The Road to Unicorn

by RainManWithBoobs

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted, for everyone you will ever meet is fighting some kind of battle that you can't see. Brittana.

16. On My Mind

xoxo - I laughed when I heard I made you like Will. I don't know how I do it, because I don't particularly like him in the show either, he's kind of creeped me out ever since I saw him singing this song to Sue to try and turn her on, and his butt was just… jiggling. In this story, his butt will always remain stationary. Ah Artie, I feel like with Artie, it would be really silly to give him a huge focus. I had the Artie experience, but I guess I'll have to not do canon with that, because… I'm not going to pretend we had much chemistry. I'm not sure any "Brittany's" have ever had chemistry with the "Artie" types. He was a perfect gentleman, our relationship was very safe and I learned much about computers from him so he is partly to blame for this story, and he'll probably get his half(?) chapter… but with Santana, it was like every inch of my body came alive and I couldn't wait to live. With Artie, there were no sparks like that. With canon in general, I don't know how close I'll be able to stay to it after the next chapter, but I do know I'm going to get to 'Sexy' and then all canon will be no more. Also, thank you in advance if you get through this 20k. I even cut stuff. So much happened in this one week. AND, thank you for suggesting Mercedes a review or so back, I think this story needed her so nobody dies from all the angst. :)

harumad -I really just love how you treat me like a friend, I always feel like you talk to me about my chapters as friend-to-friend rather than as reader-to-writer which is a rare thing to have. You encourage me, and tell me to be honest and write the truth without worrying about what people would say, and I think it's only a friend who would say that kind of thing. :) Besides, this story is so personal that you can't help but to 'know' me, and I feel like the video was so personal too, that I saw into you. I've had all the professionals tell me that I will never have the ability to understand whether someone is or isn't my friend because apparently that kind of social skill is way too complex for me, and I will always get it wrong. But, I swear I'm right this time. Speaking of the video, I still haven't managed to watch it without crying yet. I'm getting there. :P It is just so beautiful though, and I guess I'm just really emotional from this chapter. Anyway, you take care.

Puff614 - Some great comments from you! I too, wish that Brittany could rap every week, because I have it on good authority that she already does in real life. She is pretty good at Ice Ice Baby/Under Pressure, and Billionaire. :P I really love what a great friend you are. I can always tell by your comments how selfless and compassionate you would be to a friend who needed you. Maybe it's completely insane, but I've had this unicorn toy since I was born that I took everywhere with me. I used to pretend she was real and play in the sandbox with her when nobody else would play with me, and I'd always get a warm feeling looking at her painted smile, because I truly believed that if she really were real, she could never not be a good friend to me, even if she tried. Every time I've tried to picture you, I've always imagined you look like my little unicorn, made real and human, because to me, I also think you represent the same thing; you could never not be a good friend to anyone, even if you tried. I just signed the word 'friend' to you just now (you'll find out what I mean by the end of this chapter) :) Ps. I had to leave Santana not knowing about the slushie, because I wasn't creative enough to figure out how she might have found out. In real life I got a few inches cut off my hair instead of getting a slushie. I said nothing, but the minute Santana saw me, she knew, because I hate haircuts as they involve bright lights and strangers touching me, so I so rarely got them done, and she nearly always came with me. She was more upset than I was in the end. I think she was partly angry that anyone thought they had the power to 'deface' what was hers, and for the rest just sad that every time she looked at me she could see other people's hate on her 'girl that barely hated anyone' as she said many times. That moment actually impacted the final scene in this chapter a lot, though I didn't mention it.

Prattle01 – So glad to see you back! I was about to send a stampede of unicorns off as a search party to find you, and save you from the darkness of life without the net. :P Haha! I'm glad I got you into Brittany's music choices. I do dance, and my class did "Build me up Buttercup" minus the rap when I was eight, and I stole a few moves from that routine, lol. Mr Schue keeps suggesting she should sing something sensible though, at some point she might actually take his advice. Hope you enjoy this update!

taeblancaxoxo - What you said about Santana dealing with all that pain, and how incredible it was that her first thought still managed to be about how Brittany would cope with her attempt, really resonated with me, because I felt exactly the same way. I felt like I really shouldn't expect anything from her, because if someone is at the point where they feel they could take their own life, you really can't expect that person to babysit you, because they don't even take care of themselves. If I had worked up even a tiny amount of resentment towards her for hurting me in the years prior to her suicide attempt, it seemed to fall away then, and it made all the times she had been there for me when she was obviously feeling like shit herself, mean so much more. So I really, really, liked that comment you made. Thanks so much for what you said about me sharing this, I really appreciate it, because I swear the hardest thing I will ever do this week is click 'upload chapter' …but if you're reading this, I must have got there in the end!

Lady Greyseal - A new Unicorn Club member! I would totally appoint you to sum up our club meetings because that summary of nine chapters was really awesome, really getting to the heart of it. I could never have done it that well. I loved your comment and being in tears and in laughter, because I actually wanted to list this story under both the angst and humor categories, but didn't, because I figured people would think I'd gone mad, even though I swear life is like that, always such a mixed bag of conflicting emotions. I could probably have picked about ten categories, actually. Anyway, thank you very much for writing to me, to think this story has the power to get you to even reevaluate your life blows my mind, and it's definitely why I keep writing it. :)

Ascoeur -You don't need to be sorry! I appreciate all reviews short or long, because sometimes, even giving up a couple of minutes to write a shorter view is a huge percentage of a really busy person's free time and energy, especially if they're at college! So your reviews are totally perfect as they are, and I always love your enthusiasm. :)

And ram0008, gracielovesyou and Miara848, thank you for going through this with me. I know that sounds strange, but I cried the whole time writing the last chapter (and also this one) and it means a lot to me that I had people who cried with me so I wasn't alone in that.

People who just felt it all with me, are awesome too, thank you SuperCarmen!

And sadpanda15, I love your name so bad :) And after8icecream, a psychologist actually told me that explanation for empathy not so long ago :)

I really wanted to take the time to write back properly to everyone this week, and I hope I didn't miss anybody. This chapter is just so long that I'm not sure it I want to call the length outstanding or horrifying. Perhaps horrifying. Everything in it relates and has a point at the end, though, so it couldn't be split into two chapters.

I also wanted to mention there are over 100 unicorns following this story, and now that is outstanding!

In other news I've been trying to make a cover for this fic all week because FFN was like 'we recommend you use a cover' but what I made looked like a three year old did it in paint so I tried, but may have to give up on that venture, because I am truly hopeless. :P

Oh, and I'm about to have a sly dig at the writers of Glee again in Brittany, Present. I enjoy any opportunity to slap them with a symbolic chicken cutlet. :P

---

Chapter 16 – On My Mind

Brittany S. Pierce, Present

If I were on TV, I would hate to be one of those stuck, stagnant characters that never seem to change from season to season. You know, kind of like Joey from Full House. That guy planned to temporarily move in with his best friend and help him with his daughters. But, in the eight years that show was on the air, he never moved out or had a proper long term relationship with anyone over the age of ten, or seemed to grow up in any way.

Santana and I both think that the character 'Willow' in Buffy the Vampire Slayer is totally the opposite of that. She grew and evolved from season to season, and we loved that, because that's what real people do.

You know what would be my nightmare? Selling the rights of my life story to a TV show, and having a whole team of screenwriter people devoted to writing my lines, but never seeing my onscreen character ever grow and change for the better or learn from her mistakes. Maybe she wouldn't even get enough screen time to ever have a chance to do that. It would suck to be treated as a big joke or as just a plot device, instead of as a realistic character.

Every now and then, real people get stuck too, going around in circles and never reaching the next step. I've heard it called a rut. Santana and I were in a rut. It was this routine over and over; we'd make a little progress together, she'd get scared, we'd fight, she'd get defensive, I'd spiral into a period of self loathing and blame myself for doing the 'stupid' thing that had made us fight in the first place, then we'd make up and the whole cycle would begin again. Two steps forward, two steps back, two steps forward, two steps back.
Something had to change. Change can be good.

I was in a rut all of my own. I let Santana do everything for me, depending on her for even the most basic things. I guess you could say I needed her to even cross the street. I couldn't make choices without her, even ones that only affected my life and not hers, and I had not even begun to accept my own circumstances. You can't take control of autism and make the best of it, if you refuse to believe you have it at all.

I was definitely verging on Joey from Full house.

Maybe it was a beautiful, dysfunctional world I lived in, with Hakuna Matata and no sense of reality and responsibilities, but it's those kinds of people who shouldn't be in a real relationship with other people.

When Santana attempted suicide, I looked at her like she had to be in a rut too. I figured that now she had gone that far, that final step would be included at the conclusion of every difficult season of her life. I feared so desperately that one day she would succeed, series finale. I guess my brain was too simple to realize that just because she had done it once, that didn't necessarily mean she planned to do it again. Rules and routines aren't a part of her world like they are mine.

As flawed as my logic was, and as slow as I was on the uptake, nothing can change the fact that those long days where losing her was always on my mind, were still very real to me.

It was that pain that eventually brought me to understand something I never had before:

There can be no growth without change. There can be no change without some kind of fear or loss. There can never be fear or loss without pain.

So, I guess pain makes us grow.

Maybe the odds were so against us, that we both needed to get to our lowest points, to truly push past that and move forward. There is no lower point than making an attempt on your life, and for me, there was no lower point than being faced with the fear of losing Santana, my whole world.

I think if my character on this mysterious fictional show went through a lot of pain in one season, then there is no way she would be the same after it. She'd have to either lay down and give up, or go forward. Imagine if they still had my character unable to cross the street by herself, unsure of how to lock doors, and still failing every single subject by the third season? What if they wrote that after three years of sitting in all her classes and trying really hard, she still could only get a 0.0 GPA? What if she were still stuck using other people's words to tell her girlfriend how she felt, or worse, what if she didn't speak at all? Oh, this is all hypothetical, but how silly would that be?

Real people grow. Real people learn.

And sure, people with autism get stuck in ruts more than anyone, and change is always so hard won, but it happens.

Santana and I are different. She tends to struggle her way through childhood to adulthood stages like a caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly. After completing each stage she moves on, unable to return to how she was before. I think that's normal.

When I finally made it out of my rut, I realized that I was not a butterfly, but a shapeshifter. I go backwards and forwards to the beginning, middle and end of my road at any given moment. I don't exactly understand why, but I think it's because like I told you, I never forget anything, so every experience stays inside me, able to be relived at any time and retold in its entirety. Santana says I can seem four one moment, and in my early twenties the next, but she said that when it counted and when she needed me, I usually got to the right place.

It took me a long time to realize that trying to kill access to my beautiful dysfunctional childhood words of old was impossible, and in time I ceased beating myself up about it. The important thing was, that I had achieved enough growth that I could join Santana in the real world when it counted, and we could fly as butterflies together in the times when she needed to not fly alone.

---

Brittany S. Pierce, age 17.

"Brittany! Brittany!" Santana cried out, as the nurses rushed around her, trying to decide the best course of action in treating her.

"She keeps saying that," Maria complained to them, sitting in a chair roughly a foot away from Santana, "I think it's one of her friends or something."

"Brittany," Santana moaned, "get Brittany."

One nurse who was checking Santana's vitals and hooking her up to an IV, looked her over. She was conscious, so she could give her the charcoal, rather than use more invasive procedures. That was a good thing. She signaled the staff to get everything ready and turned back to the dark haired girl.
She was probably barely sixteen, she thought sadly. She swore that the patients she treated for attempted suicide were getting younger every year.
"Your name is Santana, right?" she asked.

"Yes," Santana looked at them through her tears.

"My name is Claire," the nurse said kindly, "can you tell me how many pills you took?"

"One hundred… two thousand," Santana mumbled, "I really don't know."

Claire gathered the empty bottles and packets that Maria had collected off the bathroom floor before they left, and showed them to her, "Is this all of them?"

"Yes," Santana sniffled, "where's Brittany?"

"Santana have you thrown up?" Claire asked.

"Yes she has," Maria said, "we had to pull over on the way here."

She couldn't help but grimace at the memory. She knew all the nurses were looking at her like she was a terrible mother, but they didn't know what she had to deal with on a day-to-day basis. Of course Maria cared that her daughter was lying on a hospital bed, and that she'd been in tears the whole drive here, right up until she'd yelled for Maria to pull over because she was going to be sick. Maria knew she cared, but she felt overwhelmed, her feelings distant, and displaced. She'd been in over her head for a long time, and had given up on trying to figure out what to do with her daughter years ago. Santana had been only six when she started getting in fights at school, and it was all too much. What could be done with a daughter like that?

"Brittany!" Santana's voice had risen to a thin wail.

