School was easy: nobody dared to casually approach Claire, and Rachel had somehow managed to convince the dancer to let Rachel join her in rehearsals with Amy and Janet.

Well, Amy, mostly. Janet was the understudy and since Amy was famous for her refusal to utilize an understudy, she didn't have to attend rehearsals as often as Amy did.

In any case, Rachel was able to fill her days with dance lessons with the added bonus of avoiding the nosy, inquiring minds of her two roommates.

She supposed she should be grateful that they cared so much, or at least that they were concerned enough to worry about why she deliberately kept herself busy (or, if she's honest, distracted). She knew they were able to discern the obvious change in her demeanor, the fact that Brody never called or came by anymore, and she knew she was being obvious by consistently coming home late and went straight to bed.

She just couldn't help but think that their attempts to talk to her, telling her that she could tell them what was wrong, were empty promises. She wasn't stupid: she knew their feelings for Jesse were largely negative, and telling them that she was depressed because of how he had reacted to her romantic overture was just asking for trouble. Kurt had certainly made his feelings about Jesse known.

And she didn't want to let them say anything negative about Jesse. He had been largely straightforward with her, this time around, and it wasn't his fault that she had read more than she should have in his actions. Besides, she knew that this misunderstanding would blow over eventually, and they would pick up from where they had left off - she truly valued his friendship, even if she wasn't thrilled at the prospect of them stuck being friends, she really wanted to sing Bohemian Rhapsody, and she enjoyed their sessions - and she looked forward to the day when she wasn't keeping him a secret.

In the meantime?

"Berry." Came a resigned sigh that was laced with some amusement, as she felt someone's weight settle on the edge of her bed. "I thought I told you to stay out of trouble until I got here."

Rachel opened her eyes at the voice that roused her from not-quite-wakefulness and jumped up, turning to her guest with a bright smile. "Quinn! You're here!"

She could hear her two roommates' indignant exclamations of incredulity from beyond her bedroom. Nothing against them, but at least Quinn already knew about Jesse, even if she had tried to avoid telling her more about him since they parted company the other night.

Even if Quinn had taken her sweet time in getting to New York.

Rachel gave Quinn a smile to remove the harshness of her accusation. "You're late."

Quinn returned her smile with a weak one of her own. "Pop quiz."

Rachel pouted.

"Oh, over my dead body!" Santana exclaimed, storming into Rachel's room. She pointed at Quinn. "I do my best and not go Lima Heights on the Hobbit's ass and I get Bambi eyes; Blondie shows up and it's all sunshine and rainbows?"

Rachel had been wondering why Santana hadn't trapped her in her room and confronted her about the whole moping thing, and was a little comforted by the thought that Santana had been concerned enough to try being nicer to her through the whole thing.

Kurt, who had followed Santana into the room, frowned. "Well, Quinn, now that you're here maybe you can get Rachel to tell you what's been wrong the past week."

"Kurt!" Rachel exclaimed. Was nothing sacred anymore?

Quinn forced a smile at Kurt and Santana. "On it."

"Great!" Kurt exclaimed, cheerfully.

Rachel glanced at him, and saw, under that obviously-fake cheerfulness, was hurt that she was obviously opting to confide in Quinn and not him.

Santana glared at Quinn. "You better spill the beans on Berry or I'm going back to Old Money U and kicking your ass."

Rachel wasn't even going to pretend that Santana's intentions on wanting to know was based on concern and not the desire to be in the know. Well, maybe at least very partially concern; certainly mostly for gossip-mongering. She figured if Santana found a way to get Quinn to tell her, at least Quinn would be the one to face Santana.

"You're going to try." Quinn sneered.

Because Quinn had a better chance of standing up to Santana (and winning) than she did.

Kurt sidled up to Rachel and with a sincere smile, noted, "Back in tenth grade who would have thought those two would be arguing over you?"

Rachel glanced at him, and her erstwhile amusement faded as she considered that he was one of her oldest friends, and she had been deliberately avoiding him. "Kurt..."

