Chapter 2 – Maybe

With the executives of her record label back in town, Santana was pulled into a last minute meeting at the presidential suite of the hotel the executives were staying in. They discussed the rather surprising rise of sales and radio plays of her songs, and the growing number of views on her YouTube videos. Ever since Extraordinary hit the national airwaves, Santana's been thrown into chaos. Endless photo shoots, interviews and rehearsals were suddenly crammed into her carefree schedule, to which Sue, Santana's publicist, reminded them.

They went over the songs again she was going to perform at the party, agreeing with the list Santana had given them a week and a half ago so they could also send it to the band that was going to play for her. Besides Extraordinary, she was to perform her cover of Alicia Keys' Girl on Fire as her video of it online garnered a lot of praise. As for the third and last performance, it was as good as any to release a new song. They quickly hired a choreographer for the new single and Santana had been in and out of dance studios on top of her crazy schedule to get all the moves down by New Years' Eve. Perfect timing is everything, one of the executives had said knowing as if it was going to be another hit.

As they finished the meeting and began packing up, Mercedes' phone rings. She picks up on the third ring as Santana throws her jacket on.

"Hello? Okay, thank you. We'll be there soon."

Santana looks at Mercedes when she hangs up. "Sound check?"

"Yup, they're ready for us." Mercedes turns back to her bosses. "Mr. Anderson, we're going to head out."

"Alright, thank you ladies for coming in on short notice," Mr. Anderson says, turning to face Santana. "I know how busy it is right now for you."

"It's no problem at all." Santana replies.

"We're looking forward to your performance tonight, Santana."

A few goodbye air kisses later, they leave the suite and down the elevator.


Brittany just exited Starbucks when her phone began to ring. Reaching around to the armband on her left arm, she looks at the caller before accepting the call with a press of a button on her earphones with her free hand.

"Hi, mom!" She beams.

"Hey, honey. How are you? How's New York?"

"Great! Maybe just a little jetlag since my flight got in last night, but I just went for a run at Central Park. It's so gorgeous! You have to see it."

"I would if my daughter had invited me," Brittany can hear the hint of sadness laced with playfulness on the other end of the line. "But why are you running outside? Isn't it freezing?"

"Yeah, but I was prepared for it." Brittany says as she pulls the zipper higher on her windbreaker she wore over her long-sleeved active wear and absentmindedly running her hands over her infrared thermo running tights. "And it isn't as cold as I thought it would be."

"Why didn't you tell me you were going to New York?" Brittany's mother asks.

"I'm sorry, Ma." Brittany takes a careful sip of her coffee as she waits for the crosswalk to change as she heads back to her hotel. "So many things have been going on and the next thing I know, I'm being flown out to attend this New Years' Eve party and staying at a really expensive hotel. I'm only here for tonight and tomorrow anyways then I'll be back in LA to start training."

"And that's another thing. Why didn't you tell us you were going to be in a big budget movie? I felt so embarrassed when Judy brought it up at dinner the other night." Brittany heard her mother sigh.

"Wait, how did Mrs. Fabray know?"

"It's all over the news, honey. What, you think you could keep a secret like starring in a Michael Bay film and not have the entire world buzzing about you?"

"Of course…" Brittany grumbles, drinking her coffee nearing her hotel.

Walking underneath the shadowed sidewalk, she pulls her sunglasses up to rest on the crown of her head and notices a black SUV parked in front of the hotel with a man standing next to it. Brittany raises an eyebrow, I don't think that's for me or else Kurt would have told me I was going somewhere, she thought to herself.

"You know the local news stations have been talking about you, too. Saying how thrilled they are that someone from our town is famous."

Brittany laughs. "I bet. I think I might be–"

As Brittany turns to the front doors of the hotel, she accidentally walks in to someone and hearing a woman yelp. Out of reflex, she reaches for the woman's arm with her free hand to steady her and averts her Starbucks cup away as to not spill any of it.

"I'm so sorry." Brittany says making sure her coffee hadn't spilled all over the woman before pulling her sight to eye level.

Chocolate brown expressive eyes meet hers; both staring momentarily and neither one of them moving an inch save for those around them.

"Are you okay? Sorry, I didn't mean…" Brittany says as if the wind was knocked out of her.

"No, yeah, yeah I'm fine. Thank you." The brunette says back, sending Brittany a smile.

"You're welcome." Brittany smiles back.

A forced cough interrupts them, Brittany quickly letting go of the woman's arm as they both take a step back. Brittany finally notices two other women standing just behind the woman, rather amused with the exchange.

Brittany takes a few more steps to the side as the two women walks by them, the younger woman of the two making a sound that sounded along the lines of Mmhmm followed by we gotta go to the woman she had walked into.

The woman starts taking tentative steps towards the SUV, away from Brittany. "I'm… I have to… bye."

"Bye." Brittany replies.

She watches the woman walk to the SUV, the other two women waiting for her already inside. Before the woman gets in, she turns back towards Brittany sending her another gracious smile to which Brittany returns. She gets in and the man closes the door, the tinted windows blocking any view of the woman. Instead of continuing inside the hotel, Brittany waited around until the vehicle pulled away and turned the corner.

