Author's note: So like the chapter title said, the last chapter was just a kind of prologue. The story gets started in this one. Hope you enjoy :-)
"Attention students. I have a couple of announcements I wish to make before we let our cheerleaders perform their well-practised routine to the music of key-dollar sign-ha. Firstly we have a new member of faculty, Miss Corcoran, who will be taking over as our our librarian following the sudden disappearance of..."
Santana completely zoned out from Principal Figgins' awkwardly paced announcements to the student body currently seated in the gym for the pep rally. She just wanted to get this performance out of the way and get back to her lunch. She was still feeling kind of sick from yesterday.
"Hey," she felt a tap on her shoulder and knew the hushed greeting had been for her, "are you ignoring me?" She almost didn't look round, internally debating just to continue ignoring the other cheerio and never having this conversation. But the quiet "San, please." got to her and her resolve crumbled. She turned around to face the other girl.
"I'm not ignoring you, Brit Brit, I just think we should spend some time apart." It was totally bullshit, of course. Santana had been going out of her way to keep her distance ever since the weekend. Brittany could be slow sometimes but there was no way she wouldn't have noticed how edgy Santana had been in her presence, and how rare it had been for her to see Santana at all over the last couple of days.
"Is this because we hooked up?" Santana's eyes widened in panic and she gripped the other girls arm and looked around to make sure no one had overheard what Brittany had casually just let slip.
"Shh! Don't – just – we shouldn't talk about it. At least not here. Later, okay?" Brittany had looked slightly hurt so Santana tried to bring some softness into her voice as she dodged the inevitable discussion. Truthfully she had been avoiding Brittany since the Friday night. What had started out as a double date with Brittany, a couple of football players and some booze had ended up with them ditching the guys for a sleepover back at Santana's place with them being a lot more touchy-feely than usual.
Santana wasn't sure if she regretted sleeping with Brittany or not. The occasion itself had been guided by what made them feel good – they worked together to place the perfect touches, whisper the right things, move in the right ways - and she can't say she wasn't enjoying herself at the time. But hindsight has perfect vision and factoring in her Catholic upbringing, the homophobic nature of the entire town, and her current reputation of being friendly with the male majority of the school she knew there was way more to this than she was willing to think about. Besides, Brittany was supposed to be her best friend, and last time she checked that wasn't something that best friends should be doing.
"Okay." Brittany leaned back into her seat just behind Santana's shoulder as the quaterback of the football team tried to talk some school spirit into the student body. Soon enough it was time for the cheerleaders to take their positions upon the gym floor as their routine song started up.
Everything was going okay, maybe not their best performance, and certainly not Santana's but even though she was past the point of caring she was still getting all her moves and poses in the correct order in time. The song was approaching the end and Santana braced herself for her final stunt – lifting and supporting one of her team mates (whose name she couldn't care to remember) as one of the lower tiers of their pyramid. The other cheerio moved up to stand in front of Santana and she gripped her foot and leg and tensed her muscles ready to lift in three, two, one...
A gasp echoed around the gym as rather than the firm lift Santana had intended, she surprised herself with strength she never knew she had and launched the other girl into the air. Everyone seemed to freeze as the girl moved through the air above the team. Time slowed down around Santana as she realised what had happened – but with no clue how – and she quickly broke out of her position to move a couple of feet back to where she thought the girl might land, not even thinking about what she was doing as she stretched out her arms. The airborne cheerio let out a short scream on her way down, followed by an "oof!" as Santana caught her safely in her arms.
The stunned silence clouding the gym was broken by a slow, unsure, clap which kicked off a round of applause, quickly becoming a standing ovation. The entire cheerleading squad seemed to let out a breath none of them knew they had been holding and proceeded to smile up at the rest of the student body, letting out improvised chants of "Go titans!" and doing their best to act as if Santana's mistake had been completely intentional.
Santana was still holding the other cheerio, looking slightly horrified as what she had done sunk in. She was snapped out of her daze by a sharp "what the fuck is wrong with you, Lopez? Put me down, you freak!" from the girl in question as she tried to pull herself out of the secure grip Santana was holding her with. Santana almost dropped the girl in her haste to lower her back to her own feet and on glimpsing the disgusted look on her face, uttered a quick "I'm sorry" before turned on her heel and racing out of the gym, unnoticed amongst the cheers of the still-standing crowd in the bleachers.
