A/N: Much love for your reviews and continued support :)
Special thanks to DieZeitVergeht for the awesome cover art :D
Most of my fics are primarily Santana-centric and this is the first one solely from Brittany's point of view, which is a challenge for me. But a welcome one :) I hope I'm doing her character justice…
I haven't yet decided if I'm going to post Brittany's letters…
Onward and up!
-H
2014
Fireworks exploded all around them and Brittany swallowed, her eyes never leaving Santana's. She tried desperately to detect what emotion was swirling in those gorgeous dark orbs, but she found that she couldn't. It was frustrating as hell.
Did she take the first step? Should she wait for Santana to? Would she? Just because she'd shown up didn't necessarily mean that she'd be able to step up to the plate.
Her eyes widened slightly and her breathing picked up as the Latina moved closer to her.
"Hi," she breathed.
"Hey," Brittany replied, her tone equally soft.
Santana opened her mouth and looked like she wanted to say something, but defeat flashed across her face before her gaze dropped.
She really wanted to take point on this and just grab the love of her life and kiss her senseless. But she couldn't. Not if she wanted to make sure that Santana was ready for a real relationship with her.
But the anticipation was killing her.
"Kiss me," she said simply.
Santana's eyes flew up to hers again and the answer was there, clear as day.
She swallowed the painful shattering of her heart and turned away.
"Brittany!" Her voice was desperate.
The blonde simply stopped, but didn't look at her. She felt her come up behind her, their bodies close enough for her to feel the heat radiating off the Latina.
"I'm trying. I am. I'm…"
Brittany couldn't stand to hear anymore. She quickly walked away, tears starting to blur her vision. She hurriedly wiped them away and shoved her hands deep into her pockets as her shoulders shook from barely controlled sobs.
She had to forget her. She had to. It had been almost two years since they'd broken up and Santana was still afraid. Her words from that fateful day came back to her, ringing in her ears as clear as day.
"I can't wait for you to accept yourself. If you don't do it now, you never will."
She'd apparently been ready to kiss her before, but a year later, she couldn't. Brittany knew she had to accept that it meant she wouldn't. Ever.
She just wished she knew how not to love Santana Lopez. That would make living a little easier.
Quinn was a good friend; she didn't once tell Brittany 'I told you so'. She held her as she cried every night for weeks on end. This was worse than when they'd broken up in college. Santana hadn't fought for them then, but Brittany had almost expected her not to.
But this time, Brittany had willingly offered herself up to the woman she loved, the woman who professed to love her back, but obviously didn't love her enough.
Brittany knew that Quinn was at her wits' end. She didn't know what to do with a depressed best friend. She didn't know what to do with herself either. So she did what any normal heartbroken girl would do. She threw herself into her work.
She worked twelve to fourteen hour days, barely taking any breaks. The Mayweather account was picking up steam and, thankfully, kept her very busy. She dreaded the day that she didn't have anything to do.
She managed to remain relatively sane (by her own standards) until mid-April. Her boss called her into his office.
"Brittany, your work on the Mayweather account has been exceptional. They've recently acquired a new legal representative so you'll need to meet with her tomorrow to clarify that everything we've done is in accordance with our contract. It's a formality, unfortunately."
"I understand," Brittany said. "I'll make sure everything is ready."
"Thank you. Brittany?"
She halted in her departure.
"Is…is everything alright?"
"Perfectly."
"Ok." He didn't sound very convinced. "I obviously appreciate the time that you're dedicating to your job, but I worry that you're overworking yourself."
"Don't worry about me, sir. I'm keeping healthy. I won't burn out."
"All right. You do have some leave accumulated. Perhaps you should think about taking some time off over the summer. Just to take a break, you know?"
Where would she go? Stay home? Let her mind be overrun with thoughts she didn't want to think? No, thank you.
"I'll think about it, sir."
Her assistant buzzed her the next morning.
"Ms. Lopez is here, Brittany."
She froze. "I'm sorry, who?"
"Santana Lopez? She's the legal representative for the Mayweather account? She does have an appointment."
