A/N: Remember when I was all like, the next chapter is going to be really short? I lied. This chapter contains the song Sorry by Buckcherry. If you are unfamiliar with it and even if you are familiar with it, I still suggest you go listen to it anyways... youtube[dot]com/watch?v=aEIhtvdU6b0

A/N2: Thank you thank you thank you for all your reviews. I'm so happy everyone is enjoying this and even turning some people to the Brittberry/Pieberry love lol. All Faberrittana love is awesome btw.

I stood watching the taxi cab depart, unmoving long after the cab had turned from view, somehow still believing that she would come back and the whole thing would be like a horrible nightmare. The entire night had been like a fairytale, I had even applauded myself for working up the courage to dance with her and then with one sentence I threw it all away and she was gone.

I tried to suck it up and go back inside, but as soon as I caught sight of the two Cheerios, looking over at me and laughing, I lost it. I headed straight for them and shouted, "What do you have against Rachel?"

"You mean besides the fact that she's a loser and her nose could be used as a kazoo," the blonde laughed and her friend joined in with her.

The best way I could describe what happened next, was that suddenly everything went red. I never thought that I would result to violence to solve anything, but before I even realized I was raising my fist, it was already connecting with her nose and she instantly dropped to the ground. I just stood there and stared down at her as she screamed, clutching her bleeding nose and the entire room stopped what they were doing to come to her aid.

"I think you'd better let our driver take you home," my mother whispered, leading me away from the scene before fingers could be pointed towards me.

"I don't know what happened," I said in shock, shaking my head. I'd never hit anyone before and it didn't even make me feel better. It made me feel worse.

"I think I know," my mother said as we got outside and she signalled for the valet to call our driver, "You like this girl a lot, Britt, I've seen the way you look at some of your boyfriends and girlfriends, and you've never looked at any of them like you look at her."

"How do I look at her," I asked, a little taken aback that my mother had noticed anything about me.

My mother smiled warmly at me and touched my cheek, "Like she's your world."

"I think I lost her tonight," I said miserably, and saying it out loud suddenly made it feel so real and it was like I was being attacked by thousands of different emotions. I grabbed onto her as the tears clouded my vision and I felt like I couldn't breathe.

"What happened," my mother asked, stroking my hair soothingly as I cried into her shoulder. It was so strange, I couldn't even remember the last time I had hugged her, and now I was crumbling in her arms.

"I insulted her, I said something really stupid and mean," I sobbed, gasping for each breath, I hadn't cried this hard since I was a kid. I almost forgot how horrible it felt.

My mother pulled me away from her, holding me out at arms length and dipped her head to look into my swollen eyes, "Rachel seems like the type of girl who would respond to a grand gesture. Do something that could risk hurting you as much as you hurt her. If you were ever going to use that big brain of yours again, now would be a good time to dust it off, Britt."

I stared back at her blankly, trying to understand what she was telling me, but before I could ask her to clarify, she was pushing me into the back of the limo.

"Get some rest, Sweetheart," she said with an optimistic smile as the car door closed.

Grand gesture. I would have to do something big, something huge to make up for this. It wasn't just about this one time, but all the times that I had taunted and teased and insulted her. I had even slushied her several times freshman year. I needed to do something to apologize for everything and to really let her know how I felt.

"What the hell is going on with you, Britt," Santana demanded the next day as I sat down in my usual seat in math class, "First I get a text from some Cheerio that I don't even remember the name of, and I'm still curious as to how she got my number, telling me that you showed up to your little soiree with Yentl. Then I find out that you punched your own team member? You broke her nose, Britt."

"I don't like you calling her that," I said softly, staring down at my books. I hadn't slept all night and I really was in no mood to get into a fight with Santana right now.

"Who," she questioned, placing her hands on her hips in her HBIC pose.

"Rachel," I said turning towards her, "I don't like you calling her names like that."

"Since when," Santana asked in disbelief.

"Always," I answered confidently, because although I had allowed myself to follow her and Quinn like a sheep in the past, I never liked calling her or anyone names.

"No," Santana said, wagging a finger at me, "She's brainwashed you to join her legion of losers, but I'm not letting you go to the fashionably-challenged side without a fight."

"What are you even talking about," I asked, throwing my pencil down against my book and turning all my attention towards her.

