For all disclaimers, see Chapter 1.

Also, the song that this fic is based on is The Dandy Warhols, We Used To Be Friends. I think I forgot to mention that before.

Wow, you guys, thanks for all your kind words and encouragment. I've been writing this story pretty much non-stop since the idea popped into my head and your reviews only make me want to write that much more.

BrittanaRulestheWaves: Thank you. I'm glad to you like it.

BlackShip007: lol. Probably. But the fact that you were still surprised means that I, as a writer, did my job right so I'm glad that you didn't see it coming and got to experience the same surprise that Quinn did in that moment.

missicequeen1980 Thank you. I'm glad you enjoyed the opening and the buildup. And I hope that Quinn's reaction pleases you.

hRcK1224 Thank you. And I'll try not to keep you waiting too long between updates.

LauraS: lol. Yep. I'm glad you enjoyed it and I hope that you continue to.

Paauwer Thank you. I'm glad you're hooked already. :) And I hope that I can keep you hooked. I try and update frequently, although sometimes life intervenes.

FaberryOTP I'm glad I got your attention. :)

LaurenKnight13 :) I'm glad that you didn't see it coming and that you got to experience the same reaction as Quinn, in the moment that she had it. Not to spoil anything but well, it is a Faberry story. And I'm really not very good at writing angst so...As for Rachel, I think it's different this time, at least this time she acknowledges that she shouldn't be letting herself do it. That's a step up from Finn, I'd say. I'm glad that you're enjoying the story and I hope you continue to. And, I hope that you like how I handle the high school situation, because I will address it.

Jaely Thank you. I'm glad you're enjoying it. lol. Yep, Quinn is definitely too hot to ignore.

nattitude: Thank you. I hope you continue to enjoy. :)

fabrayberrys: lol. Well, here's some more, I hope that it helps. Don't want you dying on me before I get to the end.

And now,

Chapter 3

Quinn sputtered inelegently and tried to disguise it with a cough but that only served to make Rachel's concerned eyes to grow wider and her brow to furrow farther as she leaned across the table and reached out, rubbing her hand up and down Quinn's arm.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

It was probably meant to be a soothing gesture but all it did was make it even more difficult for Quinn to draw air into her lungs.

"I'm fine," she wheezed as she placed her hand over Rachel's, still it's movement. "Just...a tickle."

Rachel gazed back at her, not appeased with her answer. "Are you sure you're all right?"

Her brow quirked slightly at her question and Quinn couldn't help but wonder if the other girl, ever the dramatic, hadn't done this to her on purpose, slowly doling out her story until the big reveal at the end.

Her throat worked but Quinn didn't trust her voice just yet so she mearly nodded.

"Do you want a glass of water, or something?"

"No, it's okay," she rasped, wincing at the harsh scrape of her throat as she pushed the words out. "You're gay?" she blurted out her next words before she could stop herself.

"Bisexual, actually."

"Since when?"

"Since always?" Rachel's lips tugged up in a faint smirk and Quinn was certain that she'd done this on purprose. "I suppose. But I didn't start to have feelings for girls, or at least ones that I recognized as such, until I was in my sophmore year at NYADA."

Quinn gaped at her, still struggling to come to terms with the fact that Rachel Berry was attracted to women. That Rachel dated women.

Rachel Berry had sex with women. The thought popped up unbidden and once again she choked on her own breath. She tried to clamp down on the next thought but before she could reign it in there it was, an image of Rachel in the throes of sex, eyes wide and dark, skin shining with sweat, hair damp and clinging to her forehead, lips parted as she panted out a breath.

"Really, Quinn," Rachel huffed. "I don't see why you're having such a hard time digesting this piece of information when you yourself are-"

"I know, Rach. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..." To what? To imagine what you'd looked like climaxing beneath me? She trailed off, knowin that she couldn't say what she had actually been thinking and then shook her head, trying to dissapate the image. "I'm sorry."

