It's Kurt's idea to throw a party. "We need some bonding time," he announces to anyone who will listen. "We need to salvage our Misfit Toys-esque sense of kinship."

Which is why Santana receives a mass text from Kurt as she's changing after Cheerios practice on Thursday. "Dear New Directions family/former family," the message reads, "Finn and I would like to invite you to a party at our house this weekend. Parents out of town at a Goodyear Tires exhibition = free reign of the place. Plus it's Daylight Savings Time on Saturday night, which means we'll get to celebrate for an extra hour! Hope to see you there."

"Did Kurt just text you?" Brittany asks Santana as she walks into the locker room.

"Yeah," says Santana, her eyes still on her phone. "He seriously wants to throw a party right now? We would all kill each other."

"I kind of want to go," Brittany says.

"Britt. He's your opponent. He's the enemy. Besides, we're not even in New Directions anymore."

"But I miss them," Brittany says with a shrug. She smiles at Santana. "And I know you do, too. At least a little bit."

And that's how Santana finds herself on the doorstep of the Hummel/Hudson residence on the first Saturday of November. Brittany grins at her as she rings the doorbell.

Blaine answers the door. "Hi, guys!" he says happily. "So glad you could make it."

Brittany hugs him. Santana nods curtly.

Everybody's in the basement. They look around as Blaine leads Brittany and Santana down the stairs. Rachel is blabbing on and on to Mike and Tina about how her artistic impulses are telling her to veer from Ms. Pillsbury's stage directions. Mercedes is watching her with a glare on her face.

"You want a drink, Britt?" Santana asks.

"Yeah. Like beer, maybe?"

Santana scans the room. No one else is drinking yet, but Quinn meets her eyes and they make a silent agreement to start the party. Their years of playing the cool kids are still deeply worn into them.

"Some party," Santana mutters when she and Quinn meet at the drink table.

"I'm just waiting for Puck to get here with the real stuff," Quinn says. When Santana raises her eyebrows, Quinn clarifies: "Vodka. And maybe some whiskey."

"Perfect," says Santana. "In the meantime, I guess we can start with whatever Grawp and Jimmy Neutron put in here."

The beer tastes like Natty or some other shitty beer. Go figure Finn couldn't even spring for Bud Light. But the red Solo cup fits naturally in her hand, and sipping from it gives her something to do, so she holds back her criticisms.

….

After Puck shows up, they ditch the beer and switch to the hard stuff. Santana serves as bartender for everyone – "Don't even think about it, Puckerman, we're going for drunk, not dead," she says when Puck tries to take the lead – and produces some perfectly-mixed vodka-crans and whiskey-Cokes. The glee kids thank her as they take their Solo cups, and she shrugs as if it doesn't make her feel good that they appreciate her.

"Alright, I'm just gonna come out and say it," Puck announces. "This shit is boring. Let's play a game or something."

"Fantastic idea, Noah!" says Rachel, clapping her hands together. "Kurt, do you have Candy Land?"

"No, Rachel, not that kind of game," says Quinn. "A drinking game. How about a movie game? Do you guys have any good movies?"

"Oh!" says Brittany. "Like, Aristocats? – and you take a shot every time there's a cat on the screen?"

Santana smiles to herself as she mixes her own drink. Blaine and Kurt shoot down Brittany's idea and suggest a musical.

"Fuck no, Hummel," Santana says. "I'm gonna call this one. Song instead of movie. Start with 'Roxanne' by The Police. Take a drink every time they say the name 'Roxanne.'"

"But that's basically the entire song," says Tina.

"Good, girl Chang, you're catching on," says Santana.

They play "Roxanne" off of Puck's iPhone. They think it's so funny how many times the name 'Roxanne' is mentioned that they play it a second time. Then they listen to 'Every Breath You Take' and take a drink every time Sting sings a creepy lyric.

Ten minutes of singing and drinking, and Santana's really starting to feel that Jack-and-Coke.

Justin Bieber is next. They have to drink every time he sings 'Baby' in the song 'Baby.' By the end of it, they're all yelling dramatically about how much they miss Sam Evans and his Biebalicious hair. Brittany is next to Santana, singing and jumping and dancing and exaggerating her movements, and she grabs Santana dramatically and sings, "Baby! Baby! Baby! Oooohhhh!" right to her.

Rachel is getting wasted. She mixes another vodka-cran for herself and proclaims it "the best-tasting Robitussin drink ever!" Finn is smiling at her, pulling her against him, and Santana just shakes her head. She meets Quinn's eyes again and mimics barfing. Quinn smiles and shrugs.

