Santana is a nervous wreck about talking to Chief Sylvester and Puckerman. She knows that she shouldn't be, she knows that she's done nothing wrong, and Noah Puckerman should be the one who's a wreck, but still, she can't help herself. As much as she has always stood up for herself, when push comes to shove, she actually hates confrontation. She doesn't want to sit in front of her boss and tell her again that one of her subordinates has made her so uncomfortable that she can't work with him. So she tosses and turns the night before, she just can't get comfortable in bed, and at two-thirty am, she's laying there wide awake.
"Britt?" She murmurs, knowing that her wife is a light sleeper.
"Mmhm."
"I can't sleep."
"Okay." Brittany rolls over. "I'm up."
"I'm sorry…I'm just like, really upset about having to talk to Sue in the morning. I fucking hate Puckerman, and every time I almost fall asleep, I see his snide face in my head."
"It makes me so angry that he did this to you, and now you're the one who's awake and worried."
"Am I overreacting? It's not like he touched me or anything."
"No." Brittany pushes herself to sit up, and looks Santana right in the eyes, even in the darkness. "It's not overreacting to expect a safe work environment, and that includes emotionally safe. He's been making you uncomfortable for as long as I've known you, and he crossed a line the other day."
"But what's going to happen if Sue thinks it's not a big deal anymore after she talks to him? Then I still have to work with him, and I can't imagine it's going to get any better."
"If Sue thinks you're overreacting, then you go to HR. But I highly doubt she will. She may be a lunatic sometimes, but if there's one thing she can't stand, it's men who try to intimidate women."
"Is it really intimidation though?"
"Talking about your body? Insulting your mothering? He's trying to assert some sort of sick dominance over you, and yeah, that's intimidation. If this was anywhere but in our workplace, he would have been hearing from me instead of Sue."
"You're like, my lady knight in shining armor. I just really wish this wasn't happening. I've tried so hard for so long to ignore him."
"You shouldn't have to. He's in the wrong, not you. I hate that you have to go to work and worry about this. He's an asshole to everyone, but he's made it a point to single you out. He should be kicked out of the program."
"I thought the scores on his intern exam would have done it, but somehow he passed. I don't know how that's even possible."
"Neither do I." Brittany shakes her head. "Listen, tomorrow I'm going to bring you lunch after your meeting. We'll sit in your office and you can vent."
"I'm glad I don't go on nights until next week. I feel a lot better about this knowing you'll be close by."
"I know." Brittany kisses her forehead. "I am too."
It takes awhile, but Santana manages to fall back to sleep. When she wakes up again, it's to the sound of Oliver crying. She groans as she gets up to get him, and she sits back against the headboard, letting him nurse. It calms her down sometimes, having one of her kids close to her, and she strokes Oliver's head, always especially gentle with him. She wants her sons to grow up to be good men, she never wants them to put women in the situation that she's in, and she can't help but cry a little as she sits with him.
"Mommy Noodle?" Liam loudly whispers from the doorway. "Is Ollie eatin'?"
"He is, Sir. Do you want to come up and sit with us?"
"Okey." He grins, and he scrambles up on the bed. "Why you cryin'?"
"I'm just happy I have all my sweet boys, buddy. What do you think you're going to do with Grandma Maribel today?"
"She said we can go to the museum. It's still too cold for the park." He pouts. "But I like to see them dino-saurs."
"I know you do. Maybe we can go see them together again soon."
"When you don't got work?"
"When I don't have work, that's right. I happen to know that Mama really likes the brachiosaurus, and I bet she'd like to see them."
"I definitely would." Brittany murmurs, rolling over. "Good morning, Li."
"Hi Mama! Now only Maxie is sleepin'!"
"I'm sure he'll be up soon to eat. We need to give everyone baths this morning, since we skipped it last night."
"I love takin' baths! Mommy Noodle can you do my hair silly?"
"Of course I can." Santana leans over to kiss his head. "I have to leave for work a little early today, but I'll make sure to give you silly hair before I go."
After both of the twins have eaten, Santana takes a shower, and Brittany gets the tub ready for Liam. She hates to leave in the middle of bath time, but she knows she needs some time to compose herself before her meeting. They'd discussed it last night, and she'll take a cab to work so Brittany can drive. She knows that she's in no shape to operate a vehicle, and she'd rather be able to close her eyes and envision a peaceful place like her therapist always tells her. This is a lot, but she's not going to let it eat her alive.
