When Rachel woke up, it was to a ringing cell phone that she answered with a grunt and without even checking the caller ID.

"Where the hell are you? You better not have found some random sleazy New York City chick to fuck and now want me to pick you up. Oh, no, you can walk your ass back to our hotel if that's the case. And if you did, I am so disappointed that you didn't let me be your wing woman," Santana said on the other side of the phone.

Rachel balked. Why was Santana calling her and asking if she had slept with a stranger? And then it hit Rachel- she pulled the phone away from her face to double check. Yup. She had just answered Quinn's phone.

The night before came rushing back to her. She and Quinn had made it through a few glasses of wine each and Rachel had offered for Quinn to stay overnight and sleep on her couch since she didn't want Quinn going back out while drunk in an unfamiliar city alone. Rachel must have accidentally grabbed Quinn's phone and taken it into her room instead of her own.

"Well? I'm waiting for you lame-ass excuse," Santana pressured. Rachel cleared her throat.

"I'm afraid this isn't Quinn," Rachel said, her voice cracking a little with the effect of sleep still lifting. There was a bit of silence on the other end of the call.

"So, Quinn did find a sleazy New York City chick after all, huh? I didn't expect it to be one that I already knew," Santana spat. Rachel winced at the insult and realized how it must look from Santana's point of view. Quinn had left without telling Santana where she was going and stayed out all night and now Rachel was picking up her phone. That story didn't exactly spell out innocence.

"This is not what you're thinking, Santana," Rachel said carefully.

"Oh, so now you know what I'm thinking? I think you don't even know what you think, midget," Santana growled.

Rachel collected her thoughts as best as she could. "Look, Quinn probably didn't tell you that she was coming over here, but I invited her over so we could try to smooth things over between us. We talked, we drank, and I let her sleep on my couch. That's all. I understand that you're concerned about Quinn's wellbeing, and I respect that, but I believe that you also need to respect Quinn's choices as to who her friends are," Rachel responded, keeping her voice confident.

Santana laughed.

"Friend? You were never Quinn's friend."

And with that, Rachel was taken aback. It stung a lot, because she knew that Santana was right. They'd been enemies, acquaintances, and teammates, but never friends.

"Look, just give her phone back so I can talk to her. Right now," Santana let out with an angry sigh.

Rachel rolled out of bed without another word to Santana and walked out of her room to see Quinn still asleep on her couch. Something did seem wrong to Rachel about the sight- Quinn didn't belong on some couch she'd never even seen before. Doubts crept into her mind about what the two had talked about the night before about patching things up. What was there to patch up when they'd never had a friendship to begin with?

She shook her head and leaned down to gently shake the slumbering woman's shoulder. Quinn squeezed her eyes shut before cracking one open to give Rachel a questioning look. Rachel couldn't help but smile at the sight since it was a little bit cute, but she smothered it and just handed Quinn her phone where she knew Santana was waiting expectantly to speak with the other woman.

"What?" Quinn asked groggily. Then there was silence as Santana presumably said something on the other side of the call. Rachel watched Quinn wake up more and more with each moment of silence and her expression turn from sleepy to absolutely blank. It was then that Rachel realized that she probably should give the girl some privacy, so she crept back into her room to wait out the phone call.

Rachel's apartment wasn't exactly large, so despite her attempt to give Quinn some privacy, the singer could still hear what was going on outside of her room.

"I know and I don't care. I know I told you I'd made up my mind, but I've changed it." Rachel wasn't sure at all what Quinn meant by that. She assumed it had something to do with how Quinn had come to talk to her, but she couldn't quite understand the context without hearing what Santana was saying.

"Look, you're wrong. I've told her more about us, you know, and she was absolutely fine with it." Then another short paused. "No, I didn't tell her that." A longer pause. "You're the only one I've told that whole story, San. I-I can't just…"

Rachel started to feel guilty listening in at this point, knowing that this was something that she specifically shouldn't be listening to. Her ears burned and she tried humming to herself to block out the sound of Quinn's voice.

"You know what? You need to make up your mind, because I have," she heard Quinn say hotly.

So maybe her humming would die out a littler every time she heard Quinn talking again. She couldn't help it- she was a naturally curious person and having a conversation fully within hearing range was just dangerous for her.

When she heard Quinn say goodbye, she gave it another solid minute before peeking out of her bedroom door. Quinn caught sight of her and flashed her a smile that didn't have quite the amount of sincerity behind it as Rachel had seen in the past, such as the night before.

"Hey, sorry about that. Santana has gone from my best friend to my girlfriend to my mom, apparently," she joked lightly.

"I'm sure she was simply concerned for your wellbeing when you did not show up by morning judging by what she said to me when I accidentally answered your phone," Rachel offered.

