I can't recall a time I'd ever been used before- not like this. I can't remember a time that anyone had gone out of their way to make me feel a certain way so that they felt better about themselves- unless you count all of the bullying, which I can only account to jealousy and people needing to feel better about themselves by putting others down. But nothing like this before. It'd been... how long now? I don't even know. Keeping track of the days was nearly impossible now. Days and nights seemed to blend together when everything was dark around you all of the time inside abandoned buildings or in dense woods. But I suppose it'd been more than enough time to get lonely, to need someone, to miss those we'd lost. Still... I never expected to be used as a substitute for him.

Back in the days of regularly attending high school without any worries of a disease we still knew little about, Quinn Fabray was the most popular girl there. Head cheerleader, football star boyfriend, teacher's pet, straight A student- even I can't imagine how she did it all and managed to keep a balanced social life. She seemed to have it all. I never knew much about her home life, but from what I'd heard, her family was one of the wealthier ones, one of those perfect families that always hosted dinner parties and had everything together. I never believed that any family could really be perfect, but if they weren't, the Fabray family never showed it even a little bit. To have all of that taken away from her now, I suppose... It can do a lot to a person.

I imagined that was a big cause to her shutting down about a lot of things when this all started.

It didn't take long after the outbreak to hear our families named one-by-one and then all of our friends and classmates on the list of names of those deceased in Lima. With every name, I felt my body tremor; I couldn't stop the tears. Quinn, on the other hand... Quinn never shed a tear. I don't know how she did it. She never opened up about anything but especially about her feelings towards losing everyone she'd once known and loved. I can't imagine how she felt when she heard the boy she loved named or her mother, then father, then sister, then nephew. I had only a couple of friends- one or two that hadn't even been named. With one father already gone, hearing the other named had done me in for days, halting our movement for that time. She didn't seem angry about that then like she does with everything now, so I assumed she understood and empathized enough. But... Still she never took a single minute to herself to grieve or even speak about it.

So after all of this time, I can't even say if I saw this coming or if I didn't.

It was broadcast not too long after the infections started that one of the key roles to staying healthy from this disease spreading was to wash as often as possible. With no running water anywhere anymore, it seemed almost impossible to use precious, clean, drinking water on something as silly as bathing, but Quinn insisted. She said once that she wasn't risking me turning. And so whenever we came across a creek or something of the sort, we stopped, took turns keeping guard, and bathing in private. To tell the truth, it was nice. It was a sense of normalcy in all of the chaos.

One afternoon, after she'd bathed herself, Quinn left me to go keep guard. I didn't waste any time stripping of my clothing and wading into the flowing water, shivering at the cool sensation but not hesitating to submerge myself completely. When I resurfaced, I began my routine of washing from head to toe, starting with my hair and working my way down as to get every inch of skin to remove as much dirt as possible. And for the first time in a very, very long time, I heard Quinn giggle.

Not expecting it, I turned towards the noise quickly, covering myself with my hands and sinking lower into the water. Realizing it was her watching me, I felt my face go warm as I pouted. "Aren't you supposed to be keeping guard?" I kept my voice just loud enough for her to hear. "What if you'd been an infected or a Cleaner?"

"And your first defense is to be modest?" She sat on the bank of the river and put her elbows on her knees.

"Why are you over here, Quinn? Didn't I pay you the respect of privacy?" It was odd. It was more than odd. Not just that Quinn was being... sociable? But that Quinn Fabray was... watching me bathe.

"I had a thought." She said simply.

When she didn't continue, I pressed. "And...? And it couldn't have waited just a little longer?"

She brushed the damp hair clinging to her face away with her hand before standing again- actually grinning. It was nice, but... I couldn't help but be suspicious of this new behavior. It wasn't the infection getting to her brain was it..? "You missed a spot," she spoke again, breaking my train of thought.

I gave her a confused look and lifted on of my hands to my face, the only part I couldn't really see and was most likely where she meant.

She laughed. Quinn laughed. Quinn Fabray laughed. But then the next thing I knew, she was dropping her shirt to the ground and wading into the water with me.

"Quinn!" I hissed, and fell back beneath the water until I felt it lapping at my face. "Quinn, what are you-?" But then she was in front of me, gently placing her hands under my arms and slowly lifting me back above the surface. I suddenly felt so embarrassed I could have cried. It's been an apocalyptic world for us. It isn't as if proper grooming was on either of our top list of concerns, and now Quinn was standing very close to me, and we were both naked in a river. ...What was happening?

She lifted a hand to my face and hesitated at my chin for a moment before lifting a finger to my forehead. "Right here," she said gently. "You missed a spot here." She wiped at the spot with her fingers, and I watched curiously as a small grin spread across her face.

I suppose that was the start of it all- as big a start as that seemed to me. After that it was using the reasoning that we needed to keep warm as she cuddled into my back at night. A few nights of that, and I started noting an arm being draped over me. It was even more blatant motions of her wanting to check an area first or always double checking that whatever weapon I had at the time was in proper working order. It turned into always having me carry the one gun we had between us, and her constantly checking to make sure that it was loaded. It became her speaking to me more, and oddly enough, once confessing that she missed hearing me sing. She had me promise to sing to just her once we were safe.

It was... nice enough, I suppose. But it was so unlike her that eventually I just... "Quinn."

We were in the middle of an abandoned town, empty as far as the eye could see. Probably one of the safest places we'd been in a very long time. We'd been spending the past few nights here, but the still edible food supply at the nearby market was depleting quickly. So we were scouting for more on this day. But after being handed extra portions and her actually finding a razor that we took advantage of to feel some sense of the norm again, enough was enough with no explanation.

"Rach?" She turned towards me slightly. Another thing that had started. Since when did we come to terms with nicknames that weren't insulting to me? "Is something wrong?"

"There is." I stood up straighter, and yet my eyes still fell to the ground. I took a deep breath and let my eyelids slide shut before I spoke again. "You need to tell me what it is exactly that you're doing. It's really been nice and all, but... It isn't because your mind is becoming infected and somehow having this odd positive perspective on me, is it? This isn't like you at all, and I for one-"

She was always interrupting me.

But never before with a kiss.

I jumped and pushed her back. "Quinn!" This was too much. This was all way too much.

"Come on, Rach," she spoke softly, making an attempt to reach for my hand, which I quickly jerked away from. She sighed. "Tell me that over all this time, you haven't felt us getting closer. Tell me the truth. Tell me that you haven't thought about it at least once?"

If I were to be completely honest, I had. But not for a very long time. And not since all of this started happening. And to continue telling the truth... "I know what this is," I didn't even realize I'd began speaking, and it was so quite, I wasn't entirely certain she could even hear me now. "You're using me. You're lonely, and you're... trying to replace what you had, but, Quinn... I'm not..."

I think we were both crying now.

And after that, she stayed on the first floor of the building; I on the second. There were no cuddles, no baths together. There wasn't even any speaking or eye contact. We scouted alone at different times. We kept watch in silence.

Quinn was the prettiest girl I'd ever seen, and she was smart and talented at that. I was always taught to keep an open mind about everything in life, and after kissing Jesse St. James and not only feeling nothing but almost... repulsed, yes, of course my mind strayed back to the little schoolgirl crush I'd slowly been developing on Quinn for months then. But... This is not the way I wanted anything between us to happen. And if it was the only way I was to feel her again...? ...I'd almost just rather not.