Rachel beams as Blaine steps out of the curtain call line and, grinning widely, bends low at the waist for the audience who are already on their feet, cheering. When he comes back to the line, she takes his hand and reaches out to take Santana's for the last ensemble bow of the evening.
Their newest costar smiles brightly at Rachel before leaning forward enough to extend her proud smile to Blaine. Santana feels Rachel squeeze her hand and she knows it's her cue. Together, the trio steps forward and graciously bow, again, for their audience. She lifts her head and peeks up at the crowd, as much as she can see past the bright lights washing the stage, and allows herself a moment to take in their cheers and the electricity coming from them.
Even after the cast has filed off stage, the crowd's enthusiastic applause continues.
"One more," Rachel says excitedly, pulling Santana's hand and leading her from the wings onto the stage, again. Once there, she puts her hand on her friend's back and pushes her lightly, forcing her to step forward. It's obvious who the crowd came to see and it's obvious that they weren't disappointed.
Santana isn't prepared for the emotions that overwhelm her in that moment. She's certain that she couldn't possibly smile any wider and yet, it's somehow not nearly enough to convey her happiness. With a few mouthed thank yous to the audience, she tries to communicate how humbling their affection is.
Deciding that it's time to share the attention, she turns her head and holds her hands out for her co-stars. Blaine winks in his boyishly charming way, takes her hand and leads her in a bow as she realizes that Rachel isn't standing beside her anymore.
Flowers are, of course, a tradition for opening night. It takes a moment for Santana to realize what's happening when Rachel, grinning widely, rushes onto stage with a large bouquet. She holds them out with one hand and pulls Santana into a hug with the other. "You were fantastic," she says over the cheers. "Congratulations."
Santana cradles the flowers in one arm and holds onto her friend with the other. Her lips hover close to Rachel's ear in the hopes that her surprised "thank you" can be heard over the applause.
The other woman pulls back and, with a smile that promises not to fade, lets go of her friend and claps along with the audience until Blaine ushers them off the stage again.
"Hey, I got you slightly less pretentious but equally pretty flowers." He grabs a small bouquet from the stage manager's desk. "For you," he says regally as he presents them to her with a half-bow.
"Aw, dude." Santana loops her arm over his shoulder to give him a quick one-armed hug. "They're beautiful." As releases Blain and lifts both bouquets to her nose she grimaces. "I didn't realize - I kinda feel bad. I didn't get you guys any flowers."
Rachel shakes her head and teases, "It's not our opening night, silly."
"But you can bring coffee tomorrow since we're staying up late just to catch your reviews," Blaine suggests. "We are, right? It's an opening night thing - " He tilts his head and quirks his brows. "Right?"
"I'm in," Rachel says, nodding. "Though I can already tell you that the words amazing, and maybe even scene-stealer will appear often." She winks at Santana to let her know that the thought of sharing the spotlight doesn't bother her in the least.
Santana gives them both a soft look, suddenly feeling every bit part of the family their director was telling her they were. "You don't have to stay up, guys. You," she smirks as she turns her attention to Blaine, "need your beauty sleep, Blainers."
"So does Rach, but we're staying up anyway. It's a perk of being a grown up." He leans in close, his eyes twinkling with mischief. "No bedtime."
Santana laughs lightly before rolling her eyes. "I need to check on Maya, who does have a bedtime. And I should put these lovelies in some water. And –" She pauses for dramatic effect and then waggles her brows, "I think a certain stylist wants to tell you how amazing you were tonight." Santana nudges her head towards the call board where Kurt is pretending to be busy looking at the notices.
"Stylist, huh?" Blaine's eyes quickly move to Kurt and, when the other man glances over, he gives him his best charming smile. At Kurt's sly smile, he steps away, an appreciative "nice" falling from his lips.
"I think you must be confused, Santana. This isn't Fiddler on the Roof," Rachel says, her voice teasing. "There's no matchmaker role in Jekyll and Hyde."
Santana shrugs and jokes, "I can't help my ways, Rachel." Her gaze locks onto Rachel's and she dips her head as she causally says, "About what Blaine said? You don't need any beauty sleep. You're absolutely stunning."
"And you're full of it," Rachel says, laughing loudly and pushing her friend's shoulder. "You're high from being on stage. And come the morning paper, you're going to be high from the reviews." She purses her lips, raises her chin defiantly and announces, "I'll accept no compliments until you come down."
