"SANTANA!" Maria yells from outside Santana's room. "SANTANA! Get up, Brittany's downstairs and you have to start getting ready for the Barbeque.
"Send her up here!" Santana yells back, groaning into her pillow.
"No, you have to start getting ready, so you two will not be alone in your room!" Santana groans as her mother's footsteps trail off down the hall. She groans into he pillow again and then inhales Brittany's soft smell on her sheets, since, really, Brittany had just snuck out of her window a couple of hours earlier. She could hear her mother clanging the dishes downstairs.
"She's doing that on purpose," Santana mutters to herself, as she climbs out of bed and heads toward the bathroom.
"How are you, this morning, Britt?" Maria asks as she enters the kitchen. Brittany is sitting at the island drinking a Dr. Pepper.
"I'm good." Brittany says, grinning at Maria.
"Did you get that PB&J I left out for you? I don't like you biking home so early on an empty stomach.
"Yeah!" Brittany says, grinning. "Thanks, Maria. You know grape jelly is my favorite." Maria smirks at Brittany who just held her grin and took another sip of her soda. "Oh." Brittany said, her grin fading and her eyes widening with realization. "Oops."
"Hey, Britt-Britt," Santana sings as she walks into the kitchen. She dropped a kiss on the top of Brittany's head and turned to her mother. "What's for breakfast? You know I can't help you cook without a full nutritious meal."
"You missed breakfast, Santana. We ate at 8."
"It's not my fault I slept in! I'm a growing teenager, I need my rest."
"You're 18, you're done growing. Your 16 year-old-brother managed to be up. Maybe you would have made it if you went to bed a little earlier."
"I went to bed at like ten last night, mom! On a Saturday! You saw me."
"The jig is up," Brittany says softly. Maria had the Lopez smirk back on. "She tricked me. She left a peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich out with a note that said, 'Bike home safe, Brittany. Heart, Maria.'" Maria produced the note from her pocket. In big cursive letter at the bottom was added:
"Thanks, Maria! See you later! " Santana rolls her eyes.
"Santana, we've talked about this before, Brittany cannot just sneak over here whenever she pleases."
"Oh, baby sis is at it again!" Christian says, coming into the kitchen with Carlos in workout clothes. He grabs a water from the fridge and throws it to his brother and then takes one for himself.
"Oh, please, Chris. You're just jealous because your girlfriend dumped you and now you feel the need to go to the gym at dawn everyday to feel better about yourself."
"Sounds a little bit like someone last summer who refused to get off the couch for weeks except to go on her running breaks from Jersey Shore." Carlos folds over trying to conceal his laughter.
"Remember how she'd talk to herself when she got back. She'd have her stupid headphones in and not realize how loud she was." Christian starts pacing back and forth and fakes putting his hair in a ponytail.
"Ugh. Stupid wheelchair. I hate him. Stupid little lights on his wheels, stupid grandpa vests, stupid glasses. Fuck this." He says in his fake 'Santana' voice.
"Language." Maria says, simply, looking up from her chopping. Brittany gently rubs circles into Santana's back.
"I like the lights on his wheels," she says softly. "I like you more, though." Christian rolls his eyes.
"Are we having a party or something, mom?" Carlos interrupts, eying all the food on the counter.
"Santana's Gay-Straight Alliance is having their end of the year barbeque here!" Maria beams, clearly proud of her daughter. Santana turns bright red. Christian and Carlos burst out in laughter again.
"Is it even physically possible for you to get any gayer?" Carlos asks Santana, incredulously. "I mean, the first week we're home from school you're getting ready for a Show Choir Competition, and now your gay club is going to be at our house? Oh, this is just priceless." Brittany and Maria looked concerned as Santana grew redder by the moment.
"I can't wait for you to get a flat top, Santana. Or a flip cut, is that what they call it?" Christian asks. "I know you're just a hop, skip, and a jump away from that." Carlos continued laughing.
"It's the flip cut," he said through laughter. "She's gonna shave off the sides of her hair and trade her ridiculous skirts for ridiculous amounts of flannel and major in gender studies. I can't wait!" Carlos says, laughing.
"You know what, fine." Santana says, rising from her stool and taking Brittany's hand. "Make fun of me all you want. I don't care. Just please leave before my friends come over because I don't want you two to have to worry about being around all the gays or our gayness rubbing off on you." Santana starts to lead Brittany out of the room. "We'll come back when they're gone, mom."
"Woah," Christian says, his eyes wide. "What just happened?"
"You hurt her feelings." Maria says.
"Santana doesn't have feelings," Carlos replies.
"You made fun of her being gay, and it's still a very sensitive issue with her."
"We were just kidding, mom." Christian says. "We love the gays. She knows that!"
