I (Won’t) Believe That It’s Over
Title: I (Won’t) Believe That It’s Over
Pairing: Santana Lopez/Brittany Pierce
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Spoilers: None in particular, though through S3 for safety.
Summary: It's nice, but it's not their house. Not in the least.
It’s a nicer house than she would have imagined. Unadorned. Simple brick, a simple driveway, a rectangle of simple green grass. No cracks. No strange garden gnomes, or geometric patterns on the simple mahogany door. No hippo-shaped mailbox.
It’s nice, but it is not their house. Not in the least. Which Brittany thinks is somewhat fitting, considering she doesn’t live here.
This suddenly feels so much harder than she’d planned.
There’s no doorbell-or, if there is, it’s disconnected; she’s pressed it twice to no avail-so she cautiously pries open the storm door and raps against the wood. Two knuckles, hard as she dares. Shyness is cute and all, but she’s flown two thousands miles for this. Two thousand miles is a bit too far for fear.
Before she can catch herself worrying to death about things like no one home and restraining orders, the door is swinging open to reveal a woman. Brittany’s vision goes hazy, like an old photograph that is crumbling around the edges. There’s no way she can handle this all at once; best to take it one detail at a time.
Her gaze starts at chest-level and sinks, drinking in each piece of the puzzle in turn. A black beater hugs round breasts, torn blue jeans hanging off the curve of her hips. On her feet are black high-top Chucks; around her waist, a red-checked button-down shirt. There are glasses drooping low on her nose, and her hair is drawn up in a haggard ponytail. Every inch is tanned, and paint smudged, and thoroughly surprised.
She never used to wear glasses.
It’s too late now to turn tail and retreat with dignity, so Brittany pastes on a smile and lifts her right hand in a wave. A stupid, empty gesture for a visit like this. This is not her home, and, despite every dream to the contrary, never was. They never had a chance to build a home like this one.
And yet, here she is. Still coughing New York fumes from her lungs. Still spitting the taste of twisted ankles and strained career hopes onto the nice, simple green lawn. Intruding.
“Hi,” Santana says, breathlessly, like she’s been choking on the word for a long time. Brittany nods.
“Hi. I was in the neighborhood, and-” She winces. That sounds like a bad romantic comedy. She might even have lifted it from the film they showed on her flight. Not that Santana watches those kinds of movies.
She never used to, anyway. Not without Brittany.
“You live nowhere near the neighborhood,” Santana replies knowingly, pushing at the bridge of those strange new glasses. Brittany resists the age-old instinct to stretch out her own fingers and tuck a rogue lock of black hair behind that familiar shell of ear. Not the time, she knows. Maybe it never will be again.
“I don’t,” she concedes finally, rocking her weight from left to right. Her hands are trembling; she hides them behind her back, slipping thumbs into back pockets like it’ll help. Like Santana won’t be able to tell how weird this is, if she can just play pretend. Swaying here in a doorway she should be able to call her own.
“But you came anyway,” Santana continues for her, egging her gently on the way she always did in school when Brittany would halt in the middle of a read-aloud. “Hi.”
The word fits strangely in her ears, muted and uncomfortable. Hi, hey, hello. Nothing seems right. Nothing has been for a long time now.
A commotion sounds from around the corner: a bang, a muffled curse. Instantly, without knowing why, Brittany finds herself stumbling back towards the porch.
“You have someone. Here. I’m sorry, I’ll come back-”
But she won’t, not if she leaves right now, and it doesn’t matter anyway. Santana is all but lunging to catch her sleeve, black-painted nails scratching into sunburned skin. Brittany’s head spins with a thousand screaming memories. She grabs hold of the doorframe, steadies.
“It’s no one,” Santana tells her hurriedly. “Not important. Stay.”
Stay is such a simple word for such a simple house. Funny, how such a simple word could have changed everything, if only it had been uttered a few years earlier.
“Yeah, well, fuck you too, Lopez,” a man’s voice rings out. “See if I ever pick you up discounted paint goods again-”
Noah Puckerman rounds the corner, and he is at once the boy Brittany once laughed with and a man she’s never met before. His mohawk runs long, shaggy against the back of his neck; a golden Star of David jingles around his neck, his muscular arms tattooed in exciting new patterns. For the first time, she catches sight of the guitar case by the dining room table, the military-grade jacket slung over its lid. Suddenly, the massive pick-up at the curb makes a world of sense.
