beepboopdedoop.

Rachel had no idea how she managed to get her legs to start moving again. She felt as if the words had slapped her in the face, adding to the already harsh whip the wind seemed to be carrying. It was a particularly strong gust of wind that ended up snapping her out of her trance, as the small piece of paper almost flew right out of her hands.

She probably could have stared at Quinn's retreating figure until the blonde all but disappeared into the building in front of her had she not come to her senses. Rachel thought the chapstick and the locker was strange, but Quinn's sweater took a whole new turn.

Not only would the person have to get to the Cheerio's hoodie in the first place, he would have to know that Quinn would give it to her. But there was no way he could have known, seeing as she had left her own sweater in her locker by pure accident. Had he left a note in Rachel's sweater, too, as reassurance?

Rachel trudged on, catching up to her friend just as she reached the doors. The blonde grabbed the handle of the door and Rachel could only stare at her as Quinn held the door open for her, her arm swooping down and towards the inside as if to say "lead the way."

"M'lady," she said, eyes twinkling.

There was simply no possible way some guy could have planted the note in the sweater pocket.

Rachel swallowed, realizing she had been wrong. Quinn had to be the one to have planted the note, which meant the blonde was indeed involved with the messy ordeal. Which meant that Quinn was hiding something from her.

But why? Okay, so she understood the mystery, but now she was beginning to truly question Noah's involvement. How many people knew about it but weren't admitting it? How many people were enjoying her bewilderment behind her back?

Rachel wasn't even aware of where they were going, and she hoped Quinn wouldn't notice her distracted mood. As much as she wanted to file the new information away for later, she couldn't—the issue was too pressing.

If Quinn knew who the guy was, then she obviously approved. That part made Rachel feel a little better; it meant that, not only was he real, but at least he'd stand a pretty good chance of being right for her. Rachel's only question—okay, so her most immediate question, rather—was why Quinn was so obvious about this note's placement. The other ones technically could have been placed by anyone, though she found it improbable.

As much as she didn't want to admit it, the school lockers probably weren't all that hard to pick. The book with the first note was completely up for grabs, her car had been unlocked, and the chapstick would only be hard in the actual delivery. But if Quinn was involved, and the Cheerios were the ones selling…

Brittany had told Santana, apparently, to make sure Rachel received a certain flavor. Had Brittany also made sure that Rachel received the one with the note?

It was all beginning to make sense now: Quinn had access to her car, and she even had an extra key. Whether Rachel had left it unlocked was insignificant, probably coincidence. Quinn knew the combination to both her regular locker and her gym locker.

Except…Quinn wasn't in her English class. But Noah was.

Rachel frowned—she had been certain Noah's reactions were genuine. She inwardly cursed herself for her underestimation of her friend's acting skills. Clearly, Noah was much better than she thought.

Just as she again began to wonder why Quinn made this note so obviously planted by her, Rachel walked right into the other girl.

The brunette would've stumbled a bit more than she already had, had Quinn not turned around and grounded her by grabbing her arms.

"You okay, Rach? You seem a little spacey." Rachel could only blink at her friend and wonder what the blonde was thinking. Was she laughing inside, knowing Rachel had found the note? Did she enjoy Rachel being clueless?

Really, the singer was flustered at Quinn's apparently extraordinary acting abilities. How had she never noticed before?

"I'm just fine." Rachel took a step back and brushed over the sweater, straightening it out. She'd be lying if she said she wasn't the slightest bit hurt by Quinn's deceit. She tried to understand it; it was a sweet gesture, the confession and the little notes that followed. And, yeah, the guy would obviously need an inside man—or woman, in this case—to help for the more intricate situations. But…it was still a secret Quinn was keeping from her.

What would've happened had Rachel told Quinn in the first place? Would the blonde have acted surprised at the words on the paper? Would she have pretended to be excited and attempt to help Rachel find the mystery man?

As hurt as Rachel felt, she watched as Quinn's face fell at her short reply. She tried to suppress the guilt she was starting to feel, but she knew that even Quinn couldn't be that good of an actress. The blonde was definitely confused by her attitude, and Rachel knew the concern in her eyes was genuine. Her shoulders relaxed as she tried her best to give her friend a small smile.

"Sorry," she apologized. "I'm fine, really. I'm just a little distracted and you still haven't told me why we're here."

Quinn nodded slowly, her eyes never leaving Rachel's. After a moment, Quinn evidently found proof that Rachel wasn't lying and she returned the small smile with one of her own.

