Santana woke up on the small, uncomfortable bed in her new quarters, feeling like there were rocks waging war against each other in her head, with her face pressed into a thin pillow soaked in her own drool. She let out a loud groan and wiped at her face with her hand, crying out in pain as her middle finger came into contact with it. She pushed herself up slowly with her other hand, bleary eyes trying to focus on the damaged one and pathetic whimpers escaping from her, seemingly of their own accord.
"No need to ask how you're feeling, then?" Rachel's voice sounded from behind her. She tried to push her hair out of her face as she turned around, failing miserably as it seemed to be angry with her and determined to retain it's unruly appearance for as long as possible.
Rachel was sitting in a chair by the door, her face set in a tight line, arms folded loosely in her lap. So, this didn't look promising. She coughed experimentally, not entirely trusting her vocal chords to play along if she attempted to speak right away, not entirely certain what she would say anyway. She had fucked up. Again. She didn't know how but she was sure of it. She couldn't remember anything about last night, except for the fact that she had been drinking bourbon, and maybe she had had some sort of fight? She vaguely remembered shouting. She swung her legs onto the floor gently and gave up trying to tame her hair.
"Rachel," She rasped. "I'm s…"
"Don't." Rachel cut her off sharply, sounding more tired than anything. "I don't want to hear that you're sorry, Santana." She reached behind her and grabbed a bottle of water off the desk and opening it before handing it over.
Santana took it from her gratefully, her stomach in knots that she was fairly certain had nothing to do with her hangover. Whatever she had done last night must have been bad, even for her, for Rachel to be playing the age old 'I'm not angry, just disappointed' card. Fuck, she really couldn't deal with this right now. Pretty much the only thing she could focus on was the pain in her hand and the alarming purple colour of her finger.
"Thanks." She muttered, raising the now half empty bottle in her girlfriend's direction. At least, she hoped she was still her girlfriend. She dropped her gaze quickly, the look in Rachel's eyes was beginning to scare her. They looked so...empty.
"How's your hand?" Rachel asked after a few moments, her tone still decidedly neutral.
"Just peachy." She laughed lowly, staring at it in disgust. It really didn't look good. Aside from the disturbing colour, the area around her knuckle had swelled up to about three times it's normal size and she felt sick every time she tried to move it.
After a few minutes Rachel sighed and sat back in the chair. "What happened?"
"I got drunk." Santana shrugged. She still couldn't bring herself to look at Rachel.
Another pause. "Why?"
"I don't know." She shrugged again. She certainly wasn't about to own up to her pathetic insecurities about her girlfriend's ex-boyfriend magically reappearing, or how one throwaway comment on her past behaviour on top of that had sent her already fragile grip on herself running for the nearest source of oblivion.
"Come on." Rachel spat.
"I don't know, Rachel," Santana looked up, her fear as usual disguising itself as anger. "I guess I just needed it."
"That's not good enough!"
"What do you want me to say? I'm under a lot of pressure and I needed a break!"
"We're all under a lot of pressure, Santana." Rachel snapped back.
"Yeah, well, last time I checked no one was trying to kill you."
"Oh, really?" She laughed bitterly, leaning forward in the chair. "And when, exactly, was the last time that you checked?"
Shit. Definitely the wrong thing to say. Oh, God. Come on, idiot, fix this! Say something nice. Say anything, fuck!
"Look, can we not do this now? I'm not really feeling at my shiny best."
"Sure." Rachel drawled, leaning back and resting her hands on the arms of the chair. "When do you think you'll be able to fit me in? Tomorrow? A week on tuesday?"
"Rachel…"
"No, it's fine. Honestly. Just let me know when you think you'll be sober enough to have a proper conversation with me." She stood up and moved over to the door.
"I don't think I'll ever be sober enough to have a proper conversation with you." Santana snapped, regretting the words as soon as they left her mouth.
Rachel paused with her hand on the doorknob, her back to her. "Yes, well I think that's probably our problem in a nutshell, isn't it?"
"Rach, please, don't go, I'm…"
The door slammed shut behind her.
"Sorry." Santana fell back against her pillow, her head banging and her stomach in pieces. "God, I'm sorry."
She woke up to a knock on the door.
