Santana wiped her hands nervously on her dress pants. It was the night of the official opening of the new St. Lawrence Children's Home. They had been working tirelessly all week in preparation for tonight. Santana peeked around the side of the stage where she was waiting to go on. At the moment, Agetha was speaking about the home and the type of program they ran. Next a few children who had been adopted out of the home were going to speak and then Santana. She could see Rachel sitting with the twins in the front row, next to all of the parents. Santana was sad that her parents would be returning to the city tomorrow, but they would be back for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Something odd was going on there, the whole time that her parents had been here, neither of them had taken any work related phone calls at least when she was around. That just didn't fit the type of people that her parents were at all. She was definitely going to have to get to the bottom of that.
Rachel waved when she noticed Santana at the corner of the stage. She leaned forward and whispered into Sierra's ear while pointing in Santana's direction. The little girl jerked her head quickly, giggling and waving when Santana wiggled her fingers at the little girl. Sierra must have thought that Santana was motioning for her because suddenly the little girl wiggled her way out of Rachel's lap and attempted to book it onto the stage. Being quicker than she thought she actually was, Rachel was able to scoop Sierra up before she could hurt herself trying to climb the stairs. Suddenly Sierra let out a loud shrieking laugh, causing the audience and Agatha to chuckle. Rachel blushed and apologized for interrupting but Agetha waved her off. Santana couldn't help but to giggle, hearing Sierra laugh had calmed her nerves down considerably.
"Before we officially cut the ribbon, there is someone else that is going to say a few words. She's the woman who really made the majority of all of this possible for the children. She's also the woman who made it possible for every children's home in the state of New York to receive an early Christmas gift this year. Mrs. Santana Lopez-Berry." Maddox, a young man that was now twenty-five and had been adopted out of St. Lawrence Children's home when he was fifteen, announced.
Santana walked out onto the stage chanting in her head to not fall or vomit. She could speak in lecture halls full of students and in front of small groups of people, but there were hundreds of people here today. Hopefully she could make it through her speech without fainting. Leaning forward, Santana adjusted the mic before she took a deep breath and began to speak.
"Good evening. Thank you for the introduction. As Maddox said, I am Santana Lopez-Berry and I really don't know how to introduce myself after that." Santana chuckled as did the crowd. "Magazines like to call me a world renowned artist, but I don't think they know what they're talking about ninety-eight percent of the time. I was told before hand that I had to fill up a twenty minute time frame so I suppose I can tell you about how we've all gotten to this point here today." Santana shuffled her note cards around on the podium. "A few months ago I was approached by my technical assistant, Mr. Artie Abrams and he told me that he had been contacted by a company by the name of Reed Productions. The only details I had were that he had a few commissions he would like to have a meeting about. That was cool, it was the first time a production company had ever wanted to have a meeting with me personally. Fast forward to the meeting and I am introduced to Chloe and Agetha. Little did I know that that one meeting would result in some life changing decisions. That story will come a little later. During the meeting I find out that this was more than just a commissions meeting, I mean these people had big plans for themselves and I."
Santana made hand gestures trying to emphasize just how big she was talking. "They explained the situation to me and the intentions for a documentary and immediately I was on board. We worked out some business details and I left to search for a group of people that could help. I found an amazing group of people among family and long time friends. Side note, the night of this meeting I got engaged again. I had already proposed but my lovely wife, Rachel Berry-Lopez wanted me to have a ring too." Santana blew a kiss to Rachel who smiled shyly. "I can't look at her for very long, she'll make me go all love struck and I will go over my twenty minutes." The crowd laughed again, Santana knew she was killing it now and her nerves were almost completely gone. "I'm going to get serious for a moment and talk about the real reason we are all here tonight. The children. We done the art show to showcase who you as a community would be supporting. These children worked endlessly on their paintings and they deserve every bit of recognition for their work. I'm so proud of everything they have done. The art show alone raised about ten million dollars. Thanks to you all, these children and homes all over New York are being provided for. I don't deserve all the credit that I am being given, all I did was paint a few pieces and gather some hard working people to help out with decorating. The real credit goes to the home, the children and you all. Thanks to every one of you, these kids have a brighter future which leads me to showing off the new sign. You can pull the sheet when you all are ready." Santana announced to some of the kids who were waiting next to the sign. She watched as several people gathered around with their cameras ready to snap the first pictures.
As the sheet came down the whole crowd began to clap and cheer. Santana could feel the love from these people radiating through her body. Santana was beyond proud of her work that she had done on the sign, it said everything that the home stood for. A place of darkness was where these children came from, the door in the painting represented the bright future that they had to look forward to. They would be taken care of and provided for here, it was a safe place where they could go to bed each night knowing they were okay. Santana hoped that they children would be able to feel the love for them here and that they would learn that sometimes it really does get better.
