A/N: I didn't know what to do with Quinntana, so I wrote a oneshot. Possibly continuing.
Even when their situation gets rough, even when her old insecurities threaten to smother her; even on the days when she gets that old familiar feeling of lunging at the collar, of needing to just rip herself away from it all and desert, Santana knows that this is her home.
She doesn't quite have that cliché sense of 'everything is meant to be,' but she does feel that she belongs there. She belongs there. Quinn – their house – their baby daughter – even their overwhelming cats – they are the only things in the entire world, she thinks, that are capable of grounding her. At this point, she has run away from life for so long that sometimes she doesn't know whether this is it, or whether she's just getting tired of running, because she's run from everything.
Everything except for Quinn.
Sure, there are days when things just don't seem right, when she gets that wild urge to just fly away and never glance over her shoulder again, but she doesn't do it. She doesn't do it, and that, Santana realizes, is why they're where they are today. It's why Quinn is the one out of so many others who was stuck, who hasn't given up on her despite her countless, obvious flaws and flight instincts and insecurities. It's why Santana loves her so much (even though it took so many years for her to admit to the sentiment); it's why she listens, and instead of leaving, stays and tries to fight through. Maybe she's gotten used to staying put, but either way, Santana knows that this is her magnet, her lifeline; it's what keeps her tethered to the rest of life.
She's learned now that love isn't about soul mates, or the world spinning, or feeling the fireworks burst so strongly in your heart that you can't even feel the beats. It's about discouragement and sacrifice, and then once the recognition comes it's the digging, ripping, clawing; fighting tooth and nail through the flaws and aches and vices because it's worth it. Love is waking up on the wrong side of the bed and going to work anyways, not by putting a false smile on your face but by admitting that though not everything will be wonderful, you still want to do it. It's the feeling of facing the things that make you want to run and realizing that you won't, you won't; that you'll stay because even if there are less good moments than bad, you still want to be there because they are enough.
Santana thinks that there's a different meaning now to soul mate. It's not the perfect match for your heart or soul or who you are. It's the one person on this earth, the one person out of seven billion, the one person in the world to whom you always come back home.
She's going to walk away sometimes; she knows it – she's no saint. But she will always come back home to Quinn.
Let me know what you think.