11. Quinn

"My name is Lucy Quinn Fabray, and I am a woman in love," she thought as she did her hair in front of the mirror. She had let it grow down to her mid back. "And I am back."

She got ready for her walk with Finn. She had missed Lima. Her friends, her family… her life. Her old life. Now she was a college girl. Wiser, more mature… She was not the girl she once was. Quinn let her old selfish childish self die, but she held on to a part of that Quinn. The man who was knocking on his own room door.

"Babe, are you ready?" Finn asked from the hallway.

Quinn opened the door and pulled her boyfriend in, holding his hand. "Zip me up," she said as she turned around.

Finn pulled the zip of Quinn's summer dress up. He leaned in and whispered in her ear: "You're so beautiful." He wrapped his arms around Quinn's waist.

Quinn smiled widely. She rocked her hips and held Finn's arms as he hugged her. "Can I ask you something, love?"

"Yeah, sure." Finn nodded, resting his chin on Quinn's head.

Quinn stared at a picture on Finn's desk. "Are you planning on keeping her face in your room forever?"

Rachel's image still had a special place on Finn's room, between his father's and a group photograph they took the day they won Sectionals in 2009.

The boy couldn't answer. He didn't want to piss Quinn off, but he didn't want to lie either. He had a strict rule: never, ever lie. He knew her girlfriend wasn't over the whole Rachel thing. And Finn… Finn wasn't over her either. How could he? It hadn't even been two months since he took his ring off his finger. Everything was… awkward back in Lima.

Quinn pulled the picture down and turned to face his boyfriend. "Hey, it's okay, you just need another one. We can go to that photo booth near the park." She smiled and kissed Finn on the lips.

"Yeah, that would be awesome." Finn threw a fake smile back at Quinn.

"Let me go to the bathroom."

She sat on the closed toilet and stared at the mirror. She took a deep breath. "What the fuck are you doing, Quinn? Don't freak out. Don't freak out. Do not freak out. You took a huge risk when you let him come home, but it was the right thing. It's Finn, you love him. He loves you. You have nothing to be afraid of. Not even Berry. She had her chance. Her two chances. She can't steal him from you again. You. Won't. Let. Her," she thought.

Quinn looked into her own eyes and gave herself a wide reassuring smile. "Coming!"

[Lovefool – The Cardigans]

Quinn:
Dear, I fear we're facing a problem.
You love me no longer, I know.
And maybe there is nothing that I can do
to make you do.

Mama tells me I shouldn't bother,
that I ought to stick to another man.
A man that surely deserves me
But I think you do.

She pictured the old times. Santana and Brittany right behind her backing her up.

Brittany and Santana:
So I cry, and I pray and I beg.

Brittany and Santana:
Love me, love me.

Quinn:
Say that you love me.

Brittany and Santana:
Fool me, fool me.

Quinn:
Go on and fool me.

Brittany and Santana:
Love me, love me.

Quinn:
Pretend that you love me.

Brittany and Santana:
Leave me, leave me.

Quinn:
Just say that you need me.
So I cry and I beg for you too.

Brittany and Santana:
Love me, love me.

Quinn:
Say that you love me.

Brittany and Santana:
Leave me, leave me.

Quinn:
Just say that you need me.
I can't care 'bout anything but you.

Quinn came out of the bathroom, followed by Brittany and Santana, inexplicably still with their tight ponytails and in their Cheerios uniform.

Quinn, singing it in Finn's ear:
Lately I have desperately pondered.
Spent my nights awake and I wonder
what I could have done in another way
to make you stay.

She started dancing around him, suddenly in her Cheerio uniform too. Everything was very 2010 in that moment.

Quinn:
Reason will not lead to solution.

I will end up lost in confusion.
I don't care if you really care,
as long as you don't go.

Brittany and Santana:
So I cry, I pray, and I beg.

Love me, love me.

Quinn:
Say that you love me.

Brittany and Santana:
Fool me, fool me.

Quinn:
Go on and fool me.

Brittany and Santana:
Love me, love me.

Quinn:
Pretend that you love me.

Brittany and Santana:
Leave me, leave me.

Quinn:
Just say that you need me.
So I cry and I beg for you too.

Brittany and Santana:
Love me, love me.

Quinn:
Say that you love me.

Brittany and Santana:
Leave me, leave me.

Quinn:
Just say that you need me.
I can't care 'bout anything but you.

Quinn with Brittany and Santana:
Anything but you...

Brittany and Santana (Quinn):
Love me, love me. (Say that you love me)
Fool me, fool me. (Go on and fool me)
Love me, love me. (I know that you need me)

Quinn:
I can't care 'bout anything but you.

"What are you humming, honey?" Finn called as he knocked on the door.

Quinn came back to Earth. She blinked a couple times and she found herself standing in front of the mirror. She opened the door and kissed Finn. "I love you, okay?" She smiled into the kiss.


It was Tuesday, so Breadstix wasn't very crowded. Though Finn didn't want to take any chance of running into Rachel (obviously he didn't tell Quinn that), his girlfriend took the lead that night. When Quinn Fabray wanted to collect some memories, she collected some memories.

"I missed this place," she said while holding Finn's hand. She really loved being back there with a man of her own. A man whose hand she could stroke with her thumb. A man she could look right into the eye before kissing him without feeling remorse for being pregnant with his best friend or because she cheated on him with… Well, basically she just had a tendency to cheat, so that was all.

