A/N: Hey, guys!

Phew, okay, I'm sorry that I took so long to respond to the reviewers...I totally suck sometimes. But at least I did it before I posted this chapter! That's good...right? :) Ahem. Moving on.

The 'anonymous' reviewer:

Last White Feather - I am so glad that you are on both of their sides in some way! That's what I wanted. Even if it kind of sucks to be conflicted, I'm really glad you don't just outright hate Brittney. Because...I mean, like you said, they did have a deal and everything, but Brittany's broken that pact (not that she could help falling in love with her soul mate, even though she tried not to). So...yeah. I hope you like this chapter! :D

Okay, so, hold on to your britches, ladies (and gentlemen?)! You're in for a bumpy ride. Enjoy! :D


The Railyard at Wellington

February 28, 1910

"Where were you this morning?"

Brittany was standing on the porch of Jones' Hotel, watching the rain come down. She had been waiting for something to happen all morning. Brittney had given her until today to tell Santana the truth. Sooner or later, she was bound to seek the taller blonde out to discover whether or not she had done it.

Brittany had awakened that morning to the sound of rain on the train car roof, and the warmth of Santana's arms around her. Overnight, the weather had changed. The sky was no longer white with snow. Instead, it was filled with enormous, fat drops of rain, shimmering gray as an opal.

After helping to serve breakfast, Brittany had come out onto the hotel porch to watch the rain, listening to it hiss as it struck the snow, the strange booming cracks of sound that echoed from time to time up and down the mountain.

No one seemed to know for sure what caused the sounds, but at breakfast, a word had run through the dining room like wildfire: avalanche.

That was the reason she was so jumpy, Brittany told herself. Not Brittney's sudden question. There was no way the other girl could have known where Brittany had spent the night. When Brittany had returned to their berth, it had been early in the morning. No one on the cars was stirring, not even the porters. Brittney had been lying perfectly still. Or so she had thought.

"I don't know what you mean," Brittany said cautiously. "I've been here all morning just like you have, helping Mrs. Jones."

Brittney stepped up to stand beside her. Shoulder to shoulder, the two girls stood, staring out into the rain.

"I woke up very early this morning," Brittney began, as though she were telling a bedtime story. Brittany stiffened, knowing what was to come next. "Before it was light. Maybe it was the sound of the rain. Or maybe I was having a nightmare. Whatever it was, I woke up frightened. I went to the washroom to splash some water on my face. I thought I had been careful to keep the curtain closed, so I wouldn't disturb you, but I guess I hadn't. When I got back, the curtain was open."

For the first time, Brittney turned to look at Brittany directly. Almost against her will, Brittany turned, compelled to meet Brittney's gaze. She had expected outrage, anger. Instead, she found the other girl's eyes were filled with immeasurable pain. As if she already knew the answer Brittany would give, but had had no choice but to pose the question.

"I could see that you weren't in your bed," Brittney continued, her voice still low and quiet. "Where did you go, Britt? Where were you this morning?"

A thousand images seemed to rush through Brittany's tired mind, a thousand explanations, a thousand choices. Until finally, just as there had been last night, she knew that there was only one choice that she could make.

"I was with Santana," she answered softly.

Brittney gave a cry of anguish. Unable to bear the pain in her friend's eyes another moment, Brittany turned away. She felt Brittney's fingers dig into her shoulders as she reached to pull her back.

"Don't do that," Brittney panted. "Don't think I'm going to let you turn away. You didn't tell her, did you? No, instead, you made sure that you could keep her for yourself. You knew that was the only way."

"No," Brittany protested. She genuinely hadn't thought of her action in this way. She had thought only of her need to be with Santana. Her need to create something, some memory she could treasure always, through the long and empty years ahead. "It wasn't like that, Brittney."

Brittney began to laugh wildly. "I don't believe you," she cried. "You deliberately betrayed her. You deliberately betrayed me. You made sure that she had to choose you no matter who you are. You've won. Congratulations."

