Thanks to Penelope Cross for the beta work!
Take as many pictures as you can. Even Ansel Adams probably threw away ten pictures for every one that he kept.
Take lots of pictures but don't click blindly. You have to practise thinking in split seconds or you'll miss the shot.
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On Saturdays the whole class goes outside for the field session. Sometimes they spend hours taking pictures of stationary objects, like trees or the hills around Lima. Once they spent an hour standing on the road of a busy highway trying to take pictures of the cars as they sped by.
On Wednesdays people bring in the best of the pictures they have taken in the past week and the whole class sits in a circle to discuss them. Greg usually chimes in the discussions with information about photography theory, which most people try to scribble down. Santana hates this part because she usually either likes a picture or she doesn't, and she knows people are looking for more than a two word response. Also, she is the youngest person in the class by at least five years and she's afraid that any longer answer she gives will make her sound like a stupid kid.
She's never as quiet as she is during the hour-long sessions while she listens to everyone around her discussing focus and lens types and movement.
'I noticed you haven't brought anything in.'
She has just slung her bag over her shoulder and she jumps when Greg speaks behind her.
'You know, seeing you not participating in the Wednesday class makes me want to give you half your money back.' She realizes that he is determined to have a conversation with her and she stops walking, reluctantly.
'I don't have a picture I want to talk about.' Her voice sounds foreign and wrong in this room, and she almost wants to snatch it back.
'It's not about talking. It's about letting other people see your work, and getting some constructive criticism.'
Only no one ever sees most of the pictures she takes. She hasn't spoken to Brittany in weeks and she won't let her mother near them, even though she keeps asking.
'You don't have to bring in one of your favourites. Just pick something that you think is half decent. I'll even let you go first.' He flashes a crooked smile and walks out of the room. It takes her a couple of minutes to remember to leave.
She drives straight home and runs straight upstairs to her room. Her mom isn't in so she lets her door stay open as she pulls the nearest box of pictures and negatives out from under her bed.
The number of pictures that she has more or less doubled since she started taking the course; she knows she has hundreds. Luckily she is meticulous when it organising her photographs. Each picture is labelled with the date and location and she keeps them in chronological order. It doesn't take her long to find the pictures she wants to use and she lays them out carefully, taking care not to leave fingerprints on them.
She forgets all about it when Saturday rolls around and her mother knocks on her door to wake her up, her eyes swollen and red rimmed.
'You should get dressed,' she says. Santana nods.
As she walks down the stairs she sees her mom standing at the kitchen counter, wiping her face. Santana gives her a thin, stretched smile.
'No more crying today,' she says. Santana's eyes are dry but she nods anyway.
Breakfast is hard. Not as hard as last year, or the year before that, but Santana has to have a sip of water after every bite to force her food down.
The first thing they do is drive to the cemetery and lay a box of Hershey's Kisses on the grass. She still hasn't cried, and she lets her mom lean on her and tremble as she stares at her father's gravestone.
They try to make this a happy day but it's hard when they start it by visiting the one place in the world that makes her sadder than she has ever been in her life. Still, she can't imagine starting today without coming here.
After her mother gets a hold of herself they take turns saying hello. She listens quietly as her mother tells her dad what they've been up to and she looks away when she bends down to press a soft kiss to the gravestone.
She doesn't have anything to say when it's her turn and her mom doesn't push her. They leave just as Santana's eyes start to burn.
They go to an ice cream parlour and split a sundae with extra sprinkles. Her mom lets her have the cherry.
'You had better take it, it makes the ice cream healthier,' her mother says. She tries not to roll her eyes at her attempt to lighten things up. She likes that she tries, though.
When they get home they cuddle up together on the couch and she zones out when they find an old episode of Jersey Shore. When she gets tired of listening to her mom field calls from their family and friends she goes upstairs and flops down on her bed.
She's so close to sleep that her body begins to float away from her. She's just about to fall asleep completely when she feels someone come into her room. When she rolls over she sees Brittany standing just a couple of feet away, biting her lip and obviously trying not to fidget.
They haven't talked since she refused to dance in the Lebanese shirt Brittany made her. They haven't so much as made eye contact but she should have known that Brittany would still show up today.
Brittany must see something in her face because she steps closer and crawls onto the bed. She lies down next to her and her flowery perfume washes over Santana.
She can feel the tears welling up and she doesn't fight them when they start to drip down her face. She doesn't fight when Brittany pulls her so close she can't draw breath to sob the way she wants to. She lets Brittany stroke her hair and her back and she only moves so she can tuck her face into Brittany's neck.
