Hello, there! So, Christmas drabbles. Little stories that just focus on the Glee characters (fyi, no money there) around Christmas. Because I was asked. I know we're halfway through December. Maybe you'll get two a day. Who knows.

It Snows in Connecticut, Dammit

I scramble over Rachel to get out of the taxi first, even if I'm in the middle and she's next to the door. What?! It's freezing in the back of the cab, colder than I thought when I was pushing Rachel to the sidewalk in an attempt to get into the vehicle without pause as soon as we arrived at New Haven. The moron, clearly a native of the Antarctic or something, actually put the fan on in the taxi and doesn't speak enough Spanish to gets that I wants it off.

Thank god that in two short weeks from now, I'll be relaxing on the coast de whatever abuela's town in Puerto Rico is called. I'm not designed for cold places, and Ohio is as bad as I'll let it get.

Rachel, who I left to pay the taxi driver and not tip, now approaches me on the sidewalk as I try to shake the snow off my heels. Dammit.

"Do you think Quinn is here yet?" she asks, stepping up on her toes and putting her hand above her eyes despite both the lack of people and sunlight to obscure her view. We're not yet where we said we'd meet Quinn, but I expect Rachel has since called ahead and told her to get here - here being somewhere near the edge of campus - before she freezes her talent off or something equally dramatic. Then I hear a squeal and look up.

Quinn Fabray. Damn. In the six months since I last saw the blonde, the longest I've been without her company since we met, I am confident that she has changed. She's glowing. Her hair has been chopped a little shorter again, but it's still past her shoulders. She's giggling as she puts a literal skip in her step, fast walking too, to get to us sooner. However, she refuses to reach the road and we're forced to meet her halfway. Rachel giggles back and starts across the flags of the court leading into the University campus proper, but I'm frozen still - and not from the cold. It's been 10 months since I slept with Quinn, with preamble leading up to the event from over a year ago. A repeat performance had not crossed my mind since, not even when she broke up with Puckerman and swore off men for the third time (at least). Not even when Brittany and I suffered through the last legs of our vacation and ultimately crumbled, clueless, back home. Whereas I spent a week with a new girl (and three boys) every day or more, Quinn has finally stuck to sticking single. And, boy, has she benefitted from it. I hope she's being seeing a therapist, too.

Quinn Fabray looks like a fulfilled, happy, whole, sane, healthy, and devastatingly beautiful person for the first time since I've known her. The cool air lingers around, sharpening with the faint sun to preserve her image. Visually, winter paints her stunning, and it also gives evidence to her happiness - the remains of her laughter floating towards me with the fog she breathes. I'd say she's still an ice queen, but in a whole other context. Yes, my heart aches at even knowing this person, this beautiful person who I want to know even more now. It swells at how I've seen her go from different iterations of a broken girl, some despairing and some in denial and others unknowing and some longing, to this woman. And it throbs with love, beating faster than my breath.

Time must have been diluted, it's barely been a second. Rachel is halfway to Quinn, and I exhale heavily before slowly starting off behind her.

"Wow, Fabray in jeans, never thought I'd see the day!" I smile. She's wonderful. Yes, she's in jeans. She's also in a fitted jumper. There are no Ugg boots in sight, thank god.

"Yes, Santana. Despite popular belief, it's actually quite cold in December in Connecticut." And despite my thoughts from maybe a minute before, I want to prolong those two short weeks before I leave to Puerto Rico with my parents. I want to spend this short forever, cozied up at Yale in sanctuary, learning all about Quinn. She's changed in every way - not enough to be unfamiliar, and she's certainly invited both me and Rachel here so she can't be intending to forget or doctor her past. I hope she plans to invite us with her into her future. I hope she'll let me grow with her. Just her presence makes me want to be the right kind of person to be able to have her company when we're fully grown. We've still got a lot of that growing up to do, and this head start that Quinn seems to have had is making me think maybe now is the time to finally let go of insisting I'm still suited to being youthful. I'll start on a path to something, and then enjoy what I have left of my youth; and I need to do both before it's too late.

How is she perfection?

Two days later, we're eating waffles. Quinn's still dressed like that, and she's even better than the image first let me imagine. In a small diner on a cobbled street in New Haven I'm fully engrossed with her telling me about her approach to the printer in the quiet section of the library and it's vendetta against silence - I've long since passed just needing to know every detail of how she functions now, but the airiness you could always find in her voice is prevalent when she tells anecdotes now. She's not trying to command with her voice, but hoping you'll be interested enough in the content, instead, to listen. Both the content and the breeze, warm like the one carrying her happiness in the cold air, are addictive.

Rachel pulls me down to her when Quinn goes to ask for more hot cocoa.

"Santana. You know at Valentine's?" I know she doesn't like to talk about this - it was the last time she slept with Finn, after all. The last time she kissed him. I nod, watching how Quinn's eyes crinkle when she specifically asks for chocolate powder on hers - I didn't know she particularly liked the warm treat until now, thinking she only indulged because of tradition, the season, or everyone else. "Santana? I- listen!" Rachel whisper-shouts, tugging on my arm again, as I watch Quinn skilfully and completely not carefully unzip her purse. She carried it in a light backpack today, using it instead of her tote or hand-come-shoulder-bag more frequently now. I look to Rachel, sat between me and the window which is probably fogging up from the heat difference, though I make a joke about her nerves steaming it up. "Santana, we're all adults and I'm being serious now. Do you have a thing for Quinn? I know you two slept together at Valentine's, but..." she trails off. But what, Rachel?! You could be withholding vital information from me!

