Quinn watched as the other girl got up and left, leaving her binder behind. She considered running out after her. She could easily catch up with her if she really wanted to. She far surpassed Rachel when it came to cardio, thanks to cheerleading. She nodded to herself and decided it was best to go after her and figure things out.

As she stood up to go after the diva, Santana and Brittany walked in. The girls left for sheet music a while ago, and returned with empty hands. She watched as Brittany whispered into Santana's ear, making the other girl blush and smile nervously. Quinn simply rolled her eyes. Santana caught her eye and walked over to her, Brittany falling right in step.

"You make Rachel cry again, Fabray?" Santana chuckled. "You know, if you keep making her run out of the room, she's never going to like you." She sat down in Rachel's seat, picking up her binder and looking through it.

"I don't care what she thinks of me." Quinn snapped, ignoring the Latina's obvious disregard for other people's belongings. "And I didn't make her cry or run out of the room, smart ass."

"Well," Brittany said, sitting on the other side of Quinn. "If you didn't make her run away, what did?" She asked, genuinely curious. Her concern was clear and made the blonde sigh as she sat down between her two friends.

"I don't know, Britt." She said, giving in beneath the weight of the other girl's care. "I was just asking why she was wearing those glasses. She said it was because she got her eyes dilated. I called her bluff and she just got up and left." she paused and looked at her feet. "I feel kind of bad about it."

Santana shifted and cleared her throat, getting both the blondes' attention. "If you really want to know what she's hiding under her glasses, I could pin her down and you could rip them off." She shrugged. "Shouldn't be too hard since she's the smallest person I've ever seen."

Quinn guffawed. "Yeah," she said sarcastically "That will make her like me." She crossed her arms and angled her body away from Santana.

The other girl laughed as the blonde moved away. "I thought you didn't care what she thought of you." She said; laughing harder as Quinn blushed. "Face it Q, for whatever reason, you want that loud little twerp in your life."

"She's not a twerp," Quinn said without thinking. "And so what if I want to be her friend? Why is that so wrong?" She asked the brunette. She could tell she was sounding too defensive, but she couldn't stop herself at this point.

The other girls just smiled at her. It pissed Quinn off a bit. They clearly didn't believe she just wanted to be Rachel's friend, but it was true. There weren't any ulterior motives this time; neither had relationships for the other to sabotage or competitions to worry about. Things were okay for now. Quinn just wanted to give Rachel a chance. God knows she owed the girl at least that much after everything the blonde put her through.

"Whatever," Santana said, breaking Quinn from her thoughts. "I don't care if you want to be the hobbit's friend, but you might want to work on your people skills if that be the case." Quinn stared at Santana in disbelief.

"I'm the one with bad people skills? Are you sure about that?" She asked, laughing at her friend

Santana shrugged. "I've got superb people skills. I just choose not to use them unless necessary. You, on the other hand, completely lack the basic techniques of a people person."

"Sometimes you can be really scary." Brittany agreed.

Quinn looked between her two friends and sighed. "I know," she said, putting her face in her palms. "But I don't know how to make friends. I was taught to intimidate people to get what I wanted." She looked up at Santana. "If you're such a pro at it, why don't you teach me?" She challenged.

The Latina laughed. "Well rule number one is pretty simple" She said, leaning in for Quinn to hear her whisper. "Don't try to court someone into doing what you want. It turns the friendship into a competition and things get messy really fast." She backed away and eyed the blonde. "Try again."

Quinn rolled her eyes. "Santana, just tell me what to do!" She barked. Needing the brunette's help was bad enough. She didn't want to be made a fool of.

Santana shook her head. "Demands don't work either. You come across as rude and bitchy." She quickly looked around the room. Her eyes darted from person to person until they landed on Puck. "Watch and learn." she smirked at Quinn.

"Hey, Puck" She said gently to the boy sitting a few rows in front of her. He turned around and looked at her. "Could you grab me some sheet music from the piano, please?" She smiled politely.

Puck smiled back at her. "Sure thing," he said, getting up and walking to the piano. He handed it to her and she thanked him. "No problem. "He nodded as he sat back down with Sam and Artie.

The blonde watched in amazement as the girl said "please" and "thank you." She always saw Santana tearing others down. She knew the girl had a nice streak when it came to Brittany, and sometimes Quinn; but every other time she just assumed the Latina was in automatic bitch mode.

