Final Words (1/1)
Title: Final Words (1/1)
Author: cranberry_pi
Summary: A funeral for a girlfriend - Santana's eulogy.
Pairings: Brittana, implied Faberry
Length: ~2000.
Rating: PG-13 for themes? I think.
Warnings: Character Death
Author's Note: I shouldn't write when I'm in this kind of screwed-up mental state. This is what happens. There's nothing happy in this story, no positivity. Just pain and loss and struggling to say goodbye. If everyone chooses to avoid this one, feel free. I won't hold it against you.
Santana looked out at the crowd, trying to draw strength from the familiar faces she saw looking back at her. But there wasn’t any comfort in them. Just the same loss and heartbreak she could feel in herself, and the same struggle not to fall apart into a mass of tears and recriminations. ‘If only’, ‘if you’d have just’, ‘if someone would only have’...all of those things that meant nothing, but made people feel better because anger is easier than hurt. And so she gripped the pages of her handwritten eulogy tightly enough to crease them and smudge the purple ink that bore her final message, and took a deep breath.
“There are,” she began, “a hundred thousand things I want to say to you right now. All of them are too much, and they’re not enough, and they’re everything and they’re nothing. So I guess I’ll start with the simplest of all of them. I miss you. If I woke up tomorrow with my arm cut off, I wouldn’t miss that arm the way I miss you. If all the air went out of the world and I was trying to breathe, I wouldn’t miss that air the way I miss you. Every morning I wake up, and I turn toward you - and you’re not there. And you never,” her voice quavered. “You never will be. That spot is always going to be empty. Right now it smells like your perfume, your shampoo, and you, but sooner or later that’s going to fade too. And then it will just be a spot. And every time I look at that spot, I’m going to miss you.”
She looked out at the crowd, and the sight of Quinn - pink hair and all - sobbing quietly into her hands nearly undid her. But she looked away and went on. “What will I miss?” she mused. “It’d be easier to list the things I won’t. But you deserve more than that - someone as positive, as full of life as you, deserves to have the best of you remembered. I’ll miss your smile. The way it could light up a room, and the way everyone who ever saw it would do anything to make you smile that smile again. Once they’d seen the most beautiful thing the world had to offer, how could they stop themselves from wanting to see it again? Hell, you managed to bluff an entire Glee Club into thinking you believed in Santa Claus at seventeen years old. And do you know why they went along with it? So they could see you smile. I’ll miss that smile. I’ll miss how funny you were. Not many people got to see that, and I always felt special when you let me. People always thought you were dumb, but you just had the most wicked sense of humor buried under all the silly things you’d say. And nobody ever got it. Most people never made the effort. But that’s another thing I miss. The way you loved everyone. You never saw the bad in them, never hated anyone, no matter how badly they treated you. You might have gotten mad sometimes, but you held no grudges. You’d welcome anyone back into your life, and give anyone a second chance.”
She stopped and took a sip of water. “I’ll miss seeing you. And that sounds shallow, but it’s true. I never have, and I never will again, met anyone as beautiful as you. When you danced, even if we were just fooling around in your basement, it was like the whole world stopped. All I could see was you, and this - this halo that surrounded you. I never told you, and it,” she stopped and turned away for a second before resuming, “and it kills me, but when you danced you looked like an angel from heaven. I miss walking into a room or a hallway where you were, because you’d always give me the most beautiful smile, and it was the best thing that would happen to me all day. I miss what you made me. I miss the way that you were the only person who could ever cut through all of my bullshit and see this other person inside, this person that you thought was somehow worthy of you. I’ll miss the way you could just look at me, and make all of my anger and all of my fear melt away, with just that single look.” Finn had lost it completely, and actually staggered up the aisle to crash through the doors into the grey afternoon light. No one else moved.
“You made me a better person - you made me me. You made me face who I really am - a lesbian - and not only that, but you made me love that part of myself. Because just accepting that I was, that wasn’t enough for you. You spent so many nights telling me how you saw me, the way you wished I’d see myself, until I had no choice. I looked in the mirror one day, and madre di dios, there she was. That girl you talked about. The one I’d never seen. I sobbed that morning - when I called you, my voice was still shaky. All I told you was that I loved you, and that I couldn’t wait to see you at school, but somehow you knew. You always knew. When we ran into each other outside school that morning, you hugged me for five minutes without saying a word. And we never talked about it after that - we didn’t have to.” Santana rubbed her eyes again. “I miss pretty much everything about you. But we don’t have all day, I guess. So there’s just one more thing I miss, that I want to share with everyone. I miss touching you. Not in a sexual sense - although, god do I miss that too - but just touching you. Holding your pinky with mine, holding your hand, curling up with you on your bed while we watched Sweet Valley and just feeling your warmth against mine. I always knew - when I touched you, I was home. I was safe. And it was forever.” Her voice shook on the last word, and she had to grab the podium to keep herself steady. Will moved a step closer, but she waved him back. After a full minute of slow, deep breaths, she stood up straight again.
