Quinn studied her twin out of the corner of her eye, a skill she had perfected over the past year. It had been a long year, filled with its ups and downs, but it was something that she had gotten to share with her twin. It was something that she and Charlie worked on daily. She would personally like to believe that her twin trusted her not to abandon her—Santana's disappearance had hit Charlie hard. Harder than anyone would like to admit, but she was better now. Charlie was going to be okay, even if she still got defensive when she caught people staring.

Charlie rolled her eyes. Quinn was about as subtle as a bull in a china shop. "Spit it out."

"Fine. Aren't you even going to open it?" She gestures to the letter. Charlie had studied for months to get her GED and the letter was still unopened, lying in the exact same place Quinn had put it when she brought the mail in earlier this week. Quinn was dying with anticipation. "You worked so hard on it."

Charlie turned to the letter on the table, she personally didn't really care. "Why does it matter? I probably failed. And even if I didn't what is it supposed to mean? It's not the same as a high school diploma, and I'm far too old to care about shit like that."

"So you don't mind if I open it then and find out?" Quinn asked reaching for the letter. "We both worked hard at it and I'm pretty sure that test is fucking harder than what we learned in high school."

Charlie frowned and shrugged. "Do whatever you want, I'm going to go do inventory," she says shaking her head.

"You've got to be joking."

"About needing to do inventory?" Charlie deflected, "No. I'm not. Because I think Terry is shorting us a couple of bottles of whisky with each order. Since the truck was just unloaded I'm going to confirm it and then I'm going to inform that little weasel that we're finding a new supplier."

"Charlie, this is a huge deal. You should be proud of yourself. So please for my own sanity, open the damn letter."

Charlie ignored her, and scratched her chin absentmindedly. "We'll probably have another busy night tonight—but if that guy from Hollywood shows up again I'm going to break a bottle over his head." Charlie bitches, as she begins to walk away. Getting into business with Quinn had been a terrible idea. But apparently there wasn't much need for someone with her history. Quinn had also shot down becoming a bounty hunter, or starting their own private investigator's company. And she wasn't about to write a book, or sell her story to some Hollywood producer that Rachel kept introducing her too. Tearing up Santana's blood money had been stupid as well, no matter how satisfied it made her feel at the time. "If you want to read what's in the letter, read what's in the letter. I don't care Quinn."

Quinn's eyes narrow. "This is about Santana, isn't it?"

"Newsflash. Sometimes 'taking inventory' is just inventory. Not everything in this world is about Santana."

"But this is."

"No. It's not. It's definitely not about the woman who abandoned me." Charlie snaps in annoyance. "It's about the fact that I'm thirty-one years old and may or may not have gotten a stupid certificate saying that I have the competency of an eighteen-year-old. I don't care what it says. I just want to move on."

But Quinn's not buying it. "So your idea of 'moving on' is ignoring any success you ever have?"

"My idea of moving on, is trying to create a successful business. That's what I want Quinn, to have the freedom so I can retire to some tropical island somewhere away from everyone. Bad shit happened to me, I don't understand why everyone wants me to rehash it for their damn amusement."

Quinn rolled her eyes and snatched the letter up and tore it open, if Charlie was going to be a child about it she was going to have to keep pushing her. She scanned the results and before Charlie could exit the room. "You passed."

Charlie stiffened, "God damnit Quinn. What part of I don't want to know don't you get?"

Quinn shrugged, she was getting used to Charlie's little temper tantrums and she didn't feel all that bad about informing her twin that she had one less thing to worry about. "The part where you hide from every little piece of possible bad news. You passed. You can move on with your life. You're competent. It's one less thing for you to worry about now we can start looking at the universities—"

"Shit, can't you just leave it?" Charlie's done with this conversation. There's a reason she didn't want to know, even if she can't really articulate it. She doesn't want to think of the pressure and stress of the future she had dreamed of as a kid.

"Charlie—"

"No. I don't want to hear it. I just want to take inventory and pour drinks for our regulars and not worry about it for one fucking second. So I'm going to say it one more time. I don't want to talk about it anymore." It sucked. It sucked that she couldn't have opened up her bar without Quinn's help, because she didn't have any credit to her name. It sucked that she needed Quinn to supervise. It made her feel like a child.

Quinn watched her twin sister for a moment and sighed, there were times when they were good and things just clicked between them and there were times like now where she simply pushed her too far. This wasn't how Charlie wanted to spend the rest of her life. Sure she was a business owner, but the bar wasn't doing that well to begin with, and Charlie was getting frustrated at her lack of success. It was a feeling that she understood, she didn't even want to own the damn bar. But Charlie had needed help getting a loan and everything that she had saved was quickly dwindling to nothing.

