(There is a click, as if a tape has begun recording.)
RACHEL: Let me be the first to say, Miss Pillsbury, that we, by no means, need to be here right now. We have been together now for five years-
QUINN: Six.
RACHEL: Five, six years. Look, I don't want to inform you that your career choice is at all a superfluous one, Miss Pillsbury-
EMMA: Please Rachel, call me Emma.
RACHEL: I don't mean to inform you that your career choice is a superfluous one, Miss Pi- Emma, but this is, very simply, a sort of periodical examination for the two of us. My two gay dads still partake in the occasional marriage examination to this day, and their relationship is fit as a metaphorical fiddle. As both Quinn and myself would like to maintain a relationship as strong and enduring as theirs, we find it is only fit to follow in their already well-established footsteps. Just as one must continue with one's rigorous schedule of vocal instruction even after one has graced the Broadway stage-
QUINN: You danced onstage at the end of Hair.
EMMA: Doesn't everyone get to do that?
QUINN: Yes.
RACHEL: Just as one must continue with one's rigorous schedule of vocal instruction even after one has graced the Broadway stage, it is equally pertinent that one must continually work at a relationship, regardless of the length of time its participants have been together.
(There is a rustling of paper.)
QUINN: Oh, we don't need pamphlets. Thank you.
EMMA: Very well then. Let's start at the very beginning, shall we?
RACHEL: That sounds like a very good place to start.
(There is a pause.)
RACHEL: I thought we were going with the musical theater metaphor.
QUINN: Can you just let the woman do her job?
RACHEL: The woman's name is Emma, sweetie.
EMMA: (quickly) Okay! Okay, so, on a scale of one to ten, how happy are you as a couple?
QUINN: Eight.
RACHEL: I'm sorry, Emma, but I'm not sure I understand the question in its entirety. Are we considering ten to be complete euphoria whereas one is emotional devastation? Or is it the other way around?
EMMA: Just say whatever comes to mind first, Rachel.
RACHEL: Alright. Ready?
QUINN: Ready.
RACHEL AND QUINN: Eight.
EMMA: Okay. How often do you two... You know... Do... It?
(There is a long pause.)
QUINN: I don't understand the question.
RACHEL: Is this intended to be a scale-based question? Such as, you know, your previous "from one-to-ten" query?
QUINN: Yeah, and is one not a lot or is one nothing? Because, I mean, technically speaking zero would be nothing. Just... Technically.
RACHEL: Precisely, and, as per the ancient Taoist principle of yin and yang, if one isn't defined, how are we supposed to know what ten is?
QUINN: I mean, is ten, just, nonstop-
RACHEL: Incessant-
QUINN: Not even stopping, like-
RACHEL: To watch the Tonys?
EMMA: It isn't a one-to-ten question, girls. Just answer it naturally. How often do you two do it?
(There is a longer pause.)
EMMA: What about, oh, this week?
RACHEL: When you say "week," do you mean the traditional seven-day week that takes into account the weekend?
EMMA: Sure.
(There is another pause.)
EMMA: Okay, so, let's try something else. Um... Let's talk about how the two of you first met.
QUINN: It was in Colombia.
RACHEL: Bogota, to be specific. Five years ago.
QUINN: Six.
RACHEL: Right. Five or six years ago.
Five or six years ago...
Warm sunlight dances lazily on tan shoulders as she leans languidly against the brightly polished bar, one hand wrapped loosely around a shirley temple - alcohol is, after all, a very substantial roadblock to any successful singing career, even if such a career had taken a backseat to her current profession, and therefore must be avoided at all costs - while the other clutches an open, well-worn script. Turtle-patterned Wayfarers betray their wearer though, slipping down the bridge of a very prominent nose, revealing her chocolate-colored gaze is anywhere but Wilde's carefully-worded witticisms: it's everywhere else instead, as if she's expecting - daring - something to go wrong. The well-muscled bartender pouring himself a shot of tequila at the end of the bar catches her glance when she turns it his way, and she quickly pushes her glasses back up her glistening nose, cursing the heat.