Kurt has switched out Puck's iPhone for his own. He's blasting a mix that he made specifically for this party, and it's all LMFAO and Rihanna and Katy Perry and every other horribly-awesome Top 40 hit. Blaine's singing "Last Friday Night" again, and Brittany and Mike start choreographing really funny dance moves for it, and Santana stands back from the group and just watches in admiration. Her vision is getting dark around the edges; the music is getting louder in her ears; she feels the alcohol making her arm muscles slacken.

"I'm drunk," Quinn states when she walks up to Santana.

"Join the fuck-ing club," says Santana.

"Isn't this so different from freshman year," Quinn says, chewing on the end of her straw. "Remember when we were at Cheerios parties all the time. And now we're at glee club parties."

Santana laughs. "It's awful. And yet great."

"Yeah," Quinn says, and Santana senses half-heartedness in her voice.

"You okay, Q?"

"I'm fine," says Quinn. "I just don't care anymore. None of this matters."

Santana's not sure what to say to that, so she takes a big drink of her Jack-and-Coke and feels the whiskey burn down her throat.

"Are you and Brittany officially a thing now?" Quinn asks, glancing sideways at her.

Santana's too tipsy to let the question faze her. She actually appreciates the candidness of it.

"Yeah," Santana says softly. "I mean, you know, we're just us."

"Must be nice," says Quinn. "Having someone to love you."

Santana thinks about it. "It is," she agrees, nodding her head slowly, "but mostly it's just nice being able to love someone. Especially when it's Britt."

Quinn stares at her. "That's deep, Santana," she says quietly. "Kind of makes me hate you."

Santana looks over at her. Quinn takes a huge gulp of her drink and walks away.

….

Artie wants to play Kings. Rachel and Kurt have never heard of it, so Puck hastily explains the rules while Mike shuffles the cards. Brittany and Tina are still dancing in a corner of the basement. Mercedes has to shout at them three times before they come join everyone else.

Brittany hops over to her friends, drinking straw between her teeth and blonde hair all over her face. She drops down next to Santana and kisses her on the cheek, then giggles. "We were doing the 'Physical' dance," she says.

Santana feels a burning heat in her cheeks. She knows the others' eyes are on them, but she forces herself to focus on Brittany. "I saw," she says.

Brittany turns her attention to the circle. "Woooo! Let's play some Kings!"

Tina and Mike draw boring cards: a 2, a 7. But then Puck draws a King and becomes the first Rule-master. "Alright, new rule," he says. "Every sentence you say has to end with '…in Finn's pants.'"

Everyone laughs hysterically, except for Finn, whose eyes go wide. His lips form a comical "O" shape. Even Rachel is laughing. "Uh-oh, Finny!" she shouts, pointing at him.

"Okay, my turn," says Mercedes, "…in Finn's pants."

She draws a 9 and they all have to come up with rhymes for the word "shoe."

"Blue," says Quinn.

"Moo," says Artie.

"Who," says Finn.

"Um…I can't think of anything!" says Rachel. "There isn't anything!"

"…in Finn's pants," says Puck, and they all roar hysterically.

Finn doesn't find this as funny as the rest of them do.

Quinn, Artie, Finn, and Rachel draw boring cards – a 4, a 2, a 5, another 4 – and then it's Brittany's turn. She draws an 8 and has to "pick a date" to match her drinking. "Be my date?" she asks Santana, her eyes dancing. Santana nods and feels her cheeks burning again.

Santana draws a 10 on her turn. She has to create a category. She chooses 90s songs and they go around the circle twice, each of them naming a 90s song, before Finn loses for trying to say "Wonderwall" a second time.

Blaine's next; he draws a Jack.

"What's this one?"

"Never Have I Ever," says Mike. "We all hold up three fingers, you tell us things you've never done, and if we have done one of those things, we have to put a finger down."

"Got it," says Blaine. "Okay. Never have I ever…been on a plane."

Everyone else puts a finger down.

"You brat," says Mercedes. "You know we all went to Nationals last year."

Blaine shrugs innocently. "Okay, second one: never have I ever…smoked weed."

Puck, Santana, and Brittany each put a finger down. To everyone's surprise, Tina and Mike do, too.

"Okay, hold up: Asian Fusion potheads say what?" says Santana.

Tina shrugs. "We tried it this summer when we road-tripped to Louisville. We bought it from some random guy wearing a Zelda t-shirt."

"I feel that," says Brittany.

"Okay, let me think of another one," says Blaine. "Um. Never have I ever…fallen in love with a girl."

Mike, Puck, Artie, and Finn put their fingers down. So does Brittany.

