Chapter 17

The door to the teacher's lounge swung open, breaking the calm, sleepy quiet that had fallen between the few members of staff already at work that morning and with an uncharacteristic smile for that time of the day, Santana Lopez emerged from behind it, stepping brightly into the room and making her way over the coffee machine where a bemused Will watched her entrance with a questioning smirk.

"Uh, Santana?"

She stopped next to him, reaching one hand out to grab a disposable cup from the stack on the side and turning to look at him while the machine hummed to life, the smile still playing radiantly across her lips.

"Good morning Will, how are you?"

He shook his head in disbelief,

"Wait a minute, did Mitt Romney just go bankrupt or something?..I've never seen you this happy...and what are you doing in so early?"

She laughed and gave a small shrug.

"It's a nice day, I went for a run this morning and then I guess I just ended up getting ready a little ahead of time so I thought I may as well come to work a bit earlier-"

She reached around him to get a lid for her cup, her hands gently nudging his arm rather than impatietly pushing past him like she usually would have.

"- I didn't realise it would be such an event for you, Will"

This time he laughed too, still curious as to her unexpected good mood but not wanting to question it away, and reached into the pot beside him to hand her a coffee stirrer, shaking his head innocently.

"No, It's just nice, it's nice to see you"

She smirked,

"You see me every day, I saw you yesterday"

She paused, remembering, and looked up to add apologetically,

"Again, sorry about that, leaving Glee so early, but I really did have to get that report to Figgins"

"Oh it's fine" he replied honestly, waving away her apology "Don't worry about it, you didn't miss much"

He took a sip of the lukewarm coffee he had already been drinking and continued.

"After you left, Rachel decided to treat us all to a few Celine Dion classics, just to show us where the bar mark should be set for nationals...again"

Santana laughed, fully believing the brunette to do such a thing and felt a small wave of happiness warm her as she thought back to the rather more interesting way that she had spent the afternoon.

"Well I'll be sure not to miss out on that next time" she assured him with a smile, adding an extra sugar to her coffee and securing the lid.

"You'd better not" he laughed, leaning back against the counter and turning his head to return a friendly wave to another teacher who had just entered the room.

In her good mood, Santana waved too, recognising the dark skinned woman as one of the more friendly members of staff at McKinley, head of the music department if she remembered rightly. She had been at Will's New Years party too, Santana thought, the memory sticking in her head mainly because of the woman's good looks, they'd even chatted briefly but Santana had left before their conversation went much beyond small talk.

"Hey Vicky" Will smiled as the woman approached "Alright if Glee club uses the choir room to rehearse again on thursday?"

The teacher nodded, as always happy to give up her classroom for Will Schuester's Glee club, and reached for a coffee mug, smiling in acknowledgment at Santana.

"Yeah, that's fine, actually I wanted to ask you San-"

She was cut off abrubtly as a towering blonde appeared behind her, pushing her to the side carelessly and striding forward, oblivious to the shocked cry of the woman she had just knocked down.

"Chico, Schuester, sorry to interrupt.."

"What are you doing!"

Will pushed past her, rushing to help the music teacher back to her feet and checking she was ok before turning to the unruffled cheerleading captain, with a look not so much of surprise as of resigned disapproval.

"You can't do stuff like that, Sue! What is wrong with you? You could have really hurt her"

The blonde shrugged uninterestedly, genuinely not seeming to understand why he was so angry, and watched the music teacher limp dejectedly over to a table before turning back to him and shrugging again.

"She's Argentinian William, I think she can take it."

He shook his head in disbelief, sighing heavily at her comment, knowing there was no point questioning her actions further and exchanged a look with Santana, who had been watching the scene in silent surprise.

"Look, what do you want? Was there something specific or did you just come to terrorise us?"

She smirked, nodding and confessed her reason for coming over.

"It's just, I couldn't help but overhear your conversation, from my spot over there" She jerked a thumb at the table where she had been sitting behind the door, tucked away out of sight in the corner "And I gotta say, it's given me a lot of things to think about"

She narowed her eyes at Will who was waiting impatiently for her to get to the point,

"One of them of course, being your completely inappropriate and outrageously obvious lust for Eva Mendes here...but if the bush baby doesn't know and Latina Lopez actually likes men who finger wave their own hair and dress like Stephen Hawking, well, that's her call"

Santana rolled her eyes, feeling her good mood starting to slip away and set her coffee cup down on the side, folding her arms and sighing as the taller woman continued.

