Title: Home Is Wherever I'm With You
Pairing: Santana Lopez/Brittany Pierce (Glee)
Rating: T for mild descriptions of violence
Summary: "Santana Lopez has been called many things in her life, but never among them a fool. So it's only natural that her first reaction upon spotting a telltale cloud of dust marking the fast approach of a horse is to reach down beside her chair to where her rifle is and bring it to her lap."
Disclaimer: Glee and all related characters are owned by Fox Networks. No profit has been made through the publishing of this work of fiction: it was created for entertainment purposes only.
A/N: For the BrittanaCon Prompt Project, in response to the prompt by crammit.
Prompt: Brittany is a Pony Express Rider & gets shot in a robbery attempt & Santana is a widowed woman that finds Brittany's horse on her land with Brittany passed out in the saddle & Santana brings Brittany back to her cabin to treat her.
Santana Lopez (Yorba, that mocking voice in her head corrects) has been called many things in her life, but never among them a fool.
(Widow was the most recent title she had acquired, and within three months she has already held it longer than the title of wife preceding it.)
So it's only natural that her first reaction upon spotting a telltale cloud of dust marking the fast approach of a horse is to reach down beside her chair to where her rifle is and bring it to her lap. No one would approach this plot of land anyway other than intentionally.
Eduardo Yorba, her late husband, God rest his soul (or the Devil take it, if there is any justice), was not a personable fellow by any stretch of the imagination, and it showed in his choice of residence. A remote ranch in the middle of the Nevada desert where the only souls around were the eighteen farmhands he had employed to manage some 700 head of cattle, and his newly wed bride. The closest town, Stillwater, was 10 miles away.
His death had been rather sudden, as most deaths by cattle stampede are, but Santana had been assured by his hires that it had been quick. She supposed upon reflection later that they were only trying to ease the news of his passing, not knowing that her status was the product of business, and not love. Instead she had merely spat on the ground and told the hires to leave him for the buzzards before slowly limping back inside to nurse a shiner from the night before. All but one of the men had left soon after that, assuming that their pay would dry up sure as the bones of their former employer. The buried him somewhere behind the barn in an unmarked grave, and tipped their hats to the widow before mounting up and riding out.
The only one who remained was an older, mostly silent man who went simply by Sanchez, and may or may not have been a distant cousin to Santana. Sanchez had offered to sell the cattle on Santana's behalf, and hadn't so much as blinked when she insisted upon coming with him for the sale. True to his word, the entire herd was sold to a man passing through Stillwater for the absurdly generous price of $19.50 a head. A week later, two dozen men had shown up and taken charge of the cattle and begun driving them further west to whatever fate God might decree. The grazing fields have lain fallow ever since.
Santana was left with a tidy sum of $13,650.00, plus the unexpected wealth of nearly seventy-four one pound gold bars hidden in a safe in the back of Eduardo's closet. Santana would have been infuriated by his secrecy if she hadn't been so consumed with relief at her newfound financial security. Sanchez agreed to stay on and manage the property in exchange for room, board, and $32.00 a month. He tends the chickens, the pigs, the two milk cows, and handles all the repairs, while Santana keeps house and tends a garden that yields enough produce to feed ten people, and sends all the excess into town with Sanchez twice a month in a flatbed wagon to trade for anything they can't produce themselves. He stays in the field house about a quarter mile from the house proper, and Santana sleeps soundly every night with a Navy Revolver under her pillow.
She's pulled out of her recollections by the rolling thunder of hoofbeats getting closer and lifts the rifle to set the rapidly growing figure in its sight.
A few anxious minutes later, she can make out a slumped figure jouncing awkwardly on the beast's back, swaying dangerously with each pounding gallop. Santana is out of her chair and backing up towards her front door, rifle still trained on the hunched rider, before the horse can clear the border fence of her property.
