A/N

Kinda similar to the book. i didn't change much. i love this story and feel bad to change a lot. i hope you guys will still enjoy it.

From the thrift shop the odd couple went to a deli. Brittany was sitting across the latina with her arms crossed watching the smaller woman eat. She resented Santana because of all she stood for, including plain colored clothing and daisy rings. "So Dr. Lopez, tell me about you. What were you like a kid? Where did you grow up?"

"A little place in Ohio. Sidney." Santana bit into her sandwich with an unusual enthusiasm, and Brittany instantly remembered Quinn telling her about how enthusiastic the latina was in bed. Stop it Brittany. remember the car and the ring and the dress.. not to mention she kicked your cat. She kicked my pussy. That might be hot.. especially if.., no no.. oh god.. new thought new thought.. Brittany shook her head and tried to maintain her composure. "Sydney who?"

Santana stared at the blonde for a second contemplating whether the blonde was serious. She shook her head and swallowed. "No, Sidney is the name of the town where I lived. We were the Sidney Yellow Jackets. I still have my letterman jacket if you want to wear it. Harper would think that was great."

Brittany frowned. "Yellow Jackets? You mean like bees?"

Santana nodded. "Yeah our colors were black and yellow."

Brittany stared at her, incredulous while she attacked her sandwich again. She tried hard not to laugh out loud. "So you guys were the Killer Bees from Sidney, Ohio?"

Santana looked up at the amused blonde with an annoyed look. "Hey, I got a soccer scholarship."

Brittany smirked at her and shook her head and picked up her spoon. She was having a salad which was much healthier than Santana's meatball sandwich. "My wife, the Killer Bee," she said, smiling to herself while trying to pick out the olives from her salad.

Santana ignored the blonde's comments and went on talking. "You know Ohio is a big football state."

Brittany was not paying attention to what was being said the latina and continued thinking out loud. "So does that make me the queen bee?"

"As a matter of fact, my scholarship was to Ohio State." Santana continued not paying attention to her companion's ramblings.

"Which would make you a drone."

"It wasn't a great scholarship."

"It would explain why you've got such boring taste."

"But it didn't really matter, because I had a full ride on an academic scholarship."

Brittany got a faraway look on her face. "We could live in a little cottage called The Hive."

Santana noticed the look on Brittany's face and stopped. "Brittany, are you even listening to me?"

Brittany put her spoon down and batted her eyes at the latina. "Of course, my sweetheart. You were a soccer hero and got a full ride to Ohio State. You dated the prom queen or were the prom queen, you were president of your senior class, you were voted most likely to succeed, and your teachers adored you. And you lost your virginity as a sophomore after the first game."

Santana blinked at her. "How did you know all that?"

Brittany looked smug. "You've got preppy written all over you, baby. The only thing I'd never have guessed was that you were a Killer Bee." She bit into her sandwich, happy to have nailed the latina.

Santana put down her sandwich and smiled at the blonde. "You were in Art Club. You were in Drama Club. You were in National Honor Society. You wore glasses and weird clothes. You wrote poetry, you got straight A's in English, and you dated guys and girls who were very serious about Life. You didn't lose your virginity until college, and then it was a great disappointment. You've spent your entire life hoping that a former soccer star from Sidney, Ohio, would ask you to marry her and move to Prescott, Ohio, so you could have lots of kids and become a Republican."

Brittany swallowed and grinned amusedly at her. "Hmmm you were doing pretty good baby, until you got to the former soccer star from Sidney, Ohio."

"Well baby, for the weekend, pretend the rest is true too."

Brittany stared at the smaller woman trying to understand her. Santana must have had a repressed childhood, the kind she would have had if she'd had to live with her father for more than summers. Santana probably had one of those pushy mothers. "Ok so does your mother like me?"

"My mother doesn't like anybody, including me." Santana replied emotionlessly.

Brittany put her spoon down, suddenly not hungry. "That's awful Santana."

Santana shrugged. "She's not an emotional woman. She doesn't dislike me. I'm fine. She leaves me alone. I've seen people whose mothers call every weekend to see if they're married yet."

