an: sorry about the delay on this...finals and moving out of my dorm and such. Anyways and as always, I appreciate your time and your input!


Chapter 3: Mr. Moonlight

"Really?" I said half shocked, half convinced she wasn't seriously considering sharing a meal with me. After all, reason would drive most logical people under our circumstances running for the hills...in opposite directions.

"...yes?" she questioned, as if she should be the one who's confused.

"You really want to eat with me?" I had to ask once more, for clarity.

"Yes!" she said through a giggle. "Although there's not going to be very many restaurants open right now- at least not any that aren't going to give us food poisoning- so I think we're going to have to settle with fast food."

"I could do fast food," I said, much softer than I had intended to.

"Okay." Her tone matched mine...dreamy, calm, and after a moment I realized we were staring at each other rather intensely. But as great of an indulgence as I seemed to take in her eyes, there was still a part of me that wanted to rip my gaze away from hers.

Looking at her made me nervous in so many ways because I felt so many different things when I did. There was the vague sense of threat as she was the only person in Lima who had ever challenged me on more than a social level. There was the fear associated with the way my heart would beat for her smile. The shame, the vulnerability...

Her eyes briefly fell to my mouth and she subconsciously licked her lips.

...the sexual tension.

Before I could prevent it, my jaw went slack and my eyes widened. She seemed to catch my outward response to her action because she blinked rapidly and jumped to her feet. "I'm gonna...use the restroom," she said, eyes locked on the area around my feet. She dropped her head and hastily left the room, her eyes remaining on the floor as she rushed passed me.

I stood in front of my nightstand, mouth still agape and mind racing. I wanted to write off whatever had just happened. I wanted to ignore it, forget about it, because I didn't want to drive myself crazy by delving too deeply into what could have just been a simple coincidence. But I couldn't get the image of her tongue raking against her bottom lip out of my mind. It played over and over. Her eyes would fall. Her tongue would dart out. My stomach would clench. Rinse. Repeat.

But I wanted...no, needed to distract myself from these thoughts. I just couldn't be thinking about these things...about her lips. I mean, it hadn't even been 3 full hours since our reconciliation. It was completely inappropriate, and frankly a little insane, that I had even assumed her gesture meant anything more to her than Hm, my lips are particularly dry at this moment.

God, I wished I could transcend my own body for a moment, becoming a ghostly apparition of my own self driven solely by the purpose of slapping the bodily Quinn back into reality...maybe even into one where I wasn't plagued with thoughts of Rachel Berry.

I forced my eyes closed and began taking deep, steady breathes. I wanted to move every ounce of my attention away from my mind, which had now apparently become an apparatus hellbent on destroying itself, towards my body. I began by inhaling slowly and thinking of my fingertips. I wanted to feel the pressure that the air made on my skin. It only took a second before my skin began to tingle and I worked it up to my wrists, across my elbows, and over my shoulders. The feeling, separated before in my two arms, had now joined in the middle of my chest. I thought it downwards. It skated over my breasts, through my lungs, and stopped abruptly at my stomach.

I needed food.

Food! That was it, the perfect distraction! We hadn't ever actually decided on somewhere to eat. I could just think of places to go. And then it dawned on me: Rachel was a vegan. What do vegans even eat?

I practically lunged for my iPhone that I had tossed on my bed earlier that evening and pulled up the internet browser. My thumbs pattered against the screen as I quickly typed a search into Google:

Vegan fast food options

I scanned through the results for roughly 30 seconds before determining that not only were there very few dining options for vegans, but that I never wanted to be one.

"Shit," I breathed out.

"What's wrong?" Her voice startled me and I fumbled my phone between my hands for a moment before whipping around and finding Rachel practically right in front of my face. I tried to the best of my abilities to casually take a step back without looking as if I was retreating from her. My thighs found the back of my bed and, through some sort of divine intervention, I gracefully fell into a sitting position.

"Oh, uh. Well, I remembered that you don't eat meat and I'm not going to lie, I had no clue which places are vegan-friendly or not so I decided to try Google." I tapped the screen pointedly and she looked genuinely impressed that I had remembered that about her. "You're probably already well-aware of this, but our options are very limited."

