The best part of not-dating Quinn was that Rachel got to experience the perks of dating in general. Namely, the hand-holding, the companionship. Add to that Quinn's tenderness towards her, a tutor who only demanded Rachel's famous sugar cookies as recompense, and a cuddle-buddy for late afternoon naps, Rachel would dare say that she had the privilege to take advantage of all the perks of her not-relationship with Quinn.

The worst part of not-dating Quinn was that. Not-dating.

It was a matter of semantics, she knew, but the mere knowledge that all of this was not real was enough to diminish what could have been pure, unadulterated joy of being with Quinn.

Rachel could act as lovesick as she wanted, as she truly was, and Quinn would only pass it off as Rachel's dedication to the role of Quinn Fabray's girlfriend. Which, she was devoted to the role.

That was the problem. Rachel was too devoted. To Quinn. To the role. To winning prom queen.

Much to her detriment.

It took no time at all for Rachel to get accustomed to having posters of her and Quinn plastered all over the school. Of course, she had to pretend that she didn't care at all when sometimes, students would gather in front of one and appear to discuss the qualities of the poster, its merits, and its downfalls.

One such occurrence, while Rachel made her way to the lunch room, she paused near the water fountain and pretended to refill her water bottle. The bulletin board beside the fountain had a Quinn and Rachel prom couple poster tacked onto it.

"Have you ever seen 'em kiss?" asked one of the students who was inspecting the poster.

"Come to think of it, I haven't," said his friend. "But I thought it was just because Quinn's shy, you know – she was the head of celibacy club for two years."

"Yeah, case in point – was. I thought it was just because of the gay thing."

"Weird," said another. "Even Brittany and Santana were kissing in the hallway and they weren't even dating."

"Who said they're together, anyway?"

"Maybe they're not. But why would they run for prom queen together if they're not dating?"

Rachel winced. That was one thing she neglected to consider — further public displays of their affection. She didn't think it would have to reach that point, but these students made a fair observation — albeit a creepy one. Still, it was good to sound out what the populace thought. It allowed Rachel to evaluate and adjust, and she did just that. She shouldered her way past pockets of students until she arrived at Quinn's locker.

"Hi, Quinn. You look positively radiant this…" Rachel glanced at the clock that hung on the wall. "Afternoon."

"Hi, Rachel," the blonde smiled and finished reapplying her lip gloss. She closed her locker, her lunch bag tucked under her arm. "Shall we? Lunch room or somewhere else?"

"The lunch room is fine, but," Rachel glanced around and spoke in a hushed tone. "We need to discuss something between us. In private."

"I can come over tonight if that's what you want?"

"It is," Rachel beamed. "Shall we?" She offered her arm, and with a laugh, Quinn curled her arm around Rachel's. Together they walked to the lunch room, sat with the glee club, and ate their lunch.

"So? What's so pressing that you looked like you were on the verge of having a breakdown earlier?" Quinn asked from her position on Rachel's bed. It became a habit for Quinn to come over at least once or twice a week. They would do their homework together, talk, and sometimes Quinn would have dinner with the Berrys. On particularly tiring days, Quinn would demand a nap, and Rachel would not deny her. If anything, she encouraged it by the simple act of allowing Quinn to spoon her while the blonde took a nap for an hour or two.

Rachel didn't think it was possible to fall in love even more, simply because of how Quinn breathed against her neck while she slept.

"I overheard some people talking about our campaign posters today," Rachel said.

"Were they in awe of my photoshopping and design skills?"

"No — I mean, I'm sure they were, when they first saw them. But they were scrutinizing us more than the poster itself."

Quinn yawned and burrowed her face into Rachel's pillow. She took a deep breath, sighed, and opened one eye to look at Rachel who continued to pace. "And?"

"Quinn, they're doubting our authenticity as a couple!"

For someone who would be the most affected if they were not believed to be dating, Quinn sure was calm about the entire thing. "How did you come to that conclusion?"

"They were talking about how they see Brittany and Santana kissing but not us!" Rachel had no idea why she felt anxious — a feeling she would have to unpack later. "So the only logical conclusion is to — "

"Rachel," Quinn said firmly. "We can't make out all over the school like Brittany and Santana do. Frankly, it's weird that they do that at all — it's not even because of the gay thing, but because even with a boy I wouldn't do that! And that you're considering to imitate Brittany and Santana, of all people, when it comes to our relationship? I don't know if you noticed, but they're kind of a mess."

