The moment Brittany knew that they wouldn't last forever was just after Santana said that they would. "Sure, Brittany will always be my girlfriend," she had said after singing a classic, stereotypical love song not to Brittany herself, but to fame. The words echoed in Brittany's mind when Santana broke her heart again and again with a flick of her satiny hair and a thumb across the wetness under Brit's eyes. Fuck that, she was thinking now as she walked up the stairs to her future at MIT. She wasn't her girlfriend now, and she wasn't Sam's either. She was practically her own girlfriend, living on her own, going to college on her own. She had never done that before. It wasn't that she had been exactly dependant on Santana or Sam, because the two of them were especially dependant on her, but if she was being honest, she didn't know how to live without somebody following her around like a lovesick puppy. So after Sam left the uncerimonious-yet-not-unexpected two-letter text message (Were thru), since her relationship with Santana had edged on nonexistant before Regionals and was likely going to return to that, Brittany tightened her Cheerios high pony and marched out of the bus in Boston, kissing her mom goodbye and taking both her suitcase and the dog-sized travel cage that contained Lord Tubbington (his lady had run away and turned up at the doorstop of a young neighbor who apparently needed a cat a lot more than Brittany, and she was allowed to stay on the condition that she and Lord Tubbington Skyped once a week while Brittany was away) in her own hands. She did trip halfway up the stairs and had to be helped by a wandering professor, but she brushed that off, figuring a stranger doesn't count as help. She was alone, and she could handle it.
Four weeks ago, Santana had left a voicemail that admitted tremblingly to her awe at Brittany's performance in Regionals. It was hard for Brittany to understand what she was saying due to the frequency of sniffles and even occasional long pauses where all she could hear was shaky breathing, but she heard one sentence loud and clear: "I want you back." Brittany never replied to the message, and the words were coming back to her in a panicky state as she pushed open the doors to her new single dorm, her hands shaking and her heart beating as loudly as the ticking of her watch which she couldn't seem to fix. She regretted that voicemail so badly as the intensity of her loneliness set down on her, and she realized that she couldn't handle it. She came close to shutting the door on her own tightly closed, scared eyes when she heard the voice that had been playing over in her head since before she stepped into the building. She would have turned around if it didn't sound so real.
"Santana?" she whispered.
"Open your eyes, baby."
She did. In front of her was the girl she had been hearing for so long, sitting uncomfortably on Brittany's new matress. Lord Tubbington meowed happily and Santana waved. "Santana..."
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I just couldn't be alone."
Brittany bit her trembling lip and sat next to her on the bed, leaving her things at the door. "Neither could I."