The Road to Unicorn Chapter 25: Keep Moving Forward, a glee fanfic

Warnings: Some parts of this chapter are sad, and there is a moment of self-harm. I'll say this now, it might look like an ending, but once again it really isn't.

I want to dedicate it to all of you unicorns.

Brightside-I'm so happy you like your nickname! You're the first person I've heard of that has reread the story (I think) which makes me extra glad I went back and attacked the writing of the first ten chapters since I've kind of improved since I wrote them. I feel very honored that this story managed to capture your attention for a whole year, and for the second time now you've proved to be really good at reminding me about the bright side of going through this. :) I mean, you just reminded me how far I've come since the beginning. so that motivates me to keep at it with this chapter and see it through until the end. Oh, and to answer your question I accidentally put real names all the time! I think the worst times for this was chapter 16. I was so into it that I didn't bother censoring myself at all from start to finish which gave me a whole lot of editing to do later :p

Me123 -You're very welcome, I'm glad you found the story :)

Puff614- I really wanted to tell you that when I say this chapter is dedicated to the unicorns, a big part of that dedication goes to you. You're one of the ones that has been there for me since the beginning of this journey. In this chapter when I talk about 'finding answers' and… more (you'll see what I mean)... I definitely had you in mind. I'm sending you huge hugs!

just. a. dreamer. named. jay- I won't forget what you said :) and thank you for understanding about me needing to take my time to write this one.

Miara848-I was so relieved to read that you had found your cat even with the epic battle (I'm sorry you got hurt!) to get him out the yard because missing your fur-person is so devastating.
The good thing about Danny and I is that we balance each other out sometimes by being on opposite extremes. I've been worn down over the years and mostly just accept when people don't like me. He will move the sun and earth to change people's minds until it kills him. We both need to find a balance between those two states I think :p
But I have to say he's fighting the good fight this week. His uncle refuses to acknowledge his cousin as a woman even though she identifies as one, just because she was born male. He constantly refers to her as 'he'. I think that's awful so I've joined Danny's crusade and I've been feeding him lines through a walkie talkie to use like "Just because someone doesn't fit your definition of an artist, doesn't make that person any less of an artist, so just because she doesn't fit your definition of a woman, doesn't make her not a woman." We could just use cell phones, but that's not as fun.
Oh, and full credit must now go to you and your story-ception idea because I think it actually turned out to be what the story really needed. And I am totally custom ordering a pair of those awesome toesocks :p I'm giving you a big hug and hoping you're enjoying summer too! I love running under the sprinkler but my cat doesn't :p Thank you for sticking by 'Santana' and me, I hope this chapter isn't too hard to read…

Flor :D -I didn't know I had unintentionally made a point about young people being wise but I'm glad I did because I do believe that young people especially children are often the wisest of all of us. I did this bullying excise with some kids I work with a little while ago – we each got a piece of paper and told them to scrunch it up and then try to smooth it out again afterwards which is impossible, comparing that to how you can't take back unkind words after you've said them, and those kids had the smartest comments to make about how people from all walks of life should be treated.
Your comments affected me so much (in a good way!) that I gave you kind of a cameo in this chapter. I hope you don't mind! You should know what I'm talking about when you see it. I had to change the wording a little bit but only for paraphrasing reasons. Paraphrasing is one thing I think I actually have got good at through this. Anyway, I think this time I'll let what I wrote in the chapter speak for itself. Thank you for being there for me. :)

heybrittbritt- *abrazos!* Haha, yeah, I know I tend to write a lot. :p I hope you are having an awesome summer and thank you as always for being so sweet to me :)

sethifehr - I think you expressed yourself just fine :) I'm glad you understand the guy you once knew a bit better. Honestly I don't understand everything my friend Danny talks about either. Like me, he tends to start talking out loud in the middle of a conversation he already started in his head, always speaking about the details and never about the general concepts. When he talks computers like that, I have no chance of getting much of it at all. Thank you for reading, I appreciate it…

broken-timemachine - I think I've already said everything in pm's but I wanted to give a shout out to you anyway :)

hlnwst -I absolutely love the expressions you say! I doff my hat was the best one yet, and I have never heard it before but I'm giving you serious awesome points :) And I am very honored that you would put my unicorn definition on your wall. Thank you for supporting me :)

luceroadorada -Thank you :) and marrying me was actually Santana's biggest childhood wish. It was so cute. She used to obsessively tell my mom all the time about how she and I were going to live together when we were all grown up. Back then they were all so sure I would never be able to live independently, so she would reassure everyone that she would have a really big office (like her father's) because she thought having an office meant she would have an important job and bring home a lot of money and candy for me to live on. Of course my mom just laughed it off at the time as 'kids being kids.' Santana was too young then to know that this town would find two woman marrying different, to a man and a woman marrying. One day she brought me a beautiful ring with xoxoxo's around the edge and a heart in the middle that she got out of a quarter machine and we had a fake ceremony where she became my wife. I had plastic blue flowers in my hair, and she was so sincere about telling me that this wasn't real now but it would be one day. She didn't tell me that marrying me was her biggest wish in that moment when we were online talking about childhood wishes, but I knew in my heart that that was what she was thinking and remembering.

harumad- the pleasure is all mine, did you know a lion's roar can be heard from miles away? :p Thank you for being there at the finish line...

r e l -Thank you :)

Bmcbrid - I'm just giving you a shout out because you are awesome! :)

ErrMerrGerrd – Don't worry it's not the end and I miss you too!

Guest – It's funny you pointed the Fiillipino line out because it was actually the one quote/reference I made to Glee last chapter. Brittany says something like that in Season 4 and I put it in because I felt like I needed to do at least one quote tie-in :p I'm glad you liked the chapter!

wkgreen You're very welcome :) I hope this chapter isn't too sad…

and to Unicorn and Adrimarie97, sorry for the wait! :)

Chapter 25 – Keep Moving Forward.

Brittany S. Pierce, Present.

You had this fantasy about the end of the world. Sometimes we'd lie awake together at night, and you'd tell me dozens of ways this planet could come crashing down on itself.

At each new way you would become more excited, your words beginning to tumble over each other as your excitement grew.

The further you went into your fantasy, the more distant you would become from me, because you scared me, Santana. I didn't want to think about the world ending. I wanted to stay alive, and I wanted to stay with you.

Worst of all, I didn't understand why raining hellfire and darkness was so appealing to you.

When I finally asked you, "why?" you shrugged your shoulders and looked away from me, and then you said, "because when you hit bottom, the only way to go is up. I'd be finally on the right road."

But that wasn't the whole story.

Because, I know that there was a part of you that wanted to be left in darkness. Maybe you saw an 'up' afterwards, but you had a near obsessive fixation on the 'down.' You wanted to find out what 'hitting bottom' felt like, and while you were there you wanted to lose yourself.

And if the world ended and did it for you, then it wouldn't be your fault. You wouldn't have to feel guilty that you let yourself go, and let me down.

Did you know I heard you praying for the world to end? Did you hear me crying?

"Everyone needs to let go sometime, Britt. That's where the power is."

But why did you think losing everything you had was the only way?

Brittany S. Pierce, age 21 - 22

"I can't believe I'm gonna graduate before you do. I thought I'd be last out of everyone."

"Nope, I still have a few credits to get yet, Britt," Kurt said wrinkling his nose. "I wish I was done! I feel like a slacker."

"But it's different for you. You work a lot too, so you have to take your degree a little slower cause there just aren't enough hours in a day," Brittany said, loyally shaking her head.

"That's true," Kurt agreed.

Brittany paused. "Maybe I should put off graduating until Santana comes back. I mean, you can get the credits, but postpone the graduating part and do the ceremony later with a different class, right?"

Kurt frowned. "Um, yeah, you could. But you really shouldn't. I really don't think that's a good idea. Just send her an invitation and make a few status's online about when and where you're graduating."

Brittany nodded, then rolled over and sat up to look through their picnic basket. It was a beautiful sunny day and they had decided to round up as much brightly colored food as possible, and have a picnic in the park. Brittany's carousel print dress flared out beneath her, taking up more space on the blanket that they were sitting on than she did. So many layers, she thought, trying to tuck the fabric beneath her.

Kurt took a cup of Jello from her hands and stabbed it. "And, seriously Britt, she knows the when and where already, ok? This is such a big deal for you that anyone on Team Britt has been counting down the days, and ticking off your last couple of exams on their own calendars. So, she better be there," he said, saying the last part under his breath.

Brittany laughed. "You really had my exams days marked on your calendar?"

"Yep," Kurt grinned. "I shaded out the whole week, so I knew to only come at Britt-the-grumpy-pants with cookies and boring topics so you wouldn't think I was ignoring you, but you still wouldn't be distracted by me."

"You did talk a lot about your taxes, and about the difference between khaki and beige."

"Yeah but you managed to turn that last one into an interesting conversation about designer safari wear, remember? And you know I cant resist that kind of talk."

"Oops, yep," Brittany, said enunciating the last syllable with a pop. Her forehead creased. "Was I really that grumpy?"

