Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 44th cycle. Now cycle 45!

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** UPDATED WITH CYCLE 45 CHEAT SHEET ** Check it out to find out about shift days!

This is a shift day [see above]. There will be another upload this afternoon: Mystery Takeover, chapter 7.

"Past Ink & Present"
(Older) Quinn, Santana, Brittany - Brittana
Trinity Series
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)

A year and a half ago – Phoenix

It was all just meant to be a small celebration for Brittany and Santana's engagement, while the three of them were waiting out their flight back home in two days' time. They had gone dancing, which had led to drinks, and then drinks had led to more drinks, and more dancing, and more drinks… It would be a point of contention between them for weeks at which point in the evening their memories finally could no longer keep up with their inebriation. What it came down to was that the tail end of this 'party' of theirs, save for a few flashes here and there, had been banished to the recesses of their minds and could not be called back. By the next morning though, they would have a pretty good idea of at least one part of their evening, and would keep it for all their lives.

They had still been at the bar when it had started. They were well into their haze and it would be hard to imagine, looking at them, that they had just pulled off a sophisticated heist just hours ago. Brittany had been hunched over a coaster she'd been scribbling on for about ten minutes, humming to herself. Any time Santana tried to pull her over, she'd wave her arm back, begging her to 'wait' because she was busy. Santana wasn't so easy to convince though, and she would try again, leaning her head to the blonde's arm, slipping her hand under her shirt, crooning her name. Still that wouldn't make her look up, 'busy' over whatever it was she was doing. Santana would pull back, frowning, trying again after a moment. But then she'd look to the left and find the other blonde just weeping in her glass.

"H-hey… wha… wha's wrong?" she slurred and Quinn looked up, put her hand over her friend's… or dropped her hand on hers, really… and suddenly she was smiling again.

"You're getting married…" the word dragged out and Santana raised her glass with a shout at that. This had been happening on and off since this night had started. "I'm so happy for you," she tip-tapped at her hand, then frowned. "What she doing? Britt, hey, what are you…"

"Wait, busy…" she replied, and Santana said the words with her, all too familiar with her now. She went on humming, scribbling, and after a while… giggling.

"Maybe it's vows…" Quinn suggested, as she and Santana just got to watching her.

"Maybe it's… a jet pack…" Santana rolled her shoulders back, and Quinn laughed, frowning. "You know... how she gets… I tell you, she's got sy… synapses that are… drunk locked, like 'you must be this hammered to fire,'" she raised her hand mid-air, making Quinn laugh again.

"At least she still got all her clothes on this time," Quinn pointed, glass in hand, and got a look from Santana. "Maybe not for you…" Then Brittany's head popped back up, and the other two yelped in surprise, which startled her right back. She blinked, like she'd forgotten what she was doing, then she looked down at the coaster and she was energized all over again.

"Hey, you want to see, I drew us," she revealed, and Santana's face lit up.

"You did? Show us," she reached out her hand and Brittany slid the coaster to the center of the table. Santana and Quinn looked down, frowned, both rising up out of their chairs to lean in and look closer, prompting Brittany to do the same.

"That's… us?" Quinn asked, rubbing at her eyes, and Brittany nodded.

"Yeah, tha… See, you…" Santana tried, squinting, tilting her head this way and that. "Babe, I'm sorry, I don't see it…"

To the uninformed eye it would look like nothing but circles and lines. Everything was drawn within two circles forming a ring or a donut, depending how you wanted to call it. There were three vertical lines, at equal distances, splitting the ring/donut in three, but after that… there were curved lines inside each section, starting at two different heights within the ring/donut and made to meet with a diagonal line.

"No, but… Okay, no, it's all good, I'll show you…" she leaned in even closer, so the other two did the same. She pointed to each of the three sections in turn. "That's me, that's you Santana, and that's you Quinn." They tilted their heads. "In a circle, holding each other," she traced her finger along lines.

"Oh, I think I see it!" Quinn blinked.

"You do?" Santana asked.

"I think?" Quinn frowned, looked back to Brittany to keep explaining so she didn't lose her thread of understanding, while Santana muttered something that sounded a lot like 'liar' under her breath.

