Author's Note: Thank you to anyone who is still reading! I am so sorry for the delay in updates, I've been in housing crisis mode, but I found a place and I'll have internet as of Thursday, and there will be consistent updates after that. I hope you enjoy this little tidbit I could give you from my friend's house in the meantime!
Fuck Ohio. Fuck, fuck, fuck Ohio, Santana thought to herself. She scowled as the automatic doors swung open again, resulting in a gust of cold wind. She was wearing her "winter" jacket, forgetting, yet again, that her LA winter jacket wasn't going to suffice for December in Ohio. She pulled the hat on Olivia tighter around her ears, mentally thanking herself for being over prepared for the cold when it came to her children. She scowled again as she glanced over at Quinn who was currently on the other side of the conveyor belt, directing the porter as to which bags belonged to her family. Quinn was calmly directing her daughters as they donned their winter gear, helping one another with gloves and scarves and hats, all exotic items of clothing for them. Santana, on the other hand, was juggling a fussy Olivia in one arm, who had, yet again, demonstrated her dislike of flying, and had yet to stop squirming and squealing. Meanwhile, her one free arm was attempting to drag an overstuffed bag off the conveyor belt. Why did the conveyor belts have to move so quickly?
"Fuck Ohio," Santana whispered under her breath.
"Ooh, I heard that, Aunt S," Lily said, peaking her head out from behind Santana's legs. Santana rolled her eyes. This was going to be a long trip, and they hadn't even left the airport yet.
"Britt, do you think you could give me hand?" Santana began to say, seeing Brittany exit the bathroom after changing Nico. Brittany's eyes were wide, though, and before Santana could register what was going on Brittany was jogging across the airport.
"Mom!" Brittany squealed. "You didn't have to pick us up at the airport!" The two blondes hugged tightly.
"I just couldn't wait a second longer to see my grandbabies," Caroline said, taking a nervous looking Nico from Brittany. Santana returned to struggling with her daughter, her bag, and Lily clinging to her knee. She was surprised when Mr. Pierce appeared at her side.
"Let me help you with that, Santana," Mitchell said, taking a suitcase from Santana's hand. He placed the heavy bag on the ground, and gave Santana a light kiss on the cheek. "I see my Brittany has overpacked, as usual."
"Of course she did," Santana smiled. "It's good to see you, Mitchell," Santana said.
"It's always good to see you, Santana. And this must be little Olivia! She's gotten so much bigger since we last saw them!" He gently touched the soft blond hair on his granddaughter's head. He noticed another blond looking up at him from behind Santana's leg. "Well, if it isn't a little Fabray. Let me guess…you must be…Hannah?" Mitchell asked, his voice teasing. Lily huffed and crossed her arms, venturing slightly in front of Santana.
"You know me, Grape. I'm Lily. That's Hannah!" Lily said, pointing dramatically to where Hannah, Harper, Quinn and the limo driver stood. Mitchell smiled at the name. Try as they might, no one could ever get Hannah to understand the word great-uncle or great aunt, so he and his wife would forever be known as Grape and Bimsie to the Fabray children.
"There's no way you can be Lily! You're way too big!" Mitchell said, mocking shock.
"I'm seven now! I'm in the first grade! Bimsie, Grape doesn't remember me!" Lily huffed to Caroline.
"Oh, he's an old man, I'm surprised her remembers to screw his head on in the morning," she explained, crouching down to give Lily a hug. She then pulled Santana into a tight hug while her husband gathered the girls' luggage. "Santana, it's wonderful to see you."
"You too, Caroline." Santana said, still wrapped up in her mother-in-law's hug.
"Is my Brittany taking care of you? You look so thin!" Caroline said, pulling away.
"Brittany tells me that everyday," Santana replied smiling. "I just do too much yoga."
"And you work too hard," Brittany added. Santana rolled her eyes, but Caroline didn't notice, having moved on to her granddaughter.
"And this must be Olivia, she's grown so much!"
"We really need to get down to the southland more often," Mitchell mused, eyeing his growing grandchildren.
