TINA COHEN-CHANG

Tina knew because, even though she'd forgotten about the phone call (impossible as that sounds), she remembered a field trip from History class way back in her freshman year where Mrs Goldberg took them to the Bicycle Museum of America in New Bremen. Tina took AP History, so was shuttled along with the sophomores. She was grateful that Rachel was in the class, because she barely knew anybody else.

Tina didn't know what bicycles had to do with history, but there was still something so-lame-it's-kinda-cool about the guy who led them through all three floors and droned on about the 387 different kinds of bikes on display. Like, who devoted their life to bicycles? Really?

The rest of the class dragged around, groaning intermittently about how crap everything was and how dumbass bikes are and how over it they were. Everybody except Puck - who had already stolen a tandem and was riding it around the parking lot, smoking - and Brittany, who was lost in paroxysms of delight. She flitted from corner to corner, room to room, up stairs and down stairs, eyes wide and excited. And behind her, every step of the way, was Santana, trying – and failing – to look extremely cool and bored. Tina watched with interest. The two girls had only recently joined Glee. Tina didn't know either of them well enough to say anything much more than hi in the halls, and she was mostly too scared of Santana to do even that.

She watched as Brittany dragged Santana over to a 1881 penny-farthing, eyes wide. "Santana, look! Look!"

"I see it, Britt."

"No, but look! Can you imagine how hard it would be to ride that? The wheel is taller than Rachel!"

Santana buffed her nails against her shirt and rolled her eyes. "Garden gnomes are taller than Rachel."

"Hey!" Rachel objected loudly, perched atop a nearby BMX.

Brittany turned to Santana. "Help me up?"

"I don't think we're supposed to-" Santana began, before grinning. "Sure, babe, grab on."

Tina watched as Brittany effortlessly leapt onto Santana's back, then shoulders and clambered onto the bike, which wobbled in its struts. She watched Santana laughing as Brittany pretended she was on some kind of bucking bronco, watched Brittany reach down her hand and grasp Santana's to steady herself, saw the tension that Santana carried around everywhere slip away from her for a brief minute, until Mrs Goldberg found them and shooed them all away with tut-tutting and threats of detention.

Later, when the rest of the class were filing onto the bus, Santana was missing. Mrs Goldberg was about to raise the alarm when Tina looked out the window and saw Santana loping towards them from the front door of the museum, a small white package in her left hand.

Santana blew off Mrs Goldberg's shrill "That's detention, Lopez!" with an idle flap of her hand and a "Whatever." She made her way down the row until she reached Brittany, whose feet were on the aisle seat, saving it for her friend. From across the aisle, Tina watched as Brittany lifted them, and then rested them on Santana's lap, like it was the most natural cushion in the world. Santana's right hand curled under Brittany's calf, and her left placed the little white bag on Brittany's lap.

"What's this?"

Santana shrugged. "Nothing much, just thought you'd like it and went back to get it."

Brittany opened the bag and squeaked with delight. Tina smiled as a tiny replica of the penny-farthing was revealed, perfect in every detail. When Brittany wrapped her arms around Santana and squeezed the hell out of her, Tina saw Santana's own arms raise themselves, almost helplessly, and respond in kind, threading around Brittany's waist.

Brittany pulled back and looked into Santana's eyes, her cheeks flushed pink and a little smile tugging at the corner of her lips. "Thank you."

Tina saw Santana swallow slightly before she answered, quietly and warmly. "You're welcome."

"You got detention to get this for me?"

Santana smiled. "Always worth it, Britt."

Brittany laid her head on Santana's shoulder with a happy sigh, and sat turning the little bike over and over in her hands, eyes aglow. Santana gazed at her, her face gentler than Tina had ever seen.

And suddenly, for Tina, it clicked. "Oh."

This caught Santana's attention, and the cool mask Tina was so familiar with dropped immediately over her features. She glared across the aisle. "Why are you making sounds, Twilight?"

Tina swallowed, felt the stutter rise in her throat. Only Santana Lopez could turn a fake stutter into a real one. "Noth … no r-reason."

Santana nodded. "Damn straight." Firmly, defiantly, she tucked both her arms back around Brittany's waist. Brittany hummed happily against her shoulder. But Santana's tension was back, and even though Tina stared resolutely out the window as the desperately suburban streets of New Bremen slid by, she could tell that Santana eyes were on her, daring her to say something, anything.

Tina knew. But she didn't tell anyone, not even Artie, who she was kind of hoping would ask her out sometime soon.

SUE SYLVESTER

There was nothing Sue Sylvester didn't know about her girls. Nothing at all. It had very little to do with the fact that she'd used Cheerios camp as a cover to have spy equipment installed in all their kitchens so she could keep track of their diets, and everything to do with good, old-fashioned observational skills. She'd honed hers while training with the Ghurkas in Singapore. Those lazy bastards didn't have much to offer that Sue Sylvester didn't already know, so it was a short tour of duty.

In the fall of junior year, a new Cheerio had transferred in from nearby Defiance. Her name was Lola, and she was definitely not a showgirl. What she was, was a tower of bottom-of-the-pyramid strength and a grade-A, first-class bully. Sue Sylvester approved. Sue Sylvester liked only one thing more than a dumb workhorse, and that was a vicious dumb workhorse. Lola was both in spades.

Sue watched as within a week she had reduced almost every girl on the squad to quivering wrecks, with the exception of Santana Lopez and Brittany Pierce; the former because Lola was still working her way up to it, and the latter because she'd been out of school on a dance retreat. Lopez had been looking pretty bleak, and Sue was just about to recommend brimstone and treacle three times a day when Pierce reappeared and so, immediately, did Lopez's spark.

