A/N: Still don't own anything, all I own is a missed internship application opportunity.

In the story it's December 14th, 2009, so this makes it Monday. Which means that Brittany and her dad plan to leave on the 16th which is Wednesday (yes I actually looked this up).

Chapter 10 Dinner

After checking to make sure the auditorium was locked, Santana had time to marvel at how late it was. Brittany was waiting in the car with the heater on to combat the cold, and Santana couldn't help but feel thankful that Puck had agreed to lend his car to her without prying for details; he had his hands full with getting ready for the last days of Hanukkah and then his mother's New Year's party, and Quinn was too busy helping set up Cheerio practices for next term. Although it was several hours past sunset, the day wasn't quite done yet. Today, Brittany was going to get her early Christmas present; Santana had already cleared the idea with Brittany's dad. She'd told him, just so he wouldn't prevent them from going out because he stayed up late worrying about where his daughter was. Brittany and her dad were leaving for the city to spend time with the rest of the family. Brittany's younger sister was finishing out sixth grade there before they moved completely. The trip to the city was this Wednesday and weren't expected to return until after New Year's Day.

So if this was one of the last days she'd be able to spend with Brittany this year, it was going to be special. Brittany had no idea that this was her Christmas present; that they were going to go out to dinner, at the only decent place in town, Breadstix. The owner, knowing her reputation at school, had instructed all the workers that if she were to show up, to seat her in the back corner. This was so she didn't scare off the other high school consumers that often showed up on weekend nights. He didn't want any trouble, or bad business. So here they were, Santana sitting with her back to the corner, so Brittany was facing away from the door, and the take out line. That was where Finn spotted them, when he and Kurt stopped by to pick up food for dinner.

"Hey is that Santana?" Finn whispered loudly to Kurt. Kurt turned around and looked only to confirm the location of the most feared student in school, then quickly faced Finn again.

"Don't make eye contact," muttered Kurt looking intently away from the girl sitting in the corner. "We don't want any trouble."

"Why is she here with Quinn? They never hang out together."

"Let's just mind our own business. They're probably plotting out next term's slushie facials. How's football team looking this year?" Kurt asked desperately trying to change to a safer subject. He succeeded as Finn began to talk about the upcoming spring training. As they approached the car he let out a sigh of relief, although he'd never been confronted with Santana, he had heard stories and if even a fraction of them were true, stay under her radar.

Santana hadn't even noticed Finn and Kurt, it wouldn't have mattered if they were yelling at the top of their lungs; she was too busy paying attention to Brittany. After they had decided on what to eat, Brittany had begun to talk and hadn't stopped. Which considering her plate was empty, this could be considered quite a feat. For the past hour she had talked about how happy today had made her, how good the food was, how she was looking forward to Christmas, how she was going to decorate her hospital room, how she tried to be good all year, especially in the past few weeks to ask Santa for something special. Brittany didn't really believe in Santa but people usually laughed at her if she said that, and much as she wanted to believe that her Angel wouldn't leave her, she couldn't help but make sure.

Santana did do a double take when she heard Brittany wanted to ask Santa for something, not for the first time she was thankful that the girl sitting across from her was blind. She didn't bother pointing out he didn't exist and ruin the fun Brittany was having. They could cover the Santa topic at a different date when it wasn't so close to Christmas. She waved the waitress down for the check; it was time to go home.

"You ready?" Santana asked the still sitting girl.

"Yeah," Brittany said stifling a yawn. After that much exercise and something besides hospital food, she was worn out for the day. It was a good day.

"Come on," Santana urged. "We're going home." She slid her hand into Brittany's and led her out to the car. She held the door open and closed it once Brittany got in. Santana knew that she didn't need to do this; Brittany was perfectly capable of doing it herself. But Santana still did it, it wasn't because Brittany was blind, it was because. Well, just because if felt right. Besides, she reasoned to herself, if she had a car to drive people around in she'd do this anyway. Brittany wasn't special or anything.

They drove away from Breadstix heading in the opposite direction of the hospital. At a red light Santana glanced over at Brittany. Brittany's face was scrunched up with a mixture of extreme concentration and confusion. She didn't think they weren't going the right way to return to the hospital, and was trying to figure it out in her head. Of course all of her instincts and reason told her that they were indeed not going to the hospital. That was confusing. Whenever they went out, they always returned to that place. She tilted her head to the side, maybe that would help. Santana smiled in amusement at the other's confusion; apparently her passenger was better space awareness than she thought. Taking the quickest way back to her house, she stopped the car in the driveway.

"Where are we?"

"My house. Don't worry I got permission from your dad."

