Title: Just A Girl (6/10?)
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: Over 6k.
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.
Chapter 6
"That's a terrible idea."
Santana shoots a glare at Quinn. "Just because you know about me and hang out during our meetings doesn't mean that you actually get a say in what happens."
"Santana-" Mr. Schue scolds, but it doesn't stop either of them.
"I'm so sorry, S, for actually caring about you and whether or not you die," Quinn replies, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Which is what will happen if you go through with this."
"Well…I don't see any other way," she shrugs. "I want to find out what's going on, and the only way we can do that is if I get my hands on one of the vampires."
"You can do that on patrol, in the cemetery," Quinn argues. "I don't know why you have to bring this whole thing here…why you think you have to do this alone."
"Who's supposed to help me?"
She hates the way her voice cracks, hates the bitterness behind the question, and hates the way the word 'alone' can cause the kind of internal suffering she's feeling right now. Even with these three people in the room, knowing her secret and wanting to help (well, mostly wanting to help. Santana doubted Sue would be here if given the choice), she knows that she will always feel alone.
"You can give me all the support in the world, Mr. Schue can help me learn the root of my powers, Coach Sylvester can make sure I'm as physically prepared for a fight as I'll ever be, but in the end it all falls on me."
They all take it in, in Sue's case, again, she's not all too impressed but also doesn't say anything back, but they all seem less likely to argue with her about the plan.
A plan that is still in the works, but whatever.
In spite of wanting to throw up from the cheesiness of her stupid fucking speech, Santana is actually proud of herself for taking responsibility for everything, for stepping up. Not to mention that she's fucking tired of just being on defense. If she wants to find out what the hell is going on and to have a chance to end it she's got to go on the offense.
"I get that," Quinn says a little softer, but still concerned. "I just don't really get how it's a good idea."
"If we're right, they're looking for me. They're trying to find the Slayer," she repeats herself from earlier, finding that talking her semi constructed plan is actually helpful. "If Matt's been following me around then he probably thinks I'm the Slayer so…I set a trap. I make them come here, in the choir room, because there's only one way in and one way out. I take care of whoever they send for me, leave one, and make them tell me who's behind everything."
"There's a lot of 'if' on this plan," Sue points out, nose turned upward at the suggestion.
"Anybody have anything better?"
Defeated, Quinn lets out a heavy sigh. "I still want to help," she insists.
She's ready to dismiss Quinn's offer again, but then she's struck with an idea. They still need to set the bait, still need to get the vampires to the choir room the next night. "OK," she agrees. "You up for a late night stroll?"
xxxxx
"I still think this is a terrible idea."
Santana groans into the night. "And I still think you should shut the fuck up about it."
She can feel Quinn's glare and tries to focus on scanning the area trying to pick up on anything instead of being amused by her friend's annoyance. It wasn't too late out, a little past ten, and the idea was for them to just be out for a walk.
While Quinn was here to help, and clutching a vile of holy water Santana gave her to her chest like her life depended on it, the plan was to not be attacked tonight. Not until she took Quinn home in a little bit before doubling back to other areas so she could patrol.
"OK, so…we're just out for a walk and…talking about things."
"Gold star for Quinn," she replies, wincing at her words while Quinn laughs. "I've been listening to Rachel Berry for…well, I've actually been listening to her. That's enough of a travesty."
"Rachel's not that bad you know."
Santana freezes. "You did not just say that."
Quinn shrugs. "Stop being so overdramatic. I think we're all way past the point of hating the Glee Club and everyone in it. Beside…you quit the Cheerios and fought to stay in Glee Club, you have no right to judge."
Santana wants to argue, should argue, but Quinn's right. "If someone told us before Sophomore year we'd all be in the Glee Club I'd punch them in the face," she chuckles before her mood suddenly shifts. "Everything's so different now."
"Wow," Quinn says, eyebrows raised. "Way to bring down the mood."
"Fuck you," she fires back lightly.
They both laugh and Santana has never really appreciated normalcy until she finds herself getting caught up in moments like this, whether it be with Quinn, Puck, or Brittany, she finds she wants the moment never to end.
