Well woohooo. I had the first half of this written for a while and decided I really needed to finish the rest of the chapter. I'll be starting on the next chap for let me walk away soon so fans of that please try not to fret and I apologize for my slow updating and general sucky suckiness.

"Hey, Quinn."

Quinn turned to see Puck calling her name and sauntering across the track towards her. She rolled her eyes and squinted against the harsh sunlight, turning back to watch the other cheerleaders running laps. Sue wasn't at school today which was odd, but Quinn didn't question it much. It meant her and Santana had free reign to do whatever they wanted with the squad, and since the girls had been way too mouthy lately Quinn had come up with the brilliant idea to make them run endless laps. Last one to pass out wins.

"I wanted to make a little wager with you," Puck said as he approached her, smirking and not even hiding the fact that he was checking out the Cheerios.

Quinn snorted. "What kind of wager?"

"About who can get Ms. Berry to sleep with them first."

Quinn rounded on him immediately and he held up his hands in mock innocence. "Go the fuck away Puck! I do not want to sleep with Ms. Berry. So you can go take that "wager" and shove it up your-"

"What's going on here?" Santana purred, sidling up right next to Quinn and putting a strong hand on her shoulder. She eyed Puck, who was practically whimpering in fear and possibly a little bit of arousal. Santana totally got it; Quinn was crazy hot when she got angry. But also probably the scariest thing ever.

"Nothing," Puck answered innocently. "Nothing at all. I just wanted to make a little bet with Quinn about who could get to Ms. Berry's berries first and she-"

Santana crowed loudly, dissolving in a fit of laughter.

Quinn growled and grabbed Puck by the collar of his white t-shirt, yanking him forward until they were nose to nose. She was already feeling all badass and in charge as a result of having the Cheerios completely under her thumb for the day. It was the perfect time to shut Puck and Santana's fat ass mouths up about Ms. Berry before things continued.

"You listen to me and you listen good, Puckerman. I do not want to sleep with Ms. Berry. I do not like girls. And I don't want to hear another word about it. Understand?"

Puck nodded his head frantically and jerked away from her grasp, looking visibly shaken. Quinn was batshit crazy.

"I don't even need a wager, I just thought it would make things interesting," he told her after he collected himself. "I'm still going to get up in that."

"She's married, you shithead," replied Quinn, irritated.

Puck winked at her. "Never stopped me before." He jerked out of her reach when she went to swing at him and grinned before walking away from her and Santana.

"So Q, why have you been getting so defensive over this Berry shit?" Santana questioned curiously, absentmindedly watching a couple of Cheerios stop and sway weakly before continuing to run. "That's enough, hit the showers." she called. She turned to Quinn and muttered almost dejectedly, "Coach will have our asses if we kill 'em."

Quinn snickered. "Unfortunately. And I'm not getting defensive, okay? I'm just done with Puck and the way he acts towards women. It's disgusting and annoying. Nobody should be betting about sleeping with Ms. Berry."

Santana sniffed the air. "I smell a hint of jealousy. Or maybe protectiveness. Which is severely uncalled for since you "don't like" her..."

"Jesus Christ," growled Quinn.

Santana's eyes widened comically and she held back a grin. "Whoa there, Miss Innocent Christian."

Quinn sighed wearily. She was already done talking about this. "Look, I don't know why you all are making such a big deal about it. Did you completely forget that I kind of have a thing with Finn?"

Santana snorted. "Yeah a kind of "thing" where you're constantly on and off, with off being the most frequent setting. Are you even with him right now?"

"It's complicated," Quinn mumbled.

"Oh please Quinn, this isn't a goddamn Facebook status. This is life. Cut the shit. You don't even like Finn. I, being your best friend, can obviously tell. And I, being your best friend, can also tell how taken you are with little Ms. Berry. You couldn't take your eyes off her since she set foot in our classroom."

"She's married." It was becoming like a half-hearted mantra.

Santana smirked at her, reaching out and cuffing her on the shoulder before she began strutting towards the locker rooms. Quinn followed slowly. "Never thought you'd be one to back down from a challenge, Q."


Quinn couldn't deny that English class was quickly becoming her favorite. And it wasn't even because of their new teacher; being a writer and a reader, Quinn had always liked English. But having the biggest dumbass for a teacher had left her completely uninterested in the actual class. He assigned stupid books that had no important substance, so she didn't read them. He led half-hearted and aimless in class discussions, so she didn't participate in them. He never checked homework or even made any mention of it the day after he assigned it, so she stopped doing it.

With the right teacher, Quinn adored English. Okay, so maybe it did have a lot to do with the fact that their teacher was Ms. Berry.

Quinn also couldn't deny that she found Ms. Berry really cute. She didn't let herself delve deeper into what that meant; she couldn't have anything other than a platonic crush on the teacher. Because if it became something more than that, then that meant that Quinn Fabray was something other than straight. And that would mean hell for her in every aspect of her life; her parents would disown her, she'd be kicked off the cheerleading squad, she'd be ruined in school.

