Quinn stared at the screen in front of her, the blinking cursor tempting her to write down all of her thoughts. She had always been something of a writer and even if she was never going to be a journalist again, writing was always the best way for her to organize her thoughts. Sometimes she would just free-write, jotting down the first thing that came to mind in a blubber of words and phrases that often didn't make any sense. But always, eventually, she could manage to get her feet underneath her.

She hit the spacebar a couple of times, thinking. Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea for her to write a book. Something non-fiction because she definitely didn't want to cause any more suffering to the people around her. A memoir seemed like just asking for trouble. Though she could title it the Evil Twin, publishers would eat that shit up.

But something was blocking her, and she couldn't for the life of her figure out what it was. She had even taken Charlie's advice and started to walk without the wheelchair as much as she could. She wasn't going to use it as a shield of sorts anymore. Truthfully it made her tired but it did feel good in its own way.

Perhaps it had more to do with her apology tour, that she had went on. Like a recovering alcoholic apologizing to everyone that they had wronged, she had no idea what step it was but wasn't that supposed to be an unburdening of sorts. But she didn't feel any less guilty. Nor had anyone forgiven her. Maybe her relationship with Charlie wasn't as terrible as it had been a year ago, but she had a feeling Charlie probably had no qualms in leaving her to rot and fester in her own misery. Her relationship with her parents wasn't any better. Then there was her relationship with Santana.

When did she become such a fuck up?

She blows out a breath and hits the delete key, erasing the errant spaces she's entered. She had to do something. She couldn't keep waiting for the next shoe to drop. Feeling a spark of curiosity, she pulled up a web page and searched for Santana's new address. She had apologized, sure, but she needed to make things right with Santana.

How could she ever forgive herself if Santana couldn't forgive her either?

Maybe it was selfish. Or maybe it was selfless. Fuck, she wasn't sure she knew the difference anymore.

But before she could really debate the pros and cons of this choice, the address came up in front of her like it wasn't the most critical piece of information she could ever find. She frowns and stares at it for a second. The address that had been given was downtown in one of the apartments that she shouldn't be able to afford, even with a Prometheus salary. Charlie's fingerprints seemed to be all over this and she had to wonder if Santana should be a bit more careful with the address.

She shakes her head, refusing to allow herself to be distracted by ridiculous faults. It was quite possible that Santana didn't give a shit about who could find her, she could certainly hold her own in a fight. But showing up at her address probably wouldn't cause Santana to open up to her and it would put her on edge. It wasn't as if Santana was hanging out in her old stomping grounds either.

Maybe she should call and leave a message. Suggest that they meet somewhere neutral. It did seem to be the most sensible thing. She sighs and picks up her cellphone, chewing on the inside of her lip. She would send Santana a text, an email and simply make the call. It gave her three opportunities to get Santana's attention even though there was no guarantee that Santana would show up.

She swallows listening to the phone ring for a few moments, before going to voicemail. She waits patiently for the beep. "Hey, can we talk? I think we need to talk. I know I hurt you, and I'm sorry and I think we need to have a conversation. So if you could meet me at—" Quinn paused she hadn't thought this through. "If you could meet me at the Spotlight diner tonight? You know where we had our first jobs when we moved to the city. I'll be in the back booth from six until they close. I hope—I hope to see you there." She frowns slightly and ends the call. It was nostalgic in a sense; it had been when they were at their happiest even as they struggled to pay the bills together. But it had been them together.

Maybe, just maybe they can figure out some new semblance of normal.

~O~

She's just about ready to leave when Rachel bursts into her apartment. They haven't really talked about what any of this meant for them, but the idea of jumping into a relationship with Rachel made her stomach twist in knots. Maybe things could work out with them, maybe not. But it was still too soon.

Rachel must have felt the same because she wasn't normally the type to avoid conversations.

"Hey, what are you doing here?"

"What am I—Quinn did you see the news? About WikiLeaks?"

"No. What happened?"

Rachel grins and tugs Quinn to the couch, pulling out her phone. "It's the biggest hack on Prometheus ever. We've done it Quinn; we're going to get enough to finally expose Charlie for the villain she is."

