Quinn jumped at the sound of the door slamming, feeling almost as if she was waking up from herself. She stood there, her back barely a foot away from the door, trying to get her breathing under control. She finally gave in to what the burn in her eyes and tickle of her throat were warning her of, and found herself crying. Crying in the middle of the apartment building hallway, where anyone could come by and see her, and see how freaking pathetic it was because she was crying over Santana, a pretend wife who would never be the real thing.

She startled when she heard a sound elsewhere in the hallway, irrationally thinking that it was somehow Santana, even though that would have required her to have an ability to move through solid walls, and Santana wasn't Kitty Pryde. No, Santana was in the unit behind her, and the thing that she was supposed to do, the thing that she knew she was supposed to do, was turn back around, open the door, sit down silently on the couch, or take up residence in the bathroom, or bedroom, or alcove Santana pretended was an office, do something other than what she was currently doing now, and that was walking away.

Have you ever done something that you knew you were going to regret even as you did it, but you did it anyway because you just couldn'tnotdo it? That's how Quinn felt as, too impatient to wait for the elevator, she decided to take the stairs down, almost stumbling in her blind haste to put as much distance from her own words as much as Santana. She was moving unthinkingly, until she was out of the building, and standing on the sidewalk, looking around for a car that wasn't there, not remembering until that exact moment that Santana had picked her up from work on Friday so her car was still sitting uselessly in front of her own apartment building, and not where she needed it to be right now. At least she had remembered her purse.

Quinn walked until she found the closest bus stop, and sat on the bench to wait for the next bus. Quinn liked public transportation. In Lima, of course she wouldn't have been caught dead riding the bus, but in the city, a city who had possibly the worst drivers in the entire country, Quinn definitely liked public transportation. When she first moved to Boston, she'd worn sweats on the bus, carried a change of clothes and her purse in her book bag, and changed at work out of fear of getting mugged or harassed. That had lasted two months, and then she got over herself. If she was going to live in this city, she was going to be in the city, and she wasn't going to allow herself to be afraid of it.

Today, though, it seemed like everyone in Boston knew about her transactions, and wanted to stay clear of her, because there was no one else to wait with her, to distract her with idle conversations or insane ramblings by old military vets that had gone mad over being forgotten by the country that they had once served. There was no one but her, so while she waited all she heard was their fight playing in her ears. Her words. She wasn't wrong, she didn't feel as if she was wrong about Russell. She wasn't. There weren't words enough to describe how lonely it was, what it felt like to grow up feeling uncared for, and unloved, and unworthy.

It was her right not to want that same negativity back in her life. Yeah, she had invited him to the wedding, but she didn't expect for him to be in her life any more than that. The wedding should have been enough. She didn't want some sort of reconciliation with this man; she wanted it to all go away and look forward to her future, not be stuck in her past. So, no, she wasn't wrong, but she shouldn't have called Santana a bitch either, not like that anyway. She shouldn't have told her to fuck off. God, things were so much easier when you could just solve your problems with the expedient of a hand slap. You could get away with such things in high school, college too, but things like that in the adult world fell into the category of domestic altercations and assault, and Quinn wasn'tthat.

No, just the same vicious, angry, unsatisfied girl from high school that still believed that vengeance was hers because she had been picked on. That being bullied gave her the right to be a bully. She had blamed Santana for something that wasn't even her fault, and then continued to be angry at her because she had found love with someone who wasn't her. As much as she tried to rid herself of the guilt of her childhood self, she never stopped regretting the things that she had done to Santana; never stopped wondering what they could have had if things had been entirely different between the two of them.

And for that, too, she blamed Russell. How could Santananotunderstand that? The answer came to her unwillingly in the form of a memory from senior year. All of the Glee kids were sitting around in a circle while the Irish kid, Patrick? (she could never remember his name) tasted peanut butter for the first time, and then they went around the circle saying what they were most looking forward to in life. Quinn's want: graduating at the top of her class from Yale. Santana's: being loved by her family, specifically her grandmother. Quinn's cultural upbringing made people expendable; Santana's didn't.

