So this story is the result of an awesome collaboration between Brittana fandom writers' ishIheard2day and LoneGambit. We decided to put this together as our way of interpreting what's going on with canon Brittana right now, and how we feel it will work out for them in the end. Keep in mind that this is based off of Glee picking up in May, our story picks up in October of the same year. We hope you enjoy it! - R and J.

Disclaimer: We do not own Glee or any of their characters unfortunately, but all original characters are of our own creation.

I'm standing in the loft's shared bathroom when I glance in the mirror. Brown eyes make eye contact with brown eyes through the reflection as Rachel steps into the area behind me.

"Can I help you?" It's only natural for me to be the first to arch an eyebrow and break the silence. Rachel remains stoically quiet, which is oddly eerie, not to mention a tad creepy. While still gripping one end of my long dark tresses with one hand I spin around to properly face my smaller than average roommate.

"Going out again Santana?"

"No, I just like dolling myself all up so I can slip under the covers of my 300 count Egyptian cotton sheets and go to sleep," Is my immediate reply, delivered in perfect snark with an exaggerated roll of my eyes, "Of course I'm going out."

Rachel nods, distracted, but manages to ask, "Are you going alone again?"

I let out an long exhale, before I let words follow shortly after, "Maybe, maybe not but I don't need you to babysit. If I do need you or Prancy I'll send you a text, okay?"

"Santana, we're not trying to keep a handle on you, lord knows you're going to do your own thing anyway-"

"Damn right."

"We just want to make sure that in the process, you're okay. You just seem really distant since everything with you and Brittany, and then you and…you know. We just want you to know that we're here if you-"

"Look," I interrupt before Rachel gets anymore carried away, "I know you guys think that something's wrong with me, but I'm fine. Brittany went to MIT, we said goodbye and I'm happy for her. She's a genius and she's finally getting the recognition she deserves. Maybe it's not exactly what I want, but we agreed that we would do this for ourselves, even if it meant we had to do it apart. As for everything else, it didn't work out and I'm dealing with that too."

I pause for a moment, collecting my thoughts and really reflecting on what I've just disclosed. No matter my reservations, conversations like this, concerning Brittany, seem to keep cropping up.

It probably doesn't help that thoughts and words that I had and spoke some five months ago keep haunting me.

I finally have a girlfriend who I don't have to worry about straying for penis.

There are definitely better ways I could have phrased what I really meant. I was excited at the new prospective relationship but nervous because of the potential to be with someone more experienced with women than anyone I'd been with in the past. Someone more experienced than myself.

That, and my insecurities had gotten the best of me because I was angry at not being able to be with Brittany but still happy that I'd found someone I liked and that I thought would maybe take some of that anger away. And she did, for a little while until I realized that we had our sights on different things in the end. But now, I'm still fighting through this task of moving on and trying to be happy.

And I still feel so guilty about everything. I still feel like Brittany and I never really got the closure, if that's what we're destined to get, that we deserve.

So one of the few things I've found that keeps my mind off of thoughts of her, and of us (what our future could have been and what our present should be like) are nights spent out in New York City. Nights out where I go dancing and drinking with friends. It's something that always worked in the past, and so far it's working just fine now.

It doesn't make anything better, but it's certainly not making anything worse.

With a sigh, I heft my shoulders and flicker a despondent gaze back in Rachel's direction before turning back around to resume my primping, "So…I'm fine, and I'm going to be fine tonight if I go out and have a few drinks."

I don't need to see Rachel nod to know that she does, and I wait until she turns around and pads back out into our shared living space before I return to my primping.

Nothing seems easy anymore, but I still have to try to get on with my life the best way that I can.

###############

Rachel is sitting on the sofa, feet propped up delicately on their distressed barnwood coffee table, when Santana strides from the bathroom some fifteen minutes later. She's clad in a sinfully short black dress that does nothing to hide her ample cleavage (as if that's ever the point of her dresses) and is just short and curve hugging enough it leaves nothing to the imagination.

She may not be the most forwardly tuned in to relationships, her own having been full of heartbreak and hurt more often than not, but Rachel knows one thing for sure: Santana reverting to her old ways of partying and trying to forget are not helping her at all.

It's almost the end of October now. Rachel has spent the last five months watching Santana try to 'move on' from Brittany. She's watched her friend develop intense feelings for a girl, Dani who they worked with, within a week of meeting her only to end up not feeling the same a couple months later. All that did was reinforce Santana's fear of being single and an 'out' lady-lover in the big city.

She's watched as Santana fluctuated between several different jobs, claiming she left each one because they weren't enough for her hotness, and bumble her way through countless conversations with pretty women. It's a wonder that Santana has managed to actually make friends with a few of these women, even if it seems as though the potential for dating them has fallen through.

