SEASON ONE,

EPISODE TEN.

WORD COUNT : [ 3934 ]

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WHEN Mr. Schuester walked into the room that day, he went directly to the white board to start the lesson.

"Ballad. From Middle English, balade. Who knows what this word means?" Kurt and Rachel were the first ones to raise their hand, but the teacher ignored them and pointed at Brittany, surprised that she seemed to know the answer.

"It's a male duck." Or not.

"You tried, hun, but I think you mean 'mallard'." Amelia corrected her, sitting on the other side of Santana.

"Oh." Brittany nodded her head, now understanding.

"Kurt." Mr. Schuester pointed after giving the blonde a skeptical look.

"A ballad is a love song." The boy confidently answered.

"Sometimes, but they don't always express love. Ballads are stories set to music---which is why they're the perfect storm of self-expression. Stories and music are the way we express feelings that we can't get out any other way. Okay, now, sectionals are in a few weeks and there's a new rule this year- we have to perform...a ballad." Mr. Schue explained.

"Looks like my weekly letter to the Ohio Show Choir Commitee finally paid off!" Rachel exclaimed excitedly looking at Puck who was beside her, earning a few eyes roll from her teammates and a fake smile from the boy.

"Okay. So here's our assignment for the week: I'm going to pair you off, and I want you to pick a ballad to sing to your partner." Mr. Schue stood in front of Artie to set an example. "Look them right in the eye, find the emotion you want to express and make them feel it."

"I pick Quinn." Finn said quickly.

"No, no, no. Too easy. Your partners will be chosen by fate." They all complained.

"Oh, yeah. I put all your names in this hat. Whoever you choose is your partner."

"I bet the duck's in the hat." Brittany whispered, looking at Amelia, making the girl laugh.

"I hope not. I don't see Mr. Schue as a good magician." She whispered back.

"But Matt's out sick today." Santana announced, laughing at her best friends craziness. "He had to go to the hospital, 'cause they found a spider in his ear." As everyone else were doing sounds of disgust Amelia stifled a laughter, leaning on her friend's ear.

"Ay, pobrecito." Oh yeah, with her feelings now clearer, her distaste for the boys Santana dated increased.

"Um...I guess I'll just have to put my name in the hat for now." Will shrugged. "Who's up first?" Standing up, Puck walked over to the hat.

"Mercedes." He read, causing the aforementioned roll her eyes.

"Quinn." Artie read once he rolled to the piano. Finn stood up to go next.

"Kurt." There were a few laughs. "Mr. Schue, I don't know if I can do it with another guy." He complained, feeling uncomfortable to sing with a boy that, everybody knew, had a crush on him.

"The fates have spoken, Finn." The teacher simply shrugged.

"Other asian." Tina read, causing a laugh came out of Amelia, who had leaned on Mike to say,

"I knew you were 'other asian'." She teased him, until she realized who had called him that way. "You know he has a name right?" She asked clearly angry at their teacher, but he just ignored her. "This is why I don't like him, he doesn't care about his students as much as he says." She whispered to Mike.

"Relax Lia, it wasn't a big deal." The boy tried to calm her down, laughing a little, but he was glad to have the girl in his defense. She rested her head on his, with a frown in her face that disappeared when her best friend stood up.

"Amelia." She read, smiling.

"How fitting." Mr. Schue mumbled. Amelia quickly seated straight in her chair, looking at the girl she got paired with.

"Mateo." Brittany read happily, a smile appearing in both of their faces. What's going on between these two?

"Looks like I get you, Mr. Schue." Rachel said, walking over the piano.

"Uh...you know what? Maybe we should just wait until Matt gets back." He replied, looking very uncomfortable at the thought of having to sing with the sophomore.

"The fates talked, Mr. Schue." Finn snickered, pleased to see the karma acting on him. Everyone laughed at that, seeing the bright in the girl's eyes. An evil smirk growing on Amelia's face.

"Would you mind clarifying what kinds of songs you want us to sing?" She asked with false innocence, making her teammates laugh more.

"Why don't you let Mr. Schuester and I demonstrate? Brad, 'Endless Love' in B-flat, please. It's my favorite duet." Rachel walked closer to the teacher, who was beginning to regret this lesson, completely oblivious to the giggles from the rest and the look of panic on the man's face.

"I really don't think that's an appropiate song, Rachel."

"Why? It's a great song, and it's a perfect ballad."

"Yeah. I really like that song, Mr. Schue." Mateo was the one who teased the adult this time, having the same smirk as his sister on the face.

Endless love.
Sung by Rachel and Mr. Schuester.

