I apologize for the intense language later on. I hope this doesn't bother anyone. This story is rated T, though, so you should expect some of it. I guess this is more of a strong T rating. Idk though.

I really liked writing this chapter because how meaningful it is, and how Santana is dealing with her fear of coming out to everyone and Zoe, and how they will react. Hope you enjoy.

Chapter 6

Santana felt herself drift off into a deep sleep.

It was dark. Santana couldn't tell where she was. All she could feel was the ground underneath her feet.

Suddenly, the sound of a spotlight clicked on and rang in her ears. She felt the light blinding her. Looking out in front of her, she realized that she was in the auditorium, and the spotlight was shining directly on her. Although there was no one sitting in the audience, she could feel a presence.

She looked around. This stage was her whole life. She had so many memories and had practically grown up and matured and figured out who she was on this stage, and in the glee room. Santana wondered why she was standing there, in her skin-tight black dress, dark hair up in a ponytail and high-heeled boots.

For the first time on stage, she was confused. Usually, the stage, especially this stage, was like a second home to her. But right now she was completely lost. She had no idea what she was doing up there. She felt like she had no purpose. 'I guess I should start singing or something...' she thought.

But when she began, nothing came out.

She tried again. Nothing. And again. Only silence was escaping her lips.

And suddenly, she noticed that there were hundreds of people in the crowd that she knew she needed to sing for. She knew her purpose on that stage now.

But it was completely impossible to fulfill.

She began to feel like she was suffocating under the pressure. She could now see familiar faces in the audience- Finn, looking angry and shaking his head in shame. Tina was standing, obviously yelling at her, but she couldn't hear anything that she was saying. Brittany was crying, holding a stuffed unicorn, while Quinn was trying to comfort her and was giving Santana the evil eye. Rachel had her head in her hands. Kurt and Blaine were whispering about her- she could tell. The only thing that was audible to her was the faint voices of Mckinley High students, saying 'I can't believe you.' 'We will never accept you again.' 'Get away from me, freak.' It was all repeating in her mind.

She was letting her whole team down. And her whole school hated her. After this, they would never, ever support her. They weren't accepting who she was. They were getting angry about it, and hating her for it. She tried to call out, telling them she was sorry, but once again, no sound came out.

The nightmare began to materialize around her. Everything was blurry, and then suddenly it was gone. Everything, even the spotlight. All she could feel was tears rushing down her face. And then, the spotlight appeared, once again with the familiar clicking sound. But this time, it wasn't on Santana.

It was on Zoe, the girl who happened to be standing right next to her.

Santana stared at her adorable, cream-colored dress in awe. Her hair was up in a bow, and she was staring out where the audience had just appeared.

Santana looked out on the audience, too. The whole scene was the same- all of New Directions looked so angry. But even though Santana had thought they were angry at her because she wasn't singing, she could tell that this time around, they were angry about something completely different.

But suddenly, Santana didn't give a damn about what anyone thought. Because the person she loved more than anything was standing just to the left of her, smiling out to the audience happily, as if they weren't angry.

Zoe turned to her. Her blue hair was reflecting light off of it, and although Santana thought no one could ever pull it off, she thought it looked so incredibly sexy on her. Santana smiled and grabbed her hands, interlocking her fingers with hers, looking straight into her wonderful, green eyes. And suddenly, all of the whispering of her schoolmates cleared out of her head, and she felt herself regain her voice. Everything was so blurry and confusing and grainy around her, but everything about Zoe was crystal clear. In fact, she was all in high definition. She could see every detail about her more clearly than anything.

And the clearest thing of all was the feelings she felt towards her.

"Everything feels right when I'm with you," Santana said in a crystal clear voice. She was still holding her soft, delicate hands, and she pulled Zoe incredibly close to her. "And I'm terrified about what other people are going to think, especially you, because I don't know if you are even capable of liking me back, or girls at all. But..." Santana brushed a piece of blue hair out of her face, as she now felt Zoe's soft cheeks under her hands. Her emerald eyes were sparkling in the light. "There's one thing I do know. And that is that... I love you. I know we've only known each other for about a week. But if I could just be with you, I promise I would try so hard to not care what other people think, because all of it would be worth it just to spend my life with you..." Santana began to pull her face closer. They were inches away now. She felt Zoe's breath on her. They became so close that their foreheads touched. Santana's heart was beating as fast as it ever could. Just a little farther, and...

Santana woke up with a jolt, her eyes flying open. She groaned softly, looking up, confused where she was. Very little light streamed into Zoe's room, and the sound of raindrops hitting the window filled her ears. When her eyes adjusted, and her mind began to wake up, memories of her dream-well, more like nightmare-flooded back into her mind. She looked in front of her, and her eyes widened.

