A/N: So I just came back from Destin, Fl today and while there I had this plot formulating in my head. Pre-season two Pezberry or even pre-season one is something I've been wanting to read and write and finally, this is what came of it. I also know that a lot of times I write Rachel with self confidence issues, some mild to severe self image issues, and sometimes a sort of inferiority complex to try and hurdle. This Rachel is young, 15, she's been bullied, teased, threatened, assaulted with frozen beverages...you name it right. I wanted to put all of that in here in a way that I felt I knew how to address. There are some pretty heavy things in this chapter as well as the language, hence the M.
When she stomps out of the ridiculously fucked up house her parents rented for them to spend the summer in, the last thing Santana expects to see is Rachel Berry sitting in a porch swing at the house next door. When their eyes lock, the singer looks just as shocked as she descends the stairs and comes up to her. Not sure what to say, the Latina just stands there.
"Santana? Well shit, this is unexpected. I mean...um Hi...? I wasn't aware that you were going on vacation here. How's it going so far?" She rocked back and forth on the balls of her feat, hands clasped behind her back.
"Like fucking shit. The house we rented is totally fucked. There was like black mold everywhere. I'm obviously pissed and so are my rents." She turned as she said this, watching as Christian and Elisabetta Lopez walked out of the dangerous house, her mother yelling into her phone about getting them another house. Her father was also yelling into his phone, looking more disgusted about the idea of someone renting them a house with such a high risk of all of them getting fatally sick. They both walked towards her.
"So what's the deal, Mami?" The tall Spanish/Italian woman finally hung up her phone, looking frustrated.
"It appears that we are, and I quote 'shit out of luck' until at least Monday by which time they will have that house ready to move into for the summer." She pointed past the house Rachel'd been at to the one next door.
"I've called someone who will do the check himself to make sure there isn't any more of the mold or anything else flagrantly dangerous. In the meantime, we'll have to stay in a hotel." The Lopezes were not happy.
"You could stay with us while they get the one next door finished. I'm sure dad and daddy won't mind. I mean, we've lived across the street from one another since Santana and I were in kindergarten. Come on in, we'll ask them." It wasn't until now that both the parents looked down and saw Rachel standing there next to their daughter.
"Rachel, mi nina? It's been a long time. I wasn't aware your father's were coming here for vacation also. Well then, lead the way, if they honestly wouldn't mind it would make it easier for us." All four of them walked into the beach house, the Lopezes behind Rachel.
"Dads, look who I've found!" The two men were sat at the long bench-seated dinner table eating chocolate banana tofu pie. They dropped their forks when they noticed Christian and Elisabetta.
"Neighbors! Hey, what's going on, didn't realize you'd be vacationing here. How's it going?" Leroy asked, motioning his hand for them to sit.
"We had the house next door to the left. Was completely unsafe, so we're waiting until Monday to get the house to your right ready. Rachel indicated that you may be willing to let us stay here until then." Santana sat down, digging in the pie Hiram slid her way. She and Rachel may not get along at McKinley, but they'd known each other since preschool and lived across the street from each other since kindergarten. They'd been best friends up until seventh grade when Santana started to realize that people found her attractive and decided to take advantage of it, unintentionally leaving Rachel, who was still lanky and a late bloomer, behind.
She and Brittany found each other randomly and they became best friends almost immediately. By the time the Latina had realized she'd essentially pushed Rachel away it was too late and their friendship had withered away to nothing. By the start of high school Santana had become the type of bully she and Rachel had faced together as children. All of it was her fault and she knew that. Maybe, Santana thought, it was time she made up for all of it. It was time she became someone who deserved Rachel as a best friend again.
"This is even better than it used to be, Hiram. Thanks for the slice." she remembered how much she loved his baking when she and Rachel had a particularly difficult day facing the bigger, tougher kids who called her and her best friend names they shouldn't have even known as first graders. The way some parents essentially taught their children to hate was disgusting and something she'd promised herself she'd never do when she found a husband and had her own children. When she'd finally come to terms with the fact that she was gay, she had to rearrange her ideas of how her life would turn out.