This particular moment comes crashing to a halt when she thinks about Brittany.
The whole day went by without a glimpse of the blonde. Normally, she would dwell on it more, but her mind had become preoccupied. Still, she knew eventually she was going to have to deal with that. It was just more incentive to try to make this plan work, to (hopefully) figure out who was behind all this and fucking stop them.
"You know," Quinn begins and she knows already that whatever is about to follow is something she's going to hate. "Brittany told me about last night."
She can feel her eyes go wide, but only for a moment. She reigns herself in, trying not to freak the fuck out because Quinn most likely didn't know everything that happened last night. She had also told Quinn, along with Mr. Schue and Sue, about last night. She said how she saw Brittany alone, how she killed that vampire, saw Matt, and then went searching for him after dropping Brittany off.
That kiss they shared was sitting comfortably in the denial section of her brain.
"Oh," she feigns disinterest, but it kind of backfires because Quinn might have been cool with letting things slide today, but now, apparently, she's been talking to Brittany and probably has things to say. Things that Santana does not want to hear.
Or maybe she does. She is curious, after all, of just how much Quinn knows and what's going on in Brittany's mind. Still, she can't come off as too eager to talk about this or else Quinn will find a way to drag all of the information out of her.
"Something happened," she says and Santana can feel Quinn's eyes watching her when she pauses. "She didn't tell me any more than you did, but something happened…and she was pissed that you just ditched her-"
"Oh. OK." She can feel herself getting angrier, and she's playing right into Quinn, but she keeps going anyway. "I'm sorry there was a fucking vampire that I had to kill. Not to mention fucking Matt. What the fuck was I supposed to do? Brittany can't know."
"You know, no one is saying that you have to tell Brittany what you are." Quinn tells her through gritted teeth.
She's taken back because, why the fuck is Quinn suddenly pissed? "That's not what I-"
"Shut up," Quinn snaps. "You have this secret, fine…whatever. That doesn't automatically mean you have to throw away your best friend. You could try to not be a complete bitch to her."
In the moment after Quinn finishes, Santana knows that she's done. She's done with it all.
All the guilt she's been carrying around, her sudden burst of taking the initiative and bringing the fight to the vampires, her anger at how unfair everything is for her, and has been for her, just falls away. She's so sick of it all, so tired of lying and, even though everything in her mind is screaming 'no,' she breaks down and realizes that she does need at least one person to know all of her secrets.
"She kissed me last night," Santana mumbles, so low she barely heard herself, but Quinn is staring back, mouth hung open in shock.
Obviously she heard.
The vile she had been holding slipped from her now limp fingers and shattered on the ground, loudly. "Dammit, Quinn! Do you know how fucking hard it is to get holy water?"
"Brittany kissed you," Quinn repeats shrilly, ignoring the shards of glasses now littered around their feet. "Brittany. Kissed you. She kissed you. Brittany kissed you."
"Have you said it enough times in a row?" she replies, annoyed. "Yes, she fucking kissed me…and, you know, we're not being very stealthy right now."
"Fuck the vampires," Quinn says with a wave of her hand. "I can't believe she kissed you."
Santana rolls her eyes. It's kind of what she expected from Quinn Fabray, Miss Goody Two-Shoes, but still kind of disappointing after her whole 'you can tell me anything…I'm not going anywhere' bullshit. "Why because we're two girls? Get over it."
"No, moron," Quinn fires back. "Because you're the one that has a thing for her. I thought you would have made the first move."
She's about to rip into Quinn again when the words actually register. "What?"
"You must really think I'm that naive," Quinn laughs. "Or…you're just that unaware of how obvious you are."
Her breathing picks up pace, and she's pretty sure she's going to have a stroke or something. She bends forward, resting her hands on her knees repeating 'shit, shit, shit' over and over for long moments. This is kind of harder to accept than the whole supernatural thing, which should just speak volumes about how crazy it all is.
When Quinn walks over and places a hand on her back, she flinches at first, but relaxes and stands straight. Quinn looks into Santana's eyes, and she feels her body calm down, her breathing becomes easier, and Quinn's hand is now resting on her shoulder, strong and warm.
