fic: Crawling Towards the Sun (1/?)
Santana Lopez didn’t believe in God.
All those Sunday sermons about God’s love and His kindness and His mercy were just distant memories of the hope she craved but no longer desired. When her grandmother died, her mother hugged her fiercely and told her that it was her time and He was taking her to a place where she no longer had to suffer.
10 year old Santana Lopez believed her.
But when Rachel Berry, 16 years old and just on the cusp of happiness gets literally and figuratively torn from Santana’s arms, Santana is 100% sure that no mercy-loving God would take away the only thing keeping Santana sane. Her mother told her that the good died young and that she was a part of His plan.
17 year old Santana Lopez didn’t believe her.
--
The school held a memorial service for Rachel Berry a week later, the entire school sat in morose regretful silence while the Glee club stood in front of them and sang the reprise of ‘I’ll Cover You’ from Rent.
The club barely sang the song, most of them stopping every three words or so to wipe the tears streaming down their face or to mask a sob. Quinn was a mess, her hair was frayed and she only sang a few words before breaking down into heavy sobs. Kurt sang with his head held high, but his voice shaky and his eyes red-rimmed and tear stained. Most of the boys barely sang or didn’t even sing at all; Mike, Matt, Puck and Finn all had their shoulders slumped and kept drawing their hands to their faces to hide their tears they didn’t want to show the rest of the school. Mercedes belted out her lines as well as she could with her voice shaking and sobs wracking her body. Artie held Tina, who had stopped singing completely and was crying into Arties chest while he kissed the top of her head with his glasses fogging up. Brittany didn’t sing at all; most people thought that she just forgot the lyrics or was too stupid to remember them; the truth was that she refused to believe that Rachel was actually gone and was yet to come to terms with the death of her friend.
With a thousand sweet kisses
I'll cover you
Santana sat in silence. Not crying, not singing; just staring forward at nothing, her mind miles away from her body. She looked at the regretful, miserable faces in the audience, thinking that ‘Left Behind’ from Spring Awakening seemed a more appropriate song for the girl they were remembering.
A shadow passed, a shadow passed
Yearning, yearning for the fool it called a home
The Latina let out a humourless chuckle. All those months of Rachel forcing her to watch Broadway shows had finally rubbed off on her. Too late though...
Santana looked down at her knees, not willing to give the school the pleasure of seeing Santana Lopez aka Ice Queen crying. The tears dropped on her hands, one of them hitting the silver band on her forefinger that Rachel had given her for their anniversary. The wetness on the ring giving it a shine that hit Santana right in the face; the gold star in the middle of the band was glimmering, shining up at Santana so painfully that the Latina snapped her head back up to the students.
Through her blurred vision, Santana saw a figure standing up in the auditorium; shining, brighter than anyone else there. The figure was illuminated by a glistening light; all that was visible was the dark hair and the star shining on the hand outstretched towards Santana.
The more Santana squinted, the clearer the figure was. Almost as soon as she saw her, the tears fell out of Santana’s eyes. The figure was gone, the song was over.
--
Glee club was quiet.
It was almost scary how one person’s absence could take away the voice, the heart of eleven with them.
But as the remaining eleven members of Glee club and Mr Schuester sat; some looking at the clock, some looking at their hands, all of them glancing up to the door, waiting for a brown haired ball of determination to walk in and rant off about how they can defeat Vocal Adrenaline.
But the minutes of the clock passed and their captain never came.
“Well...guys. Um...How about we work on some songs for Regionals?”
Will’s voice cracked as he broke the silence and drew up the heads of the eleven teenagers.
“What’s the point, Mr Schue?”
“We’ve only got eleven members.”
“...won’t be the same without her...”
“...There goes Regionals.”
“...might as well quit...”
“Guys,” Will interrupted the sudden mumbled outbursts from the students, “look, she wouldn’t want us to sit here and be miserable. Remember? Glee is about opening yourself up to joy.”
“No offence Mr Schue, but none of us are in the mood. Can we just go around as say what we miss most about Rachel?” Artie stated, the monotone he employed dashing off any hope Will had that he was getting through to them.
But when the Spanish teacher looked around and saw his students nodding, he reclined back to the empty piano bench and looked at his kids.
“I miss her voice. I never told her that her voice is the reason I’m here.”
Matt went first to the surprise of everyone. Mike patted his shoulder and followed.
“I miss when she would let her guard down and just have fun.”
