Summary: Brittany and Santana, in their first Christmas season as girlfriends, help Brittany's little sister prepare for her role in the Christmas pageant. Well, sort of.

Note: I haven't been nine years old (as I assume Brittany's sister is, since she was probably seven in Season 1) in a long time, and I haven't been around nine-year-olds for a long time, so please excuse any inaccuracies.

Note 2: I call Brittany's sister 'Ashley', not just because it was agreed upon for this project, but also because several of my respected colleagues use it, and because it is a homage to Heather Morris' housemate and partner-in-crime, Ashley Lendzion.

Room at the Inn

When Brittany's little sister comes home from school one afternoon and announces that she's going to be part of the Christmas pageant this year, Brittany and Santana are surprised to see her frustrated to the point of tears. "What's wrong?" Brittany asks.

"I really, really wanted to be the angel," Ashley whines. She flops onto the chair across the table from Brittany and Santana. "But Mrs. Harris made me be the innkeeper. I have to be the mean one, who tells Mary and Joseph to go away." She pouts, and an angry tear leaks out of the corner of her eye. Brittany sighs. She reaches across Santana's lap for Santana's purse, digging through it and producing a small packet of Kleenex. Ashley takes the tissue and rubs furiously at her face.

Santana looks up from her English textbook (compliments of the stupid teachers who assign stupid homework over the winter break), arching a delicately penciled eyebrow. "Okay, but…what's so bad about that?" Santana asks.

Ashley gives Santana a pitying, I-can't-believe-you're-in-high-school-if-you're-this-stupid look. "Duh, Tana, I don't wanna play the bad guy. And nobody wanted to switch with me, not even the boys. Kristen came up to me at recess and said I deserved it because I'm mean, and she laughed at me."

Santana's nostrils flare. "That little bit—"

"That's what you get for pushing her into the mud two weeks ago," Brittany says calmly, cutting off Santana's impending tirade. Their parents had gotten a call from the principal's office concerning that event; Santana smiles almost wistfully at the memory of the numerous calls her parents got involving her own misdeeds in primary school.

"But Tana told me to."

Brittany swivels her head to glare at Santana, who holds up her textbook as a shield and shakes her head vigorously.

"Britt, I swear I didn't!"

"Did too!" Ashley accuses.

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"Did not! I just said, 'She should be pushed into a mud puddle,' I didn't mean that you should actually do it!" Santana barks, fully under the heat of Brittany's disapproval by now.

"Santana," Brittany says warningly, and Santana deflates easily. Brittany shakes her head and addresses her sister. "Since we can't go back and change the past – yet – you're going to have to be the innkeeper. Sorry, Ash."

A loud sniff. "Fine, but I don't have to like it. Maybe I just won't do it, so they won't have an innkeeper. They can have no innkeeper for all I care." With a jerk of her head, Ashley slides off her chair and flounces away. Brittany rolls her eyes at her little sister's retreating back, and turns back to her girlfriend, who is trying not to look terribly guilty. "Santana…"

"I swear, Britt. I really didn't mean for her to push the little brat into a mud puddle," Santana mumbles. "Even if that little bitch totally deserved it."

Brittany shakes her head at Santana, but she smiles wistfully. "It's always going to be like this, right? I never saw myself as the strict mom, but I think I'm pretty good at it."

Santana gapes at her for a long moment before her face blooms into a smile, her eyes crinkling and dimples on full display. Brittany, thrilled to see Santana's positive reaction, continues, "And you can be the mom who spoils our kids and always takes their side when I want to discipline them. Okay?"

"Okay, Britt," Santana replies. She looks up at Brittany again and Brittany can't help herself; she leans in quickly and pecks her girlfriend on the nose. Brittany's still getting used to being able to do this; to kiss Santana and hold Santana's hand and have it mean something, like commitment and fate and forever, those sorts of things.

"But first," she says, pulling a stern face and poking one of Santana's dimples, "we have to help Ashley be an innkeeper and make her not hate it."

Santana shrugs. "Can't really blame her. Nobody wants to play some person who refused shelter to a heavily pregnant teenager and her husband, and stuck them in a stable with the cows and sheep and shit. Like, literal shit."