One of the other nurses softened, her heart breaking for her. "Can we reach her friend?" she asked Maria.

"I don't know. I don't really know her friends."

"Santana," Claire said passing her a phone, "do you want to quickly call your friend and get her to come and sit with you before we start?"

Santana shook her head. She had already tried many times on the way to the hospital. She knew Brittany had lost her cell phone, so she could only call her on her home line. Mrs Pierce had answered the first three times, and had angrily reminded Santana that she wasn't allowed near her daughter, then she had taken the phone off the hook. The last time she had called, Santana had heard Brittany's voice in the background asking who it was. Mrs Pierce had told her it was a telemarketer 'selling porn and other obscenities.' So that's how Mrs Pierce sees me, Santana thought. She didn't care about that right now. She hated hospitals and she just wanted to see Brittany.

"I don't know how," Santana said in a small voice, "I don't know how to reach her."

Maria sighed, and then came closer until she was sitting directly beside her daughter. Santana turned her head to face her.

"I can't deal with this," Maria said, not wanting to be here, "you didn't have to go so far and do… this."
She remembered that the last time she had been to the hospital with Santana, was the day she had given birth to her. Santana had been premature, which she guessed was technically her fault.

"Get this thing out of me!" a heavily pregnant Maria screamed, trying to wave the nurses over.

"Mrs Lopez, you're not due for at least a week, maybe longer. Please be patient. Come and sit down, you must not over exert yourself. We'll call your husband," a nurse said trying to calm her down.

"Fuck waiting, I want it out now!" Maria demanded.

Marco, she thought, half vengeful, half wistful. If she waited a week, she was sure this kid inside her would be born the very same day her older brother had taken his own life, almost a year prior. She had never understood Marco, he had been a strange, moody presence in her family home growing up, content to pass the hours in his room alone, always on the wrong side of the law when he actually decided to join the world. He'd never moved out of their Mami's house.
It had been on a typical, boring day that Maria had visited her mother and brother. Marco had poured himself some cereal, and had eaten it slowly while they sat together in silence, occasionally making comments about current affairs on the news. Within the hour, he had gone and jumped off a bridge in the next town. Maria did not want her baby born on the same day that he had died. It seemed a bad omen, as if part of Marco's spirit could transfer to her baby somehow, and he or she would grow up as reckless and difficult as he had. "I can't have this kid born on the same day my brother died, I just can't," she said.

"The procedure is not recommended for the child," the nurse said, "he or she isn't quite ready yet. Think of your baby's safety."

"I don't care," Maria muttered, not caring if the nurse heard her or not, "I just don't care. What about what I want? Did Marco ever think about what it would do to us when he jumped?"
She wouldn't give birth to a tiny version of him, she didn't care if she had to stand here all night, she would have this kid out of her by tomorrow morning, one way or another.

"You know Santana, you've always reminded me of someone, but I could never figure out who," Maria said to her as the nurses readied Santana's medication.

Santana looked at her fearfully, scared by what her mother might say, and even more terrified by what the nurses might be intending that she do next. She wished she had someone to hold her hand.

"But now, as I sit here and look at you, I guess it's my brother," Maria concluded, sighing.

Santana knew about Uncle Marco. She had always felt so connected to him, even though she knew he had died before she was born. She didn't know where he was buried, but sometimes, she went to just any cemetery to talk to him. There were several cemeteries in Lima with thousands of graves, and she could spend her life going through them all and still never find him. She wasn't sure why she liked talking to a dead guy so much, but she'd always felt like he knew what she was going through, and that made her feel calmer. He was at peace now and sometimes she imagined that he was there, letting that feeling wash over her too. When she'd told Brittany that, Brittany had insisted that the feeling was called 'dancing.'

When she was small, she used to sometimes find Abuela crying over a old picture of her Uncle late at night. He looked to be about three years old in the photo, with chubby cheeks.

"Ab-way-a?" four year old Santana asked, coming into her Abuela's room, pronouncing her name wrong like she always did.

"It's the middle of the night, go back to bed," Alma said, giving her a little push, and quickly hiding the photo she'd had in her hands.

"But I can't sleep," Santana whined. Her ear hurt and she felt hot. She didn't want to go back to that dark room with the strange posters on the wall by herself. She could hear the spiders moving around in her closet, and the music box she kept winding up to fill the silence only lasted so long.

"You should get some sleep, because Mami is coming to pick you up tomorrow," Alma told her. She hadn't seen her daughter or son-in-law in almost an entire year, and neither had Santana.

"Mami?" Santana said, mixed emotions playing on her face.

Alma nodded.

"And, Papi too?" Santana asked, her face suddenly shining with excitement.

Alma shrugged. "I don't know."

She had no idea if Santana's parents were currently together and trying to work things out, or if he'd left her daughter again. Good-for-nothing son-in-law she thought, fuming. She hoped they got divorced; her daughter could do so much better. Maria had rung her yesterday and had told her that she was coming to take Santana back for now, but she hadn't mentioned if Carlos was there or not.

Santana began crying, one hand over her ear which was still throbbing, and the other trying to wipe her tears away. Abuela hated tears.
"Nobody wants me," she said, pulling at the ends of her long hair. She wished that she could be perfect, because then her Mami, Papi and Abuela would all live together happily, instead of them having to run away from her all the time. They had all gone fishing the day before Santana had ended up at Abuela's place full time. Santana had been running around everyone's legs and had tripped Papi up in her excitement, and he had hurt himself, landing on a rock. She had screamed and cried then, and had also fussed when they couldn't keep the fish they had caught. She knew that was why they had left her. Abuela was the only one who could stand to keep her, but she knew that she was never the person Abuela really wanted to see.
"You only love the little boy," Santana said jealously, pulling the old grainy photo out from under Alma's pillow. He was the only kid Abuela wanted living in that funny smelling room with all the strange naked people magazines under the bed where Santana now slept. She wondered who he was, she had never seen him before.

"Don't touch that! ¡no toques! I mean it!" Alma yelled, swatting Santana's hand away from the old picture. It was the only one she had of Marco that wasn't of him scowling. He had never taken nice pictures as an adult. She didn't want Santana to ruin it, she was like a little wave of destruction sometimes.

She would be glad to get a break from her. The constant whining, the running in her house, the 'where's mami and papi,' and all the dirt and messiness had long since got on her nerves. Her house wasn't baby proof. Today, Santana had broken some of her most prized possessions, including a rare early edition copy of The Wizard of Oz. She had threatened to sell Santana to make up for some of the cost.

Santana had just wanted to look at the pictures because they were different to the ones in her cartoon storybook. She had worked hard to get it out of the cabinet carefully, but the pages were old, frail and brittle. Before she had known it, she had torn one, and Abuela was shouting at her that they were going to the market tomorrow and she was going to leave Santana there with the man with the fattest wallet.

Santana began crying in earnest now, and started backing out the room, tripping over her feet. To her surprise, her Abuela's angry resolve fell away at the sight, and she stopped her, blocking her way and kneeling down in front of her, grabbing a Kleenex and beginning to clean her face almost tenderly. The child's eyes widened, unused to the affectionate touch, and instantly craving more of it.

What is the English way of saying their child was not clean? Could you use the word garbage or dirty to describe her? Alma wondered, and what was the difference? Alma went with the former. "Mija, my little garbage monster. You know I like you," she said gruffly, picking her up.
Ever since she'd lost Marco, Alma had found it hard to feel anything for anyone, and she wasn't sure she could ever love again. But now there was Santana, and she would still try to take care of her. All Alma had left to give, just had to be enough. Someone had to at least try and put Santana first, because Maria never had done so herself. Her daughter had even dragged this kid out of her body before she was good and ready, Alma thought, adjusting Santana on her lap. Santana had ended up being born about ten days premature and had come out almost blue, her breathing rated as critical. She hadn't been ready to see her mother then, and she wasn't ready to see her mother now, Alma thought.

She would have expected Santana to be more excited about seeing her mother after all this time, but the little girl didn't seem happy at all. She had her head buried into her shoulder and was clinging to her so tightly that Alma didn't think she could pry her off if she tried. Santana's nose was running and the wetness, mixed with her tears, was getting all over her best blouse. Alma had never even thought to change clothes for bed, not after she'd begin to feel the pull of her own reminiscing some hours before. What would be the point of dressing for bed, if she couldn't sleep?
I will have to change now, she thought, trying not to mind.

"Don't cry now, my little garbage face," she said rubbing the child's back.
This child was almost permanently dirty and messy, she complained to herself. She could never keep her face clean, and it only got worse when she was crying. Where are my welfare checks, she wondered, untangling Santana's hair.

Santana kept crying, pressing her ear to Abuela's cheek, moaning in discomfort. She didn't want to go back with just Mami, what if she had one of those strange men over again to sleep in Papi's side of the bed? What if she kept dragging Santana to all those parties again, with the big ladies that smelled like flowers, their hair piled high on top of their heads. She liked it much better when Papi was there, because that meant that she could play quietly with him in the corner. He wasn't into crowds. When he wasn't there, she had to follow Mami around until the sun was gone, and she was so sleepy she couldn't walk anymore. The big ladies pinched her cheeks, and only offered her fancy food for dinner that she couldn't eat. At least Abuela always tried to make sure she was well fed (even if she kind of went overboard) and made sure she got to sleep by at least eight o'clock. She didn't want to go back with Mami. The last time she had been taken to one of those parties, she'd managed to fall asleep in the punch bowl, ruining her new dress, and Mami had yelled at her the whole way home. Why couldn't she stay here? Where was Papi? Why wasn't anything fair?

Seeing that Santana wasn't going to settle down, Alma began singing to her. She knew Santana loved that song from The Wizard of Oz, even if she hadn't made it all the way through the movie yet, because she was afraid of the witch. "Detras del arcoiris, rumbo al sol, mas alla de las nubes, hay mucho mas que amor," she sung, seeing the child finally calm down, leaning her head against her chest, listening.

"There's no place like home, Mija," Alma said quoting the movie, "you'll be happy with Mami."

Santana whimpered. She didn't think so. She'd lived in so many places that she wasn't sure where her home even was. She wasn't sure who was really supposed to take care of her. If only she was perfect, then maybe somebody would finally bring her home.

If Alma's heart had died with Marco, then so had Maria's. She'd been too involved with Marco, too invested in someone without the will to keep himself alive. When she saw parts of him in others, she couldn't face that. She'd been through Marco once, she couldn't do it again. She'd prefer to think those parts didn't exist. She'd always thought that maybe if she ignored Santana enough, it would all go away.
"Marco," Maria said, "you have his eyes and his stubborn streak, and something else I can't put my finger on."

She shook her head, trying to clear her mind. This was all in her face, why was Santana making her go through this again?

As the nurses handed her a plastic basin, Santana talked fast, trying to keep her thoughts coherent. "I'm sorry I can't be perfect, mom. I wish all the time my best was good enough. But, I didn't do what Tomas said. Please don't let him come back to our house. Please believe me just this one time."

"Let's not talk about that now, Santana," Maria said, gingerly patting her hand.

Santana nodded. That response was the best she could hope for anyway. Her mother never could admit out loud when she was wrong.

"I'll book you in to see someone, or something. This isn't something I can deal with," Maria repeated, her mantra for the night.

Santana closed her eyes, feeling her mother's fingertips brush her knuckles. If she pretended hard enough, she could pretend it was Brittany holding her hand. She would do whatever the nurses said to get the poison out of her system, because if she died, Brittany's heart might die with her, just as her mom and Abuela's had with Uncle Marco.

"I'm sorry I can't be perfect," she said again, this time to Brittany, who was miles away. Santana hoped that she was sleeping soundly in her bed, completely unaware, and having the most pleasant of dreams.

---

The next week began with Brittany's birthday. She was super happy because her mom had said she could have the day off school, and she'd given Lord T and Senor festive party hats to get everyone in a celebratory kind of mood. She'd been searching all day now and had finally found her lost phone in the fridge. It made sense now, that a tuna sandwich had been found on her bedside table in her phone's place. She wondered if she'd been sleepwalking again or if her cats had something to do with it. Since she had found it, she'd been waiting around for Santana to call her, hoping so hard they could make up.

She'd been given a couple of birthday presents so far. There were a couple of books on learning social skills from her mom. She didn't want to be ungrateful so she tried not to mind, but she had been hoping for the one she'd seen in the bookstore with photos of different cloud shapes, or a new animal book. Katie had bought her tickets to the ice skating rink which was so awesome, so that made up for it. Kurt had given her his present early, a unicorn onesie for adults, which was even more awesome. But, if she was honest, she just wanted the person she loved most to call her. That would be the best present of all.

