Title: Makin' Music

Pairing: Santana/Rachel, Quinn/Brittany

Rating: T

Summary:

Disclaimer: Because all fic writers own Glee, right?

A/N: Alrighty... this chapter is a monster. Eleven pages long. I went a little crazy while writing this, and I guess that I wanted to draw it right out. But hey, I hope it's as good as I think last chapter was. For everyone who favourited this or wrote me a review for last chapter, thank you so much :) I guess that the last chapter needed to be a bit dark, because I kind of thought that it was a bit too fluffy and I don't think I write fluff the best. But I'm working on it.

I hope it doesn't disappoint. :)


Makin' Music

Rafael Lopez slammed the car door shut, with finality, and locked the car. He could pick up his cases later; all they were full of were papers and maybe a couple of changes of clothes – both of which weren't as important as seeing his daughter. What was better yet, was that the fact her car was in its' usual spot in the driveway meant she was home and he could scoop her up into a monster hug as soon as he laid his eyes on her.

He hadn't seen her in a week. He called when he could, sure, but that wasn't the point. He had missed seven more days of her life because of his job, which he kept up with because it was the best way for her to get out of Lima and have a generally better life. His presence in it, however, would never be a given.

He was never usually gone for a week. The average length of one of his trips was maybe three days, but nothing more, which Rafael was glad of. But this time, he had to stay for a goddamn week because he was running a bunch of lectures, rather than sitting through them. He received a fat pay packet for his troubles, half of which he'd pour into Santana's college fund. She could get out of this town, without a doubt. She was on the honour roll, she was in the cheerleading squad and she was in the Glee Club. She had a shot with either an academic future, on in sport, or one in music. As long as she was happy, he was happy. He couldn't ask any more of her.

More important than the money still, was that the blasted conference had ended one whole day earlier than scheduled, thank goodness; he was originally due back tomorrow, the same day his wife was back from her conference in Atlanta. At least now, he could spend some quality time with his daughter and ask her if she remembered how her grandmother made her quesadillas so he could make some for his girls.

He pulled his keys out of his pocket and reached to unlock the tall white doors that opened up into the large hallway, but oddly enough, the door was unlocked. He pulled the handle down, but it was ripped from his hands and in a split second – and then a body was thrust onto him.

He shoved the man off of him with ease; Rafael was a broadly built man of six feet and three inches, and as he got a look at the man who had crumpled to the ground with the force of his large hands, he reckoned that the unexpected visitor was around five eleven and had the bone structure of a pre-teen.

But all he saw was his daughter's tear stained face staring in absolute shock and fear at him, at the fact she'd just shoved some random boy – who had better not have been pressuring her – into her father's arms.

"Mija, what's wrong?" he questioned, taking her stiffened stature into his arms, soothing her.

Santana said nothing, and buried her head into his chest. Rafael placed a kiss on the top of her head, before turning back to see the man, who was nursing a nose bleed from the force his face hit the floor of the porch. He released Santana from his arms and grabbed a hold of the puny man.

"Has he hurt you, mija?" he asked, thrusting the man back into the house and slamming the door behind him. "Look at me, Santana," he ordered. He held the sandy-haired man by the collar of his fruity shirt, wondering why the hell he was in the house with his daughter. Alone.

"Did you touch her, huh?" he roared, shaking the man. "Tell me!"

"No, papa," Santana finally answered, sniffling. "He... he..."

"So if you didn't bring him home yourself, how did he get in my house?" Rafael felt himself losing touch with his usually calm demeanour, now. He fisted the man's shirt tighter, trying to subside some of the tension building up within his fists. He wasn't above physically beating this man into the ground if he really, really had to.

"I found him with mama, okay? There; now you know!" Santana began sobbing again, and pointed a hand to the living room. Rafael dropped the man in his hands and moved into the living room.

What he saw, he wished he didn't. He found his wife crouched over on the couch by the window, holding her head in her hands, wearing the negligee he'd bought her last year, as a surprise, while Santana was away at her cheerleading camp. And now, he'd found that some other man – if he was the only one – had been enjoying it.

What sent him reeling the most, though, was that Carla was most definitely not wearing her wedding ring. If you really looked, like his seasoned eyes did, you could notice a faint tan line where she'd kept the golden band on at least while she was in her husband's presence and evidently, where she took it off when she was away or had a guest to entertain.

