Quinn Fabray pedalled quickly through the busy New York streets, dodging countless cars and puddles of slush. Her Christmas Eve activities had consisted of filming stark images of suffering around her Alphabet City neighbourhood. The pink-haired young woman was two years out of film school, and still had yet to produce anything she was proud of. This footage of homeless people, drug dealers, prostitutes and the ever-present cops was Quinn's response to the areas's latest predicament. Her landlord had decided to evict all the poor folks who lived in his buildings, as well as the homeless who'd created a Tent City nearby.

Back at Quinn's apartment, her best friend and roommate Dave Karofsky sat poised with his hands on his guitar. He and Quinn had connected easily, both having left cozy suburban upbringings in favour of becoming two more starving artists in the city that never sleeps. A former heroin addict who'd become infected with HIV, Dave was attempting to write one great song before his life ended. To him, death was inevitable. But the melody simply wasn't coming to him. As Dave inwardly lamented his creative block, the lights flickered out, blanketing the room in evening shade.

"Evicting the needy on Christmas" Quinn muttered as she carried her bike up the five flights of stairs to her home. The inside of the building was just as frigid as the outside air, and eerily dark. Just as she entered the candle-lit apartment, the phone rang. Dave and Quinn regarded each other curiously before Quinn picked it up.

"Hello?"

"Hey, it's Chang, man. Throw down the keys!"

Quinn dropped the phone and rushed out onto their fire escape. Their other best friend and former roommate, Michael Chang Jr., smiled and raised his hand in a wave, catching the keys that Dave tossed in his direction. They watched Chang walk towards the front door, out of their view, then Dave stalked back inside.

Before Chang could unlock the front door, he found himself surrounded by a group of rough-looking young men. "Hey, got a light, man?" one of them asked him. As he opened his mouth to say that no, he didn't, all four- or were there five?- of the men lunged at him. A fist flew towards Chang's face, landing square on his nose.

Quinn had followed Dave, and watched as he friend raised muscular arms and tore an old poster off the wall.

"What are you doing?" she questioned, her voice rough with nicotine. Their walls were covered with posters advertising Dave's gigs, back when he was a rising star.

"Too fuckin' cold in here" Dave spat. "We're having a bonfire."

Quinn rolled her eyes and glanced over at her desk, which held piles of unfinished scripts. Might as well, she thought. There weren't any Academy Awards in her near future. She grabbed a stack of paper and tossed it into the trash can where Dave had collected all those mementos of his former glory. He eyed his friend warily at first, but shrugged and produced a book of matches from his back pocket.

"I'm assuming you tried the fuse box?" Quinn asked as Dave lit a match.

He nodded and threw it into the trash can, setting the papers ablaze. "Bastard shut off the power." Quinn added the rest of her scripts into the fire, Dave following with his sheet music.

"Where's Chang?" Quinn wondered aloud.

The young thugs had dragged Chang into a nearby alley. They continued to punch ad kick as he lay defenceless against the brick wall of the laundromat. After grabbing both his jacket and the contents of his pockets, the muggers ran off into the night. Mike closed his eyes in pain.

Dave had carried the trash can out onto the fire escape. Quinn lit a cigarette with the flames, making her friend chuckle as they stared at the streets below. Their neighbours were protesting, shouting with fists raised, burning eviction notices floating through the air. A familiar black car cruised by and stopped outside their building. The driver's side door opened, revealing a short man with slick dark hair and a self-important expression. He observed the protests with a mocking smirk, which faded as he noticed an elderly homeless man leaning against his car.

"I will thank you to remove your filthy self from my Range Rover!" he admonished.

"Hey, Blaine! That attitude towards the homeless is exactly what Joe is protesting!" Quinn shouted from above him.

"Joe is protesting losing his performance space, not my attitude" Blaine responded snidely. "Come down, I wanna talk to you."

Quinn re-entered their apartment, intending to grab her camera to document the conversation. Dave glanced down, doing a double take as he noticed the boy who lived below them. He'd moved in recently, and looked sort of familiar, though Dave couldn't recall where he'd seen him before. The boy's large blue eyes sparkled, his plush lips curling into a grin at his upstairs neighbour. Dave recoiled as if burned by the friendly overture and headed back inside.

Blaine was tearing down posters advertising Joe's performance when the two roommates exited the building. Quinn pointed her camera at him and began to narrate.

"Close-up: Blaine Anderson. Our ex-roommate, who married Rachel Berry of the Westport Berrys. Blaine's father-in-law bought several buildings on the block, as well as a nearby lot, home to Tent City. Blaine wants to evict all the homeless from Tent City, and build a cyber studio."

"David" Blaine greeted, smirking and ignoring Quinn's commentary. "You're looking good, for a guy who's coming off a year's withdrawal."

Dave had perched himself on the hood of Blaine's Range Rover. "What'd you want, Blaine?" he asked pointedly.

"What do I want? Hmm...well, my investor-"

"You mean your father-in-law?" Quinn interrupted venomously from behind her camera.

"Right..." Blaine smirked. "He wasn't too pleased to read about Joe's performance in the Village Voice. Sent me down here to collect the rent."

"What rent?" Dave piped up.

"This past year's rent, which I let slide."

"Let slide? You said we were golden!" Quinn's face reddened with escalating rage.

"When you bought the building" Dave reminded him.

"When we were roommates, remember you lived here?" Quinn added through clenched teeth.