“I miss her clothes. Girl actually pulled off argyle. I’d never tell her that though.”
Kurt said, a few chuckles were heard around the room.
“I miss her attitude. Sometimes it was a problem,” Mercedes paused, “but most times it made me want to work better. It made all of us better.”
“I miss her energy. She was like, a can of Red Bull or something. It got us to work harder; she made us keep at it until we owned it.”
Nobody expected Puck to speak at all. But when he muttered his piece behind the cover of his palm, the club nodded.
“I miss her laugh.”
Brittany added simply, though it probably had a strongest effect on the club because it hit the hardest.
“I miss her persistence,” Finn stated, looking at Rachel’s empty seat, “she never gave up on anything. Not herself, not the club, not me...”
“I miss her determination. She knew what she wanted and she knew that she was going to damn well get it, it was just a matter of time for her.” Artie muttered, the monotone cracking to the sadness in his voice.
“I miss her strength. She never let anything get her down; not the slushies or the names or the pain she went through, she just persevered to be the best...to make us the best.” Tina said, her voice breaking as the sobs wracked her body.
“I miss her smile,” Quinn whispered as if she was speaking to herself, “I spent so long trying to chase it away from her, trying to get rid of it because I thought it’d make me feel better. But I realise now...that every time she smiled, whether it was because she hit the right note, or we made her proud, or she was actually damn happy for once; every time she smiled, I would smile too. Cos her happiness was contagious.”
The club was silent again. Everybody was in their own state of grief and heartbreak.
Santana sat still, her fingernails digging into her palm before it was too much for her. The silence was suffocating her, Rachel wasn’t bursting in through the doors, Brittany was crying, Quinn was crying, it was quiet.
It was quiet.
It was quiet and Santana Lopez couldn’t handle it.
Santana grabbed her backpack and made a beeline for the door. Oh God, she couldn’t breathe, she needed to get out...she needed air.
But when she reached the door, no one was screaming at her. Nobody was calling her a traitor or a megabitch or a self-centred ice queen.
The Latina spun around and immediately regretted it.
Twelve faces looked back at her with pity and sympathy in their eyes. It took her a moment to realise she was crying. Crying and holding the gold star anniversary ring in her palm like her life depended on it.
But the pity...that fucking hurt. She was Santana Lopez, she didn’t need pity, she didn’t want their pity or their sympathy or their understanding looks.
Because they didn’t understand.
They didn’t know that Rachel cried herself to sleep almost every night.
They didn’t know that the small brunette almost daily muttered a wish that she was dead.
They didn’t know that they made Rachel Berry’s life a living hell.
They didn’t even know that Santana had to pick up the pieces every time and tell her that she was talented, that she was beautiful, that she was strong, that she was amazing.
They didn’t know.
And they never would.
Santana turned back and grabbed the door handle, ready to push it open and storm out. But before the brunette could turn the knob, she sighed and muttered.
“You don’t deserve to miss her. You didn’t even like her. Didn’t even bother to make her feel as if she belonged and maybe if you said all of those pretty little words to her while she was here, maybe she wouldn’t be dead,” Santana paused, her head still hanging. She didn’t even bother to turn and face the club when she added, “She wasn’t perfect, but I loved her. And I would kill all of you to bring her back.”
With that, Santana pushed the door open and left the tarnished remains of the glee club.
--
“Hit the showers, you sloppy freak shows!”
Santana sighed, relived that Cheerios practise was finally over. She could finally go home and bathe in the loneliness.
While the rest of the team stumbled to the showers, Santana, feeling distinctively masochistic, headed up towards the bleachers, hoping to see her brown haired, smiling girlfriend waiting for her with a kiss.
When all that was there was cold empty metal seats, the Latina sluggishly slumped onto the bleacher and dropped her head into her hands, letting the tears out of her eyes but not out of her hands.
“Miss your girlfriend?”
The voice caused Santana to stiffen slightly before she fixed a cold glare and turned to her left at the person who had just signed their own death wish.
Amy Foster.
Great. The new, all American, blonde hair, blue eyed, Quinn 2.0 smirked down at her before taking a seat next to Santana, completely ignoring the glare.
“Must be a bitch to lose her. I mean, she was all you had right? She was the reason you were trying to be better, trying to be stronger and boom!” Amy paused to clap her hands, “bye bye Rachel.”
Santana was literally seeing red. She was a second away from tackling Amy to the ground and beating the shit out of her when.
