The Memories Soon Fade (But They Can Never Be Erased
Santana/Brittany, PG-13, 5.6k
The moment the nurse says “accident,” Santana's mind goes blank.
The moment the nurse says “accident,” Santana's mind goes blank.
The moment the nurse says “accident,” Santana's mind goes blank.
She's sitting in a meeting, and she probably shouldn't have picked up in the first place but for some reason she felt like she had to pick up the call and now she's frozen, her free hand gripping so tightly onto the desk that her bones might pop from her skin. Several pairs of eyes are on her, the owners of those being incredibly important to Quinn and Santana's careers, but she can't bring herself to care. Memories of her childhood flash through her mind and the breath is ripped straight from her chest.
This can't be happening. Not again.
“Mrs Lopez-Pierce? Are you still there?”
Santana manages to break out of her stilled state and jerks to her feet, shoving her chair so far back it hits the glass window three meters behind her. “Which hospital?” She hisses, fingers tightening around her phone. “Which fucking hospital!?” She demands, louder this time and earning several eyebrow raises and shocked expressions.
“St. Luke's ER down on 10th Avenue,” the nurse hurries, voice quivering.
And Santana doesn't say anything to the nurse or the several people watching her as she bolts out the conference room.
//
Santana bursts through the hospital doors, head whipping from side to side, breaths coming out heavy and harsh and eyes frantically searching for the reception. When she finds it she barges past some guy that may or may not be a doctor, not even bothering to respond to his “slow down!” and slaps her palms down on top of the desk top to grab the nurses attention.
“Brittany Lopez-Pierce,” she says, trying to calm herself. Being hysterical in a hospital would probably wind up with her being put under a twenty-four hour psychiatric watch.
Except the nurse is on the phone, chatting away, laughing and holding up a hand to Santana who's glaring intently and in the mindset she's in, she really doesn't have the time or patience to wait for this dumb bitch to end her call. She's sure nurses are supposed to be like, working to save people's lives or some shit, and it gets her so fucking angry that she leans over, grabs the phone from the nurses ear and slams it back onto the holder, fury pulsating through her when the hospital worker has the audacity to lift an eyebrow in her direction and yell, “Excuse me!?”
“Brittany Lopez-Pierce,” Santana repeats through a hiss, ignoring the nurses question. “Where is she? What room?”
The nurse straightens up and stands, leaning toward Santana as if she's intimidating. “And you are?”
“About two seconds away from losing it so tell me where she is.”
“Are you family?”
“She's my pregnant wife,” Santana spits, knowing this is standard procedure but hating it. “So where. The hell. Is she?”
The nurse eyes her for a few seconds, probably deliberating whether to call security or not but then she sits back down slowly, and begins clicking away on the computer. Perfectly manicured fingernails tap along the desktop impatiently and all she wants to do is say fuck the room and run around the hospital until she finds Brittany. The logical part of her mind is holding her back though, telling her she'll find her wife quicker if she knows exactly where she is in the hospital and forces her to wait.
“She's in C117.”
Santana blinks at her. “Where's that?”
The nurse rolls her eyes and Santana almost leans back over to give the nurse a piece of her mind. Almost. “C Wing. First floor. Room 17,” she explains, lowering her head to the computer again, eyes sliding away from Santana. “But I'm afraid you can't go up there as she already has a visitor--”
But by the time the nurse looks up, Santana's already gone.
//
Quinn's walking out of Brittany's hospital room when Santana gets there, and she instantly marches up to her, wraps her fists around the lapels of Quinn's jacket and shoves her up against the wall beside the door, eyes burning into hazel ones.
“What the fuck did you do!?” Their faces are so close their noses are almost touching, and Santana's voice is so angry and panicked at the same time that she almost jerks her back in reaction to herself.
“I didn't do shit!” Quinn defends, tugging at the tanned fists pushing into her collarbone. Her eyes narrow and darken and Santana can see the first signs of anger flushing over her friends cheeks, but it doesn't deter her. It does the complete opposite. “Get the fuck off me.”
Quinn leans into her to push her off, but Santana's muscles are shaking and she forces her friend back up against the wall, lifting her off the floor slightly. The blonde may be taller than she is, stronger too, but with how she feels right now, with the adrenaline pulsing through her veins, she's sure she could do anything.
“My wife and my fucking unborn baby are in a hospital and you're here. That means you were involved,” she grits out, using her chest to pin her friend to the wall.
“Except your wife was fucking driving,” Quinn responds in a low, fevered tone, wrapping her fingers around tanned wrists and using all the strength she has to shove Santana off her. Santana stumbles, but flexes her fingers by her side as she steps back up to the blonde girl, snarling and baring straight, white teeth. “She didn't see the damn car and it ran straight into the back of us. I was in the fucking passenger seat.”
It doesn’t do anything to quell the burning panic and anger inside Santana, though and she lurches forward again, grabbing Quinn's collar and slamming her back up against the wall. She knows how dark she looks, how menacing she's trying to look, but she also knows Quinn's pretty good at seeing straight through her facades and knows she's just scared. That's probably why she's doing this, pinning the blonde against the wall and screeching at her.
“You must have distracted her. You fucking must have. Brittany's a good driver,” she pants, breathing heavy as she stares into her best friend's eyes. “She's never had a crash before. Never.”
Quinn lowers her head and puts on a dark snarl that Santana's almost envious of. “I didn't fucking do a thing,” she whispers, lowly. “And you're not thinking straight. You're scared and I get that, but you better back off before we fall out, Lopez.”
She finishes her sentence with a hard shove against Santana's shoulder, and Santana staggers back, fists curling by her side, ready to lash out at her friend because she's really not in the fucking mood for threats but then she hears her name being called from inside the room they're standing by, from Brittany, and all the anger she felt dissolves, replaced with relief and intense fear. Her body deflates and she throws Quinn one last look before darting inside the hospital room, rushing to the bed and almost collapsing down on top of Brittany, knees colliding with the floor and forehead pressing onto the mattress.
Her eyes squeeze shut as she processes the image of Brittany as soon as she entered the room, and her heart throbs loudly against her chest as she thinks about Brittany lying there in a hospital gown, hands resting on her bump and propped up in bed. The image is too familiar for Santana, and she breaks out into a sob, chest wracking as she thinks about her wife. Hands stroke into her hair, nails grazing against her scalp but she doesn't stop crying. It just makes her cry more and she can feel the fabric beneath her face dampening with tears but just doesn't care.
“Baby,” comes in a whisper from her wife. “Baby, I'm fine. We're fine.”