"You think I haven't noticed that she drives you home from school everyday, or that she even drove you to school one day? Or the fact that you haven't been able to nail a single Cheerios routine in over a week? I haven't seen you outside of school in almost two weeks, when we used to hang out everyday and you don't even sound the same anymore," Santana said, harshly listing everything out.

I turned around in my chair to see if Rachel was paying attention to the commotion and although her head was down towards her books, I could see her eyes peeking out from under her bangs to look at Santana.

"There you go looking at her again," Santana said angrily, "What are you looking at her for?"

"She's my friend," I said with a sudden burst of confidence, standing up from my seat and looking down at her with as much ferocity that she was throwing at me.

It seemed like forever that we stood there, staring each other down and waiting for the other to back off and I knew that after what happened the night before, I wasn't backing down for anything. Finally she snorted and rolled her eyes, "Fine, you can sit with your friend in math class."

She moved away to sit at a different table and I looked back at Rachel, who was biting her lip but she quickly looked away, not ready to meet my eyes. Our teacher came into the room at the same time and began slapping our corrected tests on everyone's desks. When he got to mine, he placed it down gently and said, "Excellent work Ms. Pierce. Keep that up and you just might ace your SATs."

I was almost certain he added "Didn't think I'd ever say that" under his breath as he walked away and I smirked as I looked down at my paper.

Ninety percent. Ooops, I thought I changed more answers than that. What caught my attention even more than the grade that I hadn't seen since I was thirteen, was the small gold star sticker beside it, mocking me and reminding me that it was all because of the girl sitting two seats behind me. I turned around, hoping to catch her attention so I could show her my mark, but she was staring down at her paper and still ignoring me completely.

It was alright, I still had a surprise in store for her that day.

"You don't have to do this, Brittany," Mr. Schue said as he placed an encouraging hand on my shoulder as we stood just outside the entrance to the lunch room.

"Yeah I do," I said with certainty, but my stomach was tied in so many knots I was sure there was a high probability I might throw up. "Grand gestures."

"What was that," he questioned, his brow furrowing as his concerned eyes stared back at me.

I shook my head and waved a hand at him, "Not important."

He gave my shoulder a quick squeeze before heading into the student lunch room. I slowly peeked in, seeing Santana, Quinn and the Cheerios seated at their table and then a couple tables away was Rachel with Kurt, Mercedes, Tina and Mike, the four of them talking while Rachel pushed her salad around with her fork, miserably. The cafeteria was full and bustling with students talking and laughing amongst themselves and maybe I couldn't do this. This was all starting to be a terrible idea.

I started to jump up and down as I began to chant words of encouragement to myself, "You can do this. It's going to be fine. Rachel had to endure years of torture and you just have to put yourself out there for four minutes. I can do this. I can do this."

"You ready," I heard a boy ask from behind me, startling me out of my meditation and I turned around to find the jazz band carrying their instruments, drum set, guitar, bass, everything they needed.

"No," I said my voice shaking, I didn't think I'd ever been so nervous in my life. He raised an eyebrow at me and I closed my eyes and said the words that would seal my fate forever, "Yes, go."

With those words, they all began to rush into the lunch room, setting up their instruments and plugging in their amps in record speed as I waited and watched.

It wasn't until about four o'clock in the morning when I had realized what my mother had meant by 'grand gestures' and 'doing something that risked hurting me as much as she got hurt'. I didn't want Rachel to be put through what I went through with Santana, hiding the most important thing in your life from the rest of the world. It wasn't fair to anybody. I knew that I needed to do something that would let her know, without a doubt, that she was important to me and in a moment of clarity in the middle of the night I started to wonder why exactly it was that I was so afraid of telling people about our relationship. I had stopped caring about popularity a long time ago and I was pretty sure that after the initial shock, Quinn would be alright with it. Santana wouldn't, but if she couldn't get over it, it would be her loss. I wasn't really friends with any of the other Cheerios except Becky and she loved everybody. So what was I so afraid of?

Slushies to the face? Bullying? Rachel had already been through it all and if I had to deal with it for one year before we graduate, just so I could walk down the halls with her hand in mine, so be it.

I refused to hurt Rachel again because of my own selfishness, and I was about to show her that I was entirely serious about it.