He shook his head, cutting off whatever she was about to say. He was curious, yes, but he didn't want to have an argument this early if Rachel was going to tell him why she couldn't confide in him. He smiled at her. "Just... Whatever it is you don't want to tell me, just deal with it, OK?" Seeing her relief at his show of understanding, he decided to add some humor to the exchange. "Having you pouting and moping around the few times I actually see you is giving me wrinkles."

Rachel smiled. "I will."

"You better, because things aren't right when Santana Lopez is the roommate that's easy to live with." Kurt confided.

"I heard that, Gayface." Santana shot at him.

"Right back at you, Gaytana." Kurt returned.

"Shoo, shoo," Rachel gestured at Kurt and Santana. "I have to talk to Quinn about our plans this weekend."

"I pity her already." Santana retorted, but nonetheless followed when Kurt left the room.

Quinn turned back to Rachel and raised an inquiring eyebrow. "We have plans?"

Rachel smiled. "We're meeting Shelby for brunch tomorrow."

"And...?"

Rachel grimaced. "Worrying about brunch tomorrow and working with Claire has had me... distracted. Which I haven't told you about."

"I know." Quinn noted. "Roommates One and Two told me you've been a veritable pile of angst the past few days, and your text messages have been strangely limited to single sentences."

"I don't want to talk about it." Rachel answered quickly. Off Quinn's darkening expression, she expounded, "Here. I don't want to talk about it here."

Quinn frowned at her, before understanding dawned on her. "Something happened."

Rachel nodded.

Quinn sighed, before nodding. "What's your schedule like today?"

"It's Friday."

Quinn gave her an expectant look.

"I usually have vocal lessons, but..." Rachel exhaled. "But that's not happening. My classes end early this afternoon."

"Didn't you say you were working on your dancing?" Quinn asked. "I'm remembering that correctly, right?"

Rachel nodded. "Yes, but Claire has her own classes to go to, so I can see you as soon as my classes end."

Quinn smiled. "That works: I have something to do in the library."

Rachel gave her a curious look. "Don't you want to hang out with Santana?"

Quinn laughed. "Not really, no."

Rachel grinned back. "Let me get ready, we can get breakfast before you go to the library."

Quinn nodded before she glanced around. "I have to charge my phone first, though."

Rachel pointed to her bedside lamp. "I'm not sure where the wiring leads to, though. You can just follow it."

Quinn laughed. "Got it."

When Rachel left to go into the bathroom, Quinn joined Kurt and Santana in the living room.

Santana gave her a look. "You cut school to hang out with Berry? Are you seriously still guilty about high school?"

Quinn ignored her before she leveled both of them with a glare. "Let me be very clear: I'm here because Rachel got Shelby to agree to let me see Beth. If Rachel tells me anything, I don't have to tell either of you anything about it. And I won't. So don't try."

"She broke up with Brody." Kurt told her.

"What did I just say?" Quinn asked sharply. This was brand-new information but nothing too surprising. She still didn't like that Kurt was just telling her and sundry about Rachel's personal life.

"I'm just saying," Kurt began, "it could be a sensitive subject. It could be why she's channeling Sandra Bullock in Hope Floats."

"Hey, hold on." Santana interjected, facing Kurt accusingly. "I thought we were on the same boat of Berry keeping us in the dark. What gives, Hummel?"

"It's all over NYADA." Kurt told her. "And rumor has it she broke it off, so everyone's in a tizzy."

Santana furrowed her brow. "What's a tizzy?"

"Point is," Quinn cut off the inevitable discussion of just what exactly a "tizzy" was (and thank God Rachel wasn't around to take part in that debate). "If Rachel tells me anything, I'm keeping her confidence. Unless she gives me explicit permission to tell either of you, you're just going to have to get it out of her on your own. And that -" Quinn glared pointedly at Santana "- does not mean you get to carry out Sue Sylvester's patented brand of interrogation techniques."

"Fine." Santana muttered.