But it wasn't her fault that Santana and her grandmother were at odds with each other, or that her grandmother rejected her. Her grandmother rejecting her had absolutely nothing to do with Russell coming to the wedding. It Santana's abuela had wanted to come, and Santana didn't want her there, Quinn wouldn't have attempted to make her invite her abuela. Russell washerfather, andshegot to decide whether or not he was allowed to be there. It was that simple.

She wanted to go upstairs and tell Santana it was that simple, and she wanted Santana to understand that. She wanted Santana to care about her enough to understand how vulnerable being around Russell made her. But of course Santana didn't understand her, because Santana didn't care enough to want to understand her; Santana just wanted to have sex. She didn't kid herself; they had gotten married for no reason, whatsoever, other than that bet. It had been impulsive, stupid, kind of childish, and it was done. They were done.

It took two hours for her to get back to her apartment. The bus had taken another 30 minutes to come, and then she'd just kind of ridden it to the end of the line before she transferred to the bus that would take her to her-she was starting to realize that she couldn't really sayher-apartment. When she opened the door, the first thing she came across were Santana's shoes two feet away from it. On the coffee table, an InStyle Magazine was open to the last page she'd read. In the kitchen, Santana's handwriting was on the fridge in a reminder of what should be bought on their next shopping trip,CHEEZ ITS, bold and triple underlined because Quinn had talked her into getting the Trader Joe brand cheese crackers last trip, and apparently those weren't good enough.

In the bathroom, Santana had her product mixed in with Quinn's, her hair brush in the drawer beside hers, her toothbrush and toothpaste on the counter. None of it was purchased, all just moved over to Quinn's place, and duplicates filled their spots at Santana's. The fact that Quinn would have to rescue her own things from Santana's place, now, and would have to pack up Santana's, made her glad that they had never discussed actually moving in with each other.

Quinn quickly decided that she couldn't stand to be in her apartment any longer, so she got dressed, decided to put on a sensible pair of heels even though she'd knew that her back would be whining by the end of the night, and decided to go out on the town. Destination: Jamaica Plain.

"Why the fuck do bars always seem to play the most depressing music known to man?"

It was meant to be rhetorical, but it was said out loud, and the bartender considered her words. "Because usually the people that come into bars are busy drinking away their troubles? What'll it be for you tonight, angel?"

Quinn got comfortable on the stool. "Give me a shot of Rum, and I'll take anything that's not pink, fruity, or tequila, to drink." Scotch was generally Quinn's drink of choice (she took after her dad in that regard), but at the moment she didn't want anything to remind her of her father, or Santana. At the mere thought of her name she had to resist the urge to check her cell phone to see if she called (she hadn't) or maybe sent a text (she didn't).

The woman behind the bar smiled at her, "I'll fix you up a black widow," she decided as she sat the shot in front of her. "Since you're drinking rum."

Quinn quickly downed it. "Sounds deadly."

The bartender winked at her. "Isn't that the point?" Quinn's eyes moved in quiet appraisal of the woman. She was tall, like taller than that blonde bitch that was lip locking with her wife, and skinny. She had strong, thick arms, and she was sure that she was packing a six-pack beneath her blouse. Quinn felt herself strangely aroused by her. "So what are you drinking away, tonight?"

Quinn pointed a finger down at the bar. "Can't a girl just have a drink without there being something wrong?"

"Sure, she can," the woman agreed, "but if they did, I would have been put out of business a long time ago." She gave Quinn an appraising look. "You look like you're new to the rodeo. First time in a gay bar, sweetie?"

Quinn quickly shook her head, leaning in closer. "This isn't even my first time in a gay bartonight," she whispered, as if it were both a secret, and a great accomplishment. Sure, prior to the bar/club that she'd been at before coming here, she had never been to a gay club, but this chick didn't need to know that. And what was with the assumption anyway? Did Quinn look too straight to go to a gay bar? Santana was one of the most not-lesbian looking girls that she knew, and she couldn't evendrivestraight.

"No?" Her drink was placed in front of her. "Let me guess; you just come from the Machine?"

Quinn eagerly pulled her drink closer to her, marveling at the way the two colors sat on top of each other for a second before taking a tentative drink. Rum. She ordered another shot.

Quinn nodded. "How'd you know?"

