FIC: The Memories We Make - Rachel/Santana, Glee 1/1
Title: The Memories We Make
Author: Misty Flores
Teaser: Three Years. Three Christmases in a Zombie-infested world.
Pairing: Rachel/Santana
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Christmas Fluff. God help me, I can’t stop listening to Christmas music. An interlude in the ‘ Say Good-Bye to This Heart of Mine’ and ‘ Lovers In a Dangerous Time’ verse - in which Rachel and Santana lost everything (to zombies) but found each other.
__
December 25th, 2012
In the few months that she and Rachel have been on the run, Santana has come to equate frigid temperature with relative safety.
It’s a learned instinct. Even though she’s no scientist she’s damn well aware of the effect the cold can have on the Crazies and Bandits alike. The lower the temperature gets, the harder it is for either to move and that’s very good news for two women who are little more than teenagers wandering through this wasteland alone.
It’s what she clings to when her teeth chatter and her fingers turn blue; when her nose goes numb and she’s half afraid it’ll break off.
Winter is miserable, but it’s miserable for everyone. There is precious little in this hell of a world that she and Rachel have to use as an advantage.
But sometimes even the cold isn’t enough.
Sometimes, the bandits find them anyway.
They make a stupid mistake. They see a shanty and let the cold do their thinking for them, and even though Santana and Rachel are careful, they’re still ambushed by bandits.
Santana doesn’t know how many there are. She does know that she manages to get one with her rifle just before one she didn’t see coming charges at her like a demented viper, sinking a blade deep in her thigh.
The scream of pain chokes in her throat as she slams the butt of her rifle into his forehead and when he falls back, it gives she and Rachel a precious second to run like hell.
They stumble for the safety of the woods and they run forever.
And really, the only thing that distracts Santana from the deep, seeping wound on her leg is the burning ache of her lungs.
She takes in huge gulps of frigid air that burns. It’s like inhaling knives and it’s no comfort, because with every step she can feel the blood drip down her thigh, splattering against the white snow like breadcrumbs for the men to follow, making her dizzier with every step.
“Santana,” she hears, just before her thigh flares and her boot sinks into a hole hidden by the snow. Her knee twists and she sprawls forward. Something hard strikes against her temple as she lands, shooting an overwhelming, blinding flash of pain into her brain that makes her nauseous.
She swallows snow as she gags and chokes.
In a fog of agony, she’s only dimly aware of Rachel’s hands grabbing at her shoulders, shoving and pulling at her body before a deafening noise of a gunshot threatens to shatter her eardrums, bringing with it a blast of heat that sears against her cheek.
There’s a few hazy minutes in which Santana can only breathe, eyes closed tight to shut out the world, before the cold of the snow seeps through her clothes and her teeth begin to chatter. There’s pressure on her thigh and it’s not until Rachel jerks the cloth hard, sealing the pressure against her wound, that she comes out of her pain-induced fog long enough to focus on her speared thigh.
“Holy FUCK!” she hisses. A palm clamps down against her lips. Santana tastes blood on Rachel’s fingers, seeping into her mouth. It’s her blood, she realizes.
“Quiet!” Rachel whispers. Santana’s eyes water with unshed emotion. “I got him, but I don’t know if there are others.”
Her head is throbbing along with her thigh; it’s like each one has its own pulse. She’s nauseous, and her ear drums feel shattered. Everything buzzes. Her cheek burns from where Rachel brushed the muzzle of her fired gun, and she’s freezing from laying in the snow and SOMEONE STABBED HER and this is how she’s going to die - hidden behind some bush while Rachel waits out the rapist assholes that thought they’d be easy targets.
Breathing in and out to control her nausea, Santana spots a dark speck in the snow covered clearing. The man who sprang at her and dug a knife into her thigh now looks like a crumpled animal only twenty feet away. She can see his expression, the sneer still frozen on a face with lifeless, terrifying eyes.
A strong, slender arm slides around her middle, pulling her back into Rachel’s torso. Rachel’s splayed her across her knees, and Santana’s head falls against Rachel’s bony shoulder. She can hear Rachel’s rapid heartbeat thumping against her ear, and for some reason it comforts her.
Outstretched in Rachel’s shaking free hand is a hand gun pointed in the direction of the dead man as they wait.
Santana can only breathe through her pain while the edges of her vision darken until unexpectedly, a snowflake lands daintily on her nose.
Everything inside her stills. Slowly and with effort, Santana lifts her head up to the sky and watches as little white specks drift from the blue sky, fluttering onto her skin and melting into icy drops.
It’s then that she begins to notice, really notice, the thick, pristine blanket of snow that weighs down the pine trees and the forest floor.
When her mouth opens and she tastes a snowflake on her tongue, she realizes suddenly what day it is.
Rachel, with her pounding, racing heart, continues to hold her close, breathes heavily against her ear, clutching her like she’s her only lifeline.
Rachel, her only friend, who just saved her life.
“Rachel,” she whispers.
“What’s wrong?” Rachel asks immediately. Dark long lashes are fringed with those damn snowflakes, and cheeks are burned with fierce emotion. That expressive face stares down at her like she’s the only thing in this world worth caring about.
It’s December 25th and something inside her decides to suddenly let go, because she gets the random notion that Rachel is actually beautiful.
“Merry Christmas.”
Rachel stops breathing. Santana closes her eyes and lets her head fall back against Rachel’s chest. She knows that if she looks at her, she’ll see Rachel staring at her like she’s gone and got bit by a Crazie.
But more snowflakes fall on her face and suddenly Rachel’s laughing, this quiet, bittersweet broken kind of laugh that makes her body shake underneath Santana. It’s the first time Rachel’s laughed in over a month.
Santana discovers she’s relieved to hear it.
When her palm weakly reaches up and presses against the arm surrounding her shoulder, Rachel clutches her even tighter, dropping her gun and sliding both limbs around her.
Cold lips brush against Santana’s temple - the one that isn’t seeping blood.
Its Christmas morning and Santana’s got a knife wound in her thigh and she’s pretty sure she’s got a concussion from that rock slamming her face. She’s freezing and there’s a dead guy that Rachel straight up killed lying in the snow in front of them.
“Merry Christmas, Santana,” Rachel finally whispers.
It’s December 25th and it shouldn’t mean anything right now. They have nothing but each other.
But they’ve made it another day, another month - a year.
Maybe it’s the best Christmas ever.
