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 79th cycle. Now cycle 80!

"Under Dark Clouds"
In Gen1!World: G1!Rachel/Santana
Berry-St series
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)

She should have known that she'd forgotten something. She should have guessed that the universe would not let her have an easy one. This day was polarizing in so many ways, and all she wanted was for it to be over, but that didn't look likely to happen. When she drove up to her house, she found someone waiting for her, someone who looked not unlike a bomb, with the fuse so close to bursting that it was down to the last sparks. Rachel only had time to park her car that she remembered she'd been supposed to meet Santana back there, before she'd been called off to Quinn's house instead.

"I know I'm late, but it's been a very long day. Kurt's in the hospital, he got swapped back, but he passed out at the same time, his father had him taken to the hospital and…"

"What happened to your lip?" Santana asked, standing, arms crossed before herself. Rachel hesitated. Something wasn't right. Santana might be upset for her being late, yes, but she'd just brushed over the Kurt news, and there was something else there…

"Right, that," she breathed out, running a hand through her hair. She should have had more time to prepare for this. She was usually so good under pressure, but this… this was something else. "Santana, I…"

"I wasn't sure where you were, so I started checking around if anyone had seen you. Mike told me about what happened with Kurt, since you'd already called him. Then when I called Quinn, she was very… oddly… evasive," Santana went on, and Rachel wanted so much to interrupt her, but it just wasn't possible, not yet.

"Yeah, she texted me, asked me to come over, so I did. She got worried, about how Kurt got to go back and she didn't."

"And that?" Santana pointed to her lip. Again, Rachel took a breath, and Santana took this for admission. "Right. Should have seen that one coming, shouldn't I?" she started down the driveway.

"Hey, wait a second!" Rachel caught her on the fly. "Give me a chance to talk here, I was going to explain what happened but you beat me to it, so don't go and make me the bad guy in this!"

"Did you sleep with her?" Santana looked her in the eye.

"Woah, hey, smaller leap there, Lopez. She…" Rachel sighed. "She kissed me, yes."

"Did you kiss her back?" She only paused for a moment, to gather her response, and Santana started to leave again.

"Hey!" Rachel rose her voice, and that got her attention. "I have never given you any reason to doubt me, so the least you can do is come inside so I can explain it the right way… not out here." Santana was primed to go, and Rachel was sure she'd go before she could explain, but finally Santana turned without a word, and they went into the house. She was so glad her fathers were not there yet.

"You kissed her back," Santana started as soon as the door was shut.

"I…" Rachel searched for words again. "I let her have what she needed, just for a few seconds. She's in a bad place right now, and all she wanted was to be with her girlfriend, and I have the misfortune of having her face. I let her have that moment, because she caught me by surprise. But as soon as that surprise wore off, I pulled away, that's how…" she pointed to her lip. Santana still didn't look appeased, and some part of this frustrated Rachel. "Look, you have no idea what this is like."

"Oh, sure, because I'm not part of your little Freaky Friday club?" Santana threw back.

"You don't know what it's like, having no control over this, being stuck trying to figure out how the hell to get home when there's no one to tell you, being separated…"

"Like how you got separated from the other me?" That one had blindsided her, and Rachel's hands flexed. She didn't even notice how much the other girl's voice had been growing steadily more slurred, how she'd begun teetering on the spot.

"Don't bring her into this again, I told you…"

It all came together, finally, but by then it was too late. Before she could finish her sentence, the only thing she could do was to reach forward and catch Santana before she could hit the ground head on.

"No… No!" she gasped, forced to kneel under the weight of her unconscious girlfriend. "No, not you, please!" she begged. It was too late; she was already going. I brought this on myself. I got her into this. I told her she didn't know what it was like…

For several endless minutes, she'd sat there, cradling Santana's sleeping body in her arms, trying to keep from crying and failing miserably. How long had she rolled her eyes at the way Jesse and Quinn had been afraid at the possibility that one of them might be swapped out without the other going, too? Then when those others had come back instead of her lovebirds, she'd told herself that at least this time she was safe, and she'd been so far in denial that it had never entered her mind how she and Santana might be the ones to have to fight their way back to each other. Now it had happened, was happening, and she realized maybe she hadn't known what it felt like either, and now she did… It felt like it was part of her heart that had been taken away, same time as her Santana had been. Now she'd be the one looking into girlfriend's face, knowing it wasn't really her. Would she be the one needing that mercy kiss, too?

Finally, Santana stirred, gasped. Rachel had her safe in her arms, and she sniffled, trying to get her composure back.

"You're alright, I've got you," she promised. Does she even known about any of this? Did they tell her?

"What the hell?" Santana looked around. She pulled herself out of Rachel's arms, scooted back. Rachel's arms fell back down, empty.

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!