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When Keilani had been approached by Brittany to hang out after school that day, she wasn't entirely sure what to expect. With Brittany, it was always hard to predict what she was going to do next, but Keilani always loved it and went along with it nonetheless.

"Hello America, and welcome to today's episode of Fondue for Two." Brittany gestured to the two girls sitting across from her. "I'm Brittany S. Pierce, and today I have two very special guests with me...Quinn Fabray and Keilani Cabral."

Keilani grinned and waved to the camera as Quinn spat out some of the fondue-covered bread onto her napkin. "This tastes like how the inside of Puck's room smells," She hissed, staring down at the steaming fondue pot in horror.

"Alright, so let's get started," Brittany announced. "Quinn, how has your life changed since you got in that car accident on the way to Rachel and Finn's inevitable failure of a wedding?"

"Uhm...it's been a lot to adjust to," Quinn admitted awkwardly. "All I have to say is that I think I'll be able to start dancing again by Nationals, and I've definitely learnt my lesson about texting and driving."

"Don't text and drive...use protection...when will you start actually following the PSAs?" Brittany questioned aloud. "You should stop learning lessons the hard way." She then turned to look directly in the camera and seriously at the camera. "Kids, don't end up like Quinn Fabray."

"Oh my goodness, is that Lord Tubbington?" Keilani gasped excitedly as she caught sight of Brittany's famous cat, partly because she had always loved any chance to interact with Lord Tubbington, but also because she could see Quinn was starting to get a little bit uncomfortable.

Brittany nodded and beamed proudly as she pulled the oversized cat up onto her lap. "It's been over a week since he's done any ecstasy," She told the camera. "I think he's finally starting to kick his addiction."

After carefully placing Lord Tubbington down on her bed, Brittany clapped her hands together and turned her attention to a certain girl, who had absolutely no idea what Brittany had planned for her. "Now, let's get down into the real hot dish. Keilani, please admit to my viewing audience that you're still in love with Sam Evans."

Keilani choked on the cheese fondue. "Wait, hold on, Britt–"

"I knew it!" Brittany grinned and winked to the camera, apparently not noticing Keilani continuing to cough violently beside her.

"Hey, Brittany, maybe we can keep talking about my car accident," Quinn suggested as she clapped Keilani on the back and grabbed her water bottle from her backpack.

Brittany, however, was insistent on getting an answer. She responded by pulling a large poster board that Keilani hadn't noticed hiding under her bed and began to point at it. "The official timeline that the Glee club created says you started liking him around Sectionals last year, but Santana and I think it was earlier."

"When did you have time to make this?" Keilani asked, partly humiliated that this was being shown on Brittany's internet talk show and also shocked that Brittany had created such an elaborate timeline of her and Sam's relationship.

Brittany ignored her question. "Santana and I think you've had a crush him since before he joined Glee club in duets week. What we can't figure out is when Sam started liking you."

"Where did you get all these pictures–"

"Tina and Mike think it was at Rachel's party where you two got wasted and you told him about your feelings, but Santana think he's been in love since before Christmas last year. It's caused a lot of debate within the Glee club."

"You guys have debated about this?"

Brittany nodded seriously. "Please give America what it wants and finally tell Sam that you're in love with him."

While Brittany was happily rambling about some McKinley gossip, Quinn was now attempting to listen along and attempt to eat the fondue, the situation becoming so awkward for her that she didn't entirely know what else to do. Meanwhile, Keilani hid her face in her hands, fully ready to burst into tears as she thought about the interview airing and having to face Sam tomorrow.

"Well, I think that's all we have time for today. Thank you so much for tuning into Fondue for Two. Next time we'll be interviewing special guest Sugar Motta, and we'll finally get answers as to whether her dad's really in the mafia or not."

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The next day came much faster than Keilani wanted, and Mercedes and Kurt had to practically drag a reluctant Keilani to the choir room.

"You can't avoid him forever!" Kurt exclaimed as Keilani attempted to dig her heels into the hall floor.

"I can and I will!"

"Aren't you performing that duet with Santana today?" Mercedes asked as she attempted to tug Keilani away from her locker.

Keilani faked a cough and tightened her grip on the door of her locker. "Lost my voice," she said in a pretend raspy voice. "Can't sing. Need to go home."

The pair exchanged a look before they both rolled their eyes and each grabbed Keilani by the arm. "You're lucky Santana isn't here right now," Kurt pointed out as they dragged a protesting Keilani to the choir room. "She would not be as nice as we are right now."

