Alternative Titles: The Value of a Dollar or What happens at weddings, doesn't always stay at weddings.

Quinn offered to drive them home, but Santana was okay, so she drove. She figured that Quinn was already stressed out enough, after being away from each other for three weeks, and baring witness to what had just gone on. Santana didn't feel that she needed any other burdens at the moment, so she drove. Her eyes stayed surprisingly dry. It seemed that what had needed to come out had done so in Hazel's empty apartment. Santana didn't have any more tears to shed. She wasn't angry, either. Not at Hazel, not at Bryne. She was just sad, and that was okay. The reassuring hand that rested in hers let her know how okay that was.

"Quinn?" Santana questioned, when they were only a few blocks away from Santana's apartment.

"Yeah?" There was a note of uncertainty to Quinn's voice when she answered, an underlying fear.

Santana gave her wife's hand a gentle squeeze. "I love you."

Upstairs, Santana methodically unpacked her suitcase, leaving the Bond gun, the Walther PPK, inside, but returning her Glock to the box under the bed. She knew that Quinn was watching her, but she didn't care. If she had a question to ask, Santana would answer it. If she didn't ask, Santana felt like she might volunteer the information anyway.

She was surprised by the hands on her, spinning her around. She gave Quinn a curious look, but didn't otherwise move or say anything. Almost as a parallel of Bryne's actions when she was checking Santana for a gun, Quinn began to undress Santana, only she didn't stop before the point of indecency. She removed the shirt that Santana was wearing, as well as the wife beater, her movements stilling at the sight of Santana's arm, still un-bandaged from where she'd unwound the wrappings at the airport. The arm was as bruised as it was earlier, the stitches that poked out of her skin still as black. With the flat of her thumb, she carefully ran a hand along the stitches, Santana feeling each grove of Quinn's thumb as it flicked over the thread. She had to remember to go to the doctor tomorrow to make sure there was no permanent nerve damage done even if it had been a clean in and out.

After five minutes of inspecting the wound, the bruise, the stitches, Quinn moved on to other parts of Santana's arm. Close enough to Santana that she could feel her breath as she inspected the limb, moving on to her left arm after she was apparently satisfied with the right. She removed her bra, and disinterestedly discarded the fabric, not caring where it landed. She examined every inch of the exposed upper torso, counting the freckles that dotted Santana's shoulder blades, the mole on her upper left arm, a scar that Santana had gotten from cheerleading, the scars from her breast augmentation. She turned Santana in her arms to look at her back, her shoulder blades, her collarbone.

Next went the pants. Quinn dropped down to her knees, unbuttoning the button, tugging slightly at them to pull the zipper down. She merely slid the pants down to her ankles, and Santana didn't care enough to step out of them as Quinn continued her inspection. Up one leg, down the other, then turned around to inspect the back. The underwear came next, and if Santana hadn't already gotten the severity of this inspection, she did when Quinn didn't even squeeze her ass, or place a kiss on any of the exposed flesh, save for her wound.

It wasn't until Quinn finally brought her eyes back up to meet Santana's that whatever compulsion that had guided Quinn's actions disappeared. "I'm whole, baby," Santana whispered, pulling Quinn back to her feet. Quinn nodded, and acknowledged the tears that had started once the inspection was complete, but didn't bother to wipe them away. Santana leaned up to kiss her a reassuring kiss, to whisper assurance to her. Deep down she knew, she knew her life was not something she could promise Quinn; she couldn't promise that a shootout wouldn't end with a bullet in other more vital parts of her flesh, or even that a freak car accident wouldn't prematurely claim her life. Deep down she knew that, but those thoughts were pushed so far down that when she promised Quinn that she would always come home to her, it didn't feel like a lie.

"I can't handle it, if you…if something were to happen."

Santana attempted a step closer to Quinn, but she half-way tripped over her pants, so she stepped out of them, and kicked her underwear over her feet as well, so the only thing that she was wearing on her birthday suit were her socks. She hugged Quinn closely to her. "I'm yours," she said firmly. "No one else gets to claim me but you; not even death. When we're 99 and have lived out all of our life, I'm Jack to your Jill. You know, you'll fall down and break your crown, and I'll come tumbling behind right after."

Quinn put a hand on the back of Santana's neck, and pulled her toward her. "You better."

Santana felt like Quinn was over dressed to this party, so she undressed her wife. Her fingers faltered when her eyes fell on the apple green bra and panty set that Quinn was wearing beneath her clothes. "Babe?" Santana practically whimpered. "Is this new?"

"I thought I'd surprise you…do you like it?"

Santana just stood in awe at the woman in front of her, and how perfectly the color went with her eyes. "Baby," Santana said in appreciation.

"I kind of imagined your homecoming going a different way," Quinn explained.

Santana attempted to pull back. "I'm sorry."

Quinn pulled her back to her. "It's not like you planned for this to happen."

Santana shook her head, sadly. "I always knew that there was this possibility, but I was okay with it, because I knew if Hazel ever did panic and disappear in the wind, it wouldn't be that difficult for me to find them again. I'd always respect Hazel's wishes, I wouldn't just like show up or anything, it'd be just to make sure they were okay. And eventually Hazel would call me to let me know, anyway. I was never okay, okay, but it wasn't like this pressing worry. I never would have thought that things would happen like this."

"I only half way got the conversation so you're going to have to fill me in on what happened."

"Hazel 'passed along'," Santana did air quotes, "information to the Feds about this guy named Oleg Katayev. He's a Russian mobster known as 'little brother' in the family. He's involved with mostly drugs, but he dabbles in some weapons trafficking and some other things that you really don't want to know about, and I really don't want to tell you about, either."

"And Hazel, she knows him?"

"No. As far as I know, she doesn't. I've been keeping taps on this guy for more than 8 years, and I never came across her name, or a code name that could be her either. Jenna knows him, though."

"How does Jenna know him?"

"She's one of the most preeminent communications professor's in the country, and her family is also New England old money. At the most, Jenna might have said something about Oleg in Hazel's company, but I doubt that the two of them ever actually met."

"Then why would she…?"

"People who testify against the Katayev family, they tend to disappear. Oleg has a lot of bodies and misdeeds to his name, and my guess is that they had something on him, but they needed a witness to make the charges stick, so they may have fabricated one."

"That..."

"Is a hundred percent illegal, but remember when I said that you and I…not everything's cut and paste in my world, babe. He's a real bad guy, and he's managed to slip through the cracks so many times on technicalities, despite us actually having hard concrete evidence of his activities."

"But why wouldsheclaim to have information she doesn't have if it would put her and Phil in danger?"

"Maybe she wanted to be a hero, or maybe she just wanted to feel safe, I don't know. I honest to God don't know, unless she happened to accidentally run into Jenna and she got spooked. I know Hazel came into the city at least twice, but I really think that the Marshall's came to her first. Or maybe she just wanted to be done with me."

"Why would you say that?"

"She grew up a member of society and now she's working a minimum wage job, and I was supplementing her income. She depended on me, and I'm…busy, I'm abrasive, I intruded on her life, and treated her like she's a kid."

"I don't think that it has anything to do with you."

Santana snorted. "Hell, she probably thought I was going to take away her kid, but why, why tell me that that was what she wanted?

