Happy almost 7-year anniversary to Letters.
For the 7th anniversary, I've written 7,000 words, officially the longest chapter I've ever done for this fic. It pops into my mind every so often and once in a great while, another snapshot from these characters' lives produces itself in my head. And then my fingers produce it in a Word document.
I got to deep-dive into Beth's head for this chapter, which isn't something I've done too much. She has been such a treat getting to write. And Santana (the Letters version of he, as I recognize she's strayed quite a bit from canon), as always, stays a voice I can't escape from.
Trigger warning - mentions of PTSD and attempted overdose.
It started the day after Beth graduated high school.
"I want to go to the lake house."
"You—what?"
"I want to go to the lake house. The one you and Britts and Quinn used to go to when you were growing up."
That summer, the adults in Beth's life told her she could have one week to go wherever she wanted, with whoever she wanted, as a graduation present from all of them before she went off to college in the fall. She was eighteen years old, headed for Duke. Pre-med. The pride and joy of their blended family.
The house technically belonged to Brittany's parents but no one had used it in years. Brittany's father went up once a year to do a maintenance check on the plumbing and electricity, but he was the only one who had stepped foot in the house in over a decade.
Santana shook her head, trying to collect her thoughts. "Beth, no one has been to that house in ages. You could have a week on the beach with your friends, or go do something with Griffin. Why on earth would you want to spend your last week of summer vacation at some crappy old lake house you've never even been to?"
"Don't pretend," Beth warned, waving a finger in Santana's face and rolling her eyes. "You know why. You just said it yourself. It's a piece of the past I've heard hundreds of stories about but have never gotten to see for myself." She hesitated before saying, "It's… it's a piece of Quinn that I haven't experienced yet. This is what I want, San. Please?"
Santana sighed, her heart aching. The lake house was the last place on earth she wanted to go, for reasons she knew she wasn't ready to face, but she never really said no to Beth and she wasn't about to start now. "I really fucking hate it when you use the Quinn card on me," she muttered.
Beth smiled sadly at her godmother. "I know. That was unfair of me and I know it and I'm sorry. But I use it so rarely. So maybe, just this once, let me have it. If you do, I promise I won't tell the others about how much you swear in front of me."
Santana snorted, "As if they don't already know." She stood up and ruffled Beth's hair. "I'll talk to Brittany and your mom and see what we can figure out, okay?"
"Yes, please. Thank you." Beth could see in that moment just how much she was asking of the woman in front of her, and felt a stab of guilt in her stomach. "I love you, Santana."
Santana gave Beth a look that the teenager knew had no real bite to it. "If I didn't love you back," the older woman huffed, wagging a finger in Beth's face.
Beth knocked her head against Santana's shoulder, and Santana hid a smile.
"So, she wants to go to the lake house."
"Yep."
Brittany rarely swore. "Fuck."
"My thoughts exactly."
A few days after her conversation with Santana, Beth was curled up on the sofa with a book when her phone chimed with a text.
Santana Lopez: Wish granted.
Beth Corcoran: Seriously?
Santana Lopez: You, me, Britt, Rach, Puck. Leaving Friday.
Beth Corcoran: Mom?
Santana Lopez: Can't miss work but all squared away w/ her. I am your personal f-ing genie.
Beth Corcoran: Wrong! You are my personal f-ing fairy godmother!
Santana Lopez: Exclamation points give me a headache.
Beth Corcoran: See! You! Saturday!
The lake house was a four-hour drive from Lima, nestled in a patch of woods that bordered the shore of Lake Erie. The water could be seen from the upper deck of the house, and there was a winding path that led from the front door directly to the dock where the Pierce family kept their boat. Brittany's father had someone come out and clean the boat the day before they arrived, promising that even though it looked old, the engine was good as new and they could take the boat out onto the water as much as they liked.
Beth was beside herself with excitement. She looked so much younger than her eighteen years as she ran around the house, her eyes shining and a huge smile splitting her face open.
"You guys! How have you been holding out on me for the last ten years! I can't believe you've never taken me here, look at this place!"
"Don't feel bad, Beth," Rachel said as she set her bags down. "I've never been here, either. Noah?"
"It's a no for me, too. Not surprised San wanted to keep this place to herself but Britt, come on, you and me are supposed to be bros! Bros share!"