Santana's heart accelerates so fast that it scares her. She freezes, not sure of what to do, and stares at a spot on the floor, trying to sort through years of confusion and denial in a second's time.

"Brittany?" Tina asks. "Who've you…?—oh." Her voice drops off as she glances at Santana.

Santana doesn't move her fingers. Everyone's quiet, including Brittany.

"Um, never have I ever—been stung by a bee!" Blaine shouts.

His voice jolts everyone's attention back to the game. Mike blinks rapidly a few times, trying to refocus on the bee-stinging question; Mercedes shakes her head a little bit. Santana still does not look at anyone.

"Wait, dude, I already fucking lost," says Puck.

"So did I," says Mike. "I knew I shouldn't have smoked. It wasn't even good."

"Sorry to break it to you, man, but it probably wasn't real weed," says Puck. "It was probably, like, clumps of leaves and cat litter."

"Okay, my turn!" says Kurt. He draws a Queen. The game continues on as if nothing awkward has happened, but when Santana finally feels brave enough to raise her eyes from the floor, she sees Quinn frowning at her.

…

Somebody has the idea to make a bonfire. They traipse outside, all twelve of them, and sing drunkenly while Finn and Puck arrange the wood in the fire pit.

At this point, they're all shit-shows. Mercedes can't say two words without roaring with laughter. Kurt keeps touching Blaine's forehead and saying, "You just have the best hair. You just have the best hair ever and I think you should be a J. Crew model." Rachel is so drunk that she's saying suggestive things to Finn when she thinks no one else can hear her. Mike and Tina won't stop making out in the middle of their conversations with other people.

Santana's quiet. She hovers around Brittany like a shadow, and while Brittany doesn't say anything mean, she doesn't say anything nice, either. She just talks with Mercedes and Quinn and sets the whole group laughing when she does a spot-on Sugar Motta impression.

Finn and Puck manage to make the perfect fire. It blazes at the right height, with the right intensity, and emanates warmth to all of them. They stand around it, careful to keep their alcohol far enough away, and sing and talk and laugh.

Santana goes inside to use the bathroom and clear her thoughts. She clutches her head and closes her eyes, hating herself and hoping everything will be better tomorrow. The soap in the bathroom smells so nice, like oatmeal and honey, that she washes her hands twice. She looks at herself in the mirror and wonders, What are you doing?

Go figure Quinn's waiting in the hall when Santana comes out of the bathroom.

"Hi," she says.

"Hey," says Santana. "What are you doing?"

"Just waiting for you to come out of the water closet."

Santana glares at her. "Don't be a bitch."

"Better a bitch than an idiot."

Santana draws her shoulders back. "Whatever it is that you wanna say, Fabray, just fucking say it. I'm tired of dealing with your judgmental bullshit."

"Fine," says Quinn, her voice low and soft. "I'll say it: You're a goddamn idiot. You finally have everything you want, but if you're not careful, you're going to screw it up."

"Don't act like you know me," says Santana. "You don't know what the hell you're talking about."

"Don't I?" Quinn asks. "Don't I know you? The real you? The deep-down version of you, the one that's like me?—scared and lonely?"

Santana pauses.

"Yeah, I thought so," says Quinn. "You and I might have this love-hate thing between us, Santana, but that doesn't mean I don't get you. I've known you for almost four years and you've been in love with Brittany for all of them."

"What's your point, Fabray?"

"I'm a fuck-up," says Quinn. "I'm lonely, and bitter, and rejected, and I feel so desperate all the time. I don't know what's here for me."

Quinn's chest heaves. Santana waits, wanting to hear and not hear at the same time. A rhythmic, booming sound reaches them from outside – Rihanna's "We Found Love" is playing and they can hear their friends' voices rising to meet the music.

"But you…" says Quinn, "…you have something, Santana. You have a chance at something that we both always craved so badly. And I don't mean…captaining the Cheerios or winning prom queen or…any of that bullshit. You're in love. And she loves you back. So I get that loving a girl is hard, I get that you never wanted that for yourself, but you to need to get over it."

Santana stares hard at the floor. She feels tears in her eyes. "I think you're underestimating," she mumbles, "how impossible it is to 'get over it.'"

"I probably am," Quinn concedes. "I have no clue what it feels like to be gay. I don't mean to downplay how hard it is. But in front of these people, Santana? The only people who have ever truly accepted us? Can't you let them in?"

"I don't think they've ever truly accepted me," Santana admits.

"You've never let them," says Quinn.

Santana huffs and looks at the wall. After a moment, she says, "I don't know how to fix this."

