Quinn meets Kurt for the first time over a dead body.

It's not as weird as it sounds. They are in a funeral home after all.

"You're not what I was expecting," Kurt says, tilting his head to look her up and down.

Quinn doesn't expect that to sting; she's used to not meeting people's expectations. But it smarts when it comes from a pale twink of a boy who she has a sneaking suspicion might be prettier than her. So she puts on her battle armor and smiles as sweetly as she can. "And what, pray tell, were you expecting?"

Kurt fiddles absently with the corpse's fingers, massaging them with moisturizer. She catches a faint scent of lavender, just enough to distract her from the cold metal smell of the gurney. "To keep them fresh and cover up the smell," he says when he catches her watching him. It sounds rote, and it probably is. Mrs. Pillsbury, the owner of the funeral home, had told her that Kurt's trained every mortician she's had for the past five years.

"So what were you expecting?" Quinn asks again. She knows she should back off, she'll be working with the man after all and he is supposed to be her boss. But she likes to be the one in charge, so she'll take her high ground where she can find it.

"Someone less likely to be a beauty queen I suppose," Kurt admits. "I keep trying to tell Emma to put experience with make up on the application form but she never does and then I have to spend a week doing nothing but teaching idiots the bare essentials of moisturizer and concealer." He sniffs, and she notices for the first time the tiny tiny pimple on the side of his nose, expertly covered. "I'm glad that I've finally got someone to work with who has some fashion sense."

This time Quinn's smile is genuine, despite her best attempts to keep it saccharine. "I didn't know fashion was such a concern for the dead."

"Don't be stupid," Kurt says, sliding his fingers between the corpse's as he moisturizes. It looks like they're holding hands, their fingers interlaced. "Our job is all about fashion, about making people look good. And besides, who cares what the dead want? Funerals are all for the living."

She can't fault him there, so they spend the rest of the day chatting about their favorite make up brands while Kurt prepares the woman for her coffin. He teaches her how to glue the dead's eyelids shut so the living won't have to look them in the eye.

"Nothing ruins the mood more than being able to see the whites of their eyes," Kurt says, squirting super glue into the creases. "That's zombie-level terror alert for some people."

"Good to know," Quinn says wryly. She wonders if she should take notes. "Is that standard?"

"Nope," Kurt pops out the p with a cheeky smile, "I came up with it myself. You're getting the best education there is. No one else can teach you these tricks."

"Did you grow up around corpses or something?" Quinn raises an eyebrow, "How did you come up with that?"

"My mom's eyes wouldn't close properly," Kurt says, and Quinn immediately feels stony guilt sink heavy and putrid in her stomach. She tells herself that she didn't know, but it doesn't really matter. You don't have to mean to to hurt someone. But Kurt doesn't seem to mind talking about it. He's had four other assistants before her, this can't be the first time he's explained. Maybe it's just another story for him at this point. "During the reception I just kept thinking of all the ways she could have been made more beautiful, more like herself. I was mad at them for taking away the last image I had of her, the last image any of us had of her." He squirts out a little too much glue, and it trickles down the groove of her nose. Kurt swears under his breath and carefully wipes it away with his own handkerchief. "People deserve better."

"She does," Quinn nods, and takes the gluey handkerchief from him when he's done.

"Oh not this woman," Kurt raises a condescending eyebrow, "weren't you listening? She doesn't care, she's dead. We could paint her purple and she wouldn't care. It's her family that deserves better."

"She would care," Quinn says firmly, very carefully not touching her cross. Wouldn't do to get glue on it. "Her soul is watching us now, and I'm sure she appreciates us not painting her purple."

Kurt laughs like it's being punched out of him, a wheezy, hacking thing. "Uh huh." He glances up at the ceiling, "Say hi to the spaghetti monster up there for me will you?"

She bristles, even though she knows that's what he wants. "Excuse me?"

This time it's his turn to smile dangerously. "You're in my prep room Ms. Fabray. You're welcome here, but your god is not." The tight corners of his eyes soften ever so slightly. "This is my place. He may have the rest of the world, but here it's just me." He offers her the moisturizer, and she sees it as the olive branch its meant to be. They will working together every day.

Quinn swallows down her anger, focuses on the memory of the bright red of her bank statement. "Alright," she says. She touches the cross at her throat for strength, glue be damned. Kurt watches her do it with a vague sort of curiosity, the same way he might watch a bird make its nest. It sets her teeth on edge, and they don't speak again for the rest of the day. But she takes the moisturizer.