"That one's me, see my arms they're the little ones, deepest in, because… because I have to be sneaky when we…" she gestured and the other two nodded. "And I'm holding both of your hands," she pointed to the diagonal lines joining what they guessed were meant to be arms. "That one is Santana," she pointed to the section right next to hers and Santana's fists shook in the air like she was saying 'yay!' "Her arms are in the middle, because she watches over us, keeps us safe," she turned a loving smile to her fiancée and was rewarded with a kiss, while Quinn couldn't help but smile and sob again. "And then that one is Quinn," she pointed to the last section, on top of the two parallel ones. "Her arms are the ones most on the outside because she's kind of the leader, and she plans it all, so she has to see everything." She looked back up to the two of them, like if it didn't make sense to them now, then it never would. But by the way they were smiling at the drawing and at her, she guessed that they did.

"Didn' I tell you… she's a genius?" Santana told Quinn, grasping on to Brittany's hands, gently kissing them. "A regular whiz kid…" This made Brittany laugh, and for a good part of their ensuing adventures they could sometimes swear they heard her whisper 'wizard.'

"It is us, it is us, it really is, it is… Guys, it is us…" Quinn was nodding along, and now it was Santana who had to laugh. Then she sat up, looking like she'd been gut punched with the world's most fantastic idea. "Oh, hey, I think… I think… Wait, hold on, it's trying to get away, I… This is kind of crazy…" she pinched her fingers together.

"Do it," Brittany and Santana said at once, and Quinn looked like a giddy child all of a sudden. She reached in her wallet, pulling out bills, frowning at them.

"This enough?" The others looked at the bills, then shrugged. "Alright, alright, good, alright, follow me!"

They had stumbled out of the bar together, arm in arm, Brittany brandishing the coaster with her artwork. They weren't sure where they were headed until Quinn had a screaming match with her phone, trying to locate a tattoo parlor. It had all ended with her calling the phone a bitch and trying to toss it away, which Santana stopped, and then Brittany suddenly calling their attention, hopping about proudly because she had spotted the place across the street. They had looked to one another, like they had reasonable minds to work with, and then they had crossed the street and walked through the door.

When the artist was presented with the coaster and the insistent trio, he had been at a loss for words. For all her drunkenness, perhaps for the time and effort she had put into it, Brittany's lines had been pretty straight. He would still need to reproduce it elsewhere first, following the melee of instructions from the three of them as to how to separate it and who got what. He had them sit down, which they did. Santana sat in the middle, Quinn leaning to her left arm and with her right arm around Brittany, snug to her shoulder.

"Hey, Quinn?" Brittany called up at one time.

"Yeah?" she replied, staring off into nowhere.

"You should… you should be my… my… what's it called again?" she tapped Santana's knee, then made a motion which should have made no sense even sober, but she understood and smiled.

"Maid of honor," she provided, and Brittany smiled up at her.

"Yeah, that. So will you?" she looked back to Quinn, who was once again at the mercy of her emotions, reaching across Santana to take her friend's hand.

"Of course I will, are you kidding?" Santana had to move her hands out of the way as the two blondes leaned across her to hug. Catching the artist staring, she frowned.

"What are you looking at, Sketch?" she waved him off to keep working. Finally ten minutes later, he would come back and present them with the result. It was just as they had asked, and they were pleased. They didn't expect anyone being able to tell what it meant but them, and that was how they liked it. "Okay so who goes first?" Brittany's hand shot up in the air. "The lady spoke, go Britt," she beamed, nudging her to her feet.

Her piece would be laid more or less at the point where her back, shoulder, and neck met. The other two stood by and watched as they waited their turns, swaying ever so slightly on their feet. They thought perhaps that she would freak out at the needles, even then they'd been through so much worse, the three of them as Trinity. She just laid there and said nothing, to the point where they had thought maybe she was asleep. But then when the artist said he was done, her head had popped right back up, begging to see. She got up, skittering toward the mirror and looking over her shoulder, hair swept out of the way. She smiled, holding her head up high… it was just as she'd imagined it.

Quinn would go next. For her piece, the section was laid centered on her back, something like six inches below where her neck turned into her back. She had shown a brief hesitation at the first moment, even if this whole expedition had technically been her idea, but before long she was fine, and so her piece began to come together. She could vaguely hear the other two of them, the happy couple, as Santana observed her fiancée's shoulder, and Quinn had this feeling like if the artist didn't finish with her soon, he'd end up getting way more than he bargained for, right there in his waiting area. She had already picked up on the tone in Santana's voice that usually told her to just go sit in her room or something, put in ear plugs, and just wait out for them to finish…

But then she was done, which she took care to announce, and the both of them looked up like they were remembering where they were. Brittany offered her a high five, as now there were two of them who had gone through, before she could go and take a look. It did kind of suit her, and knowing the meaning that Brittany had put into it, she would love it forever.