"What do you mean no matter who she is?" said a voice behind them.

Startled, both girls swung around to face the entrance to the hotel. No, Brittany thought, as she stared into Santana's horrified brown eyes. Oh, please, God, no. Not like this.

"What—do—you—mean—no—matter—who—she—is?" Santana asked again, her words carefully spaced out, empty of emotion. But the expression in her eyes was so blinding that Brittany had to look away. "You aren't Brittney Bennett, are you?" she inquired, as if the fact that Brittany couldn't look at her had already given her the answer. "You're Brittany Pierce."

"Santana, please," Brittany pleaded. "You must believe me, I didn't mean for this to happen. I never meant to hurt either one of you."

"I'm not interested in an explanation," Santana said, her voice as still as death. "I'm interested in the truth. Are you Brittney Bennett or Brittany Pierce?"

Brittany felt her throat close up instantly. She never knew how she forced the words out, the words she knew would drive the Latina from her side forever. Her own name.

"Brittany Pierce."

For a fraction of an instant, Santana closed her eyes. When she opened them again, Brittany cried out. The fire in them was completely gone. All that was left was cold, gray ashes.

"It was all a lie, wasn't it?" the brunette ground out, as though she were fighting the impulse to cry.

"No, Santana," Brittany objected, taking a step forward, and felt a razor-sharp pain shoot straight through her heart when the Latina stepped back. "It wasn't a lie, not how I felt, only who I was."

Santana gave a bark of cold, harsh laughter. "Only who you were," she repeated. "And you thought that was unimportant?"

"Of course not," Brittany protested, desperate for the shorter woman to understand. "I—we—" Her voice faltered and broke off, unsure how to defend her actions.

"I wanted to know what you were like," Brittney spoke up suddenly, "before we could be married. My father was—not a—kind person. I wanted to make certain that you weren't like him, if I could."

"Not a kind person," Santana echoed. She gave another short bark of bitter laughter. "But perhaps neither am I, Miss Bennett. A kind person would have told you the truth from the very beginning."

Brittany felt Brittney go stone still.

"What truth?" Brittney asked, a noticeable quiver in her soft voice.

"It was such a romantic story, wasn't it?" Santana said scornfully by way of answer.

Abruptly, Brittany became aware that she was holding her breath. Is this how Santana had felt a few short moments ago? she wondered. As if the world was suddenly descending straight down into chaos.

"The young woman so eager to meet her fiancé that she boarded the train in the middle of the night rather than wait for her to come to her in Seattle—"

Santana's dark eyes flicked to Brittany for a fraction of a second. "But romantic stories are seldom the truth," she said with a small, derisive smile.

"What is the truth, Santana?" Brittany couldn't help asking, feeling her heart clench painfully when Santana's gaze moved back to Brittney.

"I got on the train to tell Miss Bennett that I could not marry her."

Brittney flinched as if she had been struck, and staggered back. Acting solely on instinct, Brittany moved to support her. But Brittney jerked her arm out of the taller blonde's grasp. In the silence that followed, Brittany could hear the sound of the rain, pounding like fists on the roof of the porch.

"But why?" Brittney finally inquired. Santana took a step toward her. Brittany clenched her fists at her side. She had stepped toward Brittney. But from her, Santana had stepped back.

"My father wished me to promise to marry you," Santana began. "He wished to use our marriage to settle a debt he said he owed your father. But I could not agree to that. Marriage should be more than a business contract, Miss Bennett. It should be, as the ceremony says, a promise to love, honor, and protect."

"But you—you said nothing!" Brittney exclaimed.

"Our engagement became common knowledge before I could speak," Santana replied. "And then—" She broke off, a noticeable blush rising on her tan cheeks.

"Then you met Britt and realized that you loved her," Brittney filled in slowly. "There would have been no need to speak after that."

When Santana said nothing, Brittney suddenly began to laugh. The sound was high-pitched, almost hysterical.