--
December 25th, 2013
Christmas in the Lopez family was generally celebrated the Latino way - the night before. It meant staying up until midnight and nothing much to do at all on Christmas day, and it worked out perfectly for her and Brittany, because then Brittany would spend the night at her place and they would both be at the Pierce’s the next day.
Santana remembers footie pajamas (at Brittany’s insistence) and rubbing at tired eyes as Brittany dashed toward the trees. She remembers feeling so full with all the food that she knows she’s going to starve herself for days to lose it all for Cheerios.
But it’s totally worth it, even when Brittany embarrasses her by raising a plastic piece of Mistletoe above her head and puckering her lips hopefully.
Santana doesn’t know why it’s so hard to admit it, but she really fucking loved Christmas.
It’s Christmas day and they’ve been out of Quarantine for more than a year.
Their routine is mechanical, now. They’re so used to not talking that all it takes is a look before Rachel hauls the backpack off her shoulders with a heavy sigh and sinks onto a snow covered rock, resting from their long trek for just a moment before she manipulates her snow shoes underneath her and kneels down to dig into the snow, clearing it away to find the forest floor underneath.
Santana watches her for a moment, until she realizes she’s doing it. Something hot flushes through her and she tugs at her own straps that weigh down her heavy pack. It hurts. Her fingers have long since gone numb, and it’s so cold now that mucus has dried and crusted on top of her lip. Exhaustion hits her like a wave, and she can’t bring herself to care.
She rotates her shoulders to feel the cramped bones pop back into place and then pulls her fingers out of her gloves to work at the zipper of her heavy snow jacket.
Hidden in a side pocket, where only the most valuable things go, is their fire starter kit, along with spare timber that scratches her if she moves a certain way. It’s wrapped in a plastic bag that’s so wrinkled and worn the ‘Vons’ logo has long since faded away.
“Careful,” Rachel says like she always does and Santana rolls her eyes and resists the urge to tell her that if she’s so damn worried about it then she should fucking carry it herself. The flint drops into her palm and she hands both over.
It’s Rachel who’s the best at this, because it’s Rachel who snuck the books from the library when they were in Quarantine, who huddled with her on her threadbare cot and made her keep the precious candle lit while she studied the Boy Scouts manual to be ready for the day they could escape.
Never once did Rachel consider going without her.
So she lets Rachel work while she pitches the tent, fumbling metal pegs with icy fingers and battling with the hard snow covered ground that refuses to give way.
She hears the strike of flint and then after a few minutes, the sound of Rachel blowing, using her powerful lungs to give life to the small fire she’s become a pro at creating.
Santana’s fingers are raw and blistered but the tent stands. Behind her is the warmth of a small fire and Rachel’s already setting a makeshift hook with a pot of melting snow in it that Rachel will heat to boiling before tossing in fresh pine needles to make a tea.
The entire scene is almost absurdly domestic, and it does something to Santana, in a place that she tells herself died a long time ago.
Santana is very aware that nothing is the same as it was, but on this quiet Christmas day, it has never become more apparent.
She thinks about it, as she digs deep into her pocket and fingers the hard circle she wrapped in a brown paper bag. It crinkles.
Rachel hands her a metal mug. In it, she’s poured a packet of instant oatmeal, Maple and Brown Sugar flavored, some boiling water and a dose of vanilla flavored protein powder. Their dinner.
Santana takes it without commenting; she smells Rachel’s own ‘Apples and Cinnamon’ flavored oatmeal being mixed together with the clank of a metal spoon.
“You know it’s Christmas, right?” she says finally.
The metal clanking stops. Rachel takes a sudden breath and keeps her eyes on her sparse dinner.
Rachel’s long bangs fall forward, obscuring her face, before the woman deliberately scoops up a spoonful of oatmeal and shoves it in her mouth.
Here’s the thing. No matter what the circumstances that they’ve been forced together actually were, the result is that Santana’s gotten to know Rachel pretty well. There isn’t much room for pettiness, and there isn’t much that surprises her about Rachel anymore, aside from the utter hell that Rachel is on the first day of her period.
“Did you hear me?” she asks, because Rachel is still a talky, bossy bitch and for some reason, Santana gotten used to it.
“I’m Jewish, remember?” Rachel says finally, as a dark gaze finally connects with hers. “Christmas never really mattered.”
It’s a bald-faced lie, because Santana remembers Glee Club, and how much Rachel loved to sing all those cheesy Christmas songs.
Santana feels strangely needy about this, because it matters to her, and today, especially today, she can’t feel this alone.
“Christmas was my favorite holiday,” she says quietly, and Rachel’s methodical stirring just stops. The warmth from the flame has started to defrost her, and it’s brought back sensation to her fingers in the form of stinging little pricks.
Santana stretches them out and welcomes the uncomfortable feeling. It’s another reminder that at the very least, she’s alive to feel it.
“My grandma would visit,” she finds herself saying. “And she’d make tamales. That’s what we eat, you know… instead of the turkey.”
Rachel absorbs that quietly. Santana keeps her eyes on the flame, watching it sputter to stay alive amidst all this wetness.
“We had Chinese food,” Rachel said suddenly. “And then we’d spend all night singing Christmas songs in the basement. Dad would play the piano.”
Rachel’s voice fades away, but still, she’s painted a suddenly vivid picture. Santana can see it clearly, but with it comes the pain, as Rachel’s eyes water suddenly and she stands up.
“Santana, I’m sorry but I can’t…”
They’re breaking the rules. They have their rules and with really good reason.
Sometimes, it hurts too much to remember.
Her oatmeal tastes like sand, but she eats it, and then hands Rachel the cup to wait for Rachel to give it back to her, filled with Pine-scented tea.
“We should go to bed,” Rachel says, after a moment, and Santana silently agrees. But when Rachel passes in front of her to begin the process of stamping out the fire, she grabs hold of Rachel’s hand, slapping that paper wrapped object into it.
She feels like an idiot.
“I picked it up off a body I found,” she says, and out of context, it sounds horrible. But it’s not really. Rachel’s dark eyes lift up and meet hers and she understands.
They’re scavengers. It’s what you do, if you want to survive. The dead don’t need it. The undead need it even less.
But maybe Rachel kinda does.
“Merry Christmas,” she mumbles, and takes a gulp of scalding hot tea, burning her taste buds and forcing herself not to look as Rachel unwraps her lame present.
Santana found it a month ago. When she did, she slipped it in her pocket and kept it there, next to the fire starter kit.
It’s a cheesy plastic compact mirror that’s in the shape of a star.
