Author's note: Apologies for the lateness of this update. Took a weekend getaway instead of writing last week. Expect the remaining two chapters to appear on or around the next two Fridays.

Author's note 2: Thank you to everyone who's been leaving me kind reviews. I'm writing this story because I love it, but the support is very heartening and encouraging! I'm sorry for being terrible at responding, but I hope to do that after the story itself is finished.

Author's note 3: Holy cow, I wrote a chapter with no Santana.

Sunday, August 28 / 10:35am

The first time Rachel Berry realized she was in love with Quinn Fabray, the moment was bathed in moonlight and drenched in the scent of daffodils, and full of the promise of the brand new summer that was about to begin.

At the time, sitting face to face with Quinn on her back porch in the dark, Rachel hadn't heard choirs of angels, or felt the urge to shout from any rooftops. It wasn't like a bolt of lightning or any other sort of metaphorical epiphany like that.

But looking back on it now, it was easy to label the moment for what it was. It was when she first felt helpless when it came to Quinn.

This morning, on a cloudy Sunday three months later, it occurred to Rachel that the reason people are giddy when they're falling in love is not necessarily happiness; it's because they've been freed of any semblance of control. They're strapped in, sitting at the peak of that first roller coaster hill, and there's no way out but down.

And Rachel was still in the middle of the free fall of that hill. That was perfectly clear today, as she lay in bed, her hand working against herself under the blankets, pleasure and misery mixing in her belly. A few hours this morning spent on memories, and she was powerless.

Sunday, May 29 / 2:17am

Rachel's eyes were finally adjusting to the darkness. In the moonlight, she could just start to make out the features of Quinn's face again. They sat cross-legged on the scratchy plastic rug that covered the cement porch that jutted out into the back yard from Rachel's dads' kitchen.

It was the first day of summer. Yes, the calendar still read May. And it was true that school hadn't quite yet released them into freedom for the year, but you couldn't tell that to the warm, humid air and the tufts of daffodils that lined the porch. And you couldn't convince the pit of Rachel's stomach, either. Everything about this night told her it was a new season.

"Did you ever catch fireflies when you were little?" she asked Quinn in a soft voice, almost reluctant to break the silent spell.

"Mmhmm," Quinn said, turning her head to watch the tiny flashes of golden light glitter in Rachel's back yard. "But I never kept them in a jar, though. I always let them go."

"Me too," Rachel said. "Seemed mean to keep them."

"I had this cousin . . . sorry, actually this isn't a very nice memory."

"It's okay," Rachel encouraged. "I want to hear it."

"Well, he used to catch them and pull off their little lights."

"Oh no," Rachel murmured.

"He would smear them across his face, like war paint. He thought it looked so cool. Really he looked like an alien."

"I guess little boys are like aliens sometimes," Rachel said.

"He was. He and I used to have these epic hair-pulling fights," Quinn said with a wistful smile, and it seemed like she was thinking of this for the first time in years, like each memory was being revealed to her as she spoke. "He would tell me he was going to karate chop me if I told on him, whatever that meant, but it sounded very convincing at the time. Oh, and he once told my parents I taught him the f-word."

"Did you?"

"Maybe," Quinn smiled shyly, and Rachel clapped her hands together softly in amusement.

"I think I was proud of myself for knowing something so naughty."

"Which cousin is this?"

"My mom's sister's son, Jonah. But I don't think we've ever called each other by our real names. We had this long list of nasty nicknames for each other. And, before you even ask, no I won't repeat them," Quinn said, grinning.

"I take it they were more offensive than 'Quinnie,' like the rest of your family seems to call you."

"Yes. God, that sounds so weird coming from you," Quinn said. "I don't think you should say that."

"What about 'Q?'" Rachel teased. "Can I call you that?"

"If you want, but you should know it evokes a visceral desire to punch you."

"Maybe not, then."

"So how come you don't have any nicknames, Rachel Berry?" Quinn said, poking the tip of Rachel's nose with her index finger.

"Are you kidding? I've been given at least two hundred of them since I started hanging out with Santana."

