AN: So some people didn't get notification for the last chapter? Huh. Hopefully this time you guys do and can go back and read chapter 13 if you missed it!

Anyways, a big thank you to you guys for continuing to stick with this story and for all the love you give it. I love hearing your thoughts and I really appreciate that you guys take the time out to let me know what you think.

This chapter picks up right where we left off. Enjoy!

Live our your happily ever after in peace.

What the hell?

Was that bitch being trying to be sincere or was she just taunting her?

Santana felt inclined to go with the latter considering, you know, Shelby's villain status, but even then she couldn't help feeling uncertain.

God. She hated that she couldn't make head or tails of that woman.

Santana had left the park a little while ago and was now idly walking through town, still processing what was said and kicking herself for what wasn't.

She had expected when the time came to confront Shelby it would be...well... more dramatic. She'd been fully prepared for maniacal laughter and some kind of Evil Queen monologue. Not for a conversation that was surprisingly civil, if not hella unnerving.

Santana casts an anxious glance up at the sky. Even though it was still day, she could feel the moon looming overhead. Following her.

Santana quickly dismisses the feeling and picks up her pace.

But as much as she wanted to push it out of her mind, she couldn't. What if Shelby was onto something? What if when the curse broke and magic returned, she really couldn't control that side of herself anymore?

What if she went back to the blackouts and hurting people?

Santana stops at the corner and looks around. Storybrooke had plenty of forest for a town so small but it still didn't compare to their real home. And without the protection offered by the forest, it would be all too easy for a giant ass wolf to hurt someone.

Santana shakes her head to herself, sighing heavily.

Breaking the curse used to seem like a no-brainer— something that had to be done. But now she seriously questioned whether it was the right thing to do after all.

"Santana!"

Too preoccupied with her thoughts, Santana doesn't hear her name being called. Then she hears a louder, "Santana!"

Santana snaps out of her daze and turns around. "Quinn." she realizes, watching the blonde hurrying to catch up to her.

Relief floods Quinn's face as she closes the distance between them. "Santana." she whispers breathlessly, throwing her arms around her.

Santana's barely able to return the hug before Quinn pulls away and starts with the questions.

"Are you okay? Where did you go?"

Santana swallows and steels herself for the conversation to come.

"The park." she manages to answer.

"I've been looking for you." Quinn sighs, slowly calming down from her worried state. "When you didn't come back to school, I thought maybe something had happened."

Oh, something did, Santana thinks. "Yeah, I'm sorry about that." she offers instead. "I got caught up."

She can tell by the slight tilt of her girlfriend's head that Quinn senses that there was more to be said, but Quinn doesn't push her for answers, instead asking her, "How are you feeling?"

Santana hesitates. She knows herself well enough that if she answered that question honestly she'd probably just get herself all worked up again. She really didn't need that right now. Not so soon after her last outburst. So she chooses to instead just update Quinn with the information she needed to know.

"I talked to Shelby."

Quinn stops.

Santana can't help but make a slight face at the blonde's wide-eyed expression. Quinn didn't like to be caught off-guard anymore than she did, yet here she was throwing her yet another curveball.

"About?" Quinn dares ask.

"It was today while I was in the park." Santana rushes to explain, not wanting the blonde to slip into panic mode on her. She already had that I've stopped breathing look about her. "And okay, maybe I didn't think out my plan as thoroughly as I should have, but after what's been happening to us..." Santana heaves a frustrated sigh, trailing off momentarily. "Look, I just needed answers and Shelby was the only person I knew who had them."

"So...?" Quinn stares at her anxiously, willing her to continue.

"So Shelby for sure knows that we know about the curse." Santana replies. "Or she at least knows I know." Though it probably went without saying that she knew about Quinn and Brittany too.

"What exactly did she say?"

"Well enough to confirm that she didn't get swept up in her own curse. But not enough to be of any real help." Which wasn't surprising, considering it was the Evil Queen, but annoying just the same.

Quinn remains silent as her mind processed. Santana watches her gaze shift downward, something catching her attention.

"What's that?" Quinn asks.

Santana follows Quinn's gaze to the tape recorder she had been clutching this entire time. "Oh. Lauren Zizes let me borrow it." She lifts up the device as she explains. "I got Shelby on tape with it."

Quinn cocks her eyebrow at her.

"You recorded your conversation with Shelby?"

Santana nods. "Figured it would be smart to." she says with a slight shrug. "For you know, blackmail purposes."

"You planned to blackmail her?" Quinn sounded both amused and terrified by the idea. "Into doing what? Telling us how to break the curse?"

Santana shakes her head. And not just because she knew that never would've worked. No matter what info they had on her, Shelby wouldn't ever tell them how to break the curse. "I'd planned on blackmailing her into leaving us alone, actually. I don't show this tape to anyone and she stops having us followed and gets off our back. But things got a little off track and she left before I could even get to the blackmailing part."

Quinn's gaze returns to the tape recorder. "Can I listen to it?"

Santana nods and hands it over. "Go for it."

She follows Quinn over to the nearest bench but while the blonde sits down, Santana opts to stand.

She shifts back and forth restlessly as Quinn replays her little talk with Shelby. Listening to her voice on that crappy thing was hella uncomfortable but it really didn't compare to hearing Shelby talk about her and her wolf.

Now that was discomfort.

It had been bad enough the first time around and frankly wasn't any less bearable the second time around.

Fortunately she doesn't have to suffer for long. The recording ends not long after it starts, reminding her of how short their conversation actually was.

Santana uncrosses her arms, still frustrated with herself for allowing Shelby to walk away when she still had way too many questions left unanswered. "Shelby didn't say much."

Quinn shakes her head in agreement. "She never was the kind to be open." she murmurs. "But even so I'm surprised she said as much as she did. I wonder why she didn't ask how you found out about the curse."

"She must've already known how it happened." Santana replies, shrugging again. "True love's kiss and all."

Behind her Santana hears approaching footsteps. Quinn subtly clears her throat in the same moment, prompting Santana to glance over her shoulder. The couple that walks past them doesn't pay them a second glance but Santana and Quinn stop talking anyways, waiting instead for the pair to round the corner before continuing with their conversation.

