Dedicated to bohemianBOOMAN (See, told you I would XD ) and kempokarate12, thanks for all your help =D
Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner
Mercedes paused from her competitive warm up/getting-a-bit-aggressive sing off with Rachel to stare, open mouthed, along with the other assembled Glee club members as Brittany walked into the room. At her side was a man at least 7ft tall, dressed in a black suit with a crew cut and the mentality which involved wearing black sunglasses indoors. He ushered her to the far side of the room and they sat down in the front row on the chairs nearest one of the exits.
"What's going on?" Mercedes asked in a hushed voice to Kurt and Rachel who were with her. "Is that a bodyguard?"
Kurt's mouth gaped openly. "Why does Brittany have a bodyguard?"
"Well," Rachel began. She took a deep breath savouring the moment as she delighted in being the bearer of gossip for once. "I heard from Finn, who heard from Sam, who heard from Quinn, who heard it from Puck that Brittany and Santana aren't allowed within fifty yards of each other, and when in school and there's no choice but for them to be in the same room they have to have bodyguards."
"But why? And why do you talk in such long sentences?" Kurt asked, shaking his head puzzled for so many different reasons.
"No one knows," Rachel stage whispered a little too over dramatically. "If anyone tries to get near, the bodyguard takes Brittany away."
"Santana has one too?" Kurt's query was answered as Santana entered the room trailed by a man almost identical to Brittany's bodyguard. Santana looked over at Brittany with a longing glance but her bodyguard guided her to the seat furthest away from Brittany, who was staring miserably at her feet and didn't look up.
Rachel, Kurt and Mercedes were joined by Tina and Mike and they all put their heads together muttering and whispering.
"I heard it had something to do with what happened over Spring Break."
"I thought they were going to the Caribbean with Santana's parents."
"I heard they were going to California with Brittany's parents."
"Brittany wouldn't shut up about Vegas before the break."
They all stared in fascination at the two girls at opposite ends of the room, each dying a little bit to know what had happened during that fateful vacation.
The previous day...
"We both received the same letter this morning."
Santana and Brittany sat at the kitchen table in the Lopez household having returned from their first after school Cheerios practice since returning to school after the vacation. They had been hoping to raid the fridge without interference only to find, to their horror, both their mothers sitting in wait for them.
"What letter?" Santana asked uneasily, nudging Brittany to keep quiet and let her handle this, whatever this was. Her mind did cartwheels as she tried to think of something they'd done to warrant this unexpected tag team attack in her kitchen. A horrible feeling in the pit of her stomach gave her a fair idea of what was coming.
"How can you both get the same letter?" Brittany asked, scrunching her nose up in consideration feeling the pressure decidedly less than Santana. "Isn't that like a physical impossibility?"
"We both got a copy of the same letter, Brittany," her mother explained a bit more precisely for her scatterbrained daughter. "They say the same thing."
"Let's just push aside the fact you lied to us about where you were spending the spring break for the moment and concentrate on this." Mrs Lopez slapped the sheet of paper on the table in front of them and leaned back with her arms folded across her chest as the girls leaned over and studied the letter.
"I don't know what that means," Brittany muttered, not making eye contact with anyone. She actually had a good enough idea on what the letter was about from just looking at the letterhead.
"Santana?"
Santana's eyes were wide and her mouth dropped open as she read the offending article. "This is a joke or some kind of mistake," she swallowed, her cheeks flushing red.
"Santana." Her mother repeated her name, her tone a clear warning to not even attempt to lie.
"I don't know what this is or what you're talking about," she spluttered. The two older women were sporting distinctly unbelieving and unimpressed looks all directed at Santana, a fact she was quick to refute. "Why does everyone automatically think everything is my fault?"
Santana's mother rolled her eyes, eerily identical to Santana's go-to unimpressed look and Brittany's mother gave her a frank raised eyebrow, both set to remind her that these weren't two faceless adults she had to deal with daily, like the endless stream of 'educators' from the piss poor educational system or some annoying waitress or manager at BreadstiX who she liked to argue with as often as possible. These women were her and her best friend's mothers and knew her better than anyone else in the world, sans Brittany of course.
"Are you saying this is my fault?" Brittany demanded, swivelling around on her stool to face Santana.
"No. I just want to make the point very clear to everyone in this room, who should know better, that... Brittany makes me do loads of things and I always get the blame."
"You always take the blame," Brittany's mother clarified with infinite patience built up from years spent with Brittany. "That's different."
"Santana," her mother said with a sigh. "It's not for nothing I'm your mother, you know. Now, sign this and that'll be it."
