Quinn woke up to two things Monday morning:

1) Rachel gently and intoxicatingly running her fingers through her hair and
2) A dull roar between her eyes.

"You awake?" Rachel asked gently, pausing her fingers in Quinn's hair.

"Not if it means you're stopping," Quinn sleepily muttered into Rachel's shoulder.

A muted chuckle shook Quinn's head slightly, then the motion in her hair began again. "How are you feeling?" Rachel asked in the same gentle tone as before.

"Aside from the minute ache between my eyes, excellent," Quinn sighed, squeezing her arm tighter around Rachel's waist and nuzzling her cheek and nose into her shoulder. She really felt like she could wake up like this forever... of course that was one of those thoughts that would remain in her head for a while, though.

Rachel laughed a little again, "Just a little headache?"

"I'm sure I'll feel something else when I get up," Quinn shrugged, "But I don't think I'm getting up any time soon."

"What if I wanted to?" Rachel laughed and shifted a little to look at Quinn.

"That sounds like it's your problem," Quinn smiled, snuggling impossibly closer into Rachel, sliding her leg over Rachel's thighs causing at least half of her body to be on top of her.

"If this didn't feel so perfect, I'd probably be a lot more upset," Rachel rubbed her nose against Quinn's forehead then kissed it.

The gesture gave Quinn that swelling sensation in her stomach and with her mouth against Rachel's skin she mumbled, "This is perfect."

"Umm," Rachel hummed out somewhat timidly, "Thank you."

"For what?" Quinn was sure she wasn't thanking her for agreeing with what she had just said.

"For umm..." Rachel nibbled nervously on her lower lip. It made Quinn want to kiss her more than almost anything. Almost because she wanted to know what mystery thing Rachel was thanking her for, "... last night. When you..."

"When I..." for a split second, Quinn was afraid she'd blacked out, but then it hit her, "... oh. You don't have to thank me for that," Quinn smirked slightly, then let her lip slide between her teeth.

Rachel's cheeks turned pink and she failed at trying to hide it. "I know it's a little weird to thank someone for an orgasm," Rachel rolled her eyes as her cheeks darkened a little more, "but I couldn't really thank you the way that I would have wanted to."

Quinn felt Rachel's breathing get a little heavier in perfect time with her own. She looked up and into a pair dilating pupils as she felt her heart begin to slam a much faster pattern into her chest.

And just like that a simple, sweet moment was magically changed into a heavy and heated one.

Their lips crashed together and hands moved to whatever they could find. With her surprising strength, Rachel pushed Quinn onto her back, landing in between her legs.

"Pushing the beds together was such a good idea," Rachel husked into Quinn's ear as she turned her hips into her center.

"Mhmmm," Quinn hummed and moaned at the same time. And then she felt it: a wave of hangover nausea. "Rach," she half moaned, half panicked as Rachel rolled into her once again.

"Do you like it when I do that?" Rachel husked into her ear.

She did. She liked the way that Rachel was talking to her even more, but the nausea was little bit more than a wave...

"I do," Quinn moaned again then swallowed hard, "But Rach-"

"A little more than a headache?" Rachel had lifted herself up into a push-up position over Quinn so she could see her face.

Quinn nodded and felt her face turn red.

"I'm going to kill Noah," Rachel sighed as she fell over to the other bed to allow Quinn to get up.

With absolute mortification brewing in her head, Quinn quickly got up and rushed to the bathroom. She wasn't entirely sure that she actually had to throw up, but that didn't stop her from wanting to leave the room. Who gets nauseous when her girlfriend is trying to get her off? As she sat on the toilet seat cover, she thought that maybe they really were doomed to never have sex.

There was a light knock on the door, then, "Quinn. Are you okay?"

"I don't know," Quinn mumbled as she stared at the tiling on the floor. She had her fingers weaved into her hair and her elbows on her knees. She heard the doorknob turn and looked up just in time to see Rachel sneaking in through the door. Immediately, she felt her face heat up and she snapped her gaze back to the tile.

