The following Sunday, they leave for Boston. Santana has been a nervous wreck all week, and as she held Brittany load the car, she feels her knees weaken, and her head get light. It's stupid, she's well aware how stupid it is, but she can't shake her sense of dread about meeting with Adam Crawford tomorrow, she can't shake the twisting and turning in her stomach, threatening to make her vomit on I-95.

It's four-thirty in the morning, and Liam sleeps in his car seat behind Santana. She peers back at him, and can't help but smile at the way he rubs Percy against his face, the way his blanket is tucked up to his chin, the way he looks so completely peaceful back there. She didn't have a peaceful childhood, but every day, she's grateful that she gets to be the mother to a child who does. Every day, she reminds herself to remain calm, because she never wants him to see her in a frenzy.

Beside her, Brittany watches the road. It's flurrying, the roads are icy, and they know it will only get worse the further north they get, but Santana feels safe beside her wife. She's so careful, so responsible, and she knows that as she always does before a drive to Boston, the tires have been checked, the fluids have been filled, and there's a trunk full of emergency supplies, just in case. It's the type of security that Santana needs in her life, and if it wouldn't risk distracting Brittany, she'd reach over and grab her hand to squeeze.

It takes half the day to make it to the Pierces'. Liam wakes up in Connecticut, and is bubbly and giddy as he waits to be in Boston. Brittany always says he doesn't remember it much, them living there, but that he always seems to react to the city in a visceral way. He loves the cobblestone streets, the parks, the charm, different from that of New York, and especially, Brittany's parents. Sometimes Santana thinks that they might resent the fact that they see him less because of her—they don't, Brittany promises over and over, they love you—but she's glad that they're more than willing to take him overnight tonight, glad that she and Brittany will have some time together.

Once Liam is dropped off and settled with the Pierces, it's late in the afternoon, and Brittany and Santana head over to the Battery Wharf hotel. Brushing aside all thoughts of her doctor's appointment tomorrow, Santana gets dressed for dinner. When Brittany zips up the back of her dress, letting her hands linger on her shoulders, Santana smiles at her reflection in the mirror. If nothing else does, Brittany's presence serves as a confident booster, and she turns around, eager to kiss her lips.

"It's like a mini-honeymoon."

"Who would have thought we needed one, getting married in paradise?" Santana laughs. "Thank you for this, Britt. For all of it."

"It's not entirely selfless." She raises her eyebrows. "Since I have to go to Portland next week, and I'm working nights all this week, I wanted a little of you all to myself."

Santana just smiles in response, and lets her hair down. It doesn't take much longer before she's ready to go, and Brittany holds open her coat, allowing her to slip into it. They walk hand-in-hand down the snowy Boston streets, cold and red-nosed by the time they make it to the tiny Italian restaurant with a roaring fireplace.

"I love being in your city." Santana smiles over the glass of red wine that Brittany pours her. "How do you not miss this every day?"

"I did for awhile, but then you came along, so…I learned to love New York too?"

"Wow, you must have really hated it back when I was such a bitch."

"I mean…" She bites back a smile. "I was just lonely, you know? Single in a new city with a two-year-old, and my whole support system a few hundred of miles away, it was hard."

"What made you do it? Like, take the job, I mean."

"I'd met Sue years back at a conference in Vegas. I was in my second year as an attending, and while everyone else was down at the casino, I was poring over my notes for my presentation the next day. She brought me a beer, told me I was going places, and I didn't hear from her again until Carl Howell was retiring, and she couldn't find anyone to take his place."

"She does that. I swear, I think she has files on every surgeon in America."

"She's an exceptional chief of surgery. Terrifying at times, but very good at her job. I said no to her four times. I was still reeling from my sister's death, from becoming a mother, and from a nasty breakup, but she just kept making me better offers. I could have worked for another decade at Brigham before I had the job I have now, and probably wouldn't be making close to my salary now. It was the most responsible choice to make. My mom convinced me that a new start would be good for me, and that Liam was still young enough that he'd adjust."

"It always impresses me, when I hear about your life. Jeeze, I'm so lucky that you actually fell in love with me."

"I feel the same about you, Santana." Brittany lifts Santana's hand and kisses the palm.

"I think I'll feel so much more settled after tomorrow. I might have a love of questions for you though."

"That's fine with me. You know I'm glad to talk anything through you that you need."

