Bring Me Home
A/N: I am so sorry for the delay, this is pretty short but I'm making an effort to get updates out to help motivate me to write more. Enjoy!
Chapter 8: Make My Heart A Better Place
Disclaimer: All characters are the property of Fox
In hindsight, her abrupt departure from Lima and away from all things Brittany may not have been the best thought out plan. Santana comes to this realization when she and Rachel finally arrive back at their apartment in the Bronx and she drags her exhausted body into her empty bedroom. Standing in the doorway and staring at the spot on the shiny hardwood floor where her bed would have been placed at the end of the summer, Santana wants to slap herself for the very histrionic Berryesque evacuation from Ohio, sans furniture.
"Come on, you can sleep in my room." Rachel quietly offers, touching the small of Santana's back and leading her to the open bedroom door further down the hall.
"Hang on I wanna take a shower first, that freaking plane smelled like stale farts, I need to wash the stench off before I puke." Santana grumbles, squatting down to the floor she rummages through her suitcase for her pj's and toiletries.
"Alright, the bathroom is right across the hall. I've already stocked it with towels and that Dove exfoliating body wash you like." Rachel pauses for a minute to study the other brunette. Its obvious that Santana's had a really long day, the signs of emotional distress painted clearly on her usually blank features. She decides to give it a rest for the night, when or if Santana needs to talk, Rachel will make sure she knows she has a shoulder to cry on again.
"Jesus Christ Superstar! It looks like a Raymour & Flanigan showroom in here." Santana stands at the foot of the large bed to take in the deep red padded headboard, bedding, curtains and the dark polished furnishings. Rachel even managed to somehow squeeze an antique full length mirror and a leather chaise lounge into her bedroom.
"My grandmother said the exact same thing when we finished decorating last week," the brunette rolls her eyes in exasperation "she practically had to hide my debit card to keep me from furnishing the rest of the apartment without your input."
Santana gives an amused snort, knowing Rachel and Tovah Berry like she does, then that particular conversation was probably one hell of a diva match. Running a hand through her dark wet hair, Santana warily eyes the king size bed.
"You sure it's okay for me to sleep in here?"
"Santana, I wouldn't have offered if I felt uncomfortable about us sharing a bed."
"Just making sure," she climbs into bed, holding up here hands in surrender "don't want you're cougar to get pissed if she comes a knocking and finds me curled up around your body pillow."
"I'm certain Jane would be understanding." Rachel primly responds, avidly choosing once again to ignore the mocking of Jane's age. "That's just one of the many advantages of dating a mature woman."
"Chick's packin heat, s'all I'm saying and she looks like the shoot first ask questions later type. You'll at least let me get a head-start, right?"
"Don't worry, I'll cover you." Rachel softly sings, then giggles when her bedmate burrows her head beneath the pillows.
"Ugh, don't start that annoying shit again." Santana groaned into the mattress, causing Rachel to laugh harder.
This was one of the dorkier games they came up with one rainy spring day spent lounging around Rachel and Aubrey's dorm room. Bored yet too lethargic to actually do anything besides drinking vanilla vodka straight from the bottle. So they started making up games, the only one that required a minimum of physical exsertion was singing lines from musicals and songs that just so happen to fit into their current conversation. Rachel, being a theater major was a pro but she was surprisingly impressed when Santana showed her aptitude for the ridiculous game as well, though she often tried to deny it.
"I'm gonna…"
"You're going to …?" Rachel jokingly challenged, just a year ago those words would have been enough to strike fear into the tiny brunette's heart. But after really getting to know Santana, Rachel has learned how to distinguish between real threats and Santana's dark form of teasing.
"Yeah, think of a horrible punishment and insert it here."
"Good Morning roomie." Rachel chirps, pulling back the curtains to allow the bright summer sun to infiltrate her bedroom.
"How the hell are you this damned chipper after only a few hours of sleep?" Santana grumbles, turning away from the invasive sunlight her roommate just exposed the darkened room to, "What've you been doing, freebasing Red Bull?"
"Don't be a grouch Santana, besides you can't freebase Red Bull just cocaine." Rachel calls matter-of-factly over her shoulder.