Brittany cocks her head to one side. Santana grew up Catholic, so of course she'd know the story really well; it's just that – "You didn't tell me that part," she says. It makes her think of Quinn; that's probably why. "At least not like that."

"Britt, you know the basic story already," Santana replies, fingering the page of her textbook that she'd been reading. "Remember? You came to watch me when I was in the pageant, when we were eleven; the one where the choir boys were supposed to spell out 'NOEL' with their signboards, but they came out on stage in the wrong order and you wondered who 'LEON' was for the whole night."

"I figured it out. Leon was the kid born in the stable next door." Brittany scoots her chair closer to Santana so that she doesn't have to reach so far when she wants to touch Santana. Like right now; she is stroking Santana's arms and wrists, just under the sleeves of her shirt. "I'm older now and I know that wasn't part of the real story."

Santana smiles at her again – and the way she smiles at Brittany nowadays is exactly the way she makes Brittany feel, like the smartest and prettiest and happiest girl in the world – and Brittany almost forgets the question she was going to ask. She grabs onto it just as it's about to slip her mind entirely, like so many other things do when she's around Santana. "Why couldn't the innkeeper have just given Mary and Joseph his room?"

"Why, Santana?" Ashley asks. They're sitting on the couch, all three of them, as weekday afternoon cartoons frolic across the Pierces' television screen; Santana has her legs in Brittany's lap and Ashley is sitting on the other side of the couch, away from where her older sister and her girlfriend are cuddling. Rory had walked in a couple minutes ago, and upon seeing Santana's leprechaun-repelling glare, had made himself scarce again.

Santana looks over at her. "Like I told Brittany; I don't know why."

Ashley looks thoughtful. Brittany watches her carefully; her little sister only looks like this when she's plotting something. Santana is unaware of this, clearly too busy soaking up her proximity to her girlfriend to pay any attention. Finally, Ashley jumps off the couch and announces that she's going to her room, leaving the two older girls alone with the cartoons.

"What is she planning?" Brittany wonders aloud.

"Huh?" Santana is broken out of her Brittany-induced reverie, and Brittany grins at her. Santana rolls her eyes and tweaks Brittany's nose. "You need to stop distracting me if you want me to pay attention."

"Ashley's plotting something," Brittany says. "I hope there aren't any mud puddles on the stage."

"If she does do something bad, is it going to be my fault again?" Santana asks warily, and Brittany giggles and kisses her hand.

"No. Not this time."

The innkeeper role has four lines. "Who is it?", "There's no room for you here," "Go away," and "If you insist, there's room in my stable, around the back," all of which Ashley has nailed down with an extraordinarily catty tone that she has to have learned from either Santana or Charity (because no one else in the Pierce family sounds like that), and maybe Mrs. Harris hadn't miscast Ashley after all, despite the fact that Santana is still questioning the historical accuracy of a female owning an inn in ancient Palestine, much less one who would turn away a pregnant teenager.

"Maybe the innkeeper thought they couldn't pay. Weren't they poor?" Brittany asks, as Ashley paces back and forth in front of them in full period costume, hamming it up like she's Hamlet (ha) instead of an innkeeper. She would just need a skull and she would be golden.

"Yeah, maybe," Santana says, flipping through Ashley's copy of Mrs. Harris' script. It's not much different from the one she was in, although she played one of the singing angels. She looks back up at Ashley, who is huffing and puffing about this being the stupidest thing ever. It's been several days since the roles were assigned, and tomorrow evening is the pageant.

"Why me?" Ashley grumbles. If she's like this when she's nine, she's going to be a handful when she's a teenager, Santana thinks. Well, the Pierces couldn't get lucky twice; for a teenager, Brittany was pretty easy to deal with. The fact that the Pierces themselves are easy-going people helped with that; it seems inevitable that Ashley is going to grow up to be the only really anal one in the family. It's because of her budding anal-ness that she has also demanded that Brittany and Santana help her prepare for her role despite her constant bellyaching about it. Not that there's much 'preparing' to be done in the first place, so there they are, sitting in the Pierces' living room with Ashley berating them with all of the know-it-all attitude of a nine-year-old, muttering, "Why do people do this every year?"

