Author's Note: Wow, I can't even believe the response to this story! Thank you all for your follows and favorites, and a huge thanks to LoneGambit, , chuckleshan, Lynniepops, h-g-j-l-e-r-k, AlabamaMiles, JJJ, my-other-ride-is-your-mum, maybesometime, broken-timemachine, Lauren H 91, A, brittana-is-wanky21, glee4ever123, Southgirl, M206, rg521, alamoSAuRus99, holip, JadeTheManatee and the Guests for your reviews! Also, an extra big thank you to all of you who shared this story on Tumblr! Things are going to take some time to build up and make sense, so I hope you'll all bear with me here!
Wringing her hands, Brittany stared at Santana. It was still so much for her to take, the longtime object of her affections standing before her, in her bedroom, shirt still hitched up, waiting for answers. On the plus side, the girl hadn't run out screaming when Brittany had revealed the truth to her, but on the other, she didn't exactly look comfortable with the news either. Brittany had never known any different, she'd always known that aliens were real, obviously, but Santana had lived her entire life in a town where said creatures were a joke, a tourist trap, an incorrect visual emblazoned on t-shirts, mugs, the signs on nearly one-hundred percent of the stores in town, including the diner where she spent her afternoons and weekends actually dressed as one of the presumed fictional figures.
"Brittany." Santana's voice broke the blonde from her thoughts, and she swallowed hard, still attempting to decipher how to continue. "Are you going to tell me, or what?"
"I am." She affirmed. "I'm just trying to figure out how to start. I haven't exactly done this before."
"How about you start with why you're here? And before you decide to play coy with me, I mean here on this planet, not here in your bedroom."
"I don't actually know the answer to that question." Brittany shook her head, averting her gaze from the look of disbelief in Santana's eyes. "I don't, really."
"Fine." Santana huffed. "What planet are you from then?"
"I don't...I don't know that answer either." Brittany shifted uncomfortably.
"Well what do you know then?" Santana tried not to roll her eyes at the lack of explanation she was getting, but she'd come to the conclusion that her night was going to be even longer than her day had been.
"All I know is that at some point in the middle of the night on April 15th, 2003, Sam, Quinn and I crawled out of these pods, or something, and into the desert. Even after all this time, we've still only pieced together bits of what happened before that. I remember a purple lake, Sam remembers stars that he swears were a thousand times brighter than any we've ever seen here, even on the darkest night out in the desert, and Quinn, well, she says she doesn't remember things, just feelings."
"What kind of feelings?"
"They're not really mine to tell." Brittany sighed. As much as she fought with Quinn, as much as the other girl drove her to the point that she thought she was going to lose her mind, forcing her to behave like a recluse, never letting her or Sam have any type of fun, one of the strongest urges that Brittany ever felt in her life, human or otherwise, was to protect the third member of their little band of misfits.
"Why wasn't...?" Santana started, but then trailed off, pulling her bottom lip back in between her teeth, wondering if the unspoken question would be met with the same response as her last.
"Why wasn't Quinn found with Sam and me?" Brittany finished, and Santana gave a hesitant nod. "I remember holding her hand, and she didn't want to leave the place where we born, or hatched, or whatever it was that happened out there. But Sam, he saw lights, and he started walking toward them, and I couldn't just let him go out there alone."
"Okay." Santana nodded, wanting to ask so many more questions about Quinn, but the slightest shake of Brittany's head and the sadness that seemed to pass over her features when talking about it halted her curiosity. "So, the Pierces adopted you and Sam, and you've been living with them ever since, but they never figured out that you're...different?"
"We've had some close calls, but once we realized that other people, or, I guess, people in general, weren't like us, we knew that we had to hide it. And we've always been really careful."
"Until today." Santana pointed out, and Brittany felt the blush creep up her neck and color her cheeks. "Why, Brittany? Why did you risk everything, for me?"
"I couldn't just stand there and watch you die."
"People die all the time."
Brittany chose not to speak, and with the lull in conversation, the only sound in the room was that of Sam yelling at something in his game from the other side of the wall. The question Santana had asked wasn't one that Brittany was willing to answer, even if that was an answer that she clearly did have. She'd already revealed one of her deepest secrets to the girl, she wouldn't tell the other. Santana's eyes remained locked with Brittany's, desperately wanting to know, halfway believing that maybe the answer was the one she'd hoped to hear, that Brittany Pierce thought she, the smallest of small town girls, was something truly special, special beyond her name, or her cheerleading uniform, special to the very root of her soul, but she shook off the hope, instead breaking away from those piercing blue eyes and turning her attention back to the glowing mark on her abdomen.