"Until we give her a reason to, I don't think Shelby's gonna make a move." Santana says more quietly, made a little self-conscious. She takes a seat beside Quinn. "She wants things to stay as they are. She isn't gonna risk ruining that by doing something drastic. Which is good for us."

"Not good for us is that we still don't have any information on breaking the curse." Quinn reminds.

Santana doesn't quite meet Quinn's gaze as she shrugs her response. She was a little more concerned with guaranteeing their safety than that right now.

"Now that you have this will you try to talk to Rachel again?" Quinn suddenly asks.

Santana snaps to attention at the mention of the hobbit. Her brow furrows quizzically. "What?"

Quinn frowns slightly at Santana's confusion before spelling it out for her. "You have Shelby on tape talking about the curse. Rachel won't be able to deny what you've been trying to tell her now."

To be honest Santana hadn't even thought about that. Rachel had been the last thing on her mind when she made the decision to record Shelby.

Ultimately Santana shakes her head. She had tried, twice now, to get Rachel to believe in the truth and she wasn't interested in going a third round with the dwarf. "I'm done trying to get her to see reason." she says dismissively. "This curse obviously has its hooks deep in her."

And the more she tried to get Rachel to believe, the more she just pushed her closer to Shelby.

"Santana," Quinn fixes her with a gentle, knowing look. "You act like you don't care but I know Rachel not believing in you upsets you. You guys were good friends in the Forest. And I know it hurts, her not trusting you, especially when it seemed like you were getting back that friendship here. It's okay to feel that way."

"She's cursed." Santana brushes off, unwilling to admit to anything. "What did I expect."

"There's no way you could have doctored that recording." Quinn points out. "Rachel will know that once she hears it. Hearing it from Shelby's mouth will make her reconsider things. Make everything real."

And if it doesn't? Santana thinks.

Santana shakes her head and looks away, not wanting to go there. "Like I said, I'm over trying to convince her. If I try it again and she keeps being stubborn, I'll just slap her. Slap her stupid."

Santana doesn't meet Quinn's gaze but she can still tell that the blonde is throwing her one of those Quinn looks.

"Santana, Shelby is dangerous. Rachel could get hurt."

Santana nearly rolls her eyes.

Ugh.

Quinn just had to go there.

"Thank you for telling me all this, by the way." Quinn says, turning over the tape recorder in her hands.

Santana pushes all thoughts of Rachel to the back of her mind and takes back the tape recorder when Quinn hands it to her.

"I mean, I wish you would have given me a little more of a head's up," Quinn continues, pointedly glancing back at her. "But at least we have some type of leverage over Shelby now."

"I just hope I didn't royally fuck things up, confronting her like that." Santana confesses, and she actually surprises herself when she says it out loud. The more she reflected on it, admittedly, the more she was starting to second guess her decision.

Maybe it wasn't such a smart plan after all.

Shit.

Santana rubs a hand over her face, silently groaning to herself.

Quinn scoots closer to her. "What's done is done." she murmurs, stroking Santana's arm in a comforting way. "Whatever happens next, we'll deal with it. Together. You know I have your back."

Santana cracks a smile in spite of herself when Quinn leans forward and kisses her cheek.

"C'mon." Quinn pats her thigh, encouraging Santana to get up with her. "Let's go."

Santana does as Quinn asks but regards her curiously, sensing she had more in mind than just returning to her apartment. "Go where exactly?"

Quinn smiles back at her coyly.

"From what I can recall, I promised my girl breadsticks earlier."

Santana immediately perks up at the reminder. How could she have possibly forgotten about that?

"Oh hells yes." she grins, earning a light chuckle from Quinn. Santana slides an arm around the blonde's shoulder and tugs her close, starting them off toward their destination. "Now you're talking, babe."

Half an hour later, they're on their way back to Quinn's apartment with their takeout from Tony's restaurant in hand. Their timing had been perfect, as they had gotten a fresh out of the oven batch of breadsticks.

Santana crumbles up the now empty paper bag of breadsticks and tosses it in the nearest trash can.

"More, please." she requests, holding out her hand for the other order of breadsticks Quinn had bought.

Quinn does a quick double-take at her. She could have sworn that bag had been half full not two seconds ago. "Oh my god, Santana, really?"

Santana just stares back at her, still waiting on her refill. "You know how much I like my 'sticks, Quinn. This should not be a shock to you."

"It's not, but that was a double order of breadsticks!"

"Which I happily ate." Santana raises her brow. "Your point?"

Quinn looks at her with incredulous eyes, shaking her head. "You have an addiction."

Santana rolls her eyes and scoffs. "You're trippin', Fabray." She extends her hand to grab one of the bags in Quinn's possession but Quinn swats her away. "Oh come on, Quinn!" she huffs.

"These are for dinner, Santana." Quinn declares, twisting her body away. "Stop it!"

"They're mine I should be able to eat them when I want!" Santana argues.

"If you eat all of your breadsticks now, when we get home, you know what will happen? You'll start begging for mine!"

"Uh, excuse you. Santana Lopez doesn't beg."

"It happens every time, Santana, which is why I started ordering you extra orders of breadsticks in the first place!" Quinn exclaims.

Santana scowls when Quinn blocks her again with another slap on the wrist. She rubs her hand and narrows her eyes at the blonde. "Since when are you so damn territorial over your breadsticks?"

Quinn laughs incredulously. "Since you started eating all of them!"

"You know this is a whole other side to you I'm just now seeing and I'm not sure I like it, snowflake."

Santana crosses her arms, seriously affronted.

But to her dismay, Quinn's only reaction is to shake her head at her and walk away.

Huffing, Santana picks up her pace to catch up to her. She tries to get her hands on that garlicy goodness again but Quinn does this little hop step out of her reach, making it impossible.

Santana shakes her head when Quinn begins laughing uncontrollably.

The brat.

Quinn then takes off on her and before Santana knows it, she's chasing the blonde down the street, shouting, "Damnit, Fabray, you're not supposed to make me work for my food!"

