Following her sort-of revelation to Dr. Pierce, Santana obsesses. That's what she does, anytime she opens up a little, to anyone. She thinks about if she should have said it, if she'll be judged, if she made a huge mistake. If. If. If. This is why very, very few people at work know anything about her personal life. Well, the slim remains of a personal life she actually has.
But Dr. Pierce doesn't mention it. Not when they bump into each other a few days later at their secret coffee shop. Not when Santana walks into Mercedes' office without knocking, and finds her there for a consult. Not at all, and it makes her both breathe a sigh of relief, and tense up, hoping the other shoe doesn't drop.
Santana has a shockingly quiet week. The calm before the storm, maybe, but she'll take it. She only has three surgeries, and her post-op patients are stable. So, she takes the time doing research. She has a sixteen day old patient with biliary atresia, and she's studying new ways to do a Kasai procedure, before his operation next week. She's grateful for the time, but yet, she always feels unsettled when she isn't churning out surgeries, healing patients, making miracles.
She decides to leave early one night, a rarity for her. But she's got a couch calling her name, a pair of worn out sweatpants with the ankles cut, from undergrad. She's got mindless television, a menu for sushi, and a bottle of red wine. She's got the day off tomorrow, and she's probably going to avoid the early summer humidity, and go see a movie by herself. Maybe her life outside the hospital is boring, but when she spends her days saving the lives of small people, a little boring is good.
"Mama!" Santana hears a familiar peal of laughter when the elevator opens. The little boy jumps up and down, and he seems to almost vibrate with excitement. "Look! Look! Doccer Santana!"
"Hey." Dr. Pierce smiles, giving her a wave. "It sure is, Li."
"Doccer Santana! Doccer Santana! Know what?"
"What?" She pretends not to see the paper crown, emblazoned with a number three on his head.
"It's my birfday! T'morrow!"
"Is it? Wow, that sounds pretty neat. Lemme guess, you're gonna be fourteen."
"No!" He laughs louder, and hugs Dr. Pierce's side, holding up three fingers. "Just free!"
"Wow, that's pretty big."
"I gon' have a big, big, big party! Wif Mama and Granny and Grampy and Tub-a-Ton!"
"That sounds awesome." Santana looks up to meet Dr. Pierce's eyes, and she just smiles and nods.
"You wan' come? We gettin' cake!"
"Oh, I—"
"Li, baby." Dr. Pierce beings simultaneously. "Santana probably has to work tomorrow."
"I…" Santana doesn't lie to a kid, but she also doesn't want to get his hopes up that she'll be there. The whole thing just feels incredibly awkward, so she fidgets, watching the lights on the elevator.
"You gotta work, Doccer Santana?"
"You're more than welcome to come." Dr. Pierce tells her quietly, assuming, Santana thinks, that the little boy won't hear her over his bouncing. "It's nothing big. And obviously, I don't expect you to."
"I'm…" Santana trails off, then nods, remembering what Dr. Pierce had said about not making friends here yet. In the time since they first met, she and Dr. Pierce have come a long way, and she dares to assume, even, that they're close to becoming friends. "What time is your party, Liam?"
"Mama! Mama! What'sa time?"
"It's at four o'clock. Big hand pointing up, little hand on the number four."
"Four o'clock? Okay, sir." Santana nods solemnly at Dr. Pierce's son. "I'll be there."
Dr. Pierce gives Santana her address, once again reminding her that she really, really doesn't have to come. Then, for the next eighteen hours, Santana obsesses. Sometimes she feels like her human interaction skills, outside of the hospital, are entirely non-existent, and yet here she is, trying to figure out what to wear to a three-year-old's birthday party.
Once that is settled, and she tosses a nice top and a pair of denim shorts in the dryer, in order to get the wrinkles out, she realizes she has to find a gift. Of course, by the time she gets around to remembering that, it's after eight. Still wearing her scrubs, she ventures out in a frantic effort to find something before every store closes, and she has to resume the effort in the morning.
She finds a gift. A set of wooden trains, modeled after real subway cars. Dr. Pierce had said that she drives to the hospital, but she wonders if they ride the subway other places. She wonders if the boy will recognize the trains. She wonders, and she starts obsessing—even as the wrapped gift sits on her table, and she finally is able to get her sweatpants and wine on—if maybe her gift was a stupid idea.
