Author's Notes: This fic is the result of a longing to keep up a longstanding tradition of mine to write rarepair fic, and poisoning by my friend Curionenene with the song Star by Heize.

The title comes from the incomparable Leonard Cohen's On The Level.

Extended author's notes and meta can be found on my Tumblr.

Yes, and thanks, for the trouble you took from her eyes
I thought it was there for good so I never tried

Famous Blue Raincoat, Leonard Cohen

With every passing day that she receives texts from Rachel that never extend more than Hi Quinn! Hope everything is going great! Talk to you soon! (or, some days, nothing at all), a piece of Quinn locked deep inside and never acknowledged begins to die.

She's busy with school, with the pressure of deadlines that's contradictingly familiar and unfamiliar (and the added stress of keeping her scholarship), with juggling a social life with a sorority life; Quinn's so preoccupied that when her phone pings, she glances at it and is momentarily confused by the content of the text.

Hi, Quinn. Kurt and I are having a housewarming party this weekend. I know we haven't talked in awhile, but I would really love it if you could attend. *R

Quinn scrolls up through the message history, attempting to find the context – and then she registers the sender.

The last time she texted Rachel was over four months ago, according to the date stamp; I'm great, you? in reply to Rachel's query about Yale. She never got a response – which explains the contrite tone of Rachel's invitation. Quinn's thumbs hover over the keyboard.

Okay. I'll text you the time my train's arriving. See you.

Quinn goes back to her economics textbook but nothing goes in. She closes the book, frustrated, and calls it a night.

She sets foot in Grand Central station and is promptly overwhelmed by the sheer busyness of the place. Her back aches from sitting too long, her head reels from the sensory overload, but Quinn still manages to follow the detailed instructions texted to her, and arrives at the designated meeting place in twenty-three minutes.

Rachel rises from her chair; uncertainty darkens her face.

Quinn opens her arms to her.

Immediately, the uncertainty melts from Rachel's face, and she steps forward to sink into Quinn's arms. "Hi," she murmurs; a distinct contrast to the chaos surrounding them.

"Hi, Rachel."

"Did you have a good trip?"

"Yeah. Sorry to keep you waiting."

"Oh, not at all." Rachel's started to walk, her purposeful steps carving a path through the station that Quinn follows. She briefly contemplates catching onto the hem of that ridiculously bright coat Rachel's wearing so she won't get lost. She guides Quinn through the process of buying a subway pass, of navigating mass transport, through the complicated transfers and changes until they emerge onto a quiet street lined with apartment buildings. They haven't exchanged a word that isn't absolutely necessary; Rachel is a subdued and muted version of herself, and Quinn isn't in the habit of starting conversations she doesn't really want to have.

Then Rachel turns to her, shoulders tense, and says: "I'm sorry I haven't really been in touch."

"It's fine, Rachel." Quinn offers a smile. "I've been really busy too."

"Even then, we promised we'd work on maintaining this friendship. You bought those train passes, and I know that must have been expensive; I don't want you to think that I don't appreciate the gesture."

"It's really not about the money."

Rachel chews on her lower lip. "... I know. I – that came out wrong."

Quinn takes a deep breath; focuses on turning her smile warmer, more genuinely happy. "Anyway, it doesn't matter. I'm here now, aren't I?"

And that opens the floodgates; uncertain Rachel becomes happy Rachel in the blink of an eye. "Oh my god, you're right," she says, smile spreading like wildfire, "you're here." Rachel actually bounces a little.

Nervous Quinn doesn't become – well – less nervous Quinn, though; if anything, she's even more uncertain by this feeling that spreads through her.

She remembers waking up the morning after they removed the bandages on her face; she'd rushed to the bathroom to stare at herself – her new self – in the mirror.

First came the strange feeling of dislocation; of the face that was unmistakably hers, and yet was vaguely unfamiliar. Her new nose was straight, perfectly proportioned, and wholly unsuited for her old face. She remembered poking her cheek to check if it was her reflection, and then pinching her arm to check if she was still asleep.

She would need to work to transform the rest of herself to suit that nose. The glasses had to go, for sure; they had no right to remain squatting on her new face. There were creams for her acne, and she'd been saving her allowance for peroxide from the dollar drugstore. She would start jogging the backroads of Lima until she slimmed down enough to be presentable for running in more populated areas.

She won't be a Lucy any longer – she'll be a Quinn. Just in time for high school.

Right now, she feels very much like Lucy felt back then, when she was on the cusp of becoming Quinn. But this time, it's not her physical appearance changing, but the person inside.

Rachel seems to notice, somehow. By the time Kurt joins them for dinner (a smorgasbord of Chinese takeout), she's calmed down to an easy-going yet endearing version of herself that makes Quinn want to put her in her bag and take her back to New Haven.

The thought is much less disturbing than she knows it should be.

Quinn's had time to adjust to being away from her narrow-minded small town. She's dated at least one guy who's admitted to experimenting. She has gay and lesbian friends who aren't Kurt and Santana, cliched as that sounds.

So the curling pull deep in her belly whenever she sees that soft, open smile on Rachel's face (which, let's be honest, has been there for a long time)? Quinn recognises it to be attraction, and doesn't run away screaming because it's a girl, and especially because it's Rachel fucking Berry.

She's pretty certain it's the primary reason she came to New York without a fuss, and also the reason she's 'kind of' friends with the girl in the first place.

The party itself happens on Saturday night.

Quinn helps stock the place with food and alcohol, until she loses sight of both Kurt and Rachel in the crowd of unfamiliar people, and retreats to the corner with an (untouched) bottle of beer in her hand.

"Quinn!"

Rachel materialises out of nowhere, flushed and happy. Her hair is disheveled and her cheeks are pink, and she's clearly had quite a bit to drink. But she beams at Quinn, clutching at her free arm for support. "Are you having fun?"

Quinn smiles. "Yeah."

"Great! Great, that's great." She looks like she's about to say something else when she spots someone out of the corner of her eye; with reflexes somehow unaffected by alcohol, Rachel snags that someone by the arm and drags her over to join the conversation. "Quinn, this is me! The new me, actually." And she giggles as though it's the joke of the century.

Quinn arches an eyebrow. "Yes, we've met." She recognises the face though the name escapes her from the time she went down to McKinley for Thanksgiving; she and the familiar strange exchange polite smiles as they wait for their host to compose herself.

"Marley was a freshman when we were seniors," Rachel informs her, as though Quinn hasn't spoken, "and she has an amazing voice. With the proper training, she really has the potential to become a performer approaching my standard."

Marley – yes, that's her name – sends her an embarrassed smile over Rachel's head, but makes no move to disentangle her arm from Rachel's. "Rachel, we kinda know each other already," says Marley softly.

"I'm gonna go over and talk to Brody," finishes Rachel. "So, you guys talk, get to know each other, and have fun; I'll catch up with you two later?" She does this gesture which is clearly intended to be a wave; but she's so drunk that it looks like she's swatting flies, before disappearing back into the throng. Quinn watches her go, eyebrow still arched.

"Well, that was… charming."

Marley giggles, and blushes. "She's had a lot to drink."

"Yes, that was painfully obvious." Quinn decides she's had enough of talking about Rachel, and turns her attention back to Marley. "It's good to see you. You look great," she says.

Marley ducks her head shyly. "Thank you. So do you." She really does look good, though mostly it's in the way she carries herself; Marley's tall, taller than Quinn herself even though she's in heels and Marley wears scuffed sneakers, and she doesn't hunch her shoulders like Quinn vaguely remembers her doing in high school. Adulthood is a good look on her.

"What are you up to now?"

"I'm a freshman at Steinhardt for music production," says Marley proudly, and it almost seems like she's glowing.

"That's amazing."

"And you're in your senior year at Yale, right?"

"Yep. Double major in drama and business."

Marley's eyes go wide. Quinn remembers that wide-eyed adoration; she has to admit that it's very flattering, especially since her head cheerleader days are long past.

"Wow. That's so impressive."

"What's more impressive is the ability to stay sane amidst deadlines and no sleep," jokes Quinn. By this point, they've drifted over to the tiny kitchen in search of quiet (Quinn) and a refill of water (Marley). Quinn exchanges her beer for the Vitamin water she left in the fridge earlier. As she cracks it open, she asks: "How's NYU?"

Marley lights up. "It's – wow. It's everything I've ever dreamed of, and then more. I love my classes, my professors are the coolest, and – I'm in New York." She throws her free hand in the air in a suitably grand gesture; Rachel would have been proud. "Sometimes I still can't believe it's happening."

