Hello, my dearests. I know this story is yet to find an end – but sometimes, you need to go back to the beginning. I will, then, go over every single chapter with the help of my beta sipsofmymind, until everything is revised and edited and I'm ready to continue.
Thank you all for reading and sticking with me so far.
On with the story.
Fate's Hands
01
Santana isn't happy with her life, truth be told. Not because she became a Lima Loser, as she is far from that. She lives in a very nice house, decorated with heavy, wooden furniture and the latest technology on everything. The dinner table seats ten, even though it's barely used. It reminds her of her grandmother's house, the big family celebrations, memories of a home full of people that couldn't be further from her own. The families grew smaller as the generations passed, including her parents', and Santana was never one to be surrounded by friends who could fill that void.
She works as a lawyer. She's greedy, fierce and just persuasive enough. Santana is a woman cut for that kind of profession, and she is quite successful at it. She has her own law firm now, after years of struggling to get to the top. One thing that has always been clear about her is that she likes to be at the top of the pyramid. She has made a name for herself, which makes up for all the frenemies and enemies she has to deal with these days. She has never really bothered with being disliked.
She is proud of the fact she hasn't become one of those fat mommas who were once pretty and end up eating their sadness away in every single piece of junk food they can get their hands on. Being attractive is part of being successful, and being desired is part of the strategy to get what you want. Her hair is still smooth, falling over her shoulders in a perfect, yet calculated manner. Her body is lean and firm with years of yoga and Pilates.
Even so, she still gets lost in thought at the end of the day, when everyone has gone home and she's by herself at the office, watching people's lives go on in the streets below. She has a big leather chair, comfortable and stone cold most of the time. There she sits for endless minutes as a soft sadness fills her, lingering for a lot longer than she would admit. She can't help being unsatisfied, being empty, feeling a sharp ache for something different.
She reminisces about a trip to Europe, years ago, when a woman read her palm. She had blue eyes, ginger hair, and many extra pounds. Santana let her examine her hand just to see what the woman could come up with. It should've been fun, right? It ended up being scary. The woman looked her in the eyes and told her she would have only one great love in life. Santana could feel her heart skip a beat in that hot summer day, and yearned to run away.
She knows it's true. She has fallen in love just once in her entire life. She is aware she has already had her chance and didn't realize it when the time was right. It saddens her, the nostalgia of the memories and the certainty of a life of solitude. She always feels alone. There have been others after that, of course. But none of them could strip her of the feeling that she's out there by herself. And none managed to escape either the comparison to or the negation of that epic love.
It surfaces when she's replying to e-mails, reading over lawsuits, planning case strategies. Her dedication is, partly, an effort to forget. If one is always busy and if the list of things to do never ends there isn't much space left to revisit those feelings. In a courtroom, in a meeting or at a dinner party there isn't much space to analyze one's own life. She's good at faking it. It's all a matter of survival, isn't it? It is a hard reality, and at the end of the day she is nothing but alone.
The day starts like any other. Santana wakes up, brushes her teeth, puts on some clothes and goes to her yoga class. It's been a little over ten years since she first started, and she has gotten to the point of impressive flexibility. She likes to push herself harder than anyone asks her to, and this applies to yoga as well. It's refreshing, to overcome her boundaries with something that requires a purely physical effort. It's not about thinking, winning a case, or proving herself to other people; it's about showing herself she can always go further and be better.
When she gets home, breakfast is already set for her. After a quick shower, she sits at the kitchen table to face her sleepy husband. He mumbles something that could mean good morning and kisses the top of her head as he takes the recently brewed coffee and pours her some. He's five years older than her and also works at the firm, where they first met eight years ago. He's tall, with broad shoulders and the same infinite ambition as her. She likes his hazel eyes and the way he is always perfectly unshaven. She likes that he is successful and desired. They fit well together, to the public's eyes and to their own.
He is affectionate, unlike her. His hand brushes her shoulder as he circles the table to sit across from her. He's only wearing his dark navy pajama pants. They eat together in comfortable silence, the sound of the newspaper he's reading the only disturbance. She is lost in thought, remembering her schedule for the day and preparing herself for it.