As the song went on, the students could see how the girl fell more and more for the teacher, but his face only showed more fear each time Rachel walked closer to him. The students were enjoying the spectacle, laughing at them and even turned on the flashlights on their phones to give it a more 'romantic' touch. Amelia was laughing too, at first, then she lost herself looking at the girl next to her. This was her chance to say everything she felt for her, she only had to find the perfect song. Wait, is there a ballad that talks about falling in love with you best friend, who might be heterosexual? She got out of her daze when her friends started to clap.

"Okay. Something like that." Mr. Schuester awkwardly stated.

The bell ring and all the kids quickly left the room. Amelia was walking through the door when Santana linked her arm through hers, a grin on her face.

"You know, I think we should start with rehearsals this afternoon."

"Huh, rehearse only?"

"I miss you."

"Yeah, well, if you hadn't left me for a week you wouldn't miss me so much."

"I know, it was wrong of me to do that. Let me make it up to you. Today, after cheerios practice." Santana knew she had power over her friend, which was shown when she didn't have to say much more to get a yes from Amelia.

•••••

   
NEXT day Amelia was talking with Mike at her locker when they were interrupted by someone yelling. They turned around to see their friends arguing in the middle of the hallway.

"Half of the school knows! Your mom knows! Who else do you want to tell, huh?" Quinn yelled as Finn tried to calm her down.

"But she's not going to tell anybody, I-"

"You're wrong, I'm right. I'm smart, you're dumb." She cut him off, pointing her finger between them.

"But-" He tried to said, but again, she interrupted him.

"No, no. You're wrong, I'm right. I'm right!" Quinn yelled, walking away from him.

"But she doesn't talk to other moms!" The boy yelled after her.

"Ah, I love starting my mornings like this." Amelia said and Mike laughed a little.

"I think you should go talk to him." He suggested. Finn was leaning on against a locker, clearly frustrated.

"Yeah, I guess so. I'll see you later?"

"Sure. See ya later Lia." Giving each other a kiss on the cheek, they both walked away.

"Why was that for?" Amelia asked her best friend.

"I told my mom."

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah, well, I-I didn't mean to tell her, I was just singing a song to an ultrasound like Kurt said and she heard me." Finn explained, worried that the girl would be angry as well because of his stupidity.

"Wait, you were singing to an ultrasound? Why Kurt would say that?" Amelia tried not to laugh.

"I don't know! If you had accompanied me to the rehearsal yesterday, maybe you would have given me other advice."

"Sorry, I was rehearsing with Tana. Anyway, what did she say?" Before he could answer her, Kurt appeared behind Amelia looking at Finn.

"How do you explain her constant irritation with you? It's because she's a girl." He said, making Amelia frown.

"No, I think it's the pregnancy hormones or something. They make her kind of nuts." Finn replied, still upset about the previous fight.

"It's enought to want to give up women altogether." Kurt chuckled. Whaat?

"Yeah." Finn laughed a little, feeling uncomfortable with the conversation. "Anyway, thanks for the advice about singing to the baby like that. Uh, it worked like charm. I owe you one dude." Finn patted his arm, leaving the other two standing there.

"What are you doing Kurt?" Amelia eyed him suspiciously. She knew about the crush the boy had on Finn, and wasn't sure how that might end now that they were 'friends'.

"Nothing." He smiled at her innocently and left.

The girl sighed and went to catch up with her best friend, they both started talking about the situation feom the night before as they walked to the spanish class.

•••••

 
THE week was almost finished and still, Amelia and Santana hadn't done their glee club homework yet. It wasn't like she cared about that kind of stuff that much, but Amelia felt like this was her opportunity, and after a lot of searching she had found a song to sing to Santana.

The story was about a person who wasn't sure to confess it's feelings out loud, unsure of what would happen if it does. And yes, maybe it doesn't say anything in particular, but does enough to understand what Amelia meant.

"You know, it's already Thursday and we haven't done the ballad assignment yet." She started.

"Ugh, who cares?" Santana asked from her neck. Although she enjoyed the girl's kisses, Amelia needed to do this.

"I'm serious." She said, gathering all the courage she could. "I... realized something a little while ago, and...I-I need to talk with you about it, but the truth is that I can't find the right words to do it. So, following this week assignment, I found a song that kinda does, and I really need you to listen. Can you?"

"Uh, sure." Santana nodded, not sure what had her friend so nervous.

Amelia got up from her bed to turn on the stereo. As she did so, she muttered a few encouragement words, trying to prepare herself for this. She sat down in front of her best friend again, her face only showing fear and sadness. A thing that scared Santana.

The way i feel inside
Sung by Amelia

For a moment, Amelia wondered if Santana would understand what she was trying to say, but it was clear. The confusion, the pain, the love. All those feelings were so evident on her eyes. Never in a million years she imagined herself in a situation like this, confessing her love to a girl. And not just any girl, Santana! Her best friend, the girl she had grew up with, the girl who has helped her in her worst moments. Amelia might not know what it was yet, but she didn't care either, the only thing she was sure of was that she loved Santana, even if she was still afraid to say it out loud. But when the song finished, her heart began to slowly break at the sight of the girl's face. It was one of...Disgust? Angry?