"You'd be surprised. Taco Bell is actually pretty good about it. We could go there." As she was speaking, she took a seat right next to me on my bed. We weren't touching but I immediately felt her warmth. I could almost sense her softness and it took everything in me not to make some awkward gulping sound right in her face.

"I thought you said you didn't want to get food poisoning."

She laughed and I couldn't stop the smile that nearly instantaneously spread across my face. "It's been much safer ever since Puck stopped working there sophomore year." I could feel myself slowly leaning towards her, pulled by some sort of magnetism radiating off of her skin. The gravitation itself wasn't a feeling that was unwelcome...but it definitely wasn't helping to calm my mind.

"Yeah, you're probably right about that." Again, I noticed that we were staring and smiling a little too strongly for comfort. I don't know how she kept drawing me back into her so quickly but it was scaring me. "Are you ready to go now then?"

She nodded her head. I stood up and at once, yet not too quickly, began heading for the steps. I crossed an arm over my chest and rubbed the exposed skin of the opposite arm, the one that was next to Rachel. I had to get the sensation of her proximity off of my skin. I needed it away, I needed it out of my memory. If I didn't, it would have burrowed its way into me, into my mind, and every person nearing adjacency would have been in competition with her, with her warmth. They would immediately become Not Rachel Berry.

The sheer thought of that happening nearly sent me into a panic and yet it somehow managed to still not be the most frightening thing happening in my mind. Not knowing what being close to me meant to her, that's what scared me more than anything. This could have all been my mind torturing me, playing tricks on me, saying We've realized we've sinned, now we must pay. Now, there was the possibility that this was all contrived, a piece of my imagination. What if I didn't see her lick her lips? What if she saw me, mouth agape, staring at her lick her lips?

"Are you okay?" Her voice, concerned, tore me away from my thoughts and brought me back to a reality in which I was frozen with my foot hovering six inches above the bottom step and a burn singeing the skin of my arm. I looked to the area and found a contrast in skin color, a hand that was no longer mine placed delicately on my forearm. And as I stared, I realized: Her touch burned. There was no going back.

I finally set my foot down on the step and turned my head to find her standing to my left. She looked worried for me, a sentiment that caused my heart to buck along with the heat that was still present on my arm. "Ye-yeah. Yeah, I'm fine," I stammered out. "I just remembered that I have a calc test on Wednesday."

"Already? That's like, the third day of school."

"It's an AP class and they want to test how much we already know...get an idea of the learning curve, I guess."

"Oh. Okay. Well, we don't have to practice tomorrow then. I'm pretty sure we've already got the song nailed anyways. And we can perform on Thursday so you won't have anything else to stress about on Wednesday. Does that sound okay?" Now she was being so charmingly accommodating and it caused my heart to lurch once more.

"Yeah, that sounds perfect." It took so much energy to make myself sound cheery, thankful. But it was worth it. She smiled and gave my arm one light squeeze before finally releasing me.

The burning slowly stopped and I was shocked at the juxtaposition in my empty sense of relief. I didn't understand how I could find such solace in feeling lonely again, but her hand away from my skin managed to provide that. It was like the first chill that courses through your body in a downpour. It was beyond refreshing, but always came with the realization that soon you'd be too cold to feel anything but miserable.

She went up the steps ahead of me, hands folded delicately behind her back. I watched her walk up a few steps before I noticed her left thumb was rather nervously rubbing the palm of the hand that had been resting upon me.

I took the first full breath that I had taken in minutes and followed her up the stairs into my kitchen. When I reached the top, I found her a few feet away with her back to the door and crouched down next to a lazily sprawled out Chewie. She was scratching his side, in between his front and hind legs, and was whispering something I couldn't quite hear. His tail began thumping wildly against the hardwood and she let out a soft laugh. While she continued petting him, I grabbed my keys and wallet out of the purse I had set on the table when I had gotten home from cheerleading.

"Giving a proper riddance, are we?" Her head turned to look at me over her shoulder and she smiled at me so big.

"I couldn't just leave without saying goodbye, he's too cute and sweet for that." She patted him heavily several times before standing up and heading towards the front door. I followed closely behind.