"Why are you here?" Kurt asks as he paints the man's lips a pearly pink. "You're not a cosmologist, for all that you do your own make up with enviable success." The way he says it, it's not a compliment. "You spend more time looking at the flowers out in the front than you do in here."

"Well you seem to have a handle on it back here," Quinn shoots back. "You never let me touch the body anyway, and I need to earn my pay somehow. Might as well arrange the flowers." She twists a lock of hair behind her ear, out of her eyes. The man that Ms. Pillsbury buys them from should be hung from the rafters, the way he mixes lavender with purple carnations. Just because something has vaguely the same color does not mean they belong together. And it just doesn't make any sense. They made her eyes bleed every time she passed through the front to get to the prep room. "A good arrangement can work wonders. And you'll need them, with the message those flowers are sending."

"Constant capriciousness?"

"Exactly. Even if your clients don't necessarily understand what you mean it doesn't excuse you from your responsibility."

"We're not even in France."(1) Kurt sneers. "This is Lima. Not some place people eat vegetables that aren't fried." He spits out the words like someone else put them on his tongue.

Quinn blinks, and regards Kurt again. She decides to go after the simpler question. "You know the language of flowers?" Somehow, she's not surprised. He'd probably understand exactly what it meant when her father pinned that dried white rose to the lapel of her debutante dress. She hadn't, then. Now she does.

Kurt shrugs, tapping the powder puff to release the excess foundation in a cloud of beige. "What's one more stereotype? I also love musicals."

She watches him check the embalming fluid pumping through the man's veins to keep him looking whole. "I wouldn't say you're a stereotype."

He glances at her. "I wouldn't say that either, but most people don't have our discerning eye for quality."

Quinn laughs as she hands him the Chanel lipstick. "Really, who could compare?"

"No one," Kurt says, and it's amazing how well he does haughty while fondling a dead corpse. He points at her with the dead man's finger, "So why? Don't think I didn't notice you avoiding the question."

She rolls her eyes and smacks the hand away. It's not as cold as she expected it to be, which is of course more disconcerting than if it had been the icy temperature that you expected with corpses. "I need money. This job is at odd enough hours that I can fit in other part time jobs and still go to college. The math isn't that hard."

He pouts. "Boring."

"Why?" She asks, leaning against the corner of the metal table to watch him glue the dead man's mouth shut. "It's not like your story was much more interesting. We're both doing what we have to. And unlike you," Her smile is more teeth than it strictly should be, but she can't help it. "I don't plan to be putting make up on dead people for the rest of my life."

"Neither do I," Kurt smoothes away an errant curl from the man's face with such tenderness that Quinn has to look away. "I'm in school right now. Like you said, odd hours."

She blinks. It's the first time she's heard him mention school, or really any kind of life outside these walls. She kind of thought he just lived in the funeral home. It's weird to think of him outside, doing normal things like getting groceries or studying for tests. "Medical school?" She hazards, because if she has to compete with him for law schools she'll add him to number of dead bodies in the room.

Kurt laughs, and looks honestly delighted as he says, "No, culinary school. I trout I would be able to deal with medical school." He suddenly turns red, and hurriedly reapplies himself to fixing a piece of plastic under the man's cold, shriveled lips. Just to give him the hint of a smile, like he was at peace, as well as combating the natural tendency towards a sunken pucker. Apparently Kurt had come up with that idea too.

"Was that a fish pun?" Quinn can feel a smile break out over her face in time with the one Kurt's sculpting. "This scampi happening."

Kurt's voice is haughty, but his fingers are tender as they touch the corners of the dead man's smile. "Any fin is possible when it comes to good food."

"Food is life," Quinn agrees, because she remembers choking down bacon like her life depended on it. Because it had. It feels odd though, to say that while surrounded by the dead. If this was a story, she thinks wryly, she'd say the author was trying too hard. "So," she adds, to wash the ashy taste of burned meat of her mouth, "Not a brain sturgeon?"

"Nope," Kurt says, finally letting go of the old man, "Dolphinately not. I want-" He hesitates, fingers hovering over his mouth like he was waiting for him to kiss them, "I want to help people live. Food is so much more than just food. There was-" Kurt waves his arm helplessly, "There was a chicken, that my dad made. Right after my mom died. It, uhm, it was raw and we laughed, before we forgot we weren't supposed to yet. I saw then, how much food can matter. There's a reason all of our rituals, everywhere in the world, center around food. There's a reason we gather around it."

