Disclaimer: We don't own Glee, any part of Glee, or these characters. Simply taking them out for a spin.
Warnings: Girl Peen – if it's not your thing, please move along.
Collaboration with Ali writing for Rachel. Bold entries are for Santana and non-bolded for Rachel.
Please read and review if you are so inclined!
Santana rubbed her temple sending up a silent prayer to whatever God might be listening in this moment. Dread weighed down the pit of her stomach as the driver her manager had hired to take her home from the airport got closer to the house. Normally, Santana would be ecstatic to get home, bursting at the seams to twirl her kids around hugging them close after a month of nothing but skype calls. Her lips would tingle in anticipation of the sweet kiss she would share with Rachel. Even after years of marriage, Rachel would still bring her to her knees with the lightest of touches.
However, today was different. Today she was coming home after having fucked up - and badly, publically. The kids would more than likely be over at the Berry Dads condo in Queens so that she and Rachel could talk or more accurately she could grovel like an absolute asshole and beg her wife to forgive her. From the moment she had awakened three nights ago, naked, hung over, her head pounding, with an equally naked long, lean blonde woman, Santana's world had tilted on its axis and she wasn't sure she was ever going to recover.
Pressing a couple of bills into the hands of the driver as he carefully set the luggage on the sidewalk outside of her home, Santana inhaled deeply choking on the emotion welling in her throat. She did not get to cry. She had not earned the right to cry. The woman inside their home, the woman Santana had pledged her eternal love to, the woman she had betrayed – that woman had the right to cry, to scream, to rage at the injustice of what she had done and the picture proof seen on newsstands around the States.
The past two days for Rachel had been hell. It was like her whole world had fallen down on top of her, and she couldn't see a way to fix it. Ever since she saw the front cover of US Weekly yesterday - Santana with a blonde dancer on her lap, her hand on the woman's butt - Rachel hadn't been able to stop crying. She knew what those pictures meant, and by Santana's constant calls, she could tell the woman had something to apologize for. It was just a matter of confirmation.
As soon as her fathers found out, they had turned up at the house with a care basket and offers to take the children to their condo, which Rachel had gratefully accepted. She didn't want the children around when Santana came home. They had things to discuss and it wasn't fair to have the children in the house. And with the amount of paparazzi that had been swarming the house the day before, Rachel was glad. How her manager managed to get rid of them, she would never know. But she was glad for it.
Curled up on the sofa in a blanket, and their trusty family dog by their side, Rachel stared at the magazine that lay on her coffee table. She knew Santana was expected home any minute and the anticipation of her arrival was almost unbearable.
Swallowing hard, Santana turned the key in the deadbolt on the front door. The metallic scrape sounded as loudly as the clicking of the hammer on her dad's old pistol. Twisting the handle, she shoved the door open and dragged her small suitcase into the entry way.
"Ba - Rachel." Santana barely caught herself from calling out the endearment that was as natural as breathing. A tear pricked at the corner of her eye gravity dragging it down her cheek before she could stop its flow. A whining greeting from their pup confirmed Rachel's likely position in the living room and Santana dragged her leaden feet in that direction. Opening her mouth to speak, she found no words at all as she took in the resigned and disheveled appearance of her wife. Her wife. There on the coffee table was a copy of that magazine, that damning magazine with its color proof of her indiscretion. It had taunted her at every newsstand at the airport reminding her with each breath of just how stupid she was. "I'm so sorry. So sorry, baby. So so sorry."
It was Santana's eyes that gave her away. Rachel knew as soon as she saw her wife that the rumours were true. Santana never was any good at lying. She couldn't stop her bottom lip from quivering. "How could you, Santana?" Her voice broke with emotion, and she cuddled into the blanket more.
She had no more words for her wife. To be honest, she wasn't even sure if she wanted to hear Santana admit to what she had done. Because hearing her wife say it would only make it real. And at that moment, Rachel was still stuck between hoping the pictures had a logical explanation and naively wanting to believe that her wife would never give up what they had, give up their family.
Santana's head dropped, chin to her chest. Shame tore through her with each uttered word, the slight stammer in Rachel's usually perfect diction. "It was a mistake … an accident .. a drunken lapse."
