A/N: Britt and San talk about God in this chapter, and I just wanted to let you all know that I'm not trying to offend anyone, whether you believe in God or not. Religion was very evident back then, and especially for Santana. Brittany, who had been raised in Nazi Germany as an Aryan, wasn't as familiar with God, which is why she asked about it. So, again, I hope that I don't offend anyone. I'm Jewish myself (although not very religious, if you can't tell...I write about lesbian love), so, really, my intention is not to offend, only to express their confusion about their faith. That's all. :) Enjoy the chapter!

It was almost like I could forget, lying there in Santana's arms. Her heated cheek leaned against my head, her protective arms hugged me tightly, and she was slightly rocking us back and forth. Her chest expanded gently with every calm breath. She radiated not only comforting warmth but also overpowering love. I felt a sort of joy that I had never felt before. Bliss that soared through my veins and transmitted the same message over and over again to my brain—she loved me. I felt gratification mixed with ecstasy and tranquil harmony. It was almost like I could forget.

I ran my hand over my stomach area, deep in thought. In nine months, I will give birth to an innocent baby that will fall victim to the twisted hands of the Nazis. If my child is a boy, then he will be inseparable from his father, learn his ways and be taught to treat the "inferior" as he would treat his dogs, or worse. He will grow up to serve, like every other proud Aryan, in the Nazi army or in the SS, where he will murder and possibly be killed himself. If my child is a girl, then she will be close to me. And I am the one who will have to tell her that she will be married to some brutal Nazi Major General who will steal her innocence and make her bear his children. Either way, whether my child was a boy or girl, he or she was in for a harsh and unfeeling life.

I couldn't wrap my mind around the idea that there was something living and growing up inside of me. And knowing that it was his made me want to dash to the bathroom to throw up again. I didn't feel like it was my child at all; I felt like he had put something of his inside me temporarily, and was just waiting for it to develop only so that he could snatch it away as soon as it came out. I was nothing but a carrier, a mailwoman who delivered a letter from one person to another. I was nothing but an offspring-producing machine.

There was this park by my apartment in Berlin. It was small and filthy and all of the kids thought that it was boring, but I loved to go there. The park originally had four swings, but three of them were either destroyed by vandalistic teenagers or had just aged so much that they simply fell off. But one was left. It had a green seat and squeaky metal ring links that dangled from the top of the rusty structure. When I was little, I would ask my mother to take me down there every day. She wouldn't have the patience to always do so, but when she did, I always had the time of my life. I would run to the deserted swing and smile at it affectionately before carefully sitting in it. I would push myself off of the ground and swing forward, then back, and then I would push myself off again. With the years, my leg muscles grew and I was able to push myself more powerfully every time. And one day, when I was around eight years old, I pushed myself so forcefully that, mid-air, one of the metal links broke and I flew off. I remembered, in the few seconds that I was in the air, how my heart stopped completely and the feeling that death was approaching much faster than it should've. And, finally, I hit the sand, landing on my arm, which broke in an instant. Never again did I want to go near a swing.

I had this same feeling now. A feeling that this joy of being with Santana wouldn't last for long. That, yes, sitting there, we were swaying happily on the swing, but that soon enough, the swing would break, allowing reality to lay down a heavy blow on us. We would fly off and have to deal with the maleficence that lurked outside of our little world. We would have to cope with the baby and with the danger and with him. And, lying there, tangled in her arms, me as her comfort, neither one of us really wanted to think about anything else.

"What are you thinking about?" Santana kissed my hair and leaned her chin on my head.

I nestled deeper into her. "How unlikely all of this is. Our love. How unlikely, but also how wonderful."

She chuckled throatily. "If I was told that I was going to love an Aryan girl, I would've never believed it."

I smiled into her arm. "I love you, too."

"I know," I heard the grin in her voice as her arms tightened around me. "It was when you opened yourself up to me like that, when you showed this overwhelming love, that I fell for you. Like I said, it's impossible not to love you."

