She couldn't do it. She just couldn't. How is one supposed to go to a place full of memories of the person you just found out died?
God, just thinking about it makes her stomach churn. How fast was she supposed to leave the hospital after finding out? Was she supposed to stay and cry for hour on end or was she supposed to be there for at most an hour after the body got cold? She honestly didn't know; which is why she just sat there for a while, staring at nothing while tears streamed down her face.
Of course this would happen to her. God, why are the people that she loved the ones who left her the most? Why would she get taken away so quickly? At the peak of her career, where they both felt like maybe they could last forever. Well, now she knows that forever isn't always the same for everyone…
She doesn't know how long she sat in that waiting room chair, but by the time the nurse came in telling her to leave, the sun was already rising.
God, how could she be so stupid? How could she think that letting her leave after an argument would be a good thing? I mean, Santana couldn't have known this would happen; no one really did. How was she to know that a stupid paparazzi would be texting and driving at the same time her girlfriend was trying to clear her mind?
Santana stood outside their- her- door for a while, not really wanting to turn the lock just yet. She started thinking about the first time they walked into the house; the excitement her girlfriend had when they got to painting the walls. How many laughs she shared on the yellow couch Rachel bought and how many food fights they had that turned into make out sessions. All of the tears and arguments that now seem pointless.
Oh how she wished she could've told her she was wrong and that she didn't need to leave. That they could have worked it out together. That everything was going to be okay.
Santana didn't know when she fell on the floor or when she started crying but after a while she started to get tired and didn't really want to sleep outside. Though, she really wished that she hadn't walked inside because now she was crying on the floor of Rachel's closet, holding her favorite red coat.
It was three days later at Rachel's funeral where she freaked out. She hadn't done that since Finn's tribute day in glee but she just couldn't take it anymore. She couldn't handle all the sorry's; all the pity looks and all the "she was so young's." All the sympathy hugs and the "It'll get better's" were just too much and she screamed and ran out of the funeral home twenty minutes into the ceremony.
She ran and ran until she found herself at the cemetery. She didn't know why she subconsciously ran her but once she found the hole and the "Rachel Berry" gravestone, she didn't care why. She ran to the stone and cried on top of it.
An hour and a half later she felt a hand on her shoulder and everyone from the ceremony was around her, the casket being held by the Glee boys and her fathers.
She cried for three days straight after that.
It would take a whole six months to pass before Santana could finally stop sleeping with one of Rachel's sweaters.
It would take another four month for her to be able to go to her gravestone again for Rachel's birthday. Of course she left her flowers and sang her Happy Birthday, even if she did know there would be no point to. She had no reasoning for it, it just really helped her mentally and emotionally when she did.
After that day, she went every week and told Rachel how her week went or any news she had found out about their friends.
It would take a year after that day for Santana to be able to see videos or movies with Rachel in them; another month and a half for her to be able to hear Rachel's singing again.
And it took Santana five years after Rachel's death to be able to date again. Always felt guilty for it but after Kurt told her Rachel would want her to be happy, she knew she had to do this. For Rachel.
She found someone. She did and they married two years after meeting. Of course Santana still had Rachel in her heart but she knew she had to find someone else; it's what Rachel would've wanted.
She didn't stop her weekly meetings with Rachel. Not even when she had kids or even when she had grandkids. She never stopped; she just couldn't. Rachel was her one true love. The one person who not only tried to help her change for the better, but who also said she didn't need to because she was perfect the way she was.
It wouldn't be another sixty-three years later when Santana stopped visiting…
But it was only because they would finally meet again.