Puck spent the rest of the day with us, even insisting on coming shopping with Britt and I for dresses for Quinn's party. He was clearly trying to avoid Rachel as much as possible. At different points throughout the day I remembered Puck saying "the worst part is that she knows, she knows and she doesn't even want to say anything." I wondered if the lack of Puck during the day confirmed the thoughts in Rachel's mind, then I pondered the idea that maybe she didn't know. Maybe Puck just wanted her to because then it would be easier for him.

"I don't know Lopez, I prefer the red one," his comment took me back to Prom. Then he reminded me of Kurt, of my friend I hadn't seen in a whole year. Suddenly I felt all types of emotions run back to me. What about Kurt, Blaine, Finn, Mercedes, Mike Tina, Sam, Artie, Sebastian even? Were Kurt and Blaine still together? It then occurred to me that Blaine, Artie and Tina would still be in school, Blaine would still be at McKinley. I made it a point to go and see him, go and see all of them. At some point I would go and see them. I had to.

"I think I like the red one too Sanny," Brittany smiled and ran her hand up and down my arm before giving my arm a squeeze. The blue dress definitely clung to my body in all the right places but I thought maybe they were right. This seemed like a dress I would have worn last year at a Puck house party, not for a nice dinner at Quinn's house.

We paid the nice man who we noticed had been checking both Britt and I out and left hand in hand, Puck told us that it probably wound him up even more. We shrugged and Britt even turned around to wave at him, God I loved her.

I noticed Puck become jittery in behaviour during the drive home and realised it was because he needed to see Rachel soon. Not just Rachel, Rachel and Quinn. In the same room. I hated seeing him upset because there was literally nothing I could do. I just had to sit back and watch and try my best not to interfere too much. That was difficult, I can tell you that.

Brittany and I knocked on the door twice and waited. We seemed to be waiting about a minute before Quinn opened the door with a huge grin on her face. I wondered what was wrong, what it was she was trying to hide, and then it hit me in the face.

"Happy Birthday!" all my friends jumped up from behind sofas and then I noticed Kurt run down the stairs with a huge teddy in the shape of a devil. I immediately burst into tears as I took the boy into my arms. "Go with Satan-Santana,"I remembered him saying when I was trying on my Prom dress and making the link with the devil teddy. He's funny I thought to myself.

He swung us around and threw the devil to Sebastian, he too was smiling. That was strange to me, I didn't know he even could smile. I saw Brittany run over to sit in Puck's lap, much to Rachel's dismay as I laughed and took each of my friends into a bone-crushing hug. I didn't realise I'd missed them even half as much as I did.

"But it's not my birthday for another-"

"Two weeks!" Quinn interjected excitably. "But you'll be in Rome then so we thought we'd celebrate it early. You know us New Directioners, we can't do anything the right way." She wasn't half wrong.

"Oh guys," I looked around at all their smiling faces, I didn't think I could come up with the words I wanted to say so I stuck with, "thank you."

After the not to so formal greetings had been completed, we all sat down in the living room. Brittany still sitting with Puck and Rachel and me sitting with Sam and Finn.

"So Trouty, how's school?"

"School's school," he nodded simply and looked up to me, "I can see you're having fun though. She's really pretty Lopez."

"Yeah she's beautiful." his eyes, along with everyone else's in the room, widened and for good reason, I'd never been romantic about anyone around them. Even Puck wasn't totally used to it. Brittany smiled and shook her head at me, probably embarrassed more than anything else.

"Oh Tana girl, I've missed you," Mercedes commented, "I mean OSU is great and all but Lima just isn't the same without you. You too Kurt, I miss my boo!"

"I miss you too Mercedes. All of you. Even NYADA can't measure to us as a Glee club."

"I still believe the Warblers should have won at Regionals." commented Sebastian with humour clear in his voice. He wasn't that bad. Not really.

We all chattered and teased each other like old times and it made me super happy how easily Brittany seemed to fit in with everyone. Unlike Rachel who just sat there not even attempting to make conversation with anyone. Even after Brittany had moved to sit on my lap, she held the same look of jealousy and confrontation to Puck. Like he was doing something wrong just by playing a stupid slap game with Sam.

It turned out that Blaine and Kurt weren't together anymore. For a moment, I was sad, but they both reassured the rest of the group that it was for the best. They couldn't handle the distance and things had gotten messy along the way. They seemed happy though, and they were clearly still very close. I understood them completely, I couldn't even spend a night away from Brittany, never mind months at a time for a semester of school, I just wouldn't be able to do it. Then again, I wouldn't be to break up with Britt either, it seemed I would be stuck in a root if we ever needed to apart.

They both had new boyfriends, ones they could be around all the time, ones which fit them even better than they had each other. Three guesses why Sebastian was there. He and Kurt had gotten together in New York soon after he and Blaine had broken up. As messed up as it might sound, they were actually brilliant together. And hilarious, absolutely hilarious. They had the same sense of humour, the banter and sarcasm and it was as though every conversation was an opportunity to out-wit each other. They were perfect.

