A/N: Again, I'm sorry for the long wait between updates. I really struggled with this chapter, thus it took longer than normal to get up. I hope you enjoy it though. I also think I may have finally figured out tumblr (after months of asking you guys how it works), so if anyone wants to follow me, here it is: seahorsesantana dot tumblr dot com

On a related note, the song referenced at the end of the chapter will be up there.

I hope you enjoy this, it's a little different from other chapters!

Quinn checks the time on the microwave. She has to be at Santana's in an hour. The sky is blue outside, exceptionally blue for LA, without a hint of smog or clouds. All the rain they've had this winter finally cleared out all the pollution. Temporarily, but Quinn knows to appreciate it when she can. Winter has plugged on and she's not sure when it began or when it will end, but she knows that it's about sixty degrees outside and that after 12 years in this city she's not going to be comfortable without a scarf and a jacket. Quinn could barely piece together how the last three months had passed so quickly. It was another, of the many, curses of adulthood. Time was moving infinitely faster than Quinn could keep up with. She knows that they returned to LA a few days after the Glee Club party. It rained for 6 days in a row and the city struggled to cope with the unusual weather. Brittany and Santana had a New Years Eve party. Kurt and Sam flirted shamelessly, Mercedes felt the baby kick for the first time, Puck tried to kiss her at midnight, and Rachel was in New York for New Years. Not that Quinn really noticed.

Quinn talked in circles to her therapist. Nothing new was happening so there was nothing new to say. Or maybe, in this moment without drama, she really had everything to say. She didn't know. All she knew is that they talked about Beth, her failed relationships, her sexuality, Rachel, her family, and back to Beth again. Lather, rinse, and repeat.

She wrote a lot, but she didn't know what to do with her stories once they were finished. Santana talked her ear off about copyrighting and the library of Congress and the WGA, but Quinn just wasn't sure she was ready to put her words out in the world yet. She talked to her therapist about this too, but it just resulted in a conversation about Quinn's insecurities, her sexuality, her failed relationships, and back to her family again. She knew she wasn't ready to publish her words, just yet.

Quinn didn't know what she was ready for. All this time had passed, and nothing really had changed. She was still in the middle of divorce proceedings with Justin, trying to divvy up their assets and child support and spousal support and custody decisions. If she had it her way, she wouldn't take anything from him, and just get it over with. It was painful. No matter which way she looked at it, she didn't want to see the man she first fell in love with at a frat party, who gave her three, beautiful children, who had, in many ways, become one of her best friends before everything they had worked so hard to build crumbled around them, once a week with lawyers present deciding who actually owns that Range Rover, the house in Big Bear, the house in LA. She didn't want to listen to her lawyer justify the monies she was owed for her loving him and him failing her. The reality, however, was that Quinn was thirty, had three children, and zero work experience or marketable skills, so without Justin's help, she would have nothing. She knew she was a lot of things, but she wasn't stupid, and that she was going to either be reliant on him or the state for the time being, and he seemed like the better option. Justin called her on Valentine's Day. They talked for an hour, laughing about past Valentine's Days, and walking in on Santana and Brittany in college, and failed reservations, and singing telegrams delivered to pro football practices. She worried to Dr. Phillips about enjoying the conversation, about feeling lonely and making stupid decisions. Dr. Phillips assured her that she has twelve years of history and three children with Justin; they will always have a relationship and that people get lonely sometimes. She was only human. It was being lonely that got her knocked up the first time, Quinn noted. Lather, rinse, and repeat.

Sometimes she wonders where she would be if someone had sat her down in high school and forced her to talk about her feelings and her problems like this. She probably would have refused the offer, and, depending on the stage of high school, threatened to get the Skanks on them, on manipulated her way into ruining their life. Still, she can't help but wonder.

