A/N: Hi again everyone! Like I've said before, I'm pretty bad at uploading consistently, but here's chapter 3! We'll be in Brittany's POV for about half of this chapter, and are going to learn a bit about her home life and backstory, then we'll jump back over to Santana.
Once again, I apologize for any spelling/grammar mistakes, hopefully I caught them all.
So anyway, thanks for reading, and enjoy!
Chapter 3
Brittany's lips tingled where they'd brushed Santana's cheek. Should she have done that? You care about friends, and you kiss people you care about, right? Like she kisses her ma before she leaves the house. But kissing Santana was nothing like kissing her ma…maybe it was because they were friends? Yeah, that must've been it.
Santana
The name fits her. Unique, beautiful, exotic, everything she was. Brittany hadn't ever seen anyone like her before. Well, she hadn't seen many people at all, she could count the times she'd been off her own land on one hand, but Santana was exceptionally unusual. Raven black hair that spilled over her shoulders, gleaming even in the early morning light, skin just the color of the caramel her daddy brought home from town sometimes, and her lips, just a shade darker, and in a permanent pout.
Her eyes though, they were the most interesting of all. They were dark, darker than any eyes she'd ever seen, but deep, like when she looked into the coffee pot in the morning and there wasn't a bottom. Brittany hadn't ever liked coffee, she made it for her daddy every morning, it was too bitter for her, but somehow it fit Santana's eyes, they looked a little bitter too. As kind as she'd been to Brittany, there was something about her that made her look closed off, dark, and angry. Like she'd been carrying too much for too long, with nobody to shoulder the burden for her sometimes when she got tired. Besides, you don't go out walking so early in the morning unless you're getting away from something. She would know, she did it all the time.
Maybe, since they were friends now, Santana would tell her what put the walls up behind her eyes, and let her help carry it for a while. After all, that what friends do right? They talk, and they help each other. Brittany wasn't really completely sure, she'd never had a real live person as a friend before.
Lost in her thoughts, she was a bit surprised to see that she'd reached her destination, the back side of the barn. Really, it was more of a shed, desperately in need of repairs. It housed Betsy and her calf Caramel at night, plus a few chickens and her cat, Lord Tubbington, and it hadn't really been touched since it was built when daddy first bought their land before she was born. It was looking a bit worse for the wear, especially around the roof, which leaker when it rained, but it was still built snugly, and with the cows and the clean hay in the small space, it was a great deal warmer than outside when Brittany finally ushered Betsy in.
She got right to the milking, knowing that her daddy would be up soon, and he wouldn't be happy that she didn't have breakfast started yet. He would know she'd been dawdling looking for Betsy again.
"Brittany!"
Speak of the devil. Although she didn't actually say anything, so does it really count? Apparently it does. Luckily she'd finished milking, and she snatched three eggs from the nest boxes on the walls as she ran toward the house.
"Good morning Daddy! Um, Betsy wandered off again and Caramel was tied in the barn so I couldn't follow the sound of the bell since she's the only one wearing one and so I had to go find her and…"
"How many times have I told you girl?! If you put her in and latched the door at night instead of just letting her wander in, we wouldn't have to do this! It isn't really that hard to figure out. Just make breakfast girl, sometimes I swear that's all you're good for, your head's as empty as your mother's."
He turned away and walked outside.
"Call when it's ready!"
Brittany felt awful. She didn't want to disappoint him, she knew she wasn't very smart but she tried to get all her chores done as well as she could. She pulled out a large pan and set it on the old potbellied stove, blackened and grimy with old grease that she could never seem to get off. While the pan heated for the eggs, she walked into the lean-to that had been added onto the little house for her parents' to use as a bedroom.
"Ma? You awake?"
Her ma was sitting in the bed, looking at Brittany blankly. Her bright blue eyes, so similar to Brittany's own, were bleary, and her once-bright golden hair hung thin and stringy around her face, Brittany would need to wash it again soon.
She'd once been beautiful, and Brittany knew she was a spitting image of her ma, but ever since she'd fallen down the cellar stairs when Brittany was eight, she hadn't been the same. She didn't do anything but sit quietly, or sometimes she'd hum. She didn't cook or clean or mend clothes, so Brittany had learned to do it herself, because she had to.
Brittany still wasn't sure why her ma had fallen, she had always been sure-footed, graceful even; she'd loved to dance. Brittany supposed she'd gotten that from her mother as well. All she remembered from that day was that her mother had been fighting with her father about something or other, and they'd gone outside while Brittany shelled peas for dinner. She'd heard the yelling escalate, and then a shout. When she'd run outside to see what had happened, her ma was at the bottom of the stairs and her father was standing there, with a look in his eye that Brittany didn't recognize.
Your mother fell Brittany. She tripped and fell. She hit her head pretty hard, but she'll be ok. I'll bring her in. Go finish dinner Brittany.
Brittany hadn't understood why her mother would even be going down the cellar stairs, she wasn't even carrying anything to bring down, but her daddy said so, so it must've happened. When her father had brought her ma in, she had slept on the bed for a long time, and when she woke up, she wasn't the same. She just wasn't there. There was none of the independence, not of the spark and bounce that Brittany had always seen in her ma. She was just empty.
And that was how it'd been for the past eight years. Every morning, Brittany got up, did morning chores, made breakfast, got her ma dressed, coaxed her out to sit in the main room on her rocker, or sometimes outside if it was nice out. Then she did what needed doing, and in the evening she got her ma ready and put to bed before her daddy came in from evening chores. Sometimes she got the odd sense that it was backwards, her taking care of her ma, but it was just how it had to be, so she did it.
