Present Perfect
SUMMARY: It's been 10 years since the members of the Glee Club graduated from McKinley High, and a lot has changed for the former New Directions. Santana and Rachel have kept their relationship a secret since they got together as a couple in New York - and now Rachel wants to break the news of their engagement to not just the Glee Club, but their entire graduating class. Meanwhile, Quinn has become a mover and shaker behind the scenes in Hollywood, successful in her career, less successful in love – until the reunion offers a chance at happiness she never expected...
chapter one
Santana turns the gold-lettered invitation over and over in her hands, staring at the words without reading them. There's no need; she's read them so many times since it had arrived in the mail that she practically has them memorized now. Not a whole lot of things scare her, or even make her nervous, but this...she's had an unsettled feeling in the pit of her stomach that's refused to go away since the first time she looked at it. It's hard to believe that ten years have gone by already, that an entire decade has passed since they'd said goodbye to the last days of their adolescence and embarked on the journey into adulthood. But there it was, staring up at her: incontrovertible, undeniable calligraphed evidence of time's inexorable, unstoppable march.
And Santana has no idea how to feel about that.
She's never been much for sentimentality; she lives in the now, almost obsessively in the moment. The past, she likes to think, has no hold on her. Certainly, it had helped to shape her into who she was now, but by no means did it define her. She loves to chat with her oldest and dearest friends about the memories they share, but she always makes a point of talking as much about how things are now as about how things had been then.
Leaving out, of course, one slightly important detail.
They hadn't meant to keep the secret for this long, really; but in the beginning, they simply hadn't thought that anybody would be able to accept or understand the fact of their relationship, so they'd agreed to be quiet about it for an unspecified length of time. And then they'd gotten on with their lives: first school, then work, and somewhere in the middle of all that, going from a loft in Brooklyn to an apartment in SoHo and now a place not too far from the Theater District. Changes had come fast and furious for them, one after another, and before they knew it, months and then years had gone by.
And now Rachel wants to tell everybody at the damned reunion.
Santana shakes her head, laughing softly. Of course she does. This is the girl who lives for grand romantic gestures. What could be grander and more romantic than this?
As if in answer, she hears Rachel's footsteps behind her, and when a warm pair of arms wrap themselves around her, her smile widens.
"Penny for your thoughts?" Rachel asks in her ear, placing a kiss to that one sensitive spot right behind it that she knows will never fail to make her squirm.
Santana lets the letter fall to the kitchen table, freeing her hands to cover Rachel's hands with her own, breathing in the familiar and intoxicating scent of Rachel's favorite perfume. She's been wearing the stuff for years, yet Santana never gets tired of it.
"I was...I was just thinking of how amazing the reunion is going to be," she lies. She knows that Rachel knows she's lying; it's like a game they play, one they've perfected over the last ten years of living with each other. "I can't wait to see everyone again."
"Everyone?" The sparkle in Rachel's eyes is belied by the cynical smile on her lips. "Even, say, Lauren Zizes? Or one Sue Sylvester?"
Santana rolls her eyes, but she can't help laughing anyway as she rises from her chair and turns in Rachel's arms, wrapping her own around the smaller woman's waist. "Okay, maybe not everyone," she admits. "But hey, I'm sure there are probably more than a few people – not just former Cheerios, either – who aren't necessarily psyched to see me either."
"Oh, Santana. I know you couldn't care less about what anybody outside of the New Directions thinks," Rachel replies airily. She gazes up at Santana with a frown on her pretty face, her bangs not quite covering the downward trend of her eyebrows. "Look, it's okay to just admit what you're really nervous about."
"And what would that be, Broadway Smurf?"
The gentle jab draws the expected sigh from Rachel, but not the foot stamp she'd hoped for. Santana feels vaguely disappointed.
"Telling everybody that not only have we been in a relationship since our first year of college, but we're now engaged to be married. I get it – we really should have told them all a long time ago, but life just got in the way," Rachel says with a reassuring smile. "They're our friends, Santana. They'll be shocked at first, I know. That's understandable. But they'll forgive us, and then they'll be happy for us. Trust me."
Santana shrugs, then pulls Rachel close once again, needing to feel her small, firm body against her own. She plants a kiss on Rachel's forehead, smiles at the giggle it elicits. "What? You actually think I'm worried about them being angry with us? Really? Santana Lopez sweats no one. If they get upset or whatever, that's their problem. I don't give a damn what they think."