Quinn blinks at Rachel, not even looking at the data on the screen. She had never been a big supporter of the site, breaking the law to get information was still breaking the law. Though recent revelations should make her question how she felt about the organization as a whole. As a reporter she should be glad that she was getting her information from somewhere, and it certainly helped investigative reporting. "Rachel please tell me you didn't have anything to do with this hack. Prometheus has several government contracts, the US government hates that type of shit and they will come after you with the full force of the law."

"I didn't have anything to do with the hack. You know I can barely use my computer at times," Rachel responds sweeping away that part of the conversation neatly. "But it's Charlie's emails for the past ten years. Apparently she's a bit of a pack rat when it comes to her emails. Hundreds of news organizations are combing through years and pages of emails. It won't be long now till we find out all the dirty things she's done."

"Charlie is one of the smartest people on the planet, I'm sure she was not stupid enough to put a plan in her personal email, entitled 'My plans for complete and total world domination'. What her emails will probably show is what an asshole she is to the general public, but that's common knowledge and it's something people already assume and know about my sister. How does this prove that she's unfit to be president? Or better yet how does this prove that she's a supervillain?"

Rachel opens her mouth and then closes it again, frowning. After a second, she shakes her head and stays the course. "It will. I'm sure of it. It will show how she's organizing forces against the public."

"Rachel, that's a crazy conspiracy theory. I don't think my sister is a good honest decent person, but I also don't think she's a madman—not anymore. Once again my twin is smarter than that, Charlie does not have an army in her basement that she plans to use against the public. Even the criminals that she hires into Prometheus are people who for the most part don't have violent criminal records, and we know exactly what their job is. There was a documentary about it and how Prometheus is going into the prisons and offering degrees and other business opportunities to these people. There hasn't been even one person that has gone back to their life of crime after that. We may not like it, but Charlie wasn't using that to build an army. She was making a point to help with the Registration act. Every action that Charlie's taken is moving her closer and closer to becoming the president and these leaks—aren't going to help. They might make her more sympathetic, it might be embarrassing for someone like her but Charlie is not even close to being on the ropes yet."

Rachel huffs, disappointed that Quinn doesn't see the value in this. "Do you always have to be such a pessimist? This could be it."

"Or it could not be. Let's not get ahead of ourselves here."

"You're an investigative journalist, Quinn." Rachel looks at her, aghast. "When did you decide that Charlie of all people could do no wrong?"

"Maybe when I realized that I was not in any place to judge." Quinn snaps, shaking her head. "Look, I am late for an important meeting. Can we just—put this all on pause?"

"Pause? Quinn, what is wrong with you?"

"Rachel, I'm meeting Santana—"

"What? Why do you need to do that? She divorced you Quinn. She left. Yeah, you may have made mistakes, but she wasn't totally innocent in this. She was distant and you were lonely—hell she was practically asking you to cheat."

"Stop." Quinn stands. "No. My mistakes were mine. And for Santana's faults? She never gave up on us. I did. And maybe that's because you and me—one day can be something far greater than Santana and I ever could. But I can't just sit back and hope things will change. Please, tell me you understand that."

"I do." Rachel frowns, relenting as she pulls her phone back and tucks it in her pocket. "But I don't have to like it."

Quinn is quiet for a moment. "Look, I'm sure my sister has broken the law a few times. She's also not this paragon that people seem to make her out to be—but I don't think she's going to have an army march forward and take over the world forcibly. Taking over the world isn't illegal, there is no law that says you shouldn't take over the world. It's how you go about doing it and I'm sure Charlie plans to do it within the bounds of the law. Just to prove that she could."

"I'm sure she uses that argument to justify what I can only imagine is going to be a dictatorial rule, where our freedoms will be stripped because she knows best." Rachel sighs dramatically.

"We have to trust that the system, judges and elected officials, and police officers can keep everything running without our interference."

Rachel groans. How could Quinn be so naive? But if Quinn couldn't make the hard choices, then Rachel was going to have to do it for her. She'd help Quinn however Quinn would let her. "Maybe you should make a blog about all of this? Supplement your income?"

"I don't want any money coming in because of my twin. I just—I need to start over." Quinn says decisively. She just needs the chance to start over. But before she can do that, she has to get it right.

"Quinn—"

"I'm going to be late for my dinner—I don't even know if she's coming but I want to get there. Don't you have a show tonight? You should be out there practicing. I've read the reviews and they haven't been that great." Quinn interrupts, knowing that it was one of Rachel's weak spots. "Stop worrying about me. I can do this. I need to do this."

