"But, Brittany. I'll never let you go, I promise."
"Santana." Brittany said firmly. "I'm dating Artie."
"Brittany," Santana sobbed softly. "Have some faith in me."
Brittany felt a pang of guilt in her stomach at her friend's face. She wanted to be with Santana, she really did, but she couldn't be with her if she wanted it to be secret. Brittany wasn't afraid of dating Santana, while Santana was absolutely terrified.
"I do have faith in you, San," She sighed. "But I can't..." Brittany trailed off, not knowing how to put her feelings into words.
"Whatever." Santana wiped at the tears on her cheeks.
"Wait, San, wait!"
But the girl had already stalked away, and again, Brittany was left alone in the middle of a half empty hallway.
"Why am I such an idiot?"
Santana sat in her room that night, staring at her computer screen while listening to music that didn't help her mood much. Why did high school have to be so fucking terrible?
"You're supposed to try new things!" She mimicked her mother's voice, repeating the words she'd heard before she had started her freshman year at Brittany's side. "Little did I know that I would be one of the morons clinging to what's familiar."
Santana's phone rang suddenly, and she contemplated not answering it, but she picked up anyways.
"San!" Brittany's voice yelled at her through the other end. "My sister!"
"What?"
"My sister is in the hospital she-"
"Sh," Santana warned, Brittany sounded close to hysterics.
"Can I come over?"
Santana sighed. "Yeah."
Brittany arrived no later than fifteen minutes later, and she was indeed in hysterics. She didn't bother knocking, she threw open the door and raced up to Santana's room. Santana was taken aback by Brittany's state, even more so when the taller girl threw herself at the brunette, sobbing into her shoulder.
"Sh..." Santana said, patting her friend's back.
"What if it happens to me?" Brittany's words were barely intelligible, and Santana had no idea what she meant, but she just kept comforting her.
"It won't, I'll keep you safe here with me, sh, Britt, it's alright."
Despite the whole ordeal being extremely painful for Santana, she imagined it was worse for Brittany.
After over an hour of crying, Brittany finally gave out and passed out in Santana's arms. Santana moved her gently onto the bed and covered her with her blankets before grabbing a few for herself and moving to sleep on the floor. She didn't think that Brittany would want to sleep in the same bed with her. She was dating Artie, after all.
Brittany woke up feeling cold and sad. She had forgotten where she was, so she swung her feet out of the bed she was in and jumped back a bit when her cold feet made contact with warm flesh.
"Ergh-" She grunted, pulling herself back onto the bed.
Glancing at the clock, she realized it was four in the morning. She also recognized the alarm clock. She was at Santana's. Then, she felt kind of sick. She couldn't even imagine how much shit she must have put Santana through, just by showing up. She groaned and pulled her knees up to her chest, sitting there and groaning for about fifteen minutes before the figure on the floor in front of her moved.
"B?" Santana's voice said sleepily.
The girl on the floor sat up and stared blindly at where she assumed the blonde was sitting.
"B?" She repeated.
"Morning." Brittany said weakly.
"Are you alright?"
Brittany was silent for a second, then replied.
"Why did you sleep on the floor?"
"Well – I – you're dating Artie. So, it wouldn't be fair if I slept in the same bed as you... mostly because of my feelings for you."
"Oh."
"Well... uh... it's four in the morning, so I'm just gonna go back to bed now."
"Wait," Brittany said.
"What?"
Brittany hadn't even thought of anything to say. She just didn't want to be alone right now.
"Stay with me."
"Britt, you know you'll always find me right here, okay?"
"Right." Brittany replied.
Brittany watched as Santana's dark figure moved so her head was leaning against the edge of the bed. She heard the girl sigh and yet another pang of guilt hit her in the pit of her stomach.
"San, I'm really sorry, you know that, right?" She said.
"Let's not talk about this at four in the morning." Santana's cool voice replied.
"Why not? I want to talk about it." Brittany argued.
"What's there to talk about? I told you how I felt, assuming you felt the same way, and you chose Artie."
"Because he's not afraid to be with me in public." Brittany muttered.
When Santana stayed silent, Brittany knew she had crossed the line.
"San, I – I didn't mean it like that."
"Go to bed." Santana said shortly.
Brittany watched Santana's figure disappear underneath her blankets. Brittany did the same, but did not fall back to sleep.
The weekend passed very slowly after Friday night, even when her sister returned home. Brittany was nearly relieved when she walked into school that morning. She didn't see any sign of Santana all day, in fact, she hadn't heard from the girl all weekend, despite her constant calls and texts. It wasn't until her last class that day before glee club that she actually saw Santana. She was sitting in her usual spot in the middle of the classroom when Santana came to the door, asking to see her. Nervously, she arose from her seat and exited the classroom.
"So," Santana began. "It's five minutes to the bell. The hallways will be flooded, right?"
"R – Right."
"And the only reason you don't want to be with me is because I'm afraid of being with you in public, correct?"
"Yeah..." Brittany said uncertainly.
"Okay." Santana stopped walking, and turned to face Brittany.
They stood in silence for about two minutes, before the bell rang. Students started to file out of their classrooms, some of them stopping to look at the two girls. Santana almost lost her nerve when she saw Dave Karofsky standing with a red slushie to her right. Instead of running like she did so many months ago when Brittany had suggested they do a duet together, she swallowed her fear and did what she had come here to do. She put her hands on either side of Brittany's face and paused for a moment to look into the blonde's eyes, checking to see if what she was about to do was alright with her. Brittany had a mystified look on her face, which was good enough for Santana. She pressed her lips softly against Brittany's, and was surprised when Brittany kissed back insistently. Santana felt as if the empty void that had been sitting inside her was finally being filled, and she was nearly glowing with happiness as she pulled away, and was glad to see that Brittany looked as if she felt the same. She had almost forgotten about Karofsky until...
Splash!
Santana jerked backwards as a cold, red slushie hit her in the face.
A/N: Okay so if you've seen the spoiler where Santana gets slushied, that's where the inspiration for this came from okay sorry about the ending but, um, yeah.