"I'm sure you'll find a way. But we should probably go back outside. Everyone's going to think we've been making out in here."

Santana laughs and wipes at her eyes. "I hate you."

"I know," says Quinn, and she smiles just the tiniest bit.

…..

Sure enough, when they rejoin their friends, Puck waggles his eyebrows and slurs, "Heyyoooo, what have you two been doing in there?"

"Shush, Puck," says Quinn. "And change the song."

Puck fiddles with his iPhone for a minute, and then Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark" starts to play through the speakers. There are shouts of pleasant surprise from all of them. They sing the lyrics in unison.

"You can't start a fire!" they shout, pointing at the bonfire, "you can't start a fire without a spark!"

"It's perfect because we just started a fire!" Kurt shouts.

"You're so right!" Blaine yells gleefully.

They all start dancing, even Finn, and Santana forgets every bad thing for a few moments as she sings and dances to the music. She chances a look at Brittany, who is singing her heart out next to her, her hair falling all over her face. Brittany's body is moving perfectly in time to the music. Santana's chest aches.

Brittany looks up at her. Santana holds her eyes. Brittany studies her, assesses her: she takes in Santana's red-rimmed eyes and repentant expression. Brittany's face softens. She starts to sing the lyrics to Santana. Santana sings them back.

Toward the end of the song, Santana breaks from singing the lyrics and mouths, "I'm sorry."

Brittany nods and offers a small smile.

"Dancing in the Dark" is followed by Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours," which makes everyone squeal with delight. They gesticulate wildly at each other and sing "I'm yooouuuurrrrsss!" across the fire.

Brittany throws her arms around Santana's and Mike's shoulders, and soon everyone in New Directions has their arms around each other, and they're all swaying from left to right, bellowing out the words "We're just one big fam-i-ly!" with joy and sincerity. Santana's grinning so big that her cheeks hurt. She knows how kumbaya this shit is, but she loves it. She needs it.

And then Brittany makes Santana's heart soar when she leans down and sings, "I'm yours," directly into her left ear. Santana looks at her in wonder.

The song changes to something else. Santana's paying no attention. She's drunk, she's happy, she's in love. She looks at Brittany and that aching feeling overtakes her – that feeling she gets when Brittany's across the room and Santana just wants to pull her close, hold her, squeeze her, feel her, smell her. That aching feeling overtakes her and she loops her arms around Brittany's waist and burrows her face into the back of Brittany's sweatshirt. She can smell Brittany's laundry detergent mixed with the smell of the bonfire.

"You okay, San?" Brittany asks over her shoulder.

Santana takes hold of Brittany's hands. She pulls them into the front pocket of Brittany's sweatshirt. She settles their hands in there and squeezes Brittany's fingers.

"I should have said I've fallen in love with a girl," Santana mumbles. "Because I'm definitely in love with you."

Brittany blinks a couple of times. "Were you talking to Quinn about it?" she asks softly.

"Yeah. She told me to stop being an idiot."

"You're not an idiot," Brittany says.

"Yes I am," Santana says, and then she rises on her tiptoes and kisses the corner of Brittany's mouth.

She's not sure who noticed it. Part of her is too drunk to care. Another part of her, a part nestled deep down inside of her, knows that Quinn is right: these people won't care. These friends of hers won't care.

Brittany's smile isn't huge, or ecstatic, or thrilled: it's just calm, gentle, content. She has that look in her eyes that makes Santana feel like she's special. Like she's loved.

…

Later, when everyone's too drunk to even stand up anymore, they trot back inside and pass out in various places around Finn and Kurt's house. Kurt and Blaine go to Kurt's bedroom; Finn and Rachel go to Finn's bedroom; Mike and Tina take the family room couch; and Quinn and Mercedes share the guest room bed, while Puck and Artie claim the floor on either side. Santana and Brittany are the last to go to bed. Santana purposely dawdles because she wants some alone time with Brittany.

They sit on the back steps of the house, watching the fire die. It's much colder now that the roaring flames aren't there to warm them and their alcohol blankets are starting to wear off.

"Why do you keep checking your phone?" Brittany asks Santana. "Do you have a secret lover or something? Should I be worried?"

Santana laughs. "Yeah, you know, just some guy I've been seeing on the side."

"You do love those guys," Brittany says.

"Hells yeah I do," Santana says.

Brittany giggles and kisses Santana's temple.

"I'm just checking the time," Santana explains. "I want to watch it turn to 2 a.m. and then jump back to 1."

"It's so cool," Brittany says. "How we get an extra hour like that. Like a little present from God. It's like, if you don't like how you spent your time between one o'clock and two o'clock, you can just, like, redo it."

