A/N: You can thank Quasi-suspect for this update coming so soon. She's been super motivating and you can thank her awesome beta skills for this chapter turning out as well as it did.
The next three days were hell. Kurt and Adam were in a weird place after finally talking about Kurt's lingering feelings for Blaine. But Santana didn't even have time to analyze that disaster. To say Rachel is hardly functioning would be an understatement. She didn't want the boys to know, so Santana had to convince Kurt that Rachel was just PMSing harder than usual.
Rachel had called Brody and told him that she seemed to have something contagious and asked him to stay at his friend's place for a few days while she recovered. He agreed only after Santana snapped at him through the phone to keep him from stopping by to take care of her.
She's following Quinn's instructions to the best of her ability. Rachel was pretty much refusing to get out of bed, so Santana delivers her food into the bedroom a few times a day, holding the spoon out and forcing Rachel to take bites like a child. When Rachel falls asleep, she calls and pretends to be Rachel so that she could get information from health services and set up a doctor's appointment.
On the rare occasion that Rachel even bothers to sit up, Santana sits next to her in silence. She doesn't bother trying to make small talk because Rachel won't respond anyway. Quinn calls periodically and Rachel will mumble short sentences into the phone during the conversation, before hanging up and falling silent again.
Santana has no urge to question Rachel on what she plans to do about the pregnancy, so it's not hard to keep her word to Quinn. She is, however, incredibly curious as to who the father is.
The foreplay that happened on stage at Mr. Schue's reception between Rachel and Finn had been palpable and, frankly, nauseating. They looked more grown up now, but somehow as soon as they were within fifteen feet of one another again, Rachel was, once again, staring up at him like he was some sort of precious gem. Santana focused more on the fact that Quinn had clung to her as they slow danced, but she would bet everything in her bank account that Berry had slept with Finn that night.
On the morning of the appointment, Santana forces Rachel into the shower and she sits on the toilet talking constantly and peeking her head around the curtain every few minutes to make sure Rachel is actually washing and isn't trying to drown herself in there. It's the first time since she moved in that Santana hasn't heard Rachel doing vocal exercises while bathing.
When Rachel turns the shower off, Santana heads back into the bedroom to pick out Rachel's clothes and lays them out neatly on the comforter. She's surprised to hear the blow dryer come to life in the bathroom, signaling that Rachel is actually pulling herself together for this endeavor. When she emerges half an hour later with her makeup looking flawless as well, Santana realizes that she is a much better actress than anybody has given her credit for. Looking at the girl standing in front of her, she doesn't see the slightest trace of the tiny figure that hasn't gotten out of bed in three days. Rachel's show smile is in place and she walks over to the clothes Santana had put out for her and starts to get dressed.
They are quiet as they sit next to one another on the subway on the way to the appointment. Rachel is wearing her headphones and stares straight ahead as the train rumbles down the tracks, stopping every couple of minutes to exchange passengers. She's silent and eerily still, which makes Santana more nervous than calm.
When they get to the office, Rachel fills out the paperwork on a clipboard while Santana tries to busy herself with a magazine. It's futile and she doesn't absorb anything on the glossy pages as she flips through. Her eyes kept flitting to her right where Rachel is taking her time filling out the forms.
Ten minutes after Rachel gives the girl at the desk her insurance information, a nurse opens the door and calls out her name. Santana jumps to her feet, but Rachel steps in front of her.
"I can do this by myself, Santana," Rachel says rather dismissively. She doesn't look directly at Santana when she says it, but she sighs and walks towards where the nurse is holding the door open for her. Santana just stands there in stunned silence until the nurse gives her a pity-filled, sad smile and closes the door behind Rachel's retreating back.
When Rachel comes back through the door again, Santana is immediately back on her feet. She's scared to speak and find out what's going to happen from here. The loft isn't big enough for a baby, but she refuses to let Rachel give up everything and return to Lima just to raise a kid. The idea of Rachel getting kicked out of NYADA overtakes her. Somehow, she's become very protective of a girl that she used to regularly order the football boys to throw slushies at.
