Fic: They Say Bad Things Happen For A Reason [Part Eleven]
Title: They Say Bad Things Happen For A Reason [Part Eleven]
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: just under 5k this part
Notes in Part One
[Part One] [Part Two] [Part Three] [Part Four] [Part Five] [Part Six] [Part Seven] [Part Eight] [Part Nine] [Part Ten]
--
Her brain stops functioning around the same time as her lungs do and her vision starts to go black again, the edges going fuzzy as she blinks against the pain. This is a nightmare. It has to be. She's going to wake up, hungover, on Quinn's couch. Rachel will be wearing too little clothes in the kitchen, singing annoyingly, Puck will be calling her every five minutes to figure out where she is and Brittany. Brittany will be somewhere. Somewhere safe.
She sees red. She should probably be thinking about calling Hudson or Rutherford, or racing outside to try and find Brittany, try to find Pike, but right now all she can focus on is killing that damn sleeping rookie. She is going to slit his fucking throat.
She gets her feet to move her out of the bedroom and she's running on automatic, not feeling anything but the need to lash out, to hurt something. Anger and pain meshing in her bloodstream and she just wants someone to feel it too.
The door swings open when she gets there but she can't stop moving, too intent upon her destination and not paying attention to much else, so she just barrels forward, walking straight into the person on the other side and knocking them both to the ground. A dog yelps loudly as it happens and all of a sudden she registers the sound, feels the body under hers and it cuts right through her vengeful haze.
It's Brittany. And Nemo.
What the fuck?
She gets to her feet quickly, staring down at where her girlfriend is sprawled on the ground, an adorable scrunch to Brittany's face that indicates the fall didn't feel so good. Santana's forgetting how to breathe again and now she thinks maybe she passed out earlier, when she realized Brittany was gone. Relief is trying to find its way through her as her brain processes what she's seeing. That Brittany is on the floor in front of her now and not dying in some skeevy warehouse with Pike. But anger is right on its heels, white, blinding anger that has her joints shaking with the effort to contain it.
"What the hell, Brittany?" She shouts, grabbing the other girl's wrist and tugging upwards until Brittany is on her feet. "Where the hell were you? Do you have any idea what I thought?" She pulls the blonde inside, waiting until Nemo bounds through the door before shutting it behind them, sliding all the locks into place. If she had been thinking clearly earlier she would have realized Nemo's absence in the apartment was pretty damn suspicious.
Brittany's rubbing at her back where she landed on the ground and pouting at Santana but it's not doing anything to cool the anger. Those were long minutes of thinking Pike had gotten to Brittany. Long minutes of thinking Pike had won, that he had broken her completely. She's pissed.
"Mrs. Reynolds called, you know, from the 16th floor," Brittany points at the ceiling as she says it. "She heard I was back in the building and asked if I could stop by. She used to love playing with Nemo so I brought him with. Her lemon cakes are the best."
Santana pinches the bridge of her nose and takes long deep breaths trying to get herself to calm down before she punches a wall, or worse, punches Mrs. Reynolds. "I told you not to leave," she says, in a low voice.
"I didn't. I was in the building the whole time," Brittany replies, looking confused.
"The apartment, Brittany. I told you not to leave the fucking apartment," she barks.
"Sorry," Brittany mumbles. "Jay was really tired, so I told him to take a quick nap while I was gone, because, well guarding an empty apartment is kind of silly and I was only going up 9 floors and really, nothing was going to happen."
"You don't know that," Santana hisses, residual fear still pumping through her body.
"S, I'm fine," Brittany says.
It snaps something inside of her and Santana can't stop it, all this emotion and she just needs to let it the fuck out, so she slams her hand into the wall next to Brittany's head, pushes her body forward so her girlfriend's back is against the wall and closes her eyes, forehead pressed tightly to Brittany's. "That's not the point," she whispers. "I thought you...," she can't finish, her body still shaking with fear and adrenaline.
Brittany gasps as her back hits the wall and furrows her brow at Santana's expression, bringing her hands up to cup Santana's cheeks and tilt her head back so they can look at each other. "Hey," she coos, as if soothing a wounded animal. "What happened?"
