Title: Evolution

Author: Lucy

Pairing: Rachel/Quinn

Rating: PG for swears, nothing else

I love hearing when people like my stories, but I also like hearing what people like about them specifically :) and feedback is love, so love me, okay?

Part Seven
Later, Rachel would look on this moment as the beginning of the end. Or was it the end of the beginning?

Quinn was stiff at first, her arms kept loosely by her side, but Rachel squeezed gently, and slowly Quinn responded. And Rachel couldn't help the way she inhaled deeply - she hadn't had a chance to smell that scent in over a week, and she had been missing it. Her eyes closed, and she resigned herself to the fact that not only had her crush on Quinn not diminished, it had grown more than she realized.

Experiencing unexpected full body contact with a girl she kept telling herself she hated, Quinn couldn't understand why her body was reacting the way it was. Her arms had crept up to embrace Rachel without conscious effort on her part - but she told herself that that was the natural reaction to a hug, and she had hugged Brittany and Santana enough times for it to be muscle memory - and there was that twist in her belly again. But this time the twist wasn't guilt.

And when she realized what the twist was, her eyes shot wide open, and she wrenched herself free from Rachel's embrace.

"I have to go," she stammered, stumbling backwards before turning on her heel and all but running to her car.

Rachel watched her go, watched until the car had sped out of sight, then stepped back inside and closed the door.

Hiram and Leroy were full of questions. Who exactly was Quinn to Rachel? What part had she played in the torment? Why had Rachel brought her over? What was Rachel hoping to achieve? Rachel couldn't answer any of them, and she found she didn't want to. It was unusual for her, but she didn't really want to be talking to her dads right then. All she really wanted to do was go up to her room and think about Quinn and how soft and warm she felt.

It took her a long time to get to sleep that night.

And in her house, Quinn took even longer to get to sleep.

In the morning, Saturday morning, Quinn stared at her cellphone. She had Rachel's number. Every single Cheerio and football player, and most of the hockey team, had Rachel's number. They'd got a hold of it freshman year, and used it to make many a hilarious and diverting prank call on her, some crueler than others, most crueler than Quinn cared to admit.

She stared at the entry in her cellphone's contact list. MAN HANDS, it read, and she hit Edit. Erased MAN HANDS and keyed in RACHEL. Fingers poised above the buttons, she debated the merits of sending Rachel a text message.

"We're not friends," she told herself out loud, more than once that Saturday.

Sunday saw her doing the same thing, after church and a sermon on loving thy neighbor.

DO U WANT TO HANG OUT she keyed in, but erased it before she could succumb to the urge to send it. IM SORRY she keyed in, but erased that too. HEY RACHEL WHAT U UP TO she keyed in, then erased that. In the end she tossed her phone onto the bed and flopped back onto the pillows, huffing in disgust at herself and her indecision. She allowed herself to think about the one thing she'd been avoiding thinking about all weekend - the way Rachel had felt when they hugged. Soft, warm... and she'd made Quinn feel sort of tingly. She really wanted to feel those tingles again, and not think about what they meant.

On Monday, there was no slushy attack, and Quinn smiled shyly at Rachel as they passed in the hallway.

Part Eight
Shy smiles turned more confident over the course of the next two weeks, and gradually they were accompanied by little casual waves, and even, towards the end of the two weeks, by quiet greetings. Quinn was finding out that it felt so much nicer to be good than it did to be horrible.

Santana noticed.

There was no way she was letting it go without calling Quinn on her change of heart, so she cornered the blond one day and demanded answers. "What's up with you and the yeti?"

Quinn did her best impression of wide eyed and innocent, and denied any change, and though Santana loosened her grip, Quinn knew she wasn't convinced. So later, Quinn didn't smile when she passed Rachel, she kept her face neutral and blanked the brunette.

It didn't feel good. Quinn made a conscious effort to shake Santana after that, and went in search of Rachel. She found the singer alone in the music room and entered, shutting the door behind her. Rachel looked up, startled - she hadn't expected any company.

"Look, I'm sorry about today," Quinn said quickly, before she lost her nerve. "I know I've been better, and I don't want things to go back to the way they used to be, but Santana was giving me shit about being nice to you, so I had to shut her up somehow..."

