After Brittany leaves, Santana can't fall back to sleep. It's freezing in the house, and she's worried sick about her driving in the snow like this. She pulls Liam close to her, and she turns the screen of her phone on and off, on and off, on and off, until she feels like she might lose her mind. Of all weekends to be on call, this one is the worst, and if she could have, she would have gone in her place. But she couldn't, so instead, she stares up at the ceiling, and she frets.
Go to sleep. Her screen lights up with the text message. I know you're up worrying, but I'm here safely.
You know I'll worry all night. How bad was it?
Pretty nasty. I hope the power comes back on soon at home. Are you warm?
Liam's a human space heater…for now, I'm toasty.
Good. I'll text you again as soon as I can, but really, please go to sleep. I love you.
I love you too.
She still doesn't sleep. She's never had a house before, but she feels like without power, she should be worried about gas, or electrical sparking, or frozen pipes, or…something. Despite knowing that Brittany is the most prepared and responsible person she's ever known, she can't help but feel a sense of concern having Liam alone in there. She just wants to keep him safe, she always wants to keep him safe.
"Cold nose." He wakes up, rubbing her nose with his own and giggling. "You so cold."
"Are you cold, Sir?"
"No, I snugglin' with you so I warm. Where's Mama go?"
"Mama had to go to work, there's a very big snowstorm outside."
"Snow! Snow! Snow!" He jumps up, making Santana wince as his head knows into her breast, and scrambles to the window. "Oooh! My feets are cold!"
"Come here, buddy." Santana is reluctant to get out of bed, but she doesn't want him in the cold air with no socks on, so she gets up, grabbing the Columbia Pres fleece that Brittany left draped over the chair. "Guess what? We have no lights, so we're going to make a great big fire and a blanket fort!"
"A fart! A fart!"
"Liam, Liam." She laughs, scooping him up into her arms. "We're going to stay in our pajamas all day, but we need socks and sweatshirts too."
"Okey Mommy Noodle! I ready!"
Santana pats down Liam's cowlick, and kisses his forehead before she carries him into his bedroom, holding the wall so she doesn't trip in the darkness of the hallway. The house really has gotten cold, and she's not sure how much she should bundle him up. Coats seem a little excessive, and she's a pediatric surgeon, she knows the cold won't make him sick, but still, as a mother, she worries about him freezing.
"My dinosaur snuggly shirt!" Liam cries out, diving beneath the quilt on his bed while she digs through his clothes. "'N my fire truck socks!"
"Coming right up." She smiles softly at him, watching his little head peek out. Zipping Brittany's fleece up higher, she takes out his things, and grabs his special skin lotion, before she sits down on the bedside him. "Okay, lotion first, Sir."
"Do you hands! Do you hands!"
"Of course." She squeezes lotion on her hands, rubbing them together to warm it up, before she puts them up under his shirt to smooth it over the puckered skin on his chest and arm. "Close your eyes, okay?"
"Okey!" He squeezes them shut, and she uses her thumbs to massage it into his face. "Now snuggly shirt!"
Once he has his sweatshirt and socks on, Santana gathers all of the blankets from his bed to bring downstairs. She buries him under them on the couch, and she tests that the lights are still out, before she kneels before the fireplace. She's never built a fire on her own before, but she's watched Brittany do it dozens of times, and she thinks she can manage it.
With the flue open, certain she won't kill them both, Santana stacks up the wood, mirroring what Brittany always does. She feels Liam's eyes on her, and hears his little squeaks—he loves when there's a fire, sometimes to Brittany's great dismay, because he tries to get too close—and she lights the kindling paper on fire, waiting for the wood to catch. When it does, she breathes a sigh of relief, surprised she managed to do it, and she puts the safety guard up before looking back to Liam.
"Yay, Mommy Noodle! Yay! You maked it!"
"I did! Now we'll be toasty warm when we have breakfast."
"We have pancakes?"
"I think it's going to have to be a cereal morning, Sir. The stove doesn't work like the lights."
"Okey, we have Kix?"
"Kix sounds great to me."
In the kitchen, Santana finds a cooler sitting on the counter, a note in Brittany's handwriting pinned to it. Good Morning! I put the milk and yogurt on ice for you. If we keep the fridge closed, we'll probably salvage everything else when the power comes back on. Give Li a kiss for me. I love you, and see you soon.
Santana checks her phone with she pours the cereal. It's after nine, and she hasn't heard from Brittany in hours. She assumes that either Shelby hasn't made it in, or that it's such a mess in the pit that Brittany won't leave. If she didn't have Liam, she'd be on her way up to help, but peering at him in the living room, rolling Percy over the heap of blankets, she couldn't bundle him up and take him out in this even if she wanted to. It's intentional that she and Brittany don't schedule their on-call weekends at the same time, and now, keeping Liam safe and warm while a storm rages outside is the most important job she has.
After breakfast, Santana stokes the fire, and she moves the couches, folding blankets on the floor, laying out pillows, dragging Liam's bin of trains, and draping a big quilt over everything. Liam is beside himself, grabbing his little blanket and Percy and scrambling underneath. Santana lays down on the floor, and almost immediately, Liam's head is on her stomach, his dark eyes looking up at her.
"Hi Mommy Noodle! You in the fart!"
"I am, you think I was going to build it and not enjoy it with you?"
"I love you." He hugs her stomach, and still, still, it makes her heart race.
"I love you too, my Liam."
"And I love you both." Brittany's voice rings out, making Liam squeal, and Santana breathe a sigh of relief that she's finally home safely.
"Mama! Mama! Mama! Mama! Come find us!"
"Where, oh where is my Liam? Where, oh where is my Santana?" She pops her head under the blanket, and Liam crawls over Santana to tug Brittany's hand and get her inside.
"A fire? A fort? It seems like I've been missing a really fun day."
"I's freezin' in here, Mama! Mommy Noodle makeded us a fart!"
"She made you a fort, huh?" Brittany leans over and kisses Santana's lips. "That sounds pretty amazing."
"We got all the trains!"
"I see that. Are you going to build a track?"
"Yes! Yes! Yes!" Liam cries out, and immediately busies himself with the tracks.
"You look wiped." Santana brushes Brittany's hair from her face as she lays down beside her and pulls a blanket up to her chin.
"I am. It was a long night."
"I can tell." She lifts up Brittany's hand to inspect her fingers. "I've never seen your fingers raw like this."
"I'm not sure how many stitches I did. The ambulance bay was open all night, and it feels like half the city came in with lacerations."
"Have you eaten anything?"
"A muffin and a bunch of coffee. I actually brought you a thermos from the hospital."
"Brittany Pierce, you went to work in a blizzard, did probably hundreds of stitches, and you still thought to bring me coffee?"
"Well I know how you are when you don't have any." Brittany laughs a little, then yawns. "You seem better today."
"I mean, I'm in a blanket fort with my two favorite people, so…"
"That's fair. I think I might nap in here for awhile, actually. Shelby's going to sleep in the on-call room tonight, so she said she'll try to keep me from having to come back in, but who knows."
"You can go nap in bed if you want, Britt. We're okay down here."
"No, I know that, but after feeling like my toes were going to freeze off for six hours, I think I'd rather keep warm under here."
"Okay." Santana kisses her lips, and looks over at Liam, who's trying to make two tracks fit on the wrong ends. "We'll be here when you get up."