It’s retro and ugly. In their ordinary world, Santana would have thrown it away. It’s cheap and the mirror inside is cracked and it’s utterly worthless.
Now it’s in Rachel’s hands, and Rachel has absolutely no expression as she studies it.
Santana feels suddenly foolish and irritated. “You don’t have to keep it,” she says quickly. “I know it’s stupid but it’s fucking Christmas and damn, Rachel, I’m not a complete bitch."
Rachel’s head snaps up, like she’s forgotten she’s even there. “Oh, Santana,” she whispers, sounding just a tiny bit broken.
Her hand closes around the compact, and her eyes search Santana with this look that Santana’s never, ever seen before.
It simultaneously scares the hell out of her and gives her a weird sort of hope.
A trembling smile wavers on Rachel’s face. Shining eyes flicker from her face to the world around them.
“Sometimes I forget,” Rachel says quietly.
Santana’s fists clench, then release. Carefully, she edges around the fire.
“We’ve endured so much, Santana. And every day it just… it feels like more the same. We work so hard just to survive and sometimes I just… I forget. I forget why we’re trying so hard.” Rachel looks at her and Santana exhales raggedly. There’s a puff of condensation that dissolves in front of her. “Thank you,” Rachel whispers thickly. “For reminding me. You always remind me.”
She launches forward, nearly throwing Santana off balance when Rachel throws her arms around her neck. Rachel clutches her so tightly that the compact she’s holding digs into her neck and makes her wince.
But her eyes water and she withstands the pain as the warmth of Rachel’s body melts into her own.
“Merry Christmas, Rachel,” she whispers.
Rachel sniffs loudly, clutches her even tighter. She turns her head and Santana feels the brush of dry lips against her jaw.
“Merry Christmas, Santana.”
They’re in the middle of a dark forest and their only protection is a meager fire that is about to be stamped out. Christmas dinner was a packet of instant oatmeal and water flavored with pine needles.
They spend the night as they usually do, huddled together for warmth with rifles beside them. In the morning, before they break camp, they waste precious time to lie on a patch of fresh snow and make snow angels. It ends in a snow fight and when Rachel laughs, it’s loud and clear and the most beautiful sound in the world.
As they haul their packs on each other’s backs and strap each other in, Rachel gives her a smile that’s so quiet and sweet Santana can’t help but smile back.
Maybe it’s the best Christmas ever.
--
December 25th, 2014
She only means to lean against the wall for a second, but exhaustion overtakes her trembling thighs and they give out on her. The rough concrete of the abandoned mini mall scratches at her back, but Santana barely feels it.
Her legs splay out. Her eyes shut tight.
A warm body settles down next to her. When Santana’s eyes flutter open, she’s not surprised to see that it’s Puck, arching his brow and already biting down on a cigarette.
He should tell her to get up. He doesn’t.
All he does is strike a match and light his cigarette. Santana, still breathing hard, wrinkles her nose at the smell, but when he offers her a drag, she takes it.
Together, they just sit, looking over the parking lot.
The view they’re afforded - undead bodies crumpled against the asphalt that’s covered with melting snow and ice, doesn’t even faze her.
“You know we’re probably not going to make it back today,” He says as she hands him back his cigarette.
She knows. She really does fucking know and it’s started a heaviness inside of her chest that makes it hard to breathe.
“I promised Rachel I’d be back for her Christmas concert.”
He snorts, and she thinks for a second he’s going to make fun of her for her obvious and shameless dedication to her ‘hot little Jew’, but he doesn’t. Instead, he takes another drag and flicks the ash on the cold ground. “Rachel’ll understand.”
And she will.
Rachel’s a lot of things Santana never would have thought she’d be - understanding, compassionate, passionate - and a lot of things Santana always knew she was - judgmental, annoying, bossy, and fiercely loyal - but Santana knows Rachel understands.
She told her so the evening before she left, as they lay naked in their bed and Rachel kissed the patch of skin scarred with the tattoo of a star, right above her heart before tying a leather bracelet around her wrist with a little skull as a decoration.
Santana holds onto the memory; cherishes it more than she’ll ever admit. Just like she remembers the way her cheap plastic compact made Rachel light up the year before, or the way Rachel clutched onto her so tightly as she lay bleeding after being stabbed, the year before that.
She keeps every memory of Rachel deep inside of her. She’s greedy with them, because her heart does have regret, and the fact that Brittany has faded when she used to feel her so intensely scares the hell out of her.
Back then the memories didn’t matter so much because Santana thought she had time to make more of them.
That isn’t the case.
Santana is all too aware of how time runs out, how quickly life changes.
So she takes nothing for granted, and she carries Rachel with her - in the form of a tattoo etched onto her skin just above her heart.
Her love for Rachel should be cheesy and sometimes she doesn’t understand it, but it’s also so very real and so tangible she can literally reach out and squeeze it and she’s NEVER loved anyone like this before.
She doesn’t really want to say it, because that would mean admitting that it wasn’t going to happen. But it’s Puck, and somehow he’s become her best friend next to Rachel in this crazy place. Like her crazy brother she used to fuck.
“It means something,” she admits.
“Of course it means something.” He shakes his head, like she’s some sort of headcase. “It’s Christmas. You don’t think I get it?”
He gets it. Of course he gets it. As Jewish as he is, Puck loves him some Christmas. He got roped into Rachel’s Christmas concert and learned a song for it called ‘Elf’s Lament’ by Dashboard Confessional. He got himself a crappy green elf’s hat Rachel’s kids made and practiced it on the road.
It was so lame that it was actually adorable. Santana had never laughed so hard as when he quirked his eyebrow comically and sang the bar about the supposed illegal doping of Santa’s elves. He did it with a joy in his heart she hadn’t really heard since before things went to hell and she wanted to see him sing it for real, because she knows it’s going to be amazing.
When he offers her another drag, she shakes her head and reaches instead for her canteen, tipping ice cold water into her throat and wincing at the burn.
A FLIP camera drops in her lap. It’s so unexpected she jolts and it nearly skids off her legs.
“Well fuck, don’t break it!” Puck snaps at her, steadying it before putting it in her hands. “Here. She told me to give it to you if we didn’t make it back in time. It’s not a sex tape,” he admits, sounding disappointed. “I checked.”
Because Puck is still kind of a bastard and of COURSE he would check.
“Fuck you,” she snaps, and he just rolls his eyes and flicks some ash at her, before getting up and heading back towards the bodies and the other soldiers waiting for their orders.