The jump knocks the rider loose, and he hits the ground with a groan and a puff of dust while his horse slows to a trot and finally stops at the porchfront, flanks heaving with exertion. Sidling past the sweat-soaked beast, Santana slowly approaches its former rider, still measuring out his length on the sun-baked dirt. She stops a full ten feet away, cocks the hammer and curls a finger around the trigger, and speaks.
"You alive?"
The figure gives a high, pitiful moan before flopping heavily onto his back, his head lolling towards Santana. She takes a step closer.
"Can you stand?"
The man doesn't answer. Santana takes three more steps, reaching out with the barrel of her gun to prod at his shoulder. He moans again, rolls to his side coughing and wheezing, and spits out a mouthful of blood before lifting himself on shaky arms. He mumbles between coughs, and Santana takes another step, rifle lowered but finger still on the trigger. She's close enough now to see that the man's face, though filthy and weathered, is round and soft. Hardly more than a boy, she realizes.
A small part of her mind notes that while the boy's features are too delicate to be considered truly handsome, he is strangely beautiful in a fey sort of manner. She scowls the thought away as soon as it's formed, irritated by her own silliness.
"What was that?"
The boy hauls himself to his knees slowly, wrapping his right arm around his belly to grip at a bloodstain at least twice the size of his hand on his left side. Spitting again, he looks up at Santana with a red and brown stained face and repeats in a soft tone, "Don'- don' rightly know, ma'am."
Santana almost laughs at the civil response, but shakes it off as nerves. She eyes the boy carefully, noting the way his skin is pale and drawn under the sweat, grime, and blood, and decides the poor soul is too close to death to make much trouble for a widowed woman alone. She lowers her weapon at last and covering the last few feet to knee at the boy's side.
"Well, best put your arm around me then. Someone plugged you good, boy, and I won't have you bleeding all over my property," she orders gruffly, too used to giving orders to do anything else. The boy complies with another pained wheeze, chin dropping to his chest as she slowly helps him struggle to his feet.
"Alright now, can you walk? The house is just there, and we need to get you lying down so I can see what else is to be done."
"Yes'm. I think I can walk if you just hold me up a bit. I'm awful tired, s'all."
"You're awful shot, is what you are," Santana snaps scornfully, but her arm around the stranger's waist remains firm and supportive. "Let's move then. The faster we get to the house, the faster you can rest."
Sanchez finds the pair of them struggling to make it up the porch stairs and wordlessly lifts the boy into his arms, nodding to Santana. Relieved of her burden she hurries to open the front door, directing the hireling to deposit his load on the settee in the parlor, mindless of the still growing bloodstain in the boy's shirt. Barking out a list of items for Sanchez to fetch once he's stoked the coals in the fireplace to flame, she begins unbuckling the man's belt and pants so she can tug free his shirt. She glances at his face when she gets to the fly of his jeans and startles to find stunningly blue eyes peering hazily back at her.
"You're real pretty. You an angel?"
Scoffing, Santana shakes her head, steadfastly ignoring the way her stomach tightens around the word 'pretty'. "Hardly," she sneers.
He groans quietly when the soaked material pulls against his skin, already sticking to the wound.
She glances at his face again, catching another glimpse of bright blue before his eyes roll back into his head completely.
"Just as well," she mutters to no one. "You'll squirm less if you're gone, and this isn't going to be pleasant for either of us as it is."
She works quickly, unbuttoning his shirt and pulling it open, only to gasp in shock and fling it closed again when Sanchez returns with a bowl of warm water inside a larger empty bowl several towels, and a black satchel.
He sets everything in a neat pile at Santana's side, then drags over a footstool for her to perch on. She nods her thanks and then brusquely dismisses him, directing his attention to the horse still waiting patiently at her porch. He stares at her for a moment, suspicious, but only shrugs and clomps out the front door to go care for the steed.
Bewildered, Santana slowly lifts the stranger's shirt open again, not entirely convinced her eyes weren't fooled. But no, there under the heavy cotton material, just above an oozing gunshot wound, is a bandage wrapped over the slight curve of breasts.
