On feelings alone, she walks past him, and opens the front door to the house after putting the car into the garage. She trusts her instincts, she always has. But this time the love of her life and an innocent baby are involved so she's going to be cautious. "I'm not going to hurt you. If I was, I could have killed you already and driven away." The man said.
"See the fact that you go right to killing me makes me think that you aren't the best of people. But you're right, and there's a lot going on right now that I don't really understand so, say what you need to. Please." She looks him in the eye, she's serious and she knows she can be intimidating. She waits for him to start talking, and subconsciously places herself between him and Brittany and Ella. No chances.
"This is about that baby. Ella is her name? I don't really know her, I'm not really on the inner circle. I'm a messenger. The guy that usually takes care of her sent me. He explained everything to me, told me to drop this envelope off to you, and then get back. I don't actually know what's in it. I assume there's some sort of explanation in there." Santana nods. She had a feeling this had to do with Ella. The circumstances were all so strange and she was confused and irritated.
"Just tell me the story."
"No way lady. That wasn't part of the deal. You got the envelope. I'm out of here." He goes to walk towards the door but Santana is in front of him again.
"Tell me what the fuck is going on!" She yells. It startles the man slightly, and apparently Ella too who starts whimpering.
"San. Please don't yell. I know you're scared but please be nice." Brittany says quietly. She hates losing her temper around Brittany. She doesn't think she's ever really lost it at her, but even Brittany just being there, Santana knows the yelling scares her. Apparently her and Ella have that in common. She turns to glance at them for just a second. Brittany pouting slightly, eyes pleading. Ella's face in Brittany's shoulder, tiny arms around her neck. She turns back towards the man.
"I'm sorry. I'm just… this is a lot. And I'd just like to know. I'd like to not risk opening that envelope and learning nothing. So please, the abbreviated version at least, that's all I'm asking you. I'll pay you. If that's what it takes."
"You don't have to pay me lady. I don't think this is going to end well for me anyway. Going against the boss never does, but she's a baby you know? Ok. So uh… let me see if I can keep this straight. So… the bosses wife, she had an affair. I don't think he even suspected it. All the sudden she was pregnant and the boss told everybody he was going to have a son. He was real excited. Then I guess they did those tests or whatever and found out it was a girl. He wasn't real happy about that but he seemed to be ok with it a few weeks later. When she was born, with that light hair and those light eyes the boss was confused. Caus he's real Italian, and his lady is only fake blonde. The doctor, I guess, said that it was normal. Babies always have blue eyes I guess. Which is just fuckin weird if you ask me. But anyway, he didn't really deal much with the baby. I think he was suspicious. Neither did the mother really. But people took care of her. Apparently the sound of her crying made the boss real angry so when she was old enough, they found a daycare that was open the longest, which is you, and took her there when she could be there. The boss got more and more frustrated with her anyway, and like I said, I think he had suspicions that his lady cheated but he didn't want to believe it. But the babies eyes never changed you know? And she's still got that light hair. Well, yesterday some guy with some serious balls comes walking into the house and demands to have the baby because it's his. The dude had blonde hair. So the boss orders him to be taken downstairs. I'm assuming they shot him. And his lady spilt everything. The affair was only a one-night thing, she wanted the baby to be the bosses. You know, typical shit. So the boss calls Alex in. He's the guy that brings the baby to you every day. And orders the bastard baby drowned. He doesn't want her to ever come back. They moved to another house. I think he didn't want to think about what his lady did. If you ask me it's only a matter of time before he offs her." Santana can't believe what she's hearing. Something akin to a shock has taken over. She can't believe all of those rumors and gossip were true. And now she was involved. She looks back at Brittany and Ella several times during the story. Brittany is listening, Santana knows she is because of the look in her eyes. But she's also covering one of Ella's ears and whispering softly to her while gently rocking her to keep her calm. Santana understands, Brittany is the only thing that keeps her calm too. She turns back to the guy.
"So why can't we report this all to the police?"
"Are you stupid lady?" Santana bristles, but hears a shh that she's sure is directed towards her. She relaxes her shoulders and with a look encourages him to continue. "The police here are all involved. You can't go to them it will get right back that you still have the baby, and worse. Your best bet is to get the fuck out of here. But I gotta go. They're gonna known something's up if I'm out to long with no good reason."
He gets up to go and Santana says "Thank you for your help." He nods and goes to walk out of the front door. Completely unable to process everything she's just heard she follows him so she can lock the door. She's just about made it back to Brittany when she hears tire wheels squeal up her drive way. She turns back to go toward the door when she hears the man yell "What the fuck man I didn't even do anything I just know some people here. They aren't even fucking home!" His voice is panicked. Santana starts backing slowly towards Brittany when she hears gunshots, one breaking a window somewhere else in the house. Brittany nearly screams when Santana covers her mouth with her hand. She only has two thoughts. Stay silent. Get down. She pulls Brittany to the ground and covers her and Ella best she can with her body. She will protect them no matter what. She can feel Brittany sobbing underneath her. She can see Ella's eyes blinking wide and blue. They're both alive.