"False alarm. Thank God. I'm so happy. I'm so glad this is all over with." Santana lets Rachel fall into her embrace. "Thank you for taking me here today."
Santana nods slightly, acknowledging Rachel's gratitude. They pull away and Santana feels some of the anxiousness drain from her limbs. The past three days have been completely exhausting.
"Alright, I'm gonna go to class," Rachel announces.
"Whoa, hey," Santana interrupts, causing Rachel to freeze for a moment. "That's it? That's all you have to say about this?"
"Well the doctor gave me the all-clear. What else is there?"
Santana is completely stunned by Rachel's nonchalance. Three hours earlier, Rachel could barely bathe herself and now she is acting like none of it had occurred.
"Rachel, you can't just blow past this like nothing ever happened. This is a wake up call. This is an opportunity for you to take a hard look at the choices that you're making, where your life is heading. Starting with Donkey Face."
Rachel sighs, obviously fed up with Santana's obsession with Brody. She shakes her head and glares at Santana for a quick moment before she's storming out of the waiting room, leaving Santana standing in a room of expectant mothers.
Santana lets her go. It's been emotional enough for her over these past few days and she can't even imagine what is going on in Rachel's mind. She heads out of the office and takes off down the sidewalk in the opposite direction of the subway station so there's no chance of running into Rachel awkwardly on the platform.
It's dark out by the time Santana returns to the loft and she can hear Rachel's voice carrying from behind her curtain. She eavesdrops as she hangs up her coat and pulls off her boots, leaving them sloppily by the door.
"It was just a scare. Everything is absolutely fine."
Santana tiptoes around in the living room as she listens intently.
"Brody is coming back over tonight and everything is going to be back to normal."
Quinn is the only person that knows about Rachel's pregnancy scare besides Santana. She figures Rachel is filling Quinn in on the relieving news. Ignoring the golden rule of the privacy curtain, Santana throws it aside as she marches into Rachel's partition. Rachel spins around, a look of annoyance taking over her features as she realizes it's Santana.
"I need to talk to Quinn," Santana states, holding her hand out for the phone. Rachel just stares at her.
"Do you mind? This is my private phone call," Rachel retorts, turning away from Santana again with a swish of her long hair.
Santana strides towards her and tries to grab the phone from her grip.
"Just let me talk to Quinn for a minute and then she's all yours," Santana demands. Rachel yanks the phone out of her grip.
"Quinn has to go study anyway. She said she'll call you sometime soon, Santana."
Santana is pissed, but she knows there's no chance Quinn is going to talk to her right now. She storms out of Rachel's area and back into the living room. When she collapses onto the couch, she can hear Rachel saying her hushed goodbye to Quinn.
She sees piles of Brody's crap all over the table and the living room as she surveys the area. Rachel is blatantly ignoring her advice by the looks of it and this just riles Santana up even more. Why does Rachel not see that she actually cares about her?
As soon as Rachel steps out from behind the curtain, her phone call with Quinn completed, Santana launches into her attack. Rachel defends Brody with all of her might, just as Santana figured she would. Rachel is almost as bad as Quinn at allowing men to define who she was. For someone as strong-willed and motivated as Rachel, it is sickening, really, to see how she'd let some shady guy take away from her focus on making it on Broadway.
"Look, at this point it's less about him than it is about you," Santana says in a desperate attempt to make Rachel see what she's really doing here. "I went to school with Rachel Berry, not the soggy mess of a woman that stands before me today going back and forth between your flop high school ex and that terrifying waiter with a pager. You need to stop and focus, Berry."
Rachel doesn't even deny that she's still tangled up with Finn on top of whatever the deal with Brody is. She bites her lip as she glares at Santana. Deep down, she must know that Santana isn't wrong. Santana can see that Rachel's resolve is slowly cracking beneath the surface.
"I think you're wrong about him," she manages and it's obvious that she's trying to convince herself as much as she is Santana.
