Change The Ways

Part 2

Santana is becoming a morning person

The look of surprise on her mother's face when she walks into the kitchen before 9am on a Saturday is almost as satisfying as the look of confusion on Quinn's when she pulls up at 5:20am on Monday to see Santana waiting on the porch ready to go. Santana's figured out that the prompter everyone arrives at cheerleading practise the less likely it is that Sue will keep them behind, and the more time she gets to hover just outside the choir room and listen to that voice work its way through broadway classics and love anthems and sometimes even the occasional top 40 hit.

So Santana has taken to screaming ferociously at any cheerio who doesn't show up on time, because she's got places to see and people to watch and she sure as hell isn't going to be late.

Santana has yet to notice that as long as long as Rachel keeps waiting for the sound of Santana's footsteps approaching the choir room before she begins her rehearsals, she can never really be late.

So she'll rush to the choir room, just to wait outside and listen, feigning interest in the posters on the walls in case anyone walks by.

Rachel walks straight past the choir room with her lunch on her way to the bleachers.

She actually got invited to something. Even if it is just a lunchtime cheerios practise, it still counts. The fact that it wasn't so much an invite as Santana's panicked response to Rachel calling her out on watching her morning rehearsals is being blissfully ignored. Rachel's also trying to ignore that little smile on Santana's face when-

"I'd love to, Santana."

Rachel's so engrossed in watching the Cheerios (or just one of them) work through an outstanding routine that she forgets about food altogether, and doesn't realise she'd left her lunch on the bleachers until Santana runs up to her just as she's about to go into her first afternoon class and hands her the pink lunchbox without saying anything, just smirks and then jogs back down the hallway.

She opens it when she gets home and finds a scrap of paper on top of it's contents, the same sloppy handwriting as her Lima Bean coffee cup.

"Maybe you would've had time to eat this if you hadn't spent the entire practise staring at my ass."

Rachel blushes slightly and bites her lip as she folds the note up and puts it in her pocket. She hadn't thought Santana would actually call her out on it.

Santana Lopez steps to her left just in time for her face to catch the purple slushy.

Luckily even with the frozen drink in her eyes she can still see well enough to deliver a fantastic left hook to the jock's jaw which sends him straight into the locker beside him and then down to the floor clutching at his face. She turns on the spot after wiping the worse of it off her face, and the stunned look on Rachel's face almost makes her pause to think about what she just did. Luckily the burning in her eyes kicks in and she lets out a gasp which triggers Rachel into grabbing her emergency slushy kit from her locker, gently gripping Santana's elbow and efficiently guiding her to a bathroom.

She noticed Brittany watching in the corridor, and then noticed her absence in the restroom.

But then Rachel's telling her to take her top off and her brain just gives up altogether and she doesn't notice the dry shirt Rachel's holding out to her for an incredibly awkward, silent (and, in hindsight, super embarrassing) thirty seconds. She quickly grabs the shirt and turns away.

"Sorry. No idea where my mind went just now."

"Probably the same place you think mine goes during Cheerio's practise."

Did she really just...? Santana just catches a smirk in the mirror before Rachel heads out of the door.

Well, crap. The fact that Rachel actually flirted with her – flirted back – lifts her spirits for the rest of the day.

Rachel has decided that being driven home is nice after a long day at school.

Even if Santana does drive like an absolute psycho, and her passenger seat road rage was just the bare minimum compared to her drivers seat road rage.

Thankfully she spares Rachel's delicate ears by delivering the majority of her expletives in fluent Spanish after Rachel asks her to calm down slightly. She doesn't know exactly what the "Creo que eres muy hermosa" she heard Santana mutter under her breath whilst glancing at Rachel when they stopped at traffic lights means, but given the tone of the Spanish she heard in the remainder of the journey, she's not entirely sure she wants to find out. Besides, it's raining, so Spanish cursing or no, Rachel is happy for the ride.

