December 24, 2016—New York, New York (Eastern Standard Time)
When I woke up on Christmas Eve, the first thing I noticed was that the bed beside me was empty. I grumbled to myself, thinking that maybe Santana had ended up going into work even though she absolutely said she was going to take the whole week—my fiancée was a workaholic, okay? But then I heard her singing Santa Baby in the kitchen and a grin spread across my face when I smelled her pancakes cooking. She was kind of the best, it was one of those things I would never get over, even two years after we'd finally gotten our shit together and had Christmas dinner together. She'd also totally turned up the heat in the apartment so when I pulled the comforter off of myself I didn't freeze to death. Totally heartthrob, I'm telling you.
I walked into the kitchen and she was at the stove, swaying and still singing. She probably heard me because I'm not exactly quiet but she let me sneak up behind her and wrap my arms around her waist, nuzzling her neck. She smelled so good, she always did, and I wanted to hold her like that forever. Things had been stressful both with, you know, America, and also planning our wedding and me traveling a lot so I was glad to just have a moment to cuddle into her, maybe cop a little feel since she was wearing my Cheesasaurus Rex shirt and the fabric was kind of worn thin from wear so her boob was like, right there.
"When you get up early and make me breakfast, it makes me never want to leave for a work trip again."
"Is that all it takes? I'll make you breakfast every single day." She turned in my arms and smiled, still holding the spatula for the pancakes.
"I wish. You know I'd totally rather be with you."
"But you're also, like, the best photographer in the world, so it would be totally selfish for me to keep you from that."
"Truth." I laughed and kissed her lips. "Why are you up so early anyway?"
"So I was thinking?"
"About going into work?"
"No, not about going into work." Santana shook her head. "I have you here for two whole weeks, I'm going to take at least one of them to spend every possible second with you. I was thinking about our wedding."
"Oh God, it's so early and thinking about the wedding gives me a headache." I pouted, grabbing her coffee cup over her shoulder and taking a sip out of it.
"Babe, I really don't think weddings are supposed to be this big of a headache, but every time we work on planning it one of us gets so frustrated we can barely think. What if we didn't do it?"
"Have a wedding?" My eyes widened and I kind of wanted to die. I mean seriously, marrying Santana was like my dream come true, even if wedding planning made me want to scream, I definitely did not want to not marry her.
"Have this big stupid wedding that neither of us really want. What if we went to get our marriage license today and got married in the park tomorrow? Everyone's supposed to come over for Christmas dinner anyway, it could cut out a lot of the stress, you could take that Ireland assignment in April and maybe I'll go with you."
"Really?"
"It's up to you. I was just up half the night thinking about it."
"You're my favorite person in the whole world." I hopped up and down a little, realizing how much I'd rather spend the time we had together before I had to leave having lots of sex and cuddling up on the couch instead of talking about flowers and cake and all kinds of crap that we'd probably not even notice. "I'll call Mike and tell him he better be ready to perform the ceremony."
"I'm waiting to tell my parents until after we do it. I mean, just don't say anything when we see them tonight."
"You're not going to invite them?"
"Britt, your parents aren't going to be here, I'm not going to have mine come."
"You don't have to do that." I told her, but I kind of swooned a little, thinking how she was so thoughtful about everything.
"We're just going to do it with our friends, okay? That's enough for me."
"Okay, if you're sure. Also you're totally burning those pancakes."
"Crap." She spun around and grabbed the pan off the stove, dumping the whole thing in the garbage and making me laugh.
True story, I kind of hoped it was going to snow on Christmas even though it was like sixty degrees—goddamn you global warming—but I knew it wasn't going to happen. Still though, as Santana and I prepared to go down to get our marriage license, I kind of thought about how sexy she looked in the snow. Not like I didn't think she was sexy always, but you get it. It's just like a thing, okay? I was crazy giddy about the fact that I'd actually get to marry her the next day and I had no idea how I was going to keep it quiet while we were at her parents' house for Christmas Eve. But I would. I had to. I didn't want it to become a thing. We'd Skype everyone after it was done and there'd be a crazy big celebration…hopefully.