"Yeah?" She croaked, pushing herself up and attempting to rub her face. Great, now her eyes hurt as well. Her face was probably all botchy, too. The door swung open and Cara walked in, dumping food and water on the bed before pulling a small splint and some bandage out of her back pocket.
"You look like shit." She said, sitting on the end of the bed and grabbing Santana's injured hand .
"Thanks...ow! Easy!" Santana winced.
"This is probably going to hurt a lot so I suggest less whining, more teeth gritting." Cara said, looking her in the eye and giving her a moment to prepare before flattening her finger against the splint and binding it in place.
Santana grabbed the bed with her other hand and scrunched her face up in pain, laboured breaths forcing their way out of her nose and fresh tears squeezing out of her eyes.
"Fuck." She breathed out shakily once the torture had stopped.
Cara grabbed one of the water bottles and sat back, eyes fixed on Santana as she took a drink.
"Don't look at me like that." Santana muttered, grabbing a jar of something that looked suspiciously like baby food before tossing it back on the bed as her stomach rolled. "I fucked up. I know."
"Yeah, right." Cara chuckled. "You talking about last night or today?"
"I don't know." She sighed, leaning back. "Both?"
Cara nodded and opened a bottle for her. "Do you even remember?"
"No. What did I do?"
"Nothing, really." She shrugged. "You just couldn't walk, could barely speak, didn't make sense when you did."
"That's it?" Santana furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. "Then why is Rachel so pissed at me?"
"Did you not hear what I said?"
"Yeah, but if I didn't do anything…"
"Santana," Cara sighed. "You are a fucking idiot."
"Hey!"
"Come on, if you can't see how getting yourself so fucking drunk that you break your own finger having a fight with a fucking door and collapse in the middle of the dining hall is going to cause a problem with your girlfriend then I really don't know what to tell you."
"Yeah, well, I see how that's not great but…" She paused to glare at her friend's disparaging huff. "Look, it's got to be more than that. She's so… it's like she's done with me."
"Don't be an idiot. She wouldn't have done what she did if she was done with you."
"I have no idea what that sentence even means." Santana rubbed at her aching head and took a drink. "God, I was just awful to her today though. Have you seen her?"
Cara nodded, her face neutral.
"And?" She asked, her stomach bunching up again. "Did she say anything?"
"Of course not. You know she wouldn't talk to me about you."
"Yeah." Santana scoffed, her jealousy flaring up again. "She probably went running straight to Jesse."
Cara barked out a laugh. "Shit, you really don't remember last night, do you?"
"I already said that, didn't I?" She growled, face scrunched up in irritation. "Why, what happened? Did the have one of their incredibly dramatic and unnecessarily verbose discussions?"
"Not exactly." The redhead laughed again. "She didn't really say anything, just broke his nose."
Santana almost choked on her water. "What?! Why?"
"Because he insulted you." Cara shrugged, like it was obvious.
Her heart dropped. Shit. Cara was right, she really was an idiot. "Shit. I really fucked this up, didn't I?"
"Well, I would love to offer you some kind of reassurance but I think we both know that's not in my nature so...yeah, I think you really did."
Santana sighed and tried again to regain control of her hair. "I need to go and find her. Do you know where she is?"
"I would guess either her room or the gym but I need to talk to you about something else that happened last night first."
"Okay." Santana had a bad feeling. The look in Cara's eyes was...well, the fact that the girl was showing any kind of emotion was practically unheard of since Devon, so she settled herself and prepared for the worst.
"Shelby came to talk to Puck." She took a deep breath and looked down at her hands. "She...well, she looks the way she does because she was attacked, in her home, by some of Sue's guys. They beat her and poured gasoline on her, telling her they were taking Beth and that if she tried to stop them they would light her up. She tried to stop them. They took Beth and left. Thankfully she had arranged to meet Jesse and he arrived just after. She had managed to put herself out, mostly, as they were leaving, and Jesse was able to get her to the hospital in time but she was in there for months, in recovery for a year. When she got out she tried to find out what had happened."
Santana waited, watching the emotions play across Cara's face. There was more and she could feel the bile rising in her throat, her heart beating wildly in her chest. Eventually Cara looked up at her.
"They took Beth as a way of controlling Quinn, Santana." Cara swallowed thickly. "Quinn wanted out and they took her daughter as leverage."
Santana stared at her blankly for a few moments then leaned over the side of the bed and vomited.