Disclaimer: I do not own Glee, and any credit for characters, places or plot events goes to their respective owners. The song used largely in this fic belongs to a New Zealand band, Opshop.

Summary: Relatively OOC-Brittana. Semi-AU. Post-Nationals. She isn't ready, she might not be ready for a long time, and though it hurts, Brittany will wait. Though she refuses to be anybody's dirty little secret, it doesn't mean she won't be there to hold her when times are hard.

Author's Note: This is my first foray into the Glee scene, and though I feel bad it's a songfic, it was appropriate. This is my interpretation of the characters. Came as a spontaneous burst of inspiration, and though I debated on the song choice for a long time, I ended up with the song One Day by Opshop; they're a New Zealand band, and fairly popular here. This is one of my favorite songs, a constant presence on my playlist, and I highly suggest listening to the song itself. Oh, also, I apologize to all my Final Fantasy readers who were hoping for another Fang/Lightning piece.

The Reeling

"Patience make her heart grow stronger
Reassure her she's where I want to be.
Never was the grass ever greener
I'm about ready as I'll ever be."

The piano faded out with the girl's singing, as Brittany could no longer carry on and her hands fell idle on the ivory keys. Her parents had insisted she take lessons as a child, and though it had taken her some time to recall them, it was well worth it for what this song was meant to portray. Her eyes burned and her heart stung in her chest. The feelings, the confliction, the uncertainty, the indecision were destroying her. Brittany had always been a dancer, but she'd never danced this kind of dance before.

Quinn Fabray placed a gentle hand on her friend's shoulder, staring deeply into misty, pained eyes; eyes that had always been so happy in the past, and whose sadness seemed to utterly alien and wrong. Slowly, carefully and deliberately, her left hand came to rest on the younger girl's cheek, her thumb brushing away the beginnings of tears from her cheeks.

"Oh, Brittany…" Quinn murmured lowly, pain in her own voice. "Why are you crying?"

It had been a long time since they'd had the chance to talk, not the simple pleasantries and idle chatter of acquaintances, but really, meaningfully talk, like the close friends they had once been. The events of the previous year, her pregnancy and her falling out with her two best friends, had weighed heavily on Quinn for so long. So much had happened in the time leading up to that moment, and Quinn had been too caught up in her own thoughts and feelings to notice it, to notice how much her once friend had been suffering.

If not for Brittany approaching her after Glee that day, in the weeks following the Nationals disaster, then Quinn certainly would have continued forth on her uncaring path. It had taken pain to bring them back together, Brittany's pain, a pain that had been ignored for far too long. The blonde had asked her, out of the blue, for her assistance with preparing a song to present the following week.

What Quinn hadn't realized was that it wasn't the song she needed help with, but swallowing the emotion behind the words.

Brittany brought her own hand up after a long moment, touching her cheek, absent. Feeling the moisture, she blinked, finally, some measure of life returning to her magnetic blue eyes. "I…" she hesitated, swallowing the emotions that were crippling her ability to speak, "I don't know," she tried.

"Brittany, please," Quinn pled.

Blue eyes blinked, softened upon her friend. It was not a time for defense, she realized, that was not her intention in calling Quinn here, to aid her. No, she needed someone to help her shoulder the painful burden that had been placed on her; the burden of choice. "The lyrics," she murmured, her voice quiet, "they make me sad."

"Is it because of her?" Quinn had let her hand drop from her face, and instead it traced soothing circles on her hand.

They didn't need to name names, they both knew each other better than that, and Brittany was not sure that her heart could take hearing her name in a moment so sad without breaking even more. More than it had they day she'd refused her. Her face was drawn into a line of sorrow, however light. It was all the answer that the ex-Head Cheerio needed.

The older blonde's face twisted. "When isn't it," Quinn whispered after a long moment, smile bitter.

"I love her, I do," Brittany spoke, her voice weak. Tears twisted down her cheeks, the flow renewed. "But I can't be anyone's dirty little secret. Is that bad? I feel like I'm trying to force her into somebody she doesn't want to be."

"Brittany, sweetie," Quinn was softer with Brittany then she was with many people. "You have every right to feel that way. But trust me, you're not trying to make her into anybody she wasn't already. And if she truly loves you, like she says, then she'll understand that."

Brittany's face crumpled. "All I want is for her to be able to love me."

Quinn sighed gently, tugging her fellow blonde into a tight hug, her hand coaxing Brittany into resting her face in Quinn's neck. It felt good, right, the simple comforting embrace of two reconciled friends that had been kept apart by circumstance for too long, brought back together by pain and sadness.

"I won't tell you it gets easier, because it might not." Quinn murmured in her ear. "But sometimes, if you truly love a person, waiting is all you can do."

(x)

At Mr. Schue's allowance, Brittany Pierce stood before the Glee Club, shifting absently from foot to foot. The somewhat spacey girl's request for the floor had taken all of them by surprise, even Mr. Schuester himself, and they were all curious as to what the blonde had to say, or sing, at any rate. She took a deep breath.

"This is for…" Brittany hesitated in the face of all her friends, but breathed freely at Quinn's kind smile. "Well, it doesn't matter. They'll know who it's for."

Everyone passed looks between them. Nobody made any move that suggested they knew what the ex-cheerleader was talking about. It seemed as if the young woman taking the floor was coming as a surprise to each of them. But not a single one of them looked to Santana or Quinn, to see the confusion and pride present in both their faces respectively.

Brittany turned to the band who usually helped with the numbers, a group of fairly talented teens who they knew wouldn't judge them or pass on what was said in the choir room; whatever was said in the room was sacred, seemingly. She gave them a soft smile, thanking them for their willingness to help her prepare. She turned to Brad, who sad behind the piano, ready to play his part.