"Maybe, maybe she did know him, like through Jenna or something, and she was convinced that he needed to be taken off the streets, or maybe she wanted to be a hero to Phil. Phil thought of you as practically Super Woman, maybe she wanted to be redeemed a little in her son's eyes."

"Maybe," Santana accepted. She couldn't figure out, and her head hurt simply from trying.

Santana sagged, so Quinn guided them towards the bed, coaxing her wife to lay down. Santana was still naked except for the socks, and Quinn was in her bra and underwear, but their fingers and toes were the only part of them that was touching, their eyes not leaving the other.

"What was that you were speaking in the car?"

Santana didn't hesitate. "German."

"How do you know German?"

"I used to watch Rebecca on Verbotene Liebe on YouTube and when it was found that I had a penchant for learning languages, and that I could recognize and understand German fairly well, I was immersed in the language. It's the language I have the most trouble with, so Bryne speaks it the most often; she uses it for commands." Santana saw the look on Quinn's face, and beat her to it. "I want to tell you something that I hope you will hear and honestly believe."

"What's that?" Quinn questioned wryly.

"I'm not a spy," Santana said, losing track of how many times she had told Quinn these words. "Spies, the James Bonds' of the world, are CIA field agents, and-,"Brynewent unsaid.Not that she could tell Quinn this, but Bryne worked for the GSA. Technically she was a for-hire police officer. It was only when you tried to assess what it was she was 'policing' that things got a little murky. Bryne wasn't some B6-13 style killing machine. Santana had no desire to know-and she knew Bryne had no desire to say-how many people Bryne's killed. Santana meant it when she'd said it mattered more how many people you saved. And Bryne had far more pluses in that column than minuses. "I mean it when I say I am pretty much a loggy. I do analysts and logistics, that's what I get paid for."

Quinn breathed in and out, steeling herself for the answer. "And how dangerous is that?"

"90% of the time, not at all."

"And the other 10%?"

"How about we focus on the 90? That's still an A, right? And I am very, very rarely in a position where I even have to worry about it. I've only done field work a handful of times, and-," Santana stopped short of saying the only reason she had been in danger this past time was because they couldn't outright kill the guys. Or that she wasn't even supposed to leave the warehouse. "This time was just a special case."

Santana sat up on her knees. "I know, I know it seems like I've just been hitting you with thing after thing, and you didn't sign up for this, when you married me. If it's too much…if I'm too much…,"

Quinn pulled her closer, shutting her up with her lips. "Oh, well…okay," Santana said nonsensically.

"I love you, Santana," Quinn verbalized, in case there was any lingering doubt. "I signed on for you, when we got married. You signed on to all of my crazy, and our past, and I signed on to you. But could you please explain something to me?"

"What's that?"

"You're a doctor's daughter. How in the world did you end up….doing this?"

Santana hid a knowing grimace. "Careful, Quinnie, you biases are coming through."

"You know what I mean! You were a cheerleader!"

"Sue's highly regimented routines make for the making of great military personnel. Physically fit, used to people yelling at them, able to perform under pressure and at a level of excellence unparalleled seems like the perfect candidate, don't you think? After Puck enlisted, I thought about it; going into the military. I was kind of just floating around: I was in Kentucky, I was in New York, I ran off to Lesbos with Brittany. I didn't have any direction, and I was just taking up space at the HummelBerry loft. College didn't seem like a good fit, it didn't seem like the music thing was going to work out for me, and wouldn't you know, physically fit and lost without a direction is exactly what the military's looking for.

"I visited with Puck one weekend after he graduated from A-school, and he took the two of us out to a bar with those wonderful fake IDs that we had. It was just a dumb night all around: Puck could have gotten a dishonorable discharge from the military, and like I said, I showed off at the wrong time to a pretty girl, for some free drinks." Santana exhaled a huff of hair that could have been a laugh. "It was just this simple, stupid trick. There were five guys, and I guessed what was in each of their pockets. There's like a list of the 100 top things that people carry around on them, and based on the dimensions and weight of their pockets…it's really what amounts to a parlor trick. Like I said, dumb. I didn't know anyone was paying attention to me; that's the thing, when you're out with your friends in a public place, you think that it's just you guys and really it's not. Later that same night, some dude tried to hit on me, and I laid him out on the bar when he got a little handsy.

"Well, after this woman walks up to me, and she's pretty, and she seems interested in me, so I'm interested in her, and she asks me, she says is that a trick, or can I do it repeatedly. I told her to try me. And you know if I was sober, I would have thought "this is strange", the situation would have hit a red flag or two. But at the time I didn't think anything of it, or her questions, I just thought it was fun. She empties her purse, shows me everything, tells me to close my eyes, and then puts five items back in the bag, covers up the rest, and asks which items are in and which items are out. She even does this in a couple of different languages. We do this five, ten, twenty times, and she ordered me shots after I'd get it right several times in a row. I was only wrong once. And then she asked me how I did my trick earlier, and I explained about the patterns, and of things being in people's pockets, and what not."

"Was it Jenna?"

Santana shook her head. "No."

"Bryne?"

"Seriously…babe, you know,"

"You're not allowed to answer questions about Bryne," Quinn chanted. Santana gave a firm nod. "But you can about Jenna?" Santana nodded again. "What's your deal with her?"

"Jenna's father is Puck's commanding officer. We met her when Puck graduated from basic. She was in town at the same time, visiting her father. She took me out to a bar. We danced."

"You hooked up?"

Santana frowned, her face twisting uncomfortably; the same it did whenever those words came up in relation to the woman. "If we did, I don't remember it. And from what I heard about her since our falling out, that's not that unusual. What I do know is that she drugged me once, but that was years down the road, after I found out that she was beating up on Gloria…Hazel…whatever the Marshalls changed her name to. What Jenna and I had was a flirtationship, a general appreciation of each other, and sexual chemistry that was kind of scary at times, to be honest. The timing just was always bad, something always happened, and thank God for that because being around Jenna now turns my stomach. I use her, professionally, and attempted to keep things friendly between us for work related reasons. She is very good at what she does, and her knowledge is an asset. Too bad her character resembles shit."

Quinn wanted to steer the conversation back to a better place. "So you showed off in a bar…?"

"And the woman slips me her card, and asks if I would like to come in for an interview when I sober up. I didn't think she was serious. I thought she was just joking around, was just trying to slip me her number on the sly. I called the number, was asked to come in…and I was a kid. I thought like the sheltered, doctor's kid that I was. Go look at Puck's Facebook page; really any soldier's page. Then you'll see these 18 year olds posting pictures on their media sites with Ak-47s and all that, and you can tell that they don't think any of it's real, that they're just playing around. That's how I was. The power was appealing, and the other stuff, it didn't really sink in with me. It didn't occur to me that I was learning how to shoot a gun, because there was a chance that I would need to. It didn't strike me that I was learning survival techniques because it was life or death."

"But you don't do what Bryne does?"

Quinn was momentarily worried that Santana would construe that as a direct question about Bryne, but she didn't. "No," Santana agreed. "I don't. That's what they wanted me to train to do, but I chose not to."

"What stopped you from going all the way?"

"You," Santana answered simply. "After I graduated, Command wanted me to move to DC, but if I did, I knew I wouldn't get to see you as much. Or often. And it seemed that things were really coming together with us, untilthatweekend happened anyway."

Quinn grunted. "God, thatweekend," she mumbled. "If we ever get to do life over again, I would completely get rid of that weekend."

