Chapter Four

Santana is too skinny.

That's really all I can think about, as I help her undress. She's always been smaller than me, shorter and more compact, though we're nearly of a height with one another. I never really noticed the difference in our sizes, however. We always fit together neatly, and it was something that I appreciated before. Now she just seems thin and sickly, and I'm afraid to touch her too roughly or move her too quickly. I can see the way her bones poke against her skin, which has faded from its natural russet shade to one more like the color of milk with a drop of chocolate syrup in it. Santana sits uneasily on the lid of the toilet while I patiently remove her sweater.

"I remember when you had tan lines," I'm trying not let it show how uncomfortable it makes me to see her like this.

Santana smiles, but the look in her eyes is slightly reserved. "Even in the winter, I can get a tan."

"I was always envious of that." I smooth a hand down Santana's hair, which lies limply against her head. "I just burn."

Her smile is more genuine this time, and she glances up to catch my eye. "You just don't got it like me, Q,"

I laugh, loosely, and then shift to stand in front of her. I gesture and she climbs slowly to her feet, and I don't miss the way her knees buckle beneath her scant weight. I steady her by holding onto her elbows, and then with one hand I pull down the natty cotton pajama bottoms she wore home from the hospital.

Santana's face is scrunched up when I glance back up at her, and part of me is afraid that she might be embarrassed about being so weak. "Four months of funk I need to wash off. I doubt the water will be hot enough."

It wasn't what I was expecting, so I just laugh. "They gave you sponge baths while you were out."

Santana scoffs, and rolls her eyes. "Please don't remind me. That's completely demoralizing to think about."

I bite my lip, but before I can think of anything to say, Santana's face twists up into an irritated expression. "I feel like somebody tricked me. I was fine a few days ago. Now I'm like an octogenarian and can barely stand up."

"You'll get better." I don't know why, but what she said relieves me. It's an easier subject to talk about than strangers bathing her, or how they had to shift her body so she wouldn't get bedsores, or how she was asleep so long that she didn't even see the bruises that littered her body from shoulder to hip. They're vanished, now, swallowed up by all the time that Santana missed, and will never have back. "Does your head hurt at all?"

Santana shakes her head, and I help her over the lip of the tub. I watch her chew on her lip, and she's staring down at her own knees, which are trembling. "I don't know if I can stand up long enough to shower."

I can tell she didn't want to admit that, but just as easily, I can tell that it's true. Her body is shivering, and it's not from the cold. Gradually the shakes increase, and now she's quivering like a leaf. I hold onto her forearms, and she looks at me with a desperate expression.

"Okay. No big deal." I sound a lot more confident than I feel. "Just sit down. We'll take a bath."

"I'd – I'd rather not. With you." Santana's eyebrows wrinkle up. "I'll just wash myself. Okay?"

"Okay." I don't know what made her change her mind, but her face immediately relaxes when I agree. "Sit down."

Santana lowers herself unsteadily, but I keep my hands on her all the same. All I can see in my mind's eye is her slipping and smacking her head on the cold ceramic. She sits with her knees against her chest and she looks so slight against the harsh white tub. I sigh and turn the nozzles, and the sudden rush of water thunders and echoes. I watch as Santana's skin prickles with goosebumps, and – I know it's strange – but I notice that her nails are a pale gray, almost bluish color.

"Are your iron levels okay?"

"What?" I can tell, by her expression, that Santana isn't following my train of thought.

"You just look really pale," I say, after examining her lips and nails again. The bathtub is filling up with water, and Santana seems to relax slowly. I try not to worry.

"Stop worrying," Her tone is sarcastic and dry, but she doesn't meet my gaze. She watches the water rush out of the spigot. "Wash my hair?"

I actually can't tell if it's a request or a demand, because she seems lost in thought now. Her arms loop loosely around her knees, and the water reaches just above her waist. I can see her forefinger picking at the loose skin of her cuticle beneath the water, and I have to suppress the urge to scold her.

I'm not her damn mother.

All of the sudden, I'm kind of irritated and I don't particularly know why. Something about the way I reach for her shampoo makes her glance at me, and I can tell by the way she watches me that she knows, somehow.

