𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗥𝗘'𝗦 𝗡𝗢 𝗣𝗟𝗔𝗖𝗘 𝗟𝗜𝗞𝗘 𝗛𝗢𝗠𝗘

𝐇𝐎𝐌𝐄 𝐈𝐒 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐈𝐒, those are two sayings that Aerin had heard and grown up with all her life. It's the place where one should find the most comfort, the most joy, your safe place when the world becomes to barren to handle. But what happens when you've never had the experience of actually experiencing what it feels like to actually call a place home ? to settle down and get to create memories instead of constantly feeling like you're on the run from nothing. Aerin's 'home' was always whichever predicament her mother found herself in, or new 'Uncle' that magically appeared out of thin air to offer up their shotty 4 bedroom apartments.

At 10, it was Uncle Ramone who worked for UPS, At 11 it was Uncle Beau Baxley who was apparently a retired Arizona Cardinal. And 12 saw her with multiple 'uncles' in one consecutive month, Uncle Eddie the aforementioned millionaire, a short-statured guy with a goatee who sold bootleg Elton John CD's ( which made Aerin nickname him Uncle EJ ) and, of course, Willis Philburn. After that, they fortunately began to dwindle in numbers, and Astrid made the ultimate decision to leave everything behind to start again for the sake of her children.

But it only went downhill from there.

Aerin hated how hollow her house felt, as if it were abandoned and brittle. She walked around her bedroom, box in toe and felt a shaky sigh escape from her lips. It would be a lie for her to say that she never made memories here, like bringing Lennon home for the first time or the many petty but mostly enjoyable arguments that she and her brother would get into whilst they watch the Super Bowl. But that emotional connection that should've come with those memories wasn't there for the blonde, they were just mere events that occurred in her life.

A mother should be happy bringing their children into the world, but for Aerin the arrival of her baby girl felt like her own pseudo eviction notice, with no date warrant for when her childhood would be essentially stripped away from her before it even ended.

" The lines, they're still there," a low tone mumble suddenly called out from the doorframe, causing Aerin to sharply turn startled. Atticus pointed at the top line inked in deep blue sharpie, the corner of his lips tugged for a somber grin. " December 22nd 2005, I remember being so happy when I finally grew taller than you. 6 months of drinking skimmed milk whole from the jug and stretching every day really payed off."

" Right..stretching," Aerin sardonically smiled through a light chuckle. Setting her box down on her bed, the girl went over to inspect the lines closely. " You didn't even grow that much," she gloated, placing her finger on the red sharpie mark which represented her own timeline of pre-pubescent growth. " See, It's like 3mm away from mine. which means we were technically still the same height. I can bet that you were probably standing on your tippy toes to make yourself look taller, Thumbelina." she teased, sticking out her tongue playfully.

Atticus sneered, " Thumbelina ? Is that the best you've got?" he challenged, leaning up against the door.

" Okay, how about....Pee-Wee Shitbag ? Is that better ?" Aerin smirked delightfully whilst Atticus's brows shot up in surprise. He then lifted his hands to give her a small round of applause, whilst Aerin pretended to curtsey.

" Wow, not bad, dilhole," Atticus commented, " Santana's bitchiness must've really rubbed off on you when you two used to go out," he then moved towards his box and began to load several different knick-knacks off of Aerin's dresser drawer. Suddenly, once he had reached the end, the boy then stopped and lightly chuckled as he held a baby pink coated picture frame in left hand. " I feel like dad would've liked her. From what I can remember the dude used to be a real sarcastic, hard ass who took nobody's shit. Like, that one time when he'd always stick up for you whenever the Little League baseball coach would faze you out of every game because he didn't want 'a girl to jeopardize his winning streak'. "

Santana. The one name that could always mute the girl in an instant, and make her heart slightly sting. The events of last week were still played in her mind constantly, one and off, neverending. She could still feel the soft pressure of the raven haired girl's lips as they landed smoothly against hers, almost like a rejuvenation that Aerin never knew she needed. A deer in the headlights, that was what Santana looked like afterwards too. She didn't respond, never pushed Aerin off and if anything, she had been in the calmest state of mind that the Cline girl had ever seen her in since they had first met on that faithful day in August.

