Still smiling from her small encounter with Dani during the sunrise, Santana walked home in the golden morning light, shading her eyes from the sharp rays of the still-rising sun. She traipsed down the sidewalk, an uncharacteristic spring in her step as she approached the subway station to return home, rolling up the sleeves of her cardigan. She took her MetroCard out of her pocket while she approached the Orange Line and slid the card through the machine, thinking of how perfectly Dani's hands had fit in hers while they were spinning. The entire way home, she sat on the subway and thought of Dani, of the blonde's smile and the way it lit up her eyes, before mentally slapping herself for getting attached to a girl she had met just hours ago.

Not far from the shared loft, Dani pulled her hair down, allowing the blonde locks to frame her face perfectly. Her face was pensieve, except for her eyes that lit up when she saw a packet of sugar on the table. What a weird thing to associate a person with, she thought as she reached into the cupboard for an apple.

As she peeled off the sticker and ran the apple under the sink, Dani mentally calculated her nutrition that would count as breakfast. 116 calories, not much of anything else except for natural sugar… She ran her hands over the skin, digging her nails into it to form small half-moon in the exterior of the apple. As she sat down on her bed, she chewed slowly as if that would somehow lessen the apple's effect.

Dani knew that she had to have food to live – she wasn't suicidal, after all, she was just…overweight. She saw people like Santana and was flirty with her and confident because that was who she was – the loud, Texas girl. But she had been brought up on Tex-Mex and Barbeque and fatty meats that didn't seem relevant to living a healthy lifestyle.

She felt her skin crawl as she made her way down to the apple's core, her chews methodical and tense. Once it seemed like there was no more meat left, she walked and threw the apple away, ready to shower before her daytime sleep.

Santana's subway stop was a mere three blocks from the diner, making transportation easy, but it suddenly became less so when she spotted the short blonde girl ascending up the stairs in front of her.

"Dani?" she called out, over the busy Manhattan noise. "Dani?"

Dani turned around, her lips pursed. "Oh! Santana!" she replied cheerfully, her stomach still full from the apple she'd eaten several hours prior. "Do you take the Orange Line, too?"

"Yeah, um, up from Washington Heights. You?"

Dani hesitated. "I live in the South Bronx. Maybe you'll see the compartment I'm on and we can ride together from there? After all, Manhattan around midnight isn't exactly world-renowned for its safe transportation."

Santana sucked her breath in, butterflies filling her stomach. "Yeah, yeah, that'd be good."

The two girls then walked the three blocks to the Spotlight in an awkward silence, the tension between them heated and evident. Santana then opened the door for Dani and then cleared her throat.

"I didn't eat before I came, and if nobody's in here, which of course, there won't be, I was going to make some pancakes. I make them pretty awesome. You want some?"

Dani gritted her teeth into a smile. "Sounds good, but I literally just ate, so I'm pretty full. Thanks for the offer though."

"Sure."

As Santana settled down into the kitchen, the frying pan bubbling, Dani sat beside her in the kitchen, filling sugar caddies and holding her stomach to keep herself from being naseous from the smell. "So you never told me where you're from," she proposed awkwardly.

"Nice icebreaker," Santana countered, her sarcasm full of a cheerful edge. "But anyways, I'm from cow-town Lima, Ohio. It's fucking great over there. The Amish live there and I'm pretty sure the cows outnumber the people by a pretty hefty ratio."

Dani laughed, and Santana noticed how beautifully her eyes shone when she did so.

"I'm going to shoot the question right back at you."

"I'm from Texas. Groves, to be exact. It's near Port Arthur if you know where that is." Santana shook her head. "Well, then just think farther up the coast than Houston. Fucking sucked."

Santana smirked. "I thought you had a bit of an accent."

Dani light-heartedly smacked the girl by the stove. "Shut up! If you don't say ya'll, you're denying it."

"Except I really don't."

"I promise you do. And one day, I'm going to catch you on it."

Santana bit her lip. "Good luck. First let's see if we get more than one person in here."

