Title: Just A Girl (3/10?)
Author: Race122VE (Coll)
Pairing: Santana/Brittany
Rating: R (mostly language, then violence and some semi sexiness as the fic goes on)
Summary: "But…you're just a girl." Glee AU fic.
Word Count: just about 4k.
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Author's Note: Just wanted to say thanks to everyone who's been reading and commenting and keeping up with me. This is still a work in progress, but I have the next three parts written so I'll stagger them out over the next week and give myself room to finish the rest. Again, thanks for keeping up with me, I really liked reading what you guys thought so far!

Chapter 3

"I don't know what the fuck you're talking about."

Mr. Schuester leans back in his chair, shaking his head at the use of her language, but…he really threw her off. There was no way in hell he could be serious. How could he know about what she was?

"I know what you're thinking, and it's OK, Santana," he starts off calmly. "I've actually known about you for a while, just as long as Sue and…the Council actually feels that it's best if I become you're…"

His hands move around in the air, before he has the light bulb moment and he nods, "Co-Watcher."

She stares back in disbelief. "You two…couldn't even run Glee Club without want to rip each other's throats out."

"At least you're not denying that I know what you are," he says victoriously. She curses under her breath as he continues, "Things are different, Santana. After you disappeared over the weekend, along with the report of other students that went missing, the Council decided that while Sue was exceptional in training you to control your physical powers she lacked patience when it came to the importance of you learning the roots of your powers.

"That's where I come in."

Santana exhales heavily. "I really don't think I can take this shit right now."

"I don't want to overwhelm you, Santana," he rushes on but his voice is laced with sympathy and understanding and it just makes Santana want to punch him in the face. "I get how this is…a lot to take in. It was for me, too, but I think me helping out is going to be better in the long haul. Better for you."

"And quitting the Glee Club, too…that's better for me?" she asks.

Mr. Schuester shrugs, "I didn't know it was that important to you."

"Me either," Santana laughs bitterly. "I mean…I liked it, but then…my whole life was taken away from me. I'm losing everything, Mr. Schue, and I just want one thing to hold on to."

She was lying again. If she could hold on to one thing it would be Brittany, but she wasn't naïve enough to believe that she could accomplish that especially after her run in with the blonde today. Glee Club was number two, and that was only because, while she kind of loved it, Brittany completely loved it with everything in her. She opened Santana's eyes to how amazing it felt to forget about what other people thought and just do what you love.

And she did love Glee.

Mr. Schuester still seems hesitant, so she argues further, "Come on…at least let me try to keep up through Regionals. You already have to replace Matt. Do you want to replace me too?"

"You heard about Matt." It's not a question but he is visibly upset about the topic.

She can't imagine she looks any better now that she brought him up. "Puck told me…he told me about the others too. I killed Karofsky last week so…I can only assume about the others."

He nods along, his voice still quiet when he responds, "Well, you're going to patrol tonight so I want you to keep a look out for them and…as for Glee…we'll see how things go. If this affects your slaying-"

"I'll quit, I swear," she cuts in. "Trust me…I don't want any more blood on my conscious."

Santana can't help but feel OK about everything that's going on. That maybe this whole thing might work out, as shitty as it is. In the back of her head, she knows that this won't last. There's still the guilt and anger underneath everything, but when she accepted this she accepted those emotions. Plus, she's still grounded. She still has to tell her mom she quit the Cheerios. Her small victory is short lived and her shoulders slump in defeat.

"Santana…?"

"I'm grounded," she sighs. "I had to lie to my mom about Wednesday night and now…"

His brow furrows in thought, and she's thrown off because she would never be able to say something like this to Sue Sylvester without receiving a 'You think this is hard?' type of diatribe.

"How about I call her? I'll ask her if you can help tutor some kids in my Spanish class," he suggests after a moment. "Sue and I will come up with a schedule and I'll go over it with your mom."

She hates that she doesn't hate admitting this, but…she is pretty grateful for Will Schuester.

"Maybe this co-…whatever won't be the worst thing in the world."

"Good," he smiles warmly. "I'll call your mom tomorrow and…you'll be OK for sneaking out tonight?"

"Yeah, it'll be cake."

"OK, you should head off, Santana." She tries to argue, because they still have to rehearse, he waves her off, "We're still doing the choreography, and you can miss one more day and be fine. Go home and try to fix things with your mom."

The rational part of her brain knows that he's right, but she can't help but want to spend another hour in the same room as Brittany even if things were still a little weird. However, Mr. Schuester is sticking his neck out for her, trying to make things easier, and she kind of owes him one for that.