Santana swallows thickly, her eyes opening to dart around Brittany's face. "Puck's car exploded. He's in the hospital," she manages to say, voice hoarse. And I thought Pike got you too is left unsaid.
"Oh my gosh!" Brittany exclaims, her eyes widening. "Are you okay?"
Santana breathes in and out, feels her heart pounding against her chest and tries to forget the way it felt when she saw the car explode, tries to force the lingering scent of burning flesh out of her nostrils and squash the memory of heat rushing over her face. "No," she admits finally. "I'm not."
Brittany wraps a hand around the back of her neck and pulls Santana's head into her shoulder, pressing their bodies together in a firm hug as Santana lets out a shaky breath. "Fuck," she groans, trying to fight anger and fear as she buries her face into Brittany's neck. She wraps her arms around Brittany's body, fingers gripping the back of her girlfriend's shirt. Nemo brushes against the backs of Santana's legs as they stand there, whimpering from his spot on the floor.
It takes a few minutes until Santana feels like she's not falling anymore, like her world isn't crumbling and she thinks she can actually function without wanting to hit something or break down into tears. It hurts to swallow and her back feels like she slept in a car for a week, every motion shooting hot pain through her spine. But Brittany's body is warm in front of her and solid, representing everything that matters in Santana's life and just being pressed against her is settling her nerves.
Eventually, Santana pulls away, a deep breath escaping her mouth as she shakes her head in an attempt to restart her brain. Brittany grabs her by the cheeks again, stopping the motion and looks into Santana's eyes.
"Your face looks better," Brittany comments, her fingers stroking the fading bruises on Santana's cheeks.
Santana humms affirmatively and her eyelids start to droop closed with the calming motions of Brittany's fingers.
"You should take a nap," Brittany suggests.
"No," Santana disagrees. "I have work to do."
"Sleep is good for you."
"I need to call Rutherford and Quinn is going to be here later," Santana argues. "I don't have time."
Brittany shakes her head side to side. "You need to sleep."
"Britt," she starts, knowing that even if she were to lay down right now, she wouldn't sleep. She wouldn't want to, not with the way she feels right now. Not with seeing Puck's car explode or remembering those few moments where she thought Brittany was gone. Sleep is not on her agenda.
But it seems her mouth isn't catching up to her brain because she can't get the words out before Brittany is tugging her by the wrist down the hallway to their bedroom and pushing her down on the bed.
Brittany pulls Santana's jacket off her back followed by her shoes and nimble fingers reach around her to pull her gun holster off and drop it on the table by the bed. By the time Santana's shoulders hit the mattress she finds that she doesn't have the strength to get back up again. It actually feels good, just to be still and the lack of movement stops the shooting pains in her back and her head.
When Brittany moves to walk away, Santana reaches out to grab her arm. Being still feels good but she's not ready to have Brittany out of a two foot radius of her person.
"Stay," she murmurs, trying not to sound as lame as she feels and unwilling to say what she's really feeling. You can't leave me.
Brittany seems to get it, which shouldn't surprise Santana. They've known each other practically their whole lives. Brittany understands Santana on a level that doesn't require verbal communication.
So her girlfriend just smiles before crawling over Santana to settle down on the other side of her. She lets her eyes close when she feels Brittany's hand travel down her arm to tangle their fingers together the way she had done nearly every night for over a decade. It feels, all of a sudden, like she's finally coming home and her chest tightens up but it isn't the painful clenching from before. She can breathe this time and her head swims but it's pleasant. Brittany's breath blows over her shoulder and she can't fight the small smile that finds its way to her face despite all the dark and twisty thoughts floating in her brain.
Brittany presses a warm kiss to the side of her neck and just the small gesture shoots arousal straight through Santana's stomach. But even though her heart is definitely willing, she knows her body isn't up for it. At least not the way they do it. Sex with Brittany is like running a marathon sometimes and she doesn't even think she could run to the bathroom at this point. Not moving is high on her list of things to do at the moment. So she just sinks into the feeling of soft lips ghosting across her neck and Brittany's warm palm against hers.