"In comparison to your normal standards, you were practically stuffing yourself into a trashcan and heading off to Grouchland."

Brittany giggled.

"You frowned at me," Kurt confirmed. "It was weird."

"It felt weird," Brittany agreed. "I don't usually do angry. Rage is Santana's thing. When she comes back I'll show her my new frown cause she'll probably be impressed."

At the mention of Santana, Kurt gave a heavy sigh.

"She's obviously just gone away or something and forgot to mention it," Brittany said, pulling on the petals of a flower.

Sure she has, Kurt thought glumly. Sure as I own a pair of those ugly sandal boots.

"This flower will tell me," Brittany told him, modifying the old she-loves-me she-loves-me-not game. "Even number of petals means that she's on holiday. Odd number means it's a family emergency." She pursed her lips at the thought.
"Okay, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Holiday!" She dusted the petals off her hands. "There you have it, I bet she's just visiting some family in Mexico for fun, or maybe she is jet skiing in Bermuda. Or maybe she's in Japan under a Cherry Blossom tree. That's super nice."

Kurt gave her a pointed look.

"She just forgot to tell me," Brittany insisted.

Kurt didn't know what to say. At least Brittany saying Santana had gone on holiday was a little better than her previous insistence that Santana hadn't left at all.

He'd managed to piece together this latest saga bit by bit. At first Brittany had been worried when after some time Santana hadn't been responding to any of her emails and texts.

We had all just laughed it off though, Kurt remembered. We told her to just let Santana have her alone time to recharge her 'nice batteries.'

Everyone that Brittany had spoken to about it had reminded her of Santana's post high school tendency to disappear for up to a month at a time without any contact, and then come crawling back with a dozen excuses and apologies. It had been nothing out of the ordinary, but Brittany had been miserable anyway. She hated it when she didn't know where Santana was, and if she was okay.

Then, Santana's Facebook page had suddenly disappeared, which had been enough to make everyone sit up and finally take notice. It had been the thirty-seventh day since Brittany had spoken to her.

He looked over at Brittany who was dismantling another flower. Growing increasingly frightened, on day thirty-eight Brittany had again attempted to call a road trip to Santana's house, and this time he had agreed that it was probably a good idea to check on the other girl. Brittany had been tense and anxious the whole ride there. Then, she had only become stranger, hurtling herself out of the slow moving car the minute he'd reached her street. He'd watched her run into the house, and then run back to him before he'd even had a chance to find a place to park outside.

"We should go," Brittany said, piling herself in the passenger side with flushed cheeks and a strange heaviness to her mood.

"But we only just got here. Was she there?" Kurt asked

"Yep, she was in there. We found her. She's busy," Brittany told him. "She's doing things, lots of things," she rambled incoherently, turning her face around and pressing it to the glass. "Many, many things. Do you have any gum?"

He had been confused and not really sure what to do, but upon her second almost frantic request he had pulled away from the house.

It was only later that he had found out the place had been deserted of all Santana's things, and currently was being inhabited by someone that Brittany hadn't recognized. Even the fishy shower curtain had been gone.

Santana hadn't been there at all.

But Brittany couldn't handle that, Kurt thought. It was like she knew that this was big, and that this time something was really wrong. It had shaken her up into denial.

She had spent maybe three minutes in that house from in to out, he mused, picturing her running from room to room, pushing past the new owner and looking for something, anything that was familiar. But that three minutes had obviously revealed enough.

When the night had drawn near he had asked her again.

"Britt, was she really there?" he questioned skeptically, waiting for her to finish pulling her sweater over her head before she answered him.

"I don't know, was she?" Brittany's forehead appeared out of the garment wrinkled up in genuine confusion. "I can see her there but the memory is fuzzy, and kind of in Technicolor."

"I don't think so," Kurt said, switching off the light on the side table. "I think you denied the truth and covered for her."

Brittany put her head in her hands, not wanting to think about it. "I'm always covering for her in one way or another," she said quietly, letting her brain shut out what it didn't want to know.

He knew that if anybody could pack up their life and completely disappear, it would be Santana. And Brittany knew that all too well.

But I never really thought she would really leave Britt, he thought, trying to save some of nature's flora from Brittany's flower-destructing hands.

Later on she had apologized to him and said that she remembered now and Santana hadn't really been there but she must be 'on holiday.' Then the 'when she comes back' talk had officially begun.

"When she comes back, I hope it's a sunny day like this one," Brittany commented.

"Yeah, I know," Kurt said absently. He had wondered if he should file a missing person's report, but after reaching Puck through an old email he was told very shortly that getting the police involved was a bad idea, and that he should stay out of it.
Obviously Puck knows where she is, so what is going on here? The more he thought about it, the more pissed he got at the girl Brittany still referred to as 'my Santana.'

Several months had now gone by, and Brittany hadn't wavered from her position, staying adamant that Santana was having a holiday, and would come back very soon.
The denial was like a wall around her that seemed to grow every day like thorns and vines around Sleeping Beauty's castle, where the girl in the center of it all lay sound asleep to reality.

He paused to consider this. In a way, denial was a good thing, because the thorns and vines had protected her long enough to keep up her studies and to have gained nearly enough credits to graduate.

Denial is protective in a way, he mused. It's keeping away what she can't handle, until she is ready to cope with it.

He wondered if Brittany would ever be ready to cope with this.

Turning to get the best angle of the sun she piped up, "I want to tell her how hard I've been working with Lorraine. If she heard that then she might come back faster."

"You have been working really hard," Kurt commented, wanting her to know he had noticed.

"Yep, we've been working on my job skills lately. The words cat, rainbows or unicorns should never be used in meetings with potential employers and emoticons are out when composing professional emails," Brittany said emphatically.

Kurt chuckled. He knew she was very fond of making those little text smiley face pictures, and that she couldn't understand why some people found them so annoying.

"Me, and Danny have been working on eye contact as well. Staring contests are actually serious business for us. I mean it's not just a game, it's work. I always win though. It's so hard for him to look me in the eyes, even for a little time."

"Danny and I," he corrected her automatically. "You're getting better. You look away every time that you have to think about what you want to say, though."

"It's hard to do both at once," Brittany agreed.

Kurt scratched behind his ear. Maybe she's been working a little TOO hard.

He wanted to tell her to give herself a break, but maybe she needed to keep herself busy for denial's sake.

She and that strange, yet rather alluring boy with the glasses had been spending a lot of time together lately, and they seemed to be helping each other. He's not gay, he reminded himself. Such a pity.

Brittany handed him a slice of Banana cream pie. "Santana's favorite," she muttered, sounding almost as if they should save her some.

Kurt set it down, suddenly not hungry. Everything was normal, and yet at the same time it wasn't.

Brittany was achieving more than ever before, and yet there was a different quality to her character lately, one that hadn't been there before. He often felt like no matter how close he was to her now, he could only look at her as if from a distance, like through a keyhole in a door.

Lately, there was an odd color about her, a strange tinge to her forehead and cheeks that made her seem not quite real, and an often too-cheerful smile that seemed so obviously forced, masking a deeper story inside.

People had always teased her because she could space out like this, but at the same time spacing out seemed to be how she disconnected enough to not care about what they had said to her. It seemed that while spacing out she could also cast aside her deepest worries and fears, and be a million miles away perhaps skiing in Bermuda, or maybe even lying under a Cherry Blossom tree in Japan.

He really hated Santana right about now.

From Brittany

To Santana

Last night I couldn't sleep so I stayed up all night drawing pictures. I even drew one of you as a superhero. I think it is a pretty good likeness. You're getting these emails right? I know you're busy in Bermuda but I'm still gonna send them every day so when you come back you don't feel like you've missed anything cause I don't want to leave you out of my life even for a second. I had Lucky Charms for breakfast. Yesterday I had alphabet cereal and I spelled out your name. OMG, I have to get dressed to go to my last class, talk to you soon!

(Status - message undeliverable)

From Brittany

To Santana

I'm just sending you another message so you don't miss anything that happened today. There were some huge puddles outside and I splashed in every one of them... because I had to keep walking around people because I was in a hurry to get to class. I didn't mind getting my duck on. Then I stopped by the candy store and bought a lot of candy. Then someone talked to me and said they like my unicorn tattoo. It's fake though. And then I made you a bracelet out of flowers. And then…

(Status - message undeliverable)

Brittany clicked the 'record' button on her computer and then looked at the screen. "Hey Santana, sending you emails isn't working out, so I decided that I would make you videos instead with Kurt's web cam thing. I can show them to you when you come back from your holiday."

She paused, collecting her thoughts, and adjusting what she thought might be one of the volume buttons, even though she really had no idea how this all worked.

"He says my messages are bouncing, but he really just means that they didn't send. If anything about computers could bounce I would have thrown this one out the window long ago to get revenge on some of my college essays."

She paused again, then peered into the screen, seeing her own reflection. "I didn't do my hair today. I hope you don't mind too much. Well, I've forgotten to do my hair most days lately. But still, I should have done it and made myself look real nice before making a video for you. You know what I've decided? Every day that I make one of these videos, I'm gonna sing a song to you."

