It doesn't take Santana long to find her routine with Liam. Every night, in the middle of the night, he comes into the bedroom looking for Brittany—he knows, she thinks, that she's not there, he rarely, rarely comes in when she's home—and each time, she lets him curl up with her, she strokes his head, and she promises him that Brittany will be home soon. She's not surprised, really, how much she loves the whole routine, but she issurprised at the ease with which she adjusts to it.
Brittany's two weeks of night shifts go quickly. On the last night she puts Liam to bed, the night before he has an appointment with Liz, she can't believe it's done. She can't believe they both will have the weekend off, and she can't believe that Brittany asked her to come with them to get their Christmas tree. Every day, she feels more like she has a real home, and every day, she's so damn grateful for one single power outage that changed her life.
In the morning, she takes a shower and gets dressed for work, before she wakes Liam up. He's wiggly and giddy when she does, excited, as always, to see Brittany, and she helps him get his arm into his sweatshirt before she makes him waffles for breakfast. It's this, more than anything, this morning routine alone with him, where she drinks her coffee, and pokes his fork into his cut up waffles, where she really feels domesticated, where she really feels like this is what she's going to be doing every day for the rest of her life. She loves this, she loves him, and with the way she loves his Mama…well, she expects that maybe, maybe, she'll be someone other than Doccer Santana to him in the near-ish future.
He chatters away in the car. Sometimes he's talking to her, sometimes he's talking to his trains. He always brings them with him, at least three. Always Percy, and more frequently than any others, Bill and Ben. Santana loves that, the way he knows every single one of the trains he owns, the way he lets her play with Harold the helicopter, and even lets him sit up on the dashboard whole she drives. She loves that he has something so simple that makes him so happy, and when they get to the hospital and she unbuckles his seatbelt, she kisses his forehead, her quiet little way of saying I love you.
"Mama! Mama! Mama!" Liam cheers, almost taking a tumble when his foot hits the seam in the doorway of Brittany's office. "We comed!"
"You came!" Brittany stands from her desk, eyes twinkling. "Well that's good news, what would I do without my Liam today?"
"Doccer Santana needa work."
"I know, lame, right?" Brittany picks him up and kisses him, stage whispering to him. "But we'll go see her after we see Dr. Liz, and maybe we'll brig her surprise lunch."
"Okey! Doccer Santana, I bring you a'prise!"
"You're gonna bring me a surprise, huh?" She beams at Brittany. "Okay then, I'll be waiting for it."
"You no eat lunch, okey?"
"Okay. I won't eat lunch."
Santana kisses Liam goodbye. Then she kisses Brittany, a slow, lingering kiss on the lips. It's one of the byproducts of the past few weeks of passing Liam between them. She's become far more comfortable expressing her relationship with Brittany at work. They're not the first couple in the hospital, and they certainly won't be the last. She's in it with Brittany for the long haul, and considering how many people within the walls of Columbia Pres that she considers friends, to keep their relationship a secret seems like too much. So she kisses her outside her office door when Brittany drops Liam off. She kisses her in Brittany's office. She says I love you by the nurse's station. She's not making a show of it, but she's behaving like anyone in love would.
She has three surgeries today. When she gets to her office, she pulls her files, and she refreshes herself—though she never needs the refresher, she has an impeccable memory, and she's read each patient file no less than a dozen times. She drinks her third cup of coffee, and she pulls her hair up off her face. Every morning, she gets dressed for work and does her hair, and every morning it ends up in a messy bun before ten-am.
"Hey Dr. Lopez." Reggie Salazar, the jovial father of her three-o'clock liver transplant knocks on her doorframe. They've been preparing his daughter a potential donor for months, and she knows them well. As far as fathers go, he's one of her favorites, and she looks up and smiles.
"Good morning, Mr. Salazar."
"Come on, I've told you a dozen times to call me Reggie."
"And I've told you more than that to call me Santana."
"We'll all right, Santana. I'm just checking in to see that you're all ready for the big day."
"I certainly am. I'm going to do my rounds in about twenty minutes and see Marina. I was going to wait until lunchtime on the off-chance there was pizza…" She teases.
