Sunday passed quietly. For the second time since she moved in with the Berrys, Quinn went with Eric on the hour-long trek two towns over to attend a mid-morning Methodist service. When they made it back to Lima, she allowed—barely—Rachel to drag her out to get coffee with Brittany and Santana.
"They're your best friends," Rachel had whined plaintively. "They need to know what's going on." She had ignored Quinn's protests and apprehensions, all but levering the blonde out of the car and into the Starbucks, and had proceeded to gloat magnificently when neither Brittany nor Santana reacted beyond a "Well, duh" comment and an eye roll. The next two hours had been filled mostly with Brittany and Rachel chattering away about dance while Santana sat back with haughty posture and indulgent eyes, and Quinn stayed contentedly quiet while they prattled on, twisting the green swizzle stick from her coffee into entertaining shapes. The most interesting part of the entire day had been when, as they all prepared to part ways, Santana had yanked Rachel aside by the elbow and whispered something in her ear; Rachel had squeaked, a look of fear passing across her eyes, and only nodded meekly. Quinn, given a decade of experience in understanding Santana Lopez, knew that her best friend had probably just threatened Rachel with a slow death by steamroller if she hurt Quinn; she debated reprimanding Santana on Rachel's behalf, but decided against it. It was nice to be reminded how firmly Santana was embedded in her corner.
Monday morning, Quinn woke up at five AM from a nightmare of Jacob Ben Israel outing her and Rachel over the PA system after the morning Pledge of Allegiance and Sue Sylvester cornering them in the hallway to berate them graphically with her bullhorn, and was unable to get back to sleep. Even Rachel wouldn't be awake for another hour, and there was a full two hours until they needed to leave for school. The same energy rushed through her limbs as Saturday morning when she woke next to Rachel; this time, Quinn skipped the yoga entirely and dressed quickly for a run. She hesitated momentarily when the first long sleeve t-shirt she grabbed was from the Humane Society's 10K fundraiser two years earlier, that she had nagged Finn and Santana into running with her. Shaking her head, she shrugged into the shirt anyways, laced up her shoes, and made her way silently down the stairs and outside.
The familiar swing set that noted two miles down was in sight as she rounded a corner on the sidewalk, her attention limited to the music in her ears and the concrete beneath her feet. She suddenly slammed into what felt like a brick wall and promptly fell backwards. Her breath exploded out of her lips, accompanied with a quiet grunt at the flare of pain in her stomach, and she looked up from where she was sprawled on the ground to see a panicked-looking Finn Hudson looming over her.
"Shit," he mumbled, yanking his headphones out of his ears. He knelt down next to her, a hand hovering over her shoulder and his brow furrowed in concern. "I didn't even see you, I'm sorry." After a moment of shared hesitation, he reached out to grip her elbow gently and helped her to her feet. "You okay?"
"Yeah," she whispered. She pulled her own headphones free, wishing desperately that it wouldn't be so awkward to look him in the eye. She unintentionally wrapped her arms protectively around her stomach, her shoulders slumping, as if she expected him to lash out at her like he had the day he pummeled Puck.
Long seconds passed with Quinn all but cowering away from Finn, and him fiddling with his iPod. She remembered how long she used to have to nag and beg and cajole him before he would go for runs with her when they first started dating. The 10K race had been one of her triumphs in training him, and she supposed that if she was still the same person she had been a year ago, she'd take the fact that he was out on his own at 5:30 on a Monday morning for a run to be another victory.
"How are you?" he asked awkwardly.
"I… okay, I guess," she said. She chanced a look up at his eyes, and with a miniscule rush of relief saw none of the anger or disappointment there that she had expected. All that was left was discomfort and something that tugged at the hollow feeling in her chest. "You?"
"About the same, I guess," he said with a shrug. "Stressing about Regionals."
"Yeah, I think we all are," Quinn replied. The words were starting to flow just a little bit easier. "Especially Rachel. She's freaking out, but she won't admit it."
"Sounds about right," he said. He offered her a small half-smile, and her chest hurt a tiny bit less. His smile faded, and his brow creased again momentarily. "It's good that she's there for you," he said awkwardly. "She's a good person to have watching your back."
"Yeah," Quinn whispered. "She is."
Long seconds passed, and Quinn's arms fell from around her stomach, her hands linking in front of her; she stared down at her fingers and glanced up briefly through her eyelashes at Finn, who was shifting his weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other.