I giggled softly and craned my neck up so that I'd be able to look into her dark chocolate eyes. They twinkled cheerfully and her mouth stretched into a gentle smile as I swallowed in her immeasurable beauty. Her face was a little plumper now, and she no longer looked like one of the victims down at the camp. Not that it mattered to me, how she looked. I would have loved her even if she wasn't as breathtaking as she was. But my instincts inferred that the plumper that she was, the healthier that she was. And that was the most important thing to me.

She stroked my hair tenderly and leaned her forehead down on mine. Now our eyes were mere centimeters apart and I could see my sky-blue ones reflected in hers. It was hard to determine who was more loving, but it was hardly a competition. Santana rubbed her nose slightly up and down against mine, never for a second stealing her gaze away from my eyes. Then she brought her chin to mine, making our lips connect, and our eyes closed simultaneously. Her arms continued to embrace me as she held us closer. I could feel the mutual desire to be as close as we possibly could, to almost melt into each other. If it were up to me, I would have stayed in that position for the rest of my life.

We slowly pulled out of the kiss. I wondered what I had done rightly to earn her love. Who had rewarded me for lasting through a life like this. Who had rewarded her for lasting through a life like hers, which was far worse than the life that I had to endure. Someone must have been looking down at us. Someone had to be watching over us and have given us this precious gift. "Do you believe in God, Santana?"

Her forehead still leaned on mine and her eyes lowered as she pondered my question. "I used to, because of my brother, Ángel. He was so sure of it, so faithful to Him, and it was hard not to follow his lead. But when he died…my faith wavered. I still believed in Him, but I didn't love Him as much as I had used to. I felt betrayed, I felt like He stole Ángel from me so that He could have him return to being one of His angels. And then, when my mother and I were put on a cattle train to Auschwitz, when we arrived here, when they sent her to the gas chambers right away for being so frail, I had lost my faith in Him completely. I didn't believe that if He existed, that He would allow this to happen."

I stroked her arm. This was the first time that she had told me how her mother had died. I gazed deeply into her eyes, which were back on me. "And now?"

"Now…" She shifted her eyes to the side, and then back to me again. "Now I have you, and being here, so close to you, it's hard to believe that we weren't blessed by someone. But then I think about all of the people who are still down at the camp, all of the victims and the corpses, and…" she sighed regretfully. "I don't know." Her eyes scanned mine, and I felt like she could read me like an open book. "What do you think?"

"Well…" I bit my bottom lip in thought. "We were never encouraged to believe in anyone but the Führer. It was always about the state with us, never really about religious faith."

"But what do you think?"

I raised my gaze back to her eyes. "It's hard for me to believe that this, us, happened by chance. And I want to believe that there's someone up there who's watching over us. I think that's what appeals to me about religion. The desire to feel like we're not alone here, like there's a greater someone who cares for us and wants to make sure that we're okay. Think about the gas chambers. If there is a God, then He saved you."

"You saved me," Santana said somewhat defensively and embraced me further into her. "You saved me. You're the reason that I'm alive, not anyone else."

I thought about what she was saying. How was it that I arrived at the gas chambers just in time to save her? A minute more, and she would've been dead. The timing was impeccable—too impeccable. But Santana had gone through so much, and I could understand why it was hard for her to believe in God. The thought of a God existing was far more painful to her than the thought of Him being nonexistent. If He existed, then she felt betrayed, abandoned. It was easier for her to think that we were alone in this world, man versus man with no outside interference. It was easier to believe that there was no God than that there was a biased one. A God who played favorites.

I was about to lean up to kiss her again when we heard the front door slam downstairs, and Herr Eberhardt's voice muttering some command to Ora. Our eyes locked in utter horror as we heard his boots ascending the stairs. Santana quickly released me from her embrace and we snapped our heads around in search of escape. My heart pounded hysterically in my chest and my sight became clouded with terror. I rushed to the window, but it was too high up for her to climb out of it. I silently turned back to her. Her eyes were wide open and kept darting from me to the door and back. Herr Eberhardt's boots were now in the hallway.

