I decided to take a different writing approach to this, so apologies if you have a hard time reading it. The speech marks [" "] will be strictly used for the dialogue between Rachel and Quinn only.

Happy reading :)

I own nothing.

1.

Koi No Yokan (Japanese): The sense upon meeting a person that you are going to fall in love with them. This differs from love at first sight as it does not imply that the feeling of love exists—only the knowledge that a future love is inevitable.

•••

The first time Rachel saw Quinn.

The lunch hour in the Spotlight Diner didn't have its usual midday peak. Rachel sat in a corner booth, the top half of her body hidden behind the semi-gigantic menu propped up in front of her against a sugar container, reading the script to Funny Girl. She had read the four hundred or so pages through to the very end last week—as soon as she received it, in fact—but the midday quietness gave her opportunity to exhibit talent number seventeen of her most admired personal features: over-achiever. She felt this was necessary. To her, there was no such thing as take two, as every line that she delivers during rehearsals will be flawless on the first take. So she read again the scene in which Fanny's mother dissuades her from show-business, closing her eyes to memorise the lines and delivering it in a whisper. She imagined what it would be like to say these lines in front of a sold out audience on opening night and everyone gasping in awe of her performance.

She lets her mind wander, as it usually does when she thought about the future of her Broadway career. She'll be invited to lavish parties every weekend and have the pleasure of signing autographs for her legion of fans, and she'll be honoured to read the hundreds of obscure stories written about her in magazines. She has spent nineteen years of her life preparing for the fame and acclamation that's no doubt heading her way once she makes her Broadway début. Rachel knows she's no longer the fifteen year-old who started in Glee as an outcast due to her under-appreciated talent and social awkwardness, she's grown wise and maybe even a little cynical since then, but she's still the same ambitious girl with dreams of a grand Broadway career, and since she's dreaming anyway, she might as well dream big.

She glanced across the room at the customers having lunch, at Kurt hurriedly carrying the stack of plates and glasses into the kitchen, at the little girl sitting in the table in front of her drawing on the back of a napkin, at the bored expression on Santana's face while she's wiping the table, at Dani dabbing herself with a towel because she was sweating. The roar of dishes, chairs, voices, shuffling feet and the racket of utensils in the room was like a din of a single huge machine.

Suddenly, she realised then that the restaurant hadn't lost its midday peak after all. More and more people began arriving to wait behind the wooden barricade of the cash register to pay for their bill, Gunther's hands were flying in and out of the register, like a sort of trance. Watching Gunther made her think about Santana almost showing him her left boob just so Rachel could get the job. It didn't make any sense. Why wouldn't Gunther want to hire her? She has extremely large determination and ambition, not to mention her impeccable singing and graceful dancing skills.

She continued to look around the diner in her position, not bothering to get to work even at Gunther's stern,

I will fire you this instant if you don't get off your ass and take some orders.

Through all the commotion of the diner, his words could've easily been misconstrued. That's what she told herself anyway. Everything around her was like a slow explosion: a sudden outburst of voices overlapping with one another and sounds had detonated in the room.

Gunther was enraged, she could tell by the deep crease in his forehead and the way his mouth was slanting downward, twitching uncontrollably. She sat for another ten minutes, waiting for him to scream at her one last time, but he didn't, and the anxiety began to tire her. She stared at her feet and up to the clock, and back to her feet again. It was when she glanced at the clock for the last time that she saw the girl for the first time.

The girl was sitting halfway across the room and talking while her group of friends were nodding idly. She had a magnetic face, and Rachel thought that they're probably the same age. Before today, she's never seen anyone who literally took her breath away. At first sight, she noticed the lazy-lidded eyes and the devilish curved lips. Later, after the shock of her looks wore off, Rachel noticed the fair light skin, the low-cut blonde wavy hair, and the long elegant hands. Rachel watched her with absorbed interest. She pointed to a section on the menu while Edwardo took their orders, and then she laughed at something one of her friends said, and Rachel heard her say,

"Okay, whatever, I'll have the same."

