Valentine's Day
Brittany skipped down the halls, noticing that McKinley High was decorated with one of her favorite colors; pink! There were hearts strewn about along the top of the walls, signs that announced the Sweet Heart Ball and even more advertisements for local flower and candy shops. The atmosphere was different too. Everyone seemed more and more lovey-dovey than usual. Valentine's day was almost here.
The only person that Brittany really wanted to share it with, however, was hovering close to Sue Sylvester helping the scary coach take down any hearts that were within reach.
"Oh, hi coach Sylvester." She said politely, more intent on getting to Santana.
"Hi Curly, come help me and illegal immigrant here take down these obnoxious and anatomically incorrect pieces of paper." Sue replied, tearing down another. Santana rolled her eyes and mouthed, "go with it."
"But coach...valentine's day is a happy day." Brittany protested.
"And so was the day I got my uterus removed and you don't see a holiday dedicated to that. Now help me." Brittany pouted but to prevent the risk of Sue kicking her out of the Cheerios, she complied, sadly ripping down some of the decorations.
When they got all that they could, Sue didn't even thank them and walked off, muttering something about a bonfire in front of a certain Glee director's house. Santana sighed and turned to Brittany.
"So what's up? You look like you wanted to say something." Santana said. Brittany brightened up instantly.
"So...I was hoping that you and I could maybe go shopping Saturday or Sunday for the Sweet Heart Ball." She suggested. Santana shook her head, effectively crushing Brittany's dreams for the dance.
"Um, lame." Santana scoffed. "No one goes to that besides Berry and Jew-Fro. Besides, we have a math exam on Monday and I remember that if you don't pass this, you're going to fail. You have to study." Brittany pouted.
"But...I really wanted to go with you..."
"You have to study and so do I." Santana insisted.
"Ok, then we'll study together!" Brittany said cheerfully. "It'll be fun!" Again, Santana declined.
"No, whenever we study we wind up watching movies or making out or..." She paused and closed her eyes, shivering despite herself. All she could think of was the blonde's hands on her skin...her mouth touching every part of her...
"San?" Brittany cut into her thoughts.
"No means no, Brit. Make your exam my valentine's day gift and focus on that, ok? But we can't hang out until then. Besides, Valentine's Day is a sad excuse of a holiday. You heard what Coach Sylvester said." Brittany felt hurt and she looked away. Valentine's Day had always been special for them every since they were small. In kindergarten, even though they made valentines for everyone, they made each others' extra special, giving each other an extra piece of candy. When they got to high school it meant dates and romantic evenings somewhere secluded so that no one would find them tangled in each other's arms whispering how much they loved each other. They had found the perfect place. It was a field a couple of miles away from the school that had a hill with soft grass and a clear view of the stars. Brittany's favorite was the one time when she lit candles all around their blanket, led Santana blindfolded to the location in the middle of a field and sang for her a song that she and Rachel prepared for such an occasion. Santana blushed and couldn't find words, one of the few times that Brittany had ever seen her breathless. Santana stared deep into Brittany's eyes and kissed her so passionately that Brittany swore the stars above her head exploded one by one.
"Dude, we're late for class." Santana interrupted Brittany's trip down a sweet, sometimes rocky memory lane.
"I...I need to get something from my locker." Brittany lied. Santana shrugged and began walking down the hall towards Brittany's locker.
"Alone." Brittany added. Santana turned around, clearly confused.
"Fine." Santana replied. "Suit yourself." She disappeared into the classroom in a huff. Brittany stood in the hall, chewing on her lip. She just wanted to see that look on Santana's face again and she was determined to do everything she could to bring it back.
Monday rolled around and the whole school smelled like flowers and perfume. It was finally Valentine's Day. It was a day Sue Sylvester took off to avoid "catching the sickness." When the bell rang, Brittany ran over to her math teacher's office and burst through the door.
"Please, please Mr. Kane, can you grade my math exam now?" She begged. Her math teacher looked as though she had been possessed by the devil. Usually the blonde dreaded getting her math test back and now she was in her office practically on her knees asking for her grade? He wondered if she had been inhaling too much of the perfume wafting through the air.
"Uh...Brittany, shouldn't you be going home? Grades won't come out for the next few days."
"Please, please, please?" She was suddenly at his desk, on her knees with her arms folded together. "It's super, super important!" Mr. Kane looked around his office, wondering if perhaps he was on candid camera. He looked back at the blonde.
"Alright..." He relented. After all, how long could it take when the blonde usually drew rainbows and unicorns for answers?