"Yes, you do. I know you better than anyone, Santana. You feel guilty about keeping us a secret for so long. So do I. But we can't change the past, as much as we'd like to. All we can do is move forward and bring everyone else along with us, with no more secrets from now on."
"This is the part where you tell me I'm being silly, and that everything is going to be just fine, and if we click our heels together three times, puppies and candy will fall out of the sky and world peace will finally be at hand. Am I right?"
Rachel wriggles out of Santana's embrace, crosses the kitchen floor to grab the coffee pot and warm up the cold, half-consumed cup that's sitting on the table right next to where Santana had discarded the letter. She gestures for Santana to sit once again, then seats herself after putting the coffee pot back in place.
"Okay, maybe someone will be mad at us for a little while," she says, ignoring her fiancee's snarky remark. She toys absently with the edge of the envelope lying next to the invitation itself. "Like...like Quinn, for instance. She's become quite interested in everybody's love lives since she moved out to L.A. for some reason, but all she ever posts about on Facebook is how great her career is going."
"You know how Q is. She's always been a private kind of person, which is why she hated it when all her personal dirty laundry got aired after she got pregnant and everything." Santana sips at her coffee, savoring its renewed warmth. "But if anything was going on, relationship-wise - anything serious, at least - you know she would tell me. Until then, I'm operating on the assumption that she's just enjoying being young, well-off and single, like everyone else who isn't you and me."
"Do I detect a hint of jealousy?" Rachel asks playfully. "You wish things were different?"
"Not at all. I'm wearing your ring, aren't I?" She flashes the diamond with a proud smile, pleased at the way the jewel catches and holds the light. "I don't have a single regret."
"But you do wish we'd told everyone about us a long time ago." Rachel reaches across the table to grab Santana's hand. "So do I. You...you can blame it on me if you want. I won't mind."
The smallness of Rachel's voice as she says this, the other woman's willingness to sacrifice herself to spare Santana their friends' theoretical wrath, makes Santana's heart ache a little. She can't stand to see Rachel revert to the submissive girl she was back in high school, not even for a moment. Not after she's come so far and changed so much since then. She squeezes Rachel's hand and speaks in a firm, no-nonsense tone.
"Rachel, no. That was a decision we made together - right or wrong - and we made it a long time ago. Who would have thought it would hold for ten years? If there's any blame in this, it's on both of us. Besides, seriously – who would ever believe that you could force me to do something I didn't want to do?"
"That's probably true," Rachel agrees, brightening. "Only Kurt, Blaine and Quinn have ever seen the way our relationship actually works, after all."
"And thank God for that," Santana murmurs into her coffee.
Rachel's eyes narrow, but there's a bemused upward tilt to her lips that lets her fiancee know she's only teasing. "I'm sorry – did you say something?"
"Who, me? No, I didn't say anything. Nothing at all."
Rachel's chair slides back with a slight squeaking sound, and in the next moment Santana's lap is filled with all one hundred and two pounds of her former high school nemesis, now the woman she's going to marry.
"Good," she purrs, making her point with a kiss so fervent that any reply Santana might have made flies right out of the ex-cheerleader's head. "How about we stop talking, and engage in another...less dangerous...form of communication?"
Santana slips her arms under Rachel's small body and gets up, carrying her to the bedroom without another word. Yup, that's how this relationship works. And I wouldn't have it any other way.
Later, though, as Rachel sleeps beside her, Santana can't get her mind to stop racing; she stares at the ceiling, willing the churning in her gut to cease and her brain to finally just shut off so she can finally get to sleep herself. She'd meant what she'd said to Rachel – she really wasn't worried about any of their friends being mad at them for keeping their relationship a secret all this time. No, what's been gnawing away at her ever since they'd accepted the invitation and sent in the money for their tickets goes much deeper than that.
She knows it's probably a silly thing to worry about. After all, if she wasn't the same person she'd been back in high school, and Rachel wasn't either, then of course most if not all of the others had changed as well. That would mean that they wouldn't look at her strangely when Rachel finally made the announcement, wouldn't react in horror at the idea of her and Rachel being together, wouldn't take Rachel aside at some point in the evening and ask her just what the hell she was doing with Satan, why she didn't know that she could do so much better than the girl who used to torture and torment her in the halls of McKinley High.
