Author's Note: A Santaresa sidestory set two years after the ficlet Already Out of Foolproof Ideas and about two months before Awakening Inside A Dream.
Unbetaed so all mistakes are my own. Writing has been a struggle lately, but I'm trying to slowly finish a couple of the things I'd started. This is one of those things.
Disclaimer: I do not own Glee or the characters. I just like to play with them…strictly non-profit.
Since We Decided to Be Infinite
Since we found out that we're invincible
We've been living in a dream world
Since we decided to be infinite
There's no ending and there's no fear
~Evergreen, Broods
It's a good day. Santana has a rare afternoon free after early rounds at the hospital, and under different circumstances, they'd probably be heading out for dinner and maybe some drinks and dancing, but they—well, Teresa—had committed to babysitting duty before they'd known Santana would be available, and Teresa isn't one to shirk her commitments once they've been made, despite her wife's best attempts to sway her to the dark side. Not that Santana really would have tried to weasel out of this one. She adores Calliope Fabray almost as much as her mothers do.
Quinn and Rachel intend to enjoy some much needed alone time after Rachel's recent trip to Los Angeles to work on the big screen version of Confessions. Quinn and Callie had visited her on set earlier in the summer, and Rachel has been back home for a few days here and there in between, but her most recent trip had been alone and for two weeks longer than the Fabray family had preferred. They'd spent the first three days of her five day break doing family things, but tonight they'd wanted to engage in some adult-only activities. Agreeing to watch Callie for the night had seemed the least Teresa (and Santana) could do.
They're practically experts at kid wrangling by now, armed as they are with a collection of Disney movies and crayons and toys that Santana had insisted they stow away in their apartment for just these occasions when her goddaughter comes to visit. The collection had only grown since Teresa's oldest brother, Vince, had made them both official aunts last November.
Quinn and Rachel drop Callie off around four, both of them dressed for a night on the town. "We'll pick her up by nine tomorrow," Quinn promises.
Teresa waves her off. "There's no hurry. We don't mind keeping her longer." The we is really her, since Santana has an early call at the hospital again.. She glances down at Callie with a smile. "We can do lots of fun stuff together, can't we, Callie?"
Callie nods enthusiastically. "Uh huh."
Rachel runs a loving hand over her daughter's head as she hands Calliope's backpack over to Teresa. "We really do appreciate you watching her for the night. Taking her all the way out to Shelby's house isn't nearly as convenient."
"Just so you know, this is going on the list of favors you owe us," Santana informs them with a smirk.
Teresa lightly slaps the back of her hand into her wife's stomach. "No, it isn't. We love spending time with Callie."
"Yeah, we do," Santana agrees, giving up any pretense that she feels otherwise as she bends down to scoop up her goddaughter. "You're our very favorite Fabray," she coos, pressing kisses over Callie's face that result in squeals of laughter.
"I can't even feel insulted by that," Rachel grumbles.
Quinn chuckles, tucking her arm around Rachel's waist. "Please try to have in her bed by eight this time, and do not let her eat an entire package of cookies again."
"We totally shared them," Santana defends.
"I like cookies," Callie exclaims happily.
"I know you do, baby bear." Quinn cups her daughter's face lovingly. "And if you're very good for Aunt Santana and Aunt Teresa, you can have one after a healthy, well balanced dinner." Those last words are said with hazel eyes firmly on Teresa, and yeah—Quinn is definitely still a little salty about the pineapple and pepperoni pizza she'd ordered the last time she'd babysat Callie, but in her defense, that pizza had included all of the major food groups.
"One or two," Santana challenges, earning a bigger smile from Callie.
Quinn's eyes narrow. "No more."
Santana rolls her eyes. "We got this, Q, so you can go get on that." Smirking, she tips her chin at Rachel, who bites back her embarrassed smile with pinkening cheeks. Quinn only huffs in long-suffering exasperation before smiling softly at Callie.
"Mama and I will see you tomorrow, sunshine." Leaning in, she kisses Callie's forehead. "Be good."
"'Kay," Callie chirps.