When Brittany got her test back, she couldn't stop grinning all the way to the glee auditorium. She sat down with some red and pink construction paper as well as glue and a pair of scissors and began her card. She cut up her test into a heart shape, (even if she had to get rid of some of the answers) and glued it to the card. In big black sharpie she wrote, "Happy Valentine's Day, San! I love you! Love, Brittany." When she finished, she held the card in front of her to admire her handy work. Satisfied with the results, she all but jumped up.
"Uh...Brit? What are you doing here? Glee doesn't have practice today." Santana said, walking through the door. Brittany, with one of the largest grins Santana had ever seen skipped over to her and presented her the card.
"Happy Valentine's Day, San!" She exclaimed kissing her on the cheek. Santana opened it and looked it over.
"What the hell Brittany?" Santana demanded and Brittany's face fell. "You got a ten!" She turned the card around and pointed to the big red "10" on the top right corner of the test.
"But San...I..."
"And now you're going to fail and take this class again. You'll have to go to summer school instead of cheerleading camp. How the hell did you think this was a good Valentine's Day present?" Santana snapped.
"But...but you said to make my exam your present..." Brittany whispered.
"Yeah, by passing!" Santana sighed. "Hell, Brittany...Valentine's Day is stupid. You should've been studying instead of preparing for this stupid Hallmark event." Brittany's lip trembled.
"I'm sorry..." She said before dashing past her, hand over her mouth. Santana sighed angrily and looked back at the card. She wasn't really that angry and she felt horrible for making Brittany cry. She was just so upset that they wouldn't be able to spend the summer together that she let her frustration get the best of her. She looked at the desk that Brittany had been sitting at. There was paper scattered all over the place and the glue had tipped over and was leaking out onto the floor. Santana rubbed her temple and then walked over to clean it up. As she picked up the scraps, she noticed something that made her heart drop. She picked up the card and aligned the right half of the paper with the cut out border.
There was another zero.
It didn't take a genius to do the math. Santana eyed the two pieces for several minutes as the realization sunk in piece by piece.
There was another zero.
If you tack a zero at the end of a ten, you get a hundred.
Brittany had aced her math test.
"Oh fuck." Santana cursed, feeling the world crumble around her. "Why the hell didn't you hit me or tell me...?" She turned back to look at the empty door frame and let her arms drop to her side. "I'm such a jerk..."
Santana drove almost three hours to find the one flower shop that wasn't closed or sold out of everything. She stormed in right as they were closing up.
"I need the biggest bouquet of roses that you have." She demanded. The man at the counter stared at her with an "are you serious" expression.
"Our only bouquet is a dozen roses and they're $100." Santana's eyes bulged.
"What the hell am I buying? Meth roses?" She said incredulously.
"It's Valentine's Day and you're desperate." He pointed out.
"Fucking capitalist." She muttered but she took out her wallet and shelled out $100 anyway. She inwardly wondered if the number 100 was out to get her today but walked out of the store with her flowers. She got to Brittany's house really late. She knocked on the door, flowers in hand, not caring if her mother or father noticed. She's just tell them that they were hers and some jock had given them to her. Brittany's mother answered the door.
"Hi Santana!" Her mother said. "Come in."
"Thanks." Santana stepped in.
"Ooh, pretty flowers. Did Puck give them to you?" Her mother asked.
"Yeah." Santana said lamely. "So...where's Brittany?"
"Oh, I thought you were going to the Sweet Heart Ball too." Santana silently cursed. "She left about an hour ago with some curly haired boy." Her mother leaned in. "Between you and me...Brittany could do a lot better."
"Jacob..." Santana hissed, eyes murderous. "Well, thanks Mrs. S."
"Oh, any time, sweetie. You have fun! And remember to put those roses in a vase or they'll die! And cut the stems under running water!"
"Will do!" She said running down the steps. She jumped in her car and did 50 all the way to the school. As soon as she got out of the car, she could hear the gaudy 90's slow dance music emanating from the gym. She grabbed the bouquet (some of the petals falling off) and ran into the gym.
There were only a few people there, mostly awkward students that were lower on the food chain so it wasn't hard to pick out the one hot girl standing next to the punch bowl trying desperately to ignore Jacob who was trying so hard to dance closer to Brittany. Santana did the only thing she knew what to do. She stormed over to the two of them and hit Jacob as hard as she could with the roses that she held. Petals scattered everywhere, into the punch, onto the floor, into Jacob's hair. She was faintly aware of him screaming "OH GOD I THINK I HAVE THORNS IN MY CHEEK!" but she ignored his pitiful cries.