Without stopping, Quinn throws her a quick glance over her shoulder and sticks her tongue out at her.

In spite of herself, Santana can't help but laugh. She always liked when her snowflake's more playful side came out.

(Even if it currently was preventing her from eating).

"C'mere you!" With a little added effort Santana's able to wrangle the blonde. She comes up behind Quinn and snatches her up in her arms. She lifts Quinn briefly, cackling in triumph. "Got ya, punk."

Quinn laughs and squirms to get away but Santana doesn't let up, instead showering the blonde with distracting kisses until she relinquished her hold on Santana's prized breadsticks.

"Ha Ha!" Santana pulls away with a triumph little shimmy dance, breadsticks now safely in hand.

Quinn shakes her head at her antics. "Addict."

"Thief." Santana shoots back.

Quinn heaves a resigned sigh. "Come on," she beckons. "Let's go before this food gets cold."

"Nothing worse than cold 'sticks." Santana agrees. She doesn't raid the bag right then and there. Despite what her girlfriend thinks, she can control herself.

At least for a few minutes anyways.

Santana blindly follows Quinn around the next corner. She's more focused on sneaking a breadstick out of the bag without the blonde noticing, so when she hears the sharp intake of breath from Quinn, she reacts instinctively, stopping short and just narrowly avoiding a collision with Quinn's back.

"Ohmygosh, I'm so sorry." she hears Quinn apologize.

Santana looks up to see who Quinn had bumped into and Quinn must have just done the same, because she suddenly jumps back into Santana.

"Biff!"

Santana feels her stomach drop.

"Quinn." Biff greets back, equally as surprised to see her. "Long time no see."

Santana recovers from her initial shock and moves out from behind Quinn, a rush of protectiveness overtaking her. The last time Biff was this close to Quinn, he'd had murder in his eyes and a sword in hand with the intent to execute.

Nowadays moments like that were really hard to forget.

(Or not have nightmares about but now was neither the time nor place for that can of worms).

Anyways.

Biff's attention shifts to Santana when she settles beside Quinn. His brow furrows, no doubt confused by the hostility radiating from her. "Um, hello." he greets unsurely.

That snaps Quinn out of her daze. "Biff, uh, this is my girlfriend, Santana Lopez." she introduces. "Santana, this is Biff McIntosh."

It isn't lost on Santana the way Biff's eyebrows shoot up at Quinn's mention of the word 'girlfriend'.

"Surprised I'm a girl?" she asks.

Biff looks her up and down for a moment before nodding once. "Quite frankly yes. I didn't realize Quinn was..." Biff trails off in search of the right word. "Inclined that way."

Santana can't help but shake her head at his pitiful excuse for a smile. It wasn't the psychotic one she was used to seeing on him as Hans but it set her teeth on edge just the same.

Oh how she wished she'd taken care of this creep back in Arendelle.

"Well, shows how well you know her." Santana lightly responds, forcing a smile of her own.

"I guess so."

Biff wisely turns back to Quinn. If he'd held eye contact for any longer, Santana would've for sure punched him in the throat. "It's been awhile since we last saw each other." he mentions to her. "We should grab coffee sometime and catch up."

Despite wanting to see Quinn's reaction, Santana keeps her gaze firmly trained on Biff.

Yeah, over my dead body.

"I don't think that's a good idea, Biff."

Santana doesn't try to hide her satisfied smile.

Ha, suck on that, boyo.

"That's unfortunate." Biff frowns. "I didn't realize you were the type to let others dictate who you can and cannot see."

Santana raises her brow and scoffs because that remark couldn't have been anymore pointed at her.

Before she can set him straight though, Quinn firmly intervenes, responding with, "I'm not. I just don't think it's a good idea."

"Why because she won't like it?"

Santana shakes her head at him. Really? He was gonna start talking about her like she wasn't even here? "I'm right here, you tool."

Biff turns his head sharply, suddenly looking a little more like the Hans Santana remembered. "I'm sorry, but did I offend you in some way?" he asks, eyes narrowed in annoyance.

Santana chuckles. If only he remembered.

"Hell yeah, you did."

Santana steps forward, intent on giving him a little reminder, but Quinn tugs her back, silently warning her to behave.

Santana exhales deeply. She tries to tell herself he wasn't worth a beatdown, verbal or physical, but every fiber in her being knew better.

"I just don't want to give you the wrong impression, Biff." Quinn continues.

Beside her Santana can't help but tense up even more.

Ugh. That fucking name was like nails on a chalkboard.

"Wrong impression?" Biff frowns at Quinn quizzically. "So you don't want to be friends?"

Quinn sighs. "It's complicated."

Santana can't help but eye her questioningly, wondering why the hell she's trying to let him down gently. Him, of all people.

"I guess I should've gathered that from the radio silence." Biff murmurs.

Yeah, you should have. Santana nearly says it aloud but surprisingly she's able to hold back her tongue.

"Biff, I'm sorry—" Quinn starts to say but Biff cuts her off with a shake of his head.

"Just forget about it. I guess I'll just see you around." He nods curtly at Santana. "It was...nice meeting you."

Santana happily waves him off. "Can't say the same!"

Quinn waits until Biff was out of earshot before rounding on Santana. "Santana!" she admonishes quietly.

Santana stares at her quizzically. "What? You forgetting that guy tried to kill you not once, but twice?"

"No, of course not." Quinn sighs, shaking her head. "But Biff was never anything but nice to me."

Like any sane person would, Santana reacts to that with a loud, derisive scoff.

"You call that shtick nice?" Santana gesticulates wildly over her shoulder. "He was a total douchebag just now!"

"Well you didn't exactly give him a reason to be nice."

Santana stares at Quinn with incredulous eyes.

Okay, what the hell was happening here?

"Please tell me you're not seriously defending that whackjob!"

"He doesn't remember what he did, Santana." Quinn tries to calmly explain to her. "To him we were hostile for no reason. Excuse me for feeling slightly bad about it."

Santana scoffs, no less appeased by that explanation. "He may not remember being Hans but he's still him deep down. I mean, shit, why else would he try to befriend you again?"

