(Though unsolicited, this was written to help celebrate Brittanacon. Cool beans people.)
"Oh man, it's alive!" The man took a quick step back, hitting the flimsy wall behind him. "Quick, go call the sheriff!" He took disgusted but cautious steps forward in the dark shack and toed the bundle of what he'd initially thought were abandoned rags, maybe something that had been a blanket (maybe, a few years ago, it was a tattered nothing now). Large dark eyes stared up at him malevolently. That's all he could see in the poor light: those eyes. He turned around and left hurriedly, just to get away from their unblinking hatred.
The sheriff, bulging belly sagging over his belt, spat tobacco juice with disgruntled emphasis, and looked at the little girl standing in front of him. She was filthy. Ragged clothes, sweat-soaked and as dirty as the rest of her, clung to her skinny form. Her hair was a rat's nest of matted clumps and frizzes and curls. Her brown skin was covered with browner dirt. She clutched a dirty rag doll to her chest and glared at all of them. It took all of her self-possession not to start yelling at them for looking at her the way they did. Her mother had told her to stay, and to stay quiet. She was a good girl, and had done what she was told to do. Even when, much later, she realized that her family - her parents and her older brother - had simply ... left. Left her behind, leaving a hole in her heart. Surely they would come back, she had thought at first, while thirst tortured and tickled at her throat and tears coursed down her dirty face and she'd clutched her doll, Rosalita, with increasing desperation. Even when she was so hungry she didn't even feel hungry anymore, still she stayed quiet and in place. Waiting. But whatever she'd been waiting for, it wasn't this, to be mocked and stared at and judged by a bunch of self-satisfied white people who looked at her like the dirt on her face also ran in her veins. She glared at them all and rage ran through her like an electric spark.
She was bundled into the back of a police car, the sheriff's deputy taking great delight in telling her what was going on: "We're arresting you, gonna take you to prison" he said, grinning widely and showing off crooked, stained teeth. Then he paused and reflected. "Guessin' you don't fully understand since you're a spic, huh? WE ... ARRESTIN' YOU! PRISON! YOU GO!" He bellowed in the confines of the car, as if volume would traverse the language barrier. The little girl said nothing, but continued to stare.
He was the first to look away and she savored the small victory.
The drive to the "prison" took a long time and the little girl was so hungry and so thirsty. But she would not speak, would not ask these cretins for anything. Eventually they drove up a gravel drive that fronted a large dilapidated white house. The little girl nearly scoffed. Some prison, there weren't even any walls around it, and it looked like a house. A run-down house in need of repair and a few coats of paint, but still, just a house. She could not read the sign nailed beside the front door : McKinley County Orphanage.
The two women looked at the new arrival with open disdain. They'd taken Rosalita from her, an act of brutal cruelty that nearly caused the little girl to break down, her full lips trembling and tears starting in her large dark eyes. They'd bathed her and dressed her in ill-fitting, unflattering clothes. Now she was sitting on an uncomfortable chair, her shorts-clad legs sticking to the plastic seat, while the two women sat opposite - in cushioned chairs - and mulled her fate.
"Would you say she's a darky? Or just a spic?" The older one asked.
"She probably doesn't know herself what she is," the other woman, a tall blonde with short hair and a sneer, replied. "But she looks like a spic, and she was found in a migrant shack, so we'll assume that's her heritage." She said the word heritage like it was an ironic insult. "You need a name, little chica Mexicana," she addressed the little girl for the first time. She smiled a cold smile at the child. "You know what? With that hair of yours, all frizzy and curly now that we've cut it, you look just like Carlos Santana, only without the mustache. That's your name, chica." She threw her head back and laughed and her sycophantic co-worker eagerly joined in.
"You're gonna name her Carlos?!"
The tall blonde looked at her companion with ill-disguised contempt. "No, Hagberg, I'm gonna call her Santana. Still needs another name though, all these friggin' forms to fill out ..." her voice trailed off and she looked around her dingy office. There were a lot of trophies scattered about, looking incongruous amongst the flat dullness of the place. She could hardly name the kid Santana Trophy or Santana Uparticipato, she considered, staring at a small participation trophy she'd stolen from the suitcase of a newly orphaned child. Her eyes scanned her desk for inspiration, running quickly over a bunch of half-finished paperwork and a small stack of tabloids and gossip magazines. Then she paused and looked more closely at the top-most rag: JLo's Secrets to A Better Sex Life! Byootyful Tips from Sex Goddess Jennifer Lopez! Exclusive to the International Inquisitor!
"Lopez," she snarled. And the little girl started violently, because Lopez was indeed her name.