So at four o'clock in the morning when I was listening to my iPod on shuffle as I contemplated the horrible life choices I had made so far in my seventeen years on this earth, a song came on that said everything that I wanted to tell her, word for word. It wasn't a song that I would normally think about singing, but the key was low enough to fit my limited vocal range, since it was originally sung by a man, and the lyrics were so eerily perfect I couldn't pass it up.

I had gone to Mr. Schue before classes started that day to inform him of my plan and asked him to come to the cafeteria at lunch so he could see me perform my assignment.

He was excited, but quick to inform me that this kind of thing could bring on a lot of bullying and I could see the uncertainty in his eyes like he knew there was something different about me, but he couldn't put his finger on it. Using words with four syllables was probably aiding in that confusion, but I didn't care anymore. I didn't want to be 'Stupid Brittany' anymore and I didn't want to hide who I was anymore.

So there I stood outside the cafeteria, jumping up and down again to try to shake the nerves away and stop myself from running in the opposite direction and never coming back. I just hoped Rachel really really appreciated this.

I finally heard the guitar begin to strike the first few chords of Sorry by Buckcherry and I had just enough time to swallow the large lump in the back of my throat as I stepped into the cafeteria, keeping my eyes fixed on Rachel, as if she was the only one in the room, as I began to sing.

Oh I had a lot to say, was thinking on my time away

I missed you and things weren't the same

My voice was shaking so bad I had to close my eyes for a moment, clearing my head, and when I opened them again, I was a lot stronger and very determined. Rachel's posture had changed from slumped down over her tray of food to stick straight as her wide-eyes quickly darted around the room before looking back at me, stunned.

'Cause everything inside it never comes out right

And when I see you cry, it makes me want to die

I took a few steps closer to Rachel's table, doing my best to ignore the gaping mouths and wide eyes of the other four people seated there, but still leaving a large distance between us.

I'm sorry I'm bad, I'm sorry you're blue

I'm sorry about all things I said to you

And I know, I can't take it back.

I took a deep breath before I sang the rest of the chorus, the fear of the school's reaction still prominent in my mind, but it would never stop me. I made sure to look Rachel directly in the eyes to make her feel it as I sang the words.

I love how you kiss, I love all your sounds

And baby, the way you make my world go round

And I just wanted to say, I'm sorry

A smile began to spread across her lips, like she was amazed by my courage and couldn't believe that I was standing up in front of the whole school and saying these things for everyone to hear. The smile faltered as I suddenly rushed around to her side of the table, turning her chair out from under the table and dropping to my knees in front of her.

This time I think I'm to blame

It's harder to get through the days

You get older and blame turns to shame

I cupped her bare knees with my palms as I looked up at her and a tear began to roll down her cheek. Just another thing I loved about her, she was never afraid to show her emotions.

'Cause everything inside it never comes out right

And when I see you cry, it makes me want to die

I brushed the tear away from her cheek, before taking her hands in mine.

I'm sorry I'm bad, I'm sorry you're blue

I'm sorry about all things I said to you

And I know, I can't take it back

I love how you kiss, I love all your sounds

And baby the way you make my world go round

And I just wanted to say, I'm sorry

I let go of one of her hands, keeping the other in mine as I pulled her up from the chair and dragged her back to the open space where the band was playing. I took her other hand again as we stood, for everyone to see, but I always kept my eyes locked on hers as I sang each word from the heart.

Every single day, I think about how we came all this way

The sleepless nights and the tears you cried

It's never too late to make it right

Oh yeah

Sorry

I'm sorry I'm bad, I'm sorry you're blue

I'm sorry about all things I said to you

And I know, I can't take it back

I love how you kiss, I love all your sounds

I dragged my thumb across her lips.

And baby, the way you make my world go round

And I just wanted to say, I'm sorry

Once again I fell to my knees in front of her, begging for her to forgive me, because somewhere in the last ten days I realized that I needed Rachel in my life.

I'm sorry baby

I'm sorry baby, yeah I'm sorry.

The way she was breathing and the hand that was pressed to her heart, I was pretty sure I had made my grand gesture.

"Forgive me," I whispered the question, when the music stopped playing and she wrapped her arms around my neck so fast I almost fell backwards.

"Definitely," she whispered back, "Thank you."

I heard a few people clap, but I couldn't care less if no one clapped. It wasn't for them, it was for her.

