Author's Note: A Santana/Teresa side story ficlet set after It's A Work of Art When You Shine Like the Sun and before Rest Your Soul With Me. As always, if you don't care for Santana, you'll probably want to skip this one.
Nothing Now Could Change My Mind
I can tell you're unprepared
For what will happen next
Nothing now could change my mind
Or make me want you less
~Reach For Me, Krysta Rodriguez
It doesn't happen the way she plans it.
Hell—if she's being honest, nothing in her life has really happened the way she'd planned it. She refuses to admit that's probably because she rarely ever bothers to come up with an actual plan for anything. She's not Rachel OCD Berry. She's Santana fucking Lopez, and she doesn't need some lame-ass plan. She's gets shit done by the force of her personality alone—because she's fucking awesome.
So yeah, she'd maybe kind of had this loose plan when she was younger that involved ruling McKinley as head cheerleader until she could leave Lima in her dust and head to New York or Los Angeles and become instantly rich and famous. Quinn had fucked up the first part of that plan pretty spectacularly—hell, she'd fucked up the second part too once she'd decided to take on a fucking truck and lose. Suddenly, being rich and famous didn't seem quite so important to Santana, but what her papi did—bringing people back from the brink of death and earning their eternal gratitude and praise (and a pretty damned nice paycheck too)—got a whole lot more appealing to her. The plan to become a doctor was less of a plan and more of a spur of the moment decision (fully supported by her papi) that she's actually managed to stick with for ten years now.
There'd also been a loose plan in there somewhere to marry Brittany one day, but—well, yeah, that had gone to shit. But it's all good now. She and Britts had come out of their breakup as friends (eventually), and Santana can't claim that she didn't enjoy the hell out of sampling the many sweet, lesbian delights that she'd found in New York once she'd been officially single. It had all worked out for the best.
And now—well, now she's got Teresa.
She didn't plan that either, but it's good.
It's really good.
And not just the sex—which is still fucking amazing. Seriously, they should win awards. They're that good together. People could learn a few things from them.
But this thing they have works outside of the bedroom too. Yeah, they have their thorny moments—Teresa isn't some sweet little innocent flower who'll just let Santana roll over her with her bitchy bullshit—but for the most part, they communicate pretty well. Teresa has a pretty good sense of humor about most things, and Santana somehow manages to make her laugh more than she makes her want to toss a tequila bottle at her head. That's always a good thing.
And she's smart. She's not some stuck-up intellectual or anything like that, but she knows enough to hold up her side of most conversations. She also seems to know a lot about people. She has this knack for being able to read someone pretty well after just a few minutes, so she can usually pick up on Santana's moods without needing to ask her a million annoying questions about her feelings. She kind of reminds Santana of Brittany in that way, but only in that way, and that's a good thing too.
Santana had loved Brittany deeply, but their relationship had ended for a reason, and Santana doesn't want another version of something that didn't work out. She's pretty happy with what she has right now.
And she's happy right now because Teresa is cooking breakfast for her after a long night of scorching the sheets. She'd caught the mouth-watering scent of onions, peppers, and frying eggs doing an enticing tango with the aroma of freshly brewed coffee the moment she'd stepped out of her morning shower. Dios, she loves it when Teresa sleeps over. There'll be no stale bagels for her today.
So it's the most natural thing in the world for Santana to slide up behind her girlfriend—after taking a moment to admire her ass in a pair of Santana's old cheerio shorts—wrap an arm around her trim waist, and lean into her warm body while she fusses over the hot stove. "Something smells delicious," she murmurs appreciatively.
Teresa chuckles, glancing back over her shoulder at Santana with a lopsided smile. "It's just an omelet."
"I was talking about you," Santana flirts shamelessly, pressing a kiss to Teresa's shoulder while her fingers sneak underneath her cotton t-shirt, "but breakfast smells good too."
Laughing, Teresa reaches down to tug her hand away. "If you want it to actually be edible, you'll stop trying to distract me."
Sighing, Santana reluctantly releases her girlfriend before shifting to lean against the counter next to her. "I'm only listening to you because I haven't had real food for breakfast all week."
Teresa shoots her a disapproving look. "You know, I'd probably be more sympathetic if I didn't know that you're perfectly capable of frying up an egg all by yourself."
"Nobody wants to bother with that at four in the morning." Santana would much rather stay in bed until the last possible second, even if it means speeding through her shower and grabbing that stale bagel and shitty hospital coffee when she gets to work.
"Excuse me?" Teresa returns with an incredulous expression, gesturing to the skillet with the spatula in her hand. "Am I nobody?"
Santana grins cheekily. "You," she purrs, leaning close to steal a kiss from those pouting lips, "are a fucking rock star. Waking up at the ass-crack of dawn just to feed me."
Teresa rolls her eyes, but there's an unmistakable grin tugging at her lips. "Well, someone has to. For a doctor, your eating habits are awful." She expertly flips the omelet over in the pan without breaking it. "No wonder your friends were so eager to find you a girlfriend."
"Please," Santana scoffs. "Those bitches were totally in it for themselves. They just wanted me out of their sappily married hair. Like seeing me wasn't the best part of their boring day."