"Honestly, I just can't wait until it's all behind me. I want to decide if I'm going to have surgery, and I want to focus on getting ready to go before the judge about Liam, then start making some kind of plan for our family."

"We're getting there. More than anything though, I want you well."

"I know. And I appreciate it."

They eat dinner, not mentioning the appointment again. When they finish, they head back to the hotel, and it's early when they get ready for bed. Nervous, and with a sour stomach from it, Santana isn't in any kind of mood for sex. She bites her lip sheepishly, looking at the nice hotel room, the night Brittany had planned for them, and she sighs.

"Are you okay?" Brittany asks, and Santana watches her settle beneath the covers in her flannel pajama bottoms and long sleeves.

"Just tired." She shrugs. "And my stomach is a little off."

"Do you want me to make you some tea? I think I saw a lemon teabag."

"No, it's fine, I mean, I just kind of want to go to bed. Sorry that we're like…whatever, we have a night alone, and I'm…"

"Are you apologizing that you don't feel like having sex tonight? Honey, I brought my comfy pajamas because I figured we'd just relax together."

"Most of your pjs are comfy." Santana sits down on the edge of the bed, inching closer to Brittany. "I'm actually kind of jealous."

"Do you want old lady pajamas for your birthday, Santana Lopez?" Brittany teases, as Santana takes her pills from their case, counting them on the nightstand.

"If I hadn't told you not to get me anything…"

"Says the woman who flew me to Mexico."

"We agreed that no longer counts as a birthday gift, since it became our wedding."

"Either way, if I want to spring for some pajamas for you, I don't think it'll break the bank."

"I guess I could be okay with that." She swallows her pills, pulls up her hair, and crawls into bed, fitting herself under Brittany's chin.

"Movie?"

"I might make it through ten minutes, but yeah, go ahead and put one on."

Ten minutes is generous, and Santana falls asleep before Brittany even gets the movie going. When she wakes up, she knows she slept restfully, because she's still in the same place, listening to Brittany's heart beat in her chest.

For breakfast, Brittany takes them to a diner, and though Santana's stomach is still off, she manages to get down some oatmeal and three cups of coffee. They wander through the snow for awhile, Brittany picking up a new Red Sox jersey for Liam, a pair of sneakers to replace the ones he's growing out of, a new train to add to his collection. She's good about balancing his wants, her wants for him, and his needs, and Santana is slowly learning, avoiding the temptation to spoil her soon-to-be-legal son.

As time ticks closer to Santana's doctor's appointment, they go back to the hotel to check out and get the car. While Brittany drives through the city, Santana fidgets in the passenger's seat. She opens and closes the glove compartment, she picks her fingernails, she fiddles with the radio, all to take her mind off of the inevitable. She's going to meet with Adams Crawford. He's going to examine her in a place she's refused to be examined for over a decade—her OBGYN has tried to convince her otherwise, to no avail. She's going to have to make a decision about what she does next. It's all a lot, and when bile rises up in her throat as they get into the elevator, she sputters, trying to swallow it.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah. Yeah." Santana shakes her head. "Fine."

In the waiting room, Santana shuts down. She appreciates the fact that Brittany doesn't try to talk to her, and she stares blankly at the sleek modern couch in front of her. Time ticks impossibly slow, and when the office door opens, she shudders. She stands, robotic almost, as Brittany hugs the lanky, well-coifed man who comes through.

"And you must be the missus." He grins, reaching out his hand. Something about his Britishness makes him seem smarter, and Santana takes another deep breath. "Dr. Adam Crawford."

"Dr. Santana Lopez." She's stiff in her reply, wanting to be certain he knows she's a medical professional, just because it's the one thing she's always been entirely confident about. "Nice to meet you."

"Likewise. Let's get inside and get started, shall we?"

Santana's skin crawls, looking at the trappings of a plastic surgeon's office. Brittany said that he specializes in reconstructive surgery, but still, the way it feels so posh so…something makes her nervous, as she changes into the soft pink gown. When she's dressed, her knees shake a little as she sits down on the exam table and fills him in on her medical history. From across the room, Brittany offers her small, reassuring smiles, and even with everything going on, she tries to cling to that, she tries to think about what life will be like without the pain and anxiety her breasts bring her.

"If you don't mind, I'd like to have a look, and then go next door for an MRI to see just where the scar tissue is."

