When I Said Forever

Disclaimer: Don't own Glee or any of its characters.
Pairings: Brittany Pierce x Santana Lopez, Brittany Pierce x Sam Evans
Spoilers: Up to the latest. 4x01.
A/N: The title's from Tracy Chapman's "Less than Strangers." Might expand this, if, as usual, I get around to it.


Chapter 1: If there's no reason to notch the memory

It was purely by chance that she saw her again after all these years. Santana would have never willingly put herself in this situation, not so much awkward but uncomfortable. True, it has been years, six or ten, she wasn't too sure—why waste time counting dead time?*—but she guessed her heart would never completely recover.

The sight of her smiling brightly, her blue eyes shining with such unbridled happiness, with—here Santana never manages not to choke—a little boy in her arms, was not exactly a stranger to her. After all this image has mocked her endlessly since the day they broke up.

'No, she broke up with me,' Santana corrected herself with a bitterness that had never really abated even through the years.

But this nightmarish image was now a reality she couldn't deny, and what's more, it saw her too. The woman's smile widened as she called out in that sweet voice, blissfully untainted by the demons that had always plagued Santana.

"San!"

Santana, who had stopped in her tracks in the corner of the street when she saw the other woman crossing from the other side, toddler in tow, forced a little smile. She was grateful for the aviator shades she was wearing; she could already fill her eyes stinging.

"Britt…" her voice came out low and raspy and so fragile that she hated herself for it.

Brittany jogged the remaining distance with a grace that told Santana that she was still dancing. When she was close enough, Brittany leaned over and kissed Santana's cheek before enveloping her with a one-armed hug. She pulled back to survey Santana before hugging her again. "Oh San, it's been a while!"

Santana's jaw clenched and she wondered if a while meant dead time for Brittany too.

"That's an understatement." Santana thanked heavens that at least her voice stopped sounding like it was going to break with the next word she was going to utter. She shifted on her feet uneasily, torn between wanting to be polite and wanting to just disappear. The grunts and angry mutterings brought them back to the fact that they were still standing in the corner of the street, obstructing the way for the pedestrians.

Brittany grinned sheepishly, her cheeks tinged with a light shade of pink. "Are you in a hurry? We can go grab a coffee at the Bean, yeah?"

"I…" Santana weighed her options. If she refused now, Brittany would undoubtedly ask for her number and make sure that they would go out to catch up on stuff. She could save herself the agony of waiting by just saying yes now. Besides, the kid—Santana winced as she took a glance at the little boy who remained silent and observant of his surroundings—could prove to be a convenient excuse to flee, an advantage she might not have next time. So she shrugged her shoulders and mumbled, "Yeah, that sounds good."

xxx

It wasn't so crowded in the Lima Bean when they walked in. Which wasn't surprising really since it was the middle of September, mid-morning even, and the usual patrons of the shop were students. Even so, Santana opted for the corner spot, away from people, away from the windows, away from light. She had this notion that the corner provided enough cover for her. Brittany didn't seem to mind, though, and she waited patiently as Santana placed their orders. Despite the fact that their drinks could just be brought to their table, Santana chose to wait for them instead, hanging by the side of the counter. Trying to gather as much courage as she can, trying to harden her heart as much as she can.

"Milk chocolate and Venti black coffee for Santana!"

Santana gave a thin smile to the coffee boy as she took the drinks. When she reached their table, she saw Brittany playing choo-choo train with her little boy, who was laughing and clapping his hands whenever the train came too near. The sight made Santana grip her coffee too hard that it crumpled a little in the middle, spilling some of its scalding contents on her left hand.

"Shit!"

Brittany's head snapped up and in an instant, she had taken both drinks from Santana's hands. She led her to the table, beside the little boy and said, "Wait here, and keep your eye on Rob; he's a sneaky one."

'Rob. So his name is Rob.' Santana looked at the boy beside her. He was playing with the train car when he felt her staring, so he looked at her back. Santana's eyes took in his features, his eyes the color of the sky on a beautiful sunny day, his light blond hair curling gently making him look like a cherub, his plump pinkish baby cheeks, and—here, Santana thought, was the reminder who this child belonged too, apart from Brittany—his pouty red lips. Before Santana could stop herself, tears made their way down her cheeks. She tried to choke down the sobs but she couldn't stop the tears.