Sue filed that away under Potentially Useful Things That Need More Intel, and forgot it.

Until the day that Lola purposely let Brittany fall from the top of the pyramid.

"OH, BITCH, NO YOU DIDN'T!"

Sue looked up from the stack of feedback letters from the focus group who routinely assessed her potential candidacy for the Omani royal family. (All signs pointed to yes.) Across the gymnasium, she saw Brittany sprawled on the ground with a rapidly swelling ankle and a triumphant Lola towering over her. A blur of red and white uniform and long black hair was storming towards them.

Sue sat back in her seat and pulled out the popcorn from the third drawer down. This was gonna be a good show, and Sue Sylvester never missed a good show.

"What did you just do to her?" Santana raged, chest to chest with Lola.

"It was her own clumsy-ass fault," Lola replied, smirking.

Brittany was massaging her ankle. "I went to swing down but there was only air where her hand was supposed to be." She looked up at Lola. "Did you go invisible?"

Lola turned back to Santana. "If she learned how to lock her grip…"

Santana poked her in the chest, hard. "Britts has been locking her grip since before you learned how to unlock your jaw, cavewoman, so you best step off right now and say you're sorry, before I makes you sorry."

Lola put her hands on her hips, glowering. "I'm not sorry."

"You should be, Nomi Malone. Sorrier than we all are that your - air quote - parents ever found you down that hole!"

Sue nodded her approval. Nice one, Lopez. That girl would make a fine savage pit-bull, uh, head cheerleader one day. She also noted the pure adoration shining from Brittany's face.

Lola scoffed dismissively. "I'm not apologising for shit. This is cheerleading, not nursery school. Accidents happen."

Santana stared Lola down, a nasty smile surfacing. "They sure do."

Thirty seconds later, Santana was carrying Brittany away Officer And A Gentleman style amid wild rounds of Cheerio applause, while Lola sat groaning on the ground with both hands pressed to her right eye.

"WHOOPS!" Santana crowed, gleefully.

"That's how she does it in Lima Heights," floated back from the Brittany-shaped bundle in Santana's arms, as they disappeared into the locker rooms. "Bitch."

Sue Sylvester put the popcorn away. Good finale. That show was a B+. Could've been an A, but there was a disappointing lack of blood. Also, Bob Saget.

"LADIES!" she bellowed. "As much as most of you don't deserve that term, I'm going to let you keep pretending for the rest of the day if you can show me even an ounce of the beautifully violent chutzpah Lopez just demonstrated. Otherwise, I fear I'll have to arrange to switch you for those mouthbreathing clones from upstate that I had made from samples taken from your shampoo bottles." She paused, pointing a finger at each girl in turn, loving the way they withered under her glare. "Like a beautiful communist dictatorship, I'm always watching. Especially when you can't see me. Carry on."

As Sue entered the locker room, something – she didn't know what – perhaps her acutely tuned sense of convenient and opportunistic timing (learned while studying under Perez Hilton), made her pause silently in the doorway.

Brittany was propped on a bench, her swollen foot in Santana's lap. Santana was sitting on the ground in front of her, massaging the ankle gently. Neither girl saw Sue.

"Owow," Brittany complained. "I won't be able to dance for, like, weeks."

"It'll be okay, babe," Santana told her tenderly, her hands moving in gentle circles.

Sue blinked. She'd never heard Lopez use that tone before. Sue didn't like it. Lopez sounded positively … neutered.

Brittany reached out and started playing with Santana's hair. "It is okay," she whispered, grinning. "I can think of plenty of other ways to exercise instead."

Sue's eyes narrowed. Was Lopez blushing? Was that the dirty pink stain of teenage sexual embarrassment she saw painted on Lopez's admittedly otherwise flawless ethnic skin? Sue Sylvester thought it was.

"Britt," Santana managed hoarsely, her cheeks on fire. "We're at school."

"I know," Brittany said, wriggling on the bench. "But what you just did was, like, so super hot. If you'd seen you, you wouldn't blame me."

Santana grinned up at her, and her hands started sliding slowly up past Brittany's ankle. "I see you every day, and I still manage to-"

A small squeak came from Brittany, and Santana's hands immediately stilled. "Did I hurt you?"

"It wasn't you," Brittany said, eyes beginning to water. "It just does really hurt."

Santana leaned forward, brought her lips incredibly lightly to Brittany's swollen ankle, and kissed it. "Is that better?"

Brittany shook her head, biting her lip.

Santana kissed her ankle again, grinning around her task. "How about now?"

"Getting warmer," Brittany said, her breath starting to hitch. "But … I have a new problem."

"What's wrong, babe?"

Brittany's eyes sparkled mischievously. "Now my mouth hurts."

Santana looked at her for a second, and then a helpless smile broke out. "C'mere."

"Yes!" Brittany fist-pumped, before giggling into Santana's gentle kiss.

Sue watched. Sue didn't approve. It wasn't quite the disapproval of the Sneaky Gay, although if Sue had her way, she'd give both of them buzz-cuts just so she could see them coming. It was the disapproval of thinking she might be losing two of her best point dogs to the totally useless throes of Sapphic intrigue. God knows, KD Lang and Ellen DeGeneres never took down the opposition from the inside; they were too busy crooning vagina music and dancing on television in hideous sweater vests.

Sue knew. But she bided her time, filing it away under Useful Things That Might Get Me Something I Want One Day. Other than that, she told nobody.

Next chapter: Rachel and Mercedes