"Okay what about how? How did you do it?" She asked, gesturing to her stomach, hoping maybe that was a question that Brittany would actually be able to answer for her.
"I dissolved the bullet and repaired the tissue it damaged."
"So you all have this ability? To heal people, I mean."
"Yes and no. We can all alter molecular structure, I guess, but I've always been the only one who's been able to do any actual healing."
"You've healed before?" Santana looked at Brittany, feeling even more confused, and admittedly, slightly dejected that there were others like her.
"Not a person. I wasn't even sure I could do that, until you. My cat, Lord Tubbington, was mauled pretty bad by a raccoon once, and I took care of him, and there were a few birds that he mauled, but that's it. Sam's tried, and I'm pretty sure Quinn has too, but with no luck."
"So only you can heal, but you all can move molecules, or whatever?" Santana had begun a mental list, realizing that with every scrap of information that Brittany revealed, she felt even more in the dark.
"Yes."
"How does that work, exactly?"
Brittany was never particularly good with words, especially when she fell under the scrutinizing gaze of a person, and extra-specially when said gaze was from the beautiful girl that she just so happened to be hopelessly in love with. Reaching past where Santana stood, accidentally (seriously, accidentally) brushing a bare tan shoulder with her wrist and eliciting shivers on both ends of the contact, Brittany grabbed the stuffed green alien plush that sat atop her desk. She didn't miss Santana's playful eye roll when she noticed what the blonde had picked up, and she also didn't miss the warmth that such a tiny gesture brought over her entire body. Slowly waving her right hand over figure, the figure turned the brightest shade of purple, and Santana's mouth dropped open.
"You're really not kidding." She mumbled, shaking away her scattered thoughts. "Holy shit."
"You still thought I was kidding?"
"I don't know what to think anymore." Santana sighed, bringing her fingers up to pinch her nose again. "None of this makes any sense."
"I've been living it for eleven years, and it still doesn't make any sense to me."
"So you're just stuck here? What about your home planet."
"This is the only planet I even really know at this point. There's been no crop circles, or bicycling over a moon, or any of that to tell me where I belong."
"Now who's stereotyping?" Santana took a chance and teased Brittany, for some strange reason (among all the other strange) feeling comfortable enough to do so.
"Well, I do like Reese's Pieces." Brittany joked back, the smallest smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.
"And here I though that was just bad movie product placement. I keep guess I can stop telling my father to take them out of every dessert on our menu, now that I know it's authentic. So what else is authentic alien food, give me something to go to my father with to add to the menu."
"No, Santana!" Brittany's eyes widened, and she felt deep, dark fear clutch at her chest again. "You can't do that."
"I'm sorry!" Santana gasped out quickly, realizing immediately that she crossed the line from teasing into some other territory. "Brittany, I wouldn't. But I don't understand why, why you saved my life, and how anyone could ever possibly think that was a bad thing?"
"You live in Roswell, you should know this. The rumors, I don't know if they're true or not, but there had to be others that helped get us here, since we obviously weren't capable of doing that on out own in whatever state of suspended animation we were in. Something had to have happened to them, and since no one has ever reached out and tried to find us, I can't imagine that whatever happened was a good thing." Brittany shuddered at the thought, shuddered at the thought of the images in the window of the UFO museum, the US Army securing the perimeters around the site of the crash, of beings like her getting spliced open on medical examination tables in some unknown facility. Real or not real, it was terrifying. "People are afraid of what they don't understand, Santana."
"I'm not afraid of you." Santana said suddenly, looking once again into Brittany's eyes. "I don't really understand you, or this, anything really, but I know somehow that you don't scare me. Sheriff Hummel came to the diner after you left."
"What did you tell him?" Brittany swallowed hard, trying to reconcile the fluttering in her chest at Santana telling her she wasn't afraid, and the suspicious hammering that followed at the mention of the sheriff.
"Someone told him that a girl came up to me, I told him that I didn't recognize you, and that you probably weren't from around here."
"You lied for me."
"Well, not totally. I mean, you're not really from around here, are you?"
