A/N: This session will be broken into two parts! Here's Session 5: Part 1, hope you enjoy it :)
October 2024 – New York, New York
"Santana," Dr. Broffman greeted her client as she opened the door to the waiting room. "So sorry to keep you waiting." She stepped to the side as she held the door open.
Santana dog-eared the page of the book she was reading. "It's okay," she said as she dropped the book into her purse and stood up from the padded bench where she sat and followed Dr. Broffman down the hall to her office. "It was kinda nice to have ten minutes to just sit and read," she said as she entered the office and two-stepped her way to her usual seat on the couch.
"How are you this afternoon?" Dr. Broffman asked, smoothing the back of her skirt as she took a seat in her armchair.
"I'm," she paused, sighing. "Making it. It's officially October now, but, uh, I'm making it," she nodded to herself.
"You sound surprised," the doctor said as she leaned forward to grab the folder from the coffee table in front of her.
"October's always hard."
"Why's that?" She crossed her legs as she leaned back in her chair.
She dropped her eyes to her hands in her lap. "My mother passed away four years ago this month."
Dr. Broffman nodded, remembering this information from a previous session. "I'm sorry. Am I," she paused, cautiously, "correct to assume that you bringing this up means this is something you're ready to talk about?"
Santana inhaled deeply, her shoulders falling as she nodded, "I think so."
"How did she pass?" she asked quietly.
"Slowly at first," Santana started. "Then…all at once, if that makes sense."
"Hmmm."
It was um," Santana cleared her throat, "On Valentine's Day seven years ago when I got a phone call that, in hindsight, should've told me that something was…off."
February 2017 – New York, New York
"I think I might have the worst Valentine's Day track record," Quinn started as she sat leaning against the arm of their grey suede couch, sitting on one leg, the other dangling over the ledge of the cushion. "I got mono one year, thanks to you, spent the next one with the God Squad…singing for you, and the next one at that disaster of a wedding…with you. It sounds even more pathetic when I say it out loud," she rolled her eyes as she shook her head at herself.
"Well," Santana said as she made her way back into the living room, light beer in hand. "Get your diary out and write this Valentine's Day down too 'cause here you are, holed up in this apartment, sitting on the couch in a sweater that I can only assume belonged to Lucy, watching Friends…with me," she said as she plopped down on the other end of the couch.
"Ugh. I hate Valentine's Day."
"Join the club," Santana said, bringing the bottle to her lips.
"At least you've had a real Valentine's Day. I haven't."
"You're better off, trust me. It's an overrated, made up day, created to sell cheap chocolates and help lame, uncreative men make empty gestures of love to women too caught up in the excuse to eat chocolate to their hearts' desires or too high on their ability to flaunt their grocery store flowers in the faces of subjectively less fortunate women to admit to themselves that they've actually settled for the men in their lives," she ranted.
"I would looove to settle."
Santana turned and raised a brow, cocking her head toward her roommate.
"Yeah!" Quinn nodded. "I would love to settle. I'd love to be with someone who rightly thinks I'm way out of his league. I'd get nothing but constant love and adoration because he feels so lucky to be with me."
"Soooo…" Santana narrowed her eyes. "You want…a dog."
Quinn huffed out, "You don't get it."
"Yeah, I do. You want some guy who's gonna wait on you hand and foot, let you walk all over him while you…cheat on him and spend his money. You want your dad," Santana shrugged.
"Excuse me?" Quinn whipped her head to look at her roommate.
"Actually, no, that's wrong," she said to herself, narrowing her eyes as she looked up toward the ceiling. "You want to be your dad," she clarified.
"Russell is the lastperson I wanna be," Quinn scoffed.
"I don't know, you sound just like he probably sounded when he described your mom to his friends back in the day," she guessed.
"You're such a…bitch," Quinn mumbled, rolling her eyes as she turned her head back toward the television.
"Just keepin' it real."
