a/n: Thanks for reviewing! I know some people want to know who's going to be the next slayer, but my lips are sealed. As for Punk!Quinn, she'll stick around a lot longer than she did on Glee (half an episode) because then who else would be our resident bad girl now that Santana and Buffy are gone?

Enjoy! xoxo

Chapter 71

The First Day

"I have a lead."

Shelby looked up from the paperwork on her desk, her eyes drawn over her reading glasses. Will had stuck his head in through the door, wanting to talk, as he's made a habit since she started working at McKinley before last summer. She frowned sympathetically at him, dark circles under his tired eyes and the light from the window falling over his coppery curls.

"Oh?" she said, putting down her heavy ballpoint pen and resting back in her swivel chair, ready to listen.

"In Fort Worth, a friend of mine reported sightings of a girl fending off vampires in a cemetery. I'm gonna take off early and catch a flight out," he said, nervously tapping his finger against the door-frame.

"What makes this different from the last nine leads?" Shelby asked skeptically, folding her arms over her dark purple sweater.

Will sighed, looking defeatedly at the carpet. "This flight has a meal."

Shelby frowned and stood from her chair, leaning against the edge of her desk. "Listen, Will, I'm not trying to break your spirit, but I think if Buffy wants to be found, she'll let you find her."

"I have to keep looking," Will said dutifully, "I can't give up. But, while I'm gone, the kids should probably take a break from patrolling."

Shelby nodded. "I don't think they can keep up with the slayer regime this year, anyways."

"What do you mean?"

"Will, it's their senior year. Kurt and Rachel want to go to a prestigious performing arts school in New York, Mike Chang's heart is set on Harvard and I'm sure Tina will want to apply to an Ivy League, too. Blaine's father is a tenured professor at OSU. Quinn's grades are cut out for any Big Ten school... These kids have big futures in store for them and they need all of the time they can get this year to make them happen."

Will nodded. "I understand that, but until the slayer is back, this town needs to be protected. We have a responsibility to protect it."

"That's a pretty big responsibility for a bunch of teenagers."

Will frowned. He'd had time enough to mull over the hypocrisy of thinking that teenagers were ready for the responsibility of choosing the path to their futures, but not to protect the people of their hometown. Still, he often got the feeling that he was taking the scoobies away from something.

"I think Emma would have said the same thing," he said aloud.

Shelby smiled sadly. "Thank you, Will."

"Yeah," he sighed without commitment, "I'll talk to you later."

With his shoulders hunched, he walked out Shelby's office and through a scatter of students rushing through the halls on their first day back. He wasn't as enthusiastic as everyone else about the return to school and felt lost without his slayer, and without his girlfriend. He now had to fit looking for Buffy in between teaching Spanish classes to bored sophomores.

"Will?"

Will looked up from staring at the linoleum floor as he walked and saw Terri standing in front of him in her creased, white nurse's uniform.

"Oh, hi, Terri."

Before Emma's death, Will and Terri had openly and passionately hated each other's guts, but now, Terri couldn't bring herself to hate her ex-husband after he lost someone who clearly made him happy. Mostly she avoided him, sure he didn't want to see her, but sometimes her presence actually made him feel better. For one thing, she reminded him that with time, he could move on.

"How are you?" she asked, noticing the weary creases in his angular face.

"Fine. Good. Great," he said without smiling.

"Are you sure?" she asked, as students rushed to their next classes, emptying the hallway.

Will paused and looked at her blue eyes. "No. No, not really. It's been a rough summer."

Terri nodded, sympathetic. "Yeah, I know what you mean."

Will frowned, reminded that Brittany's late father, Doug Pierce, had been Terri's cousin, and that Brittany's mother, who'd moved their whole family away, was Terri's best friend. He realized for the first time that Terri was probably just as lost and lonely as he was.

"I'm sorry about Doug," he said quietly.

Terri looked surprised he'd mentioned it. "Thank you," she said, genuinely grateful, "I'm sorry about... everything. About Buffy. I know I haven't always been..."

She sighed and twirled her finger around her necklace, unsure of how to apologize for everything she'd done. She had almost gotten the slayer killed before, and with no remorse. Now, everything had changed.

"It's okay," Will said, understanding where she was going, "I know. I know."

Terri smiled, a little embarrassed. "Have you been looking for her?"

"Almost constantly. I'm headed to Fort Worth in a couple days, but it's a long shot."

"Have you talked to Buffy's mother?"