Brittany tried to smile as the others laughed but being back in the lake house after so many years was doing something funny to her stomach. She glanced at Santana, taking in the hard look in her girl's eyes, and winced.
She cleared her throat, "Okay! Room assignments, you guys, so listen up. San and I will be down here, across from the kitchen. Rach, you're upstairs across from the bathroom. Beth, we're all bummed your mom couldn't make it but it does mean you get your own room now. You'll be upstairs in the room next to Rach, and Puck, sorry, but you're out here on the couch."
"Hey, don't apologize. Your boy has slept on worse than a fancy-looking couch."
"Britts?" Beth piped up. "What about the room upstairs at the other end of the hall? I tried getting into it when I looked around earlier but the door is either locked or stuck because it wouldn't open. Could my dad sleep in there?"
At that, the adults all smiled privately. Hearing Beth refer to Puck as her dad never got old for them.
"Oh, never mind that room. It's locked because it's… messy. And one of the windows… broke once. We don't use it anymore."
At that, Santana's head snapped up, her dark eyes piercing Brittany as the blonde swallowed her discomfort.
"Are you sure? I could help clean it out! Rachel has taught me a lot of organization tricks for when I go to school in the fall."
"She said forget about it, Beth," Santana muttered, turning her glare on the teenager.
"But I could—"
"Drop it."
The room went quiet as Beth slowly closed her mouth. Santana never, ever snapped at Beth, not even when she was frustrated. Rachel and Puck glanced at each other, stunned into silence. Brittany shot Santana a warning look.
Santana took in the way Beth's eyes were focused on the floor, noted the unease on Rachel and Puck's faces. Her expression finally softened. She crossed the room and reached out to the younger girl, taking her chin and forcing Beth to look up. "Hey," she said. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bite. I'm just tired from the drive. Forgive me?"
Beth looked into the brown eyes she had come to know so well over the past ten years, and saw something dark and unfamiliar brewing in them. It frightened her to her core. But now wasn't the time to nitpick her way through Santana's emotions, so she gave her godmother a small smile. "Forgiven," she nodded. "I'm tired, too. Dinner then early bed? I want to be out on the boat first thing tomorrow."
"You're seriously going to make us take you out on that old thing? I hated it back then and I know I'll hate it now."
"Funny, Brittany told me you used to be the first one out the door every morning, begging Mr. Pierce to take the three of you out onto the water."
"Gee, thanks for the loyalty, Britt."
As everyone laughed and the tension dissipated from the room, Brittany let herself breathe again. Rachel and Puck began chattering about dinner, Beth chiming in with her thoughts, and everything felt normal again. But as Brittany met Santana's eyes, a look passing between them, she couldn't stop the funny feeling from creeping back into her stomach.
The glass splintered.
"Stop it!"
"I can't do it anymore."
Everything was loud. It was so loud, too loud, too much noise.
"Quinn, please—"
"Not good enough, I was never good enough."
"Quinn—"
"She's not mine anymore and now she never will be."
Sobs ripped through the air.
"Santana!"
Screaming.
Silence. Then—
"Oh my fucking god, no, QUINN—"
Santana flew into a sitting position, eyes wild and breathing heavily. She covered her face with her hands, tears streaking down her face.
A second later, she felt two strong arms enveloping her.
"I know," Brittany's quiet voice cut through the silence. "I know."
"I hate this fucking house," Santana choked out, furiously wiping her eyes. "I hate it. We shouldn't have come."
"I know."
"It's… it's everywhere. She's everywhere."
"I know," Brittany pressed a kiss to her shoulder.
"I can't tell Beth, Brittany. I can't. I can't—that night—"
As Santana's words dissolved into sobs, Brittany held her as tears of her own silently tracked their way down her cheeks. Santana was right. Coming here had been a mistake.
The next morning, true to her word, Beth was up at the crack of dawn, ready to hit the water. As she happily made her way down the trail that led to the dock, the adults followed behind her.
"I can't believe it's not even 9 in the god damn morning and I'm already outside," Santana grumbled, sunglasses hiding her bloodshot eyes.
"Well, I, personally, am thrilled!" Rachel said, beaming. "I've never been on a boat before and I'm excited to experience life out on the water."
