For those of you interested in this sort of thing, (only me) this chapter takes the story past Easy After Midnight into being the longest thing I have ever written. I am uncertain how I feel about this. One part pride, one part what am I doing with my life?

However.

Thanks for reading :)

Kurt eyes her phone, concerned.

'He's calling again, Rachel.'

Rachel is sat opposite him, at their kitchen table, with her hands folded.

'If I speak to him now, I will just tell him the truth.'

Kurt rolls his eyes. 'Sure, and everyone knows that all the best relationships are built on lies.'

Rachel flips him off, in a move that Kurt doesn't think he has even seen her pull before. How exotic.

'Kurt, you're the one advocating that I try to keep this whole farce with Brody alive. How do I do that if I tell him I couldn't make the apartment hunt because I was too busy being fucked by Quinn?'

Oh good lord, he doesn't need details. He throws up a hand before Rachel can tell him specific positions.

'Whoa, okay, please stop so I don't have to bleach my eardrums, little Miss Overshare. Save that for Santana. But can you please answer this phone, this entire thing is making me anxious.'

Rachel stands up, and yanks open the fridge as if it is the poor fridge's fault. There's half a bottle of wine, nearly all of which seems to end up in Rachel's glass.

'Making you anxious… what the hell am I supposed to do? This is my whole life we're talking about…'

Kurt goes to join her, and takes a gulp from her glass.

'Just… stall, somehow. Buy thinking time. Also, since when is Brody your whole life, stop trying to make this more dramatic than it needs to be.'

Rachel shrugs at him, and retrieves her glass, with a meaningful look.

'What if I don't think that I will change my mind? What if… fuck, what if I can't stop thinking about Quinn?'

Kurt decides that he needs his own drink, and opens a bottle of wine from the cupboard. It isn't cold, but desperate times...

'The thing about the future, I am reliably informed, is that it is almost impossible to predict. Now, answer the phone, tell Brody you've contracted the Noro virus and have to be quarantined, and spend a couple of days figuring this out. Then try things with Quinn if you want. But don't rush into things Rachel, you do that and then you nearly always regret them.'

Rachel's phone starts up again at this point. Rachel sighs at it.

'Quinn doesn't want to be with me.'

Kurt shrugs, because he is not a lesbian equivalent of the horse whisperer, he can't figure out what is going on between them. He takes a gulp of warm white wine, and nudges Rachel with his hip.

'But you want to be with her, all of a sudden? She must be excellent at kissing…please don't give me any details.'

Rachel snorts at him after a moment.

'We nearly had sex on our couch... oh god I'm such a fuck up. I'm a bitch, I'm treating Brody like shit… do you think I could get a train to New Haven? Do you think Quinn would see me? I want to see her.'

Kurt is going to have to burn that damn couch.

'We should get drunk. And then you decide.'

…

Brody receives a phone call at three in the morning.

'Kurt?'

'Brody. It's me.'

'Why the hell are you calling me at this time Rachel, from Kurt's phone? I must have called you a thousand times.'

'I don't want to move in with you.'

'Rachel… you're drunk. Jesus.'

'I don't want to live with you. I need some time away from you, I… Kurt, shush, just… Brody, don't call me. I need thinking time. I'm sorry…Kurt will you shut up!'

Brody puts the phone down.

…

Rachel wakes up on the couch.

She's got one shoe still on, and a phone in her hand. Kurt is curled up in the armchair just opposite.

She lifts her head from the couch, and that's when the hangover hits, like a train.

'Ugh…oh god…Kurt?'

Kurt makes a noise, and then seems to curl further in on himself. There's an empty bottle of wine on the floor next to him. Rachel decides that waking him may not be the kindest thing to do.

She has Kurt's phone in her hand. She doesn't know where her own is.

She receives an entirely unwelcome flash back, in which Kurt had confiscated her phone, and then, using top notch drunken logic, had replaced it with his own.

Rachel remembers she had been sitting on the floor, announcing her intentions to call Quinn and tell her that she was still much more that the prettiest girl she'd ever met, but how dare she be so unreasonably attractive?

Oh, god, Rachel and alcohol have never mixed well.

Wincing slightly, Rachel sits up, and opens Kurt's call list.

Kurt doesn't have Quinn's number stored. He does have others though.

With mounting horror, Rachel realizes that she called Brody last night. And he picked up.

Something in her brain shifts, and she remembers saying I don't want to live with you. It had been on repeat in her head all day, it must have just snuck out.

She doesn't want to live with Brody. All of the doubts swirling around her head seem to have fermented overnight, and Rachel has woken up certain. It's a relief, in a way.

However, Brody doesn't deserve to get a call at… oh shit, ten past three in the morning to have that announced at him.

She's a moron, she's an utter moron.

'Kurt… where's my phone?'

After a moment, Kurt grunts, and blinks at the world.