The two women soon led her outdoors, to a large enclosed area behind the orphanage. There was a fence, and the little girl wondered if she had been put in prison after all. If so, she was not the only inmate. A small group of children populated the area, a space that charitably could be considered a playground of sorts. Most of the children were not playing, however, and none of them looked especially happy. In fact they were an ill-sorted bunch, though all roughly the same age, they ranged in size from a gangly, oversized boy who so completely lacked coordination he was literally tripping over his own feet, to a couple of tiny little girls, one with a rather large nose and another with an exotic, pretty face unlike anything the little Hispanic girl had ever seen before. All the children looked underfed except for a chubby little black girl who was looking her way with attitude, before turning her attention back to her playmate, a pale, thin little boy wearing what looked like a frilly pink dress. His cheeks were red and he looked as if he'd been crying. Both of his knees were scraped. Next to them sat another child, a blonde girl who sat primly and seemed to be pretending that she was someplace else entirely, perhaps a place where she had parents or at least a loving relative or two.
The little girl took all this in immediately with one sweeping and disinterested look. Then her attention was caught by a swirl of white and gold off in one corner of the enclosed area. A thin girl, all skinny legs and arms and knobby knees and elbows, was skipping and dancing around to a song only she could hear. Her yellow hair swept out and danced with her from beneath a dirty white bicycle helmet which she wore on her head. Looking closer, the newcomer saw what looked to be crayon scribbles of color drawn onto the sides of the helmet. It was, somehow, pathetic yet endearing. Just as she focused intently on the skinny little blonde dancer, who seemed entirely unaware of her surroundings, another child, this one a mischievous looking little tough guy, hurled a stick at the little girl's ankles, causing a catastrophic fall. The little boy let out a whoop of intense laughter and some of the other children - and the two adults - laughed with him.
The little girl with the bright yellow hair, now sprawled on the ground, did not make a sound. But she did look up and over at the steps where the newly named Santana Lopez stood, and her bright blue eyes met Santana's for the first time. There was a brief but intense shared look, then the blonde girl quickly flushed and looked down and away, as if in shame.
"Okay, listen up you whiny motherless babies! Oh, BOOHOO! Here's some fresh meat for your no doubt compelling re-enactment of Lord of the Flies!" The children looked mostly frightened or confused or some combination thereof. They were all used to the mean big lady sneering words at them and had long stopped listening or trying to understand. "Meet Santana Lo-Pez!" She continued, drawing out the name for effect. Then she gave the little girl a slight push as she and Mrs. Hagberg turned around to re-enter the house, where exciting articles in tabloids awaited them. The paperwork for Santana Lopez could wait.
It didn't take Santana long to learn the setup at the prison. There were some mean ones, like Quinn, who was mean with words, and Noah, who was mean with actions. There were some nice ones, like Mercedes and Kurt and Tina. There were some annoying ones, like Rachel and Finn. And then there was Brittany, the skinny blonde who didn't talk, barely made eye contact and if anybody touched her or even got too close to her, she would start to shake and cry. The only time she took off the helmet was when she was in bed, when it was exchanged for a thick beanie knitted in rainbow colors. Santana, who could talk but chose not to, was fascinated and intensely curious about the other girl but couldn't begin to explain why. She just knew that if they were anywhere near one another - which was most of the time as the entire group tended to be herded together - her eyes sought Brittany out, with a sense of wonder that such a pretty little girl existed. She just had such pretty eyes, even if she wouldn't look at Santana. Santana knew it was nothing personal, since she didn't look at anybody else either.
Life at the prison was better than any life Santana had known previously. She was fed and clothed and (mostly) clean. She would often find her hands clutching at a phantom Rosalita, but was not interested in replacing Rosalita. The only time this was a serious problem was at night in bed, when she would often whimper and feel frightened and so terribly alone and untethered in the world. Not even the thoughts of the pretty blonde princess, for Santana was sure after thinking about it that the other little girl was a princess - because otherwise why would she always wear stuff on her head? - were enough to soothe Santana. And if she were to make too much noise and cause a disruption, one of the mean women would come into the room and just scare Santana even more (though she tried mightily not to let her fear show).
On a night worse than any other so far, Santana was almost drowned by a wave of sorrow and fear, and woke up gasping for breath. Then she gasped for another reason, since Brittany was standing just beside her bed, so close to the bed that her knee was nervously tapping against the bedframe. Brittany looked irresolute, as if she herself did not know why she had broken the rules and gotten out of her bed, nor why she was now standing beside Santana's bed. She made eye contact for a just a couple of seconds - Santana would swear later that her blue eyes lit the room - and then dropped something on Santana's chest, before scuttling quickly back to her own bed. Santana lifted the object and looked at it carefully. It was an overstuffed cat, of indeterminate color and with a lot of it's nap worn off, as if it had endured too many panicked hugs over the years. Santana was deeply confused, wondering if Brittany, who was so different from the rest of the prisoners, had dropped the cat by mistake, but it hadn't looked like she'd done so, and after all, she'd gotten up from her own bed to check on Santana and so didn't that mean it was intentional? Like a present? Santana then felt warm all through her chest and all the way down to her toes at the thought of a present, especially from the little princess. She gave the stuffed creature a tentative hug, and it felt ... perfect.