She stares at the little screen, and after a moment, takes a steadying breath and hits the little button that powers it up.
There’s one video waiting to be played.
When she plays it, and the still frame of Rachel starts to move, Santana finds herself immediately pausing it because her sudden tears make it impossible to see shit.
It takes a moment of her shoving her palm against her mouth and taking huge sucking breaths before she can get herself under control.
She hits play again, and Rachel’s beautiful. Absolutely beautiful - even with her huge nose and her short torso and completely awesome legs.
There’s no one more beautiful in all the fucking damned cursed world.
“Um… aren’t you gonna go?” says a disembodied voice as the camera points to Rachel. Santana recognizes it as Carly, Finn’s wife.
“Are we rolling?” she asks.
“Rolling what? I pushed the button and it’s recording.” Carly snaps, sounding more exasperated than anything.
“We’re recording now?!”
“Yeah, I pushed the button-“
“Carly, I realize you’re new to the world of show business but when you’re ready you say ‘Action!” Rachel’s voice is so damn bitchy Santana can’t help but laugh.
“Action this, you little -“
“Just go, Rachel!” Finn bellows from somewhere off screen.
The look Rachel gives him is murderous and sexy as hell. “Fine,” she snaps and then faces the camera and transforms that bitch face into this beautiful, over the top smile.
“Santana Lopez,” she says, after a momentary pause. “My love. Owner of my heart.”
“Oh my God,” Santana hears, and makes a mental note to kick Carly’s bitch ass as soon as she sees her.
“There’s a lot that I’ve learned about you in the last few years, but the one that surprised me the most and shouldn’t have, is learning how much you love Christmas.”
After a moment, Rachel pulls out a cracked compact in the shape of a star. With glistening eyes, Rachel studies it, and then smiles shakily at the camera.
“Santana, I fell in love with you for a million reasons, but the day you gave this to me is the day you terrified me, because it was the day that I absolutely knew, without a doubt that I would love you for the rest of my life.”
She’s said it before. She’s said it a million times, but it means something desperately precious now because of the way Rachel holds that dumb cheap compact that she picked off a dead body, like its some priceless treasure. All because Santana gave it to her.
“That day I was so caught up in what Christmas used to be,” Rachel continues, and Santana strains to listen. “And you made me realize that the reason we fought so hard to survive was for the memories we’ve made, and the ones we’re going to make together.”
Like huddled together in the middle of a quarantined building learning how to make a fire. Like wishing each other a Merry Christmas while there’s a dead body seeping blood in the snow twenty feet away. Like dancing on the edge of a creek to music only they can hear. Like making love in a hole in the dirt.
She hears sniffles near the camera, and wonders if Carly isn’t as much of a frigid bitch as she pretends to be.
“So here’s one more memory,” Rachel says as she wipes a glistening tear off her cheek and smiles bravely at her. “To let you know that even if you’re not physically with me on Christmas, like I know you want to be, you’ll always be with me in my heart.”
And then Rachel begins to sing.
“I don’t want a lot for Christmas…” It’s slow and sweet, Rachel drawing each beat and note out in that sweet melodic melody she’s so amazing at. It’s ‘All I Want For Christmas’ and totally cliché, and though even Rachel doesn’t have Mariah Carey’s crazy mutant range and Santana’s better at the deep soul the song would need, it’s perfect.
“All I want for Christmas… is you.”
Rachel lets her note linger and then the camera whirls to the other corner of her classroom, where Finn suddenly bangs out the drum solo on his set and Rachel’s class of adorable brats start into the chorus.
It’s kind of a disaster. Finn is completely on beat, but the kids aren’t. One of them drops his guitar on his toe and starts crying, and the kid playing the triangle plays at all the wrong moments. Rachel sings through it all with the dedication of a seasoned professional, but the kid’s wailing in the back and one of the other kids doing the dance routine shoves at another kid when she steps on his foot, and that causes a mini riot in the middle of Rachel’s number.
When the battle spills over onto the drum set and Finn is knocked on the head by the kid with the triangle, Carly finally curses and shouts that she’s turning it off.
“You say CUT!” Rachel screeches, just before the video stops playing.
It’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen.
She’s not sure how long she sits there, but it’s only when Puck kicks at her boot and offers his hand that she finds the strength to take hold of his palm.
He jerks her onto his feet and into his arms.
“You’re a lucky bitch,” he mutters against her ear, large fingers running through her hair. “You know that, right?”
“Merry Christmas, Puck,” she says, and it’s way too sappy, but he chuckles and squeezes her tighter.
“Come on,” he tells her. “We found some motorcycles.”
--
It’s twenty two minutes until midnight when she inserts her key card into her and Rachel’s dorm room.
The lump on the bed hardly moves, but even just the sight of the barely recognizable figure of Rachel makes her heart jump in her chest, fills her with such relief she actually has to steady herself.
She fucking made it.
She tries to be quiet as she pulls her shirt over her head and kicks off her shoes, then her cargo pants.
When she sinks down against Rachel’s back, she’s overwhelmed with the physical feel of her. Her nose nuzzles against Rachel’s shoulder, breathing in deeply as the other woman stirs.
Santana’s palm slides across Rachel’s hip and over her stomach, rolling Rachel over and guiding her mouth to her lips.
Rachel’s reaction is sluggish, weighted with sleep, but her palm presses against Santana’s cheek and her mouth opens, welcoming Santana’s intimacy with a moan and a shudder.
Rachel once told her that Santana kissed like the world was ending.
Santana never quite understood it until she felt the emotion choke up inside her with every slide of Rachel’s lips and tongue.
“You’re back,” Rachel whispers thickly, as her eyes flutter and her fingers spread against Santana’s jaw, tracing it lovingly.
“Merry Christmas,” Santana whispers, because she has to say it. She’s said it two times before and it’s kind of like… a tradition now. She braved riding bitch on Puck’s motorcycle, clinging to him and damn near freezing to death to say it before midnight hit and Christmas was over.
Rachel looks at her, and on her face is the sweetest smile Santana’s ever seen.
“Merry Christmas, Santana,” she answers back and presses back into her.
She’s too tired to do anything other than kiss Rachel, and they fall asleep like that, wrapped in each other’s arms in a tiny dorm room on a base that’s their home now.
She’s a soldier and Rachel’s a teacher and there’s still Pastor Baker glaring at them and Crazies to take care of and Santana still sleeps with a rife by the bed.
But it’s her and Rachel and that’s her world.
As her eyes close and she drifts away, she does it with a smile on her face.
