"Britty?" Ashley calls out to her sister as she hovers at the entryway to the living room. She heard her sister come home awhile ago, but was surprised she hadn't seen her yet. If she's home before the older girl, she usually sees her and Santana stumbling past her door on their way to Brittany's bedroom, but after waiting, she still hadn't seen her sister. She eventually ventured downstairs and risked catching the girls making out on the couch or something even worse, to see what was going on. They aren't sucking face, though. Actually, Santana isn't even there, which is even weirder.

"Hey, Ash," Brittany mumbles half heartedly, not even bothering to look up at her sister. She's curled up on the sofa with her face half buried in a pillow, not even watching the muted television in front of her.

Ashley might be little, but she's good with people like her sister is, and it seems obvious to her that Brittany is sad about something. Ashley shuffles into the room and kneels down on the floor in front of her sister, leaning forward against the couch cushions so their faces are only a couple inches apart. "What's wrong, Britty?"

Brittany doesn't even flinch at the close proximity. "I'm a sad panda."

"How come?"

Even though she does know why, Brittany just shrugs her shoulders, not sure if she wants to talk about it with an eight year old. She doesn't really have anyone else to talk to, but she's not sure Ashley will understand.

"Where's Tana? She always cheers you up."

"She has lots of homework to do." Then Brittany's stomach feels funny when she thinks about this afternoon and she shakes her head at her sister's suggestion. "And she's why I'm sad."

"Oh." It seems like it's been such a long time since Santana has made Brittany sad that Ashley isn't sure what to do. The couple has had a few arguments since getting together, but that would usually just result in Brittany pouting or being grumpy before they made up a few hours later. She hasn't been really sad in a while, and Ashley hates seeing her sister sad.

"Yeah."

Ashley reaches up and holds Brittany's hand with her smaller one. "What happened?"

"I don't think I want to talk about it," the older blonde sighs. She loves her sister for trying, but she'd rather sit and wallow for a bit. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," the little girl assures her, even if she is disappointed that she can't cheer her sister up. "I'm sorry you're sad, Britty."

Brittany smiles weakly at the girl and squeezes her hand. "Thanks, Ash."

~/~

Santana lets out a frustrated sigh when she hears the banging on her front door. She was just getting into the groove of her math homework after putting it off for days, and since nobody else is home yet, she has to answer it. She tosses her pencil aside and makes her way downstairs, pulling the door open with a groan. She doesn't know who she was expecting on the other side, but she's pretty sure an angry looking Ashley Pierce was not on the list.

"Ash? What are you…" She leans over Ashley to get a better look at the road, but doesn't see either of the Pierce vehicles. "How did you get here?"

"I rode my bike," she answers with what Santana thinks is supposed to be a scowl. She glances back at her yard and notices the blonde's bike lying sideways on her lawn.

Santana raises an eyebrow. "Did you ride over here by yourself? You know you're not supposed to go passed the Williams house without me or Britt."

"Well, Britty is too busy being sad," she starts, and the older girl can hear the accusation in her voice clearly. "And you weren't there."

"Why is Brittany sad?"

"Because of you!" Ashley exclaims, stomping her foot for effect.

Santana is confused. She and Brittany didn't get into a fight and she can't think of any other way she could have upset her girlfriend. Brittany hadn't said anything to her after glee practice when she told her that she couldn't hang out tonight because she had a bunch of homework to finish. "What did I do?"

"I don't know, but you did something and you have to fix it," the tiny blonde tells her, leaving no room for argument. She doesn't like being mad at Santana, and it doesn't happen very often, but she won't let her be mean to Brittany.

"If you don't know what I did, how do you even know it's something I did?" Not that it really matters, because if Brittany is sad, she wants to make her feel better, regardless of the reason.

"She told me she was sad because of you," Ashley answers, moving to try to tug Santana out of the house. "Come on, I don't like it when Britty is sad, we have to make her feel better."

"Okay, okay, just let me grab my keys." Santana has no idea what's going on, but she knows better than to argue with the youngest Pierce and she wants to cheer her girl up, so she gets her keys and lets herself be pulled out the door, homework forgotten. "I'll throw your bike in the back and we'll drive over."

~/~

Ashley doesn't even bother getting her bike out of the back of Santana's car, and instead slams her door closed and stands at the front of her house, tapping her foot impatiently as she wants for the older girl to join her. Santana rolls her eyes at the girl's dramatics, slipping out of her car and making her way towards the Pierce's front door, Ashley leading the way.

"Britty!" the little girl calls as they enter the house. She can see the television is still on from there, so she assumes her sister is still where she left her. "Come on, she's in the living room."