“It’s not fair. I think if there’s one thing everyone in this Glee Club, this town can agree on, it’s that the brightest light shouldn’t be the first one put out. That it’s not fair that one drunk in a towncar can snuff out the best of us. I’m not going to lie - I wanted him dead. If I’d been there with you, he may have been dead before I could even stop myself. But after a few days to think, I know that’s not what you’d want. You’d want me - all of us - to be more like you. To forgive him. To acknowledge that everyone makes mistakes. And I don’t know how - but I’m trying. Because it’s what you’d want.” Quinn’s sobs were loud enough for everyone to hear now, and Rachel moved from her seat to take Quinn in her arms. Even Sue, who was sitting in the back row by herself, had a hand over her face. “It’s not fair that you’re gone. Not when we were so close. So close to starting a real life together, to going to New York and getting married, and having the life we dreamed about. But I guess fair doesn’t enter into it, does it?” She sighed. “I don’t know how I’m going to go on, Britt. It’s like - do you remember those Buffy episodes that we didn’t watch? The ones after Oz leaves but before Willow meets Tara? We never watched them together because you said they were too sad. But I watched them alone, and Willow said something that seems appropriate for today - that she felt like she’d been split down the middle and half of her was lost. That’s how this feels. There’s a shadow where the sun should be, and there’s an emptiness where there should be a hand in mine.”
“I love you, Brittany Susan Pierce. I will never, never love another the way I love you. You’re my unicorn, and without you the world just doesn’t have any magic in it. Every time I see a duck, every time there’s a double rainbow, I’ll want to share those things with you. I hope that, wherever you are, you don’t mind me talking your ear off. Because I will. I’ll be telling you about my day until I’m an old lady, and every time I do I’ll be listening for an answer.” She saw Finn slip quietly back inside, and she acknowledged his mouthed ”sorry,” with a slight incline of her head. She understood. She picked up her pages and looked ruefully at them. “I don’t think I actually said any of the things I meant to say. But somehow I think I said what I needed to. I love you, Britt-Britt. Goodbye.” She nearly broke, and actually fell to one knee before getting up and gesturing for the Glee Club. “There’s one more thing we have for you, B. Just one. I hope it makes you smile.”
It was probably the worst performance they ever gave. But it felt better than any of the others.
”I hope you never lose your sense of wonder
You get your fill to eat
But always keep that hunger
May you never take one single breath for granted
God forbid love ever leave you empty handed
I hope you still feel small
When you stand by the ocean
Whenever one door closes, I hope one more opens
Promise me you'll give faith a fighting chance
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance
I hope you dance
I hope you dance
I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance
Never settle for the path of least resistance
Living might mean taking chances
But they're worth taking
Lovin' might be a mistake
But it's worth making
Don't let some hell bent heart
Leave you bitter
When you come close to selling out
Reconsider
Give the heavens above
More than just a passing glance
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance
I hope you dance
(Time is a real and constant motion always)
I hope you dance
(Rolling us along)
I hope you dance
(Tell me who)
I hope you dance
(Wants to look back on their youth and wonder)
(Where those years have gone)
I hope you still feel small
When you stand by the ocean
Whenever one door closes, I hope one more opens
Promise me you'll give faith a fighting chance
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance
Dance
I hope you dance
I hope you dance
(Time is a real and constant motion always)
I hope you dance
(Rolling us along)
I hope you dance
(Tell me who)
(Wants to look back on their youth and wonder)
I hope you dance
(Where those years have gone)
(Tell me who)
I hope you dance
(Wants to look back on their youth and wonder)
(Where those years have gone)”
Eighteen stuffed ducks on a patch of earth - one for each of her years - was the last gesture they made that day. There was no wake, no gathering of friends when it was over. The club simply paired off, leaving Santana in front of the grave alone. She knelt and scooped a bit of earth with one hand, letting it slip through her fingers. “I don’t even remember putting that in there,” she said with a laugh that was half a sob. Wiping her face with her sleeve, she stood and planted a kiss on the granite marker before she walked away. In a perfect world, there would have been a rainbow. But in this world - there was only rain.