It's when Santana pulls up outside of Rachel's house and offers her a ride tomorrow too, just after Rachel accepts and leans over to kiss her on the cheek, and Santana freezes for a second, then as Rachel is about the open the door says "hey", reaches in the back for her Cheerios hoody and holds it out to her,

"Take this, it's freezing."

that Rachel realises how much she actually misses being in a relationship. These are all the little things Finn used to do for her.

Before she goes to bed she logs in and checks his relationship status on Facebook.

Single.

She goes to bed happy, but bad dreams make her restless.

Santana swipes angrily at the tears running quickly down her cheeks.

Because when Finn marches up to her in the corridor and just outright calls her a lesbian – well, there goes that coming out speech I had prepared – she can almost deal with that. And when he tells her to back off Rachel, that's nearly okay too. But mostly because she sees Rachel talking to him later on and smiling up at him as if he had rainbows coming from his face, and maybe she can't stand to lose another one to another stupid fucking jock.

She gets a text later from Rachel asking why she missed glee practise.

Her reply is nothing but evasive, hoping to avoid talking about anything to do with him.

"Sorry you had to walk home."

"It's okay, Finn gave me a ride :)"

Santana turns her phone off for the next two days.

All Rachel wants to do is wipe that stupid smile right off Finn's face.

Because she had just heard from Tina what he said to Santana, and Rachel's absolutely livid that she didn't find out about it before agreeing to go out with him on Friday.

But it's too late to cancel the date, and at least it'll give her the chance to talk to him about it. Rachel didn't get the chance to speak to Santana about it before or after she found out because between not being around during Rachel's morning rehearsals, disappearing into the stock room whenever Rachel shows up at the Lima bean, and apparently skipping glee practises completely, Rachel thinks Santana might be avoiding her. She could kill Finn.

Rachel gets somewhat enthusiastic about explaining to Finn why what he did is wrong, and she kind of hopes the expression he has on his face when he drops her off later on just stays there. People like him deserve to be miserable. She really can't believe him.

"I don't get why you care, Rachel, she's just some slutty cheerleader. She used to give you hell just for wearing animal sweaters."

Rachel sends Santana a text before she goes to bed.

"Finn is such an idiot."

On Monday Rachel can hear footsteps hovering outside the choir room as she goes through her warm-ups, and picks the lyric sheet to her left. When she reaches the end of her rap-less acapella cover of Pink's 'Perfect' she thinks she hears a sniff before the footsteps shuffle away.

Santana's never worked harder on an assignment in her life.

But when Mr. Schue once again tries to inflict 'duets' on the Glee club and says the pairs will be chosen at random, he turns it into a competition for a voucher for Breadstix, which Santana definitely likes the sound of.

That's what she's doing it for. If anyone asks why she's been spending lunchtimes shut up with Rachel in the choir room rehearsing, or why they catch her humming under her breath, or why her schoolwork is littered with little notes in the margins - "start acapella?" "first chorus = R, 2nd = me, 3rd = both" "lower part for 2nd verse?" - that's what she'll tell them. It's for that voucher.

But when Santana picked Rachel's name out of the hat she heard the small giggles and "tough break, Lopez." from the fellow glee club members and she forgot about the voucher for a minute because Santana Lopez is furious that after all this time – two damn years of being in glee club together - the single most talented person in Glee club – hey, in the entire damn state – is still at the bottom of the barrel socially, even when amongst people that are supposed to be her friends.

And she's decided to turn the phrase "if you can't beat them, join them" on its' head because for the last few months Santana has been carrying around this guilt about the way she treated Rachel, especially now that they're getting into some wacky kind of friendship, and so when the name she picks gets that reaction, Santana actually feels physically sick because that used to be her and she used to be one of the worst ones and even she treats Rachel well now.

So she's doing as much as she physically can to push that right back into their faces, by winning that damn voucher. But it's not enough just to win. They have to give the best damn performance Glee club has ever seen because these kids need to see that Rachel Berry is a complete star. Something Santana wouldn't be panicking about if these were solo performances, but these are duets so Santana gets that to make Rachel shine so bright the glee kids go blind, Santana needs to bring her A-game.