The boy is no boy at all, but a woman.
Shaking herself, Santana lets the rest of the shirt fall open. She'll deal with everything else later, but first, the wound.
Carefully, she lifts the bowl of warm water and sets it on the floor to her left, nudging the empty one between her feet directly under the injury. She wets one of the towels and gently washes away as much of the blood as she can to get a better look. She sighs a little in relief to see that although the shooter may have taken a fair chunk of the boy's- woman's side, the bullet never actually seems to have entered her body. She sends a brief prayer of thanks to the Lord for small mercies. A graze she can clean up and close, but she's never actually had to treat a real bullet hole before.
She drags the satchel between her feet and opens it to pull out a still mostly full bottle of whisky. Yanking the cork, she takes a small swig (nearly choking at the burn in her throat) before dousing the woman's side liberally. The brown liquid runs red as it soaks the woman's shirt before draining into the bowl beneath. Running the wet towel over the hole again to clear it of liquor and fresh blood, she next pulls out a knife, purposely dulled.
Santana thrusts the knife into the fireplace, nearly singeing her own knuckles in the process. Glancing at her senseless patient, she allows a shudder to run its course through her, and takes another pull from the bottle to steady her nerves.
(And her hands.)
After a few minutes of waiting with one hand pressing a towel against the woman's side to help stem the bleeding, she reaches for the knife with the other. The blade is red at the edges now, and she shudders again at the thought of her next step. Bracing her weight across the woman's chest, Santana takes a deep breath, lifts the towel, and presses the knife's blade to the site of the gash. The woman immediately begins to thrash and scream, nearly bucking Santana clear off, only to suddenly fall limp once more as she passes out again.
Gagging at the scent of charred flesh, Santana lifts the knife and drops it into the empty bowl, along with the dirtied towel. Her stomach pitches and roils viciously at the sight of her own handiwork (and the smell). With trembling fingers she reaches into the satchel again, this time pulling out rolled up linen bandages. As carefully as she can, she lifts the woman by her shoulders and wraps the bandage round her patient's waist, covering the sight of the cauterized gash and replacing it with soft fabric. Once finished, she lets the unconscious stranger slump back down onto the settee, checking carefully for any other damage. When she finds none, she drops heavily onto the footstool, exhausted and relieved.
It takes her another twenty minutes before she can stand steady enough to clear all the mess, drape a blanket over the stranger's body, and collapse into her own bed.
(It takes no time at all for sleep to overtake her.)
The smell of sausage cooking is what finally pulls Santana back into awareness, and once she identifies the smell, all sleep leaves her in an instant.
Someone is cooking sausage in her kitchen.
(No one else has cooked in her kitchen since it became hers - not before her husband died, and most certainly not after.)
Grimacing slightly at the state of her bloodstained clothes, she reaches under her pillow for the revolver before sneaking silently out of her room to peer around the corner. There, standing at her stove, is the stranger from before.
Giving up all pretense of stealth, Santana stumbles into the kitchen, shocked and no little bit exasperated. Her revolver hangs loosely from her left hand, mostly forgotten.
"Just what in the Sam Hill do you think you're doing?" she demands angrily, only slightly guilty when the woman jumps and then grimaces as she clutches her side just under where Santana knows her injury to be.
The woman turns to grin at her sheepishly, and Santana is struck with the sudden, foolish thought that she has never seen anything so lovely in all her twenty-two years. She spends several seconds staring at eyes that shine bluer than the sky at midday, entirely at a loss.
"I just figgered I ought do ya a good turn, since y'did me and Clayton good ones this mornin', ma'am. Sure didn't mean to cause a fuss like 'at, but Clayton says you took real good care of me anyhow." She scratches at the back of her neck under a thick plait of cornsilk hair, somehow looking both apologetic and sly all at once.
Santana can only continue to stare.