Quinn frowns at her, not understanding. "Hans never tried to befriend me as Elsa."

Santana shakes her head quickly, explaining, "I just meant that Biff was probably subconsciously drawn to you because as Hans he was so fucking obsessed with you. Jesus." Santana turns her head and swears to herself, sickened that that psycho was still creeping on her snowflake, even in this life.

"Come on." she says suddenly, needing to get out of here before she went after Biff and knocked his teeth in. "Let's go. His lingering sociopathic stank is making me lose my appetite."

Quinn lets the subject drop with an understanding nod. She gives Santana's hand a comforting squeeze.

They continue toward Quinn's apartment in relative silence. Until Santana decides she needed a distraction from her Biff murdering thoughts. "Let's talk about something else, por favor."

"Okay." Quinn thinks about it for a moment before coming up with something.

"Brittany has a date."

Santana does what's probably an amusing double-take. "What? With who?"

"That Mackenzie girl she hasn't been able to stop talking about." Quinn says, lightly chuckling at her reaction. "Brittany told me today she finally asked her out. Though she said she's having second thoughts. She's not sure if she should still go."

Santana doesn't understand. Britts was super into the girl. "Why wouldn't she still go?"

"I think with everything that happened today and everything that's still going on, she doesn't feel like now isn't the best time for dating." Quinn shrugs.

"So Miss Pillsbury and Rachel think we're crazy." Santana briefly rolls her eyes. "Just add them to the list and move on. No reason for Britt to keep from living her life."

"Brittany really likes this girl." Quinn smiles. "She practically tackled me during glee when Mackenzie texted her back with the yes. She was so happy."

Santana smiles faintly, both amused and a little sad she'd missed out on the moment.

"Well you know what that means." she says, staring back at Quinn resolutely. "What we gotta do."

"No, what?"

"We gotta make sure the girl checks out." Santana says like it's obvious. "Make sure she's good enough for our Britts."

"You mean you want to interrogate her." Quinn realizes.

Santana nods. "She could be a serial killer for all we know. Or worse, a vegan."

Quinn laughs and shakes her head at her. "Well we'd have to act fast, her date is this weekend."

"Perfect." With everything going on, she could do with a distraction, even a minor one that is giving an old fashioned shovel talk. "We can stop by derby practice and ask Dani to introduce us."

At the mention of Dani, Quinn's smile wanes a little. Something which Santana totally catches and sighs at. "You'll like Dani, I promise." she assures, moving her arm around Quinn's shoulders and bringing her closer. "She's like a slightly less badass, more compact version of me."

Quinn musters a small, if not amused smile. "Yeah?" She glances back at her.

"Totally." Santana nods. "She's hella short."

Quinn chuckles. "You sure like to befriend short people, don't you?" she teases.

"Yeah, and you're one of them." Santana shoots back just as playfully.

"I'm taller than you, dork."

"Are not!" Santana scoffs. "See?" She leans in and makes a point of looking down at the blonde.

"Well maybe not right this second." Quinn concedes with a light glare, Santana's heeled boots making sure of it. "But without your shoes, you're at least an inch shorter."

"Not even half an inch, snowflake." Santana glares.

"So you admit you are shorter." Quinn smiles in triumph.

Santana rolls her eyes. "You're delusional, Fabray. We're the same fucking height."

"Uh-huh. Sure." Quinn nods, obviously humoring her.

Santana hmphs.

Then an idea comes to her.

Smirking to herself, Santana pulls Quinn off the street and into the alleyway.

"Woah, what do you think you're doing?" Quinn gasps when Santana backs up against the wall, hips pushing into hers.

"Well, since I'm apparently so damn short, I figure I better make use of this height difference while I still got it." she explains, smirking down at the blonde.

Quinn's gaze drops to Santana's mouth, a smile helplessly tugging at her own lips. "But the food's going to get cold." she protests feebly.

Santana leans in for a kiss anyways.

"You've got a microwave, don't you?"

Quinn pulls back slightly before Santana's lips can reach hers and quirks her brow. "Even your beloved breadsticks?"

Santana straightens up at the reminder, her eyes widening comically. "Oh shit. I forgot about them." She pushes away from Quinn without second thought. "C'mon we gotta go—"

"Oh no you don't." Quinn grabs Santana by her jacket lapel and yanks her back to her. "You don't just push your girlfriend up against a wall and not kiss her."

Santana grins against her lips and deepens their kiss. She definitely couldn't argue that.

—

"You're a monster, Elsa."

Quinn startles awake, gasping harshly for breath. She sits up, hand cupping the side of her neck. Call her crazy, but she'd literally felt his breath on her skin just now.

When she comes back to herself and sees that she was in the safety of her own bedroom, she calms down a little. It was just a dream. Hans was not here.

But then Quinn remembers she'd actually made friends with that jerk in this life, and she tenses up all over again.

Sighing heavily, she rubs a hand over her face.

For these past few months she didn't know what to make of her strange dreams. Now she finally had clarity and remembered everything regarding her previously forgotten life.

And it kind of sucked.

She knows beggars can't be choosers and she was truly grateful to remember who she was but lately her subconscious only seemed to want to revisit the more unpleasant moments of her life whenever she let her guard down.

Maybe something in her brain was broken, if she was only reliving memories that used to haunt her. That still haunt her.

Or maybe it was just a result of being a non-cursed person in a still very much cursed environment.

Either way, remembering, as it turned out, managed to be just as exasperating as not remembering.

Quinn sighs again as she settles back down. She rubs her palms for a while until the ache lessens and sleep starts to pull her back. Her eyes close but open a moment later, awakened by a soft bark from Marshmallow. Before she can even think to lift her head and investigate, she hears her window being opened, followed by some familiar shuffling.

Quinn relaxes. It wasn't uncommon for Santana to sneak over but it's been much more frequent since they broke their curse. She had the feeling the past was haunting Santana too.

"You okay?" she murmurs, knowing Santana would hear her.

"Yeah." There's a dip in the bed and a rustle of the sheets. Santana leans over and kisses her cheek. "Just go back to sleep."

