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!

This is a double shift day. There will be one more upload today: Steps 44-53, Breathe & Push, chapter 10.

"Would That She Had Been Queen"
Sue & Brittany/Santana
Sylvesters series
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)

Santana had needed time before she could bring herself to return to the gym, to the prom in progress, knowing how much it had wrecked her emotionally just minutes before. Brittany had been more than willing to stay with her, wouldn't have left her even if she'd asked her to. She felt her vulnerable, and leaving didn't feel right.

"Hey…" she'd walked up, easing herself into a hugging hold. Santana had breathed out, allowing herself to take the comfort that the blonde was offering. "We can always get out of here if you want to."

"And do what?" Santana asked.

"We can think something," she pulled back, looking into her eyes, and she smiled when she saw she'd gotten her smile. "There, that's better," she remarked, reaching to dry her tears. They looked to one another for a moment, wordless, thinking…

"There you are, I…" The two girls startled and stepped aside at the sound of the voice, even before they had realized who it belonged to. When they saw their coach, they both blanched. As people went, Sue Sylvester was probably the last person they would have hoped to show up in that moment. That she was their coach was one thing, but the woman wasn't aware that her daughter's friend knew their family secret, and that she might understand why the blonde at her side had lost three shades in her face.

None of them spoke for a moment, none of them moved. When Sue had taken a few steps forward, they had started blinking again. Brittany had very nearly called her 'mom,' but she had caught herself and course corrected into "M… iss… Coach… Ma'am… I…"

"Okay, stop," Santana had helped her.

"Okay," Brittany had quieted instantly.

"What's going on here?" Sue asked, looking from one girl to the other. They didn't speak, instead looking to one another.

What was there to say right now? What were they? They weren't a couple, not in the strictest sense of the word. They could have been something more, in the last few weeks, so close to finding their way. They loved each other, they'd admitted that much, but that hadn't been enough, there had been… issues. Right now they just kind of ignored the question entirely. Then there'd be moments like they'd just had, where nothing mattered except that they were best friends, and one of them was hurting, so the other was helping. If the Coach hadn't come along and interrupted them, then who knew what would have happened, but now…

"Well?" Sue asked, bringing them back.

"Britt was just… She was helping me with my makeup, guess I need to practice my loser face," Santana rattled off the first thing that popped into her head before miming to the blonde for confirmation.

Brittany didn't reply. She stood there, looking at her mother, and it was just… she felt like the way she sometimes would, when she'd be in class. It was this sort of feeling like she knew what she wanted to say, but her throat was squeezed tight, refusing passage, like it had caught a mistake just in time, only she still felt the need to say it, and so she'd feel… helpless. Because all this time, in recent weeks more than ever, she just felt something had changed, and she should tell her mother, only it was such a complicated revelation to make. Already there was the being in love with a girl part, which she still just saw as something that was simply a part of her, even if telling her mother scared her. But then there was the family secret thing, which was bound to come up and could cost her everything… starting with the girl at her side.

Except she hated lying, especially to her mother. Lies had already come close to tearing them apart this year, and she'd hated the feeling with every fiber of her being. So wouldn't it be worse to just keep lying to her about something that was coming to be one of the most if not the most important part of her life right now, especially when she had a perfectly crafted opportunity to just go ahead and…

"Yeah…" she had heard herself say. "She hates losing," she'd looked to Santana. She couldn't do it, not now… She knew now more than ever that Santana wasn't ready to have people know, even if it was Brittany's mother, especially because she was their coach, and as much as she could trust her, she knew the information could be dangerous in her hands. So she had swallowed back the words, knowing they would have been something like "I love her, and she was hurting."

"Alright, well… get back over to the gym. No point in hiding for a silly student vote like this. Let's go," Sue's words were almost at half-speed, like her mind was busy reviewing the responses she'd received.

"Right," Santana had breathed, moving to the hall. Brittany had looked to her mother, who motioned for her to follow, and so she did. Santana was paces ahead, and she'd look back to find the two blondes walking side by side.

"Listen, when you get back in there, if you see Wh… Artie, whatever he tells you I might have…"

"What did you do?" Brittany looked to her, momentarily distracted from what she'd been thinking about just before.

"I just might have wanted to scare him a bit, mess with him…" Sue explained plainly.

"What for?" Brittany asked, then, "For me?"

"I'm only suggesting, you know you're going to have to sit with the guy in Glee Club for another year after this one ends. You might want to think if you're able to find a good place to be at with him without having to be miserable all the time."

"Like… friends?" Brittany asked.

"Whatever works for you," Sue told her. They were getting closer to the gym now, and silence let their minds wander back to the discovery in the other room a moment ago. Brittany would try and sneak a look to her mother, to see if maybe there was more to… "Okay, you girls go on ahead," Sue pointed to the door.

"Okay," Brittany had done as told, catching up to Santana and returning to the prom.

Sue watched them go, her daughter and her best friend. She wasn't sure what it was she'd seen. Maybe it was just as they had claimed, but Sue felt like there was more to it than that. She'd caught enough kids in the middle of doing something they either weren't supposed to be doing or didn't want to be seen doing to know what it looked like, and that was what she'd seen.

It reminded her of looks she had seen on her daughter's face sometimes when she would come home… What that could mean, she wasn't sure. What she did know was that, if she'd been careless and let something slip by, something important, it wouldn't happen again. She'd keep a lookout from now on. She trusted her daughter, wanted her to feel trusted, but sometimes there were some things that just went above the line.

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!