"Shhhhhh Britt baby it's ok. We're gonna be ok. I'm gonna keep you both safe we just need to stay quiet." She whispers into her ear pulling her hand away from Brittany's mouth who replaces it with her own trying to keep her crying silent. Santana places small kisses along Brittany's jaw, trying to comfort her. She puts her arm around her and Ella pulling them both as tight to her as possible. Ella, for her part, is still silent. Santana tries not to think about why that might be because either she's in shock, or she's so used to gunshots that the sound doesn't scare her. Either way, it breaks her heart that a baby ever would have to go through this or even a fraction of the pain Ella must have. Tears start to escape her eyes but her voice stays even as she continues to whisper things into the back of Brittany's neck. She's fairly certain that she heard the car pull back out of the drive way but she's not positive. Either way, she knows they are far from out of danger, and staying here would be the worst idea ever.
"Ok Brit, I need to check if they're gone, caus we need to get out of here." Brittany starts to panic and clutches at Santana while shaking her head no, her sobs getting louder. "Shhh Britt shhhh. I promise it's going to be ok. I will keep both of you safe I just need you to trust me. I know you trust me. You're going to crawl with me on the floor over to the bathroom and then I want you and Ella to go into the bathroom, close and lock the door, and sit in there till I tell you to come out." She kisses Brittany several times before Brittany takes a deep breath and nods. They crawl towards the bathroom as best they can which is difficult at best because Brittany is still clutching Ella. They get to the bathroom and they crawl inside, Santana is just about to close the door when Brittany stops her.
"You have to come back San" she says, her eyes wide and watering. "I can't live without you. So you have to come back to me." Santana kisses her hard on the lips.
"Always." She kisses her once more and closes the door. She stays knelt on the floor for a few minutes breathing, trying to think what next. She starts to crawl towards the closest window so she can peak outside. Before she gets there she realizes how stupid that is. If someone were outside, they'd be able to see right into that window. So she decides upstairs would be the best option. It would be harder for them to notice her looking out, and she knows she has some things upstairs that she'll need to grab. She starts slowly climbing the stairs staying as low as possible.
Brittany turns the faucet on just a little bit so barely a trickle comes out. She wipes her face off, and takes some deep breaths. She feels Ella pulling herself up to standing position using her leg. She bends down to pick her up setting her on the sink to wipe her face off too. Ella hasn't cried since San yelled. And even then it was only a little bit. Brittany thinks about what Ella's life must have been like. The things that she's probably heard and seen in her short life. Brittany smoothes her fingers across her little nose and eye brows. Ella scrunches her face up and giggles lightly.
"We're going to be ok little girl. Santana and I are going to take care of you. We'll figure this out. Or she will. She figures everything out, and then I figure her out. That's how we work." She says gently placing a kiss on the baby's tousled blonde hair.
Santana makes it to the top of the stairs. Even though she knows that logically, there probably isn't anyone in the house, she can't help but be nervous because really this situation defies logic. She gets to the bedroom her and Brittany share which faces toward the front of the house. First thing is first, assess whether or not they're still out there. She crawls toward the corner of the window, lifting herself up into a crouching position she slowly moves just the corner of the curtain. She takes a first look and sees nothing. So she open's the curtain just a bit wider and takes a better look. Still nothing. She notes that the man's car is still there, the door open, and the back window shot out. She doesn't see him anywhere, she hopes that means he's ok and he'll manage to lie is way out of it. She doubts it though, and she knows he did too. So far she knows at least two people have risked their lives to save Ella other than her and Brittany and that makes her feel slightly better about her life, someone must have cared about her at least a little bit.
Next she thinks about what kinds of things they need to take. She doesn't have time to pack fully, but she knows they need to get the hell out of here. Whether or not that man lived to lie about what he was doing here, she didn't doubt the truth would come out eventually. And when it did, they weren't going to be here. She knew they had some cash stored in the back of their closet, just in case. So she grabbed that first and put it in a large duffle bag. Next she grabbed some clothes, just a few things for her and Brittany. She grabbed a box from a shelf in the closet that contained their favorite pictures and most of the small memory things that were incredibly important to both of them, but very specifically Brittany. She grabbed a blanket from the bed and put it on top of the bag. Next she walked out of the room and down the hall to where her dad's office was, that was now their office. Luckily everything important was stored on their laptop and external hard drive. So she grabbed both of those too. She looked through the drawers making sure there was nothing in there that could trace them to anyone specifically and shredding anything that did. Everything her instincts told her to do, she did. If somehow this worked out, they'd find a way to deal with the shredded documents if they were important later.
