Warning for chapter 29: Some stuff happens and then some entirely different violent stuff happens
Disclaimer: I don't own Glee
This story is unbeta'd and my first language isn't English
Chapter 29
It didn't take long before Santana started checking out their new apartment, commenting on every little thing she found. Rachel however had opted to stand still, just watching the other girl bustle around by herself. To be completely honest Rachel could barely remember the last time she had seen Santana smiling like this. So the sight in front of her, of a genuinely happy Santana, made Rachel's heartbeat pick up to the point where it almost felt like it was about to leap out of her chest.
The overwhelming feeling that was suddenly coursing though Rachel's whole body should probably have surprised her more, but deep down she already knew that this wasn't a particularity new feeling to her. This was however the first time that she hadn't tried to push the feeling away. Maybe it was due to the fact that Rachel barely had any time to process the earlier event of the day, where she had so surprisingly been given the gift of singing back. She had been so overjoyed with the prospect of doing something she loved again, that it took her completely by surprise to see Santana look so completely devastated, when the other girl had first stepped inside the door of their old apartment. As it turned out Santana had completely misunderstood the situation, but Rachel still couldn't deny how her heart had jumped a little bit when she saw how much Santana really cared about the two of them living together. However that had just been the beginning, because just a moment later she got the chance to witness how genuinely happy Santana had been for the opportunity she had been given, it had almost been too much for Rachel's heart to handle.
There certainly had been a lot of things happening to Rachel that day, which was the reason why so many different feelings were coursing through her body. In fact there were so many of them that Rachel wasn't quite sure what to do with them all. Which was probably why Rachel ended up surprising both of them, when she suddenly grabbed a hold of Santana and kissed her.
Santana was completely caught of guard by Rachel. She had been walking out from the kitchen, just talking about all the stuff she had found. So when she suddenly felt Rachel's lips on her own, she instantly froze. Santana was actually so truly shocked by the unexpected kiss, that she didn't do anything. Mostly because her brain had decided to stop working, which obviously meant that she couldn't return the kiss.
The whole situation ended up being really awkward for Rachel, who quickly took the lack of response from Santana as a rejection. So she hurriedly pulled away from Santana and mumbled out a weak "I'm sorry." before she tried to turn around to get away from the still non responsive girl as fast as she could. Rachel had no clue where she was going, but her first thought was to head for the front door.
It was only when Santana registered the tears brimming in Rachel's eyes, as she quickly turned away from her, that she finally snapped back to reality and shouted out a clearly scared "No!" to stop the other girl from leaving. She quickly grabbed a hold of Rachel's arm and yanked her back towards her own body and desperately crashed her own lips against Rachel's. This time however it was Rachel that froze, but only for a second or two, which was the time it took her to finally comprehended what Santana had done. After the initial shock had passed, Rachel quickly picked up on the fact that apparently Santana wanted her too and then she eagerly started kissing back.
Santana was the first one to break the kiss and when Rachel finally opened her clearly dazed eyes, to try to figure out why Santana had suddenly stopped their absolutely wonderful kiss, she found that Santana was looking straight at her.
As soon as Santana saw that she had Rachel's full attention, she whispered out, with desperation in her voice "Please don't ever leave me, I need you!" Rachel could see the vulnerability shining in Santana's eyes, as she was practically begging her to stay with her. So all Rachel managed to answer back, before Santana hungrily started kissing her again, was a quiet "I would never leave you Santana."
It probably should have surprised Rachel how little time it took for the two of them to go from just kissing, till Santana almost ripping her own and Rachel's clothes off on their way to their new bedroom. Not that Rachel had any intention of complaining about it, when she suddenly found herself completely naked laying under an equally naked Santana in their new bed. She knew deep down that she probably should feel a little bit ashamed of how easily she had given in, but to be perfectly honest she really couldn't care less about it, because right now all she really wanted was for Santana to keep on kissing her.
Which was the reason why Rachel was rather disgruntle, when Santana suddenly stopped kissing her back and decided to venture away from Rachel's mouth towards her neck. It probably would have sounded overly dramatic to most people, but it really felt to Rachel like she was going to die because of the sudden lack of Santana's mouth on her own.
