8pm-9pm

Back in Lima, Ohio, the Fatalists ruled. That included the Lopez and Fabray clans. Santana imagined that the divided Fabray family was likely to be nearly saturated in alcohol and yet praying for forgiveness for the sins of their daughter rather than their own. Though she often attempted to refrain, she could not help but picture her own family in Lima, as well. Her grandmother would be tinkering with the arrangement of porcelain angels she collected in her windowsill, forever disjointed from the world around her. Her father would be in his office, sipping straight from the bottle of single malt Scotch. Degrees and certificates of recognition from the American Plastic Surgeon Association would be his only company. That left her mother. She couldn't bring herself to think about her mother now.

"You look hot tonight, Quinn."

Not long after The Announcement, Quinn had gone rogue. Her hair was a messy, unkempt mix of pinks, blondes, and light browns. She'd taken up her old vice of smoking and developed a husky smoker's drawl, something that Santana hadn't commented upon despite its constant presence.

"Keep it in your pants, Lopez," she said between drags.

"I'm just saying, if it doesn't work out tonight with anyone else, let's meet back here at four." Santana licked her lips and raised an eyebrow. "Don't tell me you haven't thought about it before." Her eyes traveled up Quinn's body. Doc Marten's and a leather jacket stood in stark contrast to the flowery shifts she kept from high school. Santana couldn't criticize Quinn's personal style. If moving to New York years ago had made her care just a little bit less, The Announcement months ago made her careless.

Quinn could only smile. "Go get changed, Santana."

Santana plucked clothes from the floor, in search of her favorite black jeans and v-neck shirt. At times, she wondered why she cared. Going out was mostly a favor to Quinn. Quinn, who liked to lose herself when they left the house. Santana usually kept one eye on Quinn and the other on the life happening around her. The last time she'd kept both eyes in front of her was in her sophomore year of college, but remembering that time made her head split.

Her wardrobe had matured since high school and even college. No longer did she prance through life wearing short skirts - each in a different color - and fur vests. Even in Lima, she'd never wanted to get used to the cold weather. Michigan and New York were no different. Her closets consisted mainly of cotton tees and worn jeans, with a few sweaters and button downs mixed in.

The pot of beans bubbled on the stove-top.

"You ready yet?" Quinn's voice called from the other room.

"Were we actually planning on eating tonight? I thought it was just for show?" She slipped into the second leg of her jeans.

"Honestly, I don't care about it at all. I'd rather not enter hell with a stomach full of beans."

They'd saved the last few sips of Santana's birthday present for this night. Santana had always liked to say that expensive tequila didn't make her feel intoxicated, it made her feel. She wanted to feel tonight.

She closed her bedroom door behind her and busied herself at the kitchen counter, pulling out the bottle and a pair of glasses scavenged from a flea market in Brooklyn a few years ago. Quinn watched from the couch.

She popped the cork off the bottle. It took some effort. The last time they'd had a sip was nearly three months ago.

"You'll be with me tonight?" Quinn's voice was nearly a whisper.

Santana caught her eyes from across the room. "Until I won't."

Quinn chuckled. "Is it going to be one of those nights? That's why you're drinking tonight?" Quinn hadn't been privy to most of those nights. Though they often began with Quinn at her side, they ended in a dark bedroom somewhere in Brooklyn, or in the Village, or Chelsea. They ended with Santana riding the subway at four in the morning smelling of alcohol and sweat and sex. They ended with the chasm inside only growing deeper. They ended with Santana replaying that night at Michigan when she was nineteen, and her girlfriend was whispering, "Who are you?"

"I know you were joking about the whole 'if it doesn't work out with anyone else tonight' thing, but if we do get separated, I really am coming back here tonight." Quinn's eyebrow raised, hoping it wouldn't be one of those nights.

Santana hadn't wanted to think about where she'd be until Quinn whispered those words. "I'll be here, Quinn."