"Actually, Rachel made it. She's the chef of the house now. She wouldn't tell us what she put in it to make it so good though."
"Hazelnut, a little salt, and cayenne pepper. Eso es todo. Ningún misterio." She said, finishing her own.
"Anyway, you three can definitely stay here for as long as you need. Hiram and I will grab your bags while Rachel shows you the rooms." Rachel and the Lopezes slid off the bench and headed up the stairs. They went around and then up again to the third floor, Rachel showing them the master bedroom to the left and the equally large room to the right.
"My dads are in the room on the left. Mr and Mrs Lopez you can stay in this one. There's an en suite and walk-in closet as well as the veranda. My fathers will bring your bags up here, so make yourselves at home while I show Santana where she will stay." Rachel smiled genuinely at them and then descended the stairs, her former best friend behind her. On the second level their were three rooms and the shorter girl walked into a good sized room with a queen sized bed waving her hands around.
"And this will be your room, I'm just across the hall so if you need anything Santana, just yell. I have excellent hearing you know." She walked out just as her fathers came downstairs with the last bag and handed it to the taller girl behind her.
"It's pretty late for us old guys, so we're going to head to bed, Rach. Christian and Elisabetta appear to be doing the same. We're all going to brunch tomorrow so be up at maybe ten thirty if you'd like to come. We checked, and the restaurant has vegan options baby girl, so worry not." After speaking, Leroy leaned down and kissed his daughters forehead, hugged her, and whispered something in her ear that Santana couldn't make out from her position a few feet away. Hiram turned to her, that familiar smile curving his always kind features.
"And Goodnight to you, Santi. It's been so long since you've stayed with us, little one. But I remember how much you loved your goodnight hugs." She smiled in a way that Rachel hadn't been witness to for more than three years, her cheeks tinging pink. Hiram wrapped his arms around her then picked her up and spun her around, Santana giggling the entire way. When he sat her back down on her own two feet she kissed his stubbled cheek.
"Thank you, Uncle Hiram." She stood on her tip toes to press a kiss against the smooth jaw of Leroy Berry before she grinned and slipped into her room, closing the door.
"She's exactly the same, right Hiram?" Rachel walked into her room, falling back to relax against her own queen sized mattress.
"I think for the most part, yea. She's still so small. I would worry, but I have no doubt that Christian keeps tabs on her dietary habits." Their attention was averted to their daughter who had stomped on the wooden floors to gain it.
"She is not the same! At all! But you wouldn't understand...neither of you lost a best friend because you weren't pretty enough to be around her anymore! You know what, whatever. I'll be ready to go to brunch tomorrow, can you vacate my quarters so I can get ready for bed please? I'm sorry for yelling." The Berry father's looked worried, but acquiesced, heading up the stairs. It wasn't until they were gone that Santana knocked on Rachel's closed bedroom door.
"Just come in." Santana did so, closing the door once she was inside.
"Santana, what did you want?" The Latina din't even bother to wonder how Rachel could tell it was her given the fact that the shorter girl was face down in her bed, her head buried under all her pillows.
"I just wanted to clarify things, and you're wrong... I didn't stop being your friend because I thought you weren't pretty enough. I didn't do it intentionally at all." Santana said, dropping all the fake lima heights vernacular that could typically be heard during any of her interactions with her former best friend in or out of the choir room.
"Right...I have it wrong. Well what was I supposed to take from the fact that you left me behind and became some kind of weird gorgeous girl coven with Brittany and then Quinn? Seirously Santana let's not bullshit here. Have you ever looked at the three of you in a mirror? Because I've had to stand next to the unholy trinity in the bathroom and look up to realize that I was no where near as beautiful as the three of you. Maybe it wouldn't bother me as much if I hadn't realized it was why you dropped me like a sack of stale potatoes! But I did okay, so let it go." She had sat up on the bed to whisper yell her opinion on the matter, now though, she got up and walked into the bathroom, starting to brush her teeth while Santana stood there.