Once her ma was situated for the day, the pan was heated so she cracked the eggs into it, and fried them, over easy, then threw a piece of bread into the ban to fry to soak up the extra butter and bits of the one yoke that had broken when she flipped them.
"Daddy, breakfast!"
Her daddy sat down quietly, wolfed down his breakfast, and went back outside, leaving the dishes on the table.
...
"Aunt Charlotte?"
"Yes dear?"
Santana had just sat down to supper with her aunt and uncle after a long day of getting settled. She'd mended her old coat and dress so that they looked at least somewhat presentable. They'd needed it sorely, after cooking, cleaning, and mending for other people all day, the last thing she'd felt like doing when she got home was making her own clothes look halfway decent. After that, her aunt had shown her around the farm a bit, introduced her to all the animals, showed her where everything was for cooking, requesting that if she woke up early, she get breakfast started.
On top of that they did all the regular chores, so by now, she was feeling a bit worn out. But she'd been meaning to ask about any 'neighbors' (Brittany) all day.
"You seem pretty isolated out here, do you have any other people around, neighbors?"
She tried to keep any hope or suspicion out of her voice, keeping it casually curious.
"Well, not really. I mean, I suppose if I there were some sort of emergency there's the Fabray's about 4 miles back toward town, but that's a little more than an hours' walk."
Santana mentally praised herself for managing to keep her voice and expression neutral at the obvious lie. There was no way her aunt didn't know about Brittany and her family (she never did get her last name) with them living so close.
"Nobody else, nobody closer?"
Her aunt looked a little indecisive, eyes darting toward her uncle, who didn't seem to even be paying attention to the whole exchange, just more or less tuning them out and enjoying his food.
"Well, I suppose there is the Pierce's, down the road a ways, but I'd really prefer you go the Fabray's if you plan to go visiting or something. Their daughter Lucy is about your age I think."
Santana arranged her features into an appropriate, pleasant, blank expression.
"Well, maybe sometime next week we could head down that way together."
Her aunt smiled at the request as she rose to being clearing the table, hands flying to stack plates, cups and silverware neatly so she could carry it all at once.
"We'll do that dear, definitely."
...
After supper, her aunt sat down with her knitting near the window, where enough daylight still filtered through to make it easy to see without a lamp. Her uncle pushed his chair back from the table and began whittling of a small piece of wood, and Santana stood for a moment, unsure of what exactly she should be doing.
"Oh, dear, you don't have anything do you? Here, let me show you something. Do you read?"
Santana nodded as her aunt hurried over toward her bedroom. Leading her in, she gestured toward the wall next to the door.
"Pick one!"
Santana's eyes widened. She'd never seen so many books anywhere but a library. The wall was made of shelving that was the same wood as the walls, seven shelves, each about five feet wide, reaching from the door frame to the corner of the room, and each one filled with books! Big ones, small ones, leather bound, paperback, ornate, plain, school primers, novels, children's stories, anything she could think of! Her surprise must have been obvious, because her aunt immediately began to explain.
"I used to be a schoolteacher, I love to read, and loved to teach kids to read. John met me because I taught one of his nephews. He was in town visiting his brother when I sent a note home with him one day asking for a conference. Some of the boys in class had been rowdy and I wanted to speak to their parents about it. John came with his brother Matthew, and that was that. When I moved out here, I insisted we bring as many books as possible, because I knew how lonely it would probably get, and books can be wonderful company."
Her aunts eyes had misted over in the telling of the story, Santana could almost see the memories flickering though her head as her aunt shook it a bit to clear it.
"Don't let me get all nostalgic like that dear, you'll be stuck listening to stories for hours. I'll just let you be, pick any one you like. Since you obviously won't be able to attend school out here, and I probably didn't attend much farther than you, you can read a bit at night to keep your mind sharp."
She left the room as Santana continued to simply stand and stare at the boon that had just been presented to her. Reading had been her favorite subject in school. It was solitary and didn't require playmates, so she had devoured books while her classmates learned the intricacies of elementary friendships. Managing to snap herself out her stupor with a supreme effort of will, and began scanning titles. One of the first ones she spots catches her eye, on the top shelf.
Robinson Crusoe
She'd wanted to read it when she was younger, but hadn't had the chance beforeshe had to drop out of school. She snatched it off the shelf and cradled it to her chest for a minute, before realizing that nobody was going to try to take it from her. Grinning, she waltzed into the main room.
"I'm going to go read in my room for a bit and go to bed. Goodnight."
Receiving noncommittal murmurs from her aunt and uncle who both seemed fairly absorbed in their tasks, Santana breezes into her room. Pulling off her dress she quickly threw on a nightdress and flopped onto her bed, flicking the book open to the first page.
The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York
By Daniel Defoe
Her mind flashes to Brittany before she immerses herself in the story completely. She'd see her again in the morning. The thought makes her smile, before a cloud of confusion sweeps through her mind.
Why did Aunt Charlotte seem so evasive about the Pierce's at dinner? That has to be Brittany's family. Strange…
She dismisses the thought soon though, and quickly loses herself alongside Mr. Crusoe on a remote tropical island, falling asleep to the chatter of birds the constant ebb and flow of cerulean waves.
A/N: So what did you guys think? Poor Brittany, right? Anyway, let me know how you're liking the story so far! I'm not sure when my next update will be since I'll be traveling for the holidays, but I'll try to get it up in the next few weeks!
