A/N: Thank you for the reviews and follows! Here's chapter 2, enjoy!
August 2024 – New York, New York
"Welcome back, Santana," Dr. Broffman greeted the younger woman as she held the door open to her office.
"Hey, doc," she said as she walked in. She two-stepped in front of the couch and set her purse down on the cushion beside her as she sat. That coffee table really should be pulled out about a foot, someone could trip. "Hey, doc?"
"Call me Deborah, please."
"Have you thought about pulling this table about a foot toward you? Wouldn't want anyone to trip and need help on their way to getting help," she joked.
"Noted. Did you think about that question I asked you last week?" The doctor asked as she walked over and sat in her leather chair.
"You don't waste any time, do you?"
"You don't pay me to waste your time."
"120 bucks an hour, to be exact," the younger woman noted.
"Precisely. So, let's get started." She leaned forward in her chair, grabbed her reading glasses and the folder lying on the coffee table, and opened it. "Before we do, I want to back-track a little by asking this: Is this your first experience with therapy?"
Santana nodded.
"Well, I want to start by saying that this is a very big step, Santana, and I want to commend you for taking it," she took a deep breath before continuing. "I understand that it's very difficult to arrive at a place where you realize that you've been affected by something, to then acknowledge that the effect is perhaps heavier than you thought, and to ultimately reach out and ask for help unpacking that, that load, if you will. I wanted to say that and to communicate how glad I am that you've come here, and that I'm thankful."
Santana inhaled deeply, exhaling through pursed lips as she nodded again.
"Now," she said resolutely as she put on her glasses. "Let's unpack!"
"Where do you want me to start today?"
"Do you want to talk about what brought you in here in the first place?"
"Um, okay, well," she hesitated, drawing in a deep breath before continuing. "I feel like I've been walking around with a, with a, a rope or something tied around my waist," she stammered, moving her arms around, gesturing toward her torso. "Or maybe it's more like a harness, but whatever it is, there's this, this, elephant or rock or hay bale or something attached to it that I have to pull around."
Dr. Broffman nodded. "A rope and something heavy, go on."
"I mean, I live my life, and sometimes I don't even notice that it's there. Other times it'll knock me on my ass, but I can get back up, you know?"
"Hmmm," the doctor nodded again.
"But sometimes? Sometimes that thing gets so heavy that I, that I," she paused before taking another deep breath. "Can't breathe. And, and…I…don't know how much longer I can drag this thing around."
"What do you mean?" The doctor cocked her head in curiosity.
"I love my wife, and Luca and Lucie are the best things that ever happened to me. And I want to be there for them and be, you know, better for them, but this, this thing, I have to get it under control."
"Santana, I'm going to ask you a question and I want you to be honest with me," she said as she lifted her glasses up to rest them over her hair, closed the folder in her lap, and scooted to the edge of her chair. "Have you ever thought about hurting yourself?"
Santana half snorted, half-laughed as she dropped her gaze to her lap and shook her head. "I'd never do that," she lied. She lifted her head to look at Dr. Broffman. "I'd miss me too much."
The doctor studied her client. She watched her as she sat with one hand playing with the other on her lap, legs crossed at the knee.
"Okay," she said, nodding. "I want to take this moment as an opportunity to tell you that should you ever feel that way, I want you to call me." She reached behind her and grabbed one of her business cards from her desk. She flipped it over, pulled her glasses back down to her eyes, and scribbled her personal cell phone number down. She leaned forward in her chair and extended her arm toward her client, the card wedged between her index and middle fingers. "Anytime, day or night. Okay?"
Santana stared at the doctor's extended hand before drawing in another deep breath, nodding as she exhaled, leaned forward, and took the card.
"So," the doctor redirected as she pushed her glasses back up over her head and leaned back into her chair, crossing her legs. "This…weight, if you will, how long have you had it?"
"Oh god, a decade at least."
"That seems like quite a long time. Research suggests that humans aren't able to pinpoint the exact moment when we acquired a feeling, but we tend to make associations. We consciously or subconsciously connect emotions and people and events to," she said, pausing to carefully search for her words. "Try to retroactively determine that a feeling or a moment was important, even – or especially – if we didn't know it was important at the time."
"That makes a lot of sense," Santana said, nodding.
"What was going on in your life a decade ago?"
April 2014 – Cambridge, Massachusetts
"Brittany!" A Nigerian-accent called out from what sounded like down the hall. "Me and the guys are setting up the telescopes on the roof of the chemistry building, you coming?" The person matching the voice said as he appeared in the doorway.
"I can't, Rooney, homework," the blonde said as she got up from her desk chair and walked toward the open door. "Also, those telescopes don't exist, remember?" she whispered as she shut her dorm room door.
"Sorry," she apologized to the Latina in her room as she walked back to her desk and sat in her swivel chair.
"Someone's got a crush on you," Santana snickered as she tapped a key on her laptop to wake it back up, the light from the screen illuminating her face as she lied on her stomach, propped up on her elbows on the other girl's bed.
"Who, Rooney? Rooney's an A-corn," she dismissed as she shook her head and turned a page in her textbook. Santana snorted out a laugh. "How's Tina?"
"She's good," she updated her on her roommate at CUNY. "She seems a lot happier knowing she doesn't have to sell a kidney or something for tuition since she transferred from Brown, but I really wish she'd throw on some headphones or something when she's Skyping with Mike. They're into some weird shit."
"Gross."
"Nasty."