"I think I know what you mean. I spent freshman year pinching myself every morning," says Quinn, deadpan; laughing a little when Marley's eyes go wide. "Seriously, though; it's so easy to forget we're not in Lima anymore."

"I know, right? I never dreamed this would be happening, not in a million years." Marley has an arm wrapped around her middle, as though she has to hold herself upright. "I miss my mom so much, though. Do you go home often?"

"I'm planning to go to Lima for Christmas," answers Quinn, and judging from the softening of Marley's expression, the careful phrasing isn't lost on her. "But I think my mom will be visiting my sister in Columbus, so I might join them instead."

She's grateful that Marley just smiles and steers the conversation away from family and Lima, asking her about life in the Ivy League instead.

Quinn has to catch an early train back to Yale on Sunday because there's a fundraising event her sorority is taking part in; as a pledge, it doesn't look good if she's not front and centre in full Stepford-wife mode.

Rachel sees her off at the station despite looking vaguely like she's been dragged backwards through a haystack. "I'm sorry," she says, hugging Quinn. "I hope you had fun."

"It's fine; and yes, of course."

"I'll come visit the next long weekend," says Rachel fervently, "and I promise I won't disappear on you again."

Looking into those intense brown eyes, Quinn can almost believe her; but she's had a long history of people making empty promises (I'm proud of you, you're beautiful, I'll always be there for you, I love you) so she doesn't hold out hope.

"Okay," says Quinn.

Rachel texts her the following Monday afternoon and starts a back-and-forth conversation that culminates in a three-hour phone call on Tuesday night. Quinn calls her the following Tuesday to bitch about a classmate that is an annoying mix of Santana and Sugar; Rachel jokes about making Tuesday night phone calls a tradition.

Rachel calls as promised next Tuesday. Quinn's call the following week goes to Rachel's voicemail, and she gets an apologetic text the next morning.

Rachel doesn't call the Tuesday after, and the next.

Quinn starts another, newer, Tuesday tradition of going out on dates.

Judy has, indeed, gone to Columbus to stay with Frannie and her husband, Nick, for Christmas. Quinn's been invited (of course) but declines in favour of staying in the Fabray home by herself. Santana finds out somehow and shows up on Christmas Eve with Brittany, Puck, and a liquor store's warehouse in tow. They make themselves comfortable and Quinn doesn't have the energy (or heart) to chase them away.

"She's back in town too, y'know," says Santana. She has a Santa hat draped over her head at a rakish angle and a mug of eggnog that smells strongly of rum.

"Who?"

"Yeah, you could never pull off the dumb blonde act. You know who I'm talking about."

Quinn's fingers tighten around her own drink. "I don't care."

"Yes, you do." Santana pats her hand clumsily; a sure sign she's drunk, since sober Santana would never display her affection for Quinn so openly. "I've never understood the appeal of uptight midgets, but the heart wants what it wants; plus, I've seen the Facebook photos. Now that she isn't dressing like a colourblind fetish model, I'd definitely bang that."

Quinn stiffens. "Was it that obvious?"

"Honestly? Yes. The whole 'fighting-over-the-same-overgrown-tree' thing fooled me for a bit, but everything else? Was more than a bit gay." Santana pauses to take a sip of eggnog, and snickers: "I'm only telling you all this because a little birdie told me you've finally had that stick surgically removed from your ass, and you might actually do something other than run to the nearest church and pray the gay away."

"... how?"

"For starters, you're a member of a fucking sorority, Quinn. As a toaster-receiving, carpet-chewing member of Lesbians International, I've heard plenty of stories about the one you picked."

"My choice of sorority has nothing to do with my sexuality."

"I know. I was just fucking with you." Santana bumps her shoulder. "But you're surrounded by so many fucking gorgeous women, and all of them can probably quote all the right book passages to get your geek panties soaked. You'd have to be dead not to take advantage of that."

"It doesn't matter what I want," says Quinn loudly, deliberately speaking over Santana to get her to shut up (because the only other way would be to kiss her, and Quinn won't do that). "She doesn't see me that way."

Santana grunts. "Her fucking loss."

The dorms don't open until the third of January, so Quinn spends New Year's in Lima. Even Santana has better places to be than needling Quinn into revelations on her sexuality, so Quinn packs a sixpack of cider into her car and goes out to the lookout point on the edge of town. It overlooks the entire town and makes it look like the cosy place one could settle down and live out their life in rural bliss, so Quinn isn't completely surprised to find someone already there.

Marley's eyes widen in surprise (and Quinn wonders if that's her default expression). "H-hi. Quinn. I definitely wasn't expecting to see you here, of all places."

"Same goes for you," replies Quinn, shoving her hands into the pockets of her jacket. "I thought you'd be at home with your mom."

"I will be, later. I just dropped by to visit this old place." Marley looks out past her, over the town. "I used to come here a lot."

"For the same reasons as me, I guess." Lucy didn't have a lot of spaces to call her own. Quinn continued to retain a fondness for seclusion, and passed by occasionally while on long runs. "The best view in town."

Marley grins at her. "Yeah." She abandons the hood of the beat-up Camaro she's been sitting on to join Quinn on her VW Beetle; surprised by the unexpected intrusion of personal space, Quinn lets her. Marley leans back on her elbows. "Mmm. Still warm. I've been here long enough that my car's freezing."

Quinn slides off to go rummage in the boot of her car, pulling out the blankets she keeps there for emergencies. "Here," she says, spreading them over the hood (Marley slides off and helps enthusiastically).

"You're well prepared," comments Marley, sighing happily as she resettles herself on the blankets. Luckily, she doesn't seem to be expecting a reply as she pillows her head with her hands, staring up at the darkening sky, her expression content. Marley's a bit too tall, and Quinn's car a bit too small; the result is that her sneaker-clad feet dangle comically off the front, but she appears not to care.

Quinn admires that in her. It's a quality that she's also admired in Rachel.

Unlike Rachel, however, Marley is much less vocal, preferring to listen than to talk. Quinn doesn't mind; she thinks she would have been the same if she had stayed Lucy. She says as much when Marley hesitantly starts to apologise for being unsociable.

Marley laughs a little. "Sorry," she says again, pressing a hand to her mouth, "I can't imagine you being a wallflower."

Quinn smiles thinly. "It's okay. I never told you about Lucy Caboosey, right?"

"Who?" And Marley is definitely a good listener, because she's scrambling upright to focus her attention on Quinn.

Quinn looks straight at her and says: "Until middle school, I was fat, wore glasses, had terrible skin, and I wasn't blonde. Also, I had a nose that would dwarf Rachel's."

"Oh."

"I changed all of that before I came to McKinley."

Marley nods. "I'm not saying that I think that that was a bad thing, but I respect that you made those decisions, and had the willpower and determination to enforce those decisions."

She's caught off-guard for the second time in twenty minutes until she recalls Tina saying something about their bombing Sectionals the year after she graduated because Marley fainted midway through their performance. It must show on her face, because Marley's own scrunches up, and she says ruefully: "Yeah, I kinda screwed myself up."

"Marley, no."

"I'm okay, now. My therapist cleared me, and I saw a specialist," says Marley.

"I kinda went off the rails at the beginning of senior year," says Quinn instead.

Marley presses her lips together and says, "A little."

Quinn laughs and corrects it to, "A lot."

"Do you wanna talk about it?"

She doesn't want to. In fact, a part of her wants to get back into the car, drive back home, and get so blindingly drunk that she'll forget she ever came so close to being vulnerable and soft in public.

But Quinn starts talking instead.

It's hard, opening up to Marley. With Rachel it was so easy, because she had already seen Quinn at her absolute best, her wretched worst, and Rachel always seemed to understand where on the spectrum Quinn's mind fell on, at that point of time.

But Marley is different. Quinn's free to tell her an entirely biased version of events if she wanted, and she knows Marley would nod along, blue eyes wide and earnest.

But she doesn't.

Quinn paints the picture of a selfish teenage girl who made a mistake and almost destroyed herself and the people around her covering it up. She talks a bit more about the fat insecure girl named Lucy Caboosey, and how it made her into Quinn Fabray. She tells Marley about the angry girl with pink hair, the crazy girl who tried to steal her baby back, the wheelchair-bound girl; and finally, the young woman who walked away from McKinley with her Yale acceptance in hand, head held high.

