As easy as it had been for Santana to fall asleep, and as tired as she was, actually staying asleep had proved impossible. She had tossed and turned restlessly for the remainder of the night, unable to get fully comfortable for long even against Brittany, and the dozing she had managed had been plagued by nightmares brought on by her anxious thought. By the time the first strains of light were starting to stretch across the sky, filtering in through the window, Santana had moved past tired to worn to the point of exhaustion, and she was starting to get exceedingly cranky as a result. Being tired was the fastest way to bring out her childish side, and so she whined, burrowing against Brittany and kicking one leg miserably.

"I don't like this bed. It smells funny."

Every time Santana tossed and turned in the middle of the night Brittany shifted to try to find a comfortable position with her. Though she gave up sometime around 3 a.m. of actually getting some sleep tonight she knew that both of them at least had today off. She could take Santana back to their apartment and put her to bed will she tried to figure out some budgeting items. Her math brain was already starting to create spreadsheets but she needed to get them down while they were still fresh in her mind.

"Let's go home then. We'll put you to bed and I'll work on our budgeting."

She sat up a little, rubbing her tired eyes. Santana made a whining noise in her throat in protest, even as she rubbed at her own burning eyes, sitting up without coordination. Just because she wanted to go home didn't mean that she wanted to move to do it. Now sitting up, she pressed her face into Brittany's shoulder, as though this act was enough for the day.

"Hate morning. Hate."

"I know you do. You've never been a morning person." Brittany took in a deep breath as her arms moved around Santana's body. "But you can't sleep in this bed and I don't want you up for much longer without a nap."

She rubbed the back of Santana's neck, trying to keep herself from flopping back and trying to get some more sleep. Her body ached in protest when she moved to get up. Santana didn't make it easy on her to stand. She remained attached to her in some way at all times and barely kept her eyes open. She managed to dress herself in a hoodie and sweats but left the pajama top on before latching onto Brittany again, letting her lead and frequently mumbling another complaint about pretty much everything that came into her line of vision every so often.

If Brittany was any less tired she would've found Santana's antics adorable. But she was tired down in her bones as she managed to get them out of the hotel and into a cab. She rested the top of her head against Santana's as the cabbie took them back to their apartment. She closed her eyes as she tried to breathe slowly enough to keep herself calm without breathing too slowly and putting herself to sleep. She didn't want to fall asleep in the back of the cab.

Santana had almost managed to fall asleep again by the time they pulled up in front of the house. Her head had tilted over to Brittany's shoulder, and her breathing had just started to even out when they came a stop. She protested wordlessly again, burying her face in her neck.

"Sleep."

Brittany decided not to fight Santana. She lifted her up in her arms like a groom carrying his bride over the threshold. She struggled up the stairs but she managed to get Santana to their apartment door. She sat her down before using her key on the door and bringing Santana inside in her arms again. She walked them into the bedroom and set Santana down on the bed, then crouched down rub Santana's thighs with her hands.

"Do you want anything before you go to sleep?"

Santana didn't answer. She had burrowed in again when Brittany lifted her, and when the blonde pulled apart, laying her down, she snuggled into the pillow now, eyes still shut.

"Mm."

She hadn't even woke up to see Rachel, emerging from the bathroom after her six am wake up, gawking at them as they came through the front door and manuvered past her down the hall.

She was sure that Santana was asleep Brittany walked to the kitchen. She made herself a cup of coffee before sitting down at the kitchen table. Her forehead rested against the table as she growled to herself.

"What a freaking night," she muttered as she tried to run through everything that happened. How did the night out with her dancer friends end up with her a hotel room with Santana to calm her down after seeing her as a near stripper? Just how?

Rachel, having stood watching her in the hallway, was a bit miffed at having been very much ignored, but her nosiness won out even more so. Coming to stand in the entrance between the kitchen and living room area, she watched Brittany, eyebrows raised.

"Rough night, huh? Is she drunk?"

She was referring to Santana being carried in.

"No," Brittany said, lifting her head up and brushing her hair out of the way. "No, she's not drunk. She is mentally and physically exhausted." She crossed her arms over her chest. "Thank you, so much, for not telling me she worked as a go go dancer. Really, I plan to make sure I thank you properly for that."

Rachel blinked, already bristling at her tone. "I fail to see how it's my responsibility. I would think that would be her job, to inform you about her choices of employment. If she didn't want to tell you where she's choosing to seek employment then maybe she needs to examine her life choices, but I fail to see how that's my job to do it for her."

