Chapter Three


The following morning, an obnoxious honking could be heard coming from outside her house. With a cursory glance through her bedroom window, Quinn soon confirmed her suspicions. Flying down the stairs with a quick bye to her mom, she was out of the door and flinging open the passenger's side door, slipping into the seat and tucking her cheer skirt under her as she did so.

"What a nice surprise to see you here."

"I aim to please."

Quinn gave Santana a disbelieving look, "Oh yeah? Since when?"

"Since now, Quinny. Now we gonna go or what?"

"Well, you're driving. So..."

Not one to be told twice, Santana swiftly cranked up the station she was listening to, pulled out of Quinn's drive, and set to driving her car like she stole it.

Arriving in the school parking lot white knuckling the handle above the car door, Quinn let out a breath of relief to have made it one piece. She turned to find Santana oblivious to the fact that she had just given all of the drivers in the F1 a run for their money.

"You're crazy."

"What?"

"You. You're crazy. Driving like that."

"Whatever, Q. You love it." Smirking, Santana gave Quinn a challenging look.

"Yeah, okay."

"Deny it all you like, I know the truth."

"Hmm. Enough of the yap, let's go."

As they both climbed out of the car and started toward the school building Quinn suddenly realised something about Santana's appearance.

"Why are you not wearing your uniform?"

"God, Sherlock. Sure cracked the case quickly on that one." Santana swept her hair over her shoulder as she readjusted her bag. "I got away with it last time and Sue didn't say anything so fuck it. My wardrobe is too expensive to not flaunt it and anyway, I'll just pretend hitting my head killed a few brain cells and that I forgot or something."

"Good luck with that one, even Brittany wouldn't be that stupid."

"What the fuck, Q?" Santana caught Quinn's arm before she could go any further, pulling her to a stop.

"I said what I said." Quinn mentally hit herself. She just couldn't shut her mouth sometimes.

"Yeah well maybe you shouldn't have said anything at all." Santana pushed Quinn's arm away and stormed past her into the building.

"Damn it."

So much for working on it.

...

Quinn had spent most of the day shying away from Santana after the whole 'stupid' thing. It had made her feel more than sheepish and as luck would have it on the way to her next class she heard a certain blonde's laugh down the hallway. Great. Brittany was no better than Santana at this point.

"Hi, Quinn!" Brittany skipped up behind and kept stride with her as she walked.

"Hey, Britt," polite as ever, Quinn smiled.

"I'm having a party this weekend," she passed Quinn a folded up piece of flowery paper. "I hope you can make it. It'll be totally fun."

Quinn opened it up and read Brittany's address. "Britt, I already know where you live."

"I made them for everybody, Quinn." Brittany snatched it back and pointed to the dress code. "Always read the fine print, Quinn. You should know that."

"Black tie?"

"Black tie only." With that Brittany gave Quinn a wink and left her in the dust as she swished her Cherrio skirt down the hallway, stopping people as she did handing them the same flowery paper she had given Quinn.

Brittany's parties were notoriously un-PG, you could go wearing more layers than an Arctic explorer and leave in only your underwear. They were an experience. The last time Quinn went to one she ended up in Brittany's pool on a duck inflatable utterly out of her mind in some other girl's shorts and the blouse she'd come in. If she remembered correctly, Brittany had actually managed to wrangle some serious favours by the amount of alcohol and drugs that came flooding through the Pierce family home. She even had her cousin rig the place up with a sound system and lights, all for the promise that they could come and bring their friends. Said cousin being college age and an asshole, but a hot asshole Quinn could at least admit. She wondered if she'd make an appearance at this one.

The bell ringing brought her back to the present, time to get this day over with she guessed.

...

Santana was still peeved at Quinn for what she said, she knew Brittany was sensitive about being called stupid and she also knew that she wouldn't appreciate her talking shit about the girl she loved. Her heart didn't ache as much as it used to, but Brittany was still her friend.

Okay, she may have overreacted by storming off like that, but she was going to let Quinn sweat it if she was going to act like a pussy and avoid her all day.

"Sandbags!"

"Oh brother."

Down the hallway stood Sue Sylvester, eyes steely and fiercely set on Santana.

"My office!"

"God," Santana said under her breath as she turned to follow Sue.

"He can't help you now!"

What the fuck? Is she a bat?

As she sat, Sue closed the door behind them and perused the trophies in her office to give Santana a false sense of security. Who would break the silence first?

"Coach I..."

"I was under the impression you were a Cheerio, Boobs McGee?"

Santana gulped. "I am."

"Then why," Sue came to sit on her desk so that she was looking down on Santana, "why, oh why, are you wearing those pedestrian clothes?"

"I.. I hit my head." This was such a bad idea.

"You hit your head."

"Yep, sure did." No going back now.

"Outstanding. And did hitting your head rupture your implants making you unable to dress yourself? Is that why you're wearing this monstrosity and not your uniform?"

"No, Coach."

There was an uncomfortable pause as Sue pursed her lips in thought.

"You're lucky I'm feeling merciful today. At practise you're to do twice as many suicides as your teammates, are we clear?"

"Yes, Coach." Bitch.

"Don't let me catch you not in your uniform again."

Quietly seething and feeling thoroughly chastised Santana nodded and stood to leave only to be stopped just as her hand landed on the door handle.

"Actually, I have a better idea."

At that Santana took a deep breath to stop herself from popping a blood vessel.

"You're going to infiltrate the synchronized swimming team for me. That sea witch, Roz Washington, is gunning for me. I can feel it in my hip replacement."

Santana's eyes almost bugged out of her head.

"You want me to what!"

"It's quite simple. You're going to pretend to be kicked off of the Cheerios and you're going to destroy her pathetic sea monkeys from the inside out."

