It snows in New York on New Year's Eve. Normally, with the weather like that, you'd lay on the couch all day and watch movies, but not this year. This year, Asha is moving out of the apartment you've shared for nearly the last decade of your life, and you're not sure how to feel about it. It's not the divorce you're unsure of. Having seen Santana on Christmas Eve, you're more certain than ever of the choice you made, but it's a strange feeling, letting go of someone who's been your partner and your wife for so long. She packs the rest of her things, belongings divided up, and you watch, because there's nothing else you can do. She's found a new place to live, and you're going to carry on with your life where you were. You feel strange about the whole thing, you're not sad, but you know that she is. You wish you could have been better for her, because she tried so hard to be good for you.

When the last of her boxes and the divided furniture is out of the apartment, things feel empty. You'll have to buy new things to fill the space, but when you'll do it, you're not certain. You have a few weeks off before the next semester of school starts, and maybe you'll wander around Crate and Barrel during that time. You'll be alone in the store, you'll be alone in your life, and it pangs you, deeper than you know how to express. This isn't the way things should have worked out, your life shouldn't have gone this way, but instead of your soon to be ex-wife, you find yourself thinking about the lover that could have been.

Unsure of what to do with yourself, you finally find the couch and your television movies. You flip past a marathon of The Twilight Zone, and you find It's a Wonderful Life on AMC. You hate the movie with a passion, and you think George Bailey is kind of an idiot, but you watch it anyway. You think this is what loneliness really feels like, even though you've been lonely for fifteen years, and you find that you can't get warm under the blankets on the couch. You're forty years old, and you don't know what to do with your life. Everything feels overwhelming, and you figure the best thing to do is worry about the upcoming semester. Work will give you something to do, work, like it always has, will fill the loneliness deep within your heart.

A little after five, the phone rings. It's a number you don't recognize, and you consider letting it go to voicemail. You think about how you should be calling your mother, telling her that you're getting a divorce. You think about how you should probably call Asha, to see if she managed to get everything into her new apartment, since you promised to remain friends. But instead, you pick up for the unknown number. You're lonely, and even if it's a telemarketer, at least you'll have a few minutes of distraction before you return to the despair of utter solitude.

"Hello?" You answer, and there's a silence on the other end of the line. "Hello?"

"Uh, hey, Brittany."

"Santana?"

"Yeah, it's me."

"What's…um, what's going on?"

"Nothing really. I just got to my dressing room at the New Year's Rockin' Eve party. I don't even know why I'm calling you. I was going to give you a few months to sort out your life before I did, but…" She hesitates on the other end of the line, and you take a deep breath. "I haven't stopped thinking about you since I saw you."

"Yeah…neither have I. My w—Asha just moved out today, so…I guess I'm getting to the point where I'm sorting out my life, even though it feels like a fucking disaster right now."

"Are you okay?"

"I'm watching It's a Wonderful Life, so…"

"I thought you hated that movie?"

"You remember that?" You ask, surprised by the fact that she does.

"You kind of made a big deal about it every Christmas. You said it was the most depressing movie on the face of the planet, and you had no idea why people thought it was a good idea to watch it when they're supposed to be happy."

"It's terrible. The whole thing is a goddamn disaster. I don't even know why I'm watching it. Maybe I just feel like I'm supposed to suffer today."

"Because of your…Asha?"

"Among other things." You shake your head to yourself, and you lower the volume on the television. "It's just been a rough day. But you don't want to hear about it, you're going to perform tonight for like, a zillion people."

"I am. I shouldn't have called you, I just couldn't help myself."

"I'm glad you did. I wasn't sure if you would or not."

"Neither was I." She confesses. "But yet, here I am."

"So, you're performing tonight?"

"I am. Every year for the past thirteen years. It's been…a dream."

"I've seen you a few times. It was…weird with Ash. I usually tried to avoid seeing you, you know? It kind of put a damper on my New Year."

"You could have been there with me, you know?"