"No. I guess I'm not." The smallest of smiles played on Brittany's lips, and she reached out to Santana, tenderly pulling her shirt back down to cover her stomach.
"I don't think Hummel's a bad guy."
"Neither do I." Brittany admitted. "But like I said, people are afraid of what they don't know. And his father..."
"Is locked up in a New Mexico State hospital for spending his life chasing aliens." Santana finished, the realization of how personal this could get hitting her.
"Burt Hummel is the one who found us out there, and I'm pretty sure he's never stopped questioning why we were there in the first place. He was born into a family where chasing the unknown was normal."
Neither girl said anything, they were caught up in trying to understand the whole of it. It was Santana who's mind shifted to something different first. Call it hero worship, call it fascination, it didn't really matter what it was, Santana's eyes flicked down to Brittany's lips, and she considered them for a moment, considered the consequences of pressing her own lips to them (did consequences even matter anymore?). Some inexplicable pull drew Santana toward the blonde, and she didn't know how to stop herself, didn't even want to stop herself.
Brittany noticed what she was doing, because really, for years, she had taken notice of every single thing that Santana did, and the thought of the other girl kissing her, taking control, throwing Brittany down on the bed and having her way with her, making every human fantasy that the girl who was not human ever had both aroused her and completely terrified her. She felt the same pull, a pull that was different somehow than the possibility of having her fantasies fulfilled, but years of carefully practiced self control let her break free of it. As Santana took a step forward, Brittany bit her lip and took a step back, using every last ounce of self control that she possessed.
"Santana." She scolded gently. "We can't."
"Why?" Hurt flashed in Santana's eyes as her pride was marred, and she played with the hem of her shirt, wanting to pretend that being rejected by Brittany was no big deal, but failing miserably.
"It's not safe."
"I was shot today, and kissing you isn't safe?"
"None of it is safe. But kissing me, getting involved with me, that's probably the most dangerous thing there is, for both of us."
"Fine." Santana huffed, crossing her arms over her chest. "So then what are we supposed to do now?"
"Nothing. We go back to normal. We pretend that today never happened, we pretend that a gun went off in the diner, you broke a bottle, and I was never there, just like you told everyone else."
"How am I supposed to do that, Brittany? How am I supposed to pretend that you're not the reason I'm even living and breathing?"
"I don't know. All I know is that there's no other way. I saved you, because I couldn't stand the idea of you being hurt, and if we don't do things this way, you're at risk, and I don't want that to happen."
"Okay then." Santana squeezed her eyes shut and turned away from Brittany, moving back toward the window.
"Thank you." Brittany whispered.
"I think I should be the one saying that to you."
"Nothing to thank me for." She shrugged, immediately starting the ruse they would enact. "But Santana?"
"Yeah?" Santana turned back around, and couldn't help but take one last look into Brittany's blue eyes. "If it's any consolation, if things were different, I totally would have let you kiss me."
"It's not." She snorted, the rejection still stinging. "Bye, Brittany. See you around."
When Santana left, Brittany closed and locked the window behind her and stood watching her walk down the stone pathway and out of the yard, fading out of sight as she made her way down the brightly lit street. With a deep sigh, she collapsed back onto her bed. Talk about having everything she ever wanted in her grasp and letting it disappear just as quickly as it came. It was for the best, she knew it was for the best, but I didn't mean that the hurt in Santana's eyes burned Brittany any less. It was too dangerous, whether she knew exactly how or not, Brittany was unwilling to put anyone else at risk, especially her. Closing her eyes again, Brittany tried to forget the buzz that coursed through her body when Santana had touched her, the crackling anticipation in the split second between when Santana had leaned into kiss her, and when Brittany had made the decision to stop her, even the oddly possessive feeling that she got seeing Santana bearing the mark that she'd been saved. But feelings couldn't matter, not for Brittany, not with Quinn breathing down her neck, not with the sheriff asking questions about what happened in the diner, not with the fate of her entire existence resting on not showing said feelings.
"So you told her." Quinn's voice snapped Brittany from her thoughts, and she jerked upright in bed. Apparently, she'd been so deep in trying not to think, that she'd missed the telltale noise of Quinn popping the lock on the window and climbing inside. Clearly, that window was getting a lot of action (much more than I am, Brittany thought sourly) and Brittany was never going to get any sleep.
