The Roommate

Previously in More than just a footnote...Kurt, Rachel and Mercedes moved to New York and began to negotiate a new school, a new job and new people and apparently Quinn and Santana were not too far away…

Quinn looked around her new room and smiled, she was so excited to have made it to New York, she was ready for this, drama major, striking out on her own, well almost on her own, Santana was down the corridor, Kurt and Rachel were at NYADA and Mercedes was living with them too, but she was finally going to make something of herself, leave behind her high school mistakes. But then there were some parts of high school she was proud of; she thought as she put up her photos of her two senior year national championships.

Suddenly there was a knock on the door, Quinn ran over to open it, outside was a tall girl with short light brown hair and an unsure look on her face, 'You must be Toni,' Quinn said.

'Yeah, you're Quinn right?' Quinn nodded and let her new roommate in, the two girls looked like polar opposites, Quinn was every inch the ex-cheerleading champ, but Toni looked like everything she wasn't. Toni dropped her guitar on the spare bed and glanced at Quinn's photos. 'You were a cheerleader?' She asked awkwardly.

'Yeah, were you?'

Toni almost laughed, 'No way, the cheerleaders at my old school threw eggs at me,' she said.

Quinn laughed, 'Nice, well I don't do stuff like that.' Their conversation quickly moved onto what they were studying and their favourite music, but later Quinn did wonder about the egg comment, whether it meant anything more.

After some time spent unpacking together Quinn pointed to Toni's guitar and asked 'You any good?'

'I'm not terrible,' she said, 'Do you play anything?'

'No, I sing though,' Quinn held up another photo that Toni hadn't noticed before, 'I was in my school's glee club too, that's definitely the championship I was most proud of.' She swallowed as she looked at the photo, it was hard to think about that, she still missed Finn even though at the end of their high school career they had been drifting apart, they had been through a lot together, she had put him through a lot. It was still strange to think that he would never be there again, but it wasn't so fresh now.

Quinn had been hoping to introduce this fact without having to take a painful trip down memory lane, but Toni was too observant for that, 'Are you ok?' she asked her and when Quinn couldn't answer for a minute she said, 'I guess you miss them.'

'No,' she paused, she guessed this information had to come out sometime, 'I mean I do, but it's not that,' she realised to her embarrassment that she had tears in her eyes, 'One of the guys,' she pointed to Finn, 'Finn, he died in a car accident this summer.'

'Oh God,' Toni said, 'That must have been awful,' she wondered what to do next, she had known this girl for approximately four hours and all of a sudden she had this intensely personal piece of information.

Quinn however pulled herself together quite quickly, 'It's ok, well it's not, but I'm alright, it was hardest on Rachel and Kurt,' she said pointing out two other people on the photograph, 'He was her boyfriend and his step-brother you see,' she explained, there was an awkward silence.

'Hold on,' Toni said, looking at the photo carefully, 'Which school did you say you went to?'

'I didn't, but William McKinley High School, it's in Lima.'

'Oh,' Toni was confused, 'Can I see that?' She took the photo from her and looked at it more carefully; that was definitely who she thought it was, and that was definitely her sister's new school. She hadn't been planning on telling anyone about anything, but now Quinn knew there must be something and she could hardly leave it hanging like that, plus she had just been so honest with her. She ran her hand through her short mousy brown hair, and reached under her bed for her own photo album, she flicked through it quietly.

'What is it?' Quinn asked coming to look at the pictures, she had collected herself now and was glad that the conversation about Finn had been short, she was glad to have told her roommate, but at the same time it wasn't in her nature to have long conversations about what she was feeling or not. Then she saw him, the reason why Toni had got out this album to show her, he was younger, his hair was longer and un-gelled but it was unmistakeably Blaine Anderson, 'You know Blaine? How?'

'I went to Westerville High,' she said, 'We were, well, we were really good friends.'

'That's freaky, you have to meet Santana,' she grabbed the photo and pointed at the latina girl, Quinn was glad to jump on the distraction, plus it was really weird to find out that her new roommate had known one of her high school friends, 'she's here too, and Mercedes and Rachel, she's at NYADA, with Kurt, that's Blaine's boyfriend,' she pointed at Kurt again, forgetting that she had only pointed him out moments ago, 'But I guess you know that.'

'Well, yeah, I mean we don't really talk now, but I knew he had a boyfriend and that he left Dalton and stuff,' Toni's mind was going into overdrive, she had totally not thought about the fact that McKinley was Blaine's school now, and he was going to be there still, she couldn't decide if that was a good thing or not.