"How about that one by Nine Inch Nails that you like? Yeah, ok, it's not my style. Do you know 'I miss you' by Stevie Nicks?"

"Brittany, why are you front of your computer?" Kurt asked sticking his around around the door. "Please tell me that you're playing that unicorn game you like, because you can't seriously be still talking into my camera."

"No, I'm not playing Robot Unicorn Attack, Kurt. I don't like that game anymore. At first I thought it was awesome, but then I forgot to jump and I ran into a star, burst into flames and beheaded myself, and now I may not ever recover from that," she said dryly.

"Okay, but now that I'm over here I don't see my camera set up either, so what are you doing?"

"She sent me a message. It was really short. It just said she's fine. She uploaded a picture. It was of her by some trees. I didn't know where she was, because most places have trees."

Brittany's breath caught and for a moment it looked like she was going to cry. "She cut her hair," she muttered.

"Well, she's fine that's good." He peered over her shoulder to see the picture.

"She sent it through her abandoned MySpace account. She's deleted everything else, even her email. That's why nothing I was sending was getting through. And, on MySpace you can look in the outbox and see if she has read the millions of messages that I've sent to her on there. Look, they are all unopened. Even the ones I sent while she was online."

"Still, she's fine," he said trying to cheer her up.

Brittany gave him a searching look and repeated his own words back at him from another time, "People don't always say what they mean."

"Hi Santana. I feel sad today so I'm not gonna talk in this video, I'm just gonna sing to you."

Same bed but it feels just a little bit bigger now
Our song on the radio but it don't sound the same
When our friends talk about you, all it does is just tear me down
'Cause my heart breaks a little when I hear your name

"When you come back i'm gonna give you flowers. You're having fun on your really long holiday right? In the picture that you sent me there were trees, but they weren't cherry blossom trees, so maybe you aren't in Japan after all. I don't think I know enough songs to sing you one everyday now that I'm making you videos so often. No wait, I've got one. Just listen."

When you try your best but you don't succeed

When you get what you want but not what you need

When you feel so tired but you can't sleep

Stuck in reverse

And the tears come streaming down your face

When you lose something you can't replace

When you love someone but it goes to waste

Could it be worse?

Lights will guide you home

And ignite your bones

And I will try to fix you

"When she comes back I'll have so many things to tell her," Brittany said looking up at Kurt and putting a finger in the book she was reading to temporarily mark its page.

"Yeah, I'm sure you will." And I might have a few things to tell her too, he thought darkly. At least Brittany had recently finally dropped the idea that Santana was on holiday, but she was still relentless in assuring anyone that would listen that she was coming back.

He tried to engage her. "That looks like a good book. What is it about?"

"It's about learning to be more independent. I've read it twice now. I have lots of things to tell her about how I can be better."

Kurt froze at her words, a shiver going down his spine. She was using that quiet monotone again, and in general speaking less, which was never a good sign. "Brittany you're not gonna lose it, are you? Remember your freshman and sophomore years?"

"Nope, not gonna lose it," Brittany told him adamantly. "No Britt-coma, see?"

"Good." He looked her over. She still looked reasonably healthy, and was a sight to behold in her room, surrounded by her bright posters and her numerous treasured, and very carefully arranged collections. Walking into Brittany's room had always been like stepping into the inside of a rainbow.

"See?' she repeated again, an edge of defensiveness bringing some much needed expression to her voice.

"Yeah, I see," he said relieved. "Come out with me to lunch?"

"Okay," she agreed, wondering if she had enough money to take him to his favorite restaurant and buy him anything he wanted off the menu.

During the meal, she found she could still go through the motions of eating and acting like she was enjoying her food, but her mind was a million miles away. She tried to think about something else, but her mind kept going back to her.

Why did she leave me? she wondered. Was it because we had a fight?

She could remember every detail of the last time they had seen each other. She had stayed at Santana's for almost a week, and the house had been unusually empty. So empty in fact that for most of the time, Brittany had been the only one in it.

"Was that angry sex?" Brittany asked. "Did we just have angry sex?"

"No, why would it be?" Santana countered. "Trust me I've had angry sex and this wasn't it."
I've even asked for it, she thought, flashes of images coming into her mind of the times she asked people to treat her rough, so she didn't have to deal with any of that touchy-feely stuff in the bedroom. Or the back of their car. Or the club bathrooms. Wherever. Whatever.

"Because," Brittany said slowly, "we just had sex and we are both angry."

"For the last time Britt I'm not mad at you! Wait you're mad at me?"

"I don't know," Brittany admitted. "My hands feel hot like they are burning and want to wreck something, and my face feels weird too."

"Great, she's mad at me," Santana drawled.

"I think I'm just mad at me," Brittany said quietly, "that happens sometimes."

"Well, why?" Santana said, exasperated with this conversation.

"Because you're so distant today." Extra distant, Brittany thought to herself. "And, I must have done something to make you that way."
It's Spring Break so I thought I would spend it all with you, she told her in her mind. But it's like you don't even want me here. You've barely talked to me, if anything you've just sat in front of the computer and played those super addicting games, until you finally called me over and wanted some rough and almost impersonal sex. I feel replaced by Bejeweled.

"Everything's fine, Britt," Santana said, growing even more frustrated with her. "I've told you that. Are you not hearing me?"

People don't always say what they mean, Brittany thought, looking at her wistfully and wishing she could break through whatever wall Santana had put up this week. What did I do wrong? Everything seemed okay before.

Santana stood up abruptly. "Tom owes me money," she said reaching for some clothes, and pulling her hair back. "Little fucker gon' pay up."

"You don't want to-" Brittany trailed off at a loss for words. Shop, eat, cuddle, mop the floor, catch butterflies? Brittany didn't care what they did so long as Santana stayed with her.

"Nope," Santana said shortly. "I've got to go remind everyone I'm top dog around here. And my credit card's maxed out so I think I should go and spend somebody else's money."
Tom is so fucking disgusting, she thought. But if I can keep from puking, I should be able to convince him that he owed me more money than he realized. Besides, I so deserve it more than he does.

"How did you spend all that money you had before?" Brittany asked, looking around the room as if something really extravagant looking was going to pop out at her.

"Supplies," said Santana vaguely. "And then later that night I bought these stupid shoes," she said pointing to a luminous pair of orange pumps. "Why did I even buy these? You can have them if you want."

Brittany took them out of the box, and then nearly passed out at the sight of the price tag. "Shit!" she said, swearing uncharacteristically.

Santana didn't smile.

"How could you even afford these?"

"Yeah, I couldn't. And the online store doesn't take returns. It just happened. I thought it was a great idea at the time, and that I would look wicked hot in shoes worth over a thousand dollars, but they are so ugly. At the same time I bought a leather jacket as well for pretty much the same price, but at least that one was worth it."
Kind of, she thought. Right, back to Tom.

"Were you high?" Brittany asked quietly.

Santana rolled her eyes. "Unfortunately no, I was not."

Brittany stood in the doorway, blocking her way, her mouth open in a tiny 'O' shape as if she wasn't sure what she wanted to do or say.

"Move, Britt," Santana said tiredly. "I've got to collect."

"'Cause it's all about the score, right?" Brittany shot out, suddenly defiant. She felt like they were thirteen again where everything was still a high school popularity contest. She was tired of just standing by and letting Santana do whatever it took to get money and popularity.

Santana hovered her hand near Brittany's shoulder. "I don't want to have to shove you. But I will."

Brittany didn't move. "Why is your life all about being on top, and having a mental list in your head of everybody's score and beating it? And I don't mean in Bejeweled, I mean in everything. Why does it have to be you that is 'top dog'? Why can't somebody else be? Why do you think you have to control everything to be happy?"

"Hah!" Santana barked out a short laugh. "I don't control everything, and sure as hell I don't control you. If I did you would have come to live with me when I asked you to."

Santana groaned internally. That last part had just slipped out

"Yeah I think you kind of do control me," Brittany said thinking how much her life revolved around Santana, and how far she would go to do whatever Santana wanted.

"No," Santana said. "For the most part you dance to the beat of your own drum. The only thing that's at all predictable about you is that you're always unpredictable."

"No I'm not," Brittany disagreed.

"Yes you are. In spite of everything you have all these new friends now, and none of them like me," she said bitterly. "And my friends think it's weird that you come to my parties, but you just stand there and don't do anything we do."
Maybe if you'd come to live with me when I asked you to you would fit in better, she repeated in her head, the part that stung the most.

Brittany shrugged. "I can't help not being into drugs, and I only want to do sex stuff with YOU, not with an entire room full of people that I barely know! And speaking of people I barely know, you have new friends too! What did you want me to do? Not make friends and just sit around and miss you forever?"
I do enough of that anyway, Brittany thought.

Yes, was the silent answer that echoed around Santana's head. I wanted you to be just mine, she admitted in her head, unable to hold the thoughts back.

"You wanted me to become more independent," Brittany reminded her. "You said you couldn't carry me through life."

