Fanning herself with a flyer, Quinn scanned the street she was currently parked on, searching for some kind of indication to direct her to where she was supposed to be. Of course she realized now that packing her cell phone charger for the car in one of the boxes inside a U-Haul truck, which was driving to her new apartment somewhere in Manhattan, was a particularly bad idea; considering her iPhone was her only form of GPS and now the battery had died and she was lost. She wished she'd bothered to pay attention to Mrs. Hagberg in her high school geography classes; if she had, she would have been able to read a map and would not be parked on a random, Manhattan street in the late August afternoon heat.
A week earlier she'd sworn to Santana during a Skype call that she wouldn't ask a stranger from the street for directions ("Listen, Q. New Yorkers are crazy, they could direct you to a crack house or be a serial killer – or even worse, they might give you a hard to resist deal on Broadway tickets."), however, difficult times turn to difficult measures and Quinn found herself flinging open the door of her red VW bug and scanning the sidewalk for a decent looking human being.
"Excuse me, I'm sort of lost, do you know where this street is?" Quinn asked as she stopped an extremely attractive jogger, who pulled out his ear buds and slowed as Quinn approached him. The jogger squinted at the paper and read for a second before nodding and giving her simple directions while she made note in her head of the left and right turns. "Thank you, so much," she smiled and turned swiftly on her heel back to her car, but the jogger caught her attention once more.
"Hey, I didn't get your name – I'm Brody," he said, eyes twinkling in the late afternoon sunlight. Quinn's eyes trailed down his perfectly toned body and smirked to herself – four years ago she would have swooned at just being smiled at by this guy, but after the amount of failed relationships she had had in high school and in college she'd made a promise to herself that she would not accept any romantic offering from any guy she met in New York. Looking back up to Brody's face, she smiled and answered,
"I'm Quinn, it's been a pleasure." Before turning back to her car and waved quickly to Brody as she sped down the street.
Santana and Brittany were standing outside their apartment building talking to one of the movers when Quinn pulled to a stop behind the U-Haul truck, and Brittany smiled excitedly as she released her hand from Santana's and skipped over to Quinn, wrapping her in a tight hug.
"Welcome to New York, roomie!" the taller girl whispered into Quinn's left ear and she grinned as she pulled away to let Santana hug Quinn, who breathed out a slow, "Hey, Q," before leaning back and smirking at her friend, "you certainly took your time getting here, get lost?" Quinn rolled her eyes and nodded.
"It's totally fine if you get lost in New York, Quinn," Brittany informed her, a serious look on her face, "when we first moved here I got lost on the way to the grocery store so I asked a guy for directions, but he didn't answer. I think he was asleep… or dead maybe," Santana stared at her girlfriend with a horrified expression as Brittany shrugged and turned back to Quinn, who was reaching into her car to pull out a cardboard box.
Santana groaned, "I thought the movers already brought all your crap," when she saw the box was almost busted at the sides from the weight of the books that filled it; but Quinn laughed,
"There's another two boxes, could you two help bring them up?" and turned to walk into the building as she heard Santana groan again,
"Jesus, Quinn – how the hell am I supposed to carry this up four flights of stairs?"
"Come on, Santana, you were on the Cheerios for four years, you carried heavy things all the time for Coach Sue," Quinn told her as Brittany joined her at her side in front of the building's door.
"Yeah, like your big-ass head at the top of the damn pyramid." Santana snarled and huffed as she followed the other two girls into the building and towards the staircase, staring longingly at the elevator, which had been out of order for two weeks, wishing that the landlord would get up off his fat ass and fix it already.
Once they had finished helping the movers arrange furniture in Quinn's new bedroom, which to her utter dismay they had put her bed against the wall that Santana and Brittany's headboard was against on the other side of the thin wall, Quinn paid them and the three girls ordered Chinese food and sat on the sofa while Santana flicked through the channels on the TV, eventually landing on an old 90s sitcom. Brittany returned from the kitchen with a cheap bottle of wine that had most likely been bought in celebration of Quinn's arrival from the 7/11 down the street that Quinn had passed as she drove to the apartment.