I whimpered quietly as I continued to search around for a place in which she could hide. There! The closet. I caught her attention and silently opened the door of the closet, gesturing for her to climb into it. She did as I told her, and just as I closed the door behind her, the door of my room swung open to reveal the stern face of my fiancé.

My fear must've shown on my face, because he eyed me suspiciously. I quickly let go of the closet handle, cleared my throat, and walked toward my bed. Ora suddenly appeared in the doorway, her face washed with the same panic that soared through my body. Her eyes darted around the room in alarm. Herr Eberhardt raised his critical eyebrows at her in question. She glanced up at him from the floor and said, "H—Herr, would you like me to fetch you some water?"

He clenched his teeth together, making his jaw seem even squarer than usual. His cruel eyes bore into Ora, making her slightly cower under his glare. He slowly shook his head, and she nodded and hurried out of the room. He calmly turned back to me. His callous eyes scanned me before he spoke, his voice, while quiet, entirely menacing. "Your reaction today was unacceptable."

I gulped apprehensively and dropped my gaze to the floor. When I was told of my pregnancy, I panicked completely and dashed upstairs, leaving him and the doctor behind.

"You are an Aryan. You serve Deutschland. Your sole purpose is to continue our race. You will bear many more children to me, and if you ever react in such a way again to this gift that I present to you, you will be punished accordingly. Do you understand?"

I nodded silently, my gaze still on the floor and my eyes threatening to shed tears.

"You are not here for your pleasure, you are here to serve me and do as I like. And if I tell you to be proud of being an Aryan, you will be proud to be an Aryan. Did I make myself clear?"

A large lump formed in my throat, but I could not bring myself to nod my consent. I hated being an Aryan. I hated having to serve him and raise his children and be "superior" to Santana. I found myself, again, wishing that I could live in another world, where this monster didn't exist. Where I could be free with Santana to do whatever I like and be whoever I want to be.

"Did I make myself clear?" he reiterated dangerously.

Tears began to stream down my cheeks in disorganized tracks. It would only take a nod for him to leave me alone, but I couldn't bring myself to declare my pride in being an Aryan. To declare my hatred for Santana and all of the other innocent people down at the camp.

Before I could look up to see his reaction to my silence, his hand flew down at my face in a slap that rang loudly through the room and sent me tumbling back to the bed. The tears flowed down more freely now as I raised my hand to my aching cheek, but I never let out a sound. I didn't, but someone else had.

Herr Eberhardt stared at the closet, out of which the horrified squeal came. My swollen eyes snapped from him to the closet and back to him as my heart beat so quickly that it threatened to break through my ribcage. He continued to glare at the closet in hateful surprise, then turned his dangerous gaze back to me. When he saw how petrified I was, he turned back to the closet and began to walk toward it, his boots pounding on the wooden floor. He reached out his hand to the handle as my swing in the park flailed around uncontrollably.

"MARRIAGE!" I gasped as a metal ring broke and I was sent flying through the air. He turned back to me, his hand still held above the handle.

"What?"

I tried to catch my frantic breath as countless tears poured down my face. The last thing that I wanted in the world was to marry him, but it was the only thing I could think of to distract him from finding her. My eyes still on his hand, which was so near the handle, I let out, "We can't let the child be bastard."

He considered this as his hand, to my gargantuan relief, lowered. He twisted his body back to me and said, "This is the first smart thing that I have ever heard you say. Maybe there's something more here than just a birdbrain. I will schedule our wedding to be before your pregnancy starts to show." And with that, he marched past me and out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

I let out a despaired sob and dropped to the ground. Santana hurriedly dashed out of the closet so that she could catch me as I soared down from my unexpected flight.

Translations

German

"Deutschland" – Germany.