Author's Note: It's a sequel, y'all. And it's sap-tastic. Which is totally not like me at all, really, but it just happened... it follows (As Long As There Are) Stars Above You; you don't have to have read that to make sense of this, though. But you definitely should. Just because... I said so. And I'm always right, right? RIGHT.
(There are times when you're not really sure if anything you're doing is a good idea, when you sink down into the darker moments of self-doubt and depreciation, when you consider every heart you've broken and friend you've disappointed and wonder if you deserve everything you have.)
When she speaks your name, voice echoing softly and words pressing even softer into your skin, it's reverential and powerful and so packed with understanding and trust and empathy that it feels like a fist to the stomach. She looks at you with shadowy eyes that brim with the guilt of a child she never knew and a family that disowned her, wide and unblinking with trust overwhelming the guilt, and murmurs your name so quietly that the three syllables slam through your own doubt and disgust and disappointment, and nothing else matters. Your focus narrows and you fall into a dream-like feeling where nothing is tangible except for the feeling of her fingers tangled with yours, her breath skittering across your shoulder, her weight pressed against your side. She speaks your name and no matter how far you've spiraled away into your depression, the sound of your name floating on her voice shoves through and around and past the walls you built as a child, dismantling them one by one until it's just the two of you, side by side and together.
You want to give her the world. A part of you wants to vomit at how sickening a sentiment it is, but it's true. Every time you look at her and realize everything she lost; every time she wakes up next to you with tears tracking silently down her cheeks after a dream of the daughter who would never know her; every time she falls silent and doesn't know you're watching, when she's remembering her family and the distaste in her father's eyes when he threw her out; every time she murmurs your name the same way she murmurs her every prayer and psalm, you want to cram the entire world into a shoebox and offer it to her on a pedestal to do with as she pleases.
You've been in love with her for as long as you can remember, but there was never a sense of urgency until she kissed you that first time, standing in your room one summer evening and completely unexpectedly. The control you'd been so unconsciously meticulous in holding onto shattered with one brief press of her lips to yours, and since that minute you've felt like you're tripping, tumbling, falling uncontrollably with no ground in sight. Nothing else makes any sense to you aside from the feel of her skin under your fingertips, your name floating on her voice, her eyes locking with yours; everything feels like a dream that you're desperate to hold onto, and half of you is waiting constantly for the alarm clock to yank you away.
This is not you. You've never been a romantic, always far too ingrained in pragmatism and the determination for achievement that never left room for anything so trivial as emotion. She isn't new in your life, but suddenly everything is upside down and you're a sappy fool who would lay down in a puddle so she wouldn't have to walk through it if she didn't want to. You still scowl and glower and growl at everyone, but suddenly she's the only person in the entire town that no one seems to have the courage to speak against, for fear of your wrath. You still rule your peers with a sneer and the threat of a fist, but you let yourself be calmed by her whispering your name and putting a soft hand on your shoulder. You feel like a perpetual child, constantly uncertain of what to do, what to say, how to act without her at your side, as if you need her fingers wound together with yours for you to be able to make sense of the world.
It feels like everything about the world has shifted irreparably, but you know that it's really just you. The urgency, the fear, the incessant need for some tiny form of contact at all times; the only thing that's changed in the world is you and her becoming Quinn-and-Santana, but it feels like that one tiny change has turned the entire universe on its axis.
Like the lovesick fool you've become, you turn down a scholarship to Harvard in favor of a scholarship to Columbia so the two of you can avoid any distance more than a five minute walk. Away from the oppressing weight of Lima and your parents' financial support and the echoing disappointment of her family and their disgust, you walk with her around campus with one arm wrapped around her waist, your hand tucked casually into the pocket of her jeans, and glare at anyone who dares offer her a flirtatious smile or a scowl. You argue about who picks up the tab on dates and spend long nights sprawled across her bed, wrapped around her protectively from behind as the two of you take in a movie you've both seen ten times already. Even after six years, you still fight the urge to carry her over every puddle in her path—you tried, once, and she yelped and clutched painfully around your neck in surprise and shouted in your ear that you were ridiculous and that she was taller and looked like an imbecile in your arms. The universe still seems perpetually off-kilter, as if you're still stuck in a dream because nothing else could explain how you came home to her every night and woke up every morning with her sprawled half on top of you. You still scowl and glower and growl, ruling your peers and colleagues with a sneer and the threat of a figurative fist to the face, and she remains the only one who can reign in your anger, with no more than three quiet syllables and a hand on your arm.
She still murmurs your name, softly and reverently, like a prayer meant only for God to hear, her voice pressing gently to your skin and burning hot enough that you're certain it's going to leave a scar. You cling to her when she sleeps, fingers tangled in her hair and pressing desperately between the notches of her spine, constantly terrified that if she were to disappear you would be a lost infant with no possibility of functioning alone.
It's been six years, and everything feels so upside down and wrong that it has to be perfectly right. You yawn sleepily, fingers tightening momentarily around hers, and let yourself lay down with your head in her lap. She stays silent, her focus glued to the movie playing on the television in the tiny apartment the two of you moved into just two weeks ago; her free hand pulls a blanket down over your tired form and strokes your hair back, fingers combing through it absently. You yawn once more and burrow down under the blanket, uncharacteristically adorable and vulnerable in your actions, and you smile sleepily when you feel her lean down to press a soft kiss to your temple.
You shift momentarily to press a kiss to her palm before dropping your head down once more and finally succumbing to sleep. Lights and colors splash across the dark room from the television, and you hear her mumble your name quietly. Love you, S. It slides over you comfortingly, and you drift off to sleep peacefully.