Title: Remember When

Author: Lucy

Pairing: Brittany/Santana

Rating: G

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Brittany's ten, and her tummy hurts. She doesn't say anything to anyone, she just sits very quietly in her desk next to Santana and tries to do her worksheet. The worksheet is hard and her tummy is sore, and sort of... rolling?

Brittany doesn't feel so good.

She raises her hand, tries to get the teacher's attention, but before Mrs. Finch can call on her Brittany's doubled over in pain. Santana jumps up, yells for Mrs. Finch who whips around quickly and is just in time to see Brittany throw up all over the floor. Everyone else leaps back, a chorus of ews and grosses filling the air, but all Brittany can see is the tears in her eyes because it hurts really bad. And some of her throw up got on her clothes, and some of her throw up got on Santana's shoes.

Brittany's crying and Mrs. Finch tells her to stand up, to go to the nurse's office, but she can't get up, she hurts too much, and Mrs. Finch gets Mr. Johnson from next door to carry her since she's making such a fuss. Brittany's in Mr. Johnson's arms and she can hear Mrs. Finch telling Santana to sit down, and she can hear Santana swearing at her in Spanish, and the last thing she thinks before she faints is ooh, Santana's gonna get it.

She wakes up in the nurse's office and Santana's right there, and so are her mom and dad, and they say they're taking her to the doctor. Santana wants to come too and Brittany's mom and dad are so worried about Brittany that they don't want to take the time to argue with her, so she gets bundled into the back of the car with Brittany. Santana holds Brittany's hand and tells her not to be scared, even though she looks scared herself, and Brittany can't say much of anything, just throws up again, only this time there's a bucket to do it in.

The doctor says Brittany has ap... appen... The doctor says Brittany has something wrong in her tummy and she needs to go to hospital and have an operation to fix it. Now Brittany's really scared. When her mom went into hospital she came back with Johan, and Brittany loves Johan but she doesn't want to have a baby. She cries a little, and the doctor says not to be scared, and she tells him she doesn't want a baby, and he looks confused. But Brittany's mom knows what she means, and she tells Brittany that she's not going to have a baby, that the doctors are just going to take the hurting parts away.

At the hospital they put her in a room and stick her with needles and make her take off her clothes and put on a paper gown, and Brittany wouldn't mind so much – her clothes have throw up on them anyway – but the room is cold and the gown is made of paper and it doesn't have a back and she doesn't like that anyone can see her butt if they look. She sits on the little bed and shivers.

After what seems like a long time the doctors put her on another bed, and this one has wheels, and they put a mask on her and tell her to count backwards from a hundred. Brittany tries to tell them that she doesn't even know how to get to a hundred counting forwards yet, that her and Santana are working on it but she can't quite get past sixty seven, but before she can make the words come out her eyes are closing and she knows no more.

Brittany's waking up and she doesn't feel much of anything now, the pain is gone and she's sort of floaty and dizzy, but in a nice way. She can't sit up yet but she's too tired to anyway, and her mom is there holding her hand and stroking her hair back, and her dad is on the other side of her, and in his lap is Santana. Brittany smiles at that, smiles to think that everyone stuck around to watch her sleep, but then she falls asleep again.

It's a week later and Brittany's at home. She's not allowed to go back to school for three weeks after the operation, so she gets to sit at home and play with Johan all day, even though she can't move much or very fast at first. Johan is two and he likes to run around, but he likes to watch Blue's Clues too and Brittany loves Blue's Clues, so they spend lots of time together. Johan loves Brittany. He won't sit still for long for most people, but he sits in Brittany's lap and snuggles into her while they watch Blue's Clues and Barney and even Dora the Explorer.

Santana comes around every day after school with homework, but not for Brittany to do – Santana's already filled in all the answers on the worksheets, all Brittany has to do is sign her name on them, so she writes Brittany V nice and big at the top of them and it doesn't matter that it's kind of cheating, because she's sick, right? She shows Santana the little scars she has from where the doctors cut her, and Santana looks like a mix of really interested and really grossed out, and Brittany laughs and hugs her.

And in the evenings Brittany and Santana read, and it's really helping Brittany learn to read better, that Santana makes her take her turn to read. They read books about a group of girls who like to babysit, and while they're reading one on Thursday night Brittany gets an idea from the book, when the girl gets her old toys and puts them in a box for the children she's babysitting to play with.

It's Friday morning and Brittany's rummaging in her closet, getting out all the old toys she doesn't play with anymore. There are building blocks and a rubber ball and a doll house with furniture and even a train set (because even though Brittany's a girl, her mom and dad wanted her to have lots of different things to play with) and she gets all of them out and brings them down to the living room and dumps them in front of Johan.

Johan's two and he doesn't understand about Christmas, but he sure does look like all his Christmases have come at once. Brittany shows him how to put the train tracks together, and between that and the building blocks they spend the morning and part of the afternoon putting together a city that takes over the whole living room. Johan has to take a nap after lunch but Brittany keeps building, and when he wakes up she's done a whole new part, and she lets him pretend to be Godzilla and kick it all down.

It's after school time and Santana's knocking on the door, and Santana's ten and really, too big for baby games like this, but she's setting her school bag down and joining in because it looks like too much fun not to.

It's Friday night, and Santana gets to sleep over tonight because there's no school tomorrow, and Brittany's mom makes mac and cheese for dinner and lets all three of them sleep in the middle of the city they've built, right on the living room floor. And Brittany's tummy doesn't hurt anymore, and Santana doesn't feel too old anymore, and Brittany never felt too old to begin with. And Johan is being so funny, giving Brittany kisses every now and then, because he's only two but he knows that all this fun is because of her.

It's the best fun I've had in ages, Santana says as she and Brittany fall asleep, and Brittany agrees.