It was just after 9pm when Santana sat on the back porch steps of her parents' house. She looked up at the crescent moon and sighed. She played with the frayed threads of her ripped jeans, rubbing the soft cotton tatters across the bare skin of her knee.

Graduation was a week behind her. The dinners and parties were over. Extended family had finally left. Mom and Dad took a long weekend trip to Chicago. She was finally alone. She could finally think.

A dog barked in the distance, and the wind hummed through the pine trees as she played with the half empty pack of Marlboros Puck had forgotten at last weekend's party. Santana didn't smoke much. Brittany didn't like it. Santana didn't particularly like it. But it seemed to go with her mood, and the glass of scotch that left a condensation ring on the step next to her bare feet.

Santana let out another breath, one of resignation, and lit the cigarette pinched in her lips. The head rush came and went. With her elbow propped on her knee, she took another drag from the cigarette and let it blow past the fingers that absentmindedly rubbed over her lips. Her other hand left her knee and reached down to feel the cool scotch glass, as she stared at the night sky again. Searching for answers.

"How could I have missed it?" she thought, taking a sip of the scotch. She let it soothe her throat that burned from the smoke.

"I had it all planned out," Santana sighed in defeat.

Santana did have a plan. It was a solid plan. A good plan. And Brittany threw the biggest wrench into the works. Santana shook her head, admonishing herself. Cursing for being too wrapped up in the plan. In herself. Santana had forgotten the most important part of it. Brittany.

Santana had quietly taken in all of Kurt and Rachel and Quinn's plans. She saw their unabashed hopes and excitement. She even let herself feel that rush a few times. But she needed to stay quiet, and focus on how to be a star, without looking like an excited puppy about to pee itself. She thought Rachel and Kurt needed at least five changes of pants the way they gushed and stressed over NYADA.

Quinn did it right, she thought. They were planners. Methodical, scheming sometimes sure, but always with the goal in mind. The trick was to keep everyone else none the wiser. Because if you fail, no one is there to say, "I told you so". You're only your own disappointment, and everyone else can continue believing you've got it all together.

Santana hadn't felt this out of sorts in a while. Her plan had always been New York. After killing it as Anita in West Side Story, she knew that was a feeling she wanted to repeat over and over in the future. Her future.

So Santana researched and plotted and planned. She wasn't going to enroll in a program like Rachel and Kurt. But she did look into acting and voice classes. Santana found out which ones were the best, or rather, the ones with the most successful clients. She looked into apartments and job opportunities to pay the bills. She practiced what she'd say to her parents, and how she could convince them to let her go. Pros and cons were laid out and she had answers for all their predicted objections. Everything she planned was solid. Her one mistake was that she assumed. Every time Santana pictured life in New York, it was with Brittany. Brittany would be there, taking dance classes or vet tech courses, or whatever the hell she wanted to do, but she was always there in Santana's vision. Brittany was always there.

Santana took another sip of her scotch and a long drag from the cigarette.

"I fucking assumed," she breathed out. "I just fucking assumed."

Santana stubbed out the cigarette and swallowed a mouthful of scotch. She stood up with the thought of crawling into her bed and hiding from the world. Then she sat back down on the porch steps. She needed a new plan, or at least half a plan. She wasn't going to wake up tomorrow as lost as she felt right now.

"God, I'm a shitty girlfriend," Santana whispered to herself, and the moon. "Why didn't I see the signs? Why didn't I just fucking ask?" Santana rubbed her hands into her temples and through her hair.

"Fuck".

Santana felt gentle fingers brush a lock of hair away from her face. She smiled into it, floating back to consciousness after a night of fitful sleep.

"Brittany," she whispered.

She heard a quiet chuckle, and smelled Chanel No. 5. Her brow crinkled.

"Morning mija," her mother whispered.

Santana's eyes blinked open to see her mother's gentle, smiling face look down on her. There was a sign of disapproval underneath the gentleness.

"Mama?"