"How miraculous it must have seemed!" Brittney cried. "To suddenly discover you loved the woman you had refused to marry. That's a romantic story, too, Miss Lopez. Too bad it wasn't the truth."

Brittany watched as the color in Santana's face deepened. "I did you a disservice, Miss Bennett," she said, taking another small step toward Brittney. "I'm truly sorry for it. If you let me, I will make amends."

No! Brittany's heart cried out, even as she felt it spasm in her breast. Santana could only mean one thing. Before she could stop herself, she took a step forward, extending one hand toward the Latina that held her heart.

"Don't," Santana spat immediately. "I don't want you to touch me, Britt. Not ever again." Brittany clamped her eyes shut against the pain as she felt Santana's words turn her heart to solid ice. She halted, her arm still outstretched.

In a blur of motion, Santana actually knelt on the porch before Brittney. "Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife, Miss Bennett?"

Brittney looked down, her expression unreadable. "Yes, I will, Miss Lopez," she answered at last.

As though Brittney's answer had freed her from some spell, Brittany dropped her hand. She knew it rested against her leg. She could even see her fingers curl to grasp the dark fabric of her heavy skirt. But she couldn't feel the ache of her muscles clenching till her knuckles shone white.

She couldn't feel anything, would never feel anything, not ever again.

"We can be married as soon as we reach Seattle," Santana said, rising to take Brittney's hand.

Brittany turned away, no longer able to bear the sight of Santana and Brittney together. She stared out over the snow, lumpy and pock-marked by the falling rain. A huge crack thundered through the valley.

"But first, I have to make the hike to Scenic," she heard Santana continue. "Mrs. Jones is almost out of supplies, and I need to see if I can arrange for more."

"But is that safe, Santana?" Brittney asked anxiously, gazing worriedly at her fiancé.

How quick she is to voice her fears for her, Brittany thought bitterly. Almost as if they are married already.

"It will be all right," Santana reassured her, reaching up to stroke Brittney's pale cheek softly with the pad of her thumb. "But before I go—I—there is some—business—I must finish with Miss Pierce."

"Do you want me to go inside?" Brittney asked.

There was a beat of silence.

"You are going to be my wife," Santana answered slowly, lowering her hand from Brittney's face. "There should be no secrets between us, although I fear that you may not like what you will hear."

"I already know about last night," Brittney told her.

Brittany felt something sharp and ugly twist inside her. So this is what betrayal feels like, she thought.

"Miss Pierce."

Santana's voice sliced through Brittany's bitter consciousness. Slowly, she turned to the face the Latina, trying to focus just on her and not on Brittney at all.

For what she was sure would be the last time, Brittany felt Santana's eyes upon her. Now they were no longer full of the spirit and passion she loved so much in the other woman. No, now they were so dull and bleak it made her own eyes water. And so cold, even the memory of the warmth was gone.

"What we did…you took something away from me—something I was saving for the woman I would spend the rest of my life with."

"Don't," Brittany whispered, tears stinging the back of her throat. "Please, don't."

"You came to me, knowing exactly what it meant, knowing that you had no right take what you did. And the entire time you were lying to me, making me believe that you...It—it meant nothing to you—you just had to make sure you had some part of me forever, whether it was yours to have or not," Santana said, her eyes echoing the contempt in her otherwise emotionless voice.

"No, Santana, it wasn't like that," Brittany managed to squeeze past the lump in her throat, wanting desperately to explain herself to the Latina, make her understand that what they shared the previous night meant everything in the world to her.

"Well, congratulations," Santana continued, as though she hadn't heard Brittany speak, the pain just barely noticeable in her frigid tone. "I will never get that part of myself back from you, no matter how much I may want to. But that's all you will ever get from me. I never want to see or hear from you again, Miss Pierce. I can't—"

Abruptly, she broke off, her lips pressed tightly together, her dark eyes glossy with unshed tears. Without warning, Santana brushed between the two blondes, stepping down off the porch and striding off into the driving rain.

