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When she sleeps, Santana still sees Brittany dancing. She sees her in the sunlight, her golden hair spinning around her, her long limbs graceful and elegant. She sees her laughing mouth and her shining almond eyes, and she loves her with everything she has. When she dreams of Brittany, Santana wakes with tears in her eyes, and an ache in her chest, and the knowledge that Brittany is gone. Brittany’s life chip is no longer transmitting, and now it sits beneath Santana’s skin as a weight and as a reminder that she is capable of love, and that she is allowed to have it.
Santana wakes from this dream tangled in her sheets, her bones hurting from thrashing against the side of her rack, and she drags herself from her bed. In the years she has travelled with Hummel aboard his boat, she has learned to distract herself from thoughts of Patheia, from memories of her people, and from Britt. When Britt is in her dreams, she knows there is little point trying to sleep again. Sleep is always elusive when she wakes like this. Instead, she pulls her pants over her hips, stamps her feet into her boots, and shrugs her vest over her shoulders. She might as well, she thinks, make herself useful if she’s not going to rest. She heads to the galley to make herself a cup of the hot cha that the Cap stocks, and then towards the bridge, where Rachel stands at the Nav console, glowing faintly in the darkness.
“Hey,” Santana says, and Rachel glances up and around sharply. Santana holds up the hands not wrapped around her cup, placating. “I’m not here to cause trouble,” she says. “I couldn’t sleep. Figured I’d come up here, help you with where we’re headed.”
Rachel turns back to the console, her light flickering slightly before glowing again softly. “We’re not going anywhere,” she says. “We haven’t picked up a run in weeks. And besides, we can’t leave yet.”
Santana nods, and they simultaneously glance back towards the habitation quarters, both of them aware that Kurt is back there, alone for the first time in almost two cycles. “How long’s he been gone?” she asks, and Rachel sighs heavily.
“Fifteen standard turns,” she says. She flicks a button, and the console dims to standby. In the gloom, a soft blue light begins to pulse. Santana frowns at it, and Rachel turns her head to stare at her, her mouth making a small ‘o’ as she raises a finger to point.
“Santana,” she whispers, and covers her mouth. Santana drops her chin, and then drops her cup.
Beneath her skin, over her heart, Brittany’s life chip pulses slowly back to life. Santana starts to cry.
*
Santana has Tina pry the chip from beneath her skin. Tina talks all the while, a happy stream of noise. Santana isn’t really listening. She wants to hold the chip, wants to examine it for damage, for malfunctioning parts. It’s been dead for cycles. There is no reason why it should be alight again now. She can’t let herself believe that it means Brittany is alive. She can’t, and she won’t. Not until she’s touched it.
“I’ve never seen one up close,” Tina says, numbing her skin and making a small incision beside the chip. Her deft, precise fingers ease the chip out without pain or discomfort, and she holds it up to the sterile overhead light before dropping it with a clatter into the dish beside her. A slightly bevelled disc little more than an inch in diameter, the chip continues to pulse, emitting a low blue light like a heartbeat. Santana reaches with one hand for it, holds it up to her eye. Tina tuts at her and Santana lowers the disc to glare at the medic.
“I need to cover that,” Tina says, and points to the weeping incision on Santana’s chest. Santana rolls her eyes and grabs a swab and a bandage.
“Some other time,” she says, pushing herself upright and buttoning her vest to cover the wad of gauze. Standing back up, she sways dangerously, and grabs the bed to steady herself. Tina plants her hands on her hips, moves to block Santana’s exit. Santana glares at her, and Tina stares back impassively. Sometimes, Santana thinks, having a mechanoid medic is a real kick in the butt. The woman has absolutely no empathy. If she did, she’d let Santana go.
“You need to rest,” Tina says slowly, as if she’s talking to a child. “You’ve just severed a-”
“It’s been dead for cycles!” Santana exclaims, sinking back against the bed. Tina’s strong hands stop her from falling, help her back up on it to lie down.
“Well, right now, your body thinks it’s alive,” Tina says, and busies herself dressing the small cut before cleaning up. “And it’s not happy that you’ve taken it out.”
“Fuck my body,” Santana mumbles, unconsciousness overtaking her, and swirls of yellow hair drift behind her eyes. She’s barely conscious when Tina laughs, and only peripherally aware of her murmured affirmation that she wouldn’t turn the offer down if it were actually real.
*
Santana sits opposite Kurt, who crosses his arms across his chest and leans back in his chair. “I’ve said no, Santana,” he says. He sounds rational, but she feels the barrier in his head slam up against her. She recoils so fast that her ponytail swings behind her head. “And don’t think I can’t feel you poking around. Get. Out.”
