Fifty First Times: Brittana Style
Brave New World - Part Three
Pairing(s): Brittany/Santana
Rating: PG
Spoilers: All episodes (Just to be safe)
Disclaimer: Don't own. Just borrowing.
Summary: In any universe, regardless of the circumstances, Brittany and Santana are inevitable. Watch me prove it.
Author's Note: Alright you historical accuracy buffs, I know that some aspects of this story are just not historically correct but, for the sake of telling a story, let's just suspend belief for a moment. Glee does it all the time.
--
“What was that this evening?!” Hinto yells, pacing as Santana sits in front of him. “I try to make rules for the sake of our people and you, my own child, question it? Explain yourself!” he demands.
Santana’s scared because her father has never yelled at her like this before; she’s never seen him so angry, and the fear in her makes her voice quiver, coming out tiny and small. “I just…I want to know about them, Father. Maybe they are only different. Different from us.”
Doli had been watching quietly, but, after she sees the tears streaming from her daughter’s eyes, she puts the weaving loom down, walking over to her husband and gently touching his arm. “Perhaps it is time to tell her Hinto,” she prompts, gesturing for him to sit down next to his daughter.
Hinto sighs wearily, his shoulders drooping slightly as he settles in close to Santana and Doli leaves the, giving father and daughter a moment of privacy.
“Santana,” Hinto starts, his voice hard but he stops himself short and softens his tone. “Princess,” he tries again, watching her closely. “Do you know why they call me Hinto?”
“Because that is your name, Father.”
“Yes. But do you know why else?” he asks.
Santana slowly shakes her head in the negative.
“Hinto means ‘Blue Eyes’. Now, how many other men have you seen with eyes like mine?”
“Not very many Father, but there are not very many men like you here.”
Hinto smiles. “You are very kind, Santana. But, I need you to know the truth about something - the truth about my eyes. My mother, your grandmother, was almost your age when it happened. She was to be married to my father in the next seventh sun when they came to her village - the pale-faces. They stole, burned down the huts for no reason, and…and they hurt the women. One of the women…one of the women was my mother.”
“But, I…I don’t understand,” Santana starts, confused. “How did they hurt her?”
Hinto swallows. “The men in our village do not have eyes like mine but…the pale-faces do.”
Santana gasps, understanding instantly. “Do you mean-”
“Yes,” Hinto interrupts, swallowing again against a tightening throat. “Now do you see? Do you understand when I say I want you to stay far away from the pale-faces?”
Santana nods, feeling numb. “Yes Father.”
--
Santana cannot sleep.
She cannot sleep and so she finds herself sitting in her favorite tree, her mind a whirlwind of thoughts.
She keeps replaying her father’s words in her head, trying to reconcile them with the people she’s some to know.
She knows without a shadow of a doubt that Brittany would never hurt her. But…the boy; Brittany’s brother.
She does not quite know what to think now.
--
Brittany waits until she’s sure everyone is asleep.
She knows it’s dangerous to navigate the woods without Santana, especially this late at night, but after the afternoon she’s spent with the girl, she cannot wait until tomorrow to see her.
It’s hard to explain, the feelings she’s having, but every time she even thinks about Santana these days she smiles stupidly like Samuel
whenever he sees Quinn.
She doesn’t want to think it because it’s completely absurd. They’re so different and, she supposes, technically they aren’t even supposed to see one another but she thinks…she thinks maybe she might be in love.
It’s the only thing that would explain why she is currently blindly moving deeper into the darkened woods, hooting loudly every other step or so.
--
Santana sits up straighter in the tree when she hears the distant hooting and her eyes instantly hone in on the moving brush, catching a shock of golden hair and a flash of milky-white skin.
Within seconds she’s on the ground and moments later, she’s standing right in front of the other girl, unmoving.
Brittany rushes her, wrapping her arms around her in a firm hug. “I found you,” she squeals, squeezing tightly.