She can feel sleep coming on and she wants to stop it, wants to stay awake because she needs the constant visual reminder that Brittany's alive, and here, and in love with her. She doesn't want to stare at the backs of her eyelids and think about her partner in a hospital or her best friend in pain. But the trials of the day overwhelm her and before she can turn her head to look at Brittany she's asleep.
--
"Why are you still awake?" Brittany asked, sleep making her voice sound scratchy and appealing.
"Just getting some work done, babe. Go back to bed," Santana answered, not looking up from the file in front of her. She brought the coffee cup near her left hand to her lips and took a sip, making a face when the cold liquid hit her lips. "Ick," she sputtered.
Brittany padded over to her, squinting at the light in the kitchen and plucked the cup out of Santana's grasp, walking with it over to the sink and pouring it out. Santana watched while her girlfriend moved it back to the coffee maker and began to start a new pot.
"B, go back to bed. It's late," Santana said, half out of her chair. "I can do that."
But Brittany held a hand up towards Santana, ordering her silently to stay put while she made the coffee. She normally lost arguments with her girlfriend in the middle of the day, she knew there was little chance she'd win one in the middle of the night with Brittany only running on half of her cylinders. For whatever reason, the loopier Brittany was feeling, the better she was at winning arguments with Santana. It was a strange state of affairs but it only took a few years for Santana to realize this about the blonde girl and she mostly found it extremely amusing rather than annoying.
The coffee maker sounded loud in the silence of their kitchen as it signaled its finish and poured hot black liquid into the pot. Brittany poured a cup and Santana watched the steam swirl upwards into their ceiling, letting her bloodshot eyes enjoy the view of Brittany barefoot and in pajamas.
"Here," Brittany said, setting the cup down and kissing Santana on the cheek.
"Thanks," Santana replied with a smile, twisting the cup around so the handle faced her. She took a tentative sip and nearly moaned as the warm liquid hit the back of her throat and settled in her stomach.
Brittany leaned into her side, her body sleep-warmed against Santana's skin, and surveyed the open files spread across the table. Santana felt her girlfriend tilt her head to the side as she recognized the pictures and words.
"Your parents' case?"
Santana nodded, feeling kind of stupid, but knowing if anyone would understand, it'd be Brittany. "I just," Santana started. "I feel like I'm missing something. It's too clean, too precise," she said, running her fingers over the photos.
"It was a car crash," Brittany commented, picking up the nearest photo of the totaled vehicle, car parts and blood all across the scene. "It wasn't very clean."
Santana wrapped an arm around her girlfriend's waist and stroked her fingers over a hip bone absently while she kept looking at the file. "I don't mean clean like it wasn't dirty or messy or anything, just..," she trailed off trying to find the words to express her suspicion. It had always helped though, to talk through things with Brittany. Brittany who often offered strange and bizarre insight but it was just that kind of randomness that helped Santana sort her own thoughts out.
She shuffled some papers and tugged the list of witness statements over in front of her, trailing fingertips over the words as Brittany wrapped an arm around her neck. "The witness statements," she explained. "They sound, I don't know, practiced, robotic."
Brittany squinted at the words but remained silent so Santana continued. "I can't explain it. It just all feels off," she said, leaning her head against Brittany's side.
"They were your parents, San. It's normal to feel weird about it," Brittany said.
Santana shrugged. Yeah, they were her parents but she hadn't spoken to them for years before they died. They felt more like strange abstract concepts than actual parents, at least not parents in the way Brittany knew. Brittany's parents always felt more like parents to Santana than her own flesh and blood ans Santana practically grew up as a part of Brittany's family.
"I know, I just," she paused. "I can't shake the feeling that there's more to it than just an accident."
"You think it was on purpose?" Brittany turned to look down at Santana, eyebrows pushed together.
"I don't know, maybe. I don't know what to think," she answered as she rubbed her eyes, her brain fried from thinking about it all night.
