In Every Generation

Chapter 3

Previously in 'In Every Generation':

Brad the piano man informs Santana of her destiny as the slayer after witnessing her throw a fellow cheerleader higher than is physically possible - and then catch her - during a pep-rally cheer move.

Sue punishes Santana for her stunt by giving her a week's after school detention, telling her she'll make up for missed practises during lunchtimes.

Santana turns up to detention to find herself alone with Shelby Corcoran, the new librarian. Shelby seems to know about what happened in the pep-rally...

"So...how does this detention work? You want me to write lines or can I just get on with some school work?" Santana asked, her confidence growing back as she changed topic.

"I was thinking I might give you some light reading." Shelby stated as she turned back around and dropped a heavy, old book on the desk in front of Santana. Santana frowned before looking more closely at the book. She let out a gasp as she noticed the title.

VAMPYR.

"Judging by what happened earlier, you already have your powers, most noticeably strength. One of the first things we go over in your training will be control, but for now please try to reel it in. We can't have any more incidents like the one in the gymnasium." Shelby talked on as if Santana had even asked, despite the girl being completely distracted by the object in front of her. "No one else knows about you and as you may have figured out, those things are a little hard to explain away without letting people know you're the slayer." On the last word Santana's head snapped up to face her.

"Who are you?" She choked out.

"Oh, I'm sorry, that was rude of me. Like I said, Shelby Corcoran. I'm your Watcher." Shelby pulled a seat to the other side of the desk and sat down opposite the cheerleader.

"My what?"

"Watcher. My job is to train you, to make sure you're ready for what you have to face. To provide some guidance while you work through your destiny. Brad told me he'd filled you in on the basics, he didn't mention this?" Shelby questioned gently, noticing the deep confusion on the girl's face. Santana shook her head. "Okay, well, that's who I am. That's why I'm here. Brad's only duty was to tell you what you are...to introduce you to your destiny, if you like. I have a more...hands-on role in this. You are under my supervision."

This seemed to spark an idea in Santana. "If you know so much about this why can't y-"

"I can't slay the demons for you, Santana, that's not my place. It is your destiny. I don't have the powers you do, I can only teach you how to use them and where to apply them."

"Well, crap." Santana muttered half-heartedly. Shelby smiled, trying to be sympathetic but also reassuring.

"Sorry if I freaked you out with the book," the older woman apologised, looking down and fiddling with the corner of the heavy volume, "I just assumed Brad would have told you who I was, or at least that you should be expecting someone else to approach you about this."

"It's fine." Santana's voice was weary as she tried to piece together everything she had found out today. There were just so many questions. "Does anyone else know? Should I be expecting any one else to pop up out of nowhere and start filling me in on this?"

Shelby could understand the slight hint of annoyance in Santana's voice. "In school, it's just us. I'm a part of something called the Watcher's Council, they assigned me to this position and they know all about you, but you probably won't have to meet them. Besides that, there is someone else, but...I'm not sure of his status. I've just heard rumours that he's arrived in town recently, and if those are true chances are you'll bump into him at some point."

"Why?"

"Because he's a vampire." Santana's face mouthed a silent "oh" and Shelby continued. "But he's on our side. You'll understand more if you meet him but until then, don't worry about it." Santana looked as if she was about to ask more about it, but then seemed to change her mind as she shook her head.

"Am I allowed to tell people? Like, won't people notice if I'm like...super strong now, or if I show up to school with a neck wound or something?"

"You're not supposed to tell anyone. As I mentioned, this is your destiny. You're supposed to handle this solo besides my guidance. Like I said, try and reel it in. I'll teach you to control it. And if I'm doing my job properly, you won't get bitten, so don't even think about that." Shelby looked slightly concerned that Santana was already underestimating how well she would be able to defend herself. Santana noticed and decided to do what Shelby said and move on with the conversation.

"Okay then. But...you keep mentioning my powers. Like, powers plural? You said strength. What else do I have?"

"Like we've said, extraordinary strength, which will increase as we train. You also heal faster than other people, so your injuries – yes, I'm afraid there will probably be injuries-" Shelby interrupted herself at the indignant look upon Santana's face, "will clear up quickly. Obviously useful since keeping you out of hospital will make it easier to hide this from people. Also, skills such as endurance and agility are enhanced. Once again, I suggest you reel these in as much as possible. While you may find these skills helpful during cheerleading, and can probably outrun every other girl on that squad without breaking a sweat, we don't want people asking questions. I haven't read the rule book but I suspect using slayer strength to get an edge on the competition may be against the rules." Shelby added dryly, and Santana cracked a small smile. "Just try not to be too much better than the other girls, okay?"

