Chapter 21: The Letter

Santana woke up to calm seas and no rain and Brittany's arm still wrapped around her, and she almost wept with happiness. It was the perfect way to start her morning. "Are you awake?" she whispered.

She felt Brittany shift behind her. "Mhm. I've been awake for a little while, I just didn't want to wake you."

"Is it late?" Santana asked in surprise.

"The breakfast bell rang like fifteen minutes ago," Brittany said. "But stay," she urged when Santana started to move. "You were tossing and turning all night, you can sleep in a little bit."

"Alright. Did I keep you up?"

"Not really," Brittany replied. "Anyway, I'm not tired. You look beautiful."

Santana self-consciously ran her fingers through her hair. "Really?" she said.

Brittany nuzzled the back of her neck. "I'm going to keep telling you until you finally believe me."

Santana turned over and pressed a soft kiss to Brittany's lips. "You're beautiful, too," she said.

They kissed slowly and lazily for a long time—just how long it was, Santana wasn't sure. When they finally got out of bed and went outside, the sun was up and everyone was bustling around the deck. They looked at Santana and Brittany curiously as the two of them emerged from her cabin, and Santana kept her head down shyly.

"This is awkward," she said.

"Hey, we decided we weren't going to keep this a secret anymore," Brittany said. She reached up and touched the small of Santana's back. "It's okay."

Santana sighed. "I guess you're right," she said. "Prepare for the uncomfortable interrogation, now…"

Brittany chuckled. "I will. I'm going to go help Tina fix the sails." She kissed Santana's cheek quickly and then hurried over to the rigging, where Tina was trying to straighten out some of the sails that had twisted during the night. Santana watched the two of them fondly for a little bit, before walking away to make her rounds. She had to see if anything had gone wrong or been misplaced because of the high winds.

"Hey Santana!" came Finn's voice from by the galley. Santana turned around to see him dressed in a flour covered apron. His eyes were narrowed and Santana had a feeling she knew what he wanted to talk about.

"Sup, Hudson," she said. "Is there breakfast left? I didn't eat yet."

"Yeah—I mean, no!" He took several steps towards her. "It's your own fault you missed breakfast, because you were too busy—uh—slapping my girlfriend!"

Santana was seized by the sudden desire to laugh, and she forced her face to remain impassionate. "Actually, I slapped her last night," Santana said. "Not during breakfast."

"I know that," Finn said. "I was just—anyway, you upset her and you should apologize."

"Or what?"

"Or…" Finn looked confused. "I don't know. But it would be the right thing to do."

"Aw," Santana said. "Did she go whining to you about it? Needs her strong boyfriend to protect her?"

"She doesn't," Finn said. "She actually didn't even want me to say anything but…but I am. What you did was rude and mean!"

Santana sighed. "Alright, whatever. I'll apologize to her if I see her."

"That's…okay, that's fine." Finn looked somewhat relieved. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you mad. And I have your breakfast. I'll get it for you." He hurried away into the galley and Santana just shook her head. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Quinn approaching.

"Status update?" she asked.

"In a minute," Quinn said. "What does he want you to apologize for?"

"Huh? Oh, nothing." Messing with Finn was fun, but she didn't particularly want Quinn to know about all of this. She wasn't proud of slapping Rachel, and she didn't want everyone else to think she'd gone crazy.

"I know you guys were talking about Rachel," Quinn said. "What happened?"

God, there was just no limit to Quinn's nosiness when she had a crush. "It was nothing, Rachel and I just had a minor disagreement."

Quinn quirked an eyebrow. "Really? What kind of disagreement?"

"Like I said, it was minor, I don't even really remember the details."

"Then why did Finn have to get involved?" Quinn looked highly suspicious. "If it was so minor—"

"Because he's an idiot," Santana said, just as said idiot came back, carrying a plate with a heaping pile of cornbread on the top. "Did you save some for Brittany?" she asked.

Finn nodded. "I'll give it to her when she comes down from the rigging."

