November 2015, New York City
Amidst A Lot of Noise and A Lot of Bodies

"Give her this," Quinn handed Brittany the Jack and Diet she had just ordered then looked beyond her to the DJ booth, "and when you get to the bouncer, tell him that this is for Santana, don't say a word about her DJ name."

"Okay..." Brittany answered hesitantly and looked behind her at the gigantic crowd of people dancing to the mash-up blaring through the speakers. As much as she loved a good club night, tonight was a little different. Tonight, she was going to re-introduce herself to Santana. It was a sneak attack, totally Quinn's idea and she still wasn't sure how she felt about it.

Quinn was absolutely convinced that this was the way to get it all to work out. On the walk and into the train ride to the club, Quinn theorized that the two of them needed to get to know the person the other has become in the last three years without any mention of the person they knew in the past. While it made perfect sense, Brittany wasn't sure that forgetting the past was that simple... or even possible. But of course, Brittany was willing to try anything to woo her way back into a friendship with Santana, even if the plan was a little crazy.

So, there she was, walking along the wall between the searchers and the found, making her way to a gigantic bouncer named Berto, all the while thinking of a greeting that didn't make it sound like she was hitting on Santana. Thus far, everything she'd come up with sounded like she was trying to get into Slo-Pez's pants, which couldn't be further from the truth.

"Hi," she yelled when she got to the bouncer that was even bigger now that she was up close.

"Can I help you?" he yelled back without any amusement whatsoever.

"Uhh..." Brittany paused, intimidated to the point where she forgot why she was even there.

"Wait!" he yelled again, "You're Brittany!"

'Two can play that game,' Brittany thought quickly after she was taken aback by the fact that he knew her name, "Berto!"

He laughed and then stepped to the side, "I'd shake your hand but they're both full! I'll get the door for you." He gestured for her to pass by and then reached past her, opening the door to the DJ booth, "Hope to see you again soon!"

"Same here," she said over her shoulder as she entered the booth. Once she was there she was instantly mesmerized. There was so much equipment and Slo-Pez was the epitome of 'sexy swag' standing at the helm of it all. She wasn't really sure how to get the headphone clad DJ's attention so she just stood back against the wall and watched, hoping that she would turn around.

As she stood against the wall, she couldn't help but move along to the music as she slowly sipped on her cherry vodka and Coke. The music wasn't as loud up in the DJ booth as it was on the dance floor, but it was still enough to get into it. After a while she didn't even notice that her eyes were closed and so when Santana yelled, "Holy fuck!" she was completely caught off guard.

"Hey! Uh... your girlfriend said you like these," Brittany finally came up with the right greeting.

"Jack and diet?" she asked as she took the offered drink.

"Yup..." Brittany took a deep breath in preparation for what she was about to do next, "I'm Brittany by the way." She held out her hand and tried not look awkward as she felt.

Despite her slightly squinted eye and cocked head, Santana still took Brittany's hand and said slowly, "Santana..."

"It's nice to meet you-"

"Did Quinn put you up to this?" Santana's chin came back down to it's normal position but her eye stayed slightly squinted, letting Brittany know that she was clearly annoyed.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Brittany replied and took a much larger sip of her drink than she had been taking previously.

Santana huffed and then smiled, "it's nice to meet you, too. Hold on a sec!" She lifted her headphones back up onto her ears, put her drink down on a table set away from the electronics and turned back to the equipment. With one hand on her lap top and the other with fingers strategically placed below, she flawlessly switched from one mash-up to another.

"Wow," Brittany breathed as she watched it all unfold in front of her.

"So, Berto didn't give you any trouble I see," Santana picked up her drink and took a sip. Brittany could still see the smirk even with her lips curled around the tiny stirring straw.

She wanted to say that he already knew who she was, but that would mean that Santana already knew who she was, but as of tonight, according to Quinn's plan, she didn't. She had established that she knew her girlfriend, though... "Quinn told me to use your real name and it works 99.5% of the time."

That wasn't entirely a lie...

"How long have you known Quinn?" Santana asked, leaning in a little further so she didn't have to yell as loud.

This is where she needed to be creative. Santana thought she was being clever and she was clearly underestimating Brittany's abilities. Brittany would have none of that, "Since high school, but we haven't seen each other for a while. She's changed a lot. For the better. It's really great." She took a sip of her drink but kept her eyes glued to Santana's. She wanted so badly to convey that she wanted to give this a shot; temporarily erasing the past. If they really committed to it, it might actually work.

Suddenly, Santana's facial expression changed from her amused smirk to something that Brittany couldn't read. She wasn't too sure, but Brittany thought that Santana might have been silently agreeing with her... not with her statement about Quinn, but what she didn't say.

"You know," Santana smiled as she leaned in just a little bit closer, "for weeks now Quinn's been telling me that she thinks we'll be really great friends."

"Funny," Brittany smiled back, "she's been saying the same thing to me."

...{ }...