"No, you know what I mean. Nobody calls you anything consistently except 'Berry,' which isn't even a nickname. Why don't you ever get 'Rachie' or 'R' like I get 'Quinnie' and 'Q?' It isn't fair."

"I guess I get 'Rach' sometimes."

"I guess. But I want you to have something annoying like I have, though. Like, 'Rachie, come down for dinner!' or 'Yo R, what do you want to sing at sectionals?' or 'R-chie—'" Quinn stumbled over her words, and her eyes widened in surprise at what had just come out of her mouth.

Rachel keeled over backwards, clutching her stomach.

"Did you just call me 'Archie?'"

"No! I mean, yes, but I didn't mean to! I think I figured out why nobody calls you those nicknames, they're too hard to say."

"They're better than Archie."

"I think it might be too late," Quinn said, reaching her hand out to grasp Rachel's chin playfully. "I think we've found you a new nickname."

Rachel pouted. "Don't I get veto power?"

"Mm-mm. Afraid not, Archie."

"Stop," Rachel said, grinning.

"Make me."

Sunday, August 28 / 10:35am

She had kissed Quinn to be funny, to make her stop teasing. The silence of the night had been thick, and she could remember the sound of their lips meeting, tongues twisting against each other and then parting, only to meet again a beat later.

Lying on her back beneath her crisp white sheet and fluffy down comforter, Rachel ran her tongue over her lips.

In her life, she had thought about kissing girls. Before Santana and before Quinn, the thought had actually crossed her mind. Never about any specific girls that she knew in person, it was true. Self-repression, maybe? That was possible.

But the occasional actress, or singer, or whatever, had flashed on the backs of her eyelids while she was fantasizing, even when she was quite young. Nervous about the implications, she had done her research online and in magazines, and found that was true of most women. She had never thought about going down on another girl before she had been with one.

That night on the porch with Quinn, she had never wanted to do anything so badly.

It was a ridiculous idea, that one way of having sex with a girl made you any "gayer" than any other way. That putting your mouth there, making a girl come with your tongue and your lips was any gayer than doing it with your fingers or other body parts. But. . . then again, it was really intimate. Maybe it was the most intimate thing Rachel could think of doing with another person.

She understood now it's why she had wanted to do it – why she couldn't stop herself from wanting to do it.

A chill had nipped at the edges of the air by that time of night, and the plastic rug wouldn't have been comfortable on bare skin, so Rachel had left on Quinn's blouse and sweater. She'd bunched up Quinn's skirt and lowered her panties. Remembering the look in Quinn's eyes as she realized what Rachel was planning to do squeezed a groan from Rachel's throat.

"Can I?" Rachel had whispered down at her, and Quinn had hesitated, conflicting emotions flickering across her face. But she nodded, so Rachel kissed her lower stomach and looked up at Quinn one last time. Quinn's eyes were asking her for something, but not just sexual release. Rachel still didn't know exactly what it was.

She planted warm kisses up and down Quinn's center, letting Quinn get used to the feel of her lips down there. It was an eternity before she used her fingers to open Quinn and taste her inside.

Other than that, the memory of the eternity of being close but not yet there, with the rich scent in her nose and the hints of wetness against her lips, Rachel had trouble remembering the mechanics, how she'd done what and when. It was funny, given the vivid detail she could conjure for the kissing, and the words, and the looks.

All she had now was the feeling of it. That feeling of immersion. The feeling of wanting to do anything, everything to make Quinn feel good, to make Quinn know she could make her feel good. She didn't care if she couldn't breathe right or the muscles in her jaw burned or Quinn's heel was twisting the skin on the back of her thigh. All of that was perfect.

In her bed, Rachel rolled onto her stomach, twisting the sheet between her legs. She lifted herself onto her left elbow and pulled her pillow toward her, burying her face in it, putting pressure against her mouth and her chin the way she'd done against Quinn's body. Her mouth watered as her finger circled her clit. When she came, she moaned into her pillow the way she had moaned against Quinn's body.

Thursday, August 25 / 5:08pm

"Thanks for meeting up with me, Rachel," Quinn said, forcing a smile.