Flicking through her social skills books, and finding them confusing, she leapt on the phone the minute it started ringing.

"Hi Brittany," Tina said cheerfully.

"Oh!" Brittany said, more than a little disappointed, but trying not to let on. She remembered that she had to be entertaining over the phone or people would stop listening, so she tried to think of something she could say.
"Hello Tina. Hey, I meant to tell you the other day about this really funny story."

"Never mind that," Tina said abruptly, "did you hear about Santana?"

Brittany went silent. Their secret was out. But who told? It could have been Mercedes, but Brittany really doubted it. Mercedes was too cool for that, she might be the only one in the whole Glee club who was above spreading rumors. Santana was so paranoid that she couldn't see that. Brittany guessed that it was Lauren and those other wrestling team girls who had told everyone what had happened on the party line.

Santana was not going to like this at all. No wonder she wasn't calling her for her birthday.

"Um, Brittany? I guess you don't know. My mom's a nurse, right? So I know that Santana was treated for an OD over the weekend. She is such a drama queen. I mean, can you believe that she'd even do that?"

Brittany searched her brain for what Tina might mean. The words 'nurse' and 'treated' worried her because that usually meant time in a…

"Santana was in hospital?" she asked carefully. So this wasn't about what happened at school? Lauren and her friends hadn't told after all?

"Yeah. And she was mopey as anything. Totally emo. I mean, how is it that I'm the one called an attention seeker all the time, when all I do is express myself a little through my style of dress, and she just gets away with stunts like that. Hang on I'll add Rachel to this conversation, she can't believe it either," Tina said.
She thought all this was pretty exciting, not much happened in their small town, and maybe this would finally win Brittany over to their side. If that happened, she couldn't wait to see Santana squirm. It would take her massive ego down a few notches to no longer have Brittany trailing after her for good.

"A stunt?" Brittany repeated, her mind going fuzzy. I missed motorcross practice last Friday, maybe she filled in for me, she thought worried. It's so dangerous for a beginner, she must have got hurt.
"Is she okay," Brittany said, urgently.

"Yep. I went to visit mom, and while I was there I like looked in on her, and she was being so gross," Tina said, remembering with a shudder, "and it was actually like she wanted me to stay with her or something because nobody else was there, but I was like hello, I don't want to hang around here, who wants to spend time hospital if they don't have to?"

Rachel interjected, finally speaking up, having been added to the line at least five minutes ago, "It's obviously just for attention. I would know. I'm just so sick of Santana thinking she rules the school. People should be worshipping me and my talent, not her ever-unimpressive boobs. I'll be on Broadway while she's stuck at hooters, and not even as one of their highest paid girls."

"Yeah," Tina said. "ignore her Brittany. You're better than her."

"Santana's got great boobs," Brittany said dully, still trying to make sense of this. Pills, Brittany thought. OD, Overdose, she realized, feeling physically knocked backwards as she took it in.

"She didn't tell me," she told Tina and Rachel in a small voice, realizing two things simultaneously, one big and one small. Santana had tried to kill herself, and these girls weren't really her friends. They flocked to where the drama was and ran with it. They only knew the meaning of friend when it suited them. They didn't care about Brittany. She had been so stupid not to see that. All they'd wanted to do was keep Brittany away from Santana just to see how it would play out. There were only two things that could make Brittany hate someone; people lying and being fake and people hurting Santana. They had just checked both boxes.

"Oh, so you haven't had to listen to her sob story yet, lucky you!" Rachel said, laughing.

"Who else have you told," Brittany asked slowly and carefully, making sure her voice was controlled.

"Nobody yet," they said in unison.

"You were first on our list," Rachel added.

Brittany summoned all her courage. "Tina and Rachel, if you tell anyone, I will hurt you," she said addressing them solemnly, copying what Santana usually said. She paused. She could tell they were stunned into silence.
She then tried to find her own words. "I don't think I knew what hate was before this conversation, but I do now," she said simply, hanging up.

Minutes later her phone rang again. Numbly, Brittany checked caller ID. It was Santana. She tried, but she couldn't bring herself to answer, and the call rang out.

It was Santana's fifth time calling, before Brittany finally picked up.

"Hello," she whispered.

"Hi Britt," Santana said softly, and Brittany could tell her voice was shaking, "look, i've done something and you're not going to like it."

"I know," Brittany told her, the heaviness in her tone revealing she knew what Santana was about to say.

"Okay," Santana said, surprised. Tina, she thought angrily.

"Okay," Brittany said back.

It seemed like Santana wanted to say something more, but eventually as the silence grew, she decided she couldn't. "I've got to go," she said finally.

"Okay," Brittany said again, waiting for Santana to hang up.

When she did, the click sounded loud and jarring to Brittany, and she looked at the phone as if she had never seen it before.

All she could hear now was the dial tone. She felt hollow, as if she had already lost Santana, because she was sure that it wouldn't be long until Santana tried it again. Someone who had practiced something once, only got better at doing it a second time. Everyone knew that.

She leaned into her pillow and began to cry soundlessly, without tears.

She wasn't sure how much time passed by, she guessed it could have been hours.

Some time later still, she was surprised when Katie came and lay down with her, curling her body around her protectively, crossing her feet at Brittany's knees. She seemed surprised when Brittany accepted her touch so readily, leaning into her embrace. They both still easily fit on her single bed together, with plenty of space. Brittany knew that they wouldn't fit on here one day. Katie would probably be taller than her when she was an adult, she was growing so fast.

"I overheard on the other line. I'm sorry. I'm sorry your friend tried to do that," Katie told her. Brittany wasn't sure if she was just sorry about what she'd heard, or if she was sorry about not respecting Brittany's privacy, or both.

"It's okay," Brittany said monotonously. It was the third time she'd said that word now. She added a nod to go with it this time.

"Why aren't you freaking out?" Katie asked bluntly.
You always freak out about everything, she thought silently in her head, trying to understand her older sister who she knew could cry for hours over a dead cat on the side of the road. Why not now?

"It happens when it happens," Brittany mumbled, "if you force yourself to cry, then I think it ruins feeling the emotion, because you're probably crying so everyone else can see you fall to pieces. I know I feel it and that's what matters. Sometimes those feelings spill out of me, and become something you can see too, but that's only because it's the right time for me to feel with my whole body."

Katie nodded, trying to be nice, although what Brittany had said hadn't exactly fitted into her world of team sports and pre-teen sitcom stars, where issues didn't get much deeper than her soccer ball going flat before a game. Katie's world never got that complicated, except of course for when it came to Brittany. Brittany had always made things complicated.

She'll be eleven soon, Brittany realized. Katie had carried the weight of having to be the successful child in the family since she was very young, but she had always taken it all in stride, confidently filling the gaps Brittany left in her parent's eyes. Her grades were good, she had a trophy cabinet literally packed with sports trophies, and she always seemed to have it all together, acting like she was years older than her age. Maybe carrying all that weight ages you faster, Brittany wondered, peering at her little sister. She was wearing one of those scratchy too-tight dresses that Brittany could never wear herself.

After a short while Katie nudged her, opening her mouth and closing it several times as if she wasn't sure what she wanted to say.
"Mom says that when I'm older, I'll have to take care of you, sis," Katie whispered to her, "she said that you will never be able to live by yourself, and that I have to make sure you remember to eat and do your taxes and stuff, and change all your light bulbs. Just so you know, I will do that. You don't have to worry, I'll handle it. I will take care of you."

Brittany turned to look at her. Katie's young face was the picture of unhappy resignation, and Brittany had never seen her like that before. Brittany had seen that look on Santana's face many times; it was how a person looked when they felt like their future was already decided for them, and they wished they had a choice. From the moment she'd met her, Santana had never thought she'd become much more than trash. What did Katie want to be?

They think I've got no future, Brittany suddenly realized, understanding that they all thought that meant there was also no future for Katie. You could never be free if from the moment you had been born, it was already decided that you had to assist your older sister. Katie's mouth was set in a thin, determined line as she curled an arm around Brittany's body, with the air of a parent to a child. It was easy to forget how young she really was, and how much older Brittany was to her, so Brittany vowed then and there that she never would.

Brittany had never felt like much of a big sister. It had usually been Katie teaching her how to do things instead, and standing up for her in the playground when she could. That was what big sisters are supposed to do, not little sisters, Brittany thought.

Brittany turned so they were facing each other, long blonde hair splaying out on the pillows beside them and joining to meet at the ends. She shook her head slightly.
"Katie, I won't let you do that. I never taught you how to ride a bike because it took me longer to learn than you did. I never read to you at night because you didn't really want to hear about stuff like the life cycle of a penguin every night, and by the time I figured out you'd probably rather hear little kid's books, you'd grown out of them. I took a lot of mom's time. All that time she spent yelling at me trying to teach me to follow her rules could have been time spent with you."
Brittany paused, thinking it over. "I guess there's also been a lot of times where we did what I wanted, instead of what you wanted, like how you've had to eat a lot of spaghetti for family dinners, because I don't eat much else," Brittany admitted.
"But I do love you. Very much. And, maybe the best way to show you is to set you free. You keep your future, Katie," Brittany promised her, "I'll be okay. I'll make it so I'm okay."
Maybe protecting her future makes up a bit for not protecting her in the past, Brittany thought.

Sudden tears shone in Katie's eyes. "It doesn't make me happy, you know," she said.

"What doesn't?"

"All that stuff. Beating you at everything. Everything sucking."

"I know, Katie," Brittany said gently, "it's okay, I know."

"Even when we were learning to ride bikes, I wanted to fall off a bunch of times more than I ever did, just so you could sort of catch up. When my friends keep asking me why you're weird, sometimes it hurts because I want them to look up to you like everyone does with my friend Joni's sister who can drive and has like ten boyfriends at a time. I feel guilty when mom yells at you and says I'm perfect, because I'm not. She's just praising me because I'm not you, and I hate that, because I hate seeing you cry over not being like me. I guess that's why I think it should be me. I'm the one who should be responsible for you in the end, because if you weren't you, you would be like me," Katie said going dangerously close to talking about Brittany's disorder.
"It could have been me and not you," Katie said with more feeling than Brittany had ever seen her use before, "I feel bad sometimes that it wasn't me. That I'm the normal one and you're not."

I'm probably the most difficult part of her life, Brittany realized, suddenly.
She held her sister's hand, making sure to look into her eyes. They looked alike, but Katie's hair was curly at the ends and her eyes were just starting to look more green than blue. And that was just on the outside. She was definitely her own person, just as Brittany was her own person too.
"Being Brittany isn't all that bad," she told her finally, "I have good parts and bad parts, just like everyone else, only maybe more extreme. When I feel good I feel really good, and when I feel bad I feel horrible."
It seemed important to her that Katie knew that. There was so much out there in the world that was much harder than her life. She shook her head. She didn't want Katie to feel bad for her at all, it didn't seem right.
"I'm either hopeless or an expert at stuff. So maybe I'll be an expert at doing my taxes one day," she joked, "and you'll wonder why you worried. Maybe I'll even be president."

Katie smiled at her, the tension in her posture suddenly relaxing. With Brittany's sensitivity to everything, she had always seemed so fragile, and Katie had never considered calling her sister brave, but maybe she really was tougher than even Katie was herself. Above all, she believed what had just been said. Brittany always told the truth.

"So don't worry about me. I'll have a future, same as you," Brittany said, her smile fading when she realized that she may not be able to say the same thing about Santana. As her feelings finally took control of her body she burst into tears, and she felt Katie hug her as tight as she could. It was different this time, it was like Katie was caring for her because she wanted to, not because she thought she'd always have to.

"I'm sorry about your friend," Katie said, kissing Brittany's salty cheek, understanding in that moment that her sister was dealing with things that she could never understand. Without a shadow of any doubt, Katie realized that even though it was hard to see, there really was a strength inside of her sister, that she had never noticed before.

---

"Santana!" Brittany cried out, trying to get her attention. There were four vampires holding Santana still, ignoring her as she struggled against them, and another six pinning Brittany down on the floor.

"Let me go!" Santana shouted, "or I'll go all Lima Heights!"

The vampires laughed.

"Hear that?" one vampire said, "this puny mortal thinks that her bad neighborhood actually compares to the underworld?"

"Santana! Don't look into their eyes!" Brittany called, kicking out against the vampire on top of her, "you'll lose yourself again and you'll become…,"

Santana stopped struggling, and sagged against the vampires, who all grinned triumphantly. She opened her eyes and while they were still brown, she looked almost entirely different.