"I wouldn't," Santana said softly. Her hand played with Quinn's fingers, and she looked kind of shy about the words. "I think things happened for a reason; like it gave us both the time we needed to mature into our relationship, I really like what we're growing into, and…" there was that hesitation again, "if not for things happening the way they did, Phil wouldn't have come into the picture. I know, I know he's not biologically my child, but they change you, you know. Kids. And when I held him that first time, he looked my way as if he already knew me, and the way he would look at me with the utmost trust and security…even the way he would drag me into his room to fight off the monsters under his bed."

Santana sighed. Quinn gave her a reassuring squeeze. "So, that's it? There's nothing that you can do? You don't even get to know how he is.Wherehe is?"

"I know where he is," Santana said to Quinn's surprise. "Well, I know how to find him, anyway. I just…," Santana raised her arms and let them fall, "can't." Quinn waited for an explanation. "Do you remember a few years back when the so called WikiLeaks happened?" Quinn nodded. "Well the guy, what was his name Snow, Snowden? The guy was either being paraded as a hero or a terrorist, depending on who you ask, but honestly it was more surprising that people were 'shocked' about the reveal that the government could and did listen in on domestic calls since Gene Hackman revealed that very same information to Will Smith inEnemy of the Stateway back in 1998. Your service provider can actually do more listening than the government can, andanybodycan listen to your cell phone conversations with a receiver or certain inexpensive software.

"That's why I wasn't allowed to take my phone with me; it's possible to even access the speakers on a cell and listen in on conversation even when a call isn't active. Our cell phones," she said, indicating Quinn and hers, "are both blocked against that, but it's a precaution Command insists on. Anyway, I'm rambling even worse than Rachel. All you really need to take away from what I just said is that cell phone conversations can and are heard by anybody, and private phone calls are recorded.

"I gave Phil a cell phone awhile back and told him to say a very specific sentence, 'There's a fire, Stef', if there was ever an emergency. Even if Stef can't tell me the time that the call was made, as long as Phil made the call, and said those specific words, I can locate the call. Locate where it was made from, and from there it would take absolutely no effort to follow where they went." Santana looked like she swallowed something distasteful. "I find things. That's what I do for the GSA. I locate merchandise, equipment, weapons, that have been stolen from active and inactive government facilities, track them down, and send out a team to retrieve them. I'm good at it. Almost as good as picking out layouts for children's books.

"I know how to find things that other people think are sufficiently hidden. I just can't go looking for them because that's my job, that's what I do. It wouldn't take any effort whatsoever to find that information out about me. If someone is actually looking for them, and they followed me, physically or digitally, I would simply be leading them to Hazel, to Phil, so I can't. It's not worth the risk to me. The Marshall's will take care of him…it just means that I…can't."

Quinn pulled Santana close to her, and held her tightly. "If I want to assure that they remain safe, I have to accept that I can no longer be in their life."

There was nothing Quinn could say to make it not hurt as much, but she could hold on to her tightly. She was amazed that Santana was revealing all of this to her, that she was being this open, but then again, they had traveled a very long way in order to get to this place right now.

Quinn and Santana were just settling into a lull when Santana's phone rang. She checked the caller before she answered it. "Hey, Stef."

"I'm sorry, Santana."

"Did he call?"

"Yep. 7:34 p.m. two days ago. I tried calling-,"

"I know, I was out of range. I've got you for the first game of the season."

"For the Pats?"

"Yep."

"Solid."

"Thanks, Stef. For everything."

"Anytime, Santana, any time."

Santana tossed the phone aside. Quinn cuddled back into Santana's side, seeking out her hand. "Bad news?" she questioned gently.

"No. Mere temptation. This…I'll get over it, it's just going to take some time."

"Well, just know that I'll be here, no matter how long it takes."

Santana smiled down at her. "Thanks, Babe."

Quinn and Santana naked cuddled all night. After three weeks of not having her wife, all Quinn wanted to do was be wrapped up in her, so when Santana extracted herself from the bed the next morning, a half sleeping Quinn whimpered at the loss of contact. Her sub-conscious was slightly surprised that she was even getting up for work, because after the events of yesterday, she kind of expected Santana to take the day off. Santana nuzzled her. "You going to get up with me, babe, or are you going to stay in bed?"

Quinn buried her head in her pillow, and curled up even more, snuggling into the spot that Santana had occupied. "Okay, baby," Santana said. "I'll see you when you get home from work, then?"

Quinn grunted an affirmative. She didn't open her eyes, but she did turn her face upwards, and Santana obliged, kissing her. "Love you."

"Love you, too. Meet me for lunch?"

Quinn nodded. Santana planted another kiss before she headed off to work. Quinn was just settling in for 20 more minutes of sleep before she had to get up herself, when the world's most annoying ring tone went off. "Get UP! Don't cha wanna? Get UP! This time ya gotta, GET UP! Girl get up on the floor! GET Up! Time is Wastin', Get UP, asses shaking, GET Up, Girl, get up on the floor!"

Quinn grunted, because her phone was just out of reach, so she had to actually move her body to reach it. But it was Mercedes. Grumpily, Quinn opened one eye, than the other, and after a long second, she rolled out of the bed, reaching her phone just as Mercedes was calling back.

"H'lo," she questioned, groggily.

"Did I wake you up?" Mercedes questioned.

"Not really," Quinn lied. "What's up?"

"Do you work today?"

Little alarms started going off because that was a silly question. Of course she worked. It was Monday and wasn't a holiday.

"What's up?"

"I…I need to go shopping, and I wanted to know if you wanted to come shopping with me."

Quinn could hear the need in Mercedes voice. Quinn was awake now. "Yeah, sure, be there in about fifteen."

"Thanks, girl."

"No problem," Quinn said before she hung up. She called out of work, and took a quick sponge bath in the bathroom sink. She was as good as her word. Fifteen minutes later, Quinn was knocking to be buzzed into Mercedes brownstone. Mercedes looked like she was already having a rough morning. Her hair was still wrapped, and she was wearing only a sweat suit.

"Where're we heading?" she questioned.

Mercedes was frowning. "I don't care. Whatever is closest."

They took Mercedes car, and drove to the nearest Target. Quinn kept giving her best friend sidelong looks as they aimlessly wandered up and down aisles, randomly placing things into her cart. Something had been bothering Mercedes for a few days, now, Quinn had just been so wrapped up in her world that she hadn't noticed. "Are you going to tell me what's wrong?" she finally questioned.

Mercedes looked as if she was doing her best to keep her face from crumbling, and yet she insisted, "Nothing's wrong. I just wanted some company."

Quinn smiled slightly. "You're still bad about that."

"About what?"

"Lying convincingly. Tell you what, I'm going to leave you alone for a few minutes, go get some cookies and some ice cream, then we can go pick up some movies, and lay around the house and pig out all day. Sound good?"

Instantly, the woman looked relieved. "Thank you, Quinn," Mercedes said gratefully.

Quinn nodded. "What kind of ice cream do you want?"

"Chocolate swirl and marshmallow?"

"No problem."

Quinn purposely strode away, leaving Mercedes to get what she came to get. When they met back up at check-out Quinn didn't so much as glance in the cart, and she subtlety angled herself away when Mercedes started loading up the conveyor belt. Back at Mercedes' they left the bags sitting on the floor of her living room, as Quinn made up two bowls of ice cream. They sat through two movies in silence, and it wasn't until Mercedes moved to put in a third that Quinn finally asked. "How late are you?"

