A/N: So between this and the Brittany one shot, I'm having a very productive week having written almost 15,000 words in less than seven days. That's good for me anyway.
As the word count no doubt implies, this chapter is very long. Longer than any other chapter in this story by over 2k, so long in fact that I thought about splitting this as well, but there wasn't a very natural break and what this ends with and what the next chapter is going to start with don't connect up with.
So, long chapter. Hope everyone enjoys.
Chapter 9
Retracing
Santana coughed herself awake. Her vision was blurry, her ears were ringing, and she tasted asphalt on her tongue, everything around her smelled like smoke. There was a pain in her left leg she couldn't identify and there was blood on her clothes that she also couldn't identify. There was a burning wreck of a car nearby and two other people on the ground, one of them on fire and not moving, thus probably dead. None of those things concerned her remotely as much as the fact that she didn't know where Brittany was.
Her head was killing her. Moving at all hurt like hell which is why she was still lying on her side on the ground.
There were three cars that were currently on fire. Two of them seem to have exploded; one had just caught fire.
She needed this throbbing in her head to stop so she could focus on what the hell was going on. She raised her hand to touch her forehead and found a sizable welt growing there. Even a light touch of the area sent a sharp stabbing pain directly into her brain. Strangely enough that actually worked. The brain's pain receptors prioritize pain and sharp, stabbing pains are generally more life threatening than dull, throbbing pains so sharp trumps throbbing and for whatever reason stabbing pain didn't stop her from thinking.
She was definitely missing some time but that in conjunction with the knot on her forehead made sense. Head injuries can often result in short term memory loss.
So what did she remember?
She remembered Longhorn shooting at her and Ladybird shooting at him.
She remembered smelling something…
Gas, she smelled gas, gasoline. That explained the fire. Longhorn shot up a bunch of cars and somehow the gas caught fire. The cars that still had a lot of gas left in them exploded. The big SUV had been the first thing hit, its tank was almost empty so not enough pressure to explode. She didn't actually remember any of this happening, she was just extrapolating.
Longhorn, he was the dead guy on fire. No one else in the world is that tall… okay, so not really true but whatever. How did he get dead? Did she do that? Throw lit matches at him or something? Did she have matches on her? It wasn't coming to her; that memory was probably long gone and never coming back.
What else? Other person on the ground… female, singed blonde hair, possibly a result of the explosion, fair skin tinged with soot and ash from fire/explosion, not Brittany though, thank God, she was pretty sure it was Ladybird. Santana still had no idea where she and Ladybird stood. Why had she started shooting at Longhorn? Longhorn shot at her first, right? Sam, Sam's message, she'd delivered it as promised.
Sirens, she heard sirens in the distance. That meant she hadn't been out long. It also meant that she needed to flee the area. Santana dragged herself to the nearest car and started to haul herself to her feet. She failed at it twice before she finally managed. It was an enormous act of will on her part. Her entire left side hurt, her leg and lower back particularly. She quickly felt the area looking for a piece of glass or something sticking into her but she couldn't find anything. She'd have to deal with it later. She needed to clear the scene.
She looked back down to where Ladybird lay. She was torn between checking on her and saving herself. Taking a second to examine her, Ladybird didn't appear to be bleeding, she wasn't on fire or even anywhere near the fire (the explosion probably threw her clear), and she was plainly breathing normally. With that, she was officially on her own, since as far as Santana knew Ladybird would try to kill her as soon as she regained consciousness. Not worth the risk.
Santana determined that the blood on clothes was most likely her own but it didn't seem to be gushing from any place at the moment so it was time to hobble.
As soon as she'd taken three steps, Santana knew what the problem was, she'd been shot. Each step she took was agony, lightning racing up and down her left side. Even the pain suppression techniques that she knew didn't come anywhere near dealing with this. The bullet must be lodged against a nerve. If Longhorn had shot her with that ridiculous gun then it would have gone straight through, possibly taking the leg with it, plus how on Earth would he ever get the bullet at that angle being so tall. That left only Ladybird… all the more reason to get away from the scene.
But that was a problem, she could barely walk, let alone run. She was never going to get clear of the area before the authorities arrived. She gritted her teeth and tried her damnedest to walk normally. She was looking for anywhere that she could possibly hide until everyone left, when suddenly Ladybird was standing in front of her pointing a gun at her chest. Santana did not have the strength to fight her right now.