Finn was focused on his spaghetti when two figures cast their shadows over their dinner. He looked up too late, because Quinn was already screaming the loudest OMG ever.

Once he raised his head, he saw his girlfriend with her arms wrapped around Santana and Brittany's necks. "My girls! I've missed you so much!" She planted one big kiss on their cheeks before sitting back. "Join us! We have lots and lots of catching up to do."

"Sure we have." Santana smiled devilishy while she sat next to Finn. Brittany sat in front of her girlfriend, both blondes together. "Well, you are not gonna give me a hug or what, Finny H?" Santana hugged the tall boy and whispered in his ear. "We are gonna have some much fun tonight, Chubby."

"You look so… perfect together." Quinn's smile was bright. "But, Santana, what are you doing here? I thought you were in New York with Kurt."

"I was, but I got tired of never being called back after 50 auditions. I even tried The Vagina Monologues." She made a pause. "And I missed this young lady you have on your left, so… I made a Berry."

The four of them laughed. Well, Finn and Quinn mostly faked it, but they knew Santana's sharp comments.

"But," Santana carried on. "I really have to ask you something that really shocked me: What are you doing here? And: What are you doing here together?"

"Well, Kurt called Finn, and since he was in Lima too, we decided to come."

"And aren't you supposed to be in college?" Santana kept asking.

"You know what's funny? There are one hundred cute blondes there. Nobody will miss me if I skip a week," she answered with a slight giggle.

Brittany smiled widely. "I'm gonna rock," she said in excitement.

"But besides your week off and your needy brother-in-law… can anyone tell me when you two got back together?"

Quinn grinned proudly. She held Finn's hand across the table. Before she began to talk, Finn interrupted his girlfriend.

"I didn't stay in the Army for more than a week. That wasn't my thing. Too many push-ups and that stuff. They tried to kill me without guns, which is kinda lame. So I quit and went to Cali with Puck. He asked me to stay at his place for the summer. So in the middle of my spiritual retreat…"

"…I came to pay a visit to Noah. We broke into one of the houses where Puck works, and while we were remembering the old times in a Jacuzzi… we hit it off," she finished Finn's statement. And then, they kissed.

Santana kicked Brittany under the table, with her grossed-out face still on.

"Finn, I gotta go to the restroom. You wanna come?" Brittany asked.

"Britt, we use different restrooms, that's not how this thing works," he answered.

Brittany's girlfriend stood up in order to let Finn stand up as well. "Come on, Hudson, don't leave her unaccompanied in this dangerous, dangerous neighborhood."

"She just has to go to the bathroom." Finn frowned.

"Britt can't pee here. Last buffet night, we caught a lady hiding food between her tires of fat. She's been having nightmares about a meatball being sodomized by several cheese sticks."

"Just walk me to the dumpster, it's my safe place," Brittany said before walking out of the restaurant with Finn's glass in her hand.

Once they were gone, Santana stopped faking happiness for the couple. "Okay, what the fuck are all of you playing?"

"Excuse me?" Quinn asked, not following.

"You go to California because you want Puckerman back and the next thing I find out is that you're having dinner with his best friend, a.k.a. your boyfriend, a.k.a. your ex boyfriend, then your boyfriend again…" Santana didn't know what she was saying. "Whatever. Quinn, how many times are you gonna go through this?!"

Quinn looked into Santana's eyes. "Finn and I were meant to each other in the first place. You know it. I know it. He knows it. And she knows it too," she said stressing out that last subject.

"Are you telling me that this is not another revenge of yours?"

"Oh God, Santana, I made things right with everyone last year. I'm done with the whole plotting and scheming. Yes, what I had in mind when I was on the plane to Los Angeles was not the same I was feeling on the plane back. So what? What if I saw a different Finn? What if both of us are more mature and…"

"Mentally stabilized?" Santana interrupted. "Don't you see it? Finn coming back to see a brother that's already in a train to New York? And you're staying the entire week?! You can't work this out." She held her friend's hand in an attempt to make her reason.

Quinn started crying. "Why do you think I'm here? There's not a moment in the day when I can let him on his own. Because I know that when that moment arrives, he'll fetch that little…" she didn't find the words.

Santana sat next to her friend and hugged her. "I love you, Quinn. You know it, together till the end, but I can't let you go all the way with this."

"Are you with me or against me?"

"I can't support you with this, Q."

Quinn pulled back, took a sip of her soda and sighed. "I know everything. And now more than ever I have faith on me and Finn. She has her new toy, so…" Quinn tried to reassure herself, but in the end she knew that she bare stood a chance against a Finn-Rachel meeting.

"Her gay toy? Does anyone give a crap for them?" Santana chuckled and tried to make things less rough between them. "Rachel knows Finn's here. But she doesn't know that you are with him. I'm kinda bonding with her, but… if you really think that you can take Finn to New Haven and build your magical life of rainbows and white knights together… just tell her."

"Joe and his priest manners and the whole Seal of Confession thing," Quinn smirked. "Maybe I should give Blaine and Rachel my blessing and break the news for them."

Santana smiled at her friend. "Okay, but don't be too harsh on her. Everybody is very fucked up this year. Don't crush her heart and eat it or throw it to the flaming flames of the hell you came out of."

"Don't worry, I'll just sing Single ladies and… so put your hands up." After Quinn quoted Beyoncé's song, she showed her the offensively big rock on the engagement right that was wrapping her middle finger. "It'll do all the work." She winked an eye to a freaked-out Santana.