"You heal up my princess, you get all the pizza you want, for life!"
"I won't hold you to that, but I definitely wouldn't object to a slice tonight, after she's healing up."
"Don't you worry, you'll be taken care of."
Santana's morning surgery is a piece of cake, just a tonsillectomy, and she does a second set of rounds. When she goes into Marina Salazar's room to find her big Italian family gathered around her bedside. In the week and a half that she's been in the hospital, the week and a half of hell that bumped her way up on the transplant list, Santana's gotten to know them well, always feeling like part of the family—right down to her Nonna telling her she's too thin. It's a weird thing, she doesn't usually feel like this with patients. She usually feels like an intruder when she comes in to take vitals, and she prefers to have a nurse do it, but this family, she feels like love in the room. Marina tells her that she's going to be a doctor just like her when she grows up, her little sister gives her a crayon drawing she made, her aunt gives her a wrapped box of Godiva chocolates, and this is before the surgery.
Her second surgery is a hernia repair. She's glad that she stacked two easy ones before a transplant, it keeps her sharp, but it doesn't exhaust her. Her nurses always tease her when she cranks Hamilton in the operating room, but it's that kind of day, a good kind of day. A beautiful day to save lives, she laughs at her own Grey's Anatomy reference, but she's giddy like that. It's Friday, she's got great patience, and she's about to have the whole weekend off with her girlfriend and her great kid. She's happy. She's happy, and that's a feeling that doesn't feel so foreign to her anymore.
"Doccer Santana!" Liam cries out, running down the hall where her office is. His arm is uncasted, and Brittany has a smile on her face. "You in you scrubbies!"
"I am. You missed it, I was just wearing the Thomas scrub cap that you gave me."
"Where's it go?"
"It's in the laundry now, but it definitely helped me." She lifts him up, kissing the top of his head and inspecting his arm, her finger trailing down the scar.
"I's my new star."
"I see that. Pretty neat, huh?"
"Mama say that too."
"Mama's smart." Santana carries him toward Brittany, who's holding a big paper bag.
"All good." She nods, answering Santana's unasked question. "He's starting with a new physical therapist on Monday. We brought sandwiches from Citarella."
"You're the best, like, seriously." Kissing the corner of Brittany's mouth, Santana gives a goofy smile. "I love you a lot."
"Me, or the sandwiches?"
"Both. Definitely both."
Liam sits in Santana's desk chair eating his lunch, while Santana sits with Brittany on the couch. All of serves to further improve her already good mood, especially when Brittany murmurs to her that Liz said that it looks like Liam will have a good range of motion in his arm. When they leave again, Santana runs down to the pit to help Rose and Adams will their backlog of Peds patients, and when she finally heads upstairs, it's a half hour before Marina Salazar's surgery. When she goes to check the board to find out which OR she's in, her name is blank, and she yanks her pager out of her pocket. There's four pages from Shelby that she somehow didn't hear, and without hesitating for a moment, she races down the hall to her office.
"Where the hell have you been, Lopez?"
"Why the hell is my name off the goddamn board, Shelby?" She counters. "You can't bump my transplant for another surgery."
"You're not doing the transplant, Santana." Shelby lowers her voice, the sudden change in tone alarming Santana. "Sit down."
"What? She's going to die if she doesn't get it. What happened to my liver?"
"The liver is here. I'm doing the transplant, that's why I've been paging you for the last two hours."
"Why are you doing my transplant?" Santana snaps. "I have a relationship with the patient."
"The patient's father requested another surgeon."
"What? I saw him twice today!" Panic rises up in Santana's chest, and she really, really doesn't like the look on Shelby's face, the look like she's about to treat her with kid gloves. "What's going on, Shelby? Don't beat around the bush."
"Santana."
"Don't Santana me." She crosses her arms over her chest. "I swear, I didn't do anything…I mean, I made a joke about a slice of pizza after surgery, but I wasn't being unprofessional, I—"
"You didn't do anything. It's his issue."
"Well his issue effects me, so what is it?"
