Quinn made her way to the bleachers after Spanish class, not really sure what she was doing with Rachel and feeling like a moron for accepting her apology. So, what, Berry made up something about not trying to sleep with her and she believed it like that? But what if Rachel really had meant it. What if Rachel was just an awkward dork who hadn't known what to say after Quinn found her pawing at an old picture of her? And Rachel had come up with- what- Quinn being pretty?

Then again, Quinn was probably one of the only people in the world who could take that as an insult.

She flopped down on her couch under the bleachers, still debating her decision to give Rachel the benefit of the doubt. It took her a few minutes to even pull out her book of the week, she was thinking about it so hard.

"You look like shit."

When Quinn looked up at Mack, her glare could have leveled a mountain. Mack just grinned and plopped down next to her on the couch. Quinn shifted away from Mack. This was new. The Skanks didn't really engage her in conversation, and the certainly didn't initiate it. Mack was going off script.

"Excuse me?"

"Nah, let me rephrase. You look like normal. But the past week or so you've been looking, like, happy."

Quinn shook her head. "I don't know what you mean."

Mack leaned back, throwing her arm over the back of the couch. "Come on, Quinn. I've known you for a year now. Since sophomore year, right? I could count on my hand the number of times I've seen you smile. But this past week? You've been practically chipper."

"No I haven't."

"Sure you have. I mean, obviously not by normal people standards." Mack looked down, and her normal cocky façade faded slightly. "We've all got shit, Quinn, and you carry yours around like your blood is lead. I don't know what's up, and I never asked, because it's none of my business. But whatever was going on for a little while these last few days, it made your weight less."

Quinn swallowed thickly around the lump in her throat. She hadn't known the Skanks saw so much. Suddenly, she was grateful for them. They just let her be, made her life a little more bearable at school. She hadn't known how much she appreciated them. But she didn't want to admit to anything. "Past few weeks have been normal."

"Uh huh. And Sheila seeing you get into your car with Rachel Berry yesterday?" Mack's eyes widened in triumph, her smirk growing as she dropped her bombshell.

"Fuck off!" Quinn grumbled, shoving Mack in the shoulder.

"Come on, for serious, Q. I was happy you were doing okay for once… and I hope you get that again," Mack was more serious again, putting a hand on Quinn's shoulder. Quinn didn't flinch away.

"Remember when we met," Mack said suddenly, leaning in a little. Quinn's eyes narrowed and Mack backed up again. "You were under here, this little blonde chick in a babydoll dress, and the three of us found this place and decided it was ours. We tried to kick you out- and you gave us this look that was so goddamn scary we backed off. We thought we were letting you stay- but it was you letting us stay, wasn't it?"

A smile gradually inched its way across Quinn's face and she quirked an eyebrow playfully. "Maybe."

Mack laughed. She waggled her eyebrows. "And then that cold day I loaned you my leather jacket and you jizzed your pants so hard your hair turned pink."

Quinn punched her harder than was necessary, but she smiled a little. In response Mack laughed and pushed Quinn's head away with the palm of her hand.

Mack put on a serious face again, giving Quinn a broken smile. "So whatever you've been up to lately, keep doing it. It's nice to actually see you back from the dead."

Quinn smiled at her book.

Pseudo friends were nice, as it turned out.

.

When Quinn arrived at celibacy club, Ms. P was already there and clearly nervous about something, because she was polishing all the windows in the classroom.

"Uh, Ms. P?" Quinn ventured warily, putting her backpack down. Ms. Pillsbury nearly jumped out of her skin.

"Oh, Quinn! I'm so sorry, I was- distracted," Ms. P fluttered back to their table, sitting down in her normal seat and smoothing her skirt over and over again. Quinn sat down slowly, wanting to reach out and stop the counselor from rubbing her hands raw, but she didn't, instead looking down at the table with her hands fisted in her lap. What was going on? Had Quinn done something? Was Ms. P angry at her? She wasn't about to ask, she didn't want her suspicions to be confirmed. God, if Ms. P cancelled club-

"I owe you an apology, Quinn," Ms. Pillsbury said softly, causing Quinn to look back up in surprise. Ms. P's face was red with guilt.

"What for?" Quinn asked.

"This morning before classes, Rachel Berry came into my office." Quinn's eyes widened and she had to stop herself from standing and running out of the classroom. There was no reason to, Quinn hadn't done anything to or with Rachel, and what did this have to do with her? But she still felt paranoid, that somehow Ms. P knew something was wrong, and somehow Rachel was the catalyst.

Ms. Pillsbury continued, "I'm afraid I got too excited and asked her how yesterday went." Quinn squirmed in her seat, biting the inside of her cheeks. So Rachel had told Ms. Pillsbury she exploded? "And I apologize deeply for letting Rachel know that you'd told me about your plans. I wanted to know what happened, and I betrayed a trust."