Santana never was a truck girl.
He spots her and yelps, louder than she remembers, and then his arms are wrapped around her middle, swinging her off the ground. She squeezes her eyes shut and turns her face against the soft buzz of his scalp, inhaling the high school odor of cigarettes and pancake batter.
When he sets her down, he’s grinning like a child. Over his shoulder, Santana looks almost amused.
“Brittany fuckin’ Pierce!” he exclaims for an invisible crowd, arms gesticulating wildly. “Fuck me Freddie.”
“You switched teams?” Brittany teases, delighted when his nose wrinkles with mild confusion. “Hi, Puck.”
“You here to help the Wicked Witch paint?” he asks, though his eyes are wise enough to know her answer before she gives it. Santana slugs him in the arm.
No glint of a ring on her finger, Brittany notes. Maybe she really did get here in time.
Santana gives him The Look-the one that used to make freshmen scatter from twenty feet away-and he lifts his hands, shrugging. “Fine, fuck, whatever. Just keep me around to do your dirty work, I see how it is. It’s like our friendship means nothing to you-”
“You want the couch?” Santana glowers. “You paint. No paint, no sleepover. Remind me how crashing on park benches worked out for you, again?”
He stomps from the room, half-scowling, half-beaming over his shoulder, and Brittany thinks she can read his mind. No one looks that excited to see her unless they think something’s going to come of it. Not when there’s a miracle on the line.
Santana’s arms are folded across her chest, patient. Brittany is sort of relieved that they don’t have to do the dance. Santana never asks, How did you find me?; they are both perfectly aware that there is only one person who would give directions without a word of warning. Likewise, Santana doesn’t ask, What happened to us? That’s a story neither of them could forget.
Brittany’s spent three years trying.
They don’t have to do the dance, because even after all this time, they know each other too well. Santana knows full well that Brittany would only call Quinn upon coming into town. Brittany knows, with equal certainty, that Santana has no patience for blame games or teary reunions. Anyway, this isn’t about any of that.
Bullshit is for exes who want to play nice.
They’ve never been that pathetic.
“You quit your job?” Santana asks. Brittany stares at the silver chain around her neck, daring to hope with all the stupid love in her heart that it still weighs between her breasts, carrying that old charm. She nods.
“Quit. Or got let go. Injuries happen, and no one wants a broken chorus girl.”
Compassion lights in Santana’s eyes, casting uncomfortable shadows behind those sleek dark frames. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too,” Brittany says honestly, and she can’t be sure what she’s even referring to. She guesses it doesn’t matter. Lines, with them, were always meant to be blurred.
“Puck’s sleeping here?” she goes on, and what she really wants to ask is, Puck’s sleeping with you? She doubts it, even knows it can’t be true, but the question hangs heavy all the same. Santana and backsliding do go hand in hand.
Slim shoulders bob up and down. “He spent a year playing Central Park, crashing with Sam. Thought he was this real hotshot, ‘cuz he almost had a following. But then Sam dropped his bartending gig and moved back to Bumfuck, Kansas, and…” Another shrug. “Gotta grow up sometime.”
Brittany knows that a little too well.
“You have a home,” she says, and hates herself for the wistfulness in her own voice. Santana doesn’t smile.
“I have a house,” she corrects thinly. Her right foot twines behind her left, hip tilted toward the wall. Brittany’s heart aches.
“It’s a start.”
Santana is shaking her head before the last syllable releases, her fingertips probing her forehead. “God. Just say it.”
Say what, Brittany thinks, because the dance-the game-suddenly seems so much easier than just coming out with it. So much less dangerous that having flown two thousand miles to this strange little town, carrying years of baggage, and memories, sex and screaming arguments.
It all seemed to make so much sense at the airport, on the plane, in the car, but now she wonders: is this really such a brilliantly-laid plan, after all? They fell apart once already, they can do it again. Maybe they will. Maybe it’s a cycle doomed to repeat.
But Santana is staring at her with pleading eyes and a stony mouth, her chin held aloft in that awkwardly strong way she’s had since childhood. Daring Brittany to walk away. Daring her to blow this all over again.