"Well, okay, that's valid," Rachel huffed. "But when I was with Finn, I'd kiss him on the lips when we're by my locker or something, right? And if I remember correctly," Rachel wished she didn't remember correctly, but alas. "You did the same. With Sam, too. Should we — could we do that?"

Quinn looked at Rachel. Stared at her. "That's a pretty big step, isn't it? We're going from something along the lines of platonic girlfriends to platonic girlfriends who kiss. Are you sure you'd be okay with that?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" Rachel's voice quivered in her throat. She muttered to herself, "It's just a kiss. It'll be just like a role. Except at all hours, there's no boundary, and I think I'll go crazy…"

"What was that?"

"Nothing!" Rachel flashed Quinn her brightest smile, and the blonde did not ask any further questions. "So. Kissing, huh? Ever kissed a girl before?"

"Santana, during a game of spin the bottle. And Brittany, in ninth grade. You?"

Rachel sat on the edge of the bed and scratched at the lint on her duvet cover. "I highly doubt it'll be drastically different from kissing, let's say, Finn,"

"Oh, trust me. It's leaps and bounds different from kissing Finn Hudson."

"In that case," why did Rachel's hands shake so much? "I have not kissed a girl."

"Then I get to be your first," the smile on Quinn's face was easy, comforting. But Rachel didn't want it to be comforting — especially because it was likely comforting for the wrong reasons. Rachel was not nervous about kissing a girl. She feared for her life and her sanity because she was on the brink of kissing Quinn Fabray – of kissing the girl. "Don't worry — I won't bite."

Such a clichéd thing to say, but with Quinn, Rachel was willing to take all the clichés she was willing to give.

"How is it any different in the first place? They're just lips on a person of a different gender."

Quinn smirked and leaned her cheek against her palm, watching Rachel with heady eyes, an intent gaze. "You're right, there's no marked physical difference, really. I think it's just the fact that it's a girl can be so… liberating."

"Interesting," Rachel muttered to herself.

"Do you want to practice?" There was a light in Quinn's eyes that Rachel could not identify — besides, no matter what attempt she made, it would all feel like a projection. There was no way that Quinn looked at Rachel and her lips with such intensity. No way in hell would Quinn lick her lips in anticipation over the prospect that she would get to kiss Rachel Berry — of all people. "Just pecks on the lips — no big deal, right?"

"Right," Rachel's voice sounded distant, like a rattling of a lone hard bean in a tin can. Like yelling into a burial cave of her own making. "Right, no big deal at all."

Why did Quinn's breath smell like peaches — when did she even eat them? And were her eyelashes naturally that long?

And since when did kissing someone felt like floating in space?

Kissing Quinn Fabray was incomparable. Not because of any unique quality to her lips or her mouth (a lie — the fact that she was kissing Quinn was the unique quality to the kiss. It made Rachel's chest ache at the mere thought), but rather, Rachel forgot every boy she had ever kissed. Thus, she could not even begin to compare.

"How was that for a first kiss with a girl?"

Rachel could not look at Quinn's smile and not immediately reimagine how it felt against her own. The curl of her lip, the pliant softness. Rachel took a deep breath to control herself.

"How could it be anything but amazing?" Rachel asked Quinn. Their eyes on each other lingered a little too long to be comfortable, too sincere to be safely within the confines of the shoddy boundary Quinn instated in the early part of this relationship. "Girls are awesome."

Quinn chuckled and looked away. "Yeah, girls are pretty awesome. Do you want to practice some more?"

Rachel was only human.

How could she say no?

The first instance of when Quinn kissed Rachel was absolutely expected. They did talk about it last night, after all. The plan was: Quinn would walk Rachel to her class, as always, and they would... peck each other on the lips, easy as you please.

They stood in front of Rachel's classroom. She tilted her head, and in their eyes, it was as if they nodded at one another. A reminder of what they were about to do, in full view of the school's population.

