A/N: Going on vacation for the next week or so, so my updates may be spotty. Not sure if the beach house has wi fi (it better). will try and update lifelines, the two of us, and maybe more of this fic too. Oh, and so i've decided that I like the idea of Santana's dad looking like Benjamin Bratt.

"I've thought about it, doc. And I think I understand in a way. Have you ever known what it's like to feel like you're invincible without ever actively thinking it? As a little girl, I felt like that. As long as I listened to my parents, didn't talk to strangers, was careful, ate right, used common-sense, buckled my seat belt...etc. Nothing bad would happen to me. It's...difficult to explain the way it feels because it's almost completely subconscious I think. I lived like that until I was eleven years old. But then, the accident happened."

"It was like my innocence had never existed it was gone so fast. I'd been looking through a lens that was removed from my eyes once I woke up in that hospital having barely fucking survived only to hear that my mother had not." Dr. Jae Min Park didn't speak, just listened as Santana almost poetically described the loss of her childhood. She'd talked about quite a lot in the six years she'd been coming to see him. But in all that time, she never spoke of how it felt to have been in the accident. Never of what it was like losing her mother.

"I felt like I'd been thrust into a world where I could easily be hurt by anything all of a sudden. And my father couldn't explain it to me really. He's a good man, and he always has been, but he'd just lost his wife. The only woman he'd ever loved was gone in a flash, and I could see in his eyes that he didn't know how he was expected to even be able to function. He told me a few months ago that it took seeing how broken and confused I was to make him realize that he had to try to pull himself together."

"It took many months before either of us smiled or laughed again. It felt like the life had been sucked away from both of us with her for a while. But I wasn't a child anymore, so I kept living. Nothing seemed important anymore. Stupid school gossip and the way the kids I went to school with led their lives seemed trivial and honestly, wasteful. But I didn't know what to do, I didn't know how to fix myself. It's weird, how much her not being here feels like and actual physical, painful, ache. I've been carrying it around with me for almost seven years, and it has yet to fade even a bit."

"If it still hurts so much, Santana, how do you seem so different from back then? You're better in many ways. What has changed if that has not?" She pressed her hand against her chest, clenching her shirt into the fist she formed.

"I learned to accept it. I live with it. But don't...don't be confused. It's not like I ignore it. I just...it's more like being in constant pain." He frowned in concern for her, locking his eyes to the dark dark coffee of her own. She shrugged.

"You told me earlier that you broke down last night, and that Rachel did her best to comfort you. Did it help, and how is she? I recall you saying that she has an appointment to see her own psychiatrist Thursday?" Santana nodded, leaning back into the chair that Jae Min had personally ordered for her. He'd always believed in his patients being as comfortable as possible, and each of them had their own chair.

"Yea, I don't think she knew what to say. She's always been the type of girl who wants to help so much it hurts her. But her relationship with her mother is so fucked that I almost think she was afraid to say that she understood, having essentially lost her mother too, thinking I'd freak out about how different the two situations are. But she helps just by holding me, by being there. Like... with Britt I always felt like I had to be strong even though she knew me so well. To protect her, you know?"

"It isn't like that with Rachel. I can just let go with her and it's okay. I guess our relationship is pretty complicated given the history and the fact that I think we're both so broken. I feel like I don't deserve her, and sometimes she doesn't understand why I'm with her. Which is my fucking fault. But we fit, and I haven't ever really felt the way I feel for her before. It's just...it's different."

"You love her."

"Yes."

"Why don't you think you deserve her? I'm aware of the type of behaviors you have exhibited in school, towards her and others, but you've made many changes in that department, changed yourself for the better. Something which you have made it seem that Rachel sees in you. If she believes you're worth being with, shouldn't you?" He put the note pad away, then picked up his chair, moving it to be right in front of her, just a foot away. All his attention was focused on her.

"Yea, doc but you should hear the things she thinks about herself. She says these things when she's second-guessing herself and all her insecurities show, and it's all things I've heard. Because I said them. I did it to her. All of it. She's fucking...she's hurt herself because of the things I've said and done to her! How am I supposed to live with myself knowing I hurt her like that, huh?! How?! You tell me how. Please...please tell me how?" The tears were falling again from dark eyes, and she didn't fight them. Jae Min suddenly had his arms full of crying teenager, and he gently rubbed her back.

He supposed some would say it was inappropriate, but he'd been counseling her since she was eleven, and had known her through her mother and father since she was born. He was her godfather, they were family. Calling him doc had been something he'd suggested to help her disconnect their family ties to their appointments. She'd initially found it difficult to talk to him given she'd known him as tio Jae her whole life. When her sobs subsided, Jae Min reached for the tissues, watching her wipe at eyes that had already been red and a little swollen from the night before.

"Listen. Rachel's back in counseling. Let her work on her insecurities, on the root of the problem, and you do your best to help her understand the way you see her. And Santi, if Rachel has forgiven you, it is time to forgive yourself, okay? Just let go of that particular weight. You carry far too many." He looked back at the clock he rarely even glanced at during their sessions and then reached into the mini fridge to grab her a bottle of water. It tended to soothe her throat and make her feel better after she'd been crying.

"If you head home now, Santi, you should be able to catch lunch with your girl, okay?" She nodded, hugged him, then walked out of the door silently. He sighed as he sat back down in his chair. He worried for her honestly. She had lived a difficult life for someone so young, and sometimes he was afraid she would just fall apart. With the addition of Rachel things seemed both better and more high stress.

It was glaringly obvious how completely in love his god daughter was, he hoped and wished that she could finally find the happiness she'd lost so long ago.