Shelter
Part One
Chapter Fourteen: If I Should Stay

Ships: Brittana with Sam/Brittany, Santofsky, Puck/Brittany, Quinntana friendships. Very minor Quick.
Summary: The only thing worse than being reaped is volunteering for someone you love. Because then they have something to use against you. Brittany and Santana learn that the hard way.
Other: This is a Hunger Games AU. Every chapter will be named after a line from a Glee song with contextual or sometimes more literal relevance to the chapter.
Disclaimer: I don't own Glee or The Hunger Games.

Author's Note: So this chapter is a lot shorter, but I guess that's just how it worked out. Last part of part one.

Santana didn't know how long she lay awake for. Brittany was curled into her side and was snoring softly, the necklace wrapped in her clenched fist. She had been adjusting and readjusting her head, changing the positions of her arms, and kicking her feet softly since her eyes shut. She hadn't been that restless while she was sleeping in a while.

Santana looked down and saw that Brittany's forehead was wrinkled and her eyes were shut tightly as if she were clinging onto her slumber. She softly hushed Brittany and stroked at her hair, hoping to quell what she was sure were nerves for the impending day.

She was as scared as Brittany was. She wanted to stay wrapped in Brittany for a few more minutes or perhaps another lifetime, but she knew that she had something that she needed to do. She gently pried Brittany's arms off of her and slid out of her embrace. She landed on the thickly carpeted floor, on her knees, and gently wrapped the thick blankets around the sleeping girl.

Her eyes traced the deepening lines of Brittany's forehead and the wrinkles in the corners of her eyelids. She hoped that she would sleep better soon, because she wouldn't be getting a good night's sleep in a while. She leaned over the edge of the mattress and pressed a kiss to the Brittany's forehead.

"I'll be back," Santana whispered, her lips still pressed to Brittany.

She left the room, quietly, and was careful to close the door slowly. When the door was closed, she did nothing but close her eyes and listen. She hoped that no one else was awake. The last thing she needed was Dave or Mags coming out of their rooms to walk around or something. When nothing but silence greeted her, Santana quickly made her way down the hall.

"Fuck," Santana muttered. She was halfway down the hall when she realized that she didn't put any shoes on. A part of her tried to justify it in her mind. She probably made less noise padding around in her socks than she would in a pair of boots or heels or even one of her more comfortable pairs of flats. Her logic made sense, but she knew how stupid and sloppy that was.

She stopped in front of the door to Puck's room and turned the door knob. It rotated in her hand easily and she thanked whatever god was out there that Puck could listen to one simple instruction. She slipped through the door easily and closed the door as slowly as she did her own.

"Took you long enough," Puck said, exasperated. He was standing in the center of the room, leaning on one leg. "I kind of need some sleep, you know,"

"I got caught up," Santana defended. "And I doubt you would've slept much, anyways."

"Whatever," Puck scoffed. "So what's up? Need to go over the extremely vague game plan once again?"

Santana walked deeper into the room and sat on the desk across from the bed. She crossed her arms across her chest and looked up at Puck. She was immediately hit with some kind of shitty feeling of guilt.

"Don't even try to plan anything before you step foot in there," Santana snorted. "It will all go to hell. Trust me on that."

"Still," Puck reasoned, throwing his hands up. "I feel like I'm going in there blind."

"You are," Santana snapped back. "Everyone is. All I need you to do is protect Brittany from afar. It doesn't matter to me if you want to be in some ragtag alliance or if you want to do this alone."

"Yeah, I know," Puck said, rubbing his forehead with his hand. "Is that all?"

"No."

Santana dug in her back pocket and pulled out a necklace, like the one she had made for Brittany. The chain was a dull silvery grey, while Brittany's was gold, and instead of the long cylindrical fish shape, the pendant was a jumping grey fish and a gold triton, enclosed in a circle. Quinn had given it to her as a pin, but she knew that Puck wasn't really one to announce things to the world, especially things that were so private and sacred to him, and it was easy to connect the sigil with the Fabray's.

"Here," she thrust her hand out. "Quinn told me to give it to you before we left home. I just made it into a necklace."

She felt him take the necklace from her hand, but tried not to look at him. She finally did, though, when he murmured a mystified 'oh wow'. She was drawn in by his eyes. She never even realized until then that they looked hazel with gold spots speckled across the iris.

