When you wake up, Santana is laying next to you. She's fast asleep with her hair falling away from her face and her cheek squished against the pillow. Her left hand is resting on top of the pillow next to her face.
You're laying next to her, but you feel like she's so far away. You reach out and touch her hand just to make sure that she's...real. With your other hand tucked under the pillow that's beneath your head, you reach across the space between you and touch her hand.
Once your hand covers hers, you run your finger over the back of her hand. You've always loved her skin. The way it is always so warm and soft. You don't know what's going on. With her or with you. She's been acting weird and you have too. You just don't know how to stop it. You want everything to go back to the way it was. You want Santana to be happy and you want to...fix everything. You just don't know how.
You feel so far away from her even though your hand is on hers. You feel like there's something between you. Everytime you move toward her, there's something in the way. You don't know what it is. You haven't felt like this since high school and everyone made fun of you for being stupid. They actually made you feel stupid even though you knew you weren't and Santana assured you that you're perfect the way you are. This problem is making you feel stupid again. And all you want to do it cry. But you can't run to Santana this time because there's something in the way. You can't explain it. You don't know what it looks like. You can just feel it.
She starts to stir and her nose scrunches up like it does when she's about to wake up. You smile a little at how cute she is. She's done it a million times. Every time she's ever woken up, but it still makes you smile.
Her eyes flutter open. It takes a minute for her eyes to focus in on you, but when she does, her eyebrows scrunch together. "Are you okay?" She pushes up on one of her elbows to get a better look at you.
You nod. "I'm fine." You have the strangest urge and just go with it. You pull her by the material of her shirt that covered her stomach to you. She moves with your pull and when she gets close enough, you wrap your arms around her. This shouldn't feel so weird. This shouldn't feel like you're hugging someone for the first time. You have one arm around the small of her back and one around her shoulders, holding her body to yours. Has it really been that long since you've done this?
You feel the tears start to trickle out of your eyes and you bury your face in the hair that's covering her shoulder.
"Britt?" she asks. She's laying on top of you and it's oddly comforting. You can feel her arms on your sides as she pushes herself up to look at you, but you stop her. You hold her in place. You just want to hold her.
She manages to roll to the side, turning you as well because you won't let go. You never want to let her go. At least this way, she has one free arm that's moving from stroking your side to petting your hair.
"What's wrong, babe?" she asks you after your crying has turned into sniffles.
The mere thought of trying to actually tell her what's wrong breaks you. You start crying again and try to force out the words. She deserves to know. "There's - there's something wrong with us."
You know Santana. You knew her better than anyone else in the whole world and you can feel her tense up under your arms when you say that. She doesn't say anything in return. She just keeps stroking your side and your hair and breathing. You don't know what she's thinking and it scares you.
Before you can bring yourself to answer the door opens. "Hey guys..." Noah trails off. Your back is to him so you can't see him, but his voice is lower when he adds, "Some of Mr. Schue's friends are here. Rachel said we should probably be out there. I'll...um... tell them..."
"We'll be right out," Santana answers for you both.
You hear the door click shut a second later. You lay on the ground with Santana for a few more minutes in silence before she moves off of you. "We should go."
You're disappointed, but you know why you're here. You have to talk to people. It's part of the rules.
You both put your shoes on and walk out to the living room. You reach out and tentatively take Santana's hand. She glances back at you and you can see her swallow. That hurts your heart. You want to know what's wrong.
When you enter the room, she guides you over to the small chairs and you sit down next to her. You don't like these chairs. Your longs legs have to fold up so that people can walk past you. You sigh and look at the open door where people are filing in.
"Hey," a familiar man's voice says next to Santana. You look over at Dave Karofsky and see him looking at Santana. He's wearing a black button down shirt and nice jeans. Santana lets got of your hand and stands up to hug him. When she sits down, Dave looks at you so you take your turn to hug him. He smells nice and why better than he did in high school.
He picks up one of the empty little chairs and sits down facing both other you. "I'm am so sorry for your loss."
Santana quietly says, "Thank you."
