A/N: Welcome, get cozy.


Supermarket Flowers (Ed Sheeran)


We'd been dancing, Britt's arms wrapped securely around me as she showed me the steps to the show she'd just choreographed.

Sweat made my clothes cling to me in that hot theater and I knew that I'd remember that moment forever.

The way that she smiled at me, her eyes twinkling so perfectly as my phone rang for the third time in a row from the side of the stage.

"You should get that." Britt said, her voice deeper than normal, sending shivers over me.

All these years later and she still made me swoon.

Even with all the shit we'd been through in the past year, separating and living apart...I lived for moments like this when it was just the two of us, forgetting the drama and just enjoying each other.

I was amazed that it was still a thing we could do and that she still made me feel things that I had long been trying to ignore.

She dropped a kiss on my forehead and repeated herself. "You should get that."

I nodded and pulled away from her arms, even if they felt like a home that I had long forgotten.

How could she still feel like home when we'd both moved on?

I could feel her eyes on me as I picked up my needy phone and unlocked the screen.


2 missed calls from Papi.

1 missed call from Celia.

1 missed call from Sandra.

4 missed calls from Quinn.

My heart stilled as I put my phone on speaker and hit my voicemail.

"Santi, call me back, it's important." Papi said, sounding concerned.

"Bebe, it's me again, please pick up." Papi sounded like he waited this time for me to pick up and then there was a click.

"Sis, where are you? Call me." Celia said, sounding just as anxious as Papi.

"Ana call me when you hear anything. I love you." Sandra said, her voice sounding anxious.

"San, it's Q. Shit is kinda falling apart here. Call someone, anyone. Okay? I love you."


The moment that I heard the affection from Q, who was back home in Lima with my sister, I knew something was very wrong.

We didn't drop I love yous like that, it just wasn't our style.

And then my phone rang again.

It was Quinn, thankfully.

"Hey, sorry I was dancing." I said.

"With B?"

I looked over and saw that Britt was drinking water and wiping her sweaty body with a towel.

My hormones were heightened.

"Yeah."

"Hey, not the time to be a horn-dog, this is serious."

"What is it?"

"It's your mom...you should get on the next plane out."

"What happened this time?"

"The infection spread to her brain, just like they thought it would. She's on life support."

"Oh."

"I know that you've been building yourself up for this and waiting for the next shoe to drop. Well that time is now. So I need you to get here."

"Wow...um...tell me the odds?" I could feel my world caving but my brain needed facts and figures, I needed to know when to panic.

"There are no signs of brain activity."

"For how long?"

"Three hours."

"I'm on my way."

The line clicked before I could just hang up on her like I was about to do.

Quinn knew me too well.


"Baby?" Britt called and I bit down on my palm, shaking my head as the urge to scream began to bubble towards my lips.

"Don't call me that." I said when I felt her hovering just behind me, the smell of her soothing my rolling stomach.

She sighed heavily and then sucked in a breath and then cleared her throat before changing course.

"What happened?"

"It's Mami."

She put her arms on me and turned me around, in all our years together she had been soft with me but since our separation, she'd become more forceful.

Stern even.

Her eyes met mine but I refused to break down like I knew she wanted me to.

It seemed that everyone was expecting that from me these days.

No one got that part of me anymore.

Not Brittany.

Not Quinn.

"It's time?" She asked looking at me hopefully.

This has been going on for over a year and had been instrumental in our downfall.

I just couldn't be what she needed and now she was looking at me with hope...that Mami could finally rest.

And no one could decide to let her off life support but me.

Papi had made it so and now I needed to suck up whatever shred of feeling I had left and fly home.

"It's time."

"Can I come with you?"

I pulled my arms from her hands and took a step back.

"No. That's not your job anymore."

"But...we were...trying...right?"

"No. You stay here. You spend time with your little family. Do your show."

"You're important to me, Baby."

"Don't. Call. Me. That." I growled at her and her face went pale.

This time she understood.

Old me would have regretted the tears in her eyes but I wasn't her anymore.

Nothing was the same.

Especially not me.


I had made the trip back to Ohio so often that the guys at TSA knew my face.

The flight attendants all asked about Mami and I broke it to them that this was it.

I got hugs and extra free drinks.

And when I walked out of the airport and climbed into the car beside Papi, he was just as cold as me.

The love of his life was finally leaving us and he was just as broken.

They'd divorced when I was a baby but the love between them had never wavered, not even when he remarried and had other children.

I had a feeling that me and Britt would be the same way.

If I could feel anything at all, I'm sure that I'd feel like that about her.


I slipped my hand into my mother's limp and cold one as the machines worked at keeping her alive.

The rise and fall of her chest was unnatural and mechanical.

"Did she have her last rites?" I asked Papi as he rested his hand on my shoulder.

I knew better than to shrug him off since he was pretty much all that I had left.

Papi was the single person in all of existence at the moment that could break through the wall of ice that I lived behind.

"This morning, Father Carlos stopped by."

"Great and there's no opportunity to donate?" I asked and he shook his head.

"The infection has effected all of her viable organs."

"That's a shame." I murmured as I brushed a hand over my mother's swollen face.

Her body had finally given up it's fight.

They promise me that there was no pain but how could they know.

One year in a coma, two surgeries that led to spreading something so insidious that it struck little by little instead of all at once.

I'd flown home to say goodbye to Mami twelve times now and so this time, I figured would be like any other only it wasn't.

No brain activity.

Her body was shutting down.

There was no coming back.

"Whenever you're ready."

I took a deep breath and shoved aside all the pain that I felt.

"Now. If we don't do it now, I don't know if I can come back."


Things moved quickly after that.

And even though it was frowned upon, the moment that she was unplugged, I climbed onto that bed and wrapped her body with mine.

There was still the faint smell that was unique to her as I rested my head on her chest.

My first sounds were her breaths and her heartbeats and now I was listening to them stop forever.

Morbid as it was, it felt like I was coming full circle.

And when the sounds stopped twenty one minutes later, nearly two years of tears began to creep out of me.

I finally allowed myself to break.

Papi stood century as I broke apart.

No one entered the room as my walls tumbled.

There was shuffling around the room, the sound of teddy bears, balloons, and wilted flowers being thrown into the trash.

She didn't need them and neither did we.


I fell asleep against my mother's body and woke up against my father's.

He held me in his lap like I was no bigger than a child.

They'd wheeled away her body and now he was waiting for me to wake up.

But I didn't want to.

Living in a world without my mother was not a reality I was ready for.

Maybe not ever.

The buzzing of my phone forced me to unravel myself from Papi's arms.

When we were on our feet he pressed his thumbs beneath my eyes and wiped away my tears.

"Let's get you home."

"My home is with her."

"And also with me." He said and I knew that stubborn tone.

Even though I was hurting, so was he and I couldn't argue.


A/N: A plot bunny...two shot maybe.