A/N

I've decided to post the first chapter of the story that I promised you guys so long ago. The last chapter of 'For Her Brittana Was Always Endgame' is still being written- I know that it's been a really long time but school work and stuff has gotten in the way. Anyway, I hope you like the first chapter of my new story- please let me know if you want me to continue, I have the next couple chapters planned but I need to know if it's worth writing them. R&R :D

Disclaimer: I do not own Glee or any of the characters belonging to Glee

The worst nightmare for any mother was the doctor's waiting room. Whether it is for a simple check-up or something much more serious, once you become a mother your child's life is valued above all others, including your own.

Santana looked down at the small girl sat on her lap. The infant looked so tiny, pressed tightly against her chest and she had to try very hard to contain the tears that threatened to escape the strong barrier she had previously placed in her eyes. She had to stay strong, it was probably only a break, but she still felt like it was her fault. It had happened so fast but that didn't matter. What mattered is that she had broken the one promise she had always hoped she wouldn't. She had allowed harm to come to her daughter.

Becoming a mum in High School was never part of someone's life plan and Santana was no exception. Her plan had been to get out of Lima as soon as she could, get the first flight or train or whatever and take it to a big city. New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco she wouldn't have minded as long as she was as far away as possible from her controlling parent, suffocating town and the brain-dead group of people she mistakenly called her friends.

That had all changed when she found out she was pregnant. It had seemed like some sort of cruel joke, 18 and pregnant and with any hope of the future she had planned gone. Her parents had tried everything possible to make her get rid of it. They had spent their whole lives trying to give their children the best chances possible, even if it meant working 100 hour weeks. Santana's father had managed to move out of the poorer part of his childhood home, Lima Heights Adjacent but drive a mile down the road and you would be right back into the poorest part. The kids there had no hope of doing anymore than working in the local convenience store or flipping burgers at the only fast-food restaurant in town.

Santana had the chance to escape but she lost it after getting drunk and having sex with her dead-beat boyfriend, Ricardo.

However, it didn't matter what her parents said. She had decided early on to keep the baby and it didn't matter how much money they offered, how many threats they shouted. Santana hadn't fully understood her choice then, she wasn't religious or anti-abortion, but now she was thankful everyday for the beautiful little girl that had come out of so many bad decisions. She was stuck in Lima but she knew the only good decision she had ever made was keeping her baby.

They had been in the emergency room for an hour. It was a dull place, the walls painted an off-white and the chairs well over used with the material fraying around the edges. It was quite a big space with seating for about forty but they weren't nearly all being used as the majority of people, entering the hospital, did so on a crash hoped that the noises of ambulances, their sirens blaring on a continuous loop, wouldn't scare her daughter.

The morning events that led them both here repeated continuous in Santana's head. At the time it had seemed sudden and she had felt like there was nothing she could do but now she knew that it wasn't that there was nothing for her to do, it was that she did nothing and that hadn't hurt her, it had hurt the most precious thing in her life, Emily.

Emily was being very brave. From the time it had taken for Santana to realise that what had happened was serious to right now sitting in the waiting area,her tears had all dried up and she was carefully supporting her weak arm with the other. Her dark hair was in a mess having only just woken up when it happened and she was still wearing her ducky pyjamas with an oversized jacket thrown over the top.

It had been less than twelve hours ago when she had been tucking Emily into bed, placing one soft kiss on her head, whispering her an I love you before turning off the light. Now she was trying to get Emily comfortable on the hard metal hospital chair.

"Mami, my tummy is going grumble, grumble." Santana smiled at her daughter's cuteness before reaching into her pockets to see if she had grabbed any money in the rush to get here. She found some coins in her jeans and $10 in her coat pocket. "Emily, I'm just going to the vending machine over there." She explained, pointing to the vending machine at the over side of the room.

"Okay mami, can you get me some chocolate?" Emily knew that chocolate was only allowed on Fridays but this was a special situation. "Of course baby, but I'm going to get you a sandwich or something more filling as well." The little girl nodded before curling back in the chair, leaning her small head on the arm-rest.

Santana looked back again before walking over to the vending machine. It was old and when she went to press the buttons a thin layer of dust came off on her finger. She brushed it quickly against her jeans before leaning down to pull out the candy bar and two sandwiches from the bottom of the machine.