'Oh, Santana,' Brittany says. She squeezes her tighter.
This is stupid, she thinks. It's been six years. She shouldn't be crying like it happened yesterday. She didn't even cry this much last year.
Of course, last year she still had Brittany.
A fresh wave of tears comes on at that thought and she takes deep breaths to try to get control back. She realizes that some of this crying is because of Brittany and she feels horrible that she is crying over her relationship problems on the anniversary of her dad's death.
When her sobbing starts to take on a slightly desperate tone Brittany sits them both up and makes her look her in the eye.
'Santana,' Brittany says. She wipes Santana's tears away with the pad of her thumb. 'Santana,' she says again, and Santana lets out a shuddering sob. Brittany's eyes are large and over bright, and she can tell she's trying not to cry. Just like at the funeral, Santana remembers. Brittany spent the whole day as close to Santana as she could and it was only at the end of the day that Santana found her crying her eyes out in the bathroom.
She stops crying, then, and leans into Brittany carefully. She feels arms circle loosely around her back.
'Don't leave me again,' she says. Her voice hitches and hangs on every word and she hates it, but she hates being alone more. She feels Brittany nod against the top of her head.
'I won't,' Brittany promises.
Only Brittany already did. She tries to pull out of Brittany's arms when her chest twinges at the memory of Brittany talking about how much she loved Artie but the arms around her tighten as soon as she shifts.
'No, please don't,' Brittany pleads, as Santana keeps struggling. Now that she's remembered it's all that she can think about and being this close to Brittany is more than she can stand. She freezes when Brittany speaks (when has she ever been able to deny her anything?) but her muscles lock and she lies stiffly as Brittany shuffles even closer and tangles one of her hands into her hair. She takes deep breaths and tries to balance her desire to run away as fast as she can with her almost overwhelming need to melt into Brittany so she can't leave her anymore. In the end she settles for burying her face in Brittany's neck and breathing her in until her heart stops hammering quite so hard.
Brittany doesn't leave until her mom comes up and says that Brittany's parents want her to come home. Brittany slides off the bed obediently and slips her shoes on. When's she's ready to go she twists down to give Santana a hug goodbye.
'Keep your window open tonight,' Brittany whispers in her ear as she hugs her. Santana nods, still dazed from the soft smell of Brittany that's settled all around her. She turns her head and watches through blurry vision as Brittany disappears around the corner.
Try to develop a technique of your own. Experiment with different shutter speeds and aperture and composition. There are a hundred ways to capture the same scene and if you want to do it in a way that makes your picture special you need to find a way to make it yours.
Page 94
Her picture is projected onto the wall behind her and she clears her throat nervously and tries not to look at it. Every time she does she sees something else that she doesn't like about it.
'I took this when we went to the woods.' Her voice sounds too high and she clears her throat. 'I found a bee and I followed it a little because I thought it looked really cool.' She stops talking because now she's convinced she sounds like an idiot. No one speaks for a little while and she eventually gives in and swivels around to look at her picture.
The black and yellow of the bee clashes brilliantly with the vibrant purple of the flower it is taking off from, and the hazy background of the rest of the picture only makes the contrast more striking.
'Did you slow down the shutter speed?' One of the students asks. She nods shyly. 'It was a good call.'
A couple of people nod and she lets herself exhale. Someone starts to talk about the importance of capturing the essence of creation in nature photography and she stops listening. When they are done with the discussion she slinks back to her seat and tries to avoid eye contact. Greg catches her, though, and he gives her a little smile.
She hasn't really talked to Puck since sophomore year. She hasn't even though about him, really. So when she walks into her living room to find him lounging on her favourite armchair and chatting easily with her mother, she almost drops her book bag on her foot.
'What are you doing here?' she snaps. Her mom's eyes bug out at her rudeness, but she brushes it off. Puck's cleaned up a little, she notices with irritation. The dead possum on his head looks a little tidier than usual and he's wearing a shirt with no rips on it. He stands up.
'I'll be sure to come by and take care of your lawn, Mrs. Lopez.' He looks so earnest that Santana can't help but snort.
'So, what do you want?'
'Santana, be nice. Noah has come out of his way to see you,' her mother scolds. Santana rolls her eyes.
'Yes, Mama.' When her mom finally leaves the room she strides over to Puck and punches him on the shoulder.
