Santana flipped over in bed, groaning as she shifted her legs around. Her body was blissfully sore from the fun that she and Rachel had spent all night having. The sun was shining brightly into the large loft windows, creating a spot light affect on Rachel's naked back. Santana smiled as she reached out and trailed her hand down Rachel's spine. It still seemed a little surreal that Santana was laying in bed with her wife. The woman she had fell in love with instantly when she was unexpectedly and literally dumped on Santana's door step. Santana scooted over in the bed and placed her lips against Rachel's shoulder before wrapping her arm around her waist and attempting to fall back to sleep.
The next time Santana woke, it was because she kept hearing a clicking noise followed by Rachel mumbling to herself. She shifted around, much more awake this time, trying to see what Rachel was doing. The shorter woman was sitting up in bed, now with a blue tank top on, with her laptop resting on her lap. Her brow furrowed deep in thought as she studied something on the screen.
"What are you doing baby?" Santana asked, her voice still rough with sleep.
"Oh..uhm I was looking at toddler bed sets..for the girls." Suddenly Rachel turned shy at having been caught.
"Yeah?" Rachel nodded. "Can I see?"
"Sure." Rachel turned the computer a little so that Santana could look too. Santana had sat up in bed and wrapped the blanket around her torso. Rachel may be dressed but she was definitely still naked.
Santana was instantly in awe of the baby blue, trimmed in white toddler bed. It came with a matching chest and four shelves, two blue and two white. "I really like that one. Which one is that for?" Rachel shrugged her shoulders, she hadn't gotten that far yet.
"I was just looking. You know, for something simple that we could get and set up. The best ones I found, they need to be older for. They're either too high up or there's no place to attach sides so they won't fall out." Rachel clicked through some of the other beds that she had found, giggling at Santana's excited oo's and aw's.
"Wait they had tree house beds now!? Why didn't they have this stuff when I was little?" Santana pouted, poking out her bottom lip.
"These are the ones I was talking about being the best, but they can always just go play in the big tree house..with their Mami." Rachel smiled and kissed Santana on the cheek.
"I really like the sound of that. So does that first one come in any other colors? Is that your favorite one? We could just get two of them. They would get at least a couple of years use out of them and then when we build the new rooms, we can decorate them with new beds and sell those or I don't know donate them or something." Santana was just letting her filter go this morning, throwing ideas around. Honestly, she would base her decision on whatever Rachel wanted to do.
"Okay, slow down. Yes they come in different colors and for now it's my favorite one, but there's others we can look at. There's all the themed beds that we can look at and different woods or hard plastic. Also, how are we going to do this until the new rooms are built? We haven't discussed it anymore." Rachel asked with her best thinking face on.
"Well for now, I figured we could stay here in the loft and turn the guest bedroom at the bottom of the stairs into the girls room. It makes the most sense, since they are the two closest rooms in the house. I'm going to hire some loggers and millers to pull and mill the wood for the new rooms and I was thinking of hiring my Abuelo's most trusted contractor friends to do the build. We're so busy, I can't possibly do it myself in a timely fashion." Santana was a little disappointed that she wouldn't be doing this build on her own, however Stewart King of King's Construction was a long time family friend and the best suited for the job.
"Which direction are you planning on building in?" Rachel asked curiously.
"I'm going to move the natural pool I want farther out and go to the right, when you're looking at the cabin from the front. So from here, we're going left." Santana pointed across the cabin. "I built your studio room and the other guest bedroom back and to the right from this perspective. So I figured, we can just open up the hallway a bit more and add our master bedroom, the master bathroom, a very lovely walk in closet, a bath room for the girls and one more bedroom. We can just use the guest bedroom that is over there as the other room and turn the room right down stairs back into a guest room." Santana explained. Rachel raised her eyebrows, she wasn't really surprised that Santana already had some form of a lay out in her head. She was surprised the depth that she had it planned out though. "This is going to be the biggest build this cabin has ever seen, besides when it was initially built."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm going to have to get something way bigger than what we have now to keep our power on. I'm thinking a solar tower or two. Because I don't want more solar panels plastered all over the roof. Besides, I know you hate when I have to get up there and clean them. A solar tower will be maintained for us. Instead of an electricity bill, we will just pay a maintenance fee." Santana had looked into solar towers before, she had just never really had a use to go ahead and get one, but after this build she would definitely need one. There was no way that she could run more outlets and heating and cooling systems in the new rooms on the solar panels they had now. It would be a major system overload.