Santana places the chip on the table top again, pushes it toward him with her fingers. He watches her, his face carefully impassive. “Please,” she says. “This contains part of her. We can use this to find her.”
“We don’t even know it is her,” Kurt replies, shaking his head. Santana narrows her eyes and glares. She puts her fingers on the disc and pushes it towards him.
“Feel it,” she says. “Touch her with me. Tell me it doesn’t feel real.” Kurt shakes his head, sucks in his cheeks and stares her down. Today is one of those days when she genuinely wishes Kurt Hummel had ever been afraid of her.
“No means no,” he says quietly. “And that’s final. I’m not wasting fuel or time chasing a damn fairytale halfway across the galaxy. No.”
Santana raises her chin and stares at him down the length of her nose, gestures to the thong around Kurt’s wrist. “If this were Blaine?” she says. Rachel, sitting beside her, makes a noise through her teeth. Santana doesn’t turn her head, but she feels the energy flare that Rachel emits, the burst of heat washing over her. Santana doesn’t so much as flinch, although Rachel’s hand on her arm burns. Santana understands emphatically that Rachel feels bringing Blaine up now is low. She doesn’t care.
“This isn’t about Blaine,” Kurt responds tersely, although his fingers twist in the red band he’s worn with pride for the past cycle. Sixteen turns today, Santana thinks. He should have been back six turns ago. She knows why they’re still floating in vulnerable space, and it wriggles beneath her skin.
“How long before you send Sam and the spare pod after him, though?”
“We’re not wasting resources,” Kurt says, pushing himself back and to his feet, until he towers over the two women sitting across from him. Santana stands up too, her hand dropping to the empty holster at her hip. Rules of the boat: no guns, no one gets hurt. It’s a stupid rule, but it means Kurt Hummel still has two hands. Kurt flicks her a smile. “Now, if we’re done? Sam needs help with the engines.”
“Sam always needs help with the engines,” Santana mutters. “It could be the name of this damn wreck of a barge.” Beside her, Rachel reaches across the table for the chip.
“Can I-?” she starts, and places her cupped hand over the top of it. Santana watches warily, ready to stab her with a fork if she does anything. Rachel isn’t as guarded with her thoughts as the rest of the crew, though, and Santana can feel her desire to help emanating from her in waves. The girl is, when the chips are down, a Navigator and a Star. If tracking a person from their bonding chip were at all possible, Rachel is probably the person to do it.
It takes her long minutes, but eventually she starts to glow bright white, and the chip’s blue pulse glows in her hands. She looks up at Santana with a wide smile, her eyes bright with discovery. “We need Blaine,” she says. “If he can convince Kurt, we can find her.”
*
Santana is on the bridge when the pod makes it’s approach, the communicator crackling with static as it tries to make contact. She opens the channel, and smiles when Blaine’s voice comes through, broken and fuzzy but bright and familiar all the same.
“McKinley,” he says, enjoying his moment. “This is Pod 2 requesting permission to dock. Please open Port Bay 1.”
Santana touches the bonding chip that pulses on on the console in front of her and lets out a long, low breath before responding. “Thought you’d decided you liked it better planetside, Pod 1. How comfortable is your rack in there?”
Blaine’s laughter is a balm to her soul, and she has her finger hovering over the bay doors when his response comes through. “I’ve missed you too, Tana. Now open the damn doors. I have moonfruit for you.”
Her finger thumps down on the button so hard she almost snaps her nail, and near runs to the cargo bay to meet him. If he’s serious about the moonfruit, she swears to herself she’d actually almost consider sleeping with him.
He isn’t joking. She’s waiting at the bottom of the ramp when it the door opens, hands on hips. He grins his broad Dalton grin, and she rolls her eyes. She still manages to catch the large purple fruit he tosses toward her, which she presses to her nose. She makes a noise low in her throat.
“Gods, Blaine,” she says, still sniffing. “Where’d you get this? They don’t grow off of Patheia.” He shrugs his shoulders, and straightens his robes.
“You should learn not to underestimate my people. We have extensive gardens, and expert gardeners. We’ve cultivated most everything you can name, and probably things you can’t.” He sounds proud, and she glances at him.
“‘We’?” she says. “When did they become your people again?”
He grins and produces a document from inside of his tunic. “Registered and licenced,” he says. “I’m pretty sure that makes me a Dalton Performer again.”