"Britt, that shit is disgusting," Santana said, despite reaching out to take one of the three plastic wine glasses Brittany was holding in one hand. Brittany passed a glass to Quinn as she sat back down in her spot between Santana and Quinn and twisted the cap on the bottle to pour the deep red liquid into her own glass, and then Santana's and Quinn's. Quinn took a sip of the wine and immediately pulled a face – it was nothing like the wine she was used to drinking when her mom let her have a glass of her special aged wine at dinner when she lived back home.
"Santana's right, this is gross," she laughed, but sipped more anyway; she was happy, living with her best friends in New York City, eating Chinese food and drinking cheap wine.
Brittany shook her head at the other two girls, declaring that "Chinese food and cheap, gross wine is, like, the norm for New Yorkers, I saw it on F.R.I.E.N.D.S," after taking another sip, she quickly changed her mind, "Actually, you guys are right, this is disgusting, like that time Lord Tubbington tried to invent his own energy drink and it ended up tasting exactly like pee,". Placing her cup down on the linoleum flooring, Brittany wrapped an arm around Santana and an arm around Quinn, pulling them both into her sides and smiling, quickly pecking Santana's lips and Quinn's forehead.
It was worlds away from what she was used to back home in Lima, and even her dorm in New Haven, but she was happy – they were happy.
Quinn wished her body clock wasn't still set to her crazy class schedule back at Yale and wouldn't wake her up at six in the morning, but as hard as she tried she couldn't force herself to fall back asleep. The bathroom in the apartment was quaint: there was a toilet, a shower and a sink, however with three girls living in the apartment together, every surface was cluttered with makeup, various skin products and a rainbow collection of hair ties. Quinn removed her pajamas and slipped into the shower quickly, careful not to knock the cluster of shampoo bottles down as she stepped under the showerhead. As the water cascaded onto her, she ran her fingers through her shoulder-length blonde hair and reached for one of the "for blonde hair" shampoos, which she suspected was Brittany's, and squeezed some onto her hand before kneading it into her hair slowly. She pulled her lips into her mouth and held herself back from spontaneously beginning to sing while she showered; she certainly did not want to wake Santana and face an angry 'you-woke-me-up-at-six-in-the-morning' rant.
After showering, quickly dressing herself and fixing her hair and makeup, Quinn silently slipped on a pair of ballet flats and left the apartment to find a nearby coffee shop; she needed to introduce Santana to ground coffee because she physically could not stomach Santana's instant crap.
Despite the early hour, the odd passersby walked along the sidewalk outside Quinn's apartment, one or two speeding past to whatever emergency that may be in occurrence at 7am on a Sunday morning. Stepping out of the doorway, Quinn scanned the buildings surrounding the one in which her apartment was situated in, which were lightly shadowed by the low morning sun, and strolled towards the end of the street, carefully memorizing the stores and buildings she passed to refrain from getting lost yet again in the middle of Manhattan.
About a block and a half away she found a somewhat empty coffee shop named Patti's, which was tucked between a barber shop and a bar with various open mic flyers in the window named Callbacks. Quinn pushed open the glass door and was immediately hit with the rich smell of fresh coffee beans. Smiling to herself, she stepped inside and looked around. There was only one other patron – a man seated in the corner of the room fiddling with an iPad. Behind the counter, the barista, who initially had had her back facing the door, spun around to the jingle of the bells that announced Quinn's entrance and smiled an almost blinding, pearly white smile.
"Hello, welcome to Patti's, what can I get for you this morning?" she asked, beaming.
"Just a Mocha, thanks." Quinn answered, sliding the correct change towards the brunette and taking a seat in one of the chocolate brown leather armchairs. The whirring sound of the coffee machine grinding the beans together was a comforting reminder of her job back in New Haven, and she reached into her purse to pull out her copy of Les Misérables and thumbed through the pages to find where her bookmark was tucked between pages to continue from where she'd previously read. Not too long later, the barista placed Quinn's coffee on the table in front of the blonde and smiled again, this time Quinn returned the smile and reached for her coffee to take a sip before returning to her book.
