Disclaimer: See Chapter 1.

Author's Note(s): Thanks to everybody who reviewed! Words can't express how grateful I am. Hope you like Chapter 4.

Put On a Happy Face
Chapter 4

Glee Club. She hadn't realised how much she missed it until she and Kurt arrived at the door.

Kurt knocked loudly and then he and Santana walked into the room. Mercedes seemed to be in the middle of some kind of speech so the two went and sat down next to Will. Unsurprisingly, as Santana crossed the room, all eyes were on her and she could practically feel their hostility and suspicion. Oh yes, this was going to be a good evening, Santana thought bitterly. Although, she reasoned, it was oddly fitting. Very similar to the last time she had joined Glee club. Only that time the other members weren't too afraid of her to vocalise their displeasure.

The kids quickly lost interest in Santana and went back to listening to Mercedes talk about how her career had taken off three years ago with a role as Mama Morton in Chicago. A role that Santana had got her the audition for, she thought to herself. It was good, Santana thought, for the Glee kids to hear this success story. When they themselves had been in Glee, the only encouragement they ever got was from that Neil Patrick Harris alike who had told them to follow their dream after telling them earlier that not a single one of them were going to make it in show business. He wasn't exactly a poster boy for becoming a star either so none of them had felt particularly inspired by him.

Mercedes went on to explain to them that her agent had been approached by a producer wanting to take Mercedes to a recording studio for a test run and since then she had released an album. Okay, so it hadn't made the charts yet, but Mercedes was getting there. At Santana's insistence, the record label she was on had hired a new PR agent and he was doing an excellent job of promoting the album around the country. Santana was contemplating trying to get Mercedes a bit-part role in something soon for a bit more exposure.

Once she had finished talking, one of the students requested she sing for them and Mercedes was more than happy to acquiesce. She had even conveniently brought the sheet music to her single with her.

"Kurt, Tina, Santana," instructed Mercedes, holding out the music to them.

"You want us to sing backup?" asked Tina with a knowing smile. "Just like old times."

Reluctantly, Santana took the music.

When the band started playing and Mercedes began to sing, Santana couldn't help but smile at the familiar sensation of being a part of a team. True to form, the kids joined in for the chorus and Mr. Schue sat back with a jovial look on his face.

The song ended and everyone cheered. Santana wished Brittany was there because she would have loved it.

"Thank you, Mercedes Jones!" said Will loudly. The group clapped and whooped.

Then it was Kurt's turn to talk to the group about what Glee had done for him. His story was a lot sadder than what Santana had heard of Mercedes. It was hard to hear about the abuse Kurt had suffered in his high school years because of his sexuality. It was even worse knowing that not only had she done nothing to stop it, but she had also contributed to it. She was glad that he hadn't held a grudge.

It didn't take a genius to work out which inevitable member of Glee was gay. She would have known even without the other members shooting him sympathetic glances every couple of minutes. The sailor hat gave him away.

Kurt then spoke about how his business had taken off and explained how he was still good friends with many of the people he had been in the Glee club with. The kids in the room seemed quite happy about that as though it gave them hope for their own future. If Santana remembered correctly, none of the members of the Glee club when she had been a member had an abundance of friends before they had joined.

"Does anybody have any questions?" asked Will, as Kurt finished his story and took his seat next to Santana.

"I do," said a girl at the back. Santana had noticed she was holding the hand of another girl who had been crying almost the entire time they had been in the room. She suspected that it was the one who had been tied to the goal posts outside. "Why is Coach Lopez here? Is she spying for Sue Sylvester?"

"No," said Will sternly. Santana grimaced but couldn't really blame them for their suspicion. She was the enemy. "She was in Glee club just like everyone else in this room."

"And now you coach the Cheerios?" asked one of the other kids sceptically.

"It's not like she needs a good job," replied first girl. "Look at the size of that rock on her finger."

Santana looked down at her hand fondly. She loved her engagement ring. It had a giant diamond in the middle and two rubies on either side. Brittany's was similar, except the diamond was a different shape and it was white gold with sapphires rather than rubies. The two women had bizarrely decided to propose to each other within a few weeks of each other and when Santana had taken Brittany to the park to ask her to marry her, Brittany had laughed and presented Santana with the ring in her pocket. That had been a good night.

"I'm only here until Sue comes back," said Santana, speaking for the first time. "This isn't my actual job."