They sat there in silence, the sound of laughter from the studio audience on the television, the clattering of Quinn's wine glass and Santana's beer bottle, and the sounds of their breathing were all they could hear until Quinn spoke up.
"How do you do that?" She asked quietly, her eyes still on the television.
"Do what?" Santana asked, scrolling through her phone.
"Manage to…pinpoint the exact thing that's wrong with a person."
"Huh?" She lifted her head and cocked it toward her roommate.
"You just gave the cliff notes for my parents' entirerelationship," Quinn explained.
"It's a combination of being a judgmental bitch and ignoring nuances for the sake of making a cutting oversimplification," she shrugged, moving her eyes back to her phone. "And my abuela," she added. "She's...a pro at it. Apparently when she found out my mom was pregnant with me, she gave my mom this big hug and whispered in her ear – in Spanish – that my dad didn't love her, that he was only marrying her because she raised 'a good Catholic,' and that she would neverbe good enough for him. Mom said she managed to hit in ten seconds every little insecurity she had about herself and their relationship."
"Jesus. And she married him anyway? Knowing she was marrying into that?"
"What else was she gonna do? Not marry the person she loved? And give my abuela exactlywhat she wanted? Mmmm-mmm," she shook her head. "Mom's too smart for that. If I had to guess I'd say I get my looks – and book smarts – from Dad, my bitchiness from my abuela, and my psychic third eye from Mom."
"And from my parents I got crippling expectations for success and unhealthy coping mechanisms," Quinn breathed out as she sank further into the couch cushion.
"You take the therapy stuff pretty seriously, don't you?"
"Never miss my session," Quinn said proudly.
"Never?" Santana asked, pulling her leg up onto the couch as she turned to face Quinn. "What if you're feeling fine and…don't need it, you still go?"
"It's less like thinking you shouldn't go to the emergency room when you feel perfectly healthy and more like," she paused, looking for the right words, "thinking you shouldn't have to pee since you haven't had anything to drink all day. You're gonna have to pee no matter what."
"That doesn't make any sense."
Quinn rolled her eyes as she straightened herself up on the couch, shifting to sit crisscrossed facing Santana. "If you wait until you're about to drop dead to go to the doctor, your chances of surviving are slim to none," she explained. "But if you…take your vitamins, drink plenty of water, get enough sleep, exercise, weigh yourself every day, and get regular check-ups, you'll hopefully stay at least a step or two ahead of any issues."
"You weigh yourself every day?"
"The point is,"Quinn ignored her, "You go to therapy to get in the habit of talking through your stuff."
"So…you pay a stranger, what, a hundred bucks an hour, to listen to you talk? Isn't that what friends are supposed to do for free?"
"Yes, but friends have their stuff just like you do, you know? They have their issues, and I don't know, I," she let out a deep breath and shrugged as her eyes fell to her hands in her lap. "I don't wanna pile on. I don't think it's fair."
Santana nodded, drawing in a deep breath as she turned back toward the television. "Well, if things come up in between your sessions that can't wait for the next one…I'm a lot cheaper than a hundred bucks."
"Yeah right," Quinn huffed, readjusting herself to face the television.
"Seriously. We're…having real conversations, right? It's like, our thing now. You can talk to me too. And now I have to pee, thanks," Santana huffed as she removed the blanket covering her legs and stood up from the couch. She grabbed her phone from the cushion and her empty bottles from the side table and walked into the kitchen, dropping the bottles in their recycling bin and sticking her phone in her front pocket of her sweats as she made her way around the corner to the bathroom.
Quinn sat on the couch, staring past the screen as Netflix automatically started the next episode of Friends. The sound of Santana flushing the toilet snapped her out of her daze. She turned around at her roommate's voice emerging from the hall as she walked back into the kitchen.
"Can we please watch something else? I cannot sit through another episode of Chandler and Monica thinking they can just go back to being friends after they hooked up at that wedding," she said as she opened the refrigerator and looked around.
Quinn rotated her torso to look back into the kitchen. "What's wrong with me?"
"Huh?" Santana asked, still bent over and looking through their fridge.
