Mercedes is dead-set on never going back to the New Directions. But then Quinn has to show up and give them a big talk about "the best days of their lives" and suddenly she's aching for the glee club in a way she never realized she could.
She looks over at Santana and Brittany after Quinn leaves the bathroom. She sees the same kind of inner turmoil manifesting on both of their faces. "What do you guys think?" she asks them.
Brittany scuffs her shoe against the bathroom floor. "I want to go back," she says flatly. "I love glee club and I miss our friends."
Santana leans back against one of the sinks while she stares hard at the floor. Mercedes watches her; so does Brittany.
"I'd be lying," Santana says, "if I said I didn't want to go back."
Brittany beams. Mercedes grins like a Cheshire cat and says, "Well, that settles it. Let's hit the auditorium and make a New Directions/TroubleTones lovechild."
Santana and Brittany laugh as she strides purposefully past them, intent on leading this club even in its demise. She's heading toward the door before she realizes they're not right behind her like she thought they were; she turns back and hears it and sees it at the same time.
Brittany's leaning down and kissing Santana quietly, simply, quickly. Mercedes hears the touch of their lips, sees the interplay of their fingers as they grasp hands, absorbs the way Santana is stripped down to her rawest form. Brittany's whispering something and Santana's smiling in the purest way Mercedes has ever seen her smile. She feels like she's witnessing something private, something sacred.
Mercedes diverts her eyes just as Brittany looks up from their kiss and notices her.
"Sorry," Brittany says giddily, squeezing the fingers of Santana's right hand.
Mercedes shrugs and laughs. "No biggie," she says lightly. "But are you guys coming?"
Brittany smiles at Santana. Santana smiles back at her, then turns to Mercedes and says, in a bare voice, "Yeah."
They join her at the door, one on either side of her; the three of them link arms and exit the bathroom, laughing excitedly.
"Hey, Santana," Finn calls as he chases her down the hallway. "Wait up. I want to ask you something."
"Make it quick, Lumberjack," she says, eyeing his puffy vest. "I'm in a hurry to get to Physics. I lost my seat to some halitosis-suffering sophomore the other day."
He follows her to her locker. "Are you busy on Friday?"
"Oh, Finnocence, aren't you cute," she says dryly as she turns her locker combination. "But I'm not interested in dating you anymore, remember? I'm—"
She opens her locker and her words cut off. Her eyes light up. Her mouth curls into a smile.
"Santana?" Finn prompts. When she doesn't respond, he ducks his head around her locker to see what's caught her attention. She's looking at a piece of paper that's taped up in the back of her locker. It's a rough drawing of a sandbox, complete with a shovel and pail. One strip of words is scrawled below the drawing. I love you 3.
"I don't get it," Finn says.
Santana continues to smile at the paper. "Um." She shakes her head quickly. "Sorry. It's from Brittany."
"Yeah, I kind of figured that," says Finn. "But why did she draw you a sandbox?"
Santana hesitates before she speaks. When she does, her voice is soft, and she looks bashfully at the drawing instead of at him. "Brittany couldn't say my name when we were little," she says. "She thought it was 'Sand-tana.' She called me that for like, a year."
She chances a glance at Finn. He still looks confused, so she shrugs and says, "Sometimes she gives me sand-related stuff. Sand art. Photos of cool sand castles. That kind of thing."
"Oh," says Finn.
Santana looks away, embarrassed by her own honesty, and collects her things. She shuts her locker and says, "So—what is it this time, Grimace? What'd you wanna ask me about?"
He moves to catch up with her as she marches down the hallway. She moves very efficiently for such a small thing. Her steps are so precise that he feels even more awkward than usual.
"Rachel wants to throw a holiday party," Finn explains. "I just wanted to see if you and Brittany would come. We're all back on the same team now and it would…mean a lot to us if you came."
"Is this another one of your 'I'm the captain of the New Directions and I have to play the hero and make sure we all love each other again' moves?"