Knowing Santana, Quinn just nods in agreement and closes her eyes.

She doesn't stay asleep for long though. After a while Santana begins to toss and turn behind her, making it clear that Santana's restlessness has followed her here.

When Santana flinches particularly hard in her sleep, Quinn rolls over onto her other side and scoots closer to the Latina. "Hey." she whispers. Her hand comes up to rub soothing circles across Santana's back.

"You should be asleep." Santana grumbles face down into her pillow.

Quinn shakes her head. "You need comfort right now."

"What I need is sleep, not to talk about things. No offense, snowflake."

"I never said anything about talking."

Santana can't help herself.

"Wanky."

Quinn rolls her eyes but smiles. "Just try to relax and not think about anything." she says softly. She knows sometimes Santana just needed physical contact rather than words of comfort.

"I'm keeping you up." Santana groans as Quinn moves her massage to the nape of Santana's neck.

"Don't worry about it." She places a kiss to Santana's temple. "I love you."

"Love you too."

It takes time but eventually Santana falls back asleep under her ministrations. But even then Quinn keeps it up in the off chance Santana suddenly wakes again.

Thankfully though she doesn't and before Quinn knows it, she's fallen back asleep herself.

Quinn groans to herself when the hours pass and her alarm goes off. She didn't usually have trouble finding the willpower to get out of bed but today was one of those lazy mornings. She blamed Santana. One of the downsides — the only downside really — to sleeping with her is that she always made the bed so damn warm and cozy that it was impossible to ever want to leave it.

Quinn presses her cheek into Santana's back and squints her eyes shut, willing the alarm to stop and herself to go back asleep.

Unfortunately neither work. She reluctantly begins untangling herself from Santana.

She knows if she doesn't get up then no one else in the apartment will. And someone has to be the adult around here.

Quinn rolls over onto her other side and shuts off her alarm. She gets up, stretches, then makes her way over to the door.

She walks across the hall into Anna's bedroom. "Wake up, Anna." She moves alongside the bed, shaking her sister's exposed leg and poking her side before turning on the bedside lamp. Anna jerks and mumbles at all of this but it isn't until the lights come on that she really groans.

"Time for school." Quinn says over her shoulder.

She walks back out knowing it will take her at least two more trips to Anna's room and two more Wake up, Anna's before her sister actually does.

Quinn goes about her morning routine. After she showers, she slips into her underwear and throws on her robe. She goes out to the kitchen, feeds Marshmallow, and makes coffee for Santana. On her way back to her own room, she pops into Anna's for her second wake up call of the morning.

"Wake up, Anna."

"Five more minutes." the redhead begs.

Two seconds later, she's back to snoring.

Heavily.

Quinn turns around, shaking her head to herself.

She's so, so grateful they have separate bedrooms.

Quinn walks back into her bedroom and closes the door behind her. She comes around the bed, to the side closest to Santana, and extends the cup of coffee toward her, knowing the strong aroma would wake her senses whether she liked it or not.

"Babe." she sing-songs.

"Mmm..." Santana grumbles, sounding both pleased and disgruntled by the smell currently right under her nose.

"You have to get up if you want it."

Santana rolls over onto her other side, emitting a gruff noise that was definitely more wolf than human. Evidently she didn't want coffee as much as Quinn hoped she would.

Quinn sets down the coffee on the nightstand and sighs. Santana hadn't gotten much sleep last night which just means she'll be harder to wake up than usual. (And even on a good night's sleep, Santana was still a pain to get up).

Quinn bites her lip in deliberation.

Then grabs her pillow and whacks Santana over the head with it.

Santana jerks awake. "What the hell?" she yells, whipping around and holding her head. (As if Quinn had actually done some damage).

Quinn rolls her eyes and smiles down at her lovely girlfriend. "Good morning, sunshine."

Santana throws her a scathing look and Quinn has to suppress her smile at how adorable Santana's mussed hair is first thing in the morning. She'll never get tired of it, she's sure.

Santana flops back against the pillows with a dramatic groan. "No me gusta."

"Oh no you don't." Quinn grabs a hold of Santana's wrists and proceeds to - but mostly struggle to - pull her upright. "You need to get ready."

Santana reluctantly drops her gaze forward. When she realizes Quinn was just in her robe, her lips spread in a mischievous grin. "Whatcha got going on under that robe, snowflake?" she teases.

Quinn ignores her. "Come on, Santana." she says seriously. "You're going to make us late."

Santana's smile broadens wickedly as she rises up onto her knees and grabs a hold of Quinn's sash, tugging her closer.

"Santana," she warns, catching the Latina's wrist.

"C'mon, Q." Santana sits back on her haunches, fixing her with a mildly pleading look. "I need a little incentive to get up."

"You already are up."

"Yeah, but if you ditch the robe, I'll be even more up."

"I'm not even naked under here!" Quinn laughs in embarrassment.

"I don't care!" Santana lightly scoffs. "I just wanna start my day off right by taking in my girlfriend's beautiful body and appreciating it with my tongue."

Quinn blushes hard at that admittedly enticing mental picture. Once she recovers, she raises her brow just slightly.

"And I can do the same to you?" she inquires, half jokingly.

"Hell yeah!" Santana all but jumps up at the prospect. "You show me yours and I'll definitely show you mine."

Quinn shakes her head. But because she knows Santana and just how stubborn she can be about mornings, she also ends up rolling her eyes and sighing in defeat. She unties her robe and shrugs out of it, leaving her in her bra and underwear. Neither are particularly sexy but that doesn't really matter. She just wants to get Santana out of bed already.

(And make out with her girlfriend because, really, this is as much for her as it is for Santana).

"Happy now?" she sighs, pretending to be exasperated.

Santana scrambles out of bed with as much enthusiasm as a child on Christmas morning. "Very very happy." she confirms, dimpled smile and all.

Before Quinn knows it, she's being backed against her vanity, Santana's lips already at her neck before she even makes contact with the table.

Quinn giggles when Santana quickly follows that up with lifting her to sit on top of the table. "Speedy Gonzales over here." she teases.