"Too bad," Quinn observes the old man carefully. He looks so peaceful. Not waxy, like her grandmother had looked, or sunken and mottling like her dog had. Kurt really did have such a way with corpses. "You're good at this. It's a shame to squander a gift" His shoulders hunch ever so slightly. "I'm sure you're the very bass-t at whatever you turn your hand to though," she offers as an apology, the words bridging the air over the woman between them.

"The kitchen is the plaice for me," Kurt says softly, and lays down his tools delicately. The sharp ping of metal on metal echoes through the room. Quinn can almost feel it rattling through her bones. "I think we're done with him." Quinn looks at his face one final time as they strip off their gloves, and realizes that she never got the man's name. She doesn't feel guilty for it. She sees lots of people, and more die everyday. Besides, if she's going to be doing this until she figures out what to do next she can't get attached to every Tom, Dick, and Harry that end up on her slab.

"Well," Quinn says finally, when the sound finishes reverberating through her, "When you get your own restaurant, call me up." She touches his elbow, very carefully telegraphing her movements. He doesn't need to have a scalpel to be dangerous when surprised. "Every good restaurant needs flowers. Don't you dare call salmon else for them. They'll be sure to do something horrendous."

"Whale obviously I wouldn't dare," Kurt laughs, and hooks their arms together. "What if they mixed purple larkspur with orange lilies?" (2)

Quinn shudders. "Don't even joke about that." They escort each other out, and the door swings shut behind them.

Three years later, Quinn gets a call.

"I'm angling for the best flowers around for my new restaurant Peche. Char you up to the challenge?"

"Who is this?" Quinn asks politely. If silences can turn red, this one does.

"Uhm," There's a cough of the other end. "Is this Quinn Fabray of Fabray Flowers? This is Kurt Hummel. I – I realize we haven't spoken in a while but-"

"I'm just squidding you," Quinn laughs, "For cod's hake, as if I could forget you Kurt Hummel. Now what's this about flowers?"

"Oh my god, you are terrible," Kurt breathes, and Quinn takes it as a point of pride that he can't even pun.

It turns out that Kurt doesn't technically own Peche, but he'd told the person who does own it (some guy named Will, who Kurt obviously loves despite himself and the frequent rants about how he has no idea how to run a restaurant! This is not some high school Home-Ec club!) that he had a connection for flowers so to just leave it to him, and well. Here they are.

"How about some yellow poppies?" Kurt asks as he scrutinizes the flower albums she'd brought for them to look through. "They mean success."

She grins to herself, it's so much fun to be able to discuss all the different levels she works with. So many people just see one. "With a few ferns thrown in?"

Kurt half-smiles at her, "Magic?"

"Magic," she acknowledges. "Fascination," she insists. "Shelter," she says, and she knows she's got him. "Plus, they just make the bouquet look fuller and fresher." She might know the magic of the language, the subtle stories you could tell with each carefully arranged petal, but that didn't mean she wasn't practical.

"And some wisteria for around the doors." Kurt's practically vibrating out of his skin with excitement. "Draped about the entrance so from the very beginning the diner is transported, welcomed as soon as they step through the veil from the outside to my place." Quinn's suddenly transported back to a cold funeral home and this is my place. She shivers at the idea of passing through the cloud of purple, how magical it would be. Welcome, and the duality of love. You may have suffered, but you have endured that pain. Now is the time for poetry, and the glory of immortal youth.

Still. She raises her eyebrows. There's beautifully meaningful and then there's straight up insanity. "You'd need to build trellises. This isn't a little place in Wine Country; you're in New York City. They'd need to be constantly controlled, or they'll grow over everything and destroy the building. Not to mention all the upkeep it'd require just to start. It'd be pretty much impossible."

Kurt's smile is all bared teeth. "So am I."

Kurt comes to her tiny shoebox apartment to look at ribbons, and ends up making a dent in the crappy little couch that acts as her bed while they hash out order sizes and prices. When she begins cutting flowers he takes out his own pair of scissors from the sewing kit in his bag ("you never know when you might have a fashion emergency") and settles down next to her for the arduous task of cutting ribbon and bitching about men. Well, mostly bitching. But she can't get annoyed, not when he didn't say anything about the way that she kept pictures of flowers where most people put photos of their family. She likes to think that she does too, but most people don't get that.