'Ow, Lopez, what was that for?'
'Don't call me Lopez. And you didn't tell me why you're sliming my cushions with your greasy Mohawk.' He shoots her a wounded puppy look.
'Calm down, Santana. I have a two for one all you can eat coupon to Breadstix and I want to take you?'
'Why?' He shrugs in response.
'Are you coming or not?'
'I'm not going to have sex with you,' she announces after they've ordered their food. An elderly couple in the booth across from them glare.
'I didn't think you were,' he returns.
That kind of kills the conversation for a while. She amuses herself by storing some breadsticks away in a bag she made out of napkins.
The pasta is drier than usual but the breadsticks are excellent, and she swipes some of Puck's onion rings to keep herself full. He smacks at her hand playfully and she scowls at him in return. It makes her feel like a little kid again. She doesn't try to stop the grin that's spreading across her face.
When they are done with dinner Puck drives them to a deserted parking lot and passes her a beer he had stashed in the trunk. They are about halfway through their beers when he finally blurts out the thing that's obviously been bothering him all night.
'I'm sorry, Santana.' He's not so drunk that he can't drive but he's already starting to drop his T's.
'For what?'
'Last year. With Quinn. I cheated on you.'
'No, you didn't.' She chases the beer to the bottom of the can and cracks another one open. It's not like she's driving. 'We weren't anything.'
'Yes we were. You were my friend, and I should have told you myself. It was a shitty thing to do. So I'm sorry.'
'It's okay,' she says, because it is. It had hurt, at the time, finding out that Puck had cheated on her. It had felt like he didn't care enough to explain that he was the one who had knocked Quinn up. But that was a year ago and the whole thing feels like a plot twist on one of the soap operas she likes to watch with her mom.
'I just liked her so much,' he says.
She punches him in the shoulder, gently this time, and lets him finish the beer she opened.
'I'm going to drive you home now, okay?' he says, after she's bought him a coffee and some doughnuts to make sure that he's sober enough to drive.
When they get to her house he comes out to walk her to the door. She tries to shoo him back to his car.
'I'm not an infant, Puckerman. I can walk myself to the door.'
'I'm not going for you,' he retorts. 'I just want to see your mom in her sexy lingerie.' Her hand snaps out and smacks his arm almost automatically.
She unlocks the door and turns around to say goodnight.
'Just tell me if she wears silk or-' she slams the door shut in his face.
So now she has Puck, kind of. She hadn't realized how lonely she had been until now. She finally has someone to text without the awkwardness she feels around Brittany.
Adding him in brings her friend tally to a grand total of two and the thought of that makes her want to jump off something really high if she thinks about it for too long.
'So, San, what do you want to do now?'
'Don't call me that,' she says automatically. She's just beaten him at Call of Duty for the fourth time in a row and apparently he's getting tired of losing.
'I just thought you might be getting tired of cheating.'
'Fuck you,' she says, and loads a new game.
Later, they are floating on the weed that he pulled out of his pocket after she beat him for the fifth time. She tries to stay away from drugs, but he looked like he was about to cry after the last defeat and she kind of feels sorry for him.
'I saw you wearing the Lebanese shirt Brittany made you,' he says, when she is lost in the wonder of the ceiling pattern.
'What?' His words register and suddenly she doesn't feel as high anymore. 'Puck-' she has no idea what she's going to say.
'And you and Brittany haven't been joined at the vagina like usual.' She winces at his word choice and focuses her eyes upwards again. 'You used to turn up to all those jock parties together, and you'd spend half your night watching her, or looking for her. Even when you were with someone as fine as me.'
She opens her mouth to say something, to stop him talking, but there is something almost hypnotising about having her deepest secrets spoken about so casually, and she listens in horrified fascination.
'You should do what I did and sing to her. Show her...' he drifts off and she has to nudge him to get him talking again. 'Sorry. Show her that she's your fat bottomed girl. That she's special.'
'Puck, that song was one of the most offensive things I heard all year.'
'Well you asked for my help and that's what you get.'
'I didn't ask for your help,' she points out, but his snores are already drifting through the room.
So she takes Puck's advice and finds a Fleetwood Mac song that fits what she wants to say to Brittany. The warmth in her chest when she sees Brittany crying and looking at her like she's the best thing she's ever seen turns to burning panic when Brittany wants to out them on YouTube.