"Have fun in class, okay?" Quinn's hand curled around the nape of Rachel's neck. Their lips met in a kiss that ended as soon as it began, much to Rachel's disappointment.

But it did the trick. It hooked everyone in, like ants willing to drown in a honey puddle.

The second time it happened it was purely unplanned, and, Rachel wondered, if it was the kissing and Rachel's constant proximity that somehow softened Quinn's guard.

It happened during lunch. Rachel bought Quinn a drink from the vending machine. The blonde was mid-sentence in her conversation with Tina when Rachel placed the cold bottle of apple juice in front of her. Quinn looked up at her and smiled. "Thank you, baby."

She tilted her chin upwards as if expecting something, and Rachel was unable to resist. She bent over, planted a kiss on Quinn's mouth. In the middle of the lunch room, where everyone could see and witness Rachel's further ascent into love.

Rachel sat beside Quinn on the same bench, her cheeks burning with her boldness. She hardly even heard the murmuring around them, their names in everyone's mouths. For in Rachel's ears, all she could hear was the rush of her blood, coursing to her face.

But when Quinn rested her chin against Rachel's shoulder, she knew everything was fine.

Sort of.

The third time it happened, no one was around to witness it.

They were still in school, but glee just ended and everyone dispersed to their cars, to call their parents to be picked up. Rachel mentioned that she forgot something from her locker. Quinn, being her girlfriend — quasi, Rachel took to reminding herself at all hours, at every instance that she thought of Quinn as her girlfriend lest she further succumb into the difficulty of parsing out reality and fiction — accompanied her without question.

It was second nature now, to have Quinn's hand in hers. Rachel unclasped the lock and retrieved the textbook she was looking for.

In the middle of that hallway, Quinn tugged Rachel's hand.

"What's up?" Rachel looked up at Quinn, saw her half-lidded eyes, the perfect shape of her nose.

Quinn kissed her, though there was no one around to see, no audience to perform for.

And, despite Rachel's bravado, despite her insistence that boundaries are meant to be kept and maintained, leaned into Quinn's kiss, like eyelids falling shut, as easy as falling asleep.

"You know, I don't think everyone fully believes that we're a couple yet. Especially Santana. I caught her staring at us the other day, leering." Quinn said one afternoon while she reclined on Rachel's bed, a history textbook opened before her, along with worksheets that they worked on answering together. Rachel spun on her desk chair to face Quinn.

All that effort, all that emotional turmoil, and it was not wholly effective?

"Isn't that just how Santana looks at people in general?"

"Right," Quinn snickered. "But I think that idea you had — to be more like Brittany and Santana in terms of… physical closeness, I guess? It makes sense now." She closed her textbook and sat up, her legs off the edge of Rachel's bed.

Maybe they have been hanging out with each other too much, Rachel wondered, if Quinn was meandering and not getting straight to the point.

"I'm saying," Quinn heaved a breath and met Rachel's eyes. "That we should step up our kissing game a bit. Besides, this might be the clutch move that wins us prom couple."

"You're not saying — you want to make out like Brittany and Santana all over the school? And prom is this Friday!"

"No! I still think it's uncouth. But, say, Santana catches us in one of her make-out spots with Brittany, in a compromising position..."

The way Quinn said that was seductive. As if she needed to employ her feminine wiles, her prime rhetoric, to convince Rachel. "Sounds good," Rachel managed to say without her words getting stuck in her throat.

"Really?"

"Why do you look so surprised?" Rachel teased. She rose to her feet and sat on the edge of the bed, beside Quinn. "We've gone this far, we might as well go the distance, so to speak."

"So, do you want to make out? Practice, I mean." Quinn said.

Rachel shrugged. "Sure."

Did she sound blasé enough? Or did this contrived nonchalance of hers gave her away?

They napped countless times before, with Rachel's back pressed against Quinn's front. They have never faced each other before, with such nearness, in a horizontal position, which, given the intimacy of being alone, compounded with the radiant heat of Quinn's body, Rachel could feel the last of the boundary she imagined drawing — albeit in sand — be washed away by the waves of this love, this hopeless pining, this futile affection, until it was no more.

