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 64th cycle. Now cycle 65!

"Walking That Ground"
(Sue &) Brittany, Santana
Sylvesters series
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)

It wasn't the fact that she still had to stay home that bothered her so much. Sitting in class all day, she tended to get frustrated, and that never got her anywhere good. She didn't mind the break from all that. But then there was the rest, her friends, and the good things about school, like Glee Club… And there was also this secret, now not so secret.

Everybody knew about her, about who her mother really was, but she'd been out of school since her accident, and so she had no idea how it was going with the rest of the people there. She would ask her mother, her friends, but they would never give her an outright answer. But this time she was going to go somewhere she knew she could depend on answers. She was going to ask Santana.

Things were in a bit of unsteady footing between the two of them since that day where everyone had found out she was really a Sylvester. She knew about her having some talk with her mother, but what it would mean for the two of them… she had no idea, and neither of them had really taken any steps toward clarifying their… position.

Maybe I can get through both problems at once…

She waited until she knew Santana would be in between classes. She knew she would probably have found some way to excuse herself and leave the room if she'd called in the middle of class, but it would be better this way.

"Hey, I just got out of class," Santana answered the call.

"I know," Brittany smiled.

"I tell you, you're not missing much over there. I almost fell asleep three times. You know how it is when Mr. Shaw starts talking about his book. If he ever gets that thing published, I'll owe him an apology, but I don't think it'll come to that."

"I heard it was about werewolves."

"I heard it was something in a hospital," Santana laughed.

"A werewolf hospital?" Brittany asked curiously.

"Why not?" Santana went on laughing.

"So what else is happening over there?"

"Same old thing, you know," she could practically see Santana shrug.

"What about… you know…"

"The Mama Drama?" Santana guessed.

"Can we not call it that?" Brittany asked.

"Why, it's funny."

"It is," Brittany agreed. "But…"

"I know, I was kidding," Santana promised her.

"So?"

"What's she saying?"

"My mother? Nothing. And when she doesn't say anything, usually it means she's keeping it to herself. And if she's keeping it to herself, then…"

"She's Sue Sylvester, she can take care of herself," Santana pointed out. "Some people have been talking about her, and you, but what did you think was going to happen? Look, it's going to be alright. Anyone that tries to speak out of turn, they get an earful out of Lima Heights, okay?"

"Yeah," Brittany smirked.

"You better get back here soon though, before I lose it. It's just not the same without you," Santana confided, and it made her heart flush with joy.

"I will. I swear." There was a beat of silence, and she wasn't sure if it was because Santana was waiting on her to say something, or if it was that she was stuck, trying to figure out what to tell her, ask her.

"Britt?"

"I'm here," she replied immediately.

"Are you sure you're alright? Maybe they didn't check your head right."

"My head's fine. Both sides." This might have been easier if they were in the same room. "I wanted to ask you something, something else."

"Okay?"

"When I was in the hospital, you and my mom talked, about me, and…"

"We did," Santana confirmed, with some hesitation. She had to know what Brittany was getting at by now, and even from so far, the blonde could feel her tense up. It was almost to be expected. Anything that even scratched on to this topic on the way would always turn to Santana's walls locking in. Brittany had seen it enough times to know.

"We didn't really get to talk about it, you and me, and I was hoping… maybe we could."

"I told you what she said, didn't I?"

"You did," Brittany nodded to herself. "But… I don't know what it's supposed to mean. Like, are we together now?" Now she really did wish that they'd been in the same room for this; when Santana was silent, she couldn't know what it meant, if she'd said something wrong, or if she was just thinking… She could hear some rustling… Maybe she just had to go stand somewhere else.

"Brittany, you need to rest for now, okay? This kind of thing, it's a lot, and…"

"Don't you want to be with me?" Brittany couldn't help but ask her, and again she thought too late that maybe it was the wrong thing to say.

"It's too soon, I… I'm not ready."

"I don't want to have to hide something else. I don't have my secret anymore, and I like that. I can't do secrets again, please…"

"This is different," Santana insisted.

"Doesn't feel like it to me…"

"But it does to me." The change in her tone had been just drastic enough for Brittany to feel out of ease at once, and she had no idea how to deal with it.

"Maybe I need to lie down."

"Brittany…"

"I'll talk to you later." And she hung up. She knew she shouldn't have, but she needed to distance herself from the conversation before she accidentally said something else she would regret.

She went and lied down on her bed, staring up at the ceiling. She'd been keeping two secrets all this time, and she hadn't even realized it. There had been the big one, as always, with her and her mother. But then there was the other one, and it had been easy not to notice it. Santana was one of those few two who knew about the first secret, so keeping anything secret around her felt like it was part of it. But now the big secret was gone, and this one remained, this one about having feelings for a girl, that girl, and wanting their behind-closed-doors connection to become an out-in-the-open one. She really couldn't do with secrets anymore, but it was as it had always been: secrets were the foundation to her life.

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!