Title: Breathe Me In

Author: eFitch

Pairing(s): Emily/Quinn. (Pretty Little Liars/Glee crossover.) Mentions of: Maya/Emily, Quinn/Puck, possibly Quinn/Finn and Toby/Emily. Other pairings that will pop up or be mentioned: Finn/Rachel, Mike/Tina, Artie/Brittany, and Brittany/Santana.

Disclaimer: I do not own Glee or Pretty Little Liars, or any of their characters. Nor do I own any restaurants, food products, music, etc. that may be mentioned.

Summary: Two girls. Both want a new beginning. Somehow that involves each other. But it's never easy letting someone in when you're not even sure they are who they say they are.


Everything hurts - all those thoughts, they're still plaguing her. She wishes they wouldn't. She wants them to go away. So much. But, they won't. She can wish all she wants, but she never gets what she wishes for. She wished for a normal four years of high school with normal friends and a normal boyfriend, but nothing's normal anymore.

She smiles as she walks through the hallways. It's expected of her, isn't it? She's the head cheerleader. The girl everyone wants to be. She doesn't understand why, though. She's nothing special. Just another blonde girl with a pretty face, but they try to think of her as perfect. As the perfect girl they all love to hate.

"Quinn." She doesn't stop at the voice. She knows she should, but she can't. Looking at him hurts. His eyes - those eyes - remind Quinn too much of Be- of her. She wants to be with him. She wants to love him, but she can't. Not when he has those eyes.

"Quinn." He says it more harshly this time and she stops.

She doesn't look at him. Doesn't turn around. She just stands and listens to what he has to say.

Puck thinks that's progress.

"Mr. Schue says you and Sam still have to sing at Nationals, okay? That's all I wanted to say."

"Okay," she whispers, and then she starts walking again.

She's not surprised that she and Sam still have to sing at Nationals. Break-ups don't get in the way of duets. Mr. Schue makes sure of it. He proved that with Finn and Rachel during the brief period they were broken up. Why did she ever think she and Sam would be the exception to the rule?

She didn't keep the promise ring Sam gave her. She gave it back. It doesn't belong to her anymore because she broke up with him. She hadn't wanted to, not really, but she was starting to fall. Too hard; too fast. That's what happened with Puck and she refuses to let it happen again.


This town is so small. It's not that her old town is big or anything, but this town is like a ghost town.

She can't complain, though. Moving was the right thing to do. It's too late for her to change her mind now.

William McKinley High School isn't that big, so it's easy for Emily to find her way around it without having to stop and ask too many questions. She wants this to be the fresh start she's intending for it to be. No more Alli. No more 'A'. No more Toby. No more Maya. This is a new town, a new school, a new life.

She has homeroom first. She think it's weird because they don't have homeroom in her old town. Well, they do, but she only ever attended it during special occasions - like, before a pep rally or during a big test like the SATs.

Her homeroom teacher's name is Mrs. Anderson. She's a young woman. Maybe thirty or a couple years younger, with bright blue eyes and blonde hair that looks like it's been dyed too many times. She tells Emily to take a seat beside some girl named Quinn Fabray. Emily just stares at her because she's new here and obviously has no clue who that is. Mrs. Anderson catches on quickly, though, and points at an empty seat in the middle of the classroom. Occupying the seat directly beside it is a blonde girl wearing a cheerleader uniform.

The blonde doesn't acknowledge Emily, not even after the brunette takes her seat. She's not sure why, but she stares at her for a few seconds, trying to get a better look at her, but Quinn's head is down, so all she really sees is that she has blonde hair and is obviously very pretty.

She looks away quickly, though, because she realizes staring is rude and kind of creepy, and she's neither rude nor creepy.

She isn't sure how much time passes before Mrs. Anderson is calling her name and telling her to stand and introduce herself to the class. She thinks it's stupid that she has to tell these people about herself. It's not like they care about her. They don't even know her. The majority of them will pretend to listen to her. Maybe one or two will listen - probably the ones who don't have many friends and jump at the opportunity to 'snag' the new girl before the 'popular' kids do.

"I'm Sadie. Sadie Field," she starts, even though it's a lie. Here, her name isn't Emily Fields - it's Sadie Field. Whoever 'A' is, is smart, and she knows 'A' is looking for her. So, she gave everyone here a false name to protect her identity. She's refuses to go as far as changing her appearance. She thinks the name change is enough. If 'A' shows up and ever asks for an Emily Fields, no one will know her. She's just a stranger in this town. Sadie is, too, but she won't be for long. "I like music, I used to swim, and I'm not really all that interesting."