None of what Santana's doing is going to help her in the long run. But if there's one problem bigger for Rachel than trying to understand how other people don't appreciate the beauty and artistic value of Showtunes, it's trying to understand Santana Lopez.

In fact, more often than not she and Kurt are at a complete loss as to how they can help their friend.

"Don't wait up Berry." Santana calls as she grabs her clutch and sorry excuse for a jacket and slips out the door.

Rachel shakes her head as the door closes behind Santana, before a thought enters her mind. She bites her lip in consideration as she picks up her phone and scrolls through the first few contacts until she reaches the name that belongs to someone that she's never really talked to beyond a few words. Someone that Rachel herself surely does not understand but who knows Santana like Rachel knows the intricate workings of a Barbara production.

She knows she shouldn't meddle, and that both Kurt and Santana will be furious if she does, but then again she wouldn't be Rachel Berry if she didn't try to do something. With a resolute nod, she thumbs the name and presses 'Call'.

"Hey, it's Rachel." She says into the phone when the other person picks up on the third ring, "Look, are you available to come around anytime soon…it's Santana."

###############

"Thank God for tequila!" I shout as I throw my fist in the air and slam the shot glass back down on the bar. It's my fourth in the last hour or so and I must say it's certainly doing its charm for me.

"I think you mean, thank you Mexico for figuring out how to turn a plant into alcohol!" A voice filters into my consciousness and I glance to my right to gather a woman with long wavy and flaming auburn locks, high cheekbones, and alluringly fascinating grey blue eyes. She quirks her lips in her signature half-smirk and sends me a wink.

I immediately roll my eyes, "Way to get technical about the whole thing Bevin."

Bevin Delaney. Fellow lady lover and said auburn haired, unique grey blue eyes stunningly attractive woman sitting next to me just rolls her eyes. It's something she's very good at doing.

Bevin and I met a little over four months ago, right around the time that things in my last relationship really started to get rocky. Dani had been such a different person than anyone I'd ever been with before. She was comfortable and very pretty and a way for me to experience something new and different for a while. Dani wasn't a bad person but in the end she just wasn't the right person for me. Her dreams and ambitions were sometimes bigger than my own and in the end we just wanted different things.

I met Bevin one night when I was waiting for Dani to meet for dinner. Dani wasn't able to make it because of some gig she got last minute which was good for her, but I hated being stood up. And that wasn't the first time. Bevin had seen me fuming, she claims, by myself at the table and had come over to offer her company.

What had started out as casual flirting eventually morphed into some kind of strange friendship between us. When things fully ended with Dani not long after that night, Bevin was actually the first person I talked to about it. Things seem easier with her sometimes.

We've been pretty close friends ever since then. And most nights, including this one, we tend to go out and have a good time, as long as we've got each other we seem to decently survive until the next day.

At the very least, she keeps things entertaining.

My thoughts are interrupted by a shot being placed in front of me. I give the bartender a questioning look. He inclines his head down the bar, "Compliments of her" he informs me before going back to his duties.

My eyes meander down the bar and suddenly lock on those of very intense hazel, hidden behind a shroud of blonde hair.

"Wow, she's pretty. Maybe I should buy her a drink too." I mumble, picking up my glass and giving the generous woman a subtle incline of my head. I hear Bevin snort from somewhere next to me and turn to find her rolling up the sleeves of her plaid shirt, one blue jean clad leg swung over the other displaying her heeled feet.

"What?"

"Nothing, it's just you seriously don't know how to pick up a woman, like at all."

"Because I'm suggesting buying her a drink? That's not a bad thing." I counter, frustration getting the best of me because Bevin never ceases with her teasing.

"Yeah, but you're supposed to go talk to her. If you send her a drink that doesn't really get you anywhere, except maybe tells her that you want to get her drunk." Bevin explains, but I remain lost.

"But she bought me a drink, and it'd be a way to thank her."

She shakes her head, "The way to thank her would be to go over there and whisper something dirty in her ear before taking her back to your loft and showing her a good time, but since we know you're incapable of stringing together any amount of words to actually create a coherent and seductive sentence when faced with the task of doing so to a 'pretty woman', yeah sure buy her a drink." Bevin finishes with a smirk.

"You are by far the worst wing-woman ever." I scoff making sure to prod Bevin hard in the ribs.

She feigns a wince but smiles back, that playful glint in her eyes, "Or maybe I don't think any of these women are good enough for you because you've already met that person, and she's sitting right in front of you."

Her tone is teasing, but my breath still catches in my throat.