"It's okay," Rachel cut her off softly. "I understand." She didn't, not really. Quinn had never struck her as the sort of person who wasn't strong enough to stand up for what they believed in. There again, Santana was pretty daunting, and Rachel wasn't sure she could stand up to the Latina either.

"I want to make it up to you," Quinn insisted impulsively, and Rachel finally looked her in the eye, and there was that look again, that look of hope and gratitude that did things to Quinn's stomach. She moved around the piano and sat next to Rachel on the bench, rather closer than she had originally intended, and watched Rachel's eyes flutter close as she inhaled.

"We're having Movie Night tonight," Rachel managed to say. "It's my turn to pick the movie, so I can pick something you like. That is, if you wanted to come over and watch a movie with me and my dads."

Quinn sighed. "I do want to, but coming over to your house and imposing on your time and eating your food isn't making it up to you for the way I've been."

"It's a start," Rachel smiled. Tentatively, she brought her arms up, wondering if Quinn would allow a hug. She was surprised when Quinn leaned in immediately, their embrace a lot more natural than the first.

Quinn let the hug linger rather longer than she would with Santana or Brittany, just enjoying the warmth of Rachel and how soft she was. She wasn't so oblivious that she didn't know Rachel was inhaling her scent, that she'd done it before, so she allowed herself to follow suit - subtly, of course. "Your hair smells really good," she whispered, barely loud enough to reach Rachel's ears.

Rachel pulled back just enough to look Quinn in the eye, and the two regarded each other seriously for a long moment. "Thank you," she finally said, a faint blush rising in her cheeks.

Finding it harder and harder to ignore the feeling in her belly, Quinn leaned in a little. Rachel leaned back, away from Quinn, and pulled out of the hug. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"Nothing."

There was a tension between them that hadn't been there before, and Quinn was pretty sure it was due to the fact that out of the blue, she had really wanted to kiss Rachel. Not that Rachel could have known that. She hoped. "So should I bring anything? Tonight?" she asked in an attempt to change the subject.

"We've got it covered," Rachel replied, regarding Quinn quizzically.

"Well, I'll see you tonight then," Quinn said, getting up and leaving the room quickly. Not for the first time, Rachel watched the blond retreat, wondering what the hell was happening between them.

Part Nine
Rachel couldn't remember ever being nervous about a movie night.

She'd picked Grease - one of her favorites, one of her dads' favorites, and one that Quinn seemed to be at least mildly enthusiastic about. She'd picked out lots of different kinds of snacks, with three low or non fat options for Quinn. She'd arranged the food, the soda, and plates and glasses within easy reach of the couch. The couch! She knew her dads would sit on that, which left one seat left on it, so either Quinn would sit with her dads and feel horribly uncomfortable, or Rachel would sit with her dads and leave Quinn sitting in the armchair by herself, feeling horribly uncomfortable... Rachel set up a few cushions on the floor in a way that made it obvious the two girls would sit together on them.

Now all that was left to do was wait for Quinn to show up, which she did, right on time, holding a couple of bottles of soda even though Rachel had told her not to bring anything.

"Hi," she greeted the three Berrys. "Rachel wouldn't tell me what I could bring, so I hope this is okay..."

Hiram and Leroy, skeptical the first time Quinn had come over, were much more relaxed this time, and they cooed and fussed over Quinn and her offering like she'd brought cognac, caviar, and gold plated cigars. They ushered her inside, sat her down on a cushion and offered her first pick of all the snacks and Rachel, watching the display, felt a fresh surge of affection for the two men. They might not have known why this girl was important to Rachel, but they knew she was, and that was enough for them.

She made her way over to the cushions and sat down, careful not to sit too close to Quinn. She didn't want to give the wrong impression, after all. Just because she was hugely crushing on this girl still didn't make it a good idea to give Quinn possible ammunition - Rachel still had a small amount of distrust for the blond, though it was decreasing daily.

And yet, though Rachel was careful to put at least a little distance between them, as the movie began, Quinn scooched a little closer anyway, until they were close enough that their arms were pressed together. Rachel dared to sneak a glance over at Quinn, but she was studiously watching Danny declare his undying love for Sandy.