She wasn't Santana anymore, Brittany realized. She looked more like Faith, the rogue vampire slayer. Whenever they watched Buffy together, Santana always commented that she liked Buffy or Willow best, but Brittany disagreed. Her favorite character by far was Faith, but she guessed that was only because she reminded her of Santana. They were both super hot, but they also had the same reckless abandon and disregard for themselves, the same hidden vulnerability and the same fighting spirit.

Brittany jumped to her feet, and began staking the vampires left, right and centre until they exploded into a cloud of dust and they were alone again.

Brittany reached a hand out to Santana but she refused it, putting both of her hands around the ornate handle of the knife which was sticking out of her stomach. Brittany hadn't noticed it before. How long had it been there? she wondered.

Santana shook her head at her. "What did you think, I'd wake up and we'd go for tea? You tried to gut me, Blondie, are you here to finish the job?"

"I didn't, Santana! I never meant to do this to you. I'm sorry! I should never have left you alone. I shouldn't have spent so much time with everyone else when you needed me. I don't even like Rachel, I swear."

"Funny that, you spent a lot of time looking out for her and trying to protect her from me," Santana said

"I was trying to protect you from you," Brittany moaned.

"Yeah, well a lot of good that did. You hurt me, I hurt you. I'm just a little more efficient at hurting myself. You might as well have stabbed me in the gut, B, because you stabbed me in the back when you told everyone about us!"

"I didn't mean to," Brittany said helplessly, "I swear."

"Whatever. I could do anything to you now, and you'd want me to. I could make you scream. I could make you die. I could make me die."

"I won't let you," Brittany reached forward and pulled the knife from Santana's stomach, putting her hand on the wound to stop the bleeding, but finding that she was unable to stop it. A thick tarlike substance poured from the wound, sticking to Brittany's fingers, and as it drained from her, Santana's features began to return to normal as Brittany took care to hold her up, keeping her on her feet.

"You saved me!" Santana said, and embraced Brittany, kissing her.

After several minutes Brittany broke the kiss.

"Do you promise you'll stay, you won't leave me?" she asked, anxiously.

"I'll stay," Santana said, and smiled at her, her mouth curving up against Brittany's chin where their faces were touching, "everything's okay now Brittany."

...

Brittany pushed herself up from under the water, gasping heavily, trying to suck air back into her lungs as she came back from fantasy to reality.

"Everything's okay now, Brittany," she repeated into the silence of the bathroom, hearing her voice echo slightly as she rubbed her arms, trying to get some feeling back into them. The bath water was cold. Brittany watched it ripple and even out, trying to stay as still as possible. It was always on her mind.

From the other side of town, Santana sat upright in bed, sweating heavily. Another one of those dreams, she thought. They were more like nightmares. She had to stand by like a ghost and watch herself blame Brittany for her suicide attempt over and over, powerless to step in and change it. At least, these dreams somehow have a happy ending, she thought lying back down. But god, for the most part they are awful, she admitted to herself, shivering. This was obviously her guilt about the way she had told Brittany about her night in the hospital, manifesting in her subconscious form. She hadn't seen her in four days, not since the locker room incident, because the doctors had told her to have a week off school. She had so much to tell her, she just didn't know how or where to start.

Brittany extended her fingers outwards and peered at them. They were all wrinkled like the skin of a Shar Pei. It was the middle of the night. It was always on her mind. She didn't think she could survive school tomorrow; she'd have to stay at home again.

She wasn't sure why, but Brittany felt that the day they had kissed underwater at her house, was the day she had left part of Santana under, and she hadn't come up again the same.
Maybe that was why when she held her head underwater, it felt like she could escape to be with Santana, and drown out reality in her mind. She looked at the timer. One minute and fourteen seconds. That's two seconds longer than last time, she thought.

While she was under, she saved Santana all the time now, in hundreds of different ways. There seemed to be no end to either Brittany's fantasies or fears.

She wasn't always a vampire slayer, some days she was a princess saving another princess or an alien saving an astronaut, or a pirate saving a beautiful lost girl captured by the other pirates. Often, there were orcs involved. Often, the situations revolved around her own guilt about the things she had done that must have pushed Santana over the edge.

The fantasy didn't matter, so long as in her mind she could keep saving Santana. She had to, she would do anything to stop thinking about the inevitable. It was always on her mind.

She knew it was her mind spiraling out of control again, but that didn't seem to make any difference to her anxiety. Every time she had to rise to the surface and come back to reality, that was when she began to have doubts that Santana was really still here. She'd tried to stop doing it, but found herself in floods of tears above water, defeating the point of being dry in the first place. It was always on her mind.

It was sort of like back when she was a kid, and everyone had played the cracks-in-the-pavement game, never standing on any cracks for fear they would break their mother's back. Brittany was the only one who had been serious about it, looking intently for microscopic cracks so her mother didn't get hurt. Maybe it was superstition or a belief in magic, maybe it was pure obsessive compulsive tendencies, but Brittany felt so sure that holding her breath gave her the power to suspend both life and death, and that it was the only way she had left to keep Santana from hurting herself.

She felt like she could never step away from the water, and try to run to Santana's house and save her in person, because she might be dead before she could get there. She wanted to tell an adult like Mr Schue, but she had the same problem, that would mean she would have to step away from the water and stop 'protecting' her. She had to keep going night and day, or she would lose her.

Eventually she began to realize that these hours she spent locked in a compulsive routine were no longer about her living her life, and that the reason she wasn't living her life as she should, was because she was so afraid of Santana ending hers. She knew then that she had to stop.

It was always on her mind.

---

By the time Brittany could finally convince herself to step out of the bathroom, it was almost a week later. She decided she had to tell Mr Schue, and that was that. He was the only adult she could trust. Maybe he would be at Finn's party, Brittany knew that he had said he would help out Mrs Hudson and be a party chaperone. That's where I will find him, and I'm lucky because teacher's don't actually live at school like I thought, so finding them after school hours is always hard, Brittany thought.

Quinn was still living at Finn's house for now, which Brittany guessed had to be really awkward since he now knew he wasn't the father of her baby. Finn's mom and Mr Schue had put their heads together and had decided that something had to be done about all the kids fighting all the time. Carol Hudson also felt that the tension was so thick at the dinner table at home, that it was like the three (or four, if you counted Quinn's unborn child) had never met before. Mr Schue decided it was time to pull out his secret weapon. He had something in mind that was so powerful it could in his opinion even bring about world peace if it had to; disco. In the 90s, he had made it all the way to Nationals with disco. Disco fever could do anything.

It was supposed to be a disco dance party, but Brittany privately thought that Finn hosting a dance party was like a taxi driver being elected to desex her Geography teacher's pug; he was just not qualified, and someone could definitely lose an eye, if not another important appendage from his clumsiness.

Brittany didn't want to go. She didn't want to be at a venue that she was sure was going to smell like old newspapers, beer and gym socks for any length of time let alone overnight, however her mom had been insistent on Brittany going, and now she was officially set on a Mr Schue hunting mission, Brittany had readily agreed.

Susan had been concerned about Brittany spending so much time in the house doing what looked like absolutely nothing. She'd had to try and cull down Katie's social engagements this week so she could get her schoolwork done, but with Brittany, she could leave her for three hours, and she'd still be in the exact same position. Either in that damn bathtub or out in the pool, or when she'd been banned from those places, facedown on her bed, Susan complained to herself. She'd decided that Brittany's apparent misery probably had something to do with Santana, and she had lectured her for the millionth time that she could under no circumstances hang out with that girl. She'd even threatened that Brittany couldn't live in her house if she was going to keep disobeying her and spending her time with girls like that.

Even in her state, Brittany could still see her mother was bluffing. Her mom was strict to the point of almost running a boot camp, but she wasn't cruel to her. She loved her daughter in her own misguided but protective way, though the number of times she still tried to change Brittany made it hard for her to feel like her mom had ever accepted her. Everything Susan did was in her opinion, 'for Brittany's own good' even if the teen didn't think so.

Susan didn't know Santana would likely be at Finn's party, and Brittany herself wasn't sure she'd even turn up. Who knows where she'd be on a Friday night? Who knew anything at all? How was Santana feeling? What was she thinking? Brittany didn't even have the first idea anymore.

---

This party is so awkward, Brittany thought, trying to flatten herself against the wall and remain undetected. She knew it wasn't polite to sit apart from the group, she had read that in the book her mom had bought her for her birthday, but right now she didn't care. Mr Schue wasn't here yet. Was he coming? Should she leave the party and try to find him elsewhere? Where would she start looking? Was he coming here? He must be. And maybe Santana was too. Then they would be in the same place and she could try to make this better. She just had to wait it out. Brittany's mind ran at a mile a minute as she went over her options.

She could hear yelling. She guessed Quinn was hormonal, because she was screaming at Finn, saying that he didn't want her living with him anyway, and that she should just move in with Puck, and he was hardly disagreeing with her. He was drinking straight from a bottle, and he looked as if he'd had enough of Quinn. She figured that if Mr Schue was here, he'd stop believing in disco, because all the bright lights Finn's mom had installed, and the loud seventies music was just making everyone angrier. If he asked her how the party went, she decided she couldn't lie, so she wouldn't say a single word.

Puck was picking up the slack, and was hovering around Quinn, catering to her every request. Brittany figured that the only reason Quinn hadn't moved in with him yet to get away from Finn, was because his room smelled worse than gym socks, it literally smelled woodsy like a skunk's den. When Santana came to school straight from his place and without going home first, she often smelled faintly of it, and Brittany hated that. When she'd commented, Santana had told her it was 'just weed' and she wouldn't be able to smell it for very long. She was wrong. Even when she hadn't been smoking, the smell still clung to her from being around Puck's things. Brittany just missed the days where she used to smell like strawberry lip gloss, Santana almost never used her Lip Smackers anymore.

Puck had managed to sneak alcohol past Finn's mother. Brittany snaked forward to inspect what everyone was drinking. She thought it kind of smelled like Uncle Albert. Having nothing better to do while she waited for Mr Schue, she leaned against the wall and thought back to her childhood. Once upon a time, Brittany could visit her Uncle and her Granny on the Pierce's family farm, but as Granny Audrey got older, she'd handed over the farm to Albert who as hard as he tried, couldn't keep up with it. He'd run himself into dept, and now he'd sold it, moving into a tiny house with Granny and his one remaining goat. Brittany didn't get to visit them much, because Susan had never got along with her mother, or any of her siblings.

Nobody had ever got along with mom, really, Brittany thought drinking from a green bottle as it was passed to her. There were a couple of gatecrashers here, but they seemed friendly and they were including her now that she was within range of the group. She found herself trying to picture her Granny's face, needing the comfort. Susan had left Brittany with Granny for a year until she was four and a half, finding her an impossible, aggravating toddler to deal with. Brittany missed Granny and if she thought hard, she could remember life on the farm with the farm cats, the horses and ponies, and Emma the lamb.

"Granny!" four year old Brittany shouted, running into the house dragging a tiny lamb with her, "guess what, Emma found me just like you said she would!"

Audrey looked at her granddaughter fondly. She had just got off the phone from a difficult conversation with Brittany's mother and after what she'd heard, the mere sight of the little girl who had been in her care for so long, almost broke her heart. It had been her son Albert's idea to give Brittany a lamb to try and get her used to caring for another living thing.

She worried about Brittany, the four year old meant well, but had so little regard for other people, as if she didn't even realize they were people at all. Albert had thought that maybe the first step to helping her, was to give Brittany a pet. Brittany had taken her role of caring for Emma very seriously once Albert had taken the time to painstakingly explain to her in detail that Emma was only a baby and needed Brittany to be very, very careful with her, and that Emma relied on her for everything.

Audrey had been ready at any minute to step in if Brittany forgot to feed her, or accidently mistreated her at any point. She didn't want to lose a lamb, but she also knew how devastated her sensitive granddaughter would be if something happened because of her. Brittany had proved her wrong, remembering to feed Emma and even sleeping with her to make sure she was warm and safe. Now Emma was bigger, it had taken a few floods of tears, but Audrey had eventually convinced Brittany that she was better off with the flock. She promised that Emma would still know Brittany, and would meet her at the paddock gate to say hello every now and then.

"She came to me, Granny, and she said 'BAAAAA, I love you Brittany,'" Brittany beamed, showing off her verbal prowess as she spoke, "I'm a good mommy!"
She spun around with Emma in the living room and Audrey didn't have the heart to remind her that no lambs were allowed in the house. Brittany might be a good mommy, but in her opinon Audrey's own daughter Susan wasn't. On the phone she had announced she was coming to collect Brittany today, because she was pregnant with another child and she was taking leave of her job.
"I might as well take Brittany home," she had said to Audrey over the phone, giving her no warning at all.
How could I protest, Audrey thought dismally, tearful as she watched her granddaughter. Susan is her rightful mother, I've just grown too attached to her.

