all my dreams are coming true (now that they're about me and you)

Where it began, exactly, Santana could not say. She couldn't put her finger on a particular moment, or a single event, that marked when Rachel Berry had become something more to her than just a short girl with a huge voice. More than a classmate, or the captain of the Glee Club. More, even, than just the most unlikely friend she could ever have imagined herself having.

When she became everything.

She just knew that it had happened, that there existed a bright, golden line in her life that separated everything into two distinct sections: before Rachel, and after Rachel, and that things had changed for the better as soon as that line had been crossed.

It was as if everything on the "before" side was cloaked in fog, all hazy, grey, and murky. She could recall sadness, and anger, and confusion, an ache of helplessness that had pained her for days on end. There were bright spots amid the cloudiness, of course – Brittany. Quinn. Her abuela, when she had loved her.

Abuela. The word might as well mean "pain" now, instead of "grandmother."

There had been other friendships on that side of the line, of course. Friends who had attended birthday parties when she was a little girl, and then much different ones who had attended much different parties when she got older. The innocent touch of a girl's hand on her shoulder, declaring lifelong loyalty with the certainty only the very young know, mingled far too quickly with the less innocent touch of a boy's hand elsewhere, trying to make her feel things she couldn't and never would, no matter how much she tried to convince herself she wanted to feel them.

She had loved to sing, even then, but she hadn't understood why, entirely, until she saw and heard Rachel sing, and then she knew. In that moment, seeing the girl with the long, lustrous brown hair close her large, luminous eyes and merge, somehow, with the song she was singing, become one with it, connecting everything inside her, all that she was and hoped to be one day, with the melody, in a stream of sound that wrapped itself around her and then reached its arms out to ensnare the listener in its powerful embrace, Santana knew. She understood, finally, and she longed to feel that embrace again and again, because she recognized the expression on Rachel's face as she sang as the one her own face wore whenever she, too, connected her voice and her soul with a song.

It was the release of pain, the absolution of sorrow, the negation of years of hurt and bewilderment. It was knowing, in those moments, exactly who she was and what she would one day become, and no one and nothing could touch her then.

It was freedom.

It was the perfection of her being, spilled out into the air like stardust.

Maybe that was when it started. In that darkened auditorium, with the only light in the room directly above Rachel, bathing her in an almost ethereal glow, and the sound of freedom and escape everywhere around them.

part two

The first time Rachel ever saw Santana Lopez, the cheerleader was walking down the hallway, flanked by two blonde fellow cheerleaders, and all Rachel could think was that she looked like a dark angel, a former demon still just slightly too wild for heaven to tame completely. There was a haughtiness and an arrogance in her expression, for sure, but Rachel could see the pain and uncertainty that was not quite hidden behind that mask of cold dismissal, and the fear behind the flash of anger in her eyes when she'd caught Rachel staring.

Words had been said then, vicious and cutting, but strangely, Rachel felt hurt not for herself, but for the girl who had said them. She wondered what it was inside Santana that made her lash out that way, made her feel like her survival depended upon keeping everyone but Quinn and Brittany more than an arm's length away.

She felt an acute, sudden pain upon realizing that she wanted nothing more than to climb inside Santana's heart and fix whatever damage had been done to it, because, well, someone should. No one, she declared silently, should have to live her life feeling like a cornered animal, snarling and slashing at anything that got too close.

Weeks passed, and things continued on in much the same way they had the first time their eyes had met. Rachel stared, transfixed by the beauty and the pain she saw in Santana's face every time their gazes locked, and Santana hissed and sneered and growled out insults as only she could. But each time, Rachel saw a little more deeply into the girl with the flawless skin and stormy eyes. Each time, she saw the question in her eyes that no one else had looked long enough to see, because everyone else was too fearful to maintain eye contact with Santana for more than a few seconds.

It was plain enough for Rachel to see, and it haunted her days and nights as she turned it over and over in her mind.

This is not who I am, her eyes had said. Help me. Who am I?