"My psychic Mexican third eye is never wrong? Am I wrong about you?" Santana challenges, folding her arms over her chest as she stares directly into Rachel's eyes. Rachel doesn't respond and she stares at Santana for only a moment longer before she's taking off and fleeing the apartment, grabbing her coat quickly from the hook.
Brody's voice carries from the bathroom where he's belting out a song while showering. As soon as the door slams behind Rachel, Santana sneaks in and grabs his pager from the pocket of his discarded jeans. She copies down the recent numbers on a piece of scrap paper before shoving it hastily back amongst his belongings.
After her roommates are asleep, Santana gets out her laptop and goes to work investigating the new information she collected earlier. It only takes a little while before she has Brody linked to a bunch of women in Manhattan, including Rachel's dance teacher at NYADA.
The next morning, Santana overhears Rachel and Brody talking about their schedules and she hears that Brody will be teaching a dance class in the early afternoon while Kurt and Rachel are in music theory. She takes the subway into Manhattan and walks in amongst the throngs of NYADA students. Nobody points out that she's not actually a student here as she looks for what room Brody's class is in.
She finds him scolding a large group of upperclassmen girls. They all seem too enamored with him to really care that he's being kind of a dick to them. Santana leans against the doorframe and watches as the girls hang on his every word. She rolls her eyes as one of them turn bright red under his gaze.
She launches into him in front of his class. When he tells them to take five, they look away respectfully but they hover around, obviously eavesdropping on the conversation and gossiping behind the shield of their hands.
Santana, as much as she hates to admit it, has picked up the Rachel Berry tradition of getting her point across through song. NYADA is a school based on such ridiculous dramatics, Santana figures that a performance is probably the perfect way to get through Brody's thick skull.
It's obvious by the time that she finishes her number that Brody still doesn't believe that she can do any actual damage beyond talking a big game. When he gives her a cocky goodbye as she struts out of the studio, she knows it's time to really step up her game to make him disappear.
Santana has all the information she needs, but she still has to formulate a plan on how to use it. She leaves NYADA's campus as she thinks about what needs to be done. Quinn had always been the ringleader, but Santana had always been the mastermind. She needs the help of someone else to pull off this plan and Quinn would be her number one choice to make sure that it goes off flawlessly. But as she still hasn't heard from Quinn, she's figuring that Quinn isn't going to play into her scheme this time.
She wanders down from NYADA and sees a sign for the Coyote Ugly saloon. After the few days she's had, a strong drink seems to be exactly what she needs. Behind the bar are two girls. One of them has to be 5'9" with straw colored hair that falls in a curtain past the girl's shoulders, while the other is petite, probably around Santana's height with dark brown hair that she has pulled back in a ponytail. They both look college age and Santana takes an appreciative glance at their asses as they stack glasses behind the bar.
"What can I get for you?" the blonde asks, tossing a cocktail napkin down on the shiny surface in front of Santana. She is caught off-guard; her eyes had still been glued to the brunette's ass.
"Uh, rum and Diet coke," Santana says, sitting up a little straighter and trying hard to sound nonchalant.
"Can I see your ID, please," the girl says with a playful smile. Santana fumbles around in her purse for a minute before extracting the license that says Rosario Cruz on it. Last time Quinn was standing beside her, flashing her Hawaiian license at the bartender with a cocky grin.
The bartender scans it briefly, smirks, then hands it back to Santana, who shoves it back into her bag quickly. The girl walks a few feet down the bar and mixes the drink. While she does, Santana scans the room. It's still early and the place is practically empty, save for a group of girls at a table in a far corner and a redhead reading a book at the other end of the bar. Before Santana can really check out the redhead, the bartender drops the glass down in front of her.
"So how old are you really, Rosario?" The girl asks with a wink. Santana feels her face grow warm and she takes a hurried sip of her drink. It's really strong and she fights the urge to cough against the burn of the rum going down her throat.
"Uh, 25?" Santana replies, the inflection of her voice making it sound like a question.