"Santana," he called through to the hall, turning to see his daughter. "Show our guest out and go to your room." If he and his wife were going to yell, Santana was not going to see it.

"But papa-"

"Do it, Santana."

He listened as Santana spoke softly to the man to leave, the door clicked shut and then her tennis shoes squeaked against the polished wood of their stairs as she retreated to her bedroom.

"What the hell do you think you were doing? Am I not enough for you, huh, Carla? Does seventeen years of marriage and a daughter mean absolutely nothing to you?"

"Shut up!" she shrieked, jumping up from the couch. She rounded the living room and stood opposite Rafael, the coffee table littered with their family ornaments the only thing between them.

"Is it the work hours? I know, I work a lot," Carla scoffed at his words. He ignored her, and continued, "But you know why I do. I do it for her."

"You know, we were only young when you got pregnant; only two months out of college, we were. A month and a half later, we were married in the cathedral, at the insistence of your parents. I didn't care; I loved you, and sure, life was going to be harder because we had a baby to raise, but we managed. After Santana was born, I suggested we move away... you didn't feel the same. It was strange that you wanted to pursue a life in this town that you left to get a college education for, but I didn't question it. I worked hard to put bread on the table and clothes on her back, so we could buy this house that you'd fallen in love with. I guess that I couldn't try to convince you again after we found out your Mama was sick. If I'd known that she was going to last six years with that tumour, maybe I should have tried harder to get you to uproot her and your father and get that place in Sacramento that I'd seen all those time's I'd been away to work. But no; Lima was your home and it was where we were going to stay. Our heritage was here, so Santana would stay here..."

"You encouraged me to take the big-shot job, even if it meant I'd be away. That was six years ago. You started working for the firm five years ago... I don't want to know if that was when you started defiling our marriage, because it... it makes me sick, Carla."

"Sarah Puckerman ended up spending more time with our daughter because we were so wrapped up in working for her!" Rafael's booming voice caught Carla off guard, causing her to jump up off the couch she'd sat on

"I was trying to, Raf, please... don't end us like this..."

"Quiet!" he snapped, "Sarah Puckerman was there for her, when we couldn't, which was a hell of a lot more than I'd care to admit, and I bet she still is. And then, when she got to High School, then you guys started getting at each other's throat. Did you feel threatened by Sarah's presence in her life? Was that the problem?"

"She was difficult! Nothing was good enough for her anymore!"

"Don't blame her for you being a whore!" Rafael bellowed. He took in a deep breath before going on. "You just became wrapped up in yourself. I don't want to know when you started screwing other men behind my back. That's in the past. The only thing that matters is that we try not to fuck our daughter's life up more than we already have."

"I'm so, so, sorry," Carla wept. "Rafael, can't we just talk about this... rationally?"

"We have," he spat, "And now, I think you should leave."

She looked up at him, seeing the conviction in his eyes. "You can't throw me out, where the hell am I going to go?"

"Go to one of your friends' house, or your father's house, but you're not staying here."

"Don't be ridiculous, Rafael," she snapped, "You can't throw me out. What about Santana?"

"We'll talk to her after we've had time apart," he growled, "But for now, I suggest you leave, Carla."


Rachel just kept on walking as soon as she'd shown herself out of the Lopez residence and rounded the corner of her street. It was easy to slip out of the house, considering that the shouting was cacophonous duet between a thunderous male baritone as well as Carla Lopez's shrill contralto that wouldn't end, even if the house was falling down.

The door clicked softly shut behind her, but resonated through her mind, as if it were actually the sound of a gun going off again and again.

She couldn't stop her feet from pulling her forward, further down the street, past the rows of vast mansions and cast iron gates embellished with golden symbols.

For autumn, the air sure was stifling; it was a formidable partner for the deafening silence laying into her from all corners. It was screaming at her, almost more so than her inner voice shrieking and yelling at her to go back to Santana. But she couldn't. Rachel had to think about this; she had to mull it over, even for a second. Right now, all she was doing was trying to find a nice, public place so she wouldn't try to strangle herself with her own hair for being such an idiot.

The only sound in the air was that of her feet against the paving stones, hardly offering a break from the fallout of the proverbial A-bomb that had just gone off. Her mind was racing; what the actual fuck had she just done?