Brittany rubbed her temples, trying to stop a headache before it was starting. "Because she would never tell me something like that. It would make her too scared of how I would react. She was already humiliated, she didn't want her girlfriend to be too."

"Well if she was so humiliated it should have told her something," Rachel exhaled, rolling her eyes. "I tried to tell her already, Brittany. Kurt and I both, we tried to tell her she's throwing her life away and that was even before-" she stopped, swallowing, pain coming into her eyes, but she forced it down, lifting her chin determinedly. "We told her and she didn't have any of the excuses or reasons you've given for her then for making that choice to work where she does, and she blew us off. She wasn't embarrassed, even though she should be, she just didn't care what we thought. Like usual. So you pinning her refusal to be honest with you on me is very inappropriate."

Brittany just sat back in her chair and shook her head slowly at Rachel. She wondered for a moment if she could get away with murder and Rachel if she showed old videos of her being a total pain in the ass. If the jury was comprised of only members of Glee she was sure she would be acquitted and maybe even given a prize of some sort.

"Trust me when I tell you that I am upset with her and I'm not pinning anything on you. Her not telling me something that she and I have to work through as a couple. But you're her friend. You should've seen it as a red flag. Because if you were working at a place like that it would've been as much of a red flag as it is with her."

Brittany stood up and dumped her coffee down the sink before turning back to Rachel.

"Once upon a time you told her that the only job she would ever get was working on a pole. I don't think you ever realized how much that cut deep with her. It's her biggest fear come to life. And I'm sure that she gave you some brushoff but you're her friend. You should know when she gives you a brushoff it means that you've hit a nerve."

"Brittany, that's ridiculous. Of course Kurt and I were concerned that Santana would do something so wasteful and degrading with herself, but you know how she is, she does what she wants and she doesn't listen to what anyone else thinks when she's made up her mind."

Rachel started to rummage through the cabinets, deciding absently what to eat even as Brittany's next remark sank in. She frowned, having completely forgotten about making the pole comment until Brittany reminded her of it, and she sighed loudly.

"Brittany...so what you're saying is, she can dish but she can't take, is that it? Do you think it's possible to even tally all the rude comments she's made about me over the years? You're really going to try the guilt trip over the one time I gave it back?"

"1279 that I was there for over four years of high school and then everything sense. About 67% of them were about your nose. The rest was between your looks otherwise and your ethnicity. When you guys picked on her you didn't pick on her looks. You picked on her worth as a person. You made her feel like she was nothing because making her nothing somehow made you feel better about yourself."

Rachel's mouth opened, then closed, and she started just shaking her head, her lips tightly pressed together before she replied, banging objects around just a little more than necessary.

"I'm sure that's the line she's given you, but really, that's ridiculous. No one picked on Santana, that's absolutely crazy to even say. No one had the nerve, the way she attacked us all first."

"You made 72 comments about her talent or her ability to perform just in the three years we had glee club. There was another 974 comments from everyone in glee club about how much of a bitch she was, or how cold she was, or how she didn't have feelings or emotions. You guys treated her like she was a bad person and she wasn't. She doesn't feed me lines, Rachel. I'm not a child." Brittany felt her hands shake a little with the force it took for her not to slap Rachel across the face.

Rachel stared at her, finding this number ridiculously high to the point that she wanted to accuse her of just spitting out a number to say a number. And yet it did dawn on her uncomfortably that there were quite a few times she does recall of people saying exactly what Brittany just said. Instead, she sighed loudly, turning back to the cabinets.

"No one said she's a bad person. All I'm saying now is that I'm tired of being blamed for her bad choices, like they're somehow my fault or like I should just know stuff about her she doesn't choose to share. Everyone has problems, Brittany, and she needs to learn to deal with hers without making it something that runs her whole life."

'"She does," Brittany admitted. "But friends don't let friends do things that destroy them. You were dating a male prostitute did she just let you do it because it was your choice or did she make sure to protect you? She will do anything for her friends and she has learned that her friends won't do anything for her. Except confront her and make her feel like she's a bad person for what she decided. You can't accuse her of basically being a slut and then expecting her to accept your help."

Rachel sighed again as she sat down with her food, starting to eat it even as she answered. "Thank you for your concern for her, however, again, it's misplaced. No one is mistreating her, it's actually frequently the other way around, to be perfectly honest, and no one is in need to protection here."