She wasn't sure how long she had been reading for – she had a tendency to forget her surroundings and find herself lost in whatever book she was reading – but she was interrupted when a conversations over at the counter, that had begun with whispers, suddenly became a lot more heated. Quinn looked over to see the barista slowly backing away from a male as his tone became sharper and louder, and a sudden element of protection overcame her – she'd witnessed a scene similar to this between her parents when she was a kid, and she knew exactly how this kind of thing ended up. Slamming her paperback onto the table beside her empty mug, the blonde stormed over to the counter and grabbed the back of the man's leather jacket and pulled him back away from the barista, who looked terrified to say the least.
The man struggled against Quinn's hold and finally ripped away from her, demanding "Who the hell are you?" to which Quinn replied by shaking her head and feeling her former high school bitch persona rush through her veins,
"You get two choices, James Dean, either you leave this place immediately, or I call the cops," she glared at him, squaring herself in front of him. Somehow, she managed to look intimidating, despite her pastel summer dress and flower hair slide. The man glared back before looking back at the brunette barista and swiftly turning towards the door and storming out; the whole exit was incredibly over-dramatic.
Following the sound of the door thudding shut, Quinn heard the woman behind her let go of a breath that she must have been holding for a while, and spun around to face her.
"Th-thank you," the barista said, her once warm chocolate brown eyes now barren of any emotion other than fear. She wasn't going to lie – the whole scene that had taken place before her was extremely theatrical and almost looked staged - however, she wasn't going to let this girl, whom she had never met before, be treated like that. The barista opened the counter hatch, slumped herself in the armchair that Quinn had occupied only minutes ago, and burst into tears, sobbing loudly into the palms of her hands. Feeling a little lost, Quinn stood awkwardly for a couple of seconds, not wanting to leave the girl but still unsure of what to do, and ended up taking a seat in the armchair opposite.
After around five minutes, the barista began wiping furiously at her eyes and stopped crying, before looking back and Quinn, seemingly shocked that the blonde was still there. "You didn't have to stand up for me like that; not that I'm not grateful that you stopped Jesse from going any further with his violent actions. It's just that you don't know me and I don't know you but-" Quinn held up her right palm to interrupt the brunette's long-winded ramble and smiled.
"Honestly, it was nothing," the barista's eyes lit up as Quinn stood from the chair and held her hand out towards the other woman, "I'm Quinn Fabray, nice to meet you," The barista took Quinn's hand and stood, shaking lightly and pointed to the name badge pinned to her green apron, which read Rachel and was decorated with a gold star sticker.
"Rachel Berry," Quinn smiled and returned Rachel's handshake before pulling away and returning to her seat.
"So, that guy… was he your boyfriend?" Quinn asked, nodding towards the door that Jesse had exited from. Rachel shook her head slowly and pursed her lips before answering,
"He's my ex. We dated in high school and he just moved to New York from LA and he wants to get back together with me, but somehow he can't understand the concept of me not wanting a boyfriend." Quinn nodded as Rachel told her story and found herself relating to it. After she had her baby, Puck had continuously chased her up and tried to get back with her, but couldn't comprehend the concept of "No." meaning no. She looked down to see that her right hand was clasped with Rachel's left and looked up to meet with the chocolate brown eyes that she'd grown so familiar with during the past half hour that she had been acquainted with Rachel. The girls were pulled out of the moment when Quinn's cell phone began to vibrate in her pocket. And she pulled her hands away to read the text.
Where the hell are you, Q? Britt wants you to make her chocolate chip pancakes so you need to come home. –Santana
"I'm really sorry, that was my roommate. She wants me to go home to make her girlfriend pancakes," Quinn said, feeling annoyed that she had to leave Rachel in her fragile state so soon. The brunette nodded and hesitated for a second before asking,
"When you walked by did you see the bar next door? Callbacks?" Quinn nodded and Rachel continued, "I'm going there tonight with a few friends, maybe you and your roommates could come too? I mean, you don't have to, it's merely a suggestion-" Quinn laughed and placed her hand on Rachel's shoulder to once again pause her ramble and smiled,
"I'll ask them. Maybe see you later, Rachel Berry." She said, pushing the door to the coffee shop open, and turned to look at Rachel.