I use my palms to wet her hair – which is thinner now than it was before – and the whole time, Santana's eyes are pinned on me. Just knowing that she looks at me makes it easier for me to remain calm.

I fill my palm with the shampoo from the bottle, and the heavy, herbal scent fills the bathroom. I use my other hand and turn the faucet off, because the water ripples and laps against the edge of the tub now. Santana is still watching me, with her head slightly tipped, and her eyes narrowed fractionally. She looks at me like I'm some mystery she has to solve, or else like I annoy her.

It's probably a little bit of both, to be honest.

I massage the shampoo into her hair, slicking my palms up and down the length of it, and I don't react to how I pull away fistfuls of loose strands. Santana doesn't seem to notice, either, even when I gather them into a wet wad and throw them into the trash bin. Instead, she leans slightly into my fingers when I wash her scalp, and something about it makes my shoulders relax. Maybe because Santana is so quiet, but looking at me with those dark, heavy eyes. Maybe because her face is both soft and pinched at once, and, looking down, I can see the hollow of her collarbones so much that I can't help but be gentle and tender.

I try to use my hands to rinse her hair. Instead, Santana ends up with a mouthful of suds. She sputters and chokes, and I use the back of my hand to wipe her hair away from her eyes. "Maybe try leaning back," I suggest, keeping a straight face.

"Maybe," Santana agrees dryly. She slides along the length of the tub and then sinks into the water line, and I smile at the sight of it. Even though I can count her ribs and divot of her pelvis, she is still remarkably beautiful. She catches my smile and the corners of her mouth tug upwards, reflecting it back at me.

"Is it kinky that this reminds me of my nanny?" Santana's smile broadens into a wicked grin.

My eyes widen and my cheeks immediately flush, and Santana chuckles. "Stop being an ass,"

"No, really," Santana's tone is musing now, and she just continues to smirk into my eyes while I rub the soap out of her hair. "She used to give me baths all the time. She was blonde and pretty, like you,"

I snort, then pull at Santana's shoulder, helping her into a sitting position. The water whooshes and sloshes against the tub, sliding off of her in thin rivulets. Her skin is warmer, now, flushed, and glossy from the suds.

"That's probably where it all began," Santana says wryly. "Inappropriate bath time with Viola. Why couldn't I have had Nanny McPhee? I probably would have turned out normal,"

It shocks me, sometimes, to hear Santana say things like that, especially so offhandedly. It makes everything inside me go cold and then hot, and I frankly don't know how to react. Santana's relationship with her own sexuality is confusing, at best, and I can't make heads or tails out of half the things she says. For instance, she spent the whole semester at Atherton making catty jokes and ripping the buttons off my shirt while trying to undress me, but she goes absolutely berserk at any mention of the word lesbian.

"You are normal," I figure it's the safest response. Usually, I'd probably be open to trying to goad her into having a conversation about it, but right now things feel way too strained.

Santana shrugs and I slather her hair in conditioner, and the room goes quiet again for a moment. "Wait, what do you mean, inappropriate?" It kind of bothers me, that she used that word. Santana is hard to interpret, and I don't know if she was trying to drop some kind of hint about something. "What was inappropriate about her giving you a bath?"

"Oh, Christ, Q," Santana's voice is dripping derision. "Nothing. Just forget it."

"Hey!" Santana jerks her head away from me, and her expression is absolutely waspish. "That hurt."

"Sorry," I'm definitely not.

"You will be," Santana mutters.

I just raise an eyebrow at her. "Lean back again."

"I got it from here, Q," Santana bats away the hand pushing against her shoulder. "Go away."

"Fine," I stand up abruptly and march towards the door. I pause, a second before pushing past it, and I'm caught between my concern for her and the way irritation fills up my chest, making me want to hit something. "Just, don't drown."

"Yeah." I can't see her anymore, but I hear the water sloshing around in the tub. I take the last few steps out of the bathroom and just before I shut the door behind me, I can hear her mutter something that sounds suspiciously along the lines of, "Psycho,"

I repress the urge to slam it and just bite my lip. I feel anger and annoyance and worry flare up inside of me, like a hot spark. I don't know what I'm even feeling anymore. It's just a warm ball flitting and struggling around inside of me, and I can't decide if I want to cry or scream.