"It's OK," she assures Santana. "It is."
Santana chuckles in disbelief, "Yeah?"
"Well," Quinn shrugs. "She did kiss you first."
She takes another deep breath at Quinn's words, the panic threatening to come forward again. "That's the point," she tells Quinn. "Brittany is the one thing that I've wanted this much. Now…"
Something catches her eye across the cemetery.
Whatever she was saying drops and she focus her attention on to a figure dashing through the head stones. She doesn't feel anything, doesn't feel threatened, but this might be the break she's been looking for.
Time to try to set her trap.
"Now!" she continues much louder, throwing her voice not only at Quinn but into the darkness. "We're going to have rehearsals in the Choir Room tomorrow night…late…because that girl keeps breaking all the shit in the auditorium."
Quinn's eyebrows shoot up. "What the hell are you talking about? And why are you yelling?"
Santana purses her lips and holds back a growl. "I was just telling you, while we're out for our walk, how Mr. Schue changed the location of rehearsals," she says pointedly. "You know, cause we have to talk to her about that strange behavior. About knocking people over and being out really late-"
"Oh!"
Her eyes roll, and she's hoping that Matt or whoever the fuck is stalking around can't see, before continuing, "Yeah. So, like I said, Glee is going to be in the Choir Room tomorrow night. Late."
"Yes. Tomorrow. Late. At night."
The stiff, robotic like tone paired with the way her head bobs with each word makes Santana think that Quinn can safely rule out 'acting' from her possible future careers.
She's scanning the cemetery again, unable to make out anything. Her eyes come back to Quinn and she motions her head to the side. "Let's go."
"What about the…?" Quinn motions to the ground where there's evidence of the former weapon that Santana would allow Quinn to carry.
At first, she's pissed and is searching her brain for a way to quickly clean it up.
Then, she smiles. "Leave it. When they see it they'll definitely bite."
Her hand grabs Quinn's elbow and she yanks them in the direction that will take them back to Quinn's house.
"I know you're tired of hearing me say this, but I really don't like this idea," Quinn blurts out when they reach her block.
Normally, she'd be pissed that Quinn is saying the same thing…again, but the fear in her voice softens Santana. "You get why I have to do it though," she responds. "Right?"
Quinn nods quickly, taking a deep breath and trying to pull herself together. "What about the Brittany thing?" she asks after a moment, eyeing Santana.
"What about it?"
It's not like she doesn't want to talk about it. Well, she kind of doesn't want to talk about it, but her answer was honest. What more was there? Nothing's changed other than Brittany probably having feelings for her. Santana was still a vampire Slayer, she was still in mortal danger (more so now than ever since she was called), and she had nothing to offer Brittany.
"Santana…"
The pity and compassion behind the way Quinn utters her name nearly kills Santana. Nowadays, with everything happening, she can only handle so much conversation about her life and her feelings.
"I've kind of had my fill of heart to hearts tonight, Q."
At least this time, when she cuts Quinn off and tries to dismiss the subject, she does it on good terms. She hopes its good terms, anyway. Quinn's still looking back skeptically, like she's internally debating whether or not to keep pushing.
"Come on, either rip me a new one or dismiss me," Santana says, getting impatient. "I've got shit to do."
Quinn's fighting a smile as she responds, "I'll pick you up tomorrow."
xxxxx
It's another uneventful day at school.
Sure, Quinn tries to talk to her some more about Brittany and the plan but dodging that proves fairly easy. Later, when the three of them are joined by Sue, she finds out that Mr. Schue isn't a big fan of the plan either. Kind of shockingly, but not at the same time, Coach declares that she's with Santana.
And, yeah, OK…she suggests that Mr. Schue's hair can be used as a weapon if they aim one of the spot lights on to it and then have it bounce off into the vampire's eyes, but Santana is glad that someone else gets that this has to be done.
Mr. Schuester does offer to stay, just in case, but Santana tells him no.
Selfishly, she still wants the usual Glee Club meeting to happen, because they're picking their numbers for Regionals. She convinces Mr. Schue to have the meeting at his place, that way the school is completely empty except for her and her bag of stakes.