I caught sight of the Cheerios table, as I took Rachel's hand and began to lead her out of the cafeteria, and while Quinn looked entirely shocked, Santana looked entirely homicidal. She looked as if she was about to jump over the table and stab Rachel with the cafeteria butter knife she was white knuckling in her fist. I turned away from her, letting go of Rachel's hand to slide it around her waist and pulled her protectively towards me.

We spent the rest of out lunch hour sitting on the football field, my legs stretched out in front of me with Rachel resting her head in my lap and looking up at me.

"What," I asked, when several silent minutes had passed and she continued to stare.

"Would you like to be Pierce-Berry or Berry-Pierce," she asked casually and then added, "Because Brittany Berry would just sound strange."

"What," I laughed shaking my head.

"When we get married," she said with complete certainty that made me suddenly uncomfortable.

"Can we talk about this maybe when we're somewhere much much further into our relationship," I asked, trying to keep my fears from sounding in my voice.

"Fine," Rachel sighed, turning her head away from me.

There was a long peaceful silence between us, until I said softly, "I like Rachel Pierce."

When we got back to my place for our usual dance lesson I noticed she was without her duffle bag today.

"I honestly didn't think I would be coming here today," she said softly, reminded of her earlier depression.

"It's okay," I said looking at her usual short skirt and the tight yellow t-shirt she was wearing today, "You don't need to change."

I did, though. As much as I liked wearing my Cheerios uniform, I couldn't wait to change into something lighter. Even though it was mid-September in Ohio, when the weather should've been cooling off, we were stuck in a heat wave and if I had my way, I would be walking around naked all the time. Instead, I found a pair of thin black shorts that fit to my body and a grey camisole in my closet and left my uniform in a puddle on the floor. Coach Sylvester would shoot me out of a canon for sure if she had ever seen me treat it like that.

I decided to mix our usual hip hop dancing with a bit of partner swing dancing, as I loved to combine different forms of dance, mixing old with the new and making it all exciting again. I came up with a routine that Rachel picked up on pretty quickly for the most part, and I was really quite impressed at how easily she was catching on to everything I taught her.

We danced to the music, as I swung her out and pulled her back in hard against me, where she ground her hips once against my thigh before twirling back behind me and I turned with her. She turned back to face me and I crossed my arms straight out in front of me and Rachel did the same as I took her hands in mine, letting me hold her up as she dropped her head back and arched her body, giving me an eye full of her long neck and slightly sweaty chest. She came back up and hopped off the floor and I began to take her weight as she pointed her toes and slid easily down and through my legs. Everything was going perfectly until I went to lift her back up and her elbows bent slightly before locking, causing her body to twist and her shoulders to roll. I thought that I would still be able to lift her, even though she'd lost some momentum, because she was so light I never had problems lifting her, but as she came back through my legs I could feel her body tense as she knew the move wasn't going as planned and her body twisted again.

I lost my footing as she fell back to the floor and I had just enough time to let go of her hands and let mine fall on either side of her waist in an attempt to break my fall, as my body came crashing down on top of her. My legs fell straddling her waist and I just barely missed knocking our heads together as my cheek brushed hers. I lifted my head quickly, worried that I had crushed her with my body, but there was a wide grin spread across her lips and she burst into a fit of giggles. I began to laugh along with her, the sound of her laugh was contagious, and repositioned my hands to try to lift myself off her. As my hands moved into position, my thumbs accidentally brushed her sides, inadvertently tickling her and causing her hips to buck up against my centre, as her hands, trapped between our chests, clung to my camisole.

A loud moan escaped my lips from the surprise contact and her giggling immediately ceased as she watched my expression, which I could imagine was entirely lust filled.

"I guess we're even," I managed to croak out, feeling the moisture pooling between my legs and I began to regret wearing the thin cotton shorts that clung to my skin.

"Yeah," she replied, but her eyes were glazed over and I could tell she had no idea what I had just said. Suddenly it seemed to register in her mind and she raised a confused eyebrow, "What?"

"From when we were grinding," I said, still trying to calm the tingling at my core, but making no attempt to move off of her. I was enjoying the feeling of her body below me too much. "When I made you moan."

Her face went completely red as she remembered the moment, when she was so close and when it all became too much.

"We've never kissed," Rachel whispered suddenly, her breath mingling with mine as my lips hovered dangerously close to hers.

"Huh," I asked, my eyes fixated on her pink lips.

"The song you sang today," she clarified, but her eyes were focused on my lips as well, "How do you know that you love how I kiss when we've never kissed? I could be terrible."