(The first time she visits his place she gets to return the favor when she spots the skulls he keeps in the place of honor on the mantle)

After a while, Kurt begins to wander about the single room that makes up her home. There's really not much room to wander. He has to wind his way around her piles of law books and the stacks of old bills to get to her vanity, which is really the only thing in the place to see. It's the one nice thing she has. Her mother had bought it for her with money that she'd scrounged from the Shopping Allowance her second husband gave her.

Kurt picks up the dried white rose she keeps there, as a reminder why she's staying in a shoebox in alphabet city rather than her father's apartment on the Upper East Side. He picks it up with the very tips of his fingers, like it's drenched in poison or as though he's afraid it'll crumble beneath his touch. "Does drying it change the meaning?" He asks, and she can practically see the gears whirring in his head, the way his tongue curls around all the new tones and shades of meaning to learn.

"It does." She carefully snips off the brilliant green stem. It's a pity really, that she hasn't figured out a use for them yet. It seems like such a waste. It's not like they're dead or ugly or anything. They just don't fit in the vase. "White means Heavenly purity."

"Secrecy," Kurt counters, "Silence."

She cuts the next flower a bit more forcefully than strictly necessary. "Shad up," she says lightly, "Who's the florist here?"

"Oh clam down, I'm just teasing." Kurt places it back down. He wipes his fingertips on the edge of the vanity. "So what does a dried white rose mean?"

"Death is preferable to the loss of virtue," Quinn quotes, and settles the last poppy into the vase. "There, how is it?"

Kurt scrutinizes it just long enough to be a little insulting. Then he kisses the tallest poppy's bobbing head, the tips of their petals kissing his cheekbones right back, and pronounces it perfect. "I love it."

"You better," Quinn grumbles, "I'm going to be up all night making these vases. I can't believe you want every table to have its own bouquet."

"It's important to set the tone," Kurt sniffs. "All the great 3-star restaurants spend thousands on just flowers every night. The ambiance is just as important as the food. The customer has to know what kind of place they're in. Not stuffy like roses," He doesn't look at her rose, but she sees his eyelid twitch towards it, "or anything as gouache as posies or fake flowers, but something bright and lovely on every table to make them smile." He traces the petals with his fingertip, leaving them quivering in his wake. "They need to welcome everyone in, and let them know we love them."

Quinn very carefully knocks a glass to the carpeted floor to bring him back from where he went. She picks it and apologizes, and they spend the rest of the night chatting about all the ideas Kurt has for the menu and betting about which shortsighted idiots will make the first mistake to shit where they eat and hook up on the sly. Kurt thinks Jake, the perpetually annoyed pastry chef. But Quinn knows exactly how someone like the head waitress Kitty could wrap a man around her clawed little finger. They wager $50 on it and Quinn makes a mental note to talk to Kitty during her first flower drop off, maybe give her a few tips on how the best ways to smile while winking to highlight your cheekbones.

They both agree that Marley, the slip of a waitress they only hired because Saucier Rose is her mother and Will never could resist the idea of family, needs to grow a backbone yesterday or she'll get eaten alive. Kitchens aren't exactly famous for being careful with people's delicate sensibilities.

Kurt throws food together from the scraps in her fridge and judges her for the pathetic emptiness in her cupboards. Curling bits of ribbon litter the floor like snowflakes as they eat and gossip and arrange. It's exactly the kind of frivolous fun she never could have had in high school, where every conversation was a battle to be won, and she feels so young that she forgets that she can't actually stay up all night drinking the white wine Kurt swiped from Peche's cellars when suddenly it's 5 AM and they're late for work. They have a brief bitch slap over who gets the first shower – and thus the hot water – that Quinn wins. She didn't get to be Captain of the Cheerios because she's obliging. Besides, her nails are longer than Kurt's. Kurt retreats, hissing like a catfish, and ends up washing his hair in the sink.

They part ways in the subway, Kurt going up to Peche and Quinn going down to the market. By the time she's set up it's only 5:30 in the morning but Quinn already wants the day to be done. Luckily, Quinn's long practiced at smiling and selling herself while wanting to curl up and die, so her flowers don't suffer for her sins.

"Here you go."

