Quinn smirked as her niece practically bounced on the balls of her feet, waiting impatiently to arrive at Charlie's apartment. "Your mom's going to be super proud of your report card."

Harper shrugged but couldn't hide her own self-satisfied grin. Her mom was proud of grades and stuff, but she was more excited that her mom was still sticking around. "Yeah?"

"Straight A's?" Quinn arched her brow dramatically. "Of course she'll be proud. Maybe you can help Beth with her grades," Quinn said making a face her daughter was doing well but she had a C in math. Fabrays didn't get C's.

They both stopped a little when the doors opened, revealing Santana who seemed to be frozen at the doorway, seemingly torn as to press the buzzer to be allowed into the apartment complex.

Harper glances up at her aunt Quinn before turning back to Santana who hadn't seemed to notice them. She wasn't sure if this was a good thing or not but she pulls away from her aunt and moves to Santana grabbing her hand. "I got straight A's on my report card," Harper informs Santana who blinks in surprise.

Santana licks her lips and tries to straighten herself out, ignoring Quinn's very existence as she turns to Harper and forces a smile onto her lips. "That's great."

Harper doesn't hesitate to pull Santana along with her not giving her a chance to escape. "It's awesome you're here. Are you going to go for dinner with my mom? What are you doing outside? Can I still come watch you perform surgery?"

Santana blinked the questions had come out in a rapid fire manner and she wasn't sure where to begin. "I—"

"Maybe we can go out together? You know like we used to?" Harper pushes the button to the elevator.

"Harper—"

"Oh! I bet mom would let us go to the science museum, or even the aquarium, that could be cool." Harper continues, oblivious to Quinn's knowing smirk. She looks up at Santana with innocent eyes. "I bet if you come around more, mom will stay even longer."

Quinn's smirk falls and Santana feels her own anger flare. Harper shouldn't have to worry about her mom taking off at a moment's notice. She felt her own resolve grow, she and Charlie needed to talk, and even if it wasn't going to be pretty, somebody had to stand up for Charlie's kid. "I'm sure—"

But Harper brightens and waves the thought away. "Did you know she's sticking around for another two months." She's practically giddy at the thought. It is just like before. Her mom and Santana and her—this was going to be great.

Quinn wisely holds the elevator door for them and waves her goodbye as Harper drags Santana to Charlie's front door. "Come on, mom said she was even making dinner!"

Santana makes a face, "Mac and cheese?"

Harper laughs and is about to pull out her key when the door to their apartment swings open and her mom pokes her head out. Harper grins as her mom turns to her and then looks at Santana like it's a dream. "Guess who I brought along?"

Charlie smiled, "You are so getting a raise in your allowance," she murmurs immediately stepping aside for them both to enter the house. She immediately held out her arms, "Do you uh—want me to take your jacket? Are you staying for dinner?"

Santana hesitates for a moment, "So long as you're not making mac and cheese."

"It's Kraft dinner, and I'm making the alfredo one." Charlie said with a smile which faded when Santana gave her a look. "She likes it—"

Santana turns to Harper who shrugs, "I don't want mom to burn down our new apartment," Harper whispers to Santana who can't help but smirk at the dig.

"Your daughter got straight A's and you can't even make her a nice dinner?" Santana shook her head. This wouldn't do at all, Harper had been having a rough go of it lately and deserved something special. She glances at Harper for a moment before sighing inwardly and shaking her head. "What do you have in your kitchen? Apart from bacon."

"Milk and cereal." When Santana shoots her a look of disbelief she can't help but scratch her head and shoot her a sheepish smile. "I was running late today and didn't have time to go to the store to pick some stuff up!"

"Don't forget the eggs," Harper added helpfully.

"Oh maybe we can do breakfast for dinner!" Charlie offers with a pleased smile. "We've got enough bacon and—"

"Pancakes too?"

"I think we've got some pancake batter lying around somewhere," Charlie scratched her cheek.

Santana twitched at the blasé affair. Dinner was important especially for a child like Harper. She stared at the two Fabray's before shaking her head, if she didn't do something Harper was going to starve and Charlie already had unhealthy eating habits. This wasn't going to do at all. Breakfast for dinner sounded like something that Charlie would do to far often to be anywhere near healthy. "No, we're going to do some grocery shopping then I'm going to make you two enough food that you can easily heat up so you don't end up eating Kraft dinner again."

"Santana—you don't have to cook for us." Charlie begins quickly wanting to put a stop to this before it got out of hand.

"I'm not offering to do this, I'm telling you that this is what's going to happen. Maybe I'll teach you something," Santana turns to Harper who is watching them carefully. "You deserve to eat something amazing for doing a good job at school."

