So, here it is. Like I said, this chapter kicked my butt. I wasn't aware at how difficult is was going to be until I got into it. Since I knew it was going to take me a fairly long time - Two Weeks, wow I'm sorry - I believe I have answered the majority of reviewers through PM. If I haven't then thank you so much for reviewing and all those that decided to follow and favorite are awesome. :)
Also on a slightly related note, I have had a few readers PM me saying they would rather not review due to maybe being called out in my notes. I hadn't realized this may have been a problem for some and I am debating not doing it anymore. I know a few other writers who do the same and have spoken to them about it, but ultimately I want to do what is best for my readers. Please let me know how/what you feel on this subject so I can make my decision by the next post hopefully.
She nearly ran head first into Quinn on her way out of the girls locker room, but caught herself just in time. Well actually Quinn's hands on her shoulders had caught her.
"Outta my way please." she demanded when the blonde remained in her way.
"What's up with you today?"
"Nothing," Quinn continued to look skeptically at her. She knew she wasn't going to drop it by the way the right side of her lips tensed like they had every time Quinn got it in her mind to solve some grand mystery. Even if that mystery happened to be as dull as where her perfume was disappearing to when they were in freshman year. Needless to say Santana was sneaky enough to have never been caught. Quinn had been unbelievably gullible back then and had agreed with her assessment that her perfume was probably just evaporating away. It was liquid wasn't it? But lately Quinn had the habit of hiding her perfume whenever Santana came around, which only led her to believe Quinn had either tested her theory and realized that in a closed container evaporation wasn't going to be a problem or she had caught her in the act of spritzing the expensive fragrance into a container at one of their sleep overs.
"Really S, whats up?" she asked. Calm and polite, yeah that's not going to work.
"Practice is starting," Santana snapped pushing past Quinn.
"What the hell has your spankies in a knot?" Quinn's voice hardened. Uh oh, now stubborn Quinn was coming out to play. "I saw the new girl leaving the locker room just before you. Did she do or say something?"
Besides breaking out into a way too adorable dance, nope. Like seriously, the new girl was a complete mystery. One minute she was stumbling over her words and the next she was being defiant and indifferent, only to break out into fits of laughter and body spasms that were way to coordinated to be untrained when in private. What was she playing at?
"I don't know what you're talking about." Santana continued down the empty hall and walked through the exit leading to the football field. "I didn't notice anyone in there."
"Seriously? It's not like there are many places to hide in there." Santana chose to ignore Quinn's comment, mainly because she had been the one occupying the only hiding place in the change room. And cramming into the very dirty, cramped space in between the row of lockers and wall leading to the showers was not something she was eager to divulge. "Well something is up with you. You've been acting really weird today. I'm usually immune to your mood swings but you've been all over the map."
"Can we fucking drop it?" Santana finally responded, raising her voice as they came to the field. The rest of the Cheerios were already gathered and were talking in groups. Some loudly and others, namely Jes' huddle, in hushed tones. "I'm perfectly fine, nothing's wrong with me. Maybe you are just exceptionally emotional. We all know how sappy and touchy you get when you're on your you-know-what."
"Fuck you, Satan. I'm not on my period and I'm not imagining things. You are definitely more of a bitch right now than you normally would be."
"She's probably just mad at the new girl," Marcy spoke up.
"Who asked for your two cents Skunkhead?" Santana was really starting to get worked up. Why was everyone so worried about her attitude. It wasn't as if she never bitched or snarled at anyone before. She was a hardcore bitch, wasn't a little harshness to be expected?
"No, I agree with Q and Marcy," Jes spoke up. "After what you did for that slut this morning it was a total dick move to do that to you in gym. You are completely justified at being pissed." By the nods of every girl on the squad the little mishap in the gym had spread already. Great.
"I'm not pissed. At least not because of some stupid high school record being taken away." Santana paused, trying to get her emotions in check, the outer edges of her vision began to blur. Her eyes closed briefly before opening but her vision remained compromised. God, why couldn't they just drop it. You'd think they would have learned. "If I'm pissed, it's because some people don't know when to back the fuck off."
"Exactly," Jes responded. "Which is why I'm making it my personal goal to crush that whore. Teach her who really runs McKinley; she can't just waltz in and think she can take over."
"I was talking about you bitches getting involved in shit that has nothing to do with you." She looked to Jes and her group of followers. They all averted their gaze, all except Jes. "I personally don't have any problems with the new girl."