She sends a short text message (I can't) when she's about halfway between her house and Brittany's and already about an hour late for Fondue for Two. She has her camera with her and all the pictures she takes that day are basically useless because she was half blind with tears when she took them, but one comes out beautifully and she makes sure to set it aside for Wednesday's class.
It's not so much losing yourself in art as using it to hide, but watching Brittany all alone in her room interviewing Lord Tubbington about his hairballs instead of talking to her like she was supposed to be doing makes Santana feel like such a bad person that she very briefly considers smashing her camera to punish herself.
So for a little while her friend count goes down to one and it's a good thing Puck seems to be going through some kind of problem with Zizes because she has someone to mope around and steal stop signs with.
'You're gonna be okay, Lopez,' he says, after they've come back from a fucking disastrous attempt at cow tipping.
'Don't call me that. And my shoulder's fine now, by the way. You should concentrate on fixing your foot.' He adjusts the ice pack on his foot and winces.
'No, I don't mean that. I mean the Brittany thing. You kind of fucked up-'
'Thanks.'
'But she'll forgive you, and you'll both be fine.'
How do you know comes out of her mouth before she can stop it and she scowls to try to stop him from answering.
'Because it's what you both want, isn't it?' He doesn't wait for an answer before stretching out carefully, trying not to jostle his foot too much.
Photography has a rhythm, like dance. The perfect moments beat in and out of existence and if you're not in step you'll miss them every time.
Page 1
One week Greg tells them that the course will be over soon and he wants to have a look at what everyone has been doing. He tells them to bring in as many pictures as he can reasonably look at in about twenty minutes and that the next Wednesday class will be one on one sessions while they look through the portfolio together.
Santana picks out twenty five pictures as carefully as she can. She's been bringing pictures in fairly regularly so she's not too worried about having him look through them, but on the other hand it'll just be her and the teacher.
She shows up a few minutes before it's her turn- they are going in alphabetical order and the times were all fixed the week before. She walks into his office as the person before her walks out. Whoever it is – she didn't bother to learn anyone's names- gives her a little smile and she forces herself to wave back.
She walks into his office, sits down across from him and slides the folder across the desk. She keeps herself busy looking at the ugly sculptures he has dotted around his office as he flicks through and occasionally whistles through his teeth.
'They're good,' he announces suddenly.
'Yeah?' She was aiming for bored but she's sure she came off more hopeful than anything.
'You're good at people,' he says, turning to a picture that shows a little boy blowing bubbles at the park. It was the one she took after she blew Brittany off for Fondue for Two and her chest tightens a little.
'You're good at people,' he continues, 'but a lot of your wide shots lack focus. They seem a little random.' He looks at her and she squirms a little. It's not that he makes her uncomfortable, it's just that so much about him is so intense that it makes her feel like he's training a spotlight on her.
'I suggest that you find one thing in the frame to concentrate on and make that the subject. It doesn't have to be the most important thing, just something to kind of anchor the whole thing together. So try that and see how it goes.'
'Okay.' She can't think of anything else to say. She doesn't have any great insight into what she's doing with her camera like some of the others do. Greg lets the silence stretch out for another few seconds before going on.
'I see you like to use a lot of light.' She does. She likes her pictures clear and sharp, stark, and she tends to avoid the smoky, shadowy, romantic look that some people seem to like. 'If you can get yourself up early enough to catch the sunrise you'll probably get some really good pictures.'
She frowns. 'I don't really do sunrise.' Not voluntarily, anyway. You can't be a member of the Cheerios without the occasional five AM wake up call. He shrugs.
'If you want to do this well I'm sure you'll find a way.'
She gets into the habit of going to sleep early on Saturday nights so she can be up before the sun rises on Sunday mornings. The first time she tried it she made it up to the front door before she gave up. Her mom nearly had a heart attack when she found her curled up in the chair in the hall.
After that she sets two alarms and by the third week she's in the car before the second alarm even goes off.
She drives to a local park and gets herself comfortable in the woods right behind it to wait for the sunrise. She's fully aware of how stupid it is to be in the park alone when it is this deserted, but the rational part of her brain doesn't really have much authority this early in the morning and it doesn't do more than give the occasional grumble whenever she spots someone else.
The light from the sunrise gives a beautiful, startling contrast between where it touches and where it hasn't landed yet. She laps it up greedily, eating up her camera's storage space.
There is no sound here, for her, other than the click of the camera. She's only ever been this quiet when she's sitting in the Wednesday discussion sessions, only this time it's not just her, it's everywhere, soaked into the air around her and there's no space for any other noise.