"But no, that wasn't the actual reason I came over. I actually wanted to check that I heard you correctly, because it seemed to me-"

She smiled humourlessly, narrowing her eyes at Santana.

"-It seemed to me that you were talking about helping out with Glee club"

Will shrugged dismissively, not understanding.

"And so what if she is? How is that relevant Sue?"

The blonde turned to look at him, pointing a pale finger at his chest.

"I'll tell you why it's relevant Schwarzkopf...because Lopez here is my assistant cheerleading coach and she doesn't have time to help teach your special kids how to dance"

Santana put a hand up to stop her, feeling like someone should put an end to what was quickly becoming a farcical situation.

"I'm not your assistant coach, Sue. I've already told you I'm not interested in doing that"

The woman looked back at her, puzzled and moved away from Will.

"I'm unsure of why you're still being so difficult about this, Chiquita. I thought I'd given you enough time to come to your senses"

"It doesn't matter how much time you give me because I don't want to do it, I'll never want to do it. I would imagine the reasons why are fairly obvious so I won't spell it out for you. But you need to stop asking, it's a no"

Sue squinted at her, unimpressed, tilting her head to the side in consideration before replying.

"I don't think you understand what you're refusing here."

She gestured to Will.

"And I don't think you realise what kind of a bear trap you're falling into getting involved with Schuester and his island of misfit toys"

Santana sighed impatiently, resisting the urge to lose her temper and looked at Sue calmly, trying to keep her voice reasonable.

"Look. I'm not interested. I do not want to be an assistant coach on the Cheerios, Sue. I won't do it and I've already told you that. I don't know how else to say it to make you understand"

The taller woman was staring at her with a deep frown etched into her forehead, evidently annoyed, but she did seem to be paying attention, so Santana continued.

"I like helping out with Glee. Will is a great teacher and the kids are amazing, it's fun. That's how I'd like spend my year at McKinley, and so I really think you should just drop it, find someone else"

"But I picked you, Juanita"

Sue's eyes were hard and she spoke with a cold finality that seemed to push past Santana's protests.

"I picked you, and everything you do to convince me you won't do it just makes me even more certain that you are the perfect choice."

She breathed in thoughtfully, leaning back and regarding the dark haired woman carefully before speaking again.

"I won't back down on this Lopez"

Santana laughed humourlessly, picking her coffe cup back up and shaking her head lightly as though in disbelief.

"Well then I hope you enjoy not getting what you want-"

The corners of her mouth turned upwards, the smile not reaching her eyes as she matched Sue's hard expression.

"Because I'm not doing it"

She gestured for Will to follow her as she moved towards the door, effectively ending the conversation and leaving the blonde woman simmering silently by the counter as she led the other teacher into the corridor.

As soon as the door shut behind them, he turned to her with raised eyebrows.

"What are we going to do about this?"

"About what?" she shrugged, taking a sip of her coffee and pulling a face as the now tepid liquid filled up her mouth.

He looked at her dumbfounded, as though she was being deliberately difficult, and gestured back to the staff room behind them.

"About that! Sue's obsession with you"

She laughed.

"I think obsession is a little strong Will" Shrugging again, she added "I used to be head cheerleader at Ohio State, she wanted me to be her assistant coach, it makes sense. But I've said no, she knows I'm not going to do it so there isn't really anything else she can do"

He looked disbelieving.

"You don't know Sue"

Santana raised one perfectly shaped eyebrow, a quietly confident smirk on her lips.

"I think I can manage her, Will"

He sighed, forcing a smile to match hers, his eyes still worried.

"Yeah I hope so, Santana..I hope so"

...

Half an hour later

"Ok, class, you have 35 minutes"

She reached her hand up to the board, underlining the essay question she had just written out and then turning to face the room to read it out.

"How far would you agree with the description of Supreme Court Justices as 'Nine Politicians in robes, legislating from the bench'?"

Mike groaned audibly from his seat near the back and Santana laughed, her good mood from this morning having returned almost as soon as she had stepped into the classroom earlier and seen Brittany sitting there, a smile lighting up the girl's face as soon as the teacher entered the room.