She doesn't know what to say or what to do. This was some kind of cruel joke. Of all the places in LA, why did Santana have to become the legal representative of the only account she had?
"Brittany?"
"Just…I need a minute."
"All right. I'll get her some coffee."
She couldn't do this. How was she supposed to go through a fifty-page contract with the woman who had caused her heart to break not once, but twice? The woman she dreamed about every single night. The woman she craved with every inch of her body and soul. The woman she would never have.
She had to detach herself. She was Brittany Pierce and she had an appointment with the legal representative of her company's biggest account. That was it. She wouldn't see her as Santana. She was just an appointment.
She took a deep breath and went to open her office door.
"Ms. Lopez?" she greeted clearly.
God, she looked amazing. No. No, she didn't. Just an appointment.
"Good morning, Ms. Pierce."
She really hoped the formality would continue inside her office. She subtly held her breath as Santana walked past her, knowing that her perfume would be just as intoxicating as she was. As an afterthought, she left her office door opened and walked to the small table on the one side of her large office. Two chairs were set up next to each other. Brittany wished she'd moved them.
"I have the original contract that we signed with Harry Mayweather, as well as any amendments that have been made during the course of our partnership. I also have a blank copy of the contract should you want to take it with you and make any changes. We were pretty thorough though, so I don't think you should have any problems."
She was thankful that her tone remained professional and belied none of the nerves bubbling in her chest.
Santana nodded and placed her briefcase on the table, pulling out her laptop. Brittany just watched her. She needed to do something. She couldn't be idle, especially now.
"If you have any questions, I'll just be at my desk." She turned around before Santana could even open her mouth.
She dove into her work, tuning out the Latina sitting a few feet away. The new campaign they'd just started required a lot of research on Brittany's behalf and she was thankful to keep busy.
"Ms. Pierce?"
Brittany looked up.
"Um, may I have a glass of water?" she asked meekly.
Brittany glanced at her watch. They'd been in the same room for two hours already. She stood up.
"I'm sorry, of course. I'll make sure you get something to eat as well."
"That's not necessary."
Brittany simply waved her protests away and walked out of her office to her secretary's desk and requested some lunch to be brought up from the building's cafeteria.
She walked back to her own desk and saw Santana looking at her out of her peripheral vision, but didn't dare look up. Thankfully, her phone provided a distraction.
"Hello?"
"Britt, we've got a problem. The design programme for the posters and billboards just crashed."
"What? When?"
"About five minutes ago."
"Have you called Brad?"
"Yeah, he just got here. I have a feeling we may have lost everything."
"Shit," she breathed. "Ok, let me make a few calls. I'll be there as soon as I can."
She dialled her emergency IT guy. He was a whiz with any programme and she needed a miracle.
"Hey, Greg. I have a huge problem. Do you have a few hours to spare?" She nibbled on her pinkie finger as she chatted.
"I'm going to see what back ups I have on my side. Maybe we'll get lucky and not have to start from scratch."
She smiled at Greg's easygoing attitude.
"You're awesome. See you soon."
She fired off an email to her boss, apprising him of the situation and that she had it under control. He liked to keep tabs.
If Greg couldn't save them, the last three months' of hard work was gone and they'd have to start from scratch. And for the first time since landing the account, she wouldn't meet a deadline.
"Is everything all right?"
Brittany simply nodded. "It's under control."
"Will it affect the deadline?"
Her eyes snapped to Santana's.
"It might."
"Then perhaps we need to revise this clause," Santana suggested, holding up a page of the contract.
"Why?"
"Because it means you'd lose the account if you don't meet the deadline."
"What? I don't remember that?" Brittany stood up and walked over to the table.
"It looks like it was added in at the last minute. Knowing Harry's brother, it was probably him. He's an ass."
Brittany hummed her agreement as she perused the document carefully. She closed her eyes as letters started switching in her mind.
"Dammit," she swore softly.
Sometimes, she had trouble keeping a hold of her dyslexia. It would just spring up and she'd find it difficult to make sense of a simple document, no matter how many times she read it.
"I can read it to you?"
"It's fine," she said shortly, taking a few deep breaths and trying to calm her thoughts.