"Are you serious? She's a complete bitch."
"Yeah, I'm only in like one class with her but she's totally stuck up." Carmen, one of the other seniors, spoke up agreeing with Jes. It would figure that Jes had most of the seniors wrapped around her finger. As of yet the seniors hadn't started anything this year, but Santana was just waiting for the bomb to drop. It'd happened each year since she had taken over as captain. Brittany had been right to assume she was a senior the day before. Captains were typically in their last year and although Santana enjoyed what the position brought her and was proud of her success at the top, it was slightly exhausting having to keep an eye on the older girls. Santana knew it was just their way of testing her, like all the trophies littering each of their bedrooms wasn't enough for them. They wanted more. Greedy bastards.
Santana let out a sarcastic laugh. "Bitch please, take a look around you." She motioned to the other girls surrounding them. "We are the top bitches at this school, and I'd like you to name me one girl on this squad who hasn't been called stuck up, or worse."
Most of the other girls joined in with Santana's laughter. Inside she was still fuming, and all she wanted to do was slap the scowl off of Jes' face. But she knew violence would only cause a larger rift between her and the other seniors. The summer had somehow turned Jes into the leader of the older girls and no matter how successful they'd become thanks to Santana she knew she couldn't afford to lose the support of all the seniors. Funny how a few months could change alliances. Back when the girls in front of her were juniors they had been more than happy to back her up against Christine and her lackeys. Now that those others had graduated Jes must have gotten power hungry.
Had she not given them all they needed? Success, trophies, championships, popularity, status, not to mention the news and magazine covers that came with it, she'd given them everything they had. The team had been run into the ground before she had whipped it into shape. The girls before her could remember the feeling of being nobodies, the feeling of defeat at each of their cheer meets. Jes had been on the losing squad for a full year before Santana had become a freshman. One loss was enough to cause Santana to cringe, how had any of them put up with it for any longer was a mystery to her. She'd taken over and they became renowned as the worst underdog team to ever win a state championship. No one had thought she could take the team to Nationals and even less had believed it was possible to win. But she had done it, of course she had Quinn by her side the whole time and back then the whole team, even the girls three years her senior had followed her willingly. They were drunk on that winning feeling.
The next year the new seniors had spoken up telling Santana that although she had 'done a bang up job' it was time to give the reins back to the more deserving.
It was the first, and last, time Santana had ever backed down.
Two days before their first competition they all knew they would lose. Christine, the self proclaimed deserved, had no clue what the judges were looking for and Santana had had it on good authority that she'd never even picked up the cheerleaders rulebook, let alone read or memorized it as Santana had.
Two days before their first competition Santana was given her position back, Christine practically begging her to take it. Turns out the girl had some brain cells left under the copious layers of weaves in her hair. Christine had decided she would rather be known as a senior on a team who had won two national championships, even under the guidance of a sophomore, than to be known as the girl who single handedly ruined a champion team.
Two days she had to reorganized, delegating to Quinn and Jes what needed to be done. Two days of non-stop exhaustion, but no one had the nerve to even question their all day practices. After booting her out as captain, no one was stupid enough to now question her authority.
And they had won. She'd taken them to nationals again that year, and returned with another huge ass trophy for Coach Sylvester's case, and a cheque that helped maintain not only the school grounds but other clubs at McKinley as well.
"Point is, bitch needs to learn her place." It was Jes again, and the laughter died with her venomous tone. "She isn't one of us."
"Well maybe we should make her one of us." Quinn spoke up behind her. They'd briefly spoken about it in the gym earlier, before the suicide incident. "She definitely has moves if what she did in the gym indicates anything and she is certainly athletic."
It wasn't like Santana would have been opposed to the idea completely. She knew at this point as well as Quinn did that that particular subject was not able to be brought up by Santana anymore. Cheer politics were insane. With Jes pointing the blame at Brittany and effectively turning the other seniors against her, there was no way Santana could stick up for her while maintaining her status within the team. Quinn however could make the suggestion, plant the seed and revisit the topic at a later date, one where anger wasn't the predominant emotion. Plus new talent was always welcome and needed.
"She's not on the team yet," Jes corrected, turning her glare to Quinn, "and to let her get away with dissing any of us is cause enough for us to act. She can't get away with it."