"No...no, okay I'm not gonna let it go. I love you, you were my best friend. And the decisions I made I made because I thought it would help me protect you from those idiots. By the time we were twelve it was only getting worse and I though it was different, I saw that they were escalating in the way they treated Kurt and the last thing I wanted was for them to kick you around like that physically. So I started dressing different and acting different and I don't know I guess I was popular or something. When i realized I could control those idiots I did. They stopped breaking Kurt's ribs and they took their attention away from you." Rachel rinsed out her mouth and pulled herself up on the sink to sit, thinking about the fact that everything Santana said had actually happened. Kurt went from having bruised and broken ribs to being tossed into dumpsters. She enjoyed a period of barely any bullying at all.
"I guess...I guess I get that but why couldn't you take me with you when you became popular like that. I just figured that when you met Britt and started to hang out with her more than me that maybe you had to be pretty to be popular like that." She was still angry, and more than that, still so deeply hurt. Santana stepped between her dangling legs, wiping away a tear the diminutive girl had fought to keep inside.
"You don't know what I had to do, Rachel. To protect you and Kurt and then Britt. I lost my virginity that year. And Britt too, for her...she's told me it's fine, she loves sex. But I know how important that is to you. I didn't want you to have to do that. Those guys were so much bigger than you, who knows if they would have tried to force you or...I was afraid for you. Rae, Bella, if all it took to be popular was beauty you would be there. There's only three ways for girls like us. The slut, the airhead, or the virginal ice queen. I had to be a slut, Britt fell into pretending to be an idiot, and Quinn...well Q was born and bred to be an Ice Queen whether she likes it or not. You're none of those things and I didn't want you to have to lose yourself to become any of them." She dropped her hands away to wipe at her own tears. When she and Rachel had been little girls making plans for their lives they'd never imagined how difficult it could all be.
"Oh Santana, i didn't know. You didn't have to do any of that for me...I would have been fine, I promise I would have."
"No!...no you wouldn't have been! I don't think you understand. A few times I barely got out of a situation before it became something that would have ripped you apart. I was damn near raped freshman year. Fucking twice. Eventually I just...I just stopped saying no and started to play the part of the slut everyone already thought I already was. If that had happened to you...I don't know what I would have done Rachel. It becomes impossible for me to keep my rage under control when you're in danger. You know that...How I would react if I found out some fucking asshole tried to force himself on you...?" Rachel hugged her tight, trying to get her to calm down a little.
"It wouldn't have happened to me, Santi. I'd have been fine" Santana shook her head, staring into her own dark, watery eyes in the mirror behind her former best friend.
"Everyone thinks that it'll never happen to them until it does. I thought the same thing. It scares me to even think about it. So I became the type of person that used to make both of us feel like shit to protect you from all of it. But then Quinn showed up and had you in her crosshairs. And no matter how hard I fight I can never seem to get her to fucking stop. She's so fixated on you. It's really fucking odd, Rae. I swear she either really fucking hates you for some random reason or she's completely in love with you. I'd put my vote on the latter any day." Rachel shook her head no almost furiously before hopping down from the counter to head back in her bedroom, pulling shorts and a tank top out of a dresser.
"No. That's ridiculous, you know how she's treated me, the things she's said. She was only ever nice to any of us this last year because we were all she had. No, I don't believe that. And it wouldn't matter anyway. I could never think about being with someone who bullied me, who could treat me like that. How could I ever trust them, right?" Santana smiled sadly, but Rachel's back was turned to her and she didn't see. The taller girl didn't understand the dull, deep, throb in her chest those words brought upon her. Nor did she understand the small relief she felt in realizing Rachel didn't want Quinn that way.
"Um...yea...yea you're right. I'm gonna let you get ready for bed, I know how you like to stick to your routine. Buenos noches, Rae." Rachel watched as Santana swiftly left the room, shutting the door quietly behind her. The singer wondered what was up with her, she'd left before she could get a word out of her mouth. Shrugging, she quickly got into her pajamas and then into her bed, grabbing the remote on the nightstand to turn the lights out.
She could find out if something was wrong with Santana tomorrow.