"Yeah, I know." The rational side of Santana knew that she wanted that, but right now she felt like a different person. She felt like a monster with a giant scoreboard, in a world where the people around her were just scores to be added to her tally. Even Brittany.

Santana had always had those kind of control-freaky feelings, but lately they seemed to be getting worse.
"Today your independence hurts," she said, so quietly under her breath that she felt sure Brittany hadn't heard.

Not feeling in control when she was with Brittany made her anxious. There was so much shit in the world that she couldn't control, and at least her friends from the club were under her thumb. Again, she tried to push past Brittany, shoving her a little this time.

Brittany planted her feet firmer, refusing to move. Feeling frustrated, Santana took the cigarette that she had been smoking out of her mouth, and she put it out on her own arm.

Brittany gaped at her in a horrified silence, and suddenly feeling ashamed, Santana withdrew and took a step back.

Remaining very calm but at the same time almost feeling like she wasn't really here anymore, Brittany grabbed Santana's arm and led her to the faucet aiming running water over the burned flesh.
"Why did you do that?" she asked her quietly.

"I don't know," Santana mumbled back. "I wanted to see what it felt like. It seemed like a good idea five seconds ago. I guess it was stupid."

"Yeah,' Brittany said hollowly, turning the water down to a more manageable trickle. Why can't she feel it? she wondered. She barely reacted when the cigarette touched her.

Wanting to say something, anything, Brittany began speaking quietly to her. "I think you're the one who is unpredictable. I have never ever known how you were gonna be every day. Some days you would want me around, but on others like today, you couldn't get further away from me. Good times are always followed by bad times. You seem to want me closer when you're sad, when it's just you and me, but then you turn and become score-keeper Santana, wanting to be the best. And somehow, I don't think that version of you is very happy either because when you do 'score' it's like an impersonal robotic sort of happiness. And then we have angry sex," she finished rounding the conversation off to where it started.

"There was no angry sex!" Santana said angrily snapping her head up, and pulling her arm away. "Nothing is wrong, and everything is fine."

Maybe she feels like she doesn't control me because I'm the only one brave (or stupid) enough to say stuff like that to her, Brittany thought.
She watched the other girl's face. "Maybe we're both kind of unpredictable, but in different ways," Brittany offered, trying to make peace.

Santana was silent, not willing to acknowledge anything out loud. Yeah, but you're autistic, she thought. I'm not, so what the hell is with me?

Coming back to her lunch date with Kurt, Brittany stirred her milkshake absently. But she couldn't have left because of that kind-of-sort-of-fight, Brittany reminded herself. We fought a little more later that night. I couldn't sleep because of the tension between us. She got angrier and told me again to 'stop making things up' and to 'just accept that everything is fine.' She denied anything that I said, and she pointed out that my head has a habit of not knowing what isn't real sometimes, which is a sore spot with me.

She took a few more bites of her food. But then we made up later in the week and she hugged me goodbye. She really didn't act like she knew she wasn't going to see me for a while though, she realized.

Brittany's thoughts turned to battle herself. Did she leave because I'm too immature, and too stupid for her, and she wanted to get away from me? Was I still too needy, or was I actually too independent, she wondered, confused.

"Britt! My hand, you're squeezing it too tight," Kurt pleaded. Brittany dropped it immediately. She hadn't even realized that she had reached for his hand across the table.

Kurt gave a sigh of relief and shook his hand gingerly, trying not to let on that her squeezing it like a boa constrictor had kind of hurt. "Britt, you've finished your food. We can go now."

"Do you like my new hat, Santana?" Brittany asked, starting up her latest video. "It's so warm and fluffy and it has cat ears. I bought one for you too even though i know you will fight me on wearing it. I hope your arm is okay. Remember where you burned it? I hope it healed up okay, and you didn't get a really big blister thing like that time I had an accident with your birthday candles. I hope you're not hurting yourself on purpose anymore because when you do that it hurts me too." She clutched her arm like it physically hurt her.

"I really can feel it," she told her. "Just remembering makes me hurt for you, even if you're beyond feeling things yourself."

"Remember how you always loved this song?"

Where are you and I'm so sorry
I cannot sleep I cannot dream tonight
I need somebody and always
This sick strange darkness
Comes creeping on so haunting every time
And as I stared I counted
Webs from all the spiders
Catching things and eating their insides
Like indecision to call you
and hear your voice of treason
Will you come home and stop this pain tonight
Stop this pain tonight

She didn't come, Brittany thought hearing the last strains of patriotic music as her graduation ceremony came to a close. She tried to stand up a little straighter. She could still see the empty seat all the way from here.

I really thought she would come, she thought miserably. I know it's been a long time now, but I still didn't think she would miss this. It's one of the most important days of my life. I never though i'd actually graduate.

"Britt, let me look after that all important piece of paper, ok?" Kurt said smoothing down his finest fancy clothes, and gingerly taking the diploma away from her and rolling it up again to keep it safe.

"It's just a placeholder," Brittany sniffled. "I get the real certificate later"

"Okay, but that cap and gown is hired, honey, try not to get tears on it."

"Is she all right?" A group of Brittany's classmates led by some kind looking parents came and stood a respectful, but supportive distance away.

"She's fine," Kurt said shortly, lying under his breath.

They looked unconvinced.

"Seriously, she's ok. I've got it," Kurt told them, and something in his voice made the middle aged woman who had spoken turn and wave the others on to give them some privacy.

"Why are they staring at me?" Brittany asked softly when they had gone. "I'm not freaking out or anything. I'm not beating up any snowmen or throwing stuff."

Kurt gave her a crooked smile. "Probably because they've never seen a girl who has just graduated with honors cry like that."

"I'm happy," Brittany told him. "I'm so, so happy." She dissolved into tears again and put her hands to her face.

Knowing that this was beginning to be too much of a scene for him to explain away, Kurt pulled her into the bathroom and handed her a paper towel.
"Pull yourself together. This is a great day! Everyone wants to take your picture. We are all so proud of you! Your mom and your sister want to take a family portrait with you, and they may have even brought your cat with them too.

"But I have raccoon eyes," Brittany said, looking at her smeared makeup. "Nobody wants to take a picture of a raccoon except for animal control, and that's not a glamour photo that's a mugshot before they take them to the big house for raccoons."

"Please pull yourself together," Kurt repeated. "We can't stay in the girls' bathroom forever. Well, maybe you can, but I can't, sooner or later someone is gonna walk in and realize that-"

He gestured with his hands, looking for a way to explain it

"That you have a penis," Brittany said, her breath shuddering as she tried to calm herself down.

"Yes. That. And I'm afraid it's not welcome here."

In spite of everything, Brittany giggled.

It took a little time and Kurt's brilliant makeup skills, but Brittany did come out and shake hands with everyone and take pictures, including some with her cat who she immediately bought a cat-size cap and gown for, stripping it from the largest of the novelty teddy bears so that he could follow the dress code.
"We were in this together," she told him. "Besides, you kind of stayed up and studied with me sometimes so consider yourself a cat graduate prodigy."

She made it another half hour before she was once again in tears, and back to bringing the raccoon look back into style in the bathroom.

"Do you think maybe she just got held up in traffic?" Brittany commented, leaning over the basin. "The traffic could be really bad and she would have had to drive a really long way to get here. I should probably wait for her, because even though she missed the ceremony she probably still wants to take a picture with me."

Handing her more paper towels Kurt looked hard at her. If he didn't stop her, she would probably wait here until tomorrow, sitting here in her cap and gown.
"This is one of those time when you need more help than I can give you right now," he said honestly, telling her the hard truth straight away. "You're going to have to do something to help yourself. Or maybe you need more people. Sometimes one or two people helping isn't enough."

"Okay," she said dully, knowing he was right.

"Brittany look at me. You need to do something about your life, okay? You're here, but you're not really here anymore. All you do is either talk about the past, or obsess about her coming home."

"I'm eating fine, and I'm not spending all day sleeping," Brittany mumbled. "This isn't a breakdown."

"And yet it is," Kurt told her. "Physically you're fine, but emotionally it feels like you're frozen, locked up inside yourself where nobody can reach you. You need to get out of that."

He held her chin in his hands until he was sure that his point had registered, then he left her alone to think.

"Why did you leave, Santana? We were just starting to find answers together," Brittany said to the empty room, thinking of their early morning talks. "Did you run out of answers? Because I swear I haven't. I know that there's still a way I could still find out more answers to help us figure everything out."

She paused. "I feel like if only I could just understand my life, and everything that's happened in it, then things would be better."

She rose and began changing her sheets, one corner at a time.

"I wish I could lay our lives down in front of me like a road map, so I could see where everything that has ever happened has taken us, and more importantly why. I might know what to do then. I might know where to go from here."

Getting an idea, she dropped the sheets and dragged out an enormous roll of paper and began clumsily unrolling it and covering her floor.

"Lorraine said I think in pictures," Brittany recalled, taking out a pencil and sketching out a timeline of memories that in no time had stretched from one end of her room to the other.

