Rock The Vote is a success.

It's only been two hours since the show first aired, you only have the earliest of indications as to viewing figures and critics' assessments, but as far as the internet is blowing up, it's a resounding success. You and Sam had done the obligatory holding of each other while you watched the show live, and during your second run through where you watched again and commented along on all the action, Mercedes had fired up the laptop and followed the online comments and polls at .

Each week they're going to monitor the crowd favourite through online polling, and much to your surprise, Quinn isn't faring half as bad early on as you feared she might. Holly has called you and screamed The Brittany Effect! down the phone-line, surrounded by the cheers and celebration from the official MTV viewing party which you also chose not to attend, but you're still not buying into the hype. You're just a familiar face, and that's what people are reacting too.

Or overreacting to, in some circumstances.

Mercedes loves to read aloud the comments which are particularly bathed in love and adoration, but all each one does is make you shake your head even harder. You're a team, all of you together, and you succeed together as a team; you really don't want to be the only flag-bearer for that success.

Also, it's Quinn's success. Whatever the reasoning behind the numbers, she's only showing a slight dip behind Rachel after this first show and that bodes extremely well for everything you have coming up. If the crowd are already halfway behind her after the mashed together segment you put out this evening, then you can't wait to see how they react when you turn Quinn into a person they can actually relate to. This is her night, and you've already text her with your congratulations.

She wanted to see you earlier today, but you've been far too busy to make the time and so you're meeting for lunch tomorrow instead. The premise that you both stuck to during your one stilted phone conversation was all show based and work related, yet you know the deal; Quinn told you yesterday that you should talk, and you're almost certain that getting you to lunch is her way of singling you out for the purpose of that little chit-chat.

You're not overly worried. You certainly don't feel as though you owe any explanation or disclosure to Quinn about your personal life, or your awesome friendship with Santana, but you're happy to go and hear what she has to say as a way to easily appease her. Maybe when you know the lay of the land, when you know what's occurring with you and Santana beyond your fantasies, or when you know for sure what occurs between Santana and Quinn, maybe then it'll be different and everything will be out in the open and…

You can't even finish that thought without the anxiety escaping to fill your mind.

Even though you don't know the root cause, you more than sense that Quinn would have a problem if she knew that there was something going on between you and Santana. You're a pretty perceptive person when it comes to people and there's been quite a lot to perceive.

You begin to list all the instances out to yourself, but Sam leans across from his place on the sofa to pull the wool of your hat down over your eyes and you forget entirely where you are for the moment. He's laughing at you, yet you make no move to lift the hat back up, and when he lands by your side and does the deed himself, you poke out your tongue in his direction.

It's petulant and it's kind of silly, but underneath the euphoria of a job well done, you're still really distracted. You know that and Sam knows that, and really, you're just glad that Mercedes is laughing heartily over the latest gifs of you on Tumblr or you're sure that she'd know that too. Even Lord Tubbington has called you out on your distraction and spent the last two days sulking in the back room because you keep on forgetting about him.

"You could just call her," Sam says at your side, and you turn away from his eyes before you do more than stick your tongue out. You rearrange your hat back into its correct place atop your head, you throw a quick glance at your phone up on the coffee table, and you grunt.

An actual grunt; like a cross between when Lord Tubbington disapproves of the food choices you're offering and the noise your sister used to make when you'd force her to learn all of your dance routines and latest choreography.

"I'm just saying," He continues, "that it's obvious you're not in the room with us anymore. She's probably waiting for you to call; just do it."

It's an option you've been considering all night. He's not talking about Quinn, of course he's not. He's assuming that the source of your distraction is Santana, and he isn't wrong.

You've spoken to her lots today. She's handed in assignment seven already and you're crazy happy with how seriously she seems to be taking her education. The calls have been short and they've mostly tried to convince you to come to Quinn's party tonight without flat out asking you to come to Quinn's party tonight, but the fact that they've been so frequent has kept you smiling throughout a day which would've otherwise felt too long.

You want to call her now, you think it's probably your turn to call her back, but she is at Quinn's viewing party and you're well aware of the state she's able to party herself into when she gets going with the mood. You don't want a broken conversation and cryptic cut-outs when 'shit gets real' - and so you leave it.

When you tell Sam you really don't want to call her, his face shows you instantly how much he disbelieves you, and when he says your name you're not really sure if it's a stern tone or a sorrowful one. "Just call her," he says again.

As easy as that.

You're not surprised when Mercedes takes a break from refreshing her computer screen to offer her agreement, "Sam told me the girl is all types of crazy for you; just call her already."

Mercedes' comment swings your eyes back to Sam pretty quick. Normally it'd make you laugh when he pulls the face he's now pulling, but your expression stays monotone. "Not true, Sam."