Maybe it’s the best Christmas ever.
FIN
Author: Misty Flores
Teaser: Three Years. Three Christmases in a Zombie-infested world.
Pairing: Rachel/Santana
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Christmas Fluff. God help me, I can’t stop listening to Christmas music. An interlude in the ‘ Say Good-Bye to This Heart of Mine’ and ‘ Lovers In a Dangerous Time’ verse - in which Rachel and Santana lost everything (to zombies) but found each other.
__
December 25th, 2012
In the few months that she and Rachel have been on the run, Santana has come to equate frigid temperature with relative safety.
It’s a learned instinct. Even though she’s no scientist she’s damn well aware of the effect the cold can have on the Crazies and Bandits alike. The lower the temperature gets, the harder it is for either to move and that’s very good news for two women who are little more than teenagers wandering through this wasteland alone.
It’s what she clings to when her teeth chatter and her fingers turn blue; when her nose goes numb and she’s half afraid it’ll break off.
Winter is miserable, but it’s miserable for everyone. There is precious little in this hell of a world that she and Rachel have to use as an advantage.
But sometimes even the cold isn’t enough.
Sometimes, the bandits find them anyway.
They make a stupid mistake. They see a shanty and let the cold do their thinking for them, and even though Santana and Rachel are careful, they’re still ambushed by bandits.
Santana doesn’t know how many there are. She does know that she manages to get one with her rifle just before one she didn’t see coming charges at her like a demented viper, sinking a blade deep in her thigh.
The scream of pain chokes in her throat as she slams the butt of her rifle into his forehead and when he falls back, it gives she and Rachel a precious second to run like hell.
They stumble for the safety of the woods and they run forever.
And really, the only thing that distracts Santana from the deep, seeping wound on her leg is the burning ache of her lungs.
She takes in huge gulps of frigid air that burns. It’s like inhaling knives and it’s no comfort, because with every step she can feel the blood drip down her thigh, splattering against the white snow like breadcrumbs for the men to follow, making her dizzier with every step.
“Santana,” she hears, just before her thigh flares and her boot sinks into a hole hidden by the snow. Her knee twists and she sprawls forward. Something hard strikes against her temple as she lands, shooting an overwhelming, blinding flash of pain into her brain that makes her nauseous.
She swallows snow as she gags and chokes.
In a fog of agony, she’s only dimly aware of Rachel’s hands grabbing at her shoulders, shoving and pulling at her body before a deafening noise of a gunshot threatens to shatter her eardrums, bringing with it a blast of heat that sears against her cheek.
There’s a few hazy minutes in which Santana can only breathe, eyes closed tight to shut out the world, before the cold of the snow seeps through her clothes and her teeth begin to chatter. There’s pressure on her thigh and it’s not until Rachel jerks the cloth hard, sealing the pressure against her wound, that she comes out of her pain-induced fog long enough to focus on her speared thigh.
“Holy FUCK!” she hisses. A palm clamps down against her lips. Santana tastes blood on Rachel’s fingers, seeping into her mouth. It’s her blood, she realizes.
“Quiet!” Rachel whispers. Santana’s eyes water with unshed emotion. “I got him, but I don’t know if there are others.”
Her head is throbbing along with her thigh; it’s like each one has its own pulse. She’s nauseous, and her ear drums feel shattered. Everything buzzes. Her cheek burns from where Rachel brushed the muzzle of her fired gun, and she’s freezing from laying in the snow and SOMEONE STABBED HER and this is how she’s going to die - hidden behind some bush while Rachel waits out the rapist assholes that thought they’d be easy targets.
Breathing in and out to control her nausea, Santana spots a dark speck in the snow covered clearing. The man who sprang at her and dug a knife into her thigh now looks like a crumpled animal only twenty feet away. She can see his expression, the sneer still frozen on a face with lifeless, terrifying eyes.
A strong, slender arm slides around her middle, pulling her back into Rachel’s torso. Rachel’s splayed her across her knees, and Santana’s head falls against Rachel’s bony shoulder. She can hear Rachel’s rapid heartbeat thumping against her ear, and for some reason it comforts her.
Outstretched in Rachel’s shaking free hand is a hand gun pointed in the direction of the dead man as they wait.
Santana can only breathe through her pain while the edges of her vision darken until unexpectedly, a snowflake lands daintily on her nose.
Everything inside her stills. Slowly and with effort, Santana lifts her head up to the sky and watches as little white specks drift from the blue sky, fluttering onto her skin and melting into icy drops.
It’s then that she begins to notice, really notice, the thick, pristine blanket of snow that weighs down the pine trees and the forest floor.
When her mouth opens and she tastes a snowflake on her tongue, she realizes suddenly what day it is.
Rachel, with her pounding, racing heart, continues to hold her close, breathes heavily against her ear, clutching her like she’s her only lifeline.
Rachel, her only friend, who just saved her life.
“Rachel,” she whispers.
“What’s wrong?” Rachel asks immediately. Dark long lashes are fringed with those damn snowflakes, and cheeks are burned with fierce emotion. That expressive face stares down at her like she’s the only thing in this world worth caring about.
It’s December 25th and something inside her decides to suddenly let go, because she gets the random notion that Rachel is actually beautiful.
“Merry Christmas.”
Rachel stops breathing. Santana closes her eyes and lets her head fall back against Rachel’s chest. She knows that if she looks at her, she’ll see Rachel staring at her like she’s gone and got bit by a Crazie.
But more snowflakes fall on her face and suddenly Rachel’s laughing, this quiet, bittersweet broken kind of laugh that makes her body shake underneath Santana. It’s the first time Rachel’s laughed in over a month.
Santana discovers she’s relieved to hear it.
When her palm weakly reaches up and presses against the arm surrounding her shoulder, Rachel clutches her even tighter, dropping her gun and sliding both limbs around her.
Cold lips brush against Santana’s temple - the one that isn’t seeping blood.
Its Christmas morning and Santana’s got a knife wound in her thigh and she’s pretty sure she’s got a concussion from that rock slamming her face. She’s freezing and there’s a dead guy that Rachel straight up killed lying in the snow in front of them.
“Merry Christmas, Santana,” Rachel finally whispers.
It’s December 25th and it shouldn’t mean anything right now. They have nothing but each other.
But they’ve made it another day, another month - a year.
Maybe it’s the best Christmas ever.