"You were spying on me." Brittany shot back. "I told you that I was telling her the truth, and I did."
"Yeah, you told me you were, I just didn't think you'd actually do it." Brittany could hear the sound of Quinn's teeth gritting, and when she looked down, there was a duffel bag between Quinn's feet. "I hope you packed your bags. Doesn't look like your news was met with a parade of rainbows and unicorns that you expected, huh Brittany?"
"You talk about acting normal and blending in, and yet you show not one scrap of human emotion. Ever. Why don't you talk to me instead of talking at me?"
"Newsflash, we're not human. Look what happens when you show human emotion!" Quinn hissed, stiffening her spine as she stared down Brittany.
"Stop talking to me like that!" Brittany demanded, clenching her fists at her sides. She wasn't the type to get angry, she was pretty sure that somehow Quinn had gotten all of her share and more, but she was still reeling from the events of the day, and Quinn's constant need to condescend to her was causing that mostly unfamiliar feeling to spark.
Sam chose that exact moment to knock on the door, probably having heard the commotion through the wall, and Brittany called out for him to come in. Even if Sam definitely didn't agree with what she'd put at risk, and told her as much, at least he'd be on her side about how unnecessary it was for Quinn to constantly put her down. When he entered the room, he looked between the two girls and sighed, knowing that he'd walked in on round four-thousand-six-hundred-seventy-nine of angry Quinn versus frustrated Brittany.
"What happened now?" He asked, knowing immediately upon the words leaving his mouth that it was actually a stupid question.
"She told Santana the truth."
"And what happened?"
"I was getting to that part before Quinn decided that she already knew what happened and wouldn't let me speak."
"Please, Brittany. I'm sure she told you she wasn't going to say anything, and you got all mooney over her. Oh, Santana, you're so perfect and wonderful and I'll believe anything that passes through those beautiful lips of yours." Quinn mimicked. "And then she'll go home, realize that she's sitting on a goddamn gold mine of information, and then we are done for. How many times have we agreed, trust no one?"
"Life is not a science fiction movie." Brittany said, then a smile played involuntarily on her lips, thinking of her conversation with Santana. "And we never agreed, you made the decision, and no one wanted to even discuss it with you, because you throw tantrums whenever you don't get your way."
"You think everyone is trustworthy. Wasn't it just last year that you wanted to tell Susan and Evan?"
"Actually, she didn't." Sam defended. "All she said was that she wished we could tell mom and dad, and you jumped down her throat."
"Because it's-"
"Let her tell us what actually happened." Sam cut her off, and Brittany gave her brother a small, grateful smile.
Choosing her words carefully, Brittany told them about Santana coming in and showing her the handprint, the mark that she'd forgotten in the heat of the moment that her actions would leave, and their subsequent conversation. The thing was though, it was impossible to describe the sincerity in the girl's eyes, or the strange sort of connection she felt, a connection that had nothing to do with her distant affections for Santana Lopez. Brittany knew, undoubtedly, that the trust she'd placed in the girl she'd saved would never be broken. But even if she told Quinn as much, even if she told Quinn about the almost-kiss (which she wouldn't, because there were some things she wanted to keep for herself, and Santana looking at her with affection, Santana not seeing her as the freak she usually felt like were among those things), Quinn would call her a dreamer, and a fool. Sam would understand her on a different level, he always had, but she'd done enough putting him in the middle for one day.
"Why was Hummel so interested in who came up to her after the gun went off?" Sam asked, picking up the purple stuffed alien on the desk and shooting Brittany a quizzical look.
"I don't know ." Brittany confessed, and chose to ignore the look on Quinn's face. "You know he makes me nervous. And you know if he knew it was me..."
"Well-" Quinn opened her mouth to speak, and Sam raised his hand to her with a shake of his head.
"He's got nothing to go on, there are no cameras in the diner, and no one got hurt. As long as Santana isn't going to say anything, we just lay low, and soon enough, everyone will forget about it."
"That's a big if you're betting on, Sam."
"She's not going to say anything." Brittany said quietly, the energy to fight basically sapped from her. "I know she's not."
"I'm watching her, and I'm watching Hummel too, just in case." Quinn glared at Brittany, daring her to challenge that, but she simply nodded, knowing whether she agreed or not, Quinn would still do it.