But now, Aerin's main concern was whether or not Santana would tell Catalina about what went down...because as much as she hated to admit it, the Latina had a thing for revenge, good or bad.

" Yeah, dad would've really loved Catalina," Aerin replied back with a cold tone, knowing full well that Atticus was most certainly not talking about her current girlfriend of 2 months. An awkward silence fell amongst the pair before the girl decided to turn her attention back to what brought her here in the first place. Picking up a roll of duct tape that she had left on her bedside table, Aerin reached for her first box labeled 'DVD's' and taped them shut. One bitter sweet memory bundled up, another zillion memories to go.

Atticus quietly shut the door behind him and also partook in helping his sister pack up the rest of her things. Starting with the more useless items such as hangers, bags of old macaroni art and hand turkeys from the girl's younger years to the more sentimental ones like Lennon's memory box, the one thing his sister would never let him touch.

For years, Aerin would always keep the medium sized old vintage Family Circle's biscuit tin in a secluded corner at the side of her dresser drawer. And every single time the boy would even dare to question it's contents she would snap and tell him to mind his own business.

His guesses had come down to one thing, there was either a large sum of money in there from all the child benefit Aerin had received from Lennon's birth father's family, the Hopkins aka one of the richest families in Lima, Ohio. The patriarch of the family, Tannon Hopkins owned almost half of the entertainment business chains in the oblique town and had made a mega-investment into Breadstix when it was first starting up. Which meant that not only had he earned a large sum of money for his work, but he had also gained an even bigger amount from upscaling and banking in on a uber-successful restaurant located in the heart of Lima.

His wife, Jo Hopkins, was a high-flying Lawyer who had served some of the biggest court cases known to the residents of Lima. TJ was their only son, and Lennon was their only grandchild; which meant his niece would most likely reap every nickel their family sewed.

And in the Cline's case, every nickel counted.

A shot of adrenaline rushed through Atticus's veins once Aerin left the room for a split second to answer the doorbell as he quickly popped the lid off and set the box down on his sister's bed. Soon after, however, the boy's eyes widened from what was actually in the tin. In a nice neat little bundle, tightly bound by one piece of aged ribbon sat a stack of photographs. And without even looking at them, he instantly knew what they were off and who had taken them that awful night.

July 16th, 2008. just 8 days after Lennon's birth and 3 days before the twin's birthday. All he could truly remember was the aftermath, and the ugly, painful hangover. In a state of slight panic, Atticus then unwrapped the ribbon and began to spread out the pictures to try and understand why she would keep them a secret.

"𝐇𝐄𝐘, 𝐈'𝐕𝐄 𝐁𝐄𝐄𝐍 𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐄 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐘𝐎𝐔," a voice suddenly called out, making the boy jump from shock. When he turned around, Atticus met the soft hazel eyes of Quinn Fabray, who had been wearing clothes that definitely didn't fit her usual 'good Chrisitan girl' niche. She wore a blood-red turtle neck top with one black stripe in the center, which stopped right above her belly button. And instead of wearing a skirt, like she normally did, the girl had put on jeggings.

" You look good, Fabray," he smiled, his gaze still lingering whilst Quinn stood still with arms crossed. " I'm surprised your mom even let you out the house looking like that, doesn't she have some strict rule about you not being able to show skin unless you're wearing a sleeveless top?"

" Who said anything about her knowing that I left the house looking like this ?" Quinn suggested, leaning up against the doorframe, " This was purely Santana's doing. she said that if I want to get a date for the Homecoming dance..then I'd have to apparently ditch my normal clothes and sexify my closet. My taste in fashion wasn't hot enough for her, so this is the best we could come up with. This is her old turtle neck from Junior High, and she found these jeggings in an empty donation bin for charity."

" Well, I think that it looks cute on you, extra super cute," Atticus responded, completely forgetting to guard the tin and all the photographs of Aerin.

Quinn sent an appreciative smile across to him, with a nod following suit. " Thanks, Sam actually just said the exact same thing to me....guess this turtleneck really is working wonders."

" Did he also say that you have a pretty hot smile as well ?" Atticus echoed back, whilst Quinn's gaze fell to the floor, trying to bite back the unesscesray sheepish grin that was trying to fight its way out. " Fabray, you don't need a shrunken turtleneck to make yourself look sexier. You've always been hot, just in your own 'Christian-Mingle-.com' type of way."