"Not lying, Britt. I saw you both yesterday, and if that's how Santana acts when she's trying not to like you, I can't wait to see how she acts when she finally gives in."

"We're friends," you assure him again, yet in your mind you insist on awesome friends and you can't help but want to see the more. It makes it hard to keep the smile from your face and when Mercedes repeats the words that Sam had told her yesterday about how into each other you both are, and the blatant attraction you so obviously share, you can't help but smile a little higher.

You're sure that you know what this feeling is, but it's still nice to feel vindicated; to know that you're not imagining the way her eyes shine when she looks at you or the way she's started leaning into you lately as if to constantly seek out your touch.

"I can't call her though," you announce in a sulky tone, and it's nice to lift it from your chest a little. You catch Sam's look, you hear Mercedes say fool, and you cement your reasoning; "She's at Quinn's and there's a party and I doubt she's even thinking about me right now. I don't want to disturb her."

The timing of the loud knock at your door that now disturbs you would be comical if it wasn't a quarter to midnight and you weren't a semi-famous single girl living out here on her own. You don't often have to deal with the crazies or with over-familiar fans, but there have been a couple of minor instances which make you now turn your eyes Sam's way instead of immediately rising to open the door.

He puffs his chest out as he stands and Mercedes pulls her shoulders back and pushes the laptop off of her knees and to the side on the sofa. You also stand and attempt a chest puff and you follow Sam's lead as he goes to the door.

He looks through the spy hole. He looks back to you with his eyebrow lifted, and then he swings the door open.

It's not even funny how fast your breath catches, and the sound you make is somewhere between a hiccup and a giggle. A hysterical giggle. Which you swallow inside of a hiccup.

You want to say Santana but you're still swallowing the hysterical.

She's looking at Sam, she's looking at you, her eyes are wide and she's quite possibly the most incredible thing you've ever seen in your life. She's fashioned herself in a way you'd expect for Quinn's party and when your eyes slip down her body in a quest to take her all in, you can't help but note the sublime shortness of the dress. And her legs in those heels are making it harder to breathe than in moments previous, and when you get to her chest, you stop, because you didn't even notice, what with the dress and the legs, but…

Not boobs. Although, it is a really great dress if that was your chosen view.

It's not though; your view has snagged on what she's holding in her hands, at chest height, as if she was going to offer them out as gifts when you opened the door. The door that Sam actually opened. Now she's half holding out to him her offering of what looks like a bottle of champagne and a slightly wilted bunch of flowers from what was probably a late night service station. And she's talking really fast, to Sam, about how amazing the show was and how she wanted to come over and personally extend her congratulations to you both and…

She seems flustered. And she's incredible.

You're not even wondering right now about the whys and the hows of what she's doing here or what possessed her to get here, you're just. She's here.

It's all incredible.

When Sam stands back and ushers her into the room behind you while accepting the champagne bottle from her hands, you're thankful that someone actually remembers how to function like a normal human being, and you concentrate on pushing aside the surprise to focus on the facts. "Santana," you say, because that seems like the best fact to start with. Her eyes won't rest on you though. They're chasing about your face and dropping to the floor and flitting back to Sam and focusing on Mercedes, and really, "Santana?"

You say it again and she pauses. You can't help the quiet hey that slips past your smile when her eyes fix firm on yours; it's just that sometimes everything else stops and you just see her. And you just have to say hello. When she replies with a quiet hey of her own, you can hear the slight flutter of her nerves and you seek to make it less so. You lead her to the sofa and introduce her to Mercedes, you push the laptop further aside and offer her a place to sit on the couch; yet when Sam says he's going to the kitchen to get glasses for the champagne you can't help but stumble over a mumble and follow him out to grab some air. Santana will be alright with Mercedes, everyone is always okay with Mercedes and you know she won't rely on Rachel's stories to form judgements of her own.

You just need a minute to think. To bring some order to the thoughts you're already having. Because Santana is here, again, and in your mind that suggests only one thing - the best thing - because she may be dressed to party, yet she's saved herself for you. At least it looks that way. It feels that way. And you just need a minute, because if Sam's words before were some kind of vindication for how you feel, then you're sure that Santana turning up on your doorstep out of the blue to congratulate you, is vindication of the highest kind.

Sam is watching you entirely amused while you reach up to the cupboard and make a fuss over finding glasses; you have ones for wine but not champagne and you let that fray your thoughts for a moment just to save over thinking the everything else.

"Calm down," he stage whispers across the kitchen space, and you throw him a look that asks something along the lines of how the hell? Because aside from the very fact that she's here and she's incredible, she's also here and your friends are here and now you're nervous too. You want so bad for them to like her as much as you do and to approve of the direction your heart's hastened off to.