He frowns. "Er…no. I mean, maybe. Kind of. But I also just want you guys to be there."
Santana halts her steps and tilts her head at him, considering. "Okay," she says. "I'm down. But you need to ask Britt, too. Don't just assume I'm going to answer on her behalf."
"Right," says Finn, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "Cool. I'll do that."
She shows him a tight smile and turns to walk away, but he reaches his hand out and says, "Santana. Wait."
She turns back around and raises her eyebrows. "What? You know, you're pretty needy lately."
"Sorry," he says. "Just wanted to say thanks for…telling me about the sandbox thing."
She blinks at him. "Doesn't mean we're friends."
He smiles lopsidedly. "'Course not."
She smiles back. "Tell my girlfriend I say 'hi' when you talk to her."
He laughs and calls out "Will do!" as she stalks away.
"Yeah, except more like this," Brittany tells Mike. She demonstrates the step for him, moving gracefully in front of the mirrors.
Mike watches her with appraising eyes. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah, I see what you mean. I like it. Might be hard to teach everyone, but we should try it."
Tina looks up from where she sits in a corner of the studio. She watches the two dancers as they attempt the move. It looks good, if a little out of sync; she can tell it will look great after some routine practice. She turns back to her math homework and locates the problem she was working on, but then the table next to her buzzes and she jumps, startled.
It's only Brittany's phone, vibrating and lighting up with a text message. Tina can't help but glance at it, and her eyes can't help but read the short message that illuminates the home screen.
Brittany claps her hands together. "There we go," she says, applauding Mike's most recent attempt. "Like a boss."
"You know it," says Mike, and the two of them high-five.
"Sweet," says Tina. "Now why don't you guys take a break. We've got months to prepare for regionals."
"The competition's not taking a break," says Mike.
"Nah, she's right," Brittany says, pulling her hair out of its messy bun so she can redo it. "Let's call it a day. I've got to go pick up my sister anyway."
Tina starts to pack up her stuff as Brittany and Mike approach the table. "Oh yeah, your phone went off," she says casually, looking at Brittany.
Brittany reaches for it a little too eagerly, and her cheeks flush pink as reads the screen.
"Uh-oh," Mike says playfully, noticing how quietly flustered she's become. "What's that look for?"
Brittany rolls her eyes. "Nothing," she answers. When Mike raises his eyebrows at her, she laughs and says, "Just Santana being cute."
"Never thought I'd hear those words in the same sentence," Tina jokes.
Brittany play-punches her and looks back at her phone, still pink in the cheeks.
"Well, Tina…" says Mike, "since Lovey Dovey isn't going to be much fun to talk to now, want to get going?"
Tina laughs. "Sure thing."
"Oh shush," says Brittany. She throws her duffel bag over her shoulder and walks out the door with them. They all tease each other as they traipse through the empty hallways and the parking lot.
"See you tomorrow," Brittany calls to them as she gets in her car.
"Bye!" they say together.
After she pulls out of the parking lot, squinting and waving enthusiastically, Mike turns to Tina and laughs. "She's seriously smitten," he says. "I've never seen her like this before."
"I know," Tina agrees. "It was a cute text message though."
"You read it?" he asks, half-incredulous, half-curious.
"I couldn't help it—she has it on that setting where the whole message pops up automatically."
"Well what'd it say?"
She swats his arm. "I'm not telling. Girl Code."
"Aw, come on." He pulls her in for a kiss.
"Nope."
"Fine," he says. "I just hope my texts to you are as cute."
"Don't worry," she assures him with a smile. "They are."
She randomly remembers the message when she's working on her lit homework later that night. Part of her wishes she hadn't seen it—she feels like she's taking its magic—but part of her is glad she did, if only to know that Brittany and Santana are finally happy.
Hi. You're beautiful. Dinner date after you pick up Ash? I'll buy the shrimp ;)
"You know, when I heard you were a stripper, I thought they meant you were using your ginormous mouth to strip lids from economy-sized pudding cups. I didn't realize you were an actual stripper."
