Charlie groaned as she took a step out of her car, she loathed driving home during rush hour traffic, but Santana wouldn't let her hire a driver. Apparently, it sent the wrong message to the children, but it stressed her out far more than she would like. All those impatient people honking horns and getting angry with each other because the traffic wasn't moving. She steps out of her garage and grabs her briefcase and stretches as she heads up the two steps to get to the main house. She pauses for a moment to kick off her shoes, stopping for a moment to put them away so she wouldn't irritate Santana. She hated when she left her shoes and socks on the ground.
"Ma!"
Charlie turns and grins as her three-year-old jumps on her she picks her up and swings her around, "Sophie! Were you a good girl today?"
"Yeah!" Sophie grins widely and begins to look around for the cake. Her eyes focusing on the briefcase. "Where's cake!"
Charlie's back goes rigid, she knew she had forgotten something. How? She personally had no idea, she got cake like everyday. She worked right across from a bakery, so what if Santana teased her about her tiny love handles. Santana had vowed to love her regardless. She had so gotten the better end of that deal. "We can order it. I didn't want the cake to melt in the car, you know how long it takes for me to get to work and back," Charlie lies with ease. She was extraordinarily grateful for delivery services. "But we have to eat dinner first. I bet mommy made us something yummy."
"Mommy sad," Sophie informs her mother snuggling into her arms.
"Mommy's sad?" Charlie repeats frowning slightly, that was surprising. Maybe she had gotten some bad news. "Wait, where's Bela?" Charlie glanced around half expecting a sneak-attack.
"Time out," Sophie responds with a shrug of her shoulders.
Charlie winced, Santana was definitely in a mood, she shifts Sophie on her hip and heads to the stairs where Bela is sitting there with her arms crossed a scowl on her face. "Hey Bela, what you do?"
"Nothing!" Bela insisted immediately.
"Uh-huh," Charlie raised a brow, and waited knowing her daughter would crack eventually.
"It was an accident, I didn't mean to break the bowl," Bela throws her hands up. "I said sorry!"
"Okay, let me talk to your mom, but you need to be more careful Bela. You could have hurt yourself or Sophie," Charlie lectures, and ruffles Bela's hair, before putting Sophie down. "Let me talk to your mom and help with dinner, you go play with your toys Sophie." Charlie watched as her daughter toddled off and took a deep breath. Santana was upset, she needed to be on her best behavior. She takes a peek into the kitchen and shivers when she sees Santana scrubbing a pot. Cleaning was the worst sign possible, but she had made a vow for better or worse. "I'm home," Charlie offers, her voice cracking and she flushes. She wasn't scared of her wife, but Santana was scary when she was upset.
Santana turns for a moment and feels the white-hot anger bubble up. "I can see that," she retorts acidly, before returning to scrubbing her pots.
"Uh—why is Bela in timeout? It sounded like an accident," Charlie bites her lip as she slowly approaches Santana, inching towards her slowly. "I mean, I didn't set her free but—"
"I told her to stop running around, it wasn't an accident if she didn't listen to me when I told her to stop. That's why she's in timeout, but I bet she didn't tell you that did she?"
"No, she didn't. But she's also six. I doubt she knows the nuances of her behavior, she just thinks it's unfair. She's still sitting there, waiting for you to talk to her. How much longer is she going to be in timeout?" Bela had clearly not taken her self-preservation skills from her.
"Until I say otherwise," Santana frowns and narrows her eyes at her wife who was in arm's length. "Or are you going to spring her early, and reward her bad behavior being the fun parent?"
"Uh—no." Charlie swallowed as Santana pulled away from her. This wasn't about broken dishes, and Sophie had clearly mistaken what emotion Santana was clearly feeling. Rage. White hot rage. "You seem upset—did something happen at work? Do I need to hire someone to break someone's kneecaps? I think I can do that. Well obviously, not—I mean violence is wrong, but I would go to jail for you if it made you feel better."
Santana twitched, normally Charlie's babbling generally amused her to no end but she didn't want to deal with her wife. "No. Go away."
Charlie hesitates for a moment, "Okay, I'm going to go play with Sophie. But if you want to talk to me, we can talk about it. I mean whatever it is, it does seem that Bela broke that dish by accident. Also, I forgot the cake so if you're in the mood for something special, like Baskin Robbins, or Dairy Queen let me know because I have to order it before dinner so we can have it for dessert."
Santana scowled watching as Charlie backed away slowly. She didn't really want to pick a fight with her. She had just assumed that Charlie would be honest with her. Why was she still acting like everything was normal? "I told you that you need to stop buying cake for the kids. It's not a healthy lifestyle. They're going to think that eating cake every day is normal, and then they're going to make a comment and end up like Marie Antoinette."