"Santana…"

"I'm sorry, I'm still a little bitter okay? This was a dream that I wanted so much to share with you. And I have my dream, but I'm alone."

"I'm alone too. I've been alone even when I wasn't. It's been heartbreaking knowing that I couldn't be with you because of what I did. I never wanted anything but the best for you, I just didn't think being with you was the best for me. I'll regret that for the rest of my life."

"New Year's isn't the time for regrets, is it?"

"Is it not?" You ask, genuinely curious.

"I don't know. I guess I have regrets every year. I missed you, Brittany. Everything I did in my career, I thought of you."

"Never a day went by when I didn't think of you either. It's really messed me up, seeing you. I spent Christmas Day a total wreck, trying to pretend everything was normal with Ash for my parents. I still haven't told them."

"Are you going to?"

"I have to. I just…my dad was such a wreck after you and I were over, and I hate to do that again. I brought someone into their lives, and now I've taken her out."

"I never thought your dad liked me."

"My dad loved you. I think he probably owns all of your albums. Asha said she was always trying to keep up with the past. But they loved her too. They knew she was really good for me. I just…couldn't make it work. She was never you, and she was never going to be you."

"It's hard for me to believe that you held onto the memory of me all of these years."

"Santana, you were always the one for me. I knew that…"

"See me tonight." She says suddenly, and your face colors, though she can't see.

"What? You're performing."

"See me after. Start the new year with me. Wherever you want. In my dressing room, on a park bench, I don't care."

"What about our place?"

"The Waverly Diner?"

"Yeah." You say, amazed that she actually remembers it. "Have a cup of coffee with me. Say one-am?"

"You hate staying up late."

"I've gotten used to it. I end up grading tests sometimes until two, three o'clock in the morning. I can make it up until you're finished. I'll take a nap before you go on, or something."

"Are you going to watch?"

"This year, I will."

"Okay, then I'll have something to say for you. Just…listen, okay?"

"I'll be listening, Santana. I'll see you at one. I'll save the booth."

You hang up the phone with her, and you go into panic mode. This is the love of your life, the one you screwed things up with so long ago, and you're seeing her tonight, mere hours after your whole life has changed. You don't know what to wear, you don't know how to be, and you turn off that stupid Christmas movie to dig through your closet. You throw everything aside, and you decide on jeans and a sweater. The snow is brutal, and there's nothing else that makes sense. So you lay it out on the chair in your bedroom, and you busy yourself. You can't sit around, you need to do something, or else you're going to go insane. You've lived every day with regret, and yet, you can't regret this. This has to go well. This has to be the new beginning for you. It's Santana. You broke her heart. There's no room for accidents.

The whole night, you're in a state. When you finally settle down on the couch at eleven-pm, fully dressed, after eating takeout sushi in the kitchen, she's on TV. You think of all the years you couldn't bear to watch it. The years you'd be at parties with Asha, and she'd watch you leave the room whenever Santana came on. She's a star, she's been everywhere, in everything for fifteen years, but this is the first time you're really taking it in. She sings, and you're riveted. 'Cause I've been by myself all night long, hoping you're someone I used to know. You get it, when she said she had something to say for you, and the song makes you a little sick to your stomach. It was just like a movie. It was just like a song. When we were young.

You watch the ball drop alone, and after you ring in the new year, you search for a cab to take downtown. Everything is buzzing in the streets, and the snow still falls as you sit in the back seat of the cab. You feel like you're moving toward the rest of your life, and moving backward to the life you gave up all at the same time. You're seeing Santana, in the place you had so many breakfasts, so many lunches when you had class, so many late dinners after she'd get home from traveling. You haven't been there in fifteen years, and when you walk in the door, you feel like not a day has past, especially when you take the same booth in the corner you always used to sit at.