She starts to sit, but Mrs. Anderson stops her and tells her to continue. She hates that she's being used to pass the time until the first bell rings.

"I moved here from a small town in Pennsylvania. It's a nice place. I didn't want to move, not really, but I had to, y'know?" They don't know. They can never know. "I thought it was time for a change. Change is good, isn't it? After all, everything changes." Quinn, the blonde cheerleader, is looking at her now and Emily thinks she's actually listening. She's even prettier than Emily originally thought. She thinks if perfection were real, this girl would be it. "Why bother trying to stop the inevitable?"

She shuts up then. She's thinking too much now - about Alli and Maya and 'A' and Toby. And about Spencer and Hanna and Aria. She left them behind. All of them.

Mrs. Anderson tells her to sit down after she finishes her 'introduction' and she does. This time, when she sits, Quinn is looking directly at her. She meets the blonde's gaze for a moment and finds herself getting lost in hazel eyes. Beautiful hazel eyes. Her heart does a flip and she quickly looks away because she knows that feeling and she can't feel it with anyone here. She loves Maya, and she can't let herself love anyone else. Not now. Just looking at Quinn, she knows she could fall, or at least develop a crush and she has to crush it before it ever even forms.

X

Emily thinks Mr. Schuester may just be the coolest teacher she's ever met. She's not in his class, which she thinks sucks, but at the beginning of lunch, she asked him which students were the 'safest' to sit with because he'd been the only person in sight at the time and he'd pointed her in the direction of a table occupied by a few cheerleaders, a few jocks, and some other teenagers that seemed strangely out of place at the table, but they all looked comfortable with each other, so she ended up approaching them.

That's where she is now, sitting with them. She's not eating, but they all are. It's just that she's not very hungry. Her day has been okay thus far. Her morning classes went nicely, but her thoughts are still revolving around the life she left behind in Pennsylvania. She can't count how many times she almost said 'Emily Fields' when some random students asked her what her name is.

"Do you sing?" a brunette asks. She vaguely remembers the girl saying that her name is Rachel. All the others groan after the girl speaks, but she continues on as if she hadn't noticed. "I'm aware that is a random question, but our Glee club is in dire need of a new member being that Regionals is vastly approaching, and-"

"Just tell the girl if you can sing or not, so she'll shut it," Quinn interrupts, resulting in Rachel scoffing and returning to eating her food in quiet. The others seem relieved at this, so Emily assumes that Rachel is always like that.

She'd been a little shocked to see Quinn at the table. She's even more shocked now to learn that all of these teenagers - all of these teenagers from different social circles - make up McKinley High's 'Glee Club'.

"I can't sing," Emily eventually replies, biting back a laugh when Rachel frowns. "Swimming is more my thing. Sports are more my thing. Not singing."

"My kind of girl," the Asian kid whose name she remembers is Mike says, earning himself a slap from the Asian girl seated next to him.

"I'm gay," she blurts. She decided upon moving here that she isn't going to hide who she really is. She refuses to let that be an issue here like it was back home. "Sort of, anyway. Boys are cute and some are sweet, but girls are sweeter."

"I totally agree," the other blonde one, Brittany, says. She's sitting on Artie's lap. He's looking at Brittany, but she's looking at the Latino cheerleader. Santana, Emily remembers. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that there's some kind of triangle there, though Emily can't figure out why. Artie seems sweet. Santana just seems really bitchy, but maybe Brittany sees something that she doesn't see.

"That's offensive," the freakishly tall one mutters, bits of his sandwich flying out his mouth as he says it. Rachel smacks his arm and starts berating him. Emily assumes it's an every day thing because the others just ignore them and continue with their eating and separate conversations.

"Are they always like this?" Emily whispers to the Mohawked one. He's been abnormally quiet throughout lunch. At least, she thinks it's abnormal. She's used to jocks being loud and obnoxious, not quiet, but maybe 'Puck' is always like this. She doubts it, though.

"If you're talking about 'Finchel', the oh-so perfect and disgustingly cute couple, then yes, they are," he answers with a certain bite in his words that makes him sound extremely bitter and much older than he actually is. She wants to ask what that's all about, but she doesn't know him and it's not any of her business.

