You can't believe what you just let happen. You take a shot of tequila. She crawled under her defenses and now she's all over you. You take another shot. You just can't believe it. And you can't stop thinking about it. Kissing her, touching her, feeling her all over you…It just…You miss it so bad. Your knee is bouncing with nervous energy. You're nervous because you know you want to do it again.

You decide to call it a night and get into work early. It's Friday night and you'll make bank if you can get on your 'A' game. You do actually make bank, going home with over a thousand dollars. You're still worried about this legal thing with Richie and about how much it's going to cost.

You're exhausted when you get back to the apartment and you hope that Brittany is asleep. When you step into the apartment, it's so far so good because the only light on is the lights over the stove that Brittany always leaves on for you. You set your take from tonight on the kitchen counter and put your bag on top of the refrigerator.

Then you have a stare down with the bedroom door. You really shouldn't have come home tonight. You should have stayed at some one else's place. But not Kelly. She keeps trying to get you to come over again. Even after you told her it's never, ever, not in a million years happening again.

Finally you decide to sleep in Emily's bed, but you don't want to do that without changing and showering. Of course the only shower along with all of your clothes is in the bedroom. Maybe if she's asleep, you can sneak in there and shower quietly.

When you walk into the bedroom you can see that Brittany is fast asleep. She's still exactly like you left her, naked from the waist up on her stomach. It's chilly in the room so you pull the blankets up across her bare back and rest them across her shoulders. You've probably been looking at her a little too long, more than appropriate.

You're successful at the quiet showering part, but you drop a hanger when you go to get your clothes. She starts to stir a bit so you scurry out of the room and into Emily's where you finish getting dressed.

As you lay on the bed, you look at the decorations. You're glad Emily likes it because if you had to grow up in this room you may have killed yourself. There's too much pink for you. Too much frilly stuff. You definitely embraced the dark side at an early age, insisting that your room be painted a dark color.

Your phone buzzes next to you and you pray that it's not Kelly asking you to come over again. You're going to have to kick that girl's ass to get to her understand what one night stand means. But you find it's not. It's from Brittany. Why are you sleeping in Emily's room?

I didn't want to wake you up. Complete lie. Well not complete lie. You didn't want to wake her up, but that's not the reason you're not sleeping in there.

I'm awake now.

You can't think of anything to say back to that to explain why you can't except: We can't be together.

There's almost no pause in the answer. We will be. I love you and you love me and none of the rest of it matters.

Why is she so damn persistent? You're getting frustrated. It does matter. It matters a lot. You are very aware of the fact that you didn't just deny loving her back because you do. It was never a question of that.

You wait for a text back but instead you hear footsteps walking toward you. You squeeze your eyes shut and hope that you're being robbed. Of course, when you open your eyes, Brittany is sitting on the floor her back on the doorframe, facing you.

"Why are you on the floor?" you ask her.

"We need to talk," she says, seriously.

You sigh and sit up on the bed with your legs crossed. You face her, but your eyes stay on your legs.

"I think it's obvious that I want to be with you," she says, pulling her knees to her chest. "And I think that you want to be with me, you're just…scared or mad at me or something."

"I'm not mad at you," you sigh. You can't have her thinking that you're mad at her for anything. Brittany looks up and you can feel her eyes on you. You can't resist looking back. She looks sad. You definitely didn't want that. "I'm not mad at you, I swear."

"I know," she looks down at her nails, "But that means you're scared and I don't want you to be scared of me."

"I'm not scared of you," you assure her immediately, "I'm scared of what I could do to you."

She looks up at you and holds you eyes, "Well, I'm not. I'm not afraid of you or anything you could do to me."

"You should be," you run your hands through your still damp hair.

A smile breaks out on her face and she says, "I'll never be afraid of you. You're my Santypants."

You have a chuckle at that. You can't believe that she still remembers that. You shake your head, "I'm not Santypants anymore."

"You'll always be Santypants," she gives you a loving smile.

You can feel it too. You can feel all the love that she has for you and it's starting to hurt. You duck your head and take a deep breath, "It's not the same. We're not the same."

"I know," she says, "But we still love each other. That's the same and that's all we need." She stands up and walks over to the bed. "Lay down and get some sleep honey. We'll talk more tomorrow okay?"

