After their very eventful run, Santana left for the university. Once again she kissed Brittany on her cheek while saying good bye. After watching the latina leave, Brittany walked through the downstairs, studying the colors and the values and the proportions of everything they were doing, trying to make sure it balanced, that it was interesting and new and different without being so far out that it embarrassed Santana. The living room, dining room, and hall were done, and even if it wasn't something she ever would do if she lived alone, she actually liked the mixture of hers and Santana's personality being brought to life through their house. It looked like their home and her whole body felt warm at that.

"It's ordinary," she told Quinn on the phone. "It's ordinary and normal, but it's also very pretty and perfect. Brittany Pierce wouldn't live here. But Brittany Lopez actually loves it. I feel bad for abandoning myself, though Brittany sighed.

"That's because you're pleasing Santana. What have you painted on canvas lately?"

"Nothing. I've just done walls and that's also with San's help."

"Well, there you are. Do some canvases for the walls. Better yet, do some canvases for you."

Brittany thought about it. She was getting tired of walls and patterns; it was time to get back to stories. "You're right. I'll lock the bedroom doors so all that these people will see upstairs is the bathroom. Everything else is done down here except for the kitchen. Maybe I'll go crazy in the kitchen. And I'll do some collages. There's a great secondhand place near the college that has a box full of lace and embroidery I could use to do a collage for the hall. And I'll paint. I've got a lot of stories I've thought of here that I want to paint. This is a wonderful place. You've got to come stay soon."

"I will," Quinn said. "How's Santana?"

"She's great. She seems happy and her book is going well."

"I mean, how are Santana and you?"

Brittany thought about their shared dinners, the morning jog, the look in Santana's eyes when she spoke of Sam and the fight they had. And then she remembered their kiss at the wedding and the night that they spent together. She blushed. "We're fine."

"After that kiss at the wedding, I thought you'd be more than fine."

Brittany felt her face reddening even more and was thankful that Quinn couldn't see her. "I think that was a fluke. I don't think she likes me that way Quinn. She like smart, normal girls, remember?"

Quinn could clearly hear the sadness in her friend's tone. "No britt, that's not true. You are smart. Just in a different way. And she married you. She clearly is interested. I can see it n the way she looks at you." Quinn said softly.

"She didn't have much choice in that."

Quinn's snort was loud on the line. "Santana always has a choice. She's the most controlled person I've ever met. If she married you, it's because she wanted to."

Brittany felt a flare of hope. "Maybe."

"So how's Evan?" Quinn's voice was carefully casual.

"Evan? Depressed, how else would Evan be?"

"Oh."

Brittany tried to remember something about Evan to share. "Come to think of it, he has seemed more depressed than usual. He mentioned you the other day. He said you had an interesting sense of humor."

"Oh."

Hello? Brittany raised her eyebrows at the phone. Evan and Quinn? Well, stranger things had happened. Me and Santana, for example.

"Come visit soon," she said to Quinn.

"Go paint. I'll come when you've got a show ready for that gallery. Have you gone down there yet?"

"No, and it'll be a good long time yet before I do," Brittany said, but after she'd hung up she went upstairs happier than she'd been before. I'll start to paint again, she told herself, as soon as I've picked up Jupiter.

Jupiter was not a hit at first. He barked a lot, and developed a fondness for Santana that bordered on obsession. Santana's first words on seeing him were "That's the most disgusting-looking animal I've ever seen." Which she promptly apologized for after seeing the look on the blonde's face.

But Brittany knew that the latina was right, at least to certain extent. Jupiter had only one eye, so he looked as if he were permanently winking. His tail was bent down at a right angle, he limped, and because he'd lost teeth on one side of his mouth, his tongue tended to hang out that side when he panted.

"I think he's darling." Brittany's heart bled for him every time she saw him. "Poor baby."

"Poor baby, my ass." Santana glared down at the little dog. It was ridiculous how jealous she was of the dog because of all the attention the thing received from Brittany. "This is the luckiest dog in Prescott. You're a mess," she said to the dog. "We should put you out on the street with a cup to beg."

"Santana."

"C'mon Britt, He could sell pencils. We'd make a fortune."

"Ignore her, baby." Brittany patted Jupiter's head, but Jupiter ignored her instead and attached himself to Santana.

At first Santana would yell at her to come get the dog when it would sneak into her study, but on Friday, Brittany heard her talking to it when she went past her study door to go to her studio.

"You're worthless. Here, Have a biscuit."

A biscuit? She'd bought dog biscuits for Jupiter? The world was coming to an end.

She knocked softly on the door. "San? do you want me to get Jupiter out of there?"

"No Britt, It's OK." Santana said from behind the door. "He just sneaks back in anyway. This is a worthless dog."

"OK, Santana. Enjoy the biscuits Jupiter" she said, and went away laughing silently.

