42 days? Yeah right!
This fic was written for the first day of Pezberry week!
#01 - Rewriting a scene / Fixing canon
I'd like to thank Dizzleceezy and FoxChaos for being awesome, giving me their opinion and help me with this.
Technically I just rewrote two canon scenes, I just modified the order. In this fic, Santana's lunch with her mom and Brittany (3.22) happens before the dialog in the hallway (3.17) and Brittany and Santana are not in love, they are just good friends that support and love each other, Rachel said no to Finn, which is why they ended their relationship.
So, here it is...
42 days? Yeah right!
Santana entered the place hand in hand with Brittany, it felt nice to do that despite the fact that they were no longer together. As soon as she turned left, she saw her mom sitting in a booth waving enthusiastically. She rolled her eyes and smiled, because mom, seriously? And she felt Brittany squeezing her hand, reassuring her, so they walked towards the table.
She had to admit that this was awesome. Usually this specific topic was avoided at home besides the 'You are our kid, we love just the way you are,' and she was thankful for that, because as Brittany once said: "that is way more awesome than the 'we love you, no matter what.'"
They reached the table and her mother hugged both of them excusing her father for his absence, it was just a couple of seconds before Brittany and Maribel were talking about graduation and how excited Brittany was of finishing high-school and facing 'adult life', whatever that meant.
Whenever the topic was brought up, she couldn't help getting nervous. She wasn't five anymore, claiming that she wanted to be a doctor like papi. She had to think thoroughly what do to, because no matter how big her dreams of stardom was, being a freaking glee club for four years wasn't enough experience anywhere. She wasn't ten anymore, dreaming of being a ballerina, because back in the day it was the best part of her routine. She was practically an adult, and she had to make a decision, or choose to do something useful while she decides.
Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted because of the conversation between her mom and Brittany. Her mom was smiling and trying to engage both of them in the conversation. This was the first time that they all had enough free time to spend together since the outing. Although her dad was called to the hospital and couldn't join them for lunch at the last minute, she couldn't help but feel content. Her mom was always so understanding that even now it was hard to believe that she once was so afraid to tell her the truth.
"When Santana finally said, 'Mami, papi, I'm gay,' all I could think of was, I should have known."
"Really?" Brittany asked paying attention to her pasta.
"Yes! When she was eight, she went trick-or-treating as Uncle Jesse on Full House. Spent two years growing out that hair."
Santana wanted to palm her face, because Brittany didn't need to know that.
"Business in the front," Maribel said looking at Santana expectantly, and she just couldn't disappoint her.
"Party in the back!" She said at the same time and they all laughed.
"I remember that year clearly. Besides the haircut, Santana just couldn't shut up about the new neighbour." Her mother laughed, and Santana looked at her strangely. "Don't you remember?" She asked with a knowing smile.
"No, I mean… I remember the haircut. And cousin Diego always reminds me whenever he uploads a new pic of that Halloween on Facebook and tags me," she rolled her eyes and Brittany and her mom laughed out loud. "But I don't remember any neighbour," she added looking puzzled at her mom.
"I think it was a temporary arrangement for her family. They rented Mrs. Robbinson's house for one month or two, I think."
"I seriously can't remember," Santana said, trying to force her memory.
"I remember that you couldn't shut up about the girl doing this and that, especially her singing and dancing. I believe that was the reason you were so adamant about taking ballet classes, just to be close to her." Her mom laughed, but the comment sparked something in her.
First it was just an image: a tiny girl at the swingset by herself .
But then actual memories came to her, and she gasped, making her mother and Brittany look at her with worry.
She could see the tiny girl teaching her a couple of steps on the grass, a brilliant smile missing her front tooth, her child voice (?) echoing in her mind singing "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes. There was also this image of the girl running carefree and teaching her the arm positions in ballet. The little girl even lent her pink ballet shoes to Santana so that she could see that her f eet wouldn't hurt that much when wearing them.
