A/N: To those of you following my other continuing stories, I apologize for making you wait. I've been having trouble getting my creative juices flowing. This is an effort to remedy that, and hopefully I'll have updates for those soon. This story, while presented in multi-chapter format is already completed (less some spell checking and minor re-writes, anyway) and will be posted in its entirety within the next week.

This chapter sets up the premise of the story, where a small deviation from canon leads to differing takes on the familiar Faberry scenes. Hope everyone enjoys.

Chapter 1
Quinn's mind is all over the place, wondering how it came to this, what they're going to do now, how they're going to survive, where their next meal is going to come from, and a million other things when she's snapped out of all of it by the absolute last person she expects to see right now.
"I'm so sorry," Rachel says in a soft voice. The honesty of the sentiment is written all over her face. Quinn knows she means it. It's not that Rachel is incapable of lying or is somehow above. It's just that she has a horrendously shitty poker face, something she'll have to work on if she ever wants to realize her dreams of Broadway stardom. "I fully understand if you want to beat me up. If you can, just try to avoid my nose."
"I'm not mad at you," Quinn replies and surprisingly, even to Quinn, it's the truth. She's not completely soulless. She knows what she has been doing to Finn was just all kinds of wrong. She was just too cowardly to do anything about it and she tells Rachel that. "All you did was what I wasn't brave enough to do. Tell the truth."
"I was selfish when I told him," Rachel says settling down on the bench next to her. Quinn didn't really invite Rachel to join her but she didn't tell her to buzz off or call her any of her parade of horrible nicknames either, so… "I wanted to break you two up, so he would want to be with me." Rachel's not exactly sure why she's trying to talk Quinn into being mad at her, but it's just sort of her natural inclination to fill any silence with words and it's on her mind.
"And now neither of us have him," Quinn replies. There's long moment of silence that Rachel has to struggle not to fill because it's obvious how much more there is on Quinn's mind and maybe Quinn will take the chance to voice her concerns if Rachel can just wait it out. "I have hurt so many people." Rachel's not sure if Quinn means with this particular lie or just in general but she's still in a verbal holding pattern trying to silently coax more out of Quinn. "Can you go now? I just really want to be alone."
Rachel is about to stand up and grant Quinn her wish when she sees Noah out of the corner of her eye, obviously lurking waiting to talk to Quinn. She shouldn't have to deal with him right now. He's only going to try to pressure her into a relationship with him when she's just minutes out of her relationship with Finn. Just because they're having a child together doesn't mean they have to be romantically entangled. This is the 21st century, after all, not the 1950's. "I think being alone was the problem to begin with, wasn't it?" Rachel says. Quinn looks at her a mixture of anger and curiosity on her face. "I know we don't really know one another very well, beyond the very most superficial layers, but I… recognize a lonely girl when I see one, Quinn. I encounter one every day in the mirror."
"I have friends," Quinn says and even she knows that's pretty much a load of crap.
"Perhaps," Rachel says being generous, "But you don't have a confidant… a dear friend who you can talk to about everything because you know they'll never judge you for anything. If you had someone like that then the situation would have never reached this point. A caring friend would have tried to get you to resolve this situation privately, months ago, but no one did. Did they?"
Quinn stares silently at the wall on the far side of the hall for a long while. Even now she can't find it in herself to be angry at Rachel for pushing like she is. By all rights she should be but it's just not coming, mostly because Rachel's not wrong. "No," she finally admits. "But do you really expect me to confide my deepest, darkest secrets to you, considering what you just did?"
"You didn't confide that in me, Quinn," Rachel explains. She senses that Quinn's doing her best to push Rachel away so she's doing her best to remain even toned. "I figured it out, and I know I shouldn't have told. I didn't think about it from your point of view, about how you likely felt you had no choice but to maintain the lie, that you had nowhere else to go..."
"Thanks for reminding me," Quinn says bitterly.
"Don't be ridiculous, Quinn. What kind of friend would I be, if I didn't offer you the guest room at my house?"
"Who said we were friends?" Quinn bites at her, still trying to rile her, upset her, drive her off.
"I did," Rachel states confidently, "Just now." Another long silence falls between them and Quinn gives Rachel a skeptical expression. "Look, if nothing else, you're going to need somewhere to stay tonight. I can't imagine Finn not telling his mother, nor can I expect she will want to continue accepting responsibility for you after… everything, so at the very least, you can stay with me until you figure out something more to your liking tomorrow or in a few days."
"And you dads will just… be okay with that?"
"To be honest, they may not be entirely thrilled with it," Rachel admits, "But I can assure they would be far less thrilled with the idea of a homeless, pregnant teenage girl sleeping on the streets on a cold December night. They will deal with the awkwardness."
"Why are you pushing for this? Why do you care?"
"Because you need someone to confide in and you don't have anyone… and neither do I," Rachel admits, "So I think we should resolve to stop looking at each other as adversaries and give each other a chance to be friends."
"Are you going to go after Finn again?" Quinn asks her voice is so soft she's not sure Rachel even heard her even though she's sitting right there. She begins to suspect that Rachel didn't when no answer is immediately forthcoming.
She looks to Rachel who is already looking at her gnawing on her bottom lip. "I…" her thought gets hung up in her throat because she wants to be honest about her still very present desire to be with Finn, but she can see that it's now at odds with her desire to be friends with Quinn. "I won't pursue him," Rachel concedes at last, "but if he asks me out, I can't swear that I'll say no."
"Well," Quinn draws out, "I can't swear that I won't get upset if you say yes."
Rachel's eyes bulge and she forces herself not to grin like an idiot. "Does that mean…?"
"Yes," Quinn says softly again, "At least for a couple of nights."
Rachel stops fighting the urge to smile and then in the blink of an eye… less than that, really… her arms a flung around Quinn's neck squeezing for dear life. Quinn stiffens initially but relaxes after only a minute and really it's not exactly unpleasant.