A/N: Hey guys! Sorry I was gone for so long, things at home got hectic and I found myself unable to get online for anything. This one is a filler one of sorts, not a lot of major stuff happening, but things for future plots are introduced.

"I want to learn sign language." Rachel asked at the breakfast table that morning after making herself a fruit salad and a smoothie.

Kurt gave her an incredulous look. "Are you serious? Why?" He asked around a mouthful of Lucky Charms.

"Don't you want to be able to talk to our neighbor without having to have Sam or Blaine around? Wouldn't that be nice?"

"I think you should do it, but while you're at it, take a vow of silence." Santana quipped from the kitchen in the process of making herself some toast.

Rachel chose to ignore Santana's comment and instead took a bite of fruit. "All I'm saying is that culture is important, you know?"

Kurt sighed, taking a few bites from his bowl of cereal. A part of him thought Rachel was crazy- they had just met their neighbors two weeks ago, and here she was declaring that she wanted to learn sign language for them. It wasn't necessary; Sam and Blaine could interpret for all of them and it didn't make any difference whether or not they knew how to say everything or not. "Are you going to take classes online, or find a book or something?"

"I figured I could ask Blaine to teach me, or even Sam. Blaine and I are probably going to become quite close within the school year, anyways. Oh! You never told me how your coffee date with him went!" Rachel exclaimed, clapping her hands together.

Kurt rolled his eyes at his friend's banter. "It went fine, geez. You're like a rowdy little puppy, you know that?" He huffed, standing to take care of his bowl. He walked back into his room to get changed for the day, then emerged to see that Santana had taken his spot next to Rachel. "Don't worry about me and my love life."

"Can you blame me? I just want you to be happy, Kurt!"

"I don't need a Fairy Godmother!" urt called over his shoulder as he walked out the door.

Rachel sighed and finished up her breakfast. She didn't understand why Kurt was pushing her away now of all times; he never used to do it. It kind of worried her- maybe something was really wrong with her best friend and this was his way of telling her. Or maybe he was planning on moving out. He wouldn't do that, would he? Leave her all alone to deal with Santana?

"Quiet your thoughts, Hobbit. Porcelain's fine." Santana murmured. "You just gotta realize this isn't high school anymore. He's a big boy, he can find his own boyfriends. As for that sign language bullshit, I say go for it."

Rachel furrowed her brow at her roommate. "I don't think I've ever heard you being supportive."

"You're volunteering to learn to speak with your hands. I'm hoping this means you'll stop calling people at the ass crack of dawn." Santana finished, cleaning up after she was done with her breakfast. She stood up to go shower, and Rachel rolled her eyes.

The shorter brunette took to finishing off the dishes before putting them in the dishwasher as she went over the basic signs she knew in her head. Learning ASL couldn't be that bad, could it? Blaine and the Fabray's made it seem so easy. Then again, they had been doing it for so long. It made her wonder what caused it. As far as she knew (meaning, as much as she had heard from the three of them), Quinn wasn't always deaf. Something happened to make her lose her hearing, and just the mere thought of it made her a little sadder.

She was brought out of her thoughts by a knock on the door, and the door suddenly opening. She turned in a haste, then placed a hand over her rapidly beating heart in an attempt to calm it. "Brittany, Jake, hello. You startled me."

"But I knocked first…" Brittany trailed off, looking between Rachel and Jake.

"I think it's because we let ourselves in, Britt." Jake explained to the blonde. "Sorry about that by the way, Rachel. We just went for a morning run and decided to get everyone's mail as a good deed. It was Brittany's idea."

Rachel looked at the two of them curiously and stepped forward to collect their mail. "Right, thank you, both of you." She smiled. "Would you like anything to drink, or maybe a snack? Something to pay you back for your… generosity."

Brittany looked to jake again, who explained what generosity meant. Then the blonde smiled at Rachel, asking what they had, and Rachel took her into the kitchen. They left Jake in the living room on his own, rocking on the balls of his sneaker-clad feet. He looked awkwardly around the room, taking in the various personalities that were expressed. It reminded him of his high school. His ears were drawn to the sound of the bathroom opening, and he gave a cheeky smile to the woman who exited.

"Hey, I'm Jake. I don't think I've seen you before… were you at that housewarming party a few weeks ago?" He asked, offering his hand for her to shake. Santana denied it as she wrapped her hair up, and Jake just gave a small nod.

"No, I wasn't. I didn't want to go." Santana commented. "Santana, by the way."

"Hi Santana, I'm Brittany!" Brittany exclaimed, coming up behind the hair. She handed Jake a water bottle before she took another bite of the peanut butter in the jar she held in her hands. "I hope you don't mind that I'm eating this. Rachel said it was yours but it just looked so good, you know?"