When Sam throws an easy arm across your shoulder and asks how come she's even here, you honestly don't have a reply to give him. You think you know the ultimate reason, but you're not sure of the actual reason. So you shrug, you pick up the glasses, and you ask him seriously to please be nice when you return to the lounge.

"I'm always nice," he tells you, his face faking offended.

"Sure you are. But maybe you could be nice without trying to embarrass us?"

"I'd never embarrass you Britt."

"Yes you would," you reply, because yes, he does. "Anyway, I'm not talking about me, I'm talking about Santana; be nice to her."

You're referring to yesterday at the van and he knows it. And he smiles. Really big.

"I was just giving her a nudge," he admits, "jealousy is a great motivator and the fan-girls were looking kind of fierce."

You tell him that you'll be the one looking fierce if he doesn't behave and he gives you his word that he will. It'd be nice if it calmed your nerves just a little, but you're well aware that the glasses are clinking together as you walk back towards the front room, and your nerves haven't calmed one bit.

Santana is here. It's the best surprise ever. And your nerves are set tight with excitement.

When you return to the lounge Santana is in conversation with Mercedes about her course at UCLA and you wish you could just stand and listen instead of interrupting their words. Santana's face shows genuine interest and it's nice to see her interacting with someone without the cattiness you always catch when she's sharing words with Quinn. Your presence does interrupt her though, and she trails her eyes away from Mercedes to smile instead at you. She seems a whole lot more relaxed than when you left the room and when you hand over one of the glasses she hands you the flowers she's managed to keep a hold of while you've been gone.

They really are a little wilted and they were obviously a last minute thing purchased during whatever thing brought her here, yet in this moment they're the best bunch of flowers you've ever received. They're way better than any magnificent bouquet the opening nights of your dancing days brought, and they outshine completely the array of bunches you collected after Fondue's first airing.

You say thank you and she holds your gaze.

"I know they're lame, but the show was amazing," she tells you, and her words are a lot more measured than the restless ones she threw out at Sam. You shrug a little and you offer more thanks while telling her that you honestly love them, and then Sam is there. He takes the flowers and places them up on the mantelpiece and then he takes the glass from your other hand and makes to fill it with the champagne.

When he reaches across to Santana she covers her glass and says she's not drinking.

"I drove over," she tells you when you look at her in question, "I really can't stay long; I'm hoping Quinn is celebrating hard enough to not notice me missing at all."

Her words only reinforce your earlier feelings about her coming here to see you and how much it means to you. It may be all cloak and dagger and swept away under the sheets, but she wanted to see you, and she came here to see you, and it seems as though she missed out on the partying at Quinn's to be able to get here and see you.

If you weren't so wrapped up in the awesomeness of the realisation, you would pout at the news she can't stay very long, but right now you're just made up that she's here at all.

You're grinning at her. She's outright beaming at you.

You'd maybe stand mute in the moment forever if Mercedes wasn't just inside your periphery and shooting you the kind of look which reminds you that this isn't your own private universe for two.

"No champagne for me either," she says most firmly when Sam leans down to fill her glass.

"None?" he questions.

"Nope. I love the bubbles as much as the next girl, but I've got way better ways I can think of to celebrate." She lifts herself from the couch and clears the place at Santana's side, and then she turns to face you, "Sorry to bail on the party Britt, it's been a blast, but it's time to take my man home and remind him how I rock his world."

She winks your way as she says it and you feel your cheeks pink. Not because of the world rocking; Sam and Mercedes are totally into each other and you imagine they rock the world regularly, but because you notice the small side of sly to her grin. You know that she heard Santana's words about not much time and she's leaving you alone now so as you can make the most of that time together.

You roll your eyes at her and you make the right kind of noises to protest the fact that they are leaving, but it really is only token noises. In truth, you're so glad. If Santana only has a short time, then you want to be selfish and keep that time for yourself. You want her eyes to be only for you. You want a monopoly on all of her words.

You step back and watch as Santana stands to say a warm goodbye to the girl she just met and to accept the loose hug that Sam insists upon sharing with her, and when you walk them to the door, you make your last comments about killing it tonight with the show and talking in the morning. You deflect Mercedes knowing look when Sam tells you to enjoy the rest of your celebrations, and then you close the door. You take a moment and you take a breath and then you turn back around.

Santana is still standing, and she's looking at you and she looks…

Like something which makes you really hungry; that whets your appetite and leaves you licking your lips just aching to reach out and sample a taste. Her dress really is that enticing. It's another small - really small - black number like the time you saw her at the club, but this time she's not feasting herself on a skanky-snack while you stand aside watching, and her eyes are completely clear and focused. And they're focused completely on you.

