Chapter Text
"Okay, it's definitely time that we talk Rachel into moving to Boston," Santana grumped, not even half an hour into the car ride. She had her head resting on Quinn's shoulder, trying to get as comfortable as possible in the limited space. "This is ridiculous." She felt a chastising tap on her arm at the words. What? Santana mouthed at Quinn.
"I veto that," Mercedes chimed in from the driver's seat. She and Sam were in the front row of Mercedes five year old Cadillac Escalade. Brittany and Tamara were stretched out in the middle row, sitting sideways so that they could see both the front and the back, and Quinn and Santana were in the back row. "I love the girl as much as everyone else in this car, but I don't think that I can handle it if we were like seeing her every day."
"Oh, come on, Diva. We all live in the same city, and don't see each other every day."
"No, but you're talking about Rachel. She'd have all of our schedules down pat, and demand that we do 'family lunches' and 'family dinners' and whatever else she can stick the word 'family' on."
"Christmas caroling and sing-alongs..."
"Exactly."
"Hey, speaking of families, have you guys settled on a name for T-squared? Because Tanner..."
"We're not naming our baby after you Santana, get over it. If it's a boy it's going to be Sam Jr, and if it's a girl-,"
"Mercedes, junior," Sam said. Mercedes lifted her hand to hit him on the arm. "What? If I get one, you get one, right?"
"Look, I love my name," Mercedes said, "but I don't want my baby to go through what I went through with it. So while she won't have some white bread name like Heather, she will also not be named Mercedes, either. So yeah."
"Oh come on, baby, don't you want our little girl to have a bit of you, too?"
"Trust and believe that our little girl will have a lotta bit of me," Mercedes remarked.
Santana held up a hand. "Hold up, it's a girl?"
Sam and Mercedes exchanged looks. "We don't know that definitively," Mercedes hedged. "We won't know for certain until our next doctor's visit-"
"But when Grandma Jones had her fish dream,"
"Oh, no way, your family does that, too?" Tamara questioned.
"This is a thing?"
"Fish dream?" Brittany questioned.
"-the fish had a knotted string in its mouth, which means we're having a girl." He looked over at Mercedes, "Right?"
"That's what Grandma Jones said."
"In our family, you knew the sex by whether or not the fish had teeth. No teeth meant it was a girl, teeth meant that it was going to be a boy."
"Oh no," Mercedes shook her head. "Teeth are bad. Teeth mean someone's going to die."
Brittany clamped her hand over Tamara's belly. "Don't say that! Squishy is only to be surrounded by positive thoughts at all times."
"Can someone please explain the fish thing," Quinn demanded, her and Brittany appearing to be the only one out of the loop.
There was laughter at her expense. Tamara explained, "If the 'seer' in the family, and not every family has one, but if the seer has a dream of fish, it means someone in the family is pregnant."
"Did someone in your family dream of fish?" Brittany questioned.
"So it's fish for you guys? No joke, my great aunt Ria swore that if you spread flour in the backyard at midnight and you woke up and there were footprints in it the next morning then you were pregnant-,"
"That's ridiculous."
"Grandma Jones dreamed of fish before your wedding," Sam offered, nodding significantly. "Right before."
"And my abuela swears by her Mexican Third Eye. And hey, there are many old folk traditions that westerners uphold that they don't even realize that they uphold still because they don't know the folk traditions."
"Like what?"
Santana shrugged. "Like carrying the bride over the threshold, throwing the bouquet-,"
"I always wondered why brides did that," Sam chimed in.
Mercedes was the one to answer. "I read something that said it was because brides were considered to be full of good luck, so people would try to take mementos off of the bride, so she would throw the bouquet in order to distract the mob long enough so that she could get away."
"That, and carrying the bride over the threshold was because if a bride tripped it would bring bad luck to the marriage, and women were supposed to be unlucky and clumsy and men were the steady ones, so the man carried the woman to bring in good luck. And...in traditional marriages the man used to kidnap the woman from her family. See...silly folk traditions exist in your culture, too."
"Is that true?" Brittany questioned.
"First time I'm hearing it."
Sam turned back to Mercedes. "I just think that we should go with tradition," Sam was saying.
"But she's named after a car," Santana pointed out.