"See you around, Quinn Fabray."
The apartment was empty when Quinn returned, breath heavy after lugging herself up the four flights of stairs.
"Honeys, I'm home!" she sang and placed the brown paper grocery bag on the kitchen island, removing the pancake ingredients from the bag. Her head shot up at when the sound of wet feet slapping against the linoleum caught her attention, as Brittany and Santana emerged from the bathroom, dressed in nothing but a single lilac bath towel. "Seriously? You couldn't have waited until after you had shower sex to tell me to come home?" Brittany giggled and dragged Santana into their bedroom as Quinn rolled her eyes and began preparing the chocolate chip pancakes.
Five minutes later, Brittany appeared on one of the pale blue stools at the kitchen island wearing an NYU hoody and pajama shorts, her wet hair piled on top of her head in a messy bun. Quinn slapped her hand as she reached out a hand to grab a pancake from the stack in the center of the counter, "Nu-uh, no pancakes for either of you until you promise to only have sex when I'm out of the apartment or very quietly. I do not want any mental scarring from living with the two of you." Brittany's eyes widened and she looked over her shoulder at Santana, who was stopped in the bedroom doorway.
"No. No way." Santana yelled, storming over to the kitchen. Brittany, however, held out her hand towards Quinn and quietly said "deal", to which Santana stared at her incredulously.
"What? I really like pancakes, okay?" Brittany said, shrugging her shoulders and reaching for a pancake. Santana shook her head and threw herself on the sofa, pulling a pillow over her face. "Wait, you weren't serious were you?" Brittany asked, looking up from her pancake and she threw the half eaten pancake back onto the plate when Quinn nodded her head.
Santana eventually lifted her head and walked over to the counter, announcing that she and Brittany would promise to be quiet, "but I can't promise that I'll be quiet the whole time. I mean, Britt is like a sex goddess-" her remark was muffled by the pancake that Quinn shoved into her mouth. Brittany giggled and dragged her fingers through Santana's wet hair as she reached for the pancake she hadn't finished earlier. "Where did you go this morning, Quinn?" Santana asked once she'd swallowed the pancake.
"I, uh, I went to get coffee and I stopped a barista from possibly getting hurt by her ex-boyfriend. It was pretty intense." Santana tilted her head and looked at Quinn in disbelief.
"You, what?" she asked, brow knitting together. "I don't believe you. You're a bitch Quinn, and once a bitch always a bitch." Brittany slapped her girlfriend's arm lightly as Quinn shook her head to disagree.
"The way he was intimidating her… I couldn't just sit around and watch. It reminded me of my mom and dad, and I had to do something before it escalated into something worse." Santana's eyes softened and she reached over the counter to place her hand over Quinn's and squeezed it lightly. Santana was well aware of the happenings at the Fabray house in the past; many a time had Quinn turned up at her front door in tears, asking if she could stay the night.
"I totally know how it feels to stop a fight, Q. One time during Lord Tubbington's gang phase in high school, I caught him trying to beat up the cat from down the street so I stopped it and dragged Tubbs back into the house and forced him to eat broccoli for the entire week afterwards." Brittany's anecdote managed to elicit a grin from Quinn and Santana.
Santana grumbled as Brittany loaded her with another shopping bag, muttering about how much she hates shopping. As the three girls stepped out of the clothes store, Quinn lowered her sunglasses and asked Brittany where they were headed to next. Brittany pointed to a small shop that had vintage dresses in the window.
"You'll like this one, Quinn. They have all the old fashioned dresses you like to wear." Brittany informed her and linked their arms. Santana grumbled a quiet "joy" and followed the blondes into the store.
After rifling through a few racks of dresses, Quinn remembered the conversation she'd had with Rachel just before she left. "Hey, have you guys heard of Callbacks?" Santana rolled her eyes and nodded,
"Yeah, it's where all the NYADA dweebs go and sing karaoke and drink virgin cosmos." Quinn sighed and anticipated that Santana's answer to going would be a definite no.