"You never let me apologize," she blurted out suddenly. She felt her cheeks flush, and forged on quickly when she saw him open his mouth to respond. "I understand that now. I didn't, at first. I didn't get why you didn't want to hear that I was sorry. But after—after—" She fumbled, hesitating, the words growing heavy in her mouth. "After what happened in the hospital, I didn't want anyone to apologize to me, either. Because you can't fix things with an apology, and I get that now."
She bit her lip and looked up at him. He was all but folded in on himself, his shoulders slumped forward and chin bowing down towards his chest, and she swallowed the urge to grab onto him and hold onto him like a life preserver, to feel the comfort of his arms protecting her once more. Puck was protective and strong and would do anything she needed, and Rachel was wonderful and sweet and would do anything Quinn asked, but Puck was inconsistent and Rachel was worryingly high maintenance. Finn was strong and caring and simple and really had loved her, and as incredible as the progression of her relationship with Rachel felt, she could hardly deny that a part of her was still very much in love with Finn Hudson.
"Oh," he said eventually, his voice faint. "That makes sense."
Quinn tightened her hands to keep from reaching out towards him. For all that a part of her still wanted him, she knew that they had missed their chance—really, that she had blown up their chance with all of the grace and delicacy of a bazooka blast—and that what she really needed was to turn around and run the two miles back home and curl up against Rachel and listen to the brunette's assurance that everything was going to be okay.
"I am sorry, though," she added softly. "It doesn't make much difference, but I am. I never wanted to hurt you."
"I know," he said. His voice was just as quiet as hers, a low rumble that she could barely hear over the early morning sounds of crickets and twittering birds. "Rachel was right, after Christmas. I needed to grow up. Well," he added wanly. "We all did. I was just a little slower at it."
Quinn felt her throat swell, but she could do little to stop the tiny smile from spreading across her lips. "Thank you," she whispered.
"Sure thing," he said easily. He seemed to relax completely in an microsecond, his shoulders straightening and his chin lifting until his posture had returned to the casual slouch she was so used to. His usual wide grin spread across his face, and he unwound his headphones from where he had wrapped them around his iPod. "You know we've all got your back. I just needed to remember it."
"Thanks," she said again. There was less emotion falling from her voice the second time, her tone far more lighthearted. She untangled her own headphones. "I'll see you at school?"
"Yep," he said. He stuck his headphones back in his ears. "See you there." He flashed a quick smile and waved, and started jogging off in the direction she'd come from. Quinn continued to untangle her headphones with trembling fingers, stopping only when she heard him call her name.
Turning around to face him, one of her eyebrows rose of its own accord at the sight of him jogging back towards her. She felt a flash of fear that he was going to rescind everything he'd just said and laugh and throw a slushy at her.
"I run out here almost every morning," he said, shuffling his feet awkwardly. Her other eyebrow rose. She had never thought she could actually turn Finn Hudson into a habitual runner. He smiled sheepishly. "I know, right? I guess I finally figured out what you liked about it so much."
They shared the first comfortable smile in months, and he cleared his throat, flushing lightly. "Anyways. We could maybe run together sometime. If you want. Like we used to. Only if you want to," he added hastily.
Quinn stared at him in disbelief. The boy whose heart she had broken, who she had lied to through her teeth in an attempt to keep, who she so effectively and unintentionally shoved completely out of her own reach, was not only forgiving her, but proposing going for runs together.
Not for the first time, Quinn marveled at Finn Hudson and how drastically everyone underestimated him.
"That'd be great," she said earnestly.
"Awesome," he said. He smiled again and started off once more, only to pause again and look back at her. "You're a lot different now," he said solemnly. "We both are, I guess. Maybe we can just start over?"
"Maybe," she whispered. She watched as he jogged off, broad shoulders back and straight, and stared until he was out of sight. By the time she started her run again, she was late and had to push her pace to make it back in time to jump into the shower as Rachel was whirring away on her elliptical.
Quinn was preoccupied as she sipped on her coffee and stared blankly at the comics Eric had handed her silently. Rachel's cheerful greetings to her fathers and Quinn was all that pulled the blonde from her musings about her interaction with Finn. She felt a hitch in her throat when Rachel's bright smile faltered the tiniest bit at Quinn's melancholy, and she struggled to find a reassuring smile to offer her.