"Excellent," Santana said. She took a large bite and turned to Quinn. Quinn rolled her eyes.

"Alright, whatever," she said. "So besides the sails, everything looks good. A box of cannonballs broke on the deck, but we moved them to another box and Sam and Mike are fixing it. No holes in the hull, and nothing much seems to have shifted. A bottle of rum broke but I think Mercedes cleaned that up."

Santana swallowed her mouthful of bread. "Excellent," she said. "Good work. What's everyone doing now?"

"Normal rotations," Quinn said.

"Perfect. I'm going to do a checkup, keep me posted."

Quinn nodded, still looking at Santana with narrowed eyes. Santana ignored her and began to walk around the deck, eating her food and overseeing everyone's work. Puck and Mike were bringing boxes onto the deck from the hull, and after their third trip, Santana stopped them.

"What are you guys doing?" she asked.

"Bringing the rum up," Mike said.

"We're having a party tonight!" Puck clapped Santana's shoulder happily. "The storm finally passed and we thought we'd celebrate. It's been a long time since we did anything fun."

"We're still missing Blaine, we don't really have that much to celebrate," Santana pointed out.

"You do, though," Puck said, wiggling his eyebrows. Santana didn't say anything. "And speaking of Brittany, she's the one who asked me to have the party in the first place. So you can't say no it to now."

"I never said no, I just—"

"Hah!" Puck exclaimed.

"I was just questioning your motives," Santana said, ignoring his outburst. She looked at Mike. "Keep it under control," she said.

Mike nodded. "Yes Captain, we will, don't worry."

"We're going to bring out the instruments!" Puck said. "And get some music up in here."

"Alright, have fun with that," Santana said.

She watched them for a little while out of boredom and then decided that there was nothing else to be done and she might as well waste some time with Brittany. Tina was in the crow's nest by herself and the sail looked intact, so the two of them must have finished their work.

"Hey Artie," she said, stopping the first person who she could find. "Where is Brittany?"

Artie shrugged. "Maybe below? I'm not sure."

"Hm. Okay." Santana wasn't sure why Brittany would have gone to the bunks—she knew that she was welcome in Santana's cabin—but she decided to check, anyway. Maybe Brittany was hanging out with someone or stealing food from the cargo hold; Santana did that often enough. She descended the ladder and took a right turn, heading for the bunks. She peeked inside and saw a mess of blond hair in one of the corner bunks, barely visible behind the curtain that hung from the ceiling to the floor. A grin spread across Santana's face. She was going to surprise her.

She crept across the room quietly until she was standing right in front of the bed. Then she grabbed the curtain and whipped it aside.

"Boo!" Santana exclaimed, and then froze when she saw Brittany hastily whip her hand out of her pants. She gasped and squeezed her eyes shut, backing away until she hit her head against another bed. "Ow! I, um..."

"Are you okay?" Brittany asked. Santana opened her eyes. Brittany was lying on one of the bunks, looking at Santana in concern. Her cheeks were flushed and the button of her pants was undone. Brittany followed Santana's gaze towards her crotch and quickly began to zip herself back up. Santana shook her head vigorously.

"I was just gonna say we could…but nevermind…I actually have something to do on deck that I totally forgot about." Santana's heart was pounding and she felt suddenly breathless.

"Okay," Brittany replied. Then she narrowed her eyes. "You know, you told me to-"

"I know, I did!" Santana said, still backing away. She was dizzy from the lack of blood getting to her brain, though her pounding heart reminded her that the blood was definitely going somewhere. "I'll leave now, though, so you can finish...please. Don't stop on...on my account." Fuck. What was she saying? She turned around and began to head back to the doorway quickly.

"Okay, uh…bye Santana," she heard Brittany call from behind her.

"Bye!" Santana called back, not turning around until she was up the ladder and safely back inside her cabin.

