A/N: In the previous chapter I forgot to write in the time jump which probably made it confusing, that has been fixed. This chapter is low on action it's more of a buildup. The next chapter has lots of action (sexual and punchy-punch kind). Hope you like it :)

Present Day, Earth: Brittany's Mansion

The locking seal sounded louder than ever to Santana when they entered Brittany's place, like a sign telling her there was no going back now (not that she wanted to). The back entrance was as scattered as ever, with junk the professor liked to tinker with lying about and collecting dust.

It occurs to her that their brush with death has affected Brittany too. She hadn't spoken to Santana about any projects, which was a first for the braniac. The mess of unfinished materials was evidence enough that her thoughts lied elsewhere.

Santana's left hand moves towards a piece of metal Brittany had welded into a rhombus, she had been over that day trying to convince Brittany to stop welding things out of boredom and follow her on another case… the memory brings a small smile to her face.

Brittany looked so hot that day. That had been a really good day…

With Brittany's back turned, Santana catches the sight of her tangled hair and decides to fix it quickly (even though the mood of the night might mean it'll get tangled all over again).

There's a whirring sound before her right arm can fix the scruffiness and the next thing Santana knows she's being hit with something and the yelp out of her mouth cuts short when her body is slammed hard into a wall because of the force of it.

"Oh my god!" Brittany rushes up to her, covering her mouth with her hands, "are you okay? Kiki its Santana, drop her!"

"Apologies Admiral Lopez," Kiki's voice says after interpreting Brittany and dropping Santana from her interface attack.

She hits the ground and groans, "what the hell!"

Brittany helps her stand, "I'm so sorry! It's just, no one except you ever comes over here and you haven't been over since… so your arm was…"

Santana's bewilderment and anger drops when they make eye contact, "right, right. Your security is as exact as ever."

Brittany grabs Santana's left arm with both hands, "I did use the highest grade titanium alloys… Kiki recognized it as a weapon, so…"

"It's okay," Santana says before smiling, "at least it was a good old fashioned hit, I didn't appreciate being electrocuted that time I tried to touch your Myths of Pinkies scan."

Brittany smiles, "that was way funnier though, this scared me, if I'm being honest."

"Well," Santana looks down from Brittany's sincere gaze, overwhelmed with how scary her getting hurt is for Brittany, "With your titanium azzoy"

"It's alloy, really not that hard of a word."

"Whatever! I'm lucky to have you giving me the, uh, best. Thank you for giving me this arm, Brittany."

"You've already thanked me."

"Not properly, though. Not… from my… heart."

That causes both of them to avert eye contact, again, due to the sudden force of blushing that took over their cheeks. They were thinking of their feelings and how soft kisses were around the corner, of their privacy without anyone to interrupt them, and that overdue equation.

"I mean," Santana tries to salvage the course of her words by closing her eyes, afraid of Brittany getting afraid or something, "you… are my best friend and, uh…"

"How about a drink?" Brittany offers her shyly. "And maybe you can finally let me post-op on your arm? I acted quickly in the moment that time but now we got like, a lot of time and I have all these ideas… if you want to, that is?"

With a quiet "um, yeah okay…" Santana follows Brittany out of the back entrance and further into her living space. The professor orders Kiki to serve them some champagne in her library and Santana unzips her jacket to reveal the thin white tank top she had on underneath instead of the regulated white full-sleeve. That was bound to appeal to Brittany's eyes, right?

When they get to library, chilled champagne is set on Brittany's long, ancient oak desk. There's a projected map of the galaxy and an enforced bookcase that guards Brittany's most prized research, and Myths of Pinkies. It electrocuted anyone who approached it, and Santana has kept her distance ever since she was electrocuted.

Brittany retrieves the champagne and is about to say something to Santana, but the words catch in her throat when she sees the unzipped jacket and a rush of nerves attack her. She's had a dream about this before and the real thing is way better.

Santana takes a seat on the leather long couch first, closer to the middle as opposed to the end. Brittany notices the cue and sits next to her.

"Here," she offers a glass to the Admiral with a sincere smile.

Santana smiles back and they clink glasses before taking sips.

"So…" Brittany tries to dispel the quiet they've fallen into.

"You look good in military garb," Santana says with a small smirk, reaching her right hand up to tip the bicorn hat Brittany was still wearing.

Brittany shares a laugh with her and the uneasiness passes in the moment they stare at each other and realize they've got nothing to really feel uneasy about.

"Your hand is pretty loud when you move it," Brittany grabs the right hand and holds the metal fingers, "I've got to fix that."

Santana stares at her lips and says as if in a trance, "later…"

Santana leans forward then and Brittany can't help herself from also leaning in…

But their lips touch for only a millisecond before having to break away since champagne has splashed all over Santana's pants.

"Sorry!" Brittany says.

"No, no, it's oka-" Santana's gesture of reassurance causes her own champagne to spill out and soak her pants even further.

Brittany snorts first and covers her mouth to stop it, but when Santana's lips lets out a giggle it spurs them both into a fit of laughter.

10 Months Prior: Zanta-Hara Ship

"Admiral Lopez," a stern man with a foot on her in height calls her to attention.

She salutes him, a little confused that it's the end of his introduction to all of his Admirals, and he's calling out her of all people.

She suspects that it's because he's feeling threatened or overshadowed by her 'fame.' Ever since she got promoted she feels eyes on her all the time, waiting for her to screw up.