Author: cranberry_pi
Summary: A funeral for a girlfriend - Santana's eulogy.
Pairings: Brittana, implied Faberry
Length: ~2000.
Rating: PG-13 for themes? I think.
Warnings: Character Death
Author's Note: I shouldn't write when I'm in this kind of screwed-up mental state. This is what happens. There's nothing happy in this story, no positivity. Just pain and loss and struggling to say goodbye. If everyone chooses to avoid this one, feel free. I won't hold it against you.
Santana looked out at the crowd, trying to draw strength from the familiar faces she saw looking back at her. But there wasn’t any comfort in them. Just the same loss and heartbreak she could feel in herself, and the same struggle not to fall apart into a mass of tears and recriminations. ‘If only’, ‘if you’d have just’, ‘if someone would only have’...all of those things that meant nothing, but made people feel better because anger is easier than hurt. And so she gripped the pages of her handwritten eulogy tightly enough to crease them and smudge the purple ink that bore her final message, and took a deep breath.
“There are,” she began, “a hundred thousand things I want to say to you right now. All of them are too much, and they’re not enough, and they’re everything and they’re nothing. So I guess I’ll start with the simplest of all of them. I miss you. If I woke up tomorrow with my arm cut off, I wouldn’t miss that arm the way I miss you. If all the air went out of the world and I was trying to breathe, I wouldn’t miss that air the way I miss you. Every morning I wake up, and I turn toward you - and you’re not there. And you never,” her voice quavered. “You never will be. That spot is always going to be empty. Right now it smells like your perfume, your shampoo, and you, but sooner or later that’s going to fade too. And then it will just be a spot. And every time I look at that spot, I’m going to miss you.”
She looked out at the crowd, and the sight of Quinn - pink hair and all - sobbing quietly into her hands nearly undid her. But she looked away and went on. “What will I miss?” she mused. “It’d be easier to list the things I won’t. But you deserve more than that - someone as positive, as full of life as you, deserves to have the best of you remembered. I’ll miss your smile. The way it could light up a room, and the way everyone who ever saw it would do anything to make you smile that smile again. Once they’d seen the most beautiful thing the world had to offer, how could they stop themselves from wanting to see it again? Hell, you managed to bluff an entire Glee Club into thinking you believed in Santa Claus at seventeen years old. And do you know why they went along with it? So they could see you smile. I’ll miss that smile. I’ll miss how funny you were. Not many people got to see that, and I always felt special when you let me. People always thought you were dumb, but you just had the most wicked sense of humor buried under all the silly things you’d say. And nobody ever got it. Most people never made the effort. But that’s another thing I miss. The way you loved everyone. You never saw the bad in them, never hated anyone, no matter how badly they treated you. You might have gotten mad sometimes, but you held no grudges. You’d welcome anyone back into your life, and give anyone a second chance.”
She stopped and took a sip of water. “I’ll miss seeing you. And that sounds shallow, but it’s true. I never have, and I never will again, met anyone as beautiful as you. When you danced, even if we were just fooling around in your basement, it was like the whole world stopped. All I could see was you, and this - this halo that surrounded you. I never told you, and it,” she stopped and turned away for a second before resuming, “and it kills me, but when you danced you looked like an angel from heaven. I miss walking into a room or a hallway where you were, because you’d always give me the most beautiful smile, and it was the best thing that would happen to me all day. I miss what you made me. I miss the way that you were the only person who could ever cut through all of my bullshit and see this other person inside, this person that you thought was somehow worthy of you. I’ll miss the way you could just look at me, and make all of my anger and all of my fear melt away, with just that single look.” Finn had lost it completely, and actually staggered up the aisle to crash through the doors into the grey afternoon light. No one else moved.
“You made me a better person - you made me me. You made me face who I really am - a lesbian - and not only that, but you made me love that part of myself. Because just accepting that I was, that wasn’t enough for you. You spent so many nights telling me how you saw me, the way you wished I’d see myself, until I had no choice. I looked in the mirror one day, and madre di dios, there she was. That girl you talked about. The one I’d never seen. I sobbed that morning - when I called you, my voice was still shaky. All I told you was that I loved you, and that I couldn’t wait to see you at school, but somehow you knew. You always knew. When we ran into each other outside school that morning, you hugged me for five minutes without saying a word. And we never talked about it after that - we didn’t have to.” Santana rubbed her eyes again. “I miss pretty much everything about you. But we don’t have all day, I guess. So there’s just one more thing I miss, that I want to share with everyone. I miss touching you. Not in a sexual sense - although, god do I miss that too - but just touching you. Holding your pinky with mine, holding your hand, curling up with you on your bed while we watched Sweet Valley and just feeling your warmth against mine. I always knew - when I touched you, I was home. I was safe. And it was forever.” Her voice shook on the last word, and she had to grab the podium to keep herself steady. Will moved a step closer, but she waved him back. After a full minute of slow, deep breaths, she stood up straight again.