However it didn't take long before Rachel's whimpered complaints, of needing Santana to come back up to her, were soon replaced by breathy moans as Santana proceeded to kiss every inch of Rachel's body, till she was suddenly begging Santana to do something entirely more inappropriate than to just kiss her.
When Rachel heard a breathy chuckle escape from Santana's lips, she was positively sure that Santana was enjoying her almost pathetic begging a little bit too much. But Rachel never got the time to reprimand her for being cruel for teasing a clearly desperate girl, since Santana used that moment to finally take pity on her. In less then a minute Rachel had completely forgotten all about the seemingly endless teasing and instead she was loudly chanting Santana's name over and over, till she finally came around Santana's extremely talented fingers.
As Rachel was trying to catch her breath again, Santana was just laying contently beside the other girl, looking at Rachel's sweat glistening body. Strangely enough the sight in front of her made Santana feel a sense of accomplishment, that she hadn't felt in years. The clearly unexpected feeling puzzled Santana so much, that she was too wrapped up in her own mind to notice the cunning glint in Rachel's eyes, before she suddenly found herself flipped around on her back with Rachel on top of her. All Santana got out was a surprised "How?" before Rachel attacked her neck with hungry kisses. "Ballet classes." was the answer Rachel mumbled out, as she kept up her assault on Santana's neck, which quickly made Santana forget all about her earlier pondering.
Santana was almost embarrassingly ready for what she was desperately hoping was about to happen, but it didn't take long before she quickly picked up on the fact that Rachel was a little bit nervous, mostly because of how carefully she was exploring Santana's body with her hands. Even though Santana felt like she was going to explode if Rachel didn't hurry up, she obviously didn't want to scare the other girl. Since it most likely was her first time with another woman, at least as far as Santana knew. So Santana quickly decided to give the obviously inexperienced girl on top of her a helping hand, by carefully taking a hold of Rachel's right hand with her own, before she slowly guided both of them down her own body.
Rachel quickly picked up on what Santana was trying to do. So she silently responded by looking up into Santana's eyes, almost shyly, while biting her bottom lip in concentration. When their joint hands reached their destination, Santana briefly closed her eyes and moaned softly. Before she looked back into Rachel's eyes and delicately started guiding the other girls hand to do what Santana so desperately wanted Rachel to do on her own.
Even if Rachel had been a little bit nervous in the beginning, her confidence quickly grew when she heard how much Santana enjoyed her ministrations. So when she finally felt brave enough to take over on her own, it didn't take long before Santana was screaming her name so loud, that all their new neighbors must have heard it. Not that any of the girls cared the slightest about it at that moment.
It took some time before Santana managed to open her eyes again, but when she finally did she was met with the sight of Rachel intently studying her own glistening fingers. Before Santana could say anything, Rachel carefully put one of them in her mouth and sucked tentatively on it. "Interesting." was all she managed to say, before Santana almost tackled her into the bed and proceeded to kiss away every coherent thought that might have been in Rachel's mind.
When Rachel finally came back to reality again, after their heated make out session. She slowly opened her eyes and the first thing she noticed was that Santana had somehow managed to flipped them over, so she was the one on top again. Santana smirked down at her, before she confidently stated "I believe it's my turn to taste you." Rachel bit her bottom lip, but she still couldn't prevent a nearly obscene moan from slipping out between her lips. Santana just laughed at her apparent eagerness, before she quickly kissed her way down Rachel's body. Where she proceeded to make Rachel cry out Santana's name repeatedly till she almost pass out.
Rachel certainly hadn't thought about the fact that they might have been a little bit loud the previous night, at least not until someone knocked on their front door early the next morning. Then she suddenly found herself talking to the buildings superintendent, about the many noise complaints they had supposedly gotten after last night. Rachel had never been so embarrassed by a conversation in her whole life and she was probably as red as a tomato by the time their talk was over.
