Disclaimer: I own nothing. I think I might have forgotten it in the last two chapters so. I own nothing, I own nothing, and here's a third one just in case, I OWN NOTHING. The characters belong to FOX.

A/N: I really changed Brittany, please bear with me, this is an AU, and I have NO IDEA what really goes on in Brittany's mind in Glee.

Thanks to all who reviewed last chapter. And look it mentions Brittany's dad! Yay for the idea from you know who (no not Voldemort, I'm sure the person who suggested it is good looking).

Chapter 5 - Brittany

Brittany was never considered smart, naïve yes, but she could have been if only someone had understood how her brain worked then they might have been able to see exactly how intelligent the "dumb" blonde was. Her brain didn't work like everyone elses', sometimes spoken words confused her, sometimes written, she couldn't add inches together and get feet, she couldn't express her feeling the same way most people could. She wasn't intellectually stupid, her thinking process was just different. At her old middle school, she was called into the office after school to discuss her grades. The French teacher informed her that she wouldn't pass the class if she only drew pictures and didn't answer the questions. This wasn't the first time this happened to her, it had happened so much that Brittany didn't bother trying to explain that the pictures were the answers. That the drawing of the Eiffel Tower, that the drawing of Notre Dame complete with the hunchback were made up of words that if bothered being read from left to right were the correct answers. She just didn't care anymore, and even if she did, they never listened. So she just stopped trying, after all the adults already knew the answer to this problem. "It's just Brittany being dumb" or "Nice girl, too bad she's so stupid she doesn't understand" but she did, and it hurt. When she did try, the answers never came out the way she wanted them to, the words would get all mixed up and no matter how hard she tried she could never put down a single word on the piece of paper. So she gave up and let her brain do what it had to, because at least she got points for drawing, and it was usually enough to let her pass to the next grade. Eventually, she just stopped bothering to try at all.

Brittany knew she was different; it wasn't because people gave her weird looks in the hall or the fact they whispered behind her back. No it was because of the smiles they gave her, polite fake smiles, mocking smiles, smiles that she wished she didn't have to see. She hated the fake smiles, she hated laughter because they were always aimed at her, and now, now she couldn't remember what a real one was.

When Brittany was ten she suffered from a nervous breakdown, no one noticed, her parents only saw that their baby girl hadn't returned home from school that day. Even though they were concerned, like everyone else, they wrote it off as Brittany being Brittany there was no need for further explanation. To them there was nothing medically wrong with her. Initially Brittany's father noticed that Brittany was different and when she was younger he took her to be looked at by one of his colleagues, who had her do several tests. The end result: nothing. Zip, nada, zero. Nothing was wrong with her, at least nothing they had ever heard of. They asked to continue to study her, for this one of a kind oddity. A normal girl, with apparently nothing wrong, couldn't do certain things. Her father agreed, and since then Brittany had been in and out of the hospital even before she had lost her sight in that accident. The only difference now, she was in the hospital because she had a medical condition that could only be fixed. She'd also been told her house wasn't "blind people friendly" and to stay in the hospital where "her father could keep an eye on her." She didn't care, after the accident she was just thankful that she wouldn't have to see the mocking smiles or laughter that followed her everywhere at her old school. Each time she saw a smile she remembered that day in fourth grade, the laughter and the smiles, she hasn't known how cruel such happy things could be.

Brittany remembered all too clearly the day she learned that smiles and laughter could be mean. Those nice things could be nastier than mean things because they were supposed to be nice. It was a crisp day, just cold enough to be chilly but not quite cold enough to deter nine year-olds from eating outside. She'd been eating alone, when a girl she'd known since kindergarten came over and invited her to sit over there with her friends. She was smiling, so Brittany thought it would be alright. The girl led her to the table and sat down, the moment Brittany took a seat, the other children started to laugh. Brittany looked around to see what was so funny; she wanted to know why they were laughing. She saw nothing, the moment she turned back to the table she got a face full of milk. Someone else came up behind her and started to smear food in her hair, they laughed at her and told her they would never be friends with a "dummy". As they walked off, Brittany held back tears, not because they called her names or because they had ruined her clothes or her hair, but because she now knew that smiles and laughter could lie. It had been years since then and Brittany had realized that day, she couldn't remember she never seen a real smile in her direction, not even within her family, one directed her, one that held no mockery, pity, or sadness. No laughter that wasn't forced. Now that she was blind, she wasn't sure if it was worth being able to see again, to see those fake smiles every day, to hear that fake laughter every time, to hear a voice that didn't hold contempt, or the whispers when people didn't think she could hear. When she had woken up after the accident, she had asked her father, if there was any way to make her deaf too.

