A/N: I'm sorry it's a filler chapter. Been really busy these days :\

As always, thanks for the reviews and alerts, guys!

Next chapter: Santana & Brittany finally go to school. They gotta start some time, right? :P


Santana had lost count of how many times she had hung out in the living room with the rest of the household. She convinced herself that maybe there was something in the water. Or maybe the chemical concoction from all of Emma's cleaning supplies somehow seeped into her brain and slowly changed her from the loner girl who always went straight to her room after dinner into this weirdo who would rather roll her eyes at whatever nonsense this household come up with during their dull conversations around the coffee table.

Yeah it must be the chemicals.

Santana subtly shook her head. Scratch that. It was Brittany who had convinced her to stay the first time, and it was Brittany who kept convincing her to stay every night.

She remembered the first night she started joining the rest of the household in their nightly gathering. Brittany, cursed her fast reflexes, caught her hand just before she took her first step up the staircase and shot her one of those looks. The look that had repeatedly made Santana bent her own rules of never caring. The look that made her agree to take Lord Tubbington home with them and split the cost of milk and cat food with the other girl.

It was also the look that convinced Emma and Will to let them keep the cat. Well… that, and her unrivaled acting skills. Crying on cue wasn't an easy thing to do. In fact, that morning when both of the girls woke up to find Emma and Will's unpleasant faces in the room, and a certain kitten in Will's hands, Santana froze and Brittany completely took over.

Lo and behold, the next day, Will drove them both and Lord Tubbington to the vet to get it vaccinated. He had no problem warming up to Lord Tubbington even though he was more of a dog person.

Emma was another story, though. Even though she was the first one who agreed to let the girls keep the cat (Santana figured it was her effort to make way into the girls' hearts), she needed more time to handle her cleaning anxiety, which was perfectly understandable. Nevertheless, after a few weeks of avoiding the feline and arming herself with a dustbuster, she regressed to only carrying a lint remover. And that was because a certain blonde girl convinced her to.

Brittany.

Magic.

oOoOo

The minute she was done drying all the dishes, Santana excused herself to go to her room. She really didn't have anything better to do up there, but she was afraid that if she stayed downstairs too long, she would be trapped listening to everyone else's tedious stories about their day.

She was afraid that she would love it.

Santana was about to take her first step up the stairs when something stopped her in her tracks. She felt a hand covering her wrist and immediately knew that it was Brittany. No other person in that house would've dared to.

"Santana," Brittany called her and Santana turned her neck halfway just to tell the blonde girl that she was listening.

"No, Brittany," Santana whined. "I'm not going to stay and listen to these clowns. I'm going upstairs."

"Why?" asked Brittany. "So you could read that newspaper again? I bet you've read it a million times before and you have every word memorized already."

Santana scoffed. She didn't like what Brittany's saying because it was true. "So?" Santana asked. "It's my newspaper, my life, and my night. You can't make me do what I don't want."

"Santana, wait," Brittany called her name and once again she caught Santana's hand and pulled it slightly. "I know it's important to you, Santana. I do. Even though you've never told me what it is that's in that newspaper, I can tell that it is. Your face gets all frowny and sad. You probably don't even realize that sometimes you cry reading it."

Santana was embarrassed. It was true. Sometimes she didn't even that she was crying until she saw herself on a mirror, and she was embarrassed that Brittany had been witnessing those moments.

It wasn't like Brittany had never seen her cry before, because she definitely had, but Santana would've liked to keep those weak moments to herself.

Santana fought to get her hand out of Brittany's, but it was no use. Brittany had quite a grip on her and she had no intention of letting Santana go.

"Let me go, Britt," Santana whispered angrily through her teeth.

"No," said Brittany. Her voice was firm. "I'm not gonna. I don't like seeing you sad, Santana. We're best friends and best friends don't let each other be sad. Please stay. I promise you won't have to do it tomorrow if you don't want to. Just please don't go upstairs tonight. Just this once."

There was something about the way Brittany's voice cracked at the end of her speech, and the squeeze that she did to Santana's hand that made her heart feel like she was taking a plunge in a rollercoaster. And that was what made her keep their handhold and follow Brittany's tug towards the living room to endure the most boring, most mind-numbing conversation, started by Will, about the sweater vest sale going on in the local apparel store, and a new organizational tip that Emma found that day in a housekeeping magazine.

If it weren't for Brittany's periodical nudges on her upper arm, she would've lost her patience and suffocated herself with the couch cushions. She really didn't know how the other two kids in the house had the energy to keep their façade of enthusiasm. Puck especially, because he really didn't seemed like the kind of boy who would last long in those types of situation.

Nevermind.

Santana knew what it was. Puck had already told her. This is the closest thing to a family that he could ever get, and he wasn't going to ruin it. Somewhere deep inside, Santana admired his standpoint— not that she would ever admit it.