"What are you referring to?" Santana asked, smirking at Jes and ignoring Quinn's statement. She knew how to play this game, better than anyone. Who did Jes think she'd learned it from? "Are you talking about her breaking my record, or are you just upset that your boyfriend's itty-bitty penis size is now public knowledge?"
Jes immediately turned red and a few of the younger girls snickered, not having heard that piece of gossip yet.
"That's public knowledge because of you." Jes stated trying to ignore the laughter around her.
"Exactly, so if you have a problem with that then you can take it up with me." Santana knew it was a low move but she wasn't about to let this argument escalate or continue much longer. "Besides if he wasn't ogling another girl's tits at the time I may have refrained. You're my friend Jes and I just lost it, okay? I didn't like the fact that he was blatantly eye cheating on you." Not particularly even close to the truth, but by the sympathetic stares of the other seniors she knew she had averted a potential divide in the team. What better way to bring them back on her side of the line than to cause them to question Jes' authority.
"You know that we aren't exclusive." There was no bite in Jes' words this time, knowing that the mood had changed within the squad.
"Yeah, well if you don't keep him on a tighter leash this year, than he will become exclusive, just not with you." Santana reached out and grabbed the other girls hand, forcing her thumb to rub reassuring circles over her knuckles instead of digging into the sensitive spots between the tendons like it wanted to. "You're leaving after this year and he's eventually going to realize that and set his sights on another girl who won't mind his failing bedroom skills so much. He's the type of guy that needs validation and he will start looking this year Jes. I was just trying to help you out." Santana could see how uncomfortable the discussion was making Jes. Having everyone know about her bad sex life was not something Jes seemed to enjoy.
"Okay whatever, I was being a bitch. I get it."
Santana dropped Jes' hand and called the guys over from where they were grouped, far away from the drama the girls in the squad were partaking in. At least they were smart enough to know their places and never seemed to question her. Although they just appeared to be along for the ride, being on the cheer squad they were winners, unlike the football team.
The rest of the practice, although going slightly late due to the interruption at the beginning, went quite smoothly. No more interruptions occurred and there were only a few slip ups from a couple of the younger Cheerios. Santana knew she would have to get them some one on one time soon. Competitions were starting in a few weeks and she needed some of their mistakes to be less noticeable.
As all the others were getting into their cars to leave Quinn gave her a look, telling her to stay behind.
"So are you going to tell me what's really got you in such a mood?"
Yeah, definitely not going to drop it.
"Look Q, I'm exhausted and I would just like to go home and veg on the couch."
"You can do that, after you tell me what's wrong. Maybe I can help." And queue the soft, caring smile. Jeeze how anyone could say no to that look was beyond her. Well actually no one ever had been able to go against Quinn with that look. She was a spoiled brat for a reason.
"If you want to help, maybe stop the losers at this school from acting up. I don't think I can take much more of it."
"I thought you said what the new girl did didn't bother you."
"Brittany? God, no. I meant that nobody in the gym."
"I'm so sorry about that." Quinn said apologetically. "It was completely my fa-" She paused. "Wait, did you just say Brittany?"
"Uh, yeah." Santana mentally scolded herself. "That is her name, isn't it? Maybe it's Brandi, or Brenda, or Backster. Starts with a 'b' that's all I know." There, disaster perfectly avoided.
"Backster, really S?" Quinn eyed her as if she could see right through her. And to her credit ninety percent of the time she could. "You know her name is Brittany. This just proves something is up between you and her. I knew it."
"You know nothing." Santana huffed. "Making a big deal out of it. I have a few classes with the chick and she seems okay. Athletic obviously and girls got an alright look. I was thinking about recruiting her maybe if she had any game, but obviously that's on hold now. After what that kid did in the gym and how Jes overreacted to it, blaming Brittany, there's no way that's gonna pan out any time soon."
Quinn flinched. "Right, again I'm really sorry. I didn't notice anyone had been paying attention. I didn't think."
"I know you didn't mean it." Santana reassured her. "You didn't help the situation, but it wasn't your fault. The dude knew what he was doing. Have I not made it clear by now where everyone in this school stands?"
"New year, new rules. You know that better than anyone S. Summer vacation makes people brave, makes them want to break out of their current roles."
They looked up when they noticed movement coming out of the side door of the school. It was Puck. Following him was the kid from the gym. His hair was covering his face as he looked to the sidewalk. Puck looked up and met Santana's eyes. He sent her a reassuring smile before addressing the boy behind him. They both picked up their pace and disappeared into Puck's green jeep. Squealing tires and the smell of burnt rubber announced their departure.