She wasn't expecting Marley to smile and say, "I know. I asked you to sign my yearbook."

A hazy memory floats to the front of her mind. She'd found Rachel in the bathroom, envelope clutched in shaking fingers, and made conversation with the story about the happy little freshman that had told her to never change. "That was you?"

Marley laughs and admits, yes, but if she had known Quinn then like she does now, she wouldn't have said that.

Quinn can't hold back her curiosity. "What would you have said, then?"

"I would have told you that you're wonderful no matter who you choose to be."

She glances at her watch to avoid having to respond to that – and gasps. "It's late!"

"Yeah?"

"Weren't you supposed to go home hours ago?"

Marley waves her off. "I texted my Mom a while back. She knows not to wait up for me."

"You didn't have to," mutters Quinn.

"Nope." Thankfully, she doesn't elongate what is already a deeply emotional and awkward moment for Quinn, settling back onto the blanket with a contented little sigh. Marley's somehow managed to stir up enough loose material to create a little blanket nest for herself.

Quinn pushes away the warmth blooming in her chest in favour of a more comfortable eyebrow raise, of doing something with herself. "Here," she says, reaching into her back seat, "you look like you could use another one." Marley's happy squeak becomes a muffled squeak when Quinn over-aims and the blanket hits her in the face. Whatever flustered apology Quinn has on the tip of her tongue fades away when Marley's head pokes out from the blanket; her hair an impossible mess and her smile lighting up the night.

Marley's grin widens when Quinn approaches. She throws part of the blanket over Quinn's knees once Quinn sits back down again, making sure the older woman is cosily tucked in before turning her attention back to the view.

Rachel texts her a 'Happy New Year, Quinn!' a few minutes into the year.

Quinn wonders who she was kissing at the stroke of midnight.

There's about a month left on her Metro pass and Quinn takes a weekend trip to New York for shopping.

She also may or may not have spent two hours in a street cafe opposite NYADA's main campus.

In the end, she gathers what's left of her dignity and gets ready to leave, tucking a generous tip under her plate. It was a stupid idea, and the outcome she had in mind really only happens in movies.

"Quinn?"

… until it doesn't.

Quinn plasters on a smile. "Hi, Rachel."

She scrunches her nose. "You didn't tell me you were coming to New York."

"I would have if we were keeping in touch with each other…"

Guilt flickers across Rachel's face. "Oh."

Quinn gives her a tight little smile. "This was a bad idea. I shouldn't have come, but I thought…"

"You thought?" says Rachel in a small little voice that is so uncharacteristic of her.

"I thought we were friends."

Rachel looks like she wants to cry, or hug Quinn, or run away – possibly all three at once. "We are friends – even though I'm a horrible person and I know it's my fault. Really, there are no fucking excuses – "

"Rachel," says Quinn, startled by the curse.

" – for the way I've treated you, like… you're not important to me."

She looks straight at Rachel. "Am I?"

"Yes." She's doing everything right; posture confident, eyes locked on Quinn, voice steady. But it falls short.

"It doesn't feel like it."

"Quinn!" Rachel falls into step behind her, doggedly pursuing her like she did in high school – except there's far more at stake than a boy, a reputation, and a prom queen tiara. Quinn thinks her heart might hammer its way out of her chest if she's not careful. "Wait – please – "

"Wait for what, exactly? Wait for you to start reciprocating? Wait for you to stop being such a fucking hypocrite and actually treat me like the friend you say I am?" Her face closes off. She's said too much. "Whatever. I'm done."

She's done with it all, she really is; but Quinn doesn't understand why she's so upset that Rachel doesn't follow her.

She doesn't board the next train back to New Haven, surprisingly enough; Quinn finds that a strange pull in the pit of her stomach tying her back to the city prevents her from leaving.

Quinn doesn't have the willpower to pretend that everything is fine, though, so she compromises; the small bar is quiet at this time of day, and the cranberry vodka burns pleasantly on its way down.

She likes that the woman behind the counter doesn't ask questions apart than for her ID (and Quinn Fabray might be underage but Emily Stark isn't) and learns fast; another ice-cold cranberry vodka is waiting for her once the glass in her hand is empty.

It's a good thing she is already pleasantly sloshed, otherwise she would have fled when Marley Rose plonks down on the barstool beside her and asks: "Quinn Fabray, what are you doing?"

Instead, she laughs, finishes off what's left in her glass, and replies: "Getting drunk." Quinn reaches for the fresh drink, grumbling unhappily when Marley intercepts it.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong."

Marley blinks rapidly. Quinn tries to take advantage of the situation by making a grab for the glass, but she's intoxicated and Marley isn't. "Do you want to talk about it?" asks Marley, holding the drink over the counter, away from Quinn.

"No, I don't want to talk about it." Quinn grits her teeth. "Give me back my drink."

"Only if you tell me why you're getting drunk in New York on a Friday afternoon."

"What part of 'I don't want to talk about it' do you have problems understanding?"

"The reason for it."

She rests her elbows on the counter, contemplating the wood grain for a moment. "... If I talk about it, will you let me drink in peace?"

Marley presses her lips together. "... Fine."

Quinn nods. "... I ran into Rachel." Her mouth jerks to one side. "Rachel and I – we have a pretty complicated friendship. Frenemyship. Rivalry. It was just – yeah, okay, you don't need to hear it, it's not relevant."

"Okay…?"

"But the gist of it was that we agreed that we'd be friends after we went our separate ways – y'know, it was a shame that we'd overcome fighting over the same guy, being in the same club and not killing each other – and being eight hundred miles apart. I mean, I went and bought Metro passes for us. I was totally committed to working on keeping this friendship."

Quinn scowls darkly. "But she's so – she doesn't see anything than what's in front of that ridiculously huge nose of hers – sorry, that was mean – because she's so… selfish. She doesn't reply her texts. She makes promises she can't keep. She doesn't know that I like her, and that everything she does kills me a little more inside – " Quinn's mouth snaps shut. "... Yeah. So I'm here."

Marley hands her the drink quietly. She also signals the bartender and receives a soda.

"You're staying?"

"I said I'd let you drink. I didn't say I'd let you drink alone."

"You're not even drinking alcohol." Quinn gives the soda a comical little poke with a finger.

"I like Coke." Marley primly sips on her soda.

Quinn barks a laugh. "God, you're such a child."

Marley doesn't huff an indignant response like Rachel would. She doesn't attack Quinn like Santana would. She doesn't even give her a sympathetic smile like Brittany would. She keeps her head down, the level in her glass dropping at a steady rate.

They sit and drink in silence until it's late, and they find themselves outside. "I need to get back – " starts the older woman.

"You're not going back to New Haven tonight," says Marley firmly, "not like this."

Quinn opens her mouth to protest and then snaps it shut again as a tide of nausea overwhelms her; "That's settled," Marley nods, and frogmarches her down the street.

The first thing she realises is that the sun is too bright, and it's making her head pound.

The second thing is that she doesn't recognise her surroundings.

Quinn sits bolt-upright – and winces, clutching her head. "Owwww."

Something at her elbow stirs and mutters sleepily: "You're awake."

"Barely."

Marley sits up, blinking and yawning. "Don't look at me like that. You were too drunk to go back to your dorm, so I brought you back to mine to sleep it off. I wanted to let you have my bed to yourself, but I looked it up on my phone and it said you could choke on your own vomit in your sleep."

It's too much talking, too early in the morning, and too much like Rachel; Quinn stops listening and lies back down, pulling a pillow over her head. Everything hurts, and the entire experience reminds her of being fourteen and waking up with her first hangover at a Cheerios sleepover – except Santana or Brittany would never be willingly sharing a narrow single with her (with each other, maybe), and they would stop caring after checking that Quinn was still breathing.

"You," says Quinn, speech measured like she's trying out the words in her mouth, "stayed here to make sure I wouldn't die?"

"Yeah."

She grunts. "You shouldn't have."

Marley actually laughs at that. "But I did," she says cheerfully as though Quinn isn't having the worst headache of her life, swinging her legs off the bed and disappearing god knows where.

Quinn lies back down, flinging an arm over her eyes. Thinking hurts.

She's woken what seems like a day later with a glass of water (held out to her, not poured on her head) and aspirin. "Take these," orders Marley.

Quinn's nursed enough hangovers to know not to push her away. She sits up and swallows the aspirin dry, gulping the water, and immediately feels better. "What time is it?"