Blaine chuckled. "Ah yes, how could I forget? You, me, Chang...and Joseph." He gazed at the poster displaying a strikingly handsome young man whose dark hair was styled into dreadlocks. "How is the drama king?"

Quinn switched off her camera and lowered it from in front of her face. "He's...getting ready for his performance." Her defiant expression did little to conceal her uneasiness with the direction of Blaine's questioning.

"I know." Blaine's smirk widened. "Still his production manager?"

"Not exactly" Quinn replied with a shrug.

Blaine raised a bushy brow. "Still dating him?"

Quinn blew out and exasperated breath. "I was dumped, okay?"

"Found himself a new lady?" Blaine was practically salivating at the news of his ex-friend's misfortune.

"Well...no." Quinn's eyes dropped to the pavement below her feet.

"What's her name?" Blaine asked, eyes glittering.

"Trent." Both Quinn and Dave answered in unison.

Blaine's mouth began to form the letter T, as if we was about to repeat the name. Instead, he dissolved into peals of mocking laughter. He doubled over and even slapped the wall for effect.

"Thanks for being so understanding" Quinn muttered.

Dave snorted. "You expect sympathy from the guy who shut off our power on Christmas Eve?"

"Got your attention, didn't it?" Blaine laughed, crumpling Joe's posters into a ball.

"What happened to you, man?" Dave asked, lifting himself off the hood of the car. "You used to be like us. You used to stand for something."

"Look" Blaine began, holding up his hands as if in surrender. "Any owner of that lot next door has the right to do with it as he pleases. If you two haven't got the money, I'm sure we can...work something out."

Dave brought a hand to cover his mouth in faux shock. "Why Blaine, I thought you didn't swing that way anymore!" They both grinned as the short man's cheeks reddened.

"No...n-nothing like that" Blaine stammered, then cleared his throat. "When I open Cyber Arts, all our dreams can come true! Picture it- a state of the art, digital, virtual, inter-active studio. And you can stay here for free, if you do me one small favour."

"What?"Quinn asked, eyes narrowed behind her black-framed glasses.

"Convince Joe to cancel his protest."

"Why not just call the cops?" Quinn was getting in Blaine's face now, staring down at him angrily.

"I did, and they're on standby" Blaine replied, hands still raised in an attempt at defending himself. "But my investors would rather I handle this quietly."

"You can't quietly wipe out an entire Tent City then watch It's A Wonderful Life on TV!" Dave interjected, him and Quinn crowding around their ex-friend.

"You want to produce films and write songs? You need somewhere to do it." Blaine stated matter-of-factly. "We'll build condos on top of it, use their rent to fund everything. You two could make some serious money. Think about it." He pushed past the two angry tenants and got back into his car.

Tina Cohen-Chang sat at the end of the block, drumsticks clicking enthusiastically on a plastic bucket. Her head bobbed the complex beat, long dark hair swishing around her face. A passerby dropped her a nickel, to which she smiled genuinely and said, "Merry Christmas" though she came from a Buddhist and Jewish background.

A distressed noise from the alley caused Tina to pause in her drumming once more. She concentrated on listening for another sound, but heard none. Concerned that someone was in trouble, she picked up her bucket and backpack and ventured into the alley. There were more noises as she got closer; they sounded like painful coughs. Between the restaurant and the laundromat, Tina found a man slumped against the wall, obviously in pain.

"Oh my God- you okay, honey?" she asked softly, bending down to his level.

"I'm afraid so" the man rasped.

"Did they get anything?" Tina looked him over. The thugs must have made off with his jacket, the poor guy!

"I didn't have any money, but they took my stuff" he replied, eyes downcast. He sniffed, bringing a hand up to his bloodied nose, and hissed in pain."

"Here, let me-" Tina attempted to move his hand so she could inspect his wound, but he drew back, avoiding her touch. "No! I'm fine, I'm fine."

Tina recognized his hesitance. She herself habitually shied away from anyone when bleeding. Was his reason the same as hers?

"I'm Tina" she said in a gentle voice, meeting the injured man's eyes.

"Tina" he repeated. "My friends call me Chang. Mike...Mike Chang."

"Come on" Tina urged, holding out a hand. "Let's get you cleaned up."

"Ow" Mike cried in pain, but let her help him up.

"But I've gotta hurry. I've got a Life Support meeting to go to."

"Life Support?"

"Yeah. It's for people with AIDS. People like me" Tina affirmed quietly.

"...me too" Mike stated, their eyes meeting once again.

Tina took Mike to her apartment, about three blocks from where she'd been playing that night. To anyone who didn't know her well, the young woman might have seemed reckless, trying to help a man she'd just met. But that was Tina- always willing to help anyone in need, although she herself was just a poor street drummer who also made clothes. She could never just stand and watch while anyone suffered; it was in her nature to try and help.

Inside, she helped Mike sit down on the couch while she made him some tea and gathered her first aid supplies. Mike looked around the colourfully decorated apartment curiously. Who exactly was this beautiful drummer woman who'd rescued him from bleeding in a dark alley on Christmas?

"You always bring strangers back here?" he asked as she began to clean the blood from his face.

Tina raised her eyebrows at him. "I'm not a working girl, if that's what you're asking" she responded. "But I look out for my own." Her eyes widened as she realized what she'd implied. "I mean, you know, the poor folks around here. Anyone who needs a little help. Not just other Asians" she clarified with a nervous smile. Their eyes connected once again, and they laughed, all tension between them beginning to dissipate.