"You only have three lines, and like, less than a minute of stage time," Santana says. "Why are you still complaining?"

"She gets it from you," Brittany deadpans.

"Um, I'm not related to her. Which is good, because then nobody can accuse me of incest."

"I don't see what bugs have to do with my sister taking after you," Brittany replies calmly. Santana frowns slightly, trying to parse Brittany's words.

"Oh. Incest, Britt, not insects…"

Ashley stomps her foot. "I'm like right here, you guys."

"Okay, look," Santana shrugs her shoulders. "If you really don't want to play the innkeeper that way, then don't. Make something up. Just…nothing too crazy," she amends, seeing the warning look crossing Brittany's face. "I don't want to get in trouble with your sister. Or your parents. Or other people's parents." Life is usually much easier being on good terms with everyone's parents.

Ashley stares at her for a moment, and then sniffs. "Like what should I do, then?"

"Well, if we don't know why the innkeeper couldn't have given Mary and Joseph his own room, why don't you make up a reason?" Brittany suggests. "Personally, I think he should've just given them his room. I mean I think cows and donkeys are awesome, but stables seriously smell. Nobody would've made Quinn give birth in a stable. They would've made room for her."

Things were different back then, Santana wants to say – 'no room' in ancient Palestine probably actually meant 'no room', because it's not like there were fire codes or anything.

"You mean like the stable where Aunt Lori keeps her horses? Because that place smelled so bad even when it was clean." Ashley asks; Aunt Lori being the relative in Santa Fe that the Pierces are visiting this winter holiday.

"Yeah, like that." Both Brittany and Santana's faces cloud over at the mention of the aunt in Santa Fe. Ashley is momentarily excited at the thought seeing the horses, stinky stable or not, so she doesn't notice. Brittany reaches for Santana's hand and Santana tangles their fingers together, trying to banish the thought. They still have a few days before the Pierces leave.

"I wouldn't want to put a pregnant lady in there," Ashley declares. "I mean, if I were the innkeeper."

"Well, for the pageant you are the innkeeper," Brittany reminds her. Ashley blinks slowly, clarity showing itself on her freckled face. When Brittany puts it that way – it's all so succinct and perfectly put, and Santana wonders how anyone can think that her girl is stupid, or easily manipulated.

The Christmas pageant is a fundraising effort for local charities, so the tickets cost money; and no one can say that the local community center is in any way comparable to the Paris Opera House, that's for sure. The seats are mostly occupied by parents and disinterested preteens; Santana's pretty sure she and Brittany are the only people their age in the whole place. Considering it's a Wednesday evening, it's pretty impressive that the seats are as well filled as they are. New Directions couldn't even get this many people last year for their 'alternative to taffy-selling' concert. The Pierces and Santana take their seats; Brittany loops her arm around Santana's and starts folding the program into an origami Lord Tubbington in order to pass the time before the lights dim.

It's not like Santana was planning on paying attention to the performance anyway – but even if she wanted to, it would be very difficult because Brittany is amusing herself by walking the paper Lord Tubbington up Santana's arm during the Annunciation scene. During this time, the Angel Gabriel suffers from a severe bout of stage fright, forgets his lines and starts bawling in the middle of the scene, and Mary has to escort him off the stage before the play can continue.

Brittany's sister makes her grand stage entrance a few scenes later, with the loud slap of her prop door being swung open. "Who is it?" she practically bellows in Joseph's face.

"Please, my wife, she's going to have a baby," Joseph bleats, clearly not expecting the innkeeper to be so forceful. "We need a room."

"There's no room for you here," Ashley recites, with a wide flourish of her arm for effect – it reminds Santana of Rachel Berry's hammy antics on their Glee club's television special. "Go away." Two lines down.

"We have nowhere else to go," Joseph protests. "Please, help us."

Ashley puffed up her chest, "If you insist, there's room in my stable, around the back…but I don't recommend it."