“I love you,” she whispers, and watches Santana sag into the wall like a punctured Christmas decoration. “I don’t know if that means anything-”
“Of course it means something,” Santana says hoarsely, pushing her bangs back. Her foot skids loudly on the wooden floor, squealing. “It always means something.”
They broke once, Brittany wants to remind her. It was all big plans and graduation dreams for a little while, and then it was something else entirely: angry nights, and loneliness, and not quite knowing how to balance history with future. It was Santana’s impatience, and Brittany’s frustration, and all the thousands of tiny wrongs that build up when you try your damnedest to be the same person for twenty years straight. Like that could ever work.
Santana-with-the-scuffed-knees-and-shredded-baseball-cap from second grade is not Santana-in-the-Cheerio-uniform-and-bitchy-smirk from tenth is not Santana-the-proud-girlfriend kissing her at graduation, and Brittany always knew it, so why did she ever think that girl with the pink cheeks and exuberant laugh would follow them to college without issue? Santana is all of those girls, all of those beautiful women, even now-standing in her paint-smeared jeans, with her cleavage, and her ragged breaths, and her sad eyes-but she is someone else entirely. Someone Brittany hasn’t had the opportunity to know.
Yet.
“Do you love-” she asks, and doesn’t even get the whole question out before Santana’s bark of laughter.
“Yes,” she breathes, the answer to the world’s oldest, most obvious question. Brittany lets her head drop for a moment, eyes carving ugly sketches into her shoe tops. She sees Santana move forward, striding until they’re toe-to-toe, and bites her lip.
They broke once already. They were so good for so long, and then they weren’t. And maybe that’s because they were young and stupid, or maybe it’s because they weren’t supposed to work. High school relationships almost never do. It’s silly, to think you’ve found the love of your life at seven years old.
Except, for all the boys and girls Brittany has ever kissed, danced with, sang for, slept with-no one has ever felt like Santana. No other hands have ever held her up like they knew, without a doubt, that she would remain standing if ever they fell away. No other smile has ever shone with such knowledge of her. No other kiss has ever burned against her skin, staying with her for months, years after the fact.
No one is Santana except for this woman standing here, the woman whose hands are pulling at her shoulders, dragging her into an embrace Brittany has been craving for hundreds and hundreds of days.
She buries her face against Santana’s hair and breathes, struggling not to cry. Santana’s fingers wind tight in her shirt and slide up, until her left hand presses firmly against the back of her skull. Clutching like a little girl wading from a nightmare.
“We have to start over,” she hears herself babble, and Santana nods. “We fucked up-”
Santana draws back just far enough to lean against Brittany’s forehead. When she sighs, her breath is all hot peppermint and vanilla chapstick. Old Santana. Always Santana.
“It’s not this easy,” Brittany is saying, head shaking from side to side. Her skin sticks against Santana’s, too warm. “We broke-”
“Then we’ll fix,” Santana swears, fingers threaded through blonde hair to hold her in place. “We’ll fix it. We’ll start again.”
Brittany’s knees buckle, her head spinning. Quinn said this would happen. Quinn said Santana would say this. And still, it doesn’t feel real. But Quinn said-
“Quinn called you,” she realizes, feeling as though she’s known it all along. Santana’s lips curve, a flash of white teeth breaking through.
“Four days ago.”
“That bitch,” Brittany laughs wonderingly, and sighs. “You knew.”
“Had to happen eventually,” Santana says softly. Her right hand skims up, cradling Brittany’s cheek. Her nose bumps lightly and turns, angling until there’s room to move between them. “You were always going to come back.”
“You didn’t know that,” Brittany argues, though her head feels fuzzy with the presence of familiar lips brushing with brand new energy against her mouth. Santana smiles into her.
“I did. Just had to wait it out.”
“You’ve never been good at waiting,” Brittany points out, or tries to; the words sink into Santana’s mouth with the first stroke of her tongue, vanishing. Unheard. It doesn’t matter. She didn’t come here for an argument.
It’s such a nice house. So simple, for belonging to someone so complicated. She wonders if its big enough to hold all the crazy they’ve built up over two decades.
It is, she decides, grasping Santana by the hips and pulling until they both topple into the wall. It can handle them. After all, she guesses that crazy is what makes a home.