"Yeah, I know."
The next day Santana made sure she was on top of her game. She couldn't afford to be unaware of anything after what had happened yesterday. Having one student speak up to her was one thing, easy enough to fix, but if more started to think they could get away with anything there might be a slight uprising on her hands.
It wasn't as if she was responsible for most of the stuff thrown at the other students. Most of the shit came from the football players. She didn't particularly like getting her hands dirty. She was more of a barker, not a biter. But the squad liked their status, and if that was even slightly questioned they would blame their captain. Besides she only really had to put up with the politics for one more year. Next year she would be a senior and no one in her year would question that she belonged as captain.
On her way to Math she caught sight of Puck and his friends. They were laughing and making far too much noise than was warranted. She'd barely gotten any sleep the night before and her head was pounding because of it. Please, please no one start shit today. It's for your own good. On her way passed she noticed a head of shaggy brown hair being shoved back and forth between a few of the members. She sighed, knowing it was her doing that caused it. But in the long run it was for his benefit. He chose to speak up, this is what he had to go through because of it.
She reached her locker and pulled out her text then shoved all but her binder into the space before checking her reflection in the mirror. Perfectly put together as usual. She flicked her aviators down to cover her eyes, the fluorescent lights were making her headache worse, and turned to head to class.
As she closed her locker she took one more look at the unfortunate boy in the midst of the jocks. Her eyes were drawn to a girl passing by the group. Brittany was wearing jeans and a light purple top that hung off one shoulder. Her hair was up today in a messy pony tail, just like it was the first day they met. Brittany eyed Puck briefly before looking to the brown haired boy, she then quickly averted her eyes. Santana wasn't sure if Brittany approved of the jocks disciplinary actions or not but wasn't surprised that she didn't speak up.
The girl obviously had a thing for Puck. Not that that wasn't a surprise or anything. Puck had gotten with most of the girls at McKinley by this stage, adding the new girl to his list wasn't a far stretch of the imagination. And the way Puck's eyes traveled the length of Brittany when her back was turned from him, Santana knew that was exactly what was on his mind.
It probably wouldn't take much charming from him, this was the second time she had caught the blonde looking at him. The first time was yesterday at lunch. Santana had been heading to grab her money for the cafeteria when she noticed Brittany was at her locker. Santana had waited, leaning up against the wall a little ways down the hall, not wanting to get the other girls attention. Santana realized the reactions she had around the other girl weren't helping her at the moment. Sticking up for her in Spanish may have set her back slightly with the seniors. Santana had looked on unamused as Rachel had run past covered in sticky slushy, and had seen Brittany's uncaring attitude towards the girl's embarrassment. But when Brittany had laid eyes on Puck the girl couldn't stop staring. Like it was slightly pathetic, and completely obvious. Puck may have to clean up his act a little to get her but playing the part was no problem for the Puckasaurus. Ugh, even thinking that name gave Santana the chills.
Santana was just thankful that the girl got her shit under control. She barely got a glance in at Puck and she had continued on as if she wasn't the least bit interested. Nothing was more sickening than seeing a girl pining over a guy, especially if that guy was Puck. But Puck had seen Brittany's reaction just as Santana had the day before. Playing nonchalant or hard to get wasn't going to stop him now.
As Brittany approached her locker she looked up to meet Santana's eyes. Those fucking eyes. They were so bright and inimitable. Santana had always been slightly partial to blue eyes but Brittany's put all others to shame. Santana suddenly regretted wearing her aviators, they masked Brittany's true eye color.
Brittany's bored look that she seemed to always be wearing was replaced by a slight frown when she noticed Santana. Santana opened her mouth to say something, anything really, but snapped her mouth shut once more when Brittany quickly opened her locker and hid herself behind the door. Well that was rude.
But if the girl wanted to ignore her than that was just fine with her. Avoiding the blonde was probably for the best anyway considering the vicarious position she was in with the other girls on the squad.
She'd risked too much already over the new girl.
She turned away from Brittany's direction and headed down the hall to Math. She barely noticed when three other Cheerios fell in behind her, grand entrances were kind of their thing. They all headed straight for their seats. Santana didn't even bother to look around the class at the other students. None of them were of much importance to her anyway. Besides, she already knew most eyes followed her. And why wouldn't they? She was at the top and they were at the bottom. They all either wanted to be her or wanted to get with her.
