Disclaimer: I don't own Glee

A/N: so this chapter came out exactly the opposite of the way I wanted (insert nervous giggle). Apparently my fingers found a plot bunny lol

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Chapter Seventeen

In Which Brittany is Insightful

…

They were all huddled in the basement of Rachel's home, separated in their little cliques and throwing each other uncomfortable glances. At first Finn didn't know why there was so much tension hovering around them until Rachel herself, seated neatly in front of the mini stage with the lights all pointed to her like some holy angel, finally spoke up. He was surprised to note that even though she was the one to initiate the meeting, and would have been in 'hard working star' mode, that she actually looked nervous.

"I know things haven't been going well in the past few glee meetings," she said importantly, her voice shaking only slightly as she picked her words carefully. Quinn, who was naturally sitting next to her, placed a comforting hand on her knee.

"That's sugar coating it Miss Broadway," Santana scowled, her arms crossed over her chest and crossed leg wiggling impatiently. She obviously wanted to be anywhere but in the basement of their brunette leader. Finn noticed that she was separate from everyone else, closest to the door and with no Brittany at her hip. The blonde cheerio was actually sitting next to Tina on the other side of the room looking at her winter boots like they were more fascinating than whatever it was Rachel had to say.

Actually. Finn furtively looked around the room. The seating arrangement was weird again. Just like the first time during that glee meeting so long ago. It felt like decades ago…

Since they had broken up recently, Finn wasn't surprised to see Mike sitting with Sam and him across from where Tina sat with Brittany and Mercedes. Kurt had miraculously placed himself to Finn's left, though he wasn't sure why. After turning his shirt into a tissue, Finn was sure the other teen would be too uncomfortable to be near him. He was uncomfortable after unexpectedly angsting on him.

Puck was sitting next to Artie by Rachel. The latter who seemed deeply confused and discomfited by the tension in the air and was trying to distract himself by fiddling his thumbs or wiping his glasses for the tenth time. Puck, to Finn's irritation, kept throwing glances at Kurt who thankfully ignored them with a haughty cold shoulder.

"Yes, I suppose I am," Rachel relented to Santana's comment. "The point is we have a show fast approaching and we've yet to have gone through a number without messing up five seconds in, nor have we decided on a finale," her voice softened, picking up the confident pace everyone was used to, "Mr. Schue's been working his ass off guys, it's not fair to him. We need to leave our problems off the stage and come together as a group," she cleared her throat importantly and straightened up in her seat, "which is why I called everyone here. We're putting everything on the table, and we're going fix this."

Finn's mouth turned dry. There was no way he was telling everyone he was messing up because he was distracted by his ever-growing crush on Kurt. From the way Sam tensed beside him he knew he felt the same.

"What is this a therapy session?" Puck sneered, while everyone else squirmed at the thought of saying their problems in front of everyone, "I'm not going all breakfast club and spilling my guts out to you guys, no offense, but that's just not how I roll."

"Fine then I'll go first," Rachel frowned, emitting many eye rolls from the group. Finn watched with growing dread as she cleared her throat again and looked his way. "I know I've said this before, but I want to say it again, in front of everyone this time – "

"You really don't – " he tried to argue, but she cut him off.

"I have to," she insisted, her clasped hands over her lap tightening. Finn's words died in his throat, knowing she would go on to say what she wanted no matter how much he protested. She distractedly flattened her red flannel skirt, cheerful colors for the holiday that didn't fit the mood of the room. "I know what I did was horrible. Especially after everything you've been put through. I should have told you sooner and…and I really regret it, even though you said you forgive me, I know that a part of you hates me for it, so…" she shrugged, her voice watery, "I'm sorry. I really am."

"Me too," Quinn said quietly, startling Finn. It was probably the first time in a long while since they'd spoken, he couldn't remember the last time he looked into her soft blue eyes, now filled with remorse and the slightest hint of calm. He hadn't seen her like this ever, and it was probably all due to Rachel. They both looked so relaxed together, something he could never have had with either of them. Once again he felt the pang of jealously strike through his chest. "I'm sorry for everything I've done to you. I'll understand if you never fully forgive me about the whole Puck thing and now this. You deserve better."

Somewhere in the back of his head he wondered how Rachel managed to turn Quinn around and let her open up in front of everyone and tell him these things without sounding like a cold hearted bitch. But this was mortifying. He was fine with accepting Rachel's apology in private without the need to make a show of it in front of the whole glee club – especially in front of Kurt who just yesterday had to deal with him crying on him over his pitiable self worth.