"Where's the fun in that?" Santana asked sarcastically, and her and Shelby shared a smile. The watcher could tell that Santana was starting to get to grips with her new identity, and was pleased that the news hadn't caused any kind of hysterical breakdown or total denial. As long as Santana was actually asking questions, Shelby felt like she was taking this at her own pace.

Shelby lets her have a moment to let it sink in. "Are there any other questions? There's a lot more we need to go over, but I don't want to make you uncomfortable-"

"It's a little late for that, don't you think?" Santana smiles but her eyes are troubled. Shelby decides to give her the rest of the night off.

"We can go over anything else tomorrow. We have another detention after school. Do you have plans tomorrow night?" Santana shakes her head. "Good. We'll start your physical training tomorrow after school. Until then, be careful. Try to contain your powers, and for God's sake please don't tell anyone about this. No-one can find out who you are – the more people who know, the more you're at risk." Shelby's concerned tone turned to one of sincerity.

"What are you talking about? At risk of what?" Santana, for the first time that day, started to think about the dangers of her situation. But once again, she felt she didn't know the full picture. Shelby sighed, as if weighing up exactly how much else to tell the new slayer.

"You're safe for now, because news of who the new slayer is probably hasn't reached the bad guys. I plan to keep it that way until I've taught you how to fight them off. We have the upper hand so long as your identity remains private. Does that make sense?" Shelby wanted the importance of this to be obvious to Santana, but at the same time didn't want to completely frighten the girl away. People, she knew, could do stupid things out of fear. She was hoping to give the impression of calm severity rather than frantic urgency. By the way Santana nodded her head, she assumed they'd reached it. "You can leave now. Get some rest, you've had a long day."

At Shelby's suggestion, Santana started to realise just how tired she was feeling. Has it really only been one day? Again, she nodded mutely before picking up her bag, leaving the heavy book on the desk and making her way out of the door.

Her mind was so full that she barely even remembered the walk to her car, never mind the drive home. Santana was running completely on autopilot. She'd also been so distracted that she hadn't checked her phone all day. She was completely exhausted, and the ups and downs – what ups? Just downs. - of her day had not done anything to improve how sick she felt.

She knew she just needed to take some time to sit and think about everything, maybe try and work through it one thing at a time. All she wanted to do was collapse on her bed and sleep until the world made more sense. Because that worked out SO well yesterday. Shower first, sleep later She decided, heading upstairs.

She took her phone from her bag and left it on her bedside table, took out all of her books and placed them on her desk, and then headed into her en-suite bathroom. She took her time, undressing slowly, looking over her body in the mirror to see if she could spot any changes, but like earlier, she didn't look any different. She stepped into the shower, turning the water up hotter and hotter until it was practically burning her skin. She stayed under the spray for about twenty minutes, trying not to think but at the same time trying to make a list of all the things she would have to sort through.

Talk to Brittany. Don't tell anyone I'm the slayer. Cheer practise tomorrow lunch. Glee rehearsal tomorrow first period. Was there a Glee assignment? Crap, the Spanish essay. And I have a maths test tomorrow. And a chemistry test this week? Was I meant to go over to Puck's yesterday? No wonder he was glaring at me the morning. I should really check my phone.

She almost forgot to wash, quickly washing her hair and cleaning herself before shutting the water off and stepping out. She wrapped a towel around herself and pulled her hair up into a loose bun. It was dark outside, she could tell from the small window in her bathroom. She opened her bathroom door and looked around her room, wondering where to start first. The phone on her night stand, the homework on her desk, the blond guy staring in through her window, the lapto-

The WHAT?

Her head snapped back to the window, but there was no one there. She carefully took a couple of steps closer and looked out. Santana's bedroom window faced out over the back garden attached to the house. She scanned her garden carefully, but after a minute gave up and wondered if there had been anything to see at all. It's been a long day. Maybe I'm just losing it.

She turned back around and picked up her phone just as she heard the front door open.

"Santana? Mija? You home?" She heard the voice of her mother calling up the stairs. She put her phone down and went to her door, before realising she was still just wearing a towel.

"Sí mama, I'll be down in a minute." she called back, quickly changing into loose sweats and a tank top before heading downstairs. She found her mom in the kitchen "Hey, mami." She greeted softly as the older woman wrapped her in a hug. She hugged back tightly.

"Sweetheart, are you alright?" Maria Lopez asked gently, still holding her daughter. While she knew her daughter could have an attitude at times, and usually wasn't one for physical contact, she couldn't help but notice how...patheticher daughter had looked as she entered the kitchen, and the way she hugged back was even more of a warning sign for Maria that something was probably wrong.

"Just tired." She heard Santana mumble into her shoulder. Santana felt her mother plant a kiss on her head and suddenly wished she could just open up about everything that was wrong right now. Maria knew her daughter wasn't telling the whole truth, but knew there was probably some accuracy in the statement. She gently pulled away from the hug and guided Santana by her shoulders to a seat at the island in the centre of the kitchen.