Not even ten minutes later Rachel got a shock as she realized Quinn was singing along softly with Sandy during "Summer Nights." And she was good. Making a mental note to try and recruit her for glee club, Rachel began to sing too, taking Danny's part. Rachel's dads looked down at the girls with no small amount of amusement in their expressions, but said nothing.

It wasn't this warm in her own house, Quinn reflected. Not that it wasn't a suitable temperature, the expensive heating system and plenty of insulation ensured that they stayed toasty in the winter. It just wasn't this... warm, this cozy. Quinn thought about her mother, who was always drinking, or her father, who if he wasn't working (and that was rare enough) was editorializing about the state of youth today or pressuring Quinn to do more, achieve more, be more. And the more she thought, the more Quinn really didn't want to go home, but wanted to stay in the Berry house just a little longer. It didn't even have anything to do with... whatever it was she was starting to feel for Rachel (which she still didn't want to think about).

But the movie ended, the snacks were gone, the last drops of soda slurped up through the cheesy spiral Disney Princess straws (Quinn couldn't believe Rachel even had them, but she was secretly tickled pink at being presented with her glass and seeing the Sleeping Beauty straw). Quinn stood up, slowly, regretfully, and stretched out her muscles. Rachel stood too, to walk her to the door, and this time when they hugged it was more fluid, more natural than either of their two previous hugs.

There was no way Quinn was going to ask if she could come again, because Quinn Fabray didn't ask for anything from Rachel Berry. But, when Rachel invited her to come to the next movie night, Quinn pretended like she had to think about it - she didn't want to look too eager - then agreed.

When Quinn got home, her father wasn't there. Her mother looked to be on her fourth or fifth drink of the evening. "Daddy's working late, you'll have to make your own dinner, I'm going to bed. Say your prayers," was all Judy Fabray said, and it was on her way up the stairs, leaving Quinn alone in the entryway.

Quinn went up to her own room, closed the door behind herself, undressed and crawled into bed. The last thing she saw before she went to sleep was the framed painting of Jesus, looking at her with his impassive expression, reminding her that even if she did think she was starting to like Rachel like that, it was wrong.

Part Ten
Even though she still hadn't worked up the courage to text Rachel, Quinn was getting closer and closer to it every day. She'd been thinking a lot about her status at high school, and about the bible and Jesus and loving thy neighbor, and also about Rachel. Quinn really did want to make amends for her behavior toward Rachel, she knew that if nothing else. The easy explanation was, she wanted to be friends with the brunette, and working under that assumption Quinn formulated a plan of sorts.

It wasn't complicated, nor was it the color coded, bullet pointed, double spaced and indented monstrosity that she was sure Rachel would have come up with. No, Quinn's plan was very simple.

Be Nice To Rachel.

She started small. She knew she had to start small - starting big would not only freak Rachel out, but it would give her nowhere to go from there, and most importantly, it would get her noticed by people who were already beginning to look at her sideways (namely Santana). So Quinn started small - tiny, really. She held a door open for Rachel as they left Spanish.

It was easier than Quinn had imagined, to do little nice things for Rachel. Spurred on by the success of the door holding, Quinn lent Rachel a pencil in math, and sat back, feeling proud of herself. She told herself that was enough for one day.

The next day she scowled at a football player who called Rachel "tranny". It didn't matter that until a couple of weeks ago, that had been one of Quinn's favorite names for Rachel, she didn't say that anymore, and she didn't think anyone else should, either. In Math when Rachel tried to return the pencil Quinn had lent her, Quinn said "it doesn't matter, keep it," and considered that her two nice things for the day.

And all the while she was smiling and greeting Rachel in the halls, not overly enthusiastically of course, but acknowledging Rachel's presence in a non combative way that she hadn't done before all this had begun.

The act of thinking up nice things to do that wouldn't be overtly noticeable was a wonderful way to keep her mind from analyzing her feelings. The tingles in her stomach weren't going away, and intellectually she knew what the tingles were.

She used to feel them for Finn, in the beginning, when he'd worked so hard to get her to go out with him. It had taken him a good couple of weeks to woo her to the point where she had agreed to their first date, even though maybe ten days of that had been her playing hard to get at her friends' insistence. The feeling of someone wanting her in a romantic sense had given Quinn her first taste of the tingles, and at first she'd felt them every time Finn was near, every time he'd take her hand or tell her she was beautiful, every time they kissed. Over time they'd faded into a warm sort of feeling. Quinn had missed the tingles.

