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 Additional Scenes to Steps 16-36, Time Is On Your Side, a Paper Heart series story, originally posted from April 12 to May 2 2012.

This is a double shift day. There will be one more upload today: The Girlfriend Thing.

"Drown It Away"
Santana (Brittany, Kurt, Brittana)
Paper Heart series extra
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)

Later she would blame everything on the fact that she'd been having a bad day. Her mother had made her take the car in to the shop to get something fixed, and she'd been stuck to wait there for hours, sweating in the summer heat as there was no AC and no fan in the waiting area. If that wasn't bad enough, the men waiting around were sending her looks that strongly gave her the urge to puke. She almost wanted one of them to try something so she would have a reason to respond, Lima Heights style.

When she had finally been liberated from the pit of hell, she had returned home for a good long shower, but apart from getting her to smell like a human being again, it didn't cure the rotten mood she was in. Then she had thought about calling Brittany, and that was where everything had gone to hell.

She wanted to call her, go to her house, rub her poor feet, do something… Only then she had ended up thinking about Kurt, and the conversation they'd had at the library a couple months back. Calling it a conversation wasn't exactly accurate. It was more like she sat there and he talked at her, telling her things she knew, things she couldn't say, wouldn't say, things she wanted to hear, to believe… And ever since that day, it had been circling about her sanity, like it waited for the time to finally come at her full force and leave her broken in pieces.

At heart, she knew what she wanted. If she closed her eyes tight enough to shut out the world, she could see it. She saw herself with Brittany, the two of them happily making a life together, the two of them and that little boy growing in her belly… She saw them as a family. There was only one problem there, until you lifted it up and saw all the other problems, nestled underneath.

They couldn't be a family because they weren't a couple. They weren't a couple because she couldn't own up to her feelings for her. And she couldn't own up to her feelings for her because she couldn't admit to herself that this was what who she was and what she wanted. She was the problem in this, and she was the solution. They had spent so much time messing around the two of them, and it was fun, but all this had achieved was to make it look as though everything they had, everything they were, was just one big joke, a couple of girls hooking up… for 'practice,' or to get guys all hot. These last few months she had been left to realize that it was so much more than that, and as liberating as it could be to finally bring some light to the confusion, it also left her more terrified than ever. Maybe that was what they meant when they said that ignorance was bliss, because before she had ever associated herself with the concept of actually liking girls over boys, it all been so much easier. Now though, as much as she wished 'easier' worked for her, she knew what she really wanted was the whole package, the things she dreamed about when she closed her eyes. And all that was Kurt Hummel's fault.

That night she wasn't in the mood to deal with all of it though, not after the day she'd had. So after her shower she had dressed, redone herself up, and she had left the house. She wasn't sure what she was planning to do, but all she knew was that she wanted to forget, not forever, but at least for that one night. She wasn't going to do anything stupid, or… well, not the kind of stupid she would regret in the morning. Finding the means to get herself drunk did seem like the best idea though…

She didn't have the time or means to deal with fake IDs and pity buys from people outside a liquor store, so she went for the next best option, also known as 'find a guy and sweet talk your way to his parents' liquor cabinet.' There was no way she would let it get beyond that, but he didn't have to know that…

Seeing as she wasn't a walking talking phone book with the addresses of all the males at McKinley High, she had gone to wherever she figured she might find a few of them gathered, and she hit the jackpot, cornering a sophomore who just about lost it when she approached. She got up close, turned on a smile, and ten minutes later they were at his house. She wasn't sure what it was that he expected out of the evening, but she'd do her best to let him down gentle, provided her drunk mind would still manage to remember 'courtesy.'

The next couple of hours consisted of him, her, the couch, the television, and a bottle in her hands. She told him to watch what was on the screen, whatever it was, but she could see him turn his eyes toward her every so often, like he was bracing to try and make a move.

"Look, whatever you're thinking about right now, hold on to it, and when I'm gone you and your hand can take care of business. Until then, eyes on the road," she pointed to the screen, and he turned eyes forward, back bolt upright. He left her alone after that, which was both a blessing and a curse, because now she could actually think.

The alcohol was only doing so much, and before long she found that it actually honed in her thoughts to this whole mess she was dealing with. She was already good and past tipsy, but all she could think about what she didn't have, couldn't have, all of it, and it only made her more aggravated. For as much as she was picturing Brittany in her mind, she was seeing him, the source of all this mental upheaval… Kurt Hummel. He was the one who'd started her on this road, and the angrier she got, the more her drunken brain decided the logical next step was to go and give her a piece of her mind.

"Alright, I'm out of here," she held on to the boy's knee to push herself on to her feet. She needed a moment to take a breath, and she turned to him. "I'm taking this with me. Thank you for your hospitality… and sorry," she turned back to him, managing a smile before she teetered her way out the door with her nearly empty bottle. She had finished it by the time she reached the end of the street, and she tossed the empty in the nearest trashcan she found.

She was going to see Kurt, was going to tell him everything that was bugging her right now, hoping it would soothe the fire in her heart. There was no chance in hell she was going to remain a slave to her emotions this way… She couldn't take it.

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!