Mercedes pushed away the bowl of chips in front of her. "Two weeks."

"Have you taken a test already?"

"No, I didn't want to, alone-," Quinn definitely could understand that, though she had done so by herself.

"Did you get a test?" she nodded. "Are you going to take it?"

Very slowly, Mercedes nodded. Quinn placed a hand on her shoulder. "Take it first before you go all crazy. You could just be late."

Mercedes pulled the test out of one of the bags, and went into the powder room. She came back out, looking strained.

"My mom and dad are going to kill me."

"It could be negative."

"It's not. I've never been this late before."

"Just wait until you get the result. And besides, it's not like you're 16 years old, and living in your parent's house. You're 30, have a successful career, and have your own place."

"I'm not married. I'm not even dating anyone."

"I'm sure Young-,"

"It's not Young's. Young and I never had sex. The only person I've had sex with in the past six months is Sam."

Quinn kind of let those words wash over her. Good lord, if she was pregnant with Sam's kid… "YouknowSam'll take care of his kid."

"But that's the thing, Quinn. I don't want…I don't want this to be a reason that Sam and I are together. I love Sam, being with him is like getting all the solo's in Glee club, and being on stage and singing to a captive audience. I've always felt like an infatuated school girl when I'm around him, and that hasn't changed."

"So…?"

"If we were meant to be together, wouldn't we have worked that out by now? I'm the only non-white person he's ever dated? Not only that, but I'm one of the only non-blonde's he's dated. He certainly has a type, and I'm not it. I know, too, that he falls, hard. He loves hard, with whoever's in front of him. Hell, he proposed to you, and he fake-married Brittany. Who says he's actually in love with me, and not just in love with love?"

"You don't think Sam's in love with you?"

"I think he likes being in love."

"He had a date at the reception that he flat out ignored because he couldn't keep his eyes off of you, and I didn't see him getting in a fight with Tamara, or Santana, or anyone else's date, just yours."

Mercedes shook her words away. "Sometimes I feel like I'm his last resort, or something, and I don't want to be that. I definitely don't want to be one of those stupid girls that loves their man far more than he loves them. I don't want to trap him."

"You don't have to be with him, just because you may or may not be pregnant with his kid, which we don't know about yet because we haven't even looked at the test results yet. Being pregnant doesn't mean that you have to be with him."

"I don't want to be a single mom raising a kid, either."

"How about we wait until we have the results first. Did you just take the one?"

"No, there were two sticks in there so I peed on them both." Mercedes shivered, as if the words themselves were repulsive.

"I think it's been 10 minutes." Mercedes didn't make to move. "Do you want me to look?" After a second she nodded. Quinn stood up.

"Wait!" Mercedes grabbed for her hand. She pulled out her cell phone.

"What're you doing?"

"I'm calling Sam," she said, with no other explanation.

"You don't want to do that, Mercy. If you're not, there's no point in even telling him."

Mercedes shook her head. "I don't want whatever it says on that stick to dictate the conversation," she explained. Quinn was going to question her on it, but she didn't. Instead she gestured toward the powder room, and Mercedes only nodded. Quinn could hear the beginning of the conversation as she went to go check. She had a flashback to when she was 16 years old, and doing this by herself, worried about how she was going to explain this to her friend's, her parent's, Finn. Had it really been more than 13 years ago? That whole ordeal had been a nightmare, but the result, Beth, was beautiful. She wasn't her baby, but in light of the fact that she was whole, healthy, and happy, did that really matter?

Quinn took longer than was necessary to get to the bathroom. And then once inside, she decided to use it before she looked at the test results. They both held the same answer. Quinn looked at them closely, wondering what Mercedes actually wanted them to say; that she was pregnant seemed to be a foregone conclusion to the Diva, and Quinn almost felt that Mercedes would respond the exact same way to the news, whether it was positive or negative. She picked one carefully off of the counter, and walked back out to the living room.

The conversation between her and Sam seemed to be wrapping up, and her friend hung up not too soon after she had rejoined her. "What was that about?" She questioned once Mercedes hung up the phone.

"Sam's going to take a few days off work, and fly up here."

"Did you tell him…you know?"

"No!"

"Did you tell him that you're scared that you are?"

"No." Mercedes fidgeted, nervously crunching a few of the potato chips into smithereens. "I asked him if he loved me."

Oh. "What he'd say?"

Her fingers moved more quickly. "He said he did, and then I asked him if he wanted to be with me, and he said he did. Among other things."

Mercedes didn't seem happy about said revelation. Quinn sat down in front of her. "What doyouwant, Mercedes?" She blinked away tears. "If there was no pregnancy scare, if…I don't know, say it was a week after the wedding, or three weeks down the road, or two months, what do you want? Doyoulovehim?"

"I never stopped. He was the first boy I loved. He's the first boy who ever really made me feel loved. He's my Finn, my Santana. He's the guy I'm always going to compare everyone else to."

"So what's the problem?"

"I don't think he loves me in that kind of way."

"You didn't tell him that you're worried you might be pregnant?" She shook her head. "Then why's he flying up here?"

"Because he said that I sounded really upset, and if we're going to have a serious talk, he wants it to be in person."

"But you don't think that he wants to be with you?"

"He practically dated every other girl in glee club before he made it around to me."

"In high school! You really can't hold that to him, Mercy. I mean, not shaming my wife in any fashion, but do I need to remind you how many people Santana's slept with? But that doesn't make me feel as if I'm her last resort. I just know some things take time. He helped push you to be great, even though you two weren't even still dating any more. He's looked after you, and taken care of you, and been there for you. As far as both Santana and I see, the only woman he was a good man and match for is you. With me, he rolled over, with Brittany, he dumbed down, but with you, you two make each other better. He was going to get into a fight with an Airman over you, and I don't know if that necessarily spells out love, but the way he looks at you, well…that should."

Quinn reached for Mercedes hand. "Don't over think something that doesn't need to be over thought. If your feelings for Sam are the exact same no matter what the test says, then you have your answer about whether or not the two of you need to get together."

Eventually Mercedes looked over at Quinn. "So, what did it say?"

Quinn handed her the stick. Mercedes looked at it, and slowly breathed out.

Quinn called to cancel on their lunch date, so Santana didn't take one and got permission to go home 2 hours early. She honestly needed that time. Really, she needed a few days off before she jumped back into work, but that was a luxury she didn't have, and considering that her coworkers at the office were being worked just as much, she didn't really have anyone to complain to. She surprised herself with how well she was taking things. She had managed to be pleasant to her co-workers, she had been respectful, and hadn't been sarcastic to her boss, she talked to Quinn and didn't shut her out.

When she made it back to her apartment, she knew she was going to get started on cooking dinner, pack up a few things, watch some TV. She wasn't going to go home to cry. She was Ok. Not great, but Ok. And hey, if there was one good thing about coming home to find that the kid that you thought of as your son was gone and out of your reach forever, it was that it didn't give Santana the time to dwell on the fact that she had been shot.

Santana realized that she had left Phil's gifts sitting in her suitcase, so she unpacked them now, and sat them at the back of her closet. There really was no point in keeping them, but she didn't want to give them away either, so she was going to keep them. Just for now. At the sight of the toys, though, Santana felt her eyes stinging. She retrieved the plaster cast from where she had last discarded it, and sat down with it on the couch, her hand resting on top of the imprint of Phil's.