Their eyes met the instant the girl stood from her booth and turned, coming across the room towards Rachel. She was tall (that's not to say that Rachel regarded anyone taller than her as tall), slender, her figure graceful in the peach-coloured dress, accentuating her complexion a powdered milky white. Her eyes were hazel, sparkling, dominant as light or fire, and caught by them, Rachel couldn't look away. She heard Gunther shouting at her, repeating over and over again for her to get back to work, but she sat there, mute. The girl was looking at Rachel, too, with a preoccupied expression as if half her mind were on whatever it was she was thinking about, and though there was no more than fifty people in the room, Rachel felt sure that there was only her and the girl in the diner.

The girl's steps ascended towards her, Rachel heard her heart stumble to catch up with the moment it had let pass, and felt her face grow hot as the girl came closer and closer. It was strangely compelling, the way the girl was looking at her; it thrilled and frightened her a little.

The sugar container moved, and the propped menu fell flat. Gunther had pushed his way across the room to stand in front of her to say,

Rachel, do you wish to remain working here or should I terminate you this instance due to poor performance?

The shock that followed this appalling declaration that she's a below average employee lasted a second as the girl's figure passed Gunther's small frame and Rachel's eyes shifted away from the girl's hazel ones to her delicate neck—lingering a moment on her collarbone—down to the length of her arm, the way she stepped back involuntarily when the bathroom door opened, sort of like a kind of dance, and then there was a ghostly pause. When Rachel stood up, the girl was looking at her with calm eyes that she could neither face nor look away. Rachel was very conscious of their height difference, she memorised it, saying to herself how perfect it was. Gradually, part by part, Rachel watched her step inside the bathroom as slow as when she had come, saw her glimpse at Gunther, the tiniest of smiles plagued her lips. Then she disappeared into the bathroom. The door closed with a loud thump. It was funny, when she thought about it later, the sound of the closed door was significant above all else.

Blinded by the sight of the girl and confused by the incessant flutter of her heart, she stood swaying for a moment before she perceived Gunther in the corner of her eyes. She was confused by his being there and said,

Hi, Gunther. What's the matter? You seem upset.

He inquired calmly, though his body shook violently, What's the matter? Oh, nothing's wrong. Just, you know, a busy afternoon of chaos and disorder in the restaurant and one of my employees decides to sit leisurely in a booth reading her Broadway script because she thinks she's too good to work in the restaurant! The octave in his voice rose higher and higher as the sentence finished.

His stubbly index finger pointed at her when he said the last word. Rachel stared at it for a moment, and then looked upward trying to remember where she was and how she got here. She started to say,

Oh, I'm so sorry. I wasn't—

But he cut her off mid sentence, remarking in a determined voice for her to get back to work. When she scrambled to get out her notepad, he added,

Not here. In the kitchen. You're on dish washing duty.

Dishing duty wasn't as bad as it sounded. She quite enjoyed it in the kitchen more than she did out in the diner—no complicated procedures with money, taking orders, and the sense that customers were incommunicado with the employees—there was freedom in working while she rinsed the dishes and utensils and placed them on the rack to dry. She liked the steam that rose from the dishes once it was complete, and the way the heat felt on her hands when she dried them. Today however, it was the gloomiest event of her day.

She worked with an indefatigable patience; rinse, wash, dry. She stood stiff stacking the dishes, feeling unattached to anything or anyone. Isolated. She went into Gunther's office with orders to send a fax, which seemed to take hours, but when she looked at the clock, only fifteen minutes had passed.

Once in a while she'll peek out into the diner to get a glimpse of the girl. Unfortunately for Rachel, the girl's table was located out of eye sight from the kitchen, and as much as she tried to sneak her way out, feigning nonchalance and wanting to help her fellow comrades, Gunther was never too far away barking orders for her to return to the kitchen.

She was conscious of the moments passing like irrevocable time, irrevocable happiness, for in these last seconds, she might never see the face she wanted to see again. She was conscious too, dimly now and with a different horror, of the old, unceasing voices of customers calling for assistance and the low humming of the jukebox and clutter of money—part of the storm that was closing in and separating her from the girl.

The lunch hour peak ended at two thirty-four, she knew this down to the exact second because Santana barged through the kitchen doors declaring,

Thank god that catastrophe's over. My physicality was not built for this kind of exhaustion,

and Rachel pushed passed her with an aggressiveness she didn't know she had. The table where the girl had sat was now empty and her eyes wondered aimlessly onto other tables in the diner, stopping at every blonde head. She felt a sinking in her heart at the realisation that she would never see that face again.