"It's probably mostly here." Santana thumbs over the sides of her breasts, the spots that cause her the most pain. "But yeah, that's fine."

Slowly, she undoes the front of the gown—obviously designed for this exact purpose—and she leans back on the table, closing her eyes, pretending this isn't the first time she's met one of her wife's friends, pretending she isn't putting the carnage on her chest on full display, pretending she's home with an eye pillow on, listening to Stevie Nicks while Brittany takes a shower. Adam's gloved hands are gentle on her, but still, she shivers and shudders, still, she winces in pain, still, she's mortified, because this sucks, it all sucks, and nothing she does can change the decision she made when she was a teenager.

Before she goes for the MRI, she gives Brittany her rings, and Brittany squeezes her hands before she slips them on her own finger. More than a little uncomfortable with confined spaces—and recalling the elevator incident, the last claustrophobic experience that at least changed her life for the best—Santana lays down on the cold metal. Adam talks to her, as she positions herself, and again, Santana squeezes her eyes shut. She lays and she waits, listening to the low music that plays, and really, really wanting to go home.

When she's finished, the radiologist who did the MRI takes her into Adam's office, handing him the results. Adam and Brittany sit across from each other at the desk, and she shows off pictures of Liam. Santana feels bite rise in her throat again, but the moment she takes a seat, Brittany reaches over for her hand, sliding the rings back where they belong, and lacing their fingers together. Brittany is here, this is someone she trusts, and Santana should be able to breathe knowing that.

"So what are my options?" Santana asks bluntly. She doesn't care about beating around the bush. She wants to know the information she needs to make a decision, she wants to go get Liam, and she wants to go home.

"The MRI results pretty much conclude what I'd figured from my exam." He looks over them, and then back up at Santana. "I don't have to explain to you about scar tissue, so I'll just tell you that you have quite a bit, and it's understandable why you're in so much pain. We could try a conservative approach, and do a series of cortisone injections, or, since there's a lot of banding in your scar tissue, I'd recommend we do a scar revision. It'll almost certainly ease your discomfort much quicker than the cortisone, and you wouldn't have to worry about it coming back."

"And how much tissue would you take out?"

"I won't understate it for you, all in all, you'd probably lose a cup size. If implants are—"

"No." She cuts him off, shaking her head. "I'm not interested in implants in any form. I get that you're not a hack like like original surgeon, but I have no interest in going down that road again."

"That's absolutely fine." He nods. "I'm just laying out all that I can offer you. We can also talk about doing a nipple repair, if that's something your interested in."

"If I were to do that—" Santana takes a breath, looking over at Brittany. "And I chose to get pregnant and…eventually breastfeed, what sort of impact would that have?"

"As far as I can tell, your milk ducts are in tact. A nipple repair is neither here nor there, in terms of that, but depending on the pain you experience in the nipple, the repair could make it more comfortable for you."

"Okay. Okay." Santana shakes her head a little. "I just…need some time to process all of this. Do you have…I don't know, some paperwork on the procedures, or…? Sorry, I swear, I really am a surgeon, and not a blithering idiot."

"I hear you're an exceptional one." Adam gives her another one of his dimpled smiles. "I'm sorry I make you so nervous. I promise, once you don't have to deal with me as a doctor anymore, I'll make a really good impression on you. Well, no, actually, Elliot's the charming one, but just remember when we finally take you both out to dinner, he married me, so I'm half-decent. And of course, I'll make you a copy of your chart too, since you actually know what to do with it. Then we'll talk, and you can either tell me to piss off, or we'll make a plan."

Once the charts are copied, and Santana has a handful of literature, they go back to the car. It's still early enough in the afternoon that they can get Liam and avoid most of the rush hour traffic, and while Brittany drives, Santana shoves the folder in her purse, unable to even think about looking at it until she's home. She needs to study every detail, she needs to think, and she knows it's impossible for her to do that it the car.

Liam jumps into Santana's arms when they get to the house, and she spins him around, kissing his dark mop of a hair. Her son, her son, it still hits her every time she has him in her arms that it'll be legal soon, and every time, it makes everything in her future seem so much brighter. The Pierces are quick to say goodbye, knowing that they really need to get on the road, and it's Santana who buckles Liam into the warm car, Santana who gets to give him Kevin, the bright yellow crane who can roll with Percy along the edge of his car seat for the duration of the drive.