"Did you vomit?" Rachel asked after she was settled on the counter next to the sink.

"No," Quinn laughed at the half joking, half disgusted sound in Rachel's voice.

"Just feeling a little nausea at the most inopportune moment?" Rachel asked with a clear smile in her tone as she poked Quinn's thigh with her toe.

Quinn let out a frustrated growl and kept her eyes trained on the floor, "Why does this keep happening?"

"What? Things stopping us? Nothing stopped us last night," Rachel said, poking Quinn's thigh yet again.

"Luckily," Quinn laughed and shook her head between her hands, "We were on the porch! Anyone could have walked out there!"

"But no one did-"

"I know, but with the way things started out today, it seems like that was a fluke and now things are back to normal," Quinn looked up briefly as she huffed out her words.

"No way!" Rachel slid off the counter and sat down in front of Quinn on the floor, "Last night, Noah decided to sabotage our night. He knows that I have a hard time with peer pressure because now that I'm an adult, I actually want people to like me. I didn't really care that much when I was younger. Kurt told me when we were leaving, that before we got there, Noah told the girls to get me to drink."

"Seriously?" Quinn quirked up her eyebrow in disbelief.

"Yeah," Rachel's brow furrowed and she began chewing the corner of her lip. She looked down to the tile shaking her head, "And I think I know why."

With a flashback to the night before, Quinn suddenly remembered why as well, but were they the same reasons? Rachel's head was still down and Quinn couldn't see her facial expression to even begin to guess what she was thinking.

"I never should have said anything to him," Rachel mumbled to the tile.

"What do you mean?" Quinn asked as she sat in the dark. The question Puck had told her to ask popped into her head. Right now wasn't the best time. Although, what time would ever be the right time to ask Rachel why Puck had warned her not to "fuck her and leave her?"

Quinn waited and watched as Rachel nervously fiddled with her fingers, every so often bringing one to her mouth to nibble at something.

Rachel's head popped up, startling Quinn just a little. "How are you feeling?" she asked then nibbled on the corner of her lips.

Was she really changing the subject? "I'm fine, Rach. How are you feeling?" Quinn asked, hiding her agitation. She really had no right to be feeling any at all, not with the way she'd been acting. Rachel was always patient with her, she should do the same.

"Think you're up for a walk? I think I could really use some fresh air," Rachel went right back to chewing on the corner of her lip.

Whatever this was, it was far from light and fluffy and although Quinn didn't know exactly what was running through Rachel's mind, there was clearly a lot going on. "A walk sounds great," Quinn answered gently, then extended her hands forward to help Rachel off of the floor.

Rachel looked right passed them and got up on her own, turning quickly out of the bathroom saying, "I have to put real clothes on."

Quinn wasn't really sure what to do. She'd never seen Rachel like this. Of course they hadn't been together for all that long and there was always a first time for everything. She didn't know what to do, but for once, she wasn't worried about it. She was worried, but it was more for Rachel than herself.

By the time Quinn got into the room, Rachel had already changed her shirt and put shorts on. Sensing the rush to leave the house, Quinn did the same as quickly as she could, deciding that whatever was on the floor on her side of the room was perfectly fine for a mere walk. Rachel was already waiting by the door by the time Quinn slipped her sneakers that she never untied because she couldn't stand wearing tight shoes in the first place.

"Do you ever tie your shoes?" Rachel asked as she led Quinn down the stairs.

"Only when they come untied," Quinn laughed a little as she followed Rachel down. By now she'd only mustered up one plan: Let Rachel say what she wanted, when she wanted.

They made it out the front door without any hold ups. Everyone else was probably still in bed. Today was their first day off in nearly two weeks, of course they were taking advantage. There also wasn't a peep between them until they hit the circular pavement of the cul-de-sac and that was simply a yawn from Quinn. When they reached the end of their street Rachel cleared her throat. Quinn looked up and over to her immediately, letting her know that she had all of her attention.