Status was everything at McKinley.
She sat down and tuned out the buzz of conversation around her. She didn't even try to partake in whatever immature gossip the rest of her squad were discussing. She had caught a few words in the beginning but upon realizing their up-to-date gossip was something she had been privy to for weeks she knew her thoughts would be of more use elsewhere.
A few minutes before the bell rang Santana's attention shifted from the window to the blonde head of hair entering the room. She was now thankful she hadn't taken her sunglasses off, it allowed her to watch Brittany while pretending to be engrossed in her squads conversation.
She watched as Brittany took her seat directly behind JBI. She watched as JBI's eyes followed her and how he turned in his seat to face her as she passed him. The distance and drone of multiple conversations made it impossible to hear them, but JBI had obviously brought out his 'A' game speech if the length was anything to go by. She knew he was asking the blonde out because that was the only reason he ever spoke to girls, unless he had a tape recorder in hand, chasing a big scoop. He spoke for several long moments, Brittany staring blankly at him the whole time.
JBI began to fidget more than was normal for him as Brittany failed to react to anything he was saying, but he still carried on with his obviously prepared, and probably rehearsed several dozen times, speech. Santana, herself would have shut the kid up before the second word had reached his lips, knowing nothing of interest ever came out of them. But Brittany allowed him to rant until he closed his mouth and just stared at her expectantly. Santana saw something on his face that she'd never seen before, hope. Not one girl had actually let him finish talking before, and that in itself caused even Santana to wonder at Brittany's answer.
Would she say yes? As difficult as it was to imagine any girl accepting JBI's advances, Santana didn't know Brittany very well. She felt a pang in her gut at the thought of the girl, obviously way out of his league accepting him. She could do way better than to stoop to JBI's level.
Brittany blinked a few times, still wearing her blank expression. Then, after a long, very long, awkward time Brittany slowly shook her head back and forth. No.
JBI's bright eyes, dulled and he quickly turned around to face the front. His head hung low over his desk and Santana actually felt sorry for the guy. Never had she thought that would happen. Feeling sorry for someone like JBI, who never cared about others feelings, was not a response Santana had been expecting. But then again, she had never seen him look so affected at a rejection before.
Why had Brittany allowed him to get his hopes up? Did she mean to do it or was that just a mistake?
Santana focused her eyes back on the blonde. She was staring bored, at the whiteboard at the front of the room, flicking a pencil rapidly between her fingers. She was not at all affected in the least at the crushed boy in front of her.
Maybe her squad had been right after all. Maybe Santana had been blinded by blue eyes. The girl certainly was acting all of the bitch her squad had painted her as.
Mr. Bates finally entered the room only slightly late and started their lesson. Assignments from the day before were handed to the front and he collected them quickly before throwing the pile of papers on his desk unceremoniously. He started in on the next section in their text and wrote a couple of equations on the board for them to work through.
Santana, although pretty good at math, had a little trouble figuring out how to group and factor the first equation. She couldn't learn in class very easily. She usually ended up going home and reading the text over after school. Mr. Bates wasn't the best at explaining, he was more of a 'here's an equation and here's the answer' kind of teacher.
Finally, when she thought she had gotten as close to the answer as she was going to she started on the next one. She was having even less luck with that one. She gave up five minutes into staring at the letters and numbers and figured she could always jot down the answer and when she relearned the section at home that night she could retry the equation. She tried the next three equations and came no closer to an answer. She knew she should have just looked ahead in the book and learned the section before coming to class today. She had thought about it after finishing her assigned homework, but had been too exhausted with the day in general to force her brain to focus once more. She'd gone to bed early in hopes of sleeping off her frustration, but was only able to toss and turn for hours. She'd woken up after only a few hours sleep with a headache, knowing the day was only going to get worse.
Giving up completely, Santana no longer had a reason to keep her eyes from wandering the room. Immediately they found Brittany, who seemed to have not moved an inch. She was still twirling the pink mechanical pencil between her fingers and staring at the equations on the board.