"It's Second Saturday with Dyke Night so all the partying les' come out in full effect."

"That'swhy there were so many people," Quinn said with a nod. "Too many people there for me." She waved a hand around. "This, this is nice."

The bartender went to check on the other people sitting at the bar. Quinn finished half of her drink before she came back. "I'm Kelsi," the woman offered.

"Luce," Quinn replied.

Kelsi noticing that Quinn's shot glass was empty, offered to get her another one. Almost immediately after Quinn nodded, a fresh shot was sat in front of her. "So what are you? Bi, bi-curious, happily married but looking for a unicorn to complete your triad?"

Quinn frowned because unicorns made her think of Brittany, and thinking of Brittany made her want to punch things. And drink. "What's a unicorn?" she demanded.

"A unicorn is a mythical creature; it doesn't exist. It's the perfect woman, one who would be happy being the third in a poly relationship, who cooks, and cleans, and takes care of the kids, and pretty much makes herself available for sex whenever you want without making any demands for herself."

The description alone made Quinn want to puke. "Um…no."

Kelsi held up a finger, before working down the bar to a woman who was very desperately trying to get her attention.

"I'm not new," Quinn practically screamed at Kelsi when she got back. It wasn't intentional, it's just that she had been practicing her talking while she was away, and she was eager to speak her mind. "To the rodeo," she clarified. "I've been sleeping with women for more than nine years." So what if it was the same woman, it counted. She hadexperience

"Hunh," Kelsi said, clearly surprised. "Sorry. You just kind of scream closeted."

Quinn proudly knocked back her drink, in an attempt to forget the coming out cupcakes Santana had made for her. "Well, I'm not. I'm even married to a woman. Well, I married a woman…was once married to a woman."

Quinn decided right there that she had done enough talking, so she slid off of her barstool and went walked to the back of the place to join the women dancing on the floor. Quinn hadn't done much dancing over the recent years. The last time that counted was the week she went back to Lima to say good-bye to Glee Club; and since then there was that very rare trip to a club or bar during college, and then every time afterwards was at office parties. She didn't know what was 'current', didn't even know if 'current' was a word people even still used. She didn't know any of the latest dance steps. But she didn't care. She had been drinking dance moves for the past half hour, and she was ready to let them out. She moved to the center of the floor, and gave it her best.

Despite her less than stellar moves, she had partners. Women, attractive women, women who she had never met, and she hadn't spent her whole high school experience and most of her life knowing, came up to her, and wanted to dance. Quinn considered herself to be bi solely because of Santana; other than that brain malfunction in the name of Rachel Berry, she had never really thought of any other female attractive in that way. Sure she knew when a woman looked good, but she had never really looked at other women and thought that they would look good in connection to her. But there was one that was all dark hair, and sexy lips, that she couldn't seem to take her eyes off of, and she was pleasantly pleased that the same held true for her.

Quinn came off of the floor when she got tired, surprised that her seat at the bar was still unoccupied. She sat down gratefully in it. Kelsi started mixing her drink before her bum had hit wood.

"Can I buy you a drink?"

Quinn almost jumped at the feel of warm breath at her ear. She was surprised (and a little aroused) by the boldness of it. She turned and was unsurprised-but still thrilled- to see it was the girl from the dance floor. The one with the dark hair.

"Depends," Quinn replied, "what's it going to cost me?"

The woman bit her lip, as if she were thinking about it. "How 'bout a smile, for starters?"

It was automatic, Quinn found herself smiling. Two seconds later, another Black Widow was placed in front of her. The woman pointed at Quinn's drink, "Be sure to add that to my tap, Kels."

Kelsi nodded, and walked off. Dark hair sat/leaned in the seat beside Quinn, her arm resting on the back of Quinn's barstool. "So what brings you out here tonight? I don't think I've seen you before."

Quinn scoffed but it was more flirtatious then derisive. "That's not very original."

"It's JP, I don't have to be: it's a small dyke world. We all know each other, and I know I've never seen you around."