Rachel bites back any retort she might have. She did need to rehearse. "The reviews were misinformed."

"I know, but you want to win a Tony award and to do that you need to practice." Quinn assures, squeezing Rachel's wrist before standing. Now it was time to really talk.

~O~

Quinn orders another drink, tapping her fingers nervously on the table in front of her. Maybe Santana wasn't coming. She's over an hour and a half late, and maybe Quinn was fooling herself.

"Look, it'll be a fun project that will take your mind off all this shit with your emails. I'll even be your Igor—"

Quinn looked up from where she was sitting, and stood up so she could see Santana entering the diner. She was talking on the phone, quite possibly to Charlie and she felt a pang—maybe it was of jealousy, perhaps it was of something else. She wasn't quite sure, but there was a pleased look on Santana's face as she listened.

"You're so lucky I don't work for you anymore, or I'd be forced to report you to Human Resources." Santana scoffs into the phone spotting her and heading towards the table. "Look, just you know make me one, I've seen some pretty cool colored ones so if you could do the same—wait—you'll do it?" A huge grin crosses Santana's face. "You're not shitting me? Because you know I know where you live and I won't let you do anything until you make it for me."

Quinn watches her for a minute. Was this how it always was supposed to be? Maybe she had just gotten in the way—

"Look, I don't have a lot of time." Santana slides into the booth across from Quinn, "So, use that brain of yours to figure out how to make it work, so I can make all the fanboys jealous." She listens for a moment and snorts. "Goodbye Charlie." She ends the call and turns her attention to Quinn, the smile on her face fading a bit. "So?"

"Hi."

"Is that all this is? Because I have better things to do than listen to your excuses—"

"Like get Charlie to build you a lightsaber?"

Santana smirks, clearly proud of herself. "Best idea I've ever had."

"Until you accidentally cut your hand off," Quinn mutters under her breath. She holds up her hands when Santana glares at her. "I didn't come here to judge your life."

"Good. Because if you were, I'd tell you that your roots are showing." Santana grumbles.

"I'm a natural blonde," Quinn snaps at her defensively.

"Sure you are," Santana crosses her arms over her chest. "Why are we here? I mean this place of all places? We're not getting back together if that's what you're trying to do."

"I'm not." Quinn assures. "I get it, we're over, but I just—I want to set things right."

Santana frowns, "I don't think there is anything to set right. You cheated on me. You broke our marriage vows, and then lied to me about it. You let me throw away my superhero career because you needed to walk again. Something that from what I understand, you would have been able to do with time. I mean yeah, me and Charlie are cool now—and maybe it was a good thing that I went to work for her, but I did it under false pretenses."

"Your career isn't over, you're going to be one of the many new officers, the face of the new registration act. You're going to get millions of dollars' worth of sponsorships, and more importantly you're going to live the life that we always thought we were going to live together." Quinn frowns, that's not what she wanted to say. It wasn't going to fix anything. "And I'm happy for you."

"Are you?"

"I am. I mean it. I am happy for you." Quinn admits. "I don't have the answers you want, or even need Santana. I don't know why I did what I did with Rachel. I mean I could sit here and give you a bunch of bullshit reasons, that might be a little true but they'll just make me and you feel like shit. I think it all boils down to the fact that I lost myself. I lost who I was and who I wanted to be. I don't even know who the fuck I am anymore."

"You're still a bitch."

"So are you." Quinn retorts, smiling a little.

Santana doesn't take offense. It's true, "Maybe that's why we were never going to really work out."

"I should have tried harder."

"Yeah, you should have." Santana agrees. "Which is why it's odd that I still give a fuck about you. I mean I'm free. Why the fuck should I care what you do with your time and who you're with."

"I don't know. But I do know that I care about who you spend your time with too." Quinn smiles. "I mean, I wish it was someone other than Charlie, but I want you to be happy."

Santana rolls her eyes. "Whatever." After a minute, she cocks her head to the side. "How's the recovery coming?"

"Good. I'm trying not to overdo it and it's painful as hell, but I've regained almost complete full function."

"That's great, Quinn. Despite everything, I'm glad to hear that."

"Me too."