Instead, I just laugh. I realize it's a feeling I've missed more than anything over these last four months – the feeling Santana gives me almost continuously.

Santana Lopez, you drive me absolutely crazy, and I completely love you.

As glad as I am to have Santana back, there are a few things about it that I've found less than appealing.

The very first thing I've noticed is that Santana is a different person when we're alone than when we're around other people; and maybe I should have expected that. Still, it's not a huge surprise that she would act differently around our friends – and many of them stop by after class and on the weekends in the weeks after she wakes up. I'm used to the Santana that has the need to keep up a certain façade around people like Mercedes and Rachel - and until last August, I didn't even know that there could be more to her. I just didn't really realize how different it would seem, or how much I could miss her even when we're in the same room together.

I feel like there's a giant elephant in the room concerning us and our friends, and neither Santana nor I want to address it just yet. I see that she tenses up if I stay too close for too long, and I've become almost hyperaware of the way the corners of her eyes tighten or how her lips tug downwards if I seem too concerned with her hair or if I run my fingertips over the span of her knuckles where anyone can see. Her response is subtle, but it's enough to make my spine straighten and an achy tension to settle in just behind my eyes. It's frustrating in the most intangible way, and I don't know why it feels like I'm losing her even when I spend every day right next to her.

The next thing I notice is the striking contrast between how Santana behaves around Danika, her cleaning lady, and her mother. I've never spent any amount of time with Mrs. Lopez, and even when Santana was in the hospital I had almost no contact with her. I don't know when or how often Maribel visited her only child – I imagine it was awkward for her, since there was no way to predict when Dr. Lopez would check in – but I rarely saw her. I know that it doesn't mean anything, because she could have gone when I was at school, but especially in the early days I was surprised by the lack of her presence. I spent Christmas next to Santana in her hospital bed, surrounded by the depressing decorations that the nurses of Lima General could muster and watching A Charlie Brown Christmas on the twelve inch television screen, and I never caught sight of Santana's mother.

I hope that she spends time with her while I'm at school, just like I tried to tell myself she did when Santana was in the hospital. As it is now, the only interaction between Santana and her mother that I witness is the daily visit which brings Santana's supper, and the furtive, almost mouse-shy way Santana's mother looks at her. Santana goes cold and hot all at once, the second a knock sounds on her door, in a way that only she can pull off; her shoulders square and her jaw tenses, and the look behind her eyes is acidic. They speak to each other in clipped Spanish – which always sounds extremely angry to me, no matter what they could be saying – and then Maribel leaves without a backwards glance.

Sometimes Santana shares her food with me, if everyone from school has gone home that day. She's introduced me to enchiladas and tamales and chilorio. Before, the extent of my experience with Latin food involved Taco Bell and the occasional night out to El Chico's with my family.

Honestly, to me it all tastes like different levels of spiciness and sourness and a flavor I can't actually identify, but it reminds me of Santana.

At first, I tried to hide from her the way most of the food made me sweat. She would cut herself a bite of beef enchilada from the heavy terracotta plate, and then with an effortless flick of her wrist sever another portion and lift it casually to my lips. I was a bit charmed by her feeding me – and with no more than a wrinkle between her eyebrows, as she thumbed through her phone with her other hand or flipped through the pages of a magazine – but then I quickly got distracted by the way it was hard not to cough and sputter. And sometimes, Santana douses whatever dish is in front of her with salsa or hot sauce, which makes it nearly unbearable.

I thought I was pretty convincing, for the most part, at first, but eventually Santana caught on. It might have had to do with the way I would grimace as soon as the scent of the food hit me, so spicy and pungent that it would make my eyes water from across the room, before Maribel even sat it in Santana's lap. Or the way I guzzle water from a bottle between every bite (and my mouth still felt almost numb from heat). Either way, one day I was preparing to suffer through another plate filled with rice and burritos and food that would give me more heartburn than I experienced while I was pregnant when Santana stopped, halfway through a bite, and leveled me with a slant-eyed look.