"Same, Rach," Puck agreed, his jaw cracking open in a huge yawn. "Who's driving this bitch?"
"Noah! Language!"
"Berry. Do. Not. Shriek. Too Early."
"I'll drive," Brittany volunteered, cutting in. "You guys sit back and relax; San and I will do the work."
Beth waved at the adults from the shore, "Come on, slowpokes, let's go!"
When they finally caught up to her, the teenager was practically shaking with excitement as she stood on the dock looking down at the boat. "Is there a tube? Britt's dad said there was a tube that I can be pulled in!"
"Tube is in the shed," Santana called out, nodding towards the little wooden shack as she began to undo the rope keeping the boat attached to the dock. "B, engine check?"
"On it," Brittany said, already jumping into the boat and flexing her fingers. She, Santana, and Quinn had taken the boat out so many times in their youth that she could prep it for the water on autopilot at that point.
Half an hour later, they were steadily making their way across the vast lake. Sure enough, a screaming Beth was being pulled along behind the boat on a huge inner tube, and her clear and obvious joy was infectious. Rachel fiddled with the boat's AUX cord until music started blaring through the speakers, loud enough to scare Puck so badly he nearly fell overboard.
It was happy and chaotic and as Brittany watched Rachel fumble with her phone, videoing Beth bouncing in the tube, she felt the knot in her stomach loosen slightly. Last night with Santana had been bad but as long as everyone was smiling, no one had to know anything was wrong.
They couldn't.
As the morning rolled on, Beth forced each adult to try the tube. They all lost it when Rachel was predictably thrown off within seconds, and they lost it again watching her attempt to climb back on the tube in the middle of the water. Everyone was shocked at how well Santana managed to stay on, Rachel throwing a fit as the Latina showed off, holding onto the tube with just one hand and joyously flipping Rachel off with the other.
After several happy hours, Puck announced his hunger and the others echoed it. As Brittany began to steer them back towards the shore of the lake house, the others relaxed on the cushioned benches of the boat, enjoying the midday sunshine.
"What was Quinn like when she was out on the water?" Beth asked, breaking the silence.
There was a pause.
"She loved it," Brittany said cautiously, keeping her eyes on Santana, whose body language had immediately gone from lazy to tense. "San was always the first one on the boat in the morning but no one loved being in the water like Q. She used to make my dad cut the engine right when we'd hit the middle of the lake so she could swim where the water was cold and deep. And there are a bunch of rocks on the east shore we used to jump off of every single day we were here. San and I never made it to the highest one but Q scaled it and flew off no problem."
"Damn, our girl was badass," Puck said, sounding impressed.
"Truly," Rachel asked, her eyes wide. "I had no idea Quinn was so fearless."
"She wasn't fearless," Santana spoke up from the other side of the boat, her gaze on the water. "She was careless. And reckless." She looked up but the others could see the way her eyes were glazed over, caught in memories that were miles away. "Watching her jump off those fucking rocks made my stomach drop every single time. Britt and I were always so afraid she'd misjudge the distance and land on the rocks below her instead of the water. We begged her to stop after the first time, but she just jumped and jumped and jumped."
The other remained quiet.
"She also loved driving the boat," Brittany said gently. "Remember, San? As soon as we were tall enough to see over the wheel, my dad taught us how to drive. Q's favorite thing was to drive when San was on the tube. She always made every effort she could to hurl San around the waves until she was laughing so hard, she couldn't drive anymore."
At this, Beth stood up and walked over to Santana. Plopping herself next to her godmother, she took Santana's hand in her own and waited until Santana looked up before she said, "Be real with me, S?"
"Always."
"How many times did my mother chuck you off the tube?"
Santana finally cracked a smile. "You will never, ever know, little girl."
"That many times, huh?" Beth grinned wickedly.
"Just for that, I'm driving the next time you get on the tube. See what happens, babe."
Even as everyone laughed, Beth was again aware of whatever it was in Santana's eyes that had frightened her so much the day before. She had been looking into those eyes since she was seven years old but right in front of her, they were rapidly becoming unrecognizable. Whatever it was, whatever was wrong with her godmother, was deepening.
