Author's Note: I came up with this idea fairly recently. I just want to clarify that Brittany and Santana will end up together in this story, one way or another. Also, the rating is currently T but may become M in later chapters, depending on where I decide to go with this. I've got a few chapter written up already. Please review this (very brief) prologue, to give me an idea of what your thoughts of the story are. Feel free to drop me a message or contact me about anything. Thanks.
Warnings: Although I am not a hundred percent about any of this yet, this story might get gory, disturbing or upsetting. Character death is always a possibility.
The first thing she noticed about the picture is the main focus - the two young, broad shouldered, masculine figures sitting, beers in hands, by the bowling alley. Her dad was there, smiling the smile she saw on her own face, eyes barely visible beneath the dark mane of hair that fell into his eyes ruggedly. He was muscley, she noticed. And his T-shirt stuck to his torso in the sticky heat, the sweat leaving darker patches on the material.
He looked like a completely different man; a stranger to the stiff, barely visible man Santana now associated as her father. The man in the photograph was not a man she knew, or had ever seen. It was a shock to the young girl, how much someone could age in such little time. She looked down on her father as a young man - probably, what... nineteen? Twenty? - and realised that she had never really known him at all.
Her eyes then flicked to the second man sitting at the table, his startling blue eyes contrasting with his dirty blonde hair, similar style to Santana's dad's, although he was skinnier and slightly less rugged-looking than Mr. Lopez. Santana thought she recognised the vague, lost expression in his eyes from somewhere, but... She couldn't quite place it. Eyebrows furrowed, Santana turned the photograph over, looking for a date, or a name.
There. The date was rubbed away slightly, and Santana squinted to try and see it, but then her eyes were drawn towards to messy scrawl in the left-hand corner of the picture. She screwed up her eyes in an effort to make out the writing. For a second she considered even going to ask her dad what it said - but then she remembered she wasn't even meant to be at the house today, let alone rummaging through old photographs, trying to piece together her past, one old picture at a time.
The first word was definitely Sebastian - her father's name. Yes, Sebastian Lopez... And... Santana squinted and cocked her head to the side. The last word was... Pierre? No, that was a C... It must be... Pierce? And the word before that, Santana didn't even have to work out, because it had all just clicked into place. Jacob Pierce, Brittany Pierce's father. Yes, Santana knew those ocean eyes from a long time ago now. A long time ago, when Brittany and Santana had been friends; best friends, actually. They hadn't been out of each other's sight up until age eight; and that was when everything changed. Santana's father had obviously fallen out with Brittany's, and so they were banned from seeing each other or being in contact with each other at all. Santana was now seventeen years old, and she hadn't even heard Brittany's name mentioned in seven years or so. The Pierces were not exactly family friends.
The sound of movement from the floor above woke Santana from her daydream, and, heart pounding, she forced the photo back into the book where she had found it, and placed that back on the dusty bookcase before moving swiftly to the door and letting herself out as quietly as she could.
When Sebastian Lopez came down the stairs five minutes later, he found nothing except an old photo book which had obviously fallen from its shelf. Leaning over to pick it up, his eyes narrowed. The sight of the familiar face brought back an explosion of memories, both sweet and painful. He sneered carelessly, and shoved the book back onto the shelf. He didn't look back as he walked into his kitchen.
Mr. Lopez never looked back.