"I checked on ol' Clayton when I woke up, 'n' he says yon barn is better 'n' any station he ever been at, and since I had no right wakin' up at all what with my hide bein' all full of holes, we was both real beholden to ya, ma'am. I know cookin' some chow ain't much a trade for m'life, but I ain't got much else and I won't get paid til I finish my run, see," she finishes reasonably. When Santana can only continue to stare, the woman shuffles over to the small breakfast nook, pulling out a chair for Santana to sit in, and then moves slowly back to the stove to take the sausages off the griddle.
Snapping out of her daze, Santana stashes the revolver in the waistband of her skirt and ignores the waiting chair in favor of bustling over to the stove, reclaiming her pan and shooing the woman away. When she starts to protest, Santana simply glowers, pointing to the still empty chair. "You sit your foolish behind in that chair right this very instant before you go and undo all my work from earlier. I don't know if you'll recall, but you were shot today! You shouldn't be up at all, much less cooking."
The woman ducks her head and trudges over to the chair, collapsing into it with a grunt that makes Santana wince in unwilling sympathy, until her mind catches up to the conversation and she whirls in place, glaring at the woman's melancholic face.
"Wait just a minute, here. Who in Heaven's name is Clayton, and why is he in my barn? I only saw you ride up, and not-"
The blonde straightens with a shy smile, petulance forgotten. "Beggin' your pardon, ma'am, but Clayton is m'horse. Well. Not my horse exactly, but he's the horse I got at Williams. He's a real good fella, and fast as the dickens." Blue eyes widen suddenly and then disappear under golden lashes. "Pardon my language, ma'am."
(Santana is sure if the woman had been wearing a hat, she'd have doffed it and had it twisted in knots by now. She tries not to wonder why that should make her chest flutter so.)
Still not sure what to think, much less say, Santana turns back to the stove, grabbing down two plates from above it and two biscuits from a basket in her larder. Distributing the sausage links evenly between the two of them, she drops the plates on the table with no ceremony, confusion and nerves drawing out her ire. She bows her head over her own plate, murmuring the prayers her mother taught her in Spanish before she knew that no one in her new life would speak it. When she raises her head again, she finds her table companion staring, slack-jawed with half a bite of biscuit tucked in her cheek.
Feeling flushed for some reason, Santana immediately drops her head again, splitting her biscuit to tuck the sausage links inside. She eats quietly with her eyes trained on her plate, unused to company for her meals, even before she was widowed.
"You talk real pretty, ma'am. I ain't never heard anybody talk like 'at. Sounded like the Carson River when you find a real calm part, all smooth like."
"Santana," Santana blurts, unable to think of anything better in the face of such open admiration. "My name is Santana Yor- Lopez. Santana Lopez."
The woman grins like Santana just gave her the best gift in the world. "'At's a nice name. I'm Brittany Pierce, but folks just' call me Britt, mostly. Real nice to meetcha, Santana."
Once they've both finished their meals, Santana sends Brittany to bed in the guest room, scolding her not to get up again until Santana permits it. After she's cleaned the dishes, she retrieves the satchel from her room and knocks lightly on the door to the guest room, entering when Brittany calls for her to.
Hesitating at the doorway, Santana finds her guest lounging on the bed, fiddling with one of the buttons on her shirt. She is unaccountably nervous, even in the face of Brittany's pliant behavior, and it sets her teeth on edge to be so ill at ease in her own house. She'd resigned herself to a life of quiet solitude, and Brittany represented a disturbance in that life in more ways than one.
"I just wanted to check your side, see how you're healing," she hushes, unsure why she's whispering and too embarrassed to correct it.
Brittany cringes but swings her long legs to the side of the bed to sit upright.
It doesn't occur to Santana that she's staring until she's watching Brittany's fingers work nimbly along the buttons of her shirt. Coughing awkwardly and ducking her head, she perches herself on the bed carefully, fiddling with the clasp of her satchel as Brittany rids herself of her shirt entirely.
