19. Brittany & Santana
Puck and Sam carried Rachel to one of the rooms of the chalet. Meanwhile, the rest of the guests started eating their chocolate soufflés in a futile attempt to erase Rachel's intervention from their minds.
New Directions' table was more than quiet after Brittany and Santana's departure. "So… how are things going in Chicago?" Artie asked.
"I love it, man. Dancing all day long… and the competition is not as hard as I thought," Mike chuckled.
"But he misses me too much, right?" Tina held his boyfriend's hand and kissed it. "Like I miss you, my coochie-coochie!"
Mercedes frowned. "Do you know what coochie means, Tina?"
"No, but I love him either way," she resumed her obnoxious sickly sweet display of affection, which was starting to reach a gross level, involving the chocolate of the dessert.
Sugar elbowed Rory, making him spit the soufflé that was into his mouth. "Why don't you love me like this?! Why don't you lick chocolate off my body in public?!"
"Because we're not a couple… We've talked about this…" he tried to answer, but got interrupted.
"Don't speak! I know what you're saying and I don't need your reasons. Don't tell me 'cause it hurts!" she said dramatically, taking her hand to her chest and sighing theatrically.
"Have you ever thought of having a real relationship instead of demanding your exes' attention or trying to make them your vassals?" Blaine intervened.
Sugar furrowed her eyebrows. "Are you asking me out, little un-gay?"
The former Warbler, suspecting what was just about to happen and not feeling like a roll in the hay on the table with Sugar, stood up and went to check on Rachel.
"Wait! Brit, hold on, please!" Santana shouted while taking her shoes off and running across the field without her heels. "Brit!"
The blonde kept walking, not slowing her pace. It even looked like the tears made her run faster. She couldn't believe it, but she did.
"Brittany!" Santana stopped and yelled as loud as she could. "Talk to me!"
"No!" Brittany turned around and faced her girlfriend. "I'm not going to talk to you anymore. No! Never!"
Santana resumed her march. "I didn't sleep with Finn!" She started crying as well. "I would never cheat on you, and you know it!"
"Then why did Rachel say that?! She just made it up to hurt Quinn?! She might be a brag but she's not a liar."
"I… may have faked it. Just, and only just I could have slipped into Finn's bed while he was drunk and told him that we had had sex."
Brittany kept crying. "And you didn't tell me?! I am your girlfriend! We tell everything to each other! Was it… the day you forced me to take Quinn to that strip club?"
Santana nodded, embarrassed about her acts.
"You told me you went to New York that night! Why'd you lie to me?!"
The brunette didn't know what to say or how to react. Play the victim card? Make the lie even bigger? "It's just… It was a secret."
"And Rachel can keep it but I can't?"
Santana remained silent. "I'm sorry, babe…"
"I am too dumb, right? Stupid Brittany cannot keep a secret related to betraying her girlfriend's best friend. But you give it all for the girl you're supposed to hate! So yes, I am too dumb because I don't get it!"
"Why are you saying that? You know I love you."
Brittany turned around and carried on with her flight. "Yeah, you love the retarded girl. Please, ask the government for a subvention."
"Stop saying that!"
And so did Brittany. She stopped saying that and saying everything else. She climbed into her car and left Santana behind, falling on her knees, pulling out of the grass in anger. "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!"
"Hey…" Puck saluted as he walked towards Santana. "Is… everything okay?"
The girl threw a bunch of grass at him. "What do you think, Einstein?!"
"It's kinda racist if you call me Jewish last names just because of my religion," he answered. But when Puck realized that Santana wasn't even in the mood for some verbal humiliation, he just knelt down and pulled her closer into a hug.
Santana's breakdown took its toll. "I fucked everything up!"
"You didn't…" Puck ran his hand up and down her back.
"That's what happens when you get into somebody else's business… Fuck!"
