This chapter is from a different perspective. Everything thus far has centered on Rachel, deliberately so, but I wanted to give you a glimpse into Santana. This chapter definitely delves into the night she died, but it's not too graphic. There's a brief mention of blood, though, and if even the mention of that should be trigger-y to you, then I would advise you to read with caution. Also, the formatting (italics and non-italics) is intentional.
A big thank you to everyone who's been reviewing this story. I've tried to respond to everyone, but if I missed you, then sorry and I'll try to do a better job next time. Enjoy and as always, let me know what you think. :)
Chapter Six
"Ancient Egyptians believed that upon death they would be asked two questions and their answers would determine whether they could continue their journey in the afterlife. The first question was, 'Did you bring joy?' The second was, 'Did you find joy?'"
Leo Buscaglia
Santana was on the ground, panting and gasping as she rushed to sit up. Once, when she was seven, she almost drowned; she remembered coughing and sputtering as her lungs finally found air instead of water. She felt that same feeling again, the burning of her lungs as they remembered what it meant to breathe.
The first person she saw was Brittany, lovable Brittany for whom she would do anything; Brittany who was her best friend and her first everything. She saw Brittany and she went to her, wondering as she walked towards the blonde why she was in a cemetery and why the other girl was crying. Better yet, she wanted to know why she was dressed in one of Tina's rejected goth dresses. Santana knew that she always looked good, but the dress she was wearing was rough and constricting.
Santana placed a hand on Brittany's shoulder in comfort. "Britt?" she asked worriedly. "Are you okay?"
Brittany didn't acknowledge her and it made her heart hurt. They had come so far in rebuilding their battered friendship and Santana didn't remember doing anything that would cause their relationship to regress. At least, Santana thought they had come a long way. They had spent their junior year with a tenuous bond between them, broken by Santana's unwillingness to out herself and Brittany's feelings for someone else. They had ended the year as friends, with an open "anything is possible" dangling between them, taunting Santana with its promise of what might come. But suddenly, Brittany was ignoring her, refusing to answer her. And it hurt her, hurt her in the same way that having her heart broken had.
Santana needed Brittany. She needed her best friend.
When Brittany got up and left, sniffling but otherwise silent, Santana got her first look at the grave Brittany had been crying over.
Santana Marisol Lopez
And she closed her eyes and waited to wake up from what had to be a nightmare.
The first time she kisses Brittany, all she can think is that what they were doing was wrong, that she has been told over and over again that girls are only supposed to kiss boys. But Brittany's lips are soft and she tastes like lip gloss and chocolate. It makes Santana wish that Brittany had been her first kiss, that she hadn't kissed Noah Puckerman under the bleachers at school on a dare, because Brittany is a much better kisser.
But he hadn't been her first kiss, had he? There was a lingering thought in her mind that there was someone else there, under the bleachers. Had she kissed both of them? Or was that part of the dream?
But it's wrong. She's not even supposed to be kissing Brittany and she's definitely not supposed to be liking it. When she pulls away, she panics, realizing that her door is wide open and her mother could walk in at any moment. And that wouldn't go over well.
Brittany smiles at her, though, sweetly, and there's just a bit of chocolate stuck to her chin. She wipes it away and then holds out her hand to Santana. She wants to go play, she says. So they do. And one day, she wants to kiss Santana again. So she does. And Santana lets her.
They start kissing more often after that, or Brittany starts kissing her more often and she allows it. Because it's really nice and she doesn't understand why their priest says she's supposed to be kissing Puck instead. Puck is gross and he doesn't sit with her for hours in the park braiding flowers together into jewelry and chasing ducks.
Puck never compliments her and tells her that she's pretty. He never knows the perfect thing to say to her when she's sad and he doesn't repeat Spanish back to her in a horrible but endearing fashion. Brittany's Spanish isn't good, but she always tries to remember the important phrases Santana teaches her, ones about love and friends and forever. And she tries to tell them to Santana when she's crying because she doesn't understand why it has to be wrong.