"It's fine," he said lamely, wishing desperately for the ground to open up and swallow him.

"Of course it's fine, you're gay," Santana's coarse voice resounded throughout the room. "you wouldn't be cool with it if you weren't – besides, you have trouty mouth to keep you company so you have nothing to feel sorry for."

"Santana, the point of this meeting was to discuss our problems and deal with them," Rachel snapped, cheeks turning red.

"Can you stop calling me that?" Sam half shouted, twisting around in his seat to face the girl.

"Being gay is no excuse to not feel hurt that the one they loved cheated on them," Kurt added, "Finn came out after he broke up with Rachel, but I've seen how upset he was when he found out she was with Quinn, so I find it insulting that you think he came out of all that without a scratch just because he's gay."

Finn resisted the urge to correct that he was upset because he was jealous the two girls had something he wanted to have with Kurt, and that part of that hurt was his fault for going off to Puck soon after.

"The problem is we suck," Brittany spoke up suddenly, making the growing protests from everyone fall silent and turn to her in surprise, "no matter how much we try to deal, there's always that little monster in our heads that can't help hating the person next to us because they think they're so awesome – our problem is we're teenagers and we can't get over ourselves that it's not just about 'me, me, me,' but that it's also about the group and the people that care about us. We're just too selfishly absorbed into the drama in our lives that we don't stop to see how it's affecting everyone else. We're stupid like that, and we won't stop until one of us ends up broken like the glass of water I broke last week."

Everyone stared at the blonde as if she were an extraterrestrial. Finn was starting to believe an alien had disguised themselves as the cheerio in order to spout out random insightful word vomits to render them speechless and then eat their brains for good measure.

"That was…deep," Artie managed to say, brows lost in his fringe.

"What are you trying to say, Brittany?" Rachel asked cautiously, wondering if she was going to say something even more meaningful.

"I'm saying that even though we'll solve our problems today, they won't be solved tomorrow, or the day after that," the blonde said simply, strangely pessimistic for such a light tone. "We're always gonna find something to complain about, and because we all wanna be stars, we're always gonna fight. The only reason we really suck now is because the 'me, me, me' is becoming more important than the 'us, us, us." At this she looked straight at Santana, who fidgeted under her gaze and looked away.

"And how are we going to fix that?" Mercedes asked, also wary of breaking Brittany's sudden thinking bubble.

"We can't," she shrugged, still staring at Santana, "we're too afraid of the consequences."

Finn did a mental flinch. He had a feeling Brittany was only speaking to the now quiet Santana, but what she said struck a chord in him. Telling Kurt he loved him was something he desperately wanted to do, but knowing those feelings weren't reciprocated hurt more than the urge to just say it. There was so much baggage that came behind those three words. Burt and his mother would end up finally knowing he was gay, and much worse, he lived with Kurt. The situation at home would take a steady decline to doom until it would no longer be possible to live with the Hummel's.

And his mother was so happy with Burt right now. He couldn't do that to her.

"So what do we do?" he asked softly, realizing a second too late he voiced it.

Brittany shrugged again. "Suck it up and spill? I'm just tired of waiting for something that won't happen unless I say it…I'm not really a dolphin, but I guess you could call me a mermaid…or a combination of a shark and a dolphin."

No one had anything to say to that simply because they had no idea what she meant. The only one who seemed to understand was Santana, who now had bitter tears in her eyes.

…

After the elephant of a silence that followed Brittany's epic rant Rachel announced a ten minute break to gather their thoughts. Everyone was more than happy to get out of the basement, especially Santana who went outside in the biting cold for fresh air. Finn would never understand the girl. One minute she's Satan, the next she seems to be almost human and you find yourself feeling bad for her, though you can't figure out why.

Worrying if Santana's alright isn't in the forefront of his mind though. Barely an hour passed since he arrived at Rachel's house and already he can see that Sam and Mike are as inseparable as they were before Tina intervened.

The two were in the kitchen talking about something Finn couldn't understand. Sam's leaning on the counter, and Mike's right beside him, close enough that their shoulders are touching. They're smiling softly, a special spark in their eyes. It doesn't take much for Finn to know that Mike feels the same for Sam as the blond does for him. All it would take was for one of them to accidentally let something slip and they'd be together in a snap.