Quinn only glared at her.

Santana feigned ignorance.

Kurt glanced at them both.

Finally, Santana threw up her hands. "Fine! I'm not gonna get her drunk to tell all! Got it! Happy now, Fabray?"

"Thrilled." Quinn said flatly, revealing nothing.

If only the same could be said for Rachel, who was itching to tell someone about her past few days. At a diner near NYADA that Rachel liked to frequent for breakfast when her schedule would allow, she told Quinn about the breakup with Brody, which, there wasn't much to tell, really, but talking about Brody was the best segue to talking about Jesse.

"Jesse doesn't want me."

Quinn, who had lifted her coffee cup to her lips, paused briefly before she took a sip. She looked up at Rachel, and saw the despondent expression on the brunette's face. "He said that?"

"He didn't have to."

"Step back a little, Rachel, and try to give me a clearer picture." Quinn suggested.

Rachel exhaled heavily, idly decimating the bran muffin she'd bought to go with Quinn's plate of bacon and eggs. She hadn't even eaten the thing, finding its purpose more suited to occupying her hands. "Remember when you said I should talk to him?"

Quinn nodded.

"Well, I did. And he said no."

Again, with the lack of details. Quinn squinted at Rachel. "What did you talk about?"

Her song choices. Brody. Finn. "It doesn't matter."

"Rachel, there's a reason I'm asking." Quinn softly insisted. "I can't make sympathetic sounds of understanding if I don't know what I'm being sympathetic about."

Rachel had to smile at Quinn's attempt at support. "'Sympathetic sounds of understanding'?"

"It's that or empty platitudes, and you know how I feel about that." Quinn pointed out.

Rachel acquiesced. "I told him I broke up with Brody."

Quinn nodded. At least she now knew Rachel could listen to advice if she really wanted to. (She had begun to doubt, given how the brunette had refused to throughout their senior year of high school.)

"And he was really... It was like he didn't care. Like I'd just told him it's warm and sunny during summer." Rachel huffed her annoyance, just recalling the conversation. Whenever she thought about her last encounter with Jesse, she found that her emotions tended to swing sharply between annoyance and heartbroken. "And then, get this, he told me he was dating someone."

Quinn's eyebrow lifted. "He did?"

"I mean, I just broke up with someone - for him, I might add - and he told me he was dating someone else, which was why he didn't want me!"

If possible, Quinn's eyebrow arched higher. "Did he."

Rachel nodded. "He was all straight-faced sitting there, telling me, breakups are hard."

"It's true." Quinn pointed out.

"He could have been a little more sympathetic, don't you think?"

Quinn didn't know, because she hadn't been there. She had always thought of Jesse St. James as someone who could be cold and detached if he wanted, someone who knew how to be cool and calculating if he had to be. She would never claim to know him, but from her very limited exposure to the older boy she felt she understood him a little. After all, someone who could do whatever he wanted didn't have to crawl back to the place he was most hated just to ask forgiveness from the girl whose heart he'd broken.

"And," Rachel continued, tearing apart her muffin with a viciousness that alarmed even the former Cheerio team captain (and Sue Sylvester protégée), "he had the audacity to tell me my song choices were weak and needed work! As if someone who's partial to singing Queen and Sondheim has the right to talk to me about my song choices!"

Quinn took a moment to take a good look at the crumbs that used to be Rachel's muffin before she looked back up at the singer. "Well... that's it, right?"

Rachel gave her a questioning look.

"You wanted to know how he felt, and now you know."

Rachel shook her head vehemently. "No. Well, yes. But I'm not just accepting that."

"Why not?"

"Because he kept redirecting."

"Redirecting?" Quinn echoed, confused.

"He kept on bringing up Finn."

Of course he did. Quinn couldn't really blame him, after all, for the past three years or so Rachel had been quite Finn-centric, even when the quarterback had been dating Quinn.

"He accused me of stringing him along." Rachel muttered, frowning at the mess on her plate, brushed her hands dry with a napkin, and pushed the plate away. "That I lied about our entire relationship."