It's not as though Bevin hasn't essentially announced to the world her attraction to me, and I'd be hard pressed to deny the appreciation I garner for her in return.

She's stunning, in the most simple but unexplainable ways. She's funny, she's intelligent, and similar to myself she's not afraid to go after what she really wants. She knows her own worth and the way she displays that is all kinds of incredible. We get along well, and everything would be perfect if it wasn't for one tiny little detail.

No matter what, she's still not her. She's not Brittany. And no one, anywhere, has ever gotten me the way that Brittany so effortlessly always has.

Bevin must see the hesitant flash in my eyes because she pats my thigh again, "Let me guess, I'm great but I'm not the one and only Brittany Pierce."

I frown, I hate when this part of the conversation comes up. It always takes the friendship in the worst direction because I either end up going the most drastic way in either direction. On one hand I might overcompensate the way I still feel about Brittany by lashing out at all the little things I may have questioned in our relationship.

Like in the case of Dani. When she spoke of me needing someone whom was 100 percent only into women, it highlighted my biggest fear that in the end Brittany wasn't just attracted to women and thus there were many more options in the world for her to choose from should she decide that I wasn't good enough. I never really thought Brittany was that kind of person, but Dani's words brought back the insecurities I'd always faced when Brittany had stayed with Artie, and then Sam instead of me.

Granted, when I look back at both of those situations now, her choices make a lot more sense to me because in the end Brittany didn't do it to hurt me, she did it to keep us both from harsher heartache. With Artie, it was the catalyst that sparked me to finally admit my feelings for her and come to terms with my sexuality. With Sam, it was a way for Brittany to know that we could be okay without each other, or that we'd have to be, if only for a little while until it was the right time for us to be together again.

Brittany always was a genius, and it was her encouragement that got me to be where I finally truly belonged, in a city that could actually cater to my hopes and dreams and let me live the life I was always born to live.

Before I knew what my future could hold I had met, befriended, and eventually fallen in love with the most amazing girl in the world. And despite what I told myself, and the many ways things had been complicated between us, the fact remained that I was here in New York and she was a state away.

"Wow, I really did lose you. Did all that gold juice go to your head baby Lezpez?"

My eyes slant back in Bevin's direction, an angry fire smoldering just under the surface. If there's one thing she knows I hate's being called, it's Lezpez.

"Ahh there, see? I have re-obtained your attention. Now can I talk a little bit?" She asks with a playful smirk on her face. My eyebrows furrow for a second before I bite my tongue and nod my head. I figure, I'm here and I'm at least drinking, I might as well listen to what Bevin has to say.

"Okay so, you've told me about Brittany before; blonde, blue eyes, long legs, and sexy smile. Obviously she's beautiful." Bevin starts her eyes glancing my way for a moment as if to check that she's on the right track, I nod skeptically but so far it's not inaccurate information. "She's adorably quirky if I remember correctly."

"She's not stupid."

"Wow ease up there, tiger. I never said that word. If I remember correctly, you said she's quirky and vastly intelligent. Some would say that perhaps she has an innocent and adolescent quality, but those are just the people that don't truly understand her because in reality she can be quite snarky, sarcastic, deceptive and incredibly manipulative if she wants to be. Except for, of course, to you for the most part."

I nod, "Secret genius."

Bevin's eyes roll playfully, "Yeah, yeah Pocahontas, so you've said."

"Hey!" I scoff. "That's incredibly racist!"

"Says the girl who constantly refers to me as Princess Merida or in your own always elegant words 'that redheaded girl from that Disney movie'?" Bevin levels an arched eyebrow at me that could rival the very best of a pissed off Quinn Fabray. "Which by the way I'm Irish and that movie's based in Scotland."

"Okay I get it, just get on with your analysis or whatever."

"So in other words, Brittany is an amazing individual, but she has her flaws."

"I've never claimed that she didn't."

"Will you stop interrupting and just listen. Geeze woman, I swear." My eyes narrow at Bevin for an instant but I again concede to her wishes. She thanks me with a silent nod of her head, "You've known each other for a long time, you've done practically everything together, and sometime in high school you realized that you'd fallen in love with her."

I nod because those are more or less the most basic facts of my and Brittany's evolution from friendship to romance to that weird stage in between that we are currently lingering in at present.

"So the biggest issue that you and Brittany seem to keep running into is your unconditional availability to each other."

My eyes squint at the redhead's words, mostly because what? Maybe I haven't had enough to drink yet. I turn my glance towards the bartender and order another shot, throwing it back before I address my friend.

"Say what?"

She merely laughs, "When you were in high school the biggest obstacle came in the form of you denying your sexuality."