On Saturday, Santana came downstairs to get the house ready for a party for her colleagues and noticed that Brittany had already finished everything up. The party was a sudden event and even though she reluctantly accepted, she was worried that it might be too much for the blonde. But Brittany just smiled at her and told her not to worry about anything.

"This looks great, doesn't it B?" she said as she wandered from room to room. "I mean, it really does. It's sort of colorful, but great." She stopped in front of the painting on the mantel. It was painted in Brittany's primitive style of tiny vivid brushstrokes, and it showed a Victorian house sitting in what looked like a lush green jungle populated by a lot of unblinking leaf-green eyes. A girl in a bright peach dress stood in the foreground, looking pensive.

"This is pretty Britt. There's a lot of detail here." Santana leaned in for a closer look. "You can see in the windows of the house and—" Her voice broke off.

"Do you like it? This is one of my favorites."

"There's a headless body on the couch in the downstairs room." Santana turned to look at her. "You painted a headless body on a couch?"

Brittany nodded. "It's Lizzie Borden's house. It really is. I found a photograph. They had a picture of the body too. It's not really headless. Almost, but not quite."

Be open-minded, Santana told herself. She thought she knew the blonde well, by then but Brittany still did things that shocked her. Headless bodies? "Lizzie Borden."

"That's her father on the couch. Her stepmother's in the upstairs bedroom. If you look really hard, you can see her feet at the edge of the windowsill."

Santana nodded, coping. "Her feet?"

"You do know the story? 'Lizzie Borden took an ax and'—"

"I know the story Britt." Santana's resolve broke. "Whatever possessed you to paint it?"

"Probably my father and stepmother," Brittany said grimly.

Santana changed the subject. "Why is she looking so calm?"

"Well, nobody knows for sure if she did it. So she's either standing there innocently while someone evil frames her for the crime, or she's planning her defense. You choose."

They stood together and looked at the painting for a while, and Santana realized that even though she was still thrown, she liked the painting. Just like everything else about Brittany. There was something about the painting, which was so Brittany, bright and colorful and passionate with strange things hidden inside. Amazing. "Does every one of your paintings have a story?" she asked.

"Oh, yes," Brittany said brightly. She was beyond happy that Santana liked her work. "The one in the dining room is based on the legend of Etain."

"What happened to Etain?" she asked, knowing it was going to be horrible.

"A jealous witch turned her into a butterfly, and she got blown into a wineglass and a beautiful queen drank her."

Santana nodded, trying to be supportive. "Drank her?"

"Yes. And then nine months later the queen gave birth to a baby girl, and Etain's lover waited for her to grow up again so he could marry her. Then they lived happily ever after. Something horrible happened to the witch, but I can't remember what. Her name was Fuamach; you'd think that would be enough of a punishment."

Santana smiled at her. Brittany's way of thinking surprised her every day. "Are all your paintings about horrible things?"

Brittany pulled away, surprised. "These aren't horrible. These have happy endings. Lizzie was never convicted, and Etain lived happily ever after forever with Mider. I can't do the really unhappy ones. I tried to paint Deirdre once, but I ended up burning the canvas."

The memory of it clouded her face, and Santana found herself wanting to know all about her paintings because it was telling her so much about the blonde. "What happened to Deirdre?"

"A man she didn't like forced her to marry him, and she killed herself."

Santana looked at her, startled, but the blonde was gazing serenely at Lizzie, apparently without ulterior motive. "The peach dress is nice, isn't it? It looks like Victorian passion."

The latina looked back at the painting. "Was Lizzie passionate?"

"You'd have to be pretty passionate to hack up your father and stepmother, wouldn't you?"

"I thought she wasn't convicted."

"She wasn't, but I still think she did it." Brittany gave her alter ego one last look and then turned to survey the living room. "I covered up the holes and the cracks in the floor. You really can't tell, can you?"

"It looks great B," she said sincerely, and then shot one last nervous glance over her shoulder at Lizzie.

Brittany was moving on, like a blur of brightness through the pastel room. "I'm buying flowers this afternoon. And I'm making stew in case anyone wants to eat when they get here."

Santana tensed. Stew. That was bad; these people didn't eat stew, they ate coq au vin. "They won't want to eat Britt. Let's forget the stew and we'll just have drinks."

Brittany looked apologetic, and the latina kicked herself for being so blatant, but all Brittany said was "We'd better set up a bar in the dining room then, then."

"Ok Britt. I'll set it up and then we can go get the liquor." she told her, and went into the dining room to see how much space there was to set up drinks. In the dining room wall was a primitive still life of a table covered with blue and white checks. The table held a vase of flowers, a bowl of fruit, and a glass of pink wine. She leaned closer. There was definitely a butterfly in the wine.