"Not since after Buffy went missing. She showed me a note that Buffy left her, explaining that she couldn't stay in Lima after everything that had happened."

"Maybe you should talk to her again and tell her about Fort Worth. Maybe she'll want to help you look. It's her daughter, after all."

Will looked down at Terri and nodded. "That's a good idea."

xxx

"Can I get a grande cafe mocha, no sugar, with half skimmed and half full milk?"

Buffy knitted her eyebrows down at her order pad. "Is 2% okay?"

"No," the customer - a pink-cheeked girl with a frizzy blond ponytail and earrings shaped like cameo paintings - wrinkled her nose and slowly repeated, "Half skimmed and half full milk."

Buffy gritted her teeth. "Got it."

"And can I have raspberry syrup, mixed with the milk and then the coffee," the frizzy blonde said, slowly, as if she figured Buffy wasn't too bright.

Buffy nodded and wrote 'Rasp. mocha, no sugar, 2%' on her order pad and no further instructions.

"And you?" she asked, turning to Frizzy's friend, a girl whose sleek brown hair was cut in angular bob and her eyes were half-opened lazily behind her clear-lensed Ray Bans.

"Medium half-caf no foam vanilla soy latte," the brunette said without pausing, "And a bran muffin. No raisins."

"Anything else?"

The girls shook their heads and went back to their conversation, dismissing their waitress. Buffy sighed, turning away in her green smock to walk back to the counter and gave the order to the barista.

She had to admit, this cafe gig was a lot better than the job she'd first secured in a diner franchise as a fry cook that had made her break out in zits. That hadn't lasted long. She promptly quit when she found a job at the Manhattan coffee shop called Laszlo's. The pay was surprisingly good and the work was easy. The only setback was dealing with the entitled hipster children of wealthy Upper East Siders who thought they were coffee bean aficionados.

She overheard a boy with a goatee and a beanie hat say that he loved supporting small, non-chain cafes like this one, even if it was more expensive, because Starbucks was the 'McDonald's of coffee shops'. Gag.

"Anne?"

Buffy almost didn't look up when her boss called the name she'd put on her nametag. Pulling inspiration from Quinn Fabray, she figured her middle name was suitable for starting a new life with. And just when she was in a WASP-y enough place where the name Buffy wasn't weird. Swell.

"Yeah?" she replied, leaving the orders with the baristas and walking over to Fred Laszlo, the coffee shop's owner, who had a scruffy salt-and-pepper beard.

He led her into the break room where a lithe, pale blonde was tying a green smock around her waist. Buffy blinked at the girl's doe eyes and ill-suited red lipstick.

"Anne, this is Lily. Our new waitress," said Fred, smiling at the new girl, "Lil', Annie's gonna take you under her wing. Show you the ropes."

"I am?" asked Buffy.

"Sure you are."

Buffy frowned. "I've only been working here for two months."

"Longer than most of the idiots around here," Fred grunted, "Why don't you let Lily shadow you today? By tomorrow, our Annie can have a little help on the floor. Sound okay to you girls?"

Lily nodded gratefully, her long, bone-straight blond hair against her cheeks. "Thanks, Freddie."

Fred chuckled, his smile reaching his eyes. Nicknames were his weakness. "Give her a pep talk, eh, Annie?" he nudged Buffy in the ribs and left the room.

Buffy sighed and turned back to Lily, hoping her smile looked encouraging. "It's really not that hard. Taking orders. Balancing trays. The worst part is dealing with complex coffee orders. Most of these people think they're coffee experts, but the truth is, they probably wouldn't notice the difference between an Ethiopian blend and a Dunkin' Donuts latte."

"Anne, right?" Lily asked uncertainly.

"Yeah, Anne Winters."

"You don't recognize me, do you?"

Buffy blinked at her. Truth was, she did recognize Lily. Her pale hair, her babyish face and her scrawny, self-conscious demeanour.

"Um, no," she said unconvincingly, afraid she'd met a former classmate from Lima.

"Are you sure? Where are you from?"

"We should get back to the tables. I have customers-"

"Buffy?"

Buffy blanched.

"Don't be mad," Lily said quickly, "I won't turn you in or anything. I'm... I mean, I used to be... Chanterelle."

Buffy's brain clicked. She remembered Lily perfectly now - as Chanterelle, the pale-faced, naive vampire worshipper with purple lips, who'd almost followed Buffy's old friend Ford into a trap set by Spike, until Buffy had saved her.

"Uh, yeah," Buffy said under her breath, "I remember."

