Chapter Twelve

A/N: Well, this took a while to come but here it is! My excuse for this chapter's lateness is that work and weekends have been busy & when they've not been too busy I've been lazy and a little unwell.

Words: 4,664

Santana felt bad that she had just walked away from Quinn like that. She had wanted to talk to Quinn for longer but she really didn't want to get caught doing that by the rest of her team.

Santana knows that it sounds awful to think like that but she know that she has her reasons too. She had worked really hard to get her place on the team, harder than all of the other guys she thinks, and she didn't want to jeopardise it in any way.

Santana also know that that is no excuse to treat people the way she does but she is certain that if she acted differently some of the more senior and dominant players in the team would have her kicked of the team almost instantly, even if she was one of the best and hardest working players.

Flashback to Santana in Middle School:

The fourteen year old Santana Lopez was undeniably the star of her Middle School's basketball team. First off, she was the only female to have played for a male team in the school's history, she had the record number of points and baskets in school history and she also had the fastest 60 metre and 100 metre sprint on the team. Throughout her life she had never really been too good at anything except running and playing basketball. She was certain that she was going to play the sport her whole life and if she was honest, she was prepared to do anything to get into her high school and college basketball team. She thinks she would be especially willing to do all sorts to get on to the boy's/men's teams, getting onto female teams would be a doddle for her.

When she went to high school she had already heard about a few of the guys that played on the team. She'd heard from her brother that the new captain (who father was also coach) was one of the worst people to come across in the school. He pretty much ran the team and everyone aimed to keep in happy in case he reported some bullshit back to his father. Santana didn't think he could be that bad... She was willing to do what he wanted if she could get on the team though.

On Santana's first day at high school she immediately signed up for basketball trials. She immediately disregarded the try outs for the girls team, insistent that she was either going to play at the top level or not at all. However, saying that, she was willing to play for the Junior Varsity team if she had to. Not the freshman team though.

The try outs for basketball were held one week after Santana had signed up. Throughout that week she had been working extra hard on her fitness training to ensure that she could outrun anyone else trying out. When she entered the gym for tryouts she was dressed in her favourite white Cavaliers kit and her white Adidas basketball sneakers. Her hair was back in tight braids, she didn't want anything to get in the way of her making the team.

She worked her butt off the whole time. She ran as quickly as she could for every ball... She aced every shot she took; she even took the ball around a few of bigger guys just to show off her skills. And when she looked over to the Coach Karofsky she could tell that he was impressed that she was not only keeping up with the older boys but she was also better than the majority and the fact that she oozed confidence made her an even more attractive basketball player. The last part of the try out was the team of people who had made it this far in the tryouts versus people who were currently on the varsity squad. Santana was hopeful that what she had done so far had been impressive enough because as much as she wanted to (and knew she could) she knew she shouldn't try to 'school' the guys who were on the squad. She bounced up and down on the spot waiting to either run after her opponent or to catch the ball when it's palmed back to her. She was impressed when she saw the tall boy with the mohawk, who was also trying out, jump higher than McKinley's current central player and managed to get the ball back to her. Santana caught the ball and immediately headed up the court towards the basket managing to dodge the five guys who were trying to stop her and when she finally got to the edge of the key she released a shot that went straight into the basket without the help of the backboard. This gave her team a great start to the small match and saw them go on to defeat the current Varsity squad very narrowly. Coach Karofsky was impressed but his son, Dave, was not. More than once he had been on the receiving end of Santana's silky skills and she had pretty much embarrassed him in front of the team that he captained. That was when he decided that these new 'Superstars' who make the team from try outs were going to have to work to prove how much they wanted it. He knew that since he was captain and his dad was coach he could find a way of manipulating people into doing what he wanted.

It was a couple of days later when Santana, Noah Puckerman (the boy with the mohawk who was also in her homeroom) found out that they were on the Junior Varsity Squad. Santana was actually with Puck at the time when Coach Karofsky and Dave approached them to tell them the good (or bad) news. Santana knew that she had to keep her composure and she also knew that when she got home her emotions were going to erupt and she was going to bug her family until they all told her how awesome it was that she got on one of the teams. Santana grinned at the fact that she'd achieved her goal and gave Puck a fist bump before thanking the coach, who told her she deserved it and if she was only a little older then she'd be on the actual Varsity squad and stealing his son's place. Then he moved on towards his next gym class leaving Dave with the two freshmen.