It was Quinn's turn to drive, and before they even made it out of the driveway, Rachel was blatantly staring at her.
"Can you cut back on the staring?" Quinn muttered irritably. "It's weird."
"You're the one who's acting unusually," Rachel said. "What's wrong? Are you nervous about the rest of glee finding out about us? Or that someone will tell the rest of the school? Because you know that Santana will make sure that no one—"
"That's not it," Quinn interjected. She paused, contemplating Rachel's questions, and felt a nauseating roll in her stomach. "Though now that you mention it, yes, I'm a little terrified about that. Thanks so very much for bringing it up."
"Well, what is it, then?"
Quinn sighed. Her fingers drummed inadvertently on the steering wheel with the music. "I went for a run this morning," she started.
"Again?" Rachel said. She frowned. "Quinn, you really shouldn't run so often. Even for someone who isn't in your situation, it's very hard on your body, especially your joints. You'll do all sorts of damage to your knees and—"
"Rachel!" Quinn snapped. She bit back the urge to go absolutely ballistic at Rachel about the exact details of her situation. "This interrupting thing? We're totally going to have to work on that."
"Sorry," Rachel mumbled. She had the grace to look properly chastised for a full four seconds before locking her gaze back onto Quinn. "Anyways. You went for a run this morning, and…?"
Quinn sighed again. "I saw Finn."
"Finn gets out of bed before first period?"
Quinn snorted half-heartedly. "Apparently. I used to drag him out on runs with me all the time, and apparently I rubbed off on him. He said he runs there almost every day."
Rachel made an undecipherable sound, and Quinn elected to bypass trying to figure out what it meant. She adjusted her hands on the steering wheel and bit her lip in hesitation, staring intently at the taillights of the car in front of her.
"He wants to start over," she said softly. "I think I need to tell him what's going on with—with us. Tell him first, at least. I don't want him to hear it from anyone else." She slowed to a stop at a red light. Her hands fell from the steering wheel, and she scrubbed her palms against the material of her pants absentmindedly. Rachel's hand came to rest on one of hers, and Quinn unthinkingly turned her palm up, fingers gliding between Rachel's smoothly.
"That makes sense," Rachel said. Her voice was quiet. "Do you want me to tell him?"
"No," Quinn said quickly. "I need to do this. We've got history."
Rachel nodded. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it, and her forehead creased. "When do you want to tell him?"
Quinn took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "I don't know. Today, I guess. Maybe at lunch or something."
"Oh," Rachel said faintly. "You may want to consider doing so a bit sooner."
Quinn slotted a look over at her, eyebrows raising slowly. "Why's that?"
"Because," Rachel started. She faltered. "Well, because Brittany and Santana texted everyone last night about a meeting for glee during homeroom and they were going to tell everyone. So we didn't have to. And also so Santana could threaten everyone all at once."
"What?" Quinn was momentarily proud of the fact that she managed to avoid swerving the car into a ditch. She shot an infuriated look over at Rachel. "What the hell possessed you to come up with that idea?"
"I didn't!" Rachel said. She stared at Quinn with wide eyes. "It was Brittany's idea, I swear. She said that you would be freaking out and that when you freak out you bottle everything up and frankly she has a point, you know, because you do have a really bad habit of doing that. But Brittany said that if you worried about it you wouldn't do it and that if she and Santana told people then you and I wouldn't have to, and Santana could make sure that no one did anything they shouldn't and—"
Quinn whipped the car into a parking spot, slamming it into park and holding a hand up to silence Rachel's tirade. Rachel stopped speaking immediately. Her gaze dropped to her knees, her hands folded atop the black material of her skirt and her shoulders slumped.
Quinn counted to ten in her head slowly, taking a deep breath, then another, and a third. "Okay," she said slowly. "Do I have time to get to him before this public service announcement?"
Rachel glanced at the clock on the dashboard. "Yes," she said meekly.
Nodding once, Quinn leapt gracefully out of the car. She grabbed her books and strode off towards the school, silent and torn between being terrified about having to tell Finn and upset with Rachel and Brittany and Santana for forcing a deadline onto her. She heard Rachel scrambling to gather her books and catch up, but she was no match for Quinn's long athletic strides; Quinn let the door swing shut behind her and was halfway down the hall towards Finn's locker before Rachel made it inside.
