Title: Show Me Where My Dreams Dwell
Pairing: Santana/Brittany
Rating: G
Summary: Future / Babyfic.
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: Glee is not mine. Nor is the Dawes song ("Nothing is Wrong") that I stole (and slightly modified) for title.
Author's Note: I have two seminar papers due in the next three days which are horrifically unfinished. So instead of doing that, I wrote fanfic. Apparently that's going to be a thing now.
~*~
"Lopez, your baby doesn't cry. It's unnatural."
"What would you know, Juno?" Santana narrowed her eyes at the woman sitting across the small café table, "Give me back my baby before you taint her. I don't need her coming home with pink hair and smelling of cigarettes."
Quinn ignored her, and continued to rattle a slobbery plush duck at the gurgling girl in her arms.
"It's nice to know that parenthood hasn't changed you in the slightest, Santana." Rachel Berry distributed the trio of drinks and sat down between the two women. Santana held her patented glare for a few beats longer, and then let it drop, picking up the steaming latte in front of her, letting the large mug hide the smile as she murmured an amused "whatever" before taking a sip.
It's totally true though. Abigail doesn't cry often. (In the baby-lottery, she and Brittany clearly came home with a winner—their kid is awesome.) She does cry, usually when she needs a change or a bottle, but for the most part, her kid is pretty easy to please. Hell, her kid is pretty easy in general. In comparison—both she and Brittany have nieces and nephews. They know enough. Santana will never forget the first time she held her oldest nephew, about the age that Abigail was now. He'd been born on base in Germany, and it was the first time her brother and his family had been able to secure leave to come back to the States. That kid screamed for twenty minutes straight after being put into her arms. He turned red, like some demon; his whole body actually started to shake. It took her father ten minutes to convince her that they didn't need holy water and a priest, but that the kid just needed some time to get adjusted to all the new faces and voices. Needless to say, she turned the position of godmother down; she didn't need responsibility for that demon-spawn on her soul. She had enough on her plate already. The kid was ten now and still Santana felt a cold shiver down her spine and had to tamp down the urge to cross herself whenever she saw him. So, she knew exactly what the past few months could have been like.
It could have been hell.
Still, it hasn't been a cake walk as she and Brittany have gotten used to their two-person / one- cat household becoming a two-mommy / one-baby / one-kitty household. Of all of them, honestly, the kid has probably had the easiest time of it all. And once Snapple got used to sharing laps and not being allowed in the crib (there was that incident that first week home, when Santana was putting Abigail back in her bassinet after a mid-night feeding and found the cat already there, snoozing away) he adjusted without further incident. In fact, once Santana can convince Brittany that "cat" is going to be easier to say than "kitty," the baby/cat relationship should be rock solid. (Poor Snapple. Bad enough he's named after a tea and not something cooler—at least something with alcohol—but now he's the kitty. The indignity of it almost makes Santana feel sorry for him. Almost.)
There have been hiccups along the way. Santana would call them something else but Brittany's been on her case to watch her language now that it's clear that Abigail is hearing them and listening to what's going on around her. (She totally recognizes her own name when they say it now, and she knows their voices too. And Santana would swear that the kid's eyes light up when she says "bottle" on the way to the kitchen for a late-night feeding. The damn cat certainly isn't that smart, that's for sure.)
There was Abigail's first cold, complete with a frighteningly high fever and then a race to the nearest emergency room. (Whatever. A fever over 100 for a tiny baby is terrifying. The kid could have been dying. There was definitely cause for making a scene in the waiting room, no matter what Brittany says.)
And then there was the indignity of people always wanting to stop over and see the baby. Who would just, like babies do, lay there. Santana still didn't really understand that one. If it's your kid, yeah, then watching junior just lay there is going to be fascinating. But someone else's kid? Not so much. At least that's tapered off now that the novelty of Abigail has worn down a bit. Now they just want to see pictures and hear if she's done anything new. Santana's had to start carrying around a bunch of pictures in her bag to ward off the mob of women at work. (It's always women.) But since her kid is clearly more awesome than any these women have seen before—why else would they keep coming back?—she's happy to keep a supply of "Abigail did this" stories on hand as well. It's come in handy too; just last week she's pretty sure that an Abigail story told in the elevator on the way to the courtroom inadvertently got her in favor with the presiding judge in her case.
The kid comes in handy sometimes.
But the hardest part, Santana is willing to admit (in private, to herself), has been learning how to navigate this new role. She doesn't want to change. She's happy with who she is. She's a badass, and she knows it. So trying to figure out how to be both badass-Santana and Abigail's mama (Brittany gets "mommy," it was decided) has been rough.
