Sleepover
Rachel had been thrilled when she was given the invitation to Hayley Matthews' sleepover. Even though the invitation had not been handed to her, as it had been with every other girl in their first grade class, but rather dropped onto the edge of her desk by Hayley's thumb and forefinger, as though she couldn't stand to hold onto it any longer than she absolutely had to; even though Hayley had not looked her in the eye, and several girls had giggled and made faces or loud, whispering comments when she let it drop. Even though Hayley had made sure to inform her, after all the invitations had been passed out, that Rachel had not been invited because she wanted to invite her, but rather because her mother had made her invite all the girls in her class and not leave Rachel out, Rachel didn't mind, at least, not very much. She knew that Hayley wouldn't have invited her because she wanted her to come, but it didn't matter to her much. She was invited to her very first sleepover, and this was very, very exciting.
Rachel had made sure to take the time to really consider the clothing and etiquette of a sleepover, studying movies, books, and sites on the internet to make sure she had down the details just right. She had made her fathers buy her baby-doll pajamas, had them put her hair in pigtails, and she had especially purchased a sleeping bag, just for the occasion. She had walked up to the front door of Hayley's house nervous, but beaming, prepared to have the time of her life. She was prepared for popcorn and movie watching, whispering and secret-sharing, hair-braiding and nail-painting, and even a pillow fight, although she had decided in advance that she would stay to the side with that. She didn't want to get hit in the face and possibly damage her nose, which could in turn damage her vocal chords.
But Rachel figured out her mistake right away, when she arrived inside the house and saw that none of the other little girls were already wearing pajamas; they were still dressed in jeans and t-shirts, shorts and tank tops, and her difference in appearance caused immediate whispers and giggles- not ones that she was included in, as she had envisioned, but ones solely about her. And Santana Lopez had outright mocked her.
"Oh, are you already gonna go to sleep?" she asked her mock innocently, even as her dimples in her cheeks and her glinting eyes revealed that she was laughing at her. "That's too bad. You're gonna miss out on a lot of fun stuff, but you're boring and don't like fun stuff so I guess that's okay with you."
"No, Santana, I'm not ready for bed yet, I simply thought that in a sleepover you are supposed to wear your pajamas," Rachel tried to explain earnestly. "I do like fun stuff. Except if you mean pillow fighting, but I can participate in any other activities of a sleepover. Except for spin the bottle, but I really do think we're much too young for that."
But Santana was already laughing at her, and inciting the other little girls to laugh at her too.
"Ewww Rachel wants to play spin the bottle with GIRLS! She wants to kiss girls, ewwww!"
The other little girls giggled, looking at Rachel and calling her "girl kisser," but at this, Rachel was beginning to be offended rather than embarrassed. Her chin lifted high, her dark eyes taking on a stormy appearance, she raised herself up to her full height, small as it was, as she answered them back fiercely.
"I do not want to kiss girls! But there wouldn't be anything wrong with that if we were older and ready to engage in a romantic relationship! My dads are both boys and they kiss all the time!"
This response only seemed to provoke the other children into even wilder giggling, and they nearly collapsed into a heap together, seeming to find Rachel's reply completely incomprehensible to the point of being silly or untrue. Only Santana blinked up at her, her little mouth drawing into a thin line as she put one hand on her hip, no longer laughing.
"My abuela says that's bad," she informed Rachel, narrowing her eyes at her. "She says your daddies are doing a sin and they're disgusting. She says they shouldn't never have touched me when I got sick last year and she made me take a really long bath 'cause they're sick too, she said. That's probably why you're so weird, 'cause your daddies are bad."
Rachel felt her ears begin to burn, her hands knot into fists, and before she could stop herself, her eyes filled with tears. She didn't wait to let them fall, not wanting Santana or the other children to see them. Instead she turned and ran towards the bathroom, aware of the other children, still talking about her, left behind.
She thought about calling her daddies to come get her then, but then Rachel thought about how sad they would be, knowing that she didn't have a good time and that other children were calling them bad. When she emerged from the bathroom, chin lifted high, taking slow breaths to quell her nerves, she made up her mind to stay even if the other children were still mean and didn't understand. And that was what she told herself- Santana and the other children didn't understand. Her daddies said so and they must be right.
But the rest of the evening passed fairly miserably for Rachel until bed time. Although Hayley's parents stopped any teasing they witnessed, the other little girls soon proceeded to simply ignore Rachel, not including her in games and storytelling, barely allowing her to remain on their outer fringe. She watched them run around chasing each other, laughing and shouting, putting shaving cream on each other's faces and braiding hair, and she was not a part of it. She stayed to the side, and when the others were laying out their sleeping bags, preparing for sleep, she was on the outer edge of the group- beside Santana, not because Santana wanted her there, but because everyone else knew that she kicked in her sleep. And Santana had made her displeasure with the arrangement obvious.
"I don't wanna sleep by Rachel!" she had protested, kicking her feet against the floor and scowling darkly. "I won't kick no one! You're all being mean!"
She was oblivious to the fact that she herself was inadvertently being mean by making a fuss about her sleeping arrangement, but Rachel remained silent, hiding her face in her pillow and pretending she didn't hear. When she felt Santana flop down on her sleeping bag beside her, she bit her lip, preparing herself for a very long night.
She had sort of expected to be awakened at some point in the night by feeling Santana kicking at her through her sleeping bag, but she hadn't expected, when she nudged Santana back with her own legs and attempted to curl up into a ball, to hear a sharp shuddery breath from the girl's direction, then what sounded like continuous muffled sobs. When Rachel started to sick up, concerned but still groggy, she squinted, making out Santana's huddled shape in the darkness. The other child was lying on her stomach, her face buried in her pillow, her back shaking with her tears as she clutched at the pillow's edge.