She walks in only a few minutes later, her face hidden by a hat and sunglasses. It's a strange thing for you, the idea that the girl you grew up with is so famous that she has to hide her identity, but a long time has passed. She's someone now. She's made it to the big time, and you suddenly wonder if you'll wind up in the tabloids. You hope not, you really hope not. You still haven't told your parents about your divorce, and you know if they see the two of you together, they'll know. You think of Asha, how much it will hurt her to see how quickly you wound up back around Santana. But mostly, you think of how you don't want to try again with her in front of the whole world. You want it to be how it used to, when you had privacy, and you could love her without eyes all over you.

"Hey." She sits down across from you, and she takes off her hat and glasses. "Sorry I'm late."

"It's fine, I just got here, I know the snow and the crowds are bad out there."

"I know, but I wanted to be on time. It was important to me."

"We'll try again next time." You shrug.

"Next time?"

"I don't know, is there going to be a next time?"

"I'd like that." She sighs. "I'm just at a loss as to where we go from here."

"How about we start with coffee?" You suggest, and she nods.

The waitress brings over coffee and menus, and you study Santana's face across the table. You can't help but wonder if she's had work done, because her skin lacks the lines that have formed on yours. She looks good, she looks really good, and you feel a little self-conscious about your own appearance. You know your hair has the slightest hint of grey in it, and lines have formed around your mouth. You thought maybe it made you look more distinguished, particularly since you're among the youngest on the faculty in your department, but right now, in comparison to Santana, it makes you feel old. She knew you when you were so young, and she wasn't there to watch you age gracefully. In her mind, you think, you're still twenty-five, just like she is in yours, and the whole thing makes you feel strange.

"The show was great tonight." You finally say.

"You watched?"

"I did."

"I wasn't supposed to perform When We Were Young, but I convinced them at the last minute that it was an appropriate New Year song. I wrote it about five years ago, when I came across an article about you in the Times."

"The Riemann Hypothesis."

"You solved it. You'd been working on it for so long."

"Since I graduated high school." You nod. "I think they thought I'd solve it right away, but it took me more time than I'd hoped."

"You solved a seemingly unsolvable problem, I don't think it matters how long it took you."

"It definitely mattered to my department. They were…really on me about it. If you remember, I don't work well under that kind of pressure."

"I know, that's why you chose NYU over MIT."

"Partially. I mean, you were here, so it was an easy choice."

"Do you regret making that kind of choice for me?" She furrows her brow, and you finally notice lines on her face.

"I don't regret any of the time we had together, I just wish there was more of it."

"I don't want to push you, but I'd like to make us have more time. I'm finished with my tour, I'm settling here for a while."

"And what about your next one?"

"I can't say there won't be a next one, Britt. I don't travel the way I used to, but my career involves some of it. I know that's something that doesn't sit right with you."

"I'm older now, I'm settled." You shake your head. "I understand that if something happens between us, you're going to be gone for extended periods of time."

"Do you want something to happen between us?"

"I wouldn't be here if I didn't."

"Even so soon after…"

"It was always you, Santana. Even when you weren't in my life, it's always been."

"I'm concerned about you and the paparazzi. They don't leave me alone, Brittany. It's a miracle I made it here without being followed. I'm sure they're waiting outside my house right now for me to come home. I don't want to put you through that, especially not while you're still going through a divorce."

"It's something I'm willing to do. I wasn't, fifteen years ago, but I saw what life without you looked like. It's like…some kind of fucked up version of It's a Wonderful Life, or A Christmas Carol, except it didn't all end in one night. It was my life for too long, thinking about what we could have had if I didn't leave. I'm willing to make sacrifices if it means I get to be with you again. I don't want to do another fifteen years where I don't get to be intimately involved with you."

"Intimately?"

"Intimately. I mean that in every sense of the word. If there are paparazzi at your place, then we'll go back to mine. I've got nothing but an old doorman named Michael who doesn't care what I do."

"You want to go back to your place?"

"Yes…no…I don't know. My mind is screaming that we should take this really slow, but my heart is just…I missed you, Santana. I missed you more than I've ever missed anyone or anything in the world. I don't want to take it slow, because I want to make up for every minute we lost. I don't know…"

"I get that. I'm just…so afraid for what's going to happen. I can't lose you again."