"You don't like this, do you?"

"Hmm." I'm nervous, suddenly. The reason I never spoke up about how painful it was to sit through a meal with her was simple; I didn't want to offend her, or – more likely – have her make fun of me because I can't handle her ridiculously spicy food. "It's okay."

"No," Santana snorts, and the fork clatters against the plate when she sets it down. "You hate it. Don't lie to me, Quinn Fabray."

"Uhh," I shift on the bed next to her, folding my knees into a crisscross position. I run my fingers over the thin silver bracelet on my wrist, spinning it slowly. "It's just, kind of spicy."

"This?" Santana's voice is incredulous. "This is spicy? It's not even close."

I'm still trying to think up a response when Santana just laughs. "Do you want to order some Chinese?"

It makes me smile. "Sure."

"Of course, we'll have to make sure not to get you anything too spicy from there, either," Santana's lips curve in a smirk. "Your poor white girl taste buds can't handle it."

"Santana." My voice is pleading. "You aren't going to let me live this down, are you?"

"Not a chance, Tinkerbell," Santana smiles when she says it.

The thing about that is, at least Santana is eating – and as the days crawl by, I can see the way her skin fills out again, the way her cheeks swell even more when she smiles. It's gradual, and part of me thinks that maybe she won't ever be the same again, but I try not to focus on that. Instead I think more about how grateful I am that she's here, and she's okay, and that nothing worse happened to her.

In contrast to the cold way she treats her mother, Santana is almost shy and strangely open with Danika. I don't particularly understand their relationship, and the woman never spends more than ten minutes in Santana's room, but it's filled with her guttural, broken English and what might be a strange, bastardized Spanish, and Santana grinning from ear to ear.

When that happens, I like to sit back and watch, because I feel like I'm being exposed to a rare and beautiful phenomenon. It's like seeing a robin in the middle of winter, or snow in the late spring. A kind of everyday miracle that makes you wonder about life and its many intracasies. I've never seen Santana the way she is with Danika, though their visits are brief and I understand almost nothing of what is said between them.

Occasionally I'll catch Santana watching me watching her, and her face will drop in self-deprecation, as if she's embarrassed to be seen so open and so warm. It makes a small part of my heart break to think that Santana would feel the need to hide any part of her, but particularly this part.

Still, in another way, I understand Santana and why she would want to keep certain aspects of herself tucked away from the outside world. Especially the most tender parts, the parts most liable to bruise.

Xxx

Santana is getting stronger every day. Her mother takes her to physical therapy three times a week, and before the end of the month she can make short trips around the house without help. It makes something inside me slowly unwind, something I didn't even know had been tightened to begin with. I can tell that Santana feels my anxiety when I watch her do something as simple as walking, because occasionally she'll look at me from across the room and when she catches my gaze, her face will immediately react, sometimes with a smile and sometimes with a frown.

"I'm not going to break, Q," She said, the last time this happened and she caught me staring at her with my lip trapped between my teeth. "Even if I did fall, I would live."

I can't just turn off the worry.

I want to say it, but I know it's the opposite of what Santana wants to hear, so I don't say anything.

She isn't going to come back to school, a fact that irritates her more as the days pass.

"Figgins says if I take summer school then I might be able to graduate next year," Santana explains, her jaw on edge. "But it's too late to go back this year. I've missed too much."

"Not surprising." I'm trying not to irritate her, because I can see her building herself into a fury as she paces around the inside of her room. I take in small details all at once, the sharp edge of her computer desk, the corner of her dresser. I want to leap up and grab her, and set her gently on her bed, away from all the things that could hurt her if she fell suddenly.

"It's because that Vishnu-worshipping kumquat hates me," Santana hisses, her fists clenching.

"Principal Figgins is a Christian."

"Shut up, Q," Santana picks up a globe paperweight from her dresser, turns it impatiently in her hands, and then flings it back down again. It rattles and smacks against the wood before it rolls behind her dresser with a dull thunk. "I'm so sick of this place! I need to get out of here."

I know that it's useless to try to reason with her when she's like this. Before the accident, Santana's aggression and irritation would have a grating effect on me. It would make me want to react with claws and venom, but now I just want to hold her until she calms down.