Neither girl could have imagined that they would begin to find out together, after one fateful song was sung in the auditorium, in a moment where Rachel hadn't even been aware of Santana's presence, and Santana had left before she could be seen, blindly stumbling out into the hallway, tears filling her eyes.

part three

To say that it was a shock to Rachel, not to mention the rest of the Glee Club, when Santana and her angelic minions sauntered their way into the choir room to audition formembership in the club, would be a huge understatement. It was even more of a shock when the three Cheerios showed themselves to be excellent singers and dancers, and their acceptance into the club was met with great enthusiasm by Mr. Schuester and the rest of the New Directions.

For her part, Rachel had been mesmerized by the way Santana danced, all serpentine and sinuous, as though her body had been fashioned specifically for the purpose of enthralling all who watched her. In tandem with her voice, which was every bit as dark and smoky as her complexion, this made Santana nothing less than the pure embodiment of seduction - pure, heated desire in a cheerleader's skirt.

But there was more to it than that, beyond the undeniable power of Santana's sex appeal (which Rachel had to admit had affected her far more than she would have thought was possible). No, there was something else, something more. For the first time, Rachel had seen something else in Santana's face, heard something else in her voice, watched it expressed in the motion of her limbs: real, honest joy.

The girl had actually laughed, long and loud, when the song was over, clearly heard in the silence that had followed, before the assembled Glee Clubbers had begun to clap and cheer and hoot and scream. Santana's laughter was gorgeous and melodic, and it made Rachel think of a waterfall spilling down, cold and clear, from the top of a mountain somewhere.

It was the most beautiful thing she had heard, Rachel decided, since the first time she had heard Barbra sing.

And this time, when their eyes locked and Rachel refused to look away once again, there was no fear in Santana's eyes, no pain, no uncertainty. Only happiness to be here, now, in this place, where whatever tormented her in the world outside could not follow.

An understanding passed between them then, and then Santana's look changed. Rachel grew dizzy and heated at the way Santana's eyes took her in, devouring her with the intensity of that gaze. No one had ever looked at her like that before, seen her the way Santana was seeing her now. She shivered at the feeling that arose from a place within her that she'd barely ever really thought about before. It felt as though she were burning from the inside out, the flame spreading out from the center of her being to set her skin alight.

Santana smiled – a real smile, not the sarcastic smirk everyone was used to seeing - and she and Brittany and Quinn sat on the three empty chairs between her and Finn, with Santana next to her, then Brittany, and then Quinn taking the seat next to Finn. Santana chatted amiably with the two Cheerios as they got situated, but even as she talked, her hand first brushed against Rachel's, then grasped it in a firm but gentle squeeze. Rachel was too shocked by the unexpected contact to speak or do anything else, and suddenly it was all Rachel could do not to either pass out or run to the girls' room to splash some cold water on her face. She'd never felt anything like what the mere touch of Santana's fingers interlaced with hers was making her feel. It was as though her bones were all liquefying inside her, making her feel weightless, with Santana's long, strong fingers the only things keeping her from floating away.

Mr. Schuester's voice snapped Rachel out of her daze somewhat, as he asked if anyone else had anything they'd like to sing. Finn and Artie moved forward, and soon the room was filled with music once more.

Rachel, however, was lost not in the performance (for once), but in the feeling of whatever it was Santana and her lovely fingers were doing to her hand, sending the most amazing tingles up her arm to travel throughout her body and settle in her lower abdomen. Sound and motion passed by in a blur, and before she knew it, the bell was ringing and Santana was releasing her hand, causing Rachel to bite back a whimper at the loss of pleasant warmth, though it was not enough to cause all the strange and wonderful new sensations coursing through her to stop.

Especially when the way Santana was smirking at her – ah, there it was – finally registered, and she realized it was a different kind of smirk, one that was inviting and alluring, not harsh and dismissive like the one she had seen so many times before. And even more so when the Cheerio linked pinkies with her teammates, then turned on her heel and walked away, exiting the room with a swing to her hips that left Rachel's mouth suddenly dry as dust and her thighs clenched together so tightly it was almost painful.

Other club members came up to her with puzzled looks and curious questions - including Mr. Schue, for some reason - but all Rachel could say was that she honestly didn't know what was going on, or why. However, what she didn't say, regardless of whether she understood it, was that she really, really liked the way she felt right now.