"You're welcome, Quinn," Rachel said. "Thanks for the coffee."

When Quinn had called her last evening, it was clear that the excuse of wanting to meet up so that she could return Rachel's father's book was exactly that – an excuse. She had surprised herself by saying yes so easily. Sure, there had been moments of thaw since the trauma of midsummer, but this was the first time they'd expressly chosen to spend time together for the sake of it.

Rachel had tried to mentally prepare for any possibility. Would there be a tearful apology, or a doleful plea for a second chance? Or maybe the complete opposite, where Quinn made an awkward attempt to show Rachel she was completely fine without her? Or would it be anticlimactic, just a lot of tense nothingness?

"So how have you been?" Quinn asked.

She was calm, Rachel observed. She wondered how rehearsed it was.

"Busy, I guess," Rachel answered, after weighing her response options and choosing the safest one. "The show opens soon so I've had rehearsal every day for the past two weeks. I'm still volunteering, of course. I'm writing songs in my spare time, although I haven't really had much of it lately."

And I'm dating, she added silently.

"Oh, and of course I'm still tutoring Santana and Brittany."

"How are they doing on the reading and writing parts?" Quinn asked.

"They're taking it a little more seriously, lately."

"Yeah. I've noticed that, too."

"You know they had their tryouts over the weekend."

"Yeah," Quinn nodded. "Santana says it went well."

"I got the slightly more effusive version from Brittany. She's going to end up there for sure, as long as she can keep her grades up. I guess the only question is whether Santana's ego will allow her to go to a school she feels is beneath her."

"Santana wants to be on a team that can be the best," Quinn said. "It wouldn't be an easy choice."

"Wow, you're defending Santana's ego," Rachel noted. "I'm not sure I've witnessed this before."

Quinn furrowed her brow, looking down at the table.

"Rachel . . I'm sorry if I ruined your summer."

Of course Quinn's apology would be oblique.

"That's kind of a strange way to put it, Quinn," Rachel said with a brief smile. "Like you broke our vacation plans or something."

"I did break our plans, I guess."

"Well, I appreciate your apology, but you didn't ruin my summer. I decided not to let you."

Quinn swallowed. "I'm glad. I wanted to tell you that last week I told my therapist I was a lesbian."

Rachel set her coffee down on the table. The way Quinn was blurting things out, it was clear that actually, this wasn't rehearsed at all.

"I didn't know you were seeing a therapist," she said.

"Nobody knows," Quinn said, punctuating it with an expression Rachel took to mean and keep it that way.

"Is it helping you?"

Quinn shrugged. "Probably not."

Rachel frowned.

"But, I've only been there three times," she added. "So who knows?"

"Lesbian." So no more boys, Rachel thought. Quit having butterflies about that, Rachel. It doesn't mean anything.

Rachel wasn't sure she wanted to ask more about Quinn's therapy, or about Quinn's declaration. She wasn't sure at all what level of intimacy they were ready to operate on, here.

Quinn seemed reluctant to continue as well. Awkward silence threatened.

"Oh, here," Quinn said, reaching into her bag and pulling out the thick, white paperback that was ostensibly the reason for their meeting. "I feel bad I've had it all this time. Tell your Dad I'm sorry. He can charge me overdue fees or something."

"It's no big deal, Quinn. But I am confused, because I thought you told him you didn't want to read this."

"Curiosity got the better of me," Quinn said sheepishly. "I sneaked down the stairs from your room to look at it that same night, and wound up taking it with me."

"Did you like it?"

"I loved it."

She reached under the table again to pull her messenger bag out from under her. After rummaging for a moment, she pulled out a bound document and handed it to Rachel.

"What's this?"

"I know this is going to sound weird, but it's my AP World History summer homework," Quinn said. "It's a first draft, but I wanted you to read it."

"Why?" Rachel asked, taking it from Quinn and flipping open the cover. "What is it about?"

"We had to pick an aspect of modern culture, like it could be anything, and analyze it from a historical perspective. It was supposed to be across multiple cultures and time periods. I picked society and homosexuality."

"Oh. That's really awesome, Quinn," Rachel said, impressed by the sheer weight of the booklet in her hands.