As Rachel, Puck, and Santana began to chatter about lunch, Brittany tilted her head to Beth, beckoning her over.
"Take the wheel, Baby B. I'll keep my foot on the gas but you do the steering."
Beth took a seat on her surrogate sister's lap and placed her hands on the wheel. She felt Brittany's arms snake around her waist, holding her in place as Beth continued to steer them towards the shore.
"She's not okay," Beth said quietly, so that only Brittany would hear.
Brittany sighed, tightening her grasp on the younger girl. "No, she's not."
"What can I do?"
"Nothing."
Beth turned to the woman she sat on. "Brittany, her eyes—"
"I know, Beth. But don't say anything to her. Please."
Despite the late summer heat, Beth felt a chill go over her body. Brittany had never asked her not to intervene with Santana before. If anything, the adults often looked to Beth in moments when they couldn't quite read Santana, using her as the Santana-emotion reader.
In that moment, Beth read between the lines and heard what Brittany wasn't saying; that whatever was wrong with Santana, Beth involving herself would only make it worse. Which, in Beth's experience with Santana, could only mean that whatever was making Santana's eyes go dark had to do with Quinn.
As the lazy lake days went by, Santana's distance was not lost on the others.
They had been there for nearly four full days, and while they were all having fun, the fact that Santana was dealing with something the rest of them couldn't see was obvious. They never acknowledged it out loud but all of them could see the unfocused glaze in Santana's eyes, took note of how short her temper seemed to be, and no one was brave enough to mention Quinn's name after the first day.
Rachel and Puck were confused. Santana had seemed to be doing so much better but it was clear that the lake house was bringing back unwanted memories to their friend.
"I don't get it, Rach," Puck said to her one night, after the others had gone to bed and he had walked upstairs to her room. He collapsed onto her bed and blew out a sigh. "I mean, I know Q was San's person but we all lost her and the rest of us have managed to do okay for the last ten years. Why is she still having such a hard time with it? And why now?"
Rachel's eyes were troubled. "I don't know. I've thought a lot about it over the years and I think…" She hesitated. "Sometimes I think Quinn's death was so traumatic for Santana, it's quite possible she still suffers from PTSD because of it. And it's not getting better because she hasn't dealt with it." She fiddled with the edge of the comforter as she continued, "I mean, think about it. When did Santana ever truly try to recover from what happened? I know Brittany insisted she see a therapist for awhile right after Quinn died but I doubt Santana put any effort into it. It would have been too fresh, and you know her. She won't talk if she doesn't want to."
Puck was quiet as Rachel went on, "When Quinn died, I think Santana's mind attempted to protect her from the shock and pain of it by locking away her feelings. And something about being in this house has opened those feelings back up."
"Like a trigger?"
"Like a trigger."
"But she was doing so well," Puck protested. "We're with her all the time and she's been okay. We've seen her happy. Haven't we?" His voice wavered.
Rachel smiled sadly at him. "Of course, we have. But just because she lives a happy life doesn't mean there's not a part of her that's still suffering. She may not even realize the extent of it herself. But being here is making it extremely evident that Santana has a lot of pent-up pain that she hasn't be able to let go of yet."
"But why? Why are the rest of us okay and she's just—she's not."
"Everyone grieves in their own way, Noah. We all did what we had to in order to survive losing Quinn. But the difference between the rest of us and Santana is that we've all been able to make our peace with it. She hasn't done that yet, and I don't think she's going to get better until she does."
They sat in silence for a long, long time, the weight of Rachel's words like a sad and heavy blanket. When Puck's eyes finally found Rachel's again, the look on his face broke her heart.
"What can we do?" he asked.
"Nothing," Rachel shook her head and reached out, taking his hand and squeezing it. "We can be there for her if she needs us but this isn't something we can force her to deal with. She has to want it for herself. And, between you and me…" Rachel's words were mournful, regretful. "I don't think she wants it. I think holding onto her pain and her anger is her way of holding onto a piece of Quinn that she's not ready to let go of."
Puck sat with that. He thought back to his own pain right after Quinn had died. He had never felt anything like it before; knew he would never feel anything quite like it again. It was the same pain they had all felt when they lost Quinn.