"Good try, Short Stack," the blonde says with a hearty laugh. "I'm Leigh. And you're not a day over 20 at best."
"So why'd you make the drink then?" Santana challenges, taking another sip. This one goes down smoother.
"Because you looked like someone that needed it and your ID is surprisingly passable. What brings you into a bar at 4 in the afternoon, Ros-"
"It's Santana, actually," Santana quips. She holds out her hand and Leigh wipes hers on a towel hanging from her belt loop before taking it and shaking it firmly, letting her fingers linger on Santana's for a moment.
"Well, it's a pleasure, Santana," Leigh says genuinely. A group of people walk into the bar, rubbing their cold hands together and pulling off winter hats. "I need to earn some money, but just shout if you need anything."
Before Santana can respond, Leigh is greeting the new people that are settling onto bar stools a few feet away. She watches as the girl grabs at bottles, scoops ice, and tops off cocktails with juice in an effortless rhythm. It makes bartending look like an art and Santana finds herself following the movement of Leigh's hands as they shake up a cocktail before she pours the blue concoction into a martini glass and garnishes it with an orange slice.
Leigh stops over by Santana a couple more times over the course of the evening, refilling her drinks or offering a couple of minutes of small talk before another patron calls for her. By eight, Santana knows that she needs to head back to the loft and figure out what she's going to do about Brody. She waves Leigh over, who approaches with a smile.
"What can I do for you, Short Stack?" she chides.
"I need to pay my tab, I've got to get going," she says, but even as the words leave her mouth, she hopes that this isn't the last time she sees Leigh.
"Well, your drinks are on me this time. We just had a girl quit last night and I'm looking for a new bartender if you know anybody that might be interested." The twinkle in her eye makes Santana nervous.
"I've been looking for a job since I move to the City a few weeks ago," she blurts out. "But I don't know anything about bartending," she admits.
"You seem like a smart enough girl. I'm sure you'll pick it up in no time. I'll see you tomorrow around 3ish?"
"Yeah, I'll be here," Santana replies, trying to hold back her excitement at finally finding work.
"See you then, Santana." Leigh winks at her and walks back down to the other end of the bar to refill someone's drink. Santana pulls on her jacket and throws a crumpled twenty dollar bill onto the bar before heading back out onto the street.
Santana waltzes into the apartment still riding the buzz from the rum and from landing herself a job. Kurt and Rachel are both in the living room so she starts talking as she walks in.
"Guess who just got a job tending bar at the Coyote Ugly Saloon down on 1st Street? Hopefully it bodes better for me than any of the has-beens that starred in that movie." Santana turns around from hanging her coat up to see her somber-looking roommates.
"Santana, if you'd just take a seat, please, and join us for a little family loft conversation."
She walks over to where they are gathered and tries to read Kurt's expression, but he's staring down at his hands.
"Creepy. But okay..."
"We just got off the phone with Brody. Did you confront him at NYADA with a Paula Abdul song?" Kurt asks, the appallment evident in his tone.
Before Santana can even answer, Rachel cuts her off.
"You can't just march on in there and like act all crazy, okay? We go to school there!"
Santana knows that they are expecting her to apologize and grovel for their forgiveness. But that's not how this is going to go down. The only reason she was at NYADA in the first place was to have Rachel's back and make sure that Brody doesn't fuck up her future.
"That was the best performance that place has seen in years," Santana says, rolling her eyes and avoiding letting them in on her real motive for going to NYADA. Rachel was mad enough at her earlier over her comments about Brody.
"We want you to move out," Kurt blurts out. He seems relieved to have that thought off of his chest. It makes Santana's ache in return.
"You're joking," she responds in disbelief. They were supposed to be her family away from Lima and now they were telling her that they didn't want her here at all.
"We're not." Rachel is firm in her statement. Santana believes it from her, but she really thought that Kurt was on her side in all of this. She decides that she's going to hold onto every shred of dignity that she can rather than beg for them to reconsider the situation.