"The girl I met today, Rachel, she invited us to go with her and her friends tonight. It's fine if you don't want to go, I can go by myself." Santana shook her head quickly and looked over to Brittany, who was already at the back of the store checking out the jewelry.
"No, you can't go on your first night out as an official New Yorker without me and Britt. We'll go, even if I will want to throw up on the hideous NYADA clothing choices." Quinn smiled and excitedly thanked Santana and skipped over to a different rack to find a new dress for the night.
"I hate Broadway music. I want to slap that bitch." Santana said as she gulped her vodka cranberry, glaring at the animated woman on stage singing 'All That Jazz'. Brittany ignored her and sipped her brightly colored mixed drink through a straw as she danced in her seat. Quinn watched the two of them happily from where she was sat in the corner of the booth, thinking about how much she'd missed her best friends when she was in New Haven.
An excited voice distracts her from her thoughts and she looks up to find Rachel standing on the stage. She's wearing a pair of shorts and a tight shirt underneath a blazer, and Quinn finds herself raking her eyes up and down the woman's body. Rachel grabbed onto the microphone and giggled tipsily before saying, "Hello my name is Rachel Berry and I'll be singing Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepson." Santana groaned at Rachel's song choice and rested her head on the table and Brittany chuckled as she ruffled her girlfriend's hair. The people in the booth next to theirs' shout "Yay Rachel!" and Rachel smiles coyly, clearly loving the attention. The bar quietened and Rachel began to sing. Despite the crappy pop song, Quinn was mesmerized by her voice and her eyes fixated on her as she glided across the low stage, dragging the microphone stand along with her and sliding her hand through her dark tresses of hair.
A light punch to her left arm snapped her out of her trance. Santana was laughing and Brittany announced that "Quinn's totally got a girl crush on her!" Quinn quickly excused herself to the bar, desperate to get away from Santana and Brittany's teasing. Seating herself at one of the bar stools, she ordered a shot and watched as the bartender poured the tequila. A body leant against her and she saw Rachel in her peripheral vision, who was smiling in her direction.
"Quinn! You made it! I knew you'd come, I really wanted to sing with you; your speaking voice gave me the impression that you can sing. You can sing right? Let's sing a duet!" the words fell out of Rachel's mouth in a fast tempo, and Quinn's slightly tipsy mind struggled to keep up, especially when Rachel's brown eyes were locked with her own. When Rachel's words pieced together in her head, her eyes widened and she shook her head quickly.
"No, I can't – I can't sing in front of all of these people," Rachel ignored her and ordered a shot for herself and instructed Quinn to drink hers with her. Raising her eyebrows, she waited as Rachel counted to three and licked the salt from her hand, downed the shot and quickly sucked on the lime. "Buy me another and I'll sing with you," Quinn smirked, turning her head to Rachel, who raised an eyebrow before grinning and ordering two more shots.
/
Rachel's fingers were tangled with her own as they stumbled over to the piano and flicked through the songbook. They decided on Teenage Dream and stepped onto the stage together, their hands clinging to each other. A hoard of wails from Rachel's group of friends and Brittany fist pumping and shouting "Woo, Quinn!" Quinn's eyes met with Santana's, which were wide open in shock, but were diverted when Rachel spoke.
"As you all know, I'm Rachel Berry and this is my friend, Quinn Fabray. We'll be singing a duet of Teenage Dream by Katy Perry." As the crowd cheered and the piano began to play, Quinn could hear her heart beat racing – and not in a good way. Desperately, she locked eyes with Rachel in a plea to let her leave the stage and flee with her dignity still intact. Rachel shook her head and reached out to take Quinn's left hand in her right and didn't look away from Quinn's eyes as she began to sing.
You think I'm pretty without any makeup on,
You think I'm funny when I tell the punch line wrong,
I know you get me, so I'll let my walls come down
Down.
Rachel nodded to tell Quinn to sing the following part and she opened her mouth to sing, silently praying that her voice would sound remotely in tune.
