A/N: I found this fourth season really tiring, being a Brittana fan, but thanks to feelings that Brittana gave to me over the years, even though I am a little grown, despite everything, despite the unequal treatment, despite the just mentioned moments of a relationship that boiled underground like glowing lava rather than explode in the visibility of episodes, despite there was more skin and more heart and more voice in our writers' pages rather than in scripts' sheets, despite injuries and the uncertainty, despite the inability to understand what's happening and why, I still firmly believe in this story and I believe that the power of a bond goes beyond and remains like a tattoo in all who have been involved, who have enjoyed and suffered. That's why I decided to take all the bad things that have been thrown at us and make them poetry. I hope to be able to express what I want to tell you even if my language is Italian and for that I apologize for the whole mistakes you'll find in the fic.

The story takes place in present day, where the tv characters are all adults and the history we know through the show, the time of the High School, took place 15 years earlier.

THE JOURNEY

CHAPTER 1

Rachel tried not to make any noise, being very careful to push the handle slowly because it did not produce any sound or strange squeaking. She parted the door and stuck her head inside the room. The curtains were closed and the light of day outside was not yet strong enough to penetrate annoying interrupting the sleep of the morning. But the room was dimly lit by the nightlight that came from Pepe's belly, the penguin doll close in Anna's arms. Rachel opened the door and walked in and immediately closed it behind her to let the waking house's sounds and voices out of the room.

Anna didn't like at all be awakened before the sleep slipped away on its own, especially she didn't like that her dreams were interrupted abruptly and the real life swooped down on her like a summer rain; every time this happened she wore the whole morning a long pout all around her face and a mixed expression of anger and frustration with half-closed eyelids over her dark eyes. And Rachel didn't want that the sad face of the child accompanied their last moments together before "The journey". "The journey" ...everyone had started to call it that way... Rachel smiled sadly to herself as she approached Anna's bed. Huddled under the covers, her face illuminated by the nightlight, she seemed so little. Anna was a clever and smart child and when she spoke she thundered with her considerations so that no one had ever ventured into talk to her with that awkward and tiny language with whom normally people talk to children. Anna was direct and honest and she didn't like lies or beating around the bush. Anna wanted real answers when she asked questions. And she realized immediately if any of the adults tried to sweeten the pill. It had happened for the disease too.

But when she didn't speak and especially when she slept, she went back to be that minute five years old wren, with round cheeks and black hair and the beholders could not help but want to hug her and cover her with kisses. Or at least that was how Rachel felt. She knelt next to the edge of the bed and with one hand she moved Anna's hair that covered her cheek. Anna wrinkled her nose in her sleep. Rachel put her mouth to the child's ear and called:

"Hey chestnut..."

Her words were a breath and if her lips weren't so close to the girl's ear Anna would never have heard 'em. But she heard instead and this time she wrinkled both nose and lips and Rachel knew it wasn't a good sign so she added whispering this time:

"Papi is churning out muffins..."

Yes, that was how they decided to buy her, with a batch of chocolate muffins; they had already planned out all the day before because they knew she would never put a grudge if they offered her a warm muffin. She smiled but didn't open her eyes. Rachel breathed a sigh of relief, the mission: Do not pout Anna! was successfully accomplished.

Rachel went to Anna's cheek and kissed her lightly.

"I know you're awake. I can feel your belly screaming 'Muffin! Muffin!' "

Anna let out a chuckle and then pulled out both arms from under the covers, dropping the penguin Pepe to the ground, and reached for Rachel closing her tiny arms behind the woman's neck and pulling her. Rachel abandoned herself completely to the child's hug and buried her face in the pillow, over Anna's shoulders where her soft and black hair were scattered, breathing in her scent. Rachel's eyes filled with tears, she really was in danger of losing her forever?

"Good morning aunt Rach!"

She muttered with a tickly voice and Rachel drove away the thoughts that just climbed to her mind trying to send back the tears. She sniffed and strayed from the pillow until she faced Anna and looked straight in her eyes.

"Good morning to you chestnut...ready for breakfast?"

"Twins are already awake?"

"Not yet, if you want we can go to wake them up, so we can have breakfast all together!"

Anna didn't answer, but a huge smile appeared and cut in half her face and then she sat helping herself with her arms. Rachel held her taking her behind her back. "Want me to take you?"

"No, I can do by myself."

