Brittany had just gotten to the studio and started warming up for her first class when she heard a little squeaky sound behind her, a rubber-soled sneaker scuffing lightly against the polished dance floor. She gasped and spun around so fast it took her brain a moment to catch up her eyes and register what she was seeing. And when she did...

"Iliana Marie! What are you doing here, young lady? And I better not hear anything but that your mami drove you here and is waiting for you out front."

Ily frowned and remained silent until her mama huffed out an exasperated breath.

"Well? Answer me, Iliana."

"You said you didn't want to hear."

"Tell me that your mami knows where you are, at LEAST."

"You don't like it when I lie."

"Ilyyyyy, why?" Brittany almost whined.

"I needed to talk to you," Ily said simply, shrugging. "Mami would've said no and I'm already in trouble anyway so I figured it couldn't get much worse."

"I wouldn't count on that," Brittany muttered, crossing over to the hooks on the wall opposite the mirrors and rummaging through her dance bag. "Sit down while I call her and tell her you're safe."

"Okay, but Mama? Please tell her not to come here. You can bring me home after your first class, right? So I can tell you what I came here to tell you?" The little girl saw her mother preparing to argue and decided begging couldn't hurt. "Please, Mama? Pretty please with sugar on top, and cherries and whipped cream and gummy bears."

Brittany sighed and shook her head, but it was a "What can I do" type of head shake, not a "No." In an effort to retain some small measure of authority, Brittany pointed a stern finger at her daughter. "Sit," she repeated. Ily sat, chewing her bottom lip to hide her small smile of satisfaction.

The side of the conversation Iliana could hear did not bode well, what with the multiple times that her mama had to break off as she was interrupted by the angry-sounding, faraway voice Ily could hear even from several yards away and the four separate times her mama said, "Please calm down." She even called her "Sanny," a pet name that only made an appearance when Brittany was pulling out all the stops to get through to her beloved hothead. After a few uncomfortable (for Ily) minutes, her mama ended the call and tossed her phone back in her bag.

"She mad?" Iliana asked.

Brittany raised an eyebrow at her in an astonishingly good impression of Aunt Quinn.

"Okay, buddy. I went to bat for you. Now you gotta tell me exactly what you're doing here and it better be worth it. Go."

Iliana stood up and went to stand in front of her mama. She reached for her hands and looked up into her kind blue eyes and said what had been burning in her heart since last night. "I love you."

Brittany looked momentarily surprised, but after taking a moment to swallow her emotion at hearing that simple, powerful, unbearably raw statement from the little girl who had been so angry at her, she said, "I love you too, baby. Bigger than cheese. You know that."

"I love Mami. Do you love Mami?"

"Iliana, you know I do. What kind of question is that?"

"She loves you too."

Brittany frowned, not understanding why it was so vitally important to the girl to tell her these things right now. So much so that she was literally risking her butt to sneak out of the house and come here after she'd been punished for just this very thing a day ago.

"Honey - "

"No, please let me talk. Aunt Rachel says that if you have the floor, it's yours fair and square until you give it to someone else. That means I get to talk until I'm done. It's Broadway rules."

Britt smirked a little, but nodded for Ily to continue.

"You don't want to come home yet because you think it might not work. That you guys will go back to fighting all the time. But more than that you're worried that I will break into pieces if you come home and then that happens. I know that's what you think; I was listening to you last night, and yes, I know it's not nice to eavesdrop but this was important." She took a breath and hurried on, because she could sense her mama getting ready to cut in, Broadway rules or not. "Mama, do you think I'm strong?"

Brittany reeled at this new curve ball. The girl was thinking a mile ahead of her. "Of course I do," she said.

"I'm strong like you and I'm strong like Mami?"

"Stronger. You're our Superbaby."

"Well then you know better," Iliana said in an almost scolding tone. "You KNOW that I won't break. I can handle it if things don't go right. I've been handling it since you left. There's only one thing I can't handle, Mama, and that's if you don't TRY."

Iliana's gaze was direct and piercing, daring her mama to say that none of this mattered, it wasn't the point and Ily was too young to understand. So when Brittany did open her mouth, Ily quickly interrupted, wanting to drive it all home before she could be told something she knew for a fact to be utterly untrue.

"I'm not too young to understand, Mama," she said emphatically. "Even kids know how love's supposed to work. Maybe we're the only ones who do."


Santana was livid. She couldn't believe that Iliana had pulled this shit again, just a day after the first time. She must be losing her touch, her connection to the Santana Lopez who had been known and feared at McKinley High and for years after among those who'd known her then. She should've taken it out of the kid's ass the second Rachel and Kurt showed up with her, forget Brittany's gentle, talk-it-out approach to parenting. Iliana sure as hell would've thought twice before sneaking out again if Santana had handled things her way yesterday.

Fortunately for everyone concerned, Britt's call had come almost simultaneously with the moment Santana had realized their daughter wasn't in the apartment. So the surge of relief crashed into a wave of pissed off and the result was that Santana was practically shaking under the influence of both emotions.

Before hanging up, she had reluctantly agreed to let Brittany bring the girl home after her first class let out. But that deal wasn't sitting right. Ily was playing them again, as if what they'd been through yesterday hadn't been hard enough. She thought that this time she would lure Brittany back home – again – and that this time she would have some sort of epiphany and realize that she couldn't leave. It was grownup crap and Iliana had no business butting in.

So Santana was going to butt her right the hell out.

She didn't want to see Brittany right now – the very thought, in fact, made her ache – but she was not going to be played by an eight-year-old. Even if that eight-year-old kind of owned her. Throwing on a black sweatshirt and jeans, pulling her long hair through a baseball cap, and stepping into unlaced cross trainers, she headed out the door and down the street toward the dance studio.


Hey guys! One more chapter. Are you still with me? Seatbelts on? Let's ride.