Disclaimer: Still don't own Glee.
Author's note: You lucky puppies, two posts from me in one night! The idea for this has been kicking around for a while, a little 'what if...' continuation of the Quinntana storyline started in 'I Do'. I've published the first chapter today to coincide with the Headcanon day of Quinntana Week on Tumblr, but I will be continuing it, so fear not! I hope you enjoy the story, and I would love to hear any thoughts you have on it, positive or negative. Enjoy!
It's not love, whatever it is she's doing with Quinn. It's not love that has her knee bouncing nervously as soon as she takes her seat on the 10.07 train to New Haven, just like she does every Saturday, the familiar view passing unseen before dark eyes as she stares blankly out of the window.
It can't be.
It's not love, but the breath is still punched from Santana's throat as the soft winter sun flickers over the remnants of last week's snow, the pure light of the scene recalling another pale landscape upon which the light likes to settle. She closes her eyes and swallows, once, twice, yet the image of tan fingers stroking gently over a pale cheek beneath the moonlight that filtered through the window of a small dorm room in New Haven plays on against her eyelids. Pressing her head against the cool glass does nothing to stop the memory of her last visit, and Santana only just manages to hold back the whimper that threatens to slip from her lips as she recalls how the sheet wrapped around the pair of them had shifted, exposing skin she had previously hurried to cover in soft yet insistent kisses, a silent worship to slight body stretched out beneath her.
(The few faded stretch marks and scars do nothing to mar the beauty of Quinn's body; she sees them more as marks of experience, pointers to the strength of the blonde's character, than as imperfections, but she has never been able to tell her that. To do so always seems a step too far, too intimate, and a noose of fear always tightens around the words before she can whisper them because that isn't what this is. She only hopes that Quinn understands the stroke of her fingers along their length, the lingering press of her lips upon them, that she hears the words Santana can't find it in her to say.)
Two years ago her eyes would have flicked down, greedily drinking in the expanse of skin being offered to her, but Quinn had chosen that moment to flutter her eyes open and Santana had found herself trapped, held prisoner by the glow of hazel reflecting the pale moonlight. Neither girl had said anything, a ball of nerves tightening sickeningly in Santana's stomach as Quinn's brow had furrowed briefly in confusion before smoothing out, her eyes still holding Santana captive. The back of her neck had prickled uncomfortably and her leg had twitched as the urge to run, run, run consumed her, but if Quinn had noticed the movement, she'd never said; she had simply kept staring into Santana's eyes, waiting out the passing minutes until the Latina's muscles had relaxed, weight sinking back into her half of the small bed.
The memory terrifies her.
Santana sighs and, with a slight shake of her head, forces her eyes open as the train slowly pulls into the next stop. She shifts closer to the window as somebody drops down heavily into the seat next to her, bringing with him the lingering stench of stale sweat layered under a cheap body-spray and a complete disregard for personal space. It's almost enough to make her wish for the journey to pass more quickly, until the train pulls away from the platform with a jerk and she realises just how unprepared she is to see Quinn again. There's nothing Santana hates more than being unprepared, than not knowing how to navigate and control a situation, so she settles for scowling at the man before resuming her vacant stare out of the window, distance to New Haven melting away with every turn of the train's wheels.
Quinn Fabray has always been the one person able to launch her world into confusion.
She doesn't know how she fell into this arrangement with Quinn. She struggles to find the words to describe it honestly, even if it is only to herself. Kurt and Rachel know she spends every weekend visiting her best friend (one of her best friends, her mind corrects, but the two have barely spoken to her about Brittany, seemingly assuming that Quinn has usurped the other blonde's friendship) but they have no idea about the recent developments in their relationship. She's glad of their ignorance, sure she would snap under the deluge of questions that would no doubt come her way, but Santana has matured enough since junior year to realise without prompting when she needs outside help to sort through the mess of emotions into which she often works herself. Yet seeing as the only people with whom she could ever contemplate talking about something feelings-related are Brittany and Quinn, she's finding herself somewhat directionless. Even the briefest of conversations with Brittany exhausts her these days, throat tightening around an increasingly painful lump as she fights to hide from her voice all evidence of the tears forming over just how damn happy her ex-girlfriend sounds.
(It's made worse by the fact that Brittany seems to have stopped noticing the weakness in her voice when they talk. Or to have stopped caring. She doesn't know which one she's hoping for.)