The thought of what Santana might do if she didn't show up to Glee club that day finally convinced Keilani to willingly go with them to the choir room and stop fighting back.

"I don't even know why you're being so crazy about this," Mercedes told her. "We all know he likes you too."

"You don't know that!"

Kurt had to fight back the urge to slap some sense into her. "You're joking, right?"

As Keilani began to shake her head, both Kurt and Mercedes began to debate just shoving her and Sam in a closet and locking it until they admitted their feelings. "It's...strange," Keilani eventually admitted with a sad sigh. "I feel like he just sees me as a friend, but there's these little moments that make me think otherwise. I really want to think you're right. It's just...don't you think that if Sam actually liked me, he would've said something by now?"

Keilani walked a little bit ahead of the pair, who were now having a whispered conversation about whether to go through with this closet plan. When she got to the choir room, Keilani was relieved to discover that it seemed like Sam hadn't watched Fondue for Two at all. He waved happily at Keilani when he saw her enter the room, but seemed more focused on cracking jokes with Mike and Joe.

What Keilani didn't realize was that Finn had rushed into Sam's room the night, shoved his laptop into Sam's lap, and forced him to watch Fondue for Two. But Sam didn't want to Keilani know just yet that he had seen the episode. Not before he figured out what exactly to do with this information.

That became increasingly hard when he caught sight of Keilani that day, and his heart seemed to do summersaults in his chest. Sam was almost thankful when Mr. Shue walked in the room, as it meant that he had a distraction from thinking about the Fondue for Two episode for just a brief moment."

"Alright, class!" Mr. Shue began, clapping his hands to get the room's attention. "From what I understand, Santana's got something she'd like to perform for Whitney week."

Santana winked at Keilani from across the choir room and gestured for her to stand up and come to the front of the room with her. "Actually," She corrected. "It's me and Keilani who want to perform."

so emotional | performed by santana and keilani

Keilani and Santana's performance earned loud cheers and praise from everyone in the room. While Santana was used to this sort of attention and thrived in it, it still made Keilani a little self-conscious to see so many people paying attention to her, but she still beamed excitedly nonetheless.

When the bell rang to signify the end of class, Mr. Shue made eye contact with Keilani and asked, "Hey, Keilani, can I talk with you for just a moment in my office?"

Although she was a little confused on he wanted to talk to her, Keilani walked into Mr. Shue's office. She hadn't spoken to him individually since the day she quit for the Trouble Tones, and Keilani had just figured by the point he never intended to talk about what happened that day.

Shockingly, Keilani was wrong.

"I realized I never apologized for what I said that day you quit the New Directions," Mr. Shue told her, and Keilani's mouth almost dropped in surprise. "I was completely wrong for saying that. You've proven time and time again that you're more than capable of leading this group, and I guess I've just been a little too blind to see that."

Still surprised over the fact he had even apologized, it took Keilani a few seconds to respond. "I really appreciate the apology, Mr. Shue. Thank you," Keilani said with a soft, genuine smile. "Is there anything else you want to talk to me about?"

Mr. Shue shook his head and sent her a smile as he said goodbye, which Keilani returned, still hesitant over trusting the teacher again but glad he had apologized for those hurtful words. Keilani left Mr. Shue's office, still reeling in surprise and wondering if the next few days could get even stranger from what they had been already.

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Apparently, things could get weirder.

When Sam had come up to Keilani after English class, asking her to come to the auditorium with him, Keilani was a little scared and confused to see what he wanted. Her confusion only seemed to grow when the pair got there, and after putting his guitar on, Sam grabbed the bouquet of peach-colored flowers he had hidden under the piano bench earlier. "These are for you," He said shyly as he held out the flowers to her.

"Really?" Sam nodded and Keilani felt her cheeks begin to burn as she accepted the flowers. "What's this for?"

"So I saw Brittany's Fondue for Two episode– Wait, hey, don't leave!"

Sam grabbed Keilani's hand to stop her from bolting off the stage out of embarrassment. Keilani reluctantly turned to face Sam, who hadn't let go of her hand just yet.

"Here to reject me?" Keilani managed to say with an awkward laugh, trying her best to not start crying right there on the spot.

Sam shook his head and gestured to his guitar. "Here to sing a song with you, actually. I've kind of tried to subtly tell you how I felt with songs a couple of times now, but I don't think you've really figured it out yet, so I think I just need to be...really clear."

