All Yours
By: shesblazing
Summary: AU. "The most important thing to remember," my mother always told me, "is to never fall in love." Two strangers meet, and nothing is the same afterwards.
A/N: I started writing this ages ago; finally picked it up again today. Let's see where it goes.
i. Brittany
"The most important thing to remember," my mother always told me, "is to never fall in love."
"No matter how hard you try, love will chew you up and spit you out without even caring. Whoever it is will end up hurting you. They'll break your heart. Brittany, honey, don't be too trusting."
She would say the words softly, usually before bedtime as she sat behind me and helped brush my hair. Her voice was quiet as she moved my hairbrush in the regular, even strokes that always felt so soothing. I tried hard to listen, figure out what it was she was trying to tell me, though I didn't really understand what they meant then. I was still just a girl who knew next to nothing about the world beyond my bedroom and weekly dance classes at the local studio. Everything was still so simple. It would take me a long time and it wasn't until I was a little older, when Mom wasn't around anymore, that I finally got it.
That it was more than just motherly advice.
That it was a warning.
And that she was right.
I met Santana when I was still working nights at the diner downtown. It was in an older part of the city that didn't really see a lot of people, despite being only a few blocks away from some new developments. I had already been working there for awhile; because college wasn't cheap, even if you had a scholarship. Sometimes things happen that you don't expect. Life happens. Another lesson my mother taught me: You have to work for what you want.
Even now I can remember it all so clearly, like it was just the other day. A grey and stormy Tuesday in the dead of winter is what it was. As strange as it might sound, there wasn't any snowfall that year—only a cold, dreary rain that could reach into your bones really deep, if you didn't watch out. I always did.
On that evening, the one when she walked into my life and altered it forever, I hadn't felt the chill yet. I was still just a normal girl, living a normal life, finishing up my shift on what was just another Tuesday. The last regulars had already left, followed by our old fry cook, all of them grumbling about the weather as they bundled up and filed outside.
"See you later, Britt," they chimed, one by one. After waving them off with a smile, I was getting ready to close the till when the bells on the front door jingled suddenly and a lone figure stepped into the diner.
It was her.
Looking back now, it seems strange that although I didn't know her yet, for some reason something inside me sensed immediately—as in, literally, the moment she came in—that everything I knew was about to change.
When I glanced up from the register, it took me a second to process just how beautiful the person in front of me was.
She stood there silently, staring at me in a weirdly intense way with eyes that seemed as dark as that night's empty sky. Her hair was wet and tangled from the rain, starting to curl in slight waves around her shoulders. I saw her breathe in and out deeply, like she had just been running. Raindrops sparkled like tiny stars as they melted one by one into the black overcoat she wore. Her bottom lip was bleeding.
Under my server's uniform and beneath my breast, I could feel my heart start to thud; it was a beat I didn't recognize. I knew I should have told her that we were closed for the night but the words wouldn't come out of my mouth when I opened it to speak. I couldn't think about anything. All I could hear in my head was the loud crack of thunder outside in the street; where this person—this girl, who I thought might be around the same age as me—had just come from.
By then I was too old to still believe in fairytales or bedtime stories, but it felt like I was in some kind of a dream. Why didn't I feel more afraid?
She took a single step towards me, holding her hands up with both palms facing outward as if in surrender. As if she thought I might run; or scream, maybe. But I was frozen. Even under the bright lights of the diner, I couldn't look away from her gaze—God, what was it about those piercing eyes so dark and deep, swallowing me whole—holding me in place, utterly transfixed.
Then, in a low and measured tone, she said the two words that have haunted me ever since: "They're coming."
And this is how our story begins.