"So...what do you think? I had in mind one of Mariah but it was too upbeat to sing it, and you know it would have ruined the atmosphere an-" Amelia started to ramble.

"What was that?" Santana got off the bed, moving away from her. The truth is that she wasn't upset or angry, she was scared.

"I-I know it's difficult to process, it was also difficult for me but I couldn't hide it anymore Tana. I...I needed you to know."

"This isn't funny you know." And the fear was taking the best of her.

"Tana, please let me expl-" She tried to say, standing up from the bed too.

"There's nothing to explaine, Amelia. It's pretty clear to me that you're confused, and that's okay, I-I kinda get it." Santana cutt her off.

"Confused? No, I'm not c-"

"Yes, you are. You're still hurt about Grayson, and you think that you like me, but you don't. And honestly, I don't get why you had to ruin everything we had! We were fine until you had to talk about stupids amd non-existent feelings!" As she spoke, she raised her voice.

"Tana I-" Amrelia could barely speak, the lump in her throat didn't allow her.

"No, stop. Look I...I think the best for now is if we stop talking for a while. Cause I don't know about you, but I'm not gay." Both of them were with glossy eyes, trying their best to not fall apart in that moment.

"Santana p-please. Aren't we supposed to be best friends? I'm sorry, please, please don't go." She managed to said through her sobs.

"You are the one who seems unhappy with that term." Her tone was harsh. "Goodbye." I'm sorry Amy. And Santana was finally out of her room.

Amelia didn't wait for her bes-her ex best friend to completely close the door, she just lay on her bed again letting all her pain came out. And her sobs only made Santana feel worse with herself, she shouldn't have let this happen, she shouldn't have broke her best friend's heart. She kept telling herself that it was for the best, that Amelia was strong enough to get through this and everything would be fine again. Amelia was confused, that was all, neither of them was gay. But then she remembered her eyes as she sang that song, they were full of hope waiting for her to reciprocate that love, and she couldn't stand it anymore. Once she was inside of her car, she fell apart too.

In addition to the anger and sadness she felt, there was also a lot of fear. Deep down inside of her, Santana knew that she felt this way for a certain blonde, and knew that she couldn't bear to be rejected by Brittany. And after that feeling came the guilt. She had just broken Amelia's heart again, hurt her, and that was something she had promised herself to never do. Everything was a circle of bad feelings that seemed not to end.

•••••

    
AMELIA didn't come down to eat with her family that night, excusing herself that she had a stomach ache and luckily her parents believed it. Therefore, she didn't went to school on Friday.

She still couldn't believe it, she really screwed it up, and for what? To lose her best friend and her dignity. Maybe Santana was right, maybe she was just confused and idealizing her friend. And now she couldn't even look at her, she was so hurt and ashamed of the recent events that she couldn't see everyone and pretend she was fine. Not for that day at least.

Apparently, she couldn't do it on Saturday either because she barely got out of her room that day. Noticing this Mateo knew it wasn't just a stomach ache, she wasn't taking advantage of her discomfort to boss everyone around like she always did. So, worried, he decided to break into her room that afternoon, finding the girl lying on the bed staring at the ceiling.

"Hey Ames, how are you doing? How's your stomach?" He walked slowly to her bed.

"I'm fine, it still hurts tho. It must have been a bad burrito on Thursday." Amelia replied, without moving an inch from her place.

"Yeah, those burritos sucks...but is that the only reason you don't get out of bed?" He tentatively asked again, taking a seat beside her legs.

"Yeap." Still not moving.

"Come on Amy, I'm your brother. I know you." He insisted, finally getting the girl to look at him.

"Look, I-I can't talk with you about this Teo." Her eyes welled up with tears, which only made the boy worry more.

"What? Why not? I'm not a little boy anymore, you can talk to me about anything. I won't judge you, I promise." He got closer to her.

"I know, but I just can't." Seeing the expression on his face, she sighed. "I'll be fine, I just need my space, please."

"Okay." He surrendered after a while, knowing that it would be useless to insist. "Just remember that I'm here for you okay? Te amo hermanita." Giving her a kiss on the forehead, Mateo started to walk towards the door. He hated this, it was like whe she found out about Grayson cheating on her.

"Yo tambien enano." A small smile appeared on her face, that quickly fell when he closed the door. And she did the only thing she had been doing lately: cry.

•••••

    
ON Sunday at night Amelia's phone started ringing like crazy. She reached it from the nightstand and when she saw that it was Finn, she groaned. She loves the boy, but she wasn't in the mood for another one of his midnight existential crises, so she just ignored him and the three other missed calls he gave her. She thought it wasn't that serious, since he had called her about ten times once just because he was upset about losing a video game. But when Quinn started calling her too, she got worried.

