McKinley High music room
"What's going on?" Quinn muttered as she sat down on the row in front of Santana, running a suspicious eye over the bodyguard beside her.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Santana crossed her arms and looked away with a disgusted scowl on her face.
"Brittany looks upset. Did you do something stupid again?" Santana fixed Quinn with a death stare to which Quinn held her hands up in a peaceful gesture. "I'm just saying because it's happened before."
"I'm having a minor disagreement with my dad. This is his way of keeping me in line, keeping me apart from B, until I do what he wants me to," Santana huffed.
"Which is?"
"Never going to happen."
"Brittany doesn't look very happy about it."
Santana flinched at the truth in that statement. She was right. Brittany looked miserable and Santana felt miserable, even though it was cushioned behind a haze of anger and sulking. Brittany had no such defence mechanism. Brittany peered over to where Santana was slumped scowling in her chair. Watching her, Santana gave her a gentle smile. Brittany's face lit up as she smiled back, and, just like that, it was all going to be okay.
"Screw this," muttered Santana. She wasn't going to let her father get the better of her. "We got non married," she confessed to Quinn.
"You... I... huh. Pardon?" Quinn's brow wrinkled in puzzlement as she tried to decipher the other girl's words.
"We ran away to Vegas and apparently somehow got non married."
"Miss Lopez," interrupted the bodyguard.
"Butt out, Arnie. This is a private conversation."
"Your father insisted you don't talk about this."
"Whatever I want to talk about is none of your business. If I can't talk to B, I'm sure as hell gonna unload on Q. So you can tell my dad to shove his pathetic attempt at control up his..." The buzz of conversation which had filled the room dropped as everyone looked over at the commotion Santana was causing.
Immediately Brittany's bodyguard grabbed her by the arm and pulled her toward the door. "Santana!"
Santana looked over at where Brittany was being dragged away. "Hey, get your hands off her!" she demanded, jumping up to help her but her bodyguard stopped her. "Dude, you ever heard of assault?" She spluttered furiously.
"Santana!" Brittany called again trying to wriggle out of the MIB's grasp.
Santana's own terminator grabbed her and dragged her towards the opposite door. "It's okay, B. I'll sort this. I promise!" She called as she was pulled down the hallway.
An uncomfortable shocked feeling descended on the room with everyone trying to figure out what was happening. "What does non married mean?" Quinn asked an open question to the room.
Santana was driven home by the bodyguard who refused to acknowledge her. To be more accurate, he refused to respond to all the snide remarks she had showered down on him throughout the day and the verbal assault she was currently inflicting on him. Once she was released into the custody of her father at the Lopez house he left in hurried relief. He didn't get paid enough for this sort of thing. Teenage girls should come with a health warning.
"Sit," was the only word her father bestowed upon her as he led her to the kitchen table.
Santana plonked herself down at the counter again ready and willing for another fight with her parents. To her unease she was left alone for a few minutes but didn't dare leave the table. The doorbell rang and Brittany and her mother appeared in the kitchen accompanied by Santana's parents. Brittany skipped over before anyone could say anything and sat down next to Santana. They linked pinkies and both immediately felt relieved after having spent the day forced apart.
"Is Harry not coming?" Dr Lopez inquired to Brittany's mother.
"No. He has to work I'm afraid." Dr Lopez didn't look pleased at that piece of news. He had a sneaking suspicion the Pierces and to an extent his wife weren't taking this as seriously as he was. "He and Brittany had a talk and Harry made his views perfectly clear," Mrs Pierce explained. Brittany nodded at her words. Her father had told her as he always had throughout her life, to tell the truth and be respectful to Dr and Mrs Lopez. He never actually mentioned the wedding, only remarked, "Don't run off again without telling us where you're going."
An expectant air descended upon the kitchen as Santana and her father mentally prepared themselves for round two. The girls sat together at the table while their parents stood about them. "How was school?" Dr Lopez started them off.
"Awful," Santana answered cautiously. "Everyone wanted to know why we had guards."
"And what did you tell them?"
"I told them Brittany tried to murder me in a jealous rage and it was for my own protection."
"I told them it's cos I'm super famous," Brittany beamed.
Dr Lopez was sorry he asked. "Does this mean you're ready to sign this form yet or do you want another day kept apart with guards? You're clearly nothing but trouble when you're together."
Santana inspected her nails carefully waiting for her father to make a move and Brittany just waited expectantly for Santana's lead. He sighed with exasperation.
"I have to phone the security agency tonight, John quit."
"Who's John?" Brittany asked.
"Santana's guard." Santana smirked.
"Oh. Can I have new one too? I don't think Francis likes me."
"Who's Francis?"
"My guard."
"His name is Steve."
"Oh. That may be why he didn't answer my questions. I thought he was being rude."
"What did you ask him B?" Santana asked with a smile.