Brittany's fingers found their way to the back of her neck and pressed hard into the flesh there, massaging tense muscles and lulling Santana into a comfortable haze.
"Come back to bed," Brittany commanded softly. "There are better reasons to be up in the middle of the night than staring at gross photos."
Santana chuckled and stood up, keeping an arm around Brittany's waist and tugging their hips into each other. "Okay," she said, before kissing her. It throughly distracted her because despite all intentions to move this show to the bedroom, once she put her lips against Brittany's she forgot how to move her feet in that direction. They made out for long, hot moments in their kitchen, Brittany's hands moving to twist around Santana's neck, bringing their chests flush up against each other.
One of them moaned, Santana's not entirely sure which one it was, but just like that she could care less about that little inkling about her parents' death. All she cared about was the girl standing in the kitchen kissing her. Brittany tugged on Santana's bottom lip with her teeth and she felt her knees start to shake with arousal. Then her brain clicked back on and she found the ability to get them the hell out of their kitchen before Santana fell over.
An adorable squeal left Brittany's lips as Santana threw the blonde girl over her shoulder and walked them both back to bed.
--
The doorbell ringing shocks Santana out of sleep and she has to blink rapidly to wake her brain up. Brittany is still snuggled up to her side and she can make out Nemo's curled up form at the foot of the bed. Her muscles protest as she sits up but she feels infinitely better than she did before her nap and there's a strong part of her that doesn't want to get out of bed, content to snuggle back down with her girlfriend and succumb to darkness for long hours.
The doorbell rings again and Santana swings her legs over the side of the bed, waiting to see if the movement woke Brittany up before reaching to the side table and grabbing her gun out of her holster. She slips it into the back of her pants as she makes her way to answer the door, checking the peephole when she gets there and letting out a sigh when she sees Quinn on the other side.
She opens the door, throwing her friend a tired smile, but letting her eyes look over Quinn's shoulder, paranoia now ever-present in her head. She keeps a hand on the gun at her back the whole time.
"Hey," Quinn greets, standing in the hallway in uncharacteristic jeans and a sweatshirt, her glasses on and her hair up in a messy ponytail. Santana can't remember the last time she saw Quinn out of her power suit. The blonde attorney has an arm around Rachel, who's dressed similarly in sweats and a t-shirt and Santana suspects Quinn's arm is the only thing holding the brunette up. They look wasted and worn and Santana feels the desire to kill Pike bubble up in her again.
"Hi," Santana answers, opening the door wider to let them both in. She notices the guard next to her door and bites back against the urge to make sure it's not the sleeping idiot from before.
"How you doing?" Quinn asks, as they walk further into the apartment and Santana locks the door behind her.
"Fine," she replies, walking in with her friends to the living room.
Quinn moves to the couch with Rachel, settling her down gently and Santana watches as the shorter girl winces with every movement. "Should you be out of the hospital?" Santana asks, thinking maybe a place with lots of awesome pain medication would be a better fit for her friend.
"Quinn thought it was safer to be here right now," Rachel says, her voice soft and pained as she settles back against the cushions. Santana knows what cracked ribs feel like and she doesn't envy the pain Rachel's in right now.
Quinn shrugs her shoulders at Rachel's words but doesn't say anything to dispute the comment, just kisses Rachel on the forehead and strokes the hair off her brow before walking around the couch and into the kitchen. Santana follows her, throwing a small smile to Rachel.
"How are you doing?" Santana asks as she gets to the kitchen. Quinn is opening her liquor cabinet and pulling out a bottle of scotch from the back.
Santana grabs a tumbler from the cabinet next to her and hands it to her best friend.
"Thanks," Quinn says, setting the glass down and pouring out two fingers of amber liquid. Santana watches with eyebrows raised as Quinn throws the scotch back and pours another drink.
"Q," Santana starts, thinking maybe this is a bad time to get drunk, but Quinn holds a hand up to stop the words.
"I'm fine, I'm just a little," Quinn waves a hand in midair. "Shaky."
And, really, Santana understands that better than anyone, so she settles her hip against the kitchen counter and keeps her friend company for a few minutes, watching another drink disappear and another one poured.