He was standing at his locker, looking horribly uncomfortable as Susie Peppers smiled up at him adoringly, his hand gripping tightly to the strap of his backpack and eyes darting around desperately. Quinn recognized the desperate look on his face immediately—she had seen it far too many times when he had wanted nothing more than to either get away from her or keep her from being mad at him—and forcibly pushed away the anger she was feeling at Rachel and Brittany.
Striding purposefully over to his locker, she grabbed his elbow possessively. "I need to borrow Finn for a minute," she said icily to Susie. "You can go now."
The other girl stared at her, looking as if she might argue. Quinn took a half step forward, putting herself in front of Finn, and narrowed her eyes. "On your way, Peppers, before I find it for you," she all but snarled.
No matter how much had changed in the last year, Quinn could hardly deny that it felt something akin to incredible to channel her old cheerleading head-bitch-in-charge persona and see Susie Peppers scurry away in fear. And apparently, she noted, Finn still found something appealing about it; he was looking down at her with a cross of appreciation and the same attraction that had struck him dumb so often when they first started dating.
"Thanks," he said. "She kind of terrifies me."
"Sure," Quinn said absently. She took a deep breath. "Finn, I… can we talk for a second?"
"Yeah, sure," he said. He spun the dial on his locker, banging it open. "We just have to get to that meeting for glee. Don't want to be late or Santana might hit me." He started off towards the rehearsal room. Quinn, in a moment of panic, darted off after him—curse him and his unbelievably long strides—and grabbed his elbow once more, yanking him into an empty classroom.
"Uh," he said slowly, stumbling across the threshold. "What?"
"You don't need to go to the meeting," Quinn said. She set her books down, unable to make herself look up at him. "I know what she's telling everyone, and—" Her breath hitched in her throat. "I need to tell you, not her."
"Okay?" he said. His brow creased, as it always did, and he slowly set his backpack down. She finally looked up at him and felt her chest tighten at the apprehension in his eyes. Tears started to well up, and she started up at the ceiling in an effort to keep them back; a strangled half-sob escaped her lips anyways and she wished more than anything that she could just stop doing things that hurt Finn Hudson.
"Hey," he said softly. He stepped forward, a hand coming to rest on her shoulder comfortingly. "What's wrong?"
Without even meaning to—habit more than anything, she told herself—she folded into him, her arms wrapping around his waist and her head burrowing into his shoulder. The familiar feel of his arms around her shoulders was unbelievably comforting; she clinched at his shirt desperately in an attempt to stop herself from crying.
"I need to tell you something," she mumbled into his shirt.
"Okay," he said. She felt it more than heard it, her forehead still pressed to his shoulder. It was eerily similar to when Sue had told the glee club that the school knew about Quinn's pregnancy and she had broken down in his arms in the hallway. His own fear from then was exchanged for palatable confusion, but the feel of him holding her protectively was exactly the same.
Taking a deep breath, Quinn straightened up and forced herself to take a step back. She had only felt his arms around her for a few seconds, but it had felt like a security blanket—warm and friendly and comforting and familiar—that left her cold in its absence.
"I…" she faltered. Frustration welled in her chest. She was Quinn Fabray, for God's sake; Quinn Fabray didn't get nervous like this, even if she's been kicked off the Cheerios and kicked out of two houses and fallen to the very bottom of the social hierarchy. She conveniently ignored the fact that she often felt as much off-balance and nervous around Rachel, and took another deep breath, squaring her shoulders. "It's about me. And Rachel. What Santana's telling the club, I mean."
"What?" His forehead crinkled up. "You guys aren't going to have, like, a diva-off to be the queen bitch of glee or something, are you?"
"What? No!" Quinn stared at him incredulously. "She and Mercedes might, but trust me, I have no desire to be the queen bitch of anything again."
"Oh," he said. He nodded as if he understood the countless layers of meaning in her words, though she could tell that he didn't. "What is it, then?"
Quinn bit her lip. "It's… well," she fumbled. "We're… together." She made an ineffective swirling gesture with her hands, as if unrecognizable sign language would somehow make him understand what she was trying to say.
"Huh?" Unsurprisingly, the sign language was useless. He was looking at her oddly, as if he expected that she'd finally lost her marbles and he may have to improvise a straightjacket out of his backpack.
"Together," Quinn repeated.
