Disclaimer: I own nothing

"Where's the munchkin? I thought you two were joined at the hip." Santana asked Quinn, while the two of them and Brittany were sitting in Quinn's room.

Quinn frowned at Santana's statement. Were they really that bad? "We don't always have to be together, San." The blonde spat out.

"So, she ditched you." The Latina stated with a knowing smirk.

Quinn sighed. "She said that we should try to have separate lives as well, so we don't smother each other." The blonde absentmindedly played with a loose stitch on her bedspread.

"She's right you know." Santana offered.

"Right, like you and Brittany are ever apart." Quinn rolled her eyes.

"We don't live together, Q." Brittany replied. "We try to spend all our time together, but it's nice to go home and just be alone for a bit sometimes. You guys don't have that."

"I don't want that. I don't need time apart from Rachel. I like being around her."

"But if you get a chance to miss her….then the sexy times are so worth it." Brittany explained happily.

"Our love life is fine, Brit."

"Oh, we're well aware. Have you tried to finger her in public recently?" Santana teased, eliciting a blush from Quinn.

"I can't believe you called me out on it. That was humiliating!" Quinn whined.

"What would have been humiliating is if you succeeded and we all had to witness the girl scream your name. She's a loud one, I'm sure."

"Can we not talk about this?" Quinn demanded.

The Latina waived her hand in dismissal. "Whatever. I was bored of the subject anyway."

"You never answered San's first question, where is Rachel?" Brittany wondered.

"She's out with Kurt."

"What are they doing?" Brittany asked with curiosity.

"I don't know, I didn't ask."

Santana stared at Quinn incredulously. "Like Hell you didn't ask!"

The blonde shrugged. "I wanted to give her the space she thinks we need. I didn't want to seem all…clingy."

"Which you are, by the way." Santana smirked.

"Shut up." Quinn groaned.

"I could call her and ask what's she's doing." Brittany offered.

Quinn's eyes lit up but Santana spoke. "Hell no. You are not becoming that girl!"

The blonde sighed and collapsed onto her bed. She didn't want to be that girl either, but she really did want to know when the brunette was coming home. She groaned out loud when she realized that Rachel was right, they did need to learn to live independently of each other. Quinn needed something of her own.

"Penny for your thoughts." Santana mused into the awkward silence that enveloped them.

"I don't think they're worth that much." Quinn muttered as she shifted on the bed and looked over at her friends. They were watching her with concern. "Do you think…will Rachel outgrow me? After high school. She has these dreams and I am okay with following her wherever she goes…but what if she finds someone that…"

"Stop right there, Q. She's not going to outgrow you, she loves you. But you can't just follow her as romantic as that may seem in theory, you need to find a dream of your own. And if you say that Rachel is your dream…I promise you, I'll puke."

Quinn remained silent for several minutes before answering. "I never let myself want anything before. This thing with Rachel just happened; it wasn't like I went out looking for it."

"You can't just sit by and wait for a new dream to fall in your lap." Brittany said thoughtfully.

"What do you want?" Quinn asked her honestly.

"I want to dance. I don't know how to make that a career but that's what I love to do. Besides Santana, of course."

Quinn made a show of covering her ears because of the inadvertent overshare. Santana blushed deeply, which Quinn actually found adorable.

"San, what about you? What's your dream?" Quinn asked after they each had regained their composure.

"I think…I'd like to be a lawyer."

"You'd be good at it." Quinn replied sincerely.

"No shit." Santana said grinning wildly.

"So what do you love to do?" Brittany asked Quinn.

"I love to…draw." Quinn said after thinking about it for awhile. "Besides singing and playing guitar, drawing is something that I'm actually really good at."

"You draw?" Brittany asked excitedly. "I wanna see some pictures."

"No!" Quinn replied anxiously, remembering that the only things she had been drawing lately were naked sketches of Rachel.

Santana raised an eyebrow at Quinn, while Brittany looked like she was about to cry. After she released a harsh breath, Quinn mumbled. "Some of my drawings are…really embarrassing, okay?"

The Latina's interest was piqued. "Embarrassing how? You just said that you were really good at it."

Quinn blushed.

"Holy shit!" Santana exclaimed. "You've been drawing naked pictures of Rachel, haven't you? Please tell me she poses for you, because otherwise that's creepy."

"You draw Rachel naked? I wanna see." Brittany smiled excited at the thought of it.

"No one is going to see anything, okay?" Quinn groaned.

"Just tell me one thing, Q. Is she is hot as I think she is?" Santana asked as she wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. "Though the skirts she wears, it doesn't really leave much to the imagination if you know what I mean."

"Santana." Quinn warned.

"She's right, Q. One time Rachel bent down in glee, to get a paper she dropped, and when I turned my head just right I saw her panties." Brittany admitted.

Both Quinn and Santana stared at Brittany wide-eyed.