Quinn opened her mouth before shutting it once more. She just simply couldn't find the right words to respond to what Atticus had just said. There was no doubt in her mind what his true intentions were, any tool with a brain cell could see it clearly, he was trying to win her over again, to make her fall back in 'love' so they could become the non-existent it couple that the pair were just a couple months back last Semester. It was a never-ending spinning revolver for the girl with men, specifically high school men. They'd pick her up, promise her the world, then right when everything was perfect, chaos would monetarily ensue.

It happened with Finn, It most certainly happened with Puck and their up and down relationship and she could see clearly that it was going to occur with Atticus as well. She'd moved on, way along, Sam was the perfect piece to her rejuvenation puzzle. Warm and kind, sweet and understanding, attentive; those were the traits she needed in a person right now and definetly not the average footballer douchebag.

" It's Quinn by the way," she finally mustered out as Atticus raised a brow at her in mere confusion. " You always used to call me by my last name when we went out together. It was cute at first, but then after hearing it over and over it kinda just lost its touch."

" Okay, so what if I rolled the r when I said it then ?" Atticus compromised, moving closer to the blonde. Quinn playful rolled her eyes in discernment, not taking him seriously. But once she saw the boy's mouth gape ajar to try and form the sound, she waisted no time in quickly covering his mouth with her pointer finger.

" Don't, just don't" the pearl blonde sighed, unintentionally tracing her finger down the side of his cheek. It was a common habit that she had picked up when the two used to date, something she was so desperately trying to break out off.

A knowing smirk curled on Atticus's upper lip as he scratched the back of his head.

"Shut Up," Quinn abrasively mumurmed.

Atticus furrowed his brows. "What ! I didn't even say anything."

" You were going to-"

Just as Atticus readied himself to retort, Catalina suddenly waltzed into the bedroom with a aqua blue solo cup in one hand and a slice of pizza in the other. She had Finn Hudson's letterman jacket wrapped around her body ( most likely without his knowledge) and two silver wristbands which Quinn instantly recognized as belonging to Santana. " When you two are finished making out, there's a full Hawaiian pizza waiting downstairs."

" I hate Hawaiian pizza," Atticus shuddered, making a squeamish face whilst the taste of pineapple mixed with mozzarella cheese.

" And we weren't making out," Quinn assured with an unintentionally stern tone, patting Cat's shoulder before she left.

A defeated look sprung on the boy's face as he watched the Fabray girl march away, which only made Catalina let out a soft chuckle in amusement. " Denied by Stretch Marks ? That's gotta leave a sting, Atticus."

" Nah," Atticus huffed mundanely, his hands dug deeply into the pocket of his McKinley High branded hoddie. " She's into Sam, head over heels apparently according to Aerin. We had a thing, but I ruined it a long time ago - Fabray needs stability, and a person to lift up, make her feel special."

Catalina raised a brow. "Why can't you do that ?"

" I don't know how to," Atticus echoed back coldly, icy blue eyes piercing into Cat's gaze," Holding on won't do me any good, and trying to big myself up will only make this worse. I don't hold onto feelings, that's my sisters role...and for the most part, she does a pretty good job at playing the part, considering all the meds she's on for her anxiety."

" 𝐂𝐇𝐔𝐆, 𝐂𝐇𝐔𝐆, 𝐂𝐇𝐔𝐆 !"

The sound of a harmonic chorus of cheering rung out amongst everyone as they watched Noah Puckerman try and attempt the ultimate challenge; drinking one whole litre's worth of Pepsi, Coca-Cola and Dr Pepper fused into one. Tilting his head back to control how much liquid entered his system, which obviously wasn't working out for him because the drink had been spurting all over the place and dripping on the floor.

Astrid Cline had somehow managed to coerce her daughter's friends, close and distant, into coming together for a small get-together as a way to apologize to her daughter for the eviction and everything in between that. She'd felt a massive amount of guilt from watching Aerin all week, sulking or barely talking to her, and it ached the sunset blonde's heart knowing that she was the cause of it. Her plan had been rather intricate than simple. Astrid firstly made a fake Facebook profile, Lauren Laurens, then added mostly all the people in Aerin's social circle who could've been deemed as 'fun' and 'exciting'. That list included, Catalina of course, Santana Lopez (even though her Facebook hadn't been in use for a year) Brittany S Pierce, Sam Evans, Quinn Fabray and Puckerman.