Farm life suited Brittany better than life in the city. Susan had shown up one day at least a year ago, dumping the little blonde on her lap, saying that they couldn't keep a babysitter for more than a week, because Brittany was just too fussy and finicky and threw too many tantrums, particularly when the babysitters watched certain daytime shows on TV that apparently scared her. She couldn't take her to work with her, because she was too noisy and touched everything and couldn't sit still. Susan had run out of options. She had to keep her job, so she couldn't keep Brittany. Now that she had time off and had begun maternity leave and Brittany was old enough to start pre-school, she wanted Brittany back.

Audrey sighed, tears coming to her eyes. She'd miss her little girl. Sure, she was hard work, but the animals all loved her and she loved them. She knew here was a better place for the blonde to live, because nobody minded her running around and shouting at the top of her lungs. Peace and quiet were mere myths, and not deemed so important on a farm with moo-ing cows, stamping bulls and whinnying horses. It was a lonely life living in the country, she'd miss Brittany's quick little footsteps and infectious laughter. Albert would miss her just as much, he had come to love her too.

"Britty, I've got something to tell you," she said, kneeling in front of her, but knowing better than to reach out to her.

"Yes Granny," Brittany asked her, not seeing the tears in her grandmother's eyes.

"Mommy's coming to get you soon. But we're okay with that, aren't we?" Audrey said, trying to sound confident, "we always knew she was coming back one day."

Brittany needed her mother, and she knew that. Audrey was getting old, and she was not in the greatest of health. When she was gone, there would still be Albert, but he couldn't even look after himself most of the time.

"No, Granny," Brittany said solemnly.

"No?" Audrey asked, wondering why she wasn't at least a little bit pleased. Had she fit in so well here, that she had forgotten her life before the farm?

Audrey didn't think so, because Brittany remembered everything. When they went into town, Audrey never even had to make a shopping list, Brittany remembered what they bought each time right down to the smallest of items.

"Brittany stay here with you, Uncle, and Emma," the little blonde announced.

"I'm sorry darling," Audrey said, "but you can't. You'll have a new brother or sister someday soon, won't that be exciting? Babies being born are always exciting."

"No, it's spring soon. I want to see Daisy give birth, not Mommy," Brittany said, referring to a sweet, placid black and white cow, "and the ducks will have eggs to hatch too!"

"There's no place like home, Britty, you'll see," Audrey lied, knowing that Brittany was more at home here than she'd ever been. They spent the next half hour struggling to get Brittany out of her farm clothes, and back into the pretty pink dress she'd been wearing the day Susan had left her. It had been at least two sizes too big when she'd arrived, bought on sale, though still an extravagant purchase for Susan. It fit perfectly now, Audrey realized, her head in her hands.

Brittany was looking at her dejectedly, as if she thought Audrey didn't want her. She knew she couldn't, but she desperately wanted to pick the little girl up and hug and kiss her goodbye, promising her that she could come back anytime. Audrey would always be there for her, and she would always love her no matter where she lived. She knew that soon there would be a tearful separation, and Susan would likely have to drag her out, kicking and screaming. The reality that they would be apart soon, hadn't hit either of them yet. Brittany was looking around the room, lost, as if she was trying to keep everything in sight so nothing changed, and Audrey's eyes were only on her.

Audrey knelt in front of her and used sign language to form the word 'family' with her hands, pressing her thumb and index fingers together while making a circular motion, her pinkies coming together at the back. She had taught Brittany sign language soon after she had arrived, realizing after a few disasters that Audrey's frequent affectionate touches only upset her, and that they needed another system. A close friend of Audrey's, who happened to be deaf had come up with the perfect solution. There were ways around most problems, Audrey thought, breaking into a smile in spite of herself when Brittany signed back, keeping her fingers together at the end and looking expectantly at Audrey, as if she wanted her to sign it again.

Audrey did, and Brittany hooked their pinkies together. She called for Albert, who came running in, his eyes red from crying. He stared at their hands.

"Family… you and you and me," Brittany said, and they all did the sign three-ways, joining their hands as one.

Her mom wouldn't let her see Granny and her Uncle much anymore, and she had to catch four buses to get to their little house herself. Ugh, she thought shaking the bottle, flipping it over and trying to read the label. Whatever this was kind of burned going down her throat, and she didn't like it.

Her mom had hated the freedom of life in the country and the spirit of its people, and had traded it for another dead end town just to get away from her family. She wasn't sure why her mom didn't want to be associated with them, but she felt sorry for Uncle Albert, having to file for bankruptcy and lose the farm. It had been in the family for generations. She was sad that Granny didn't have enough money to pay for her medical bills. She missed them so bad. She wished her mom would help them out. She guessed that 'family' didn't mean very much to her mom at all.

She took another drink from the bottle, finding it went down easier this time. Puck took it back, finding her a cup and pouring her something else from a bottle with a different label. Brittany took it, and then backed away from the group into another corner where Mercedes and Matt were trying to cheer up Quinn. Brittany sat there quietly as the minutes rolled by, trying to stay as inconspicuous as possible.

Family, really seems to mean something to Mercedes, she thought as she overheard the diva's conversation, listening to the girl call everyone her 'sisters' and 'brothers' even though they weren't actually related to her at all. Mercedes is so cool, Brittany thought. Realizing she had finally finished the drink in her had, Brittany accepted another, and wandered over to Mercedes, planting herself at her side, listening to the sound of her voice and finding it comforting. The moment she arrived, Quinn stormed off dragging Matt with her, evidently ready for another round of 'abuse Finn.'

Mercedes was amused at the blonde's sudden attachment to her arm. Honestly this girl was so sensitive to being touched, but on she own terms she had no boundaries whatsoever. She could crawl all over people and touch them without a thought.
Girl be crazy, Mercedes thought, stifling a giggle, sitting still as Brittany ran her fingers up and down her arm mumbling that it was 'such a nice color'.
How much exactly had she already had to drink? Oh well, at least she's having a good time now, Mercedes reasoned, as Brittany seemed enthralled by her skins texture. She'd looked so sad before, like she'd been left out in the rain for too long.

Finally, Brittany's blue eyes wandered upwards to meet Mercedes', and they widened as if she had only just realized that what she was doing wasn't the most normal thing in the world. She immediately tried to start a conversation, ranting and raving about the first thing that she happened to remember Mercedes liked; those potato things called tots. She really wanted to impress her, she couldn't help it. Mercedes was so comfortable and proud of being her own person, and that instantly put her on a pedestal in Brittany's hall of heroes. She also liked her bright, cheerful smile and sassy attitude.

Twenty minutes later, Brittany surveyed her options. She had run out of comments about tots ten minutes ago, and she wasn't sure what else Mercedes liked. She took another drink, and thought maybe she might be able to write an acrostic poem. How do you spell tots? How many x's were in a t? Being polite was such hard work.

Brittany fanned herself, it was getting hot in here. There were a lot of bodies packed into a small space and the lights seemed hot, even though they weren't sitting all that close to the dance floor right now. She threw her shirt off without thinking about it, and went to unhook her bra. Clothes were itchy and stifling. Her skin couldn't breathe. She couldn't breathe. Her head felt kind of fuzzy.

"Woah, woah woah, hey!" Mercedes said, stopping her in her tracks.

Brittany looked up, a comical picture of a deer caught in headlights.

"No reckless teen nudity. This ain't that kind of party, Li'l Eve," Mercedes joked, redressing her.
"Disco ain't that much fun," she added as an afterthought, gesturing to the big disco ball and rolling her eyes.

"I'm sorry," Brittany said, realizing what she'd done, "I forget that clothes are important, sometimes."
That keep-your-clothes-on-in-public rule was so hard to remember, especially when the scratchy fabric always felt like sandpaper on her back. Santana always joked that I should join an ant colony, Brittany thought, wistfully thinking of her friend. Or maybe that was a nudist colony. Whatever, ants were naked too, except for when they wore pants to see their Queen. You could never be naked in front of royalty no matter who you were, that was totally the rules, and everybody knew that.

Mercedes waved a hand dismissively. "It's already forgotten, and girl, I like tots more than the average bear, but you even more crazy for them than me," Mercedes said, smiling at her. She realized that Brittany had been just trying to be friendly, and her misguided-though-enthused attempts at conversation weren't wasted on her.

Brittany couldn't help being honest. "I was just talking about stuff you liked to make you like me," she said.

Mercedes laughed a deep rumbling laugh. "By raving about tots for twenty minutes? You cray-cray?"

Brittany shrugged, a small smile on her face. "I thought we might bond over them."

"You can't bond over tots, Li'l Eve, they're about as deep as deep fried chicken, as good as that stuff is."

"Why did you call me Little Eve?" Brittany asked, shuffling closer to her now that she was again fully dressed, and moving further away from Finn who was doing a drunken dance that kind of looked like his balls had become squashed in his pants, and he was trying to free them. Mercedes called me that twice now, she realized. It kind of sounded like a rapper name. Had Mercedes heard her in the school showers after Cheerio practice, or was it about her song last week?

"Well, it's kind of biblical, Jesus is my homeboy, you down with that?" Mercedes asked, her whole aura naturally giving off soul and sass without even trying.

"I am down with that," Brittany said in her usual monotone, although meaning every word. Her mom had sent her to bible camp once, and even though she had done everything wrong, and had got herself into trouble roughly every ten minutes, she had still somehow managed to enjoy it. She took another sip from her cup and pouted when she found it empty.

"Well, okay," Mercedes said, wondering how much of this was going to go over the more-than-slightly drunk girl's head, but deciding to go with it anyway. Anything was better than hearing Brittany's tots theme song again.
"Listen up. So there was a boy named Adam, and a girl named Eve. They lived in a garden called 'Eden' which was full of wonderful and beautiful things."

"With unicorns?" Brittany asked, resting her head on Mercedes shoulder, listening intently.

"You got it, girl, tons of unicorns. And fruit trees. That part is important. Think of all the beautiful things you've ever known and put them all in that garden," Mercedes said, watching Brittany's face screw up in concentration as her mind fantasized.

"Anyway, there was just one tree in the middle of the garden that Adam and Eve couldn't touch. God said that if they ate the fruit from that tree, then bad things would happen. Little Eve and Little Adam would then have to have knowledge of good and evil, and right and wrong."

"Why is that so bad?" Brittany asked, curiously.

"I'm getting there, let me finish the story first," Mercedes said patiently.

"Little Eve and Little Adam were going okay, they stayed away from that tree for ages until a serpent, or Satan or whatever, tempted them, making them question the same thing you did just now; why is eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and being able to make their own choices so bad? So they did it, they ate an apple and then things changed."

"How?" Brittany asked, tugging on Mercedes' arm gently, unable to stand the anticipation.

"Well, they couldn't be naked anymore for one thing," Mercedes explained, "they used to run around the garden naked, because they were like you, it felt good and they didn't realize what the world is like."
Mercedes paused. "See my hand, I could use it to hold yours or to hit you couldn't I?"

"Yeah," Brittany said, "but I didn't think of that before. I was just touching it 'cause it's a pretty color and soft and smooth."

"Well, that's kind of the same idea. You haven't tasted the same forbidden fruit as the rest of us have because you're too pure to realize most of the time how things could be used against you, and how others might harm you, or even how you might harm others. You can't just throw your clothes off like you did before, because other people might look at that differently and try to use your body for evil. By eating the fruit and choosing to be separate from God, man created evil, and all of a sudden that garden was full of thoughts about how all things that had only seemed good before, could be used to do bad things."

Mercedes paused again, and took a breath. "So, one of the first things God said to them, was to put some clothes on for their own protection. And that's why I call you Li'l Eve, because you remind me of her, before she ate the apple."

Brittany thought about this, turning it over in her mind.

"I got a lot of time to think in church," Mercedes joked, "they encourage quiet reflection, and I pray for everyone in Glee club at least sometimes, and that includes you."

Brittany nodded in appreciation. It meant a lot to her that Mercedes thought of her sometimes. "What do you mean about the body being used for evil?" she asked, realizing that part wasn't clear to her.

"That's probably why everyone seems so protective of you," Mercedes told her, "you don't see evil, so you tend to not see people for who they truly are. You've got a few people looking out for you now that don't want to see anything happen to you, and it's not really my place to answer your question. There are so many terrible things that humans can do to each other. I guess some of the worst is when people use each other for fun, like as a thing or object for their own pleasure, or when people force each other to have sex against their will. That's evil, Little Eve."