"You were asleep when we got home yesterday. Are you feeling okay, mija?" she questioned gently, looking into Santana's eyes and hoping it wasn't too serious.

"I've just got a really busy week." Santana actually smiled in a detached way, finding some kind of humour in the fact that she wasn't actually lying. "I haven't been feeling too great recently."

"Have you eaten today?" The elder Lopez suddenly clicked into concerned-mother-mode and turned around to start drawing ingredients for a meal before Santana had even formulated an answer. Santana realised that besides the granola bar she'd grabbed for breakfast, she hadn't had anything to eat since yesterday lunchtime. She was starving. "Chicken lasagne okay?"

"Sí.Thanks, mami." Santana yawned as she replied and Maria smiled slightly to herself. Even if her daughter was clearly having trouble with something at the moment, it was still nice to see her without attitude and actually being polite.

Santana decided to go through the messages and missed calls on her phone while she was waiting for dinner. She went upstairs and grabbed her phone off her dresser, before going back downstairs to her seat in the kitchen. Unlocking it, she could see a dozen different messages from Brittany, ranging from "We need to talk S, please x" to "San I cant remember my locker combo :( where are you?x" Again, Santana felt guilty and made the decision to just bite the bullet. She was sick of avoiding her best friend and even though they'd only been apart for four days, Santana really missed her.

She tapped out a new message. "Sorry B, just been really busy this week. Wanna do something this weekend? xx" and pressed send. She instantly felt slightly better.

"Did something happen with your friend?" Santana's thoughts were interrupted by the voice of her mother, who had her back to her while cooking over the stove. "She used to be over here all the time. I haven't seen her since last week. Is everything alright?" Maria's tone held nothing but concern as she tried to approach the subject carefully in case something was wrong there. Santana realised her mother noticed a lot more than she was giving her credit for.

"We...I just have a lot going on. It's fine." Santana completely dodged the truth of what had happened but tried to sound convincing on the last sentence. Just then, Santana's phone buzzed with a new text from Brittany. "No worries :) Sure San, whatever you want x" Santana smiled and continued clicking through her phone.

Santana had a couple of texts from Quinn and a couple of other girls on the cheerios asking about what had happened in the pep rally which had been sent towards the end of lunch, as well as a couple of more recent ones from Quinn asking how her detention went and informing her that the practise scheduled for after school tomorrow had been moved to 6am tomorrow morning. Santana groaned but shot back a quick text thanking her for the heads up and just describing her detention as 'boring', ignoring all of the texts about the pep rally incident.

As expected, she had unread messages from Puck: two booty calls from last night, one text from this morning asking why she didn't come over and another from about an hour ago: "Lopez, my birthday party this friday at my place. Be here for 9. Dress hot." Santana sighed, thinking about whether or not to go. She had a heavy week and thought it might be nice to have one night off, but didn't know if she'd have plans or not for Friday. Then again, Puck's parties usually ended with them hooking up and just the thought if that made her shift in her seat uncomfortably.

"Can't. Busy." She text back. Not thirty seconds later she had the reply. "Come on Santana, u owe me for last night Lopez, give my hand a break." She sighed and put her phone down on the counter as it buzzed again. She picked it up tonight to find another text from Puck: "Wanna come over tonight and practise my birthday sex?" Again she didn't credit him with any form of reply.

Santana started wolfing down her dinner the second it was placed on the table in front of her. She then head upstairs to quickly scribble out her Spanish essay and go over the topics in her maths book that she thought she would be tested on. After going downstairs to wish her mother goodnight, Santana set her alarm for early the next morning and finally let herself get into bed.

A/N: I can't believe it took me this long to update. I got writers block trying to figure out the chapter after this (yes, this has been fully written and waiting to be published for 10 months) because I always wanted to stay one chapter ahead. A lot of junk happened so I felt like I didn't have time for it even though I published a few other things since. In short: I'm a dick. Sorry.

The good news is that I really sat down and though about what I want to happen in this story and have a whole bunch of stuff that's being written or is just very well planned that I'm pretty excited about and can't wait to write up and publish. Alas, I started afresh on the next chapter so it might still be a while between updates for now. Sorry!

Also I have a tumblr and in the time it's taken me to publish this I've pretty much seen every Brittana blog I was following give up on the show. I'm not watching it right now but this story obviously doesn't lend itself to canon anyways so hopefully that won't be an issue!

One quick favour to ask: I recently got used to writing in present tense but I started this in past tense so I'm having to readjust to it. I wrote a fight scene in present tense that actually seems a lot nicer in present tense than past, though I can probably shift it if I need to - so if you could comment saying whether or not you'd be too bothered about the tense change (or whether you really don't care at all) that'd help me decide. Thanks!