Santana blinked at the blonde that was suddenly in front of her. She glanced her up and down, then her eyes focused on the fact that the girl was in fact, eating her food. Something she never let anyone do, not even her brothers or her girlfriend, Dani. She shook her head then looked at Rachel, who was sheepishly hiding behind the bubbly blonde. Rachel didn't seem to look very sorry, but who could even say no to those eyes? Brittany's eyes were a bright blue, the kind that even the slightest hint of sadness made you want to go find whoever made them sad and beat them up.

"It's uh, it's fine. I gotta go." She swallowed, walking into the kitchen to grab a water bottle, then retreated back into the bathroom where the sound of the hair dryer soon took up the empty room.

"I don't think she's feeling too good." Rachel explained Santana's hasty exit, although she didn't quite know why the girl did that. "Thank you both, again for getting our mail." She smiled, walking them out to the door. A part of her was glad that she had given Brittany a plastic spoon because it seemed like the girl was taking the peanut butter with her.

"Thank you for the water and the jar, Rachel." Jake stated, pulling the door closed behind them. Rachel leaned against the closed door and signed, then walked over to the bathroom door, knocking loudly on it.

"You can come out now, they're gone."

The door opened a few moments later, Santana dressed in her work uniform. She gave Rachel a gentle glare as she pulled her hair back into a tight pony, then proceeded to slip on her shoes.

"Want to tell me what that was about?"

"Don't worry about it, Berry. Just a little stage fright is all."

Rachel looked at the girl questioningly, but didn't push the subject further. Mostly because she couldn't; because Santana had gotten up and left the apartment as quickly as possible. She couldn't put her finger on it, but something was definitely up with Santana, and she wanted to get to the bottom of it. It was slowly seeming like she was losing control of her friends, and she didn't like feeling like that. Not one bit.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

Sam was sitting on the couch, watching a rerun of Friends on TV when he heard a knock on the door. Blaine had been out doing who knows what to prepare for the school year, and Quinn was in her room, so he knew he had to get the door. He sighed and stood, walking over to it and opening it with a fake smile.

"Oh, hey Rachel. What's up?" He asked, moving to let the girl come inside. He went over to the couch and grabbed the remote to pause the show so his attention could focus on the girl who sat down on the other side of the couch.

"I was just wondering… Do you think you could maybe teach me ASL?"

Sam's eyes widened a little. This was a first. Not many people really wanted to put in the effort to learn sign language. They learned the basics ("please", "thank you", "stop", etc.) but that was it. They didn't want to learn the rest because it was "too hard". It always sucked because he'd watch his sister get so excited about someone else learning to converse with her, only to get those hopes crushed when the person gave up. He cleared his throat, then looked at Rachel more head-on.

"Why do you want to know?" He asked.

Rachel was taken back by the question, but simply continued to push. "I want to be able to speak with Quinn when you and Blaine aren't around. Besides that, I feel that learning more than one language always comes in handy, and I've always had a fascination with sign language." Rachel explained, looking at the man she had hoped to call her friend.

"My sister isn't some art gallery, Rachel. She's a human being. Our hands," He paused, holding up his own. "Our hands are what she needs to be able to know what everyone is saying. Yeah, she can read lips, but that doesn't always work when people talk quickly or jumble their words together. Not to mention how I don't want her to be that person carrying a whiteboard everywhere so they can just write down what they're saying. Learning sign language… It's.. hard. It takes time, it takes being able to mess up, but it also takes determination. You can't learn it all in one week. You'd have to really stick to it. I know Quinn gets excited about these things really easily, and I don't want her to get hurt. Are you sure you're up for this?" He asked her, meeting her eyes for a moment. He looked for anything that would tell him that she'd hurt Quinn in any way, anything that would set off signals that Rachel was a bad person. But he wasn't finding anything. And that was what scared him the most.

"I really think I'm determined enough for this, Sam. I have no intentions of hurting her in any way, I simply want to be able to converse with her without having to have yourself or Blaine there to interpret what I'm saying. I feel like it'd be easier on all of us for that to happen." She explained further, smiling at Sam. "I'm really glad that I'm your guys' friend. And I feel like this could only make us closer."

Sam ran a hand through his shaggy hair and sighed. Something told him that this was going to happen. He thought about it for a few moments, trying to think if this was all a good idea. Blaine would say no, but that was because Blaine was against everything involving Quinn. He didn't want Quinn to take risks and have fun. He didn't want her to get hurt. Sam didn't either, but that didn't mean that he wasn't willing to let Quinn go have fun. Rachel wasn't that risky, but she did seem like the kind of person who could hurt someone if she needed to. But something was nagging at him, telling him that that wasn't the case. That Rachel was better than that. So he sat up, and nodded.