"You certainly do," Quinn interjected, arriving out of nowhere with Hannah and Harper in hand. She hugged Mitchell and Caroline
"Oh, Quinnie, it's so good to see you!" Caroline said. "The girls are getting so big!" She crouched down to pull Hannah and Harper into a hug.
"Grape doesn't remember me," Lily huffed silently as Mitchell hugged Harper and Hannah. Santana ruffled her hair, earning a small smile by the pouting, miniature Quinn.
"Do you need a ride home from the airport?" Mitchell asked. Quinn shook her head, pointing over to the silent limo driver.
"Let's make plans sometime while we're all in town, okay?" Quinn asked. Mitchell and Caroline nodded as Quinn and the girls walked away to a chorus of "bye, Bimsie and Grape!" Mitchell picked up half of the bags and Santana picked up the other half and followed Brittany and Caroline out of the airport.
"Are you excited to see Grandma?" Quinn asked, leaning into the window of the limo to tip the driver. Her three daughters nodded glumly. "Come on," Quinn said, "you know she'll probably have some of her famous Peppermint Bark ready for you!"
"I love peppermint bark," Harper said, simply. "We should buy a peppermint tree so that we can have peppermint bark all the time, mommy." Quinn smiled at her daughter's logic. Her youngest certainly took after Brittany's way of thinking. The blond foursome made their way up the path to the Fabray home, the home Quinn had grown up in, and to her mother. Quinn nervously rang the doorbell. A moment later a flushed and excited looking Judy opened the door.
"Quinnie," she said, breathlessly, pulling her daughter in for a hug.
"Hi, mom," Quinn said.
"And my little angels!" Judy exclaimed, pulling the three girls tightly to her.
"Grandma, I can't breathe!" Hannah finally exclaimed, after Judy held them there for what felt like forever. Quinn laughed.
"Relax, mom, you'll have them for a whole week," Quinn said as her mother released her daughters. Immediately upon release, Lily grabbed Harper's stuffed bear from her arms and dropped her skateboard on the ground, taking off down the hall on it, followed by a crying Harper and a screaming Lily. All noise stopped when a crash thundered from the living room. "Aren't you excited, mom?" Quinn asked. Judy gave her daughter a knowing nod, and helped her bring the bags into the house.
"Leroy! LEROY!" Hiram yelled from the foyer of the Berry household. "Our diva has returned to Ohio!"
"I am mad at you, young lady," Leroy boomed as he entered the foyer. Rachel looked at her father, curiously. "You don't call, you don't write! Rachel Berry, the big movie star, no longer has time for her old dads. Need I remind you of who put you in dance classes at the tender age of three? Beauty pageants, voice lessons, acting lessons…"
"Daddy, daddy," Rachel said, pulling her father in for a hug, "I've just been busy, but I will never be too busy for my dads. My very young, and fit dads, might I add."
"Oh, don't try and butter me up, darling. You have some explaining to do," Leroy said as he led his daughter into their house, his arm around her shoulder and Hiram following behind, rolling his eyes as he dragged in her luggage.
"The prodigal child returns to the nest…"Gracie said sarcastically as she and Santana carried their luggage up the stairs of the Pierce household.
"You were such a cute little girl…it's a surprise you turned out so…sarcastic," Santana replied, handing one of their bags to Gracie.
"Overexposure to you, I suppose," Gracie replied, her voice dripping with sarcasm. Santana followed Grace upstairs with their bags.
"God, it still kills me that this room looks exactly the same as it did when we were in high school," Santana said, setting their bags down at the foot of Brittany's old bed, complete with notches and all.
"I told you. It's a fucking shrine to the perfect Britt-Britt."
"Geez, Gracie, jealous much? What's going on with you?"
"Nothing,' Grace said, throwing herself down on Brittany's bed.
"Liar. Since when do you have issues with Brittany?" Santana asked.
"All my life." Gracie replied, dramatically. Santana leaned back on Brittany's desk, her eyebrows raised.