"I wanted you to read it because . . because you inspired it. You and your ridiculous power point at the beginning of the summer. Well, that and your Dads' books."

Rachel smiled. This wasn't a scenario she'd imagined at all. "I'll read it tonight."

"It's dry and academic. It'll bore you to tears. But writing it. . . it made me feel better," Quinn said.

"Yeah. I'll read it tonight," Rachel affirmed.

Sunday, August 28 / 11:05am

The second time Rachel Berry realized she was in love with Quinn Fabray had happened about an hour ago, here on her bed alone, and had all the promise of a pile of concrete bricks stacked up on her chest.

She stroked the naked skin of her belly, lying on her back once more.

Like a snap of the fingers or the flip of the page, it all felt so empty. The dates she'd been going on and the cheerful proclamations she'd been making to Santana or anyone else who would listen about moving on and focusing on her goals were like holograms fading from view.

She had been kidding herself. And not just about Quinn.

I'm guess I'm bisexual.

It was the first time she had ever uttered those words, even in her own head. But here she was, clearly in love with another woman even though in her head she'd decided to move on. She'd just spent the past half hour remembering how it felt to taste her while she brought herself to climax. Not that it was her first clue – hadn't it been Rachel who had, in the truest sense of the word, initiated her affair with Santana? It had been with a look – an unintended, over-the-shoulder glance. Santana had known what that look meant better than Rachel had herself.

She supposed it was likely that the capacity to fall in love with a girl was always going to be there, and it was something she had better set about getting used to.

In that respect, it turned out that Brittany, Santana, and even Quinn had quite a head start on her.

Rachel sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, and pulled on her t-shirt. Still a little wobbly-legged, she stood and crossed the room, and perched on her desk chair with her knees drawn up to her chest.

The morning's realizations had nothing directly to do with the content of the document that lay open to the last page in front of her, although it hadn't been dry and academic like Quinn had said at all. In fact, the words had practically leapt off the page – Quinn was really talented. Instead, all the thinking probably had more to do with the fact that Quinn, who had loved her, dumped her, broken her heart and slept with someone else, had needed her to read it in the first place.

The truth was, Quinn had needed Rachel to read about the things she'd spent her summer learning.

At first, Rachel didn't understand why she was reading them at all. Why did Quinn care if she read about early religions and the way sexuality, especially of women, was first revered, then feared, then criminalized? Why had Quinn wanted her to see what she had learned about how religion used politics as a tool, and vice versa? Why did Quinn care how cultures seemed to pick and choose the rules and customs haphazardly? They were all focal points of this paper about homosexuality and society, but why?

It was only puzzling until Rachel realized that all of this stuff, all of these ideas – this was Quinn trying to wrap her head around the big picture. The really, really big picture.

Of course it was.

Quinn, who had locked herself away for the second half of the summer and worried her mother and her friends, had been finding her own way to understand. Or at least, to start understanding. She was going to therapy, that was one thing. Coming at it through her intellect was another.

Rachel realized that before today, she hadn't understood the conflict, not really. Maybe she'd been used to Santana, whose insecurities were based in the perceptions of the outside world, whose problems with her identity would go away, slowly but surely, once she had found herself a safe place.

Quinn wasn't that way at all, was she? What had started with the baby and finished with this summer's boyfriend, was that Quinn had lost herself, at least the self she thought she knew. It wasn't just boys and cheerleading and grades that made Quinn into the person she told herself she was – it was her attempt to live up to an ideal so deeply ingrained in her it had nearly squeezed out everything else.

Rachel was reading this paper because Quinn was trying to tell her, I'm trying to understand where it all came from. How I fit in.

What Rachel found herself wondering was how she fit in to Quinn's search.

Saturday, June 25 / 12:30pm

"Thanks for writing it down for me," Finn said, sliding into his chair and pushing Rachel's coffee across the table toward her. "I never could have remembered all of those instructions."

Rachel smiled. "Thanks for buying," she said.

"It was the least I could do," Finn said with an uncomfortable smile. "You kinda had a bad morning."

