A/N: Quinntana Week 2012 - Day 1: Unresolved Sexual Tension. Enjoy!

Quinn scribbles down a flight number in her notepad. AM130. Mexico City to L.A.

"So, six o'clock?" she says to the face on her computer screen.

There's a bit of static on the other end of the connection, and then Santana's voice says, "Yes," on a slight delay.

Quinn looks back down at her piece of paper. "PM?"

"Yes, Quinn."

"And you'll be there?"

"No, the Royal Society of London will be there," Santana says exasperatedly. She disappears from the screen for a second and then returns with an elastic band, reaching back to tie her hair.

Quinn watches her arm muscles flex and forgets she has a quip to respond to.

"Q? You there?" Santana asks, her brow furrowing into her webcam. "Stupid thing."

Quinn tries to control her flush.

"Still here. Excuse me if I find it hard to believe you're finally coming home," she says. She puts the cap back on her pen and shoves it and the notebook aside, then stretches her legs out on the big empty bed.

"You can't rush archaeology," Santana shrugs.

Apparently, archaeology needed to take Quinn's girlfriend away from her for five weeks. Five weeks.

"Five weeks," she says.

"That is typically how long an archaeological dig lasts. You know that."

Quinn frowns. It never felt this bad. Up until this year, when she was asked to teach summer school, she'd had the luxury of accompanying Santana on these trips.

"This was all way sexier when I thought what you did was even mildly Tomb Raider-esque," she says.

Someone on Santana's end, not on the screen, bursts out laughing. Santana chucks something at the person, proving once again that a part of her will always be 17.

"Roommate there?" Quinn asks dejectedly.

"Yes," Santana responds, just as dejectedly.

Quinn knows they're both thinking the same thing: one, that it's ridiculous Santana had to share a room with a colleague on an excavation that she co-captained, and two, that there's no chance they'll, well...

"Hey, Quinn!" a blonde-haired woman says brightly as she pops into the screen.

"Hi, Hanna."

"Sorry to be interrupting you and Santana's private time," Hanna says, leaving an unnecessarily significant pause there, "but it's been a grueling day of packing and we have an early flight in the AM. You'll have to rekindle the fire tomorrow night when we get in. If you know what I mean."

Quinn blushes all the way down to her soles, not sure what to say in response; she isn't very good at sharing about their sex life.

Santana pushes Hanna out of the frame.

"Go away. You're scandalizing her."

"What?" Quinn hears Hanna say. "It's perfectly healthy. With how often you two do it, she should be used to talking about it by now."

"Shut it, Marin," Santana snaps, then turns back to her screen. "I absolutely cannot be blamed if Snix throttles her in her sleep."

"I won't tell a soul," Quinn mumbles. "Emily will never know."

Santana grins and her dimples make Quinn's stomach tighten. It's been too long.

"I can't wait to see you," Santana says, her voice softening.

"Me too," Quinn says. "Call me when you land?"

"Yeah," Santana says, and then they disconnect.

Quinn shuts the lid of her laptop, pushing it aside. She curls up on her side of the bed and tries to ignore the insistent want that's thrumming through her body in response to merely seeing and hearing Santana. Tomorrow cannot come sooner.

"So there was this thing," Santana says solemnly on the other end of the line as soon as Quinn answers her cell phone.

Quinn raises an eyebrow and watches the arrivals exiting from immigration.

"A thing? What thing? Are you here?"

"A weather thing," Santana says. "I guess a bad thunder storm. They cancelled the charter bus and we couldn't get to the capital in time for our flight. The phone lines have been down."

"What?" Quinn asks, feeling something sink in her stomach. "Are you saying you're not in L.A. right now?"

"I'm back in Morelia."

"Do not test me, Santana," Quinn says warningly. "I'm waiting at arrivals." What she doesn't add is, and I haven't touched you in over a month. She may be going a little crazy. For all she knows, she's imagining this conversation.

"Quinn, I'm serious," Santana says testily. "We've been trying to find another route for hours."

Quinn refuses to cry. She reminds herself that she isn't five. Or ridiculous.

"I've been trying not to punch everything that moves," Santana adds.

"Did you find anything?" Quinn asks, regaining her composure. "Not to punch, but, you know...to bring you anywhere within a driving radius of me." She doesn't move from her position at the barrier, not having fully processed that Santana won't be exiting through the sliding doors.