Half an hour later she was still going, shading in the details of each picture one at a time, and then writing a caption for each one. She realized she was going nowhere fast. Nothing was making any more sense than before.

Maybe I can show this to someone and ask for help. Maybe they can understand what the road means, she thought, stressing the last syllable.

She voiced this out loud to herself. "They might know the answers my brain can't find. I think Kurt's right. I guess I do need help from other people."

She clicked her tongue and her fingers in frustration. "And that's because I don't understand things very well. Santana's told me more than once that I can recite every detail of a memory, but still not know what really happened."

But other people's brains aren't like that, she reminded herself, beginning to fantasize about being brave enough to talk to these smart, knowledgeable people that she was picturing.

With renewed energy she got back to work, adding more figures and diagrams coming off of the pages.

Erasing a smudge, she suddenly realized the biggest flaw in her idea. I can't talk to anyone who actually knows Santana, she thought. Not only is that not right, but they already have their own judgments of her. I need somebody who is non-biased.

She kicked a corner of the paper that had blown upwards in the breeze with her big toe. But everyone in the world that I know already knows Santana, she thought frowning. "And, these pictures aren't gonna cut it," she said surveying her work grumpily and crumpling it all in an enormous wad of paper in her hands.

Standing up she tossed the paper into the trash and stared down at her hands. "I need better words," she realized, "and I need to write everything down. This is the kind of thing that needs words. And, where can I find all brand new people to talk to, that will actually listen to me?"

Her gaze fell to her computer. This thing has people in it, she thought patting the monitor. In a flash of inspiration she put on a sweater and walked to the nearest bookshop.

"Can I help you?" an excessively cheerful voice asked, tapping her on the shoulder the moment she had crossed the threshold of the small bookshop's old-fashioned and too-small doorway.

Brittany jumped, startled. "I'm looking for a book that can teach me how to write my own book," she said in a rush, allowing the salesperson to help her to find the 'creative writing' section.

"Are you an aspiring author? the cheerful voice asked, conversationally.

"Not really," Brittany mumbled, not exactly sure what that meant, but figuring it didn't apply to her. "I just want to write down some things that have happened in my life so I can understand them better, but I need it written real nice so I can show it to other people."

The high-pitched salesperson stared at her, then took her award-winning smile down a few notches to something more genuine. "That's sometimes called a memoir," she offered, kindly.

"Oh!" Brittany exclaimed in dismay, having only ever heard that word linked to celebrities, and to important people who have saved lives, or made important things like inventions, or new medicines.
"I'm not actually an important person," she assured her.

The salesperson raised and eyebrow, then disappeared between the shelves.

"I'm just doing this to help myself," Brittany added vaguely, after a beat.

"Writing can be therapeutic," the lady said, adjusting her shawl, "and if you ask me, everyone has a story to tell." She passed Brittany a large book. "Heads up, this is really heavy."

"There are so many rules," Brittany commented, taking it from her carefully and flipping through it, then paying for the book, and holding it still in both her arms.

"I know of a good grammar and punctuation tutor if you want?" the cashier said, finding a business card and holding it out to her. "Family business."

Brittany took the card and hoped she wouldn't have to use it. Lessons were expensive, but she didn't want to write badly. The people on the internet could kind of still give her an F if they wanted to, just like her old teachers in high school.

I know I'm probably not gonna be much good at this, Brittany thought. But I pretend to be normal all the time, so maybe writing will be the same and I can just pretend to be a good writer.

Or maybe nobody will even read it, she thought, pausing by a row of classics and flipping through them and gawking at the fancy writing. Even if I only got one reader I'd still be pretty happy, she thought. Hearing one person's thoughts is still way better than none.

But what am I gonna do if no-one reads it? she worried. I haven't thought of a backup plan.

Walking home, she had worked herself up into a near panicky state, and she had nearly given up on the idea altogether.

Then, after several hours of reading the big book, and having bookmarked several pages of its samples of writing, she realized that beyond commas and quotation marks, the words had to come from her own mind and her heart. There was nothing more that she could learn. She just had to try it and hope it worked out.

Feeling determined, she settled herself behind the computer and began to type.

"Chapter 1 – Blue Rose"

Setting up an online blog took much longer to figure out, and by the time she was ready, she was already on her third bag of gummy bears, and was bouncing around in her seat like a jackhammer.

Finding that she didn't have the courage right now to post it, she left it for a while, but then came back and hit the submit button with one hand over her eyes.

"I have no idea what I'm doing, but I hope this counts as moving forward," she told herself, waiting to see if the people would come.

"What are you doing?" Kat asked, seeing Brittany scribbling down notes in her notebook that didn't look anything like what Lorraine was speaking about at their meeting.

Brittany was smiling widely and doodling hearts around the words she had written as if she hadn't heard the question.

"Earth to Brittany!" Kat joked. "New girlfriend, or even a new boyfriend?"

Brittany startled, as if she hadn't even realized that anyone was in the room with her. "Nope, definitely not," she said relaxing and smiling easily at the other girl. "I'm just spending time with Santana."

"Um, how?" Kat said slowly, not getting it at first.

Brittany was happy to explain. "When I write about us, it really feels like we're together again."

"You're reliving the memories in total graphic detail, huh?" Kat said, understanding.

"Yeah, it's like having a DVD player in my head, but of my life."

Kat nodded at her. "Mine's more like an old VCR without the digital and surround sound. And sometimes the screen jumps and flickers. My memory's crazy good, but it's not that good."

"Mine is only on digital for my times with her," Brittany said smiling. "Somehow everything else that's ever happened is stuck on analog, kind of like how you described."

"Well you kept the times that count the most," Kat said smiling at her.

Brittany smiled back dreamily. "It really feels like we're together," she said again. "And, it's a surprise to me, but I actually love writing. There's something about doing it that I really love."

Kat nudged her to continue. "Yeah? What chapter are you up to?"

"I'm on Chapter Four, and I'm writing about when we were kids, and I was so weird," Brittany said, going a little off topic, unable to suppress a laugh.
"And, I sort-of become my child self when I write in her voice, so it's almost like being that weird all over again. I'm gonna have to lock the child-in-me back up," she said crossing her eyes and striking a crazy pose for effect.

Kat laughed with her. "Don't worry I was über weird too."

"No seriously Kat, I was like alien species weird. I don't know why Santana liked me, or why she even put up with me," Brittany said, wrinkling her nose. "I don't know why she wanted to help me, or why I was worth helping, but I sure do love writing about this side of her."

"So did the people come?" Kat asked curiously, wondering if Brittany had managed to attract any readers.

"Yes!" Brittany exclaimed. "Somehow they don't hate my writing, and they are so nice to me! I call the people unicorns."
She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Did you know that a group of unicorns is called a 'blessing.' And, did you know that unicorns can grant wishes?"

Kat nodded. "Yeah I've heard of that one. So you think they are going to grant you some wishes?"

Brittany pulled out a page full of typed words out of her backpack. "They already have."

Kat skimmed the page, wondering why these words meant so much to the other girl. The only thing that she knew for sure was that this had something to do with Santana. It seemed like everything that was important to Brittany always revolved around her.

"They get her, and they really see her," Brittany said emphatically, pointing to the page. "They understand that she's not a bad person."

However did I guess that this would be Santana related? Kat thought unsurprised, and trying out a little friendly sarcasm.

"My first wish was for someone to see her like I see her, and people all over the world are doing just that. I might be showing them my worst side with these earlier chapters, but it's all worth it to show them how much she did for me. She gets to be the hero."

"She's your hero," Kat said staring at Brittany's thoughtful, heavy-lidded eyes.

"Yeah. And hey, they already granted my second wish too."

"Seriously?" Kat was incredulous. "I need to get me some of these magical beasts."

"Nope, you can't have these ones, they're mine," Brittany teased, then grew serious. "My second wish was to know what it feels like to have someone really root for her and me."

Kat raised an eyebrow, confused.

"As a couple," Brittany clarified. "I've always wondered what that would feel like, since nobody thinks we should be together. Kurt doesn't say anything out loud, but I know he barely tolerates her, and that he doesn't really approve of us. And, don't get me started on my mom."

Kat grimaced. "I won't." And I know I couldn't have granted you that wish either, Brittany, she thought. I don't think Santana is good for you.

"You know, nobody has ever approved of us, especially not at school, and that's a lot to do with the fact that we're both girls," Brittany explained to Kat informatively as if she might not have noticed the same genders. She rolled her eyes. "How dumb is that?"

"The world can be pretty stupid," Kat agreed. But you two both being girls doesn't have anything to do with why I think you're better off without her, she thought privately.

"One of the unicorns even wished that Santana was sitting beside me, helping me write these chapters. I felt like she really cared about us staying together. It made me so happy, because instead of everyone calling us wrong, someone was finally calling us right."

Kat made a face, then tried to smooth out her features.

"I wish she was really sitting beside me to write though," Brittany said going quiet. "Maybe when she gets back we can-"

"Brittany getting stuck on things is fine," Kat interrupted. "If you want to think about cat facts 24/7 for a while, then go right ahead. But being stuck on people, or a person, well that's dangerous."