But Quinn was distracted and already phoning her friend, Santana she'd said her name was, and telling her that she had to come and meet Toni and that she knew Blaine and that it was really weird. Santana arrived a few minutes later and Quinn launched into the whole explanation again, but Santana quickly stopped her friend, 'Quinn, shut up, you sound like Berry.' She then turned to Toni and offered her hand, 'Hi, I'm Santana, I hear you know our curly haired hobbit.'

Toni looked at the girl who had just walked in, she was even more attractive than in her photo with her long dark hair falling on her shoulders and her dark skin, she blinked and pulled herself together so she didn't stare and laughed, 'Hi, yeah, I'm Toni, and yeah we were friends at Westerville, before, well, before he went to Dalton.' She glanced at the floor, wondering for the first time how much they would know about Westerville, Quinn hadn't seemed surprised to hear that Blaine had transferred to Dalton, but she had gotten a little over excited and probably not really been thinking about it.

Quinn was now on the phone to Mercedes, arranging to introduce Toni to her and Rachel and Kurt and so not really listening to the other two, so Santana said quietly, 'Yeah I know, him and Kurt told me when I,' she stopped and swallowed and changed what she was going to say, 'last year, but Quinn and Rachel don't, Kurt might have told Mercedes something, I don't know.'

'Oh thanks, I won't say anything then, I guess I'll have to say something about why he left though.'

'Just say he transferred, Berry's pretty accepting and Quinn seems to be too excited to notice, we can say he was bullied if they ask, they ought to know that anyway, it was pretty obvious,' she said, 'So, has he always been one for hogging the spotlight?'

'Oh yes,' Toni laughed, 'Ever since we were in middle school, I take it nothing's changed.'

Santana shook her head, 'He is good though, but don't tell him I said that.'

Quinn finally put her phone down, 'We're seeing Kurt, Mercedes and Rachel tomorrow, at three for coffee, is that alright?'

'Yes, but stop being so over excited, it's weird,' Santana said.

The next day Toni let Santana and Quinn take her to meet their school friends in the city, she was kind of wishing she had just kept her mouth shut about recognising Blaine the day before, it was all getting a bit complicated with who knew what and things like that often got messy and ended in people finding out things that they shouldn't. When they arrived at the coffee bar they met a bubbly black girl and a taller guy with porcelain white skin, and who she definitely recognised, they'd never actually met but facebook had shown her plenty of pictures of him with the Warblers since she was friends with a few of them. Quinn introduced them quickly, not quite as over-excited as the day before but still pretty over the top. Mercedes explained that Rachel hadn't come because she wanted to do work and call home, she apologised on her behalf but the three girls from NYU nodded in understanding.

'Blaine's going to be so annoyed I met his ex without him there, I want good stories,' Kurt said laughing a little after they had been talking for a while, he was actually enjoying the reminiscing about high school they had been doing, it was somehow healing to talk about happy memories, but he understood why Rachel hadn't wanted to come.

Mercedes and Quinn looked from Kurt to Toni with great confusion, 'His what?' Mercedes asked, her gossip-queen-self coming to the surface.

He laughed, 'Not like that,' he smiled thinking of Rachel and Blaine's kiss at that stupid party, 'They were each other's beards in high school.'

Then Quinn turned to look at Toni who had blushed and was not looking at any of them, 'Ummm…' she said.

'Oh, sorry, I didn't think,' Kurt said blushing as well.

'No it's ok, I was going to tell you, it's just, it hadn't really come up,' she looked at Quinn apologetically.

'It's fine, I don't care and I don't care when you tell me,' she said smiling.

'Thanks,' Toni said, not really sure where to go from here, she'd hoped that uni would be different from high school but she still had a hard time imagining that these three straight girls didn't just love Kurt because he would go shopping with them and wouldn't be able to cope with her, especially not in their rooms.

'Wait,' Quinn said, finally using her brain and connecting some of the information she had, 'Is that what you meant when you said cheerleaders threw eggs at you?'

'Yeah, but I don't want to talk about it.'

Another person who didn't really want to be talking about this was Santana, who had taken an unrealistic interest in the floor as the conversation had progressed, one that Toni couldn't help noticing and wondering about.

Sensing the need to change the subject and also very happy for any more information that might be forthcoming, Mercedes asked, 'So Blaine?'

Toni relaxed visibly, 'What else do you want to know?'

'Has he always stolen all the solos?' Mercedes asked.

Toni burst out laughing, 'Was this a sore topic or something?' the others looked confused so she said, 'It's just Santana asked me basically the same thing, and yes he did.' She turned to Santana as she made the last comment and noticed that while she and Mercedes had been speaking the other three must have been exchanging some kind of whispered conversation because the Latina girl was now looking daggers at Quinn instead of studying the floor. She scowled and got up from the table. There was an awkward moment before Kurt got up to go after her, giving Quinn an exasperated look.