"Right, we've been over this." I nod.

"Yeah and I'm painting you the big picture which means I'll go over it again if I please capiche?"

I shrug and order a tequila sunrise to give me something to sip on.

"But once you got over that things were good?"

She knows this already, as I've discussed it many times before, but I humor her anyways, "That's right. We were finally dating, together, happy."

"And then the whole graduation debacle occurred."

I feel myself getting a little angered at that memory as it returns to my slightly hazy consciousness. I was never mad at Brittany for that. I was upset that she'd taken so long to tell me until it was too late for me to try to help her in any way, and I was mad at the fact that it seemed like utter bullshit considering Brittany is by far one of the smartest people I know.

But, I was never mad at her.

I was mad at the situation, faced with having to potentially leave the happiness that I'd had for the last year with Brittany behind. I was faced with having to pop our perfect bubble and see if we could live in the real world as a couple.

As it turns out, that was our second biggest obstacle and the one that eventually tore our happiness apart.

"So you went to college and she stayed behind." Bevin continues to narrate. "A few months later you find it increasingly hard to actually be away from her. I mean not only was she your girlfriend, but she was your best friend and you missed that. You started noticing other people noticing you, and even if it wasn't Brittany, there was a sense of attention there that you had been missing and still craved."

This is where it starts to get a little fuzzy for me. I admit that when I was in Louisville it was overwhelming and sometimes it felt like there'd never be a chance for me to actually do what I was dreaming about doing. I'd gone to school there because I'd gotten in on a scholarship, a scholarship that Brittany had essentially made happen. Loving Brittany as much as I do, the last thing I wanted was for her to think I hadn't appreciated what she'd done for me.

In the end though, Kentucky wasn't for me.

If Lima hadn't ever been for me, then Kentucky certainly wasn't, and what's more I missed Brittany more than I ever had before. There was the homesick type missing, but it was mostly the thought that we should have been in the same place at the same time but we weren't. And I didn't realize how much it had hurt Brittany until it was probably too late.

"So you go back to Lema-"

I shake my head realizing Bevin is still talking, "Lima." I correct, not that it really matters.

She nods, "Right, that place. Anyway you go back there to try to reconnect with Brittany because you were a busy college girl and didn't have as much time to devote to your girlfriend, whom you loved very much, when away. Eventually one thing led to another and you got it in your head that she wasn't happy."

"She wasn't happy! She yelled at me for leaving her behind." I interrupt.

"Yeah, but she's the one that told you to go!" Bevin counters, and I know she's right. I know Brittany never meant what she said, ultimately she was just as sad and lonely without me, and she lashed out because she didn't know what else to do. She didn't know that it was okay to fight for us, and apparently neither did I.

"So you go and do this really genius thing and tell her you love her, sing her a freaking love song by the queen of love songs and their accompanying break up companions, and tell her that you two should do the mature thing. Which, might I add, included an 'unofficial break up'?" Bevin slants her eyes to me with a look that says 'you're an idiot'.

"Then for some strange reason once you've broken up you seem to have more time to spend in Lima and even though Brittany hints more than once that she still wants to be with you, you deny her in favor of, again, doing the 'mature' thing?"

I'll admit, that's still one part of my life that I don't fully understand, like it was written by a really bad scriptwriter who didn't understand anything about continuity, correlation, and the basics of a real and happy relationship.

"I know that was a mistake, but it wouldn't have changed the fact that Brittany was still stuck in Lima and I eventually had to go back to somewhere else."

"Right, so you left again and in that time she ended up befriending someone who she also eventually started dating."

I cringe at that reminder, "Can we please skip this part?"

"Yeah we can skip most of it, but I do want to point out the basics."

I shrug because there could be worse things. Like actually having to view it happen again and again and again on a television screen. I shutter at that thought.

"When you eventually found out about this shod of a relationship, as I still recall you calling it?"

"That's accurate."

"You flew back into Lima in an attempt to sweep Brittany off her feet, only to be turned down by her and sent on your merry way to New York where you in turn spent about a month or so doing your thing until Brittany needed you again. Only this time when you went back you discovered that the Brittany you had missed so much before, the one you loved so dearly, was acting differently because, as it turns out, she was conflicted about a very big decision in her life."

"Right, she got accepted to MIT. A place where notoriously smart people go, and she had at first been really unsure of herself but eventually she realized it was where she deserved to go. It's where she needed to go." I add, trying my best to explain my side of the story when I'm still not even sure what the hell happened.

Bevin nods, her face a mask of understanding, "So you helped her move, and then you came back to New York to try and move on with your own life and stop trying to worry so much about the one you wanted with Brittany."