"She's not named after a car-," Both Sam and Quinn corrected.
"She's named after Mercedes Ruehl."
"Who was probably named after the car."
"Doubtful. Ruehl was born in 1948, which was before the Mercedes Benz came to America, and Ruehl's mom was named Mercedes, too, so they were probably like the bastard child of Karl Benz or Gottlieb Daimler." Mercedes gave Sam a loving look. "Told you, steel trap, babe. And we should totally keep up with the tradition."
"I was thinking more like Tina, because then it could be like a tribute to my mom, Justine, and like the great Diva herself. Or Whitney."
"Christina or just Tina?" Brittany questioned. Mercedes seemed to be chewing it over. She looked at Sam. "Because if you name TT Tina our daughters will be twins."
"What do you mean?" Mercedes asked.
Brittany checked with Tamara, before continuing. "We were going to wait to tell you, but we might as well say it now: we're having a girl!"
"You found out and you didn't tell me?" Santana demanded.
"Congratulations," Quinn said.
"Have you picked out a name yet?"
"Tamara didn't want to,"
"It's bad luck to choose a name before the baby is actually here," Tamara explained.
"But we're torn between Christina and Skye, with an E."
"I like Skye," Quinn and Santana said.
"I had a friend in elementary school named Skye," Tamara explained. "But Brittany really likes Christina."
"But since the baby has my last name, it's whatever Tamara wants to name her."
"I can't believe you didn't tell me this sooner, Britt!" Santana said. "I thought we agreed on Anita."
"What would you have for a middle name? Would she be like Skye Christina or Christina Skye or something else completely?"
Tamara looked startled. "We haven't made it that far."
"If her first name is Skye, you should give her he middle name Walker. Then she'll be Skye Walker."
"Anita Skye..."
"Drop it, Santana," Quinn scolded.
Santana rolled her eyes and slumped in her seat. "Hey, speaking of dropping things," Mercedes chirped from the front, "did you guys put an offer down on that house?"
"Ooh, you guys found a house?" Brittany questioned.
"We hope so," Santana answered. "We put a tentative offer on the table yesterday, actually. I got the inspector's report expedited."
"How bad was it?" Sam questioned.
"No major structural damage issues, no water damage, no mold, no asbestos. Like you said, there's some structural damage, but me and Quinn never said we wanted a move-in ready place."
"Still, what you're looking at is a lot to take on."
Santana shook her head. "It's not a lot for us to take on, because you're the one who's going to be doing all the reno work...we mean if you want. You're still looking for full time work, aren't you?"
"Uh…yea…yeah," Sam said quickly. "It's going to be a lot, though, and renos? I've heard they get vicious. People don't know what they're in for until they end up with saw dust in their cereal, and the water cut off when they're trying to shampoo their hair. You sure you want to take it on?"
Santana looked over to Quinn, but she didn't really have to because she knew how much Quinn really wanted the house. "I've gone 10 days without showering before; I'll be okay."
Quinn gave her a concerned look. "Have you really?" she said in a low voice.
Santana gave a curt nod. "I was kind of stranded in the desert," she said in a low voice so no one else could hear. "Tell you about it sometime."
"Don't say I didn't warn you. I wasn't kidding about it easily costing you 200k to bring the house up to scratch. That's like the cost of a nice house back home."
"Yeah, but consider how much house we're getting for that amount. Taking into consideration the amount of work that needs to go into it, I went in $75,000 under their asking price. I figure that they'll ask for maybe $15,000 more, but I doubt they'll demand anything higher than that. It's a flip house that flopped. When you're flipping a house you want to turn the house over in 30 to 60 days, and this house has been up for sale for three times that time. For them, it's a loss no matter how you slice it; I'm guessing they're just going to want to get out with what they can get by this time.
"And if they do take $60,000 off of their current asking, even with the amount of renos that the house is going to take, it still comes in just under the top end of what we wanted to spend on a house."
And it's the house that Quinn wants, Santana thought in her head. Within reason there wasn't much that Santana wouldn't put up with to give her the home that she wanted. She liked, too, that the house needed a lot of love; it otherwise felt wrong for her and Quinn to be living in a house of that size without having people to fill up the space. Once they got everything together, she had every intention of having people over for every major (and non-major) holiday.