She didn't like the idea of Rachel – a girl - being the one to bring them back into her life, and thinking about ways she could make up for being a heinous bitch to Rachel kept her from thinking about ways she could get closer to the brunette.

It had been a roller coaster ride at school for Rachel the last month or so. She'd gone from having slushies thrown at her every day, sometimes more than once, to having the head cheerleader help her clean up, to having no more slushies, to... Well. She wasn't sure exactly where she stood now, but she knew it was better than where she'd been a month ago. And she had noticed Quinn changing – the tiny, miniscule things she was doing wouldn't have been a big deal to anyone else, but Rachel was sort of aware that even Quinn not insulting her would raise eyebrows. Yes, Rachel had noticed.

But so had Santana.

Part Eleven
Santana thought of herself and Quinn in terms of Paris Geller and Rory Gilmore. There was no way Paris would have attained the position of student body president and the associated power, if she hadn't had Rory running with her. Rory had been the face of things, the person that people liked and voted for. Quinn was Santana's Rory. Santana knew she couldn't maintain her position of popularity and power without Quinn, so Quinn jeopardizing things the way she was was completely unacceptable.

And as much as the general population of McKinley High thought of Quinn Fabray as their queen bee and leader, Quinn herself knew the truth. She might be the face on the school's monarchy, but Santana Lopez was, always had been and always would be the driving force and the mastermind behind it. Much as Santana might feel like she was riding Quinn's coattails to success, Quinn often felt it was the other way around.

Both of them knew where they stood. So when Santana cornered Quinn in an empty math classroom one afternoon, Quinn had the good sense not to fight it. After all, Santana was a force to be reckoned with.

"There's something going on between you and RuPaul." Santana's calm voice was even scarier than her angry voice, and Quinn tried not to show a reaction.

"No there isn't," she lied as best she could, but she already knew there wasn't much point.

"Cut the crap, Q," Santana snapped. "You know as well as I do that each moment you're breathing the same air as that yeti, your real estate is plummeting. And if you go down, I go down with you, and that is not happening while I have breath left in my body."

"There's nothing going on between us, S," she said in the most convincing voice she could muster (which wasn't very convincing at all). "Stubbles and I are about as close as you and Jacob Ben Israel."

With narrowed eyes, Santana regarded Quinn, and Quinn found herself cringing under the scrutiny. "You're lying," she said finally. "What, are you gay for her now? I thought you were still with Finn. How's he going to like hearing that his girlfriend is cheating on him with the biggest loser in school?"

All the color drained from Quinn's face. She knew she just wasn't strong enough to stick her neck out and risk angering Santana. Being popular, being a Cheerio, having Finn, that was all Quinn knew, and the idea of losing that and facing the unknown terrified her. Perhaps Santana had just been being sarcastic with her little "gay" jibe, but whether she knew it or not, it had hit home in a way Quinn wasn't ready to face.

Then there was the small matter of cheating on Finn. Sure, Quinn and Rachel hadn't come anywhere near doing anything that could be considered physically cheating, but Quinn knew that her mind had cheated with Rachel numerous times, and Santana voicing the accusation just brought home to her what a dangerous path she was treading. She couldn't lose Finn. Couldn't lose being a Cheerio. Couldn't give Santana anything that would let her take Quinn's life away.

"What do you want from me?" Quinn asked in a defeated tone, and Santana knew she'd won.

"I want you to act like the winner you are, Q. I want you to put that mouth breathing loser back in her place, and I want you to make damn sure she knows where she stands with you – at our feet, bowing to us."

Because part of remaining on top, was making sure that there was someone to be on the bottom, and Santana knew Rachel was it.

With a heavy heart, Quinn resigned herself to the fact that whatever it was that had been building between her and Rachel, it was over now. Over, before it ever had a chance to be... whatever it was going to be.

Later that afternoon when Rachel smiled at Quinn as they passed in the hallway, Quinn almost smiled back. Then, seeing the look on Santana's face, she rearranged her features into her trademark sneer and snapped "Who let you out of your cage, Stubbles?"

The insult hit Rachel in the face harder than any slushy Quinn had ever thrown. Rachel's eyes welled up with tears, though she blinked them away quickly – she thought she and Quinn had made such progress, had got past their animosity.