She sees Quinn glancing at him out of the corner of her eyes and thinks the pain in her eyes looks wrong on a face that beautiful. It doesn't take her very long to draw the conclusion that Puck and Quinn are somehow involved. Or were involved. There's something more to it, though, that much Emily knows. She knows that look. She's seen it before, and she has no doubts that she's worn it herself. The blonde cheerleader is hurting and she's hiding it because she's scared. And Emily knows exactly how that feels.


Lunch was boring. Except... Except for when Sadie spoke. Quinn's been thinking of the brunette a lot, ever since her mysterious descriptions of change in homeroom. She hadn't payed any attention to Sadie, not at first. She'd been indifferent. She is Queen Bee. Head Bitch in Charge. Whatever you want to call it. New students don't matter to her. Not even new females because they don't pose any threat to her status. If anything, she poses the biggest threat to herself. She proved that last year when she got knocked up by her boyfriend's best friend.

It wasn't until Sadie started speaking about change that Quinn started paying attention. There is something... off about that girl. It's obvious that she's hiding something. Obvious to Quinn, anyway, because Quinn is the queen of hiding things, of keeping secrets. But secrets have a way of coming out when you least expect them to. Especially in small towns such as Lima, Ohio.

She decided after lunch that she's going to take Sadie 'under her wing.' She can't say she's going to befriend her simply because she has a reputation to uphold. She's not nice. Everyone hates her, but pretends to love her. That's the way things are, the way things have to stay... no matter how much she hates it.

She approaches Sadie at her locker after the final bell. This school day went by just as all the others have - extremely long and extremely boring. And, for her, it's not even over yet. However, she has a few minutes to spare before Glee practice, so why not spend it feeding her curiosity towards the new girl?

"Hello," she greets, stopping the brunette in the midst of placing her math book in her locker.

Sadie starts at Quinn's voice, but she doesn't look up, which irks the blonde. "Excuse me?" She clears her throat, but Sadie continues to place her books in her locker. "I'm talking to you, new girl."

That gets Sadie to pause and she turns. It doesn't take Quinn long to realize the girl's smile is forced. Somehow, though, she knows it's not because of her or her attitude.

"I'm aware of that, yes," Sadie begins, her tone soft and a little too controlled, "but I don't cater to you, okay? I'm a little preoccupied, in case you can't already see that. Judging by the books still in my hand, it should be obvious."

This would normally be the part where the head Cheerio fires back with some bitchy retort and promises to the make the girl's life hell, but there's something about the look on Sadie's face that makes her not want to do that. Not this time, because Sadie's eyes are a little puffy and though she seems to be trying to hide it, it looks as though she could break at any moment. Quinn doesn't think anyone else can see it, but she knows the look too well not to recognize it. It's a mask and it's the same one Quinn wears every day.

She thinks it's that realization that makes her say what she says next. "Do you mind being my partner for Chem Lab? The partner I have now is kind of a tool," which isn't a total lie because Ethan really is a tool, "and all he does is drool over Santana. It's disgusting, actually." Sadie doesn't say anything; she's just staring at Quinn with this blank look on her face and it makes Quinn realize that she's rambling. "Anyway, I'm sure Cam won't mind working with Ethan instead of you because I have no doubts he can convince Ethan to do all the work for him, so whaddya say?"

"Sure, why not?" Sadie says with a casual shrug before turning away from Quinn and shoving her last couple of books into her locker. All except for her Honors English book and for whatever reason, that reminds Quinn that she's got somewhere to be, and she's late. Which isn't good because it's nearing Regionals and Mr. Schuester is a lot stricter about tardiness than usual.

"Hey, um, one more thing, could you, maybe, be my excuse?" She thinks it sounds even odder aloud than it does in her head. "For being late to Glee practice, I mean."

Sadie slams her locker shut, clutching her Honors English book in her right hand while slinging her purse over her shoulder, before looking at Quinn. "Sure. It's not like I have anything better to do."


Emily thinks Mr. Schuester is even cooler than she originally thought. He's dancing with the guys of the club right now, while the girls stand off to the side, singing their 'ba, ba, bas' and 'la-dee-dos.' She's seated at the piano, keeping Brad, their pianist, company. Being here, and watching them, is making her wish she actually could sing, but she can't, so she'll settle for watching.

She'd been mildly annoyed at Quinn's bitchy attitude after the blonde had approached her locker, but she knows it was a front - that it is a front. She'd only agreed to 'be her excuse' because she needs a distraction right now. A distraction from her thoughts. From life. She received a call, after lunch, from a payphone. She knew it had to have been one of the girls because no one else, aside from her parents, has her new number. It'd been Hanna, calling to tell her that 'A' had struck again, and this time, she'd hurt Maya.

