A/N: Lol, this initially was going to be a long, angst-filled multi-part fic. But I'm really not up to such a thing at the moment, so I hurried it along.

Changes

As Brittany walked down the stairs to Glee club, she noticed people staring at her. Fellow Cheerios and their boyfriends gawked at her on the staircase, and a couple from a lower social caste sniggered at her as she reached the bottom. Randoms from every clique imaginable gaped, open-mouthed as she strolled past. Even teachers couldn't contain their shock as Brittany walked through their line of sight. Looks of surprise, shock, upset, alarm, fright, astonishment, anxiety, and, as usual, attraction flitted across the various visages of the various people she passed.

When she finally walked into the Glee room the looks didn't stop. The entire club, except Artie who wheeling across the room, was gathered around the piano when they caught sight of her, they all stopped what they were doing and stared, wide-eyed. Quinn's surprise was especially acute. Artie was so stunned that he forgot to control his wheelchair and rolled into the opposite wall.

Brittany walked passed them, avoiding their eyes, uncomfortable with their gazes. As she passed Finn he leaned over to Rachel and whispered, "Who's that girl?"

Brittany turned and eased herself into her usual chair. What confused Finn so much was the fact that Brittany was, for the first time in nearly three years, wearing something other than her Cheerio uniform during school hours. She took a moment to smooth the wrinkles out of her light blue, knee-length skirt and remove a strand of hair from her white, button-up short-sleeved top. From beneath her shirt could be seen hints of a bright pink bra. Then she folded her hands in her lap and stared off into space.

There was a moment of silence, nobody quite sure what to do or so, before Santana's voice sliced through the awkwardness. "Brittany, where have you been? I waited in the gym for you for half an hour, and you never- What the hell are you wearing?"

Santana had caught sight of her friend's blonde head from outside the Glee room, and had stormed in while yelling. She was stopped dead in her tracks when she saw her friend's outfit. She glanced at Quinn to make sure she hadn't missed some sort of memo about a casual Friday or something (which was impossible, since Sue didn't believe in casual as a concept), but found her other blonde friend dressed in her usual Cheerio uniform.

Santana's eyes snapped back to Brittany, only to find her gazing back with her nose scrunched up confusedly. "This is my favorite skirt, Santana! You've seen me wear it like a million times."

Santana rolled her eyes and explained, "I know that! But you're not supposed to wear it at school. Sue hates individualism."

Santana grinned kindly at her friend and beckoned Brittany toward her with a wave. "C'mon, let's get your spare from your locker."

But Brittany didn't move. She gazed at Santana with a small frown on her face. Finally, she said, "I don't need to get my spare, Santana."

"Why not?" asked Santana hesitantly, a small frown of her own forming on her face.

"Because…I quit Cheerios yesterday."

"What?" Santana was flabbergasted. Her shock was such that she was becoming weak in the knees. She staggered to the closest empty chair, directly across from Brittany, and flopped into it. She warily rubbed her hands over face before asking again. "What happened, Brittany?"

Brittany shrugged. "Nothing happened," she began. "I've been thinking about it for awhile, and yesterday I told Sue that I had to quit because I'm gay and need to focus on myself for awhile."

This time, there was a shocked exclamation of "WHAT?" from two sources. One was Santana, of course, whose shock had increased tenfold. The other was Artie.

Brittany frowned slightly, looking past Santana at the wheelchair-bound boy, and said, "Oh, yeah, Artie…we need to break up."

"But-"

With that taken care of, she returned her attention to Santana, cutting Artie off. "And you:" she said, her voice serious and forceful. There was a brief moment of silent anticipation, during which Santana (and everyone else) waited for Brittany to continue her statement. Instead, Brittany launched herself from her chair, lunging toward Santana and capturing her lips in a deep, hard kiss. She maintained the lip-lock as she got more comfortable, straddling the other girl and sitting on her thighs.

Brittany finally broke the kiss, and stared directly into Santana's eyes. She gently stroked the side of Santana's face, and along her forearm. "I'm sick of "sex isn't dating", Santana. I'm not going to do it anymore. When you're in love with someone, you shouldn't be having sex with other people. When you're in love with someone, you should only have sex with them. When you don't, or can't, weird and bad things start to happen, like how Artie always cries after sex."

"Son of a bitch, Brittany!"

Brittany ignored Artie, who quickly, with flaming red face, wheeled out of the room. Tina chased after him. Brittany continued. "I love you, Santana," she began, placing a gentle kiss on the other girl's lips for emphasis, "and I want to be with you. Publicly. I know you love me the way I love you. I know it. If you can't accept that, if you let your fears continue to control you, or if I'm entirely wrong about how you feel…fine. I'll move on, but I'm not going back. No more sex, Santana. No more letting you use me as your "something warm". Things have to be different from now on. So…what do you say?"

The silence stretched out for what seemed like forever. Santana sat, tensed up, tears streaming down her face, refusing to look Brittany in the eyes. If Brittany weren't sitting on her, she might have run from the room. The others had followed the example of Artie and Tina and had exited the room. As the silence stretched longer, tears began to form at the corners of Brittany's eyes. She feared the worse, but could not keep herself from comforting Santana.

"It's alright, Santana," she whispered, tenderly kissing the other girl's temples and forehead. "It's alright. However you answer, we'll always be best friends. I promise."

Hearing this, Santana let out a choked sob and grabbed the back of Brittany's neck, bringing their lips together in a bruising, desperate kiss. Santana ended it after only a few seconds. She craned her neck backwards and stared straight into Brittany's eyes, and growled, "I love you."

She pulled Brittany to her again, kissing her even more intensely than before. Again, it ended after only a brief time. "I love you."

Again she pulled Brittany to her. This one went on longer, and she allowed her hands to wander all over the blonde's body. Finally, they broke for air, and Santana wrapped her arms around Brittany, bringing her into a crushing hug. Santana rested her chin on Brittany's shoulder and whispered, "I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you…"

The End

A/N: Brittany might seem a bit OOC in this fic. But two defenses to that: 1. That's kinda what she's going for. 2. This is probably the most important moment of her life so far, so she probably spent weeks practicing her speech with her cat.