"Olsen twins, let me tell you something. I've known you both for years and I don't like either of you ninety percent of the time. In fact, your wide-eyed, keen painting of life makes my teeth hurt and my breasts ache with rage." She pauses, sucking in a deep breath before continuing. "But you know what? I have love for you. You're my family and I haven't lied to you in months. I'm smarter about other people than the both of you. You have to trust me."
It's as close as Santana is willing to get to grovelling with them. She's letting them in, if only a little bit. And it's true; she does love them like family after everything they've been together since she joined glee club during sophomore year.
"Santana, you're making Brody feel uncomfortable, okay? And he was here first so you either lay off of it or you move out." Rachel doesn't even seem swayed the slightest at Santana's admission of her love for them. Santana decides that she's sticking to her guns and she's not going to argue with them on this. If they want her to go, then she'll go.
"Fine. That's fine. You know what? I don't mind going. I ran into Lena Dunham at Barney's and she told me that I could crash with her if I ever needed to. So that's cool, 'cause she has two Golden Globes. Oh, and you know what? Here's another thing: I have what Access Hollywood calls street smarts. I'm right about plastic man."
By the time she finishes, she has grabbed her suitcase and the bedding off of the couch and is already halfway out the door. She can hear both Rachel and Kurt mumble under her breath, but she's trying too hard to hold the tears in to focus on what they're saying.
Santana pulls out her cell phone when she reaches the lobby of the building. She didn't really meet Lena Dunham. She hasn't even stepped foot into Barney's since she's been in New York because she's been too afraid to spend the money. Besides the airfare and a small amount of groceries, Santana hasn't even touched the money that her mother gave her for graduation.
She thanks the heavens for 4G as she Googles the area to find a place to spend the night. She would have been able to get a room at the Red Rooster in Lima for like 40 bucks a night, but she finally finds a place in Brooklyn that doesn't look too shady that isn't completely overpriced. She hops onto the subway with her suitcase and follows the map to the hotel.
It's nothing fancy and it doesn't have anything more than a queen-sized bed and a tiny bathroom. The TV only picks up four channels and the wallpaper is peeling, but it's clean and she can make do roughing it for a few days until she comes up with a better solution to the problem at hand. She waits until she's in her pajamas and tucked under the unfamiliar covers before she lets the tears finally release from where she had trapped them in her eyes.
She had done everything she could have for Rachel since she had found out about the pregnancy. All she had done was try to protect her from what she knows is a bad situation. And instead of her efforts being rewarded, she is alone in a rundown hotel in Brooklyn. Her so-called friends had let her just walk out to live on the streets for all they knew. Her best friend had fucked her and then hung her out to dry. Her ex-girlfriend had moved onto a guy as soon as she had told her that long distance was too hard.
Santana knew that she could be overbearing and incredibly crass. But she also would die for her friends time and time again if she needed to. She was left on her own with nobody caring where she was spending the night or wondering if she was okay. She wanted to just give up on all of them and move on with her life separate from it all. Yet she loved too deeply to just let Rachel continue to be used by Brody when he was obviously a lying sack of shit. Kurt would never realize how things still needed to be resolved with Blaine if he ever wanted to move on. Quinn would follow the path that had been outlined for her through years of brainwashing and manipulation. Brittany would be left behind. They needed her, even if they didn't want her.
Once the sobs finally faded away, she pulled herself up and opened a new note on her phone. First, she'd prove to Rachel that she had been right all along. Everything else would fall into place from there.
It takes two days for her to really work through the details of her plan. The hours at the bar are long and tiring and she's living on takeout and energy drinks, but Santana knows that it is going to work.
Finn was by no means her first choice. Quinn would be able to take Brody down in all of ten seconds, but as Quinn still had made no attempt to contact her, Santana was forced to go with her second option.
He flew in as soon as he could get a plane out of Ohio. Santana is there to meet him at the terminal in Kennedy. He doesn't really question Santana's motives as she explains the logistics of the plan to him as they ride the subway to the hotel where Brody is going to be expecting his next client.
