Big thanks to the handful of reviewers - helps me past the voice whispering in my ear that I should abandon this. I'm taking the other option and desperately trying to finish it so thanks K for letting me use you as a sounding board. Days off work...such fun!

Cassie emerged from a leisurely bath on Sunday morning with the house still to herself. Her brother and family were at church and there was no way she was going with them even if it did lead to awkward questions from her nephews about what would happen to her on judgment day. Bowl of muesli in hand she settled down for a quick surf of the web. With low expectations she logged on to her staff e-mail account and then starred in disbelief at the inbox with its one new e-mail message from Rachel Berry. Her heart was suddenly racing and her mouth dry. She took a calming breath and laughed at herself, no doubt Rachel would have thanked her for the video because she was that kind of well brought up individual. Really, she needed to get her expectations and emotions under control. Cassie forced herself to fetch a glass of water and then sat down again at the screen. Right, now her ridiculous excitement levels had been brought back from the stratosphere she was ready to read what would be a polite, mundane and no doubt immensely disappointing message. She hovered the mouse over the new message – it was almost a shame to ruin her wild flights of imagination of what she really wanted the contents to say. A vision of Rachel in her oops I did it again table pose, leaning back legs apart and saying, "Show me what you can teach me then Miss July, "in a husky tone flitted into Cassie's head. She glanced at the email header – there wasn't a video attachment so she really needed to bring her rebellious thoughts back to planet reality or her disappointment would be crushing. It was going to be a polite thank all anyone who would thank you after you'd verbally torn them apart...Click.

Cassie stared at the screen in disbelief and read Rachel's message again trying to wrap her head around what it meant as her pulse thundered in her ears.

'You let me know when and we can dance for as long as you like'

Was there any way to read that other than as flirtatious? Cassie read it again slowly trying to resist the urge to shout her overwhelming feelings of triumph to the heavens. It wouldn't be appropriate to rush to catch a plane to New York immediately no matter how strong the urge was. And how strong it was! She licked her lips and worked her way through her tried and tested methods of calming herself. Okay. The adrenalin rush was ebbing so she could now think about the wording carefully and see if she was just misreading it to fit with what she wanted. Was it just clumsy phrasing for 'yes let's dance again together sometime'? What about her girlfriend? Cassie paced around the room before returning to stare at the screen as if she could gain some answers from it. Part of her wanted to ask her brother's opinion but another part just wanted to keep this to herself.

Cassie hit the reply button and rather than typing 'what about your girlfriend?' as she desperately wanted to do she went for a lighter tone.

Oh Rachel, be careful with your idle promises. I intend to take you up on your offer and dance you off your feet.

Cassie

She decided the addition of a smiley face would ensure Rachel didn't read it as a threat because really she'd spent the academic year trying to dance the freshmen off their feet. This was different though. She gave herself only a moment to ponder on the wisdom of engaging in this conversation. She hadn't broken any rules but she was skating right along the edge of acceptable behaviour. Too late, the message was winging its way through the ether.

Cassie sat quietly for a moment and then glanced at her watch as she reached for her phone. She scrolled through her contacts until she found Carmen's number. There was no reason to delay the inevitable and she'd maybe feel a little less guilty about her e-mail if she did this now. She sighed, this had been inevitable from the moment Carmen had called her into the office. Fortunately Carmen answered her phone and didn't sound too surprised when Cassie informed her of her intention to resign from NYADA effective as soon as possible. Did she have plans? Only vague ones but she needed to push herself into action. Could Carmen investigate the period of her notice? Carmen suggested sabbaticals or maybe a period of extended leave and although the temptation to keep that safety net was strong she knew she needed a clean break. She thanked Carmen for all her support particularly because she appreciated she hadn't been an easy person to manage. Carmen had laughed and said she'd have her revenge in a leaving speech. Once the call to Carmen ended she e-mailed her resignation keeping her reasons a bland catchall of wanting to pursue her own projects. Really there was only one project she wanted to pursue and she still wasn't even sure if that was a non-starter. She read Rachel's e-mail once again. Still, there was more hope today than there had been yesterday and a little hope was better than none at all.