"Bitch, please," Santana said, flipping her long hair over her shoulder. "You may be able to pull this inferior younger sister bullshit with some nameless in-law, Gracie, but I was there the day you were born. You're the adored youngest child and you have idolized Britt all your life. And me, apparently, if I take your attitude problems into account." Gracie rolled her eyes.
"Fine, it's not about Britt," Gracie admitted. "It's mom and dad. They're are on my back about my major and my life choices and my future and my career. Blah blah blah. And ever since I've been home from school all I've heard about is the genius Alexis who's bringing her scientist boyfriend home, and Brittany, the successful choreographer and her rockstar-lawyer wife, and their two beautiful children." It took all of Santana's willpower not to smirk, She and Brittany were awesome. Everyone knew that.
"Your parents will get over it." Santana said, simply.
"Yeah, right," Grace said, rolling her eyes.
"C'mon, Gracie. Do you not remember your prodigal sister, the golden child, as you call her, happens to be married to a woman? We weren't so popular around this neck of the woods some fifteen years ago."
"I have no recollection of that."
"Well, you'll just have to trust me then. When Britt decided she was not going to college and move to LA with her bitchy girlfriend to be a dancer, nobody was throwing her any parades."
"And look at her now."
"Exactly. Look at her now. They'll get over it, kid. You'll figure out what you want to do, and find a great guy…or gal…"
"God, Santana, everyone's not gay!"
"I didn't say you were gay! You and your roommate seemed awfully close though…" Santana said, smirking.
"Santana!"
"Sorry! All I'm saying is that everyone has this period of…finding themselves, I guess, in their mid-twenties. By the time you're an old-hag like me, I'm sure you'll have it figured out."
"Thanks, Tana," Gracie said, with a shy smile. Santana just shrugged as Grace rose from the bed. Santana wrapped her arm around her shoulder as they walked out of the room.
"You really should come visit more often," Santana said. "Auntie Tana is full of advice."
"You're my sister-in-law, not my aunt," Grace pointed out.
"Semantics," Santana said, with a wave of her hand. "Now, tell me what else is going on in your life?" She asked as they walked down the stairs.
Quinn quietly shut the door behind the room Harper and Lily were staying in. They thought the house was creepy and insisted that she read The Very Hungry Caterpillar three times before they would even consider shutting their eyes and attempting to sleep. She wasn't sure she blamed them. This big, empty house was a little bit creepy at night. Hannah, on the other hand, refused to share a room with her sisters and was sleeping in the guest room down the hall. She knew Hannah was going to be a firecracker by the time she reached middle school. She made a mental note to make sure she had the sex talk early with that one.
"Come, sit, Quinnie," her mother called to her from the dining room. They were both still dressed a little formally, considering that it was only the two of them in a mostly empty house in Lima, Ohio, but that was how her mother did it. Her face was always put on, her pearls always perfectly in place around her collarbone. Quinn sighed heavily as she took a seat at the table.
"So, tell me what's going on with this husband of yours. You've been so evasive with me on the phone, Quinnie, and you know you can talk to me about anything." Judy said after the silence seemed to have extended for far too long. "Would you like a glass of wine?"
"No, thanks," Quinn said, somewhat bitterly. Her mother swirled her glass of wine absentmindedly around the glass at the big dining room table her mother never got rid of, despite its uselessness in the house. "We're getting divorced." Judy raised her eyebrows, clearly surprised by this revelation.
"Well…that's certainly not what I expected." Judy said, swirling the wine in her glass around. "What happened, if you don't mind me asking?"
"Oh, I don't know, mom," Quinn said, glaring at Judy. "Perhaps it's related to the fact that I only see him maybe, if I'm lucky, two months out of the year. Or that he's blatantly been cheating on me for around a decade. Or that he contributes nothing to the family outside of his paycheck, which, while it is a very lovely bonus, I don't want to be paid to raise someone's children."
"Quinnie, I don't understand why you're jumping down my throat about this. I haven't said anything to suggest that you shouldn't leave Justin. I simply asked why, since you haven't talked to me about it at all." Quinn looked at her mother with a mix of annoyance and sadness. There really was no reason for her to take this out on her mother.