She steps towards you or you step towards her and she takes your hand in hers. For a minute she pauses, as if thinking through an action, and then she pulls you towards her and into a hug. "You really were amazing," she whispers into your ear once her arms are around you, yet the words don't touch you half as much as her tone does. Words are just words after all, but the way she makes them sound as she speaks them, has you believing she means all that she says, and that all that she says is only the truth.

As you pull back she says amazing once more and you smile. And you flush.

"Santana…"

"What? You were. You actually managed to make Quinn appear vaguely palatable; I'd say that's all kinds of amazing."

You say words to defend Quinn's performance, you speak right past Santana's eye roll and her rising smile to insist that Quinn did enough all by herself to be commended for her own successes, yet Santana's look says it all and her words only confirm what she thinks of your reasoning; "No way," she assures you, her dimples only deepening, "That was all you, Brittany. Credit where credit is due and you definitely deserve all of the credits."

You think she's probably biased.

"Sam did a lot too," you assert, "and the editing team deserve the kudos for the way they put it together. And the soundtrack was pretty cool so that probably helped…"

She puts her finger over your lips again and you fall silent.

"Just take the compliment, Brittany."

So you do, and you tell her thank you, and when she smiles at you, you smile at her.

"It really was a great show," she says once more, and you smile a little higher.

When she tugs on your arm it's easy for you to follow her down to sit on the sofa. She reaches over you to the coffee table and picks up your wine glass and hands you back your champagne. "There has to be at least one toast," she insists, "Russell paid a lot of money for that bottle; it'd be such a shame to waste it."

You take the glass and when she offers yet another round of words to praise your greatness you take a small sip. You absolutely love how the bubbles fizz their way to the back of your throat as you drink, and even though you can't tell at all the expensiveness of what you're drinking, you do appreciate the sensation.

You don't really appreciate that you're not sharing the sensation.

You offer the glass out to her, but she shakes her head, "I'm driving, remember?"

"Sure you are, but we're toasting here. One sip is entirely legal when there's toast involved."

Her head tilts as she considers you and you keep your face straight and earnest. "One sip," she says, "and only because I want to toast how great you were too."

Your fingers are around the stem of the glass and when you hand it across, her fingers slide intentionally across yours. Your eyes slide to her eyes and her lips curve up again into that knowing smile of last night, the one that looks as though there's a secret she's managed to somehow uncover and now she wants to share it with you.

Yet you know the truth of that secret already. You think you've known it since the minute you first met her. It is all kinds of satisfying to see the knowledge paint smiles across her face as well though… She's always smiled at you; it's just now you think she's starting to understand what it is that's fuelling the frequency of the smiles.

"To all of the amazing which is Brittany S Pierce," she says, and you watch her lips as they touch the glass and you watch her throat when she swallows. When she passes the glass back your way, you give her back your gaze.

"We should toast to you too," you tell her, your eyes not wavering.

"To me? What did I do?"

You want to tell her lots of things. Instead you tell her she managed to escape again, "We should totally make a toast to your freedom."

It makes her laugh, and the laughter makes you turn in your seat and bring your legs up onto the couch to face her. It's kind of funny; she's all dolled up and screaming sexy seduction, and you're sat next to her, your hair unwashed and hidden beneath your woollen cap, with your clothes all casual and perfect for slouching.

"This isn't really freedom," she tells you when your eyes have stopped admiring the line of her dress. "This is just a taster course for what freedom could feel like."

"Well I like it," you say, "I'm one hundred percent behind a free Santana. If there was a wrist band, I'd buy it, and I love signing online petitions."

She smiles her adorable smile and you lift the glass up to your lips. When you pass it back to her, you say to freedom, and again you watch her as she takes a drink.

You'd like to consume the whole bottle this way; just taking little sips between the two of you and making endless toasts, yet you know reality means you only have her for a short while and it makes you place your glass back down on the table and forget the champagne completely. You lean back against the sofa and you just look at her for a moment.

"I can't believe you're actually here," you say after awhile, because you actually still kind of can't. Her eyes slip down to her hands resting in her lap and you lean across a little and claim one for yourself. Her eyes lift back up to meet your own and she looks like she can't believe it either; almost as if she's confused to be sat here on your sofa, sipping champagne and holding your hand.

"Is it okay I'm here?" she asks in the timid tone you haven't heard for a while, and you tell her absolutely.

"It's awesome you're here. The best surprise ever."

"Really?"

Her head slips to the side as she studies you, and she crosses one of her legs over the other and turns closer to you on the couch. You just nod your assurance. You wrap your fingers around hers a little tighter and you wait for more of her words to follow her smile.

"I kind of thought," she finally says, when her dimples have fully creased her cheeks, "that I should do something special for my eighth assignment. I think I've cracked the whole phone-call code now and I'm ready to move on."

