I've had some really lovely, amazing reviews for this fic recently so I just had to dust it off and post some more. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me.

Chapter thirty-five: Things Would Be Easy If Life Didn't Get In The Way.

Rachel was rummaging through her 'Important documents' drawer when her phone beeped and she abandoned the hunt with a smile because only one person ever texted her.

Okay, make that two:

R u free at lunch today? Id realy like it if we cud meet up 2 discus some of this stuff. .

Don't you have to have lunch with Quinn? She was glad her surly tone couldn't carry through the message because she just couldn't help it. She'd been really enjoying having Quinn's undivided attention last night until she'd realized she hadn't been.

She went back to her task. For someone as organised as she was she was having terrible difficulty locating the necessary item.

A few minutes later another text came: I'll tell her I hav practice. She'll b happy abt it wen I no stuff :)

She had a sudden brainwave and typed out a text as she made her way to her closet. Okay. Bring the info-pack I gave you and we'll go through it.

There it was! In her tiny metal cash box along with her birth certificate, the hundred dollar bill Peter had given her for her sixteenth birthday and her autographed copy of Funny Girl – she really hadn't been lying to Quinn about how sacred it was to her.

She checked inside and nodded grimly; it should be more than enough.

Her phone beeped: Cool. Orditoryum. I'll bring snacks.

After sounding out the word a few times she smiled indulgently and sent back a quick: Auditorium, Finn :).

Oh, right. Wat did I say?

I have no idea, but it was aesthetically pleasing at least.

What?

She didn't even have to ask: Aesthetically. It means attractive to the eye.

Oh, so like pretty? Like you :)

She blushed, because well who wouldn't? More like Quinn, I suspect.

Um, yeah, I mean, obviusly I think Quinn's pretty too

This was getting weird, but she couldn't find it in herself to stop: So you don't think she's prettier than me?

Well, do u think she's more pretty than me? She barely had time to read the text before it was followed up with: Asstheticlly I mean, I Think. I don't know . . . I totally think you're pretty$

She laughed as she replied: You are both outstanding specimens of your individual genders.

There was a knock at her door. "Leaving in ten, Baby-girl!"

"Coming!"

I have to go, Finn, but I'll see you at lunch if not before.

K, by Rach.

Relocking her cash box, she put everything back where she'd found it, minus the little blue book, and finished getting ready. She was just about to leave the room when her phone beeped again. What did he want now? Rushing as she was, she almost didn't bother checking but that would be rude.

I have to go to Breadstix with San and Britt after school, so I'm going to blow Finn off at lunch. Want to meet in our spot or do you think that's too risky? If not, dress appropriately because it's cold today x light of that, I'm retracting my lunch invitation if you forget my coat ;)

Fudge! Why today of all days? She was already wearing a yellow turtle neck sweater and a bright multicolored scarf because, hello, her neck was still a mess, but she raced back to her bedroom anyway for a lighter jacket to wear under her winter coat. She didn't know if she too was going to blow Finn off yet – his reasons for meeting were rather important after all – but it didn't hurt to be prepared.

Staring at Quinn's message, not knowing what to say back, she barely noticed her Daddy holding the door open for her as she swept outside to the car.

"Something good?" he asked, starting the engine as she absently set the coat she had to return to Quinn on her lap and her bag on the floor.

"Yes and no." And with a sigh, sent:

I'll speak to you in class x

Well, that was . . . something.

Quinn frowned as she stared at the ambiguous reply and then, with a shake of her head set her phone down with her folders to re-screw the cap on the orange juice and place it back in the refrigerator. How many times had Rachel wanted to spend lunch with her and now she was offering all she got was . . . nothing.

Was Rachel still upset about last night? And if so, why exactly? It wasn't unusual to be texting two people at the same time. On plenty of evenings she used to hold simultaneous text conversations with Santana, Brittany, various other Cheerios and Finn and no one had ever gotten cranky over it.

Still, she stood lost in thought trying to think up ways to make up for it. If Rachel would just meet her for lunch she could think of a few places to start. All above the shoulders obviously. It was risky. Meeting on school grounds in regular school hours was dangerous, but they'd never been caught there before and seriously how many more times could they be walked in on; they had to have had their share of bad luck in that capacity by now.