--
December 25th, 2013
Christmas in the Lopez family was generally celebrated the Latino way - the night before. It meant staying up until midnight and nothing much to do at all on Christmas day, and it worked out perfectly for her and Brittany, because then Brittany would spend the night at her place and they would both be at the Pierce’s the next day.
Santana remembers footie pajamas (at Brittany’s insistence) and rubbing at tired eyes as Brittany dashed toward the trees. She remembers feeling so full with all the food that she knows she’s going to starve herself for days to lose it all for Cheerios.
But it’s totally worth it, even when Brittany embarrasses her by raising a plastic piece of Mistletoe above her head and puckering her lips hopefully.
Santana doesn’t know why it’s so hard to admit it, but she really fucking loved Christmas.
It’s Christmas day and they’ve been out of Quarantine for more than a year.
Their routine is mechanical, now. They’re so used to not talking that all it takes is a look before Rachel hauls the backpack off her shoulders with a heavy sigh and sinks onto a snow covered rock, resting from their long trek for just a moment before she manipulates her snow shoes underneath her and kneels down to dig into the snow, clearing it away to find the forest floor underneath.
Santana watches her for a moment, until she realizes she’s doing it. Something hot flushes through her and she tugs at her own straps that weigh down her heavy pack. It hurts. Her fingers have long since gone numb, and it’s so cold now that mucus has dried and crusted on top of her lip. Exhaustion hits her like a wave, and she can’t bring herself to care.
She rotates her shoulders to feel the cramped bones pop back into place and then pulls her fingers out of her gloves to work at the zipper of her heavy snow jacket.
Hidden in a side pocket, where only the most valuable things go, is their fire starter kit, along with spare timber that scratches her if she moves a certain way. It’s wrapped in a plastic bag that’s so wrinkled and worn the ‘Vons’ logo has long since faded away.
“Careful,” Rachel says like she always does and Santana rolls her eyes and resists the urge to tell her that if she’s so damn worried about it then she should fucking carry it herself. The flint drops into her palm and she hands both over.
It’s Rachel who’s the best at this, because it’s Rachel who snuck the books from the library when they were in Quarantine, who huddled with her on her threadbare cot and made her keep the precious candle lit while she studied the Boy Scouts manual to be ready for the day they could escape.
Never once did Rachel consider going without her.
So she lets Rachel work while she pitches the tent, fumbling metal pegs with icy fingers and battling with the hard snow covered ground that refuses to give way.
She hears the strike of flint and then after a few minutes, the sound of Rachel blowing, using her powerful lungs to give life to the small fire she’s become a pro at creating.
Santana’s fingers are raw and blistered but the tent stands. Behind her is the warmth of a small fire and Rachel’s already setting a makeshift hook with a pot of melting snow in it that Rachel will heat to boiling before tossing in fresh pine needles to make a tea.
The entire scene is almost absurdly domestic, and it does something to Santana, in a place that she tells herself died a long time ago.
Santana is very aware that nothing is the same as it was, but on this quiet Christmas day, it has never become more apparent.
She thinks about it, as she digs deep into her pocket and fingers the hard circle she wrapped in a brown paper bag. It crinkles.
Rachel hands her a metal mug. In it, she’s poured a packet of instant oatmeal, Maple and Brown Sugar flavored, some boiling water and a dose of vanilla flavored protein powder. Their dinner.
Santana takes it without commenting; she smells Rachel’s own ‘Apples and Cinnamon’ flavored oatmeal being mixed together with the clank of a metal spoon.
“You know it’s Christmas, right?” she says finally.
The metal clanking stops. Rachel takes a sudden breath and keeps her eyes on her sparse dinner.
Rachel’s long bangs fall forward, obscuring her face, before the woman deliberately scoops up a spoonful of oatmeal and shoves it in her mouth.
Here’s the thing. No matter what the circumstances that they’ve been forced together actually were, the result is that Santana’s gotten to know Rachel pretty well. There isn’t much room for pettiness, and there isn’t much that surprises her about Rachel anymore, aside from the utter hell that Rachel is on the first day of her period.
“Did you hear me?” she asks, because Rachel is still a talky, bossy bitch and for some reason, Santana gotten used to it.
“I’m Jewish, remember?” Rachel says finally, as a dark gaze finally connects with hers. “Christmas never really mattered.”
It’s a bald-faced lie, because Santana remembers Glee Club, and how much Rachel loved to sing all those cheesy Christmas songs.
Santana feels strangely needy about this, because it matters to her, and today, especially today, she can’t feel this alone.
“Christmas was my favorite holiday,” she says quietly, and Rachel’s methodical stirring just stops. The warmth from the flame has started to defrost her, and it’s brought back sensation to her fingers in the form of stinging little pricks.
Santana stretches them out and welcomes the uncomfortable feeling. It’s another reminder that at the very least, she’s alive to feel it.
“My grandma would visit,” she finds herself saying. “And she’d make tamales. That’s what we eat, you know… instead of the turkey.”
Rachel absorbs that quietly. Santana keeps her eyes on the flame, watching it sputter to stay alive amidst all this wetness.
“We had Chinese food,” Rachel said suddenly. “And then we’d spend all night singing Christmas songs in the basement. Dad would play the piano.”
Rachel’s voice fades away, but still, she’s painted a suddenly vivid picture. Santana can see it clearly, but with it comes the pain, as Rachel’s eyes water suddenly and she stands up.
“Santana, I’m sorry but I can’t…”
They’re breaking the rules. They have their rules and with really good reason.
Sometimes, it hurts too much to remember.
Her oatmeal tastes like sand, but she eats it, and then hands Rachel the cup to wait for Rachel to give it back to her, filled with Pine-scented tea.
“We should go to bed,” Rachel says, after a moment, and Santana silently agrees. But when Rachel passes in front of her to begin the process of stamping out the fire, she grabs hold of Rachel’s hand, slapping that paper wrapped object into it.
She feels like an idiot.
“I picked it up off a body I found,” she says, and out of context, it sounds horrible. But it’s not really. Rachel’s dark eyes lift up and meet hers and she understands.
They’re scavengers. It’s what you do, if you want to survive. The dead don’t need it. The undead need it even less.
But maybe Rachel kinda does.
“Merry Christmas,” she mumbles, and takes a gulp of scalding hot tea, burning her taste buds and forcing herself not to look as Rachel unwraps her lame present.
Santana found it a month ago. When she did, she slipped it in her pocket and kept it there, next to the fire starter kit.
It’s a cheesy plastic compact mirror that’s in the shape of a star.
It’s retro and ugly. In their ordinary world, Santana would have thrown it away. It’s cheap and the mirror inside is cracked and it’s utterly worthless.
