A/N: Thanks again for the reviews, favorites, alerts and everything else.

Chapter 4:

She woke up in her dorm room wrapped in her thin, cheap sheets. She'd only gotten a couple of hours of sleep after returning from Rachel and Santana's. She couldn't believe how her first couple of nights in the city had turned out. She never expected to kiss Santana Lopez again. She never expected to end up on Rachel Berry's couch listening to her ramble on about how amazing her show and boyfriend were though either. Santana had insisted on walking her to the train station, but Rachel then insisted on having her car service drop Quinn off at her front door instead so Santana didn't have to make the walk, which meant they didn't get another moment alone to discuss what had happened.

Her head hurt a little from the alcohol she'd imbibed without water and she checked the clock to her side, noting that she needed to really start moving to catch the train with the group. She decided she didn't care about the group ride and sent a text that they should go on without her. She'd be on the next one.

When she arrived at the clinic, Taylor was talking with Jack and Amy while Ben and Rob were both staring at their computers. Quinn had no clue what they would be working on that day because unlike the other advisors, Taylor never sent them emails making them aware of her plans.

"Nice of you to join us, Quinn." Ben turned around when she walked in and greeted. She decided Ben would be her new nemesis and that if he caused trouble for her, she would destroy him.

"Hey." Taylor approached her. "So, something's happened and we're canceling the group for the day."

"Is everything okay?" Quinn asked her watching as Jack was consoling Amy.

"Amy's brother was in a car accident last night and he's not doing well. She's got a flight out in a few hours to spend some time with her family."

"Oh God, I'm sorry."

"She came in because she didn't want to have to leave the program. I told her not to worry about it, but I think we should all take the day off. Ben and Jack are classic overachievers so they insisted that the rest of you stay for at least an hour or so and discuss possible research topics though."

"Okay, that makes sense." She shifted her bag on her shoulder.

"I'm going to let you guys work and drive Amy to the airport to make sure she gets there okay. I'll be back right after."

"That's really nice of you." Quinn told her.

Taylor just smiled at her and walked back over to Amy who had her luggage resting next to her on the floor.

Quinn and the guys sat around their computers throwing out possible ideas for the thesis. Jack had become friends with a couple of the guys from different groups. He discovered that one group was focusing on experimental psych and the other was planning on doing something with abnormal. They focused on social and criminal just to get themselves started and emailed links to each other to check out different studies. Taylor didn't return until it was close to lunch and the guys had decided to pack it in for the day and spend the rest of it exploring the city. Quinn had been to the city numerous times and didn't feel like doing a lot of sight seeing, not that she'd been invited by the gang. The teacher's pet thing had gotten her on their ignore list apparently when they weren't forced to interact with her for program purposes.

"Hey, what do you have planned for the rest of your day?" Taylor asked her when they were once again alone.

"Um… this. I didn't realize we'd be getting done early, so I didn't plan anything." She realized the moment she said it, she'd given herself no out.

"Wanna grab that coffee?" Taylor offered.

Quinn regretted her stupidity.

"Sure." She knew she wouldn't be able to get out of it and she might as well just get it over with. Taylor wasn't bad or annoying or anything negative really. She was just different than most people Quinn had dealt with at the graduate level. Her other TAs had been, in her mind, proper TAs with lesson plans for her discussion groups and outlines for them to follow over the course of the semester, but Taylor didn't seem to prescribe to that line of thinking.

They walked the couple of blocks toward the place Taylor had recommended the day before and they walked in relative silence for the first long block. Quinn just listened to the sounds of the city around her as she walked. She turned to look at the man who was shouting obscenities at someone outside a store and missed the sound of the power washer spraying water in front of her. Taylor pulled her back to avoid the powerful spray that probably could have taken the skin off of her calf. Taylor didn't say anything as they walked around the water and continued toward the coffee shop.

When they arrived, they grabbed a table first. It was one of the only ones available in the full on hipster café. Quinn pulled out her computer expecting this to be their 1:1 meeting and needing to take notes. She opened it and watched as Taylor reached over to it and closed it as she sat down across from her.

"You don't like me very much, do you?" She asked Quinn.

"What? Why would you ask that?" Quinn was caught off guard by that.