"What is your job?" asked the Indian girl at the front. She sounded curious rather than hostile.

"She's my agent," said Mercedes with a small smile.

Suddenly, they were all a lot more interested in her. Santana resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "I'm a talent agent based in LA." The kids seemed to be rather more receptive to her after that statement.

They talked for a few minutes about Santana's clients and how she had got the job. Naturally, Finn Hudson became a hot topic conversation down to one of the girls asking what type of cereal he liked to eat for his breakfast. She had not known the answer to that question.

"Anymore questions?" asked Will, when they had exhausted discussion about all aspects of Santana's career.

"You were all in Glee club?" asked one of the boys. "This one here?"

"Yeah," Tina replied.

"A long time ago," added Mercedes.

"How did you deal with all the bullying?" he said in a quiet voice. Everyone turned to look at him, but his eyes stayed firmly on the floor.

"Yeah," said one of the girls, picking up where the boy had left off. "I get slushied like…every single day. I have to keep a spare set of clothes in my locker."

"So did I," said Kurt with a bitter smile.

"I started bringing an umbrella to school to use as a shield," said Tina.

"I had to start bringing drops with me because it helped to get out the corn syrup out of my eyes," said Mercedes bitterly.

Santana noticed that everyone was looking at her for an answer. "I was the captain of the Cheerios," she said in an awkward voice. "Being slushied wasn't really a problem for me."

"That's not entirely true," said Kurt with a raised eyebrow.

"What?"

"Oh yeah," said Tina, shooting Santana a slightly disturbed look.

"What are you-?" then she stopped. It all came screaming back to her. "Oh."

"What happened?" asked one of the boys. Kurt grinned and began to tell the story.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Brittany and Santana walked down the hallways of McKinley High School, chattering happily with their pinkies linked. Santana felt amazing. She had literally never been happier. She had Brittany at her side once more, her grades were good, Glee club was going well and she was once again the captain of the Cheerios. In her delighted haze, she didn't even notice the two football players ambling towards her.

Not until the slushie hit her full in the face.

Every single person in the hallway gasped in horror. Nobody slushied Santana Lopez. She froze in astonishment, not entirely sure what had just happened. She'd seen it done to other people enough times to have a vague idea though. The sound of Karofsky and Azimio's mocking laughter forced its way through to Santana's consciousness and she lifted her hands to wipe the slushie from her eyes.

Santana was suddenly aware that Brittany was in front of her with a look of devastation on her face. "San? Santana? Are you okay?"

"Dykes."

Santana pushed Brittany out of the way, rage filling every atom of her being.

"What the fuck?" she demanded.

Karofsky took a suggestive step forward, "You know," he said, "If you and Brittany are looking for a man–"

The next thing that could be heard was Karofsky howling in pain. He doubled over but Santana grabbed his collar and punched him hard across the face. There was a sickening crunch and Santana was fairly confident that it was the sound of Karovsky's nose breaking. She wrapped her foot around his ankles and pushed him roughly backwards and the football played fell crashing to the ground. In the back of her mind Santana was dimly aware of the ever increasing number of people surrounding them.

Santana kicked Karofsky in the ribs and tried to ignore the way the corn syrup was stinging her eyes, making her vision blurry.

"Don't kill him, San," said Brittany blandly.

With one final kick, Santana stopped and then bent down to straddle the agonised boy's stomach. Droplets of blue slushie fell from her hair and onto Karofsky's face.

"You're lucky that Brittany is such a forgiving soul," said Santana, stroking a finger lightly across Karofsky's cheek.

"You crazy bitch," the boy wheezed, struggling weakly.

Santana smiled and began to unzip his jersey and then pushed it over his shoulders. She pulled it out from underneath it and held it behind her where she knew Brittany would take it. She was already getting cold and wanted something to stave off the chill before she went to the locker room to shower. Once Brittany had taken the garment, Santana held her hand out to the side where she had seen Asian and Other Asian holding slushies.

"Tina," she prompted and quickly found herself wielding the weapon that had been used against her.

Rather than throw it on his face all in one go, Santana took her time letting the grape slushie slide onto his face on his t-shirt. Some of the crowd cheered and she could hear Kurt's distinctive laughter somewhere. She was glad at least somebody was enjoying this.