Rachel nodded, accepting her apology with a smile and a pat of her hand. It was then that Quinn realized the intimacy of their position. Rachel's hand was still resting against her arm and Quinn was holding it in one of her own. And now, Rachel had brought her free hand over and was resting it atop Quinn's, her thumb stroking idle patterns against the bone of her wrist. And, they'd been touching each other pretty much all night. From when Rachel had nearly bowled her over with her hug until now, they'd been in almost constant contact, standing with their arms around each other at the table, holding hands as they talked at the bar, arms linked as they walked here and now this. In light of recent revelations, Quinn couldn't help but wonder if it meant something. If maybe Rachel felt the same pull of attraction that she did.

Before she could contemplate this their waitress returned. She hovered at the edge of the table, glancing uncertainly down at it's surface trying to figure out where to set their plates amongst their tangle of limbs. Reluctantly, Quinn released her hold on Rachel's hand and slid back, the other woman's hands sliding off her as she did so. Immediately, Quinn felt the loss of contact. Her hand suddenly felt cold now that it was no longer touching Rachel's skin.

She picked up her fork as soon as her plate was in front of her but her mind wasn't really on her food. Silence settled between them as they began to eat but unlike the easy silence at the bar this time it was tense, awkward and Quinn tried to figure out what had changed.

Had she misread Rachel's actions? Was she being obvious in her attractions? Was she making Rachel uncomfortable now, because of that? The other girl had always been rather tactile, maybe to her the touches had been purely platonic and Quinn had taken them the wrong way. She glanced across the table at Rachel, trying to get a read on her but Rachel's face was an impassive mass as she carefully cut up her french toast. Feeling a little disheartened, Quinn turned her attention back to her own meal.

The pancakes were delicious but she could not enjoy them, her focus was on the woman seated across from her and how their reunion had gone from warm and easy to this uncomfortable silence. Should she say something, address the issue? She really didn't want to bring it up, especially if Rachel wasn't interested. She saw no reason to actually force the other girl to come right out and say it, if that's what this was about. Instead, she should try and find something else to talk about, another topic that would distract them and hopefully ease the tension.

"Quinn, can I ask you a question?"

She glanced up and saw Rachel gazing back at her, frowning slightly and she felt her heart drop in her chest.

"Sure, Rach. Anything," she said, trying to keep the quiver out of her voice.

"Why did we lose touch?"

Quinn blinked at Rachel, stunned. That certainly wasn't what she was expecting. She'd thought that Rachel was going to address this new tension between them. Unless, maybe Quinn was the only one feeling that tension?

She shook off the thought and tried to focus on Rache's quesiton. Why had they lost touch?

She was tempted to give the other woman a vague answer, something like "we just drifted apart," or "it's just the way things worked out," both equally true but also incomplete sentiments but as she glanced across the table at the wide, chocolate brown eyes peering back at her she decided that she wanted the other woman to know the truth. She owed it to her.

"Well," said taking a deep breath and trying to gather her thoughts. "College was both the best and worst thing for me," she began slowly. "On one hand, it got me out of Lima. It got me away from all of the pressure and expectation at McKinley and put me on the path to where I am now, with a job I love in a wonderful city with a great group of friends,"

She paused again, taking another moment to sort out everything that she wanted to say.

"On the other hand, for the first time in my life there was no social heiracrchy, no standards to adhere to, nobody expecting or demanding anything from me. I no longer had the Cheerios uniform or the glee club to help define me. Nor did I have any of that to rebel against either. I had no idea who I was outside of Lima. And I floundered."

Across from her, Rachel offered a sympathetic smile and nodded for her to continue.

"I made a lot of mistakes in that first year. I let the wrong people guide me," she said with a wince, remembering the "friends" she had made, the people she'd associated with and most embarrasingly, the professor she'd slept with. "And I got caught up in putting on a facade, once again, in an attempt to fit in somewhere."