Now it’s in Rachel’s hands, and Rachel has absolutely no expression as she studies it.
Santana feels suddenly foolish and irritated. “You don’t have to keep it,” she says quickly. “I know it’s stupid but it’s fucking Christmas and damn, Rachel, I’m not a complete bitch."
Rachel’s head snaps up, like she’s forgotten she’s even there. “Oh, Santana,” she whispers, sounding just a tiny bit broken.
Her hand closes around the compact, and her eyes search Santana with this look that Santana’s never, ever seen before.
It simultaneously scares the hell out of her and gives her a weird sort of hope.
A trembling smile wavers on Rachel’s face. Shining eyes flicker from her face to the world around them.
“Sometimes I forget,” Rachel says quietly.
Santana’s fists clench, then release. Carefully, she edges around the fire.
“We’ve endured so much, Santana. And every day it just… it feels like more the same. We work so hard just to survive and sometimes I just… I forget. I forget why we’re trying so hard.” Rachel looks at her and Santana exhales raggedly. There’s a puff of condensation that dissolves in front of her. “Thank you,” Rachel whispers thickly. “For reminding me. You always remind me.”
She launches forward, nearly throwing Santana off balance when Rachel throws her arms around her neck. Rachel clutches her so tightly that the compact she’s holding digs into her neck and makes her wince.
But her eyes water and she withstands the pain as the warmth of Rachel’s body melts into her own.
“Merry Christmas, Rachel,” she whispers.
Rachel sniffs loudly, clutches her even tighter. She turns her head and Santana feels the brush of dry lips against her jaw.
“Merry Christmas, Santana.”
They’re in the middle of a dark forest and their only protection is a meager fire that is about to be stamped out. Christmas dinner was a packet of instant oatmeal and water flavored with pine needles.
They spend the night as they usually do, huddled together for warmth with rifles beside them. In the morning, before they break camp, they waste precious time to lie on a patch of fresh snow and make snow angels. It ends in a snow fight and when Rachel laughs, it’s loud and clear and the most beautiful sound in the world.
As they haul their packs on each other’s backs and strap each other in, Rachel gives her a smile that’s so quiet and sweet Santana can’t help but smile back.
Maybe it’s the best Christmas ever.
--
December 25th, 2014
She only means to lean against the wall for a second, but exhaustion overtakes her trembling thighs and they give out on her. The rough concrete of the abandoned mini mall scratches at her back, but Santana barely feels it.
Her legs splay out. Her eyes shut tight.
A warm body settles down next to her. When Santana’s eyes flutter open, she’s not surprised to see that it’s Puck, arching his brow and already biting down on a cigarette.
He should tell her to get up. He doesn’t.
All he does is strike a match and light his cigarette. Santana, still breathing hard, wrinkles her nose at the smell, but when he offers her a drag, she takes it.
Together, they just sit, looking over the parking lot.
The view they’re afforded - undead bodies crumpled against the asphalt that’s covered with melting snow and ice, doesn’t even faze her.
“You know we’re probably not going to make it back today,” He says as she hands him back his cigarette.
She knows. She really does fucking know and it’s started a heaviness inside of her chest that makes it hard to breathe.
“I promised Rachel I’d be back for her Christmas concert.”
He snorts, and she thinks for a second he’s going to make fun of her for her obvious and shameless dedication to her ‘hot little Jew’, but he doesn’t. Instead, he takes another drag and flicks the ash on the cold ground. “Rachel’ll understand.”
And she will.
Rachel’s a lot of things Santana never would have thought she’d be - understanding, compassionate, passionate - and a lot of things Santana always knew she was - judgmental, annoying, bossy, and fiercely loyal - but Santana knows Rachel understands.
She told her so the evening before she left, as they lay naked in their bed and Rachel kissed the patch of skin scarred with the tattoo of a star, right above her heart before tying a leather bracelet around her wrist with a little skull as a decoration.
Santana holds onto the memory; cherishes it more than she’ll ever admit. Just like she remembers the way her cheap plastic compact made Rachel light up the year before, or the way Rachel clutched onto her so tightly as she lay bleeding after being stabbed, the year before that.
She keeps every memory of Rachel deep inside of her. She’s greedy with them, because her heart does have regret, and the fact that Brittany has faded when she used to feel her so intensely scares the hell out of her.
Back then the memories didn’t matter so much because Santana thought she had time to make more of them.
That isn’t the case.
Santana is all too aware of how time runs out, how quickly life changes.
So she takes nothing for granted, and she carries Rachel with her - in the form of a tattoo etched onto her skin just above her heart.
Her love for Rachel should be cheesy and sometimes she doesn’t understand it, but it’s also so very real and so tangible she can literally reach out and squeeze it and she’s NEVER loved anyone like this before.
She doesn’t really want to say it, because that would mean admitting that it wasn’t going to happen. But it’s Puck, and somehow he’s become her best friend next to Rachel in this crazy place. Like her crazy brother she used to fuck.
“It means something,” she admits.
“Of course it means something.” He shakes his head, like she’s some sort of headcase. “It’s Christmas. You don’t think I get it?”
He gets it. Of course he gets it. As Jewish as he is, Puck loves him some Christmas. He got roped into Rachel’s Christmas concert and learned a song for it called ‘Elf’s Lament’ by Dashboard Confessional. He got himself a crappy green elf’s hat Rachel’s kids made and practiced it on the road.
It was so lame that it was actually adorable. Santana had never laughed so hard as when he quirked his eyebrow comically and sang the bar about the supposed illegal doping of Santa’s elves. He did it with a joy in his heart she hadn’t really heard since before things went to hell and she wanted to see him sing it for real, because she knows it’s going to be amazing.
When he offers her another drag, she shakes her head and reaches instead for her canteen, tipping ice cold water into her throat and wincing at the burn.
A FLIP camera drops in her lap. It’s so unexpected she jolts and it nearly skids off her legs.
“Well fuck, don’t break it!” Puck snaps at her, steadying it before putting it in her hands. “Here. She told me to give it to you if we didn’t make it back in time. It’s not a sex tape,” he admits, sounding disappointed. “I checked.”
Because Puck is still kind of a bastard and of COURSE he would check.
“Fuck you,” she snaps, and he just rolls his eyes and flicks some ash at her, before getting up and heading back towards the bodies and the other soldiers waiting for their orders.
She stares at the little screen, and after a moment, takes a steadying breath and hits the little button that powers it up.
