Title: Never Told
Author: Logicbomb.32
Ships: Uhm, some sort of Brittany-Santana
Summary: She remembers the words now, the last echoes of a fragile conversation that come to her from time to time to remind her of what she lost all those years ago.
Authors Note: The first italicized lines are taken from Tumblr so they don't belong to me. Not sure where this idea came from so take it as you will. Future Fic.
"I am, you know."
She remembers the words now, the last echoes of a fragile conversation that come to her from time to time to remind her of what she lost all those years ago.
"What?"
Funny enough that a word she spent quite a lot of time saying would come back and be the one that triggered her girlfriend to all but bare her soul. Funny enough that since that night the blond had regretted ever saying it.
"Yours."
The Latina had never before made such an admission, not in the private of their own world and definitely not in public. And that made the night, that night, so much worse because in the blink of an eye the blond became just like everyone else.
"I know."
She had said, her voice barely above a whisper as she fought against the tears that were pushing harder and harder against her walls. And in truth Brittany had always known Santana was hers. Even when the brunette was sleeping around with half the school, her heart had always been with Brittany. Always.
"Then why are you leaving?"
The one question, beyond 'what' and 'yours' this was the turning point for the couple. It was the question she had answered wrong and in doing so ignited the catalyst that brought her to where she was now….sitting in her apartment, a half a bottle of wine deep and the memories of regret haunting her.
But it wasn't the being intoxicated part that was the worst, it was the utter helplessness as a montage of moments from the best years of her life bombarded her. The way Santana hugged her just a little bit too long after the Cheerios won nationals. The way the Glee club accepted her for who she was (and what she wasn't). The feeling of Santana's lips on hers for the very first time, leaving a trail of searing kisses along her collarbone. The echo of Santana's voice in the darkness as she sings just for her.
She can't stop them, like she can't stop the tears that started with her second glass of the dark liquid. But as she takes another sip directly from the bottle having ditched the glass about a quarter bottle back Brittany knows that she doesn't mind the memories. She has spent so many years putting that part of her life in a box and hiding that box far, far away that this (for lack of a better term) explosion is like looking at a scrapbook. But this scrapbook is twisted and doesn't just show the best moments of her life with Santana, it ends with the moment that tore them apart. The moment where 'yours' and 'leaving' came to a point, leaving two broken souls in their wake.
"I-" The blond had started to respond, her hand clutching the doorway desperately looking for an answer "I don't know." She had finally forced out before turning and running.
She had run down the steps, flinging open the Lopez's front door and scrambling to her car, hands frantically looking for her keys as she ignored Mrs. Lopez's worried calls. But she had come after her. The Latina had charged after her girlfriend, her own desperate tears streaming freely down her face as she called out the blonds name "Brittany! Please!"
She had begged.
Stood in the middle of the street and watched as the one person she trusted drove away into the darkness. The blond had watched from her rearview mirror as the dark outline of the Latina pounding down the street after her had quickly faded. And Brittany knew she should have stopped her car, flinging it into park without a car for breaks. She knew she should have jumped out of the car and ran down the street back towards her love, embracing with a fiery kiss, the taste of each others tears mingling with their passion.
But Brittany didn't stop.
She kept driving until she had come to a part of town she didn't recognize in the dark and under the cover of an abandoned parking lot's shadows the blond had pulled over. She had pulled over and yanked her keys out of the ignition as the tears streamed down her face. Unstoppable sobs as the realization of what had just transpired, the irreversible damage they had done to each other, finally struck her.
It took two hours for Brittany to finally get home and when she did it was in a comatose like state, ignoring the concerned questions from her parents and the desperate vibrations of her cell phone. The senior class had graduated soon after that and Brittany ran out of Lima faster than anyone else.
And she had kept running.
Five years of running and hiding from herself, hoping to find what she had lost without facing the truth.
And she got here.
Tears fresh out and the pain of crying so hard for so long already in effect, Brittany reached out with a blind hand and sent the bottle of red wine crashing to the floor, glass shattering and blood red liquid ebbing and flowing across the tiles. But she didn't move. Didn't make an action to stop the seeping mess. Instead she was caught up in something else, the unexpected knocking at her front door.
It was Saturday night, all of her dance friends were performing or partying (she had the weekend off but found herself lacking the desire to get totally smashed this particular weekend) and so she had no expectations of anyone stopping by. It might be Carissa, one of her closer friends in the Dance Company or possibly Erica, stopping by to make sure she was okay (this breakdown had been a long time coming).
But as she stepped into the puddle of wine rather than over the it Brittany realized that the knocking was not the confident single bang (followed by a lot of yelling) as we Carissa's trademark, not the rapid sequence of knocks that didn't cease until she opened the door as was Erica's but something much more tentative.
Hesitant.
But when she finally opened the door, a trail of faded red footprints marking her trail, Brittany saw no one, heard no one. Only saw an envelope resting on her kitten doormat, the handwriting instantly familiar and forever ingrained in the blonds mind.
Brittany.
It only said her name, not a stamp or an address in sight and as she bent over to pick it Brittany knew that it meant she was here. And some part of her wanted to run, wanted to run down the steps and out into the frigid night air, yelling her name and hoping to see her turn around.
But again, she ignores that over dramatic part of her mind and picks up the envelope with trembling fingers, closing her front door and sinking back against it as hazy vision and weak fingers try to open the damn envelope. Finally, two paper cuts later the envelope slips into the blonds lap and she's left holding a folded slip of paper and a picture.