So half the battle was just getting her alone at lunch and then her lips could do the rest to make sure Rachel was no longer mad at her. There was that one spot, high on her neck, that had made Rachel's hips roll in the most beautifully intoxicating way yesterday . . .

"Crawford County Fair, 1999."

The unexpected voice made her spin to it, her blush deepened and the kitchen floor couldn't open up fast enough to swallow her.

Her Dad was smiling indulgently as he gestured to the fridge. "You were . . . six or seven and so scared to ride that big, black pony? Do you remember? You kept saying you wanted to ride a plastic one instead – like the kind on a carousel – but you did it anyway providing I walked all the way around the ring with you. And afterwards you said . . ."

"I can do anything if you're there, Daddy," she remembered softly, turning back to a photo pinned to the refrigerator door beneath a 'Jesus Forgives You' magnet.

It had been there so long – probably ever since they'd moved into the house – that she didn't even notice it anymore. It showed her sitting proudly on, what had seemed at the time, a massive black pony with a white blaze. She had one hand clinging to the reins and the thick mane and her other hand was on her Dad's shoulder (clinging to that just as tightly, she remembered, although it didn't look like that on camera). She was grinning hard and sweating beneath the hard hat they'd given her which had been a little too small for her fat head. Frannie, not quite a teenager but with all the attitude of one already, was off to the side, bawling her eyes out because she'd gotten green cotton candy fused to her perfect blonde hair.

Quinn smiled. "Sometimes I miss being that young."

"Me too, you're growing up too fast for my taste."

Wasn't that the truth? He'd said it gently, but it just brought everything rushing back to her and, clearing her throat awkwardly, she changed the subject.

"Santana and Brittany have invited me to Breadstix after Glee practice. Is it okay if I miss dinner tonight?"

"Of course, Honey. They're nice girls. You should spend as much time as you can with your real friends."

"Thank you, Daddy." She moved around the table to kiss him on the cheek. "I should get to school."

"No more skipping classes, no more detentions, Quinn," he said, his voice taking on the stern quality of the fire-and-brimstone preachers he'd grown up listening to.

"I promise."

"And if that Berry girl gives you any more trouble today I want you to report it to Principal Figgins."

"Um, okay. I will." Flustered all over again, she grabbed her folders from the table and her bag from the floor and ran out of the kitchen."See you tonight."

She was almost sure Rachel was going to give her some trouble today, but she doubted it was anything she couldn't handle herself.

Russell watched his daughter run out of the room with a smile and then glanced at the kitchen clock. She was cutting it fine but it warmed him that she'd taken the time to reminisce with him for a few minutes.

Lucy had always been . . . difficult, to a degree. Frannie had been such an easy child, right from birth, and he and Judy had always expected their second to be the same, but she'd proved them wrong at every turn. It was why, in many respects, she was his favorite – not that he'd ever voice that out loud of course, even to Judy. But Lucy's challenging ways had always pleased him. God had broken the mould when he'd made her, that was for sure.

Quinn's challenging ways didn't please him as much, but High School had even made Frannie a little testing and he'd assumed that was just the lot of being a father to teenage girls. Quinn though . . . he'd once harboured secret dreams that Lucy would make more of herself than a wife and mother, but with Quinn . . . well, he was starting to hope that being a wife and mother was all she might aspire to after all.

The front door slammed behind her and he busied himself making a final cup of coffee so that he would be ready to head to work by the time Judy came down and complained about the unnecessary noise, but as he turned to the counter he saw Quinn's cell-phone on the table.

"Hey, Honey!" He was only two steps towards the front door when he heard her car start up with a roar and realised he would never make it out to the driveway in time.

Instead he set it by the coffee maker so that she would see it when she came home.

"So you said you'd speak to me in class," Quinn murmured.

Rachel's fingers tightened around the bumpy stem of her bedazzled pen. "Mmhmm. Do you think Huckleberry knew what he was getting into when he set out on that raft?"

"Rachel."

"I am speaking to you in class."

"Rachel!"

She sighed, "I'm not sure about lunch. Maybe it is too risky."

Quinn doodled a love heart on her pad. "You're right, but I'm sick of meeting in bathrooms."

"We don't have to have a secret rendezvous every day, Quinn."