She couldn't say how long she sat there like that, when she jerked up suddenly. She pulled her laptop to her. She pulled up the transaction log for the credit card that Santana had given to Hazel. Santana saw the two transactions, each on a different day, of when Hazel had come into the city. She had seen these same transactions while in Arizona, and had wanted to lay into her about being that irresponsible, but of course she hadn't, because Hazel was a grown woman, and Santana shouldn't be spying on her in the first place.

The first time Santana had looked at the statements, she had only noticed that both locations were in Boston. Now she actually saw the companies billed with the two transactions. The two places that Hazel had gone to were to a private photo studio, and to a mailbox store. She looked back down at the plaster cast still sitting in her lap. Her eyes traced over the words, once, twice, her fingers dipping into the groves of his fingers. She could feel the slight difference in texture at a spot on the back, and she flipped it over, letting her fingers trail over it expertly. She slid back the panel, and tilted the cast down until a key fell out.

She sat the cast aside, turning back to her laptop screen, googling the address for the mail box place. Traffic was graciously light, and the office was nearly right around the block, so within five minutes she was there.

"I purchased a mailbox last week, and I must have lost the sheet of paper with the number on it. Can you tell me what box it was?"

The clerk was a stuffy, teenage girl, who looked less than helpful. "Your name?"

"Santana Lopez."

"Do you have the card that you purchased the box with?"

"I don't, but I can give you the number."

She looked like Santana was giving her unnecessary work, and she was less than thrilled by it. "What's the number?" Santana recited the 16 digits. "Do you have ID?"

Santana showed her her driver's license. She thought about showing her credentials, but unfortunately they were locked away in the safe, returned to its holding spot after her trip to Arizona.

"It's box 1311," she was informed.

She thanked the less than helpful girl, before turning away to find the right mail box. Santana gave herself a second to collect herself before she unlocked the box, and pulled out the contents. Inside there was one of those card stock boxes, the kind that they used to fill with coupons or vocabulary cards, only slightly bigger, and wooden. Santana opened the box to find that it was filled with photos. Top most on the pile was a note:I hope one day I'll be able to explain. I'm sorry.Santana pushed the note aside to look at the first photo. It was of Phil, of course, but it wasn't just a picture of him, it was actually the first ever picture of him, taken by Puck because Santana remembered Hazel being asleep at this time. It was also their, hers and his, first picture together. In the photo, Santana was staring down at the little boy as if he couldn't believe he was real, gently cuddling his tiny body to her. Her eyes were wide in amazement, a tiny, somewhat possessive smile decorated her lips. Santana flipped the picture to see that Hazel had writtenThe Protectorin the bottom right hand portion.

Santana didn't look through all of them, she couldn't, not right then, but it only took a few shuffles through to get that most of them weren't pictures of Phil, but of Phil and Santana. It also didn't take but a quick look at a handful of them to realize what Hazel must have seen all along, especially since she'd been the one to take almost every picture in there. Possession. There was never a point in Phil's life where Santana didn't look at him in the same way that she'd looked at him the first time she held him in his arms.

Santana sat the box she was carrying on the floor in front of her. "That's it?" Quinn questioned, excitedly.

She gave a nod. "That's the last box." She clapped the dust off of her hands, looking around significantly. Most of Santana's stuff was going to storage for the next couple of months; the stuff she couldn't live that long without she had shifted over to Quinn's.

Quinn bit down on her lip to cut off her smile, but she couldn't hide away the happiness that shone from her hazel's. "So we're officially living together?"

Santana gave a smile in return. "Yep!" She took a quick step back, anticipating Quinn's movement, but Quinn slammed into her anyway. "The deal was when wemove intogether," she reminded her wife. "Not when I move into your place."

"I was only going to give you a kiss, you ass," Quinn said irritably. "I can control myself."

Santana's lips curled. "I don't know about that, Mrs. Lopez."

"Fabray-Lopez."

"Are we still pretending about that?" she demanded. "It's just a matter of time."

"Keep telling yourself that."

Santana pulled Quinn to her, smiling into her lips. "Keep telling yourself that you can keep resisting me."

"You're such a tease!"

"I learned from the best." Santana smirked. "Consider it payback on behalf of every body out there who wanted to get into your pants, and was unable to. I can only imagine how many frustrated young teens who've had to take cold showers because of you."

Quinn grimaced because she could so sympathize now. And she had had to take a cold shower or two in high school because of Santana. And that skirt. When they were finally living together, intheirplace, Quinn was going to see to it that Santana donned the Cheerio skirt, and she had every plan of taking her against the wall with her wearing it.

"As much as I've hated, not being able to be as intimate with you as I like, I've enjoyed this, too," Quinn admitted begrudgingly. "This chance for us to get to know each other better like this."

Santana gave her a very sweet kiss. "For that, I'm letting you touch boob the next time we make out." Quinn laughed, because she got an image, a montage really, of Finn, Puck, and Sam all practically begging just to touch her boobs over the clothes. Although Quinn and Puck hadn't stripped down when they'd had sex, Puck had still just sort of sat there, his hands on her breast for a whole minute before they'd done the deed. Quinn thought that they were so silly back then, just for wanting that small contact, but damn it if she didn't get a grin on her face at the idea of touching her wife's breasts. February couldn't get here fast enough.

But that reminded her or something that had been bothering her for a while, and she decided to voice her concern. "Did you throw out Gianna?"

The dildo that usually stayed suctioned to Santana's wall had been missing for a while, and every time she'd seen the gap she wanted to ask Santana about it, but she hadn't. She understood it having to come down because that was an awkward thing to have to explain to a four year old, but she distinctly remembered the thing disappearing before Phil had started coming over.

"I didn't throw her out. She's like a part of us, how could I?"

"Then where is she?"

"I hid her."

"Why?"

Santana gave her a very wicked smirk. "To keep you honest."

A few weeks after Santana moved into Quinn's apartment, Quinn was at their place, by herself, cooking dinner while she waited for her wife to get off of work when she heard a knock at the door. She gave a glance out of the peephole and saw a man with a uniform standing in the hall. She noticed his gun, and the official look of his face, and she could feel her heart sinking into the floor.This was it. Something had happened to Santana, and here was the guy sent to tell her the news. She set her face into a mask, and opened the door.

"Santana Lopez?" the man questioned. Quinn immediately noticed that he wasn't wearing a police outfit.

"She's not here. I'm her wife, Quinn Fabray-Lopez. How may I help you?"

The man consulted his clipboard. "May I see some ID, Mrs. Lopez?" With a frown Quinn went to her purse to get her wallet. She hesitantly showed the man her ID. He held the tablet out to her. "Sign here, please." Quinn signed. The man handed her an envelope. After all the effort it took to get it, it was rather unimpressive. "Thank you, Mrs. Lopez, and you have a nice day."

"It's Fabray-Lopez," she mumbled as the man walked down back down the hall. She looked at the envelope. Even though it was addressed to Santana, since they were married that meant she was allowed to like, open it and stuff now, right? It was only reluctantly that she sat it on the counter, and tried to put it out of her mind, but it kept drawing her eyes. Why in the world was an envelope being delivered to Santana by an armored guard?

