The day had been long and hard for everyone. Rebecca came down into the kitchen, tying her robe about her, to make herself a cup of tea. As she was filling the kettle though, she noticed a light on in the main barn through the kitchen window. Curious, she slipped her feet into Cindy's boots and shrugged on a coat over her robe and headed out to investigate.
Once she got into the barn, she wasn't too surprised to see the light on in Beauty's stall. She had a feeling Santana would find her way out here after she woke up, the horses being her version of a comforting blanket. Making her way down the aisle, she peered over the stall door, sighing softly to see Santana curled up on that ridiculous bean bag Cindy had gotten her, one arm looped loosely around Pony's neck as he laid beside her, fingers gently brushing through his still brushy mane.
"Santana?" she whispered, easing the stall door open and slipping inside. "Are you okay?"
"So... If I said yes, would you believe me?" she whispered as she nuzzled Pony's neck.
"To be honest?" Rebecca asked, sitting down beside Santana on the bag and gently running her fingers through her hair. "Not really. Today was a pretty big deal. You can talk to me about how you feel if you want, you know. Listening is what I do best after all." She smiled softly, trying to tease a response out of Santana. "I'll even waive the usual fee for my favorite daughter."
"Only daughter," Santana mumbled. She looked up and with red eyes and sighed. "My head hurts, my soul hurts and I've thrown up twelve times." She wiped her eyes.
"Best daughter," Rebecca reassured. "And you've been through the ringer today. I can't even imagine going through what you did. My brave little girl." She leaned down and kissed Santana's head. "We can have some tea to soothe your stomach before going up to lay with our girls later, but let's just stay with your friends for now. You've talked about the pain in your head and your soul, but what about your heart? How does it feel right now?"
"Broken," she whispered, as she looked up. "Like it got torn out and put into a blender." She sat up and sniffled as Pony clambered to his feet, walking over to lean against his mother. "Quinn's upset and that makes it hurt more."
"Actually, I think Quinn's angry." Rebecca wrapped an arm around Santana's shoulder and hugged her close. "She just wants to protect you, Santana, but she can't protect you from what already happened so she's frustrated. Give her time, she'll calm down. I'm more worried about you though. Why is your heart broken?"
"Cause he bought me," Santana whispered. "I was destined to be a hooker cause he bought me."
"Oh, no. No, Santana," she murmured, kissing the girl's hair. "That's not true at all. He did it to save you. He did it the wrong way, but he was trying to save his child. You were never destined for that. I promise you. It's just a tragedy in your past now."
"It still hurts," she whispered. "He hurt me..." She sniffled, fresh tears slipping down her cheeks.
Rebecca sighed, holding Santana close. "Yes, he did. Everyone who was supposed to love you, hurt you and I'm so sorry for that, Santana. But you're safe now. You're safe to cry, to lash out, to do whatever you need to do to feel better." She rubbed the girl's back. "How about this, can you tell me something that would make you feel better? Maybe not something immediate, but something that could happen in the future. Something you can imagine and hold onto and work towards."
"Can I marry Quinn someday?" Santana asked as she looked up to her new other mom. "Please?"
She still had reservations about the girls' relationship, but watching them interact and seeing the positive influence they were on each other's lives, she was having a harder and harder time protesting. She smiled resignedly and hugged Santana. "Of course you can, if that's what Quinn wants too. You can marry anyone you want, Santana."
"Okay," Santana said with a slight smile. "That makes me feel better." She rested her head on Rebecca's shoulder and sighed. "I... I don't know how to feel. I couldn't breathe when he was leaving..."
"Did you think he was abandoning you? You did pretty much tell him to," she pointed out.
"It just hurt," she mumbled. "I wanted him to hurt like I do... It's not fair. She got to die and he didn't have to live it."
She sighed again, resting her cheek against Santana's hair. "A lot of things in life aren't fair, but try to put yourself in his shoes for a moment, dear. Imagine you have a little girl who you love more than anything. Now imagine you're stuck somewhere and you're hearing about horrible things happening to her and you cannot get to her. I think your dad is hurting too."
