Conflicting Interests

By: Tracy Cook

Disclaimer: I do not own anything; these characters belong to the creators of Glee and One Tree Hill.

Pairing: Quinn/Rachel (Glee) and Brooke/Haley (One Tree Hill)

Rating: M

Chapter 4

Comfort in the Insanity

Rachel glanced around the first floor of the house, searching through the crowds for her boyfriend. Her hands were shaking anxiously and her heart was racing, her legs were tingling and felt like jelly, she honestly didn't think that she could stay standing for long. Her mind was racing with thoughts. 'Oh god, I can't believe that I just kissed Quinn Fabray… it was wonderful—no terrible…but perfect…Where is Finn?' It was driving her insane.

She had spent three years of her life loving Finn Hudson. She planned to marry him and move away to New York City with him in a few months, to start a life together, a family, and now all of that was compromised.

Now she had no clue what she truly wanted and she hated it.

Pushing her way through the crowd she dodged people and apologized when she ran into them, as she looked around for Finn. Every once in a while she would call out his name, but she was not having any luck finding him. She was starting to worry that he had either left the party or he had decided to "spite" her some more. 'No, Finn would never cheat on me… he loves me… Stop being irrational Rachel, he is around here some—'

Rachel's train of thought was interrupted as she ran into another person. She screamed out, startled, when an alcoholic beverage splashed all over her chest.

"Shit!" A raspy voice shouted out. Rachel glanced up and saw that it was the girl that had kissed the other girl during spin the bottle. She wondered what had happened to cause the girl with the hat to bolt out of the party, and what had caused the girl standing in front of her to obviously drown herself in alcohol. She looked completely wasted. "Sorry." The other girl said with an uncaring smirk as she caught brown eyes with hazel.

"It is quite alright." Rachel said as she walked toward the bar and picked up the rag that was used to clean the glasses and started to wipe off her wet clothing. After she felt that the alcohol was sufficiently cleaned off, she set the rag back down and leant against the bar casting her eyes toward the inebriated woman.

The starlet had not expected the other woman to strike up a conversation with her. Most people would not choose to do so. Perhaps it was the loneliness or the alcohol, but she appeared to really want to talk to her.

She leant against the bar next to Rachel and looked over at her, filling her cup with more alcohol and downing it. "Never seen you around before, so I'm guessing you're not from Tree Hill?"

"No, I am Rachel Berry; I am here with my glee club from Ohio, in order to perform in the singing competition tomorrow night." She informed. "And you are?"

"Yep, definitely not from around here."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because if you were, you would know who I am. I'm Brooke Davis, head cheerleader and total bitch. I kinda screwed up everything tonight." She laughed and shook her head as she downed another drink of alcohol and stared out at the crowd. Lucas and Peyton were dancing and they looked happy together, while Nathan and Haley were nowhere to be found. She had destroyed their relationship for completely selfish reasons. She did not even understand when she started having feelings for Haley. 'Right around the time that she took my damn breath away with a single kiss…'

"I know how you feel. Although, I do not approve of the vulgarity of your statement I must concur that I too ruined the evening."

"You talk funny." Brooke stated in her drunken stupor, laughing.

Rachel laughed a little and shrugged her shoulders, "I am aware."

Both of their laughter died out, and Brooke leant over the bar grabbing another bottle of alcohol and pouring herself another drink. This time she also poured a drink for Rachel, handing it to her. Rachel stared down at the cup for a moment with perplexed eyes, knowing that alcohol would not help her situation, but she decided that it could not hurt her situation either and grabbed the drink. Taking a sip she stared back toward the crowd searching once more for Finn.

"So, how did you ruin the evening?" Brooke asked mockingly with a raised brow as she sucked in her cheeks and stared at Lucas and Peyton.

Rachel looked over at the other woman and she internally played with the idea of venting to her. She was a stranger and there was no reason that she would use the information against her, and she really needed to talk about it to someone. "Well, I have a tendency to get insanely jealous and destroy my relationships." She stated honestly.

"I can understand that." Brooke said in a bitter tone.

"Yes, I suppose that that is not so uncommon a problem in relationships, but this time was different."

"How so?"

"This time my jealousy was misdirected." Rachel turned to look into Brooke's eyes and she immediately noticed the confusion behind them. "Perhaps I should start at the beginning?"

"That would probably be a good idea."

Rachel tugged her full bottom lip between her teeth and chewed on it as she returned her attention to the crowd of teenagers who were dancing. She did not know where to begin truthfully. "My boyfriend kissed another woman tonight and I got jealous, as you undoubtedly witnessed—" Brooke nodded her head. "—Right. And you would probably think that was normal? I mean of course it is normal, why would I want my boyfriend kissing his ex-girlfriend in front of me? Only, when I started to think about it I realized that I was not jealous for that reason, I was jealous because I wanted to be the one who was kissing her."

This admittance caught Brooke's attention and her hazel eyes widened as she stared at the shorter woman in shock. She had not expected her to admit something like that. It was similar to her situation with Haley and she could tell that Rachel was just as confused as she felt.

"I can tell by the look on your face that you are completely and utterly shocked by this admittance, and of course you are, it is odd behavior. But, then I started to really think about my relationship with Quinn. The way that I constantly followed her around and attempted to be friends with her no matter how mean she was to me, the way that I wanted nothing more than to be close to her, how I felt when around her, how I looked at her, and now I am completely confused…" She paused and took another drink of the alcohol before whispering out, "I think that I may have romantic feelings toward her."