Because it's not like Santana hasn't asked herself that question at least a million times since they'd gotten together, even after Rachel's insisted at least a million and one times that she's forgiven her for everything she'd said and done back then. Even now, after ten years together, the fear that someone will eventually convince Rachel to leave her is still strong enough to keep Santana awake some nights. She hates this lingering insecurity, this hollow feeling that no matter how many times she's apologized, no matter how much she's done to make amends, she can never truly be forgiven for her offenses.
Looking down at the sleeping form next to her, at Rachel's peaceful, angelic face, Santana feels tears, hot and stinging, prick at her eyes. Rachel isn't perfect, God knows, but she's perfect for her. Honestly, she doesn't know what she would do without Rachel. Ten years together have filed down her roughest edges, soothed the anger she'd carried around with her when they were teenagers, made her a better person. She can't begin to imagine who she would be now if they hadn't gotten together, and she doesn't even want to entertain the thought. The thought of not being with her makes Santana feel ill; the room spins against her tightly shut eyes, her temples throb and her insides twist.
No. Nobody's going to take what we have away from us. I'll die before I let that happen, reunion or no reunion.
She leans down to press a kiss to Rachel's forehead with a silent I love you and wipes her tears away before resuming her staring contest with the ceiling. After maybe another half hour, worry and exhaustion finally wear her down to the point where her mind mercifully shuts down, and sleep overtakes her at last.
On the other side of the country, Quinn looks out her office window and thinks she's got it pretty good. She's as far away from Lima, Ohio as she could get while still being in the country, she's got a great apartment with a terrific view, her career is going phenomenally well, and no one here in Hollywood knows that she was pregnant when she was sixteen.
She should be happy, and for the most part, she is; but sometimes, in these still, quiet hours when the sun is the only thing that greets her in the morning, the ache of loneliness pierces the armor she's built around her heart, and she feels things she's tried desperately to teach herself not to feel, wants things she's told herself not to want. Ever since that one night with Santana, she's known who she is, and she doesn't regret that in the least. No, she's thankful to her best friend for making her admit what she'd known, but refused to acknowledge about herself, for the longest time.
But that acknowledgement hasn't exactly translated into successful relationships since then. She hasn't quite been able to put the pieces together in that arena the way she's so skillfully done in her career. Protective of her friends' hearts almost to a fault, she's been careless with her own, and been hurt because of it. Apparently, relationships with women were just as difficult to navigate as the brief ones she'd had with guys back in high school – although the sex was, admittedly, much better. Sorry, Puck, wherever you are now.
So she's closed herself off, decided to concentrate on her career, and yet...she shakes her head, the way she does every time she dares to think about Marley Rose as anything other than her assistant and closest friend here in the Golden State. Funny, that another girl from Lima – and from McKinley, no less! - should end up here, and working in the same place, but stranger things have happened, she supposes.
As she often does, she thinks back to when she and Marley first met – or, rather, met again.
"I'm so sorry, Mr. Morgan," Marley was saying, even though from what Quinn had heard, she had no reason to be apologizing to that asshole. She was his fifth assistant in the last four months, and as far as Quinn could tell, by far the best. It seemed to Quinn that the better
the assistant actually was, the more abuse he heaped upon them. And she knew he liked to keep his office door open just so everyone else around could hear. He was a powerful figure at this studio, and as such he figured no one would ever dare to call him out on his obnoxious, abusive behavior.
Quinn's blood boiled as she listened. She'd run across too many creeps like this in her career, but always managed to survive them because she was smarter than they were. Smarter, stronger and more resilient. This Marley girl, though – she was far too sweet and gentle to survive a man like Dean Ray Morgan, Quinn's rival executive and would-be master of the universe.
"I – I just don't know what you want," Marley continued, trying hard not to sob."Every day, I try to come in here and be the best assistant I can be, and it seems like the rules change overnight. Suddenly what was good yesterday is unacceptable today. I just don't know what you want from me!"
"What I want," Morgan sneered in a voice that raised the hackles on the back of Quinn's neck (it reminded her way too much of her father's Scotch whiskey-roughened rasp),"is for you not to be such a squeaky little church mouse. What I want is for you to take your hair down from that schoolmarm's bun, undo a couple buttons on those prissy blouses you wear, and find some shorter skirts." His voice rose in pitch and volume as he continued to speak. "What I want is for you to come into the office looking hot, not like my goddamned fifth grade math teacher." He slammed his fist down on his desk. "What I want is what I deserve! That's not too much ask, now is it, Miss Rose?" His voice took on a leering quality that made Quinn's gorge rise. "I said, is it?"