"I didn't tell you for a reason—I knew you'd never come," the blonde finally admitted, and Rachel rolled her eyes.

"That sounds very reassuring, Quinn. Why thank you for relieving all of my apprehension. Now we can finally move on from this—"

"Rachel!" Quinn interrupted her, exasperated. "You're actually unbelievable." The brunette scoffed in offense—she was very believable, unbelievably so. Her thoughts paused as she wondered if that even worked as a mental comeback. "It's not as if I brought you here for surprise tattoos or something," Quinn continued, unaware of where Rachel's thoughts were headed.

"Tattoos?" Rachel blanched. Needles were not her forte. She refused to admit to being afraid of them, but she wasn't willing to get a tattoo to prove it.

"You're insufferable." Quinn threw her hands in the air and Rachel thought she was being a touch too dramatic. And then she began to wonder if this was also all some act. Did Quinn bring her here so that she could find another note hidden somewhere strange? "Homecoming is next weekend, Rachel. And we're here to buy you a dress."

"Homecoming?"

"Are you only capable of repeating words I say all of the sudden?" Quinn sighed and grabbed Rachel's wrist, pulling her into the store they were standing in front of.

"I'm not going to homecoming Quinn!" The diva tried to stomp her foot, but she found she needed it so she wouldn't trip over herself. "We talked about this already!" And they had, right after the blonde made Rachel watch one of the most terrifying movies either had ever seen. The smaller girl was still sleeping with the lights on.

"Stop being a child, Rach. You're going and you're going to like it."

Rachel felt like a child, being forcibly dragged by her friend by one arm. She tried to find some pole cemented into the ground to grab onto with her free hand, but all she could find were racks and racks of dresses. The brunette's fear of the mall cops being called on her was the only reason she didn't just grab onto one anyway.

"Oh, you'd like that wouldn't you," she accused, coming to understand why Quinn wanted her to go so desperately. Obviously her mystery man had something set up for the dance and Quinn had promised to make sure she would show. Oh, it was just too good.

In a reaction that Rachel had absolutely not expected, the blonde turned around with a pale face and was staring at Rachel with wide eyes. "What do you mean by that?" Her hand immediately released Rachel's wrist and the brunette almost fell to the floor at the sudden loss of force. Luckily, she was graced with some modicum of balance and she managed to right herself just in time.

Had Quinn really not expected her to make the connection between her and the notes? The blonde had placed the note in her own sweater!

Rachel bit down on her lip, suddenly losing faith in her own thoughts. Quinn was making her doubt everything and it was really freaking Rachel out. Why couldn't her friend, her best friend, just be honest with her? Again, she ignored the fact that she herself was hiding things.

Rachel mentally threw a fit; she had no idea what was actually going on and everything in her head was mere conjecture.

"Just that…" She watched as Quinn swallowed and seemed to look everywhere but at Rachel. Something about the action drew in Rachel's curiosity. Really, Quinn should not have been so nervous as she was acting to be. But was she acting? Rachel didn't know if she'd ever find out, and she wasn't even sure she wanted to. "You obviously want your best friend with you. And, seeing as I am she, you would appreciate my presence."

Just like the time she lied about the letter being blank, Rachel felt something that told her to change the subject. That leading Quinn to that area—whatever "that area" was—was dangerous, and that whatever the blonde was freaking out about was something for a later time.

Quinn didn't outwardly show any sign of being placated, but Rachel felt that something in her eyes had changed. She just didn't know what, exactly. She thought they maybe looked dimmer, somehow.

"So you'll go to the dance?" Quinn asked, but her voice sounded flat.

"I guess." Rachel reconciled with her fate. "But only because you asked so nicely." Then again, that didn't mean she had to be happy about it.

Sunday morning found Rachel seated at her desk, pencil in hand, and a blank piece of paper in front of her. She still wasn't convinced that Quinn was part of the scheme. Mostly, the facts led to the blonde's involvement, but her actions didn't. Also, Rachel found herself really not wanting to believe that Quinn could keep such a secret from her.

The brunette had spent the last week thinking that she was stressed out over the writer. She actually laughed at her self, out loud, as she sat at her desk and tried not to chew the pen cap to pieces. Her thoughts were all over the place and she was starting to think she was hallucinating.

You think scavenging around for a random possible stalker is hard? she thought, hearing the obnoxious yell of the Cheerio coach reverberate through her mind. Try finding out that your best friend in the entire world might not only be endorsing this stalker, but lying to you about it, too. That's hard.

Ugh, so lame.