"Look me in the eyes and tell me he's alive," she said sternly, her intense hazel eyes searing into Santana, "If you were lying to me, I'll kill you right here and now… Firebrand."
"He's alive," Santana squaring her shoulders as best she could, "Or like I said, he was two days ago. I can't swear about now."
Ladybird studied her hard for a very long, very tense minute looking for any sense that she was deceiving her. Finally, she re-engaged the safety on her gun, holstered it and said, "C'mere," draping Santana arm over her neck and putting an arm around Santana's waist. "Thanks for leaving me back there," she said snidely.
"Thanks for shooting me," Santana retorted.
"I didn't shoot you," she replied rather confidently.
"I guess you'll see when you drive me somewhere to get this bullet dug out of me," Santana said.
"Yes, we will," Ladybird replied, "I've got a car just up here." Santana did her best to help carry at least some of her weight on her good leg but really Ladybird was doing all of the work. Santana was mostly just choking down the pain. "Normally they tell doctors to ask people who may have a concussion to repeat basic information about themselves, but we're not really supposed to share that information. Code names?"
"No, I fucking hate dumbass code names," Santana said, "I can never remember the stupid things. Primary aliases."
"Okay, fair enough," she said, "Quinn Russell, 5531 River Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts."
"River Street? Nice," Santana said, "Though I don't buy you as a Quinn at all, but whatever. Mine is what I told you Lady Christina Maria Francesca Louisa Vargas, though I don't make people call me by my title...or my full name. Residence is at 22nd Street and Ninth Avenue, New York."
Ladybird, or Quinn, brought them to a stop beside a black Ford Explorer and dug the keys out of her jacket pocket. "A Lady lives in Chelsea?" she asked unlocking the back door.
"A Lady likes ethnic diversity," Santana said as she sprawled across the backseat of the car. She screamed in agony when she accidentally shifted the wrong way and most of her weight ended up on her bullet wound.
"Can you be quiet please?" Quinn said as she settled into the driver's seat, "In case you forgot, we're running from the police here. Women screaming in pain tend to draw attention to that. God, you act like you've never been shot before."
"I haven't," Santana growled through gritted teeth as she struggled to readjust herself.
Quinn started up the car and backed out of the space driving slowly towards the highway to avoid drawing any further attention to themselves. Once they were well off the campus, Quinn looked back at her and said, "You've seriously never been shot before?"
"No," Santana said dryly, "You see, I'm actually good at my job."
"Just shut up and try not to bleed to death," Quinn said.
Santana thought to make a comment in response but found that she was just too tired to care. Now that she was lying down in a semi-comfortable position, it became obvious just how much of her energy that whole gunfight had burned up. So instead of coming up with a witty rejoinder, she just laid head down in the backseat while Quinn drove.
She never fell asleep as such but she definitely zoned out for at least a good twenty minutes, maybe more, and only snapped out of it when she heard Quinn open the door and start climbing out. "Say down," she said, "I'm going to go make sure everything's in order. I'll be right back."
"Wait," Santana called after her. Quinn turned back to her. "Where are we?"
"Harvard Medical School," Quinn said, "Wait here just a minute." She shut the door without waiting for anything more. Santana's head fell back down to the seat to wait. Her ass and leg were killing her. Again it was that throbbing pain that prevented her higher brain functions from working. It was just as well, she didn't want to think right now.
It wasn't long before Quinn returned pulling open the passenger side rear door, the one nearest Santana's head, and rolled up a gurney up the car. "Can you crawl?" she asked. Santana nodded and dragged herself along the length of the seat and onto gurney.
"Why'd you bring me here?" Santana asked as Quinn wheeled her into the building.
"If I'd taken you to the ER with a bullet in you, they'd have called the cops," Quinn said.
"And they'd match ballistics to your gun and arrested you for shooting me," Santana said, "I knew you shot me."
"I didn't shoot you," Quinn said.
"I know why we didn't go to the ER," Santana said, "I meant why here? Do you know somebody here who doesn't mind being a gunshot doctor?"
"Something like that," Quinn said but didn't elaborate as she guided Santana's gurney down the vacant hallways.
After a few minutes she turned Santana ninety degrees and pushed her through a set of double doors. Santana looked up to find herself in a surgical theater. There was a tray where the instruments would sit, lights, there were even modesty curtains. What there didn't appear to be was a surgeon. "Is there a doctor in the house?"