"What, like you're going to be glee co-captains together or something? That would be totally be great, because I don't want to be a captain in glee and football, and you'd be way better at it, anyways."
"No," Quinn said softly. "Like… the only time I feel like even with everything that's gone so wrong this year it might all still work out is when she kisses me, together."
Quinn watched fearfully as the realization dawned in his eyes, and was immediately eclipsed by the violently red flush that spread across his cheeks; his eyes crossed and slammed shut, his fists clenching as he muttered something silently to himself over and over. She turned her eyes to the hands on her watch as she waited for him to speak, her fingernails digging into the skin of her arms.
"Oh, God," he finally squeaked out aloud. It sounded like he may have hit the high F that Kurt had worked so hard for.
"Finn?" she whispered. She took a half step forward, coming to a halt with one hand reaching out to touch his arm. He jumped back, hands up in front of him.
"Don't!" He took another step back, doubling the distance between them. "I just… need a second." He squeezed his eyes shut again. "Mail, mail, mail," he muttered under his breath.
Quinn, suddenly far more lighthearted now that she knew he was just being a sixteen year old boy and wasn't about to lose his temper at her again, bit back a smile and let her hand fall to her side. She fiddled with her books, straightening them absently as she waited.
"Okay," he said after a long silence. She ventured a glance up at him.
"You okay?" Try as she might, she couldn't contain the amusement in her voice entirely.
"Yeah," he said. His voice was a little strangled, and he rubbed a hand over his head, flustered. "So… you. And Rachel? Really?"
"Yeah," she said softly, her amusement slipping away. "Really."
"Wow," he said. He shook his head slowly. "Since when? And how? And… just, wow. That's like the most random thing ever. And maybe the hottest. But mostly the random."
Quinn rolled her eyes. "You're not going to start acting like Puck about this, are you? Because I don't think I can handle two of him."
"No," he said defensively. "Well, okay, come on. The last two girls I dated who happen to be some of the hottest in, like, Ohio are suddenly together and I'm not allowed to…" his voice trailed off, and a stricken look appeared. "Oh, my God. Did I turn you guys into lesbians?"
"What?" Quinn barked out a laugh. "No! I'm not gay." She flushed at the "yeah, right" look he shot her. "I mean, okay, maybe a little. But it's more like… it's a thing about her, not about girls."
He nodded slowly, rubbing a hand over his hair. "I guess that makes sense." He took a deep breath. "So, when did this happen?"
"Just recently," Quinn said quickly. "Like, in the last week. This weekend, really." She paused. "We told Brittany and Santana yesterday. Well, Rachel did. I kind of sat there and played with the swizzle stick from my coffee."
He chuckled. "Sounds about right." He paused. "And that's what Santana's meeting is about?"
"Yeah," she said with a sigh. "Apparently, Brittany and Rachel decided that it would be prudent to tell the club about this all together, so the better for Big Bad Santana to threaten evisceration to anyone who might out us to the rest of the school."
"I don't know what that means," he said. As she automatically opened her mouth to define "evisceration", he quickly added "I don't need to! Pretty sure it's bad." He smiled crookedly as Quinn's mouth clicked shut.
She returned his smile cautiously. "So… are you okay with this?" she ventured. She looked up at him apprehensively, consciously forcing herself to look him square in the eye, and to not bite her lip—she had learned early on in their relationship that it was a surefire way to get whatever she wanted out of him, and even though she did it without meaning to most of the time, it felt wrong to appeal to any of his weaknesses in their situation.
He was quiet for a long few seconds, his eyebrows knitted together as he thought about her question. Quinn picked at the edge of one of her notebooks, shifting her weight back and forth.
"Yeah, I guess so," he said eventually. "I mean, it's not like you need my permission or anything, anyways. It's not like I could ever tell either of you what to do, or that I had any right to anyways, right?" He offered her a half smile, shoving his hands into his pockets and shrugging.
"I guess so," she said. "I didn't want to drop it on you like this," she added. "I wanted to tell you before everyone else, but I thought I had at least until lunch to figure out a plan of attack. Then Rachel told me about their brilliant plan on the way over here, and I kind of panicked."