It's awkward for a moment before Dave leans forward and asks, "So how are you ladies?"
Santana crosses her arms over her chest and slouches down in her seat. It's her basic defensive stance, so you take over. "We live in LA now. Santana's doing great in school and I'm dancing."
Dave gives you a genuine smile. "That's great."
"What are you up to?" Santana asks, dropping her arms. You take the chance and take her hand. She glances at you, but you can't read her. She turns back to Dave as he talks.
"Oh," he beams at the mention of what he does, "I run the LGBT resource center here in town. We're opening up a runaway shelter soon. It's really exciting."
That's when you see Santana smile. You know she's happy that kids in town won't have to go through what she had to go through alone. You're happy too. It was so hard on her. You just want to be close to her now so you turn your chair toward her and hold her one hand in both of yours.
Santana and Dave continue to catch up while you watch, content to just hold Santana's hand and think about what went wrong - where it went wrong.
When Dave leaves, Santana walks him out the door. You stay inside because some of your old Cheerio friends have joined you. You catch up with them. Most are married with children. None of them look really happy when they talk about their lives. Which means that they quickly question you about your life.
"Are and Santana still together?" one of them asks.
You nod and make a show of looking around. "Yeah, she's around here somewhere."
"That's so great," another one smiles. "You two are perfect for each other. Always have been."
"If anyone can make it, it's Brittany and Santana."
"Are you married yet? That's legal in California right?"
"Any idea when you're going to have kids? Are you going to adopt or inseminate?"
"Brittany and Santana forever."
You find yourself with tears in your eyes unable the answer any of these questions. Because you don't know any of the answers. Everything is so up in the air and you feel so lost. You quickly get up our of your chair and mumble, "Excuse me."
You walk straight into the bathroom and sit down on the edge of the bathtub. Everything is just so messed up right now and you want more than anything in the world to make it right. You want the answers to their questions. You want the answers to your questions.
You watch the tears fall from your cheeks and land on your knees. You feel so helpless.
You finally compose yourself and rinse off your face although you can't see yourself because the mirror is covered up. You hope you look okay.
As you exit the bathroom Sam is standing there. "I wasn't like... waiting for you. I mean I was because I have to pee." He stops trying to explain and dips her head down to look you in the eyes. "Are you okay Brittany?"
You try really really hard not to break down right there, but you do. Tears start trickling down your face against and Sam puts his arms around you.
You cry for maybe another five minutes before you remember that Sam really has to pee. So you let him go with a forced smile as you wipe your eyes. You want to go find Santana anyway.
She's standing in the kitchen whispering with Rachel about something until you walk in. You never really ask Santana what she does in secret because you trust her and it's usually for you, like that surprise birthday party she threw you last year.
She glances up at you and you can see her noticing every single tear streak down you face. She puts her arm around your waist and pulls you to her.
"How's your, um, job by the way?" Rachel asks as she tucks some of her hair behind her ear."Here in town?"
You can feel Santana shrug. "It's alright. Having to take a cab is really cutting into my tips though."
You never thought about how she'd get there before. She certainly didn't bother you with the details. You join in the conversation, "I have an idea."
She quirks an eyebrow at you and you pull your phone out of your pocket. You quickly call your dad and explain the situation to him. He tells you that it's not a problem and you can pick up your favorite form of transportation in high school whenever you want.
So an hour before Santana has to go in for the evening shift, you walk to your old house. Her head is down and her eyes drag the sidewalk as it disappears under you. Again you reach out and take her hand, lacing your fingers together like you have been doing since high school. It used to make her smile when you did it, but now... you don't know. It feels like you don't know anything anymore.
As you near your parents' house, you can see that you dad as gotten your dirt bike out for you. You know that Santana is petrified of riding on it, but you've convinced her to go on rides with you before and you hope that you can again. You can feel her grip on your hand tighten as you near it.
"Brittany, I don't think this is a good idea," she tells you, stopping her feet a few metres from the bike.
"C'mon," you tell her, pulling her with you. "It'll be okay. We'll go slow. I won't let anything happen to you. You have to go to work right?"
