This is another collaboration with yourKat. It will be posted in chapters and is significantly longer than the last story we wrote together. Enjoy.

She walked down the hallway at a languid pace. Her long fingers ran lightly over the red lockers, over the creases and the air vents. She walked as if she didn't have anywhere to go. She tilted her head to the side in deep thought, the end of her ponytail brushing against the base of her neck.

She wasn't ready to be here, but she wasn't ready to be anywhere else yet either. So she continued to walk, one foot in front of the other to a beat that could only be heard in her head. Her sneakers didn't make a sound on the generic white tile. Occasionally she could hear a straggling student or teacher, but nothing above a faint whisper.

That was until she heard, "I thought I'd find you here."

She sighed. And it was heavy and forlorn as it escaped past her slightly parted lips. "What do you want, Puck?"

His heavy footsteps approached the place where she had stopped, frozen to the floor. "I wanted to make sure you were okay."

He was just over her left shoulder now. She could so easily turn around, she could look him in the eye and proclaim exactly how great she was. She could stare him down until he backed off and left her alone. She could utilize what little power she had left as the tough girl.

Instead, her shoulders sunk lower on her frame. Another sigh. She couldn't look him in the eye - because that would mean lying, and she just didn't have the energy for it anymore.

"Sometimes..." she trailed off, not sure where she was going with her statement. Her eyes squeezed shut, and she envisioned the disappointed glances and the whispers and the slamming doors once more. Suddenly, anger surged through her and she spun around to face him. Tears were welling up in her eyes. "Isn't it okay to just not be okay sometimes?"

His reaction was less than she expected. She expected something, but what she got was nothing. He just looked at her with the same sympathetic eyes he had before. His hands in his faded jean pockets and his shoulders low in a non-confrontational manner. He just stood there before she turned around again, resuming her idle walk through the school.

"Do you want to go for some coffee or something?" he asked, awkwardly.

She scoffed, "Coffee Puck?"

He rolled his eyes as he slowly walked behind her, "Whatever. I have some beer stashed in my basement."

Now he was speaking her language. Sure, sometimes she was okay - but now was not one of those times. She was scowling to hide the gaping hole in her gut. Her jaw was set so that no one would even dare to ask her if she was okay.

Except for two people. One of them being the boy walking behind her.

And the other? Well, she hadn't asked Santana if she was okay in years.

Several hours later, Puck had effectively managed to get Santana more inebriated than she had been since her wildest days in college.

But if there was one time in a person's life when they were allowed to be sufficiently fucked up, it was when they were faced with a ten-year class reunion - from hell.

"What was the hottest make out sesh you had in high school?" The words barely made it coherently across Santana's slurring tongue, but Puck knew how to translate Drunken Santana Speak.

He leaned his head back against the wall. His legs were crossed in front of him on the floor, and Santana was leaning her head back over the side of the couch, her own legs propped up against the cushions. He thought for a few moments before succinctly answering, "Berry."

"Whoa," Santana said, her voice low and maybe just a little impressed. "Berry?"

"Why are you so surprised? I heard you totally tapped that once."

"Yeah, okay," Santana agreed. "Once, but I was drunk. And when you run into old classmates, sometimes things just happen. Feelings and shit."

There was a dense silence between them for a while. Santana laid her legs out straight and looked at the cracking ceiling. She had no idea why she had even come. She knew that it was a bad idea. She was torturing herself.

In Seattle, she had a huge loft. She had an insanely lucrative business. She had a BMW and a dog that she wished she could have brought with her. She had...she had someone. Sort of. She had someone who was chasing her around and trying to get her to actually go out on a date - someone who would take care of her given the chance.

At that moment, Puck chose to speak. "You know she's here, right?"

Santana emptied the last of the beer from her can and threw it across the room where the collection of cans was piling up. She reached into the cooler between them and got another one. "Of course I fucking know. Everyone I run into tells me that she's here. I know what time her fucking plane landed."

"Are you going to say anything?" Puck asked, standing to grab a towel from the shelf by the washing machine. He dropped it on the ground to mop up the mess their projective beer cans were making with his foot. Other people were living in this house too and he didn't want them to know that there was a dripping trail of beer from the couch to the corner of the room.