"Okay." Shelby pinches the bridge of her nose, and Santana squirms in her seat. "He came to me a few hours ago, and he told me that he wants a surgeon for his daughter who reflects his values. According to him, you're not that surgeon."
"What? What values are you even talking about? How does he even know my values?" She stands back up and starts to pace. "Excuse my language, but what the fuck, Shelby?"
"I'm on your side, a hundred percent, Santana. Not only does this hospital have a strict no discrimination policy, but I personally will fight for you every day. This isn't a disciplinary issue in any way, this is to protect you just as much as anything else."
"Discrimination? What are you even talking about?"
"The Salazars religion isn't welcoming to homosexuality. He…you don't need to hear this part."
"Someone saw me with Brittany." She balls her fists at her sides. "And now, their revered doctor is just a dirty rotten sinner, huh?"
"Santana."
"Stop. Stop sounding like you feel sorry for me."
"Dr. Lopez." Shelby stands up, her tone sharpening as Santana does. "Don't presume to know what I feel. If you think I'm not livid that I have to hear such ignorance about one of my doctors and my friend then you don't know me at all. Why do you think I spent two hours trying to get in touch with you? I wanted to tell you myself so you didn't have to go see on the board that your three o'clock was gone."
"Whatever. The whole thing is bullshit. Like I'm gonna infect their six year old with my lesbo germs. So much for that warm, accepting family I thought I knew. Are we done here?"
"Santana."
"Are we done here?" She repeats. "If it's not disciplinary, I can go, right?"
"Yeah." Shelby sighs. "You can go. You can take the rest of the afternoon too, if you want it."
"I don't have any surgeries, so I guess I will." Santana shakes her head and turn toward the door. "Do me a favor? Make sure you save her. I really cared about those people."
Santana goes back to her office. Incapacitated is the only word she can think of to describe how she's feeling. It's the only word to explain how crippling it is for her to actually let her guard down, in more way than one, and be painfully, painfully wrong about it. It's 2016. It's 2016, and somehow, in the most diverse city in the world, there are actually people who won't let her operate on their child for being a lesbian. Not only that, there are people who come off as good, warm people who feel this deep seated hatred. It's too much for her to handle, and she doesn't even bother to throw the clothes she'd worn to work into her bag before she walks out of the hospital.
She should go right to Brittany's. Rationally, Santana knows that. She knows that Brittany will calm her down, and keep her from boiling over. She knows that it's the best thing for her sanity. But she doesn't. She goes back to her apartment. The picture of her, Brittany, and Liam that sits on her bedside table should calm her down, but instead, it makes her more angry. It makes her hate the man who refused to let her treat his child. It makes her hate him, because he doesn't know anything about her, or the best thing that has ever happened to her. It makes her angry, because when it comes to her son, Brittany would never judge anyone's personal life, if they were the one who had been treating him for months. It makes her angry, because love should come before hate, and sometimes, sometimes it doesn't.
Santana goes for a run. As a rule, she doesn't really work out. She's naturally thin, and being on her feet all day, running around the hospital, keeps her in shape. But it seems like maybe it'll work to get the anger out of her. It seems like it'll be the kind of thing that will help her regroup and enjoy her night with Brittany and Liam. It seems like it'll be the kind of thing that'll bring back the good day vibes of the early afternoon. It seems like it, but of course, it doesn't.
She's barely run twenty blocks along the park before Santana gets a cramp in her side. She didn't warm up, she didn't prepare at all, and obviously, her body just doesn't know how to handle it. She doubles over, pressing the heel of her hand into her side, and she takes deep breaths. It's that panicky feeling, exacerbated, and she curls her toes in her shoes, trying not to throw up from the twisting pain, trying to stand upright again and get herself home. She doesn't feel less angry, not on the slightest, but now she's managed to add insult to injury with this damn cramp.
When the cramping barely subsides, Santana makes the decision to take a cab. Obviously, she's the worst at exercising, and it's not until she gets into the taxi that she realizes she doesn't have any money on her, she doesn't have her phone, she just left her apartment empty handed in an effort to escape her own feelings.