Harper smiled watching as her mother tried to argue but Santana had always been super bossy, she was sure her mom liked it even if she complained about it. "Okay, I'm going to change out of my uniform, I'll be right back," she informed her mother. This was clearly going to happen whether her mom wanted it to or not and she was really tired of mac and cheese. She immediately took off to go change into her normal clothes hoping that her mom didn't scare Santana away.

Santana watched as Harper took off and waited until she heard the click of the door before turning on Charlie entering her personal space and prodding her hard in the chest. "I can't believe you. How the hell could you just abandon your daughter?" Something tickles at the back for her nose and she can swear that she can smell Dani on Charlie but she would get her answers later.

Charlie frowned, "What are you talking about? I haven't abandoned my daughter."

"Then what do you call taking off every few months to go do whatever it is the hell you're doing. You don't take three months away from your kid or six months or however long your vacations are. Harper needs you and she thinks you've abandoned her."

Understanding flickered across Charlie's face and she shook her head, "Oh, that. Everything I'm doing is for Harper. I made a decision, just like in a few months I'll have to make another decision again. I can't afford the training camps in New York, they take a bigger percentage of my winnings. I won't be able to afford the nice school that Harper goes to now, or the apartment in the good area of town. I made the decision to go pro for Harper. See her report card? She's going to get into some Ivy League school and I want to be able to help her as much as I can. You were right about the injuries piling up, and the fact that I'm getting older—I made a decision. There are more rules now, I'm taking better care of myself and I fight two or three times a year and with sponsorships, we're comfortable. I'm not allowed to fight unless I get cleared by a doctor. I have insurance now, which means that Harper has really good insurance. I can afford Kraft Dinner now and a car that doesn't break down or smoke anymore." Charlie exhales, "I don't want to be away from her for months at a time. Rachel and Quinn are fine parents but they're too trusting, and they're busy all the time—" Charlie trails off.

It suddenly made a bit more sense. New York was expensive, and for Charlie comfortable probably meant she had little to no savings. She probably didn't even have a retirement plan or anything of the sort. She was finally starting to think ahead. "Oh." It was the only thing that she could think off and she felt ridiculous, Charlie wasn't trying to punish anyone. It all boiled down to Charlie trying to take care of Harper by herself.

"Yeah, I guess I need to explain that to Harper more. She's popular at school you know. She gets invited to birthday parties and stuff like that and it's going well for her. Like really well. If I tell her all this she'll want to move down just to be with me and I can't have that. I have to stick her report card on the fridge—should I frame it? I think we should just stick it on the fridge though." Charlie pauses for a moment after she realizes she's rambling. "Sorry—you're probably here about what happened at the gym today. I'm sorry."

Santana stops. The gym? But she usually finds that playing along gets her more information than a direct confrontation. "Yes. I am." She lies. It's easier than saying she's here to talk.

Charlie blows out a breath. "Fine. I'm sorry, all right? Dani just cornered me but I really tried not to ruin it for you. She still doesn't know about us—well not that we tried to mate."

"I see."

"But I was naked, so I'm not sure what else you wanted from me." Charlie defends.

"You were naked?" Santana repeats slowly.

"I was getting out of the shower and she basically barged in on me. I refused to put on pants though."

Santana rolls her eyes. "Of course you did." It seems that Charlie's great about being stubborn about everything except mating with her. "I'll talk to her, she was out of line coming to your gym to bother you. Thank you."

Charlie raises her brow. That went better than she expected. "So you're not mad?"

"No, at least not at you." She would talk to Dani about it later. She frowns slightly and sighs, she had a feeling her mother had a role to play in the today's events. "So I have a list of things that I need to get for dinner tonight try not to get distracted by candy like last time."

"They were having a sale," Charlie protests as Harper came out of the door of her room. "Besides Harper loves the peanut M&Ms."

"I do, but you always finish them all!" Harper grumbles. "She ate the bag that you bought for me the last time."

Santana turns to Charlie, "Really? Stealing candy from children Charlie?"

"I was hungry." Charlie grumbles grabbing her keys.

Santana shakes her head and looks at Harper, "You need to hide them better, so your mom doesn't get into it."

"I was hungry!" Charlie protests again and pokes Harper in the side glancing over at Santana who rolled her eyes.

~O~

"You're a child, how the hell is Harper better behaved than you?" Santana grumbles smacking Charlie's hand as she attempts to sneak more food from where she had been chopping up vegetables. Well she would be if Charlie wasn't attempting to steal everything that she prepared. Harper laughed as Charlie rubbed her knuckles. Her lips couldn't help but quirk upwards as she shook her head. This just felt right.