She was still holding Zoe around the waist.

Luckily, Zoe was still asleep, and Santana had woken up before her so she wouldn't see that she was holding her. And luckily, Zoe was an incredibly sound sleeper, because she didn't notice at all, not even when Santana began to cautiously pull her arms away from her waist. She was successful in not waking her up. After this, she looked around the room, trying to see if she had a clock. A red digital clock read 9:30. Santana hadn't slept that long in a very long time. She looked down at Zoe, and studied every wonderful detail about her.

Santana could barely handle it. She was like an olive-skinned, blue-haired angel. And she was Santana's olive-skinned, blue-haired angel, even if maybe she didn't love her back. No one was ever going to take her away from Santana Lopez, the meanest, toughest bitch around, especially not some stupid boy who thinks he can just flash his unnaturally white teeth at Zoe and take her away in his red Ferrarri. She promised herself that she would never let that Cooper guy even touch her. Never. Because right now, Zoe was the light of her life. She was something that made her so happy. And she would never let anyone ruin that.

Even though she felt like she could just stare at her for hours, she lifted the lavender comforter off of her, stood up, and left her room. She walked down the hall in the comfortable pajama shorts and t-shirt that Zoe had given her last night. As she was walking by, she spotted a picture hanging on the wall that caught her eye. She took a few steps back and looked.

In the picture, there was three people. One was a very young and small girl, with wavy brown hair and huge, green eyes. Santana recognized this to be 3-year-old Zoe. She was wearing a white dress with a silky pink bow around it, and she was laughing with an adorable smile. Her hair had bows in them that made her look even cuter. Santana felt herself smile.

Then, there was a man to the left of Zoe. He was about average height, handsome, with light brown hair and tan skin, and looked quite young, maybe early twenties to mid-twenties. He was smiling, and looking down lovingly at the little girl. Santana recognized this to probably be her dad- although they didn't look much alike, Santana could see a very faint resemblance, and he also had big, incredible green eyes, just like Zoe's. Now she knew where she got those amazing eyes.

And to the right of the little girl was a woman who was also laughing. She looked small, about the same age as the man, and she had olive skin, chestnut brown hair, and incredible eyes- they were a beautiful golden color, the color of honey. She had never seen eyes such a color before. The image of the woman made Santana shudder- this woman was absolutely gorgeous, and looked so much like Zoe, it was freaky. Zoe had gotten many traits from her mother- especially her skin color and hair color. But her eyes definitely came from her father.

A warm feeling spread inside of her. They all looked so happy. But one thing bothered Santana- she looked around, and there were no other pictures in the hallway. In fact, as she walked into the kitchen and the living room, she realized there were no other family pictures of them anywhere. That was the only one.

Santana frowned. Why would they only have one family picture up? Even Santana's family had family pictures up. She was about to look around when she heard a door closing somewhere. And she knew it couldn't have been Zoe, because the sound didn't come from behind her, but from in front of her. It had to be either her mom or dad. Santana hid in the hallway, hoping Zoe's parent wouldn't notice. Santana did her best to peer around the corner without being noticed.

What she saw was incredibly startling. Santana could tell it was Zoe's dad because he was the man from the picture. But this man looked different. Obviously, he was many years older now, but her dad was in horribly dirty clothes with stains of alcohol and the stench of cigarettes that she could smell from all the way from where she was standing. His eyes were bloodshot, he looked unshaven, and he stumbled around. He made himself coffee, but messily and spilled lots of things. Then, to Santana's horror, he pulled out a small silver flask and took a sip.

Omygod, he's drinking at 9:30 in the morning?! Santana thought.

"Zoe! Wake the hell up!" he screamed from the kitchen, his words slightly slurring. This made Santana jump. "It's late!"

He groped around for his keys. "I'm goin' out!" When there was no response, his face became angry. "Answer me!" No response again.

And then, the horror show began.

"YOU LITTLE FUCKING BITCH! ANSWER ME!"

Santana felt a tear rush down her cheek. This man was obviously a horrible alcoholic. She wanted to go up to the man and slap him. She very silently ran back to Zoe's room and opened the door.

Inside, a panicking blue-haired girl was just about to leave the room.

'Santana!' she mouthed. "Omygod. I. Am so. Sorry." she whispered, barely audible. "He cannot know you're here."

Trying to respond to her father, she stammered, "I-I'm awake, I heard you! So sorry, Da- I mean, Jack! Have a fun day at the casino!" When she finished, she muttered, "Again..."

"Don't you DARE leave this house while I'm gone, besides going to that wretched school! You hear?! AND NO BOYS OVER! EVER!"

"Yeah, Dad!"

"Dammit, Zoe, I've told you a million times to call me by my name! My name is Jack!"