Santana couldn't help but laugh. "How in the hell am I going to get onto the synchronized swimming team! I've never done that in my life." Incredulous didn't cut it.

"Oh, Sandbags, dear, sweet, Sandbags. You're going to get onto that team or you're no longer on this one. Got it?"

What in the ever living fuck was this school?

Perplexed unlike she had ever been before in her life, Santana left Sue's office with another thing to worry about.

Oh God, the chlorine! Actually, did they even put chlorine in that thing? The bacteria! Could she get a yeast infection from the swamp that was McKinley's pool? The thought made her gag.

Luckily it was Friday, so she was not going to think about it again until after Brittany's party. Brittany had told her about it first thing that morning. It was the one thing that was going to get her through the rest of this damn day.

...

In Glee everybody was in high spirits and Brittany was about to make their day ten times better.

"May I have your attention!" Brittany requested the floor as she beamed at the entire club who… were not listening. Rude.

"Hey, shut up." Santana called.

"Oh, sorry Britt." Sam smiled. The rest of the club finally turned their attention to Brittany.

"I used to think you guys were so lame." Kurt, Mercedes and Tina looked blatantly affronted, whilst Quinn bit down a grin. "But now I see you're not so bad. I like you guys, you're weird, but I'm into that. So!" Brittany ran on the spot to create a drum roll effect. "You're all invited to my party this weekend! Come to mine tomorrow, and come early too, we can have a Glee club pre drinks and party before it really gets going." To conclude the invite, she pulled a stack of flower paper out of her bag and tossed it at the club like confetti.

Mr Schue, late as ever, entered and saw the scattered sheets of paper across the floor, he picked one up as he moved to put his bag on the piano.

"Black tie only?"

Brittany's smile widened and her cat-like eyes squinted in barely contained excitement, "Uh-huh."

Puck, Finn, Mike, Quinn and Santana all glanced around at each other knowingly.

"Sounds fancy." Will awkwardly laughed before turning to the board to get the session started.

Despite many stop and starts Will's lesson had been thoroughly derailed, the choir room was abuzz with talk of what people were going to wear and what they were going to bring. Brittany was dancing about the room talking incessantly down the phone to everybody and anybody, calling in all those favours she had managed to collect since the last bash. It may have all seemed last minute to call a party a day before it was happening, but Lima was hard pressed for anything fun to do, so Brittany had no worries when it came to turn-out.

She pranced over to Artie and sat in his lap, pressing a finger to his lips and she finished up her call. "Yes! I can't wait to see you. Lord Tubbington hasn't shut up about you since last time."

Artie couldn't hear who was on the other side of the phone, but heard a laugh and more talking on the other end.

"You'll meet my boyfriend too, he's like half robot. It's so cool." Brittany pecked him on his mouth and he blushed in embarrassment. "Bye, bye, yeah, bye bye bye. Bye. Buh-bye-bye." Brittany turned her eyes onto him and squeezed him into a hug. "You're going to meet my cousin, she's just the best! I wish she was my sister, but my mom doesn't like her so maybe I don't. Gosh, I can't wait."

"Me either, Britt."

...

Quinn had caught the last bit of Brittany's conversation with Artie and rolled her eyes at the thought of Taylor being there tomorrow. She had known it was a likely possibility, but now she knew for sure. The last time they had the pleasure Taylor could have fooled her into thinking she was the real life Regina George. She was beautiful, smart, and funny, but she was also a mean bitch. It all listed like the criteria for an ideal friend for Quinn, but she was convinced Taylor was on another level, there was something in that Kentucky water.

Her musings had caused her to not realise that Santana had moved over.

"I was going to wait for you to come to me first, but I realise now that I have to be the bigger woman here and I resent you for that."

"Santana, I'm sorry about earlier." Quinn tucked her hands under herself, a nervous habit she couldn't shake. "I really didn't mean to start anything."

"Quinn, it's fine. I shouldn't have walked away, but I know I can be nasty when I want to be so I left before I snapped or whatever."

Quinn looked to her shoes, still feeling bad about earlier, but glad that Santana had come to speak to her. A small smile was threatening to break out on her face at the thought of going to Brittany's party together.

"What're you smiling about?" Santana nudged her, matching her smile.

"Just, I was thinking," coming over all shy suddenly Quinn bit her lip and looked to Santana, "do you wanna get ready with me to go to Britt's tomorrow?"

"Well duh! I'm not exactly going to be around Berry's now am I?"

"Cool."

"Cool?" Santana laughed, "cat got your tongue?"

"Shut up. I just didn't know if you'd want to or not."

Santana rolled her eyes playfully at her, "Going soft, Q?"

"Ugh." With that Quinn stood along with the rest of the club, shoving Santana as she got up to join her. Mr Schue had finally given up and had dismissed them, wishing them a fun weekend.

"Hey, hands off the goods." Santana dusted herself off and swiftly linked arms Quinn when she saw that she was ignoring her and walking away. "Wait up."

Quinn tightened her arm around Santana's as she mocked, "Hands off the goods!"

Santana was going to respond in line when she remembered the bizarre plot Sue had cooked up. "You are not going to believe what Sue has told me to do."

That had her attention. Quinn glanced to Santana with a quirk of her eyebrow, intrigued to say the least. "Go on."

"Well! The crazy bitch wants me to join the synchronised swimming team! Swimming!? She's serious-..." Quinn, having had a couple of seconds to process what Santana had just said, felt her lips quiver and before she could help herself she was letting out peals of laughter.

Santana was unsure as to whether she should've been offended or not. Deciding on the latter, she pulled Quinn down the hallway and out into the parking lot, barely holding back hysterics herself. She'd have to dish the details later.