Santana stands rigid; her head and heart at war.
Brittany notices. “What’s wrong?” she asks worriedly, pulling away slightly.
Santana doesn’t have the words to say it but she tries anyway. “Brittany brother,” she starts and Brittany nods, smiling brightly again.
“Michael,” she prompts but Santana shakes her head.
“Samuel?” Brittany guesses this time, watching the other girl’s eyes light up in recognition.
“Yes,” Santana says, choosing her words carefully. “Samuel, hurt me?”
Brittany’s eyes widen knowingly and she hurriedly takes hold of Santana’s hands. “Samuel would never hurt you,” she avows passionately. “He would never.”
Santana still doesn’t look too convinced. “I’ll prove it to you,” Brittany continues. “Come tomorrow and you can meet him. Samuel is not bad, Santana. I promise.”
Santana sighs, relief flooding her body as she understands Brittany’s words. “Yes,” she nods, agreeing.
--
Ever since the newest crop of pale-faces has turned up, Hinto has been worried about the safety of the tribe. So, every night he’s had several of the young warriors stand guard, protecting the village’s perimeters until dawn.
On this night Puck is on guard, trying to stay awake as he mans his post. His eyes are just about to drop closed (again) but the sound of hushed voices talking reaches his ears.
Intrigued, Puck rises on his knees, body crouched low to the ground as he moves closer to the strange noises.
Oddly enough, one of the voices sounds very familiar and, as he nears the small clearing, he realizes why.
Santana is sitting on a fallen tree trunk, right next to a young pale-face girl and they are smiling and laughing at one another and speaking in words Puck cannot understand.
His eyes widen even more when the strange girl leans over and kisses Santana right on the mouth.
Puck’s jaw drops, and he backs away against a tree, chest heaving. He can’t make sense of what he’s just witnessed.
Santana in the company of a pale-face.
Santana kissing a pale-face.
Santana kissing a…girl?
It is just all so very strange and Puck is not the sharpest hatchet in the armory so he can’t even begin to comprehend what it means.
--
“Santana,” Doli says, just as her daughter is walking out of the hut. “Where are you going? Chayton is coming to see you.”
It is the next day, and the sun is already too low in the sky for Santana’s liking. She does not want to keep Brittany waiting.
Still, she plasters on a smile for her mother’s sake, turning around. “I will be back shortly, Mother. I am going to see Tina.”
Doli shakes her head, frown deepening as Santana turns to leave again.
The girl is oblivious to the eyes following her every movement. “That is not the way to Tina’s hut,” Hinto observes aloud and Puck nods. “I am sorry to say, Chief, but she is going to see the pale-face.”
--
“You’ve been what?!” Samuel bellows. “I am telling Mother and Father.”
“Don’t,” Brittany pleads, blocking his path. “Please don’t.”
“Brittany, you’ve been gallivanting with Indians. You and Michael, both,” Quinn says. “Do you realize what kind of danger you’ve put us in?”
“They’re not dangerous.”
“Are you mad?! They’re savages!” Samuel barks, flinching back when Michael advances darkly at him.
“Don’t call her that,” Michael warns, voice low. After spending so much time with Tina he’s become fiercely protective. “She’s not a savage.”
Brittany moves between the boys, breaking the glaring contests between them and making Samuel meet her eye. “Samuel,” she starts, eyes pleading. “I’ll make you a deal: Meet one of them.”
Samuel’s eyes go round. “You have gone mad.”
“Sam, please,” Brittany begs. “Meet one of them,” she repeats, “And if you still think they are dangerous, you can tell Father.”
“Brittany,” Michael attempts to protest, not liking this plan at all. He doesn’t quite trust his “brother.”
At all.
Samuel looks at Brittany, takes in the tears forming in her eyes and he sighs, caving. “Fine. I’ll meet with the- your friends, but if I still don’t think they’re safe, I am telling Father.”
“Deal.”
