I must apologize for the delay. Maybe some of you guys would like to chew my boss a new asshole? Lol Again, thanks for the generous comments. I have had myself in stitches when writing some of the dialogue, so I am happy that you guys seem to get something out of it too. Pardon any mistakes.
Hiram's face twitched, lingering mid-frown as he felt the familiar rush of an oncoming sneeze prickle hot in his nostrils. He quickly reached across the dark wooden table that he was sat at – his handkerchief becoming a germy mess of mucus before he could even think about it.
Hoarse and delirious were his groans; he sniffled and cupped his forehead, feeling it pound with the flu that had been going around at work. His co-workers were very lucky that the virus had rendered him weak and useless. If not, he would have been at the office giving them all a PowerPoint presentation about the importance of proper hygiene in working the environment.
No bother.
He would just use his time off to prepare one. Either way, his co-workers were going to hear that darn presentation!
The sound of his daughter's footsteps pattered somewhere close behind him, coming to an easy stop as her hand soothed down the length of his back.
He groaned.
"That bad huh?" she cooed with a sympathetic click of the tongue. "I really want to feel sorry for you, because you're my father and I love you – and when I'm sick you offer to watch The Real Housewives of Atlanta with me, even though you'd rather stick pins in your eyes. But!" she stressed, regaining her focus, "you can't complain; if you would just eat as consciously as dad and I do, your immune system would not have failed you so dramatically."
Hiram managed a wry smile. "Well good morning to you too, honey," he croaked stuffily, though the sarcasm that slickened his tongue existed prominently enough to offend even the walls.
Stood behind him, Rachel grew to smirk. She hugged her father's feverish head close to her own, without any fear whatsoever of becoming infected. Their bond was stronger than any pesky flu virus. That, and her healthy diet looked after her. Why? Because she looked after her diet. The relationship that she had with her body never wavered, which was one of the reasons why she had been so taken aback when Quinn had offered to…
"That car outside – it was there yesterday morning too. Do you know anything about it?" Hiram suddenly asked, daring to gather the strength to frown up at his daughter.
They lived in a charming neighborhood, but he still deemed it imperative to be conscientious. Nobody wanted a repeat of the bacon-scented toilet roll fiasco. Would the Lima Police Department ever get off of their lazy asses and find the culprits? Hiram sincerely doubted it.
Rachel peered out of the front window. There were a whole row of cars lining the curb, however Quinn's vehicle was the only one that didn't belong, and it had been parked outside yesterday morning too. She watched the cheerleader sit in her car; the blonde nibbled her nails as she waited.
"That's Quinn. You have nothing to be worried about as far as alerting the neighborhood watch," Rachel clarified. "She's going to be picking me up every morning for the foreseeable future."
After delivering a quick peck to Hiram's cheek she left his side, grabbing her bag, and slipping into her Penny Loafers.
"So now that I can rule out my suspicion of your involvement with the Mafia," Hiram quipped," may I ask who Quinn is?"
Rachel had secured her hand around the front door's handle, but she refrained going anywhere; her father's question had piqued a multitude of different possible responses. The rush of data that entered her mind had momentarily halted her lips.
"I'm going to say that Quinn is… a potential friend," she eventually answered, cautious yet optimistic.
With consideration for his aching body, Hiram slowly pushed out of his chair and shuffled towards the window, where he fingered a few slats in the blinds back…
Something twitched in Quinn's peripheral vision, and when she glanced at Rachel's house, it quickly became apparent that somebody was messing with the blinds. Stealthy and James Bond-like, she slowly scooted down in her seat until she could no longer see out of her window. If she couldn't see them, they couldn't see her right? She didn't ever want to have to deal with Rachel's fathers if she could help it. One Berry was poisonous enough.
A slow-burning smirk eased on into Hiram's lips as he let the slats fall naturally amongst the others. "A potential friend? Is she your… girlfriend?" he probed hopefully, ignoring the rising tickle in his throat. Coughing could wait; this was too good. "Your taste in girls is pristine. From what I saw she was very beautiful, even as she was sliding down in her seat so that I wouldn't see her."
An amused scoff puffed out of Rachel's mouth. "Despite what I am certain this looks like, daddy, that girl is not my girlfriend. Not even close!"