Brittany's voice is soothing and calm, but Santana can't focus on anything but the memories of her childhood and how today, she could've relived them. She can't think of anything else and it makes her body wrack with sobs. Hot, wet tears trail down her cheeks and her forehead presses into the mattress, and she shakes it because it was so close. It was too close and she just can't think of what could've happened.
“You're--You're in a fucking—“ deep, shaky breaths interrupt her sentence and she squeezes her eyes shut harder, the tears still flooding from within. “You're in a fucking hospital bed, Britt—“
“They just wanted to keep me to do a few tests,” Brittany coos, trying to calm her, but Santana's almost inconsolable. She can't hear this. It's too similar and fuck, they wouldn't be keeping her here without reason. The hands in her hair slide down to her face, stroking of her cheeks until they cradle her jaw and tip her head, blue eyes meeting brown. Brittany's voice is soft but serious as she speaks. “But we're fine, Santana. Me and the baby are fine. I've got a bit of whiplash but being this pregnant they want to make sure everything else is okay.”
Santana's eyes immediately drop to the baby bump and she lifts up to press her face into it, lips kissing it through the fabric of Brittany's hospital gown. “Fuck, Britt—I just—I can't—“
“Mrs. Lopez-Pierce?”
Both their heads snap up to the foreign voice calling their name, eyes flicking to the doorway to find a middle-aged man standing there, file in hand and body donning a white coat. His glasses are slightly askew on his nose, and his hair's ruffled like he's just done a sixteen hour shift. Santana narrows her eyes but Brittany sits up immediately, pulling her up onto the bed beside her until they're shoulder to shoulder, hands now clasped between them.
“Yes, Doctor?” Brittany answers, sweetly.
Santana realizes this must be her wife's doctor and twists her head, lifting her arm slightly to wipe her tears away on the sleeve of her shirt. The doctor walks further into the room, his eyes flitting between the two women on the bed, then to Quinn who's sitting in the corner of the room, flicking through a magazine before stopping by their bedside. Santana almost forgot her friend was here, actually.
“Shall we wait for your husband or...” he trails off, eyes moving to Santana who stiffens immediately. But Brittany's hand is squeezing hers gently, thumb rubbing over the back of her knuckles and nodding at the man.
“No, this is my wife,” she says with clarity, squeezing tanned fingers. “And the mother of my child.”
“Okay,” the doctor says, pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose, then opening the file in hand, eyes skimming over it. “Well then, I can happily tell you all your tests came back clear and both you—“ his eyes land on Brittany “—and your baby are healthy.” Relief washes through Santana and her body deflates, but Brittany just smiles beside her like she knew all along. “But we've got to process some paperwork and check over the blood test one more time—“ brown eyes widen with panic but the doctor jumps in quickly to correct himself ”—it's standard procedure in case we've missed anything, but then a nurse will come in and tell you when you're free to leave.”
Trying not to burst into tears of joy, Santana lowers her head and lets her eyes close, a relieved breath pushing from her lips and making her chest feel a lot looser and lighter than it did a minute ago. She shakes her head, sucking in her lips and tries to breathe properly. Brittany's okay. The baby is okay. Fuck. She's never been more relieved than she is right now.
Footsteps disappear into the hustle and bustle of the hospital, and when hands cup her cheeks and twist her head, she finds the doctor gone and Brittany staring straight at her.
“See, San, we're fine,” her wife says, eyebrows lifting to get Santana to believe her. “We're fine, baby. There's no need to worry.”
It should help, but it doesn't, and Santana just ends up crying all over again, leaning into the blonde and burying her face into the crook of her neck, one arm slipping around between Brittany's back and the mattress, and the other draping lightly over the baby bump. Fingers thread through her own over it, and she squeezes her eyes shut again, head still shaking.
“I k-know but—“ a shaky breath. “—I ju-just don't know what I-I would've d-done—“ the words catch in her throat and she sucks in a whimper, pulling back to look into blue eyes. “If I'd lost b-both of y-you,” she whimpers, mind reeling back.
All she can think about how twenty one years ago, things didn't go as well. How the doctor wasn't announcing good news when he approached her and her mom. She remembers it and the link between how this situation, here with Brittany and her baby, could've gone the same way.
The mere thought makes her sob harder, but even through her blurry vision she can see Brittany looking between her eyes, past them and into her emotions, and she just knows that Brittany can see all of this. She can see there's a deeper meaning behind her tears, her reactions, but Santana just bites on her lower lip, eyes flicking towards Quinn in the corner of the room and silently pleads that Brittany won't say anything until they're alone.
And because Brittany knows Santana better than anyone, better than herself, she gives her a small nod and presses their lips together, telling her with a kiss that she won't say anything. They don’t' kiss for long, mostly because Santana can barely suck in a breath without Brittany's mouth on her own, but it's soft and sweet, and she squeezes her eyes shut and lingers when her wife pulls away, stroking away the drying tears from her cheeks.
“Don't think about it,” Brittany whispers, suddenly by her ear. “We're fine. He's fine,” she continues, grabbing a tanned hand and pressing it to her stomach. The baby reacts instantly, kicking against Santana's hand and through the tears, Santana manages a chuckle, sniffling and glancing down to the bump. “See?” Brittany says, eyes shining as they look into brown ones. “He's fine. Maybe a little pissed that you threatened Aunt Quinn,” she jokes. “But other than that, he's fine.”
With her free hand, Santana wipes her nose and her cheeks with her sleeve and nods, eyes stinging. She wipes at them next and licks her lips, tasting the salt from her tears, before puffing out her cheeks and exhaling heavily. Blue eyes roam over her face, and she watches them intently until she sees Brittany cock her head to the side and lift an eyebrow in Quinn's direction. Oh, yeah, she needs to apologize.
Putting up her walls again, Santana looks to her blonde friend in the corner.
“Q?” She calls out and hazel eyes snap up to her. “Sorry about... the hall thing,” she almost rolls her eyes.
She's not sorry. She was pissed and upset. Hysterical even. Her twenty eight week pregnant wife had just been in a car accident and was in hospital. Santana had every right to let it out on the person in the damn car with her and she doesn't regret it, even now.
“I just lost my shit.”
Brittany slaps her bicep and covers her stomach, warning her with wide eyes. “Don't curse in front of the baby,” she chastises, and Santana giggles.
“Babe, he's not even born yet. He probably doesn't even have ears.”
“Actually at sixteen weeks, his ears were nearly at their correct person and at eighteen weeks, his ears not only began to stand out on the sides of his head, but he began to hear,” Brittany informs her.
Dark eyebrows shoot up. “Have you been catching up on your reading?” Santana asks, smiling with disbelief. She still can't believe that to this day people used to call Brittany stupid in high school.
