Before you read you guys need to know some background information. This story takes approx. 16 years in the future so our ladies are about 46-47, but you guys WILL get to see numerous flashbacks of Lily and the rest of Santana and Brittany's kids growing up. Now for characters, Lily is going to be in twelfth grade, the baby announced at the end of the previous story is Nik who is in the eleventh, and then you have Tommy and Catalina (also known as Lina or Cat) who are in the tenth grade. I thought that I'd switch things up a bit by writing so far ahead in the future but I really hope that it doesn't disappoint any of you. So now that I have that out of the way, this chapter takes place from Santana's point of view and Brittany's at the end! Italics are a flashback. I really, really hope you enjoy!
Prologue. Break Me Out
"Break me out tonight,
I wanna see the sun rising anywhere but here,
Come with me."
- Break Me Out, The Rescues
"Mom, explain why we are doing this again?" My fifteen year old daughter leans over in the middle seat of the SUV so that I can see her face in the rear view mirror. Her piercing blue eyes are staring into my mine, clearly determined. Her light blonde hair is pulled into her infamous braids.
"We're doing this Lina because in two days its Abuelo's 70th birthday and we all agreed that we'd all get together and throw Abuelo a big party." Brittany tries to relay the seriousness of this event in her tone with out scaring her to much. My father's health wasn't exactly what it used to be so I wanted the kids to spend as much time with him as they could so that they'd have fond memories to tell their own children.
"Okay, I get that part Mom. But why in the heck are we leaving for Ohio at eleven o'clock at night?" I could sense the slight restlessness in Lina's voice. I knew how much she hated to sleep in the car, out of all of our children she was the only one who would stay up during road trips to visit family, the rest of them would be out like a light within the first ten minutes. It had been that way since our first road trip to Ohio when the kids were only small.
"We left early because that means we'd get extra time with your Abuelo and Abuela before the place gets to busy. You know what your Mami's family is like." She lets out a small chuckle hopin it will calm her down. Lina may have been biologically Brittany's daughter but she had my temper and it didn't take much to send her off into a Spanish rant like I was oh so famous for.
"Hey! Your family is just as bad!" I playfully slap her before putting both of my hand back on the wheel. "Don't you remember our inaugural family Christmas visit circa 2025? Your father and his brother's nearly ran over Lily to get to the TV because Andre Rieu's Christmas special was on."
"I'm kidding, San. You'd think you'd know that by now." She rolls her eyes at me before turning her attention back to our daughter.
This wasn't the only reason why we had left New York earlier than planned. This week was especially tough. I had lost two of my long term patients and a transfer from New York Presbyterian. I just couldn't stand to stay there watch the sun rise there for one more day knowing that it would be long gone before I even finished breakfast and got to enjoy it. I loved New York weather but I just needed a day with sunshine out in all of it's glory. As soon as we were all packed and after I had a nap so that I wouldn't fall asleep at the wheel we had left.
"Okay, then. Now it makes sense. So where are we staying this time, so I can know what to expect. It's either a somewhat quiet house with my favorite cousin or a more than likely loud and cramped house with Abuela and Abuelo. So what's the verdict?"
Out of the corner of my eye I can see Brittany give me a look before putting her eyes back towards the rear of the car. Brittany was slightly uneasy about the whole thing. As much as she loved my parents and my family she tends to get nervous when they visited or vice versa even though she's known them since we were little. It was something I've adjusted to. I knew that once we got there and the initial greetings were done and over with Brittany would be fine as always. I never understood where her discomfort came from, I could only assume it was out of a slight fear of my father and her high respect for my mother.
I lay my hand on Brittany's atop the console to comfort her before answering Lina. "Well, I asked Aunt Reyna about you and Lily staying there while we were in Ohio but Aunt Ashley already had asked her so her house is full. Sorry, honey. But you'll get to see as much of Emily as possible anyways, Lina."
It was surprising but after Ashley had gotten married she had become extremely close with my family, especially my sister. Whenever they would visit Brittany's parents they could never leave without visiting my family too. It definitely made life interesting to say the least. This weekend's festivities being a mixture of our two families I was sure there was never going to be a dull moment.
Ashley and Jeremy had Emily at the same time that we had Lina, and Tommy, so they had been best friends since they were born. Their son Jesse was a few years younger than Emily and was in the sixth grade. I was glad that Brittany and I had decided to have our children close together considering the 'horror' stories I overheard Emily telling Lina and from Ashley herself.