"You are?"

"Yeah, I am." She pulls on your hand now and brings it back to her lap and all you can think about is how nice her lap looks when barely covered by the dress she's wearing. If you stretched out your fingers you would graze her bare thigh and you have to hold yourself really tight to fight the urge to flex a little. She wraps your hand fully between both of hers and then she meets your eyes again. ""So what else do awesome friends do, Britt?"

She's staring straight at you. Maybe into you. And you think all of your deep down thoughts might've just been released in one giant X-rated crescendo and crashed full throttle into the front of your cranium. You're not some newbie when it comes to women and you know the look she's now giving you and you know everything that it implies about what she considers awesome friends are probably able to do.

Her eyes are still fixed tight on you and they're not getting any less persistent in their staring. You attempt a deep breath, you swallow down any suggestion that ends in hot sex - especially the ones that begin with lots and lots of - and you stay safe. "They, uh… they hold hands," you say, squeezing the fingers that are holding tight to yours.

"Okay, I think we've got that one covered. What else?"

"They get coffee."

You know it's lame, and when she tells you she aced that excursion for her second assignment, you start to run out of options. There's a thousand and one things you could say; you have friends, you have lots of friends and you know a billion different ways to pass the time with them, but this is so different. None of them are awesome friends; not in the way that you and Santana are becoming awesome friends; and your mind is stuck. Rigid. There's just one way you want to pass the time with her right now and your eyes flick to her lips to betray every single scenario that your mind's currently cruising through.

You watch her eyebrow raise and you watch her mouth as it curves into the perfect smirk of recognition.

When she moves you have no idea where she is going.

Or you think you have an idea, but what she does is so far away from what you're expecting that all of your ideas are rendered null and void. You expect she's going to try and kiss you again; you expect that at any minute your doubts are going to be forced to resurface and you're going to have to pull back from her and make awkward excuses…

Her face stops the barest of inches away from yours though and she doesn't move any further.

She's right there. Just, right there. And she's offering herself and she's telling you in one way or another way that you can kiss her. And god do you want to.

You just don't know if you're allowed to.

It doesn't stop your smile from forming, you can't be this close to her and not break out into expressions of happiness, but you don't purse your lips and lean forward to meet her. You do something softer. You touch your nose against hers and you rub just the slightest. Barely back and forth, just the slightest imitation of how Eskimos show love.

When you pull back enough to focus on her face again, she's gazing at you so softly.

"Eskimo kisses," you tell her, and it makes her scrunch her nose.

She repeats your words, as if testing out the validity of them against her tongue, and then she smiles acceptance. "I like it," she says, and she pulls you forward to rub noses again. You can't help the giggle. It's just too many kinds of cute for you too handle and it tickles, her nose against your nose when her lips are so close to your lips.

And so you giggle, and you watch her nose scrunch up again, and your lips lift higher.

"Okay," she says, once she's reclaimed her own space, "awesome friends Eskimo kiss. Anything else?"

You can feel her testing the boundaries of this new kind of friendship that you're forming here on your couch, and you want nothing more than to test them with her. She told you six nights ago under the lights of the gazebo that you were everything she wasn't allowed, and you want to see just what it is she's allowing herself now.

You know she wants to kiss you. And not like an Eskimo would.

And you can't help but wonder at what's changed. Or if nothing has changed and she really has just started to work out her own secret and what that could mean.

In any other situation, on any other couch and with any other girl, you wouldn't even waste these moments thinking it through; you'd have leant across and licked her lips by now, you'd have taken what she was offering and you'd have offered the same back.

Yet this is Santana and nothing is the same. You haven't ever felt this before what you're feeling for her… You've felt boys before and you've felt girls before but you've never felt this sense of absolute adoration you get when you look at Santana. You want to give her everything and you want everything you give her to make her smile always. And you really think you mean the always; like forever and always.

It's a depth of emotion you haven't ever touched upon and you can't believe that it only flows one way; you can't believe you'd be feeling half as much as you're currently feeling if it didn't go in both directions.

And that's why you don't just lean forward and kiss her.

Because you think this might be different for Santana too. The skanky-snack you saw her feasting upon before with no worries of allowance, was a girl the same as you, yet you didn't see anything holding her back then. And if what you suspect has happened before between her and Quinn really has happened, then that only confirms your wandering thoughts.

You've figured out, you think, that Santana allows herself to fuck girls okay.

It's the falling in love with them bit that you think has her worried.

And you think she's falling in love with you too.

"I think," you say, once you've pulled yourself back from getting lost in her eyes, "that if we've mastered the art of Eskimo kissing, we can probably take the next step and kiss like butterflies."