Santana rolls her eyes playfully and motions Rachel to follow her. "What do you have against compliments? If I remember correctly, you used to be kinda big on them. There was always something nice flying out of your mouth and smacking me upside the head." She teases as heads to her dressing room.
"Ah, so, you were hoping for compliments and flowers?" Rachel's smile doesn't falter at the teasing banter that borders on being flirtatious. She should care but she's just come off the stage and it's really hard for her to care about something like the possibility of being disappointed or the fear or heartache when she can still feel the rhythm of the audience's applause pulsing in her veins.
Santana dips her head to smell the flowers, again. "They're beautiful. Really." She smiles warmly as they walk towards her dressing room.
"I'm glad you like them."
"Excuse me, Santana Lopez?" a young man in a courier uniform asks, interrupting the two women as they walk by.
Santana turns to the young man, a smile on her face, and she raises her brows expectantly. "Yeah? Hi."
"Uh, hey. Can I get you to sign for this?" He holds out an express mail envelope attached to his clipboard.
Rachel blinks in confusion. Obviously from his uniform, she knows he's not a fan looking for an autograph. Beside, they usually stake out the stage door. But she's also never known a messenger service to have couriers running at ten o'clock at night. Without prompting, she reaches over and takes the flowers from Santana, freeing her friend's hands so that she can sign.
It's clear from the crease above Santana's nose and the way her lips are pressed into a thin, down-turned line that this isn't an expected communication. She doesn't wait for the courier to walk away, before ripping into the envelope.
At first she's not sure what she's looking at. The packet in her hands looks like a copy of the divorce papers she'd had her lawyer draw up. Only, she expected that it would take a little while for Matt to look at it and give it to his lawyer to review before he signed and returned it. The turnaround on this is much too quick and it makes her fingers tingle with nervous energy.
She quickly flips to the last page, already knowing what she's looking for. Instead of Matt's sloppy signature, she's met with a blank line. Santana's frown deepens as she begins to flip from the back to the front of the document, searching for an explanation.
She finds it when she spots a light blue post-it note affixed below the paragraph detailing the custody terms.
I'm not forwarding to my lawyer or signing until my name is here. This isn't all on me. You left me long before I left you.
"Are you okay?" Rachel asks when Santana's mouth opens but the other woman doesn't say anything. "What is it?"
Santana purses her lips together, trying her best to stay calm. She can't help that her eyes tear up or than her jaw clenches tightly. Inhaling deeply, she shakily says, "I have to talk to Holly."
"What's wrong?" her co-stars eyes widen and she gently grasps Santana's arm. "What's going on?"
The other woman pushes the envelope and divorce papers toward Rachel and then crosses her arms over her chest. "He's not signing them."
Taking the papers and awkwardly shifting the flowers so that she can look at the document, Rachel rifles through the pages to find that there is, in fact, no signature on the final page. She flips back to where she saw a post-it note and, as she reads, her lips pull into a deep frown.
Santana quickly snatches the papers out of the other woman's hands and stalks down the hallway to her dressing room. The moment the door handle is within reach, she throws the door open and scans the room. Her manager isn't there yet.
She tosses the envelope and papers on her dressing table and makes her way to the small couch where Maya is curled up under her Hello Kitty blanket, sleeping. Perching herself on the arm of the couch, she runs her fingers through her daughter's hair and tries to keep her head from spinning.
"Where the hell is Holly?"
By the time Rachel catches up to Santana, the other woman, still perched over her sleeping daughter, has gotten her cell phone and is furiously typing out a message.
: Where are you?! I need you to be here NOW. Now = 2 sec ago.
Rachel watches the other woman carefully. She's really not sure why she followed Santana. The rest of the cast are loitering in the hallways and celebrating with champagne toasts and crude bastardizations of the show's songs. They probably expect Rachel to make an appearance (if not a small speech) on her way to her dressing room. She always does.
And even though it's Holly who Santana wants to see, Rachel has decided to be available, too – albeit it rather hastily and with very little reasoning to back up the decision.
"Move. C'mon, get out of the way," a voice calls out harshly in the hallway pulling Rachel's attention away from Santana. "I'll show you what 'break a leg' means in other parts of New York City. Move it!"