"Wow…" Brooke muttered out, unable to offer anything substantial to the conversation as she took a drink of her alcohol and focused her attention on the people. Her mind was now consumed with thoughts of Haley. 'Could Haley feel the same way about me? Maybe she loves me and the kiss triggered something…? No doubt that, Haley was never even my friend and she never tried to be my friend… she hates me.'

"Yeah… I believe that wow is a sufficient response."

Both girls laughed, despite how they were really feeling terrified inside.

O

Quinn found herself wandering around the vast property, staring up at the stars as the wind rushed through her hair and caused the hairs to stand up on her arms. It was not particularly cold out, but it was a bit chilly. All that she could think about was the kiss that she had just shared with Rachel Berry.

For so many years she had lied to herself and hated Rachel just to make herself feel better, ruining her relationships, hurting her feelings, making her life miserable. All because she could not accept the truth about herself. Her parents would hate her, her church would disown her, God would look down on her, her friends would tease her, she had allowed all of these things to stop her from going after the one thing that made her happiest.

Rachel.

She loved Rachel more than she loved anything or anyone else in the world and now she knew that it was too late. It was selfish of her to kiss the other woman tonight, even if she had said that she wanted it, because Rachel was in a relationship with Finn. She loved Finn. And Quinn should have respected that.

But, she would never regret the kiss. Because if that was the only kiss that she ever shared with Rachel Berry than she would take it and cherish it. It had been perfect and if she had any doubts about her sexuality prior to the kiss, she didn't have any doubts any longer.

She was snapped out of her thoughts as her ears perked up at the sound of sobbing coming from nearby.

Quinn turned to look in the direction of the sound and she witnessed the girl in the hat that had bumped into Rachel and her while they were kissing. She watched her with curious hazel eyes, wondering what had happened to put her in such a horrible mood. After a few minutes she slowly started to approach the other woman. 'I guess what they say is true… misery does love company…'

"Are you okay?" Quinn asked as she neared the other woman.

She snapped her head up and turned to look up at the blonde stranger with wide brown eyes and tear stained cheeks. Quinn could not help but be reminded of Rachel. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. I just—you were crying and I was wondering if I could help."

"I doubt it, unless you have invented a time machine that I could use to go back in time and erase my stupidity." She responded with a sarcastic laugh.

"I'm actually still working on one of those to erase my own stupidity." Quinn teased back before sitting down next to the other woman and looking over at her. "But, I can listen to you if you want to talk about it?" Honestly, the blonde woman was not usually someone who cared to help others, but there was something about this girl that made her want to help.

"Not really much to talk about. Haley James, Tree Hill loser falls for the attractive jock, and the head cheerleader kisses her during a game of spin the bottle and then completely destroys her relationship with said athlete."

Quinn felt her chest clench in pain as she heard the story. It sounded a little too familiar for her comfort, and in the story she was the "bad guy" so to speak. "Destroyed your relationship how?" She finally forced out.

"She told me that he was only using me to get back at my best friend, to hurt me so that he could hurt him."

"And was he?"

"It seems so." Haley laughed and rolled her eyes as tears ran down her cheeks. "Looks like once again the smart girl does something really stupid."

'That sounds exactly like something that I would have done… I don't know how many times I tried to break up Finn and Rachel… it wasn't because I loved Finn though, it was because I loved Rachel, so maybe this cheerleader actually likes Haley?'

"I don't think that you trusting him was stupid." Quinn muttered out softly as she glanced over and caught large brown eyes with hazel, flashing her a soft smile. "You care about him. But, did you ever think that maybe this girl was mean to you because of another reason? Maybe she likes you and doesn't know how to show it?"

Haley laughed humorlessly as she tucked her hair behind her ears. "I highly doubt that. Brooke Davis hates me. She always has. I mean, this girl picks on me like pretty much all the time for no reason, she calls me names, teases me, and I never did anything to her. How could she possibly like me?"

'She probably does…'

"Look at tonight for example. She doesn't have any romantic feelings toward Nathan, she doesn't like him, she doesn't want him, and yet his ex-girlfriend is okay with me dating him, but she's not? It doesn't make any sense."

'Yes… it does…'

"I can't explain it, but I will tell you that I know from personal experience what it's like to be so terrified of my feelings that I hurt the person that I love most." Quinn said with a sad smile as she stood to her feet and stared down at Haley. The other woman was now wearing a shocked and curious expression. 'She is probably trying to understand what I mean… She will eventually… If this Brooke girl ever comes around…'

"What do you mean by that?"

Quinn chewed on her bottom lip and shrugged her shoulder. "It doesn't matter. I'm gonna get going, but you really look like you could use a friend through all of this and I would like to be there for you. So, if you are interested we are in town for a singing competition at the school tomorrow night, you should come by."

With that she nodded her head and turned to walk away.

"Wait, what's your name?"

"Quinn Fabray."

O

Authors Note: I know that I haven't added to this in a while, but I want to start adding more. I hope that y'all enjoyed this chapter and I have a lot of ideas for the next few chapters! Please do leave me some encouragement if you want me to continue with this fic. :)

Thank you all for reading!

Love you guys.

-Tracy Cook