So she smiles, makes a face when she catches herself smiling, then frowns in confusion and walks out the door.

xxxxx

The walk home was purposely long today. She wanted to keep the high that she was riding because who knew when she would score a victory, small as it was, again with her life being what it is. It felt nice to have someone like Mr. Schue on her side, but she was a realist and knew that he and Sue Sylvester would be tearing into each other in no time.

Santana didn't want to think about that right now. Not when she reached her house and entered the door. Her mom greeted her, asking about Glee Club and why she wasn't there. It was all meaningless small talk and it lasted a few short sentences before she made her way up to her room to finish her homework before dinner.

The whole time her stomach flip flopped back and forth at the idea of telling her mom about her decisions.

Dinner comes around before she knows it and she didn't know what kind of reaction she was going to get from her mother when she tells her she quit the Cheerios, but the way she's shaking her head in disappointment feels like a punch to the face. "What were you thinking?"

There's that nagging pain, again, of not being able to say exactly what she was thinking, so she settles with, "I don't see what the big deal is."

"And I don't know where your head has been lately. First you've been careless and your mind is always somewhere else, then the boys…" Santana can't help but roll her eyes how Puck suddenly turned into boys. "Now you quit the team. What about your scholarship?"

Santana arches an eyebrow at this. "I never had a scholarship, ma, I'm still a Sophomore."

"You were on a Nationally ranked team, Santana," her mom argues, but then she stops and just deflates. Her fork clatters on to the plate before she grabs it and she gets up from the table. "I can't force you to do anything, and I want you to be happy. I just wish you would think things through sometimes."

The need to bite back that she's been doing nothing but thinking things through cause her muscles to tense. Now, more than ever, she's been thinking about the future (or lack of one, considering her fucking destiny). She has her hand balled into a fist at her side as she bites the inside of her cheek and stares at the table, willing herself to stay calm and not do anything stupid.

Whatever idiot in the universe that decided a Latina with an anger management problem would be the perfect person to give super strength to needed to seriously rethink their decisions.

Her mom returns after dumping her plate in the sink to clear off the rest of the table, but Santana grabs her wrist when she reaches nearby. "I'll get it," she says quietly, pulling her hand back. It's the closest thing to an apology she can give right now, but her mom is more concerned with rubbing at her wrist after Santana lets it go.

Just when she thinks disappointment is the worst thing she can see on her mom's face, fear flashes across for a moment before she nods and heads out of the kitchen. She mumbles something about being tired, having to wake up early, and going to bed early before heading upstairs. She looks at that clock and sighs when she sees it's only six thirty.

Great, at this rate her mom was going to send her away to reform school or something.

For the first time since this whole thing happen, Santana can't wait to go patrolling. She does a half ass job of the dishes and cleaning the kitchen before running upstairs and pulling the bag she usually takes with her out and making sure it's loaded up with weapons. She chucks it on the bed and debates whether or not she should leave early.

On one hand, the chance that her mom would want to come chat in the next few hours was a little on the high side. Then there was the fact that she was going to fucking punch a hole through her wall if she didn't get out of this house soon.

Either way, her mom was going to be mad so she takes the chance and climbs out her window.

When she reaches the cemetery, a calm washes over her. The whole way over, her jog was being fueled by anger and guilt, but now she felt like she belonged at this place. It's kind of what made her calling easy to accept. She felt it deep down in her bones and when she was out in the darkness she knew that this is what she was made for, like it or not.

A noise up ahead grabs her attention. Her stance stoops a little lower, her hand automatically grips a sharpened piece of wood, and she moves on slowly and with a purpose. The feeling that she's picking up doesn't feel urgent and remains low and hides behind head stones as she approaches the sounds.

Once she's there, she feels like running in the opposite direction.

It's Quinn, kneeling in front of a grave, whispering…something that she can't make out, but it's screwing with her brain for some reason. She feels like she's missing something, but the only thing that seems important is backing up and heading to a different part of the cemetery, avoiding Quinn all together.

Before she can even make her legs work, Quinn flashes the beam of her flashlight on Santana's small, crouched frame. She's, literally, a deer in head lights. "Santana?"

"Oh!" she exclaims, over dramatically, trying to play off the happenstance of the situation. "Hey…Q…"

"Hi…" she replies slowly, rising to her feet and staring at Santana like she has four heads. "What are you doing here?"

"Just…out for a walk," she supplies lamely. She really needs to get better at thinking on her feet, but this secret has tainted her ability to think straight.

Quinn looks around. "We're in a cemetery."

Santana just shrugs as she sets her bag down. Keeping her mouth shut seems like the best course of action right now. Quinn's still looking at her like she's crazy, but Santana's mind begins to wonder what Quinn is doing in the cemetery at night. Her eyes move past the blonde to where her bag rests in the grass, next to a head stone.