"What's wrong with me?" Quinn repeated. "I'm 24 years old, living in New York City, I'm pretty. I'm… athletic. I…can be generous. Why am I…still single? Honestly?!"
Santana laughed into the fridge, "I mean…maybe it's because you're somehow both spoiled and scrappy with an insanely high ideal of yourself while at the same time having embarrassingly low expectations for the guys you go after."
Quinn scoffed, "I am not…"
"Oh and you can't forget being a teen mom whose accomplishments would have been much more impressive if you had actually kept your baby, but instead channeled all that postpartum energy into…dying your hair pink and getting that ridiculous Ryan Seacrest prison tattoo. Maybe that's why," she shrugged as she brought a bottled water to her lips.
Quinn shook her head, silently turning back around to look toward the television.
"What? No comeback?" Santana teased.
She watched as Quinn stood up from the couch, grabbed her wine glass, and walked over to the sink, dropping it in, leaving the clattering it made and the television's laughter as the only noise in the apartment.
"Quinn, come on, I didn't mean…" she said as Quinn walked past her and rounded the corner out of the kitchen.
"Quinn!" She elevated her voice over her shoulder as her roommate's bare footsteps grew quieter. Santana figured she was nearing the end of the hall. The sound of a bedroom door slamming confirmed that she had. "Fuck."
October 2024
"I imagine she was pretty hurt by that," Dr. Broffman noted.
"Not my best moment."
"Mmmm," she hummed in agreement. "Are you sure this was the night you got the phone call?"
Santana nodded, "I'm getting to that part."
February 2017
Santana let out a deep breath as she walked to the end of the hall to her roommate's bedroom. "Quinn, come on," she said as she landed three knocks to the door. "Open the door."
"Leave me alone," Quinn's voice came out muffled from the other side of the door. She let out a big sigh when she heard Santana twist the doorknob.
"I'm sorry, Q, I didn't mean that…" she started as she stepped into the room. She saw Quinn leaning against the headboard, hugging her knees to her chest.
"Yes, you did," Quinn cut her off.
"Okay, but you said," she pointed to her, "be 'honest!'"
"Is that what you think of me?" She asked, her head turned toward her window. "Is that really what you think of me?
"I…"
"Is that reallywhat people think of me?" Quinn cut Santana off again, turning her head to look in her direction near the doorway. "Is that why I can't…find someone to…love me? Is that why?" Santana could see the tears welling up in her eyes as she choked out the question.
"Quinn, I…"
"I mean," she sniffed, averting her eyes as she tried to compose herself. "Mercedes has Sam. Tina has Mike. Kurt has Blaine. I had Finn, but he chose Rachel. You have Brittany," she cut her eyes toward Santana at the slip, "had," she corrected. "I just…I don't understand why I can't find someone who…actually wants me. Me. You know? Not some…"
"I know," Santana nodded along as she cut in. "I know. Someone who wants the real you. I get it, I do," she said as she made her way further into the room. "But here's the thing," she took a seat at the foot of her bed as she continued, "the real you…is a bitch," she huffed out with a shrug.
"Ugh!" Quinn shook her head as she turned her entire body toward the window.
"I'm sorry Quinn, but it's the truth!" She said as she got up from the foot of the bed and walked around to sit next to her. Santana watched as she tried to scoot farther away, shifting her body toward her headboard once she realized she couldn't scoot anymore. "Will you look at me?" She asked, reaching for Quinn's shoulder. "Please?"
"What?" Quinn said as she turned around, looking Santana directly in the eye.
Santana hesitated, taking a deep breath before continuing. "You're a bitch, but…"
"Oh. My. God."
"But you know what?" Santana raised her voice to compete with her annoyance, grabbing her shoulders before she could turn away again, "Kettle? Hi, it's Pot, nice to meet you," she smirked.
Quinn rolled her eyes.