Brittany's breath caught in her throat. Like people have done to Santana, she thought. She found it weird that other people could see Santana's body differently to how she saw it. She tried to make it add up in her head, but she couldn't. She looked at all bodies like they were precious things, but she especially looked that way at Santana's. She'd hated it most of all that just before Lauren had thrown the slushie last week, she had whispered to her friends that Brittany wanted to 'do naughty things' to Santana, like all Brittany wanted to do was to hurt her. She hated those kinds of feelings being forced on her by other people, because when other people said those things, she was forced to picture them, and then she felt sick.

Brittany continued to contemplate the whole conversation, while Mercedes sampled some of the party food, discarding Finn's cooking almost immediately after tasting it.

"Ugh, I won't be eating no more of that!" she said, picking something from another plate that she thought was probably made by his mother instead.

"I want to eat from that tree," Brittany said finally, waving Finn away as he hovered over her, evidently unsure if she was talking about eating from his plates of food or not.

"Why oh why?" Mercedes asked her, trying to figure her out, "keep your sunshine and rainbows, girl."

"Because there's a garden of Eden in my head, but there isn't one in the real world, and I have to try to live in the real world now Mercedes," Brittany said earnestly, trying to push through her alcohol induced confusion to say what Mercedes had helped her figure out.
"Because if I live there in the garden, then I'm not really here. I can't be locked up inside myself, living in a separate garden to everyone else, because I can't reach people from there."
And I have to reach Santana, she thought. I have to stop fighting vampires or pirates every night in a world where I can always win. I have to keep trying with her for real, even though real life is harder.

"I have to eat from that tree, so I can be with Santana," Brittany told Mercedes, "and I have to eat from that tree because otherwise I'm not much of a person. When I'm good, it doesn't mean as much, because I think it's better to have chosen the good thing, or even the bad thing, rather that to have not chosen anything at all. You have to eat the apple to make all your own choices to be responsible right? I have to be responsible enough to 'live independently' one day and not be a burden on either Katie, or Santana."

Mercedes stared at Brittany, her mouth open in shock, not knowing what to say back to all that. What a conversation. Li'l Eve don't bother with no smalltalk, she thought.

And, if I'm going to do bad stuff, then it's not fair that I get to be unaware of it because I don't know it's wrong, Brittany thought to herself, feeling Mercedes wordless take the drink from her hands, as if it wasn't safe to think this much and drink at the same time. I wish I never did bad stuff at all, but inflicting pain on others and not even knowing it, is both bad and unfair, instead of just bad.

Brittany stared at the print of Mercedes' jacket. It kind of looked like Lord Tubbington's fur. If you can't make choices or do things for yourself, then it's kind of the same as being a pet, Brittany realized suddenly, thinking of how her cats had no responsibilities at all, they were always just taken care of. Sometimes, she liked to pretend they were more human than they were, and make them seem more responsible for themselves, pretending they could cook or clean, and do things that even Brittany didn't know how to do herself. It was fun, but mostly it made her less lonely to look at them less like a pet, and more like an equal companion, on all the days she spent in her room alone.

It made her head hurt to think about it, but she could imagine Santana dreaming of Brittany in that way, projecting abilities that Brittany didn't have onto a re-imagined version of her, just so she could feel less lonely and less like a teacher and caretaker, and more like an equal companion. Brittany never wanted it to come to that.

"People like that don't really live with other people, they only live beside them, and that's not good enough when you love someone," Brittany finished, bringing a piece of Mercedes' hair up to her face and tickling herself with it.
If Santana ever really wanted me to be with her, then no way am I letting her do most of the work to keep us to together, she thought, her head beginning to pound with these thoughts that seemed too big for her mind.

Mercedes couldn't understand half of what Brittany said, but it sounded like something that she was very serious about. This shit got kind of deep. She looks so vacant half the time, but baby girl got so much going on in that head of hers, Mercedes thought.
She was silent for a beat, not minding in the least that Brittany was fiddling with her hair. Boy, Mercedes Jones must be so fascinating tonight, she thought with a chuckle shaking her hair out for Brittany to play with. Delighted, Brittany began giving her miniature plaits, and on her third plait, Mercedes' thoughts became clear.
"If only you could eat half the apple," she said finally, "and live in both worlds."

Brittany considered that for a time, maybe that was it. She'd think on it.
"I only eat bananas," Brittany said, grinning, making a joke to lighten the mood, "I hate apples."

Mercedes laughed, throwing her head back. "Figures," she said.

"I've got a nickname for you," Brittany said, suddenly.

"Yeah?" Mercedes asked, turning in her chair to face her.

"Well it's kind of Disney, you down with that?" Brittany asked, mimicking what Mercedes had said earlier, and putting her hands on her hips, giving off as much sass as she could.

"Praise!" Mercedes said pointing her finger in the air, impressed, "that was dead on. I could have sworn you were me just now."

"I'll call you Wheezy," Brittany said, "from Toy Story 2."
Brittany had been very upset that all the plush of that super cool penguin had been sold out of the Disney store. She didn't want Woody or Buzz instead, she couldn't imagine what those two would get up to together in her room when she was out.

"Whooo! I know who you're talking about. That bird can sing. I'll accept the honor," she exclaimed, waving her hand in a queenly gesture.

Brittany's face became serious. "You're nice, Wheezy," she said, "Santana thought you would tell, but you didn't."

"Tell?" Mercedes face took on a confused expression, "tell who what?"

"Tell everyone. About last Friday," Brittany said, lowering her voice, "what you overheard."

Mercedes shook her head, not able to catch up.

"On the phone," Brittany prompted.

"Oh, that!" recognition flooded her features, "hell to the no, girl. I'm many things but I'm not no sneak. What you do, is your own business, and I ain't one to judge you and rat on a sister."

Brittany bit her lip. "You promise?"

"Swear on my weave," Mercedes nodded, patting her knee gently, seeing how much it was troubling her.

"Thank you," Brittany said wishing she had paper so she could write Mercedes a proper thank you note and draw her a picture. There was no better way to thank someone than that.

"Now, tots, tots, tots, Santana, Santana, Santana. Enough about them. Lets dance," Mercedes said, pulling her to her feet.

"Oh… I don't think I can right now," Brittany said, not really feeling up to it. She hadn't slept much this week and she was feeling kind of nauseous. She just wanted to wait for Santana and Mr Schue to get here, or wait until she was sure they weren't coming, and then go looking for Mr Schue. Santana said that he spent all his time in vest addict anonymous meetings, maybe there was a phone number in the phone book that she could call and ask if he was there.

"What, you forget how?" Mercedes said with a grin, "not possible. I saw you krumping last week, let's see a bit of that."

"No, I haven't forgotten," Brittany said alarmed. She would hate to forget how. She got to her feet quickly so she could prove Mercedes wrong.

Mercedes beamed at her. "Well come on then," she said leading Brittany to the dance floor. Finn's mother had hired the largest and brightest disco ball she had ever seen, and had installed it on the Hudson's relatively low basement ceiling. The effect was almost blinding as the strobe lights beamed their flash around the room. Mike Chang was loving it, and was hopping around the room in a pattern formation where certain colors landed. It kind of reminded Brittany of an laser beam alarm system she had seen in a movie once, where the character was a cat burglar and had to steal a painting by contorting their body to avoid every beam to get to the prize undetected.

"It's kind of like a rave party in here," Mercedes told her, yelling to be heard over the music.

"A… rage party?" For the millionth time, Brittany looked around for Santana. That would really be her kind of party.

She started teaching Mercedes some moves.

"What's the secret to krumping?" Mercedes asked, breathless.

"Just pretend you're getting attacked by invisible bees," Brittany said, giggling in spite of the fact that it was starting to feel like someone was pounding at her head, making her more nauseous than ever. Mercedes was sort of getting it. Brittany hadn't seen anyone krump like that before, but she was giving it her all, that was for sure.

"Damn! I'm allergic to bees," Mercedes said, getting into it a bit more and getting into a groove.

"You're doing great," Brittany told her, slowing down a bit and crossing her hands over her chest.

"You alright?" Mercedes asked. Brittany wasn't looking so hot.

"Yeah. I'm fine," Brittany said, trying to shake the heavy feeling in her head away. All that thinking must have been really hard work.

They danced for a few more minutes, until Brittany started getting shaky on her feet. A thin layer of sweat coated her skin. The blinking lights seemed to physically blind her each time they flashed.

"Hey," Mercedes said, patting her shoulder, "you should sit down or something."

"It's these lights," Brittany muttered to her, "my brain can't keep up with the lights."
She leaned against her, falling down into a seated position on the floor, resting her head on her knees. She hated this part. It always felt like she was about to be sick and pass out, or both. It always happened so quickly too, overwhelming her before she could do anything.

"Finn turn your freakin' ball off," Mercedes said, taking the authority quickly, and snapping her fingers.

"But…," Finn started.

"But, my butt, Finn, are you trying to give all of us a seizure?" Mercedes said, jabbing him with an annoyed poke, then trying to take a guess as to what was happening with the taller girl. Brittany wasn't moving or convulsing around like she'd seen one boy do in the middle of a church sermon once, and that confused her. She was just very stiff and unresponsive. She cushioned Brittany's head on her knee, trying to get her attention.

Brittany wasn't sure if she was sitting or lying down now. She couldn't feel Mercedes' hands gripping her shoulders, but through a distant kaleidoscope-like blur, she could see her face.
"I'm fine," she tried to tell her again, not sure if her mouth was cooperating, "It's really just the lights."

It wasn't like this hadn't happened before, sometimes she couldn't even see certain movies at the theatre because the pictures on the screen changed too quickly and the screen was too bright. It was usually Santana's job to check and see if the movie they wanted to go and see together was going to be okay for her, which was why nearly every time they went to the movies together, Santana had already seen it and was always more interested in Brittany than what was on the screen. All movies projected that large, with so much light stimulus and sound, gave Brittany a headache. Some, particularly action blockbusters which she had seen without Santana's approval, had taken her closer to this point. When she took in too much light and sound for her brain, it got to a point where it was like everything shut down. The world went mute, everything went blurry, and her legs gave out. I should have known not to go near the lights, Brittany thought. Responsible thinking… responsible thinking is important.

Suddenly, Santana's face came into view, and Brittany tried to focus on her and come back to earth. Santana was angry, she could see her hands whipping back and forth. She'd seemed mad at Mercedes at first, and the view of the underside of Mercedes' chin had disappeared in favor of the underside of Finn's. Brittany grimaced. He had like one hair on his chin, just one. Why is he touching me, Brittany thought, hating every second of it. One whisker Finn, on his chin, Lord T has way more than him, she thought, humming a tune in her head. They were away from the lights now. Brittany could tell, because things were getting clearer and she was starting to regain control of her body. The first thing she realized was that Santana somehow had a hold of her hand.

"I'll put her on my Mom's bed," Finn said, adjusting her weight in his arms.

"Gently," Santana ordered, following him worriedly. She let go of Brittany's hand so Finn could put her down. She hated that she couldn't pick her up herself, there had been so many times where she'd felt so useless because she wasn't physically strong enough to take care of her.

"Responsible thinking," Brittany was murmuring, "stay out of the garden, make your own choices, don't be a burden."

Santana was glad she was still speaking. Not going completely mute was always a good sign that she was still functioning okay.

"Are you sure I shouldn't call an ambulance?" Finn said, "like are you sure this isn't a seizure?"

"No," Santana said, brushing Brittany's hair back, "it's nothing like that."

"Are you sure?" he asked hesitantly, repeating himself for the third time. He didn't really want anyone dying in his mom's bed.

"I'm sure," Santana snapped, "trust me, I know what I'm doing and you have no idea, so just let me take care of her."
"And tell Mercedes thank you," she added, after a beat. She never squealed on us, and she took care of Brittany while I was too freakin' scared to show up, she thought.

She turned her attention to Brittany who was blinking at the wall looking away from her. "Hey baby, are you okay?" she asked, her voice quiet and soothing.

Brittany jumped at the sound anyway, turning to face Santana, reaching her hand up to her face as if she had to check she was still here. She counted her eyes, her ears, her lips and her nose, making sure every part of her really was still all intact. She really hadn't been sure if she was ever going to see Santana again or not. The only time she had thought that she could be sure that Santana was safe, was when she had been holding her breath underwater. She'd been out of the bathtub for hours now, and she had begun to question everything.

"Those lights were really bad Britts, I even felt a bit dizzy looking up at them," Santana said, knowing that Brittany's mind lacked the filter hers did, and how it tried to take in every detail of light shows like that, and got overloaded, instead of skipping over them and getting a rough idea of them like her brain could.