She and Puck babysat Nico and Olivia for two days over Valentine's Day weekend. Quinn didn't think she was capable of watching 5 kids on her own. She was afraid to call Rachel for help, and Mercedes was busy preparing for her own child. The fact was that all of her other Los Angeles friends had their own lives and families and loves to deal with on Valentine's Day. Puck, of course, was stone-cold single, as always. Santana booked a cabin for her and Brittany in Big Sur, but it rained all weekend, and Santana had become too much of an Angeleno for her own good and was afraid to drive up the PCH (even though she'd never admit that) in the downpour, so they stayed at their house all weekend. Quinn's pretty sure they just had sex for two days in Silverlake, and her daughters' knowing smirks at Brittany and Santana's glow reaffirmed her suspicions. The one time she and Puck went out together some paparazzi found them and they made the tabloids. Not the headlines, but in the first few pages, at least. Noah Puckerman finds romance with Footballer's ex. The stories included snapped images of them leaving the Coffee Bean by the Albertsons in Los Feliz. Quinn lauged when she saw the magazine the next week, ironically, while in line at the same Albertsons. She wonders what the tabloids would do with the truth. Footballer's ex getting coffee with high school flame who fathered her illegitimate child and is now an action star but she's in love with up and comer Rachel Berry, whom she also attended high school with and is now questioning her sexuality. They probably wouldn't sell as many magazines with that headline. Or maybe they'd sell more. Twelve years of living in this town and she still didn't really understand the entertainment industry. There's a lot she doesn't understand. She doesn't understand how she could have been around this many gay people for this long and not realized that she was gay. Or bisexual. Or questioning. Or whatever. The point is that Santana is hot and Brittany is hot and they had been her hot lesbian friends for most of her life and she never realized before that she thought that they were hot. And that makes her wonder about her sanity. Or if her feelings for Rachel are even real at all. And it starts her back at the beginning of her rant. Dr. Phillips would tell her to not obsess about what or how or why she is and think about how to make herself happy in the future. It's getting easier to do that. It's not perfect, but it's getting easier.

Santana doesn't know what happened to the winter. It feels like she was in Lima yesterday, but really three months have passed and Quinn is supposed to come over to help her paint and she can't even remember when construction was finished or when she quit her job or what she had for dinner last night. Scratch that. Her mother and Brittany made chicken enchiladas for dinner last night and they were delicious. That's neither here nor there now, though. Her babies are 18 months old, and she knows that if she starts thinking about their stumble-run through the house, their demands for "mas aguacate, y mami, up up!" that she'll start crying again and thinking back to when she first held their tiny little bodies in her arms and they just gaped back at her with big brown eyes and toothless mouths. She knows that New Years Eve came and went. Her midnight kiss with Britt would have been perfect had she not caught Quinn slapping Puck out of the corner of her eye and inadvertently broken down laughing, Brittany's lips still on her own. It rained for days. She's convinced it rained the entire month of January and she kept an umbrella in her car and in the house and wore galoshes everywhere because, god, Santana hates the rain and hates getting her weave wet, or anything wet, really. When she explained this to Quinn and Brittany they both laughed for a good fifteen minutes. For once, she was the last one in on the joke. A dirty joke, at that.

She knows that Quinn and Puck babysat for her and Britt over Valentine's Day. She couldn't help the fleeting thought about Beth that crossed her mind when she saw the two of them together with the five children. Beth would be 18 in four years, and Santana wondered if she would come looking for her parents. She and Brittany, however, did not get out of Los Angeles that weekend. After a month of planning for Big Sur, the rain was too heavy to risk the drive. Brittany called her a pussy, but Santana just kept reminding her that Noah Puckerman was ill-equipped to raise their children if their car plummeted off the 1 and into the ocean. It didn't take Brittany that long to agree with Santana, and Santana was pretty sure that weekend in their own, newly renovated, child-free home in Silverlake rivaled their honeymoon in Hawaii. It definitely beat their "we live without our parents for the first time" college sex. And, obviously, their high school sex was awesome, because their sex has always been awesome, but it was all closeted and quiet back then, and it took Santana forever to even call it sex. Maybe female sexuality really did peak in the thirties. If Valentines Day was any indication, Santana was pretty damn excited that she got nine more years of it. Santana was broken out of her thoughts by the sound of the doorbell ringing.

"Bitch, what the fuck have you been doing up there all this time? It's fucking freezing out here." Quinn said, storming into the front of the house.

"Jesus, Q, what's with the mouth? There are children here," Santana replied.

"Oh, please, I know your kids are out with your mother and Brittany, like there are any secrets around here. I'm swearing because I'm fucking cold, Santana, and don't pretend like you don't understand, you're in that lesbian-ass afghan and weird hippie-lesbian-granola pants and its sixty degrees outside. What even are those pants? You look like a cross between a homeless sheep herder and a bong seller in Venice."

"Whatever. I'm cold and Brittany told me to be nice to you since you're helping me so I'm going to try to, so don't push my buttons. And I like this afghan. Britt got it for me when she was touring with that dance troupe through Latin America a few years ago."

