A/N: It's rather fabulous how much you can get done when you don't want to work on actual work. Or graduate school applications. Triple update = triple word score, yes?

Yes.

The Saturday before school started, Rachel dragged Quinn out with Tina and Brittany for the afternoon. Quinn had, in her renewed determination to get into a good university, taken to studying a disgusting amount of the time (and taking over Rachel's elliptical in the process), and needed to get out into some sunshine.

Also, Rachel had added with a smirk, she was about to start really showing and desperately in need of a trip to the maternity store. Quinn, in response, had glared at her, but allowed herself to be levered out of her chair and pulled downstairs to where Brittany was cheerfully trying to teach Tina a cheer.

Afterwards, arms laden down with shopping bags—none of which Rachel, nor Brittany, nor even Tina had allowed Quinn to pay for, all of them kindly (or, in Rachel's case, bluntly) reminding her that she was sixteen, jobless, and pretty much broke—Rachel and Quinn had parted ways with the others, returning home tiredly.

"Ugh," Quinn said, dropping back into the chair at her desk and toeing her boots off. "My feet are killing me."

"Wimp," Rachel said good-naturedly. She stood with her back to Quinn, unloading and sorting out the clothes they had bought. Quinn watched with a raised eyebrow as Rachel separated the clothes into stacks of shirts, pants, dresses, and sweatpants, and then proceeded to organize each stack by color.

"Has anyone ever told you that you're a wee bit anal retentive?" Quinn asked. She tipped her chair back on two legs, propping the back against the edge of her desk, and let her head fall back to stare at the ceiling.

"As a matter of fact, no. Never." Rachel glanced over her shoulder, her eyes amused. "Did you just say 'wee'?"

"As a matter of fact, I certainly did not," Quinn said, not moving her eyes from the ceiling. "I have no idea what you're talking about." She smiled unwittingly, glad that her face was turned up to the ceiling.

"Uh huh," Rachel said. "Whatever you say. And don't mock my organizational patterns. This way, when you want this particular blue shirt, you'll know exactly where it will be when you need it."

"If you say so," Quinn said. She tilted her head back down, smirking. "Far be it from me to argue."

"Well, that's a first," Rachel said snidely. She stuck her tongue out at Quinn before pirouetting back to face the stacks of clothes she was organizing.

"Rachel, you don't need to put away my clothes," Quinn said after a minute of watching Rachel's color-coding. "I can do that."

"Don't be silly," Rachel said. "You need to stay off your feet for a few minutes. Relax. It's not like you haven't been doing my laundry for the last two months."

"Rach, seriously," Quinn said. Dropping the front legs of the chair back down softly, Quinn climbed to her feet and wrapped a hand around Rachel's elbow. "You really don't need to—"

"Maybe I want to," Rachel mumbled. Her hands, still gripping a yellow blouse, stilled. Quinn blinked, her brow furrowed.

"What?"

"Maybe I want to," Rachel said louder. She quickly folded the shirt and added it to its proper place in the pile before turning to face Quinn, chin up and shoulders back. "Maybe I want to do something for you."

Quinn shook her head, rubbing one hand over her eyes. "You're kidding, right?" she said frankly. "Rachel, you're letting me stay in your home. A roof over my head, food to eat, a ride to school. You're even buying me clothes. Why would you think that you need to do anything else for me?"

"That's all my parents," Rachel mumbled. Her determination seemed to falter, chin dropping and shoulders slumping. "Their house, their food, their money."

"So?" Quinn said. "Rachel, they're devoted to you." She paused, taking a deep breath and praying that her voice didn't actually crack as much as she had imagined; every time she saw Rachel's fathers dote on her as lovingly as they did, she smiled, but it made her chest hurt and she missed her family more than ever. "There's no way I'd be here if you hadn't brought me here, and you weren't okay with it."

"I was going to ask you to leave," Rachel blurted out. Her cheeks flushed darkly and her eyes seemed incredibly bright to Quinn; she couldn't tell if there were actual tears forming in them or not. Quinn simply stood there, hand still on Rachel's elbow; her fingers slipped numbly, her arms falling to her side. Rachel started pacing up and down the small room, wringing her hands together.

"It was when Finn came by, before Christmas," she said. She spoke quickly, the words almost running together. Quinn continued to stand silently, staring down at her shoes. "He came to bring me a Christmas gift, and asked if I wanted to go with him and his family to his uncle's cabin for New Year's, and said that he wanted to go out with me but didn't know if he could manage to be with me when I was living with you. And he kissed me and it was everything I thought I'd wanted, you know? And I told him I'd think about it, but then there was that whole fiasco in the kitchen and he was such a jerk and… and I changed my mind." She jerked to a halt, turning to face Quinn, eyes wide and afraid.

"And I'm sorry," she said softly. "I'm pretty sure we're friends now, and I don't want you to leave." She twisted her hands together, shifting her weight back and forth nervously. "I'm sorry. I wanted to make it up to you."

"By folding my clothes?" Quinn said, her voice dull. She lifted her chin, finally meeting Rachel's eyes.

"Well, it was a start," Rachel said. She smiled cautiously, taking a step towards Quinn. "I was also going to propose a movie night and let you watch The Princess Bride, even though I still think Carey Elwes looks like a frog."

Quinn laughed half-heartedly. Carefully, she perched on the edge of the bed, unconsciously careful to avoid mussing any of the piles of meticulously ordered clothing. "He wants you to choose?" she said eventually. "Between being my friend and being his girlfriend?"