She'd just deserted Santana, broken home and all, alone in her room, crying like nothing she'd ever seen in her life – and she'd heard about what Sue Sylvester could reduce one to – and for what? For Santana honest with her girlfriend about something that would have to be said one day? For Santana telling Rachel something that she knew unless she got it off her chest, their relationship would be a lie? Well, not a lie... but still, Santana knew she'd have been keeping something from Rachel, and when one was in a relationship one didn't keep secrets from their other half.

Rachel kept on walking for what may as well have been years, until she came across a diner filled with twenty-somethings and truckers, with classic rock roaring out of large speakers in the corner. She didn't care that it smelled like stale bacon, or that wandering eyes were basically scraping across her almost-shaking form as she walked hastily to the bathroom, and locked herself in the stall furthest away from the door.

She sank down to the floor, crying hard. She shoved her fist into her mouth and bit down, to try and take away from the guilt that was ripping her apart inside.

Santana had slept with Finn last year. Finn had been the one to lie to her. Finn had been the one to keep it from her. What had Santana done? Nothing that could amount to Rachel basically kicking her in the teeth several times with shoes made of broken glass and concrete.

All Santana had done was accost a single man because somebody told her to, and take his virginity. I mean, she asked a question. It wasn't like she forced him into bed. And all Rachel could think of, as the words accidentally fell out of her girlfriend's mouth as she cried over her parents' marriage disintegrating, was herself.

There wasn't an excuse for what Rachel, thought, or said, or did – it was about the most despicable thing she'd ever done in her entire life, and she'd done some pretty questionable things, but that was for another time.

Sure, Santana had been mean to her over the years, but you'd soon find that that was just Santana being Santana. She usually spoke her mind, which was refreshing, seeing as she spent most of her time around people that couldn't pull off even pretending that they liked her. And now, Santana was in a committed relationship with her and wasn't even pissed that they'd been outed and she wasn't pissed that they were basically signing themselves up for ridicule by being openly gay in a town like Lima.

I mean, she'd even forgiven Quinn for what she'd done. Quinn, the one who led the crusades to humiliate Rachel in any way possible, the one who still brushed off offers of friendship time after time; and yet, Santana, the one who was only ever a subordinate to the Devil incarnate before she grew a heart, was apparently the committer of an absolutely unforgivable crime against all of nature's laws and deserved to be dropped like she had some kind of disease.

Yeah, Rachel felt on top of the freaking world right now. She couldn't even bring herself to think of how Santana was feeling right now, because that, that was nothing short of purgatory.


Santana just lay on her bed, staring at the door. It had been ten minutes since Rachel had walked out, but it felt like she'd been rotting away there for a decade. She placed the girl's phone – which she'd left on the comforter – in the top drawer of her bedside table. She couldn't bear to look at it, because it was hers. It was also useless. Now, Santana couldn't even call her girlfriend, and her girlfriend couldn't call her.

The past three days of her life had been what Heaven must have been like; if she thought Heaven was real. You went to Heaven after you went to purgatory, not the other way around. Heaven was the final place that you were absolved of your sins, her mother and grandfather told her. It was what the priest in the cathedral told her.

It wasn't what she told herself. When Santana hurt somebody, all she saw was the hurt in the eyes of her victim. She didn't think of what some jealous upstart in the clouds thought, because that wasn't what was right in front of her. That wasn't directly affected by what she did. The kids she'd slushied and ordered other people to slushie was the only thing she had to try and live with.

The look on Rachel's face, when she told her she'd slept with Finn, though, that made her feel sick to her stomach. She had no idea how this one was going to fix itself.

She and Rachel hadn't even been together for one day. Maybe she should have told Rachel during their impromptu lunch at Breadstix? No. That would have been exponentially worse than it just slipping out.

Breadstix was a public place and there were people. Rachel would have been essentially humiliated again by somebody who had proven themselves to be above making her life hell. Finn had hurt her more than enough and honestly; Santana didn't want to be a reminder of that utter train wreck of a 'relationship' for Rachel. She wanted to make Rachel happy so she could make herself happy. She wanted to take pride in being Rachel's one and only, because, hell; the girl deserved it. Even now, she deserved it.

And to be honest, Santana was more concerned with working out what the best fuck of her life actually was to her, considering that her feelings weren't fleeting, like they were with about everyone else. She was more concerned with the present; it was all she had, seeing as her future was a given thanks to the almost obligatory scholarships thrown around by Sue Sylvester for her crème de la crop.