Five minutes later, she had understood the clause and was leaning on the table as she thought. Eventually, she knew that this was something she wouldn't be able to handle on her own. She went back to her desk and dialled her friend, Vanessa, their company's legal rep.
"Hey, Nessie, are you busy? Do you think you could come up to my office? We have a bit of a legal situation."
Her secretary walked in with two bottles of water and some sandwiches. Brittany remained at her desk and focused on the new problem. She could feel Santana looking at her, and once again, she was grateful for the distraction that work provided.
"So this will protect us should we not meet the deadline?" Brittany asked nervously. It was all terribly up in the air for her. She hated all the 'what ifs' that had been thrown around between the two lawyers over the last hour. She was pretty sure she'd lose her job if she lost the account. And she needed her job. Now more than ever. She needed to work so that she didn't think about the beautiful Latina sitting in her office, draining the last of her water.
Ugh! Stop looking at her. You're a glutton for punishment.
"I'm going to the floor," Brittany announced. "Nessie, you'll wrap things up here?"
She nodded and Santana looked poised to say something else, but Brittany didn't give her the chance, grabbing her phone and walking out without a backwards glance.
She collapsed into her desk chair and glanced at her watch.
22:02.
She'd pulled a sixteen-hour day and had pretty much saved her job. Greg, her super techie, had swooped in and worked some serious superhero mojo. They'd recovered the lost files and were back on track with Mayweather's latest campaign.
Thank God.
She was exhausted and quickly logged out, turning everything off and shrugging into her jacket. She put her phone into her pocket and froze when she felt an unfamiliar piece of paper. She sat down before she pulled it out, half-fearing that it was what she expected.
Another letter, this time written on a piece of the legal pad she'd seen Santana with.
Brittany,
I know you must hate me. And I promise that I didn't orchestrate this to torture you. It was a simple coincidence.
Regardless, I am glad that I got to see you again. I didn't think I ever would after New Years. Brittany…I want you – no, I NEED you to understand that I wanted to kiss you more than anything. But I don't want to give you false hope. I want to completely be that person for you. I can't give you part of me again. You deserve all of me. If you even still want me.
Faith thinks that me meeting you on New Years was a mistake. Maybe it was? It's not like we needed another reminder how fucked I am and how much I hurt you. How much I still hurt you. God, I wish that I could accept this about myself. I wish so much that I could snap my fingers and be ok with everything. I know, Brittany, same old story. I know…
The next step for me is to tell my parents. This is something I've been putting off for months. It's the main reason I didn't kiss you. When I do finally get that opportunity (if you'll let me), I want it to be without anything or anyone holding me back, especially myself. You know that my parents are a big catalyst of my fear. But I have to tell them. Fuck, I've been saying that since last year. I wish I could say that my actions speak louder than my words, but with us…words are all we have right now.
It kills me that I hurt you again. My cowardice is going to drive you so far away from me that when I finally accept myself, you'll be gone. You'll be gone and I'm going to be alone. I suppose that will be my punishment.
I have no right whatsoever to ask this of you, Brittany, and I know that, but I'm going to anyway. Will you wait for me? I can't tell you how long you'll have to wait, but would you anyway? Being around you today, even though you couldn't even look at me, made me realise how much I need you. I need you to look at me so I'm asking you to wait for me to show you that you can trust me again.
I'm so proud of you for what you've accomplished. People respect you here and they all love you. Everyone that I spoke to only had good things to say about you. But that should be obvious; after all, you're you. Who wouldn't love you?
Ok, I've wasted enough of your time. There are so many more things that I want to tell you, but all the paper in the world won't be enough. So I'll start small: I love you, Brittany Pierce. I have since I was fifteen and I will never stop. And one day, hopefully soon, I'm going to kiss you in front of the world.
All my love,
Santana
"That's not fair!" Brittany shouted angrily, throwing the letter down on her desk. "Fuck it, Santana. You can't keep doing this to me!" She dropped her head onto her arms and burst into tears.
