III.
October 31st, 2020
Brittany's sister doesn't like to be kept waiting, but she's going to have to wait because there is no way that Brittany and Santana are going to make it out of the house, across town, and all the way to her hotel room in the next twenty minutes. They're definitely going to be late.
For one thing, Santana can't find her phone.
For another thing, Brittany had to change the baby's diaper—and therefore change the baby out of her costume and back into it again—which, hello, takes a long time.
Brittany has just finished sanitizing her hands and has begun to button up the snaps on the baby's onesie when Santana passes by the nursery door all in a rush. Brittany has her back to the door, so she can't see Santana. She just hears Santana's footfalls, fast and heavy with worry as they tread along the carpet. Brittany listens as Santana opens the hamper outside the nursery door and rummages through the dirty clothes, perhaps hoping to find the phone in some forgotten pocket or pouch.
"Oh my god, Britt. What if I left it at the airport when we picked up your sister?" Santana asks, frantic.
Brittany doesn't turn around. She continues at her task, adjusting the baby's squishy, green hat and smiling so that the baby will smile back. Brittany counts the baby's teeth—all three of them—and presses on the baby's bellybutton as if it were a doorknob. The baby grins, and Brittany loves her dimples.
She got them from Santana.
"Trick or treat," Brittany coos, and the baby giggles, reaching up with grabby fingers to snatch at Brittany's hair. Brittany answers Santana, still in the hall, "We didn't even go into the airport, though, so, like, your phone would have to still be in the car. And you checked the car for it already."
"Maybe it fell out when we got to the hotel. Oh god, this is why I shouldn't put my phone on silent. Now we can't even call it," Santana frets.
"Maybe we could call it," Brittany offers. "Vibrate can be way loud if the phone is on a hard surface." Brittany adjusts the ruffle on the baby's collar, giving the baby another smile, and then adjusts her own costume.
Santana skitters behind her, appearing in the doorway to the nursery. "Could you call it?" she asks. There's a second's pause as she takes in the room, the baby on the changing table, Brittany standing in front of her. Confused, Santana says, "Britt, what are you supposed to be?"
Brittany picks up the baby off the changing table, feeling the weight of the baby in her shoulders and along her upper arms. She turns around to face her wife, showing off the full effect of her and the baby's costumes. With her free hand, she gestures to the ears on her headband. "'I'm a mouse. Duh,'" she deadpans. When Santana doesn't smile right away, Brittany amends, "Actually, I'm supposed to be you."
Santana looks from her daughter to her wife, confused. "A mouse and a watermelon?" she says, wearing an almost worried expression, like she's missed a joke.
"We're not supposed to match," Brittany assures her. "I didn't want to take away her independence on her first Halloween, you know?"
Santana still looks worried, two steps behind everything that's happening. "But I don't have a costume," she says, brow knitting together.
"Sure you do," Brittany grins, going over to meet her and passing the baby into her arms, the maneuver graceful and practiced from so much repetition. "You're a red-hot baby mama... you know, 'cause you're wearing a red shirt, and you're hot, and we have a baby."
The joke causes Santana to laugh a little, to relax just a bit but still not all the way. They have to find Santana's phone before Santana will calm down entirely. Santana adjusts the baby on her hip while Brittany brushes by her, headed to their bedroom.
"I'm gonna grab my cell," Brittany explains. "I'll call your number, so listen for any vibrate-y sounds." She boops the baby on the nose in passing. "You help Mama listen, little girl," she commends.
Santana follows Brittany into the hallway and then stops there, waiting, while Brittany continues on. Ducking into the bedroom, Brittany glances at the nightstand clock and sees that she and Santana have five minutes before they're late for meeting her sister. That means they have about eight minutes before her sister will call, asking them where the hell they are. With any luck, they'll have found Santana's phone by then. Brittany digs her own phone out of her coat pocket and stands beside her dresser, hitting the first contact on her speed dial and listening for a vibration anywhere against the still.
In the distance, the baby gurgles, but nothing buzzes or vibrates. Brittany's phone rings through once, twice, three times, four, five, and then—
"Britt! Call it again! I think I heard something," Santana says.
Brittany steps out into the hall and finds Santana leaned through the door to the nursery. The baby chews Santana's necklace, taking the blood red beads into her mouth, trying to cut new teeth against their sharp angles. The baby looks up at Brittany and Santana with wide, interested eyes, oblivious to what has her mothers so preoccupied.
She makes the cutest little watermelon.
Brittany hits the button on her speed dial again and stands beside Santana, listening.
At first, there is nothing more to hear than the baby's heavy, spitty breaths and Santana and Brittany's light, anxious ones; nothing but the house creaking down, settling with October cold; nothing but the sounds of cars outside on the road, of the voices of parents and children striking out to trick-or-treat, of dogs excited in their yards for the holiday, for the impending nightfall, for so many people out and about all at once.
Then, there comes a quiet drone, a whir.
Santana steps toward it, entering the nursery, and Brittany follows after her. Brittany's phone rings, once, twice, three times—
"There," Brittany says, gesturing to the side of the changing table. She goes over, crouching down, reaching for the whirring sound's source, and produces the baby's diaper bag, which had been tucked into the corner.
Sure enough, the bag buzzes.
Santana raises an eyebrow, and Brittany does, too.
"Don't tell me I left it in there...," Santana groans, but Brittany just laughs, pulling back the zipper and fumbling around in the side pocket until she feels the phone, tucked in beside a spare teething ring.
She produces the phone from the pocket with a flourish, and Santana groans again.
"Is your mama silly?" Brittany asks the baby.
"The silliest," Santana says, bouncing the baby on her hip. She shakes her head, annoyed at herself. "God, what time is it?" she asks. "The munchkin is gonna be so piss—er, ticked off," she catches herself. She plants a quick kiss on the back of the baby's head.
"We're late," Brittany shrugs, "but we'll get there eventually. Now that we found your phone, do you want to take that picture?"
Santana sighs. "Might as well, right?"
"Might as well," Brittany agrees.
They head to the living room, and Brittany takes the baby with her onto the couch while Santana arranges the phone, setting up its camera timer and propping it on the coffee table so that the lens will face them. For a second, Santana pauses, primping her hair and checking her reflection in the window. Late afternoon light streams through the glass, reflecting against her jewelry. Fleetingly, she looks just like she did years ago as a teenager, young and shyly beautiful, but then she turns to Brittany and their daughter and the shyness passes, replaced with something more confident, beautiful in a different way. Mature.
Santana smiles, wide, dimples showing.
"Are my girls ready?" she asks, leaning down to press the button on the phone once Brittany gives her the go-ahead.
She clicks the timer on and then scurries over to fit herself on the couch. She and Brittany hold the baby straddling their two laps. Their knees knock together, and their shoulders touch, and Brittany can read so much in Santana, as has always been her purview. At the last second, Santana leans over to adjust the angle of Brittany's mouse headband but then ends up ducking forward, pressing a kiss to Brittany's cheek just as the flash goes off.
Brittany doesn't need to see the resulting photo to know exactly what it shows: their daughter in a pink and "seeded" onesie with green ruffles and a puffy hat, chewing on her fist and beaming, the cutest tiny watermelon in the world; herself in mouse ears, grinning and scrunching up her nose; and her wife, Santana, ridiculously, wonderfully in love with her, showing her just how so with a sweet, forever touch.