Relief washes over Rachel as she learns that she had not been caught trying to invade Quinn's privacy. But that feeling is soon replaced with wide eyes and a dry mouth. The brunette before her is breathtakingly beautiful. Sure Quinn would always be the prettiest girl Rachel's ever met but this brunette Cheerio would be a close second.
"Hi," she replies, uncertainty etched across her face. The diva hesitates, as the only cheerleaders that she had completely taken into memory were Quinn, Brittany and Santana. "I'm sorry, but I can't seem to remember your name," she says, hoping she won't offend the girl.
"Gabrielle," the brunette answers lightheartedly. "I help you stretch during practices," she goes on. Rachel knew that she recognized her from somewhere. Although she's far prettier up close. "Well anyway I just wanted to say that I really admire what you did earlier. I never said it to your face, but I always thought that Finn was a douche and I'm glad you're not with him anymore."
The singer smiles. With more time to gather herself, she now truly appreciates how neither herself nor Quinn would be held back by Finn Hudson, and how he could no longer get in the way of their friendship.
"Thank you. I'll see you tomorrow."
She closes Quinn's locker and goes off towards the parking lot. Gabrielle chases after her yelling, "Wait." Rachel spins around slightly impatiently. She kind of just wants to spend more time with Quinn. "What about practice?"
"I um… I'm not feeling too well," she lies. The brunette cheerleader looks at her worriedly. "Don't worry I'll be okay and Santana will cover for me," the diva reassures her.
"Are you sure? Do you have anyone to take care of you?"
"Yes, I'm fine. And I'll be with Qui- with Rachel."
"Rachel?" Gabrielle repeats instantly. "So you two really are friends now?" she asks, expectantly.
"Yes, is there a problem with that?" Completely missing sparkle in the brunette's eyes, Rachel's tone is far harsher than it should have been. She isn't going to lose Quinn Fabray's friendship just because some people disapprove.
"What?" Panic fills her eyes. "No, no, no, no, no." She scrambles up to Rachel. "I didn't mean anything like that. I'm happy you're friends with her. I'm actually hoping that maybe…" She trails off, taking her lower lip between her teeth. "Could you maybe… I don't know… introduce me to her?"
"I um… you want me to," she stutters out. She can't comprehend why someone would want to be introduced to her, much less need Quinn Fabray to do so. "But- but why?" she has to ask.
"Um… cause I'm nervous," she replies hesitantly, her eyes staring down at her feet and her hands fiddling with her fingers. "I mean, have you heard her sing? I can't even try to make a nice comment on her videos cause I can't find the words to describe how amazing she is."
Rachel's heart swells at those words. After an endless list of negative retorts it came close to impossible for Rachel to think that anyone appreciated her voice. "Okay," she breathes out and leads the shorter girl to Quinn's car. They are silent, but Rachel can see the giddiness in Gabrielle's eyes. There's an excitement there that she didn't think she'd see in people's eyes until she was a famous Broadway star.
The brunette Cheerio is extremely fidgety and is continuously fixing her uniform. She releases her from her hairband, letting gorgeous brown locks fall down her shoulders before fixing it back into a ponytail. "Which do you think would be better?" she asks. Rachel giggles at her cute antics.
"Either way is fine."
Outside…
Quinn is pacing back and forth in front of her car. Rachel was taking longer than she should have and she was getting a bit impatient. She wishes that she had asked for her keys so at least she could wait inside. The cheerleader sits down on top of the hood of her car and started to rub her legs. She swings them happily, smiling at how her feet were several inches off the ground.
The Cheerio wishes she had a camera with her. She finds the idea of Rachel sitting on her car cute. She absentminded pulls Rachel's duffle onto her lap as she thought of all the adorable little things she could do as Rachel. And then she'd take pictures which she could then use for her sketchbook.
She feels kind of bad at the thought but what she's thinking about right now is nowhere near as bad as what she had done earlier. Quinn swings her legs back and forth, checking Rachel's phone for the time. She is about to call the singer to make sure nothing happened when she sees her approaching the car with Gabrielle in tow.
The Head Cheerio frowns. This was supposed to be Rachel and Quinn time, not Rachel, Quinn and Gabrielle time. She actually likes the brunette cheerleader, not the way she likes Rachel but she likes her well enough. But even then she doen't like her interrupting her alone time with her crush. She hops off the car and greets them happily.
"Hey Rachel," the diva begins, "this is Gabrielle," she gestures toward the girl besides her. "She wanted me to introduce you to her," she explains. Quinn reaches out to grab Gabrielle's hand which holds onto her hand with far less pressure than she expects.
"Hi, nice to meet you." Quinn feels better now that she better now that understood the situation and isn't going to mess with the chance for Rachel to make more friends that she obviously wanted very badly. But she's still quite confused with the way the brunette Cheerio was acting. Gabrielle had always been a shy girl, but during her tryout she was nowhere near this nervous. "Are you okay?" she asks, worrying about the girl she thinks would replace her as Head Cheerio one day. Gabrielle nods slowly. Quinn approaches her to better inspect her peculiar behavior.
"Would you go out with me?" she blurts out. Her words leave the other two girls speechless. Rachel and Quinn eye's go to her and then to each other to confirm what they had just heard. Gabrielle misses the silent interaction and goes on. "I've always thought you were awesome and really, really cute, but everyone always said you were a loser. Not that you are a loser!" she quickly corrects tossing her arms in front of her.
"If anyone's the loser than that would be me for being too much of a coward to ask you out," she continues. She smacks her head at how stupid that sounds. "But that shouldn't discourage you from going out with me because… because… because I'm making a complete fool out of myself," she concludes.
