Revisited and revised.
03
Santana is the sole captain of her own life, and she fights for that control and independence with all she has. She has built the perfect life, filled with everything she once envisioned. She has a promising and successful career, a gorgeous body, a great apartment in NYC, and a husband with the same priorities as her. She is in her thirties and she already has it all.
Except things are falling out of control and the perfection she has carefully built is falling out of her grasp. In the span of two weeks, she had managed to fight with her husband, leave the house, and have Brittany back in her life full force. She hides her face in her hands for a moment before interrupting the gesture – she still smells like Brittany, even if two days have passed by and she has changed clothes and taken more than enough showers for the scent to disappear.
She can't go home. She can't go back to sleeping in the same bed as Alexander, because it would mean giving in and accepting his side of the argument. And in that matter, he was completely wrong and out of place and he had to recognize that. He had overstepped serious boundaries and he had to apologize if he valued their relationship at all. She is profoundly hurt by his words and his actions. He had been her partner for so long – his words stung deep.
And then there is Brittany. Santana had no idea what to make of it or how to explain why she had handled things the way she had. Everything with Brittany had always felt so instinctive. She could not deny their connection was still there, strong, and that once upon a time Brittany had meant the world to her. It was nothing but fair to offer a hand in a moment of need. Brittany needed someone at that moment, to deal with the practical and the emotional consequences of a divorce. This someone happened to be Santana.
Santana comes to the conclusion that she needs distance. Go to a hotel for a few days – she is tired of sleeping at the office – limit her encounters with Brittany to a minimum. She holds both Alexander and Brittany very dearly, but they are doing more harm than good. Alexander was being too jealous, too harsh, too cynical. Brittany was too sweet, too vulnerable, too overwhelming. She was bringing back a part of Santana long suppressed and long forgotten. Santana has no wish to relive that time or that pain.
Brittany is confused. Not only had her life taken an unexpected and abrupt turn, but Santana had decided, during the last few days, to change her behavior completely. From seeing each other nearly everyday they had gone to seeing each other twice a week if Brittany was lucky, without an explanation of any kind. Brittany misses her; she misses talking to her and slowly rebuilding the easiness they once had.
She is not stupid, though, and has noticed that this behavior can be traced to their encounter with John. She bites her lip at the thought. Once more, she's having dinner by herself. She feels like calling Santana and asking her to come over, but their houses were somehow off limits and she would probably just answer that she was busy or whatnot. She doesn't feel like calling anyone else, so she settles for eating pasta on her own.
She runs that moment over and over again in her head. John enters, looking broken and confused. Santana steps in and makes him go away. They touch for the first time. It felt wonderful and Brittany still tingles at the memory. Santana does care, to the point of being protective and breaking formality. Not the stiff, formal interaction they had up to then – they had a long, genuine hug, where Brittany was able to cry and hide her face in Santana's neck and be soothed by her. Of all things, that may be what Brittany misses the most: the liberty and opportunity to touch Santana freely, whenever she wishes and wherever she wishes.
Days have passed since, and all Brittany wants is things to go back. She wonders for a moment what Santana's reaction means. Maybe Santana would give up the case, or maybe Brittany had lost the chance to reconnect. The uncertainty of it scares her. She tries to think but doesn't know what to do. She wonders if Santana would meet her halfway. She had said they were best friends. It was hard to know if it was true or if Santana was just saying what she knew would have the most impact. Was it just a figure of speech or does it hold any meaning? Brittany suddenly feels alone.
Santana walks into her office with a relaxed look on her face, because it has been three days since she went back to sleeping on a real bed. A hotel bed was so much better than her office couch. She puts her suitcase on her desk right before hearing the door open and close behind her. "Santana," a familiar voice calls.
"Alexander." She turns around. He's dressed in a dark blue suit, as elegant and handsome as always. He is clean-shaven and the smell of his cologne fills the room. It's a very masculine scent, like wood and rain and oaks. It has been years since he first started wearing it.
"We need to talk." He looks grave and serious. They stare at each other for a long moment.
"Yes, we do," she says, waiting for what he might say. She will not make this any easier. Her shoulders are tense and her jaw is slightly clenched. She fears, for a moment, where this conversation might go. She cannot give in, but she also does not want to break.
"We cannot go on like this anymore. You haven't slept in our bed for over a week, we haven't talked outside the office and we are still pretending to the world that everything is okay." He pauses, as if examining her features, but doesn't succeed because her face is stone-like. Santana is not one to betray this kind of vulnerability so easily. "Everything is not okay."
"I know."