"Now, I just want to say one more thing before I go and we start tours and have refreshments in the dining hall. First I want to thank everyone involved for the opportunity to work with the home and children. As I am sure most of you know by now, Rachel and I are adopting two beautiful little girls from the home. That is one of the major life decisions that my wife and I made. Reaching the decision to adopt was the easy part, making the decision on if we were ready was the hardest. Every child here deserves the best and we wanted to make sure that we could be the best for those girls. St. Lawrence will always hold a special place in our hearts." Santana paused as the crowd got louder with their cheering. "When I started this project, I had no idea what was actually going to come of it. I worried day in and day out if I was truly doing enough, where could I help more? Was there anything else I can do? There's always something more you can do, even if it's just signing up to volunteer somewhere. So I am proposing that we continue the art show and do one each year. This is only the beginning of things to come not only for St. Lawrence but for every child in a New York children's home. Thank you again Agetha and Chloe for asking me to do this, thank you Peter Reed for helping to spearhead this whole thing with me, thank you to everyone who willingly came to help when I asked and last but not least, thank you to my family and my beautiful wife who has stood by me every step of the way. I love you Rachel and to my girls, Mami loves you too." Santana gave a wave as she walked off the stage to go meet up with Rachel, the twins and her parents. Agetha stepped back onstage to direct people where to go and explained that some of the crew would be taking documentary pre-orders if anyone was interested in the dining hall.
Santana felt a weight lift off her shoulders as she descended the stairs. Her speech may not have been the best, but she said what she wanted to say and hoped that everyone could take something away from it. Maybe she just inspired someone to sign up and volunteer for a few hours each week, maybe she just unwillingly wrote checks to charities or other organizations. Hell, she may have just inspired someone to look into adoption, the possibilities were endless. Whatever it was she just done, she hoped that the people ran with it and continued to help people who needed it in some way.
Rachel and Santana spent the next two hours mingling with everyone in the dining hall. Santana was starting to get a bit overwhelmed with the number of people in such a small space, but she was pushing through. At the moment she was sitting at a corner table, taking a break as her feet were killing her. She really should have brought more sensible shoes to walk around in. She smiled as she saw Rachel coming back over leading the twins by their hands. Both were trying to keep up with Rachel the best they could, but Rachel's walk was running for their little legs.
"Abuela and Abuelo sent them back after feeding them both cake pops." Rachel stated as she lifted Sierra onto the bench beside Santana, followed by Samara, before sitting down herself.
"I can tell." Santana scrunched up her nose at the bits of cake on the twin's faces as she looked in Davis' diaper bag for a baby wipe. Quinn and Puck had left it setting at the table with Santana so that they could go get them something to snack on. Beth had decided that she was too cool to hang out in the dining hall and had left with some new friends to go hang out in the gym. That's where most of the kids were at the moment, minus a few stragglers that wondered in every now and then.
"Stephanie will never get them to sleep tonight. No more sugar ladies." Rachel mock scolded with a smile.
"Pop pop?" Samara fluttered her big brown eyes at Santana.
"No more pop pops. How about some milk instead?" Santana handed Samara's sippy to her, hoping that it would settle the cake and possibly bring about some sleepiness. Rachel giggled as the little girl shook her head with a smile. She knew this game, milk meant bed time would be soon.
As Rachel and Santana played with the twins, they didn't notice Alison walk up until she cleared her throat announcing her presence. She smiled as she sat down across the table from the women. "Hi ladies." Alison said.
"Hello." Rachel and Santana answered simultaneously.
"How are you?" Rachel took the initiative to ask.
"I'm great, thank you. That was really a wonderful speech tonight Santana." Alison praised the Latina woman.
"Thank you very much. I'm glad you thought so." Santana responded, looking down and playing with the little bow on Samara's dress.
"I really do. I came over here to talk to you ladies about something. This is the first time I have seen you all night since everyone came inside." Alison laughed. She had been trying to catch up with the women to tell them some good news.
"It's been hectic." Rachel sighed, it wasn't a bad sigh, she was just super tired.
"I can imagine." Alison sympathized. "So, Mercedes' called me and told me that her office received your test results today."
"Yeah, we got the results and signed the release papers yesterday. They told us it could take a few days though." Santana had a curious look on her face. Where was this going?
"They can move quickly when they want to. When they move quickly we can move quicker, which is what I want to talk to you two about. We aren't really supposed to tell you when a home study is about to happen, but we know that you both have busy lives so we can give a time frame. Your time frame is Tuesday. Your adoptive parent meeting sheet has been filed, your test results are back and now we just have to do a home study and then we can set up a full weekend visit. If everything goes well...the girls could be in your custody within a week and a half." Alison waited for the reaction of the two women. It was all finally happening, the girls would be home soon.
"You're serious? A whole weekend and then they could be ours. Just like that?" Rachel asked, shocked.
"Yep. You two have waited so long for this now and we want the girls to go home where they belong." Alison smiled. The twins were oblivious to everything going on around them. They were more interested in drinking milk or playing with a toy cellphone.
"I have no idea what to say." Santana sniffled, she didn't mean to start crying, but wow. A whole weekend with their girls just being a family and then they could be a family for good. It was unbelievable.
"You don't have to say anything. Just stay close to home this coming Tuesday." Alison patted the table and stood up. She wanted to let the women have their moment in privacy. Alison turned to look back at the women. Seeing them both crying tears of joy was probably the best promise of love and devotion to the girls that she had ever seen before.