"What did Noah say to you?" Rachel asked softly and with a fragility that Quinn had never heard before.

She wasn't expecting to be asked a question and now she wasn't sure what she should share. She remembered everything that Puck had said to her, but she was positive that he didn't want her to inform Rachel of everything he'd said.

"This is between us, I'm not going to say anything to him," Rachel looked up from watching her feet hit the sidewalk. Clearly Quinn had been taking too long to answer.

"He said that you're special," Quinn smiled then took a deep breath, looking back towards the houses for good measure, "And that he hates seeing you hurt. Then he said that you're tough, but good at hiding things despite how much you talk." Quinn paused for a moment to gauge Rachel's reaction. A light chuckle left Rachel's nose and Quinn took that as it being safe to continue. "Then he told me that I'll be fucked if I hurt you and then... he said... umm..." Quinn's nerves let the sentence fall away.

"He said what, Quinn?" that fragility was back in Rachel's voice and it was just a little bit more than Quinn could take.

Quinn winced as she prepared herself to say exactly what Puck had said to her as he was leaving the basement. Her facial expression remained as she exhaled, "He told me not to umm..." she swallowed hard then, "fuck you and leave you."

"Mhm," Rachel hummed lowly, then went completely silent.

Quinn was expecting words. Rachel always used her words. All of sudden there was complete weight to what Puck had told her. Once again, Quinn didn't know what to do except keep her only plan in action, which meant that things could be silent for a long time.

And they were.

Neither of them said anything until they'd reached the lake, a mile and a half away from Quinn telling her what Puck had said. Even when they got there, things remained silent several minutes after they'd settled at a familiar picnic table on benches across from each other.

"Have you slept with a lot of people?" Rachel asked out of nowhere.

"Uhh...?" Quinn's mouth hung open with unpreparedness for such a question.

"I'm sorry," Rachel shook her head, "I'm not... it doesn't matter... I'm not going to judge you or get irrationally jealous... I just..." she looked down to the table and shook her head, "I'm... curious."

"How much is a lot?" Quinn asked nervously, despite Rachel telling her that she wasn't going to judge.

"Well, a girl that I graduated with told me one drunken night that she'd been with over a hundred girls and that was in our junior year. I know that she slept with more during our senior year," Rachel said with a completely serious expression.

Quinn suddenly didn't feel so bad about her number, "Fourteen," she gulped down the lump that had formed in her throat. And then the nervous rant started, "Two of them were in high school, both guys and then the rest, all but one of them were one night stands and mostly girls, because well, there's a little less of a risk and if I'm being honest, I like sleeping with girls a little more than guys and then I met Becca in the spring semester of my sophomore year... and too much."

Rachel shook her head and smiled, "Not too much, unless you really don't want to tell me. I said I wouldn't get irrationally jealous."

How did this suddenly become about Quinn?

She quirked up her eyebrow and looked right at Rachel, "I think you're avoiding something and I'm not going to force you to tell me, but changing the subject to me isn't going to help you right now."

"Maybe it will? It's my turn in Infinity Questions." Rachel said thickly, as if there were tears being held back in her throat.

Quinn shifted on the bench and rested her cheek on her palm. Talking about her ex-girlfriend wasn't really in her plans for the day... or any day for that matter. But if Rachel wanted to hear it and it was going to help, perhaps she could look past her apprehension.

"Would you like the detailed version or a simple one?" Quinn asked hoping that Rachel would choose the latter.

"Whichever you're more comfortable with," Rachel said in a much clearer tone than previously and with somewhat of a smile. It seemed like this was already helping.

"Becca worked in the library and for some reason I had a million research papers to do that semester so I found myself there all the time. I was walking through the stacks, flipping through a book and I crashed right into her cart, knocking it over and all of the books all over the floor. Clearly, I was mortified and then when I saw the girl that was pushing the cart, things just got worse," Quinn laughed at herself remembering the moment exactly.

"Except that you started dating her, so things couldn't have gotten that much worse," Rachel smiled.