The little boy, Rob, frowned in concern and reached over to her and wiped her cheeks with his chubby little hands. And it was really more than Santana could bear and she lifted the boy from his seat and wrapped her arms around him. Rob didn't resist, and as if he had known her all his life, he let himself be held, and even snuggled against the crook of her neck.

Such gentleness, such trusting nature could only come from the two most caring and wonderful people Santana knew. Two people who definitely deserved each other. Someone as mean and abrasive as her could never hope to play a major part in their lives and it was really inevitable that in less than a year apart from them, she had lost her spot and they found that they fit together better.

"San?"

Santana's head snapped up instinctively, forgetting that there were still tearstains on her cheeks. Blue eyes were looking at her in concern. Realizing how it must have looked, her holding somebody else's child so close, so tenderly, with her crying to boot, Santana felt her cheeks burn. She hastily but still so gently started to lift Rob from her lap when Brittany pressed a hand against her arm.

"No, it's all right. He likes you."

Santana just stared at Brittany before nodding dumbly.

"Your hand, please."

When Santana didn't move, Brittany chuckled as she took her left hand and started wiping it gently with a cool napkin. With all the frenzied emotions inside her, Santana had forgotten about her hand and now that attention was being paid to it, she could feel the skin on her fingers sting a little.

Santana watched Brittany attend to her hand with such tenderness that she could feel that she was about to cry once again. So she turned her head and looked outside instead. It was a beautiful day, one of the rare days when it wasn't too hot or too cold, nor too wet or dry. The Goldilocks weather, so to speak. Just right.

The two of them were just right. And it was only natural that they would end up together. Santana was… well, Santana was too hot at times, and too cold at the others. If she wasn't lashing out and dishing out insults, she was being silent and stubborn. Even her shows of affection tend to burn too hotly. And her reaction to things that she couldn't get a hold of completely was running away. That was why she lost Brittany in the first place. Santana couldn't deal with being so far away from her, on that year when she graduated and Brittany didn't. And so she didn't contact her for months, burying herself instead in schoolwork and cheerleading practice. She left Brittany out in the cold. So it shouldn't have come as a surprise that when she came back to Lima to visit, Brittany was cold to her as well. It made Santana so angry at first, how easily she was moved out of Brittany's heart. Like all those promises of forever and words of love were lies. And then she saw how close Brittany and Sam had become, how she would prefer to be with him than to be with her. Hell, even Ashley, Brittany's younger sister, preferred him to her then.

Sam.

Sam was a great guy. He was kind and always put others before him. Such thoughtfulness and protectiveness, it shouldn't have surprised her that Brittany would fall in love with him. (Though truth be told, she had always thought it would be Mike Chang she had to be wary of.) Especially when away from Santana, Brittany could see how she deserved better. Santana thought that it was merely out of habit why Brittany stayed with her. There really wasn't anything good about her. Somehow, she had always known she was bound to lose Brittany, once Brittany realized how mean and bitter and damaged Santana really was, and once somebody else, somebody better, discovered Brittany's innocent goodness.

And that time came, in that year after Santana graduated from high school, leaving behind Lima and Brittany.

But anticipating it didn't make it any easier to accept. Those days of pleading and bargaining and desperately clinging on to the remnants of their relationship still burned in Santana's memories. The day when Brittany told her that they couldn't do this anymore, that they couldn't keep on trying to piece together what was broken, it was the day when Santana fully realized that she was never meant to keep anything beautiful.

Santana was never just right. She could never be just right.

She could still remember sitting in her car, with Brittany on the passenger, trying to muffle her sobs. "You know I love you, right?"

xxx

It was near midnight and the streets were deserted. She had parked just outside Brittany's house, finally deciding to confront her. Brittany padded out of her house, in her pyjamas, her eyes already red and puffy.

They sat silently inside the car. Neither of them knew what to say, and Santana, despite having all this cocktail of emotions, spoke first, with the only thing she knew to be true.