Rachel returned to the kitchen and tried to think of something else. Of the possibility of going home to visit her fathers for Thanksgiving. Of the beautiful black and red Norwegian sweater she saw at Bloomingdale's and made a note to remind her fathers to buy it for her (they didn't celebrate Christmas, but that didn't mean she wasn't entitled to receiving presents). The square window across the room looked like a painting, the small section opened to a white sky. She loved New York, had loved it since she was a toddler, and dreamed of coming back here since she was six and being on Broadway, and yet, it was the sight of a blonde-haired, five foot six girl that has become the record-breaking event to send shock waves through every nerve ending in her body and coax her into wakefulness. She was in a state of dumbfoundment, or something.

On her way home, New York City seemed different. The racy, adventurous feel of the night, the satisfaction of the clicking of her heels and the constant flicker of lights. She stopped by a magazine stand and picked up a copy of Vogue with Cate Blanchett on the cover and imagined that as she went to pay for the magazine she'd bump into the girl she had seen in the diner, and they would romantically enter into each other's lives.

Neither of her imaginations happened.

For the longest time she searched for the same face in the streets of New York wherever she went. In her mind, they would introduce themselves to one another, Rachel would shake her hand and resist the urge to put her lips against them. They'd walk along the footpath chatting casually about their likes and dislikes and Rachel would tell her the first time she had seen the girl in the diner, she felt the strange sensation that she knew her from somewhere, and finally when they reached her apartment, they'd bid their farewells and the girl would smile back at her before fading into the warm darkness.

At times she felt a haunting loneliness, augmented by the presence of Santana and Brittany acting like a married couple around the apartment, and Kurt making wedding arrangements on the phone with Blaine. It astonished her that she sees within the diner different faces day after day, the few faces she might have spoken to and never did, or never could. And on that enchanted Sunday afternoon, she had seen a face whose beauty evoked emotions that were never part of her consciousness, but the more she thought about it, the more she was sure they have always existed—resting dormant just beneath the surface of perceptibility. Now that they've broken through whatever barrier kept them locked away, she's become so harshly aware of them that it was physically painful.

Rachel was naïve, but she wasn't stupid. She was fuzzily aware these emotions could be categorised as obsessive. In high school she would generally label them as 'normal', but now, older and a little cynical, she frowned upon them. She had seen Serendipity and ridiculed the plot to no one in particular about how unrealistic it was that fate brought Jonathan and Sara together again after years apart. It was equally ridiculous that she was relying heavily on fate to bring the pretty blonde-haired, hazel eyed girl back into her life. She did not have the slightest clue as to how this happened to her.

She went through the three stages of grief and loss in no particular order. There was denial. She denied the reality that she will never see this girl again, blocking out the words and hiding the facts. The eye-contact they shared was magnificent, be it only fifteen seconds, but it was the best fifteen seconds of her life. The Gods that controlled the universe could not have been that cruel to bring this girl into her life only to never let them meet again? She suggested to Gunther to let her do twelve hour shifts because she wanted to be at work every minute of every day in case the girl returned. He denied, of course, saying it was illegal to let her do such a thing. He even had the nerve to undermine her ability to juggle twelve hour shifts and rehearsals for Funny Girl at the same time.

Then came the depression. Or in Rachel's case, the correct term being psychotic depression in which she lost touch with reality. There was still the regret and sadness of it all, but this involved hallucinations and delusions, such as believing the blonde girl walking behind her on Madison Avenue was her blonde pretty girl and that she's about to ask Rachel on a date and declare her love. There was also the incident on thirty-fourth street outside a department store where she saw the exact same peach-colored dress the girl wore and waited outside until sunset with the believe the girl was going to walk pass. When she went home that night, Santana had asked her why she was so late when her only duty was to buy cranberry sauce, and Rachel told her the truth. Santana smacked some sense into her the only way Santana could, by saying,

You've really done it, Rachel. I thought I was wrong about you all these years, but now you've proved that you're a one hundred percent insane screwball and I have the proof.

Acceptance was easy after that. The universe had brought the girl into her life and it was an experience. She now knew what it felt like to have her breath taken away, and she'll forever be thankful for the best eye-contact anyone has ever given her. Life at the diner was simpler again. She stopped looking around for every blonde head and constantly eyeing the door. Soon, she was back to putting all her efforts into Broadway rehearsals and stopped taking work at the diner so seriously.