If it were up to her, they'd be at home all night. There was no need to leave your family on the night that the world was to end. They would tuck into Santana's bed and lie awake next to one another, interlocking fingers and clenching jaws until everything went dark. Their easy silence and Quinn's warmth the only substitute for the comfort Santana hadn't felt since Lima, Ohio had left her behind at nineteen.

But it was never up to her. Santana knew she could never change what had left her behind. Lima would always be in the past, though more and more often it reared its head. What they did tonight would not change what had happened in the past.

No, tonight would be up to Quinn because she lived everyday with Lima haunting her. Lima wasn't her past; it was her present. What they did tonight would not change what had happened in Quinn's past either, but it might take her mind off the present. If that was how their worlds were to end, Santana was okay with that.

The glass was half full. Or half empty. Or just filled to the halfway point. She handed the other glass to Quinn and joined her on the couch. Her fingers plucked at a seam. The couch had been another find. This time at a yard sale out in New Jersey. She'd had to come get Quinn from some boy's house because she was too wasted to find her own way home. Apparently the boy had searched Quinn's call log and found that her last six phone calls were all to Santana. Smart guy. It was a shame he didn't work out.

It was seven in the morning when the PATH train got to Quinn's part of Jersey, prime time for yard sales. She remembered scouring the newspaper classifieds with her mother as a child, circling the most promising sales in red. She thought she'd teach Quinn a lesson, so she shoved her in the sales office bathroom of a U-Haul chain while she spoke with the clerk about renting a pickup truck for a half day. They stopped every twenty minutes or so - for Quinn. Six hours later, Santana was driving the pickup back to Jersey and Quinn was passed out on a leather couch that was falling apart at the seams.

As she dug her finger into another seam she turned to Quinn. "Do you think people are toasting tonight? I mean, is that what we should do here?"

Quinn gave a throaty laugh at Santana's nervous energy. "What the hell Santana. Just drink it." Quinn shook her head and put the glass to her lips. "Bottoms up. There's our toast."

Quinn took it all down in one gulp. That used to be Santana. At high school parties, even college parties, the alcohol flowed and Santana flowed right with it. The steady stream of alcohol usually flooded into a gushing river and ended in disaster. In high school, the disaster was boys, usually football players. In the first two years of college, the disaster was a gruesome fight with her girlfriend about coming out to her family. In the last two years of college, the disaster was a deep despairing feeling of loss. She'd cleaned herself up after getting into Columbia. That, or she'd cleaned herself up after The Prediction. She didn't want her last days to be a blur.

Quinn had done the exact opposite. All she wanted was for her last days to be a blur.

Quinn's face scrunched together as she slammed the glass to the coffee table and pulled out a cigarette.

Santana took another slow sip and winced. She set her glass on the coffee table and leaned forward onto her knees, holding her head in her hands, shutting out the outside world in favor of feeling. Her head clouded with its first taste of it. She closed her eyes and dug her fingers into her scalp, sighing deeply.

She flinched when she felt Quinn's hand rest against her back. This wasn't who they were, but maybe tonight it was supposed to be.

"Do you ever wish things were different?" Santana's voice was muffled.

She heard Quinn suck in a breath and she felt Quinn's hand tap a little beat against her back. "Everything. Every moment."

"But they can't be." She was still talking into her lap. She heard Quinn exhale a shaky breath of smoke.

"Just one moment. I just want to take back that moment." That moment was obvious to Santana. She stopped contemplating her Lima, Ohio and saw Quinn's a sliver more clearly. Even if it would undo a life, she'd take back that moment? She felt the breath escape her lungs.

"But you can't," Santana whispered, out of breath.

They stayed still until they couldn't any longer. Quinn moved first. She flicked her cigarette butt out of the window and onto the world below. She stayed at the window. She watched the sun setting. Santana stood and pushed her hair back out of her face, then drained the rest of the tequila. Feeling something tonight would be better than going numb forever.

"You're my best friend Quinn," her voice faltered, but was caught with a voice she didn't recognize, even if it was her own. "I'd never take that back."

Quinn stayed at the window. She watched the world set.

Thanks to Sapphic Charmer