Lily nodded, looking slightly embarrassed. "I never thanked you, you know. For saving us."

Buffy's eyes darted to the door. "Were you trying to find me?"

"No," Lily shook her head, her eyes wide, "I didn't even know you worked here."

Buffy stuck her tongue in her cheek and looked at Lily's face, her surprise seeming genuine. "So no-one else knows that I'm here?"

"No. And I won't tell anyone. I know what it feels like, to want to get lost," she said good-naturedly.

Buffy nodded, knowing that Lily looked like a girl without guidance. Who else would willingly sacrifice themselves to vampires?

xxx

"Hey, Hudson."

Finn looked up from where he was hunched over the the drinking fountain at the end of the east hall, right outside Mr. Perry's senior Economics class. Quinn Fabray had one shoulder leaned up against the wall and smirked down at him, the white stick of a sucker pointing out of her mouth. He almost didn't recognize her with her pink hair and her new wardrobe.

"Quinn. Hey," he said tentatively.

He'd barely spoken to her since last year, when he'd accidentally put a love spell on every girl in Lima. Since then, he'd attempted to keep a low profile, with every woman in town giving him nasty glares. Eventually, the glares had died down and he'd found solace in keeping himself busy with school work, and then housework in the summer and a weekend job at his stepfather's tire shop. But even he had heard the gossip - Quinn Fabray had undergone a total transformation when the summer had started. A transformation that included the only two girl's Finn had ever dating becoming a couple.

"Excited about your first day?" she asked, almost jokingly, taking the small cherry globe out of her mouth.

He rubbed his hands on his jeans and wondered what she wanted. "Sure," he replied unconvincingly.

"Really?" she asked, skeptical.

Finn shrugged, his shoulders square under his letterman jacket. "No, not really."

"Yeah. Senior year. It's pretty crazy."

"Yeah."

"Everybody's gonna be gone next year," Quinn sighed, gazing over at the flyers that adorned the row of pea green lockers.

Finn nodded. "Yeah," he just repeated breathlessly, not wanting to ask what Quinn was doing after high school, in case she returned the question.

Quinn ducked her head and peered up at him. It didn't take a psychic to know how he was feeling. And she was his ex-girlfriend, after all.

"I have no idea what I'm gonna do after graduation," she admitted, her voice soft and exasperated.

Finn gave her a hint of a crooked grin, feeling a little lighter. "Yeah, me either. Everybody's talking about what colleges they're going to, and internships, and moving away. I don't even know what I want to do."

Quinn smiled. "I know, and everyone's like, 'So, what are your interests?' And I'm like, 'I don't have any!' Is that so hard to believe?!"

Finn smiled wide, showing all his milky white teeth. "Yeah, if only they had college courses on grilled cheese, I'd be set."

Quinn laughed, throwing her head back, catching a few looks from their passing classmates. "So, what classes do you have this year?" she asked, an amused smile still on her face.

Finn shrugged, his smile waning.

"You don't know?" Quinn challenged, raising an eyebrow.

Finn sighed. "Just a bunch of slacker classes. Oral Communication. Woodworking. Statistics-"

"Statistics isn't a slacker class," Quinn defended.

"Oh, yeah, says you who's probably doing AP everything."

Quinn frowned. She was taking four AP classes that semester, and would have eight by the end of the year, including one online college course for extra credit. But she didn't want to brag.

"Not Social Studies. Rachel's taking AP US History and I'm stuck in Econ."

Finn smirked a little. "I'm taking Econ, too."

"Fifth period with Ms. Eaton?"

"Yeah," he nodded.

"Cool. We can sit together."

Finn looked down at her and furrowed his brow. "So what's up with you?"

"What do you mean?"

"You really changed over the summer. For one thing, you don't hate my guts."

"-I never hated you," Quinn paused, and then rolled her eyes, "Okay, I hated you a little. For a while. But I don't anymore. If Rachel can forgive you, so can I. I mean, it's not like I didn't do some awful stuff to you, too."

Finn nodded. "Well, thanks, Quinn."

"Yeah, no problem. So, any extra-curriculars?"

Finn wrinkled his nose. "Why are you so interested in my school schedule?"

Quinn shrugged, and sighed. "We miss you in glee club."

"You do?" he asked, skeptically.

Sure, he was a good singer, but his dancing took him down a few pegs - made him a liability, even. Besides, he heard Kurt and Blaine practising, or just singing to each other for fun. They had theatricality. Exactly what a show choir needs. Finn figured he should just stick to shop classes.