After she spikes up Liam's hair for him, and her mom arrives to help Brittany with Max and Oliver's baths, Santana leaves. She breathes in and out in the back of the cab, and when she gets into work, she finds flowers outside of her door with a card from Brittany. Sometimes she really just can't understand why Brittany is the way she is, but that's not to say that she doesn't appreciate it more than she even knows how to express. There's just something wonderful about the woman she married, and she brings the flowers into her office so she'll have them on her desk to remind her all day that she's loved.
When she gets up to Sue's office, she can see through the shades that Puckerman is already inside. Her stomach turns at the sight of him, and she steadies herself against the wall. Once she has herself composed, she knocks, and Sue calls out for her to come in. Puckerman turns his head to glare at her, but she doesn't let him make her so nervous that she can't think.
"Dr. Lopez, sit down."
"This is all such bull." Puckerman spits. "Just because—"
"You." Sue shuts him down. "Are on very thin ice, and I'd watch everything you say right now. As I've already let you know, there's been a complaint brought to my attention about your workplace behavior. Sexual harassment is something I take very seriously in this hospital."
"I can't even believe you're calling this sexual harassment, it's just how guys talk."
"It's not how guys talk around the women who work for me. You want to talk like that, join a fraternity, but that's not what I'm running here. Do you deny that you called both Dr. Lopez and Dr. Pierce fine pieces of ass?"
"I—I wasn't saying it to them."
"But you said it?"
"I was just messing around."
"I'm under the understanding that this isn't the first time this has happened, and that you've made similar comments about patients."
"What are her ears everywhere?"
"I have ears everywhere in this hospital, Dr. Puckerman. You can't so much as breathe without word getting back to me when I want the word. This isn't something I take lightly, and since my methods of dealing with it now have to be approved through Human Resources, I'm putting you on disciplinary probation while you complete a sexual harassment training program. That means no patients, and no contact with Dr. Lopez."
"You've gotta be kidding me. I didn't do anything wrong!"
"I disagree with you there. Like I said, you're on thin eyes, and if I don't see an improvement after this, you're out of the program. And as it stands, you're permanently off the service of Dr. Lopez. Dr. Corcoran will monitor your peds rotations, considering you successfully complete the training program."
"This is such bullshit." He mutters, and Santana flinches. Sue glares at him and she stands up. "Fran from HR is outside, you're to meet with her now, and don't let me see you back in this office."
Puckerman stalks out of the office, but when Santana makes to stand up, Sue shakes her head and takes her seat again. Nervous, Santana picks at her cuticles and sucks in a deep breath of air.
"I'm bound by hospital policy." Sue explains. "If I could throw him out of the program for speaking the way he does, I would. There are too many damn chances for men like him."
"I should have said something earlier. I let him get away with it for too long."
"I know that I might come off as a bitch, Lopez, but I don't want you to be afraid to come to me. Contrary to what everyone might think, I have your best interests at heart."
"I know that now…I just…it's hard."
"I've been there. I think we all have, and we shouldn't have to be."
"He crossed such a line the other day. He's been crossing lines since he started, but…I don't know."
"He won't be back on your service. Corcoran and I have had a conversation, and if he successfully passes the sexual harassment program, she's not one for second chances."
"Yeah, don't I know that. Just…thank you."
"That's what I'm here for. Now go to work, I don't want to have to see your face in my office any time soon."
"You won't."
Santana's whole body seems to sigh in relief when she gets out of Chief Sylvester's office. She's always been afraid of her, heard stories about her, but today she proved that she's an ally, and Santana couldn't be more grateful. She goes back downstairs to her office and she rifles through some papers before she does her first set of rounds. She needs to go down to the pit for her shift there, but she wants to make sure her patients are in order before she does. She wishes she had time to see Brittany before that, but she settles for a text, telling her she's okay, and that they'll talk over lunch. It's Friday, at least. Mercedes is coming over for dinner, and then she has the whole weekend to spend with her wife and kids. It's okay. It's all going to be okay.
