This chapter is told mainly from Brittany's perspective but the beginning is told from Santana's view, and bold is flashback. I hope you all enjoy! =D
Six, The Only Exception
"I've got a tight grip on reality,
But I can't let go of what's in front of me here."
- The Only Exception, Paramore
I push open the solid oak door to my parent's bedroom. I find an adult size coffin surround by candles and pictures, just like my sister's had been. But something is different. My mother is on the floor sobbing. She looks up at me, "Santana!"
My eyes fly open at the sound of Santana screaming in her sleep. This is the fourth time in the past week since we've been home. I sit up in the bed wrapping my arm around Santana. "San." I begin to shake her slightly. "San, you've got to wake up, sweetie."
Her eye lids immediately open revealing her tear filled brown eyes. She tries to speak but her trembling lip and small sobs stop her.
"Shh, it's okay." I give her a small smile before placing a kiss on her forehead. I see the clock on the bedside table out of the corner of my eye. 4:02 am. "Do you want to get up now or do you want me to sing you back to sleep?" I put a bigger smile on my face.
I normally wouldn't sing her to sleep out of embarrassment considering how great Santana's voice is but there was the rare case when 'desperate times calls for desperate measures' holds true. And this was one of those cases.
"H-how much time until we need to get up?" Santana forces herself to speak. Today was our first day back work since leaving for Ohio a week and a half ago. Thankfully our bosses were highly considerate with giving us extra time off.
"We've got around another hour and a half." I'm hoping it's long enough to back her want to go back to sleep. She needs to be on her game today because if she's not going to blame herself the smallest things that aren't her fault which is definitely something she doesn't need.
"Sleep." She replies quietly, almost as a whisper.
I lay back down in bed facing her, Santana swiftly curls up against me, and her back is press slightly against my chest. "What do you want to hear? The Beatles?" Ever since our trip to Lima she's been listening to the classics nonstop.
"No, you pick." She mumbles as I wrap my arm around her torso pulling her closer, my other hand besides to play idly with her slightly curled hair, breathing in her scent.
I clear my throat slightly before beginning to sing quietly, to not wake anyone else in the house. "Oh, why you look so sad? Tears are in your eyes, come on and come to me now. Don't be ashamed to cry, let me see you through cause I've seen the dark side too." I continue to sing as Santana takes my hand, intertwining our fingers. "When the night falls on you, and you don't know what to do. Nothing you confess can make me love you less. I'll stand by you."
I don't stop singing until I feel Santana's soft snores begin to echo the room and her breathing evens. All I can do now is hope that I've done enough to keep the nightmares away, at least for the next hour and a half.
"Hey Blondie! Hey Lopez! Nice to have you back!" Puck enters the attending's locker room a wide smile on his face; I had decided to bring Santana to work this morning before heading onto school. I needed to make sure she actually went to rounds rather then hiding away from everyone.
"Hey Puck." Santana turns around and gives him the best smile I've seen her muster in past few days that wasn't for the kids.
I could remember what Santana became like after her abuela died, how she was a completely different person from the grown adult she'd become; irrational, quiet, with mood swings and even sometimes violent, so much like her teenage self. I was thankful that only one of these behaviours has come back to her since her father's death. She doesn't speak half as much, and when she doesn't the perkiness is gone, no enthusiasm in the slightest.
Her behaviour has been egging on my fears of her changing, her becoming the person she used to be.
"Blondie, can I talk to you for a minute?" Puck begins rubbing his chin, signalling that this is something of importance he wants to talk to me about.
Santana wraps her arm around my waist before giving me a quick kiss. "I'll see you when I get home." She gives me a smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes before swiftly exiting the room.
"So what is it this time, Noah?" I chuckle as I take a seat on the bench to tie up my shoes. "Girl problems? Spill." I give him a goofy smile.
"No, none of that." I'm surprised that he never slapped me or scolded me for calling him Noah. "This, this is actually about you, and Santana."
"Okay." I raise my eyebrow slight due to the fact I have no idea what Puck is talking about.
"There's something you got to know, Britt. He's" Puck doesn't finish his sentence, his eyes focus on something or someone behind me.
"Puck?" I slap him slightly on the arm. "Puck." I receive no respond so I decided to turn around and look for myself.
And there it is; the root of what I'm assuming Puck was going to tell me and what has got his tongue. The infamous Artie Abrams, there he was opening a locker and putting some of his stuff in it like it was his usual routine.
I whip by head back to look at Puck. He nods his head. "That's what I was trying to tell you, before you heard it from someone else." He whispers. "How do you think Lopez is going to react?"
His voice is fully of genuine concern. He and Santana have grown to be closer than I thought they ever would. When Puck freaked out over something or another, usually girl problems, Santana was usually the one to calm him down.