"And I'm not the only one; you should have seen Puck lick his lips." Brittany added.

"I don't need to hear this kind of stuff. Not now." Quinn groaned as she closed her eyes tightly trying to get the image of both Puck and Brittany leering at her girlfriend out of her mind.

She was brought from her thoughts when she heard moans. She cracked an eye open and saw Santana's hand slip under Brittany's shorts.

"No way! Nope. This is not happening. You are not having sex here. Leave. Now." Quinn demanded.

Santana didn't waste any time as she pulled Brittany to her feet and linked their fingers as they walked toward the door. "You definitely need to get laid, Fabray. You're not fun when you're so…sexually frustrated." Santana said as she and her girlfriend walked out the door.

"By Q!" Brittany yelled on the way out.

"I am not sexually frustrated." Quinn whined. "I just don't want anyone who isn't me having sex in my room."

000000000

She began to regret sending Brittany and Santana away, because now she had nothing to distract her from the knowledge that Rachel was out enjoying herself without her. She probably wasn't even missing her. Rachel and Kurt were probably laughing and gossiping and singing and Quinn probably never even crossed their minds.

It took everything she had not to drive to Kurt's house and beg them to let her join them. Even if they were watching Funny Girl for the eight hundredth time, Quinn would gladly set through it if it meant that she could hold Rachel and listen to the girl quote her favorite parts or quietly sing along to the songs. She adored that about Rachel. She adored everything about Rachel.

She considered calling Puck to come and play Xbox with her, but she was still upset learning that he had been checking out Rachel. For a minute, she almost considered Finn. Then she realized that Finn and Kurt lived together and wondered if Finn was hanging out with Rachel and Kurt right now. The thought made her more jealous than she cared to admit. And not because she didn't trust Rachel, but because she just wanted to be with the girl and hated that anyone else could be with her right now and she was stuck home alone. It wasn't even her home to begin with, which made her feel even more depressed.

Her thoughts drifted to Mike and Sam. Maybe they could go to the comic book store with her. She texted the blond boy, but he didn't respond. So she shot a text to Mike.

From Mike: What's up?

From Quinn: Just wondering if you're busy?

From Mike: Tina and I were just going to watch Serenity.

From Quinn: Mind if I join?

From Mike: Of course not, come on over!

00000

The movie was a perfect distraction from her life. And so was the hour long discussion afterwards.

"I want to learn to cuss in Chinese." Quinn stated earning a chuckle from her friends.

"Please tell me that's not the only thing you appreciate about the movie." Mike begged.

The blonde smiled. "No, I love that movie. It's just every time I watch it I wish I could just start yelling profanities in Chinese."

Tina shook her head with a smile. "Kinda like when I watch Bruce Lee movies and I wish I knew Marital Arts."

"Yes! And when I watched The Matrix, I wish I could dodge bullets." Mike replied eagerly.

"Because that is such a necessary talent." Quinn deadpanned.

00000

By the time Quinn left, she was glad to get out of there. She felt a bit like a third wheel. She felt that way around Brittany and Santana earlier as well. At least when Rachel was around, she was never a third wheel.

She returned to the Berry house, realizing that for the first time since she moved in that she referred to it in such a way rather than calling it home. Even after shaking her head of the thought, she couldn't shake the feeling. Things had changed. When she got to her bedroom, still alone in the house, she pulled out her phone and called her mom.

The conversation was awkward and difficult to get through, but it had to be done. As she hung up the call, a half an hour later, she dispelled a deep breath. She knew the conversation that was still to come was going to be even more draining, so she stepped in the shower and tried to calm her body.

By the time she was out of the shower, and changed into her pajamas, she was ready to sleep off the longest day of her life. When she got into her bedroom, Rachel was sitting on her bed with a pleasant smile. Quinn crossed the room quickly and embraced her girlfriend. They kissed passionately, showing each other how much they were missed.

"I missed you." Rachel breathed out, and Quinn smiled sadly at the words.

"Did you? Really?" Quinn asked, trying not to sound bitter.

"Of course." Rachel smiled as she kissed her again.

"Rach, we need to talk." Quinn whispered, and Rachel immediately pulled away from her.

"Are you…are you breaking up with me?" Rachel asked climbing off the bed, trying to distance herself from the blonde.

Quinn grasped at her desperately, trying to keep Rachel close. "No, never. Please, just hear me out."

Rachel stopped moving away, but she was still out of the blonde's reach. "Before you do this…could I show you something?"

Quinn nodded.

Rachel grabbed something of the bed that Quinn hadn't noticed when she laid down. The brunette handed it to her as the blonde took it slowly.

Quinn looked at the leather-bound object. "What is it?"

"I made copies of your sketches for the comic book idea you had. It took me a while to get the proper pictures…what with all the sketches of me." Rachel said with a blush and Quinn ducked her head with embarrassment. She really felt like a pervert at the moment. She couldn't even look at Rachel when the brunette continued. "I think I got them all copied. And then I had Sam help me arrange them."

