Tonight, it's windy. It's cold and harsh, and as you stumble down the street, desperately clutching your collar around your neck, you bow your head to hide the fast tears pouring down your cheeks.

You don't know who you're hiding from, really. This street is deserted; there's no one out here other than you. Maybe you're hiding from yourself.

"I can make you laugh."

The voice, which is surely not your own, comes out of nowhere. At first, you think it's just the whistle of the wind playing tricks on your mind, but then you here it again;

"C'mon, just one joke."

Pausing on the sidewalk, right under a small oak tree, you whip your head back and forth, eyes wide in alert, because that definitely wasn't the wind.

"Hello?" you murmur, swallowing thickly. "Who's out there?"

No response. At least, not at first.

"Pssst," you hear, and now you're only three seconds away from sprinting off in the opposite direction until, "Hey, you...up here."

You look up, and sure enough, there's someone sitting in the oak tree above you, staring down at you with this smile. It's a little hard to see in the darkness surrounding you, but the smile is so bright, you almost mistake the person for the Cheshire Cat.

When you first see her, you're startled, because it's past midnight, and there's a girl in an oak tree. Of course, right when you want to go home, you'll run into a girl in a fucking tree.

Of course.

You can just barely see her. From this angle, the moon reflects through the leaves, so you can tell her hair is dark; either black or a really dark brown. Other than that, her smile and her dark eyes, that's pretty much all you can see from where you're standing on the sidewalk.

She leans against the tree trunk, still smiling from ear to ear. "Why, hello there," she singsongs, idling picking at her fingernails.

"Um..." you mumble, glancing down the block for a moment before flickering your eyes back up. "Hi?"

"Why are you crying?" she wonders, tilting her head sideways.

You wipe at your cheeks self-consciously. "Why are you in a tree?"

The girl smiles even wider, her dark eyes narrowing slightly. "Touché," she whispers, shifting around in the branches until her legs are dangling over the edge. "I'm Santana, by the way."

You squint your eyes slightly when a gust of wind blows some strands of hair into your face. Running into a hippie on your walk home was the last thing you expected to come across tonight, but stranger things have happened in the past, so.

You tell yourself to just keep walking, because there's already enough you have to worry about, like a superficial high school and a horrible father and dumbass boys, but Santana's watching you expectantly with that damn smile, so you reluctantly give in and say, "I'm Quinn."

A few leaves flutter down from the tree when a harsh breeze blows by, but Santana doesn't seem too worried about it. "I think I will call you Q," she declares, nodding her head in conviction. "You go to McKinley, don't you?"

The way she says it, like she already know she's right, makes you roll your eyes. Is it really smart to tell a total stranger where you go to school? "Yeah," you eventually answer, because what do you have to lose anyway? You doubt she's dangerous, so. "Do you?"

"Hell no," she snorts, shaking her head in denial. "I would never ever attend that crazy, fucking place. No offense."

"None taken."

"Only a bunch of hypocritically manipulative, bigoted monkeys go there, no offense," she adds at the last minute, and this time you don't say none taken, because maybe you are a little offended now. "Anyway, yeah, I was homeschooled and finished my high school studies about two years ago, so."

You narrow your eyes and open your mouth, but nothing comes out, just a breathy sigh. "Why are you in a tree?" you ask again, because you're actually really curious about that. It's not everyday you come across someone chilling out in a tree in the middle of the night.

Swinging her legs back and forth, Santana lets out an airy laugh and says, "I'm afraid of heights."

You raise an eyebrow. "So, you're in a tree because you're afraid of heights?"

"Precisely."

Rolling your eyes, you scoff, "That doesn't make any sense."

"Au contraire, Q," Santana counters, lifting a pointer finger in the air. "Define sense. Who are you, Q, to tell me whether my actions make sense? You make sense. I make sense. This tree makes sense. The wind makes-"

"Okay," you cut her off, placing a hand on your hip. "I get it."

"I'm glad you get it," Santana says sincerely, plucking a leaf off the branch above her head. "But what I don't get is why you were crying."

"I..." You're not sure why you feel it necessary to tell this absolute stranger all of your personal business, but sometimes it's easier to talk to someone you don't know, so. "I had a date tonight."

"Oh, goody," she deadpans.

"But he stood me up."

"No goody," she whispers, wincing sympathetically. "Well, if it makes you feel any better, I scraped my knee trying to climb up this tree."

Raising your eyebrows, you scuff your shoe against the sidewalk and smile slightly. "Actually, that doesn't make me feel much better, but it is an interesting visual."

Santana snorts, lolling her head back against the tree trunk. "Hey, remember when you asked me why I was in a tree, and I said it was because I'm afraid of heights, and then you said that doesn't make any sense, and I was like, you make sense, I make sense, trees make sense?"