There's more arguing and yelling and reasoning before they all agree.
Now, here she is, slinging her bag over her shoulder and taking a deep breath before heading towards the choir room to set up.
Suddenly, as she continues down the hall, her mind was just everywhere in record time.
True to form, she had been ignoring the nerves and anxiousness she felt when she thought about tonight. About it going down, whether it would go down, what the outcome might be…
Just as quickly as her mind got cluttered, everything goes away when she sees Brittany round the corner at the end of the hall. It stops her dead and Brittany freezes as well. The only time she really had to think about Brittany had been at night, when she laid in bed and tried to go to sleep. That's when it all would stop, as soon as her head hit the pillow.
The Slayer turned off, or at least got muted, and Santana turned on, which meant that all she could think about was Brittany. The past two nights, however, had been about Brittany kissing her. She would close her eyes and not fall asleep but transport back to that moment.
She could still taste Brittany's root beer lip gloss, smell her citrusy scent, and feel the way her body pressed perfectly against her own, even though they were squeezed into a small, uncomfortable space. It was both amazing and painful at the same time because, as soon as she woke up (if she even got any sleep to begin with), she would be the Slayer again and Brittany would be the one that was muted.
Yeah, there are always her run ins with the blonde, and Quinn bringing her up, but she hasn't seen Brittany since they kissed.
They just stand there, like two idiots, staring at each other from opposite ends of the same hallway.
The Slayer part of her brain slowly fights its way back to the forefront and Santana starts to panic slightly because Brittany is standing at the other end of the hallway. In school. Late, when no one else is supposed to be here.
When the vampires are supposed to come so she can ambush them.
Fuck.
Now, the immediate plan is to get Brittany the fuck out of school and over to Mr. Schue's, where she should be, as soon as possible.
Brittany starts walking forward when Santana remembers how to use her feet, through her internal commotion, and she practically jogs the few feet towards the girl.
"Hey."
The way Brittany greets her tells Santana that she isn't picking up on her body language, at all, which means she's going to, again, fuck up any chance of salvaging their relationship by quickly dismissing her and being a bitch.
"You're supposed to be at Mr. Schuester's."
"We're supposed to be at Mr. Schuester's," Brittany corrects. "I was just leaving."
It makes sense. Brittany still had another half hour to get to the meeting, the same amount of time she had to set up. She tries to calm down as best she can, given the circumstances. Alarming Brittany wouldn't help anyone, so now she just had to get her out of here quickly. She could deal with the blonde being mad at her as long as she was safe.
Well, she would have no choice but to deal with it.
"We can go together. I was going to walk anyway-"
"Walk? No...just..." she scolds. "It's dark out, Brittany,"
Brittany raises her eyebrows in response. "It's only, like, fifteen minutes away."
"Well…just be careful." Santana sighs, knowing what comes next.
"You're not going to come with me?"
She can't help the wince that spreads across her face, but she goes on with it regardless. "I got something I have to do first."
"I'll come with you-"
"Brittany, no!" she shouts. "You have to fucking get out of here and go to the fucking meeting. You can't come with me."
If she's feeling so much pain from saying these words, she doesn't want to imagine how it makes Brittany feel.
Which is why her angry tone is surprising to Santana. "Was the other night really that horrible that you can't even stand to be around me anymore?"
"No," she chokes out, but Brittany doesn't leave her anytime to recover.
"Was it the kiss?" she asks roughly. "You didn't want to? Because you seemed pretty into it-"
"Brittany-"
Brittany's hand comes up, stopping Santana before she continues. "I've given you space. I know that you freak out easily when something big happens, on top of this secret thing you've been keeping from me, and I get that you need time, but it's been way too long and now I'm tired of it."
Something about the way Brittany turns and storms off down the hallway sets something off inside Santana. Before she can let any rational part of her brain take over, she's striding forward and catching Brittany's elbow with her hand. She yanks her backward and spins the blonde so they're facing each other again.
