"I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have done that." Quinn quickly walked around the table to pat Rachel on the back or do something to help clear her windpipe. "I just didn't know how to tell you and I thought, oh gosh you probably hate me now don't you?" Quinn was grabbing napkins left and right in any effort to help Rachel clean herself up.
"I'm okay." Rachel cleared her throat and coughed so that her voice wouldn't sound so gravely. "I think some of my water went up my nose though."
"I really am sorry." Quinn pulled out a chair and sat down next to Rachel.
"It's fine." Rachel waved Quinn's apologies off, she does the same thing all the time when she finds herself with something to say and no way to say it. Blurting always seemed to work to an extent. "So Shelby is back and she actually brought Cassie this time instead of keeping her out of the loop?"
Quinn nodded her head as she studied Rachel's face. There was a flicker of something in the shorter woman's eyes. "She uh..she asked about you."
"What did she say?" Rachel spoke softly, one part of her hoped that Shelby was going to try and make amends again. However another part of her wondered if amends was something that either of them could handle.
"She asked how you were, said that she seen your movie before she left London to come back here." Quinn chuckled. "Then she asked about Santana. She mentioned she had seen the announcement in a magazine. I think she might be here to stay for a while."
"Why do you think that?" Rachel asked confused.
"The teaching position was listed as a possible ten year if the first year works out. It's kind of a probation period, you know see what all they can teach the kids and stuff."
"Is this the reason you had been avoiding me all day?" Quinn looked sheepish as she nodded her head. "I thought I had done something wrong and you were upset with me or something."
"No, I just didn't know how to tell you any of this and then I figured "might as well go for it" when you asked if I could meet you here." Maybe it was the baby hormones, but Quinn could definitely tell that she was as Santana put it, going soft. Or maybe it was just the fact that delivering news like this to one of your best friends was hard.
"Thank you for telling me, I guess we will just wait and see if she comes around. Keeping up with any relationship is hard, but it's not worth it if she's not as committed or serious about staying this time around." Rachel gathered her lunch trash to throw away. Quinn didn't say anything else as she watched Rachel walk out of the cafeteria. She knew Rachel would need time to process and figure out what she might want to do.
Rachel knew she wouldn't be able to focus the rest of the day. After leaving the cafeteria, Rachel made her way back to the studio and gathered her things to head home early. Sam and Joe could tell that something was wrong and told her to go on home, they could finish the last bits for the song since they had all the vocals they needed now. Before leaving, Rachel made sure to stop by Quinn's office and leave a little note on her desk that she was leaving and would call her later. It would make Quinn feel better if she knew Rachel wasn't mad at her. Which really, she had no reason to be mad at Quinn. The whole situation was out of everyone's control expect for her and Shelby's of course.
Before Rachel headed home she had an idea that she just couldn't ignore. With the plan for her proposal still fresh in her mind from this morning, Rachel headed towards St. Lawrence. If she was going to put together a photo album then she was going to need an actual photo album and the best place to find one was at the art store in town. The place was huge and they carried everything that you could possibly need for arts and crafts. Really, the place was like Hobby Lobby on crack. Rachel kept her fingers crossed in hopes of finding a nice soft cover album, possibly leather. It would be great if she didn't have to order one, since she wanted to start on this project as soon as possible. Santana just wouldn't enjoy a flowery or stripe hard cover album. They were too cliche' or scrapbooky for something like this.
St. Lawrence was a busy little city for the most part and today everyone seemed to be out to a late lunch. Making her way through the traffic and seeming to be getting caught at every red light, Rachel wondered what Santana was doing. The list of possibilities could go on for quite some time considering Santana always found something to work on or do during the day. Hopefully Santana was finishing up her latest commissioned paintings, Rachel was super excited to see them once they were done. That was the one thing that Santana was very strict on, no one could see a painting until it was done unless it was Santana herself or the buyer asking for an update. Most of them didn't, they respected the way Santana worked but every once in a while there was a curious someone who just couldn't wait and asked for a sneak peak. Rachel decided she would call Santana once she had found the perfect album for her proposal.
Santana took pride in being able to do or fix anything around the cabin. It was the way her Abuelo' had done it and it was the way she was going to continue to do it. At the moment however...she was stuck...literally...on the roof. Rachel was going to kill her if she didn't fall off before Rachel got home that is. The morning had started off normal enough, taking the dogs out, feeding the chickens, going to check on the garden and routine maintenance around the cabin. This morning the routine maintenance involved checking the roof solar panels, no big deal. Santana had done it a thousand times by now and never had an issue. The ladder's screws must have been loose because as soon as Santana stepped onto the roof the ladder dropped, sliding into it's locking storage position. Santana was just lucky and thankful that she hadn't been standing on it when it happened. She was also thankful that when it collapsed it hadn't fell forward into a window.