Rachel takes a step back and peeks around the doorframe to see Holly pushing her way through the ensemble cast. The woman snatches a glass of champagne from one of the understudies as she barrels toward Santana's dressing room.
The first thing Holly notices is that Rachel is hanging around Santana's doorway. Her eyes narrow suspiciously at the woman as she breezes past her.
"Hey!" The word is already hanging in air before Holly steps inside the dressing room. That's when she notices Maya sleeping peacefully under her mother's watchful eye. She repeats in a whisper, "Hey."
Rachel follows Holly into the room, closing the door behind her. Not wanting to overstep the boundaries of their newly rekindled friendship, she decides her attention is best focused on the flowers in her hand and sets about looking for a vase.
"What's wrong? Your text sounded weirdly panicked and overtly ominous."
Santana's eyes remain on Maya as her fingers gently brush through her messy, curly hair. Without moving her attention away from the little girl, she points to the envelope and papers on the dressing table.
Holly skims the packet, a deep frown settling on her face, and then carefully reads Matt's note. "Fucking stupid son of a bitch," she whispers.
Santana looks up at Holly, her eyes shine with tears she's fervently trying to hold back. When she speaks, her voice is a rough whisper. "He's going to fight for her. What if he wins?"
"He's not getting her, Santana," her friend vows, tossing the papers roughly onto the make-up table. "Matt fucked up and everyone knows it. It was all over Twitter, Instagram – anyone with internet access has proof of how badly he's screwed up. No judge is going to take a little girl away from her mother and give her to a guy like him."
Rachel can't help but ask, "A guy like him?"
"A cheater," Holly says definitively. "It shows disrespect for women and disregard for family."
Santana pinches the bridge of her nose and huffs out a frustrated breath. "That's not the point. He's going to play up the 'I never loved him' angle."
"Which he can't prove," Holly states firmly. Her eyes soften as they drift to where Maya is resting. "The way I see it, that little girl right there is all the proof you need that you did."
Rachel nervously and, subconsciously, clears her throat as she busies herself arranging the flowers.
"I do have to ask," Holly begins haltingly, raising her brow and inhaling deeply. "Is there anything else I need to know? You told me about your little fling with Rachel and that's easy to explain away as youthful experimentation. But is there something he can drudge up? Anything?"
Rachel clenches her jaw, her lip caught painfully between her teeth, and forces herself to focus on the flowers in front of her. She tries to let go of what Holly said, knowing that, had she been the one explaining her past with Santana, "a little fling" would not be how she would have described it.
Santana considers her options as she watches her little girl sleeping peacefully. It's clear to her that Holly needs to know everything but she just isn't sure how to start. After taking a deep breath, she turns her gaze to Holly, meets her friend's eyes and gently says, "I think you should sit down."
"I don't want to sit down," her friend says cautiously as her body goes into defensive mode: arms crossed, back straight and shoulders squared. "If I sit down, you're going to tell me something I don't want to hear. I'll stand, thank you very much."
Santana frowns, sighing at her friend. "Holls, c'mon. It's not like that."
Holly raises her eyebrows in warning and points at Santana as she sits gingerly in the vanity chair. "It better not be like that."
After a few false starts, the other woman inhales deeply before offering, "I maybe wasn't really, y'know, in love with Matt. Ever. Really. I guess." After a beat, she admits, "I wasn't."
She shakes her head as she tries to explain, the words running quickly out of her mouth. "I wanted to be. I should have been. We were the perfect couple - cheerleader, basketball star." She pauses and presses her lips together as she squints up at Holly. "He was my best friend, and I really did love him."
"... and somehow he knew you weren't in love with him so he thinks it's okay to screw other women?" Holly asks impatiently. "That's not how it works, San."
Santana doesn't know how to say what she needs to say. It's easier for her to just let her shoulders express her inability to communicate what's sitting on the tip of her tongue. It doesn't help, of course, that Rachel is there, her focus seemingly on carefully placing more flowers than can actually fit into her small, blown glass vase. She may not know the other woman as well as she used to, but she's sure her attention is only half on the flowers.
Clearing her throat, she tries again. "Maybe not, but - that's how it was. I thought, y'know, I thought marrying him was the right thing to do, you know? I thought, in time, I'd fall in love with him."