Santana's eyes now fully open and focusing.

"What are you doing home? I thought you were gone all weekend?"

"Change of plans sweetheart," Maribel replied as she patted the side of Santana's head. "Come on, I made coffee."

Santana watched as her mother left her bedroom. She huffed and sat up, resigned in the fact that it was 8am on a Saturday and she was getting up. She sighed. "Thank God for coffee."

Santana found her mother sipping coffee at the kitchen island, reading the Chicago Tribune. The familiarity of this morning ritual gave Santana comfort, as she poured herself a cup. Wrong paper, but right scene.

Maribel looked up from the paper, and let it fall from her hand. She clasped both hands around her coffee mug and took a sip.

"There's an ashtray with cigarette butts on the back steps and an empty glass in the sink that smells an awful lot like your father's single-malt scotch."

Santana paused, the coffee mug half way to her mouth. Santana had forgotten she left those out. She was planning on cleaning that up today, before her mother was supposed to be home. Santana looked to the sink and bit her bottom lip. Guilty. She sat across from her mother and looked into her coffee mug, searching for an excuse. The coffee wasn't talking and her brain was still half asleep.

"Santana," Maribel reached and stroked her index finger along her forearm. "Scotch and cigarettes don't help. Ever. Plus, that voice of yours is too beautiful for you to risk it with smoking. Please tell me last night was some sort of temporary insanity. Because if not, I'm buying you nicotine patches today."

Santana chuckled at the thought. "No Mama. Just a one-time thing. They're not even mine."

"Puck shouldn't smoke either," Maribel shook her head.

Santana smiled, "There's no telling him anything Mama. You know that."

Maribel nodded and smirked. "So, drinking and smoking? You want to tell me what's going on in that head of yours?"

Santana wiped a bead of coffee that ran down the side of her mug, contemplating her next words.

"Brittany."

"Not graduating?" Maribel clarified.

Santana nodded. "And she didn't tell me." Santana looked up at her mother for agreement. "She didn't tell me. All that time I could've been helping her study, and she didn't tell me." Santana shook her head and looked up at the ceiling for some kind of answer or sign or relief from her frustration.

"You didn't ask," Maribel calmly replied.

Santana nodded her head and looked into her coffee mug again. She slid her hand back and forth around the warm ceramic cup.

"I assumed. I guess," Santana explained as she finished the rest of her coffee. She stood up to refill her mug and looked over to her mother.

"Yes thank you," Maribel replied, and handed Santana her mug.

Santana returned to the kitchen island with fresh mugs of coffee and continued,

"It's like, either I was too wrapped up in my plan to get to New York, or," Santana paused to steel herself for the next admission, "I kind of knew, and didn't want to deal with it."

Santana rubbed her hands over her thighs and gripped her knees. "Either way, I wasn't thinking about Brittany. Not the way she thought about me."

Mrs. Lopez raised her eyebrow, "What do you mean? The scholarship?"

Santana pursed her lips and shook her head, "The scholarship, supporting me when I was outed, trying to help me fulfill my dreams. She even told me, that's what partnerships are about. I say the dream and she helps make it happen. But I didn't return the favor. I didn't ask her. I didn't try. It's all me, me, me, me, me."

Santana wiped a single tear from her cheek and sniffed. She took a couple deep breaths. It was too early in the morning to start crying. She had to work on her new plan.

"So now, I've got to figure out how to go to New York with Brittany. GED? Summer school? I, I don't even know what she wants to do. I don't know what her parents have said about it. I just…I hate this feeling," Santana confessed.

Mrs. Lopez got up and pulled out a notepad and pen from the drawer behind her. She placed it in front of Santana and gave her a hug from behind.

"Then do something about it," Maribel whispered in her ear.

Mrs. Lopez walked away and out the back door, taking her newspaper with her. Santana stared at the blank notepad, and twirled the pen in her hand.

"Get it together Lopez," she said to herself. "Let's do this."