The brow of the entirety of New Directions, bar Quinn, seemed to rise in tandem as the absent young blonde gestured to the man behind the piano—she'd been unable to stomach playing the composition herself, in the end, and had resorted to pleading with Brad to play her song, to which he'd hesitantly agreed to after seeing her obvious distress. Immediately, a low piano sound filled the room, almost drowned out by the soft, dulcet sounds of the guitar and the equally as mellow drum beat.

It seemed so out of character for the blonde to sing to them, let alone something so obviously soft. In the past, Brittany had proved herself as nothing but adept at performing the popular songs of their generation, like Ke$ha and Britney Spears. They'd never seen the young woman attempt anything so soft sounding, and were curious despite themselves as to how Brittany would handle such a song.

Brittany closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then she sung.

"Absence make her heart grow fonder,
While I'm conquering the last frontier.
Lately I've found myself wonderin' out loud,
Wonderin' what I was doin' here.

One day you'll understand how much you have me,
One day you'll realize we have it easy.
I can't offer you the future—I don't know it myself.
All I can offer you is me,
I'm all I can offer you right now."

It was a wonderful song, slow, deep and meaningful; the voice of the woman who sung it was no less beautiful. They had never heard the song before, but were too enraptured with the obvious melancholy and yearning in the blonde's beautiful voice to wonder of its origins.

Going unnoticed, sat at the back of the room as she was, Santana sat up straight, eyes wide since the beginning chords rang in her ears. She knew the song, how could she not? It had been Brittany's favorite song for months, it had played on the radio the day they'd spent at the duck pond almost a year earlier, when they'd made love for the first time. She hadn't paid it much mind then, but the sorrow in Brittany's voice, in the lyrics which were usually so calm…

Santana heard the silent message.

"Patience make her heart grow stronger,
Reassure her she's where I want to be.
Never was the grass ever greener,
I'm about ready as I'll ever be.

And one day you'll understand how much you have me,
One day you'll realize we have it easy.
If an expression of love is what you need to believe
All I can offer you is me,
I'm all I can offer you right now."

Brittany let her eyes open, let herself lock gazes with dark brown eyes she'd come to love—no, eyes she'd always loved. Santana's lips drew up, and though her eyes were wet, her expression shaky, she was glowing.

The Latina had always let her worries get the better of her in the past, and though she'd gotten into some major shit because of it, Brittany had never left her side throughout—this, her feelings, were no different. She understood that now. Despite the hurt, the pain and the sorrow that Santana knew she was causing with the rejection of her own feelings, Brittany was saying with this song that she would be for her as she had been since the beginning; when they were just two little girls in preschool watching each other's backs for bullies.

Brittany smiled at her, at all of them, as they sat there, silent, listening to her voice convey a silent message that very few of them could understand. She jolted forward, grasping Quinn's hand, tugging her up to sing the song they both now knew. Quiet, supportive, Quinn stepped up with her, drawing her into a loose hug as she joined in, singing with the blonde she now understood so much better.

"I'm all I am,
All I am, yeah.

One day you'll understand how much you have me,
One day you'll realize we have it easy.
I can't offer you the future—I don't know it myself,
All I can offer you is me."

Santana was positively reeling with the knowledge of how much she wanted to get up there and push Quinn aside, to take over and sing at Britt's side like she should be. But of course, she sat silently, unable to smother the tiny, amazed quirk of her lips.

Though she wasn't ready to jump for joy and shout her orientation from the rooftops, not even the sly, proud looks that Tubbers was tossing at her could squash the elation that was building in Santana's chest. She felt warm, for the first time in months, the feeling of guilt and unhappiness, the feeling of being unloved faded from her. Brittany always had her back, even if she didn't always realize it. It was a startling revelation.

"One day you'll understand how much you have me,
One day you'll realize we have it easy.
If an expression of love is what you need to believe,
All I can offer you is me.
I'm all I can offer you right now."

As the music, guitar, piano and drums, all came to an abrupt crescendo with her words, fading into silence, the club almost believed it to be the end. But suddenly, the music returned for few fleeting moments, as Brittany's last words flew free to greet them.

"Absence make her heart grow fonder,
While I'm conquering the last frontier."

In that brief moment preceding the enthusiastic claps of the entire club, as her final words gave way to a stunned silence, Brittany and Santana locked eyes, and in that moment, they were eternal. Nothing could bring them down from their high. This little dance they danced, the constant break-up and make-up cycle, though they were never dating, had been danced too long; every act had to end some time, and this was the end of an act that had only moments ago seemed without resolution.

Unable to stifle the wide smile that curled at her lips, Santana Lopez's heart fluttered faster than the claps of the audience put together; elated blue met shocked, accepting hazel. This would be the beginning of a new chapter, certainly, and perhaps this one would finally bring them the happy ending that they so deserved.

Before she knew it, Santana had carried herself to her feet, and met Brittany in a hug so tight that she thought she might burst; only a fraction of the glowing pressure her heart felt. Resting her forehead against Brittany's, she couldn't contain herself. "I'm sorry," she whispered, the first apology of so many she would have to make. "I'm sorry, and I love you."

It had taken a long time, that guidance and prompting of so many, and finally the words to a song that broke her heart with its conviction, but she knew. That blonde, wondrous, loving and perfect, was her future, her world and her everything; undoubtedly, Brittany was hers, she now knew. And though it may be some time waiting on Santana's account, they could handle that, together, so long as the blonde's unspoken words, her offering, rung true and they would remember. They would always be there for each other—through thick and thin, they had each other's backs, as they always had.

In the end, this was as it always had been; just another step for them.