"I know. But I'm... I'm so mad," she said with exhaustion tinting her voice. "I can't... I can't make it go away."
"It's okay to be mad, Santana. I'd be mad if I went through what you've gone through. I'd be furious at everyone," Rebecca reassured her. "But you can't hold that anger in or it'll fester. You have to let it out. Either by going to the gym with Cindy or even just taking a walk to some quiet place in the woods where you can scream and rage and no one can hear to try and make you stop. Tell me something though. How do you feel now that you know he's out of prison and he came to see you? Now that he can come help you if you want him to?"
"I wanted him to save me for so long," she replied. "But I have new parents now..."
"You do and we love you very much, but he's still your birth father and he clearly loves you very much. If you want him to be in your life, then he can be. But only if you want him to be." Rebecca looked down at the girl in her arms. "Do you understand? It's your choice how big or little a place he has in your life. You're in control here, Santana."
"I don't know how to be in control," she whispered. "It scares me. Everything scares me."
"And that's why you have us, sweetheart." She stroked her back. "Cindy, me... Quinn. To help you learn how to be in control again. How about Quinn? Does she push you or take control of what happens between you? And don't look at me like you're surprised I know things are less than platonic between you and her. You're both fairly healthy teenagers who love each other. As long as you're careful with what you're doing and with each other," she took a breath, letting it out carefully, "I don't have a problem with it."
"She... She lets me be in control. But I get scared and push her more than she wants." She sighed. "I can't help but think she wants more. But I don't think I'm ever gonna wanna have sex again."
"Are you sure? You've got your whole life ahead of you after all. I know I don't talk with Quinn as much as I'd like, but I do talk with her some and I get the feeling she just wants to be with you." Rebecca offered her a smile. "That can't be so bad, can it? Can you tell me why you think you're never going to want to have sex again?"
"It hurts," she whispered. "She.. she deserves better. I'm sick and it hurts too much."
"So, let me get this straight." Rebecca leaned back against the stall wall, continuing to hold her daughter. "You don't want to have sex with the girl you love because you think it'll hurt or because you have actual pain when she touches you in an amorous fashion? Never mind what Quinn deserves or not, she's stubborn and there's no telling her that she doesn't deserve something she wants. Never mind your being sick either, I've done a lot of reading on it and it's completely manageable. I want to know if you actually hurt when she touches you or if you just think it will."
"She... It hurts inside. She doesn't do that but it will hurt," she whispered. "It always does. There's blood and lots of pain."
Rebecca took a deep breath, wondering just how much she wanted to get into this with the girl. "Santana, what do you know about how sex works between women?"
"It's... the same but... without the dick?" she offered with a wince as she remembered her experiences. "Hurts bad, Rebecca..."
"Okay, this is going to be one of the weird rare occasions where I have more useful experience than Cindy in regards to sex," Rebecca pointed out with an awkward laugh, "because unlike her, I've been with men as well as my wife. Now, this is going to be very personal, but can you tell me if you were ever aroused while with the men? Ever, even a little."
"No," she said softly not making eye contact. "They were all older. And even when... when I had sex with Puck, it hurt and I didn't like it."
Rebecca sighed. "Okay. That's part of it. I bet they didn't take any time to take care of you either." She shook her head, trying to hold in the anger at those men. "When you're not aroused, your body doesn't accept the act and it resists being penetrated. Things can tear and it feels horrible because your body isn't generating any lubrication. Now think about times when you've been... intimate with Quinn. Are you aroused then?"
"Uh... I like when she kisses me if that's what you mean," Santana said softly, proving her naive views on sex despite what happened to her body.
Rebecca's eyes rolled up as she sent a prayer to God for strength as she realized just how much she'd have to get into with Santana to make any progress. "Mmm, I'm glad you like it, but that's not quite what I mean. How does your body feel when she kisses you?"