"Nope," Quinn said as she pulled Santana to a stop more or less in the middle of the room next to an operating table and Santana slowly moved herself of to it, "You're stuck with me. I'm going to go get the instruments and scrub up. You work on getting your pants off." She wheeled the instrument tray off to one side.
Santana pushed her hips up so she could undo her pants, then lay back down as she worked them over her hips and down her legs. "You do know what you're doing, right?" she asked Quinn scrubbed her hands at the sink. "You're not like about to just yank a damn bullet out of my leg with a pair of forceps and a bottle of scotch are you?"
"I don't have any scotch," Quinn said over her shoulder.
"Yeah, that's really funny," Santana said.
"I've been trained in field surgery," Quinn said, "I've pulled more than a few bullets out of people. Only one person died and it was a long shot that I was going to save her anyway."
"You're not the most reassuring person in the world, you know?" Santana said.
"Oh shut up," Quinn said as she rinsed her hands and started pulling on gloves, "You're barely even bleeding."
"Well having a bullet in my leg and god knows what in my back isn't exactly pleasant and being as you're responsible for both, could you please hurry the fuck up?" Santana griped. "This thing hurts like a bitch."
Quinn made no move to hurry as she retrieved the instruments from the autoclave and lined them up on the tray. She then walked over to another drawer and retrieved some packaged items, then brought everything over to Santana. "For the third time, I didn't shoot you."
"Well Longhorn is too tall to have shot me at this angle," Santana said, "He would have to been laying on his belly to… Sorry, I didn't mean to… I'm sorry your partner's dead, even if he was, y'know, trying to kill both of us."
"It's alright," Quinn said, "We weren't really that close. He was…" She shook her head. "He got on my nerves most of the time and he was a terrible assassin, but occasionally he was a good guy… up until he tried to kill me. Plus he lied to me about Barracuda being dead everyday for a year, so you won't find me shedding any tears." She pulled a light towards her and flipped it on illuminating Santana's backside. "I'm not going to be able to sedate you," she said, "I don't have the training and I don't have a nurse to keep watch on you, but I can tell just by looking that I'm going to have to open this wound to get the bullet out. I'll give you a local, but it's not going to help much."
"Do it," Santana said laying her head back into the mat of the surgical table.
Quinn unwrapped and uncapped a hypodermic and jabbed it into Santana's thigh. "If the pain becomes overwhelming, don't fight the urge to pass out." After giving the shot a few minutes to take effect, Quinn went to work with a scalpel and Santana winced in pain but resisted the urge to scream since she wasn't entirely sure if they had the okay to be here.
Quinn was right, the local anesthetic hadn't helped much at all. The top layers of skin and muscle were numb but it didn't take long for the scalpel to hit fully sensitive flesh. "You're not bleeding much," Quinn informed her, "Looks like it missed all of the major arteries."
"Great," Santana said, "Can you just pull the damn thing out?"
"As soon as I'm sure that pulling the damn thing out won't cause you to start gushing blood," Quinn replied, "I can't very well find Barracuda if you bleed to death."
"S-so," Santana winced, "That's why you're doing this?"
"That's a big part of it," Quinn said.
"What's the other part?"
"Bishop," she said.
Santana lifted her head to turn and look back at Quinn. "How do you know him and what's he got to do with this?"
"I don't know him as anything other than a code name and a voice on the other end of telephone call," Quinn said, "He's my handler. Every mission I've ever been given has come down through him. That's how I know him. Yesterday morning we all got a blast message about you going rogue. Then about an hour later, I got a phone call from Il Maestro telling me to be on the lookout for you because I was babysitting your best friend. Half an hour after that, I got a call from Bishop telling me to give you a chance, to hear you out before eliminating you."
"Huh," Santana said dropping her head back down to the mat.
If Quinn was expecting any sort of elaboration, it didn't show. "Wow," she said, "For a ricochet shot, that thing is really in there."
"Are you going to be able to get it?" Santana asked.
"Pretty sure," Quinn replied, "Just give me another minute."
"Well, it's not like I'm going anywhere," Santana said.
"Got it," Quinn said, "Got a grip on it, I mean. When I pull this out, it's gonna hurt like hell. Fair warning."