Hiram deadpanned, clearly not impressed with his daughter's serious lack of game. "Well you better get working on it. I'm a shallow gay man, and I want an extraordinarily pretty grandchild from each of you. Hopefully she'll be over her fear of meeting Leroy and I by then."
"Well, I have already gotten her to pick me up and take me to school in the mornings," Rachel chuckled, deciding to indulge in the lunacy of it all, because why not? Life was dreary when you didn't goof around. "Next we'll be sexting, and complaining because we don't have anywhere private to exercise our pent-up sexual frustrations. I seriously fear that, in my haste, I'll harm her once we finally do find somewhere – most likely the back seat of her car, which I hear is rated five stars."
Hiram blanched; his mouth globbing shut.
Rachel smirked, and fluttered her eyelashes impishly behind a smart-ass little wave of the hand. "I love you daddy, and get well soon! Bye."
The front door suddenly swung open, and then rattled shut against the breeze that had tried to rush in.
"L-Love you too, honey," he told it…
The moment that Rachel sunk down into the passenger seat of Quinn's car and shut the breeze out, a shiny pink bag dropped into her lap.
She studied it and then looked at Quinn, who merely drummed her fingers on the steering wheel and stared straight ahead, silent.
"Morning Quinn."
"Open the bag."
"Why?"
That caught Quinn's attention; the brunette was being cautious because she didn't trust her. She stopped drumming her pale fingers. "Because I spent a lot of money to have it delivered to my house this morning."
Rachel made a face. She reluctantly accepted that she wasn't going to get much more than that out of the cheerleader, and was forced - in the end - to conclude that the bag was safe.
She took the handles and opened it up, peeking inside. Her eyes immediately warmed and twinkled as they devoured the pretty blue head band that gleamed up at her. Nothing that she could have done would've stopped the grin that came barrelling through her expression.
Not that she wanted to stop it.
"This is a beautiful replacement, Quinn," she awed, eagerly plucking the accessory from the bag and sliding it into her hair, where it sat - a compliment to the tone of her tan skin. A chuckle floated prettily from her lips as she gently lifted so that she could ponder her reflection in the rear-view mirror. And boy did she ponder it; pulling some of the most absurd faces at herself that Quinn had ever seen.
But in the spirit of the mutual respect that they had both agreed upon, Quinn looked the other way, managing to ignore just how irksome some of the ridiculous faces were - particularly the one where the aspiring Broadway star sucked her cheeks in and regarded herself from the left, and then the right.
"I did say that I would have you whipped and trained by the end of the week, didn't I? Not even two days, and you're already buying me gifts. I must be a better girlfriend than I thought," Rachel pointed out, smug.
Her twinkling deep brown eyes slowly abandoned the mirror, and mischievously descended towards Quinn...
Over the last couple of days, the Head Cheerleader had regrettably learned that look.
"If you hug me, be prepared to pull back bloody stubs where your arms used to be. I'm not over the way you spoke to me yesterday, and I'm not in the mood for any of your shenanigans today," she said sternly. But her tone hadn't been cruel by any stretch of the imagination, and considering the secret that was burdening her life at the moment - the one that she could no longer ignore - she considered that to be an amazing feat.
Sufficiently scolded, Rachel rolled her eyes and sat back in her seat - though her positive disposition remained. "I could apologize, Quinn. But I am not going to, because I didn't tell you anything that you didn't need to hear. Think of the way you're now feeling as a crack, and without cracks the light can't get in. Life is about how you choose to look at things."
"And what, you're supposed to be the light? No…" Quinn shook her head; her eyes glazed and far away. "You're the darkness. Voldemort types of darkness."
"Speaking of Harry Potter," Rachel chirped, "I've comprised a list of things that we should go through together if we want to make our relationship seem real beyond steamy kisses in the hallway. Favorite movies, the story about how we fell for one another…"
Quinn shot the brunette a searing glare. She didn't need to be reminded of that kiss, much less be mocked about it.
Not today.
Well, not any day. But especially not today.
Her hand white-knuckled around the steering wheel.