"She makes me tingly... Makes me happy until it starts to make me scared."
"Okay, so it sounds like you're getting aroused by being with her, that's good. Why do you get scared? Do you think Quinn will hurt you?"
"That I won't be able to stop," she whispered softly. "I just... I don't want to do it. I'm so scared of the pain again."
"That you won't be able to stop?" Rebecca decided to focus on that phrase. "So you're afraid you might want to go further with her?" She licked her lips, looking up at the ceiling for inspiration before speaking again. "Santana, did you know women don't have to penetrate to make love to each other?"
Santana looked confused. "But it's not sex then," she whispered. "If they're not inside, then it's not sex."
Rebecca smiled at her, though the entire conversation felt awkward as hell. "That's the amazing thing about being with another woman, Santana. It's completely different from being with a man. Women can have sex with each other just touching each other. It's about the intimacy with the one you're with. You could just," she blushed dark red as she spoke, wishing to every saint she could think of and God himself that Cindy was having this conversation with Santana and not her, "ride each other's thighs if you wanted and that can be sex for you. And if you want her inside you, she could use one finger. Think about how small her fingers are compared to a man's... member."
"That's not sex ether. It can't be," she whispered. "Then... I... Becca, just tell me it's the same," she pleaded.
Rebecca blinked at her in confusion. "Why? Why do you need it to be the same so badly?"
"Cause people touched me like that when I was little... It can't be the same," she whispered, as she focused on Pony.
Rebecca felt like her heart stopped beating for a moment. "O-oh. Oh my dear God, Santana. I...I'm so sorry." She tried to hug the girl. "I didn't know..."
"But... They told me it wasn't sex... Just fingering... Touching." She whimpered softly, huddling in on herself and not reacting to the attempt at a hug.
"Oh God, Santana." She gathered the girl close despite her resistance. "I'm so, so sorry, but what they did... what happened to you. Oh God, that should never happen to any child."
Santana scrambled up and moved to throw up in the trashcan. She dry heaved and sobbed erratically. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she mumbled over and over again, struggling with the shakes making her whole body tremble.
Rebecca had to wipe away tears before she could get to her feet and come over to wrap her arms around her daughter. "It's okay. It's okay, Santana. You're safe now. None of us will ever, ever let anything like that happen to you again. Do you understand me? You're safe. We'll protect you. I promise you."
"Don't tell Quinn. Please? It will ruin everything." She sobbed. "Just... Don't. Okay?"
"I don't..." She tightened her lips, taking in a deep, calming breath. "Okay. I won't tell her. Someday, you might have to tell her yourself, but she won't find out from me. I promise." She held Santana close, rocking her gently. "I'm so sorry, sweetheart. I wish I could take this from you."
"I don't want what Q and I do to be sex," she whispered.
Rebecca was silent for a long time. "Do you love her?" she finally whispered. "I know she loves you, but do you love her?"
"I've only loved her. She makes me feel better... I wanna be with her forever."
"Okay," she nodded, trying desperately to think of something that could help Santana. "Then try this. When you're with her, kissing or... whatever it is you do, you're not having sex. You're just physically expressing your love for each other. Don't let yourself think of anything you do with her as sex. It's about love. Sex is just two people coming together for hopefully mutual pleasure. What you do with the girl you love isn't sex, Santana, okay? Don't think of it as sex. You're expressing your love, not having sex. Can you do that?"
"I love her," Santana whimpered, "so I can try... Can things stop being bad? Can they just stop?"
"We can't change the past, no matter how much we might wish we could, sweetheart. But what happened to you in the past is in the past. It's over. Now we're just putting you back together." She kissed the top of the girl's head and held her close. "You're home, Santana. You're safe. Cindy and I love you as if you were our biological daughter and Quinn..." She shook her head with a soft sigh. "That girl is devoted to you, Santana. Take as long as you need to be comfortable with her because she'll wait for you. Because what the two of you have... that comes maybe once in a lifetime. And it's worth waiting for. You are worth waiting for. Okay, sweetheart?"
