(Author's Note: Wanted to get this up to give y'all US-dwellers a way to pass the time before you lucky dogs get to see Rumours. Damn my expatriate existence...
So here's Brittany's side of the Hurt Locker scene. Not easy to write-but I did my best to understand what I consider to be the most terrible decision of all time.)
"Hi," breathes a voice at Brittany's ear as she switches out books from her locker. She turns to see Santana looking at her the way she used to sometimes that summer they were fourteen: like she'd never seen her before. Even all this time later, with everything that's happened, those eyes still make Brittany forget how to breathe.
"Can we talk?" Santana asks. Her voice is soft—bed-soft, Landslide-soft.
"But we never do that," says Brittany. Something is different—something is about to happen. She puts away her book, trying to push a bubble of fear back down her throat.
"Yeah, I know but—I jut wanted to thank you for performing that song with me in Glee Club." Her eyes keep jumping from one of Brittany's to the other, so she's looking into her eyes without staying still. The shifting makes Brittany even more nervous. "Because it's made me do a lot of thinking. And what I've realized… is why I'm such a bitch all the time." She pauses. "I'm a bitch because I'm angry. I'm angry because I have all of these feelings"—she lets her eyes follow a football player past their lockers—"feelings for you"—she keeps avoiding Brittany's eyes for a moment, like it hurts too much to look—"that I'm afraid of dealing with, because I'm afraid of dealing with the consequences." Her voice gets tight, pushing back tears, and she stops again.
This must be the strangest moment of Brittany's life. Santana is talking about feelings. Santana is talking about feelings for her. Right in the middle of the hallway of William McKinley High School. Brittany doesn't trust herself to say anything. She waits.
"And Brittany, I can't go to an Indigo Girls concert. I just… can't."
"I understand that," says Brittany. At last, something easy to answer.
Santana looks at her feet, then back to Brittany, and Brittany realizes she's steeling herself to say something even harder.
"Do you… understand what I'm trying to say here?"
She's desperate to be rescued. Brittany wants to rescue her. But she can't. She knows what Santana is saying—but not what she's trying to say. She needs more time, time she doesn't have when San is looking more ready to break every second. She shakes her head slowly.
"No, not really."
Santana's eyes move away, doing a dance familiar to Brittany from every time their sweet lady kisses got a little too close to making love. But then—Santana looks back into her eyes and says something that sweats the color and the smell out of everything except for the two of them.
"I want to be with you."
For one full second, everything is perfect.
"But"—and with that but, things begin to cloud up again, and Brittany glances around as the hallway reappears—"I'm afraid of the talks, and the looks. I mean, you know what happened to Kurt at this school."
Brittany had never really imagined this moment before. She's not the type to close her eyes and work up colorful fantasies of what she'd like to happen, what might happen, what could happen. So when Santana talks about her reputation, Brittany realizes: it was too good to imagine, even for a moment, that everything could change so easily.
"But honey," she says, comforting Santana the way she would if San were upset because of Quinn or Coach Sylvester instead of her, "if anyone were to ever make fun of you, you would either kick their ass or slash them with your vicious, vicious words."
Santana begins to cry, and Brittany feels again like a song that means several things at once—proud and relieved and heartbroken—to see San finally let herself go.
"Yeah, I know, but… I'm still afraid of what everyone will say behind my back."
Brittany looks to the hallway again and tries to imagine herself walking down these halls with Santana, holding hands. Stopping at corners to kiss. The way she does with Artie—Artie, who she's just remembered again.
"Still, I have to accept… that I love you."
She loves her. She loves her. She loves her. After all of that time trying to think of how to say it herself, before San shot her down, Brittany can't believe that Santana said it first.
"I love you. And I don't want to be with Sam, or Finn, or any of those other guys. I just want you." She searches Brittany's face. "Please say you love me back. Please."
"Of course I love you. I do." She wants to draw her in, hold her close, kiss her tears away, right in the hallway for everyone to see.