And yet, his pain was also different from theirs. Different from Santana's. Because he had known Quinn was going to die. Even though it had hurt him to his core to lose her, she had given him the gift of time. He had months of preparation. A long warning of the heartbreak to come. Puck squeezed his eyes shut and tried to picture how it might have been for Santana, losing Quinn with no warning at all, and suddenly it was hard to breathe.
When he opened his eyes, now wet with tears, he looked at Rachel and saw his own desperate sadness echoed in her expression.
"I miss her, Rach."
"I know. I do, too." Rachel's voice broke.
Lost in their shared grief, neither noticed the creak of the hallway floor as Beth slowly backed away from Rachel's door and crept back into her room.
As she lay awake in her bed, staring up at the dark ceiling and playing Rachel's words over and over in her head, a single tear fell from the corner of Beth's eye and got lost in her tangled hair.
PTSD. Post-traumatic stress disorder.
For as long as Beth had known Santana, she had known two sides of her. Her godmother was a warm, funny, caring woman, who loved the people she loved with a ferocity that was almost frightening. She was also an impatient, easily irritated, at-times vicious former bully, with a residual mean streak that had never fully faded away.
Beth accepted both sides. She loved both sides. They were what made Santana who she was.
But there was also a third side, one they all knew existed, residing just beneath the surface of Santana's skin.
This third side was something dark and broken; a fragile, lost part of Santana that had shattered the day Quinn died and had never properly been put back together. This was the side that had ignored Beth's seven-year-old presence for the entire first month after meeting her. This was the side that tensed up every time Quinn's name was spoken, the side that flashed across Santana's face when a memory of Quinn was shared. The side that had gone unchallenged for so long that its teeth had grown out, sharp and harsh and ready to bite at the slightest reminder of what Santana had lost.
But it was a side that had gone away over time, a side that had faded into the background, once-sharp teeth now dulled, only sparking up once in a great while as ten years went by.
A side Rachel had finally given a clinical name to, making it all the more tangible and real.
And what she had told Puck was right. There was something about being at the lake house that was fully unleashing that side of Santana for the first time in ten years.
This was what was making Santana's eyes change.
Suddenly, Beth sat up, eyes blinking into the darkness.
The room.
The room with the locked door.
She thought hard back to the first day they had arrived. What had Brittany said? That the room was used because it was messy? With a broken window? And then, when Beth had offered to help clean it up, Santana snapped at her. Beth could count on one hand how many times in the past decade her godmother had used a harsh tone of voice when speaking to her.
That room had to mean something.
Standing in her doorway, Beth peered out of her room as her eyes locked onto the closed door at the other end of the hall. She looked at Rachel's door, next to her own. There was still light coming from inside, shining into the hallway from under the door, but Beth could no longer hear the hushed voices of Rachel and Puck from earlier. Praying they had fallen asleep, she took a deep breath and stepped out of her room.
The silence of the house settled onto her shoulders as she tiptoed her way to the closed door. Standing in front of it, she took one last look around before kneeling to the ground and pulling out the bobby pin she had swiped from her bedside table.
Santana had taught Beth how to pick locks when she was nine years old.
"Are you sure this is something I need to know, S?"
"Hundo-percent."
"But why?"
"Why not?"
The memory made Beth smile in the same second it cracked her heart in half. But she pushed the ache away and focused, taking caution to be as quiet as she could as she fiddled with the lock, remembering everything Santana had told her about where to apply pressure and which angle to bend the bobby pin. It was touch and go at first but she used her ears, listening intently until she heard the telltale click and with a victorious pop! the lock fell open.
Beth's heart skipped a beat as she stood, her sore knees regaining feeling as her legs straightened out. She reached for the doorknob but drew her hand back before she could touch it, suddenly hesitant.
Whatever was on the other side of the door would change things, expose things; this she could feel deep in her bones.
Taking one final deep breath, she screwed up her courage and opened the door.
Santana awoke with a start, jolting into a sitting position, heart racing and breathing heavily.
It had been like that since arriving at the lake house; she hadn't managed to get in a single night without waking up at least twice in a cold and sticky sweat, her mind plagued with nightmares of Quinn. She wiped the tears off her face and her eyes landed on Brittany, who blinked up at her with a sad, sleepy expression.
"Shit. Sorry, Britts. I didn't mean to wake you."
