It's time to tell you honestly
So we can alter history
You are, first on my list, when everything around is one I know
You are, first on my list, when everything is shown up for what it is
—Yesterday Threw Everything At me
"Quinn, honey. It's 2 a.m". Rachel sat up and rubbed her eyes to get a clearer view of the blonde still immersed in her studies with light only coming from her computer screen. She got up and turned on the lamp beside the laptop. "That's bad for your eyes."
Quinn looked up and adjusted her eyeglasses. "I didn't want to keep you awake", she smiled sweetly. Rachel smiled back. Quinn wearing eyeglasses was always a huge turn on to her. It does something, maybe added character to that angelic face; or maybe it's just the pervert in her, imagining the blonde giving her lectures in a classroom and then – Rachel shook her head and chastised herself. Quinn had been working hard all night and all she can think of at that moment is sex. "I'll go make us some coffee", she croaked, and made her way to the kitchen leaving her bemused girlfriend chuckling to herself. Rachel's face can be very transparent so Quinn deciphered early on the difference between contemplating-about-life- Rachel and contemplating-about-sex-Rachel. A few seconds ago was definitely the latter, what with the brunette swallowing roughly and reflexively licking her lips.
Quinn caught her lower lip with her teeth and turned her attention to the noise coming from the kitchen. Sex with Rachel was great. Not that she had a lot to compare with. But she instinctively knew that nothing in the world would compare to the way the brunette touches her, or how her slender fingers seem to fit snuggly in her core, or – shit, she's suppose to be finishing her paper. Sighing, Quinn stood up and walked around, shaking her hands and stretching a bit to recover from her thoughts. Her eyes opened immediately at the sound of Rachel's footsteps heading back to their room with two steaming mugs of coffee at hand. "You should go back to sleep, Rach", Quinn murmured while taking the mugs from Rachel and placing them on the table.
The brunette shook her head and slightly sat on the table. "I'll sleep when you're ready to sleep. Ergo", she raised the mug and blew air around the lid before taking a sip. "But this is going to take forever", Quinn whined as she sat down on her chair. "When are you suppose to submit that?", the brunette frowned in worry.
"Three weeks from now."
The diva almost choked on coffee. "Three weeks from now?"
"Yeah?"
"And you're killing yourself over something you have a lot of time to work on?", Rachel asked in a mixture of annoyance and astonishment.
"Don't act like you're not like this, too, Ms. Berry", Quinn retorted. "Besides, this isn't the only schoolwork I have. I don't want to end up submitting a half-baked work. Miss Marco has very high standards. She has six published works, a monograph and a chapter in a compiled book."
"Sounds to me that you just want to impress her." Rachel muttered in a voice laced with jealousy.
"Maybe I do", Quinn pouted while staring on her mug, oblivious of her girlfriend's sentiments.
Rachel rolled her eyes. "Well, I guess it's really hard to please oldprofessors."
"Actually", Quinn looked up. "She's only 38 years old."
Oh. Great.
"And she recently adopted a baby girl from China.", the blonde beamed. "She's very cute."
The brunette narrowed her eyes at Quinn. "You seem to know a lot about her personal life."
"Well, she—" Quinn squinted her eyes in response. "What is it with you and being jealous at way older people in my life? First my acupuncturist, now my teacher. Ew, Rachel. Just ew."
"Okay, I admit, being jealous with your acupuncturist was…slightly immature.", Rachel said with resentment.
Quinn laughed softly and tugged Rachel's hand. "Come here", she whispered while patting her lap.
Rachel sighed heavily then slowly straddled the blonde, resting her arms on Quinn's shoulders. "I love you, you know?", Quinn said with conviction. "I should be offended that you imply I have a thing for people closer to Mr. Schuester's age. I'm not the one who had a crush on him", she smirked.
"I'm sorry", the brunette murmured then worried her lip, choosing to ignore the blonde's last statement. Quinn leaned forward and placed a gently kiss on Rachel's lips and whispered, "I only have a thing for Rachel Berry."
"Why?"
Quinn leant back and studied her girlfriend's face. "What do you mean 'why'?"
"Why me", the diva clarified while staring intensely into Quinn's eyes."You're beautiful, stunning, and intelligent and—"
"—And so are you. The point being?" Quinn raised her eyebrow. She knew what would come next.
Rachel looked away. "I'm not..beautiful. And you could have anyone you wanted."
"I did get what I wanted.", the blonde held on to the diva's hips and squeezed them. "What I want. That's you."
"Again. Why me?"