It probably didn't help that Rachel hadn't slept longer than two hours that night; it wasn't even five in the morning as it was. After finally allowing Quinn to convince her to get a dress—it was simple, a soft pink, and strapless—her day had gone on as normal. Rachel was loath to admit that she could describe her Saturday as normal, too.

Quinn had stayed over on Friday to play some board games with the Berrytree (as she called them when all three Berry's were present), but the blonde had left after instead of staying the night. And, when Rachel had texted her the next day, her friend hadn't responded.

Rachel knew she should have seen Quinn's withdrawal coming. That moment in the mall, her eyes turning dull—Rachel hated that she hadn't recognized the look. Her friend always looked like that before the walls went up and all of the doors closed. Slammed, really.

The brunette blamed the relatively positive week the two had had. It happened like that sometimes—not often, but occasionally. The faster Quinn's mood changed, the more acclimated Rachel became to dealing with it. Yet, the longer intervals threw her for a loop. An entire week tended to give Rachel hope that she took for granted, and it hurt all the more when Quinn would pull away. She wondered where the blonde had ended up Friday night.

She recalled that Noah had thrown a party. The brunette had been invited, of course, but she had politely declined—after all, she had expected Quinn to stay.

She sighed, staring at the paper in front of her. After over half an hour of planning, Rachel had nothing to show for it. The idea was to plan some kind of investigation to figure out who knew about Mr. Anonymous, but all she had to work with so far was Santana. The singer really didn't want to involve Quinn just yet—her hopes were faint, but existent nonetheless.

She was being ridiculous, she knew, but Rachel was proud of herself for at least filtering many of her ideas. She had no guess as to where the idea of hanging Santana upside down from her ankles until she admitted everything came from, but she wasn't proud of it.

She also vaguely remembered thoughts involving flogging, but she had been spending her time in English class reading about the olden days, so she at least knew she wasn't crazy.

Well, not completely, anyway.

Rachel's head banged on her desk as she gave up on listing ideas but, oddly enough, she felt no pain. Nothing she planned would get her anywhere.

In the end, Rachel had no real proof of anything. She could ask Quinn point blank, but she was scared. Either Quinn would confess, or she wouldn't. Seeing as the latter option was most likely, it would leave Rachel exactly where she had started—unsure as to whether or not the other girl could truly be trusted on the matter at hand.

She could ask Santana, but she'd probably only leave that interrogation with a wounded ego and a sense of impending doom. And possibly a new nickname. No, Santana was most definitely off the list.

Then again, there was Brittany to take in to account…

Rachel yawned, realizing her exhaustion had finally won out over her racing mind. With just enough sense left to crawl into bed, she was asleep within the minute.

The hallways were empty when Rachel arrived at school, and she felt an eerie sense of déjà vu. The weather had lightened up again and the sun was out with hardly a cloud in the sky. This time, Rachel made sure she wasn't too distracted by nature to lock her car door.

Even though she knew it was unlikely, the brunette prepared herself for an early morning note. Part of her was convinced there would be one on the front of her locker, and she was almost disappointed when she reached the hallway her locker was in and saw nothing. When she finally managed to open her locker, she sifted through her belongings, just in case, but was still left with nothing.

After waking up at two in the afternoon on Sunday—unheard of for the diva—Rachel had gone back to the drawing board. Refreshed, she had decided to trash every previous idea she had come up with and started anew. That meant that no one was off-limits and no one was overlooked; it also meant that Rachel planned on keeping track, and so she started a list of her own.

On her new list, Rachel went over every note she received and finally began to make some progress. For her appearance, the singer could cross off no one—anybody could take a look at her and know those things. The other notes that followed didn't really help much, either, until she reached the latest one. The paper slip in her hand, Rachel eyed the names on her list. She was quite the hugger, but disqualifying those who had never been on the receiving end of a Rachel Berry hug narrowed down the list substantially.

She still had every member of the Glee club down, a few boys from Dalton, an occasional classmate, and…Mr. Shuester. She internally gagged at the thought of it being her Glee coach, and she was one hundred percent certain it wasn't him, but she refused to stray from her new rules: no one was to be crossed off without full proof or deviation from the slips of paper. Unfortunately, she had hugged the over-gelled man once or twice in the heat of the moment during competitions, and so she couldn't cross him off.

Once she'd finished the new list, Rachel had gone for a run. She'd slept in, so her morning elliptical routine had been thrown off and she'd needed to get her frustrations out somehow.