She shook her head with a rueful smile, remembering how hard she had worked to fit in with her "sisters" in the secret society she'd been tapped into even though she hadn't really liked any of them. They'd all been rich, shallow and vain but they'd wanted her and she'd been determined to be one of them.

"Maybe I would have fared better if I'd had some kind of support system," she admitted. "You and Kurt and Santana were only a couple hours away in New York bit a tthe time all I could think was, you all were just a a reminder of everything I was trying to get away from."

She chanced another glance across the table at Rachel, hoping that the other girl wasn't hurt by her words. But Rachel just reached out and put a hand on her arm, squeezing it lightly.

"What turned it around for you, then?" Rachel asked. "Because, clearly you're happy and you seem more...centered than I've ever seen you."

Quinn nodded, somewhat pleased that Rachel had noticed, that she could pick up on the difference between the unhappy, confused girl she had been back then and the contented woman that she was now.

"I am. And the the start of that was that writing class that I was telling you about, and the professor that taught it."

Rachel's nose wrinkled and she frowned faintly. "Eww. What is it with you and professors."

She looked so adorable and Quinn couldn't help but laugh. "No, it wasn't like that. She was just this really inspiring woman and she took me under her wing and really pushed me to open up with my writing. And once I started getting all of that stuff that I'd been bottling up inside of me out, I started to re-evaluate some of the decisions I'd made. I cut my so called friends out of my life and I started putting myself first, doing the things I wanted to do, putting my own happiness before everyone else."

It had been hard at first, lonely. She'd spent a lot of time on her own and feeling a little disconnected without those people around her all the time but she'd really enjoyed some of the new hobbies she'd taken up or the old ones she'd re-indulged in again. She'd enrolled in a photography class, just for fun and she'd visited art galleries and museums and read for hours in coffee shops. And as she'd started to feel more comfortable in her skin she found that it made interactions with the people she met doing these new activities much more comfortable. Their conversations were no longer forced or a manipulation to portray a certain image, they'd been genuine. It had been, for possibly the first time in her life, truly a way to get to know another person, to connect. She'd been amazed at the simple joy that just conversing with a person could be, with no intention other than interest in what they had to say. Whether it was the guy in her photography class or the girl who worked the ticket booth at one of the art galleries Quinn had taken to visiting.

"You're blushing. Why are you blushing?"

Rachel's question pulled her from her thoughts and when she brought a hand up to her face she realized that her cheeks were, in fact, hot to the touch.

"It's about a girl, isn't it?" Rachel asked, eyes glowing with excitement. "You met a girl while you were having your transformation or whatever, didn't you?" She was practically bouncing around in her seat in her excitement at having figured it out.

Quinn laughed and nodded. "Yes. I met a girl. Her name was Hannah and she worked at an art gallery."

"Oh, that is so sweet," Rachel cooed and Quinn knew that she was imagining some kind of rom-com scenerio where they exchanged flirty subtly about art, bantering wittily back and forth until one (probably Hannah) asked the other out for coffee, where they delved into deeper conversation and then coffee dates became lunch dates and lunch dates became romance and it was all so sweet and beautiful and Quinn didn't have the heart to tell her that it had actually just been some flirting at the gallery, a few too many drinks at the bar down the street and a hot and heavy makeout session in the bathroom. They hadn't actually hooked up. As hot as it would have been if they had, Quinn just wasn't built for casual sex. Aside from that one night with Santana, she had never slept with a woman she wasn't dating. But even then it hadn't been casual with Santana. Just because it never happened again didn't make it meaningless or irrelevent.

"Was she your first girlfriend?"

Quinn shook her head. Hannah had made her realize that the curiosity that she'd carried since high school about what it would be like to be with a woman was actually more than just slight. And that it hadn't been sated during her "college experiment" at Mr Shue's wedding that wasn't. She was the first woman, Santana aside, that Quinn remembered ever physically desiring. And it had been eye-opening and life changing but she hadn't really meant anything to Quinn beyond that.

