Chapter 19
For as long as Santana had known her, Rachel had always described Premiere Weeks as beautiful beginnings. She claimed there was something magical about the whole thing. It was the preparation of the moment she let another one of her creations out into the world. A baby bird leaving the ultra plush nest. Then, in true Rachel fashion, she got to bask in the glory of all the adoring reviews. Even if the reviews weren't so adoring, or plentiful. Let's face it, nobody ever told her any differently.
Everything was a production for Rachel Berry. Everything. And to Rachel, it wasn't worth it unless it was over-the-top, 110%, and all out. Santana understood the sentiment, she really did. But, the only thing she loved about Premiere Week was Premiere Day. And the only thing she loved about Premiere Day was Premiere Night. And that was only because the whole fucking thing was nearly over. All she had left to do was walk the carpet, sit through a terrible movie, and then suffer through a party with a bunch of pretentious assholes. It was a release. It was a purge. Another torturous week was ending. So was so close to the end.
The super added bonus for this ending: as soon as it was over, she could start to really focus on the situation with Brittany. She had made this flawless plan. Really. It was flawless. Surprise Brittany by showing up in Seattle for Thanksgiving. Ask her to move to New York. Spend a blissful five days with her girlfriend. Start planning Britt's move. Find Brittany a job worthy of her awesome talents in the Big Apple. Live in New York City with her beautiful girl. Get married. Have dancing blonde babies. Be happy forever. Flawless.
Until it wasn't so flawless anymore.
"You should stick with your plan," Kurt whispered with a nudge as they rode side by side in Rachel's limo. Rachel sat across from them doing her Premiere Week breathing exercises while being fanned by Kitty with a giant feather.
Santana gave him a sharp elbow back in response. "Stop reading my mind, Kurt."
"I didn't," the man said as he picked some invisible lint of his most stylish jacket. "You were muttering 'flawless plan' again."
"Oh. It was flawless," she said. She shook her head, "But, I can't go through with it now."
"You can and you should."
"No. No, Kurt. What am I going to say now? 'Hey baby, turn down the awesome job offer and come to New York because I can't live without you any longer.'"
"Yes, that sounds about right."
"No," Santana told him. "She would. She would totally do it. I know she would, that's why I wanted to ask her in person. So I could enjoy all the sexy benefits."
"That's a little underhanded."
"Fuck off, my girlfriend lives in Seattle. I will get any sexy benefits I can whenever I can get them." She stopped when she had a realization. "I wonder if any airlines have Booty Call Miles. We could probably rack them up considering we'll be apart forever."
"Ask."
"I can't. I don't want her to pass up this kind of opportunity for me. She shouldn't. I can't ask her to do that."
"You said yourself, you can't make decisions for her. Put all the options on the table. She'll decide what's best for her."
"What if she says yes? Then she picks up her entire life to come here and she regrets it? Then what? Where does that leave us?"
"Then...you both took the chance," Kurt said. "You have a much better shot if you're at least in the same city. That's all you can ask for, Santana. A shot at making it work."
"There's got to be another option, though."
Kurt looked her in the eye, "Santana Lopez, you love her. Stop being such a chicken and ask her to move in with you."
"I'm not being a chicken," Santana said loudly. "It just doesn't seem fair."
"All is fair in love and war," Kurt said. "And clothing sales. I'd punch an elderly woman in the mouth for a reasonably priced, shimmery blouse."
"Wouldn't we all, Kurt," Santana rolled her eyes. "Wouldn't we all."
When the limo rolled to a halt, Santana was chomping at the bit to get the night over with. She even gave Rachel a little shove to get her moving.
"Let's go," Santana practically yelled.
"Stop being so pushy," Rachel told her. "I haven't even finished my breathing."
"I'm going to finish your breathing for you if you don't get out."
"Kelly," Rachel addressed Kitty, "are we ready?"
Kitty gave her a nod, "All systems are go, Boss."
"All systems are go?" Santana asked the assistant. "Did you check all the power levels on the spacecraft?"
Kitty didn't seem to want to respond, so Rachel did. "She's just doing her job, Santana. Brilliantly, I might add."
"Well, you two can be brilliant after this thing is over." Santana gave her another light push. "Move it."
If only she had known what was coming. If she had, she would stayed in the limo. No, she would have stayed home and never left her apartment again.
It happened in slow motion. Isn't that what everyone says when something terrible happens? It happened in slow motion. My life flashed before my eyes. And so on. Well, it happened in slow motion.