Rachel nodded. She sipped her drink and glanced at Puck and Lauren, who sat a few tables over. She exhaled over the top of her mug to cool the coffee inside and tried to relax, to act casual. She could sense there was a capital-C conversation coming.

It was probably useless waiting for Finn to speak, she thought. He was concentrating very hard on appearing highly engrossed in his frappuccino.

"Thanks for coming with Puck this afternoon," she said, breaking the ice. "I know it can't be easy to be around Quinn and me."

There. Subject broached.

Finn shrugged. "I was hanging out at Lauren's with those guys anyway when you called," he said. "When Puck told me what happened I wanted to take a baseball bat to that guy." He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "I still care about you, you know. Both of you."

"Well, it means a lot, especially given the circumstances."

"Look, Rachel, can I ask you something?" he said, twisting the straw paper between his fingers. "I know it's probably none of my business or anything – you've moved on and I get that, but I have to ask."

Rachel braced herself. "Yeah. Go ahead."

Finn leaned forward, lowering his head. "Were you always, you know . . . gay?" The last word barely came out as a whisper. "I mean last year, and, like, before that?"

"You mean when we were dating," she translated.

"Well . . . yeah."

"First of all, Finn, I'm not gay. Labels matter, okay, and that one isn't accurate. Second of all, you know better than to ask me that." The next statement stuck in her throat for a second. "You know that I loved you."

"I'm sorry, Rachel," he said, the relief suddenly tangible in the air between them. "I guess I just needed to hear it." He paused. "So do you like only girls now, or . . .?"

Rachel sighed. "Look, Finn, I don't know what I am. I haven't had nearly enough time to explore my desires well enough to answer such a complex, multi-faceted question. However confused you are, trust me, it's more difficult for me." She shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know what else to say. If you're mad about Quinn and me it shouldn't be at me. It was over between us."

"Nahh, Rachel, I'm not mad. I guess I'm just. . . I'm sad."

"I'm sorry, Finn," Rachel said, though she wasn't entirely sure for what.

Finn scrunched his brow and fidgeted, his foot bumping hers under the table. "I guess I just thought, Rachel, that I'd always have a shot with you. That somehow, I don't know, we'd come back to each other when we worked out all this high school stuff."

Rachel looked at him sadly across the table. She didn't blame him; how could she? She'd be lying if she said that a few short months ago she didn't have the same idea locked away somewhere inside.

She only realized how much had changed when the next words came out of her mouth.

"But, Finn," she started slowly, "Don't you think maybe that was part of the problem with us?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that things could go wrong between us and we'd just take each other back, even though we never dealt with any of it. I think there's a reason we never worked, Finn, and it's because we assumed things would just . . . fix themselves, and all we had to do was get a little older and then try again. We never forgave each other, not really."

Finn pressed his lips together and stared at the table. Rachel waited a long time for him to respond, but that was okay. It was a lot to hear, she supposed.

"I wish you would have said this stuff when we were together, when I could have done something about it," he said, finally. "Now it's too late."

"I'm sorry, Finn," Rachel said. "I guess I didn't have enough distance from it then."

Sunday, August 28 / 11:04am

As she sat at her desk, staring down at the pages of Quinn's words, she wasn't really seeing the words. All she could see was the furrow of Quinn's brow and the purse of her lips as her mind churned out the ideas that her fingertips wove into sentences. Rachel thought she might like to lie on Quinn's bed sometime, and watch her type.

And that's when Rachel realized she was in trouble.

Somehow, between the therapist and the coming out and the research paper about all this heavy stuff, it seemed like this was a new Quinn. Or maybe it was the old Quinn, but with a few more layers peeled away, and Rachel needed to catch up.

In any case, the Quinn she was in love with now wasn't a pretty girl with a quick temper who needed patience until she could find her way out of the closet. This Quinn – the one looking for answers, the one who was finally tackling her problems in the ways that made sense for her – needed much, much more than that.

Rachel put her elbows on the desk and rested her forehead against her palms in despair.