The oldest Cline then proceeded to write messages on their walls about a so-called party at ' Madame Quarterback's House' and linked the invitee with her daughter's own page. Needles to say, her idea had worked out- she was happy, the happiest Astrid had even seen her. And watching her little girl laugh till her face went pink as she swept up the kitchen was the perfect remedy for the guilt that was still burning from within her.

" And that ladies and gents, is how you finish a whole litre of fizzy soda without stopping," Puck bellowed out proudly with one large gasp, dropping the jug to the ground as several burps erupted from his mouth. " Never underestimate the power of the Puckzilla, I'm a forced to be reckoned with."

Santana rolled her eyes from the beanbag chair that she sat on, which was for the most part, the only seat in the living room considering everything else had been moved out or taken away by government eviction movers, " Calm down, Puke, all you did was drink a bunch of processed, sugar fizzy drinks that will probably cause you severe health issues when you're 40 and working at a rundown gas station."

Aerin tried to resist the laugh that was trying to escape from her lips, but once she saw Puck's disgruntled face shoot a funny glare back at Santana she couldn't help but chortle. This caused the Latina to look in the direction of the girl, and once they had locked eyes she instantly became silent and fumbled with her fingers awkwardly. They still hadn't talked since the kiss, or hung out around each other too. Santana could tell it was getting to the Cline girl by her body language alone, but Aerin only hoped that she'd gotten over it.

" Hey..erm..Aerin ? " Finn suddenly spoke up, jabbing her side which slightly startled Aerin. Lennon giggled from the boy's side as she stuck a different assortment of different scratch and sniff stickers on his face. " Do these come off, or are they permanent? I have to take passport pictures tomorrow-"

" Of course they come off," Aerin responded through a chuckle as Lennon stuck one final sticker on the Hudson's nose and then slyly head towards Rachel, who was currently in the middle of a deep conversation with Blaine. " Although, they might leave a mark on your face once you rip them off. I'm so sorry about her, Lennon sometimes has the tendency to colour on people she's never met before."

" That explains the weird poking I felt on my arm," Finn expressed, rubbing the spot on his arm which had been smeared in purple. " And it's okay, no need to apologize," he then leaned in closer. " You know, I've never told anyone this, but sometimes I've dreamt of what my future kid would look like. I'd like to imagine that he'd be really good at sports, super athletic, probably good with ladies - and probably part of a show choir or something."

" So, basically you then ?" a giddy Mike called out from his spot and sat leaning against the wall, Tina on his left and Mercedes on his right.

Tina ran her hands through her hair, a chuckle escaping her lips, " Could you imagine that ? A mini Finn Hudson ? That would be so weird-" she commented rather loudly, causing mostly everyone's attention to be shifted to their odd conversation choice.

" Totally wack more like," Mercedes chimed in whilst she poured a cup of ready made punch into her solo cup.

" I don't find that weird or wack in the slightest bit," Rachel remarked as she scotched closer to Finn, whilst trying to nicely swat Lennon away from putting a daisy sticker on the good side of her face, " I actually find it rather sweet, not a lot of boys have the tendency to admit things like that openly."

Santana made it a point to sigh loudly, " Of course you wouldn't, Berry," the girl snared with a devious grin. " You've already called dibs on being the oven that loads all of his cute, overly chubby little buns, hasn't she Tubbs ?"

Rachel pursed his lips and threw a scowl at the raven-haired girl's direction before Finn could even have a chance to respond to his own insult, "That's absurd! I would never call dibs on bearing Finn's buns. He knows that he's allowed to do whatever he wants after high school, be with whoever he'd like to be."

Pointing a finger in the direction of Santana, she then continued on with her argument, " You're probably just jealous of the thought of me being a better mother than you'd ever be. And that fact that I actually have the necessary equipment to bring a child into the world."