"I love you, Brittany."

Brittany turned to her, her eyes wild and she grabbed Santana by the neck and crushed her lips against hers in a needy, desperate kiss. It was all lips and teeth and it hurt, nothing like their kisses before. It was at this moment that Santana felt it was really over.

Brittany pulled back and looked at Santana's eyes searchingly. "You know I love you, right?"

Santana bit back a harsh laugh. "I know."

"You know… but you don't believe it."

Santana took a deep breath as she turned her gaze back to the empty street. After taking a deep breath, she spoke in a soft voice, "What am I supposed to believe in? If I believe in that, then I have to also believe that love never lasts, that it leaves you hurting."

"Not everybody who loves each other can stay by each other's side, San."

"Let's not do this, please. If you're going to break up with me, be swift about it."

"But I need you to understand first that I love you, San, I love you! It's just that the past year wasn't kind to us. The distance wasn't kind to us. We're too young to take on such an anniversary—"

"Adversary," Santana couldn't help but correct with a small smile on her lips.

Brittany reflected that smile before continuing. "We're too young, San."

"And we can't wait?"

Brittany ignored the venomous implication in that question. "We have our lives ahead of us."

Santana let out a shaky sigh. She gripped the steering wheel until her knuckles went white. "Is there… is there hope for us in the future?"

Brittany reached over to touch Santana's knuckles before covering her hand with hers, her fingers finding their way in between those of Santana's. "We can't let ourselves be tied down with hopes and expectations."

A harsh hollow laugh echoed inside the car.

"See, it's when you say all these rational wisdom-filled words that make me think that you don't love me at all!" Santana shook her hand free from Brittany's and she buried her face against the driving wheel. "But," she whispered almost to herself, "but then it makes perfect sense why you wouldn't."

"Santana…"

"You're smart, Brittany, smart enough to realize… that you deserve better…" Santana suddenly felt tired. Her limbs felt heavy and she wanted nothing more than to just curl in her bead and forget about the world. She lifted her head from the wheel. "I have to go."

"Santana…"

"Please, Brittany."

"I love you."

Santana turned to face her and smiled thinly. "'Even the most deathless love can wear out**,' yeah?"

Brittany's eyes studied her face, as if trying to find the answer to the question as to whose love Santana was talking about. When Santana turned away, Brittany let herself out of the car.

The question remained unanswered.

xxx

"How are Rachel and Kurt?"

Santana snapped out of her daze and turned to look at Brittany folding the napkin. She withdrew her hand and shifted the little boy who was now snoring gently in her arms. She instinctively tightened her hold on the child.

"Haven't they been sending you their monthly newsletters?" Santana spoke softly so as not to wake Rob.

Brittany smiled. "Let me take him."

"No. I mean, no, it's all right." Santana breathed in the smell of the little boy, all sweet and powdery, the baby scent that bore little traces of his parents. This boy was real, the future that she had wished for Brittany and herself once upon a time, and then after that night, the future she had wished for Brittany, period.

And as if to mock her predicament, the shop speakers started to play Adele.

Brittany must have caught on since she had this searching gaze in her eyes. She shifted in her seat.

"How have you been?"

Santana took a sip from her coffee before answering, "Same as always."

"Well that's a vague answer," laughed Brittany.

"Well that was a vague question."

"Okay then. I didn't know you were back. When did you arrive? How long are you staying?"

"I just arrived the other day, and I'm leaving the day after tomorrow."

Brittany furrowed her brows. "That's a pretty short vacation."

"It isn't really a vacation. I just… wanted to surprise my parents. It's been a long time since I've seen them."

"Just them?"

Santana studied the face of the woman in front of her, but she couldn't read anything. She wondered for a moment if she had stopped being able to read her thoughts ever since they broke up, or if she had never really known how to read them at all and that she had just deluded herself that she did for a while.

Santana shrugged her shoulders.

"Still so shy, I see," teased Brittany.

"You have a beautiful child."

Brittany's eyes softened and she ducked her head in that way when she felt really happy and didn't know what to say or do. "Yeah. He's like the best thing that ever happened to me."