Just as he felt for whenever he saw Rachel and Quinn together, he now felt that familiar pang of jealousy for the two boys in the kitchen.

He turned away and fully entered the living room where Brittany and Tina were sitting. They weren't speaking, which was fine with him, he just wanted to be done with the stupid meeting and go back to moping at home.

The silence of the room lasted for a total of ten seconds.

"Finn, do you love Sam?" Tina asked, her quiet voice blaring through the living room like thunder. Finn winced.

"Uh…" he was starting to notice that he could never answer the Asian girl without sounding like an idiot. This was the second time that question was directed to him too.

Tina blinked in surprise, "I'll…take that as a no?"

"That's not why I…I mean…" he was torn between saying yes or no, lying to the girl felt like trying to tell Brittany that Santa didn't exist. He wanted to tell her that yes he loved Sam in order to keep up the front that they were happy together, but another part was so tired of pretending Sam was Kurt and that he would happily break up with him if only to relieve himself of the guilt and emptiness he felt whenever he was with the blond.

Tina didn't press for a straight answer, but she eyed him thoughtfully and sank back into the squashy sofa. Brittany stood up abruptly, startling the two.

"I'm going to talk to Santana," she said, determination in her eyes. Without even picking up her coat, she marched out the door to confront the Latina. A pregnant silence fell over the living room again, but it was soon cut short by the loud and very pissed voice of Santana, and the calm and bordering oblivious voice of Brittany. He was going to choose to ignore it had he not heard something particularly interesting in their argument.

"…Used Finn like that, we both knew he was dolphin a long time ago."

"I wasn't going to use him! I wanted to know for sure! I would have explained it to him! It's not like Berry wasn't his beard or – "

"Why can't we just – "

"No! I can't!"

They were talking about him? Before Finn could stop himself, he was across the living room in two strides and wrenched the front door open, frightening the two girls into jumping a foot in the air.

Tina watched, or rather listened to the unfolding drama going on outside. She had no idea what was going on, or why it involved Finn, or why it upset the two girls so much, but she didn't have much time to think on it because Sam had just entered the living room, Mike nowhere in sight. Knowing what was about to happen, Tina threw a small smile to the blond as he settled on the same spot Finn had occupied not a few seconds ago.

"Hi," he started quietly, eyeing her warily.

"Hi," she greeted back, willing herself to be patient, and calm the monster inside that wanted to scratch Sam's eyes out.

"Um…so…" he looked down at the phone in his hand, flipping it around like a nervous tick, "you gave me apology cookies yesterday…why?"

From the way he was squirming around and avoiding her eyes, Tina knew he knew what the cookies were for. He just needed a confirmation from her. She hoped her smile didn't seem too forced. She was going to talk to him about this, but not here with everyone else wandering around and there being a good chance that they'd catch her breaking down. She'd have to suck it up though. Sam might not approach her like he was now.

Besides, what Brittany said earlier kind of pumped up her courage, even though she had no clue what the dolphin mermaid thing was about.

"You know why," she replied quietly. Sam made no sign to speak so she continued, "I wanted to apologize because…I haven't been very nice to you," she took a deep breath, "when I was with Mike I noticed you two were getting really close. I was fine with it at first because ever since Matt moved, Mike's been lonely without his best friend – I was happy you were filling that void," her voice hitched slightly at the memories of seeing her ex-boyfriend so happy with the blond footballer, smiling in such a way that could no longer be directed at her. It would take a while before she'd get over Mike. "But then I started to notice that you were getting closer than I would have expected from two friends and I was afraid that I was going to lose him," she lowered her head in shame. "So I convinced him to stop hanging out with you – not so…blatantly, but I just sort of…hogged him more. It worked for a bit, I tried to ignore how unhappy he was, but then we got into that argument, and I just couldn't do it anymore."

She blinked back tears that were forming. She wasn't going to cry again, she had enough of having a stuffy nose and puffy red eyes, and feeling sorry for herself. She just wanted to wake up one morning with not having the thought of Mike drive her to tears.

"What was that fight about?" Sam asked cautiously before adding, "if you don't mind me asking."

Tina smiled wryly. "It was just a stupid fight, it shouldn't have blown up the way it did. We just didn't agree on what movie to watch that night, he mentioned your name, and I snapped. I really shouldn't have slapped him, but in the end it was over. I'm glad it's over, it wouldn't have worked out anyway, the way you two have been going." Sam looked at his lap again, cheeks reddening. Tina would have laughed only it probably would have been between a bark and a sob. "I'm giving you a chance here, I know you don't really like Finn that way, I've seen the way you look at Mike."