Charlie grins, not missing Santana's amusement winking at her daughter playfully, they were winning. She was so going to give Harper a raise in her allowance, or at the very least start handing her money every time she did something like this. "At least I'm eating vegetables. That's good right?"

"Now you choose to eat vegetables?" Santana scoffed.

Charlie smiles, "I'm choosing to do a lot of things now, things I should have done before. Like I said I need to keep healthy."

Santana studies Charlie for a moment before turning to Harper, "I'm on call this weekend, how about you come and watch me do a surgery, I'll make sure to narrate everything so you understand. I'll get the proper permission of course just give me a few days to iron the out details and get permission from the patient of course."

Harper immediately turns to her mom who is trying to sneak another carrot only to get her hand swatted, "Can we? Please?"

Charlie made a face, she got queasy just watching Santana work but she nods she's not going to give up spending any time with Santana. "Okay," she'd make sure to get something to eat from that place that Santana liked nearby. She didn't understand how anyone could eat after doing what Santana did but it was what it was.

Santana eyed Charlie carefully before turning to Harper. "Make sure your mom doesn't throw up though. She's capable of punching someone until they are a bloody mess but perish the thought of her watching me heal someone."

"It's different!" Charlie protests immediately. "I don't—you know dig around inside of them."

"Good, cause neither do I," Santana retorts but she gets it. The first time that they had worked on a cadaver four people had fainted in her class. She wasn't sure if they had continued or not. "I—" Santana begins only to pause when her phone goes off. She moves to grab it from her purse. It could be the hospital, she was technically on call tonight.

"Do you have to leave?" Harper pouts before Santana can even see who is on the other line. Charlie smirks, vowing that she's going to do something way better than a raise in her allowance for her wingman daughter. She's great at this, and at this point Charlie's not even sure she's trying.

Santana frowns at the caller id. "No, I couldn't very well abandon you to eat whatever horrors your mom cooks up." She winks but motions that she's going to step outside to take the call. She swipes to answer but cautions Harper, "I'm trusting you to make sure this doesn't burn and that it doesn't all get eaten before dinner."

Harper nods proudly and Santana steps out of the kitchen. She turns her head back immediately as she catches her mom reaching to steal more food. "Mom."

Charlie stops puts the sliced carrot back down. There's a part of her that realizes that if Santana becomes her mate she was going to be completely overwhelmed by the amount of omegas in her life. Harper was clearly on Santana's side.

"What do you want?" Santana answered her phone sharply.

'I'm here waiting at the hospital, where are you? Tina said you're not in surgery.'

"My surgery was cancelled." Santana agrees, not giving anything else. Of course now Dani decided it was time to actually show that she gave a damn. But she didn't have time to worry about Dani's feelings, right now. Not that she'd admit why. "So I made plans. What are you doing there?"

'I stopped by to take you to dinner.' She could practically feel Dani's protective frown. 'What are you doing?'

"Babysitting." Santana said the first thing that came to mind and then smiled at her unintended joke. Cooking with Charlie definitely felt like babysitting, even if the child wasn't the one she had to make sure didn't burn her hand on the burner.

'Oh. I didn't know that you had friends with kids—' Dani mused slowly.

"I don't have to tell you about each of my friends." Santana reminds. They aren't mates, not yet, and she can't deal with Dani's jealousy when it's probably unfounded. She knew plenty of people with kids, hell she was Beth's godmother and she may have gotten Brittany to name a kid after her. Though she does feel a little guilty about lying to Dani, but she owes it to herself to sort out her feelings. It's in Dani's best interest as well. She needs closure or at least to figure what the fuck is going on with her. So Dani can wait. After all, there have been plenty of dinners that they've planned, where Dani hasn't managed to show up at all.

Dani seemed to realize that she had said something slightly offensive. 'Sorry, I know. It's been a crazy week. But I just wanted to see you, maybe I can help you babysit and once the kid goes down for a nap—'

"No." She hears a crash from the kitchen and winces at the thought of the disaster that Charlie's managed to create in her absence. "Sorry. Maybe we do it tomorrow?" She offers, hoping that's enough to satisfy Dani's curiosity. She's not going to feel guilty for having a life, especially since there will be many more dinners in the future.

'What was that?' Dani asked immediately straining her ears, she was certain she had heard a crash.