"Because it's pretty obvious."

"It's not that I don't like you. I don't really know you."

"Okay. Well, get to know me." It wasn't an order. It was actually pretty light the way she said it. She reached for a rubber band on her wrist and started to put her hair up in a messy ponytail. "What do you want to know?"

"I don't have questions prepared or anything."

"Oh come on, yes you do." She laughed and finished with her hair. "Think about it and I'll get us some coffees. What do you want?"

"Oh, I'm okay."

"I'm buying you coffee to try to give you something to focus on while we're talking other than put that computer screen up between us. You can pick or I'll pick one for you. Let me guess… something with like six words to describe it. Large soy half-calf-"

"Just a black coffee." Quinn interjected.

"Unpredictable." She remarked. "Interesting."

She walked off and left a very unprepared Quinn sitting at the table. When she returned, she sat the coffee in front of her forcing Quinn to move her laptop off to the side.

"Why am I here, Taylor? Is this our 1:1 to go over the program?"

"It can be. I kind of figured that's what your questions were about. You seem to want to have the entire internship detailed for you."

"Well, that's what I expected when I got here, yeah."

"Okay." She reached inside her bag, which was on the floor next to her and pulled out a stapled set of papers and gave it to Quinn. "Here you go."

Quinn looked at it and found that it was indeed the outline of the internship. Week 2- Week 8, expectations, work they were required to complete and how to complete it, what would happen at the end of the first 4 weeks when they were only required to report on the weekends, books recommended, everything. It had every detail Quinn had been searching for.

"If you had this, why didn't you just give it to us?" She asked her a little defensively.

"I was going to give it to you guys at the end of the first week. This week is supposed to be about getting you acclimated to the new city, the clinic and the group you're working with. You'll notice there's nothing on there about Week 1. That's because Dr. Rhodes left it up to us to decide what to do in your first week."

"Then, why are you giving it to me now?"
"Because you asked for it. None of the others have so I'll give it to them on Friday."

Quinn flipped through the pages again and then set it on top of her laptop.

"Thank you."

"Sure."

Quinn took a sip of her very hot coffee and regretted it immediately. Taylor looked out the window for a moment and then back behind the counter of the café where there were three people working.

"So, is this the meeting?" Quinn asked her again.

Taylor smiled at her.

"Are you capable of talking about anything other than this program?"

"I'm just confused. I don't know why I'm being singled out by you."

"Your friend that you met up with yesterday, you've known her since high school?"

"Yeah." Quinn answered quickly.

"You guys close still or was it one of those awkward post-high school hangouts with someone you don't really want to keep in contact with?"

"We're close." She replied without thinking. "Well, we were. Yale has kind of gotten in the way, but we'll probably always be close." She thought about the make out sessions from the night before. "She's going through a rough time right now. She got married a few months ago and it's not working out."
"Oh, sorry to hear that. So soon though?"

"It's a long story, but yeah, I couldn't believe it either." She thought about it. "Well, I could believe it happening eventually, but not this soon. It's pretty much just a big mess and that's what we spent most of our lunch and then night talking about."

Taylor took a drink of her coffee and glared back behind the counter again.

"You see that guy over there? Wait. Don't look yet." She warned.

"I can't see him if I don't look at him."

"Okay, now."

Quinn turned and saw a lanky guy with glasses and an apron making some kind of espresso drink.

"What about him?"

"He's looked at you about 10 times since you sat down. I saw his nametag. His name is Doyle."

"Okay..."

"He's kind of cute."

Quinn glared at her. Maybe Santana was wrong after all.

"Yeah, I guess." She replied while looking at Taylor instead of Doyle behind the counter. "You interested? You should go for it." She through it out there just to see what Taylor would say.

"Not really my type." She answered.

"Mine neither." Quinn responded and they exchanged a glance. It was as if each of them knew something about the other one, but they weren't sure if that person knew they knew so they were stuck in this game.

"Too tall for you?" Taylor asked.

"Yeah, he's too tall." Quinn gave back, but not really caring about any person's height.

"Yeah, for me too." Taylor toyed and then reached for her cell phone that was buzzing on the table. She clicked it off and looked back up at Quinn.

