"Okay, we are all set to take the bus to New York tomorrow, bright and early," said Santana, after checking the bus schedule on her laptop. She and Brittany were sitting on the couch in Brittany's apartment-style dorm room. Everything had been packed away because, since pre-accident-Brittany was already planning on moving. The only things left unpacked in the apartment were furniture, Lord Tubbington, and a TV.
Brittany, who had been absentmindedly stroking Lord Tubbington, gave her a half smile, "Cool."
"Is everything okay?" asked Santana.
"Yeah, sure," said Brittany, "I'm fine."
"Hey, it's me you're talking to," said Santana, "Pretending to be fine isn't going to fly."
"It's just, so much has happened... I missed an entire year. Everything is different. My whole life is upside down and backwards. I'm still trying to process it all. And now I'm moving to new state...from a state I don't even remember living in," said Brittany.
"I know, it's an insane amount to handle. You know I'm here for you, right? Whatever you need," said Santana, seriously, "You can talk to me about anything Brittany. That hasn't changed."
Brittany nodded, but didn't say anything. She knew Santana meant it, but she couldn't talk to Santana about her Santana problems. It was the one change in her life that she couldn't understand. They were broken up. Now somebody else took Santana out on Fridays, and held her hand, and made her laugh, and kissed her goodnight. Brittany felt a lump forming in her throat, just thinking about it.
"What do you want to do tonight? It's your last night in Boston, we should make it special. What is it you Bostonians do when you're not dropping your r's or dumping tea into the harbor?" asked Santana, trying to lighten things up.
"Beats me," said Brittany, frowning, "I can't remember anything about this place." She strained to think of any details about Boston, a favorite restaurant or shop, but nothing came to mind. It was weird feeling. It was like she was a stranger in her own life.
"Right, we shouldn't do anything new and different. You need old and familiar...If memory serves, the National Cheerleading Championships are this week. How about I grab us some pizza and we can watch it together? We can mock their inferior cheer skills, and rank them on best to worst fake cheer smiles... Come on, you know I can't stand to see you like this," said Santana.
"Alright, let's do it," said Brittany, finally cracking a smile.
"Great, you just sit tight, watch the pre-show, and I'll be right back," said Santana, getting up from the couch.
The moment Santana left the dorm Brittany got out her laptop. It was the first time she'd been alone and her mind had been in overdrive speculating about Santana's new girlfriend over the past two days. She needed the details.
Thank god for facebook.
"Okay, Lord T, let's just see who this girl is..." said Brittany, going on Dani's profile page. Lord Tubbington waddled over to the laptop screen.
"So her name's Dani? Names ending with an "i" instead of "y" are just tacky." Ugh, stop being petty, Pierce. You're better than that.
"Who even goes by Dani if their name is Danielle? Like, when did girls going by masculine sounding nicknames become "in"? I blame Stevie Nicks for this. Actually, I blame Stevie Nicks for everything... Screw Stevie Nicks. Screw her, and her hauntingly beautiful, soul revealing lyricism."
Brittany then proceeded to click through all of Dani's photos.
*click*
"Tattoos? I could have tattoos..."
*click*
"Jeez, how many pictures do they need to take together? Like, we get it, you're a couple. Chillax on the Kodak moments."
*click*
"Seriously? That's the caption she went with? 'Sanny + Dani'? Ick factor of 10. That is the worst nickname ever."
Once Brittany realized that she was trash talking about her ex-girlfriend's new girlfriend with her cat, she slowly backed away from the computer. It was not a great path to go down.
She thought finding online intel on 'Dani' would ease her mind, instead an endless amount of questions sprung up: How long had they been together? Who asked who out? How serious were they? How many hair color changes can one girl go through without severe follicle damage?
She was definitely dreading meeting this girl face to face.
*Santana Calling*
"Hey babe, what's up?" said Dani, answering her phone.
"Hey, so I kind of have some news. I just want to preface this by saying I know it's weird, and if it were the other way around I would be totally pissed, so I completely understand if you are," said Santana. She was standing by a pick-up counter, waiting for her pizza to be ready.
"Okay...You're really not building this up well," said Dani, a little worried.
"Brittany's gotten a job in New York and she's going to stay at the loft for a while."
"She's moving in with you?" asked Dani, dumbfounded.
"It's only temporary. She needs a place to stay, and we have room for her," explained Santana.
"I...I don't really know what to say...I...well...okay," said Dani, realizing she didn't have the authority to object.
"Okay?" asked Santana, surprised.
"Yeah, it's pretty nice of you to help her out. I just need to know something first," said Dani.
"Sure, anything, ask away," said Santana.
"Why did you two break up in the first place?" asked Dani. Santana winced at the question. It was something she had asked herself a lot over the past few months.
"We tried the long distance thing, but it wasn't working... so I ended it," said Santana.
"What happened? Did she cheat on you or something?" asked Dani.