"Eight-forty." Marley points at the bottle of Gatorade on the side table. "That's yours." She lingers like she wants to say more; Quinn finishes half the Gatorade before nodding at Marley.

"Rachel's here."

"What."

"She was worried about you, okay? She called your roommate and freaked out when she said you weren't back, so she started calling everyone she could think of and – anyway, I told her you're fine and you're at my place."

Quinn's glad she got some brain function back so her body cooperates with her; Marley squeaks when Quinn abruptly gets off the bed, pulling her boots back on, snatching her bag from the desk. "Quinn?"

"I need to go," snaps Quinn.

She storms out into the hallway and past Rachel – who promptly stops wearing circles into the carpet and marches to her side.

"Quinn, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she bites out, clattering down the stairs, Rachel in hot pursuit.

"You're clearly not fine; do you know how worried I was when you stormed off? And later, when Anna said you weren't back?"

"Do you want a medal for that?"

A hand catches her wrist and pulls her up short; for someone so compact, Rachel is strong. She lets go of Quinn immediately afterward as though she's been burned. "... I'm sorry."

Quinn ignores her. "You've got my attention now, Berry. What do you want?"

"Quinn, I'm sorry. I know you're upset, and rightly so; I haven't been the best friend to you, and especially after my promises to you. I've been hypocritical and remiss in this friendship, in a way that clearly doesn't reflect how much I care about you, and I can't apologise enough to convey how sorry I am. I'd love a chance to start making it up to you, if you'd let me."

Quinn stares at her. "I am upset, but that's not why – wait, do you even know why I stormed away in the first place?"

"Yes. You were angry that I've not been keeping in touch – "

Quinn cuts her off with a harsh bark of laughter; Rachel flinches, her eyes wide and worried. "That's not – never mind. God, Rachel, I'm sorry. You have absolutely no idea and I'm not being fair to you at all." She tries to walk away, frowning when Rachel matches her step for step. "Rachel. I really do need to go…"

"Tell me." Rachel's eyes lock on hers. "Tell me what I'm missing."

"I love you," blurts Quinn, and easily brushes past a shocked Rachel, mingling into the throng of students in the crowded quad below.

She's never wanted to sink into a hole in the ground and disappear forever more than now. Even when the pregnancy test showed up positive, even when the doctors told her there was a chance she'd never walk again.

Quinn's roommate hasn't stopped pestering her, her phone rang until the battery went flat, and she's pretty certain someone's been camping outside her room intermittently.

Failure is being born wrong, and seeing the disappointment in her father's eyes that she isn't just like Frannie, like he wanted.

Failure is turning everything she touches to ash.

Failure is having the things she doesn't want, and wanting all the things she can't have.

With the precautions she's taken, Quinn's mildly surprised when she's accosted after classes on a Friday afternoon.

"I bribed your roommate to keep me updated on your wellbeing, and to send me a copy of your class schedule," says Rachel. She has a maroon knitted hat on top of her head, and it's adorable. "You… you're not easy to track down when you don't want to be found, Quinn."

Quinn shrugs. Days of moping have drained the emotion from her; even the simple gesture is scraping the bottom of the barrel. "Then why are you here?"

"We need to talk," says Rachel simply, and adds, "in private," with a glance around the corridor.

She lets Rachel lead her to a stairwell.

"How long have you felt this way about me?"

"I don't know. Years?" Truthfully, it was the first time Rachel sang to her, and Quinn had been seduced by Rachel's voice despite her best intentions. "Why does that matter?"

Rachel sucks her teeth. "Years… Quinn, you never said anything."

"Yeah, 'cause that would be totally fine for me, being pregnant, homeless, skanky, crazy, and crippled – not all at once – to also be gay."

"I would never judge you." Rachel sounds genuinely hurt. Quinn softens a little.

"Maybe, but Lima would have."

"We got out. You don't have to hide anymore."

Quinn scoffs. "I'll just let my rainbow flag fly then. Rachel, I'm not you. Not everyone's like you. I didn't know how to not hide."

"Which would explain that – public – declaration," says Rachel, a hint of a smile on her lips.

She refuses to let herself crumble any further. "It's different for me, Rachel. I'm sorry for dumping that on you so suddenly, okay? So can we go back to not being friends now?"

"Quinn, wait."

Quinn angrily shakes off the hand on her arm. "I'm doing you a favour. I'm saving you the trouble of rejecting me."

"That's not – "

"Then? Am I interrupting another confession of long-buried lesbian feelings?"

Rachel bites down on her lower lip, hard. Quinn can tell, from the many hours spent watching those lips.

"Quinn, I…"

"Yeah, I thought so." And she stalks away before she can burst into tears and ruin her reputation.

By the time she works up the nerve to charge her phone again, the number of missed calls and text messages have decreased significantly. The main perpetrator is absent from her phone – which delights and disappoints Quinn in equal measure.

She feels like such a mess.

One person has yet to call her, but sends a text approximately every hour. Marley.

Quinn texts her back to confirm that she isn't dead yet, just overwhelmed by the rollercoaster ride of emotions the past week has been, and will be fine eventually.

She gets back a date and time.

"I thought you were dead," blurts out Marley the instant she gets close enough to Quinn for them to have a conversation without shouting.

Quinn tilts her head to the side, smiles a little. "Clearly not dead."

Marley's manners come back to her, then, and she ducks her head with a mumbled, "Sorry. Hi. It's good to see you, Quinn."

She supposes she's let Marley grow on her, that she actually chuckles for the first time in over a week, and leads the way for them to step out into the sunny New Haven afternoon.

After dinner, Quinn takes them to the Leitner Observatory; partly because there's a free tour open to the public that night, but mostly because she likes the idea of showing Marley a view that's arguably more spectacular than Lima at night.

She smiles again when Marley's face lights up as they walk into the building, and when Marley grabs her hand in her excitement so they won't get separated from the tour group and forgets about letting go.

They're walking back to Quinn's dorm, late-night hot chocolates in hand, when Marley stops short. "What's that?" she asks, jerking her chin at the fenced-up area to the left.

Quinn squints at the sign. "Uh, the Marsh Botanical Garden," she says, "it's – Marley, where are you going?"

Marley's skipped off towards the entrance. "It's closed," she says.

"It's nearly ten."

"Let's break in."

"While carrying hot chocolates?"

Marley turns to grin at her. "Okay, so we'll just find somewhere to finish them?"

Quinn sighs. She can't possibly leave Marley on her own, she reasons as she follows the other girl in a circuitous path around the fence. She doesn't know the campus well enough to get back to Quinn's dorm by herself, and so she has to follow her.

"I give up," grumbles the younger girl. She sits down on the grass, back to the fence, and draws her knees up, balancing the hot chocolate on them.

"Told you."

Quinn takes careful sips of her drink. She has the irrational fear that if she takes her eyes off the cup for a second, Marley will think that she wants to talk; and Quinn really, really doesn't want to talk.

But then Marley surprises her by saying, "I regret choosing Jake over Ryder."

She strains a little to remember who she's talking about. "Jake Puckerman?"

"Yeah."

"All the Puckerman guys are tools. I don't know Jake, but I think he was on his way to becoming one." She vaguely remembers Puck telling her about his old man knocking up another woman before skipping town, and he didn't know Jake existed until he'd graduated.

Marley agrees vehemently. "He cheated on me 'cause I wasn't putting out."

"Like I said: tool." She loves Puck, loves the man he's become, but she'll never forget the idiotic sixteen-year-old boy who got her drunk and pregnant. "Then again, most men are."

"Tell me about it. Half my class are manchildren who're convinced they're the next David Guetta and don't understand why I'm not all up on that while I have the chance," she says, her mouth twisting in disgust.

"And the other half?"

"Are ragingly gay and all up on each other."

Quinn snorts into her hot chocolate. Marley flashes her an innocent smile that borders on a smirk.

"And why aren't you all up on that?" asks Quinn, smirking when it makes Marley choke on her drink.

"I…"

"You don't have to answer if you don't want to."

"No, I do want to."

It never fails to surprise her how other people can be so candid about their feelings when thinking about her own makes Quinn want to run away screaming.

Marley leans her head back against the fence, brow furrowed in thought. "I've never thought about it, really. Well, honestly, I also never thought I'd get out of Lima at all, so…" She makes a vague gesture with her hand. "This is new territory for me."

Quinn hums.

"Dating is nice, but I've never really cared about going after someone. It's always been them pursuing me. I… don't think I've cared enough to go after anyone. Does that make sense?"