The look on Rachel's face tore Quinn up inside, but she forced herself to keep walking.

Part Twelve
If it hadn't been for the lack of slushies and the ache in her chest, Quinn would have thought the last month or so had been a dream.

Every day she was making a conscious effort to do as Santana wanted, to think up fresh and interesting ways to insult Rachel. Rachel had tried once, since Santana had put her foot down, to invite Quinn over for Movie Night again, and Quinn had wanted so damn badly to say yes. But she'd said no. Actually, what she said was "I wouldn't be caught dead at your place, Berry, I might catch the gay." And she'd only said it because Santana was watching from across the hallway, and immediately afterward she'd felt horrible because she'd had to watch Rachel's shoulders slump as she turned and walked away.

Quinn had never hated herself more than she hated herself right now. She hated how weak she was, hated what she'd become, and most of all hated what high school had made her be.

As the days went on, things got a little easier. Santana had loosened up a little when it became apparent she wasn't going to lose her status, Brittany was her usual sweet self, and even Finn was making more of an effort to be romantic (why, Quinn didn't ask. He'd known nothing of what had been happening, the loveable doofus. Perhaps Santana had made him think he'd almost lost Quinn?)

And it wasn't so bad, Quinn told herself. It wasn't as if people had gone back to throwing slushies at Rachel, or at anyone for that matter, She could tell herself she'd been responsible for ending the colored, flavored ice's reign of terror at McKinley High. And she and Rachel had never been friends to begin with, right? And you can't lose what you never had.

Only, Quinn did feel like she'd lost something. So she contented herself with just doing her best to avoid Rachel. Making an effort not to see the brunette was one way of not having to think about what she was missing.

Rachel was, in a word, miserable.

Stupidly, she'd thought things had gotten better. She should have known that Quinn Fabray showing any sign of compassion and friendship wouldn't last. In fact, she wouldn't have been at all surprised if this had all been a huge, elaborate prank to make her feel even worse about the taunts and insults.

She wished like anything she believed that. It was so much easier to think that Quinn had been evil all along, than to think of what she had potentially lost.

The worst was that Rachel still harbored feelings for the blond, still held out a tiny sliver of hope that this latest phase of torment was some sort of bad dream. That hope was flickering and fading as the days turned into weeks.

Rachel wasn't someone who was prone to a lot of illness. In addition to her morning workout, she took daily vitamins, ate healthy and drank eight glasses of water a day. She wasn't someone who got sick at the drop of a hat. If the weight on her mind hadn't been keeping her awake nights, she wouldn't have got so run down, and perhaps she never would have got sick. But she did, and when she woke up that Wednesday morning when a scratchy throat, a dripping nose, a jackhammer in her head and an elephant on her chest, her fathers didn't think twice about letting her stay home.

Rachel lay back down in bed and tried to forget about the steaming dung heap that her life had become, and fell into a fitful sleep.

Avoiding Rachel at school had become such a habit for Quinn that it wasn't until halfway through the day she realized the brunette hadn't shown up. It was a little surprising to her how much that bothered her. When she thought about it, she supposed that it was one thing for her to choose not to see Rachel (ha. As if the choice had been her own). It was quite another thing not to be able to see Rachel.

Quinn made up her mind. She wasn't going to do this anymore, wasn't going to be the meek and mild subservient sheep for Santana. She was going to stand up to the Latina, tell her that Rachel wasn't so bad, order her to lay off the insults and be nice to Rachel for once.

Ha, ha. A nervous giggle escaped the blond. Just because she'd found the courage to admit to herself that she missed having Rachel around, didn't mean she'd found the courage for anything else. She didn't have the courage to stand up to Santana. She didn't have the courage to make people be nice to Rachel, at the possible expense of her own status, no, Quinn wasn't nearly ready to give up her place as high school royalty. And she didn't have the courage to define what it was exactly about Rachel that she missed.

But fabricating a dentist appointment to get herself out of last period and Cheerio practice without Santana even batting an eyelid (the Latina had even given her a hug of sympathy at hearing how Quinn had to go. Santana hated dentists), getting in her car and driving over to the Berry house?

Quinn had courage enough for this.

She just hoped Rachel didn't hate her too much for being such a coward for so long.