"So freshmen, congrats on making the team but don't think that you're place is safe. You guys showed me up at tryouts that day and to me that was unacceptable. From now on you two are going to do whatever I say, ok?" Being captain of the Varsity squad gave Dave the rule of the Junior Varsity too.

Both Santana and Puck nodded.

"Good. And if you don't I'm sure I can convince my dad to get you off the team. I managed to persuade him to let me be captain so I'm sure I could you two kicked off if I wanted. So DON'T make me want to do that... Are we clear?"

They nodded again.

"What was that?" Dave asked.

"Yes, captain?" Santana and Puck said in tandem.

"That's more like it. See you around."

Puck and Santana looked at each other.

"So are you willing to do pretty much anything to stay on the team?" Puck asked.

"Umm yeah I guess so. Hopefully I don't have to do anything too bad... I'm not really good at being mean to people... Well except my brothers. What about you?"

"Sure, I'm bad-ass so I'll get away with it." He said with a stupid smile.

Throughout that first year Santana had done some horrible things to people around the school. She was sure that Dave only hated her so much because she was better than him at any position on the court and if she was older she would get a start in his favourite position ahead of him. In fact, when she turns 15 she would be old enough but she doesn't think that coach can make a justified decision to change the starting squad half way through the season but he probably could still spin it to make sure she was banned from all basketball if he tried. Santana had mainly been made to pick on the people the basketball team called 'nerds' and the majority of them were members of the Glee club. To be honest, Santana wanted to join the Glee club but she knew that this would mean an instant drop from the team, even though Puckerman had somehow managed to get away with it. He had some excuse about 'protecting' his sister, Rachel, or something, even though Santana knew he loved the music. Santana had been made to do some small, silly things to Rachel which made for some awkwardness between her and Puck but the person who had received most of Santana's abuse was Kurt Hummel. Dave had some issue with him because he was openly gay, something that Santana didn't care about but sometimes had to say some shit about, and he forced Santana to almost constantly slushy him and give him some sort of verbal abuse. Dave knew that Santana hated hurting others when she wasn't on the basketball court but he wanted to ensure that Santana knew he was the captain and he was in charge and she couldn't steal that from him. Also, the fact that Kurt was Rachel's best friend meant that she was confronted weekly by the loud girl for her unfair and homophobic abuse, and she reminded Santana how unacceptable the stuff she was doing was, this often made Santana go home extremely upset and sometimes even made her cry when she realised how much she was hurting Kurt and the other Glee members. If Santana wanted to she could tell Dave all the stuff that Rachel said he would probably force her to stop, but Santana knew it was the truth and she had to have some repercussions for her action. She knew that one day this would change, hopefully as soon as Dave left and she prayed that she would be forgiven by the people she upset when the day comes.

End of flashback

It was now Friday late afternoon, and Santana hadn't spoke a word to Quinn for the past two days, despite the fact that there were in a lot of classes together, and it was eating her up inside. She purposely didn't acknowledge Quinn in the corridors and this wasn't because she didn't want to. Because, my god did she want to see Quinn's smile directed at her – although since the first day of Santana ignoring Quinn, she stopped smiling and instead just gave Santana a confused look every time she was ignored. It was because she didn't want Quinn to instantly become one of the victims of Dave's verbal and sometimes physical abuse. Santana is pretty certain that if she shows any interest in Quinn, friendly or otherwise, and Dave notices he'll purposes try to make Santana pick on Quinn. For that reason and the fact that Quinn seemed to be all buddy-buddy with one Rachel Berry. She can't wait until summer because Dave will be gone by then and she'll have free access to Quinn and she might be able to join the Glee club too.

