There are some things that Finn just doesn't understand. The first and foremost thing that he doesn't understand is that he's not fooling Quinn. She sees the way he looks at Rachel Berry during glee club, eyes eating her up like he would scrounge down on a platter of barbeque ribs at a summer picnic (Quinn's seen the results; they're not pretty). He, being a hormonal teenage male, is probably patting himself on the back for keeping it in his pants when it comes to Rachel. Of course, he's also sneakily admiring her from a far when he should be focused on Quinn, which is the real problem. Actually, that's a lie. The real problem is that Quinn doesn't know how to win him back from that little show tune diva who would probably insist that RENT isn't a real musical because it doesn't have jazz hands. There is no way in hell Quinn can compete with that. What does she have? The obvious answer, shouted out to her mockingly by jocks in the halls, is "a little baby Jesus stuffed up her oven." There are variations that involve the Immaculate Conception, donkeys, Bethlehem, three wise men, and English monks. Quinn's never really understood the last one. So, to recap: Rachel Berry has the voice of a goddess and Swan Lake dance moves, while she, Quinn Fabray, has a baby. A baby that's not even his. It's not a difficult decision, really. If Quinn were in Finn's position, she would pick Rachel, too. But she can't let on that she knows anything about their illicit little "affair" or they'd all end up engaged in the most awkward conversation of their lives.
It's easy to imagine, then, the surprise that Quinn is flooded with when she hears a tentative knock on the rain-streaked windows of her stationary car. She's stationary on the side of the highway, half-hidden by the moon's shadows and the overhanging leaves of the trees. It's fall and some of the reds and yellows and oranges have plopped on top of the hood of her car enough to hide most of its silver sheen, a testament to the number of hours she's been curled up on cushy fabric seats and staring out fogged up windows. There's a green bottle loosely captured by her fingers and squeezed between her legs, three quarters full. No alcohol fills the plastic, but it's instead Mountain Dew that swishes against the edges and mesmerizes Quinn with its rocking motions. She read somewhere long ago that rocking is supposed to be calming; the theory is not standing up in practice. All she wants to do is magically transform the Mountain Dew into wine or champagne or vodka or something to make all of this go away. But she can't hurt the baby, and she thinks she's already made God mad enough.
God must have cruel sense of humor, punishing her like this, she thinks. What other option besides divine intervention is logical in explaining why Rachel suddenly appears at the side of her car in the middle of the highway? Quinn has never been more sure of God's existence, so she does something that she would not normally do: slowly, cautiously, and after checking to make sure that there's no hidden rapist behind Rachel, Quinn slams the bare ring finger of her left hand into the power window button and says in her snootiest tone, "What do you want?" It's not an ideal statement, and it hardly even sounds vaguely threatening, but Quinn blames that on the fact that Rachel's cheeks are tinged with pink from the wind and perhaps something that cuts a little deeper. Looking back on her statement, Quinn's not sure if she wants to blame her incoherence on Rachel Berry's pink tinged cheeks because that makes her sound like a lesbo (a term they always use to taunt Rachel, and the only one that stings her each time she says it) and Quinn Fabray is not a lesbo. Evidence- mainly her being knocked up- points to the contrary. But then again, her cheeks match Rachel's now, and Quinn knows that hers haven't been cut by the wind.
Rachel hesitates, fiddles with her lips and her hands until something finally spills out. "I thought I recognized your car, and I- I got worried."
"Why?" It's a simple, concise question, but it's valid all the same. They're not exactly the best of friends or even good friends, and Quinn isn't exactly sure that they can be considered friends at all. A more accurate definition of their relationship would be "a little less than acquaintances, a little more than mortal enemies."
However, as always, Rachel is prepared with a snappy answer that makes too much sense to come from a wussy sophomore. "Look. Neither of us like it, but we're teammates now. We're supposed to help each other out. Right? That's the way a team works, right?"
It strikes Quinn as odd that Rachel has never really had the collective team experience before. She figures that the seasoned singer must have been in a few dozen musicals, but things change when there's something at stake. Rachel has always fought those types of battles alone- auditions and roles and spots were things that were due to her own failure or success. But with her team beside her, Rachel doesn't really understand how to cope. Quinn decides to help her understand, because that's what teammates do. "Yeah; you're right."
