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 an Element Change to Step Twelve, Stand Up, a Paper Heart series story, originally posted on January 22nd 2012.

This is a double shift day. There will be one more upload today: All Pointy Ears & Whimsy.

"Expect Nothing of Silence"
Santana, Brittany, Kurt
Paper Heart series extra
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)

Element changed: Santana sees the drawing instead of Kurt.

They were all starting to look forward to summer, to a time when they could stop having to concern themselves with the madness that was school at the moment. It was already a bit of a frown fest in the choir room, after they'd lost Regionals and lost their shot at Nationals. It had been comforting to know they would still get to come back in the fall and try again, but then the part about the loss and lack of Nationals would come back at them.

If that wasn't enough, there were the whispers, and the looks, turned to Brittany, even after weeks had gone by. She was easy prey, if what they saw and heard was any indication. It was a miracle Santana hadn't been suspended for retaliation yet. They could all see how much she was dying for the chance to rip a new one on whoever dared to even think wrong about Brittany, but the blonde had begged her not to do anything crazy, that it wasn't worth it. Santana had agreed, begrudgingly.

In and around that time, a number of jocks and Cheerios had found their lockers mysteriously overrun with anything from water, to dirt, and in one case a whole lot of toothpaste… No contents were safe.

That day, Santana had come out of class looking for Brittany so they could head to their next class. She found her coming out of class, distractedly walking as she was looking at a sheet of paper. Coming up behind her she could sort of see there was a drawing on it.

"What'd you do there?" she went to ask, and as soon as Brittany heard her voice, she startled and rushed to fold the sheet and stuff it in her pocket, turning to her.

"Nothing, I was bored," she declared, but her face had not so much betrayed her as it had never actually managed to display the lie. "I thought it'd be sweet if I taught Lord Tubbington how to pull a carriage for the baby," she nodded along.

"He can barely pull his own body weight, I wouldn't trust him with an infant, now what is it really?" Santana asked, not missing a beat. Brittany's lips disappeared, sucked in so to keep from talking. "Is it about me? Is it dirty?" she baited.

"No, no," the words were willed out and the blonde had to breathe again now that she wasn't holding in the air. "I don't draw those here anymore since they almost caught it once, like you made me promise." She paused. "It was my cat, I swear."

"It's bad, isn't it," Santana understood then, feeling a flare of anger. "You're lying, which tells me you're afraid of what I'll do if I know the truth."

"You're good…" Brittany mumbled, then froze. "I mean…"

"Britt, let me see," Santana held out her hand, and Brittany knew there was no point in arguing, so she held out the paper.

"Please, don't do anything…" Brittany begged her as she unfolded the sheet and saw what was drawn there. It hadn't been her handiwork, Santana could tell right away. She could also tell she was meant to be the subject of the drawing, and the crude and offensive nature of it was so infuriating to her that her hands shook just to hold it.

Santana had been dealing with so many of these people messing with Brittany over the weeks, and it had been nasty, but it could be swiftly dealt with. The words stung, they hurt, but Santana could see in the blue eyes how much this new attack was burrowing deeper and deeper into her courage. Santana had done her very best to be covert about her retributions, but this… this was something else. She couldn't do nothing.

"Who was it? Who drew this?"

"San…"

"Give me his name, Britt," she insisted.

"You'll get in trouble," Brittany shook her head.

"It'll be worth it," Santana maintained. "His name."

"I… He… O-Oliver," she finally spoke, though she reached to hold her free hand. "Please, don't…"

"Sorry, just something I have to do," Santana squeezed the hand that held hers before letting it go and turning, searching the hall. They had just come out of class, he wasn't that far yet, and she spotted him easy, him and his freaky little face… At least it would be freaky by the time she was done with him. "Hey! Oliver!" she marched through, and if there was anyone in her way, they cleared out the moment they saw the look in her eyes. Brittany followed right behind, hoping to stop her before it got too bad.

"Santana…"

"Hey, Lopez, did you finally reconsider my offer?" he gave a smug look, unaware of the hell that was about to rain down on him.

"You might not want to give me a shot at your piece if you intend on keeping that peanut," she snapped before producing the sheet of paper, shoving it a bare inch or two before his face. "Recognize this?"

"Do you like it? It was a gift…" he backed away from it, batting for her to put her arm down.

"I don't know, what are they serving for lunch today? Hope it's nothing good, because you'll be too stuffed once I shove this down your throat," she crumpled up the paper, holding up the ball it made.

"I'd like to see you try," Oliver scoffed.

"You really don't," Brittany shook her head, and now that he noticed she was there, it only amused Oliver more. Santana sensed this, sliding in between the two, forcing Oliver to look at her instead.

"If I ever hear that you've been messing with my friend here again, at any time between now and your eventual death, don't come crying to me for what happens next. Got it?" She didn't leave him time to answer, tossing the balled up drawing in his face and smirking when she heard him cry out as she took Brittany's hand and led her away. "There, that wasn't so bad, was it?" Santana asked her.

"Still think you shouldn't have done it… but thank you," she smiled and got one back.

"What's going on over there?" they were joined by Kurt as he came from his locker.

"Look, I don't want to tell you how to run your life, but you might want to consider how long you'll be keeping this baby daddy thing a secret. While that's going on, some people have declared open season on her," Santana indicated Brittany, who lowered her eyes.

"Are you okay?" Kurt asked her, surprised.

"I'm fine," she promised.

"You want to be there for the kid, then be there for its mother, too."

"He is there," Brittany looked to her.

"I am," Kurt backed this up, frowning. "I'll take care of it, I swear," he gave this promise to both of them.

"Don't want you to get suspended next time," Brittany told her friend, who let out a breath.

"I'm doing my best."

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!