It wasn't until she heard her mother's voice did she remember she was still in a call.

"Brittany, honey? Are you there?"

"Uh, yeah, mom I'm here. Sorry, what were you saying?"

Finally, Brittany turns on her heels and heads inside the hotel wondering who she had just ran into.


"That was rather interesting." Mercedes says, a playful smirk playing on her lips as she checked over the messages on her phone.

Santana can only hum as a form of reply as she kept her eyes out the window, watching the blurred cars pass by. Mercedes and Sue look away from their phones for a moment and gave each other a look, an eyebrow raised. It was one of the rare times Santana was rendered speechless not to mention rather nice when the blonde earlier had run into her. If it was anybody else, Santana would have given that woman a piece of her mind, spouting insulting expletives in Spanish. But Mercedes and Sue had witness something they had never seen before in Santana's eyes.

The rest of the ride to Capitale was spent in Mercedes reminding Santana her schedule for the day, Santana mostly just mindless nodding to everything Mercedes is saying. Sue kept taking or making calls for Santana's behalf or for her other clients. It wasn't long until the SUV pulled to a slow stop in front of Capitale.

"Okay, we're here." Mercedes announces.

The red carpet was already laid out and now the crews were just putting the final touches by placing guard rails and bleachers for fans and the press later that night. A few gossip column paparazzi hung around early since only certain representatives of the press were invited to the event. No badge, no access.

"They're starting to hover around the car, Sylvester." Mercedes points out as she looks out the windows, Santana doing the same. "You called them out here, didn't you? I should have known you'd milk this as much as you could."

"Calm your tits, Jones. Let them hover. This is a good thing." Sue says.

"Plus, we've got Karofsky here shall any of them cross the line." Santana adds, the first words leaving her mouth since getting in the car earlier, and pats the man in the front seat. "Right, Dave?"

"Yes, ma'am." The burly man replies.

Santana scrunches her nose. "I thought I told you not to call me ma'am. We're like the same age."

"I'm sorry, Lopez."

"It's cool." Santana turns her attention back to Mercedes. "So, are we ready? Don't worry too much, 'Cedes. There's only like, twenty paps out there. No biggie."

"No biggie, she says." Sue snorts, as she types away on her cellphone keeping busy with her other clients.

"You say that now, Santana. Let's just go and get this done so we can get back to your place and get you all freshened up before the big show."

Santana takes out a pair of sunglasses from her bag and as soon as Dave opens the door, the flashes begin to cloud her vision. The paparazzi fired questions at her, asking her if she's excited about tonight, if she's thrilled to be performing with A-list stars and if she's looking forward to meeting anybody. Karofsky led the way, putting an arm out when a few of the paps got any closer to Santana, who just smiled widely and clutched her jacket tightly around her the entire way inside.

The organizers and coordinators of the event greeted Santana and the others, giving them a thorough tour of the venue. Backstage, an assistant leads them to one of the green rooms with 'Santana Lopez' posted on the door that Santana and her crew were going to occupy later that night as one of the performers. Some of her dancers were already inside, stretching and warming up as they said hi to Santana or gave her quick hugs. Sue's phone rings again and excuses herself out of the room to take the call earning a shrug from Mercedes.

"So," Mercedes starts as she opens a document on her tablet as she double checks the song list with the assistant and Santana. "You can take a break in between songs to correct some things if you need to, but during the real thing tonight, you'll charm the crowd or whatever. You'll start off with Extraordinary. Once finished, the dancers will exit the stage and then we'll change the set a bit, give you a mic stand or a stool if you want as we transition to Girl on Fire. And after that, your dancers come back up to the stage and end the set with your new song."

"Gotcha." Santana says. "You know we can still have that fourth song as an encore."

"Hell no, Santana." Mercedes quickly answers.

"Aw, come on. It'll be totally fun. You know, just like the old days." Santana says with a pout as she puts her arms around Mercedes.

Mercedes shrugs her off, Santana laughing. "Girl, back up off me before I give your skinny ass a whooping."

"Whatever. We can always just have a sing off at my place anyways."

"And we all know I'd win." Mercedes says as matter of a fact.

Santana sends her a mock laugh. "Keep believing that, 'Cedes."

"Girl, shut up and start warming up."

Fifteen minutes later after warming up her voice, Santana, her dancers and Mercedes made their way out to the main stage already hearing the band getting ready. One of the sound staff approaches them and hands Mercedes Santana's mic pack after calibrating it with their system and a microphone before scurrying away after she heard a thank you from Santana and Mercedes. Santana untangles her custom IEMs and plugs it onto the mic pack, slipping it onto the back pocket of her jeans and puts each earphone on the correct ear. Taking the microphone from Mercedes, Santana walks onto center stage and tests the microphone, adjusting the volume on her mic pack as her voice carries through her in-ear monitor and the sound system.

Finally sending the sound crew a thumbs up, Santana's rehearsals starts, the sound of her songs filling the building.