And, if that’s true, this is going to be the best home on earth.
Pairing: Santana Lopez/Brittany Pierce
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Spoilers: None in particular, though through S3 for safety.
Summary: It's nice, but it's not their house. Not in the least.
It’s a nicer house than she would have imagined. Unadorned. Simple brick, a simple driveway, a rectangle of simple green grass. No cracks. No strange garden gnomes, or geometric patterns on the simple mahogany door. No hippo-shaped mailbox.
It’s nice, but it is not their house. Not in the least. Which Brittany thinks is somewhat fitting, considering she doesn’t live here.
This suddenly feels so much harder than she’d planned.
There’s no doorbell-or, if there is, it’s disconnected; she’s pressed it twice to no avail-so she cautiously pries open the storm door and raps against the wood. Two knuckles, hard as she dares. Shyness is cute and all, but she’s flown two thousands miles for this. Two thousand miles is a bit too far for fear.
Before she can catch herself worrying to death about things like no one home and restraining orders, the door is swinging open to reveal a woman. Brittany’s vision goes hazy, like an old photograph that is crumbling around the edges. There’s no way she can handle this all at once; best to take it one detail at a time.
Her gaze starts at chest-level and sinks, drinking in each piece of the puzzle in turn. A black beater hugs round breasts, torn blue jeans hanging off the curve of her hips. On her feet are black high-top Chucks; around her waist, a red-checked button-down shirt. There are glasses drooping low on her nose, and her hair is drawn up in a haggard ponytail. Every inch is tanned, and paint smudged, and thoroughly surprised.
She never used to wear glasses.
It’s too late now to turn tail and retreat with dignity, so Brittany pastes on a smile and lifts her right hand in a wave. A stupid, empty gesture for a visit like this. This is not her home, and, despite every dream to the contrary, never was. They never had a chance to build a home like this one.
And yet, here she is. Still coughing New York fumes from her lungs. Still spitting the taste of twisted ankles and strained career hopes onto the nice, simple green lawn. Intruding.
“Hi,” Santana says, breathlessly, like she’s been choking on the word for a long time. Brittany nods.
“Hi. I was in the neighborhood, and-” She winces. That sounds like a bad romantic comedy. She might even have lifted it from the film they showed on her flight. Not that Santana watches those kinds of movies.
She never used to, anyway. Not without Brittany.
“You live nowhere near the neighborhood,” Santana replies knowingly, pushing at the bridge of those strange new glasses. Brittany resists the age-old instinct to stretch out her own fingers and tuck a rogue lock of black hair behind that familiar shell of ear. Not the time, she knows. Maybe it never will be again.
“I don’t,” she concedes finally, rocking her weight from left to right. Her hands are trembling; she hides them behind her back, slipping thumbs into back pockets like it’ll help. Like Santana won’t be able to tell how weird this is, if she can just play pretend. Swaying here in a doorway she should be able to call her own.
“But you came anyway,” Santana continues for her, egging her gently on the way she always did in school when Brittany would halt in the middle of a read-aloud. “Hi.”
The word fits strangely in her ears, muted and uncomfortable. Hi, hey, hello. Nothing seems right. Nothing has been for a long time now.
A commotion sounds from around the corner: a bang, a muffled curse. Instantly, without knowing why, Brittany finds herself stumbling back towards the porch.
“You have someone. Here. I’m sorry, I’ll come back-”
But she won’t, not if she leaves right now, and it doesn’t matter anyway. Santana is all but lunging to catch her sleeve, black-painted nails scratching into sunburned skin. Brittany’s head spins with a thousand screaming memories. She grabs hold of the doorframe, steadies.
“It’s no one,” Santana tells her hurriedly. “Not important. Stay.”
Stay is such a simple word for such a simple house. Funny, how such a simple word could have changed everything, if only it had been uttered a few years earlier.
“Yeah, well, fuck you too, Lopez,” a man’s voice rings out. “See if I ever pick you up discounted paint goods again-”
Noah Puckerman rounds the corner, and he is at once the boy Brittany once laughed with and a man she’s never met before. His mohawk runs long, shaggy against the back of his neck; a golden Star of David jingles around his neck, his muscular arms tattooed in exciting new patterns. For the first time, she catches sight of the guitar case by the dining room table, the military-grade jacket slung over its lid. Suddenly, the massive pick-up at the curb makes a world of sense.