Rachel takes her turn, reaching out to brush back Callie's bangs before bestowing her own kiss beneath them. "Love you, little star."
"Love you too."
"What? No kisses for me and Resa?" Santana razzes when their friends turn to leave..
"In your dreams," Quinn fires back.
Santana glances at Teresa with a wicked grin, shrugging. "Not recently, how about you, babe?"
Teresa doesn't bother to hide her mirth. "It's been a few months, at least."
"You're both incorrigible," Rachel accuses, though it's said with laughter.
Teresa grins at her. "Aren't you glad you decided to play matchmaker?"
Rachel's smile widens. "I am, in fact. You're an invaluable babysitter."
"Just get outta here already," Santana demands with another eyeroll, "so we can corrupt your kidlet in peace."
Quinn points a finger at Santana. "Be good."
Santana scoffs. "Please. I'm the best."
"At irritating us," Quinn mutters, shaking her head.
After a final round of good nights, Rachel and Quinn are finally on their way, leaving Teresa and Santana alone with Calliope.
"So, what do you wanna do first, chiquitita?" Santana asks as she carries Callie into the living room. "Race tonka trucks, play doctor, rescue a princess?"
"Wanna paint," Callie answers.
Santana deposits her on the couch. "Paint?" she asks incredulously. "You don't wanna do something cooler?"
"Hey," Teresa protests, flicking Santana's shoulder as she walks past her on her way to store Callie's backpack for later. "That's my livelihood you're dissing."
Santana ignores the warning, flopping down next to Callie. "Like, paint paint?" she questions with a slight frown. "Or color with your crayons?"
"Paint," Callie says again. "Like Aunt T." She holds up a hand and spreads out her fingers. "The gooey paint."
"The fingerpaints," Teresa clarifies with a grin. She'd bought them for Callie four months ago after the girl had gotten her hands on a tube of Teresa's rose pink acrylic. The table in her studio now has an original Rinaldi painted on it to cover up the handprints the girl had made. It had seemed easier than scraping the paint off, and that table had needed a little sprucing up anyway. (Teresa has learned the hard way to lock up all of her art supplies when Calliope comes to visit.)
"Aunt T can paint with you then," Santana informs her with a disgusted pout. "I'm not sticking my fingers in that gross stuff."
Teresa laughs. "I don't know why you have such a problem with it, considering the other, really gross stuff you stick your fingers in every day." She'll never understand how her wife can deal with blood and guts all day at the hospital but can't stand the feeling of paint on her hands. (The only exception is the edible body paint they still keep tucked away for obvious reasons.)
For once, Santana ignores the dirty retort that Teresa had gifted her, undoubtedly due to the child sitting beside her. "Two words," she responds, holding up her fingers to count them off. "Surgical gloves."
"You can use them to paint if you want."
"Or I could just let my wife do it," Santana reasons, leaning forward with her hands on her knees and a smirk on her face, "since there's always paint on her hands anyway."
Grinning, Teresa doesn't bother to argue against the truth. She only shakes her head at Santana before addressing Callie instead. "I'll be happy to paint with you, Callie. Just give me a few minutes to get everything out." Like the newspaper to protect the floor and coffee table from any little accidents. "I'm sure Aunt Santana can entertain you until then."
Santana has no objections—she never does when it comes to spending more time with her goddaughter—so she asks Callie about all the things she's been doing with her moms over the last few days and smiles through every loud, over-excited, occasionally unintelligible answer. She's so soft and patient with her. It's a facet of her personality that very few people get to see. Teresa feels a rush of warmth every time she watches them interact. She's so in love with that woman.
The woman who's more than happy to sit and watch her make a mess, albeit an artful one, with Calliope, fingers a rainbow of multi-colored paint by the time they're finished. Thankfully, it comes off their hands much easier than her acrylics and oils ever do.