Wrinkling her nose at the stale smell of whisky coming from the stained clothing, Santana produces a pair of shears that she uses to carefully cut through the bandages wrapped around Brittany's torso. She peels the bandages off slowly, checking Brittany's face for discomfort when she gets to the area covering her wound.
The skin is pink and puckered angrily, but shows only a little swelling, and has stopped bleeding altogether. Santana feels her heart speed as she leans in to check for infection, one hand braced over the quivering muscles of Brittany's belly. There's no reason for close proximity to this near-stranger to affect her so, but it does.
Gently as she can, she grazes her fingers along the border of the healing flesh, checking for any irregularities. She glances up to find Brittany staring down at her, her eyes glazed and distant.
"Does it hurt much when I touch it?"
Brittany smiles dopily and shakes her head. "No ma'am, feels real nice just now."
Huffing irritatedly, Santana pulls away with a roll of her eyes. "I'll ask you again in awhile. I don't think you're quite in your right mind at this very moment."
"Okay," Brittany agrees placidly, a beatific smile that sends heat rushing to Santana's cheeks still plastered across the blonde woman's face.
Swallowing the feeling, Santana pulls the roll of bandages from the satchel once again and wraps fresh layers around Brittany's middle. She can't help but glance at the other set of bandages that sit above where she works, hiding the hint of Brittany's bosom. Her face burns even hotter and her stomach turns in a way that is almost but not quite unpleasant. She ties off her bandaging and straightens, her breath catching when she meets Brittany's gaze.
No one has ever looked at her quite the way Brittany does now, not even her husband.
(The comparison makes no sense to her, and yet perfect sense for reasons she can't even articulate.)
"If...That is...If you'd like to wash up a little I can have Sanchez bring in some water for you. It won't be warm, but-"
Brittany kindly interrupts her babbling. "'At'd be real nice, Santana. Thank you kindly."
She looks down to the linens in Santana's hands, and it occurs to Santana that perhaps she'd like to change her other set as well. When she says as much, Brittany's flush blooms from her cheeks to the tip of her ears and down to her chest.
"I can't ride for the Express as Brittany," she explains unprompted, "but as Brett...Mr. Majors said he ain't never seen nobody take to horses like I do, and since I'm eighteen and my folks is gone, I'm a perfect candidate so long's I don't get no taller."
Several questions Santana didn't realize she had are answered by Brittany's little explanation, and she nods in acceptance of them. She thrusts the bundle of linens into Brittany's hands and nods again uselessly when Brittany asks if she'll help with those wrappings too.
Not able to bear the strange tension thickening the air between them any longer, Santana very nearly bolts for the door, stumbling to a halt just as she reaches the doorway. Turning back she catches Brittany's easy grin over her shoulder as she promises to find some clean clothes for Brittany to change into once she's had her wash.
Brittany just has time to nod, her smile growing wider, before Santana dashes out of the room in search of Sanchez and her own mind.
(She doesn't seem to have as much luck with the latter as she does with the former.)
It's been three days of caring for Brittany and checking her wounds, changing her bandages - only the one set, for Brittany had decided quite suddenly after her wash that first day that since she couldn't ride she needn't bind herself for the time being. Santana found herself equal parts relieved and disappointed by that decision, and altogether too flustered by Brittany in general to properly understand either reaction.
(Brittany keeps looking at her like Santana is a feast and she a woman half-starved. Santana can't tell if it unnerves her more or excites her. She makes it a point never to stay in a room with Brittany long enough to find out.)
She's pinning up laundry to dry in the noonday sun when she hears the crunch of Brittany's boots approach. She turns in place to scold her erstwhile patient for not resting more, frown already in place, but the breath gets robbed clean out of her lungs before she can use it.
