Into The Woods

By LiveYoungDieFast

"Rachel I swear to god, if I hear one more Barbara Streisand song, I'm going to pull this car over and leave you on the side of the road."

"Would you really leave your small, vulnerable girlfriend alone on the side of the road in the middle of the night?" Rachel asks.

Santana doesn't answer, but by the look on her girlfriend's face Rachel knows that she has won this battle.

"I thought not" Rachel beams as she presses play to the next Barbara song.

They were spending the weekend with the glee club attending a bonding workshop. Santana didn't understand why they needed to bond since all of the glee club got along well. She was dating Rachel Berry for Christ sake, if they could get along, anyone could.

They continue to drive down the dark road with the only light coming from Santana's head lights guiding their way. Suddenly there's a loud bang and the car jolts.

"What was that?"

"I think we might have a flat tire" Santana replies slowing the car down.

She pulls the car over at the side of the road and leaving Rachel in the car she jumps out to inspect the tire. She can tell straight away that the tire is flat and kicks it in frustration before she makes her way back to Rachel.

"So the tire's flat."

"Can't you fix it?" Rachel asks.

"I don't know how to."

"We can call Puck and Finn and get them to fix it. They can't be too far ahead of us."

"We would have been right behind them if you hadn't have made me stop for to take a photo of that pub."

"It was called the Streisand Inn Santana, it was an opportunity not to be missed."

"That still doesn't warrant me having to take a picture of you next to the sign" Santana argues.

"Just call Finn" Rachel says ending the conversation.

Santana pulls her cell phone out of her jeans pocket and frowns at it when it won't unlock.

"I have no battery."

"Santana we were heading out on a multiple day trip, why wouldn't you charge your cell phone in preparation?"

"I forgot, okay?"

"This is exactly why I gave you a list to follow before you packed. Item number three was charge your cell phone."

"Well it's too late now isn't it? If you're so prepared then you should have a fully charge cell phone that you could be using right at this moment to call Puck so he and Finn can come and change the tire but instead your wasting time berating me."

Rachel ignores her girlfriend's ranting and instead retrieves her phone from her purse. She finds Finn's number as she knew that Noah would be driving and presses the call button.
It doesn't even dial, she just gets three beeps that tells her she has no signal.

"It's no use. I can't get a signal" Rachel tells Santana.

"What are we going to do? We can't stay here it's getting late."

"I saw a motel a few miles back. Do you think we can make it there and call for help?"

"It's worth a shot and even if we can't call for help we can at least get a room for the night."

"This wasn't a plan was it? I know you didn't want to go on this glee trip but you didn't have to fake a flat tire so you could get me in a hotel room alone."

"No it wasn't planned but I actually prefer this outcome" Santana smirks.

"Should we take our bags?" Rachel asks as they get out of the car.

"Do you really want to haul our crap for a few miles? I think we should leave it here, the motel should have some stuff. You ready?"

"Yes."

"You know if we take a short cut through the woods, we cut off half of the journey."

"Are you sure about going into the woods?" Rachel asks.

"Sure why not? I think I have a flashlight in the trunk."

Santana pops the trunk of her car and roots around for a few minutes before she finally locates the flashlight.

"Okay, let's go."

Rachel immediately grabs Santana's hand and plans to stay as close to her girlfriend as she possibly could.

They walk a little deeper into the trees, the only light being provided by the moon and the flashlight Santana was holding. The more they walk the tighter the grip Rachel had on Santana's hand.

"So what's the first thing we're going to do when we're in New York?" Santana asks.

It's the only thing she could think of, she wanted to distract Rachel who she could tell was freaked out by the situation they were in.

Santana tries her best to listen to her girlfriend while at the same time trying to keep their bearings. The full moon was directly in front of them so she is just using that as her compass.

They have been walking for about fifteen minutes when Santana's flashlight runs out of battery leaving them with only the light from the moon.

"Maybe we should turn back" Rachel suggests.

"If we go back, we'd still be in the same position we were in before. Don't worry everything will be fine."

They carry on walking through the dense woods, but the lack of a flashlight making it harder to see where they are going.

"What was that?" Rachel asks.

"I didn't hear anything."

"It sounded like someone shouting."

"It was probably nothing" Santana says but as the words leave her mouth she hears the noise.

It sounded like a man shouting from somewhere within the woods. If the sound of someone calling out wasn't scary enough the gun shot that followed certainly was.

Rachel gasped at the sound and got closer to Santana if that was even possible.

"It was probably just hunters" Santana says.

"What if they shoot us by accident? I have heard many stories where hunters have accidently mistaken humans for their prey. What if that happens to us? What if they shoot at us?"

"Shh, calm down" Santana says, cupping Rachel's cheek as she tries to reassure her girlfriend.

"They sounded really far away. I'm sure we won't even cross their path. You know I won't let anything happen to you. Come on, we should keep moving."

Although she would never admit it to Rachel, Santana was a little scared. They were in an unknown wood, in the middle of the night, where there were people with guns. It didn't help that she could feel Rachel flinch with every sound of movement she heard.

