yo yo yo... chapter 20 is here! thank you to those who took the time to review the last chapter. thanks again as always:)
"So what did you tell Brittany these photos were for?" Quinn asks as they walk into Rachel's room tossing their backpacks against the wall.
"I actually couldn't come up with anything good and started to speak in Hebrew which only made her ask me more questions." Rachel admits and Quinn gives her a puzzled look.
"Hebrew?"
"Yeah, when I get nervous sometimes I recite lines from when we light the menorah, I don't know it's a thing." Rachel shrugs her shoulders and Quinn laughs. "But then Santana gave me a really scary look so I told her that they were for this collage I was doing a yearbook for Glee and they were obviously the cutest couple and that went over well. She was very excited." Rachel beams up to the blonde at her quick on her feet thinking and then her smile slowly fades into serious mode. "Guess that means I really have to make a yearbook for Glee huh?" Quinn giggles and nods, knowing how Brittany is when she gets excited about promises like that, she never forgets.
"Wow Rachel these came out really good." Quinn tells the brunette as she places a mini poster sized paper back on the girl's desk. Rachel looks over to what Quinn is looking at and walks up beside her and she smiles.
"It took a while to get Santana to stop looking so angry." Rachel admits with a sigh and a slight roll of the eyes. Quinn chuckles and turns to her.
"How did you get her to smile like this, she looks amazing?" Quinn asks bringing her eyes back to the picture.
"Well I told Brittany to loosen Santana up, and try and make her smile a smile that wasn't scary." Rachel vaguely explains and Quinn quirks an eyebrow to the diva. "So then Brittany kissed her for a good 10 minutes and then whispered something into her ear, and then she started looking like that." Both girls giggle at this and Quinn picks the poster paper up again as if analyzing it with a smirk.
"Must have been some kiss." She jokes and continues to glance at the other stack of posters Rachel has lying on her bed.
"Seriously." Rachel adds walking to where Quinn is. "I hope that they like them, Santana asked me to make her a special one that she could give to Brittany." She tilts her head in thought hoping that the brunette was going to do right by Brittany and ask her to the formal in a nice romantic way, and not in a Santana kind of way.
"Honestly Rach with these I don't see how they could not win. I mean look at this one." Quinn grins and flips the paper over so Rachel can see what she was talking about. The couple was standing face to face with Santana's arms loosely placed around Brittany's waist. The blonde's hands lightly on the Latina's cheeks looking admiringly into one another's eyes. Rachel smiles at that one.
"Artie took that one when they weren't even paying attention. It's my favorite one of them." Her eyes gaze at the photo of the couple. "They look so content."
"Yeah, so happy." Quinn replies and turns it around again to look at it one last time. She sighs and places it nicely down with the others and then looks up at Rachel placing her hands on her hips. "So boss, when are these going up?" Rachel turns to her desk and grabs her cell phone flipping it open. "I'm just waiting for the okay from Santana. We obviously can't promote them for King and Queen…" Quinn raises her eyebrows. "I'm sorry, Queen and Queen." The blonde smiles with approval. "Of the dance before she asks Brittany to even go with her, it would blow the whole plan." She explains and snaps her phone shut seeing she doesn't have a missed call or a text from the girl in question.
"Right right, well I mean it's getting late the school is going to be closed soon. I'm assuming Santana wants them up before tomorrow." Quinn points out and the diva nods knowing they were going to be cutting it close. Quinn was about to say something else, but then tilts her head in confusion and then swallows those words so that she is able to form new ones. "Hey, by the way, what is up with this whole 'help Santana' mission you are on?" Rachel shrugs her shoulders and pulls a bag out of her closet and starts stuffing random things in it.
"I'm just helping her out we're sort of friends now." The brunette tells her hoping that will be a good enough explanation. Unfortunately it clearly isn't seeing as how Quinn's mouth is opening to say something else, but fortunately for her a noise erupts from her cell phone and she runs over to answer it. "Hey."
"Yo Berry I'm on my way to pick up Brittany now." Santana says.
"Okay, we'll go set up now." Rachel replies.
"Thanks a lot I owe you."
"Don't worry just let us know if she says yes?"
"I'll let you know when she says yes. Bye." And without waiting for Rachel to respond Santana hangs up on her end.
Santana tosses her phone in her lap and turns down Brittany's street. Her eyes dart to the time to make sure she isn't late or too early and she pulls in front of the blonde's house just in time as she is walking out of the front door. Brittany walks casually to the car sliding herself onto the seat and before she closes the door she leans over to meet Santana halfway for a chaste kiss.
"Hey babe." Brittany greets her breaking the kiss. Santana smiles at her and nods for her to close the door which she had forgotten she hadn't shut.
"Hey." She replies and puts the car into drive.
"Sany where we going? You have been acting weird all day." Brittany asks and points out her girlfriend's odd behavior. Santana chuckles at the blonde for noticing her being strange but shakes her head.