Santana sat up from her slanted position on the bean bag with narrowed eyes. " Please! I'd be a much better mother than your sorry ass ever would dream of being. Telling people what to do is basically my strongest suit, I was born and raised in the toughest part of Lima AND I'm the most protective human being on the planet earth when it comes to the people I care about the most."

" Buns? Why would Rachel be baking buns for Finn? I thought we were talking about his mini-me," Brittany asked in a more than confused tone, looking to Sam for an explanation. The lighter blonde wasted no time in leaning over to her and whispering what Santana really meant, and once two and two finally clicked for the Pierce, her nose began to scrunch.

" Gross !"

" Can we change the subject please," Kurt monetarily advised through a breathy sigh, earning an insightful amount of nods from the rest of the group, including a clueless Lennon who had finally made her way to sit in between Kurt and Blaine. " We should talk about things that are actually affecting us right now, topics like-"

" Homecoming ! let's dish about that," Aerin said with the full intention of where she wanted the topic to lead to. " None of you guys have told me who you're going with, or what your plans are for the after-party."

" Okay, first off all I don't dish, Lady Cline," Puck insisted with a twinge of sass. " And second, everyone knows that I'll be taking the hottest babe in the school, the one and only Lauren Zises."

" Hottest? I'm not sure about that," Artie piped up with a mumble as Atticus handed a drink to him. "I mean, I'm all-inclusive when it comes to women, big or small, but I would never go for someone with such a huge- personality."

Santana scoffed inwardly. "God, you can be such a dick sometimes, Abrams," she even nastier scowl in the boy's direction than she had given Rachel just an hour before.  When the dark-haired girl shifted her gaze back down to the phone that sat on her lap she momentarily noticed that an important piece of jewelry had vanished from her left wrist. A look of worry set on to her face as she rose with sudden force, practically shoving and throwing every object out of her way which unfortunately included Lennon's small book of stickers. In all the months of knowing the Lopez, Aerin had never seen her this panicked in her life. And what was worse was that nobody even seemed to notice that something was wrong. They'd all returned to their normal, separate conversations.

Aerin got up from her spot next to Finn and moved towards Santana as she kicked empty pizza boxes out of the way to see if her bracelets were under any of them. " Santana, Santana! What are you doing ?!" she questioned with haste, grabbing her arm once she saw the raven-haired girl inch closer to her mother's family heirloom. She was shaking, but Aerin could tell that this was definitely not out of anger. It was the kind of shake that the blonde had been more than used to over the years, the type to always leave a person feel numb afterward. And her eyes- they were almost desolate as if everything was spinning but she had nowhere to turn. People always got anxious, always went into a state of mind that could make or break them at that moment, but this was Santana Lopez.

She was a girl with a tough exterior and an even tougher walls that protected her from every ruckus part of society. Nothing ever scared her, made her panic uncontrollably without warning. At least, until now. " The bracelets, on my hand-they, were the one thing that I had left of my Abuela," Santana tried to explain, holding back the tears that were trying to jerk their way out of the corners of her eyes, " That was all I had of her, the only freaking reminder of the woman I used to look up to once upon a time."

Aerin softened her grip on the girl's arm. " Did she die ?"

" No," Santana quickly replied through a shaky sigh, " But her love for me did."

◜ -ˋˏ 𝙍𝙊𝙉𝙉𝙄𝙀'𝙎 𝙉𝙊𝙏𝙀𝙎 ! ˎˊ- ◝

new chapter out now ! what did you think? what was your fav part?

okay i just wanted to let y'all know for those who are confused, catalina is 'bianca' and the bianca that i was referring to in my old chapters (if you've seen the mistake) is catalina. i accidentally started calling the character by her real-life face claims name and didn't realise until someone pointed it out to me! (i'm a dummy)

i tried to veer of aerin for a bit in this one and focus more on her brother, and the little 'thing' he still has for quinn. did you guys like that ? i might insert some of that throughout the last 4 chapters of this fanfic but let me know what y'all think.

ALSO, I've begun re-writing a lot of my other chapters to make this story better and so there's an actual storyline...i already finished 'welcome to mckinley hell' SO if you want to check that out feel free too !

ANYWAYS !  I sincerely hope y'all have an amazing evening/afternoon and always remember that RONNIE FUCKING LOVES U <3