Most of the time, in between college and the Spotlight Diner, she was at rehearsals. There wasn't an unscheduled moment from dawn to dusk, and to top it all off, most of her colleagues were amateurs at best. Every scene needed at least ten takes. She wasn't agitated by their performances—not everyone could be so lucky to have her talent and perfection.

It was a fleeting moment, a fleeting glance. For all she knew, the girl was most likely staring at the Barbra Streisand poster that hung on the wall behind her head, because who wouldn't stare at Barbra? The girl probably never even noticed her.

For the fifth time that month, she arrived late for her shift at the Spotlight Diner and apologised profusely to Kurt—whom she was soon to relief—and Gunther. Kurt nodded in understanding and Gunther grumbled while she placed her belongings in her locker. She tied her hair in a messy bun and made her way to Gunther who summoned her with a stubbly hand to the cash register, and Rachel found herself unexpectedly peering into hazel irises. Her breath caught and her eyes widened in excruciating suspense. She was having a hard time sucking in air.

The blonde pretty girl looked directly into her eyes and it was as if time had turned back to that very same day three months ago. Her heart began beating the familiar rhythm, and she couldn't think, indulging in the pure sensation that nothing else mattered.

"I'd like to pay the bill," she said, leaning on the counter, looking down at the white slip of paper in front of Rachel.

"Yes." Rachel's throat was dry and she tried to clear it again.

Rachel entered in the register what she prayed were the correct buttons. It didn't help that the jukebox was playing Gabrielle Aplin's Start of Time and the lyrics, When you walked into the room just then, it's like the sun came out, penetrated through her ear drums. The power of those words slowly reverberated their profound meaning. She couldn't help but smile.

"Are you paying cash?" Rachel asked in a scratchy voice.

"Credit," she said, picking up a pen.

Rachel watched her hand flow pleasantly along the paper as she signed along the dotted line. Her nails looked as though they were recently manicured.

"There you go. Is that all right?" The girl said.

Rachel noticed the girl's perfume for the first time, and instead of checking whether the signatures matched, she pressed something on the register and a final receipt printed. She wished with all her power to wish anything that the girl would simply continue her last words and say, "Please have coffee with me. I want to know all about you", but nothing came after the, "Is this all right?". Nothing to relief the shame of having been recognised as an inexperienced waitress with the messy uniform. Rachel slid the receipt towards her.

The girl took her copy of the receipt and turned, slowly walking away and Rachel watched the distance widen and widen. Today she wore a black coat and jeans that hugged her legs, with plain black suede high heels.

After her shift was over she had the strangest idea to check the receipt the girl had signed, thinking that perhaps she might be able to observe the signature and find out her name rather than constantly referring to her as 'The Blonde Pretty Girl'.

She had expected to spend hours and hours decoding the stylish handwriting; instead, on the dotted line was a clear, Quinn Fabray.

The date was October 7th. She'll never forget it.

The first time Quinn saw Rachel.

There has always been something she hated about New York City. The streets were bustling with people walking in and out of department stores or a café or from a news-stand manned by a colourful employee who knew every actor and producer as though people with millions of dollars spend their free time chatting to a news-stand employee about their personal lives. There were cars everywhere. There were no parks where you could read a novel at lunch under a tree. In fact, there were no plants or trees. The buildings were huge, monolithic peach rectangles with no overhangs for shade, so the sun bounced off the white footpath and onto the windowless structures making the whole city look like every corner was lit by a spotlight.

Then there were the people. The way some of the women draped themselves over their husbands or boyfriends. They'd blow kisses to each other and swing their hands while walking. Not to mention New Yorkers were rude. One woman stepped on the toe of her shoe on the subway and walked off without an apology. New York had too many men, too many needy woman, not nearly enough freedom.

Quinn's current state of animosity towards New York City came down to the fact that Biff McIntosh broke up with her this morning. She never meant to not tell him about her past, it was never the right time, and they had only been dating for three months; you don't just blurt out everything about yourself in three months. And it was never as though she outright denied she had a baby in high school and that she has a Ryan Seacrest tattoo, she just never mentioned it. It's completely different from lying. She could hear her father badgering her right now, muttering about Jesus not wanting to associate with sinners and that if she went to church she'll be back in his good graces.