"I'm sorry, mom. I just…I don't know…" Quinn tried to visualize herself in Dr. Phillips' office, visualize Dr. Phillips asking her what she would want to say to her mother. "I guess I just assumed that you'd want me to stay with Justin regardless, because, you know, he supports me and it's what a good wife is supposed to do."
"I didn't do that, Quinnie," Judy pointed out. "I left your father." Quinn reached her hand out to her mother's and held it sympathetically.
"I know, mom. I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry things didn't work out with you and Justin," Judy said, smiling sadly at her daughter.
"It's okay."
"So, have you broken the news to the girls yet?" Judy asked, squeezing Quinn's hand. Quinn shook her head.
"We're going to wait until after the holidays to do it."
"That's probably for the best," Judy said. Judy eyed her daughter silently for a long time. "There's something else, isn't there, Quinn?" Judy said finally, raising a knowing eyebrow at her daughter.
"What do you mean?"
"You seem different…relaxed…or maybe it's content?"
"It's been an interesting year," Quinn said, simply. They sat in silence for a bit longer as Judy tried to figure out what was different with her daughter. "Do you still want to have dinner at the Pierce's tomorrow night?" Quinn asked, finally breaking the silence. Her mother nodded. "Okay, then I'm off to bed." Quinn placed a light kiss on her mother's head and walked upstairs.
"Rachel Berry, you've told us everything we possibly could ever want to know about your exciting, movie star life in LA, and you've told us nothing about your personal life!"
"You know, daddy, I work twelve hour days! Who has time for a personal life?"
"The Rachel I know always has time for a personal life. You're holding back. There must be a special guy or girl you've been seeing."
"I'm not holding back, daddy. Can we just let it go?" Rachel asked, nervously sipping her wine. Hiram raised his eyebrows at Leroy, but they complied with their only child's request and began discussing the numerous options for vegan food in Los Angeles.
Hiram absentmindedly flipped through the pages of the magazine he was reading in bed while Leroy brushed his teeth in the next room.
"She's lying, you know," Hiram yelled to Leroy.
"Who's lying?" Leroy asked, poking his head out of the bathroom with his toothbrush hanging half out of his mouth,
"Our daughter, who else?"
"Now, just what is she lying about?"
"About not seeing anyone."
"What makes you so sure?"
"She has that same, determined look she had when she was in love with the Hudson boy in High School but he was dating that girl, you know, the one that was in glee club with her? Who got pregnant?"
"Yeah, I know!" Leroy finally yelled from the bathroom.
"It's the look she had when Jack broke up with her, the first time, in college."
"She's an adult now, though."
"Her face hasn't changed a bit. You'll see honey," Hiram said as Leroy crawled into bed in a striped pajama set, "you'll see. She's dating someone. And they're special."
"You're just a silly old romantic." Leroy said, giving Hiram a chaste kiss.
"Your silly old romantic."
