Brittany picks her way through the woods again in the moonlight. The papery white bark reflects what ambient light there is and guides her, as often, to where the trees open up into a smallish depression. In the cold damp, like tonight, it fills with fog, and she tends to drop down inside it looking up, knowing the stars are out there but unable to see them. Knowing the dandelions are under the surface, underneath her, ready to grow and release their tiny helicopters, but not yet, not until the ground warms up, softens, and gives strength to the roots slumbering further down.
Fog is something she's getting used to. Where fog rises, wind has subsided; a high-pressure system surely squats over Lima and anything else it reaches. With diminished visibility in the fog, she stumbles into what's in front of her, over and over, unable to see more than a handspan, or maybe arm's length, in front of her. She had goals once. It's hard to see them now, so she's putting one foot in front of the other, again, feeling her way through, but feeling stalled, becalmed.
Several summers ago, one of her cousins took her sailing. She missed Santana during the family roadtrip, but she loved going daily out on the lake, the wind stinging her cheeks, the sun crisping her skin, trails of foam and lakeweed and churned water and air left behind them. Quite suddenly another sailboat appeared from behind the sails over the starboard bow. Her cousin, spooked, turned sharply into the wind to avoid it, slowing enough for it to pass, a near miss but a miss nonetheless. As their boat turned into the wind, the sails spilled their air, luffing, fluttering, slowing, stalling. Stopping. She watched the flotsam on the surface of the water. They began to drift backward. When she'd caught her breath, her cousin reefed in, headed off the wind, and they continued, progress impeded but then continued even so.
Even Santana doesn't understand her night walks, but Sam: his intentions are good, but it makes her crazy. If she catches him stalking her again, it's totally over. They are luffing. Luff is luff. She knows, and he knows, and he knows she knows that this is a love-the-one-you're-with situation. It's touchy. On the other hand, his touch helps. And bless him, Artie is helping, too, not that way, but tutoring them both. This is the last last year of high school for damn sure.
(And then?)
And then. When the ground warms up. It all depends, then, doesn't it? Then there's a chance her heart can pull out of stalling, falling, hurtling from the sky like a lightning-struck bird. There's a chance, if she can just arrive in time, if she can navigate through the fog, there's a chance, if she can feel her way through toward the stars she knows are there but can't see, there's a chance. There's a chance she'll catch up to her, her heart's desire, and she's willing to take it.
Tags: brittana fic