#santaresa

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Teresa learns about Brittany Pierce fairly early in their relationship. It’s a sort of quid pro quo of ex-lovers with Santana saying, “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” after Teresa asks her what, exactly, her reasons had been for avoiding serious commitments in the past. The initial evasion is a little annoying to be honest, but it’s only their third (actual) date and they’re getting along well enough that Teresa still wants to see where this might go. So she tells Santana just enough about Olivia to satisfy her curiosity without entirely outing her ex, and in exchange, Santana shares the history of her one serious relationship with her once best friend who’d been the first (and last) girl she’d actually loved.

It makes a certain kind of sense to Teresa—once bitten, twice shy, and all that—but Santana rolls her eyes and emphatically denies that getting her heart broken by Brittany had turned her off relationships. “It’s just a lot of fucking time and effort to put in with someone you just met,” she points out with a shrug, “and all my positive energy was focused on getting through med school and becoming a doctor. It just seemed like way less of a headache to keep my personal life uncomplicated until I got my professional life worked out, which it is now,” she’s quick to add, as if sensing that her explanation might not be winning her many points, but then that familiar wolfish smirk appears on her lips once again. “And besides, it was the first time I was single in a city full of hot, available ladies since I’d come out. Like I was passing up that opportunity.”

That makes a certain kind of sense too, and while Teresa does appreciate Santana’s brutal honesty, she doesn’t love the size of her little black book. She does, however, understand it a little bit better after hearing more about Santana’s past. Teresa has her own past, after all, and not all of it involves Oliva. She’d had her heart broken a time or two before Liv, and she’d even enjoyed her own (very brief) period of exploring her sexuality with a little less discretion than she currently employs.

She eventually tells Santana a little bit about those other women too, not all at once, of course, but gradually over the weeks they spend dating and getting to know each other better. They even trade stories of the guys they’d dated in high school before they’d really figured themselves out, though even there, Santana’s list is far longer than hers. Despite her colorful past, Teresa only grows more confident in the relationship with every day that passes, so she doesn’t really have a reason to think much about Santana’s most significant ex until she announces that Brittany is coming to New York for a visit.

“It’s kind of a working visit. She’s got some dance workshop thing she’s invited to,” Santana informs her. “She wants to get together for dinner or something.”

“She wants to have dinner with you,” Teresa repeats flatly, not at all liking the implication of that. Her stomach swirls with something that feels very much like jealousy—the kind that she can’t just laugh off like she has whenever one of Santana’s many ex-conquests has come up in a conversation. Brittany wasn’t a conquest. She was the woman Santana had been in love with. Teresa is sure, by now, that she’s fallen in love with Santana, but she can’t be sure if Santana feels the same about her because neither one of them have dared to utter those words yet.

“Not with me exclusively,” Santana is quick to clarify, clearly picking up on Teresa’s concern. “Like, all of us. Me and Q and Berry and Hummel. The Lima Escape Club,” she quips with a grin.

“Oh.” It only sounds a little bit like a sigh of relief.

Santana’s grin turns knowing, and she angles her body sideways on the couch, curling a palm over Teresa’s jean-clad knee as she leans closer. “You’ve got nothing to be jealous about, Rese.”

“I’m not,” she denies, her face already heating. Santana’s expression says bullshit even if her mouth doesn’t, and Teresa huffs. “Much,” she concedes, rolling her eyes. “She’s your ex.”

“Yeah. My ex,” Santana stresses, squeezing her knee in emphasis. “Who does not live in the same city and still want me back. Unlike your ex,” she grumbles, clearly still pissed with Teresa’s ex-girlfriend for dropping by Weather Up unannounced three days after the hospital gala.

“Olivia doesn’t want me back. She just didn’t like you at all.” It’s not strictly true. There’d definitely still been some measure of interest on Olivia’s part, but mostly, she’d just wanted to make sure that Doctor Lopez didn’t run in the same social circles as Olivia’s clients and could be trusted not to out her to anyone who might. “Wonder why?”

“‘Cause she’s an idiota. She let you get away. I’m not doing that,” she vows, voice gentling as she inches her hand up Teresa’s thigh. “Brittany’s my past. You’re my present and,” she glances away, cheeks darkening and looking endearingly awkward all of a sudden. “You know,” she finishes with an embarrassed shrug.

“Your future,” Teresa supplies, trying and failing to suppress her pleased smile.

“If you’re lucky,” Santana says, quickly recovering most of her cockiness.

“I think you mean if you’re lucky.”

Santana tips her chin in acknowledgment. “So...does next Thursday work for you?”

“For what?” Teresa asks, suddenly feeling like she missed part of the conversation.

“Dinner.” Santana looks at her expectantly before clarifying, “With the Lima Escape Club.”

“I’m invited?” She wasn’t expecting that, to be honest.

“Well, duh. You’re my girlfriend, and Britt wants to meet you,” Santana informs her easily, like she really is just talking about an old friend and not an ex-girlfriend. “Hummel’s bringing Harry too so she can check him out. She’s had some weird rainbow connection with him since she dated him in high school, so she wants to make sure his boyfriend isn’t a dick.” A wicked smirk curves her lips at her own innuendo. “You know, figuratively speaking.”

“Brittany dated Kurt?” Teresa was not expecting that.

“Yeah, for, like, a day.” Santana chuckles, undoubtedly from the look of sheer incredulity that she’s certain she’s wearing. “He was just experimenting with her...and the flannel.”

The attempt to picture Kurt Hummel willingly wearing flannel is even more inconceivable to Teresa than him dating a woman, nevermind the same woman as Santana. “Sometimes I really wish I’d gone to your high school.”

The stories she’s been told—