In spite of all her inner resistance, though, Santana couldn't deny the fact that she was glad she stuck around that night. In the middle of a self-centered monolog about how he had been pushing for a glee club at the school he was teaching, Will showed the kids the "office". Santana always thought an 'office' was just a fancy term to call a room with a desk with piles of paper on top of it, with probably a bookshelf filled with pretentious self-help books that nobody ever really needs. As it turned out, it was really where he had been keeping all his trophies (they were small and unimpressive, Santana thought), and something else. A piano.

Santana stared at the musical instrument sitting on the corner of the room, wide-eyed.

"You have a piano?" she asked. She cursed herself for not being able to stop the question from flowing out of her mouth. But whatever. She couldn't believe that this boring old house would have something that she could actually like.

Will's face lit up. He and Emma looked at each other as if they had succeeded in peeling a layer of an onion that was Santana. This was, after all, the first time Santana had ever raised a question on her own.

"Why yes, Santana," Will took some steps forward. "It's not a fancy, grand one, but this bad boy has been around for a while. I used my first paycheck to buy it."

"Do you play?" Brittany asked.

Santana shrugged. "I had lessons."

"Could you show us?"

Santana shrugged again. She didn't dare to look at Brittany because she already knew that her roommate wouldn't have to do a lot of convincing to make her play the piano. She also knew that Brittany had already put on that look again. Damn her powers. "Not very good at it."

She lied.

As a matter of fact, for a girl who only had less than a year of lessons, she was pretty good. Both of her parents, especially Antonio, were very musical people and they passed on their passion to their daughter.

Santana remembered posing for pictures with her very proud parents one night after a Christmas recital. She also remembered how her dad used to brag about how his 'Santanita' was going to be famous one day, and that Ines and himself would follow her around the world and be at every show.

"Oh, come on, Santana," she heard Puck say. "Show us what you got."

If it had come from someone else in the room, she would've considered actually playing because, in all honesty, she had been missing the feeling of keys touching her finger tips and the notes that she was capable of bringing to life. But she didn't miss the "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star is a nice little song" that Puck disguised under his breath.

So she sent him a sarcastic smile and a comment about how he wouldn't be able to hear it anyway even if she ended up playing a perfect rendition of Schumann's Traumerei because he loved himself too much. "I mean, you really love yourself."

The innuendo wasn't missed by anyone, except probably by Brittany who quickly told everyone that she loved herself too— and everybody else. However red Puck's ears had gotten from anger and frustration of not being able to throw Santana a clever comeback, they turned into his normal skin color after hearing Brittany's sincere comment. He excused himself to get another glass of water.

Will cleared his throat. "Well," he said to Santana. "Now that you know where it is, feel free to use it. But please don't mess with whatever you see in this area," he moved to the other side of the room and gestured to his desk and bookshelf. "I have important documents here— some of them are legal matters. It's not that I don't trust any of you guys, but I don't even trust myself with them. So please remember that, okay?"

Brittany firmly nodded while Santana gave him a positive shrug. It was all the promise she could muster that night.

oOoOo

Santana sighed.

There she was, months after that first night, sitting on the same crème colored couch in the living room, ready to go through one, two hours of acting like she really wanted to be there to listen to Will and Puck talk nonsense about football and other manly things, and watch as Emma slipped in comments about how wonderful her day was only to get cut off by Will with a line that showed the very little amount of appreciation he had for Emma's daily life. "That's great, honey. Say, how about some coffee?" or, "Aw, sorry to hear that sweetheart but did you hear about what Figgins told me today?"

Santana never said anything whenever that happened. Most of the time she would roll her eyes. But she rolled her eyes so much, and at almost anything, that Will, Emma, and Puck had stopped reacting to the gesture. It was a part of Santana and they had learned to live with it, and to leave her alone.

But Brittany had the privilege of bearing witness to the behind-the-scenes of the Santana Show. Every night, when the girls were back in their room, Santana would go on and on about how awful and self-absorbed Will was. Sometimes she would even go as far as saying that Emma shouldn't have married Will in the first place.

The blonde half of the duo always half agreed because while Brittany didn't argue with Santana's point of view, she thought Will and Emma were actually cute together. Despite the fact that he was heavily preoccupied with himself, he took the time to help Emma with the dishes. He put away things, knowing that Emma really didn't like it if things were out of place. He washed the grapes and sometimes with a toothbrush, one by one, if Emma couldn't convince herself that they were clean enough to eat.

Santana's go-to response to Brittany's grounds? "I guess," complete with a signature shrug.

She really didn't like being proven wrong. Or half wrong, in this case.

"Oh my god," Brittany closed the door and walked towards her bed. "That pie was amazing."

Santana gave her a half smile and nodded. She huffed, quite loudly, as she went through her sleep clothes in the dresser.