The words sounded incredibly hollow to her ears. They were the truth, but fuck all if that helped in this moment. The night was a blur after a certain point and she was devastated to have done this to her family. She remembered a skype call at the appointed time with the kids. They had excitedly shared the details of their day and begged for her to sing the lullaby either she or Rachel had sung to them almost nightly from the time they were still in utero. Rachel had been out again despite it being a scheduled family time call and Santana had been miffed to have been blown off for what seemed like the better part of a month. They were drifting. They both knew it but neither had wanted to put words to the distance and the ill-timed brief concert tour had only exasperated that. They had barely shared more than a few words and a quick text of 'Good night' the entire time she was away. There had been no weekend trip to share one or two nights at least once as there had been in the past.
Disconnecting the call, Santana had proceeded to pick up a bottle of the hardest liquor her tour manager could muster up and drinking herself into oblivion to mask her bitter disappointment at missing her wife and feeling so damn lonely. Brittany had been flirting for weeks, teasing her with a little extra swish of her hips or a flash of more and more cleavage spilling from her top but Santana had kept things fairly kosher – maybe a return wink or a light glance but always with polite distance until that night in her drunken haze when she let things progress so quickly to not feel so alone.
"Please forgive me. Please."
And Santana's words confirmed Rachel's fears. Santana had cheated on her. "Those aren't excuses, Santana." Rachel's voice broke and she turned her head away from her wife to wipe away her tears. She couldn't let Santana see her cry. Santana didn't deserve to see her tears, or how much she had hurt her.
Turning back to face her wife, a new-found glare in her eyes, she continued. "Don't you think I had opportunities? That I could have slept with someone? But I didn't.Because I actually care about our family." Their family dog cuddled into her as he noticed how upset she was getting.
Rachel knew that she hadn't exactly been the perfect wife. She had missed Skype calls, and hadn't made the effort to visit Santana on tour like she used to. Instead, she had chosen late night rehearsals and studio times over her wife. And they hadn't talked about it. They had let it pass by and acted as though everything was okay.
"Forgive you? How am I supposed to forgive you?" Swallowing roughly she gazed into Santana's eyes. "Did you sleep with her?"
"Is there an excuse I could offer that would mean anything?" Santana's voice was raw and emotional with a hint of her own temper. Biting that back because she knew she was at fault, Santana closed her eyes before meeting Rachel's intense gaze. "I care about our family. I didn't mean for this … any of this to happen and it didn't mean anything."
Part of Santana wanted to crawl into a hole, bury herself in blankets, anything to hide and not deal with this mess, but she couldn't do that. "I … I did. I think I did."
"Oh, you care about your family? I'm sorry, but US Weekly doesn't seem to think so." She had tried to keep her anger at bay, but she couldn't hold it in any longer. She had cried too much already.
"You think?" Rachel shook her head, closing her eyes to keep her tears from falling. "It's all over the press, Santana." Running her fingers through her hair, she sighed deeply. "What if the kids had seen it?" Rachel knew mentioning the kids would be a low blow for Santana, and it'd hurt her.
"US Weekly can kiss my ass." Santana struggled to keep her voice from rising. She knew Rachel was baiting her and she was willing to accept 100% of the blame. This was on her and she would take it all. "Please. This isn't about them. Don't make it about them."
"Or maybe you'd prefer that blonde to kiss it." Rachel said, her head held high. She was mad, so mad, and she needed to get it out of her system. Even though her words were venomous, her eyes continued to show how hurt she was by Santana's actions. "Y'know, if you wanted to sleep with someone else, fine. But how could you have been so stupid to let the press get ahold of it? To embarrass me like that? Don't you think you did enough?"
Santana shook her head vehemently, her breathing starting to get shallow coming out in short pants. There were two more stops on the tour, but she didn't plan on getting anywhere near Brittany again, either alone or even in a small group, during that time. "I didn't want to sleep with anyone else. And I didn't fucking plan for this to happen. Embarrassing you, disrespecting you like that - fuck fuck. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry that I did this to you, and to us."
