Santana hooks up with someone. And not just hooks up. No, she hooks up in the bathroom in the bar, while her friends are doing shots. She thinks she needs to go see Elliot in neuro to have her head checked. Kurt tells her it's stress, and a lot of alcohol. Mercedes tells her it's about time she lived a little. Mostly, Santana just feels like shit. She doesn't even know what the girl's name was. All she knows is that she was blonde, and she was really, creepily into the fact that Santana was a doctor.
As usual, she throws herself into work. Santana Lopez has long ago decided that her career will be the most meaningful part of her life. It'll be her job, her spouse, and her child, all wrapped into one. She loves what she does, she loves this hospital, and that's more than she can say for nearly any human being in the world.
Lucia goes home. Santana stays up at night, thinking about that. Where she'd once wondered what the girls felt like, no longer being attached to one another, now she wonders what they feel like when they're ten miles apart. She just wants to get Maria out of the hospital. She was the stronger twin, and now, not so much.
The day finally comes two weeks later. It's been seven weeks since the surgery. Santana is elated, and she goes around the hospital, getting the other surgeons to sign off. She goes to Dr. Pierce's office four times. Every time, she's not there, and Santana gets increasingly frustrated. It's written in her chart that the grafts are healed, but she needs that signature.
It's after nine, when she finally finds her. The door to her office is open, and when Santana approaches, she sees her there. She's wearing a Harvard sweatshirt, with her hair in a long braid that coils on the dark leather of her desk. Dark rimmed glasses are perched on her nose, and she doesn't look up from the papers spread out in front of her. It strikes Santana, what a beautiful woman Dr. Pierce is, but she rolls her eyes and pushes that thought away, before she knocks on the door frame.
"Dr. P—" Santana is cut short by a finger to Dr. Pierce's lips, and a head tilt over to the sofa.
Her son is there. He's curled up beneath a peach blanket, a bunny tucked beneath his chin, and his fingers in his mouth. The floor beside him is littered with crayons and toy trains, and it strikes Santana, how out of place those things look in Dr. Pierce's crisp, modern office.
"Is there something you needed?" Dr. Pierce asks, her voice low, as she takes off her glasses and folds them up on her desk.
"I'm trying to discharge Maria Martinez in the morning. I've been looking for you all day."
"I took the day off. I just stopped by to look at some urgent cases." Santana notes how her eyes shift over to the boy, but she doesn't elaborate. She doesn't owe Santana an elaboration. "I'll give Maria a final once-over when I come in at eleven tomorrow."
"I told Bruna and Fernando I'd discharge her early. Lucia has physical therapy, and—"
"Please keep your voice down, Dr. Lopez." Dr. Pierce pinches the bridge of her nose. "What would you like me to do? Wake up Liam and drop him off at daycare so I can go examine her now?"
"No. I just—" Santana stammers. She doesn't know what she's asking. She just wants this patient discharged. She just wants to stop thinking about Dr. Pierce. "I don't have the right to ask you for a favor."
"You're right, you don't."
"Don't do it for me. Look, I'll sit here with your kid." Santana pleads, and Dr. Pierce raises an eyebrow. "He's sleeping. I'm a pediatric surgeon. I'm pretty sure I can handle it."
"It's not about your competence as a physician, Dr. Lopez. I've never questioned that." There's a pregnant pause, and Dr. Pierce doesn't take her eyes off of Santana. "But I've been in the Martinez's position."
"So you'll go?"
"I'll go." She scrawls a number on a piece of paper, and hands it to Santana. "Call me immediately if he needs me."
Santana hands the chart to Dr. Pierce, and takes the slip from her hands, sticking it in the pocket of her scrubs. She watches her leave the room, intrigued by how different she looks in worn jeans and a sweatshirt. A different person entirely. While she waits, Santana sits in the high backed chair in front of Dr. Piece's desk with her phone, and she steals occasional glances at the sleeping child. She can't help but wonder how much medical care he needed. She can't help but wonder if Dr. Pierce did it all herself, or if operating on her own family was too much to bear. She wonders if he got cards from around the world, like that little girl did, a year or so ago. She wonders, though she shouldn't. Dr. Pierce and her child are none of her business. In just a little while longer, they'll be out of her life.
The bang from a janitorial cart in the hall jars Santana from her thoughts, and she mutters a God fucking dammit under her breath. The boy begins to stir, and alarm bells go off in Santana's head. She's afraid he'll start screaming. She's afraid he'll run from her. And selfishly, she's afraid she'll have to call Dr. Pierce away from Maria Martinez, all because someone had to bang a trashcan against a metal cart.
Instead though, the boy sits up. He stares at Santana for several minutes, fingers still in his mouth. He's about three, she figures, based on what Dr. Pierce had told her that day in the NICU, but he's quieter than any three year old Santana Lopez has ever seen. Considering she's seen her share, that's saying something.
"Where's mama?" He finally asks, taking his fingers out of his mouth, but not his eyes off of her.
"She, uh, went to check on a baby."
"Huggin' baby?"
"Huh?" Santana's forehead crinkles, and then she remembers, from the afternoon in the park. "Oh. Uh, yeah, the hugging baby."
"O-key." He nods, sliding off the sofa and onto the floor. "Play with me?"
"I think you're supposed to be sleeping."
"Play with me?" He repeats, and as Santana doesn't want to chance the tenuous peace in the room, she complies, sitting beside him, with her legs crossed beneath her.
"Teach me how to play?"
"You be this train, I be this one, doccer…"
"Lopez. Dr. Lopez. Or just Santana."
"O-key. doccer Santana." He presses a green train into Santana's open palm with his left hand, and she notices how his right arm remains slack at his side. "Now you say shoe shoe."
Before Santana has the opportunity, she's interrupted by the clearing of a throat behind her. She doesn't have to turn her head to know that it's Dr. Pierce, and heat creeps up her the back of her neck.
"Mama! Mama! Mama! Doccer Santana's bein' Percy!"
"And I thought Sir Topham Hatt put all his useful engines to bed."
"No Mama! You putted them to bed!" He giggles, and his whole body shakes as he does. Santana can't help but smile at him, before she quickly stands up and dusts off her scrub pants.
"I guess I did." Dr. Pierce smiles at him. "But how about we pack them up and take them to their real bed, hmm?"
"But Doccer Santana's playing w'me."
"It's past her bedtime, Li, and yours too. It's time to say goodnight."
"O-key." He slumps a little, and Santana gives him a small wave. "G'night."
"Goodnight, little engine." She turns away from him, and back to Dr. Pierce, who hands her Maria's signed chart.
"She's free to go."
"Thank you, Dr. Pierce. I appreciate that."
"Just doing my job." She turns away from Santana, and gets on her knees in front of the boy, kissing his head as he yawns. "I'm tired too, sweet boy, let's go home."