Rachel pulls her bottom lip between her teeth and pretends that the flowers need extra arranging. She places and re-places each flower, tugs lightly on some of the stemmed leaves and even pokes the petals as though fluffing them.
Holly sighs as she throws her hands into the air and lets them fall with a dull smack onto her thighs. "Okay, fine," she finally says. "You didn't love him. That's not a crime or a sin."
Santana swallows roughly, recognizing a window of opportunity when it's opened. "No, but being gay is – to some people." Her eyes are drawn to the floor not only because she can't seem to look into her friend's eyes, but also because she's pretty sure from the feeling in her stomach that the ground just opened up and she's in a free fall.
The vase Rachel had just started to lift from the vanity slips, its base making a dull thud as it falls back into place. Her fingers fumble, causing the flowers to shake against each other and a little bit of water to splash onto the vanity as she clumsily tries to make sure it doesn't topple over.
Holly spins around, venom in her eyes as glares at her through the mirror. "What? You think being gay is a sin, Tinkerbell?"
"Me? No - I -" the woman sputters, her eyes large and round under Holly's scrutiny.
Santana's eyes widen and she gives Holly a warning look. "Holly, don't."
Her friend turns more fully in an effort to really look at Rachel. "No, I'd like to hear her answer."
Rachel huffs and spins around, crossing her arms over her chest. "I was raised by two men. So, no - I don't think it's a sin." She returns the other woman's hard glare. "And why you think I would when you know about our," she pauses and then grimaces in distaste as she says, "little fling is beyond me."
Santana sighs and stands up, whispering harshly. "Stop it – both of you. I just said something out loud that I've never had the courage to say before. I've been struggling, fighting against this for years and you're - what are you doing? You're making it about you two?"
"I didn't make it about anything. In case you didn't notice, I was being attacked" Rachel whispers harshly. She clenches her jaw before taking a deep breath. "I shouldn't even be here -" Rachel is a nervous ball of fluster as she backs toward the door. "I should go."
"What? No! Don't go ..." Santana looks pleadingly at her friend. "Please."
Holly narrows her eyes as though studying her friend.
"Look," Rachel begins, trying to be calm and level-headed. Admittedly, it's not something she's known for being able to pull off. She takes a step closer and touches Santana's arm. "It's been a crazy night for you already. I think you need to talk to your manager more than you need a cast party" Squeezing Santana's arm, she offers, "Do you want me to email you the review highlights?"
Santana takes a deep breath as she gazes into Rachel's eyes. "Only if you feel like staying up." She gives her a weak smile.
Holly's eyes move as though she's watching a tennis match. All the while, her mouth is thinning as she presses her lips together.
"Yeah." Rachel musters up shy smile in return. "I probably won't be able to sleep." She blinks a few times before giving her friend's arm a last little squeeze and then letting go of it. "Call me in the morning?"
"Yeah, I will. Definitely."
Holly sighs loudly and rolls her eyes. "And you can leave now," she finally says as she makes shooing motions with her hand. "Unless you're going to say goodbye a few more times ..."
Rachel swallows roughly, her eyes finding the floor. Without a word to Holly, she starts to leave. She's out of the door and about to close it when she says, "And you really were fantastic tonight, Santana. Don't let anything else ruin that, okay?"
"Thanks, Rach." She watches her friend leave before turning to her manager and narrowing her eyes at her. "I get that you're upset, but you didn't have to take it out on Rachel."
"Rachel?" Holly asks, pointing to the door. She struggles to keep her voice low. "You mean the Rachel you had a fling with in high school? The one you had a lesbian fling with who just happens to have come back into your life? And what else is new in your life, let me think. Oh! Now you're saying you're gay!" She shakes her head and points at Santana. "Oh, I think it's more than okay to take it out on her."
"What're you trying to say?" Santana purses her lips together, her eyes wide with disbelief as she looks into Holly's.
"I'm just going to ask you," the other woman says. "I'm not even going to beat around the semi-pun of a bush." She gets to her feet, crosses her arms over her chest and straightens her back. "Are you dating her?"
Santana's mouth falls open and she scoffs. "I can't believe you'd even think - "
"What? That you'd date Rachel without telling me? That you'd date anyone without telling me? Why not?" The chuckle Holly pushes out is harsh and, for a moment, she thinks it's almost enough to wake up Santana's daughter.