Now it was Santana's turn, and Brittany had insisted to sit at the head of the chair where she was laid out, so she could keep looking at her the whole time. Her section would be laid at her back, just at the hip. The whole time the artist was working on her, she just listened as Brittany talked about how happy she was that they were finally engaged, and how she couldn't wait for them to be married, and if ever there was pain or discomfort of any sort, she never felt it. She just smiled at the girl she loved and had loved through years and joys and hardships, and she imagined how many more moments they had to look forward to… "We need to get out of here soon before I turn into Mopey Myrtle like Quinn over there…"

"Heard that…" Quinn came to stand behind Brittany.

When she was done, they had gone to the mirror, the three of them, to look at the finished product, the three pieces. Quinn stood in the middle, with Brittany on the right and Santana on the left so that, as they turned their backs to the mirror, they could almost see them interlocking. This was their commitment to one another, forever, no matter what. In the morning when they would awake, their heads pounding, it would take them a moment to remember what had happened, especially as they rediscovered the ink at their backs. For about an hour none of them could remember the carefully laid out meaning to the curves and the lines. But then Brittany had found the coaster, tucked in her bra, and then she remembered, and again she explained it to the other two. At the very least, sobriety made it easier for them to understand. More importantly they remembered the engagement, and how excited they had been. Soon they would fly home, awaiting whatever adventure life brought them.

X

Today – New York City

As difficult as their first job back after the wedding had been, in the months since, they had found their rhythm again, even with the change to their routine and the addition of the van so to keep Santana off site. They were still in the process of trying for the baby, and Brittany refused to have her anywhere near where they would go, just in case.

Brittany was on her way back home, having stopped to pick up a couple of things on her way from her work at the clinic. Santana was back to working at the bar with Hattie and June for the moment, but on that night she wasn't working, so they had decided they would have themselves a quiet night in, the three of them, with movies, so she had gone to get them some ice cream, the food of choice for movie night at the Trinity house.

She could hear her phone chirping, which would be Santana wondering what was taking her so long. She smiled, reaching to pull out the phone and reply, only then she felt… something… She had always had this bit of paranoia streak, but nowadays it was just… a feeling. Her steps hesitated, and her eyes swept ever so subtly over her shoulder. She made no sign of having noticed, not until her eyes were forward again, but she'd seen it… there was a van following her.

Her mind went about five different ways. Should she stop, should she run, could she call for help, to Santana and Quinn or anyone at all? Maybe it was nothing at all, but… no, she knew better. For now she just kept on walking, like nothing was wrong.

"Excuse me?" a man's voice called and though she felt a chill, she didn't stop. "Excuse me, miss? You there, with the blonde hair. You might want to stop and look here right now." To stop, she did, frozen, taking a breath. She didn't like this, and now her instincts were definitely telling her to get the hell out. Just to be sure though, she did look, just to see what she was dealing with.

The van had stopped, the door was opened, showing about three or four men in the back, and another – the one who'd spoken – in the driver's seat. She knew he was the one who'd spoken, taking a wild guess, at the fact he had a gun pointed at her. "I don't have any money," she shook her head, taking a step back.

"It's not money we're after," he promised, signalling the men.

In a flash she had taken off running, unreachable, even as she could hear the others chasing after her. She ran and ran, but they still came. At one time she did think to take out her phone and call home, but then… no… they could find them… find her… and a moment later she'd thrown the phone as far as she could, hoping it would smash beyond repair. She could always get a new one, but like hell were they going to get to her wife and her friend because of her.

She had just turned a corner though and then… there he was again, the man, and the van. He must have circled around while she was running. He came out of the van, no longer with his gun but with something else she couldn't make out. She barely had time to skid to a stop and turn around when she found out just what that thing was… a stun gun, she thought just as the charge hit her in the back and she slammed to the ground, convulsing. She still tried to get away, but by then her chasers had caught up, and they had her restrained, one to each limb.

"Wait," the man with the stun gun called. "Right there, pull her shirt from around her shoulder, the left one, pull the hair out of the way," he instructed.

"What for?" the man at her left arm asked, as he did what he was told. The gun man pulled out his phone, aimed the camera at the odd little tattoo on her back.

"Proof of life."

THE END/TO BE CONTINUED (Next cycle's "TROIKA")

A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.
In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are
always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!