You watch the quizzical smile lift just the right side of her lips and you wonder how it's possible that anyone could not know what butterfly kisses are; "Butterflies kiss?" she asks, and you just shift a little closer.

She doesn't move as you lean in near enough to touch, yet you hear her intake of breath as you flutter your eyelashes softly against the skin of her cheek. You breathe deeply too. Your nose is buried deep in her hair and she smells so delicious that you just pause for a moment. Your lashes no longer flutter, but your stomach is doing all kinds of crazy fluttering somersaults in reaction to her proximity to you.

When you pull back you don't pull back far enough and she's still right there in front of you and she's still looking right into you and her lips are still tempting you.

She says butterflies are nice, Britt, and you watch her mouth form each word.

She smirks and you smile. "So…" she says, only it's more of a whisper and it sounds like a dare, "awesome friends can Eskimo kiss and they can butterfly kiss; what other kinds of kisses do you know, BrittBritt?"

The kind that melt.

You don't say that though. You bite your tongue. You think about the kind of kiss you want to give and you shrug your shoulder a little. When she leans forwards with her lips, you soften your smile but you still pull back.

She pouts but her eyes don't lose an ounce of their shine. "What's this?" she asks, her voice wrapping so soft around cute, "awesome friends can't kiss on the lips?"

She's making it so hard to resist her. So, so hard.

You make your next move because you really need to control this moment. You don't think that kissing Santana would be a loss of control, but you think that kissing her without understanding at least some of your newly acquired boundaries would definitely be a loss.

She follows your movement with her eyes when you pull yourself up to your knees, and when you move across and swing one leg over her lap to lightly straddle her, you hear her draw in another deep breath.

You take both of her hands into your hands and you lift her arms until they rest behind her head along the back of the sofa. "I think, maybe," you say, your voice just a whisper and your eyebrow dipping just a little as you try and work it all out, "that awesome friends can kiss, I'm just not sure if they're allowed to…" Your words trail off and her eyes trail away from you, and you apply just the slightest bit of pressure to her hands to bring her gaze back your way.

There's only one question in your mind right now and you have to ask it out loud.

"What do you want Santana?" you say, because you're sure she wants the same as you do, and even if she swears she's not allowed it, the very fact that she wants it, that she could admit to wanting you, would be enough to have you moving on in the moment.

You want to kiss her so bad.

Yet she's lifting her hands out from under yours and she's shifting to sit forward like she needs to move your weight away from her. "I don't want anything," she says hurriedly, as if she's not so sure she wants it now that you've asked her to name it. "I just came to congratulate you, it's no big deal, okay?"

Yet it is a big deal and she needs to know that.

You pull yourself up and back a bit so that your weight isn't resting on her legs, but you do regain a firm hold of her hands and you bring them up to where you held them before. "Santana," you say, yet her eyes don't meet yours and when she tries to lift her hands away again you just hold tighter. "Will you just listen to me, please?"

Her gaze flits to yours and then around you to the door, and you say her name again.

"I have to go," she answers.

"No you don't."

"Brittany…"

Her eyes do come back to yours when she says your name, and you squeeze your grip on her hands again. Her shoulders slump a little and you hear as she sighs. "I really do need to go," she says, but you still insist that she doesn't; not yet.

And here you are again. Holding everything you want in your hands and not knowing quite what to do with it. You know that she wants you, everything she's done since you've met her speaks to you about how much she wants you, yet this whole question of allowance is killing you. You don't understand why she won't allow herself to want you, or why she can only let herself want you when she frames it within the words of awesome friends.

Her eyes are still guarded as she looks at you, but you can't help but soften your own as you rest your weight down once again. You bring one of her hands from the sofa to press gentle against your lips and you place the softest of kisses there. "I really want to kiss you," you tell her, your voice sliding low. "I think about kissing you all of the time. I'm distracted at work…" You bring her other hand down now and press a kiss to her fingertips, and your smile lifts hopeful as you watch the defensive stance slip from her eyes as she listens to you. "…I'm even distracted at home. Lord Tubbington's totally stopped talking to me again because I keep on forgetting to feed him on time…"

She looks to your eyes and she looks so helpless and you look to her lips and you know that you're helpless. Awesome friends are allowed to kiss. They have to be.

They have to be because you're daring to lean forward and touch your lips against hers. You're daring to listen to all of your hopes and none of your doubts and you're daring her to kiss you back; to swallow down the words about not wanting anything, about no big deals and those issues of allowance, and just kiss you back.

And she does. Of course she does, because you're sure beyond any words that she wants this just as much as you do and that she feels just what you're feeling when her lips yield beneath yours and her tongue slides against your tongue and her hands lift to push off your hat and tangle in your hair and she pulls you even closer against her. Your own hands you brace against the back of the sofa and you hold tight with all of your might so as you don't just smash right into her.