"I hope you guys get your place!" Brittany said cheerfully.
"Member when we were looking for our place?" Tamara questioned quietly.
"Yes! How could I forget, we almost got divorced over it!" She giggled.
Santana sensed gossip. "Really?"
"Brittany wanted a house in the country, with cows,"
"And chickens!"
"And ducks?" Santana wondered.
Tamara nodded rapidly. "And a duck pond. I've lived in the city my whole life, and she wanted to move out to the country. Not even the suburbs, but the country!"
Brittany smiled, nuzzling her wife. "You would have liked it."
Tamara's voice dropped, directed more to Brittany than any one else. "There's only so much that you can put up with for the one you love. Besides, all of our friends are in the city, we both work in the city,"
"And with as much as Tamara works, and with the commute, we'd never get to see each other." Brittany pouted. "And that's complete deal breaker, even if I don't get my ducks."
"You will. We'll retire on a farm, just for you."
Quinn shared a look at Santana surprised at the amount of conversation from Tamara. Did that mean that she was finally warming up to Brittany's friends?
Tamara gave a sudden grimace, her hand going to her belly. "Something wrong?" Quinn questioned, noticing.
Brittany gave a concerned look. "Squishy's just been kind of active recently," she answered. She and Tamara's eyes fell on each other, and held.
"Do you guys want us to take you back home?" Mercedes questioned. "We'll miss you, but if there's something wrong with the baby..."
"Nothing's wrong," Tamara answered. "We're fine." She rubbed her temple. "Besides, if we go back home, all I'm going to do is work, and I promised Brittany that I wouldn't do any of that until the New Year."
"No...not until the weekend is over!" Brittany corrected, her earlier concern gone as she shot her wife a look. "So no pulling your laptop out as soon as midnight strikes. You work too much, goose."
Tamara gave a little soft chuckle shaking her head, and whispering something in Brittany's ear. Mercedes smiled at them in the mirror. Either Tamara was seriously riding the pregnancy hormones, or she really was warming up to them.
"Hey guess what Santana's going to do," Quinn said, when conversation in the SUV hit a lull.
Sam turned around in his seat. "Giving up her life in Boston to try out on Broadway?"
Everyone but Tamara laughed. "Oh, funny, Trouty. I still haven't decided to like you, so watch yourself."
Sam gave her an impressive eye roll. "Yeah, yeah."
Damn, these fuckers think that marriage has softened me, Santana thought to herself. Quinn give her a sideways smile, seeming to smile at the words Santana hadn't said.
"What are you going to do, Santana?" Brittany questioned eagerly.
"She's going hunting!"
"You're going to kill Bambi?" Brittany questioned with her pout-face in place.
"You better not tell Rachel that."
"I'm not going to kill Bambi, B, mostly because Bambi doesn't actually exist. And come on, everyone in this car is a meet eater."
"Yes, when it comes packaged and placed neatly on the grocery shelf, not when it's still walking around."
Santana shrugged. "Keep telling yourself that there's a difference. Right now I'm trying to get Q to change her mind and come with me, but she keeps on refusing."
"And she will keep on refusing until you come up with something sensible," Quinn said.
"Ah, come on, babe! You said you wanted us to have a thing. This could be our thing. Think about how much money we'd save on fresh meat."
"Oh, that is so not happening."
"Can I come?" Sam questioned.
"No!" Santana and Mercedes both said. Santana chuckled. "Does that mean that you won't be getting on the fresh dear meat, 'Cedes? No deer jerky?"
"Uh...no, I'll take my burgers and piggies, thank you."
"Bet you can't even tell the difference," Santana challenged.
"I'd try it." A surprising voice said from the middle bench.
"Really, Tamara?" Santana questioned eagerly. She couldn't kill something unless she knew people would eat it, and she didn't want to be stuck eating deer meat for the next couple of weeks. She had never eaten deer before but she could only imagine it tasted gamey.
"Sure, why not? I mean me and Brittany are going to be retiring to the country once the babies are all grown, and I'm sure I'm going to be doing crazier things..."
Santana leaned forward for a high five. "Alright!"