She looks at the picture first and instantly knows why she chose it.
"It's okay." Brittany whispered, one arm wrapped around Santana's waist, the other lingering dangerously close to the waistband of her girlfriends pants "No one else can see us."
Maybe it was the fact that the park was in fact deserted or that today had just been so utterly perfect that Santana didn't pull away. Rather she leaned in closer to the blond saying "I have an idea."
There was an usually playful tone in her girlfriends voice and the blond was eager to exploit this newfound comfort, short as it may be. She let herself be lead over to the swing set, the tanned Latina leading the way, their fingers intertwined "Stay here." Santana whispered, grinning and turned to walked over to the enclosed slide that extended perpendicular to the swing set.
Brittany watched as the brunette pulled something from her jacket pocket and arranged whatever it was on the closed top the of the slide. It took her a minute or so to fix whatever she was setting up but as soon as it was ready she darted back over and took her own swing "Go." She said, grinning. "When I say jump, jump." She said about ten seconds later when both of them had momentum.
It seemed like an eternity, the chain snapping back and forth as they rose higher and higher until Brittany was sure they would fly into the sky when they were at the very peak of their journey Santana yelled "Now!"
And they both pushed off of their swings, propelling themselves into the air and as they felt the swings fall beneath them it seemed like time slowed. Their hands found each others and Santana let out a wild cry, something the blond had never heard before from the Latina. She joined, letting out a cry of her own as there were three flashes, forever capturing this moment. This perfect moment.
The picture had turned out impossibly perfect, capturing the exact moment that their hands had met and Brittany looking over at Santana, Santana's head turned up to the sky but her gaze connecting with Brittany's.
It was beyond perfect.
It was them.
Letting the picture slide out of her hand and down to the floor Brittany fumbled open the letter, furiously wiping away a stray tear. She may have gotten older, moved to god knows where and done who knows what but her handwriting, that hadn't changed.
Brittany.
I don't know what to say or even why I'm writing this letter…it's been so long. But I feel like I have to. I can't tell you how many times I have written this out in my head, how many times I've imagined what I would say but now that I have the pen and paper in front of me it's not coming.
I think about the night that we broke up and I don't know what went wrong. What happened to us Brit? Where did we screw up that the forever we promised each other lasted two years? I don't know what happened to us.
Her handwriting has slanted more, the emotions she was feeling while writing translating to the pen and via that the paper. And that made it so much worse because the blond could hear every word as if Santana was in her apartment reading the letter out to her. Each word ringing in her head, penetrating the wall she had build around that box.
I chased you, chased you down the street like the saps do in the movies and I kept hoping that you would turn around. I kept hoping that you would stop the car and come back to me. But you didn't stop Brit, you kept driving and I cried in the street.
She could picture it now, Santana, half a block from home, her hair whipped from running and the tears falling down her face as she realized it was over. She would wrap her arms around herself as she turned, the footsteps of her mother now coming into earshot but she wouldn't fall into her mother arms. No, she would walk back to the house and lock herself in her bathroom, the sink and the shower on, because Santana Lopez didn't' cry and certainly didn't have a broken heart.
But she did.
And Brittany had broken it.
I called you over and over again that night, hoping that you would pick up and we could talk. But you ignored me and after that I didn't have the energy to try any more, so I didn't. But you didn't call me, or text me or try and talk. It was like I didn't even exit Brit and that hurt more than anything you had ever said or done to me. I loved you Brit, I was yours…ALL YOURS. And you left me there.
She's crying again as she read the letter, emotions five years hiding finally returning even after her previous sob session. At the time and for so long after that her parents, her sister and her friends had justified her actions, but they had been lying to her. No one had dared to tell her the cold hard truth.
I didn't write this to remind you of all that….I know I couldn't forget it. But maybe you can You're probably wondering how I found you….Kurt told me in a heartbeat…after he got over the shock of seeing me again.
I just, I need to tell you this Brit…tell you what I told you five years ago:
I am and will always forever be yours. I've tried being with other people, other women but it's not the same. None of them are you, none of them can be you. You're the last person I think about at night and the only one I ever want to be with. But I don't deserve you, I don't think I ever have so I accepted the fact that you were gone because you deserve someone so much more than me. I only ever kept you down, away from what you could have done. I put my reputation before you I think that's where I went wrong, where we went wrong. I'm sorry.
I'm so, so sorry.
Love always,
Santana
The letter is crushed against her chest now as tidal waves of emotions are crashing against her. And she can't help herself. She can't control it anymore because never before has Santana been more wrong. Brittany didn't care about reputations or status quos, it had only ever been about having Santana. As long as she had Santana, as long as she could wrap her arms around the Latina at night and kiss her in the darkness, she hadn't cared how her girlfriend came.
But the Latina had never known that. Brittany had never told her, not when they were uttering words in the night, not when they texted when they were apart. And that was biggest regret. Not when she didn't' stop the car. Not burning the pictures and letters and erasing the text messages. No, none of that compared to the regret of not telling Santana how much the Latina meant to her.
Santana had done it.
She had dared to take the leap.
Brittany had not.
She had run away from the moment that scared her as Santana did everything right. She chased her, called her, and even came to her house only to get turned away not once but three times. And Brittany had ignored her.
And it was as the blond pushed herself to her feet, with every intention of hunting her Latina down, that she saw the black sharpie on the back of the picture
So you always remember
S
Thoughts? Comments? Concerns?
This isn't my normal domain to post fanfiction in however I'm still on my Brittany-Santana kick.
Logicbomb.32