I stand up and close the distance between us, and tentatively run a hand down her back. Santana's spine is still sharp, pressing against her black t-shirt, and I can see the definition of her shoulder blades inside the fabric. She pauses, her restless hands freezing, and I can practically feel her heartbeat beneath my palm.

Slowly, Santana turns around, and she won't look at me, though we're close enough to kiss. She sighs, her eyes flitting to the corner of the room, and she cinches her fingers in front of her waist. "I don't even have a car anymore," Her tone is so forlorn and piteous. "My dad won't buy me another one, so I'm practically under house arrest. I'm going crazy."

We haven't been this close to one another, upright and face-to-face, since before her accident. I've missed the way her head tilts slightly to the right and back, in order to meet my eyes, and the way her lips part so slightly from here. "Do you want to go somewhere?"

"Now?" Santana sounds surprised. Her gaze darts towards mine and then away, and I could swear her cheeks darken, even though I wouldn't know why. "Where?"

"Anywhere you want."

The moment hangs, suspended between us for a beat, two, while Santana looks at me – really looks – and I hold my breath, expectant. I want to kiss her. My heart starts to knock in my chest, my lips begin to tingle, and all the blood rushes to my head. Something in Santana's eyes darken, her pupils shifting in a ring of chocolate, and it seems like the world stops spinning.

"I can't," Santana says, weakly, and it snaps me out of my stunned haze. I blink, swallowing a heavy breath, and then give a single dazed nod. "My mom. She won't – she'll worry."

I don't think Santana is very concerned with her mom worrying about her; and I think she knows that I know that. The palm of my hand slides gently against her arm, and I'm surprised by how warm her skin is beneath it. Santana flushes and looks away, and the spell is broken between us. I step away from her and she shifts, gliding around me.

"I have to go," I feel like my own voice is coming in from a distance.

Santana sits on the edge of her bed and looks up at me.

"You don't really have to,"

I don't understand anything about Santana, even though I try – and sometimes I do a good job of convincing myself that I do. The way she's looking at me now, her eyes pleading, makes me think she wants me to stay. It tugs at my heart, making everything inside me feel liquid and heavy.

I remember the second before, when we breathed the same air and I could almost taste her, and it splits me in half.

"What do you want me to do, Santana?"

Santana's face softens until it almost breaks, and I can so easily see the way things are warring inside of her. She glances into her own lap and then back up to me, and her hair hangs in dark ringlets around her face.

"Stay with me." She almost whispers it. "Please."

I know that I will never be strong enough to deny her.

That night, after we change and slide beneath her comforter, Santana wraps her arms around me and lays her head on my shoulder. I can smell the herbal scent of her shampoo and the minty waft of her toothpaste, and also the dark, warm smell that is the difference between Santana now – alive and awake – and Santana before, asleep and comatose. It smells both spicy and sweet, like cinnamon, and also a warm, rich smell like overturned earth. The scent is strongest in the places most intimately Santana, like the crease behind her ears and in the crook of her neck. I slide my hands through her hair and run a finger there, brushing the soft skin, and Santana stretches, snugging closer to me.

We spend almost every night like this, curled together with every part of our bodies touching. During the day, we exchange glances and small touches, and sometimes the way Santana smiles at me makes me feel like my heart is going to melt.

But Santana has been awake for nearly a month now, and we haven't kissed, or said I love you. I feel it every day; the words engraved themselves on my bones and under my skin, and sometimes it pounds inside of me incessantly just like a heartbeat. Part of me is dying to say it, but Santana is hard and brittle like flint, and it makes me feel nervous.

I kiss the top of her head, and I feel her breath hit my neck. She flings an arm across my midsection, winding even closer to me. Like always, Santana falls asleep before I do. I wait, watching faint light reflections dance across the ceiling, until she starts mumbling and murmuring, her lips brushing the side of my shoulder.

A lot of things changed when Santana had her accident. But at least this hasn't. And I'm grateful.

A/N: I'm so sorry for the long wait for this. I appreciate everyone who is still reading. Let me know what you think!