--
“But Father-”
“It is not up for debate. You directly disobeyed me, Santana. And what’s worse is that you put your sister and your friend in danger as well.”
Hinto is furious and he is taking great pains to keep his temper.
Santana is crying and Rachel and Tina wait outside the hut, sharing guilty glances.
Hinto paces, staring down at his daughter, not knowing what to do. She’s never openly defied him before.
What was going on with the girl?
“What do you have to say for yourself?” Hinto demands.
“I…I…” love her.
It’s what she wants to say but the words don’t come out and Hinto angrily stalks away, fed up.
--
“I wonder what’s taking her so long,” Michael whispers, eyes searching the woods.
It’s eerily quiet for the late afternoon and Brittany shrugs, even though she’s wondering the same thing.
She bites her lip anxiously. “I don’t know.”
Samuel snorts. “Maybe her pocket watch’s time is off.”
Brittany’s scathing and brilliant retort - Maybe your pocket watch’s time is off - dies on the tip of her tongue when the brush rustles and a young man emerges, strange ornaments decorating his ear and arms covered in black ink.
“I thought you said it was a girl, Brittany,” Quinn whispers, her breath catching.
“She is,” Brittany maintains, eyeing the boy warily. “Maybe he’s one of her friends.”
Two more men emerge from the woods, grinning but something about their smiles looks less than welcoming.
Samuel rises, alarmed. “They don’t look very friendly.”
A loud shrieking cry pierces the silenced and before they can blink the forest explodes with activity, Indian men of all ages rushing upon them.
--
“It was you.”
Puck blinks, eyes focusing on the finger in his face.
Following the finger he sees an angry Rachel attached to it and an even angrier-looking Tina.
“What?”
Rachel flicks him. “Tina and I did not tell Hinto about Santana and the pale-face and no one else knew so that only leaves you.”
“They are pale-faces, Rachel,” Puck contends, sure he’s right about this.
“You are so stupid,” Rachel sniffs. “You and Hinto. They are just people. People like us. They don’t want to harm us any more than we want to harm them.”
Puck shakes his head, unbelieving. “You are wrong.”
“Then how come we’re not dead? Or hurt?”
“Because…because…”
“Because you are stupid,” Rachel states again, flicking him between the eyebrows.
--
Hinto reacts instantly to the sound of the warning drum, grabbing his quiver and bow before dashing out of the hut.
“What is the trouble, Brother?” he asks, Ashkii, following the rest of the tribesmen to the source of the commotion.
“The pale-faces have entered our territory.”
--
“Brittany,” Duncan gasps, leaning heavily on his two boys. There’s an arrow sticking out of his chest, blood soaking into his cloak. “How much farther?”
Their complex has been attacked by the natives, although Brittany is almost certain that those men aren’t of Santana tribe. Still, she couldn’t be sure which meant that leading everyone into the heart of Santana’s village could be an incredibly idiotic idea.
“Not much farther, Father,” Brittany assures him, trudging on or at least attempting to.
She can’t very well walk through another person, can she?
Quinn gulps, moving closer to her father and Samuel as the group of natives circles around them.
One, much larger than the rest, steps forward but in a flash Mr. Fabray and Samuel have drawn their muskets.
“No!”
--
“Santana!” Tina pants, bursting into their hut startling both Santana and her mother. “Come. Now. It’s Brittany.”
Doli calls after her in vain as the girl streaks through the woods, taking the quickest route to Brittany’s complex.
When they get there, her rapidly beating heart drops down to her toes. Everything is in disarray.
The fields are burning and the house look like a herd of buffalo have trampled through it.
Puck and Rachel stand there, staring at the mess. “What happened?” she asks them, hoping for pleasant news.
“The Pawnee,” Puck responds, a broken arrowhead in the palm of his hand.
“Where’s-” Santana starts but a boom like thunder sounds just then, the noise rumbling from the distance and she takes off like a shot again, dodging trees with ease and nearly a blur as she races toward the sound.