"Oh God, I feel sick." She has an arm holding onto her stomach and her other hand against her heart. "You know, forget I said anything. Just- actually," she grabs a small notebook out of her bag, flips to a clean page, write something down, tears the page out and quickly hands it to Quinn. "Here's my number. Call me… maybe?" She quickly spins around and walks back to the school as she mumbles to herself. Rachel and Quinn are both too shocked to follow.
They stand, staring at each other, their eyes asking each other if they saw and heard the same thing. Quinn can't help but notice the way Rachel's eyes light up after seeing someone ask her out. She feels a twinge of jealousy shoot through her. She puts on a fake smile and lightly tugs on Rachel's arm.
"Come on, we should go." Rachel snaps out of her daze and takes Quinn's keys out from her bag. She opens the driver side door and takes one step in before turning to look at Quinn apprehensively.
"Are you sure you want me to drive?"
"Of course. Just be careful baby."
"What?"
"Um… I said be careful with my baby." The singer buys her quick save and Quinn lets out a breathe of relief as Rachel closes the door. She goes round to the passenger side door, which the diva has opened, and sits down. The pair buckled up and drive off.
The cheerleader shifts in her seat. She's feeling uncomfortable, and that is only made worse as she tries to avoid eye contact with Rachel. Mindlessly, she swings her legs to and fro while the singer sneaks glances whenever she notices Quinn looking out the window at the buildings passing them by. She reaches a red light and places a hand on leg, removing it instantly when she feels Quinn tense up.
Rachel continues to drive and Quinn goes back to swinging her legs. They are only a few more blocks away from her house so the diva decides not to do anything for the remainder of the ride. Quinn's cheery mood has disappeared and she doesn't know why. Rachel hopes that her bed would put the cheerleader at ease. It's very comfy and the singer is sure that Quinn would love to lie down on it.
She pulls into the driveway and jumps out of the car. Rachel escorts Quinn to her front door and reaches into her bag, but then she realizes that she doesn't have her keys. The singer looks up when she hears the sound of metal clinking together to see Quinn dangling her keys in front of her. The fiddles with the keys until she finds the right one and is greet by one of Rachel's fathers.
"Hi sweetie, how was school?" Hiram calls from the living room. He approaches who he thought was his daughter and pulls her into a hug. From her angle Quinn can't see, but she's sure Rachel was frowning. He pulls back and sees the real Rachel. "Oh, who's your friend?"
"This is Quinn, Da- Daddy," the cheerleader answers, uncertain what else to call him. She feels better when it seems that he finds nothing out of place.
"Well it's nice to meet you Quinn," he says taking hold of her hand.
"You too," Rachel replies with a melancholy smile.
"I'm sure you two have a bunch of girl things to do, so I'll leave you to it." He retreats back into the living room. "If you need anything I'll be right here."
"Okay Daddy," Quinn calls as she and Rachel ascend the stairs. They go to Rachel's room which, to no surprise to the cheerleader, had a gold star on it. Quinn smirks to herself and brings the two of them inside. She sits down at the edge of Rachel's bed and has the singer sit next to her. "So that was awkward wasn't it?" Rachel nods. "You okay?"
"Yeah, it's just kind of weird. I don't want to talk about it."
"Okay."
"What can you tell me about Gabrielle?" Quinn stops herself from frowning. She knew this would come eventually. The cheerleader takes off her shoes as well as her socks and crosses her legs on the bed.
"Not that much," she admits. "She's a freshman, last minute addition to the squad, kind of shy. I don't really know her," she finishes. "Does it really matter? You wouldn't have said yes, would you?" Quinn asks, testing her luck. Rachel breaks eye contact and doesn't answer. "Wait, you would?!"
"Maybe," Rachel answers quietly, almost as though she was embarrassed.
"So you're bi?" The singer bobs her head side to side, thinking the question through.
"I wouldn't really classify myself as such." Quinn quirks an eyebrow, silently asking her to elaborate. "Well I've never been with a girl, Quinn. But then again I've never been with a boy either." She pauses monetarily to frown. "But having been raised by two men, I am open with my sexuality. I have found some girls to be attractive and would be more than willing to go out with a girl if she had true interest in me." Quinn's jaw drops. "You don't have a problem with that, do you?"
The soft and fearful tone that the singer uses allows Quinn to recompose herself. She scoots forward and lifts Rachel's dropped head. "Of course not. My parents might have problems with that, but I don't." Rachel's smile appears for a second before disappearing. Quinn freeze, unsure what she had done wrong.
"Your parents wouldn't…" she trails off, and Quinn understands immediately. "Do you think I can sleep over tonight?" The cheerleader lets out a short laugh.
"It's your house," she reminds.
"Yes, but you're me. And I really should sleep at your house. And your parents will be upset if they found out that you slept at-"
"Rachel!" she interrupts. "It's okay. Just call my mom and tell her I'm sleeping over at Santana's or Brittany's."
"Okay."
"Now where's the guest room?"
"What? No." She reaches out and places her hands on Quinn's shoulders, keeping her in place. "You sleep here; I'll go to the guest room. My dads will know something's wrong if they check up on me and find someone else in my bed."
"Fine," Quinn relents. "How about we both sleep in your bed?" she proposes. She feels Rachel release the grip she had on her shoulders. "Your bed is big enough, and I'm sure your dads won't have any problem with another girl sleeping in the same bed with you," she reasons. The cheerleader does have some ulterior motives, but she truly wants Rachel to be as comfortable as possible. And maybe she's feeling just a tad bit possessive after Gabrielle.
Rachel trapps her lower lip between her teeth and taps her fingers together. "Okay." Quinn smiles. "I'll go call your mom. I guess you'll want to get changed. On the top drawer," she says as she points towards her dresser. "There are pajamas on the left and some nightgowns on the right. Pick whatever you like." She misses how Quinn gulps at having to get dressed again.