"B I told you already it's a surprise." Brittany's face lights up at remembering there being something about a surprise.
"Are we allowed to be in here?" Quinn asks when Rachel puts a key into the door of the back of the school.
"Of course, it's not like we're breaking and entering, I have a key." Rachel explains pointing to the key before she turns it. She opens the door and motions the blonde to go ahead of her. Quinn knits her eyebrows together and turns to look at the brunette with her arms crossed.
"Yeah about that?" Is all she asks.
"Santana gave it to me." The diva admits without meeting the Cheerio's eyes.
"Okay, since when does Santana Lopez carry a key around for the school?" She inquires further but then jerks her head back as her mind brings her to thoughts about the possibility that she and Brittany have used the school as their secret sex having haven.
"She told me she swiped it off of Ms. Sylvester's key ring before practice the other day." Rachel tells her factually and the blonde lets her eyebrows relax and nods impressed at the Latina's conniving ways to be used for good instead of evil.
"So like, where are we putting these things?" Quinn lifts up the stack of posters she has in her hands as they head down the halls of the extremely vacant McKinley High School hallways. Rachel looks around at the walls that are either bare or have old pep rally posters from 2 weeks ago and she smiles over to the blonde.
"Everywhere." She tells her and Quinn grins back and then begin to plaster the walls tastefully with mini posters of McKinley High's soon to be favorite couple of all time.
"We're here." Santana says with a content sigh as she puts the car into park. She smiles to herself and looks over to the blonde who was too busy watching her to notice that the car had stopped. "B, we're here." The blonde snaps out of it and looks around with a smile ready for her surprise but as she looks to their surroundings she is just confused.
"San?" Brittany lets out and turns back to the brunette. "Why are we at the middle school?" She asks pointing towards the school's sign that was behind them. Santana smiles at her friend and tilts her head taking the keys out of the ignition and opening her door.
"Follow me and find out." She tells her friend with a raised eyebrow and as she steps out she hears Brittany follow her lead and they close the doors at the same time. Walking to the front of the car to meet the Latina Brittany fixes the back of her shirt and looks around at the school grounds. "Come on." Santana interrupts her thoughts and holds her hand out for the blonde who gladly accepts it and the smaller girl pulls her closer.
They walk towards the school and then once they reach the entrance Santana changes their route to go around where the recess area was. She opens the gate for her and the blonde and hand in hand they slowly descend the stairs to the courtyard and Brittany gasps in surprise and her jaw drops. In the middle of the courtyard is a little spot of grass with a blanket laid out and a picnic set up under a tree. She looks to Santana whose smile cannot be contained and she beams over at her best friend. When they get closer Brittany notices a big envelope on the blanket with her name on it decorated with butterflies and hearts. Her eyes bounce back up to meet Santana's as if asking her if she is supposed to open it now and the brunette nods letting her hold on the blonde's hand go as she bends down to pick up the envelope.
"What's inside Sany?" Brittany asks clutching the envelope tight in her hands and Santana laughs.
"Open it and find out." She tells her kindly. Without anymore waiting she gently lifts the tabs on it and carefully places her fingers inside to slide out the contents.
After completely removing it she can tell that it is a picture. Not just any picture though, this was a picture of her and Santana, and not just any picture of her and Santana. It was the picture of them from the 8th grade dance, the same exact one she has on her desk at home. She looks at it thoughtfully tracing her fingers over the smiles they both were wearing but then she is confused because she already has this picture, why was Santana giving her something she already had? Brittany glances up to Santana with those questioning and confused eyes.
"I have this picture on my desk at home." Brittany tells her so truthfully and innocently, she feels bad because she doesn't want to hurt Santana's feelings when she was obviously trying to do something nice. Santana grins at her and playfully rolls her eyes, not in her usual snarky mean way.
"I know Brit." She says and makes her way over to the blonde and looks down at the picture in her friend's hand pointing at it. "This used to be my favorite picture." She sighs out a smile still firmly in place, but Brittany snaps her head up with curiosity.
"It's still mine." Brittany tells her and a meek smile covers her lips and her eyes study the girls in the picture. "It's the only picture I ever had of us where we came close to looking like a couple." She mumbles under her breath but Santana can hear her. Santana's eyes lift to look at Brittany but the blonde is still staring at the photo in her hands.
"Yeah." Santana lets out in a simple and soft voice. "You know what would be great B?" Brittany looks up trying to put on a happy smile. "Imagine if we won that stupid Spring Formal thing then we'd get a 'couple' picture in this year's Thunderclap and then we wouldn't have this one picture. This one picture from so long ago that makes us look like a couple even though we weren't." She blurts out so fast because she doesn't know exactly how to say anything going on in her head right now.
