"You'd better be careful, Quinn," Sam warned her once she'd finished filling him in on the new developments.

"Why?"

"Well, what if you change your mind about not wanting to be with her? You don't want to end up stuck in the friend zone," he said, balancing his phone between his ear and his shoulder as he placed another slice of turkey on his food scales.

"What's the friend zone?"

Sam laughed so hard that he nearly dropped his phone. "Are you serious? I went to an all boys school and I still know more about girls than you do! How is that even possible?"

"Sam," Quinn whined. It wasn't fair of him to make fun of her, it's not like she had any experience in the area. She'd always been the pursued, never the pursuer.

"A tricky and dangerous place the friend zone is," Sam began in a bad Yoda impression. "And once you're in it, it's practically impossible for the girl you're interested in to see you as anything other than a friend, thus eliminating the possibility of any future romantic relationship with her," he explained, feeling like he was Jedi Master teaching the ways if the Force to his young padawan.

"But I guess that's something you don't have to worry about, since you've decided that all you want to be is Rachel's friend anyway," he teasingly added.

"It'd still be nice to keep my options open," Quinn grumbled, not ready to admit that she was already on the verge of backflipping on her decision again. "So, just out of curiosity, how would one know if they're in the friend zone?"

"Well, if she ever refers to you as being like a brother, or in your case like a sister, I guess, then you know that you're in trouble," he began, eager to impart his wisdom on his young apprentice. "Also..."

#

The music was pumping, the champagne was flowing, love was in the air and Quinn Fabray was miserable.

She sat slouched at her assigned table, nursing a glass of champagne, glaring daggers at the happy couple out on the dance floor.

She just didn't get it. Finn had gotten up, given a speech -by her count now, his mother, Mr. Schuester and Kurt had all taught Finn to be a man. If you asked Quinn they must've done a pretty shitty job of it because he was the most immature, childish 'man' she had ever met.- and sang a song and now apparently all was forgiven. He was restored to his golden pedestal. It was disgusting.

"You're being a bit obvious, don't you think?" Sam nudged her.

"I don't care." She really didn't. She'd watched Finn and Rachel treat each other like crap -Finn moreso than Rachel- for far too long. Even if she couldn't let herself be with Rachel, she couldn't allow their toxic relationship to continue. She had to break them up, for Rachel's sake if nothing else. She knew it was bad but sometimes you had to be ruthless to ensure that beautiful things keep growing and Rachel was the most beautiful thing Quinn had ever seen.

And it wasn't like she didn't at least feel guilty about it. Finn was a good gu...well, he wasn't a bad guy, he was just too stupid and self-centred to realize that he shouldn't do things like tell his pregnant girlfriend that he wished she was more like the girl she knew he was cheating on her with -that still stung when Quinn thought about it-, which meant that he just wasn't equipped to handle a high maintenance girl like Rachel...or even a low maintenance girl like Brittany. Actually he just wasn't equipped to deal with girls at all.

"You're a good person, Sam," she said suddenly, turning to him.

Sam's big lips stretched into a confused grin. "So are you."

Quinn tried to smile but couldn't quite get there. He was so naïve. "Well, to do what needs to be done, I'm going to have to be significantly less of a good person." She looked back to Rachel and Finn and her lips twisted into a snarl as Finn stepped on Rachel's foot and they both burst into laughter. What the hell were they laughing about? Rachel had delicate, dainty feet, them being crushed under Finn's giant clown shoes was no laughing matter. "And I don't want to drag you down with me."

"Do you really think I'm going to let you do this alone?" he said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. "If you're in, I'm in."

"You sure?" she had to ask.

"I'm sure. I gave you my word, there's no going back on that."

Quinn was going to argue but one look at Sam's determined face put a stop to that. She had a feeling that he was still going to try to help her even if she forbid him. "Then let's get to work." She stood and held out her hand. "Dance with me."

#

They didn't make a direct beeline for Finn and Rachel, rather they danced together on the other side of the dance floor until the other couple naturally drifted closer to them. Then Quinn discretely lead Sam over to them, until they were dancing side by side, and made her move.

Pretending to trip over Sam's foot, Quinn had to struggle to regain her balance as she 'stumbled'. It was just too bad that it involved stamping on Finn's foot, driving the heel of her shoe down with extra force.

"Oh my god!" Quinn gasped as Finn yelped and started hopping on the spot, clutching his injured foot. "Finn, I am so sorry, I tripped."

"'S okay," Finn hissed through his teeth, looking like he was about to cry.

"Well we can't afford to have our leading man crippled right before Sectionals, you really need to put some ice on that. Sam, you should help him," Quinn ordered with a fake smile before Rachel could get a word in.

"Huh?" Sam looked confused for a moment before catching on to Quinn's plan. "Oh! Yeah, sure. Come on, big guy," he said, looping an arm around Finn's waist as the overgrown teen leaned on him for support as he limped off the dance floor.

Seeing that Rachel was about to try to follow, Quinn stepped in front of her. "So how come you haven't sung yet? You do know that it's an open mic, right?"

Effectively distracted from her boyfriend's plight, Rachel nodded, suddenly looking bashful. "I didn't want to overshadow Finn at his mother's wedding."

Quinn didn't quite know how to react to that. Rachel not wanting to sing because it might put a dent in Finn's ego? Absurd. That just wouldn't do at all. "I'm sure he won't mind. It's better than Mr. Schue hogging the mic all night, now that he's got a few drinks in him I'm afraid that he could start rapping at any moment. You know, you should do a duet with Kurt, with him transferring to Dalton this might be last chance to sing with him for a while," she suggested, smirking in satisfaction as Rachel lit up like a Christmas tree at the idea.

"You're absolutely right, Quinn. I need to find Kurt," Rachel said distractedly, her brain already flooding with possible song selections, she scurried off without so much as a thank you.

#

"You know that you're never going to get a another chance to dance with her tonight, right?" Sam said when he returned to their table.

By now, Kurt and Rachel had well and truly commandeered the stage. After a ten minute squabble about who got to sing Whitney's part -which Kurt had ultimately won-, they'd sung Endless Love and were currently in the middle of belting out Evergreen, which had to be pretty much the cheesiest song Quinn had ever heard -not that she'd ever say that to Rachel, Quinn was pretty sure that slandering anything Barbra has ever done would be the ultimate dealbreaker for her-.

"I know," Quinn said, tearing her eyes away from the stage to look at Finn, who was pouting pathetically while holding a plastic bag filled with ice to his injured foot. She couldn't help but smirk. "But now neither will he."

It's game on, Hudson, and I play to win.