"It's okay. Come here."
Santana sighed, settling into the blonde's embrace, letting Brittany pepper her with gentle kisses and words of comfort.
"I can't fucking wait to go home," she muttered into Brittany's neck, closing her eyes and breathing in deeply, desperately attempting to let the sweet and familiar smell of her girl relax her. Usually all it took was one look from the blonde to settle Santana, but it was as if the lake house somehow prevented her from being able to breathe properly. She longed for the safety and comfort of home, away from the unwanted memories, away from the ugly noise in her head.
It had been quiet for several minutes when Brittany's voice cut through the darkness.
"San, can I ask you something?"
"Always."
"Don't get mad?"
"Never at you."
"Why did you agree to come here? I know it's what Beth wanted and you hate to disappoint her, but you know just as well as I do that if you really wanted to, you could have said no. Why didn't you?"
Santana slowly opened her eyes, the weight of Brittany's question settling heavily on her chest. It was the same question she'd been asking herself for the past four days, a question she wasn't sure she had an answer to. Or perhaps a question she did have an answer to but one she wasn't ready to face.
"I guess… I guess I thought that maybe coming here wouldn't be as bad as I was expecting," she said finally. "I wanted to prove to myself that I could come here and remember everything that happened and remember Quinn and have it feel fine. I wanted to prove that I'm fine."
"But you're not fine, San," Brittany spoke gently, drawing back so she could look into Santana's eyes. "You're not. You haven't really been fine since Quinn died, and for a while that was okay because none of us were fine. But the rest of us found ways to deal with it. We found a way to live and move on and be fine again. You never did." Santana opened her mouth, ready to argue, but Brittany shook her head. "I'm not saying that's all on you, because it's not. We all knew you weren't getting better and we let it happen because we knew how awful losing Quinn was for you and we knew how much you were hurting and we all love you so much, so we let it slide and we let you not be okay. We let you pretend to be okay and we all pretended to not notice that you weren't. So, it's on us, too. But it's been ten years, San. Sooner or later, you have to let her go."
As Brittany spoke, Santana felt tears burning her eyes that she refused to let fall.
"I can't," she choked out. "I can't let her go, Brittany. I can't. I—" She took a deep, stuttering breath and got out of bed. "I'm just—I need some water. I love you. Go back to sleep."
As Santana left the room, she heard Brittany sigh dejectedly behind her, making the tears in Santana's eyes burn all the more painfully.
As she stood in the kitchen gulping down a glass of cold water, Santana finally stopped holding back from crying.
Everything that Brittany had said was right – and she knew it. She knew it.
Santana's dad was a surgeon, and sometimes during her childhood, he had brought procedure footage home with him to study. She had once walked in on him watching a video of open-heart surgery, the heart nothing like her six-year-old brain had imagined, the exposed ribs like prison bars, holding all the organs hostage.
It was how Santana had felt every single second since Quinn had died. Trapped behind the prison bars of her grief, unable to escape and, after so many years, unwilling to try anymore. She was a prisoner to the heartache that had never, ever gone away. Brittany and Puck and Rachel and Beth, oh god Beth, had made it hurt less over the years, had chased her pain into the darker corners of her mind and pulled smiles out of her even on her worst days.
But it was still there. Always lurking in the shadows. A dark constant in her thoughts that she had accepted would be there forever.
She knew it was unhealthy. She knew it frightened the others - the fact that she had held onto her grief for so long.
But she didn't know how to let it go.
She would never know how to let Quinn go.
After splashing cold water in her face, Santana had just started to head back to her room and the safety of Brittany's embrace when a loud click! from above dragged her attention upstairs.
It took Beth a full five minutes to register what she was looking at.
Though the room was dark, moonlight filtered in from a window that had been splintered in the middle; not quite broken enough to have shattered but a huge crack ran through the glass, spiderwebbing off into smaller lines that interrupted the once-smooth surface.
Beth's eyes dragged from the window to the scene below it – tiny shards of glass that had fallen from the window onto several books, perhaps what had once been thrown at the window in an attempt to break it. There was a bed on the other side of the room, identical to the ones in both Beth and Rachel's rooms down the hall, only this one held a green duvet and pillows to match. The duvet on Beth's bed was red. Rachel's yellow. There was a painting of daisies on one wall, a closet door on another, and in the far corner of the room, a bookshelf with a small container on top that made Beth's stomach drop.