“Of course,” Brittany fires back, grinning. “And I've put the books in the second drawer of your bedside table so you can too.”
Santana's heart expands and she lets out a long sigh, leaning forward to nuzzle their noses together. “I love you.”
Blue eyes sparkle. “I love you, too.”
Someone makes a retching sound behind them and Santana instantly whips her head around, narrowing her eyes into a glare. Quinn's sitting there, arms crossed and eyebrows raised like she's trying to remind them she's still here.
“Okay, yeah, you love each other and your baby's fine, I'm happy for you and glad that my head's not going to be put on a spike, but can I go home now?” The blonde asks. “I've got a few stitches I need to explain to my fiancee,” she says, pointing to her forehead where a butterfly stitching lies by her hairline.
Santana chuckles lightly and shakes her head. “Berry's gonna freak,” she says, knowingly.
The instant Rachel sees Quinn she's going to jump on the overreaction train and yell at Quinn before apologizing profusely and babying her with kisses and—ew, gross, no. Actually Santana doesn't want to know how Rachel's going to look after her. But she's still thankful that Quinn was here for Brittany when Santana wasn't, so she rolls her eyes and reaches into her jeans pocket, fishing out a wad of dollar bills. Quinn eyes her suspiciously, fair brows pushing together and Santana rolls her eyes again, licking her fingertips before flicking through the notes.
“What are you doing?” Quinn asks, slowly.
Santana grabs two five dollar bills and folds them in half, holding them out. “I'm paying for your cab home. You know, like as an apology for shoving you up against a wall.”
Behind her, Brittany rubs a hand over her lower back and she smiles. Apologizing was a good move.
“Damn straight you're paying for my cab,” Quinn jokes, stretching her arm out and curling her hand towards Santana. “Gimme then.”
Santana arches a perfectly shaped eyebrow and shakes her head. She doesn't want to leave Brittany's side. It's kind of pathetic and it's not like she's walking out the room to give Quinn the cash, but she just doesn't feel comfortable with leaving her wife. Not now she knows she's safe. As far as Santana's concerned, as long as she's by her side, Brittany will be safe. Had she been in the car with Brittany, or even driving, maybe Brittany wouldn't have been in the accident. So she's staying put.
And it seems Brittany knows this because she leans up, her lips brushing the shell of a tanned ear. “Honey, you can go over to Quinn. I'm not going anywhere.”
If she wasn't being so protective, she would probably do it, but instead she grunts and shakes her head. “If she wants the money she can come get it.”
Over the other side of the room, Quinn rolls her eyes, clicks her tongue and pushes up using the arms of the chair. She heads over, grabs the bills from Santana's hand and then spreads them out, looking down at them quizzically. “Only ten dollars?” She says, meeting brown eyes. She's joking, but Santana's not exactly in the mood for jokes. “Whoa, jheeze, I was just kidding,” she adds, backing away with a grin.
Except Santana know she kind of isn't, and that logically, it might cost more than ten dollars to get back so she throws her friend another ten dollar bill and scowls. “Now leave before I take it back and you have to walk home.”
Quinn grins, runs back up to her and kisses her on the cheek, doing the same to Brittany before skipping out the room with a wink.
Santana just settles back into Brittany's side and throws an arm over her shoulder.
//
A little while later and they're still at the hospital.
Santana's still perched on the bed, but the side of her hip is pressing against Brittany's, one of her hands is settled over the baby bump and the other is absently toying with Brittany's hand, lying beside her body. They're not speaking, and they haven't for the past ten minutes or so, but they're staring into each others and that's enough. They don't need words and that's one of the things Santana loves most about her wife. Among a million other things.
But then as Santana brushes her thumb over Brittany's belly, she feels a small push beneath her palm and giggles. The baby just kicked again and her eyes flicker down, before rising once more to meet smiling blue ones. They both giggle and Santana can't quite believe that she's having a baby. It's still so surreal.
“Hey, San?”
Santana lifts both eyebrows and smiles at her wife. “Yeah, babe?”
“Can I ask you something?”
She nods, noticing the way Brittany ducks her head and focuses all her attention on their hands and fingers fiddling with each other. The blonde doesn’t respond for a moment so Santana just lifts her hand to her lips and dusts a kiss across her knuckles, prompting her to continue.
“You know earlier?” Brittany asks, eyes flicking up. “When you were upset?” Santana's lips twitches in recognition of the memory. “Why was that? I mean, apart from the obvious. It just--It seemed deeper than me and the baby.”
Santana stays still and silent for a long while. She knew this was going to come up sooner rather than later, and don't get her wrong, it's not like she doesn't want to tell Brittany because she does. She wants Brittany to know everything about her and come to think of it, this must be the only thing Brittany doesn't know about. She literally can't think of a single thing that her wife doesn't know. They did grow up together, after all.
Anyway, it's not that she doesn't want to tell Brittany, it's just that it's hard to. Before she met Brittany, it was like there was no color in her life, and the moment she saw her, across that basketball court, it's like there was a burst of light. A burst of energy and things were no longer gray and dull, they were beautiful and full of color.
But there were things that made her life gray before. There were things that drained the color and this is one of them.
She sucks in a deep, quivering breath and lifts her vision to meet blue eyes. Here she goes. “It was the year before I met you, and it was just like any other night. I was sitting in front of the TV with my mom in the armchair behind me, and she got a call.” She pauses and licks her lips, breathing out through pursed lips. “I only remember that she got a call because it was my favorite episode of Scooby Doo on TV and I couldn't hear what Shaggy was saying over my mom's voice.”
Brittany offers a light tipped smile, a small chuckle too, and Santana feels the atmosphere around them lift. Brittany always knows what she needs.
“Anyway, I don't--I don't remember what she said, but I remember turning around with my little, green dinosaur toy and found my mom staring at the wall opposite with such a pale face. I remember thinking that maybe she'd turned into a ghost or something,” she swallows and smiles, rubbing her thumb across the back of Brittany's hand. “But she hadn't obviously, and the next moment the phone was on the floor, and she picking me up and we were rushing into a cab.”
Clearing her throat, Santana glances up and sees blue eyes fixated on her. Brittany's listening to intently and all she wants to do is lean across to kiss her wife, to say thank you into her lips, but she'll lose track of the story. She'll lose focus and confidence so she just needs to get through this.