"N-no, sir," Marley replied quietly. It didn't sound like she believed it. "I guess...I guess not."
"Damn right. Now pick up those files you dropped all over the floor and go get me some damned coffee. It's too early in the morning for this crap."
What moved Quinn to get up from her chair on this morning, when she hadn't on any other such morning, she couldn't say. She only knew that the sound of folders scraping on the floor, mixing with the sobs that Marley Rose was trying hard to muffle so that Morgan wouldn't hear, was unbearable to her.
"Miss Rose," she called out as she crossed the hallway. "Stay where you are."
"Ms. Fabray?!" Marley answered in alarm. "What? No, it's okay, I -"
"It's not okay," Quinn said as she entered the office. "It's not okay at all. Look at you. You're a mess. Go sit in my office. I need to talk with Dean here about something."
"Fabray? What the hell are you doing?" Morgan asked, his round face still flushed from his earlier rant. Quinn thought he might be on the verge of a stroke or something. "She's my assistant, not yours. Not my fault that last girl you had got pregnant. You can get your own fucking coffee." With that, he possessively grabbed Marley's arm, causing the girl to cry out more in shock than pain. He had never put his hands on her before.
Quinn's eyes widened at the sight, then narrowed dangerously. The denizens of McKinley would have instantly recognized this as a warning sign that something bad was about to go down. "Let go of her, Dean. We need to have a talk. Now."
The tone of her voice was so icy, so commanding, that Morgan actually let Marley's arm go, releasing it from his fleshy hand with an amused smile on his round face. "Wait in my office, Miss Rose. This will only take a few minutes."
Marley looked fearfully from Quinn to Morgan and then back again before wordlessly taking her exit. When Quinn heard her office door click shut, she stepped back a pace to close Morgan's. If anyone had seen her expression in that moment, they would have dialed 9-1-1, because there was pure murder in it.
Ten minutes later, Quinn Fabray's office door opened again, and her flawless face showed not the slightest sign of stress or worry. Marley was bewildered. She had absolutely no idea what she should do. The quiet emanating from Morgan's office was eerie, an almost palpable thing. She wondered if she should go check on him when Quinn sat behind her desk and cleared her throat, drawing Marley's attention immediately. She felt herself blush as she gazed at Quinn's face, struck almost dumb at how beautiful the young executive was.
"You're with me now, Miss Rose. That means you're getting a raise, effective immediately, since I know that Morgan likes to underpay his assistants, in addition to subjecting them to harassment and abuse. I'm sorry that I didn't rescue you from him sooner."
"Um – thank you, Ms. Fabray," Marley replied, at a loss, barely able to wrap her mind around what had just happened. She pointed at the folders she'd picked up from the floor in Morgan's office, still clutched in her hand. "What...what should I do with these?"
Quinn smiled at the girl's earnestness. She reminded her of another pretty brunette she used to know back in the day; but where Rachel Berry's eyes were brown, Marley's are a pretty blue-green. She found herself getting lost in them, in the way she could see everything the other woman was feeling: relief, gratitude, uncertainty – it was all right there, as easy to read as a headline on the front page of Variety.
"Just leave them on my desk here while you take a break to collect yourself – fix your makeup, catch your breath, all that. Dean won't be needing them anyway. He's taking an indefinite leave of absence. For his health, you know. The man is really not well."
Quinn opens her eyes, and the memory ends as it always does: with Marley's shy, admiring smile and her whispered "Thank you, Ms. Fabray," the thought of which never fails to make Quinn shiver with delight. Absurdly, Marley seems to this day to have no idea how gorgeous she is, or the effect she has on Quinn on a daily basis.
It's not just about her winsome, girl-next-door beauty, or her light-up-the-room smile, or even the way her perfect backside looks in the business-tailored slacks she's taken to wearing in the office, though. In the months since Marley became her assistant, Quinn's noticed a clever intelligence and a quick wit in the younger woman, to go along with a charmingly goofy sense of humor. She knows when to employ each to its best effect as well; when she's helping Quinn at work, she's there to make Quinn look good, never wanting to take the credit she deserves for her ideas and suggestions. But when they're having lunch, or more often these days, dinner, together, or shopping at the mall or going to the movies, Marley's always making her laugh and smile. Quinn figures she's done more of both in these last several months than she has since she was in high school, and the nicest thing is that unlike those high school days, the jokes are never cruel, never at someone else's expense. Marley just has a way of looking at life, a down to earth pragmatism mixed with a wide-eyed idealism, that Quinn finds extraordinary, and extraordinarily appealing.