The two girls fell into a busy silence. Page-turning, keyboard-clicking, and a barely audible Taylor Swift song were the only sounds heard in the tiny dorm until Santana sighed loudly.
"Whatcha thinking about over there?" Brittany asked, not taking her eyes off her textbook.
"Which economic theories to compare and contrast for my Econ final," she answered. What are you thinking about over there?"
"The…" she started as she stuck her fuzzy-topped pen in the crease of the textbook before shutting it and reading the title aloud. "Mathematical Theory of Black Holes, but I was also thinking about when you dumped me." She swiveled her chair around towards the other girl, lifting her leg and folding it underneath her.
"That damn song," she sighed, shaking her head. "You're never gonna let me live that down, are you?"
The blonde giggled. "I remember being really sad. Then confused. Then really mad. Then sad again. But then I kinda understood what you were saying," she said as she shrugged a shoulder. "You know, about us not getting what we need. Because of the distance."
"Okay?"
"Well," she said, pulling her leg from underneath her and bending her knee to hug it to her chest. "Thinking about that made me think about other things too."
"Like?" Santana asked with a brow raised.
"Like," Brittany put her foot back on the ground, got up from her chair, and walked over to sit on the bed next to the other girl. "How I miss you."
Santana shut her laptop, set it aside, and lifted up on her hands and knees to change into a sitting position as she scooted to rest against the pillows at the head of the bed, making more room for the blonde.
"I miss you too, Britt. But I'm here." She said, looking confused as she held her hands up and gestured around the room.
"You're here today, but I know you're going back to campus tomorrow."
"Yeah, but you're coming to visit in a couple weeks though, right?"
"Yes, but do you see what we're doing?"
Santana cocked an eyebrow and pursed her lips as she shook her head.
Brittany shifted to sit crisscrossed, directly facing the other girl. "This is exactly what we did last year when you went to Louisville. No, we're not technically dating, but it feels a lot like we are."
"Is that a bad thing?"
"I don't know," the blonde shrugged. "I just, I feel like nothing's changed, you know? I still love you but there's still distance and we're still young, and we're still not really getting what we need."
"I'm confused, Britt. What are you saying?"
"I love you, Santana. I love our visits and I love our sweet lady kisses, when we get to have them," she took in a deep breath before continuing. "But I don't want to live my life waiting for a day here, a weekend there, every few weeks or every few months or so, and you shouldn't want to either. We should be living life every day."
"I love you too, but are you saying you want me to…stop visiting?"
"No! Not at all!" She grabbed Santana's hands, timidly playing with them. "I guess what I'm saying is...I want our visits, and I want you to have fun at school too. I'm not saying run off and find yourself a girlfriend or best friend or anything like that," she laughed, looking down at Santana's hands in her own. "But I do want you to enjoy yourself."
Santana nodded slowly, taking it in. "And what about you? What are you gonna do?"
"Honestly? I'm probably just gonna work on me. I mean, with all the stuff I have to do for my scholarship, I think I'm gonna stay pretty busy."
"Well, that's not fair, you should be enjoying yourself too. Euler bricks ain't gonna meet all your needs, Britt," she pointed out, smirking at the other girl.
"You'd be surprised," Brittany smiled, still looking down at their hands intertwined in her lap. She looked back up to meet the other girl's eyes, searching them sheepishly and asked, "Are we okay?"
"Come here," Santana said, tugging on the other girl's hand still tangled in her own.
Brittany leaned forward until her lips found lips. She exhaled through her nose as she sank further into the kiss. She opened her mouth as the other girl ran her tongue across her bottom lip. Santana scooted herself further down on the bed as their kiss deepened, turning to face the other girl as they laid on their sides, legs tangling and hands roaming. Without breaking contact, she rolled on top of the blonde, her hands toying with the hem of the other girl's MIT sweater before slipping underneath it. The blonde let out a deep sigh as her hands roamed up and down the other girl's back, hooking her legs around her waist.
"So," Santana lifted up from Brittany's lips. "How much do you wanna know about my 'fun'?"
"How much do you wanna know about Planck's Constant?"
"Got it," she nodded and leaned back down to recapture the other girl's lips.
August 2024
"So, you and Brittany decided you two would start seeing other people. Is that correct?" Dr. Broffman asked.
"Not that we would start seeing other people, necessarily. Just that, we could, if we wanted to. And that it wouldn't stop us from being … us, you know?"
"Ah, I see," She nodded. "And did you?"
"Did we what?"
"Start seeing other people?"
"I had a few drinks here and there and…clocked some lesbian community service hours, you know, helping some girls experiment," she shrugged. "But it never meant anything to me."
"Did she?"
"I'm sure she did, but we never talked about it."
"And I'm assuming you were able to stay that 'Us' that you mentioned."
"We were, yes," she nodded. "At least, for a while."
"I'm confused," the doctor admitted, uncrossing her legs and shifting to sit on the edge of her chair. "What happened?"
"Well, I kinda always assumed that we'd," she started before she was interrupted by the alarm on her cell phone. "Shit. Sorry." She said, silencing the alarm on her phone. "That'll have to be a story for another day. It's career day at the twins' school, and I got volunteered for it," she said with a small eyeroll. "I've gotta cut out a little early."
Dr. Broffman looked at the clock on the wall and noticed fifteen minutes still remaining for the session. She opened her mouth to speak but closed it when her client kept talking.
"Don't worry, you'll get paid for the whole hour," she smirked. "Same time next week?"