“It’s not fair. I think if there’s one thing everyone in this Glee Club, this town can agree on, it’s that the brightest light shouldn’t be the first one put out. That it’s not fair that one drunk in a towncar can snuff out the best of us. I’m not going to lie - I wanted him dead. If I’d been there with you, he may have been dead before I could even stop myself. But after a few days to think, I know that’s not what you’d want. You’d want me - all of us - to be more like you. To forgive him. To acknowledge that everyone makes mistakes. And I don’t know how - but I’m trying. Because it’s what you’d want.” Quinn’s sobs were loud enough for everyone to hear now, and Rachel moved from her seat to take Quinn in her arms. Even Sue, who was sitting in the back row by herself, had a hand over her face. “It’s not fair that you’re gone. Not when we were so close. So close to starting a real life together, to going to New York and getting married, and having the life we dreamed about. But I guess fair doesn’t enter into it, does it?” She sighed. “I don’t know how I’m going to go on, Britt. It’s like - do you remember those Buffy episodes that we didn’t watch? The ones after Oz leaves but before Willow meets Tara? We never watched them together because you said they were too sad. But I watched them alone, and Willow said something that seems appropriate for today - that she felt like she’d been split down the middle and half of her was lost. That’s how this feels. There’s a shadow where the sun should be, and there’s an emptiness where there should be a hand in mine.”
“I love you, Brittany Susan Pierce. I will never, never love another the way I love you. You’re my unicorn, and without you the world just doesn’t have any magic in it. Every time I see a duck, every time there’s a double rainbow, I’ll want to share those things with you. I hope that, wherever you are, you don’t mind me talking your ear off. Because I will. I’ll be telling you about my day until I’m an old lady, and every time I do I’ll be listening for an answer.” She saw Finn slip quietly back inside, and she acknowledged his mouthed ”sorry,” with a slight incline of her head. She understood. She picked up her pages and looked ruefully at them. “I don’t think I actually said any of the things I meant to say. But somehow I think I said what I needed to. I love you, Britt-Britt. Goodbye.” She nearly broke, and actually fell to one knee before getting up and gesturing for the Glee Club. “There’s one more thing we have for you, B. Just one. I hope it makes you smile.”
It was probably the worst performance they ever gave. But it felt better than any of the others.
”I hope you never lose your sense of wonder
You get your fill to eat
But always keep that hunger
May you never take one single breath for granted
God forbid love ever leave you empty handed
I hope you still feel small
When you stand by the ocean
Whenever one door closes, I hope one more opens
Promise me you'll give faith a fighting chance
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance
I hope you dance
I hope you dance
I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance
Never settle for the path of least resistance
Living might mean taking chances
But they're worth taking
Lovin' might be a mistake
But it's worth making
Don't let some hell bent heart
Leave you bitter
When you come close to selling out
Reconsider
Give the heavens above
More than just a passing glance
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance
I hope you dance
(Time is a real and constant motion always)
I hope you dance
(Rolling us along)
I hope you dance
(Tell me who)
I hope you dance
(Wants to look back on their youth and wonder)
(Where those years have gone)
I hope you still feel small
When you stand by the ocean
Whenever one door closes, I hope one more opens
Promise me you'll give faith a fighting chance
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance
Dance
I hope you dance
I hope you dance
(Time is a real and constant motion always)
I hope you dance
(Rolling us along)
I hope you dance
(Tell me who)
(Wants to look back on their youth and wonder)
I hope you dance
(Where those years have gone)
(Tell me who)
I hope you dance
(Wants to look back on their youth and wonder)
(Where those years have gone)”
Eighteen stuffed ducks on a patch of earth - one for each of her years - was the last gesture they made that day. There was no wake, no gathering of friends when it was over. The club simply paired off, leaving Santana in front of the grave alone. She knelt and scooped a bit of earth with one hand, letting it slip through her fingers. “I don’t even remember putting that in there,” she said with a laugh that was half a sob. Wiping her face with her sleeve, she stood and planted a kiss on the granite marker before she walked away. In a perfect world, there would have been a rainbow. But in this world - there was only rain.