"That's my mother." Brittany picked up her spoon again.

"And your dad calls you 'cupcake.' " Santana took another bite of her sandwich.

Fat chance. "My dad doesn't call me anything," Brittany said. "What's your father like?"

Santana chewed and swallowed. "Dead."

The lousy memories of her father disappeared under an onslaught of sympathy, and she let her spoon drop once again "Oh. Oh, Santana, I'm sorry."

Santana shook her head. "It's no big deal Britt. He died when I was thirteen. He got to see me kick a goal in my first junior high game, though."

"Oh, good." The use of the nickname didn't go unnoticed by the blonde but she was more distracted by a young Santana losing her dad. Brittany thought of Santana alone at all her other games. The story built in her mind—the brave young athlete looking at the empty place in the stands after every goal, searching for the father who wasn't there, who wasn't ever going to be there—and her eyes welled with tears.

"Stop it Britt." Santana handed her a napkin. "That was twenty-five years ago. I barely remember what he looked like. Now tell me about your father."

Brittany blotted her tears and pulled herself together. "There's not much to tell. He left."

You had to ask, didn't you Lopez? Santana told herself. "That must have hurt."

Brittany shrugged and swallowed. "He left when I was one. I'm over it now."

Santana tried to think of something sympathetic to say. "Oh." good one moron

"I used to spend my summers with him and he'd try to make me neat and well-behaved so I wouldn't embarrass him. When I turned sixteen, I wouldn't go anymore. So I haven't seen my father much since then."

"Oh." It sounded messy, and Santana really didn't want to talk about it. "So did your mom remarry?"

"No." Brittany fished a pickle from her salad with such elaborate indifference that Santana knew she was upset. "She's waiting for my dad to come back."

"What?"

"I know." Brittany nibbled her pickle. "Even when I was a little kid, I knew it wasn't going to happen. But she still thinks he'll come back. She just can't see reality."

Ah so it's genetic, Santana thought, but all she said was "Well she must have loved him very much."

Brittany looked thoughtful. "I don't know. It was very romantic the way they met. He saw her behind the counter in a flower shop she worked in, and he swept her off her feet and into his limo, and I guess they were really crazy about each other for a while, and then the crazy part wore off for him, and he got a good look at what he'd married and didn't like it." Brittany shrugged. "He's a very conservative person. Very proper, very serious." She met Santana's eyes. "Like you." Santana wasn't sure what to say, but she went on. "And my mother's sort of… fluffy. I don't think she ever caught on that she wasn't what he wanted. I mean, from her point of view, she was doing all the right things, being a good little wife. He just wanted somebody more sophisticated, somebody who fit with his reality. So he found that somebody and left."

"Ouch."

"Yeah." Brittany sighed. "But she still thinks it's just this error he made, and sooner or later he'll remember she's his one true love." She shrugged.

"Sooner or later? How long has it been?"

"Thirty-three years."

"Your mother is freaking nuts," Santana said, and winced. "Sorry. I didn't mean…"

"I don't think she's actually nuts," Brittany said. "I think she's just detached from reality. It's a coping skill."

She met Santana's eyes and read her mind. "I am not detached from reality. I'm perfectly capable of taking short vacations from it, but I always know how to get back."

"Good. Try not to go on vacation this weekend. What do I call your mom?"

"Pansy."

Santana looked revolted. "Why?"

"Because that's her name."

Santana shook her head in disbelief. "Okay. Your mom is Pansy. What's she like?"

Brittany thought about her mother. What could you say about Pansy? "She's little," Brittany said finally. "Nothing like me. Blond. Cute. Tiny. She'd go bananas for this ring." Brittany narrowed her eyes at the latina. "She'd go bananas for you too. The Beautiful, Educated, Successful latina come to steal her little Cinderella away. Just like prince charming, well princess charming."

Santana looked quelling. "Frankly, my dear, I never thought of you as a Cinderella."

Brittany didn't quell. "I never thought of you as a Killer Bee either. The things you find out when you're engaged to someone. What's your mother's name?"

