A/N: Sorry this chapter took so long, I had my birthday in the weekend and then I have been super sick ever since, I probably shouldn't be writing this when I've taken so much medication, but here's hoping it makes sense!

This chapter addresses Brittany's eating issues, so if that makes you uncomfortable, please don't read, but I thought it was an important thing for them to discuss, since they're all in a relationship now and everything.

Thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far, they do brighten my day, especially when I'm stuck in bed sick, so keep them coming!

Brittany could feel Anna's gaze on her as she took a bit of her burger she was eating for lunch, looking up, she locked eyes with her brunette girlfriend who had a thoughtful expression across her face.

"Dollar for your thoughts?" Brittany asked as she swallowed her mouthful, putting her burger back onto the late as she focused her attention on Anna.

"A dollar? I thought it was meant to be a penny?" Anna stalled, not wanting the questions she had on the tip of her tongue to make things awkward between herself and her girlfriend.

"Inflation," Brittany shrugged. "Spill, Kendrick."

"I was just thinking," Anna started, dropping her blue eyes to her lap, unable to hold the redhead's gaze. "I read a lot of articles about you, when I found out we'd be working together, and I just suddenly remembered a few about your... disorder."

Brittany let out a soft sigh, she knew that Anna would bring her eating disorder up at some point, not that it really bothered her, she was strong enough now to talk about it.

"Anna," Brittany's soft voice made Anna quickly look up, feeling relieved when she saw a little smile dancing across Brittany's face. "Of course you're curious about it all."

Anna nodded. She had honestly forgotten about the articles where Brittany talked about her eating disorders and self harming, but seeing her girlfriend happily tuck into a burger brought the thoughts to the front of her mind again.

"I'll admit it was a huge part of my life, and it took a long time to make any progress, but I'm mostly normal these days," Brittany joked, trying to get Anna to relax.

"Do you ever feel like you could go back to being that way?"

"I'm good at surrounding myself with positive people and positive thinking, and that helps me a lot."

""Is all this hardcore dancing good for you?" Anna asked with worry, remembering an article that talked about how much time Brittany had spent at the gym.

"I know when to stop myself now," Brittany explained. "Before I would have done boot camp, and then also not have eaten more than a few bites of a carrot or something all day."

Anna was uncharacteristically quiet for a minute or two, thinking over the past week with Brittany, they had spent just about every minute together, so Anna knew that Brittany was eating well to combat their physically demanding boot camp.

"My personality didn't help, I'm a bit of a perfectionist," Brittany explained. "So when I started dieting, I stuck to it, it became a bit of a game to me, how long I could go with sticking to these rigid diets. I tried so many of them, but each time I just found it easier and easier to eat these ridiculous menus that were set. But then someone would comment on my results and I became addicted to that instead."

"Didn't anyone notice that you were getting so tiny?"

Brittany shrugged. "My parents knew that I was dieting, but I always made sure if I was going to eat, it would be around them. But then I would feel bad about what I had eaten to stop them being suspicious, I wanted to be great at following these diets and I ended up feeling so sad when I couldn't eat the "good" foods, because I so desperately wanted to be a good girl."

Anna's gaze was intense as she listened to Brittany's words, trying to imagine the girl in front of her, fading away, being helpless to stop her.

"Eventually I started to eat again, and people stopped commenting on my loss, and so I started exercising, I'd do three hour sessions at the gym, easily, I wanted to be like 50 pounds. And even though I was losing weight again, working out so much, I still felt so disgusting about eating, it was so hard to control my eating, and when I ate bad foods, I turned to cutting myself so that I had something real to feel bad about, to cry about."

"Nobody noticed the cuts?" Anna asked curiously, wondering how someone could hide that from those around her, especially a teenage girl in Hollywood.

"A few people noticed, two boyfriends who told me I was being dramatic, and a few other people who I brushed off and they didn't try to talk to me about it."

"You obviously ended up getting help for it, right?"

"I told my Dad one day, after I had read a magazine article about a model who had eating disorders, and I saw myself in what she said, and I read about her getting help. My parents tried so hard to understand, they wanted to understand, but they couldn't, and even though they got me a therapist I wasn't ready to stop my destructive behaviour. When I was 19 though, I went into hospital for my depression and cutting, I finally knew that wasn't who I wanted to be and I wanted to change that."

"You have amazing strength, Brit," Anna commented, unable to even start to understand the strength and courage it took her younger girlfriend to face her demons, Brittany shot Anna a small smile, she wasn't sure how screwing up her life so badly made her strong.