"You can take that." Quinn told her.

"It's just an alert. I'm on the crew team. We have a practice at 5. They just changed it to 4:30."

"That's the rowing thing, right?"

She laughed.

"Yeah, it's the rowing thing. You have a team over at Yale."

"There are a lot of teams at Yale. I'm not a big sports person." Quinn supplied.

"I wasn't either. In high school, I was strictly a nerd. Big glasses, braces, the whole 9-yards. I was in every academic club and had about 3 friends."

"No more glasses?"

"Contacts my senior year. Got the braces off too, thank God."

"How did you get into crew then?"

"When I was a freshman, I went to the orientation and my RA in the dorm was on crew. She said they needed people and I had a need to redefine myself so I went to the first meeting and then decided to join them for a few strength training sessions more as a curiosity than anything and I liked it and I liked the team so I tried out."

"And you made it? That's pretty impressive." Quinn admitted.

"No, I didn't. I failed miserably." She laughed and looked at Quinn who looked confused. "I became the manager and worked out with them over the season and tried out the following year. Then, I made it. Did it for the rest of my undergrad and now I'm on an intramural team for fun."

Quinn took a drink of her cooling coffee.

"Do you consider cheerleading a sport?" She asked her.

"You were a cheerleader?" Taylor responded with a question.

"Yeah, a pretty good one. We went to nationals a couple of times and won. Insane coach and I pretty much ended up hating it, but I did it."

"Why'd you keep doing it if you hated it?"

"You've never done something you didn't like?"

"Not any longer than I had too." Taylor replied. "I didn't really like statistics that much, but I kind of need it for my career. I hated playing the French horn though so I quit that after about 10 lessons." She paused. "Why'd you keep cheering?"

Quinn thought about how best to respond to that question.

"I wanted a scholarship and cheering was my way to one. Small town Ohio students don't have a lot of opportunities."

"You got a cheerleading scholarship to Yale?"

"No, I got a small academic one, but my mom helps with the rest."

They took in the silence again as Taylor took in Quinn's tapping on her coffee cup.

"Do you want to come to my practice later?"

"Your rowing team practice?" Quinn smirked.

"My crew practice, yes." She smiled and Quinn looked out the window. She had no plans for the evening other than scrolling through Facebook. Santana and Rachel had planned a dinner at the loft with Kurt and Blaine for the next night, but nothing but boredom planned for the night ahead.

"Do I have to like walk along side a river or something while you guys paddle?"

Taylor laughed.

"Yes, yes you do." She squinted at Quinn. "You can just sit in the grass if you want or you can join us in the boat."

"In the boat?"

"Sure. It's intramural. We don't take it all that seriously. Plus, one of us is missing this week. She got married and is on her honeymoon. You could just sit in her place."

"Would I have to actually row the boat?"

"Come on. You were a big time cheerleader. I think you can handle it."

Quinn considered the offer. She really had no reason to turn it down.

"I should probably stay in tonight. I have some-"
"Don't give an excuse, Quinn. Just tell me if you don't want to go. It's okay." Again, she had a calmness to her tone that wasn't defensive.

"I've never been in a boat like that before."

"I hadn't either until I joined the team. We're not white water rafting. We won't tip over or anything."

"Promise?" Quinn glared at her sideways.

"I promise I will not let the boat tip over." Taylor acquiesced.

Quinn believed her.

"Okay. I should change though. I didn't dress for a boat."

"I can get you at the dorm later. Around 4. You're pretty close to where we're going anyway."

"Okay."

Taylor smiled and Quinn actually smiled too. She was excited for once about something other than school.

She went back to the dorm and started rummaging through the clothes she'd brought. She brought workout clothes, but had no idea what someone on a crew team would wear to a practice so she just stuck with jeans and tennis shoes along with a t-shirt. She had a Yale baseball hat that she'd gotten at the bookstore on a whim one day just because she wanted something that said Yale on it and it was only $15. She pulled her blonde hair that was growing out into a ponytail and put the hat on. Then, she sat on the edge of her bed for 20 minutes before she realized it was only 2:30 and she had plenty of time before Taylor arrived. She also realized that she was nervous.