The pit is a total nightmare. It's like there's something in the air that makes people have the most insane injuries, and she spends her morning doing stitches and two emergency appendectomies. When it finally comes time for lunch, she's happy to sink into her desk chair in her scrubs and wait for Brittany to come. She doesn't even pick up any files, instead, she scrolls through pictures her mom has sent of the boys, and she smiles, missing them so much, like she always does. She's glad she's back at work, but still, sometimes as a mother she feels so torn between doing her world work and missing out on little moments with the most important things in her life.
"Hey." Brittany smiles from the door. "I brought you a tuna melt and fries."
"God, you're the best. It's been a hell of a morning."
"The meeting, the pit, or both?"
"More the pit than the meeting, if I'm being honest. I didn't even have to talk to Puckerman." She tells Brittany as she sits down across from her and hands over a carton of food. "He's permanently off my service, and he has to do a sexual harassment program."
"That makes me feel a lot better, you know." Brittany opens up her own food and reaches to grab Santana's hand. "For as long as I've known you, he's been nothing but trouble."
"I wish he could be kicked out for good. He's a terrible human being, and he's going to make a terrible doctor."
"I know." She sighs. "The protocol here is bullshit, but I hope the system takes care of it."
"Ugh, I don't even want to talk about him anymore. Tell me something good."
"Well, I did the first part of Gigi's facial reconstruction this morning. She still has for surgeries to go, but she did really well on this one, and I think she'll get to live a really normal life."
"It's so scary the amount of damage airbags can do."
"That's why they tell you not to put kids in the front seat." Brittany sighs. "But she's a trooper."
"I love when you do surgeries on kids. I wish I was on your case for this one."
"You should be proud of Adams, she's your protege and she really makes a fine surgeon."
"I got lucky with Rose and Adams both, I couldn't have asked for better peds residents."
"From what Shelby tells me, you're the reason they became peds residents in the first place."
"I love my job, and I try to share that with my interns."
"You're good at it. I'm so lucky to have such a hot, smart wife."
"Please, Britt, like you're not both of those things? Mindblowingly so. And you've sufficiently distracted me from feeling all kinds of crazy."
"That was my plan. I don't have a ton of time, because I want to get out of here on time tonight to get ready for dinner, but I really wanted to have lunch with you."
"I'm glad you did. Next week I'm barely going to see you. I hate when we're on opposite shifts. And I'm a little nervous about working the night shift with the boys so little."
"They've been doing well at night. I'll be fine, and you'll have your mom there during the day so you can at least get some sleep."
"We'll see if that happens." Santana sighs. "I'm going to end up wanting to wake up to nurse them at least. I like that I get to do that during the night, so…"
"Your body does need sleep though."
"I guess it's all that keeps me from going off the deep end."
"I didn't mean it for that reason." Brittany smiles a little. "I just meant because you're a human person who can't operate like a robot."
"I know, I do. I'll work on it."
After lunch, Santana goes back to the pit. She spends the rest of her afternoon there dealing with one crisis after another, and by the time she's set to go home, she's more than ready. She meets Brittany up in her office, and they go out to the car together. Having figured that it would be too much to cook after a long week of work, they stop to pick up their Chinese food order, and they head home to get ready for dinner with Mercedes and Sam. For Santana, it's much needed, and as soon as she hugs her mom goodbye, she's opening up a bottle of wine.
"I'm gonna show Sam all my new trains!" Liam announces, standing under Santana's feet in the kitchen.
"I'm sure he'll like that, bed. Why don't we get you in your pajamas so we're all ready to play when he gets here."
"On it." Brittany walks into the kitchen holding Max in one arm, and holding Liam's pajamas in her free hand. "Your mom said Oliver has already been sleeping for two hours, I guess he's going to join the party tonight."
"He's our party animal." Santana shakes her head laughing. "Here, I'll take Max if you want to do pajamas."
"Pour me a glass of that while I do?"
"Obviously I already have." Santana grins as the doorbell rings.
"Sam! 'Cedes!" Liam cheers.
"Pajamas first, Li." Brittany tells him. "Then after dinner you can have some time to play."
Santana goes to the door, and Mercedes holds a bottle of wine in her hand when she opens it. Sam stands there with his goofy grin, and she lets them inside, telling them to leave their coats on the back of the couch.
"I still can't get over seeing you like this." Mercedes tickles under Max's chin. "All domestic and stuff."