She finds herself thinking more and more about Marley these days, even as she thinks more and more about the upcoming ten-year reunion back in Lima. She's excited about it, but wary, wondering how her ex-classmates will react to who she is now, as opposed to who she used to be. In some ways, she figures she hasn't changed all that much; but in other ways, she's changed a great deal. Bringing Marley along as her "plus-one" would certainly signal how much she's changed in one very particular way, for certain.
There's not much time left for her to ask Marley to join her, but she's certain that she won't say no. And as she sips at her morning coffee, watching the sun shine down on another glorious California day, she realizes that if she's going to go back to Lima, there's no one else she'd rather have with her. With a few clicks on her travel agent's website, she purchases two round-trip tickets to Ohio and books a hotel room for each of them, the smile on her face growing wider the whole time.
Packing for a trip with Rachel is not like packing for a trip with anyone else. Santana's gotten used to her fiancee's mania for planning and organization over the years, thank goodness; where once she'd found it annoying, now she found it amusing. And honestly, Rachel's color-coded system does work remarkably well. It certainly makes things less stressful for her, although not so much for Rachel. Still, the former high school Glee Club diva seems to enjoy taking on the stress; it's like her energy just feeds on it. Santana's never known anyone who takes such joy in tasks that others find tedious and boring.
It's good that Rachel's taken the bulk of the preparations in hand, because Santana's mind is clearly not on them. Being the observant and keenly intuitive person she is, Rachel knows that something is up with Santana, but she can't quite figure out what it might be.
"Santana, how many dresses and how many pairs of jeans do you want to take?" She watches Santana's far-away eyes, waits a beat for some sign of acknowledgment from her. "I'm thinking three of each is optimal, but I'd like your opinion."
"Whatever you think we should bring is fine, Rachel," Santana replies, absently, scrolling through the text messages she's gotten from Mercedes, Kurt and Quinn regarding the impending event. "I trust your judgment."
Rachel rolls her eyes; this answer clearly means that Santana's not paying attention, because if she were, she'd be ripping the hangers in Rachel's hands right out of them.
"Come on, Santana. This is important. I need your help here."
Santana looks up from her phone, finally. "What? No, you don't. You've been planning what to take on this trip since we got the invitation three months ago."
"I have not!" Rachel stamps her foot indignantly. "Please, Santana. I don't want us to get to Lima, open our suitcases and find out that you would have selected a completely different set of outfits. That would not exactly get our reunion experience off on the right foot."
Santana's eyes return to the screen. Rachel sees them widen at something she's just read. She sighs and lays the clothes carefully on the bed, then walks over to where Santana's standing with her phone in hand.
"What is it? Something wrong?" she asks, her curiosity aroused.
"No, no. It's Quinn – she says she's bringing someone with her." Santana's own curiosity is piqued. Quinn hasn't mentioned seeing anyone in the last few months. "That's a surprise."
"Quinn's seeing someone?" Rachel claps her hands in delight. "Oh, that's wonderful! I can't wait to meet her."
"She says we already have. But I can't get her to say anything more." Santana frowns; it's not like her best friend to keep things from her. "I don't know what the hell she's talking about."
"We've met her? How is that possible? We don't know anyone in California."
"Correction: I don't know anyone in California. You, on the other hand, have hundreds of fans you call 'friends' on Facebook who live all over the country."
"True. Let me rephrase: I don't know anyone personally in California, other than Quinn."
Santana's eyes widen again and her lips press together into a thin line. "She says this person is from Lima, and even went to McKinley. Oh, God, I hope it's not Zizes. Please let it not be Zizes..."
"Why would it be Zizes?" Rachel makes a disapproving face. "I mean, Quinn says she forgave her for putting up those horrible 'Lucy Caboosey' posters all over McKinley, but that didn't make them friends, exactly."
"Whew! I guess you're right there, Detective Short Stack. Maybe you can figure it out. Me? I'm at a loss."
"I can't think of who it could be either," Rachel confesses. "This just makes it more exciting, though, doesn't it? I mean, who doesn't love a good mystery?"