"I am so wahhhhh!" Santana screamed when Quinn yanked the bullet free. "Shit!" she added.
Quinn dropped the slug into a pan and held it up Santana's face. "Does that look like a nine millimeter shot to you?"
"No," Santana said.
"So will you finally admit that I didn't shoot you?"
"I suppose."
X
1:07pm, May 24th
"That building there?" Quinn asked.
"Yep," Santana said, "He was working as a handyman, going by the name Sam. He also gave me the name Evan. I don't know how well you know all of his aliases."
"Pretty well," Quinn said.
"What are you going to do if you find him?"
"I honestly don't know," Quinn replied with a smile, "So far every thought has been about finding him and making sure he's really alive. I don't think I'll fully believe it until I see it for myself."
"I get that," Santana said. "Oh yeah, the forger." Quinn's eyebrow shot up. "There's a forger in Jersey, Middleton…"
"Puck?" Quinn said.
"You know him too?"
"We've met."
"Okay, then," Santana said, "You know everything I know about him." Santana opened the car door and gingerly maneuvered her way out, dragging her bags with her. "You find him, you two find somewhere and keep your heads down. Both of you have crossed The Brotherhood to help me now… or you didn't do it for me, whatever. You've aided a rogue assassin which makes you a rogue assassin."
"If what you say is true, then Il Maestro's the one who's gone rogue," Quinn said, "You should contact Bishop. I don't know what's between you two but he still believes in you."
"I hope you're right about that," Santana said, "but I can't risk it right now. Good hunting, Ladybird."
"Good hunting, Firebrand."
Santana took off down the street, limping only slightly. She and Quinn had broken into a pharmacy and loaded her up on Vicoden after her surgery which left her with fifteen stitches in her thigh. Quinn managed to retrieve the bullet fragment from her lower back without need to cut her open, thankfully. The pain was under control. Now she was just very stiff, but she wasn't going to let that slow her down.
She made her way down to the subway and hopped on the train that would take her to her best bet at trying to track down Brittany. By her reckoning, Brittany was either back in New York or in Lima, Ohio and something told her that Brittany knew she'd have a better chance hiding among the 9 million in New York than in the 30,000 of Lima. If Brittany was in New York, then the first place to start looking was her dance studio.
Brittany wasn't anywhere to be found, not that she expected her to be. Santana was actually looking for Brittany's friend and second-in-command, Mike. She didn't even have a last name but if Brittany was laying low like Santana had told her to then Mike would most likely be here from what Santana understood of the way they ran this place. Some subtle asking around got her pointed to a tall, handsome Chinese guy.
She didn't talk to him there. She actually didn't talk to him at all. Instead she left and found a good place to camp and watch for him. She couldn't exactly stand around the dance studio doing nothing without drawing suspicions and thirty stitches in her leg meant she wasn't going to be dancing anytime soon.
As she waited on the studio to close, Santana pulled out her computer, which thankfully had survived the explosion, unlike her cell phone, and did a little searching. Abe had set her up with an alert system if anyone ran either Brittany real ID or her fake. (It was supposed to be a warning system in case someone else was tracking them, but it served this purpose too.) Abe had given Brittany's alias a back story and made it legit. Santana wasn't expecting Brittany to go anywhere someone might actually run her ID, but it couldn't hurt to be thorough.
By 8:00 that night when the studio was supposed to close, Santana was officially tired of waiting on this guy which was extremely weird for her since she was normally so patient when she was tracking someone. Normally it was nothing to her to sit in place for hours or even days on end. Hell, she'd followed Brittany everywhere she went for nearly a month, but now just over six hours of waiting was far too much for her.
It was because this wasn't a job. She was only patient on the job. In real life she hated waiting and Brittany wasn't a job. Brittany was her real life and this guy staying at the studio until half an hour after closing was stopping her from catching up to Brittany, stopping her from knowing that Brittany was safe. It was something that was on her mind and had been once the immediate threat to her life was gone and her leg was stitched back up. She wanted to believe that if something had happened to Brittany that she would know… somehow… but she didn't really believe in that sort of thing. The reality of it was that not one but two shadowy cabals had a vested interest in her: The Brotherhood wanted her dead she knew for certain since that was how they got to where they were now, and if The Templars knew about Brittany disappearing with a member of The Brotherhood, then they'd likely want her dead too.