"He doesn't need to know everything I do," Brittany mumbled as she got out of the car.

"Come on," Santana said tugging Brittany toward the front door. "Lets get you out of this weather, it's freezing out here." It was expected to drop below 32 degrees Ferinheight tonight, which meant she had to get Puck's car back to him as soon as possible. She sighed as she unlooked the door to the empty house.

"Come on in, there's a step right in front of you." Brittany put her foot on the step and paused.

"Angel?" asked Brittany uncertainly. "You're parents won't mind, right?

"No my parents won't mind," said Santana trying to keep the bitterness out of her voice. "Get in. You're letting all the cold air inside."

Brittany hastily moved inside, "Sorry." She was apologizing for both letting the cold in and that she had clearly brought up a sensitive subject. She didn't have to see to understand that. Santana closed the door as soon as Brittany was clear.

"I'll take you around the house, then I have to go return the car."

"Can't I come with…?" started Brittany.

"No, it'll be faster if I go alone," Santana said harshly. She inwardly flinched, she hadn't meant for it to sound so cold. She knew Brittany had trouble in the past with people leaving her.

"Oh, ok," said Brittany lamely withdrawing her hand from Santana's. "I'll just stay here."

"Listen, Britt. Britt, I didn't mean it like that." Seeing that the other girl didn't believe her, Santana continued, "I didn't bring you here so that you could catch a cold. You're here because I like you, and because I want to spend as much time with you as possible, I need to return my friend's car by myself." She really didn't want to go tonight, but she had told Puck that it'd be back by morning, and considering the time she'd barely make it if she showed Brittany around the house quickly.

"I promise I just want to get back here quickly, so please wait here. I'll only be an hour, I'll be coming back from that direction," Santana turned Brittany toward Puck's house. "I haven't broken any promises. I'm not about to start now," she said trying to reassure the other girl that she wasn't abandoning her here, "let's see about getting you somewhere comfortable."

"I'll wait for you here," Brittany said stubbornly sitting down near the door. Seeing that the other girl clearly wasn't going to get up, Santana took off her watch and set the alarm.

"When this goes off, I'll be back, if you push this button, it'll go off in another ten minutes," she informed Brittany. "I'll be back, don't worry." Leaving she hurried straight to Puck's car determined to do it in half the time even if it killed her. The look the other girl had given her. The look said that she didn't believe that Santana would be back tonight.

It was snowing by the time Santana got to Puck's house; she'd pushed the car over the speed limit, driving thirty-five miles per hour instead of the suggested twenty-five. She had made it just under ten minutes. All the lights were off but Santana made a snowball and threw it at the upper window above the garage. It hit and the occupant of the room turned on the lights as he made his way down. Opening the garage door, she drove the car inside.

"I didn't think you'd be back this late," Puck said to the Latina.

"I had some business to take care of. I'll see you later," Santana wanted to cut this visit short, she had to get back to the girl at her house.

"You should stay here. It's going to snow the rest of the night, Quinn called and cancelled our plans tomorrow because it's supposed to be a blizzard." Any other time, any other day, she would have said "yes", but she had someone waiting for her.

"No, I've got to get back," she said shaking her head.

"I'll drive you back then," said Puck making his way to the car.

"I'm not a kid, Puckerman. I can take care of myself."

"You never needed me to take care of you, why would I start now? But you can't stop me from offering my best friend a ride."

"I'm leaving. I'll call you if anything happens. Does that make you feel better?" she really didn't like people trying to care for her. It made her feel weak, and she hated feeling weak.

"I'll see you back at school. You know, you're always welcome to the party." Puck had to spend the Hanukkah holiday with his family, afterwards it was busy at his house as everyone helped to get ready for the New Year's party. One he always invited Santana to but she never came, he still didn't know where she disappeared to, or what she did, and she refused to answer every time he asked.

"Later," Santana grumbled at Puck heading out into the snow. Puck watched Santana even after she had well disappeared out of sight, something bothered him, that look she had on her face, it seemed familiar. He sighed, and closed the garage door, as he did so he gave a silent prayer to the heavens that she would be make it home safe. As he made his way back up to his room, halfway up he paused, realization dawning on his face, he knew where he had seen that look before. It was the same look he had given Santana in middle school and was now the look he knew he gave Quinn. Santana was in love, who would have thought. Continuing up the stairs he wondered if Santana even knew, well even if she did figure it out, it gave him something to tease her about next time he saw her.

A/N: Yay… more augmentation of Puck's character.

As I post this… I haven't made any progress on Chapter 12… ugh. I hope to make some otherwise there will be at least a week or two pause in the whole update thing.