Slowly, through the confused haze of her thoughts, she walked over to the bookshelf and picked up the empty prescription bottle. In a sliver of moonlight shining in from the window, the name QUINN FABRAY stared up at Beth from the sticker on the side of the bottle.
"This was her room."
Beth froze momentarily before slowly turning around, coming face to face with Santana.
"Santana, I—"
Santana held up a hand, dismissing Beth's stammered words. She stepped into the room, eyes locking onto the bottle in Beth's hand. She reached out and Beth handed it over wordlessly.
"This was the room she stayed in when we were kids. She liked the green sheets the best. Britts like the yellow."
"And you liked the red," Beth said quietly. "The room I'm sleeping in. It was yours."
Santana nodded.
Beth locked eyes with her godmother. "What happened in this room?"
Santana spoke slowly, her mind clearly in another time, seeing the room through the eyes of her younger self. "The last time we were here was the summer after you were born. Quinn was… unhappy. Giving you up had crushed her to the point where Brittany and I didn't know what to do. So, we decided to come here. We hadn't been since we were ten or eleven, and after days of begging, we finally got Q to agree to come. We thought a couple weeks at the lake would, I don't know, help her heal or some shit. Anything to get her smiling again. She was so broken."
Beth's eyes began to glisten with tears but she blinked them away as Santana continued, "We stayed out here for almost a month, right up until we had to go back to school. And it wasn't perfect but Quinn was finally starting to come out of her shell. We got her out on the boat and she jumped off the rocks and things were starting to get better for her. I really thought she would be okay."
Santana paused at that, for so long that Beth began to worry she wouldn't start again. "But?" she finally prompted.
Santana shook her head miserably. "But if there's one thing Quinn could do really fucking well, it was hide. On the last night before we went back home, I woke up and something was off. I can't explain it. But the house felt weird. It was too quiet, even for the middle of the night. And then I heard a weird noise coming from the other end of the hall…"
15-year-old Santana crept out of her room, tiptoeing past Brittany's, trying to figure out what was making the strange sounds. A sliver of yellow light came from under Quinn's closed door.
Santana hesitated. Quinn had always been somewhat of a private person, but it had gotten even more extreme after Beth was born. The blonde was constantly locking herself in her room, even with the good days they had been having out on the lake, but Santana respected her best friend enough to leave her alone. Quinn had been through more shit in the past nine months than anyone Santana knew, and she figured the least she could do was give the blonde some space.
But. What was that noise?
Moving closer to Quinn's door, Santana strained her ears.
Rattle-rattle-rattle.
Thud.
Silence.
Rattle-rattle-rattle.
Thud.
Realizing the door to Quinn's room only touched the frame, rather than being completely shut, Santana hesitated for a second longer before her curiosity got the best of her and she pushed the door open.
What she saw inside was the last thing she expected.
Quinn, still dressed in the faded jeans and dirty white hoodie she had worn during the day, stood by the bookshelf, a book in one hand, a prescription bottle in the other. She took no notice of Santana as she shook a pill out of the bottle, swallowed it without water, and dropped the book to the floor, where it joined several others.
"Q?"
Quinn looked up at Santana, her eyes glazed over, mascara smudged. "S," she mumbled distractedly. "Hey."
"It's 2 in the morning. What the fuck are you doing?"
Quinn held up the pill bottle like she was toasting Santana. "I'm done," she said.
Santana's heart skipped a beat. "What do you mean?"
"Done," Quinn said simply. "I'm all done with trying." She picked up another book and let it hit the floor with a thud. "I'm all done trying to get better. I'll never get better." Another book dropped. "Done."
"Quinn," Santana said slowly, taking a step forward. "Give me the bottle. Please."
Quinn shook her head. "You and Brittany were so good to bring me here this summer, San. So good to me always. I'm sorry I can't be good enough back to you."
"Q, stop it," Santana said, tears filling her eyes. "You're the best of us, okay? You went through some bad shit and I know it hurt you to give up Beth but you did it for her, remember? To give her something more. And that was good. You're good for that. So good. Please, just give me the bottle."