Santana sighed. She pulled her knees back to her chest and dropped her forehead against them. She sighed again. "I don't know."

Suddenly, the thought of seeing Brittany's beautiful blonde hair and her bright blue eyes was the only thing in her mind. It had been present, obviously, for weeks now - ever since that damning invitation had arrived on her doorstep. But now? It was roiling through her brainwaves and her chest and she could barely breathe - let alone form tangible thoughts of anything else. Her stomach was rolling and her heart was clenching painfully.

She was barely able to gasp out, "Trashcan!" And Puck managed to get it to her side before she was emptying the contents of her stomach into it, her diaphragm heaving painfully.

Puck pushed a stray lock of hair out of her face. Her ponytail was loose and hardly up to Sue Sylvester standards, but that wasn't the issue at hand. "Hey," he said, his voice soft and low. "It's gonna be okay."

Santana heard him. And she understood what he was trying to do. It was kind, the act of comforting her in this pathetic state of existence she currently found herself in - drunk and throwing up in Puck's basement as if they were sixteen or seventeen or eighteen and children with nothing more or less important than who they were or weren't hooking up with that week.

Or who they were falling in love with...

It felt like a lifetime of hurt and heartbreak, leaving her body in that moment. And so Santana was grateful that he was there.

She flopped back onto the couch and her eyes ran the length of the crack in the ceiling. She took a deep breath, trying to quell the quiet riot in her stomach. "You should get that fixed."

Puck's eyes rose to the ceiling and nodded. "I know. I'll probably do it this weekend. I don't have much time during the week."

She knew that they were both ignoring the elephant in the room. They'd lanced the surface of her problems and then went on to ignore them just like they used to. Just like in high school.

The dryer buzzed, interrupting the thin silence in the room.

Puck stood to take care of the laundry. He took the trashcan with him. Santana shook her head, attempting to clear it once more, before shakily swinging her legs down to the floor. She stood. "Hey," she said, "I'm just gonna head back to my hotel."

"Just let me take these clothes upstairs to my sister's room, I'll drive you."

"No," Santana quickly interrupted him. "I just...I need to clear my head."

"You're fucking wasted, just sleep here," Puck chastised, rolling his eyes.

"I feel fine." Her voice slurred. "I'll just walk to my hotel."

Puck groaned. "Santana, don't be fucking difficult, okay?"

She was already halfway up the stairs before he caught up to her. "I need to sleep," she said.

"Then sleep here."

"I'm going to my hotel room," she emphasized the words to the best of her ability. And when Puck grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her around, he saw the brokenness in her eyes, the defeated glaze that was plainly written across her face. "Please, just let me go..."

He didn't know if she was talking to him or someone else.

"I'll take you to your hotel," he said, "but I'm not letting you walk there."

"Fine," she muttered, falling limply against his strong chest. He bent down and wrapped his arms under her legs, easily lifting her. "It's not like you ever listened to anyone else when we were kids."

He smiled against her hair. And he would have argued back, but she was right. And she was also already passed out.

She became conscious about halfway to the hotel. She didn't feel any better, but she didn't feel any worse - so she'd take that as a win.

Santana waved Puck off when he wanted to walk her to her room. She pulled down the visor and tweaked her hair before sliding out of his truck.

"I'll see you tomorrow morning at the brunch thing?" he asked.

She nodded and snorted, "Whose idea was brunch?"

He smirked. "One guess."

"No one should have let Berry be the head of the reunion committee." They shared an eye roll before she slammed the door.

It was colder outside than she remembered, but it didn't matter much. The walk to the sliding doors of the hotel wasn't that far.

The second she stepped inside though, she felt her skin tingle. It was like someone electrified her body. Part of her knew what it was, and part of her hoped that the other part was wrong.

Her keycard dug almost painfully into Santana's palm as she walked in as straight a line as she could manage to the elevators, pointedly ignoring the high-backed chairs littering the lobby floor.

"Fuck..." she whispered under her breath. Not in this state, not like this. Not now, of all times.

