A/N: So this chapter is way on the short side (it was actually going to be even shorter but it got padded out, I think it's probably pretty obvious where the padding is). Hope it's okay anyway, thanks again for reviews :)

"I don't know what it is about you," Quinn's mouth was against her ear, raising goosebumps on her skin, "But I can't stop wanting you."

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Rachel reached out to try and pull Quinn's mouth to hers, but the girl sidestepped her with a smile and crossed the room to place her iPod on the speakers. Within a few seconds the sound of Marvin Gaye filled the room, and Quinn moved slowly toward -

Rachel opened her eyes. Marvin Gaye? Even in her head she couldn't pretend Quinn was a Marvin Gaye fan. Not to mention she wasn't sure she'd be able to achieve the soft lighting she'd had in her fantasy in her actual bedroom. Maybe Quinn had a dimmer switch in her room...

Never mind, she'd just have to revert to a more tried and tested daydream.

Quinn was leaning against the piano with a small smile. Rachel stared around the empty room - when Quinn had asked to meet her here she'd assumed there'd be other Glee club members present, but they were clearly very alone, and Quinn had a very...predatory look on her face.

She cleared her throat, "Um, what did you want to talk to me about?"

Quinn's eyes drifted slowly up her body, "I was wondering if you'd like to do a duet with me."

Rachel bit her lip, "Certainly. Was there any particular song you had in mind?"

From nowhere, the Bloodhound Gang began to play, and Quinn started to sing, "You and me baby ain't nothing but mammals..."

Rachel opened her eyes again. Where had that come from? That song was definitely not sexy. At that part of the fantasy Quinn usually started singing "Your Body is a Wonderland" and ripping her clothes off. She sighed, clearly if she wasn't going to be able to construct a plausible scenario in her mind, she'd just have to skip straight to the good stuff.

Quinn was on the hood of her car, naked and panting as Rachel grazed her teeth across her neck. "Jesus, Rach," she gasped out as fingers met her nipple. The metal of the car was cold under Rachel's knees, but Quinn was hot and grasping at her.

"Rachel," Quinn panted, even as she was interrupted by Rachel kissing her, one hand on her thigh and moving slowly upwards, "Rachel," Quinn managed to get out eventually, "We have to hurry or we'll be late for your début performance as Elphaba in Wicked."

"I don't care," she muttered, moving her mouth down to bite softly at her collar bone, her fingernails on the inside of Quinn's thigh as the other girl quivered beneath her.

"God - " she gasped, "Rach - "

"Rachel! Dinner's ready, get down here."

Rachel took her hand from her underwear with a frustrated groan. Her dad had the worst possible timing.

xxx

"Hey, Rachel." Quinn appeared next to her locker with a bright smile, "Looking forward to karaoke this weekend?"

Rachel beamed, "Very much so, I've already been considering potential song choices that I think will be appropriate for the audience. There's one song by girl band t.A.T.u which I think would be particularly appropriate."

Quinn laughed, "Okay, well just remember it's held next to the Lima retirement home, there's only so much their pacemakers can stand."

As Rachel's face fell, Quinn shook her head and took her books from her with a smile, "Come on, I'll walk you to class."

Rachel toyed with the idea of trying to continue being disappointed, but she found it was pretty difficult when Quinn was grinning at her like that.

xxx

Rachel entered the Glee practice room later to find Sam holding back a struggling Santana, who appeared to be trying to claw Finn's eyes out.

"You! Your fucking girlfriend!" she was screaming.

"Santana," Finn held his hands up, "I don't even know what you're talking about!"

Rachel skirted around them with a frown and stood next to Quinn, "What's going on?" she whispered to the cheerleader.

Quinn shrugged, "No one's really sure, but they've been doing this for the past ten minutes. Kurt bet Tina ten dollars that Sam's going to get tired and drop her and she'll kick them both in the crotch, I'm pretty sure she'll escape before she gets dropped though."

Rachel turned to look at her in horror, "This is awful! Shouldn't we be trying to - are you eating popcorn? Where did you get that?"

"Mercedes brought it, do you want some?"

"Quinn!" she exclaimed, "We should be trying to stop this, not watching like spectators at a Roman gladiator match."

"Rachel." Quinn put a calming hand on her waist, "If any of us try to intervene she'll just get mad at us too, we already called Brittany and she'll be here soon. It'll be fine."

"Well," the smaller girl replied, somewhat pacified, "In that case then I wouldn't mind accepting your offer of popcorn. Although I still think this is wrong. Is it salted or sweet?"

xxx

Finn sat down next to her heavily as they waited for their teacher to arrive in English class. Rachel glanced at him from the corner of her eye. She liked Finn, she really did, but he did have the tendency to only seek her out when he wanted to complain about Amy or school or the door frames he kept hitting his head on. Admittedly she did only tend to find him when she wanted his help with something, but she supposed that's what made their friendship. As such, she decided to humour him.

"Are you okay, Finn?"

He looked at her fearfully, "I haven't been able to find Amy all day, I'm pretty sure Santana broke into her house last night and murdered her."

Rachel rolled her eyes, "Don't be silly Finn," she said dismissively, "Santana isn't really as violent as she'd like everyone to believe. She's all bark with no bite." she reconsidered this, "Well, she's possibly more like 60% bark and 40% bite, but nevertheless, my point still stands. May I ask what Amy did to make Santana so angry in the first place?"

