Disclaimer: I think I forgot this in Ch1 but shockingly I am not Ryan Murphy, nor do I own Glee or these characters.

A/N: Just a few quick notes

1. I decided to add another chapter today in honor of it being College Day for Faberry Week. I am about 11 chapters into the story, I hope to post 1-2 a week.

2. Thank you so much for the reviews! Hope you continue to enjoy.

3. I began writing this right around On My Way and thus made some choices that now clash with canon. First of all as you will see Quinn and Rachel did not really stay in touch/get as close as on the show. Secondly, Rachel and Finn are still together and Finn decided to logically work/eventually take over the tire shop rather than join the army.

It was a week later when her phone rang again. This time it was Brittany.

"Hey Quinn, I'm outside my dorm. How do I get inside?" the tender voice she had missed rang through her ear.

"Brittany, you mean my dorm right?" Quinn hoped she was actually at the right place, but you could never tell with Brittany.

"Yeah, my dorm, it has my name on it, so it's mine."

Quinn immediately started laughing and couldn't really control herself. Who would have thought living in Brittany Hall could cause so much trouble. She really should have seen this coming.

"Did someone tell a joke Quinn?" said the confused voice on the phone.

"Yeah…on the TV," she lied half-heartedly knowing that Brittany didn't appreciate people laughing at her expense. "See that panel on the right, you can buzz my room number, 314 and I can let you in."

Quinn really hoped Brittany could figure it out; she was in lazy mode and didn't want to trudge down to the front door right now. After a minute of hearing some beeping, but no buzz she knew it was hopeless. She started moving her way towards the front door.

"Quinn! This thing makes like no sense!" Brittany cried out.

"No worries Britt, I'm on my way." She hung up the phone and quickly made her way down to the front door.

A big hug and a few minutes later they were back up at her room. She quickly introduced Brittany to Mallory who was busy concentrating on homework before she went out for the night.

Quinn looked at Brittany and could see not much had changed on the outside. She still wondered how she was doing mentally. After things got rough with Santana last year, Brittany was calling her nearly every day for a month. Shortly after, Quinn ran into her own issues and had to start ignoring Brittany's phone calls. It was not something she was particularly proud of, but Quinn always seemed to put herself first.

It had been almost four months of not talking when Quinn finally managed the courage to tell Brittany she was transferring to NYU. It was at that point that Quinn thanked her lucky stars for Brittany. Despite being a bitch and ignoring her for so long, Brittany just squealed in delight and suddenly it was like none of it had ever happened. Quinn wouldn't have blamed her for a second if she had yelled at her or ignored her in return, but this was Brittany. The girl had handled both Santana and Quinn for years without flinching; she deserved a medal for that. Unfortunately, Santana was a different story now.

"So Britt, you wanna watch Gilmore Girls or Gossip Girl tonight?" Quinn figured throwing two of Brittany's favorite shows out there might satisfy the girl. So they weren't exactly the height of impeccable art, but Quinn got a mild amount of entertainment out of them and they were a throwback to high school when Britt would force Quinn and Santana to watch them.

"Quinn, there were way too many Gs in that sentence for me. I thought we were gonna go out?" Britt responded confused.

Quinn shuddered at the prospect of going out. It became a game of weighing her options very quickly. Obviously explaining her complete non-desire to go out was off the table. That pretty much left badgering Brittany into staying in for the night or sucking it up and going out.

"I thought we could just stay in and catch up?" Quinn said, looking for a good reason to keep Brittany from making her go out.

"Lame! We can totally catch up and go out. I promise there will be some cool people there. Did you not go out at Yale?"

Quinn noticed Britt looked almost hurt at the idea of not going out. She had approached this situation thinking there was no way she was going out, but she quickly realized even if she kept them in tonight, it would never work for the long-term. Her selfishness had almost thrown this friendship away once and she realized she had too few friends to risk doing that again. At least she would have a friend she could trust at her side to get her through this.

"Alright, you win, where are we going?" Quinn finally gave in. She noticed Mallory perk up at her desk, but the girl continued working. To be honest, they hadn't really talked much since their spat a week ago.

"YES!" Brittany exploded, "This little bar in SoHo. I don't really know how to get there though. I probably should have thought about that before I asked you," she said, suddenly looking like she was about to cry.

"No problem," Quinn said quickly grabbing her iPhone, "what's it called?"