Finally at almost a quarter to nine, Mike emerged from the studio and locked the front door behind him and Santana began tailing him. He wasn't difficult to tail since Asian guys who are six feet tall tend to stand out a little. She followed him onto the subway, quietly thankful that he didn't have a car since she didn't want to have to deal with New York City traffic during a tail. They rode the train to Brooklyn where Brittany had once said they lived.
He stopped in for takeout at a sub shop, emerging a few minutes later with two sandwiches. Santana knew from conversations that Mike had either a wife or live in girlfriend named Tina, Brittany's best friend since childhood, so the other sandwich was likely for her.
His/their place was in an apartment building two blocks from the sub shop. She watched him walk in and then she went up to the front door to examine the buzzer system. Thankfully it was an older building that still had the residents' names next to the button. Admittedly it was racial profiling, but her best guess was that Mike's last name was Chang and he lived in apartment 422. Lockpicks on the service entrance door around back allowed Santana entrance into the building. She quickly and quietly got the layout of the floors and then slipped back out finding out where the exterior windows of The Chang Apartment were.
Santana scaled the fire escape of a neighboring building to the roof and perched herself there to wait and watch some more. Unfortunately there were both blinds and curtains over all of their windows and none of them ever moved all night. Lights went on and off, shadows of two people who were both definitely not Brittany moved across them.
And so Santana sat there, not moving, all night and into the morning.
Shortly after nine, Mike and a shorter Korean girl (presumably Tina) left the building together and walked a few blocks before splitting at the same subway station that Mike had used the night before. She figured there were pretty good odds that Mike was going back to the studio so she could pick him back up there later if needed.
She opted to follow Tina who walked to a nearby Starbucks. Coffee sounded like a great idea to Santana so she went in too. She let a couple go in ahead of her so that there was a buffer between Tina and herself. She thought she may well have hit pay dirt when she heard Tina order not one but three drinks to go.
Tina continued walking several more blocks and if Santana didn't know better she would have assumed that Tina was likely a native New Yorker since few other people would walk this far without hailing a cab. Maybe she just liked to walk. Finally, Tina stopped and turned into a dress shop where she was met with smiles and hugs from a heavy set black woman and a short, energetic girl with dark hair and brown eyes and an energetic smile, reminded Santana of Rachel a little. She watched Tina hand off drinks to the others and then noticed Tina's left hand and the ring on it. Tina and Mike were getting married. Brittany hadn't told her. Then she wondered if Brittany knew. Now she was even more determined to find Brittany and to somehow find a way to get her clear of all this so she could go to her best friends' wedding.
There was no good vantage point to keep watch on the dress shop, but ultimately Santana decided that it would be pointless to do that anyway, Brittany wasn't there. Odds are Brittany wasn't anywhere near the Changs or any her friends. She wouldn't want to bring her troubles down on them.
She gave up following Tina and made for the subway. It was time to approach Mike and see if he had saved the burner number that Brittany had used to call them a couple of days ago. Santana had saved the number in her phone but not had the time to commit it to memory and the phone hadn't survived her getting slammed into a car in the explosion back in Boston.
All she needed was a convincing lie and a couple more pre-paid cell phones. Fortunately, she already knew where there was a cell phone kiosk less than two blocks from the studio since she'd already bought one there. If the owner of the shop recognized her, he didn't say anything. Santana bought two smartphones and one back-up battery. An hour later she had them both set up and had a not-exactly-legal app downloaded onto one that would turn it into a makeshift cell interceptor, and she walked into the dance studio. It took her only a moment to locate Mike. "Hey, uh, you're Mike, right? Brittany's partner?"
"I am," he said, "Is there something I can help you with?"
"I was hoping so. I'm Sophia De La Cruz," she said in such a way as to imply that Mike should know the name. He didn't of course, she'd just made it up.
"Sorry," Mike said, "Name doesn't ring a bell."
"Brittany was supposed to be giving me private dance lessons but I haven't heard from her in a couple of days."
"Look if you guys hooked up and she's not calling you back, well, I'm sorry but that's just kind of how Brittany is," Mike said.
"Oh god, no," Santana feigned embarrassment, "I mean, I wouldn't necessarily say no, but no I really just mean dance lessons. I came to a few classes here but I wasn't really picking things up very quickly and I have to learn for my classes. I would have called her but my phone got stolen and I had to get a new number and all my old numbers are gone."