You keep the kiss gentle and when she pulls you in even tighter and sucks your bottom lip between hers and nips down gently with the softest graze of her teeth, you pull yourself back. You use the brace of the sofa beneath your hands and you wrench yourself back.

You say Santana and she's smiling at you. Her eyes are soft and so into you and she leans up to catch your lips again in another softly placed kiss. She's everything you don't want to resist right now and your hands are ahead of all of the places your mind is fighting to keep away from.

She breathes out Brittany when your fingers slide down the skin of her arms, and when you glide across the fabric of her dress and tease the curve of her breasts, you feel her shudder beneath your touch. You just want her. You want all of her and everything, and the way her hips rise to meet your downward pressure only convinces you she wants the same.

Yet you know. You know what you want still isn't a quick fuck at the end of the perfect evening, or that chase into oblivion only obtained at high speed; and so you still your fingers before they slide any further towards that place of taking and you lift your hips again.

You don't stop kissing her though. Not yet.

Awesome friends are allowed to kiss and now you don't want to stop.

You lean forward again and you kiss her top lip, you kiss her bottom lip, you rest for a long moment with your mouth just pressed against hers. You bring your hands up to her face before you fully break the kiss and you steady and hold her where you need her to be. You want her eyes on you when you lean yourself back and she doesn't disappoint you.

And she's still smiling. And she says her bashful hey.

And you are smitten.

You can feel the heat racing across your cheeks and you're not even sure what you're blushing for. You lean forward and place another kiss to her lips, just to hide your shyness, and you feel her still smiling against you.

"Hi," you say this time when you pull back, and now she looks at you as if she's been overcome by something which makes her squirm beneath your gaze. You ask what and she shakes her head. She leans forward and steals your lips again before collapsing her weight back against the sofa.

When the curve of her lip turns from a smile into a smirk and then into something smug, you prepare yourself for whatever she's going to say next. You smile in waiting.

"I think," she says, her tongue peeking out to moisten her lips, "that I'm definitely getting an A on this assignment."

If she didn't look so adorable saying it, then you'd probably seek to tease her, but she does look adorable and you'd give her an A for everything. "Best assignment ever," you tell her and she beams another smile at you.

"Best-awesome-friend ever." She lifts her eyebrows as she says it and again her eyes flick down to caress your lips.

And you can't help but tease her just a little.

"You are still in training," you say, and you lift your own eyebrows up and down to let her know how serious you're being. "I think the eighth assignment might need a lot of going over; there were a couple of things I was unsure of and I don't want you to miss out on a final grade because…"

Her stare stops you and her lips silence you and again you kiss. It's a quiet kiss and you think she only took it just because she could and the thought has you smiling. "I think we can run repeats on that assignment whenever you want," she says, and although she's trying to push that smug grin back into place on her face, you see the way her eyes dip with the words, you hear the sound of her own uncertainty coming to the fore and you refuse to allow that.

You don't know quite what you've done here or quite how the borders and boundaries have changed to permit here in this minute what was not permissible in minutes previous, but you do know you're not prepared to change backwards.

You lean forward yet again, but this time you don't hush her lips with a kiss, you rub your nose gentle against hers again and you say it the way the Eskimos say it. And she relaxes, and she looks at you, and you rest your weight back down to sit against her thighs. "I'm probably going to want to run the assignment lots," you assure her, "because by time we move on to assignment number nine…" You let your words linger and you let your eyes linger and you let the weight of everything you want rest solid against her.

She doesn't look spooked by your words. She doesn't shift awkwardly beneath you at the insinuation of something more to come. She dips her eyebrow and just considers you softly; "How do you do that, Britt?" she asks, her voice curious.

"Do what?"

"Make everything hard seem somehow so easy?"

On the list of sweet things she's said to you, you're not sure where that should come.

She's taken your hands in hers again, and it makes it hard to shrug away her words and disperse the sense of depth she's given you.

You just…

You just need to kiss her. And she must need it too, because when you lean down towards her, she's already leaning up and when your lips touch hers, you hear the whimper that sounds out from somewhere inside her. And you think you whimper too when she pulls away, and when her eyes flick to the side and her gaze drops down, you know you want to do more than whimper. Because this is a perfect moment; perfect. And the only reason you can think of that she would find anything like sorrow buried within your kiss, is if she was thinking it was getting close to a kiss goodbye.

You had forgotten she wasn't yours to keep.

She makes it so easy to forget everything when you're with her and you don't want to be without her. It has you pouting before she's even announced her thoughts, and her eyebrows dip when she looks at you, but you can't change your expression.