She squeezed the bridge of her nose. Fisted her stinging eyes. Breathing deeply, she tightened her eyelids until dark spots danced behind them, but when she opened them again the pain was still there.

She walked down Broadway in Manhattan as the breeze lapped at her cheeks thinking about how she won't be going to France next summer. Biff wanted her to go with him. She won't be sitting with him in sidewalk cafés, walking with him in Aries, finding the places Van Gogh had painted, she and Biff choosing towns to stop in for the night. She shook her head and deliberately turned her thoughts to the smooth stretch of road in front of her and concentrated on the thrumming beneath the soles of her feet. It was a thrumming different to the sound of growling cars. She followed the thrumming and the closer she got she noticed the music, but more than that, a voice.

Quinn settled in front of a diner, glancing around impatiently. The party was well underway with high energetic music and the sound of content laughter. The nature of the diner eluded her, because just as she began to realise it wasn't any special party but employees singing to the customers, her eyes fell on the girl singing on the counter top. She was strangely, compellingly pretty. She had a well-modeled, sensitive face with features not bonily chic like those of a mannequin, but subtle, vital, harmonic. Her brown hair was drawn attractively around her tanned skin. She wasn't fashionably pretty but her beauty was healthy and real.

When the girl hopped off the counter top, the first thing Quinn noticed was her short stature. Not dwarf short, but short enough to be called short, and for a while she stood there thinking how the girl would react if Quinn made fun of her height. Quinn watched her tap a boy beside her whose hair looked as though it were trimmed everyday and they both laughed. She had the sweetest smile. Quinn's limbs were still. Life was suddenly plentiful.

Slowly, the movement to her limbs returned and she reached out to place her hand on the doorknob. She could swear she pulsed and swelled in her position. When her foot touched the metallic floors of the diner, she heard someone call her name. She looked around—glancing past men in business suits, children in school uniforms and the bustling of traffic, past the unpleasant distractions—to find the source of that voice.

Rita ran towards her from the end of the street waving an enthusiastic hand in the air. She grabbed Quinn's arm and pulled her away from the diner. Quinn's feet were planted firmly on the ground so Rita had a hard time holding onto her, saying,

What's wrong with you? You're so stiff. We're going to have fun,

and that's when she remembered why she had come to New York in the first place. Because of her recent break up with Biff, Rita suggested they have a 'girl's day out' to cheer her up. Biff was the furthest thing from her mind, she had forgotten about him. She was struck by the reality of the day unfolding: clothes, shoes, jewellery, shopping bags. Earlier these things would've cheered her up in no time, but now all she wanted to do was walk into the diner and find out the girl's name. And maybe stare at her for an eternity.

She turned her head when they were waiting at a street light and saw the large neon sign: Spotlight Diner. Quinn repeated the name like a chant. Rita was talking about something she wasn't paying attention to and she didn't want to seem rude by taking out her phone and she didn't have a pen with her. It was only two words, and it wasn't as if she had early onset dementia, but just to be safe she needed to engrave it into her head so that even dementia wouldn't make her forget it.

Several hours later her heart was still thumping heavily in her chest at the thought of the girl. Quinn had grown accustomed to calling her 'The Short Brunette' only because it sounded adorable. The shopping made her forget the horrible events of the day, which was Biff and everything involving Biff, but it was the short brunette who shifted all the pain to the background and she was able to laugh.

Quinn dragged Rita eleven kilometers from Lower East Side back to Broadway in Manhattan telling her there was a great diner she had passed by in the morning. There was a sense of the unreal as they made their way closer; she's going to see the girl again, see her sweet smile and flowing hair. She's going to know the girl's name by the end of the day, probably even her address and what her bedroom looks like. She was getting too ahead of herself. One thing at a time, she said,

and Rita said, What?

and Quinn shook her head, ignoring her completely and walked faster, her feet moving at the speed of light. But ten minutes inside the restaurant told her everything she had planned in her head was not going to happen. The short brunette was no where to be seen and by the time they finished their meal and paid the bill, she was on the train back to New Haven feeling as melancholic as when she arrived in the morning.