We slipped our shoes on and walked outside. I shut and locked the door behind us while Rachel headed for the passenger side of my SUV that was parked in the drive. Within a few moments, we were both in the car with our seatbelts on. I slowly pulled away from my house and we drove in an awkward silence for several minutes.

"Uh, do you mind if I turn on the radio?" Rachel asked quietly.

"No, of course not."

She reached for the radio and switched it on. The CD I had been listening to earlier began playing quietly and from my peripherals, I saw Rachel cock her head curiously. She listened for a few moments before she questioned, "What is this?"

"It's Erykah Badu," I answered shyly. I mean, I wasn't shy when she riffled through my whole CD collection earlier but knowing what someone owns is a lot different than knowing what they actually listen to. Her knowing what I played in my car was sort of an intimate thing because you can learn a lot about a person by what they listen to when no one else is around. Just like my bedroom, it showed her a side of me that few people had seen before. I wanted to be embarrassed but I was strangely happy to give her that little piece of me.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," she said with a nod of her head. "I never would have pegged you as the soul, R&B type."

"What can I say? I'm a sucker for good music."

"I guess so," she said through a laugh. "You know, you just keep on surprising me tonight."

My grip on the steering wheel tightened and I could feel the heat radiating off of my blushed cheeks. "Th-thanks," I once again stammered. God, I never stuttered. Never!

I sensed her staring at me and my blush so I sped through the last two blocks. "Well, here we are!" I said, more excitedly than necessary. I think she knew that I was overcompensating for something because she gave me a weird look. I scrunched my face and shook my head as an unspoken apology and pulled into the drive through.

After we had placed our order and received our food, I pulled into a parking spot. I looked out through my windshield and at the park that was right next to the...restaurant. It was a beautiful, clear night and I didn't really want my car to smell like refried beans and the crushed dreams of minimum wage workers, so I turned to Rachel.

"Hey, do you wanna eat outside? There's a picnic table right over there we can sit at."

She gave me a huge, toothy smile before saying eagerly, "Absolutely!"

We both got out of the car and headed for the table that was openly placed in the middle of the park. When we arrived, Rachel properly settled into the table and I sat on the top of it, one leg folded under me and my hips perpendicular to her body so I didn't have to turn my head every time I wanted to look at her.

We both quietly ate our meals. After we had finished, I took all of our wrappers to a nearby trashcan and headed back to the table. After I had positioned myself in the same spot as before, Rachel broke our silence.

"Duets are a very personal thing, and from my experience I've always found that they go better when the two performers are comfortable with one another."

"Okay..." I didn't really understand what she was trying to get at and frankly, I was almost scared. She wanted us to be more comfortable with each other so we could win, okay, but this is the same girl who sent someone to a crackhouse and made us take vitamin D sophomore year to win Mr. Shue's battle of the genders...what level of comfort did she think it'd take? Like, defying death and forming an eternal bond level? Was she going to ask me to totem bungee jump with her or something?

"So...do you mind if I ask you some things about yourself? I want to know more about you...you know, for the sake of the competition."

Oh.

When you put it like that, yes, Rachel Berry, I do mind.

"No, I guess not." She read my face for any signs of noncompliance and I guess I passed her inspection because she let out this weird squeaking noise and clapped her hands together delightedly. I probably would have been embarrassed for anyone else who did that, but I don't know...she looked kind of cute.

"Yes! What's your favorite color?" she asked excitedly.

"Yellow. Yours?"

"Pink! Favorite movie?" I laughed a little before I answered. Seeing her so energetic about asking me such inconsequential questions made me sort of happy to answer them.

"Hm...Breakfast at Tiffany's."

"Mine's Funny Girl."

"I could have guessed," I said dryly.

"Shush!" she said in mock annoyance. "Okay, what's your earliest memory?"

"My mom crying at my 3rd birthday party. My dad got a clown and didn't tell her. She came downstairs, saw Funzo the Terror Inducer standing there and screamed at the top of her lungs. She freaked out so bad that four little kids got upset too and had to go home."

"You can't be serious."

"Dead. He probably knew she was scared of them too."

"Wow, that's terrible!" she exclaimed before pausing for a moment. She shook her head and said, "It's weird, I've never even heard you mention your parents before."