"No. No, she would nev..." Santana stopped herself before revealing too much about Brittany. She had been very careful to keep her two relationships completely separate from each other, but now they seemed to be heading on a collision course for each other.
"It was more of preemptive break up," said Santana, trying to remain vague.
"What does that mean?" asked Dani.
"Brittany is my best friend. I didn't want to ruin our entire friendship because us dating wasn't working anymore. So I ended things before anything bad could happen. I know how it sounds, but all of my friends' relationships crumbled after graduation, and their break ups were messy. Afterwards they barely acknowledged each other's existence. I didn't want that to happen."
"So, what about now?" asked Dani.
"What do you mean?" asked Santana, confused.
"I mean, she's going to be sleeping 5 feet away from you, so distance isn't really an issue anymore," said Dani.
"A lot happened after we broke up...I mean, she even, like, married someone else for a second, so it's not like we were just biding our time until we could be together again. Brittany moved on, and I'm with you. This whole memory loss thing, just kind of threw her backwards in time. But once Brittany remembers, you'll see. We're not anything anymore. She just sees me as a friend," said Santana.
There was a pause on the other end of the line.
"Don't you trust me?" asked Santana.
"Of course, it's her I don't trust," said Dani.
"You really shouldn't worry about that. If there's one thing I know about Brittany, it's that she'll do the right thing," said Santana.
"Even in this kind of situation?" asked Dani, a little skeptical.
"Especially in this kind of situation," said Santana.
There was a knock on the door. Brittany got up and answered it.
"Delivery for Miss Pierce," said Santana, smiling. She was leaning against the door frame, holding a pizza box up with her left hand.
"That smells amazing," said Brittany, taking the pizza box from Santana.
"And, what's this?" asked Santana facetiously, raising her other hand, which held a six pack of beer.
"Awesome," said Brittany, "How'd you manage that?"
"I didn't," said Santana, "But, Rosario Cruz, my over-twenty-one alter ego, did."
"Rosario, huh?" asked Brittany, "She sounds hot."
"If you're into older chicks," said Santana jokingly, entering the apartment.
It was nice to kick back and watch the Cheerio Nationals competition with Santana. There was nothing like cheerleading and severe criticism to make Brittany feel at home. They ate pizza, drank beer, and threw judgement.
Midway through one of the more boring cheerleading performances Santana laughed for no apparent reason. Brittany looked over at her, about to ask why, when she saw that Santana was on her phone, texting. Brittany felt a twinge of anger mixed with sadness, assuming that Santana was talking to her girlfriend. She tried to ignore it, but then Santana chuckled again.
"So...I guess Dani's pretty funny," said Brittany, doing her best not to sound spiteful.
"What?" asked Santana, eyes snapping up from her phone. She was also curious as to how Brittany found out her girlfriend's name.
"Your girlfriend, That's who you're texting, right?" asked Brittany.
"No, it's Kurt. He has to go to all of these low budget, weird performance art shows for a class he's taking. Usually they're awful and he sends me live updates on the performances to pass the time," said Santana.
"Oh," said Brittany, relieved, "What's he watching?"
"Bye Bi-sexual," said Santana, "I think the title pretty much says it all."
"I don't even want to know..." said Brittany, slightly disturbed.
"Oh it gets worse, last week he saw 'The Phantom of the West Side: A Musical Mash-up'," said Santana, cringing at the memory.
"Nasty," said Brittany.
"Yeah, it got pretty cray. Maria and Christine had a drink off, Raoul and Tony were brothers from another mother, and the Phantom was actually pretty racist, which not something I would have expected, given his life-long search for social acceptance," said Santana.
"Wow, great character analysis, Rachel," said Brittany, amused.
"Oh, you did not just say that," said Santana, in a good-natured, but offended tone, "So I've seen a couple of shows. It's not like I sleep with my favorite playbill under my pillow, like a certain hobbit..."
"Sorry Santana, but your Broadway is totally showing," said Brittany, "It's understandable. You've assimilated to your theater nerd surroundings."
"What? Have not!" said Santana, pushing Brittany on the shoulder.
"Have so!" said Brittany, throwing a small couch pillow at Santana.
"Oh it's on Pierce," said Santana, with a mischievous glint in her eye.
She got up from the couch and grabbed a nearby bag of foam packing peanuts. She took a fistful of peanuts and began throwing them at Brittany.
Brittany used a couch pillow as a shield against the waves of packing peanuts being pelted at her.
"Quick LT, get her!" she shouted. Lord Tubbington meowed lazily, but did not budge. Then Brittany threw a pizza crust by Santana's feet and he darted after it. Lord Tubbington got tangled in between Santana's legs, tripping her. She fell and accidentally landed right on top of Brittany, pinning her on the couch.
Their faces were inches apart, eyes locked. As Santana looked down at Brittany, everything else faded away. It was just the two of them. All the memories that she'd tried to shove away and compartmentalize came flooding back. Brittany's eyes flickered down to Santana's lips, and Santana felt herself leaning in, about to close the distance between them.