A/N: I don't even know. My muse demanded that I write FQ, and hey, what's a writer to do but write? By the way, 1x10: Ballad is definitely the FQ episode of season 1. I always re-watch it when my shipping heart needs mending. Why'd they have to end? WHY? *shakes fist at world* Title comes from the song "Everytime" by Britney Spears, which is the perfect song for FQ - seriously.

Quinn has always pictured her life as a book.

Each standstill, each bump in the road - it's just a different chapter in the novel that is her life. Something to leaf through whenever she's feeling nostalgic about the past. Considering all the events that have occurred in her sixteen-year old lifetime, she thinks that it being a thick book is pretty much inevitable at this point.

As she pretends to pay attention to Rachel rambling at the front of the choir room, she thinks about how there's only two certain chapters she wouldn't dare read through ever again.

Beth and Finn.

Giving up her daughter had shattered her heart into tiny fragments, and every time she thinks about the way her hand trembled when she signed the adoption papers or the way Beth looked so comfortable in Shelby's arms, her eyes prick with the threat of tears and she forces herself to focus her mind on something else.

Letting Beth go had been the hardest thing she'd ever had to do, and she remembers spending weeks after the day she gave birth just cooped up in her bedroom, listening to show-tunes and letting the tears run down her face as the feeling of loss and self-pity swallow her whole. The only solace she found in the whole situation was knowing that she did the right thing.

She turns her head to Puck and she guesses that he feels her eyes on him, because he turns and gives her a sad smile before going back to listening to Rachel rant about Streisand did this to warm up her vocals something or other, and Quinn takes a deep breath.

She tried to give a relationship with Puck a chance. She really did. But every time they held hands, or kissed, or even made eye contact - it felt wrong. She couldn't summon up enough willpower to try and endure the relationship, because he deserves better, and so does she. She deducts that she really only wanted to be with him because of Beth, and once she was gone, well...a functioning relationship needs more than the ghosting presence of a child to survive.

They agreed to be friends, because she wasn't lying when she said that their night together was a mistake, and they couldn't go back to just ignoring each other, because she finds it almost impossible to even attempt ignoring the guy you had a baby with - and besides, if she's ever feeling down about Beth or anything else, she knows she can go to Puck and he'll talk her through it.

She loves him. She's not in love with him, but she freely admits that she'd do anything for that Mohawk-ed fiend. The bond she has with him is, at weakest, unbreakable, and for that, Quinn is glad.

Kurt squeezes her hand and she throws a smile in her friend's way. He rolls his eyes in Rachel's direction, who has taken it upon herself to start conversing with Mr. Schuester. She giggles when she sees their club director rubbing his hands over his eyes, obviously trying to find patience within himself.

Finn turns around when he hears someone giggle and his eyes widen slightly when he finds out it was Quinn. Their eyes meet and she can feel hers softening as they take in his hair and his beautiful brown eyes and his surprised - albeit clueless - expression. She bites the inside of her lip anxiously as she waits for him to do something, but he only gives her a slight nod as he turns back around and waits for his girlfriend to rejoin him.

She sighs as a way to cover up how much the short amount of eye-contact bothered her as she stares at the back of his head longingly.

There's a string holding their hearts together, and she refuses to let it go. Although she'd never admit it, Quinn knows that she wouldn't let that string go even if her life depended on it.

She wonders if Finn's hold on it has loosened over the time they've spent apart.

She's not really paying attention, so when Mercedes says something from where she's sitting besides her, she thinks she hears something about nasty-ass skirt and totally taking her shopping and then I'm taking her to the carpet if she keeps on yapping and she laughs heartily.

The way he's smiling down at his lap when he hears her laugh - that adorable, beautiful, innocent, puppy-dog smile that always makes her heart melt in less time than it takes her to come up with all those adjectives - shows her that it hasn't, and she closes her eyes for a moment, a smile growing on her face as she relishes the fact that their story is far from over.

They may not be together, and he may be in love with Rachel, and looking at each other for more than twenty seconds at a time may cause some more pain to their fresh wounds, but that's okay.

Because they'll find their way back to each other.

Eventually.

She can wait for him, because yes, her heart is practically nonexistent right now, but she thinks that Finn may be the only one able to pick up the pieces and glue it back together so imperfectly that it might just end up becoming more whole and spacious than it was before.

She thinks that the journey she's traveled with Finn and the one they have yet to travel will be a novel in itself instead of a simple chapter.

After all, their hold on the string only strengthens over time.

Reviews are love.