"What does that mean?"

"Nothing! Just that we could skip today, if necessary and make plans for tomorrow evening instead."

Quinn doodled on her pad some more – another heart and then a little frowny face – before writing down a couple of essay ideas. Rachel was a little peeved to see they were better ideas than she'd come up with so far.

"Do you not want to spend lunch with me? Is this about last night?"

Okay, that was actually two separate issues, sort of, and she decided to tackle the first one first.

"It's not that I don't want to. I do want to."

"Then what's stopping you? We can go to the Geometry Room on second. Nobody even goes there for class, let alone at lunch. It'll be warm, I can lock the door behind us."

And now they were dealing with three separate issues, sort of. "It's not the location."

"Then what?"

There was really no getting out of this. "Finn."

"No, he's fine," Quinn promised. "I didn't even get a chance to blow him off. He has an extra practice anyway so . . . Why are you looking at me like that?"

"He doesn't have an extra practice."

"Yes he does. How would you know?"

"I can't meet you at lunch, Quinn."

"Why?" She saw the exact second it sunk in, the widening of Quinn's eyes, the distasteful curling of her lips, the volume of her voice, "WHAT?"

"What's going on over there?" Mr. Laxforth barked, "If you two start . . ."

Quinn quickly held her hand up, placatingly. "Sorry, Sir, we're fine. You know Berry and her outlandish ideas."

"I am not outlandish," Rachel muttered when everyone had stopped looking at them.

"You are if you're saying what I think you're saying."

"He just wants to meet to discuss the pregnancy pack I gave him. That's a good thing."

"Yeah, whatever, tell him something came up."

"I can't."

"Yes you can."

Rachel sighed again, "Fine, I won't." Quinn gaped at her. "He needs to know this stuff! You need him to know this stuff."

"You know everything I need anyone to know!"

That felt good, really good, but it didn't change anything. She wanted to say it out loud, but the words wouldn't come, so she wrote them on her pad instead.

I'm not the one who should know this stuff though. Am I?

Quinn drew some more on her pad, half heart, half slashing cross marks. Rachel tried not to read too much into them.

"I'll always be here, knowing it all," she murmured, "but he should know it too, unless . . ."

She was cut off, "Yeah, fine, you're right, whatever. Meet him at lunch. I'll find something else to do."

"Quinn . . ."

"Conversation's over, Berry."

She nodded and glanced at the clock; they still had another twenty-five minutes. That should be comfortable! She rolled her eyes and figured why not press on while they were already in the midst of the difficult stuff.

"That text you sent last night."

"Wasn't meant for you," Quinn said shortly.

"That doesn't mean I can unsee it!" She paused, because she knew she was betraying trust here, but surely this was more important. "Finn let slip that his first week's wages wouldn't cover the bill."

Quinn went very still beside her, except for her pen that quivered between her fingers. Finally, she ground out, "It has to."

"It won't."

"It's still not your problem."

"How long do you think you have, Quinn? Before they call your house? And they'll call during office hours so it's highly unlikely you'll be there to intercept the call the way you have the mail."

"Stop it."

"I have enough to cover it in my savings account. And I brought my bank book with me. Tell Santana and Brittany you'll meet them at Breadstix and let's go to my bank first."

Quinn's mouth opened and closed a few times and then she scrawled on her pad, If you're not the one who should know this, you're not the one who should be footing the bill either!

"You could always make me that person," she muttered.

"What? Oh my God, I know we've joked about it but now you're actually trying to blackmail me into being with you?"

"What, no!" People looked over, Mr. Laxforth among them. Rachel held her hand up and pre-empted them all. "Sorry, Quinn just has some really insane notions about race relations in the nineteen hundreds."

"Did you just call me a racist?" Quinn muttered angrily once they were left alone again.

"No, I called you insane. Which is much milder than you calling me a manipulative blackmailer!"

"What else am I supposed to think?"

"You're supposed to think that I . . . that I care about you a great deal and that you're my best friend and I would do anything, altruistically, to make your life easier."

Quinn shook her head. "Thank you, but I can't and won't take your money when I don't know if I'll ever be able to pay it back."

"I don't expect you to pay me back!"

"My answers no, Rachel. But thank you for offering."