"She used to wear this to school sometimes," Puck muttered, studying the tiny fish. "Whenever there were special events going on, she'd wear a blazer instead of her cardigans and she'd wear this on that collar thing."

"Yeah," Santana said, watching Puck. She pointed to the door with her thumb. "Well, I'm gonna go, so-"

"Hang on," Puck said, snapping out of his stupor. He turned on his heel and rifled through his open travel bag that was on his dresser. He pulled out a white envelope and held it out for her. "It's for Quinn."

"I'll make sure it gets to her," Santana said, honestly, and turned around. She walked to the door and put her hand on the door knob before he called out to her again.

"You know, the other day I was thinking," Puck recalled, his eyes still on the tiny sigil. "You say a lot of things. To me, especially about our deal and sometimes about my baby. When you said that you'd make sure I'd see my baby, I thought you meant that two of us would be coming out of the arena."

He looked up at her with a hurt expression and Santana could feel her stomach filling with guilt.

"But then I started thinking about the things you didn't say and suddenly everything made sense."

"I'm not sorry for what I'm doing," Santana started. "But I'm sorry that you-"

"Can you please just go?"

His eyes were screwed shut and it looked like he was wincing. Like it physically pained him to say the words. She hesitated, just for a moment, but in the end, she did.

Santana woke up early the next morning. Well actually, she didn't sleep at all that night, but at the moment when she snapped out of her thoughts and daze, her clock read 7 AM. She had been awake for hours, but strangely not really conscious of anything. She didn't take in Brittany's child-like movements during the night nor the oddly early rising of the sun through her curtain-diffused windows. She had been laying there for hours, staring at the ceiling and thinking.

Brittany wasn't to be downstairs for another two hours. She wrenched her arm out of where it ended up in the night, between their bodies, and brought it up to Brittany's face. She let her fingers linger over the ring of light created by her hair in the soft morning glow streaming through the curtains of her window before dropping them to her own hips.

For the past few weeks, she had been training with Brittany vigorously and consulting with Dave and Mags and having secret midnight meetings with Puck, but she never really absorbed the situation. Even at that moment, she reflected that she was rather calm about everything. She knew that she shouldn't be, but she unexplainably was.

She heard a sudden knock at her door and shot her eyes down to see if Brittany had awoken. The girl was still sleeping soundly. Santana slid off the bed, careful not to move too much and wake her, and answered her door.

Waiting at the door was an Avox, the very same one that had driven her to Will's office that night and the same one that unpacked her luggage from the bullet train, in all his awkwardly tall glory. He was standing behind a cart half his size, with a stack of banana chocolate chip pancakes drenched in syrup and sitting on top on a pristine silver plate. If it was any other day, Santana probably would have smirked and made another comment to the familiar Avox, but instead, she nodded in gratitude and took the plate and cutlery and shut the door in the boy's face.

When she turned around, plate in hand, she was greeted with the sight of Brittany rubbing at her eyelids.

"Hey," Brittany yawned and glanced at the clock.

"Hey," Santana said, contentedly. "Pancakes?"

Brittany looked at the plate, with doubt in her eyes. "I thought breakfast wasn't served today."

"Oh," Santana said, eyes wide. "It's not, but… I just thought you'd want to eat. You should eat. It's going to be a long day and you should eat."

Santana watched Brittany's silent internal argument and inched closer to her until she stood just a foot away from her.

"It's not fair, though," Brittany reasoned. "No one else will get to eat breakfast."

"Britt," Santana sighed. "What exactly is fair about this?"

Brittany nodded, in understanding and took the plate from her. She set it on her blanket-covered lap and began to eat. Santana watched her cut the pancakes into small pieces and pick at them for a while before finally eating. She ate in silence; she didn't speak once or even look at Santana. When she was finished easy, she set the plate on the bedside table and let out a shaky breath.

"I just wanted to say thank you," Brittany mumbled. "For everything. For helping me and training me and everything."

"You don't need to," Santana said, shaking her head. "I wanted to. So much."

"I know but still," Brittany said, wiping her eyes. Santana wasn't sure when she started crying. "Thank you for everything."

There was a thought at the back of her mind that Santana was trying to force out. She tried to ignore it, but she couldn't. It was there and it was growing by the second.