Luckily Brittany had at least saved the text that had the name of the bar, since she couldn't remember that either. It took Quinn a little while to get dressed. She tried to look as unappealing as possible, putting on a hoodie and some jeans, but Brittany just wouldn't let that fly. Brittany attempted to get her to put on this little black dress she had bought the summer before Yale. Quinn knew that would attract just the kind of attention she was looking to avoid. After some haggling Brittany finally acquiesced to a yellow summer dress and a white cardigan.

####

The two girls headed down to the metro stop near their dorm and only had to take it one stop south to get to the SoHo area. Quinn was using her iPhone the rest of the way to navigate them to the bar.

"So have you talked to Santana recently?" Brittany squeaked out, looking literally on the verge of tears just from mentioning the girl's name.

"Here and there, what about you?" Quinn responded and instantly knew it was the wrong thing to say. Even though she had lost touch with Brittany for a while, her and Santana had managed to keep in touch. It was funny to Quinn that this was more due to the fact that her and Santana talked about once a month. It meant that ignoring one phone call didn't have the potential to ruin the friendship the way ignoring Brittany for a month did. Once she told Santana about transferring they had begun to talk more often.

"We don't really talk anymore…is she…is she okay?"

Quinn was not sure how to respond to that. Sure, Santana sounded fine when they talked, but admitting that would probably make Brittany feel even worse. Actually, knowing Britt she would probably like to know Santana was doing well. It was a lose-lose situation, so Quinn decided to veer towards the middle ground.

"You know Santana…she doesn't really talk about her feelings. Are you ever going to tell me what happened between you two?" The truth was that even though Brittany had spent almost an hour every day for a month pining over Santana on the phone to Quinn, she had never really explained what happened.

"Maybe when you tell me why you didn't want to go out tonight" Brittany said.

And there it was, that oh so observant Brittany that seemed to come out when you least wanted or expected her to; the one that always made you wonder if she was really as gullible as she seemed. Quinn stopped slightly at the knife she felt was stuck in her side at the simple observation.

"Fair enough," she said simply, "let's just get drunk and forget about all that."

Brittany gave her a side hug that said it was forgotten. The truth of the matter was that Quinn had absolute zero plans to drink tonight. In fact, she hadn't had a drop to drink in almost six months.

####

The two girls had no issues getting past the bouncer with their fake IDs and charming smiles. They entered the building and headed over to the bar so Brittany could get a drink. The place was your typical bar with a nice dance floor and some booths. Just past the bar was a wall with a decent sized arched doorway that led into another area with some more seating. Quinn scanned the crowd and noticed they were mostly college aged students. It was still early so the place was only mildly crowded.

"Quinn, what do you want?"

"I'm just going to take it easy tonight," Quinn said in a sharp way that made Brittany understand it wasn't up for discussion. Luckily the issue wasn't pressed; Quinn had no desire to come up with an excuse why she wasn't drinking.

It was as Brittany was getting a drink that the first guy approached her.

"I'm sorry, but that dress should really be illegal," the guy said with a smirk on his face.

Okay, so he was decently handsome and that pick-up line was certainly better than so many others she had heard at Yale, but no, this was so not happening…already. Quinn was shaking and felt incredibly vulnerable. Brittany was off to the side getting a drink and she felt alone. She quickly realized she was not ready for this at all.

"Hello?" the guy added after Quinn hadn't responded. Any words that came to her mind quickly died on the tip of her tongue.

"She's not interested."

The voice was like magic as Brittany swooped in and saved her. She had never been so grateful. Brittany quickly grabbed her by the arm and led her away from the guy. Quinn felt her heart stop racing.

As they were walking over to the back part of the bar Quinn was struck by what she thought was a brilliant idea.

"Brittany," she said grabbing the blonde's skinny arm and spinning her so they were face-to-face. "Would you pretend to be my girlfriend tonight? I just don't really feel like getting hit on by any more guys."

Brittany looked confused, but simply said, "sure". Before Quinn could start walking again Brittany leaned in and planted a soft kiss on her lips. Quinn was so shocked she couldn't respond one way or the other. Brittany deepened the kiss pressing harder into Quinn's lips before brushing her tongue against her lips then finally pulling her head back.

Quinn was sure she had her own version of deer in headlights painted all over her face.

"Britt…what was that?" Quinn finally managed.

"That's what girlfriends do Quinn. Besides, I've always wanted to kiss you. You taste good…like candy."

Quinn felt she had way too much information to process. She had just had a girl kiss her for the first time and it had been one of her best friends. Not only that, Brittany had just admitted to wanting to kiss her and that her lips tasted good. Quinn didn't know what to think. Most confusing of all was the fact that she kind of liked it.

"Let's go," Brittany said, linking their hands before she could puzzle over this situation even more.