"Alright then." Lina lets out a sigh of disappointment. I understand her frustration so I give her a sympathetic smile, hoping she can she it in the mirror. There was going to be at least 14 of us staying at my parent's house between our family and my aunts, uncles, and cousins. There was definitely bound to be a lot of noise as she had expected. "Can we play the license plate game? Everyone else back here is asleep." Lina rolls her eyes in disapproval.
The license plate game had been a Lopez family traditional as long as I could remember. We had played it on road trips and while driving to visit my family around the country growing up. I couldn't help but remember one day on a road trip to Ohio a few months before Lina and Tommy had turned two.
Brittany and I knew that it would be a long drive with such young children but I had gotten us three weeks off so we thought it would be an interesting way to get there. Even with Brittany's well off background she had only been to three states so I thought this would be a great way for her, not to mention the kids, to see what she had been missing. We would manage to add New Jersey, Maryland, and Pennsylvania to her list of states she's visited.
"Okay, Lily. What state is that on the truck in front of us?" I ask Lily who has been focused intently on the license plate game that has saved us from the 'are we there yet?'s for the past two states.
"That's Kentucky." She replies proudly. She had been talking in full sentences since was almost 32 months old. Brittany and I had been amazed at language skills, especially considering I was never great with words.
"You're better at this game than I am, sure." I say enthusiastically as I turn around in the passenger seat to look at Lily. "You hungry, mija?"
"No, Mami. I'm tired." I look at her and noticed the tiredness in her eyes.
"Well go to sleep then silly goose." Brittany chuckles slightly.
"I don't want to. I mean Lina's a baby and she's not asleep so why should I be?" Lily asks stubbornly.
"Well, mija, just because Lina's awake doesn't mean that you have to be. She slept all the way from the city to Philidelphia and you didn't." I know Brittany can tell that I am trying to get Lily to go to sleep so that we won't be faced with temper tantrum once she gets over tired later by the small grin breaking out on her face.
"Just go to sleep, sweetie. You have plenty of time to play the license plate game later okay?" She says amiably, attempting to help me reach my goal.
"Okay, Momma. You promise? You promise we'll play later?" Lily asks hoping she'll agree with her. The sleepiness in her voice is undeniable.
"We promise, Lils. Now go to sleep okay?" I say. I can't help but chuckle slightly at Lily who looks so much like me as a child in this moment.
Lily quickly pulls her blanket up and places her current favorite stuffed cat on her shoulder. She turns away from Brittany and me, and within minutes I can hear her soft snores waver through the SUV.
"How do you do that?" Brittany turns to me with a look of utter curiosity on her face.
"Do what?"
"Make her get to sleep like that? It always takes me forever to get her to fall asleep. I usually have to everything under the sun to make her sleep." Brittany's voice is underlined with slight shock at my abilities to make our daughter sleep.
"That's because I don't baby her, and she knows that you'll do anything to get her asleep. But that's not your fault you just love her too much not to." I smile at her, hoping that she's not about to get mad at me for saying that.
"Hey!" Brittany goes to continue but we're shockingly interrupted.
"Mami!" Lina half yells cutting her off. I turn around in my seat to face our youngest child a wide smile spreading across her face. "Mami, orange car!"
Brittany turns her head around for a quick second to see what Lina is talking about. Yes, sure enough, about 12 feet away on the other side of the divided highway is an orange Ford Mustang coming towards us.
I turn my head slightly towards Brittany giving her a wide smile. She sees the smile out of the corner of her eye and smiles back immediately. "Yes, Lina. That is an orange car. Good job, sweetie."
I stick my hand out to our daughter who looks as if she's just won the lottery. "Give Mami a high-five." Lina quickly slaps her hand against mine with a small giggle before going back to playing with her shapes puzzle.
I turn back to sit properly in my seat before she chuckles to herself.
"What?" I ask, my voice ringing with pride out of Lina's little outburst.
"Our kids are amazing." Brittany hangs her head slightly and puts her hand over her forehead for a moment as she makes a stop at an intersection. Her head is completely turned in my direction now. "That was the understatement of the century, but it's true. I mean Lina isn't even two and she just said her first sentence. Lily can name out almost all fifty states and she's only four and a half. Nik's three and he understands the concept of soccer and can read almost as good as a five year old. Tommy is obsessed with anything that has wheels or makes music of almost any kind and likes to figure out how it works."