Just before she went to stand up, she felt a tap on her arse. Having previous experience with douche bags like this, she quickly spun round to face the idiot who slapped it.

Behind her was a young pimply man with brown hair and wearing jeans that sagged round his ankles. "Excuse me, I think you lost control of your hand and it ended up on my butt." He went to correct her, placing one hand in his pocket and trying to look cool by running his fingers through his hair but just ended up almost getting his ring stuck.

"No, I think that is what you should say happened because if not I may have to break your arm, you see it wouldn't be inconvenient for you, we're already in the hospital." The boy walked off, muttering something about a crazy bitch and pulling his arms safely back into the sleeves of his over-sized jumper.

Santana shook her head as she sat back down beside her little girl, tapping Emily lightly on the shoulder to wake her and give her the candy bar. "Yay! Mami, it's my favourite." Emily went to open the wrapper but found that it was near impossible with one hand. "Pass it here, baby girl." Santana took the candy bar, peeled off the wrapper and giving it back.

Emily whispered a silent thank you before proceeding to get more of it on her face than in her mouth. The food worked for a while but soon Emily began to not be able to ignore the shooting pain that was traveling up her arm. Santana had seen some horrific injuries while she was in the Cheerios. Coach Sylvester's rule was that unless she could see bone, nothing was wrong before rambling off onto one of her special forces stories. Her little girl's wasn't that bad but the pain was different when the worst injury you had gotten before was a scraped knee.

To try and distract her, Santana sang softly a mixture of nursery rhymes and top forty hits, into her daughter's ear. It had been a long time since she had sung to an audience and she doubted anyone would ever be able to make her again but she was happy to the private audience of only Emily's ears.

She knew Em liked it when she sung, as often, before bed Emily would ask Santana to sing rather then read a bedtime story. She also knew that Emily wouldn't be patient for very long. It was only a matter of time before she would start to make a fuss. She was only five.

Correction, she was five and a half, the half was very important.

Santana started to grow impatient as well, like mother like daughter. It seemed that everybody was being checked before them, though they had been there the longest. Who cares if that knife in the man's head may blind him or that that woman's leg had to be operated on straight away or it would have to be amputated. She had no idea what was taking so long.

"Em, I'm going to talk to the lady to see when the doctor is going to look at your arm." The little girl, who was slightly more calm and who's cries where now uneven sobs, just nodded.

Santana stormed up to the front desk, making sure to turn on the glare that she perfected in high school. Seeing no-one there, she placed her hands either side of the space in the glass, peering in, looking for someone to help.

There was only a bored looking woman in the corner, her ipod headphones in her ears and her mouth filled with pink bubblegum, chewing in time to the music. "Excuse me." With no answer Santana tried louder, "EXCUSE ME."

The woman just gave her look, slowly rolling the chair that she was sitting on to the window. Dramatically removing both ear phones before asking Santana what was wrong "Can I help you, miss?" The miserable lady looked like she had no interest in what Santana was about to say and no intention of helping.

"Yes," Santana glanced down at the name badge, "Martha. We have been waiting for over an hour yet you still have not gotten a doctor to look at my child. She is in a considerable amount of pain."

The woman took a deep, shallow breath while simultaneously rolling her eyes. "And what do you expect me to do about it?" Santana took a deep breath as well but this was to make sure she didn't get arrested for physically attacking the woman.

"What do you mean, what do I expect you to do about it? Your job, doing whatever meaningless tasks that suits your probably limited IQ, revolves around getting the people in the ER into the doctor's offices. So, what I expect you to do about it is get my daughter and I through those doors," Pointing at the door she had seen everybody walk through when called, "so that anything that needs to be done to help put her out of her pain and into recovery is done. Do you understand?"

The woman smirked back at her, "I'm afraid I don't understand. You see, with my limited IQ, it's sometimes hard to understand long complicated sentences. Now please turn around and go back to your seat. When there is a doctor available, I will call you." Santana was preparing her retort when she realised that that angering the woman probably wouldn't better her cause.

"Well, thank you for your help." Santana was livid as she returned to her seat, causing her to mutter a few unquestionable things in Spanish. "Mami, you told me never to say those things. You said that Papi says it when he's hurt himself. Are you hurt Mami?"