She eventually leaves Santana with the oversized legos that Callie had wanted to play with next while she makes them dinner. She suspects Quinn will probably object to classifying chicken quesadillas and rice as either healthy or well-balanced, but in her defense, Callie had specifically requested them. Well, her request had technically been 'cheesy chicken cakes' since she can't actually pronounce quesadillas yet despite Santana's best efforts to teach her, but Teresa had gotten the gist of it. Even at three, Calliope knows how to employ her big hazel eyes and irresistible pout to get exactly what she wants from her honorary aunts. Teresa doesn't know how Rachel and Quinn ever manage to say no to her, but she guesses it's something that comes with the whole motherhood thing.
Santana cuts up the quesadilla into little pieces for Calliope and makes sure she drinks her milk and wipes her hands and mouth. Teresa had never imagined that the Santana Lopez who'd swaggered into her bar all those years ago, all cocky attitude and inappropriate innuendos, would have such a soft touch with kids. Even when she's in her bitchiest mood, just plop Callie down beside her and she's instantly pacified.
Or she turns into a three-year-old herself, which is exactly what she does after dinner.
Old episodes of The Owl House are playing on the television, but Santana and Callie aren't really watching the show. Instead, they're sprawled across the floor, engaged in a heated game of the Sneaky Snacky Squirrel that Santana is currently losing, most likely on purpose. It should be a ridiculous sight, but it's entirely too endearing, and Teresa is content to laze on the couch and watch them.
"You're such a cheater," Santana complains when Callie steals another of her nuts.
Callie giggles. "Nuh uh. I'm a sneaky skirl."
Santana lets the mispronunciation pass, something that Quinn would never do. "Well, you're tiny enough," she teases, poking Callie in the side until she's giggling again.
She squirms away, pushing the spinner toward Santana. "You turn, Auntie Tana."
"Yeah, yeah." Santana flicks the little arrow with nowhere near her full strength, watching it land on the little picture of the cloud blowing out a breeze, which means she has to lose all the nuts she's collected. "This thing is rigged," she grumbles, but she dutifully dumps her nuts back into the tree.
Callie laughs again and takes the spinner back, spinning it with all her might. She lands on the picture of one nut and she conveniently needs one more nut to win. She gleefully chooses a green one and places it into the green space in her log. "I win!" she exclaims happily, throwing her arms up in the air in triumph. Her resemblance to both of her mothers in that moment is uncanny.
Santana flops onto her back with a groan. "I can't believe I lost to a munchkin."
"I am the champ-in," Callie crows, throwing herself on top of Santana, who catches her with an oof.
"You've definitely got that Berry bluster down, chiquitita," Santana quips, affectionately ruffling the girl's hair.
Callie gazes at her with a curious expression. "What's bwuster?"
"It's...ah...well," Santana stammers, craning her neck to look up at Teresa with pleading eyes.
Teresa smirks at her wife, shaking her head. That's what she gets for trying to sneakily take a playful dig at Rachel in front of her daughter. She has half a mind to let Santana claw her way out of her own verbal snafu, but she'd rather not chance her teaching Callie some inappropriate euphemism that she'll end up repeating to her mothers. They're already pushing their luck on that front.
"It's bravado," she supplies, choosing the nicest definition she knows with a smile. "Which means being bold," she simplifies for Callie. "Like how your mama acts when she's on stage being a star."
Santana snorts. "Yeah, bold. That's totally what that is."
Luckily, Calliope doesn't pick up on the sarcasm. Teresa does, and she pushes her toes into Santana's shoulder in silent censure. Santana smirks at her but doesn't comment, and her expression instantly softens when she glances back at her goddaughter. She carefully sits up, adjusting Callie on her lap.
"Don't ever let anybody tell you being bold is a bad thing, munchkin. It's exactly what you wanna be. You follow your mama's example on that." She sends a look of warning in Teresa's direction. "Don't you dare tell Berry I said that."
"Wouldn't dream of it," Teresa says with a not-so-innocent grin. Oh, she's so telling Rachel the first chance she gets. Santana sighs, already knowing how this is going to play out.
Clearly giving up any pretense of indifference, Santana tells her goddaughter, "You just follow both your moms' examples. You'll be winning all the things."
Santana bestows a sloppy kiss on the girl's cheek, eliciting a riot of delighted giggles, and Teresa feels a hard tug to her heart—and somewhere else much lower and deeper.