"So so weird," Mike said, "The same thing just happened to Brittany."
"New York, right?"
"New York," Mike repeated, "but as to the dance lessons, I'm afraid Brittany left town on vacation a few days ago, very suddenly. There may be someone else who can help you around here. I would but I'm stuck running this place while she's gone plus trying to plan a wedding."
"A wedding? Your wedding?" Santana asked.
"Yeah," he said with a little smile.
"Congratulations, when's the big day?"
"Oh, not for a while now," Mike explained, "We both have huge families spread all over the country, not to mention the family members back in China and South Korea. We're still trying to figure out when exactly we can get the most people here. It's looking like next spring sometime."
"That's cool," Santana said, pausing only just a minute before saying, "Okay, I really like working with Brittany and if she's only going to be out of town a few days then I'd rather just wait on her. I know you'd probably never give me her number since you don't know me, but could you call her and ask if she knows when she'll be back? I'm sorry, I know I'm imposing."
Mike seemed to consider it for a minute before pulling out his phone. He made the call from a saved entry. If he'd dialed the number then Santana would have been able to deduce the digits, but oh well. Instead she settled for pressing the button on the cell interceptor in her right hand. Mike held the phone to his ear and listened. Thirty seconds later Santana's phone dinged and a moment later Mike hung his up. "No answer, no voicemail. Sorry."
"Not your fault," Santana said, "Thanks for trying. I'll try back in a week or so."
Santana was sort of privately thankful that Brittany hadn't answered her phone since she didn't really know what she would have done if she'd answered. She was mostly hoping that Brittany would somehow understand that it was her trying to get in touch. Anyway, she didn't have to worry about that now. Once she was outside the studio she looked at her phone again and sure enough the pirate app worked. She'd successfully cloned Mike's cell phone.
Santana make her way to a nearby coffee shop, ordered her second cup of the morning, and sat down to get to work on finding Brittany. She pulled out her laptop and plugged in the cell phone. If Brittany's cell was still on after Mike's call then she could locate it. She may not have been a complete tech geek like Abe but she could pull of a GPS trace.
She watched as the computer did it's thing. The image on the screen went from all of the United States to focusing on New England to the Tri-State area, down to Manhattan. It paused there for a couple of minutes as it narrowed in. The image sifted to Upper Manhattan and Santana's mind began to run back to all the places that she'd followed Brittany in the weeks she'd been watching her. When the image shifted again to just the Upper East Side, her eyebrows furrowed until it shifted again and suddenly Santa felt incredibly stupid, "Idiot," she muttered to herself, "You told her to go somewhere safe." Sure enough, when the image on the screen shifted one final time, it pegged Brittany's location, or at least Brittany's phone location as being in Santana's safe house.
Santana couldn't shove her things in her bag fast enough. She took off out of the shop, leaving behind her untouched coffee. She quickly flagged down a cab and gave the driver the address. The ride from the East Village to her safe house felt like it was interminable. It didn't help that it was just before noon and traffic was a bitch. If her leg wasn't hurt, Santana would be tempted to just get out and run. Hell she was tempted to do it anyway, but she didn't want to bust any stitches so she sat and rode for almost half an hour.
She was already digging out her keys as the cab pulled up to a stop. She gave the driver a huge tip and flew out of the cab. She was to the door of the dinky apartment in seconds. She was about to jam the key in the lock and open the door but thought it might do better to announce herself first, remembering that Brittany now knew how to defend herself. She knocked softly, twice and said, "Brittany, it's me. I'm going to open the door, okay?"
Slowly she slid her keys into the knob and twisted the handle. As she slowly opened the door, all she saw was darkness. All the lights were off and no one said anything or moved. There were no windows in the tiny basement apartment so the only light came from behind her through the open door. Santana worried that she hadn't actually found Brittany, just Brittany's phone. She stepped through the doorway and the door was pushed shut behind engulfing her in darkness. Suddenly she was wrapped up by strong, feminine arms in a crushing bear hug. For a moment, she wasn't sure if she was being welcomed or attacked, but soft lips being pressed against hers answered that question. She kissed back and reached around feeling the familiar curve of Brittany's back and hips pulling their bodies tight.
After several minutes of very intense kissing Brittany broke off from Santana, loosened her grip on her slightly, pressed a kiss to Santana's neck and said, "I was so scared I'd never see you again. I saw about the explosion. Tell me are you okay? It won't change anything if you're scarred up or whatever, I promise."