Everyone that worked in the municipal office looked like they wanted to die, considering it was Christmas Eve and they were stuck at work, but they were really nice to us as we filled out our application for a marriage license. I maybe kissed Santana a thousand times while we sat in those crappy chairs and did the paperwork and she just kept laughing, her eyes sparkling and looking as excited as I felt inside. Considering our lives, having a wedding this way felt absolutely right and I was beside myself about it. I mean honestly, two years earlier, I thought I might never see Santana again, but then there I was, getting everything together to marry her. Sweet, right?
"That was a lot easier than I thought." She said when we walked out of the office, license secured in her purse.
"Seriously. We have so much time to kill before we have to be at your parents' house."
"Any idea how we can do it?" Santana arched an eyebrow and I smirked, thinking it was early enough to kill time more than once.
"As much as I love you in that white Christmas coat, I think I'd much rather have you out of it."
So, because we were ridiculous, in love, and totally giddy about getting our marriage license, we maybe ended up spending more time than we should have in bed once we got home and then we ended up running around like crazy trying to make it to the Lopez house on time. Santana's parents had a thing about punctuality and it made her nervous when she thought she was going to be late. Knowing that, I rushed in the shower, rushed doing my hair, and I was standing at the door in a black dress and my coat by the time she finished her makeup. So I've mentioned that she's gorgeous, right? You should have seen her that Christmas Eve, red dress, hair in soft curls, shrugging into her white coat again. I maybe had to kiss her about six billion times before we could get out of the house and then she got anxious and was pushing me into a cab.
"Mrs. Lopez." I smiled when her grandmother opened the door, but as she usually did whenever she happened to answer the door when we came over, she just ignored me and turned away. Progress had been slight with Santana and her grandmother since the one Thanksgiving before we were together that she actually sat at the table with her. I didn't take it personally, I knew she represented an ideology that was going to die with people like her, but I definitely squeezed Santana's hand, knowing that she did.
"Girls!" The other Mrs. Lopez came to the door, the one who insisted that I call her Maribel, even though it made me kind of nervous. "Merry Christmas! Come in! Put your coats in my bedroom, you're the first ones here. Everyone else seems to be late, as usual."
"Well since we're here on time, we can totally help." I offered, but Maribel shook her head.
"As much as I appreciate the offer, Brittany, last year you dropped an entire pan of pernil. Alma and I have things under control, why don't you and Santana go in, make drinks and say hello to Carlos?"
"Thank you, Mama." Santana wrapped her arms around her mom and hugged her, making me smile. "Abulelita would prefer I weren't in the kitchen anyway."
"She'll come around, mi amor. I know it's taken her longer than we'd hoped, but she will."
Santana and I put our coats on her parents' bed and we found her father in the living room smoking a cigar and drinking a brandy next to the Christmas tree. I put the gifts we had brought under the tree and then kissed him hello, feeling his bristly cheek against mine. I insisted that Santana sit with her father while I make the drinks—mostly because I felt like I was going to burst, thinking about how we were getting married the next day and I was afraid I'd slip and say something—and I went to the bar cart and made her a gin and tonic and poured myself a glass of red wine. When I went back to Santana and her dad, they were laughing at some story and I handed her the glass, snuggling up at her side.
"So Brittany." Carlos looked at me approvingly. "Where to next?"
"I'm just doing a week in Costa Rica in January, but my big—" I stopped, thinking how I couldn't mention Ireland, not yet at least. "My big projects for next year are still up for discussion, we'll see where the magazine wants to send me."
"What about after you get married? Aren't you going to want to settle down?"
"Papi." Santana rolled her eyes, making me hold in a giggle. "You're so old fashioned. I wouldn't give up my job after we're married, why would Brittany?"
"Well I suspect you two will have some kids?"