"So, I should think it's less lesbian because your wife got it for you?"

"Fuck you, Fabray."

"Also, I hated you on that trip. That was the one, right after you guys got married, right? Like a year later? You were always moping around my house, crying about Britt, and Harper was a baby and I just didn't have time for two of you crying on my shoulder all day long."

Santana walked into the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee, knowing that it was probably part of the reason Quinn was being so annoying. Quinn sat down at the kitchen island, resting her chin in her hands.

"So, the girls are with Justin this weekend?" Santana asked, nonchalantly as the water heater slowly began bubbling.

"Yeah," Quinn said. "Can we not talk about it? I really don't need to think anymore about the broken-home I'm creating for my children."

"Yeah, I get it, Q. You don't want to talk. You don't want to talk about Justin, you don't want to talk about the girls, God forbid I bring up the forbidden 'R' word."

"Can we please just get to whatever it is you brought me here for?" Quinn asked, cutting Santana off.

"She's like, literally, forbidden fruit. Get it? Berry?"

"Shut. Up. Why am I here, Santana?"

"Well, I knew this was only your second weekend without the girls, and I thought maybe you could use something to get your mind off of it. Plus, I need to finish the trim in Nico's room and we're repainting my mother's room. Apparently she hates the color blue. How I lived with her for 18 years and never realized this fact is beyond me, the point is that she wants it a light lavender and I'm tired of paying people for shit I could easily be doing myself."

"Okay, then lets get going." Santana slowly pressed on the plunger on their French Press.

"Okay, let me just get you some coffee. Maybe, then, you'll stop being such a bitch."

They worked in virtual silence as Santana popped the lids on the paint cans and taped around the window frames and laid plastic on the ground. They had actively been painting for fifteen minutes or so before Santana finally opened her mouth.

"I know what your problem is, Q."

"Fuck, Santana. Who said I had a problem? I knew this was just a ploy to get me to talk to you."

"You're going through a high-profile divorce, you're in love with an annoying hobbit we went to high school with, who happens to be a woman, you're having a crisis of sexuality, and you're trying to raise three girls on your own. You must have something to talk about.."

"Listen, jugs,"

"Let me stop you right there, Fabray,' Santana said, flipping her hair over her shoulder and gesturing at Quinn with her paintbrush. "Exhibit A of your ongoing crisis of sexuality. You've had a lot of nasty nicknames for me in your lifetime, but never before have they been about my boobs. I know I'm well-endowed,"

"Enhanced, actually. Endowed suggests that you naturally have big tits."

"Regardless, you noticed, Fabray. And you've been talking about them! And don't think I haven't noticed you checking out my cleavage whenever I wear a low cut dress."

"Well maybe if you weren't flaunting them for the world to see!"

"Too much to resist, huh?"

"You never stop, do you? Just pushing my buttons, nitpicking at me…"

"Look, Quinn. You would never let me pull the kind of bullshit you're doing right now. I've stood by for months while you pine after Rachel, continued that sham of a marriage, flailed around trying to be heterosexual, and you know what, I'm done. I'm going to tell you what I should have told you 6 months ago, instead of coddling you like you were one of my toddlers. You need to grow up, Quinn Fabray."

"Fuck you, Santana."

"No, thank you, I'm married."

"I'm leaving."

"No, you're not. You're going to hear me out, if only because I've heard you out so many times in the last fifteen years or so."

"Fine. When you're done, I'm leaving."

"You want things to be easy. I don't blame you. I see the way you look at me and Britts. We're adorable, and our kids are fucking perfect, and when people talk about us it's all rainbows and unicorns and fucking adorable Brittany and Santana."

"Okay, what's your point here, Santana?"

"My point, Fabray, is that it took a fuck-ton of work to get here. You of all people should know that. You know that I didn't wake up one day at sixteen and say, 'oh my, well, I just might be a lesbian. Why don't I go ask my best friend is she wants to share sweet lady kisses?'" Quinn snickered at Santana's sarcasm. "I had to take risks, and make decisions I wasn't sure I was ready to make, and fight to get to this point. Nothing is fucking perfect, Quinn. You're in love with a hobbit, an annoying, loud girl hobbit with a freakishly large nose, and you won't do anything about it until you figure it out, because in the world of Quinn Fabray, you won't even do lesbianism half-assed. You didn't end things with your husband until you had no choice, and you won't just take the plunge with Berry until you know exactly how you feel. Well, maybe you won't know exactly how you feel. Maybe, you're just now discovering the hotness that is the Pierce-Lopez's that has surrounded you all your life, I understand that. Maybe you still think you like dick once and awhile, I'll never understand that. It's okay if your sexuality isn't cut and dry. Remember when Britts had a thing for that transguy when we were in our early twenties? Remember when Rachel was in love with Finn? When Blaine thought he might have feelings for Rachel? Sexuality is complicated, Quinn. But you can't dry hump Rachel in the kitchen at a party in some absurd attempt to release your pent up lesbianism and then yell at me about calling you out on your bullshit."