"Sam? I thought you were with Kurt." Quinn asked as her brows furrowed in confusion.

Rachel shifted uncomfortably. "If I told you I was spending the day with Sam, you would have been more suspicious and wondered what we were up to and I wanted this to be a surprise."

"You lied to me." Quinn breathed out, barely above a whisper.

Rachel stepped forward quickly and took Quinn's hand in her own. "It wasn't like that, I promise I just…"

Quinn shook her head interrupting her. "Just finish explaining what this is, Rachel." She didn't mean to sound so harsh.

The brunette flinched at Quinn's tone, but took a tentative step closer anyway. She flipped through the first page. "We arranged the book into a prototype. It's your first comic book." She said with a proud smile. "Sam read through it and thought it was a great idea, so afterwards we made several more copies and sent them out to the different independent comic book publishers. According to Sam, there are some publishers that publish original works by unknown creators. So we sent them a portfolio with a description of each character and an outline of the overall story."

Quinn stared at Rachel wide eyed with her mouth open, before she looked away and started flipping through the pages of the leather-bound book. She had to admit, it turned out beautifully. She and Sam put it together just how Quinn had envisioned it.

Rachel slowly set on the bed beside her. "I know we talked about you finding your own dream, but it's been a few months and…I thought maybe I could show you that you can accomplish one that you have already started. Even if the book doesn't get published, we have a portfolio for you now. You could get into art schools or work as an illustrator. The possibilities are endless and…"

"I appreciate what you did for me. I love to draw and I guess I didn't think about what possibilities there were…but you…you didn't have a right to make that decision for me. The comic was personal…and it was mine to share not yours."

"Quinn, I'm so sorry. I just wanted to help…"

"Because I'm a Lima Loser who can't even recognize my own dreams when their staring me in the face?" Quinn cut her off sharply.

"Quinn, what's wrong with you? Why are you so upset? I never thought any of those things about you." Rachel said through teary eyes.

Quinn took a deep breath. Then she sat the book on her bed and looked intently at Rachel. "I don't even think I'm upset about the comic thing. I'm actually impressed with how it turned out. But you…you lied to me today, Rachel. You said you were with Kurt and…"

"Nothing happened between me and Sam, I promise."

"I don't give a fuck about that!" Quinn raised her voice then grimaced at how loudly it came out. When she saw Rachel backing away from her she rushed toward her with her own teary eyes. "Rach, sorry. I didn't mean to yell."

"I don't even recognize you, Quinn. I don't like who I'm seeing." Rachel said as she stood from the bed.

"Rachel." Quinn begged. Then she hung her head in shame. This was not going the way she wanted it to. "I…I love you Rachel. And I spent all day missing you, until I realized that you were right. We need some space…you had to lie to me today just to get away so you could create the most amazing surprise for me. And then when you gave it to me…instead of hugging and kissing you and letting you know how much I love if, I get upset at you because all day I thought I was the only one…I thought you were busy having fun without me while I was bored and missing you."

"Quinn…" Rachel exhaled quietly, her face softened as she regarded Quinn with adoration. "I spent the whole day thinking about you and hoping that I could do this for you…that you could see how amazing I think you are and that you don't have to settle for simply following me. I wanted to give you a dream that I knew you already wanted and I wanted to be a part of it as well…just as you will be a part of mine."

"And I love you for that." Quinn paused. "I called my mom…when the school year is done, I'm moving back in with her."

"Quinn, don't do this." Rachel begged.

"That way we can spend senior year getting used to being apart. College is going to be rough enough, even if we live in the same city. We won't be able to see each other as often as we're used to…and we need to prepare for that."

"You're moving out."

"Yes."

"Because we need space." Rachel's voice cracked. "It sounds like you're breaking up with me."

"No, baby, listen." Quinn rushed to her girlfriend and hugged her tightly. "I promise that we're not breaking up. That's the last thing I want. But we do need to learn to live…independently. I can't be as miserable as I was today just missing you. I need to have fun with my friends while you're having fun with yours. I need to start pursuing that dream, Rach…the one you helped me realize today."

Rachel didn't even try to hide her tears. Quinn wiped the tears from her own eyes and kissed Rachel's forehead. "I have no intention of ever letting you go…but if we are to survive without resenting each other…this is what we have to do. I promise it's for us. Everything I have ever done has been for us."

Rachel pulled away and studied the wet, hazel eyes that bore into her. "I hope you're right, Quinn." The brunette said with uncertainty. "Because it feels like the beginning of the end to me."

Quinn took a shaky breath as the tears fell from her eyes. She desperately claimed Rachel's lips. As they kissed heatedly, Quinn prayed that she was doing the right thing and that this wasn't the move that was going to break them up.