Santana bites her bottom lip and has a staredown with the dirt bike. She takes a deep breath and looks at you. You try to convey to her that you'll take care of her. You just want to help.
She doesn't move so you swing your leg over the bike and kick the kickstand back. You start up the engine and rev it for a moment. It takes a minute, but she eventually gets onto the back of the bike.
You take it slow the first few streets because her grip on your waist is starting to hurt. You can feel her face buried in your back and you smile a little. You miss this. You miss her. She always seems so far away even when she's close, but now you feel close to her.
When you pull up to the bar, Santana is quick to get off. Her shoes scrape against the cracked sidewalk in front of the bar.
"What time do I need to pick you up?" you ask her as she awkwardly lingers close to the bike.
She puts her hands in her pockets and shakes the hair our of her face. "You don't have to get me. It'll be really late."
"I want to," you say earnestly. You want to help her. You tilt your head to the side and pucker your lips.
She kisses you. It's just a peck, but you can see a tiny smile on her face. You miss her smile "Two thirty."
"Hmm?" you ask, wondering what she means.
"You can pick me up at two thirty," she tells you. Then she slowly turns around and walks inside.
When the door is closed and you can't see her anymore, you drive away. You decide to go for a little ride before you head back to the house. You need to clear your head.
Motorcross has always made your feel free - like you could fly. The motocross track that McKinley uses is on a piece of land on the outskirts of town. You swung back by your parents' house to grab your helmet from the garage. You managed to do it without them noticing because you're sure they would have tried to stop you.
You stop at the edge of the track next to a telephone pole. There's a switch box on the side of it that you flip open and push the handle up. The bright lights come on over the track revealing the dirt hills and banked turns. You drive onto the track and stop at the starting line.
You put your hair up and then fit the helmet on your head. You glance over at the single tree tucked in the small patch of grass left from where the track snaked around where the team used to take breaks and tune up their bikes. You remember Santana sitting there under the tree with her sunglasses on, watching you. She never missed one of your races. She was always there. Always. She would socialize with your friends on the motocross team even though she had nothing in common with them, but you. Sometimes she would bring water for everyone in the sweltering autumn heat.
You close your eyes and wish you were back in high school. You wish so hard that you were back there where it was easy. It was you and Santana and that was it.
When you're eyes pop open, you gun the engine, kicking up dust behind you.
You're pretty much covered in dirt by the time you leave. You shut off the lights and head back to the house for a shower and a few hours of sleep before you have to pick up Santana.
You get a few weird looks as you enter the house, helmet in hand and covered from neck to toe in dirt. You don't even look at anyone. You're not in the mood. You just go straight to the bathroom and take a shower.
Of course you get no sleep. You lay in bed and think about what went wrong and you can't pick anything out. There was no singular moment that changed everything. Maybe it's been going down hill for a while now and you're just now realizing it.
You can't sleep and you don't want to keep Quinn and Rachel up with your constant tossing and turning so you get up, put on some jeans, a t-shirt and Santana's leather jacket. Then you slide on your boots and slip out of the room.
You don't know where you're going. You just drive. The air running through your hair and the sound of the engine sooths you. You're anxious. You know that you're going to have to confront Santana soon. Like as soon as you pick her up.
So at two twenty-seven when you pull up to the bar and you see her leaning on the wall next to the back door you're frustrated. You wanted to talk to her and she's not in any place to talk.
"Are you drunk?" you ask her as you pull to a stop next to her. You know she is, but you want her to tell you why.
She doesn't answer you. She just walks over to the bike and climbs on the back. You rev the engine and take off. Her arms feel great around you, but her shifting on the back of the bike is making it hard to steer.
So you gun it and try to use the speed to counteract her swaying. It works for a while, but also serves as to make her arms constrict around you.
You continue your aimless drive that you were on before. You're not tired. The cold air breezing across your face makes you more awake than you've been all day. You can feel Santana hold onto you hard as you turn a corner. No matter what, drunk or not, she's still scared. You slow down a little bit so she's not as nervous.