“Whoa ho ho! Easy there, tiger. Wouldn’t want you to do anything bad to Amy now, would we? Nah, I think you should just stay right where you are.”
Santana bones froze.
She was frozen.
Stuck.
She trying moving her limbs, anything beside her head but to no avail; nothing was moving, it’s like she had lost control of her own body.
What the fuck...
“Easy with the language there, Lopez. Poor, sweet Amy doesn’t curse.” Amy...’was it Amy?’ chuckled at her.
“What...Who...how?”
“Relax, Lopez. You’ll live longer. I’ll give you control of your body once you hear me out, okay?” not-Amy said, twirling her blonde hair with one hand and picking off the roman catholic cross, linked to the chain around not-Amy’s neck.
“Ok. Well. First things first. As you can guess, I’m not dear sweet, catholic Amy Foster.” Not-Amy threw the chain behind her shoulder before continuing, “I have a shitload of names that I go by, you know, the usual, Satan, the Devil, Diablo, whatever...I don’t really care what you call me.”
Santana gaped.
“Okay, now that we have that clear. I’m here cos I heard what you said to the club, Santy.”
“Don’t call me that.” Santana gained her bearing back enough to tell The Devil off; or to tell Amy, doing a really bad impression off.
“Whoa! Okay, hit a nerve there. My bad, let’s move on. I heard what you said to the club about, you know, ‘I would kill all of you to bring her back’, all that jazz.”
Santana opened her mouth, but a flick of Amy’s wrist shut it for her.
“Please keep all questions for after the tour. Thank you. Really Santana; it’s rude to interrupt, didn’t your mother teach you any manners.”
Amy threw her head back and laughed. Santana took the opportunity to look around the bleachers for anyone else, but it was completely empty.
“As I was saying, Santana. Your offering is highly interesting to me so I want to make you a deal.”
Not-Amy flicked her wrist again and Santana exhaled as she gained complete control over her body again. Not-Amy leaned over and looked deep into Santana’s eyes. Where Santana should have seen icy blue, instead she saw crimson red.
“You harvest me five souls and I will reunite you with your dear, sweet Rachel.”
With another flick of the wrist, Rachel appearing next to Not-Amy; Santana’s breath caught in her throat as she saw her girlfriend in all her beauty, she was entranced by the vision of smiling Rachel for so long that not-Amy cleared her throat and flicked her wrists, Rachel disappeared into a puff of smoke.
“So what do you say? Five souls for the love of your life; pretty fucking awesome deal if I could say so myself.”
Santana was so caught up in the vision of Rachel that she almost got whiplash when her head snapped to not-Amy.
“Harvest souls?” The Latina squeaked out.
“Yeah, and it’s pretty fucking easy. All you have to do is find five, living breathing human souls, and kill the shit out of them and smack-bang, you got your Rachel back. Deal or no deal, babe?”
Santana was frozen. If what Not-Amy was saying was right, then she could get Rachel back. She could get the love of her life back. She could get...
“Wait...” Santana mumbled, looking into not-Amy’s crimson eyes, “I have to kill five people?”
Not-Amy sighed and ruffled her hair, “Killing is a strong word. Listen, I’m not saying go out and kill a fucking orphan, although that would be pretty awesome; All I’m saying,” Not-Amy paused, “Is end the miserable lives of five, sad, pathetic people and you get your beautiful innocent Rachel back. It’s win win!”
Santana was shocked. She was a 17 year old cheerleader, not a murderer.
“I-I can’t. I’m not a murderer.”
Not-Amy laughed.
“Murderer-shmurderer. Everybody is a fucking murderer. I would know! That guy over there smoking his ass off, he might as well be committing suicide; that guy selling crack to the teens is handing out death sentences left and right,”
Not-Amy smirked and moved to the above Santana, her mouth inches away from Santana’s ear.
“Let’s not forget the guy who murdered your dear, sweet Rachel...I mean, she was only 16! She was almost happy and then that asshole took it all away from her. Took it away from you, Santy. How amazing would it feel to see that guys eyes roll back into his head, and for him to feel the pain that Rachel felt, that you felt, and then to see Rachel again! That would be magical!”
Santana shuddered. Not-Amy moved back to Santana’s side.
“Five souls. I don’t care who they come from Santana. You bring me five souls; I’ll reunite you with Rachel.”
Santana drew in a deep breath.
“Have we got a deal, Lopez?”
The Devil extended her hand.
Santana took it.
“Deal.”