Her past wasn't something she was particularly interested in thinking about, either. The first time she found out about her mother's infidelity wasn't a particularly peachy moment for her, it had to be said.

She remembered the moment one night, maybe a few weeks after she'd begun high school, was when she found the very specific text from a man she'd met from her mother's workplace six months before. He was a young man, who had a promising career in front of him at her mother's business, and apparently, her mother was the one to catapult him to those new heights – in one way or another.

She remembered trying to lie her way out of the situation, after her mother found her gawping at a frank description of what they were going to do while she was at a 'conference' with handcuffs and a fondue.

Her mother made her swear on her grave that she wouldn't breathe a word of what she'd just seen – and scarred her mind with – to her oblivious father. She agreed, nothing less than absolutely terrified of what would happen if she was to disobey her mother. Would she yell louder at Santana? Would she lash out at her?

She would nod her head and she would suppress the guilt, as soon as her Dad returned home and insisted on cooking something for the both of them, and then cracked a couple of awful jokes he'd picked up from the stuffed shirts at the lectures. Santana would laugh along with him, and listen to the stories about things that she didn't totally understand or necessarily care about, but the thought of him being happy that she was all of a sudden taking an interest in his line of work took away from the fact that she knew something that he didn't. He shouldn't. She shouldn't.

Her mother would smile away, like there was nothing inherently wrong about the way she'd tell him that the next day, she would be getting home a little later on because of stock taking.

After six months, though, her mother's conferences became either more frequent or longer, and the texts and even postcards (apparently she had a thing for foreigners of the less intelligent variety) were just cast aside. Santana said nothing. And so life continued.

And now, her father knew. And Rachel was gone. She couldn't do much about the first part, but she could do something about the distinct lack of her girlfriend in her life right now. Lethargically, Santana moved from the bed and pulled out, from the top drawer in her dresser, the Wicked shirt she'd filched from Rachel's room and shrugged it on with a pair of sleep shorts, after peeling off her Cheerios uniform. She curled back up on the bed and the tears cascaded down her face once more, as she took in Rachel's light, fruity scent. Her tears stained it, the salt mingling with accents of strawberry and vanilla.

The sound of shouting had subsided from downstairs, but a few doors slammed; and then there was nothing.


Rachel dabbed the wet tissue against the lacerations on her hand, hissing as the stings shot up her arm. They weren't deep, but there were a lot of them, and there was a lot of bleeding. Not enough to make her feel dizzy, but enough to know what there'd be substantial scabbing that she would have to explain away.

She'd picked most of the glass out of them by now, and had used up a lot of tissue trying to stem the bleeding, and she'd largely succeeded, but it was painful.

She didn't realise what was sadder about this evening; Santana's personal life being torn limb from limb and burned, the fact Rachel had left her, that she ran to a greasy diner and cried in a dirty bathroom stall or actually punched a fucking mirror without thinking that yes, it would cause some damage.

After she picked herself up from the floor of the stall, Rachel had run some water and splashed some on her face, before taking a good long look at herself in the mirror. It wasn't long before she couldn't stand the sight of what she'd seen and thrown a punch at her reflection.

It sickened her. The last time she'd physically lashed out was when she found out that Finn had lied to her – surprise, surprise – and she never really felt it had done her much good. Her words were more important. She could bitchslap the high school's oh so revered Quarterback with a few four-syllabled words and a world-class storm out, not with her hands. Her hands were tiny, anyways. They weren't built for violence.

She wrapped a length of tissue around her hand and stuffed some up her sleeve in case she needed some, and exited the diner. The music was still playing, as loud as ever – figures why nobody had come running in after Rachel had shattered the mirror. She hadn't walked ten yards before she broke into a sprint, back the way she'd walked maybe an hour previously.

An hour was too long to leave Santana waiting like this. She had no idea if her parents were still arguing, but frankly, she didn't care. Santana was all that mattered.

Rachel kept on running until she got to Santana's gates. Shit. She'd been able to leave before, because they opened from the inside of the property and so her departure from the mansion was quick and without a problem.

It was the third time in one night that her inability to think of the consequences of her stupid, impulsive actions had landed her in deep crap. For the second time that night, Rachel fell against a cold hard surface and let herself fall to the ground. She reached into the small pocket sneakily sewn into her skirt, reaching for her phone and felt her heart thud lifelessly into her stomach with the realisation she'd left without her phone; she couldn't even call Santana to apologise.