A woman knows when she has pleased a man. They are so easy to read, working within such determined patterns and ideas that it takes no time to understand one to the point of predictability. Santana is good at that. She knew he wanted her the moment they met. They played their part in the usual dance of relationships, where steps are carefully planned and perfectly executed. Within six months they were in a serious relationship. Within three years, they were married. In a few weeks they would celebrate their fifth year of marriage. She looks at him for a moment and the thought of that becomes unbearable.
He is not the love of her life. She gets up. When she walks into her closet she stares at herself in the mirror. She honestly can't tell how she got there. Sighing, she puts on her power suit and make up. Her husband catches up to her a few minutes later, dressed in a black suit, and they leave the house. He talks about their shares in the stock market and how high the interest is. She nods here and there and he mentions a trip to Punta Del Este he wants them to take. She's focused on the road and says they'll see.
It's good that he is so careful with their finances. In five years they have only gotten wealthier together. They sit and discuss their budget, their investments, and how international politics and the country's economy could affect their present and future choices. It works as a moment of bonding and it assures her that they are equals, that he is not trying to dominate their relationship. Santana could never accept being somehow inferior. It took her enough time to stop demanding to be on top the entire time. Her need for dominance and assertiveness has been directed to her profession, for the sake of her marriage.
It is also good that he loves her more than she loves him. It means he won't leave and humiliate her with a divorce or an affair. It means he is more dependent of her than the other way around. He talks on the phone and she takes that opportunity to examine him closely. How relaxed and satisfied he is with their routine and their life. He realizes it and squeezes her hand before focusing back on his conversation. Sometimes she feels like she is leading someone else's life.
It started off as a normal day, but all normalcy crumbles down when her last appointment of the morning comes in. She had spent her day in two meetings, so far: the first with the office's team of lawyers and the second with both parties of a case. She feels a bit worn out, but nothing that will kill her. All she needs to do before lunch is see one more possible client.
Santana looks up from her laptop screen and all of a sudden her heart stops. Brittany is at her door, looking at her with uncertainty. This is absolutely overwhelming and unexpected and heartbreaking and she feels she can't breathe. The tension in the air could be cut with a knife. Santana just looks back and blinks – it's the first time in years she's left speechless.
Brittany looks amazing. She aged so well. Her posture remains elegant; her body remains as flawless as it was in high school; her hands, delicate; and her skin, smooth. When she walks to the black leather chair in front of Santana and sits, she still moves graciously. Santana wonders if she still dances.
"Hello, Santana." She looks down for a moment, as if looking for what to say. She has never been very good with words. Some things never change, Santana says to herself. Her manicured nails trace a random pattern on the wooden desk between them.
Santana feels like stretching out a hand and cupping the other woman's face. Her fingers would touch her jaw and her thumbs would feel the thinner skin at the corners of her eyes. Maybe she would feel the years weighing down on Brittany instead of picturing her just as she used to be. How long has it been? "Brittany. It's good to see you." She blurts out accidentally. It wasn't her intention to admit it right away. She looks down, afraid Brittany will see the turmoil in her eyes. If some things never change, she might still read Santana as easily as she performs her dance moves.
There's a long, heavy silence. "I need you." Brittany says, before pausing again. "I want a divorce." Another pause. Santana's tongue feels heavy and dry in her mouth. She doesn't know what to answer to that or how to process the information. "And I need you to be my lawyer." Brittany had moved on, married someone else, lived a whole life she wasn't a part of in the slightest.
Santana knows she has done the same. "I don't know." She feels cheated, somehow. She doesn't know whether or not she craves the closeness, however unstable, that this implies. "I'm a corporate lawyer, it's not my area." It's awkward. She always knew what to say to Brittany. Now all she feels are the heavy silence and their past suffocating them both.
"I believe in you, Santana." Brittany answers, and Santana breaks again. This must have been purposefully layered, and it's probably the wisest answer possible. It brings back high school, it brings back prom, and it brings back all that they could have been. It's too much. She looks away, even if she hasn't realized her gaze had gone back to the other woman's eyes. She doesn't want to remember.