Rachel's eyes obliviously followed the width of the A4 paper that she had taken out of her bag. "We must, like you said, take some pictures to create a history for our relationship," she read aloud. "I'll use one of them as a screensaver on my phone, and you should perhaps put one up on your Facebook profile; I've already sent you a friend request. Before I forget, we should exchange cell phone numbers too, just in case we should ever need to contact one another in or out of school."
The glove compartment suddenly sprung open as a result of Quinn bashing it, one good time, with her palm. Ignorant to the fact that her actions had made Rachel jump, she snatched her phone out from amongst all the other crap that she kept in there, and began to thumb its touch-sensitive screen. "Give me your number and I'll text you."
Rachel couldn't stop her forehead from pinching; something was off.
She understood that Quinn wasn't her friend. They didn't help one another out when life-changing events hit, and they were not ears for one another in times of profound emotional need. But the aspiring Broadway star considered herself to be a good person, and a good person could recognize when another was in dire straits and offer a hand, which was exactly what she had decided she was going to do.
The list within her hand swiftly folded in on itself under the force of her petite hands, ending up in her bag no more than two seconds later. From there Rachel clasped both hands in her lap. "Is everything ok, Quinn? There seems to be this semi-aggressive yet gravely dejected air about you, and whilst I would usually feel most comfortable annoying you with my somewhat unusual quirks - as it has become one of my favorite pastimes - today I feel as though I must walk on egg-shells, which is never good because I am somebody who needs to express themselves freely."
"Yeah? Well walking on egg-shells is a good look for you. Now what's your number?"
"My number is one, two, three, four; what is the sour face for?" Rachel chanted, blinking sheer defiance at the blonde.
...
"Five, six, seven, eight; open up and conversate," she added, sluggishly punching the air with her fists like a cheerleader, once she realized that Quinn wasn't going to budge.
Owlish and stubborn were her eyes as they blinked. Waiting.
"Ok. Now you're irritating me. Keep this up and I'm taking that head band back," Quinn threatened, though her voice severely lacked its usual bite.
Still, Rachel wasn't about to take any chances. Whether she was conscious of it or not, she pushed the accessory further down into her hair and had her hand stand guard over it for a while. "If the things that I said to you yesterday are the problem, know that sometimes pain is necessary for growth. You, especially, have played a large hand in teaching me that. Yesterday I simply returned the favor."
Quinn sighed, her shoulders sagging with every weary bit of breath that she expelled out through her nostrils. But her lips remained sealed, never so much as twitching.
So, ever the tenacious one, Rachel tried an alternative route. "Due to the fact that you have been making my life difficult for the last few years, you do not know me. You don't know that I am a very trust-worthy person once won over," she explained, stating the facts. "I am also relatively skilled in reading other people, as your harsh experiences with me yesterday revealed to you. Whilst you do not yet deserve my compassion or my concern you have it anyway, simply because I'm sensing that you could do with it, and I do not know how to be anybody else. I don't give up, Quinn. So you might as well just confide in me, and save us both the blood, sweat, and tears – all of which will, of course, come from you - because if you thought me to be annoying before, you haven't seen anything -"
"I think I'm pregnant," Quinn interrupted, gazing down at her fingers glumly.
Her quiet confession echoed in the stillness…
It was out now, and there was no taking it back.
She slowly turned her head to look the silenced diva in the eye, and saw every fear that she had for herself reflected back at her in those widening brown orbs.
"Oh," Rachel echoed. Had they been out in nature, the wind would have easily carried the slight utterance away.
She hadn't really been expecting Quinn to give in so easily; she was almost just as stunned by that as she was by the confession itself.
Quinn was fully aware of the daunting fact that she'd just told Rachel Berry her biggest secret yet. She was also aware of the fact that Rachel could have it serve as ammunition in their seemingly never-ending struggle for dominance. But what did she have to lose? If she was pregnant, which she was pretty certain that she was, everything was going to go to shit anyway. She was going to lose everything; Head Cheerleader, more popularity, her freedom, her abs – and what would her parents say? What would they do?
She shuddered only slight, but the robotic manner in which her blizzard-like eyes twitched, as she gazed vacantly through the windshield, spoke paragraphs of her bone-chilling anxiety.
It was that look from Quinn, specifically, that let Rachel know that she was going to have to go ahead and take the reins in this situation.