Rachel's eyes opened wide, and she reached for Santana's shoulder hesitantly. She didn't want the other little girl to hit out at her or be scared when she touched her suddenly, but she also wanted instinctively to help.
"Santana?" she whispered, leaning close to the other child's ear. "Are you sick? Santana?"
The other little girl's crying picked up in volume and tempo even as she pressed her face even harder into the pillow, but she didn't shrug off Rachel's hand. She continued to sob, not responding, as Rachel awkwardly began to pat her back, unsure of what else to do, but increasingly concerned.
"Santana? Does your tummy hurt? Did you have a bad dream?"
It took a few minutes before she could understand what Santana was saying, her voice muffled by the pillow and strained by her crying. "They're gonna get me. They're gonna come get me…I'm scared. They were gonna get me…"
"Oh…it's just a dream," Rachel said with some relief, although she did cast a nervous glance around to make sure of it before she answered the other child. She continued to pat Santana's back, a little more assuredly as Santana continued to accept this from her, her voice still pitched in a loud whisper. "No one's really gonna come get you, Santana, it was only a dream. You can go back to sleep and you won't have any more scary thoughts if you can have some good ones now."
"I don't care…I want my mami," Santana sniffled, lifting her face up from the pillow slightly, even as she hit it with her fist. "I want her."
That was understandable to Rachel; when she had bad dreams, she wanted her daddies too. She kept her hand on Santana's back, still speaking in what was more like a stage whisper than an actual one as she continued to talk to Santana.
"Do you want me to tell Hayley's mom to call your mami to come get you? I can. No one will make fun of you, everyone has bad dreams."
It didn't matter to her then that Santana had mocked her earlier that evening, that the rest of the little girls had done nothing to make her feel welcome. Santana was upset now, Santana was scared and wanted her mother, and Rachel could forgive it all with her empathy for her now. Just because Santana hadn't been nice to her didn't mean she couldn't be nice to her too.
"I can't call my mami," Santana told her, sniffling, and she turned her head a little, taking in a deep breath, as her eyes flitted up towards Rachel's from where Rachel remained hunched near her. "She's gotta work tomorrow so I'm not s'posed to go home with her after tonight, I gotta go with my abuela. And she'd be really mad if I made her come get me."
She sniffled again, her voice softer as she wiped her hand over her face. Looking down at her, Rachel bit her lip, thinking. She had seen for herself a few times how stern Santana's abuela could be, and she certainly remembered Santana parroting her words earlier in the evening. Her brow furrowing, she thought, still absently patting Santana, before a solution came to her.
"Well…how about you just go to sleep then? You won't think scary things…because I'll do what my daddies do for me. I'll sing to you until you go to sleep and it will be nice songs so you think happy thoughts. You could even have a whole musical in your dream, wouldn't that be nice? I love it when there's music in my dreams, it's so refreshing to wake up to. So you just lay back and close your eyes," she gestured for Santana to do so, getting herself more comfortable lying beside her, propped on one elbow and turned to face her. "And I'll sing. It will be good practice for me in keeping my voice low during high notes too."
Santana frowned faintly, again rubbing her fists over her eyes, and sniffed again, eyeing Rachel doubtfully as she considered what the other child was saying. "Your daddies seem nice…but they're bad," she whispered, the words carrying no harshness to the tone; if anything, Rachel thought she sounded sad. "My abuela says so."
"But they aren't," Rachel whispered back, widening her eyes at her. "I promise. Some people just think that, is all, but they really aren't. My daddies say that people are afraid of them because they don't understand how they love each other, but they love each other just like your mommy and daddy love each other, and that isn't bad, it's just different. People are afraid of them but they aren't scary, or bad, they're just different. Just…just like your dreams aren't really scary when you're awake because they're not really real, only when you're asleep and think they are," she added, and although this was a bit of a stretch, Santana seemed to accept this, nodding slowly as she started to close her eyes. "My daddies aren't really bad and neither are your dreams because they aren't real. So just keep your eyes shut and listen to me…"
She scooted a little closer to Santana in her back, keeping her mouth near the other child's ear as she began to sing, pitching her voice low and soothing, almost a lullaby in tone. Rachel watched as Santana's face relaxed, and gradually the six-year-old's head drooped over towards Rachel's shoulder, coming to rest there. Rachel hesitated, continuing to sing quietly, and then she let her head come to rest against Santana's, closing her eyes as well. When Santana's hand crept into hers, she was already nearly asleep and barely noticed the slightly damp fingers curl into her own.
"Ewwww, I told you, Rachel likes GIRLS! Look at her with Tana!"
Even before Rachel was fully awake the following morning, she felt her stomach flip over, sick with dread at what was to come. She could feel Santana's fingers still in hers, the other girl's head against her, and she knew, just knew that Santana would pull away, loudly declaring that she did not like girls, and especially Rachel Berry. She expected Santana to behave as though the other night had never happened, or even to blame her closeness to Rachel on Rachel. She cringed, eyes tightly shut, bracing herself for the insults.
But instead, Santana kept her hand in Rachel's for a few moments, sitting up with her chin jutted out, dark eyes flashing at the other children as she faced off to them. Small shoulders squared, she shot back, "So what, girls are cooler than smelly boys anyway. So shut your face…and anyway, Hayley, you don't have to worry, you're way too ugly for Rachel to like YOU."
Even as she pulled away from Rachel then, beginning to banter back and forth with the other girls and no longer paying her any mind, Rachel was beaming, even as she kept her eyes closed. Because for Santana, this was an almost Herculean act of kindness, to simply not mock her when given ample opportunity. It was almost like declaring that she was her friend.