Day after day Quinn thought about her at least once, sometimes twice, other times she'd look for her in the streets of New Haven and they'd somehow fall romantically into each other's lives. Quinn will say to her, I saw you singing in the Spotlight Diner and you took my breath away. She had been watching too many romantic movies. The most recent one she saw was Serendipity and told herself how ridiculous it was that fate was involved in getting two people together. If two people wanted to be together it wasn't because of fate, it was because they wanted to be together. However, that night she found herself wishing that fate would bring the girl back into her life.

Fate never did answer her prayers though. She was back in New York twice over the next few months. One was for a birthday party and the other because she was bored and decided to walk pass the diner. She saw the boy with the neatly trimmed hair cut and a taller Latina brunette. Her eyes scanned the restaurant longer than she had liked, hoping to hope the girl would magically appear out of nowhere. Fate was cruel.

New Haven wasn't particularly far from New York, two hours at the most. But she wasn't going to visit New York everyday with the slight chance of seeing the girl again. It was obsessive, and completely stalkerish. No, she was not that girl. She didn't believe in love at first sight. There's no such thing.

Besides, she had school and a life here, and she wasn't the most financially stable person on the planet.

For a while she lost sight of the girl, she could hardly remember what the girl looked like aside from her sweet smile and long brown hair, and then in mid summer she was reminded of her again. She was supposed to get off at Stratford to meet a friend for lunch, and sat behind a girl with brown hair who, for a heart-stopping moment, Quinn thought might have been her short brunette, but then the girl turned around and asked her in a deep, unsultry voice,

Do you have the time?

Quinn gave her the time and stared at the back of her head until the girl got off and Quinn followed. It wasn't until she was standing smack-bang in the middle of Grand Central Terminal did she finally admit to herself she was screwed. Her second thought was, since she travelled all the way here she might as well stop by the diner.

She wasn't expecting anything. She had given up hope and had resigned to the fact that the girl was lost, they were never going to see each other again. Which was true when she arrived and stood outside the restaurant and couldn't see her. She contemplated whether she should go inside, because what was the point when the object of her affections wasn't there?

Sighing, Quinn adjusted her bag before walking away. She was slightly taken aback when the doors opened and watched the hem of a red skirt flounce by in a hurry like it was late for something. Quinn was barely able to focus before realising it belonged to her short brunette. Through the haze in her head she saw the girl push pass her and walk in the opposite direction. The scent of her perfume lingered in the air.

Quinn was so blitzed with adrenaline she didn't realise she had said, "Excuse me," her vocal chords moving on their own accord, and the girl replied,

"I'm so sorry, did I bump into you? I didn't mean to. I'm late for a meeting."

Her stomach flurried at the girl's endearing voice, and she began to hyperventilate. The girl looked tired, like she hadn't slept in days. It was such a stark contrast from the first time she had seen her. She didn't wait for Quinn's reply and hailed for a cab; not that Quinn would've been able to say anything in return anyway.

Looking up at the buildings, with the sunlight through the windows making a constant flicker, she loved New York. She couldn't believe she ever said she hated it. And it's this moment that she feels in love with being alive.

By the time the fall semester was in full swing, Quinn felt like she was so far behind the curve that she could eat, sleep and breathe course notes and never be able to catch up. College buried her in acting, design and play-writing assignments and some days she left campus wondering whether she enrolled in college or joined the cast of Survivor: Drama Island. She had to write an essay on World War II and it wasn't until she was halfway through Post-Impressionism World War II when she wondered why she had to take all the standard academic courses. Life had suddenly become a ball of chaos. She had the time to get away to New York once, and that time she didn't see the girl in the diner. In order to see her short brunette, she relied heavily on dreams and imaginations.

The idea has struck her once or twice. The 'Move to New York' idea. Okay, it's struck her about ten times and usually whenever she sees a brunette girl on the streets which is basically all the time, so let's just say she thinks about it a lot more than necessary. It sounded simple enough. She could get a job at the diner, transfer all her credits to an exceptional college like NYU, AADA or even NYADA. And surely she'll have no problems getting accepted. Her grades are way above average, plus a change of scenery would be good. She's even filled in several application forms for the next semester. Once she's finished thinking about all the pros, Quinn weighs the cons against them: She had no idea which school the girl went to, she might not even go to college. Quinn couldn't see herself as a singer. Her singing voice was steady and harmonic, but the idea of busting into song randomly and performing to strangers didn't appeal to her. The tuition for any of these schools was outrageous, and finally, the biggest problem of them all was her stupid heart. Even if she met this girl and became friends with her, there was no way she'd be able to keep her raging hormones under control. She wouldn't survive being that close to her all the time. The smallest incentive could push her from a normal human being to a bat-shit-crazy psychopath.