Running through the hallways she made her way across the school, trying to get as far from the gym as she could before turning into the next bathroom, closing the door and leaning back against it trying to get her heart rate under control. She thought she'd heard footsteps behind her but no-one tried to enter the bathroom so she ignored it. She moved forward to the sink, turned the cold tap on and gathered some water in her hands to splash on her face.
What the hell happened back there? Even when her body relaxed her mind was still racing. She gazed up into the mirror above the sink to see herself as she had been that morning. No super-huge biceps or bulging muscle. She just couldn't understand how she had been capable of such a thing when she hadn't even been that focused on the routine.
Lunch would be finished soon and she didn't want to hang around long enough for Coach Sylvester to ask her to explain herself, especially when she could barely put the pieces together herself. Frustration welled within her and without thinking she lifted her hand and brought a fist down on the sink hard. The surface beneath her cracked and she suddenly felt scared of herself. What's happening? She made the decision just to cut the rest of the day and go home early. She turned around just as the bathroom door closed.
She froze. "Hello?" she called out, wondering if someone had come in while she had been stuck in her thoughts. No one answered and she couldn't see anyone else in there, so she went to the door and stuck her head out. She looked to the left to see the empty hallway she had ran down to get here from the gym. Snapping her head to the right she thought she saw a figure move round the corner at the end of the corridor.
She started to follow, leaving the bathroom and walking down the hallway. The only footsteps she could hear were her own but then she was quite far behind the person she thought she'd seen. She moved quickly and quietly to the end of the corridor, slowing when she approached the corner and taking a deep breath before carefully peering round. Her eyebrows knit together in confusion when she saw the hallway was completely empty, and she let out a sigh of disappointment.
"Santana." She jumped in surprise at her name and whipped round to come face to face with Brittany.
"Oh...Britt, you scared me." She almost laughed at herself before remembering that she was now face to face with the person she was now most hoping to avoid. She actually started weighing up which topic she'd least like to discuss: the fact that she had sex with her best friend and was completely confused about it, or the fact that she had just thrown a 102-pound senior 20 feet in the air completely by accident, caught her like a superhero and then ran away.
"What happened back there?" Brittany was very open about her emotions, Santana knew, and so the look of confusion and fear that appeared on her best friend's face upon bringing up Santana's surprise cheerleading stunt made Santana even more uncomfortable than she had been already. What if she thinks I'm dangerous? What if it looked like I was trying to hurt that girl?
Santana decided to do what seemed to come easiest to her in times like this: completely dodge the subject, make her excuses and get out of there. "Sorry, B, can't talk now, I'm late for something. Talk later, okay?" She turned around to head the way she had been going from the bathroom, but didn't make it fast enough.
"Late for what?" Brittany's hand caught her wrist and turned back around. The look of hurt was back on the blonde's face and Santana was suddenly taken by a wave of guilt on top of everything else. She made a mental note to make some time for her later.
"Uh, extra practise...for glee." Santana made it up on the spot, of course, and waited for Brittany's expression to change so see if she'd got away with it. "Private practise. Because I was sloppy last rehearsal." She made sure to sound as unenthusiastic about the idea as she could. While she did kind of enjoy glee, she would completely deny it if asked. It was easy enough to act like she hated it during the meetings too, since Rachel Berry was literally the most annoying person on earth and she's pretty sure the piano guy was totally ogling her last rehearsal.
They only joined the show choir so that Quinn could keep tabs on her relationship or because Coach Sue wanted to destroy the club and get her funding back or something – as if the club was much of a threat, really, they were such a rag-tag group of misfits that they probably would've failed soon enough if left to their own devices; making the three talented cheerleaders join would surely only make the club better and less likely to fail? But whatever, right now she was almost grateful to have to excuse to get away from talking to Brittany.
Brittany appeared to accept this and nodded. "Okay. Have fun." She said before turning around and walking back down the hall the direction she had appeared from.