“I remember asking her where we were going and she told me abuelo had hurt himself. I offered to give him a Pokemon band aid to make it better, but she didn't smile and that was the moment I knew something was wrong.” Her eyebrows pinch together, eyes squinting as they look off into the distance, the memory coming back to her so clearly. “Then... Then we got to the hospital and she sat me down on a plastic chair, and went over to a nurse. The nurse had the brightest ginger hair I'd ever seen,” she recalls. “I thought she was on fire for a second.”
A light laugh comes from her mouth, and Brittany's follows seconds later. They keep it going for a few seconds, but then Santana knows what bit comes next and it completely dies. She shifts on the bed, tucking one leg beneath her and sucks her lips into her mouth.
“The doctor went over to my mom next, and I just watched her break. She crumbled and fell to the floor and no-one came and told me anything but,” she takes in a deep breath and clenches her jaw. “I just knew.” Her eyes flicker up to meet blue ones. “I didn't feel him anymore. It was like something just... faded inside of me. Like the last bit of color vanished out my life,” she shrugs and drops her vision back to their hands, where long pale fingers are brushing over her palm, mapping out her skin. “I know I was only six, but... he was my best friend. I was closer to him that I was with my parents.”
Brittany lifts her hand and presses a kiss to her palm, where her fingers had just been, and it breaks something inside of Santana. She straightens her back, builds up her walls again and tries to regain some of the confidence she usually carries. There's not really any point, Brittany can see straight through it, but it makes Santana feel a little better and so the blonde doesn't say anything.
“I don't know,” Santana continues, swallowing against the thick layer coating her throat. “Today just... It just brought back those memories.”
“I'm sorry, baby,” her wife finally says, pulling her towards her until she can cup a tanned cheek, rub her thumb over the skin there.
Santana shakes her head, looking away. “It's not your fault, Britt. Sometimes things just happen,” she lifts her shoulder. “But today just... It just took me back to then and there was this image in my head that just--that I'd get here and...” she doesn't finish, just lets her words sink in and create their own conclusion and Brittany's hands slide out of hers, coming up to her shoulders to pull her down for a hug. She buries her face into the crook of her wife's neck, nuzzling and squeezing her eyes shut as her hands slip around her wife's waist, palms settling low on her back.
They stay like that for a while, just sinking into one another and breathing in each others scents, and for the duration of their embrace, Santana feels like she's grounded. She doesn't feel like everything's too much and that all the bad memories of flushing over her. She doesn't feel like she's about to break because she was that worried. Instead she feels safe, and warm, and her head turns to press a soft kiss to the base of Brittany's neck.
Then she hums out slowly and snuggles back into her wife again, whispering, “I love you,” into her ear.
Hands stroke over her back and she can feel the smile against her temple as Brittany drops a kiss there, the words, “I love you, too,” following only a second later.
//
The nurse comes in five minutes later and they break apart, glancing up to the nurse who looks away, knowing she's just interrupted a moment. Brittany giggles and Santana smiles, kisses her wife softly before sitting back on the bed and patting a pale hand, waiting to hear the verdict on how long they're supposed to be here for. The nurse tells them they're free to leave now, and reassures them for the second time that everything's perfectly fine with both the mother and the baby, and Santana breathes out another deep sigh of relief.
They begin packing up, Santana handing Brittany some clothes and moving to close the door so no-one sees the blonde change, but as the door clicks, Brittany speaks for the first time since the story of Santana's grandfather.
“What was his name?”
Santana walks back to the bed and perches on the side. “Who?”
Brittany rids herself of the hospital gown and brown eyes linger around the swell of her stomach, taking in Brittany's new curves and the rounded edges she never had before. It's not like she hasn't seen her wife naked since she was pregnant, but this is just... This is something else, and she knows she's smiling like an idiot but who cares?
“Your abuelo.”
She wipes the smile from her face, eyes darting up to meet knowing blue ones and a smirk, realizing she was just staring unabashedly.
“Elijah,” she responds, shrugging when a fair eyebrow cocks.
She doesn't care that she was staring. She's allowed to. It's one of the perks of being married.
Brittany steps into her maternity jeans and pulls them up her legs, allowing the cotton support to rest comfortably below her bump. Her hand falls to her stomach when she's done, and she cocks her head to the side, her blue eyes clouding over with thoughts. Santana just stays silent, watching her wife and figuring out what she's doing and she only stops when Brittany smiles down at the bump, strokes it twice—something she's started doing since she found out she can balance a bowl of cereal on the top of it—and then resumes changing.
She's always done little weird things like that, gone off inside her own mind to daydream and whatnot, so Santana doesn't think much of it.
Well, not until she hears three words that makes her head momentarily suspend off her neck as she whips her head up that fast.
“Little baby Elijah.”
The breath catches in her throat and she chokes on it, tears already forming in her eyes as they meet bright blue ones. There's a little bit of uncertainty flashing behind them and Santana wants to say that she's choked up for a good reason but she can't seem to get any words out. So instead, she steps toward her wife and settles her hands on the swell of Brittany's stomach, thumbs rubbing in circular motions.
“What?” She finally pants, swallowing against a thickening throat. “What did you say?”
“I said...” Brittany pauses and chews on her lower lip for a second. “I said little baby Elijah,” she repeats slowly, unsure if she's said the wrong thing. “Like, I thought maybe—if you wanted to—we could name... him—” she lowers a hand over a tanned one and pushes down lightly “—after... your abuelo.”
So many tears flood to Santana's eyes she has to shake her head to rid some, not wanting to remove her hands from Brittany or their baby. She's so overwhelmed right now, so fucking overwhelmed and she feels so much love for both Brittany and the baby that she could cry. In fact, she's pretty much crying at the moment, but fuck, she's just so happy.
“Are—are you serious?”
“I am,” Brittany says, finally realizing the tears dropping down the other girl's face are ones of joy. Her hand drops down to press over the other tanned hand there as she speaks softly toward the bump. “What do you think, little man?”
Just then, a little but still very there kick bumps against both their hands and they both let out an exhale through a wide smile. Santana's heart feels so big it could explode and she's never felt so simultaneously happy and confused at the same time. Only confused because it's like she doesn't know what to do with herself. She's just so... Fuck. She can't even explain it.
“I think he likes it, too,” she says, the tears now dripping down her cheeks. A thumb caresses the skin only a moment later, and when she lifts her head she sees Brittany's crying, too. They really are so ridiculous.
“Elijah Lopez-Pierce,” Brittany announces, pressing down harder on their hands until Santana almost pulls away, fearing harm. But her wife just pulls her closer, fingers slipping up a tanned wrist to tug gently until their heads fall together and eyes drop down to the bump between them, happily kicking away. Nudging her face up, Santana kisses Brittany softly and slowly, drawing out their feelings about not only each other but the name suggestion and Santana just knows they've found the perfect name when she pulls away and stares into deep, blue eyes, repeating the name because it's just so right.