"Finn?"

"Jesse." Rachel frowned at Quinn. "Why would you even-"

"Nothing." Quinn shook her head. She gave Rachel a weak smile. "My issue."

Rachel paused, frowning at Quinn and trying to get a read on what Quinn meant, but just nodded. "He thinks I never loved him."

"Why?" Quinn asked, curious.

"Why." Rachel scoffed a wry laugh. "Why would he? Apparently because I kept choosing Finn over him, that all of it meant nothing. Like I'm the guilty party. Like he didn't stand there and make me look like an idiot. Like he didn't stand there and let his friends throw eggs at me and add injury to insult by doing it himself. Like he didn't manipulate my feelings by making me believe I was getting the solo at Nationals when Mr. Schue hadn't actually made the decision. Like he wasn't just a plant put there by my mother to make me... I don't even know what they wanted from me."

Quinn looked up quickly at that last statement. "You don't know?"

Rachel shook her head, her earlier annoyance once more giving in to sadness. "It nearly broke me, the first time 'round, I didn't want to have to relive it."

"Sure, but so much of what's happened since then is rooted to that." Quinn argued. "Rachel, you're trying to have a relationship with Jesse, and you want Shelby in your life; this can't just be the thing you don't talk about."

Rachel glared at her, anger rising again. "And you're such a good example of dealing with things you don't want to talk about?"

Quinn returned her glare. "No, and that's what I mean. I tried to ignore what happened, and all it's led to was almost getting into juvie and nearly dropping out of school due to excess absences. Did you know I almost didn't get into Yale? I almost lost everything, just because I thought it would be better if I just pretended Beth never happened. And, yeah, it sucks, but it's sure a whole lot better than spending my time worrying about something I can't change."

Rachel glared at her some more before she relented, and sank back in her seat. "Well, if you put it that way..."

"Rachel."

"Fine! I'll talk to Shelby." Rachel muttered. "I'm sure that'll be a fun conversation to have."

"Look, you can't just say you forgive Jesse when you don't even really know what you're forgiving him for. When you say it, you'll have to really mean it, like, the whole deal. Not... not just parts of it."

"Jesse won't tell me Shelby's part in it." Rachel admitted. "We've talked about it, but..."

"Maybe he doesn't know." Quinn pointed out.

"How can he not know?" Rachel asked. "He agreed to pursue me on her command."

"Rach, she was his show choir director. She was his ticket out of Ohio. You used to grin and bear it - with the more-than-occasional walk-out - when Mr. Schue asked you to do something you didn't want to."

Rachel pouted.

"Calling me and Sam Barbie and Ken?" Quinn reminded. "Anyway, he was willing to crack an egg on your head just to prove to his teammates he was still their leader. What makes you think he wasn't going to be willing to date a girl from a rival show choir to prove to his boss he was still her lackey?"

"Jesse would never have been willing to be a lackey." Rachel muttered.

"Rachel, I did Sue Sylvester's bidding for three years even though I hated some of the things she wanted me to do. If someone held all your future possibilities in the palm of their hand? You do whatever they tell you to do." Quinn told her. "You don't have to like it, but you choose the one thing left to hold on to."

She hated to admit it, but Quinn had a point. Lima, Ohio, wasn't exactly teeming with possibilities, especially not for people like her and Jesse, whose dreams were far bigger than any stage Ohio could provide. "You think Shelby did that?" Rachel asked softly.

Quinn exhaled. "I don't know. But considering the two of you share DNA, I'm going to have to say that it's not an impossible notion."

Rachel frowned her confusion. "Was that a compliment...?"

"I'm just saying she wanted something, and there was nothing in the world that was going to stop her: not a contract, not moral or ethical dilemmas, and certainly not the possibility that what she wanted and what you wanted probably weren't the same." Quinn conjectured. "And you, Rachel Berry, tend to get what you want. Why wouldn't Shelby be the same?"