It's hard.

It's hard not being able to talk. Santana can speak pretty well to Mercedes and Jake in private, but she relies on sign language a lot with them in other situations. (like in public) It wasn't hard to learn at all, and it's convenient. People at the group home always looked at her like she was stupid, even though she wished more than anything to speak freely.

Santana doesn't know what she would do without Mercedes and Jake, they are her whole world. Mercedes learned sign language right after she stopped talking to make her feel comfortable, Jake followed right after her. They don't treat her different like the rest of the world does, they make her feel normal. Of course, as siblings do, they fight, but not a lot. They all love video games, and anything to do with music. Santana can't picture a world without them, and she doesn't ever want to.

As she heads into the building, Mercedes and Jake follow behind her. She turns around and ruffles jakes short hair, he blushes and they continue walking. Santana can hardly believe he's a Freshman this year, just yesterday she swears he was in diapers.

"I'll see you soon Tana, have a good day." Jake quickly signs and speaks, the hallways were booming with noise and he wanted to make sure she understood what he was saying.

"Bye! Have a good first day!" Santana signs back to him as she smiles widely, she really hopes he has a good day, he deserves it.

Jake walks away, heading to the freshman lockers on the other side of the school. Santana and Mercedes watch him go, before starting to put their stuff in their lockers. Santana got lucky this year, her and Mercedes a couple classes together. People pick on her, she's an easy target for harassment when no one's there to defend her. She tries, tries so hard to talk back, but her mouth only moves, and no words come out, then she looks stupid.

"You ready?" Mercedes inquires, noticing that Santana zoned out. It's a common habit of her sisters, ever since she was little she'd always go off somewhere when she was bored, or annoyed. She could usually tell what Santana was thinking about by her facial expressions, the way her brow furrowed, or how her tongue would slightly stick out the corner of her mouth. She didn't know this time though. Santana would always tell her if it was serious when she was ready.

Santana grabs some of her books in her locker, she tucks her freshly straightened hair behind her ear before following Mercedes to homeroom period.

They get to class first, surprising due to how long Santana was daydreaming.

The teacher for homeroom name is Mrs. Pillsbury, Santana finds out she's also the guidance counselor. Before school started, her Tio and Tia sent an email to the school explaining what's "wrong" with Santana (Jake and Mercedes argued for better wording, saying that's there was nothing wrong with her in the first place). Most of the teachers and staff responded, besides a few of Santana's teachers, which made her nervous and paranoid.

While waiting for the rest of the senior class to arrive, Mrs. Pillsbury told them a bit about Lima after figuring out that they just moved there. (Santana was dead set on trying breadsticks) Soon though, kids started coming in, and Santana scurried on to the back of the classroom with Mercedes in tow.

Santana first noticed how tiny the class was, it was a big room of course, but only 100 students filed the room. Her old school in Philly had over 500 kids in her class. She was sort of glad it was tinier, maybe it would be less trouble with her fellow classmates.

The period was breeze; most people were just talking amongst themselves and their friends at this point. She wrote a rant in her notebook about how free ice cream should be in schools everywhere and showed it to Mercedes and she laughed so loud several people in the class turned to see what was so funny.

"You should be a writer for real Santana, it doesn't matter if its lyrics or sheet music or stories, you have to write, you have talent." Mercedes signs, a grin still placed on her face from laughing so hard.

Santana blushes at the complement, before quickly signing back, "I haven't sung or played in 2 years Cedes."

"That doesn't mean you can't write stuff for someone else Tana?"

"I don't know Mercedes…" Santana looks down briefly before noticing how oddly quiet the class was, as she slowly picks her head up, she sees everyone looking at her and Mercedes. She wishes she could disappear at this exact minute.

Luckily, the bell blares, and everyone packs up to leave. A blonde girl walks past her before she gets out the room. The girl looks back at her for a slight second before heading out the room. She had a uniform on, which Santana would guess would be the cheerleading one. Santana tried to guess the girl's personality by the 5 seconds she saw her, but doing that and walking isn't a great mix at all. So she headed to her next classes with Cedes instead, hoping and praying nothing would go awry.