“Elijah Lopez-Pierce."
She's sitting in a meeting, and she probably shouldn't have picked up in the first place but for some reason she felt like she had to pick up the call and now she's frozen, her free hand gripping so tightly onto the desk that her bones might pop from her skin. Several pairs of eyes are on her, the owners of those being incredibly important to Quinn and Santana's careers, but she can't bring herself to care. Memories of her childhood flash through her mind and the breath is ripped straight from her chest.
This can't be happening. Not again.
“Mrs Lopez-Pierce? Are you still there?”
Santana manages to break out of her stilled state and jerks to her feet, shoving her chair so far back it hits the glass window three meters behind her. “Which hospital?” She hisses, fingers tightening around her phone. “Which fucking hospital!?” She demands, louder this time and earning several eyebrow raises and shocked expressions.
“St. Luke's ER down on 10th Avenue,” the nurse hurries, voice quivering.
And Santana doesn't say anything to the nurse or the several people watching her as she bolts out the conference room.
//
Santana bursts through the hospital doors, head whipping from side to side, breaths coming out heavy and harsh and eyes frantically searching for the reception. When she finds it she barges past some guy that may or may not be a doctor, not even bothering to respond to his “slow down!” and slaps her palms down on top of the desk top to grab the nurses attention.
“Brittany Lopez-Pierce,” she says, trying to calm herself. Being hysterical in a hospital would probably wind up with her being put under a twenty-four hour psychiatric watch.
Except the nurse is on the phone, chatting away, laughing and holding up a hand to Santana who's glaring intently and in the mindset she's in, she really doesn't have the time or patience to wait for this dumb bitch to end her call. She's sure nurses are supposed to be like, working to save people's lives or some shit, and it gets her so fucking angry that she leans over, grabs the phone from the nurses ear and slams it back onto the holder, fury pulsating through her when the hospital worker has the audacity to lift an eyebrow in her direction and yell, “Excuse me!?”
“Brittany Lopez-Pierce,” Santana repeats through a hiss, ignoring the nurses question. “Where is she? What room?”
The nurse straightens up and stands, leaning toward Santana as if she's intimidating. “And you are?”
“About two seconds away from losing it so tell me where she is.”
“Are you family?”
“She's my pregnant wife,” Santana spits, knowing this is standard procedure but hating it. “So where. The hell. Is she?”
The nurse eyes her for a few seconds, probably deliberating whether to call security or not but then she sits back down slowly, and begins clicking away on the computer. Perfectly manicured fingernails tap along the desktop impatiently and all she wants to do is say fuck the room and run around the hospital until she finds Brittany. The logical part of her mind is holding her back though, telling her she'll find her wife quicker if she knows exactly where she is in the hospital and forces her to wait.
“She's in C117.”
Santana blinks at her. “Where's that?”
The nurse rolls her eyes and Santana almost leans back over to give the nurse a piece of her mind. Almost. “C Wing. First floor. Room 17,” she explains, lowering her head to the computer again, eyes sliding away from Santana. “But I'm afraid you can't go up there as she already has a visitor--”
But by the time the nurse looks up, Santana's already gone.
//
Quinn's walking out of Brittany's hospital room when Santana gets there, and she instantly marches up to her, wraps her fists around the lapels of Quinn's jacket and shoves her up against the wall beside the door, eyes burning into hazel ones.
“What the fuck did you do!?” Their faces are so close their noses are almost touching, and Santana's voice is so angry and panicked at the same time that she almost jerks her back in reaction to herself.
“I didn't do shit!” Quinn defends, tugging at the tanned fists pushing into her collarbone. Her eyes narrow and darken and Santana can see the first signs of anger flushing over her friends cheeks, but it doesn't deter her. It does the complete opposite. “Get the fuck off me.”
Quinn leans into her to push her off, but Santana's muscles are shaking and she forces her friend back up against the wall, lifting her off the floor slightly. The blonde may be taller than she is, stronger too, but with how she feels right now, with the adrenaline pulsing through her veins, she's sure she could do anything.
“My wife and my fucking unborn baby are in a hospital and you're here. That means you were involved,” she grits out, using her chest to pin her friend to the wall.
“Except your wife was fucking driving,” Quinn responds in a low, fevered tone, wrapping her fingers around tanned wrists and using all the strength she has to shove Santana off her. Santana stumbles, but flexes her fingers by her side as she steps back up to the blonde girl, snarling and baring straight, white teeth. “She didn't see the damn car and it ran straight into the back of us. I was in the fucking passenger seat.”
It doesn’t do anything to quell the burning panic and anger inside Santana, though and she lurches forward again, grabbing Quinn's collar and slamming her back up against the wall. She knows how dark she looks, how menacing she's trying to look, but she also knows Quinn's pretty good at seeing straight through her facades and knows she's just scared. That's probably why she's doing this, pinning the blonde against the wall and screeching at her.
“You must have distracted her. You fucking must have. Brittany's a good driver,” she pants, breathing heavy as she stares into her best friend's eyes. “She's never had a crash before. Never.”
Quinn lowers her head and puts on a dark snarl that Santana's almost envious of. “I didn't fucking do a thing,” she whispers, lowly. “And you're not thinking straight. You're scared and I get that, but you better back off before we fall out, Lopez.”
She finishes her sentence with a hard shove against Santana's shoulder, and Santana staggers back, fists curling by her side, ready to lash out at her friend because she's really not in the fucking mood for threats but then she hears her name being called from inside the room they're standing by, from Brittany, and all the anger she felt dissolves, replaced with relief and intense fear. Her body deflates and she throws Quinn one last look before darting inside the hospital room, rushing to the bed and almost collapsing down on top of Brittany, knees colliding with the floor and forehead pressing onto the mattress.
Her eyes squeeze shut as she processes the image of Brittany as soon as she entered the room, and her heart throbs loudly against her chest as she thinks about Brittany lying there in a hospital gown, hands resting on her bump and propped up in bed. The image is too familiar for Santana, and she breaks out into a sob, chest wracking as she thinks about her wife. Hands stroke into her hair, nails grazing against her scalp but she doesn't stop crying. It just makes her cry more and she can feel the fabric beneath her face dampening with tears but just doesn't care.
“Baby,” comes in a whisper from her wife. “Baby, I'm fine. We're fine.”
Brittany's voice is soothing and calm, but Santana can't focus on anything but the memories of her childhood and how today, she could've relived them. She can't think of anything else and it makes her body wrack with sobs. Hot, wet tears trail down her cheeks and her forehead presses into the mattress, and she shakes it because it was so close. It was too close and she just can't think of what could've happened.