You turn into a new neighborhood that's being built by McKinley and drive around until you're in the back part where there's a half-built playground. It's secluded. It's dark and you're alone.
You put your kickstand down and sit there.
"What are you doing?" Santana asks.
You cut the engine and bite your lip. "I wanna talk."
"Talk about what?" she asks with a huff. You can feel her arms disappear from around your waist as she ungracefully dismounts. You slide off of your bike and follow her.
"I want to talk about us," you finally spit out. You need this. It's been eating you up and you need to get this out. You both need this.
Santana kicks a rock that bounces and hits a pipe sticking out of the ground. "About what?"
"What we were talking about this morning," you tell her exasperated. "We're not working."
Her nonchalance is starting to hurt your feelings. You want her to take this seriously and to not be drunk. You want her in this conversation and in this relationship. You need to her understand just like you need to understand.
She just kicks another rock and doesn't say anything.
You grab the sleeve of her jacket and turn her around to face you. You know she's trying desperately to shut down her emotions and you can't have that. You need her to pay attention to what you're saying. Tears prickle the back of your eyes. "We're broken and I want to fix it, but you won't talk to me!" you yell at her. You've never ever yelled at her before, but you're terrified that it's too late - that this is already too far beyond repair.
She turns around and takes a few steps away from you. Just as you start to go after her, she whirls around on her heel. You immediately see the tears streaming down her face. "Don't you think I know that?" she sounds mad, but you can see that she's really hurt. "I've been trying to figure out what's wrong with us. What's wrong with me? What did I do?" She keeps pointing to her chest as she speaks. Then she throws her arms up in the air. "I don't know what to do anymore. I've given you everything - everything. I don't even know if you love me anymore." And suddenly she's vulnerable. Her eyes are tracing the dirt around your feet. Her hands sink into her back pockets and she just stands there.
She's not watching you. She doesn't know what you're going to do before you do it. The way her hands are in her back pockets leave the normally guarded girl completely vulnerable. She's offering you her chest - her heart and she's not even trying to protect it.
"Santana," you say her name softly because you need her to look at you. You need her eyes.
She takes her time dragging her eyes from the ground. Finally she looks at your face. The tears haven't stopped pouring out of her eyes. You reached up and wipe your cheeks of your own.
"Santana, I-"
A siren sound interrupts you. You sigh and let your head fall back so you're staring at the sky. You can see the red and blue lights flickering across Santana's face as she turns toward the intrusion. When you look over, you see a police officer getting out of his car.
As the officer gets closer, his slow meandering steps become familiar. "Azimio," Santana kicks the dirt at her feet, "Fuck."
"Do you ladies realize that this is private property?" he asks as he walks up.
Santana rolls her neck as she wipes the tears from her face. You know she's about to say something and since she's drunk, it won't be nice so you step in. "Sorry Azimio. We'll leave."
"Brittany?" he asks like he didn't recognize you before. Then he turns to your girlfriend. "Santana?"
"Yes," Santana huffs. She sighs exasperatedly.
Azimio further examines Santana and asks her, "Are you drunk?"
"No," Santana growls. You know she's about to do something stupid so you take her hand and pull her away from Azimio toward your bike.
"Hey you know it's illegal to drive one of those on the road," Azimio calls after you.
You don't hesitate to hop onto the bike and pull Santana on with you. You've been riding your dirt bike all over Lima for years. Your dad is best friends with the District Attorney. You've never been scared to get into legal trouble before. You don't plan to start now. So you kickstart your bike and pull off into the street, ignoring the officer that's still standing next to the unfinished house watching you drive away.
You continue your aimless drive, trying to find somewhere to talk to Santana. You need to finish this conversation now that you got her to open up.
You can feel her burying her face in your neck and the back of the collar of your t-shirt start to get wet. She must still be crying. That breaks your heart so you cruise your dirt bike all the way out to the track again. You pull to a stop next to the switch box and flip on the lights. Santana holds onto you until you pull up under the shady tree where she used to sit and watch you.