"Some things you just know," I mumbled, watching her tongue slide out quickly and lick her lips. I leaned in towards her and watched her eyes close as I brushed my nose against hers and moved my lips to hover just over hers, letting out a soft breath. Her lips parted in anticipation, but I moved my nose back to brush against hers again, tilting my head to the other side, teasing her. I let out another short breath over her lips and felt her chin bump up against mine as she tried to raise her lips to mine. When I evaded her again she let out a soft, desperate whimper and I finally gave in to her and touched my lips to hers with the lightest touch I could manage. The briefest feel of her full lips on mine sent me over the edge and I couldn't hold back anymore. I finally let my lips crash down against hers and I swear I saw fireworks behind my closed eyes. My lips attacked hers with such intensity that I even surprised myself, but she matched every movement with the same amount of fervour and need. I could feel her body lifting off the ground, pressing up against me as she tried to get more of me and I understood because I was pressing down against her with the same goal in mind. She was making light keening noises in the back of her throat that were driving me crazy and if I thought the moisture between my legs was an issue before, it was now cause for alarm. I felt her tongue drag along my lip and I didn't even have to think before opening my mouth to feel it tangle with mine.

Terrible? More like mind-blowing.

I shifted my weight to one side and used my knee to nudge her legs apart and settled myself between them. The movement had caused her skirt to ride up around her waist and when our centres connected, separated by a couple thin pieces of cotton, she bucked her hips once again and broke the kiss to gasp. With her mouth open, I used the opportunity to take her bottom lip between my teeth and bite it lightly as I sucked it. Her hands were fisting my camisole now and pulling on it so hard I knew that it would never fit me properly again. I was also aware that he tugging had exposed my breasts, which were covered only by my lacy blue bra and the backs of her fingers would brush against the lace every time she pulled. I was quickly losing control and suddenly I realized that I had one hand digging my fingers into her hip, while my weight rested on my other forearm that had managed to snake under Rachel's shoulder blade and my fingers were gripping the top of her shoulder. I used the hand on her hip guide the movement of her hips and my hand on her shoulder was pulling her body down against me, while my hips ground against her centre. She broke away breathlessly from our kiss, our foreheads resting against each other for a short moment as I continued to thrust against her, but the tension building inside of me wouldn't let me stay still and my mouth found her neck where I bit down and sucked hard.

I was pretty sure I heard a ripping noise as her hands yanked even harder at my camisole and she let out a loud cry from the assault. She finally untangled her hands from my shirt, wrapping her arms around me and raking her nails down my back when I bit down on the other side of her neck and her knees came up to press into my sides. The hand I had been gripping her hip with slid down to the outside of her thigh, giving the flesh a squeeze as I recaptured her lips and slid my hand to the inside of her thigh. I slid my hand upwards towards her centre and could feel the wetness all along the insides of her thigh, unsure if it was mine or hers or a combination of the two and while I was thinking about that and caught up in her delicious lips, I suddenly felt her shudder against me and I realized I was cupping her mound through soaked panties.

"Stop," she moaned, breaking away from the kiss, urgently pushing me backwards. I sat back on my heels and let out my own moan, just from the sight of her. Her skirt was acting more like a belt than a skirt and I had a perfect view of the soaked panties I had just been touching. Her shirt was pulled up to just below her bra and her hair was wild and all over the place. She made no move to cover herself as she just stared up at me, panting, with black eyes.

Suddenly, she shot up into a sitting position, startling me as her hands fisted in my hair and her hungry mouth crashed against mine once again. The kiss was like a fight of who needed the other more and as our teeth gnashed and our lips bruised, I suddenly realized I had pulled her shirt over her head and my fingers were working the clasp on her bra.

"We need to stop," I groaned, backing away from her, pushing her hands away as she tried to pull me back. "We can't do this like this."

I think she was too wrapped up in the moment to realize how far we had taken things and seemed to be genuinely surprised when she looked down and realized her shirt was missing.

"You should go," I swallowed hard, handing her her shirt and when our hands brushed against each other and I almost lost it again, "I can't-"

"Me either," Rachel said, shaking her head as she straightened her shirt over her torso, "I didn't think one kiss would-"

"Make the world end," I finished and she paused to look at me with a smirk.

She bit down on her lip and looked at me through her dark lashes, "Exactly."