existed. But seeing that she had already lived out about a fifth of her life, such regression now would be a waste.
Instead she spent most of her time pondering the what ifs, her regrets and her mistakes, and the result of her spinning brain cogs? Brittany had never been her first choice; she had always been put on the backburner because Santana knew that no matter what happened, she would always be able to run to Brittany's arms where it was home. And a home would never lock its loved ones out. Until now. Because Santana had not cared for her home; she had let the locks rust out of careless indifference and now her key no longer fit.
She had let status, popularity and social expectations get to her head. Superficial and ironic, considering that she hadn't much wanted anything to do with the majority of her peers.
But was it wrong to want to keep Brittany safe? Was it wrong to want to fit in for once in her life, to be able to love correctly without repercussions or condemnation? And god help her, she had tried her damn best but lost everything that mattered. It seemed that she always lost whatever she cared for the most no matter how hard she worked for it - her parents' attention, her top spot in the pyramid, her cheerleading captaincy, the Glee club's trust, and now Brittany.
She was torn in all directions; she could see no way out of the maze. It was like how back in sophomore year, she had been forced to choose between Cheerios and New Directions. She loved them both, wanted to be loyal to them both but with Sue and Quinn dictating, it had been so, so difficult. But at least then, she had Brittany with her to weather the angry tides from both factions.
But now, if she chose Brittany, she would risk being disowned by her parents and if she didn't, she would lose what she loved most in life.
The only thing she was certain of was that she didn't have the right to be mad at Brittany so she had apologised and they had made up. It would have been great if making out had been part of the patch up, but she didn't want to complicate things further. Right now, she was just so damn grateful to have Brittany back in her life. How her girl could be so forgiving, she could never fathom but she would try to be the same kind of person that Brittany was because she knew that would make not-her-girl happy. Not her girl. Definitely not, not when Santana was constantly privy to Brittany smooching Artie in the corridor.
At those moments, she had to force her eyes shut and turn the opposite direction so she wouldn't accidentally projectile vomit all over them or release Snix to push Artie down the stairs. She had after all already admitted to having rage issues but she was sure even Brittany would be unable to tolerate her if she acted on those impulses. She could not and would not not have Britt in her life.
If that meant having to swallow her pride and the lump in her throat each time she saw the pair together, then she would do it.
So when Brittany came running to her for comfort because Artie had called her stupid, she wanted to castrate him and stuff his balls in his mouth for hurting her best friend.
Of course, that turned out to be the best thing in the world that could happen to her because it didn't take long for Brittany to become her girl. (She made sure to ask this time.)
And that was when Santana realized Indigo was indigo. There was nothing to be confused about. It was not blue and it was not violet. It was a color of its own and if it had tried to be blue or violet, the rainbow would have been short of a very important color.
Besides, people always remembered indigo as one of the colours in the rainbow because it had such a unique name and was an even lovelier shade. In any case, Santana realised that people didn't actually give a shit about whether indigo was more blue or more violet. As usual, Brittany had been right all along.
If someone had asked Santana what her dream was at five, she would have answered without hesitation, "To reach the end of the rainbow."
If the same person had asked her why she wanted to reach the end of the rainbow, she would not have been able to give an answer.
Having passed twenty-seven summers now, if someone had asked her the same question in her tiny but comfortable home, she would have unconsciously looked over to her wife, smiled and shrugged bashfully, "I don't really have one. I've gotten what I've wanted."
And if the person was sharp enough, he would be able to discern that the "what" used was really a singular. Santana wanted Brittany and she got her.
They may not have been rich. They may not have had a car or a large house to live in but they were happy together.
And as far as Santana was concerned, that meant that she had already caught her rainbow.
END.