Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 61st cycle. Now cycle 62!
TOP 15 COUNTDOWN - Something I do once in a while, if you will recall, where I take my favorite characters, ships, friendships, series (from my daily stories) and put them in order, the number 1 of which gets a seven-chapter story in the end :)
Coming in at number 11: Trinity series
"For the Good Of"
(Older) Brittany/Santana (& Quinn)
Trinity series
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)
If it had been up to her, Brittany would have never left the house. She would have stayed right there with Santana, to somehow make her bed rest more bearable. But Santana insisted she should go on to work, since one of them still could. With Mrs. Lopez there to look after her, there was no worry that someone would be there with her, in case anything went wrong. So, grudgingly, Brittany would go, only once promised that they would call or text her the moment anything went wrong.
When she got home, she would disappear off to their room, to join her wife and see how she was doing. The fact that she had been away gave them the opportunity to tell each other how their day had gone, which became the routine. Brittany could tell Santana looked forward to it every day. As thankful as she was to have her mother there, it could get unnerving for her.
"Hey…" Brittany smiled as she walked in that day, and Santana reached for the remote to pause her movie, smiling back.
"You're late," she accused, while Brittany came to sit on the bed and leaned in to kiss her.
"Traffic," the blonde apologized before moving down to place her hand on her wife's stomach. "Hey, bean," she hushed. "You just stay in there, okay? There's no rush." Feeling fingers in her hair, she looked up to see Santana staring back. "What do you think he or she is going to call us?"
"The baby?" Santana asked, and she nodded.
"We can't both be Mom," she explained, and seeing the smile that spread on her lips at hearing herself say the word was enough to get Santana smiling back.
"Well, there's Mom, Mommy, Mama, Ma… We can figure it out later, let the kid decide."
"You do that a lot, you know?" Brittany sighed, still brushing her fingers there over the swell of the belly.
"Do what?"
"Put off decisions about the baby, like you don't want to commit, like you're afraid we might not…"
"I know," Santana breathed out, and Brittany came up to rest at her side, so she could look her in the eye.
"We're going to get through this. We earned it."
"Yeah, it has been a crap year, hasn't it?" Santana chuckled.
"All except for this little bean," Brittany smiled, slipping her hand back just under Santana's shirt to touch over where their child grew.
"I love hearing you say that," she smirked.
"Little bean?" Brittany asked, and she nodded. "Well, he or she is growing, so…"
"When we can, we should find out what it is," Santana declared, and it made Brittany smile to have her commit to something. "This 'he or she' thing is just not good for my sanity. Better we know so we can just cut to the chase."
"What if… he or she isn't what it looks like?" Brittany pondered. "Could look like a boy but be a girl inside, or the other way around…"
"One thing at a time," Santana promised.
"Right," Brittany agreed. "And if we know, then we can start thinking about names, all of that…"
"Every time we think about one thing there's another thing, too. It's making what we used to do sound so simple in comparison."
"How was your day?" Brittany asked, propping her head up in her free hand.
"Well… I've watched this movie twice now, halfway through the third, because I didn't want to get my mother in here."
"What?" Brittany laughed.
"I love her, and I would be in so much trouble if she wasn't around, but she will drive me insane before this child is born if this keeps up."
"Do you want me to change the movie?" she offered.
"It's okay," Santana smirked. "You're here now, you're better than all the movies put together."
"All the dimensions without the glasses," Brittany joked, earning her a kiss on the head.
"And I finished the book," she pointed to her nightstand.
"Did you like it?"
"I liked it better before they killed off the one character I wanted to see make it out alive, I wasn't in the best mood for the rest, but other than that…"
"They did?" Brittany was surprised.
"It was so stupid, too, I mean…" There was a knock at the door and they paused.
"Dinner is ready," Mrs. Lopez' voice could be heard.
"Be right there," Santana called after her with a sigh.
"Oh, but look," Brittany reached for her bag and pulled out three books. "A present from Tanya at the clinic." Santana looked at the covers.
"Thank you, Tanya at the clinic. I've never read this much in my life."
"It's good for the bean," Brittany declared.
"I took a nap earlier, dreamed we were back in that place, the job in Memphis, remember?" she kept her voice low, in case her mother was roaming.
"Yeah," Brittany chuckled.
"That was both the best and the worst we ever had. It just went on forever, and nothing was where it was supposed to be, but it was kind of gorgeous at the same time."
"Quinn kept telling you to stop swearing because she couldn't focus."
"I had a lot on my mind," Santana defended herself. As they stopped, the memory of those days, those weird and happy days with the two of them and Quinn, it was caught somewhere between a smile and a sob. "If she'd been here she would have been all over this bed rest business."
"She would have," Brittany agreed. The sadness wasn't as overwhelming as it had once been. But every once in a while it would catch them off guard and burrow through their hearts like a sickness. Their 'little bean' was the thing that came in to clear away the damage, to fill them with light all over again. They would protect it as fiercely as they would love it, as they protected and loved one another.
THE END
A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.
In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are
always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!