Quinn looks up from where she's contemplating drowning herself in her petunias. Blaine's smile is respectfully dimmed from its usual sunshine to a less searing 30 watt. She accepts the coffee as graciously as she can, which is to say that she doesn't snatch it from his hands and croon over the precious.

"Thank you Blaine," she sips it gratefully, managing to catch her pinky before it raises too far. She's getting better about that. "Mmm… cinnamon?"

Blaine rocks back on his heels, his smile cranking up to a 50 watt. "Replace cream and sugar with cinnamon and save 70 plus calories per cup!"

"I know," she says, taking another sip. Her mother taught her that during finals, when she'd burst out crying at the idea of putting cream into her body but couldn't bear another sip of the vile bitterness without it. Bitterness was, after all, an indicator of poison. Luckily her mother had showed her the trick to choking it down. She still has an instinctive hatred of coffee, but she's learned to pretend that she doesn't so well that sometimes she even convinces herself. "It's delicious."

Blaine preens, the tips of ears turning pink with happiness. "I'm glad you like it! I've got a bunch of new coffee ideas. How do you feel about blueberry syrup and –"

"I knew getting you that Country Living subscription was a mistake," Quinn sighs, but takes another sip. Blaine simply reeks of money and upper class busywork at her sometimes. The worst thing is that she knows he's genuinely dirt poor and deliriously busy. It's just awfully hard to break out of old habits. For both of them.

"I still can't believe you and Santana teamed up to make everyone get me magazine subscriptions," Blaine makes a face, "Although I'm not surprised she got me Cosmo."

"Count your blessings, she originally planned to get them delivered to her house instead of yours so she could highlight her favorite tips for you," she said because we wanted you to remember we love you every week not just once a year or we wanted you to always have something waiting for you at home was a little much for that hour of the morning. They'd staggered it to make sure he never went more than a week without a delivery, and she'd been forced to get Country Livingto make up the slack. Not that he seemed to mind. The boy was swiftly turning into a pocket-sized Martha Stewart. Santana swore that if she got a homemade egg carton ornament rather than jewelry she'd choke him with it.

Blaine turns the same bright red as her poppies. "I'm very grateful."

"So how are you?" Quinn finally asks. They could spare the time. It's during that sweet spot between when the really dedicated chefs came out and when the regular joes woke up. This is how every weekend works for Quinn. She tends the flowers, and Blaine tends the fish, and Mike tends the bees. And in between they tend to each other.

"Fine," Blaine says, just a little too quickly.

"I just got a really great order," Quinn says without commenting on the obvious lie, because Blaine is in her booth and therefore her guest. It's only good manners to keep him comfortable. He'd do the same for her if she'd ever get near his fish. She wouldn't of course. Even just having him in hers is a concession. Quinn breathes in the heady smell of violets to try and wash the fish out of her nostrils. "It should keep me in roses for a nice long time."

"Oh?" Mike asks, popping up from behind a bunch of snapdragons. Quinn jumps, and then swears as coffee spills over her fingers. "Sorry!" Quinn accepts Blaine's slightly smelly handkerchief and dabs at herself. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. You just really need to learn to make more noise." She's more annoyed at the fact that her hands are going to smell of haddock for the rest of the day.

"Mike's magic," Blaine laughs. Mike ducks his head, corners of his mouth tilting up just enough to be a smile. Mike twists himself around her, and for a moment she's caught in the unconscious dance his body made of every step. Then he moves past her to slide between rows of lilies and touch Blaine's hand in greeting.

"How are the bees?" Blaine asks.

"Buzzing."

"If you ever need any flower pinch hitters-" Quinn always offers, even though she knows that Mike would never accept. He already has a field of flowers specifically for his bees, and the boy was nothing if not loyal. It's only polite to offer though.

"No thanks, Puck would get mad if I ever dared to look at another flower."

"This is the guy who calls himself the Puckasaurus right?" Quinn raises her eyebrow. "And also cries during The Notebook?"

"He's a man of many faces," Mike nods.

"He sounds great," Blaine says.

"You think that about everybody Blaine," Quinn shoots back at him. Blaine makes a face at her, and she makes one right back. It's glorious sometimes, to remember that she's not yet thirty. Although, her aching head reminds her, she's not a teenager anymore either.

"So, great order?" Mike prompts, after letting them make faces at each other for a few moments longer.