Brittany thought back to her childhood. "I don't even remember a time I wasn't stuck on Santana," she said. "She's been the most important thing in my life for as long as I can remember."

Kat smiled weakly at the blonde. "So what's your third wish?"

Brittany face turned serious. "I guess that's a secret, or the wish can't come true."

"How do you know? How do you KNOW?" Brittany ranted, pacing up and down Kurt's basement, with a wild look in her eyes.

Kurt switched off his DVD player, the movie he had been watching instantly forgotten. He had no idea what had happened to bring this on. Brittany had been like this from the moment she had walked in a few minutes ago.

"How do I know what, Britt?" he asked as calmly as he could.

"How could anyone know? We can't know for sure!"

"Stop pulling on your hair, Britt," he told her. "You'll pull it right out."

Without warning Brittany let out a strangled cry and hit the wall with a closed fist.

"Woah, woah hey!" Kurt jumped up to restrain her from hurting herself, but instead found her limp, with the exception of her hand which she still held away from her body. He pulled her into a hug.

Brittany started crying, a shaky soundless cry. When she had run out of tears, she gently shook his arms off of her, and started pacing the room again, looking for something. She held a hand to her throat.

"What do you need? Are you going to be sick?" She does look sick, Kurt thought.

With effort Brittany shook her head and felt around blindly on his desk.

The penny dropped. Pen and paper, Kurt realized handing her some. He knew that she found it hard to speak when she was upset.

In big letters Brittany scrawled out - 'IS SHE DEAD?' She then looked imploringly at him, as if he could possibly know.

Oh, god. Kurt thought. "No I'm sure she isn't," he said as convincingly as he could. "I'm sure she is fine."
I hope, he thought in a tiny whisper in the back of his head.

Brittany stared at him, her back straight and rigid, her eyes uncomprehending.

"Nope, she's far too stubborn to die before Rachel," he joked trying to lighten the mood. "Or before she's achieved world domination."

Standing in silence, Brittany raised an eyebrow at him, appearing to be slowly coming back to earth. Seemingly realizing that what she was doing wasn't helping anyone, she gestured apologetically to the wall, and then pointed outside.

He followed her gaze. "The pool? Britt you told me you weren't going to do that anymore."

Brittany shrugged her shoulders and pointed again, this time more incessantly.

"Okay, but only for a quarter of an hour and if you stay under too long again I will come down there and drag you out by your feet."

She nodded and ran outside. Reaching the pool she took a deep breath and jumped in, deliberately sinking to the bottom's surface and leaning against the wall. It was only now that she was fully submerged that her paranoia began to subside.

This moment was déjà vu, the past all over again.

I remember when we were sixteen I used to do this, Brittany thought. Right after her suicide attempt I couldn't shake the paranoia that she would try to kill herself again. For some reason the only thing that could calm me down was being underwater. I can think clearly down here.

I remember the awful feeling that seemed to take me over every moment when I'd wake and wonder if she'd taken her life during the night. Or how I felt after school when we said goodbye, I would always wonder if I was going to ever see her again.

Brittany looked down and realized she should have taken off her shoes. At least she was only wearing ballet flats.

How could I forget that feeling anyway? I just relived it writing chapters fifteen and sixteen. Oh- her thoughts broke off and she came in desperate need of air, catching sight of Kurt's relieved face. Plunging down again she kept thinking.

I guess writing it all down brought those feelings back, she realized, knowing how easy it was to lose herself to her fears, but how hard it was to pull herself back out of them.

I'm not sixteen anymore, so I can think better than this. I have no real reason to believe Santana's dead. So, she hasn't contacted me at all since before I graduated, and that's scary, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything.

She paused, watching the air she was slowly exhaling bubble to the surface. It's easier to hide when you're alive, she reasoned. Dead people have a way of being found, she thought darkly. So not being found is good.

Not being found is good, she repeated in her head.

But then again, without seeing her for so long, I can't be sure that she is alive either. And it's always on my mind, she thought repeating the words and mantra of her sixteen year old self, then shaking them off for good, and returning to the surface.

This will probably be 'on my mind' until I'm face to face with her again, she thought. But I'm older now so I have to find a way to live with it and keep the paranoia in-check.

She rested her arms over the side of the pool and kept her feet dangling in the water.

"Do you feel better now?" Kurt asked.

Brittany nodded. She did feel better having got that out of her system.

"You should take a break," Kurt suggested, not exactly knowing what she needed to take a break from but figuring it was good advice anyway.

Brittany shook her head. Chapter Sixteen was already twelve thousand words long, and she wasn't anywhere near done. She'd see it through to the end. Keep moving forward, she reminded herself.

Later that night when she made Santana her video she chose Songbird as today's song, but found that she could only play a recording of it to the camera, as she she still couldn't speak.

While the music played she held up a single sheet of paper in view of the camera. In smaller, neater letters than the ones she had used earlier today, she had written another three words. 'I miss you.'

I wish I wasn't always wrong
I wish it wasn't always my fault
The finger that you're pointing
Has knocked me on my knees
And all you need to know isI'm so sorry, it's not like me
It's maturity that I'm lacking
So don't, don't let me go
Just let me know that growing up goes slow

Brittany finished singing then adjusted Kurt's webcam so she was more in focus.

"That song was called Sad Song by Christina Perri. Do you know that song?" she asked, looking up into the small playback screen and as usual seeing only herself.

"It's hard not knowing what songs you like these days," she said softly.

"I'm sorry that I don't have as much time to make you these videos anymore. It's just, well, instead of spending all my free time talking to you through this camera, I write about you instead."

"And, when I'm not writing, I'm at work. I've really found my place there," she said, her eyes shining. "I love working with kids. And these are my kind of kids, I mean, they all have something different about them that makes them not able to live at home or spend the day at a regular school."

She paused. "Honestly I'm not the greatest employee, I mean I don't hang out with the other staff much, so they don't like me. It's just, they like to say mean stuff about whoever isn't in the room at the time while they eat lunch, so I'd rather eat with the kids."

"And, so I do just that," Brittany said with a grin, poking out her tongue.

"So far I'm bad at all the practical stuff like working the copier and organizing things. And don't get me started about my attempts at filling out the paperwork," Brittany said rolling her eyes at herself. "I'm kind of a work in progress."

She sat up a little straighter. "But you know, the reason they keep me on is because when a kid is upset I can comfort them, and they will talk to me. Sometimes I'm the only one they will talk to. It's because they aren't scared of me 'cause I'm pretty much the least scary person ever."

She paused again. "And I guess they somehow know that I understand what it's like to be different."

Brittany's eyes got big and sad. "But seriously, San, you should hear the things they tell me about their lives. I've had it so, so easy compared to them."

"Some of them are pretty traumatized, and I don't mind crawling behind the filing cabinet with them for a while when they get scared," Brittany said with a shrug. "I used to hide in places like that when I was scared too, remember? And on the good days we all paint pictures of narwals and do hiphop dancing, and I swear that's way too much fun to be work."

"It's good," Brittany said slowly. "It's something that makes me feel more connected to the world."

"I'll second that!" Kurt said walking in the room, and acknowledging the camera. He placed a hand on Brittany's head. "It's nice to see this one interacting with actual people again, and not just making videos all day."

"Kurt!"

He held up his hands. "Sorry." He flopped back into an easy chair the corner of the room.

She exhaled. "Anyway, enough of that. I have like another six thousand words to write on my latest chapter. They are so long lately because I have so much to say about you."

"I love you. I just wanted to tell you what I've been doing a little better lately." She turned her head slightly, catching sight out of something out of the corner of her eye and feeling her breath hitch. "Well I'm not better enough to not want to cry when I see a picture of us together. Let's not be too ambitious," she said hitting the button to end the recording.

Kurt coughed to get her attention again. "That story you're writing, it's a good thing too. Those people who read your blog are really helping you."

"They encourage me," Brittany told him. "It's like we're in Finding Nemo and they're an entire school of fish that come by and remind me to just keep swimming."

"They do that, huh?" he said smiling and looping an arm clumsily around her shoulders. "See I told you that what you needed was more people to support you. Sometimes big problems need more people to help figure them out."

"Yeah I have lots of help now. Some of them tell me that I've even touched them on a personal level with my story, but I think they've done a lot more than that for me. They've remind me that there's a big wide world of people out there. It's like they've opened my eyes to see it."

Kurt thought for a moment. They are part of what is slowly drawing her out of that funk she was in, he mused. That's a big deal. Maybe they live on all corners of the globe, but their kindness still reached her and helped her begin to get her life back on track.

He spoke out loud. "I guess you reached each other."

"They reminded me that I'm worth something, even without her," she said quietly. "You can't touch someone more than that."

When Brittany had typed and submitted the last word of the twenty-fourth chapter, she looked around at the millions of sticky notes that contained her life.

She read all the unicorns' words to her once again, then reread some of the more recent comments. "The importance of being different," she whispered to herself, seeing those words pop out at her. She looked at the most recent quote from one of her readers that she had been rewriting in curly writing into her diary.
'Can you imagine what it would have been like if you had been born the same as everyone else? Brittany would have been just one more blonde girl leaving the world.'

