Chapter 2
Mid-April 2026
The sound of a neighbor's dog barking, along with the pitter-patter of a spring rain shower sounded through Santana's bedroom window early one morning and woke Brittany from her sleep. She blinked a few times to adjust her eyes to the light and she smiled lazily when she saw Santana's back to her and her beautiful dark hair splayed out haphazardly on her pillow.
She scooted closer to Santana and wrapped her arm around her, holding her close. She knew that Santana wouldn't be up for a little while longer and she wasn't quite ready to get up yet either. Lounging in bed and cuddling with Santana was one of Brittany's favorite things to do, so she was going to take advantage of the time and just enjoy being close to her girl. She placed a few soft kisses to Santana's bare shoulder and nuzzled her nose into the crook of her neck as she let her mind wander on how genuinely good things were going between them.
They had been together almost four months and they couldn't be happier. They were madly in love, and their personalities complimented each other well, but on top of that, they understood each other on a different level than either of them have had before. They both had relationships prior to finding each other, but unfortunately their partners didn't know how to handle the quirks that their careers brought into the relationships.
For Santana, her girlfriends all had what most people would consider 'normal' days off and hours. They worked Monday through Friday, nine to five, and getting time off at the last minute was never hard. Santana's job didn't work like that. Everything was based on seniority, and time off that had not been requested during their bid period for vacation was not easy to get. The operation required that only so many people could be on leave in a day and if one of those slots weren't open, and requested at least four weeks prior, she would not be given the leave.
Her hours weren't any better. She worked shift work with non-standard hours that varied throughout her workweek. She started her week with two evening shifts, a mid-day or day shift for her third day, and then day shifts for her last two days, and because her seniority in her area wasn't high, even after eight years of being a controller, her days off were in the middle of the week. Up until last year, where her seniority was able to hold Thursday/Friday off, she had been on Wednesday/Thursday days off, which meant that she would work on Friday and Saturday night. Thursday/Friday was a little better because she at least had Friday off, but it meant that she would have to work both Saturday and Sunday night.
Sometimes she could swap days off with one of her co-workers, but even that was few and far between because her co-workers had lives and they didn't always want to trade a weekend day off for one in the middle of the week.
It was difficult for Santana to meet people, other than her co-workers, having opposite days off from the rest of the work force. There were a lot of couples where she worked because of that, but Santana had a personal rule against dating her co-workers, because if it didn't work out, she didn't want to be stuck working with them for the next twenty years. When she was lucky enough to meet someone, and they started dating, it would only work for a little while.
Her previous girlfriends would eventually get upset that Santana was always working on the weekend, or the major holidays. They didn't understand that the National Airspace System didn't shut down just because it was the Fourth of July or Christmas. It was a twenty-four hour, seven day a week operation, and the only time that Santana would be off for the big holidays was if she was lucky enough to get them off during vacation bidding, or if she just happened to have her days off on the same day that they holiday fell.
Try as she might to make things work, Santana had had more relations fall apart because her girlfriends couldn't deal with her schedule, but despite that, Santana loved her job. She was good at it and it was the only thing that she could see herself doing. Thankfully, Brittany understood and loved that about Santana, because she had been in a similar situation.
Prior to working for Motta Industries as a corporate pilot, Brittany worked for an airline and depending on what her schedule was for the month, she could be away from home for three to six days at a time. Thankfully, she was usually only away for three to four days a week, but sometimes she had the misfortune of having a six-day stretch. Like Santana, Brittany's schedule was seniority based, but unlike Santana, who bid her days off for the whole year, Brittany bid for her schedule every month, and she didn't know what her scheduled would be until two weeks prior to the schedule starting.
Once the schedule had been assigned, it would be hard for her to change it. She might be able to change a day here and there, but even that was rare. She mostly worked over the weekends and holidays, and like Santana, that was a problem for her partners, but Brittany had the added variable where she was away from home and after a while that got old and tiring for her partners and they almost always left because of that.
Brittany even tried dating pilots, and flight attendants, thinking that because they understood the lifestyle it would be easier to keep a relationship alive. Unfortunately, as it turned out that came with a different set of problems, because it seemed as if their schedules never lined up quite right and they saw each other more as they passed each other in the airport on their way to their respective flights, than they did when they were off.
Now that Brittany had a job with Motta Industries, things were a little better. The pay was better for one, and she had more nights and weekends at home because a lot of her time flying was day-trips during the week with Mr. Motta, who was very family orientated and like to be home, but the added bonus of being home more didn't come without concessions. There were still times that she had to be away from home. Usually it was only for a couple of days, but sometimes it would be for a week or more, and she was required to share on-call duties with the company's other captains. If Mr. Motta or one of his executives called to say that they needed to go somewhere, Brittany had to go.
The first time that it happened after Brittany and Santana got together was the day before Valentine's Day, which happened to be the day that she and Santana were celebrating, because Santana had to work an evening shift on Valentine's Day. At first when Brittany saw that it was Mr. Motta's assistant calling, she was just expecting a change to the departure time for their trip to New York on Monday morning, but that wasn't the case.
One of Mr. Motta's subsidiaries in California had a crisis come up that required him to be there, so his assistant called Brittany to tell her to be at the airport as soon as possible. They would be leaving as soon as they could. Brittany had been afraid that Santana would be mad at her and possibly break up with her over that, but thankfully, Santana was more than understanding. She was a little disappointed because it happened so suddenly, but she knew that they could have a romantic evening when Brittany came home. They weren't even celebrating Valentine's Day on the fourteenth as it was because of her own work schedule, so the specific date that they did, didn't matter to Santana. She just cared about spending time with Brittany.