Most students were still working on the equations and others were doodling in their scribblers. She glanced to the girls surrounding her and noticed they hadn't gotten much further than herself. When she turned to look over her shoulder at Gabby the girl looked up from her work. Gabby had light auburn hair that was shorter than most of the rest of the squads. Most girls grew their hair out so that it all could be tucked into the mandatory high ponytail. Gabby, however, decided that she didn't mind the few clips and pins needed to keep the shorter layers of hair back from her face when in her Cheerios uniform. Out of school the girl always wore her hair down, framing her face and Santana had to admit that the look suited the girl.
Gabby tried to catch Santana's eye, but Santana still wore her Aviators, so she gestured to her work assuming that was what Santana wanted. Santana looked down and noticed that at least Gabby was getting somewhere with the equations but shook her head in the negative. She'd figure it out later when her head wasn't pounding so hard. She did however give Gabby a tight lipped smile in thanks, which she returned with a wink. Right, and the girl was a major flirt.
Santana looked once more to her own paper but decided against a second try. Opting to nurse her head as much as possible in hopes the affliction would pass.
She caught herself again staring at the enigma that was the new girl. She, for the most part, stared at something at the front of the class, but occasionally looked to the pages before her on the desk, scrutinizing. Santana wondered if she had even attempted them or if Brittany had given up as Santana herself had.
Mr. Bates looked up from the papers he was sorting through, seeing who failed to turn in the assignment, and glared around the room. He glanced at her and Santana was sure that he wanted to tell her to remove her glasses. If it was anyone besides her, she was sure he would have. But as it was his annoyance just seemed to grow at Santana's blatant disrespect that he wasn't in the mood to fight. His eyes shifted away from her and Santana congratulated herself on having sway even over the teachers in the school.
His eyes quickly scanned the students and the numbers of them that weren't working on the equations didn't seem to bother him. What did bother him was the fact that Brittany was one of them. Santana knew this because when his eyes landed on her his chest puffed out, his eyes narrowed and most importantly, he spoke up.
"Ms. Pierce," Brittany's head was resting on her upturned palm but her spine stiffened. Her eyes focused on Mr. Bates' form still sitting behind his desk.
"Yeah?" She asked quietly.
"Are you having trouble with the assigned equations?" He questioned with a smirk. That asshole. Santana just realized why the equations had seemed so difficult to her. Maybe it wasn't that she had a headache and couldn't focus because of it. The man had purposefully chosen a set of hard equations to stump them. Well to stump one in particular.
Santana felt her skin flush with anger. A part of her was upset because she hadn't felt particularly good that morning and having a teacher start it off with a joke that caused her discomfort to increase was bad enough in her books. But she was also aware that her anger was in part because he had done it because he was trying to make a fool out of Brittany. He was trying to make her look stupid. What kind of teacher was that? Well to be fair, Brittany had made quite the spectacle out of him the day before. Santana knew that her little act had caused Mr. Bates problems. It didn't take long for the practical jokes to start. Sometimes McKinley's students could be quite immature.
She had heard that Mr. Bates had returned from lunch with a box on his desk. Inside had been a blonde wig and a 'Math for Dummies' book at the bottom and a note reading 'wear wig for increased intelligence.' Implying that Mr. Bates was less intelligent than a blonde was a little juvenile, especially since blonde jokes were so overdone.
But that was no excuse to force the attention back on Brittany. She'd only done what he had asked her to do. Yes, she did it with a little too much delight, and even Santana had chuckled at the look on his face when she skipped back to her seat, paying even less attention to him than she had been earlier. But just because Brittany seemed to enjoy making him look the fool was no excuse to do the same to her. He was the adult after all, weren't they supposed to take the higher road?
Santana looked from the balding man's almighty smiling face to Brittany's familiar blank one. She was half expecting Brittany to scowl and speak up against him. If she were to find herself in Brittany's shoes, she would have wiped the smirk off the man's face long ago. But Brittany's expression didn't change. The girl seriously always looked bored as if nothing could surprise her. It was slightly unnerving how she continued throughout the day unaffected by everything. Uncaring, just as she had been the day before in this same class, how she had been towards the shaggy haired boy this morning in the hall and how she had been towards JBI just minutes before. But Santana couldn't find it in her to call Brittany anything close to what Jes and her clones had at practice the day before, even if they might be correct in their assumptions.
She'd seen Brittany smile on Sunday, had seen how her eyes lit up when she had.
She'd seen a shy side of her yesterday after Spanish when Brittany had thanked her for intervening on her behalf.
She'd seen a silly side in her after Gym in the locker room yesterday. She'd heard her laughter.