"Britt," she says, and you hold her hands a little tighter. "You know I have to get back," she says, and sure, she does, you know that, and it's great how she read your mind and picked out your thoughts… but still. When she leans her lips forward to urge away your pout, you just turn your head to the side and play a moment with petulant.

"Brittany," she sings out, calling your attention back her way, but you really don't want to listen to her words and you're sure that your face is making her well aware of that fact. "I really do have to leave," she implores, "Quinn's really going to lose it if she notices me gone, and I'm already pushing it hard as it is."

You squeeze her fingers a little between yours and you sigh out your reasoning, "But I don't want you to go."

"Believe me Britt, there's nothing I'd like more than to stay here with you, but…"

"I know; Quinn."

You can't help but drop your eyes as you speak and when you lift them again she's looking back at you quizzically. She opens her mouth as if to say something, but no words come out. She looks away from you, she looks back. "I'd rather stay here," she says, and this time you do shrug. You take your hands from hers and you go to lift yourself up from your place on her lap. If you're going to have to say goodbye to her, you guess it might just be best to rip off the band-aid and accept the situation as it is.

Her hands fall to your thighs though and you don't move further.

You're up on your knees, her fingers are digging into you, and the look she fixes you with could hold you in place forever. It's halfway pleading and halfway needing, and you honestly wouldn't know how to resist it if you wanted to. "Quinn's not an awesome friend," she sounds out quietly, and you only hope she's telling you what you think she's telling you.

"She's not?"

"She's really not. Look," she says, and again her eyes drift away before returning. "It's just, it's really messed up, or it's complicated. But it's not… we're not…"

"You're not?"

"We're not awesome friends."

She leans forward and kisses you quickly this time and it's not as soft as all of her other kisses and it doesn't remove the question from your lips. "Brittany," she says, but you don't know what to tell her.

You want more but you're scared of the answers.

You want Santana; all of Santana. You don't like the thought of sharing her with Quinn. In fact, each minute you spend with Santana and each new bridge you cross together, makes you less and less inclined to want to share with anyone.

When her nose nudges yours and she asks you to listen, you try your hardest to set aside your thoughts of doubt and focus on her words. "I want…" she says, and you instantly focus. Even when her eyes drift before coming back to you, you keep your focus. "I want to be your awesome friend, okay? I don't want…" She sighs and you wait and you know she'll offer you more. "…No one else is like you Brittany, no-one."

She ends there and so do you.

Because for now, it's enough.

It's not everything you want; that's still sat beneath you on your sofa being incredible. But tonight you've found a way between you to make something more than what you had before, and even if you do have to send her back to Quinn now, even if you are guaranteed to spend the rest of your night wondering whether your kisses still remain upon her lips or if she's wiped them away with the lips of another, that something more is a whole lot closer to what you want than where you were just a few hours ago, and for now that's enough.

You drop your pout as you let her words sink into you and soften your eyes with a smile. "That's kind of awesome," you tell her, and when she asks why, you let her know that there's no one quite like her either.

You climb off of her with a sigh which you exaggerate to make amusing, and you reach out to offer her a hand back to her feet. You can't help but pull her into you once she's standing, and you love the way that her heels lift her that few extra inches closer to equal height; your arms still go around her the highest when you hug, but when you lean back your head her lips are right there and you chance once more to seal everything with a kiss.

She meets you in the middle and you feel her lips smile against yours.

"I have to go," she says, but this time she's smiling and it's not so much goodbye.

"I still want you to stay."

"Britt…" She draws out your name and you scrunch up your nose in reply.

"What? I do," you say, and you loosen your hug to shrug your shoulder. "Awesome friends have awesome sleepovers. It's assignment eight-and-a-half."

"There's half-assignments now?"

"Sure. It's where all your extra credits are gonna come from."

She takes a moment before she speaks again, and her smile does find its way back to smug before she replies, "We already had a sleepover though, Britt; I get a grade for that, right?"

"That was before we started counting, Santana."

Now she pouts and you take your turn to kiss it away. Just one soft kiss; just one more smile.

When she pulls back out of your arms you don't drop your lips down, because she has that look of awe on her face again, the one you first caught up on that hill, and you don't want to disturb it. She finds your hands and she holds them both in hers. "I really do have to go," she says, her eyes rolling away dramatically, "and Quinn really will be a bitch if she notices me gone. But…" she lifts a hand to her lips and kisses you that way, "…You were awesome tonight, Brittany. The show, everything, you were amazing."

You don't want her to leave.

Yet you thank her for coming, you thank her for the flowers and the champagne, and you let her leave with one last kiss stolen quick from her lips and one last kiss stolen longer from yours.

And then you sigh.

You get that she had to go back to Quinn's; you really do. Yet…

You also still really don't.