It was early Sunday evening, as Rachel sat on the train back to New York, that she finally had the opportunity to watch the video Cassie had sent her. She'd bounced her way through the day with Quinn, ridiculously happy that Cassie had finally sent the video along with a comment that didn't cheapen the whole performance. A comment that almost in fact suggested she'd enjoyed it. Rachel grinned. She'd resisted the urge to look at her phone while in Quinn's company despite the phone burning a whole in her pocket. She'd focussed her attention completely on Quinn to make up for her earlier distraction. Quinn had seemed to have a bit of a fascination with the current state of Rachel's love life and whether she was at that moment interested in anyone. Rachel had finally admitted that she 'd had her eye distantly on someone (she kept it gender neutral to dissuade Quinn from guessing) but really she just wanted to focus on her studies at this current point in time, there was plenty of time for romance later. When she'd asked Quinn the same question back she'd suddenly became awkward and a little flustered. She'd looked Rachel intently in the eye for an extended moment and for a brief second Rachel thought she was about to reveal some major secret. Instead Quinn had shrugged and said she too admired someone from afar for a while now but the timing just wasn't right. She'd encouraged Quinn to just go for it because anyone would be lucky to be involved with her. Rather than providing Quinn with confidence to take a chance she'd noted a stricken look on the girl's face before she'd laughed without amusement and said despondently,"yeah right". Quinn had hugged her extra tightly as they said farewell and again she had the feeling that Quinn was on the verge of saying something really important. The moment passed and Quinn promised to be down to visit her soon and with that she was on her way.

Rachel focussed her attention on her phone and noted she had another message. She was even more surprised to see it was from Cassie. Surprised and slightly terrified. The rush of blood to her head when she'd sent her reply suddenly came back to haunt her. What had she been thinking? She expected this to be a Cassie telling off about her inappropriate tone and the overfamiliarity in her message - at best that was, she wasn't sure what the worst case scenario would be but no doubt Cassie would have no qualms in detailing her extensive personality failings for her. Oh well might as well get it over with. She clicked on the message and gaped at her screen in shock.

Rachel leaned back in her seat and clutched her phone to her chest. Not only had she not been told off but Cassie had actually used an emoticon! Far more importantly she'd hinted she wanted to dance with Rachel again, well not hinted but blatantly stated she intended to dance Rachel off her feet. Her heart was racing at the mere thought. She finally allowed herself to watch the infamous Julyberry tango. She wasn't sure it would take much more to dance her off her feet. She'd been rather unsteady and lightheaded when they'd finished last time. Dare she reply to Cassie's latest e-mail? Rachel closed her eyes for a moment. She wasn't particularly adept at ..flirting or whatever this was. She froze for a moment, was she seriously flirting with one of her teachers? Her Dads would be horrified. She pushed the unhelpful thoughts aside and watched the cursor flash in the corner of the blank space awaiting her reply. After a while she began composing her answer.

Cassie

I don't make idle promises and I'm counting on you dancing me off my feet - repeatedly. I'm sure there's much you could teach me and I'm keen to learn from you.

Please hurry back. You're greatly missed.

Rachel

She'd replaced 'I miss you' with 'you're greatly missed' as the former sounded a bit too, well, whiny and needy even if it was the truth. Rachel read her message through one more time and then glanced out of the window at the scenery racing past. Life was too short. She pressed the send button and then closed her eyes, clutching the phone to her chest and wondered just what it was she wanted out of this email conversation. Was Cassie just toying with her? This woman had already slept with at least one of her students - perhaps she should ask Brody if it began with harmless emails. Rachel sighed if, and it could be a massive if because her reading of social cues had never been a strength, Cassie was preparing her for a one-night stand then what was her response? Cassie would have the power to crush her completely. She was inexperienced naive and led by her heart. Would she be able to bounce back from being toyed with and then cast aside? Another sigh, why was it her imagination couldn't move on past the idea of being toyed with? The Winter Showcase fantasy of a forceful Cassie sprung to mind. Rachel squirmed restlessly in her seat. Maybe she just needed to go with the flow and damn the consequences.