She remembered dark hair, chocolate eyes, her bossy tone when correcting her feet position, her enthusiasm whenever she could do a pirouette.
"Rachel." She whispered and Brittany looked at her with curiosity and her mom with a proud gleam in her eyes…
She remembered.
"You know, you can learn a lot about a person by looking into their locker," Rachel said peering into Santana's locker.
Santana turned quickly and raised an eyebrow. "Are you, like, stalking me?" She couldn't help it. Ever since the memories had come back, she just couldn't feel comfortable around Rachel. It was like all the regret for the years of bullying and for forgetting her was haunting her.
"You know we blew it, right?" Rachel said, and for a moment Santana thought she meant everything, but her thoughts were interrupted. "We wasted three years going at each other's throats when we could have been singing together, killing it in Glee Club."
"We hated each other." Santana interrupted, but then she thought about Rachel saying 'I believe you' after being accused by Quinn of being a spy, Rachel saying she had a nice voice, Rachel teaching her how to dance… "Actually, I hated you," She added, making a point that it was something of the past. She saw something akin to pain cross Rachel's features, "Sorry." And it was the first time she apologized to Rachel, and it felt right.
"Yes, our duet in Glee was a whole truckload of awesome. And who cares that it took all these years? I mean, we still have plenty of time to do it again," she expressed, thinking about the possibilities. Maybe she could start going to dance classes again, and spend some more time with her.
"We have 42 days left until graduation! Half of that's gonna be prepping for Nationals. That was it."
The truth in Rachel's words hit her like a ton of bricks, and the truth beneath that was even worse… There wasn't enough time, maybe they would never have the chance to speak about the past. Maybe Rachel didn't even remember that time!
"Oh, crap." She said out loud.
"What?"
"I think I just realized I'm gonna miss you. Oh, God! Say something irritating so I can get the taste of this out of my head, please." Santana just tried to cover the truth with another truth.
"It's okay. Look, you went out of your way to make my life a living hell for three years, but at the end of the day, I know that you respect my talent and my ambition."
"I like it when you sing," Santana confessed, and for a second she considered confessing that she also liked when she danced, and when she laughed when they used to spend time together all those years ago, but she decided to shut up. "And hey! You're the only other person at this school besides me who's willing to kill their best friend to get to the top," she added with a shrug, because it was true.
Suddenly Rachel took something from between her folder. "Will you do me a favor? Will you put this up in your locker?"
Santana had to contain her gasp. Rachel handed her a picture of both of them. Rachel was dressed as a ballerina, but she was wearing sneakers, and Santana had a tutu over her jeans while wearing Rachel's ballet shoes. They had big smiles, both showing their missing front teeth and looking incredibly happy.
"My dad took that photo and he kept it. He gave it to me when he saw you performing 'Valerie,'" Rachel explained. Santana nodded and smiled. "We may not be able to sing together, but we have 42 days left to at least try to get this back."
"I didn't remember, you know," Santana said, unable to look at Rachel's face, still focused in the picture. "My mom remembers you, and she brought you up in a conversation a couple of weeks ago… I… I'm sorry, for everything." Santana finally said what she had wanted to say ever since the memories came back, but the heavy weight was not lifted from her shoulders until she heard Rachel's voice again.
"I'm sorry, too, for everything. Now I'm gonna give you a hug. It'll be quick." They laughed and hugged. Santana felt so relieved that she just couldn't add anything else.
"I'll see you in Glee Club!" Rachel said walking away. And some words resonated in Santana's mind: forty-two days left.
"Rachel!" She said impulsively and the girl turned around and smiled at her. "Are you free tonight? If we only have forty-two days left, I want to make the best of it."
"7.00 PM, my house. We can watch movies and have some food." She said shrugging.
"Awesome," Santana said smiling, seeing her walk away… 42 days? Yeah right. She would make sure the 42 days would turn into a lot more...
That was it. Thanks for reading and let me know what you think :)