"Yeah," Rachel said. She sat down at Quinn's desk, hands clasped in her lap. "Kind of an asshole thing to do."

"He's not an asshole," Quinn said softly. She smiled a little crookedly at Rachel. "Finn's a good guy. He's just… he's hurt. I hurt him, and I get that he kind of hates me now. I don't blame him."

"He needs to grow up," Rachel said. "You made a mistake, but everyone makes mistakes."

Quinn shrugged. "I hurt him," she repeated. "Badly. It'll take him a long time to get over it." She looked back up at Rachel. "I know you like him," she said quietly. "You should go out with him." She pointedly ignored the feeling of nausea at the thought of him with anyone else—even someone who she knew would both be good for him and take care of him, someone she considered a friend. He was her first love, after all; the idea of him moving on was simply painful.

"No!" Rachel said vehemently. "No way. Not after all that."

"He hasn't changed, Rach," Quinn said. She ignored the nausea—she'd become adept at doing so, given the morning sickness—and told herself that it made sense that part of being a better person, a person a little girl would be proud to call a mother, involved doing something like telling her friend that it was perfectly fine to go after her ex-boyfriend. "He's still the same guy that you had a crush on, minus the baby drama and bitchy girlfriend. Don't let me keep you from him."

"You're not," Rachel said firmly. "He is. He's being a jerk, and I don't want to date a jerk."

"You dated Puck."

"Hey, you're the one who slept with him," Rachel shot back. She smirked when Quinn rolled her eyes and stuck out her tongue. "Besides, you know that Noah's not really a jerk at all. Once you get past all the bravado, he's just like Finn at heart." She paused, a thoughtful look in her eyes. "With better hair. I don't think I'll ever understand why that mohawk is so appealing."

Quinn laughed without meaning to, shaking her head slowly. "Who knows," she said, giggling slightly. She could hardly disagree; even before the fat day and the wine coolers, she had always harbored an unwanted but unbelievably intense attraction to Puck.

"But seriously," Rachel said, her eyes somber. "I don't want to date anyone who asks me to choose between him and my friend. Maybe one day in the future, when he sorts things out, we can give it a try. But not now." She smiled widely at Quinn, who gazed back at her thoughtfully; Rachel's smile slipped slightly. "We are friends, right?"

Quinn barked out a short laugh. "Yeah, Berry," she said with a smile. "We're friends."

"So on Monday you're not going to start calling me RuPaul and pushing me into lockers again?"

"No," Quinn said softly. Her stomach twisted uncomfortably at the thought. She forced herself to look back up, meeting Rachel's eyes. "Rachel, I'm… I'm sorry about all of that."

"Don't," Rachel said. "In the past, moved on, beyond that. Besides," she added. "If I was still bothered by it, I could console myself with the knowledge that for most of last semester while you were calling me stubbles, your boyfriend was pining after me." She smiled widely at Quinn, who sighed, shaking her head but smiling indulgently nonetheless.

"Okay," Rachel said. She clapped her hands once, springing to her feet. "So, movie night?"

"Sounds good," Quinn said. She climbed to her feet, following Rachel's bouncing form out of the room and down the stairs. "We're still watching The Princess Bride, by the way," she added to Rachel's back.

"Aw, come on," Rachel wheedled. "I came clean and apologized! Can't we watch something else?"

"No way," Quinn said, shaking her head. "My movie tonight. It's happening."

Rachel wrinkled her nose. "He looks like a frog."

"You look like a frog," Quinn tossed over her shoulder as they parted ways, Quinn to the living room and Rachel to the kitchen to make popcorn.

"Do not!"

"Little bit," Quinn said resolutely as she cued up the movie and settled on the couch. "Don't put any butter on it!"

"Your movie, my popcorn. It's happening." Rachel appeared in the living room, a bowl of popcorn in her hands. Quinn wrinkled her nose at the smell of microwaved butter as Rachel dropped down onto the couch next to her and sat the popcorn on the table in front of them.

"God, he looks like a frog," Rachel mumbled ten minutes into the movie.

"Shut it," Quinn shot back. "And he does not."

"You're right," Rachel said. She grabbed a handful of popcorn. "More like a toad."

"Berry, I swear to God, there will be a smackdown in this house if you don't shut up and enjoy this movie."

"Please, I can take you."

"You wish," Quinn said. "I've got Santana in my corner. You really want to mess with her?"

"I… no." Rachel shook her head. "Good point." She meekly ate the popcorn in her hand, turning back to the movie; Quinn smirked and returned her own attention to the screen.

An hour later, the popcorn was gone and Carey Elwes was wrestling with a rat the size of a great Dane. Rachel had her nose wrinkled in disgust—she hated rats—and Quinn had fallen asleep, her head pillowed on Rachel's legs. She had laid down at Rachel's insistence half an hour earlier, after struggling to find a comfortable position that didn't hurt her back; Rachel had coaxed her into stretching out on the couch and had set to work at the knots in her shoulders until the blonde had dropped off. The massage class she had taken two years ago was finally being put to use, now that she knew about the stiffness in Quinn's back; she had taken to cajoling Quinn into setting aside her pride and letting Rachel massage the knots out of her back almost every evening since she first found out about them at the Thai restaurant.

Rachel looked away from the movie, down at Quinn's sleeping form, and carefully reached behind her to pull a blanket off of the back of the couch and spread it over her. Turning down the volume, she returned her attention to the movie (she didn't really hate Carey Elwes all that much); one hand rested protectively over Quinn's stomach, the other unconsciously stroking gently along her blonde hair.