Karofsky was muttering obscenities under his breath when she finally stood up. Instead of walking away, Santana wanted to make sure she'd made her point. She snatched the slushie cup from Mike Chang and walked back to Karofsky, who was making a poor show of trying to sit up. Her foot quickly found his crotch and she pressed down hard. He cried out in agony and his swearing became higher pitched.

"Listen here, bitch," she said with an icy calm, "If you come within ten feet of me or Brittany… or the gay kid…in fact, any member of the Glee club, ever again, I'm going to hunt you down, I'm going to rip off your balls and then I'm going to display them on the wall next to our Cheerios Nationals trophy." Karofsky whimpered. "Do I make myself clear?" She pressed her foot down harder and he yelped and nodded frantically.

Santana smiled sweetly at him and took a step back. "I'm glad we understand each other."

She turned her head and held her hand out to Brittany, who took it with a weak smile. The two began to stroll forward, but not before Santana threw her second slushie at a horrified looking Azimio on the way past. The crowd parted like the Red Sea to let the two Cheerios through.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

"Oh, it was not that bad!" Santana protested. The Glee kids were all looking at her with a mixture of horror and amusement.

"It totally was," said Tina. "Karofsky was in hospital for two days. The doctors weren't sure if he was ever going to be able to have children."

"Yeah, well…" Santana trailed off clumsily. Kurt laughed at her and she scowled. It really wasn't funny.

"That's why the football team stopped bullying you all?" asked Will, aghast.

"Of course it was," Kurt said simply. "After one homophobic slur, Santana hulked out and put the fear of God into them. If only she had done it sooner; I might not have been thrown into the dumpster so many times. I ruined so many expensive clothes that way…"

"If it had happened sooner then I wouldn't have cared enough to put you on my list," Santana pointed out. Kurt pulled a face and seemed to concede this point.

There was a pause and then one of the Glee boys shook his head. "So, basically, what you're saying is that if we want the other kids to stop bullying us, we need to beat one of them to a bloody pulp?" he asked dubiously.

"No!" said Will quickly. Santana looked down guiltily. "Violence isn't the answer, guys."

"It sounds like it is," someone said.

"It isn't," said Santana firmly. "The only reason I didn't get my ass kicked on that day was because I took him by surprise." Then she added, "And also my freakish upper body strength."

"And you have a black belt in kickboxing," said Mercedes.

"There is that," Santana agreed. She'd taken up kickboxing some time during her teenage years as a way of working out some of her misplaced aggression. It hadn't worked out quite as planned.

"I can't believe you guys didn't tell me all this," said Will, looking genuinely disappointed with them. "How did you even get away with it?"

"Do you really think that three hundred pound bulk of a football player was going to admit that he was beaten in a fight by a below average height cheerleader?" asked Kurt. "I think he told the doctor that he was mugged."

Santana had heard about none of this. She hadn't even known he'd gone to hospital; although she could have guessed on account of his broken nose. But no, for the rest of the day Santana had hid in the Cheerios locker room while she fought back tears and battled past the utter despair and humiliation of having to wash sticky blue slushie from her face and clothes. Nobody but Brittany knew that, of course, and to keep up appearances Santana had spent the rest of the month wearing Karofsky's football jersey as a badge of honour. It made her sick to think about it.

Thankfully, the Glee club seemed to have finally run out of questions so Will took charge and went on to lead the practice as usual. The kids sang Don't Stop Believing.

Later that night, Santana picked up her phone and pressed the first number on her speed dial.

"Hey, San!"

"Hi, Brittany."

"How's it going?"

"Oh you know…can't complain," said Santana, idly playing with one of the tassels of the cushion she was leaning on. She'd never have tasselled cushions in her own home. They were so very old fashioned.

"Cal in bed?" asked Brittany.

"Yeah. She went about a couple of hours ago. I let her stay up late because Quinn and Kurt came for dinner," replied Santana.

"Cool," said Brittany, "How's Kurt doing?"

"He's okay. Did you know he's dating Jessie St. James now?" said Santana, unable to keep that last part from escaping her mouth. This was not what she'd called Brittany to talk about.

"Who?" asked Brittany blankly.

"The guy who went out with Berry in high school from that other Glee club who beat us at Regionals," said Santana.

"Er…"

"He threw eggs at Rachel in the parking lot."

"Um…"

Santana rolled her eyes. "You thought he was Mr. Schue's son."