She immediately dismounts and puts her hands in the pockets of her jacket as she walks over to the tree. There's still a perfect curve in the trunk where she used to sit and watch, which she sits down in immediately. You look at her, the engine still running underneath you. Her eyes are red and her cheeks are pink. She looks up at you broken and utterly devastated.
Your thoughts of taking a lap to gather your thoughts are abandoned. You cut off the engine and slip off of your bike. Something that she said is still resinating with you. I don't even know if you love me anymore.
The dirt crunches under your boots as you walk over to her. The tree is shading her from the huge lights above, but enough peeks through the leaves to make her tears sparkle.
You sit down next to her and lean back on the tree. She doesn't look at you. Her forearms are resting on her knees that are eyelevel to her. You reach other and take her hand closest to you, pulling it into your lap over your crossed legs.
"I still love you," you tell her quietly.
She sniffles, but doesn't look at you. Her eyes are staring at her knees. "Are you in love with me?" she asks. "Were you ever in love with me?"
You look over at her and feel tears sting the back of your eyes. You don't like crying, but you've done a lot of it today. You just can't stop. "Why would you think that I'm not?"
She takes a shaking breath that rattles your insides. "Because you've been... I don't know. We have like two different lives and sometimes we share part of them. You have your dance and I have school and work and I don't know what's going on with us. I don't know what happened, but we've been growing apart."
"I know," you mumble. You feel it. The distanct between you is huge. "Can we fix it?" You finally just forget about tiptoeing around her. You close your eyes and rest your forehead against her temple. "Please Santana. I want to fix it."
You feel her free hand on the back of your neck, slowly stroking the bottom border of your hair. "Were you in love with me when we got together?"
"So much," you whisper in your ear. You never really knew what being in love was like until Santana. She set the bar so high for love that no one else could ever possibly reach it.
"Are you still in love with me?" she asks breathlessly.
You pull your head away from her, opening your eyes, and you can see her looking at you. You can see the fear in her eyes. She's terrified that you're not in love with her anymore. You want to crush that fear out so you surge forward and kiss her. You kiss her hard for a long time trying to let her know that yes, you are still so much in love with her. You don't want her to doubt it.
When you break away because you need to catch your breath she looks at you. "You haven't kissed me like that in weeks."
You frown and think back over the past few weeks. You've been super busy with dancing. Sometimes Santana kisses you, but it's always a hello, goodbye or goodnight peck. Then it hits you that you haven't been intimate with her in a longer period of time. You used to go at it all the time no matter where or what time it was. Now you have your own apartment, you share a bed and you don't ever have sex anymore. Have you really been ignoring her that much?
You look into her eyes and see the hurt and the fear. She has done everything for you. She pays the rent and still makes time to go to school. She makes sure you have gas money to get to auditions and back. She makes sure that all of your dance clothes are ready for you when you have to leave. You start to get angry with yourself. You've forgotten how much she means to you and taken her for granted. Her devotion to you is unwavering, but you never took the time to take care of her in return.
"Santana," you reach up and cup her cheek with your hand. "I am so, so sorry. I am so in love with you. I always have been. I shouldn't - I shouldn't have made you feel like I did."
"No, I -" she stops abruptly to swallow. "I should have said something instead of icing you out."
You feel like that's progress. You lick your lips and have to ask. "So we can fix this right?" You don't know what you'd do if you didn't have Santana. She's your everything.
She looks at you. She doesn't seem really sure and that worries you. "I want you to be happy Brittany."
"You make me happy," you immediately answer her. You want her to be sure.
She looks away and out across the track. "I haven't been making you happy." She seems so sad and disappointed when she says that.
"You do. I just haven't been showing you like I should," you scoot closer to her and rest your lips on her shoulder. Then you rest your chin on her shoulder, "Santana I love you and I don't want this. I want you to be happy too. I want us to be happy together."
Santana puts her arms around you. "I love you too Britt-Britt. I think we can fix this. I just want you to be happy."
You let out a small sigh of relief. That's all you want. A chance to fix what's breaking. You want Santana and you want a life with her. That's all you've ever wanted.