Santana came home, singing a tuneless ditty as she walked through the door. "Hey, babe, how was your day?"

"Something was delivered for you while you were gone," Quinn informed her.

Santana kissed her. "Yeah? I wasn't expecting anything."

"It's on the table."

Santana's eyes lit up when she picked up the plain manila envelope. "About time?"

"What is that?"

Santana smile grew. "Payment!" She opened the envelope, holding out her hand as a 2-inch square piece of parchment paper fell into it, followed by a smaller square of parchment paper.

"Payment for what?"

Santana pulled a silver coin from the paper and held it up to the light to examine it. "For our bet. It's the dollar Puck owes me."

Quinn thought that that had been taken care of months ago. After all, how hard was it to mail a dollar? And why was it being delivered by an armored guard? She moved closer to see it. It didn't look like any coin that Quinn had ever seen before. "It's silver," she said, stating the obvious.

Santana nodded. She gave Quinn's head a condescending pat. "Very good, babe, I see you know your colors. Itissilver. It's an 1895 Morgan silver dollar to be exact."

Quinn could tell that there was a certain amount of importance to her words. "When you said a dollar, I thought it was a dollar bill."

"Youassumedit was a dollar bill, and what happens when you assume things, Quinnie?"

"I make an ass of you?"

Santana rolled her eyes. "I said thebetwas for a dollar, and it was. Here's the dollar."

"1895? That's real silver then." Santana nodded in agreement. "So, that coin is pretty valuable?"

Santana gave a soft chuckle, nodding. "You could say that."

"Why do you say it like that?"

Santana handed her the coin to hold and didn't answer. "You want to hear a really, really cool story?" she questioned instead.

Quinn nodded. "So back when we were like 10, Puck and I used to go visit his grandfather together. The man was like bat shit crazy, but he was kind of friends with this World War II vet who no one at the home liked because he was mean, and crass, and like to play pranks."

"So kind of like you two?"

Instead of being insulted, Santana just nodded. "He was like the 80 year old version of me and Puck. He was always cursing the nurses, and looking down their scrubs, and throwing shit, and yelling at everyone, so of course Puck and I loved him. We almost got kicked out of the nursing home because he, Puck, and I used to go around pranking the staff. I swear this man was like the coolest guy you'd ever meet."

Quinn paused a moment, thinking about 10 year old Santana. She smiled at the image of her and Puck hanging out with an extremely older version of themselves.

"Well, he died, but he left me and Puck his coin collection because he hated his kids, and they never came to visit him, but we did. We just thought it was cool that he remembered us at all, and didn't think much about it, but when we turned 18 we found out just how valuable the collection really was.

"I laughed when you asked if the coin was valuable because that beauty that you are currently holding in your hand is worth about a hundred thousand dollars."

Quinn nearly dropped the coin. Santana gently took it out of her hand, slipping it back inside the sleeve. She picked her story back up. "Some of the coins had to be sold off to pay the taxes, but the rest were divided evenly between us, and you know, me and Puck were like in possession of this small fortune, so we did what any rational people would do: we started making bets." Quinn rolled her eyes, because of course that's what they would do.

Santana examined the other object, a dime, to make sure that it was the proper one. Their values had all been memorized years ago. "They're just between me and him," Santana explained. "I mean we'd been doing it since we were 10 years old, anyway. There was just more at stake, now."

"So, that's worth a $100,000?" Santana nodded. Quinn looked suddenly very put out, and Santana didn't know why. She thought it was a really good story, but maybe Puck was right: it needed a pirate. "What's wrong, babe?"

"Nothing," Quinn mumbled.

Santana grabbed Quinn by the collar of her shirt, looking her in the eye. "That's not a nothing pout, what is it?"

Quinn looked away. "It's just…you know, never mind, forget it."

"Not unh, communication remember? What's the matter babe? You don't want me now that you know I'm balling?"

"I do," Quinn said, angrily brushing away tears. "It's embarrassing how much I do, I mean it's just that…okay, so when you said that we were getting married because of a dollar bet, I mean that meant that you were…that we were getting married because you wanted to be married, you know, to me. But now that there's actual money behind it, and a significant amount…"

Santana realized what Quinn was saying, and she chuckled. She pulled her into her arms, and used her thumb to wipe away Quinn's tears. "I swear, Quinn, I think you really have it set in your mind that Puck and I are like the stupidest people on this planet."

Quinn shuddered in the embrace. "What do you mean?" she sniffled.

"Gah, do you really think that we just go tossing out small fortunes on frivolous bets?"

Quinn ducked her head because the answer was obviously yes. But she was confused. Santana waited until Quinn was looking at her. "Baby, I did marry you overjusta dollar; it just happens to be a really expensive one. But it doesn't have any cash value. Not to me. Not to Puck. To us, it's just one of a bunch of coins given to us by a lonely old man who found kindred spirits before he died. The bets are about being able to say that we possess it, not an actual exchange of money. We don't play for keeps. Something else will happen somewhere down the line, and Puck will probably gain back possession of this coin. These coins, if we ever do cash them out, will be split evenly between us, and I don't see us ever cashing them in unless an emergency pops up; like a for real emergency, not just because we want more stuff.

"That's why I told you that if you needed some extra cash I have a safety deposit box, but you have to ask Puck before you can open it, because even though the money is in my possession at the moment, it's stillours.We both even have provisions for it in our wills."

"You have a will?"

Santana looked confused. "Don't you?"

"No, actually. I probably should, especially now that we're married, but all I've got are savings, and what not. That's…really mature of you, Santana. How long have you had a will?"

"Since I was 19. It's a necessity," she explained, feeling a tiny bit uncomfortable at her reason for having one. "Even though I don't have a trust fund, because of the coins I've got assets and stuff, and people to look after."

"What's in your will?"

Santana frowned, and Quinn wondered if she had overstepped her bounds or something, but that wasn't it. "It very strictly dictates who gets…um…my life insurance policy and survivor benefits if…," she coughed and didn't finish. "I'm not like worth a million dollars or anything. I think the last insurance estimates the coins are worth nearly half a million, so that's a quarter a piece for me and Puck, The coins are pretty much all I have to my name, and you know, our savings for the house."

"And the 50k you have lying around in books, and everything."

"Which I didn't accrue overnight, and is just for emergencies."

"How often do you update it?"

"I've done so three times since then. Back when I was 19 all I had were the coins and my insurance, so the coins went to Puck, the policy went to my parents. I updated the will again when Phil was born to make sure that Hazel would have enough in case something happened to me, and when I last updated my will it was when we got married, so I know you'll be taken care of. It'll probably get updated again once we have kids."

Quinn decided that she had enough talk of wills, because they were only used to determine what gets what after someone dies, and she didn't like thoughts of losing Santana. Quinn fingered the coin instead. "So you married me for a $100,000?"

Santana gave her wife an amused grin and a shake of her head. "No, moron, I married you for the sex. I just get paid to have it with you," she teased. Santana hugged Quinn tightly, planting a kiss on the side of her neck. "Stop with the pouting, and don't be so silly, because you know that you have replaced the oxygen in my lungs, and anything else that corny lovers say to each other. I mean Ijustmoved in with you, into your place. Now would I put myself through that torture if it was ever about a bet?"