Maya had been targeted. Her sweet, beautiful Maya who has absolutely nothing to do with this mess is hurt because of her. She's in the hospital and she's suffering. She'll be okay, is apparently what the doctors are saying, but she's still suffering and she'd be suffering more if it weren't for Aria. Emily owes Aria so much already, but she owes her more now. So much more.

Brad stops playing and she's torn from her thoughts as everyone starts clapping. The others take their seats after Mr. Schuester orders them to settle down and makes his way to the front of the classroom.

"Enjoy the show, cool chick?" Puck asks from behind her after she moves from the piano and takes the empty seat in front of him. She rolls her eyes because it's obvious he doesn't remember her name and then nods, letting him know that yes, she enjoyed the show.

"Her name is Sadie," Quinn says harshly without looking at Puck as she takes a seat beside Emily. She wants to tell Quinn her real name, but she can't and it bothers her, so instead of focusing on that, she decides instead to focus on how tense Quinn is around Puck. Not once has she seen Quinn look at Puck since she saw them both together at lunch. She didn't look at him during Chemistry and she's not looking at him now. Emily can't help but wonder why, but she knows better than to ask because it's so obviously not her business.

She wonders, though, if whatever is wrong with those two is exactly the reason why Quinn is the way she is, or if she's always been this way.

"All right, Quinn," Mr. Schuester starts, addressing the girl she can't seem to stop thinking about, "I think I'm going to give Rachel and Finn a break today," Emily tries not to laugh when she hears Rachel's scoff from somewhere behind her, "and allow you to show us all what you've got with the solo I told you to prepare last week."

"Mr. Schue, you're giving her a solo?" Rachel cuts in, disgust and annoyance lacing her tone.

"Oh, shut it, Berry," Quinn snaps before turning to Mr. Schue with a tight-lipped smile on her face. "I'd love to sing my solo, Mr. Schue, but I think I need more time."

Mr. Schue rolls his eyes. "Nonsense. I'm sure whatever you have prepared is good enough. Now, get up here." Quinn doesn't budge and he flashes her a stern look. "That's an order, Quinn."

Quinn sighs much louder than is necessary and pushes herself up out of her chair, making her way to the front of the room shortly after. Mr. Schue joins the rest of them and sits down as Quinn tells Brad and the rest of the band what to play.

She recognizes the song the second the band starts playing. 'Breathe Me' by Sia.

She's completely entranced once the words start leaving Quinn's mouth. There's something so vulnerable about her as she sings, and as Emily looks around, she knows the others are thinking the same thing. Puck is looking at Quinn like she's the only one in the room and that's when she realizes it - Puck is in love with Quinn. It goes much deeper than that, though. She can feel it, but she isn't given much time to dwell on it because Quinn's voice drags her in again and doesn't let her go until the very end. And even then, she's not completely there.

She's aware that the others are clapping, but she's just staring. Quinn is smiling, but it's forced, like all the ones Emily's seen the cheerleader give today. She looks like she could cry, but Emily knows she won't. She thinks that's when she decided - decided that she wants to know this girl, no matter the consequences. It's stupid, she knows, because one, she could fall for this girl and that's a problem in itself because Quinn is straight, and two, she's not who she says she is. She's not Sadie; she's Emily, but she can't tell anyone and that's a problem because she finds herself not wanting to lie. Not to Quinn, even though she doesn't know her and it might not matter. But, maybe it will. Maybe someday it will.

She has to lie, though. It's for the best.

Relationships, no matter what the kind, should not start, or be based, on lies, but knowing that isn't going to stop her from figuring Quinn out.

She wants to know her. And she will.


author's note: this goes without saying that this may be a little out of character. quinn and emily are in the same grade in this. i mention that simply because i'm not sure if they really are because i don't even know what grades either of them are in anyway, but for this story, they're in the same one. whichever one that is.

it also goes without saying that the following chapters will be longer. if there are following chapters. i've been playing around with the idea of quinn/emily for some time now. i've even edited a graphic for them on my tumblr. you can find it here if you'd like to see it: .com/post/2160997255/just-ignore-this-just-me-trying-to-be-organized

so, shall i continue? yes, no, maybe so? also, be constructive. not harsh. - i do believe that also goes without saying.