"You're Quinn Fabray, you don't panic," he parroted, nailing her head cheerleader tone perfectly and drawing a laugh from her. She thanked God ten different ways for Finn's good heart and ability to break the tension between them; they both knew that she very well did panic, and that when she did, she tended to do monumentally stupid things like lying about the father in her teenage pregnancy and hurting all of her friends in the process. It was amazing, she noted, how much better they got along now, when they were just friends, and she was struck with a pang of fear that maybe the comfort she felt with Rachel would dissipate as they shifted into being in a relationship.
"If you were a dude, I'd have to threaten you about hurting her," Finn said suddenly. "Or if you were dating another guy, I'd have to threaten him about hurting you. How does that work if you're both girls? I can't hit a girl."
"Maybe you should threaten me anyways," she said without really meaning to. "I seem to be really good at hurting people. Maybe if I know I'm going to get punched in the face I might be more careful." She slumped against the desk she had been leaning on, her arms folding across her stomach habitually and head drooping.
"That's not fair," he said. She didn't look up when she felt him drop his backpack by her feet and lean against the desk beside her. "I mean, yeah, you really hurt my feelings. And Puck's too, I guess. But you didn't mean to hurt anyone. Remember what Rachel said at Christmas? That you made a mistake and tried to fix and it got out of control. She was right. I mean, you totally tried to fix it the wrong way, but you were trying to do, like, damage control."
He paused, and she resisted the urge to look up at him and beg him to continue explaining to her that she wasn't a horrible lying harpy. "I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't think you're going to hurt her. Everyone could tell how close you two were when you were in the hospital, and that she's pretty much the only person you'll talk to anymore." He bumped his shoulder against hers gently. "Even dumb old me could see it. Hell, even Puck could see it."
She laughed sadly, shaking her head and leaning against him. "Thank you," she whispered.
"No problem," he said. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and squeezed gently. After a few seconds he added, "If you do hurt her, I'll find a way to send Santana after you. She can totally hit girls."
Quinn choked out another laugh. "Noted," she said. She took a slow breath and straightened up, turning to face him. "How do you think the others are going to take it?"
He shrugged. "I don't know. Most of them probably won't care. But you'll totally have to be the one who goes after Rachel when she goes all diva and walks out of rehearsal."
Quinn chuckled softly, pushing her hair back. "Kurt will be ecstatic," she said. She smirked when Finn stared at her blankly, straightening her books and tucking them into her arms. "He has a crush the size of Russia on you, Finn."
"He what?" Finn fumbled with the strap on his backpack, almost dropping it on his foot as he stood from the desk to join her. "Me?"
With a giggle, Quinn shook her head. "You knew it," she said, following him as he shuffled dazedly out of the room. "Whenever you wear short sleeves he stares at your arms with this dreamy look in his eyes."
Finn cleared his throat loudly, coughing and rubbing a hand over his hair. "Seriously?"
"Seriously," Quinn confirmed.
"Oh," he said faintly. "Did I… do something?"
"To make him like you?" Quinn shook her head amusedly. "Finn, you're the best guy in this school. That's all you did. He just has good taste."
Finn blushed, ducking his head, but not before Quinn could see a grateful smile tugging at his lips. "Oh," he said again. "Thanks." He pulled his eyes up to meet hers, and she felt a tug at her heart once more. "Should I like… talk to him or something? Like, he knows I, you know, like girls, right?"
"I'm sure he's aware," Quinn said. She slowed to a stop as they reached the doorway to the rehearsal room. "What with the cheerleading girlfriend and the super feminine almost-girlfriend in Rachel and all." The smile pulling at her lips faded as she stared at the closed door.
"You good?" he asked softly.
"Yeah," she said. Her voice was faint, and she wondered how cowardly it would be for her to sprint back to the car and skip school that day.
"You sure?"
"Yeah," she said again. She shook off the apprehension, inhaling deeply and squaring her shoulders. Taking a brief second to glance back at Finn's encouraging eyes, she reached for the doorknob.
As she was about to open the door, it was wrenched open away from her, startling both of them. She jumped back as a fuming Puck stood in the doorway, looking torn between surprise at seeing her and anger. He stared at her for a long few seconds, a look of pure pain crossing his features before he clinched his jaw and shoved past the both of them.
Inside, the rest of the glee club was standing and staring at the doorway. Santana looked disgruntled, her hands on her hips; Brittany was shaking her head sadly, murmuring something in Santana's ear. Kurt looked pleased, standing next to a shell-shocked Mercedes. Matt and Mike looked slightly uncomfortable, but nonplussed beyond that. Tina, sitting on Artie's lap, stared at Quinn thoughtfully; Artie himself had a dazed look in his eyes that would probably earn him a slap on the arm from Tina if she was facing him to see it.