She stops for a moment as if to see if I'm still listening. I nod in reply to let her know that I was all ears. "It's crazy, they're so young but they're so unique, they each have a mind of their own. They're just so amazing. It's incredible that the little people that they are now and the just as amazing people they'll be when they get older came from you and me. You know?"
"You remembered?" A smile crosses Brittany's face.
I let out another typical chuckle. "Of course I remember. I wasn't just sitting there staring at you through that entire speech and wasn't listening. I always listen."
Me, always listening? Yeah right. But when it came to Britt and our kids I usually did. "Seriously? So that time when I asked you bring me in a peanut butter sandwich with banana on it for breakfast and you brought me a strawberry banana muffin you were totally listening?" I couldn't help laugh. I definitely wasn't always listening but I would have to say that ninety-five percent of the time I was. And that definitely is a hell of a lot better than me not listening at all, like people would do to her in high school because they didn't know how to respond to her imaginative humour.
"Fine. Maybe, not all the time but most of the time."
"I'm just bugging you, San. You have impeccable listening skills." I don't resist the childish impulse to slightly stick my tongue out at her.
"Hey!" I half yell, careful not to wake Lily and the rest of our peacefully sleeping offspring.
"I love you, Santana." She laughs sweetly as she takes my hand in her own.
"I love you too, Brittany." Brittany slowly lifts my hand to her lips, gently kissing the back of my hand.
In this moment I'm perfectly content. I have no regrets. I don't regret choosing Brittany and facing my fears over wallowing in all the time that we'd lost to be together and everything that could have been. I don't regret it because I know that this is the way things should be.
"Mom? Mom!" Catalina's confused voice makes me aware of the present day.
"Sorry Cat, I was just driving down memory lane for a moment there with your mother. I'd love to sweetie but it's dark out and you had a point when you said everyone else was asleep. You should be asleep too." I smile sympathetically.
"I don't want to go to sleep. I want to–" Brittany cuts her off because she knows exactly what she's going to say.
"You want to keep us company I know but you've got nothing to worry about, Catalina. I'm definitely not going to let your mother fall asleep at the wheel. Right, San?" She now searchs for some reinforcement from me; we both know that if Lina doesn't go to sleep now she's going to be super mad at us in the morning for not making her go to sleep.
"Your Mom's right Lina. Just go to sleep, we'll be just fine up here. Plus just think of it this way, the more sleep you get now the less you have to catch up on later therefore the more time you get to spend with Emily. Right?" I look into the rear view mirror with a slightly inquisitive look on my face.
"I see your point. Fine, I'm off to sleep then, if I can that is. You two better not be cracking jokes and making each other laugh, especially you." She points her finger at Brittany, and raises an eyebrow just as I would have done.
I can't help but laugh slightly now. "Of course, I won't make her laugh, well not to hard anyways."
I shake my head at my wife's antics before looking back at Lina. "Just go to sleep Lina, you've got no worries."
"Alright, night Mom, night Ma." She replies before grabbing her blanket from down by her feet and covering herself, turning towards the passenger window.
"Night sweetie." Brittany says with a smile.
"Night mija." I say before swiftly turning back towards the windshield, not once letting go of Brittany's hand. Out of the corner of my eye I can see her looking at me; her gaze is nearly completely focused on me. "Yes, Britt?"
"Nothing." She replies almost too quickly for me to be able to take her seriously. I can feel the anxiety in her voice; it's purely inevitable.
"Brittany." I continue to press her because I know this isn't in my head. My voice is lowered significantly, so much that I can barely hear it as it escapes my lips. "I didn't want to mention it until I knew the kids were all asleep. But something's bother you. I can see it all over your face. Your smile doesn't quite reach your eyes and you look around to see if anyone else has noticed it. And I do, I do notice it. So you need to tell me what's going on in that breathtaking mind of yours because you're scaring me."
My mind begins to race uncontrollably. What do I say to her? How can I possibly tell her this? It will make her feel as if her walls are crumbling down around her and she's helpless. All I can do now is lie through my teeth and pray that she won't see right through it all. All I want is to break out and be free of this chaos.