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 51st cycle. Now cycle 52!

"Pilot Test"
Older-ish Brittany/Santana, Quinn + New Directions etc
Trinity series (flashback, origin, following "Crazy Ideas Are Made of This")
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)

1. Space For Two More

A/N: This story/week is dedicated to my precious twinsies Daisy and Nancy for their birthday!

Brittany would come home from work with her day on her face. On this particular day it seemed all had not been well at the clinic, judging by the look she wore upon arriving home. Santana didn't have to leave for work just yet, so she'd made dinner. Seeing her girlfriend's sad face though, she'd stepped away from the stove top and toward her.

"Hey, what happened?" she softly asked.

"We had to put a dog down," Brittany revealed, and Santana hugged her; she should have known.

"I'm sorry," Santana told her. Once she'd gotten to her seat, Santana had brought her a plate. It got her spirits to rise, if only by an inch. The dinner had been made with a dual intention, and seeing the blonde's mood now she hesitated to bring it up, but…

"What's up?" Brittany had asked, and Santana had sighed, looking to her.

"I want to ask you something, and I want you to really think before you answer, okay?" she started, and Brittany nodded. "Are you still absolutely certain you would want to team up with Quinn, do what she does with her, the three of us?"

"I am," Brittany had replied after a moment, surprised that she would bring it up. "But I know you're not, and I wouldn't go if it wasn't all…" she went on, shaking her head.

"Yeah, well, about that," Santana had up, and again Brittany was taken by surprise. "I don't know what changed my mind, so don't ask, but… I'd be willing to give it a shot if you were, too, which… well, I know you are, so…"

"Are you sure? You're not just doing it to make me happy?" Brittany asked.

"I'm sure," Santana promised with a smile. "If it makes you happy, then that's bonus."

"So how do we do it?" Brittany asked, shaken out of her funk. "Do we just call her and say…"

"Let's be a bit more careful about this. We'll have to do that now," Santana pointed out, pulling her phone from her pocket.

"Right," Brittany nodded. Santana had sent Quinn a text: 'Need to talk about my bathroom tiles.' When Brittany had read the message back it had taken her a moment to realize she was referring to the night Quinn had been found there, patching up her wounds.

Three days would go by, and no answer would come. They knew the number was still good, or at least it had been, very recently. They worried for some time that something might have happened to her, or she had just ignored it… They figured they would wait until one week had gone by before giving it another shot.

Then that night, as Brittany laid sleeping, Santana would return from work, knowing she was expected to wake the sleeping girl so she'd know she had made it back. It wasn't until she had closed the door into their apartment that she saw the light was on in the living room. She figured Brittany had decided to wait for her, which was stupid since she was due at work in the morning.

It wasn't the right blonde she would find waiting for her in the living room though. When she walked in, wearing a small smile for her patient girlfriend, she was startled instead to find Quinn. She yelled.

"What are you playing? You don't just…"

"What was I going to do, wait in the hall?" Quinn asked. A moment later, a dishevelled and half-asleep Brittany came barrelling out. She was about to ask what was wrong when she saw Quinn. She yelled, too.

"Alright, now that we got that out of our systems, will someone tell me what I'm doing here?" Quinn asked. The two girls had looked to one another, needing to catch their breaths still before one of them could speak.

"We want to help you," Santana started.

"Not this again," Quinn stood.

"No, we want to work with you," Brittany clarified. After a beat, Quinn sat again.

"You can't be serious." So they came and sat across from her.

"She's wanted to do it from day one," Santana pointed to Brittany. "I didn't want to at first, and I still think you're certifiable…"

"That's fair," Quinn shrugged.

"But we were best friends once, you know? And I would hope that we still are," Santana explained. "If we let you go on by yourself like this without doing whatever we could to diminish the risk you find yourself in, then… then we wouldn't be very good friends."

"So this is your solution?" Quinn asked.

"Haven't there been people you've wanted to help but couldn't because you'd be stretched too thin, being alone?" This kept the third girl quiet. "You said it was hard to just trust someone else, and I understand that. But Britt and I, we're not just anyone. We can be trusted. This could be good for you. Aren't you… lonely?" Quinn's eyes had turned away, but the answer was clear on that one. She got up, pacing slowly for a few seconds.

She had paused suddenly, walking to the table by the door, where the mail sat. She picked out the pair of envelopes with the all-too familiar logo of William McKinley High School. Each envelope was addressed to one of the two roommates… She'd received one, too.

Within a couple of weeks, the school would host the five-year-reunion of the class of 2012. That Santana and Brittany would have gotten these, seeing as neither of them had actually graduated from McKinley, was odd, and so she held the envelopes for them to see, asking silently.

"Pretty sure this is Schuester's doing," Santana nodded.

"Or my mom…" Brittany added, head lowered. Quinn considered this.

"Are you going?" she asked.

"We haven't made up our minds yet," Santana revealed. Again, Quinn thought.

"Go," she nodded.

"I'm sorry?" Santana asked.

"Confirm you'll be there, and so will I," she told them, putting the envelopes back where she'd found them before turning back to her friends. "Go to the reunion, and we'll meet there, and… we'll talk some more about it," she explained, moving toward the door.

"So you're saying no," Santana frowned.

"Not saying no. Not saying yes, either. Just be there." She said no more, simply heading out, leaving them there. Brittany went to retrieve the envelopes, looking at them.

"What should we do?" she asked, turning to Santana. It took a few seconds, but she sighed.

"We're going to Lima."

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)