Santana was up early on Thanksgiving, surprisingly rising to smells coming from the kitchen. Her kitchen. She leaned on Quinn until she woke up groggily. "What time is it?"
"If I'm up, you're up. Come take a quick shower with me. I think Prudence is making us breakfast again." Quinn grunted. "Not kidding, Fablo. If you're not up in five, I'm dumping cold water on you."
"You wouldn't dare," Quinn mumbled into her pillow.
Santana hovered over Quinn. She licked Quinn on her exposed shoulder. Predictably she squealed, and Quinn bucked so hard Santana nearly fell off the bed. "You're so gross!"
"Up!"
Santana went into the bathroom, followed closely by Quinn. Even though the shower was quick, getting dressed and ready for the day wasn't. Quinn had her wearing a hokie Christmas red dress, with her hair up in a complex braided up-do, while Quinn herself was wearing a black shawl collar mid-length sweater with red stitching, and forest green leggings, her hair in the same bun that she wore it in to work. And even though she looked incredible, it didn't stop Santana from resenting how casual she looked.
"Hey, at least it's red," Quinn teased.
"You are so on my shit list right now," Santana returned.
When they got down to the kitchen, it wasn't Prudence, but a silver-haired old lady positioned in front of one of the counters, three of the four burners occupied, and Santana could smell something coming from the oven. A red-faced Russell, who looked as if he his face had literally been thoroughly scrubbed by a rough rag, was in the kitchen with her, bent over a cup of coffee. "Good morning," Russell spoke. He immediately pulled down two mugs.
"Grandmother? What are you doing over here so early?"
"How else do you expect to have dinner on the table in time? Now I know you people of color operate on "colored people time", but we Fabrays like to stick to a proper time line."
Santana's jaw practically dropped open. God, the woman was just like her own abuela, it was just like being home!
Quinn waited until it looked like Santana wasn't going to lunge at the woman before Quinn walked across the room and kissed the lady on the cheek. "Good morning, Grandmother," Quinn said in that patient but deadly voice.
The woman huffed, turning away from whatever she was stirring. "Well? Is this her? Your girl?"
"She's not my girl, she's my wife, and yes. Grandmother this is Santana. Santana, my grandmother Betsy Fabray."
"You can call me Bitty."
Santana was thinking she'd rather not.
Once the smells of the kitchen began to drift upstairs, the rest of the family started to come down, miraculously already composed for the day. Of course, Santana thought to herself. This is a Fabray-fest after all.
Breakfast was eaten in the parlor with Judy conspicuously missing from the assembled crowd. As soon as the food was eaten, everyone branched off to their own pursuits. Prudence generously offered to do the dishes as she, Santana, and Grandmother Fabray returned to the kitchen, leaving Santana free to get started. The elder Fabray watched with shrewd eyes as Santana got started on making the baste for the turkey.
"You're not making any of that Mexican food are you?" the old woman demanded. "Because that kind of food doesn't sit well with a woman of my age, you know."
Santana took a couple of breaths. "No, I'm not making any Mexican dishes; Quinn passed along the family recipes."
"Well, good." There was silence for 10 minutes before Santana felt eyes once again on her, and her mouth opened again. "You know, you really don't look like one of them lez girls. I once knew a gay," Grandma Fabray whispered conspiratorially to Santana. "In college. She wasn't as pretty as you; they weren't back then. She had her hair all hacked off, and she was just so unkempt. How she ever expected to land herself a man looking like that, I can't imagine." The woman shook her head at the memory. "I bet she had them AIDS, too. You don't have them AIDS, do you?"
She was so going to kill her wife. "No."
"And of course they didn't get married. Gays didn't know how to stay together very long."
Santana bit down on her lip hard enough to break skin. Grandma Fabray aimed a slap on Santana's shoulder. "But good for you!"
Was she supposed to take that as approval? "Thank you."
"You two signed a pre-nup right? Can't have you running off with the Fabray money now."
The woman went back to her dishes, but it was too much to ask that she work quietly on them, however.
"I knew a Latin fellow, too. He used to cut our grass. I could never figure out why they call them Latin. He wasn't from Greece."
Grandma Fabray got momentarily called away but she promised to quickly return. She had to make a proper banana nut loaf and apple crisp after all.
As if it were timed, Judy came striding around the same time that the eldest Fabray left. She placed a comforting hand on Santana's shoulders. "If it makes you feel any better, she's like that to everybody. What do you need me to do?"
"Shoot me," Santana joked.
Judy fumbled around in the cabinets before pulling something down and pouring it into a cup. "Here."
Santana looked questioningly at the cup that her mother-in-law was offering. "I was just joking about the shoot me. I don't want to die."
"Just drink it. It's a Pimentel family secret."
She shrugged, putting the cup to her lips. It turned out to be rum with a little cinnamon and a hint of chocolate. "Pimentel?"
"It's my maiden name."
"Judy Pimentel?" Judy started to pour her another. "Are you trying to turn me into an alcoholic?" she joked.
Judy shook her head. "Just trying to take the edge off."
Santana took the second shot. "What on earth would drag you back to this after you managed to escape the Fabray? You're okay with spending the holiday with your ex?"