"That was a hurricane hitting the kitchen. This is what happens when I leave them unattended for thirty seconds. Look, I'll see you tomorrow, go take down drug lords or whatever it is you're working on right now. Put in the hours I'm sure my mom will be happy." Santana glanced at the kitchen, it was going to be a disaster area, she could just feel it in her bones.

'Alright, but if you need me for anything just give me a call.' Dani offers.

"Right," Santana says as another crash is heard. "I got to go now," Santana repeats and ends the call before marching back into the kitchen where she finds Charlie attempting to arrange her pots and pans quickly and quietly, or her version of the word quiet. "What the hell?" She smirked when Harper automatically points to her mother, who scowls at the betrayal.

"I just opened the cupboard to get some pans out, you know to help!" Charlie says holding up her hands.

"Well next time, don't help." Santana scoffed. She should be more annoyed than she is. Instead, she's just amused. "At least I don't have to stitch anyone up."

Charlie smiled from where she was still attempting to put things into their proper place. "There's not even a scar," Charlie said pointing to her forehead.

"Well, if there was it wouldn't be my fault. You're the one that got into a fight with stitches on," truthfully she was a bit surprised that there wasn't. The damage Charlie had taken—she was sure that there would be some sort of scar. She can't help but reach forward and touch Charlie's eyebrow, feeling for any sort of indent in her skin. "But I saw your last fight, you looked—okay."

Charlie arched her brow. "Just okay? Admit it, you thought I was great."

"I admit nothing, I thought the fight went on too long. I've seen you fight bigger people before," Santana said with a shake of her head, Charlie's ego was big enough without her inflating it, and judging from the pleased smile on her face she had already said too much.

"Yeah, strength wise, but it's a matter of skill." Charlie counters. She had thought the same thing, but the fight managers have encouraged her to draw out her fights. Since she's only fighting a few times a year, it doesn't seem to be that big of a deal to go along with their demands.

"Mom's going to be the next champion! Just one more fight, and if she wins she gets to fight for the championship belt. She's even got her own twitter and everything. And they take her picture and she's been in magazines!" Harper said helpfully.

Charlie rubbed the back of her neck under Santana's eye, "It's no big deal, I'm just supposed to hype my fights and stuff. I've got fans you know, it's weird and I've got sponsors, but I mean I have two thousand twitter followers. People who actually think that I can win, and I did a telephone interview the other day which was online." Her career was taking off in ways that she hadn't imagined it would. And yeah she may only have two thousand followers, but she already in the top ten fighters in her division and was named the fourth best pound for pound fighter in the division. She was earning her stripes and after this fight, she'd begin the process of getting ready to fight the champion.

"So by this time next year you'll be carrying around a gigantic golden belt around your waist?" Santana asked.

"She promised that once she won that I could carry the belt out for her," Harper pipes up causing her mom to shrug.

"I get to pick my fights and fight less and maybe you know make the jump into movies and stuff. Rachel got me a sports agent, it'll help with the bills at least. She told me that maybe I should get a PR firm, but I said no, I don't really have anything to hide and I'm not going to apologize for things that they might want me to apologize for." Charlie said standing up as she finished glancing at her daughter. Her comment though goes right over Harper's head and she can't help but smile. She was grateful that Harper missed most of the comments, and quite frankly she had nothing to be ashamed of. Harper was the best damn kid in the world.

Santana raised a brow, "So you might end up being in movies?"

"Well the current champion parties with like A-listers, and I know I'm better and certainly more likeable plus you know I can smack talk with the rest of them, and if I need help well—you're in my corner right?" Charlie asks studying Santana's facial expression hoping that she doesn't seem repulsed by the idea.

Santana shakes her head and looks at Charlie and Harper for a moment, "Yeah. I'm in your corner." She feels her heart skip a beat when Charlie flashes her a smile and turns to Harper and flashes her a thumbs up, it's ridiculous—Charlie is ridiculous but she seems happy and with her there. She doesn't quite know what it all means. Being with Charlie and Harper was easy, it didn't really require much effort on her part, at least not anymore. She had laid most of the groundwork already but Charlie hadn't been ready, and now things were different. Charlie seemed ready but that didn't quite mean she was. She had seemed ready before they had stopped talking for more than a year. Then there was Dani, being with Dani was safe. It required a bit more effort on her part and a few extra boring dinners but Dani didn't have nearly the emotional baggage that Charlie did, even with a dead mate.

All she knew was that she needed to make a decision.

AN: So I'm aware that you people want me to post more. I know it must suck having to wait even though it's been ages since Stitches was finished. But, once I start finishing other fics a new schedule will arise. Some stories that I have sort of finished will be updated once a month, others will be updated twice a week, others still will be updated once a week just on different days.