"I started to connect with positive people in the hospital, and then when I left there I went straight to the set of John Tucker Must Die and Sophia Bush and Arielle Kebbel were amazing at being so supportive and positive. They went to the gym with me, stopping me before I started to push myself and we had slumber parties and ate burgers and had fun, and that was when I realised I could have fun and start to be a normal girl again."

"You're kinda amazing," Anna grinned, taking a big bite of her burger.

"You're kinda a slob," Brittany teased as sauce ran down Anna's chin and the brunette used her finger to mop it up, sucking the sauce off her digit before setting her burger back down.

"You're kinda really gorgeous," Anna smiled, finally locking her sparkling eyes on the stunning blues of her girlfriend. "I mean I feel like I can really say that, since I've seen you naked and all."

Brittany could feel herself blushing, and she laughed lightly as she shook her head at her girlfriend.

"You're kinda really charming."

"Well, I try, now hurry up and eat that burger. I'm unsure if I got a good enough look this morning to make such statements, so I better get you naked again, just to make sure."

It didn't take long before the girls both finished their lunch, their bodies needing to be refuelled after their earlier activities. Anna put their dishes onto the trolley before pushing it out of the room, leaving it in the hallway before she went back to her girlfriend who had stretched out on the bed.

As Brittany lay there in just a white singlet top and light blue sleep shorts, Anna was reminded that her girlfriend was absolutely gorgeous, the epitome of perfection, and Anna was suddenly overwhelmed with the need to show Brittany the affection and adoration that she deserved.

Anna all but threw herself onto the bed, landing with a soft thud on top of Brittany, who quickly opened her eyes.

"Good thing you're so ridiculously small, Kendrick," Brittany mumbled, closing her eyes again as she wrapped her arms loosely around Anna's waist.

"Are you tired?" Anna asked, dropping her lips to kiss Brittany's forehead lightly.

"Not really," Brittany replied. "Just enjoying."

Anna brushed her lips over Brittany's temple, burying her nose in the red curls and smiling as she felt Brittany's arms tighten around her waist. Anna kissed Brittany's hair gently, continuing to kiss along the side of Brittany's face until she reached the red-head's jaw line.

Brittany let out a little huff when instead of continuing her kisses down along her neck, Anna moved her lips up to her opposite temple, kissing down the other side of her face until she again reached Brittany's jaw.

This time instead of moving her lips away, Anna gently kissed and nipped along Brittany's jaw line, making the redhead throw her head back as pleasure surged through her body.

"Anna," Brittany whimpered as Anna removed her lips from Brittany's skin once more, this time moving back up to pay some attention to the rest of Brittany's face, skimming her lips across the redhead's closed eyes and down her nose before coming to a halt right above Brittany's parted lips.

Brittany's eyes opened curiously when Anna didn't connect their lips, and she was met with the sight of Anna's dark blue eyes gazing at her with an equal mix of love and passion.

"You're beautiful, Brit," Anna breathed, her eyes quickly scanning over her girlfriend's face. "I'll tell you a million times if that's what it takes to make you see the truth."

Brittany's sky-blue eyes quickly filled with tears, nobody had ever treated her the way that Anna did, most people were afraid to compliment her, afraid of how she would take it, but Anna was different, her looks of love and adoration, her simple touches, her gentle compliments, all made Brittany feel like there could be some truth behind her girlfriend's words.

Just as Brittany was starting to be able to get a hold on her tears and stop them escaping, Anna picked up her right wrist, gently bringing it closer to her face, struggling to see the light scars that patterned the pale skin.

"Don't," Brittany begged, if there was one part of her body that she was most ashamed of, it was the scars that reminded her daily of her weakness, of her struggles.

But Anna just ignored the younger girl's pleas, wanting the redhead to see how much she loved every single part about her, even the ones that Brittany hated the most.

Anna slid her hand around to link her fingers with Brittany's, her palm against the back of the redhead's hand so that her wrist was exposed.

Brittany trembled as Anna brought her wrist up to her lips, softly peppering the scarred skin with kisses until she had covered every inch of both Brittany's wrists.

"These shouldn't be a reminder of weakness," Anna told Brittany firmly. "They should be a reminder of your strength, in how strong you are now."

Brittany nodded, bringing her hands up to tangle in Anna's hair, guiding their lips together, but before they could connect, Brittany whispered something so quietly, Anna would have missed it, had she not been able to feel Brittany's breath against her lips.

"Thank you."