Once the boys were finally in bed Cassie took the opportunity to update Paul on her plans. Well it wasn't much of a plan at the moment after all she hadn't really thought much further ahead then resigning. She should have known that Paul wouldn't be content to leave it there. A long drawn out somewhat painful conversation later, interspersed with Marie bringing in cups of tea and giving Cassie sympathetic looks (which was a first!) and there were the faint outlines of the beginning of a plan sketched out on several sheets of paper along with an even longer list of things to do. It wouldn't be that easy to set up as a freelance dance teacher even if Paul was prepared to fund her with the setting up costs. He was all about drawing up a business plan and setting short term, medium term and long term goals. She had just one goal in mind but decided not to share it. As Paul filed away the papers and wrote yet another list of priority jobs for the next day, Cassie sat idly running her fingers over her laptop with a slightly dreamy expression on her face.

"So," Paul snapped her out of her daydream," if you don't mind me asking, what brought about today's sudden decisiveness?"

Cassie considered carefully for a moment about letting Paul see the message that had galvanised her into action. The last thing she needed was a cold hard dose of reality of him playing it down and saying it meant nothing.

"As much as it pains me to say this, you're right," she said quietly.

"I am?" Paul was confused. He hadn't expected to persuade Miss Stubborn around to his way of thinking for quite a while yet.

"I need to find out where I stand with Rachel and I need to be free from NYADA to do that." She declared boldly and purposefully," and if things don't go the way I want," she fought to keep her voice from wavering. She'd be devastated, she already knew that - you only had to look at the state of her now," then I need to be able to start afresh away from.." she swallowed thinking Rachel but saying "everything."

Paul pulled her in for a hug. There was a lot riding on Rachel and how she'd react to an approach from Cassie. He still struggled to put behind him all those terrible things Cassie had said to her. Was Rachel playing some kind of long term game of revenge? It was a bad time for him to suddenly be having doubts but what did he know about the girl beyond Cassie's looking up at a pedestal viewpoint. He thought about the video - the girl hadn't known she was being filmed when she hugged Cassie after their dance. Was he really ready to gamble his sister's fragile happiness just on those few seconds and what he thought it meant?"You know you're always welcome here," he managed to say. He'd need to think about Rachel a bit more carefully. it was a shame he couldn't go all protective brother and confront this Rachel and demand to know her intentions.

"I'm not sure Marie would agree with you," Cassie laughed as she stepped away from him.

"Oh I don't know, she brought you tea so that's a breakthrough. Besides the boys might just dance her into submission if necessary." Paul grinned.

"A daily performance of that One Direction routine, all four of you mind, and you can stay as long as you like. I'll be too helpless with laughter to object," Marie called out her voice getting closer as she joined them in the dining room. Marie stepped up to Cassie and suddenly have her a quick hug.

"We just want you to be happy," she said as she released Cassie.

There was an awkward moment before Marie broke the tension with," so can we now just for one evening watch a movie that isn't a tragic romance?"

They'd laughed their way into the living room and hence Cassie didn't check her e-mails until the next morning.

It was Paul who caught her hand to mouth in the classic movie pose of shock in front of her computer.

"Practising for a role in a silent movie?" he suggested as Cassie's wide eyes finally focussed on him.

"I um. It's a um work email," she managed as phrases replayed in her brain. Dance with her repeatedly, being keen to learn, greatly missed.

"Your notice longer than you expected? You look as if Carmen has asked you to do three years to work off your notice," Paul teased.

"Oh it's much better than that," Cassie positively purred with delight at him "This is my pleasantly surprised face," she continued with impressive understatement. Another beaming smile at him, "I need to reply to this, give me ten minutes and then we can start on your priority 'Action now' list."

Cassie's attention was already back on the screen in front of her and happiness was now radiating off her in waves. The huge smile on her face indicating something better than a pleasant surprise. Paul looked at her suspiciously, not many things– he couldn't actually think of any – could cause his sister to light up like that. Did she do the lottery? It took all his willpower but he walked away, she'd tell him eventually as a happy Cassie, correction borderline ecstatic Cassie, although somewhat rare, had always been rubbish at keeping things to herself, the joy just seeped out. Unlike the closed off bitter Cassie they'd endured in recent years. He wondered how much of that had been related to her alcohol intake.