'What the… oh god.'

'Kurt, I need my phone. I called Brody.'

Kurt raises an arm after a moment, and points to their kitchen.

'I think, oh wow, okay, everything hurts… I think I put it in the breakfast cupboard.'

Rachel stumbles to her feet, and makes to the kitchen primarily by clinging to various objects of furniture.

There's a message from Brody.

We need to talk. Whenever you are sober and finished being a self-indulgent bitch.

Brody has never called her a name before, and it hits her like a punch to the gut. However, before she can even process that, she has already moved on to the other message that's there.

I need some time away from this Rachel. Please don't try and get in touch. I'm sorry. Brody is a good guy; he'll make you happy.

It's ironic, maybe, that in the very moment Rachel becomes certain about what she wants, she manages to lose it.

…

Quinn receives one message from Rachel, the next day.

If I did what I want, I'd be on a train, heading to see you. But I've done too much of just what I want, recently. I'll think of you every minute. Please tell me when I can speak to you again.

Quinn reads it four times, and then deletes it.

She has been neglecting her studies. Finals are in a month. Rachel should be concentrating on whatever the hell it is that NYADA students do in the final year.

This is not what her life is. She does not let people become… necessary, like Rachel has done. She is her own person.

Quinn has her own friends, she is in Yale for goodness sake. There are the girls on her major, and the boys across the corridor, and the people down at the gym… Ashleigh, who well may be a lunatic but Quinn will allow herself one lunatic in her life.

She has an entire separate life to be thinking about.

She cannot do relationships.

And she clearly cannot trust herself around Rachel, or rely on Rachel to have any form of self-restraint.

Sleeping with Rachel was a mistake. Because Rachel was always going to leave.

And she's hurting.

…

Brittany's worried.

She hasn't heard back from Quinn, which could mean lots of things. Like, Quinn could have lost her phone, or be inside a bunker with no signal.

Those explanations would be plausible if this was still the morning that she sent the message, but this is now two days later, and Brittany's worried that if she is stuck in a bunker for all this time then something has gone seriously wrong.

Or maybe Quinn's mad at her for telling her that Rachel was moving in with Brody. That was probably Rachel's job, on reflection. But Brittany had just been concerned, and had made a snap decision when Santana had gone to use her shower. Brittany had sort of wanted to press delete, after she'd sent it, but she figures time travel is impossible because some things are supposed to happen.

Quinn should know about Rachel and Brody. Brittany's just sad that her message probably made Quinn sad.

She sends Quinn lots of messages, but none of them seem to get a reply.

Hi!

Hello?

Greetings, which I think may be German for hello.

So! Are you angry with me?

I mean, maybe you are. I maybe shouldn't have told you. But I think I should have, so, you know.

Lord Tubbington says hi!

Rats, I've used that one before. He totally doesn't. He doesn't even like rats.

Quinn, if you were stuck in a bunker, you'd tell me, right?

Or, maybe you wouldn't. Maybe you aren't getting any of these messages!

Should I come and rescue you? y/n?

Oh, crap, wait. That wouldn't work.

If Rachel made you sad, she probably made herself sad too, because she doesn't like it when people are sad, and she cares about you.

A LOT.

Did you guys make out again?

You totally don't have to tell me, but I'll take your silence as a yes.

Quinn?

After a bit of amateur sleuthing, she finds the Ashleigh girl that Santana's always either bitching about, or declaring to be the best drinking buddy ever, and sends a facebook message.

Hi, so you don't know me, really, but I'm Brittany Pierce. And, um, you might not know all of this too, but at my party Quinn kissed this girl called Rachel who likes singing a lot, but now Rachel is moving in with her boyfriend, and I think Quinn is falling in love with Rachel, which is a bit awkward (due to the whole boyfriend situation), and I accidentally told her and now Quinn isn't talking to me, I don't think. Is she back in New Haven? She isn't, I dunno, trapped in a hole somewhere?

By the way we should totally be facebook friends, your face looks awesome.

Brittany presses send, and then re-reads her message, frowning. She isn't sure if she completely explained every nuance accurately, but she figures that if Ashleigh is smart enough to get into Yale and be Quinn's friend, she can probably fill in the gaps.

Later on that evening, Brittany gets a notification.

Hi Brittany, your face looks awesome too.

Quinn isn't trapped in a hole, but she is a moody shit and refusing to be anything other than a cloud of misery. She's trapped in an emotional hole, maybe?

Thanks for the Rachel info, I'd surmised that something must have gone down, figuratively or literally speaking. I'll try and get her to process.

Here's my number, if you're worried.

Brittany frowns, because Quinn doesn't sound good. Cloud of misery sounds the opposite.

Hi, Brittany here. Be nice to her, from me, please.