"Do you think it's easy for me?" she hisses out. Her grip on Brittany's elbow tightens and Santana ignores the way Brittany's mouth drops open in pain and tugs her even closer. "I can't tell you what's going on, and it's tearing me up because you're the only person I want to talk to about this."
Brittany still looks skeptical, so she shifts her grip so it becomes more comforting than urgent. She tries to open herself up as best she can, with the exception of her destiny, a place that she can't shed any light on, and just hopes that Brittany sees it.
"If there's any part of you that still trusts me, after all this time and everything we've been through, I need you to try to listen to that part, Britt," she pleads. "I need you to trust that whatever I do, I'm doing it to keep you safe."
"What about the kiss?" she asks softly as she steps closer, eliminating any space between them.
Santana can't help but notice the way Brittany's clear, blue eyes keep flickering down to her lips. She swallows and takes in a deep breath when Brittany dips her head and tilts slightly to the left. Their noses brush together and Santana watches as Brittany's eyes flutter shut and her face just hovers there.
All she has to do is tilt her head up and they would be kissing. It's what Brittany's waiting for. For Santana to meet her half way.
But she can't.
And she fucking hates herself.
Scratch that. She hates her fucking destiny because, right now, she does not have time for this.
Right now, vampires could be on their way to the school and Brittany couldn't be here for that.
"You really need to get to that meeting," Santana chokes out as she steps back.
Brittany's eyes open and she straightens up and rests her hands on her hips. Santana's expecting anger, disappointment, and frustration. What she gets is a small smile. "I trust you," she tells Santana quietly. "But this pull away thing you do is still getting old."
She feels her head nod, but she's on autopilot because the Slayer is still pulling her away from this moment. From Brittany. There really is no time for her to properly deal with this, so she shuts her mouth and just hopes that Brittany's finished.
For now, at least.
"I'll see you there then," Brittany says as she walks backwards, letting her eyes linger on Santana for a few moments more before turning around.
As soon as Brittany's gone, she shuts off that part of her brain and nearly runs to the Choir Room. It's dark and empty and Santana flips on the lights because, while she can see better in the dark, the point is for the vampires to think there's a meeting happening.
Shit.
There's supposed to be a Glee Club meeting. There should be music or something. It's not really what she should be worried about at the moment, but her eyes scan the room and fall on a dock resting on a corner in the table. She walks over, fishing her iPod out of her bag on the way, and plugs it in.
There's a playlist that has songs they've been rehearsing as well as songs that Rachel, because in addition to stealing their cell phones and reprogramming them, she did the same with their iPods, has selected as possible solos.
Santana's still on alert, her senses are still turned up as far as they can go, but when she hits play and the soft strum of a guitar fills the choir room she rolls her eyes at how, of fucking course, a song like this would come on.
Now that I've lost everything to you
You say you want to start something new
And it's breaking my heart that you're leavin
Baby I'm grievin
The lyrics are in her head, because the music Rachel put on was just instrumental, and Santana closes her eyes, letting her mouth fall open and the rest of the words come out.
But if you wanna leave take good care
Hope you have a lot of nice things to wea
r But then a lot of nice things turn bad out there
There's another small guitar break. She opens her eyes and lets the music wash over her, calm her, somehow, and continues to sing when the song reaches her cue.
Oh baby baby it's a wild world
It's hard to get by just upon a smile
Oh baby baby it's a wild world
As the song goes on, and she continues singing, she remembers why she wanted to hold on to Glee Club in the first place. She never would've admitted it to anyone, she's still not sure she can, but this is something she thought she might want to do.
Before everything got yanked away and she would think about the future, she would think about going to college and getting into some sort of singing program, maybe theater.
There was one night before school started last year, and Brittany had just gotten back, when she and Quinn had crashed at Santana's house after a party. Quinn was sitting side ways on the recliner, passed out, instead of actually reclined, while Santana was on the couch with her feet propped up on the table and Brittany was leaning into her, head slumping over before jerking back as she tried to stay awake.
Santana didn't understand why the blonde was fighting so hard. They all had a lot to drink that night and it was late and the only light in the room came from the TV where old reruns of Saved By The Bell flickered on the screen. It wasn't even a good episode.
