Never Knew I Needed Chapter 20, a glee fanfic

Title: Never Knew I Needed [Part Twenty]
Rating: NC-17
Length: 4k

Notes: I know this chapter is literally SO short, but I had to make it short as it didn't really fit in with the rest of what I have planned. Which is only one or two chapters more, so the end is near, my dear readers. Also, only one person picked up on the Friends reference on the last chapter – I'm kind of surprised!

The first entry of the journal is brief, but you can already tell by the way she writes that the moment she arrived there, she wanted to come back.

It doesn't say it in words, but as you read over it, you can hear her voice in your head and imagine her face as she was writing it. You can imagine her pained expression and feel the single teardrop in the top right hand corner from where she cried.

I don't really know why I bought this journal, San. I think I just want to feel like I'm connected to you somehow, even if I'm not sure you'll ever read this.

But I'm here now. I'm in London, and I'm a bit confused because it's already been two weeks and I still can't understand what anyone's saying. They all sound really posh, and I even asked a guy where I could buy a cup of tea and a scone—that's a British snack food, if you didn't know—and they laughed at me and said that I was a stupid yank.

I don't even know what that is, but I'm pretty sure it's offensive.

Anyway, I just wanted to tell you about my first few weeks, and I promise to write to you every day.

I won't break this promise.

Forever and always,

Brittany.

You sit there and laugh through your tears for ten minutes.

You spend the rest of the day reading her letters.

You barely even stop, only when nature, hunger or your dry throat calls; but otherwise you spend hours upon hours, reading over her scribbled, messy writing and learning about her life without you.

You sit on the sofa, soaking in her words, feeling her emotions. Your eyes trace over the few pictures stuck messily to the page, placed next to crumpled paper and you become jealous of them even though you can't be because they got to have her.

They got to experience her when you didn't, when you needed her the most, and you come to hate these random villages, cities and towns you see through pictures. You come to hate the stupid red brick buildings you see and the weird black taxis. You come to hate the miles and miles of green fields and the clear blue skies that you're sure you'd love if you were there with her; all because when you yearned for her, when you thought you physically couldn't live without seeing her face or her smile, they got to have her. They got her and didn't appreciate her in the way you would've done.

But you still push through all the emotions brought to the forefront of your mind and read on.

Among her writing, you find a few undecipherable words and black smudges from where you were assuming she was crying as she wrote about her time.

It makes your heart clench in the most painful of ways, and your eyes fill with tears because you might have been in pain, but you would've rather have been in pain than known she was suffering.

Yet you still find your fingertips tracing over the smudges, over the crinkles in the paper where her tear drops fell and shut your eyes, trying to feel what she did.

You don't, but you still feel pain from knowing she was in pain, too.

When you begin crying for the third time, on the third page, you stretch over to reach for the tissue box on the side table and the journal falls off your lap.

You abandon your search for a tissue and reach for it, gasping as if the drop would've broken it and spend a good two minutes checking over it, stroking the suede and eying the floor to make sure nothing fell out. Though when you do, you find a small folded up piece of paper lying on the edge of the rug and gingerly reach for it, bringing it to your lap and pinching the sides, opening it to show what's written inside.

Sugar, I need you to give this to her. I miss her, I love her, but I can't tell her out loud.

Please... I just need her to know everything.

Thank you,

Brittany.

It doesn't even have your name written inside, just a vague 'her,' but you know Brittany was talking about you; and as you read it again, you find your mind reeling back to when Sugar came to knock at your door all those months ago.

"Did she..." You swallow the words, finding it hard to complete your sentence. You haven't asked anything about her since she left. "Did she say something?" You manage to get out.

Sugar looks at you, her head tilting to the side and you watch the crease form between her eyebrows as her eyes narrow into slits. "No," she breathes and you can't figure out whether the sinking you feel in your chest is from disappointment or relief. You suppose the former. "Not out loud," she adds, her eyes dropping to the package in your arms.