"Yeah..." Quinn tried on a sweet smile, before turning it into a disappointed frown, "Okay, I can't do this. It's insulting to your intelligence. We're down two members this year, what with Brittany and Buffy skipping town, and Rachel's pulling her hair out about winning Nationals this year and I mean, I don't even care that much, I'm only doing glee club because it gives me a Fine Arts credit and obviously because Rachel is doing it-"

"I get it, I get it," Finn frowned, holding up his hand, "You need to recruit new members so glee club can compete."

Quinn sighed, defeated. "Yeah. But, look, we really do miss you in glee club. Well, some of us. And, yeah, you're not the best dancer, but who cares? You have a great voice and a leading man quality. Rachel says it all the time. Or, she used to."

"Does she know you're trying to recruit me?"

"I might have mentioned it."

Finn looked down at the linoleum tiles, mulling it over. "So you and Rachel. You're... I mean, people have been saying-"

"That we're dating? Yeah, we are. It's not like I don't get why that would bother you, but-"

"Did I have anything to do with that?"

Quinn paused. "What? No. It doesn't work that way."

"No, no, I mean-" he said, awkwardly clearing his throat, "Never mind. I'll join glee club."

"You will? Really?! Oh, Finn, thank you-!"

"On one condition," he held up a finger.

Quinn paled. "What?"

"Dance numbers? I'm in the back."

xxx

"So, you live nearby?"

Buffy and Lily fell into step with each other as they walked home from their shifts at Laszlo's. It was mid-afternoon and the streets were packed with yellow taxis, dusty cargo trucks and stretch limos. The air smelled like fall foliage, car exhaust and strong black coffees wafting out of rows of trendy lunch-break spots.

"Not really. I stayed in an apartment with a friend in Korea Town for a while. Now I'm trying out hostels in Manhattan. Saving up for a place of my own. Where did you come up with Anne?" Lily asked over the sound of horns honking and pedestrians rushing past them.

"It's my middle name," Buffy explained.

"Oh. Lily's from a song. The Smashing Pumpkins. I used to be really into them."

Buffy nodded, knowing the song from when Tina played on the iPod dock in her dad's Volkswagen when they drove to Six Flags on spring break. Lily, my one and only. I can hardly wait to see her. Buffy didn't have the heart to tell her that the song was about a hopeless stalker.

"It's nice."

"I'm always changing it, anyways. Chanterelle was apart of my goth phase."

Buffy almost wanted to ask what name she was born with, but she didn't want to dredge up unwanted memories for her new co-worker.

"Well, I like Lily."

"Yeah, it's cool for now. Do you have any money?"

Buffy almost stumbled over her feet at the forward question.

"I don't mean it like that!" Lily said quickly, "I just mean, I know this guy who's having this sort of party in his basement and it's three dollars to get in. We could go together."

"I don't think so," Buffy shrugged, not liking the idea of losing herself in a basement full of strobe lights and people tricked out of their minds, "I kind of want to be alone."

"Right," Lily said quietly, "Sorry, I didn't mean to bug you."

"No, I just mean... A lot of people would be too much for me right now."

"It's fine, forget about it."

"No, really-"

Buffy was about to assure Lily that her company was welcome when a man ploughed into Buffy's side, rushing past her. For half a second, she thought it was a high strung college student rushing to get somewhere - typical of a 6th Avenue sidewalk - but when she looked up, it was a red-faced, unshaven man dressed in tattered rags, mumbling to himself.

"Excuse you!" Lily called angrily after him as he stepped out into the street.

He turned around, his eyes wide and terrified as he quietly mumbled to himself. The expression on his face made Buffy's stomach churn.

"Are you okay?" Buffy asked, not sure she said it loud enough for him to hear.

She strained her ears as he continued mumbling, and thought she heard him say, "I'm no-one." She stared at him, incredulous, until she noticed a truck ploughing toward him, it's pot-bellied driver with his pinky in his ear, his eyes rolled up obliviously.

"Watch out!" Buffy shouted.

Acting in pure instinct, she bolted toward the ragged man and pushed him out of the way, knocking him across the street and watching him fall against the curb. The truck's tire screeched and swerved, but not before smashing into Buffy's hip. Sprawled on the ground, she heard the truck collide with a fire hydrant. She lifted her head, her body tense from the hit, to see the hydrant spraying water up into the air and on the hood of the truck. Footsteps rushed forward and she raised herself up with her arms.