"It's not like I wanted to just help her move and then leave her again, but it's not fair to either of us to keep dragging this along. Brittany was on to something when she said I needed to be in New York. We both need to be in a place that can cater to our needs and desires, and unfortunately that place isn't the same place for both of us at the moment." My thoughts are shifting every which way in my head, and I don't know if it's the alcohol, or the reality of once again reliving this journey, that has my head pounding.

"Right so you sever ties with her and find your happiness here."

"You make it sound like I just forgot about her. That's obvious I haven't, and it's not that simple to just sweep all of our history under the rug. I still love her, and I know I always will. I don't just want to throw all of those memories to the side, I don't want to just forget about her but I don't know what else to do at this point."

"I never said you needed to do that." Bevin explains, "The point of severing ties is for your own good, it gives you the chance to be you without the influence or worry or expectations of anyone else. Breaking up, moving on and letting go doesn't mean you forget. It means you remember what was best about it, learn to really love yourself again, and someday you can use those memories and make something even better with someone, whether it's that same person or not ultimately comes down to how you feel when you reach that point and can make a rational decision without thoughts of the past clouding your judgment."

Once again, Bevin baffles me with her expansive inner knowledge of things I could only ever hope to get a handle on someday. She's got a point, but now I'm exhausted from thinking and really starting to feel the alcohol.

"Okay Ms. Love Doctor you make a fair observation but I think I'm too drunk to fully grasp it." I state, shifting off the bar stool and taking a step towards her, "Now could you help me get home so I can pass out and go to sleep."

The corner of Bevin's lip quirks and she rolls her eyes, "Fine boozy, let's get you home before you make an absurd fool of yourself and fall all over me in your drunken state. You're game is lacking enough when you're sober, I can't even begin to imagine the things you'd say whilst drunk."

"I have no game?" I retort incredulously, I so have game. "I'm not the one still using the word whilst." Bevin throws my arm over her shoulder as she wraps her own around my waist and steadies me. I'm ever grateful for her friendship in this moment as keeps me standing upright and still manages to turn around and slap some money on the bar to pay our tab.

"Whatever, I've totally heard you use that word too. Come on Lopez, let's get you back. It's late enough, maybe I'll just crash at your place because I don't feel like going home."

"Whatever Bev, just another excuse for you to try to get me in bed." Bevin grins at my retort, her head thrown back in genuine laughter. She pokes me in the side with her free hand and I squirm.

"Oh Santana, you still have so much to learn young apprentice."

I'll be the first to admit that I don't really remember much of what happens after that.

###############

There's a loud thudding noise that abruptly wakes me up. I shoot up in bed only to groan at the throbbing pain that surges through my head at the action. There's a grumble that comes from someone under the covers next to me and I spot a tress of auburn hair peeking out by the pillow.

"Lay off it already." Bevin mumbles from her stupor, shifting a little in the bed and allowing the covers to fall away from her body a little. She's still in her tank top from last night and what would appear to be a pair of my sleep shorts.

Not everything comes back to me but I remember that once Bevin finally got me back to the loft she helped me change into sleep clothes and then mentioned she was staying too because she was too tired and too lazy to go home. I didn't argue. I'm fairly certain I was already passed out by then.

The thudding sounds again from the front door and I groan at my misfortune. Of course Rachel and Kurt would not be available to answer the door, this day of all days. I stumble from the bed and shuffle slowly in the direction to the door, cursing myself for once again drinking more than I should have but at the same time thanking the fact that Bevin got me back safely.

My eyes are half-lidded behind my glasses, my brain is groggy, and I can literally feel the way one side of my hair is twisted into a probably very unattractive bird's nest when I get to the door and swing it open exposing the person in the hall to the sight of me.

I have to blink a couple times to get my eyes to focus, to be sure that the sight before me isn't a figment of my imagination. My mouth gaps open slightly when a bright smile stretches across the owner's face and I'm forced to recognize that what I see is real, before she speaks.

"Hi." Her voice sends tingles down my spine and thoughts of last night replay in my mind. I glance over my shoulder to see that I am still the sole person awake at this time before I turn back and lock eyes with a vibrant cerulean blue. I swallow in effort to not have my voice sound like a chain smoker's before I finally speak aloud.

"Brittany."

This won't be a super long story, about 6 or 7 chapters probably, just so you are all aware! Since both J and R are each working on several other separate projects, it might not get updated as quickly as our other stories, but if you let us know that you like it and are really interested in it we will definitely try to get updates out quicker! Thanks everyone!

The title of the story comes from the Passenger song of the same name (which we also do not own.)