Rachel could hear her fathers' light chatter upstairs and smiled to herself at how some things really never changed in the Berry household. They were probably gossiping about her lack of love life. She wasn't tired yet, her body was still on West Coast time, so she tried watching some late night TV, but this time of year it was all holiday movies about love and family, so she had turned it off right away. Rachel could never quite put her finger on the emotion that she felt when she visited her fathers. In college, returning home was always so simple, but she felt more out of place the older she grew. It was the difference between the phrase 'going home' and 'going to visit her parents'. She went to visit her parents now. The soothing murmurs of her fathers as they talked before bed is the same as she remembers it when she was five, but they moved the cutlery to a new drawer. The placement of the family portrait when Rachel was twelve still hung above the fireplace, but there was new furniture in front of it. The line of photographs of dance recitals and school plays and glee club performances never moved, but she'd be damned if she could find a plate in the kitchen, and when she finally did, they weren't the same plates she'd eaten on all her life. Those plates had been given to Goodwill when she was 26 and her fathers' found themselves without a child to support and a little bit of expendable income. She looked at each of those pictures lined up in their hallway, running her finger along the smooth glass of the frames. Her parents really had done everything they could to make sure she made it to the place she was today. She was a born performer. A bred performer, perhaps. All the pictures of her lined up perfectly to create the Rachel Berry who stood here in her old house in Lima, Ohio and could see where she came from. She walked over to the bookshelf and found the photo album she was looking for, and took a seat at the dining room table, still dimly lit with four Hannukah candles her fathers had forgotten to put out. Maybe they assumed that she would put them out when she went to bed. She was an adult, after all. The albums were still all of her…let's be honest, Rachel Berry was a cute kid whether she was performing or not. These pictures were different though. Rachel and Leroy in Ocean City, Maryland. Rachel was four and had her hands proudly across her chest as her dad grinned and they showed off her sand castle. It was the first time she had ever seen the ocean. Her dads looking nervous as their held her hands on the first day of Kindergarten, Rachel's grin nearly to her ears as she thinks about her Wizard of Oz lunchbox and all the new friends she was going to make. She skips forward to her first day of High School, and now her dads are wearing the proud faces, and even though Rachel has her performance smile on, she knows she's just terrified. These kids tortured her in elementary school and they tortured her in middle school and there's no reason to think they'll suddenly change their minds now that they're a year older. She's wearing an outfit very similar to the one she wore for her first day of Kindergarten, and she can't help but laugh out loud and understand why she was teased so much as a teenager. She knows that somewhere, in the distance, out of the camera's frame but in her fourteen-year-old eye line, Brittany, Santana and Quinn are laughing at her. They're not in their Cheerios' uniforms just yet, but they've always understood social currency, and Rachel never has. She doesn't understand it, and she doesn't understand them. She knows that at 14, she let her eyes move from the camera lens over to the girls smirking at her and tried desperately to understand them. Yes, Quinn was pretty, but she had only been in their district a year and she didn't understand everyone else's fascination with her. Santana was pretty too, but she was mean, and she was constantly hurting everyone's feelings. When Santana wasn't hurting someone's feelings, and when she thought no one was looking, she just looked sad. Santana watched the way Quinn interacted with the boys in their class, absorbing the information and mimicking it. Rachel often wondered how someone so sad could be so popular. Rachel knew show faces, and she knew that Santana's eyes were empty nearly all of the time. And Brittany…well Brittany just had no idea what she was doing. Rachel was pretty sure Brittany was the dumbest person she had ever met. Yet, these were the girls who were going to make her life miserable for the next four years. She watched them laugh, and Santana quietly slip some Gummy Bears over to Brittany, and the camera snapped before she could make eye contact with it again. She had her smile on but she was looking off in the distance. Rachel shook her head at the memory, smiling softly to herself. At least it all made sense now. She skips forward through countless school plays and Hanukkah's and Passover's and glee club performances and community theater shows and dance recitals and birthdays and proms until she settles upon the Glee Clubs win at Nationals in 2012. She's seen some version of this picture at everyone's house, taken by various different parents and friends, in different milliseconds and from different angles. She's grinning at the camera, in the center of the group, her show choir face still on. Quinn is smiling, clasping her hands together, in the corner of the frame. Mercedes is in Artie's lap, and gripping Sam's hand tightly, Karofsky is hugging Sam from behind with his head upon Sam's shoulder. Mike and Tina are mid-jump hug and Puck has grabbed Lauren so tightly around the middle that it looks like she might explode. Kurt and Blaine are kissing like they'd never kissed in their lives, hands tangled in hair and bodies pressed impossibly close together. The younger kids are in the periphery. Rachel has trouble remembering all of their names, but that little lesbian with the tattoos and little gay boy are holding hands. The lesbian is staring at Santana, as usual, and the gay boy is staring at Blaine, also, as usual. The boy with the dreadlocks is holding the redhead around her waist, but she's staring at Brittany like there's no tomorrow and he's staring at Mercedes. She can't help but resent the freshmen, even now. They have no idea what it took the Glee Club to get to this place. Brittany and Santana are, of course, oblivious to the stares in their direction, and maintain their gaze on one another. It's not sexual, for once, especially back in those days. Rachel has been around them enough to know when a silent gaze equals sexy times. This is tender. This is relief. This says 'we finally made it, Britt', without saying anything at all. Rachel thinks of Nico and Olivia, and of the unknown children Brittany is sure they'll call Sunshine and Rainbow and Unicorn if she gets her way, and knows that they'll look at this picture that hangs in everyone of their mothers' friends homes and see nothing in it. They won't understand that their mothers struggled to become who they were, that they weren't always the happy couple they see them as today. Nico will laugh at his mami's grin and his mama's smirk, and not realize all the tears and pain and vulnerability that resulted in this picture. She knows that one day, Hannah and Harper and Lily will look at this picture, and they will see their mother all alone in the corner and Aunt Rachel, center of attention, and that in all of these pictures, despite all the milliseconds and all the angles, not a gaze will be shared between the two of them. That, for all the history she and Quinn have together, there's not a single photograph that shows that they have ever been anything more than just two people who went to the same high school, who happened to participate in the same extracurricular activity. Maybe, Rachel thinks, it's time she makes peace with the fact that they may not ever be much more than that. She stands up in one move, shutting the photo album and blowing out the Hanukkah candles.
