Disclaimer: (Haven't seen one of these for a while, yeah?) I do not own Glee or any of the music that I mention in this chapter- except for the one I made up.

(Then You Have to Tell Her)

The songs were all wrong. Sure, they were great songs, over an impressive range of genres. They were also the songs that she'd been working her ass off on and the songs that her accompanist expected her to sing… Well, ok, she thought, she really didn't need or even want to change the whole program. There was just something missing. No, she wasn't actually confused about what she thought was missing. She just didn't want to think it too loud for fear that it would sound as ridiculous as she feared.

No, she thought, it was time to face her own thoughts. Yes, the idea was ridiculous, but it was what she really wanted and since when did Rachel Berry not go after what she really wanted? That accepted she just needed a plan, and she knew exactly the meddlesome bunch that she would go to for help with the details.

"Say it again." Candace could really be insufferable, particularly when you were asking a favor of her. It was probably because she knew that was the one situation where she could really get away with it.

Rachel grit her teeth, "I said, 'you were right', about Santana… and me… and since you enjoy calling your people mash-ups successes, you're going to help me do something foolishly beautiful."

"I like the sound of that. Well, actually, I like the sound of both of those things- me being right, and encouraging foolishly beautiful displays. I'm in. What do you need?"

"I need a song…" And from there, Candace went off with instructions to call Rachel by the end of the day.

Hours later Rachel felt as if she'd put in a full day, though she was still buzzed with equal parts excitement, nervousness, and sheer perfectionism. She'd gotten Candace's call and actually had enough time to make it to the music store. They hadn't actually had the song she'd wanted but they had ordered it for her. She'd gone back to the school music lab and printed off some pirated sheet music to use in the meantime- hey, it was fine as long as she'd paid for a legal copy! She'd even had a chance to meet her accompanist (a curiously non-talkative young man named Ben) to tell him that 'Maybe This Time' was out of the recital lineup and then she'd handed him the music that would be done in its stead.

Now she was finally getting back home and she just had one more favor to ask and she was absolutely sure that she wouldn't be denied. When she walked into the apartment, which seemed smaller every time she entered, two of three roomies were there and she could be sure that Brett would go along with the other two. Chris and Tanya were awfully hard to resist, after all. "All right, everyone, I have something to ask, a mission of utmost importance that only you can accomplish!"

"Ending your war with denial?" Chris asked and Tanya wiggled her fingers with his in a sign of approval.

"No," Rachel ground out, wondering why all of her friends were so irritating. "I have dealt with the 'denial' all on my own, thank you very much." Her friends actually cheered.

"Ah," Tanya said knowingly, "stage two then."

"Stage two," Chris echoed.

"Stage two! In which you do me a tiny favor at my recital." Rachel's 'star face' grin was bright enough to be dangerous.

In the days between their movie night and Rachel's recital, Santana had gone through a number of plans in her head. In the end she'd decided that simple was probably best. If she did something extravagant tonight and it went badly she'd then have to make up for ruining her (theoretical) girl's senior recital and that sounded like the kind of points that Santana couldn't afford to lose.

So, here she was with a modest yet interesting bouquet of flowers, sneaking in enough before the performance started not to make a scene, but late enough that there was no chance that Rachel would be out front talking with friends and family who'd made it out. She'd actually put some thought into the flowers she'd chosen. Well, she'd gone onto Wikipedia to look up meanings before she'd then gone to a shop to see which of her choices was actually available. She'd started with just some gardenias because they meant 'good luck' which is a nice thing to say to someone about to graduate and also 'secret love'. Then she'd decided that she'd throw in a couple red chrysanthemums because just the gardenias sounded a bit cowardly. She'd really wanted to have some lime blossoms but it was probably for the best that the shop didn't carry them…

The lights dimmed and Santana hurried to hide the bouquet safely under her seat before Rachel walked out on stage and blew her away- again. She was prepared for the hotness of the dress, but she hadn't realized just how much better Rachel's singing had gotten, and the little diva had already been extremely good five years ago.

Most of the people in attendance were having a somewhat similar experience getting reacquainted with Rachel's singing. They listened enrapt as she sang Schubert's Gretchen am Spinnrade, as a nod towards the classical. They smiled and laughed as she nailed Sondeheim's On the Steps of the Palace. They cheered, almost deafeningly at the end of her emotional rendition of Claude-Michel Schönberg's On My Own.