"How much is something like that going to cost?" Rachel asked a little hesitantly. Santana looked down and rubbed at a spot on the blanket that was covering her legs while she mumbled a number. "How much?" Rachel asked again. She thought she heard what Santana said, but she wasn't for sure.
"About sixty thousand for two. But that includes the towers themselves, the crew installing them and doing all the wiring. Maintenance is a thousand a year, since they only have to come out every four months. Some people pay that for two months of electricity. I know it's a lot of money, but we have it and it pays for itself. I plan on using the money from Peter's contract to pay for it and the build so we won't even have to touch anything we have saved now and honestly I can make all that money back with one art show. I know that's super cocky sounding, but you know it's true yourself." Santana knew she was rambling now, but she and Rachel always prided themselves on being great money savers. They kept track of all their accounts themselves so they never had to worry about a shady accountant scamming money from them. Rachel had two different savings accounts, Santana had her trust fund account and a savings account, and then they had their joint account where their everyday expenses came from. The women were two of the few who honestly forgot how rich they were sometimes.
"Will you show me what these towers are exactly? It's not about the money really, I know we can afford it. It's just I know you're going to try to do all of this yourself and that's not fair. I live here too and I want to help. We're married now. You have to let me help." Rachel smiled as Santana turned the computer more towards her and began to search for the exact towers that she wanted.
"I will show you and then we need to get ready to head to the children's home. I need to call my parents and make sure they are ready. I was going to ask if they wanted to ride with us? Is that okay?"
"That's perfect." Rachel patted Santana on the thigh. She was so happy that Santana was making strides in working on her relationship with her parents.
Sierra and Samara sat in their baby jail glaring at Stephanie. So what if they had had meltdowns when Santana and Rachel had left. They were supposed to go with them! In Sierra's head it had only been minutes since Santana and Rachel left, when in reality it had been hours. The little girl didn't realize that she had taken a nap after crying herself to sleep. Sierra furrowed her eyebrows as she pushed herself up and walked across the large octagon play pen to the side closest to Stephanie who was sitting at her desk. She was working on behavioral reports for several of the babies. It was something she done weekly for all of the children's social workers.
"Steehhhhh!" Sierra screeched. She wanted out and she wanted out now.
"What's wrong baby?" Stephanie responded.
"Out!" Sierra stammered while waving her hands around.
"I'm sorry, but you and your sister aren't getting out right now. It's raining and there's not anyone to watch you in the classrooms. You have to stay here for now." Stephanie knew the game the little girl was playing. If she let her out, she would go all tornado on the room.
Sierra's little face instantly scrunched up as she opened her mouth to release a large wail. She didn't understand anything Stephanie said, she just knew the woman had made no move to get her out. "Mamamama." Sierra sniffled as she rubbed her little fists against her cheeks. Samara who had been busying herself with a stuffed penguin since she awoke took a great interest in her sisters antics and began crying too. Slowly she began to repeat what her sister was saying. "Mamamama."
Stephanie dropped her pen that she had been writing with. The girls...were they saying what she thought they were saying? Mama? Were they talking about Santana and Rachel? Suddenly Stephanie jumped up from her desk and walked over to Sierra's cubicle in the back of the room. She knew there were pictures of the twins with Santana and Rachel in there.
Walking over the play pen, Stephanie squatted down to Sierra's level. "Who are you yelling for loves?" She asked looking between Sierra and Samara who decided she was going to join her sister at the side of the play pen.
"Mamama." Sierra sniffled again as her tears began to lessen, at least she had gotten Stephanie away from her desk.