But Quinn was still shaking her head. "Can't do it anymore," she muttered. "So tired of trying to be good enough." Suddenly, she grabbed another book from the shelf and spun, throwing it across the room. The book hit the opposite wall with a loud bang.
"Quinn!"
Another book, this time hitting the window. The glass splintered.
"Stop it!"
"I can't do it anymore."
Books were flying from Quinn's hands, hitting the window, the walls, the light fixture on the ceiling. The quiet that had filled the house earlier was shattered.
"Quinn, please—" Santana choked on her sobs, hurtling herself into the blonde, trying to grab the pill bottle away.
"Not good enough, I was never good enough."
"Quinn—"
"I was never good enough for her."
Santana fought but Quinn fought harder, ripping her body away from Santana's and dumping the remaining pills into her hand.
"Santana!" Brittany yelled from the doorway, her pajamas twisted, her hair tangled.
The look on Quinn's face tore Santana's heart to shreds as her best friend raised her hand to her mouth.
"Oh my fucking god, no, QUINN—"
Beth scraped the tears off her cheeks as Santana finished her story.
"Brittany called 911 and we forced Quinn to throw up while we waited for the ambulance. She was so exhausted and so strung out on the pills she had already taken by that point that it was pretty easy to get her to do what we told her to once she gave up fighting." Santana's voice was raw with emotion. "We almost lost her that night. And from then on, I swore I would never, ever let her get that low again. I watched her like a fucking hawk. Me and Britts both did. We didn't let her out of our sight for weeks after that. If we weren't at school or Cheerios practice or Glee, we were at her house with her or she was at one of ours. She went to therapy. She worked shit out with her mom. She found Rachel. She made up with Puck. And things finally, finally got better." Santana closed her eyes, tears falling down her face. "Until she got sick. And then we lost her for real."
She opened her eyes and finally looked at Beth. "For so long, I was proud of myself for saving Quinn that night. I found her, you know? I woke up and knew something was wrong and I found her before it was too late. Because I knew that something was wrong." More tears fell. "I always knew when something was wrong with her. So, how? How did I fucking miss it when it mattered the most? How could I have not known something was wrong when she told us she was sick? How could I have not realized it was worse than she was letting on? How could I have—how—"
With those words, Beth finally realized something about her godmother that she had been missing for a long, long time.
Beth stepped forward, grabbing Santana's shoulders and gripping them, hard. "Listen to me," she said harshly. "My mother got sick. Do you understand that? She got sick and when things got bad, she decided not to tell anyone and that is not your fault." Santana shook her head violently but Beth refused to let her go. "You are angry with yourself for nothing, Santana. Nothing! Quinn died! She died. She died," Beth said, choking on her own tears. "She died and it hurts and it will always hurt, but it happened. And it was no one's fault. Not hers. Not yours. You blame yourself and stay angry and pretend everything is fine and all the while you hate everything and you're miserable and you keep yourself hurting and in pain because you've never been able to accept what happened. You are self-inflicting punishment because you think you deserve it." She stared hard into Santana's glassy eyes. "Quinn died and you never let her go. But you have to. You have to. Because this? What you're doing?" Beth shook her head. "This isn't living. You're wasting the life that Quinn didn't get to have. Stop it, Santana. Let her go."
At that, Santana's hand flew to her mouth as she failed to hold back a sob. A guttural, heart-wrenching sound spilled out of her mouth as the woman finally began to break down and cry. She sank to the floor, her legs no longer able to hold her up, a decade's worth of pain bubbling to the surface and overflowing out of her body.
Beth lowered herself until she had wrapped her arms around her godmother, holding her as tightly as she could and refusing to let go.
"I'm here, S. You will be okay. I love you. Britts loves you. My dad loves you. Rach loves you. And my mother loved you more than all of us combined. You're hurting yourself more than anyone else ever could. You have to stop. Okay?"
Santana shuddered. "Okay," she whispered.
"You will be okay. Say it."
"I will be okay."
"Quinn died and you will be okay."
"Quinn died and I will be okay."
"Let her go."
Santana closed her eyes, inhaled deeply one, twice, and as she released the breath she was holding, she finally let Quinn go.
So much love to anyone still around after so many years xoxo