"I did that," says Quinn, nodding, "with prom, and being Cheerio captain, and everything else. The quarterback and Homecoming King boyfriend was just a checkmark off the list."

Marley smiles at her. "Yeah, so something like that."

Quinn stares down at her hands. She's aware that Marley isn't expecting her to talk, but her words have stirred something long-buried that wants to be let out. "It's normal not to want to be with someone," she starts hesitantly. "There are other things and goals in life that seem more important. But I also think that everyone wants someone, some don't know it yet until they accomplish everything else they wanted, and they're left with that last thing."

Marley nods. "I think I know what you mean. Like, I didn't know I liked either of the guys until they were pretty obvious about it, and then I was surprised that I liked them that much." She shrugs. "It caught me off guard."

Quinn's eyes slide from her lap, off into the distance.

"Can I say something?"

"What?"

"It's gonna be okay."

Marley doesn't clarify, Quinn doesn't ask. But the younger girl climbs to her feet, brushing grass off her clothes, and offers a hand with a wide smile.

Quinn meets Marley's eyes for the first time all day. She takes her hand, returning her smile.

Rachel's taken to texting Quinn twice a day, every day, for the past two weeks since their disastrous encounter. It's always the same two words, which Quinn deletes without opening.

On the fifteenth day, however, Quinn replies Rachel's I'm sorry with a: It's ok.

Are we still friends?

It stumps her. She can never be just friends with Rachel Berry; there is no middle ground in the feelings Rachel stirs in her.

She falls asleep while thinking of an answer and never gets round to replying.

Rachel leaves her alone after that; something Quinn is immensely thankful for. She needs time to think, time to process everything she's feeling.

She and Marley go back to Lima for Thanksgiving, and Quinn is invited to join the Roses for Thanksgiving dinner.

"You really should come," says Marley. "It's just Mom and me, most of the time, and we always cook too much. There are a ton of recipes she's dying to try and she'd love to have someone critique them properly." She makes a face. "She says I'm a biased party."

Quinn laughs, genuine and unrestrained. She doesn't know when she started being unrestrained around someone, let alone little Marley Rose, but she thinks she might like it. "Okay. Sure."

Dinner is warm and casual and fun; adjectives Quinn would never associate with Fabray family gatherings. Millie Rose shoos them out of the kitchen once the clean up's done, pink with pleasure (Quinn was effusive with her praise) and apple cider.

Marley invites her upstairs. Quinn thinks they might hang out in her room doing cliched stuff like painting toenails or listening to music (even if their friendship up to this point has been anything but cliched) but then Marley bucks all expectations by opening her window and climbing outside.

"It's cold," says Quinn.

"I prepared stuff already." When Quinn clambers outside (grateful she wore pants), she sees blankets on pillows on the tiles behind Marley. "Here, give me a hand."

They work quickly, motivated by the cold. Marley sinks, contented, into the blanket nest beside Quinn. "Here doesn't have much of a view," she says, "but it's better than being inside."

Quinn agrees. She notices, then, that the blanket around Marley's shoulders is a patchwork quilt that sports the letters WHMS in multiples. "Where'd you get this?"

"My mom made it. Coach Bieste was clearing out old stock in the athletic department and let her have some of the stuff."

"It's nice." The worn cotton reminds her of the good days, and feels like a hug. "Thanks for having me."

"You're welcome. Sorry about my mom. We haven't had guests in forever."

"She wasn't that bad," says Quinn honestly. She's good with parents, and Millie Rose is easy to please.

Marley laughs.

She stares up at the inky night sky, trying to pick out constellations the guide at Leitner talked about. They argue about whether it's Cygnus overhead or not, and why it's called Ursa Major when it looks more like a snake with a spiky tail.

Sometime in the night, Marley falls asleep on Quinn's shoulder. Quinn, who hasn't let anyone in since Santana and her drunken abrasiveness, doesn't mind.

She sees on Facebook that it's Marley's birthday next week, so she sends her a care package filled with things from Yale; it scares Quinn a little that they've been friends for so long, and she doesn't know what Marley likes.

"I got your present! Thank you so much!" gushes Marley on the phone.

"I guessed." Quinn's already received a video (clearly filmed by Marley's roommate) of her unboxing the parcel.

"You didn't have to."

"Did you like it?" Quinn asks, bypassing the uncomfortable topic of her motivations, blushing scarlet and thankful Marley can't see her face.

"I love everything," Marley assures her.

The next time Quinn texts her, she notices that Marley's changed her profile picture to a photo of herself in the Yale sweatshirt Quinn gave her, clutching her bulldog plush. Her facial expression is a pout, something Kurt would call fierce if he was feeling charitable.

She says so, and gets back a parade of angry little emoji that makes her laugh out loud in the hallways.

It's Quinn's turn to go onstage. She's been cast in one of the plays in her department's senior showcase – she plays Nora in A Doll's House – even if she finds it supremely ironic.

(She draws heavily on her mother's life, sans its ending, for inspiration.)

Marley comes on opening night; she certainly deserves to, having pestered Quinn until she admitted how major her role was, and ran lines with her over Skype. She brings a small bouquet and a worried frown, saying: "Is this okay? I couldn't afford anything bigger, but you're practically the lead."

Quinn shakes her head. "This is more than okay. Thank you." She hesitates briefly before leaning in for a hug, one that is eagerly reciprocated; and by eagerly, it means that it takes Quinn a while to coax Marley into releasing her.

"Sorry, I – you're really not a hugger and I kinda am with my friends, so… sorry."

Quinn shakes her head again. It's a default reaction when it comes to Marley, because she still can't believe how this girl exists. "It's fine. Really."

Marley beams and hugs her again.

The first text she gets from Rachel in almost six months is simple. It's a photo of an invitation card to the graduation ceremony of NYADA's Class of 2017, and it has Quinn's name written in the blank space.

It's not easy finding a single graduate in the sea, but Quinn has always been unlucky.

Rachel appears before her, hair a mess from the mortarboard. "Hey."

"Hi."

"Thank you for coming."

"You're welcome." Quinn wonders why Rachel doesn't ask how she's doing.

"I've been talking to Marley," says Rachel, preempting her. It strikes her then: no wonder Marley, a scholarship student, was able to afford the train ride between New York and New Haven that frequently. "She told me you guys are friends."

"Oh."

"I really am sorry."

Quinn forces a smile. "Don't be. You have nothing to be sorry for."

Rachel mashes her lips together and says: "Quinn, I…"

"Please. I… I don't think I can." She's never been on the receiving end of a rejection before; much to Quinn's embarrassment, she feels tears prickling at her eyes.

"I'm sorry," says Rachel helplessly. "I know – I want you to know that I didn't ask you here for this, Quinn; I'm so sorry."

"I know that." She clamps her mouth shut. If she holds herself taut and steady, nothing will slip out. "I came here to wish you well. We were friends, after all."

Quinn hates herself a little bit more when tears slip down Rachel's cheeks. It's her graduation day, and Quinn's ruined it. "Is that all you wanted to say?"

She nods.

"Okay." Rachel nods too; slowly, at first, and then faster. She presses her knuckle to her mouth. "Okay. It's okay. I understand. I'm sorry."

"I know," interjects Quinn, tiredly.

Quinn makes a list of the things she's lost.

Her popularity. Her virginity. Her baby. Her self-respect. Her innocence.

The girl.

The only thing that was never hers at all.

Santana calls, sounding almost sympathetic. "I heard. Sorry about that."

"Nothing gets past you, huh?" Quinn can't help being a bitch around one of her oldest friends, and Santana knows it.

"Fuck you, bitch," says Santana without any bite to her voice. "You holding up fine? I could go beat her up, I can totally take her; she's fucking tiny."

"Santana, no."

"You sure?"

"Of course!" She's still getting over being in love with Rachel, but – she shouldn't care this much either, and she definitely doesn't want to hate Rachel.

"Suit yourself. The offer's on the table, if you ever call it in."

Quinn smiles. "Thanks, S."

Quinn receives a large and heavy box in the mail; she's forced to enlist help getting it into her dorm.

It's a large patchwork quilt, clearly homemade, made of old clothes – specifically, William McKinley High athletic T-shirts.

Quinn's fingers brush a patch bearing a very familiar iteration of the WMHS logo, and she laughs. Who in their right mind gave your Mom a Cheerio uniform to desecrate? she texts Marley.