“You're--You're in a fucking—“ deep, shaky breaths interrupt her sentence and she squeezes her eyes shut harder, the tears still flooding from within. “You're in a fucking hospital bed, Britt—“
“They just wanted to keep me to do a few tests,” Brittany coos, trying to calm her, but Santana's almost inconsolable. She can't hear this. It's too similar and fuck, they wouldn't be keeping her here without reason. The hands in her hair slide down to her face, stroking of her cheeks until they cradle her jaw and tip her head, blue eyes meeting brown. Brittany's voice is soft but serious as she speaks. “But we're fine, Santana. Me and the baby are fine. I've got a bit of whiplash but being this pregnant they want to make sure everything else is okay.”
Santana's eyes immediately drop to the baby bump and she lifts up to press her face into it, lips kissing it through the fabric of Brittany's hospital gown. “Fuck, Britt—I just—I can't—“
“Mrs. Lopez-Pierce?”
Both their heads snap up to the foreign voice calling their name, eyes flicking to the doorway to find a middle-aged man standing there, file in hand and body donning a white coat. His glasses are slightly askew on his nose, and his hair's ruffled like he's just done a sixteen hour shift. Santana narrows her eyes but Brittany sits up immediately, pulling her up onto the bed beside her until they're shoulder to shoulder, hands now clasped between them.
“Yes, Doctor?” Brittany answers, sweetly.
Santana realizes this must be her wife's doctor and twists her head, lifting her arm slightly to wipe her tears away on the sleeve of her shirt. The doctor walks further into the room, his eyes flitting between the two women on the bed, then to Quinn who's sitting in the corner of the room, flicking through a magazine before stopping by their bedside. Santana almost forgot her friend was here, actually.
“Shall we wait for your husband or...” he trails off, eyes moving to Santana who stiffens immediately. But Brittany's hand is squeezing hers gently, thumb rubbing over the back of her knuckles and nodding at the man.
“No, this is my wife,” she says with clarity, squeezing tanned fingers. “And the mother of my child.”
“Okay,” the doctor says, pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose, then opening the file in hand, eyes skimming over it. “Well then, I can happily tell you all your tests came back clear and both you—“ his eyes land on Brittany “—and your baby are healthy.” Relief washes through Santana and her body deflates, but Brittany just smiles beside her like she knew all along. “But we've got to process some paperwork and check over the blood test one more time—“ brown eyes widen with panic but the doctor jumps in quickly to correct himself ”—it's standard procedure in case we've missed anything, but then a nurse will come in and tell you when you're free to leave.”
Trying not to burst into tears of joy, Santana lowers her head and lets her eyes close, a relieved breath pushing from her lips and making her chest feel a lot looser and lighter than it did a minute ago. She shakes her head, sucking in her lips and tries to breathe properly. Brittany's okay. The baby is okay. Fuck. She's never been more relieved than she is right now.
Footsteps disappear into the hustle and bustle of the hospital, and when hands cup her cheeks and twist her head, she finds the doctor gone and Brittany staring straight at her.
“See, San, we're fine,” her wife says, eyebrows lifting to get Santana to believe her. “We're fine, baby. There's no need to worry.”
It should help, but it doesn't, and Santana just ends up crying all over again, leaning into the blonde and burying her face into the crook of her neck, one arm slipping around between Brittany's back and the mattress, and the other draping lightly over the baby bump. Fingers thread through her own over it, and she squeezes her eyes shut again, head still shaking.
“I k-know but—“ a shaky breath. “—I ju-just don't know what I-I would've d-done—“ the words catch in her throat and she sucks in a whimper, pulling back to look into blue eyes. “If I'd lost b-both of y-you,” she whimpers, mind reeling back.
All she can think about how twenty one years ago, things didn't go as well. How the doctor wasn't announcing good news when he approached her and her mom. She remembers it and the link between how this situation, here with Brittany and her baby, could've gone the same way.
The mere thought makes her sob harder, but even through her blurry vision she can see Brittany looking between her eyes, past them and into her emotions, and she just knows that Brittany can see all of this. She can see there's a deeper meaning behind her tears, her reactions, but Santana just bites on her lower lip, eyes flicking towards Quinn in the corner of the room and silently pleads that Brittany won't say anything until they're alone.
And because Brittany knows Santana better than anyone, better than herself, she gives her a small nod and presses their lips together, telling her with a kiss that she won't say anything. They don’t' kiss for long, mostly because Santana can barely suck in a breath without Brittany's mouth on her own, but it's soft and sweet, and she squeezes her eyes shut and lingers when her wife pulls away, stroking away the drying tears from her cheeks.
“Don't think about it,” Brittany whispers, suddenly by her ear. “We're fine. He's fine,” she continues, grabbing a tanned hand and pressing it to her stomach. The baby reacts instantly, kicking against Santana's hand and through the tears, Santana manages a chuckle, sniffling and glancing down to the bump. “See?” Brittany says, eyes shining as they look into brown ones. “He's fine. Maybe a little pissed that you threatened Aunt Quinn,” she jokes. “But other than that, he's fine.”
With her free hand, Santana wipes her nose and her cheeks with her sleeve and nods, eyes stinging. She wipes at them next and licks her lips, tasting the salt from her tears, before puffing out her cheeks and exhaling heavily. Blue eyes roam over her face, and she watches them intently until she sees Brittany cock her head to the side and lift an eyebrow in Quinn's direction. Oh, yeah, she needs to apologize.
Putting up her walls again, Santana looks to her blonde friend in the corner.
“Q?” She calls out and hazel eyes snap up to her. “Sorry about... the hall thing,” she almost rolls her eyes.
She's not sorry. She was pissed and upset. Hysterical even. Her twenty eight week pregnant wife had just been in a car accident and was in hospital. Santana had every right to let it out on the person in the damn car with her and she doesn't regret it, even now.
“I just lost my shit.”
Brittany slaps her bicep and covers her stomach, warning her with wide eyes. “Don't curse in front of the baby,” she chastises, and Santana giggles.
“Babe, he's not even born yet. He probably doesn't even have ears.”
“Actually at sixteen weeks, his ears were nearly at their correct person and at eighteen weeks, his ears not only began to stand out on the sides of his head, but he began to hear,” Brittany informs her.
Dark eyebrows shoot up. “Have you been catching up on your reading?” Santana asks, smiling with disbelief. She still can't believe that to this day people used to call Brittany stupid in high school.
“Of course,” Brittany fires back, grinning. “And I've put the books in the second drawer of your bedside table so you can too.”