Puck cupped his friend's face and raised it up. "Hey, look at me and shut up." He made a pause when Santana shut up. "You did what you did because you care. And nobody can blame you for it, okay? You lied? Yes. So what?! We all lie. And Brittany will understand it sooner or later. So, chin up and let's keep this party going," he added while standing up, the both of them.
"I've been abjured. Didn't you hear your hot mama?"
"Anyway someone has to watch Berry, lest she chocks with her own vomit."
Santana chuckled and walked towards the chalet with her arm wrapped around Puck's waist. "You cheer me up and gross me out at the same time. How could I have let you go?"
Eighty-five exact minutes later, Quinn Fabray stormed into the room where Rachel was lying, accompanied by Puck and Santana. "Out," she ordered. The fake smiled had totally vanished from her face. There was just a grave expression similar to the one that's drawn on the face of a serial killer when he gets interrupted. "I've already said it twice; you don't really want me to say it a third time."
Puck walked out, but Santana faced her.
"Do you want another caress, bitch?" Quinn threatened.
"Thank Satan that I'm not feeling well, because you're one bollock away from being the first bald bride in the history of your anorexic family."
The door was closed after they left, and Quinn sat on the bed, next to Rachel. She stroked her face and then slapped it. "Wake up!"
Rachel sat up startled. When she saw Quinn's face ten inches away from hers, she pulled back, crashing against the wall. "Oh… my head," she complained.
"I think you and I have some chatting to do, right?" Quinn started.
"I have nothing to say to you, you diabolical, disturbed teenage waste!" Rachel answered. "Oh, fierce honesty. That means I'm still drunk. That means this headache is not a hangover. That means I'm not going to make it through the real hangover."
Quinn bit her lip in anger. "Shut up. Shut up! SHUT UP!" She stood up and threw a flower vase against the wall. "This is not about you! I don't care if your little head hurts or if you've drunk the goat's piss! Today was my day! MY DAY!"
Rachel held the palms of her hands out as a sign of peace. "Okay, Quinn, we can talk as civilized people…"
"You can't tell my husband that you love him in front of my whole family. You can't say that my best friend has slept with him. And you can't call me lunatic the day of my wedding!"
Berry chuckled as she covered her mouth. "Sorry… It's… kind of funny." She ended up laughing loudly. "Okay…" She took a deep breath and tried to calm down. "I apologize. I shouldn't have said the things I said, because it's your wedding. I am really sorry, Quinn."
The bride smiled. "Oh, I didn't think this was going to be that easy."
"It's the truth. It wasn't very nice of me to tell you what happened after I told Finn that I loved him with my whole soul. Oh. I think I didn't. Do you want to know what he answered to my Woman in love?" Rachel made a pause and began to impersonate Finn, "I love you."
Quinn's face turned again. "You're pathetic." She stood up and headed to the door.
"I have witnesses. Ask Blaine."
"That boy is deranged," she laughed.
"Then ask Mr. Shue, or Finn's whole neighborhood." Rachel made a pause. "Or you could ask yourself, because I can't believe that I'm not the reason you've put a ring on his finger after… two months of dating? Come on, Quinny, we're full grown women here. Finn's a seat on the bus in rush hour, you threw yourself onto it before anyone could have taken it away from you."
The full disclosure time was so on. Rachel's tipsiness was fading away, and Quinn's consciousness of reality was tumbling down her denial.
"And I'd really appreciate it if you, here, in this moment of truth, told me that you had just invited me to your wedding because you wanted to see my face while he was committing himself to you forever," Rachel continued.
Quinn showed her archenemy her ring. "Don't call me Quinny, for you I'm Mrs. Quinn Hudson." She opened the door and walked away.
"This is not over, Lucy! NOT OVER! You don't get to turn you back on me. Keep fooling yourself as long as you want, but you can't kidnap him in Yale forever!" Rachel shouted and laid back.