But if Rachel asks why she's been working so hard -

"I just really want that voucher. Hey, can we go over that verse again, I think I got some harmonies."

Rachel's pretty sure she broke every single speed limit on her way to the hospital.

And who uses seatbelts anyway?

Her. But barely. Because Quinn just sent her a text telling her to pick Santana up from the hospital and Rachel's brain is in overdrive with the horrific possibilities about what might've put her there in the first place.

It's just a sprained ankle from a poor landing in cheerios practise. Santana's more concerned about how coach is going to bitch her out for the sloppiness in her failed dismount than she is about the injury itself. But that's okay, because Rachel's got that covered. Which is why when Santana says she knows how Rachel could make her feel better, she replies straight away,

"Anything."

And that is why when Santana leans over and connects their lips, Rachel kisses her right back. She wants to help her feel better, after all.

Santana looks Leroy and Hiram Berry straight in the eye one at a time before taking a deep breath and explaining herself.

It's not like they're going to judge her, because they're gay, so that would make them hypocrites.

Rachel has tendency to ramble on, as everyone in the entire school seems to have noticed. But Santana's figured out that if you listen, you learn things. Like how much Rachel kind of likes her. And how Rachel likes traditional things. Asking her fathers for their blessing is traditional, right?

They don't make it easy for her. They appear stern. They keep referring to Rachel as their "baby/angel/princess" and at one point Santana almost feels bad for asking because, wow, she does not feel like a good enough person to be asking about dating their daughter.

But it's when Santana gets half-way through the speech she had planned – and then preceeded to totally stumble over because even when she got her first solo glee performance and her parents came to watch her sing she has never been so nervous in her life – she pauses to take a breath and get her head together when she hears it. The restrained chuckles. Which quickly transform into apologetic laughter, because they were ready to say yes before she was even ready to ask.

"Santana, I'm so sorry we're putting you through this – Leroy, get the poor girl a glass of water! - Yes, of course you can date our daughter. Lord knows you've earned it."

Santana is torn between mortified and just absolutely relieved, and maybe a little dazed as Hiram Berry pulls her into a hug. She would make a joke about killing them, but she doesn't want to make a bad impression on her (nearly) girlfriend's parents.

Rachel wonders how she ever though she truly knew the pain of being in love.

Since she's not the most social person, gossip takes a while to reach her, but it always gets there in the end. Brittany broke up with Artie and that's totally okay. Until Brittany is flirting with Santana. And then it hurts.

She didn't hang around long enough to see Santana tell Brittany to stop, and when she walks into glee slightly late that afternoon she doesn't know that the reason people are staring at her is something to do with her name falling from Santana's lips earlier that day.

But she realises that maybe she's not the only one feeling the pain of being in love when Santana steps up to the front of the choir room and delivers a performance so moving that every girl and a couple of the guys are crying. Well, every girl besides Rachel. Who still doesn't know Santana's pain isn't from being in love with Brittany.

Love begins to inch its way back over to Rachel's original – though apparently not entirely accurate - definition when Santana corners her after everyone else has gone home and kisses her up against the piano while muttering apologies. Rachel's obscenely genuine and oh so ecstatic laughter takes them both by surprise, but it doesn't take long for Santana to join in, looking into Rachel's eyes and knowing that they're both totally feeling it. Santana Lopez is in love with Rachel Berry - which is a complete relief, because Rachel Berry loves her back.

"Will you be my girlfriend?"

"Really, Santana, you couldn't have asked that before your hands got under my sweater?"

Santana fully embraces her new role as the big spoon.

Rachel's never known any other way. After they get ready for bed and pull silly faces at each other in the bathroom mirror while brushing their teeth – Rachel wins, she always does, but Santana still gets the sympathy prize when she tries to laugh and has a choking fit on the toothpaste – they climb into bed and snuggle up, Santana waiting for Rachel to get settled before resting her hand on her hip, and Rachel pulling it round her waist like she usually does.

