A/N: I apologize for this chapter. Totally not my favorite piece, but I'm going to be very busy starting tomorrow. If I don't get it out today, I probably would just sit on this chapter forever. Le sigh, I'm sorry for the time jumps in this one, and the many mistakes I'm sure you'll find along the way.

Oh! Hey you awesome people who added this story to your alerts & faves— thank you so much! Nice to know people are reading this story. :) :)

Also, mass replying reviews is easier (faster!) than PMing the owner one by one & I've decided to continue doing it. Sorry, I promise it's just until I'm not as busy.

• harrybm1954 — I'm Indonesian. Trust me when I say I don't know English that well. Though I do know the difference between your and you're. That's all I'm gonna say, lol. And yeah! I know right? Sept 13 couldn't come any sooner. I'm not too excited about not having all the cast in one place, but I can't say I'm not looking forward to seeing them on my screen again. I just hope it's not gonna be a repetition of the sh*tfest that was Season 3.

• xSantanaAndBrittanyAreMyLifex — They're my life too! lol. N'aahh.. I don't think the story's amazing yet but thank you! That means a lot :D

• prattle01 — Doug will get his ass kicked... in Chapter 101. No, I'm kidding. I don't think there's gonna be a Chapter 101, so you can relax.

• RT — I couldn't reply your review in Chapter 10 cause at the time I was replying via PMs. but since i'm doing a mass reply now.. Thank you for reading! We're starting to see the other side of Doug now. And I'm sorry for separating Britt and Santana. I promise it's just temporary. Though I can't say they're going to be together again anytime soon. We shall see! :)

Enjoy!

Brittany's days have been somewhat tiring. She had school, dance classes, tutoring, and on top of all that, she had to keep up her appearance of being perfectly fine and okay in front ofher friends and new family. Only Mercedes knew about it and it was only because she caught her crying right after the fight with Santana. She didn't want anybody else to know.

Poor Mercedes, though. Brittany felt really sorry for her being caught in the middle. She knew Mercedes was torn between her and Santana. And it seemed like she was forcing her to pick her side just because her schedule adjustment had put her in the same classes with the girl. And it was great, really, to have a familiar face every day, but she couldn't help but wonder if Santana was as lucky as her. It had been more than two weeks now. Santana couldn't be alone, right?

"Brittany! Hey, Britt! Wait up!"

Brittany didn't hear the voice that was calling her, as she was busy with her thoughts, but she felt somebody was, so she turned around anyway. She was pretty pleased with her sixth sense when she found out that someone actually was calling for her.

"Oh my God, Puck!" She smiled and her whole face beamed. "What are you doing here?"

Puck had to catch up with his breathing before he replied. "Team visit," he panted. "Rival school," he panted again.

"Oooh," Brittany nodded. That explained why Puck was a long way from home.

"What about you?" Puck rested his hands on his waist. "Man, you sure walk fast. I swear I wasn't that far when I saw you."

"Where did you see me from?" Brittany scrunched her face.

"Right…" Puck turned around to point at something, but that something was gone. "…there."

He scratched the back of his mohawk. As it turned out he had run further that he thought. The bus stop that he was waiting at was nowhere in his sight now. Although, that meant he spotted Brittany from a few blocks away and that meant he had exceptional eyesight— which was good because if he was going to be a receiver, he's going to need it.

"Anyway," he said after giving himself a mental pat on the back. "What are you doing here?"

"I just got out of a dance class."

"A dance class?"

"Yeah," Brittany told him excitedly. "Twice a week."

"Are you any good?"

"Weeell," Brittany blushed and kicked the ground. "My teacher said I am."

"Awesome," Puck said. "Maybe you'll perform sometime and we'll all come see you!"

"Puck, I just started. I'm not gonna be on a stage anytime soon."

"Oh, come on. How else are we gonna see you now that you don't live with us anymore? Our classes are next to each other but I don't even get to see you. Are you hiding or something? Do you want me to kick someone's ass?"

Brittany chuckled. "No," she said. "Don't kick people's butts for me. You'll get in trouble."

Puck smiled at his ex-sort-of-sister. The girl was still as sweet an as thoughtful as she was before, even if she didn't really have to now that they don't live under the same roof anymore.

"How's the house?"

"Same ol', same ol'. Though there's no screeching, annoying girly sounds anymore so, personally, I'm happy you moved out," he said with a smirk and Brittany playfully slapped him on the arm. "Ow!" he laughed. "I'm kidding. We all miss you."