Who likes the one where Jessie and Zach hook up during that stupid rapping Snow White play?
Regardless, by the time Kelly and Slater had caught them, Brittany's body gave up and slumped on to Santana. The blonde's mouth was wide open and she began to snore lightly.
It was completely adorable and Santana knew she was a goner.
She also knew that a clear picture was forming in her head. One of her, Brittany, and maybe even Quinn graduating and getting as far away from Lima as they could.
That was before she found out that some higher power out there had other plans for her. She feels tears start to fill up her eyes at the memory, at the thought the thought that, once upon a time, she was allowed to think of what she would do when she gets to leave Ohio.
Santana rubs her eyes roughly and continues to sing and busy herself with checking the weapons she stashed in her bag.
Baby I love you
But if you wanna leave take good care
Hope you make a lot of nice friends out there
But just remember there's a lot of bad and beware
Then there's a sound coming from down the hall.
It's a vampire, she knows it. The feeling, however, is coming from far away while she hears footsteps steadily approaching the choir room. Her mind mutes the music in the background, even though the actual volume hasn't changed, and her hands ball into fists, the right one clutching a stake.
Something's off though, but it just puts Santana more on her guard.
A shadow is now visible through the doorway and she rushes over to the side, flattening herself against the opposite wall and ready to spring on the attacker.
All she catches is a flash of blonde hair, that she doesn't have time to process, before she's lunging forward and tackling the stranger to the ground. Her body is getting ready to move for the next attack, hands grabbing the other girl's hands when she hears a familiar yelp of pain.
"What the hell, S?"
Fucking Quinn.
"What the hell to you, Quinn," Santana spits back, pushing herself to her feet and then tugging the blonde up to join her. "Why the fuck are you here?"
Quinn is hugging her body, doubled over in pain. "I think you bruised one of my ribs or something," she winces.
"You have to get out of here," Santana says.
"I wanted to help."
Even when she's in pain the bitch is still arguing back.
Santana can still sense the vampires and does not have time to worry about her friend.
"I don't have time to go over how ridiculous the idea of you helping me is," Santana tells her as she brings her hands up, resting her palms on her forehead and squeezing her eyes shut, trying to think of something.
It's hard, though. Her brain is everywhere at once because she still can't understand how she senses these vampires yet doesn't feel in immediate danger. She has enough time to think about getting Quinn somewhere safe, anyway.
"I just hated the idea of you being here alone," Quinn says.
"Well, I liked the idea of knowing that my best friend was safe at Schuester's," Santana fires back as her eyes dart around the room before resting on Mr. Schue's office. "You're going to get in that fucking office. You're going to lock both doors. Then you're going to hide under the fucking desk with this." She forces a sharpened stake in Quinn's hand and begins pushing her towards the door. "If something happens to me, I'll call out and you call the police and that should scare them off."
"Santana-"
"No! You don't get to argue with me, Quinn," Santana cuts her off and turns her head back towards the door when her senses ping again. "Later on, when all this is over, I'll be pissed at you for being such an idiot, but for now…I just want to make sure that I can yell at you later. Lock yourself in and-"
A blood curdling scream snaps both their head towards the door.
"That sounded like-" Quinn whispers thoughtfully, but is cut off again by another scream from the same person. Santana didn't hear it like Quinn the first time, but the second time it was unmistakable.
"Rachel," they said together as Santana bolts towards the door. She stops and rounds on Quinn when she hears the blonde begin to follow. "Did you think I was fucking kidding about the hiding thing?"
The look on Quinn's face shows how terrified she is right now, and Santana is fully aware that it's mostly her causing that fear. She doesn't have time to play around though. The trap was set, but something was seriously wrong and she had to have some sense that Quinn would just stay the fuck out of it.
She nods once, sharply, and Santana takes off.
Ignoring thoughts like 'why is Rachel at the school?' and 'why is Quinn always putting herself in mortal danger in the name of their friendship?' Santana begins to realize that both Rachel and the vampires she's been sensing are coming from the same place.