Now, after going on ahead and finishing up checking the solar panels and cleaning them, Santana only had two options of getting down. The first option was climbing down the porch banisters which was harder than it looked. The porch was tall and let's face it, Santana was in no way tall, climbing could be disastrous. The second option was of course wait until Rachel came home, which wouldn't be for another three hours or so. How long had she been stuck on this damn roof already? The sun was doing things to her head. She could always yell for Duncan as loud as she could and hope he heard her. Was no one paying attention to the security cameras down there? Santana sighed as she sat down on the roof, bracing her feet so she didn't slide, she needed a better plan.
This is Santana Lopez, leave your number and I might call back. BEEP. Rachel rolled her eyes at the voice mail greeting. It didn't surprise her that Santana had never changed it. "This is a private number, no one but family and close friends should be calling it." That had been Santana's constant argument no matter how many times Rachel had tried to convince Santana that it was still rude no matter who called. Rachel wondered what Santana was doing, she usually always picked up or called right back when it was Rachel. In a moment of panic Rachel jumped into her car, dumping her purchases in the passenger seat before speeding off heading towards home. What if something was wrong or Santana was hurt? What if Jasper wasn't really out of town and had somehow got into the cabin and hurt Santana? Rachel's mind was a blur as she made her way through St. Lawrence to make it back to McKinley in record time.
When Rachel pulled up at the gates, she breathed at least one sigh of relief when she saw Duncan sitting in his little building. He had turned the place into a little palace, Rachel swears he spent more time in there than he did at home. Duncan smiled at Rachel as he came out of the door while she waited for the gates to open.
"They let you come home early today?" Duncan asked as he bent over and leaned in the passenger side window.
"Yeah, we finished early. Is Santana home?" Rachel gripped the steering wheel tighter, thinking it would make the gates open faster.
"She hasn't been down this way today, so she should be unless she's out at the garden or tree house or something. Oh before I forget, the security system has an update that needed to be installed, so before I leave tonight I will come up to the cabin and run through the checks to make sure everything is working." Duncan couldn't help but to get a little excited when it came to technology.
"Okay. I'll see you tonight then. I am going to see what Santana has gotten into today. She was supposed to be working." Rachel smiled and started to drive through the now open gates, they really needed to figure out a way to get them to open faster. Duncan grinned and nodded as he stepped away from Rachel's car after saying bye.
The first thing Rachel noticed as she pulled up in front of the cabin was the ladder laying in the yard. The second thing she noticed was the dogs laying beside said ladder and looking up at...Santana. Holy shit! Santana! Rachel turned her car off quickly and jumped out, running to the side of the house.
"SANTANA LOPEZ, WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?"
Santana gulped. Yep, she was in so much trouble. Even though she had done this alone plenty of times before, it was nice to know that someone really cared about the possibility of her getting hurt. If she wasn't already sweating profusely and desperate to get down, she might have laughed at how red Rachel's face was. But, you know she really didn't want to die today. Hence the reason she was still up here and hadn't tried to climb down.
"Hi honey...I was just checking the solar panels and stuff." Santana was staying a good distance away from the edge still, she didn't want to accidentally fall.
"Just...just checking the solar panels and stuff!? Get down here before you fall!"
"I need the ladder, but make sure you check the locks on it. That's the reason I am stuck up here in the first place!"
Rachel grumbled to herself as she picked up the ladder and attempted to stretch it back out to it's full height. For some reason it wasn't staying locked and that's when Rachel noticed that the locks had been filed down. "Santana..when was the last time you used this ladder in particular?" Rachel yelled.
"Uh...I don't know. It's been a while. Why?"
"The locks are almost shaved off. The ladder locks into place but there's nothing there to keep it locked. How in the world did you make it up there without it collapsing?"
"It collapsed as soon as I stepped off it." What in the hell had happened to her ladder? She hadn't used it in a while because she hadn't needed to and then she loaned it out...to Puck. Puck who had hired a decorating team for the big dinner. The same decorating team who ended up being short a ladder and Puck had brought that one. Oh hell...there was only person at that studio who was probably menacing enough to do something like this. "Rachel, call Duncan and have him come help you get my tree ladder out of the barn. Unfolding it halfway should get me down from here. I think I might know what happened to my ladder."