"It's a pretty good life, I'm not going to lie. Much better than anonymous hookups in bar bathrooms."
"Like Kurt and I had been trying to tell you for literal years. Let me get this baby."
"Max, go see Aunt Mercedes while I get everyone some wine." She presses him into her arms. "Be careful, he just ate, and he's a puker. Sam, wine or beer?"
"If you've got a beer, I'll take one. We were going to stop, but Mercedes said I could drink wine."
"Maybe if someone didn't spend an hour on their hair, we'd have had time to stop for it." Mercedes teases lightly.
"I'm lookin' good, baby." He laughs, shaking his hair for effect.
"Sammy! Sammy!" Liam tears through the room, jumping up on him. "We've gotta play!"
"Sir, we're going to have dinner first, and then Sam can play with you for as long as he wants, okay?"
"Okey, Mommy Noodle." Liam looks forlorn, but listens. "Can I sit next to you, Sam?"
"Of course you can, little dude. C'mon."
Mercedes keeps Max while Santana and Brittany get the food on the table, and then Santana takes him and puts him in his bouncy seat on the floor beside her while they eat. Liam manages to dominate the conversation, and Mercedes just laughs, telling Santana that they'll get to talk while Sam goes to play with him. Oliver wakes up just as their finishing, and Santana gets a bottle of breast milk out of the refrigerator so she doesn't feel guilty about the wine she's been drinking. Once he's fed and Mercedes has helped Brittany clear off the table, the three women retire to the living room with the babies settled on their play mats on the floor.
"So, when's he going to put a ring on it, 'Cedes?" Santana asks, taking a long sip of her wine.
"I don't think we're there yet."
"Oh come on, he comes to your friends' house and plays with our kid. He's totally there."
"Oh, I don't mean him. He's there. I'm just not sure I'm there. I really don't get how you two balance marriage, three kids and your careers."
"I did it as a single mom." Brittany tells her. "Work-family balance is really hard, but there are so many resources. If we didn't have Maribel, we'd have them still in daycare at the hospital. It was great for me with Liam."
"I'm not even thinking about kids yet. I think it's different for your marriage anyway, you both work the same crazy hours, so you get it. I can't help but wonder when Sam is going to get sick of me cancelling on him because my pager went off."
"Probably never. He's kind of like a puppy dog for you." Santana rolls her eyes a little, though not maliciously. "I say get married."
"It hasn't even been two years since you flipped on me and Kurt for setting you up on a blind date, and now you're marriage's number one cheerleader. It astounds me."
"Look, we eloped on vacation because we both just knew. I think when you find someone that's good for you and that you love, you should never let them go."
"He is pretty good for me. Do you know that he cooked a four course dinner for me after I did that thirteen hour surgery last week? The man couldn't even make a peanut butter sandwich before that, and suddenly, I came home to this whole gourmet spread."
"Imagine one of us had time for that?" Brittany laughs.
"I think the tuna melt you brought me for lunch today was really romantic, Brittany."
"Oh God, I forgot you had your meeting with Sue today." Mercedes covered her mouth. "What happened?"
"No, it's fine, I've been trying not to talk about it anyway. I guess he's technically suspended until he does this sexual harassment program, and he's off my service for good."
"Isn't that what he wants, to be off peds?"
"Oh, he's not off peds. Whenever he's back on a peds rotation, Shelby's going to take him. If he thinks I'm a bitch, then he'll really enjoy that. When I was an intern, I was so scared of her…"
"Even with your secret crush on her?"
"Mercedes!"
"You had a crush on Shelby?" Brittany presses her hand over her mouth to hide her grin.
"I didn't have a crush on Shelby, I just thought she was kind of a genius. It was purely intellectual."
"It was totally more than intellectual. You looked for every reason to have a meeting with her."
"Because I wanted to be a pediatric surgeon, obviously."
"Babe." Brittany laughs. "That's really cute."
"Ugh, 'Cedes, I can't believe you just ratted me out."
"It was years ago, it's not like you still have a crush on her."
"Still." Santana huffs. "Let's talk about something else."