Santana however had just stood by Rachel's side, with this big pleased grin on her face the whole time. Afterwards she had really tried not to laugh at Rachel's embarrassment, but apparently she had ended up failing miserably. Since her behavior had been rewarded with a flying couch cushion smacking her in the head and a pouting Rachel swearing to never have sex with her ever again.
After that dreadful experience, Rachel had wisely enough later that week used her connection with senator McMillan, to get soundproofing installed in their new apartment. He had of course quickly agreed with her, since it was probably wise not to bother her new neighbors when she had to rehearse for the play. Santana had smiled proudly at Rachel, while she had blatantly lied to the senator over the phone to get what she needed to keep their new neighbors happy.
Because of the rather humiliating talk with the super, Rachel had been forced to rush to her new job to be on time, but she may have hinted before she left that the two of them needed to talk about what had happened the previous night. Santana had immediately tried to distract her with kisses and she had temporarily succeeded, because that was apparently Rachel's kryptonite when it came to the other girl. Something Santana had quickly picked up on. She would later use that knowledge to her own advantage, whenever she needed it.
However hat didn't stop Rachel from trying to bring it up again, but every time she did Santana would quickly bring the conversation to something else, or she would try to make Rachel forget about it by kissing her to silence. Luckily for Santana that strategy worked for a while, but then one fateful night Rachel let the dreaded words "I love you." slip out and Santana couldn't get herself to say them back. All she managed was "I..." before she desperately resorted to kissing Rachel into a state of oblivion.
Of course in the long run Santana's avoidance couldn't work forever. Inevitably the situation just kept getting worse for every time Rachel told Santana that she loved her and Santana refused to say it back. The longer Santana didn't say it back, the more Rachel got hurt. Santana could clearly see how much the disappointment in Rachel's eyes grew, with every unanswered plea for Santana to love her back.
To be honest Santana didn't even fully comprehend it herself, why she couldn't manage to say it back, because she obviously knew deep down that she really loved Rachel. It was just that every time she tried to express her feelings, she could only manage to say "I-" and then the rest of the words got stuck in her throat. Santana knew that something had to be done about it, or else she would end up losing Rachel, because Santana could already feel how Rachel had started to slip away from her. Which had been most apparent in the way that the other girl had opted to bury herself in her work, so whenever Rachel could she would stay late at the theater, just to avoid being in Santana's presence. Even though Santana knew that it was her own fault, it still hurt that Rachel apparently didn't want to see her anymore.
Not that Santana didn't try to stay away from Rachel too. She hated to see the disappointed look in the other girls eyes every time she didn't say "I love you" back. She had tried to show Rachel physically what she obviously couldn't manage to say with words, but that apparently wasn't enough. So after not returning any of Rachel's many attempts to get her to sat it back, it sadly looked like the other girl had given up on her. Santana didn't know what she could do to make it right again. So in a stupid attempt to avoid the whole thing, she had taken after Rachel's example and decided to concentrated on her job instead of worrying about her miserably failing love life.
Even though it hurt not seeing Rachel, as often as Santana would like, it was probably a good thing for her to be able to fully concentrate on work. The Stationary Unit had been a lot busier lately, due to the warm weather returning to Minneapolis. Apparently the warmer it got, the more infected people came back into the east side of the city. Nobody knew where they were coming from, but they had been rapidly increasing in numbers. So most of the soldiers had been having a really hard time keeping the wall workers safe from harm.
Santana had early on decided not to tell Rachel about the new development, since she knew how much Rachel hated the fact that she had to go outside of the safe part to help her unit. She obviously didn't want Rachel to worry about her being in danger again, on top of their other problems, but as Santana would later find out: The truth has a nasty way of coming to the surface, whether you like it or not.
It had been a surprisingly quiet day at work for Santana, neither her or anyone in her unit had seen any zombies so far, which was really unusual, but it wasn't like anyone was complaining about them not being there. Most of the soldiers were just enjoining the warm sunshine. While the wall workers were moaning and groaning, because of the hard work they had to endure. Which obviously wasn't made any lighter due to the summer warmth.