She stroked Rachel's cheek and rested her hand on the contour of the brunette's jaw. "I wish I have a definitive answer to that. I just…I love you. I've always been drawn towards you and if I knew why early on, I probably would have known how to stay away from you", she chuckled sadly, remembering how much she struggled with her feelings. "But I don't regret it. I love your whole being. I don't have a list of what qualities I like in you or don't. I want you. Not the Rachel who does this, or don't do this. Just you." Quinn finished with pleading eyes. It's hard for her to express what she feels, and harder to mollify Rachel when her insecurities show. She wished that the brunette would understand what she was saying.
It seemed to have worked. For a moment, Rachel's lips moved upwards to something that resembled a smile then nodded. "You're beautiful, Rach. I'm so proud that you chose me." Quinn was pleased with herself because that visibly perked up her girlfriend. She had long learned to pick up signals since the time they had a huge fight about the way Rachel looked. "I kind of brag about you and tell my classmates I've got the hottest girlfriend with killer legs and—"
Rachel laughed loudly and shook her head. "Okay, now you're overdoing it."
Quinn tilted her head and tried to catch Rachel's eyes. "I love you", she said again.
Rachel finally got the hint and smiled sheepishly. "I love you, too".
"Do you want to help me organize my notes?"
She clean forgot that she was supposed to meet Rachel for coffee that afternoon, so Quinn showered and dressed up as fast as she could, grabbing the nearest clothes hanging in her closet. Her mind was in a state of total chaos; she was still high from last night's tryst with Emily then suddenly felt like throwing up when she read Rachel's text reminding her of their coffee date.
She waited for the guilt to kick in; and it kicked her straight to the gut. Resting the side of her head against the bus window, she thought of how much the brunette had been trying to salvage their relationship. That night the blonde called to have coffee with the diva, Rachel took it as an opening and had been trying ever since without being pushy.
Quinn almost tripped on the way down from the bus then shoved her way from the people coming in and ran towards the café where they were supposed to meet. Catching her breath for a few seconds, she caught a glimpse of Rachel patiently waiting for her inside. The blonde's lips quirked upwards at how adorable her ex-girlfriend was, dutifully transferring notes from her yellow pad to her pink covered notebook. Quinn looked around and found a flower shop a few stores away, hurriedly walked over and picked up a dozen stargazer lilies.
She entered the cafe quietly and stood behind the brunette –still focused on what she was working on—and slowly placed the flowers in front of her. "I missed you", she whispered. Rachel smiled widely and dropped her pen before turning around. "I missed you, too. And these flowers are beautiful. Thank you." Rachel gushed.
There are certain decisions men make that change the course of our history. Napoleon did that at Waterloo, or the Japanese attacking Pearl Harbor.
Or Quinn, taking off her jacket when she sat down.
Rachel's face fell when her eyes landed on the bruises found on Quinn's left shoulder and the crook of her neck. The blonde instinctively tried to cover them with her right hand but the damage was done. "Rach..", she mumbled.
"Is..this what Kurt wanted to tell me?", Rachel asked in a broken voice. She received a text message from him last night asking them to have dinner later. He didn't want to not be near her best friend when he talked about Emily. It would have been a wise decision had Rachel decided not to meet Quinn first –something Kurt wasn't aware of. And now, everything is out in the open. At the very least, Quinn felt exposed under Rachel's scrutinizing gaze. "He said you were with him last night."
"I…I was with Kurt last night. We..", Quinn covered her shoulder with palm and squeezed it. "We bumped into each other at NYU. I was..I was there because.." She breathed deeply then looked away. She couldn't –didn't want to—look at Rachel out of shame. "…I was on my way to meet up with a friend – acquaintance,", she corrected herself, "E-emily. Emily", she nodded. "…but we ended up having dinner together with..Kurt."
Rachel closed her eyes for a few moments, balled up her fists and breathed deeply. "And you ended up in her bed afterwards", Rachel stated evenly as if talking about the weather. Quinn blinked. Was her ex-girlfriend schizophrenic? This was a different Rachel she is dealing with.
Quinn's eyes snapped towards Rachel's direction. "Rachel, please.."
They were now talking in whispers as more people entered the establishment. Rachel tried to maintain eye contact and Quinn wished that she could decipher what was going through the brunette's mind.
"Was she good?"
Quinn tried to reach out for the diva's hand that she quickly snatched away and placed on her lap. "Was she good?", she repeated.
Quinn looked down and blinked several times. "Rachel…please don't do this."
"Was she good, Quinn?"
The blonde closed her eyes. There was no escaping this. She can walk out but that would never amount to anything—might as well get this done and over with. "Yes", she breathed out.
"Is she pretty?...prettier than me?"
Quinn gripped her thighs and pursed her lips in response.
"Please answer my—"
"Yes", she answered softly. "She's prettier than you, Rachel. Please stop, now. Please."
"So what are these flowers for, Quinn?"
"Nothing. I just saw it and I wanted to give it to you"
"Tell me more about her, Quinn."
The blonde wiped her eyes slowly and managed to squeak a "Why?"