The second gun shot was closer. So much so that it felt like it came from right behind them. Santana turns around and is faced with two men holding guns. They didn't look like hunters and that thought scared Santana.

"Well if it isn't some human targets?" one of the men laughs.

He takes a shot which hits the tree that's a foot from Santana's arm.

"John you can't aim for shit. I'll show you how a proper man shoots" the taller of the men says.

He cocks the gun but before he can take his shot Santana grabs Rachel's hand.

"Run!" she yells.

Rachel doesn't have time to think she just feels Santana tug her hand, but after a few seconds they lose their grip on each other as they hastily run away. Rachel runs as fast as she can, her heart is threating to beat right out of her chest.

Eventually she has to stop, she could hardly breathe. She looks around for Santana, but she wasn't behind her like she thought. She didn't think her heart could beat any faster, but the absence of her girlfriend proves her wrong.

What if Santana fell? What if those men caught her? They could have done anything to her.
She could be dead.

A snap of a twig pulls Rachel out of her thoughts and instinctively she turns towards the noise. There holding a tree trying to catch her breath was Santana.

"Damn you run fast for someone with short legs."

Rachel ignores the comment and launces herself into her girlfriend's arms. She practically knocks out all of the air that Santana had just managed to get back into her lungs.

Rachel kisses Santana as hard as she can.

"I love you."

"Don't say that. It's like you're saying goodbye and we're getting out of this" Santana promises.

"I just wanted to say it, just in case."

"Well I'm not going to say it because it will feel like I'm giving up."

"What if this is the last time we see each other? You tell me you love me every other day, but you won't say it on the day we might possibly die."

"For fuck sake. Fine, I love you."

"I forgot how magical you were with words."

"Rachel Berry, I fall more in love with you every day. We're going to get out of this situation and then I'm going to spend the rest of my life loving you. Oh crap, please don't cry."

"That was beautiful" Rachel says trying to hold back the tears.

"I'm really glad that you found my words beautiful but this really isn't the time for you to get emotional."

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay. I promise once we get to the motel you can tell me all about how beautiful I am."

"I said your words were beautiful not you."

"You're saying I'm not beautiful?" Santana challenges.

"You're as beautiful as your ego is big."

"You're implying my ego is very big which means you're also implying I'm very beautiful" Santana smirks.

The smirk quickly falls off Santana's lips when she hears the sound of twigs snapping. She brings a finger up to her lips to signal to Rachel to be quiet.

Santana takes Rachel's hand and starts to guide her through the vast amount of trees. They hear another gunshot ring through the woods and Santana inwardly curses herself for suggesting walking through the woods in the first place.

They can still hear someone following them, branches and twigs snapping beneath their feet. Santana's tired, it's been a long day and she's been continuously running through the woods. She takes a look at Rachel and she can tell that she's tired too. They won't be able to out run the hunters if they continue like this.

She spots a large fallen tree that should be big enough to hide them for a couple of minutes so they can catch their breath. She gently tugs Rachel over to the tree and makes her sit down first and then joins her, shielding her girlfriend's body with her own.

Santana strains her ears to see if she can hear anything and she isn't sure if it's her mind playing tricks on her, but she's sure she can hear the familiar sound of twigs snapping beneath someone's feet.

The footsteps get louder and Santana can hear the definite sound of boots against the ground along with heavy breathing. She knows that they are close and she knows that they would find them. The tree is large but it wouldn't cover them if the hunters walked past.

Santana makes a quick decision and sticks out a foot, tripping the figure as it walked past. Her original idea was to run as fast as she could whilst he was on the floor, but when she hears the man groan in pain she freezes.

She stood up and looked at the figure on the floor.

"Finn?"

"Santana, are you okay?" Finn asks as he stands up.

Santana launches herself at the tall boy and wraps her arms around him.

"I never thought that I would be so happy to see you."

"Where is Rachel is she okay?"

"I'm perfectly fine Finn" Rachel says from behind them.

"When we arrived at the hotel and you didn't turn up, Puck and I came to look for you. We
saw your car at the side of the road and spotted your footprints going into the woods."

"Where is Puck?"

"I'm here. Damn you two can run. We've been following you for at least half a mile" Puck says.

"We were trying to run from the hunters, they shot at us."

"You're not hurt are you?" Puck asks.

"No Noah, we aren't hurt. Just a little exhausted."

"Come on we'll get back and fix your car."

"Do you know how to get back?" Santana asks.

"Yeah, I used to go hunting with my Dad before he skipped out on us. I managed to track you down so I think I can get us back" Puck replies.

It takes them an hour to get back to the cars and ten minutes later Finn has changed the flat tire. Finn drives his own car back to the hotel whilst Puck offers to drive Santana and Rachel in Santana's car.

Santana wraps her arms around Rachel who then rests her head on Santana's shoulder in the back of the car. She finally could relax now that she was out of the woods.

A/N Just a little one-shot in the spirit of Halloween. Thank you to Beebeeborez for reading over it for me. Just to let you know I've put some updates regarding my stories on my profile.

Thanks for reading and Happy Halloween.

Live_Young.