Her eyes flitted across the class room to look at that Kurt boy, who was pretty much the only openly gay person she knew that went to this school. She had personally seen his life turn into hell when he came out. She had personally participated in making his life hell. Slushies against him had pretty much subsided after she'd talked to him a few weeks ago and realized what a sweet guy he was. Quinn had ordered for a new target to be slushied instead of him.

She had a heart. Occasionally.

She heard Santana and Brittany giggle behind her and turned slightly to see Puck watching them with some kind of lovesick expression on his face. She knew they probably had their pinkies linked and were doing some other kind of cutesy thing. It was very easy for her to observe the real feelings between Santana and Brittany. It was probably easy for everyone else too, to be honest. But neither of them had officially come out and Santana scared the shit out of everyone, so nobody dared to make a fuss about it.

A small, envious feeling sparked through her for whatever reason and she shoved it down. What the hell was she envious of?

"Quinn, would you like to read next?"

Quinn resisted the urge to physically jump in surprise, and instead just snapped her eyes up to focus on Ms. Berry. Over the years she had learned how to control stupid physical reactions such as that one that showed her vulnerability. Being startled was not something Quinn Fabray did.

Stuttering was also not something she did, and she knew if she opened her mouth all that would come out would be fragmented attempts at words. She paused for a moment, looking up at Ms. Berry and into her eyes before focusing on a spot on the corner of her mouth. The teacher's eyes made her feel things she didn't like to feel. That was one of the bad things about being in the front row. Sometimes Ms. Berry would walk past her, and a lot of times their eyes would meet, and every time Quinn had a small panic attack.

Looking at her mouth wasn't much better. Jesus fuck those lips-

"Um, I'm sorry, where are we?"

She mentally cursed at the fact that Ms. Berry couldn't just tell her where they were, but instead decided to show her. Quinn really didn't feel like herself; when Ms. Berry bent down beside her she was very acutely aware that her breasts were literally within 2 inches of her own breasts. Which what the fuck, since when did she start caring about her teacher's breasts?

She took a deep breath and read, willing the shaky quality of her voice to go away. She heard Santana cough a laugh and had to restrain herself from literally turning around and punching her best friend in the face.

When she was done she could feel her cheeks burning and she barely glanced up when Ms. Berry thanked her and picked out someone new to read from the textbook. She felt a punch to her shoulder and turned around to glare at Santana, hard.

"Smooth," Santana mouthed, and Quinn grumpily flipped her off and turned back around.


Quinn was at her locker when she heard loud whooping and laughing coming from down the hall. She glanced in the direction of the sounds and saw a poor, nerdy looking freshman dripping in slushy and cowering as her and her friends tried to make their way to the nearest bathroom. The culprits were easy to spot; a group of freshmen Cheerios who were giggling and snorting. Their motive was also easy to guess; they'd probably been slushied themselves before they had gained a spot on the cheer squad, and now wanted to assert their dominance over their fellow 9th graders. Quinn stared for a second longer before rolling her eyes and turning back to her locker.

She had told all of them, the jocks and the Cheerios, not to slushy random, innocent people, namely freshmen. Sure, freshmen were annoying losers who often needed to be reminded of their place. But Quinn wasn't completely heartless; most freshmen were harmless and just naïve. If they deserved a slushy was to be up to her (and Santana's) discretion.

"I don't understand," she heard from next to her, the voice making her freeze in surprise. She glanced over to see Ms. Berry standing near her and watching the scene with concern on her face. It was obvious that the teacher wanted to rush to the scene and intervene, but was also hesitant since she was new to the school and wasn't really sure how things worked.

Ms. Berry spoke again. "I just…why do people do that? What did that girl do to those girls? That looks so uncomfortable. Could you imagine being doused in a slushy like that?" She turned to Quinn worriedly. "You haven't been, have you?"

Quinn swallowed the large ass lump that was forming in her throat. Nope Ms. Berry, never been slushied. Just ordered practically all of the attacks. "Um no. Never."

Ms. Berry smiled halfheartedly and turned to watch the girl enter a bathroom, clinging to her friends and fighting tears. "What a horrible thing. I wish I would have gotten here sooner so I could have stopped it."

"Yeah, it is really horrible," agreed Quinn.

Yeah so horrible said a small, judgmental voice in her head. So horrible that you're the cause of it every day.

She shoved the voice down. Wow. You know things are pretty bad when you're judging yourself.

It wasn't that she disagreed with Ms. Berry. Slushies were terrible. But when Quinn had arrived at this school two years ago as a freshman she had quickly learned how the social hierarchy worked and the most effective way to stay on top. Being the number one head bitch in charge of which "losers" got slushied was one of them. Quinn always had to bite back the revolt she felt at seeing someone slushied because of her own doing. It was the way things were.

Ms. Berry shook her head and looked stricken. "I'll see you tomorrow, Quinn." She placed a hand on the blonde's shoulder and squeezed, before smiling nicely and walking away. Quinn stared after her for like ten fucking minutes and then she stared at her shoulder for like another ten fucking minutes. Her eyes then drifted back to the baby Cheerios, who were still standing around looking smug.

Quinn wondered how smug they would be looking tomorrow morning when she made them do infinite suicides at the end of practice for doing such a horrible thing.

So there's that. Review if you're still hanging around and you want to be nice to me because you're just a nice person like that.