Disclaimer: I don't own Glee or 1+1. Rights go to Fox and Beyonce respectively.
There wasn't a lot that Brittany knew about the world. What she learned about it from TV and magazines was that you had to be rich to be happy; you had to be beautiful to be rich; you had to change the way you look to be beautiful. In that case however, she didn't want any of those things. Seriously, just having Lord Tubbington, coloring books, and Holidays, she would be happy for the rest of her life.
And Santana Lopez of course.
Actually, as she thought about it, she realized that she didn't want anything if she didn't have Santana. Because even if Brittany was worth nothing more than scraped knees and pigtails (which is what she was worth at the age of six when she met Santana), she knew that Santana would love her.
And even if Santana was worth nothing more than an oversized sweatshirt and travel toothbrush (which is all she showed up outside of Brittany's door with the day her parents kicked her out for telling them she was gay), Brittany would always love her.
Brittany could not imagine her life without Santana, because she never knew a time in which her life didn't revolve around Santana.
When Brittany was six years old, when she met the person she would end up loving more than anyone in the world, even though of course she didn't know that at the time, she was a little behind the rest of the kids in her class. And the first memory she has (technically, it's the first thing she wants to remember, but it's all the same) is Santana smiling at her.
The kids in the class laughed when Brittany asked questions - Santana linked her pinky with her own and promised she would never make her feel that way.
Santana explained things as they grew up. Santana was the one who told Brittany where babies came from. She was the one who taught her how to ride a bike. She was the first person Brittany had ever met who took their time when trying to explain things that may seem simple to others.
"I think I know why people invented math," Brittany told Santana after a study session in elementary school.
"To drive people bonkers?" Santana offered jokingly.
Brittany ignored her comment, but placed her hand on top of Santana's. "Because one plus one equals two."
Santana's breath caught in her throat, but shrugged anyway. "So?"
"So..." Brittany continued as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Brittany plus Santana equals something bigger than the both of us."
Brittany had been talking about math, and nothing else. There was no way that either of them knew that maybe, somewhere down the road, many years from that moment, what Brittany had said would actually stand for something so much more. And even though they had claimed 1+1 as their secret code (because everyone knew what BFF stood for), the idea never caught on - at least not to where either acknowledged it to the other.
When the day came that Santana did knock on Brittany's front door, seconds from breaking down, admitting that she had no where else to go on the face of the Earth, Brittany wrapped her tightly in her arms and let her cry. And Brittany cried with her and placed soft kisses on the top of her head and when they fell onto Brittany's bed, still wrapped in each other, their breathing became synchronized, chests rising and falling at exactly opposite times.
Then it clicked in Brittany's mind, because even though she understood the severity of the situation as soon as she saw Santana's tear-filled eyes, she didn't really get what had just happened. But when she did, she became enraged.
"They can't just kick you out!" Brittany screamed, hot tears rolling down her cheeks. "They can't do that to you! They're your parents!"
Santana wiped her own eyes and sniffled, looking over at Brittany, both heads resting on big, fluffy pillows.
Brittany looked at Santana and her heart shattered into millions of pieces. All they needed was each other, she reminded herself. "I love you, Santana. I will never, ever leave you. I will always love you. Forever."
Another tear fell from Santana's eye, but Brittany recognized it as the good kind. Santana loved her back, even though she might not have been able to communicate it at the time.
"When we get old," Brittany continued, "and I have wrinkles and you don't because you'll probably still be using the wrinkle cream that I always forget to put on, I will still love you. I will never stop loving you. Even if you stop loving me because you meet someone with bigger boobs than me, I will be waiting for you, loving you, and caring about you."
Santana was bawling again by this point, a smile breaking through her cries. She reached out and touched Brittany's cheek, brushing against it with her thumb, and Brittany knew Santana loved her.
And Brittany didn't say anything else because she could've honestly gone on forever telling Santana how much she loved her, but she didn't want to. Because at that moment, all she wanted was to show Santana.
They made love, and they both cried, tangled up in the sheets and each other's bodies. And sticky with sweat and tears, they fell asleep.
Brittany didn't know much about how the world worked. It was mean and awful to people who were different, and people fought each other for no reason at all, and there were people who started wars over stupid things, and it wasn't fair for those who got hurt.
But Brittany knew a lot about love, and everything she knew about it, she learned from Santana's love for her and her love for Santana. It was the force that held the broken pieces of world together. It was the only thing to live for.
'If I ain't got nothing, I got you.
If I ain't got something, I don't give a damn, 'cause I got it with you.
I don't know much about algebra, but I know one plus one equals two.
And it's me and you, that's all we'll have when the world is through.'
Thank you for reading :)
