Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 52nd cycle. Now cycle 53!

THIRD ANNIVERSARY CYCLE: It's late October again, and within this cycle I will be completing my third year of daily gleekathon stories and commencing a fourth! As in previous years, this means special things happening. I've selected my favorite stories from throughout the year, and I'll be treating them to something special. In previous years this included Prequel, Sequel, and POV Swap, and then Additional Scenes and Alternate Endings. This year I'm adding two new treatments: Genre Swap (I think that's pretty straightforward) and Element Change (I change one thing in the story, see how it affects the rest). Note that in both these cases and some of the others, there may excerpts directly transferred from the story it references. Also, since this year saw the addition of 'shift days', and since I suck at picking, I have selected 42 stories, to be treated two per day! So here we go!

This story is a POV Swap to This Could Be The One To Do Me In, a Berry-St series story, originally posted on July 11 2012.

Today is the last day of year three! Tomorrow the fourth year begins! :D

This is a double shift day. There will be one more upload today: Pillars of Light.

"Then Came the Spark"
AU!Santana/AU!Rachel
Berry-St series extra
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)

If it were up to her, she wouldn't have paid the girl any sort of attention. She was new, she didn't know anything about her except that she was in Glee Club like her, and one day a few weeks back she had apparently gone and snapped, because after being demanding yet reserved, she had shown up, a brand new person. This new person walked around like she would rather introduce a guy to her knee than to have to deal with their crap. She had this anger in her, a rage Santana could definitely sympathize with. She was pretty sure the moment she had told herself this was the moment she had lost any hope of getting out of this alive. Because after that day she couldn't get the girl out of her mind, and that was a problem.

That wasn't her, no. Just because on one or two or several occasions she had fooled around with Brittany and a couple other Cheerios here and there, blame the booze, it did not mean that this was anything she was into. It was just a cheap thrill that gave the boys something to ogle at, buy her things… At least that was what she told herself whenever she seemed to get too into it. But then there was this new girl, this Rachel Berry.

The first one had been one thing, but then after she'd 'snapped,' nothing was the same. It was like looking in a mirror sometimes, only as confident as Santana presented herself, next to this girl she was an outright fraud. Maybe it was fun for her, too, maybe that was all it was... but she didn't think so.

She had done her very best to ignore the problem, which was to say ignore her. She sat as far away from her as she could, went about like she didn't exist… Only sometimes she'd catch herself looking. What was she supposed to do, if she was going to walk around the way she did? What did they expect to happen when the gym teacher made them play volleyball and she had to spend the whole period standing just a few paces behind her, watching her shirt ride up when she jumped, seeing how those shorts molded to her when she'd bend over and… She'd gotten knocked in the head with a volleyball and she'd never been so thankful, with how it snapped her out of it. They'd sent her to the nurse, and then she was free… At least she was free until she of the perfect behind had to waltz in and make sure she was alright. She'd pretended to be asleep until she was gone.

The problem wasn't going away, and she had definitely tried to rid herself of it, without success. This couldn't be, she had to get past this. For a while she had tried thinking about sad things to distract herself from the rising heat she felt whenever the girl was around. But then she'd start thinking about her dead dog, or her grandfather… and if she kept this up she would end up crying in class. She did not need one more thing to pass her off as the new crazy.

She had taken things up with Puck again, or at least she'd tried. He was as good of a distraction as they came. But then the joke was on her, because he looked just as distracted about something else, and before long she was right back where she started.

She was stronger than this, she was being ridiculous. She was Santana Lopez, so why couldn't she just get a hold of herself instead of moping around… a girl…

And then came the volley from Team Berry. She'd called her. Rachel had called her, asking to meet her at Breadstix. It had gone in her voicemail, but when she'd heard it, she froze.

What was she supposed to do with this? Lately it had become very clear that she turned into an idiot whenever that girl was involved. She'd done her damn best to cover it up, and she liked to think she had succeeded, but then they'd never had some one on one time… One on one… Now her mind was going places… she had to make it stop. Her father always said to face your problems head on, well, she would do that.

So she had gone, with so much intent in her steps she imagined they could hear her shoes coming from all the way in the parking lot. She had dropped in the booth, across from her, looking at her as nothing more than the enemy… Yes, the enemy to her sanity, that was good. She could deal with that.

"Listen, I know you're still new here, but a couple things you might need to know," she had begun, head in the game, so then of course Rachel had to interrupt her.

"I didn't call you here for a lecture."

"Is that right? Wh…" she'd tried again, and once more she had been interrupted. She should have been furious, and she was, but at the same time she was happy, because anger was a good thing, anger she could use, but it just reminded her that she was putting on a show. And then Rachel Berry had to start playing her mind tricks.

"Now, hey, if you don't want the praise and the free lunch, please…" she pointed toward the door, and Santana felt the first crack in her resolve. This wasn't happening…

"What are you talking about?" she managed.

"Well, you know, I am still new here, at school, and in Glee Club, but that doesn't mean I haven't paid attention and, barring me, you seem to be the most talented one there." She wasn't even thinking about anything else. She got praise and she reacted accordingly, shrugging for all to know she was of a similar mind, trying not to show her heart had raced at the thought that Rachel would think of her.

"And what does that mean?" she had to ask.

"I could go in there and look at you thinking 'there's my competition, how fast can I make that chick go away?' or I could do what I'm doing now, which is sitting here with you in a civilized manner…"

"And tell me to stay the hell out of your way?" she had just gone right along with it, rewarded with a smile from the girl across from her.

"More like the opposite," Rachel had said, and the reply was stronger than her.

"So you're propositioning me in the middle of Breadstix?" she threw at her, hoping maybe to shut her down. It just came back at her.

"Well I am buying you dinner," Rachel had smirked, and Santana was sideswiped by some all too pleasing mental images. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves here," Rachel had gone on, thankfully snapping her out of it. "But I'll say this: you and me, we could rule that club. Unless you're content to play second banana like you do in Cheerios." Oh now she was asking for it.

"I'm not the second anything," she had declared, and at Rachel's look, she knew she couldn't back down. So she sat up. "You're on. What do you want to do?" she'd snapped, and Rachel did as well.

"What else, let's duet."

"Fine," she had taken her menu and disappeared behind it. If she didn't, then Rachel would witness her in all her panic.

This was no fluke, she was sitting here, and all that was coursing through her mind were various ideas of what she wanted to do with Rachel Berry, and none of them involved singing a duet in Glee Club. That wasn't her, no. Just because she couldn't stop thinking about her or looking at her or wanting to talk to her did not mean anything. Nothing at all…

THE END

A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.
In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are
always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!