Quinn propped herself up on her elbows. "And just what did she say?" Quinn questioned with a raised eyebrow. Rachel opened her mouth and stayed that way for a few seconds.

"Well, she, um… she inquired as to where you were and that if you had spent the night with someone that she would be unable to pick you up," Rachel translated Santana's rather crude original message to more conversationally-appropriate words. "Though she used a slightly more crude wording," she added.

Quinn groaned and let her head fall backward, exposing her porcelain-pale neck. Rachel silently wondered if it would look as provocative if she were to try lying on the couch like that but pushed the thought from her mind in order to focus on more important matters.

"Of course she did. She seems to think that since we're in New York now that I was going to go out and bang some random girl," Quinn said, not necessarily to anyone.

"She of all people is accusing you of that?" Rachel asked, incredulous. The Santana Rachel knew would have sex with just about anyone that so much as asked.

Quinn sat up at this point, taking Rachel's attention away from her neck and to her hazel eyes. "She's a bit of a hypocrite, you know. There's the pre-Brittany, during Brittany, and post-Brittany versions of her views on that. Pre-Brittany, she would sleep with anything with a pulse, like you know. Then, when she finally got her shit together with Brittany, she was loyal to a fault. And now, post-Brittany? It's somewhere between the two. She'll get into short relationships that are focused mostly on sex, and the moment things get actually involves, she leaves."

This sort of conversation fascinated Rachel because the whole relationship with Santana and Brittany just seemed to be star-crossed lovers. They could never get it quite right even when both of them had been obviously in love with each other for years.

"They're both still in love with each other," Rachel stated confidently. Quinn met her eyes curiously.

"How do you know that for sure?" the blonde asked.

"I talked to both of them on the night of Finn's reception, separately," Rachel said, making a face. Quinn returned one of sympathy. "They did not come right out and state their feelings, but I also spoke to Brittany later, the night I met Madame Rhonda and Frankie and got some of the two girls' backstory."

Quinn gestured for Rachel to sit down next to her on the couch, so she did so. The two were facing each other- Quinn with her knees tucked to her chest and Rachel with her legs crossed.

"Speaking of the reception… how was that? I never really heard what happened between you and Finn," Quinn questioned. Rachel sighed, knowing that it was only fair that she share some of her past considering how open Quinn had been last night.

"The reception was… a little painful, but not for the reasons you might think. I think it might be best if I just tell you what happened with Finn, much in the same way that you told me about Santana," Rachel suggested. Quinn nodded.

"If you don't mind…" she replied shyly.

Rachel just smiled because this version of Quinn, the kind that held back, was so radically different from the Quinn that had demanded answers to everything back in high school. Rachel wanted to delve inside the mystery of Quinn and find out what had changed her so drastically, but she knew that it was time for some quid pro quo.

"It happened in my junior year of college…"

FLASHBACK

"Rachel! I'm so happy you're back in Lima!" Finn greeted her with a big sloppy kiss.

Rachel grinned at how excited her boyfriend was to see her, even if the two had fought the last time they'd been on the phone together. He had told her that she wasn't home enough and it was too expensive for him to get to New York to visit her, so she should come back to Lima more often. Rachel had tried explaining her intense schedule at NYADA, but Finn had told her that she just didn't care enough about their relationship, that she only cared about Broadway.

"I'm glad that I get to see you too, Finn," Rachel replied. She had left for Finn's house practically the moment she got home, only stopping to drop off the stuff she'd brought with her.

Finn let her inside and brought her up to his room. "I've missed you a lot. Like, more than I miss playing football. And that meant a lot to me," Finn said earnestly. But Rachel saw what he was trying to do- he was drawing a parallel between his love of football and Rachel's singing. He was trying to point out that he loved her more than football, and therefore she should pay more attention to him than her singing.

"I'm sure it did, Finn," Rachel said, trying hard to keep a smile on her face while taking a seat on his bed. Finn sat beside her and reached over to hold her hand with his. Rachel noticed how large it was, how it could easily cover her own, almost… smothering it.

"So I was thinking that maybe we could… make up for all the time you've been away," Finn said suggestively.

Rachel kept herself from outwardly groaning. Of course, Finn wanted to jump right to sex, not asking her about classes or about the audition she'd mentioned the last time they'd talked. Finn's brain was one track right now, and it wasn't an agreeable track for Rachel. It wasn't like she didn't want to have sex with her boyfriend- she had several times before- but it wasn't her top priority. There was her schoolwork and her planning for the future, none of which seemed to concern Finn. Plus, sex with Finn wasn't exactly everything she'd imagined it would be. Before she'd lost her virginity, she'd assumed that when she had sex it would be sort of magical, but with Finn she was lucky if he took longer than five minutes with her, including any into to the activity.

Finn moved his enormous hand that had been encasing hers (not holding, no) and moved it down to her thigh, rubbing there. She knew that she had no mouth on her legs to breathe through, but she still felt suffocated.