"Are you staying over?" Brittany asked, because even when Quinn was a bitch (which was 99.9% of the time), she still would never not offer her an out from the drunken rantings of her foster mother Judy Fabray.
"Nope. If we're not skipping town, I'm going to enjoy the fact that Judy's at one of her Bible retreats, and I'll have the place to myself." Her voice was less harsh than it had been all day, more likely than not at the possibility of not having to deal with the woman who kept her around for booze money. "I'll fill you in on what I find out tomorrow."
"Be careful, Quinn." Sam warned. "The last thing we need is for you to get caught breaking in somewhere."
"Right, the last thing..." She trailed off, throwing her bag back over her shoulder and climbing out the window, not even turning around as she did.
"Britt." Sam started, and she shook her head.
"I've been yelled at enough for one lifetime today, I know you agree with Quinn, and I really do appreciate you not shoving that in my face in front of her, but I can't deal with any more tonight."
"I'm not saying anything else, I just wanted to make sure you're okay."
"Not really." Brittany ran her fingers through blonde hair, and sucked her bottom lip into her mouth, knowing if she didn't, she'd end up giving an involuntary pout.
"She didn't react as well as you're pretending, did she?"
"No Sam, that's the problem. She reacted so much better."
Santana somehow managed to make it through half of the next day of school without her thoughts being entirely consumed by Brittany Pierce (if she had two thoughts that weren't about her, that counts as not being entirely consumed, right?). She just couldn't understand what had transpired the night before, Brittany saved her life, Brittany confessed that she was one of the goddamn Roswell aliens, Brittany joked around with her, and after Santana had tried to kiss her, Brittany had said that they couldn't, even if she wanted to. The entire thing had frustrated Santana to no end, and all she wanted to do was do what she'd been asked and forget the entire thing ever happened. Of course, she'd be about five seconds from doing that, and her hand would, if it's own volition, slip under her Cheerios top and fall to rest on the handprint, on Brittany's handprint. Santana swore that it heated up every time she thought of the blonde's catlike eyes, her perfect teeth, the laugh that she was sure didn't happen enough (how could it, if she spent all her time with Quinn Fabitch?) but she tried to chalk all that up to her imagination.
Her fruitless efforts were completely stalled as she was walking down the hall to English class (Brittany was in that class, how could she pretend everything was normal when the blonde sat two rows ahead of her?) and Mercedes grabbed her roughly by the arm. Had it been anyone else, Santana would have jerked away and told then to go fuck themselves, but it was her best friend, her best friend who she'd been actively avoiding, and sighing deeply, she followed Mercedes into the janitor's closet.
"I always knew you wanted to get me in here." Santana snarked. "Sorry though, you're not really my type Ce."
"Shut up, Lopez. You know damn well why we are in here."
"If this is still about the nothing that happened in the diner yesterday, I'm out of here. I have English."
"Oh right, I forgot, wouldn't want to be late. Your girlfriend is in that class."
"She's not my girlfriend." Santana spit, her eyes widening as Mercedes reached into her bag and pulled out an order pad. There, speckling the white paper was blood, Santana's blood. She swallowed hard, panic once again rising in her chest.
"You still want to tell me that nothing happened? Do you still want to tell me that you spilled ketchup?"
"I..." Santana was, for possibly the first time in her life, at a loss for words. There, right in front of her, was hard and fast evidence that something had actually happened. Blindly reaching out to snatch the pad, Mercedes whipped it away from her, features hard as her eyes bored into Santana.
"I knew it. I knew that you were shot. And I know that Brittany did something to you. I don't know what it was, and I don't know why you're covering it up, but you're going to tell me."
"Mercedes Whitney Jones, I don't know what you're playing at, but I don't like your threatening tone."
"And I don't like that you're playing me for a fool. When have I ever given you reason not to trust me?"
"It's not about trust. God, you don't understand." Santana's desperation was apparent, but Mercedes wasn't having it.
"Make me understand then. Make me understand how the hell your blood got all over my order pad. Make me understand what the hell happened to you and why you're lying to your best friend for someone you've hardly ever exchanged words with."
"I can't." Santana's voice was hardly above a whisper, so torn between the world she's always known and the world she'd been asked to pretend didn't exist. "Please just trust me when I tell you that everything is fine."
"Trust works both ways."
"I trust you, I do, Mercedes."