Rachel lifted the covers and helped Anna to get out of bed and looked at her: she was walking slowly to the door, being careful not to increase the pace and she was really excited because she already had in mind a couple of jokes to do to her brothers for wake them up, but she knew that her heart beat faster when she woke up and she didn't want let it run even more. Anna learned soon to know her body and to listen to it and she didn't ask to it more that it could give. She was a conscious child and this was really helpful to a bunch of inexperienced adults who had found themselves fighting a silent and unexpected enemy.

"Aren't you coming?" Anna asked.

"Sure chestnut, I'm behind you!" Rachel finally got up from the bed and followed Anna to the twins' bedroom's door.

Gregory and Elliot, unlike Anna, had to be woken up every morning because, being two great sleepers, they would stay in bed forever if they could. Rachel went to wake them up every morning and when Anna was at home, it was like a ritual: Rachel woke up Anna first and together they went to wake the twins who slept rigorously in the same bed, Rachel tried since they were born three years before to let them sleep apart, but she had never been able to. When they were like four month old, they never stopped cry: when she nursed them one at a time, when she cleared them and above all when she put them to sleep, never, they never stopped cry, 'till the day that she realized that by bringing near the two cots, they magically stopped crying. And now every night Rachel put them each in his bed and in the morning she always found them together in the same bed. They were eerily the same, sometimes Anna mistook them, especially when it was long time since she saw them. They had straight brown hair cut in a bob that was never still, two heavy eyebrows of the same color and light brown eyes. Their mouths were small and fleshy and their faces were round and white. The only thing that really distinguished them was the cutting of the eyes, Gregory's one was small and narrow and he had a Finn's like expression, while Elliot's eyes were rounder and sweet.

Now that it was already three days she was at papi's home she knew that Elliot was the one on the right and Gregory was the one on the left.

"Don't be too cruel babe..." Rachel begged her, but Anna was already looking at the two little bodies with a sly look ready to attack. She breathed a huge breath filling her lungs and shouted in the direction of the children!

"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake!"

Rachel covered her ears!

"Anna!" She scolded her while the 'a' still burst into the room, "You're waking the whole neighborhood!"

Anna started laughing leaning a hand over her beating heart and breathing heavily while the children who heard the scream, stood up to sit but still kept squinting ready to slip back into sleep.

Even Rachel laughed to see her wobbly and not yet fully awake children and in that moment Finn filled the room with an expression that hovered between amusement and concern.

"Anna you must stop doing that!" He scolded her but then he saw his children, and all five started to laugh in unison. Rachel, still laughing, threw herself on the bed and her little children four arms grappled her, as Anna did before, while she tickled them. Rachel didn't believe there could be more beautiful feeling than those arms clinging to her neck. When children hug they do it with strength and conviction, their soft meat and their scented skin shake you crushing and gluing their little bodies to yours enough to take your breath away.

Finn crouched next to Anna and took her in his arms, making their way out of the bedroom speaking to her.

"Would you please do me the great favor to wash your face and put on 'the journey' dress that is on your bedroom's chair?"

"But I'm hungry, I want breakfast first!"

Anna pulled back out her lower lip and Rachel, who was watching them: "That's Finn! Did you see it? My every effort to make the child happy and bubbly as usual instead of wearing that sad look and that huge manifestation of disappointment has been shattered for your primal fear of upsetting her mother in some way. Stretch your nerves and bring your daughter to eat breakfast!"

"Come on papi!" And then she smiled, raising her eyebrows and Finn knew that, with that look, Anna would make him do anything in the world, as stupid or senseless. He rolled his eyes. "Ok!"

"The male gender...! A pair of sweet eyes and they are already slaves!"

Anna giggled because she knew that what Rachel just said was the real true.

"I wanna eat too!" Elliot almost shouted into his mother's ear.

"Ok quail egg, anything you want!"

"Me too!" Gregory echoed.

"Ok plum anything you want too!"

"Ah, women, a request by a son and they are already slaves!" Finn mimicked his wife's words while Anna laughed again because his father was right too.

"Anna I eat everything!" Elliot screamed and jumped from his mother's arms all the way down from the bed and ran to the door and then down through the hall and then, when he came to the stairs, he stopped clinging to the railing and helping down one step at a time. It was in that moment that all the others took advantage to reach him.

"Don't count on it midget! Come on papi hurry up!"

Anna screamed still in Finn's arms.

"He's right! Elli eats everything! And you nothing!" Gregory laughed in Rachel's arms and among laughter the five went down to the kitchen where the smell of hot chocolate muffins made Anna's belly grumble.