Mercedes and Sam end up staying long after the boys are put to bed, and when they finally go, Santana feels like she's asleep on her feet. It was a long day in the pit, but she's so glad they did dinner. She used to spend all of her free time with Mercedes, and then Mercedes met Sam and she met Brittany and there were just all these other factors that meant they got to spend a lot less time together. But she still trusts Mercedes—and Kurt too—with her life, and it was good to just hang out and not feel like there was any pressure to run off to a patient or a meeting or anything else.
Santana uses the bathroom first, and then while Brittany is in there, she puts on her pajamas and gets into bed. She peers over at the twins and sees that they're still sound asleep, and she takes her breast pump to get rid of any of her alcohol tainted milk so she can feed them when they get up in the middle of the night. She doesn't hear Brittany come out of the bathroom over the hum of the pump, but when she gets into bed, she takes Santana's hand and squeezes it.
"How are you doing?"
"I'm just really tired. But I want to do this before bed so I can feed them tonight. You don't have to wait up."
"I'll sit with you. Li was up so late, he'll probably sleep in tomorrow, which means we can too."
"It's supposed to be gross out tomorrow. Maybe we can stay in our pajamas and have a movie day?"
"That sounds really good to me. Grocery shopping can wait until Sunday."
"I have a Fresh Direct order already started on my computer. Maybe we can just skip the grocery store all together and spend the whole weekend in pajamas."
"Are you going to do your night switchover on Sunday?" Brittany asks, pushing Santana's hair out of her face.
"I guess I should. I brought some charts home so I have a reason to stay up late Sunday night. It really sucks when we're not on the same schedule."
"I've been trying not to schedule myself on nights so at least one of us can keep the routine. Maybe if you talked to Shelby…"
"I can't, then she'll get stuck taking my night shifts, and with Beth in elementary school now, that sucks for her. I don't know how she does this as a single mom, and I don't know how you did."
"You just make it work. Liam spent a lot of his time in daycare at the hospital. At Brigham I pulled a lot more doubles than I do here, so I'd sneak down and see him for an hour or so. I don't want to do that this time."
"I get that. I'm still having my dumb mom guilt thing about going back to work at all. The only thing that makes me feel better about it is that they're with my mom. I think she likes having a second chance to do things right."
"Despite everything you both went through, she did good with you." Brittany smiles. "You wouldn't be the kind and thoughtful person you are today if you didn't have a good influence in your life."
"She really did try. She was a victim of him too, I have to keep reminding myself of that."
"I'm glad you both got away."
"Not without scars…as you know."
"I do." Brittany traces her fingers up the line on Santana's breast. "But they make you more beautiful to me."
"How do you do that?"
"Do what?"
"Make me feel the way you do. All the things I've always been ashamed of, you make them so easy to talk about. I never talked about my father before you. Mercedes knew because she was there for some of the big things, but even Kurt, who's one of my best friends in the world, has no idea some of the hell I've been through."
"Because it's easy to talk to someone when you love them. I don't go around telling people about my sister, or about Liam. I'm sure most people at the hospital assume he's my biological son, and that's okay. I don't ever feel like I need to broadcast my business to anyone."
"You told me before you loved me." Santana bites her lip.
"I think part of me always knew that I was going to love you someday. Even when you drove me absolutely insane."
"I was hurting, and I took it out on the wrong people."
"I know, and I understand it. Your experience told me to distrust people like me, and that's valid. I'm surprised you and Mercedes stayed so close after she went into cardio."
"My father's profession was never what hurt me, I think that's why. I forget that he's a cardio thoracic surgeon sometimes. He never talked about the surgeries he did, he just bragged to everyone who would listen that he was a surgeon. Part of that is why I went to medical school, I didn't want it to be something he could hold over me anymore. If I was on his level, then I'd finally be valid. But he never saw me become a doctor, so…"
"It's his loss. I didn't know you before you were you, but even putting aside everything else, you're this amazing surgeon, and he should be sorry he's missing it."
"He's probably too busy thinking about himself to even consider that I'm gone. He wasn't exactly expressing any kind of remorse when I saw him a few months ago."
"I know, and I hate that. You deserve so much more than what he ever gave you."
"I found that with you, Brittany. Since you've come into my life, I've found a family. I have you, I have three beautiful boys, I've fixed things with my mom. That's more than I ever thought I'd have."
"You're more than I ever thought I'd have too, Santana. You've given me the life I always wanted."