Quinn shivered still repulsed by the idea. She was also oddly fascinated by the thought of watching Santana kill something. Not very many people could actually brag about having a woman who could slay the beast and bring it home. She was in that space when she was both proud and slightly ill with her wife.
"Britt you going to at least try it?"
Tamara looked from Brittany to Santana. "If Tamara's going to, I guess I have too." She unexpectedly got a worried look on her face. "It won't be bad for the baby will it?"
"It will definitely be a thousand times better for Squishy than half of the things you get off of the grocery shelves."
"Okay, then, bring it on!"
"Mercedes," Santana questioned leadingly. Mercedes' stink face was missed out by merit that no one but Sam could see it.
"Hell no! Just my luck the baby would probably end up liking it, and I'll end up spending the rest of my pregnancy having to eat deer meat," she shuttered in her seat.
Tamara's hand dropped onto her belly. "Is the baby kicking?" Brittany questioned eagerly, her hand coming down on top of Tamara's.
"Can I feel?" Santana questioned. She was expecting Tamara to say no, so she was surprised when she said yes, reaching out for Santana's hand. She placed it on her belly. "That is so cool. Babe you want to feel?"
Quinn shook her head. "I've felt it before." From the inside.
Sam was leaning over the seat watching the women watch the baby kicking. He was jealous because he couldn't wait to feel his baby kick, and he didn't think that Tamara would let him put his hand on her stomach.
His eyes fell on Santana. So...San, when are you going to knock up Quinn," he questioned.
Quinn gave Santana a worried glance, a soothing hand rubbing over Santana's arm as she withdrew her hand from Tamara's belly. "Santana's going to be carrying our first child, actually."
"Really? Oh, I can't wait to see you pregnant, Satan," Mercedes teased.
"Well, you're going to have to. Wait," Quinn corrected. "We decided to wait for a little while."
"Well, don't wait too long. If we get one more Glee kid pregnant, we can open a day care, then when they're all older we can resurrect the New Directions with our kids! And then all of them can all date each other like we did!"
"Wouldn't that be like incest?"
"Only if you ask Rachel."
"I'm sure she'd be all for it, then she could kidnap all of the kids and force them to perform show tunes in their diapers."
"I wouldn't be surprised if she hasn't already done so. But poor Tray, he's the only boy in this family so far," Mercedes said. "Maybe this is little Sammy junior, and we can even it out a little."
"Tray's not the only boy, actually," Santana said quietly. Her words didn't go unnoticed, though. "No one else has a kid, do they? Shelly's not pregnant, Quinn has a daughter."
"I have a son."
Sam gave a chuckle. "You pregnant too, and you didn't tell us?"
Quinn laced their fingers together. "No."
Sam's smile grew bigger. "You uh have a kid that you never told us about," Sam said with a chuckle.
"Yea, actually," Santana said without batting an eye. "His name is Philip. Philip Jacob Lopez. He's five."
Sam laughed, but he was the only one because Brittany knew Santana, and Mercedes could feel the sudden tension, and Tamara didn't know what to think.
"That actually wasn't a joke, Sam," Quinn said.
Sam got that look on his face that he got when he felt he was the only one not in on the joke. "When you'd get a five year old?"
"Five years ago," Santana answered. "He turned five a few weeks after the wedding, right before he disappeared with his other mother. I might not ever see him again...but, I have a son. So there you go. Tray's not alone."
Santana didn't offer up anything else. Quiet descended on the SUV and it stayed as Santana stared out the window, Quinn holding on to her hand.
After Santana had a moment to herself, she pulled out the picture of Phil that she now carried around in her wallet, passing around the evidence for her friends to see. It was hard to doubt that Santana was telling the truth when they looked so much alike. Once each of them had made remarks on the kid, (Brittany squealed in delight, going on about how adorable he was), Mercedes and Santana's CD was played, and that was enough to lighten the mood.
"You and Santana sound so good, babe," Sam said quietly in the front of the vehicle. "You two should so do a duet album."
"That's what you're listening to, Lips," Santana said. There was laughter that was just the slightest bit forced, but it returned things in the car back to normal.
"I still miss that," Quinn said so only Santana could hear.
The CD had just finished playing. "What? Caroling?"
"Singing. I miss having that outlet like we did in glee."
"You can always start coming to church with me, Quinn." Mercedes offered. "We can be in the choir together!"