"I don't have two awesomely gay dads, so there's not much to talk about."

"Very funny," she said in the same mock tone from earlier. "What do they do?"

"Well, my mom is an editor for Standard Publishing. It's a Christian publisher, but don't worry, she's not some crazy religious zealot. She's actually really cool. But she had to work in Cincinnati today so that's why she wasn't home. And my dad...I'm not really sure."

"You don't know?" she asked, slightly shocked.

"No. We don't really talk." She looked confused so I stopped speaking for a moment and took a deep breath, attempting to garner enough courage to finish what I wanted to say. "My parents, they're not together. My dad...he uh, he left. When I was 13."

"Oh, Quinn, I'm so sorry. I didn't know that. I wouldn't have asked if I had known. God, I'm so nosy. I should have known this was a stupid idea. Please don't be mad at me. I just wanted to get to know you better since we're working together and-"

"No, Rachel. Stop it. It's okay, really. I-I liked your questions." I said timidly. "Besides, there's no reason for you to have known that. I've never really told anyone before, so..."

"No one?" I shook my head and she rose a curious eyebrow. "Why'd you decide to tell me?"

"I don't know," I mumbled under my breath. I did know, but I didn't think she would believe me if I told her. The truth was that I trusted her. She just had this quality about her that made it so effortless to put your faith in her. Even when I hated her, I still recognized that she was undoubtedly one of the most compassionate and empathetic people I had ever met. Then, though, my recognition manifested itself through an extreme jealousy. Now, I had never been more thankful to have someone that I knew I could confide in if I wanted to.

"You've been through a lot, haven't you?" She questioned softly.

"Not as much as I've put people through," I said with a disparaging laugh. She looked at me with concerned eyes and all of a sudden I didn't really feel like laughing anymore.

"Don't do that," she said sternly.

"Do what?"

"Belittle your own problems."

"Why not?" I shrugged. "I don't really deserve to have the same feelings as everyone else, not after everything I've done."

"Yes you do. You can't shut yourself off like that, undermine your own hardships because you feel guilty."

"How can I not feel guilty though?" I snapped. "Rachel, I've hurt so many people and what makes it so much worse is that I knew what I was doing. I knew how much that kind of behavior affects people and I still did it. How can I not feel guilty for that? How can I not be ashamed of myself? I mean, Jesus! I can't even look at you half the time without feeling like I want to puke."

"I'm not going to deny that what you did was wrong...but that was then and you can't change that. What really matters is that you're trying to be a different person." Her eyes flickered between mine and she had an expression on her face that I couldn't quite read. " You're trying, right?"

I nodded my head.

"Then you shouldn't feel guilty. Not anymore."

"Easier said than done," I huffed out.

"Yeah, you're right...but I think you really do deserve better than what you allow yourself."

I furrowed my brows and confusedly stared at her for a moment. "I don't get you, Rachel Berry."

"What do you mean you don't get me?" she asked.

"I mean, I was terrible to you. You said it yourself, I made your life a hell and yet you still don't hate me...and now you're sitting here saying I deserve something better. It's confusing, that's all. Admirable, definitely, but confusing."

"I'm the 'eccentric' only child of two gay men in Western Ohio...so you're not the only person who's ever bullied me, you know. If I went around hating everyone that's ever tried to tear me down in any way, I wouldn't really have time to do much else."

"That makes sense, I guess, but it still doesn't explain why you are like you are."

"And what's that?" She was smiling at me, acting like she didn't know what I meant just so she could force me to have to say something nice about her aloud.

"Understanding, sympathetic...forgiving." She subconsciously batted her eyelashes, probably surprised by how exactly unforced my words were.

After a shy pause, her shoulders shrugged and she began eying the plastic straw that she was absentmindedly playing with. "I guess I just let the experience sculpt me in a different way. Most people under similar circumstances become bitter or jaded or try to lash out in some way...but I don't know, I allow it to make me better. More strong-willed, you know?"

"No, not really," I quietly laughed. "I just don't get how you're not angry, why you don't walk around ripping the head off of anyone who so happens to cross you."