She shook her head and sighed, and then she started to laugh. Lizzie Borden in the living room and a drowned butterfly in the dining room. The place looked like Better Homes & Gardens, but it was really Charles Addams*. She looked over at the flower garlands that graced the hall, wondering what details they hid. "This is really great," she told Brittany when she came to check on why she was laughing. Santana laughed again when she saw the blonde looking at her confused and patted her shoulder. "This is cute. You did a good job. Uh, did you hide anything in the flowers and stuff on the walls?"

"No." Brittany stopped, clearly intrigued. "That's a good idea. This place is too boring. I could…"

"No, no, no" Santana waved her hand at her. "It's great just as it is. Really." She looked around again and was surprised to realize she was telling the truth. She actually loved all the colors and the paintings "It really is Britt." Brittany smiled back at her. They stared at each other for a moment before Santana cleared her throat, "Now come on, Mrs. Lopez. Let's go get drinks"

Santana's words meant more to Brittany than she wanted to admit. It wasn't easy being Brittany Lopez. She slaved over the party, making lists of things that had to be done and leaving reminders for herself all over the house on multicolored sticky notes, and then made sure that every line on every list was crossed off and every note was followed, finished, and thrown away before anyone arrived. It wasn't her style, and it made her crazy and tense and tired, but she was Santana's wife, throwing Santana's party, and she was terrified she'd screw it up, so she watched the latina for clues. She'd almost served stew until she'd seen Santana's face when she mentioned it. They'd need cloth napkins and wine sauce, and it wasn't much consolation that she always threw some wine in her stew. She didn't think that uncorking the bottle and slopping some in counted as wine sauce, so she left the Crock-Pot on low in case she and Santana were hungry after everyone left and concentrated on getting the house as clean and polished as possible.

An hour before they left for the faculty club, she sat on her bed in her white dress and shook from the tension. It was going to be awful. She'd be on display, just as she used to be with her father. Julie would be nice no matter what, and Grey and Lacey and Evan would be too, but they'd know she wasn't right, wasn't their kind of people, and that would be terrible for Santana. And Harper was such a snob, he'd say something. And Caroline…

I should never have done this, she thought. I can't be like these people. I'll never fit in and I'll embarrass Santana and—

"Britt?" Santana called, and she took deep breaths, the way Santana taught her, and went out to join the brunette. Santana looked up as Brittany came down the stairs and her breath hitched. Brittany was dressed in a knee length white dress that seemed to fit her perfectly. She looked like an angel yet so sinfully devilish too. Brittany blushed at the way the latina was looking at her.

"You look beautiful Britt. Ready to go?" Santana smiled as she offered the blonde her hand. Brittany smiled back at her forgetting all her earlier insecurities and getting lost in the care and warmth that she saw in the brown eyes. "Let's go San."

She stayed quiet and polite all evening, making sure not to do the wrong thing, and Julie and Lacey both asked her if she was all right. "Just fine," she said brightly, and Evan said, "You probably have something catching," and wandered off to the buffet more from momentum than fear of disease. By the end of the evening Brittany had relaxed a little, but she panicked again when they got back from the club, and they all came into their house.

Evan came to her rescue in the living room without really meaning to. "This painting is really excellent." Evan peered closely at Lizzie's house. "Of course, the Artist will never receive the recognition he's due since it's a primitive, but it's excellent. Who did it?"

"I did," Brittany said.

Evan's eyebrows rose above his glasses. "Did you do the collages in the hall too?"

"Yes." Brittany relaxed again, but she kept an eye on Caroline while she talked. Santana might be determined to say no, but Caroline looked pretty determined too, drawing Santana down onto the couch with her. Santana looked utterly uncomfortable which brought a small smile to the blonde's face. Speaking of determined… she turned back to Evan. "Quinn gave me the idea for the collages."

"Then you should invite her to see them," Evan said with uncharacteristic firmness. "Invite her soon."

"All right." Quinn and Evan. Brittany shook her head.

Evan seemed a little taken aback by his own audacity and changed the subject. "Do you sell your work?"

"I try, but not since I've come to Prescott."

"It's quite good. You should take it to the gallery and show it to Bill. I'd like to see your other things sometime, if I may." Then, as if he realized he was sounding optimistic, he added, "Although you probably won't want to show them to me."

"Of course I want to show them to you." Brittany put her arm around him. There was something about Evan that made you want to comfort him, something beyond his rampant gloom. "Are you hungry?" she asked without thinking. "I made stew."

"Yes." Evan turned toward the kitchen bravely. "It will probably give me heartburn, but I am hungry, and I would like some stew."

The Greys followed them into the kitchen.

"Brittany, this house is darling," Lacey said.

"Something smells really good in here," her husband said pointedly.

"I made stew," Brittany said, and forgot about Santana and gourmet cooking. "Would you like some?"