You can just nod because her vicinity has rendered you incapable of your own thoughts. You lay down and she pulls the covers up to your chin. She smiles at you and kisses you lightly on the lips before you can protest, "I love you Santana."

You squeeze your eyes closed as she walks out of the room, not even waiting for your reply.

In the morning, you wake up and look around the apartment. She's gone. You didn't think that she was supposed to work today, but you never know. After some coffee that was already made and a bagel you start getting dressed. You need to think so you're going to go walk around for a while.

You feel a text vibrate your phone as you're about to walk out the door. Can you pick up Emily? I had to run in to work. You sigh and know that you can't say no. Once she gives you directions, you take her car to Manhattan Beach. You wonder what Quinn does or who she married that she can afford to live here. When the GPS on your phone tells you that you've arrives you're stuck by a large tan house with a fenced in front yard. You can see Quinn sitting on the front porch watching three little kids running around.

You get out of the car and as soon as you step on the property Emily almost tackles you with a hug. "'Tana!" You like that someone is that excited to see you, but you're worried about what happens when she gets older and bigger.

Quinn smiles up from the porch and elegantly makes her way over to you. She pulls you into a hug that surprised you, "Santana, it's so good to see you."

"Yeah you too."

"You look good," Quinn looks you over with a friendly smile. She watches as Emily runs back into the house with the other two kids. "Why don't you come in? It'll take a little while for Emily to get all of her stuff together."

You nod and nervously follow her into the gigantic house. As you follow her through the pristine living room and into a large kitchen, you add, "Nice place."

"Thanks," she smiles at you, "Would you like something to drink?"

"Water," you answer.

She moves effortlessly around the kitchen and gets you the water you requested. Then she leans on the counter across from you, "I'm sorta glad that Brittany got stuck at work. It really is good to see you."

"Really?" you ask. You can't really imagine that people want to see you or miss you in any way.

"Of course," she smiles her perfect smile.

You don't know what to say to that so you take a long sip of your water. Luckily Quinn keeps talking. "Emily talks about you like you're the greatest person on the planet."

"Really?" you're starting to sound like a broken record, but that surprises you.

Quinn laughs and rests her chin in her palm, "Yeah. She loves you S."

You shrug, "I love her too."

"I always knew you'd be an awesome parent," Quinn stands up and starts moving around the kitchen, "You have that whole protective thing down."

You look around the kitchen and even after living with Emily for the past few months, you know the difference between a kitchen with a kid and a kitchen without one. "What about you? No kids?"

Quinn shakes her head, "Nah. Not yet anyway. I'm going to wait until I'm ready this time, but my nieces come over all the time. We should all have a play date next week some time. Emily said she likes museums."

"She loves them," you tell her, "We go to as many as we can. She's so smart. She just soaks up everything." You realize you're gushing when Quinn's smile grows, but you don't care. Emily is the smartest kid you've ever met.

"I'll give you my phone number and you can call me whenever you want to go," Quinn offers, "Do you have time to stay for lunch? I was going to make sandwiches, but I can make something else if you'd like."

"Sandwiches sound good," you tell her. You can hear Emily having a good time and you don't want to have to take her away so soon. Plus, you're kinda glad to see Quinn. "Do you need any help? I can't like…cook but I can cut stuff."

Quinn throws her head back in a laugh, "Just like high school. Yeah you can cut the tomatoes."

After she sets you up with a knife and cutting board you get to work. She's off to the side cutting the mini sub rolls. "So," she says, "What's up with you and Britt?"

"You do you mean?" you know what she means. You just want to know what she knows before you say anything.

"I was just wondering what's going on," Quinn says glancing at you before going back to what she was doing, "Brittany won't tell me much. Just that you live together. I just assumed that as soon as you two caught up to each other that you'd be together again. Like you always were."

"Things change," you grit out. You don't want to have this conversation with Quinn now. Not after what happened last weekend in Lima and what happened last night in your bedroom.

"Don't worry S," Quinn offers, "I'm sure she'll come around. She always does."

"What?" you look questioningly at her.

Quinn looks confused, "She's not the one stopping you two from being together?"

You don't answer. You just look back down at your tomato. A soft "oh" from Quinn and you know that she knows. She doesn't add anything for a few seconds. You can hear Emily and the other girls laughing and running around.