"You're not." You promise. "I don't have any plans to go anywhere."

"Even if it gets hard?"

"Even if it gets hard."

You sit in that diner and drink coffee until the sun begins to come up. You learn everything you possibly can about the years you were away from her, and you tell her everything about your life. She learns how you broke your arm twice, almost exactly a year apart, because you slipped on ice outside of your building. You learn that her father passed away, and she's struggled every year since to make sense of the complicated relationship the two of them had. She learns that you're still dancing, even though it's hard to fit it into your schedule sometimes. You learn that she's learned to finally speak fluent Spanish, because hers was so fragmented in the past. You want to know more, more, more, but when daylight comes, she's afraid she'll make a spectacle in the diner, and she calls her car to drop you home before she goes home herself.

"Do you want to come up?" You ask, when the car pulls up outside of the building.

"Do you really want me to? You're not too tired?"

"I don't want tonight to end. Stay with me, start this year in the way we should have started the last fifteen."

"Okay." She nods, and rolls down the partition to talk to her driver. "Robert, you can go on home now. I'll call you later on, when I need to be picked up."

"Alright, Miss. Just let me know."

You get out of the car, and Santana follows you. As much as you'd like to hold her hand in the street, you don't. If anyone is watching, it'll be obvious enough what's about to happen, as pop sensation Santana Lopez goes into the house with a strange woman on the early hours of New Year's Day, but you don't need to give any ammunition to the gossip rags that report on her. Instead, you walk a few feet ahead of her, and you hold the door backwards so she can come into the building. You let her into the elevator, and you become a bit self-conscious of her seeing the modest way you live, when she's probably accustomed to grand opulence. But it's Santana, so you can't be bothered much by it as you unlock the door to your apartment, and you let her in, taking her coat.

"Sorry it's so…empty in here. I have to go shopping this week. Or, like, go on Amazon or something. I don't know, I haven't bought furniture in a long time."

"My place is pretty sparse too." She shakes her head. "I didn't really care enough to decorate it, since I've spent so much time in hotel rooms. It looks normal to me."

"Okay." You nod, glancing down quickly at your phone to see an early morning message from your mother before you toss it away. "Can I get you some coffee? A mimosa? I have champagne."

"A mimosa would be good. I had no champagne last night, it effects my singing voice, and I try to stay away from it before any performance."

"Really? I would have thought your lifestyle would be filled with drugs and alcohol and stuff…"

"My life is filled with kale smoothies, yoga, and a personal trainer. I'm pushing forty, and I'm starting to get that…belly thing."

"Like this?" You pat your own, and she laughs.

"You're lucky, there aren't bikini pictures of you on the cover of every magazine the second you gain a little weight. I'd love to eat a giant greasy hamburger and a piece of cheesecake and not have anyone comment on it."

"I can get you a burger and cheesecake if you want it. I've got a great connection called GrubHub."

"Thanks." She laughs, sliding out of her shoes. "I might take you up on that…but not at the crack of dawn. Just the mimosa is good for now, that's enough of a cheat for one day."

"I don't think I could live like that…"

"You know I've always had a complicated relationship with food. I do miss breadsticks though."

"One day I'll buy you a wheelbarrow full of them. Just inhale them all, get a belly pouch, fuck everyone else."

"Maybe someday…that's the dream, I think." She sighs, as you begin making mimosas in your kitchen, glad for the little bit of orange juice you have left.

"Happy New Year." You hand her one, and you clink one of the two remaining wine glasses in the apartment with hers. They're cheap ones, since you gave up the Waterford ones when you split your property with Asha, but it doesn't matter, they do the job.

"What are we toasting to this time?" She asks.

"To new beginnings, maybe?" You suggest. "To not forgetting old acquaintance?"

"We were more than old acquaintances, that's for sure."

"It's true. To the renewal of old love then."

"So, we're gonna do this, huh?" She asks you, and you nod emphatically.