As soon as the sun went down, Puck started playing his guitar. Normally, Santana got annoyed when the boys sang the same pirate chanteys over and over again, but it had been a while since she'd heard them and it was kind of comforting. Finn slapped on a barrel to keep the beat as Sam and Artie sang. Santana sipped on her rum and looked around the deck for Brittany. She wanted to apologize for her weird behavior earlier, but she wasn't quite sure how to broach the subject.

"Santana!"

Santana whirled around to see Quinn storming towards her, Rachel Berry on her heels. Oops. Santana knew Quinn was much more determined than Finn, and there was nothing she could really do to stop the yelling. She might as well brace herself.

"Is it true that you slapped Rachel?"

Luckily, the music was loud enough to keep the entire crew from hearing, but Rachel was listening in, looking nervous. Santana sighed. "Yeah," she said. "I did."

"And you didn't apologize, even though you told Finn you would?"

"I was just waiting for a chance!" Santana protested.

"You've had plenty of chance!" Quinn said.

"Quinn, please," Rachel insisted. "If she says she's going to apologize, and she does, then I don't see why we have a problem—"

"You can't just go around slapping people whenever you feel like it, particularly not guests on our ship like Rachel! She's not used to this kind of treatment, Santana, you can't just—and she's a girl, too, so you really…come on, S, you know you can't do that!" Quinn's face was bright red and she looked like she was having trouble remaining coherent. It was enough to make Santana feel bad.

"I'm sorry, Rachel," she said. "I shouldn't have done that. I was stressed out and it was a spur of the moment kind of thing. I promise it will never happen again."

Rachel nodded. "Apology accepted," she said. "Come on Quinn, let's go." She grabbed Quinn's arm and tried to pull her away, but Quinn shook her head.

"You're just so horrible, you do whatever you want and don't think about the consequences, can't you see how difficult you're making things for everybody? Can't you just be nice to people for once?" Quinn looked like she was about to cry.

"Maybe you should go," Santana said quietly to Rachel, taking hold of Quinn's hand. Quinn tried to resist but Santana held on tightly, pulling her away towards the door of her cabin. Rachel bit her lip.

"Let me know if you need me to help with anything," she said.

"I will." Santana opened the door to her cabin and forced Quinn inside, locking it behind them. "Okay," she said, "what's really going on here?"

"You hit Rachel," Quinn said flatly.

"You really care about her that much?"

"Yes, Santana, I do!" she said. "And I also don't think that you should hit people, period."

"Okay, but Quinn, let's face it—you're mad about something else. Come on, talk to me," Santana said. "You've been acting weird forever and I can't take it anymore."

Quinn took a shaky breath. "I just…I think I'm going to leave you at Port Carmel."

Santana's heart dropped into her stomach. "What?"

"Don't try to talk me out of it, I've already made up my mind," Quinn said. "I'm leaving. This…this isn't right for me."

"Quinn." Santana felt like her heart was breaking. "Quinn, you can't. The crew needs you. I…I need you."

"I know, Santana, but you'll be fine," Quinn said, refusing to make eye contact.

"Is this about me?"

"No, it's not," Quinn said. "I promise. It's not about anyone else, just me."

"That doesn't make any sense!" Santana exclaimed. "I thought you loved it here, I thought we were your best friends."

"Don't!" Quinn said, looking up at Santana. Her eyes were filled with tears. "Don't say that, this is hard for me too, okay? This is hurting me worse than it's hurting you."

"Then why do you have to leave?" Santana asked desperately. "Quinn, please."

"I told Sue that I would go back to her," Quinn said. "When this is all over. And…well, you know where you're going now, I don't think you need my help anymore. I might as well do it sooner rather than later."

"Quinn, no!" Santana said. "You can't go back to that woman!"

"It's too late, Santana, I promised," Quinn said. "I'm not meant for this kind of life, I know that now. And…she said that it was the only way she would help us get Blaine."

"So? Since when have you cared about Blaine?"

"I do care about Blaine!" Quinn wiped her eyes furiously. "And I think that this was the right choice for me, anyway. Sue convinced me. My life was better when I was working for her."

"What could she have possibly said to convince you of that?" Santana asked.

