Orokid: What to say, what to say… First and foremost, I want to thank you before you even kick back and start reading this, and say that I appreciate your time and your patience. With readers like you, I'm slowly getting my writer's edge back, something I thought I lost a few years ago when the biggest writer's block hit me. I feel like, recently, I've been able to write deciently, and I want to thank you all for giving me a reason to write again. I know you all have been here the whole time, but… I dunno. It just feels different lately. Maybe it's because of something else, like maybe I just really like the storyline to Glee and feel close to the characters more than I ever had before. Honestly, that's my second best answer to why I've been writing as much as I have. Personally though, I'd rather blame you all and thank you for it. XD So here- take responsibility and feel proud.

Anyway… I actually really like how this story came out, which is odd for me to say since I usually bitch and moan about how things didn't turn out like I'd hoped. But… when I read through this (ten seconds ago, really), I really, really liked it. Again, I can blame this on other things, like my love of the song used (read disclaimer to find out which one) or, once again, my adoration for this couple. Probably both, but, again, I'm giving you responsibility. Heh heh. X3

Disclaimer: I do not own anything Glee related. I'm just a faithful fan in love with the series, but mostly with Santana. Hell, if I was in McKinley… *Insert lovey-dovey Santana thoughts here* But I'm not, and I'm not even in high school anymore (I'm 22 as of a week ago), so ce la vie. Also, I do not own Melissa Etheridge's "The Prison", which was a song I became semi-obsessed with after I bought the CD Skin off of iTunes. That and another song, but I'm not sure if I'll ever use it in a fanfic. Maybe. We'll see. I guess the only thing I really do own is my mentality, my ideas and whatnot, but I'm sure someone who knows the song has thought of it perhaps once or twice. :3

The Prison

Santana fidgeted in her seat, swallowing down the fear that would have buckled her knees if she had actually been standing. She felt her heart pounding wildly within her chest, a painful knowledge of things that had to be done and things that she'd like to escape from. As per usual, when it came to these things, they often were one and the same, and they often were due to one person and that person alone. Raising soft chocolate eyes to gaze out into the small familiar audience of people who had been there for her thick and thin, even when she was the cause of whatever was going on, she could feel her hands tremble, gazing right into the blue orbs that had caused her world to collapse and restructure itself time and time again.

Biting her bottom lip, she gripped her hands to her zipped up jacket, memories stabbing at her ruthlessly as she tried to think of what she was supposed to be doing there, sitting in a chair staring out into the familiar yet faceless people before her. Oceans of words, feelings, surrounded her, swept her up only to maroon her in her ache as she tried to push away the things that had been done, as well as the things she hadn't had the strength to do. Watching the young woman that knowingly held her soul in her delicate, beautiful fingers, yet who stared in return with both pity and mild disgust in her gaze, although beneath the anger were things that she herself were dealing with, the Latina tried to offer the blond a small smile. She tried her hardest not to look away as she noticed the girl turn to the boy she sat beside- the cripple whom she had blamed for a week or so now for the affection she had been refused- and cuddled up to him, but her eyes twitched to the side despite her tries.

"Santana?" Concern caked the voice that called to her, and brown eyes looked up from her seat in the middle of the room to look at the older man who was gently watching her with a confused knowledge that she'd seen too many times to count. "Are you okay?"

A part of her wanted to tell him that she wasn't, but her pride told her that she couldn't. The truth had far too often done nothing more than kicked her in the theoretical knads, and yet… there she was, trying to come to terms with thoughts and feelings she had denied herself from understanding for so long now that simply coming clean would cost her much more than just the position she had earned herself. Even when she didn't know just what it was that would be the cost for her honesty, she knew that there was much more than just the things she'd pushed down and away. Forcing her voice not to wobble beneath the pressure she'd created for herself, she offered a smile that said the things she couldn't. "As much as I can be right now."