It's over, Brittany thought. All, all over. She felt exhausted, drained. She turned to Brittney, standing silently beside her on the porch.

"It seems that you are the one to be congratulated. I'm sure you will be very happy."

"But not Santana," Brittney answered sharply. "Not without you—is that what you mean?"

Brittany bit down on her tongue until she tasted blood. Things were bad enough. She would not add to them by further quarreling.

"I won't stay on the Winnipeg," Brittany went on when she could trust herself to speak. "I don't expect that you will want to bunk with me anymore. I will move to the Similkameen."

"You know where there's an empty berth," Brittney answered sourly. Then she raised her hand in a swift gesture, as if to call her harsh words back. "Well, at least we were right about one thing."

"What was that?" Brittany asked, unable to hide her curiosity, even now.

"We were right about the kind of person Santana Lopez is. She is good and honorable. So honorable that she is willing to live without love."

Without another word, Brittney turned and went back into the hotel. Brittany didn't follow her. Instead, she walked slowly down the steps and out onto the snow, lifting her tear-stained face to the bitter rain.


All that day and into the night, it rained. Huge, fat drops falling from the sky like a torrent of tears, pelting down upon the trains and the buildings, soaking into the dense-packed snowfields, turning the sky no longer white, but a strange and opalescent gray.

Toward the middle of the night, as February faded away and March roared in like a lion, the thunder and lightning began. Great claps of sound hurled themselves from one side of the canyon to the other. Silver forces of lightning seared the sky. Illuminated by their light, the great, white snowfield seemed to hold its breath.

Then, in the beat of stillness that followed the thunder, there came a sound no one had ever heard before.

A sound like nothing anyone had ever imagined, not even in the depths of their most fevered nightmares. A wild beast's roar. A sound to end all other sounds on earth, to swallow them up, to drown them out, to crush them and destroy them.

The great, white snowfield above the trains was moving. The avalanche came down.


Brittany heard it first, a deafening roar filling the night, making any other sound impossible. Brittany's head shot up from her pillow. She twisted her neck from side to side, trying in vain to identify the sound's direction.

And then the avalanche was upon her.

Brittany shrieked as she felt the Similkameen lift up, up, up, slamming her viciously against the top of the train, and then, with a force hard enough to break bone, crash her right back down again. Crying out in fear and pain, she tumbled over the side of her berth, her hands desperately scrambling for any kind of hold as the Pullman car began to spin around like a toy boat trapped in a whirlpool.

Brittany's ears were filled with an assault of sound. The sound of glass shattering as snow forced its way through the windows, the scrape of rocks and trees sliding along the sides of the car, the terrified screams of her fellow passengers. She saw a strange glow, like red hot stars, and realized the coal stove had tipped over.

A shape slid toward her along the floor. Instinctively, Brittany made a quick grab, astonished to discover it was Isaac Puckerman. With one arm, Brittany hugged the baby to her chest.

"Rachel!" she screamed out. "Rachel!"

"Britt!" she heard Rachel call back. "I've lost Isaac! Where are you?"

"Here!" Brittany called out. "Over here!"

Then the whole world exploded.

Brittany could feel herself hurtle straight up, flying through the air, as the Similkameen split open like a rip summer melon. For one incredible moment, she seemed to hang above the earth, clutching Isaac Puckerman in her arms, suspended in time and space. Then, with a speed so brutal it stole her breath, she began to plummet downward.

She felt a sudden, piercing cold, a shooting pain. Then she could see nothing. Hear nothing. Feel nothing.

I'm going to die here, she thought. Then she remembered nothing.


A/N: I should probably warn you guys that the next chapter will be the last. It will be extra long, though, and I hope it wraps up your questions and everything. Buuut, just wanted to give you guys a head's up, so you're not blindsided next time. :)

The stunning conclusion will be back in a week's time! So, until then, I bid you all adieu :D