A/N: Thank you all for the reviews/favorites/follows, it means a ton. Sorry about the title change, but there's another Brittana Fic with the previous title and I didn't want to mess with that author's creativity. For some strange reason this was in the QuinnxSantana section not Brittana, I apologize, but I guess the website did something weird. Anyhow enjoy.

Song Suggestion: "Slow Burn Treason" by Holly Miranda.

~Wake up and you're next to nothing, but the weight of the world is on your side. Most days you don't even notice, but that's a lie~

The first time Quinn lied to me was when we were in 9th grade. She told me that it was okay if I went to the dance with her group for Homecoming and even though the last place I wanted to be was wrapped up in a dress, wearing heels and makeup, I still went because I thought it would be okay if I did. It wasn't okay, it so wasn't okay, and I spent most of the time sipping Sprite in the corner while Quinn let James, her date, get to second base with her on the dance floor, and he was a junior, I knew he was using her. I told her that he was slim, that she shouldn't waste her time with him, she said she liked him, and that was the second time she lied that night. Twice in one day, it was like my world was flipping upside down.

The first time my parents lied to me? And not in that toddler Santa Claus way? When they told me that everything was going to be alright. Or maybe it was when they said that everyone has their path, everyone has their own ambition. It could've been when they told me that I was still a kid and I had to follow their rules, because I wasn't a child, that ship had sailed, and I sure as hell didn't have to follow anyone's rules.

As for Brittany? She doesn't lie to me, she hadn't...she wouldn't. I told her ages ago that she should just tell me the truth, about everything, even if she was going to hurt me. "What is it supposed to feel like?" I asked Brittany who was giggling next to me. We were seated in my room, with this weird sea salt exfoliating scrub that her mom had bought her on her last day in Jamaica. We were scrubbing our hands with it over a bowl that we'd taken from my kitchen.

"Weird." Brittany said. "But I swear afterwards your hands will be so soft." I continued scrubbing for as long as Brittany did. My hands did feel weird, but they smelled like coconut and vanilla, and I really liked that. After another five minutes Brittany and I both looked up at one another realizing at the same time that we should've done this at separate times. Now both our hands were covered in sea salt, and neither one of us could grab the pitcher of water without making a mess. "Shoot!" Brittany said scrunching up her nose.

"Um...come on." I said keeping my hands still, holding them away from my clothes while I uncrossed my legs and managed to climb up to my feet. Brittany did the same and we scurried off into my bathroom. It didn't matter if we got the knob wet because I could just dry it off.

"Hey San?" Brittany ask as we were cleaning off our hands.

"Yeah?" I replied absentmindedly feeling the salt rinse off my hands to reveal my new and very smooth hands underneath.

"Why don't you do cheerleading with Quinn and I?" It was never really something we discussed. I didn't even know what I was supposed to tell her. That I was afraid of parading my body in front of all those people? Because I was terrified of being dropped from one of those pyramids? That I could never walk through the hallways with a sense of entitlement, because I didn't feel like I deserved anything. "San?" I dried my hands and looked at her again. "It could be fun, we could go to Disney World in the spring, we'd spend Saturday mornings together..." What was she trying to do? Get me to admit that I was too ashamed and too afraid to ever even think about trying it. It felt like a guilt trip, and the worst part was I couldn't get upset with her, because she had no idea that she was doing that. "Don't you want to?"

"What time did Quinn say she was coming over?" I asked Brittany who looked confused for a moment before the frown took over her face. She understood that I was trying to change the subject, I knew it really bothered her when I did that, but I had no idea what I was suppose to say.

"Like an hour." Brittany said before reaching out and grabbing my hands. She ran the pads of her fingertips against my knuckles, in between the grooves, before she intertwined our hands. She looked up at me and smiled. "They're so soft." I tried to think about anything except for how warm Brittany's hands were and how cold mine must have felt. "When Quinn comes over don't tell her about the scrub, she'll get super jealous that I let you try and not her." She let go of my hands and we returned to my room. Brittany cleaned up the scrub and told me she was going to put the bowl up.

I didn't realize I'd made a mess of my shirt so while Brittany was gone I grabbed a t-shirt and pulled off my old one. "How is that even possible?" I spun around covering my body with the t-shirt while Brittany walked in without a second of hesitation. I tugged on the shirt quickly and sat down on my bed. "I'm sorry." I think she realized that she'd startled me because she came over and rubbed my back gently before resting her chin on my shoulder. "You just have a really nice body, when do you work out?" She asked curiously.

"In the morning." I told her.

"What time?" I could see the gears turning in her head. I usually got to school at around 7:45 and she was trying to figure out what time I worked out.

"Around 5:15ish I guess." I told her. Her eyes widened and she smacked my arm. "Ow!"