Santana repeats the plan a few times to make sure that it gets through his thick skull before she leads him down to the hotel room. Finn heads into the bathroom to wait and Santana sits on the edge of the bed, her heart racing as she waits in the dark. Brody shows up exactly one minute late and flips on the light as he addresses her by the fake name she gave him when she set up the appointment.
The look of utter astonishment on Brody's face is priceless and Santana wishes she had bugged the room to record this moment. When Finn turns the corner out of the bathroom, Brody's eyes grow wide. Santana bids them goodbye, leaving Finn to make sure that Brody is out of the apartment by morning.
While Santana is training at the bar the next afternoon, her phone goes off repeatedly in her pocket. The constant vibration is distracting while she's trying to listen to Leigh explain how everything works on the complicated cash register screen. She turns it off completely and tucks it into her back pocket until her break. When Leigh tells her to take fifteen minutes and Santana drops her towel down next to the sink before she walks out from behind the bar and heads to the back room by the kitchen.
She turns the phone on to see five missed calls and four text messages from Kurt. She hits his name and puts the phone to her ear as it starts to ring. It takes a moment before she hears Kurt connect the call on the other end.
"Ms. Lopez," he greets formally.
"Why the fuck are you calling me obsessively? I'm at my job and can't be around at your beckon call, especially considering the fact that you made it perfectly clear that you wanted me out of your apartment."
"Oh, you know that was Rachel. And speaking of Rachel, she's been bawling her eyes out all day because Brody has mysteriously packed all of his belongings and has left without offering any explanation. This turn of events reeks of you, Santana."
"I have no idea what you're talking about. Maybe he's decided to move in with one of the middle-aged women that he's been sleeping with for cash."
Kurt's gasp is clearly audible through the phone.
"He isn't!" he squeals as he processes this new piece of gossip.
"Sure is. Even has been nailing your dance instructor on the side according to the info I swiped from his pager."
"We can't tell Rachel," Kurt insists hurriedly.
"Why the hell not? Don't you think she deserves to know she's been sleeping with a guy that has been whoring himself out all over Manhattan?"
"I'll explain more later. Can we meet up tonight?"
"I'm finishing up training at 9. I'll meet you at that diner near the subway station at your usual stop by 10?"
"I'll be there."
Kurt is waiting in a booth near the front of the diner when Santana walks in, still feeling grimy and sore from the long hours of training. The waitress comes over and takes her order quickly as she settles down across from him.
"So?" he asks impatiently, playing with the handle on the mug of his tea.
"What?" Santana says, accepting her steaming mug of coffee from the waitress and immediately dumping a couple of sugar packets into it.
"Aren't you going to explain exactly why Brody felt the need to pack up in the middle of the night and leave the apartment while being accessorized with an incredibly swollen black eye?"
"He didn't take my warning at NYADA seriously, so I made sure he knew exactly who he was messing with," Santana replies with a shrug.
"Wait, so you managed to leave a mark like that on a guy triple your size?" Kurt asks incredulously.
"I'm not in the business of breaking nails when it's unnecessary. Finn flew in and obviously kicked his ass on the behalf of his ex-fiancée, whom, I might add, he is still pathetically in love with."
"You got Finn to fly all the way to New York to do your bidding?" She could tell Kurt seems kind of impressed by the lengths she went to. She gives him a short nod in response. "You're a freaking psycho, Santana. But I have to admit it, you were right about Brody."
Santana knows it's as close as she'll get to an apology from Kurt over kicking her out. Her food arrives and she dives in hungrily instead of responding to Kurt.
"Look, let me work on Rachel. But with Brody gone, I'm sure she'll be glad to have you back in the loft."
"Who says I want to move back in with you queens?" Santana snorts indignantly, even though it's exactly what she wanted in this situation.
"I'll call you tomorrow after I talk to Rachel," Kurt says, dropping a five dollar bill on the table to pay his part of the check. He pulls his jacket on around him and gives her a lame little wave before ducking out onto the dark street alone.