"Obviously not enough." The anger in Mercedes voice faded to hurt, and she turned to walk away as Santana grabbed her arm.
"It's not my thing to tell."
"So there is a thing."
"Yes. No. I don't even know anymore. Can't you please just let it go?"
"No, I don't think I can. Whatever is going on, this isn't you, and I don't like it."
"So what, what are you going to do?" Santana crossed her arms across her chest in a defensive position and mustered every ounce of fight in her body to stare down Mercedes.
"Maybe I'll talk to someone who will actually listen to me."
"You wouldn't."
"You think I'm not caught up in whatever this is too? That when Sheriff Hummel asked me after you left if I knew the girl who went up to you? I covered your ass, Santana, for whatever reason it is that you lied to him. That makes me a damn good friend."
"I'm not saying you're not."
"Maybe not with words, but the way you're acting is saying something different."
"I asked you for time."
"Yeah, well that was before I saw this." She shook the order pad again, the only type of leverage Mercedes seemed to have in the situation, and she didn't back down from Santana's challenging stance.
"Twenty-four-hours. Please, I'll cover any shifts you want at the diner for the next year, I'll do your goddamn Spanish homework until we graduate. I am begging you right now for just a little bit more time before you turn on me. And you know I don't beg." Santana pleaded, unwilling to give up Brittany's secret without permission, even if she knew Mercedes would never reveal it if she just knew the truth, even if telling would be to keep Brittany safer.
"Before I turn on you? Who even are you right now?" Mercedes stared horror struck, wondering if she had already gotten herself in too deep, wondering if it was drugs, or the Mob, or some kind of Satanic cult (oh God, the irony after years of calling her best friend Satan), but even those things couldn't explain how Santana's blood, the dark kind, from a mortal wound, was on her order pad, and yet she was standing there, right as rain. "Fine, you've got one day, and then I'm doing whatever it takes to protect my ass, and probably yours too."
"Fine." Santana agreed, hoping that she wasn't making the stupidest mistake of her life.
Still visibly shaken from her encounter with Mercedes, Santana made her way into English class, mumbling some pathetic excuse to the teacher and taking her seat. She desperately needed to talk to Brittany, even though it had been less than eighteen hours since agreeing to do precisely not that. Unsure how to do it without knowing the girl's phone number, or much more about her than the single most important thing, and afraid to wait until after dark, when she could climb back through her window, Santana resorted to doing things the old fashioned way, she wrote a note. Pretending to make her way to the back of the room to sharpen a pencil, Santana discreetly set the folded paper down on top of Brittany's florescent pink notebook, another shiver passing through her body, and a flicker of heat flaring in her abdomen as she accidentally brushed Brittany's arm with her finger tips while doing so.
Brittany noticed that Santana came into class late, of course she noticed, and she'd frowned in spite of herself at the distraught look on the other girl's face when she'd chanced a look at her. When she watched Santana stand again a few moments later, she figured she'd just get a nice view of her ass in that skirt (nothing wrong with checking out the merchandise, even if you're absolutely forbidden from buying), but she was shocked to see Santana slip the smallest scrap of paper in front of her, and she was even more shocked when she glanced up at the front of the room, and then took a chance opening it. Meet me in the janitor's closet, 6th period. It's important. Underneath, she'd hastily scrawled something else, the writing much smaller than the rest. Reese's Pieces. Swallowing hard, Brittany almost smiled at the use of code, but then remembered that passing notes in class, sneaking off into the janitor's closet, and especially discussing what had transpired the night before was exactly the opposite of how they'd agreed to proceed. Rereading the note, Brittany felt another wave of panic come over her; It's important. What if Sheriff Hummel had asked her more questions? What if Santana had cracked under the pressure? Half expecting men in black suits to come rushing in, Brittany breathed a small sigh of relief when all seemed quiet.
"You came." Santana was half-surprised when Brittany opened the door to the janitor's closet ten minutes after sixth period had started, then turned the lock behind her. "Thanks."
"Well, it's my lunch, so...at least I wasn't cutting class or anything."
"I know. If it wasn't important, I wouldn't have asked you to come." Awkwardly, Santana dug through her bag, and upon closing her hand around the orange package, slowly slipped it out and handed it to Brittany. "In case you were hungry...or whatever."