Santana nodded and sniffled. "Yeah. Can... Can I go to bed?" she asked with a soft whimper, everything getting to be too much for her. "I just wanna go to bed."
"Yeah," Rebecca murmured, keeping an arm around her shoulders to steady her as they left the barn. "Let's get you tucked in with your girl and your kittens, okay?"
Stoically, Santana trudged up through the crunching leaves, her boots weighing her limp form down heavily. She kicked them off when in the house and shrugged off her coat. She let Rebecca guide her up the stairs to the bedroom she slept in with Quinn. "Thank you for loving me," Santana mumbled as she looked up to her new mother.
Rebecca smiled down at the girl who'd managed to wiggle her broken way into her heart. "It was impossible not to, Santana." She leaned down and kissed her forehead. "Now, go on to bed, unless you'd like me to tuck you in?"
"It will wake Quinn up," Santana said softly and moved to hug her mom. "Gracis, Mama," she whispered tiredly before quickly ducking into the bedroom.
Rebecca stood in the doorway, smiling sadly at the two girls in the big bed. Toast looked up with a sleepy "mrow?" as Santana crawled into the bed, Quinn rolling over in her sleep to throw an arm around the girl and cuddle close. "Good night, sweetheart," she called quietly. "Sleep well but if you need me, always remember you can come to me."
San nodded and snuggled into Quinn. She watched her girlfriend sleep, memorizing every inch of her face and trying to stoke her hair softly enought to not wake her up. "Te amo, Quinn."
Closing the door softly, Rebecca paused for a moment debating between going down to the kitchen to get the cup of tea she'd originally gotten up for or not. In the end, she padded softly down the hall towards her bedroom, deciding she needed the warmth and security of her wife's embrace to help her cope with the sadness in her heart at what she'd learned about their daughter's troubled past far more than she needed the tea.
The next morning came too soon, at least Quinn thought so, groaning awake as the early morning sunlight shot through the blinds directly into her eyes. Before she opened them though, the familiar scent of her girlfriend mingled with another very familiar scent hit her nose and she smiled softly, tightening her arms around the girl and snuggling close. She could feel the familiar warmth of Blackie pressed up against her back, assuming that Toast was curled up next to Santana's shoulders like he usually was.
"Good morning, beautiful," she whispered, pressing a kiss to Santana's shoulder. "You smell like Pony. Late night visit again?"
"I couldn't sleep," she whispered sleepily as she snuggled into Quinn. "I was upset and Rebecca came out to talk to me."
"Mmm," Quinn murmured. "She's good at that. Did she help any?"
"I think so. She... explained some things I didn't know," she said as she pulled Quinn so she was laying on top of her. "I like you as a blanket."
Quinn finally blinked her eyes open, smiling down at Santana as she braced herself on her forearms pressed into the bed on either side of Santana's head so her entire weight wasn't on the smaller girl. "Mmm, you would." She leaned down and kissed her softly. "Want to talk about anything or keeping the big stuff for sessions with Aunt Becca?"
"She told me how lady sex works," Santana whispered and looked up into the girl's eyes. "She also tried to make me understand how Ben was feeling about being here with me."
"Oh God." Quinn blushed. "She gave you the lesbian birds and the bees? Aunt Becca did? Was that as humiliating for both of you as it sounds?" She sobered after a moment and looked down at Santana, letting her behind the walls she showed the world to see how much she felt for her in her eyes. "As for Ben... I don't know how to feel about him. I mean, he's your dad and all... but he gave up. So, I'm just going to follow your lead where he's concerned, okay? If you say we hate him, then we hate him."
"She... she got worried. I told her sex always hurts and I don't wanna have it. Then... um she told me other things were sex," she whispered, her eyes looking away from Quinn's because she was humiliated. "Things I didn't think were."
"Other... things?" Quinn looked confused and worried at the same time, moving to meet Santana's eyes. "San, what's going on? Are you okay?"