Santana's heart expands and she lets out a long sigh, leaning forward to nuzzle their noses together. “I love you.”
Blue eyes sparkle. “I love you, too.”
Someone makes a retching sound behind them and Santana instantly whips her head around, narrowing her eyes into a glare. Quinn's sitting there, arms crossed and eyebrows raised like she's trying to remind them she's still here.
“Okay, yeah, you love each other and your baby's fine, I'm happy for you and glad that my head's not going to be put on a spike, but can I go home now?” The blonde asks. “I've got a few stitches I need to explain to my fiancee,” she says, pointing to her forehead where a butterfly stitching lies by her hairline.
Santana chuckles lightly and shakes her head. “Berry's gonna freak,” she says, knowingly.
The instant Rachel sees Quinn she's going to jump on the overreaction train and yell at Quinn before apologizing profusely and babying her with kisses and—ew, gross, no. Actually Santana doesn't want to know how Rachel's going to look after her. But she's still thankful that Quinn was here for Brittany when Santana wasn't, so she rolls her eyes and reaches into her jeans pocket, fishing out a wad of dollar bills. Quinn eyes her suspiciously, fair brows pushing together and Santana rolls her eyes again, licking her fingertips before flicking through the notes.
“What are you doing?” Quinn asks, slowly.
Santana grabs two five dollar bills and folds them in half, holding them out. “I'm paying for your cab home. You know, like as an apology for shoving you up against a wall.”
Behind her, Brittany rubs a hand over her lower back and she smiles. Apologizing was a good move.
“Damn straight you're paying for my cab,” Quinn jokes, stretching her arm out and curling her hand towards Santana. “Gimme then.”
Santana arches a perfectly shaped eyebrow and shakes her head. She doesn't want to leave Brittany's side. It's kind of pathetic and it's not like she's walking out the room to give Quinn the cash, but she just doesn't feel comfortable with leaving her wife. Not now she knows she's safe. As far as Santana's concerned, as long as she's by her side, Brittany will be safe. Had she been in the car with Brittany, or even driving, maybe Brittany wouldn't have been in the accident. So she's staying put.
And it seems Brittany knows this because she leans up, her lips brushing the shell of a tanned ear. “Honey, you can go over to Quinn. I'm not going anywhere.”
If she wasn't being so protective, she would probably do it, but instead she grunts and shakes her head. “If she wants the money she can come get it.”
Over the other side of the room, Quinn rolls her eyes, clicks her tongue and pushes up using the arms of the chair. She heads over, grabs the bills from Santana's hand and then spreads them out, looking down at them quizzically. “Only ten dollars?” She says, meeting brown eyes. She's joking, but Santana's not exactly in the mood for jokes. “Whoa, jheeze, I was just kidding,” she adds, backing away with a grin.
Except Santana know she kind of isn't, and that logically, it might cost more than ten dollars to get back so she throws her friend another ten dollar bill and scowls. “Now leave before I take it back and you have to walk home.”
Quinn grins, runs back up to her and kisses her on the cheek, doing the same to Brittany before skipping out the room with a wink.
Santana just settles back into Brittany's side and throws an arm over her shoulder.
//
A little while later and they're still at the hospital.
Santana's still perched on the bed, but the side of her hip is pressing against Brittany's, one of her hands is settled over the baby bump and the other is absently toying with Brittany's hand, lying beside her body. They're not speaking, and they haven't for the past ten minutes or so, but they're staring into each others and that's enough. They don't need words and that's one of the things Santana loves most about her wife. Among a million other things.
But then as Santana brushes her thumb over Brittany's belly, she feels a small push beneath her palm and giggles. The baby just kicked again and her eyes flicker down, before rising once more to meet smiling blue ones. They both giggle and Santana can't quite believe that she's having a baby. It's still so surreal.
“Hey, San?”
Santana lifts both eyebrows and smiles at her wife. “Yeah, babe?”
“Can I ask you something?”
She nods, noticing the way Brittany ducks her head and focuses all her attention on their hands and fingers fiddling with each other. The blonde doesn’t respond for a moment so Santana just lifts her hand to her lips and dusts a kiss across her knuckles, prompting her to continue.
“You know earlier?” Brittany asks, eyes flicking up. “When you were upset?” Santana's lips twitches in recognition of the memory. “Why was that? I mean, apart from the obvious. It just--It seemed deeper than me and the baby.”
Santana stays still and silent for a long while. She knew this was going to come up sooner rather than later, and don't get her wrong, it's not like she doesn't want to tell Brittany because she does. She wants Brittany to know everything about her and come to think of it, this must be the only thing Brittany doesn't know about. She literally can't think of a single thing that her wife doesn't know. They did grow up together, after all.
Anyway, it's not that she doesn't want to tell Brittany, it's just that it's hard to. Before she met Brittany, it was like there was no color in her life, and the moment she saw her, across that basketball court, it's like there was a burst of light. A burst of energy and things were no longer gray and dull, they were beautiful and full of color.
But there were things that made her life gray before. There were things that drained the color and this is one of them.
She sucks in a deep, quivering breath and lifts her vision to meet blue eyes. Here she goes. “It was the year before I met you, and it was just like any other night. I was sitting in front of the TV with my mom in the armchair behind me, and she got a call.” She pauses and licks her lips, breathing out through pursed lips. “I only remember that she got a call because it was my favorite episode of Scooby Doo on TV and I couldn't hear what Shaggy was saying over my mom's voice.”
Brittany offers a light tipped smile, a small chuckle too, and Santana feels the atmosphere around them lift. Brittany always knows what she needs.
“Anyway, I don't--I don't remember what she said, but I remember turning around with my little, green dinosaur toy and found my mom staring at the wall opposite with such a pale face. I remember thinking that maybe she'd turned into a ghost or something,” she swallows and smiles, rubbing her thumb across the back of Brittany's hand. “But she hadn't obviously, and the next moment the phone was on the floor, and she picking me up and we were rushing into a cab.”
Clearing her throat, Santana glances up and sees blue eyes fixated on her. Brittany's listening to intently and all she wants to do is lean across to kiss her wife, to say thank you into her lips, but she'll lose track of the story. She'll lose focus and confidence so she just needs to get through this.
“I remember asking her where we were going and she told me abuelo had hurt himself. I offered to give him a Pokemon band aid to make it better, but she didn't smile and that was the moment I knew something was wrong.” Her eyebrows pinch together, eyes squinting as they look off into the distance, the memory coming back to her so clearly. “Then... Then we got to the hospital and she sat me down on a plastic chair, and went over to a nurse. The nurse had the brightest ginger hair I'd ever seen,” she recalls. “I thought she was on fire for a second.”