Let's go all the way tonight,
No regrets, just love,
We can dance until we die,
You and I, will be young forever.
As soon as the words left Quinn's vocal chords, Rachel's signature beam grew on her face and her eyes lit up excitedly. She squeezed the blonde's hand and turned away so that she could face their small audience to sing the chorus.
You, make me feel like I'm living a,
Teenage dream, the way you turn me on,
Quinn joined in, the alcohol had begun to take an effect and she felt herself loosening up. She danced on the stage with Rachel and by the end of the song every patron in the bar was on their feet. Rachel pulled Quinn into her arms and whispered into her ear, "That right there, Quinn Fabray, is your first standing ovation." They pulled apart and were immediately dragged off the stage by one of Rachel's friends.
"Rachel, that was wonderful, but you have to let somebody else have a chance in the spotlight," he said, somewhat jokingly, "Quinn? I'm Kurt Hummel, it's a pleasure." The man held out a gloved hand and Quinn took it, shaking lightly. Rachel hugged her again, and Quinn said a quiet "thank you" into her ear, to which Rachel pulled back and whispered, "It was nothing", before winking and returning to sit with her friends.
Turning around, Quinn went back to her booth where Santana and Brittany were sitting and joined them, reaching for Santana's drink and taking a gulp of the liquid. Her eyes were trained away from Santana's smirk, but glared at her when she said "I totally called it Britt, she's is definitely lady-gay."
Brittany nodded and told Quinn that they'd "had a bet running since junior year." Quinn continued to glare at the two of them.
"Rachel and I just met less than 24 hours ago, there is absolutely nothing going on between the two of us." She tried to defend herself but she knew it wasn't working because Santana still hadn't wiped the smirk from her face. Brittany was tucked into Santana's side and quickly falling asleep against her shoulder, so the girls decided to call it a night and head back to their apartment.
As they passed Rachel and her friends, Quinn smiled and waved at the brunette and a chorus of "Bye, Quinn!" erupted from the crowded table. It was only then that Quinn realized that Brody, the jogger who gave her directions the day before, was seated within a close proximity to Rachel. She waved to him too, a little more half-heartedly than she had to Rachel, however.
The cold air hit her and Quinn suddenly realized how much she'd had to drink. Santana was trying to rein Brittany in ahead of her, who was trying to make Santana dance with her. Quinn stumbled a little as she sped up to catch up with her friends. A familiar voice called her from just behind, causing her to spin and giggle. Rachel ran the few steps between them to promptly hold her phone out towards Quinn.
"Your number – I need your number. Type it in." Quinn took the phone out of Rachel's hand and fumbled with it for a second before typing in her number. Handing the phone back, Quinn pulled her bottom lip into her mouth and bit it while smiling. Rachel stood on her tiptoes and sighed before darting forward to press a kiss against Quinn's cheek, "Goodnight Quinn. I'll call you tomorrow, I promise." The blonde watched as Rachel turned back towards Callbacks and entered the bar before she turned back to Santana and Brittany, who had witnessed the exchange. Brittany was clinging onto Santana as they giggled to themselves.
The rest of the walk back, Quinn's hand rested on her cheek where it tingled after Rachel's kiss.
Author's Note:
I got the idea to write this fic after continuously listening to Taylor Swift's album "Red" (which I suggest you download right now because it's perf, I'm not even kidding.) and it has been in the works for an extraordinarily long time. When I say extraordinarily I mean two months, but it feels like longer. I really do hope that you enjoy reading, I expect there to be around fifteen chapters in total, but if I get carried away like usual, it will probably turn out to be more. I'll update as often as I can, but I have a lot of school work to do because of exams coming up, so in reality updates will be at least few days apart after Christmas.
Personally, I hate asking for people to review my stories because I rarely do myself – it's my new year's resolution to review everything I read – but they really do give me more motivation to continue writing. So please, if you have the time, drop in a quick review and let me know what you think (I can take constructive criticism!).
Also, if you have a tumblr and want to find out spoilers about future chapters or ask questions, my tumblr is .com.
The song for this chapter is Begin Again by Taylor Swift.
Thank you for reading!