First Day

Santana blinked in the bright sunlight and sighed. It was nice to be employed in a job that allowed her to wake up when she wanted, but it meant she usually woke up alone. She was a late riser and Rachel was an annoyingly early riser. Though, to be fair, she'd have woken up alone today even if their schedules had been perfectly synced. She grumbled to herself as she made her way from the guest room where she'd been banished the night before to her bathroom.

After a quick shower, she stood staring at herself as she brushed her teeth. It didn't make sense. Usually when she was in trouble, she knew exactly what she'd done. But this time she was clueless. She tossed the toothbrush back into the holder on the counter and drummed her fingers on the tile, thinking back to the night before.

"Jacky! Up, up and away!" Santana yelled, scooping up their youngest son to play helicopter. "Did you have a good day at school?"

"We got to make snow globes!" Jack said excitedly, pointing to the coffee table. A blue-green monstrosity of a soda bottle towered there.

"Looks good, buddy," Santana said, setting him on the couch. She ruffled their older son's hair. "How about you, Kardiff? Whatcha got there?"

"It's a book on Greek mythology," the sixth grader said. "We have to write our own myth for class and present it on Friday."

"Well, lucky you, you have a history professor at your disposal if you need help," she said. "Where's your mom?"

"Making dinner."

Santana swept into the kitchen and wrapped her arms around Rachel. She leaned in for a kiss but stopped suddenly when her wife said,

"No."

She blinked in surprise, but took a step back anyway. "Um, okay. Bad day?"

The look Rachel gave her would have sent the most battle-hardened soldier running for the hills. Still, the younger woman said nothing, and kept adding garlic to the sauce she was making.

"Er…did I do something wrong?" Santana asked quietly.

Silence.

"Okay, I'll take that as a yes. I'll just…go get the boys into their pajamas while you finish up."

The campus was alive and bustling as always. Santana usually power-walked through the quad on her way to her office – it made her feel powerful – but today was more of a meandering shuffle as she tried to figure out exactly what she'd fucked up. It had been a long time since she'd earned the silent treatment. At least five years. Actually, exactly five years, because it was during Rachel's pregnancy with Jack and she'd forgotten to replace the cookies and cream ice cream sandwiches she'd polished off before Rachel got home. Bad days….

"Professor Lopez!"

Santana turned to see a tall, pale boy with some rocking blue dreadlocks racing toward her. She smiled, despite the morning she was having. "Hi, Pearce," she said, stopping to let him catch up.

"Hi," he panted. "Okay, so I know that faculty don't usually do this for grunts, but I'd really like to work for you next semester," he said.

She smiled at the freshman. "I need two people…and you have to be willing to, for lack of a better term, be my bitch."

"I'm your bitch! Totally your bitch!" the boy said excitedly.

Santana laughed. "You'll be working with me on the two research projects, and probably helping me mark papers. Up for it?"

"Absolutely!"

"Tell the registrar to send me whatever forms you need signed," she said, heading off toward her building."

"Thanks!" he called.

She sighed, smiling. Teaching hadn't been the first, second, or third thing on her list of career options going into college, but she'd found that she was damn good at it. Once she was inside her office with the door shut, she picked up the phone and dialed Kurt.

"Let me tell you how bad of a time this is," came his harried voice.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I know you're swamped with—"

"With an order of sixty – SIXTY – damned dance outfits for this big showcase! And is it a normal, paid professionals showcase? No. These are fucking ten-year-olds. Which means I'm dealing with DANCE MOMS FROM HELL!"

Santana was deeply regretting her decision to call Kurt for recon. "I know. And I promise I'll bring you your favorite soup and sandwich from Gabriel's for lunch. I just need to know—"

"Why Rachel's pissed at you? Tough luck. You're on your own for this one, because she already threatened to tell Adam about that time I got drunk and destroyed his Battlestar Galactica model if I helped you out. Good luck, Satan – you'll need it for this one."

Santana let out a frustrated growl and tossed her phone into her purse. She plopped down into her chair and pulled the small stack of essays toward her. God help her seniors…she was definitely breaking her rule about grading in a bad mood….