"Oh my God, Buffy!"

She would have reprimanded Lily for using her real name if that had been her biggest problem of the moment. The trucker rushed out of his vehicle and ran toward Buffy, his face pale and panicked.

"What were you doing?!" he demanded.

Buffy looked over at the sidewalk, but the man she saved had disappeared, and people were crowding around to get a good look at the scene.

"You shouldn't move," said Lily, leaning down to her.

"Yeah, lie down," said the trucker, "I'll call an ambulance."

"It's okay..." Buffy said, looking nervously around at the curious bystanders, "I have to go..."

"Buff- Anne!" Lily called as Buffy stood up and took off, sprinting down the street.

Buffy ran down the street and turned the corner, trying to shake off any looky-loos. She ran straight into a man's broad shoulders and with a grunt, he let go of his grip on a stack of colorful flyers.

"Sorry!" Buffy winced, and looked up at him as the flyers fell to the ground. He was young - maybe just a few years older than she was - and his golden curls reached his jawline. He smiled widely, showing off his pearly teeth.

"Where are you running off to?" he asked, friendly, as Buffy bent over and started picking the flyers off of the damp alleyway ground with haste.

He was dressed nicely, in a crisp white dress shirt and a beige sweater tightly hugging his lean frame. Buffy didn't reply as he bent down, getting at her level and gathering flyers in his taut hands.

"Or, should I say, where are you running from?" he asked, knowingly.

She looked up, spooked by the certainty in his voice. It was as if he knew exactly who she was. Her heartbeat started to pick up even faster as she panicked, thinking that maybe she was listed as a missing person. Maybe her picture adorned a pinboard in the 7th precinct. Maybe her face was on the side of the carton of organic almond milk that this preppy do-gooder ate with his muesli.

"I'm guessing you're not from around here. You've got the look, though," he said.

Buffy gripped a messy stack of the remainder of the flyers and squeezed them so hard their middles were jagged like accordions.

"The look?"

"Like you had to grow up way too fast," he said, his pale blue eyes softening, "What's your name?"

Buffy shuffled on her feet. She was eager to get away from him, but his gentle voice and sympathetic smile weren't unwelcome. "Anne," she replied, and thrusted the flyers into his hands.

"Anne," he repeated like it was poetry, "Anne, I'm Jeremiah. Here, keep one of these."

Jeremiah handed her a crumpled flyer and she glanced at it, the words 'Family Home' in bold on the top.

"Don't be a stranger," he smiled, "Even if you don't need food or shelter... there might be something you do need that we can give you. Something... more."

Buffy frowned. The way he said 'more' gave her the sense that he was talking about something spiritual.

"I'm alright," she assured him.

"Are you?"

Who was this guy? And who was he to assume that Buffy was some down-on-your-luck orphan Annie? All he could tell by looking at her was that she was a Manhattan waitress. For all he knew, she could be an NYU student wanting some extra cash from a part-time job, or an aspiring actress, waitressing during the day and taking improv classes at night. And yet, his blue eyes, almost like a crystal ball, seemed to know more.

"New York is a strange place for a kid," he continued, "You grow up fast."

xxx

"Summer is not over. I refuse to believe it."

Quinn floated atop a plastic blow-up lounge chair in the middle of the lagoon-shaped pool in Lima Heights, the warm sun beating down on her face as round sunglasses shaded her leafy-green eyes. Rachel, whose dress was draped over a pink polka-dotted bikini, had done little more than dip her toes into the warm water. She sat patiently at the wood-varnished picnic table, under a wide, red-and-white sun umbrella, her brown eyes fluttering over her girlfriend.

"We should get started soon if we want to visit the graveyard tonight," Rachel reminded her for the second time, as she tapped her pencil against the AP English assignment waiting for them.

"We have plenty of time before sundown."

"Not if we want to visit Shelby's."

Before the summer, Quinn and Puck had started visiting their daughter, Beth, weekly, and then bi-weekly, and then daily, with Shelby Corcoran's permission. It took Quinn longer to become comfortable with holding the beautiful baby girl she'd given birth to a year earlier, but now she was quickly offering to babysit any time that Shelby needed to work and Jesse needed a night off.

When Quinn and Rachel became more serious - and it didn't take long - Rachel had started visiting Beth, too, even though the situation was more than confusing for everyone. Beth's adoptive mother was Rachel's biological mother, and Beth's biological mother was Rachel's girlfriend. Not to mention that Beth's full-time nanny was Rachel's ex-boyfriend - and Shelby's former lover. Yes, confusing, to say the least.