Quinn sighed. "Santana, you've always been a pirate. There's just some things you can't understand."

"Then make me understand!"

There was a long silence during which Quinn appeared to have an intense internal struggle. Finally, she spoke. "A few years after I left home, my parents contacted me and…made me an offer, to try and get me back."

"What kind of offer?" Santana asked.

"They were going to give me a lot of money," Quinn said. "They wanted to pay for me to attend a university."

"A university?"

"It's like school," Quinn explained. "Well, more than school really, it's like school for adults. They teach you things—real things, math and science and English, more than I ever got to learn in primary school back home. I would have had to pretend to be a guy and everything, they don't let girls learn this kind of stuff—"

"Figures," Santana muttered.

"—and my parents definitely didn't approve. But they knew it was something I was interested in and they thought it was the only way to get me to come home. So while I was living with Sue, I applied to a school called Yale."

"What's Yale?"

"It's a university in New Haven," Quinn said. "I was going to go there, dressed up as a boy, using the money my parents gave me. And after that, I was going to come home and live with them, as a college-educated daughter instead of the nun they wanted me to be. It wasn't ideal for them, but it was better than losing me forever."

"Makes sense," Santana said, "but I don't understand. You didn't go."

"I didn't get in," Quinn said. "Or at least, I thought I didn't. I received my rejection letter and I gave up, I decided to keep working at the Salmon Shack. And then you came along and I thought, what the hell, I might as well go into piracy. I never knew that I was good enough to go to school, that I…actually got in."

"The letter," Santana said, having a sudden moment of realization. "The one you found when we were at the Salmon Shack, the one you were yelling at Sue about. It was an acceptance letter to Yale?"

Quinn nodded. "It was the real one," she said. "Sue made a fake. She didn't want me to leave her, I was too valuable to her bar."

"That bitch!" Santana exclaimed. "That conniving bitch, how dare she…"

"She knew what she was doing," Quinn said sadly. "I was just a rebellious child, I wasn't ready…I had no idea what I was putting my parents through, or what kind of sacrifice this was going to be for them. I didn't realize how immature I was, or how immature I continued to be, until that day we went to see Sue. She talked to me and…she made me understand."

"She ruined your future!" Santana was practically shaking with anger on Quinn's behalf. But Quinn just smiled ruefully.

"Someday, Santana, you'll realize there's more to life than having fun on the high seas."

"So, what, you're just going to go back there and start stripping again? Because it's so much more honorable than being a pirate?"

"Sue's cut me a deal," Quinn said. "She'll help me to go Yale, if I work for her for a little while. She'll give me a huge share of what she makes while I'm working, and with that plus my share that I have here, I think I can pay for it soon. If I get in this time around, that is."

"But…" Santana saw the determination in Quinn's eyes, and for the first time, she realized that she had lost this battle before it even began. Quinn was going to leave them. She'd already decided. "But you can't go," she said, hot tears welling up in her eyes. "What about all of us?"

"I'm going to miss you so much, Santana," Quinn said.

"Then stay, please! We can steal enough money to send you to Yale."

Quinn shook her head. "I'm sorry," she said. "I just wasn't meant to be a pirate. And anyway, I'm not gone yet. I still have another day or two, so just…don't cry yet, okay?"

"Don't cry?" Santana asked in disbelief. "Don't cry? You've gotta be kidding me." Tears were falling rapidly down her cheeks as she spoke, and she made no move to wipe them away. This was horrible.

Quinn walked across the cabin and wrapped Santana in her arms. "Santana, I love you," she said. "This kills me, it really does. You're going to make such a great captain and I wish I could be here to see it."

"I…I can't…" Santana's whole body was shaking. She wrapped her arms tightly around Quinn's waist, trying to control herself. There was no way she could survive without Quinn, her best friend, her oldest friend, the only person on this ship besides Brittany that she really trusted. "I love you too, Quinn," she said tearfully. "So much."

"Shh," Quinn said, stroking her hair. "It's going to be okay."