"I'm sorry I smacked you," Quinn says softly, breaking the silence.
Santana gives her a strange look. "What?!"
"In the stairwell, I'm sorry."
"No you're not," Santana denies.
"S," Quinn starts.
"You're Quinn Fabray," Santana explains, turning to face her friend head on and not blinking. "You're my best friend and that means you're not sorry. So let's not do this, okay?"
Quinn chuckles, shakes her head but utters a low, grateful, "Okay."
"How's Berry doing?"
Quinn takes another drink. "She's hurt," she says. "But it's not critical or anything and I feel a lot better now that we're out of that hospital."
"Yeah, fair enough."
"Puck's doing okay," Quinn says.
Santana breathes a sigh of relief. "Good," she says. "I need to get back over there."
But honestly, she can't stand the thought of leaving, not with what she returned to earlier. She needs to be by Brittany, know she's alive, know she's safe, more than she needs to check on her partner. A wave of guilt washes over her but she can't stop herself from feeling that way. Puck is her partner, her better half in ways that few people can understand, but Brittany is a piece of her, a central piece that keeps her heart beating and her lungs breathing and she just needs to make sure she's okay right now.
"You wouldn't be any good to him over there right now," Quinn says. "He's still asleep. They've got him on about fifty-five pain medications."
Santana nods. "Good, he'll love that," she says with a chuckle.
"Yeah," Quinn agrees.
The doorbell rings again before the conversation can continue and Santana's hand goes automatically to the gun at her back as she walks to the door. She looks through the peephole and sees Finn and Matt, standing in her entryway holding two large boxes.
She opens the door and nods at them as they shuffle in, heading for the kitchen and dropping the boxes on the table.
"Ms. Fabray," Finn says, noticing Quinn in the kitchen. Quinn nods and smiles at him in greeting. "Detective," she answers, nodding at Matt as well when he enters.
"How's Puckerman doing?" Matt asks as Santana walks over and pulls the top off the first box.
"He's alive," she replies, inspecting the box's contents.
"These are all the cases Pike was involved in, mentioned, knew someone involved in, whatever, going back 20 years," Finn comments, taking the lid off the second box. "Oh, and the stuff form the warehouse."
Quinn walks over and arches an eyebrow at the files. "Boy's been busy," she adds.
Santana nods and picks up the first file on top. "Yeah," she agrees.
"We went by the studio," Matt says, sitting down at the table and taking some files out. "But we didn't find anything. Not at the apartment either."
Santana's head snaps up and she opens her mouth but he keeps talking before she can interrupt. "When we heard about the explosion we went over there. We figured you wouldn't be doing it yourselves."
It bothers her, that they were in Brittany's apartment, but she knows she needs to start separating her personal life from her professional one. Without Puck next to her she'd have a much harder time convincing the Captain that she's got her head on straight when it comes to this case. So she scrambles for any mature part of her she can find and says, "Thanks."
Matt looks kind of startled but he wisely remains silent and just smiles at her before opening a file and studying its pages.
"Well," she says. "We better get started on these. Q, you want to help?"
Quinn gives her a duh look and comes around to sit next to her. "Let's do this."
--
"My parents are coming in for the weekend," Quinn said, blowing out a breath with the words and taking a sip of her beer. "They're staying with us."
Santana made a disgusted look as she looked over at her friend. "Sucks," she replied.
Quinn nodded. "Yeah, it will be interesting."
"God, I haven't seen your parents in forever," Santana added, her thumb running over the starter on her lighter. "They're almost worse than mine.'
"Yeah," Quinn agreed. "But yours are dead. Rest in peace."
Santana held her beer bottle up and clinked it against Quinn's. "Amen."
"Rachel thinks I'm just not trying hard enough," Quinn continued.
"This from the girl that nearly bitchslapped your dad over that family dinner," Santana added, amused. Quinn's parents weren't the most loving of folks and even Santana's absentee parents looked like the Cleavers compared to the Fabrays. Every time they were together they openly disapproved of nearly everything Quinn did, especially her relationship with Rachel and her choice of occupations. Apparently criminal prosecutor didn't make enough money to satisfy them.