Santana singing a few bars fromTrouty Mouthsuddenly filled the kitchen. "What the hell?" she demanded. Vaguely she remembered putting that as Sam's ringtonewayback in their college days, but she had no idea that Sam even had the same number. The idea that he was texting her, was unfathomable. Santana checked her phone and saw that indeed, she did have a text from Trouty Mouth.

Santana frowned down at the message on her phone. "What the hell, Sam?" she demanded. "Hey, babe? I just got a text from Sam. Did you get one, too?"

Quinn checked her phone, but she knew it didn't go off. "No, what's your text say?"

"She's my missus, now, bitches," Santana read.

Quinn frowned. "He didn't really send that out, did he? Wow. Good thing I already knew, or else I'd be intensely offended."

"Knew. Knew what? What don't I know?" Santana demanded.

Quinn wrapped her arms around Santana's neck. "Do you remember when you sent a similar text to all of our people?"

"Yeah, but that's because we…got…ma…Sam got married? Who'd he marry? Does Mercedes know? Does this mean she can get back with Young?" she questioned hopefully.

Quinn gave her a 'really' look. "Come on, Santana, use that big brain of yours. Yes, Mercedes knows, you moron! Who do you think he's talking about?"

Santana held up a finger and made a face as meaning connected with words. "Wait…? You don't mean…Trouty and the Diva are gettingmarried? Or are they already married?"

"The former."

"Why?"

"Why do people get married?"

"Love, desperation, or they went and got knocked…" Quinn gave her a smile. "No! Don't say it."

"She's pregnant."

Santana's mouth practically crashed to the floor. "She's carrying hisspawn? There's going to be Troutytots in the world? No, no me gusta, Quinn," Santana whined, "I dated him, you dated him, there's no way Trouty's going to be our kids' godparent! He's seen my boobs!"

Quinn pulled back. "He'swhat? You said that you two never had sex!"

"Clean your ears, babe, I said he's seen my boobs. Why can't she marry Young? IlikeYoung. We," she gestured between the two of them, "like Young.Mercedeslikes Young."

"And shelovesSam."

Santana rapidly shook her head. "No, no she doesn't, she's just carrying his offspring. Tell her she doesn't have to marry him. We…we can move in with her, and then she doesn't have to take care of the baby alone."

"Really?" Quinn demanded, stern expression on her face. "You would do that?"

Santana sighed. "Okay, no, but we'll baby sit every now and then. Please tell me it's not so."

Quinn gave an amused smile. While her reaction hadn't been quite so dramatic, she had been pretty surprised. Mercedes was the last person among the Glee kids who she expected to end up knocked up, but then again she'd been one of the only ones who hadn't had a pregnancy scare yet, so maybe she was just due for it. "Sorry."

"I think I'm going to be sick."

Quinn hit her on the arm. "That's not nice. That's my best friend, remember?"

Santana pretended like she was having trouble staying on her feet. "It's not Mercedes making me sick, it's just them…together. Has no one in this stupid Glee family ever heard of a condom? Or just being gay?"

"I think they just got caught up…"

"Donotfinish that statement, please baby, I'm begging you. As much fun as it is to imagine our friends having sex, once that mental image gets in my head, I cannot unthink it." She shuddered. "She's really pregnant?"

Quinn nodded. "So let me get this straight. The big Gay Wonder Twins have kids, Brittany has a child on the way, Mercedes has a child on the way, Puck's probably knocked Shelly up by now…"

"And it's suddenly making you realize that you want to start having babies with me?" Quinn questioned quickly, before Santana could send either of them to a darker place.

Santana refused to be swayed from it, however. "One day, he's going to walk by me on the street, and he's not going to even know me."

"Yes, he will," Quinn said in a voice that was too firm to be placating.

"He's five," Santana whispered. "How much do you remember about being five?"

"I remember my favorite baby sitter," Quinn answered. "And she wasonlythe babysitter. Santana, love, he's not going to forget you. You're his mama, you'll always be his mama, even if you don't get to be there." Quinn stroked her cheek. "And who could forget you?"

Santana looked up, forcing herself not to let her thoughts go to the negative. "I'm pretty unforgettable, aren't I?"

"The most unforgettable-est."

"And we'll have more babies?"

"Yep. You've promised that I could knock you up at least twice," Quinn agreed.

Santana's head started to nod, but then she stopped. "Wait, no I didn't."

"That's how I heard it," Quinn said aloofly.

"Fine, but I want a brood," she decided. "Like Angie and Brad."

Quinn pulled back slightly. "Do you really?"

Santana gave a mysterious smile. "When you look this good, it's almost your responsibility to have as many beautiful babies as possible." Her smile suddenly vanished. "She's really pregnant?"

Quinn nodded. "I saw the stick myself."

"And they're getting married?" Again with the nod. "And she's really in love with him?"

"I think so. I really do think she is."

Geez, she really didn't want to have to make Trouty a part of their family. Santana sighed. "Love is…good. I guess."

Quinn was amazed by her wife. "I like to think so. Just look at us."

She looked at her wife. "I like us, babe."

Quinn smiled. "Iloveus."

"Fine," she heaved a sigh. "But I'm still calling him Trouty Mouth." Quinn nodded. It was no less than she expected. "And I'm not going to suddenly start liking him. And he's not welcome in our place, or company,unlessMercedes is with him. At all times!"

Quinn gave a placating nod. "Sure thing, San."

Santana was stricken with a sudden thought. "No joke, but justthinkabout how big that kid's lips are going to be!"

Epilogue

Santana was composing in her head excuses for why she couldn't make it back to Lima for the wedding. 'I just moved and am still settling down, so I can't possibly leave the city so soon'. 'I can't get time off from work'.That wouldn't work because Rachel's big mouth would probably tell that she didn't have a job. 'I can't afford the plane ticket'.Now that, that might work. Only, if she said that, Rachel and Kurt would probably insist on driving down instead, which result in her getting stuck in a car with Hummelberry for 10 or more hours, and she wouldstillhave to go to the wedding.What the fuck,Santana thought. 'I'm Santana God Damn Lopez. If I don't want to do something, I ain'ts about to do it, and I don't want to go to this stupid wedding'. Santana luxuriated in that statement for about 3 minutes before she realized that that wouldn't work, either. She'd probably get laughed at for that one, even though Kurt and Rachel were still kind of scared of her.

Santana's phone went off while she was in the middle of trying to come up with a good enough excuse that would keep her out of Lima, and away from the newly minted 'Bram'. She was a bit taken aback when she saw Quinn's face on the screen. "What's up, Fabray? This better be important, I'm busy."

Quinn scoffed. "Busy doing what, Santana? Trying to figure out ways to get out of going to the wedding?"

Santana was at a loss…because damn Quinn. Quinn laughed at the silence on the other side of the line. "You're going," Quinn instructed in a no-nonsense voice. "There's no way you're leaving me by myself to sit through that train wreck, and I'm not going to be the only single one there."

"What, you mean you're not bringing The Professor to meet us lowly and uncultured Limalites?"

"Just wear something sexy. You're my date."

"I'm your what?"

"I'm not showing up to a Valentine's wedding alone, so you're my date."

Quinn used that voice that Santana always seemed to have trouble arguing with, but she wasn't just going to roll over. "Alright, but you're shelling out for lunch. It's Breadstix or nothing."

Santana could feel the eye-roll. "Wear red," she snapped, and then she hung up the phone.