This brought them to intermission and left Santana with another decision to make. She really wanted to get up and move. It wasn't really that she'd been sitting so long, but she was nervous and excited and… whatever. She considered finding Rachel then but once again was stopped by the 'if it sucks, you've wrecked her recital' logic. In the end she decided to leave her flowers under the seat and her jacket over the chair to discourage someone else from sitting there so that she could wander the remaining minutes.

That's when Santana was kidnapped by a fashionable Viking.

Less than a minute left of her intermission was left when Brett found Rachel to give his report. "Did you find her? Did it work? Does she know?"

Brett just looked amused at the rapid fire questions and calmly answered when she'd finished. "Yes, we found her straight off. Yes, we convinced her to do the warm-ups. Finally, though I'm pretty sure that she thinks we're insane, your girl doesn't suspect our real motives in the slightest." It had taken some doing. He was really glad they'd come up with as good a ruse as they had- that of arguing which vocal exercises were more effective and drafting Santana as an 'unbiased judge' to try them out and make the final call.

This information was an immense relief to her and Rachel threw her arms around her friend. "Thank you so much. This is going to be so… well, I suppose it could still be horrible… but it won't! It's going to be amazing. Say it!"

"It's going to be amazing."

"You're so right!" Rachel was more than ready for the second act.

Santana wandered back to her place in the concert hall which was, thankfully for any would be interlopers, unoccupied. She sank into the seat and tried to shake off the odd feeling her intermission adventure had caused. She'd been talked into doing vocal warm-ups of all things. Either Rachel's friends were weirder than she thought or someone was plotting something. Since she believed that Rachel's friends were insane before, it seemed unlikely that they were weirder than that. That only left the option of a plot. Concerning her. Concerning singing… but that hardly made sense. Unless they'd figured her intensions towards Rachel and wanted Santana to serenade their friend then… Oh, that could be it, she supposed. Foolishly, she hadn't prepared a song…

Applause startled Santana from her thoughts and she realized Rachel was onstage again, about to start the second half.

"Ladies and gentlemen," quieted the crowd, "I'm making a last minute, and I mean 'last minute' program change. In fact, a little group, positive thinking might be in order; it's that unprepared." There was a smattering of laughter as the audience waited to be informed. "You see, recently I became reacquainted with an old friend, a fine singer who I shared the stage with when I was part of the infamous New Directions." There was more laughter this time. Apparently Rachel did talk about glee club that often. "I realized this week that I really wanted a chance to sing with her again." Santana's eyes flew wide open at what her intended girlfriend was saying. This was much scarier than she'd suspected, although it was kind of nice to understand what that weird business with the vocal exercises had been about. "Santana, even with this terrible notice, would you please sing with me? I promise it's a song you know…" Rachel put every ounce of enticement that she could into the request.

Santana was a goner. Saying no to that? In front of all these people? When she really wanted Rachel to say 'yes' later? It wasn't even an option.

The audience cheered as Santana walked towards the stage, rightly taking the action as an agreement. As she walked, Rachel grabbed some music from the piano to have ready to hand off when the other woman had made it to the stage. "You'll take the lower part?"

The song was Shatter Me by a new artist named Cass Shye, and it was currently one of Santana's favorites. "Lower part, definitely," she nodded, now really excited as well as nervous instead of merely terrified. When the intro started, there was no fear in either of them. Mainly, with Santana singing a silky, slinky line about the emotional fragments of a woman and Rachel singing out above about taking to the sky, desperately waiting for the fall that would break her, it was just sexy as hell. At the end, the crowd showed that they definitely agreed by practically roaring with approval.

For the rest of the recital Santana was in too great a delirious haze to be overly aware of what she was seeing and hearing. Well, she knew she was seeing Rachel and that was beautiful. She knew that she was also hearing Rachel which was likewise beautiful. She even managed to notice during the final number that the wonderful weirdoes that her girl (she was hopeful in leaving out the 'intended' this time) called friends joined her for an ensemble number that she would never remember the name of. Whatever it was, it was amazing. But then it was over. The recital was finished and it was, to borrow a phrase, show time.

Afterwards the audience morphed from a reasonable number of people, reasonably sitting in chairs to a huge mob, each trying to get to the star of the night and say their piece. While Santana hung back she counted four bouquets go into Rachel's arms. She consoled herself by thinking that the other arrangements weren't any prettier than hers and that at least two of them came from various parents- Rachel's fathers and Shelby, who Santana was actually immensely glad to see there, supporting her daughter just like any proud parent.