The clicking of expensive designer heels slowly approached her from behind, and Santana's eyes squeezed shut. The doors opened, and she walked inside, leaning heavily against the elevator wall and pressing the button for her floor.

Another body had slipped inside and was now standing in the middle of the elevator.

"Santana," the woman's voice was soft, soothing - just like it had always been.

The millionth sigh of the evening escaped Santana's lips, and she finally opened her eyes, allowing her head to swing around in the direction of her fellow elevator guest. "What are you doing here, Gabby?"

She realized in that moment how grossly difficult it was to escape her past - and her present. Clearly, alcohol wasn't even up to the task.

"Our last conversation before you left," Gabby began, stepping forward and lightly running her hand up and down Santana's exposed arm. It felt good, and part of Santana's brain protested against the pleasure she received from the simple touch - rebelled against the fact that it was coming from the wrong blonde. "I wanted to make sure you were okay," she said. "You shouldn't have to face this kind of situation alone."

Ready and willing to take care of her - if only Santana would give her the chance.

Santana shrunk away from the touch. "I told you that I wanted to do it alone."

Gabby didn't flinch at the words. She was used to Santana's emotional isolationist behaviors. It didn't mean she liked it, but she knew that she could handle it. "Well, I got a room of my own. So don't worry about that." She reached forward and pressed the button for the floor above Santana's. "Just know that I'm in room 715 if you need me."

Santana watched the number on the LED panel above the floor buttons slowly climb as they rose. "What are you going to do all week?"

Gabby smiled. "I don't know. Take in the Lima sights."

Santana chuckled, "What are you going to do the other six days and twenty hours?"

"I have a lot of reading to catch up on," Gabby stated with a light shrug. "It's my first week off in a year. I'm going to read about things that have nothing to do with medicine, probably pick up a few romance novels."

The doors opened to Santana's floor, and she stepped out. She wasn't sure what to say to the other woman. She shoved her hands into her pockets and licked her lips. "Well, I..."

Gabby smiled sweetly. "Sweet dreams, Santana."

Before Santana could reply, the doors slid closed.

Santana's feet dragged underneath her as she made her way to her room. She unlocked it and slipped inside before pressing back against the door and sinking to the floor, memories assaulting her mind and making her wish - not for the first time that night - that she could be a fully functioning adult, that her past would let her rest, that...

Maybe she could move on and be happy with someone as sweet as the girl in the elevator, the girl ready and willing to take care of her.

If only Santana could stop thinking about the love that both built her up and crushed her in high school.

Santana had only been in Seattle for six months. She was settling into the groove of her new job - making frienemies and kicking whoever's ass it took to climb ranks as quickly and efficiently as she could.

What she hadn't counted on was her boss being into tae kwon do and inviting Santana along for some...practice. She had gotten a little too aggressive with someone more skilled than her, and now her bleeding head was all she had to show for it.

Though Thomas had totally given her a highfive on her way out the door.

The emergency room was mostly empty. It was a quiet night.

The curtain was pulled back, and a stunningly gorgeous woman walked in. "Hello, Miss Lopez," she said.

Santana nodded at the woman as she pulled out the things she needed to stitch up Santana's head injury. "This is going to sting, isn't it?" Santana asked, already wincing.

The doctor looked up at her, smiling softly. "I'll be gentle," she said. And Santana's stomach had fluttered unexpectedly.

Since then, Gabby had been a constant in her life. She was there with coffee every Sunday morning. They went shopping and clubbing together. A few times a year, Santana found that she had stuffed all of her emotions so deeply down and they were so compact that they exploded. Gabby was always there to make sure that Santana made it home okay.

They'd only slept together once. When Santana woke up that morning, she couldn't stay in her apartment, in her bed where she'd just had sex with another woman. It always felt like cheating even though it never was.

That morning, she had gone to her gym and hopped into the shower just as tears started streaming down her face. She had left Gabby alone in her bed.

Santana had never been great at dealing with her emotions.

As the past faded and the present took its place, Santana managed to stand and make it across the room, throwing herself down onto her bed. As she sunk down into the world of unconsciousness, she was assaulted by flashes of blonde hair and beautiful smiles - blue and green eyes the only distinguishing features in her muddled, drunken thoughts.