Finn looked surprised, "You didn't hear? She got Santana and Brittany kicked off the Cheerios."

xxx

Over the past week Rachel had become accustomed to Quinn appearing suddenly throughout the day, or tracking the cheerleader down herself, to walk to class or Glee club or eat lunch with her. That day however she was nowhere to be found, and by the end of the day she was almost certain she was being avoided.

Crossing the parking lot on her way home however, she heard Santana's raised voice, and looked over to see Santana, Brittany and Quinn talking by the latter girl's car.

She slowly approached them, although it wasn't really necessary as Santana was talking loud enough to be heard by almost everyone still remaining at school.

"Are you kidding me? You can't help us out?" she was saying, "We're supposed to be fucking friends."

Rachel couldn't hear what Quinn's answer was, but she looked upset as she stared down at the ground.

Santana threw her arms in the air, "Sylvester would listen to you. You know that." her voice lowered a little, finally, as she added, "This isn't fair, you know it isn't fair."

Quinn just shrugged though, and as Rachel neared them, Brittany tugged Santana away, the other girl's fists clenched in anger.

"Quinn..." Rachel said, putting a hand on her shoulder, "Are you okay? What's going on?"

The cheerleader leaned into her touch a little, sighing deeply, "Amy told Sylvester about Santana and Brittany, and with this whole church sponsorship thing...well, they got kicked off the squad."

Rachel frowned, moving to put her arm around the other girl, trying not to silently delight at their closeness when the other girl was so obviously upset, "That doesn't seem fair. I don't understand why Santana is angry at you though."

Quinn's arm slipped around her waist and her fingers grasped at the side of her sweater, Rachel barely dared to breath in case it made Quinn move. "She wants me to talk Sylvester into getting them back on the squad."

Engrossed in wondering if she dared to hold Quinn's hand, Rachel managed to reply, "But you could do that, couldn't you? Coach Sylvester would listen to you."

Quinn sighed, and Rachel felt it against her cheek, "I can't risk my place on the squad again. Not after last year. Not when..."

The girl made a vague motion with her hand, and Rachel looked up in surprise and disappointment as Quinn moved away from her altogether, leaning against her car instead. "Sylvester talked to me as well today." She stared at the car keys in her hand, not looking at Rachel, "She said that Amy seems to think there's something going on between you and me too. She said I might be her head cheerleader but she can't risk this sponsorship deal," she gave a short humourless laugh, "It turns out this creepy church is pretty dead set against homosexuality."

Rachel frowned, "But that's ridiculous. There are other sponsors, other churches even, who wouldn't care at all. Shall I speak to my dads? I could contact the ACLU and - "

"I can't risk it, Rachel." Quinn said sharply, standing up straight, "It just means we probably shouldn't see each other outside of school or anything. Not that it matters, obviously," she cleared her throat, "We're just friends. We don't want to raise any suspicions though."

Rachel watched as Quinn climbed into her car, slamming the door behind her. They were just friends.

xxx

Rachel: Can we talk?
Rachel: Will you speak to me please?

Rachel waited all evening, but there was no reply.

xxx

It was strange, Rachel thought, sitting in the practice room during Glee, seeing Santana and Brittany out of their Cheerios uniforms. They looked a little uncomfortable themselves, used to the barrier their position provided. Mr Schue was talking about something, but nobody seemed to be concentrating very much, and Quinn wasn't there at all.

Finally, fifteen minutes later and when everyone was beginning to despair that Mr Schue would never stop talking, the head cheerleader arrived, looking nervous.

"Oh good," Santana said loudly, "I was just thinking that what this practice really needs is a huge fucking bitch."

"Santana," Mr Schue reprimanded, "No-one is a bitch. Quinn, take a seat. Honestly guys, if we really want to win at Sectionals, you're going to have to learn to get along and - "

"Actually, Mr Schuester," Quinn said, looking up finally, "I am a bitch."

There were several mutters of "what?" and "this rehearsal finally got interesting", and Schue looked like he wanted to interrupt, but Quinn continued, "I mean, let's think about it, really. For years I was horrible to people who ended up being good friends to me, and I never really apologised for it, I treated two boyfriends pretty crappily, then I let down someone I really like. Liked." she glanced back at the floor, "Not now, someone in the past." she took a deep breath and continued, "Yeah. And now I screwed over two of my best friends, one of them not even for the first time, and I'm not fixing it, when I could, because I'm not only a bitch, but I'm a coward too."

There was a stunned silence following her outburst, the Glee club members glancing at each other in confusion. Santana was clenching Brittany's hand in her lap.

"I'm going to go," Quinn said eventually, "Yeah. Sorry for interrupting. I'm going to leave." She turned and went, and Rachel only waited a few seconds after the door clicked shut before rushing out of the room after her.

"Quinn!" she shouted as she raced after her, "Quinn!"

Quinn slowed to a halt and turned, "You had to run to keep up, Berry?" she gave a half smile, "I guess your legs are a lot shorter than mine."

Rachel rolled her eyes, "Where are you going?"

Quinn shrugged, gesturing vaguely at the exit, "Home. What do you want?"

"Don't you think you should go talk to Coach Sylvester?"

The cheerleader's eyes narrowed, "I can't, Rachel, I've already explained. Don't you listen? Why did you even follow me?"

Rachel placed a gentle hand on the taller girl's arm, "You're the one who doesn't listen, Quinn. How many times am I going to have to tell you that you aren't a coward?"

Quinn's eyes widened in surprise and Rachel gave a small smile, "Be brave."