Two Ghosts

Chapter 18

When Santana awakes the next morning, there's a dull throbbing at the back of her head. It's followed by the distinct sound of buzzing and it takes her a little longer than she'd like to admit to figure out what the noise is and where it's coming from. She refuses to open her eyes in attempt to hopefully fall back asleep but it doesn't work. For a split second, it all feels familiar and she thinks she's back in her tiny apartment in New York but she lets out a groan and rolls onto her side. She can tell the buzzing is coming from her phone but whoever is calling or texting her or whatever is just going to have to wait until she's ready for all that. She has no idea what time it is and she's perfectly fine with never finding out.

But as she snuggles back into the softness of her pillow, a content smile gracing her lips, she remembers everything, like everything, and it's enough to have her feeling wide awake. Maybe not that awake, but she opens her eyes nonetheless and looks around.

She's back in her bedroom, alone, and can only vaguely recall how she got there. She remembers sneaking downstairs to bring Brittany a blanket last night and how it was supposed to be just that, but then Brittany looked so cute while she slept and Santana couldn't help herself. She remembers Brittany saying she missed when Santana kissed her cheek and then she remembers everything that happened after. It felt like a dream, to be that close to Brittany and to feel her lips on her once again, but dreams don't last forever and at some point you have to wake up.

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Santana's wake up call happened in the form of accidentally knocking over the Jenga tower with her foot when Brittany tried pulling her on top of her. It was an instant mood killer since the noise scared the crap out of them both enough to have them jolting apart. They wondered if the sound would wake Maribel too and the last thing Santana needed was for her mom to catch them in a pretty compromising position after she has spent so long dispelling her thoughts of her and Brittany getting back together.

But instead, they giggled about it as Santana pushed further away from Brittany to collect the fallen pieces.

"Technically, that was our tie breaker." Brittany said, sitting up again to watch, "So I'm still reigning champ."

Santana narrowed her eyes as she picked the last piece off the floor and set it on the coffee table, "That didn't count."

"Why not?" Brittany smirked, pulling Santana closer again by her sweater.

"I don't know," She moved to kneel in the space between the coffee table and the couch and watched as the blonde began to smile mischievously, "I-I was clearly distracted."

"Why's that?" Brittany teased and began to lean in.

All Santana could get out was a breathy chuckle before their lips met once again. This time it was soft and slow and her insides turned to mush at the warm fluttery feelings. But then the little voice in her head that always reminded her to stop and think grew louder and louder and soon her heart couldn't drown out what her head was warning her about. Santana had a sudden burst of extreme clarity and it caused her to freeze. She knew exactly where this was going if she continued and even though it's been too long of a time and she would so love to reconnect with Brittany in that way, she didn't want it to be like this. Everything that led to this moment, all the years they missed out on in each other's lives and the slow rebuilding of their friendship was too great, too important to be reduced to sneaking around in the middle of the night drunkenly making out. That seemed like the easy way out and after everything they've been through, they owed it to themselves to do things right this time.

There were obviously some things that they needed to sort out first and they probably shouldn't complicate it even more with sex just because Brittany's super hot and Santana can't control her emotions.