Santana was just doing her job. She had done it so many times before. Thousands. Walk just slightly behind her. Just enough to keep up, but far enough away to be barely noticeable. Tune out the screaming photographers. Tune out the flashbulbs, focus on getting Rachel from limo to inside without a catastrophe. They'd done this so many times without incident. Point A to Point B. Easy.
That's why she was taken off guard when Rachel motioned for her to come closer.
"What?" she had said in the other woman's ear. She expected any of the one of the incredibly vain things Rachel usually said. She expected to have to do a boob check to make sure Thelma or Louise hadn't gone over the cliff into indecent exposure. She expected a zipper malfunction or a chewed piece of gum. She didn't expect Rachel to hook her arm through hers. She didn't expect the kiss on her cheek. She didn't even see it coming when Rachel told a horde of reporters they were dating.
A million flashes went off. None of them tuned out. Santana's first thought was 'Whaa?' and the second was that every weekly entertainment magazine in the country would have photos of her looking like she'd just been smacked in the face by a wet fish. A dead one. Right in the kisser.
"What the fuck did you just do?" she hissed through clenched teeth.
"Keep smiling!" Rachel told her as she clutched Santana's arm tighter. "Don't say anything."
Don't say anything. Santana was never good at not saying anything. But, she had literally no words as Rachel kept shouting answers to the reporters. Answers that made no sense whatsoever. There was "I recently discovered my interest in women" and "This is Santana Lopez, we're dating" and "We've always been attracted to each other" and "Finn and I are still the best of friends."
Santana, for her part, was struck dumb. There was absolutely no protocol for a situation like this. Did she let Rachel continue with the charade? Did she push her down and run away? Actually, that second one looked like a winner. When she finally snapped out of it, she pulled Rachel inside roughly.
"Are you fucking insane?" Santana asked as soon as they were shielded from cameras.
"He's not going to win, Santana," Rachel said with a smugness that made her skin crawl.
"Who? What? Where?" the publicist was so confused she didn't even know how to finish the questions.
"Finn is telling the press that he left me," Rachel told her. "You'd know that if you'd been paying attention instead of huddling in corners, talking on the phone, smelling a dirty sweatshirt."
Santana closed her eyes tightly. Dirty sweatshirt. Brittany's sweatshirt. Brittany. "That's what this was about? Fucking Finn?"
"He's making a fool out of me."
"You just made a fool out of both of us."
"Finn Hudson cannot leave me," Rachel said. "He's a schmuck."
"I've been saying that all along," Santana reminded her. "And that's not even what happened."
"But everybody already thinks it," Rachel said dramatically. "It's all over the place. Why didn't you know this? Why didn't you stop it?"
"I..." Santana searched her mind furiously for any indication. She really didn't know that. How could she not? "I don't know."
"Okay," Rachel said with a calming breath. "It's okay. I took care of it myself. We're dating now."
"No, we're not," Santana said firmly. "That's ludicrous."
"You're always saying more people should come out."
"Actual gay people, Rachel. Not crazy, fake gay people."
"I could be lesbian. I played one before in the 2006 teledrama, Golf Course Gabby and her Bicurious Caddy."
"Not the same."
"Just go along with it for a little while," Rachel said with a wave of her hand. "All you have to do is kiss me in public a few times. You might even enjoy it."
"Oh, that's all?" Santana made a show of the sarcasm. "Well, I'm just being ridiculous then?"
"No big deal," Rachel shrugged. "People do it all the time."
Her nonchalance made Santana furious, "I'm pretty sure the only thing I'd enjoy less than pretending to date you is a comprehensive vaginal reconstruction."
"If it helps, I can get you a discount for that."
"Are you taking hallucinogenic drugs? Am I? Because that's the only way to explain what just happened."
"Designer vaginas are really popular right now, Santana."
Santana just stared.
Rachel must have taken that as acquiesce, "Then it's decided."
"No, no, no," Santana shouted. "I'm not going along with this."
"You have to."
"What about Brittany?"
"I can't date Brittany, too," Rachel bellowed. "I'd look like a lesbian slut."
"No."
"I'm not asking," Rachel said seriously. "I'm telling you. It's not for very long, Santana. Just for long enough for the story to make the rounds."
"Rachel," Santana warned. "Don't."
"This is all your fault in the first place. We shouldn't even be in this position. You're just going to have to take one for the team. Team Rachel. We're on the same team now."
"What the hell is going on?" Kurt said when he finally fought his way through the crowd. "Everybody's going crazy."
"Rachel's lost her mind," Santana answered still glaring.
"I had to," Rachel said plainly. "I didn't have another choice."
"She told the press we were dating," Santana explained.
"Who?" Kurt asked genuinely.