"Really?" Brittany frowned. She felt guilty for never coming over to her old home anymore. Between her dance classes, tutoring and Santana not talking to her, she didn't have the energy to drop by. "Santana too?"

"Mh-hm," Puck smiled. "I think especially Santana. She's just a mess."

"Yeah, we're—"

"I know."

"Oh."

"She's been walking around like a zombie and hasn't been shooting me vicious words for the past 2 weeks. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing," Puck raised up both his hands. "I kinda enjoyed it, but then I got bored."

Brittany chuckled and shook her head. "You're a goof," she said.

"Eh," he shrugged. "You love me."

Brittany softly punched him on the shoulder. She didn't have to say anything. A 'no' would be denying it— which she had no intention to. And a 'yes' was not enough to tell him how much Puck meant to her. In just a short amount of time, Puck had become one of her favorite people. Mostly because she'd never had a brother before, and it was a nice feeling to have someone looking after not only you, but also the whole family, even though they're not really related.

"Oh shit, I gotta go," Puck said as he looked at his watch. It was an hour long bus ride home, and he really needed to get going. "I missed my bus when I was running to get you. And the last one's gonna be at the stop in, like, 5 minutes. So I have to run back," he said, squinting his eyes in the sun.

Brittany pouted, but then remembered that she still had tutoring in half an hour. "Yeah, sure," she nodded. "Don't bump into anything, Those lamp posts are pretty solid."

Puck laughed. He opened his arms for a hug and Brittany went to give him one. "It's good to see you. Take care, Britt," he said before he turned around and started running towards the bus stop.

Brittany hesitated but it was like she couldn't control her actions when she opened her mouth. "Puck!" she yelled and the boy stopped running and turned around.

"Tell her I miss her?"

Puck smiled and gave her a thumbs-up before he started running again. Brittany wasn't even sure he heard her right.

When she got home later that afternoon, Brittany only had a little over 10 minutes to get ready for her lesson. Not even enough time for a little snack even though her stomach was raging thunders after her dance class.

Sometimes she felt overwhelmed. Sometimes she wanted to check with Doug or Nancy for a schedule change, but Brittany never wanted to disappoint anybody. Seeing that her new parents really believed in her, enough that they seemed to make sure they provided the best for her, it was only natural that she played her part— a good daughter.

She looked at the paper in front of her. Full of mathematical equations. X's, ABC's, letters, numbers and a bunch of symbols whose meanings were lost to her. She looked to her left, where her tutor was sitting. He was scribbling something on his notebook. Brittany took a peek and it looked like he was doing his own complicated homework.

She sighed. If it were Santana sitting there, she would've made sure Brittany understood every single problem before moving on to her own stuff. How was she supposed to start solving the problems when half the things written on that paper meant absolutely nothing to her?

But okay, she guessed Todd wasn't that bad. He was a decent guy. Like a gentleman, he always stood up whenever a woman was leaving the room. He didn't smell like old gym socks and, so far, he was kind enough to stick around even though he was having a really hard time explaining things to her. Plus, when he's not tutoring her, he could be a lot of fun.

She sighed again just to gauge a reaction from her tutor, but nothing happened. She decided to speak out.

"I can't do it," she told him and he looked up to meet her eyes.

"Yes, you can, Brittany," Todd slid her back the paper that she had pushed away. "One more time."

"I can't. I just don't get it."

"Okay," Todd huffed. "Tell me which parts you don't understand?"

"Everything!"

"You gotta try harder!"

"I did!"

"Not hard enough! Come on. It's easy. X times 11 divided by 7 equals 8. That means X is…?"

"38?" she guessed. It was a really bad guess.

"Dammit Brittany," Todd slammed the desk with the palm of his hand and Brittany jumped. "It's not that hard! God! I can't believe you're this reta—"

"Everything okay in here?"

Nancy walked into the study with a pointed look on her face. She heard Todd's loud voice. She knew what he was about to say.

"Aunt Nance," Todd stuttered and cleared his throat. "I didn't know you were home."

Nancy eyed Todd up and down. He looked like he just swallowed a frog and about to spit it back out.

"Brittany?" Nancy walked over to the young girl who was looking down, trying hard to keep her tears at bay. "Honey," she rubbed Brittany's back. "There's lemonade and shortbread cookies in the kitchen. You can go ahead and get some. I think the lesson can end early today."

Brittany nodded. She got up from her seat and headed towards the doorway. But she didn't walk through the sliding doors before turning around to tell Todd that she was sorry. The young man must've felt bad for what he had said to her because then he replied with a quiet, "it's fine."