Harper had trailed along after them. "Nothing like a woman who can cook," he said, and when Julie stuck her head in the door to see what they were doing, she agreed.

"You're just going to have to give me that recipe, honey."

"Better taste it first." Brittany handed Julie a stack of bowls, Lacey the silverware, and Grey the paper napkins. "We're not formal here," she told them. She handed Evan the Crock-Pot and shooed them all into the dining room. She went back for a pitcher of milk and a basket of bread and came out in time to hear Grey say, "There are whole mushrooms in here." He speared one with his fork. "Real, whole mushrooms."

Santana and Caroline joined them, and Brittany watched with her fingers crossed as they sat crowded around the big oak table and talked about the paintings and the house and the food.

Caroline sat next to Santana. "This is really wonderful." She looked over at Brittany, her head almost touching Santana's shoulder. "It must be terrific to be a housewife and do all these little decorating and cooking things. My apartment is just wall-to-wall books and a microwave."

"Thank you," Brittany said. Drop dead, Caroline.

"Brittany's a painter," Santana said, scowling at Caroline. "She's not just a housewife; she's an Artist." She smiled at Brittany while getting up and pulling out the chair next to her for the blonde to sit.

Brittany smiled at the gesture and the hint of pride in Santana's voice. "There's nothing wrong with being a housewife," Brittany said over her bowl. "It's an art too. I just don't have the concentration to sustain it. Santana gets food when I remember to cook it and feeds us both when I don't."

"I like it that way." Santana smiled at her while grabbing the blonde's free hand with hers. She softly rubbed her thumb on the back of Brittany's hand and the blonde felt an electricity radiate from the latina's hand, spreading all over her body.

She smiled back at Santana. Put that in your pipe, Caroline. And then get out of my house.

Jupiter came down to see everyone as they were leaving.

"My God, what the hell is that?" Caroline shrieked.

"That's Jupiter." Brittany glared at her. "My dog."

Caroline smirked and looked over at Santana to exchange mutual glances of contempt, but the brunette wasn't playing.

"Jupiter's an original." Santana looked down at the dog with pride. "He's not one of those soulless purebreds."

Jupiter lurched on his bad hip and fell over sideways.

"No, that he isn't," Grey agreed. "What is he anyway?"

"Part beagle," Brittany said. "And part a few other things."

"He looks like he's been recycled," Evan said. "A very practical dog."

"A dog with personality." Lacey Grey bent down to pet him. Jupiter rolled over on his back in ecstasy.

"What a sweet baby," Julie said.

"We've got to be going." Harper hugged Brittany, letting his hand slide down to her the top of her ass.

After their good-byes, Brittany closed the door behind them with a sigh. "If we could lose Harper and Caroline, we'd have a very nice group of people there."

Santana smiled at her and started up the stairs. "Well, we can't."

Brittany folded her arms and called after the brunette. "She keeps undressing you with her eyes, and he keeps groping my butt."

Santana turned back. She had a murderous look in her eyes and she was fuming. "What? Why didn't you tell me? I'll break his fingers. How dare he? I'll say something to him tomorrow."

"No." Brittany felt butterflies in her stomach at the latina's reaction but decided that it was not in anyone's best interest for Santana to go to prison for murdering her perverted boss. "Forget it San. I was just kidding. How was it, do you think? Was it all right, the stew and all?"

Santana stared at her suspiciously for a moment before smiling at her. "It was great Britt. Thanks for doing all that for me. Now let's go to bed. We can clean up the in the morning."

"It was my pleasure San, but I'll clean it now. I know you don't like messes."

"Britt, it's late. We can clean before our run, let's sleep"

"It won't take me long"

"Fine. Do whatever you want." Santana huffed and went to the bed room.

Brittany stared a little sadly at the retreating girl. She wasn't sure what she wanted. Maybe a big hug. Maybe… Forget it, she told herself. She doesn't think of you that way. She started to go back to the kitchen, when she heard the bedroom door open again. Santana walked past her with a annoyed huff.

"Let's just finish the damn dishes and sleep. Hurry up." Brittany smiled at her wife. Her grumpy, annoying wife. Who made her smile for no reason. She was without a doubt falling in love with Santana and maybe it's time to be Brittany Pierce and be reckless and kiss her till she forgets her own name.

A/N

Early update. Don't worry, there will be another on Sunday. I started a new story on Emison, and i wanna finish this before i continue with that. I know this story is slow. But i actually like the pace. I'm sorry if some of you hate it but i like taking my time. there will be about 10 or so chapters in this story. oh and Charles Addams is the guy who created the Addams Family. anyway i hope you guys enjoy. oh and i assure you again, there will be no Bram. There's gonna be smut, but it'll be Brittana smut. R&R guys.