The bartender's slow saunter over to her is brought to a sudden halt, though, when police quickly infiltrate the lobby, swarming over it. It reminds her of the time she went to meet Liza Minelli at the stage door of a show she once saw, only to find it crawling in men chattering in an octave just unnatural for any bearer of a y-chromosome, but she is quickly jerked out of her reverie by a gloved finger in her face and harsh Spanish in her ears, asking if she's traveling alone.
She's shaking her head, feigning misunderstanding, when the door opens again and there's a flash of blonde.
Slipping inside, her eyes scan the lobby. There are police in here, sure, she notes, sliding a hand down her slender thigh, making sure the white linen of her dress eclipses the knife she has strapped tight against her leg, but there aren't nearly as many in here as there are outside.
She's immediately accosted, with demands for her passport and inquiries as to whether or not she's traveling on her own.
That's when she sees her.
Mirrored aviators are lowered and hazel eyes meet brown ones as the turtle-patterned Wayfarers slip back down and this time, their owner fails to push them back up.
The two are together in the center of the room and the police have stopped questioning them in a second.
After a brief meeting behind closed doors - a tan hand is extended, accompanied by a simple, whispered "Rachel," and is met with a murmured "Quinn" and a soft, pale one - the two are toasting.
Rachel grins as she watches tequila raining down from the bottle in her grasp pool and accumulate in her shot glass as it sits pretty next to Quinn's already overflowing one. Quinn laughs and grabs the bottle in Rachel's hand, setting it back down on the table, her carefully manicured fingers lazily gliding against Rachel's wrist as she does so.
Ignoring the blonde's lingering touch, the brunette grabs her glass, raising it high. Her voice can suffer through a few shots; after all, one, it's impeccably trained, and two, Rachel Berry can hold her liquor. She's practiced. One must know how to properly drink if one plans on properly keeping up with producers and directors without falling onto the casting couch.
Quinn raises her glass up to meet Rachel's and there's a slosh of alcohol and a soft clink as Rachel turns her gaze to Quinn. "To dodging bullets."
"To dodging bullets," Quinn echoes, and the two throw their heads back as warmth slides down their throat. Rachel clutches at her chest, coughing, because yes, she can hold her liquor, but only when it's mixed with three times as much juice as it is alcohol, and when she spaces her drinks out over a few hours, munching on crackers in the time in between.
Rising, Quinn smirks and shakes her head, running a hand along Rachel's shoulders as she saunters the few feet to the dance floor, quirking an eyebrow at Rachel when the smaller girl fails to follow.
Rachel bites her lip, and, making up her mind, pushes her chair away from the table, making her way over to her svelte counterpart, letting the tequila do the talking as she slides her arms around Quinn's thin waist, pulling her close. Hips graze hips as pale arms slide around a tan neck and forehead leans down to touch forehead.
The two notice neither the thunder nor the lightning, focused instead on the more exceptional electricity between them; it isn't until the two are drenched in rain that they're running for shelter and suddenly they're running and laughing, and, even once Quinn collapses into a chair, she can't seem to stop.
Rachel's stopped, though, and she crawls into Quinn's lap, brown eyes dark, and as her thighs settle around Quinn's, she reaches out, the pads of her fingers lighting on the blonde's soft lips, interrupting her laughter. Breathing out softly against Rachel's fingers, Quinn lifts her hands, ghosting her fingertips down the brunette's arms, where they leave goosebumps in their wake, hands stopping only once they hit waist, where they tighten, squeezing the smaller girl just so as thumbs begin drawing small circles against hipbones.
Exhaling shakily, Rachel presses down into Quinn's lap, and, as Quinn's eyes flutter shut, Rachel leans forward, pressing her lips to Quinn's.
Quinn smells like lilac, but when Rachel gently takes her bottom lip between her own, it's only to discover that what Quinn tastes like is vanilla.
Quinn groans as Rachel bites down on her lip, responding with ardor as she slips her tongue into Rachel's eager mouth. Rachel tastes like strawberries and tequila.
Quinn is fingering the hem of Rachel's dress as the brunette pulls away to catch her breath, palm resting against the blonde's cheek as she offers a murmured "hiya stranger," her lips brushing against Quinn's own as she speaks, not willing to give up such close contact just yet.
Quinn smiles, and leaning forward, bumps her forehead tenderly against the other girl's, eliminating most of what's left of the little space between them. "Hiya back."