Quinn's response was interrupted by her phone buzzing against the counter. It was a text. From Santana. Her heart raced as she took in the very short message.Are you coming home?She was momentarily happy by the text because the words alone suggested that Santana was thinking about her, and that she would be welcomed back when she got there. That happiness quickly soured when she realized what would await her when she got back to the apartment; the reason she'd left in the first place. That going back to Santana's would only serve as a bitter reminder of how much this wasn't working. Maybe the real reason that all they had done so far in their marriage was fight with each other was because they weren'tsupposedto be together, not even for a short amount of time. Maybe they just weren't meant to be anything other than what they had been to each other. After all they had been having sex for nine years, nine years! For one brief moment maybe Quinn had actually believed what Santana suggested: that there was a reason that they kept coming back to each other, but maybe that was just great sex.

"Who's that?" the woman questioned, an eyebrow quirked. She leaned forward a little.

"My wife."

Quinn was surprised to see the smile deepen on the woman's face. Her arm moved slightly closer to Quinn's back. "What's she want?"

Quinn looked away from the phone and to the woman. "To know if I'm coming home."

Boldly, the woman's other hand lightly stroked at the top of the hand Quinn had around her glass. "Are you?"

Quinn found herself smiling back at the smile the woman gave her. "Not right now," she answered.

Their eye contact was broken by a sudden shout of "Jenna!" and the woman, apparently Jenna, turned to see who it was. Apparently it was another lover, or a friend, based on her reaction. Jenna on her feet apparently was sexier than Jenna on the bar stool. She was wearing an ensemble that was slightly more butch than Quinn preferred (as much as Quinn and Santana joked about either of them being butch, they were both very femme), but Quinn quickly decided that that was okay. After all, she let Santana top her every now and then.

Jenna turned back to her, laying a possessive arm back on Quinn's chair. It wasn't so loud that she needed to lean in quite so close, either, but Quinn didn't mind. She'd never realized before just how easy it was to pick up a girl.

"You want to dance?" she was asked. She meant to say yes, but her back was killing her, and she didn't want to have to get back up on her feet so soon, so she said no regretfully, but did it in a way that suggested that the seat beside her would remain open. Jenna gave her a wink. "It better be," she teased. Before Jenna was pulled to the back, she caught Kelsi's attention. "Make sure she gets whatever she wants. I'll be back in a few, babe, don't go anywhere."

Kelsi came and stood in front of Quinn. "'Nother drink?" she questioned.

Quinn nodded. A minute later she had a luminescent green drink in front of her. She had made good headway on it when Kelsi came back to check on her. "Looks like you made a friend."

Quinn grin stupidly. "I might have."

Kelsi made a show at wiping down the bar counter. "You don't want to go home with her," Kelsi said casually. Quinn was pretty sure she did. She was just beautiful; her dark hair even had those little tight curls that Santana's hair had when she didn't blow it out.

Kelsi wiped an experienced hand over the bar. "Trust me on that. She pretty much sleeps around with anything that walks through the bar wearing a skirt, and she's not too clean with it, if you catch me."

If she hadn't mentioned the girls' hygiene, Quinn probably wouldn't have backed off, but the idea alone was enough to have her taking a long gulp of her drink to try to wash the imagined taste out of her mouth.

"But I need to go home with someone," Quinn said, and it could have been to herself, or to Kelsi, or to the little ant that was making its way across the bar counter. "That's why I'm here!" Quinn wanted to feel wanted and desired and so far Jenna had done that. She was sure that if she were to strut back onto the dance floor, she'd have Jenna's attentions in two seconds flat. Quinn didn't really care about tomorrow, all she cared about was tonight.

"What's your wife going to think about that?" Kelsi, the buzzkill, questioned.

"If she actually cared about me, she might care, but she doesn't. It's not even a real marriage. I mean, yeah, we really got married, but it's just for show, you know?" Quinn frowned, filling her eyes well. Damn it, she wasn't the crying drunk. That was Santana. She was the angry drunk. She actually tried to summon angry drunk Quinn, as if it were a hulk personality. Anything to keep herself from crying. "You don't want to hear this," Quinn realized. No one wanted to hear about her problems. She was alone.

