A/N: I wasn't particularly sure where this chapter was going to go, but once I started writing this is where I ended up. I had wanted the chapters to be longer but this one is shorter, and I'm sorry! But I felt like this scene, this interaction between the girls, deserved it's own chapter. I thought adding more would ruin the mood. But the next chapter will be longer and hopefully up in a few days.

Thank you for reading this and a bigger thank you to those who reviewed the last chapter! If you feel so inclined, you can review and I will read it, then read it again and probably once more. :) I hope you enjoy!

Now this just wasn't fair. Her backyard was massive. Completely and totally massive. There was a pool and a hot tub and a deck and grass and those pretty hanging lights and there was this "other garage" as Santana called it that had a boat parked right in front of it. She still had my hand and directed me towards the other garage. She opened the door and we went inside. No one was in here, and I was actually surprised. This seemed like a cool place to hang out in. Or have sex in, if you're one of those people. But after a second of looking around, no one had emerged and we were completely alone.

I wandered a few steps to look around. This place was like a home theater. There was a TV mounted on the wall that was bigger than any TV I had ever seen. I thought my dad had a big TV in our living room, but this TV was way larger. There was one big leather couch in front of the TV with several mismatched arm chairs beside it. One of the chairs was this ugly shade of green and immediately I knew why it was out here instead of in the living room. I thought that it must be Santana's dad's chair or someone like that, but she sank into it and set her beer down on the ground. She swung her legs over the arm rest and relaxed her head into the other arm rest. She looked peaceful.

I tried to take a drink but it was empty, and I frowned. I sighed and looked around for a trash can or a recycle bin, but didn't see one. I set the bottle on top of a counter next to a power drill. I scooted the bottle away from the drill a few inches.

Santana's eyes were on me. "There's more in there," she said, pointing to a refrigerator behind the chair she was sitting in.

My mouth made an 'O' shape. "You have a refrigerator in here? Awesome," I sang. I walked over to it and swung the door open with more force than I intended, but caught the door before it hit the other side. I studied my options: beer, water, orange juice, wine, other beer or Gatorade. I bit my lower lip in concentration. What I really wanted was beer, but I knew I should drink water. But they also had my favorite drink that I can never say no to, even at 11 at night. I pulled the orange juice out.

I sat on the edge of the couch closest to Santana and opened my orange juice. She tilted her head and looked at my drink. "Orange juice?"

"It's orange juice, Santana. Nobody says no to orange juice." I took a big gulp and wiped my mouth with my finger.

"A lot of people say no to orange juice, Brittany," she said, repeating my name in the same tone I had used to say hers. "No one in my family drinks it except for my dad."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Who doesn't like orange juice? I held the bottle protectively to my chest. "It's my favorite," I told her. "I would drink it all day if I could. But since we go through a carton every two days, my mom only lets me drink it in the morning."

Santana gave me this pitiful smile. "That's a crime," she said, picking up her beer and setting it on her lap. We sat in silence for a while, listening to the music and chatter from the partygoers outside. Thankfully there wasn't a LMFAO song playing again.

"So," I ventured after a few minutes. "Why are we out here?" I glanced to where I set my empty beer bottle earlier and saw the power drill sitting a few inches away, alone with duct tape and other tools. "I'm not ready to die yet."

Santana turned her head to where I was looking and fought back a smile. "Didn't anybody tell you not to trust the crazy girls?" I saw a twinkle in her eye.

"They just told me not to get into cars when people offer me candy. But I don't see a car or candy."

When she smiled at me again, I noticed that she had really nice teeth. Really nice, super white teeth. I had braces for a year when I was thirteen and my teeth still didn't look as good as hers. Then I wondered if they were that nice because she was blessed by the Tooth Fairy or if she had paid to have work done to make them look that nice. Then I felt bad for judging her like that. Then I just smiled back finally. "Why did you pull me out here? My favorite song was playing!" I joked.

"I didn't want to have this party, but I didn't really want to be alone either."

"So then why me? We met half an hour ago."

Maybe I'm naive and assume other people are just like me. Maybe I don't know the appropriate etiquette for a party. Maybe I'm just over thinking this. But something tells me that this girl doesn't just meet random other girls at a party—her own party—and give them beers and sit alone with them inside a mini home theater/other garage. I've heard what Quinn and Sugar and Puck have said and I've seen the way the people here have acted around her. This girl doesn't strike me as the type to just make a new friend out of the blue. And not just any new friend, but me.

People don't generally like me. Actually, that is a lie. People love me. But they love me because I'm fun and carefree and if it's a boy or it's a girl I'll just give them what they want and move on. I think the word I'm looking for is easy. I'm easy. I don't put up a fight because I'm a pacifist and I'm a people pleaser. So if someone wants something, I'm their girl, but I'm never anyone's first choice when they don't want to be alone. Unless it's in a sexual way, but I don't think that's what Santana is looking for right now.