It was insane, really. She'd listen to her logic and tell herself she's on the verge of being a psychopath and forget the idea, only to have it pop up again the next day when she saw another brunette. Out of all this fiasco, she's discovered that she had a thing for brunettes that she never knew before.

On a warm Sunday morning, out of boredom she said to Rita, Do you wanna go to that singing diner in New York for lunch?

Rita nodded a skeptical, Yes,

and Quinn invited four other people. She had told Rita about the girl, and Rita had said to her that if she wanted something she had to go out there and get it. Fate hasn't been kind to her for months, it wasn't going to be kind to her any time soon either. It annoyed her that she had to do everything herself. Why can't something just land in her lap for once? She deserved that. Especially after everything she's been through. But she thought about Rita's words the previous night and felt inspired.

Her anxiety grew with every passing moment on the train. Her friends were chatting happily to one another and she listened with half an ear. The full weight of what the afternoon was about to bring crashed into her when she stepped through those diner doors for a second time and saw the top half of the girl's body hidden behind the menu. She had no doubt it was her short brunette, she didn't have to do a double take. The girl was immersed in reading the book in front of her, and Quinn was immersed in looking at her she collided into the Latina employee, knocking the tray out of her hand. Quinn apologised and bent to help pick it up, and didn't miss the glare the Latina delivered. Her name was Santana, she read on the badge.

Rita asked her whether the girl was in the diner, and Quinn did that thing one does with their head when they nod in a direction.

Tony heard their conversation and asked, What girl?

and Quinn said really quickly, Nothing,

and flipped through the menu. She wasn't very hungry. The flutter in her stomach was butterflies and nerves. Judging by the rapid speed her heart was beating, it could've been bats. She needed to stop shaking before she passed out. Quinn had never been this committed to a person, going out of her way to see them, wanting to see them all the time. She had a hard time understanding it.

The waiter came by to take their orders. Immediately she pointed to the image of a bacon and cheese burger, then Amy said,

Bacon again, Quinn, seriously?

For some reason that made her laugh. It wasn't even funny. She replied with, Okay, whatever, I'll have the same.

Which was a mistake because Amy chose the veggie burger with a side salad. Quinn was too happy to care.

Their eyes met the instant she stood from the booth and turned. She had seen the bathroom sign when she first entered the diner. Coincidentally, her short brunette happens to be sitting close to it. Her eyes were translucent and radiant, as sweet as her smile; a smile Quinn had been longing to see again for months. The room was abuzz with commotion. She couldn't make out a single coherent sound, she couldn't hear her own thoughts, and she couldn't quite place what the look on the girl's face was trying to say, but the closer Quinn came towards her, she didn't move nor look away. It was the most inexplicable thing.

When a short, white-headed man pushed his way across the room and blocked her view of the girl, Quinn wanted to advance on him for the intrusion, but heard him say,

Rachel, do you wish to remain working here or should I terminate you this instance due to poor performance?

and she could kiss him because her short brunette went by the name of Rachel. She felt still and serene repeating the name in her head. So distracted she was by it, the bathroom door opened almost hitting her square in the face. Quinn faltered when Rachel stood up, she registered their height difference, thinking this would be the first time she'd kiss someone shorter than her. Her eyes trailed down the length of Rachel's unruly hair; Quinn yearned to reach out to place each strand in its correct order. She glanced at the short white-headed with his hands on his hips and couldn't help but smile before stepping inside the bathroom.

She was certain Rachel was being punished for disobeying orders when Quinn didn't see her again for the remainder of the time she was there. She was a little disappointed. Quinn was thinking of Rachel scrubbing the bathroom or kitchen floors the whole time she was eating her veggie burger. Their intense eye-contact melted into her, like the way fire melts wax. She felt it prickle on her skin and left an engravement on her heart. Five, ten years from now, she'll always remember this moment. It was the most intense, fifteen second eye-contact of her life.