They'll usually stay like that for the whole night but if Rachel's got something on her mind she gets restless and-

"Ow."

"Wha- Oh God, Santana, I'm so sorry, I was asleep!"

-this probably won't be the last time Santana takes an elbow to the face. Santana tells Rachel that it's no big deal when she tries to insist on an ice pack.

She just makes all the cheerios that snigger at the black eye run extra windsprints, keeping an eye (her good eye) on them while she's sat on the bleachers letting Rachel snuggle into her and picking at their lunches.

Rachel realises that with the right person, the right time can be any time.

With Santana. Now. As their kisses become more passionate than playful while they're sat on the sofa in Rachel's living room watching Funny Girl (Santana's kind of whipped) and Rachel stops them and whispers I love you, and Santana smiles and says it back. Rachel turns the movie off, stands up and reaches for Santana's hand before leading her upstairs.

Santana is slow and gentle and doesn't push Rachel faster or further than she wants to go. It would have been worth waiting for but it happened today and Rachel's definitely okay with that.

Afterwards Santana holds her, peppers her with kisses and tells her she loves her in every language she knows (all two of them) and Rachel feels so perfect that she could just cry.

Actually, she is crying, something she wasn't aware of until Santana's face turns severely anxious and she starts asking

"baby, what's wrong?"

and that just makes Rachel want to cry harder because Santana actually cares.

Rachel wakes up to sunlight streaming through her window and panics when she notices she's alone. Before Santana opens her bedroom door ass-first carrying what looks like an entire breakfast buffet and some coffee on a tray and then Rachel's trying not to cry again.

Santana finds herself daydreaming of New York.

Well, it does have some great colleges. And Santana's not the type to deal with long distance – emotionally, sure, because Rachel's definitely the one. But she has needs, and Rachel has this thing she does with her tongue.

When she calls Rachel to tell her she got in to NYU, there's a pause before Rachel finds her voice.

"You applied to NYU?"

"And I got in! I'm coming to New York!"

"But you didn't tell me you even-"

"Rachel, shut up and come over here so we can start looking for apartments online."

Rachel realised that going to New York was much easier when she brought the best part of Lima with her.

Seeing her girlfriend smiling at her from the audience on opening night gives Rachel a strange sense of closure. Like her dreams have all just come true so Rachel can stop hating Lima now. She can just move on and forget it. She's got bigger and more beautiful things to focus on.

Like how she needs to remember to tease Santana for crying during Rachel's spectacular musical finale – Rachel cried while she was singing it, but that's kind of her thing. Except Rachel forgets all about that until the next day because she walks into her dressing room to find the biggest bouquet of roses she's seen in her life, and her gorgeous girlfriend leaning up against her vanity mirror wearing the proudest smile Rachel's ever seen anyone she wasn't directly related to aim her way.

Rachel thought she would pass out laughing that one time back in high school when she actually let herself picture any of her glee teammates choosing to come and watch her perform showtunes – after all the ones she got through in Glee there weren't many left they hadn't already seen anyway – but when she told Santana not to come to opening night, her girlfriend pretty much just kept brushing it off.

"What if I mess up? I don't want you to see that."

"You'll be perfect. And I wanna see that."

Not that she's not glad to see her now, though.

"But honestly, Santana, was it good?"

"Well, I hate to say I told you so, but..."

Santana spots the ring in the window when she's walking back from the deli on her lunch break.

And then she kind of kicks herself because honestly, there is nothing she wants more than to stay with Rachel for the rest of her life and this seems like the perfect way to tell her that, and she can't believe she didn't think of doing this sooner because she's pretty sure Rachel's been ready for a while now and Santana was coming around to the idea by the end of their sophomore year, so it takes her all of two seconds of hesitation before she dashes into the store to buy it.