Rachel glances down at their rain-soaked bodies. "In retrospect, perhaps white wasn't the optimal choice in color when it came to today's wardrobe choices..."
A grin playing at the corner of her lips, Quinn offers a simple "it's not like meeting you and subsequently getting all wet were foreseeable circumstances at the time," and Rachel's kissing her again, except this team it's less languid and more urgent, and, as romantic as a thunderstorm is, Quinn knows it's time to get out of there stat.
She wakes up alone the next morning.
Quinn blinks and sits up quickly, pulling the sheet up with her, and, biting her lip, runs a hand through her hair. She looks at the empty pillow next to her and sighs, glancing around the room for her clothes and preparing herself to make yet another unnoticed escape, blinking as she's met only with the harsh glare of sunlight filtering through the curtains.
Then the door opens, and the sunlight is no longer a harbinger of hangovers and regret - honestly though, she hadn't really even been that drunk, and she's always made it a point to never regret anything - but instead it's a welcome sign of optimism and also angels, because surely that's what's standing before her now, tray of food in one hand, doorknob still in the other, and an anxious smile on her face.
"Oh," Rachel blushes slightly, glancing down at the floor and brushing a stray strand of chestnut hair behind her ear, "you're awake."
She doesn't give Quinn a chance to respond though, because suddenly she's launched herself into an explanation: "the hotel staff fled; I'm assuming because of the impending coup, but I felt, while it may not be four-course, it's only polite for me to provide you with a nourishing breakfast. Breakfast is, after all, the most important meal of the day, and if skipping it for one's self is bad, disallowing another to have it is absolutely unimaginable..." Rachel stops when Quinn is unexpectedly in front of her, clutching the bed sheet gingerly to her chest with one hand, and setting the plates down on the nearby end table with the other.
Gesturing to the glass of milk in Rachel's hand, Quinn ventures, "you probably milked a goat for that yourself, didn't you?"
Rachel furrows her eyebrows. "Milking a goat isn't all that different from milking a cow, Quinn, all you have to do is-"
Quinn lets the sheet fall to the floor and pulls Rachel towards her, mumbling "no more talking" against the girl's lips before kissing her again. The brunette still tastes like strawberries, but this time, there's only a slight tinge of tequila.
The glass in Rachel's hand tumbles to the floor.
Quinn is beaming as Rachel's hand dances around her waist and slides into the back pocket of her jeans as the two make their way down the carnival midway, having just shared their first successful stateside kiss. (Even if it was only a peck, Rachel rationalizes, a public forum is hardly the place for particularly graphic displays of affection, let alone particularly sapphic graphic displays of affection. Especially when there are small children around.) Quinn frowns, though, when the nearest carny leers and suggests to her that she "come try her luck, little lady," but when Rachel begs her to at least try the shooting gallery, she can only sigh in agreement.
Rachel digs around in her pocket, despite Quinn's protests, and hands the man enough for two rounds. He hands over the gun, which Rachel promptly offers to Quinn. The blonde takes it delicately, pausing and pursing her lips at the weapon before pointing it at the moving targets in front of her.
"Do you know how to hold it?" Rachel immediately busies herself with making sure Quinn's hands are properly placed and that her feet are the proper shoulder's width apart. Quinn knows how to carry herself and what to expect, but lets Rachel fuss anyway, closing her eyes as the smaller girls hands loiter around her waist before finally, reluctantly, letting go.
Quinn doesn't hit any of the targets, but she smiles and laughs and soon everyone is laughing with her. Catching her breath, she looks, doe-eyed, up at the carny. "Any chance I can still win a prize?"
He shrugs, smirking, and gestures to Rachel: it's now up to the petite brunette who's about to shoulder a shotgun nearly as big as she is. His smirk fades slightly when Rachel hits nearly every target - the last one, a duck, evades her - and he hands her a small teddy bear as she shrugs at Quinn, batting her eyelashes with a simple "beginner's luck, I suppose."
Rachel blinks, though, as what could only be described as a scowl suddenly flashes across Quinn's face, but it's gone almost as soon as she sees it, replaced with a steely determination as Quinn forces another dollar into the carny's hand, and almost snatches the gun from Rachel's grasp.