Because, when had Rachel not wanted to give them to her, the things that she needed? She would take all the icy-cold anger and the self-loathing tears that Quinn had to give. She'd never not been willing to do that. And right now, at this very moment, there were blocking changes and director's notes in a stack of pages on her desk that she was supposed to be studying, and she wasn't doing that. If she was being honest, she didn't even want to get dressed and drive to Findlay for rehearsal. Her show, which opened in less than a week, felt like almost nothing when she thought of Quinn typing at this paper. This was how Rachel Berry truly knew she was in trouble.

It was possible that she didn't have the time, or the energy, or the strength to be anywhere near Quinn at this point in her life. It was possible that they couldn't fix what was broken between them and they couldn't progress without it.

It was possible that she should put this paper in a drawer and not talk to Quinn about it at all.

Wednesday, August 17 / 3:35pm

"Can you say something, please?" Quinn asked testily. The clock on the wall was ticking so fucking loudly she couldn't even think.

"Did you want to talk about your sister some more this week?"

"No. Say something not about me."

Her therapist smiled. "We're here to talk about you."

Quinn scowled.

"You can't tell anyone, right? Anything I say is private and that's the law?"

"As long as you're not hurting yourself or someone else, Quinn, you can completely rely upon doctor-patient confidentiality."

"Nobody keeps secrets."

"People in my profession do. But you shouldn't think of them as secrets, Quinn. Think of the things you tell me here as. . . truths. I want to know what's true for you."

Quinn sucked on the inside of her cheek, rubbed her palms together, and stared at the clock. Maybe she could wait it out. Fourteen more minutes and she could leave, and the decision was out of her hands.

"If you're having trouble getting something out, Quinn, let's talk about a related subject, and maybe we'll get there eventually. Is there something we can start with to make it a little easier?"

"No."

"All right."

The doctor folded his hands across the notepad in front of him, and waited.

Quinn made a bargain with herself. Three and a half minutes, and she would say it. She watched the second hand round the bottom of the clock's face. Her palms started sweating.

"I'm a lesbian."

It came out 47 seconds early. She exhaled for what felt like the first time in 35 minutes.

Her therapist opened his mouth to speak, but Quinn held up her hand.

"I'm going to go for the day."

"We still have ten minutes, Quinn. I think it's best if you stay so we can talk about what you've just told me."

She stood up.

"Not now."

Wednesday, August 8 / 6:58pm

Quinn wandered into her mother's bedroom around 7pm, knowing she'd be in her chair watching Jeopardy.

Judy's smile at Quinn's unexpected visit faded as she regarded her daughter's bloodshot eyes and uncombed hair.

"Mom?"

"Yes, Quinnie?" Judy asked, snatching the remote from the nightstand and turning down the volume.

"Does our insurance cover therapy?"

Quinn almost laughed at how quickly her mother turned ghostly white.

"Therapy?"

"Yeah, I want to talk to a shrink."

"I'm not sure, but I'd imagine so."

"Can you find out? I want to go to this one."

She tossed the card of Rachel's therapist's colleague on the bed.

"You know, Quinn, you can talk to me if—"

"No." Quinn said flatly.

"Okay, I'll make some calls in the morning."

"Thanks."

Quinn drifted out of her mother's room and back up the stairs to her bedroom.

Friday, August 26 / 9:40pm

Quinn was feeling homicidal, and with the way she was dressed right now, she could probably go ahead and go through with it without anyone knowing it was her. The fact that she was wearing jeans was out of character enough, but the Salvation Army red v-neck t-shirt that seemed to be endorsing a Cincinnati sports team (baseball, she thought) was even stranger to see when she glanced down at herself. The black baseball cap with the country club insignia that she had fished out of one of her father's old drawers was completely over the top, especially with her hair tucked up underneath. Forget Brittany and Artie – Quinn hoped no one in Lima would be able to recognize her looking like this.

Besides all that, she must look strange, sitting at a booth all by herself at a Dave and Busters. Looking around, she couldn't find one other person who was here alone. That was sure to call attention; she'd better stay on the move.

Not that she hadn't been all over this place already in the past hour and a half. She wasn't sure if it was Artie wanting to play every single game or Brittany not wanting any of them to feel left out or something ridiculous like that, but they didn't stay in one place for longer than like three minutes.