"This isn't fair, I'm not taking the blame for this," Santana persisted in stressing the point.
Brittany peered over to look at the letter but didn't lift her hands from her lap as she was ordered to: "Sign it."
"Are you laughing?" Santana almost squeaked in disbelief as Brittany appeared to be struggling to keep a straight face.
"I'm not ashamed of anything," Brittany sat up straight and smirked as Santana dropped her head onto her hands in despair. "And I've done nothing wrong, so everyone stop trying to guilt me. Why does everything have to be a big deal? We don't have to tell anyone. Just until we figure out what to do."
"Are you seriously telling me you are going to go to school like this?" Brittany's mother asked, her eyes fixed on her determined daughter with a ghost of a smile dusting her lips. She was well aware of her daughters feelings towards Santana and had been for as long as Brittany had. Brittany never hid anything from her and honestly believed there was nothing to hide. Santana on the other hand had her face planted into her arms folded on the table and was praying fervently for the ground to open up and swallow her whole. Now. Right now, please God, now.
"I'm not signing anything." Brittany protested. "I don't know what most of these words mean, it could be anything and I don't even remember it happening. I could be signing my soul away for all I know." She turned to Santana worriedly and nudged her arm. "Could that actually happen?"
"You can't sign your soul away." Santana lifted her head from the table to reassure Brittany.
"But isn't that what happened to Coach? Someone said once."
"No B. She's just the regular kind of evil."
Their mothers exchanged a frustrated glance. It amused and perplexed them no end to see how codependent the two girls were. "Do you know what would happen if your fathers ever heard about this?" Mrs Lopez interrupted them before they went off on the usual long, rambling, random conversation she had been witness to many a time before.
"What would happen?" Brittany gasped, wide eyed.
"You'd be split up. One family would probably have to move away and you wouldn't see each other again."
Brittany's eyelashes fluttered as she blinked furiously trying to stop tears from falling. A tear escaped and dropped onto the paper in front of her, the ink on the typed letters 'annul' began to run as she cried.
"Shhh, it's okay." Santana put a comforting arm around her. "I wont let that happen. That'll never happen." She glared at both their mothers with her expression reading, what the hell did you say that for? "If they tried it, we'd run away. It's okay B, it's okay."
Both women looked guilty and upset at Brittany's breakdown. "I'm sorry Britts," said her mother. "We, non of us, would ever let that happen," she assured her daughter. "I promise."
"If you sign this they need never know. If you don't... there'll be more paperwork coming and we might not be able to intercept it," Santana's mother explained. "How did you pay for it?"
"I don't remember," admitted Santana.
At that moment the door slammed open and Dr Lopez marched in only to come to an abrupt halt, appearing a little taken aback by the group of women all looking upset in his kitchen. They all watched him warily as he went to the fridge and took out a carton of orange juice.
"What are you doing home so early?" his wife asked anxiously.
"Hmmm. Early finish for once. Is that a problem?" He asked, raising an eyebrow at the strange reception he was receiving. "So, what's going on?" He waved a hand around the room vaguely indicating everything and nothing in general.
"Nothing," said his wife.
"What's the matter with Britt?"
"Something at school," jumped in Santana.
Her father cocked his head to the side as he watched his daughter carefully. His eyes narrowed. "So. I had an interesting conversation with someone from my credit card company this morning." As everyone froze he paused, relishing the resounding silence, stretching it out as he poured a glass of juice. You could have heard a pin drop and bounce off the tension building in the room. "Do you have your card still, Santana?" He asked innocently.
"Uh, yeah," she gasped.
"Would you get it for me please?"
"Sure." She reached down and grabbed her purse out of her bag, opened it and dropped the card on the table sliding it towards him.
"Uh huh, I see." He placed it back down on the table in front of her. "I saw Harry at work today. It's okay," he said, immediately reassuring Brittany and her mother that Mr Pierce was safe and well. "He's fine. He brought in a colleague who'd hurt his hand. The point is, I asked him how the vacation had been and had Santana behaved herself."
Santana suddenly found the table top very interesting.
"To be honest, he looked at me like I'd grown another head. Then, he said he had been under the impression that Britts had spent the vacation with us, not the other way around." His wife opened her mouth to speak but her husband cut her off. "Oh, I haven't finished. It gets better."
He perched on the vacant stool next to Brittany who had begun to fidget right around the beginning of this little speech. "We compared notes. Turns out, they weren't with us and they weren't with the Pierces. But judging from the expressions on all your faces, you knew that already."
"We found out today," admitted Brittany's mother with a sigh.