Friday night was game night for the McKinley High Wildcats. It was their first game back since the Christmas break and they were looking to continue the amazing form that they had before the holidays. Santana remembers clearly that she had invited Quinn and a father to the game and before today she was convinced they would definitely come, now she had some doubts but was deeply wishing that they do come along, not just so they could see her awesome basketball skills but she also wanted to chat to Quinn when there wasn't a chance of her getting caught (she knows that that sounds bad). Santana had accepted Quinn's friend request on Facebook as soon as she got home on the last day she spoke to Quinn. And today Santana had sent her a message to remind her about the game. Quinn had read the message but had yet to reply, Santana didn't think she would.

Quinn was happy when Santana accepted her friend request the day after they had spoken in school, even if Santana had left quickly and without a real excuse, and for some reason they hadn't spoken for the rest of that day.

The next day at school Quinn made sure to say "hi" or smile and wave at Santana, she really wanted to be friends (and more) with the girl but for some reason she was getting ignored. That was not fun. Quinn decided that maybe Santana was just having a bad day, but near the end of the day she caught clear eye contact with Santana when she was walking at the back of the pack of basketball players and gave her her best smile. When Santana's only reaction was to widen her eyes a little and look at the ground, Quinn decided that she wasn't going to try and get her attention again until Santana made the effort.

So on Friday, whenever Quinn saw Santana, she just gave her a look. She wasn't exactly sure what the look portrayed but she was basically just trying to stop herself from smiling at her. Santana didn't smile at her on Friday either, Quinn could, however, see some sort of debate going on behind those beautiful brown eyes. A debate that she couldn't seem to place.

Later on Friday, when she got home, Quinn noticed on her phone that she had a message from Santana. Weird.

Santana Lopez: Hi Quinn, I know we haven't spoken in a few days but I'd be really happy if you and Russ came to my game tonight. I know you were planning on it so this is just a reminder that tip-off is at 8pm, hope you can still make it, it'll be good to have some new supporters :) See ya later, San x

Quinn smiled for a moment until she remembered that they hadn't communicated properly since the kiss at Santana's the day they reunited. Since then Santana hadn't acted interested in her at all. And now she'd be 'really happy' to see her? Quinn was confused. Girls were confusing.

When Russell got home, she discovered that she and her dad were indeed going to Santana's game and he was a little excited about it, it had been a while since he and Quinn had hung out together. Quinn was a little annoyed with herself when she felt butterflies in her stomach at the prospect of seeing Santana and seeing Santana dominating at her favourite sport. Hot.

Quinn and Russell were running a little but they certainly weren't going to miss the start and they arrived just a few minutes before 8pm. The hall was packed when they arrived. There were definitely way more people supporting the McKinley Wildcats than those supporting the Carmel Camels, though. The red and white flags on the walls were completely outnumbering the yellow and black.

As Quinn looked around in awe at the excitement of everyone in the gym, Russell was trying to locate a few seats and managed to locate a few that were close to the court and the team benches. They made their way there and were seated just as the announcer voice boomed through the gym and introduced both teams. After this everyone rose to their feet and cheered and clapped for the teams as they ran onto the court. Quinn was excited.

Santana was running at the back of her crew of players and was clearly scouting the room. It wasn't clear if she was looking for someone in particular or if she was just being nosey. Santana, however, knew exactly what she was looking for. She had invited Quinn twice; surely Quinn wouldn't reject two invites, even if she was mad, she was too nice for that. Wasn't she? Plus, Russ really wanted to watch a game so hopefully Quinn couldn't turn down her dad too. Santana was yet to find Quinn in the group of people yet, but as she turned to walk towards the player's bench her eyes caught onto piercing green-hazel eyes. This made her smile probably more than it should have.

Quinn watched Santana skip and jump across the gym hall looking as confident and a beautiful as ever. Quinn might have drooled a little if she hadn't realised she was in public and shut her mouth. Her eyes followed Santana as she saw the other girl trying to eye everyone in the crowd; it kind of looked like she was looking for something or someone specific. It didn't look like she had had success finding what she wanted to find because she had kept the same stern face the whole time. It wasn't until Quinn saw Santana walking in her direction that she noticed she had a small grin on the other girl's face and when her eyes caught Santana's dark ones both of them felt their face grow into a familiar smile. Quinn kept looking at Santana; she was happy that the girl had eventually smiled at her again, and when she noticed Santana come out of her mini-daze she mouthed "Good Luck" and followed it up with a charming smile to which Santana replied with a bite to her lip and nodding her head with a small smile.