The look on Rachel's face when Santana drops to one knee and pulls out the little black velvet box is both the stuff of dreams and nightmares.

The look on her face when Santana's telling her in disgustingly sweet detail about how much she really loves her was absolutely adorable.

But the look on her face right before she says yes – that second immediately before she says it, where Rachel knows that she's going to marry Santana and is about to tell so her by saying that one word -

"Yes!"

- is Santana's favourite.

Rachel can't wait to say "I do" to the girl of her dreams.

She almost just wants to tell all of the bridesmaids working on her hair and make-up to just stop. Santana's seen her first thing in the morning, she knows what her worst looks like and still loves her so really all of this hassle is just getting in the way of Rachel becoming Mrs. Berry-Lopez.

Then Rachel really has to reel in her urge to powerwalk down the aisle. Especially when she locks eyes with her fiancé stood at the alter and just knows that every day after this one will be the happiest of her life.

Once she gets there, Rachel has to bite her tongue to stop herself from telling the Rabi to get on with it and Santana's smirking and squeezing her hands because she can tell exactly what Rachel wants to do. Hey, Santana's probably on the exact same page.

But then before she knows it the vows are spoken and her Dads are crying and she may now kiss the bride and everyone is cheering and she's leading her wife out of the church and they're grinning like idiots.

They're swaying to some bluesy love song – performed to perfection by Mercedes - for their first dance and Santana leans in to tell Rachel how beautiful she looks in a wedding dress - for what she thinks won't be the last time that day, she's already said it half a dozen times in the last two minutes (but Rachel will never get tired of hearing it) – and Rachel pecks her on the lips in response because her face just really hurts from smiling.

Being this happy is so exhausting. And now she has to get used to it.

When Berry-Lopez Jr. kicks for the first time, Santana actually starts crying.

They're lounging on the couch, both rubbing Rachel's stomach and whispering hello's and I love you's to the child they can't wait to meet in person.

She can tell from the ultrasound – Rachel didn't want to know the gender but knew Santana would want to, so when the OB left the office Rachel asked Santana if she could get her a drink of water just so she could have an excuse to run after the doctor and ask without Rachel present; Santana still thinks Rachel really wanted the water but forgets how Rachel didn't complain when she came back empty handed looking slightly teary-eyed and totally overjoyed – that the baby boy is going to be the most handsome, beautiful, incredible, wonderful human on the face of the earth.

Because it has the most beautiful, incredible, wonderful woman on earth as a mother.

Santana's really great with the baby, from the second he arrives in the hospital it's like someone flicked a switch and suddenly her entire world revolves around him - Rachel is her entire world, so that seems pretty accurate, because if Santana thought Rachel was beautiful as a bride then she is just glorious as a mother. He just has the most gorgeous smile. When he burps up on them they laugh it off and when he cries in the middle of the night they're both there in an instant and when he says his first word-

"Mamma!"

- they share it -

"I think he meant you."

"I think he meant both of us."

- because they're doing this together.

And it's definitely not where either of them thought they might be back when they were barely teammates.

But now they're a family. And they never want that to change.

.

Hello! If you are reading this, thank you for making it to the end of the story (or for just scrolling down, maybe? Well done you!) and especially for clicking it at all because wow that summary was so pretentious! I'm terrible at writing them, my apologies. But anyways...

I hope you enjoyed it.

I started writing it 6 months ago and only just went back to it (and reread it and realised I had actually been meaning to finish and publish this one. In April. Whoops!) so if the writing style jumped a bit awkwardly or if I missed something in continuity I apologise!

Also, "Creo que eres muy hermosa" supposedly (google)translates as "I think you're very beautiful".

Feel free to drop a review and let me know what you thought (or if you spot any typos because I saw a few when I first read over this any now I'm correcting it and I can't find half of them). But you don't have to. I always forget to review so I feel a bit rude asking. Either way I hope it was an enjoyable read and that you have a nice week :-)

Tataa for now!