Brittany always lets her have the last breadstick. And she always lets Santana ignore her feelings about them. And she lets Santana go around kissing and fucking boys she hates. And Santana knows that she's lucky and she's just happy that she always has Brittany in her life.
When Santana opened her eyes again, she was still standing in front of a grave in the cemetery, but it was darker. And that grave still had her name etched on it. There was a voice speaking near her and she recognized it immediately. Quinn.
"We all really miss you," she said, her voice cracking.
"What the hell are you talking about, Fabray?" she snapped, crossing her arms.
Quinn didn't answer her, choosing instead to bow her head. Santana heard her mumbling what years of Catholic Church told her was a prayer, a simple prayer for the dead and those left behind to pick up the pieces. Incensed, Santana reached out towards the blonde, intent on shaking some sense into her (or at least an explanation).
"We love you, Santana," Quinn said.
"What the fuck is going on?" she shouted. Santana grabbed her shoulder, tugging on it in an attempt to turn her around, but the girl didn't budge. Quinn didn't move at all, actually, despite the force that Santana was using. She groaned, struggling against whatever weirdness was keeping Quinn completely still. She swore again and Quinn shivered, moving finally.
But it was in the opposite direction of the one Santana had been pulling her in. She moved like it was nothing, walking silently with her head down. Santana chased after her, shouting, but she slipped halfway to the gate, her eyes slipping shut as she braced for impact.
She's ten when she meets Lucy Fabray. Lucy is sweet. She's chubby and her nose is a little too big and she wears thick glasses that make the other kids tease her, but she's still a nice girl. Santana and Brittany don't have any friends besides each other (mostly because Santana is a little angry and Brittany isn't very smart.)
Brittany feels bad because all the other kids at summer camp are mean to Lucy, stealing her glasses and throwing them into lake, and decides that Lucy should be their friend. Santana doesn't really care one way or the other, but she likes making Brittany happy. So she decides with the blonde that they can take Lucy under their wing. Santana figures that if Lucy actually is worth picking on that they could just easily toss her aside.
Santana decides in just a couple of days of getting to know her that she doesn't want to loss Lucy aside. And she's more than willing to make the jerks picking on her be quiet. Lucy is nice, and she's so obviously never had friends before. It secretly tugs at Santana's heart.
And she had done it before, right? With Brittany? She had stopped mean kids from calling her stupid. And she had done it even before Brittany, hadn't she? Maybe? Or were her memories mixing themselves up again?
Lucy goes to a different school, one where everyone is as mean to her as the kids at camp. They're worse at school sometimes, she tells them. And eventually, as they actually do kind of become friends, Santana feels like going to that other school beating the crap out of everyone there. Because Lucy is kind of secretly awesome; she gives Santana her dessert at dinner and they talk about books together. Well, it's more like Lucy talks at Santana about books, but her enthusiasm is kind of catching and she has the kind of imagination that makes their games with Brittany ten times more fun.
When the new school year starts, they go their separate ways – Brittany and Santana to one school and Lucy back to her own personal hell. They all cry, but Lucy cries the most and Santana promises that if they hurt Lucy too bad, she'll come kick their asses for her. Lucy rarely complains to her, though, when they talk on the phone. Lucy is way more interested in hearing about what she and Brittany are up to. And so Santana is happy to tell her about everything good she can think of, and she knows that Lucy is grateful that she never says anything when Lucy's dad barges in her room at night, angry and yelling at her.
When Lucy's mom gets on to her about her looks and her weight and her glasses and the way she walks and the way she carries herself and how shy she is, Santana does say something, though: Santana tells her friend that she thinks she's pretty. And she means it.
On their first day of high school, Lucy surprises Santana and Brittany by walking into McKinley High School as Quinn Fabray. It takes some getting used to, this new side of Lucy and this new name that goes along with it, but Santana and Brittany don't mind. They're just happy to have their friend back.