A few people in the audience gasp. Since that last bit wasn't in the script, Joseph and Mary stare at her, unsure of what to do or say next. Ashley continues, "It smells in there. Really bad. So come on in, you can have my room."

Brittany and Santana look at each other; Santana's eyebrows are slightly raised. But Ashley's not done; apparently she's made up a speech behind their backs. "No one should be leaving a pregnant lady outside, or make her sleep with the cows. I won't allow it." Brittany's parents look pretty surprised at their daughter's long-winded diatribe – Brittany is fighting to keep from giggling loudly.

"That's not how the story goes," one of the shepherds hisses from off stage.

Ashley ignores him, directing her attention to Mary. "The Christmas spirit is about giving, and this is supposed to be the first Christmas since you're going to give birth, so I'd better do it right. Come on in."

"We have to go to the stable, though."

"You shouldn't. It smells and you're pregnant."

By now the parental audience, for the most part, is roaring with laughter. "Ashley's a natural comedian," Mr. Pierce comments.

Mrs. Pierce shakes her head. "I think she was being serious, actually."

Now that everyone else is laughing, Brittany doesn't try to hide her giggles anymore, and Santana has to join in because it's not easy to keep a straight face around her girl when she's this amused. They lean into each other as Brittany catches her breath in time for the nativity scene, where it appears that Mary has convinced the innkeeper to let all of the barnyard animals into the inn in order to see the baby.

Mrs. Harris and the other kids are probably the only people not impressed by Ashley's turn as the innkeeper on stage; other than that, Ashley gets a hearty round of applause and quite a few compliments in passing from the other parents as the Pierces and Santana are heading back to the parking lot. The compliments are variations on "Thanks for the reminder of what Christmas is about," and Ashley, struck by a sudden bout of bashfulness, blushes and tries to hide behind her mom at all of the praise.

Brittany and Santana had arrived separately from the others because Ashley had needed to be dropped off early; they walk hand-in-hand to the car, and Brittany fumbles in her purse for her car keys with one hand because she doesn't want her other hand to let go of Santana's. Taking pity on her, Santana reaches over and plucks the keys out of Brittany's purse; Brittany scrunches her nose and Santana almost doesn't spare a glance backward when she pecks Brittany on the cheek.

Once they're in the car, Santana says, "Well, that was interesting."

"It was awesome," Brittany says, turning on the ignition. "We totally helped Ashley rock the play. She was a bigger star than the kid who played the Star."

"The best," Santana agrees, because honestly, without the improvisations, it would've been just another Christmas pageant. But it was a special pageant, and – Santana remembers – this isn't just another Christmas.

"I liked that it reminded people that Christmas is about giving," Brittany says, and Santana recognizes pride when she hears it. Suddenly Santana remembers Ashley's question. Why do people do this every year?

"That's why they do it every year," she says. "To remind people about giving. To tell them that they should have room in their lives for other people. Except it's the same story over and over, so people always forget. Like, Jesus gets born in the stable and all the glitzy stuff with the shepherds and angels happen, and the three kings give Jesus' mom some awesome bling, and so people forget that Jesus was born with the cows because nobody had room for Him. They'd rather think about themselves."

Brittany smiles gently at her.

"Maybe they won't forget this year. Or for all the years that come after."

And Santana wonders – not for the first time – how much it will take, how many roads she has to walk and bridges she has to cross and dreams she has to dream, in order to keep that smile with her forever. If she didn't know for sure then, she knows now: Brittany's the only one she knows for certain she'll always have room for in her heart, all and everything.

They pull out of the parking lot and onto the road; Santana scrolls through Brittany's iPod to find some appropriate music to listen to. The Christmas lights from the houses lining the street dance and flicker across their faces. "Want to go anywhere?" Brittany asks at the nearest stoplight.

Santana looks over at Brittany. Not for the first time, her heart thrums with the knowledge that this year, this winter, is different. Better. She won't forget about giving when she sees what she's been given, and it's all she ever wanted.

"Anywhere's good, as long as it's with you."

Merry Christmas, everyone. May your heart always have room for those who need it.