Still, even if Santana were able to hold a conversation with her ex-girlfriend without being overwhelmed by the crashing wave of hurt summoned by her voice, asking for Brittany's help in defining whatever it is she's doing with Quinn would be a realm of awkwardness into which she's not ready to stray. But now she's left at a loss for where to turn for advice, mind struggling to orchestrate a reaction when it doesn't understand the situation to which it's reacting. The Latina isn't one for superfluous niceties, but fucking seems too crude, too dismissive, too impersonal to describe what she's doing with Quinn, the word stinging her ears as the image of the girl into whose embrace she falls so easily paints itself across the train window. By contrast, calling it anything more than fucking seems too personal, like she's giving a name to feelings that don't exist. That can't exist. Her heart shudders along to the rhythm of the train because she can't be the girl that falls for both of her best friends, she just can't be.
It was never meant to last beyond the time spent within the confines of a Lima hotel room; there had been no desire to discover more of the soft skin brushing against her own as she woke up next to Quinn, blonde hair mixed in with darker strands from where the other girl had shuffled across to Santana's pillow in her sleep. Strangely, for the first time in three years marred by slaps and tears, petty fights over positions that slipped away meaninglessly after graduation and love triangles that were more about the status than the relationship, Santana had felt like she'd found her best friend. All the hostility that had festered over the years had disappeared, discarded among the clothes littering the floor, sweated out beneath hotel sheets, carried away by soft snores that filled the empty space. The taxi to Columbus airport had been marked, not by strained silences and flushed cheeks when eyes caught, but by insistent promises to stay in touch, for Santana to make use of the train pass doing little more than decorating Rachel's room, for Quinn to make space in her life, in her bed, whenever the Latina chose to visit.
(Quinn is still nervous in cars. Crushed metal and shattered glass were visible in her eyes as she'd climbed into taxi, body tense like a diver before a plunge. Her fingers had scratched over the cheap leather covering the seats, searching desperately for purchase, throat dragging painful breaths from the air as her muscles tightened at every sudden brake, every blaring horn. Santana had said nothing as she slid tan fingers over to tangle with trembling pale ones, nodding at the soft 'thank you' that fell from Quinn's lips as she kept her gaze fixed out of the window, staring out at a landscape she'd finally escaped. This was what they did. They grounded each other.)
Inexplicable warmth shoots through Santana as she overhears the young mother behind her inform her incredibly whiny child, whose clear love of kicking the back of her chair would have earned him a threatening glare were she not so completely swamped by her thoughts, that they've crossed into Connecticut. The realisation that she's closer to her...that she's closer to Quinn shouldn't comfort her as much as it does.
She's just a friend. Just a friend with whom she likes to have sex.
(The man sprawled next to her chooses that moment to laugh at whatever he's reading on his phone, but the more insecure part of Santana can't help but think he's laughing at her stubborn refusal to even think about the possibility of there being something more.)
Neither Rachel nor Kurt know that she had fled to New Haven after they kicked her out, shaky fingers instinctively dialling Quinn's number as she'd realised, shivering beneath the cold flakes coating New York, that she had nowhere to go. She hadn't seen her since the wedding, Quinn's life taken over by a flurry of essays she'd neglected in favour of travelling to Lima, yet Quinn had all but ordered her to catch the next train to her.
Santana smiles as the snow-covered trees thin, fading away to be replaced by a nameless Connecticut town, the grey slabs of anonymity nothing like the impressive architecture awaiting her. She can remember the first time she saw Yale, the churning feeling of abandonment finally replaced by an excitement to see her friend as the train had groaned its way into New Haven station; Quinn had grabbed her in a hug the moment her foot had touched the icy platform before picking up Santana's bag and dragging the bemused Latina onto the nearest campus-bound bus. Her throat tightens instinctively as she remembers how her breath had stuck at her first glimpse of the university through a window fogged by the hot breaths of their fellow passengers, struck an innate sense of Quinn that seemed to be woven into the fabric of the place. The buildings radiate a maturity, brickwork infused with wisdom yet also a delight at new discoveries, a desire to never stop appreciating the depth of the world.
Santana had instantly understood why the blonde sat beside her, staring out at the same buildings with a soft smile playing about her lips, looked more at home in New Haven than she ever had in Lima.