"You should totally do that, babe," Santana quickly agreed. Quinn cocked an eye, expecting to see an amused look on Santana's face, but she looked serious. "What? I know that you miss church, and it's something you can do together with your girlfriend. How much time have you two spent together lately?"
Santana smiled when she saw Quinn thinking about it.
By the time they made it to New York, it was 8:00, it was getting colder, and the mood in the car had improved greatly, almost erasing that one awkward conversation near the beginning. But still Quinn pulled Santana to the side before they headed upstairs to Rachel's apartment. "Are you okay, sweetie?"
Santana gave an automatic smile at the term of endearment. "Yep."
Quinn got in her face, staring her in the eye. After a moment, Santana met her gaze. Quinn tilted her head. "Are you?"
Santana nodded. "Yes, babe. I'm okay." She held out her hand and waited. Quinn intertwined her fingers with her wife.
"Love you."
Santana's lips twitched. "Love you, too."
Predictably, Rachel nearly knocked them over when she rushed into their arms. "You guys are early, yeah! How was the ride, how was Christmas, isn't it so great that we still get together like this? I miss all of you!"
Also, predictably, Rachel put them to task helping with last minute preparations for the party. What wasn't predictable was Santana. After working for 15 minutes without a single complaint, she stopped at the task she was doing and went up to the small Diva. Rachel cringed slightly on instinct. Santana noticed but pretended. "Berry, all of this looks incredible," she complimented Rachel, and she didn't even sound sarcastic. She managed to even sound a little flattering. "You have always been really good at putting things like this together."
Quinn's eyes looked like they would bug out of her head, but Rachel merely took the compliment as if it were due. "Why thank you, Santana! Even though this is just supposed to be an intimate get together, I think that things always work best with planning and preparation."
Santana nodded. "Oh, absolutely. You know me and Quinn are buying a house, right?"
"You two found one? That is so good to hear! Every time I talked to Quinn lately, she's seemed so anxious for the two of you to get a place together."
Santana gave a devious smile. "I bet."
"You'll have to tell me all about it! Do you have pictures? When are you going to have your housewarming party?"
"We just put down an offer this week. We're waiting to hear back."
"Oh. I'm sure you'll get it. I'm so excited for you guys! Look at all of us, just doing awesome! As soon as you two close let me know! As you can see," she waved her hand, "I'm an excellent party planner. I would be more than happy to help you plan your housewarming. We should try to have as many get togethers as possible so we always remain close, don't you think?"
Santana nodded enthusiastically. "Oh, definitely, Berry. I couldn't agree more. It's still a little early to be planning our housewarming. Especially with the Pierces' and the Evans' baby showers coming up."
Rachel placed a hand over her mouth. "Oh my, I forgot all about that! How much time do I have?"
"March and May."
"Oh that's not a lot of time at all!"
"And before Quinn and I can even think of a housewarming, we've got to get through moving first."
"I'm a whiz when it comes to moving!" Rachel said.
"No doubt. You're just really good when it comes to those kinds of things, but I'm not that bad at it myself. I've got a full proof method."
"Oh, what is it? You've got to tell me all about it! I'm always searching for new organization ideas! Steve, you'll meet him tonight, he's just the best boyfriend ever. We spend all of our time watching HGTV. It's just so informative, and helpful, and I love seeing other kinds of creative people just let loose! So you've got to share your secret with me, because as we both know there's always room for improvement!"
Santana wanted to tell the girl to be breathe. Instead she said, "It's an old family secret. I can't go giving out all of my secrets now, can I?"
Rachel huffed. "Surely, it's not that...why won't you share?"
"I told you, family secret. Just know that our method? Guaranteed stress free moving."
"I will get it out of you," Rachel promised. "You know how good I am at finding out secrets!"
Santana rolled her eyes. "You can try!"
When Rachel moved to answer the door, Quinn tugged on her arm. "What are you up to?" she demanded.
Santana scoffed, holding a hand up to her mouth. "Why nothing at all, Quinnie dear, and I'm appalled that you would even think that I was up to something!"
"I've got my eye on you," Quinn said.
Santana blew her a kiss.