Santana reached behind her, now that she could actually move her arm and flipped on the overhead light. "Still think I'm pretty?" she asked jokingly.
"You're the most beautiful woman… the most beautiful anything I've ever seen," Brittany replied in all earnestness. Santana smiled at her and took a moment to take in the sight of Brittany. She was wearing a white button-up shirt that Santana was pretty sure was hers and a pair of thin pink lace panties and apparently nothing else. The shirt was slightly wrinkled and appeared to only have one button done. Brittany seemed to take notice of Santana's scrutiny. "I, um, I… well, the shirt smells a lot like you, and well, you sort of interrupted me."
"Interrupted," Santana said, "What did I interrupt?"
Brittany smiled, wise to what Santana was doing, "You know."
Santana smiled in return and shook her head, "Nope, I don't know," she said, "Why don't you show me what I interrupted?"
Both of them let go of one another. Brittany bit her bottom lip as she turned to walk towards the mattress that she'd just vacated. She undid the button on the shirt but left it on turning her head to stick her nose in the loose collar and breathed in Santana's lingering scent and sighing contentedly. Then in a lightning fast motion Brittany's panties were on the floor and Brittany stepped out of them and onto the bed. Facing away from Santana, Brittany crossed her ankles, spun in place, and sat down all in one fluid motion. Her shirt billowed up behind her as she did, briefly exposing all of Brittany before it settled back down on her. Brittany slid herself down the bed, knees bent and together at first before they slowly parted. Brittany brought her right hand up to the valley between her still cover breasts letting her fingers just barely graze the surface of the skin as she trailed it down her chest, across the plain of her toned stomach, circling her bellybutton before dipping lower. "Like what you see, baby?" Brittany said her voice sultry and full of lust. Santana stared hard, wetting her lip and silently nodding. "Help me with some visuals?"
Santana yanked her shirt overhead in a flash and reached back to unhook her bra as Brittany sighed and dipped her fingers inside of herself. Santana flung her bra to god knows where and brought a hand up to each of her breasts caressing herself gently. "Tell me how you feel, Britt."
"Hot," she said softly as she worked in and out of herself at a slow, steady pace, "Ohhh… and wet, for you."
"Were you close?" Santana asked, "Before I interrupted?" Brittany nodded insistently. "Are you close now?" Brittany shook her head. Santana pinched both of her nipples causing herself to moan pretty loudly. "That help?"
"Stick your hand down your pants," Brittany said between moans slowly speed up her thrusting, "Touch yourself but don't let me see it."
Santana dropped her hands to her belt and struggled briefly to get it undone. She took two steps to stand right at the foot of the bed. Less than three inches she stood from Brittany. She got the belt loose and undid her jeans. She moved her right hand down her stomach as she moved her left up. She once again cupped her left breast just as her right hand dipped into her underwear and moaned again. "God, Brittany, baby, you should feel this pussy."
Brittany's rolled back in her head at Santana's words "Is it wet?"
"It's so wet," Santana replied as she quickened the pace of her fingers against herself.
Brittany pushed her open shirt aside and exposed one of her perfect breasts and the rosy, pink nipple atop it playing with it as she gasped and sighed. "Is it wet for me?"
"Fuckgodshityes!" Santana said as she ground her clit against the palm of her hand, "Yes, baby, all for you."
"Ready to be done with this foreplay crap?" Brittany asked.
"God, yes," Santana said, "Tell me what you need."
"Eat me," Brittany said very desperately as she withdrew her fingers, "Please, eat me." She extended the fingers coated in her wetness to Santana who wasted no time in leaning down to lick the two digits clean, even making sure to lick the small bit off Brittany's thumb. She knelt at the edge of the bed taking Brittany's long, smooth, strong legs in hand pulling Brittany closer to the edge of the bed. Santana held Brittany's right leg against her chest forcing in out straight. She placed a light kiss on the inside of Brittany's ankle, then another just below that, slowly inching her way down Brittany's leg. "God, you fucking tease," Brittany groaned.
Santana had only heard Brittany swear a couple of times, all of them while they were naked, so in a way it was sort of Pavlovian for her to find it sexy. "It'll be worth it," Santana said as pressed a kiss to the inside of her knee. Brittany pushed her hand into the mess of Santana's hair, fisting around the locks as she groaned at the teasing.