Her eyelashes fluttered and suddenly she could see again. She wasn't lying on the ground, though; there had been no impact. Impact? she wondered. She was going to hit something? No, that didn't seem right. That was too long ago. She had seen Rachel since then. And she had been told that she was dead. Santana was trying to grapple it, the concept and idea that she was dead.
Her life - was that what she could call it? - was coming to her in snatches, brief pieces of time that might have been days or might have been hours. Santana was aware of what was happening, but only insofar as it was happening in any given moment. Yesterday was the shadow of another time and tomorrow was the future reflected back to her from the picture show in her mind.
Her family's arrival was what really did it, though; it was the moment her heart fully broke. It splintered in her chest painfully, ripping itself into dozens of pieces. Santana hated that she couldn't cry because she desperately wanted to sob, thrash about and lay her fists to the earth in protest.
Her mother was crying, weeping softly and crying enough tears for both her and Santana. She laid flowers down on the ground - lillies because they were her favorite. Santana's father stood stoically beside her, a hand firmly on her back. He showed little emotion, but Santana could trace the lines of pain and stress across his face - the dark circles under his eyes and the way his brows furrowed, the slight downturn of his lips and the way he said nothing.
Santana's little brother stood apart from them, his hands in his pockets as he stared at the ground. Santana thought of every time the eight-year-old had come to her with a new video game or comic book and she had indulged his excited chatter; she thought of every time he came to her and she sent him away because she was too busy. She wanted to ruffle his hair playfully and take him out to buy his favorite ice cream and a new game.
More than that, Santana wanted to go to her family, to scream at them that she was there, that she hadn't left. But she knew that they wouldn't hear her and they wouldn't see her. So she stayed where she was, mostly because to chase after them would be futile and her heart was already too broken to suffer any more.
She closed her eyes, hoping that if she couldn't see them then she could forget them.
Santana is smiling, giggling as she carefully uses the baby spoon to scoop bits of food off of Marco's chin. She's nine, though, and her hand is unpracticed and she ends up smearing mushy carrot puree across his face. He laughs, though, and stuffs his fingers in his mouth. She grabs a napkin and wipes him off, cleaning his face and his hands while he watches her with big brown eyes.
She can hear her parents in the next room, yelling at each other in angry Spanish. Her mother's sleeping with that man again, the one from Cleveland, and Santana doesn't see the problem because her daddy sleeps with the nice nurse with the blue eyes and the endless supply of lollipops. It doesn't make any sense to Santana that they should be fighting; she sleeps with Brittany and sometimes she even crawls into her mom's bed to sleep and neither of those are bad.
She slept in other beds, too, huddled together under a thick warm blanket. It was cold, wasn't it? That was why they slept so closely. For the warmth.
Her mother is slamming the door, screaming that she's leaving and they shouldn't expect to ever see her again. It's the second time in a month that she's left them "for good" and Santana has lost count of how many times she's done it since the baby was born. She always comes back, though. She knows it will be three days at most before her mother walks back in like nothing happened.
Marco laughs again, reaching his hand into the jar of baby food she's holding. She hears her father in the next room, cursing as he throws a vase and it shatters against the door. She makes airplane noises with the spoon she's holding to distract Marco from the noise and he coos at her in response, opening his mouth. Santana kisses his forehead and ruffles his hair and he smiles. And she's just happy to have his cute little face and sweet disposition in her life.
The next time she was aware of her eyes reopening, it was already night. Sometimes she drifted in and out of nothingness and she didn't always know she had been gone until she was aware of looking at things again, at seeing the ground underneath her feet and the tombstones around her. This time, she was aware of noises. Someone was muttering. It was Rachel, standing in only her pajamas, mumbling something and stumbling forward. She fell to the ground and shook her head, running her hands through the dirt. When Santana tried to lift her, she fell again and eventually collapsed. Rachel's presence was a mystery to her.