"What were you thinking?" Nancy crossed her arms. Now that Brittany was out of the room she could say whatever it was she had in her head. "Can you imagine what would've happened if Doug was around?"

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to snap." Todd pleaded. "It's just… I was frustrated. I got a huge essay to do and she's kind of impossible to teach!"

Nancy scoffed. "That's not true. She's been getting A's and B's since the start of the school year."

"A's?" Todd asked. "Her? But she's a D material!"

"Yes, her." Nancy rolled her eyes. "And I'll have you know, that her previous tutor was her best friend. Same grade and everything. Are you telling me you're incompetent?"

"Oh, come on, Aunt Nance. You can't compare me to a 6th grader!"

"Well, quit yelling at her," Nancy whisper-yelled at Todd, trying to keep her voice down so that nobody could hear them. "Doug was okay with hiring you because you're my nephew and he knows you've been getting straight A's because you go to McKinley. But if he had heard you earlier," she poked his chest with a finger. "There's no telling what he could've done to you. To us."

Todd stepped forward so that he could use a lower voice with her. "Aunt Nance. Leave him. Pack up your things and leave. You can't let him treat you like this forever."

"And leave her behind?"

"Who? Brittany?" Todd asked and Nancy nodded. "She'll be okay. She was a foster kid before. She can go back to her old family!"

"I can't do that to her. You don't understand," she started to cry and Todd was taken aback. The lady who had just called him incompetent was now wiping the tears in her eyes. "Brittany is his thing. She seems to have this… this spell on him. He was the one who wanted to adopt her, God knows why. I tried giving him reasons not to, but when Doug wants something, he makes sure he gets it."

Todd considered his question for a moment before posing it. "Aunt Nance… did he hurt you? Does he still hurt you?"

"It doesn't matter," Nancy shook her head. "But I need her to be safe. So I need you to do whatever you can to keep him happy. Right now he expects her to have good grades. I don't know what he'll do to her if she didn't get them."

Todd ran his hand through his hair. This was too complicated for his 17-year-old mind. On one hand he wanted to help his aunt, because let's face it; she wasn't about to help herself. On the other, tutoring Brittany proved to be something that was beyond his ability. Not to mention he had his own problems to worry about.

"Aunt Nance, please," he looked at her straight in the eyes. "Just leave him. Take Brittany with you! She's a sweet girl, mom and dad would probably be relieved if you both live with us."

"No!" Nancy lowered her voice once again when she realized she was yelling that last word. "He'd come looking for me… for her… I just know he would! Please, Todd, just stay. Don't give up yet."

"I can't," Todd shook his head. "I'm sorry. I really don't want to quit, but I just can't. I'll help you find another tutor. I'm so sorry but right now this is just too much for me to handle. Maybe you can get her friend to tutor her again."

"No, I can't," Nancy wrapped her arms around herself. "For some reason Doug's trying to keep them apart. Todd, please. I'll double your pay. I'll—"

"'Scuse me," Brittany's voice interrupted Nancy's speech. She was lucky she wasn't facing the door because if she was, Brittany would've seen her tears and it would've made the situation far more complicated than it already was.

"Yes, Brittany?" Nancy answered without turning around.

"Is Todd really leaving? Are you really leaving, Todd?"

Todd looked at his aunt before he answered. "Yeah, Britt. I am."

Brittany stepped inside the room and Todd quickly walked over to meet her halfway, just so that Nancy could compose herself before Brittany could see her crying.

"Am I gonna see you tomorrow?"

"No, Britt, sorry," Todd gave her an apologetic smile. "I'm not coming over anymore, okay?"

The blonde girl looked down at her feet. "Is it because I'm too stupid?"

"No! No, look, I'm sorry I yelled at you. I just got a lot in my mind right now," he glanced at Nancy and Brittany followed his line of sight. She saw the older woman's shoulder trembling. But before she could make any comments, Todd was already talking to her again. "Besides, you're not stupid. I just found out from my aunt that you were getting awesome grades."

Brittany nodded. "Santana helped me."

"Then maybe you can get her to help you again until Nancy finds a new tutor for you?" Todd grabbed his backpack and swung it over his right shoulder. "See ya 'round, Britt. Talk to you later, Aunt Nance."

None of the ladies in the room replied to his goodbye.

oOoOo

Three weeks after the fight, however late it was to gain a perspective over what happened, Santana finally did. She really missed having Brittany around. A measly hour of lunch at school turned out to be better than nothing.

