[Prue, Oklahoma/Del Sol-Loma Linda, Texas]

Quinn

When she wakes up, Quinn feels pleasantly sore, one of Sam's arms draped across her thighs and his head pillowed on her hip. Flashes of last night flicker across her vision like sunlight shining off the waves of the ocean, and she drifts in recollection for a while, her fingers absently stroking Sam's hair.

They woke up several times in the middle of the night to make love again, stirring lazily and finding each other in the dark. She'd thought she was already familiar with his body from all the hours they'd spent kissing in his room or hers, in the backseat of his car, during stolen moments at school.

But she had never seen the constellation of freckles on the inside of his right thigh, had not been as achingly familiar with the valley of his spine as she is now. She knew the toned expanse of his chest and stomach, but the V-shaped muscle between his hips is new to her, and it's lovely in its newness.

She looks down at his back, curving against her leg, and feels a little pang of distress at the scratch marks that arch over his skin like the tails of comets. He seemed to enjoy it at the time, humming and hissing when her nails scraped over him.

Sam moves, not quite waking up, and slips back into sleep. His arm is wound around her legs, his cheek sidling onto her stomach. She can feel it when he exhales, soft currents of air sweeping over her skin, raising gooseflesh. Quinn watches him breathe for a few minutes, enchanted by the fact that he is alive and here and hers, and then casts a glance at the clock.

6:45. Rachel and Puck will be waking up any minute now.

Quinn tugs gently on a lock of his hair. "Baby."

"Mmm…"

"Sam."

"Noo…"

"Yes."

"Sleep."

"Not right now. You can sleep in the car."

"M'turn to drive…"

"No, baby, you drove yesterday. It's Rachel's turn today."

"Sleep."

"Sam."

"Q'nn."

"Wake up."

"Nooo…"

"If you ever want to have sex with me again, you'll wake up."

He reluctantly detaches himself from her legs, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and for all his height and the breadth of his shoulders, looks like a little boy. "Mean trick," he accuses.

She smiles and leans forward, lips pursed, and waits. Sam pouts for a few minutes and then, lightning quick, gives her a peck.

"Oh, come on."

Sam grins at her, a slow, burning grin that pulls her heart out of its steady rhythm and makes her feel almost lightheaded. "If I kiss you like I want to kiss you, we won't be getting out of bed, I promise you."

Quinn closes the distance between them so fast that she almost knocks him over, arms winding tightly around his neck, lips molding a smile onto his face. She feels his palms on her waist and she can't help but whimper quietly, remembering how incredible his hands felt in other places.

"I love you," she says, turning her face into his hair and breathing in that sweet, simple scent of lemons and shampoo. "I love you so much."

His fingertips press into her spine, and he holds her close to him, nuzzling. "I love you, too."

When she pulls away, he's smiling again, but now it's quizzical, as if she's a puzzle that he can't quite figure out. She tilts her head. "What?"

"I just still can't believe it," he says, in the quiet, reverent tones of someone speaking in a church. "You could have anyone you wanted, and you still want to be."

Quinn feels the blood rush to her face and she slides off the bed, turning toward where their suitcases are propped against the wall. "You overvalue me," she tells him. "I'm really not that—"

She hears the mattress creak, and then his arms are around her, his chin hooked over her shoulder. The warmth of his body should be oppressive, even in this air-conditioned room, but instead it just makes her feel safe.

"You are," he says. "Whatever word you were going to use, you are—fantastic, amazing, wonderful. Whatever. You are all of those things, and more."

"You're sweet," she murmurs, which is of course an understatement, but Sam's proximity has always done strange things to her brain.

"Nope," he says, giving her a quick squeeze before kissing her cheek and letting her go. "Just honest."

He ducks into the shower, and when she hears the water running, she pauses in the act of unzipping her suitcase. A few seconds later, his voice comes through the wall, muffled but clear enough so that she can hear what he's singing.

Forever could never be long enough for me to feel like I've long enough with you…

She doesn't realize she's started to sing along until he comes out of the shower, still humming to herself, and he joins her. Even then, she's so used to the sound of his voice, so used to singing with him, she doesn't notice until they hit the chorus.

Marry me, today and every day. Marry me, if I ever get the nerve to say hello in this café. Say you will, mmm, say you will.

Quinn loves the way Sam feels when he comes out of the shower, whether he's fresh from one when she comes over or she meets up with him after he's showered following football practice. His slightly dampened hair, his fragrant skin, the way it all envelops her in this cloud of—of Sam-ness.

She feels him lift up her hair and his lips brush down the back her neck. She hums and leans back against him, and one hand wraps around her waist. His breath hitches.

"Shower with me?" she says, and cranes her neck to look into his face—his eyes are already wide, lashes flaring like the spokes of a darkening sun.

He nods fervently.

They are twenty minutes late getting on the road this morning.

/

She reads to them for most of the ride, until Sam nods off on her shoulder and Puck is curled up like a child in the front seat, forehead resting on his knees. Rachel turns down the radio until it's a low murmur, and she meets Quinn's eyes in the rearview mirror for a moment.

"How did it go?" she asks quietly, so as not to wake either of the boys.

Quinn had debated asking Rachel for advice over whether or not to sleep with Sam—she knew better than anyone how bad the other girl was at keeping things to herself. She wasn't ashamed or embarrassed about the idea, but she just wanted to be sure of her own decision before it got back to Puck, which meant getting to Sam.

She ended up being caught in front of the condoms, Rachel's hand reaching past hers and picking up a random box. Quinn had jumped so badly that her heels had clicked against the floor when she landed.

"Quinn," Rachel said, her voice low so that the boys, where they were debating between Cool Ranch and Nacho Cheese Doritos. "A-are you sure you're ready for this? Sam isn't pressuring you, is he?"

"No, of course not," Quinn replied, taking the box from Rachel and examining it—Christ, these come in sizes?—before putting it back. "It's Sam—he's a perfect gentleman, even when he's—well, anyway, no. He's not. I-I want to. It's me."

A few nights before, when they'd come very close, when they'd both been shirtless and out of breath, Quinn had been so turned on that she physically ached. She'd barely bitten back a moan of disappointment when Sam had jumped off of her, and clenched her hands into the sheets when she heard him cry out in the bathroom.

She'd waited until she was sure he was asleep before she went into the bathroom herself, closing her eyes and clenching her jaw so tightly it ached as she moved her fingers between her legs. When she woke up next to him that morning, when he called her gorgeous—even though her hair looked like gold cotton candy and she had absolutely no make-up on—she realized that she no longer knew what she was waiting for.

"It was…perfect," she says, her voice just as soft, and Sam's warm cheek pressed against her shoulder, his hair brushing her cheek.

There's companionable silence for a few minutes, and then Rachel shyly prompts, "Quinn?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you—do you think we've found the—the ones?"

Sam's head has slipped to her lap now. In his sleep, he snuggles closer, his hand finding her knee and his legs curling up toward his chest. Puck's eyebrows twitch, his mouth puckering, as though he's having a particularly vibrant dream.

"Yeah," Quinn says. "I'm pretty sure we have."