Quinn's glasses reflected Rachel's own face back at her. She saw herself: gaunt with surprise, lurid and enraged, and finally, inexplicably turned on. "Quinn Fabray, if you ever intend to touch me again, you will take that back."

"After dinner… your words, not mine, bear."

"I think you're bluffing. You can't wait that long."

"I can. I waited that long and more when you were abroad."

"Fabray, don't you dare."

"I dare, Rachel. We're waiting until after dinner on our anniversary." Quinn's smirking lips left barely more than whispered promises on Rachel's before she sashayed away.

The city is a blur of lights and sounds. By now, they've left the restaurant and are walking arm in arm along the edge of the sidewalk: the brunette, tipsy already, pushes away from the other, arms unfolding like wings as she fails to prove her sobriety.

They are quite a sight to see, but no one sees. Unexamined and unassuming, the blonde pulls the brunette back to her side and plants a kiss to her forehead. The brunette's face lights up, a smile gracing her strong features, and she pushes the other girl away playfully. They're dressed according for a night out, dresses and coats and the height difference is apparent, despite the shorter girl's attempts to even the playing field with extra-tall high heels.

It's a special date.

Well, sort of. As special as October 20th can be. Most people are out tonight attending various Halloween ragers and parties in anticipation of the holiday to come, the two were reminded when they diverted past a club they had debated on entering when the doorman menaced a very real-looking sword in their relative direction. These two had voided their three year anniversary months earlier in August in favor of today: two months, one day later, so that Quinn could break lock-down, her parents out of the country.

Dinner had been fantastic: delicately prepared fresh foods from local sources coaxed into decadent, layered flavors of elegance. The blonde had winked once they were through: they would have been just as happy with take out in the hotel room. They had been far too focused on each other to worry about what they were eating, besides.

"Hey Quinn?"

"Happy three years. Let's have some more, yeah?"

"Absolutely."

The room was dark, the sheets pulled back. Their two bodies are sprawled across the white, beads of sweat gleaning on them like the glitter in the snow or diamonds in the spray of the ocean.

Everything was happening in flashes, fading as suddenly as it came, both girls grasping at each other to keep the other from disappearing in the ever glowing night of the city. In the room, the lights were down, but for much of what they were doing, sight was unnecessary. The skin from Rachel's shoulders to her thighs were raked with red lines. Quinn's breast was sporting a livid plum bruise on the left side.

Their times together were short but blessed, so they often smashed together like the opposite poles of magnets: an explosion of passion, but there was always enough time for them to rest together: nursing both the emotional and physical wounds left by the explosion and the time spent apart.

Quinn had her arms wrapped around Rachel's waist, planting kisses in the wake of the marks she'd left behind, breaths puffing lightly against the skin on Rachel's neck.

One of their phones had buzzed a few too many times on the bedside table, but the girls couldn't bear to break the sanctuary of each other's arms for more than however long it took to resituate themselves in a more comfortable position.

Before they had met, Quinn had liked to party. She wasn't medicating herself with cheap beer or trying to forget a broken heart—she sought a good time. When remarkably introverted home-body Rachel came around, Quinn was upset, at first, when she discovered that she could no longer go out with Santana for a good time. Rachel was protective and jealous to a fault, but rightfully so: both Santana and Quinn had an overreaching tendency to be touchy when under the influence, and they had been together-together for a time.

Rachel had tried to convince Quinn to go to a club tonight to make up for her previous transgressions... a gay bar, maybe, but Quinn shrugged, maybe trying to please her lover, maybe trying to satisfy her own craving for intimacy and declined.

"Quinn," Rachel had said, "I reserve the right to flaunt your beauty and my ownership of it wherever I desire, and I want you to remember that. Nonetheless," she paused, "I'd prefer to be able to do this—" Rachel stopped, leaning down to drag her hands against the crux of Quinn's jeans "—whenever I so desire. As you are completely against these public displays of affection, it would be prudent to avoid said situation entirely and go back to the hotel at once."

Quinn had laughed, reminding her girlfriend that they were out in public, although it was probably difficult to see due to the darkness and they pulled each other the few blocks back to the hotel.

"Rachel?"

"Rachel…"

"Rachel."

Rachel woke with a start, her heart beating loudly as a horse's hooves on cobbles. Quinn. She sat up, suddenly, looking desperately around until a warm hand on her forearm drew her attention from the urgency she had felt to find the girl the hand belonged to. Bear, a sleepy voice asked.

Rachel grunted in response, tension fleeing from her body as she burrowed back under Quinn's chin. They cupped together, two halves of a yin yang, though if you asked which of them was the male yang, they would probably hit you.

They had only six hours until check out, but their tired bodies need this, having smudged rose petals forcefully into pigment on the parchment sheets and their even more tired hearts finally resting from the strain of trying to beat together from so far away, bludgeoning their rib cages into submission. Rachel's pulse is inside Quinn's chest, and vice versa. In this momentary reprieve from the miles that separated them, the two slept on, grateful to have the others' heart beating against their skin, insistently reminding the other that hey, I belong to you. Someday soon, there would be nothing but bliss and this, despite what the forces to keep them separated could do.

Give me your pain, I'll swallow it whole.

I'll keep it in my belly, far below.

Don't be afraid, it won't hurt me one bit;

It'll be drowned, in guts and spit.