Santana was a bit torn on how long to wait before she went in, flowers at the ready. She wasn't naïve enough to think that at any point Rachel was going to be alone. Her family and those roommates weren't going anywhere for a good while. Though perhaps not ideal for her, she thought it was actually appropriate that she'd be doing this with an audience, since she's always had one when she'd said hurtful things in high school. She wondered briefly if she shouldn't go in before the majority of the crowd dispersed. The idea was abandoned however as impractical. If she tried to crawl through that mass she end up with a bouquet of stems and a post-tornado look that probably wouldn't be all that flattering.

When Santana did make her move, there was still an assortment of people milling around, and though Rachel was still beaming at the praise being thrown her way, some of the people with her were starting to look a little bored. She hoped that at the very least her gesture proved entertaining as she breathed deeply, stepped in front of Rachel, and held out the flowers.

Rachel had thought she'd been smiling for all she'd been worth before. Now her smile was so large that she was actually a tiny bit concerned- not that she could do anything to stop it if she tried. "Santana, thank you! They're beautiful. You didn't have to but actually I'm really glad you did. I mean, I'd have been glad that you'd just come today, but then you sang with me too and now…" She made a helpless gesture as she realized that she didn't know what to say next and that she'd probably said too much, all in one breath too which she would surely be teased over.

It just made Santana smile, "Well, maybe I didn't have to, but a smart girl like me learns to hedge her bets."

"Bets…Uh… Santana? What are you talking about?"

Santana's face went serious. Even though part of her wanted to, she knew she couldn't make this a joke. It would feel safer, but it would never work. Furthermore, Rachel deserved sincerity. "OK, here's the thing," perhaps not the best opening, but she powered through it, "we've gotten to be friends despite everything, and that's fantastic. I mean, I didn't really deserve it and you didn't have to, and I'm really grateful." At this point Rachel looked like she was about to answer so Santana hurried on, knowing that it would be too easy to stop there. "It's been so great that I've realized that it'd be even better if we were girlfriends." Rachel looked rather stunned, which decided Santana on what to say next. "Look, you're amazing. You're intelligent, talented, and majorly gorgeous, and even if I have to spend some serious repentance time before hand, I'd really, really like a chance with you."

Inside Rachel was squealing rather than having very many lucid thoughts, a fact made clear when she said aloud, "The song worked! Even better and quicker than I thought it would!"

It wasn't just Santana laughing at that, but she was the one to answer. "Yeah, worked like a charm. It worked so well it was working in advance so I wouldn't turn up empty handed," she winked, causing Rachel to blush. "So…" she drawled, "Can I take that as at least a definite maybe? Despite, you know, everything?"

A Rachel shaped missile was launched then was hugging her close. "I don't care about any of that any more. So what if I got called a few names by people that were struggling through by misplacing their anger? Of course it hurt back then, but it's long over now, and even then I doubt it would have hurt so much if I'd understood as much about people as I do now, you know?" Santana nodded slightly, but her stronger reaction was bringing up her arms to firmly hug Rachel back. "We've been replacing those memories with much better ones. And… that other thing… with… you know… Finn." She really didn't want to talk about this awkwardness, but it really was better to get it over with, "That ship has passed so well and truly that I can't even see it anymore."

They drew back, each needing to see the other's expression. Later, they'd both have a different story about who started kissing who first. At that moment however, both of them were pretty intent on it to the point that they were getting away from a PG rating when a pointed cough drew Rachel's attention to, much to her mortification, one of her fathers who had a worried eye on the tanned hand that didn't actually relinquish its place on her ass until she lightly elbowed the woman the offending appendage belonged to. Even then, Rachel was amused to notice, there was no discernible shame on Santana's face.

Santana had never had massive amounts of shame and she was far too happy with events to bother with it now. She did realize, however, that this party needed to move along. "All right, all right, I've said my piece and I'll get out of everybody's hair- just as soon as I say one last thing." She grinned, liking the symmetry and liking her odds even more, "So, there's this coffee shop I'm told is a favorite around here... Are you familiar with a place called Beans and Things?"

Notes:

Thank you, everyone, for sticking around and reading! Double thanks to everyone who reviewed and even more love to the wonderful people I got to hear from multiple times. I can't say how much it means, but I will say that you've inspired me.

There's a reasonably good chance that there will be a fast forwarded epilogue at some point in the future. I might work on another project first, but as the ending of this story happens pretty early in the relationship it seems like it would be fair to at least get a glimpse of things sometime down the road.