The day has been okay, nothing interesting. It's the first day so teachers don't usually give work. It's just been a bunch of syllabuses so far, lunch, and stares. Lots of stares when her and Mercedes sign to each other.

She hasn't seen the blonde girl again yet, not like she's looking for her or anything, cause that would be CREEPY.

Santana heads on to Calculus, which makes her nervous, since this is the first class she hasn't had with Mercedes today. Each step towards the classroom is like a step towards impending doom. She takes a deep breath as she slowly makes her way to the back of the classroom.

"Hello class, my name is Mr. Conners and welcome to Calculus room 3A. This won't be an easy class, but I'm hoping we can have a fun year this year. Now I'm going to be giving you a pop quiz, just to see how each of you fair in my class. If you fail, you get send back to Pre-Calc, if you pass, you stay here. You have one hour to do 30 questions, good luck." The whole class groans.

Santana may have passed out in that exact moment, math is her favorite and strongest subject besides Spanish. (Her mom was a native speaker, and her and Jake and Mercedes are fluent in it). But a pop quiz this early in the year? She hasn't done school in months and it usually takes her some time to get good in math again before school starts.

As soon as he gives her the quiz, she zooms through it, finishing it in 15 minutes. Maybe Santana wasn't as rusty as she thought. When she places the quiz on the desk, the teacher gasps at her.

"That soon?" Santana nods her head with a smile. The teacher takes her paper and to Santana's surprise, starts signing and speaking to her.

"Your name is Santana, right?"

"You know how to sign?" she asks, her mouth opened agape.

"Yep! I used to be an interpreter."

looked down at her paper for a bit and then started to her again, "From what I'm seeing, these all look correct, you seem like a very bright student Santana, I'm excited to see you in my class. I'll let you head out early, maybe you can explore around the school a bit."

Santana gives him a smile before picking up her bag, and walking out the room, she sees some jocks staring at her. It makes her feel uneasy, so she quickly shuffles out the room.

It's quiet and peaceful around the halls, the only noises being the pitter patter of her black converses. She looks at the posters on the bulletin boards, club sign-up sheets filled with signatures, the biggest one being the cheer squad. It looks like the sign up list is a mile long. She sees theater club, then glee club. The sign-up sheet is bare, but maybe Mercedes and Jake would join. She would die to able to sing and play piano again. Her mother taught her, Mercedes, and Jake how to sing. They would spend hot afternoons in the summer singing and shuffling their feet while cleaning the house. Old music would blast on the radio, from Selena to Michael to Whitney and others. Jake and Mercedes picked most of the dancing genes, but they were all put into dance classes from an early age. Santana was pretty good, but not as good as those two. Piano was her strongest suit, and she misses the times where she would get on and just play, her fingers moving before her mind would. She could read a piece of music once before it was memorized and enjoy singing along with it. There would be nights where Santana, Jake, and Mercedes would sit around the piano and sing with Jake accompanying on Guitar for hours on end. Sometimes their dad would even sit and listen to them when he was home. He would record and always brag about them to his friends, about how his kids were gonna make it big, and they always believed him.

But alas, she hasn't touched any musical instrument since her parents died, since it happened. Jake and Mercedes didn't either for almost a year, but then they started again. Sometimes, they all pile into someone's room, and Jake plays the guitar while Mercedes sings. It almost feels like old times. Just almost.

Santana didn't realize that she was crying, she wipes her silent tears off her face before anyone could see. She doesn't know how long she's just been there crying. She better go back to the classroom so Mercedes can meet her so they could go home. As soon as she turns around to leave she's met with 4 jocks surrounding her. She remembers two from Calculus, but the other two were unfamiliar.

