Sugar felt like a walking dead woman, and apparently she wasn't doing a good job of hiding it, because as the week wore on, she began to get concerned looks from several of the New Directions members, and Brittany, Rory, and Santana had started to ask questions. She'd blamed it all on PMS or a bad test grade, depending on who asked, and apparently by Thursday, a certain green-loving male had gotten fed up with her being down.
"Sugar, you've been looking kinda sad lately, and I know you've already got a boyfriend-" Rory cut himself off suddenly while Sugar stared at him from beside her locker. "Wait, is that it? Did your boyfriend break up with you?"
"Try not to sound so excited," Sugar replied, rolling her eyes at him. "No, we're still together."
Rory's smile faded slightly. "Ah. Well, I know students from other schools aren't permitted to go to our Winter Formal anyway, so…" He withdrew an arm from behind his back to reveal a rose. "I thought maybe you'd go with me. Just as friends?"
Sugar suppressed a smile as she accepted the rose from him, and he stared at her hopefully. "Okay, Rory," she finally agreed. "But only as friends. Otherwise my boyfriend might beat you up."
"Got it," Rory agreed with a grin. "I'll be the perfect non-boyfriend date ever, I swear it." He tipped his shamrock-covered hat to her and hurried away, still smiling, while Sugar laughed a little at his eagerness and stored the flower in her locker.
"Alright, spill," Santana demanded as Sugar was washing her hands in the bathroom later that same day. Suddenly, she found herself cornered by both of her moms, neither of which she had a chance of getting past without giving them answers first. "Did you have a cat we don't know about that died? Did you fall harder than we thought out on the lake and take some damage to your happy place? Because PMS makes you achy and irritable, not so depressed you practically start wearing long sleeves and bracelets to cover your wrists, loser."
"I'm just having a weird week," Sugar insisted, moving to pass them, but after a short head-shake from Santana, Brittany quickly straightened up to block her path.
"The truth now, please," Santana demanded.
"We want to help," Brittany added. "But if you don't tell us what's wrong, then we can't."
"Do you need a date to the dance tomorrow?" Santana guessed. "Because we can fix you up so you don't have to go alone."
"I'm going with Rory," Sugar muttered, moving to push past Brittany again, but the taller girl firmly directed her back to the sinks. "Seriously, let me go."
"The leprechaun? That's surprising," Santana continued, exchanging an amused look with Brittany. "Okay, so how's your family life?"
"None of your business," Sugar snapped, crossing her arms. Santana raised both eyebrows.
"Hmm, feisty." She laughed when Sugar tried to get past them again. "Don't bother; we're stronger than you. Four straight years of rigorous cheerleading, remember?"
Sugar let out a frustrated growl and pushed at Santana without warning, sending her stumbling back a step, clearly caught off-guard. "Leave me alone!"
The two older girls stared at her, wide-eyed, and Brittany gently reached out and touched Sugar on the arm. "Sugar, what's going on?" she asked quietly.
Sugar looked back and forth between them nervously, taking in the twin concerned looks on their faces. Her eyes dropped to her feet and she exhaled. "I'm moving."
They were both silent for a moment. "Like… schools?" Santana finally questioned. Sugar nodded. "When?"
"Soon," she told them vaguely. "Really soon."
"Well…" Brittany trailed off, then smiled slightly. "That's okay. How far away are you going? We can still keep in touch."
Sugar just shook her head. "Not where I'm going, we can't. I just… didn't know how to say anything. I'm not good at saying goodbye."
"But you can't be going away forever," Brittany insisted. "Santana and I graduate in like, six months. Then we can come visit you whenever we want."
"No, you don't understand. You can't. Nobody will know where I am once I leave. When I'm gone, I'm gone forever."
"You can't know that," Santana argued, clearly perturbed.
"Yes. I can." She shook her head at them. "Please don't make me explain more than I already have, and please don't tell anyone else, because other than you two and my dad, no one knows yet. I'm moving away, and I'm not coming back. Ever."
They took a moment to let that sink in.
"…You really don't know when you're leaving?" Santana asked her.
"No," Sugar lied. She really, really didn't like goodbyes. "I don't."
Brittany and Santana both looked to each other briefly, before Brittany finally plastered a clearly forced smile to her face and wrapped a comforting arm around Sugar. "Well, we'll just have to make sure we spend as much time with you as possible until then, won't we?"
"Have fun," Al murmured to her when the doorbell rang one night later, while Sugar was putting the finishing touches on her makeup in the mirror. "Make it a night to remember, alright?"
Sugar swallowed hard and nodded silently, then made her way towards the door. "I'll be back in a few hours," she told him. "And then we can… I can…"
Al nodded and held a hand up, silently letting her know she didn't need to go on, and Sugar took a deep breath as she opened the door. Rory grinned at her from the other side.
"Brittany and Santana are waiting in the car," he explained, jerking a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the street. "You look beautiful."
"You look very handsome," she told him politely. His grin widened and he caught a glimpse of Al in the living room behind him.
"I'll have her back by ten, Mr. Motta. Promise."
Al nodded to him and Sugar stepped outside into the cold and walked with Rory to the car.
"So are you singing any tonight?" he asked her. "Mr. Schuester asked me to do an Elvis song. I didn't know who he was until I looked him up on Brittany's computer but I sure do like him."
"No; I just think I'm gonna relax and enjoy it like a regular student," Sugar explained as she got into the back seat of the car. "No singing required."
"Wise choice," Santana agreed from the front seat. "Britts and I stayed clear of Mr. Schue yesterday while he was trying to get last-minute registrations. We're finally gonna get to enjoy ourselves for once."