She slumped back in her chair and now she was doodling, little stars and musical notes. It usually made her feel better, but it wasn't working now. She understood Quinn's pride but that didn't stop it from being really stupid. Quinn needed the money, she had the money, surely it was a no brainer.

"So what are you going to do? Wait for the clinic to call your house?"

Quinn stiffened again but didn't say anything.

"That would be one way to inform your parents, I suppose, seeing as you don't want to do it yourself."

"Shut up!"

Rachel did so, staring instead at the tiny circle she was drawing over and over on her page in an effort to not start crying. She wasn't one hundred percent successful, but Quinn didn't soften for a second beside her.

"Do you have the phone number for Breadstix?" Brittany asked out of the blue.

It was recess and Santana had been beckoned into a janitor's closet by Puck so she and Brittany were alone on the bench in the quad. In some kind of paradox, she was used to spending one-on-one time with Brittany, but she never got used to it.

"Yeah, I think I do." Quinn started digging through her bag for her phone.

"Cool. I want to call and make sure they have enough bread sticks for Santana." At Quinn's look, she added, "What? She lives for those bread sticks. Wouldn't you do the same for Manhands if she really wanted something like that?"

Quinn balked, "Brittany!"

"Sorry, I meant Rachel. I know you don't like me calling her that. It's just habit, you know?"

"No! You can call her what you like. I just meant . . . me and Berry aren't like you and San."

"I know that, silly." Quinn sighed in relief. "Santana and I are just friends who do it now and again. We're not super serious like you and Rachel."

Quinn went cold. And hot. And then just blank for a few seconds. "We're not . . . We don't . . . I mean, Rachel and I, we're not . . ."

Brittany smirked, "If you could actually talk right now it would be more convincing; just saying."

All hope was lost, leaving Quinn only one option. "It's complicated. We don't . . . we don't do anything!" Only almost sometimes. "You can't tell anyone!"

Her friend shrugged, "I really don't get why you're so worried about people knowing. So you like her, so what? Just because someone's a loser who dresses like a chimp who got dressed in the dark, it doesn't mean they can't be good at sex, right?"

The worst part of something that was already this wrong was the way Brittany believed in what she was saying so much she wasn't even bothering to lower her voice or be discreet in any way.

"B, shut up!" she hissed, already bright red and eyes darting around to see if anyone was close enough to eavesdrop. "We are not having sex."

"Why not?"

"I don't know, because we don't want to maybe?" Quinn shrugged, trying to convey the very idea that they might want to was ridiculous. "I have enough complications to deal with at the moment without adding to it."

"Like what?"

"Like I'm pregnant."

"With Rachel's baby," Brittany nodded. "Shouldn't that make it easier?"

"No, Britt! Rachel's a girl, she can't get anyone pregnant."

"But I thought she was a tranny."

"She is not! And that word is offensive! We shouldn't use it anymore."

"Okay." Brittany pulled a banana from her bag and peeled it.

Quinn twiddled her thumbs until she'd taken the first bite. "Uh, I don't suppose you know the difference between transvestite and transexual, do you?"

Brittany hmm'd around her mouthful, swallowed, and then said, "I don't think so. Should I?"

Quinn sighed, "Probably."

She never did finish looking for her phone.

Lunch arrived and Rachel had no idea why she felt so nervous and paranoid as she walked to the auditorium. After all, Quinn knew she was meeting Finn and had given her blessing, even if she wasn't happy about it, so she had no reason to look over her shoulder every two minutes.

She did anyway.

She came in through the main doors and noticed, for the first time, how extremely dark the House was when none of the overhead lights were turned on. In contrast the stage was lit by one wide spotlight and she made her way down the steps to it.

She smiled when Finn looked up and only gulped when she was close enough to see what he'd done.

A blue and grey checked blanket was spread out under the spotlight beam. On it were various open tupperware tubs. Set to the side was a bottle in an ice bucket and Finn plucked it out as she slowly walked up the steps to the stage.

"It's non-alcoholic," he promised as he unscrewed the cap and filled two blue solo cups.

"Finn . . ." She had no follow up.

"I know you like having picnics on the stage," he shrugged. "I just wanted to make you feel comfortable."

Oh Barbra, he'd managed to do the exact opposite.