"Each other!" the publicist exclaimed.
"What?" Kurt looked to Rachel, then back to Santana. "Nobody's going to believe that. She's not even your type."
"Am I not cute enough for Santana?" Rachel asked in a huff.
"You're cute enough," Kurt said. "Just not blonde and bubbly."
"I'm bubbly."
"You're a fucking bubble machine," Santana deadpanned.
"Rachel, seriously," Kurt tried reasoning with her. "What about Brittany?"
"I just started dating Santana, Kurt," Rachel scoffed. "Let me work up to the multiple ladies."
"No," Santana said again. And that's when Santana's phone started ringing. All she had to do was determine the ringtone, "Fucking Puckerman!" She hit ignore. "So it begins."
The second call came immediately.
"Who is that?" Rachel asked.
"Sylvester."
Rachel had grabbed the cell before Santana knew it, "Sue?"
"Don't do it, Rachel," Santana told her as she tried to intervene.
"Oh, Becky. Hi," Rachel went on. "It's Becky, Sue's assistant," she said to Santana quietly. "Becky, you tell Sue that she should run the story. In fact, I'll pay her to run it."
"No!" Santana finally got her phone back, but it was too late. Becky was gone. "Why are you doing this to me?" she asked.
"Stop being so dramatic, Santana," Rachel said condescendingly. "It's not like your reputation is ruined. You're dating a superstar."
"I'm dating a nice girl from Seattle. A beautiful, sane woman that would never fuck me over like this."
"In real life maybe," Rachel said. "But that hardly counts."
Her phone didn't stop ringing, either. It went on and on. Every contact she had ever had was calling to get a quote. Or to make a sale. Or to laugh in her face because the whole thing was so fucking crazy. It was a nightmare.
When a very familiar number popped up, she thought the nightmare just got worse. She didn't even know why she answered it.
"What the hell do you want?" she asked into the phone.
"I knew it!" Quinn said on the other end of the line. "I always knew she had lesbian tendencies. She had a thing for me all along, didn't she?"
"She's not a lesbian!"
"I'm watching right now, Santana," Quinn argued. "It's all over the place already. You can't kiss Rachel Berry and not expect to make the news."
"I did not kiss that woman!" Santana denied vehemently. "She's not gay, Quinn."
"I knew it. We had a weird connection. I never did anything about it, because I was with you, but I knew it."
"Quinn, for the last time, Rachel's not gay. You're not either. Seriously, it's time you let it go." She ended the call with Quinn's rebuttal hanging in the air and handed her phone to Kurt just to rid of it.
"Quinn and I could have had something special," Rachel said, obviously having overheard.
"You're both delusional," Santana told her. "Batshit crazy delusional."
"That may be true, but we have a movie to see," Rachel directed.
"Not a chance."
"Listen, I have created a revolutionary piece of art, Santana. Nobody has ever made a movie with three leading men playing the same part. It's the future of film. So, we're going to go enjoy it."
"I'm not sitting through your crappy movie while you try to hold my hand and make kissy faces." Santana took a step back. "I have to go and try to shut down what you started, Rachel."
"You're good at what you do," the star informed her. "But you can't undo it. There's a reason it had to be like this."
"How long have you been planning it?" Santana asked.
"For about as long as you haven't seen it coming."
"I can't believe you." Santana had never been so mad as she was at that moment.
"I did what I had to," Rachel said. She pointed toward the theater, "C'mon. You have to go with me."
"Your phone," Kurt said as she held it up to indicate it was ringing again.
"Not now, Kurt."
"It's Brittany."
All the anger seemed to drain out of her when she heard the name. Brittany. Everything-good-in-this-miserable-stinking-world Brittany. She'd probably seen a headline already. She'd probably seen a photo of Rachel Berry with her lips on Santana's face. She took the phone and for the first time ever, she pressed the red button to ignore the call.
"Rachel, you're right," she said as she slipped the phone in her pocket. "You were right before. I wasn't paying attention. I was preoccupied with my own life and...Britt...and I wasn't doing the job you hired me to do."
"That's okay," Rachel told her. "You'll do better. Now, c'mon. We can't miss my big premiere."
Santana laughed humorlessly as Rachel walked away, completely unaffected by any of it. "It'll get done better," she said to herself.
When she looked at Kurt, he was studying her.
"What?" she asked.
"I've known you for a long time, Santana. I know that look in your eye. It usually means I'm not going to like what you're about to do."
"Probably not," Santana smiled sadly.
"I guess you found the hidden option," Kurt said as he pulled her in for a hug.
"Yeah...I guess I did."