Santana never was a truck girl.
He spots her and yelps, louder than she remembers, and then his arms are wrapped around her middle, swinging her off the ground. She squeezes her eyes shut and turns her face against the soft buzz of his scalp, inhaling the high school odor of cigarettes and pancake batter.
When he sets her down, he’s grinning like a child. Over his shoulder, Santana looks almost amused.
“Brittany fuckin’ Pierce!” he exclaims for an invisible crowd, arms gesticulating wildly. “Fuck me Freddie.”
“You switched teams?” Brittany teases, delighted when his nose wrinkles with mild confusion. “Hi, Puck.”
“You here to help the Wicked Witch paint?” he asks, though his eyes are wise enough to know her answer before she gives it. Santana slugs him in the arm.
No glint of a ring on her finger, Brittany notes. Maybe she really did get here in time.
Santana gives him The Look-the one that used to make freshmen scatter from twenty feet away-and he lifts his hands, shrugging. “Fine, fuck, whatever. Just keep me around to do your dirty work, I see how it is. It’s like our friendship means nothing to you-”
“You want the couch?” Santana glowers. “You paint. No paint, no sleepover. Remind me how crashing on park benches worked out for you, again?”
He stomps from the room, half-scowling, half-beaming over his shoulder, and Brittany thinks she can read his mind. No one looks that excited to see her unless they think something’s going to come of it. Not when there’s a miracle on the line.
Santana’s arms are folded across her chest, patient. Brittany is sort of relieved that they don’t have to do the dance. Santana never asks, How did you find me?; they are both perfectly aware that there is only one person who would give directions without a word of warning. Likewise, Santana doesn’t ask, What happened to us? That’s a story neither of them could forget.
Brittany’s spent three years trying.
They don’t have to do the dance, because even after all this time, they know each other too well. Santana knows full well that Brittany would only call Quinn upon coming into town. Brittany knows, with equal certainty, that Santana has no patience for blame games or teary reunions. Anyway, this isn’t about any of that.
Bullshit is for exes who want to play nice.
They’ve never been that pathetic.
“You quit your job?” Santana asks. Brittany stares at the silver chain around her neck, daring to hope with all the stupid love in her heart that it still weighs between her breasts, carrying that old charm. She nods.
“Quit. Or got let go. Injuries happen, and no one wants a broken chorus girl.”
Compassion lights in Santana’s eyes, casting uncomfortable shadows behind those sleek dark frames. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too,” Brittany says honestly, and she can’t be sure what she’s even referring to. She guesses it doesn’t matter. Lines, with them, were always meant to be blurred.
“Puck’s sleeping here?” she goes on, and what she really wants to ask is, Puck’s sleeping with you? She doubts it, even knows it can’t be true, but the question hangs heavy all the same. Santana and backsliding do go hand in hand.
Slim shoulders bob up and down. “He spent a year playing Central Park, crashing with Sam. Thought he was this real hotshot, ‘cuz he almost had a following. But then Sam dropped his bartending gig and moved back to Bumfuck, Kansas, and…” Another shrug. “Gotta grow up sometime.”
Brittany knows that a little too well.
“You have a home,” she says, and hates herself for the wistfulness in her own voice. Santana doesn’t smile.
“I have a house,” she corrects thinly. Her right foot twines behind her left, hip tilted toward the wall. Brittany’s heart aches.
“It’s a start.”
Santana is shaking her head before the last syllable releases, her fingertips probing her forehead. “God. Just say it.”
Say what, Brittany thinks, because the dance-the game-suddenly seems so much easier than just coming out with it. So much less dangerous that having flown two thousand miles to this strange little town, carrying years of baggage, and memories, sex and screaming arguments.
It all seemed to make so much sense at the airport, on the plane, in the car, but now she wonders: is this really such a brilliantly-laid plan, after all? They fell apart once already, they can do it again. Maybe they will. Maybe it’s a cycle doomed to repeat.
But Santana is staring at her with pleading eyes and a stony mouth, her chin held aloft in that awkwardly strong way she’s had since childhood. Daring Brittany to walk away. Daring her to blow this all over again.