"Yeah.. Yeah I'll do it. Just.. don't tell Blaine? We can like, meet at your place or something so he doesn't catch on. He's really protective of Quinn and thinks that like, if someone isn't committed to learning ASL then they're not worth Quinn being around at all and I know he'll start to think that if he found out that you wanna learn. Not that it's a bad thing, you know? He's just being Blaine."

Rachel nodded at him with a smile. She was actually rather excited about this whole ordeal- not the part about having to keep this from Blaine, but the part where she was going to be learning something entirely new. Having been someone who was always intrigued by new things and learning, Rachel felt like this was going to be a walk in the park. "I don't think he'll mind too much, but I won't tell him. I think he's been busy with Kurt lately, too." She added, hoping that Sam caught on.

"You've noticed it too?"

"Who do you think convinced Kurt to ask him to coffee?"

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

A few hours later had the duo continuously working, with taking a few breaks here and there. Sam had even put together a small set of "practice sheets", that of which after an hour or so of revision, he'd quiz the girl on. She was learning a lot faster than what he was used to, but he knew that they'd have to constantly go back to each little phrase and basic sign throughout the time that they were doing this. He was really impressed by the amount she was already learning, and by the third hour she had managed to pass the first test of sorts.

"Okay.. so let's review everything. I'm going to start a conversation with you, but I'm not going to speak. I'm only going to use my hands. Okay?" Sam asked, signing along with what he was saying. Rachel focused her eyes on his hands and nodded, tucking her lip in between her teeth to keep from speaking.

'Hi. My name is S-A-M.' He chose to fingerspell his name instead of using the name sign Quinn had given him, which was using the letter "S" and placing it on his stomach for the amount of cardio he did every morning. 'What's yours?'

Rachel watched him carefully, and she felt like she had gotten everything down. It was simple, basic, and to the point. 'My name is R-A-C-G-E-L.'

Sam let out a soft chuckle and shook his head, motioning for her to stop. "Close. This," He held up the sign that Rachel had made. "Is G. This," He put down his middle finger, "Is H. But I think you've got the overall gist. I made the same mistake too."

Rachel blushed, but then motioned for him to keep going, all without speaking. She wanted to get these things down so she could maybe show them to Quinn. Sam nodded, then thought for a moment before continuing. They managed to get a few more signs in, with the occasional laughing and goofing around. She had learned a lot within just that one afternoon spent on the couch, but neither of them noticed that they were being watched.

When it came time for Rachel to leave, Sam walked her to the door and gave her a hug goodbye. He walked back into the apartment and started to make dinner for the three of them, and that was when Quinn made her appearance. She walked up next to him, noticed what ingredients he had pulled out, then started to help him prepare everything. Sam could tell that something was off; she wasn't smiling like she usually was and she seemed stiffer than she had earlier. Wondering what was up with his sister, he paused and tapped her shoulder gently.

"What's wrong?" He asked when she turned towards him.

'What's going on with you and R-A-C-H-E-L?' She asked, setting down the knife that she had in her hand.

Sam, despite the confused look on his face, knew exactly what his sister was talking about. For anyone that couldn't hear what they were doing or talking about, it seemed rather suspicious. He licked his lips, shook his head, then went back to preparing the food.

Quinn was having none of it and pushed his shoulder so he could look at her. 'Samuel Fabray, you better tell me right now.' She threatened, putting an "F" at her neckline for "Fabray". She wanted to know what was going on. They had only been there for a few weeks, and if Sam was interested in seeing Rachel, she wanted to know.

The taller man sighed and rocked on his feet for a moment, before he turned back to her. "It's nothing, okay?" He knew his excuse wasn't bought when Quinn glared at him. He looked down, then back up at her. "She.. wanted to learn sign language. So I'm going to teach her. Please don't tell Blaine?"

Quinn thought about what Sam had told her. Rachel wanted to know sign language? If that was the case, then why didn't she just ask Quinn herself? It didn't make sense to her. 'Why didn't she just ask me?'

"She wanted to surprise you."

Quinn bit her lip, but nodded. It seemed like a fair enough answer.. Rachel wanted to learn, for her. She went back to the food for a few minutes, until she felt Sam's gaze on her again. She glanced over at him and furrowed her brow, turning to him again. 'What?'

"You're just going to accept that answer? Just like that? No terms, no conditions, nothing?"

'Yeah, kind of. As much as I'd love to teach her myself, I think it'd be cool for her to learn the basics with you. Then if she wants more advanced stuff, she can come talk to me. Seem fair?'

Sam nodded, and smiled at his sister. "Yeah, seems fair."