I never do Author's Notes at the beginnings of chapter's, so this will be the only one.
Another quick reminder: I recommend that you read the prequel to this story before you continue. The Off-Grid Unsung Hero. There will be reference's to people, places, and things that will probably confuse you. As with prequels, most characterization is in The Off-Grid Unsung Hero, minus any new characters that are introduced in this story.
Santana stood in Ogdensburg National Airport waiting for the love of her life to get off the 3:30 flight coming in from Los Angeles, California. She could already see more paparazzi gathering outside the doors, there had only been a few when she had first arrived. Now, it was like a mad house out there, maybe she should have brought Duncan with her. Santana always remained adamant that she could take care of herself, but sometimes it was nice to have that little bit of back up just hanging around in case something were to happen. That's where Duncan came in, he had been hired to give Rachel some peace of mind when she wasn't home and Santana had to go into the city by herself. That had been a long drawn out battle between the women, but in the end after some hard core crying Rachel had won and Duncan Andrews was hired. Duncan Andrews was the extremely ripped, bald headed, scary looking but secretly a giant teddy bear body guard that she and Rachel had to hire two years ago. Santana chuckled dryly to herself, three years ago she never would have imagined herself in this position. All of this...fame had came about not too long after everything with the Porter brother's had ended.
The summer after the trial, Rachel had remained good on her promise to release an EP that ended up topping the charts. Recording offers came flooding in and in the end it was an easy decision to stick with PF Productions who now had signed two bands and three additional solo artists. Things were going so well for Puck that he had to purchase some community property in town and have an official studio built. Santana swears this is the happiest she has ever seen Puck. After Quinn finally divorced her douche bag of a husband and moved in with Puck things between them really heated up and they were married within the year. They were a year and a half strong now with a little boy on the way. That's one of the reasons that Rachel was traveling by herself today. Quinn had to fly back home ahead of Rachel for a doctor's appointment that she could not miss. Davis Noah Puckerman was due to arrive September 24th, exactly four months away.
Beth was still adjusting to the idea of there being a new baby around the house. She already struggled some days to get equal attention from both of her parents. Santana knew how it felt to have two working parents, but Quinn and Puck done what they could. If Rachel could handle something on her own, Quinn stayed home and Puck always tried his best to be home by six in the evening walking through the door the same time that Beth did. She was a busy eleven year old. School, soccer and weekend dance classes took up a lot of her time, but now that it was Summer, Santana would make plans for some camping trips or tree house visits. Anything to make sure that the little girl didn't spend her free time just hanging around the house stressing about the new baby.
Santana looked around the airport, she had slowly began to have a hatred for them. There were just way too many people around. This was why she always drove to the city when she had an art showing. Oh yes, she had finally given in when stories started to emerge about her after all the interviews that Rachel done pertaining to the trial. Expanding her website had been the first thing Artie suggested when he found out she was having internet put in at her cabin so that she could still talk to Rachel while she was gone. So much for living off the grid, but it was a sacrifice she was willing to make for Rachel. She still despised the city and she didn't really care for some of the snooty people who came to her shows, but she kind of needed their money with all the expansions and upgrades that she had done at the cabin and the tree house. She could have used her trust fund since that's what it was set up for, however she had newer plans for some of that money and she didn't want to deplete it and then be scrambling around selling any painting she could to refund it.
Looking at her watch, Santana realized that it was already 3:40 PM. Was Rachel's flight delayed or had she just been really early in all the excitement of Rachel finally coming home. Walking over to the arrival board wasn't much of an option considering that would take her right in front of the doors, where even more paparazzi had seemed to gather. It had been two weeks since she had seen Rachel in person. Rachel had to fly out for some last minute press that had to be done for the new movie that she was in. This was the last trip for everyone in the family for a while. Some how they had gotten lucky and everyone seemed to have the summer pretty much free, despite an opening night or art show here or there.