Fighting. She let the word float around in her head and she started to wonder if that really was what happening between Brittany and herself. A fight is usually caused by two angry parties. But, looking back, she was the only one being angry that day.

Whatever, Santana thought. I'm doing great.

That was a total lie, of course. If she were being honest to herself, she'd say that she had been a complete mess since the incident. She could feel herself retreating from people. Not just at school, but also at home.

The other weekend, when Will casually mentioned Brittany's name and how it was different not having the blonde girl around all the time, Santana completely shut down her social mode. When he asked her if she knew how Brittany was doing, she replied by excusing herself from dinner early, told everybody she wasn't feeling well and apologized to Emma for not helping her clean up.

Puck came into her room later that night (without knocking, as always). He sat on the desk, did his homework there and left without saying a word when Santana announced that she was going to sleep.

She knew what he was doing. He was keeping her company and she was actually touched by the gesture.

So she gave him one of her pancakes the next morning.

"Don't get all soft on me, Santana. I might want more of those extra pancakes," he said as he put on his shoes that afternoon. Santana never could make out how Puck was so… social. He always had something going on every weekend. She couldn't believe that the dead squirrel on top of his head didn't put people off.

"Don't count on it," Santana replied from the living room and Puck just laughed. She heard the front door opened and closed and figured that he left. But not a second later she heard the front door opened again.

"Forgot to tell you something," she heard Puck's voice yelling from the front door.

"What is it?" she asked using the same decibel.

"She said she missed you! Tell Will I'm gonna be home at 9!"

oOoOo

Mercedes Jones was torn.

She knew how close Brittany and Santana were, and she definitely knew both of their backstories. More of Brittany's compared to Santana's, though. Anybody who knew Santana would tell you that she wasn't much of a sharer. Only a few selected people were allowed to learn the random tidbits that Santana kept dear in her back pocket, and there was even fewer of those people who knew not everything, but definitely more than just the outer shell of Santana's bubble.

Mercedes never took offense upon the fact that she was part of the first category of people. She respected their history that much that she was willing to be just sitting on the fence looking in. She had never lost a parent, but she figured it must be awful to not be going home to a real family everyday.

Every morning her mom would gave Mercedes a hug before she left for school, and all she could think of was how sad it was that Santana and Brittany didn't have mothers to hug them every day. Sometimes she would get a little bit selfish and thought to herself, 'praise God it didn't happen to me.'

Then of course the next Sunday during church, she'd pray for forgiveness because the thought sounded so evil, selfish and conceited. Her pastor had made it easier for her by saying that it was normal for her to be feeling that way, and that it meant that she was grateful for her own family— and that was a really good thing. Still, she couldn't ignore the guilt that she was feeling. Especially now.

Mercedes knew (well, more like figured out) how her friends had helped each other in their own ways, and that one simply couldn't exist without the other. Watching them fight just broke her heart.

She didn't know what caused the fight. The morning it happened, she had arrived to school too late to witness the whole thing. She just saw Santana leaving after shoving something into Brittany's hands. At first, she couldn't decide which girl to attend to, but seeing that Santana was well on her way, half running to her first class, Mercedes decided to check on Brittany first.

The tall girl had started to cry when Mercedes tentatively touched her arm, so she let her cry into her shoulders. It was interesting, for Mercedes, that Brittany didn't cry the way she had thought she would. The look that Brittany had on her face totally convinced her that she was going to cry her heart out, all loud and potentially making a scene. But no, Brittany was a silent crier— at least that day. Apart from something along the lines of, "she hates me," Brittany didn't say a word. It was the way Brittany's shoulders were shaking, and the tears soaking her shirt that made Mercedes heart felt like it was being yanked out of her ribcage.

Throughout that Monday, Mercedes started to put the pieces together because somehow Brittany had more classes with her than she usually did. That must've been the reason why her friends were fighting. She couldn't, however, figure out why a change in schedule would cause a riff between the girls.

She tried to ignore it, hoping that the girls would solve the situation by themselves. But it was nearing a month after the original day of the fight and they haven't shown any signs of making up.

Mercedes was anxious. She had had enough of Brittany being weirdly mopey, and couldn't stand the sight of Santana eating her lunch alone in a quiet corner of the lunch hall any longer.

Through a note passed in class she tried to causally prod Brittany about the fight. She thought she had a better chance of getting an answer from Brittany rather than the other person involved in the war, but Brittany only gave her a headshake instead of passing back the piece of paper. It was then Mercedes knew that this was none of her business.