"Yes," she says, pausing between pulling the sides of her mouth down into a garish scowl. "It's for that new place, Peche-"

"That Kurt Hummel cooks at?"

Quinn raises her eyebrow at Blaine's outburst. She knows Blaine has a weakness for good food, they'd even commiserated miserably one day about all the places they would go if they were still on their parents dime (before deciding, at the height of their drunken recklessness, that one day they'd eat at all of them and the food would taste all the better for being earned themselves), but she hasn't yet heard this level of… enthusiasm before. "Yes, you know him?"

Blaine's cheeks pinks, but when he speaks it's with the rushed enthusiasm of a true fanboy, the words practically tumbling over themselves in the fight to get out. "He's a James Beard Award winner for Rising Star Chef of the Year! They say he can do things with fish that most people can only dream of, even training with Chef Morimoto for a while before striking out to become one of the youngest Executive Chefs ever. He's like," Blaine sighs, and Quinn can almost see the sparkles oozing off him. "He's really one of the greats."

"Huh," Quinn suddenly feels kind of awkward that the last time she saw him they were throwing dirty dishtowels at each other and singing along to the Footloose soundtrack. "His food was pretty good," she muses.

Blaine grabs her by the shoulders with a kind of manic look in his eyes that makes her itch for her pepper spray. "You ate his food? How? That place is impossible to get into!" Mike carefully pries Blaine's fingers off her. Blaine looks at her as though he's contemplating the best way to reach down her gullet for the meal.

"My boyfriend took me for an anniversary." The lie flows off her tongue so smoothly it kind of scares her. It's like tumbling from the top of the pyramid. You just turned your mind off, let your body do the work for you, and enjoyed the fall. She always was the best of the Cheerios. "It was great."

"What did you get?" Blaine stares at her, enraptured. She flinches away, and slides a sunflower pot in between them. Had she really once sought out this kind of worship? God help her. "Was it amazing? Of course it was amazing," he answers himself, and she and Mike exchange amused looks over his head. She's not really necessary for the conversation it seems. "I bet he started with something warm, to invite you in and wet the appetite. Warm up your stomach and all that…"

She lets him tell her what her meal was like, occasionally throwing in the odd "oh yes" or "delicious" in between pruning flowers. Finally she manages to get rid of him by convincing him that Mike needs help stacking his honey pots. Mike gives her a dirty look – Blaine always tries to put them in interesting shapes, while Mike likes his simple, straightforward stacks – but it's worth it for the blessed quiet.

Quinn tucks a forget-me-not into her buttonhole to remind herself to bring up the whole James Beard thing when she next sees Kurt. It's been a while sure, but awards are generally the type of thing you mention when catching up.

She texts as surreptitiously as she can to avoid catching Blaine's eye again.

Tonight at 10?

Can't, the place opens in a few days. Things are going to be crazy. Come by on off hours to drop off the flowers though!

Very quickly, life falls into a comfortable routine. She sells flowers on Saturday, trading gossip and coffee with Blaine and honey for flowers with Mike. She goes to classes during the week, coming home in the evening to her flowers and law books. It may take her a few years, pinching pennies and seconds from every corner of her day, but she knows that someday she's going to get that degree. And she's going to do it on her own. It's gotten to the point that she doesn't know if she's even going to do anything with it, but it's been her dream for so long that she doesn't know how to let go of it anymore. And then in the evening she drops by Peche after it closes to hand over new arrangements and check on the wisterias that are slowly but steadily turning the place into a fairy tale. She gets to steal left overs from the kitchen, with the Chef De Garde Manger (or salad guy, as he calls himself) Joe always sneaking her extras to take home. For the first time in months her tiny little fridge is well stocked. She hasn't had to buy groceries in weeks. And on Sunday she rests.

It's comfortable, she even pretty sure she's happy, and so Quinn is always waiting for the other shoe to drop. It's best to be prepared after all. So when she gets Kurt's frantic text of TONIGHT. B-SIDE she's almost relieved. Caps, shitty dive bars and incomplete sentences all add up to the crisis she's been waiting for.

See you there

At B-Side, Kurt doesn't even bother with a hello before grabbing her scotch and downing it. A mistake as it turns out. Quinn sighs as she pats him gingerly on the back and gestures at the bartender for another. "And a pina colada" she adds, mouthing virgin while Kurt's busy coughing a lung into her cocktail napkin. She leans on the table to flash a little cleavage to get their drinks before the group of guys at the other end of the bar who are downing shots like it's the end times.