"Like... hands touching," she whispered. "I didn't know. They told me it wasn't sex so I never told you." She blinked away tears. "I'm sorry I never told you."
"N-never told me what, San?" Quinn's voice trembled slightly, but she tried to smile anyway. "Come on, you're scaring me. Please don't cry..." She brushed away a tear that escaped to trickle down the girl's cheek. "I'm right here. I love you. Nothing's going to change that, I promise."
"When... when people would come to our house... when I was little." She sniffled burying her face in Quinn's shoulder. "They'd... they'd touch me. D-down there," she whispered, her voice wavering.
"W-what?" Quinn gasped, shocked and furious all at once. "When you were a little kid?" She sounded anguished, her arms wrapping around Santana, covering her with her body. "How could they? How could people do that to you?" she whispered into Santana's neck as she buried her face against the soft skin of her neck, hot, angry tears trickling down her cheeks.
"I was like six, Quinn. I don't know. I couldn't stop them and my mommy would give me my stuff to go to sleep but sometimes I'd wake up to people in my bed with me and mommy," she whispered, sounding like a scared child. "I didn't wanna lie to you anymore. I was scared and when I remembered I told Rebecca and it scares me that I keep remembering things like this. When will it stop?"
"I don't know," Quinn whispered into her neck, shaking her head. "I don't know, San. I'm sorry. I wish... I wish it could have been me. I wish I could have taken your place. I wish I could go back in time and take you away before any of that could happen."
"I wish that we could have lived here forever," Santana whispered as she clung to Quinn. "I don't want any of that stuff to have happened to you. Not ever. I just... wish I could be cleaner for you, better or something," she whispered, snuggling closer.
"You're not dirty, Santana," Quinn whispered, leaning up to look into Santana's eyes, willing her to see the truth she believed so completely in them. "Not to me. To hell with the bastards in your past. If I ever met them, I swear I'll kill them, but they can't taint your soul. You're still the one I love. The only one I love. You can't be better for me because you're already perfect for me," she murmured, wrapping her arms around Santana and holding her tight. "You're perfect for me even with what happened. Even if we never do anything more than cuddle. Even if it takes the rest of our lives before you stop getting these memories. You're perfect for me, San..."
"I love you forever," she whispered as she looked into Quinn's eyes. "You... you're the best thing that ever happened to me."
"That's my line, silly," Quinn joked, trying desperately to lighten the mood. "You saved me, after all. I never thought I'd ever know what love really was until I got to be with you. I was just going to marry the first guy that asked me before you... woke me up."
"I thought I was dying when you told me you were leaving that night. I just needed to kiss you for once," she whispered. "I just needed... I needed to kiss you so bad and I will need to kiss you like that for the rest of my life. I'm going to marry you, Quinn Fabray. I'm gonna marry you when we're old enough and make you legally mine so you have a family and you know you're loved."
"Really?" Quinn smiled lopsidedly, almost disbelievingly. "Y-you... you want to marry me someday?" She hadn't thought that far ahead in their lives, hadn't allowed herself a future, focused too much on the present.
"Yeah. I want you to be my wife and have babies with you and all the crap," she whispered before kissing her softly. "So please stop crying every time you think about how sick I am or what happened to me, because I'm marrying your fine ass and you can't stop me," she joked as she pressed her lips to the girl's head.
"I'm still going to cry," she whispered. "I'm going to cry whenever I think about losing you. Because I... I can't imagine a world without you in it, Santana." She shook her head. "I don't want to live in that world. So you have to fight, okay?" She smiled lopsidedly, a single tear trickling down her cheek as she looked down at her. "Because I can't live without you..."
"I can't live without you ether," Santana whispered. "Can we sleep again now? I'm sleepy, baby," she whispered and closed her eyes. "Sleepy."
"Yeah," Quinn whispered, drawing the blanket up over their heads, and shifting so she could hold Santana without squishing her. "Yeah, we can sleep."