Santana was calmed by the sound of her daughter's concern, "No Mija, Mami's just angry. I'm sorry for cursing, don't ever do it." Emily nodded in understanding.

Finally, the grumpy middle-aged women sitting behind the reception desk called for them to go through, "Miss Lopez, we're ready to see you now. Dr. Pierce is waiting for you in Room 5." Santana followed the lady's instructions.

Carrying, a now whimpering, Emily carefully to avoid any contact with her arm. She walked purposefully down the artificially lit hallway. The walls were an off white with a red stripe running halfway down. The floor was carpeted. A few of the rooms had their doors open and Santana looked through, checking a couple as she passed.

In every room there were sick children sitting in their hospital rooms without anybody for company and occasionally a nurse would pass, pushing an equally sick child in a wheelchair. The emotions she had been able to hide away almost returned at the thought of Emily being in one of those beds.

Room 5 was easy to find, right between Room 4 and Room 6. Santana knocked lightly and was surprised when it was opened by a beautiful, young women. "Sorry, I'm looking for Dr. Pierce. The women at the desk told me Room 5." The lady smiled, "Well then you've come to the right place. I'm Dr. Pierce and you must be Miss Lopez."

"Sorry, I didn't expected you to be so prett...pretzel." Santana had no idea what she was saying. Pretzel, really. It wasn't often that somebody caused her to loose her cool. Her calm, collected nature had been something that she learnt in high school. Being at the top of the ladder meant that every word that came out of her mouth had to be carefully calculated. High school had certain rules, say the wrong thing and your back at the bottom of the social hierarchy.

Then again, it wasn't often that she saw somebody so perfect. The doctor had long blonde hair that was currently tied up in a high ponytail. She was tall with an athletic figure and Santana could tell from the way that she stood, head held high and back straight, that she must have been a dancer or something similar.

She was kind enough to pretend that Santana hadn't just called her a pretzel. "So who's this beautiful girl in the amazing ducky pyjamas. You must be at least ten."

This caused Emily to show a little smile. "You're silly. My name's Emily, ducks are my favourite animal in the whole wide world and I'm five and a half." Santana smiled, ever since Emily had learnt time in Kindergarden a month ago her age had become very important.

It had taken some persuading for Emily to agree to stay with the basic five and a half ever since another parent asked and Emily replied, "Five years, six months, twelve days, fifteen hours, twenty seven minutes and six, wait seven, wait eight, wait nine, wait ten seconds..."

She mocked surprise before replying, "Five and a half. The half's very important." Brittany flashed Santana a quick smile and Santana felt a bit of reassurance from the warmth that radiated from the beautiful doctor's face. "Now Miss. Lopez why don't you put Emily down on the bench and we can see what's wrong with her." Santana gently seated Emily on the seat and let Dr. Pierce look at her arm.

"So how did this happen?" Santana didn't want to tell everything and so stayed as vague as possible, "I'm not completely sure, she went downstairs early and I heard a scream." knew better than to ask any further. Usually when a parent was vague it usually meant that something was wrong but Brittany could see, in the way that Miss Lopez looked at her child, she would never try to hurt her.

Brittany's worst part of the job was treating children with spiral fractures and a nervous parent. This meant that the arm had been twisted the whole way around and was the most likely kind of breakage if abuse was involved. How anyone could hurt a child, she would never understand.

She carefully pressed Emily's arm and it caused Santana to wince every time her daughter cried out in pain. "Ok, it's very likely to be a break but the good news is that I don't think it's a bad one. I'm going to take Emily to the x-ray machine. I hope you don't mind but you'll have to wait here, you're not going to be allowed to go into the room. We'll be no more than 15 minutes."

Brittany lifted Emily down slowly from the bench before taking her strong hand and heading off down the corridor towards the x-ray room.

Brittany was actually holding Emily for her own support. She never has liked the x-ray machine room. The big machine's reminded of her the space-ship where she was probed. She had managed to slightly get over her fear and could go in as long as somebody else was there but it was the last place you would find her alone on a dark night.

Santana was slightly comforted by the sight of the beautiful doctor, walking down the corridor, holding her child's hand and whispering soothing words in her ear, "Don't tell anyone but ducks are my favourite animal in the whole wide world and I might have a secret ducky lollipop for you to have, as long as you be good while we check your arm with the machine."