"They told us the next available flight to L.A. with protected transport isn't for another week."

Quinn groans. Given the nature of Santana's work, they need special transportation for some of the materials and artifacts they travel with.

"Could you book a separate flight?" she asks, chewing her lip hopefully. She knows it's a long shot.

"Believe me, my ass would be on another flight this instant if it could be, but I have to supervise half this crap," Santana says. There's some commotion on her end, then she says, "I have to run. The geniuses are saying they've figured it out."

Quinn finally turns around and begins to head for the exit. "Okay. Keep me posted."

"I'm sorry, babe," Santana says before she hangs up. "Just-please tell me you didn't bring flowers, because I'd rather have killed a kitten."

Quinn smiles wryly.

"They're on the kitchen counter."

Santana curses. "You have no idea how badly I want to be in our kitchen, shoving you against that counter right now."

Quinn's body reacts instantly.

"Santana," she warns, "you're starting something you can't finish."

"I should apologize, but I won't. Bye, Quinn," Santana says, and then she hangs up.

Just as Quinn's packing away the dinner she prepared for the missed occasion and internally yelling at Mexico's weather, and its airports, and airports in general, her phone vibrates with a text message.

Sending the students and aides on a flight back, it reads. We're driving a truck with the stuff. Should be home by eight tomorrow.

Quinn's eyebrows shoot up. Driving. From southern Mexico to California. Before she can formulate a coherent response to that plan, or even consider the gazillion things that are wrong with it, her phone buzzes again. It says:

I can't wait for you to fuck me in our bed.

"We were intercepted by a drug cartel."

It's three o'clock in the morning, so predictably, it takes Quinn a few seconds to realize that she's no longer asleep, and then a few more seconds to interpret what her girlfriend is saying.

"What?" Quinn demands, once it clicks.

"Well, it was more their cronies than the actual cartel," Santana explains. She sounds bored, as though she's telling Quinn about how they stopped for snacks and the gas station was out of Cool Ranch.

"Santana," Quinn says exasperatedly, sitting up in bed. "Care to back up a little? What happened? Are you okay?"

"Hanna might have peed her pants a little, but otherwise, we're good," Santana replies. Then, she finally seems to remember she's telling Quinn they were stopped by fucking drug lords. "It was just a couple of assholes with rifles. They thought our truck belonged to a rival gang or something. We had to call the cops and there was this whole thing. Anyway...long story short: they rerouted us. It's going to take an extra half-day or so to get back."

Quinn thinks she should retract the whole Tomb Raider thing. The thought of guns anywhere near Santana is possibly the least sexy thing she can imagine.

"Jesus," she says faintly, fingers curling into the sheets.

"It was annoying more than anything else, Q," Santana says. "I'm safe and sound inside a less than charming motel room right now. It's like Trouty Mouth's old trailer home in here."

Quinn furrows her brow. "Could it have been worse?" she asks, ignoring the joke.

She hears Santana shuffling around, like she might be turning over in bed, and then:

"I don't know. I guess."

Quinn's twisting stomach prevents her from responding to that. She instead pictures the situation at its worse.

"So..." Santana says after a long pause, interrupting Quinn's morbid thoughts. "What are you wearing?"

Quite literally, Quinn's jaw drops.

"Are you serious?"

Santana sighs over the line.

"It's late, we've been dealing with the cops for hours, and I just found out I'm not coming home for another day. All I want to do is at least pretend I can touch you."

"Santana," Quinn says softly, startled by her candidness. Santana is generally direct, but not so often about "messy feelings garbage," as she prefers to call anything that resembles an emotion.

"Please. I miss you like crazy," Santana says.

That aching need to be near her girlfriend settles into Quinn's bones again. She stays silent for a lingering while, listening to Santana's quiet exhalations on the other end, sensing the growing tension between them. Then, she says, "Shorts and a tank top."

Santana hums softly.

"Anything underneath?"

"No," Quinn responds.

Santana's breathing shifts audibly, growing heavier. The sound triggers a sense memory of when it would happen, warm and close, right in Quinn's ear. Heat begins to fill her body and blossom across her skin.