You can practically hear Quinn thinking from your side of the kitchen and after another few seconds you can't take it anymore. You drop your knife onto the cutting board and turn around, "I'm not good for her okay?"

Quinn's eyes get wide and she looks absolutely bewildered. "Uh, um…" she blinks a few times and regains her bearings, "How so?"

"I'm just not. I never have been," you cross your arms, "I'm toxic or something and it's better if she just moves on."

Your friend picks up a hand towel and wipes off her hands turning toward you, "You want her to move on? To some other guy or girl?"

No. Never in a million years. But they may be able to give her something you can't. You're a stripper in a downward spiral and she's a dancer on way up. She could do so, so much better. You drop your head and mumble out the part about her being able to do better.

Quinn doesn't say anything. She walks over to you and envelopes you in her arms, "For as long as I can remember, I've been jealous of you both. You found your soul mate so early in life when most of us spend years searching. She's your one and you're hers. Why else would everything have turned out like it did?"

"What if I…" you swallow trying to keep tears down. You hate crying and you hate doing it in front of anyone, but most especially in front of Quinn Fabray. "What if I hurt her again?"

Quinn pulls away and looks into your eyes with a kind smile, "You two are so solid that no amount of hurt can come between you. Look at what's happened since you met each other. You've both been hurt, but you've both come back from it. Plus, you're adults now and you have a kid together. I don't see why you don't at least give it a shot."

"Okay," you step back and cross your arms again, "Let's say I do go back. We're together. When I fuck up what happens? What if you doesn't want to ever see me again? What if she doesn't want Emily to ever see me again either?"

"What if a meteor comes crashing through the ceiling at this moment?" Quinn smirks and shakes her head, "You can't keep playing the 'what if' game. You need to live you life. Let yourself be happy."

You're okay to just leave it at that. You turn back to your job and finish it off as Quinn is calling the children in to eat. You and Quinn have a civil lunch after that discuss her house and the weather, meaningless things like that.

After lunch, you take Emily home. She falls asleep in the car and you carry her up to the apartment. When you get inside, you find Brittany sitting at the dining room table, reading and eating an apple. She watches silently as you put Emily down in her bed.

When you emerge, her book is closed and the apple is down on the table. "Thanks for picking her up."

"No problem," you sigh and look at the clock. You don't have to leave to work for another five hours and you can't think of a good excuse to leave now. So you walk past her into the bedroom and fall onto the bed. Your second shoe hasn't even hit the ground when she follows you into the bedroom and sits on the far corner of the bed, her legs crossed, looking right at you.

"Quinn called," she says softly. She doesn't make a move to touch you, which by the mere fact that you realized means that she's starting to get to you.

You curl up into the pillows and look at her. She has her serious face on and her eyes intensely hold yours, "Oh yeah?"

Brittany nods, her eyes dropping to her hands in her lap, "I don't want you to be mad at her, but she told me some parts of what you said."

You groan and bury your face in the nearest pillow. You should have known that Fabray couldn't keep her big mouth shut.

"This is important Santana," Brittany says. You know by her use of your full name that it is in fact important. You look back up at her and wait for her to continue, "No matter what happens between us, I will never try to take Emily away from you. She loves you so much and you're so great with her. You're so great together. She needs you," she pauses, "I'd never do that. To either one of you. I'll make it legal or whatever if you want. You're her mom too, ya know?"

Your mouth goes dry at her words. There is so much reassurance in what she says. You know it's the truth. You know that even if you royally fuck up, Emily will still be in your life. As much as you don't want to admit it, you need her. She gives you the much-needed purpose in your life. She gives you a reason for you to do, or not do, things. All you can manage is a, "Thanks."

"I love you San," Brittany crawls up the bed and lays her head down next to yours. "I'm not going to kiss you because I'm scared that I went too far, too fast last night, but can I give you a hug?"

How can you say no to that? Saying it like that makes you want to kiss her all that much more. You open your arms and she slips in, wrapping her arms around you. You swallow and close your eyes because they're starting to sting with tears. You squeeze her in your arms as the tears overwhelm your eyes, "I'm so scared." It comes out as a whisper, but you know that she heard you.

She gathers you in a firmer hold and places a chaste kiss on your neck, "It's okay. This time I'll be the brave one."