She shook her, finally standing up and looking away from Santana. "It's too late for that, Santana. I can't.." God, how was she supposed to forgive her wife for something like that? It was too much. Rachel felt completely betrayed, and just looking at Santana made her think about the pictures that were probably plastered over every media website Rachel could think of. Wiping away tears Rachel didn't even realize had fallen, she sniffled and then gazed into Santana's eyes. "I want you to leave."
"You want me to …." Santana blinked almost stupidly, stunned. The thought that she would be kicked out of her home hadn't even entered her mind. She had considered that she'd sleep in the guest room or on the couch, but leave … that hadn't registered until Rachel was telling her to leave. "What? No. No. Just … I need the kids. I need you."
"You need me? Maybe you should have thought about that before cheating on me, Santana." Blinking away the tears from her eyes, she swallowed roughly. "I can barely look at you right now without wanting to slap you." She crossed her arms in front of her, trying to comfort herself. "I need you to leave. I can't..I can't have you in this house right now."
"Hit me then. If that's what will make you feel better, hit me." Santana's nose flared, tears falling freely from her eyes as she stood ready to absorb the brunt of Rachel's anger. "What about the kids? I want to see them. I need to see them before I have to finish these last two damn shows."
"I can't hit you!" She raised her voice, and clutched her chest as she sobbed softly. She had never felt so betrayed before, and it hurt more because it was her wife. Trying to catch her breath through her sobs, she ran her fingers through her hair. "You...you can't. They're at my fathers and they're staying there until this media frenzy calms down."
"Don't. Don't do this. They are my kids too." Santana felt her chest explode, what was left of her heart being ripped in half. Sobbing, Santana pleaded like she had never done before. It was barely a whisper, but she forced the sounds through her tight emotions. "I hurt you. I did this to you and that's on me, but those are my kids. Please. I'll do whatever you want. I haven't seen them in six weeks other than that fucking computer screen. Please."
Rachel could see how upset Santana was. Despite everything that had happened, and everything Santana had done, she was still a great mother. Her kids always came first, as much as they could with her career. "They're with my parents, Santana." Taking a deep breath, she continued. "I want to keep them away from this house until...until things die down." Gazing down at the ground, she swallowed roughly. "You can visit them if you want, I'm not going to stop you."
The pain in her chest eased up the tiniest bit as Rachel threw her this little life line. Sure, she would have to deal with the Berry dads' wrath, but she would get to see the kids and that's what mattered most. "I'm not giving up on you and us. I'm going to leave here tonight because you've asked me to, but I will fight for our family. I have to finish the tour stops, but then I'm going to come back here and earn your trust back."
Rachel shook her head, frowning deeply at Santana. "I don't want you to fight for me, Santana. I need you to give me space." Placing her hand on her chest, she let out a shaky breath. "The moment you slept with that woman was the moment you gave up on us. I don't know how I'm supposed to forgive you for that."
Nodding, Santana studied Rachel's face - the stress lines and red puffy eyes - memorizing the look of hurt clouding her vision. This was her cross to bear, the very fact that she had caused her wife this much pain over something that meant less than nothing and was so so selfish. "I don't know, but I'm not giving up. I can't. I love you. I made a colossal mistake and I'll do everything I can to make up for it. Time, distance, both. I don't know, but you and the kids are my family."
"Santana, please..." Walking back over to the couch, Rachel sat back down and cuddled into the blanket she had used before. "...just go. I can't ..." Shaking her head again, fresh tears fell from her eyes. "...I can't be around you. I need you to leave now." Their dog cuddled into Rachel as close as he could. He was Santana's dog. They wouldn't have had him if it weren't for her. But even he knew that in that moment, Santana had done wrong.
A broken sob tore from her chest and Santana dropped her head. She knew she had to follow Rachel's directive for now and give her her space. Saying nothing else, Santana grabbed the keys to the smaller of the two sedans they owned and wheeled her travel bag to the car. Dropping into the front seat, Santana laid her head on the steering wheel tears flowing freely. How long she stayed like this she didn't know, but once the tears stopped falling and her vision cleared, Santana slowly pulled away from the house in the direction of Quinn's. Quinn would hate her for breaking Rachel's heart, but she'd let her stay without too many questions for tonight at least.