"You?" she asks, lying back against the pillows again, pushing the sheets away.

"Just underwear."

Quinn curses under her breath, struck by the image of Santana topless and spread across a foreign bed, her dusky nipples peaking.

"They're soaked," Santana adds.

"Jesus," says Quinn. Her core pulses in response.

"I haven't been able to stop thinking about you," Santana says, "how I'm going to be able to kiss you again soon."

Quinn presses her cell phone closer to her ear.

"That sounds familiar," she says. The thoughts have been assaulting her for almost as long as Santana's been gone: her on her hands and knees, pressing back against Quinn; her on her back, grinding up, head thrown back and full lips glistening from their last kiss.

"...what I want to do to you when I see you."

"Oh yeah?" Santana murmurs.

Quinn makes a sound of affirmation, sliding lower on the bed and letting her legs spread a little further apart. She's beginning to feel swollen and sensitive.

"Tell me," Santana says.

Quinn flushes.

Despite everything, despite the four years they've been together, she still finds herself nervous when it comes to putting certain things into words. Finds that she prefers to show and not tell.

"I..." she starts. "I want to press you into our bed and taste you."

"Taste me where?" Santana asks.

Quinn's face feels like it's on fire.

"Your perfect tits," she replies.

Santana moans softly. "Yes," she whispers. "Touching them right now. My nipples are getting hard at the thought of your mouth on them."

Quinn's breath catches in her throat.

"Fuck," she manages.

"More," Santana presses.

It's one of Quinn's favorite words to hear from Santana, but it takes on a torturous quality now. More, she recalls Santana gasping in that pleading, raspy way of hers as Quinn's tongue teased her entrance the night before she left.

"Quinn," Santana says now, prompting her out of her memory. "Please. I want... I need..."

"I know, babe," Quinn assures her. She takes a second to collect herself, then says, "I'd kiss my way down your stomach and slip my fingers underneath the waistband of your underwear. Then I'd pull them off. Slowly."

Santana exhales shakily, and some shuffling can be heard on her end. Quinn can picture her sliding the underwear off, can picture how good she looks underneath.

"You'd look amazing, all... all wet, and your clit swollen," she continues. "I love seeing you."

"I love it when you look at me," Santana whispers. "But I especially love it when you touch me."

A slight smile tugs at Quinn's lips. Santana's good at being clear about what she wants.

"I wouldn't be able to wait to touch you," Quinn says. "I'd slide my thumb over your clit and tell you how I was going to fuck you with my tongue."

There's a soft gasp over the line, and she knows Santana is touching herself now. It's simultaneously gratifying and maddening.

"I'm so wet," Santana whimpers.

"Fuck," Quinn murmurs reverently, her whole body thrumming with need. She lets her own fingers slide over her lower stomach and slip underneath the waistband of her shorts. She's burning up-knows that if Santana keeps talking this way and making those sexy little sounds of hers, she's going to come. Easily.

"I wish I could feel you."

It sounds like Santana bites back a moan, and then she breathlessly says,

"I want to be there. I want these to be your fingers inside me instead." Another low, raspy moan. "Quinn... baby."

Quinn bites her bottom lip, but she can't stop the whimper that escapes. It's impossible. It's also impossible for her to keep her fingers away from herself any longer, and she sinks them over her clit, the pads of her fingertips sliding over its hard, sensitive tip.

"Yeah," she sighs. "I miss you."

"Soon as I get home..." Santana says, voice shaky, "the... the minute I see you, I want-"

There's a silent pause, and Quinn waits with bated breath to hear the rest of what Santana's saying. She pictures their front door-Santana walking in, dropping her bags, and then...what? When Santana still doesn't say anything, Quinn furrows her brow and asks,

"Want what, San?"

There's no response. In fact, there's dead silence on the other end of the line.

Quinn's fingers abruptly stop moving over herself.

"Hello?" she says, chest tightening. "Santana?"

She pulls her phone away and looks down at the screen.

Connection lost, it balefully reads.

"Fuck!" she exclaims, tugging her hand out of her shorts. "Fuck fuck fuck."

She sits up and immediately dials Santana's number.

"Come on," she says.

She presses the phone back against her ear, hoping against hope that she gets reconnected. But instead of her girlfriend's voice on the line, she gets a robot telling her that no, the number she dialed cannot be reached.