It had been two month since Rachel and Santana had moved into their apartment in Zone 2 and Santana was sitting on her post, silently wondering how she was going to fix the mess she had gotten herself into. She almost hadn't seen Rachel lately, since they both had been coming home so late. Most of the times one of them had ended up sleeping on the couch in the living room, in an attempt to not wake the other one up in fear of having to talk to one another. The whole situation was just so fucked up, but Santana still hadn't given up. She desperately wanted to fix their relationship again, because she really missed spending time with Rachel. The one thing Santana wished most for right now was for the two of them to go back to the way they had been, before Rachel screwed the whole thing up by bringing feelings into the picture.
Santana was abruptly dragged out of her self-pitying, when her intercom suddenly came to life and her fellow Lieutenant, James Braxton, was loudly screaming for her to get her unit over to the other side of the city to help them out.
Earlier that month Captain Williams had decided to put both Santana and Braxton in charge of their own unit of soldiers, in an attempt to protect two different teams of wall worker. That way it would be possible to work on building the wall in two opposite sides of the city at the same time. Williams had apparently received strict orders from the top to do this, in a desperate hope of securing the whole east side as fast as possible. Because according to the leaders of the city, the increasing numbers of infected people had started giving Minneapolis too many problems for them to handle. So surprisingly, at least for Santana, Williams had asked her to lead the second unit, while giving the first one to his right hand man Braxton. Santana had hesitated at first, but after some encouragement from some of her fellow soldiers, she had finally agreed. However she still hadn't told Rachel about her promotion, since that would most likely entail telling her about how much danger she really was in at the moment.
Santana could hear several people screaming in the background while Braxton pleaded for them to hurry up, then a series of gun shots rang out, before the intercom in Santana's left hand suddenly died. She immediately tried to get back in contact with Braxton, but with no luck. Apparently no one was able to answer her back. So Santana quickly barked out an order to three of her men, to guide the rest of the workers back to the safe side of Minneapolis. Before she and the rest of her unit jumped into three awaiting Humvees standing nearby. In less than a minute they were quickly speeding towards the other side of the city, where Braxton's team was supposed to be.
When they finally reached their destination, Santana could clearly see that Braxton's unit and most of the wall workers, were surrounded by a large group of zombies. It was obvious that the number of survivors were few and most likely it would probably be extremely stupid to even try to save them, however that didn't stop Santana from quickly signaling for her men to jumped out of their trucks. Not a single one of them hesitate before they all started shooting as many zombies as they could managed, in a desperate attempt to help rescue the remaining survivors from a certain death.
Unfortunately there seemed to be a huge numbers of zombies nearby, so their opponents numbers seemed to rapidly increase the longer they fought against them. In the end Santana had no other choice then to give the order for both units to pull back, after they had thankfully manage to rescue the largest group of survivors. Santana knew that her order to retreat meant that they had to leave any other survivors or wounded behind. However if they should have any hopes of saving their own lives, they had to draw back now. They desperately needed to make an attempt to do a hasty retreat towards the nearest bridge, leading into the west side of Minneapolis.
To their horror they unexpectedly found their way back to safety blocked by another group of zombies. Unfortunately there were no other escape routes left, since they were practically being surrounded in every other direction. Santana knew that it was borderline suicide, but she had no other choice than to order both units to go into close combat with the group blocking their way to the bridge. They all fought bravely, but so did their enemies. In the end they barely made it back alive, but unfortunately not without even more casualties.
The losses were devastating. Unit One had lost twenty soldiers, including Lieutenant Braxton. The numbers of lost workers were even higher and the number only grew after the remaining ones got checked out for bites. In the final death count they discovered that they had lost fifty workers. To Santana's horror she also found out that she had lost five of her own men, in their attempt to get back into the city.
Five of the surviving workers had been bitten and they were all quickly escorted out of sight, before they were dealt with the only way the city could protect their healthy citizens from being infected. Santana hated everything about that, but she knew that there were no cure. So it certainly wouldn't be smart to keep someone infected inside the city, because that would ultimately put everyone in danger. So this unfortunately was the only way to keep everyone safe, but that didn't mean that she had to like it.
