Heuristic: There's No Us In Success

10

Quinn had initially been amused at Rachel's excitement at going to the cinema with Mike and Tina but as the event drew nearer a rising dread began to build at how precarious her friendship with Rachel was. One wrong word from either Tina or Mike and it could all fall apart. It was bad enough that everyone – okay Glee Club then – thought they were embroiled in a secret lesbian affair but on top of that she had bare-faced and outright denied there was anything driving the somewhat odd behaviour of the Gleeks towards the pair of them when a tearful vulnerable Rachel had asked her. If she had more feeling in her legs Quinn would have squirmed in her seat. Now every interaction was laced with the danger of someone finally saying something that would clue Rachel in – although Rachel's tendency to take everything at literal face value made the likelihood of such an event rather unpredictable. Quinn sighed; she really needed to ...well, do something and the only something she could think of was to tune Rachel in to what everyone - okay just Glee club at the moment – thought was going on. She sighed, if only it was that simple. The fact that she wished something was actually going on only made the situation more complicated.

Quinn pushed that all aside. It didn't really matter what she wanted because firstly, she couldn't risk being thrown out of home particularly now she was in a wheelchair even if the wheels were allegedly temporary. Yes her mom had changed since Russell had left but somehow Quinn didn't feel ready to risk such a lot on the hope her mom didn't share the virulent homophobic views of her father. Besides, it was all a bit irrelevant because there was no way Rachel could possibly be interested in her. Secondly, she didn't want to jeopardise her fledgling friendship with the most outstandingly heterosexual girl of the school, if not the entire town, state and even possibly the continent. Rachel was so incredibly straight that rulers seemed wavy in comparison. This was what was so difficult about telling Rachel how everyone - okay Glee club then – had misinterpreted their actions. It would only embarrass and humiliate Rachel when all she had done was be her naturally exuberant demonstrative self without those fear-of-offending filters that most other people had. How mortified would Rachel to be to find out that by innocently helping herself to a brownie from Quinn's fingers she had finally cemented everyone's – the Gleeks at least – belief that they were involved in some kind of steamy, passionate trist. It hardly mattered that Quinn had been so incredibly turned on by the whole brownie event that she'd been feeding Rachel all kind of different food stuffs in her dreams just to hear that moan of delighted pleasure. She cast a glance across to where Rachel was seated in the drivers seat singing along to her playlist, happiness radiating out of every pore - maybe now wasn't the time for a casual 'everyone - in Glee Club- thinks we're muff-diving partners, how ridiculous is that?' remark.

Rachel could barely contain her excitement – a trip with friends to the cinema or more importantly with her new best friend, Quinn. It was more than she could ever have hoped for when the school year started. Finn never took her to see films when they'd dated, as their choice of an ideal film just hadn't ever overlapped; Finn seemed only to like extreme violence or incredibly crass adolescent boy humour. The one time she went with Sarah ...well, she didn't want to think about how uncomfortable that had been, what with Sarah insisting on paying for everything and being over solicitous of Rachel to the point of being borderline creepy. Rachel shivered at the memory of the awkward atmosphere of the whole trip. How difficult had it been afterwards coming up with reasons not to go with Sarah again? She pushed the memory away as it was dampening her mood. Mike and Tina inviting her and Quinn was such an unexpected but pleasing surprise. She'd never really figured Tina out, mainly because Tina hardly ever spoke to her or even met her eye for that matter. Yet Tina was positively verbose in comparison to Mike; maybe they'd invited her because she alone could make enough conversation for all of them and her tendency towards verbal diarrhea always increased with nerves. Rachel glanced at Quinn. Quinn was the reason they had this invite and she was just a glorified taxi driver and carer. Mind you she couldn't think of a better person to care for than the most beautiful girl she'd ever seen, even close up Quinn's perfection remained unsullied. Rachel forced herself away from listing just what was so ideal about Quinn before she became too downcast about her noticeable lack of admirable attributes in comparison. Tina and Mike - hmmm. She had the impression that Mike was a thoughtful sensitive guy but that could just be wishful thinking. Still, hopefully by the end of the evening she'd be a bit closer to knowing the enigmatic pair a little better and wouldn't have done anything to irritate them.