Santana snorts. "Oh sí, señorita. That's me." she plays along in an exaggerated, high-pitched Mexican accent. Meanwhile her lips continue peppering kisses across Quinn's skin. "The fastest mouse in all of Mexico."

Quinn snorts a laugh of her own at that horribly awful but sadly spot on delivery. "Dork."

Santana only chuckles, a little more preoccupied with getting her mack on.

"Okay, okay." Quinn laughs again. She lets Santana get in a few kisses but once they start venturing down past her neck, Quinn has to cup her face and bring her back up to safer territory. "Down girl."

"That's where I was going, babe."

Quinn just shakes her head at her, most definitely blushing but smiling affectionately too. She still has Santana's face in her hands so gives her a big kiss on each cheek. "Go on and shower, speedy." Quinn smiles against her lips before kissing her. "Otherwise we'll miss glee."

Santana rolls her eyes. "God forbid." she utters dramatically.

Quinn encourages her to take a step back. Santana complies but keeps her hands at Quinn's waist while she hops down from her perch.

Santana looks at her hopefully. "Join me?"

Quinn apologetically shakes her head. "I already showered." And as tempting an idea as it was, she wasn't about to take another one. Not that they had time for that anyways. Quinn maneuvers around Santana and snatches her robe up off the bed. "If you had woken up when I did, you could have joined me..." Quinn glances over her shoulder and shrugs at Santana teasingly.

"Whatever." Santana playfully scowls at her. "It's your loss anyways."

Santana brushes past her and exits the room with a little more sway to her hips.

Quinn shakes her head to herself.

The dork.

Quinn ties her robe together before following the Latina out into the hallway. She diverts into Anna's bedroom and leans against the doorway, rapping her knuckles against the wood. "Final call, Anna." she says, voice firmer and louder than before. "Wake up."

"I'm up, I'm up." Anna murmurs sleepily, voice muffled against her pillow. "Totally up."

Quinn raises her brow disbelievingly, considering Anna has literally not moved an inch since she first came in to wake her up.

"Would you like Santana to wake you up again?" Quinn asks of her. "Because I know how much you loved that last time."

"What?" Anna bolts upright at the mention of Santana, suddenly very, very awake. "No, I'm good." Anna scrambles out of bed and runs past Quinn into the hallway. She jumps backward, a terrified squawk escaping her when she actually sees Santana standing there, grabbing towels from the linen closet.

Santana turns her head and smirks at Anna's crazy bed hair. "Morning, Medusa." she greets good-naturedly.

"You're too late, I'm already up!" Anna needlessly informs, rising up on her toes and pointing at Santana before taking off into the safety of the bathroom.

Quinn has to stifle a laugh.

Santana rolls her eyes, doing the same. "You give a girl an Abuela Lopez style wake up call one time and she's traumatized for life."

"One time is all it takes." Quinn chuckles. "But to be fair, being dragged out of bed would be a shock to anyone."

"It's how my grandmother would wake me up all the time when I was a kid." Santana shrugs. "My abuela not only liked to drag people with her words, but also physically drag them. You know how she taught me to swim? Dragged me out of the house and threw me into the river. Sink or swim, bitch, she'd said."

Quinn rolls her eyes, barely able to suppress a laugh that time. "Santana. She did not."

"You're right. She'd said it in Spanish."

Quinn just smiles and returns to her room.

Later, she's dressed and sitting at her vanity, texting back Brittany who had wanted to make sure Santana had not been kidnapped last night. She hears Santana walk through the door.

"Here, babe."

Quinn looks up to find a bowl of oatmeal being offered to her. She shakes her head at Santana, but puts down her phone and accepts the breakfast. "You didn't have to. But thank you."

Santana shrugs and plops herself down on the edge of Quinn's bed. "I owe you for last night."

Quinn purses her lips contemplatively, watching as Santana digs into her own breakfast. "You wanna talk about it?" she dares ask, despite knowing what Santana's answer will be.

"It was nothing. Just a restless night." Santana assures around a mouthful.

Quinn throws her look. If anyone understood what it was like to have nightmares, it was her. "Santana."

Santana concedes to an eye roll and reluctantly looks up from her cereal. "Okay so I'm a little stressed out."

Quinn sets down her oatmeal and pushes herself upright. She comes to sit beside Santana. "We all are." she says, gently touching her arm. "It's nothing to be ashamed of."

"I'm not ashamed." Santana responds indignantly.

"Well." Quinn starts instead. "If you're worried about confronting Shelby, I can go with you. Brittany too. You don't have to do it alone, though I know you were probably planning to—"

"No." Santana cuts in suddenly. "I mean, it's fine." She shakes her head and looks away, probably cursing herself for reacting so strongly. "Anyways, I was thinking today after school we would head down to the docks and size up Brittany's potential girlfriend."

Quinn arches her brow at her girlfriend's not-so-subtle subject change.

"Shouldn't we put our focus on Shelby first?" Quinn questions. "And make our move before she makes hers? We haven't seen or heard from her since you last spoke to her."

And to Quinn that meant she was probably up to something, planning.

"It's not gonna take all day." Santana reassures, standing up and apparently done with her food. She sets her bowl down on the vanity. "And like you said Britt's date is this weekend, so we gotta move fast."

Santana wants off the subject of Shelby, that much was clear. But there's something else there that she's not telling her. Quinn watches as Santana grabs some shoes out of the closet and puts them on, trying to figure out how to ask her about it.

"Santana," she begins to say.

"We're gonna be late." Santana cuts off again, seeing the time on the nightstand. She walks past Quinn and sticks her head out the open doorway. "Kid, you better be ready to leave!" she shouts loud enough for Anna to hear.

Quinn sighs to herself.

It will just have to wait then.

—

Santana's at her locker swapping out textbooks for her next class when she hears a pair of footsteps moving determinedly closer to her.

Next thing she knows, she's got Rachel all up in her grille.

"You are unbelievable, Santana."

Santana ignores the dramatics and stares at Rachel boredly, annoyed her current calm was being disrupted. They haven't spoken a word since the Miss Pillsbury incident. "Yeah, you made that pretty damn clear last we talked, hobbit. What else is new?"

