No Matter What

Part 3

Santana walked back into the choir room behind Brittany and she felt a little bit more relaxed having talked some things through. She knew she had a lot of things to talk over and things were far from being the way they used to be, but she was sure now that coming here was the right thing to do.

She took her seat at the back of the choir room again as everyone was chatting around her and she wished she was able to join in but couldn't get over the anxiety and the feeling that she wasn't wanted here, kind of like how she felt when she first walked in to this room all those years ago and knew she didn't fit in, and definitely wasn't wanted there, it had taken her time and effort to prove to the group that she did want to be there and that she did enjoy the time spent rehearsing and performing. She almost wished to go back in time to her senior year and change how things ended.

"Please relax" Quinn's quiet voice made her jump a little and she glanced quickly and looked away again.

"I'm fine"

Quinn chuckled softly "I may not have seen you in 10 years Santana, but you were my best friend for a long time, I can still read you like a book, you haven't changed much."

Santana smiled at Quinn, because other than Brittany, Quinn had been the only other person Santana was truly close to and she could never hide her secrets for long because Quinn always knew. Her smiled faded and a frown took over her face, Quinn had always stood by her, stood up for her, called her out when she needed to be called out but was always loyal to her, and she had let her down and ran away, cut her out of her life and ignored her for 10 years, and here she was, being kind to her, she was the one who had invited her here, had embraced her when she arrived and there was nothing but kindness in her eyes where there should be anger. Some at least.

"Santana please stop, you are worrying too much, forget about the past just for tonight."

"Aren't we here to reminisce about our past?" Santana shot back at her, a small smile playing on her lips and Quinn shot her one of her famous Quinn Fabray looks.

"Very funny" She replied with a smile of her own. "Seriously though, stop overthinking everything, I can see the wheels spinning in your head."

"I'm sorry"

"Don't be, we can talk it out later, but for now let's crack open the wine" Quinn says with a smile, taking her hand and pulling her down.

"Hell yeah" Mercedes shouts as she follows when Quinn starts handing out glasses to everyone.

"Every time I take a drink of alcohol, I Just have visions of Brittany vomiting all over me during the tik-tok performance" Rachel shivered at the thought of the memory "Literally every time."

Laughter sounded out all around the room at the memory and Brittany let out an embarrassed groan "That was awful what were we thinking."

"I was mortified and so angry with you all" Will Laughed remembering the incident, "We were so lucky that everyone thought it was special effects or you all would have been suspended."

"My dads would have grounded me for life" Rachel said dramatically which earned her chorus of laughter.

"Yeah, my dad would have grounded me too" Mike said followed by a lot of "mine too" from everyone else as the laughed back at their stupidity.

"My favourite part about that whole Alcohol awareness week and being drunk and hungover the whole week was Santana just being hysterical at really random times and crying for absolutely no reason" Mercedes said followed by a huge bark of laughter.

Santana laughed shyly and shook her head as she remembered how emotional she had been that week. "I was such a mess, god knows how my mom never knew what was going on, and to this day I have never had such a bad hangover as I did that week."