"I see." He stood next to Brittany who had her eyes scrunched closed. She was not good under pressure and had never mastered the art of keeping a secret. Unfortunately, everyone in the Lopez kitchen at that moment knew that fact.
"The credit card company wanted to ask if I knew anything about someone using my card, and, you might want to sit down for this ladies, someone used my credit card to get married in a Las Vegas chapel. Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous? But that can't be the case seeing as you still have your card. Right Santana?"
With her eyes shut, Santana gulped and nodded. "Right," she whispered.
His gaze moved from Santana to Brittany who opened one eye and then shut it again as she noticed his gaze on her.
"Brittany, what happened?"
"Don't say anything," ordered Santana.
"Santana!" warned her mother.
"Did you lie to us about your whereabouts over spring break, run off to Vegas and get married?" Dr Lopez demanded, hitting the nail on the head.
"As if we would ever do anything so stupid. Pah!" Santana flicked her hands up in the air dismissing his question as ridiculous.
"We don't know!" spluttered Brittany. "I think we were drunk and can't remember anything. Apart from winning a wedding voucher at the casino, I remember that."
Dr Lopez put his glass down on the table and smirked at breaking Brittany so easily. Her shoulders slumped as she realised what she had done. "Vegas?" he inquired simply with a raised eyebrow.
"I saw a movie about counting cards and wanted to try it," said Brittany. "Or if that didn't work we were going to rob it."
"Brittany," Santana groaned through gritted teeth.
"Why?" Dr Lopez asked in wonder, Brittany never ceased to amaze him with some of the things she came out with.
"For fun."
Santana's face was firmly planted into her hands and she wondered if it would be possible to smother herself quickly or if her mother would stop her before she had a good shot at succeeding. Brittany's filter was faltering fast and Santana's influence over her wavered uncertainly under their parents' presence.
"Santana?"
"It always sounds like a good idea when Brittany first says it," she shrugged in explanation.
Alas, her father was not impressed with her attempt at nonchalance. "You had better sign that bit of paper your mother has got stuffed up her sleeve or you'll soon realise you've never known the true meaning of the word trouble." He looked his wayward daughter straight in the eye. She glared right back.
"I'm pretty certain that as they're under age it wont be legally binding," pointed out Mrs Lopez.
"Sign the paper," he demanded slapping a pen down in front of Brittany who flinched at the unexpected move.
"Don't talk to her like that," Santana snapped at him.
"I beg your pardon, do you mean your wife?"
"Yes," she hissed defiantly, frowning back at him with a scowl identical to his own.
"Do you have any idea of how ridiculous this all is? How tacky and cheap and not in the slightest bit amusing this is? If word of this ever got out my reputation would be in shreds. What the hell possessed you to do something so downright stupid?"
"Alcohol," muttered Brittany, wiping tears from her cheek. Then she whispered something no one could quite catch, except Dr Lopez who thought he heard the word 'love' muffled beneath a sniff and a sob.
"Not only incriminating, god knows who and what and where, for underage everything!" he shouted, then took a step back as though he realised how upset he was making Brittany.
A muscle flickered in Santana's clenched jaw, torn between launching herself over the table at her father and throttling him for making Brittany cry or comforting Brittany who was hiccuping, a warning sign for oncoming inconsolable tears.
Brittany eyes glazed over with tears as she saw Santana lean over and scribble furiously at the paper. The letter was then pushed in front of her. She stared down at it trying not to sob at how horrible everyone was being. So what if they had got married, so what was everyone's problem? It was no ones business but their own. She looked down at what Santana had written, hiccuped and picked up the pen. She scribbled as fast as she could and dropped the pen as though it had stung her. Santana grabbed the paper, crumpled it up and threw it at her father. It bounced off his chest and rolled across the floor.
"There. Happy?"
Brittany's mother slapped her hand down on the counter making the girls jump and diffusing the confrontation between Santana and her father. Brittany looked guiltily anywhere but at her mother. Now what was happening?
"You girls listen to me very carefully. When you two get married your whole families will be there. Your friends will be there. You will be sober. You will not be in Las Vegas and you madam," she pointed to Brittany. "Will be wearing your grandmother's wedding dress. Do you understand me?" Both girls were nodding in fear at this new experience, Brittany's mother never got angry. She walked around and took Brittany by the shoulder leading her away from her other half. "Come on Britts. I think you and Santana have caused enough trouble for one day."
Santana watched them get into the car through the window as she remained at the table waiting anxiously until her father dismissed her. Her mother picked up the crumpled letter and unwrapped it. Her posture changing dramatically, her shoulders slumping in defeat as she read where the girls had signed their names and then showed it to her husband.
Carlos Santana
Britney Spears