--
Hinto startles when the pale-face girl yells and ducks when the boom echoes immediately after.
“Stay back,” Russell growls, turning his rifle on one savage, then another.
He can’t shoot them all but he is silently vowing to not go down without a fight.
“I’m warning you,” Russell cautions.
“Mr. Fabray,” Brittany starts, attempting to diffuse the situation. “They aren’t trying to hurt us.”
“You foolish girl,” Russell scoffs. “These things have impaled your poor father and you say they aren’t trying to hurt us?”
“These are not the same people,” Brittany implores, willing him to believe her. “At least, I don’t think they are.”
“Brittany!”
--
Hinto’s eyes widen as his daughter pushes through the tribesmen and embraces the girl pale-face, the one who’d just yelled.
“Brittany okay,” Santana murmurs, rubbing her cheek affectionately against smooth skin. “Brittany.”
“What in Heaven’s,” Abigail starts.
“Santana,” Brittany says, pulling back to look at the girl. “My father. He’s hurt.”
With a nod, Santana turns to face Hinto, still gripping Brittany’s hand tightly.
Santana’s known her father her entire life, so she can read him better than most people, but the emotion she sees etched clearly across his face is one she’s never seen on him before.
He’s afraid.
She smiles at him warmly in reassurance. “Father,” she says. “The pale-face is hurt, bad.”
She watches as his eyes flicker to the injured man. Duncan’s breaths are weakening and he’s struggling for air.
“He needs help. Our help. They don’t want to hurt us, Father.”
“Mr. Fabray,” Brittany tries, placing her hand over Samuel’s weapon. “Let them help us. They only want to help.”
“Listen to her, Russell,” Duncan wheezes weakly. “We don’t have very many options, do we? Besides, Brittany has a good heart. How can one go wrong with that?”
“Come on,” Brittany whispers, coaxing Samuel’s finger away from the trigger. “Put them away.”
Russell and Samuel lower their weapons.
Hinto grunts out an order for the tribe to do the same.
--
Two months later…
Hinto stands awkwardly in the item, his arms hanging loosely by his side.
In front of him, Abigail and Judith are watching expectantly, waiting to see what his reaction will be.
“Well, Chief Hinto?” Judith prompts. “What do you think?”
Hinto tugs the material closer to his chest, marveling in its smoothness. Slowly, he leans down to his daughter, mumbling quietly into Santana’s ear.
Santana laughs loudly when he finishes. “Father wants to know what is its name?”
“It’s a shirt,” Abigail informs him and Hinto finally breaks out into a smile.
“A shirt,” he repeats, laughing grandly, his deep chuckles rolling off of the hut walls. He adds something unintelligible and Judith cocks an eyebrow, confused.
“Father likes shirt,” Santana informs them, just as Hinto steps to the hut’s entrance, fist pounding his chest, once. “Hinto! Shirt!” he declares proudly, stepping out and greeting a few of his fellow tribesman.
Judith and Abigail watch him leave, both of their heads cocked at an angle, before they turn back to one another.
“Pants.”
--
Puck shuffles along the ground, fresh from a day of wood harvesting.
Winter is quickly approaching and the process has taken longer than usual what with the lingering threat of war with the coastal tribe.
He plops down underneath a tree, reaching into his leather satchel and pulling out a fistful of ripened berries, munching intently.
Not long after, Samuel comes into view, the boy not used to the treacherous terrain of the forest.
He leaves a good amount of distance between Puck and himself when he sits down, wiping the back of his sweaty neck with a rag.
Puck continues eating, his lips smacking noisily as he chows down on the fruit and Sam looks up, licking his lips and eyes longing.
Puck turns, cradling his food and glaring at the boy before pointedly eating another handful.
When Rachel shows up, Quinn in tow, Puck smiles at her, patting the ground beside him enthusiastically.