"Where you going, lady?" The driver asks her.
"I…uh…forgot my wallet."
"Well this ain't no charity service. No pay, no ride."
Briefly, Santana considers asking him if he'll let her run inside for money, but before the words come out of her mouth, she's out of the car again. She presses her hand into her side, and she whimpers in a dramatic fashion as she starts to walk. She has no idea what time it is, she has no idea of much of anything, except that she doesn't want to go home. She wants to go to Brittany's. She wants to drink hot chocolate with Liam, and she wants to rest her head on her girlfriend's chest. She wants to feel that it's not her, that she's not the problem. It's Mr. Salazar, the coward who couldn't even tell her to her face that he didn't want her doing Marina's surgery. It's people like him, who don't even try to understand. It's not her, it's not Brittany, not at all.
The one thing Santana managed to bring with her are her keys, and besides a lingering prickle on her right side, her cramp has nearly subsided as she unlocks the front door to Brittany's house. She doesn't even make it all the way inside, before she sees Brittany, sitting on the bench in the entryway, tying her sneakers.
"Hey." Santana shrugs off her windbreaker, shivering for the first time since she left her house.
"Where have you been?" Irritation tinges Brittany's voice. "I called you four times. You had me really worried."
"I went for a run. I forgot my phone."
"You went for a run?" She arches an eyebrow. "Since when do you run? And you couldn't have called me to tell me you'd be late?"
"Why are you trying to start a fight with me?" Santana snaps, fisting the hem of her shirt.
"Starting a fight with you? I didn't realize being concerned about your safety was starting a fight. What's going on?"
"Nothing. I'm just having a really shit afternoon, and the last thing I need is for you to be mad at me."
"Hey." Brittany steps closer, her tone softening as she opens her arms for Santana. For a few seconds, Santana hesitates, wrestling with her own vulnerability. "Come here. What happened? Did your surgery not go well?"
"I didn't do a surgery. That homophobic piece of shit fired me from his kid."
"The pizza guy? The one who—" Brittany stops, and Santana is grateful for that.
"I don't even give a shit that he's an ignorant asshole. I give a shit because it's my career, and the fact that I have a really awesome girlfriend doesn't take away from my superior surgical skills. It was so embarrassingwhen my name was off the board, and Shelby had to tell me why. And now what? I'm Dr. Lezpez, the dyke Peds surgeon at Columbia Pres? Other people don't let their kids be treated by me, because obviously, fingers that have been inside another woman's pussy aren't healing hands? Might infect them with sins of the flesh through the scalpel. They leave my OR and bust out in boils or leprosy. God for-fucking-bid I have a personal life that's completely unrelated to my ability to perform surgery. You know what? May as well contact the Board, I'm unfit to be certified." Santana rants, heat flaming in her neck and face. Letting herself be held only because it's Brittany, not because she can handle how constricting it is not to pace and stomp. "Fucking asshole. And now you're mad at me because I messed up our dinner plans, and I probably upset Liam, all because of some piece of shit who didn't even have the balls to confront me himself."
"I'm not mad at you, Santana. Not at all. I shouldn't have jumped down your throat like that when you walked in the door. I feel terrible that I made it worse when you were already upset."
"Oh no, I'm not upset, I'm pissed. God dammit. I'm trying not to bring this in here. I don't want Liam to—where is he?"
"He's having a play date at the Abrams'. I was just leaving to pick him up when you came in. Santana, what can I do? Do you want me to call Artie and ask if he can stay the night? Do you want to have some time here by yourself? Do you want to come with me, and we'll pick up something for dinner on the way home?"
"I—"
Santana doesn't know what she wants. Brittany is good, Brittany is so, so good, giving her every possible option, but she really, truly has no idea what she wants right now. She wants the anger to stop boiling, that's pretty much all she knows. She hasn't felt an anger like this since her father, and maybe that's exactly what this is. He came off as the nicest guy in the world to everyone but her and her mother. He had everyone fooled, had everyone convinced that he had this happy, picture perfect family, but no one could ever convince her that he didn't hate them. It's not even close to the same thing, but Reggie Salazar had her fooled like her own father had fooled everyone else, and something about that, it settles deep beneath her skin.