Santana figured that no one would be in the choir room, and since she was trying to avoid everyone she might as well just sit in there for the rest of lunch and try and get her head together and work out what had happened, her plan to skip the rest of the day abandoned. The choir room was just down the corridor so she kept walking until she approached the room, and upon seeing it was empty she made her way inside and closed the door behind her. The school was still silent, she assumed the rally was still taking place. She took a seat at the piano rested her elbows on the closed lid and placed her head in her hands.
She wasn't even sure where to begin. Since when could I actually throw someone like that? Did I get away with it? What's coach going to say? What if that girl tells on me for being a freak? Am I a freak? Is Brittany scared of me? Maybe if she's scared of me she'll keep her distance and we won't have to talk about...those other things. Did someone actually come into the bathroom, maybe it was just Brittany? But then why was she behind me? Maybe I should head home? Am I safe to be around? What if I hurt someone? Her mind skipped across the different concerns she was juggling. She was starting to get a headache.
"Santana Lopez." The voice caught her so off-guard that she actually jumped up from the bench and almost fell backwards. Shehad completely forgotten about the other door to the choir room, she didn't even notice him come in. Would people stop sneaking up on me today?
"What the hell do you want?" she snapped at the piano guy who usually accompanied the glee club meetings. He was just standing there staring at her and his tone of voice made her skin crawl. "And how do you know my name?" As if being a complete pervert during glee practise wasn't enough, has he been stalking me or something?
"I've been looking for you. You have to come with me." Santana didn't even know the guy could speak in full sentences, and she really didn't like what she was hearing.
"You wish, tinkles. Can't you spy on someone a little closer to your own age?" For some reason, this caused the corner of his mouth to twitch up in a half-smile as if he knew something important and Santana suddenly felt uninformed, as if she was missing the main pieces of a puzzle...a puzzle about herself; the realisation sent a slight shiver down her spine.
"Miss Lopez, my name is Brad. I have been sent to inform you of your destiny. There is more to the world than you think there is, and you are more important than you know."
Santana let out a snort of laughter. Well that's the classiest pick-up line I've ever heard. "Funny. Did coach Sylvester send you? Am I in trouble?"
"Probably. That didn't look like your typical cheerleading stunt. Tell me, since when could a girl your size throw someone the same weight as you around and make it look so easy?" He didn't sound particularly mad, and seemed more interested in the act itself rather than her being punished for putting someone in danger. Santana couldn't figure out his angle.
"Why do you care?" She picked up her bag. "If you're going to keep wasting my time I have more important things to be doing." She made for the door nearest to her, turning her back on Brad. She had her hand on the door handle when he caught her attention again.
"Oh, you have no idea. And I care, Miss Lopez, because you're going to save the world." His words stopped her in her tracks.
She head footsteps as Brad moved to shut the door he had entered through and pulled down the blind over the door window. She hesitated before closing the blind on her own door, not entirely sure why but just sensing it was the appropriate thing to do. She turned back around and walked to the centre of the room, squaring up her shoulders and sending Brad a strong glare. She made an effort to appear powerful, to try and gain back some of the control she felt that Brad had commandeered. Her efforts were completely undermined by how weak her voice came out. "What do you want from me?"
Brad's face dropped into something that looked a little more sympathetic than the know-it-all smirk he had been sporting just a minute before. He took a step closer and looked into her eyes. "This is going to be difficult for you to hear at first, I'm sure, and you might feel like you're not ready. But it will all make sense when you start training." Santana was almost scared to ask. She let out an audible gulp, opened and closed her mouth a couple of times before closing her eyes and getting to the point.
"Training for what?" The silence in the room carried with it a crescendo of tension. The answer to this question was probably going to be important. A part of her took a moment to appreciate how quickly the atmosphere had changed – just minutes ago she had been accusing him of being a pervert and laughing at what she now realised was his attempt to ease her into this discussion. She suddenly wished she'd taken the prelude more seriously.
"Training for you, Santana..." He seemed to hesitate. She didn't look ready to hear this. Was it too soon? But they were running out of time. She had to know. "You are a vampire slayer."
Santana's face shifted into one of total confusion and she opened her eyes to take in his face for a moment, before it cracked into a smile and she began to bark out laughter. They both knew how ridiculous it sounded, and for a moment Brad worried the seriousness of the news had totally gone over her head. But her eyes betrayed her. Somehow she knew he wasn't joking.