At some length, Santana finally reached the apex of Brittany. She paused and hovered just above Brittany's sex. "God, Santana please!" She finally ended Brittany's torment by gently pressing her lips to Brittany before sliding her tongue out to lick along Brittany's folds. Brittany's hips immediately jerked reflexively at the contact as she moaned out Santana's name. Santana brought her hands up to hold Brittany's hips and felt her trembling in excitement. Santana looked up Brittany's beautiful, naked body to her face but her head was thrown back in ecstasy and gasping.
Santana smiled at herself as she continued to lap at Brittany's core. "Look at me," Santana said but Brittany either didn't hear or didn't respond, "Britt, look at me." This time she complied, lifting her head to meet Santana's gaze. As soon as their eyes met, Santana wrapped her mouth around Brittany's clit and flicked it with the tip of her tongue. Brittany fought to keep eye contact but ultimately failed as the sensation eventually became over whelming and her head fell back as she pressed her hips up driving herself harder into Santana as her moans became more and more frequent.
"Fingers," Brittany rasped out. Santana wasted no time moving her left hand to Brittany entrance and easily sliding two fingers inside her. "Fuck, yes," she moaned loudly causing Santana to moan against her, "Faster." Santana quickened her pace as sucked her clit. "God, don't stop. Close, close, so close."
Santana would never dream of stopping. She quickly found Brittany's g-spot and stroked it with her fingertips. "Come for me, baby," Santana said. When she felt Brittany's body begin to tense, she withdrew her fingers moving them to continue to massage Brittany's clit and moved her mouth down to tease Brittany's opening with her tongue.
This finally pushed Brittany over the edge and she came undone with Santana's name on her lips, her muscles all tensed as she once more pressed herself hard against Santana, and the full force of Brittany's orgasm hit Santana in the face. Everything from Santana's nose down to her chest was covered in wetness. The scent, the taste, and, yes, the power trip of it had Santana ready to follow Brittany's orgasm with her own, almost but not quite.
Santana licked her lips as she continued to pepper delicate kissed to Brittany's lips and thighs. Only after Brittany let out a very contented sigh did Santana straighten back up to stretch her back. Brittany looked up at her just as Santana was about to start cleaning her face off. "Don't do that," she said hastily, "Don't wipe yourself off. Kiss me."
"What?" Santana asked.
Brittany quickly sat up and took matters into her own hands, grabbing Santana's head with both hands and crashing their lips together. She sucked Santana's upper lip between hers and sucked the wetness off, then repeated it with her bottom lip before pressing her lips to Santana's chin. She then licked up every drop she could find on Santana's neck and eventually migrating down to her upper chest and breasts, each in turn. Santana moaned as Brittany took the excuse to give her nipples a tongue bath. Finally Brittany sat back and said, "I love the way I taste and when I come like that I always want to taste myself as much as possible. It's…" she sighed again as her eyes rolled back again. "It's a huge turn on. I'm already ready for round two but first it's your turn, so for God's sake, take your fucking pants off."
"Okay," Santana said rising back to her feet, "But don't freak out," she added as she gently pushed her jeans down over her hips and down her legs slowly revealing the large white bandage wrapped around her left thigh, covering her wound.
"Oh my God!" Brittany shouted, "What happened to you? Why didn't you tell me about this?" Brittany gently placed both hands on Santana's leg just above her knee.
"I got shot," Santana said and shock and worry overtook Brittany face. Santana tilted Brittany's head up so she could look her in the eyes. "I'm fine," she stressed, "I'm stitched up. I've got painkillers. I can barely even feel it."
Brittany looked back down at her leg and inspected it some and asked, "When was the last time you changed this dressing?" She looked back up at Santana gnawing on her bottom lip and looking towards the ceiling. "If you're having to think about it, it's been too long, Santana." She stood up from the bed. Brittany walked to the cabinet under the sink in the kitchenette, opened the door and retrieved Santana's medical supplies, clearly having taken stock of the very small apartment in the 36 hours.
"Brittany, it's fine," Santana insisted.
"It will be fine," Brittany corrected her, "once I clean and redress your leg. Now finish taking your pants off and lay down. If you're a good girl and don't fight me on this then Nurse Brittany will reward you with hot sex."