Maybe she should tell Santana. But then Brittany thinks that if Quinn is being a miserable cloud, then it is probably because she did something wrong, maybe, and so probably doesn't need Santana's personal brand of supportive sarcasm, right now.

I don't really do nice. I'll probably try to irritate her out of it with inappropriate jokes, if I'm honest. But thanks for the heads up.

Oh.

…

Ashleigh thinks she went through a phase like this. She was maybe…fourteen. Some boy had been a dick, and Ashleigh had refused to come out of her room. Her mom had tried to post pizza under her door. Ashleigh remembers listening to a great deal of GreenDay.

Quinn is like a little autopilot robot. After her evening of tears (the Night of the Great Flood, as Ashleigh likes to refer to it, in her head) Quinn has come and gone from her room claiming total happiness, puttering off to seminars, or the gym, or the library for endless studying.

Ashleigh has spent two evenings trying to worm out of Quinn what has happened, because she is a concerned friend who likes to know these sorts of things.

She has endured two evening of Quinn mumbling that everything is fine, before holing herself up in her room to 'study'. Ashleigh has decided that this means cry. Or masturbate thinking about Rachel. Or possibly both. Ew, okay, too far.

So, on the third day, half an hour before Quinn is due back, Ashleigh takes three bottles of wine and a box of lager into Quinn's room, sits on the floor, and browses youtube to pass the time.

Quinn arrives, steps over Ashleigh, unpacks her books and folders onto the desk, and pokes a toe at her.

'Ashleigh. You're in the wrong room again. The clean one is mine, remember?'

Ashleigh unscrews the bottle of wine next to her, takes a gulp straight from the bottle, and passes it to Quinn. Or, at least tries to. Quinn just stares down at her for a long second, and then checks her watch.

'Ashleigh…it's twenty to seven. You cannot be serious.'

Ashleigh waves the bottle at her, and then says 'take it off me, or I'll drop it. That I'm serious about.'

Quinn reaches for it after a moment, and Ashleigh claps her hands together once, opening proceedings.

'So. I've checked your schedule, because I'm an invasive and nosey friend, and you haven't got anything on until four in the afternoon tomorrow. Which means you can get drunk with me, and tell me what the fuck is going on with Rachel, so I don't feel left out. Hurrah! Drink something.'

Quinn sits on her bed, and squints at Ashleigh.

'Let me get this straight…you know I'm having a shitty time, and you're trying to be a supportive friend by getting me drunk so I cry in front of you.'

Well, that would seem to be the long and short of it. Ashleigh shrugs after a second.

'I figured, if you're doing plenty of secret crying while sober, maybe getting drunk will help you laugh? Has to be worth a try, surely?'

Quinn blinks at her once, and then stands up.

'I am not sharing a bottle with you, that much is certain… let me get a glass.'

Ashleigh grins. Hurrah!

…

Oh, shit, seriously, drunken Quinn is the best.

'Flapjacks, Ashleigh. We going to fucking well make fucking flapjacks because it is my life and I'm allowed to go after the things I want, okay, so don't even try and stop me.'

Ashleigh finds vertical after only two attempts, and weaves after Quinn into their shared kitchen. On opening the door, she almost walks straight into Quinn, who is on her way back out.

'Wine. Go get my wine.'

Ashleigh thinks she tries to raise an eyebrow at Quinn. Quinn counters by actually raising an eyebrow, the bitch.

'Ahem, that is my wine that you are guzzling, Quinnifer.'

'Whatever. Go and get your wine, so I can put it in my mouth.'

There, that sounds far more reasonable. Ashleigh follows instructions (does this mean she's a sous chef now?), and when she returns Quinn has every cupboard open, and is standing in the middle of their kitchen with her hands on her hips. She squints at her after a moment.

'What goes in a flapjack?'

Ashleigh snorts.

'Flaps?'

Quinn does not appreciate her completely awesome and motherfucking topical lesbian joke, and frowns at her, before pointing.

'Find out.'

Ashleigh nods, and sits on their table, digging out her phone.

'What should I google?'

Quinn turns on their oven, before peering owlishly at the ingredients in a rogue box of cereal.

'How do you making fucking flapjacks?'

Ashleigh types it in diligently, and then scrolls.

'There's… huh, do you want to make the breakfast one, or the one they make in England that looks a lot like dried vomit?'

Quinn locates some eggs in the fridge, and holds them above her head in triumph.

'Whichever one contains eggs!'

Ahhh… Ashleigh doesn't know. Shit, cooking is hard.

…

They end up making boiled eggs.

It is somewhat anticlimactic, but Ashleigh presses hers between two pieces of bread to make an egg sandwich, so things aren't a complete disaster.

Fucking…shell, though. She flicks a bit at Quinn, who is sat opposite her, eating an egg like it is an apple. She has decided to pair it with a bag of chips and more wine, which is a food combination bound to end in trouble.

'So, Brittany tells me you are ignoring her.'