She opens her mouth a few times, as if starting a sentence, but she can't. She is exhausted already. How much time have they been there, in this parallel universe in which they trust each other, talk to each other and acknowledge each other? She is not ready. She is still not ready, she is not ready again, she is just not ready. "Brittany..." It is all she can say. She knows her mind is going around in circles. This conversation is not going anywhere, for her mind feels completely blurred. How can she make a rational, professional decision on whether to take the case or not if she can barely form a coherent sentence in this conversation?
"He cheated on me."
It is enough. How could someone who has Brittany by their side, who can see her dance and hear her sing, who sleeps in the same bed as her, who holds her hand while walking down the street, and who has every single heterosexual privilege throw that away? What for? Brittany is not someone you just stop loving. She is not the type of woman to be scorned and publicly humiliated. She is not one to be forgotten or left behind.
Santana dislikes him already. "Excuse me?" Her brow furrows, and she is full of hate. It just got personal. "Who is this man? Who does he work for? What does he do? How long have you been together? How did you find out?" Santana's hands are trembling with rage, because she can see in Brittany's eyes the hurt, the embarrassment and the humiliation and that is unacceptable. She opens her laptop, staring intensely at the other woman. Brittany won her over, as usual. Santana will now be an unstoppable force until her goal as reached.
Brittany was unsure about going to Santana for help. They had so much baggage, so much still unresolved between them. But she had this... situation in her life, and she needed someone who would fight for her and win. This person had always been Santana, who was now a lawyer. So, she needed Santana. Simple.
When she stands at her door, so many years later, and takes the few seconds while Santana stares at the laptop screen to examine the brunette, things stop being simple. She looks exactly the same, and for a moment it feels like time has stopped. A closer look shows a better posture and skin that's only a little bit thinner and worn out. Santana is still beautiful. "Hello, Santana." Brittany's heart is pounding furiously. She looks down, half ashamed of being there, half unsure of what to say. After all was said and done, what was left between them?
"Brittany. It's good to see you." Santana looks shocked, and that is probably the only reason why she would let that last sentence escape her mouth. For a second, Brittany wishes Santana had said Britt instead of Brittany, but she'll settle for what she can get. She decides she should sit down and start the conversation – Santana doesn't seem to be much in condition to, anyway.
"I need you." It's an honest declaration. She does need her again. She doesn't know what to think of that yet. She realizes she has been thinking, not talking, and that the room is so silent she can hear Santana's breathing. "I want a divorce." It pains her to say it because it means she was with somebody else. She's hesitant to admit life went on without Santana, without her sweet lady kisses and her fierce protectiveness and that rare smile of happiness and the smell of her shampoo. "And I need you to be my lawyer." No other lawyer would understand her.
"I don't know" is the answer she gets. Better than a no, she supposes. But still not quite enough. "I'm a corporate lawyer, it's not my area." Brittany does not understand. Santana should know all the laws – isn't that what being a lawyer implies? What is a corporate lawyer, anyway? Santana looks upset and Brittany can instinctively sense the tension between them, see the brunette stiffening her posture and measuring the silences between every sentence.
"I believe in you, Santana." Brittany says it so softly it's almost a whisper. She's trying not to focus on the past, with Santana or with her husband, but she somehow knows this is what Santana needs to hear. She's referring to all of their past in one sentence, all of their struggles. She's alluding to her own adoration of Santana. There's a long silence.
"Brittany..." It's a plea. For what, she cannot possibly know. But she sees Santana's brow furrow, her shoulders slump only a bit, the tone of her voice, and Brittany knows Santana is pleading.
Deep down, she would rather not tell Santana about the whole thing. But she knows she has to if she wants to convince Santana. "He cheated on me," she says, without adding further explanation. Pouring her heart out without even knowing if Santana will accept her is not something she should do. Not at this state of things. There is not much to add to that information, either. She was cheated on, and that was the end of the relationship and the beginning of something she cannot wrap her mind around just yet.
"Excuse me?" Santana's brow furrows in a different way than before and the change in her tone of voice is enough to indicate anger. "Who is this man? Who does he work for? What does he do? How long have you been together? How did you find out?" Brittany feels overwhelmed with those questions and, at the same time, absolutely pleased with the reaction. She holds her breath until Santana is done interrogating her, afraid to break the moment and have it slip through her fingers.