On the day of the wedding, Santana was floored when she saw Quinn. Partly because she couldn't figure out why she had thought that that butt-ugly sequined cardigan was a good idea, but mostly it was because Quinn was otherwise simply stunning, and she never quite seemed to remember how much she missed being around the woman until she was back in her company. Quinn seemed to be equally impressed with Santana's choice in clothing. She looked Santana over in a not-so-innocent way, her lips lingering on the hem of her dress, before she brought her eyes up to meet Santana's, a knowing smirk on her face.

"What're you smiling about?" Santana demanded.

Quinn suggestively raised her eyebrows, but didn't answer the question. Seconds later, Quinn was hugging her, holding on slightly longer than was expressly necessary, surprising Santana greatly. As it turned out, it wouldn't be the biggest surprise of the night. Quinn seemed to be on the hunt, and it didn't take long for Santana to realize that she was the prey on the menu for the night. After an evening of flirting, (and a lot of alcohol), it shouldn't have surprised Santana at all, but it still had her jaw nearly dropping to the floor when Quinn suggested, not to subtlety, that they take things upstairs.

Santana drew back from Quinn at the words, studying her face. Quinn was wearing one of those indiscernible looks she was known for, a coy smile on her lips.

"Are you shitting me, Fabray?"

"You telling me you don't want this?" Quinn challenged.

Santana couldn't figure out if she was being serious, but she was determined to see how far Quinn was going to push this. "Please, Fabray, you couldn't handle all that I've got."

Quinn didn't back down. "We'll see who's begging whom by the end of the night."

"You serious?"

Instead of answering, Quinn leaned down to place a short, but passionate, kiss on Santana's lips, before she turned on her heels, heading for the bank of elevator's. Santana stood there a moment, not quite sure what happened, but when Quinn turned back around, and sent a, "You coming," over her shoulder, all she could do was jog after her.

Quinn attacked her almost as soon as the door was opened, pushing Santana roughly into the back of the door, and attacking her lips as if Santana's mouth contained the breath of life. They fought for dominance and ended up tumbling into the bed together, Quinn surprisingly controlling until Santana flipped them over, and worked the Lopez magic, until Quinn was practically begging for her to stop.

Santana was expecting Quinn to hightail it from the bed as soon as she came down from her post orgasm haze. She'd had that experience, once. When she had been so hot and bothered by wanting to bed someone that she'd nearly mauled them, but after it happened she felt immediate regret afterwards. But Quinn wasn't running. She lay back, sated, a smile on her face like she'd just had her world rocked. She kind of gasped, pointed at her throat, so Santana got off the bed to get her a bottle of water, her eyes not leaving her the whole time. She sat the water on the nightstand, before falling sideways on the bed, covering up with the sheet.

"So that's why college girls experiment."

"And thank God they do," Santana chided, laughing and finding comfort in the fact that somehow it wasn't awkward between the two of them. She had Quinn's taste all over her lips, and yet they could have just come off of the Cheerio's practice field, besides the fact that Quinn had that contented 'just fucked' look to her features. Santana marveled at the way the woman glowed because of her ministrations.

Quinn was carefully not looking at Santana, until she dropped her eyes, and hedged her bets. "You know it was fun, and I always wondered what it would be like to be with a woman, but I, I don't know. I think for me it was more of a one-time thing."

Santana was neither surprised nor too upset about Quinn's statement. After all, she knew that it was in all likelihood coming. She did marvel at the fact that Quinn hadn't yet left the bed.

"Look, you don't have to worry. I'm not going to show up at your house with a U-haul."

Quinn gave a little laugh that sounded somewhat wistful. Santana watched her pick up the bottle of water on the nightstand, before returning her gaze to the woman that was in the bed with her, covered up by only the blanket, her position giving a huge suggestion to what they had just been doing.

Quinn let show a little bit of her vulnerability when she questioned, "So what happens next?"

"Well you could walk out first…" Santana, knew what she wanted to happen next, but realized that she was probably unlikely to get it, and didn't want to scare Quinn from this relative calm that the two were experiencing. She wanted to leave the door open to more, but didn't want to pressure her. Even though Santana knew that this $wasn't Quinn's first time with a woman, (she just knew that she and Mack got it on, even if Quinn hadn't admitted that to her yet), it's her first time with Santana. The Glee kids were in rooms surrounding them, and they're in the middle of Lima, Ohio, with all of its judgments and small-mindedness. "Or we could make it a two-time thing?"

There was a moment, no more than a few seconds, but that seemed to stretch with expectation and all manner of unspoken things, and then to Santana's ever loving delight, Quinn put the bottle of water back down, and slinked across the bed, gently pushing Santana back against the bedding, and placing an unhurried kiss on her lips.

Their next round of sex was nothing like their first. Their first time had been frantic, but the next Quinn seemed to be searching for something, and Santana let her attempt to find it. With each kiss, with each hip thrust, with each pant, and moan, Santana felt like she was falling under. Every second her body cried more, and her heart cried, too much. Santana had done this before, she had gone down this path before, and she didn't like it. It hurt too much when it didn't live up to its expectations. But she was too weak to say stop, and she didn't want this feeling to ever stop. So they didn't.

Santana woke up feeling disjointed, but so very calm. She felt right. Like things were right. She wasn't upset about Brittany, she wasn't worried about how she'd fit in In New York, she wasn't worried about the future, she was content, she was sated. She grunted when she opened her eyes, because the sun was bright, even behind the curtain, and her throat was a little sore, as was her head; a side effect from the amount of alcohol she had consumed the day before. She knew Quinn was going to be feeling worse, and she wanted to sneak downstairs to the concierge to get some Advil for her for when she woke up, but when she tried to move from the bed, Quinn tightened her hold around her. "Not yet," she murmured.

"What not yet?" Santana questioned, softly. Quinn looked so much like an angel she didn't want to risk waking her up.

Quinn turned into her, kissing whatever part of Santana's body was closest to her lips. "Not done dreaming."

Santana watched Quinn to see if she was going to say or do something else, but then she realized that Quinn had been talking in her sleep. Santana gave a soft laugh. She had just had one of the best nights of her life, only to wake up to find that the cause of it was still in her arms. It was like a light bulb flashed off in her head. She had just had sex with one of her best friends, and afterwards she hadn't rushed off, she hadn't pushed her away, she hadn't accused her of taking advantage of her in her vulnerable and intoxicated state. She had curled into her, dragging her closer, wanting more. Santana knew then that she was in trouble because she was in love with her best friend, and she knew how much heartache that could bring. She also couldn't imagine anything that she wanted more than to have a thousand more mornings like this.

"Love you, Lucy Q," Santana whispered so softly that all Quinn, if she was awake, would have felt or heard from it was the breath that she exhaled.

Santana knew Quinn was still asleep, but wonder of wonders happened a few seconds later when a tiny voice said certainly, "I love you, Santana."

Her eyes widened. She knew that Quinn wasn't awake, wasn't even semi-conscious, but somehow it made it that much better because this was Quinn at her absolute unfiltered. This was Quinn with all of her walls down, fully exposed. Santana looked at the clock. It was 9:55, in the morning, on February 15th, the day after Valentine's Day, 2013, Quinn was still in her arms, and she vowed to always remember how she felt at this very minute of her life when, for once, it seemed like everything was perfect, because her future was sleeping in her arms. She was willing to bet on it.