"I don't. This is going to bother me right until the moment we walk into the hotel. As if I didn't have enough on my mind already."
Rachel's eyes glance up from where they'd been looking at Santana's phone. She's had a feeling that something's been bothering Santana for a while now, but every time she tries to get her to open up and talk about it, Santana just bats the questions away. It's been frustrating for Rachel, to say the least, given how long it took them to establish what she considers to be a healthy level of communication, but she also knows better than to push Santana when she's really determined to keep something bottled up inside.
Still, she can't help but ask the question anyway. "Oh? Like what?" She baits the hook, throws the conversational line out into the water. "Are you not looking forward to seeing your family, even though you and your abuela finally made peace with each other?"
"What? No – it's going to be great to see Mami and Papi and yes, even mi abuela again. And they can't wait to see you either. Mom's hoping you'll bake some cookies for them like you did last time. My dad says he gained five pounds after the last batch you baked."
So it's not her family she's worried about. "Then what is it, Santana? Ever since we got the reunion invitation, there's been something going on in your head – but for some reason, you won't tell me what. And that has me worried."
"Estrellita, please," Santana says with a sigh. "I swear to you, everything's fine. I'm not worried about or bothered by anything." She peers at the collection of clothing laid out on the bed. "Well, except that one dress there. What were you thinking? Nope, that one's staying here. I'm not going to our ten-year high school reunion in something that looks like my quinceañera dress."
"San, you wore that dress to Senior Prom. You loved it then. It still fits you, too."
"Loved it then, don't love it now. It stays. Pick something else out, or I will."
Rachel knows that Santana's trying to pick a fight with her just to divert attention from the real issue; it's a tactic she's used since the bad old days at McKinley. Another sign that whatever it is that's bothering her, she's simply not ready to talk about it.
"Fine," she says simply, resigning herself to the fact that she's not going to get what she wants out of Santana. Not yet, anyway. "I'll find something else."
"You do that," Santana says, putting her phone down on the dresser. "In the meantime, I'm gonna go out to do some gift shopping. We can't show up at the reunion without gifts for our friends, can we?"
Rachel blinks in surprise. With everything else she's been doing – rehearsals at the theater, updates on her blog and her web site, that interview with Theater World magazine – the important task of gift shopping had completely slipped her mind.
"So I might have peeked at your 'To Do' list, and the accompanying sub-list detailing your ideas regarding appropriate gifts for all the New Directions."
Touched by this display of thoughtfulness, Rachel launches herself at her fiancee, wrapping her up in an appreciative hug, and plants a sweet kiss on Santana's lips.
"Thank you, baby," she says softly, all thoughts regarding hidden truths pushed aside. "I really had meant to do that much sooner. Time just got away from me, I guess."
"It's all right. I'm glad to have something to do that doesn't involve keeping Blaine and Sebastian from being at each other's throats," Santana admits. "Explain to me again why I bought into a nightclub with those two?"
"Because Blaine is our friend, and because Kurt asked you to keep an eye on him. You know he doesn't trust Sebastian as far as he could throw him." Rachel frowns, her eyes turning hard and cold at the mention of their former Dalton School rival. "And neither do I."
"Ugh. So many other things I could have done with all that college money my mom and dad saved up for me," Santana laments.
Rachel laughs, remembering the blend of excitement and trepidation with which Santana had told her of her decision to partner with the two boys in what had become a very successful New York City night spot. "True. But then we wouldn't have this nice apartment, and the comfortable lifestyle to which we've become accustomed, now would we?"
Stepping away from Rachel, Santana shakes her head; even she hadn't predicted the popularity that Warbler's had achieved. "Nor would we be able to get gifts for all our friends, plus Mr. Schue and Ms. Pillsbury."
"That's Principal Schue and Head of Guidance Services Pillsbury now," Rachel reminds her. "Hard to believe how much has changed in ten years, isn't it?"
Santana laughs. "Too true. Anyway, let me go. I want to be back before you leave for rehearsal." She kisses Rachel again, much more firmly than before. "See you later, chica."
Rachel, dazed from the force of the kiss, can only manage a soft "Bye" and a feeble wave as she watches Santana slip into her jacket, slip her purse over her shoulder, and then slip right out the door.
You're good, Santana. But I'll get the truth out of you yet.
A/N: Thanks to my friends hayleynymphadora, Divine Escape and beebeeborez for their invaluable ideas, suggestions and opinions regarding this story. You all rock!