She nails every single target.
"Beginner's luck, I guess," she mimics to Rachel, smiling sweetly as she accepts a teddy bear bigger than she is from the man who's still staring at the blonde in shock. Rachel glowers slightly - nobody bests Rachel Berry, no matter how good she looks holding a shotgun - and gives her considerably smaller bear to a child passing by.
"Rach, you've only known her for six weeks," grunts a tan, muscular man as he dodges left, swings with his right, and uppercuts with his left.
"Noah," Rachel states matter-of-factly, leaning on the ropes that mark the circumference of the boxing ring, tilting her head back as the two men inside grow closer to her edge, "I'm in love."
Noah's head jerks around to stare at the girl, only to take a swift fist to the jaw. He shakes the punch off, and, this time, raises two fists to guard the front of his face before looking back at Rachel. "How do you even know what love is?"
"She's sexy," Rachel explains nonchalantly, picking at short, chipped nails, "and she's spontaneous and crazy and enigmatic-"
"Exactly." Puck is paying the price for his diverted attention now, on his back trying to deflect punch after punch to the face. He fakes a roll to the right and rolls left, jumping back up to his feet. "She's enigmatic."
"There's nothing wrong with being enigmatic," Rachel starts defensively, "a little bit of mystery is crucial to any good relationship: it keeps its participants both interested and on their toes."
"All I'm saying, Rach," Puck signals a time out to his partner, pulling out his mouthguard and off his headgear as Rachel hands him a water bottle, "is this: how long have I been your boy?"
A crease forms in Rachel's forehead in an attempt to calculate the proper amount of time in her head without a calculator. Carry the one...
"A long time, right?"
She nods.
"So it just makes sense that me and you should be falling into bed before you and some random chick do, right?"
Rachel just rolls her eyes and throws his headgear back at him.
He catches it, and, pulling it back over his mohawk, shrugs at her. "All I'm saying is that before you enter into any sort of long-term union, you have to have some kind of foundation of friendship, you know?" He reaches over the ropes to tousle Rachel's hair with a gloved hand. "And it sounds like the only kind of foundation you and this Quinn chick have is..." He shakes his head and signals time in.
"Don't you think this is all happening a little soon?"
"S," there is a warning tone in Quinn's voice as she chances a quick glance at the Latina to her right before swinging her arm up to grab the next exposed rock. Chastising Santana Lopez for her obvious sneer was high on her list of priorities, but with three thousand feet of nothing between her and the Colorado River, finding a handhold ranked just a little bit higher.
"Alright, sorry," Santana settles her left foot in a crevice, pushing up, "I just worry about you sometimes, okay?"
Quinn sighs and chances another glance over at her compatriot. "San, you know me. You know I don't do anything without thinking it through first."
"Yeah," Santana grumbles, "I know."
There's silence as the two advance a little further, then: "well, what does she do?"
Quinn wants to smile at the girl's attempt to be supportive, but she really has to stretch to reach this hold, and she's still a little sore from her sexcapades in Bogota. "Actress," she manages, finally pulling herself up onto an overhang, "she does all this musical theater and stuff."
"She's an attorney," Rachel declares proudly as Noah throws a right jab, then a left, landing both hits, "but she's very dedicated to her clients. She's there for them day or night, whenever they need her. Because she just cares that much," she adds for emphasis.
Leaning against the cool rock wall, Quinn notes Santana's still-skeptical gaze and shrugs. "With all her appearances and publicity, she's gone as much as I am, so it's perfect."
"I'm giving the whole thing six months tops," Noah declares as he dodges an uppercut, "and you're buying me a six pack when I'm right."
"I asked her to move in with me," Rachel says.
It's the shortest and simplest sentence Rachel has ever said, and it catches the mohawked man completely off-guard. "What?"
"We're moving in together."
He's staring at her in shock now, having completely forgotten about his opponent. "I can't be hearing this."
"We're moving in together!" Rachel shouts at him as he's knocked to the floor and hit after hit makes contact with near-perfect bone structure.
"God, stop hitting me!" Puck shoves his opponent off of him, sitting up. "I think she just said something crazy."
Santana has half the mind to push Quinn off the edge of the Grand Canyon then and there.