"They told me you'd been drinking before, and you still managed not to to get sick this time," Santana told her, placing her hand on Brittany's stomach and rubbing up and down, trying to calm her. She could sense how upset she was.
Brittany's eyes, wide with fear, were trained directly on her face. Santana knew that she was probably upset about having that meltdown in front of everyone, but by her body language, she knew that the main reason Brittany's emotions seemed so heightened right now, wasn't even about that.
It's about me, and who could blame her? she thought.

One thing that was playing on her mind, floating above all the other issues at hand, was that she'd never known Brittany to drink before. Santana usually knocked back a few a Puck's house when he didn't have anything better, but she was pretty sure this was Brittany's first time. What does this mean, Santana wondered. What was going on with her? Is she angry with me? Is she afraid of me, or what I might do?

Santana hoped and prayed that Brittany would remain a bit out of it for the time being, and she wouldn't ask any difficult questions about Santana's time in the hospital while she already didn't feel well. Brittany could only take so much, and she was probably already at her limit.
"I'll take you home okay? You've had more than enough excitement for one night," she said, fixing Brittany's outfit and pulling her shirt down for her.

Her vision having almost returned to normal, Brittany watched Santana's hands as they moved over her body. As her eyes roamed, travelling over Santana's form, she caught sight of a band-aid on Santana's wrist.

Santana followed her gaze, then watched Brittany seem to crumple like paper, all the air seeming to deflate out of her and leave her body, tears springing to her eyes.

"It's not what you think," Santana told her quickly ripping it off, and showing her under the band-aid quickly, so she would know it was just where the IV had been at the hospital.
"I'm not even going to do that anymore," she said, guessing by her reaction that Brittany had figured out the one thing she had tried to hide from her for so long, and that explained why she was so emotional.

"Where'd you get that scar, San?" fourteen year old Brittany asked her, as they lay on chairs by the pool, getting some sun.

Santana cringed, glad her eyes were hidden behind her sunglasses. She quickly pulled her skirt down lower, so it covered her legs properly.
"Your cats," she lied. She hated lying to Brittany so bad, but how could she ever tell her that she'd done it herself?

"I don't remember that," Brittany said concerned, "did you guys get in a fight?"
Brittany pulled off her pink sunglasses and kneeled down in front of Santana's chair, running her fingers over the old wound, as if she could heal it.

"Britts, you don't have to do that," Santana said embarrassed. It just felt wrong to have Brittany touch her with such care, in a place she was so ashamed of.

"What do you mean you're not going to do it anymore?" Brittany asked, hollowly, her face blanking into nothingness, her complete lack of expression seeming almost eerie to Santana, but very much telling it's own story.

"I never even did it very much to begin with," Santana pleaded, "just sometimes, after Tomas left my room or sometimes, after a really bad day. Those fucking uniforms don't really leave much to the imagination do they? So, I never had much room and I hated that I did it in the first place. I hated that I couldn't let you sit on my lap after I'd done it because I was afraid that the cuts might open up and bleed, and then you'd see. I didn't want to worry you, baby, but it's going to be okay now. I've been thinking and…"

Realization dawned on Brittany's face. She'd been upset seeing the physical evidence of Santana's suicide attempt, but Santana was talking about something much, much different. She sat up and pushed aside Santana's skirt, the abruptness of it silencing the other girl, and she found the old scar she had thought her cats made. It looked different to how she remembered, like it had been opened and closed a few times since and there were a few others surrounding it.

There was a sudden silence, and a slow build of tension, as Santana watched Brittany's face anxiously, seeing it become pale, her jaw slack and lifeless.

The next few minutes went by without any kind of conscious interpretation on Brittany's part.

The first familiar thing that Brittany heard was Santana calling her in obvious distress, sounding very far away.

"Brittany! Don't!" Santana begged her, her voice rising at the end into a scream.

Brittany could barely hear her, or even begin to register what she was doing. She felt as if she had left her body and had become only a passive observer. She couldn't feel Santana's hands catch hers and try to hold on, as she fought against her, struggling to break free. Brittany heard a muffled hum come to her ears, and didn't have the presence of mind to realize it was the sound of her own cries, sounding more like a wild animal in pain than a human. Her fists pounded against her own forehead, catching on blonde hair and bruising the skin, and she raked her fingernails down the side of her face before Santana could stop her.

"Brittany! No, Brittany, please!" Santana cried, "baby, look at me. Come back to me."
She tried to take Brittany's face in her hands and look at the damage, but Brittany pulled back, angling herself out of reach.

Running out of ideas, Santana came forward and enveloped her in her arms, holding her as tightly as she could. She'd heard that if you did that, it could depress the nervous system and stop hyperventilation, forcing people to calm down. She tried to hold Brittany together, wrapping herself around her stiff body with every ounce of her strength.
"Somewhere, over the rainbow way up high," Santana began, singing to her softly in English, her voice shaking, the low notes unusually off key. She'd never seen Brittany this bad, and she hadn't even seen her come close to this since they were kids.
"There's a land, that I heard of once in a lullaby. Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue," she sung, feeling Brittany go slack in her arms, though not for a moment did she consider letting go, or even trying to loosen her hold.
"And, the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true," she finished, then lapsed into Spanish for the next verse, not because she meant to, but because she was scared out of her mind.

Finally, Brittany hugged her back and began to cry, tears spilling down her cheeks.

"Shhhhh," Santana whispered to her, feeling tears coming to her own eyes, glad to feel Brittany's arms around her.
"I'm not hurting you, am I?" she asked, wondering if she should ease her hold on her now, even though she had no desire to.

Sobbing, Brittany shook her head, not wanting Santana to let her go.

"It's okay. I'm here, everything's okay now. Hey, what did you do to your pretty face?" Santana asked her, carefully wiping a thin trickle of blood from her cheek.
"Shhh, you just rest now and take deep breaths, okay?" she said, guiding Brittany's head to her shoulder, not caring in the least if she got blood on her outfit.

Brittany seemed surprised when she caught sight of the blood on Santana's thumb which was apparently hers, but she realized that with only two people here, she must have done it herself. She also wondered why her head hurt so much. She couldn't speak her mind, but her face probably said it all. I must have just done the same thing to my face as you did to your body, Santana, she thought.

Santana shook her head. She understood in that moment what it must be like for Brittany. A couple of bruises and a cut on her cheek that she hadn't even meant to do, was nowhere near what Santana had collectively done to herself over the years. She knew that Brittany adored her, she could only guess what it must have been like for her, watching Santana treat herself like she was garbage all this time.
She'd just got a taste of it, watching Brittany attack herself like that, and what Santana had done to herself for years, physically and emotionally, was no different. Remembering how caring Brittany had been when she had found her first scar when they were fourteen, even if she hadn't known how it was made at the time, Santana cupped her chin and drew her closer. Finding there was no resistance this time, she kissed her cheek, running her thumb over the wound.

Brittany looked guiltily into Santana's face which she'd noticed was considerably paler than usual.

Santana picked up on it right away. "Don't feel bad baby, it wasn't your fault," she told her, "I don't blame you for getting really upset. These things happen."

Brittany shook her head. That that wasn't all that she had meant. She cried harder in frustration, her sobs becoming harsher, and more raspy, as if they were coming from the deepest place possible inside of her. She caught Santana's wrist and ran her finger over where the band-aid had been as if she was trying to tell her something.

"Oh…," Santana said, realizing what she meant, knowing exactly where her mind had gone.
How could Brittany ever think she could ever drive someone to do that? Santana wondered. Santana was the one who had screwed up, how could Brittany blame herself for this?

"None of this is because of you, Britt, I didn't do this because…," she said, trailing off when she realized how sick the other girl looked. She grabbed Miss Hudson's waste paper basket and was just in time before Brittany got sick, a combination of the alcohol and the stress of what she was feeling.

Santana stroked her hair, making sure it was held back until she was done. "Just listen to me, okay Britt? I really need to tell you something now, and it's really important, okay?"

Brittany nodded, and pulled away from the wastebasket, letting Santana take it away. She closed her eyes, feeling Santana caress her face and clean her up.

"Being in the hospital sucked," she said reaching over and trying to pull Brittany into her lap.

Brittany shook her head and dug her toes into the bed. She'd just been sick and she didn't want to gross Santana out. She also knew it wasn't her place to get all the attention. Santana had been the one in the hospital. Brittany had already had a complete meltdown on her, and that had been bad enough.

"Yes," Santana said to her, refusing to take 'no' for an answer.

Brittany didn't move.

"Let me take care of you now, Britt," she begged, until Brittany finally obliged and crawled into the space between her legs, snuggling into her, as Santana locked her arms around her, turning her head so she could speak quietly in her ear.

"It really sucked," Santana continued, "and because I was still conscious they gave me this stuff, like this drink."
Santana wrinkled her nose, her opinion on this procedure clear. "It made me throw up really …violently. Trust me, you looked pretty good just now compared to me. It was really horrible. They only kept me overnight, but I still felt sick for days," Santana said rocking Brittany gently from side to side when she felt her tense up.
"It's okay, I'm okay now," Santana reassured her again, "I'm just telling you the story."

Brittany nodded at her, and squeezed her hand, trying to tell her she'd be strong for her

"Anyway, while I was throwing up everything I've ever eaten from birth to that moment," Santana said making a face, "I got to thinking, like I questioned why I had done this to myself. I think I did it because I just got tired. I was tired of the looks and people judging me, and I was tired of trying to be what everyone wanted me to be, and never really even getting there."
Santana shrugged. "I guess that made me feel like all of it was too hard. Everything. Even the waking up in the morning and the trying to get to sleep at night."

"Then, when it came down to it, I couldn't do it. I was tired of everything, but I still couldn't leave you, and I didn't even want to leave you. I don't think I realized before how much power I actually had to hurt myself, and it really scared me. Running straight into the darkness just made me realize that I didn't want to be there, it wasn't what I truly wanted," Santana said. I never truly wanted to die, she thought to herself.

"I could have died," Santana said, nuzzling her nose into Brittany's neck, seeing that hearing her say those words had caused a fresh wave of tears, "but I came downstairs and asked for help from my mom, the one person I really didn't want to see. I guess I kind of realized, that all those reasons, as strong as they seemed… all the reasons I had to die, obviously weren't as strong as my reason to live."

"So then I started thinking about it from the other side, about you, and what makes you my reason to live. By then I was just lying in my hospital bed, because they do keep you at least 24 hours," Santana said to her, looking for some sign that Brittany was understanding her. She watched her inhale and exhale, her chest rising and falling slowly, the act of it seeming exhausting to her. When Santana didn't immediately speak, Brittany squeezed her hand as if to say she was okay, and she was listening. Santana squeezed back.

"Before I took those pills, I'd just had a fight with my mom. She found out about Tomas and she pretty much told me she could never love me. I had looked at it by semantics, and I felt like the two people who were supposed to love me, my mom and dad, and who I thought were my only family, had both disowned me. I felt so alone in that moment, like I thought I had nothing tying me to this world, and that's how I think I got started swallowing pills that day, if you can consider that a proper excuse," Santana said, her forehead wrinkling.

"Fast forward another couple of hours, I was lying on my side looking at the white walls, and I realized that even though you've never used the words, you've taught me something about family. You've made me see it's a place where people love you no matter what. You're the only family I've ever had, baby," Santana told her, turning her to the side so she could look into her eyes. She hooked a lock of Brittany's hair behind her ear, smoothing it over and running her fingers through it. The other side needed fixing too, but Santana couldn't get to it while Brittany's head was resting on her shoulder.

"If it wasn't for you, I don't think I would even know what it's like to have a real family. I've made so many mistakes, but you've always forgiven me for them and you're the one still here," she told her. She could feel Brittany's whole body trembling, although she wasn't sure whether it was from exhaustion or emotion.

"I think about you, and all we've been through together, and how it's true, you've been the only one who has always loved me, no matter what. My mom, she could hardly stand to be near me when I was throwing up at the hospital, she left me even though I was so scared and begged her not to," Santana said, her voice shaking a little when it came to admitting she was scared.
"You've always taken care of me when I've been sick, and I know you'd have stayed with me, wouldn't you? The first thing you ever did when I met you was help me clean my face," Santana said thinking of her childhood, picturing the torn dirty overalls and the even dirtier face she'd always seen in the mirror, more often than not streaked with grime and tears, "I remember how shocked Abuela was when I came home that day."

She was surprised to see a soft hint of a smile light up Brittany's features, though she seemed too tired to lift her head up from Santana's shoulder. With effort, Brittany drew Santana's wrist up to her mouth and kissed where the IV had been, looking so relieved as if Santana had finally seen something she had wanted her to see for a long time.