Santana considers this for a moment. "Britt?" she asks. "If you could redo something, what would it be?"

Brittany thinks. Her eyes squint and her brow furrows. "I'd probably redo some stuff from the spring. Like when I tried to get you to come out on 'Fondue for Two.'"

"You mean you'd try a different way?"

"I mean I wouldn't try to get you to do that at all," Brittany clarifies. "You weren't ready."

Santana absorbs this statement. "Does it bother you?" she asks after a moment. "Me not being ready, I mean."

Brittany smoothes Santana's hair back. "It used to," she confesses, "but then I realized I was just being selfish."

Santana searches Brittany's face, trying to understand.

"It used to bother me that you couldn't admit that what we had was something special, something bigger than just hooking up," Brittany says. "You were so mean about it sometimes. And I think I always knew, deep down, that it was because you were scared, but it still hurt."

Santana bites her lip and looks away.

"San, don't," Brittany says, tugging on her hand. "All that bad stuff is over. I'm just trying to answer your question."

Santana meets her eyes again.

"Anyway, I think I confused you hiding us from yourself with you hiding us from everybody," Brittany explains. "And like, I wanted everything to be out in the open so that it'd all finally be clear to me. But I thought that meant we had to be open with everybody, and we didn't. I shouldn't have pushed you to do that."

"And now?" Santana asks.

"Now you're honest about it," Brittany says, shrugging. "You don't hide us from yourself anymore. So I don't care whether we tell the world or not."

"But, earlier…." Santana says. "When we were playing Never Have I Ever. I thought you were mad that I didn't put a finger down."

"I wasn't mad," Brittany says. "I was sort of…sad…I guess. Mostly because it makes me sad that you feel so scared."

"That's what Quinn was giving me shit about," Santana says. "She told me I was going to screw things up with you."

"No, you could never," Brittany says, knocking their knees together.

"She said I could at least be honest with the glee kids about it," Santana continues.

"Do you think she's right?"

Santana considers this possibility. "Probably," she answers. "But…you know how I feel about the glee kids."

"What, that secretly you really love them but you're afraid they don't love you back?"

Santana stares at her. "How do you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Know me so well. It's creepy."

Brittany laughs. "Is it creepy? I think it's romantic. Clowns are creepy. And so are elves."

Santana grins and kisses her. Brittany kisses back and whispers, "Check your phone."

"Shit, thank you for saying that," Santana says, pressing the Menu button on her phone. It lights up with the time: 1:59.

They watch the screen together, waiting for the numbers to change. Santana presses on the Menu button every few seconds so that the screen will stay lit up.

The time changes: it jumps back to 1:00.

They both let out small gasps of amazement.

"Too cool," Santana says.

"Awesome," Brittany says.

Santana looks at Brittany. "I did kiss you in front of everybody," she says.

"You did," Brittany confirms. "How did it feel?"

Santana frowns. "Not that weird. But still kind of nerve-wracking."

"Well, not that I needed you to prove anything, but I thought it was great. Big step for you, San."

"Yeah," Santana agrees, and she can't stop the huge smile that's spreading across her face.

"Bedtime," Brittany says. She stands up and pulls Santana to her feet.

Santana keeps hold of Brittany's hand as they walk inside and navigate the dark house. They're not sure where to sleep – every comfortable option appears to be taken.

"Maybe we can sleep in their parents' room?" Brittany asks.

"Ugh, gross," Santana whispers. "Absolutely not. Stay here."

Santana walks upstairs and finds the linen closet. She grabs a couple of quilts and the lone extra pillow on the shelf.

"Perfect," Brittany whispers when Santana comes back downstairs. She spreads the first quilt on the ground in a corner of the family room, a few feet away from the couch that Mike and Tina are sharing. Brittany pats the space on the quilt next to her and Santana lies down, pulling the second quilt on top of them.

Brittany wraps an arm around Santana and pulls her in close. The other kids will find them like that in the morning – Brittany spooning Santana, Santana gripping Brittany's hand tightly – but Santana doesn't care. She just wants to feel Brittany's body wrapped around hers; she wants to fall asleep with the mixed scents of fire, Brittany's laundry detergent, and Brittany's shampoo mixing around her; she wants to be cocooned in this extra hour of time with Brittany.

"Night, San," Brittany whispers to her. "Love you."

Santana releases Brittany's hand and rolls over. She hovers above Brittany for a moment, trying to see as many of her features as she can in the darkness, and then leans down and kisses her.

"Night, Britt," Santana says. And she can't help herself: she kisses her one more time. "Love you, too."

….