Dani eyed her. "Who said it had to be here."

The taller girl sucked her breath in, caught off-guard by Dani's proposal.

"Oh!" she cried, and the embarrasedly covered her mouth, and then accidentally burned her hand on the skillet. "Shit!"

"Shit!" Dani exclaimed quickly, and with a quick instinct, she ran over to the darker girl and grabbed her hand. "Are you okay? Sorry, I didn't mean to…"

"Dani, it's fine. Can you just grab, like a wet rag, or something."

Dani hovered nervously around the kitchen before rushing over to the sink. "Yeah, yeah, um," she stuttered before she ran a rag from the interior of the sink under the faucet. She then wrung it out before bringing it over to Santana and wrapped it around her hand, applying slight pressure. "You can, um, keep that going, and I'll go grab the first aid kit so you can get a band-aid, and like some Neosporin or something."

The blonded darted off down a hallway to the supply closet, sweating as she realized that there was a very strong possibility that she liked this girl. A gay girl. That was…new. She had found herself always falling in love with straight girls – no bi or gay ones even though her gaydar was finely tuned. But she put her personal thoughts aside for a moment and allowed herself to focus on grabbing the med kit for Santana.

As Dani reappeared from the hallway with the first aid kit, Santana dropped the wet rag to the floor and grabbed her hand.

"No, honey," Dani said, surprising herself with the quiet term of endearment. She felt Santana tense up, and then felt the need to apologize, doing so under her breath. "Don't touch it. You don't want anymore germs or oil in there."

"Are you implying that my skin is oily?" Santana retorted, still dumbstruck by what Dani had called her just seconds ago.

"Never. It's just a fact of life. Now hold still."

Dani bent down and looked Santana in the eye as she dabbed the Neosporin on the girl's hand before covering it with a Band-Aid.

"Th—thank you," stuttered, ghosting her fingertips over where Dani's had been just the minute before. "Now are you sure you don't want to share these pancakes with me."

Suddenly, Dani felt an overwhelming urge to please the girl. She could always throw it up later. "Um, sure," she said, hesitating ever-so-slightly at the surprise of her own words.

Santana smiled and with her good hand, she slid one of the pancakes onto a plate with a spatula, and then handed it over to Dani, seeing the girl trying to smile, but noticed when it didn't reach her eyes this time.

Dani grabbed a fork from the still-needing-to-be-unloaded dishwasher and cut carefully into the pancake, her eyes scanning it cautiously.

"You want syrup?"

Dani fidgeted as the question caught her off-guard. "I'm fine!" she blurted out messily. "I mean – I've never liked it. But thanks."

Santana shrugged. "Okay," she responded before putting a pancake on her own plate.

After both of the girls had cut a small slice off of each of their food, Santana held up her fork. "Cheers, Dani."

Dani tried to smile. "Cheers, Santana."

She made it through the first half of the pancake okay. Her casual conversation was enough to keep her mind off of all of the calories she was inducting slowly into her body. Soon enough, Santana had finished her pancake and was clearing off her plate.

"I'm going to the bathroom," Dani announced, as she began to scrape her plate.

"Are you okay? You didn't eat the whole thing."

Dani bit into a smile. "Fine. Fine. Like I said, I ate earlier," she concluded before heading down the hallway.

"Right."

Dani made her way slowly into the bathroom, making sure that Santana wasn't following her before she stepped into the stall furthest from the door, making sure to lock it behind her. Feeling disgusted, she rolled up her diner shirt and pinched her stomach, her eyes tearing up at the dissatisfaction from the slightest amount of fat sticking out from it. As she let one tear fall, she bent over, lifting the toilet seat. She stuck her fingers down her throat and emptied her stomach as she tried to keep the gagging sounds to the minimum.

Dani swore at the bitter taste in her mouth before flushing the excrement down the toilet, and went to wash her hands, smoothing off the slightly-smeared eyeliner from her face.

She re-entered the kitchen to be approached by a radiant Santana.

"You good?" the girl asked.

Suddenly, Dani felt good. "Yes."