Thank you for the new story alerts and favorites. I also wanted to thank my reviewers for the last chapter as well as apologize for the wait. Again I'm so glad you guys are all very understanding of my schedule and how patient you have been. Here's to you guys!

Chapter 14

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"Where is she?" Brittany asked as her and Quinn walked up to Puck. He pulled his cell phone away from his ear with an annoyed look on his face. Quinn took an deep breath and closed her eyes. Damnit Santana. The shorter blonde thought.

"She's not answering her phone and it's been almost an hour since she left the field. I've tried her cell but it keeps going straight to voicemail."

"She turned it off." Quinn states and Puck nods his head.

"We have to find her, Q." Puck says as he looks away for a moment. "She's shutting herself off and you know what happened last time."

Quinn nods.

"Wait, what do you mean… what happened last time?" Brittany asked, worry etched over every inch of her beautiful face.

FLASHBACK

Santana sat silent the entire ride home from the ROTC competition. Her Grandmother had walked away from her without much less as a single word. Quinn would catch a few worried glances at her and after a few minutes she caught sight of a single tear running down her cheek.

The blonde reached over across the seat tentatively and placed a comforting hand on her best friends forearm. Santana shrugged her off and stared further out of the window. Quinn didn't know what to do. She sat quietly the rest of the way home and got out of the van after pulling into the Lopez driveway. Santana exited the vehicle and walked to her room before closing the door. The blonde just looked between her parents, each trying to give a half reassuring smile before heading into the kitchen to start dinner. After about an hour, Quinn walked upstairs to let the Latina know that dinner was ready. She knocked a few times with no answer so she figured her friend had fallen asleep.

"San? Dinner is ready." She stated once more before quietly pushing the door open.

Her bed was empty so she went to check the bathroom with no luck. As she went to leave she glanced over and noticed the window ajar and jogged over. Shit.

Quinn ran downstairs and into the kitchen.

"She's gone! She climbed out of her window." She said to Santana's parents. Both turned to look at her.

Mr. Lopez bolted upstairs to his daughter's room. Mrs. Lopez picked up the house phone to dial her cell. "She's not answering her phone." She states as Mr. Lopez reappears in the kitchen.

Quinn pulled out her cell phone and dialed the only other person who would be able to help her.

"You're go for Puck!" The deep voice rang out over the phone.

"Puck, I need you!" Quinn was practically hyperventilating. She couldn't think of anything else to say.

"I'm on my way!" Puck said without needing anything other than that.

Ten minutes later, Puck was at the Lopez house, along with Mercedes and Artie who pulled in right after him.

Quinn was biting her nails, pacing back and forth when she spotted Puck. The tall mohawked boy pulled her into a hug and tried to calm her down.

"We're gonna find her, Q." Puck had dialed Mrs. Lopez right after hanging up with Quinn and she filled him in on the details while he was driving over.

The group set out in pairs, driving all over Lima for the past three hours to find the Latina with no luck. The sun had gone down an hour ago and everyone was practically flipping their shit by now. Mrs. Lopez had logged onto their iCloud account to try and locate the brunette's phone but she had turned it off, leaving everyone with no idea where to look.

"Where would she go? This town is so damn tiny and she didn't take her car. She couldn't have gone that far. Is she hiding under a fucking rock?" Quinn said as she ended the call to Santana's phone for the 100th time.

Puck was looking out of the window, listening to Quinn as he was scanning the corners and back through the tree's before he stopped dead in the middle of the road.

"I know where she is…" He said before turning the car around. Not under a rock… on it. Puck thought as he sped off towards Rockview Middle School.

END FLASHBACK

By this time another hour had passed and the whole team was looking for Santana. Quinn had called the Latina's parents and they came right away. They didn't let anyone else from the camp know what was going on just yet because they knew that if they were able to find her she would be more than pissed off that she couldn't compete so they kept it within their group.

Brittany was searching all over the camp with Rachel, Quinn, and Puck. She was more than freaked out at this point and couldn't understand how the other two didn't seem as crazy as she was becoming.

"Britt you need to calm down and rest for a minute." Puck said, trying to catch his breath from running around.

"How are you two not freaking out right now? You're best friend is missing and you want to rest. She's my girlfriend god damnit! I'm not going to calm down until I find her and then I'm gonna beat her ass for running away!" The taller blonde shouted, making both Puck and Quinn recoil slightly.

"Brittney, we are freaking out alright! But this isn't the first time this is happened and she just went somewhere where people wouldn't think to look for her. When I found her at the middle school a few years ago, she was on the roof of our old gym. We would sneak up there sometimes and just hangout. She needs time to think. She would go somewhere that nobody knew about." Puck said.

"Yeah but…" Brittany didn't finish her sentence before realization struck and she took off in a dead sprint through the camp.

Quinn, Rachel, and Puck just looked at each other with shocked faces before taking off after Brittany.

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"Where the hell did she go?" Rachel said clutching her chest and heaving to get oxygen in her lungs.

They had managed to keep up with Brittany all the way from outside the DC up until the last paintball field before the blonde had disappeared through the woods.

"I'm… gonna… kill … them… both now!" Quinn stated between deep breaths, hunched over with her hands on her knees.

Puck had is hands clutched on top of his head, face scrunched up trying to suck in some much needed air.

"How the hell… is she not… falling over right now?" He asked before heaving a deep breath, "We were sprinting for at least a mile and she… She's still going!"