Santana came to me because I was different, she realized. But she didn't leave for the same reason.

She traced her own handwriting twice over.

"I really thought you did leave me because I am different," she admitted. "I blamed myself for you being gone. I thought you'd had enough of my questions, and the way I think, and that hurt. I was confused by one of the last conversations we had where you seemed to wish I was more like you, especially with the drinking and the drugs. I always used to wish I was more like you. But, I guess the fact that I am different is why you stayed so long."

She turned that idea over in her mind allowing a sense of peace to wash over her that freed her mind for other thoughts.

She was sure that all these memories before her added up to something.

She held Santana's picture in her hands and then turned the camera on.

"You were so crazy and all over the place," she told her, not unkindly, and not bothering to introduce the video this time. "One moment you were up, and the next you were down. Some days you couldn't get enough of me touching you, others you hung out in cemeteries just so nobody alive would come near you."

She continued on, her thoughts gaining pace.

"Some days, you thought you were the greatest human being alive and that everyone should fall at your feet. Remember all those guys you conned money out of? Remember how you had to be top of every list, and in the spotlight. But, you remember all those other days that you just wanted to disappear?"

She paused. "Remember how our best days together were usually followed by our worst?"

"What made you like that? It was something inside you wasn't it. Something you couldn't control."

Brittany found her original roll of paper with all its illustrations and carefully uncrumpled it, and began sketching on it again, drawing pictures that meant something to only her.

"When you were feeling good you seemed so disgusted with your lows, and you'd tell me what an awful person you were for feeling so empty that you thought you could even watch someone die and not care. But when you were low, you were so disgusted with your highs, and wondered what possessed you to make out with all those guys that you didn't like, just for the thrill of it."

"You were so emotional, so unpredictable. You couldn't control it. You couldn't even remember what you'd done some times after, or even whether you'd used drugs or not."

Brittany took a sharp breath in and held it.

"That's what the drugs were for, right Santana?" Brittany realized, understanding now and touching the picture again. "Some were to bring you back up when you were low, and others brought you back down when you were high."

Stimulants and depressants, Brittany thought, remembering the term from her textbooks.

"You said they made you feel the way you were supposed to feel. You were trying to self medicate right? Or maybe you were just using them as a cover-up. Maybe some of the calls that you made to me where I thought you were high, weren't you being high at all, you were just dealing with your own extreme moods. I guess you had a problem inside you that you couldn't fix. You needed something you never got. You had a lot of bad experiences, but I don't think they caused what happened, I think they just stirred up something that was already inside of you."

The wind blew against her windowpane, rattling it gently and making two little bells chime. In the distance she could hear someone next door singing a Whitney Houston song badly, and a car tooting its horn. It was proof that the world still turned even though right now it felt like hers had stopped still.

"Santana, I think you have Bipolar Disorder," Brittany said softly to the picture, saying the words that had come into her head out loud. "I have a degree in psychology now, so I could be right. The things I were saying, all point to that. Maybe that's the answer that we've been trying to find. You thought you were a bad person, but maybe you just needed more help. Maybe you needed to be on medication."

She paused. "Don't get me wrong, I love you exactly the way you are. I swear you are the most creative, exciting and interesting person in the world and we've had so much fun together. But in the last couple of years something was changing and you were getting out of control. You were losing yourself to this."

Brittany hugged the picture to her chest. "I'm sorry," she told her. "It's hard to see things in someone so close to you. You can get so caught up with your own feelings, you know? Sometimes you really hurt me, and that made it harder to connect the facts, 'cause all I could think about was how much I wanted you to hold me, and tell me that things were going to be okay."

"And now, I have hindsight, and I'm smarter than I was before, but still it took me almost 300 thousand words, and a psych degree to understand."

"And now I'm going to tell you what i know," she said packing a few things into a bag and hoping it wasn't too late.

"It's too late," Brittany said, digging her chin into Kurt's counter top a week later, cold and tired and hungry from the journey. Santana hadn't wanted to be found, so Brittany had tracked and traced only a series of dead ends for a week that felt like a week of hell.

She had visited every single one of Santana's known friends and all of their responses had been the same; they all said that they hadn't seen her in a long time.

Maybe they really don't know where she is, Brittany thought. After all they didn't even respond to money bribes. Some of the really drugged out ones acted like they didn't even remember her.

"She hasn't been in that circle for quite some time," Kurt said gently.

"How do you know," Brittany asked him.

"Her influence over those people had gone," he told her. "The way they tried to touch you when you came in was different wasn't it? You were no longer off limits to them like you were before, and there's a reason behind that. They don't answer to her anymore."

"Yeah, a couple of them did put their hands all over me," Brittany said, shivering.

"And as for Maz and Brik we offered them so much money, that they would have took it had they had anything to say. With her influence gone, they were just dying to give her up to make some cash, but they had nothing on her, and she had made sure of that."

"She really doesn't want to be found," Brittany repeated sadly. "I just wanted to help her solve her own puzzle like she helped me with mine."

"I know, and maybe some day you will."

"Why did she leave me Kurt?" Brittany said speaking the million dollar question. Had she had a million dollars in bribe money to find out she probably would have paid it.

"Answer that one yourself Britt," Kurt said putting a hand on hers.

Brittany took a deep breath. "I've been so confused. I had it all wrong. At first I blamed myself for being too immature or stupid or something, and I thought I must have driven her away. Other times I wondered if this was her trying to do the right thing by me."

"You mean like, leaving you because she thought it would hurt you less than her being around?" Kurt asked.

"Yeah. That's the kind of thing she would think," Brittany agreed. "She doesn't understand that nothing could have hurt me more than her not being with me. I felt like she abandoned me. She probably didn't mean it as a rejection but it hurt like one anyway."

"And you had no closure," Kurt said gently, "she left you so suddenly, right in the middle of things and-"

"-and it felt so unfinished," Brittany exclaimed. "There was no goodbye or nothing, and it felt like the biggest part of me was just suddenly ripped away. And that hole inside me ached for her, and more than anything I just wanted to know if she was okay."

Kurt nodded his head, urging her on.

"And I just wanted to know why," Brittany added, a moment later. "I just wanted to know why this was happening and why I had to feel like this. I felt like every day she was gone that hole inside me got a little bigger, and I thought that if only I had an answer as to why, then it might stop."

"So you think the answer was that she did it to put herself out of the picture and stop hurting you?"

"Don't forget that I'm not the easiest person to be around myself," Brittany reminded him, "You know that. But maybe it wasn't about me. Maybe she she did just want to be more self-destructive and do things that she couldn't do with me around, or hopefully–"

Brittany paused.

"-hopefully she wanted a new start and is changing her life right now, rebuilding it from ground up."

"I guess without her telling us you can't really know for sure why she left."

"That's the thing Kurt. She may not even understand why herself. She's not the greatest with confrontation but I think that if she had an answer as to why she does the things she does, then she would have told me. It's just, she ran out of answers before I did. I don't blame her for that."

Kurt nodded, thinking this over.

"Maybe she really did love me the most," Brittany said tentatively, "but if there's one thing I know for sure, it's that she hated herself more than she loved me and in the end that's probably what drove her away. She had lost whatever grip she'd had on her emotions, and that probably comes back to her having undiagnosed and unmedicated Bipolar disorder. That wasn't my fault, but then again it definitely wasn't hers either."

"She had a disorder like you, but not the same one."

"Yes. And that's just the thing. Nobody can see what's really going on inside people," she said passionately. "So many disorders are invisible. There are not always physical signs that change the way you look, and sometimes, or even a lot of the time, people are in emotional pain but they might not even know that they have a disorder at all."

She folded her hands on the table, resting her chin back down on them because it hurt less than pressing it against the wood.

"I guess with all that going on, no kindness is ever wasted, Kurt, because if you think about it, any person you ever meet could be suffering from something that you can't see."

"Hey Santana. Oh is this thing on? Sorry I haven't used it in a while."

She looked at the date. It was already August. Time was flying by. It is 2013 now, she thought. She crossed the room to get to the calendar on the wall. Unceremoniously she yanked on it, and pulled it down.

"I need a new calendar," she told the screen, coming to sit by the computer again. "This one is over a year old."

She shrugged her shoulders. "Yeah I know it's weird that I kept an old calendar on the wall. It's not even 'cause of the cute cat pictures. Don't get me wrong, they're great especially the tabby pinup that was the face of September. Yeah it's not the cats. I guess I haven't been able to face time going by until now."

"Part of me wanted to keep everything the same for you, so you would feel like we hadn't skipped a beat. For a while there I think I was trying to keep me the same too, but-" she paused. "I'm not the same."

She quirked her mouth up in a half smile. "And I'm okay with that."

"I wish you could see me now. Because if you did then you'd realize how much good you do, because without you taking my hand all those years ago I would never have started this journey, I'd probably be still lost and wandering aimlessly, or maybe stuck in a gingerbread house about to become a witch's breakfast."