The reply is almost instantaneous: My mom has her ways :) It's your early birthday/graduation present :D Do you like it? :0

I love it. Thank you.

Quinn tells herself that the only reason why she isn't posting photos of the quilt on social media is because Sue Sylvester would hunt her down and murder her.

Her own graduation is eight days later. Her mother is there, as is Frannie (her brother-in-law stays at the hotel with her baby nephew).

Marley is there, armed with a massive bouquet. Purple hyacinths, daffodils, yellow roses. The lump in Quinn's throat grows.

"Is she here?"

Marley blinks, confused for a second, before her expression clears. "Yes, but she didn't think you'd want her to be here."

"Where is she?"

Rachel has her hands clasped before her, lower lip red and plump from being worried between her teeth.

"Thank you for being here," is the first thing Quinn can think to say.

"I had to come." Her eyes dart to Quinn's face. "Quinn, are you sure…?"

She takes a deep breath and meets Rachel's gaze. "I could never be just friends with you, Rachel. We were always enemies or…" She trails off, and continues: "I know that you don't… feel the same way, and that's fine. I need time and space to get over it."

"I know you're tired of me apologising, but I'm so sorry," says Rachel. "I've never… you'll find someone who's better for you than me, I know it. You're the most beautiful and amazing girl I've ever met."

Quinn bites back all the spiteful remarks on the tip of her tongue. It's not fair of her to lash out at Rachel, even if her heart is in shards and all a hurt Quinn Fabray wants to do is hurt people. "So… I guess this is goodbye, then."

After a long pause, Rachel nods tightly, then watches her with wide, sad eyes as she walks away.

She's a complete wreck. She isn't good at coping with loss (god, that's something nobody should ever be good at) but even then Quinn knows she's doing poorly.

It doesn't make sense: nobody died. She got her heart broken when the person she liked didn't feel the same way. She doesn't feel like she gets to cry as she listens to sad songs and drinks too much red wine. She doesn't deserve to mourn.

A voice at the back if her mind says yes, she got her heart broken because she was in love with Rachel Berry long before she knew she'd fallen too hard, before she could protect herself.

And she got a raw deal, because Rachel Berry has never been in love with her back.

With everything that's been happening, Quinn forgets all about life after school until a crisp letter arrives for her. She's been offered the place in grad school she wanted – in both Columbia, and Harvard.

She calls Marley.

"Of course you're going to Harvard!" exclaims Marley once she's calmed down. "We talked about it already, Quinn. Isn't that, like, the best school in the country?"

"I guess," says Quinn. She knows that objectively; it was one of the things that prompted her to apply there in the first place.

But something about Cambridge, Massachusetts doesn't sit right with her. "It's too quiet," she tells Marley over Skype, after the campus tour's over, and she's back in the hotel. "I've had enough of quiet places."

Marley's silent for so long, Quinn checks her internet connection. "I think you should stay there," she says. "I get the feeling that there's something amazing waiting for you there."

"What, my thesis?"

Marley snorts loudly, and then her hand flies to her mouth in embarrassment. "I'm serious, Quinn."

"So am I."

The image onscreen pixelates briefly as Marley shakes her head. "... What's on your mind?"

"I... I don't know if I can do this."

"Quinn," begins Marley patiently, "you graduated summa cum laude from Yale with a double major. You got offered grad school for both your majors, at both Harvard and Columbia. You survived every cliche high school could throw at you and high school itself – " Quinn chuckles at that " – before accomplishing all that. You can, and you will, do this."

Quinn is silent for a moment, and then she says: "We'll keep in touch, won't we?"

The grainy image on the screen doesn't convey Marley's expression very well, so Quinn can only hope she's smiling. "Of course. That's never been in question."

Quinn gets a thick envelope on her birthday which contains an open return train ticket to New York, and a Polaroid of Marley holding an identical ticket but to Boston, flashing a thumbs up at the camera. On the back of the photo, she's written: You pick a date for yours, and I'll pick one for mine.

Deal, she texts back. She doesn't ask how Marley knows when her birthday is, or how she managed to afford return train tickets. But you spoiled my surprise.

?

Quinn takes a photo of the train ticket on her desk and sends it to Marley.

Marley texts back: Great minds think alike :D

She hears about it purely by accident, when idly surfing NYU's homepage. There's a student showcase in which voice students will be performing original works composed by

the music students; Marley Rose is one of the few sophomores involved, and definitely the only one singing her own composition.

Quinn briefly ponders the merits of showing up unannounced to surprise her, but thinks the better of it. She doesn't do well with surprises. Marley is (of course) embarrassed beyond words, which Quinn thinks is unnecessary; Marley is one of the most talented people she knows, and no one deserves that scholarship more than she does.

Quinn spends the night being paraded to Marley's friends and classmates as 'the genius friend from Harvard' which she – strangely enough – doesn't mind in the slightest. She may be a side attraction, but it's definitely Marley's night, and Quinn feels honoured to have been a part of it.

Marley gets an oversized sweatshirt with Harvard's logo emblazoned on the front for Christmas.

Quinn gets a copy of Rupi Kaur's poetry anthology, and a tin of homemade cookies from Millie.

When they go back to Lima for the New Year, they continue last year's tradition by meeting on the hill. They both bring their homemade blankets, giggling when they catch sight of each other.

"Here," says Quinn, handing Marley a wrapped box. "I didn't want to pay the extra shipping fee and I knew I'd be seeing you soon, but this is your other present."

Manners have Marley thanking her profusely, but Quinn can see her fingers itch on the box, and she smiles. "You can open it now."

She was expecting paper to go flying everywhere, but Marley carefully peels everything off – Quinn forgets that she comes from a family where money is tight, and it's clear that Marley was brought up to treasure every little thing. The box is eased open, and Marley gasps –

"I can't accept this," she says, voice small and wobbly, fingertips brushing the vinyl plastic of the Audio-Technica studio headphones nestled in the box.

"You'll have to," says Quinn, smiling faintly. "The store doesn't give refunds simply because the recipient couldn't accept them."

"But you can't – this must have cost so much." Marley keeps touching the headphones as though she's expecting them to vanish any second.

"Marley, it's okay. Honestly. You need a good pair of headphones for school, and it's not a big deal to me." Quinn catches the look in her eye, and flushes; she sounds like a rich entitled kid rubbing her family's money into people's faces. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to come out like that."

Marley nods, her expression colder than Quinn's ever seen before, but waits for Quinn to continue.

"You've done so much for me," says Quinn, stumbling over her words a little, "and I feel bad that I'm not much of a friend to you in return. I'm not good at keeping friends, or even at being a nice person." She looks at the headphones. "This is me trying to be a better friend with what I know best."

A hand steals over hers and squeezes. "I understand," says Marley softly. "I'm sorry; I shouldn't have reacted that way."

"No, you didn't do anything wrong." In high school, she'd have torn the head off anyone that even implied she was less than perfect, and ensured they were slushied for weeks. Quinn shakes off the memories. "I just wanted to do something nice for you."

"This is a little more than nice." Marley looks up at her from gazing at the box in her lap, eyes shining. She looks like a child on Christmas morning, and it warms Quinn's insides a little. "Thank you."

"So it's okay?" Quinn can't hide her relief.

Marley rolls her eyes but answers patiently, "Yes, Quinn."

She can't believe this is happening to her.

Quinn knew life would go on. She'd have her priorities in order, and the order in which she would pursue them – as a graduate student at Yale and assistant tutor – laid out for her neatly. Romance would be the last thing on her list given the latest, most spectacular failure in a long list of them.

But the pull makes itself known again whenever she's with Marley, and she can't –

Quinn can't do this again.

"Wait. You two aren't dating?" asks Quinn's roommate with a frown.

"We're just friends." Quinn keeps her eyes on her laptop as she closes the Skype window and shuts down.

"Could've fooled me. Isn't she the girl in New York you visit?"

"Yes..."

"All those care packages are from her, aren't they?"

"Not all of them." Santana deigned to send one or two, with Brittany's help; Quinn brings her new rainbow unicorn mug to her weekly Contexts of Drama 1 tutorial class, much to the amusement of her students. But it's a flimsy argument, when she's currently wearing a NYU sweatshirt.

Elaine quirks an eyebrow, smirking. "Y'know your hometown isn't gonna track you down and burn you at the stake for flying the rainbow flag, right?"

"If you have a point," says Quinn tightly, "you should hurry up and get to it."