The cheerleader then rather dramatically – although not at all, given the situation that she was in – cupped her face in both hands, and leaned forward against the steering wheel with a quiet clunk. "My life is ruined, and all for forty seconds of supposed fun that I was too drunk to even remember!" she murmured bitterly.
"Yes well…" Rachel muttered, her top lip slowly turning up in stunned disgust, "I think we all knew that Finn wasn't one for stamina."
"Finn?" Quinn shrieked, abruptly coming out from behind her hands.
It was laugh or cry at this point; she chuckled manically, her hazel eyes becoming a shaken snow globe of maddened mirthless irony. "I never had sex with Finnept! The kid isn't his!"
Rachel couldn't say that she was surprised. Of all the things that she knew about Quinn Fabray, could she really have expected the blonde to have been faithful to Finn? Hardly. There had been rumors that Sam Evans had been romancing her behind Finn's back, but honestly who knew?
Rachel didn't, and quite frankly she didn't care.
There were more pressing issues at hand right now, like finding out whether or not there was a baby growing in Quinn's stomach at all!
"Have you taken a pregnancy test?" she prompted, encouraging the wheels of practicality in her mind to get grinding. She was already considering the possibility of skipping school, and picking up a pregnancy test kit from the local pharmacy. Quinn would take it, and then they would deal with the results accordingly - maybe even making it to school in time for third period.
Quinn grouched out a click of the tongue. A pregnancy test? Why wasn't Rachel grasping the magnitude of this?
"What do you think?" she barked rather excessively. "Everybody in this bumblefuck town knows my dad. Buying a pregnancy test would have just gotten me kicked out of my house!"
"Be that as it may, Quinn, you now have a pseudo girlfriend, who has no qualms about walking into a store and purchasing a pregnancy test," Rachel pointed out, adopting a cunning grin. She sat quiet, and allowed the frenzied blonde time to work the equation out for herself.
Not that she had to wait long.
Realization was quick to iron out the pained wrinkles in Quinn's forehead, allowing for a much more delicate emotion to settle in.
But for as quickly as her heart had warmed it had iced over again.
She adjusted in her seat and glared Rachel down, watching carefully for anything that would give the brunette's ulterior motive away. "Why would you offer to do this for me? I know you hate me! What's your angle?"
The taste of such harsh rejection had Rachel scoff and look away. She shrugged a shoulder. "What other reason would I need, other than the fact that you're my girlfriend and I love you?"
"Seriously?" Quinn seethed, trying her darnedest to keep her cool.
Like that was going to work.
"This isn't a fucking joke, Rachel!" the cheerleader erupted, thumping the steering wheel with a closed fist. "This is my fucking life!" she yelled, flailing her hands about; the car rocked with the turbulence of it all.
Rachel had the grace to feel a little bit bad about her poorly-timed sarcasm, but that didn't omit the fact that Quinn's skepticism was beginning to grate on her. If one of them had cause to doubt the other, it was her!
Not Quinn!
"I am not you, Quinn Fabray!" she raised her voice, batting her soft curtain of brown hair back off of her shoulder in one firm motion. Posture erect, lips taught; she continued: "You don't make any moves unless they benefit you! Well I'm not like you!" she reiterated, stressing it. "To have my thoughtfulness questioned is a grave insult, especially when you have done nothing to earn it! I apologize for acting with compassion and kindness; it won't happen again! Now drive, before I miss Mr Schue. I have a few things that I would like to discuss with him before the bell."
"No - wait!" Quinn scrambled to say. Her shoulders regretfully sagged back against her seat; the last remnants of suspicion leaving her. "I'm sorry. I…"
Rachel regarded the other girl, waiting.
But Quinn just sighed. Apparently she was having some difficulty.
"What are you trying to say?" Rachel pushed, stern as a whip.
"I need -" The blonde stopped herself; Quinn Fabray wasn't supposed to need anything. She rolled her eyes, and sniffed as if to muster up the wherewithal to say what needed to be said. "I don't want you to recede… your offer. I have to find out if I'm… expecting," she mumbled, casting the brunette dim honey eyes that plead beneath the surface.