It wasn't long before she suspected what was most likely happening to her. She was on her way to becoming the bat-shit-crazy psychopath. Quinn visited the diner more often than usual, each at different hours. She tried to find Rachel on Facebook, but of course without a last name she didn't get anywhere. Why are there so many girls named Rachel? The most annoying thing was that Rachel could be spelt four different ways. Despite how pretty the girl was, Quinn wished she had an easier name, like Jane. At least there was only one way to spell it. She kicked herself constantly for not having the brains to look at the girl's name badge.

There was nothing like meeting a girl in a singing diner on a random day in New York City to make her explore formerly uncharted emotions and acknowledge that her biological imperative may not include the drive to procreate, that she's attracted to the XX chromosomes instead of XY. Nevertheless, it wasn't about categorisation or chromosomes. It was how she felt about another person. The chromosomes were minor in comparison to the fact that she might actually be in love for the first time in her life—to a girl she's never spoken to and has seen three times.

Her mother would likely have a heart attack if Quinn ever told her that.

Visiting the diner every Sunday at twelve-thirty was slowly becoming a ritual. She never gave church this much dedication. Initially she visited the diner on random days at random times, but she wasn't seeing Rachel and she needed a new approach. She needed a set time and a set day, and there wasn't a better day than the day they made eye-contact. She didn't go in every Sunday, of course. She didn't want to be known as the girl who goes to the singing diner every Sunday waiting for Rachel who most likely didn't know she existed and be called a stalker. Because out of all things, Quinn Fabray is not a stalker. Except that she kind of is.

Unconsciously.

On October 7th she decided to have lunch. Rachel wasn't working, but it didn't matter. She was served by Kurt, the boy with neatly trimmed hair and the thought of being near him made her giddy with excitement because Rachel had been near him. It must be some kind of celestial sign like Venus or Jesus or whoever is finally giving her some luck.

Looking at herself in the metal napkin dispenser, all she could think about was how downright ridiculous this whole situation has become. It isn't about Rachel anymore, although she did play a big part in this. It was about an absolute reclassification of her sanity. And she is not insane. She's had crushes before, more than she could count on two hands and ten toes. This crush would dissipate if she could just leave it alone instead of chasing it like a mouse chasing a piece of cheese. If she and Rachel were meant to be together, or have some sort of contact with one another, the universe will do it's magic and Rachel would be in her life. Fate would bring Rachel to New Haven. They'd bump into each other on the train or on the street. This needed to stop. She's watched enough American Horror Story: Asylum to know what they do to mental patients and she couldn't risk getting a lobotomy. With that final thought she finished her seafood platter and paid the bill.

Her logic went completely out the window when she saw Rachel hurry into the diner, apologising profusely to Kurt and the manager, who grumbled and he called her over to the cash register. Quinn realised the moment she looked into Rachel's brown eyes how completely helpless she was against her. Rachel was like a cyclone, this fascinating, yet deadly force of nature that carved a path straight through her defenses no matter how hard she tried to fortify them.

She broke eye-contact, forcing herself to say, "I'd like to pay the bill." She was finally close enough to look at the name badge and the correct spelling of her name.

Rachel muttered a throaty, "Yes," and then pressed buttons on the register. Quinn was slightly annoyed because she didn't expect such a short response.

Then just for a moment it seemed everything had gone silent except for Gabrielle Aplin's Start of Time playing on the jukebox. The lyrics, When you walked into the room just then, it's like the sun came out, was all she could think about. Noise wound down, as if the great industrial world decided to no longer be, had switched itself off at the fuse box and all that remained were the harmonics to the song.

"Are you paying cash?" Rachel asked.

Quinn jolted back to reality and said, "Credit."

She held the pen poised over the dotted line of the receipt, thinking of writing, You are beautiful, or even her phone number, finally signing her dull signature in basic handwriting rather than its usual cursive, on account of wanting Rachel to know her name. And if she was really lucky, Rachel would look her up on Facebook and their lives will intertwine.

"There you go. Is that all right?" Quinn said.

Rachel didn't look to see if the signatures matched, pressed more buttons on the register and a receipt printed. Quinn wanted her to say more, like, "Yes, that's all right", and ask Quinn out to lunch or her phone number. It was polite to answer a question, after all. Quinn couldn't stay bitter for long though. Rachel smiled at her as she slipped the receipt across the counter, and despite the gargantuan whining of chatter around them, she could only hear the sound of her pounding heart.

The moment she turned around to walk out of the restaurant she could hardly contain her sense of glee.