"I guess when you really love someone that much, you won't stop until their in your arms again." Rachel said as she stood up straight, sneaking a glance at Quinn before starting a slow walk back towards the cabins.

Puck smirked, not missing the blush that had crept up his best friend's face at the comment.

"Shut up." The blonde said as she gave him a shove, a small smile sneaking at her lips as she followed after her girlfriend.

Puck grinned before looking one last time in the direction they saw Brittany last go. "Don't fuck this up, San." He said to himself before following after Rachel and Quinn.

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Brittany made her way through the woods, never slowing down until she was about 20 yards away from the ending tree line. She slowed her breathing down as she kept her eyes trained on the beach sand coming into view. She scanned the area she could see and when her eyes landed on the Latina's form perched up on the set of rocks, she breathed a sigh of relief before making her way quietly towards her girlfriend.

She was staring off out towards the water, knees brought up to her chest and held close by her arms.

"Why are you here." Santana said stoically, eyes never leaving the water as the blonde approached her from behind.

"How'd you know it was me?" She said, stopping for a moment to see if Santana would turn to look at her.

"I always know it's you and seeing as you're the only other person that knows about this lake, it's not that hard to figure out." She answered idly, eyes still trained on the water. "How did you know where I was?" Curiosity getting the better of the Latina even if she was pissed as hell at Brittany.

Brittany walked forward a few feet, now standing a yard away, parallel to Santana. "A hunch."

Santana glanced towards Brittany before returning her attention to the water. "Puck mentioned something about you going somewhere to think, somewhere nobody would think to look for you and it brought me here. You told me this place always made you relax.

"So you think you know everything about me then…?" Santana spat bitterly.

Brittany took a deep breath at the harshness of her girlfriend's tone (if the brunette still considered them a couple) but let the remark fall on deaf ears. She knew Santana was hurt and that she was only guarding herself from the pain.

"No San, I don't know everything about you. But I'd like to if you would give me the chance."

The Latina let out a sour laugh. "Why, so you can use it against me?"

"Santana…"

"Listen, you don't have to explain, alright! I was just some pawn in your twisted game and-"

"SHUT UP SANTANA!" Brittany yelled, catching the Latina off guard and looking the blonde straight in the eye. "I'm not Madison so whatever you're thinking right now that has you relating me to her, you better remove it from your head right now before I beat it out of you like I'm gonna do already for you running away from me and making me worry about you!"

Santana opened her mouth to retort but Brittany silenced her. "Don't! Don't you dare speak unless it's to let me in and for you to explain to me what the hell is going on."

"Seems like my friends have already filled you in on quite a lot so there's not really much to say now is there?" Santana challenged.

"Why are you so god damn stubborn? You think this is easy for me? To have your girlfriend shut you out and get pissed at you for no reason?"

"YOU DIDN'T TELL ME WHAT TEAM YOU PLAYED FOR BRITTANY!" Santana bellowed, jumping up from the rock and squaring up to the blonde.

"Because it was never brought up again. I was going to tell you-"

"No you weren't! You were using me so you could get me to fall in love with you… win the tournament, and then never speak to me again! Luckily my family already knows I'm a raging lesbian so there wouldn't be that bombshell dropped on them and forcing me out of the flannel closet!"

Brittany laughed. "You really believe that don't you?"

Santana scowled, slightly taken aback by how Brittany seemingly mocked her.

"I did tell you… or at least I was going to tell you until we were interrupted by Mike and Finn!"

"What?" The brunette shook her head in confusion.

"The night that we met… at the dance, Santana. You asked me what team I played for. I said I was captain… and if my memory serves correctly, Mike and Finn walked into the conversation right as I was about to tell you what team I played for! They asked us to play in the night match and we never really talked about paintball after that!"

Santana wanted to retort but in all honesty, now that she thinks about that night, what Brittany is saying was the truth. She remembers the blonde saying 'captain of the…' before Mike and Finn walked up.

"I just assumed you knew or that Quinn or Puck told you because you never questioned it after that. I wasn't trying to hid it." Brittany stated softly, looking at her girlfriend and letting a few tears fall. "I wouldn't do that to you San… I love you. I love you more than I've ever loved anyone else in this world."

Santana stayed silent for a few moments, looking into Brittany's eyes to try and determine if the sincerity there matched the tone in her voice.

It did.

The Latina took a few breaths to try and stop the few tears from forming in her eyes before slowly brushing a few blonde bangs out of Brittany's eyes and cupping her cheek. Santana swallowed what little pride she had left before speaking.

"I'm sorry Britt… I just-" Brittany didn't even give her a chance to finish apologizing before closing the distance and pulling her girlfriend into a searing kiss. Brittany pulled their bodies close together, hanging on for dear life.

When they finally needed oxygen, Brittany reluctantly pulled away but never let Santana go and the Latina wasn't complaining.

The brunette rested her forehead against Brittany's and stayed silent for a moment, trying to find words to express to the blonde just how sorry she was for the things she said.

"Brittany… I'm…" Santana tried before her tears started to fall and she couldn't form a coherent word without almost loosing control of her breathing.

"Shhh San. I know." The blonde stated, realizing that this was probably one of the rare times that Santana actually cried and it was hard enough for her to apologize without weighing in the fact that she almost could have lost Brittany because of a stupid misunderstanding.

They stayed like that, eventually sinking to the sand, Santana wrapped in her girlfriends arms and eventually crying herself to sleep. Brittany pulled out her phone and typed out a quick text.

To: Quinn
I found her and she's alright. We'll be back soon. -B