Her roommate shrugs. They've lived together long enough that Quinn's threats are rarely taken seriously – something she regrets now, with the uncomfortable turn the conversation is taking. "If you're not dating Marley," says Elaine, "you should tell her that."

She hasn't yet seen Marley's new apartment – which she shares with Unique and Santana. She's looking forward to it, especially to seeing Santana (and Brittany, by extension). She'll be sharing a bed with Marley tonight since Unique barely knows her, and clearly Brittany's not going back to her shoebox apartment tonight. But before she turns in, Quinn indulges herself and climbs out on the fire escape.

"I knew this would be the first place you'd go."

"I couldn't resist after you spent more than half of my virtual tour talking about your New York cliche dreams."

Marley shrugs good-naturedly. She climbs out after Quinn, already dressed for bed in a Hello Kitty T-shirt and oversized NYU sweatpants. "My mom bought it for me when I was thirteen," said Marley sheepishly, catching Quinn's amused expression. "It was her first time online shopping, and she accidentally ordered the wrong design."

It's supposed to be a funny story, but Quinn finds it immensely endearing because the shirt is obviously well-worn and loved. She's hard-pressed to think of something she owns that she treasures just as much. "We need to go shopping the next time I come up," she says.

As always, Marley agrees, and lapses into silence.

Quinn takes a deep breath. She's not planning on talking tonight, but... if everything goes according to plan, she'll need to.

"You were right," says Quinn, "about Harvard, but also a lot of things."

Marley nods, steady as a metronome, her expression perfectly serious.

"I thought I didn't need any more friends in my life. I've always thought I could only rely on myself, but everything changed when I got to know you." She keeps her eyes focused on the city. "We talked about not knowing how much we needed people until there was nothing else to need. You're that person for me. You're the only person who ever made me feel like it's okay to be what I am." Quinn draws a shaky breath, and then another. She really hopes she hasn't been reading everything wrong, and that she's not throwing everything away on an impulse.

"I've got issues. I don't like dealing with my emotions, and I don't like being vulnerable. I don't know what I'm doing most of the time, and maybe it's a bit too much to expect you to understand..."

Marley's fingers rest, butterfly-light, on the side of Quinn's face; she falls silent, turning her head to look at Marley fully.

"I do understand," Marley tells her. A hand finds Quinn's knee, and squeezes.

Her eyes flutter shut as Quinn leans in.

Their first kiss is everything Lucy dreamt that a first kiss would be; shy, brief, overflowing with hope and butterflies.

It's the best kiss Quinn's ever had.

Marley smiles at her. "That," she announces, "was way better than I imagined."

"You're not surprised?" Her heart is still hammering in her chest, but Quinn manages to keep her voice even.

"I've known what I've wanted for a while now, but I wanted you to be sure as well." Marley's smile softens at the edges; Quinn now recognises the pure adoration in it.

Quinn sinks her teeth into her lower lip briefly. "You know I might never have said anything."

"I know."

The kind and steady patience reminds her so strongly of Rachel. Quinn closes her eyes and waits for the feeling to pass; it's not fair to Marley, to everything they've painstakingly built.

When she opens her eyes again, Marley is still waiting.

"I run away from things that scare me," says Quinn.

"Really? I couldn't tell."

Quinn snorts.

Marley grins at her. "Seriously, though? It's okay."

"Even if it meant that we could have been doing this sooner?" Quinn asks, lifting their joined hands.

"Even then," confirms Marley, pressing a kiss to Quinn's knuckles. "Anything else you wanted to ask me?"

"How long?" It doesn't faze her, that Marley seems to know her better than she knows herself. Quinn just wants to get all of the talking done before she loses her nerve.

Marley blushes. "Since I asked you to sign my yearbook."

"... That long? But you didn't… I might never have been able to return your feelings."

"It doesn't matter," she says. "It was just a silly high school crush on the cool senior who was way out of my league. That wasn't important. What's important is you know that you are loveable, Quinn."

She looks at Marley. "You knew about me, and Rachel. That must have hurt."

Marley shakes her head. "That wasn't important," she repeats. "You are."

And Quinn doesn't know how to respond to that, so she just kisses Marley again.

The distance between New York and New Haven is eighty-two miles.

The distance between New York and Boston, Massachusetts is two hundred and seventeen miles.

Quinn starts to look forward to Facebook chat Mondays, long phone calls on Wednesdays, and Skype weekends; Marley's incredibly resourceful, and determined.

Quinn, on her part, works as an assistant librarian in her free time and saves up the money for train tickets.

"There's an observatory," breathes Marley.

"Yeah," says Quinn, smiling at Marley's enthusiasm, "there's also a special visitors' night and lecture tonight, and I thought you'd be interested."

"I am." Marley presses into Quinn's side, kissing her cheek shyly. "Thank you."

She freezes, not used to public displays of affection from another girl.

"Quinn?" Marley drops their joined hands. "I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking…"

Quinn's hand slips into Marley's again. "It's okay," she says firmly.

Quinn's nervous beyond belief; it's their first time they're having their Christmas tradition as – since they started this thing, and she wants it to be special.

But Marley's imposed a budget on their Christmas gifts, and she doesn't have much apart from her dad's generous child support.

She's close to tears as she gently disentangles Marley from her arms to hand her a wrapped box.

"I made it," says Quinn, trying to steel herself for the hidden disappointment, the polite that's nice, sweetie. "I'm not very good with my hands, and I…"

Marley kisses her cheek, close enough to the corner of Quinn's mouth to make her shut up. "I'll love it because you made it," she says fiercely.

It's a teddy bear from Harvard's gift shop, but it's wearing a miniature Cheerios uniform.

Marley blinks rapidly. "This…" she starts, fingering the fabric.

"Since you got your mom to desecrate a Cheerio uniform for me, I thought I could do the same for you," says Quinn hastily, spotting the telltale signs that Marley's about to burst into tears. "... You don't like it."

"These are happy tears," mutters Marley, reaching for Quinn's quilt to hide her face in. "You're so dense for an Ivy League student."

Quinn laughs at what probably is the meanest thing she's ever heard Marley say, even if it is directed at her.

"You're being a horrible girlfriend right now, so you should stop laughing and let me thank you properly."

Warmth pools in her belly. "Girlfriend," she murmurs, trying it out.

Marley stiffens. "We are, aren't we…?"

"We've been dating for a few months," says Quinn dryly. "I think that makes us girlfriends… unless you've been seeing anyone else?"

Marley gasps in outrage. "No! I didn't say it earlier because I don't want you to feel like there needs to be a label for us."

"It's not labels I'm worried about," says Quinn. Absently, she plays with Marley hand in her lap. "It's being official. Telling your mom. Our friends."

"My mom already guessed," says Marley.

"What."

Marley shrugs. "She's my mom. Also, she started noticing when you came over for Christmas, and cornered me."

Quinn groans. She tips forward so her face is buried in Marley's neck. "I'm never gonna be able to show my face at your house again," she says, voice muffled against Marley's shirt collar. "She's going to give me the talk, I just know it."

"It's not gonna be that bad. She already loves you, and besides, you can't get me pregnant."

"Marley Rose!"

Telling Santana was the stuff of comedies; she'd sniffed, said: "About fucking time," and proceeded to ask Marley how long she had wanted to pull that stick out of Quinn's ass.

Quinn's never pretended to understand their friendship. The lesbian guru shtick Santana's recently adopted, though; that completely baffles her.

"Okay, I'm sure no one told you we'd be in Lima," says Quinn after Marley's gone to visit her mom and Santana's shown up in the empty Fabray home with a bottle of red wine and two glasses.

"The scent of repression coming from you was impossible to miss." Santana starts ransacking kitchen drawers (Quinn takes the corkscrew from its drawer, throwing it at Santana and smirking when it connects). Santana flips her off and makes short work of the cork, topping off Quinn's glass neatly. "Plus, I saw Marley post on her Facebook."

Quinn shrugs.

"You'd better treat her right."

"You're ruining your reputation for being a badass, just so you know," comments Quinn, hiding her smile in her wineglass.

"I don't do this for just anyone. Just the repressed bitches who need a swift kick in the ass." Santana clinks their glasses together. "Now, c'mon. Let's get wasted so I can finally laugh about you getting more tail than me."

Quinn is front and centre at Marley's graduation, a bouquet of flowers in her lap. Calla lilies. Amaryllis. Freesia. Roses, of course, in pink and deep crimson. And –

"I really like these," says Marley later, brushing the white flowers. "What are they?"