"I'm going to count to two and you're going to be across the room." She threatened. Still pulling thorns from under his nose, he sprinted across the gym to the safety of the other side.
"What are you doing here?" Brittany demanded in a low voice. Her eyes darted across the gym as everyone was more or less watching them. Even though Brittany was still angry at Santana, she was keenly aware that the Latina was breathing heavily, sweating and still in her Cheerio's uniform at potentially the lamest dance in school. The cool kids had planned their own party and she had been sure that Santana was going to that one.
"Brit...I..." She looked down at the ruined flowers. Some of the stems were bent and some had lost all their petals to the brutal beating of Jacob Israel. "These..." and it was like all the words came out of her mouth at once. "These were meant for you. I drove three hours...can you believe they were $100? Hah! I mean, they couldn't even stand a couple of whackings. I brought them so that I could say sorry and now I have to apologize to you that they're all broken. I've been so stupid Brittany, I didn't mean to make you upset. I just didn't want you to miss summer with me and you haven't been doing so well but that's no excuse and..." Brittany grabbed her hand and led her outside where Santana proceeded to take several deep gulps of air. Brittany only allowed her a second to catch her breath before kissing her against the brick wall.
"I've missed you." Brittany breathed as soon as they broke apart.
"I'm so sorry, Brit." Santana repeated.
"It's ok..." Brittany replied. "I understand."
"But it's not ok." Santana insisted. "I keep doing this to you. I want to make it up to you, I promise."
"Does that mean we get to date and hold hands in school? And not just in the abandoned art room?" Brittany asked tentatively.
"I'll try." Santana promised and Brittany could see that she was really trying. She hugged Santana tightly.
"I love you."
"I love you too, Brit."
"Mm, can we go to that special place now?" Santana nodded and kissed Brittany's cheek. Their tender moment was interrupted by the flash of a camera. Santana pulled away from Brittany. Jacob was staring into his camera, admiring his new pictures.
"This will be all over the blogosphere tomorrow. I'll get so many hits for lesbian cheerleaders..." He looked up just in time to see Santana grab him by the collar of his shirt.
"Listen here, jewfro." She hissed. "I'm still the ruler of this school. I want you get one thing straight, ok?" Jacob nodded, sensing impending doom for both him and his camera. Santana let go of him. "You'd better post some good pictures of us. Oh, and please include in your little post that if anyone even tries to go near Brittany, or even looks at her the wrong way I will crush them so fast it would make Sue Sylvester cry." Jacob couldn't believe it when Santana walked away, grabbing Brittany's hand. He had just gotten the scoop of the school year and Santana had let him go with it.
Brittany didn't know just how much more she could take the pounding of her heart when she heard what Santana said. The two of them got into the car and Brittany leaned over and kissed Santana on the mouth. She was faintly aware of another few flashes but it didn't seem like either of them were paying attention. Santana started the car and pulled out of the lot. She kept stealing glances at Brittany who was grinning like an idiot and giggling to herself.
"What's so funny?" Santana asked, smiling as well.
"I love you!" Brittany squealed. "I love you, I love you, I love you." She about had a fit in Santana's car but she couldn't contain herself. She squirmed in her seat and kept kissing Santana's cheek. Santana laughed because the blonde's excitement was contagious.
"By the way, B." Santana began. "I saw the rest of your test...you aced it! I didn't know you were that smart."
"Well...it took a while to figure out how a book worked but once I got going...it was actually kind of interesting. It's like...it's like figuring out how many Cheerios it takes to make a good pyramid." Brittany explained. Santana grabbed Brittany's hand and used her thumb to stroke the blonde's.
"You deserve a reward." Santana said. "You know...we've never done it in the field..." She smiled seductively at Brittany who knew exactly what she was talking about. She leaned over and whispered softly into the Latina's ear.
"I love you, San. I always will." Santana knew that by tomorrow, Jacob's post would've had at least a thousand hits and she knew that boys would cat call them before Santana stomped on their toes. She knew the girls would probably look at her funny and that the teachers would cough awkwardly when they saw her kiss Brittany in class. She knew everything was going to turn upside down for the two of them, at least for a little while until Santana re-established her position as top-dog. But looking over at Brittany and meeting her gorgeous blue eyes that turned just a few shades darker from all the love that welled up inside her, Santana could only think of one thing. Tonight was Valentine's Night and like hell was she going to make it worth it.