Of course it would be her luck that the only person who could see her was Rachel Berry. No, it couldn't be Brittany or Quinn or even Puck. It had to be Rachel. And of course the only person she could interact with was lying on her grave, unconscious; her one link to the rest of the world just had to pass out in her pajamas during what Santana assumed was a cold night.
Rachel stirred and Santana watched her settle back down again. She sighed. It wasn't that she cared about Rachel - because she most certainly didn't - it was just that if something happened to the girl, Santana would have no one. Not a soul. Forever. Or until whatever came first (Santana wasn't sure anymore.)
She didn't care that Rachel's pink pajamas were sort of cute or that her hair was slightly curly as it fell across her face. Santana brushed it away, her eyes tracing Rachel's jaw line as she did so. Rachel shivered and she pulled away, wishing for a coat or blanket or something to put over her. And she told herself that it was just because she needed Rachel, alive, and not because she cared.
Santana felt a pull in her stomach, like someone was trying to pull her up from the ground by her internal organs. Memories, flashes of things in her mind, were coming to her again. She was starting to be able to recognize the signs of their arrival. Some of them were old memories - pieces of her childhood growing up in Lima. Some of them, though, didn't feel like they were memories at all.
She didn't want to blink - she didn't even need to - but old habits died hard and she closed her eyes. Just for a second.
She's at Brittany's house. It's dark outside and she's standing on a familiar wooden porch in front of a familiar yellow door. She's holding flowers in her hand. She's clutching white roses tightly, hoping that she chose the right ones. Brittany loves flowers, and roses were expensive, which meant that they were the best ones as far as she was concerned.
Brittany opens the door, her eyebrows shooting up in surprise. "Santana -"
"I love you," she says, knowing that she's never made a simpler or more honest statement in her life. "I want to be with you, for real this time."
She extends her left arm, offering Brittany everything - the flowers, her heart, and her soul. They're all resting between her sweaty fingers, pressed against her palms. Please want me back this time, she thinks.
Brittany frowns though, and Santana sees guilt on her features. "Santana," she says sadly.
"Brittany, please," she pleads. She needs this. She needs this more than anything.
Brittany shakes her head. "You don't want me, Santana. You want her."
"No, I don't," she cries desperately. It's happening again - her heart is breaking. "I can't be without you. I can't."
"I can't be her, S. I'm already me."
Santana says nothing, her arm dropping down to her side, petals brushing her bare legs.
"Brittany, who is it?" she hears from inside the house. The voice is young and male and Santana knows it can't be her dad. Santana's pretty sure she can feel the fracture that cracks her heart. It's raw and visceral and she's afraid her heart is about to stop beating.
"Go home, Santana," Brittany tells her, looking back into the house. "You should call her."
And she's just glad that she remembers how to walk away, how to put one foot in front of the other.
Rachel groaned and Santana's eyes shot open. Rachel was shaking her head, frowning. She reached out her arm, holding her hand out towards Santana. She looked frustrated. Her lips moved, but nothing came out of them.
Santana reached out shakily. "Rachel?" she hissed.
There was no answer, only the outstretched hand of an unconscious girl lying on someone else's grave. The moonlight caressed her cheeks softly and Santana took a deep breathe (even though she didn't need to.) She took Rachel's hand in her own hesitantly, letting Rachel lace their fingers together.
Rachel squeezed her hand and shifted again. The hem of her sleeve slipped up over her wrist and Santana pulled it back down. She wondered if Rachel's skin was warm. All she could feel was a light pressure on her hand as a decidedly un-manly hand gripped it. Rachel's hold on her hand tightened and it almost hurt. Almost.
But the almost-pain made Santana gasp anyway, because it was with the grip that she remembered dying. And even dead, dying still hurt.
Santana feels like she's on fire, her insides ablaze as the knife pierces her skin - once, twice, a third time? More? She doesn't know anymore. Eyes glare down at her, shining in the mixture of moonlight and artificial streetlights. She sees red as the blood flows from her body and her vision blurs. Someone is screaming - is it her? - and the eyes disappear from view. She can still hear the voice ringing in her ears as she falls the ground.