The slam of the front door cracked through the air, followed by the sound of a heavy case being dragged across the ground. Rachel stilled, not daring to look behind her, in case whoever was now opening the garage and stuffing aforementioned case into the boot of a car noticed her. The car's engine roared to life and the glow of headlights neared the gates.

This was her chance. Rachel moved, quickly, to hide herself among some bushes lining the sidewalk – she wasn't about to give whoever was in that car an opportunity to hinder her romantic Mission Impossible-esque gesture to her girlfriend by calling the cops and informing them that an argyle-clad delinquent was trying to enter their home.

The car's engine calmed as it waited for the gates to slowly open, and then the nose of a fashionable black sports car edged out into the road, piercing the warm orange glow of the sky with bright white beams of light. She recognised the silhouette in the car as female, but it wasn't Santana. The shape of the nose was all wrong and she wouldn't leave her home in a car that wasn't hers.

The car pulled quickly away, before the gates had finished opening fully, leaving Rachel and extended window of opportunity. Once the car had driven a way down the road, Rachel dashed into the driveway and charged up to the front door.

She composed herself in a few seconds, and softly pressed down on the door handle; it was unlocked. She pressed the handle down further and pushed the door open, silently. Quickly, she slipped into the house, closing the door with as much precision as she had opened it.

Checking the rooms to either side of her for any signs of life, Rachel crossed the hall and crept up the stairs. She looked down the hall to Santana's room, realising her guilt again. The adrenaline rush of sneaking into somebody's property had shelved her aching pain for a few minutes, but it returned as fleetingly as it left, and it felt a hell of a lot worse.

The lump in her throat cut deeper into her as she walked down the lengthy hallway, to Santana's room. Tears rolled down her face as she made the walk of shame. It was like walking hot coals. She had no idea what to expect when she saw her girlfriend.

She didn't know how to deal with disappointing someone like this. In fact; 'disappointing someone' didn't even begin to explain what she had done.

Slowly, Rachel turned the door to Santana's room and pushed the door open. She peered around the door, to find Santana sound asleep on her bed, breathing softly. Rachel was relieved at this, and quietly let herself in. She kicked her shoes off by the door and stole across the soft carpeted floor to pull the curtains shut, before making her way to the edge of Santana's double-bed where she slept.

Fine ebony tresses were splayed across the covers, framing a disconcertingly red face, raw with the bruising of heavy tears. Santana's body was curled up in the foetal position, on Rachel's side of the bed. Well, it was where Rachel had fallen asleep after their extracurricular activities the other night, and it was where Rachel had been sat before she left. Santana was wearing a pair of pale blue sleep shorts and Rachel's loose-fitting Wicked tee – so that's where it had gone. A sad smile tugged at her lips, as she ran her finger along the damp spots of tear-stained fabric, juxtaposed with the memory of their day off. Rachel made Santana watch it in between making love in her bed, after the Latina told Rachel that Idina Menzel wasn't all that great – which was essentially blasphemy in the diva's book.

She brushed tendrils of hair out of the Latina's face, and gently kissed her forehead. Her lips lingered against Santana's sweaty skin, relishing in the feel and the warmth of her girl. She stood back and admired her sleeping form, even if her face was now slightly creased by her furrowing brow.

Rachel pulled the comforter from the other side of the bed and gently placed it over Santana, tucking her in. She placed another light kiss on the girl's face, before crossing the room to the en-suite bathroom.

She pulled the door to, so as not to awake her girlfriend from her deep slumber, and peeled the bloodstained tissue from her hand as she stood in front of the washbasin. She didn't look at her reflection in the mirror on the medicine cabinet above the sink; she couldn't. She caught only a glance of her red face in the mirror, before she busied herself with cleaning her cuts.

Some of the paper had gotten stuck in some of the cuts, meaning she'd have to wash all that crap out, too. Great.

She turned the taps on, letting the cool water cascade down her burning hand.


Santana opened her eyes, woken suddenly by the sound of running taps. Her head was banging; the tears and the hatred remerging, but now, as some twisted hangover that was nothing like just the emotional pain of it all. A thin beaming of light cut through her dark room – the curtains had been pulled to, nearly completely blocking out the deep glow of the sun.