The next day, Santana inexplicably spends three hours getting ready. Typically, she's a disheveled mess at the hospital, unless she's got consults scheduled, so she makes a conscious effort not to be one, when Dr. Pierce has invited her into her home. Almost an hour of her time is spent in the shower, exfoliating, shaving, things that seem utterly ridiculous to do before a little boy's party, but hey, Santana really doesn't get out much. Then the other two are spent taming her unmanageable hair, putting on makeup, checking eight times if her outfit is really okay. She assumes it's super casual, since it's Dr. Pierce, her parents, a three-year-old, and a Tub-a-Ton, but still. She doesn't want to make bad impression number…whatever the count is at now.
She takes a cab to Dr. Pierce's. It's only about fifteen blocks away—she was right, when she saw them in the park, that they had to live close to her—but the humidity will wreck havoc on her hair if she walks, and the idea of taking car seldom-used car out of the garage and attempting to park seems like a worse option. She pays the driver when she arrives, and while just recently, she'd have been surprised at the cozy brownstone, rather than a posh, amenity laden building, but now, it seems right.
When Santana knocks at the door, she sees a little face peek through the window. The birthday boy knocks at it, so Santana notices him, and when he grins, she can't help but feel infected by his happiness.
"Santana." Dr. Pierce smiles, opening the heavy wooden door. "Hi."
"Granny! Grampy! Doccer Santana comed! She fixeded them huggin' babies wif Mama!"
In a flurry of activity, Santana is ushered inside. There are hugs. There are questions, and frankly, Santana is more than a little overwhelmed. But they're nice people, Whitney, the big and boisterous blonde, and Pierce, the dry witted—to Santana's surprise—Korean man. They're welcoming, and in a big open room draped with Thomas the Tank Engine decorations, Santana feels surprisingly more at home than she's felt anywhere in a long time.
She meets Tub-a-Ton, or, Lord Tubbington, a big, fat cat, in a conductor's hat, who follows his tiny, overalled owner around. She doesn't like cats—or most animals, really—but this one impresses her. He's huge and ornery looking, but he lets this little boy carry him around, hug him, treat him as his playmate. She enjoys that, and she laughs with Dr. Pierce's family, when he ends up sitting on her lap she plays with Legos on the floor.
Though she'd planned to stay only for a little while, she ends up giving in to the birthday boy's pleas for her to stay. She doesn't want to overstay her welcome, but Dr. Pierce's mother becomes just as insistent that she stick around for dinner. Before she knows it, Santana has had three glasses of wine, and a second slice of bright blue birthday cake. She stays for the opening of the birthday gifts, for the inevitable setup of dozens of train tracks, and then, for tiny arms to wrap around her middle.
"G'night! Doccer Santana! I haved a best party!"
"Li, say thank you for coming, and for your awesome new trains."
"Thanky you! I love them trains!"
"You're welcome." Santana doesn't know why, but she feels a lump in her throat. Damn all the wine. She barely knows these people, and they've got her all kinds of emotional. "Happy birthday, little guy. I'll see you around soon, okay?"
"You can come back forever!"
"Good to know." She chokes out a laugh, and Dr. Pierce scoops him up.
"You go upstairs with Granny and Grampy, okay? I'll be up in a few minutes."
"And Tub-a-Ton!"
"And Lord Tubbington."
Santana says goodbye to Dr. Pierce's parents, and they follow their grandson up the stairs. Looking around for a second, she picks up her wine glass, and brings it to the kitchen sink.
"You can leave it, it's fine…"
"I mean…it's only good manners to clean up after myself." Santana shrugs, then takes her bag off the back of the chair. "So, uh, thanks for having me tonight."
"No, thank you. You really didn't have to come. I'm sure you had way more exciting things you could have been doing than this."
"I was pretty much just going to go to the movies by myself, so this was actually the real excitement. I had fun."
"I'm glad." Dr. Pierce half smiles, as they walk together to the door. "It meant a lot to Liam…and to me too. This is the first year since…that my mom didn't cry, so really, I appreciate you being here."
Santana shifts her weight between her feet, looking down at her sandals. It's one of those times where she's just not sure what she's supposed to say, so she just doesn't, making the silence incredibly weird.
"Well, I should…"
"Yeah." Dr. Pierce tilts her head toward the stairs. "Me too."
"Cool. Yeah." She goes to shake her hand, since she can't think of anything else to do, but then, she's taken off guard by a hug. It's barely long enough to catch a whiff of the perfume that Dr. Pierce is wearing, but there's a lingering sort of sensation, her stomach reacts to it. She steps back, and reaches for the knob of the door.
"Santana?"
"Yeah?"
"I guess this means that we're kind of friends now?"
"Yeah." Santana laughs, not sure what she was expecting her to say. "Yeah, definitely."