Santana just hoped the cure Williams had unofficially told her about, that apparently someone outside of Minneapolis was working on, would be finished soon. She had even heard some rumors among the soldiers that there might be some secret experimentation with a new vaccine, apparently it was being tested on people who had been bitten. When Santana had asked Williams about it, he had suddenly refused to say anything, but he hadn't denied it either. Which probably was a clear indicator that it might actually be true. It certainly would have been a much better alternative, than what they were doing right now. At least that would give the infected a fighting change, instead of just being executed immediately.
The thing Santana hated most about this process was that fucked up Contamination Squad, that was in charge of carrying out the executions. Because none of them seem to care even a little bit about the people they had to take away. Santana was pretty sure that neither of those assholes had any feelings whatsoever, especially when they were able to just drag a person pleading for they life away to put a bullet in their head. Then afterward act like they hadn't done something most people probably would had nightmares for the rest of their lives after doing. Santana deliberately tried to stay away from anyone working in the Contamination Squad, because in her opinion they all had to be certifiable insane.
However at the moment Santana had bigger problems than the Contamination Squad to think about. Because she really didn't want to tell Rachel about everything that had happened today, but she still knew deep down that she would be forced to do it whether she liked it or not. If she didn't, Rachel would most likely hear about it from somebody else. Because every time something remotely interesting happened in Minneapolis, it didn't take long before the whole population knew about it. This news would certainly spread like wildfire, so Santana needed to be the one to tell Rachel first.
Santana was standing by herself in deep thoughts, waiting for her Captain to arrive. She was trying to come up with the best way of telling Rachel about this, without her freaking completely out. However she was momentarily brought out of her planning, when someone suddenly called her name.
When Santana looked up she suddenly found herself surrounded by the Contamination Squad, who had their guns pointing straight at her. The leader Brat or maybe was it Brad, Santana couldn't really remember, ordered Santana to slowly put her weapons down on the ground. Before he quietly asked her not to make a scene, since there still were some surviving civilians present. So it would be in her best interest if she just surrendered and came with them willingly.
Santana was totally bewildered as to why they were asking her to come with them, so she of course demanded to get an explanation first. The reply she got almost sucked the breath out of her lungs.
"You have been bitten."
Santana felt like throwing up, but still meekly managed to ask "Where?" She quickly looked over her right shoulder, when she received his answer. "Behind your right shoulder."
To her dread Santana found that she had a bloody tear in her uniform and she could clearly see the blood steadily seeping out from the wound under her jacket. Santana hadn't noticed it before, because of all the adrenaline coursing through her veins and then worrying about Rachel's reaction, but suddenly she felt the intense pain radiating from the wound, coursing trough her whole body. Or maybe it was the panic which suddenly hit her, when she finally understood that she had been bitten. Now she obviously knew why the Contamination Squad were asking her to come with them. In that moment all Santana could think about was the fact that Rachel was going to end up all alone, without Santana being able to look out for her anymore. So in her panicked state she stupidly tried to escape her destiny, in hopes of getting to see Rachel one last time before she died.
It didn't take long before Santana found herself pinned down to the ground, with her face pushed down on the warm cement laying underneath her. Even though she was completely overpowered, she still desperately tried to get up, because she needed to say goodbye to Rachel. She needed to hold her one last time, before she died. She needed to kiss her goodbye and she needed to finally tell her how much she truly loved her. It broke Santana's heart to think about the fact that she hadn't even kissed Rachel in over two weeks, just because they were so stupidly avoiding each other. So she had to see Rachel one last time, before the guys holding her down managed to put a bullet through her brain.
It was only when Santana felt the muzzle of a gun being jammed into her temple and someone shouting for her to stop fighting them, that she knew she had lost. However she still stubbornly refused to surrender. It was only when Captain Williams arrived, that the Contamination Squad finally managed to calm her down, but that was only because Williams had quickly promised Santana that she would get the chance to see Rachel one last time, before she had to go with the Squad.