"So isn't the new girl? Word on the street is that you're a big smarty pants, huh?" One boy said, he had a slushy cup in his hands. His hair was brown and he way bigger than her, all of them were towering over Santana. Plus, they all had letterman jackets, they must be jocks in a sport of some sort.

Santana was feeling very uncomfortable right now, she doesn't like enclosed spaces at all, they make her panic. She wants to try to escape, but her legs won't work, she's frozen with fear. It was stupid of her to even think she could escape anyways. I mean hello? Big jocks who were definitely over 6ft were surrounding her.

She started to sign words, forgetting that the boys couldn't understand her at all. They start to move closer to her.

"What are you trying to do?" A different boy behind the guy with the slushy cup spoke.

"We don't speak that dumb crap you do, why can't you talk like normal idiot?" The word stung, it always does. It's such a simple word but the effect it does on her is great. Santana lowers her head, trying to stop herself from crying, the tears now a mix of her being uncomfortable and being sad.

"Hey? Hey dumb bitch." The slushy cup boy said, he reaches out and grabs Santana's chin, forcing her to look up. She winces at the sudden force as tears roll down her face. Her body starts to shake from pure fear as she cowers within herself.

"Karofsky? Azimio? Puck? Rick? What are you doing?" A voice calls, out, but Santana can't see who it is, her view is obstructed by the tears blurring her vision.

"Brittany we-"

"Are you guys serious? What the hell is wrong with you?" Brittany pushes past the jocks and sees the scared girl. She remembers her from homeroom. She thought she was really pretty, and remembers how cute her smile was. She shakes her head. Not the time at all.

She whips her head to see the jocks just staring at her, she might have just gotten even more angry than she was. Buffoons.

"What are you doing just standing around? Go fuck off!" Brittany yelled at them. "Beiste will DEFINITLY hear about this." She tells them as they run down the hall.

"Honey? Are you okay?" Brittany's voice softens. The girl doesn't respond, she just sits there and shakes, tears rolling down her face. Brittany remembers how she was using sign language with the girl sitting next to her, who had to be her sister or something earlier. She feels really stupid for not remembering that.

Brittany concludes that she's has to find her sister, it seems like she would be the only person who would be able to talk to her. Classes are still happening right now though, so how would she be able to figure out which one? Although today was the one day everyone has math last period, she doesn't know which math the girl is in. Brittany realizes that she does have her backpack, so maybe they'll be in the same math? It's worth a shot.

"I'm gonna try and find your sister, okay, I just need to look through your bag first." The girl nods slowly as she wipes the tears off her face, Brittany can clearly see she's still shaken up.

Brittany unzips the bag and finds a calculus notebook that has the name Santana Lopez written neatly on the top right corner. Perfect. She'll go check. But wait, she couldn't leave Santana here on the floor? She quickly thinks of just the place though.

"Okay Santana, I'm gonna take you to Mrs.P's office, then I'm gonna get your sister for you, okay?" Santana eyes go wide, then she slowly nods. Brittany helps her up before slowly bringing her to her office down the hall.

"Mrs. P?" Brittany says, Mrs. Pillsbury looks up and sees the two girls in front of her. "Brittany? What happened. Santana come and sit here sweetie." She motions Brittany to lead Santana to the chair in front of her desk.

"I need to go get her sister, can you keep an eye on her for me?" Mrs. Pillsbury nods and Brittany takes a mad dash to the Calculus room.

By the time Brittany got to the Calculus room, she finds Santana's sister waiting outside with a concerned look on her face. She walks over to her.

"Hi, I'm Brittany, I'm just wondering if you're Santana's sister?" The girl looks at Brittany with a confused look," Yeah, I am, what's going on?"

"Well, I found her crying with some Jocks cornering her, she doesn't seem to have any injuries but she's pretty shaken up. I can take you to her..." Brittany can see some of the girl's books and sees a name. Mercedes.

"Mercedes, I'll take you to her." Brittany sees Mercedes eyes widen, then she frantically pulls out her phone and calls someone.