"So let me slide in. I'm here to help." Rachel's silent eyes plead with her, and Quinn doesn't know if it's a trick of the light or what, but she can swear there are tears welling up in them. Tears welling up in Rachel Berry's eyes, ready to be spilled over Quinn and her lost innocence. Reluctantly, Quinn pops the door's locks and opens her driver's side, gesturing for the other girl to get in.
But this confuses Rachel and she can't quite understand. "There's not enough room for both of us on that one tiny seat."
"We can squish." Quinn's not entirely sure why she feels compelled to say that, as though making Rachel sit in the passenger's seat would be terribly rude. She's also not entirely sure why her entire body lights up like a forest fire when Rachel's cold hands brush her thighs to remove the Mountain Dew bottle clenched between them. Rachel gives it a glance and a chuckle before tossing it heartily into the passenger's seat. Tentatively Rachel slides into the driver's seat and effectively crushes Quinn up against the center console. After a slightly botched rearrangement of awkward limbs, Quinn ends up on Rachel's lap, Rachel's back against the door and Quinn's against the seat.
It is in the moment directly after they settle in that Quinn realizes how perfectly she fits atop Rachel's lap, even in this strangest situation. Yes, even though Quinn's cheerleading skirt rides up so that her bare thighs rest upon the skin just above Rachel's knees and her arm might get numb from gripping the head rest after a while and their legs are messily intertwined on the cramped floor in a mixture of pale and tan, there is something undeniably meshing about this moment for both of them.
"Why are you sitting out here Quinn?" Rachel's question is one that Quinn can't answer without a preface, and she'd rather keep that preface to herself.
She shakes her head, eyes drifting away from Rachel's face and to the Mountain Dew lying on the floor. "I can't tell you."
"Why not?"
"I just can't."
Rachel huffs and puffs and blows out a steady stream of air for a minute or so before lapsing into silence. Quinn can't stand the disappointed look marring the singer's perfect features (she means that in a non-gay way, of course) almost as much as she can't stand the soft hand rubbing tiny circles over the small of her back as though trying to coax a confession out. It's working. "Can I tell you a secret?"
"Only if you let me tell you one of mine." Quinn smiles coyly at Rachel's response: the girl hasn't been playing the game very long, but she certainly came into it knowing all the rules.
"OK; here it goes." Quinn takes a deep breath but chokes on the end of it and nearly doesn't go on. But, she reasons, maybe she should tell someone. And because of her desperate devotion to glee club, Rachel would never, ever repeat Quinn's words, never, ever destroy the sacred bonds formed by show choir. Or at least, Quinn thinks Rachel's morality must be something along those lines. "The baby? It's not Finn's; it's Puck's. He got me drunk at a party, and I guess we-"
"Finn and I kissed." Rachel's confession cuts off the rest of the cheerleader's, but that's alright because it distracts Quinn's mind from her own guilt. Rachel probably orchestrated it that way.
Her first impression is to kick that bitch right out of the car, yet then she realizes that Rachel's crime differs not from her own, save for its severity. Rachel will only serve a year or two for her offense, while Quinn will be locked up for life. It takes her a moment to register that Rachel is still talking. "I'm not sure who kissed who- whether I kissed him or he kissed me- but by the end we were both kissing each other, so I don't think it matters. If it's any condolence, it only lasted thirty seconds, a minute maximum. Then he left."
"He would. He's a good guy. He really likes you, you know."
Quinn looks up at Rachel, expecting to see shock fly across her expression. Nothing appears. She replies in the same monotonous voice: "I know."
"How?"
"It's not that hard to figure out." Quinn has to smile at that because, really, it isn't. She should've seen it coming a mile away.
And then, she understands something else that Finn has never understood: sometimes, all you can do is laugh. She thinks about Finn and Rachel- kissing- and laughs at the melodramatic teen soap opera her life has become; it's not even one of the good teen soap operas. Between fits of giggles she manages to ask a bewildered Rachel, "So how was Finn?"
"How was he at what?"
"Kissing!"