Quinn takes a breath. "Gardenias," she says. "They mean 'you are lovely'."

And someday she'll tell Marley everything; it's not impossible, given that she's managed this much.

As working adults, the three-year age gap isn't as glaring as it would have been if they were still in school, but Quinn feels it most keenly when Marley takes care of her. She's used to being the responsible one, the one in charge, but she hasn't felt like she can handle responsibility in years.

It seems to suit Marley just fine, as the only child in a single-parent family. She cares for Quinn with infinite patience and love, and Quinn can imagine her as a mother someday.

It's a running joke that they have, where Quinn attempts to make up for her complete emotional retardation by making food for the girl who had an eating disorder.

Quinn knows that's not strictly true; she just likes to do things for Marley, because the idea of looking after someone rather than the other way around appeals to her. It makes Quinn feel stronger, less vulnerable.

Taking care of Marley – someone who's been doing half of the household chores before she started grade school – is… it gives Quinn a satisfaction that's more than she can explain.

The cherry on top of this proverbial cake is the toddler-like grin Marley gives her whenever she does something sweet; her joy is pure and wholesome, and it melts Quinn's insides.

She returns to her house in Lima for what, hopefully, is the last time. Her mother's decided to move out to Chicago to be closer to her grandchildren since Quinn continues to disappoint her in too many ways to count. As a form of penance, Quinn offered to pack up the house.

In hindsight, it was a mistake; there are too many memories, more bad than good, in the old house for Quinn to be comfortable packing up the place alone.

Marley was busy with the arrangements for a job interview and didn't fly back with Quinn, but she shows up the day after, wearing coveralls and the ridiculous cabbie cap she was so fond of in high school. "What should I do?"

"Take the boxes out into the yard," says Quinn. She's in a terrible mood, after spending the morning on the verge of tears as she was cleaning out her father's old study. "The ones we're keeping are marked Chicago, the rest should go on the sidewalk for the Salvation Army." She feels guilty for the business-like way she's treating her girlfriend, but the apology sticks in her throat.

Marley nods, already fishing out movers' gloves out of her coverall pocket, and it almost makes Quinn want to laugh.

When Marley hauls the last of the boxes outside, she comes into the kitchen to find takeout shrimp fried rice and vegetable dumplings from her favourite Chinese place, and a fresh jug of iced peach tea waiting for her on the counter.

Marley doesn't need to say anything. She kisses Quinn's cheek, and it's I'm here for you and we're okay and I love you too all in one.

As a friend, Marley was content to sit by and wait for Quinn to initiate things, to start talking. As a girlfriend, Marley still does that, but more often than not, she acts on an instinct that is unerringly right.

Marley looks up from her laptop when Quinn tosses her keys into the bowl and immediately pulls her headphones off.

"Quinn?"

"I don't want to talk about it," says Quinn, her voice harsh. She's been stretched taut all day, and she feels like she'll snap any moment. Her bag goes on the couch, her purse tumbles carelessly on the bag. Quinn brushes past Marley and into the bedroom, curling up on the bed.

She must have fallen asleep, because the next thing she knows, someone's pulling the blankets over her. "... Marley?"

"Shhh." The mattress dips a little as Marley climbs into bed, but she keeps her distance. "Go back to sleep."

She feels like a toddler who's all cried-out after a temper tantrum. "I'm sorry."

"Shh," says Marley again, but she scoots over. Quinn hesitates; Marley gently coaxes her head down onto her shoulder, tucking Quinn's arm around her middle. "We'll talk tomorrow."

When she wakes up, her head feels clearer.

Her girlfriend's still asleep, both arms around Quinn, a faint trace of drool at the corner of her mouth. It's a bit hard to believe that this woman is a junior producer at Columbia Records with songwriting credits for Sia, and harder still that she's here with Quinn.

Quinn's fingers grip the soft cotton of Marley's shirt tightly.

Somehow, that makes Marley stir, and in minutes, she's rubbing bleary eyes. "Quinn?"

"I'm sorry."

Marley lets go of Quinn to flail on the nightstand for her phone, squinting at the screen. Quinn feels guilty all over again when she catches a glimpse of the lockscreen – a photo of them from their recent trip to Lake Placid. "It's still early, go back to sleep," mumbles Marley, putting her phone aside so her hand can return to its place on Quinn's back.

Quinn presses her forehead into Marley's shoulder and doesn't respond.

The hand on her back starts rubbing soothing circles; it's Marley's sign for when she's waiting for Quinn to open up.

"I'm fine now," she says quietly.

"No, tell me why you were so mad yesterday."

"My morning class was cancelled, and no one told me until after I wasted half an hour sitting in an empty lecture theatre, and it just happened that the dean was supposed to be visiting my department. I was supposed to talk to him about getting that research grant I've been hounding him for since the beginning of the semester and – "

Marley cuts her off mid-rant with a warm hand cupping her chin, and a kiss to the top of her head. Quinn calms down immediately.

"I'm sorry. It had nothing to do with you, and I shouldn't have taken my frustrations out on you."

"Mmmm." The hand on Quinn's back moves to the back of her neck, and massages her nape. If she was a cat and not Quinn Fabray, she would have purred. "Quinn, I know it's hard, but you can't keep bottling everything up."

"I know."

"I love you," offers Marley. Quinn still has trouble saying it back, but they both know that, and Quinn simply drops a kiss on Marley's collarbone in response.

After a few more hours' sleep, she feels pale and shaky but she's functional; Quinn knows Marley played a huge part in that, and she's grateful. She makes coffee for herself first, before pulling out the ingredients for pancakes.

When Marley appears in the kitchen, Quinn slides a mug of orange juice in front of her (Marley, like the child she is, doesn't like coffee). "Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes," she says, expertly flipping the pancake like the housewife she was raised to be.

"Okay."

Marley smiles when she sees her favourite chocolate pancakes, pouring maple syrup over them. After she's finished eating, she lets Quinn clean up.

Quinn feels arms slip around her waist as she dries the last of the dishes. "Thank you," comes the soft voice beside her ear.

"You're welcome." She shifts to put the last plate away; Marley moves with her. Quinn hangs up the dish towel and leans backward, her hands holding Marley's in place.

"I know I'm not the easiest person to be with…"

Marley kisses Quinn's temple and she quiets. "Quinn, I love you, but you need to shut up right now."

"But I…"

"I know you're gonna beat yourself up over this. You're fine; you don't have to feel guilty, or ashamed for being this way." Marley rests her chin on Quinn's shoulder. "When I say that I love you, it doesn't mean that you have to prove to anyone that you're worthy of that love."

Quinn's fingers grip tightly. "... I love you. So much."

She feels Marley smile into her neck.

"... you want to know something stupid?"

Marley frowns and makes a little displeased sound, but Quinn quickly adds: "I'd always thought that hugging Rachel would be wonderful. Like – she's tiny, and I'd look at her and imagine what it'll be like to wrap her up in my arms. That – for a moment – I would be her world."

She catches the expression on Marley's face and continues quickly: "Hugging you is different. We're equals, sort of, but you keep me safe when I want to hide, and… it's everything." She leans back into her girlfriend as she struggles to find words for how she feels. "You're not a replacement for her," whispers Quinn at last.

Gentle hands on Quinn's hips are turning her around, and Marley's fingers frame her face. "I know," says Marley, and kisses her.

She sees Rachel once, after.

New York's a huge city, but the likelihood of running into Rachel around Broadway is much higher than normal, and Quinn spots her outside a coffee shop.

She looks good. She has her hair in a high ponytail that shows off every inch of that elegant neck, and she has a ring on her finger and a handsome guy on her arm.

Quinn is rooted to the spot, watching her from the corner of the street, hand white-knuckled on her brown bag lunch. Rachel takes a coffee cup from the man, laughing at something he says, and then standing on tiptoe (he still has to stoop to meet her; she clearly has a thing for taller men) to kiss him.

Forget looking good; Rachel looks happy, and it's a much better look on her than the devastation of watching a friendship come to an end.

Quinn's proud to say that she doesn't feel like her heart is in splinters at the bottom of her ribcage. It's at home, safe with a girl who grins like a toddler, who has a collection of men's hats she wears unironically, and who loves both Lucy and Quinn enough to wait for them to be ready.

She watches Rachel and her man disappear around the corner before taking out her phone, texting I love you to Marley. Quinn gets a string of stupid emoji in reply.

But it's followed immediately after by: I love you, too.