"Hey Jake," She speaks into the phone, "Meet me at…..Uhm where is Santana?" Mercedes asks Brittany frantically.

"Mrs. P's office, it's just right down the hallway."

"Mrs. P's office…..Yes the ginger counselor….alright ill meet you there." Mercedes hangs up the phone," Thank you so much, I don't know how I can repay you." she says, Brittany can tell she's being genuine. "Don't worry about it Mercedes, go on. Have a nice day." Brittany says with a smile, Mercedes smiles briefly back before walking away down the hall.

Brittany sighs, someone really needs to stop those Jocks. She can't believe how heartless they are sometimes. They always get away with murder and Brittany's tired of it. Tired of those snobs being able to do what they please just because they won states last year.

It's the same thing for the cheerleaders too, and sometimes Brittany wonders why she still wears this uniform. It feels like she's just letting bullying happen. She came on the cheerios to dance, but now that she choreographs for the local kids with Mike, there's no true purpose for her to be on the team. The cheerios get away with murder as well, winning consecutive nationals titles and have Sue as your coach could do that. But still, is being on the team, is being popular, worth watching people getting bullied?

Brittany walks to the football field. Although cheerios practice hasn't started due to tryouts, her brother Sam, has football tryouts after school. He doesn't even really need to try out though, since he's already sort of the starting QB.

Sam isn't her birth brother, her family adopted him when she was 6, and they've been inseparable since. Most people don't even believe that they're not twins, due to the fact that they look so alike. But they aren't.

A lot of kids picked on Sam for being dyslexic growing up, and for Brittany not being the smartest, but that made their bond grow. Brittany and Sam have been called all the names for being "stupid" all the way until high school. They both instantly became popular for being the athletic sibling duo. It was weird, from being picked on every day to everyone liking you. If Brittany was being honest, sometimes she still does think she's stupid. She still struggles with her school work a lot of the time and it's frustrating. She spends hours doing work just to get C's and teachers telling her to work harder when she DOES work hard. Every single day, but she only has dance to show for it. Because with dancing, that's probably the only way for Brittany to ever make something out of her idiotic self.

But of course nobody knows that. Nobody knows how she truly feels besides Sam.

Her parents are very sweet, loving people, but when Brittany comes home from school, they go to work, and when Brittany's about to sleep after hours of studying, they come back. They never have been able to support her or Sam through their struggles and that hurts.

She wonders if Santana is okay. She really does hope she is. Brittany was just glad she was able to stop the situation before anything drastic happened. Maybe she'll check in on her tomorrow, just to make sure.

The whistle blows, signaling the end of practice. Brittany opens her bag and rummages to get her car keys, she hops off the bleachers and goes to the car.

She has so many thoughts going around in her head and its making her brain hurt. She can't focus on one thing, her brain does this when she gets overwhelmed, and it makes her stressed out.

She hears the car door open and jumps, but she turns to see its just Sam.

"Sorry Sammy, I didn't know it was you." She breathes deeply to try and calm herself down. Sam looks at her concerned.

"Brittany? Are you okay?" Sam inquires, concerned for his sister. He can tell she's stressed, going back to school always does that to her, him too.

"Yeah Sam, I'm fine. Buckle up so we can go home." She says.

The drive home was uncharacteristically silent, Sam sat as he tapped his fingers on the window as a distraction.

"Sam?" Brittany says softly, keeping her eyes on the road.

"Yeah Britt?"

"Can we watch the Parent Trap tonight?" Sam smirks, it was their favorite movie, and they always watched together if either of them had a bad day.

"Only if I get to pick what's on the popcorn." Brittany smiles, the first smile Sam's seen from her today.

"Deal."

Hello! I'm just coming here to say I hope you enjoyed the story, because I certainly enjoyed writing it. I'm trying to make this story more lighthearted then my previous two but, of course we need some backstory! (P.S it's late so I didn't proofread it, I'm sure you can understand it though, I'll fix it tomorrow!)