A light laugh comes from her mouth, and Brittany's follows seconds later. They keep it going for a few seconds, but then Santana knows what bit comes next and it completely dies. She shifts on the bed, tucking one leg beneath her and sucks her lips into her mouth.
“The doctor went over to my mom next, and I just watched her break. She crumbled and fell to the floor and no-one came and told me anything but,” she takes in a deep breath and clenches her jaw. “I just knew.” Her eyes flicker up to meet blue ones. “I didn't feel him anymore. It was like something just... faded inside of me. Like the last bit of color vanished out my life,” she shrugs and drops her vision back to their hands, where long pale fingers are brushing over her palm, mapping out her skin. “I know I was only six, but... he was my best friend. I was closer to him that I was with my parents.”
Brittany lifts her hand and presses a kiss to her palm, where her fingers had just been, and it breaks something inside of Santana. She straightens her back, builds up her walls again and tries to regain some of the confidence she usually carries. There's not really any point, Brittany can see straight through it, but it makes Santana feel a little better and so the blonde doesn't say anything.
“I don't know,” Santana continues, swallowing against the thick layer coating her throat. “Today just... It just brought back those memories.”
“I'm sorry, baby,” her wife finally says, pulling her towards her until she can cup a tanned cheek, rub her thumb over the skin there.
Santana shakes her head, looking away. “It's not your fault, Britt. Sometimes things just happen,” she lifts her shoulder. “But today just... It just took me back to then and there was this image in my head that just--that I'd get here and...” she doesn't finish, just lets her words sink in and create their own conclusion and Brittany's hands slide out of hers, coming up to her shoulders to pull her down for a hug. She buries her face into the crook of her wife's neck, nuzzling and squeezing her eyes shut as her hands slip around her wife's waist, palms settling low on her back.
They stay like that for a while, just sinking into one another and breathing in each others scents, and for the duration of their embrace, Santana feels like she's grounded. She doesn't feel like everything's too much and that all the bad memories of flushing over her. She doesn't feel like she's about to break because she was that worried. Instead she feels safe, and warm, and her head turns to press a soft kiss to the base of Brittany's neck.
Then she hums out slowly and snuggles back into her wife again, whispering, “I love you,” into her ear.
Hands stroke over her back and she can feel the smile against her temple as Brittany drops a kiss there, the words, “I love you, too,” following only a second later.
//
The nurse comes in five minutes later and they break apart, glancing up to the nurse who looks away, knowing she's just interrupted a moment. Brittany giggles and Santana smiles, kisses her wife softly before sitting back on the bed and patting a pale hand, waiting to hear the verdict on how long they're supposed to be here for. The nurse tells them they're free to leave now, and reassures them for the second time that everything's perfectly fine with both the mother and the baby, and Santana breathes out another deep sigh of relief.
They begin packing up, Santana handing Brittany some clothes and moving to close the door so no-one sees the blonde change, but as the door clicks, Brittany speaks for the first time since the story of Santana's grandfather.
“What was his name?”
Santana walks back to the bed and perches on the side. “Who?”
Brittany rids herself of the hospital gown and brown eyes linger around the swell of her stomach, taking in Brittany's new curves and the rounded edges she never had before. It's not like she hasn't seen her wife naked since she was pregnant, but this is just... This is something else, and she knows she's smiling like an idiot but who cares?
“Your abuelo.”
She wipes the smile from her face, eyes darting up to meet knowing blue ones and a smirk, realizing she was just staring unabashedly.
“Elijah,” she responds, shrugging when a fair eyebrow cocks.
She doesn't care that she was staring. She's allowed to. It's one of the perks of being married.
Brittany steps into her maternity jeans and pulls them up her legs, allowing the cotton support to rest comfortably below her bump. Her hand falls to her stomach when she's done, and she cocks her head to the side, her blue eyes clouding over with thoughts. Santana just stays silent, watching her wife and figuring out what she's doing and she only stops when Brittany smiles down at the bump, strokes it twice—something she's started doing since she found out she can balance a bowl of cereal on the top of it—and then resumes changing.
She's always done little weird things like that, gone off inside her own mind to daydream and whatnot, so Santana doesn't think much of it.
Well, not until she hears three words that makes her head momentarily suspend off her neck as she whips her head up that fast.
“Little baby Elijah.”
The breath catches in her throat and she chokes on it, tears already forming in her eyes as they meet bright blue ones. There's a little bit of uncertainty flashing behind them and Santana wants to say that she's choked up for a good reason but she can't seem to get any words out. So instead, she steps toward her wife and settles her hands on the swell of Brittany's stomach, thumbs rubbing in circular motions.
“What?” She finally pants, swallowing against a thickening throat. “What did you say?”
“I said...” Brittany pauses and chews on her lower lip for a second. “I said little baby Elijah,” she repeats slowly, unsure if she's said the wrong thing. “Like, I thought maybe—if you wanted to—we could name... him—” she lowers a hand over a tanned one and pushes down lightly “—after... your abuelo.”
So many tears flood to Santana's eyes she has to shake her head to rid some, not wanting to remove her hands from Brittany or their baby. She's so overwhelmed right now, so fucking overwhelmed and she feels so much love for both Brittany and the baby that she could cry. In fact, she's pretty much crying at the moment, but fuck, she's just so happy.
“Are—are you serious?”
“I am,” Brittany says, finally realizing the tears dropping down the other girl's face are ones of joy. Her hand drops down to press over the other tanned hand there as she speaks softly toward the bump. “What do you think, little man?”
Just then, a little but still very there kick bumps against both their hands and they both let out an exhale through a wide smile. Santana's heart feels so big it could explode and she's never felt so simultaneously happy and confused at the same time. Only confused because it's like she doesn't know what to do with herself. She's just so... Fuck. She can't even explain it.
“I think he likes it, too,” she says, the tears now dripping down her cheeks. A thumb caresses the skin only a moment later, and when she lifts her head she sees Brittany's crying, too. They really are so ridiculous.
“Elijah Lopez-Pierce,” Brittany announces, pressing down harder on their hands until Santana almost pulls away, fearing harm. But her wife just pulls her closer, fingers slipping up a tanned wrist to tug gently until their heads fall together and eyes drop down to the bump between them, happily kicking away. Nudging her face up, Santana kisses Brittany softly and slowly, drawing out their feelings about not only each other but the name suggestion and Santana just knows they've found the perfect name when she pulls away and stares into deep, blue eyes, repeating the name because it's just so right.
“Elijah Lopez-Pierce."