Rachel Berry's definition of an intimate New Year gathering was about 75 people, most of which were people that the group didn't know. Quinn was happy to see that Rachel was enjoying being popular, and wondered if she had yet figured out that it wasn't quite all it was cracked up to be. She, Santana and Sam mostly stayed together, while Mercedes got introduced or reintroduced to a couple of Kurt and Blaine and Rachel's friends. Quinn was a bit surprised that Tamara wasn't mingling for the sake of making contacts, but she figured that she was taking Brittany's restrictions seriously.
They, Quinn, Santana and Mercedes were in the middle of listening to Tina describing a patient that she'd come across on her rotation when Kurt rushed over with his gossip face on. "Okay, okay, Rachel's new boyfriend just walked in, and you will never believe who he looks like."
Santana craned her neck to see over the crowds. "Oh dear, God, she found a guy who looks just like Finn, didn't she?" Enough time had passed that they could joke about that now and it was okay. By now, they'd all dealt with other losses, and Finn was no longer a painful memory (well he was still painful for Santana, but for all the right reasons, not because of the sting of his death).
"Just wait until you see him!" Kurt squealed. "Where's Brittany? Damn, I really wanted her to be here for this!"
Half a minute later, Rachel floated over, holding hands with a very familiar looking man.
"This is Steven!" she introduced proudly. It was apparent that she was already heavily in love with him, and he looked at her adoringly. He was a handsome guy, about 6'0 , 6'1, broad chested, black haired, blue eyed, and with a kind of Uncle Jessie haircut circa the early years of Full House. And he had a very, very familiar face.
Santana's immediate reaction after seeing Rachel's latest beau was to look at Quinn, who seemed to be just as taken aback. "Uh...it's nice to meet you Steven," Quinn said, the first to come to herself. She shook hands with him. When Santana didn't move, she nudged her wife until she did the same.
"Uh...me, too. Nice meeting you...did you say, Steven, Berry?"
Quinn dug her elbow into Santana's side, bringing out a scowl. "It's nice to meet all of you," Steven remarked after everyone had introduced themselves. "Rachel, my darling, goes on about all of you, all the time." They were all a little surprised to hear the words spoken in an Irish accent. "It's wonderful to be able to put faces to the names."
As soon as she could do so without being rude, Mercedes grabbed for Santana with one hand, and Quinn with the other, pulling them aside, as Kurt followed trying not to laugh. "Okay, I didn't just imagine that, did I?"
"Uh...no. Berry has finally snapped."
"That's not nice, San," Quinn chastised, though she was smiling, and Santana didn't take her wife very seriously.
"The Hobbit is dating Prince Eric!" Santana hissed. "Oh come on, she can't do that and expect us not to make fun of her, at least off to the side like we're doing!" Santana thought it showed growth; in high school she would have pointed it out to Rachel right then and there, along with a couple well placed, biting, but hilarious, barbs.
Sam came wandering over to them, his jaw hanging open. "Did you guys know Rachel's dating the guy from the Little Mermaid. Dude, I didn't even know he was real!"
Mercedes slapped a hand over her face. Santana gave a loud guffaw. "I'm betting $50 dollars, right now, that Brittany calls him Eric to his face at least once before the night is over!"
"Are you defining 'night' as as long as we're at this party or 'night' until midnight?"
"Party over."
"No way, that's a quick way to lose money!"
Sam still shook hands with Santana. "You're on!"
Less than five minutes later, Brittany could be heard loudly saying, "I loved you so much in he first Little Mermaid but you're acting could have been better in the sequel."
Sam forked over a $50 dollar bill that Mercedes promptly snatched from Santana's hand, pocketing it. When Santana protested, Mercedes stared her down. Brittany broke their stalemate. "Have you guys seen, Tamara? She said she was going to rest for a few minutes, but that was a long time ago."
"No, we haven't," Quinn answered for her and Santana. She looked at Mercedes and Sam who both shook their heads.
"If you see her, let her know I'm looking for her, please?" Brittany questioned.
"Did you check the bathroom?" Kurt suggested.
"No, I guess I should."
"Try the one in Rachel's bedroom. If she wanted some privacy, she probably would have gone for that one."
She nodded, and went off. Santana looked after her. "You don't think that anything's wrong with Tamara do you?" she asked the air. There was no answer. "Should we-?"