Santana sighed as she leaned against a far wall away from a lot of the noise and commotion. Crossing her arms she leaned forward and peaked out at the front doors of the airport. Security had finally shown up and was trying to disperse some of the paparazzi. Those idiots better stay away from her custom Jeep Wrangler Sundancer, you can call her pompous if you want but that thing was her baby. It had been a Christmas gift last year that Rachel insisted she accepted after all the work she had put in making the cabin feel like Rachel's home too. She had refused at first simply because she felt she didn't deserve some form of compensation for doing things out of love. Rachel deserved her screen room and rehearsal studio and she had told Rachel that, that's when Rachel claimed that Santana deserved her Jeep. It made it a little easier to accept when she found out that everyone had chipped in so that Rachel wasn't spending all the money by herself. The addition of this Jeep with the one Santana had gotten after the accident, she finally had to expand her garage at the end of her road and put in a newer gate after she found paparazzi lingering down there one day.
Sometimes Santana questioned if this was still her life. Day in and day out, it used to just be her and Dax, working on the property and taking care of the cabin. Now, she had a beautiful girlfriend who should be walking out of the terminal any moment now, her clientele was larger than ever and growing every day, she had been asked to speak at several universities and even asked to serve as an art buyer to several people she only ever dreamed of meeting. Yeah, despite the influx of popularity that came with all of that, her life had turned out pretty great.
Rachel waited anxiously as everyone around her gathered their carry on bags and began to exit the plane. She had been away for two weeks and she couldn't wait to see Santana. Sure they had spent longer periods of time apart especially when she was filming her latest movie, but this was the last trip she had to take before her break. Now she had a whole four months free despite little things here or there. Hopefully Quinn would have Davis before she had to return to work. Everyone was excited for his arrival, even her father who had kind of claimed all of her friends as his own children. Speaking of her father, he should be arriving home also in the next couple of days since his book tour was coming to a close. Turns out, moving to New York had been great for his writing career, he had published several new books since he moved out here that all had made it onto New York's Best Seller list. A beautiful trilogy that he had written about this gay couple was in the process of being made into movies at the moment. They just needed a few more script revisions before production could begin. Sadly this meant he wouldn't be around as much as everyone else this summer, but he would still be around none the less.
Walking through the doors, Rachel noticed Santana standing against the wall in the farthest corner of the airport. She smiled to herself, Santana still tried to hide as best as she could from the paparazzi. Rachel knew that all of this attention was something that Santana still didn't like. She had tried so hard to keep her name out of the media after the trial, but someone was damn good at digging and they published everything that they could find about the Latina. After Santana expanded her website, which really all she did was make it publicly accessible, art curator's from around the world started sending messages wanting her pieces and from there everything took off. Rachel was just thankful that Santana didn't resent her for all of this.
Instead of stopping to wait for her luggage, Rachel continued walking towards Santana. The woman hadn't looked up yet, just idling observing her fingernails as if they held the answer to whatever Santana was thinking about. Stopping roughly two or three feet in front of Santana, Rachel cleared her throat and waited for a reaction. Santana gasped when she looked up and smiled tearfully as she reached out and grabbed Rachel in a bone crushing hug.
"I'm so glad you're home." Santana spoke, despite her voice being muffled by Rachel's clothes.
"I missed you too." Rachel pulled back momentarily before going in for a long drawn out kiss. Santana sighed, three years later and just like Santana had said, every time she kissed Rachel it was like kissing her again for the first time. Fireworks continued to explode behind her eye-lids as she slid her tongue against Rachel's bottom lip asking for entrance. Rachel moaned into the kiss, they really needed to get out of this airport and get home. Neither of them needed this plastered all over the tabloids. That had already happened once and Quinn was more than willing to kill both of them even if she was currently five months pregnant.
"Take me home San." Rachel breathed against Santana's lips as they parted. Rachel turned towards the door but stopped quickly when she felt a tug on her arm. Santana pulled Rachel back into her, starting up their kiss again.
"Your bags? We can continue this tonight...I have a surprise for you at home." Santana bit her lip as she looked at Rachel's calculating gaze, maybe a party wasn't a good idea to plan for tonight. Everyone was already at the cabin though and soon they would be wondering where they were. Technically this was one of three surprises that Santana had for Rachel. The second one would come tonight in the form of a new four legged fur-baby and the last part of the surprise would come when Leroy was home.
"What kind of surprise?" Rachel asked as she took Santana's hand and walked towards the luggage carousel. She could hear the shutters going off on the paparazzi camera's as they walked in front of the door. They hadn't stopped really since they had seen Rachel.