"Who's Mama? Is this Mama?" Stephanie held up the picture she had grabbed. Rachel and Santana was sitting outside on one of the picnic table benches, each with a twin in her lap.
Sierra screeched happily and grabbed for the picture. "Mama!" She said again as she made grabbing motions with her hands for the picture that Stephanie was holding. Stephanie still didn't know who Sierra was calling Mama, but she knew for a fact that it was either Santana or Rachel.
Santana sighed happily as she wrapped the last painting in bubble wrap. They had worked all afternoon, wrapping and packing each painting and then making made dashes to the cars in order to load them. Two days into October and the weather had instantly taken a turn from cool and sunny to cold and rainy.
Rachel sat with Santana's parents against the wall of the classroom. They too were wore out from working all day. This morning when they had arrived, Chloe had greeted them at the front door and cleared Maribel and Marcus with day passes so they too could help. Instantly they had been given a tour and sent to a class room to help pack. Santana and Rachel had of course stopped by the nursery where they had spent a few minutes greeting and playing with the twins. When they had to leave, sadly there had been two major meltdowns, resulting in Stephanie putting the twins in a play pen so they would stop running towards the door when Santana and Rachel tried to leave. The risk of them getting their fingers smashed was too high.
Feeling her pocket vibrate, Santana pulled it out and read the text message. It was from Stephanie. Come to the nursery. NOW.
"We've got to get to the nursery. Stephanie just texted." Santana exclaimed in a panicked voice. Rachel jumped to her feet and was out the door in a flash followed by Santana, Maribel and Marcus.
Rachel doesn't think she had ever ran down a set of stairs so fast in her life. She busted through the nursery door looking around frantically. She didn't see any blood or hear any tears. She was met with the laughter of Stephanie and the twins.
"What's going on? What's wrong?" Santana asked out of breath as she came in the room behind Rachel.
"Listen to this." Stephanie stated proudly as she turned to look at Rachel and Santana with tears in her eyes. "Who is that Sierra? Samara? Who are they?"
"Mama!" The twins yelled happily as they both raised their arms in the air. Santana and Rachel stood stunned as they watched the twins continue to happily yell Mama.
"Are they?"
"Talking about us? For sure?" Rachel moved slowly towards the play pen.
"Yeah. They are." Stephanie said as she moved out of the way so that Rachel and Santana could get to the twins. Santana didn't care how silly she looked, she stepped over the side of the play pen and sat down as Rachel followed suit. Instantly the twins wrapped themselves around the women, making themselves comfy in their laps, now quietly chanting Mama.
"Of course, we're your Mama's." Santana murmured as she wrapped Sierra in a tight hug before kissing all over her face. She couldn't stop the happy tears that now streamed down her face. Santana glanced up at her parents who were standing in the doorway, also crying. It didn't matter that it was still pouring the rain outside, Rachel and Santana's day couldn't get any brighter.
So, I have to tell you guys that a month ago I started a new job. (yay!) I had been doing okay at keeping up with my writing, however lately I've kind of fallen behind. Normally I'm ahead at least three chapters so the night before posting all I have to do is edit. At this moment in time, I am only ahead by one chapter and that's really bumming me out. It's just with work, I don't have as much time. Fear not though, this story IS NOT ENDING OR GOING ON HIATUS. There's a chance that updating will go from every third day to every fourth day. Monday's chapter (69) will be the original third day, but chapter 70 may go up Friday instead of Thursday.
Is that okay with you guys? Are you going to come after me with flames and pitch forks? Do you even care as long as I don't go weeks or months between updates? I would really appreciate some opinions here. If you really dislike it, I will try my hardest to keep the original third day updates. I will even take a pad and pen to work with me and write during my breaks. I just need to know what you guys think, this story is as much for me as it is for you.
Also, Fun Fact: The first part of this story officially has over 50,000 collective views. That blows my mind. So, thank you for all the views, reviews, favorites and follows on both stories. I can never stress enough how much they mean to me. You guys are truly the greatest.