"We'll talk about that after we get married. We want kids, but we're not in a rush."
The doorbell rang, interrupting the conversation that was clearly making Santana uncomfortable because she liked to keep our private life private and I got up with her to get it. It was her aunt with her five kids and suddenly the house was full of life and I was able to sit on the floor and play Sorry with little Luis and Gabriela. I kept catching Santana giving me cute looks and it made me kind of swoon, knowing that even though she wasn't going to talk about us having kids together, we both knew it was totally going to happen and she liked seeing me play with her cousins. The kids groaned when it was time to clean up the game for dinner, but I tried to make it fun for them and they clamored to sit next to me at the table, even meaning that Santana had to sit two seats down from me. She grinned from her spot and I sent her a wink, glad we were about to start out little journey toward having a family of our own the next day.
After dinner, we did gifts and I felt bad for Santana when she gave her grandmother the gift we'd carefully purchased and wrapped and she didn't say two words about it. But she recovered quickly when the kids were excited about all of the toys we picked out in the toy store and the adults complimented the exotic gifts she had me buy for them on my travels around the world. When it was all over and the kids were sleeping in various positions on the furniture, Santana excused us from the evening, knowing it was time we got home and did our own thing, and we kissed everyone goodbye except for her grandmother who had conveniently left the room just as we were getting ready to go.
I hailed a cab for us when we got outside and stacked our gifts on one side of the car as I took the middle seat, figuring I could snuggle with her on the ride back home. She was extra cuddly, like she always was when she was a little sad, and I stroked her hair and kissed her cheek, wanting her to know that I was there. She didn't always want to talk about things with her grandmother, but sometimes she did, so I figured either way, I'd let her know that she had the space to do what she wanted. She turned to look at me, sadness in her eyes and I squeezed her hand, hoping she was okay.
"I think maybe she's part of the reason why I don't want the big wedding thing." Santana confessed. "When I was little, she was always around, you know? She's lived with my parents since I was three and she watched me all the time while they worked. I used to wrap her shawl around my head and play wedding and every time, she'd asked me what guy I was going to marry. I always thought she'd be smiling in the front row…"
"I wish I could fix it for you."
"I wish you could too. But I feel better not having a row or anything, knowing that I don't have to look out and see an empty chair. Plus, Christmas is our thing and I love the idea of marrying you tomorrow. I don't want you to think it's all about my abuela."
"I don't." I shook my head and kissed her lips. "Babe, whatever your reasons are for not wanting a big wedding, I'm totally there for it. Honesty, if we were having a big wedding, I'd probably trip on my dress and stumble down the aisle."
"I'd still love you for it."
"I know you would." I laughed, kissing her again. "You totally love how ridiculous I am."
"You don't even know, baby." She smiled. "You're my favorite person."
"You're my favorite person too."
When the cab pulled up in front of the house, I started stacking up our gifts into my arms and Santana helped me out. It was sort of rainy so she watched to make sure I didn't slip on the wet sidewalk carrying bottles of wine and other assorted gifts and I grinned at her, appreciating that she knew how clumsy I was. We got into the house and we sort of just put all of the opened gifts under the tree before we went upstairs. I maybe bought us matching Christmas pajamas and had left them on the bed before we went out, so I got to say her super pretty face light up when she noticed what I'd done and then we almost didn't make it back downstairs to open the gifts from each other because we were changing and you know, nakedness and love and stuff was tough to escape from without ending up in bed.
But we did. We were both really excited about making hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps and sitting under the tree together in our goofy reindeer pajamas. Santana was a little drunk from her parents' house and I poked her dimples, loving making them come out when I brought in the mugs of hot chocolate, whipped cream piled high. She had several boxes pulled into her lap and I furrowed my brow a little, thinking how I'd only bought her one thing. I mean, it was one really expensive thing, but still, I didn't want to be sitting there opening a bunch of gifts while she only had one.
"Don't be a goof." She shook her head, knowing exactly what I was thinking. "I want you to open yours first."