The second Santana finally gave in, Williams told the men holding her down to release her. Some of them immediately protested, but Williams quickly ordered them to comply. They reluctantly listened to him and Williams quickly bent down to help the clearly shaken girl up from the ground. When Santana finally found herself back on her feet again, she quickly noted that most of the Contamination Squad still had their guns pointed at her. Even some of the soldiers from her own unit looked like they feared that she was going to suddenly start biting everyone.
Williams gave her a weak smile, before he ordered one of the medics to close the wound in Santana's shoulder, so she wouldn't bleed to death before they managed to get a hold of Rachel. Because it was obvious from Santana's blood socked military jacket, that she had lost a lot of blood in the fight between her and the Contamination Squad.
There were two medics present, but neither of them seemed very willing to approach Santana. So when Williams for the second time barked out the same order, the two of them quickly started fighting, before the smaller guy suddenly got pushed to the front. The clearly frightened medic looked at Santana and hesitatingly asked her to remove her jacket, so he could stitch the bite back together.
Santana almost considered making a run for it, or maybe using the medic as a hostage to get away. However she immediately gave up on that idea, since she was already starting to feel slightly dizzy because of the blood loss. So in the end she decided to put all her trust in Williams and his promise that she would actually get to see Rachel, before the Squad finally decided to exterminate her. Still Santana couldn't stop herself from secretly hoping that Williams would inform her, that they actually had an experimental vaccine she could try if she wanted. To be perfectly honest Santana was probably willing to try everything in that moment, just to get another chance of staying with Rachel even if it turned out to be for just a little while longer. With that hope in mind Santana carefully removed her jacket, till she was only left in her originally white, now almost red, wife beater. She hesitatingly turned around so the medic could fix the bite.
Santana could feel the sudden sting of the medic shakily trying to clean up her wound before he could stitch it up. Not that it would help any to try to avoid any bacteria getting into her wound, since the virus most likely already was coursing though her veins. Just thinking about the fact that her body was already being taken over by the virus made Santana feel nauseous, but it helped to think about the fact that hopefully Rachel would get there before that nasty thing managed to take over her whole body completely.
When the fumbling medic finally removed the blood socked cloth from her bite, Santana heard several of the soldiers behind her gasp, but what she hadn't counted on was for Williams to suddenly start laughing. Santana clearly didn't see the humor in the situation, but when the medic finally managed to stutter out that her bite in fact was a bullet wound, she too started laughing in relief.
Apparently someone from Braxton's or her own unit had panicked in the chaos to get to safety and misfired their gun, which had resulted in a stray bullet accidentally hitting Santana. It was only a flesh wound, but even if it was pretty deep, it at least wasn't a zombie bite. Santana still couldn't believe that she hadn't felt the bullet hit her, but that really didn't matter right now. Because she obviously wasn't going to die today, so all Santana could do was to laugh hysterically and smile like a lunatic.
Williams finally ordered the Contamination Squad to stand down and Santana swore some of the guys she had beaten pretty badly, looked almost disappointed that she was going to live. So she made a mental note to not lift a finger to save the Contamination Squad, if they were ever in danger.
After Santana had been patched up by the medic and shortly debriefed by Captain Williams. She immediately ordered someone from her unit to drive her to the theater, so she could take Rachel home with her to have a much-needed talk.
However it didn't exactly go as Santana had planned, when it turned out that Rachel wasn't particularly pleased by being dragged out of her rehearsal before it was finished, but she quickly stopped complaining the second Santana bursted into tears, when they finally entered the safety of their apartment.
Santana had lost a lot of her closest friends and coworkers that day. She had even for a little while thought that she was going to be killed herself and never get the chance to see Rachel again. So when Rachel started shouting at her on top of that, she couldn't take it any longer, so she broke down.
Rachel immediately stopped her ranting, when she saw the crying girl in front of her. She quickly grabbed a hold of Santana, when she almost collapsed because of the previous events from that day finally hitting her full on. Rachel carefully lowered Santana down to the floor and held the crying girl in her arms, while Santana brokenly sobbed out everything that had happened to her.