Keilani didn't know what to think. Sam hadn't said outright he was rejecting her, but there was something about the way he was looking at her that gave Keilani a little bit of hope that Sam wouldn't reject her that day.

"What do you want to sing with me?" She finally asked in a quiet voice.

"Trust me, you definitely know it." The realization of what he was about to do suddenly hit him, and Sam found himself getting nervous as he admitted, "You...you only said you wanted to perform this song with someone if they meet certain requirements, and I really think I do."

Keilani didn't know what he had meant at first. But as soon as he began to play the opening notes on his guitar, Keilani began to finally understand not only that, but why Sam had asked her to the auditorium that afternoon and all the other events and small moments from the past couple of months.

i see the light | performed by keilani and sam

As Sam slowly took his guitar off from around him and set it on one of the stands nearby, Keilani was trying to think of what to say. But her brain had gone fuzzy, and it took Sam grabbing her free hand and interlacing his fingers with hers to ground her back in reality.

"Sam, I–"

"I love you."

Keilani nearly dropped her flowers, stunned into silence. Sam hadn't entirely meant to blurt that out like that. He knew he wanted to tell her that he loved her at some point that day, he just wasn't entirely sure when. But now that he had said it, everything else that had been on Sam's mind for the past year and a half suddenly came spilling out of him.

"I've been in love with you for over a year now, even if I didn't realize it for a really long time. I don't know when it started, but I know how. Every time I with you, I feel like no matter how difficult things get for me, with you by my side it makes me think that everything's going to be okay in the end. It's the way you smile at me, and whenever you hold my hand or spout some crazy history fact that I almost definitely wouldn't have known if it weren't for you. I've been in love with you for a really long time, and I don't think it's going to stop anytime soon."

Even if Keilani wanted to say something – which she didn't because she had no idea even what to say – she couldn't even get a word in because Sam just kept going.

"I remember everything you said from Rachel's party. It's been playing over and over in my mind for over a year now, and I've been kicking myself every day because I haven't been able to get up the courage to tell you I feel the same. And I know that day I told you I was moving, you were going to tell me that you liked me. But I didn't want to hurt you by telling you I liked you too, and then suddenly disappear. I know I made everything so much worse when I left the way I did, and I want you had every right to be as angry with me as you were. I'd probably be angry with me too, and I'm still so sorry about what I did to you that summer."

"I want to be with you, Lani. And if you don't feel the same anymore, that's okay. You can walk off the stage right now if you want to. But I can't just keep this in anymore. I don't want to keep pretending that I'm not absolutely crazy about you. I really want to be with you, Lani. I want to hold your hand and kiss you and go on those cute dates that you probably read about in your favorite books and get inevitably teased by Santana and Puck for how cheesy we are together. I really want to be your boyfriend and – Hey, wait, why are you putting the flowers down and–"

Keilani grabbed him by the collar of his denim jacket and smashed her lips onto his. Sam stumbled a little in surprise, not expecting the sudden gesture but certainly not complaining. After getting over his shock, Sam gently cupped her cheek and smiled into the kiss, not wanting the moment to end for a long time.

When the two finally broke apart, Keilani and Sam stared at each other with soft smiles on their faces, and for once in her life, Keilani didn't feel so embarrassed about making such a big gesture.

"I love you too, Sam," Keilani finally confessed, letting out the feelings she had been trying to hide for him for over a year now.

Sam almost wanted to jump up and down out of excitement. "I thought that with songs like 'Human Nature' and 'Classic', how I felt would be pretty clear," Sam told her in an attempt to distract himself from the fact his heart seemed to be beating at top speed. "But you just never really seemed to get it. I kept performing these songs, but you still had no idea how crazy I am about you."

"Everyone says I'm kind of stupid when it comes to the romance department," Keilani admitted in an embarrassed voice.

"And you'd think that with all the research you seem to do, you'd be so much better at it," Sam teased before getting a little more serious. "Mr. Shue said this week was going to be all about change...any chance you want to change your relationship status?"

Keilani nodded and beamed up at Sam, and he almost wanted to pinch himself to make sure that this wasn't some sort of dream. "I was totally ready to do my Flynn Rider impression if it didn't work," Sam confessed with a small laugh as he wrapped an arm around her waist.

"Could you do it anyways? Just for me?"

Sam couldn't help but smile at Keilani's excitement over hearing yet another one his impressions. "I will...under the condition that I get to kiss you again."

"Now that sounds like a deal I can get behind."

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everyone say "thank you, brittany s. pierce!!"

- g ♡