Lowering her eyes to the ground, she inhaled deeply, thinking back to what had led her to sit there, staring down the club that had thought of her as nothing more than just a bully in their ranks. Chocolate eyes slowly uplifted to look up at the girl she silently adored, need and hurt watering the edges of her eyes as she tried her hardest not to break down yet. Clearing her throat, she closed her eyes, letting the darkness overtake her vision as she searched for the words she once had memorized before taking the front of the choir room. "Look, I'm… not that great with words." Opening them again, determination in her eyes for the first time in a while, she clasped her hands together and wrung her wrists gently, nervousness getting the best of her. "But… Britt… You're right." Blue orbs watched her in surprise, recognizing her name and perhaps also just what the Latina was eluding to. "And I'm… worse with being truthful. Even to you guys, the ones who still kinda like me even when I've been such a bitch everyone." Santana raised her hands, almost pointing toward the others who had been watching with curiosity and wonder. Swallowing, she felt her courage waver, her hands tightly curling around the hem of her jacket once more. "So… yeah. Listen. 'Cause I'm only going to say this once." Turning to look at the pianist, she tried to push down the sick feeling that gurgled in her stomach.

The moment she heard the music begin, a guitar setting the moderately slow tone of the song, a harmonica adding a mournful wail, a gentle tap against the drum heads, she closed her brown orbs as she allowed the words to come to her.

"I was high and dry like the Kansas sky

If I ached for any more I knew I'd surely die

Night after night trying to get out of my skin

Day after lonely day, you'd send me back again."

There were so many feelings, so many words she had simply tried to etch out of her mind. She wouldn't be normal, couldn't bring herself to look at herself as anything but an abnormal pile of things she had to deny, but everything in her had ached to be that something she couldn't be. The Latina had found herself aching for the girl's touch, so much so that she thought Brittany's fingertips were much like the sun's rays searing the truth into her skin. Every night, Santana found herself on her knees, trying her hardest to wish and pray away the emotions that bit into her heart and remained like a poison, eating away at her soul as she tried to cure herself.

But every morning, as she awoke to see the blue eyes of her angel staring straight into her soul, she would find herself uncaring of the things that scared her more than anything ever had. Her sunshine would break through the clouds and through her self made jail and show her that things weren't as bad as they seemed.

"I have stood inside this prison, I have touched its stony walls

I know before you try to run, you gotta learn to crawl

I tried to leave it all behind me, I drove all night just to drive all day

But the walls of this prison still surround me, and I can't break away"

While she hadn't meant to, she found herself staring out into the audience again, watching as the others tried to decipher the things she was singing. From the light in his eyes, she knew that Kurt had figured out her kryptonite, and there was a glimmer of understanding in the depths of Man-Hands' gaze, but she really didn't care what they thought, or even if they ever understood.

Her heart pounded sorrowfully, and she could feel the tight walls of stone surrounding her, even as she tried to break out from them. Too many times she had found herself locked in her internal imprisonment, unable to reach out to the hand she wanted so desperately wanted to take hold of. The sapphire bars of her penitentiary had locked her away, and yet she tried her hardest to stare at them, through them even at times, in hopes to find the key, unwilling to truly escape from them. Looking into the orbs of the woman she loved, she searched for the strength to keep her voice strong, to not let it waver as she sang the words that was both her pillar and her dynamite.

She tried to tell herself that the fact that the blond had detached herself from her wheelchair bound boyfriend meant nothing, and that she was just trying to hear her clearer as she leaned in, hunched against her knees as she watched her carefully.

"I held you so close I thought my soul would break

But you were just a ghost, the holiest mistake

I will not be a judge or the one to set you free

I'll just keep on drivin' in time's a friend in need"

She remembered how she had thought that sleeping with the girl, making love to her in a way that no boy could ever replicate, had been her worst mistake. Yet there was something in her that wouldn't let her regret any moment she had spent touching the object of her desires, something that told her that her angel had only graced her nights, her bed, for what was likely the last time. Every time she held the blond in her arms, as the moon rose and fell and the sun began to rise in the East, she found herself cherishing the moments- even in times when she didn't even realize it.