Quinn sighed and picked up her phone so she could call her wife, this wasn't what Rachel wanted her to do with her life either. She understood, but Rachel was under the opinion that she needed to be much more hands off with Charlie and let her figure things out. She had attempted to do just that until Charlie had been caught attempting to get across the border nearly six months ago to go and find Santana. "Rachel, I think I stepped in it again," she said with a sigh flicking her eyes to the stupid letter.

'Quinn, I know it's difficult but I'm just about to go on set. I'll see you tonight, I promise. Just, apologize. Charlie is clearly working through some things and you just need to be patient. Also perhaps, we'll throw her a party soon to celebrate getting her GED. Perhaps when she finally feels good about it—now I have to go Quinn, the director is staring at me.'

"Love you," Quinn murmurs and she can practically feel Rachel's huge grin through the phone.

'I love you too."

Quinn leaned back for a moment and then sighed she would help Charlie with the inventory and then apologize. It seemed that this was just another one of Charlie's many issues. Which meant that she needed to handle her twin with kid gloves.

~O~

Sebastian was not thrilled as he picked up the empty bottle that was lying beside Santana. "If you're going to be this pathetic, ma'am, I suggest that you take it elsewhere. I've given you a few months to adjust but this is bordering on the pathetic." He didn't flinch when Santana shot him a dark look. "No, excuse me. You crossed over to pathetic the moment you came back. I was simply far too polite to say anything about it to you. An odd thing, given the fact that I'm hardly polite about anything."

"Fuck you."

"Well, I'd certainly like cock every now and again but we've had this conversation. I'm not attracted to pathetic people and ever since the bitch left you've been a whiny little shit. Yes, I get it. Your best friends betrayed you. Your father already had Finn brutally murdered in prison. I hear it wasn't pretty."

Santana turned over after flipping him off, she honestly didn't care. "Sebastian. My men have fucking left me and I don't trust anyone to have my back like they did before. I'm sure my security detail is fucking incompetent, which means I can't leave the goddamn compound, which also puts me at risk." Santana bitches, Charlie could have handled it. It was a lot to put on her, but she was competent.

Sebastian groaned inwardly, "So you're still thinking with your dick. Good to know, at least that's fixable. There are other competent women in Los Angelicos who are exactly what you're looking for and would love to be with you. Would love to become the power couple—that you and Charlie were never going to be. Both you and Charlie both know that your relationship didn't start out as consensual and anything after the fact still wasn't consensual. You never gave her the opportunity to choose you. So this romanticizing of the facts needs to end."

Santana sat up so she could glare at Sebastian and then made a face when he didn't flinch, she had clearly lost her touch. "I'm not romanticizing anything. I'm aware that Charlie could never love me, I'm aware that what we had was beyond fucked up and messed up. I'm aware of this—"

"Are you aware of the fact that she's had the tattoo removed?" Sebastian reminds her. "Or that she's turned down every attempt that you've made to give her money for her new bar?"

Santana muttered a few expletives under her breath, she knew about the damn money but not the tattoo. Charlie was far too stubborn and proud to take her money, even though her stupid little bar was probably failing. "I don't give a shit."

"Good, then perhaps we can talk about how you're going to re-cement your spot as the future head of the Los Angelicos. It's been a year and I assure you that your father's patience has been wearing thin. You know as well as I do, that Charlie couldn't stay in Mexico. Not with the giant target that would be on her back. People think that she snitched, they have no idea what your involvement in all of this was."

"You think I enjoyed going to the damn feds—"

"I don't really care if you enjoyed it or not, the fact is that you did. The only people who know are your father and myself. Your father isn't going to kill you for it, but he's losing his patience Santana and is actively looking for a new heir to the throne, because he thinks that you no longer want it anymore."

Santana narrowed her eyes, "I don't think we should be making deals with senators anymore, I don't think we should be getting in the business of kidnapping teenagers anymore. I think that we should take a good long hard look at our legitimate businesses and move in that direction. I have a clean slate, courtesy of the US government. We can make billions instead of millions." Her father knew she was right, and more importantly she knew she was right.

Sebastian pinched the bridge of his nose, "Fine, do as you wish, but I'm telling this as the only person who can deal with your bitchy attitude. Your father isn't pleased Santana. If you need closure on the damn Charlie situation, then go and see her and talk to her. I can't imagine she'll be thrilled to see you. But for my sanity and quite frankly yours, you need to get over her."

Santana did the only thing that she could think of, she flipped him off before flopping back on her lounge chair. "Get me another mojito," she grumbles at him.