Your hand clutches at your chest as the memory comes back, and you realize all this time, Sugar knew Brittany loved you.

Your first reaction is anger; why couldn't she have told you? Why couldn't she have just fucking said and then you would've contacted Brittany somehow and told her yourself? Why couldn't she just have even freaking hinted something?

Though as the minutes pass, as your infuriated thoughts slowly transform into something a little calmer, you begin to reason with yourself that if she had said anything, or rather when she did say something, you didn't believe her anyway. She tried, you remember the 'she would've stayed' comment and it's only now you realize what Sugar was really telling you. You realize she was really telling you by saying that you 'must've known' that you must have known she loved you, though you were too caught up in your pain to realize that.

But you don't want to dwell on that, to think about how you could've had or talked to Brittany sooner.

So you just continue reading.

I met this guy called Adam at the publishing house.

He's gay, so if you ever read this you shouldn't be panicking or grinding your teeth or clenching your jaw in the way you always used to when I mentioned someone else. He's totally moving to New York, San, and I told him he should totally meet Kurt, 'cause I think they would be a cute couple.

He asked me if I had anyone special back home and I cried for two hours.

I never told him, like I never told you.

I'm sorry.

Yours forever,

Brittany.

You think you read the seventeenth entry of the journal over eleven times. You actually have it memorized:

I told Adam about you today, and he told me that I should've told you when I had the chance. He didn't mean in the way it sounds, he wasn't rude so don't hate him, San.

But I know I should have. I know I should've told you.

So I'm telling you now.

I love you, Santana. I love you... so much that words will never be able to do it justice. I love you so much that it actually hurts sometimes... all the time now, actually... but back when we were together, but not together, it was a good kind of hurt.

I'd do anything to be together but not together again, because I just want you, in any capacity.

Please don't hate me. Please still love me.

My heart is yours,

Brittany.

When you read some of the entries, you find yourself lying down on your side, curling into a ball with the journal clutched to your chest and you just sob your heart out.

Everything hurts, and your eyes are stinging after the amount of tears you've cried, but the funny thing is, you haven't even read the entire journal yet and you know there are more tears to come.

Still, there are certain ones that just rip the breath straight from your lungs.

Even if they are as short as the forty-second entry:

I miss you, Santana.

All my love, always.

Brittany.

By the time you reach the third month of her visit to London, you no longer find any cheery little entries or tiny notes with a brightness and sunshine that you know to be Brittany, because they're all full of pain.

Each sentence you read you can feel her pain, you can imagine her sitting on a bed in a hotel room in the middle of a foreign country, crying her heart out as she writes to you, not knowing when she was ever going to see your face again and even though you were in pain, you find yourself wanting to travel back to that time, to take her pain away and to add it on top of yours just so she didn't have to feel it.

Your fingertips trace over more teardrop stains, and you see your own falling beside them because you can't stand the image of Brittany crying.

You'd do anything to make sure she will never cry another pained tear if that was possible.

But you can't, and for some reason it doesn't even deter you from continuing through the pages and letting your eyes take in her words.

I don't know if you hate me... but I don't want you to hate me even more when I tell you this.

Your heart stops at the first line, and you find yourself frozen, unable to look away, to glance further down the page to see if this entry has an ending that's going to make you break all over again.

But when you take a few long breaths, when you manage to regain some vision and push the blur away that covers your eyes, you find that you are breaking, but not in the way you thought.

I went out on a date.

I didn't know I was going to.. it was a surprise one set up by Adam, but I still don't want you to hate me or him.

He told me I should try to get over you and meet him for dinner to talk about you more, but when I got to the restaurant and this guy approached me, telling me that he was here for our date, I realized that Adam had set me up.

But I also realized something else.

Nothing can ever replace you, San, and I don't see myself ever getting over you. I don't think I could even if I wanted to, and I never meant to fall in love with you, but I think it was just meant to be. I think we were meant to be, Santana, and I messed up. I messed up real bad, and I don't want you to hate me because I can't live in a world where I don't have you.