"Right, buddy. Do you want penguins or robots?" Santana asked, holding up the two pajama shirts.

"Both!"

"Good thing PJs don't have to match, huh?"

"Mom says dinner's ready," Kardiff said, sticking his head into the room.

"On our way." Santana helped Jack into penguin pants and his robot shirt and carried him out of the room, following the older boy.

Dinner was pasta with a ton of roasted vegetables. Rachel had made up some grilled tofu as well, but she still wasn't saying anything to Santana. Pseudo-fancy plus silence equaled drama, and Santana was trying desperately to catch up as she listened to their kids ramble on about Kardiff's new instrument and his orchestra teacher.

Rachel glanced up at her with a neutral expression that meant the woman was quietly seething.

"Okay," Santana said when it looked like the boys were done eating. "You two have thirty minutes of cartoons, and then I'll read to you."

"YAY!" both kids shrieked, taking off for the living room.

"Right," Santana said once the loud sounds of Spongebob reruns filled the air. "What did I do?"

"Santana…" Rachel sighed. "I honestly thought you'd know. I really did. I thought after years of us going through this time and time again, you'd have it figured out by now."

Far from having anything figured out, that just made Santana more confused. "Look, I'm sorry. I don't –"

"I have to judge a theater workshop in the morning," Rachel said, standing up. "And the queue was already about a mile long. I'm getting in early to get it over with. Good night."

"Right, everyone," Santana said as her class packed up. "Once again, let me know if the syllabus doesn't make sense. You're big kids now, but even big kids need help sometimes. You don't want to blow senior seminar just because you got two of the media components to your project confused. Go enjoy the sun!"

"Professor Lopez?"

"Oh hi, um…Carrie, right?" Santana asked as the small class filed out.

"Yeah. I just…wanted to say thank you."

"For what?"

"Freshman year, I was never afraid," the tiny blonde girl said. "I left my home in Podunk, middle of nowhere Texas to come to New York, and I was never afraid. But now…I'm a senior and I'm terrified," she said with a nervous laugh. "But your class is awesome – even though it's the first day. Maybe because it's the first day, I don't know. It's just that… everyone in the major hears horror stories of what sem was like under Dr. Ingles, and you've pretty much demolished all the fear. So…thank you," she said, nodding once, "for vanquishing first day jitters."

"You're welcome," Santana said as the girl bounced out of the room. "First day jitters," she chuckled. Then she stopped. "Crap!"

Rachel tossed her keys onto the hall table and rolled her shoulders to ease the tension. It hadn't been the longest workshop, but it came close.

She came to a halt when she walked into the kitchen. "Santana."

"It was Kardiff's first day with the strings group at school," Santana said. "And they did a 'recital' and I missed it, because I had class. That's why you're pissed. You're always big on first days of anything. You took an entire SD card full of pictures of Jacky yesterday," she added, smiling.

Rachel huffed and shook her head. "He's been waiting…ever since he found out about the program in second grade, he's wanted to play the cello and –"

"Rachel, I had to work!" Santana said. "I get it…we both decided put off having kids for a long freaking time for a ton of freaking reasons. And now that we have them, we've both busted our asses to make sure that they have the best childhood possible, and that we're not missing any milestones. But baby, that's…." She trailed off, taking Rachel's hand and pulling her closer. "I'm not going to be able to make every concert, and soccer game, and science fair…. And neither are you," she added softly.

Rachel leaned against her. "He was looking for you. His first words off the stage were 'Where's Mami?' I just…"

"I get it," Santana said, kissing her. "I get it. But we can't beat each other or ourselves up every time we miss something, okay? We'll both go nuts that way."

Rachel snorted slightly with laughter. "I just don't want to turn into our parents."

"Well, I don't throw money at them and you haven't turned into an absentee show parent, so I think we're doing okay on that front."

Rachel let out a full laugh this time and pulled Santana closer. "Sorry for freaking out on you."

Santana gave her a squeeze and a kiss. "Apology accepted. Let's go get our goobers from school, okay?"