They breakfasted laughing, Anna's face was completely smeared with chocolate and Finn looked worried repeatedly checking his watch. It was twenty minutes to nine now and Finn's nervousness grew more and more: Anna was in her pajamas and had a dirty face from ear to ear!

"Oh Finn you're being ridiculous! Come on chestnut, let's go and get changed before father consume that watch with his eyes! And you Finn take care of the twins!"

Anna laughed and squeezed Rachel's hands who helped her to get out of the chair and together they walked upstairs. The twins meanwhile had gone somewhere in the house to play something that was definitely forbidden for them, which made it even more difficult the task Rachel had entrusted to her husband. Finn shrugged with a sigh and started to call his children.

"Aunt Rach, you know I could die?"

As they climbed the stairs Rachel heard those words coming from the girl's mouth and almost stumbled risking to fall behind and to take the child in her fall. She stopped turning to her without any word because she knew that Anna was right and she knew that whatever stupid answer she had given to Anna, she would not have accepted it. There was a moment of silence in which Rachel tried to find the right words to say, but couldn't find them and shook Anna's hand taking up the stairs, as she heard Finn's and her children's shouting. When they entered in her bedroom Anna spoke again. "I didn't want to make you sad!"

"Oh honey I'm not sad."

"Yes, you are." Anna's eyes slipped as blades in Rachel's and then sank into her throat and straight to the heart.

"What's after? I mean, if I were to die, what there would be for me, after?"

And Rachel dropped in bed and couldn't hold back the tears. They started to slip from her eyes without any control, as when the sun arrives at the end of the winter consuming the snow and loosening it in water that starts to flow silent and fearless.

Anna walked over to her and hugged her. "I can't ask mom, I know that she would be too hurt and even dad, if it hurts you too, I don't know who I can ask it to!"

Rachel felt that Anna was on the verge of tears and scared and resigned. In the last two years she had been in and out of hospitals so many times that now she could well face her disease, but death was a completely different kettle of fish.

Rachel's heart shook; why life was sometimes so cruel? Why that child had to suffer all this? Her mind tried to find comfort in remembering the first time she had held her: that moment she had become her chestnut, because she was tiny and wrapped in a brown blanket that warmed her entirely, leaving at the mercy of her adoring gaze only the little round and red face and the veiled and dark eyes and the parted lips... a chestnut. It had been only a few tens of minutes since she had come to the world, and a year of doubts and second thoughts and feelings of guilt and expectations and fears and illusions and revelations and arguments... but when she had looked at her for the first time she had known everything was worth it, she had known that the little girl who had nothing to do with her was becoming one of the most important things in her life and she had known that she loved her and that she would have loved her every moment. And now she was in her arms asking her what was after and Rachel would rather jump out of a plane at 10,000 feet high rather than having to hear and answer that question, but she forced herself and pushed her away from her embrace holding her tightly by her arms and with one hand removed her muffin crumbs off her face.

"You know, you can ask me anything and I don't know my chestnut, I don't know what will be after ... next ... well, there are people who believe that our souls will reincarnate in another body, which a bit scares me because who else could hold my soul, but my little perfect body? Not another body, another could not contain the energy that my soul radiates, can you imagine if I would reincarnate in a fat slimy contractor of Kansas?"

Rachel allowed a smile to appear on her lips and Anna mirror her.

"Then there are those who believe that ghosts remain close to their family to protect them and make their jokes every now and then! And how much I'd like to stay close to your mother and make fun of her for the rest of her life! Then there are those who believe that our souls go to heaven to sing with the angels, but poor angels, if I had to end up singing with them I would put them in the shade with my incredible vocal range and I'd steal them many of those solos that before or later they would be forced to kick me out of there!"

Rachel knew she wasn't responding to the question of the girl, but she didn't want her to be sad anymore, she wanted to make her laugh, and if the words were not enough, she began to tickle her sides until, amused by the words and tickling, Anna begged Rachel to stop.

When she calmed down Anna said: "I'm little, but I'm not stupid."

"Me too!" Rachel said back, snatching another laugh to Anna. "You know chestnut, you don't have to worry, many people will take care of you and will make sure that you'll be okay, and I really don't know what's after, maybe there is nothing. I imagine that everything is white and there's so much love and music, but I don't know, no one really knows. But I know what's here and I know that it takes a lot of strength and courage to stay here, and you need to pull them both out a lot more than you have now, to make sure of not having to worry about on what's after. Ok chestnut? "

Anna nodded and Rachel smiled. It took to her a good deal of courage to answer that. Anna smiled back.