Of course, smart girls always have a Plan B.

When even Brittany didn't want to drop her hints on what was going on, it meant that Mercedes should expect even less from Santana. So she crossed being nosy from her list and started brewing another plan.

This time it was more about bringing them back together.

There was always one thing that she could rely on from her friends: their promise to be there for each other. And the first thing she had to do: enlist a backup. Lucky for her, she already had one going by the name Kurt.

oOoOo

Santana had her third period free because half of the teaching staff had to have an emergency over sanitation issues. There was a rumor going around that the janitor found a family of snakes in one of the restrooms. But she couldn't waste her time thinking about that kind of nonsense.

Her mind was still occupied by what Puck told her the other day. She cursed herself for having an ego that was too big to risk getting ridiculed by Puck if she asked about who 'she' was. Of course, she had an inkling that he was talking about Brittany. But would she really say that, given that it was Santana who shoved their matching bracelet back into Brittany's hands?

Santana huffed and covered her face with her hands. She recalled the day it happened. It was so far away now that she could see what really went down, clearly. She wasn't mad at Brittany, she was angry at the circumstances. At Doug, definitely. But not at Brittany.

And oh God, I should've stayed and listened to what she had to say. Why couldn't I've stayed longer? What kind of a friend am I?

"Homework?"

Santana snapped out of her thoughts and looked up from her book. She eyed the person who just greeted her. It was so hard not to throw comments about the creepy hippopotamus head brooch that he was wearing.

"Yep," she said.

"Can I sit here?" Kurt pointed to the empty chair next to Santana. There was nobody occupying it, but he thought he should ask first. Mercedes had told him all about Santana's bubble and he had no intention to pop it.

Santana glanced at the chair before shrugging. Kurt took it as a yes.

"I got homework too," Kurt whispered, trying to make a quiet conversation. "I got geography, biology…"

"Hummel, could you please?" Santana gave him a warning look and Kurt pursed his lips.

"Sorry," he whispered. "I think I'm just too overjoyed for having someone to sit with. Apparently once you're thrown into the dumpsters, you'll never get rid of the stench."

Santana scrunched her nose and looked at the boy.

"It's a metaphor," Kurt rolled his eyes.

"Well, your metaphor stinks," Santana quipped, then she smirked. "Pun intended."

Kurt chuckled and that made Santana smiled a little before returning her focus to the book that she was reading. She really didn't mind having Kurt there. In fact, she felt glad to have someone sit with her.

Santana watched Kurt from the corner of her eyes and observed as he laid out his notebooks, textbooks and pens neatly in front of him. She wondered how long had he been sitting all alone before today. She herself had been doing it for almost a month. Before, there was always Brittany. But now that they were fighting…

"Santana?"

"Huh? What?"

"Nothing. You just looked," Kurt thought of a word. "Lost."

"Oh," Santana shook her head. "It's nothing. I'm just working out some stuff about this chapter."

"History?"

"Yeah," Santana lifted the book to show it to Kurt and huffed. "Lotsa things to memorize."

"When's your test? Mine's tomorrow. I'm in the same class as Britt."

Santana's ears perked up hearing the name. "Really?"

"Yeah," Kurt confirmed with a nod. "We've been sitting together for… I think 3 weeks in a row now."

"How is she doing in that class?" Santana couldn't help but ask.

"She's..." Kurt's eyes widened with realization and looked at the girl next to her. Mercedes warned him about saying the wrong things about Brittany. He knew Santana could kill him. "Okay, I'm not saying this because I think she's not smart or anything, but she could really use some help."

Kurt winced, scared of Santana's reaction to his answer. But she did nothing but stared at her book, so he gathered his courage for the second part of Mercedes' plan.

"Sooo… what happened to you guys? Mercedes told me you used to help Brittany with her studies. And I mean, you used to be inseparable. Even when I didn't know you I could tell you were joined at the hip."

Santana shrugged. "Things happened." A pause. "I thought she has tutors now?"

"She did," Kurt nodded. "But they kinda quit on her, that poor thing. Since then she's had a couple more, but none of them really helped. And now I'm worried for her. You know how there's a grading period, right?" Kurt checked to see if Santana understood him and she nodded to tell him that she did.

"Well," he continued, "this next one's gonna end in January. I'm just worried that if she… if they couldn't find her a tutor that could reach her, she'd have trouble keeping up."

Kurt waited for Santana to say something about the whole matter and watched her facial expressions changed from one thing to another. It was pretty amusing, if they weren't all of bad feelings alternating one second to the next. When Santana abruptly got up from her seat and started to pack her things, Kurt furrowed his eyebrows.