"I'm okay with spending the holiday with my lovely girls, and their respective partners. I don't get to say that very often."
Santana rinsed out her cup and put it in the dishwasher. "You can visit with us whenever you want, Judy. Especially once we get our house. There will always be a room for you."
"There's that Lopez charm." She laid a hand on Santana's face. "You're sweet dear. And in case I never told you, I'm glad that you and Quinn have each other. Have you two seen anything that really gets you going yet?"
"We've only looked at two houses so far. Quinn's lease is up February 15th, but she wants to move in by her birthday, and I think she's going to divorce me if we don't find a place by then."
Judy laughed, but Santana was only halfway joking. Quinn had replaced her ringtone on Santana's phone to Birthday Sex, just in case Santana had any doubts about what Quinn really wanted for the big 30. "We're just waiting to hear back about our loan, but I'm not worried about that." Quinn's credit was decent, but Santana's was close to perfect.
"What's Quinn doing right now?"
"Talking with a couple of her cousins in the living room about their respective jobs. You want me to send her in?"
Santana smiled to herself, remembering how Quinn felt about them. "Nope. Let her stay where she is."
Just like at a family affair at home, as the day progressed, more people joined her in the kitchen, mostly getting in the way as they all had a thing that was their thing. Santana never heard a knock at the front door, or heard the door bell ring, but it seemed like every time she left the kitchen, there was another Fabray added to the pile. And either genes ran strong in that family, or Fabrays only married other blondes because nearly every last one of them was blonde. She had trouble navigating them, not to mention how much she stood out among them.
And they were all like the perfect Stepford family because they were all wearing dress slacks, and red, green, or paisley sweaters. They all looked like they were dressed in Sunday best.
"So is there any trick to keeping up with who everyone is?" she'd finally had to ask her mother-in-law.
Judy laughed. "Santana, are you saying we all look alike?"
She smirked in response.
When Judy left her, Santana remembered her iPod and plugged it in, effectively blocking out the rest of the world. She knew that technically she was supposed to be entertaining as well as cooking, but since it was Russell's house, she figured he could have at it, and was thankful that they hadn't yet bought a house because otherwise all of these people would have been in her and Quinn's space in Boston, and that thought was just not cool.
Santana was breathing a sigh of relief, when the weekend was finally over. She had to congratulate herself on that fact that she, and to a lesser extent Quinn, had survived their first ever Fabray holiday. Overall, it hadn't been that bad. She enjoyed decorating the tree with Skye and Frankie, Frannie was a lot nicer than she remembered, Frank Sr. managed to tell two good jokes, Judy was hilarious and a godsend, and Russell was surprisingly not terrible. He had been tolerable for most of the weekend, and was actually a little fun at some points. And the rest of the family…well, only about half were like Quinn's grandmother, and none as open about it as she was. One even told her conspiratorially that she had voted for Hillary Clinton, as if that was supposed to mean something to Santana. She would have rather dealt with her family, or their friends, but while it wasn't something that she would want to do on a daily basis, coming here was something that she didn't mind doing for her wife.
Russell and Prudence held hands as they followed the ladies to the door. When they were about to say good-bye Prudence nudged Mr. Fabray, causing him to lift a pudgy hand to his slightly balding head. "Oh, I almost forgot!"
He dashed back in the house, and came back with a small package in his hand. "This is from me and Prue."
Quinn noted it was nearly feather light when it was placed in her hand. "What is it?"
"It's an early Christmas gift from us. Open it."
Not knowing what to expect, Quinn hesitantly unwrapped the present, pushing aside a few sheets of tissue paper before she could see what was inside. It was a transparent, golden, spun glass bell Christmas tree ornament, with silver filigree decorating the outside. Inside the bell was an image of Quinn and Santana, hands joined together, faces close together, Quinn laughing with an enraptured Santana looking at her. The picture looked like it might have been snapped possibly two seconds before, or after, they had shared a kiss. Quinn recognized the moment from their wedding day, when they had been cutting the cake. In black script along the waist of the bell were the words, 'Our first Christmas, 2022'.
It took Quinn a moment to find her voice. "This is really beautiful, Dad. Prudence." Russell seemed pleased that Santana and Quinn liked it. "Thank you."
He gave a firm nod, carefully tucked back into that Fabray mask. He gave his daughter a brief hug, and touched his hand to Santana's shoulder before they parted ways. Quinn hugged the ornament box to her. "-And the Grinch's heart grew three times that day," Santana whispered. Quinn glowered at her. "What?" Santana demanded innocently.
"Wow, babe, way to ruin a moment there."
Quinn stalked down the drive to their rental, Santana laughing at her back. "Oh come on, that was funny as hell, and you know it!"
"That was so inappropriate!"
"Oh, now who's getting all soft, Fablo?"
"Just get in the car!"
Santana stopped right where she was, a few feet from the driver's side door. "Uh uh, babe, we had a deal. My gentlewoman's supposed to be opening all doors for me this weekend, remember?"
Quinn stopped to look at Santana and all of her audacity before jerking the door open for her wife.