"How come you're so much….not as intoxicated as me?" she asks. Her arms are draped over your shoulders, her shoes dangling in her hand. She was having trouble walking so you offered a piggyback ride.

"I have a higher tolerance than you," you reply.

Her chin is resting on your shoulder and her head leaning on yours. "Wha's sex like?"

You have to admit you're a little surprised by that question, "What do you mean?"

"Wha's the big deal?" she slurs, "The guy puts his…thing or the girl puts her fingers in your…place," She's gesturing with her hand and almost hits you in the face with her shoes a couple times, "It doesn't matter to me I don't judge…whatever tickles your boat…wait I don't think that was right…" You're almost sure she's a sleep before she asks again, "What's sex like?"

You take a deep breath. You're no expert, but you guess compared to Rachel you sort of are. "It was…Puck was gentle about it so it wasn't completely horrible I guess."

"Did he take care of you first?" she asks, her lips brushing against your ear.

You take a second to gather yourself after that question. You know that Rachel is blunt and usually to the point, but this is a whole other level of openness. You stutter for a second before she giggles and tells you that you don't have to say anything.

She lays her head down on your shoulder and lets out a content sigh, "Where was Santana?"

"She decided to stay home and study," you answer, readjusting your hold on the back of her thighs so you don't drop her.

Rachel lets out a content sigh, "Good for her."

If you really thought that Santana was studying you'd have the same sentiment, but you're pretty sure she just wanted to drink alone. Luckily, Rachel's dads are letting you spend the night at Santana's because of an early Cheerio practice in the morning. Rachel doesn't have to be at the practice, but she hasn't missed one since the beginning of the school year. She sits in the bleachers and reads a book for the most part. Sometimes you catch her looking at you and you send her a smile.

When you get the Santana's house your quads are burning like mad. Rachel may be light but you're still sort of tipsy and Coach Sylvester had you doing gassers for almost an hour today at practice.

You easily slide her down your back and sent her gently on her feet. She takes your hand and opens the unlocked front door. When you get inside, you find Santana sitting at her kitchen table all kinds of papers spread before her.

"You're really studying?" you ask her, leaning on Rachel a little.

Santana looks up, "No. I'm looking at colleges." She closes a book and tosses a paper down. She looks stressed, "How was the party?"

You just shrug. Rachel's already moving toward the table looking over some of the things Santana has been looking at. "Where do you want to go?"

Santana shrugs, "I just want to get out of here. New York, California, Florida…whatever. Just out of Ohio."

"New York is it for me," Rachel states, "I don't care if I have to go to the community college. I will be in New York."

Well, that settles it in your mind. If your mom ever gets out of her coma, you're going to New York. Hell, even if your mom isn't out of her coma, you'll bring her with you. Maybe you could even go to college yourself. It's not something you've thought about for a while.

"Where are you going Q?" Santana asks, stacking up all the papers and placing them on top of a variety of books.

You've never really thought about it and now you're intimidated by Santana's surprising and extensive research as well as Rachel's single-mindedness. You exhale and shrug, "New York."

Rachel hugs you around your waist. "C'mon ladies. We have practice in the morning."

You glance at Santana to see if she has anything snarky to say, but she just gives you a lazy smile and tells Rachel, "Yes mom."

Rachel giggles before you all ascend to the bedrooms for the night.

After morning practice the next day you feel beat down. Rachel has packed water bottles and protein bars for you and Santana. You're starting to get a little jealous of Santana. She's encroaching on your Rachel territory. But you scold yourself for that because Rachel's not territory and Santana is a hot mess. Every time that Brittany looks her way she falls apart.

Santana is sipping on her water as you three walk through the hallway. You're both flanking Rachel like she's the head Cheerio. At this point she might as well be. She's basically the charge of both of the top dogs in this school so she might as well be running this thing.

"So this glee thing we're doing today," Santana says, "What is it?"

"Another round of duets," Rachel answers, "Randomly selected out of a hat along with the song."