Santana rolls her eyes. She’s met girls educated on Dalton’s sister moons, and she doesn’t approve of what those girls are taught. She doesn’t know enough of Blaine’s education, though, to argue. “Any news we should know? People looking for us?” she says, changing the subject and taking a nonchalant bite of her fruit. It’s good. Gods old, new, and obsolete, it’s good. She hasn’t had fresh fruit in almost sixty turns, and she’s missed it. She tries not to let how much the fruit means to her show on her face. She’s not showing that kind of vulnerability to a Performer, and not one fresh back from boot camp or whatever the hell he’d called it before zooming off and leaving them with his priggish husband for sixteen turns.
“Nothing major to report,” he says amiably. “Help me unload the pod and you can have the news chip and the other two of those I have for you.” He nods to the fruit in her hand, almost entirely gone now, and she allows him a smile. He kisses her hair softly. “Missed you too, San,” he says, and allows her into his mind to see the truth of it.
*
Santana talks to him as they head together towards his quarters. She carries his bag over her shoulder, and he has a small crate in his arms. Through the slats, she can see an eye staring at her. Blaine says it’s a firebird for Kurt. A real one. He bought it from a trader in the docks on his way off of Dalton. Kurt has wanted one for years, and Santana says she knows, remembers vividly the ways in which he’s been drawn to the little birds and all depictions of them since they’ve been travelling together. She doesn’t say anything about the bird, though, and falls into a heavy silence as they approach the doors to his room. He turns to face her when they reach them, his back to the key panel.
“Tell me what you need,” he says softly, and she stares at him, prods at the barriers he has against her. She drops his bag to the floor, crosses her arms and turns her head. She doesn’t know how to start, doesn’t know how to admit she needs him. Being friends with Blaine has always been about helping him, not the other way around. Santana Lopez does not need help, and certainly not from Performance boys. Except… She does need him.
“I need your help,” she grits out eventually, scowling at the wall.
“What with?” he asks, and she turns to face him. His walls are down for her now, and she can feel his honesty, the lack of guile. He’s asking her, and she owes him her own trust.
“Put the bird down,” she says, fishing in her pocket for the disc. It’s wrapped in cloth to mute the glow, and she unwraps it slowly as Blaine turns and places his burden against the wall. Once the disc is fully uncovered, Blaine presses his hand to his mouth, recoils slightly in surprise.
“She’s alive?” he asks, and Santana nods.
“Rachel says yes,” she says. “I don’t - we’re not looking into it.”
“We’re not?”
Santana secures the disc in her palm and makes air quotes with her fingers. “‘We’re not wasting resources, Santana’,” she says. “‘The engine needs work, Santana.’”
“Kurt?” Blaine says, and she glowers. He nods. “Let me talk to him, San. I promise, we’ll find her.”
Santana touches the red band around his wrist and nods her head. Her understands, she knows that. And she trusts him to appeal to Kurt’s sense of shared humanity in a way that she can’t.
Or at least, he’s the only shot she has.
*
Kurt appears in the galley the following morning with cha in hand and a smile on his face. “Sam,” he says, and the engineer’s head snaps up. Kurt smiles at him, and Santana frowns. “Once you’ve eaten, I need you to get the engines running. We’re leaving orbit. I’ll be down to help you once I’ve eaten.” Sam nods, his hair falling in his eyes. He pushes it back and chews a food cube methodically.
“Rachel,” Kurt moves on, turning to face the Star. Her eyes are bright, and her halo pulses expectantly. “You say you can trace a location from Santana’s bonding disc?” Rachel nods her head. “Good. When the engines are working, I need you and Santana to work together to translate the data to coordinates.”
“Yes, Kurt,” Rachel says brightly. She looks at Santana, and Santana tells herself she will try to work with Rachel without stabbing her. They’re looking. However irritating Rachel’s positivity may be, she’s the best chance in the room.
Kurt is still talking when Santana feels Blaine enter the galley, and then sees him appear at Kurt’s right hand side. He is washed and cleaned, his hair styled perfectly, his uniform pressed and immaculate. At his wrist, the red of his life partner band is visible beneath his cuff. He offers her a smile, and she blinks at him. Kurt ploughs through as if he hasn’t noticed their exchange, looks at her with his cool blue eyes. “Santana?”
She doesn’t answer, but she does pull the chip out her pocket and place it gently on the table between them. She uncovers it slowly. The light continues to pulse as Blaine pulls out a chair, and pats the one beside him for Kurt to sit as well. Kurt places his cup on the table, and sinks slowly into his chair, his eyes locked with Santana’s. It’s weak, but she feels the reach of his mind towards her, and she reaches back. It’s just a touch, but in this moment, they are kindred, and that’s important.
For the first time in a long time, Santana puts all of her trust in other people. It feels good.