"Maybe you know that you love the gays, but you should make it a little clearer to her. Now get out of here. You're smelling up my kitchen and I'm trying to cook. The two young men walked upstairs, side-by-side.
"I have the perfect plan," Carlos whispers to his brother. "Santana will love it."
Christian and Carlos showered and left the house again, whispering to one another in their "up to no good voices", as Maria called it, and Santana and Brittany helped Maria get ready for the Barbeque. Santana happily hummed to herself as she added the spices to the hamburger meat, playfully flirting with Brittany as they cooked.
"I need to go get ready, mama," Santana says, looking at the clock and back at her mother. Santana would never ask her mother's permission to stop helping, but she also would never leave with her mother's approval.
"Go ahead, mija.' Santana grabs Brittany by the hand. "Brittany stays here."
"Why?" Santana scoffs out. "We've been getting ready together for ages!"
"Santana, I was not born yesterday. Just go get ready. If the guests start to come, Brittany and I will be more than capable of welcoming them into our home." Santana pouts, but does as she's told and goes upstairs without Brittany.
"Quinn, I didn't expect you here," Santana says, opening the door.
"Hi, Santana. Nice to see you too!" Quinn says, sarcastically.
"You know what I mean."
"Well, I thought, what kind of future roommate would I be if I couldn't support you at your last ever GSA event."
"Until college."
"You're doing this in college?" Santana shrugs her shoulders.
"Yeah, you know, I kind of ended up liking it, or whatever." Quinn raises her eyebrows at Santana. "Oh, please, Fabray. Stop acting like you're too cool for school. I know you're going to get to my backyard and immediately find those glee freaks. Half of them are here anyway. Bunch of singing homos…" Santana mutters under her breath, causing Quinn to laugh out loud.
"Maybe Jacob was right," Quinn says, linking her arms with Santana as they walked toward the backyard. "It's just McKinley's big, gay, glee club."
"On behalf of the Seniors, we'd like to thank everyone for a great inaugural year of McKinley High School's Gay-Straight Alliance!" Kurt said, raising his cup of Diet Coke. "Santana, Brittany, Dave and I are all sad to go, but, we think that Blaine, Sam, and Janie will do a great job taking our place next year," he said, smiling to the Juniors.
"And," Blaine said, standing up, "we have prepared a little gift for each of our graduating Seniors. We'll miss you here," Blaine said, looking tearily at Kurt. The Juniors proceeded to hand each one on the Seniors a stuffed unicorn with their names sewed on the sides.
"You're all unicorns," Sam said, "our unicorns, to be specific, and while we're sad to see you all go, we are also all excited that when we enter college in the same cities as you that we'll have family to show us the ropes."
"To family!" Blaine cheered as they clinked their nonalcoholic beverages together. After the toast, the barbecue resumed with small groups making small talk and ravishing Maria's cooking.
"Oh no, my brothers are back," Santana says to Kurt, Blaine, and Dani. "This is no good. They're such assholes."
"Tan-Tan, can we have a word?" Her brothers ask, approaching the group. "You can bring your friends. Also, find Brittany."
"Don't call me that. And no, whatever you have to say, you can say down here. In front of all my gay-ass friends at my gay-ass barbeque." Carlos rolls his eyes.
"Stop being dramatic. I told you that you could bring them, just go find blondie. We have a surprise. Meet in your room in 5." Carlos, Christian, Kurt, Blaine, and Dani walk awkwardly together upstairs to Santana's room. Kurt takes a seat on her unmade bed.
"I wouldn't sit there if I were you, man," Christian says. "Our mom made her make that bed about an hour before everyone arrived. I watched her do it. And something has obviously gone down on here since then. Kurt gags in his mouth and puts his hand to his chest as he rises to lean against Santana's vanity.
"Ah, welcome, hermanita," Carlos says as Brittany and Santana walk into the room.
"Whatever you have to say, get it out," Santana says, her arms across her chest as she shuts the door behind them.
"We wanted to apologize, Santana. Mama pointed out that we have never told you how supportive we are of you, and instead we just make fun of you all the time."
"Which is only because we had, like, the last decade to come up with ways to tease you while we waited for you to come out," Carlos adds. Christian glares at him.
"So we wanted to let you know that we love you, and we don't care that you're gay, in fact, we think it's kind of cool."
"And we love Brittany, she's kind of like the sister we wish we had," Carlos says. Brittany grinned and fist pumped in the air.
"And that Carlos and I both are members of our schools Gay-Straight Alliances."
"I even volunteer with the local chapter of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force," Carlos says.
"Seriously?" Christian asks. Carlos nods. "You never told me that." Carlos shrugs.
