LA is awesome and sunny and home.
Brittany loves that she can go for a walk around the block with Sasha in a sling and pick up some iced tea, and the girl behind the counter remembers he order - lemon passion for her, iced chai latte for Santana - and always asks how Sasha's sitting up is coming along. She loves that she has a backyard to lie on the grass in, while Sasha sleeps under this miniature cabana Santana had built for just that purpose. She loves that this is where their daughter is growing into a person they fall more in love with every day.
Okay, maybe they could have done this in New York, but they aren't. Santana got fired, or something that basically meant she didn't have a job anymore, just for getting pregnant, and it ended up being the best thing ever.
Three years out of college and Santana was kicking all the ass at the firm she had been with since 2L, and she had been assured there would be no problem with her taking maternity leave when the time came. Except before she had even started showing nearly all her clients had been reassigned and her billables had tanked. The last straw had been when they had tried to take her pro bonos away from her. They were the reason she had taken that particular job in the first place.
Clearly her old bosses were not very good at knowing a good thing when they saw it sitting at a desk in their offices, because Santana was head hunted the minute her name was scraped off the door. A firm in LA had been following her work with one of her pro bono cases and wanted her for something similar as a full time thing. No more working for The Man, instead she would get to fight him.
The timing had been not the best. Not the worst, because Brittany was getting more and more work in LA, and she had already had to turn jobs down because IVF is stressful and she wasn't going to leave Santana to grow their baby alone. But moving across the country with a four months pregnant wife is not something even she can make sound more fun that it actually was.
But now they were settled, and Santana was like an adult in a candy store at her new job, yelling at people all day because they suck and getting paid to do it. She gets to come home and roll around on the floor with Sasha, and Brittany honestly can't think of a time she's ever seen Santana so happy.
Happy in general, anyway, because right now she's yelling into the phone, which isn't necessarily an uncommon event, but she's yelling in Spanish and that can only mean trouble.
…
Dr and Mrs Lopez are moving to Florida.
And she knows she's supposed to call them by their first names, she's an adult now and they're her in-laws, but some habits are really hard to break after twenty years. These things just happen, like tying her shoe laces.
The problem with them moving to Florida is that they can't take Mario Lopez because the condo they have bought doesn't have a yard for a dog, and Mrs Lopez refuses to send him anywhere she doesn't know he will be looked after.
Which means Santana, as her only child and possessor of a back yard, was guilt tripped into flying back to Ohio to collect the dog and make sure he doesn't get scared when Mrs Lopez leaves him.
Santana wasn't having it. She has a five month old daughter she's still feeding and a new job she can't take time off from. But Brittany had explained that Mario Lopez is like Mrs Lopez's baby, and would Santana want Sasha to just be put in a box and sent to some new family, if they had to move to Florida? No.
Now, Brittany is sitting on the porch steps with Sasha perched on her lap, two iced teas beside her, waiting for Santana's cab to arrive home from the airport. When it pulls in, Sasha reaches in its general direction. Brittany knows she's just responding to the noise and movement, but when Santana practically bolts out of the car before it's fully stopped, it's completely adorable that she's dashing up the driveway doing the exact same thing.
Mario Lopez comes scurrying out of the cab behind Santana, and bounds along beside her until they reach the steps. He probably would have kept going, but the piercing squeal Sasha lets out halts him in his tracks and he sidesteps behind Santana, eyeing the tiny thing making all the noise.
Sasha isn't reaching for the car or her Mama, she's trying to throw herself out of Brittany's arms to get at the fluffy blond thing that's quietly whimpering behind her Mama's legs.
"Oh my god, never leaving you two again," Santana coos, kissing her daughter and then her wife. The dog has now managed to wrap his leash around Santana's leg, and Sasha is wriggling in an attempt to get closer to him. "I thought we were told she'd probably be afraid of him?" Santana scoops the baby up in her arms and bounces her a bit to distract her from the dog for a minute.
"Guess not. Kids know if animals are friendly." Brittany pulls the leash from around Santana's legs and brings Mario Lopez closer to her. "Hey buddy, you want to meet someone new?" She pets his head and lets him remember who she is. There's no way he'd forget the girl who fed him ice cream, and then went through every kind of other human treat to find one he could actually eat without getting sick.
The dog hops up the porch steps and licks Brittany's face, and yes she will wash her face before she kisses Santana again, but right now she has important motherly duties to attend to.
"Mario Lopez, sit." He sits, then realizes he's on a step he's about to fall off, so he steps down to the path and sits again. "Good boy." She then turns and holds out her hands for Sasha, and Santana's face is adorably pathetic but she hands the baby over because she knows this is important. Brittany settles Sasha in her lap and wraps her hands around Sasha's tiny fists.
"Okay, Poppet, now this is Mario Lopez. Can you say that?" She ducks her head around to look her daughter in the eye. All she gets for her trouble is a set of gums to her chin and an incoherent noise. "Good try, baby girl. So, this is Mario, and he is our friend. Are you ready to meet him?"
Santana crouches down beside Mario Lopez and grabs onto his collar, just in case, slips her hand around Sasha's side as she watches Brittany bring her and Sasha's hands closer to his nose.
There's a super tense moment when Brittany can see Mario Lopez wants to make a break from Santana's grip, but he stays sitting and they all breathe a sigh of relief when he begins licking Sasha's little hand.
Well, Sasha doesn't so much sigh as start squealing in a way that hurts everyone's ears, except for Mario Lopez, apparently, who just keeps on licking and doesn't even mind when a tiny fist makes a grab for his ear.
"Hey, lady, you gonna pay me any time soon?" the cab driver calls out his window.
"Yeah, yeah, in a minute," Santana yells back. "This is more important."
Brittany couldn't agree more.
…
Mario Lopez isn't Mrs Lopez's dog anymore. He isn't Santana's dog. He isn't even Brittany's dog, even though she feeds him most of the time and he should love her best.
Mario Lopez is Sasha's dog.
Brittany is sure Sasha never would have started walking as early as she did if it hadn't been for her constant need to crawl after the dog when he would get tired of having his ears tugged on and walk away.
The dog is incredibly gentle with Sasha, but Brittany finally has something to worry about when Sasha is big enough to climb on Mario Lopez's back and ride him like a horse, and he just stands there and takes it, then heads in the direction she points him.
The day she can reach the front door's knob, the world is in for a whole lot of trouble.