"I'm ready to. I've been ready for years. Can I get you anything else?"

"No, this is good. Let's just…sit down?"

"Yeah, totally. Couch is over here…" You point her in the direction, and she sits down, with you close beside her. "Is it cool if I kiss you?"

"I've been waiting for it."

You lean into her, and you press your lips against hers. It feels like so much more than the kiss you shared in the car on Christmas, and you deepen it, putting both of your hands on the sides of her face, and slipping your tongue into her mouth. It's everything you've waited for for fifteen years, it's everything you've needed to feel whole again. When she slips her hands through your hair, you sigh contentedly, and you keep kissing her, until you feel like you can't breathe any longer.

"Bedroom?" She whispers, and a shiver runs down your spine. You weren't sure this would happen this morning, but apparently it is, and you just nod, standing up and taking her by the hand.

She lays you down on your bed, and you let her take the lead. It's not your usual dynamic, but it feels right, and you raise your arms for her to take your shirt off. She hovers over you, and she kisses your neck, the tops of your breasts, your age-softened belly. She looks gorgeous with the early morning light streaming through the window, and you smile up at her, watching as she pulls her sequined top up over her head. She lays over you, and your bra covered breasts press together, making your heart swell with something you can't quite express. Her body is different, and yet, against yours, it feels exactly the same.

"Gonna go down on you, okay?" She requests, and you feel as if you might explode.

All you can do is nod, and she undresses both you and herself, spreading your legs so she's bared to you. You can tell by the tentative way she kisses down your body that it's been awhile since she's done this, but as if it's muscle memory, she remembers exactly what it is that makes you tick. Her mouth circles your nipple, and you weave your fingers through her hair, pressing her closer to you. You want her to mark you, you want to be hers again, in every way there is to be. By the time she reaches your sex, you're arching up into her mouth, and she doesn't even bother to use her fingers to stroke you, her tongue does all the work, alternating pressure on your clit, before probing inside you. You know that you won't last long, but you try your best, squeezing your eyes shut so you don't have to see how gorgeous she looks between your legs. She's all you've wanted for a decade and a half, and you have her, right here in your bed.

"Come for me, Britt." She husks, looking up at you with her chin damp, and her eyes dark. "C'mon."

When she lowers her head back down, you do. Your body shakes with pleasure, and she doesn't stop. It's like she wants to drink it all in, and you let her. Your thighs lock over her ears, but her tongue keeps moving, in and out, in and out. She's so good at this, and you forgot about it, having settled for something that didn't feel right for so long. When she finally brings you down, you push her onto her back, and you dip your fingers between her legs. She's so wet that it makes you moan, and you bring your fingers to your lips, tasting them, before you do it again, and make her taste herself as well. She loves that, you remember, and she groans deeply, her body shaking as she sees the effect you have on her.

"I've been waiting to do this since the last time we did."

"Brittany…"

"I'm sorry…I just have."

You pleasure her for as long as she can stand, and when she's finished, you look up at her, black hair strewn across your white pillow cases. She looks absolutely stunning, and you can't help but crawl up her body and kiss her lips. You taste yourself on them, you taste her on them, and for the first time in as long as you can remember, you feel this sense of contentment course through your body. She's here, you've made love to her, and you never want to let her walk out the door. You know that you'll both have to resume your normal lives, and you'll have to figure out how you'll even go about resuming a relationship after so many years apart, but right in the moment, you gather her into your arms, and you hold her close.

"I haven't done that—" She whispers. "Since you."

"Sex?" You ask, completely shocked by the revelation, but she shakes her head.

"Sex like that. It was…too much for me. Too intimate. I did it other ways, but not like that."

"I love you." You murmur, because you're not sure what else there is to say.

"I love you too, and I can't let you go again."

"Please don't. I feel so…content."

"That's the only word I could think of too." She smiles softly. "It's going to be hard."

"I know, but I'm willing to do hard. I want this to work."

"So do I, Britt. So do I."