Her mother's head stone.

That's when Santana's concept of time kicks in and she realizes Quinn's mother died three years ago today. She looks back at her friend and takes in her harried appearance and the tear tracks on her cheeks. "Shit, Quinn…I'm sorry-"

"Is this why you're here?"

There was no way the universe was going to hand her this excuse, it seemed too good to be true. Plus, she felt like an asshole for using the anniversary of Quinn's mom's death to get her out of this situation.

"Yeah." Santana's felt like worse things, though, and she really needs the out right now. "I know things have been weird lately, and I know it's my fault, but…"

Quinn keeps looking at her, studying her, and Santana just has to wait to see if she calls bullshit or not. She breathes an internal sigh of relief when the blonde softens and strides forward, throwing her arms around Santana's neck.

The shock prevents her from reacting right away, but after a moment she slides her arms around Quinn's waist and squeezes tightly. Quinn sobs into her shoulder and Santana has to hold back her own because she didn't realize until just now how much she missed her friend.

Her friendship with Quinn was always a tricky one. Sometimes it seemed like Brittany was the thing that kept them together, and most of her life Santana believed that.

Until Quinn's mom died and Santana's father left almost at the same time.

Brittany didn't really understand what was happening at the time and offered her support as best she could, but Santana and Quinn both leaned on each other pretty heavily for a while after it all. Quinn's situation was, admittedly, so much more awful than Santana's, but the blonde never treated it like that, never made Santana feel like shit for hating her father sometimes, especially when he got remarried.

That's why Quinn remained her best friend, right next to Brittany. It was why this hug from the girl suddenly made her feel like herself for the first time in days.

It was also, however, distracting which is why Santana didn't notice that they had gained company until a hand pulled her back by her hair and threw her to the ground. She hits the ground, hard, and can faintly make out Quinn's scream in the back of her mind.

"Shit," she hisses when pain clouds her mind, the figure is on top of her immediately, though, and she goes into Slayer mode. Fists are flying everywhere, blows are landing and being blocked, and she's trying to just focus on getting to her feet, but when she gets a clear look at her attacker she can't help the sneer that comes on her face and the disbelief in her tone.

"Jew Fro?"

Jacob takes advantage and lands a blow to her face and she can hear the bone in her nose snap. "Fuck!" she exclaims, but it gives her motivation to throw a punch back. It's hard and enough to throw Jacob off her body. Now free, she rolls on to her side, bringing her hand up to her face to try to gauge the damage. Her fingers are covered in blood and she looks over to see Jacob trying to scramble to his feet, then she looks up at Quinn who is frozen in place, tears falling from her eyes, and mouth hung open in shock.

"Quinn, get the fuck out of here," she commands as she pushes herself to her feet and rounds on Jacob before he can get his bearings. She sends a swift kick to his abdomen which sends him back to the ground with a thud.

It's then that she realizes that she should be holding a weapon in her empty hands. She reaches to her bag, but it's not there. She searches the ground, but her eyes stop at Quinn's feet. Quinn's feet that are still rooted in place and not running away. "God fucking dammit, Quinn! Run!"

It's enough to distract her from finding her bag (seriously, where the fuck could it be?) and from Jew Fro who has managed to get up and tackles her to the ground. Quinn jumps back, but still doesn't run away. Santana continues to struggle, but Jacob grabs the back of her head, pulls back, and slams it into the ground over and over.

He stops when he feels her body go limp, and then all she's aware of is how cool the grass feels against her cheek followed by the sudden lack of weight on top of her body. Everything is spinning and her face is numb, but painful at the same time. It's weird.

She's not sure exactly what's going on, her head is in a million places at once, but she is able to focus her vision she sees her bag right in front of her. She throws herself a victory party in her head, but still can't manage to move her body and actually do something.

Not until she hears Quinn mumbling "No, no, no…" over and over again.

She also hears Jacob breathing heavily. Even as an undead vampire, he's still a mouth breather, but she ignores her annoyance enough to realize that he's taking the opportunity to kill Quinn while Santana's lying on the ground, stunned and in pain.

Little does he know how quickly she can bounce back, especially when she hears the shriek Quinn lets out. Her hand darts into her bag, grabbing a stake and clutching it in her hand, before she pushes herself up and over to where Quinn is trying unsuccessfully to push Jacob off her.

Santana doesn't waste any time, doesn't think about the fact that this is another one of her classmates she's killing or that Quinn is witnessing this, she plunges the stake into his back and he explodes into dust.

Quinn stumbles back now that there's nothing holding her in place anymore, coughing and looking back at Santana with wide, terrified eyes. Santana's breathing heavy, and now that there's no immediate danger she feels the extent of the hits she took tonight.