Which is dumb (I know you hate it when I used that word but it is dumb) because I moved here, moved away from you for a year, but I just needed to figure things out.

I needed to clear my head, and now it's four months since I've seen you and I still can't figure out why I came here.

I just want to see you again. I just want to call you, to hear your voice, to know how you're doing and whether you're missing me... but I'm scared to. I'm scared that when I hear your voice, I'll get on the first plane back to you and you won't want to see me. I'm scared you hate me, and I miss you... God, I miss you, more than anything... and I wish you were here, or that I was there, but I don't know how you feel about me anymore.

I'm not even sure this is coming out right, but what I'm trying to say is that I miss you. And that I love you more than anything.

And always will.

Forever yours,

Brittany.

There's a knock on your door just as you finish journal entry one hundred and seventeen.

You glance at the clock to find it's going on nine in the evening, and you frown because you weren't expecting anyone. Still, you get up and try not to hold onto the hope that Brittany might be standing behind the door and head toward it, wiping your eyes with the back of your hands as they're probably red and puffy. It's a lucky thing you don't get your hopes too high anyway, because when you open the door and find Sugar there, you're not (that) disappointed. You're just a little confused.

"Hey," you breathe, your eyebrows knitting together and eyes flitting around the empty hallway. "Everything okay?"

"I just came to apologize," Sugar spills out and once again, you're confused. Apologize for what?

You lean against the door and cock your head to the side. "For?"

Sugar's eyes flicker behind you and you turn to find her looking to the sofa where thousands of used tissues lay spread out and to where the journal lies open on the coffee table. Your body stiffens, and you begin feeling a little vulnerable and stupid that you're crying and so you shuffle out your apartment, pulling the door closed but not locking it, clearing your throat. Sugar snaps her vision away and back to you immediately because you just want to get this over and done with.

"For not telling you about Brittany and how she felt."

Had she come over here and apologized a few hours ago, you probably would've snapped and yelled because you did feel angry that she knew about Brittany and never told you. You were angry that she had this journal, that she probably read through it, or at least skimmed it—she would've had to, to have found that note that said to give the journal to you—but now you don't feel that. You don't feel like you want to scream at her because she didn't have to give that journal to you, she did it because she wanted you and Brittany back together.

Okay, maybe she didn't tell you that Brittany still loved you, but she knew you wouldn't listen to her. She wouldn't have come here to apologize if she was trying to be a bitch or whatever.

So you don't get angry. Instead, you just bite down on your lip, shrug your shoulders and shake your head as you say, "It's okay, Sugar. I know why you didn't."

Sugar shifts, her fingers toying nervously with the ends of her sleeve. "I was going to, but you wouldn't have—"

"I know," you cut in and step forward, opening your arms. "I'm not mad at you, so just hug me, okay?"

It's a little strange because you rarely offer out hugs to anyone that isn't Brittany, or related to you, and Sugar does catch up on that because she jerks a little, blinking confused but quickly steps into the hug and wraps her arms around you. And you wonder whether you should be pissed at her, wonder whether you actually have a valid reason to, but you're just so tired of being angry and sad and you don't want to have to deal with those negative emotions, so you just pull back, look her in the eye and offer a smile.

"You're really not mad?" She quietly whispers, still seeming unsure.

You laugh lowly through your nose and shake your head. "No, I'm not."

She seems to believe you, which is good because you are being honest, and you two talk for a little longer before she tells you she's going on a date with Sam and is already late.

You're a little shocked, but you were always convinced Sam had a thing for Brittany so you're kind of happy he's going out with Sugar, and bid her goodbye.

One less thing to feel negative about.

There's a couple of entries you come across where you wonder whether you actually wrote them.

For example, entry number two hundred and twenty-one:

Santana... I can't even begin to describe how much I miss you.