"Rude. You totally called that before I had a chance."
"Shut up and open your gifts." Santana laughed, leaning over to kiss me.
"Babe." I opened the first gift and gasped, seeing the new zoom lens that I'd been eyeing for my camera but hadn't pulled the trigger to buy. "How did you know?"
"I snooped. I pretty much snooped for all of your gifts because I know that you always move everything to your save for later basket in your Amazon cart. Now your later gets to be Christmas."
I opened the rest of the gifts and they were all things for my camera that I'd put off buying throughout the year. She knew that nothing in my life—besides her, duh—was as important to me as my camera, my livelihood and I loved that she thought to buy me things for it. The last thing I opened was a gorgeous leather camera case, one that totally put my old one to shame and when she told me to open it, I looked inside and saw that there was my name embossed into the leather. I kissed her probably a dozen times and she just wrapped her arms around my neck, letting me do with her as I wished. When I handed over her gift to her, my heart was racing because I hoped it was what she wanted, I hope I hadn't messed up when we were in the jewelry store buying out wedding bands. I'd seen her eying diamond earrings, trying to pretend that she wasn't and once she'd gone to work, I bought the ones I thought she wanted.
"Brittany Susan Piece." She gasped, opening the jewelry box. "You didn't."
"Um, obviously I did." I grinned, shrugging. "Were those the ones?"
"I was looking at them as a total fantasy, not for you to buy. They're too much."
"Please, babe, you bought me a ton of expensive camera equipment, I can buy you earrings if I want to."
"I love them so much. I'm putting them in now and never taking them out." She tucked her hair behind her ears and slipped the earrings in, holding out her earlobes so I could see them.
"They look beautiful. Just like you."
"Such a romantic." She definitely swooned, which made me swoon because obviously, I had a huge crush on my almost wife. "Are we putting the Yule Log on Netflix so we can cuddle on the couch for a while?"
"As long as you want. But don't be grumpy when I wake you up to start cooking Christmas dinner for our friends."
"Right." Santana laughed. "Because I'm the grumpy one in the morning. And you're definitely the one who will be waking me up."
"Something about that didn't sound right. I really want to play with my camera stuff now, but I have all day tomorrow. Will you let me take lots of pictures of you?"
"Babe. How many pictures of me can you possibly take?"
"Duh, Dr. Not-A-Doctor, you're my favorite subject. Maybe it'll get me to wake up earlier than you so I can take sleepy pictures of you in your pajamas."
"Why do you love sleepy pictures of me so much?" She shook her head.
"Because you're the cutest sleeper in the world. The cutest sleeper who is going to be my wife in less than twenty-four hours."
"And you're sure you want to do this tomorrow?" Santana touched her ears and pursed her lips, looking like she was completely uncertain about how I was going to react, even though I totally would have married her last Christmas, the day she proposed.
"I'm sure. Let's go to bed so it can be our wedding day."
Once we were in bed, I realized that I was way too excited to sleep. Santana, who was definitely drunker than I was, passed out and was snoring beside me in minutes and I was tempted to poke her so she'd wake up and talk to me. But she looked so cute that I didn't want to do that so I slipped out of bed and went downstairs to get my camera and one of the new night lenses so I could take pictures of her in the moonlight. I got back upstairs and positioned myself at the edge of the bed, watching the way she was curled up, the blanket already kicked off of her and her legs twisted up in the sheets. I definitely took way too many pictures but she was so beautiful that I couldn't help it and I figured when I developed them, she'd totally appreciate how sexy she was.
After taking pictures, I went and checked on the rings in Santana's top dresser drawer and then I knew I was going to be really grumbly in the morning if I didn't get into bed so I slipped back in and pulled the blanked back around us, spooning Santana and kissing her shoulder. She murmured in her sleep and I smiled to myself, thinking that as much as I loved the idea of being in New York for a while, I kind of wanted to at least take her somewhere on a honeymoon. I didn't even know if she'd be able to take the time off from her practice but I wanted to tell her that if she wanted to go away, I was totally down for it and I fell asleep thinking of all the amazing places in the world I could take the love of my life.