Cassie logged on to her personal e-mail account and pasted Rachel's address in. She could feel waves of affection for the girl who had brightened her day merely by sending a few words. A few words she'd needed to hear. Right then, time to at least match the tone of Rachel's email. With a smile on her face Cassie just allowed the words to flow.

Dear Rachel

I'll dance you off your feet as often as you'll let me. I have more to learn from you than I have to teach you but maybe there are things we could learn together.

I'm sure I'm not as greatly missed as you imply but thank you anyway. Is Ms. fairweather complimenting you to death in my absence?

Rest assured I'll be back as soon as practicable.

Soon then

Cassie

She didn't allow herself to ponder, she just pressed the send button. Cassie looked at her watch. Rachel would be in class now and there was little chance of a reply before later that evening. She closed her laptop.

Rachel grabbed a bottle of cold water from the fridge and settled on the sofa with her laptop. It had been a busy if not particularly challenging day at college. Kurt was at some late rehearsal Stefan had organised to help him catch up on some of the work he'd missed so she'd have the apartment to herself for quite a while. She knew she had a new email message in her student account from an unfamiliar address. A quick sip of water then a click on the message with a dramatic flourish. It was from Cassie and she needed to use the bottle of water to cool her heated face. She'd be in charge of how often they danced - Rachel had no idea why that particular part of the message sent her pulse racing. She thought the part about they could learn things together was really rather sweet until a particularly lewd part of her brain began suggesting rather racy joint activities that made her blush. She turned her attention to the 'dear Rachel' and wondered whether that was just a polite greeting or whether maybe Cassie had just a little bit of affection for her. She was over analysing everything although was the shift away from Cassie's staff email to a private one significant? Was she beginning to venture into dangerous territory? At the moment their e mail exchange had just been about dancing, hadn't it? Was she reading far too much in to just an innocent little exchange? Innocent howled an outraged part of her brain, you watch that dance video again and then try and say innocent with a straight face. Rachel teed up the video on her laptop - so much better than squinting at her phone - and was about to press play when she caught a glimpse of their newly installed flat screen tv ( thanks Burt). If the video was better on her laptop then how improved would it be on that monster of a screen? Did she have the technical know how to make it happen? Boy it would be worth it if she did.

Twenty somewhat frustrating minutes later plus a few false starts and she was finally ready for the JulyBerry big screen debut. She nearly gave herslf a heart attack by not noticing she'd inadvertently set the volume up full blast. A readjustment, some calming breaths and Ta-da. The hottest tango ever in the entire history of NYADA was now on the screen in front of her in glorious HD. No point in having clearly defined abs unless your TV could pick up that level of definition. She had an almost overwhelming urge to reach out and wipe away the bead of sweat delicately poised on Cassie's hairline. She and Cassie were moving as one in smooth sultry tandem, the intense eye contact was helping to raise the temperature. Rachel gulped her water and fanned herself a bit. Okay maybe innocent wouldn't be the first word that came to mind when watching this and her 'just a dance ' defence was positively laughable. She was glad no one else (bar Cassie) had a copy of this, as she certainly wouldn't be showing this to anyone anytime soon. As the video reached the end she restarted it and this time tried to recall the feel of Cassie's hands and arms around her and the slight hint of her breath on her face. Rachel's pleasurable memories were interrupted by the startling and wholly unexpected sound of the door to the apartment opening.

The roll off the sofa, scrambling for the remote control to switch the television off, wasn't the seamless manoeuvre she'd hoped for. Her muffled "oof" as she hit the floor was overridden by Kurt's dulcet tones.

"Rachel, good manners require you to watch porn in the privacy of your own room rather than in the joint space," Kurt pronounced unable to decide between amusement and disapproval so his tone was hard to place. He had instantly assessed the scene in front of him as he'd entered the apartment. Rachel's surprised squeak and her lightening quick grab for the remote meant he'd only managed a glimpse of the tv screen. Rachel Barbra Berry watching porn, who knew?

"Porn?" exclaimed a wide-eyed horrified Rachel as she surfaced on her knees besides the sofa, relieved to see she had managed to switch the TV off rather than just pause the action. Well, not action in the way Kurt meant.