"I knew I shouldn't have told you about that."

"It doesn't matter whether you told me or not. What matters is that you're never going to get anywhere in this fucked up world until you realize that not everything is going to be perfect and planned and wonderful. Sometimes you have to take risks to get what you want and see where it will take you. And before you interrupt with 'what if she doesn't want me' bullshit, let me intervene. So, the fuck, what, if she doesn't want you? First of all, she's made it more than clear that she does want you. Second of all, what do you have to lose? You two haven't spoken in months. What do you have now, asides from your daughters, an empty bed, and a few too many glasses of wine when that loneliness gets to be a little too much?"

"You're a bitch, Santana, you know that?" Quinn said, standing up and throwing her paint roller on the ground. "You'd like to think that you've changed since high school, but you're still just that bitchy teenager bringing everyone around you down."

"No, I'm not, Quinn. I can say that because I know myself well enough to know that this is not be 'bringing you down', as you say. I was you, Quinn, and you forget that. I was confused, and fucking Puck, and fucking Finn, and dating Sam, and refusing to deal with what I didn't understand. The difference is that I grew up. I learned that life is hard and that I had to either do what I want or be unhappy waiting for something to magically change."

"I'm leaving."

"Fine, leave. But leave knowing that I'm telling you the truth. There will always be shit to deal with. You have to learn to cope with what life throws you or you're not going to be able to function at all."

"It's easy for you to say that," Quinn said from the doorway of the bedroom. "You have the wife, and the kids, and the career and everything is perfect for you. I know you and Britt fight sometimes, and that money is sometimes really tight, and you lost your father, but you have a better head on your shoulders than I do."

"I don't, Q. I just learned young that sometimes following my heart tends to have better results than following my head."

"I'm not you, Santana."

"Well, no one is as awesome as me, but I suggest that you try for a second. It might reap some results you don't expect."

The last place Quinn wanted to be at the moment was in her empty house. She drove around Silverlake, finally ending up in Echo Park, a neighborhood she hadn't spent much time in since she graduated from college. Silverlake was about as far east as she ever found herself these days. She laughed at herself as she put her credit card in the parking meter and saw the hipsters smoking cigarettes and wandering aimlessly between the bars and the record shops and the bookstores. She was pretty sure that ten years ago she was dressed like they were, smoking American Spirits outside of "Out of the Closet" and arguing with Santana about Heidegger and the most recent Lykke Li album. Ten years before her time, there were kids dressed the same way, arguing about Heidegger and the most recent Elliott Smith or Magnetic Fields album. She wondered what album kids were arguing about these days.

She walked into Stories, suddenly feeling out of place in her adult Beverly Hills outfit and yearned for an ironic, old-lady dress and big, cheap sunglasses from Venice. She can't believe how long it's been since she last was here. She would never get sick of the smell of used books and dust and the feeling of bad customer service. She browsed for an hour, finally settling on Joan Didion's Play It As It Lays. She had read it hundreds of times, but somehow it never got old for her. She bought a coffee and sat out on the back patio with her new book. She even bummed a cigarette off a college kid and tried in vain to pretend that it didn't burn as the smoke went down her throat.

She couldn't help but roll her eyes as the first disc of 69 Loves Songs came on over the speakers. She tried to plug through her book, ignoring the music playing in the background, but as the sun began setting everything about her day, everything about her last six months hit her like a brick wall. She closed her book and bummed another cigarette, not sure how much more she could read about Maria and her lost child and her lost self. As if on cue, as the twenty-something across from her lit the cigarette, Stephen Merritt's grating voice pierced through her thoughts, belting out All My Little Words.

"You are a splendid butterfly. It is your wings that make you beautiful. And I could make you fly away. But I could never make you stay. You said you were in love with me. Both of us know that that's impossible. And I could make you rue the day, but I could never make you stay. Not for all the tea in China, not if I could sing like a bird, not for all North Carolina, not for all my little words. Not if I could write for you, the sweetest song you ever heard. Doesn't matter what I do, not for all my little words."