Everyone.
And then—she remembers him again. Artie, her boyfriend. Artie, with his hand tugging Brittany's rag doll arm. She swallows. She knows what she has to do. She looks at Santana, who has pushed her away so many times, and she does the right thing.
"And I would totally be with you if it weren't for Artie."
Santana looks like she's been punched right in the solar plexus.
"Artie?"
"I love him too." Or, at least, he has been good to her. Faithful. Proud, the way Santana wasn't and still isn't. "I don't want to hurt him. That's not right. I can't break up with him."
"Yes you can," snaps Santana. Anger floods into her face. "He's just a stupid boy." And Brittany can hear a hundred conversations in their beds echoing in her memory, laughing about boys and sex and pretending what the two of them did in bed meant just as little.
"But it wouldn't be right." San is shaking her head, and Brittany feels suddenly so sick and empty she wonders whether she's doing the right thing after all. "Santana, you have to know, if Artie and I were to ever break up, and I'm lucky enough that you're still single"—she tries to take Santana's hand, but Santana shakes her off—"I'm so yours. Proudly so."
"Wow." The door is shut again. She's back to the Santana who told her that they weren't lesbians. "Who ever thought that being fluid meant you could be so stuck?"
The moment San seals herself off, Brittany begins to understand what she's just done. Still, it's too late to go back now. The best she can do is apologize and hold her. But Santana throws her off like she's on fire.
"Get off me," she cries, and walks away so fast, turning the first corner, that Brittany feels like her eyes are following San's shadow, her fading print in the air. She's stuck in place, hollowed out like a pumpkin gutted with a spoon, and wishing for once—after feeling too quick for weeks—that she could think just that much faster.
Brittany has a date with Artie tonight. She has to pull herself together. But this afternoon is burning in the base of her belly like she ate something rotten. She can't stop seeing Santana's face, her tears, the way she shook off Brittany's hand the way she would a snake.
When she gets home, she lies down and lets herself go stony, clutching a pillow. She tries not to think, but she can't do anything but think, not when she's still like this. So she practices her dance routines with the background music cranked up so loud her mom yells at her to turn it down. She dances until her whole head and body feel like they're made of over-boiled spaghetti.
She showers, scrubbing herself pink, and can hardly feel herself walking downstairs, taking the car, driving to and parking at the movie theater. She thinks of Artie, how he can't feel his legs, and wonders what it's like to move through the world all the time like this, like something besides your own body is pushing against the ground to move you forward.
Artie's waiting for her in front of the marquee. The light makes him look flat and small. He's changed his vest and shirt for her. A funny feeling comes over her as she looks at him, sore almost, and she can't decide whether it's love or anger—even though he hasn't done anything wrong.
He spots her and waves. She walks to him and bends to kiss him.
"Hi baby," he says.
"Hi."
"I have a movie present for you," he says, trying to sound mysterious. He reaches into his backpack and, with a crinkling noise, pulls out a box just enough to let her see the label.
"Dots!" Brittany grins and claps her hands.
"That's right. Anything for my woman." He grins back, and for the moment, love wins the battle. She kisses his cheek. "So, what do you want to see?"
She looks up at the marquee. Too many romantic comedies. Horror. She just can't do either of those right now.
"Gnomeo and Juliet," she decides.
Artie grins. He'll go along with it without teasing her for picking a kid's movie. Still, she knows what he's thinking. The same thing he was thinking when she let him think she still believed in Santa Claus.
They buy their tickets, Artie buys them matching White Cherry Icees—extra large—and they find places in the wheelchair row. The movie is loud and bright and silly. Brittany drops her Dots one by one into the Icee the way she used to drop things in the snow as a kid, and carefully fishes them out with the flimsy spoon-straw to chew them once they're frozen and filmy with gelatin. She keeps her hand on Artie's and pretends she doesn't feel torn in two.