Smiling crookedly, you nod your head and briefly wonder if this girl's smoked anything lately. "Considering that was just two minutes ago, yeah, I remember."

"Great, good," she murmurs, mostly to herself. "Because now I want to give you the real reason."

Your neck is starting to hurt from staring up at her, and you kind of want to go home, but your curiosity gets the best of you, so you ask, "That wasn't the real reason?"

"Well, half of it was," Santana laughs, swinging a leg over the thick branch, and you hold your breath, because she really is pretty high in that tree. "Before I came up here, I thought I was afraid of heights, but as I easily look down on you, I now realize it's the coming down part I fear, or preferably the falling and cracking my skull against the concrete part."

Your eyebrows shoot to your hairline. "How long have you been up there?"

"Quite awhile," she chuckles, shaking her head in embarrassment, and even though you can just barely see her, she's kind of adorable.

Strange and peculiar and totally delusional, but adorable nonetheless.

Humming in thought, Santana plucks the stem off of her leaf and asks, "What do you fear?"

You fear a lot of things, but you don't even have to think twice about what you fear the most. "Trusting a stranger with my heart."

Santana sighs, almost like she understands or something. "Well, if it helps, I won't leave you," she promises, and for a moment it feels like you're melting, until she continues with, "I mean, I'm sorta stuck in a tree, so..."

You don't mean to, but you kind of crack up at that. Santana doesn't join in with your hysterical laughter, just stares at you with this smile as you giggle way louder than you should considering the time of night.

"Hey, I have an idea," Santana says, once you've finished chortling like a hyena.

"Yeah?" you sigh breathlessly, because your stomach kind of hurts now from all of that needless laughter.

"Yeah," Santana confirms, nodding eagerly. "Since I was technically never afraid of heights, how about we both face one of our fears tonight, right here, right now?"

"Right now?" you repeat, crinkling your nose in confusion, because it's really late out, and unless her new fear is darkness, you're not really sure what can be accomplished at this time of night. "And how do we do that?" you ask skeptically.

Santana purses her lips in thought until she's struck with a bright idea. "Let me take you out sometime," she suggests, shrugging a shoulder like it's nothing, but you can tell she's nervous by the way she needlessly tugs on her ear. "Like, on a date or something…"

You're happy she can't see you blushing, because whenever you blush, your whole face turns red with pink splotches spreading down your neck. You can feel it crawling there now, and it surely isn't a pleasant sensation.

The date doesn't seem like a bad idea to you, because the only way she can make a date worse than the one you had tonight is by neglecting to show up.

You're just about to nod, but then you stop, not wanting to look too eager, so instead you pretend to think about it and make her sweat.

"You want to take me out?" you ask, just to make sure you heard right, and when Santana smiles bashfully and nods her head, you kind of wish it wasn't one in the morning so you could go on a date with her right now. "Why?"

Santana doesn't look at you as she shrugs her shoulders, a lopsided smile tugging at the corner of her lips. "You're from McKinley," she says, glancing down with a smirk, "And you don't completely suck, so."

Rolling your eyes, because it seems you just agreed to go out on a date with a seventeen year old college student who is either too smart or too high for her own good, you smile and fold your arms over your chest.

"Okay, I faced my fear," you say, tapping your foot impatiently. "What about your fe-"

Before you can even finish your sentence, Santana's hurriedly wiggling off her branch and falling out of the tree with a high-pitched squeal that echoes throughout the night.

Clasping a hand over your mouth, you don't know whether to scream or laugh as Santana quickly pops up from off the ground and wipes a patch of dirt off her pants.

Luckily, she landed on the grass, so no bloody gashes, but you're pretty sure she's going to wake up sore from bruises in the morning.

"Oh my god," you gasp, desperately holding back a laugh. "Are you okay?"

"Dandy," she grits, slowly hobbling over to you, and you smile adoringly when you realize she's a few inches shorter than you.

You reach out to pluck and few leaves and twigs out of her brown locks. "So," you murmur, a little shy all of a sudden now that you're on common ground, literally. "How about that joke?"

Santana looks puzzled for all of three seconds before realization hits her. "Oh," she says, excitement lighting up her soft features. "How do you coax an acrophobic out of a tree?"

Smirking, you wrap your arms around your body and admit, "I don't know, how?"

Taking a step toward you, Santana smiles that Cheshire grin again, her face just inches away from yours.

Your heartbeat picks up tenfold, because you think she's about to kiss you, and you wouldn't really mind if she did, but you find you're not totally disappointed when instead she whispers, "You give her a heart worth falling for."