Blaine had grown his hair out, it was now in a messy sort of afro which actually really suited him. It made him appear to be a lot more carefree, a lot more laid back; he looked more like Blaine should look like. His boyfriend was called Tom, but he couldn't make it to the celebrations as it was his little brother's Bar Mitzvah. Blaine was going to go too, but a little later. He left Quinn's at nine but we made plans to meet up, Brittany, Blaine, Tom, Kurt, Sebastian and I, in two day's time at the Lima Bean for coffee.

Mercedes was as flawless ever, same old diva with a whole lot of attitude. She didn't have much news but it was clear her feelings for Sam hadn't changed. Unfortunately, Sam had a new girlfriend back in Florida where he was at school called Danielle, she was pretty from the photos I saw but I couldn't help feel sorry for Mercedes who simply nodded at Sam's naive attempts of bonding (showing her all the photos he had of her).

Without any surprise, Mike and Tina were still going strong (when were they not?) and Mike was doing fantastically with his dancing. He'd managed to set up a lot of contacts with different theatre groups who even took an interest in his singing and he'd been performing all year. Luckily for Tina, she had Artie and Blaine at school to keep her from crumbling completely with the loss of him and he managed to get home as often as he could to see her. They were going to marry and have millions of kids, for sure.

Surprisingly the evening was fantastic and there were no problems. Well, that was until everyone except Britt and I had left. We decided it'd be better to sleep since we'd both been drinking and Quinn had millions of guest bedrooms anyway. It was hilarious at one point when Quinn walked into the room we were going to sleep in with two pairs of pyjamas. My pyjamas. The ones I'd kept at Quinn's since Freshmen year. I don't know how they still fit but they did. Well, kind of. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't keep my hands off Brittany in my old Cheer Leading vest top and booty shorts. It wasn't fair how hot she was.

We'd just finished getting changed into said pyjamas when we decided to take a trip down the hall to wash up in the bathroom. It was then that things started to go horribly wrong. As we passed Quinn's room we heard insane level shouting.

"...and don't act like you haven't been flirting with your ex-boyfriend there!" Lily shouted, the aggression in her voice was noticeable from even outside the room. If it'd been about me then I probably would have walked on and ignored her stupidly paranoid worries but Puck. Remembering our conversation the same morning, I almost burst into laughter before I realised that I wasn't supposed to be eavesdropping. "See you can't even deny it. I came here for you, Quinn, not for all your little friends and watching you have moments with your exes is not exactly my idea of fun."

"Lil don't be silly. For one, Puck was never my boyfriend exactly and two, are you really that blind that you can't see how in love Santana and Brittany are?" I looked to Brittany then and smiled before returning my gaze to the door, trying to listen for more.

"Yes but that doesn't mean you two couldn't have a 'little thing on the side' like in high school does it? That is how you described it the other night wasn't it?"

"Yes but it's different now, Santana and I are both in relationships. Proper relationships. You're being stupid."

"Stupid? OK. You know what is stupid? That you can't even accept you're in love with him. You can't even admit it to yourself, to me. That, Luce, is what's stupid." Brittany mouthed Luce? And I nodded, mentally telling her I'd explain later and she simply nodded back to me before returning her gaze to the door, like we wouldn't be able to hear if we weren't looking at it.

"Stop it Lil. Just stop it." I sensed that Quinn was about to open the door so I ran and pulled Brittany with me into the bathroom before Quinn would have the chance to see us.

"Oh my do you think Quinn does love Puck? Do you think she does?" Britt was jumping up and down with an expression not dissimilar from an excited puppy.

"I don't know, now I'm really confused. If Lily's noticing it then maybe. But she thinks Quinn and I still have something going on so maybe not. I don't know. What do you think?"

"I don't know either. I hope she does. But I don't know."

"Hmm. Me neither. Come on, let's wash up."

We cleaned our teeth like I used to when I was younger and didn't have a toothbrush on me, putting tooth paste on my finger and using that to get some sort of refreshing feeling. It didn't do much but at least it was something. Followed by a slight water fight where we flicked water into each other's face, we ended up laughing so much we both needed to go to the toilet. I left the bathroom giving Brittany the chance to go and as soon as I did, I was met with Quinn's tear smeared face.

"Q-"

"Don't."

"I wasn't going to say anything. I'm just concerned..."

"Well don't be. I'm OK. I love Lily and it's OK." she nodded to her self, her determined gaze fell though along with her voice. She sounded like she was trying to convince herself more than she was me. Unfortunately for her, I could see right through her.

"You don't love her at all do you?" With that she began crying again before collapsing into my arms, making us both fall to the floor. I held her in my arms as I rocked her back and forth in rhythmic movements, trying my best to calm her down, "Shh it's OK. It's OK, you'll be OK."

She carried on crying, burying her face into my shoulder as she wept. I wondered if Lily was right and if Puck did have a chance. I then wondered if it was just because Lily was such a psycho that Quinn couldn't love her. Whatever it was, it wasn't calmed by my comforting alone and she ended up sleeping with Brittany and I in the guest room saying she didn't "want to be alone tonight". Conveniently the room we'd chosen to sleep in had a small single bed.

When I asked her why she hadn't slept in one of her four guest rooms the previous night she shrugged, sniffed and rolled over saying "Night San, Britt." before falling instantly asleep. We followed suit and not long after, we fell asleep with Brittany's arms securely around me and my face comfortably nuzzled into her chest.