Everything suddenly overwhelms Santana. She drops to her knees, the pain of that action is nothing compared to everything else, and looks up at Quinn. She doesn't trust herself to say anything, so she waits.

"What…the fuck…?"

xxxxx

There are several minutes of denial and disbelief after Santana tells her what just happened, what's been happening. Then Quinn floors it past all the other stages of shit she should be feeling and straight to acceptance.

From there, she goes straight to 'I need a drink.'

Santana's shocked, but then shrugs because…well, she doesn't need much of an excuse to head to the nearest liquor store (which is, weirdly and practically, right across the street from the cemetery) and put her fake ID to good use. She picks out the cheapest Vodka the store has, grabs a four pack of sugar free Red Bull, comes up with a poor excuse regarding her roughed up appearance and bloody nose, and then heads back to the cemetery because it's the place where they can drink out in the open and not get hassled.

They find the nearest bench and when they sit Quinn snatches the bottle from Santana's hand, twists the cap off, and takes a long gulp. Santana is ten steps ahead of Quinn, cracking open a Red Bull and ready to hand it over as a chaser because, well…Quinn's not a huge drinker. Not only that, but she's not a huge liquor drinker. The girl sticks to wine coolers and Santana always has to resist the urge to vomit whenever Quinn says she prefers them.

Finding out that vampires exist and one of your best friends was chosen to kill them was, apparently, an excuse to upgrade to the hard stuff.

They spend about…half of a bottles worth of silence together before Quinn speaks, slightly slurring. "This is all really real, huh?"

"Yep," she replies with a slur of her own as she tips the bottle back to her lips and winces at the burn of the liquor coming in contact where her lip is burst open.

She hands the bottle back over to Quinn who is now shaking her head. "How have you done this? This whole time…dealing with this and only having…Sue Sylvester to talk to."

Santana laughs. "Please, Quinn…with Sue the only one I have to talk to I basically have had no one to talk to…" she furrows her brow at her words, but she's still laughing because, well, it feels good to laugh and she hasn't had a chance to do it in a while. "Did that make any sense?"

Quinn, however, is not laughing. Not even close. "Everything's so different now," she points out. It also lets Santana know what kind of drunk Quinn is going to be tonight, especially when she goes on. "I mean…you're life is just…fucked now, you know? A-and…you could, like, die at any second. Just like Jacob…and, I mean…you're a killer too, S, and this is just…you're just fucked…"

"Yeah, you mentioned that," Santana quips, purposely ignoring the truth in Quinn's drunken monologue. "And thanks, you know, for making me feel better about the whole thing and not being brutally honest."

"We could have died tonight…we almost died tonight. I don't want to die, Santana. I don't…I don't want you to die," Quinn tells her forcefully. She goes to take another swig of Vodka and Santana snatches the bottle away, deciding that Quinn needs to be cut off is she's going to keep talking like this.

Quinn's hand darts over and, for a second, Santana thinks she's trying to get the bottle back. She's not sure if she feels better or worse when Quinn grabs her hand and laces their fingers together. It's weird that this is what makes her body tense up, and it's not a sexual thing because, well…Quinn's not the ugliest person that she's ever seen, but she's Quinn and not Brittany.

Regardless, she just wasn't expecting this kind of support when she allowed herself to indulge in the 'what ifs' when she thought about telling anyone about her destiny. She expected confusion, fear, disgust…she never expected acceptance and love.

It felt nice to feel this, though, to feel hopeful that maybe everything could work out. Maybe she could tell Brittany or her mom one day and everything would be fine.

Then reality smacks her and she realizes that Quinn knew for twenty minutes before needing a drink, and that she wasn't even sure how this was going to affect their lives because it was just the beginning.

"What happens now?"

Santana looks over at Quinn who is watching her, hazel eyes wide and scared. She's not as drunk as Quinn, but she's had enough to drink where she can't think of a single, uplifting, positive thing to say.

"I don't know, Q," she admits, but she squeezes her hand before taking another sip. Quinn turns away and stares out into the cemetery. Santana watches her for another moment before doing the same.

Usually she can see things so well at night, sometimes better, but tonight, thanks to the Vodka, everything was blurry. It's why she can't be sure of what she sees, but she squints into the darkness, leaning forward slightly because, far on the other end of the cemetery, Santana swears she sees Matt walking by.

"What is it?" Quinn asks when she notices Santana's interest being piqued.

After killing Jacob tonight and Karofsky last week, she can only assume that all the missing kids at school have been turned. However, she would have felt his presence…not to mention that there's no more sign of him. He was there one moment and gone the next, if he was ever there to begin with. All of this could be blamed on the liquor.

"Nothing," she answers, hoping that she was telling the truth.