When she was ten, Brittany had discovered one way to escape this world: dance. When she danced it was like nothing could touch her, everything that just felt wrong melted away into the movement. No one could tell her if she was doing it wrong. It didn't matter if music was playing or to some made up song in her head, as long as she could dance everything else just faded away. But she was never allowed to do it in the hospital. With dance taken from her, it felt like there was no escape from this place.

After the accident, her father had transferred to Lima Hospital for better pay, at first she stayed in her room all day but there was nothing to do and she needed to do something, anything to get away from sitting and staring into blackness. Her father was too busy to take her out and her mom had to watch her sister. With nothing to do she began to explore the hospital, people tried to help her but she brushed them off. Eventually they stopped trying to assist her and she was relieved because she knew that these people would just laugh at her in the end. Brittany found to her that the Children's Wing was just two floors, "pings" she called it, below hers. She discovered that when she spent time with the kids, she could almost forget about the world around her. Although it wasn't as effective as dance, it would have to do until she could leave. She still couldn't put out of her mind the world around her and sometimes felt the urge to hide. She took to hiding in the deserted areas she had found when wandering because she didn't want to be around people that were so fake. She never thought anyone would find her until the day, she met her. This was the first contact she had with someone who sounded about her age and didn't have a trace of mockery in her voice. There was no sign of it, even when she had tried to explain the reason why she was hiding. She told the girl who had come in that there were wolves looking for her. And to her that's all the people outside that door were, wolves just waiting to find her. The other girl had just promised to protect her with such sincerity Brittany couldn't help but feel safe. For the first time since she found out about the harsh reality, Brittany accepted help from another person, someone who didn't seem to be false and she never wanted to let her go.

That's why when they had gotten back to her room, going the long way, she had practically begged the other girl to stay. To let her touch her, Brittany wanted to know, she needed to know that she wasn't making this all up, that there was a person who could accept her. That she wasn't another imaginary friend. She had almost broke inside when she heard the other girl laugh at her echo location attempt, but kept a smile plastered on her face and continued to talk. She was hurt on the inside, but a small part of her wanted to believe that the other girl wasn't laughing at her. The other girl had apparently caught onto the fake smile, and explained that she wasn't laughing at her. She'd explained that she had a classmate; he had dressed up as a bat one Halloween and had run around pretending to be a bat. She said that he had his eyes closed and yelled, thinking he would know when he was close enough to wall to turn, but instead had run smack into it and fell flat on his back with a stunned look on his face. That was when Brittany had decided her name was "Angel". It didn't matter what Angel's real name was because Brittany knew that she probably wouldn't remember it later anyway. This girl was had shown her that someone could be there for her without having ulterior motives. Brittany never wanted her to go, but she knew it was only a matter of time, everyone got tired of her sooner or later that she wasn't worth spending time with. When Angel had to go, Brittany had to try to get her to come back, even if she knew it wouldn't last long. Angel agreed to come back, and she couldn't help but pull the girl into a hug trying to express everything that she couldn't say. She felt arms envelope her and an awkward squeeze that showed the other person was unused this kind of contact, Brittany decided that she would change that.

After her Angel had left, Brittany got under the covers of the bed; she wanted to hear that laughter again and for the first time since her sight was lost, she wished that she could see. She wanted to see the smile that would have accompanied that laughter; she wanted to know who the person was, who helped her find what she had been searching for. A genuine smile was on Brittany's face as she drifted to sleep, her Angel promised to visit tomorrow. Unable to see, and half-asleep, the young girl failed to notice the person who had walked quietly into her room.

Dr. Pierce came inside his daughter's room to check on her. He was pleasantly surprised to find that a smile graced her features. That was a rare sight. Whatever had made his daughter happy, he hoped it would continue. He hadn't seen her smile like that, since, he really couldn't remember. If he could keep that smile on her face, any price would be worth paying. Quietly he closed the door, he'll have to keep a closer eye on what she's been doing, he would figure out what was making her so content.

A/N: I'm unsure if I'm going to make a Puck chapter, or a Sue chapter... maybe I'll write both and mash them together to create chapter 6/7 in the next tab...

This entire idea is slightly ironic… Santana is practically living a lie, and Brittany thinks she's the most sincere person on the planet. I am unhappy with this chapter (mostly the explanation for Brittany's "dumbness"). But I'll let it go for now, maybe I'm onto something. I'll find out.

Finals Week starts in the middle of next week, I have rough sketch for where I'm going (I didn't get this far in my original story idea, and it kinda branched off), but if I post a chapter it'll be the interlude of Puck observations about Santana and a bit of their backgrounds together, as I already have that written, I wrote Puck and Sue without meaning to but they're not really needed, but if I post one I'll have to post the other one. INTERLUDE will be in the title when I do any of those.