Rachel obliges and Quinn goes over to a glowering Samuel, taking hold of his hand. “What’s wrong?”
Samuel’s eyes cut over to Puck before meeting pretty green ones. “I’m hungry.”
“Well don’t pout about it, silly,” Quinn laughs off, tugging on his hand. “Let’s go get you something to eat.”
“He’s got food,” Samuel spits out, darkly staring at Puck. “But he won’t share.”
“Puck’s!” Puck shouts, clutching his satchel tighter.
Quinn shares a pointed look with the other girl and they both nod before Rachel speaks to Puck.
“Puck, share.”
Quinn watches in amusement as the native boy’s eyes widen comically and he shakes his head furiously in objection.
He must not like what Rachel’s telling him one bit.
Rachel smiles, leaning in to whisper something in his ear, and Puck stares straight ahead for a couple more moments before his arm shoots out to the side, holding his open satchel out to Samuel.
Samuel looks at it and gingerly takes the bag away, muttering out a quick ‘Thank you’ and Puck grumbles, crossing his arms over his chest until Rachel leans up to kiss his cheek.
Puck forgets all about the berries.
--
“How’s that Father?” Brittany asks, settling him down into a comfortable position. Well, as comfortable as possible when sitting on a piece of buckskin-covered clay.
“Brittany, I am fine,” Duncan says, shaking off his daughter’s grip. “I’ve told you time and time again. I’m not an invalid.”
“I know. I just worry-”
“I know you do,” Duncan cuts her off gently, holding onto her hand. “I know you worry about me. But, you mustn’t. My recovery is much better than we expected. If anything, I’d be more worried about that native friend of yours and her tendency to climb tall things.”
“Huh?”
Duncan nods upwards and Brittany squints against a bright autumn sun to where Santana is sitting, quietly watching the scene play out below her with a small smile.
“Are you spying on me?” Brittany asks, smiling brightly.
Santana nods, easily swinging down from the tall tree. “Is Brittany’s father okay?” she asks, peering beyond Brittany’s shoulder to the still frail-looking old man.
“I’m fine, Santana,” Duncan informs her, smiling. “You can talk to me directly, you know?”
Santana nods, her cheeks reddening and Brittany giggles, poking at them playfully. “You’re making her blush, Father.”
“I think that’s all you, Dearest,” Duncan states sagely, watching as his daughter’s eyes widen somewhat.
“Um…” Brittany starts, her tongue feeling heavy, especially when Santana - completely oblivious - buries her face into the other girl’s neck affectionately.
“Your mother doesn’t quite understand but I am certain she will come around,” he continues, giving the girl a knowing look. “Well, run along, children. No need to watch the grass growing with me.”
Brittany shakes her head in disbelief, but Santana is glad for the dismissal, pulling Brittany along until they reach the edge of the river.
“Santana…” Brittany starts but the other girl beats her to it, leaning in and pressing her lips against Brittany’s as earnestly as she can.
When she pulls back, Santana’s eyes are clear and her swollen lips are twitching upward into a smile.
“Father says I don’t have to marry Chayton,” Santana says, almost blissfully. “He says I can marry who I love.”
Brittany’s heart falls to the bottom of her stomach. “I don’t want you to marry a boy.”
“I don’t want to marry a boy,” the other girl says, voice clear. “I want to be with you, Brittany. Only you.”
Brittany smiles, gasping a little. “It will be crazy.”
Santana shakes her head, grasping Brittany’s hands. “I don’t care.”
“My mother-”
Santana presses a quick kiss to Brittany’s lips. “Will come around,” she mumbles quietly after she pulls away. “Your father says she will.”
Brittany allows the smile on her face to widen, staring into dark eyes she’s grown so accustomed to, and what she sees there makes what she says next nothing but a formality. “Nayeli, Santana.”
Santana grins, nuzzling her nose against Brittany’s gently before whispering quietly. “I love you, too.”
The Good and The Bad