"Oh!" Brittany exclaimed, "Why didn't you say that sooner! He's hot."

"…Right."

"He didn't tell me when I spoke to him last," said Brittany thoughtfully.

"Uh huh. And when was that?" asked Santana, knowing full well what the answer was.

"It was when he phoned to ask me for your…" Brittany trailed off. "Oh."

"Oh, indeed," said Santana.

"Sorry…"

"I don't think you are," said Santana, trying and failing to keep her voice stern.

Brittany chuckled. "I'm not sorry. I bet you looked hot in whatever Kurt made for you."

"I totally rocked it," Santana confirmed.

"You should send me pictures," said Brittany suggestively.

"Yeah, okay," said Santana in an offhand voice. "I'll tell Kurt to send you a couple of post-production shots."

"San," Brittany whined. "That wasn't what I meant."

"I know what you meant," said Santana with a quiet laugh. "You're about a subtle as a flying mallet."

There was a pause. "I've never seen a flying mallet before. Does that happen a lot?"

"Not a lot, no," said Santana wearily.

"Hey, Santana?" asked Brittany.

"Yeah?"

"Are you okay?"

Santana slid down the sofa a little more and pulled one of the cushions to her chest.

"Do you remember when we got together?" Santana asked.

"Which time?"

"The proper time," Santana clarified. "After I…er…freaked out because you sang 'Ever Fallen In Love With Someone You Shouldn't Have' at me in Glee. When we decided to be a proper couple."

"Of course I remember," said Brittany, though her confusion was evident. "It was like…one of the best days of my life." Santana smiled.

"Do you remember a couple of days later when Karofsky threw that slushie at me?" Santana continued.

"Yeah…" said Brittany, her voice was quieter this time. "You sat in the shower with all your clothes on for about two hours."

"…Yeah. Did you know that I put Karofsky in the hospital?"

Brittany seemed to hesitate for a moment. "No. You did beat him pretty bad though." Santana sighed. "Why do you ask, San?"

"I went to Glee club today and they were talking about how they're bullied all the time and I can't help but think about how I never was," Santana said, not quite sure herself what point she was trying to make. "I just think…I don't know. Maybe it was my turn or something. I probably shouldn't have broken some guy's nose just because he threw a drink at me."

"Stop it, Santana" said Brittany. "He deserved it. Don't you remember all that stuff he did to Kurt?"

"Yeah but–"

"But nothing," Brittany interrupted. "If you hadn't done what you did, he would have kept harassing the entire Glee club. Someone needed to put a stop to it 'cause the teachers weren't going to."

Santana closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "I guess so."

"Are you sure this is really what you're upset about?" said Brittany after a moment.

"What do you mean?" asked Santana.

"Are you sure this isn't about you feeling guilty over bullying other kids?" said Brittany softly.

Santana opened her mouth to protest but stopped in her tracks and sighed.

"What?"

"I think you might be right," Santana admitted. "I just…was so horrible to people. I made them feel awful. Even now I still call Rachel 'Man-Hands' when I forget to stop myself."

"San…"

"I was just so terrible to everybody," Santana whispered.

"Not everybody," said Brittany.

"What?"

"Do you know how bad school would have been for me without you, San?" said Brittany earnestly. "Before I knew you, all the kids would make fun of me and steal my crayons. They'd laugh at me in the playground and push me over because they thought it was funny. Then you came along, all bossy and demanding, and you saved me from them." Santana felt tears rise but she pushed them down. "You were like my knight in shining armour."

"But–"

"No buts! You were my protector and I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't been there for me," said Brittany firmly.

"You'd have been okay," Santana protested weakly. No she wouldn't.

"Let it go, San," said Brittany kindly. "You're a good person."

Santana laughed. "Okay, Brittany. I'll try. And when did you become so smart, hmm?"

"I've always been smart," said Brittany confidently. "Where do you think Callie gets it from?"

"Not me," said Santana.

"Definitely not you," Brittany confirmed. "Now, it's getting late. Don't you stay up all night worrying about things that you did over a decade ago."

"Yeah…I should probably go to bed. School tomorrow morning," said Santana reluctantly. "Bad times."

"Totally," Brittany agreed.

"I'll talk to you tomorrow?" asked Santana.

"Of course," said Brittany. "Nighty night."

"Night, Britt."

Author's Note(s): Brittany. Soon. Promise. Thanks for reading :-)