"So what's eating you?" Quinn asks, winking at the bartender as he makes their drinks. "We talking king crab or great white shark?" She can feel herself vibrating, ready for battle. She knew it was too good to last.

"Killer whale," Kurt coughs. He makes grabby hands for the pina colada she's just been handed. "Giant killer whale."

She sighs, and takes a slow swallow of scotch, enjoying the burn as it blazed down her throat to set fire to her belly. Quinn prefers hard liquor, the feeling of swallowing a live coal and turning into a volcano, all burning passion and power. She still drinks wine coolers whenever she entertains her 'friends' from back on the Cheerios or from Church Group (you never know who might need in your network) but given her druthers she'd take a good scotch or a fine whiskey over that sugary crap any day. The only exception is, of course, the swallow of watery wine she gets every Sunday at Church. Faith is the biggest intoxicant there is.

"Go on," she prompts him when it looks like he's trying to drown himself in his pina colada. "What happened?"

"My salmon supplier's a cheating scumbag that's what happened." Kurt crunches a piece of ice like he's imagining it's his supplier's head. "My salmon might have been coming out of a can. For what I'm paying that stuff better be right about to start singing to me!" He clunks his head against the bar. Quinn rolls her eyes while he grumbles into the counter. It was bad yes, but there was no need to resort to clichés. "But I can't just take salmon off the menu. I mean, I'd rather take it off than serve sub-par fish but it's a huge part of the menu and I just –"

"Stuck between a rock and a hard plaice?" Quinn can't help but laugh, even when Kurt gives her a look so withering it would have wiped out her entire inventory. She nearly laughs again because that's horrible, but it seems… so manageable. They live in New York City, Kurt will be able to find new salmon. For the first time in weeks, she can take a breath. The disaster has come, and it hasn't destroyed her.

"Time and place, Fabray, time and place."

"Don't trout," she doesn't correct him on Fabray. It's technically her fault for never changing it. It just seems so silly, when she still might need to use his connections, and thus his name, in the future. Besides, what would she even change it to? Her mother's name? Hah. "It's very unbecoming. You'll get wrinkles." She smiles into her scotch as his hand flies to his face. Kurt pokes at the loose skin around his mouth as he tries to catch his reflection in the beads of condensation on his glass.

"Oh clam down, I've got a solution for you." Quinn's almost giddy with how easy this all is. She'd never realized how tense she was until she finally relaxed. She wonders giddily if she should order champagne so she can excuse her smile on the bubbles tickling her nose. "There's a fishmonger at the market where I work."

The look he gives her is so condescending that she's torn between punching him and asking him to pet her hair and tell her he's proud of her. She takes another drink, swallows down the fire that scalds her insides. She's coming down off her high now, but settling down into baseline doesn't feel like resting in the trenches anymore.

"I'm not just going to use any fish at Peche Quinn. Fish are very delicate, and I'm only going to use the best and –"

Yes, Quinn thinks, because a florist wouldn't know anything about delicate. She interrupts, "he's honest and friendly, and –" she raises a warning finger when Kurt opens his mouth again, "he's got an excellent supply." She hopes he does at least, she's never gone over to his stall to check. She knows Blaine though, and she knows that he would never be able to sell something he didn't truly believe in. She doesn't know whether she loves or pities him for that. "Plus he's cute." Quinn winks. She knows, gay or straight, no man can resist that move. "And very gay"

"What does that mean, very gay?" Kurt asks, raising an eyebrow. He's already turning a little pink, and she records that bit information away in the back of her head.

"He wears bowties. To sell fish." Kurt twitches a little, and, blushing, blames it on his drink. She smirks into her scotch and ponders the best time to reveal the whole virgin thing to him. "Plus I know he's got fresh, line caught salmon coming in every Tuesday. Which just so happens to be tomorrow."

He licks his lips. "And where do you work again?"

She scribbles down an address on her napkin for him.

"Does his boyfriend work there too?" Kurt asks as he tucks it into his breast pocket. His attempt at a casual tone nearly makes her bust a gut laughing. Thank god she still keeps up her abs. Muscle control, don't fail her now. He leans in closer, his face still red. "I'm being koi," he whispers, so earnest that she nearly breaks and tells him right then and there that he's drinking a virgin cocktail for god's sake what are you doing with your life Kurt Hummel.