"See," Santana said. "I was nice to him, so he treated me kindly. It's a common courtesy most people pick up in elementary school. That whole 'treat others the way they treat you' thing sticks with us."

"You mean 'treat others the way you want to be treated'" Quinn corrected.

"No, actually," Santana said, shaking her head. "That's a load of bullshit."

Brittany nodded with the brunette. "Nobody likes it when people are mean to them," she said "but they're mean anyway because that's how they were treated."

"Exactly," Santana agreed. "Usually, people are jerks because someone was a jack ass to them when they were most impressionable." She looked at Quinn and saw the question forming in her eyes. "That's not why I'm a bitch." She said, quickly avoiding her interrogation. "Back to the lesson," she said. "This is what happens when you're rude to someone."

She looked over at Tina and Mike who were carefully sifting through music on Tina's iPod. "Hey, Asian" she exclaimed. They both looked up, obviously annoyed. "Not you, devil's mistress. I'm talking to twinkle toes."

Mike rolled his eyes slightly. "What, Santana?" he asked.

"Make yourself useful and get me some sheet music. I don't have enough." She said bluntly. She pulled out a nail file and began working on her nails. When neither of them moved, she looked back up. "Well?" She asked. This was the bitchy Santana that Quinn saw every day.

Mike sighed and got up to get the sheet music, but Tina pulled his arm and sat him back down. "You can get your own paper, Santana." Tina said, glaring at the other girl. "You don't need to be so rude." She turned away from the brunette and got back to work on their song selection, Mike following quickly.

Santana smiled and looked at Quinn "Notice the different outcomes with the different attitudes." she said. "If you're nice, you get what you want, and you get the chance to befriend whomever you were talking to. Continue to be nasty, and you can kiss your chances of friendship goodbye." she smiled. She allowed Quinn to soak it all up and try to grasp what was happening. After a few moments of silence, she said "Try again."

Quinn looked up at the Latina. If she wanted to be Rachel's friend, she knew she had to put forth an effort. After giving it a little thought, she decided honesty would be the best way out.

"Alright" she nodded as she glanced back up at Santana. "You know that I'm not the friendliest person in our school, but I really want to try and fix that. Do you think you could help me out?" She smiled nervously, hoping she said it right this time. The brunette looked over at Brittany, and then back at Quinn. She raised her eyebrows and bowed her head towards the blonde. "Please?" Quinn added, trying not to sound too pathetic as she said it. She hated asking for things, but she knew that's what she needed to learn.

Santana smiled at her "That's more like it," she said. She wrapped an arm around Quinn and pulled her close. The two of them had their differences some times, but they were always there for each other when it came right down to it. "Now," she said, pulling away. "The time has come to teach you how to apologize."

Quinn laughed at the thought of Santana apologizing for anything. "Are you kidding? Have you ever said sorry for anything?" The light-hearted jab was enough to make Santana smack the blonde's arm.

"Shut up and listen to me." She looked at Quinn seriously. The blonde quieted her laughter and paid attention. "When you apologize, you have to realize what you did was wrong, or it doesn't mean anything." Santana's eyes flickered to Brittany's for a moment. "You need to know that what you did hurt that person, and you have to really mean what you say or you might as well not even say it."

There was a moment of silence between the three girls. Quinn felt extremely uncomfortable when the two of them got like this. They really thought they were fooling people; and maybe they were, but the head of the group noticed their bond in cheerleading camp freshman year. She caught the two of them staring at each other more often than she'd care to admit. Just last year she walked in on them during movie night at Santana's. Needless to say, they held movie night at Quinn's house now. Even they didn't have the guts to do all that in the blonde's house. They knew if she caught them in her own home, they would never make it out alive.

Quinn waited long enough before clearing her throat. She brought Santana's attention back to her and hoped she didn't piss the other girl off. To her relief, the Latina just acted like she didn't pause for a moment and continued with her predictably rehearsed speech.

"Anyway," she said, smiling widely at Quinn. "You've got to apologize to Rachel for whatever you did that made her run out of the room. I don't really expect you to mean it as much as you should right now, but just saying the words is a nice start. You already said that you felt bad for what you did, so say it." She nodded and the blonde, as if expecting her to know what to say off the top of her head. Santana rolled her eyes when she got no response. "Look, pretend I'm her, okay? This is like practice for when the troll comes back."