She's so used to thinking only in terms of Brittany and herself (it's Brittany's cat, Brittany can take care of the thing) that having to suddenly think in terms of three is proving difficult at times. Like earlier this week when Brittany had an early rehearsal and Santana was in charge of getting Abigail to the sitter in the morning. When morning came around, Santana had overslept, and had to rush through her morning schedule, needing to be out the door in less than twenty minutes. She was halfway down the hall, briefcase and coffee in hand, before she remembered Abigail at all. Nothing happened, the kid was still deep asleep in her crib—probably why Santana was able to forget in the first place—but it was the terror that shook through her in the moment she realized what was wrong that Santana will never be able to forget. She ended up calling in sick, cancelling with the sitter, and spent the day snuggling with her daughter. Brittany had been pleasantly surprised to find them at home later that afternoon, and they spent the rest of the day enjoying some unexpected free time with Abigail. It wasn't until long after dark, in bed and wrapped up in Brittany's arms, that Santana could speak of what had happened. And even then her voice had wavered.
It's Brittany—it's always Brittany—who tells her what she needs to hear: that she doesn't need to change who she is; that bringing Abigail into their lives hasn't changed who she is. Some things have to change, like the swearing around the baby and the forgetting the baby (that one was said with a gentle kiss to her nose to ward off the feeling of guilt that was rising again). And if she could be nicer to the kitty, and not teach the baby to pull the poor thing's tail... ("Not much luck there," Santana snickered into Brittany's hair). But Santana's strength and loyalty and heart—all things which are essential parts of making a badass, of course—these things won't change, these are the things that make Santana who she is, more than anything else.
In the end it's Brittany who gives her the courage to try to be everything.
Still, it's nice to hear that you're still the same old you from the people who've known you the longest. Berry's comment rings pleasantly in her ears the rest of the afternoon, through coffee and conversation and teasing with old friends, through a quick run to the grocery store where she and Abigail pick up the essentials, and even through bath-time, which can be fun but is always messy. The pleased look on her face must still be there by the time Brittany gets home from a rehearsal that went long over its expected finish time.
"How was coffee with Quinn and Rachel," Brittany quietly asks as Santana reheats dinner for her. Abigail's head is nodding where she's tucked into the crook of Brittany's arm, and she'll be asleep any second.
Santana fills her in, leaving nothing out.
"See, babe," Brittany says, lowering her head to sniff at the fresh-baby scent their daughter always has after bath-time, "you're still the same old Santana Lopez. My badass. Everybody sees it. You haven't changed, you've just … you're just more now, that's all. You're a badass and a mom. You could probably still make Finn cry if you wanted to. Your badassery is legendary."
Santana is pretty sure that the grin Brittany is sporting mirrors the one on her own face as she turns to put the warm plate down on the table. She moves to take the sleeping baby from the woman she loves, pausing for a moment to rest their foreheads together.
"Hey, I'm going to put the kid to bed. How about you finish up dinner and then we'll meet in the bedroom and I'll show you exactly how legendary my ass is."
"It's a plan," the blonde says, turning back to her plate with gusto. "Go put her down. I'll see you in ten."
Six hours and one screaming infant later, Brittany was pacing the living room floor, struggling to calm a shrieking Abigail down, while Santana, at her wits end was googling things like "baby exorcism" and "screaming + baby + drool + help."
Abigail had woken them up less than an hour after they'd finally turned off the lights for the night. They'd gotten their alone time in, sure, and Santana had reminded Brittany exactly why her badassery was legendary, but now they'd been wrangling an out-of-sorts infant for hours now. They were exhausted and running out of ideas.
Brittany gave up on pacing, and collapsed onto the couch next to Santana, her hand never breaking the pattern of gentle circles she was rubbing on their little girl's back until Santana reached out her arms to take over for the time being.
"Remember when we first brought Abs home, San? And how I thought something was wrong with her because she didn't cry?"
"Mmmm," Santana replied, moving her hand up to Abigail's forehead yet again. "Still doesn't have much of a fever. Google's probably right, she's probably just teething."
"I miss those days," Brittany said as she leaned into Santana's shoulder as Santana lay Abigail down, belly first, on her thighs, keeping one hand gently on the baby's back. They sat for a few minutes before Santana realized the crying didn't seem as loud as it had. The change was barely perceptible, but she thought Abigail was tapering down a bit again. Maybe this was working, maybe they could all catch a quick nap on the couch.
"Me too, Britt."
They sat in (relative) silence for a few minutes, Abigail's cries slowly getting quieter and Brittany leaning heavier as sleep tugged at her. Santana let her eyes close and tried to get her tired mind to shut down for a bit, but something was swirling there pulling at her thoughts. She could feel the tendrils of sleep in the corners of her mind getting stronger and stronger until the illusive thought finally caught hold.
Her body tensed as her mind jolted into full awareness. Startled by the sudden movements, Abigail's cries began to quickly gain power again.
"Goddamn Fabray jinxed us."