Rachel rested her head on Quinn's outstretched arm, one hand rested on the slope of Quinn's hip. The blonde wore a skirt that reached past her knees, a burgundy cardigan over a loose white shirt. The waves of her blonde hair fell over her shoulder and Rachel distantly wished she knew artistic theory so she could describe Quinn, wished she knew how to paint, because inasmuch as she could take a photograph, to paint Quinn would give her an excuse to stare.

"You okay?" Quinn's breath was warm against Rachel's brow. Her leg nestled between Rachel's, her palm on the small of her back.

Rachel had long since committed herself to kissing and not feel a thing about it. But that was meant for co-stars, not the smartest, funniest, prettiest girl she ever met with whom she was half in love.

Right, Rachel internally scoffed. As if Rachel Barbra Berry did anything by halves.

"I'm good," Rachel reached out to touch Quinn's jaw, her neck, the exposed jut of her collarbone. "Are you ready?"

"You have no idea," Quinn breathed, and Rachel spent no time wondering what Quinn could have possibly meant by that. If she did, she would think too much and nothing would happen while she ran around in the maze that was Quinn Fabray. She swept back Quinn's hair, grasped the side of her neck, and kissed her.

They started off slow — close-mouthed. It was easy to get lost in the motions of kissing but Rachel resolutely fought off the fog that the softness of Quinn's lips brought. Though, when Quinn parted her mouth, took Rachel's bottom lip between hers, felt the wet swipe of her tongue, Rachel shuddered once, and what little clarity she had dissipated into the aether.

Quinn tightened her grip around Rachel's waist, pulled Rachel's thrumming body, alive and vibrant with nerves, with passion, with unabashed desire, closer to her own. Rachel whimpered, tilted her head to feel the slippery drag of Quinn's lips. Her toes curled in her stockings. Quinn, who always smelled like summer for some reason, intoxicated Rachel. And, as if collapsing into the eye of a storm, Quinn and Rachel formed a singularity, all on their own, when their tongues touched.

Rachel sucked in a harsh breath through her nose. Her tongue on Quinn's, the sharp rows of her teeth, the kittenish moans that erupted from her throat. Oh, how her head spun. Oh, how the earth turned beneath the rampage of her longing. Rachel grabbed a fistful of Quinn's shirt, tugged her closer. Oh, how she wanted more of her.

More and more and more. As much as she could take. As much as Quinn was willing to give, her own heart be damned.

Quinn's cold fingertips danced up Rachel's shirt to stroke the base of the smaller girl's spine. Rachel grasped a handful of Quinn's cardigan and it exposed a sliver of pale white skin. She dragged her nails against impossibly smooth skin. Goosebumps rose to the surface.

The blonde yanked her mouth away from Rachel's and kissed her warm neck, her tongue against the fluttering of her pulse. Rachel threw her head back, and the moan that quivered out of her throat was indicative of the heat that flared inside the dark-haired girl.

"Fuck," Rachel breathed, and Quinn opened her eyes, dark and bright, all at once.

She blinked once, twice, and Rachel, with the dregs of her lucidity, saw turmoil there, in those hazel eyes that sent her pulse to quicken every time their gazes met. How Quinn looked into her eyes, then her mouth. Quinn leaned in, as if wanting to continue their charade, but, Rachel wondered if she was projecting, yet again. Something changed. She felt it in the way Quinn obstinately refused to look Rachel in the eyes once more.

"I need to — I…" Quinn removed her arm from under Rachel's neck, removed her hand from up her shirt. She scrambled off the bed to straighten her cardigan, smooth out her skirt. "I have to go," Quinn declared, a hairline crack in her voice.

"Quinn, wait — "

"Don't," she muttered. Quinn stood, paced the length of Rachel's room while the girl watched. "I think… I have to go."

"No you don't. You don't have to go. We can talk about this — "

"I can't. I really can't talk about this. Not right now," Quinn shoved her books, her papers into her bag with no regard for neatness nor organization. "Please, Rachel. Just… don't say anything." She shouldered her bag.

As a consolation, she then looked Rachel in the eye.

The last remnants, the embers of desire, the confusion, so palpable there.

Quinn expelled a breath. Left a stunned Rachel on her bed. Alone, with the taste of Quinn's peach lipgloss on her lips, the warmth of her skin in her hands.

But no Quinn in her arms.