Note: This chapter takes place in the final episode of Season 1, just after New Directions has lost at Regionals.
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It's chilly when they step out of the theater. Santana follows behind Artie and Mercedes with Brittany's pinky linked around hers, the only heat Santana can feel. They wind their way through pockets of audience members, most of them kindly middle-aged women who tell them, as they shuffle by, what a great jobthey did. Santana trains her eyes on the wheels of Artie's chair so she doesn't snap.
They walk in silence until they reach the back corner of the parking lot. Mr. Schuester stops at the trunk of his car and places his palm over the scraped-up paint, and the rest of them wait.
"Do you guys…want to go for pizza?" Mr. Schuester asks.
"For what?" Santana says. "So we can celebrate?"
"Santana—"
"She's right," Rachel says. "Let's just go home, Mr. Schue."
"Come on, guys," Mr. Schuester says. "That performance was something to be proud of, even if we didn't win."
"We didn't even place, Mr. Schue," Artie says.
Finn cuts off Mr. Schuester's retort. "It's okay, Mr. Schue," he says. "I think we all just need some time."
Mr. Schuester nods his head, his skinny jaw set in defeat. "Alright. Let's take some time to regroup, and…I'll see you guys on Monday."
They disperse to their cars without saying anything else, the 11 of them separating into small carpool clusters, Puck skulking off by himself. Santana wonders whether he'll go back to the hospital to be with Quinn. She shuts herself into the passenger side of Brittany's car and waits for the moment when it will be just the two of them.
Brittany shuts herself in on the driver's side. She sits straight up with her hands on her lap, staring ahead through the windshield. Neither one of them speaks.
They listen to their teammates' cars start up. Santana waits until Brittany's is the last car remaining before she speaks.
"You were great, Britt."
Brittany turns to her. "You were too, Santana."
Silence.
"Do you want to get some food?"
Brittany nods and turns the key in the ignition.
They go to Burger King. Neither one of them likes Burger King, but it's the closest fast food joint they can find.
"Is it ridiculous that I want a Whopper," Santana says.
"No," Brittany says. "Is it ridiculous that I want to go inside and talk to the cashier people just to make sure we're still on the same earth?"
Santana half-smiles. "It's not ridiculous, Britt."
They get home late. They carry empty Burger King bags into Brittany's kitchen, having already eaten their French fries and Whoppers in the car. Santana can smell the grease hanging around them even after they throw their bags in the trash can. It makes her whole reality seem even more mundane, more pathetic, than it already had.
They tiptoe up the stairs to Brittany's bedroom, past the familiar old sign on Brittany's door and into the sanctuary of their own private space. Santana pushes Lord Tubbington off the bed—he swats at her wrist before waddling off toward the closet—and plops down onto the mattress so she can tug off her heels.
She and Brittany say nothing to each other as they unstrap their heels and pull off their headbands. The songs from their performance tonight pound in Santana's head, circling around the wires of her brain, the wires usually buzzing with cheerleading moves or gossip from the hallways or words Brittany has said.
Brittany throws her heels and headband into a pile on the carpet. She leans against her pastel-painted wall and swings her eyes to the ceiling.
"How do we get the magic back?" she asks.
"What?"
"The magic from tonight," Brittany says, like it's obvious, and Santana is reminded of when they used to play pretend as children, when Brittany would casually mention dragons with poisonous tails and cupboards that led to eternal gardens and the angel wings she swore she could see sprouting from Santana's back.
Santana massages her ring finger. The songs from their set list swing on a mad carousel in her head. "I don't know, Britt," she says, her shoulders and chest aching.
Brittany's face changes as she looks at Santana. After a moment, she says, "Lie down."
"What?"
"Lie down, please."
Santana's head starts to pound with something else. Her muscles shift from heavy lead to nervous springs.
"On the bed?"
Brittany steps closer and touches Santana's wrist. She blinks in the darkness, and Santana is hooked by the whites of her eyes.
"Lie down, Santana."
Santana does as she's told. She lays her body down on the bed, her sparkly gold dress scratching against her skin, her limbs rigid, her heart beating faster and faster. Suddenly she is 11 years old again, lying on the floor in Quinn's bedroom while the girls from school play "Light as a feather, stiff as a board" with her skinny, bony frame, their expressions hungry for a show, their eyes refusing to notice Santana's nervousness. Only Brittany, her body already longer and leaner than everyone else's, peers at Santana with concern.
"Relax, Santana," Brittany says.
"What are we doing?" Santana asks, unable to keep the nervousness out of her voice.
Brittany lies down on the bed next to her, her weight dipping the mattress, and Santana squeezes her fists to stop her arms from shaking.
But Brittany lies parallel to Santana's body. She does not turn into Santana, does not even touch her. Santana can sense her in the darkness, can imagine the shape Brittany's body makes as she lies there staring up at the ceiling.
Then, a faint glow. The light from Brittany's cell phone.
"Close your eyes," Brittany says.
Santana obeys. Then she hears the music.
It's the opening notes of "Faithfully."
"Britt," Santana says.
"Shhh. Just listen."
And they lie there in the dark, with the ceiling fan swirling gentle currents of air over their performance dresses, while the song plays between them. And Santana returns to that moment from only a few hours ago, that moment after Finn and Rachel had separated from the rest of them to lead the song from the back of the auditorium, that moment when she and the others had stepped onto that raised platform behind the curtain and waited with pounding hearts for the music to start.
That moment when Santana had sworn, even though she and Brittany were standing at opposite ends of the raised platform, with Mike, Mercedes, and Kurt between them, that she could still feel Brittany's energy zinging toward her, like they were connected on the same current.
The music plays and Santana surrenders to it. Flashes of tonight catch on her mind. The sound of Finn's voice leading off the song. The stubborn wisp of hair that had poked out from beneath Quinn's headband, which Santana had bizarrely wanted to reach forward and fix when they were in the middle of their choreography. The thrill she had felt during her solo line, when her voice was the only sound in that mass of living people. And Brittany's eyes. The infinite spark in Brittany's eyes when they had looked at each other just before "Don't Stop."
"Do you feel it?" Brittany asks, with her eyes, with her voice. "Do you feel the magic?"
Santana doesn't think about the Algebra 2 exam she has on Monday. She doesn't think about Quinn's newborn baby. She doesn't think about Coach Sylvester or the end of glee club or what it means that she and Brittany are lying here in the dark together.
The song ends, and Brittany taps on her phone. The space between them glows with blue light. Brittany looks from her phone to Santana, and Santana reaches out to touch her.
...
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I will publish Part 2 next week. In the meantime, you can read my 21 other Brittana fics and/or my original novel by visiting my profile.