"Well, I could do it in the morning," Quinn mused.

"Quinn," Rachel whined, exasperated, "That's no way to start off your senior year."

"Why not?"

"This is our last year of high school. We have to milk it for all it's worth! No-one wants to graduate with nothing to show for it, and no-one wants to leave this worthless town more than me. I have big plans for this year."

Quinn smirked. "You have big plans for every year."

"This year is different," she said theatrically, raising her hands with a Broadway flourish, "The only way I'm going to get into NYADA is if I work for it and Quinn, I've been working my whole life. This is the year I'm gonna get results. I'm not settling for anything less than a lead role in this year's school musical. I'm going to be elected class president. I'm going to maintain a four point oh GPA with all of my APs and take New Directions to Nationals and place in the top ten show choir groups if it kills me!"

"Rachel, your college applications are already going to be impressive enough. You speak Italian, volunteer at the pound every weekend and you've been playing piano since you were seven."

"It's not enough, Quinn! People from all over the world will be applying to NYADA. I have to be something special!"

"You are something special."

"But I have to prove it. I'm not taking any chances."

Quinn sighed, letting her hand tread in the water. "You're really set on NYADA, huh?"

"Of course I am. It has the best theatre program in the country. Besides, I've always wanted to live in New York. You know that," Rachel paused to look at Quinn, who was nodding silently in the middle of the pool, "I bet you'd like New York, too."

Quinn stomach gurgled. "Maybe."

"Just think about us living together in a tiny apartment in SoHo. Eating breakfast at Tiffany's. Window-shopping at Barney's. Star spotting in Central Park. Drinking fruity virgin cocktails on New Year's Eve!"

Quinn smiled as Rachel got a dreamy look on her face. Truth was, New York didn't sound half bad when she put it like that. She was willing to entertain to idea of being a starving artist in SoHo and taking classes at NYU when it put that smile on Rachel's face.

"I'm planning on scheduling an interview before Thanksgiving, and auditions are in March. You should come to New York with me. We can tour the campus and even look at NYU. You can experience the city for yourself."

Quinn exhaled through her nose. She didn't hate the idea of following Rachel to New York, but she didn't want to commit to following a path to a future that wasn't even really hers.

"Well, in the meantime, you and I can do our English homework," she said, turning on her stomach on her lounge and using her arms as paddles to bring herself to the pool's edge.

The last thing she wanted to do was analyze Robert Frost poetry when she and her girlfriend were clad in form-fitting swimsuits on a hot day, but she'd do anything to change the subject.

"Hey, want to do it for me?" she grinned, taking off her sunglasses and looking up at Rachel from the edge of the pool.

Rachel rolled her eyes. "Come on, Quinn, like you need my help. I've read your old English assignments. It's Grade A material. Award-winning potential, even."

Quinn thought about the old assignments her sophomore Lit. teacher would give her, allowing them to write essays on the poets of their choice. Quinn tended to stick to Dickinson, Plath and Poe, even before she was willing to admit having a thing for the tortured and pathetic. No-one assumed she was any deeper than ponytails and pom-poms. Except Rachel. But with cheerleading, pregnancy, witchcraft, the death of her soul sister and the disappearance of her friend, Quinn had little time for curling up with a copy of 'The Bell Jar'.

She lamely stuck her arm out for Rachel to take. "You're gonna have to rescue me, starlet. I'm stranded," she said.

Rachel smirked and stood up, grabbing a pool noodle off of the patio and holding it out for Quinn to grab. "Come on. Mr. Frost is waiting for us."

Quinn reached out and gripped the edge of the foam noodle, tugging it hard and pulling Rachel into the pool. The girl sunk with a splash and bobbed back up to the surface, her brown hair wet and matted to her head, and her mouth wide open in a perfect circle. She grinned and put her hands under the plastic lounge, turning it upside-down and tossing Quinn off of it.

Eventually, they called a truce and started on their English assignments with warm towels draped over their shoulders. As Quinn chewed the end of her pencil and mulled over Frost's view on the road less taken, she wondered what road she would take. The one that led to Rachel and New York, or somewhere entirely different?

a/n: Eek! Anyone else excited about Season 3? I know I am. Where do you think all the kids are gonna end up by the end of the year? I'm gonna throw a topic of discussion out there for everyone: Faberry. Thoughts?

Thanks for reading! xoxo