Rachel stood next to Santana and Brittany, her shoulders slumped, and was looking at Quinn with a look of pure apprehension.
Santana finally broke the awkward silence, turning away from the group to stride over to Quinn, stopping squarely in front of her. "He's pissed," she said softly. "Really pissed." Her eyes darted over Quinn's shoulder to where Finn stood uncomfortably. "Do I need to threaten you, too, quarterback?"
"No!" Finn said hurriedly, his voice a few octaves higher than normal. "Don't worry about it. Nothing to worry about from me."
"Good," Santana snapped. She shifted her eyes back to Quinn, and her gaze softened immeasurably. "Calm down, Q," she said lowly. "They're fine with it. This is like the gayest room in Ohio right now. They don't care."
Quinn, her thoughts swirling around the image of Rachel staring at her fearfully, nodded distractedly. "Thank you," she whispered. She gripped Santana's hand briefly, offering her a tight smile, before stepping past her friend and making her way to the center of the room and coming to a stop in front of a lost-looking Rachel. The brunette, her usual confidence and swagger wholly absent, dropped her chin towards the floor, and the pressure around Quinn's chest tightened. She reached out carefully, a hand moving to rest on Rachel's forearm.
"Are you okay?" she asked softly. "What did Puck do?"
"I'm fine," Rachel said. "He just surprised me, is all." She finally looked up. "He's hurt."
Quinn nodded distractedly, staring intently at Rachel. "You're sure you're okay?"
"Yes," Rachel whispered. She offered a weak smile. "Except for Noah, it went better than we thought."
Quinn nodded again. Her eyes darted away from Rachel's smile and around to their teammates. They were all awkwardly trying to pretend that they hadn't been watching the entire exchange, and she couldn't help the tiny smirk that swept across her lips.
"They told you all, then?" she asked levelly. There were awkward coughs and cleared throats, and everyone shifted around uncomfortably. It reminded Quinn of any number of cheerleading team meetings she had been through when Coach Sylvester was inexplicably furious at them and, much like her exchange with Susie Peppers just a few minutes earlier, felt like a comfortable step back into her role atop the social hierarchy.
"I'll take that as a yes," she went on. "I'll also assume that we aren't going to have a problem with anyone here?"
A multitude of shaken heads and quickly-offered "no way" answers echoed around the room, every other person in there clearly remembering what it was like to be on the bad side of an angry and in-charge Quinn Fabray. She nodded approvingly. "Wonderful," she all but chirped. She just as easily slipped right back out of her cheerleading demeanor, her smile shifting to the soft and shy one that came out so often during glee, and her eyes softened as she added, "Thank you, guys. Really."
She returned her focus to Rachel, who still looked unsure.
"Okay, let's split," Santana said loudly as she stared pointedly at everyone else in the room. "Time to get to first period. Move it or lose it, people."
She started herding people towards the door, tossing jackets to their owners and shooing them expertly; a swift but actually rather gentle kick to the shins of Mike and Matt pulled them from their teenage porn star fantasies, and they scrambled out of the room with matching blushes.
"Come on, B," Santana said, wrapping her hand around Brittany's. "Ellen and Portia need some alone time."
"Who?" Brittany questioned. "What about Quinn and Rachel?"
Santana rolled her eyes indulgently, and Quinn swallowed her own smirk and instead offered another thankful look to Santana as the cheerleader tugged Brittany out of the room.
"I'm sorry," Rachel blurted out as soon as the door shut behind Brittany's swishing blonde ponytail and surprising Quinn. "We should have talked to you before we got everyone together and it was selfish of me to decide to just go on and tell people without consulting you beforehand, and I understand that you wanted more time before you spoke to Finn and—"
"It's okay," Quinn interrupted, clapping a hand gently over Rachel's mouth. "Really. Calm down and breathe. It's too early in the morning for me to deal with you hyperventilating." She nodded approvingly when Rachel, eyes wide, relaxed under her touch.
With a sigh, Quinn pulled away and sat down delicately on one of the chairs. "Finn was great about it," she said simply. "And Puck will come around." She paused, and momentarily contemplated apologizing for her reaction earlier. The stubborn part of her that was continually frustrated by Rachel's pathological need to act and control everything squashed her apology before it passed her lips.
