A/N: I was so focused on another fic that I honestly forgot this one existed. E. terliz probably doesn't know it but their review was the reason this was updated. Hope you like it :)


Part 11

Rachel's car was conveniently waiting around the corner. A limousine—that she'd paid a small fortune for—was driving her and Quinn around Manhattan for as long as it took. The tiny Diva suspected it might be a while, since the blonde detective hadn't even opened the file yet. Quinn was seemingly content with just staring at it in her lap with the daffodil Rachel had given her strewn on top.

The car slowed to a stop—probably at a light, since Rachel expressly demanded her driver stop for nothing else—and the blonde looked up.

"I wasn't expecting to hear from you again," she whispered and Rachel's tongue licked at her suddenly dry lips.

The Diva shifted so she was fully facing Quinn, her legs re-crossing innately with her new position. "I apologize if I gave you that… well I just required some time to deliberate is all."

That and to make sure Santana was suitably distracted enough to ensure Quinn's safety. Rachel bit her lip and looked guiltily out at the chaos of the morning hour traffic.

"Deliberate what?" Quinn seemed as equally meek about their chosen topic; Rachel could hear it in the shaky timbre of her voice. "What ever is in this folder, I presume?"

Rachel looked back, quickly shaking her head. "No, the contents of the folder are a residuum of my decision. If you would just open it you'd see—"

"What was your decision?"

Quinn absently fiddled with the stem of the flower but didn't make a move any closer to the folder. Her refusal to open it was completely unfathomable to the tiny Diva. A detective shouldn't just be sitting idly by with answers resting—quite literally—in their lap but then Quinn had admittedly left her gun and badge back at the precinct.

Still, Rachel was growing tired of waiting. She supposed it came with wanting things too much because she did want a lot of things, most of the time at any cost. But, she'd just like to say that she only sent her once foster sister—Sunshine—to that crack house to save her life. Rachel only wanted to borrow her sparkly pink microphone for karaoke night and Santana didn't take to kindly to the girl accusing the Latina of stealing it.

At any rate, leaning closer to Quinn made sure the blonde had nowhere to look but right at her.

"I want you, Quinn," she whispered and when the blonde didn't seem to comprehend the obvious with more than an owlish blink Rachel only grew bolder.

Quinn tasted like coffee and peppermint and Rachel fisted Quinn's crimson blouse in an attempt to stop a guttural moan from escaping when the blonde started to kiss her back. Their lips clashed and Rachel took to nibbling the pouty lip in her mouth until she had to reluctantly pull away.

Both were panting, warm air gusting over bruised lips, sending tingles down both their spines until Quinn surged forward. Her tongue was in Rachel's mouth before the brunette could decipher much but the whimper escaping her lips. As the passion continued to boil over between them, the chaste rightness of their last kiss seem all but a distant memory.

Rachel pushed forward in an attempt to get Quinn on her back but the folder in the blonde's lap protested with an abstentious poke to the Diva's stomach. Because it hadn't just fallen on the floor (like it mostly likely should have) and instead played its metaphorical part in keeping them apart with such timing that Rachel would've been proud of, if she hadn't been deliriously drunk during her last orgasm in shared company.

But, she quietly watched as Quinn finally opened it anyway, the blonde's eyes scanning the contents before they jumped up angrily to her own.

"What the hell is this?" she growled and Rachel silently moved away to give the woman some space until hazel eyes turned anxious. "You… how did you get this? I… this isn't…"

Quinn glanced at the doors—as if ready to jump out—but Rachel had enough foresight to expressly explain to the driver the need to lock them after Quinn got inside. Well, at least until the blonde heard her out because Rachel wasn't about to forcibly hold the blonde against her will like a lowly kidnapper. Though with Quinn jumping between fight and flight at such a rapid pace, Rachel imagined she only have a few minutes to get her point across.

She took a deep breath and started in on her spiel. "While I suspect such a thing has been a secret burdening you for many years, you don't have to be afraid. I have no intentions of doing anything with that file but giving it to you."

"Right and what do you want for it?"

Quinn was back to being defensive, gripping the file tightly while glaring at her with angry hazel eyes. But Rachel had seen that look in her life enough—most of the time while staring listlessly in a mirror—to know Quinn was scared. It honestly hadn't been Rachel's intention but then she supposed such a thing was unavoidable with a secret buried so deep.

She sighed. "I want nothing, Quinn. I just thought… well I thought our situation would be easier if we were on equal ground."

"Oh right," Quinn scoffed with a roll of her eyes while Rachel sadly watched her gifted flower fly against the window when the blonde started gesturing angrily with her hands. "You're a thief, Rachel and that doesn't even come close to me…I…"

"Alleged thief," Rachel was quick to correct because being officially labeled as a thief meant being caught (which she certainly had not) and such a thing was a rightful distinction that deserved a proper amendment, "and killing your father is nothing to be ashamed about not with what little I read—"

"No," interrupted Quinn with an almost violent shake of her head. "You don't get to talk like you know me because you read some file, you understand me? You know nothing about me, nothing about it. Nothing!"

Rachel deflated—seemingly duly chastised—as she shyly looked down. Finally, she looked up; her brown eyes shimmering with unshed tears. "I know I… well I don't know you at all but I thought this would give us a chance to…" Quinn's eyes boring into her own did nothing for Rachel's attempts at holding in her tears. "You have to understand that I can't just freely let you into my life, Quinn. If it were just me, I wouldn't have felt compelled to do this because honestly I already adore you but I can't…not without a fail safe."

Quinn stared at Rachel before looking down at the folder in her hands. Finally, she snapped it closed and looked up with dark eyes. "So what are you suggesting then?"

Rachel was almost hesitant to share her plan because she honestly felt like any rejection from Quinn would put her over the edge. Still, Rachel Berry wasn't a quitter and, well, she reasoned that after coming this far, she owed it to herself to try.

"I'm suggesting that if you want this relationship to continue, you'll give me the file back and we can continue on feeling secure in the knowledge that any subsequent secrets we may share over the course of whatever it is that develops between us stay untold."

Quinn shook her head, a small smile gracing her face. "So you're suggesting we have a real relationship under the veil of double blackmail?"

Rachel rolled her eyes. "I suppose you could phase it in such a way if you were so inclined."

A beat of silence and then the smile fell from Quinn's face. The blonde looked conflicted and so sad but it unfortunately didn't make it any better. "I don't think I can, Rachel. I just…I wasn't supposed to like you. You're…"

A criminal, Rachel silently finished for her. It didn't really matter that Quinn was technically one too—though the blonde's circumstances certainly seemed more dire than Rachel's had been—because that was the way Quinn saw her.

It wasn't always that way though… it really wasn't.

But Quinn was still holding the file and Rachel couldn't tell her. She couldn't risk it and she reluctantly buzzed the driver to come to a stop.

An hour and a half.

That was officially how long it took.