"Sorry, you're just crazy for waking up that early." She laughed and went over to my laptop. Opening up my iTunes account and playing the first song that came up. "So my mom came home yesterday blabbering on about how Izzy has been feeding this racoon in our backyard." Brittany started. I laughed.

"A racoon? Doesn't she know it's gonna keep coming back to your house?" Izzy was Brittany's younger sister, she was 11 and one of the only pre-teens I've ever liked. She's sweet, and she plays video games with me sometimes. She even made a big show about giving me these five posters for my birthday last year. Brittany sometimes got annoyed with her, but I'd always thought she was pretty lucky to have a sister in the first place.

"Trust me she knows, I caught her trying to let it in the house yesterday and I almost croaked right there on the spot." Brittany said as she hopped up on my bed and began jumping up and down.

"So is your mom mad?" I asked curiously. Brittany's mom was usually pretty chill, she let me stay over there whenever I wanted, and she always got us whatever we wanted to eat. She caught me smoking once and didn't even rat me out. We spent a couple of minutes outside talking, she told me that she had to go grocery shopping and how when she was younger she used to steal from Macy's, she told me things she wasn't supposed to. At some point she asked me for a cigarette and we ended up smoking together, and we never once mentioned it again.

"No, she's getting us a dog!" Brittany said with the brightest smile on her face. Even I was smiling now.

"No way!" I said looking up at Brittany who was nodding her head excitedly.

"No way, what?" Quinn said setting her bag down and climbing up on the bed and jumping just like Brittany was.

"Hi Quinn." I said.

"Hi Q." Brittany said as she bounced around Quinn who was smiling more than she usually would be on Saturday especially since they had morning practice.

"Yes, yes, hello to all. No what were we no waying about?" She questioned.

"Brittany's getting a dog." I told her. Her eyes widened and she squealed with excitement like she was the one getting the pet not Brittany. Although it might as well be us all getting a dog with the amount of time we spent at each other's houses. "Do you know what kind?" I asked.

"No, we haven't talked about it that much. We're going to get the dog next week though. And my dad said that it had to be a boy though, because he feels outnumbered." I laughed at that, Mr. Pierce was the man. Seriously, he drove a Mustang and anytime we had them over for dinner my mother always called him Suave Mike, and even though it was embarrassing I still laughed because it was true. "I love puppies." Brittany said with a laugh before jumping one last time and landing next to me on the bed. "I want you to come with us to pick a puppy." Brittany whispered in my ear so Quinn couldn't hear.

"Okay." I said assuring her that I would go if she wanted me to.

"Good." Brittany said before looking up at Quinn who was jamming out to ABBA. Brittany reached in her pocket and pulled out her phone, using stealth and the fact that Quinn was totally in her own world to get a video of her. Quinn didn't notice until halfway through Mamma Mia and she jumped off the bed and tried to snatch the phone away from Brittany. Brittany put it in her back pocket and Quinn crossed her arms over her chest.

"Delete it or I won't invite you over." Quinn said giving her an early ultimatum. There was no way Brittany was going to give in this early.

"Invite me where?" Brittany questioned.

"Over my house later. Fran's coming home." Brittany and I both lit up at this. Fran rarely visited, it was partially because she went to Washington University but it was also that she spent a lot of her summers and breaks overseas. "And dad's doing the whole barbeque and friends over thing. So if you want to come you're gonna delete that video." I rolled my eyes, we were invited even if Brittany didn't delete the video.

"Stop being a bully." I told Quinn. Brittany didn't respond well to threats, but if they were empty she'd end up going head to head with Quinn and then I'd be stuck in the middle of it. "We'll just keep the video so when you're like 40 we can show you what a weirdo you once were." I told her and she flicked my nose.

"Oh I'll always be weird." She said with a grin. "Okay so come on, let's get dressed." Brittany and I exchanged glances. Quinn was wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt, but Brittany and I were clad in skinny jeans and plain shirts. "I meant I was going to get dressed." She reiterated before going over to grab the bag she'd brought with her. She went into the bathroom and closed the door behind her.

Brittany and I were silently waiting for her to come back out but I realized it was going to take too long so I turned to Brittany. "Hey, let me see the video." She pulled out her phone and scrolled through her menu until she found the video file and pressed play. "Oh God...I'm gonna post this on the school website." I joked getting a firm nudge from Brittany. "Hey...wait..." The camera had moved to me without me even noticing it, I was laughing, my eyes looked so alive, more than I'd ever seen. I looked away from her phone and she shut off the video. "Quinn come on-." Brittany put her hand over my mouth and held it there.

"It's okay to be happy sometimes, it doesn't have to scare you." She moved her hand and let it fall to her side. She looked at the bathroom door. "If she comes out looking like a movie star I'm gonna puke." I suppressed my laughter because I could hear the doorknob turning and I didn't want Quinn to badger me about what I was laughing about.