"Why does this sound like a goodbye?" Santana burst out, in confusion.

"Because it is," Brittany laughed through her watery eyes and tight throat. "I'm saying goodbye to you Santana."

"No," Santana shot away from Brittany, walking backwards until she hit the wall. "No, don't- do not say goodbye to me. Don't."

"I don't care if you don't want to hear it, I need to say it." Brittany persisted. She stood up and walked forward until she was directly in front of Santana.

"Just…" Santana protested. "You're coming back. You're coming back to me. Why would you say goodbye if I'm going to see you again?"

"Goodbye for now, then," Brittany clarified. "Goodbye and I'll see you in like two weeks or however long this'll take. Goodbye for now."

"I want to be there. " Santana whispered and swallowed loudly. "I'm going to go down with you and be the last person you see before you go in. You can- I'll say goodbye to you then if you want me to."

"I want you to," Brittany admitted and took in a deep breath. "I'd really like that."

"Okay," Santana said. "You should go and get ready and stuff."

"Yeah," Brittany nodded in agreement, but didn't move. "I should."

"I'll see you when you get off the plane. I'll be in your waiting room, okay?"

"Okay," she replied almost inaudibly. "I'll see you soon."

Santana walked down the long, empty hallway towards the room where Brittany would be entering the arena from. The hallway was completely empty except for the doorway at the end of it and Santana felt dread creeping up from inside of her.

She didn't want to do this. It took her so long to convince herself that she wanted to be here, but truthfully she didn't. She was still trying to tell herself that she shouldn't run all the way back to her room. She knew that Brittany needed her here and that she did want to see Brittany one last time, but she didn't know if she could emotionally take it.

It was suddenly becoming very real that she couldn't control what would happen beyond the point when Brittany would walk into that pod and the platform would rise.

Before she knew it, she was at the door and her open palm was hovering centimetres away from the door knob. She paused, took a deep breath, and gathered the rest of the courage that she had to throw the door open. She probably shouldn't have entered so abruptly and so loud because Brittany jumped up from the table she was sitting on top of.

Santana didn't say anything when she walked toward Brittany and Brittany didn't say anything either. The blonde held out the Tribute Token that Santana had given her with pale, shaking fingers. Santana took it out of her hands and stepped behind Brittany. She clasped the necklace onto her and she lifted her soft blonde hair.

"Remember everything I taught you, okay. Do you know how you're meeting up with Jesse?"

"Yes."

"Be invisible."

"I know."

"Be smart."

"I know."

"Be safe."

"I know."

Brittany dropped her hair, turned around and pressed her lips to Santana's.

Santana held Brittany hips and felt the wet tears slide down Brittany's face when she brought her hands to her face. She pulled away from her and leaned their foreheads together. She whispered words of comfort in her quietest voice because even though they were the only ones in the room, it felt like they were being watched by the world. She pressed their lips together again, quicker and shorter, and wiped the tears from rosy cheeks.

She pressed her lips to her cheek before separating, and, holding her hand, pulled her toward the open glass cylinder. Brittany wiped the last of her tears away and stepped into the chamber. The glass door shut between them.

Santana pressed her hand to the glass and Brittany did the same.

Santana didn't move throughout the entire minute long countdown. When it finally ended, she left the room, feeling as empty as ever before.

That night, Santana was lying in her bed that was suddenly too small. She heard the loud sound of a cannon coming from behind the glass of her window. It sounded again and again and again. She heard the sound of a thirteenth cannon and waited anxiously for the next one, but it didn't come. She heard the buzz of the Capitol quiet for the night as the citizens surely moved their watching parties to the privacy of their own homes.

And finally, when all was quiet, when she could not hear another sound but her own laboured breathing, she cried.

End of Part One.

So that's the end of part one. Hope you liked it. I'll be posting part two under the same story and everything so if you have it on alert, then you're good! I'd love some reviews... What do you think is going to happen in the arena? Particularly with Puck ;)

To Guest:
I don't have any plans to write the flashback of Santana's reaping any time soon, but if I do it will either be at the end of part two or in part three. I've definitely considered it, but I'm not sure exactly how it would go down. I have an idea of it in my head and once I know for sure what I want it to be like, I'll write it! Thanks for your interest :)