Rachel finally looked down and wrung her hands together. "Because I want to know who's making you happy these days. That's what friends do"
Quinn's heart shattered into a million pieces with how small Rachel's voice had become. "Rachel..she's not..we're not together dating."
Wrong move.
"So you just…sleep with her? That's how easy it is now, Quinn?"
"No, god, no", the blonde mumbled with her hands covering her face. "Rachel, she doesn't mean anything to me. I don't know what came over me last night. It was a mistake. I swear."
By all intents and purposes, Quinn wasn't cheating on Rachel. Yet, the way she had been pleading and defending her actions, it might as well have been. "Please, it's a one-time thing. I promise you. It won't happen again."
"Quinn, we're not together anymore.", Rachel reminded her. "You're free to sleep with other people."
The blonde felt like she was once again hit by a truck. That statement went both ways. There was a horrible sinking feeling that she lost any moral ascendancy to discourage Rachel from seeing someone else. She expected Rachel to fall right back in the arms of Finn as soon as they had broken up. But the fact that the diva remained single up to now gave her some glimmer of hope. All of that is gone.
"No..", Quinn countered weakly. "We were..we were trying to—"
"—salvage our relationship", Rachel interrupted. "And this changes everything." Her voice finally cracked and rubbed her thighs nervously.
"Rachel", Quinn pleaded for the last time. "She's no one in my life", she lied. "I just met her in an event and she helps me with my academic requirements."
"Quinn, you slept with her". The brunette looked at her intensely. "You can't dismiss her as no one in your life."
"She's no one compared to you."
"That's really sweet of you to say, Quinn. But that's beside the point. Those bruises say otherwise."
"No, it doesn't, Rachel. I screwed up. I know that. It's a one-time thing."
"Can you honestly say that won't happen again?"
Quinn grimaced. "I…I don't know, Rachel."
Rachel sighed. Of course that wasn't the answer she was hoping for. But she wanted honesty, and she got it. "How is she as a person?"
"She doesn't ask a lot of questions.", she glanced at Rachel and smirked slightly despite the situation.
Rachel smirked back.
Quinn rolled off Emily then lied down on her back as she tried to recover from an orgasmic high. The older woman propped her elbow and rested her head while running her fingers over the length of Quinn's body then rested on her knee. "Battle scars?", she purred, tracing the faint inch-long blemish.
The younger girl's jaw tensed then looked down. "Car accident"
"That's all there is to it?"
"Yeah"
Emily chuckled. "Alright", she whispered before straddling Quinn's torso.
Quinn rubbed the back of her neck. "Rachel, why you are asking me all these questions?"
"Because I need to know who I'm up against with, Quinn."
"This isn't a singing competition"
"No, it isn't. It's much more important than that."
Quinn gazed at Rachel and saw fire in her eyes. She wasn't sure what to make of it. At the heart of it all is, Quinn doesn't know what she wanted. Rachel scooted closer and pressed her lips on Quinn's. The blonde pulled away and frowned. "What was that for?"
Rachel's eyes flashed with hurt. "It's open season, isn't it? That Emily –"
"What am I? Some sort of a game?", Quinn gasped. "You guys are the hunters and I'm the hunted?"
"You slept with her, Quinn. And now you're on a date with me. Not to mention this.", she said while pointing to the bouquet of flowers. "If I didn't see those hickeys, would you have mentioned her to me? Or did you just expect Kurt to do the job?"
The blonde bit her lip and remained silent.
"So who's toying with whom, here?", Rachel asked with much venom in her voice and valiantly fought back the tears threatening to spill. "I'm not asking you to make a choice right here right now. But I need to know if despite the fact that she's far more superior to me, I still stand a chance."
"So you just kiss me without warning?"
"Have I ever warned you before hugging?"
Quinn laughed at this. "No…no you never ever did."
"So don't act all surprised."
"You're taking this better than I had expected."
"It's killing me inside, Quinn." Rachel's hand slowly reached for the other girl's. "It's taking everything in me not to cry right now."
Quinn allowed the brunette to hold her hand and murmured, "I'm sorry."
"Don't be. I told you, you're free to see anyone you want. I mean it."
"That goes the same for you, you know?"
Rachel looked up and quirked the corner of her lips. "It's kind of why you left me, isn't it? For me to be free. And I'm using that freedom to win you back."
"It won't be that easy, Rach. It's not because I have any intention to make your life grueling. It's just—"
"We've hurt each other so much"
Quinn nodded.
"Will you be willing to afford me the same privileges you give Emily?"
"What..what privileges?" Quinn didn't like where the conversation was heading.
"I can't compete fairly if I can't do the things you allow her to do to you."
"Rachel, I told you this isn't a competition."
"So you can sleep with her, but I can't even kiss you."