Santana takes a bite out of her protein bar and says, "I'm praying for Mercedes."

"Of course you are," Mercedes abandons her locker that the lot of you just walked past and joins your march to first period. "For what though?"

"Duets," Santana answers, "I'm thinking Mariah."

Mercedes laughs and high fives her, "Let's do it."

"Wanna hit the drive thru at lunch?" Santana asks as she and Mercedes peel off to go to their first class.

You're left with Rachel and she smiles at you, looping her arm through yours, "Who is your ideal duet partner? Excluding me of course. Everyone wants to sing with me."

You laugh and start thinking through your fellow gleemates. Santana and Mercedes always drown you out. Brittany's on your not happy list so she's out. Come to think of it Kurt drowns you out as well. So, "Puck or Tina."

Rachel's face scrunches like it does when she's thinking hard and she nod, "You should sing with Noah. When blended together your voices are extremely pleasing."

You just nod and follow her to class.

"Quinn?" Mr. Schue calls shaking the hat in his hand when you get to glee. You knew you shouldn't have sat on the front row.

You stand up and walk to the hat. You don't pause or put off the tension. You don't want to be pair with approximately seventy percent of the people in this club so you're just going to get it over with. You jam your hand into the hat and a piece of paper gives you a tiny cut on your finger. If you announced that, Santana would claim that the piece of paper was the one with her name on it.

Your fingers close around a slip of paper that was on the bottom and off to the side. When you pull it out and look at it you read Finn's name. You feel so much relief. He was on your neutral list.

However, your friends don't fare so well. Brittany goes after you and draws out Rachel and Santana looks murderous when she picks out Artie's name. Mr. Schue randomly assigns songs and has everyone split up to rehearse.

Santana and Artie take off for the auditorium, Santana stalking out the door and Artie rolling hesitantly behind her. You don't think that it's a good idea to leave them alone for any amount of time. Both for Artie's life and Santana's criminal record.

You look over at Rachel who shrugs helplessly. She's right though. She can't go because taking her partner into that group is taking matches to the fireworks.

It doesn't take much to coerce Finn into practicing your horribly ancient song in the auditorium. He follows you into the house of the auditorium and you stand in the aisle looking to the stage where Santana and Artie and looking at the sheet music and pointing at different places. They actually look like they're working together.

Finn turns to you, "Do you want to go to the back or something?"

You nod, but keep your eyes on Santana, "Sure." There's something off about her and you want to be on your toes when her eyes go black and she tackles Artie out of his chair.

As you walk away you hear Artie ask Santana if she was okay after the other night with the cop. You stop and turn around, watching to see Santana's reaction. She nods and exhales, "Sorry, I ruined whatever you were doing."

"Oh I was just fixing Brittany's computer," he says, "She got a virus."

An "Oh," escapes you and Santana at the same time. She glances at you and turns back to Artie.

He adds, "We're not together."

Santana's eyes return to you and she looks absolutely lost. She had someone besides Brittany to blame and now all the blame falls in one place. You can only imagine how much that hurts.

Santana lets out a shaky breath and nods. Her face becomes stone, "Okay so this song.."

"What's going on?" Finn asks as you both walk to the back of the auditorium and take a seat.

"Just Santana and Brittany stuff," you shrug it off, taking the first good look at your song.

Finn puts his hands on his knees, "I thought that after last year they'd be okay."

You nod, "Yeah, I think Santana thought that too."

He pauses the way he does when he's debating whether or not to say anything, "How's Rachel?"

"What?" you're caught on your heels with this question.

"I haven't seen her in a while outside of class and she's…" he pauses, "Quieter."

You furrow your eyebrows, "She's okay, I think."

He rubs the back of his neck, "Are you okay? Like do you need anything? I can mow your lawn or whatever. I can get Puck to clean your pool."

"Is my law bad?" you ask. Honestly when you go to your house to drop off food from your mom, you don't see anything but doors. Front door, kitchen door, bedroom door, kitchen door, front door.