As time passed, Santana grew used to the routine. She tried on occasion to get closer to Brittany, but Brittany would dash away to another corner of the room or the playground. It hurt Santana's heart each time this happened, but she would think of the overstuffed cat, and feel better. Then one day, a man arrived at the prison, throwing all the children into nervous turmoil, in a way that Santana did not understand. The children, though, began talking about "adoptions" and "new families" and it was Quinn who confidently pronounced that she would be adopted soon, giving scornful looks at the competition. Santana wasn't exactly sure what it meant, but if it meant Quinn would be taken to another prison, she was okay with it.
Determined to learn more, she squatted beneath the open office window and listened to the grown ups talk.
"And before we go any further, may I just say that the Chia Pet farm growing on your head is no doubt an excellent way to augment the crap pay you get from the county."
"Sue ..." the man sounded both tired and exasperated. "We need to decide what to do about the kids, do you really think there are any in the group that might interest this couple? They're strict fundamentalist Christians, you know, they are probably looking for a pretty specific type of child."
"You're so wishy-washy, Will. Wishy-Washy William. Just come out and say they want docile and white, why don't you?"
"Okay then, you have a couple of little blonde girls, right? Perhaps one of them might ..."
"Quinn is adoptable material, but the other one will never be adopted."
"Which one is that - ?"
"Brittany the little nutcase, remember her?"
"I remember her enough not to call her a little nutcase," Will said repressively.
"Sticks and stones may break my bo- God! Clearly I'm spending too much time in the company of children!"
"Hasn't there been any improvement? How is her head?" Will seemed intent to ignore Sue as much as humanly possible.
"No real improvement, no. She seems mostly content, as far as anybody can tell, but she shakes up a storm whenever anybody gets too close, even the other kids. Whatever that guy did to her before he threw her head first into that wall must have been one for the books." For a moment no one said anything, and for Santana it was as if time stood still. Someone had hurt Brittany and that was why she wore that dirty bicycle helmet all the time. The dirty helmet that Brittany had tried to make pretty with colorful crayons. Brittany was not, in fact, a princess awaiting rescue from the evil clutches of Dragon Sue. She was, like Santana, someone that nobody else wanted. With this devastating enlightenment, Santana was deeply torn. On the one hand, someone had hurt Brittany very badly and familiar rage warred with horror, filling her small body. But on the other hand, Brittany wouldn't be sent away. Santana would be able to watch over her and protect her and make sure nobody ever hurt her again. Santana clutched the overstuffed cat, that she carried with her almost all the time, tighter to her chest, only wishing she could hug Brittany with as much fervor.
Maybe someday.
"Someday" turned out to be far sooner than Santana could have known, even in her wildest dreams. But never once in those dreams did Santana ever imagine that Brittany would be the one to protect and comfort her.
Though scrawny and much smaller than almost all the other kids, Santana was a very scrappy child, more than willing to confront bullies twice her size - like that Finn kid, boy did she show him! It didn't take long for the other kids to stop teasing her. Some of the kids, like Kurt and Mercedes and Tina, had never teased her to begin with. But Noah was another story. Noah was upset that so many of the kids were now more afraid of Santana than they were of him. So it was that he planned to "take her out" first by tripping her down the stairs and then finishing her off with his fists and feet. He really was a nasty little boy. What he didn't count upon was that Brittany, in her silent stealthy way, was every bit as fascinated with Santana as the other girl was with her. When she saw Noah crouching next to the steps, with a hand reaching out to grab at Santana's ankle, she seemed to take flight, she moved so fast, even while Santana actually was taking flight, becoming airborne as a result of Noah's maneuver. Brittany frantically slid her body beneath Santana's, the two little girls colliding at the base of the steps, Brittany taking the brunt of the fall and the impact of Santana's tiny body against her own.
Dazed and horrified, Santana lay briefly on top of Brittany, who was clutching her tightly, even while her own eyes were tightly shut and, as ever, she had made not a sound. For a dreadful moment, Santana thought she'd broken Brittany and cried out in anguish, "Brittany! NO!" But to her immense surprise, Brittany took a deep breath, opened her eyes, and said a meek and nearly silent "Okay?"
Seeing those eyes up close was even better than at a distance and Santana was momentarily lost in a sea of blue. But that was the moment she knew that everything would be, as Brittany had said, okay. The hole in Santana's heart had been filled with the best love of all.