Quinn shrugs, and takes another bite.

'Am not. Well, I am, but I'm not ignoring her, specifically. I am ignoring everything linked to… that part of my life. For a while. For studying purposes.'

Ashleigh clicks her tongue at her, after a moment.

'How's that working out for you?'

Quinn sighs at her, and then flicks shell back.

'What if I said that I don't want to talk about it?'

Ashleigh rolls her eyes, and then stands to go find some more chips.

'Then I'd remind you that I'm a loveable asshole who will not stop asking you, and would probably resort to interrogation methods, so let's do this the easy way, huh?'

Quinn still just looks at her, until Ashleigh meaningfully starts pouring more wine, and Quinn makes a face.

'Ugh, no more, okay… what do you want to know?'

Whoa, okay, free passes to ask overly personal questions about Quinn Fabray's love life do not happen very often. Ashleigh goes for facetious.

'How good is Rachel in bed?'

Quinn nods firmly, and says 'very', and that was one hundred percent not the answer Ashleigh was expecting, and she thinks she might have just sprayed egg sandwich halfway across the room in her reaction.

'What!'

…

They go for a walk, in the end, because whenever Quinn gets the slightest bit drunk she wants to go for a walk, and whenever Quinn wants to process anything she goes for a walk, and seeing as this is that situation squared Ashleigh is going to have to be careful they don't end up walking to New York.

They take an emergency bottle of wine with them. They aren't completely stupid.

'It's so much…easier to talk about crappy stuff, huh, when drunk? Why… has this not been brought to my attention before?'

Ashleigh throws an arm around Quinn's shoulders, and only ten percent of her motivation is a hunt for balance.

'Well… because first time you got drunk with me you announced that you didn't want to become your mother, and you had made one of the worst choices in your life while drunk, and then inexplicably banned me from saying the word puckerman, as if that is a word I toss around casually in day to day conversation. I've kind of, not suggested drinking much, since then. This counts as an emergency, anyway. And I promise not to get you pregnant.'

Quinn pretty much just elbows her in the neck, at that point, and then carries on walking as if nothing happened.

'Let's try and zone in on the current disaster in my life, rather than the bigger picture.'

It's a load of bullshit, because Ashleigh knows that Quinn writes to the kid every month, and goes to visit at least twice a year, but plays along anyway.

'Okay, so ignoring that… you're into the Rachel girl. Who's moving in with Brody. But who keeps kissing you and generally waffling on about being totally into you, which is understandable because the girl has eyes.'

Quinn nods, and Ashleigh mentally pats herself on the back for accurately summing up three months of bullshit.

'And so, you, being an idiot, decide to go to New York, and kiss her a lot and be horizontal lesbians, because you thought it would fix things?'

'No, it wasn't like that.'

'Oh, wow, you went vertical lesbians first time? Bravo Quinn; I hear that shit is challenging.'

This results in a kick, but Quinn laughs at her anyway.

'No, you complete… I didn't think it would fix anything. I just really…needed to see her.'

Ashleigh nods sagely, and tries to act like she isn't imagining one of her best friends having sex.

'To have your wicked way with her? Seems sensible.'

Quinn glares at her, and then takes another drink.

'You are being spectacularly unhelpful, right now. For the record. I was not planning for things to go that far, it was just, I mean, I wanted to see whether she and I could, I mean, to see what it would be like, if we were, in a parallel universe where she is available and I'm not a disaster, see how a date between us would work out.'

Naww, Quinn loses all of her ability to talk in reasonable sentences, a bottle and a half down the line. Ashleigh squeezes at her shoulder.

'You are not a disaster, Quinn. So, maybe this time for you and Rachel isn't right. Give it a bit of time. Let everything calm down a bit. See what happens, how you feel. Rachel's is probably confused too, so, you know. Thinking time.'

Quinn makes a sad little face, and man, Rachel must be a lunatic to not be sure about what she wants, look at this girl.

'I don't want to not be able to see her again. She's… we're really good friends, I think.'

Ashleigh shrugs.

'Okay, so you guys will figure something out. And if it is just friends, and we must never mention this again, at least you got to touch her boobs once. They look like excellent boobs.'

That one earns her a smack on the back of her head, but Ashleigh's had enough of this outrageous abuse, and grabs the bottle out of Quinn's hands, setting off down the street at a sprint, leaving Quinn laughing behind her.

…

Okay, because Quinn is apparently bionic woman, Ashleigh only gets half a block away before Quinn pretty much just tackles her from behind, and they crash into a friendly bush.

Bush. Heh. As they lever themselves upright, removing leaves, Ashleigh considers another hilarious joke, but then Quinn reaches over, and pats her on the head.

'Thanks for tonight Ash. And, yes, her boobs are excellent.'

Ashleigh holds two hands high up in the air, not sure what she is celebrating, but doing so anyway.

...