Quinn placed a hand on her wife's arm. "I'm sure everything's okay."
Santana gave her head a nod. "So who's surprised that Rachel finally found her prince after all?"
Alcohol found their way into their hands and they toasted to love.
It wouldn't have been a Rachel Berry party, if they weren't forced on the platform Rachel had made for her living room. Quinn and Tina performed Cups together, Rachel sang by herself, Santana sang with Kurt, and Blaine with Mercedes for sake of trying out new pairs. Sam and Rachel started to perform together, but Mercedes dragged him away from that because no one wanted to hear that. Like seriously, no one at all.
Midnight was approaching, and Santana's eyes were searching the crowd for Brittany, when Quinn pulled her off to the side. "What's up, Q?" Santana questioned.
Quinn had a wild, but determined, look to her eye. "I wanted to say something to you. Before the new year." Santana understood that Quinn was serious so she paid attention. "The last New Years' we spent together was at Mercedes album release party. Do you remember?" Quinn questioned.
Santana grimaced. "Of course I remember that, babe. How could I forget; you didn't talk to me for nearly a year after I..."
"I know," Quinn said, taking her hand. "That night, I kept thinking how it was you, how it would always be you, how I would always keep coming back to you, and then you were asking if I was awake, and I tried to tell you I was, but then you kissed me, and it felt so much like a dream. And then you said you loved me, and...that really felt like a dream, and I didn't know what to do with that."
Quinn's eyes searched Santana's. "I was so angry at myself for not saying it back, for letting you think that I didn't."
"Babe, that's ancient history now."
"Still, I just want to say this. I once chose silence over choosing you, and I regret that, so much, but being here with you, now, has helped me realize that nothing's ever final; not even silence. As long as we remember that, as long as we remember that moment, and this one, and we see how far we came, we can make it through anything that happens. Everything." Quinn gave a small laugh. "So call me corny if you want, but I just wanted to tell you that."
Santana smiled at her warmly. "Thanks for taking the time to say it, babe. It's a New Year, a new us, we're going to be home owners soon..."
"The neighbors will be getting acquainted with us soon,..."
"Babe, you're not going to make me Fabray with the neighbors are you?"
Quinn pressed her lips to Santana's ears. "That's not what I meant, San."
"What...oh!" She grinned. "Fuck yeah. I haven't forgot...you know. I went and bought some handcuffs in preparation. And a little something special, too."
"What?" Quinn demanded.
"If you wait long enough, you'll see!"
They went back inside to be with their friends and the count down and celebrations. Santana had just pulled back from kissing Quinn into the New Year when she saw it. In the back of her mind she'd already been seeking Brittany out, so when she saw the flash of blonde, her eyes automatically went to hat direction, just in time to see the body that Brittany had an arm around, start to shake spastically. Brittany, unprepared for the movement, wasn't able to move quickly enough to prevent the woman from sliding out of her arms, and falling to the floor. Santana didn't know if she actually heard the thump as her skull connected with the hardwoods, or if she imagined it, but she didn't imagine the limp figure, and she certainly didn't imagine the sound of Brittany's voice. "Tamara? Tamara!"
Santana heard the shout over the cheers and applause of the party was that brief moment where it seemed like Santana and Brittany were the only two people in the room knew that something was wrong. Brittany's eyes found hers. "Santana!" she heard her name again. Santana was already moving toward the pair, her eyes seeking out Rachel, relieved when she saw her. "Rachel," she moved as she talked. "I need you to dial 9-1-1 right now!"
"Why, what's wrong? What happened?"
"Just do it! Tell the dispatcher that you have a pregnant woman at your party who just went into an epileptic seizure. She's 6 months, 26 weeks pregnant. Tell them that you don't know if she's still breathing, and she is unresponsive. Now, Berry!" she snapped when Rachel just stared. Santana didn't wait to see if her orders were being carried through. She was sure that Quinn had heard her, and if Rachel didn't do it, she knew her wife would.
Santana was halfway across the room when there was a lull in the crowd enough for Brittany's voice to break through the revelry. Santana reached her side just as eyes turned, one by one, to the screaming blonde who was hovering over the prone figure of her wife sprawled awkwardly on the floor, unmoving.