The first thing Santana become aware of was her mother yelling from outside her door. The next thing was the pounding in her head. As she started to sit up, she realized Brittany was laying in bed next to her, a cardboard party hat still on her head.
"Santana Kelley Lopez!" Her mother yelled, "You better get out here right now!"
Santana sighed, wondering what she did last night that warranted being yelled at this early. She looked over at the clock. It was only seven am. She'd only been in bed for three hours.
"Come to the kitchen and bring Brittany," her mom added before she heard her mom walk down the stairs.
Santana's eyes widened. Something must have gone down last night while they were celebrating Brittany's eighteenth birthday. The last thing she remembered was drinking with Puck and Brittany at some house party somewhere. Earlier they were with the other gleeks, but after drinking since ten pm, the rest of them went home at one that morning. Then they hit up another party and Santana's memory went blank. She sighed, figuring she may have parked in the front yard or something
"B," Santana nudged the girl next to her in the bed, "C'mon."
Brittany sleepily sat up and yawned. "What?"
"We're in trouble," Santana smoothed out Brittany's hair, "Let's go see what's wrong so we can go back to bed."
The blonde nodded and found her pants on the floor, before sliding them on and following Santana out of the room. She tripped over a box that was set down in front of the door. After she stumbled, Brittany glanced back at it before pushing it aside with her foot and exiting.
As they walked down the stairs, Santana took Brittany's hand, remembering that she never did give Brittany the super secret, super private present last night. They both passed out the second they got back.
When they got into the kitchen, Santana's parents were seated at the kitchen table. Her mother looked furious while her dad just looked lost.
"How do you explain that?" her mom immediately asked, pointing to the refrigerator.
Santana looked at the appliance, wondering where the hell this was going. She saw a paper she wrote last week that she got an A on. Brittany had insisted on hanging it on the refrigerator.
"My paper?" Santana asked, just wanting to go back to bed. She sank into a chair at the table and Brittany sat next to her, too tired and hungover to stand up.
"Next to it," her mom stated.
Santana saw some kind of certificate hanging up, but she couldn't read it from the table. She sighed and stood up to retrieve it, wondering why she was in so much trouble for a certificate. It had a gold seal on it. That was usually a good thing.
When she picked it up, she read it over. Then she read it again. Then she read it a third time. She couldn't quite believe what she was reading. She looked at her mom, "Is this real?"
"Is it real?" her mom echoed, "Santana, that's signed by the Justice of the Peace that lives down the street."
Santana looked at Brittany who had laid her head on the table and was almost asleep. Then she saw it. A glint caught her eye. The reflection of the light off of something on Brittany's hand. Her left hand. The ring finger of her left hand.
Santana recognized a ring as one she received for Christmas one year from her dad. She took a deep breath. Last night was starting to come back to her in bits and pieces.
"Don't you have anything to say?" her dad asked evenly.
Just as she opened her mouth, the front door opened and more yelling started, but this time it was in Dutch. Brittany's head shot up and she turned to the door. When she saw her parents she was wide-awake.
Santana's dad looked to his daughter as Brittany stood to talk to her parents, "What are they saying?"
Santana shrugged. She had no idea what they were saying, but she was sure that she had some idea what it was about.
"Santana, what's going on?" Brittany finally asked. "They're asking me how I could get married."
Santana sighed and handed Brittany the certificate. Brittany read it and then looked to Santana, "Um, what- we got married?"
The brunette looked down and nodded, "Yeah, it looks like it."
It took a while, but soon everyone calmed down enough to have a civil conversation.
"They have to get it annulled," Brittany's dad insisted.
Santana's mom nodded.
However Santana's dad looked at the rest of the group, "I think that's their decision."
Santana looked to Brittany who was looking back at her. The blonde looked confused, but calm. There were so many thought running through Santana's mind at the moment so she turned to her dad, "I think we need to talk about it."
He nodded. His wife looked like she was about to say something when he cut her off. He gave his daughter a soft smile, "If I would have known that there was going to be a wedding, I would have gotten you a present. Your mother and I were going to go to the lake house for the holiday weekend. But I think the lake house would be better spent on you two."
"What?" Santana's mom asked, "You're just going to…let them?"
He shrugged, "They're both adults now. They can make adult decisions."
"I suppose that sounds fair," Brittany's mom rose from the table, "It's not like none of us thought this wasn't going to happen eventually. However, I guess we figured it would be later rather than sooner."
Brittany's dad didn't seem too thrilled with the idea, but there wasn't much he could do at this juncture. He stood with his wife and glanced at Brittany, "C'mon. Let's go get you packed."
The blonde seemed reluctant to leave Santana's side, but when Santana gave her a soft smile, she nodded and followed her parents out.
"C'mon Santana," her dad stood up, "I'll come help you pack in a minute."
Santana quirked an eyebrow. Her dad had never offered to help her pack in his life. That would require seeing her underwear and bras, confirming his suspicion that his little girl had grown up. In his mind she'd be the innocent little girl that he used to chase around the house in her diaper.
She slowly walked up to her room, wondering if this was all some kind of crazy dream brought on by too much tequila. She stepped into her room and tripped over the same box Brittany tripped over earlier.
Santana had never seen it that she knew of so she picked it up and set it on her desk. She carefully opened it. After scanning the contents she pulled out a coffee mug with a picture on it. In the picture, she and Brittany were standing under a cheap looking arch, both with the kind of veils little girls wear that are attached to a plastic headband. Neither she nor Brittany seemed to care though because in the picture they're looking at each other, smiling from ear to ear and holding hands. Santana's eyes lingered on how Brittany looked at her, even when they were too drunk to remember.