"I asked if he was a secret agent or in the FBI. And if he'd ever seen aliens and had he ever been shot. And why was he wearing sunglasses indoors. That was a bit weird." Santana nodded in agreement, those were totally acceptable questions to ask.
Mrs Lopez put a placating hand on her husband's arm as she noticed his jaw clench at the obliviousness of the two girls. Trying to drag the conversation back on track he cut in. "We spoke to the solicitors and the registry office, and that place which has the nerve to call itself a chapel. I cannot believe it but they are actually really and truly legally licensed. They refused to give me the name of the idiot who performed the ceremony. Probably trying to protect him because when I get a hold of him he will never work in this country again. Do either of you remember his name?" Santana shrugged her answer.
Brittany thought hard and then said, "I think he said his name was Elvis."
Dr Lopez took a deep breath, grabbed on hard to the edge of the table and counted to ten. His wife spoke for him as he tried to calm himself, explaining to the girls and also Brittany's mother what they had discovered that day via numerous angry phone calls. "We found out that they must get a lot of... mistaken weddings. They send out a lot of these forms just in case. Fifty percent are usually annulled." She laid out an annulment form and the suspect marriage certificate. Brittany looked at it with great interest. "It arrived today," said Mrs Lopez.
"There's nothing to annul," Santana insisted, trying not to look interested. "We were under age, didn't have parental consent and were drunk. We're not signing anything."
"What if there's a tiny loophole somewhere in which you find out in ten or twenty years down the line you actually were married?" Santana's father asked her, incredulous she hadn't considered such a thing.
"What if?" Santana shrugged her shoulders.
Mrs Lopez sighed and exchanged an exasperated glance with Brittany's mother as Santana and her father initiated another glare off. "We are only trying to protect you girls because we love you." She looked directly at Santana who rolled her eyes and sighed.
It had an effect though because she backed down a little and tried to explain herself to her father, who truth be told, she adored and hated fighting with. And anyway, it wasn't much fun trying to walk the fine line between her loyalty to her father and her loyalty to Brittany. "Dad. I will do pretty much anything you ask me. Just cos. But you went and upset Brittany," she said ominously as though that last sentence explained everything.
Her father frowned at her, thinking hard, watching as she shifted in her chair and moved unconsciously closer to Brittany, linked pinkies never wavering. "Let me get this absolutely crystal clear. What you're saying is..." he pondered provocatively. "You want to stay faux married?"
Santana gave Brittany a nervous glance who in return just stared at her with avid interest waiting for her decision. Shit, when did it get so hot in here? Santana wondered. She gulped and put her hand across her eyes wiping a bead of sweat away. To her horror her hand shook a little as she considered the choice she was making. This was not the way she had ever envisaged being called out on her feelings for Brittany. In front of her parents and before Brittany's family. But, Britt seemed really kind of pleased they'd got married even if they really hadn't or it wasn't going to stick. It would make Brittany happy if they were non married.
"I, uh. I..." She sighed. "Oh God. Well... why not?"
Brittany squealed and flung her arms around Santana's neck gripping her in a bear hug. "We got non married!"
Santana's father shook his head in a stunned kind of disbelief. Santana took the void marriage certificate out of his hands and read it carefully. She looked up at her father and she could swear there was a glimmer of a twinkle in his eye. She turned and handed the certificate to Brittany. Brittany hugged Santana and sat down chuckling happily and reading the certificate. Santana just shrugged at their parents. It made Brittany happy and that's all that mattered, therefore, she could keep it.
"Oh, you know what?" Santana settled back down in her chair with a deep sigh. "I just had a vision."
"What was it? Was it like the time the Cheerio pyramid collapsed on top of me because Andrea accused Katy of looking up her skirt and they were all really heavy and I couldn't breathe and everything got really dark and then I could hear music like a brass band or something and I thought I was dying and there were like angels playing trumpets but then you pulled me out and it went away?"
"No B. The trumpets were the marching band practising on the field."
"Oh," Brittany cocked her head to the side as though she had never considered that before.
"I just got a feeling of total certainty that you're going to be the death of me."
"Whoa, okay now. Can we stop with the near death visions and marching bands and focus for a moment," interrupted Santana's father before he got dragged any further into the weirdness of their conversations. "What actually happened in Vegas? And why does it say that Barbra Streisand was a witness at your wedding? I think you remember a lot more than you're letting on. If you tell us what happened I could be persuaded to let all of this drop."
The girls exchanged a glance. "I remember getting there and the free cocktails," Brittany grins.
"I remember pirates and money and handcuffs," Santana mused.
"I remember leaving in a hurry with the security guard hanging onto the car. And I lost my shoes." Brittany leaned over and whispered in Santana's ear. "Do you think it would be better not to tell them about the tattoos just yet?"
Santana's eyebrows rocketed sky high. "What tattoos?"