"Sorry Mike, but it's necessary. The exam is in June"

He made another dramatic moaning noise but reluctantly picked up his pen. She continued.

"Right, now I'm looking for long answers, at least 2 pages, and I want detail, with context and analysis, recent examples, proper structuring, I don't want to hear talking, I don't want to see anyone 'sharing' ideas, this is a test, not a board meeting-"

She let her gaze skim over the class as she talked, a smile tugging at her lips as a pair of electric blue eyes tried to steal her attention, staring eagerly in her direction. She wanted to look at Brittany, to return the smile, but she unwillingly forced her eyes back to the front, feeling certain that if she let her eyes wander she would give herself away, and there was nothing she wanted less than to start getting flustered in front of a group of teenagers.

"-Ok, does everyone have a pen and paper?"

The class nodded as a collective and Santana looked down at the watch on her wrist, checking the starting time before writing it on the board beneath the question and turning back to the students.

"35 minutes starts now, you may begin"

Heads went down, silence around the room and Santana watched with a smile, sitting back down at her desk and then, when she was sure that all eyes were on their tests, finally letting her gaze wander to the blonde 1 desk back.

The girl was staring thoughtfully at her answer paper, chewing the end of her biro with such a sweet, confused expression that Santana wanted nothing more than to dismiss the entire class that minute and kiss Brittany's confusion away. Her cheeks reddened slightly at the thought and she shook her head, mentally chastising herself for having such inappropriate thoughts in the middle of a lesson.

She should be using this extra time for marking, or lesson planning, not staring at her new girlf-

She paused.

Girlfriend?...Somehow the term seemed wrong. Was it too sudden? Going from student to girlfriend in the space of a few hours?

She wasn't sure, but the word felt strange. Student definitely wasn't right any more, but girlfriend didn't feel any better, and it's not like they had discussed the official title of their relationship the day before.

Thinking back, she realised they hadn't discussed much of anything the day before. Shortly after they had resolved things, Quinn had called to say she was waiting in her car outside and the blonde had been forced to leave, punctuating her apology for leaving so soon with soft, eager kisses, only letting go of Santana's hand when her phone began buzzing insistently and she knew she couldn't keep the other cheerleader waiting any longer.

And after that, Santana had sat, almost paralysed at her desk for at least an hour afterwards, ambivalence like she had never known rushing through her until she was left dizzy. She wanted this. There was no point lying to herself any more, she wanted Brittany and ignoring those feelings only seemed to make it worse.

But going ahead with it could ruin her life. She would lose her job, lose any credibility she'd ever had in the teaching profession, probably even lose her friends when they realised she was seeing a teenage girl.

So why hadn't she stopped it?

With her head in her hands, her lips still tingling with the feel of Brittany, she had realised it was because despite all of the dangers, she couldn't help but still feel inexplicably happy.

And feeling that way wasn't something she was used to, the slightly hollow feeling in her chest that had existed as long as she could remember had started to fill up with a warmth she had never known, and the thought of letting it go now was more than she could bear. Brittany made her feel different, so much better than anyone else, like she was special. And not in the way that practically everyone else she had ever met made her feel 'special', but like she really was a good person. Like she was interesting and funny and exciting, like there was more to her than just being beautiful.

So eventually, after a fervent promise to herself that she couldn't let it get out of hand, the panic of knowing what she was doing was technically wrong was over-ridden by the exhilarating rush of remembering those electric blue eyes burning into hers, the feel of soft, sweet lips moving against her own, and she decided that maybe it was worth the risk.

And now, re-emerging from her thoughts, she looked across the classroom towards the blonde again, her pen starting to move confidently across the page, a small smile across her perfect lips and Santana's expression softened - it was definitely worth the risk.

...

Sorry it's so short and probably littered with typos and grammatical mistakes, I just felt like I had to give you something for waiting so long. I don't know how I feel about it either, I'm tired and I have that thing where you can't even work out if something you've written is awful or not, so I apologise if it is.

The next chapter will have more Brittany in, I have a kind of cute idea for a first date and now my exam's are over I might even get it written in a reasonable amount of time, so if there wasn't enough interaction in this chapter then y'all can look forward to that.

Anyway, thank you all for reading, thank you so much for the reviews and I hope you like it.

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