There's no space for anything else, not even Brittany, and she gets a horrible guilty pleasure from that.
Brittany promised she wouldn't leave her, and she doesn't.
It takes a while for Santana to screw up the courage to go over to Brittany's house but she does. She rings the bell before she can change her mind and bolt back home and before she knows what's happening she is standing at the bottom of the stairs waiting for Brittany to come down. Brittany's mother is still standing by the door like she expects to have to see Santana out soon.
Brittany stands at the top of the stairs and doesn't say anything for what seems like months. All the calm and careful reasons Santana had rehearsed in the car on the way over fly straight out of her head.
Brittany has never looked as intimidating as she does right now and Santana holds herself as still as she can. She's afraid that if she moves Brittany will decide to tell her to leave and she knows that if that happens she'll slink out of the house and most likely never show up again.
'Come up to my room,' Brittany says, and she almost trips over her feet going up the stairs.
'I am so angry with you, Santana,' Brittany says when they are inside. The door is safely shut behind them and Santana has perched awkwardly on the computer chair. She fights the urge to look away.
'I know.' Brittany is sitting on her bed, her fingers digging into the bedspread.
'No, you don't.' She gives up trying to maintain eye contact and focuses on her knees. Brittany isn't going to make this easy on her. Not that she should. She grasps for something to say but all her words are gone and all that's left is a nauseating sense of guilt that keeps her looking firmly downwards.
'I couldn't do the show, Britt. I couldn't. It was too much.' She raises her eyes then, and she tries to make her understand. She thinks she sees a flicker of sympathy in Brittany's eyes.
''I know,' Brittany sighs out eventually. 'But you should have called me. Or answered some of my texts.'
Not talking to her was one of the hardest things she has ever done in her life, but after she blew her off she didn't feel like she deserved to have Brittany forgive her like she knew she would have. She didn't want to have to crush Brittany and make her come back to her because it felt incredibly selfish. It had made sense at the time.
Now all it has left her with is a Brittany who looks at her like she expects her to walk out of the room at any time.
She takes a chance and moves to sit next to Brittany. When Brittany doesn't move away Santana carefully places a hand on her knee. Brittany has always been a very tactile person and she knows that she'll consider what she wants to say more if they are touching.
'I'm sorry,' she says, because she doesn't have anything else.
'Okay,' Brittany says. It's not I forgive you but she thinks it's as close as she's going to get for now, so she is caught completely off-guard when Brittany wraps her up in one of her bone crushing hugs.
When Brittany eventually lets her go Santana smoothes her hair down awkwardly and pushes down a nervous laugh. Brittany looks at her and she feels warmth spread all the way to her fingers and toes.
It is the strangest thing in the world to look into Brittany's eyes and understand that Brittany feels the exact same way she does. It's dizzying and exhilarating to understand for the first time how much Brittany loves her. She wants to smile and cry and dance and in the end she settles for holding her hand tight.
She might not deserve to be loved the way she is, but she is, and she's not going to be an idiot again and ruin it.
She takes Dave Karovsky to prom and Brittany doesn't fight her. She seems to understand that Santana's not going anywhere; she's not going to run again. Still, Santana is secretly pleased when Brittany doesn't take anyone and instead spends half the night dancing inappropriately with Mike.
After Karovsky leaves without her, Brittany gives her a ride home and kisses her sweetly before letting her out of the car. She stands on the driveway until Brittany's car is out of sight and resists the impulse to jump into the air like a freak.
After that they don't move past soft kisses and a little bit of necking and any frustration that Santana is feeling is offset by the knowing that she can send Brittany texts that end in I love you.
She also has her last photography class a few days before they have to leave for Nationals. They throw a lame mixer, and friends and family of people in the class come around and look at the pictures displayed on the wall. She invites her mother and Brittany and she makes sure they arrive after it has already started so that it's full and they can slip in unnoticed.
Her mother coos over the section that has her stuff with it and Brittany beams. She tries to hide her smile in a cup of punch.
She shoos them out as soon as it starts winding down and heaves a sigh of relief when they are safe in the car. Her mom tries to whack her with a rolled up print of one of her pictures.
'Why did you drag us out, Santana? I was having so much fun talking to all of your photography friends!' She shrugs and tries to scowl but she can't because tonight was so good. Not so much the forced socializing or the terrible food or her mom's impassioned cries of delight whenever they saw one of Santana's pictures but just having Brittany close, pressed against her and skimming her hand over Santana's when no one was looking made everything else fade into the background.