Santana isn't even sure what had just come out of her mouth but by the look on Brittany's face, she understood. That's why Santana loves this girl, because even when she doesn't understand herself Brittany always does. Brittany smiles and nods but looks back down at the photo of their 13 year old selves and lets out a sigh. As she looks down at the old them she knows that the picture in the Thunderclap won't happen because Santana doesn't want to go to the formal. She even had Quinn as her if she wanted to go as a group but Santana got really mad at her yelled for a little while in Spanish and then left in a huff. Brittany just assumed she had gotten so mad because she had her period and she gets irritable around that time. While the blonde is still immersing herself in memories and past times Santana moves towards the picnic basket and pulls out another envelope similar to the one Brittany had just opened.
"That's why I had Rachel and Artie take this." Santana whispers into Brittany's ear taking the old photograph from the blonde's hands and replacing it with the new envelope with her name on it again only under it, it says 'Brittany & Santana' and under that it says 'Queen & Queen'. Brittany turns slightly eyeing the brunette up with a small smile creeping up on her lips. "Open it." She whispers again and places a kiss on her cheek.
Brittany places her thumb under the flap and slowly moves it across undoing the glue that was keeping it sealed. Just as before she reaches in ever so carefully and pulls out another photo. Only, this one is different, this one is new and recent. She drops the envelope nicely on the blanket and holds the picture with both hands scanning her eyes over every detail.
"San this is…" She mutters but doesn't finish because Santana does.
"From the other day." Santana puts her hands on the blonde's waist.
It was the picture that Rachel said is her favorite. They are looking into one another's eyes with lazy but content smiles on their faces Brittany had her hands lightly placed on Santana's cheeks as if drawing her forward into her and Santana had her arms loosely wrapped around the blonde's waist. Brittany takes one hand off of the picture and lets it down to her side to find the hand of the other girl on her waist. She squeezes it softly and leans her back against Santana who steps her body closer.
"Now you have a picture of us, as a real couple." Santana tells her and her breath hits the blonde's neck causing her breath to catch in her throat.
"Oh San." She whispers and holds her hand tighter. "I love it." She turns to face her brunette and kisses her on the lips gently bringing her hand up to cup her cheek. "I love you." Santana smiles back and kisses her shoulder.
"Do you want to go to the Spring Formal with me?" Santana asks her voice is so soft and smooth and Brittany's smile widens and then realizes what the words on the front of the envelope meant. "Maybe we can win that stupid thing and get a real couple picture in the Thunderclap." She is nervous now because she sounds like such a girl and her eyes glance down for a moment to regain her badassness. "I mean we will win obviously." She winks and Brittany lets out a tiny laugh and turns fully to be in Santana's arms.
"Yes." It is a simple answer and that is all either of them really needed before they close the gap between them with a chaste kiss.
"Wow this looks awesome." Rachel breathes out as they look over the walls of the hallways. They are nicely decorated with McKinley's most sought after Cheerio's who clearly have a more than friend's relationship.
"If they don't win then I most definitely question the sexuality of 99% of our male classmates." Quinn jokes pointing out one of the pictures where the couple are so clearly giving each other bedroom eyes.
"Okay besides that picture they are all within code." Rachel explains trying to sound like she knows what she is talking about but her and the blonde just burst out laughing.
The girls decide that they better get out of there before they get caught with their stolen key. They run out to the car still writhing in laughter and drive off as fast as Quinn's car will go. Besides the posters in the hallways that speak volumes of the more than friendship situation between Santana and Brittany the school is completely silent. The sound of a door creaking open echoes and then is followed by a few footsteps.
Sue Sylvester walks out of her office and looks around the newly decorated hallways. Her eyes quickly fall upon a poster like picture of two very familiar girls. She steps closer and notices that this mush fest of a picture of two people all over each other were none other than her top Cheerio's. Her head jerks back as her mind computes the information and her eyes narrow at the two images and shakes her head. It was a different story to know these two had relations, but to be putting them out there, to put the squad in jeopardy to be ridiculed as flannel wearing, softball playing Melissa Etheridge fans was not going to fly with one Sue Sylvester.
Thoughts dance around her head about how this leaking out to the competition would affect their standings as being number one. Maybe Figgens' was right about her not being able to kick them off for this 'relationship' but she could do her best to conceal it. She knows most of the school knew by now that these two were in cahoots in one another's Cheerio skirts, but she wasn't about to have her girls mix business with pleasure. You don't date people on your teams. It's just not how a team works. One yells, the other gets upset, the one who yells apologizes and then all the infrastructure of fear falls apart and there is nothing left but people saying sorry for yelling and putting people down. This was not an operation Sue was willing to handle. She deals with forming strong winning teams using fear tactics, and forcing her squad leaders to enforce these tactics. She can't have a weak leader. Sue lifts her hand behind the poster and yanks it off the wall.
"One down." She mumbles to herself and stalks down the hallway.