"I honestly don't know how Santana is going to react. When we were in Lima and Artie was there she was fine, but right now I honestly don't know. She's changed ever since we got home. She tried to put up a front for her mom and the rest of her family but since we've been home she continues to act like that in front of the kids but in front of me, she's not the same." I close my eyes and shake my head for a moment. "So Puck, I honestly don't know."
He places his hand on my shoulder, "You'll figure it out, Blondie you always do. I just thought it would be better that you heard it from me and that it would be best if Santana heard it from you too. And not from this hospital's gossip chain, it's worse than The Muckraker." He chuckles slightly, I know he's cracking jokes trying to cheer me up; it was one of the things that made him one of my closest friends.
"Thanks Puck, I've got to go find Santana before as you put it 'hears it from the gossip chain' and before she or I catches Artie's attention." I give him a small smile as I swiftly exit the attending's locker room hoping that Artie isn't as observant as he used to be.
As I exit the elevator, walking out onto the ped's floor, a familiar head of raven hair belonging to my wife catches my attention. I stealthily walk over to the main nurses' station to wait for her to finish with her patient.
As I watch her clue up, I can't help but notice the smile she gives her patient doesn't reach her eyes, I also notice a slight twitch in the corner of her mouth. This smile isn't even close to genuine, it may fool her patient and their parents but it doesn't fool me for a second.
That smile only increases my fear that Santana isn't Santana any more; she's becoming a person who isn't the love of my life, just a hard shell of who she used to be.
"Brittany, what are you doing here? You're supposed to be going to work" Santana raises her eyebrow slightly in curiosity.
"Can I talk to you for a minute?" I put my hand on her arm, trying my best to keep professional.
"Yeah sure, fire away." The false perkiness in her voice creates an unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach.
"Can we go to your office? I don't want to talk about this here." I scan the room trying to show her that this is obviously not the best place to do this.
"Okay." She continues to look confused and I don't blame her. "Follow me." She tries to keep it professional, even more than usual.
I follow Santana into her office down the hall. Her office is filled with colourful drawings done by her patients and our own kids. Her desk was a sheet of glass covering almost a hundred photos of our family. Santana takes a seat at her desk, propping her feet up on it.
"As I said earlier, fire away, Brittany." Her tone is unusually firm, completely opposite than it was earlier. She's not putting up the act anymore.
I take the seat across from her. "There's something I need to tell you." My voice is surprisingly calm. Santana looks me in the eye and nods. "Artie, Artie Abrams, is working here at Mount Sinai."
Santana eyes widen as she takes her foot down from her desk. "Are you serious, Brittany? Or are you just pulling my leg, because if you are it's not really all that funny." There it is; the irritability and irrationality.
"Santana, this isn't something I'd joke about okay. He was in the locker room this morning and Puck told me he worked here now. I guess this is the hospital he left Lima for. Are you okay with this?" I lean in over her desk taking her hand in mind trying to make her more relaxed, more herself.
"Okay, I'm fine with it. It just caught me off guard that's all." Her face softens, all except for her eyes. Her eyes tell me she's lying through her teeth right now.
"Okay, good. Considering we're going to be seeing a lot more of him now I'm assuming, I just want you to be okay with this because I'm perfectly okay with it, he's changed and I personally think that we could all be friends if we wanted to be. What'd you think?"
"I think that that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world." Santana gives me a small smile now, I know that it's forced but I take what I can get, for now.
"Now that's my girl, I'll see you at home okay?" I give her a fake goofy grin before leaning in to give her a quick kiss and a wink before heading towards the door. As I open the door I can't help but genuinely smile as I hear Santana call out from behind me.
"Mrs. Lopez?" I turn around to find Santana wearing a full blown smile on her face, this one to my surprise is authentic. "I love you."
Surprisingly enough yesterday had gone fairly smooth after Santana came home. I was thankful today was a Saturday so I got to spend lunch with the New Directions/Mount Sinai crew. I had run over to Santana's favourite diner to get lunch for her and I to bring back to the hospital. I admit that I was somewhat trying to butter her up, I was trying to get her back to her normal self because the mood swings she's been having, especially the one she had in her office yesterday morning, has gotten me extremely worried.
Sitting patiently, more like impatiently, at our usual lunch table with Puck and Quinn waiting for Santana to come down for lunch I'm faced with the inevitable catalyst, also known as Artie Abrams. At first he doesn't notice me.
I watch her out of the corner of my eye as I pretend to be paying attention to some story Puck was telling about something a buddy of his had done in college. A petite red head hands him a brown paper bag, as she does I notice the matching ring on her finger. "This must be the one who changed him." I half-guiltily turn my attention back to Puck as Artie gives the woman I've assumed is his wife a loving look that I also assumed was for her eyes only.