Any further legal liaisons with the Mayweather account when through Vanessa, as per Brittany's request. She didn't want to see Santana anymore. The letter she'd left behind had only reminded Brittany of how selfish she was. How could she expect Brittany to wait for her? Again? She'd done it in high school, in college, at New Years, and every single time she'd ended up hurt. Now the Latina had the gall to ask her wait longer?
No. Not this time. She'd learnt her lesson.
She managed to meet her deadline with the new campaign and her boss was pleased, giving her a raise and asking if she wouldn't mind taking on another account, seeing how Mayweather was flourishing under her supervision.
Brittany accepted. If she ate, slept and dreamt work that was fine with her.
She wasn't exactly sure how it happened. Maybe it was because she'd seen Santana leaving the building as she was returning after lunch with Quinn, maybe it was the celebration that Mayweather threw for her and her team on their biggest monthly turnover thanks in large part to their very successful campaign. Maybe it was because she was frighteningly lonely. Maybe it was because she was drunk. Very, very drunk.
Moans came from both their mouths as she pushed Brittany up against the sink in the bathroom. There were gasps of pleasure and nails raking over skin aplenty as both scrambled to rid themselves of their clothes, desperate to feel skin on skin contact.
"Brittany," she gasped as the blonde bit hard onto her shoulder.
She returned the bite, soothing it with her tongue, causing Brittany to hum in approval. They worked in sync, fingers moving quickly and soon Brittany was shaking in pleasure.
They dressed quickly, stealing one last kiss before unlocking the bathroom door and returning to the party. She knew Santana's eyes were on her the moment she returned to the room, but she glanced back at Vanessa, who simply sent her a sultry wink before heading back to the bar.
Neither of them were looking for a relationship, but having sex a few times a week released a lot of tension that Brittany hadn't even realised she'd been carrying.
Quinn didn't approve of her arrangement with Vanessa, unsurprisingly, but Brittany was beyond caring. She dealt any way she could if it meant that she didn't see, hear from or think about Santana.
For her twenty-fifth birthday, she decided to throw a party. She invited everyone from work and some people she'd met at Mayweather. She did not invite Santana. Her and Quinn's apartment was full and music was blaring. Brittany was playing beer pong with her team and steadily becoming less lucid.
She saw Quinn making out with some guy on the couch and found herself being pressed up against a wall next to her bedroom as she fumbled her way to the bathroom.
"Took you long enough," she grinned.
"Shut up," Vanessa smirked, crashing their lips together.
She woke up the following morning alone, but it didn't matter. She didn't feel abandoned. Her arrangement with Vanessa was one without any romantic feelings and that suited Brittany just fine. She didn't feel abandoned because she didn't feel. It was easy. Much easier than it had been with Santana. And the sex was great.
She was drinking coffee and glancing through the classifieds when a small ad caught her eye.
Brittany,
I told them. Even though I know I'm too late, I hope you have an amazing birthday.
All my love,
Always,
Santana
She dropped the coffee mug and the sound of it shattering brought a half dressed Quinn rushing out of her room.
"What happened? Are you ok?"
Brittany simply shook her head. She'd never be ok because no matter how much she tried to forget Santana, the Latina always found a way to remind her that she would always be there, taunting and tempting her.
It needed to stop.
She was polishing off the final touches on a presentation to her new account when the tone for an IM popped up on her computer. She walked to her desk and sat down. Her hands froze over the keys when she saw who the IM was from.
Santana Lopez: Hi.
She swallowed, thoughts running over in her head, before she put her hands against her desk, pushed her chair away and stood up, going back to the table where she'd spread out her work.
The same thing happened the next day, and the day after, and the day after that, and Brittany ignored every single one.
After a month, she deleted the app from her computer. She had to move on. It was too late for her and Santana.
Her company had been nominated for an award and her boss had requested that Brittany represent them at the gala dinner. She rummaged around her closet, but couldn't find her black heels. Then she remembered that Lord Tubbington had confessed to hiding them in Quinn's closet because they made her too tall and he didn't like that.
She found them, hiding in their box and pulled it out, accidentally kicking over a stack of other boxes.