"Fuck," Quinn repeats despairingly, wondering what her life is right now. She's so on edge-of some huge precipice. Of a real life fucking cliff. It all feels like an enormous practical joke.

She tries Santana's number again, twice, but gets the same automated response both times.

"Fuck you, Mexico," she says. Then she repeats the same sentiment toward the weather. And UCLA. And every other force that's playing a part in Santana being there and not here.

Five minutes later, when Quinn still can't get a connection going and there hasn't been any word from Santana, she miserably realizes that she might have to give up, no matter how strongly her pounding heart disagrees.

She looks down at her useless phone and fights the overwhelming urge to smash it. She'll probably need the stupid thing. She manages to convince herself to toss it across the mattress and out of harm's way. Then, she grabs the alarm clock on the nightstand and smashes that to the ground instead.

The resulting crash is only minutely satisfying.

Quinn buries her face in her pillow and lets out a small cry of frustration.

Santana is never leaving the house again.

The next morning when Quinn wakes up for work, there are two new text messages on her phone. Distantly, she thanks herself for showing the thing some mercy last night as she opens up her messages folder.

Ran out of minutes. I'm going to castrate the bastards at T-Mobile, the first text reads. Then: Sorry, Q.

Quinn groans at their phenomenal lucklessness.

There was a lot of cursing. We need a new alarm clock, she types, then hits Send.

She doesn't get a response until later on in the morning, after her first class period.

Whoa. My violent girlfriend, everyone. Did you get to satisfy that gorgeous pussy of yours?

Quinn shakes her head at Santana's shameless wording, ignoring the fact that it makes her face get all stupidly hot. She looks up, but thankfully, the students have already all filtered out of her classroom.

Couldn't. I lost it, she replies. She means the sentiment both ways.

Her phone buzzes almost immediately.

Same here, it says. Tried but to no avail.

Quinn tries not to picture Santana with her fingers buried inside herself, desperately trying to get herself off, because now is really not the right time. Not when her tenth graders are about to start arriving. She fails.

They're going to have to institutionalize me soon, she sends.

Ha. Me too. Believe me, Santana replies. It might be a good idea if we stopped all contact until I got there. The more I talk to you, the more I miss you.

Quinn frowns. She doesn't like the idea of a radio silence between them, but Santana has a point. She feels the same way, feels the pang of longing intensifying even now, just from the texting.

Hate the thought, but that might be wise, she says.

Okay. No texting. No phone calls. I'll see you on the other side. One day.

One day, Quinn thinks as she turns around to erase the white board.

No contact is the plan. So, the following afternoon, when her phone rings three hours before Santana is scheduled to arrive and still well within their no-talk period, Quinn knows something's up.

She crosses her fingers, and her toes, and answers.

"Do you want to hear the good news or the bad news first?" Santana says. She sounds livid.

Quinn blinks.

"You don't sound like good news. You sound like horrible, no-good news," she responds. "What happened?"

"We just got to the border," says Santana. The sound of rushing static comes over the line, like she's standing outside in the wind.

"Good?" Quinn guesses, forehead creasing.

That sounds about right. It means they're right on schedule.

"I lost my fucking passport."

Quinn very nearly rear-ends the car standing in front of her at the red light.

She jams her foot over the break pedal just in time, causing her body to jolt forward.

"You what?" she demands, once her and her car are at no risk of physical harm.

"You heard what I said," Santana says testily.

"Yes, I fucking heard you," Quinn says. When the line starts moving, she abruptly pulls over into an empty parking lot. She can't multi-task this conversation. "How did this happen?"

"I don't know. I must have dropped it somewhere. The motel, or one of the restaurants we stopped at on the way up. It could be anywhere. I don't know what to do."

Quinn's heart can't take this much stress. It's going to up and quit. She can tell.

"Shit. Santana... Just. Shit," she says, eloquence deserting her.

Her mind works in overdrive, trying to figure out what to do.

"Exactly," Santana says. "It's a good thing I realized before we got to the border crossing. I could've been detained. My exotic good looks don't particularly defend me in this case."

As acerbic as it is, Quinn can't believe Santana is making a joke right now. She feels a renewed respect for her girlfriend.