He's chatty in the car on her way home, and Santana is grateful for that. She's also grateful for Brittany's hand on her thigh, letting her know she's here, and she loves her, flaws and all. The snow has mostly cleared from the roads, and Santana knows that Brittany is far more relaxed than yesterday. Brittany laughs with Liam, she asks him questions about what he did when they weren't with him, and Santana gets to deal with the mess in her head. With the sounds of their voices though, Brittany's low, soothing tones, and Liam's high squeaky exuberance, it makes things less weighty to process, and Santana is glad for that.

The drive takes longer than they'd expected after an accident closes a portion of I-95, and in Connecticut, Brittany has to drive through a McDonald's to get dinner for Liam. For the first time in probably a decade, Santana eats chicken nuggets and French fries, sipping iced tea from a plastic cup. She passes back chicken and apple slices to Liam, every time he giggles for more, and she feeds Brittany forkfuls of her salad. It's so…normal the sort of road trips she never took as a child, or as a young adult, passing around joints and drinking cheap beer in the backseat, and something about it puts her at ease when that seems hard to come by.

When they get home, Santana lays down with Liam for awhile. He's excited still from being in the car, and Brittany had a page from one of her attendants that she needs to deal with. So Santana stays with him until he calms down. She lets him play with her hair and burrow into her stomach. She watches him, smile creeping across her face, as he stares up at her, forcing his eyes to stay open.

"I misseded you, Mommy Noodle. I misseded you snugglin' and givin' me kissies."

"How's this?" Santana kisses the tip of his nose, this his forehead.

"Good kissies." He kisses her back, over and over. "I so happy you my Mommy Noodle."

"I'm happy I'm your Mommy Noodle too, Sir."

"And I happy Mama's my Mama and we had the weddin'."

"Sweet Liam." She kisses him again. "It's very, very late. Close your eyes."

"Then I no see you."

"That doesn't mean I'm not still here."

Liam finally falls asleep, and Santana tucks him under his blankets. She knows Brittany feels terrible that she had to deal with the hospital and couldn't lay down with him, so Santana leaves the door partially open for her, and goes down to the living room. Brittany had managed to light a fire, probably with one hand, while solving a crisis in the phone with the other, and Santana breathes in the woody smell while she opens the daunting folder from Adam.

The MRI images make her cringe, and she can't be certain if the increased pain in her breasts is a result of the long car ride, or a phantom pain from seeing the bands of scar tissue that exist within them. She knows what she has to do, she knows there's only one way to make the physical and emotional pain of it all more bearable, but like with anything else in her life, taking the plunge is what's so difficult.

"Hey." Brittany comes in through the kitchen, two cups of tea in her hands.

"Hi. He took forever to go down, but he's sleeping. Everything okay?"

"Yeah, remember that sternal reconstruction I did on Thursday?"

"The one where you wanted to keep him longer because you knew he wasn't going to take care of himself? Yes."

"That's the one. He's already got an infection and he was discharged Saturday. I think they have everything under control, but I had to check back in." She shakes her head. "I'm sorry I left you with bedtime, and to start going over this without me."

"No, no, it's fine. It's definitely weird though looking at these. I mean, how many times a day do I read MRIs, but.."

"It's different when it's you're own. I don't know exactly how you feel, but I know how it felt looking at Liam's."

"I think I need to do it, Britt. I'm a surgeon, if I was taking to my patient's family, I'd tell them they should."

"I know." She nods.

"I just…I know that this is going to be another exercise of learning to fit in my body."

"This time though, you won't be doing it alone."

"I know my breasts aren't anything special to look at now, but you won't care if this scarred mess is a B cup?"

"Santana, I don't love you for your breasts, or for your beautiful face. I love you because you're you. That's it. I want you to feel happy and whole, because I love you so deeply, and you make me feel that way."

"I think I want to have him do the nipple reconstruction too. It's a small vanity…I don't know…"

"I think it'll be good for you, but just know that it won't make me love you any more, or any less."

"I appreciate that."

"Come here." Brittany opens her arms, and Santana falls into them. "I love you."

"I love you too. So much." She breathes Brittany in for a few moments. "Do you think you can take off work, when I do it?"

"It's not a question, not even close. As soon as you schedule a date, I'll talk to Sue. I'll be home until you're healed."

"I'm so, so lucky to have you."

"So am I, sweetheart. So am I."