I woke up in the morning to Santana singing Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas in the bedroom, but I kept my eyes closed. I wasn't ready to get out of bed so I rolled over onto my stomach and then felt Santana sink down onto the bed. I smiled into the pillow and felt her hair tickle my neck as she crawled on top of me.
"Wake up, baby. It's time to start getting ready for everyone to come over."
"'M sleepin'." I murmured, trying to keep from flipping over and pinning her to the bed.
"I'm naked."
With that, I turned over and opened my eyes, being met with the pictures of reindeer on her pajamas. I pouted, seeing that she was fully clothed and she laughed, kissing my frown away. I rolled her over onto her back and I kissed her until she was giggling and wrapping her legs around my waist. I totally wanted to have my way with her but she pushed me off, shaking her head and telling me that we were totally waiting until after we were married before we had sex. Of course, because she was so fucking cute telling me it, I couldn't argue with her and I reluctantly climbed out of bed, going in the bathroom to brush my teeth so we could start getting everything ready for dinner.
"You know, I think we should make our friends invite us over for Christmas." I grumbled, unfolding the table that we were setting up in our living room. "Ow. My finger got stuck."
"Come here, grumps." She pulled me into her arms and kissed my finger. "You really hate mornings."
"I hate mornings when I'm in New York. I'm good about mornings when I'm in different time zones."
"Because you love our bed."
"I love it better when I have you in it. Obviously."
"Tonight. We can do anything you want."
"Anything?"
"Babe." She laughed, kissing my chin. "Honestly, what haven't we done?"
"Fair. Besides, I think I just want to go down on you forever, because that's basically my favorite thing to do."
"Brittany Pierce, do not make me break my vow to myself not to sleep with you before the wedding."
"That's exactly my goal." I had to wink and she just rolled her eyes, playfully shoving me. "Fine, fine, I'll stop. Are you sure you want to use the fancy china? It's seriously so much easier just to use paper plates."
"I love you a lot, Britt, but if I let you be in charge of Christmas, we'd be eating EZ-Mac right out of the package and dixie cups for dessert."
"Yum, sounds delicious."
We joked around and eventually Santana was running through the apartment until I grabbed her and threw her down on the couch, tickling her until she begged for mercy. Maybe it took a really long time for us to get anything done, but we were having the best time together and that's what I really loved the most about her, the way everything was so fun and she made me smile until my cheeks hurt and laugh until my ribs hurt. While I was laying over her on the couch I ended up getting really serious and just staring into her eyes, feeling totally overwhelmed that after everyone had dinner, I was actually going to get to marry her. It was the coolest feeling in the entire world and I took a really deep breath.
"What?" Santana asked, biting her lip in that really sexy way she did.
"I'm going to marry you today."
"You are, aren't you?" She laughed, but it was almost started, like there was something way serious behind it.
"Who would have thought, that first time I hopelessly tried to flirt with you, that I'd actually get to marry my dream girl?"
"You definitely told me you weren't good with people you weren't shooting."
"I did." I giggled, remembering how painfully embarrassing our first meeting was. "But you still fell for me."
"And I'm going to fall for you over and over again every day for the rest of my life."
When we finally got up again, we had to go into the kitchen and start working on the six sides Santana wanted to make and then we had to make a yule log cake because apparently sometimes when I was away working and she was alone in bed at night she spent a ton of time on Pinterest and wanted to do this really adorably cute holiday thing. So I did what she told me, peeling potatoes, shredding Brussels sprouts, helping her make buttercream frosting. I actually had a really good time and it felt so domestic and amazing that I sort of wanted to cry. But that would have been weird, so I didn't.
"Do you want to go away?" I asked her, licking the frosting spoon before I threw it in the sink.
"What?" She furrowed her brow.