"Gertrude."

"Gertrude? For real? Gertrude Lopez?"

"Her maiden name was Gertrude Schmidt."

Brittany nodded. "A German. I knew it." She sucked in her breath suddenly. "Oh, my God, I can't possibly marry you."

Santana put her sandwich down, alarmed. "Why?"

"My name." Brittany invested the words with as much tragedy as possible.

"Brittany?"

"Brittany Lopez." She made a retching face. "Disgust-ing."

Santana grinned. "Cute. Sounds like a stripper."

"Maybe that's how we met." Brittany perked up. "I was stripping and—"

"No"

"Ok ok fine, then." Brittany tried to make her voice reasonable. "How did we meet? We should meet cute."

"No, we shouldn't." Santana pointed a finger at her. "Forget the fiction. We met because we live in the same building. We lie as little as possible."

"That's no good. I'll think of something," Brittany said, and Santana said, "No, you won't," and went back to her sandwich.

"Ok fine grumpy." Brittany pushed her empty plate away, prepared to concentrate. "Brothers or sisters?"

"Two brothers, Lionel and Michael. Leo and Mic."

"Santana, Lionel, and Michael? as in Lionel Richie, Michael Jackson and Carlos Santana?"

"Dad believed in role models. What about you?"

"I believe in role models," Brittany said, getting ready to tell Santana about Rosa Parks, and then she realized that the latina meant her family. "Oh. Two stepsisters. Heather and Elizabeth. Very chic."

"Got it." Santana finished her sandwich and looked at her watch.

Am I boring you? Brittany thought, but all she said was "Anything else you need to know?"

"What do you do for a living?"

Exactly what it says on my card on the mailbox, Brittany wanted to say, but she repressed it. Being around Santana meant repressing a lot. She didn't like it. "I paint and tell stories. Quinn said you wrote a book once. What was it called?"

"The Nineteenth-Century Sporting Event as Social History."

"Catchy title. Who's going to play you in the movie?"

Santana looked at her with a stoic face. "Maybe I should just tell everyone in Prescott that you're mute."

Brittany grinned back. "Aw don't worry baby. I'll be good."

"Remember that. So what do you paint?"

"Primitives."

"Primitives?"

Brittany thought about explaining it to her, telling her about the women she painted in the smallest, simplest shapes possible, surrounding them with the tiny details of their lives so that the simplicity became complexity, the way that the simplicity of their lives became complex when you looked at their hopes and fears and dreams and stories. Then she looked at Santana sitting across from her, logical and reasonable, and decided to forget it. This was obviously a woman not interested in visual arts or in simple women's lives. "It's hard to explain, but I do them very well."

Santana nodded, clearly uninterested. "What else? How do you really earn a living?"

"I told you. Painting. Storytelling. I sell jewelry to an upscale craft store. I used to have some savings from when I was a teacher, but that's all gone now."

Santana looked nonplused. "How old are you?"

"I'll be thirty in September."

"You're thirty and you have no career and no steady income." Santana shook her head. "Who feeds you? The cats?"

"I do all right." Reality was not the story Brittany wanted to talk about. "This is your fantasy," she told Santana. "I'm just along for the ride until midnight, when I turn into a pumpkin. Why don't you just tell me your story, and I'll memorize it, and we'll be done."

"Great," Santana said, and began to talk. It was so much worse than Brittany had imagined, full of plans for a woman in a designer apron and smiling, apple-cheeked children dressed in Baby Gap and a stuffy career in a stuffy town. The latina had no imagination at all, and Brittany was stuck in her story. Thank God it was only for twenty-four hours. If anyone had heard her, her storytelling career would have been over forever.

Santana finished the story, feeling much better about the whole situation. Brittany was obviously a bright woman, and Santana's story sounded pretty good as she told it. For the first time, she thought the whole thing might actually work.

"That is without a doubt the worst story I've ever heard," Brittany said.

Ok maybe not. Santana bit back a reply. She needed the blonde. She was going to have to put up with her for only one night. "Well, pretend you love it while we're in Prescott."