And her comforter had been wrapped around her since she'd fallen asleep. She smiled at the gesture, but threw off the covers at the sound of tissue paper ripping and a muffled sniff coming from the bathroom.

Rachel.

Rachel was in her bathroom. Fuck. That was the last thing she expected from the girl, after her storm out. She wondered if her father had let her back in, wondering if being distracted by a friend was what she needed as he and her mother locked horns in the living room.

Santana figured that Rachel would probably come back in and check on her soon, so she threw the comforter off her and padded across the room to the bathroom. She waited outside the door, listening to the sound of running water and the sound of a few sharp gasps every few seconds.

That didn't sound like crying anymore.

Santana pushed the door open quickly and entered – like ripping off a band aid – and met Rachel's tear-filled chocolate eyes in the reflection of the mirror. There they were; those brilliant chocolate eyes, dulled with the recent tears she'd shed and the sadness overcoming her right then.

She moved across to Rachel, who didn't move as her eyes stayed locked with that Latina's, and looked into the sink, seeing the jagged cuts on Rachel's hand. The water in the sink had been dyed a faint pink as it mingled with red.

Santana reached into the medicine cabinet above the sink and pulled out some antiseptic wipes and band aids. She bit her tongue when she saw the bloodstained tissue by the faucets. She shut off the running water and gently took Rachel's unharmed hand, leading her out of the room and set her onto the bed.

The girls moved wordlessly, as if they could read one another's minds. Rachel let Santana take her and dab softly at the wounds. She hissed, as the antiseptic mingled with the rawness of the wound and her tender flesh.

Santana stopped her motions and locked her eyes with Rachel's once more. She met the fear, anticipation and guilt with her own, and brought her free hand to cup Rachel's face. Rachel shifted her cheek further into the touch – it had been much too long since she'd felt Santana's skin against her own.

"What happened?" Santana watched as Rachel's eyes fluttered shut, and a tear ran down her face. "Baby, please..."

"I was angry at what I did to you." More tears rolled down those soft honey cheeks, and then her eyes opened again. "I'm so, so sorry."

"No, Rachel, I don't want you to apologise for that," Santana replied, moving closer to Rachel and wrapping her arms around her.

"No." Rachel ground the word out with finality. She looked up into Santana's eyes, placing her hands on her shoulders, "Santana, you did nothing but be honest with me. I don't even know why I was mad... I thought about it after I left, and the only one to blame is Finn. Fuck, we weren't even together when you did it! He lied to me, made our relationship something awful and twisted..."

She burst into tears and buried her face in the crook of Santana's, wrapping her arms around Santana's neck. Santana shushed her, as she cried, but even then, Santana gave in and joined Rachel in letting out more tears.

"I'm never losing you like that again," Rachel promised, "I'm going to make it up to you, one way or another." Rachel pushed Santana back onto the bed and rested her forearms on either side of her girlfriend's face. "What I did there... that's never going to be okay. I left you when you needed me most, and I won't do it again. I need to make it up to you..."

"Don't worry about it, Rach," Santana replied, locking her hands on the small of Rachel's back. She wasn't letting her go ever, ever again. "What matters now is that we move on... and we have each other and we'll never let either one of us go again."

"I know... But unless I absolutely blow you away with a dramatic romantic gesture, I may never forgive myself."

Santana laughed at her girlfriend's declaration, nodding in agreement. "Tomorrow night, maybe?"

"No. Sunday..." Rachel corrected her, "Tomorrow, we're coming out to our parents... if that's alright."

A grin spread across Santana's face that threatened to crack it in half. "That's perfect."

Rachel reciprocated the grin, and sank further into Santana's firm frame. Santana tightened her grip on Rachel, just content with watching her and basking in their union. Rachel brushed all the stray hairs from Santana's face, and leant down to kiss her softly. The kiss was returned eagerly, yet with finesse. This wasn't about lust. It never really was, but at that moment – after they'd almost lost one another to something so ridiculous – they were inching closer to love at a fast rate.

As their lips slid against each other, soft hands caressing soft skin and legs tangling with one another, they didn't mind that love was indeed about to hit them like a freight train. As if they had a choice, after realising what they could have lost.

But as their bodies melded into one another in utter love and beauty, etching tonight into the dark realms of the past, nothing could have stopped them from becoming inextricably a part of one another's future.