It was as they crossed under an arch into the back section of the bar that Quinn saw them. She immediately jerked both of them to a halt.

"Britt," she hissed, "WHAT is Rachel Berry doing here?" Sure they had kind of got over their issues senior year and sort of become friends, but that hadn't lasted very long. By the end of the school year they were both very busy preparing for their respective colleges and Rachel had left early for a workshop in New York. They hadn't even seen each other in over a year, not since Santana's graduation party. Quinn had no desire to face this shadow on her past. Kurt wasn't really much of a thought, though he certainly didn't help her to forget the fact that Brittany just kissed her.

"Quinn, I told you cool people would be here. Stop acting like you're still in high school."

While Brittany was scolding her for her attitude, she saw Rachel and Kurt notice them across the room. Suddenly they were waving at them like a couple of crazy people. She could be told not to act like she's still in high school all Brittany wanted, but the bottom line was that nobody brought that out like Rachel Berry. Still, there was really no getting out of this now that they had been noticed. They headed over to join the two of them in the booth.

"Oh my god Quinn, it is so good to see you, it's been like forever! How have you been? I can't believe you transferred to NYU without even telling me! Hey Britt!" Rachel basically sounded like she was screaming to Quinn as she attempted to give her a hug. Quinn returned it as lackluster as possible and laughed on the inside at the fact that it only took one sentence for her to realize that Rachel hadn't changed a bit.

Annoying as ever Quinn mouthed towards Brittany who frowned in response.

"I'm doing okay, how about you Rachel? Are you still rooming with Kurt? Apparently you didn't annoy him to death, but I can't imagine he's handling another year of you."

Okay, so much for not acting like she's still in high school. Defense mechanisms aren't exactly easy to unlearn. The look on Rachel's face made her immediately feel like a bitch. Here was a girl hoping that Quinn might actually move past her petty feelings, but Quinn had gone and confirmed her worst fears in all of 20 seconds.

"Quinn," Brittany pleaded.

"It's okay Brittany; I'm used to it, even if it has been over a year. Kurt can handle me just fine actually."

"Let me just add that while Rachel may have some habits that are not exactly at the top of my roommate etiquette chart, her cleanliness and support make her a fabulous roommate. By the way Quinn, I must say, you look simply stunning!" Kurt interjected lightening the atmosphere Quinn had done such a great job of stirring up.

"Told you so," Brittany added.

Quinn felt embarrassed. She was revisiting high school with two people who had clearly matured and gotten past it. She knew she should apologize, but old habits die hard.

"Thanks, I guess," was the best she could come up with.

"Rachel says she simply does not have enough alcohol in her system to dance, but Brittany, I figure you're game, I want to get my groove on!" Kurt said, simply bounding with enthusiasm.

Brittany glanced at Rachel who gave her a look that said she would be fine. She nodded and grabbed Kurt's hand leaving Rachel alone with Quinn.

Quinn was already unhappy that she wasn't consulted about this development and now she was going to be forced to deal with Rachel's rambling alone.

"So Quinn, are you and Brittany together? I mean I saw you guys kiss across the room and if I do say so myself, she is exactly what you need to lighten you up! I mean…"

"Whoa Rachel, calm down, no we are not together!" Quinn interrupted before Rachel could possibly go on. Leave it to Rachel to be blunt and come out and ask something like that. She was quickly regretting asking Brittany to pretend to be her girlfriend.

"Quinn," Rachel said exasperated, "you don't have to hide things like that. I have two gay dads as I'm sure you know and I live with Kurt."

"Rachel geez, if you would just let me freaking talk! I asked Brittany to pretend to be my girlfriend so guys wouldn't hit on me tonight, which she apparently took to mean she should kiss me in the middle of the bar. So no Rachel, we are not together. No I am not ashamed to admit it because there is nothing to admit. Now can we please just attempt to have a civil conversation." Quinn looked at Brittany on the dance floor with daggers in her eyes. She couldn't believe the girl had tricked her into spending a night with Rachel Berry.

"You're right Quinn, of course, it was foolish of me to jump to conclusions. Let's just talk like normal people who haven't talked in a long time. So why did you transfer to NYU?"

"Money," Quinn said bluntly, attempting to end the topic. She knew the best way though was to get Rachel talking.

"How is NYADA treating you?" she quickly added.

"Oh my god! NYADA is amazing, like it's everything I dreamed and more. Unfortunately, freshman can't have the lead in the school musicals, so I just had supporting roles last year. But, Quinn, guess what?"

