Several days passed before Santana and Dani shared a shift again. In the meantime, the Latina had been brooding endlessly over the best way to approach her. Should she wait and let Dani come to her? No, that was way too risky. Should she be very forward, like the Santana of high school? No, that might freak her out, coming on too strong. Should she try to smoulder and be sexy? Please, usually that was her best angle because damn, have you seen her? But somehow she didn't think that that would work this time…

"For God's sake Santana, she's not an alien! Get a grip," she told herself angrily as the hideous uniform was once more pulled on. She was running late. Again. She needed Berry to motivate her – without Rachel nagging her, punctuality was just not Santana's strong point.

Kurt entered the living area from his curtained-off bedroom.

"Santana! What the hell are you still doing here?! Your shift started 5 minutes ago!"

Santana didn't bother to respond as she scrambled out of the apartment and ran down the street towards the diner. Luckily she lived relatively close by, but still, by the time she arrived her hair was certainly less than perfect and her chest was heaving with exertion. She slid into the diner, attempting to hide her late entrance and pretend she had been there the whole time. Sadly, Gunther looked up; his icy expression did not bode well.

"Santana! This is the third time this week you've been late! What the hell is your problem? I should fire you on the spot-"

"Actually, it's my fault she's late." Dani interjected, causing both Santana and Gunther to stare at her, one in irritation and one in grateful shock. Dani continued:

"I'm really sorry Gunther, I had to ask her to pick up some stuff at the store for me last minute. You know. Like, lady things. I know it wasn't really fair of me but it was pretty important if you catch my drift. Do you think you could forgive us?" Dani peered up at her boss through her long, thick eyelashes and opened her eyes wide, pleadingly. Gunther rolled his eyes but could scarcely stand to argue with such an excuse.

"Fine. Don't let it happen again." He huffed before walking off.

Santana turned to thank Dani, but was met by a sole cheeky wink before the blonde vanished to serve some customers in her section.

Damn.

It was nearing the end of their shared graveyard shift, around 4am. The diner was practically empty at this time – other people were in normal places. Like their beds.

Dani was sitting at a table, filling the condiment bottles.

Santana shook herself. She was Santana-mother-fucking-Lopez. One girl was no problem for her! No matter how absolutely gorgeous said girl might be…

"Hey Dani. I realised that we never properly got introduced. I'm Santana. Thanks so much for earlier, I think I'd probably be out on my ass right now if it wasn't for you, so… um, thanks. Yeah." Santana blushed. ''So…um, thanks. Yeah,' for fuck's sake Lopez, could you be any less smooth right now?'

Dani bit her bottom lip and smiled, appearing kind of shy for the first time.

"You're welcome. I wouldn't want you to get fired! I'd advise not doing it again though, Gunther looked pretty pissed," she chuckled. Santana wanted nothing more than to hear that sound again, as soon as possible.

"So," Santana gestured around the empty diner, "we've got time to chat for once. Are you from New York originally?"

"God no, I'm from this tiny town in the back end of Ohio."

"Shut up! Me too, what's it called?"

"No way! Sidney, do you know it?"

"Know it? I'm from Lima, we're like neighbours! I'm just North on Route 75 from you! This is crazy…"

The conversation flowed so naturally that the two girls didn't notice the time passing. They discussed Ohio and what a hell-hole it was for anyone with ambition; they asked questions about each other's lives from past to present, which eventually led them onto romance…

"So, are you seeing anyone at the moment?" Santana 'casually' threw into the conversation, then waited with bated breath for the answer.

"Nope, no one. The last girl I dated, she… we didn't end well, let's put it that way."

"Do you mind me asking what happened?"

"My very conservative parents found us making out in the basement. They weren't supposed to be back for another hour. They threw me out there and then, and said that no child of theirs would be gay, so I was no longer considered their daughter. I chucked some clothes and memorabilia into a bag, climbed into my car and haven't seen them since. That was just over a year ago."

Santana was shocked. "Oh my God, Dani, I'm so sorry. That's terrible. I can't believe that your parents would just disown you so quickly, that must have been horrendous."

Dani shrugged her shoulders. "I'm over it, you know? I had to move on and it took a while, but now I have; enough about my problems. What about you, have you got any special guys in your life at the moment?"

Santana glanced down at her hands, making a snap second decision. Nothing would stand in the way of her dating this beautiful woman.

"Definitely not, I'm gay as well."

Dani bit her lip again. Santana really needed her to stop doing that, because it was really distracting and it meant that she couldn't concentrate on anything apart from Dani's mouth, which was a dangerous place to be thinking about.

"But no, I'm not seeing anyone. I have an ex, who was bi, but we broke up like 6 months ago – we're still friendly though."

The words did not stop passing back and forth between the two. Both of them made the other feel more at ease than they had done in a long while. The next time Santana glanced up at the clock, she noticed that their shift had ended 10 minutes ago and told Dani as much.

"I can't believe the time went so quickly! I clearly should just spend all of my shifts talking to you," Santana said, smiling at Dani.

The blonde grinned back. "Maybe you could walk me home to continue this?"

"Yeah, for sure." Santana did an internal happy dance, but tried to remain at least partially nonchalant on the outside.

After clocking out and grabbing their stuff, the pair wandered out of the diner, towards Dani's apartment, chatting all the while. When they reached a standard New York red brick building, Dani turned.

"This is me," she said. "Thanks for walking me home Santana, it was really sweet of you." She hesitated. "Maybe… um… maybe I could like… thank you, by taking you out for dinner or something sometime this week? I don't know if you'd want to or something, you know don't feel obliged or anything but-" Dani had become gradually more and more red as she spoke. By this point, the ketchup she had been refilling earlier had become comparable to the colour of her cheeks.

"I'd love to go for dinner with you Dani," Santana interrupted, grinning at the blushing girl in front of her. Finally, she had regained some of her infamous confidence.

"Oh! Right! Um, awesome! Maybe we should swap numbers. To arrange it, you know."

The two women swapped numbers as they stood outside the apartment block, smiling at each other even through the chilly morning air.

"So I'll text you soon," Dani said.

"I look forward to it," replied Santana. "I guess this is goodbye then."

"For now," smirked Dani, before she leant forwards and placed a tiny kiss on the corner of the Latina's mouth, before twirling around and beginning to unlock her front door.

Santana turned, shocked but very pleased and began to walk away. Halfway down the street, she twisted back to look at Dani's building - Dani was still there, standing on her front step and watching Santana's retreat down the road. Santana gave her a final smile and wave before continuing on her way.

"Yes," she thought. "Now this? This is what I call progress."