Santana follows the girl silently, still kind of skeptical that Brittany is really upset and this wasn't just Ashley's way of getting her to come over instead of finally finishing her homework. When they get to the living room and she sees Brittany curled up on the couch and staring at the quiet television, she's knows Ashley was telling the truth.

"Britt Britt?" she asks softly, moving into the room and leaving Ashley standing at the door. The older blonde immediately looks up at the voice, clearly surprised by her presence.

"San?"

"Hey, Britts," she greets, sitting down on the edge of the couch near her girlfriend's midsection. She places a hand on her back and rubs gently. "What's going on? Ash said I made you sad?"

Brittany's eyes drift to Ashley in the doorway, and her sister just nods towards Santana, encouraging her to tell her what's wrong. She looks back up at the brunette and shakes her head. "No, I said that I was sad because of you, not that you made me sad."

Santana's face scrunches in that adorable way Brittany loves as she tries to follow the blonde's words. "So you're not mad at me?"

"No, you're mad at me," Brittany clarifies. "And it makes me sad when you're mad at me."

"What?" Santana's hand moves up to rest on the blonde's cheek, and she tries to direct her eyes to meet her's. "Sweetie, I'm not mad at you."

"You're not?"

"No," she assures her. "What made you think that?"

Brittany turns around so she's lying on her back and can get a better look at her girlfriend. "You didn't like my dance today. You said we should be embarrassed."

"Your dance?" It takes a moment for Santana to realize what she's talking about but then it all makes sense. "Oh, no, Britts, that was about Schuester and his ignorance. He offended me, not you."

"But I was part of it," Brittany protests with a pout. "I was part of something that made you mad, so that means you're mad at me."

"But I'm not," she tries to assure her again. She brushes her thumb over Brittany's pout as if it will make it disappear. "I wasn't even really mad at Mr. Schue, I was just annoyed. And it wasn't your fault, you don't know any better."

"But I should," the blond argues, crossing her arms with a huff. She's silent for a moment and averts her eyes. "And I guess I kind of did. But I was just excited that someone finally wanted me to dance with them again that I did it anyway."

That catches Santana's attention. "Wait, what … What do you mean?"

Brittany shrugs. "It's nothing."

"Britts."

"It's just …" Brittany struggles with what she wants to say. She's been feeling this way for a while now, but hasn't been able to figure out the best way to bring it up. She thinks maybe that's the real reason she's sad. "I feel like nobody includes me in anything anymore and I don't know why. I guess I don't really care that much about the other guys, but it's kinda sucky when it's you."

"Britt Britt," Santana starts gently, though a bit taken aback by her girlfriend's words. "What are you talking about? What have I left you out of?"

Brittany bites her lip, debating. She eventually pushes herself up so she's sitting across from Santana, just now noticing that Ashley is still standing in the doorway. Brittany thinks she's half being nosy, half being protective. She just thinks it's sweet. She catches her eye and Ashley nods again, urging her on.

"It's probably just in my head, you know how I get things mixed up sometimes," Brittany tries to stall for a moment before her shoulders slump when Santana gives her a pointed look. "Okay, it's just like, I feel like lately, you've been hanging out with everyone else a lot more. And I like that you're nicer to the glee club now, and they're starting to see how awesome I always knew you were, and you're friends with them and everything, but I'm not used to sharing you. And it seems like ever since you started doing things with them more, you do things with them instead of with me."

"Okay," Santana acknowledges, thinking she might see where Brittany is coming from, but she's not sure. She pulls Brittany's hand to hold in her own to let her know that she's following her. "Can you give me a for instance?"

"Just today, your performance with Mr. Martinez," Brittany supplies. "I could have done this week's assignment with you, but you did it with him instead. You said you sang with him because you're both hot, but am I not hot enough then?"

"No, no, Britts, no, of course you are," Santana immediately assures her, shifting closer to her girlfriend on the couch. "Baby, you know I think you're the hottest piece of action in this shithole town." She immediately shoots Ashley a look that tells her to ignore that before continuing. "I just sang with him because I knew it would annoy Mr. Schue. Of course I would've rather sang it with you. Nobody is hotter together than us."

"Then how come we haven't sang together all year?" Brittany challenges. It's not that she doesn't believe Santana, but it's kind of been bugging her. Turns out, there's a lot more things making Brittany sad than she thought. "Last year when I wanted to sing a duet with you, you said no because we didn't kiss because you were in love with me. But you're in love with me now, right? And everyone knows, but you'd still rather sing with Mercedes or Rachel or Mr. Martinez. And you even sang with that 80s movie villain Warbler guy on your underboob mission, which you didn't even tell me about, which sucks the most because you know how much I love your boobs."