"But they did," Quinn laughed again, "I was pretty flustered between the embarrassment and being extremely attracted to her so I wasn't really paying attention as I was helping her pick up the books and our heads bumped. I know, it's actually really cute, but at the time it was awful... until she gave me her phone number and told me that I owed her dinner."

"That was pretty forward," Rachel commented briefly.

"I liked it. She didn't hesitate or care if I was gay or not, she just did it. She was my first girlfriend and I really fell for her," Quinn sighed and shook her head, "I wish that I saw... no, I can't say that. I don't regret the year that I spent with her. I learned a lot. Hindsight is twenty/twenty and it's easy to see all of the things that I should have seen, but I was in love... and lust and I was completely blinded. And then I was blindsided. She's a year older than me and she just told me that she got a job in Western Mass and that she was leaving and that she didn't want to try long distance and it was over." Quinn looked up from the table top that she'd been staring at and took in Rachel's sad smile. Rachel was immeasurably better than Becca. The butterflies that she was getting just from looking at her were proof enough.

"You were right when you said 'girls' last night. It's only two, so it's barely pluralized, but yes, girls... and one guy..." Rachel squinted and corrected herself, "boy."

"The high school boyfriend?" Quinn asked, happy to no longer be talking about her own past. Although, it really wasn't as terrible as she'd thought it would be.

"Yes," Rachel nodded, "I loved him and he was my best friend, but it still took me a year and a half to be ready to sleep with him. I don't think that I was really ready when I decided that I wanted to do it, but I was tired of being a prude. It sucked," Rachel rolled her eyes and shook her head.

"Most people's first times do," Quinn assured her with a smile. Hers did, but she really didn't want to discuss that.

"I know, but it's supposed to get better. It didn't. I didn't like it and now I know that it had nothing to do with him because he was always really romantic and gentle and he cared about how I felt. It just never felt right, but I kept letting him because I loved him and he was my best friend," she chewed on her lip for a moment in thought, "I told you about the coffee shop incident. Well, after that I was curious, naturally. I tagged along with Noah to a party one night and I had a few drinks. I know that I was drunk, but simply making out with a girl was better than having sex with my ex-boyfriend. After that, I only seemed to notice girls."

"That's why you were turning down all the guys..." Quinn just sort of let that fall out. They'd never really talked about Rachel's "sexual orientation" before. It wasn't really that important. They were into each other, why ask about unnecessary things like sexuality?

"I don't want one," Rachel shrugged with one shoulder, "It's amazing how quickly I figured it out. As soon as it was in my head, things just clicked. I barely needed the proof that I'd gotten at that party, I just knew. But my freshman year, I dove head first into my school work. A relationship would be a distraction and it wasn't something I was looking for."

"Understandable," Quinn nodded and smiled.

"Sophomore year," Rachel said in a way that acknowledged a similarity in their stories, "I met Kat. Well, I'd met her before, but the circumstances didn't allow us to really talk. She was the TA in my Speech class," a slight blush rose in her cheeks, "I know, how cliché. But she was just so cool and into me. I know, you shouldn't fall for someone just because they're into you, but that wasn't it. I was really attracted to her. That first time we met, I distinctly remember thinking about what it would be like to sleep with her. We'd flirt during class, somewhat obviously, too. I thought she was just playing along, but then after class one day, she asked me out," Rachel laughed humorlessly, "Kat, now there's someone who's too charming for her own good. She always had the right thing to say, always moved just the right way... she just did everything right, too right. I told her that this was new for me and that it might take me a while to be ready for a sexual relationship and she said, 'I can wait, just being near you is enough.' Of course that made me swoon all over the place for her. Still, I waited two months. I think it was merely principle that was stopping me because we'd start making out and it would be so hard for me to tell her I needed to stop. By the time that moment came that I didn't want to stop, I was absolutely head over heels for her," she paused for a couple seconds, taking a deep breath, "That one time with her was better than every single time with my ex-boyfriend."

"One time?" Quinn asked knowing where this story was going, but still hoping that it wasn't true.