Santana cares. Something in Brittany's heart clicks. Santana is still protective of her. "John Cox. Eight years of marriage." She swallows. Eight years had passed by so fast. She looks for Santana's reaction, and for a moment there is nothing but silence again. She decides she must keep talking, for everyone's sake. "We own a dance studio together. I found out because of some messages she left for him at the studio. He denies it. I told him it was over and asked him to move out. No one knows."
Brittany used to think of her husband as a good man. They had fun together, he was caring and attentive and their studio didn't make them rich, but it was more than enough to make a living. However, upon listening to those messages, he became a stranger. Just like that. She remembers it vividly, happening unexpectedly after her classes that day. The sun had just begun to set and everything looked more poetic. She remembers the sound of the answering machine, the familiar beep followed by a woman's voice. The heartbreak, the loss, the confusion. The door being opened, the sound of his steps, his unshaven face.
He was a handsome man. Perfectly in shape, tall, with soft, dark hair that he liked to keep at medium length, even if he was getting a bit old for that. She loved to intertwine her fingers in his raven locks as they kissed. He used to be a dancer like her, and they met because of a performance in Italy. They were young then, and Europe was lovely. If she wasn't so slow to learn languages she would have definitely stayed there. But then, divorces ought to be much more complicated in Europe. It is for the best that she ended up in New York, a place she can understand.
She remembers his surprised look and her own calm at the confrontation. It was unacceptable for her to be mistreated or cheated on, and he had crossed that one sacred line – this was a mistake she would not forgive. She ended it right then, right there, holding back the tears. He moved out of the apartment that same night, still determined to win her back.
What he didn't seem to notice was that there was no going back. She didn't sleep that night, spending her time pacing around the apartment instead. It was hard making plans without someone by your side. It struck her then, at 2 A.M. Santana. Someone who understood her, who used to make plans with her, who maybe, just maybe, would still be willing to fight for her. Santana was good at fighting.
A soft smile ghosts her lips at the thought. Santana was a lawyer, too. Brittany opens her laptop and begins to research about Santana. The results are impressive. She is mentioned in two newspapers as part of the team of lawyers handling the judicial clashes between two big companies. Her office is big, it seems. Brittany spends a few moments staring at a photo of her. This is it. Once again, she needs Santana. And, once again, Santana is everything she needs. She sighs.
"What do you want?" Santana has a pen in hand, playing with it as she calms down and tries to think of something. She runs her mind through a list of lawyers she knows who could help her with this case, hopefully refraining themselves from asking too many questions. It would be hard to explain why she accepted it, why Brittany, why now.
Santana's fierceness is like honey to flies. And at that moment she embodies all the determination and power in the world. Brittany feels inevitably attracted to it. "I don't know," she says softly, because she hasn't stopped to think about it. Does she want the dance studio? The apartment? The dog? His money? Or does she just want a divorce?
If she doesn't even know what she wants, why has she come to Santana? She feels confused again and sighs. "Okay. Let's put it this way: how do you want your life to be from now on? Do you want to sell everything and start fresh? Do you want him to go away and everything to remain the same?" Santana's trying to be impersonal and rational, and it hurts. "Or do you want to have everything you built together and strip him of every single penny he owns?" She can feel her mouth watering at the thought. It is something to direct her efforts to, focus her mind on, a concrete and ambitious goal to achieve.
Brittany listens carefully but still has no answer. She feels lost. She doesn't know what she is doing, what she wants, where to go. She doesn't even know how to react to Santana. What do divorced people do, anyway? Her parents never got a divorce. She pauses her own line of thought for a moment. She has yet to tell her parents. Soon the world would know. Hopefully no one would think it was her fault. She looks at Santana. "I don't know." It is only then she notices the ring on Santana's finger. The revelation that she is married, too, sinks in unpleasantly.
Santana looks at Brittany and her heart aches from the look on the other woman's face. She sighs. "It's okay." She feels like giving Brittany a hug, but that is not a possibility. "We'll figure it out. We have a few days while I set up the case." To be more accurate, while she figures out what she needs to do and how she can make the best of the situation. There is no such thing as failure for Santana Lopez.