"She's not a troll!" Quinn snapped. She was shocked when the words came out with such opposition. She wasn't even friends with Rachel, yet. Why was she defending her like this?

Santana laughed at her friend's facial expression. "You really have no filter, do you?" Quinn felt her cheeks get red as she stared down at her feet again. "We've always had that in common" She giggled. Santana didn't make the situation any worse, and the blonde reminded herself to repay her somehow. "Pretend I'm her. Close your eyes if you have to. Say what you want to say to her."

The room got louder as Puck, Artie, and Sam began to sing together. Sam and Puck were playing their guitars as Artie opened with his killer runs. Quinn was thankful that they were getting louder, so the possibility of someone else hearing her fell drastically low. However, the noise made it a little difficult for the blonde to think. She stumbled over the words in her head, and she felt Santana glaring at her. The Latina probably assumed Quinn was trying to think of a way out of this. She felt her eyes on her like daggers. She couldn't help but wonder if this is how Rachel felt when Quinn looked at her so many times. She felt the music getting louder, making her thought process even hazier. The brunette's glare turned into a concerned gaze. She felt Santana growing weary, but she also felt her care. She knew that Santana was there for her. Quinn felt her stomach turning as Rachel entered her mind again. Did Rachel ever feel that when the blonde looked at her? Her thoughts trailed back to all the times Rachel performed or gave a speech for the class. Maybe Quinn acted a little irritated, but did the other girl feel that? Perhaps she saw through what Quinn held in her eyes and read what hid behind them. Rachel had done it before. Quinn wanted to repay her for everything she did. The music grew louder as the boys clomped and rolled around the room. She couldn't think straight. Her head began to hurt, but rubbing her temples didn't help. Santana was still looking at her, a little worried now. "Quinn?" She put her hand on the blonde's shoulder to steady her. Nobody else noticed. The boys were too busy making too much goddamn noise for anyone to hear anything. She looked up into Santana's brown eyes and tried to stop herself.

"I'm so fucking sorry." She whispered, staring into the other girl's eyes. "I'm sorry for everything I ever did to you. You didn't deserve it. You needed a friend, and I tore you down. I had friends and a boyfriend to back me up when I was pregnant, but you were still there anyway. You're a good person, and I was awful to you." She looked down at her hands, out of breath from the commotion. Luckily, her voice was barely over a whisper. She wasn't even sure if Santana heard all the things she said; but the Latina knew that Quinn was feeling what she needed to feel. Santana placed her hand under the blonde's chin and brought her vision back up to her eyes. A smile was painted on her face.

"There you go," she said, pulling Quinn into a hug. "That's my girl." Brittany joined in on the hug, even though it was apparent that she was watching the boys for most of the ordeal. Quinn smiled as her friends swayed to the music and sang along.

"Oh, and a word to the wise, Fabray," Santana whispered in her ear. "I wouldn't unleash all that emotion on the first try." Quinn scowled and looked away. She knew she did it wrong. She couldn't do anything right, so why should this be any different? "But hey," she added "I'm damn proud of you, Q." She kissed the blonde's forehead and pulled out of their hug, announcing that she had to use the restroom, and offered her hand to Brittany. The blonde took it without hesitation.

"Your gay is showing, Lopez." Quinn chuckled. Santana stuck her tongue out at the girl and left.

As the girls walked out, pinkies intertwined as usual, Quinn couldn't help but grin. She was infinitely happy for her friends. They found their balance. Santana was a bitch that hated the world, but Brittany changed that. She brought out the best in the Latina. Brittany, on the other hand, trusted too easily. Santana wouldn't dream of changing anything about the dancer, but she wasn't against standing up for her. Quinn witnessed several "Lima Heights" beatings because someone hurt Brittany in one way or another. Say what you want about the girl, but when Santana had your back, you were virtually untouchable.

Quinn questioned if she would ever have something like that with someone. She inquired possible futures with the boys she'd been with in the past, but it was all about standards. She never really considered feeling anything for them. It was always about power. She wondered if someone could ever change that; if she would ever have a Brittany-Santana love story.

Her mind went blank as she watched a tiny brunette enter the room. Maybe one day, she could happy like Rachel.

Maybe one day, she could be happy with Rachel. Maybe they could be friends.