It was exhausting, and she had a pounding headache that made this meeting brutally painful (on account of getting punched last night in a disastrous bar fight up on the moon courtesy of Brittany's ability to make a very large man feel insecure, which was not a smart thing to do when he was sloshed out of his mind on Moonshine.)

Now on his first day, the new Admiral of the Fleet, Jason Jibuwe, a highly regarded officer just a few years older than her was already trying to get to her. He had been considered the youngest Admiral until her promotion eight months ago stole that record, so maybe he wasn't pleased about that.

Last thing Santana needed was boss issues. Everyone knows she's the one who saved the Army from extreme embarrassment by revealing a stack of evidence against her last boss who had been plotting insanely terrible things against people.

Okay, everyone knows her and The Brittany Pierce did that together… among many other things.

Basically, her 'initiative' for the good of the galaxy had her promoted and commended, and in consequence gathered her a lot of her colleague's distance. If that was due to being impressed, intimidated, or jealous she had no idea.

"The ever famous Admiral Sextana," he says, squinting his eyes in a dare.

And that name coined by that stalking reporter Mikayla McTavish was soon going to make her go mental.

Admirals around them giggle and one thing becomes abundantly clear to Santana then – it was fucking stupid that she had to prove herself over and over again but it was time to end this shit.

She is an adaptive being and she knows when and how to deal with shit-stirrers. It's nothing she can say, she just 'does' to prove her competence.

"Yes, that is my more commonly known name," she tells him seriously. "Sir, I've prepared all ten thousand scan guidelines for you to go over."

She lifts s a digital box out of her pocket and holds it out for him to take.

"T-ten thousand?" he stutters, "I just need the revision highlights-"

"Of course, I've revised them and highlighted what I think is pertinent to our new year of work but I'm not Admiral of the Fleet I'm just an Admiral, I assumed you'd want to go over the revisions because you don't know me at all and are my superior officer and need to know that I've done an acceptable job, right?"

It's pretty obvious from his silence and the silence of everyone around her that her little jibes have made their point. After a moment's fluttering, he accepts the box.

"I'll be in my office going over these revisions, as is the duty of Admiral of the Fleet. Everyone back to work!"

As he turns away, Santana unbuttons her jacket – she hated regulated uniform it was such a stiff uniform. She liked having some cleavage for more movement and stuff and at least she always got away with her relaxed spin on the uniform.

(In the corner of her mind she's secretly pleased to have the name Sextana, it was flattering).

"Wow Admiral you really showed him whose boss," a familiar voice makes her jolt to attention and furiously look around.

She doesn't see Brittany anywhere, only the troops starting their day. Hers involves a long shift of guarding the Terra-Berra stars in the south where market trading went on.

"Brittany? The hell?"

"I'm in your Jet," Brittany's voice tells her impatiently before adding, "fixing the latch that we broke avoiding warfare last night… Which you haven't reported to your superior officers you bad girl. "

Santana realizes Brittany's hacked into her personal military radio frequency, implanted in her ear, and rushes up to where her personal Jet 77 is parked and ready for its next mission. Even the scratches she had hoped no one would notice were gone.

She enters and as soon as the doors close she's annoyed, "you're trespassing Zanta-Hara Ship! What the actual fuck."

"No, I have clearance." Brittany is wiping her fingers with a cloth and impishly smiling, "check out your latest upgrade! Tell me I'm awesome, I totally covered for you."

"How did you get clearance and-" Santana snatches the rag from Brittany fingers, opening it up with a pout, "that's my special exfoliating facial cloth!"

Brittany sits down in her designated passenger seat and flicks the cat bobblehead with her finger, "I'm Brittany Pierce, so of course I have clearance."

"Santana sighs and sits down in her pilot chair, swinging it around to face Brittany, "so I guess you heard me getting laughed at by everyone?"

"No, I definitely heard you make everyone stop laughing though. Hot, very suave approach to dealing with the human behavior paradigm and my personal favourite was when your coded words that basically translated to 'fuck all y'all,' you, military people all have huge egos."

Santana is used to Brittany poking fun at the Army so she looks around her jet to see what else might have been changed, spotting a reflection. "You didn't – is that-"

She's grinning in excitement like a loser.

"A mirror, yep. You're always complaining about fights messing your hair so I got you a mirror to fix it."

"You can trespass this ship anytime," Santana tells her, reaching forward to examine her present.

"Wait till you see the new repellent and guard I did to your proof vest. Unfortunately I wasn't able to come with anything to prevent you from getting punched in the face."

"Shut up! That wasn't funny and why do I get punched when you started everything by calling a man who has two thumbs 'Thumbful!' Getting punched by two thumbs hurts, Pierce."

"Actually the extra thumbs wouldn't really have changed the force of his fist to your face since he used knuckles, and he was trying to hit me it's your fault you moved in front of his fist at that precise moment."

"You promised a fun night while I was off duty and instead you start a bar fight that escalated into warfare, forcing me to use my Jet in an unauthorized military situation and if we didn't escape in time we would have been arrested with double-thumbs and our next headline would read 'Professor Pierce is so smart she gets arrested for calling a guy out on his two thumbs!' Real genius work, Brittany."

"I just want to point out that things wouldn't have escalated so quickly if you didn't call him a double-thumb-sucker who lost his mommy."

"Details," Santana snaps. "You owe me a new exfoliating cloth and next we go out I get to pick!"

"But you pick boring places," Brittany whines at her.