Kelsi flashed her a smile that was filled with teeth that weren't perfectly straight, and weren't perfect, but somehow formed a near perfect smile. "I don't want to hear half the story's that people tell me, but I'm a bartender; it's like being a therapist. And sides, the more you talk, the more you drink, the more you drink, the more money the bar makes, the more I work. See how that goes? Can I give you a refill?"

Quinn nodded. Still smiling, Kelsi placed another drink in front of her. Quinn must have had a lot of alcohol in her system because she couldn't taste any in this new drink. "So talk."

"I yelled at her," Quinn blurted. Kelsi was very good at talking with drunks because she didn't even bat an eyelash. "I mean, I was right, about what I was saying. See she wanted to invite my dad to the reception, and I don't want him to be there because he really hurt me when I was a kid, you know?"

"Because you were gay?"

"Bi, and no," Quinn quickly dismissed. "I didn't think he knew about that, well it turns out he did know about that, but that's not why he was mean; he's mean because he's a bastard and I wasn't good enough for him."

"Was he abusive?" she questioned gently.

Quinn almost recoiled from the word alone. It was such an ugly word. "He never hit me or anything, never like verbally attacked me, outright, no, but he did other things. You know suggest that I not eat a second roll, because I didn't want to get any more rolls. I was a fat kid. And he'd always be on me, about my weight, about my posture, about who I was friends with, how I came across. It was all about appearance, all about the family name. When I was in high school I got pregnant, and he kicked me out of the house. I could have been living out on the streets for all he cared, and now the wife wants him to just be part of the family like none of that happened, just because he said he wants to be there."

"Hesaid he wants to be there?"

Quinn nodded. "As if that changes anything!"

Kelsi had to tend to a couple of rowdy college kids, a couple, and a few solos like herself. It was a half an hour before she made it back down to where Quinn was to refill her drink. The new drink tasted even less alcoholic than the one before it, and she wasn't feeling her buzz quite as much. Jenna came and checked on her in that time frame, being flirty, but Quinn decided that she couldn't take Kelsi's warning about her.

"It doesn't change anything," Kelsi walked up saying. Quinn was surprised that she'd remembered the conversation, much less was able to pick it up from where they last left it. "She should understand that just because he's coming around, doesn't mean that it gets rid of everything that happened."

"Exactly!" Quinn said eagerly, because finally someone got it. Her wife couldn't, but this stranger in the bar could. That spoke volumes. "He really messed me up; like what kind of parent does that?"

"Not a good one," Kelsi said.

Quinn nodded in agreement. "I would be such a better person, if it wasn't for him." This was said mostly to herself. "He ruined me."

"You don't look very ruined," Kelsi said kindly.

"I got screwed up so bad, I can't even have a real relationship." Her marriage had lasted all of a few weeks, and she was just going to do just as bad the next time around. She wasn't the type of girl to get the Happily Ever After. She was like the packages that were underneath storefront Christmas displays: beautifully packaged, but never taken home.

"Hey, so I was thinking," Kelsi said the next time she came around. "Like your wife was totally wrong for not understanding about your dad, totally. I was just thinking, though, like you say that your dad messed you up as an adult because of how things were when you were a kid right?" Quinn nodded, that was right. "Well, I was thinking, what ifhisparents messed him up as a kid, too, you know? And he's just been trying to repair himself, too?" Kelsi kind of shrugged. "Just a thought."

The next time Jenna came back, she insisted on dancing, and it'd been awhile so Quinn got up, and pretended that her feet weren't achy and her back wasn't sore. She was actually starting to feel her age a little: she wasn't so young anymore. "So what would your wife say if I said that I'd really like to take you home?"

In the dim lighting it was hard to really see things clearly. She couldn't even tell what color eyes the girl had, but what did that matter. "Must be a good thing that I don't intend to tell her," Quinn shot back.

Jenna's hand went around her waist. "I'm going to make you feel so good, you won't even remember her name," Jenna promised. "Just let me say good-bye to my friends and we can get out of her, okay?"

It was the first moment that Quinn had a moment of pause, but then she shrugged it all off. "More like I'm going to make you feel so good that you're going to forgetyourname?"

Quinn could tell that she liked her cheeky response. While Jenna went off in search of her friends, Quinn made her way back to the bar to settle her tab.

"Hey, I'm going to go, now. Thanks for listening."