When I asked her that, she looked at me. Her eyes looked darker now than they did in her senior picture but they were so beautiful. They were a major contrast to my bright blue eyes. She inhaled slowly, like she was making sure to suck in all the air that she could. She held the air in her lungs for a moment before exhaling. I sat on the couch with my legs crossed and my orange juice resting against my thigh, waiting for her to respond. By the way she inhaled I could tell she was thinking of an answer, or maybe an appropriate way to answer. It was like she was unprepared for the question. There wasn't already an answer hidden in her brain, waiting to be used again. She had to come up with one on her own that hadn't been used before. For a very brief moment I felt special because of that thought.

"I think it's because I just met you," she said slowly. I was a little confused, and my face showed it because she took another slow breath and continued. "People don't...they don't particularly like me. They pretend to, but at the end of the day I know that they don't. People call me when they want to go shopping or go to a party or go get high, but they don't call me when they're crying and need someone to talk to. And I sure as hell don't call them."

I could feel my heart sink just the tiniest bit. On one hand I was shocked by her honesty. I was someone she just met and she was trusting me enough to tell me that she basically has no friends. If I didn't have friends, I don't know if I could ever tell anyone because that thought is just so sad. Everybody deserves at least one friend. On the other hand, though, she still hadn't answered my question. Why me?

She wasn't done yet, however. "You talked to me," she said quietly.

"Why wouldn't I talk to you?" I tried to make the question airy, like I really had no idea. I had an idea why I wouldn't have talked to her, but I wanted her to keep going. I wanted to hear her speak but at the same time, I wanted her to be honest. I wanted to hold on to that moment of feeling special for as long as I could.

"Brittany," she said my name slowly and hesitantly, but she said it like she's said my name a million times before. She said my name like she knows me, like I was someone she has known her entire life. "Did you see anyone talk to me tonight? I mean other than the pleasantries Puck and I exchanged, did anyone come up and say something? No one said anything to me all night. No one said anything to me before you got here except for 'hey, Santana, where can I put all the alcohol?'" Her voice was sharp, and critical. But it felt more like she was being critical of herself. I think she was using her tough voice to mask the pain she felt from what she just told me. Only I don't think it was pain so much as plain loneliness. How long had the party been going on before I got there? How long had she been sitting in silence while people paraded through her house like they owned the place? My heart sank just a tiny bit more. I could not imagine how she felt. And I hoped I never had to.

"I'm tired of..." she was searching for the right words to articulate her thoughts. "I'm tired of being alone. I don't want to be the loser in the corner of a party in her own damn house. This is my house and I shouldn't feel this way, but I do, and I am so fucking tired of it." She took a shaky breath and a big drink from her beer. I had a feeling she still wasn't finished, so I let her continue. I didn't really owe her anything, but I think she really needed someone to listen to her. "So when I saw you looking at my pictures, I got this weird feeling that you were different. You came and sat down by me and you talked to me even though I'm about 99% sure Quinn has told you bad things about me. People run the other way when I speak or hang around long enough to give a bullshit reply. But you stayed. So that's why you."

I felt a surge of pride fill my chest. I had no idea what she had been through, though I had a small glimpse, but she was trying to make her life better. I had to give her credit for taking a chance on me. I barely knew her, but I was so proud of her for admitting all of that to me. She was probably the bravest person I had ever met. Quinn and I had been friends for two years and she never told me about her baby, and here Santana was spilling her heart out to me after an hour.

She was done talking now, which meant it was my turn to come up with a reply to everything she had just told me. As I sat with that responsibility, the responsibility of saying something meaningful to her that also was a fitting reply, I drew a blank. I was not born with the gift of good conversation. I can converse, but it's never something anyone would be inspired by. I never had heavy conversations with anyone, even my best friend, so I was just at a loss. I took a cue from her and slowly sucked in air, trying to by myself time to think of something to say. I exhaled even more slowly then gave up, and just said the first thing I thought of. "People have called me different my entire life, you know. It's never bothered me, but it's never been something I've, like, liked being called before. But tonight, I couldn't be happier to be called different."

The response I got from Santana was a half smile, but not the kind of half smile someone gives when they don't really want to smile. This was the half smile of someone who had just poured her heart out to a stranger and was now sitting in the comfortable silence of knowing there was a very good chance that she was no longer alone, and would no longer be the loser in the corner of a party in her own house.

I saw the remote for the TV sitting on the counter I put my empty bottle on. I got up to grab it, and before I sat down I stood in front of Santana and extended my pinky out to her. She looked up at me for a second before taking it. She stood up and we walked back to the couch and sat down, pinkies still locked. I handed her remote and she turned on the TV. She flipped through the channels before giving up and going to the Pay Per View section. There were a few movies playing I had wanted to see, like The Woman in Black and The Grey. She flipped down the menu another page and saw that The Vow was still playing. She looked at me and gave me this 'please can we watch this' look and I nodded my head. She selected the movie, hit Pay Now and laid her head on my shoulder as The Vow began to play.