Santana Lopez was broken. For the last few weeks she had been struggling to maintain, but finally she had just given up. She felt like a zombie as she made her way through school, but she did not care. She was broken and nothing mattered anymore. Somewhere in her mind she thought she could hear Sam talking to her, but that did not really matter either. She stood in front of her locker looking into it trying to remember why she was there. She could feel Brittany somewhere behind her, looking at her. She wanted to just turn around and look at her, but she knew that if she did she would see Artie and the hurt would be fresh again instead of the numbness she now lived through.
A month ago Santana did not know that she could hate herself so much. She had always been completely comfortable with everything she was and everything around her. And if something around her did not mesh with her view of life then she either changed it or got rid of it. She was strong and had been for longer than anyone at McKinley could possibly know save for Brittany. Part of that strength had been dependent on her self confidence and now that was destroyed along with her spirit. She had waited and hoped that the nightmare would end, that Brittany would change her mind, come back to her. The truth though, was that deep down she knew that it was not going to happen. Brittany did not know how to be cruel, at least not without Santana's input, and she would not hurt Artie.
That left Santana where she was now, standing in front of her locker hating herself. She had fucked up and there was nowhere to shift the blame. She had lied to herself and to Brittany and now she was alone and it hurt. But at least now the hurt was a distant thing, hidden behind a kind of emotional fog that left her feeling insulated from the world and numb to the goings on around her. At least that was the case until she heard that word.
"Faggot."
As soon as the word hit her ears it seemed to plunge straight through the miles of emotional fog surrounding her. She turned around trying to understand what had hit her so hard and she saw Dave Karofsky and his buddy Azimio Adams. There were three other guys on the football team standing behind them, but she only really saw those two, the ringleaders.
In a distant corner of her mind Santana was amazed at how the emotional fog that had been blanketing her for the past few days was so easily burned away. Hate is a powerful motivator.
"How is your faggoty brother doing? Heard he got a new faggot boyfriend."
Karofsky was talking to Finn and had him cornered against the lockers on the other side of the hall. She could see now that most of the glee club was there and she could almost remember hearing them talk about Kurt dating some guy named Blaine, but for the moment it did not matter. She only had eyes for Karofsky. It had been because of asshats like him that she had been so afraid to tell Brittany how she felt, to afraid to openly be with her. It was bigoted morons like him that she had fucked her life up so bad.
"When are the rest of you faggots gonna come out of the closet?" Karofsky turned and high fived Azimio as if he had just won an award.
It was because of that ass that she was where she was at now, looking at Brittany scared and holding onto Artie instead of standing next to her and being the one she held onto. She did not know when she made the decision, but she did remember the brief internal debate over whether to use the math book or the world history book. She chose the world history book because she felt that the added weight outweighed the benefits of the condensed area of impact the thinner math book would provide.
Without ever really thinking about the decision or the possible ramifications she pulled the history book out of her locker and closed the little door and locked it. She let her purse drop off her shoulder to the ground because she did not want it to get in the way of her swing. As she took the two or three steeps across the hall she idly wondered where the hot anger of a moment ago had gone. All she felt now was cold, but it did not matter. She paused behind Karofsky for a moment and made eye contact with Finn before she pulled back. It was all the warning she intended to give him and if he did not get out of the way in time then oh well, he should have taken care of this asshole the first time Kurt got shoved into the lockers.
She did not remember actually drawing back or swinging, but she did remember the way it felt when she connected. She was Santana Lopez and as such she was vicious. She had not hit Karofsky with the flat of the book, but instead with the bound corner, right to the back of the head. She had enough presence of mind to aim a bit above the base of the skull because she did not want to kill him. At least not with witnesses. But the strike proved more than sufficient. And if the initial impact did not render him unconscious, his head rebounding from door of the locker in front of him would have proved quite the icing on the cake. Incidentally Finn did make the realization that he needed to get the hell out of the way.
The way Karofsky collapsed bonelessly was damned satisfying, but curiously Santana was not satisfied. She looked over to Brittany still holding onto Artie and felt the anger stir again. She looked back down to Karofsky and before anyone could make a move she kicked him hard in the ribs. She thought about one to the face but there was that pesky murder thing again so she settled for a second to the ribs. At that moment though the other football meatheads picked their jaws up off the floor and surged toward her.
Say what you will about Finn, but the guy has amazing reflexes. He managed to get between her and the oncoming assault in an instant and just as quickly had Azimio on the floor with a bloody nose. Sam seemed to materialize from the other side of the hallway as he dove onto one of the other football players. For his part, Mike Chang was just very stereotypically asian. She was not sure what type of martial art he knew, but whatever it was it seemed quite up to the task of manhandling the other two members of the football team. All the girls of glee on the other hand were giving all they had to restrain Puck from joining in and ending back up in juvie. Artie and Brittany just stared wide eyed at it all as if they could not believe that just a minute or so ago it was just another day.
It was stuffy in the principal's office. The press of bodies made her uncomfortable and she wondered how much more trouble she could be in if she were to just get up and leave. The only thing that kept from doing just that was that she would not abandon Brittany. The blonde and her wheel chair bound boyfriend had both insisted that they share punishment with the rest of the members of glee and if they could sit through this torture then she would endure. Still though, she felt that there might be a need to move to a class room soon if any more people showed up. So far there was the entire glee club, the five worse for wear football players, the Hudson-Hummel family, Blaine, Mr. Karofsky, the Adams' and the rest of the parents were still on the way. Santana's own father was speeding through Ohio right this moment trying to make it back from his medical practice in Columbus.
When all was said and done she actually got off scot free. It was a ridiculous bastardization of the system, but it worked for her. The entire scene had to many witnesses and that was her saving grace. No one could deny that Karofsky had instigated everything, and while that may not have been enough to shield Santana from repercussion, the fact that he was making the same homophobic slurs that had nearly gotten him expelled, and to the brother of his initial victim was. In light of that, and the fact that it was a situation that Principal Higgins was well aware of as it was the reason he was returned to his job, things were complicated. Attempting to punish Santana would lead to her exposing the reason behind the attack which would highlight the gross negligence of the entire faculty of Williams McKinley High School. With that as the fulcrum, the glee club and their assembled parentage had rallied behind Santana and shifted the course of the proceedings to her favor. The most satisfyingly ironic outcome of the entire ordeal was that, in this cover up of political proportions, only David Karofsky was punished even though he was the one attacked. It may have gone pear shaped if Dave's own father had not chosen to allow the expulsion as there was no longer a valid argument to the innocence of his son.