"Well, it wasn't always this easy. Trust me, I used to be angry. I used to come home from school crying every single day. My dads, they would sit me down and talk to me and ask me what was wrong but all that I could ever tell them, all I could ever manage to get out was 'One day, I'm going to be a star and they're all going to be wrong.' I would say it over and over, day after day. Finally one day, my daddy...don't laugh, I have to differentiate them somehow, he said 'Baby girl, you can't keep using your dreams as an attempt to prove your worth to people who don't support you. If you do, they're not your dreams anymore, they're a vendetta.' That moment made me realize that all of my motivation and hard work meant so much more to me than any bullshit resentment I had built up inside. I couldn't let them hijack the only thing that I had ever felt was truly mine. So, I focused all of the energy that I had been using to victimize myself into further developing my talents."

I was nodding along with what she was saying, hanging on every word she spoke, all the while under complete comprehension of the fact that that was exactly what she was doing to me. Just this fucking morning, my mind was mine. Maybe it wasn't okay or well-adjusted or innocent, but it was mine. It was only for me. Then she waltz her perfect little ass up to that piano and now here I am, willingly and happily showing her pieces of me that I wouldn't even feel comfortable showing Santana or Brittany. In a little over 7 hours with absolutely no effort, she had, yet again, managed to ruin everything I had attempted to build for myself.

How in the hell did she do it? God, if only I could know how, maybe I could stop it. Maybe I could bury it or even pray about it. But I didn't know...and I sure as shit couldn't ask her.

I know we've only been on amicable speaking terms for 4 hours now, but can you help me to figure out why I'm all of a sudden harboring some sort of girl crush on you? Also, what leg exercises are you doing, because seriously, they're incredible?

Why don't we just forget the fact that you have a boyfriend and I used to call you Barbro Streishands and instead talk about how I can't help picturing hugging you from behind every time you cross your arms over your chest?

Hey, Rachel? How do you manage to be so cute and adorable and open and sweet and...

"I've never really told anybody about that either," she said timidly. I looked down at her and she was already staring at me and smiling nervously. I knew it took so much courage for her to be with me right now, to be talking to me and sharing things with me. She was so brave and I was so happy to be witnessing it.

Goddamn it! I was literally just frustrated beyond belief at her...well, not her per se but whatever it was about her that was making want to lean over right now and cup her cheeks and kiss the ever loving shit out of her. And with eight words and a stupid smile, all of that frustration was gone and all that was left was me fighting the urge to pull her into me all because I had fucking taco breath.

You know what? Fuck it. I'm Quinn Fabray: Badass head cheerleader. If I wanted something, I was going to get it.

...and I think I wanted Rachel Berry.

I closed my eyes briefly and lulled my head back. When I opened my lids, I noticed exactly how clear the sky was. The whole sky was filled with stars. It was beautiful. Then it dawned on me: I could get what I wanted. And I could do it in a way that she probably wasn't used to: with intelligence. Seduce the mind then the body, right?

I snapped my head down to look at her and almost forcefully asked, "I know gold stars are sort of your thing...do you like astronomy?"

"I, uhm...I've never really thought much about it," she answered, seemingly baffled.

"Well, I kind of have a little obsession with it. Here, stand up." I hopped to the ground and waited for her to untangle herself from the picnic table. "C'mere, follow me." She walked over to me and I lead us deeper into the park and further away from any sources of light.

"Stand in front of me." She looked at me nervously before complying. I positioned myself directly behind her and wiped my recently clammy hand on my shirt before delicately wrapping my fingers around her wrist.

"What are you doing?" She shakily whispered.

"Just point your finger." I lifted our hands and directed her extended index finger towards the sky. I moved our arms until I found the particular constellation I was looking for and I traced it slowly several times while I softly questioned, "It's kind of faint, but do you see that?" She nodded her head and I slowly lowered our arms.

"That's Lyra. It's named after this ancient Greek instrument called the lyre...it's kind of like a harp or a lute." Her head remained craned towards the sky and I still had a hold of her wrist. "Legend has it that Hermes created it as a gift for his half brother, Apollo, who in turn gave it to Orpheus, the musician of the Argonauts. It probably doesn't makes sense that I'm telling you this, but it reminds me of you." I gently let go of her and she turned to face me.