"Our kids aren't royalty. Though there will probably be an uprising against the super-rich one day, so you're probably right. Alright I'll order the cake for tonight and then we'll talk to the kids about healthy choices. We probably shouldn't mention the whole, they might lose their head bit. I think that's overkill. I should probably look into one of those survival places, just in case it happens sooner rather than later," Charlie mused scratching her chin.
Santana stared at her wife, she wasn't a good liar, she was even worse at hiding things. She had found the ring that Charlie had planned to propose to her with weeks before Charlie had actually planned to propose. She had decided to let Charlie freak out about the perfect moment for three more weeks, and had done her best to act surprised when Charlie popped the question. Getting to the point would be easier than letting Charlie spring it upon her. "Are we okay?"
Charlie stopped from where she had been heading out of the kitchen, and glances at Santana. "Yeah. We are. Right? Did I do something wrong?" Charlie presses and her eyes widen. "Is this about—last night?" Charlie swallowed, unsure of how to proceed. "I mean you said it was okay—oh was that one of those times where you say one thing but mean something else?"
Santana opened her mouth and then closed it, Charlie knew about her past, and there was a ruthless side to her wife that she had only seen a few times and that was when Charlie was working. It wasn't as if Charlie couldn't be ruthless, she was a Fabray. It was written in their DNA. Charlie wasn't anywhere as bad as the rest of her family, but they did care about appearances and for Charlie to be married to a former porn-star? It would be a scandal that would rock the family. "Cut the act, I know you're looking for divorce lawyers."
Charlie blinked at the accusation. This was news to her. "What are you talking about? What divorce lawyers? Why the hell would I be looking for divorce lawyers?"
"Because you're going to divorce me and try and get full custody of our kids," Santana throws the brush down and turns around so she can face her wife, as she places her hands on her hip. Charlie wasn't going to play her for a fool.
Charlie's jaw drops for a moment and she blinks, this was definitely about the porn that she had been watching. She had known it was to good to be true for Santana to be okay with her looking at supposed other women. "Santana, I love you and I love our children and I love our life together. I'm not looking for divorce lawyers. There is no other woman, I would never cheat on you because I love you—and I'm far to lazy to cheat on you. Do you know how much work it would take to hide it? Besides you'd probably find out in like a day and then murder me. "
"I saw the list of divorce lawyers on your computer Charlie, your mother sent it to you," Santana challenged, she didn't care if she was tipping her hand she needed to get to the bottom of this.
"You were digging through my emails?" Charlie questioned immediately narrowing her eyes. Santana had been snooping, she knew her wife well enough to know that it was a habit. She had thought that it was endearing at first, but Santana had never violated her privacy like this before.
"I was using your computer and it popped up, as I was about to leave—don't change the subject."
"You went digging through my emails, saw an email from my mother about divorce lawyers and you thought that I was planning to divorce you? Even though you know that my mother and father threaten to divorce each other like every other week these days. My mom just found out that dad is banging his secretary again. You think I want to be in the middle of their civil war? Honestly I think they're just doing this to spice things up in the bedroom." Charlie crossed her arms over her chest. There was a flash of something in Santana's eyes, but she wasn't going to just let things go. "Why were you on my computer? And why did you think that I was going to divorce you. You know how weird and messed up my family is why would you automatically assume that I had asked my mother for divorce lawyers? Honestly you think I'd touch a divorce lawyer that my parents had used?"
Santana's shoulder slumped as the anger suddenly dissipated, Charlie was a shitty liar, she couldn't even hide what she got the kids for Christmas, expecting her to be lying about this was silly. She had denied it. Which means that either Charlie didn't know about Puckerman's email or she didn't care about her past. "You didn't delete Puckerman's email."
A look of confusion crossed Charlie's face for a moment before she blinked and studied Santana. "I have no idea why you were upset with me. If anyone should be upset in this situation it's me," Charlie held up her fingers. "You invaded my privacy. Noah sent me that email, I kicked him in the nuts for you, but he sent it to me and didn't let me know what it was. You went through my emails. You lied to me." Charlie crosses her arms as it hits her hard. Santana had hidden this from her. What else was she hiding? She was certain she knew Santana but nothing that they had ever done sexually looked like anything she had seen on the adult films. Had Santana been faking all this time?
"Mommy! Can I go now?" Bela's voice cuts through the two of them and Santana blinks and tilts her head to where she had forgotten about her daughter.
"I—" Santana begins turning to look at Charlie who had pulled away from her. "Charlie—"
"Now clearly isn't the time," Charlie retorts angrily. "We'll discuss this after the kids are in bed."