Her third night there, uneasy with how willing she was to spend evenings curled up with Quinn in front of her laptop, Santana had dragged her friend to a frat party happening across campus, determination to 'see how you uptight geeks party' spilling from her lips as she'd wriggled into one of her tighter dresses, ignoring the lingering burn of Quinn's eyes on her back. Somewhere between knocking the drink out of the hand of the sixth boy to try and grope her in an hour and dropping into an all-night deli on the way back to the dorm room to pick up a carton of ice-cream, Santana's hand had slipped into Quinn's, the gentle squeeze of fingers a constant presence until they had made it back to the dorm. Quinn had somehow managed snag a single room, tucked away cosily in the back corner of a hauntingly beautiful dorm building, though whether it was because of the accident Santana still hates to think about or because the universe had finally decided to smile upon her after so long showering her in a downpour of disastrous luck, she didn't know. Setting the ice-cream on the desk, Santana had turned to say how the solitary room was a perfect excuse to stay as late as she could at parties, but the words had floated away on a gasp as she found Quinn staring at her, illuminated only by the wintry moonlight falling through the window. Hazel held brown in silence, neither girl moving for fear of shattering the heavy atmosphere settling over them. A look of vulnerability had flickered over Quinn's face as her fingers danced at the hem of her top, white teeth digging into a pink lip as she'd pulled the material up and over her head tantalisingly slowly, and Santana had found she had no breath left with which to gasp. She had given Quinn no time to voice the words her lips were trying to form as she strode into the moonlight, hands gently cupping Quinn's face before bringing it down to crash the lips still being worried by brilliantly white teeth into her own.
The ice-cream had melted by the time they'd remembered it the next morning.
Santana's cheeks redden as a bump in the track jolts her from the memory, thoughts ripped away from rapidly discarded clothes and the lingering warmth of sheets as she had woken up to a note from Quinn, a hastily scribbled explanation that the blonde had gone to class but would be back with coffee, not ten minutes before the girl in question had stepped through the door. She presses her forehead to the window again in a vain attempt to cool the spreading flush, the fluttering in her chest doing nothing to support her belief that what she's journeying to is nothing more than a casual arrangement between two friends. Part of her feels awful for hoping there is nothing substantial to this thing with Quinn, but Santana's jaded now, no longer the optimistic senior ready to take on the world with her girlfriend. She's seen how feelings, how relationships, can destroy a friendship, felt years' worth of support and laughter and love wither away under awkward conversations and ill-timed glances.
She can't commit another friendship to the same death.
Her weekend travels to New Haven have become an accepted part of her routine. Neither Rachel nor Kurt question them she avoids any potential probing enquiries into her personal life by investing entirely too much time and energy into theirs. It had backfired slightly with the Brody fiasco several months earlier, but as the crackling announcement that they're nearing New Haven station pierces the calm atmosphere of the carriage and that same damn warmth surges through her, Santana wonders whether she can still view the consequences of her involvement so negatively. She had woken up on her fifth morning in New Haven, ear capturing the steady beat of Quinn's heart where her head lay upon her chest, to a message from Rachel, an apology that sounded as if it had been painful to write followed by a sheepish request to come back. Agreement had shot through her mind instantly but the vindictive side of her, one that had diminished but not truly disappeared since high school, had directed her fingers into tapping out a reply that said she would be back in a few days, partly so to make Rachel understand how rejected she'd felt and partly to make it sound like she did have other options.
(At least that's what she tells herself. She still hasn't forgotten the flash of disappointment across Quinn's face when she had shown her the text.)
She's already waiting by the door as the train grinds to a stop, platform just as icy as it was the first time she stepped onto it, but she has no need to worry about balance when she's grabbed into the customary 'welcome back' hug from Quinn. Maybe Quinn has sensed Santana's reservations, or maybe unique worries jostle for space in the blonde's mind, but either way Santana is always relieved that Quinn doesn't greet her with a kiss, that she doesn't try to hold her hand; Santana's walls have been damaged over the years and are no longer able to contain the full range of panic they once were. Gloved fingers pry the handle of her case from Santana's hand, and the Latina rolls her eyes at the familiar gesture.
"Who knew Yale would make you so damn chivalrous, Q?"
"Shut up," Quinn laughs, already turning to lead the way to the bus stop. "You love it."
Quinn isn't expecting a reply, Santana knows she isn't as she watches the blonde rummage through her bag for her campus ID, yet she can't help but think that the way her shoulders stiffen and her head jerks in an instinctive nod is answer enough.