She walked back to their room, throwing the laptop and her hard drive into the bag before zipping it up, and walking quickly back down the stairs. First she goes to the table where the envelope the man and brought was and grabs it, along with her and Brittany's purses and throws them in the bag. Then she heads back towards the bathroom. When she got to the door, she heard the faintest noise of Brittany talking to Ella. She said as quietly as she could but loud enough that Brittany would hear her. "Brittany it's me open the door." The door flew open and Brittany was wrapped around her before she even had enough time to put the bag down. "I'm ok baby. We're ok. We need to get to the car though. There isn't anybody outside that I can tell. We're going to quietly as we can without saying any words go to the car and put Ella in the car seat. Then we're going to get into the car, and we're going to drive as fast as we can out of here. We're not going to look around or anything. We're just going to go. Ok? I have everything we need in this bag." Brittany nodded, she wanted to ask questions. She wanted to talk about what was happening. But she knew that this was probably the exact wrong time to do that.
Santana picks Ella up, shoulders the bag and takes Brittany's hand and starts pulling her towards the door that leads into the garage. They are as silent as possible. They lock Ella into the car seat and Santana tightens the straps. She has no idea what's going to happen when that garage opens. She sets the bag next to the car seat and climbs into the driver's side. Brittany is already in the passenger seat. Santana takes a second to breath because she's pretty sure she hasn't since they left the bathroom. She's scared. The shock is starting to wear off and the fear is starting to bubble to the surface. Brittany takes her hand and she feels Santana shaking. She knows that means Santana is trying to keep herself from breaking. She pulls her the Latina's hand towards her causing Santana to look at her. She leans in and kisses her gently on the lips and presses their foreheads together. She palms her cheeks and brushes her thumbs over them as gently as possible. Santana lets a few tears escape, which are quickly brushed away before she takes a deep breath, kisses Brittany once more, and nods ok. She hits the garage opener, starts the car and waits till the garage door is up just enough that she knows she won't hit it, she peels out of the garage, narrowly avoiding the man's open car door. She hits the button again in her best effort to make it look like they were never here, and speeds out of the drive way and down the street.
"You need to slow down just a bit baby or we're going to get pulled over and that would be terrible right now." Brittany whispers to Santana.
"Ok. Yeah. You're right." Santana slows down till she's going just five miles over the speed limit. She continues on back roads heading towards the high way going west.
"Where are we going?"
"Just out of here. West I guess. What do you think? What are you thinking?"
"I'm scared. Obviously. Also I hope everyone at the daycare is safe." Santana glances over at Brittany. She'd thought about the daycare for sure, but not in great depth. She assumes that as long as they don't know anything, which they don't, then they should be ok.
"We need to tell them something or they're going to call the police as soon as they realize we're missing. Which would be bad. We should text one of them."
"Who?"
"Tina I think. She's the most rational. I think she'll listen the best. Get out your phone Brit and let's think of what to say. We can't tell her the truth, obviously. But we can't lie too much or she'll get suspicious."
"We can tell her we're going to see someone. A friend needs us. She might know it's not true but at least it's something to tell someone else if they come asking."
"Good idea babe. So…. Type this. Tina, we're going to see a friend who needs some help right now. We should tell her we're going somewhere, that might help at least throw them off of us if they come looking."
"Florida. We can be going to Florida." Santana nods. "So, 'Tina, we're going to see a friend who needs some help right now, in Florida.' We should tell her not to ask us or anyone any questions. What else?"
"Let me know if you don't agree, but I think we should tell her not to call the police, or try and find us. Because I think she's going to know that we didn't just up and go to Florida to help some people. But if she could at least convince other people that she believes that, then she'll be safe. You know? But if we don't give her some kind of information saying yes we're in trouble, but we'll be ok then I think she's going to ignore us and go to the police."
"No. I think you're right. Ok, so here's what I have. 'Tina, we're ok. We have Ella. We're going to Florida to help a friend who needs us. You can't call the police for any reason even if you think that might not be true. It will make everything worse. If anyone asks, remember, Florida. Take care of the center, we'll contact you as soon as we can. Love you, Brittany and Santana." Brittany reads out loud.
"Sounds like the best we can do right now." She takes Brittany's hand and rubs circles along her knuckles. It calms both of them at least a little. She looks in the back seat and Ella is just watching them occasionally kicking her legs or playing with a button on the overalls she's wearing. They hear the text message reply come in.
"She said 'Ok. I trust you. You contact me the second you can. I love you. Be safe.' She'll get Mercedes and the rest of the staff to believe that story. They're going to be ok. But now we need to figure out where we are going. And we need to feed Ella. I know that it's not safe to stop right now, but she has to eat soon. She can't skip meals like we can."
"I know Brit. Plus we need to get her some thing. We don't have diapers or any clothes for her or anything. We're lucky enough that we had extra car seats at the center. So first store we see, we'll stop ok? Get some stuff, figure out the next step."
So that's the plan. They stop at a store. It's not much of a plan but right now not much of a plan is better than nothing all things considered.