Disclaimer: I don't own Gleeee.

I started this last week when I unexpectedly began shipping Sam and Santana. So yes, they'll be somewhat together in this. It's mostly about Santana, though, and the aftermath of the Valentine's Day episode.

Anyway, here's my take on how they could've gotten together (basically if tonight's episode didn't happen). Enjoy? Lawlz.

Escape

Santana runs.

She runs past the playground, past the pharmacy, past Lima's sad excuse for a strip mall. She clears the boring fields and farm lands, until she's running by herself on a small, empty highway going nowhere, until she has no place to go except back.

But she doesn't. She keeps running, farther than she has ever run before. The wind is tearing at her skin, numbing it; her knees and ankles are grinding painfully with every smack of the pavement; her lungs are roaring in protest, and her every breath is gasped and strained.

It hurts. Everything hurts.

When she finally stops running she doesn't even notice. For a while she just walks aimlessly, her legs so wobbly beneath her that it hardly makes a difference.

It's nearing dark now. She doesn't recognize the area but she knows how to get home. She just doesn't want to.

It occurs to her that it doesn't matter if she just keeps walking, past all of these sad little podunk towns and ramshackle houses, miles and miles until she finally gets somewhere.

Nobody is waiting for her. Not the Cheerios, not Puck, not even her mother. If she disappears now, it might take days for somebody to notice, and by then she could start fresh. Be somebody else. Be somebody better. Somebody loved.

A strong gust of wind rushes past her, reminds her of the harsh reality of her situation: she's trapped. She's been slowly digging her own grave for years, distancing herself from anyone who had the potential to be faithful to her and hurting the people she loves most, and now that she's trapped at the bottom of it there's nobody to pull her back out.

She hugs her arms to her chest. It's cold. She needs to move, needs to run.

She forces herself to turn around, to face the direction of home, however far away it is. A feeling of dread settles in the pit of her stomach. Tonight she'll sleep in an empty house, and tomorrow she'll walk halls full of people who hate her, and then … and then it will happen all over again, her life is stuck on repeat, she is stuck in the world she spent years creating with no way out.

As she sits at the breakfast table the next morning she wonders why she didn't see it before. How everyone resents her, how nobody truly considers her a friend.

Before last week and Mr. Schuester's stupid Valentine's Day songs she never cared much about what everyone thought of her—she assumed that people were jealous, and it wasn't her fault if they didn't like it.

She thinks that maybe quitting the Cheerios has finally removed the glossy film from her eyes. She has nothing now—she is undefined, and for the first time she is just Santana, standing on her own.

A Cheerio always has friends. That's what other Cheerios are for: companionship, or at least the illusion of it. But Santana realized within a few hours of quitting the team that stripped of her Cheerios status, very few of the people she considered "friends" actually qualified.

She used to have Brittany. But Brittany is distant now—she is always tangled and intertwined with Artie, and seeing them so happy, so carefree, makes Santana's throat ache.

Brittany's happy. Brittany doesn't need her anymore.

And now that's she has quit the Cheerios, nobody else does, either.

She doesn't know where to sit at lunch anymore. The first few days after quitting the Cheerios she ditches school instead of facing the cafeteria, but she knows she can't hide forever.

"Excuse me? What are you doing here?"

Berry. Ugh. Before Santana's butt can so much as touch the seat, the hobbit is already squawking at her.

Santana sits anyway, undeterred. "Sitting. Got a problem?"

Rachel squares her man shoulders in the most indignant and showy way she can manage. "In fact—" she huffs, but Mercedes cuts her off.

"Seriously, Santana, we just want to eat lunch in peace," Mercedes sighs. "Can't you just leave us alone?"

She feels the familiar reflex tugging at her, rising up in her throat like bile. Cut her down! the impulse screams. Put her back in her place!

Santana bites her lip and wriggles in her seat. Her face is hot. She's defensive, insecure, weak. And for an instant she's sure that Mercedes can see it written all over her face. The other girl's eyes soften for a moment, like there might be some compassion behind them.

In that mortifying, exposed moment it feels absolutely necessary—like she's been holding her breath for a minute and her lungs are bursting. Before she can help herself, she says, "Fine, I can find somewhere else to sit, you freak shows."

She watches Mercedes' face harden again, her brow furrow in contempt, and instantly her stomach sinks. She doesn't mean it, she wants to say, but she never will. Instead she scoops up her mostly empty lunch tray and stalks out of the cafeteria, convincing herself she doesn't care, convincing herself that they're jealous and she's better than them even when she feels like scum.

In her bothered state she doesn't realize where she is walking until she slams straight into someone—someone big, big enough to send her lunch tray flying and her salad splayed out in a thousand directions.

"Oh, gosh, I'm sorry."

She recognizes that blundering voice. She cranes her neck upward to meet the eyes of the freakishly tall and annoyingly big-lipped Sam, then scoffs in his face, abandoning the mess and walking away.

There's a tug on her arm. "Hey, wait."

For some reason her eyes are watering, and even though she's definitely not crying, she still doesn't want him to see. She makes a point of not acknowledging him, and maybe that's why she shivers in surprise when she suddenly feels a hand in her hair.

She looks at him, incredulous. He's sheepishly holding a piece of lettuce in his hand.

"It got in your hair," he says. Then he smiles crookedly and offers it to her.

He must think he's charming. He must think he's cute. And he kind of is, and it disgusts her. "Ew," she says, just to watch the smile slide off his face.

It doesn't. God, he's annoying. He just keeps standing there with that goofy, stupid smile and that stupid piece of lettuce.

"Just watch where you're going next time," she snaps.

As she walks away she feels like he might be staring at her from behind. She looks back to scowl at him, to put him in his place, but he's gone, and she's oddly disappointed.

She used to feel like her days ended all too abruptly—that between school, socializing and Cheerios, there was relatively little time for anything else, and before she knew it the day was done.

Now it's the opposite. School seems to drag on for centuries, and she feels every minute of it like it's grating her bones. There's nothing to look forward to, no Cheerios or the competitions and parties and other perks that came with it. There's glee club, of course, but now that she knows everyone hates her, the relatively small appeal of it has been sucked out for good.

She goes to rehearsals anyway. Because even if these people hate her, they are still people, and it's better than being alone in a big house and counting the hours until it's socially acceptable to fall asleep and escape her life for a little while.

Rehearsal ends and for the first time, she waits to see if anybody will say something to her. A friendly bit of gossip, a passing comment about Mr. Schue's vest, even a good-bye.

But nobody does. She stands in the choir room, literally just stands there in the middle of it, watching people go. Trying to make eye contact with somebody. Anybody.

It feels like drowning.

Even Schuester leaves her there. He packs up his dorky little briefcase and slings it over his sweater vest-clad shoulder and shuts the door behind him, leaving her open-mouthed and disbelieving in his wake.