Brittany is dressed in a pair of Eduardo's old work trousers and shirt, the cuffs on both rolled over several times so as not to impede movement. The muted grey pants hang on Brittany's slim frame only by the grace and presence of a pair of suspenders, and the blue cotton shirt is unbuttoned at the collar to reveal a triangle of creamy white skin. Brittany's hair is free from it's usual plait and falling in soft, golden waves around her face. Even as a widow, Santana never lets her hair down before going to bed, but on Brittany she can't imagine any other look.
Ducking her head shyly, Brittany thrusts a fistful of scraggly looking sour grass blooms into Santana's hand. Thoroughly bewildered, Santana accepts the cluster of weeds, too preoccupied with the rough catch of Brittany's calloused fingers against her palms to question the strange gift.
"Clayton and I thought you might like some flowers for your table, Santana. He says a lady nice an' pretty as you oughta have somethin' nice and pretty to look at too."
"But I-I do," Santana stammers before she can think better of it. The wild cant of Brittany's smile and the flutter in her own chest keeps Santana from regretting a word. Before she can do anything else, Brittany leans in and drops a light peck on Santana's cheek, and then she's strolling back towards the house, hands in her pockets and a tuneless whistle on her lips.
Santana stands motionless for several moments, the fingertips of one hand pressed lightly to her cheek.
(She can still feel Brittany's lips on her skin.)
Tucking the flowers under her waistband, she finishes pinning the rest of the laundry in a daze, and lifts her chin proudly when she catches Sanchez grinning at her from where he's reshoeing Clayton.
For as angry at and unmoved by the world she had been in the months leading up to Brittany's arrival in her life, Santana spends the days after in a near-constant state of bewildered fondness.
Brittany is all at once sweet and wily and clever and strange and gentle, and Santana has never known anyone like her.
She watches as Brittany dances her way around Santana's once quiet and empty house, filling it with her bright presence and turning it into a home in a way Santana never could. She picks blooms for the table every morning, sometimes twice in a day if she happens upon wildflowers in the fields where the cattle used to graze.
She slinks into her bedroom (the guest bedroom, that mocking voice insists) like a scolded puppy whenever Santana takes her to task for running or dancing or just generally not resting enough for Santana's liking. She slinks, but then she calls for Santana, insisting that it's much better for her health to rest with company than to rest alone, and Santana can hardly argue with that. Or at least, she hardly tries.
It is too easy to get used to Brittany sharing meals with her, or Brittany sitting in the parlor sipping iced tea with her, trying to stay cool in the unforgiving heat of Nevada summertime. Too easy, when she knows that soon Brittany will be well enough to ride again, and is eager to finish her run. Eager to leave.
Santana tries to distance herself, because she knows that whatever is growing between the two of them is more than simple friendship, and because she is afraid of what Brittany may take with her when she leaves.
(Her heart beats madly any time she thinks of it, fast like the beat of Clayton's hooves, as if it's trying to escape.)
Her efforts never last more than an hour or two at best. Brittany is far too adept at pulling on every heartstring Santana has.
(It's as if she tied them there herself.)
Their fifth dinner together marks the real turning point in Brittany's recovery. Helping Santana in the kitchen is one of the few chores Santana is comfortable allowing her, and when she stretches her arm to reach the molasses on the top shelf of the larder, it's not until she catches Santana staring that she realizes her side doesn't twinge at all.
Santana is mostly silent through the rest of their meal preparations, too busy berating herself for not being happy at Brittany's rapid recovery to notice the cautious, worried glances Brittany keeps sending her.
At the table, she says her grace quietly, in English so Brittany can't compliment her pretty words, and keeps her eyes on her salted pork and molasses to avoid any accidental eye contact.
When something grazes against the side of her shoe under the table, she makes the mistake of looking up in her surprise. Brittany seizes the opportunity and hooks a foot around Santana's ankle, peeking through sunshine lashes, artlessly bashful and entirely smitten. Santana swallows and stares intently at her mostly empty plate, determined to ignore her racing heart.
She cringes when she hears Brittany sigh, and instantly misses Brittany's touch when it slides away. Her eyes start to sting and her breath comes in a staccato that she can't quite hide.