"Where are you going?"

"Sorry," Santana zipped her backpack. Enough was enough. "I just remembered I had something to do at home."

That was a dumb lie. They both knew it was only the third period. She couldn't possibly be heading home.

Kurt eyed Santana suspiciously as she walked towards the exit, but decided to just let it go. He had done his part and it was clear that Santana still cared a great deal about Brittany. Otherwise she wouldn't have asked at all. He was going to report that to Mercedes later.

As soon as she was out of the library, Santana went to an empty classroom and tore off pages from her folder. She could've made a copy first, but it was much faster this way. Besides, her test wasn't until Wednesday. She still had plenty of time to rewrite everything.

Santana started rereading all of her notes and exchanged any big words that she might've used with simpler ones— ones that Brittany would instantly understand.

She highlighted some parts with her pink and yellow fluorescent pens, knowing that her best friend would appreciate the pretty colors on the page and, therefore, would help her remember all the details better. She even took the time to illustrate the really complicated paragraphs— even though she knew she wasn't the best artist on the block— just to make sure Brittany had a visual aid to work on. Cute pictures never failed to turn studying into a more fun occasion.

Santana pulled away to check on her handiwork. Not bad, she thought. It was kind of messy, but it was the best she could do for now.

She picked up a red pen and before she could stop herself, she found her left hand was already scribbling, "good luck, B!" at the bottom of the last page.

She sighed. There goes anonymity.

Santana looked at the clock to see if there was time for a do-over. But nope, there was no such thing. She only had several minutes left to shove the papers into Brittany's locker before the hallway was flooded with students. She knew the sooner Brittany got her hands on those notes, the more time she'd have to study. After packing her things, she stormed out of the classroom and headed to the lockers.

Exactly 1 second before the bell rang, Santana's mission was accomplished and Brittany's locker was closed shut like nothing ever happened. Santana decided that she needed to stick around; to make sure Brittany got those notes. After contemplating her options, she hid behind a nearby door and peeked through the glass window. It was either that or the trashcan.

It wasn't long until the hallway was filled with scrambling students. She noticed a few people from her class, including Jacob and his big hair rushed to their respective lockers to get whatever books they needed. She saw Kurt, coming from the library and felt bad for leaving him just like that earlier. She promised to sit with him during the next class they had together.

Santana thought she heard a familiar sound of laughter, so she turned her head to see the other side of the hallway. She was right, it was Mercedes' laughing to whatever story Brittany was telling her. That girl, aside from having a set of powerful pipes to sing, could also laugh like it was her last chance to laugh. By the time the girls got to the lockers (Mercedes' was right across hers and Brittany's), the laughter slowly died and Mercedes helped Brittany with her locker combo. Santana made a mental note to pay for her tater tots the next time they have lunch together.

As soon as Brittany got her locker opened, Mercedes went to her own locker to get her things and left Brittany alone. It was then that Brittany found the folded notes. She looked confused, at first, but who wouldn't be when they found an unfamiliar stack of paper in their locker?

Brittany took out the papers and started to read them. Her face lit up when she realized what was in it, and lit up even more when she got to the bottom of the last page. She knew exactly whom it was from.

Through the glass window, Santana watched Brittany scanning the hallway to find the person responsible to the lovely gift she had just found amongst her stuff. But Santana was a pro in hide and seek.

Or so she thought.

Her line of sight got blocked by few kids, and when they were gone, Brittany was too. Santana lost her. It was as if Brittany disappeared into thin air because Santana couldn't think of anywhere she might've gone to.

Damn crowded hallways with kids in the way.

Figuring that the coast is clear and that the notes were now in Brittany's hands, Santana stepped out of her hiding place. She had her 4th class to go to, and she'd like to get there early to get a good seat next to the window. The teacher had some serious hygiene issues.

She turned around, planning to make a short stop at the water fountain. but suddenly something fast came her way and tackled her that she was pushed back onto the lockers. She closed her eyes, shocked by the impact. She couldn't breathe and for a moment she thought maybe it was a stampede. Or maybe the rumor about the restroom was right and it was a huge python squeezing her to death.

"See you at lunch, San," the hug loosened and Santana instantly recognized that voice. But when she finally opened her eyes, the 'python' was already nothing but a blur of blonde hair running to her next class.

Santana got to her class a little too late to score a good seat far from the odor her teacher was emitting, but it didn't matter. It was the best fourth period she'd ever had. Ever.