To that, Rachel holds up a microphone and Santana's stomach admittedly flip flops because last she checked, that particular little device was holed up under Shelby's desk. "What's that?"

"Something I'd found under Shelby's desk, last I was in her office." Rachel tersely explains.

Santana wisely reverts her attention back to her locker. "So what are you coming crying to me for?"

"I'd know Lauren Zizes' handiwork anywhere, Santana."

Damn.

Santana should've known. After all Rachel's the one who gave Santana the idea to approach Lauren in the first place.

Santana grabs her needed textbook and slams her locker shut. "Then you should be talking with her and not with me."

Rachel trails after her. "I already did and she told me everything."

Santana's brow furrows in disbelief.

The fuck?

Whatever happened to customer confidentiality?

"You are so lucky I found it and not Shelby." Rachel continues, for once mindful of the volume of her voice. "She would have gone to the police and then it would've only been a matter of time before it was traced back to you."

Santana just rolls her eyes.

Rachel shakes her head at her, apparently riled up by her lack of concern. "You have got some nerve, Santana. This is not only intrusive and a violation of privacy but also very illegal."

Santana's seriously tempted to remind Rachel that she'd literally had Lauren Zizes bug the whole choir room for like a week without anyone's permission, but she was determined not to let Rachel work her up again. At lunch she was gonna help Brittany with first date ideas and she was not gonna miss out on it just because she needed to take another time out and keep her ridiculous temperament in check.

So she just turns at the corner and keeps walking.

"Do you not realize that you're acting like an insane person?"

Santana can't help but scoff a laugh because really, that's rich coming from her. Hobbit practically invented crazy with all the self-absorbed scheming she did in glee club.

"What is it going to take for you to drop this insanity?"

Santana resists the urge to roll her eyes again. "Okay, first of all you need to find yourself some new adjectives. You've used insane so many times that its lost its punch. And second, you'll be pleased to know we didn't get shit from bugging her office. It was the worst waste of time ever."

"Well then." This information seemed to appease Rachel enough for her to simmer down. "Now do you believe me?"

"Nope." Her lips pop on the 'p'. "Because as turns out I didn't need to go through the trouble. I ended up getting my proof right from Mommy Dearest's own damn mouth."

Rachel falters a little at that statement. "What do you mean?"

Santana slows her pace, but only because this hallway was congested with students trying to get to class, and sighs.

Was she really gonna try this again?

With a glance back at Rachel, Santana resigns herself to the fact that yes, yes she was. But only because Rachel was staring her down with that annoying I'm not leaving you alone until you tell me everything and so help me god Santana if you don't right this instant look.

Fuck.

(But hey, third time's the charm, right?)

Without a second thought Santana grabs a hold of Rachel's arm and drags her into the girl's restroom. "Would you stop dragging me into places?" Rachel huffs, indignantly snatching her arm back. "I am perfectly capable of following you!"

"Can it, troll."

Santana digs into her bag and pulls out her tape recorder.

The second Rachel sees it, her shoulders drop and she cries out incredulously. "Seriously, Santana?"

"I taped it to my underboob." Santana shrugs. "It was clever."

Rachel just stares at her and shakes her head. Her defeated gaze flickers down. "What exactly is on it?"

"Proof that I'm not insane as you so lovingly put it these days. It's not doctored." Santana assures as Rachel eyes the device skeptically. "Not that I'd know how to do that kind of shit anyways."

"Santana—" Rachel starts.

Santana cuts her off with a long sigh. "Look, you and I both know that I consider you my friend, Rachel. Which means, as much as I like to deny it, that I care about you. On some days, more so than others." Rachel cracks a faint smile. "And I look out for my friends. Which is what I'm trying to do now. You deserve to know the truth."

Above their heads the bell rings.

Santana purses her lips for a moment before handing Rachel the tape recorder, taking her by surprise.

"Listen to it. Or don't. But I'll need it back. Can't have it falling into the wrong hands."

Rachel looks up and raises her brow at her. "You would give me this after I ratted you out to Miss Pillsbury? Don't you think I'll do the same to Shelby?"

Santana pulls back with a shrug. "You haven't said anything to her so far and I'd like to think there's a reason for it. Besides, you know, not wanting to bother her with 'baseless rumors' or whatever BS you once told me."

Rachel glances down at the tape recorder, then meets Santana's gaze again. "I'm sorry for talking to Miss Pillsbury about all this. That wasn't right of me."

"Yeah, well, you were concerned about us." Santana shrugs.

"I'd be lying if I said I still wasn't."

Santana sighs and turns to leave. She couldn't afford to be late.

"Yeah, well that makes two of us."

—

It's times like this where she wished red wasn't her color.

Cause right now she really wasn't doing herself any favors by wearing a bright ass, very easy to track, red cloak when she was trying to ditch the goons chasing her through the forest.

Normally Red was not one to run from a fight but she was trying not to accidentally kill any more people these days and those village idiots somehow got a hold of a silver knife. And as much as she didn't want to admit it, if she hung around, they might be the ones to do the killing instead.

Red shakes her head to herself.

You eat a couple guys, expose yourself as a werewolf, and suddenly the whole town wants to skin you alive.

When Red hears an arrow whiz by her head, she takes a sharp turn in the other direction and pushes her legs even harder. She runs for a couple seconds before glancing over her shoulder again, trying to gauge how much of a distance there was between her and those inbred yokels.

Fortunately for her, they finally seemed to be losing steam.

Phew.

Red whips back around. Then yelps when she sees the rock wall covered in vines in front of her. With too much momentum going for her, even as she tries to stop herself, a collision is unavoidable.

But instead of breaking her beautiful face, Red just trips through the curtain of vines. She stumbles into darkness, falling onto her hands and knees.

What the hell?

Red pushes herself upright but goes still at the sound of the heavy footfall and approaching voices.

"Where'd that bitch go?"

"Had to be this way!"

Red stares with incredulous eyes as the shadowed forms on the opposite side of the vines take off, disappearing from sight. They, like her, had assumed the vines were just covering solid rock.