Sam shrugs off her insult. "Had to earn the big bucks somehow."
"Is that why you sang that cup song?" Brittany asks. "My cup song was also totally about being naked."
Quinn snorts; Santana smiles appreciatively at Brittany, who grins back and winks.
"I did miss this place," Sam says, looking around The Lima Bean. "I brought Mercedes here on a couple of dates. Might have to try that again."
"Look, you need to give it up," says Santana. "She's totally into what's-his-face now. She's over you."
"Right," says Sam. "Because that's what you did? Just gave up on the person you love the most?"
Santana freezes.
"No, you didn't," says Sam. "That's why she's sitting next to you right now."
Santana looks at Brittany. Brittany smiles warmly and places a hand over Santana's wrist.
"We're different," Santana says.
"Why?" says Sam. "Because you're gay?"
Santana rolls her eyes. "Because, Trouty Mouth, we weren't just a summer fling. Britts and I go back ages."
"We're like an epic love story," Brittany says.
"Can't put a time limit on love," Sam says, sitting back and folding his arms. "You love each other. I love Mercedes and I think she still loves me. Simple as that."
"That's an awful lot of confidence," says Quinn. "But I say go for it."
"Well, fine," says Santana. "Best of luck to you as you try to win back your lady. Maybe you could bust out some Bieber again."
"Thanks for the tip," Sam says. "Now tell me the story."
"What story?"
"Come on, your story," he says, gesturing at the two of them. "I've been gone, I've been out of the loop, I want to be filled in."
Quinn, Brittany, and Santana laugh.
"There's no story," Santana says. "We're just…together." She lifts her shoulders nonchalantly, but Quinn sees the radiance in her every action.
"Uh-huh," says Sam. "And how long has this been going on?"
Santana considers and looks at Brittany. Brittany smiles at her before she says, "Well, I'd say forever, but Santana didn't really realize we were dating until like, a month ago."
Quinn shakes her head. "Typical."
"What?" says Santana, raising her hands indignantly. "You can't make assumptions about dating."
Sam looks hard at her for a moment.
"What?" she asks sharply.
"You're happy," he says.
It's such an obvious truth, but somehow Quinn didn't notice it until now. She looks hard at Santana, too, and she sees what Sam means, sees how apparent it must be to someone who left one version of Santana and came back to another one.
Santana avoids their eyes, but not, Quinn knows, out of anger or defensiveness: rather out of shyness, out of the unfamiliarity of displaying so much honesty.
Brittany looks at Santana with so much tenderness that Quinn feels intrusive. "She is happy," Brittany says softly, and moves her hand to hold Santana's openly on the table.
"It's been weird," Santana muses, "having to deal with other people's reactions so much."
"I know," says Brittany, shifting her body closer, kicking their feet together.
"Your feet are freezing."
"Sorry."
"If Kurt and Blaine try to invite us on one more gay-bonding picnic, I swear…."
Brittany laughs and pulls the comforter more securely over them. "Maybe we should just agree. We can make a game out of it, to make it more fun. Like a BINGO board. We can mark something off every time we do something super gay."
Santana's eyes light up; she kisses Brittany and says, "Like what?"
"Like…make out with a member of the same sex."
"Too easy," Santana laughs. She runs her fingers over Brittany's hair a few times and says, "I'll be glad when you and I aren't news to everyone anymore and they'll just leave us alone again."
"I know," Brittany says, and kisses her. "Soon enough."
"I'm getting tired of other people trying to understand."
Brittany shrugs. "Better that they try to understand than just write us off."
Santana sighs. "I know. I just don't like feeling like other people are part of our relationship."
"They're not," Brittany assures her. "They never will be. At the end of the day, it's us. Or do you see somebody else in this bed, too?"
Santana laughs through her nose. "Smart aleck."
They kiss again. "It's our story, San," Brittany whispers. "Just ours."