She came out wearing a white sundress with a yellow belt that went around her waist. Well at least she was wearing flats and not heels otherwise even I would have been annoyed with her for outdoing us. "Show off." Brittany mumbled getting a warning glare from Quinn.

"You're one to talk, why do you have to wear such tight skinny jeans? Your legs will probably be the center of attention tonight anyway." Quinn complained as if that was supposed to be a good defense. Brittany looked over at me and motioned for me to stand up. I did.

"Look at San, didn't she grow?" Brittany asked Quinn who eyed me for a solid thirty seconds before a grin spread across her face.

"Whoa, you did. I didn't even notice." Quinn said pulling me over so I could stand back-to-back with her. "I'm 5'6." She told Brittany as we stood there.

"San's taller!" I thought I was still 5'4, I didn't even notice and no one except Brittany even bothered to point it out. "What did you eat all summer?" Brittany joked.

"I dunno." I said. "Let's just go, we don't have to marvel at how I'm suddenly a giant." Brittany looped her arm with mine.

"You're not." Brittany assured me.

"10 bucks says Fran notices that Santana has grown." Quinn said as we exited my room. I looked at Quinn curiously, why would she say that? "She talks about you non stop, last week when she called she asked about you before she asked about me. I swear she's got a crush on you."

"That's not funny, Quinn." I told her seriously.

"I'm not joking." Quinn said with a smile that let me know that she really was. "Okay, but in real life, Frans super excited to see you guys. She said she misses you guys, she even call you her little sisters too."

"Aww!" Brittany exclaimed, as she held onto my arm tighter. Thinking about it that way I was suddenly less excited. I didn't want an older sister, I didn't want another person to look out for me or ask me too many questions.

+0+

Quinn was right; Fran was really excited to see us. She had a bunch of her high school friends over, half of Quinn family was even here, that's why I thought it was so weird when she crept out onto the back porch and sat down next to me. Everyone was inside, in the basement watching soccer and eating chips and pretzels, like one big hoard of college students.

I'd already eaten too much, and I decided I wanted a few moments of quiet, maybe a quick smoke before I went back down. I didn't expect Fran to be out here too. She didn't say anything when she saw the cigarette, and she didn't push it away from my mouth to stop me so I just sat there and smoked while she made me incredibly uncomfortable with her eyes lingering on my hands. "Too loud downstairs?" She asked me.

"Yea, your dad is really...passionate." We both laughed because we'd seen him break a lamp because he'd jumped up far too quickly just an hour ago.

"I didn't know you smoked." She said like she'd already run out of things to say.

"Well I could hardly tell you, you know? You've kind been AWOL for a bit." I exhaled away from her but she grabbed my chin and made me look at her.

"No fair Lopez, don't use it as an excuse. Quinn's visited like 8 times, why didn't you come with?" She asked and suddenly she'd found her voice again, in true Frannie Fabray fashion. I didn't have a true answer for her, but I could throw a few words together and hope for the best.

"I couldn't." That should be enough. People always look for answers, way too many answers, I just wish everyone took everything at face value and left it at that.

"That's such..." She looked at me with her mouth slightly open before closing it and looking away. "Bullshit." She whispered the last part. "Why did you suddenly start closing up when I spoke to you? We used to have great conversations, remember? Then you started treating me like everyone else." I put out my cigarette but held it in my hand. They didn't have an ashtray and I didn't want to litter.

"Because you started taking those fucking psychology classes...and then you weren't really speaking to me anymore." I stood up and started walking around to the front of the house. Fran followed, to the point where she grabbed my arm and forced me to stop.

"I'm speaking to you right now-." She insisted.

"You're not!" I told her. "You're not." I whispered again just to make her feel what I was saying. "You're trying to get into my head."

"Well excuse me for finding you interesting; excuse me for thinking that you're fascinating." I looked at her, just staring, hoping she would just flat out tell me how i was supposed to respond to that. "I'm not trying to figure you out, okay? I just like hearing what you have to say-."

"I don't want to be put into your stupid research project. I'm not an experiment-."

"I know you're not." She said with furrowed eyebrows. "You're no one's experiment, you're no one's project...you're my friend." She said before looking back towards the house. "Come back inside." She pleaded.

"What's going on?" Brittany said as she stepped out of the house and walked down the steps.

"Nothing." I assured her. She looked so worried when there was nothing for her to be worried about. "I'm just going home." I told her. "Um...I'll text you later." I walked off without leaving enough room for either one of them to chase me down. As I was turning onto the sidewalk I could hear Brittany's frustrated sigh. Fran, what did you do? I crossed my arms over my chest and frowned. I didn't need her to fight for me. Fran had changed that was all there was to it. She'd said she wasn't trying to read me, she told me that three years ago, and it was still a lie.

A/N: Review…please. Just let me know what you think. I'll get another chapter up in the next two days if you do.