When her dad walked in, he found Santana staring sentimentally at a coffee mug. He cleared his throat and Santana's head shot up. She quickly replaced the mug and went to her closet to retrieve a bag to put her clothes in.
Her dad walked over to the desk chair and sat down, watching Santana move around the room. He took his eyes off of her to glance at the contents of the box. He let out a chuckle, "You got t-shirts too."
Santana looked up at her dad, surprised at his blasé attitude this whole time. Santana was never one to beat around the bush so she just asked, "Why aren't you mad at me like mom is?"
Her dad took out one of the t-shirts and looked up at Santana, "Because I've already accepted that you're growing up and soon you won't need us anymore. Hell I don't think you need us anymore now. And Brittany's mom is right, we were all sort of expecting this. When you two found out that they passed a law allowing same-sex marriage, you and Brittany looked at each other with these little smiles when you thought we weren't looking."
Santana got some clothes out of her closet and started to fold them, "If you knew, why didn't you call us out? We thought we were keeping it a secret."
"I think, when you're in love like you two are, it's hard to keep it a secret," he sighed and looked at the shirt with his daughter's face on it. "But marriage is a huge step in any relationship. It means you're stuck together through the good times and the bad times. It means she has to listen to you walk around the house and bitch about how fat you feel and you have to….put up with whatever annoying thing Brittany might do. I just want you to think it over long and hard. I'll support you with whatever you two decide."
"You think I'm annoying?" she teased her dad, trying to lighten up the heavy tone he just set.
He smiled, "Only on days when you feel fat." He stood up and put the shirt to his chest, "How do I look?"
Santana chuckled, "You look awesome dad."
He walked over to her and swept her up in his arms, "I love you San. No matter what, okay?"
"Okay dad," Santana sighed into his shoulder, "Love you too."
He pulled away and looked at his watch, "You better get going. Traffic is going to get really bad in about an hour." He reached in his pocket and pulled out a set of keys, "Here are the keys to the lake house. Don't lose those. They're our last set since your mom dropped the other ones in the bottom of the lake."
"Okay," she nodded and took them, putting them in the side pocket of her bag.
He kissed her forehead with a sad smile and walked out of the room.
Santana watched him leave before started to quickly pack. She needed to get out of this house. Her mom was mad at her, her dad was being all sentimental. It was all too much to handle at the moment.
Once she was packed, she said a quick bye to her parents and got into her car. She wanted to make one stop before picking up Brittany.
"You let us get married?" Was the first thing out of Santana's mouth when Puck opened the door, sleepy and obviously hung over.
He shrugged and squinted at the sunlight, "I didn't think it was legal or whatever."
"Where the hell have you been?" Santana asked, but then remembered who she was talking to. "Whatever."
"So you're actually like married married?" he asked leaning on the doorframe.
Santana nodded.
He smirked, "Do you want to come in and have your first affair?"
"What?" she snapped.
"Oh come on it's not like you're going to stay married," he rolled his eyes, "You're eighteen and let's face it, you're not the most faithful person on the planet anyway."
Santana's jaw and fists clenched. She was trying really hard not to hit him, "Shut up."
He shrugged at her, "I'm just speaking the truth babe."
That was it. She hauled off and hit him. A well-placed fist to his nose effectively shut him up.
"What the fuck Santana?" he screamed and grabbed it nose as blood started to pour out of it. By the time he looked up, Santana's car was screeching away from the curb.
Santana was pissed. He was pissed at Puck because he had a point. She had never not cheated on anyone. She cheated on Puck. She cheated on that football player that she could never get his name right. She cheated on Mike for the weekend that he managed to get her to go out with him.
Of course she cheated on all these guys with Brittany and that one time with Finn that still makes her sick when she thinks about it. But the point is maybe Brittany is just too irresistible to her and being with other guys was nothing in comparison.
It was that or she was a cheater. A married cheater. An eighteen-year-old married cheater.
She shook her head, trying to shake the thoughts out of her head. She had all weekend to over think. She needed to concentrate on getting to Brittany's house. Cheater or not, she needed to get her wife out to the lake house for their honeymoon. God that sounded so weird to her. Wife? Honeymoon?
This had to be a weird ass tequila induced dream.
She thought that until she pulled to a stop in front of Brittany's house. The blonde was sitting on the front porch of her house, staring off into space. Her eyes were glossy with unshed tears.
Before Santana could get out of her car, Brittany trotted over and got into the passenger's seat, tossing her bag into the backseat.
"What's wrong?" Santana asked.
Brittany shook her head, wiping her eyes, "Can we just go please?"
Santana turned in her seat and took Brittany's hand, "Brit what happened?"
"My parents are fighting," Brittany tried to blink back tears, "My dad wants me to…please San, can we just go?"
The way Brittany plead with her, Santana couldn't help, but turn back in her seat and start heading to the lake house. She glanced over at Brittany who had reclined her chair slightly and was playing with the radio. When Brittany settled on a song, she leaned back in her seat and took a deep breath.
The look on Brittany's face broke Santana's heart. She reached over and took Brittany's hand, threading their fingers together. When Santana glanced over at Brittany again, the blonde let out a small appreciative smile and gave Santana's hand a gentle squeeze.
Santana nodded and turned her eyes back to the road. She was already getting a headache from all the thinking and now she wanted to know what was wrong with Brittany. It was going to be a long weekend.