Kelsi gave a nod she probably gave a hundred times a night. "Any time, Luce. You leaving with Jenna?"

Quinn shrugged a shoulder. "Why not?" she chuckled. "That's why I came. Find someone to take home."

Kelsi nodded, just as casual as Quinn. "What about me?" Quinn was…not expecting that. "We close at 1:00, it takes me about half an hour to close the bar. Shouldn't be too long." She reevaluated the woman. She looked absolutely nothing like her wife. Jenna was the perfect choice for a one-nighter of the kind that she used to have with Santana, but Kelsi had kinder eyes. Kelsi wouldn't kick her out of the bed after they had sex. Not that that was a good thing.

A hand slipped around her waist as she was trying to decide. "Hey, babe, ready to get out of here?"

Quinn gave a quick glance at Kelsi, and wondered if she was about to regret this. She pulled out of Jenna's grasp. "Hey, sorry, something just came up, I can't. But if you want to, next time…"

Jenna swore. "Are you kidding? I shelved out more than $50 bucks in drinks for you…married bitches!" She stormed off.

Kelsi sat a drink in front of her. "Don't feel bad about it, she'll find someone on her way to her cab. I'd bet on it."

Quinn sipped on the drink in front of her. "What's mixed in this?" she finally demanded. "I can hardly taste the alcohol in this!"

"It's cranberry juice," Kelsi said. She winked. "Sex is better when you're sober."

Quinn found herself playing pool, and before she knew it they were announcing last call. Quinn got in a few more dances, but once the patrons were gone, she slipped out of her shoes, and hung out in the booth by the door. She toyed with her phone, flipping it around in her hand, but refusing to look at it, refusing to see if Santana had sent her another text. She wondered if she had gone home with Jenna, if they would have been going at it yet. She wondered about Santana in a bar. She'd never seen the girl on a hunt. Sure she had witnessed her at Puck's wedding, but that wasn't the same as actively trolling.

Quinn laughed to herself. Santana had tried to pick up the bartender at the wedding, and now she was going home with a bartender. At least she thought she was. Were they going to Kelsi's place or Quinn's? It was unlikely, like highly unlikely that Santana would actually be at her place, nor did she imagine that she should show up. And at her place, she didn't have to be so nervous about it, nor did she have to get out of her bed until she was ready.

"Let's go to my place," Quinn said once they were outside.

Kelsi only hesitated for a second. "I'm not trying to get into the middle of something with you and your wife."

Quinn gave a laugh. "We don't live together. We have our own places."

The relief was evident. "Oh. In that case." She hooked her arm in Quinn's. "My car's over here."

They made small talk during the car ride, the only disruption coming when Quinn gave her directions. Kelsi seemed to be very familiar with the area. They didn't talk about what they were doing, and Quinn was kind of glad about that. She wondered if Jenna would have gotten handsy in the car. "This is it," Quinn said, when Kelsi pulled to a stop. Quinn opened her door, but Kelsi didn't.

"Aren't you getting out?" she questioned.

Kelsi shook her head. "No. I really just wanted to make sure you got home okay. Listen, Luce, you seem like a really nice woman, and I don't know your wife, but listening to you tonight, I think it's not just her that would get hurt if we were to do this. I'm not telling you how to live your life, but don't lose a girl that you love at home for a night in Panama City."

Quinn wasn't sure if the statement didn't follow because she was drunk, or because it was as random as it seemed. "What?"

Kelsi shook her head. "Sorry, sometimes I relate life to song lyrics. I dated a girl in college who…anyway, It's a country song by Bobby Pinson calledDon't Ask Me How I Know. You wouldn't imagine how many times I've heard someone playing that song in the bar over their partner. It's filled with the kind of sage advice you wish that someone would have told youbefore. You know like 'forget your pride, buy her roses', and 'don't drink the water in Mexico'. The point, Luce, is that it sounds to me that you love her a whole lot, and it sounds like she loves you, too. You guys got into an argument, you can work through that. Going home with some nothing woman you barely know; that's a lot harder to take back."

She gave Quinn a sad smile before she kissed her on the forehead. "Don't ask me how I know. Good night, Quinn."