The game flew by quickly and they were already in the final quarter. Santana had played a stormer and the Wildcats were up 84-21 with Santana scoring a heck load of the points. It was an extreme understatement to say that Quinn was impressed and even more attracted to Santana. The Wildcats kept up the momentum in the final quarter and the game finally ended 102-26. Which led to a loud cheer and chanting from the crowd that were watching. After shaking hands with the players from the Camels, Santana began to head back over to the player's bench, catching Quinn's attention

"That was a really great game wasn't it, Quinn-Tastic?" Russell asked surprising Quinn and making her tear her eyes away from Santana.

"Hmm?" Quinn said, slightly confused for a moment, "Oh right... Yeah it was a great game! I'm really impressed at how amazing Santana was. She never let on that she had that much skill!" She continued excitedly.

"She sure was great!" Russell replied, "Oh look she's coming over here now!"

Russell was right, Santana was closer than she was earlier and was now definitely in speaking distance.

"Hi Santana! Great play out there, I'm impressed! Those boys couldn't keep up." Russell said to Santana.

Santana nodded her head and took her eyes off of Quinn to look at Russell and reply, "Thank, Russ! I'm glad you took up my invitation and I'm glad you came along!" She smiled, "You caught me on one of my good nights." She said with a laugh.

"We wouldn't miss it for the world, would we Quinn?" He said and turned to talk to her.

"Uhh... H-Hi Santana." She smiled.

"Hello Quinn," Santana said with a chuckle, "I hope you enjoyed the game...?"

"You were great! I mean... The game... It was a great game. You were great too though. I really enjoyed it. And I enjoyed watching you play." Quinn said quickly and blushed at the confession.

Santana grinned again, "Why thank you Quinn. Look, I need to go get showered and changed and stuff but do you wanna come meet me when I'm changed? I just need to talk to you about something..."

"Um yeah?" She wanted to stay mad at Santana but that was not going to happen, "Is that ok, Dad?"

"Of course it is, Quinn-Tastic. Let's go chat to Santana's family so she has time to get ready." Russell replied, smiling at both of the girls then looking to Santana, "I saw your family around here somewhere, right?"

Santana grinned at Quinn when Russell replied to her question and then pointed in the direction of her mom, dad and brothers, who were still there with the small number of others who were waiting behind for kids, before waving at them and turning away to head to the locker rooms. Russell then thanked her and headed up the bleachers to see them and Quinn waved goodbye (for now) to Santana who called to her, "See you in 15 minutes, Quinn. The locker rooms are just around this corner." Quinn nodded slightly in reply and went to chat with the Lopez's.

Quinn definitely wasn't paying attention to what her Dad was talking to the Lopez's about; she must have checked her watch fifty times before finally deciding that she'd rather just stare at it and watch the hands tick until they reached the desired time. She had decided that she was going to wait around seventeen minutes before going to find Santana, it was her way of trying to tell Santana that she hadn't been forgiven for ignoring Quinn for the past few days.

As she was making her way to the locker rooms, Quinn was thinking about what Santana wanted to talk to her about. She was sure that she herself hadn't done anything to hurt Santana and she knew that Santana had done something that her hurt so she was sort of hoping that the other girl was going to apologise. She was also praying that there'd be no one else in the locker room with them; it would be nice to just see Santana on her own.

Quinn got to the first door and it read "Female Locker Room 1" and knocked on it while saying "San... Are you there?"

She waited a few moments and was ready to move on to the next locker room door when the door she knocked swung open and Santana stood at the other side. She was wearing a pair of black McKinley Wildcats sweatpants with a small white tank top and a towel draped around her neck. Quinn doesn't think she's ever seen Santana dressed so casually but she also doesn't think she's ever seen Santana look so good. The brunette girl has her long hair flipped over one shoulder and it's still damp from her shower, her face has no makeup on it (or very little) but it's still flawless and her bare feet have cutely painted red toe nails.