"I mean, it's not a big deal. I make phone calls and do data entry, and have even gone door-to-door. There are a lot of issues still left to fight for here. Ohio has a law against same-sex marriage and domestic partnership. It's not just that it's not legal, we specifically passed a law making it illegal. We don't allow same-sex adoption, and there are no statewide protections against discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation outside of the government."
"What does that mean?" Brittany asks.
"It means that someone can choose to not hire you or rent a house or apartment to you because you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered." Brittany looks up at Carlos like she was going to cry.
"Thanks, guys," Santana says softly. Before she could go on, her brothers tackle her, tousling her hair and picking her up off the ground.
"We love you, you big ole' lezzie." Santana blushes as they put her down and she straightens out her dress.
"As touching as this is, I'm not really sure why all my friends had to be here."
"Well, we also got you a small gift to make up for being such dicks sometimes." Carlos reveals a paper bag. "Would you like to do the honors?" He asks Christian, who rubs his hands together before reaching in.
"Mount Gay Rum!" He announces, pulling out a bottle and handing it to Kurt. "Sailor Jerry's Rum!" He says, pulling out a bottle with a girl in a bikini on it and handing it to Santana. "And, finally, drum roll please…Grey Goose!" He says, handing it to Brittany.
"Wait. Why does Britt get the nice, fancy, Vodka? It's not even bisexual." Santana asks.
"She gets the nice alcohol because we still like her best." Christian says, earning another fist pump from Brittany.
"And she likes animals," Carlos says. "And there is that phrase, 'gay as a goose'…"
"Are you like, studying gay now, or something?" Santana asks her brother.
"Oh, shut up, Tan-Tan."
"I told you not to call me that."
"We just thought, what's an end of the year party without some alcohol?"
Maria is watching the party unfolding in her backyard with her husband next to her. They are stacking the dishes from the barbecue in the sink, but she's pretty sure no one is going to get to them until tomorrow. Her husband wraps his arms around her waist and kisses her on the cheek.
"It's only the usual suspects left," Maria notes, gesturing to the glee club dancing around their backyard.
"Those kids sure don't seem to get sick of each other." He replies. "Santana looks happy, don't you think?" He asks, leaning forward so he can make eye contact with his wife.
"She does." Maria says, softly.
"We were so worried about her for so long. But I knew all along, she's a Lopez. She's strong and of course she made it through this."
"We're lucky, you know." Maria says.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, what if she hadn't made it through this. I was just so scared for her for so long. I didn't know how to help and I wasn't sure we'd ever get to see our baby smiling like that again." Maria tried to keep from crying as she watched her only daughter playing around with her friends.
"You don't think she seems too happy?"
"What do you mean?" Maria asks, indignant. "What is too happy?"
"Look at her, Maria." Maria stops dealing with the dishes and looks out at her daughter. Santana is dancing with Quinn. Both of them have cups in their hands. Kurt is doing his quasi-vogue style dancing. Brittany is hanging upside-down from the old monkey bars.
"What? They're having fun!" Maria says. The words barely leave her mouth before she sees Brittany flip off the monkey bars and wrap Blaine in a huge hug. Santana sees the hug, and is suddenly doubled-over with sobs. Quinn's only response is to hit her repeatedly, yelling something that looks like either "snap out of it, kid" or "deal with it, bitch!" Maria can't tell. Brittany is quickly at Santana's side, wrapping her in a huge hug which turns into a makeout session on the ground in a matter of seconds.
"Dammit," Maria says, looking at her husband. "Where did they get alcohol this time?" Maria rubs her temples, wondering how it is that she ended up with such a handful of rebellious teenagers. "Carlos! Christian! Downstairs, now!" Maria yells toward the ceiling.
"Maybe we should let it go, just for tonight, and be thankful that the biggest problem our Santana has these days is occasionally drinking too much with her friends from her glee club." He smiles reassuringly at Maria and kisses her on the lips. Maria smiles back before storming up the stairs to reprimand her sons.
Brittany leaned over Santana to set the alarm clock for the next day, ignoring Santana's groans.
"I can't make it to school tomorrow, baby. It's the last week, who cares if we go?"
"I care, and it's our last week in high school, so we have to be there, and I know you won't be able to get out of bed without an alarm," Brittany whispers, tapping Santana on the nose. "Your nose is cold," Brittany says, placing a soft kiss on the tip.
"Cause it's the only part of me that isn't touching you," Santana yawns out.
"Go to sleep, honey," Brittany giggles as Santana squeezes her tightly.
"This was the best school year ever, right Britt?"
"Yeah, San. It really was." She squeezes her eyes shut and places a light kiss on Santana's lips and drifts off to sleep.
A/N: Thanks so much for sticking with me and reading and reviewing! There will be an epilogue posted in a few days. And for those of you who haven't read my other stories, I recently got it Tumblr, it's seahorsesantana . tumblr . com
Thanks for reading!