Banana Mania: Artie & Santana

Loud pop music blared all around her as she watched people bounce in time on the dance floor. She could see Finn's awkward ass trying to grind up behind Quinn, and Puck dancing out of time with a pregnant Berry on the edge of the crowd. But there would be no dancing, no celebrating, tonight for Santana Lopez. There would only be drinking and lots of it.

She heard the sure-tell sound of Artie's wheelchair approaching and then the slam of a cheap alcohol bottle on the table in front of her. "You look like you need this about as much as I do," he declared before producing a pair of shot glasses out of his suit pocket. "The bar's pretty picked over, and this is all they had left. I hope you like banana."

Santana glared down at the schnapps and then over at the bespectacled boy who'd once been the bane of her existence and then at the dance floor where Brittany was laughing with Sam. With her husband. "Start pourin', Wheels," she declared. This wasn't exactly a night she wanted to remember.

An hour later, she was pretty sure that neither her nor Artie would remember anything about this disaster of a reception. Okay, so it wasn't exactly a disaster. Quinn had worked long and hard to give Brittany and Sam the perfect night, and neither of them seemed to notice that Santana had basically disappeared once her duties as maid of honor had concluded. She had stashed her bouquet in the ice sculpture and her shoes had been left beneath some table long ago. All that she was left with now was the first person to ever love Brittany beside her and a string of sad stories they could only tell each other.

"I always thought it would be you," he whispered. "After Britt left me and things went down, I thought you were the person she'd run back to again. It would have made it easier, you know, because you could give her things I couldn't. You guys had a past. But Sam? He can't take care of her like we can."

Santana glanced down at him and smiled sadly. Artie and Brittany had gotten back together when he had ended up at Berklee after high school and Brittany was still doing the MIT thing. Things had been good through the next four years of college until one day Brittany decided she didn't want to do it anymore. She had cried a little before getting on the train to New York, and he had just assumed she was running back to Santana. They didn't find out that she was staying with Sam until the Latina called Artie three days later looking for her.

"I always thought it would be you," Santana finally countered. "When Brittany ended up in Boston, I knew that she was closing the door on us. I couldn't blame her; I was the one who did it first. I trusted you with her, knew that you knew what she needed. But you're right about Sam. How will he ever know what to do when she gets sad or scared or lonely?" She waited a moment, watching as the happy couple gazed at each other as if no one else existed, their matching blonde hair glinting beneath the spotlight. Their babies were going to be really blonde but really beautiful. "I lost my best friend tonight. We both did. She belongs to him now."

"I'm leaving Boston," he announced out of nowhere. "I got a grant from National Geographic to do a documentary on the Bronx Zoo, so I'll be in New York for awhile. Maybe we could hang out and you could show me where to pick up girls."

Santana grinned down at him lecherously. "Yeah, I make a pretty kickass wingman. Alright, yeah, that could be okay. I am in the market for a new best friend, you know."

Artie chuckled and then bumped his fist against hers. "I got your back, Lopez."