But fuck if Rachel was going to let her get off that easily without offering a few pearls of wisdom. "You have some serious trust issues, and that is most likely because you're constantly pitting yourself against others. Yes, some people are out to get you in life, but the majority are not. It is up to us to learn to distinguish whose intentions are pure!"
Quinn's jaw tightened. "Stop analyzing me, Rachel!"
"Well then stop pissing me off!"
"Rachel," Quinn growled, wanting to grab the brunette's shoulders and shake her into a coma, "I'm scared out of my fucking mind right now!" she shouted, though her voice had grown weak, hoarse, and whiny towards the end. "Back the fuck off!"
All indignation withered from Rachel's eyes, her frown slowly retreating. She simmered down and leaned the side of her head against the cool window.
Both girls simply sat there, silent…
Rachel suddenly cleared her throat. "Never mind school; we'll drive to the local pharmacy," she softly spoke. "I'll go in and purchase the test, whilst you wait in the car outside. I'm assuming that your parents both work during the day, so we will go back to your house, because my father is at home sick today. You'll take the test and we'll… go from there." She cleared her throat again, never once looking at the blonde.
Quinn expelled a barely noticeable sigh of relief, rubbed her hand over her weary paled face, and cranked the key in the ignition.
School, Finn, Cheerios?
All three were going to have to wait...
Parked up across the street from the pharmacy, Quinn kept her head low as she ransacked her bag.
Where the fuck was that purse?
After going through every compartment again she reluctantly stilled, muttering a defeated, "shit."
Having read the situation, Rachel twisted in her seat and reached into her own bag, from where she took out her Funny Girl purse. "I'll buy it, and you can pay me back when you get the chance," she suggested, promptly jutting open her door and stepping out.
The car gently rocked when the door slammed shut, but Quinn didn't feel a thing...
She stared, wistfully, after the girl that she had bullied long after she'd vanished through those pharmacy doors, and despite the glaring fact that there was nobody there to hear it, she ducked her chin to her sternum and whispered a broken, "thank you, Rachel."
She must've spent at least two minutes just staring into the centre of the steering wheel, dazed. Hypnotic images of slushies splattering hard into Rachel's face swirled, almost mocking, behind her eyes. Try as she might, nothing seemed to be getting rid of the most harrowing clip. The one where Rachel's entire body would seize up tense once the ice cold treat slapped her face.
Bzzt!
Quinn flinched at the sound, immediately closing her eyes and pressing her hand to her chest once she realized that she'd just gotten a text message. After taking a moment to steady her breathing, she swallowed and grabbed her phone from where it lay in her bag.
Apparently there were two new messages that she'd neglected to open.
She sighed; scattered didn't even begin to describe the way that she was feeling today.
From Santana: You're such a bitch for what you're doing to RuPaul. I fucking love it! You gots to fill me in on how long you've been hatching this plan ;) Where you at? Coach is pissed. She actually looks like she's getting ready to go into labor! xoxo Gossip Girl lol!
From Finn: I want us to get back together. Can we talk?
When Quinn slipped her phone back into her bag, Finn's text message was the one that stuck with her.
Finn wanted her back.
No, he hadn't yet come crawling back to her on his hands and knees like she had wanted, but it would come – Quinn was sure – because Finn Hudson was an idiot. So much of an idiot that he had repeatedly bought the orgasms that she'd poorly acted her way through whenever they had made out.
Nevertheless, her elevator ride back up to unblemished popularity wasn't jamming anymore, which meant that only three more steps of the plan remained. Her face should have cracked with one of her famous smirks at the realization. Yet she was sat outside of the local pharmacy, feeling like her world was about to come crashing down from its axis…
She watched, miserably, as the wind picked up around her car. The invisible fist bullied around piles of leaves, rolled children on bikes away from their parents, and harassed young women into placing a hand to their heads to keep their hair from clawing at their eyes.
Then there was Rachel, whom the wind may have flung flat up against the vehicle's side if it were not for the determined strides that she took as she walked out of the pharmacy. She clutched the pregnancy test box close to her body, fearing that nature's rambunctious breath would rip it from her grasp if she did not.
Seconds later she was sliding into the passenger seat with a traumatized: "Good Lord!"
