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 28th cycle. Now cycle 29!

TOP 16, TAKE 2: Okay so a couple cycles back, I did my second 'top of Glee at the moment' cycle. Now since I was still in university and such at the time, those were planned a while back, before the second half of the season every started. This made it that by the time that cycle rolled around I realized that some things had changed... Things were added, removed, bumped up... Point is it didn't really reflect where I was anymore. So I decided 'what the heck, I'll do another one ASAP!' And so here we are :) This is my revised Top 16 (of course I HAD to plan before the finale, so there are still a couple things missing like Samcedes, Unholy Trinity, etc, but let's assume they're there ;) They'll get some love in coming cycles ;)) So off we go!
Coming in at number five...

"Made of Words, Made of Songs"
Brittany/Santana

For all the preparation that had gone into this one day, she'd been amazed at how it had actually managed to sneak up on her. But then she'd woken up that morning and it had hit her: they'd made it… She couldn't do anything but smile, bursting with so much happiness that she almost couldn't take it, and she had to start moving or she'd lose it.

But then as the final preparations happened, everything and everyone around her looking like it was spinning, and she just had to step away for a moment, catch her breath before she just passed out. She had no problem ditching everyone around her, and finally she had herself hidden away in a room on her own. She closed her eyes, breathed deep.

There was a knock at the door, and she startled. "Come in," she answered.

"Are you sure?" Santana's voice rang out, and she relaxed instantly. She reached for her robe nearby, threw it over herself; they'd said it would be a surprise.

"Yes," she said as she tugged at the ends of the sash. The door opened and in walked Santana, in more or less the same attire. Their eyes met, smiles erupted… Eventually, as Brittany didn't speak, Santana came to sit next to her.

"Heard you made a break for it," she started, and Brittany smirked. "Everything good?" she was almost checking, trying for casual.

"Yes, definitely," Brittany assured her, and now she was the one to relax.

"So what happened then?" she still had to ask, reaching to brush back a strand of hair that looked determined to obscure part of the blonde's face.

"Nothing, I just… They were just kind of all over me," she shrugged.

"Yeah, I know, right?" Santana chuckled, shaking her head. "I kind of had to get away, too."

"We're not going to get in trouble, are we?" Brittany suddenly looked up, then over at her.

"Don't see why we should. We get as much of a say in this as any of them, more, actually," she promised her, and Brittany's smile returned. "But I guess it's normal, everyone acting crazy… Comes with the territory," she pointed out, and for a moment Brittany looked confused, but Santana indicated their – covered – dresses, and she nodded. "And as far as I'm concerned, I wouldn't trade in any of it, not for this," she went on, and Brittany bowed her head, touched, eventually laying it on Santana's shoulder.

"I wouldn't either," she told her, wrapping both her arms around the one of Santana's that was closest to her. This made her smile, made her heart drum, so content. In that instant she couldn't have cared less about everything else going on that day, if she stayed right there, with her, then her day would be made. They would have to move eventually, but it was like she'd said… They had a big say in this, so they could take this moment to themselves.

"This morning, when I woke up, I kind of didn't want to open my eyes for a while," she spoke after a few beats of silence. Brittany propped her chin up on Santana's shoulder, the better to see her face.

"How come?" she asked. Santana shrugged.

"For a second I thought I'd open my eyes and realize that I was still back in Glee Club and this wouldn't be real, that none of it would have been…" she explained slowly.

"But that was years ago," Brittany reminded her, with sympathetic eyes.

"I know, I know, but… You have no idea how many times I thought about this, and in every scenario it just… it didn't happen, for one reason or another."

"Sure, I do," she threw her a smile.

"Yeah?" Santana replied with little belief in this, but Brittany just nodded. "You're telling me you could tell all that, even when you were…"

"Well, maybe not that way… maybe not right away, but… I figured it out."

"You did?" now Santana was the one caught by a smile.

"Right around the time when you and I became… you and I," she stared in her eyes, and it was impossible to start and list off the course that their emotions took from that point on, sitting side by side, but each of them fell in the category of… happiness, relief, hope, amusement, nostalgia… Nothing bad could touch them, not then. Even now, Santana would try to deflect, just a little, if only to give herself a chance to breathe, to get some control over herself again.

"Everyone's here, did you see?" she asked, and Brittany nodded. "Can't believe how glad I was to see all of them," she laughed. "I mean, considering where we started off… But then look where we all ended up," she gave herself her own answer. "I guess we should get going," she finally decided.

"Two more minutes?" Brittany begged. "They wouldn't start without us, would they?" she pondered aloud as the thought came to her.

"It would be a little hard," Santana told her. "Impossible, even."

"Right…" Brittany realized, again remembering by virtue of their dresses. "So we could just stay in here all day if we wanted…"

"Don't give me ideas," Santana joked. "I mean, no, we couldn't. Well, we could, but then if we did that, then all this would be for nothing," she gestured to the both of them. "And I did not get up at the crack of dawn to look this fabulous for nothing… and neither did you," she turned her head to look at her, and she was thanked for the compliment with a kiss. She'd been good not to cry until then, but this did it.

"Hang on," Brittany was quick to act, producing a tissue to keep Santana's makeup from running. Once everything looked to have settled once again, not even thinking of the possibility that it might start her again, she had to say it… "I love you…" it was almost whispered, so close to her ear. Santana nodded to herself, grasping the blonde's hand.

"Love you, too," she told her, before their attention was drawn to the noises outside. "They're getting restless," she sniffled, checking herself to make sure her face was still alright.

"Well, let's go, then," Brittany decided. "Otherwise this is just a party, and we're not even in it." Santana laughed. "I mean, what's a wedding without the brides?"

"Not a whole lot," Santana agreed, nodding. They got up, both of them still holding their robes as closed around their dresses as they could.

"Are you sure we won't have jinxed it, being in here now?" Brittany asked.

"Hey, a jinx couldn't hang on to us if it tried. We're going to go out there, we're going to get our "I do"s, and we're going to be happy…"

"I thought we were happy," Brittany pointed out.

"Well, happier."

THE END

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!

PS: I'm going to work to find a way to make a list available of the various series, I just need to find a way to make the link available, since this site seems to have an issue with putting links to stuff ;)