"Kat knew that she was my first girlfriend and she knew that I'd never slept with a girl before. I think somehow she knew that before she asked me out. I'm also positive that she knew once I gave in and slept with her, she was never going to willingly speak to me again. Class was torture. She acted like the previous two months had never happened and that she was just my TA. Luckily, it was only two weeks..."

"Rach, I'm sorry..."

"You didn't do anything. Don't be sorry. Like you said, hindsight is twenty/twenty and I've learned from it. Like, that there is such a thing as too good to be true and that I have to be a little jaded in order to be successful. I also learned that random hook-ups aren't my thing," Rachel laughed and smiled one of her gorgeous smiles.

"Girl number two?" Quinn asked, definitely curious.

"Noah gave me a brownie," Rachel shook her head and smiled a closed lipped smile, "I loved everything and everyone for a couple hours. That girl that I told you about that had slept with over a hundred girls, I'm one of them."

"Ooooh, Rach..."

"I mean, I can see how she got so much ass, she's really good. She got mad when I wouldn't let her go down on me, but she was really good with her hands..."

"Okay! I never promised I wouldn't get irrationally jealous!" Quinn nearly shouted, needing Rachel to stop talking about her sexual experiences. It really just made her want to be having sex with Rachel right that second.

"Sorry," Rachel blushed and shrunk into herself a little.

Quinn nodded and did her best to shake the jealousy she was feeling. She was mostly just jealous that they'd gotten to do something so special with Rachel that she hadn't yet and from what she'd heard, she certainly cared a lot more about Rachel than they had.

"I'm not going anywhere," she breathed out into the silence that had fallen between them.

The corner of Rachel's lips curled up, "I know. And I know we talked about after this summer, but it still makes me nervous. It's not going to go away. Not until we're there and working at it."

"Okay," Quinn nodded.

"I told Noah about that fear and clearly he thought that he was Freud and made it about sex," Rachel sighed and rested her chin into her palm, "I also told him that you're different. You say the right things all the time, but there isn't an ulterior motive. You actually seem a little surprised after you've said it, like, you can't believe you let one of your thoughts out. It's so cute. And oddly enough, I really love how hesitant you are. It's strangely reassuring. Hence, me getting upset when you just sprang that 'I love you' on me."

"Not sorry," Quinn smiled and reached her hand across the table to hold Rachel's.

"You shouldn't be," Rachel said looking at their hands then looked back up, "I like the way that things are going. This feels good."

"It does and it feels different," Quinn had been thinking this since she spoke about Becca and she thought that Rachel should hear it, "A good different. Actually, it's kind of a scary different, but I'm not afraid. It's hard to explain. I mean, I've never felt like this so I don't have anything to go off of really, but I want it all to happen. I hate to compare you, but you are so much better than Becca. What I felt for her over a year feels like a joke compared to the past six weeks with you."

"And I'm sure you had sex with her," Rachel joked, but the point she was making didn't go unnoticed.

"Mhm," it was good sex, too, but that didn't have to go said, "Sex isn't everything-"

"But it's nice," Rachel said with an adorable whimsical tone.

"It is..." Quinn breathed out heavily as she felt Rachel's fingertips dance along her palm and her own calf brush against Rachel's.

"It can definitely enhance a relationship..."

"Perhaps we should head back?" Quinn suggested as she lustily looked into Rachel's eyes.

Suddenly Rachel looked like she forgot something, "Shit!" and sounded like she'd forgotten something.

"What?"

Something else to prevent them.

"I told Noah I'd go to the gym with him," she sighed and let her head fall onto her hand on the table.

"Cancel?"

He owed her.

"It's against the rules. Unless someone is dying or dead, no cancels," Rachel never picked up her head.

"Fine," Quinn huffed and started to get up off of the bench, "But when you get back, prepare for your pants to be wooed off."

"It's all I'll be thinking about."

A/N: As per usual, I'm doing my best. Hope you enjoyed this update. Of course I love hearing from you.