Maybe it's because they are sitting in a dark car, away from anyone who could see them, but sometimes she kind of can't believe that she had the chance to be this happy right from the beginning.
The backseat is dark and shadowy and she slides her hand across so she can grab onto Brittany's.
New York is the loudest place she's ever been in her life.
When New Directions leaves the hotel room to get inspiration for the songs they need to write for Nationals she has to stop herself from jumping at every loud noise that springs out at her. It is also a shock to see that there is a whole city of people that walk around with the 'don't fuck with me' face that she has been trying to cultivate for years. She wavers between being intimidated and impressed and eventually settles for trying to imitate the scariest looking ones. When she thinks she's got it right she walks up behind Rachel and snickers as she squeaks in surprise.
They lose anyway, which isn't surprising considering they were going over some of the choreography for the first time five minutes before they went on stage, but she brings Brittany a pretzel because she knows she'll be crushed.
The next day is the day they would have been competing in the finals if they hadn't been kicked out and everyone is so depressed that it isn't hard to sneak out of the hotel with Brittany. They meet Quinn in the lobby and bring her along too, because Santana hasn't forgotten what she's said about being lonely.
Besides Quinn's already seen them, and Brittany wouldn't agree to just run past her.
She has her camera of course, and she snaps a few pictures as they walk along. She does it shyly, at first, because of course Quinn has no idea what she is doing and keeps staring at her curiously but when she doesn't say anything she gets bolder, and she makes them stop when they pass street performers and crumbling buildings and monuments that catch the light in a way she hasn't seen before.
She's just finished discretely taking a picture of an old man wearing a rainbow coloured top hat when there's a tap on her shoulder. She spins around to see Quinn watching her with an expectant look on her face.
'What?' she demands.
'Can I see the pictures?' Santana freezes.
'Um. No,' she says.
'Why not?'
'Because,' she says stubbornly.
'Oh come on. If you can have your stuff hanging in a gallery then why can't you show me?'
'How did you find out about that?'
'Brittany just told me. Come on, hand it over,' Quinn says, crooking her finger and grinning. Santana sighs reluctantly before looping the safety strap around Quinn's neck and handing her the camera.
'Don't drop it,' she warns. Quinn rolls her eyes.
'I won't.'
Santana spends a few anxious seconds watching Quinn's face as she flips through the pictures but Brittany winds their fingers together and distracts her.
'Your nervous face is really cute,' Brittany says quietly. She blushes.
'When did you even tell Quinn about the gallery?' she asks, partly from curiosity but mostly to distract herself from the fact that she is holding Brittany's hand in public, with Quinn right next to them. Brittany wrinkles her nose adorably.
'Just now,' Brittany says. 'I don't think you heard us.'
Quinn turns the camera and hands it back to Santana carefully. She tries hard to stop from asking what Quinn thinks but some of it must show in her eyes because Quinn smiles and nudges her shoulder.
'Who'd have thought,' she says. 'Jacob Ben-Israel would be so jealous.' Santana's face does a weird thing where it tries to smile and scowl at the same time and she settles for fiddling around with the settings until she has herself under control again.
'We should probably go to Central Park,' Quinn suggests. 'You could probably get really good stuff there.' Santana glances at Brittany to see what she thinks and when she nods in agreement she pulls her phone out so they can figure out how to get there.
They make it to Central Park and lay on the grass near a fountain. Santana takes pictures of everything she can see- people, animals, birds- but she mostly takes pictures of Brittany. Some of Quinn, too, because that girl is built for a camera.
She won't let a stranger hold the camera so there aren't any pictures of the three of them together, but they take about a million of the three of them in every single combination in every place that Brittany can convince the other two to walk to.
She eventually puts her foot down and refuses to walk anymore, and they spread out a blanket they stole from the hotel and lay down.
She could live here. She really could, and for the first time she understands Rachel's obsession with the city.
She could live here like this forever, she thinks, because Quinn is a better third wheel than most people (and an amazing cook). She's also the only other person Santana knows that takes the same visceral pleasure in insulting people that Santana does. She obviously wants to live with Brittany, if Britt will have her.
Still, Senior year is ahead and she still has figure out what she wants to do with her life, graduate and actually get into a college somewhere before she can let herself dream about life outside of Lima. She closes her eyes, slides her sunglasses back into place and tries to ignore Quinn babbling something about wanting to dye her hair to an almost comatose Brittany.