"Oops," she muttered, dropping her shoes on Quinn's bed and she knelt down to pick up the fallen contents. The bottom box contained a stack of letters. Brittany rolled her eyes. Her best friend was a sentimental hoarder. She happened to glance at the writing and her breath caught in her throat as she saw Santana's handwriting on every single envelope. And they were addressed to her. She counted thirty-nine envelopes. It had been thirty-nine days since her birthday.
"Quinn!" she bellowed.
"What? What?" she asked, rushing in.
"You did it again?" she asked incredulously, holding up the stack of letters. "Fuck it, Quinn! I'm supposed to be able to trust you! You're my best friend!"
"Britt, you're doing so well," Quinn said desperately. "You're moving on. I was afraid that any more letters from her would set you back."
"That was always my decision to make, and mine alone," Brittany growled angrily. "I'm not some fucking child that you need to baby. And I'm sick of you doing it all the time."
"Brittany, I'm sorry," Quinn begged. "It was wrong, I realise that. I was trying to-"
"Control me," Brittany snapped. "You're trying to control my emotions."
"I just don't want to see you hurt anymore," she mumbled.
"That's my choice! If I didn't want to read these, I wouldn't have opened them. But you never gave me that choice. Stay out of my life, Quinn!"
She grabbed her shoes and stormed out, slamming her door so hard that the walls shook. She sat down on her bed and arranged the letters in the order they were sent. Then she restacked them with the first one on top and put them in the drawer where the rest of Santana's letters were kept.
She reinstalled the IM app at work the next day and it wasn't long before she got a message.
Santana Lopez: Hi.
She had a response prepared.
Brittany Pierce: I didn't know that you were sending me letters. Quinn kept them from me, but I found them last night. I haven't opened them and I don't know if I even want to.
Half an hour passed before she got a response.
Santana Lopez: I hope you do read them, but I understand why you wouldn't want to.
Brittany didn't know what to say so she didn't reply.
She lasted till October before her curiosity got the better of her. She left work at a relatively normal hour and poured herself a large glass of red before shutting herself in her bedroom. Quinn knew better than to interrupt her. She'd never given her best friend the silent treatment for so long. She took a long sip from her wine glass before reaching into her bedside drawer and pulling out the stack of letters. They'd grown as Santana had continued to send a letter every day, even after she'd found out that Brittany wasn't reading them.
Brittany,
I write to you as I'm crying. It's not fair, I know – I deserve to be treated like this. I brought this pain upon myself and I accept it freely. But I never believed the pain that I felt could run this deep.
Today is your birthday. Twenty-five years of life. I feel so privileged to have spent five of those amazing twenty-five years with you. And for the next seventy-five years, I wish you only the best, with all the love and happiness that you deserve. Because you do deserve that, Brittany. You, more than anyone on this planet, deserve to be loved so much that you will never go a day without being shown how special, how precious, how amazing you really are.
I suppose I know the answer to my question back in April. I knew it was wishful thinking. In hindsight, it was completely unfair of me to ask you to wait for me. Obviously, I would have loved it if you did, but maybe it's good that you didn't. Or that you aren't. Maybe it's good thing that I'm learning to accept myself without you. Because I know that I have to live with myself for the rest of my life, whether you are by my side or not.
I wonder if you saw the ad I posted in the classifieds. I reached a milestone yesterday, Brittany. I told my parents that I'm gay. It's only ten years overdue, but their reaction only further showed me that if I continued living my life in hope of their approval, I'll never get it. My parents expect perfection and I am far from perfect. Once upon a time, I thought that I was, but that was when you used to look at me with your beautiful blue eyes with all the love in the world and tell me that we were perfect for each other.
I desperately hope that part of you still believes that. It may be a fruitless hope, but I'll let it burn nonetheless. You may be with someone else, but my love still lingers. The sad thing is, I can't even offer you my friendship. Because I don't want a friendship with you, Brittany. I want EVERYTHING with you. And I'm afraid I can't settle for less than that.
I'm the most selfish person in the history of the world because now I'm offering myself to you when I rejected you so many times. I'm ready to be with you, Brittany Pierce, in every way you wanted us. I want to take you out on glamorous dates, I want to hold your hand as we walk around the city, I want to be able to turn to you and kiss you anytime and anywhere I want.