"Look. You're…you're not perfect. But who is? Right? And…hey," she reached up and grabbed Quinn's face with both hands as she tried to turn away. "Look at me. You're gonna find someone. You will. And not a dog. You're gonna find an actualhuman being with actual thoughts and actual opinions about things."
Quinn stared at her in silence.
"Things like," she continued, her hands still cupping Quinn's face. "How you work really hard at taking care of yourself and," she sighed as her hands dropped from her face to her shoulders. "How you go out of your way to make sure you get the dairy-free ice cream even though it's more expensive because you know your roommate's lactose intolerant," she took in a deep breath, realizing she was rambling. "And how you opened up your place to that roommate when she really didn't have anywhere else to go, and…how you're not afraid to speak up when you see something wrong," she added that last part quietly. She lifted her hands from Quinn's shoulders and wrapped her arms around her back as she scooted closer. "You're gonna find someone, Quinn. I know it."
"What are you doing?"
"Hugging you."
"Let go," she huffed.
"Nope," Santana repeated, remembering when Quinn wouldn't stop hugging her when she asked all those months ago in the kitchen. She brought one leg up onto the bed, bending it so she can hug Quinn tighter.
She would bet that Quinn was rolling her eyes, but all she could hear was sharp inhales and slow exhales through what she imagined were pursed lips.
"You're gonna be okay," she whispered as she brought a hand up to hold the back of Quinn's head, she let out a deep breath as she felt Quinn's arms hug her back. "Someday," she started quietly, "you'll meet someone who's gonna love everything about you. And those things you can't stand about yourself? Those are gonna be their favorite things about you."
She felt Quinn's arms tighten around her as she continued.
"And yeah, you've always been beautiful, but they actually think you're the prettiest when you can't get an appointment at the salon, so you're forced to walk around for a few extra days with your roots showing," she nodded to herself. "And they'll appreciate how you're always so put together even though their favorite version of you is the messy bun with yoga pants and the massive t-shirt. And even if they can't figure out for the life of them, how a person could enjoy reading for fun," she paused as she felt Quinn's arms loosen their hold. She loosened hers as well, her arms falling to her sides as she leaned on them to prop herself up, "they do enjoy watching you mouth the words whenever you get really into what's happening on the page, especially when you don't think anyone can…see you."
Santana swallowed when she saw Quinn's eyes flicker down to her lips. Before she could stop herself, her own eyes fell on Quinn's lips, catching the moment her breath hitched, Santana's own disappearing just as the distance between them had. She was sure Quinn could hear her heart pounding in her chest as their faces inched closer. And just as they angled their heads, just as their noses grazed, just as she felt Quinn's lashes flutter closed against her cheek….
Quinn inhaled sharply at the feeling of Santana's phone vibrating against her leg.
"I…I should," she sputtered. "I should, uh…"
"You should," Quinn nodded in vigorous agreement.
"Yeah," she nodded as she got up and fumbled to pull her phone out of her pocket. She looked down at the screen and furrowed her brow in confusion as she answered it. "Dad?"
Quinn let out a deep breath as she leaned against her headboard and ran a hand through her hair, her chest heaving as she watched Santana pace around the room with her phone pressed to her ear.
"Well, what is it?" Santana asked him. "Tomorrow?"She scoffed and shook her head. "Dad, I can't just come home. Do you have any idea how much a last-minute flight to Lima's gonna cost?" She paused, listening. "And you're sure you and mom can't just FaceTime me?" She held back what Quinn knew would've been the loudest sigh as she rolled her eyes and shook her head at whatever was being said on the other end of the phone. "You will?" She perked up. She drew in a deep breath and nodded, "Si. See you tomorrow."
Quinn raised a brow in her direction.
"I guess I'm going to Lima for the weekend."
October 2024
Dr. Broffman let out a deep breath as she took off her glasses and set them on the table next to her chair. She crossed her legs as she turned back to face her client. "There's quite a bit to unpack there."
"Definitely," Santana nodded. "But this is one of the stories where I have to tell it fully before we can even start unpacking."
"Got it," the doctor nodded. "What happened next?"