"I miss you." He gives in, and that is more than she would have expected. "I miss you, talking to you and cooking for you." There is a certain sincerity in him that touches her. He takes a few steps forward.
"You hurt me, Alexander. I have done nothing but support all your decisions and I never expected you to say what you said. It was cruel and inappropriate." She pauses and looks at him straight in the eye. "When you spent two months getting home at late hours because you were closing a deal with two of the biggest telephone companies in the world, I understood. When you decided to take three months to dedicate yourself exclusively to that summer course in Harvard, I paid for all our bills." She frowns slightly, holding back her tongue from anything hurtful she might want to say. Hurting Alexander would be of no help.
"I recognize that. I should have known when to stop when I was making my point." This was probably the best she would get regarding an apology. Santana and Alexander never apologized. "This case has an emotional meaning to you."
"You are my partner in life; not my competition, my father, or my boss. My partner. I thought we were on the same page." She pauses and looks away. "Maybe I was wrong." She doesn't say she misses him too.
"I won't let one case ruin all that we've built together, Santana. Come home." He is so close now Santana can feel the body heat emanating from him. He touches her face. "Let's get past this argument. I recognize I was too harsh on your decisions." She looks at him. "I respect you, Santana, and I admire you. That's why I wanted to share my life with you in the first place."
Alexander has said all the right things. Santana nods. He kisses her.
Brittany isn't there. This time, it is just John and Santana staring at each other and having an underlying dispute over Brittany. Santana is as foreign to him as the other way around, representing Brittany's past life and a side of her John could not have known. John represents Brittany's current life, a permanent reminder to Santana that they had grown apart for so long. She does not like him and his dark hair and broad shoulders and impeccable form.
She also dislikes his stubbornness and the arrogance that having Brittany all for himself has imprinted on him. He doesn't want to let her go, even though she had manifested her repulse for him more than once. Brittany does not belong to him anymore, and Santana was determined to make him see that.
None of these considerations are verbally expressed.
"Ms. Lopez, I cannot accept all of the conditions." He is wearing a suit, an ugly suit that does not flatter him in the least. "I have no wish whatsoever to sell my share of the studio." He pushes the papers across the table from him with the tips of his fingers.
Santana plays with her expensive pen between her fingers. It feels cold. "Mr. Cox, my client has made it very clear that she does not want to see you again, and I don't see how the both of you can run a business in these conditions." She gives him a hard look, wondering which part he hadn't understood. This isn't going anywhere.
"See, we've been together for a decade. She can't ignore me forever." He looks right back at her. He is good competition and he is not afraid of her, like most people. She hates him. She actively hates him. "She'll come around."
Her jaw clenches. Brittany will not come around. Brittany knows when to stand up for herself and when enough is enough. People shouldn't take kindness and openness for stupidity and submission. "I'm afraid, Mr. Cox, that this means we will settle matters in court." She feels like she is running in circles, not going anywhere. She wishes things were simpler.
"This wouldn't have happened if you had bothered to listen to what I say," Santana retorts angrily as she takes off her clothes in the master bedroom. They have just gotten home, and they didn't have much time before the engagement dinner between two of their best friends. Santana had let him know about it when the invitation came in the mail weeks before. As usual, Alexander hadn't bothered to write it down in his planner nor take any other measure to remind himself of the event. As a result, they were late and irritated.
"Stop being such a bitch, Santana," he answers, standing up and walking in her direction. Before she can react, he is pinning her to the wall, wearing nothing but his boxer briefs. "It's only fun when you do it in court, you know." The aggressiveness of it feels surprisingly sexy. One of her legs wraps around her husband.
"Stop being a son of a bitch, then." She has taken her shirt and shoes off, which means she's wearing only a skirt and her underwear. "We don't have time for your whining right now." Her tone is cold, meant to hurt him. She wants to, because he doesn't let her express her own feelings and talk about anything. Eight years with him have taught her to bundle up as much as possible for as long as possible; unfortunately, that tactic had its limits. She resents him for that, and cannot stop herself from thinking that Brittany had never done such a thing. On the contrary, she had always encouraged Santana to show the world who she was and how she felt, because there was nothing to hide. Santana misses that type of confidence in herself.
He looks at her for a long moment before kissing her in the most demanding of ways, and she gives in to his body pressing against hers and his hands lifting her in the air, wrapping both legs around him. They are kissing open-mouthed, hot, and roughly. She likes it, how she can bite his lower lip without restraint and sink her nails into his back and make it hurt. He growls something she cannot understand in response to the pain, but if he's erection says anything, he likes it as well. She smiles into the kiss, pleased to see she can still take him off his balance.