"So Matt threw the whole thing into the mini-fridge, it was so fricking hilarious." Puck almost chokes on air as he laughs heartily.
I laugh as if I was listening the entire time trying to be discrete. As I stop laughing I notice Santana has entered the cafeteria. She has also realized that Artie is sat at the opposite entrance to the cafeteria. The fake smile on her face falters slightly for a moment before she begins to walk towards our table.
I lift up the paper bag that was in my lap, placing it on the table between mine and Santana's usual seat. "I brought us lunch." I give her a genuine smile hoping it provoke one from her as well as she sits down next to me.
It seems to have worked because as she takes her seat she smirks, "Extra cheese, no mayo, no ketchup?"
"Of course, you're the only person I know who doesn't like ketchup and Mayo, it's not something I could forget." I chuckle as she quickly rips open the paper bag, her chocolate brown eyes lighting up like one of her long term patients who has been told they can go home for their birthday.
My mind begins to travel back years before the current scene in front of me at the sight of the smile on Santana's face.
Santana practically prances into the kitchen, a wide smile plastered across her face. She gives me a quick kiss on the cheek while I take the cheese out of the fridge to go on the fajitas I was making for supper. Before I know it she rushes over to Lily who was sitting in her high chair playing with her favorite toy of the week.
"Why are you so cheery? You just got home from a sixteen hour shift and you're pretty much bouncing around like a bunny rabbit." I ask as I scrounge around the kitchen looking for the cheese grater.
"Well since you asked," she pauses as she picks up Lily and pulls herself up on the counter carefully. "I have had a great day. I had three surgeries today that could not have gone more routine and I got to send one of my long term patients home today."
She pauses at the shocked look on my face, "No, I didn't mean in that way, you know me better than that, I'd never be smiling after that. I got to send Harris home today, I'm fairly sure his parents are going to be glad they'll never have to see me ever again."
I can't help but throw her a displeased look with a frown as she continues. "And last, and definitely not least, it's my baby's birthday!" Santana all but yells, careful not to burst any baby ear drums.
I try to stifle my chuckle but it's inevitable. "I thought you didn't like birthdays, 'don't like them, don't celebrate them, they're just like any other day' remember?" There's no doubt in my mind that she remembers, she always said it but always got me something for me on mine anyhow. It was a complete nightmare when we had first gotten together and I had bought her something for her birthday. She put up quite a fight but eventually she did open it.
"This," She says with a giggle as leans over slightly, smelling Lily's raven black hair. "This is different. This is our child's birthday we're talking about here. We're going to bring her to the park after supper and knowing you, you probably already have made her a cake with no eggs. Am I right?" She has clearly decided to make the best of a day that could have ultimately been our worst day every by trying to make me forget about how Lily managed to come into the world. I can't even imagine what I would have been like if I had been in her position that day. But thankfully everything worked out, and here we are; a family.
Santana gives me breathtaking smile that I can't help but love. This woman next to me has given me everything I've ever wanted, everything I need, and so much more. She knows me better than I know myself. I can't help but love every single part of her, she's breathtakingly beautiful inside and out.
"Of course, you're right." I place the cheese grater down on the counter before stepping in front of my wife and daughter. I place a kiss on the top of Lily head before leaning in carefully placing my forehead against Santana's. "I love you."
The smile that was on Santana's face grows even wider, "I love you too, Brittany. Forever."
Right now in this moment I can't help but think that if life didn't get any better than this I'd be more than utterly satisfied.
"Britt, aren't you going to have some?" Santana's voice retrieves me from my memories.
"Don't mind if I do." I chuckle.
Santana swiftly picks up one of her fries and holds it out in front of my face for me to eat. I immediately oblige taking it into my mouth like a dog that has been offered a bone.
"I still can't get over how you two still get on like two love sick teenagers." Puck says with a chuckle. He goes to continue but a disgruntled look filled with pain from what I can only assume is Quinn or possibly even Santana at this point, stomping on his foot.
"I'll take that as a compliment, Noah." I say with a smirk. He says nothing more, only continuing to sulkily eat his sandwich.
"Was that you?" I whisper softly enough for it to be only detectable to Santana's ears.
By the look on her face I can tell that yes, yes it was her. There is a smirk on her face that goes from ear to ear, making me turn to goo.
It's the moments like these that make it so hard. I hold on to them hoping that the change in her mood will be permanent and she'll return to being the woman I fell in love with, the woman I married, the mother of my children; I hold on tight and can't let go, no matter how much my head is screaming at me to face reality, even when I know I should, I just can't let go.