"Now you have to change you, before mami arrives, otherwise she won't stop telling me I'm a bad mother and that I don't deserve to take care of you!" Anna laughed heartily.

"You and papi worry too much about mami... she loves you!"

"Yeah, well she really has a strange way of showing it!" And the two laughed as Rachel helped Anna to wash and dress, and meanwhile Finn struggled trying to get on top of his task and believing impossible to deal with the twins together for the morning toilet. The clock went off on 9 and someone rang the bell.

"This is mami!" Anna announced jumping for joy while Finn, who willingly gave up his deliveries to Rachel, finished tie her shoes. From the twins' bedroom Elliot came out running and screaming half-naked.

"I GO, I GO!" The boy rushed into the corridor again, stopping again at the top of the stairs and slowing its descent, followed by Finn and Anna who made fun of him like every holy time the woman stood at the door of Hudson-Berry's house. He arrived first at the door and then waited impatiently for his father to open it, hopping from one foot to the other and grinning excitedly. As soon as the door was opened and Elliot recognized the familiar waves of black hair that fell down soft to the shoulders of the woman turned back, he shouted:

"Santanaaaaaaaa!"

It was then that the woman turned looking straight down at the little screaming boy who ran grabbing her legs and she couldn't help but stretch her arms under his armpits and hold him letting the child's short arms, that much resembled Rachel, tighten her. But her eyes went down to Anna who was waving her and was giving the most beautiful smile she had ever seen. Santana smiled back, she knelt and waited for Anna to approach her and embrace her, and so she found herself trapped in the heat of the two little bodies and she knew that in a few moments they would start to fight, like any holy time, over who should cuddle the woman.

"Hey, I'm enough for both of you!" She exclaimed as a subtle whisper came from her daughter's lips pressed in her shoulders, a word Mami that tickled the sensitive skin between shoulders and neck and made her tremble with happiness and peace.

And then she waved at Finn who smiled back trying to rip Elliot, who had to finish dressing, from her arms. Elliot groaned but then let go of the grip and let his father take him away. Santana so picked up her daughter and together they entered in the house, closing the door behind them.

"Buenos dias mi hija!" ("Good morning my baby!")

"Hola mami ... ¿cómo has estado sin mí en estos días?" ("Hi mami… How have you been without me these days?")

Santana smiled and shook her head "... lo peor, mi vida! I missed you so much!" ("…the worst, my life! I missed you so much!") And they laughed together holding each other. Santana gave a blind eye to her right and saw the suitcases perfectly aligned: behind Finn's and in front Anna's. "They've done their homework..." Santana let it out and raised an eyebrow grinning to herself.

"No ser mala con ellos!" ("Don't be mean with them!")

Anna scolded pointing straight towards her nose. "No soy mala, pero me encanta mucho cuando hacen exactamente lo que les pregunto para evitar que me enfado!" ("I'm not mean but I really like it when they do exactly what I ask them to prevent me to get angry")

And then she opened her mouth to her daughter's pointing finger snapping its jaws as if she wanted to eat it, which made Anna retract her finger super quickly pressing her hand to her chest and stare opening her mouth in an "o" of surprise, before she started laughing and they laughed together and hugged and cuddled until Rachel showed taking the twins to hand and Elliot clung back to Santana's legs.

"No one can do without me, do you Berry?"

Rachel rolled her eyes and shook Santana in a tight hug. Then they looked into their eyes. "You have to go, otherwise you will be late!"

Santana's smile faded immediately and a shadow crossed her dark eyes, the ghost of "The journey" touched every corner of her body, in and outside, in an endless thrill and she knew that she could crack at that really moment but Rachel held her gaze because more than anything she wanted Santana remembered that she was not alone, that everyone was there with her to support and help and hold her hand no matter what was going to happen. Rachel told her all this with her eyes while Anna looked puzzled at the two women, but thinking that despite all she was a very lucky girl. Santana nodded.

"I know Rachel." And she got down her daughter and asked her to go get her jacket, while Finn reached the group and hurtled to hug Santana. "Everything's ok, see?"

"Ok Hudson, I grant you, great job this time!"