"No, not away from me. I mean, do you want us to go away together, so we have a honeymoon?"
"I want to go to Ireland with you, I was serious about that. If you think you could spare some time off work to hang out with me, then we can make that our honeymoon."
"Really? You don't want to do something like, this week?"
"Britt, babe, you just got back from months of traveling, I would never ask you to go on another trip. I'm so happy to spend time with you in our apartment. I mean, I have a ton of patients, but we'll do dinners and weekends and it'll be perfect. Then I'll meet you in Ireland in a few months and we'll really celebrate our marriage."
"Just so you know, you're going to be the best wife in the entire world."
"Impossible. Not when you're going to be a wife too."
Once we had the cake rolled up and frosted and had put the rib roast in the oven, we went upstairs to start getting ready. And by we, I mean Santana got in the shower and I laid back in bed for a while, having given up grumbling about being tired. When she got out, I immediately jumped out of bed and went into the bathroom, knowing I wouldn't be able to handle seeing her drop the towel and get dressed without wanting to take her to bed. I showered and thought about how when I got out, I was going to be putting on the green dress I'd picked out with Santana when we decided we wanted to coordinate in red and green and that would be the dress I was going to get married in. It felt like the awesomest kind of awesome and I maybe got some soap in my eyes daydreaming about how perfect our wedding was going to be.
When I got out of the shower, Santana was blowing out her hair. I knew it would be awhile so I slipped into my dress and left my hair wrapped up in a towel, figuring I could do my makeup while I was waiting for the dryer. We were in this intimate kind of silence, just going about our business getting ready. After she finished her hair, she handed me the blow dryer and I worked on mine, letting her do the back for me because I never got it to keep from getting wavy when I tried to do it myself. Once we were both finished getting ready, we stood back and looked at ourselves in the mirror and I grinned, thinking we were pretty much the most beautiful couple in the entire world. I was totally just admiring us when the doorbell rang and Santana rolled her eyes since it was early.
"Hundred bucks says it's Kurt." She smoothed her dress and backed away from the mirror.
"That is not a bet I'm willing to take. It's always Kurt who's early."
Holding her hand, we went downstairs. It was absolutely Kurt and Dave who had arrived super early. I was still awkward around Dave after our first meeting when I'd called him like a million wrong names and even though we'd hung out a bunch of times since then, I always thought he thought I was a total weirdo for that. But he was going to be at my wedding so I tried not to act like a weirdo and I, like, took their coats and stuff so Santana could pour drinks. Mercedes and Shane came not long after and I was glad she'd broken up with Sam who had been super creepy with me at that party where I'd made Dave uncomfortable. I took their coats too and it felt like our bed was just filled with coat even before Tina and Mike got there with baby Trevor who I just scooped up into my arms and kissed all over while Unique told me that she would absolutely not let me take her fur, she'd put it on the bed herself.
"So we're really doing a wedding today, huh?" Mike asked, taking brand new Trevor back from me.
"Why are you stealing the baby from me?"
"Because he's like two weeks old and you're squishing him with all of your kisses."
"Please." I rolled my eyes. "Get over it."
"I'm over it…Tina might not me."
"Tina had Santana make her a glass of wine faster than any person I've ever seen ever. I could probably kidnap Trevor and she wouldn't even know."
"Trust me." Mike laughed. "She'd know."
"Is she going to freak that we're going to have him out in the park tonight?"
"No, she brought like thirty blankets and she's going crazy being excited about you actually getting married. It doesn't surprise either of us that you don't want to do the big wedding thing."
"It was actually Santana's idea. The whole wedding thing was overwhelming for us and she thought it would be a good idea to do this with the people that we love. She didn't want to invite her parents because mine couldn't be here and it just…I don't know, felt right."
"Baby." Santana called from the kitchen. "I need you to reach the cherries from the top shelf."
"On it!" I excused myself from Mike and ran to help her in the kitchen, grabbing the cherries from way at the top of the cabinet and kissing the top of her head to let her know I thought it was cute she was short. "Do you want help?"