Suddenly her chair is yanked back, causing her to squeak in consternation at the abrupt movement, and then again when Brittany plants herself solidly in Santana's lap. She drapes her long arms around Santana's neck and her long legs over Santana's thighs, and hugs Santana tight for long moments.
"You're shaking," she murmurs against Santana's temple, and it's true.
A sob rips through Santana's chest, and Brittany jerks back at the sound, shock written in her features, plain as day. "Santana, love, what'sa matter?"
The gentle question coupled with the sweet endearment prove to be too much for Santana's tender heart, bruised as it is by her worries and missing Brittany before Brittany has even left. She all but crumples against Brittany's chest, flinging her arms about the woman's hips and letting her tears fall to soak into Brittany's shirt.
She whimpers something against Brittany's breast in between sobs, but Brittany gives up asking her to repeat it in favor of trying to calm her down. She strokes Santana's back and pets at her cheeks, pleating them with gentle kisses that must taste like salt for all the wetness they find. It works mostly, reducing Santana's crying to great shuddering sighs and nuzzling embraces. Finally Brittany finds Santana's chin with her fingers and lifts Santana's face to meet her own.
Santana lets herself get lost in Brittany for a moment, in the deep, stormy blue of her eyes when she's worried, and the rosy flush of her cheeks peppered with golden freckles, and the perfect curve of her lips as she pouts in sympathy for Santana's own red and swollen eyes.
"Now," Brittany says kindly, keeping Santana's face upturned when Santana would hide it in embarrassment at her own foolishness. "What's goin' on in that head o' yours, huh?"
Swallowing hard around the lump in her throat, Santana tries to explain to her why her sudden burst of sadness wasn't quite so sudden after all.
"You're healing," she begins. Brittany cocks her head, curious, but lets Santana continue. "You're healing so fast, and it's good, because you were hurt so terribly, and I know it's selfish and wrong, but it makes me so sad too." Brittany's brows furrow together as she considers this, deepening the sad moue of her lips, but before she can speak Santana rushes to continue. "It makes me sad because I know once you're healed, you'll go. You'll go because you have to finish your run because you're good, and honest, and brave, and I'll never see you again and I don't think I can bear it, Britt!" she gushes all at once, tears falling once more. "I didn't know how lonely I was until you made it so I wasn't, but now that I know, I just can't go back to living that way. I just- I just can't!"
Brittany stares into her eyes a moment more, clearly searching for something, though what it could be Santana can't begin to guess.
But suddenly she doesn't need to, because Brittany is cupping her face and kissing her and all at once nothing else in the whole world matters a whit. Brittany kisses her sweet and long and slow, like pressing her lips to Santana's lips is all she wants to do until the end of Creation, and that would be quite alright with her. When she finally pulls away, it takes a second or two for Santana to realize her eyes are closed. When she opens them, it's to Brittany's smiling face, and the sight of her steals Santana's breath all over again.
"You silly li'l thing," Brittany whispers, and Santana can't find it in herself to bristle at that, even though she doesn't have a clue what Brittany could mean. "You think I was gonna up an' leave, just when I'd found ya?"
Brittany kisses her again, and Santana has to wrestle herself out of the daze it leaves her in to ask, "But the Express? You swore an oath!"
Brittany grins her wily grin and shakes her head. "No I didn't. I tolja, Santana, women ain't allowed to ride for the Pony Express." She cocks her head, eyes sparkling with joy so bright it's almost blinding, and yet all Santana can do is stare in dawning wonder as she grasps the full measure of Brittany's words.
"You mean-" she gasps, not quite believing, but so desperate to try.
"I mean," Brittany smirks. "I'll ride out as soon as I'm able, and get my mail to the station in Stillwater, and then…"
"You'll come home," Santana finishes, tears filling her eyes once more.
Brittany nods, leaning in until their lips are just about to meet. "I'll come home," she echoes, sealing the promise with a kiss.