"And why is that?" she asked, eyes locked unto mine.

"Well, it's small," I said jokingly, which caused her to roll her eyes and let out a huff. I laughed for a moment before continuing with a much more serious tone, "That's not the part that reminds me of you though. That's the part that reminds me of Lima. What reminds me of you is that this seemingly insignificant little group of fire balls contains one of the brightest stars in the sky. That's you. I think you know that you're special in Lima, but I don't know if you realize that you're special everywhere. I know earlier I limited your talents to just Western Ohio...but I've decided that I was wrong."

"Oh, you just decided that, huh?" she laughed out.

"Yep," I stated confidently. "You are...incredible and you're going to do great things, Rachel Berry. I know it." By that time, my eyes had adjusted to the dark and I saw a blush come across her face. I smiled widely and she turned away from me again.

"Show me again. Which one is me?" she asked in a surprisingly alluring voice. She lifted her head towards the stars again. This time, however, it was slightly tilted and it seemed as if she was almost exposing her neck to me. I gulped heavily and wiped my hands on my shirt again. This was it, this was the moment where I see if my mind is playing tricks on me.

I took a step forward and very lightly pressed myself into her back. When she didn't immediately pull away, I had to force myself to not shutter. I reached my left hand out and let my fingers skate across her wrist and over the back of her hand. My fingertips felt like they were on fire and that feeling spread across my whole palm when I cupped my hand over the top of hers. I pointed again at the constellation.

"It- it's that one, r-right there in the corner," I stuttered and aimed our conjoined hands at it.

"Tell me about it," she whispered and leaned her head slightly back so that my face was forced next to her ear.

"It's called Vega...or-or Falling Eagle. It's uh, it's the 5th brightest observable star...but it's the brightest one for this time of year," I breathed out. "At, um, at one point is was the northern pole star...and it will be again in around 11,000 years. It's only 25 light years away and it was the first star, besides the sun, to be photog-"

Suddenly, her phone began to ring. I dropped our arms and shot away from her as she dug in the pocket of her skirt and pulled out her phone.

"Hello?" she answered.

I ran my fingers through my hair anxiously. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.

"No, I'm sorry. No- I know it's a school night."

What the hell just happened?

"We just got caught up in our assignment."

Were we just flirting? Did we just come on to each other?

"I know. No, Quinn's going to give me a ride."

...and did I seriously do it with star facts?

"Okay, we'll leave now. I really am sorry. I'll be home soon. Love you." She hung up the phone and faced me again. She looked at the ground and waved her phone in the air. "That was my daddy. He gets worried when I stay out too late."

"No, yeah. I understand. Let's, uh, let's get you home."

We quickly walked back to the car and climbed inside. The whole ride to her house was silent except for the CD that was still playing and her occasional direction. The entire time, though, my mind was freaking out. I was even drumming my fingers nervously against the steering wheel.

I wanted to be pissed at myself. I wanted to consider repercussions and think about how stupid and selfish I was being but I just couldn't stop thinking about how warm it felt to be against her, how naturally we molded.

"It's right here," she said quietly. I slowly turned into the driveway and when I came to a complete stop she immediately opened the door and crawled out of the car. She shut the door about half way before turning to face me. She made eye contact with my center console and said in a low voice, "I had a really great time with you tonight. Thank you...for everything." She shut the door and quickly walked around the front of my car towards her porch. Before heading inside, she looked over her should at me and offered a small smile and a quick wave of her hand.

I sat in her driveway for a few more moments and I saw a light turn on in the second story of her house. I smiled thinking about her and the probability of her having an extensive night time skin regiment. I was still trying to reprimand myself, but I honestly couldn't do it. I had no idea what the hell happened tonight or what I was feeling, but somehow I knew that that waltz to the piano was one of the best things that had ever happened to me.


a second an: I had to make an obvious deviation from canon since Quinn having a Blackberry and a Beetle gives me feels. hope you didn't mind too much :) also, while I do consider myself a bit of an astronomy fan, I definitely had to do some accuracy research for Q's whole star thing...I guess that's what I get for making my representation of a character smarter and more awesome than me. you've probably had enough of my words, but I must leave you with one last thing: do me a favor and have a good day!