The bride's way back to the party was long and shaky. Her hands were trembling and her eyes were sore. She wanted to cry so badly. She wanted to give up, give in to pressure and all the people that were trying to sabotage her love. Their love. Because it was mutual, right? Or it wasn't? Was it even love? Love? Obsession? An old goal that came back from the past the minute she saw the chance of winning? Was he a husband or a trophy? The love of her life or the only thing that slipped away from her hand? Quinn Fabray's head was full of questions that didn't mitigate once she was back holding Finn's hand.
"Where were you?" he asked.
"Checking on Rachel. She's doing fine. Poor girl. Let's buy her a 12-steps book for her birthday." She smiled and kissed her husband.
Then Mercedes and Tina came up on stage, sitting on stools. "This is our gift to our beloved girlfriend. May all your dreams come true like the one you've achieved today," Mercedes said.
[My heart will go on – Céline Dion]
Mercedes:
Every night in my dreams,
I see you, I feel you.
That is how I know you go on.
Tina:
Far across the distance
and spaces between us,
you have come to show you go on.
Mercedes and Tina:
Near, far, wherever you are
I believe that the heart does go on.
Once more you open the door.
And you're here in my heart.
And my heart will go on and on.
Rachel heard the music coming through the window. "Okay, this is it, last solo these people steal from me." When she opened the door of the chalet, she bumped into Puck and Santana. "Oh." She looked at what her friend was handing her. "Is it…?"
"Oh, please, do you really think that I didn't know this was going to happen?" she answered referring to Rachel's crystal wireless microphone as she slapped her butt. "Go out there and show Team Hell how we roll."
Tina:
Love can touch us one time
and last for a lifetime.
Rachel:
And never let go till we're gone.
Tina hit her microphone a few times while Mercedes tested hers, wondering why they stopped working, until they saw Blaine sitting on one of the unplugged baffles.
Rachel with Santana and Puck:
Love was when I loved you.
One true time I hold to.
Rachel:
In my life we'll always go on.
They marched towards the tent, knowing that things were starting to get surreal, but, actually, not caring at all. They were a Glee Club. That stuff happens.
Rachel:
Near, far, wherever you are
I believe that the heart does go on.
Her eyes fixed on Finn's, whose face was displaying a slight but true smile.
Rachel:
Once more you open the door.
And you're here in my heart.
And my heart will go on and on.
Puck and Santana sat back at the table and left Rachel on her own, standing in the middle of the tent, surrounded by tear-filled eyes and hate faces.
Rachel:
You're here, there's nothing I fear.
And I know that my heart will go on.
We'll stay forever this way.
You are safe in my heart,
and my heart will go on and on.
Santana was crying. Not a-tear-running-down-her-face crying, it was serious crying, streams of mascara. Blaine, as well, staring at her… to-be-determined with his classic silly smile on. Puck was looking at Quinn, who was crying although she was fisting so hard that her palms started bleeding due to her nails piercing her hand.
But all the attention was focused on Finn and Rachel. Looking at each other. Both pair of eyes wet. Both hearts beating fast trying to pull out of their chests. Everybody there was waiting for the groom's answer while Rachel put her hand on her head trying to calm down the pain in it.
Finn stood up under the eyes of his wife. "What are you doing?" Quinn mumbled.
"Sorry." It felt even harder than the main question of the day, the one previous to the "I do" he was already regretting. He started walking through the silence, not moving his look away from Rachel.
Eventually there was no answer needed. Finn's way out didn't pass by Rachel's side. He just… walked away. Slowly but taking a firm stand.
"It's over," Rachel smiled gladly while staring at Quinn. "It's over."
Santana furrowed her eyebrows. "It is definitely a concussion. She lost it. She finally lost it."
Rachel shook her head and smiled widely. "No, it's over to the good."
"Do you mean 'for good'?" Puck asked, worried.
She walked away, in the opposite direction Finn left. "No, I meant what I meant." And she headed home with the sweet flavor of victory and alcohol in her mouth after she saw the wedding ring fall to the grass.
"I've slept with the paraplegic boy over there!" Tina shouted, breaking the silence with clear intentions of getting some attention. "And I am in a stable relationship too! With the Asian boy next to him!"
