Hello lovely's! Long time no see… or read. Anyways, Finally had a day to relax so I decided to work on my stories. Enjoy.
Chapter 13 for you!
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Quinn jogged from the field, trying to catch up to her best friend.
"Santana!" She yelled from about 10 yards behind her. The brunette didn't look back, nor did she stop walking. Quinn quickened her pace and reached for her friend's arm to slow her down and get her attention.
Santana yanked her arm away and kept walking. Realizing that it was a lost cause at the moment, Quinn gave a worried look in the direction Santana was headed before she started back towards the field.
Brittany was sitting on a picnic table with her head in her hands, tears noticeably rolling down her cheeks as Rachel ran soothing circles on her shoulders. The rest of the team had cleared off by now, not really wanting to upset anyone and to be honest, not really wanting to involve themselves in any drama.
"She gonna be alright?" Puck asked his best friend.
"Honestly?" Puck nodded.
"I'm not sure. She has it in her head that it's gonna be the same thing as last time."
"Yeah, but it's not though… Brittany wouldn't do that to her. She's a wild child sure, and Britt totally has her wrapped around her finger, but she wouldn't do that to San." Puck commented.
"Yeah, we know that Puck… San doesn't though." The blonde stated, glancing back over to Brittany.
"Yeah well, she better figure her shit out quick cuz she didn't even say anything to Britt, just pushed her aside and made her think she did something wrong." He stated.
Quinn just nodded. "I'm gonna go talk to Brittany real quick. Would you mind walking back to the cabins with Rachel and I'll catch up?"
"Sure, you gonna tell her?"
"I don't really have much choice. San certainly isn't gonna be doing it anytime soon." Puck could only give her sympathetic smile.
"I'll take her stuff with me." Puck said before he and Quinn moved to walk over to a distraught Brittany. Rachel had a worried look on her face. She stood up reluctantly and walked the few steps to her girlfriend.
"What happened Quinn?" Rachel whispered.
"I'll fill you in when I get back to the cabin. Puck is gonna walk back with you while I talk to Britt."
Rachel nodded, walked over to the table to grab her gear before turning towards her best friend. She leaned down to tell her Quinn was going to talk to her and that she would be back at the cabin. Brittany only nodded into her hands before letting out a shaky breath before the next set of tears started to fall. Rachel kissed the top of her head and walked back to Quinn.
"I'll see you soon." Rachel stated softly with a small encouraging smile. She placed a soft kiss on Quinn's lips before linking her arm with Puck's and walked off the field towards the cabins.
Quinn took a deep breath before making her way back over to the taller blonde. She took a step up and seated herself next to Brittany, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder before moving to pull some of her hair away from the girl's face.
Brittany just couldn't handle it anymore. She sucked in a few uneven breaths, still keeping her head in her hands and spoke softly. "W-Why did she run off Quinn? I j-just don-don't understand what I did t-to make her so m-mad at me." The tears started to come harder this time and Quinn pulled her into her arms, trying to comfort her.
"Shhh, Britt, you didn't do anything wrong. Santana…" Quinn closed her eyes at the thought, "she just… she related a past experience to you and she has it in her head that you were going to do the same thing."
"Do what though? I don't understand!" Brittany shifted, now more confused than anything and frankly, somewhat angry at what Quinn just stated.
"You have to calm down and I'll tell you; it's not easy for San to let people in. As I'm sure you are aware of the walls she has built around herself, she's an extremely hard person to get to know… she doesn't trust easily and the people she does, it took a long time to get to that point. Puck and I are the only two people who know about the things she has gone through. She's used to abandonment Britt. It's not anything you did, it's what happened in her past that makes her so resistant." Quinn stated softly but firmly so that Brittany would understand the severity of the situation and not blame it on herself.
The taller blonde relaxed as much as she could to control her breathing before she asked the next question; this time a little less harsh. "What did that have to do with what team I played for?"
"Did you tell her what team you played for? Was it something you discussed?" Quinn asked.
Brittany thought about it for a moment, replaying the last two and a half weeks in her head, trying to pinpoint the discussions they had about paintball and their teams. "The night we met… at the dance, we were talking about our teams, she told me what team she was on and then asked me, I went to tell her but Mike and Finn walked into the conversation and asked us to play in the night match. That's the only time we really talked about it. We were always teamed up or talking about everything else. Why does that matter though?"
Quinn sighed. "She didn't know what team you played for and quite honestly I think if you two were able to finish your discussion this never would have happened."
"What does it matter what team I played for? I thought she knew because it was never brought up again and it was never an issue." Brittany stated baffled.
"You guys were so wrapped up in each other that it didn't matter for her to question it I don't think."
"What do you mean? She knew I was on a different team Quinn…"
"I know that, she just didn't know you were on the Showstoppers… Captain of the Showstoppers I might add."
Brittany just gave her a confused look. Before she could ask another question, Quinn explained further.