There’s one video waiting to be played.
When she plays it, and the still frame of Rachel starts to move, Santana finds herself immediately pausing it because her sudden tears make it impossible to see shit.
It takes a moment of her shoving her palm against her mouth and taking huge sucking breaths before she can get herself under control.
She hits play again, and Rachel’s beautiful. Absolutely beautiful - even with her huge nose and her short torso and completely awesome legs.
There’s no one more beautiful in all the fucking damned cursed world.
“Um… aren’t you gonna go?” says a disembodied voice as the camera points to Rachel. Santana recognizes it as Carly, Finn’s wife.
“Are we rolling?” she asks.
“Rolling what? I pushed the button and it’s recording.” Carly snaps, sounding more exasperated than anything.
“We’re recording now?!”
“Yeah, I pushed the button-“
“Carly, I realize you’re new to the world of show business but when you’re ready you say ‘Action!” Rachel’s voice is so damn bitchy Santana can’t help but laugh.
“Action this, you little -“
“Just go, Rachel!” Finn bellows from somewhere off screen.
The look Rachel gives him is murderous and sexy as hell. “Fine,” she snaps and then faces the camera and transforms that bitch face into this beautiful, over the top smile.
“Santana Lopez,” she says, after a momentary pause. “My love. Owner of my heart.”
“Oh my God,” Santana hears, and makes a mental note to kick Carly’s bitch ass as soon as she sees her.
“There’s a lot that I’ve learned about you in the last few years, but the one that surprised me the most and shouldn’t have, is learning how much you love Christmas.”
After a moment, Rachel pulls out a cracked compact in the shape of a star. With glistening eyes, Rachel studies it, and then smiles shakily at the camera.
“Santana, I fell in love with you for a million reasons, but the day you gave this to me is the day you terrified me, because it was the day that I absolutely knew, without a doubt that I would love you for the rest of my life.”
She’s said it before. She’s said it a million times, but it means something desperately precious now because of the way Rachel holds that dumb cheap compact that she picked off a dead body, like its some priceless treasure. All because Santana gave it to her.
“That day I was so caught up in what Christmas used to be,” Rachel continues, and Santana strains to listen. “And you made me realize that the reason we fought so hard to survive was for the memories we’ve made, and the ones we’re going to make together.”
Like huddled together in the middle of a quarantined building learning how to make a fire. Like wishing each other a Merry Christmas while there’s a dead body seeping blood in the snow twenty feet away. Like dancing on the edge of a creek to music only they can hear. Like making love in a hole in the dirt.
She hears sniffles near the camera, and wonders if Carly isn’t as much of a frigid bitch as she pretends to be.
“So here’s one more memory,” Rachel says as she wipes a glistening tear off her cheek and smiles bravely at her. “To let you know that even if you’re not physically with me on Christmas, like I know you want to be, you’ll always be with me in my heart.”
And then Rachel begins to sing.
“I don’t want a lot for Christmas…” It’s slow and sweet, Rachel drawing each beat and note out in that sweet melodic melody she’s so amazing at. It’s ‘All I Want For Christmas’ and totally cliché, and though even Rachel doesn’t have Mariah Carey’s crazy mutant range and Santana’s better at the deep soul the song would need, it’s perfect.
“All I want for Christmas… is you.”
Rachel lets her note linger and then the camera whirls to the other corner of her classroom, where Finn suddenly bangs out the drum solo on his set and Rachel’s class of adorable brats start into the chorus.
It’s kind of a disaster. Finn is completely on beat, but the kids aren’t. One of them drops his guitar on his toe and starts crying, and the kid playing the triangle plays at all the wrong moments. Rachel sings through it all with the dedication of a seasoned professional, but the kid’s wailing in the back and one of the other kids doing the dance routine shoves at another kid when she steps on his foot, and that causes a mini riot in the middle of Rachel’s number.
When the battle spills over onto the drum set and Finn is knocked on the head by the kid with the triangle, Carly finally curses and shouts that she’s turning it off.
“You say CUT!” Rachel screeches, just before the video stops playing.
It’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen.
She’s not sure how long she sits there, but it’s only when Puck kicks at her boot and offers his hand that she finds the strength to take hold of his palm.
He jerks her onto his feet and into his arms.
“You’re a lucky bitch,” he mutters against her ear, large fingers running through her hair. “You know that, right?”
“Merry Christmas, Puck,” she says, and it’s way too sappy, but he chuckles and squeezes her tighter.
“Come on,” he tells her. “We found some motorcycles.”
--
It’s twenty two minutes until midnight when she inserts her key card into her and Rachel’s dorm room.
The lump on the bed hardly moves, but even just the sight of the barely recognizable figure of Rachel makes her heart jump in her chest, fills her with such relief she actually has to steady herself.
She fucking made it.
She tries to be quiet as she pulls her shirt over her head and kicks off her shoes, then her cargo pants.
When she sinks down against Rachel’s back, she’s overwhelmed with the physical feel of her. Her nose nuzzles against Rachel’s shoulder, breathing in deeply as the other woman stirs.
Santana’s palm slides across Rachel’s hip and over her stomach, rolling Rachel over and guiding her mouth to her lips.
Rachel’s reaction is sluggish, weighted with sleep, but her palm presses against Santana’s cheek and her mouth opens, welcoming Santana’s intimacy with a moan and a shudder.
Rachel once told her that Santana kissed like the world was ending.
Santana never quite understood it until she felt the emotion choke up inside her with every slide of Rachel’s lips and tongue.
“You’re back,” Rachel whispers thickly, as her eyes flutter and her fingers spread against Santana’s jaw, tracing it lovingly.
“Merry Christmas,” Santana whispers, because she has to say it. She’s said it two times before and it’s kind of like… a tradition now. She braved riding bitch on Puck’s motorcycle, clinging to him and damn near freezing to death to say it before midnight hit and Christmas was over.
Rachel looks at her, and on her face is the sweetest smile Santana’s ever seen.
“Merry Christmas, Santana,” she answers back and presses back into her.
She’s too tired to do anything other than kiss Rachel, and they fall asleep like that, wrapped in each other’s arms in a tiny dorm room on a base that’s their home now.
She’s a soldier and Rachel’s a teacher and there’s still Pastor Baker glaring at them and Crazies to take care of and Santana still sleeps with a rife by the bed.
But it’s her and Rachel and that’s her world.
As her eyes close and she drifts away, she does it with a smile on her face.
Maybe it’s the best Christmas ever.
FIN