They pulled into the school parking lot just a couple minutes later and filed out of the car one by one. Rory attempted to hold Sugar's door open for her, but she just smirked at him and told him, "Just friends, remember?"
"Right," he agreed, blushing and releasing the door while Brittany and Santana looked on in amusement.
The dance was being held in the gym on the other side of the school so it took them a ten-minute walk to get there, and they were deterred even more when they ran into Mike and Tina and a stressed-out Blaine who had apparently not tied his bowtie tightly enough and had lost it somewhere on his way into the school. By the time they finally reached the gym, the dance was already in full swing and Mercedes was leading a performance of Rihanna's "Please Don't Stop the Music" onstage. Brittany immediately let out a whoop and pulled Santana into the crowd, leaving Rory and Sugar standing together awkwardly at the entrance.
"So…want me to go get us some punch?" he finally asked her, his hands in his pockets.
"Sure," Sugar agreed. "I'll go find us a table."
She headed for an unoccupied corner of the gym and took a seat at a small four-person table, watching the crowd to keep herself entertained. Both Rachel and Finn and Mercedes and new-but-old guy Sam were amongst the dancing couples now, and Sugar smiled when she caught sight of Brittany and Santana hanging on each other without a care in the world.
"Here you go," Rory announced his arrival, placing a cup in front of her and taking the seat beside hers with a drink of his own in his other hand.
"Thank you," Sugar told him appreciatively.
"No problem."
"No, really." She smiled at him. "Thank you. A lot of people here thought I was stuck up, or annoying, or not good enough, but you were always nice to me, even before we ever really talked. I feel bad about hating you now."
Rory blinked at her uncertainly. "You hated me?"
Sugar waved his comment away as though it was silly. "Just for a few months. You're cool now." Much to his chagrin, she grinned at him and reached over to ruffle his hair playfully. "C'mon. Let's go dance."
Ninety minutes later, Sugar had danced several times with Rory, spent ten full minutes on Artie's lap doing the robot with him, danced with Brittany for two songs, shared a spiked drink with both Tina and Santana, comforted Rachel when Finn made the dumb mistake of accepting what he thought was an innocent friendly proposal to dance from Quinn, and spent a song sandwiched in between Blaine and Kurt when Puck bet them they couldn't pull off dancing like straight guys. Eventually, she found herself back in the same corner again, slightly dizzy from the punch and all the spinning. That last song had been a doozy.
Mercedes plopped down next to her without warning, letting out a relieved sigh at finally being able to rest, and then looked over at her curiously. "Where's Rory? I heard you two came here together."
Sugar simply pointed across the room to where Rory had Quinn by the hand and was currently in mid-twirl with her. "What about Sam?"
"Hiding from Shane," Mercedes replied. "He caught us dancing and Sam had to bolt."
"That sucks," Sugar replied. Mercedes nodded and they fell into a comfortable silence, watching everyone else. "Mercedes," Sugar finally changed the subject, regaining the other girl's attention. "Thanks for being my friend."
"It's not as hard as it looks, Sugar," Mercedes told her, raising an eyebrow. "Without you, we never would've gotten the Troubletones together."
"But you brought in Brittany and Santana." Sugar smiled at her. "I'm really happy you did that."
"You three are pretty close, aren't you?" Mercedes mused. "You know, their freshman and sophomore year, it was the two of them and Quinn. The three of them were like glue. Then Quinn got pregnant and things changed. Santana and Quinn started hating each other. They get along fine now, but I haven't seen Brittany and Santana click so well with someone the way they used to with Quinn. At least, not until you came along. You're really good for them." She let out an unexpected chuckle. "Especially since if it was just the two of them alone together all the time all they'd ever do is-"
"Right," Sugar cut her off, wincing at the unspoken end of that sentence. "Yeah, Santana's actually nice to me now. I don't think she liked me very much when I first moved here."
"Santana hates everyone but Brittany anyway," Mercedes informed her. "And you, now. I'm pretty sure she hates Quinn and me too, but she respects us, at least. But you, she's got a soft spot for you. Not like the one she's got for Brittany, because I don't think anyone else could ever make Santana that soft, but it's there. They're gonna miss you when they graduate, you know."
"I'll miss them," Sugar murmured sadly. She glanced to Mercedes, then. "I'll miss you too, Mercedes."
"Thanks, girl. You know we'll keep in touch, though." Sugar gave her a half-hearted nod and returned her smile, and Mercedes' gaze shifted to across the gym. "Uh oh; Shane's back. I gotta go."
Sugar waved goodbye to her as she hurried away to no doubt pile on excuses for her boyfriend to swallow. On the stage, Rachel had now taken over and was about to begin singing a slow song, judging by the opening music. The people dancing began to pair off and Sugar reached down to rummage through the purse on her lap, finally coming up with her cell phone. She checked the time. It was half past nine. Almost time to go.
She returned her gaze to the crowd to scan it, knowing full-well this was the last time she'd ever see her friends. Finn was sitting alone at another nearby table, his eyes on Rachel, enamored and unmoving. Tina and Mike were wrapped up in each other on the dance floor, as were Kurt and Blaine, who were just beside them. Quinn was sipping punch by the punch bowl with Rory, who was swaying noticeably and struggling hard to keep himself upright. Puck and Artie were trying and failing to stuff snacks from the buffet table into their pockets without ruining the material of their tuxedos. And Brittany and Santana were on the far side of the crowd, arms wrapped around each other and bodies pressed together. Santana tucked her face into the side of Brittany's neck with a content sigh, and a light smile played on Brittany's lips as her eyes fluttered shut. Sugar seared the image into her mind forever.
Satisfied, she slowly got to her feet and hoisted her purse onto her shoulder, taking in the scene one last time. "Bye," she whispered, and then turned and left the gym without another word.