The moment she had felt those moments taken from her, the rage and sadness that had swept through her was more powerful than anything else that had taken over her. She found herself crying in the times they used to lay entwined, and the anger that had once led her to jump on the attack toward anyone who dared try to take anything she deemed as hers, it would dissipate the moment she felt her eyes lock with the blue heavens that could calm a demon. All she had been left with had been sorrow, and all she did was sit back and watch, pain in her heart as a castle built itself around her heart. In the end, she never once could completely blame the blond for moving on from a nameless, confusing relationship, only herself for waiting, for stepping back and praying that those little things- the little 'thinking of you' gifts and the sweet lady kisses that they would continue sometimes till the sun would rise- would remind the girl of the things she was leaving behind.

So, even as she felt her heart rip to shreds as her former lover's words, denying her the love she wanted more than anything, she couldn't bring herself to leave. Not even as she wanted to turn away and drive far, far away from Lima, Ohio and the girl who did things to her that no one else ever would.

"I have stood inside this prison, I have touched its stony walls

I know before you try to run, you gotta learn to crawl

I tried to leave it all behind me, I drove all night just to drive all day

But the walls of this prison still surround me, and I can't break away"

The Latina blinked back the tears that began to form in the corners of her eyes, ignoring the fact that Kurt had leaned over to his dark skinned fag-hag and whisper the things she wanted nothing more than to hide away again, nor the name "Etheridge" passing his lips to Mercedes' ear, nor the way Brittany had turned in surprise to look at the boy and then back toward the girl who sat center stage. A tear slowly trickled down her cheek as she willed it not to, and she found herself silently hoping that maybe the blond might see that she really was trying to be the girl she wanted her to be. Santana Lopez was desperately trying to crawl now after she had tried so hard to run after the fashion savvy beauty, who had simply continued to walk away and straight into the arms of the boy that had wheels working in place for his legs.

The dark haired sixteen year old brushed the remaining tears away, clearing her throat lowly so that the others wouldn't be able to truly know just how much the song, the lyrics, affected her.

"The sentence has been read, everything is done

I wish I could say goodbye to you, wish I could hold the sun"

Santana bit her lip, lowering her chocolate colored orbs, afraid to look into the blue eyes that haunted her no matter how hard she tried to avoid them. Even in her mind, they followed her, knowing the words she never was able to say aloud, the feelings she felt but never said…

Rising to her feet, she inhaled deeply, fiddling with her jacket once more as she slowly pulled the zipper down to show the word that she'd never be able to admit to, not without the gentle fingers of her former lover helping her along as she tried to make her way through the turbulence of her own realization. 'Lebanese'. It was the shirt that Brittany had made for her for the Born This Way song they were going to perform, the shirt that told her insecurities- the one no one else had seen except for her gay boyfriend and the one who held tight to her heart. There were too many jokes, too many double entendres, that had been made over the years that people would know, people would see the hole in her heart, a wound the blond had left in her wake as she choose the cripple over her, and people would just… know. People. Would. Know. She felt her heart pound fearfully in her chest, almost as if she was facing an oncoming attack- a bloodthirsty shark on her left and Jason the homicidal manic on her left- and she could feel as the castle she had built began to crumble around her.

Blue eyes widened, a hand in front of the blond's lips as she caught sight of the shirt, realizing just what it meant to her, to both of them, as they stared at one another, lost in the other's gaze. Slowly, jacket open for the class to see, she moved toward the beautiful girl who meant everything and more to her, and the Latina could feel her own heart breaking as she moved. Running her fingers through Brittany's hair, she watched as the sun glinted off the strands, and she felt the rays of the sun brush against her cold shell.

Santana tried hard not to look at this moment as a final goodbye, her fingers gently running against her soft skin, but, as her brown eyes caught sight of a bewildered yet angry four-eyed cripple, she knew that she had lost. From the pleading look of the blue eyed goddess who was gazing up at her from her seat, the Latina could see that she knew it just as much as she did. To bring out the truth, Santana was risking the one person she wanted the most. And chances were, she'd never have her, having already lost her to her own pride and fear. That was the verdict she had been given in her hopes to finally show her heart truthfully to the ones who meant the most to her.