There was no way the girl was just what everyone seemed to assume. There had to be more.
Santana was seconds away from speaking up, tired of waiting for a reaction from the other girl. Anything would have been preferable to the nothingness that permeated the room.
"No." Santana's eyes were drawn back to Brittany. She speaks.
"Excuse me?" Mr. Bates seemed just as stunned as everyone else in the class.
"I said, no." Brittany nonchalantly explained, although it explained nothing.
"I heard," his jaw tightened and he let a cluck escape the side of his mouth before continuing. "Care to elaborate." He smiled again. "That means to explain further, in more detail, by the way."
So close. Santana was so close to actually calming her anger, distracted by the mysterious nature of the blonde, before those words left his mouth. Her fists clenched and her pencil actually broke in half at the force.
'Do something' Santana thought, looking towards Brittany. 'Do something before I do.'
"About what?" Still she remained calm and her voice continued in its soft tone. Why wasn't she angry? "You want me to go into more detail on why the work is not too difficult?"
The entire class broke out into snickering, a few students actually outright laughing. Santana found herself smiling at the girls response. It was kind of cute.
Mr. Bates mouth sputtered a few times before he literally shook himself out of his stupor. His face turned scarlet as he pushed himself up from his seat.
"No, I want to know why, if the work is not too hard, you aren't working on the equations." His voice rose and Santana noticed it was as close to a teacher yelling as she had ever heard, minus Coach Sylvester of course.
"Are there more equations to work on?" Brittany finally lifted her head from her palm.
Mr. Bates gestured to the five equations on the board. "Can you not see them?"
"Oh," she rested her chin back on her palm and looked the equations over once more. "I thought you meant there were others." When Mr. Bates didn't respond she continued. "I've already solved those ones."
"You've already solved them?" Even Santana could hear the disbelief in his tone.
"Would you like me to write the answers on the board again?"
Santana watched as his eyes darted from Brittany to the board. He was obviously trying to weigh his options. If he agreed and Brittany got the answers wrong, then he would have won whatever game he was playing at. But if she got them right, he would look even more the dunce than he already was.
She smiled, and Santana could have sworn it was a genuine one, although a shyer version than the last she had seen from her.
"I don't mind."
That's all it took for Mr. Bates to realize he wasn't about to chance the results. "No thank you." The harshness in his tone seemed, once again, to not affect the other girl, although her smile did fade back into her natural blank features.
As Mr. Bates turned to write the answers on the board everyone except Santana began to frantically write them down, not having had the time to the day before to do so. She kept her eyes on Brittany and watched as with every new answer written on the board, Brittany put a small check mark beside each of her own written answers.
Great, not only was she a complete mystery, she was also a complete Math whiz.
By the time the bell rang, ending the class, Santana was already packed up and heading for the door. All she wanted was to get to Spanish and be able to close her eyes for an hour and not have to think or pay attention to anything.
Spanish was her easiest subject, for obvious reasons. She had an understanding with Mr. Schuester; he allowed her to pretty much zone out or sleep through the hour required of her to be there and she would stop calling him out on his mistakes in front of the other students. It was a win win situation.
She was the first to enter the class and gave a small head jerk in Mr. Schue's direction as she passed him. She sat in her usual spot and leaned her forehead against window and closed her eyes. The coolness of the window calmed her and lessened the ache in her head.
She must have been more exhausted than she had imagined because she fell asleep pretty quickly, even with the throbbing still going on in her skull. When she woke up it was to a full room of students and Mr. Schuester speaking a few words of Spanish using horrible pronunciation and grammar.
She soon noticed what had caused her to awaken; a tapping noise coming from directly behind her. She tried to ignore it and closed her eyes hoping to fall asleep for the twenty remaining minutes of class but the tapping sound was almost impossible to ignore. It wasn't a steady tapping, that at least she might have been able to sleep through, but was sporadic. The beat quickened and then slowed almost randomly and the more she tried to push it from her mind the more her mind centered in on it. Having had enough, Santana spun around in her seat rapidly.
"Would you mind not doing that, it's fucking annoying as hell." Her voice trailed off at the end as her eyes came to focus on Brittany's blue ones, wide in confusion. It was one of the rare times her blank look was taken over by something else and Santana found herself automatically memorizing it. Santana had forgotten Brittany now sat behind her.