But I accept that I'm too late. I'm not sorry that I've reached this point, though. I've completely accepted that I am a twenty-four-year-old gay woman who has been disowned by her parents and has been hopelessly in love with one girl for almost ten years. And I'm not sorry for any of it.
Reason #1: You are my first and my only love.
All my love,
Santana
She'd done it. She'd become the person that Brittany had always known she would be. She'd come out completely and risked everything. For her.
Brittany swallowed the lump in her throat and set the first letter aside, picking up the next letter and opening it with shaking hands.
Brittany,
Do you believe in fate? I think I do. Well, I believe that sometimes things are out of our control. Like how we fell in love. We never planned it, well I definitely didn't. I certainly knew that you were special the moment I met you. And I knew that you would be special to me. I could never in a million years ever have guessed how special you would become to me. The MOST special.
Reason #2: I will always wait for you.
All my love,
Santana
The succeeding letters continued in similar fashion, with little tidbits from their past with a reason why Santana loved her. By the tenth letter, Brittany was sobbing, her vision completely obscured by the tears streaming from her eyes.
By the twentieth letter, she had stopped crying, but her heart had begun a familiar ache. An ache that she knew would be soothed by one person.
But this time Brittany was the one who was scared.
She arrived home the Monday before Thanksgiving and found a letter waiting on the counter for her. If Quinn got the post before she did, she made sure that Brittany saw Santana's letter for the day. They still hadn't spoken.
Brittany,
Why don't you dance anymore? You loved it in high school and you even took some evening classes when we were in college. I know you don't dance anymore because you'd have to not sleep in order to do that. I only leave work when I see you log out of the IM app. So I know that you stay longer than even my boss. And he practically lives in his office. I miss watching you dance. I miss watching the happiness that it brought to your face. I wonder if you miss it too…
Reason #76: Your body is a wonderland. Your body is a wonder.
All my love,
Santana
She pressed her hands against the counter and took a deep breath. She closed her eyes and let the many reasons Santana had listed and she'd unwittingly memorised run through her mind.
How could Santana think these things about her and have never told her? Never once made her feel the kind of special that she was so adamant Brittany was?
She'd stopped sleeping with Vanessa once she'd started reading the letters. Even though she knew it wasn't cheating, it kind of felt like it was. It was like she and Santana had this relationship through letters. Santana's birthday was in three weeks and Brittany knew she owed her a letter. Well, she didn't exactly owe her a letter, but she knew Santana expected one. And she felt that she kind of deserved it.
Brittany had never been more wooed in her life and it was starting to really affect her. She found herself looking up to the counter the second she got home, she reread all of Santana's letters over and over again, she would sometimes reply to Santana's IM messages just to see her say something else.
It wasn't really a big wake up call when, after calling her mom to wish her Happy Thanksgiving, her mother calmly told her that she was head over heels in love with Santana and that maybe it was time to take the plunge again.
"Mom, I've done that twice. And look where it got me."
"I understand, Bumblebee. But on the other hand, look where it got her."
"I don't get it."
"She's ready. She's said she is. She's waiting for you. She's done the scariest thing there is for her to do for you."
"But I never wanted her to do that for me!" Brittany said in exasperation. "That's one thing I keep mulling over. I wanted her to do this for her. It's great that she has, really. But if she did it for me then has she really accepted herself?"
"Well, hasn't she said that she has? Didn't she tell you that she knew that she might need to learn to live without you and thereby learning to live with herself and the decisions she's made?"
Brittany sighed. "This is such a complicated mess."
"Honey, that's love."
"Yeah, love is a complicated mess."
"It wouldn't be real if it wasn't," Mrs. Pierce said.
"I suppose."
"What are you going to do?"
"I have no idea."
"Brittany, could I please talk to you?" Quinn asked softly, knocking on her bedroom door.
She glanced up at her best friend and held her gaze for a good few minutes before shuffling over on her bed to make space for Quinn.