"Ask yourself this. When has Santana ever not been there when one of her friends really needed her? When one of her friends asked her to really be there for them, or even if they didn't ask, is she ever turned her back on one of her friends?" Brittany asked softly. "Now think of all of the times that no one thought to ask her if she was okay or if she needed someone." She felt her emotions creep up. "Not if you thought she needed help but how many times you bothered to ask and really take the time to make sure she was telling the truth."

Rachel squirmed, very much uncomfortable now by being asked to do this...and more so by the answers she knows to be truth, coming to mind. She didn't want to answer this aloud. Instead she said, "I'm a little tired of constantly being on a guilt trip around you, Brittany."

"Wouldn't feel guilty unless you did something wrong," Brittany pointed out.

Rachel sighed, her voice stiff as she addressed her. "What exactly is it you want me to say here, Brittany?"

"I don't want you to say anything," Brittany explained. "I want you to just do better by her. You two could really use each other. She's an amazing friend and I think you could be too."

Rachel didn't say anything. She just sighed, keeping her thoughts to herself, as she finished her food and continued getting ready. Brittany made herself a new cup of coffee and grabbed some Fruity Pebbles. She sat back down and started playing a game of Candy crush with one hand and eating with the other.

Santana had dozed for the brief period of time that Rachel and Brittany were talking, but she stirred awake shortly, aware dimly that Brittany was not in bed with her. Even in her groggy state she strongly disliked this, and she slowly got herself out of bed after several uncoordinated efforts. Eyes only slitted open partway, hair hanging in her face, she shuffled almost zombie like to the kitchen, rubbing her hand over her face like an overgrown toddler as she moved excruciatingly slowly to Brittany.

"Alone in there...cold."

Rachel, who had started to make herself lunch to take to class, stopped and gawked at her all over again. Brittany just pushed back from the table and patted her leg for Santana to sit down on her lap. She wrapped her up in her arms, closing her eyes and just holding on to Santana for a few moments. She sort of loved when Santana put her guard down and just let her hold her.

"I will warm you up babe."

Santana straddled her, burying her face in her shoulder, and breathed deeply, relaxing.

"Left me," she mumbled again, seemingly incapable of speaking full sentences this morning. "Cold."

Rachel had stopped moving entirely now as she stared at her. The only time she had seen Santana remotely behave this way was when she was drunk, and yet Brittany had told her that she wasn't. She eyed her, then, looking at Brittany quickly, asked with some hesitation and over articulation, "Santana, are you quite all right there?"

Santana didn't even lift her head. Instead, she said into Brittany's neck, nevertheless pretty clearly, "Babyyyy Berry's talking. Make her stop."

Brittany couldn't help but laugh softly at Santana's antics. "I didn't leave you honey. I told you I had some stuff I wanted to do and you wanted to sleep."

She ran her hand up and down Santana's back, over her skirt for now. She chuckled when Santana told her Rachel was talking and to stop it.

"Honey Rachel is our friend, remember? You have to be nice to her and she will be nice back. And being nice to our friends gets you rewarded too. Early Christmas gift level rewarded."

"Rachel doesn't believe in Christmas," Santana informed Brittany, stifling a yawn against her neck. This didn't actually apply to what Brittany was talking about but she was tired past the point of logic. She twined her fist in Brittany's hair, shifting against her. "Don't feel nice."

"That's hardly new," Rachel rolled her eyes, but she was saying it without any venom as she continued to eye Santana, still seeming to be adjusting to viewing her in this way.

"I know you don't like being nice when you're grumpy, Santana." Brittany nuzzled her neck, enjoying the moment even if she was trying to show Rachel that Santana wasn't who she thought she was. "And you happen to be very cute when you're like this, very cute."

"Am not," Santana whispered, even as she melted like a koala bear on its mother's back against Brittany's chest, her legs dangling over hers like a kid's. "Not."

Rachel back away, frowning slightly as she considers what she's been viewing, uncomfortable new thoughts in many directions coming through her mind.

"Why don't we go back to bed for a little while?" Brittany had a lot she wanted to get done but a few hours in Santana's arms in bed wouldn't be so bad. She could get Santana to get a little more sleep and she could enjoy a power nap of her own. "I bet the two of us will feel better after a nap, won't we?"

Santana nodded against her but made absolutely no move to get up, eyes shut. Brittany managed to stand them both up, holding on to Santana's ass with her hands to carry her back to bed.

"You are very lucky you have a strong girlfriend who is willing to cop a feel and carry you, Santana Marisol," she muttered as she walked past Rachel.

Rachel was starting to think maybe Santana was just faking this all for exactly that, attention and copping a feel. She just shook her head as she went out the door, but a part of her genuinely was wondering.