"Oh how nice you two! Try to stay in this mood for the next two months and everything will be fine!" Rachel said to them then they said their goodbyes. Anna looked at her family say goodbye as if it were the last time they saw each other. She knew she had caused a lot of grief to them all. Not that it was her fault, when one gets sick is not anyone's fault, but mami had stopped working for her and papi couldn't be on stage this year, Rachel and papi had had a fight and the twins wouldn't see their dad for... She didn't know how long. She wasn't afraid, not yet, she was accustomed to go to hospitals, the fact that the hospital was so far this time excited her more than scared. Rachel and Finn kissed for a long time until Santana spat some insult in which was contained the word "Finchel" and the word "disgusting" and Anna couldn't remember in which order because she was busy to scold her mother who as always tried to be the badass. Then Anna hugged Elliot and Gregory and Rachel, and then Rachel hugged Santana and Santana hugged Gregory and then Elliot threw himself weeping into Santana's arms because he didn't understand why she was already going away without his dose of cuddling and then Finn hugged his children and Anna hugged Rachel again and it was then that Santana looked up at the sky and rolled one "Stop immediately with all these hugs 'cause I'm turning into a hideous pink namby-pamby teddy bear!" and then Anna, Finn and Santana got into the car.

Santana sank into the passenger seat while Finn opened the trunk of Santana's car to load his luggage and Anna's trolley. "Where am I supposed to put my bags? You occupied the whole space with yours Lopez! What have you brought?"

"Good mood honey, good mood!" Rachel yelled from the door thinking that those two wouldn't have survived together for two months. Finn grunted something unintelligible and smiled to himself and to his wife, then jammed Anna's trolley in the trunk and placed his two suitcases in the back seat next to Anna, ensuring that the girl had put the seat belt.

Then he went to the guide, giving a last look to his family who greeted him vigorously with tears on their faces.

Santana sighed. Throughout the weekend, while her daughter was at Finn's, she tried to stay busy, there was a lot of things to do before leaving: passports, visas, permits, tickets, plane's and train's and coach's schedules, clean the house, call her parents, last deliveries at work, confirm their arrival at the hospital, but the thing that most of all allowed her to not think about "The journey" was the pack up, what the hell she was supposed to bring? She had not ever been away for two months. Yes, there has been college, and then when she has moved to New York, and then the new house after Anna's birth, but those were real moving, what should she bring for a two-month trip? What can happen in two months? She knew that she was going to spend most of the time in a hospital, and so most of the clothes should be comfortable and then what to bring, formal clothes? Evening dresses? Here again her mind did its best to not think about where they were going and why. At the end she had filled four suitcases full of all she could put inside and she did the same for her daughter's stuff. Once finished the flow of thoughts, her heart began to beat faster and a vertigo shook Santana's head and she closed her eyes feeling a retch rising from her stomach.

"Hey? Are you okay? " Finn asked, realizing the mood in which the woman had fallen at his side.

Santana's eyes widened and then narrowed them angry. "No, Hudson, nothing's okay or maybe you didn't realize it yet?"

"Mami! ¿Estais peleando?" ("Mami, are you fighting?") Anna yelled from the back seat and Finn and Santana spoke simultaneously to their daughter, Finn muttering that they shouldn't speak Spanish in his presence, Santana reassuring her that they weren't arguing.

"I'm sorry ..." Santana apologized.

"Hey ..." Echoed Finn, but before both of them were allowed to go back to the millions thoughts that were in their head, Anna asked them to sing and they spent the drive to the airport singing childish songs. Santana let the music and their voices to reassure her a bit, and calm her down at least for the moment. She had promised herself, she had sworn herself that she wouldn't collapse, not yet, not before the surgery and not in front of Anna. Afterward she didn't know, she knew nothing about afterwards, like Anna, the uncertainty of afterwards was devouring her. Parents should make plans for their children, have expectations, imagine their future and then be disappointed and glad that they have failed their expectations and have lived their own lives. It had been so for her in the first four years of Anna's life, and then the disease arrived and also treatments and hospitals and the knowledge that without the surgery Anna risked a lot. And the knowledge that open heart surgery was as risky. So Santana has stopped making plans and that surgery had become the point of arrival for their lives. After? The afterwards didn't exist, there was not even a vacuum to fill, there was the absence of all, there was nothing like when you're faced with something so scary and you hold your breath to stop time and don't let it and fear overwhelm you, so she had been holding her breath for almost two years and didn't even want to let be comforted by the hope that everything was going well and without complications. The only thing she knew was that damn surgery. After, they all might have begun to breathe again.