The coffee suddenly tasted a thousand times more bitter in Santana's tongue. "I bet."

At Santana's tone, Brittany raised her eyes. It looked as if she was trying to read her and Santana had that awful feeling that Brittany was much better at this than she was. Or maybe she was just too easy to read.

"San…"

She knew she should change the conversation now. They were in dangerous territory. But for the life of her, she couldn't think of anything else to say. So she started to scratch her nail against the side of the paper cup.

"I wasn't talking about Sam, you know," Brittany whispered. "Robin's the best thing that has happened to me."

Santana laughed softly. "Robin? As in Batman's Robin? Oh god, Trouty is such a geek."

Brittany pouted. "Don't be mean."

"I'm not. Robin's a beautiful name. I guess I'd also have thought of that seeing this beautiful boy."

"Really?"

"Yeah." Santana looked at the boy sleeping against her chest. She couldn't help it; she pressed a soft kiss on top of the curly blond head.

"Are you seeing someone now?"

Santana scoffed. "I wish."

"Why not?"

As she opened her mouth to reply, the song changed to Sinnead O'Connor, and she said instead, "Nothing compares to you."

The effect was instantaneous. Brittany's cheeks and the tips of her ears pinked and Santana was sure that despite her skin color, her blush was just as evident.

"Uh… I mean, the song title was…" Santana mumbled in embarrassment. "Sorry."

"Don't be." Brittany hesitated before continuing, "Nothing compares to you, too."

"Please don't say things like that," Santana said in a cold quiet voice.

Brittany looked at her. She opened her mouth to say something but stopped. Then she whispered, "I still love you, you know."

"You shouldn't be saying that in front of your kid."

"It's all right. Because it's true. It doesn't mean that I don't love Sam."

"This is what I could never wrap my mind around. Ever since your thing with Artie. How you could throw those words around freely. And mean them too."

Brittany smiled sadly. "And what I couldn't understand is why you would never believe me when I say that I do love you too."

"Because if you did, you would choose to be with me."

"San, we've talked about this. Sometimes people who love each other can't be together. We're better off with somebody else."

"You're better off with somebody else!" Santana's eyes snapped towards the boy in her arms. Fortunately, he was still sleeping. Just in case though, Santana started rocking him gently.

"You're the one who's better off with somebody else," Brittany said quietly.

Santana started to retort when she saw that Brittany's eyes were filling with tears though she wiped them away before they could fall.

"You're so beautiful, San, so smart and talented, and with such a great ambition. I've always been so sure you'd do amazing things and be famous. I… I'm nothing like that. Yes, I can dance but, it isn't enough to get me anywhere, anywhere close to you. I wanted to be with you, God knows I did. But we were just too different, and we would have ended up resenting each other and, San, that's something that would have shattered my heart." Brittany twisted the napkin in front of her. "I… I'm just, I am not what you need."

Santana remained silent. She watched as Brittany shred the napkin.

"It's a good thing then. Or you wouldn't have had Robin."

Brittany looked at her, hurt.

"You are nothing like me, because you're better, Britt. I hurt people. I'm this person with jagged edges that cut anyone who comes close. Even you." Santana paused. "Especially you. And you're right, you are not what I need. But you are what I want. There's a difference, Britt. I'd choose to be with you, every single time. And I've thought, no, I still think, that we'd have made it through." She shook her head. "But it's no use thinking about all this now. You won't ever be mine."

For the nth time that day, Santana started crying again. This time, she didn't try to stop her tears. What was the use? Even if she drowned the world with her tears, she could never have Brittany back again.

A warm hand traced the path of her tears on her left cheek. She looked up and saw Brittany looking as sad and heartbroken as she felt.

"Have you forgotten, Santana? I'm yours. I've always been yours. And always will be."

With that, Santana let herself break down openly. Robin woke up with a start and upon seeing her face, wrapped his arms around her neck. Brittany rose from her seat and embraced the both of them.

For that brief moment, Santana felt that both of them was really hers.


* from Gregory Maguire's "Out of Oz"
** from Margaret Mitchell's "Gone with the Wind"