"I know, right? I guess she had a change of heart after we got married." Quinn tipped her bottle against her lips quickly before continuing. "Something about the importance of family and a good relationship with the in-laws, I don't even really know."
"Well not all of us are so over the moon about our two gay dads," Santana replied, imitating Rachel's voice as she said it. .
"True," Quinn said, her bottle clinking loudly as she set it back on the table.
"What are they here for?" Santana asked.
Quinn shook her head and furrowed her brow, thinking about the answer. "They didn't say."
--
Hours later, Nemo comes scrambling into the kitchen, bumping into the back of Santana's chair and barking at her. Brittany is three steps behind him and Santana smiles at her girlfriend, eying the red crease on Brittany's cheek from the pillow.
"Hey, babe," she says softly.
"You didn't wake me up," Brittany pouts. "Hi, Quinn," the blonde says when she notices the attorney, coming over to kiss Quinn hello on the cheek.
"Hey, Britt," Quinn greets.
"What are you guys doing?"
"Going over some cases involving Pike," Santana answers, her head rolling forward when Brittany walks up behind her and starts massaging her shoulders. She spares a glance at Finn and feels warm satisfaction settle in her gut at his open staring. Take that, Hudson.
"Want me to order some food? Pizza?" Brittany asks, her thumbs tracing firm lines up Santana's neck.
Santana observes her companions, all of them looking agreeable to the suggestion, before answering, "That'd be great."
"Cool," Brittany replied, walking away from Santana. She squeezes Matt's shoulder as she passes and then smiles at Finn who smiles in that dopey way he has right back at her. Santana wants to do something barbaric like smack him again or dip Brittany into a hot kiss but Quinn kicks her shin under the table and she jumps right out of those thoughts. It's dumb anyway, because Finn is one of those too-nice kind of guys and while it's pretty annoying to Santana she knows doing something like shoving him is only hot in Brittany's eyes so many times.
Then, Santana turns to look at Brittany, about to suggest fifteen toppings that she'd like on her pizza in order to stop thinking about hitting a guy that's being generally helpful, when she notices that the blonde is standing right over Finn's shoulder, staring at a file in front of him with a quizzical look.
Santana watches as her girlfriend stares at the photo and then looks at Quinn, then looking back again.
"Britt?" Santana says, trying to see for herself what is so interesting.
Finn turns to look over his shoulder and nearly jumps out of his chair when he sees how close Brittany is to him. He recovers though and sees her line of sight, picking up the photo and inspecting it closer. "You recognize something?"
Brittany tilts her head to the side, and then to the other side as if she can't figure out what she's looking at. Then she points to a fuzzy image in the corner of the picture Finn was studying. "It just looked like Mr. Fabray for a second," she comments.
Quinn's head snaps up and her eyes go straight to the glossy paper in front of Finn. Santana notices the way all the blood drains out of her friend's face as her eyes go wide. The attorney reaches across the table and snatches the photo, studying it for herself.
"It's probably not him," Brittany continues. "It just looked weird for a second."
But Quinn isn't responding, just staring at the crime scene photo and swallowing hard. Santana leans over to look for herself.
It's a murder scene, a covered body in the foreground of the picture and a few cops scattered around. There's a barricade with a crowd of people behind it and to the very right of the photo, behind the barricade, a tall man, the spitting image of Quinn's father, dressed in what appears to be a black leather jacket and jeans. Santana sees it light as day.
"Santana," Quinn starts, her face alight with shock and fear. "What the hell?"
Santana just stares at the photo some more, her brain trying to put the pieces together. She grabs the file from Finn and studies the facts of the case, but nothing makes sense. Quinn's parents live on the other side of the country, this crime was in the city. It's dated only a few years ago and it just doesn't make sense. What the hell was Quinn's father doing in the damn picture? With something involving Pike she's too paranoid to claim it a coincidence.
"I don't know, Q," Santana says. "I don't know."
Part Twelve