It was unbearably loud, with the electronic noise pollution of arcade games out-competed only by the squeal of kids or the rowdy shouting of teenagers – hence the blood lust simmering in Quinn's heart. It also meant she couldn't hear a damn thing those two were saying to each other. She would be amazed if they could even hear each other.

It really did all seem very innocent, though, and that was even considering Quinn was doing her best to look for trouble. (Because really, if she had to be doing this, she was going to do it right.) Artie was giving Brittany pointers on these first-person war game thingies, and she beat him twice at shooting basketballs. He watched while she played DDR. When he won a small stuffed Snoopy, Quinn watched with bated breath to see whether he handed it to her. Instead, he tucked it into his backpack.

There was something unnatural about the way they were interacting, though. It was there when they both accidentally reached for Brittany's soda, and again when they had to squeeze one in front of the other to pass through a crowd of people. She couldn't put her finger on it at first, and the cynic in her thought maybe they were pretending to behave themselves in public, only to act on their awkward sexual tension later.

But that was stupid, she realized. They were acting awkward because they were awkward. They looked weird because it was weird to hang out with an ex. It gave Quinn two immediate emotions: one was mild surprise at the realization that sometimes the social experiences of normal people did actually apply to Brittany Pierce, and the second was mild depression over the fact that this – the over cautiousness and the awkwardness – were all she could expect any time she saw Rachel. Hadn't yesterday at the coffee shop proved that much?

Depression turned out to hold less energy than murderousness. She was tired and there was nothing to see here, so Quinn decided to leave. She got up from the Ms. Pacman game that she had been pretending to push buttons on ever since departing her lonely booth, and circled around the back of the arcade in a roundabout approach to the front door.

Her cap was pulled down so low that she almost walked into the back of Artie's wheelchair. But that was probably what saved her from being busted, too, because she was able to turn her head away and bolt back into the bar area without being seen – she hoped.

So they were leaving, too. Damn it. Santana had been very clear on the rules – if there is a second location to this not-date, find out what it is, and go there.

She sighed and followed a group of teenaged boys out of the arcade, peering through their shoulders to keep an eye on Brittany's tall, blonde head.

They didn't go far. Brittany wheeled Artie up to the mall fountain, and sat next to him on a bench. Precariously out in the open now that her quarry had stopped moving, Quinn dove for cover behind a nearby mall map. She leaned against the far side of it, right at the edge, hoping to be able to make out conversation from here. She pulled out her phone and pretended to be engrossed, killing time while she waited for a non-existent companion.

Mercifully, there was a break in the crowd noise. At first Quinn heard only the splash of coins hitting the surface of the water, but then Brittany spoke.

"I'm excited to meet her. You know, someday."

"I'm not even sure when I'm going to meet her."

"She sounds so awesome from all the stuff you told me about her."

"I might be biased," Artie said, and Quinn could hear the grin in his voice. "I know it seems crazy liking someone so much when I've never met them. As if I needed more nerd cred, now I've fallen in love with someone playing online games. But we made this connection. I'm powerless to stop it."

Quinn sighed again, this time in relief. This was too good to be true. It was over, she could leave, and better yet she could give Santana good news that meant she'd never have to do this 007 routine again. Artie had a new girlfriend, Brittany was so awkward with him they barely came within arm's length of each other, and that was that.

"So when are you going to Skype with her?" Brittany was saying, and Quinn hesitated, curiosity getting the better of her.

"We have our first face-to-face date this weekend. I'm so nervous. Sometimes it's so much easier to be open with someone when they're this anonymous text box."

"But you know what she looks like and stuff, right?"

"Until I see her actually speaking to me, part of me will be afraid I've been fed fake pictures, and all this time I've been exchanging dirty text messages with a fifty-seven year old man."

Quinn cringed at that thought, and decided she'd heard enough to stamp this one "mission accomplished." As a rotund older couple toddled by, she used them to block what she estimated to be Brittany and Artie's line of sight, and disappeared into the depths of the Lima Mall.