Santana exhaled in relief, she had almost thought she had broken her. For a time it had seemed like the light had completely gone from Brittany's eyes. She never wanted to see that happen again.
"You always can't wait to share the happy times with me and make them last. I know I haven't been a great person to be around very much, but you've never made me feel like that, you know? You keep trying anyway, and you keep giving even when I don't deserve it, even though I haven't always been there for you when you needed me. That means everything to me," she told her.

Brittany began coughing, and Santana broke away from her, looking her over worriedly. She then realized Brittany was moving her mouth, trying to form words and get her speech back. It so isn't the time for that, Santana thought. Let's just get through tonight.
"Don't try to talk now, B, it's been a really long night," she said, wishing for the millionth time that things were easier for her. She didn't think it could be much fun to lose your ability to speak when you got really upset. Brittany kind of reminded her of Ariel right now, that mermaid from that Disney movie she loved so much. Tonight it was like she'd been a fish out of water, dragged onto the sand, dragged into things she couldn't cope with and it had been at the price of her voice. Santana hoped that there wouldn't be any other consequences. She prayed that tomorrow, after she's had some rest, Brittany would be okay again.

As Brittany's forehead wrinkled, her features contorting in pain, Santana's concern grew. "Does somewhere hurt, B?" she asked, running her hands up her arms. Brittany looked so pale and almost gaunt, like she hadn't been able to eat properly and get some sleep since the last time she'd seen her. She also seemed kind of wrinkled and more soft and delicate than Santana remembered. Have you eaten anything, B, since Tina told you? Santana wondered, silently asking the question. Even on a good day, she often forgot food was important.

Brittany didn't try to answer that. Everywhere hurt, but that wasn't what she wanted to say. She sighed, clutching hold of the fabric of Santana's shirt and gazing into her eyes. She wanted to speak. She wanted to say to her that she felt the same way, Santana was her family too, and that it didn't matter that she wasn't perfect, and had too much going on to be there all the time. She still tried so hard and had been there as much as she could have been.

She wanted to say how glad she was that Santana was still here. Santana was Brittany's whole world, the most important, influential person in her life. She needed her so much, too much. She wished it wasn't true, but when it came down to it, she didn't know how to survive without Santana. The thought of a life without Santana terrified her. It would be like having a hole in her heart and there being a hole in the world.

Most of all, she wanted to tell her she was sorry. She'd promised Santana that she would never leave her, but last Friday she had. She'd let Santana walk away, and the worst thing possible had almost happened. You said its not my fault, and maybe I didn't cause it, but I didn't follow you and help you. I didn't fix you. I'm sorry, Santana, she thought unhappily, trying to convey all her emotion in her eyes, looking at Santana imploringly, repeating the words over and over in her mind, trying to make Santana understand.

Santana read her loud and clear. "I understand," she said quietly, telling her that she was heard, "but you never had to fix me and make it so I never did this in the first place, all I needed was for you not to give up on me so I could realize I needed to stay. You never gave up on me, Britt. I told you to leave me alone, and I made a mistake. I never meant it. The moment I walked away, I regretted it, but I was the one who walked away, baby, and I didn't let you follow. It's not your fault. And now, I'm not going anywhere. I meant what I said. I'm not going to hurt myself anymore and I'm not going to let other people treat me like crap. I realize I was doing that before, and I was just letting anyone use me who showed me the slightest bit of attention. It never really helped me escape from my problems, it just created more of them, and what's the point of slowly destroying yourself if you've found you don't want to go the whole way? I promise, it's just going to be you and Puck now, okay?"
Puck does care, Santana thought, he pretends not to, but when it comes down to it he does, and Santana wasn't prepared to lose that.

There would always be those talks and the looks that had begun her downward spiral last Friday, but Santana realized she would have to try and survive. Maybe she could hold a little hope that the people at their school could become less judgmental over time, and comments like the one Brittany had made could go by without it being a scandal worthy of a slushie facial. Santana looked at the girl in her arms. She had much to live for. She wanted to see Brittany grow up into the mature, wise person she had seen her start to become. And fuck their school. She wanted to see society grow up too.
She thinks it's possible, she thought, kissing Brittany's forehead. And even if there's only the slimmest of chances, I don't want her to be the only one alive to see it.

For now, there was so much they could still have, even if the world wouldn't let them be everything they could be. "This feeling we have, it's everything. All that extra stuff, it's like the fudge on a sundae," Santana told her, trying to explain what she'd realized in more Brittany-friendly terms, "sex… kissing… all of it. It's just the extras. You can't have a sundae without ice cream, Britt. The way we feel about each other is what matters and maybe we can't tell them, and maybe they can take the extras away from us, at least for right now, but they can never take away what we are."

She paused, watching the goose bumps appear on Brittany's arms. She could read her like an open book.

"We go deeper than that," Santana muttered in her ear, "they're not stronger than us. I know that now." It seemed to fill one of the deepest holes in her heart.

Brittany signed 'family' to her, clutching their hands together like she had done a long time ago with Granny, mouthing the word at the same time.

"Family," Santana acknowledged her, and Brittany smiled at her, the light in her tired eyes finally returning to how it had been.

Santana smiled back. "You need to sleep now, Britt. You're here, I'm here, we're both still here," she said rocking Brittany back and forth, her voice taking on a lilting musical quality, willing the exhausted girl to sleep. It wasn't the best of her songwriting material, but if she could reassure Brittany that she wasn't going anywhere, then it would do. She knew that they would have to stay here tonight. She wasn't going to drag Brittany out anywhere in this condition. She'd explain some version of this to Finn's mom once Brittany had fallen asleep, and she'd get Mercedes to cover for them and talk to Brittany's mom.

"It's just you and me, and me and you and both of us together," Santana improvised, earning another a small smile, as Brittany's eyes closed, her face becoming open and peaceful as she turned in her arms so she could cuddle Santana back.

"We're family, we're family, just you and me, Santana and Brittany… always," Santana sung, raising one finger and bouncing it off Brittany's nose, unable to resist the action while she was only inches apart from her. She counted the freckles on Brittany's nose, they seemed both random and perfectly spaced apart all at once, like someone had known exactly what they were doing when they designed her. You are so perfect to me, she thought, tenderly.

Brittany mouthed the word 'always' back, as she finally fell asleep, her head resting snugly on Santana's chest. Being with Santana felt like being finally home, and there really was no place like home.

---

It was National Suicide Awareness Day this week. Everyone who wants to show their support writes LOVE on their wrist, but I like writing it on both sides and all over my hands every day of the whole week just so everyone really gets the message that I'm supporting "Santana" and everyone else who went through/who are going through the same thing. It's all about making people aware so they can help the people they love.

Here's my hand today. It looks funny bigger than actual size.

tinypic . com (slash) view. php?pic=2622l9z&s=6 (replace the word (slash) with the symbol and delete the many spaces)

I have long fingers like Heather Morris. No CSI unicorns, please. :P I'm pretty sure though, that the only person in the universe who'd know me by my hands is "Santana" because she always told me how much she liked them. Sometimes I don't write LOVE, I just write "Santana's" name. It's the same thing to me.

Three million things:

1. She treated me like I was the most precious thing in the whole world to her in moments like that. She was at her best, and I was at the very worst I have ever been to date. Seriously, if you all still like "Brittany" after all that then you are all very kind and tolerant people because that is as out-of-control bad as it gets, and the very worst side of me. It was so hard to write that, but I had to do it. I can't not show the worst of me, when I've already shown the worst of her. Don't worry though, "Brittany" does recover. I really did find out on my birthday, Santana completely forgot about it with everything that was going on, and that's understandable.

I admit that I didn't stop with the underwater routine for several months after this. Something would usually set me off, and I'd spiral into thoughts about her trying something again and I'd be running home after school and holding my head under water again. Asperger's has a fair amount of overlap with OCD, and this was one routine I couldn't break for quite some time. I won't be writing about that, I'll skip it all, but I guess you could say the whole thing traumatized me a fair bit.

It was the cutting going on under my nose without my actual knowledge that really got to me. Because I didn't know about it the whole time it went on, I was convinced I wouldn't know if she was still cutting and/or planning to overdose again. She never usually lied to me, but she could omit the truth when she thought she was protecting me, so I got confused. When I got too scared about it, I'd retreat out to the pool again. Mom eventually got it filled in because she'd had enough of watching me, and of me getting sick from doing it out in the cold at night. Santana never knew about it. That whole mind link thing obviously never happened, so she never saw all those saving-her fantasies and fears. I used actual Faith-from-Buffy quotes by the way, in case anyone got lost there. But anyway, it was well and truly 'on my mind' for a long time.

Also, the flashing lights part is so embarrassing. I wish I could go to a movie without getting a headache, and it would be nice to make it through a dance party, period. Rave parties would be my worst nightmare.

2. You might notice that even with all the lovely things she said, Santana didn't manage to say 'I love you' that night, we're still not quite at that point yet. She meant what she said about not being as destructive anymore, the casual sex more or less stopped, the cutting stopped (though she slipped up once or twice), the drug habit stopped for a short while at least. It wasn't like she was suddenly treating herself with all the respect she deserves, but she did make an effort and all progress adds up.

3. I agree with her by the way, I think if you don't have the deep friendship and unconditional love for each other (like a family) then the sex is just… sex. She was at the point where she was looking for a stable thing in her life as like her um… roots before branches, because she was trying to build herself back up. Sex is great, but if you ask me, the most beautiful sex blooms from a beautiful friendship.

4. Some of her 'friends' found out about Santana's overdose and the whole lot of them reacted like Rachel and Tina. They never spread it around outside the group, but they privately all laughed at her, and I still don't understand how or why. I really lost my faith in people for a while. I've seen people treat their friends even worse than they treat their enemies. I noticed on the show that Brittany seems to really hate Rachel. So I thought I might use those characters rather than just make up some names for that phone call, just so I can now direct some rage at Rachel to stick with canon, because it is not easy to get Brittany to hate someone, there are so few reasons why I think she would. Tina just came along for the ride because I needed her to drive the scene.

5. …And because they were so mean I invited Mercedes into this. The stuff she said is relevant, but she's actually not based on anyone real at all. I just imagined how we would react to each other. I put her there because I love Mercedes and I thought it might have been unnecessary extra pain for everyone to read the party scene without someone there for "Brittany" in the beginning/lights bit, because nobody actually was. So she's there representing the good in the world and this Unicorn Club, in the face of all that bullying in the chapter before and in this one.

Oh, and no Brittcedes is happening. I just see some people and I can't keep my hands off them. It's all colors and textures. I react the same way to art and have to touch it. When I forget what I'm doing, I touch everything and everyone that fascinates me, and it's no more sexual than you feeling the ridges of an interestingly textured art piece.

Here's how Philosorapter S. Pierce see's it. Everyone likes listening to music, but it's more fun to listen to music turned up than it is to leave it quiet, but it's no fun having it blasting out and hurting your ears. Imagine that normal people feel basic touch (like running your hands over someone's arm) like they do quiet music = usually mildly pleasurable. Autistic people seem to feel it at one of the higher levels. When I was a child touching people felt like screeching blasting music and it hurt. When I got older (about the time of this chapter) it began to feel just like awesome loud music = just really good.

I talk about this stuff^ because I think someone might find this who has an autistic friend or something and wants to understand them, so I mostly write all this stuff down to help with that.

6. I assume Santana was induced at least a week before her due date, and I'm also assuming that because she was classed as premature, they were off on her estimated due date anyway and she was born maybe 2 -3 weeks(?) early. Not too clear on that one. She was really sick when she tried to tell me that story and wasn't making as much sense as usual other than to imitate her mother saying "Get this thing out of me."

7. Last but not least, you met Granny and Abuela! We both thought it was odd that we were both left with our grandparents as toddlers. Another yin-yang parallel lives thing. All our family history with Uncle Marco/Uncle Albert etc is true. I felt free to give Brittany my early farm experiences because she mentioned her uncle had a goat on the show. Granny isn't alive anymore. She's the one I send balloons into heaven for now and she's the same Granny I tried to make better with hugs (like heartburn) but she died anyway, not long after the events of this chapter. I miss her very much. Abuela is still large as life and is still kicking as we speak. I know that Alma (Lopez) is Santana's paternal grandmother on the show, but the only grandparent my "Santana" ever knew was her mother's mother, and I am not creative enough to be able to switch it around. I think Granny was the main person who taught me what family was, so I could teach Santana, and I guess Santana sung 'Somewhere over the Rainbow' to me, because it was the only nice thing a family member had ever done for her.

Oh, and as for Katie, that was probably the nicest sisterly bonding moment we ever had, she's not usually up for it.

If you made it through all those comments, you are seriously awesome. :) The next chapter is most likely the end of Part 2, and Part 3 will probably be a bit shorter… I'm on the home stretch to the end now.