Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 54th cycle. Now cycle 55!

Favorites cycle - It's that time again, where I gather a list of my fifteen favorite characters, relationships, friendships, etc of the moment! It's constantly evolving, and if I did it over today, as the list was selected weeks ago, it would already be different. But oh well, there'll be later opportunities ;) So then, here we go!
At number 13 - Quinn/Rachel

"Two-Way Trip"
Quinn/Rachel
(a/n: *cough* I wrote this before the episode ;))

Anytime she would open her wallet, there she'd see it. She'd be out for coffee, or getting a book for class from the library, and her eyes would sweep to the pass, tucked away under her student ID. It might have seemed silly to just carry it around with her all the time, when she knew she wouldn't be using it, but no one would know, so what did she care? Seeing the card there was what mattered, just as it mattered that she knew that, somewhere in New York, the card had a twin, in her belongings.

She didn't know if Rachel carried hers around with her… probably not. Even if she didn't carry it with her, she still had it, because Quinn had given it to her.

Neither pass had yet to be used. Some days though… Some days it was all she could think about, to just go, without even going back to her dorm to pack a bag, and take a ride over to New York, to see her.

Being away from home, from everyone she knew, had been hard at first, understandably so. But it had all been bearable, as much as one could expect, so long as she didn't think about missing any of them. That had lasted all of twenty minutes, after she had found her dorm room, dropped off her carry-on bags, and come face to face with her roommate… who from the back could almost be deemed a Rachel Berry lookalike. It was uncanny, kind of creepy, and completely cruel, to the point where she had requested a room change. If she had to spend her days seeing her there, and worse her nights, one of these nights she might have done something stupid by mistake…

Her request had been waitlisted, for lack of space, but worse her roommate had caught wind of it, and now went around giving her attitude whenever she saw her.

Lying in bed at night, it was just as bad as she'd imagined, looking to the side and seeing the head of dark brown hair resting on its pillow in the other bed. It carried her thoughts to the girl in New York, the girl she hadn't seen in weeks, spoken to in…

Did Rachel understand why she'd given her the pass? Maybe… Quinn wasn't sure she understood it herself, not really. Her thoughts and the feelings that came along, concerning Rachel Berry, were as much of a mess as could be expected, she guessed. She knew where she was at, or at least she felt she did, but if she was completely honest with herself she didn't know that Rachel was there at all. Maybe she was just trying to protect herself and not assume anything that was too hopeful, but in her heart it felt like they weren't in the same place.

And maybe that was okay. Not okay in the sense that it wouldn't break her heart at least part of the way, but… she got it. Up until not that long ago, she never would have imagined that this could be possible, that she could be able to acknowledge even the vague notion that she might have feelings for a girl, and Rachel Berry of all people. But once she had, it had felt like… peace, washing over her. She had been so angry, for so long, and the thought that she might have something good and positive to focus her energy on, something more like someone… It had changed everything.

So many times she had seen that card, so many times she had wanted to use it… The first time had been right there, on that first day, meeting the Rachel lookalike-from-the-back roommate. Right then it just felt like she needed to run to her, tell her in no uncertain terms exactly how she felt, no matter what the response would be, so that at the very least the truth would be out there, and she could know. But telling her in such a way would open her up to the rejection she all but knew could be on her horizon. She had always had such a push and pull relationship with fear, what she thought she felt and what she really did feel, but this she knew she honestly feared.

She had been startled by the hum of her phone vibrating next to her bed, and when she'd looked and seen the screen, she blinked in surprise, snatching up the phone and springing from her bed, padding barefoot out into the hall and sitting on the ground against the wall before she answered.

"Hello?" she had answered, even if she could have answered with her name.

"Did I wake you?" Rachel asked, and she hadn't expected the flourish of joy just from hearing her voice. She covered her mouth, hoping she hadn't heard relieved sob that had escaped her.

"No, I was awake," she promised after a moment. "What about you, it's late, are you alright?"

"Couldn't sleep," Rachel admitted. "I should be asleep, I have a class early tomorrow… today," she remembered the time.

"What's keeping you up?" Quinn asked, and there was a pause. "Rachel?"

"Finn and I broke up." Now it was Quinn who had gone silent all at once. "Are you there?"

"Yeah, I just… Rachel, I'm sorry," she had to say. "You alright?"

"I don't know, it's still just kind of…"

"I get it," Quinn promised, keeping her from having to draw it out any further.

"I just came back from Lima," she revealed. "I stopped to get something to eat earlier, and I saw the pass you gave me, so I thought…" Quinn would have felt wrong to smile in that moment, but then Rachel couldn't see her face, so…

"Rachel, you'll be okay," she told her. "No matter what happens, you know you will. And if you ever need to talk, you can always call me."

"I know," Rachel promised.

"Just go back and lie down in bed, close your eyes, and imagine you're talking to me, and I'm telling you this. Can you do that?"

"Yeah, I think I can," Rachel told her. "Thanks, I'll just… I'll call you in the morning."

"Okay," Quinn breathed out.

"Good night, Quinn."

"Night, Rachel." When they'd hung up, she remained sat there for a few more seconds before getting up on her feet and reaching for the handle… The door was locked. She didn't have her keys. "Amanda, wake up, let me in," she knocked on the door. It took a minute or so for her to realize her roommate had awakened – she just wasn't getting up to let her in… of course. "Damn it, Amanda, open the door."

THE END

A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.
In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are
always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!