"Now, Miss Sneaky Squirrel, it's past your bedtime."
"Nuh uh," Callie denies, shaking her head.
"Uh huh," Santana counters in the same loud, childish tone. "Come on, chiquitita." She hoists Callie up into a bridal carry, made easy by her diminutive size, before heaving herself up off the floor in a fairly impressive display of leg strength left over from her cheerleading days. Teresa would never have believed she'd been one of not for the many videos and pictures she's been shown over the years. It really is a shame that Santana hadn't kept the uniform.
(She knows for a fact that Quinn had somehow managed to get hold of hers. Rachel really does tend to overshare sometimes.)
"Let's get your teeth brushed and your jammies on while Aunt T gets your bed ready." She totes Callie down the hall towards the bathroom, gracefully snagging her backpack along the way.
Teresa watches them disappear from view before she takes her cue to start cleaning up the mess those two had left on the living room floor. It doesn't really take long, and she has the sofa pulled out into a bed and the safety rails attached just in time for Santana to carry Calliope back into the room, ready for bed in her pink, kitten-covered pajamas.
"Not tired," Callie whines despite the fact that her drooping eyelids say otherwise.
"Well, your tias are," Santana argues back, "so we're putting this day to bed, kidlet."
It's not strictly a true statement. Nine o'clock would be far too early for Santana and Teresa to call it a night under normal circumstances, but since their second bedroom is an art studio without a suitable bed for guests, let alone a toddler, they're kind of stuck giving up their living room so they can attempt to get Callie to sleep in a somewhat bed-timely manner. (They're already way past the instructed time they'd been given by Rachel and Quinn.) And really, it's not like Santana couldn't use the extra rest with how many hours she still puts in at the hospital.
Callie pouts but doesn't offer any more objections, and when Santana comes to a stop next to Teresa, she feels the need to sooth away the little girl's frown. "The sooner we go to sleep, the sooner I can make you strawberry pancakes for breakfast."
That earns her a big grin. "Yay, pancakes!"
"Yay," Santana repeats just as enthusiastically, lightly bouncing Callie in her arms. "Sugar high for your moms to deal with tomorrow." Teresa laughs, and Santana sends a grin her way. "But now we're crashing." She carefully settles the girl down in the middle of the bed before securely tucking her in. "We'll be in the bedroom, the last door down the hall," she clarifies, pointing for good measure, even though Callie has already been here enough times to have an idea of where to go. "You come get us if you need us. Or, you know, just yell. Okay?"
"'Kay," Callie dutifully echoes, lifting her small fist to rub sleepily at her eyes. Teresa has a feeling she'll be asleep as soon as the lights go out.
"Goodnight, munchkin," Santana murmurs, kissing her forehead.
""Night, Auntie Tana. 'Night, Aunt T."
"Goodnight, Callie," Teresa returns, bending to give the girl her own goodnight kiss. "Sweet dreams."
When she straightens, she sees Santana watching her with a soft smile. Teresa returns it, and together they leave Callie to sleep, switching off all the lights in the apartment except the one in the hallway in order to provide Calliope with a small semblance of a nightlight that will also make it easier for the girl to get to them if she needs to. She's an amazingly precocious kid for her age, but she's still only three, and she doesn't spend that many nights away from the comfort of her own bed, so there's a chance that she'll end up in theirs before the night is over.
The door of their bedroom barely has time to close with a quiet click before Santana curls her fingers into the belt loops on Teresa's jeans and tugs until their bodies are flush. "So, what'd'ya wanna do for the rest of the night?" The salacious smirk on her face speaks of very specific ideas.
Teresa shakes her head, reaching between them to disengage her wife's hands and put a respectable distance between them. "We're sleeping." Or at least quietly lying in their bed with the television on low until they eventually fall asleep.
Santana grunts her disapproval with a frown, refusing to budge more than an inch. "That's no fun."
"How much fun can we really have with Callie here?"
Santana sighs heavily, reluctantly letting Teresa go. "Q and the midget better appreciate what I'm giving up so they can get their freak on tonight."