"Finn, stop," Rachel whispered. Finn stopped moving, but he did not remove his hand.

"What's wrong?" Finn asked, at first concerned. "Is it… are you on your period?" he asked in hushed tones even though there was no one around to hear him but her.

Rachel rolled her eyes at this. "No, I'm not."

"Well then why don't you wanna do it?" Finn asked crudely. Rachel noticed that his eyes squinted unattractively when he got angry at something that he did not understand. Why was it just now that she was noticing all of his imperfections?

"Being on my period is not the only time that I don't want to "do it", Finn. I thought maybe we could actually talk and not jump straight into the physical part of our relationship," Rachel explained, keeping her voice calm.

At this, Finn stood up and stomped once. "What relationship?" he accused. Rachel's jaw dropped. "Well? We only see each other when you come home, like, once a month or less. And, and, we haven't done it in a lot more than that. You barely even want to kiss me anymore! I am always the one calling you too. What the hell happened to you?"

Rachel felt tears streaming down her face involuntarily. Seeing her boyfriend angry and hearing him yell those terrible things at her… terribly true things, brought a wave of guilt over her.

"I'm trying, Finn!" she yelled. She wasn't denying Finn's accusations, nor was she pleading for forgiveness. She was just angry with herself for not feeling the same way that she had when she had first started dating Finn. She was upset that she couldn't make this relationship work. That all of her efforts to be perfect were crumbling all around her. That her last audition had gone horribly and she had been placed in the chorus, not even a speaking role.

Finn stared at her, breathing heavily, unable to say anything for the longest moment. Finally, he spoke in a low voice, "Get out."

Rachel was stunned. She did not move. She did not breathe.

"I said, go!" he repeated with more emphasis. Rachel, trembling, got up off his bed and made her way to the door, looking back once she got there. "Don't come back. Don't call me. Don't… pretend that we're still together, because we aren't."

Rachel ran out of Finn's house and back to her fathers, telling them through her tears everything that had happened. For the rest of the night they watched movies and ate vegan ice cream and wore their pajamas. Rachel felt like a child, and that was exactly what she wanted. As a child, all of her dreams were just beginning as opposed to now when they were all seeming to come to an end.

END FLASHBACK

At some point during her story, Quinn had reached out to take hold of her hand. Rachel noticed that it did not suffocate hers, rather breathing the air into her that she needed to keep going through her story.

"Wow, he's an asshole," Quinn said as soon as Rachel finished, causing the singer to erupt into a sort of ironic laughter. There was her whole sad story with Finn accurately summarized into four words by none other than Quinn Fabray, the girl who Rachel had stolen Finn from in the first place. "But seriously, I'm glad you could tell me about that," Quinn added, reaching out her hand that wasn't wrapped up in Rachel's to wipe a tear Rachel didn't know she'd cried away.

"It was only fair considering that you told me all about you and Santana, which also was not easy even though your tale was brighter," Rachel said. Quinn gave her a questioning gaze so Rachel knew that further explanation was in order. "It could not have been easy for you to tell me about your first lesbian relationship when bearing in mind your upbringing. You were raised to think that any sort of homosexual actions were to be abhorred, only to realize later in life that you desired those very actions."

Quinn nodded slowly at this. "You're only wrong in one way." Now it was Rachel's turn to be confused. "I didn't just realize later in life. I've always known- at least since high school. Why do you think I was such a bitch?"

Rachel came to the realization. "You were in denial, so you took it out on the world."

The two girls stared at each other with more and more understanding the more they talked.

Rachel let Quinn use her shower and borrow some clothes that would fit well enough and then took a shower herself before the two of them went out to breakfast, agreeing to meet up with Santana at the same coffee shop they'd been the day before. Rachel was not looking forward to seeing Santana again, but she knew that in order to remain friends with Quinn it would be a necessary evil. There was no Quinn without Santana; the two were a pair, no matter the nature of their relationship in the past, present, or future.

When they arrived, Santana was already there, waiting at the very same table as the time before. Quinn and Rachel both sat down across from her and Rachel felt under the microscope- Santana was eyeing them like she might an experiment in one of her science classes for school.

"So, Fabray, you're up first. Tell me what the hell you're doing," Santana said, sitting back with her arms crossed over her chest. Rachel stole a glance to the side to watch Quinn's throat move in a motion that looked suspiciously like she was swallowing in a nervous fashion.

Santana Lopez was the master of intimidation.

A/N: This is my last update before going back for my second semester, but that does not mean that I will stop writing. I've gotten more into the swing of things, so I will be hopefully updating more often than last semester.

I have a fairly solid plan for the next few chapters and I promise there will be even more Faberry interaction. Next chapter has the confrontation with Santana as well as some progress...

I hope you're all having a great start of 2013!