Quinn is in her room. It's her childhood room, and not much has changed since childhood. Her mom never really bothered to update the décor in most of the house, even though she had been living there alone for the better part of the last two decades, and Quinn's room was no exception. When Quinn was young, sometimes they'd joke that she was seven going on seventy, and her room is a reflection of that, so maybe her mother didn't really need to change it. Her mother is listening to Christmas music downstairs, undoubtedly dancing with her Martini, or Chardonnay, or Cape Cod, or whatever is the drink of the night. Quinn slips into her pajamas and turns off the big light in her room, leaving just the light on her bed table. The light casts a ghostly glow over her the pictures on her end table. Her gaze stops on a picture of the Glee Club after their win at Nationals their senior year. This picture is a few hours after they've celebrated their win, after Mr. Schuester popped the cork on the Sparkling Apple Cider and failed to hold back his tears. It's after the pizza and the impromptu performance of "Don't Stop Believing" in the boys' hotel room. The girls are now all packed into their little hotel room, with the exception of Brittany and Santana who went out to get ice an hour and a half earlier, and haven't been heard of since. She had heard Santana rambling on about Tribeca and Henrietta something-or-other to a bemused Brittany and then they were gone. Quinn and Rachel are making eye contact from a few feet apart and Mercedes snapped the picture, giving it to Quinn a few months later as they said their goodbyes and all went their separate ways for college, simply saying "you guys look cute. Like you get it now. Or something."
"Get what?" Quinn asked Mercedes as they stood in line at the keg in Puck's backyard.
"I don't know exactly," Mercedes clarified, shrugging. "I mean, I'm obviously friends with both of you, you lived with me for months, Quinn, in case you forgot. I just like this picture. It's like…you get something, about Glee Club, about life, about high school…and you're sharing it in this moment. I thought you should have it." Mercedes finishes with a shrug.
All Quinn knows about the picture is that she had a little alcohol in her system, and Rachel probably did too, because after Mr. Schuester left them Santana opened the mini-fridge with the reasoning "we're all over 18, which makes this legal in Europe, and we're about to be in college anyway, so who really is going to give a fuck?" Santana didn't stay around for long, though, and they'd probably just about finished the contents of that mini-fridge. Quinn's smiling at Rachel, thinking of her solo, and of a year ago when Rachel told her that she was more than just a pretty face, and how much she wished any of her boyfriends had ever said that to her. She's thinking that Glee Club is special…and that, somehow, it makes her special too. Quinn loves that picture. She thinks that maybe, all this work she's been doing to get her life back, might lead to her feeling like she's part of something special again. She smiles at the thought as she climbs into bed and shuts off the light.
"They're delightful, Brittany, they really are," Caroline said as Brittany and her mother returned from putting the twins to bed. Brittany took her seat next to Santana on the couch and Gracie rolled her eyes.
"Thanks, mom," Brittany said. "We're pretty lucky." She kissed Santana on the forehead.