Zoe closed her eyes. "Okay. How long are you gone for?" she asked.

There was a pause.

"None of your damn business!" He said at first. But he answered anyway. "Ugh. Probably 5 days."

Zoe's eyes widened. "Wait. WHAT? 5 days?!" But the two girls heard the front door slam.

He was gone.

Santana was utterly shocked. Zoe just sat down awkwardly on her purple bed.

And she began to sob.

Santana rushed over to her friend. She sat down next to her, and Zoe buried her head into Santana's chest, crying. Santana just wrapped her arms around her. Santana felt tears of her own stream down her face as she closed her eyes. "It's okay. It's okay," she repeated softly. The feeling of Zoe in her arms was so incredible, but right now she didn't have time to think about that.

"I-I'm sorry I didn't tell you about my dad," she said between sobs. Wiping away the tears, she broke away from the hug and looked straight into Santana's eyes. "I'll explain it to you. Right now."

Santana brushed the palm of her hand against her cheek and jaw, feeling her soft skin under her hand. She kept her hand there and brushed away stray tears off of her cheeks with her thumb. "Only if you feel comfortable telling me."

She took an uneven, deep breath, and began.

"When I was little, we were all okay. We were so happy, in fact. And one day, around Christmas, when I was three years old, my mom said she was going out to buy us some coffee, because it was a tradition for my parents to drink coffee on Christmas, and they'd always let me have a sip." Zoe's eyes darkened. "But, when she left, it was taking a long time for her to come back. And there was a knock at our door, and when my dad answered, it was a police officer. And... she was... i-in an accident..." the tears were flowing harder before now.

Santana was in shock. That beautiful woman in the picture she had seen had... died? She shed a few tears herself. That explained the lack of family pictures.

"Zoe, that's horrible..." she said. "I am so sorry..."

But Zoe wasn't done. She looked down. "It took a few weeks for the news to sink in. And when it did... things went horribly wrong. So wrong. It wasn't as hard for me, because I was only 3 and wasn't totally understanding of the concept of death, but my dad began to go crazy. He loved my mother more than anyone has loved anything." She closed her eyes. "I started seeing him drink several beers with dinner. Then, the beer turned into glasses of wine. Before I knew it, he was going through 2 bottles of wine a night. When he started hitting the really hard stuff, and I noticed that the Johnnie Walker bottle that he had never touched was gone very quickly, I began to get worried. I was still only around 4, but I was old enough to understand that this was getting bad. And he hadn't talked to me in so long. He was disappearing every day too, to the casinos. One day, I asked him to please stop drinking, and disappearing during the day." Zoe could barely go on with the story. She was getting to the hard part to tell.

"He looked at me in the most terrifying way. I could tell he had just realized something. And then he whispered, 'It was all your fault.' I didn't understand. 'She only got that coffee for you. We liked the coffee, but the coffee was for the tradition. The tradition for you.' He was so drunk, Santana. He stood up, and... he... he s-slapped me... right across the face. A four-year-old. He was screaming, how it was all my fault. Although I am very happy to say that was the first and last time he ever hurt me, he still blames my to this day for my mother's death. And his alcohol problem has gotten even worse. Now, he doesn't care what I do. Never. He hates my guts, Santana. I bet he wouldn't even care if I died. Even though he asks me not to leave the house, he knows I don't have to listen to him, because he has no power over me if he's not here. Especially if he's gone for 5 days at one time. The only rule that I know he will kill me for if I break it is the no boys rule. When I was 11, he made this one single rule for me to follow. He'd say, 'I don't want no boy's hearts breakin' when you get together for a long time, get married, have children, and having his heart wrenched out of his chest when you die. I never want any boy ever to experience it. You may never date any boy. Ever.'"

Santana's jaw was slightly ajar. She couldn't even believe what she had just heard. She felt guilty thinking that she had big problems about her sexuality before. But she realized this girl had much bigger problems...

Santana wrapped her arms around her friend. "I... don't even know what to say."

"It's okay. You don't have to say anything." Zoe had her face nuzzled into Santana's neck, and she was practically sitting in her lap now. Santana rested her head on top of her sexy, blue hair. She ran her hand up and down her back, trying to comfort her.

"Santana?"

"Mm-Hm?"

"I love you."

Santana's hand froze. Her eyes opened. She felt her heart stop momentarily.

"You know, you are just such an incredible friend to me," said the girl in Santana's arms. "And I know we've been friends for only about a week, but I feel like we've known each other for so long. We have..." she paused. "...a really powerful and incredible connection. I can feel it."

Santana looked down. Feeling disappointed that she didn't mean the 3 words the way Santana had last night, but happy that she could feel a connection, she smiled, a tear running down her cheek. She squeezed her harder.

"I-I love you too, Zoe."