"Amy." The girl was crying, and Amelia instantly sat up in bed.

"Q, what's wrong? Are you okay? Is Finn okay? Is it the baby?" She asked quickly.

"My parents, they k-kicked me o-out." The blonde sobbed.

"Oh God, why? Did they find out?"

"F-Finn sang a song for me in front of them about the baby." Really Finn?

"Okay, okay. Calm down. Where are you?"

"A-at Finn's house, can you come over? I really need my best friend right now."

"Of course, I'll be there in a few minutes."

••

Once Amelia arrived at her best friend's home, she fastly got out of the car. The first thing she saw when the door opened was Finn and she gave him a big hug, knowing that the boy must be feeling that guilt was devouring him inside, but she knew that he only had good intentions.

"Sorry for not answering the phone earlier, I was...sleeping." She said when they broke loose.

"It's okay. I'm sorry for bother you, we didn't know who else to call." He tried to smile at her.

"It's okay...I mean it, everything is going to be okay." She squeezed his arm in an attempt to comfort him. She suddenly forgot what happened to her a few days ago.

"Thank you Ames. How are you feeling?" He asked as they were walking up stairs to his room, she looked at him confused. "Mateo said you missed school on Friday 'cause you were sick."

"Oh yeah, that... I'm better, I think." Amelia pushed away all the sad thoughts, they were in front of his room. Her friend was sitting on the bed being comforted by her boyfriend's mom.

"Hi Carole...Quinnie." She greeted, taking the blonde in a big hug.

"Thanks for coming." Quinn whispered in her ear.

"I'm here for you." She whispered back, kissing her on the head. After a while of staying like that, Amelia spoke again.

"You know, I've talked to my parents before coming here, and they agreed that if everyone feels more comfortable, Quinn can stay at my house instead."

"Really?" Carole asked, trying her best not to show how relieved she was. She could barely support her son.

"Yeah, Isabella's room is free and we can arrange it in the week to your liking." She looked directly at Quinn, who was smiling at her. "And I don't mean to sound rude, but it would be one less concern for you Carole." The woman simply smiled at her, grateful.

"Well, if that's what Quinn wants..." Finn shrugged.

"Thank you. Thank you. Thank you." Quinn hugged the latina again.

"I told you before, my house it's your house." Amelia hugged her tightly, being careful with her belly. The Hudsons stood there, smiling at the girls.

•••••

    
ON Monday Amelia went back to school. She knew that no one knew what had happen with Santana yet, but she still felt like everyone was staring at her, causing her to walk with her head lowered. Until she came across one of the few worthwhile people in that school.

"Sweetheart! You are back! I've missed you, you know." He put his arm around her shoulders.

"It was just one day, Mike." She rolled her eyes laughing.

"It was enough for me, I was all alone." He pouted at her, making Amelia laugh again at his exaggeration.

"Oh really? What about Matt?" She cocked an eyebrow at him.

"Can you just accept the compliment?" Mike groaned, throwing his head back exaggeratedly.

"Okay, okay. I missed you too, Mikey." She hugged him sideways. They both walked to their class together.

••••

    
AT the choir room, everyone was waiting for Mercedes and Kurt to bring Finn. Amelia could feel Santana's gaze from across the room, but she just shifted in her seat next to Quinn and tried to converse with her. When the three remaining members entered the room, everyone positioned themselves for the number they were about to do for the couple.

"Open your eyes. I didn't tell you to close you eyes." Mercedes hitted the boy's arm, chuckling slightly.

"Is there a cake?" Finn asked hopefully.

"No, I said we should have bought one, but no one listened to me." Amelia pouted, not moving from the chair. Mateo and Mike had to literally drag her out of it.

"Hi, Quinn. Do you know what's going on?" He asked his girlfriend after ruffling Amelia's hair as he passed her.

"Your fellow glee club members wanna sing a song for you guys to let you know how they feel about you." Mr. Schue informed them.

"Uh, what are you gonna sing?" Finn asked again.

"Just listen. The song says everything." Mateo smiled at them.

Lean on me.
Sung by Amelia and Mateo
With the new directions.

During the performance, both latinas tried their best not to look at each other and stay away, shame and guilt eating them inside. The thing that made Amelia smile sincerely was the realization that Mateo was dedicating the song to her as well, he was making sure to make that clear.

He didn't even knew what was going on with her, but he was there anyway. And Amelia couldn't be more grateful for the brother she had.

WHAT A CHAPTER HUH.

This took me so long to write, i really hope that, in all, you enjoyed it!

I don't know what else to say, please don't kill me hehe😇

Oh and thanks to lcvelygreys for helping me with my indecision with the song 🥺<3

Ps: sorry if it took too long to read.

If there is something misspelled, please feel free to tell me.

Until next chapter🥰