Santana chews the inside of her cheek before asking the question she shouldn't care about. "How's work coming? Your disability payments must be ending soon. What are you going to do?"

Quinn shrugs, "I've got no idea. It's actually pretty liberating. For the first time, I'm just starting over. I might write a book; Rachel wants me to start a blog—"

"Blogs are for pussies." Santana grumbles, even though she doesn't really mean to shoot down Quinn's ideas. She offers a small smile, but Quinn shrugs.

"They are. But before I could really move on, I wanted to make things right between us."

"You don't have to—"

"I know, but I wanted to."

"But you don't have to. Quinn, I don't want anything bad to happen to you, but we're divorced." She shakes her head incredulously. How the hell did she end up in this position? "Yeah, you fucked me over. But you're allowed to move on. Is that what you need from me? For me to give you permission to move on?"

"What? No! I just—"

"You just want someone to tell you what to do. Or to tell you you're forgiven. Well guess what, Quinn? You're an adult. This is part of being a grown up. Nobody pats you on the back and congratulates you for not being a dick. You hurt me more than I thought I could ever be hurt. But if you need my permission—do it. Have a great life. Be happy. Because I sure as hell am going to be."

"Because you're getting a functional lightsaber?"

"Damn right."

Quinn bites her lip trying not to laugh, she was going to miss this more than anything. "Make sure you get her to make it a super cool color though. Not one of the basic ones, that everyone and their mother has but like something super cool looking."

Santana's grin widened for a moment, thinking of all the specialty ones that she had seen before. I'm trying to get her to make me Darth Maul's double sided saber—but we'll see. It's going to be fucking awesome."

"Of course it is." Quinn rolled her eyes. She sighs and studies Santana, "Does this—do you think this means that we can still be friends?"

Santana shrugs, "Maybe, in the distant future. But right now—I think I just need my space. I haven't even told my fucking parents that I'm divorced. And being near you means that I'll have to deal with Rachel and it's taking every last fiber of my being to not reign down unholy hell on her."

"And Charlie hates me—"

"I'm not dating your sister, I'm bullying her into making me some sci-fi stuff and then making her sit down and watch movies with me. You know she doesn't know any basic pop culture from the past decade?" Santana shrugs. "I'm working on me. Charlie's my friend—if you can call it that. But, the reason I don't want to see you has nothing to do with her. It has to do with the fact that we both need to move on and I don't want to be like one of those couples that continue to have sex and seem to be stuck on one another."

Quinn nods, it makes sense and they did seem to need their space. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yeah, you're probably right about the whole we need our space from each other. You're probably right that we need to figure out who we are now that we're not Quinn and Santana—it's alphabetical we've had this discussion before," Quinn inserts quickly when Santana looks ready to argue about the placement of her name.

"Fuck the alphabet."

Quinn smiles, this hurt far more than she thought it would. There was a finality to everything that didn't make her feel good about herself. It was the end of an era, an era that could have been so great if she hadn't fucked it up. "Yeah. Fuck the alphabet."

Santana shrugs, "R comes before S anyway." She pauses for a moment. "You didn't have anything to do with the email leaks did you?"

"No. I swear to you I didn't." Quinn promises.

"Good, because Prometheus is coming for whoever was behind it. I just hope you weren't stupid enough to be the one to do it." Santana shrugs. She's not an employee of Prometheus anymore so she really shouldn't care. "I don't think Charlie hates you as much as she says she does. I think you can fix the relationship if you really put in the effort. And by effort I mean calling her every day and showing up uninvited to eat her food and drink her expensive booze."

"I think I'll leave that up to you, if Charlie and I ever do get to a good place, it's not because I'm getting under her skin."

"Your loss," Santana shrugs and moves to get up. "Look, I've got to go, I've got so much paperwork to do and I have a physical to get to. So I guess, I'll be seeing you?"

"Yeah. Hopefully you will." Quinn nods. This had gone better than she had expected. She could see the look that was in Santana's eye. She was in pain but hopefully this had soothed some of the hurt that was there. "Oh, and Santana?" Quinn calls out causing Santana to turn to her. "Please don't lose a hand or an eye. I don't think the pirate look is for you." Quinn can't help but laugh when Santana gives her the one finger salute before walking out of the Spotlight diner.

Things may be finally looking up. They certainly couldn't get any worse. Right?