"I met Santana when she moved to Lima during 6th grade. She was already out to her parents but not to the rest of her family. Santana, Puck, and I got really close, hung out on a regular basis but she would always keep us at arms length. We never knew why but it was something that me and Puck had to dig our heals into." Brittany listened intently for Quinn to continue.
"She didn't really want us to hang out at her place, nor be around her siblings." Brittany gave Quinn a weird look at this piece of information.
"Why?"
"Her Grandmother wasn't supposed to find out that she was gay. At least until her parents had a chance to talk to her first. Santana and her Abuela were really close but she was also very religious."
"What about her siblings?" Brittany asked.
"Her older brother and sister knew she was gay but the younger ones didn't. She just didn't want to take a chance of them finding out and saying something to her Grandmother."
Brittany was slightly confused at this point. "Ok so where does what team I play for play into all of this? Why did she say I was going to dump her?"
Quinn sighed heavily and brought her hand up to her head, trying to figure out the best way to explain the situation. Brittany sat, listening intently as her tears began to subside.
"Santana got her first real girlfriend, if you could even call it that," she added bitterly, "when we started high school. San was working her way through the ranks in her ROTC program. She probably already told you about Commanding the Color Guard." Brittany nodded so Quinn continued.
"She met this girl at one of our competitions, they got close and started dating. She would come to all of our practices and hang around, seemingly what a good girlfriend would do to support you know?" Quinn lowered her head and Brittany could tell that it was just as hard to talk about it. "We showed up to our National Competition and Santana's 'girlfriend' was in uniform for the rival school. When they met she was just a girl in the crowd, no uniform or anything."
"And Santana didn't know…" Brittany said as more of a statement. She was starting to understand the connections now.
Quinn nodded sadly. "They ended up performing all of our routines before we were on deck. We had no choice but to drop from the competition. As we were leaving, Madison was her name, came up to Santana… God I wanted to punch the fucking smirk off her face," Quinn added angrily. "Santana asked her why she had done it, and the bitch just said because she wanted to win. Before she left she pulled Santana in and kissed her in front of her family, including her Grandmother."
"Oh god…" Brittany said softly trying to blink back the tears. She couldn't imagine how that must have hurt Santana.
"Not only did Madison use Santana, she outted her to the rest of her family. Her Grandmother basically disowned her before we even reached the van to go home and hasn't talked to her since. That woman was like a second parent to San and she was betrayed and abandoned by the two people that were making her so happy."
"That's why she's so guarded now and her resistance to relationships…" Brittany thought allowed at how everything was starting to make sense. The why's and how's of the puzzle were falling into place and it was breaking her heart to think about how someone could possibly do that to the girl she was in love with.
"She closed everyone off after that. She started to doubt the people around her and fell into a really bad place. She rarely smiled, became a raging bitch for lack of a better word, and never let another girl close to her again. The only thing that really pulled her out of it was when we started our paintball team and even then it wasn't back to how it used to be."
"I wasn't trying to hide what team I was on though Quinn…" Brittany said sadly shaking her head.
Quinn gave her a soft smile. "I know that and so does Puck… Santana only sees it as a rerun of the shit she went through a few years ago though and this in her mind is much worse because she loves you. It was bad with Madison but with you, you are someone she cares about more than anything and it all came back to her thinking your only getting close to her just to throw it all away after the competition this weekend."
"But I wouldn't do that and she knew I was on a different team…"
"You're the captain of the other number one team in Ohio, Britt. It kinda reinstates the fear she has more than usual… the rival team, the captain/commander part is parallel to the Madison issue. It's not that you're on a different team, it's what team you play for and the position you have on that team."
Brittany just sighed and nodded in understanding. She wanted to go talk to Santana and explain the situation but what could she do? How was she supposed to break down the walls again and let her in enough to tell her that's not what she wanted to do or ever intended to do.
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Puck knocked on the girls cabin door. After a few moments Mercedes answered.
"Hey, she here?" He asked.
"She wasn't here when I got back, I don't know where she is." Mercedes replied sadly.
Puck just nodded. "Can I leave her gear here with you?"
"Yeah, make sure she's ok will you?"
"Gotta find her first." Puck chuckled softly trying to lighten the mood.
"Knowing San, she won't be found unless she wants to…"
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Ahhh lovely readers! Alright so there is the huge chunk of information you have been missing since they met. Why Santana didn't know what team she played for, the second parent mentality about her Grandmother and what Quinn meant about knowing what it feels like to loose a 'parent' … the whole shebang. I apologize for the fact that it has taken me so long to start up again. School this quarter has seriously been kicking my ass and it's been hard to find time to write on top of everything else I have going on. Please know that I will be taking the Notice down because the Chapter/Story will bug me to no end if it shows 14 chapters when there is only 13 but again I can't give you a time frame of when my next chapter will be. I will try my hardest to give them to you as quickly as possible but my last few weeks of the quarter are coming up which means finals so bear with me.
You guys have been so amazing and I can't thank you enough for your support and understanding. It's truly a wonderful experience to get this much feedback for my first FanFic. Comments and reviews are always amazing. Let me know what you all think!