"No problem." Brittany tilted her head a little, dropped her chin, and opened her eyes wide. "I'm just thrilled to be here in Prescott, the cutest little town in Ohio and the perfect place to raise my two point four children, who'll all be going to Harvard on full academic scholarships. I can't tell you how excited I am."

She leaned forward a little and looked up at the latina under her lashes. Santana looked straight down the graceful line of her throat and into the gaping neckline of her ridiculous yellow dress and saw full, perky curves. Santana jerked her startled eyes up to meet Brittany's. She had a body. Santana had missed that in all the clothes and the pouting, but she wasn't pouting now. She was smiling at the latina dreamily, the killer smile that had laid Schuester low, her lips parted and soft. A wave of lust rolled over Santana. She's nuts and she's messy and she irritates the hell out of you, she told herself, but all she could see were those curves and that wide, toothy smile.

"I can't wait," she repeated, and Santana said, "Stop that," and she laughed.

Santana stood up just to get away from her. "Come on, Cinderella. I have to get back to school."

When they were outside, Brittany rolled her eyes at the car again, but she behaved herself until they were halfway home, which gave Santana some time to recover. Then she put her hand on the latina's arm and pointed. "Can we stop up there for a minute? Just a minute?"

Santana looked ahead to where she was pointing, at a craft boutique. It didn't seem like much to ask, and it would get the blonde out of the car for a few minutes while she got her mind back where it belonged. "Sure." Santana checked the rearview mirror and pulled over. "Don't take too long. I have to teach in forty-five minutes."

Brittany nodded, took a deep breath, got out of the car, and walked into the store.

Santana watched her through the big plate glass window and relaxed. When her mouth wasn't open and irritating her, and her dress wasn't gaping and inflaming her, Brittany Pierce was cute. Santana watched her trek up to the counter, her ridiculous long skirt making her look like a kid playing dress-up. She asked for something, and the guy behind the counter leaned on the register, bored, and shook his head. Brittany said something else, and he shook his head again. Santana glanced at her watch and looked back at the guy. He was sneering. What was it with her? First Artie, now this guy. This woman has an absolute attraction for jerks, she thought, and got out of the car.

"Look, Dustin." Brittany faced the store owner and tried to be tough. And mature. Mature was important. "You sold the last of my jewelry two weeks ago."

"I told you." Dustin pressed his lips together with exaggerated patience. "Checks at the end of the month."

"But you didn't give me a check at the end of last month," Brittany pointed out. "And some of my pieces were sold by then."

"Checks at the end of the month." Dustin looked up and beamed, and Brittany turned to see who had come in.

It was Santana, looking prosperous and intimidating in her expensive pant suit. Santana, looking sort of like ninja. Tiny but dangerous and calm.

Only protective, which was nice. A calm, dangerous, protective ninja.

Dustin's voice oiled out from behind the register. "Can I help you, Madam?"

The heck with being mature. She'd never been any good at being mature anyway. "Hah you're in trouble now, Dustin," she told him, hooking her thumb over her shoulder at Santana. "This is my sister from New Jersey."

Santana and Dustin looked at her, stunned. Brittany nodded solemnly at Dustin. "She doesn't like me much, but she believes fair is fair, and she's against people who cheat innocent, hardworking people. I told her you wouldn't pay me even though you'd sold my stuff. I'm sorry, Dustin, but a woman's got to do what a woman's got to do."

"Brittany." Santana's voice was cold with warning.

"Don't break his fingers, Sanny," Brittany pleaded, not taking her eyes off Dustin. "He's not a bad guy. He'll give me the money."

"Who are you trying to kid blondie?" Dustin sneered at her again.

"Wait a minute."

Brittany shot a glance at Santana. She'd turned her icy stare to Dustin. Oh, good.

"There's no need to insult her," Santana told him. "If you owe her the money, pay her, but whatever you do, treat her like a lady."

Brittany felt warm all over. She'd never had anyone be protective over her before. It was great. Dustin transferred his sneer to Santana. "Hey, she knows how this works."