"You're fishing," Quinn says instead, and nearly chokes on her scotch giggling. She eyes it balefully. Maybe she should switch to virgin scotch.

"Nooo…" Kurt drawls as he snaps his fingers for another drink. Quinn winces and undoes another button to keep them from being kicked out. "So? Does he?"

Quinn rolls her eyes. "He doesn't, in fact, have a boyfriend at the moment." She slaps his hand away from her scotch "I don't want you spraying this stuff all over the counter." She curls around it protectively as he hisses and cradles his hand, sniffing dramatically. "Mine."

Kurt's slurring just a little as he asks "So uh, he'sh cute?"

"Super cute," Quinn says, steadying Kurt with one hand and gesturing for the check with the other. "And you're not drunk you dumb ass, you've been drinking virgins all night. So get off your painfully sober butt and get to bed so you can look presentable in the morning when you meet that cute little fishmonger." She throws back the last of her scotch to rekindle the fire that's the only thing keeping her going, and manhandles them both into the coats.

"What?" Kurt sputters. "What do you mean virg- Quinn!" He trips over his own feet getting up and nearly concusses himself on the bar. "I, uhm," he squints up at her beseechingly. "Are you sureI'm not drunk?"

"Completely" Quinn says brutally, though not unkindly, "You're just far less graceful than you think you are, especially when you're trying to be."

"So're you!" Kurt pokes her belly and she has to stiffen her arms to keep from punching him. "You always – you always walk like you're a queen and thinking murder like Charlize the Evil Queen, but you're not actually as all pulled together like you act."

"Of course I'm not," she snaps, and lets him walk into the side of the door before pulling him outside. "I'm 26 and dirt poor – literally what with my flowers – and for all intents and purposes disowned. There's a reason you said act." Quinn's painfully aware that her face is turning red and splotchy, and the image makes her want to cry. The fact that her face can still make her want to cry really does almost make her cry, but she pinches Kurt hard instead. His yelp attracts several cabbies and she shoves him into the one that smells the least of semen or cigarettes.

"Quinnie," Kurt plucks at her sleeve, and for a moment, even though his cheekbones could cut glass, he looks like a child, all wide eyed and beseeching. Then he smiles at her, and she can see the Angel of Death that she'd watched all those times in the morgue, all grace and mystery. "You're fintastic girl, and I'm speaking from the sole here so you better believe it." And then he's just Kurt again, and she smacks him upside the head before kissing his forehead and sending him home.

She watches the cab until it vanishes, just one more yellow taxi in Manhattan. She turns her face into the wind, smells garbage and cigarettes and the faint scent of salami from the deli around the corner, and starts to walk to the subway. There hasn't been any real change, in a few hours she'll be dragging herself back to the market to start the cycle all over again. But it feels different, and maybe that's all that matters. A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet, but there's a difference between a Carolina rose and a Christmas rose. For one thing, neither of them are actual roses. But Carolinas mean danger, means beware of love, and Christmases mean relief, means peace. Quinn makes a note in her cell phone to give Kurt a dark pink rose the next day. Thank you.

The next day Kurt shows up at Quinn's market and as they say, the rest was history.

In the end, Quinn thinks, a full year later as she sways next to Puck, who she finally met after Mike told him about her flowers, Kurt's really the one who should give her roses. She winks at Mike, who somehow managed to sneak over next to Tina during the song. They've got a bet going about who'll pop the question first. If Kurt asks then Quinn gets a year's supply of honey free. She's not sure what she'd do with that much honey, but she wants it.

She takes a deep breath and lets the voices vibrate around her, joining in as one. It feels like being in Church all over, the light gilding her hair as it streamed in through Jesus' stained glass smile. It feels like being a part of something bigger than herself. Quinn grins at Marley, who's getting suspiciously teary-eyed as Jake joins in the song, and reflects on how crazy it is to feel the same way about Kiss The Girl that she once felt about All Things Bright and Beautiful. She curls her fingers around herself in a hug, feels the music in her lungs vibrate to the tips of her fingers, and breaths.

Sing with me now

(1) in France, purple carnation are commonly brought to funerals

(2) they look HORRENDOUS together, purple and orange should not be mixed. Plus purple larkspur symbolizes love at first sight, while orange lilies symbolize passionate hatred. So together they kind of mean hatred at first sight. Not really something you want for your restaurant