Quinn whispered lowly. "Rachel, when you kiss me, my whole world turns upside down. When you touch me, I feel like my head is about to explode. I won't be able to ever think straight if I let you do the things we used to."
Oh. Really? She didn't know that.
"And…and I don't want to cheapen the intimacy we had", Quinn blushed.
Oh. That's why they never fucked; never discussed using toys or anything else that remotely deviated from the orthodox way of having sex.
"I think. I think we need to take a step back and clear our heads.", Quinn added.
"Okay", Rachel agreed sadly. "How much space and time do you need?"
"I don't..I'm not asking for that. I just..can we continue what we have been doing? I like this. I like that we go out for coffee and talk about stupid and funny things, you know?"
No, she didn't know that. She had always thought Quinn would get bored at her if she talks about mundane things.
"…you'll still see Emily?"
"I can't promise you that I won't."
"It's a yes or no question, Quinn.."
Quinn responded with an exasperated tone. "Yes, I'll still see her."
Rachel nodded and stared at Quinn with determined eyes. This won't be easy. But Quinn wasn't fighting it out either. When she saw the love marks on Quinn's neck, something inside her ignited. She wanted to drag the blonde home and claim her. She felt the need to make sure everyone else stays away from her ex-girlfriend. Rachel was about to head for war and she needed the entire arsenal she can get.
"Berry", Santana sighed as she answered her phone. "What do you want? I'm busy."
"Santana, if it's a choice between a hot British woman and me, who would you choose."
"What the fuck question is that?"
When she was met with silence, Santana continued, "If it's a choice between that singer Cheryl Cole and you, I'd throw you off the cliff."
Rachel huffed in response.
Santana chuckled then took a bite from the apple she was holding and chewed loudly to further aggravate Rachel. She was enjoying this. "If you are, however, alluding to Emily Carr, I'd choose you."
"I—what?"
"You heard me."
"You..you'd choose me"
"That's what I said."
"Why?"
"Because I don't think I can handle someone like her. Bitch is aggressive. I've never seen Quinn so emaciated after a night of fucking. Well, I assume you've done that, too, with her."
"Uhm"
"No way. You two have never done a sex-a-thon?"
"No.."
"Good lord, Rachel. No wonder Quinn looked like she came right out of a concentration camp. Uh, no offense to your people."
"None taken"
"So, anyway. Is that the only reason why you called?"
"I need to win her back, Santana. I need your help."
"I can't do that. Quinn's technically my friend. You're not."
"Don't give me that crap, Santana. I'm your friend, too."
"Okay, you're right. But that's always a secret. I'm her best friend."
"And therefore you want what's best for her. Is Emily someone you can say is good for her?"
"Truth?"
"Nothing but."
"No, she's not. But neither were you."
"I have every intention to be from now on."
"She wasn't good for you, either, Rachel. You both almost ruined each other."
"It won't be the same this time."
"And why not?"
"Because I've never been so sure of my feelings for Quinn. I love her, Santana. I love her."
Santana stared at her food for a moment. "You told her you chose her out of guilt, Rachel.", she said quietly. "You told her if she didn't stupidly get into an accident, you would be happily married to Finn, and that you're only sticking it out with her because it's convenient."
It was the first time someone had recounted a part of what happened that awful night at her. It wasn't easy for Rachel to hear it from someone else. It didn't help that Santana's voice was filled with uncharacteristic sorrow and disappointment.
Rachel closed her eyes and wiped the tears that fell. "I was so mad, Santana. So mad at Quinn. I know that doesn't justify anything, but I had to fight back."
"Yeah, I know. Quinn's not exactly the epitome of an ideal girlfriend. She can be her father's daughter at times"
"So, will you help me?"
"I don't know exactly what you have in mind, Rachel. But I'm not going to get in between Emily and Quinn."
"No, I'm not, either. I know they're sleeping together. I'm not okay with it, but I can't stop Quinn."
Santana frowned. "So, what do you need from me?"
"I realized something very crucial was missing. And I need to do that."
"What is it?"
"I need to know Quinn Fabray."
A/N: I physically felt pain over Rachel asking those questions at Quinn. That wasn't easy. But Rachel is Rachel and she lives through the Art of War, perhaps, without even knowing it.
A/N 2: Thank you once again for the kind reviews and comments. Quinn isn't perfect as we all know and accepted. The hardest part about writing future fics is that they're all based on our understanding of what they are now so we can, in a way, predict how they will be in the future. Quinn, I think is the most complex character in the show and despite the writing screw ups, I'm glad that they're giving us fanfic writers an easier way to portray a multi-dimensional character because of how she was molded in the past. So please, try not to be mad at my Quinn, lol. Trying to figure out how Rachel would react didn't come easy, too.
A/N 3: Keep the reviews/comments coming. I live for them the same way Rachel lives for applause.