“I love you,” she whispers, and watches Santana sag into the wall like a punctured Christmas decoration. “I don’t know if that means anything-”
“Of course it means something,” Santana says hoarsely, pushing her bangs back. Her foot skids loudly on the wooden floor, squealing. “It always means something.”
They broke once, Brittany wants to remind her. It was all big plans and graduation dreams for a little while, and then it was something else entirely: angry nights, and loneliness, and not quite knowing how to balance history with future. It was Santana’s impatience, and Brittany’s frustration, and all the thousands of tiny wrongs that build up when you try your damnedest to be the same person for twenty years straight. Like that could ever work.
Santana-with-the-scuffed-knees-and-shredded-baseball-cap from second grade is not Santana-in-the-Cheerio-uniform-and-bitchy-smirk from tenth is not Santana-the-proud-girlfriend kissing her at graduation, and Brittany always knew it, so why did she ever think that girl with the pink cheeks and exuberant laugh would follow them to college without issue? Santana is all of those girls, all of those beautiful women, even now-standing in her paint-smeared jeans, with her cleavage, and her ragged breaths, and her sad eyes-but she is someone else entirely. Someone Brittany hasn’t had the opportunity to know.
Yet.
“Do you love-” she asks, and doesn’t even get the whole question out before Santana’s bark of laughter.
“Yes,” she breathes, the answer to the world’s oldest, most obvious question. Brittany lets her head drop for a moment, eyes carving ugly sketches into her shoe tops. She sees Santana move forward, striding until they’re toe-to-toe, and bites her lip.
They broke once already. They were so good for so long, and then they weren’t. And maybe that’s because they were young and stupid, or maybe it’s because they weren’t supposed to work. High school relationships almost never do. It’s silly, to think you’ve found the love of your life at seven years old.
Except, for all the boys and girls Brittany has ever kissed, danced with, sang for, slept with-no one has ever felt like Santana. No other hands have ever held her up like they knew, without a doubt, that she would remain standing if ever they fell away. No other smile has ever shone with such knowledge of her. No other kiss has ever burned against her skin, staying with her for months, years after the fact.
No one is Santana except for this woman standing here, the woman whose hands are pulling at her shoulders, dragging her into an embrace Brittany has been craving for hundreds and hundreds of days.
She buries her face against Santana’s hair and breathes, struggling not to cry. Santana’s fingers wind tight in her shirt and slide up, until her left hand presses firmly against the back of her skull. Clutching like a little girl wading from a nightmare.
“We have to start over,” she hears herself babble, and Santana nods. “We fucked up-”
Santana draws back just far enough to lean against Brittany’s forehead. When she sighs, her breath is all hot peppermint and vanilla chapstick. Old Santana. Always Santana.
“It’s not this easy,” Brittany is saying, head shaking from side to side. Her skin sticks against Santana’s, too warm. “We broke-”
“Then we’ll fix,” Santana swears, fingers threaded through blonde hair to hold her in place. “We’ll fix it. We’ll start again.”
Brittany’s knees buckle, her head spinning. Quinn said this would happen. Quinn said Santana would say this. And still, it doesn’t feel real. But Quinn said-
“Quinn called you,” she realizes, feeling as though she’s known it all along. Santana’s lips curve, a flash of white teeth breaking through.
“Four days ago.”
“That bitch,” Brittany laughs wonderingly, and sighs. “You knew.”
“Had to happen eventually,” Santana says softly. Her right hand skims up, cradling Brittany’s cheek. Her nose bumps lightly and turns, angling until there’s room to move between them. “You were always going to come back.”
“You didn’t know that,” Brittany argues, though her head feels fuzzy with the presence of familiar lips brushing with brand new energy against her mouth. Santana smiles into her.
“I did. Just had to wait it out.”
“You’ve never been good at waiting,” Brittany points out, or tries to; the words sink into Santana’s mouth with the first stroke of her tongue, vanishing. Unheard. It doesn’t matter. She didn’t come here for an argument.
It’s such a nice house. So simple, for belonging to someone so complicated. She wonders if its big enough to hold all the crazy they’ve built up over two decades.
It is, she decides, grasping Santana by the hips and pulling until they both topple into the wall. It can handle them. After all, she guesses that crazy is what makes a home.
And, if that’s true, this is going to be the best home on earth.