It could be information that influences what I say next, but I know it won't be because I can feel it. I didn't know it could happen, and I didn't see it coming, but over these past two days a flame has grown. It's been keeping me warm in the cold Connecticut winter, a desire to have Quinn as my person and to give myself willingly as her person in return. I thought I had true love with Brittany, but I've never felt anything like this before, so I don't know what it is except exhilarating - a rush of freezing air right when I need it to clear my mind and let me know where I need to go and who I need to be and what I need to do. It leaves me in an empty room of white and all I know is that logically and emotionally I just really want to be around Quinn. For the privilege, I'd reward her with my heart and cherish her forever.

I guess my clear headspace was like Narnia - it certainly looked that way - but then, instead, time must have sped up outside because as soon as I'm released from the blank with realisation, not that I know it, Quinn has returned to the table. I don't see the three take-out cups of hot cocoa, mine and Rachel's placed down but Quinn's still in her hand, nor the hand, nor the body it's attached to. My vision is Rachel, maybe no longer expecting an answer, though I don't see this because I tell her. We're adults and we're mature towards each other, now, so I tell her what I've just realised: "I think I'm falling in love with Quinn."

Quinn, to her credit, does not drop her cup. Her grip loosens, but she's more aware than I and slowly lowers the hand, cup in tow, to the table. Her hand lets go of the cup, and drops loose. Her other hand, holding her purse and receipt, moves up to grasp at her chest in the area of her heart. It feels like slow motion as I turn my head to see these things, moving up her body but afraid to go further and see her face. That is until I hear her breathe out, sharply. Then the hand at her heart actually grips her jumper, the hand trailing by her side strokes the thigh of her jeans. Her eyes meet mine.

Then they start to water. She doesn't cry, but her eyes are screaming happiness and crinkle like they do when she laughs from her heart, so I know she's smiling.

There's a cough, not even soft, to the side and Rachel stood up at some point because she's at the side of the table looking between us. So we look between each other and settle back on her. She rolls her eyes and makes some hand gesture that has the potential to mean something only in Italian. Quinn giggles again, and I can hear that I'm chuckling, too, as Rachel slowly walks away - but Rachel's smiling instead of storming off. In her absence, Quinn and I have no choice but to look back at one another. Quinn smiles shyly, eyes free from tears but now full of. Potential. The hand at her jeans stretches over the table and I take it, to hold. Instead she uses it to pull me up, but holds on, anyway. It's the wrong hand, her left hand to my left hand, but she maintains contact as she slips her purse and receipt into the bag that shared the bench with her. She swaps hands, shouldering the backpack in the process that looks inhumanly quick to my eye but takes so much longer for the missing warmth on my skin, and picks up her cup. As do I. I exit the entrapment between bench and table so we can get going, but once I'm free she pulls me right into her and kisses my cheek. We both pull our heads back a little, then she smiles wider and kisses my nose - the bridge, not the tip.

Faces still close, Quinn relocates her hand holding mine, running it along my arm until it's hugging my back. She pulls to one side, and my arm automatically slots around her, too. We walk out like that - to Baby It's Cold Outside - with Quinn's head tucking into my neck when I open the diner door. Rachel's waiting at the other side of the little cobbled square, the road back to Yale over there, barely noticing us as I barely notice her before Quinn mumbles into my neck "I think I could fall in love with you, too."

The breath is so very warm, and it makes me stop in the middle of the square; I use the hand around her to drag her front back to mine and kiss her. Our cold lips touch, likely to chap but I don't care because the warmth keeping me going has overflowed and I need her to know that, I need to share it with Quinn, my love.

I'm not sure if time has played tricks on us when I have to resurface, though I'm still tempted to take the lips she pushed equally back into mine again. In any case, Rachel clearly doesn't know what to think or how to react. She's staring expressionless, and then she smiles, and then - now aware that we're watching and anxious for her reaction - smirks before shouting "How dare you not come out to me first, Quinn Fabray!" We all three laugh, and Quinn's hold on me tightens. Rachel begins to head down the road beyond the square towards Yale, and Quinn turns her head back to me, beaming. She sighs contentedly and kisses me chastely before taking a short drink of her hot cocoa.

"C'mon, Tana." She mumbles as we begin walking, and I drop my head to her shoulder.

I kiss her neck, and decide that right now is a pretty good time to ask "Will you be my girlfriend?" Though I take a sip of hot cocoa to calm the nerves.

I can feel her smile from the cheek movement against my forehead, and a simple "It'd make me so happy, of course."

Those two weeks, one without Rachel, solidify that we - me and Quinn, as we are now - could definitely make it if we tried. Especially when we both go to wake the other to make snow angels at the same time. Or ask to watch Deck The Halls. Or wrap up warm and go to read stories to each other in the old traditional part of the library. And when we look into each others' eyes the day she leaves me at the train station, seeing our perfect match and promising love.