Quinn couldn't believe it. That was what Ms. P felt bad about. Quinn grinned, leaning back in her seat and putting her feet up on the chair across from here. "It's not a big deal, Ms. P. I mean, now all she knows is I'm friends with a teacher. That can't do much for my rep the way it is, can it?"

Ms. Pillsbury's face lit up with relief and she giggled. "No, I suppose that can't make your reputation worse in a place like high school."

Both of them started cracking up and it was a few minutes before they calmed down again. "So what did Berry want to talk to you about," Quinn said as soon as she could take a breath.

"Quinn!" Ms. P exclaimed, shaking her head in disapproval but unable to keep the amused smile off her face. "You know better than to ask me what someone has come to discuss with me in office hours!"

"Sorry, sorry! I just figured it couldn't have been that serious if you segued into our project work yesterday."

Ms. Pillsbury brought both her hands to her face and groaned. "I'm afraid I opened with that, I barely let her say anything beforehand. What a terrible counselor I am."

"You're a great counselor, Ms. P," Quinn said firmly. Ms. Pillsbury peeked out from between her fingers to see the fierce look on Quinn's face, and she smiled behind her hands. There was no way Quinn would let Ms. Pillsbury think she was anything but magnificent. Quinn had never met a nicer, more sincere person in her entire life. All she wanted to do was help people. And, okay, maybe she wasn't a perfect counselor. But she did everything in her power to care for the kids at McKinley High. Quinn would never let Ms. P think that meant any less than it did.

"Thank you, Quinn," Ms. Pillsbury said softly, gratitude making her face glow. "And I suppose I can tell you, because it wasn't about her. She was asking about you, actually."

"About me?" Quinn repeated. Unease settled in her gut. What could that mean? "I don't know what you coulda told her, I'm not that interesting."

"I thoroughly reject that statement, Quinn, you are one of the most interesting people I know. And she was asking specifically about the time you broke Phillip Ritter's nose."

Quinn's feet slammed into the ground as they fell off the opposite chair in her haste to sit upright. "What? How did she know about that?"

Ms. Pillsbury shrugged. "Well I knew you hadn't told her, so I figured she heard it through the gossip grape vine. I'm sure it wasn't exactly kept on the 'down low' when it happened. Of course, I didn't tell her why it happened, it's an incident involving three students. Even if you had given me permission, I couldn't do that to the other two involved."

Quinn couldn't wrap her head around what Ms. P was telling her. "And you talked to her about this before school?"

"She showed up at 7:45 on the dot," Ms. Pillsbury confirmed, tilting her head. "Why?"

"Because if she knew about me breaking a kid's nose before our Spanish class, then-" Quinn trailed off, glaring at the table. That didn't make any sense. If Rachel knew she was violent without knowing why she'd punched Ritter, then why had she still wanted to be Quinn's friend? Rachel had no idea if Quinn's reaction had been justified. It had been, Ritter was a grade-A douchebag, but Rachel had no way of knowing he'd been attacking Mack in a hallway. Rachel was still pursuing friendship with a potential socio?

What was up with that girl…

"Quinn? What were you about to say?"

"Just that she's weird."

Ms. Pillsbury chuckled. "She certainly marches to the beat of her own drum, that's for sure. She's lucky enough that the people around her have started to march with her."

"She wouldn't have been so lucky if I'd ended up the popular one," Quinn said dryly.

"Oh? Do you think so?" Ms. P questioned, interested. Quinn could see her putting her counselor hat on, but Quinn didn't mind. It wasn't as if Ms. P would judge her about her one-week reign of terror and they'd discussed it briefly before.

"I kinda zeroed in on Rachel first week of freshman year, made her a target. Turns out she nearly ended up the loser of the school, until I bailed on the Queen Bee position. If I'd ended up Coach Sylvester's protégé, I'd have kept attacking her." Quinn tried to keep her voice neutral, but she was starting to actually feel guilty about the way she'd treated Rachel at the beginning of school, ever since the little troll had started following her around.

"Well, can I be the first to say that I'm very glad you are not Sue Sylvester's protégé, because I wouldn't even know what I'd be missing without you as a friend. And I suppose we'll never know what would have happened on that path. Either way I think that Rachel would have been unable to be anyone but herself, and she would have found a following no matter what."

Quinn laughed at this. "You know, Ms. P, you're probably right."

.

Rachel flew into glee club still basking in the success of her talk with Quinn. Most of the club was already there, and when Kurt and Mercedes saw her they both started waving their arms to get her to come over to them. Rachel walked over to them and was immediately hit with questions about what she'd found out about the nose-breaking Skank. Rachel felt bad that she didn't actually have much more information than they had. Her happiness wasn't about finding out about the mystery, it was about Quinn's forgiveness, but Kurt and Mercedes had no way of knowing this and had jumped to conclusions. Of course, they had decided what was making her happy was what would make them happy.