Kurt eyed her carefully. The flushed expression on her face was such a giveaway even if the guilt of being caught red-handed hadn't been radiating off her in waves.

"You know your wide-eyed innocent somewhat horrified act is really very good," Kurt paused to place his messenger bag on the table, "but the laptop wired up to the tv and your incredibly guilty response – not to mention your currently flaming red cheeks - undo all that excellent acting work."

Rachel harrumphed as Kurt took a place on the sofa next to where she was currently kneeling.

"Or prove me wrong, show me what you were watching," he offered with a huge grin on his face.

Rachel looked from him to the remote in her hand and then to the screen using the time to weigh up her options.

"I must say I'm surprised and a little bit impressed to find you watching lesbian porn," Kurt stated conversationally, alarmed to see that rather than calming Rachel she'd suddenly gone rather pale.

"L..L..lesbian?" Rachel managed to whisper as fear flooded her system. Was Kurt just playing with her? Had he actually recognised who was on the video?

"Well that's what it's usually classified as when you have two women on screen," he explained as if to a somewhat slow child," unless the glimpse I saw was some prelude to a group orgy or..?"

Kurt stared at Rachel in wonder and admiration. So much for his theories of Rachel being a vanilla Berry, first porn and then kinky porn at that.

"I..no..yes..," Rachel was having trouble co-ordinating her thoughts and manoeuvring her tongue to form words. She drew in a shaky breath," It's not porn…,"

"Erotica then, whatever floats your boat," said Kurt dismissively waving a hand. Of course Rachel wouldn't call it porn.

"It's not erotica or porn," she said assertively taking in his defintely sceptical eyebrow raise.

"Sooooo?" prompted Kurt indicating his willingness to watch whatever had been on the screen.

Rachel teetered momentarily on the cusp of confession to rescue her currently being crushed reputation – years of upstanding morally above criticism behaviour being trashed in a moment of misunderstanding - before losing her nerve. She couldn't show Kurt the dance now because she'd already acted suspiciously about it and the last thing she needed was Kurt adding to the NYADA gossip. Besides, knowing him he'd probably want to argue that the way she and Cassie were dancing at least bordered on the erotic.

"It's private," she managed to say hoping fervently the video would stay that way.

"Private eh?" asked Kurt with an infuriatingly smug look on his face.

"It's art," snapped Rachel regretting her outburst almost as soon as the words left her lips.

"Ohhh, arrrrrrrt," drawled Kurt pausing long enough for her to squirm in discomfort " Will you be bringing anyone in particular back to admire your 'art' collection? Or rather your 'private' art collection."

Innuendo dripped from his every word and Rachel's face flared another burst of red as she tried not to think about who she'd like to watch this video with.

Rachel settled for glowering at him rather than voicing her displeasure and running the risk of inadvertently inserting her foot in her mouth.

"Oh, don't tell me let me guess, 'performance art'?" laughed Kurt. Rachel bit back the urge to reply. He'd grow tired of laughing at her eventually.

"Planning on inviting anyone back to help you recreate your art masterpieces?" asked Kurt.

Rachel began to disconnect her laptop from the TV as he continued to grin at her, extracting far too much enjoyment from her discomfort.

She could almost see the light bulb go off in his head as yet another witty remark at her expense occurred to him

"When you said Quinn took you to an Art exhibition while you were visiting was that just a Rachel euphemism for a strip bar?" His laughter at his own joke was intensely irritating. She started to head for her room before a thought occurred to her and she returned to the coffee table and snapped the lid of her laptop shut with a satisfying thunk. Kurt had been to busy being funny for it to occur to him to check her laptop. Her smug triumphant grin with just a hint of relief at him was immensely satisfying but unfortunately short lived.

"Rachel," Kurt said seriously and like an idiot she was lured in to expecting him to apologise but no, "when you said your Dads' were avid art collectors .."

Rachel immediately knew where that remark was heading. She didn't hear the rest of it as she was busy stomping to her room. Sometimes Rachel really disliked the apartment's lack of doors to slam. She sat on the bed and then smiled at her laptop. Never mind Kurt, she had an email to draft and maybe time for just one last look at her favourite piece of performance art to inspire her.