"Uh, can you do it tomorrow afternoon? Then I'll take you guys to dinner."

"You don't have to," he shakes his head.

"I want to. I feel like I'm taking up all of Rachel's time. I want her to socialize and stuff and not feel bad about it," you confess.

Finn seems to understand because he nods. "Cool. I'll talk to Puck after practice."

You lean back in your chair and put your feet up on the seat in front of you, "I wanna do something really nice for her. Do you want to help?"

"Sure," he nods, "Like what?"

Once practice is over, you and Rachel make your way back to your house. Santana stays late to practice with Artie, which still leaves you uneasy.

You and Rachel are sitting in your room, doing your homework as per your usual routine. You tap your pen on your book and watch Rachel for a few moments. She's working on her computer, making some kind of presentation. You watch as she mouths the words on the slide before consulting some notes on the desk.

"Are you happy?" you blurt out. Way to go brain to mouth filter.

She swivels around in her chair and looks at you, confused, "What?"

You can't pretend like you didn't ask now. You know that's her 'what, why are you asking that' instead of her 'what, I didn't hear you.' "Are you happy? Finn wanted to know how you are and I realized that I don't know for sure."

She stands from her chair and walks over to the bed. As she sits, her hand slips into your hair. "I'm happy Quinn. Gloriously so," she says with a content smile that you'll never get enough of. "Why would you ever think otherwise?"

"I just…you put your boyfriend on hold for me," you explain, "You put everything on hold for me. You don't have a social life and you're pretty much babysitting you all day."

"First of all," she ruffles your hair, "I never had much of a social life to begin with. And secondly, I'm not babysitting you. I believe the correct colloquialism is hanging out."

You lean into her fingers loving the feel of her fingers massaging your scalp. She seems to know because she doesn't stop. "Well, Finn and Puck are going to mow the yard at….my house," you always hesitate to call it your house. The Berry house feels more like a home than that house ever did. "And Puck's going to clean the pool. Then I'm going to take them to dinner. I was hoping that you'd come."

She eyes you suspiciously, "Did Finn put you up to this?"

You shake your head, "No this was all my idea. I wanted you to be able to hang out with people who aren't emotionally crippled and as fun as Santana and I make your life, maybe you want some kind of…normal."

She stops stroking your hair and lays down on the bed. She opens her arms to you and you crawl into them, feeling comfort in her embrace. "Quinn, just in case you haven't been paying attention since we've known each other, my life is never any kind of normal. I thoroughly enjoy having you and even Santana hanging around with me. Especially you though. Don't tell Santana."

You giggle and adjust your head on her shoulder. When you close her eyes and breathe, you suddenly feel so tired.

But you have something to do before you go to sleep. "I gotta go check on my mom."

She nods and lets go when you sit up. Then she stands with you and slips her shoes back on. You turn to her and tell her that she doesn't have to come. She just smiles at you like she always does and follows you out to the car.

When you get to your house, you have her sit on the couch like you always do because she's started insisting to come in. Especially after the one time she broke down crying in the hallway and were inside for twenty minutes before she came in after you.

But this time, as you walk down the hallway to your mom's room you hear something over the TV. You furrow your eyebrows and run your hand over the smooth wood of the door as you push it open. Your knees almost give out when you see the bed is empty. You know that last time this happened she moved to the couch for the night, but was right back in her bed the next day. Except today, Rachel is on the couch and the bed is empty. And you hear the shower running.

You don't know what do with yourself. You just shuffle to the bed and sit down on the edge of with your hands in your lap. You're going to wait here until she gets out of the shower just to makes sure that she does get out of the shower. It pains you to think about it, but you have thought about it before. Long before you thought Santana could do something drastic and irreversible over losing Brittany, you thought that your mom would do it over losing your sister. So you're going to sit here and wait until the shower turns off. You're going to wait to know what she's alive.