Checking to make sure the list was safely tucked in a small pocket in her skirt, Rachel remembered the reason she had bothered to show up to school so early. She headed back the way she had come from and stopped at Quinn's locker. Her friend still hadn't responded to her texts, hadn't returned her calls, and Rachel was fed up. She wasn't going to let the blonde convince her to go to the dance only to end up being ignored by Quinn the entire time she was there.

Granted, Rachel had all week to get the other girl to abort the total shutdown she was in, but she definitely wanted her Quinn back sooner rather than later.

It wasn't more than five minutes of waiting that Rachel saw the Cheerio heading her way. She watched Quinn's expression as she tried to gauge how to go about it this time. Sometimes, it took coaxing, other times all Quinn needed was a proverbial smack to the head. Rachel hoped the coaxing method would suffice.

When Quinn didn't even meet Rachel's eyes, the brunette began to feel worried. Though it didn't mean anything definite, she feared it would mean the worst.

"Hello, Quinn," she greeted. If the blonde wasn't going to make the first move, Rachel would.

Quinn looked up, finally, as she swapped her bag for her books. Rachel was shocked—the cheerleader looked exhausted. She had dark circles under her eyes, which were probably even worse than they looked since Quinn was wearing concealer. Her eyes themselves were slightly red, and her hair—though in the standard ponytail—somehow managed to look dull, lifeless, even.

"Hey, Rach," she replied, and Rachel could actually see the effort it had taken her friend to do so. Her sole consolation was that the greeting gave her hope that Quinn hadn't simply been ignoring her all weekend. She thought maybe the other girl had just been really busy.

Rachel was just about to inquire about Quinn's weekend when a tan hand, that was not her own, clamped over the head cheerleader's shoulder and Quinn's eyes clamped shut.

"Hey, Qball," Santana said in an unnecessarily loud tone of voice. Rachel looked between the two Cheerios and watched in confusion as the blonde began to shrink in on herself. "Still hungover?"

The singer's eyes widened as realization hit—the bloodshot eyes, the pale complexion, and the overall "kill me now" look. Quinn Fabray was hungover. Quinn, "Golden Girl" Fabray, had spent her weekend drinking. And now, she was hungover. Santana's odd behavior suddenly made sense to Rachel, but the smaller girl didn't know what to do with the new information.

"I'll take that silence as a yes and, for the record, I'm not above saying I told you so." The Latina walked away, having joined the conversation less than a minute ago. The two girls remaining stood stiffly for a moment, one in shame and the other extremely disoriented.

"Quinn?" Rachel spoke softly, unaware of how sensitive the blonde was to sound in her current state. It was obvious something was up because Quinn didn't…she didn't drink.

Her friend just groaned, though, and leaned over until her head hit the locker. "Santana is such a bitch," Quinn mumbled, turning away from Rachel.

"Quinn," she spoke again, a little more forceful this time. She grasped the taller girl's bicep to keep her from walking away.

"I really don't want to talk about this right now." Quinn shrugged her shoulder, shaking off Rachel's grip, and the brunette just let her hand fall. "I'll see you later," Quinn said, and Rachel watched as her best friend—the one currently acting like a complete stranger—walked away from her.

Though she normally would have considered being partnered with Santana an unfortunate circumstance, Rachel silently thanked her oblivious English teacher for teaming her up with the Latina for the day's in-class assignment. For once in her life, the diva could honestly say that she could care less about whether or not the assignment was completed. Whatever was going on with Quinn was more important than some two-point response, and Santana clearly had some idea about the topic.

"Midge," the girl in question acknowledged as she took a seat next to Rachel. The shorter girl rolled her eyes—she was actually becoming acclimated to conversing with the fiery girl and she found the nicknames to be less insulting and more…she didn't want to say banter-like, but she could tell the Cheerio only used them to get a rise out of her. Two could play that game.

"Satan."

The pair stared at each other until Rachel finally caved and cleared her throat. She'd always known that the cheerleader's eyes were dark—she used to think of them as black and soulless—but she had never actually taken the time to look at the exact shade. They were dark, yes, much darker than her own, but they were a hard brown instead of an endless black. The color was enough to give the Latina's eyes a depth, a kind of mystery. Rachel was sure that it was that depth that drew all of the boys in. Even the girls, she supposed.

Yet, the only mystery Rachel was drawn in by was the reason behind Quinn's behavior.

"You know what's wrong with Quinn, and you're going to tell me," she demanded, calmly placing her pencil at the edge of her desk. She wasn't going to take no as an answer.