She laughed, then her face turned serious. "I don't regret anything, Santana. Going back in time and walking through our lives back up to now has made me feel anger, loneliness, fear and a deep gnawing feeling of sadness. But, I've also felt excitement and happiness – a whole lot of joy. And, if replaying our time together can make me feel all that, the good and the bad, well that's how I know it was time well spent."

Brittany twirled her fingers in her hair. "You have to live out emotions like that if you want to get over them. If you hold back even at all, they stay with you because you're too busy being afraid of them."

She frowned and adjusted the screen so her face was in focus. "Now when I say 'get over,' I don't mean it like that. Because you're not someone I could ever 'get over.' It's more like I had to come to terms with what happened between us, the same way people come to terms with their family. The ties are always there, even if they still cause us pain, and I can't deny that I loved you, and love you still. You are my family, no matter where you are."

Smiling warmly into the camera, Brittany blew her a kiss. "And I want you to know that I'm okay now. I looked far and wide for you, but instead I think I found me. I'm learning how to connect with other people now, but also with myself. Maybe one day our stars will align, but for now, I think I can be unicorn all on my own, with a little help from my friends."

Some words came to her mind, words that she knew would stay true to her for not just now, but for always.

'I could always promise her for sure that I'd never leave her, no matter what life has in store for us. Because you never really ever leave someone if you can see and feel every detail of them clearly in your mind, do you? I'll always have that, so no matter what, she'll always have me.'

"I'll still write or talk to you sometimes, even if you don't write back, and even if I know I'm only talking to your face in my mind. But for now, I have one more song for you," she said and began to play the music.

You are my sweetest downfall
I loved you first, I loved you first
Beneath the sheets of paper lies my truth
I have to go, I have to go
Your hair was long when we first met

You are my sweetest downfall
I loved you first, I loved you first
Beneath the stars came fallin' on our heads
But they're just old light, they're just old light
Your hair was long when we first met

(Short explanation) This is not the last chapter of 'the' story. It is however where 'my' story ends. From this point on I will be making everything up, and ending this by writing a fictional near future reunion between Brittany and Santana.

(Longer explanation) I wanted to tell the whole truth about everything that happened, and I have now done that. But I realize that if I leave it like this, the story might feel unfinished and unsatisfying to many people, and I know I can't do that to you guys, I owe you something better than that. You all stuck with me and took this journey too, so I want you to walk away from this story feeling good, not bad – so I want to try my best to do whatever that takes..

The only thing I know right now about what I'm going to write is that I don't want it to be sad, and I do want to keep it as consistent as I can with what's already happened so far.

There can be much beauty in things that do not last forever, in fact, most beautiful things don't. To me it's a happy ending in itself that I had all that time with her and got to fall in love with a beautiful, wonderful girl.

But still, writing an end chapter where she can be happy feels like a nice tribute to her, because I honestly don't think she is happy wherever she is and that has been hard for me. I think the day she doesn't hate herself will be the day she makes contact with me again, even if it is just to say hello.

The elephant, no… the whale in the room:

I believe I did everything possible to try and find "Santana." I looked in all the places she might be, and then in a whole lot more places I knew that she probably wasn't. I didn't write about all the searching because it would have been redundant. Constantly, the whole time since she left about two years ago I've been hunting for her, or at least keeping a look out, but it's very true that she doesn't want to be found. I used to expect to finally see her around every corner but now I …still do, but more distantly. Like I don't expect to see her anymore, but I wouldn't be surprised if I did.

I've recently managed to find out that she was with Puck up until a year ago. He came back home to his parents and told me she is ok, but even if he does know more than he's saying, he won't tell me. He put up with me long enough to give me a couple of pictures, but looking at them told me nothing except that she looks older. Her hair is different.

Every now and then she used to send me a vague message but she hasn't in a while. I'm pretty sure she does the same thing with her mom, but her mom doesn't seem at all worried about her, but then again she never did care.

I'm 99% sure she doesn't read any of the messages I send her back.

Sometimes, the way to move past pain and difficult memories is to embrace it/them as much as possible. I know the way I chose to do that is unusual, but then again I never could be normal. :p

Bipolar disorder:

Over the last year as I've been writing this, I've been pulling apart the memories and noticing things that pointed to her having some kind of mood disorder. But, it was only when I put everything together and looked at the story as a whole, and at everyone's comments - that was when I realized it was the right answer.

I talked to several people and they also think I am right. The fact she had/has depression was obvious, but the 'mania' that comes with Bipolar disorder was less so.

The professionals that I talked to shoved a lot of big words around… but in short, the 'delusions of grandeur' and thinking she needed to be on top of the world, the reckless spending on things she didn't want (that actually happened a lot) and the drug problem in itself were all signs of 'mania'. She had been disappearing for weeks at a time, and often making really strange phone calls to me, and sometimes I think she was using, but other times I think she was just saying she was using drugs - as a cover-up.

People with mood disorders don't all act the same, just like people with Asperger's don't all act the same, but I guess you could say she had/has several of the classic signs.

Please forgive her for the things she said in our last days together. I think she was going through a manic state. She had tendencies towards extreme moods when she was younger, but then things got worse, and her living far away from me made it easy for her to hide from me how bad this problem had likely become. Trying medication for it would have been worth a shot. I wish so much that I could have helped her more.

Three Wishes:

My first wish was to have people be sympathetic to "Santana." I do not think those good vibes that many of you have sent her would have gone to waste. I know they are reaching her somehow, because kindness is never wasted.

And at the time I didn't know how much I needed some of that kindness too. And it wasn't wasted on me either.

My second wish was to have someone accept me and her as a couple. The first time I really felt that that had happened was after a comment left by TJM on Chapter 3. I don't know if that person is still here but that doesn't matter. I never forget anything, and I did mention in my response to TJM that at the end of the story I would want to say something, and it was that.

My third wish was left a secret when I spoke to Kat, but I'll explain now. In the first chapter the last line I wrote said that I was going to show you how things could 'change all on their own.'

I was bluffing.

I wasn't sure if anything could change at all, but it was my wish that it could. I wanted my life to change. I was miserable, and I had been retreating back into myself, and I didn't want to keep doing that.

I also hoped that going through this process would make me more unicorn, proving the story's title true.

As it turns out, some things changed on their own, but when it came to this wish I figured out that it was something I mostly had to make happen myself. But, I did have help. And sure enough, things changed.

I'm not just her shadow now. I know where she begins and I end. And I'm not so caught up in her being gone that I can't feel. Things still aren't easy, but then again they never have been. Her disappearing is a very sad thing, and for a while there I was crying myself to sleep every night, but I don't do that anymore. I also don't talk about her like she is still here… well at least not as often. The hardest thing about accepting one's reality is actually making the choice to. It doesn't get any easier, but I have figured out how to keep going, instead of standing there motionless waiting on her to come back while my life slips away from me.

I've come around to knowing how to let people into my heart again. Learning how to reach out to other people was a part of growing up and moving forward.

Three things:

1. So, I did manage to graduate… which I think surprised a lot of people. Most of all, me.

2. I think I need to buy Kurt some more flowers because I don't think being my friend was all that easy through this. That moment in the pool wasn't one of my best. Also, he was the one to tell me that 'people don't always mean what they say', and i mentioned that twice in this chapter because i swear it was one of the hardest things in the world for me to learn.

3. I have a hard drive full of videos I made for her. I don't even keep them all on my computer because they don't all fit. I'd always say happy stuff in the talking part, then sing her a really sad song showing how i really felt. I don't sing to her so much anymore, just every now and then and hope she can feel it wherever she is. These days I mostly just sing happier songs to the kids I work with.

I had Brittany write a blog because I didn't want to go near mentioning fanfiction. But in actual fact I needed to be smarter, and take it a step further than just making a blog. I didn't think people, unicorns or otherwise, would find me if I had just set up a simple online journal.

And … I read in that book I bought about writing skills that it is important to not date your writing, but in this case I did that because I wanted mine to be dated and have this stay in its place in time. And, speaking of time, there is no longer a need for the past and present voices because there is no more past to speak of.

The songs featured were:

When I was still your man – Bruno Mars

Fix you – Coldplay

I miss you - Blink 182

Sad song - Christina Perri

And the last one is called Samson by Regina Spektor

Next up: Well, actually I have no idea! We'll all find out together. We've all suffered enough so it's time to let Brittany and Santana catch a break. I may make up my own reason for her leaving and take a lot of... creative licence.

And, thank you for listening. I am just a small part of the world, but you all came and listened to me anyway, and treated me with so much respect and compassion. I am grateful to you all whether you read this casually or long term alike, if you read it as a fanfic and offered me praise or good critical advice on my writing, or if you shared this with your friends so more people would come, if you read it as my friend, if you helped me come to terms with what happened, if you sent me hugs, if you took the time out of your day to care and encourage me, some with fewer words some with many, but I was glad for them all. To anyone who connected with me, and even to those who never spoke to me, but sent me kind thoughts my way anyway, I love you all…

And I will never forget it …