Like a flame in the dark, the pregnancy test box that rested within Rachel's grasp drew Quinn's eye – more specifically the little picture that depicted a lady cooing down at a baby. That was going to be her. Abortion was not an option. Her faith, as tenuous as it was, wouldn't allow it.
Seeing that box – it made the idea of her becoming a teenage mother concrete.
Her pale nostrils flared as she slowly swallowed.
Quinn Fabray had never known fear like this…
The Fabray home wasn't anything like Rachel expected it to be. For some reason she'd imagined quaint floral sofas, and a wine bar. The reality, in her mind, was less pleasant; cold angular frames bordered the photos that lined the walls, and the sofas were much more reminiscent of something from an edgy minimalist art gallery. The impersonal silence that rang loud, as she squirmed to get comfortable on the hard sofa, was a constant reminder of what it was that she was doing in such a foreign space.
She had given Quinn the pregnancy test and then the blonde had left on noticeably stringy legs, disappearing off into the bathroom down the hall.
It had been at least two minutes since then, and if the things that Rachel thought she knew about home pregnancy tests were correct, there would be a result in two minutes or so…
Antsy, she checked her wristwatch in intervals, waiting for a squeal, or a groan, or a muffled crash – anything!
But none of those came.
Just the gentle click of the bathroom door…
At the sound of the noise, Rachel jumped up to her feet and angled her neck so that she could peer down the open hallway.
Truthfully she had been quite nervous for her tormentor. To imagine herself in such a situation caused her unbearable discomfort. And her parents were supportive. Going by that which she'd heard about the Fabray's, Quinn turning up pregnant would be, well - she dreaded to think.
"Quinn?" she called.
...
Rachel thumbed some hair behind her ear, and tentatively followed the steps that she had seen the nervous blonde take. She ended up stood in the bathroom doorway, where she silently watched Quinn discreetly dabbing at her eyes with a bunched up sheet of toilet roll. Maybe she should have been happy about seeing her tormentor in such a state, but this broken image of despair did nothing to grant her satisfaction. In fact, sympathy stooped her eyebrows in towards one another. But she didn't utter a word - wanting to give the other girl enough space to digest the bad news.
Quinn sniffled, tossed the sodden tissue at the chrome trashcan, and turned around.
Both girls stilled, tensing as their eyes met in one of those rare moments that seemed to forego all time and space.
But when a smile ghosted in close and quietly touched Quinn's red mottled cheeks, Rachel knew that she'd mistaken happy tears for sad...
Despite the good news, neither girl mentioned school. They'd settled down on the sofas opposite one another; Quinn with a sheet of tissue paper clutched in her clasp. Far from awkward was the silence; it billowed an air of peace and imploring reflection.
"I'm not going to forget today, Rachel," Quinn suddenly spoke; soft and delicate. She shifted her legs and pulled a knee up to her chin, wrapping her arms around it. "I swear!" she stressed, peering across at the other girl sincerely. "I'm not going to forget it."
Rachel's cheeks rode up with a smile. She had never seen such humility from Quinn before. The blonde wore it well, she decided. It beautified her features, and humanized her in the most delicate and majestic way. But she wouldn't point that out, because Quinn already seemed to be quite uncomfortable with the acquiescence of her mask as it was.
"I just want my fifteen dollars back, and all will be good," she decided to quip, in an effort to be the light that cast away the intensity in the room.
Quinn ducked her head and managed a small smirk. Her hands still trembled slightly, and she was exhausted. But on the bright side; her ordeal was over. She wasn't carrying Noah Puckerman's kid, Finn wanted her back, and she would only have to carry on with this dating ruse for a little while longer before she could return to the top of McKinley High's social ladder. Then she could show Rachel just how much she had appreciated the support today, even if there had been a few hiccups along the way. Everything was going to be alright...
With that thought her mind cleared, allowing room for the list of to-dos that Rachel had approached her with earlier.
"We should probably take those pictures whilst we're here," she proposed, sniffing away the lingering tears that, despite her dry eyes, lay dormant in her nose. "And your number - give me your number."
But was Rachel was even listening? The shorter girl seemed to be some place else - somewhere in her head. "Rachel -"
"It was Puck, wasn't it?" the brunette gently put out there, remembering the way that Noah had longingly stared after the Head Cheerleader in the cafeteria yesterday.