"I'm almost tempted to ask why it is you know that but yesterday was a terrible, horrible no good very bad day and all I wanna do is sleep it off."
"Perhaps if you had paid attention in Chemistry instead of…" damn! Rachel reprimands herself, she had almost said 'If you had paid attention in Chemistry instead of feeling Brittany up under the lab table' and from the sudden stiffening of Santana's shoulders, the Latina knew where that statement was headed.
"I was too excited to sleep," deftly changing the subject, Rachel roots around in her dresser searching for her workout clothes. "I have to meet up with the coordinators for the Broadway On Broadway concert later today. I've already finished my morning run but I was thinking we can go to the gym for a quick workout. There's a boxing class that starts in half an hour, you can hit something and release all of that pent up rage."
Half of Santana's head timidly ventures from beneath the pillow, her interest mildly peaked, "I do like to hit stuff."
"And after our workout, I'll buy you one of those protein shakes that totally negates the calories you just burned off."
"Alright, I'm in." Santana crawls out of bed suddenly wide awake and heads towards the bathroom.
"Funny that all it takes to pull you out of a funk is the promise to punch something and then get your shake on."
"Well have you tried the peanut butter banana explosion, shits awesome!"
The door drifting open with a resounding creak barely registers to the blond laying flat on her back, staring unseeingly at the vaulted ceiling of her room.
"It's almost eight." a pre-teen blond girl huffs in aggravation at being ignored by her older sister. "I'm going to miss my bus for camp."
"So don't go to camp today." Brittany sullenly replies.
"Papa said you had to make me breakfast."
"You know how to pour cereal in a bowl."
"Fine," the girl stamps her foot, annoyed at her sister's lack of response to her dilemma, "but you still have to take me to the drop off and I can't be late. You of all people know how wacked Coach Sylvester is, if I miss the bus to cheer camp she'll probably make me run alongside of the highway the entire 33 miles to the campsite."
"S'the price you pay for being at the top of the social ladder." One in a very long list of sacrifices that Brittany herself made in order to not become the target of malicious bullying in high school. The second you slip on that red and white uniform you check your soul at the door and pledge unwavering devotion to Sue Sylvester.
Kortney turns her head to the side, curiously studying her older sister's apathetic behavior.
"What's with you Britt, you've been sulking in here ever since Santana stormed outta here yesterday?"
"Nothing, it's none of your business."
"Yeah well, you being all emo over her is cutting into my breakfast and making me late, so it is my business now." placing a hand on her hip, Kortney tosses her blond hair and impatiently waits for Brittany to drag her butt out of bed.
After four whole minutes of her younger sister boring a hole into her head waiting for either juicy gossip or for Brittany to get up, Britt kicks her blanket off of her legs and rolls off of the bed.
"Fine, go grab your water bottle and meet me at the car."
"What about breakfast?"
"Trust me," Brittany calls over her shoulder as she heads to the bathroom, "breakfast is the last thing you'll want on the first day of Sue Sylvester's Cheerio Boot Camp. Montana Andrews made the mistake of eating a big breakfast one year and she ended up puking halfway through the first round of suicides."
The rest of the summer passes by in a blur for Santana. She spends most of her mornings sleeping off a hangover and trying to remember the name of the girl currently sharing her bed. By noon she's managed to dispatch of her latest conquest, endure an hour of Rachel staring disapprovingly at her over a quiet lunch in their favorite café, then take a walk around the neighborhood before heading back to the apartment to sleep until sundown.
With Rachel working two shows a day, Santana is left alone with only her disturbing thoughts for company. It's during these walks that she runs that last argument with Brittany over and over again in her mind trying to pinpoint the exact moment when it all went to hell. She knows that she wasn't imagining things, Brittany still cares for her, maybe even still loves her. Somewhere around the time that they had fallen back into bed and old co-dependant habits, she lost herself completely and left herself wide open for disaster.
Shaking thoughts of her former love from her head, Santana stops at the deli on the corner to catch the eye of the cute Russian girl who works afternoons. A couple of flirty smirks and Nadia is sliding over here number, ensuring that Santana will have something to occupy her lonely night.