His voice is deep and scratchy as he speaks, his voice that of someone who doesn't speak often - like he says so little that when he does say anything, he can't remember how his vocal chords are supposed to work. She can barely make out what he's saying to her now. She can't even hear him properly, though she knows he's speaking. Or was it that she can't remember what he's saying because the blood coating her fingers is warm and viscous and it doesn't matter what he's going on about?
Santana can see the stars above her and she can feel the thorns of the roses she bought biting into the soft skin of her palm. He looms over her again and she can see his eyes - dark and penetrable. She feels like she's looking at the edge of the universe. Oh, she thinks, those are stars above her in his eyes and beyond the plane of his face, so maybe she really is.
"Oh, my god," she hears; or she thinks; or maybe she says. She's not sure anymore. "Santana."
Eyes come back into her vision, but they're brown this time, scared and confused and worried. Hands are on her, pressing down on her from what feels like all sides, trying to push that burning sensation back into her body. There are tears on her face – her own mixing with the ones falling on her from above.
"Just hold on, Santana. Please. Please hold on," someone begs.
Hold on? Is that what she is supposed to do? she wonders. What should she hold on to? What's left?
A hand cups her face, smearing her own blood across her cheeks. The stars are twinkling and she looks for something to hold on to because that's what the voice in her head is telling her she should do. Someone is stroking her hair and they are telling her to hold on, too. She reaches out and a hand finds hers.
"Oh, Santana," she heard. She knows that voice, then. And she knows those eyes and those hands. Rachel. Rachel's there with her. Rachel came for her. Because she called.
And then she closes her eyes and gasps. The stars are gone and she sees nothing. And eventually, she hears nothing. And then after a while, she is nothing.
When Santana opened her eyes, she was alive again. More or less, she figured. She pulled away from Rachel then, moving to a place nearby. Her heart was heavy in her chest, weighing her down uselessly. Santana cursed. She cursed dying and she cursed living and she cursed Rachel Berry. Because of course it had to be her.
Santana cursed for what might have been hours. If she had been alive, her voice would have eventually given out on her, cracked when her throat was raw. But she wasn't and so she could curse all night. But when people finally came for Rachel in the morning, she followed them as they carried her away. She went as far as she could - to the gate at the edge of the cemetery - and then watched their progress down the road until all that was left was an empty street and a piece of granite with her name on it.
When Rachel came back the next night, properly bundled up and full of apologies, Santana wasn't sure she wanted to hear them. Because she didn't care about Rachel - she didn't - but she didn't appreciate someone breaking a promise to her. But Santana knew that she didn't have much of a choice (Rachel was the only person she had.) So she continued on with their discussion, trying to figure out what the hell had become of their lives, and told Rachel that she stayed with her. She didn't know why she said that, but Rachel had collapsed again and it actually frightened her, and suddenly Rachel was really close to her and she wished that she could properly feel things because the smaller girl was close enough that Santana should have been able to feel her breathe across her cheeks. It had felt, in the moment, like the right thing to say to her.
She couldn't though, and eventually, they pulled away from each other. And then at some point, she blinked and Rachel was gone. And so was she.
She's being pulled, tugged on by her best friend quickly. They're running together through the trees, laughing and smiling and giggling. There are flowers on her head, orange ones strung together haphazardly and plaited messily in her hair.
They're holding hands because that's what best friends do. But suddenly, her grip is too tight and the pressure is too much and her arm starts to hurt. And she asks if they can stop, if she can let go because the pain is too much for her. A hand clenches around hers, holding on to her firmly without letting up. Her sides start to ache and burn and her leg muscles cramp.
She starts to cry then, tears streaming down her face. And then she's begging, pleading for them to at least slow down because it's too much; it's too much and she can't take it. They're going too far, too fast, and her body protests with everything it has. Santana hurts, pain seizing her heart and nestling inside it to take permanent residence there.
They don't stop.