"Thanks." Brittany felt her cheeks color at the small gesture, and she wished she could manipulate the molecular structure of her face so Santana wouldn't see the obvious effect she had on her. "So what's going on? Meeting in janitor's closets isn't exactly the normal behavior that we talked about."
"I know." Santana looked down, avoiding the burning gaze of blue eyes. Not an angry gaze, but what it was, she couldn't exactly place. "I think we might have a little problem with this whole normal thing."
"Santana-"
"Brittany, can I just talk for a second?" She knew that if Brittany started talking, she'd get all tripped up, and her fragile attempt at remaining calm after her meeting in the same janitor's closet hours early would shatter. Brittany simply nodded and Santana took a deep, desperate breath. "The problem with pretending like nothing happened, is that it actually did, and I don't think either of us thought about the fact that blood spatters."
"I cleaned up." Brittany said quickly, mentally checking down the floor, the side of the counter, Santana's dress, which even in her haste, she'd brushed her hand over on the way out of the diner.
"I thought so too. I thought there would be blood on my dress, but when I took it off, there was nothing there. Then Mercedes showed me her order pad."
"Fuck." Brittany hissed through gritted teeth. She wasn't one for profanity, but there was seriously no other way to release her frustration at herself, and her absolute fear that while she knew in her bones that she could trust Santana not to turn her in, telling the girl she'd known since birth was a different story, and she didn't know Mercedes from Adam (though she wasn't exactly sure what that expression meant, what Adam had to do with anything, or who Adam even was).
"I didn't tell her anything." Santana said quickly.
"Thank you." Brittany breathed a sigh of relief.
"It's not that simple, Brittany. I tried, I swear, I kept trying to tell her it was nothing, but she was staring down at my blood, blood that obviously didn't come from a paper cut, and she knows I lied to the sheriff."
"I'll take care of it." The blonde tried to sound more confident then she felt, but Santana saw right through it.
"There's more. Sheriff Hummel talked to her again after I left. He's really interested in who the mysterious girl in the diner was."
"Quinn was right." Brittany started, and Santana involuntarily shivered. Brittany was all but admitting that she should have just let her die. "No, no, no. I don't mean it like that. I would save your life again if it came to it. I mean she was right that this was going to end up being completely beyond my control."
The two of them stood across from each other, neither saying a word, so similar to the night before in Brittany's room. Santana had an idea, but she wasn't sure that Brittany would even want to hear it, and she was more than sure, even without knowing a thing about Quinn Fabray beyond the tiny details Brittany had told her, that the other blonde would most definitely not be okay with it, and that she'd probably kill Santana herself for even thinking it. Sam was a wild card, she knew nothing about him, besides the fact that he had ridiculously large lips and spend most of his time staring at Mercedes.
"We could-"
"No." Brittany cut Santana off before she could even finish the sentence, knowing exactly what the other girl was going to say.
"Just hear me out."
"I wasn't even supposed to tell you. I wasn't supposed to tell anyone. The more people that know, the more dangerous it is for all of us."
"I told her I needed twenty-four hours and then I'd give her answers."
"You shouldn't make promises that you can't keep. It's not your secret to tell."
"You think I don't know that?" Santana slammed her hands against the chemical counter that she was leaning against. "If it were, I would have told her when she dragged my ass in here earlier today. But I'm not going to betray you, I don't understand what you did to me, Brittany, but it was more than just healing a gunshot wound. I feel like pretending it never happened or not, I'm tied to you now, by something I don't even understand, and all I want to do is keep you safe."
"I've already told you what would keep me safe."
"And that's not going to work any more. She's going to go to Hummel if we don't tell her something, and I'm not going to be able to stop her."
"This is your rationale for why we should tell her? That she'll turn us in if we don't? That makes you think she's trustworthy?"
"Yes!" Santana was growing increasingly frustrated, because she couldn't force her words to make any sense. "I know her, Brittany. I know her better than I know anyone else. If she just could understand what's at stake, she'd be on your side. She cares about me, and she thinks I'm involved with something dangerous."
"Well that's exactly the problem here, isn't it?" Brittany looked away sadly.
"You're not the dangerous one." Santana said quietly. "You're obviously not if you risked everything just so I could be standing here right now."
"I didn't have a choice." She murmured back, even quieter than Santana had been, rational thought unable to halt the confession about to escape from her lips, somehow understanding the inexplicable tether that Santana had spoke about. "Not when it was you."