Quinn's eyes jarred with panic, which only served to confirm Rachel's hunch.
"Relax. I'm not going to tell anyone, Quinn." She smiled as reassuringly as she could. "But Finn, Sam, and Puck? I would drop at least one. All that dick will cause problems for a chick." After replaying that comment back in her head, Rachel's neck shrunk into her shoulders with her abrupt wince. Why had that sounded so darn judgmental?
"And all Broadway and no play makes Rachel gay; don't think I haven't noticed that you never show any interest in boys," Quinn countered - a natural reflex. She immediately cursed her quick tongue for the scathing rhyme that had left it. But there was no taking it back now. No getting away from the fact that she was a defensive asshole, who had just snapped at the only person that had been there for her…
Rachel lapped one leg over the other, erected her posture, and dusted off her knee as she composed her thoughts. "I wasn't trying to smite you in any way, Quinn, though I am aware that I can sound somewhat blunt at times," she clarified, slanting her lips ruefully. "To address your clever little barb, I'm quite frankly surprised that you picked up on my lack of interest in the opposite sex. But yes..." She nodded affirmatively, confident in who she was. "I am, in fact, gay."
Quinn's jaw hinged open, fluttering up and down like a malfunctioning ventriloquist. Her mind struggled, at first, to patch together images of an older Rachel getting in from work and greeting a shadowy female figure with an affectionate smooch. But when she considered the incident that had caused her to first question Rachel's sexuality, the confirmation ceased to be shocking. "I knew you were way too into kissing me!" she exclaimed, dropping her knee and sitting up.
Rachel's full-lunged chuckle kissed the cold walls in a way that Quinn wasn't at all used to.
"What's funny?"
"That kiss was a mere reflection of my superior acting skills," Rachel insisted, jotting an adamant nod on the end for emphasis. "Nothing more. Nothing less."
Quinn waved her hand as if to tell the brunette to be serious. "Oh please! There's probably a creepy shrine in the bottom of your closet that's dedicated to me. Pictures, strands of my hair, old shoes – the whole shebang!"
Rachel simply shrugged. "You're not my type."
"Whatever," Quinn scoffed, not buying a word of it.
But thanks to the brunette's unmoved expression, it quickly became apparent that the diva was serious...
Did Quinn want Rachel to have a crush on her because she had a crush on Rachel? Certainly not. But people wanting her - it was all she knew. As arrogant as it may seem, she wasn't used to hearing that she wasn't good enough in the looks department, especially from someone who ranked so far beneath her on the McKinley High food chain. So were pangs of insecurity racing through her right now?
Most definitely!
And given the events of the day so far, she just didn't have the energy to mask them. "W-What do you mean I'm not your type?"
"I'm not going to deny that your beauty far exceeds every one of my fantasies. You are the prettiest girl I've ever met," Rachel began positively. "But you are quite aggressive, and despite my small stature, and my tendency to joke about you being the boy in our pseudo romance, I can be pretty aggressive too - just not in the same way. I would imagine that we would clash, big time, in an actual relationship, thus minimizing the appeal." She shrugged again, like that was the end of it. But there was a definite rouge creeping into her cheeks, along with something significantly sly. "Though I've always thought that Brittany was perfect, but -"
Quinn deadpanned. "Brittany?"
Not only could Rachel see metaphorical steam billowing out of the cheerleader's ears, but the blonde was beginning to look a bit more like herself again.
It was a win-win situation!
"Sit there smirking all you want," Quinn mumbled somewhat petulantly. "But when I tell Santana about this, good luck finding a physiotherapist to teach you how to walk again."
Rachel's smirk steadily graduated to a grin, but she managed to keep it at bay just enough to execute the next part of her act: "Whilst I'm perfectly aware of the fact that something is going on between Brittany and Santana, they have yet to come out and say anything about being exclusive. It's also not like Santana has ever bothered to keep her disdain for me to herself. Given those facts, Brittany is fair game. She'll be mine by the end of the year." She sniffed and cleared her throat. "Now, could I trouble you for a glass of water?"
"My water's a little too aggressive. But I hear that Brittany has the best water in town. Go trouble her for some."