Sam was fidgeting again, partly because he felt horrible that it was his fault Tina broke up with Mike. "It's not that easy," he managed to mumble.

"Of course it is. Haven't you heard a word Brittany said downstairs?" and she smiled genuinely this time, remembering that Sam wasn't the evil kid who stole her boyfriend, but the dorky guy who couldn't help his feelings, and was probably suffering just as badly as she was. "The worst that could happen is him saying no, and you're an idiot if you think he'll say that." Sam still looked uncertain. "Do you know how much he reads those Na-vi language sites? Or his newfound interest in whether Marvel is better than DC?"

Sam was blushing again. "But still," he argued halfheartedly, "this can't be easy for you either."

"I'll get over it," she waved him off with more confidence than she actually felt. "I ship Mike and happiness." The blond looked up with his brows knitted in confusion, "besides, two guys going at it? Kind of hot."

Knowing she was trying to perk up the mood even if they didn't really feel it themselves, Sam cracked a small grin to her playful smirk, quietly thankful to her for giving him this chance.

…

He wasn't sure how it happened, but the second he barged in on the two cheerio's, they argued for about another minute until Santana threw up her hands and shouted that she loved Brittany so much it was started to interfere with her terrorizing the school. The two shared a heated kiss that left Finn utterly confused and wishing his legs would move so he wouldn't have to keep watching them display their obvious love for each other. That and it was fucking cold out.

"So…" he cut in, shifting from one foot to the other, "what does this all have to do with me?"

Brittany was the first to break away; her previously pink lip glossed lips now red and bruised from the passionate lip lock. "Santana wanted to entertain me with dolphin drama, but we got into a fight and she wanted to use you to make me jealous, but you messed it up by telling everyone that you really were a dolphin, so it would be impossible for her to use you," she smiled toothily, "she never knows what to do without me, so she lost it."

Trying to find any sense in what the blonde had told him was making Finn's head hurt, so he simply nodded and went back inside, leaving them to their love bubble.

He looked at his watch. Five more minutes and they had to go back downstairs. With Brittany and Santana back together maybe some of the earlier tension would be lifted. Spotting Sam in the living room, he flopped down next to him. Tina was gone.

The two friends stared ahead at the impressive flat screen tv sitting in front of them. Neither of them made an effort to turn it on even though they wanted to watch something to break the silence.

"I talked to Tina," Sam said conversationally. Finn nodded, impressed that they confronted each other after the whole confusion with Mike. Where was Mike anyway? "She said she always knew." Finn resisted the urge to agree, not sure if Sam would put it against him for knowing why Mike was avoiding him when he was with the shy girl. "I've been thinking about what Brittany said."

"Me too," because who hadn't?

And before either of them said it, they already knew what was going to be said next. They were tired of pretending. Of looking at the hand they were holding and realizing it wasn't the one they wanted. Of kissing in the dark because they couldn't stand to look at the other and see someone different from their fantasies.

Plus, one of them had a chance to be with the one they wanted; it'd be stupid to pass on that chance.

"Can we break up?"

"I think we should break up."

Both looked at each other in bemusement before falling into peels of laughter, feeling entirely ridiculous about the situation. Their moment of hilarity was cut short by the growing shouts coming from the backyard that were becoming more and more hostile. At first Finn thought Brittany and Santana were fighting again, but the voices were two masculine to be them.

Mercedes rushed into the living room just as Rachel and Quinn emerged from the basement looking alarmed.

"White boy, your man's in trouble."

Not even pausing to correct her that he didn't have a 'man', Finn leaped out of the sofa and followed her through the kitchen and out the backdoor where the strangest scene leapt out at him.

Apparently everyone seemed to find it fine to chill outside in the bitter cold of winter. Finn wasn't sure what was happening, but the prominent yelling was coming from both Kurt and Puck. The shorter of the two being held back by both Tina and Artie, and Puck struggling against Mike who was having trouble holding the strong teen back.

Before Finn could ask what was going on, Kurt broke away and rushed head on towards Puck, who also broke free. Finn stood frozen on the spot as the two crashed into each other and fell in a heap of fists and kicks. He watched in horror as they rolled around the snow, decorating the other's faces with bruises and scratches.

There was no way this could be happening.