"No. I started dating a girl, Molly, from one of my classes towards the end of sophmore year. She was my first girlfriend. We were together for almost a year," she added, knowing that Rachel was probably just dying for the details. "We broke up because she graduated and moved to London."

"I'm sorry. Was it...bad?"

Quinn nodded. She had been devestated. Molly had been the first person she'd ever truly been in love with. Sure, she thought she'd loved Finn and Sam, maybe even Joe a little back in high school but it hadn't really been love, she saw that now. And it had been mild in comparison to the feeling that Molly had evoked in her.

"I was crushed." Even now, just thinking about it, made Quinn's heart seize painfully in her chest. Things between them had been good, amazing. She really had pictured them having a future together but the distance had proven to be too hard. That was, she couldn't help but think, the hardest part. They hadn't broken up because their feelings had changed, they hadn't fallen out of love they had just grown apart. The time change and the ocean between them had left them living too separate lives and after awhile they were like strangers, forcing conversation, imitating the intimacy that used to be so natural.

Rachel nodded and hummed sympethetically, which pulled Quinn from her stroll down memory lane and caused her to arch an eyebrow at her.

"Something you'd like to share, Berry?"

Rachel's eyes widened into a shocked who-me? expression but Quinn wasn't fooled.

"Yeah, there's a story there. I can feel it. Out with it, Rach."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh come on, I know you and I can tell when there's something you're holding back. Someone broke your heart, didn't they?" She dropped all hints of teasing out of her voice and turned her hand over under Rachel's touch, lacing their fingers together. "You don't have to talk about it, if you don't want to. But, if you need to, I'm willing to listen."

Rachel's eyes shone with unshed tears and she offered Quinn a watery smile.

"His name was Caleb. He was a junior when I was a scenior. We met at a party and just clicked. He was sweet and funny and he knew how to push me without putting pressure on my, you know?"

Quinn nodded. She did know.

"Anyway, things were perfect and then, he got offered a job in Los Angeles and it just..." Rachel paused and blinked a few times but still a few tears managed to escape and roll down her right cheek.

Without giving it a concsious thought, Quinn reached out and wiped the wetness away with her thumb. It wasn't until she felt the soft skin of Rachel's cheek against her hand that she realized she was cupping the other woman's face. Her face heated in a blush and she moved to pull her hand away only to find Rachel's hand wrapped around her wrist, holding her in place. Their eyes met across the table and Quinn's heart picked up speed, pounding rapidly in her chest as the air between them crackled with electricity.

Surely she wasn't imaging this. Something was happening here.

Suddenly her lungs felt heavy, the simple act of drawing air into them an extreme effort. Her throat was dry, parched really. She swallowed hard, trying to dispell the feeling and licked her lips to moisten them as she tried to get reign over her thoughts and say something, anything.

A loud crash and the shattering of glass somewhere behind them broke the moment and the jumped apart.

"Opa," Rachel murmured, as if on instinct as her head turned automtically towards the sound. Her grip on Quinn's wrist loosened and she let her hand fall away. Her eyes slid past Rachel to watch the scene unfolding behind her, one of the waitresses -not theirs- was bending down to gingerly pick up shards of broken glass from the tray that she had apparently dropped as one of the guys from the kitchen rushed out with a broom and a dustbin to help her.

After watching the activity for a minute or two Rachel turned to face Quinn again and offered a tense smile. Silence settled between them once again and it was heavy, expectant. Quinn didn't know if she should address the moment or let it go. Something was developing between them, she was sure of it. But, she wasn't entirely sure what that something was just yet. She felt the pull of attraction and she was pretty sure that Rachel did too but it had been a long time since she'd really known the other woman. It was possible that it was nothing more than the rekindling of what had been a rather charged, intense friendship for Rachel. And that her feelings for Quinn were purely platonic.

Her throat worked and she licked her lips once again as her mind quickly raced between bringing it up, whatever this was or letting it run it's course and see where it took them.