After the initial shock and a few awkward seconds where Burt seemed to be processing the situation, he smiled at Brittany and nodded slightly, and broke the odd beginning of a tension that had been only moments away.
Santana really wanted to quickly shake her head in order to make herself see this whole situation a little more clearly, but that would probably look a little odd so she settled for simply straightening her back a little and scrutinizing the room for a few seconds, just to regain some kind of general view of it all.
She forced her brain to summarize what was going on.
Brittany is in my lap. Burt Hummel just got home from a visit to my parents. He was there to pick up some of my things. Kurt is probably in the kitchen. Finn… I don't even care.
"Uh", Santana finally said, trying to come up with a way of phrasing her thoughts that would not make her seem like an idiot. "Kurt said that she could come over, I just needed… maybe I should've asked you, but I…"
Burt actually laughed a little as he took his jacket of and placed it on the hook on the wall.
"No, it's no problem", he assured her with a wry smile. It was odd, Santana thought, how tired the man looked. His face was both an angry red and strangely pale at the same time. His smile and laugh were genuine but exhausted.
"We might have to sit down sometime and talk through some guidelines about when she's here, you know, about not closing doors and, well, you get the picture", Burt continued and dumped a big trunk on the floor. "But right now I'm just happy to see you feeling better."
Santana did nothing but breathe. Not breathing in a state of panic as she had experienced far too much lately, but simply breathing calmly as she realized that Brittany was on her lap and they were not in trouble because of it, Burt had survived the trip to Lima Heights and there was a trunk on the floor with what she assumed were her stuff.
"So, you met my parents?" Santana asked with a light shrug and a wry, sarcastic smile. "Were they polite?"
"Not really", Burt huffed. "I got some of your stuff, though."
He kind of nudged the bag forward a little with his foot, and before Santana could react, Brittany had climbed up from her lap and rushed towards the bag, curious as ever. Santana smiled, put her cup of chocolate down on the table, shot Burt a grateful look and followed Brittany.
Brittany sat on the floor and had already opened the trunk and had started going through Santana's things. Santana felt it like she was watching Britt unwrap a Christmas present, because the look of happy surprise on her face whenever she found something in the bag that she recognized was kind of heartwarming.
It also made it all a little less painful. Santana could only guess, but she was pretty sure that if she had been left alone with that trunk to unpack it in Kurt's room, she would have had a meltdown.
"Hey, let's get that upstairs", Kurt said in a light voice from behind Santana. She turned around and gave him a faint smile before she reached her hand out for Brittany to grab.
"Come on, Britt. Upstairs."
Brittany smiled, jumped to her feet and let Kurt grab the trunk. When Santana placed her right foot on the first step of the stairs, she looked back over her shoulder, briefly shut her eyes and gave Burt another short nod before she continued up the stairs, hand in hand with Brittany and with Kurt not far behind them.
That was how the three of them ended up in Kurt's room trying both to make space for and find a place for Santana's belongings. Brittany engaged in the mission so enthusiastically that she was practically skipping around the room, climbing over Kurt's once neatly made bed and back again to pull out all the drawers in his desk to find suitable places.
Santana would have been worried about taking up too much of the room and intruding on Kurt's personal space, but she shoved those thoughts away when she glanced over at Kurt who was looking at Britt with folded arms and an affectionate smile.
Santana realized that it was okay and that Kurt did not mind very much at all - he even helped Brittany clear one of the drawers and a shelf in the bookshelf.
When all of this is over I'm gonna owe that boy big time.
Santana sat down on the screeching tent bed and peeked into the trunk on the floor. Brittany had decided to start with all the school items and the clothes, so even though the trunk was mostly emptied by now, Santana could still see a number of quite surprising things in that trunk.
Things she honestly never thought she would ever see again. She reached out and opened the bag a little wider so she could investigate it all a little closer, and her eyes widened when she realized that Burt Hummel had actually brought her framed pictures.
At first glance she thought it was nothing but a couple of writing-pads, but it did not take her too long to recognize the Cheerio's group photo from Nationals last year.
She stopped breathing for a couple of seconds in order to let her mind focus on that one thing for a little while; the fact that Burt Hummel had seriously raided her room quite thoroughly. When she finally breathed out, she bent over and picked the picture up with a smile.
She heard Kurt laugh from beside her.
"Yeah, no need for finding a place for that one", he said with a wide smile that made Santana frown in confusion.
Okay, so maybe framed school pictures are lame or tacky or whatever to place on your fucking designer wallpapers, but…
And then, in the middle of sending Kurt a bitter look, she realized that Kurt was referring to something a little different. He threw his head back a little in a short nod towards one of the walls, and Santana quickly turned around to look at it.
And there it was. The very same cheerleaders in the very same photo, only in a very different room to the one she was used to.
"I don't know what it is, but I keep forgetting you were on that squad, Hummel."
"What, I didn't do a lasting impression with my Céline Dion medley? It was fourteen and a half minute long, Santana", Kurt exclaimed with an amused look on his face and faked hurt in his voice.
Santana just smiled and turned to look at Brittany again who was now sitting on the floor trying to put Santana's shoes into the bottom of Kurt's closet.
"You know, I hope you haven't got any secrets in there, because…"
Kurt interrupted Santana with a smirk.
"It was a long time ago since I had secrets in my closet, Santana."
They looked at each other in uncertainty for a few seconds, both unsure what they were supposed to do. Unsure whether it was too soon to make jokes about coming out, unsure whether that hit close to home or if it perhaps did not cause any significant impact, unsure whether Santana would get offended and Kurt sorry or both of them just slightly amused; unsure whether it was a funny or an odd thing to say.
They looked at each other like that with raised eyebrows and hesitant looks for a couple of seconds, before they both burst out laughing simultaneously.
It was odd how easy this seemed, how easy the last hour or so had been, how it did not hurt at all to place scraps of her belongings into someone else's room, how she could actually laugh and not just explode from pain.
She wondered for how long that feeling would last. If it would disappear the moment Brittany went home for dinner or if it could linger a little bit longer, if maybe her dreams could be calm tonight, full of Brittany placing her shoes in a wardrobe instead of a mixture of Spanish and English and hurt.
Santana could not help but hope that maybe everything was going to be alright so soon that she would hardly notice that things had gone so horribly wrong in the first place.
Maybe she could float around in this feeling, this easy feeling of amusement and for once not so aching love for that blonde, fabulous girl sitting on the floor. Maybe it would stay like this forever.
Or maybe her nightmares would haunt her tonight as well. Maybe she would wake up sweaty and exhausted and far too early or far too late in the morning.
Maybe she would not be able to sleep at all.
The thought of it made Santana's laughter faint a little, but not completely. For now, she was laughing and for now, she was here, in this easy feeling that she had never cherished so highly ever before.