Note: An unused portion of Coming Back as We Are
... in which Santana tries to get Rachel to move their slumber party to the treehouse.
Also, this was before the handmaid meme ...
"Are you sleeping?" Santana whispered, peeking over the side of her bed where her friend was bundled up in her Hello Kitty sleeping bag. Even with the curtains open and the full moon lighting the corner of the room, she couldn't tell if Rachel was sleeping or just being uncharacteristically quiet and staring at the ceiling.
Her friend was silent for a moment longer before she hummed and whispered, "I suppose I am. But I might not have been a minute ago."
The other girl wrinkled her nose and, pushing the hair out of her face, she suggested, "Let's go sleep in the tree house."
"It's too cold."
"It's just right with our sleeping bags and blankets and stuff. C'mon, Rach," Santana whine. "Please? Pretty please?"
Rachel let out a soft sigh. She wasn't very good at this peer pressure thing - a fault Santana wasn't too proud to take advantage of.
"Fine. But you're carrying my sleeping bag up," she demanded. "Last time I nearly fell and broke my neck."
"Last time you nearly fell on me and broke MY neck," Santana corrected her friend as she swung her legs out of the bed and started rolling up her blanket. "Stepping on my hand was bad enough."
"You shouldn't have crowded me on the ladder." Rachel pushed the sleeping bag off of her legs as she spoke. "It was dark and you weren't doing a very good job of lighting the ladder."
"It's a key ring flashlight, Rachel," the other girl argued, pushing at her friend until she rolled out of the sleeping bag. "It lights where it's pointed and, because you insisted on going first, that meant it was pointed at your boney butt."
Rachel gasped. "My backside is not boney!"
"And that's the point of this discussion, isn't it?" Santana shook her head as she gathered the sleeping bag and her blankets. "You have everything you need?"
Rachel shrugged "I guess."
"Okay," Santana whispered as she tip-toed to the bedroom door. "Quietly. If you wake Mama, she'll make us come back here to sleep."
" ... obviously a horrible idea ..."
"You're the one who wanted to be friends. You totally signed up for this," Santana joked in a hushed whisper.
Years had passed since the morning that Rachel stood on her doorstep and, using her best manners and most friendly smile, tried to befriend the other girl. It wasn't that Santana wasn't interested in a new friend; it was just that she wasn't sure about this particular girl's ability to fulfill that role. She was very different from her other friends - everything about her was very different.
Santana's nose wrinkled when she opened the door to find a short, skinny girl with big, brown eyes staring up at her. She wasn't sure why the girl was smiling so big. At first she thought that maybe her hair bow was too tight and she was trying to be brave and not show it. That's what Santana always did when she got hurt.
Her latest injury - compliments of a flying monkey attack as she traversed the backyard in her pirate ship - required two band-aids and her telling her daddy three jokes to convince him that she wasn't hurt too badly to go back to her treasure hunt.
That was the other thing about Rachel. Her knees were completely injury-free. Not even a scratch.
What kind of games was she supposed to play with a girl who didn't even have a bandage on her knee?
"Hi?" she said unsurely to the little girl staring at her from the doorway.
"Hello! I'm your new friend. My name is Rachel and I'm six years old," Rachel informed her happily. "And you're six, too. Your daddy told my daddy. And then he told Daddy that I should come over and play with you. I live over there," she pointed down the street. "I'm not usually allowed to cross the street by myself but my Daddy was watching so it's okay."
Santana's eyes widened as the girl spoke. When Rachel mentioned her dad, Santana's eyes flicked to where a man stood on the lawn, a few houses down and across the street, and waved at her. She slowly lifted her hand and waved back, dumbfounded.
"Daddy suggested that I introduce myself to you and invite you to play," Rachel said. "Would you like to play inside or outside? I've very good at hide and seek, if that's something you think you'd like to do. I also play very nicely with dolls and other toys. I rarely have to get new toys because I treat them very well and don't break them. So, if there's a special toy you'd like to share, I promise not to break it. What kind of toys do you play with?"
Santana blinked owlishly a few times. "I have swords and stuff," she said slowly. "And, like, dress up things."
Rachel clapped and hopped in place. "I love to play dress up! Do you have a ballerina costume? I have a real ballet outfit because I take classes, but I also have one just for play with a tutu and tiara and everything."
"Like a princess ballerina?" Santana wrinkled her nose as she tried to picture it.
Santana squinted and studied Rachel. She could easily picture Rachel as a ballerina. And, okay, she could kind of see her as a princess. Rachel definitely had the hair for it. The girl wore it long with soft curls draped across her shoulders.
"I'd love to be a princess ballerina!" Rachel squealed happily. "And you could be my handmaid!"
Santana couldn't stop her upper lip from curling back in disgust. She had a bad feeling about this handmaid thing. "Do handmaids do cool stuff like save princesses from dragons and witches?"
Rachel shook her head. "No, of course not. That's what knights and princes are for. Handmaids," she informed her new friend, "braid the princess's hair and help her get ready for the royal ball."
"That sounds lame," the other girl said. "I don't wanna be that."