"I'm sure they do." Teresa pats Santana's cheek affectionately before leaning in to brush a chaste kiss to the corner of her mouth "I promise I'll make it up to you tomorrow night." She purposely puts enough of a purr into the words to make sure that Santana is thinking about it all day tomorrow.
"Damn right you will." Santana reaches up to curl her palm around the back of Teresa's neck, guiding her back for another kiss that isn't at all chaste. She lets it linger for a long moment before finally pulling away with another wistful sigh. "Guess I need to put on my jammies too in case the kidlet pops her head in here."
Teresa laughs. "Unless you want to give her an eyeful." Santana typically prefers to sleep topless, if not entirely naked.
"Yeah, she's still a little young for that," Santana concedes with a grin.
So they both change into child appropriate sleepwear—Santana in a t-shirt and boxers and Teresa in a tank top and thin pajama pants—and settle on their bed. Teresa is just about to reach for the remote to turn on the television, maybe pick up another episode or two of their latest binge, until Santana's voice stops her short.
"So…we're pretty good at this kid thing," she muses into the silence. "Maybe we should think about doing it full time?"
Teresa's heart skitters as her gaze flies to her wife. Santana is doing her best to look nonchalant about it, but her words hang in the air between them like a living thing. It's a subject that they haven't talked seriously about in a while, both of them content to focus on each other and their marriage and the respective careers that have kept them occupied. A nervous excitement begins to bubble up in Teresa's belly, but she falls back on humor to give them both a little room to process the weight of Santana's unspoken question. "You wanna hang up your scrubs to open up a daycare?"
Santana snorts out a laugh. "Please. You think anyone but Q and Berry would trust me taking care of their rugrat?"
"You might be surprised," Teresa says, her voice going as soft as she's sure her expression must be. She thinks of Santana with Callie, with their nephew, Dante, with just about every other child that comes into her orbit. She's so good with kids, and she's going to be such an amazing mom.
Santana inhales deeply, turning on the mattress to face Teresa with serious eyes. "Would you trust me with yours?"
"It was kind of implied when I married you," Teresa reminds her with a grin.
"Yeah, but you're entitled to change your mind," Santana reasons with a shrug, looking uncertain.
"I haven't," Teresa reassures her, reaching across the mattress to twine their fingers together. The little crease of worry between Santana's eyebrows disappears with the gesture. "And you obviously haven't either. But are you really ready for this, Ana?" she asks gently, needing to make sure. "Because your shifts at the hospital are only marginally less time consuming than they used to be." It's been the biggest reason that they haven't been in a rush to talk about starting a family of their own..
"But I've got a little more control over them now," Santana points out, smiling ruefully, "and I'm entitled to maternity leave no matter which one of us gets knocked up."
Teresa laughs at that. "I think we know which one of us that'll be."
Santana rolls her eyes. "Well, it'd obviously be less convenient for me to waddle around the hospital twelve hours a day than for you to stay home and paint, but I can roll with it if you need me to." The image of Santana pregnant sends a jolt of want through Teresa. "You're the one that's gonna be putting up with my pregnancy hormones."
That image does pretty much the opposite, and Teresa feigns a shudder. "God, no. Anything but that."
"Fuck you," Santana curses laughingly, rolling on top of Teresa. "You'd love me anyway."
Her own laughter peeters out as she gazes up at her wife. "Yeah." She really, really would. She can't think of anything more beautiful than Santana pregnant with their baby, but her patients (and Teresa's patience) would never survive it, so Teresa knows it'll be her. "I love you enough to have your baby."
She can feel Santana's indrawn breath as much as hear it, can see the awe and adoration shining in her fathomless eyes. "For real?"
Teresa nods. "Yes, Ana. For real." And her heart skitters again, falling into perfect rhythm with the woman she loves. "If you're ready, so am I."
Not even the presence of Calliope Fabray in the other room stops Santana from kissing her then, quietly basking in the promise of a future where the little ears in their home will belong to a child of their own.
Yeah, it's a really good day.