They were both so thankful that they found each other because the level of understanding that they felt from each other, not just emotionally, but also concerning their careers was important to them. They both loved their jobs; and had worked so hard to get to where they were. Their careers were a small part of who they were and accepting the idiosyncrasies of their jobs meant accepting them fully, so it was a welcomed feeling that they had never had before. It just made their love for each other deeper.
Brittany wasn't sure how long she had laid there cuddling Santana, but when she started to stir; Brittany placed a few more soft and loving kisses to her neck and shoulders.
"Mornin' baby." Brittany cooed into Santana ear.
"Hi." Santana mumbled in the cute sleepy voice that she always had, and rolled over, burying her face into Brittany's chest.
"I love you." Brittany said for no reason other than she just felt like it.
"Love you too." Santana said. "How long have you been awake?"
"Not too long, I think. I don't know though, I kinda lost track of time while cuddling." Brittany said with a little laugh. "My alarm hasn't gone off yet, so I still have some time to cuddle and hangout."
"Mmmm." Santana sighed in contentment. "Are you hungry? I can make you something."
"I'm a little hungry, but you don't have to get up. It's your day off; you should sleep in. I can make myself a bowl of cereal or swing by Panera on my way to the airport."
"Ugh, no way. You should only do that on days that I can't make you something." Santana said looking up at Brittany.
"Baby, that's sweet of you, but you don't have to do that." Brittany said and kissed Santana on her forehead.
"But I love cooking for you." Santana said with a small pout. "I like to know that you have a good meal in you before you leave on a trip. Lord knows what kind of crap you'll be eating when you're out of town."
"Well if you want to." Brittany said with a smile. She loved Santana's cooking. It was definitely better than eating out.
"How does waffles and strawberries sound?"
"Yuuuuummy." Brittany drawled. "You're so good to me."
"Not any better than you are to me." Santana said and leaned in for a quick peck. "When do you have to leave again?"
Brittany peeked over Santana's shoulder to the alarm clock and saw that it was a little after eight o'clock. She was taking Mr. Motta, his family, and a new client and his family on a working vacation to Key West, and they were supposed to leave around one o'clock. "In about three hours. I have to leave a few minutes early because I have to swing by my apartment first to pick up a couple of clean uniform shirts. I meant to wash the ones I had here last night, but I was little distracted by my awesome girlfriend's tongue."
Santana giggled. "I'm not even sorry about that."
"I know you aren't." Brittany said with a smirk as the memories of the night before came to mind. "I'm not either."
Santana giggled again and stuck her tongue out, licking Brittany's bottom lip.
"You better watch what you do with that thing. It'll make me want to do things that will make me late to work and then Mr. Motta might fire me and I'll have to move in with you because I'll be broke and pathetic." Brittany joked.
Santana let out a little laugh and then leaned in for another kiss. It was sweet and lingered for a few moments before they parted.
"You should move in." Santana said.
"What?" Brittany asked with a curious smile. She hadn't meant anything by her joke.
"You should move in." Santana repeated. "It ridiculous we're paying for two places. We only use one, and most of the time it's my place we stay at anyways. You practically already live here, so we should just make it official and move in together. Tubbs is happy here too, I mean look at him, he's sprawled out at the end of the bed like he thinks he owns it."
Brittany peered down at the end of the bed and saw Lord Tubbington laying there. He did look comfortable. "I think that's a pretty awesome idea, as long as you're sure."
Santana nodded. "I've never been surer about anything. I've never asked anyone to move in with me before, so I don't just throw that around. I want to live with you."
Brittany smiled widely and kissed Santana excitedly. "I want to live with you too!"
Santana laughed and kissed Brittany again. "Great! You can move in as soon as you get back from your trip on Tuesday."
"Just in time for your off days."
"Mm-hmm. I'll recruit Matt to help with the heavy lifting. He owes me a favor. I figure since I've been meaning to get furniture for the basement, we could put your living room furniture down there, and your bed can go in one of the guest rooms."
"I bet Sam and Mike will help too if we asked and threw in some pizza and beer." Brittany said trying to work the logistics of moving all her heavy furniture.
"Good idea." Santana chirped.
"I'll ask Puck to help too and if he tries to weasel out of it, I'll pull rank and tell him that he will have to get up early and start doing all the pre-flight prep from now on." Brittany said with a smirk.
Santana laughed. She knew Puck well enough now to know that that would be torture. "You're evil."
"No I'm not, I'm smart. I know how to get things done."
"You are smart. It's one of the things I love about you." Santana said and put a sweet kiss on Brittany's lips.
"So we're really going to do this?" Brittany said, but it was less than a question and more like wonderment and happiness.
"We really are." Santana said, just as happy.
"I feel so grown up." Brittany mused.
"Me too. We should celebrate."
Brittany regarded Santana for a moment and then smiled slyly. "With a pillow and blanket fort in the living room while we have breakfast?"
Santana busted out laughing. She had meant having a dinner party at their house with their friends after Brittany moved in, but she loved how playful Brittany could be. "Yes, absolutely."
"Awesome!" Brittany beamed and kissed Santana on her cheek before she dramatically threw the blanket off them and got out of bed. "I'll build while you cook!"
"Deal." Santana said getting out of bed as well and followed Brittany out of the bedroom.
-()-()-()-()-
A/N: I hoped you all like this little glimpse! I know it's short, but the next chapter will be a lot longer. It's written, but my beta still has it. Thank you so much for reading and if you have a chance, send me your thoughts! I love hearing from you guys and seeing your feedback.
I'd like to give a special thanks to my beta naynay1963. She's so busy and she still finds time to beta!
Disclaimer: I don't own 'Glee' or any copyrighted material or products that are mentioned in this story.