They lay watching the TV mounted against the wall in silence before Brittany rested her head on Quinn's shoulder, silently forgiving her. She immediately felt her best friend relax and allowed their hands to intertwine. At least one relationship in her life was making sense again.
"What are you going to do?" Quinn asked quietly.
"I don't know," Brittany sighed. "I love her, I do. And I miss her. She's been so wonderful and she's more than making up for keeping up a secret."
"So what's stopping you?"
"I'm scared."
"Well, of course you're scared!"
"Huh?"
"Britt, I'd be worried if you weren't. Besides your history, this is true love we're talking about. It's fucking terrifying! Completely giving yourself to someone else? Hell, I don't know anyone who wasn't scared at the beginning. But for those lucky few who do find their perfect match, I bet they're really glad that they stood up to that fear and went for it anyway."
"You think?"
"There's a reason they're called soul mates, Britt. It doesn't matter what happens, your souls are forever connected. After the last three years, look at you two. Still completely in love with each other and you finally have a chance to be together. Completely together."
Brittany sighed. "I'm still thinking."
"Don't think too hard. You've closed your heart off for a long time now. Maybe you should think with that instead?"
"The last time I did that, we slept together and I didn't hear from her again for over a month."
"Ok, I'm not saying go over and bang each other's brains out right now-"
"I thought we were like sisters and you didn't like hearing about my sex life," Brittany teased.
Quinn rolled her eyes. "Give her the opportunity to show you that she's ready. That's all I'm suggesting."
"Quinn, if she can't…if she bails on me again…I can't…I don't know how I'll get past it. I don't know if I'll be able to."
"I understand that. But you know you'll have me. And your mom and dad will always be there for you. We'll help you." She paused. "But something tells me we may not need to this time."
"How would you know?" Brittany asked suspiciously.
"I haven't read the letters," Quinn said quickly, holding her hands up. "I promise I haven't. But your mom may have called me."
"God, the two of you," Brittany muttered in irritation.
"I know you hate it and that's why I didn't say anything. I just want to give my opinion and you can take it as you will. I don't want to force you to do what I think you should. But, for the record, I think you should see what she has to offer you."
She sighed. "I know what she has to offer me."
"Oh, yeah? What?"
"Perfection."
She was actually putting herself through this torture again. She couldn't believe it.
"I'll be at the end of the pier," Quinn said, squeezing her shoulder. "I have a really good feeling about this, Britt."
"That makes one of us," she mumbled.
Quinn kissed her cheek before walking away, leaving Brittany to once again stare out at the dark ocean as the waves lapped onto the shore.
"Hey, you look way too pretty to be alone on New Year's Eve," a voice slurred next to her.
Brittany raised an eyebrow at the high school kid trying to put moves on her.
"Run along, Junior."
"Actually, I'm a senior," he boasted.
"In high school, numbnuts," Brittany added, flicking his school badge on the arm of his letterman jacket. "I repeat, run along."
"But who are you gonna kiss at midnight?" he asked.
"Me."
She whipped around and saw Santana standing next to her, a shy smile on her face.
"No way!" the jock laughed.
"Back the fuck off, Junior. Get the message that you don't have anything worth a second more of her time. Now, be a good boy and go practice safe sex by fucking yourself."
Brittany couldn't help the smirk that crossed her face at Santana's public defence of her. She'd never done it before.
"Hi."
"Hey."
They stood staring at each other, Santana's smile growing with each passing second.
"Kiss me."
Brittany raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"
"You heard me."
"I don't think it's gonna work like that, Santana."
She shrugged. "Ok."
Brittany's face fell. Was this some kind of joke to her? The countdown began around them and she swallowed hard, looking out at the ocean. As the crowd hit 'five', she turned around and walked away, not believing that Santana could actually break her heart for a third time.
A hand gripped her wrist and spun her around before she could fight it. She found herself pressed tightly against Santana's body, one hand around her neck and the other resting on her wrist, slowly dropping to link their fingers. The sensation left Brittany breathless, so when fireworks started exploding around them and Santana brought her face down so that their lips could meet, she was pretty sure she'd died and gone to heaven.
A/N: There'll be one more chapter after this. You guys wanna see Brittany's letters? :)