"My eyes are dull and burnt, and they lie to me sometimes

Cause I thought I saw you crying"

The tan skinned young woman offered the girl a brush of her thumb, gently removing the tear that had yet to fall, her heart aching as her hand fell back down to her side. As much as it killed her to see the young woman before her cry, to shed any tear from the anguish her lover had caused, she realized already that she herself had been dying long before any of this had come to light. The deadly blow had been dealt the moment she had turned away, panic gripping her core as the blond tried to once more bring up the subject that scared her more than anything else in her life had, and said to the girl the words that was much like one's last breath- the phrase she found herself regretting more and more each and every passing moment of every day. "I'm not making out with you because I'm in love with you." It was a suicide of sorts, pushing the girl away to the point that the Latina had pushed herself off a cliff into things and feelings she'd wanted nothing more than to ignore, and the moment she saw the blond making her way down the corridor, pushing the cripple's wheelchair down the halls, she knew deep inside herself what she had done.

Even now, months after the woman she loved and the man she wanted nothing more than to push into the depths of oblivion got together, she found herself remembering, reminding herself that, if she hadn't been so afraid of the consequences, she would be holding the world's most precious gift in her arms. Instead, she found herself looking from the outside in, watching as the girl she'd die for fell head over heals for the wrong person. And it was her own fault.

This was her prison.

"I have stood inside this prison, I have touched it's stony walls

I know before you try to run, you gotta learn to crawl

I tried to leave it all behind me, in my dreams somehow I got away

But the walls of this prison still surround me

And I can't break away"

The fears no longer kept her stranded, leaving her to watch the world pass her by from the inside of her cell. She had broken free from her inner torment, from the feelings that rooted her to the same place she had been since the moment she had realized that what she had felt toward the girl had gone far beyond the normal feelings of mere friendship. While she felt the same shame that she had instilled within herself, staring at her outwardly beautiful visage in the mirror and seeing the scared, broken girl in her reflection, she had somehow come to the conclusion that the world she saw did not revolve around the views of others, and that she should no longer live her life according to the beliefs of people she didn't know or care about. Their words mattered, they hurt like knives when they were thrown at her, but she no longer wanted to cower behind the person she thought they wanted her to be.

No more lying, she told herself, keeping her chin up as high and proud as she could as she felt the world slowly fall around her to the slow end of the music. The guitar in the musician's hand softened with every note until finally disappearing into the silence. She found herself gazing at the several pairs of eyes that watched her, unsure, all with each of their own thoughts and feelings to what she had just shared with them. Yet none of them mattered, none of them held the answer that was as important as the shining blue eyes brimming with unshed tears. The Latina felt her heart catch her in throat as she inhaled, ready to accept full responsibility for her actions for the first time in her life.

And while she knew she shouldn't get her hopes it, the glimmer of the things she thought had left Brittany's eyes forever twinkled lovingly behind the oceans she gazed into- the key to her final prison.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Orokid: So… what did you think? It's a bit angst ridden (minus the 'bit' part), but I really did see Santana when I heard this song for the first time. I feel like she's trapped herself in several prisons over the course of time she's been with Brittney. Her anxiety and fear over what strangers would think about their relationship. What their friends would think. And, finally, coming to terms with her love of the girl and knowing that she's no longer willing to wait for her to figure herself out. I think those are pretty sizable prison sentences, personally. But, in the end, I couldn't leave it off with just a heap of angst and no positivism, no hope that maybe they could figure things out and end up together once and for all. I love them together too much to do that to their characters. X3

By the way, the reason I used a Melissa Etheridge song? Because, in Santana's mind, the singer has too much of a Sapphic sound (or something like that), and singing a song by her (like how Brittany suggested in "Duets") would be like painting a pride flag on her and flinging herself into a mosh pit filled with angry, violent homophobes. The full quote of the one I used is "I'm not making out with you because I'm in love with you and want to sing about making lady babies." So… yeah. That's mostly the reason why. And I love the woman to death, and if I had been born and an adult during her era, I would have loved to try and make her love me.

Fan-girling aside…yeah… Reviews? You don't have to do them. I understand whatever you wish to do. God knows how many I've read versus how many I've physically reviewed… Sorry to say that, but it's true. Looking at it logically, I understand. But, still, reviews make me giggle like a school-girl whenever I'm at work, so I definitely like them. But, again, whatever you decide. :D