The fragile girl in Rachel's arms seemed so broken that Rachel respond the only way she knew how, by immediately giving Santana all her love and devotion. After that day Rachel no longer stayed at the theater after hours, to deliberately stay away from Santana. Instead it was much more likely that she would try to leave early, to spend as much time with the other girl as possible. Some people would probably describe Rachel has being extremely clingy, however Santana absolutely loved it. It felt so good to finally get Rachel back, especially since the other girl had been so distant towards her for so long, but that had apparently changed when Rachel had found out that Santana had almost died.
It certainly seemed like the incident had given Rachel a rather unpleasantly reminder, about what kind of horrible situation they were still in. Maybe she had been safe for so long, that she almost had forgotten how quickly she could lose Santana. Which was most likely the reason she had immediately, after learning that Santana had almost died, decided to give up on her own hopes of ever getting Santana to love her back. Instead she was just going to give Santana all of her love, regardless of the fact that she might never get what she wanted in return from the other girl.
Santana still hadn't told Rachel how much she really loved her. Not because she didn't want to. No, it was only because she hadn't found the right time yet. When the two of them had returned home, after her near death experience, Santana had ended up crying herself to sleep in Rachel's arms before she had managed to tell her the truth. When she woke up the next day, she found herself laying with Rachel's arms securely wrapped around her. Since Rachel was still asleep, Santana had finally gotten some time to think about their situation. Which was why she had suddenly realized that it was a possibility that if she admitted she loved Rachel now after her near death experience, that Rachel might actually think that she only said it because Santana had been afraid of dying and not because she truly loved Rachel. So in the end Santana was convinced that she needed to do something special, for when she finally declared her love for Rachel. So she obviously needed to come up with a plan.
Regarding her plan it certainly came in handy for Santana, that she got some time off from work for being injured. Even though she knew that she probably would have gotten the time off either way, since both Santana's unit and the surviving soldiers in the deceased Braxton's unit had been given some time off, since Captain Williams had decided to put the building activities on hold for a while.
Santana later found out that he apparently had managed to convince the government, that they needed to wait for Captain Matthews unit to come back to Minneapolis. So both units would do a sweep inside the east side of the city, to cleanse the city off infected people, before the building activities would get resumed again. In addition to that it had also been decided that the Recon Unit would stay in Minneapolis, to help provide extra security for the remaining wall workers, till they had managed to join the two city parts back together again.
Rachel wasn't particularly happy when the Recon Unit returned to the city a week later, which meant that both units could finally start the new operation of cleaning out the east side for zombies. In that period she was even more affectionate towards Santana, than she had been after her near death experience. Even if the situation wasn't ideal, Santana couldn't seem to hate herself for loving how needy Rachel had suddenly become. It certainly made her look more forward to the day she was finally going to surprise Rachel, by showing her how much she loved her back.
With the extra help of the recon unit, the military quickly managed to clear the city off zombies. Thankfully it didn't take long before the wall was finalized, thanks to the increased numbers of workers and the extended workdays the government had decided to grant them.
When both sides of the city were finally behind the wall, the Recon Unit and the Stationary Unit had the unpleasant job of clearing out the east side completely, before anyone could inhabit that part. That meant that both units had to go through every building on the east side, to make sure that there were no more infected people left inside any of them. This was an extremely dangerous task, since they were forced to go inside places where there could still be potential zombies lurking around. Hopefully if they found any they would be so weak, since they hadn't fed in so long, that they didn't pose much of a treat to any of them, but it was still a highly dangerous mission for them all. Santana never told Rachel how dangerous it really had been, but Rachel wasn't stupid, so Santana had a lurking gut feeling that she probably intuitively knew a lot more than Santana let her in on. Both girls were extremely relived, when the operation was finished and the whole east side was finally secured.
Sadly the operation had taken the lives of two of Captain Matthews men, when they had been unexpectedly surprised by five surviving zombies in one of the office buildings. Rachel knew that she probably was being extremely selfish, but she was just happy that it wasn't Santana that had gone into that building. She couldn't help being extremely thankful for Santana still being alive and grateful that she could finally relax a little bit and not worry so much about Santana's life constantly being in danger. Which probably came in handy, since Rachel needed to concentrate more of her energy on the upcoming play, which was only a week away from its grand opening.