Santana shrugged her shoulders. "If I told you it wouldn't be a surprise now would it?"
Rachel sighed as she swung their joined hands back and forth. "I guess not. Can I have a hint though?" Santana pondered the thought for a moment, tapping her index finger on her chin. She shook her head in the negative a moment later and smiled at Rachel's pout, quickly kissing it away.
After waiting for what seemed like forever for Rachel's luggage to come back around on the carousel, the two women were finally heading towards the airport entrance. They both had their heads down as they approached the door and was quickly met with an onslaught of questions and flashing camera's. The security was trying their best to keep a clear walk way for the women, the yelling and screaming was quickly fading into a low murmur in Santana's head. She was always quick to tune these people out, Rachel however felt it was respectful to answer a few questions that she could hear. Santana just tried her best to keep Snixx from coming out.
"Rachel how was your trip? Happy to be home now?"
Smiling Rachel answered politely. "It was good and I am very excited to be home."
"Santana, are you happy to have Rachel home now?"
Scoffing Santana looked up trying to find whoever had asked that one. These people were so bright or maybe they just couldn't read her excitement through the scowl on her face at them. Really she didn't care for this attention, but sometimes when they didn't ask dumb questions or crowd her like they were doing right now, she could be polite. Rachel who picked up quickly on Santana's annoyance squeezed her hand. Biting back the sarcastic remark that she had waiting on the tip of her tongue, Santana actually responded pleasantly how she was very excited to have Rachel home.
"Are both of you home for the summer?" One guy asked as he walked backwards snapping pictures.
Rachel took the initiative and answered the question. "Yes, we are both home for now. We may sneak away on you guys for a holiday or something." Santana started laughing, last summer they had sneaked away for Santana's first trip to London and was there a whole week before any paparazzi had found them. More camera's started going off when Santana started laughing, pictures of her laughing and smiling for the paparazzi was far and few, therefore they were worth some major pocket change.
As soon as her laughter started it quickly faded away as they reached the Jeep. The paparazzi knew to keep their distance away from the car, at least they were being respectful of that today. Sometimes they weren't and Santana had to fight every instinct to just run them down. She didn't need a lawsuit against her. Santana loaded Rachel's bags into the back of the car with ease as the security came up and made sure that everyone stayed back so that Santana could pull out of her parking space.
"Bye guys." Rachel called as she rolled down her window and waved to everyone.
They had been on the road for twenty minutes before Rachel started asking again about her surprise that was waiting. Santana contemplated actually telling her, however she knew Rachel would be disappointed if she did. It was all an act, she wanted to know but then again she really didn't since she absolutely loved surprises.
"I will tell you one thing about your surprise...you're going to love it." Santana reached over to adjust the volume on the stereo system casually. That was all that she was going to tell Rachel, they would be home in no time anyway, no reason to ruin the surprise this close to the cabin.
Rachel scoffed and rolled her head against the head rest to look at Santana with an indignant expression. "That's all you're telling me? That I will love it?"
Santana smirked and nodded her head, flicking her eyes to look at Rachel quickly. She wasn't going to tell Rachel about the welcome home party she was having in celebration for a summer break. Rachel didn't need to know about the new yellow border collie puppy name Dahlia chilling in the bathroom at home. Lastly, Rachel couldn't find out about the engagement ring with her name written all over it, hiding in a lock box in the safe in the back of Santana's closet.
Welcome Back to my readers who have been waiting for this story to begin and Hello to any new people. I have a good feeling that this is going to be my best story yet. I have took into account all constructive criticisms from the first story and I feel like this one is going be better written and more exciting. I look forward to riding this story train with all of you.
A few things: This story will have some sexy times in it. If that bothers you, then I apologize. However, you have been warned.
I know that sometimes when there is paparazzi in a story, the author goes with a cheating accusation to shake things up a bit. That's not going to happen here. I'm not a fan of tearing Pezberry apart in any fashion.
Lastly, I plan to update this story every two-three days. I feel I can produce better content if I don't try to rush for a morning upload everyday.
Pretty sure that's everything for right now. Happy Reading!