Anonymous asked: 10. "The ladies love a guy who's good with kids."
Continuation of Chapter 4 and Chapter 8.
Santana loves absolutely everything about their daughter. She loves how kind she is, and fiercely loving she is of her little brother who hasn't even arrived yet; she loves how she has Brittany's creativity and Santana's sass; she loves how much of herself and Brittany she can see in their daughter; and she loves how the Lopez-Pierce family instantly expanded to envelope her the moment they knew about her.
Picking Rosie up from kindergarten, however, is not one of those things she loves, because inevitably all the other parents ask her about her husband and she has to brace herself to tell them that she actually has a wife, thank you very much (to be fair, it's better than it would be in hick-town Ohio, but there's always a lightning bolt of fear that sparks in her chest before she tells anyone she has a wife, because you just never know). The only thing worse than that, is small handful the weird single dads (or worse, the married ones) who constantly hit on her, despite the wedding ring that proudly sits on her finger and the fact that she's definitely not into men at all. Usually when Brittany's there they back off, but unfortunately, Brittany had to work a little late and was heading home to cook supper, leaving Santana to anxiously wait for Rosie by herself, hoping that if she refreshes her email enough times it will look like she's actually busy with it.
Brittany's texting her ridiculous things as she cooks supper, complete with snapchats of ingredients that would worry Santana a bit if she didn't trust Brittany so much, and it makes a goofy smile spread across her face and distracts her from the gross ass-douche slinking over to her along the wall.
"I bet you'd be even happier if my number was in there."
Santana looks up with a confused face because what? The guy smirks at her as if it's attractive, leaning against the wall and wrinkling some poor kid's artwork with his shoulder. "Who you texting? Your husband?"
"No," Santana says dumbly, still wondering if this is actually happening
The ass-douche's eyes drift to her left hand, detouring to her chest on the way back up. "Well lucky for me. If someone besides your husband can make you that happy, then I have a chance."
"What the fuck?" she whispers, more to herself than to the ass-douche. The only thing she can think is that Brittany will sure get a kick out of this tonight. "Uh, one, gross. Two, I am married so not a chance in hell because, three, gross. And even if I wasn't married you wouldn't stand a chance because, again, gross."
The ass-douche shrugs. "I'm a single dad," he explains, as if Santana asked about him instead of rejecting his oblivious advances, "I know how to handle kids so I don't care about that. The ladies love a guy who's good with kids," he continues and has the audacity to wink at her.
Before Santana can even cringe at how gross he is, and how bad she feels for his kid, her daughter runs up to her.
"Mami! Mami! You're finally here!"
Santana forgets all about the ass-douche for a moment as Rosie launches herself at her mami. Santana catches her with a laugh, cuddling her close for a moment before Rosie wiggles herself free. "Where's mama?" she asks innocently, but Santana recognizes that glint in her eyes, it's the same one her wife gets whenever she is plotting something. "I wanna show her the dw'awing I did of our family," she exclaims, and Santana melts at how adorable her daughter is, "It has you and mama and Tubbs and The Duke and even the little doodlebug, since that's what mama calls my soon-to-be brother right now!"
Santana grins and ruffles Rosie's curls, "I'm sure she'll love it," she says.
A weird dying fish sound emits from the ass-douche beside her, and Santana delights in the way his face changes and pales and he suddenly seems unable to breathe.
"You're Kyle's dad, right?" Rosie asks politely, ignoring the choking sounds the ass-douche makes. Santana's not really sure if he's one of the homophobic types or one of the creepy types, but his response makes Santana want to grab Rosie and hightail it out of the school. "You have the same chicken-butt hair as him," Rosie adds, a little less politely, and Santana probably would scold her if she wasn't talking to such an ass-douche.
"You know Kyle?" the ass-douche says, his face twisted in confusion or constipation.
"Your son ate his glue-stick today," Rosie announces in lieu of an answer. "He put sparkles on it first and then took a bite out of it. Maybe you should start putting sprinkles on his peanut butter sandwiches so he'll stop trying to snack on sparkly glue."
The ass-douche gapes at Rosie for a long moment, both confused and put off and a little irritated that his attempts at flirting were interrupted by a girl barely taller than three feet.
"It's too bad Kyle doesn't have two mommies," Rosie continues, "Then maybe he wouldn't be confused and eat sparkly glue."
The ass-douche doesn't know what to say to that, and Santana's chest fills with so much love and adoration for her little girl that she thinks she might just burst, so she elects to take Rosie's hand and lead her towards their car. Santana takes her oversized backpack and tucks it behind the driver's seat before letting Rosie buckle herself in and only double checking that it's clicked properly. Santana also sneaks a kiss from Rosie, for what she did in the school, and receives a tight hug in response.
Santana carefully manoeuvres the car out of the parking lot, dodging impatient parents and wandering children the whole way. It isn't until they're a couple blocks away, out of the school zone and idling at a stoplight, that Santana asks Rosie about the ass-douche, though in much more kid-friendly terms.
"You looked like you needed help so I saved you," Rosie says proudly, and Santana melts, almost missing the light turning green. Rosie is definitely her mama's daughter.
"My hero," Santana says earnestly, and Rosie giggles, one of those impossibly bright and carefree kid giggles.
"Mami," Rosie complains, her cheeks pink, and Santana melts again because Rosie is definitely her daughter too. "I saw Kyle's daddy bothering you," she continues her explanation, "so I thought I'd confuse him like mama always does when people look at us funny."
"So Kyle didn't actually eat glue?" Santana confirms.
Rosie shrugs. "He might have. At some point in his life."
"Rosalyn Lopez-Pierce," Santana chides, eyeing her sulking daughter in the rearview mirror, "that was underhanded and sneaky."
Rosie looks away sheepishly but not regretfully, wringing her hands together like she does when she thinks she's in trouble. Santana lets her stew it out for a block because you're supposed to teach your children lessons, but it isn't long until Santana can't contain her grin anymore. "Your mama would be so proud," Santana finally says.
Rosie brightens and grins, so happy and surprised and proud that something in Santana's chest squeezes tightly until her happiness feels like it might blossom out of her chest.
When they get home Brittany is there in the apron Rosie picked out for Christmas last year, a smear of flour across her cheek and a warm smile. She leans down to pick Rosie up as their daughter leaps into her mama's arms, already chattering a mile a minute, and Brittany nods at all the appropriate times and asks all the right questions while one-handedly helping her wife out of her jacket and giving her a quick kiss.
Rosie narrates her entire day from start to finish, again since she already told her mami in the car, gesturing wildly with her hands before charging off to retrieve her backpack from the front hallway for her drawing.
"She stood up for me today," Santana says from where she leans against the counter beside Brittany.
"Oh yeah?" Brittany asks, adoring and proud and awed all at once.
Santana nods and kisses Brittany, quick and sweet. "She gets that from you," she murmurs.
"Yeah?" Brittany breathes, and her eyes turn liquid soft and she looks over Santana's shoulder to where Rosie is carefully playing with their kitten, keeping him distracted from playing with Lord Tubbington's tail; the kitten in turn keeps her distracted from her original task, but The Duke is cute enough that Santana can't really blame her daughter for that.
Brittany pushes herself off the counter and wraps herself around Santana from behind, nuzzling into dark hair until she finds warm skin and pressing her lips to her wife's neck. "We did good."
Rosie laughs one of those carefree kid laughs, and Santana smiles, curling her hands around her wife's arms and melting back into her embrace. "Yeah, we really did."