Teresa shakes her head as she reaches for a plate. "Yeah, we both know that's bullshit. They wanted to see you happy," she declares confidently, sliding the omelet onto the plate before handing it over to Santana. "And fed." And yeah—Santana is aware that it's true, but she's not going to admit it. She has way too much fun giving everyone a hard time to go soft on them now. "Now eat," Teresa orders, offering up a fork for Santana to take. "You have to be at the hospital in less than an hour."
"So freaking bossy," Santana grumbles through her smile, taking the fork.
A teasing smirk settles on Teresa's lips. "I didn't hear any complaints last night."
Memories of her girlfriend's very pleasurable demands from their evening activities have Santana's blood heating and her own lips curling into a matching smirk. "True dat." Her smirk turns wicked. "Of course, you were sitting on my face at the time, so my mouth was otherwise occupied." Not that she would have complained. At all.
Teresa shakes her head, reaching out to affectionately pat Santana's cheek. "Like it should be now…with the food I slaved over just for you." Blue eyes glance down pointedly at the omelet that Santana has yet to dig into. "So you'd better clean that plate, Lopez."
"Like it's even a question." Santana has no intention of passing up a hot meal, not even to flirt with her girl. The first forkful of fluffy, buttery goodness is already in her mouth by the time her ass hits the chair at her tiny kitchen table. The peppers and onions give the eggs just enough spice to appeal to her discerning taste buds, and she lets a little moan of pleasure escape as she savors the bite. "Mmm. Damn, this is the good stuff," she compliments after swallowing. She's not a heathen after all. "The only thing that could make this better is…"
"Coffee," Teresa finishes knowingly, already setting a steaming mug down on the table in front of Santana—black, just the way she likes it.
"I love you."
It slips out without Santana even realizing it, and it's only the barely audible sound of Teresa's indrawn breath that makes her comprehend exactly what she's said—words that neither one of them have actually said yet. Well—until now.
Her eyes jerk up to Teresa's face, reading the uncertainty in her expression in the silent moment before she forces it away with a faint smile that's only a little bit shaky around the edges. "You love my kitchen skills," she dismisses with a breathless laugh.
It's an easy out—one that Teresa is willingly offering her—but Santana finds that she doesn't really want to take it, so she nods slowly, muttering a quiet, "Yeah," before she takes a very deliberate breath, holding Teresa's gaze. "And you. I love you," she repeats firmly.
Teresa sucks in a quick, little breath, bracing her hands against the back of the chair next to Santana. "Seriously? This is how you say that for the first time?"
Okay. Not exactly the response Santana was hoping for.
"I almost said it during sex a few times, but it seemed kinda cliché." And she'd known Teresa wouldn't have appreciated hearing it mid-orgasm. "Look, whatever," she mutters uncomfortably, shrugging a shoulder as her gaze drops back to the table. "It just slipped out and I guess I could've brushed it off as figure of speech but," she looks up at her girlfriend again, "it isn't, okay?" It's taken her a long fucking time to feel this way about someone again, but, "We don't have to make it a thing."
"We don't?" Teresa asks carefully.
"I mean, yeah," Santana grits out irritably, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms defensively. "It'd be nice if you maybe said it back, but I'm not gonna beg." She lifts her chin defiantly. "I just…I've been feeling it for a while now, and I thought you should know."
They've been doing this thing where they both keep dodging the word because neither one of them wanted to be the first one to say it, and, frankly, it kind of blows. She's not sorry it's out there, and despite Teresa's silence right now, she knows she's not the only one who's feeling this way.
Teresa takes another visible breath, never taking her eyes off Santana as she slowly pulls out the chair in front of her and slides into it before gently urging Santana to, "Say it again."
Santana swallows around the sudden lump in her throat, but she's not about to back down. "I love you. For real."
A faint smile flirts around the corners of Teresa's mouth, and she reaches out to touch Santana's wrist, carefully prying it out of its defensive position beneath her breasts and pulling it towards her until she can take Santana's hand and bring it to her lips where she bestows a single, soft kiss to her fingers. "I love you too."
"Yeah?" Santana breathes out, feeling her heart fucking flutter at the confirmation that Teresa feels the same way.
"You didn't guess?" Teresa challenges, obviously amused.
"I kinda hoped," Santana admits with a grin, readjusting her grip so she can hold her girlfriend's hand a little more tightly.
"So did I," Teresa confesses with bright eyes before leaning in to capture Santana's smiling lips in a kiss that moves from tender to searing in the span of a few heartbeats. And yeah—that's definitely more like the reaction she was hoping for.
"Now I really don't wanna go to work," Santana mumbles long minutes later when they finally, reluctantly part. She'd much rather stay home with the woman she loves—the one who loves her back—and get creative with all the ways they can express that without words.
Teresa chuckles. "Go. Save lives. I'll be here when you get home."
It's the best kind of promise, but, "Don't you have to work tonight?"
Teresa shrugs dismissively. "I'll call out."
Santana grins wickedly. "You rebel, you."
"You love that about me," Teresa teases with a wink.
Santana isn't even a little bit ashamed of the happy sigh that slips past her lips. "Yeah, I really do."
It's not the way she planned it, but it's damn near perfect anyway.