"What?" Quinn indulged Rachel. She knew asking Rachel about NYADA was an invitation to hear verbose rambling of the egotistical nature. Then again, Rachel loved to talk about herself and Quinn would rather endure that pain than deal with a barrage of questions.

"I just heard today that I got the lead in the fall semester musical! They said I'm the first sophomore to be the lead in school history. Given, the school is only about 20 years old, but still, isn't that amazing?"

"Congrats Rachel," she said, trying to sound as excited as she could manage. Luckily Brittany and Kurt returned to the booth at that point. It was at this point that the devil appeared on Quinn's shoulder with an incredibly terrible idea to get back at Brittany for dragging her here.

"So Rachel, has Brittany found it in her heart to inform you what happened between her and Santana because I would love for someone to tell me?"

Rachel's hand moved fast as it quickly slapped Quinn's wrist.

"Shhh Quinn, we don't talk about that."

"Bathroom," Brittany's timid voice leaked out before quickly bolting from the booth.

"Good going Quinn. When are you going to grow up? I would go after her, but I'm really not allowed in the girl's bathroom," Kurt said glaring strongly at Quinn. She reflected on how that never really seemed to stop him in high school, but remembered that they were in public and this was slightly different situation.

Quinn looked ashamed. This night had quickly gone from her feeling embarrassed to feeling like complete shit. She was so out of her element hanging out with these people and she knew she wasn't coping well.

"I'll go," Rachel chimed in.

Quinn grabbed her wrist at the last moment. "No, I need to go." Rachel seemed to understand and quickly sat back in the booth as Quinn got up and headed off to the bathroom. Luckily it was early, so it wasn't too crowded yet.

Quinn noticed some soft sobbing coming from the handicapped stall and pushed her way through the unlocked door. "Britt, I don't even know where to start. I am so sorry." Brittany was huddled in the corner trying to conceal the tears streaming down her face. Honestly Quinn had never truly understood the dynamic between Santana and Brittany, but she knew how much their friendship and then relationship had meant to the blonde. She couldn't imagine what it meant to lose both of those things at the same time.

"It's okay. I guess it's what I get for not telling you what happened."

"What? No Britt, this is my fault. You shouldn't be so hard on yourself. Tell me what I can do to make it up to you." At least with Brittany, Quinn felt she could apologize. It was an ability she had never really acquired around Rachel.

"Maybe I could kiss you again?" Brittany asked.

Quinn chuckled. "I don't know if that's such a good idea. I might like it too much," she admitted in a moment of honesty. "How about a hug instead?" she countered.

"I'd like that."

The two friends embraced squeezing each other tight. After a minute Quinn finally managed to pull free of Brittany. "Can we go home?" Quinn asked. This night had confirmed Quinn's worst fears that she was not even remotely ready for public interaction yet.

"Okay, let's say goodbye." Quinn was surprised Britt had agreed with her so easily. Either the girl had a keener insight than she thought or Quinn's foolish question had made Brittany want to get out of there just as much.

Quinn stood next to Brittany as she said heartfelt goodbyes to Rachel and Kurt. She even apologized like it was somehow her fault. Quinn couldn't possibly imagine how this night could have gone any worse and she had no one to blame but herself. Quinn quickly added her goodbyes then the two girls headed out.

They quickly reached Quinn's metro stop and Brittany got off just to say goodbye. Quinn reflected on how good a friend she had almost squandered.

"You know, whenever you're ready to talk, I'm here for you." It certainly sounded like the reassuring statement a concerned friend would say. The fact was that Quinn didn't have the patience implied by it. She was dying to know what had happened between the couple. They were really her only two friends and not knowing what happened in their lives really hurt. She knew her actions hadn't earned their trust, but that didn't change how she felt.

"I don't know Quinn, you stopped being there for so long. I might be ready when you're ready to tell me why that was." Brittany responded looking thoughtful.

"I…you're right. I owe you an explanation. Eventually, I promise Britt, just be patient, please?" Quinn was aware she was fighting a losing battle. She could only go so long masking her own problems while attempting to remain friends with Brittany and Santana. Still, it was going to take time, she was not ready to form the words necessary for explanation.

"I'm not going anywhere," was all she said. They said their goodbyes and Quinn headed back to campus.

She got into bed and put her iPod on shuffle before plugging the headphones into her ears. She knew it was going to be hard falling asleep tonight. It couldn't be a coincidence that "Why Georgia" by John Mayer was the first song that came up. She couldn't help but get the feeling that she wasn't living it right at all.

A/N: In case you are wondering there really is a Brittany Hall at NYU, it was too perfect to pass up.