"If you owe her the money—" Santana began again.

"I don't know who you really are, lady," Dustin interrupted, "but…"

Lady? Brittany watched Santana's face darken. Thank you, Dustin, for being a consistent jerk, she thought. An equal opportunity jerk. A jerk for all seasons.

"Give her the money, Dustin," Santana said.

Brittany stole another glance at Santana. She looked mad. Furious actually and though the latina was tiny she looked really scary. And it was all for her. Oh, good. Oh, really good.

"What?" Dustin stepped back.

"I said, give her the money." Santana put both hands on the counter and glared at him. "Pretend it's the end of the month and give her what you owe her."

Brittany looked at Dustin, expecting him to sneer again, but he didn't. He was looking at Santana with healthy respect. And Santana wasn't looking much like a college professor, not with those eyes. She was looked like she was just minutes away from killing Dustin. Brittany heard the register chime, and Dustin shoved a handful of bills at her.

She counted it. "This is only seventy. You owe me a hundred and twenty, Dustin."

"You're wasting our time, Dustin," Santana said.

Dustin shoved some more bills at Brittany. Brittany counted some more. "This is too much." She put some of the bills back on the counter.

"Now we're even."

"Great," Dustin said, never taking his eyes off Santana.

"Well, I think so," Brittany said.

Out in the car, Brittany looked at Santana proudly. "Aw my great big sister from Jersey."

Santana closed her eyes and wondered if there was insanity in her family. First "Yes, I have a fiancé" and now "Yes, I'm her sister from New Jersey." At least this time she hadn't actually said anything. This one wasn't her fault. She turned and glared at Brittany. "Don't ever do that again."

Brittany bounced a little on the seat as she looked at the bills fanned out in her hand. "But that was terrific."

The latina pulled out into traffic and then looked at her, bouncing with happiness, and she was torn between killing her and jumping her, which only increased her annoyance. "Not ever again."

Brittany beamed over at her. "You were great."

Santana glared at her harder. "I mean it. Not ever again."

"All right." Brittany clutched her money and smiled at him, content. "Not ever again. My sister from Jersey is now dead."

Santana moved into the fast lane and picked up speed. What the hell did she think she was doing in there? What the hell did she think she was doing in there? Santana shook her head. The woman was a menace. Still, she didn't deserve the way that jerk had treated her. Whatever else Brittany Pierce did, she was sure she didn't ask for anything she didn't deserve. And Dustin had been kicking her around just because he could. Santana hated bullies, having run across quite a few of them in her youth, people who thought because you were poor it was all right to push you around. It wasn't, and telling Dustin that it wasn't had felt great. Making Dustin's sneer disappear like dirty snow in the rain hadn't been the intelligent, mature, responsible thing to do, but it had been satisfying. And fun—

No, it hadn't. She stopped for a red light and glared at Brittany again. "Don't ever do that again."

She rolled her eyes, exasperated. "All right." Santana made a sound between a groan and a snarl and stepped on the gas as the light turned green.

"You know," Brittany said a few minutes later as she pulled into the driveway at their house, "I don't think you appreciate me."

"You're an acquired taste." Santana got out and held the car door open for her. "And unfortunately, we're not going to be together long enough for me to acquire that taste."

"That's not unfortunate." Brittany took her hand as she levered her out of the low-slung car seat.

"Just because .you acquired a taste for me doesn't mean I'd let you indulge it. You've just saved yourself a lot of frustration."

Santana looked down at her, fed up. "Trust me. If I acquired a taste, you'd let me indulge. I'm irresistible." She met the bright blue eyes, ready for battle, and Brittany smiled at her, that bone-melting smile. Combined with the surge of adrenaline she'd gotten from rescuing her from Dustin and the surge of lust she got every time she looked down her dress, her smile wiped all thought temporarily from the latina's mind and breathing was suddenly difficult.

"Don't do that Brittany," Santana said.

"Don't underestimate me," Brittany said.

"That would be a mistake," Santana agreed, and got in the car without looking at her again.