Caught off guard, Rachel figures the best way to answer is with honesty. She guesses that Quinn's hormones are out of whack and that's why she's acting human for a change. "Um, good, I guess. I don't have anyone else to compare him with."
"That's good," Quinn says. "When we first started going out, it was like one of those big Newfoundland dogs having a lick-fest all over my face."
Rachel catches a case of Quinn's giggles, easily forming a picture of Finn slobbering over his new girlfriend's face with reckless abandon and misguided enthusiasm. "Well, it definitely wasn't like that."
"I've taught him well." They stop giggling for a moment and the seriousness of the situation returns: Quinn Fabray, president of the Celibacy Club, is pregnant with the baby of boy who is not her boyfriend, and her boyfriend most certainly has a thing for the girl whose lap she currently occupies. If only Puck were a little bit more lovable, then the entire thing could be remedied very simply. Tears spring into Quinn's eyes at these horrible thoughts, and she wishes that the world would go away, or at least stop spinning for just a moment.
Confused as to what to do when confronted with a crying cheerleader in her lap, Rachel resorts to the technique used by her fathers on the rare occasion that she didn't get the role she tried out for. They would swoop behind her, making monkey noises just like in The Wizard of Oz, and give her a quick kiss on each cheek. Rachel will have to modify this for the situation, as she doesn't have a partner nor the room to swoop around to Quinn's cheek nor does she think that a pregnant teenage girl in the throes of a mental breakdown would appreciate monkey noises. So she settles for just kissing Quinn on the cheek.
The feeling of Rachel's delicate lips pressed against her skin tosses Quinn into a frenzy and she stops sobbing for just a moment. But only a moment. As soon as the surprising contact is lost, Quinn begins to cry again. She knows that Rachel's kiss brings with it a certain gentleness that Finn's rough and poorly shaved stubble never had. In a way, it is a comfort that Quinn has never had before and one that she does not wish to be without.
In lieu of this transaction, Rachel once again finds herself at a loss. What does work is kissing Quinn Fabray's cheek, but Rachel isn't sure that she has enough courage to that a second time. But- what's that saying- she supposes she has to take one for the team. And if she really looked into herself, she would see that she doesn't find it to be such a chore after all. She presses her lips to Quinn's cheek and then the other one and then her jaw and then her neck and then her hand skitters across Quinn's stomach and she hears a giggle through the waterfall.
"Quinn..." A certain light and playful tone has returned to the air now, and Rachel lets a little smirk creep up onto her face. "Are you ticklish?"
Blushing, the blonde buries her face into the brunette's shoulder. "No."
Rachel tests the waters, moving her fingers against Quinn's cheerleading sweater and eliciting another giggle. "Yes, you are." And Rachel proceeds to tickle her again, causing Quinn to squirm and laugh. She tries to scoot away from Rachel's wandering hands, but there's nowhere to go and she doesn't really want to, anyway. Rachel can see that there's real laughter in Quinn's eyes, not just the kind produced from the tickling. She continues to attack the other girl's stomach until the tears upon her face are nothing more than drying streak marks.
By that point, they are both exhausted. Rachel removes just hands just as Quinn's head is tilting forward in a twist to escape the hands that no longer "assault" her body. This leaves them staring at each other, noses nearly touching and laughter fading from eyes. And in a move that Quinn now understands stems from what she's always wanted, she grabs Rachel's face roughly in her hands and presses their lips together. It's magical and wonderful and fireworks are exploding behind both girls' eyes. Rachel doesn't really understand how it started, but she knows that she doesn't want it to end. Quinn started it, but she has no desire to end.
It must end naturally because of the need for air, and Quinn pulls away first because she doesn't have Rachel's years of vocal training. A sentence escapes her lips as she notices that her arms have somehow eclipsed Rachel's neck and the brunette's hug her waist loosely. "The world's stopped spinning."
Rachel has no idea what that means. She decides it doesn't really matter, because by now Quinn's had enough of a break to regain her breath and it's time for another kiss.
There are some things that Finn just doesn't understand. The first and foremost thing that he doesn't understand that the way Rachel Berry used to stare at him during glee rehearsals is the way that she now stares at Quinn Fabray.