As she rounds a corner to a hallway, her body goes on full alert even though she's still running to…wherever the action is happening.
When Santana realizes that this particular hallway leads towards the auditorium, she curses under her breath. She knows that, somehow, the vampires mistook the auditorium with the choir room, but it doesn't matter when she burst through the doors at the top of the stadium seating and looks down on to the stage.
Of all the things she had the time to imagine she would see on her jog over here, none of them included the image of Puck lying face down in a pool of blood still spreading over the empty stage.
There's only a moment where she's allowed to stand, frozen in place, mouth hanging open, tears threatening to fall from her eyes, and thinking Puck is dead and Rachel's nowhere to be seen before she spots a figure moving in the wings. It's a flash, but she knows it's a vampire.
Santana also knows the school and the auditorium like the back of her hand. She backs out the way she came and rushes down the hall to cut off the vampire. She can hear the running footsteps up ahead, and only catches a glimpse of the vampire as he leaps forward and crashes through a window.
Her body prepares itself to follow him, but her senses are quieting. She knows that she could follow him, and probably catch him, but she also knows the vampires at the school are gone and Puck is probably dead and Rachel is missing and…
The tears fall and she doesn't try to stop them. Instead she runs back to auditorium, using the stage entrance nearby her and taking in the scene close up.
She walks by papers that were dropped and have fanned out to the floor and a bag she recognizes as Rachel's before stopping at Puck's body. Santana drops to her knees. The blood on the stage begins to soak through her jeans but she doesn't feel it.
She doesn't feel anything.
Actually she's feeling too many things that right now she's just numb and doesn't even know what to do.
Her hand reaches out towards his neck, but jerks back when she moves the collar of his letterman's jacket and sees two puncture wounds. Her balance is thrown off and she somehow manages to fall forward before scrambling back up into a kneeling position by Puck's body.
That's when she sees it.
Something shiny and a few feet away from Puck.
A bracelet. Brittany's bracelet, curled up in the middle of the stage. Alone.
They exchanged them during their first year of high school, unknowingly buying the same bracelet for each other. Well, Santana had bought the one on display with the heart charm for the blonde. Brittany had talked to the clerk and found out she could choose a different charm and picked out a duck for Santana.
It was one of those crazy things that just made them both realize they were destined for friendship.
After long moments of laughter, Santana told Brittany that she should take the bracelet with the duck charm but she refused. Brittany insisted that she bought that particular bracelet for Santana and she wanted her to wear it, just like she wanted to wear the one Santana picked out.
Though she was never fully aware of her feelings, it was then that she knew she wanted Brittany in her life forever, even if it was just as a friend.
And now, there was a chance that she was gone.
Santana couldn't move, couldn't breathe, and she didn't even register when the door to the auditorium opened and Quinn ran down the stairs screaming her name.
It's not until Quinn is crouching down in front of her, a few inches away from where the blood has spread, that Santana looks away from the bracelet and into Quinn's hazel eyes.
"Santana," she begins softly. "S…you have to get out of here. The police are going to be here any minute and…you're covered in blood."
Once Quinn says it, the sound of sirens approaching in the distance floods her ears.
Slowly, the rest of the world starts to pull her away from this kind of outer body thing she's got going on. She could feel how fast her heart was beating against her chest, how rapid her breath was entering and leaving her body, and how disgusted she felt once she looked away from Quinn and down at her front that was covered in red.
Through all that, Santana can only focus on one thing.
"They've got Brittany," Santana lets out, the words sounding foreign on her tongue.
She watched the recognition, the reality, of her words hit Quinn, and, just as quickly, she watches as it turns into strength and calm. "All the more reason why getting arrested is not going to be the best course of action here," Quinn says. She stands and reaches a hand out for Santana. "You need to get up and get out of here."
Their hands clap together, and Santana finds herself shocked again at how much of Puck's blood she is covered in. Quinn's strength is beginning to slip at the sight as well, but she manages to help Santana stand then yank her hand back. "Get out of here," Quinn tells her once more.
She's halfway towards the door when she stops, turns around, and runs back to pick up Brittany's bracelet before leaving the auditorium.