Tears cloud your eyes as your knees bounce under your elbows. You incessantly run your fingers through your hair and your eyes dart around the room. There's a soap opera droning away on the TV. The curtains are still closed. The sheets on the bed are still unmade. You look to the nightstand and find that the plates you brought in last time are there. More food is missing than is usually is, but you're not sure what to make of it. It just freaks you out so much more. You stand up and are about to run out of the room straight into Rachel's arm when you hear the shower wrench off.

A sob escapes you. You've never been more relieved in your life. You fall back into a seated position on the bed because your legs can't support you anymore.

You hear light hurried footsteps padding toward the bedroom on the thick carpet. Rachel blows into the room, her hair a comet tail waving behind her. She's immediately seated next to you, slipping her arms around your waist.

"What's wrong?" she whispers, pressing her forehead against your temple.

You sniffle and wipe your face as you shake her head. Nothing is wrong. Not for the moment because, "She's alive."

Rachel pulls her head back and looks at the bed. Then her eyes wander to the open bathroom door. It takes a moment but it clicks for her. With a gently kiss to your head she breathes and a sigh of relief next to you.

"Quinn?"

Your heart stops cold before beating faster than you ever thought possible. When you shakily turn, your mom is standing in the doorway of the bathroom. She's wearing a fluffy pink robe. It makes her look bigger, fuller than she actually is, but it doesn't hide her sunken in face or her frail bony hands.

You honestly don't know what to do at this point. You want to hug your mom, but you're scared that you'll break her. Then again you don't know if she's the same person she was before. You highly doubt it.

She comes and sits down on the side of her bed, perpendicular to you and Rachel. Both of your head are turns to face over your lefts shoulders to watch her. Her hair is still damp, hanging around her shoulders, dull and lifeless. She looks sort of like a zombie this close. Her eyes look hollow like she doesn't see you. Just a fuzzy outline of you.

And just for a second, they become clear. Her eyes trace our face and she holds your eyes in an intense gaze as she mumbles, "I'm sorry."

Tears continue to trickle out of your eyes because her eyes cloud over and she pulls her feet into the bed and covers herself to the chin with blankets. Her hand reaches out from under the covers to retrieve the remote from the nightstand. Then she looks between you and Rachel at the TV, completely oblivious to the world all over again.

You look at Rachel, completely lost and confused. She just stands and pulls you up with her. You're resistant to leave at first, but Rachel gives you a reassuring smile.

She sits you on the couch in the living room and sits on the coffee table facing you. When she leans forward her knees brush against yours. She lightly takes your hands after she runs the fingers of her left hand to get your bangs out of your face.

"I didn't want to tell you this immediately because I didn't want you to get your hopes up, but I think that seeing what I just saw in there, even though it wasn't significant gives cause for hope," she pauses to make sure you're listening. You nod to spur her on. You want to know what's going on. "Your mother has been seeing a psychotherapist everyday for about two weeks now."

"How?" you ask. It's perplexing how that could happen without your knowledge. "She doesn't leave the house."

"The therapist comes here and talks to her," Rachel nods, her eyes raking your face for any kind of emotions, "For about two hours every day usually in the late mornings."

You take a moment to process this new information. Then you ask her how she pulled it off. She rubs her thumbs over your knuckles and lets out a smile, "I'm sneaky like that."

You smile back at this. You don't even have to ask why. You know why she did it. She did it for the same reason she does everything else these days. She did it for you.

You slip into an overpowering emotion and surge forward. When your lips crash against Rachel's your whole body flushes. Then your muscles relax and you sigh against her lips.

But when it registers what you just did, you snap back and stare wide eyed at her. You don't know what she's going to say or do or if she's going to freak the hell out because you are freaking the hell out right now.

She just smiles sweetly at you and you're even more confused. She stands and offers you her hands to pull you up with her. You tentatively take them and when you're standing with her she takes your hand like she always does and leads the way out the door, saying something about what her dads are making for dinner.