Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 52nd cycle. Now cycle 53!

THIRD ANNIVERSARY CYCLE: It's late October again, and within this cycle I will be completing my third year of daily gleekathon stories and commencing a fourth! As in previous years, this means special things happening. I've selected my favorite stories from throughout the year, and I'll be treating them to something special. In previous years this included Prequel, Sequel, and POV Swap, and then Additional Scenes and Alternate Endings. This year I'm adding two new treatments: Genre Swap (I think that's pretty straightforward) and Element Change (I change one thing in the story, see how it affects the rest). Note that in both these cases and some of the others, there may excerpts directly transferred from the story it references. Also, since this year saw the addition of 'shift days', and since I suck at picking, I have selected 42 stories, to be treated two per day! So here we go!

This story is Additional Scenes to Idle-Handed Breaker, a Trinity series story, originally posted on February 22 2012.

This is a double shift day. There will be one more upload today: Dear Aunt Shannon.

"What Had To Be Done"
(Older) Quinn & Rachel, (Brittany/Santana), Quinn/Spencer (OC)
Trinity series extra
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)

She'd known the conversation with Rachel, telling her the whole truth after she'd found out half of it in the midst of Santana and Brittany's New Year's Eve wedding, was not going to be easy, for either of them, and if it had been anyone but her, maybe she wouldn't have even gotten that far. But it was Rachel, and so she had powered through. And then she had gotten at something, a part Quinn doubted she would have ever discussed with anyone, least of all her partners in Trinity.

"But… why do you do it? I don't mean your client thing. Why are you guys willing to put your lives on the line? You could get put in prison, you could get killed… Think about Brittany and Santana, they just got married. What would it do to one of them if the other got killed?" Quinn sighed, sitting up.

"I'm not going to speak for them, that's their business, but… I do it… I guess the first time it was just so small, it didn't seem like much, and then it was a bigger job, and bigger, and it happened so gradually that… it was just who I'd become. I don't regret it."

"Ever?" Rachel asked, and Quinn finally saw her anger had gone away. And now a one-word question had made her think… "You do, I can see it in your eyes. Quinn, you don't have to keep doing it, you can stop, and no one will think any less of you… Mostly because most of them have no idea…"

"Say you were in my place. You have been living this life, on your own at first but then with friends. And they support you, and they help you, and they give you some way to break your solitude. But you're still alone, because letting anyone in would just be… crazy, and too dangerous. And then you meet someone…" she wasn't even really looking at her at first, like she was talking only to herself. She couldn't help but smile at the thought… She would have thought the first thing that would have popped into her head when Rachel had asked her that question would have been the night she'd gotten the long scar, but it wasn't… It was his face.

"The Scottish guy?" Rachel asked, and now Quinn caught herself smiling, looking up to her.

"Yes, the Scottish guy… Spencer," she provided.

"He doesn't know, does he?" Rachel guessed.

"No, he doesn't know… And if it were up to me he never would have to, only… that's the thing." She paused, letting out a breath. She didn't even have to ask, she knew Rachel would never breathe a word of what she said to her, but it didn't make it completely and suddenly easy. "I know how dangerous this life is, and I would never wish that on him. Brittany and Santana, they're lucky… they have each other in this. As complicated as it is, they made this decision together, and I know they wouldn't be there with me unless they both wanted it, and they are still with me now so… Spencer is not part of this, and I don't want him to be, only… If I don't want him to know, then how close are we ever going to get? You've seen my scars, you recognized them for what they were, so what happens when he sees them, when he asks how it happened? I'm already lying to him, every day that I'm not telling him what I do, and I can only imagine the kinds of lies I would have to tell him if and when we started dating, the first time we'd even consider sleep…" she paused, gathering herself up again. "I couldn't stand building anything on so many lies, so then we're just doomed from the start, aren't we?" she sighed, feeling like she could cry at any moment. "I think about quitting… every time I see him. On New Year's Eve, we kissed… first time ever… I could have quit right there, if it meant I'd get to kiss him again…" now it felt like she'd forgotten Rachel was there again.

"Then do it." Quinn looked up, feeling Rachel's hand on hers. "Go, be with him, live your life… I saw you two together at the wedding, you looked good together. So why not leave that other life behind, follow your heart… You've done this for years, you've helped a lot of people from what you've told me… You're not going to do this forever, so why not stop when you have a good reason to?"

It would have been easy, so easy, to tell her 'yes, of course you're right, I'm going to turn in my equipment and go play happy homemaker…' Only it really wasn't.

"It's my life now. Whether I like it or not, whether you like it or not, it's made me who I am today. I'm not just going to flip a switch and become someone else, that's not how it works. Could you let go of your work? Never take the stage again, from one day to the next, pretend like it never happened?"

"Of course not, but that's completely different…" Rachel blinked.

"Is it? If you take away the danger, the risks… You're not just Rachel from Lima, Ohio anymore, you're Rachel plus all these years of turning yourself into the star you are now. Well I'm Quinn plus the years I spent alone, the years I spent with Santana and Brittany, and everything we've done. I can't just go back and pretend none of it happened. I'd be good as dead."

"Then what are you going to do? About Spencer, the two of you?" Rachel asked, her voice small. Quinn shook her head.

"I have no idea…" she admitted. "And maybe in the end I'll lose him, and it's going to hurt like hell… But I don't have to think about that now, and that's fine by me. Right now what I need to know is that you won't tell anyone, about what Brittany and Santana and myself do, what we really do. Not even Puck." Rachel didn't speak at first. "Prove me I didn't make a mistake to trust you…"

"You can always trust me," the words were provoked out of the brunette, and she sighed, closing her eyes. "I won't tell, I swear. What about them though? Do they know I know?"

"Not yet. I'll have to tell them when they get back from their honeymoon," Quinn frowned at the thought.

"I've made my promise, now I need you to make me one in return," Rachel spoke, and Quinn looked up to her. "When you go out on those… those jobs of yours, when you come back… Call me? Just so I know you guys made it out okay?"

"I'll make you a deal, we'll come to dinner," Quinn had to smile. "Then we can see how big you're getting," she teased, and it brought at least some lightheartedness back to her, thinking of the baby. She smiled, getting up when Quinn did. "We'll be alright," she told her, and Rachel just hugged her, maybe to hide her worries away.

"You better be. This kid's going to need his or her aunt Quinn."

THE END

A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.
In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are
always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!