I couldn't even get out of bed today because of that. Because I was lying, staring at my ceiling and wondering whether you missed me back... whether you still even love me.

I have pictures of us, of you, and I spend so much time looking at them, but it's not enough. I even have a video, but that's still not enough.

I just need to see you. In person. I just need to know you're okay and to look into your eyes because it hurts without you.

It feels like I can't breathe without you next to me.

I love you. Always.

Brittany.

They feel like you wrote them, because they have the same emotion, the same description of emptiness, and it's only after you finish reading them do you realize that there's an upside to when you and Brittany both felt like that; because neither of you work properly without each other.

It's not exactly the best realization, but it calms your nerves and dulls the pain a little, because you know that you and Brittany need each other.

And as you lie down and mull over her words, you hope that you never have to live without her again.

But that decision is pretty much up to you now.

The last one is the one that catches you off guard the most.

Out of all four hundred and twelve entries, only three of them contained mentions of the future, all of which were saying about how Brittany wasn't going to come back. Or rather, she wasn't sure if she was going to. It'd hurt to read it, but she'd already explained it to you and you're almost glad that you knocked the package off the bed and it went forgotten about for months because you're not sure what you would've done had you read this when she still wasn't near. You're not sure if you would've just given up and bought a ticket and flown straight to her, only to find out that she was no longer in London but elsewhere, touring the UK.

So for that you're glad, but this last one... this is the only one that actually mentions coming back to you. That mentions getting through everything and finding a happily ever after.

And this is how it goes:

My dearest Santana,

This is the last entry I will write inside this journal. This might be the last time I ever talk to you, even if it through a journal and even if it is kind of one-sided.

But I just feel like you have to know a few things. You have to know that I love you, but you should already because there hasn't been one letter where I haven't written it. I've meant every word when it's come to my feelings for you, and I don't want you to forget that either.

Anyway, you have to know that if I ever do come back to you, if you ever choose to forgive me... that I will never leave you again. It was stupid, I was dumb, and I wish I'd never left. I wish I didn't get on that plane and I wish that I had just come back to the place I've only ever really known — your arms. I wish a lot of things; I should have done a lot of things, and I know it's pointless to just write this and then send it to you because I don't even know if you'll respond. I don't know if you'll be able to because I'm not staying here in London anymore, I'm going touring... I think. If I can handle being away from you any longer than I already have.

But one thing, San... one thing I promise from the bottom of my heart, is that if you choose to let me back into your life, if I'm lucky enough that you forgive me... as long as you love me, we can make us work.

I know we've got issues, and they're not going to go away with a simple apology, but I know we can work through them. I want to work through them, I want to sort it out and clear the air because I want you. I want you, all of you, forever and a day, and even if I come back and we spend months and months arguing, being angry at each other and yelling... it'd still be better than anything because I'd rather do all those things with you then start something with someone new.

I'd rather go through the hardest, toughest times with you, than even think about anyone else.

Because I love you, Santana. I love you, and if I come back... well, when I come back (I don't think I can stay away from you)... I will spend however long it takes, go through whatever conversations and do whatever you want if it means we end up together.

But if you don't... well, I guess we'll just have to see when the time comes.

I love you, Santana, and I can't stop loving you anymore than I can stop the world from turning. I wouldn't want to.

So please take me back, please love me again.

Your Brittany. Always.

You don't know how many times you read through that last one.

All you know is that by the time your eyes are stinging from the tears you're still shedding and sleep is reeling you in, the sun is rising. And you barely get to the three repetitions of those words you've longed to hear again for the thirty-sixth time before you get pulled under and fall asleep, the journal clutched close to your chest, trapped on that page.

Because soon... you've got to make a decision.

I know it was short and I'm not happy with it but I didn't want to write pages and pages of Brittany's journal as I probably will do a few one-shots from her POV another time.

Thank you and drop a comment if you consider it worthy (: