If the blonde wanted to be petty she'd have asked if she was allowed to speak now, but she reigned in her own frustration she felt rising through the forefront.

She calmed herself remembering the techniques she had learned in therapy. She tried to put herself in Santana's shoes.

She knew what it was like to lose someone. She knew what it was like to feel alone. She knew what it was like to be angry at the world.

So she exhales and remembers before speaking.

"I can't tell you that." Quinn says into the phone, leaning against her desk in her dorm. "That's for you to find out."

Santana is not buying it.

At all.

She cusses Quinn clean the fuck out.

And Quinn lets her. She shuts up and listens as expletives fly over the line, both scathing and humorous in the way only a telling off by Santana Lopez could be.

She listens as the brunette asks questions only to answer them herself, in an effort to use more of her cutting vocabulary.

"Then you fucked me." Santana says, and it sounds like she's running out of steam. "Was that what it was?"

Quinn waits a moment before responding, making sure the question wasn't rhetorical.

"What what was?"

"Oh don't play stupid, Q."

"You're going to have to verify what you're getting at, because I'm lost." She says.

"That's rich, coming from you, the queen of cryptic messages." Quinn hears a slight movement over the line and wonders if the brunette is pacing. "Were you jealous? Is that what it was?"

Quinn scoffs, caught off guard. "Really, Santana?"

"Then why the fuck did you call me less than 24 hours before my wedding." She asks, voice rising once again. "Why did you ghost us weeks before the wedding?"

"I wanted you to find who you are without her." She says almost shouting into the phone. So much for trying to stay calm. Santana always knew how to drive Quinn up a fucking wall.

"What does that even mean?"

She takes another breath before pinching the bridge of her nose.

"It means Brittany has always known who she is." She starts her effort for the much needed and overdue explanation. "She wasn't like us and that's why we need her. And yes, we, me included. Britt's always been cut from a different cloth, never afraid to dance to the beat of her own drum. Unlike us."

"And how is that a bad thing Fabray?"

"It's not. But what is, is you quitting your job to go on an extended vacation to Lesbos and Hawaii. It's you dropping everything to fly to Lima when you get a call from her boyfriend, it's you accepting Louisville when you knew you wanted to go to New York."

It's Santana's turn to scoff now as she cuts the blonde off.

"Brittany was the one who pushed me to go to New York."

"Yeah because running there with your heart broken and tail tucked between your legs was your first option? Santana, wake up. The last five years of your life have revolved around one person."

"Yeah, my wife."

"We're getting nowhere."

"Because your point is dumb."

"Santana." Quinn snaps.

And that does it, even now years later it causes Santana to shut up and give the former cheerleading captain her undivided attention.

"Do you remember when we first met?" Quinn continues.

"What does that have to do with this?" Santana says, albeit a little less snappy than the conversation had been up to now.

"Do you remember what you told me?" Quinn asks.

"Of course."

"All I'm asking is what happened to that girl? Her thoughts, her dreams, her insistence and knowledge that she was the 'baddest bitch McKinley ever had the opportunity of gracing their halls and nothing, no one was going to stop her from her greatness she knew she was destined to have?'"

"You're a star Santana Lopez, you always have been. It's about time you stopped lighting everyone's damn candle but yours."

It takes her a second to realize there's no longer anyone on the line.

She laughs to herself at the audacity as she stares at her phone.

Did you think hanging up was going to hurt my feelings? She text.

Sending another one a moment later.

I'm not the one you're mad at.

She watches her phone for a couple of moments as nothing happens.

"I swear, that woman." She says in her empty dorm.

She closes her eyes and tilts her head slightly back as she mentally goes back over the conversation in her head.

While there is a part of her that is annoyed, because how dare she hang up on her?

There's another part of her that feels horrible. She let her emotions get the best of her and she didn't say everything she meant to.

While she did still stand by everything she said that night, she wanted to take accountability because she did fuck up.

She shouldn't have ghosted them. She should have objected before Kurt had the chance to. She could wholeheartedly admit that now.

Nora, her therapist, would be proud, she thinks. Her next session was definitely going to be interesting. She had a sneaking suspicion, Nora lived for the Santana content in her life.

There's not a session that goes by where there's a lull in the conversation and Nora fills it by asking the question, "How are things with Santana?"

Therapy had been her moms idea.

"Maybe talking to someone would help." She had said over the phone nonchalantly during a call back in January. "You've been through a lot, Quinnie."

And at the time she had rolled her eyes annoyed at the nickname and the slightly slurred speech coming from the other end. She felt like it was an effort on her mom's part to get her off the phone.

But a few weeks later she had found herself scheduling an appointment on a whim. What was the worst that could happen? Perhaps sometimes mother did know best. Even Judy Fabray.

At first she hated it.

Nora was in her mid 60's with graying hair and inquisitive eyes.

Quinn's first impression of her reminded her of the women from the church she grew up in, the type that would smile in your face and condemn you to hell the second your back was turned.

It was only her third session when Nora had called her out on her waiting to the last minute to object to the wedding.

"Aren't you supposed to be on my side?" Quinn had asked that winter afternoon.

"I am on your side." Nora had said. "Which is why I want to know, why did it take you so long? Was it fear?"

"What would I have to be afraid of?"

"Well, your best friends are getting married and with one of them you've had a romantic affair."

Quinn chuckled and shook her head. "I do not have feelings for Santana."

"I didn't say that you did."

"But that's what you meant." Quinn said, looking away. She felt her annoyance and knew she shouldn't walk out again. Here, time really was money and she owed her mom to at least finish out this session. "Look, Santana is my best friend, we've virtually lived the same life, she gets me, I get her. I was trying to give her an out the same way I told Rachel. I got out of Lima and I've found myself. I wanted to give her a chance to find herself outside of what trapped us to that place."

"And do you wholeheartedly believe that?"

"Yes." She had said confidently.

"And the part about having found yourself?" Nora asked, her eyes inquisitive as always, like she could tell if Quinn was lying or not.

Quinn had looked everywhere except at the woman sitting across from her. She had looked out the window, it had started snowing that day. Then she looked at the clock on the other side of the room.

She smiled as she sat up a little straighter.

"Of course." She had said then. Her voice had been a tad too high, so while looking Nora straight in the eye, she said it once again.

"Of course."

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AN: Thank you all for the favs and reviews! Also thank you quinntanarivera for pointing out the character tags! I appreciate it!!