"Hi Quinn," Santana says smiling after watching Quinn checking out her outfit and moved further into the room before gesturing for Quinn to sit on one of the benches and sitting beside her.

"Santana. Hi... Again... Hi."

"Thanks for coming along tonight Quinn." Santana smiles.

"Oh it's no problem, my dad probably wanted to speak to you parents anyway, there his only friends here in Lima and he hasn't seen them all week –"

"Uhh I meant thanks for coming to the game in the first place but yeah thanks for meeting me in these locker rooms too!" Santana smirked.

"Oh right! Of course!" Quinn giggled with a slight blush, "So what did you want to chat about?"

"Well, you might've noticed that I haven't really been talking to you much in school –" Santana started before she was interrupted.

"Yes. I noticed." Quinn said sternly remembering how upset Santana's actions had made her that week.

Santana frowned at Quinn's sad face knowing that it was her fault. "I thought so. I want to apologise for that." Quinn stared at Santana and waited for her to continue, "I'm really sorry that I've had to almost ignore you for the past few days Quinn"

"Had to?" Quinn asked.

Santana shuffled closer to Quinn on the bench and put on leg either side of the bench so she could look directly at Quinn before saying sadly and quietly, "Yeah I had to." This made Quinn look at her with confusion clear on her face. Santana decided that it was best if she continued, "I need to be this person I'm not to remain on the team. For the past few years the older guys in the squad have totally been in charge and since a lot of them see me as 'competition' they've sort of forced me to be mean to the 'losers' or less popular people. It's not something I want to do but I basically have to if I want to keep playing Varsity, and having these Varsity records will do so much for my future. The guys have a lot of influence about who's on the squad and I'm worried that if I upset them too much then I'll be off. If you see me around people that I don't have to pick on then you'd see the real me, Q, the one that you met in Aspen. And I'm not saying that you're a loser, because that's not at all what I think of you, I'm just trying to protect you. If I draw attention to you the guys might force me to choose between you and basketball, because I'd never be blatantly mean to you, and that's not a choice I want to make but you know what I'd choose right?"

Quinn shook her head still feeling upset, "It feels like you already chose basketball."

Santana's eyes opened widely, "That's not true, Q! If I knew you'd be there for me when I gave up basketball I'd choose you every time."

"I would be, San. But I'm not going to ask you to give up something you love. "

"Be there for me how, Q?" Santana said looking into Quinn's eyes.

This threw Quinn off, was she ready to admit all of her feelings? "Umm... Friends... Or more than friends... If you'd be that with me. Probably not. But anyway I don't want you to give up basketball. I know how happy it makes you."

"I'd be that with you, Q. I'll give up my school basketball for you. I'm not sure if I'm ready to publicly come out but we could be close friends at school..." Santana said wiggling her eyebrows a little.

Quinn smiled triumphantly. Then she felt her phone buzzing so she quickly fished it out of her pocket and read the text from her dad. She then looked at Santana who had a questioning look on her face.

"My dad says he's going for coffee with your mom and dad so we can either go meet them now for a drink or in half an hour and go straight home."

"I know what I want to do. But it's up to you, I'll do what you do. Did you hear what I said before?" Santana asked, trying to make Quinn acknowledge that she had spilled her feelings.

Quinn grinned and moved closer to the brunette grabbing her hands. "I heard you Santana. And I'm still not letting you give up basketball. As long as you promise we'll become closer outside of school then I can forgive you for what you're like in school and we don't even have to be proper friends in school if it will jeopardise your place on the team."

Santana narrowed her eyes, "I can promise that. So we can be acquaintances in school?"

"Yes Santana. Acquaintances." Quinn said while moving even closer to Santana. "Can we stay in here for the next half hour?"

"I thought you'd never ask." Santana said chuckling, "So what do you suggest we do for the next 27 minutes?" She said suggestively.

"I know something that people who are more than friends do..." Quinn said moving closer again and focussing her eyes on Santana's plump lips.

"I get what you're saying, Q." Santana muttered close to Quinn's lips and finally closed the distance between them.

A/N: Hope this chapter was okay! Thanks for continuing to read this story. Hopefully the next chapter won't take quite as long as this one.

Rose :)