"Your looks defend you in every case," she says. "But, don't test that right now."

Santana snorts. "I wasn't planning on it."

"I'm going to call Spence," Quinn says. Their lawyer. "Hang in there?"

"Thank you," Santana responds, relief flooding her voice, and Quinn hadn't even noticed she sounded so nervous. "I didn't even think of that."

Quinn starts pulling up Spencer's contact card on her phone.

"Well," she mumbles distractedly. "There had to be some reason you were keeping me around, right?"

"It was the sex," Santana admits.

Quinn can't hold back a giggle, despite herself.

"Call you back in a second," she says, hitting the End Call button.

Ten minutes and far too much Hastings blathering later, Quinn has Santana back on the line.

"She said that all you should need is your birth certificate. If I overnight it this afternoon, you should be able to get across the border with no big fanfare tomorrow morning. Just get me a hotel address."

"Jesus on a sandwich, Quinn. You're perfect," Santana says. "I'm going to suck your-"

"Santana," Quinn interrupts in admonishment as she starts her car up again.

She can practically see Santana schooling her features into an innocent expression on the other end.

"What?" Santana asks. "I needs to express my gratitude."

Quinn drives in the direction of the main road again and flips on her left turn signal, turning back toward their house. The grocery store is no longer going to happen tonight.

"And I needs to remain sane."

There's the sound of a car door slamming on Santana's end, and then it gets a lot quieter, like she just climbed into a car.

"Sorry to break it to you, Quinn, but that ship sailed a long time ago."

Quinn rolls her eyes.

"Go find a hotel," she commands.

"Doing it now," her girlfriend says dutifully.

"And Santana?"

"Yeah, babe?" Santana asks.

"If you ever get back in this country, you're never leaving my presence," Quinn tells her.

"That sounds realistic. I always knew you were a reasonable person."

"I'll handcuff you if I have to," Quinn adds.

"Wanky," Santana says, and Quinn can picture the suggestive smirk on her face. "Text you the address in a little bit."

It takes Quinn a full half hour to locate Santana's birth certificate.

When she finally does, she thinks she's going to pass out from relief. She shoves the thought of Santana being stuck across the border forever from her mind and swears that the second thing they're going to do when Santana gets home is clean up that mess of a desk drawer. Right after they, well…

Quinn finds it downright impossible to shove that thought from her mind, Santana being back in her arms having been at the forefront for longer than she cares to realize.

Right as she's about to get back in her car, manila envelope in tow, her phone chirps with a new text message. It's Santana, with the address for where she needs to send the envelope.

Quinn stops in her tracks. She looks down at the address, then at the time, and then at her car. Then she feels how heavily her heart is pounding at the thought of Santana being stranded so close to home, spending yet another night in an unfamiliar bed and unfamiliar city-at how she herself has felt this urgency swelling underneath the surface for weeks. It all feels like it's coming to a head right now.

The decision is one of the easiest she's had to make.

She turns back around and hurries up the steps to their house.

Three hours later, Quinn's hauling a duffle bag over her shoulder and squinting into the dark summer night as she makes her way up another set of steps. She gets to the top of the staircase, and then locates the room door that reads 206. Her pulse races wildly in anticipation as she lifts her hand.

She knocks once and waits, practically bouncing on her heels.

And waits.

Quinn's brow furrows. She knocks again, more loudly this time. Did she get the room number wrong? She's sure she's in the right place; the GPS in her car has never failed her.

But there's still no response at the door.

Quinn groans.

She reaches into her pocket to take another look at the address. Maybe she typed it in wrong. Almost as soon as her fingers close around her cell phone, though, it begins to vibrate in her hand.

"Jesus," she says, startled, pulling the thing out of her pocket.

She looks at the screen. It's Santana's grinning face staring back at her.

"Hello?"

"Quinn?" Santana asks immediately. It's completely quiet on her end of the line, other than for the sound of her voice.

"Santana?" Quinn responds, forehead creased in confusion. She stares at the room door.

"Where the hell are you?"

For a second, Quinn considers maintaining the ruse-considers keeping it a surprise for Santana still-but given the current state of affairs, and her utter confusion, she can't help but say:

"Tijuana. Where are you?"

There's a long, silent pause, and then Santana says,

"Standing in our foyer."