"So dish, girl, what happened," Kurt said, rising in his seat in his eagerness for a sweet piece of gossip.

"I'm sorry, Kurt, I don't have much to offer. Quinn was defending someone, apparently, but that's the only new information I gathered," Rachel replied with a helpless shrug.

Kurt and Mercedes both deflated. "Then what are you so dang chipper about?" Mercedes asked, looking her teammate up and down. It was clear to anyone who knew Rachel that she was coasting on some major happy waves.

"Quinn has forgiven me for my faux pas and I'm still allowed to pursue the friendship!" Rachel gushed, clasping her hands in front of her chest and bouncing on the balls of her feet.

"Allowed?" Kurt repeated. "What does that mean? This is sounding really weird Rachel."

"Yeah, like if she don't want to be your friend why are you trying so hard with her?" Mercedes wondered and Kurt nodded by her side.

"Because Rachel can't let things go," a voice from behind them growled.

All three glee club members looked toward the door, where Santana and Brittany were just entering. Rachel swallowed nervously, taking a step toward her friends. Santana raised a hand to stop her, clearly furious.

"No, Rach, this has gone too far. I don't know what you're getting out of this little show you've been putting on, but enough is enough. Quinn will never want to be your friend, or anyone's friend, and you trying so hard is just feeding into her ego. She isn't even nice to you, why are you torturing yourself? To prove that you can do it?"

"San," Brittany began, but Santana just shook her head, looking down at the floor with her arms crossed tightly over her chest.

"Not now, Britt. This has to be said."

"Santana, I think you're wrong," Rachel replied. "Quinn is really lonely, can't you see that? She just needs to be shown that people will put in the effort to be her friend, that they won't give up on her!"

"Like fuck!" Santana snarled, and everyone in glee turned their heads in alarm at the sheer anger in her voice. Rachel took a step back. She knew Santana, she had seen her mad, had seen her go on the attack, but she'd never seen her like this.

Brittany put a hand on Santana's shoulder, and the latina looked at her girlfriend for a moment before taking a shaky breath to calm herself. When she looked back at Rachel her eyes glittered with angry tears.

Rachel couldn't recall if she'd ever seen Santana truly cry before.

"Quinn Fabray doesn't give a fuck about anybody, and she doesn't want friends. What, do you think I just passively sat around when she decided to cut us out? Does that even remotely sound like me? I spent months chasing that girl around, and for what? Hundreds of ignored calls, ignored texts, hours spent trying to get her to answer the goddamn door of her creepy haunted mansion. There were fucking lights on and everything and she just ignored the doorbell like I was some Jehovah's Witness! I staked out her locker and she stopped using the damn thing. I just wanted to talk to her! Figure out what was going on in that messed up head of hers. All I got was glimpses of blonde hair as she hightailed it around corners away from me, and the porch light shut off when I mounted the stairs…"

Santana wiped her arm angrily across her eyes, glaring at anyone who dared show her a hint of sympathy. Brittany's face was long with sorrow, and she wrapped her arm around her girlfriend's shoulders. Santana leaned into Brittany's embrace. She leveled a glare at Rachel again, her face hard. "So tell me again, Rachel, how lonely she is. Tell me how much she needs friends. Because we sure as hell aren't good enough for her."

There was a drawn out silence in the entire club as they tried to process the reality of seeing Santana's vulnerable side, and it was finally cut when Brittany said softly, "I miss Quinn, I really do. But she was really mean and never replied to any of my letters. I even decorated them and everything. I don't know what we did wrong."

"We didn't do anything wrong," Santana said, giving Brittany a peck on the cheeks. "We did everything right and she still shat on us. So forgive me, Rachel, for not being entirely thrilled that you've decided to take up this one-man wild goose chase. You're gonna get hurt, mi hermana, and I don't want that for you. Please, Rach, just let it go."

Rachel walked resolutely up to Santana and wrapped her in a big hug. Santana accepted the embrace, putting her arms around her little friend and giving her a squeeze. If anyone else from the club had tried it she'd have kicked them so hard they'd have seen stars, but from Rachel it was alright. Rachel was her sister, after all.

But Santana knew that Rachel wasn't going to let it go. If she knew anything about Rachel, she knew the little firecracker couldn't give up on anything to save her life. Santana accepted it, with a sort of resigned annoyance at the diva. And she'd be there when Rachel couldn't crack the ice walls and came crying to Santana and Brittany. Rachel was her best friend, and she might throw in a few 'I told you so's, but she'd always be there for her. It just wasn't in Rachel's nature to quit.