Toni looked kind of shell shocked by the whole thing, 'What was that?' she asked.

'Sorry,' Quinn said, 'That one's Santana's to explain or not, I should have remembered that before I put pressure on her.'

'Well that makes it all so much clearer,' she said narrowing her eyes in confusion, 'Are you guys always in this much drama?'

'Yeah most of the time,' Mercedes laughed.

'I think you're worse than the Warblers,' Toni smiled.

Kurt tapped Santana on the shoulder when he found her standing outside, the two of them had never been really close before the summer, but somehow being the two gay couples in your high school had forged something between the four of them and he was starting to understand some of who Santana was, 'Are you alright?' he asked.

'No, I wasn't expecting that and then Quinn went and made it really obvious so now I'll have to explain.'

'You don't have to, this is totally your decision to deal with when you're ready.'

She smirked, 'I wish,' she said and then regretting it she added, 'Sorry I didn't mean…'

'It's ok, I know Finn was an idiot with all of that and it was awful for you,' he said.

'Thanks, I just, I hadn't decided how to handle it here, I don't want people making assumptions about me, but I don't want to hide myself from them either.'

'I think maybe you have your answer on how to handle it then, in there is as good a place as any to start not hiding yourself.'

They walked back in, Kurt half a step in front of Santana as she imagined the conversation she could have, 'Sorry,' she said to the three girls, 'I didn't mean to go all-'

'Scary Santana?' Mercedes suggested helpfully.

'Yeah that,' she sat down and looked at Toni, 'I guess I owe you an explanation.'

'You don't owe me anything,' Toni replied, Kurt saw how mature she was when she said that, he was so glad to have met this girl, and he really hoped he would be able to help her and Blaine get back in touch.

'Well then I owe myself, when Quinn said she didn't mind, you can be sure she doesn't because she wasn't just fine with Kurt and Blaine at high school, she was fine with me and Brittany as well.'

'Oh, which one's Brittany?' Toni asked, thinking about the photo she had seen the day before.

'Blond, cheerleader, not me,' Quinn said helpfully.

'Sweet,' Toni said and somehow the subject was closed, Santana was shocked by the lack of drama in the situation, she almost felt disappointed that the first time she had controlled her coming out it had been this chilled. They chatted for a bit longer and then Santana and Quinn left to go shopping and Mercedes to go and meet someone from work. Kurt offered to walk back with Toni, she insisted that she didn't need a chaperone, but he told her it was nothing of the sort he was simply after more material to blackmail his boyfriend with. 'Thanks for not saying anything about Sadie Hawkins when you were talking about Westerville,' he said as they were walking out.

'That's ok, Santana told me most people didn't know.'

'You know, I think he misses you, he told me once he regretted you didn't stay in touch,' Kurt told her.

'Yeah, I kind of miss him too, I guess we both just got distracted, it'd be good to see him again,' she said wistfully, Kurt was happy to hear that, even though she sounded sad when she said it, it would be good to do something nice for Blaine after everything he had done for him recently.

'Listen, I don't know if I should mention it,' she said, 'But I wanted you to know Quinn told me about Finn and I'm really sorry that must have been awful and I totally understand why Rachel didn't want to come today.'

'It's ok, I'm glad we had today, it was fun to talk about good stuff from high school, after all that was a mixed experience for all of us.' He let his mind wander for a moment, thinking about what that meant and then changed to subject for the rest of their walk back to the dorms.

'So, I'm sorry yesterday was awkward,' Toni said to Santana the next day when they were walking to sociology together.

'That's an understatement, I'm sorry I got pissed, I just, I got outed in high school and so it's weird-'

'Being in control of it now?' Toni finished for her, 'That must have sucked.'

'Yeah it did, I wasn't ready and all of a sudden everyone had to know, my parents and my abuela and everyone, I hated being forced to be happy and comfortable with it, Kurt and Blaine were always just so damn, I don't know, out, I didn't want to do that at first.'

Toni nodded and looked sympathetic, 'I get it, I wasn't ready for everyone to know when they started to work it out either, but at least I'd already told everyone who mattered, and I guess it was going to be pretty obvious after Blaine,' she winced thinking about it.

'Yeah that would kind of give the game away wouldn't it, it's not that I wasn't, I mean I love Brittany and I'm happy with her, but it's such a label, people assume that I'm…' she left it hanging and Toni didn't get a chance to talk about it anymore since their class was about to start.

A/N: So…this is my first major OC in this story, I would love to hear what people think of her and anything else in this story. Next chapter we'll be back in Lima mostly with a little New York scene.