Santana thinks she would have laughed if she didn't feel so crappy. "Britt, I-"

"And nobody else wants to sing with me either," the blonde continues. "Or even dance. I just sit in the back of glee club and watch everyone else sing with each other or to each other and I just feel like everyone forgets I'm even there. Nobody's even noticed that I've barely said anything since Christmas break. So when Mr. Schuester asked me to be part of his song, I said yes, even though I knew it probably wasn't good. It was the first time anyone's asked me to perform with them in a really long time and I missed it. I'm really sorry if I made you feel bad. "

"Sweetie, no, you didn't." Santana already feels horrible enough for not noticing all of this until now, she doesn't need Brittany apologizing to her for it. "You kicked that performance square in the balls, okay? Schuester's only good decision this year has been to ask you to dance with him. And I … God, I'm so bad at this."

That catches Brittany's attention, because she doesn't think there's anything Santana's not awesome at. "At what?"

"At being in a relationship, being a girlfriend," Santana answers, slumping her shoulders and falling against the back of the couch in defeat. She sees Brittany is about to protest and shakes her head. "No, I am. First I totally ignore Ashley and now I'm ignoring you? I suck."

"You don't suck," Brittany promises, untangling her legs so she can shift her body to lean against the other girl. "You're the best girlfriend I've ever had."

Santana cracks a smile and responses as expected. "I'm the only one you've ever had."

"And you're the only one I'm ever gonna have," Brittany responds confidently, and it makes Santana want to wrap the girl up and never let her go. "I'm not mad at you either, San. I love you, and I just miss you is all."

"You shouldn't have to miss me, Britt," the other girl sighs, hating that this has somehow turned into Brittany cheering her up. "I'm your girlfriend, I shouldn't be anywhere else long enough for you to miss me."

"Maybe I'm just being clingy."

Santana's scoffs at the idea that Brittany could ever be clingy, since that would imply it her attention was unwanted. "You're not. I have been spending a lot of time with other people, time that didn't include you, when it could have. You're right. I just, I have to work on balancing it out, and make sure you're not being excluded, because that's the last thing I want, babe."

"I don't want you to feel like you have to hang out with me, San," Brittany frowns.

"Of course I don't feel like that," she promises, pulling the blonde into her side to wrap her arms around her. "I love you and miss you, too. Yeah, it's kind of cool to have other people genuinely want to hang out with me, but I don't like being with any one of them as much as I like being with you."

"It's just like with me," Ashley provides, speaking for the first time since coming into the living room. The couple turns towards her and watch as she makes her way over to join them on the couch, making herself comfortable on Santana's other side. "You said you got caught up in your guys' relationship cause it was new and stuff, but you didn't mean to and you still loved me. You just had to learn to be better at being both, right?"

Santana grins down at the little girl on her side and throws an arm around her shoulder to join the hug. "That's exactly right, munchkin. And I got much better at it, didn't I?"

"She did," Ashley answers, looking at her sister as if she's reassuring her even though Brittany obviously already knew. And the comparison did make her feel better. She knew better than anyone that Santana hadn't meant to neglect Ashley, and she hadn't either, and that it didn't mean Santana loved her sister any less. Santana just has some trouble adapting to new situations, it seems. She can understand that. "She got lots better!"

Santana grins at her and gives her a squeeze before looking back towards her girlfriend, glad to see she looks more relaxed. "I'm so sorry for making you sad. I'm just not used to having real friends other than you, but I'll work on it, B, I promise. There's nobody I'd rather do anything with than you."

"Me, too."

Ashley watches as the girls share a soft kiss, mindful of her sitting right there. Once they pull apart, all smiles, she cheers, happy with her work. "You're not sad anymore, right, Britty? I helped fix it?"

"You did," Brittany answers with a smile, and Santana pulls the little girl onto her lap so Brittany can hug her. "Thanks, Ash."

"Yes, thank you," Santana repeats, squeezing the little girl on her lap as well. She knows that if Ashley hadn't brought her over, Brittany probably would've kept hiding how she felt, and it would have only gotten worse, and she'd hate herself for hurting the girl any more than she already had. "I want you to keep telling me if I'm not treating Britt right, okay? Make sure you keep me in line."

"Okay!" she agrees easily, loving the attention. "But I get to be the best man at your wedding, then."

Santana laughs. "I think you mean maid of honor."

"Yeah, that," she corrects with a grin. "I get to be that, okay?"

Santana and Brittany share a smile at the thought. "You got it."