"I just want to hang out with you." She shrugged. "Let me make you a drink and we'll go with everyone to the table."
She finished making the drinks and we gathered around the table, me sitting next to Santana as the others found their places. I could barely even think about how there were seven other people and a baby in out apartment because basically all I cared about was getting through dinner and getting to the park for our wedding. Santana Lopez was going to be my wife, that was basically the biggest deal in the whole entire world and Christmas dinner felt kind of…boring compared to that. But I got up from the table, I helped Santana cut the roast and get all of the sides onto the table and then I was barely able to touch my food. I just wanted to be done, I just wanted to be in the park, I just wanted to say I do.
"How do you guys feel about having dessert after the wedding?" Santana asked, almost like she was reading my thoughts.
"Oh thank God." I totally meant to say it in my head, but it came out as words and then I blushed a little. "Sorry, I'm just really pumped to be Santana's wife."
"We don't object to doing it first." Kurt spoke up and everyone else kind of nodded. Seriously I hardly recognized that there were other people in the room and I know that they were sort of talking amongst themselves but I didn't even care.
We got up from the table and Santana put on her white coat, looking like a total angel. Seriously though, you don't even know, the contrast of the white with her dark features was so gorgeous that I kind of wanted to die. I grabbed my grey coat and pulled it over my dress, wrapping Santana in her deep red scarf and pulling her hat onto her head before getting into my own. She took my hand and I felt like I was walking on clouds as we made our way to the park. There were a lot of people out and about doing Christmasy things and my heart was so fluttery as we stepped under the big arch in Washington Square park where we decided to do our nuptials.
"Are you ready for this?" Santana whispered to me as she stood across from me, Mike in front of us and the others gathered around.
"I think I've been ready for this since the day I met you."
"Ready?" Mike looked between us and we both nodded at the same time. "Cool. Do you want to say your vows?"
"Crap." I reached into my coat pocket and came up empty. "I forgot my vows at home."
"Do you want to go back?"
"No!" I totally yelled it and Santana's eyes widened, but I just grabbed her hand again and shook my head. "I can do it without the paper. Santana, when we first started…being, it felt like the hardest thing in the world not being able to be close to each other, not even being able to make a date but then I realized that you were the easiest thing that ever happened. Loving you has felt so natural…making love to you—"
"Babe." Santana laughed, cutting me off.
"Okay, sorry, let's just say it's really good. But seriously, I've never been happier than I have been since finding you. You just get me and it's the best feeling in the world. I love you, Santana Lopez and I'm going to keep loving you forever."
"Britt." She didn't even make an effort to find the paper I knew she'd written her vows on, she just kept holding my hands and looking me straight in the eye. "From the moment I met you, I knew that you were different. Maybe in the first five seconds of knowing you I wasn't sure that the difference was good but then I realized you were the best kind of special and I fell in love with you when you were halfway across the world. I know sometimes the logistics aren't great, with you in different time zones, but getting to love you is my favorite thing. No matter what oceans separate us, I know that I'll never love anyone as much as I love you and I know that I'll never feel as loved by anyone else. No matter what, I'm going to love you until the end of time."
"I mean—" Mike looked between us and grinned. "This is probably just a formality now, but do you, Brittany, take Santana to be your lawfully wedded wife?"
"I do."
"And do you, Santana—"
"I do." She cut him off and before he could tell us to kiss each other, she was leaning in, wrapping her arms around my neck and giving me the best kiss she ever had. Maybe I totally swept her up into my arms, knocking her off her feet at the knees and maybe everyone cheered a little because, you know, we were kind of perfect, but I'd never felt happiness like I did getting to be her wife.
"I know pronounce you wife and wife. Since you clearly don't need any direction to kiss each other, my work here is done."
"Merry Christmas, wifey." I whispered to Santana, still completely wrapped up in her.
"Merry Christmas, baby."