"S-sorry." She kept staring, mouth agape, but must have noticed the pen she was holding was still taping away on her desk because she immediately slammed it down on top of her note book, silencing it. "Sorry," she repeated once more, vacant expression returning.
Santana didn't trust her voice staring into her eyes and instead simply turned back around, facing the front. She glanced around her and noticed Josh and his buddy were in the same seats as yesterday. Although they were turned and watched the interaction with amused looks they didn't speak up about it. Finally, they must have learned a little common sense.
Santana readjusted her sunglasses, them having gone askew sometime during her nap and leaned against the window once more.
She awoke next to someone tapping her forearm. She internally groaned and was debating the best way to break the unknown persons hand but somehow refrained. Maybe if she pretended she was still asleep they would leave her alone until the end of class.
She heard a zipper and movement from beside her before the finger once again tapped on her forearm that was resting on the desktop. Santana remained motionless, thinking they would leave any minute now, but was wrong. Instead of the tapping finger, this time a warm hand took its place. It squeezed the flesh of her arm and shocks shot up her arm to her shoulder and down her spine. She almost gasped at the sensation and only barely was able to tamp her reaction down. That was weird.
The hand glided up her forearm, over the crook in her elbow and Santana's abdomen clenched, twitching, as that was the only reaction she allowed her body to make. Any other movement would have alerted her disruptor of her current state of wakefulness. The hand continued until it reached her shoulder and gently shook her.
"Wake up," a voice whispered, breath tickling the hairs on the side of her neck.
Santana jumped and when her head turned to face the formerly unknown person she was met once more with shining blue eyes. They were inches away from her own. How had she gotten that close without her knowing? Oh yeah, her eyes were closed and she was pretending to sleep. That and the sensation her hand was giving her was quite a distraction.
Again Santana couldn't speak, or she didn't trust herself.
Brittany slowly stood from her crouched position and placed a bottle of water on Santana's desk. Santana pushed her Aviators on top of her head thinking she was seeing things, and who was she kidding, so that she could see Brittany's eyes correctly for the first time all day.
She looked from the bottle of water to Brittany, brow furrowed. Brittany bit the inside of her cheek and her breathtaking eyes flashed briefly. She motioned to the spot beside the water and for the first time Santana realized not only that there was a few pills on her desktop but that the two of them were the only ones in the room. Had she really slept through the bell?
Santana picked up the pills and examined them. Advil. She looked back up into Brittany's eyes and gave a small smile, one she didn't use often.
"What are these for?"
Brittany tilted her head to the side and simply stared at her for a few moments. She eventually lifted her arm and placed her hand on her head, where her own sunglasses would rest if she had any. She nodded her head and glanced at Santana's Aviators.
Santana couldn't help but smile wider.
"People don't typically wear sunglasses inside unless something is bothering their eyes." Her statement was simple and her tone was the same as it had been in addressing Mr. Bates but Santana couldn't help but be gladdened that Brittany was speaking to her. After the blatant avoidance at their lockers that morning, she didn't think Brittany would want to talk to her.
"What do you mean?" Santana teased. "I look smokin' in these. Why wouldn't I wear them all the time." she flipped the glasses back over her eyes and struck a pose, smirking the whole time.
This time when Brittany's eyes brightened she actually let herself smile. Santana struck another, more ridiculous, pose and Brittany actually let a small giggle escape her lips.
Santana lifted her Aviators from her eyes and stared at Brittany, smiling wider than she could remember doing in a long time.
Suddenly Brittany's whole countenance changed. Her hand came up to cover her mouth, silencing her laughter, and she narrowed her eyes in Santana's direction.
"I have to go." She turned and was halfway to the door before Santana emerged from her confused state.
"Thank you." Santana blurted loudly. Brittany paused and turned to look over her shoulder at her. "For the Advil, thank you. I've had a killer headache all morning and apparently you were the only one to notice." Santana's voice turned soft as she continued to speak. "So, just thank you."
Brittany looked as if she wanted to say something and she even turned her body halfway back in Santana's direction. She looked torn between some action and looked to the empty desks in front of her. She looked back up to Santana with the same emptiness she wore everywhere and nodded her head before walking out the door, leaving Santana alone.
So like I said, Chapter definitely turned out more difficult to write than I thought. I got so used to writing for Brittany that when I switched to Santana I had to step back and figure out who Santana really was in this story. Hope y'all enjoyed it. Honest feedback is always appreciated.