"It has nothing to do with luck. It's those awesome Pierce genes." Santana said, earning her a wide smile from Mitchell and Caroline. Santana looked over at Gracie, confused, seeing the devious grin work its way across the younger girl's face.
"I guess we just have to hope that the Lopez genes work out just as well for your next kid, right, San?" Gracie asked, smirking. Mitchell and Caroline furrowed their brow in confusion. Santana rolled her eyes, stopping only when she noticed Caroline looking at her with her eyes wide.
"Oh my god!" She exclaimed, resting her hand on Santana's stomach. "You mean? Congratulations!" She squealed.
"No, mom, no," Brittany said, quieting her mother down. "Santana's not pregnant."
"But…"
"I think Gracie just means that Santana is planning on carrying our next child," Brittany clarified.
"So, that's why you're building the addition to your house!" Mitchell said, excited to be part of the conversation. "We knew something was going on! You wanted to get it finished before Santana gets pregnant."
"Well, I think this an occasion calling for some champagne." Caroline said, hopping up from her seat.
"But, we're not even pregnant yet," Brittany said, noting that the color had drained completely from Santana's face.
"I know, but how can I help but want to celebrate when my favorite daughters' are planning on giving me more grandchildren?" Caroline asked, retrieving a bottle of champagne from the wine refrigerator.
"Wow. I'm right here. Biological daughter," Grace said, gesturing to herself. "Daughter-in-law," she said, gesturing to Santana. Santana smirked.
"And look at Santana," Caroline said to no one in particular. "She's beautiful. I'm going to have a brood of beautiful grandchildren," she said, popping the cork out of the bottle. Mitchell finally picked up on Santana's discomfort.
"So, how are things going with the renovations, by the way?" He asked the girls.
"They're going," Santana replied. "Everything is in place structurally, we're on to the aesthetics. Luckily, we have one of our neighbor's kids housesitting to take care of Lola and Lord Tubbington IV, so he's also letting the contractors in to finish up while we're gone."
"I took a look at those blueprints you sent me, Santana. It looks like it's going to be pretty amazing." Brittany looked over at her wife, surprised. She didn't know that Santana and her father communicated on their own.
"I certainly hope so. So, Mitchell, have you been following the Bengals this season?"
"Trying not too. They're atrocious."
"I know. We're going to have to put all of our eggs in the Seahawks basket, yet again." Brittany and her mother started to talk quietly as Santana and Mitchell went on about football.
"You must be beside yourself with excitement, Brittany," her mother said, taking a sip of her champagne.
"I'm trying not to be, mom," Brittany replied, quietly. "She wants to wait for things to be more settled down, you know, when she's not going through a job change, renovations on our house, and two toddlers." Her mother gave her that typical, "knowing" mother look. "Okay, I'm excited," Brittany admitted. Her mother squealed again, pulling Brittany in for a hug. "Santana's right though, we're waiting for the renovations to be finished and for her to be settled in to a new job before we start expanding on our family." Brittany explained, reasonably. Her mother just stared at her, a flush in her cheeks. "What?" Brittany asked.
"Nothing," her mother replied.
"Why are you staring at me weird?"
"It's just…I'm just so proud of you. You've grown up to do such wonderful things with your life, and you have a beautiful, loving wife, two wonderful children, a successful career…I just can't help but remember when you were my little Brittany and you were trying to find a way to be a unicorn when you grew up."
"I'm still kind of disappointed I can't be a unicorn when I grow up." Brittany's brow knit together in thought. What if she had become a unicorn? Could she and Santana have unicorn-human sex? Would unicorn-human relationships be frowned upon by larger society? Would Santana have pushed her to come out as a unicorn, thus exposing the species to be, in fact, real? They would probably have to start a coalition for the rights of unicorns and unicorn-human relationships—
"Are you okay, Brittany?" Her mother asked. Brittany smiled, grateful that at some point in the last ten years the filter between her brain and her mouth had finally grown in.
"Yeah," Brittany said, simply. "Just thinking that I'm pretty glad I grew up in a non-unicorn kind of way."