As she watched the DJ booth from a bar stool located as close to the end as she could get without turning on the HBIC attitude that she abhorred, Quinn couldn't help but smile at her own work. Clearly she had no idea what was actually going on, but she could tell that Santana wasn't too angry, because Brittany was still in the booth. She did have the lingering suspicion that her girlfriend was going to be quite pissed at her, though.

However, if things were going as well as they looked like they were, Santana being angry with her for a little while, would be completely worth it.

"She's hot," an unfamiliar voice yelled into her ear from behind her.

Quinn rolled her eyes and without looking away from the booth she replied, "Everyone thinks Slo-Pez is hot!"

"No! I mean the blonde in there with Santana!"

'What the fuck?'

She was positive that she hadn't used her real name. If there was anything she didn't do was say the name "Santana" to strangers. Quinn turned her body slightly so that she could see face to this mystery voice and before she could say anything to the tall brunette standing closer to her than she would like, the brunette beat her to it, "Quinn, right?"

'Seriously, what the fuck?'

"Depends," Quinn responded with some of that HBIC flickering on, "who are you?"

"Hayley," she leaned back away from Quinn's ear and offered her hand. Quinn suppressed a gag when her fingers were grabbed instead of her whole hand... like a real handshake should go.

And then the name hit her.

"You just figured out who I am," she yelled, leaning back in towards Quinn. When she came back, there was quite the unpleasant smirk on her face.

Quinn distinctly remembered Santana saying that only Mackenzie was the bitch ex and that Hayley was the sweet one. Hayley was the one that despite getting treated somewhat poorly by Santana, was still civil with her.

This didn't seem civil.

"Clearly Santana's been honest with you," she yelled through the same smirk.

'Why haven't I said anything?'

"Oh my god! Quinn!" a brand new voice yelled at her from her left.

'What the fuck now?'

She looked towards the voice and was met with a lot of long, curly, highlighted hair and Halle Berry skin. Before she could even react she was wrapped up in a hug and simultaneously felt something drop into her lap. As she was released from the grip of this random girl, she looked down and saw the lit screen of a phone. She was staring down at yellow lines and words.

"Hey, you dropped..." she didn't want to be nosy but when she saw her name clear as day on the top she had to read it:

Hey Quinn!

Dez.
Brittany's friend.
You look uncomfortable.
And in need of rescue.

"...your phone," she finished as Dez took it back from her.

"Do you two know each other?" Hayley yelled looking between them with a look of doubt on her face.

Hayley was not the sweet girl that Santana had painted her to be. At all.

"Yeah! We go way back!" Dez answered with a huge smile that was almost working to convince Quinn that they already knew each other, "Hey, you wanna go outside and have a cigarette?"

"I don't..." Quinn started, but caught Dez's slight eyebrow furrow, "... have any... more... left."

'Awesome cover,' Quinn thought and imagined rolling her eyes at herself.

"Not a problem! You can bum one of mine," she grabbed Quinn's hand and quickly pulled her off of her stool, "It was nice to meet you."

"Hayley," she held out her hand to Dez who just looked at it.

"That's nice," Dez mouthed and then let this beyond awesome, evil smirk play onto her lips, "Come on, Quinn!"

Before she knew it, Quinn was being dragged into the crowd full of discombobulated motion. She didn't think to look back to make sure that Hayley wasn't following them until they were nearly out of the mess. She wasn't following them. When she looked in front of her again, they were already at the door and then out of it, in the brisk November night.

"I've never been out here before," Quinn said as soon as the door was closed behind them and while she looked around at the people smoking around them.

"Me neither," Dez shrugged and then laughed a little, "Who the hell was that?"

"My girlfriend's ex," Quinn sighed and leaned against the freezing brick wall. She really despised coming to the club in the cold. Since she refused to check a coat, she didn't bring one, so she always suffered the consequences.

"Another one?"

"Wow," Quinn didn't make any effort to hide her mild surprise, "You know a lot, don't you?"

"To be fair," Dez held up her hands, "Brittany showed me your Facebook so that I'd have a better chance of finding you guys tonight."

"One hundred percent acceptable," Quinn shivered slightly.

"And the other stuff-"

"Don't worry about it," Quinn interrupted and pushed herself off of the wall that refused to accept her body heat and let up on the frozen act, "it's Brittany's information and she has a right to do with it as she pleases. And I'm glad she has someone to talk to that isn't me."

Dez laughed a little and after blowing into her cupped hands said, "Oh man, you're totally stuck in the middle of it all aren't you?"

"You have no idea," Quinn sighed out a laugh.

"I have so much respect for you," Dez shook her head a little and smiled, "I don't think I'd let my significant other's ex stay in my apartment."

"Well, Brittany's my friend," Quinn shrugged.

"Still..."

"I know, it's just... they used to be really great friends, you know, before... I just think they could be friends again... without the sex..."

'Why am I saying so much?'

"Thanks for saving me, by the way," Quinn felt like changing the subject slightly, "and just so you know, if you were in the same situation and I had known who you were, I definitely would have done the same thing."