When the little girl doesn't react, Holly closes her eyes and forces herself to breathe before continuing.
"Just a few weeks ago, you told me that what you had with her was," she shrugs, "some experiment. Something that was nothing. And now you're telling me that Matt has something to hold over you and that you're gay. What am I supposed to think? Does that sound like I have a reason to think you trust me?"
"You think I don't trust you? God, that isn't it at all." Santana swallows roughly as her mind tries to come up with the right words to explain. Had she prepared, maybe she could have come up with something that would rationalize how she's handled this. But this? This wasn't how she'd planned to have this discussion. She'd actively planned, instead, to never have this discussion.
"Of course I trust you. You're, like, one of the only people in the world I do trust. But you have to understand that -" Santana looks away, her eyes dropping to the floor. She's not sure if she's embarrassed or ashamed at this point. "I just - I wasn't ready to admit it. Not to anybody and not to myself."
The other woman steps up to her friend and dips her head, forcing the other woman to meet her eyes. "Have I ever judged you?" she asks, her eyes much more serious than Santana has ever seen.
Santana's eyes widen at the intensity in Holly's. "That isn't what this is about, I promise. It – I promise, this isn't about you. I wasn't ready to say it out loud. I thought, it's stupid, okay? But if I said it out loud then it'd be real, you know? If I told someone, that would be it out there and when something's out there, there's no taking it back." She lowers her voice. "I wasn't ready for that."
"But now you are," Holly asks slowly. "Because your timing ..."
She sighs. "I know. I know, you think I'm telling you this because of Rachel." She looks confidently into Holly's eyes. "I'm not with her. I promise. I would tell you if I was."
Holly searches her friend's eyes for the truth. Once she accepts her words are genuine, she pulls Santana into a firm hug. "You know I love you, right?" Holly asks.
Santana allows the other woman to hold her tightly before bringing her own arms to circle around her friend. "I know."
"Good, because I'll break your arms off if you ever keep anything from me again," the other woman replies, the warmth in her voice softening the message. She pulls out of the embrace and holds Santana at arm's length. Her voice suddenly grows serious when she asks, "So, what does Matt have that he can give to the press? Any evidence of lesbionic behavior?"
Santana shrugs and bites her bottom lip. "Who knows? I mean, I never cheated on him or anything. But …" Her shoulders rise and she blows out a breath.
"But, you called him a girl's name during sex?"
Santana gasps and smacks her manager's arm gently. "Very funny."
"Assault." Holly points her finger at her friend. "Careful, I know the press."
Santana chuckles and rolls her eyes playfully. "Just - I'm just saying, I've lived with him. I don't think he has any proof or anything, but, I guess, you can never be too sure."
"Okay, things he might have on you ..." Holly holds up her hand and, before she starts ticking off her list on her fingers, she says, "stop me when I hit something ..."
She starts counting on her fingers, "lady-on-lady porn, subscription to Curve, Girlfriends or Popular Mechanics …" Holly grins and waggles her brows at Santana.
Santana frowns and narrows her eyes at her friend. "Are you going to continue making fun of me?"
"I'm not making fun, Santana," her friend says calmly. "If anything, I'm just showing you that nothing's changed. Unless you want me to start treating you differently."
Holly purses her lips and looks at Santana expectantly. "Nothing has changed, right? You don't want to, like, rip my clothes off or anything ... right?"
Rolling her eyes, Santana lets out a frustrated breath before saying, "Nothing has changed."
"I'm a little disappointed, to be honest." Holly heaves a sigh and runs her hands over her sides. "I've got a rockin' bod, Santana. I mean, really. You're missin' out."
She winks and then says, "Seriously, though. What are you afraid Matt's going to say? If there's nothing material for him to go to the press with, then it's all just gossip. And, on the heels of what he's done? No one's going to believe a word out of his lying, cheating, bad boy mouth."
Santana shrugs, her lips dipping into a frown. "I just don't want to give him anything. No advantage at all, okay? I can't lose Maya."
"You won't." Holly takes both of Santana's hands in her and looks into her eyes. "I won't let him. Trust me, okay?"
Santana knows it's ridiculous the moment it's out of her mouth but she can't help it when she asks, "Promise?"
Holly simply lifts a finger to her chest and crosses her heart.