And, as she suspected, when Rachel finally let her go she didn't say a word about stopping her crusade to be Quinn's friend, just took Santana's hand in her left and Brittany's in her right and walked them to their seats in the choir room.

Mr. Schuester chose that exact moment to come in. His office was directly connected to the glee club room, so it was more than likely he had heard the yelling. If it had been Finn or Puck, or even Rachel herself, Mr. Schue might have come in to see what was the matter and try to help calm the situation down. But it had been Santana Lopez and it was really better for everyone involved to just let Santana get it out of her system and calm back down.

Rachel didn't speak up for most of Glee. She didn't stay entirely quiet, because even deep in thought she simply couldn't, but Santana's tale of Quinn's rejection was a lot to take in. It was hard to understand. Rachel was sure she wouldn't unless she got the explanation from Quinn herself. But going from best friends to the type of ice-out that Santana had described, that took something drastic. Something must have happened that Santana and Brittany didn't know about, it was the only explanation.

Rachel had no idea what it could have been, and clearly none of the three involved were going to say anything about it. But Rachel had the sneaking suspicion that the answer to that question was the only way that any of this was going to get fixed. And maybe it had to do with why Quinn was the way she was. There was only one way to find out.

By the end of glee club Rachel, Santana and Brittany were back to normal, laughing and chatting and heading over to Santana's for Mrs. Lopez's famous after-school snacks, but each of them knew that this was far from over. It was going to be one more day of sweeping everything under the rug.

.

That night, Rachel got a text.

Heard you were asking questions about me.

It was from an unknown number, but Rachel instantly knew who it was. She'd given Quinn her cell weeks before, but Quinn had made a big show of crumpling the paper into a ball before throwing it in her bag, so Rachel had assumed she'd eventually have to give the girl her number again. Without asking confirmation first she saved the number as Quinn in her contacts. Quickly she texted back.

This is Quinn, yes? I do apologize, I was curious. I should have asked you, but with everything that happened I figured that I should make things right with us first, but I wanted to know. ~Rachel Barbra Berry

Rachel waited anxiously for a reply, playing a game of Solitaire on her phone until she was alerted to a new text at the top of her screen.

Ya okay Berry I get it. Wanted to know if your new obsession was a violent deviant, right?

Well I didn't think you were, but hearing about it did raise questions. ~Rachel Barbra Berry

Did you set your name to be at the end of all your text messages?

I did. ~Rachel Barbra Berry

Rachel, you know your name shows up at the top of the screen for every text right? Jeez, I can't believe Santana hasn't totally laughed you into another dimension.

I'm not allowed to text her anymore. ~Rachel Barbra Berry

Turn it off, Berry, I'm begging ya.

Fine, give me a second. ~Rachel Barbra Berry

There, is that better, Quinn?

Much much.

Well I'm glad to have pleased you. Can I ask you about the incident, then?

Mmm, depends on what you wanna know.

Well the logical question is WHY did you break Phil Ritter's nose.

Because he's a jerk.

Ms. Pillsbury implied that you were defending someone. What was he doing?

Being a jerk

Quinn that isn't an answer.

Yes it is. That's what you're getting, Rach. You don't really want to know.

Of course I do! Quinn, he is still going to our school. If it's serious I want to know!

There was a long pause between texts and Rachel was worried she'd scared Quinn off. She was about to apologize and tell Quinn to forget the whole thing when she got a text back.

Just don't be alone with him, Rachel.

That's ominous.

Yeah

Was he hurting someone?

Yeah

What was he doing? To who?

Rachel, come on. It's shitty.

Tell me

Another pause, but this time Rachel was sure that Quinn was going to reply. Finally:

He was feeling up a girl in the hallway. She didn't invite him to, so I punched him.

Rachel couldn't believe what she was reading, and yet it was what she had been dreading. She'd hoped it was something else, like he had been beating up a freshman. She could have sent Finn and Puck to sort him out. But this…

I don't blame you

You don't? Rachel Berry, are you condoning violence?

Yes.

... oh. kay.

He deserved what he got. I would have done the same in your position.

Ya, he deserved it.

I'm glad you were there to help that girl, Quinn.

k. see you tomorrow.

See you tomorrow, Quinn. Have a nice night.

Rachel didn't expect a reply, so she put her phone down. To her surprise a few moments later her phone buzzed. She picked it back up.

You too.

Rachel smiled.

At the start of this fic the plan was to be finished by the end of the last season, before I realized Fox had only ordered 13 episodes to finish up. I hadn't really been keeping up with Glee, I stopped being an avid watcher after season 3. The small order of episodes is not entirely a surprise since Glee has been horrible, but that being said I don't think this fic will be finished by the end. I'll be trying to keep the same pace that I've set, but school might get in the way. Thank you for your support!