"Why, thank you."

"Um... I don't know if you noticed, but Brittany is in the booth with Slo-Pez," Quinn said turning towards the door thinking that it had been plenty of time to have completely lost Hayley.

"I did notice and I'll be honest, I was a smidge disappointed for completely selfish reasons," Dez shook her head slightly and looked down towards the ground as she walked forwards to follow Quinn back inside.

"Well," Quinn opened the door, "perhaps we should interrupt them." She turned back around and laughed to herself.

...} {...

Santana was pissed.

It wasn't showing and she wasn't letting it out on her present company, but she was so pissed.

What was Quinn thinking? Sending Brittany up with a drink and a clean slate. Just because she agreed to it did not mean that she was ready for it. She definitely wasn't ready for Brittany to be so good at not mentioning a damn thing about anything from three years and eighty-six days before and beyond. Not a single inkling. No matter how many tricky questions she asked. Once Santana realized that she wasn't going to get Brittany to break, she stopped asking the questions and concentrated more on her job. After that, they didn't talk very much because truthfully, it wasn't very easy to talk in the booth.

Interestingly enough though, this whole Tabula Rasa plan was kind of working. Santana actually didn't feel the need to get Brittany out of the booth which would have gone right along with need to avoid her that she had been experiencing the previous few weeks.

Despite this though, she was still mad at Quinn.

"These are so good," Brittany yelled as she pressed her headphones onto her ears and executed moderated dance moves.

Santana laughed as she looked between her lap top and Brittany. Brittany's eyes were closed as she was dancing with the headphones still pressed tightly to her ears so in order to get her attention, Santana had to tap her shoulder, "Are you babysitting with us tomorrow?"

"I'd love to, if you don't mind!" Brittany yelled back.

Before tonight, she would have said that she did, but now, "Of course I don't mind!"

"Thanks!" Brittany yelled back then looked back down to the equipment spread out in front of them. She pressed the headphones back to her ears and went back to that place where she was before with just the music and her miniaturized dancing.

After a silent laugh, she went back to concentrating on her job again. Usually when she was up in the booth by herself, she'd just let herself get into the mixes as she spun them. She liked them all. She wouldn't play something for a big crowd that she didn't approve of. It was really only natural that she danced a little. This was a fun job... aside from all of the time it took... and how late she had to be out Friday nights. Okay, the six hours that she was in the booth were fun and she had no problem letting everyone see it. Tonight would be no different even if there was someone else with her.

"Oh shit!" she whipped around after feeling something grab her shoulder... she was really into the track she was playing.

"Sorry, babe!"

"You can't do that shit, Q!"

She was still pissed at her.

"AAAAHHHH Dez! You made it!" Brittany screamed as she yanked her headphones off of her ears and sprang forward to wrap her arms tightly around the girl that had accompanied Quinn into the booth.

Santana's eyebrow quirked up instantly and Quinn leaned into her, "Dance in her DNA..."

"Oooh. Got it," she stood back a little and watched some more of the interaction between the two dancers. Brittany was showing the excitement she always showed when she was greeting people she liked. Dez, Brittany's seriously attractive friend from her dance company, was all smiles. If Santana wasn't mistaken, it wasn't your average "I'm happy to see you, too" smile, though.

The booth wasn't really lit that well, so perhaps she was seeing things.

"Hey, I'm gonna go dance with Quinn and Dez," Brittany yelled to Santana after a little bit of conversing them.

"No problem!" she said through a smile, "Have fun!" And then, her arms went up in that way that signals an offering of a hug. She hadn't really thought about, it just kind of happened. Brittany was already walking towards her making it impossible to take it back and before she knew it, she was being wrapped up in a big Brittany hug.

"Thanks for this! It was really fun!"

It wasn't awkward.

Santana was certain that the instant Brittany's arms were around her there was going to be an instant rewind, like taking the scrubber on a YouTube video and dragging it right back to the beginning.

"It was!" she answered, "Maybe tomorrow we'll actually get to talk."

They let go at an approximate time when a hug is still simply friendly and once they were completely apart, Brittany nodded and smiled.

"I probably won't see you guys 'til tomorrow. It was nice to meet you Dez! Sort of!"

"Same here!" Dez answered extending her hand to Santana. After the brief handshake, she turned to Brittany, grabbed her hand and then led... pulled her out of the DJ booth.

That left Santana and Quinn.

"I love you," Quinn mouthed to Santana and lightly scratched the back of her hand with one of her fingers.

"I love you, too, but I am not happy," Santana replied, crossing her arms and furrowing her brow.

"I can handle that," Quinn smiled and reached out to hold Santana's index finger with her own, "See you around five, beautiful?"

"Berto's walking me home," Santana assured her through her still furrowed brow.

Maybe she wasn't really that mad.

"Good!"

A/N: I am on a freakin' roll with these updates! I'm surprising myself! Thanks all of you that have stuck around! Thanks for all of your great comments, too. I can't wait to hear what you all have to say about this one!