Brittany looked at her. "What?"

"Nothing."

"Your 'nothing' is always something, Santana."

"Britt, let it go," Santana huffed again. "It's nothing. I'm just tired. It's been a really long night."

Brittany sighed. Sometimes she thought Santana's walls aren't just too high, but also riddled with ivy that made it even more difficult for her to climb.

"You know what I think?" asked Brittany to an unsuspecting Santana as she peeled off the blanket from her bed.

Santana paused in the middle of fluffing her pillow. "I'm not a mind reader, Britt. So no, I don't know what you think."

"I think you're sweet," Brittany said through a grin.

Santana scoffed. "I'm sweet? I'm sweet?" she asked Brittany twice, pointing to herself, making sure that Brittany knew who she was talking to. "Did you bump your head?"

Brittany stopped what she was doing and thought about her answer. She scratched her temple.

"Yeah, I kinda did," said Brittany. "Lord Tubbington refused to get out from under the bed even after I told him to very nicely. So I had to get in there and drag him out."

"And then you bumped your head?"

"No," Brittany shook her head. "He ran into the kitchen. But when I got there I couldn't find him, so I started opening the cupboards. That's when I bumped my head. On one of the doors."

"Did you find Tubbs?"

"He wasn't even in the cupboards," Brittany pouted and Santana couldn't help but chuckle. "He was under one of the kitchen stools."

Santana shook her head. "Britt, you gotta be more careful," she told Brittany sweetly. "You're gonna get banged up one of these days and we don't want that."

Brittany smiled. "See?"

"See what?" Santana furrowed her eyebrows. "Britt, you have to stop assuming that I can read your mind."

"You are sweet, Santana," Brittany climbed up her bed and Santana climbed her own.

"Am I not supposed to care if you hurt yourself?"

"No, I mean," Brittany pulled her covers up to her shoulders and turned sideways. "I wasn't wrong when I said you're sweet. And I really don't see why you think it's wrong to say that you are."

"Brittany," Santana scoffed again and shook her head. She really couldn't see why anybody would call her sweet. "I bet you if you asked Emma, Will and Puck, none of them would agree with you calling me sweet," said Santana with her fingers making up two giant quotation marks in the air.

"But that's just it, Santana," said Brittany with a higher tone. "It's because nobody could see it— because I'm the only one who gets to see that side. And I'm super happy about it, but I wish you'd let other people see it too."

"Britt, I'm seriously lost here. What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the way you've been saying how Will's an ass for taking Emma for granted."

"Um," Santana squinted her eyes. "I've never said that."

"Never? Really?" asked Brittany and Santana shot her an are-you-kidding-me look. "Come on, Santana. We both know that's a lie. The other day you told me that Emma should've married a hunky dentist because dentists don't have to stand in front of classes and therefore, not as self-absorbed as Will."

Santana pursed her lips. "Well, OK maybe I did say that…"

"And the day before that you said you wanted to punch Will for never actually asking how Emma's day went. She had to start her own topic and even then, Will rarely listens."

"Well, yeah, bu—"

"Well, there you go. Even though you have a different way of showing it, it sounded like you care about Emma, Santana. Ergo, you're sweet," said Brittany with confidence.

Santana cocked an eyebrow. "Ergo?"

"I heard it on Electric Company."

"You still watch that show?" Santana tilted her head.

"Well, yeah. It's a good show. I know you think it's for kids, but they rap and stuff. Sometimes they breakdance too. It's totally cool," Brittany shrugged like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Santana slowly nodded. She really didn't have the energy to argue at the moment. "If you say so."

Brittany gave her a small smile, thanking Santana for not making fun of her even if it was easy to.

"You're avoiding the topic," Brittany accused her.

"Guess I am."

"I don't get it, Santana," Brittany suddenly sat up. "Is it that bad for you to let people know you care? Are we supposed to not care? Have I been wrong all this time?"

"No," Santana shook her head and quickly answered. "Do whatever you want to do, Brittany. Just because I'm this way, doesn't mean you're supposed to be like me. Just be you, Brittany. Stay this way. Be your caring, loving self," said Santana and she made sure she looked at Brittany straight in the eyes when she was talking to let her know that she wasn't lying. "I have my reasons."

"Any chance you'd tell me what they are?" Brittany pouted and Santana had to chuckle at the genuine question.

"Probably," Santana said. "But probably not."

"OK," said Brittany. She reached for the lamp switch on the wall between their beds and flicked it off and spoke again. "You know you're going to someday. I have powers."

Santana chuckled and threw a pillow at Brittany. But all she got was Brittany saying that it was true and she didn't argue.

"I really think I can control people's thoughts," said Brittany. Then she yawned and spoke again, half-asleep. "Hope you'll dream of rainbows and ponies."