"Can you wait five minutes? If not, I'll just stay here, but I don't really feel like going out without showering. Work, and my short-lived run, and…city grime."
"Artie's in no rush to get rid of him, Santana. Do you want to be alone, or do you want company?"
"Company would be really good."
In the bathroom, Santana peels off her sweaty clothes. It makes her feel more disgusting than she already did, and she can't believe that Brittany picks them up with no regard and tosses them into the hamper with everything else. Her breasts hurt a little from the unusually tight sports bra she'd had on, and she palms them to dull the sting, rolling her eyes at herself when her nipples harden unexpectedly. The spray of the shower feels good when she steps in, and the sensation of Brittany stepping in behind her and running her fingers through her mess of curls, lingering to massage the scalp, feels even better.
Santana doesn't object, when Brittany lathers a washcloth and washes her body, taking extra care to be gentle around her breasts. She knows, somehow, without Santana saying, when they're tender. Maybe it's the knowledge of a plastic surgeon, or maybe it's more, maybe it's something intuitive, something that comes from this intense connection she seems to have with Santana. Santana will never know, but she lets her head roll back, neck popping as she does, tension releasing as she leans back against Brittany.
Brittany takes her time washing Santana. Five minutes turns into ten, and ten turns into a half hour, but Brittany doesn't rush Santana out. She must have sent Artie a text, letting him know she'd be later, Santana thinks. She must have known, just like with her sore breasts, that this is what Santana needed, that caressing and massaging and peppering barely there kisses along Santana's shoulder blade and clavicle is exactly what it would take to suck her tension away.
It doesn't take Santana by surprise when Brittany brings the washcloth between her legs. The rough texture of it makes her shudder, but Brittany's free hand holds her hip, Brittany's stance keeps her from slipping on the soapy shower floor. Even as Santana spreads her legs further, Brittany doesn't rush. Her motions mimic washing, but Santana knows damn well that it's more than that. Closing her eyes, Santana drops her head back on Brittany's shoulder, and the spray of water on her face, combined with the stimulation of her sex makes her gasp.
"Please, Britt. I need—"
Santana doesn't finish the sentence. She doesn't need to. The washcloth drops at her feet with a wet thwack,and two fingertips press against her entrance. Panting, Santana nods, begging Brittany to be inside of her, begging for the sort of cathartic release Brittany is setting her up for. Her walls tighten as soon as she's filled, and the moan she releases echoes off the stone tiled walls.
"I love you, you're perfect." Brittany murmurs in her ear, lips never leaving her skin as they trail down to mark her neck.
Each time Brittany thrusts her fingers, the palm of her hand hits Santana's clit, and the sickening twists in her stomach are replaced with a cool of pleasure. She breathes deep, and she braces herself for her orgasm to hit hard and fast, but instead, it comes in slow waves. Instead, heat spreads from her groin, and her toes curl, grappling for something to hold as the waves course through her. Brittany doesn't let her go though. Brittany slips her fingers out, and brings them back to her clit, rubbing gentle circles there, drawing it out, making Santana's knees buckle, and a whine come from her throat.
The water goes cold as Brittany holds her, waiting for her to be ready to move. When the change in temperature proves too much, and Santana shivers, Brittany turns the water off, and before Santana knows it, she's wrapped up in a towel, Brittany's thumbs circling the pressure points in the back of her neck. It still gets her, that someone takes care of her like this, that someone can take all her snappishness, her angry ball of rage nature, her insecurities and her vulnerabilities, and just…wrap her up in a towel, make her feel loved, make her feel cherished, make her feel like she belongs.
"This is my favorite place in the world." Santana whispers, brushing wet strands of hair from Brittany's face.
"The shower?"
"Your house. I come here, and…everything feels easier and better."
"So then stay."
"What?" Her eyes widen, trying to gauge if Brittany means what it sounds like.
"Stay. Move in with me, with us. Because I want you to always be in a place that makes you feel like that, and I want you to always be with me."