"Hey, you okay, lady?" The kid with the asymmetrical haircut asked Quinn after lighting her cigarette.

"I think I'm just dealing with my life." She croaked out to him, taking a deep inhale of her cigarette.

"I'm dealing with my life." Quinn stood awkwardly in Rachel's doorway, too aware of the smell of coffee and smoke that lingered on her clothes.

"You came over here to tell me that you're dealing with your life, Quinn?" Rachel looked frustrated, her arms across her chest. Quinn smirked a little. It was hard to take Rachel seriously in her carousel pony pajama set.

"Can I come in?"

"I guess." Rachel opened the door wider and let Quinn in past her.

"I'm dealing with my life."

"So you said, Quinn."

"I'm dealing with my life, and I don't want to deal with it anymore without you in it. Don't say anything, Rach. I know you want to, please let me finish. I know that I should have spoken to you in the last couple months. I thought that it would be better if I figured out all of my bullshit and then came to you, a perfect human being, ready to be everything you deserved and more. I've been avoiding this…this…aging process, or whatever it is you call it. I thought that aging meant reaching a point of perfection, and didn't realize that it meant accepting yourself for everything that you are, and then some. That…scars and wrinkles would appear on this body, and that's what gave me character, not took it away. You've left a mark on me, Rachel, and what happened may not have been perfect, and it may not have been clean, or ideal, or what either of us envisioned our future to be, but it's all for the best, Rachel. It's all for the best, because in the end, we'll have one another. I'm done waiting. I'm done waiting for a mystical moment of self realization and I'm standing here, Rach, scars, and marks, and flaws, and all and I'm asking you to take me as I am. This can end in multiple ways, Rachel. We both know, that we've been going through this cycle for years. I get lost and you find me again. Sometimes it's been subtle, like my obsession with a prom queen crown, and sometimes its been obvious, like me falling in love with you." For the first time since Quinn began speaking, Rachel showed a reaction to her words. Her eyes widened and glossed over and she bit her bottom lip. "You keep managing to find me again, Rachel. I know now, that there may not be anything I can do to make you stay, but I have to at least try." Quinn bounced nervously on the balls of her feet, not knowing what to say and not knowing what to do when Rachel didn't have an immediate response.

"I don't know what you want me to say, Quinn."

"Let me kiss you." Before Rachel could say anything further, Quinn pulled her in to a soft kiss. There was no tongue, it was sweet and kind and gentle. It lasted only a few seconds before Quinn pulled away.

"Hi," Quinn said, regaining her breath and trying to ignore the flush that rose up her cheeks. "My name is Quinn Fabray. I'm thirty-years-old. I'm a divorcee, I have three daughters under ten and one that I gave up for adoption when I was in high school, but I still think about her everyday. I'm an aspiring writer and I love to sing, but just for fun. Also, I'm in love with Rachel Berry. The first time we met we hated each other. Then we became friends. We were friends for a long time. Then we fell in love."

"When Harry Met Sally." Rachel said. Quinn nodded. "How did you know…" Rachel asked.
"You quote it, from time to time."

"You noticed…"

"Of course I noticed. I'm in love with you. I notice everything."

"You need to go."

"What do you mean, Rachel?" Quinn said, barely keeping her voice from cracking.

"I need a moment to think."

"I'm sorry! I know, I know, I waited too long, and didn't make the right choices when they were staring me in the face, but please, Rachel, please…"

"Quinn. Calm down," Rachel said, taking both of Quinn's hands into her own. "I'm just asking to have a moment to think about it."

"Go out with me."

"I can't."

"Okay. I'll make us dinner. Friday, with the girls, like old times. We can, you know, get to know one another again."

"Okay."

"Seriously?"

"Yes, Quinn, I'll see you Friday, but don't think that this changes everything."

"Okay. Friday." Quinn smiled and then place a chaste kiss on Rachel's cheek. As she stood in the hallway, waiting for the elevator, she quickly plunked out a text message to Santana. It simply read, "thank you."

Thanks for reading! I pinky-promise the next chapter will be up in a more timely fashion. Here's my NEW tumblr in case you all want to check it out: seashorsesantana dot tumblr dot com!

There's nothing on it yet, but you can listen to the Magnetic Fields song I reference!

Thanks for your reviews!