Rachel hesitantly perched on a chair next to Quinn, hands folded in her lap and wide eyes locked on Quinn's profile. "Are we okay?" she asked softly. "I realize that I may have been out of line about this morning and that it was unfair of me to make a decision like this without asking your input first."
Quinn looked at Rachel out of the corner of her eye, drinking in the brunette's words. "I want to say that it's fine," she said. "And in the whole big-picture idea, it is. But I can't do this if you're going to keep trying to make all the decisions. I'm in this just as much as you are, and it's really unfair for you to try and control it all on your own."
"I know," Rachel said dejectedly. She sighed and pushed herself to her feet, pacing up and down. Quinn's eyes followed her path unintentionally. "I'm really high maintenance, and I know. I don't want to put you into a situation where you feel like I'm trying to walk over you or control you or anything like that."
"I'm a control freak, too, Rach," Quinn interjected. "Granted, I'm not quite as good at it as you are, but I doubt anyone in the country is." She smirked playfully at the half-smile her sarcasm drew from Rachel. "But I do get it. And I'll probably screw up the same way. We both need to work on it, is all."
"Okay," Rachel said. "We'll work on it together."
"Okay," Quinn echoed. Rachel slowed to a halt, staring at Quinn cryptically for long seconds. Quinn flushed delicately and coughed, looking down at her knees and letting out a relieved breath when the first bell for classes rang. She hopped out of her chair athletically, pasting a bright smile on her face. "Walk you to class?"
"Sure," Rachel said shyly. "I'd like that." She gathered her own books, grasping them tightly to her chest.
Quinn stopped suddenly by the door, hand hovering over the doorknob, and turned abruptly to face Rachel, a sudden though drawing her eyebrows together. "Will it bother you if I start going running with Finn?"
Rachel blinked in surprise, her head cocking to one side. "I…don't know," she said slowly. "I hadn't really thought about it. But I suppose it could be misconstrued, you spending so much regular time with your ex-boyfriend."
"Isn't he technically your ex-boyfriend, too?" Quinn asked. She paused, her contemplative look mirroring the one that crossed Rachel's face. Quinn shook her head, sighing. "Tangled webs, right?"
"Very tangled," Rachel said. She offered a small smile. "If you and Finn are going to be friends, I'm fine with it," she added softly. "Because he's my friend, too. And he really is a good friend, and I want you to have that. I'm not so arrogant as to think that I'm enough for you to not want to have other friends, and it would be petty of me to try and pretend as much. And regardless—"
Quinn cut her off by stepping forward and kissing her softly. "You talk too much sometimes," she said gently, pulling back just enough to speak.
"I do," Rachel breathed out. She pressed forward and kissed Quinn once more, cradling her books in one arm as the other went around the taller girl's neck.
The one-minute warning bell echoed over their heads. "I vote for skipping first period," Rachel mumbled against Quinn's jaw. "There's not a class in here until fourth."
Quinn elbowed her gently, a smile spreading across her lips regardless. "I have history first period and the AP exam is coming up," she admonished.
"You study too much," Rachel said grumpily.
"You practice too much," Quinn shot back. She pressed a kiss to the corner of Rachel's mouth before stepping back and opening the door behind her.
"That's impossible," Rachel said, following Quinn out of the room. Quinn rolled her eyes and jerked her head to the left.
"I have to get to class," she said. She tamped down on the desire to take Rachel up on her offer and skip first period, as the idea of spending an hour making out with Rachel in the deserted rehearsal room—really, even the idea of just sitting silently in the deserted rehearsal room and studying with Rachel—far more appetizing than studying for the AP US History exam.
She paused, half turned down the hallway, and offered a coy smile over her shoulder that she'd almost forgotten how to use in the past months. "I have third period free," she said flirtatiously, her voice lilting quietly.
Rachel smiled brilliantly at her. "I have a study period," she said. "Meet you back here?"
"Can't wait," Quinn said. She winked at the brunette, surprising herself as much as she knew she did Rachel, and made her way down the hallway at a jog. Even making it to the classroom in record time, she still was walking into history fifteen seconds after the late bell. The head shake and admonishment from her teacher, and the knowing smirk from Santana as Quinn slid into the empty seat next to her, did little to quash the small smile gracing her lips.