Red grins to herself.

Well, thank you, Nature.

Red steps closer to the vines and peeks through them just to be sure the goons were gone. She's just about to push through when out of the corner of her eye, she sees a slit of light coming from behind her. Frowning, she fully turns around. It's then that she realizes that this cave actually let out somewhere.

Her curiosity getting the better of her, Red walks over to the other side and slips between the opening of the rocks. When she comes out on the other side, she's even more surprised when she finds herself in a small clearing, a lone tower in the very center.

Again, what the hell?

Red walks up to the tower and tilts her head back, eyes squinting against the sunlight.

Huh.

Her head drops forward. She peers around the stone tower, looking around for an entrance, but finds that there isn't one. Weird.

Suddenly Red hears a twig snap behind her.

Ah, fuck.

Fearing those goons were back on her tail, Red wracks her brain for a course of action. She looks back up at the tower and shakes her head.

Fuck it.

She's not gonna let those assholes find her here and get the jump on her.

Nope, nu-uh.

If she can climb trees, she can climb this fucking tower.

It takes a hell of a lot of effort - and okay, she maybe overestimated her climbing skill - but she eventually manages to reach the top.

Once Red's got a good grip on the window sill, she hoists herself through the open window, one leg at a time. She pushes herself upright and smooths out her cloak as she steps further into the room.

She turns around to take it all in. Her eyebrow lifts at all the paintings on the walls.

Okay, someone definitely left their kid alone for too long—

WHACK!

God knows how long later, Red awakens to the feeling of something wet poking her ear. She jerks, then groans at the sudden movement, the back of her head throbbing like crazy.

Red attempts to touch her head but quickly finds herself unable to. Her gaze drops to her side, feeling that her arms were restrained. Sure enough her arms were bound at her sides. Bound with rope.

Wait, no.

Her brow furrows as she looks down at herself. Wait a second, this wasn't rope.

Red stares in bewilderment before jerking again in realization. Hair?

What the fuck?

HAIR?!

Her eyes widening and heart beating faster, Red follows the length of golden hair that was wrapped around her across the floor and up to the rafters. Just as she was trying to make out the figure in the shadows, a voice suddenly spoke, "Struggling...struggling is pointless. I mean, I know why you're here. And I'm not afraid of you."

Red squints up at the ceiling, not understanding in the slightest. "What?"

A blonde girl drops down from the rafters and steps out of the shadows. She looked to be around Red's age, just a little taller, and had what looked like a gecko on her shoulder.

"Who are you and how did you find me?"

"Huh?"

Red was too busy trying to process that all this blonde hair actually belonged to this girl.

Has she never heard of haircuts?

"Who are you and how did you find me?" Blondie repeats, coming closer with a frying pan raised beside her head. "Who else knows my location?"

Meanwhile Red just stares at the frying pan incredulously.

Did this bitch really hit her with a FRYING PAN?

(Judging by the definite lump she felt on her head, she'd say fucking hell yeah she did.)

Unbelievable!

"Answer my question!" Blondie demands, frying pan now under Red's chin.

"How the hell should I know?" she snaps, jerking her chin aside.

"What do you want with my hair?" Red's eyes narrow, watching the blonde circle around her like she's some kind of criminal. "To cut it? Sell it?"

"What? No." Red pushes against her binds impatiently. "The only thing I want to do with your hair is to get out of it."

Blondie falters, obviously not expecting that response.

"Wait, so you don't want my hair?"

Red shakes her head and exclaims, "No! Why the hell would I want your hair? I mean it's shiny and shit but not something worth getting hit over the head with!"

When Blondie doesn't know how to respond to that, Red sighs and decides to explain. "Look, Goldilocks, here's the deal. I was being chased. I saw a tower so I climbed it. End of story. Now if you let me go and I'll be out of your hair. Literally."

Goldilocks looks about ready to say something but decides at the last second. "Hold that thought." she says quickly.

Red raises her brow when Blondie spins around and begins whispering to that green little gecko of hers.

(Red's pretty sure that thing tongued her ear earlier).

"I know, but she's someone that can take me." Red overhears the blonde say to the gecko. "I think she's telling the truth. No, she doesn't have sharp teeth. Yeah, I know, but what choice do I have?"

I've gotta get out of here, Red decides.

She begins tugging at her restraints again. She swears when she's a little too forceful and knocks her chair over sideways.

Fucking hell, man.

Goldilocks whips around at the commotion. Red stills. She peeks out from the curtain of hair she was unable to push out of her face and manages a sheepish, if not a little pained, smile at the blonde.

Whoops.

With a shake of her head, Blondie makes her way over to Red and helps her upright. "I have a question for you."

Red watches as the blonde then goes over to the fireplace and yanks back the set of curtains above it.

"Do you know what these are?" Goldilocks asks.

Red stares up at the painted mural of the floating lanterns. "You mean the lantern thing Corona does for their princess?"

"I knew they weren't stars." the blonde murmurs, grinning back at the gecko on her shoulder. The girl steps away from the fireplace and stops in front of Red, helping her right herself.

"So here's the deal. I need to go to Corona to see the floating lights and you're gonna be the one to take me there."

Red arches her brow, sure she'd heard wrong. "Excuse me?"

"If you don't, I will report you to the authorities and have you arrested for breaking and entering." Goldilocks says firmly, trying to look all intimidating but failing miserably.

Red just scoffs at her.

"Uh, no thanks."

Blondie stares at Red, taken aback. "Why not?"

"I'm not taking you all the way to Corona. Bitch, I don't even know you!"

The blonde's expression falters once more before taking on a more determined fire. "You don't understand I need to see the floating lights. They're released every year on my birthday. They're connected to me somehow, I just know it." When Red doesn't look anymore convinced, she continues more desperately, "Look, you are the first person to ever find this tower, my mother will be back soon and I don't have time to wait for someone else to find this place."

"So go yourself!"

"Alone?" Blondie goes bug-eyed on her. "Are you crazy? All those ruffians and thugs and men with with sharp teeth will make a meal outta me! I need someone to protect me."

Red releases a humorless laugh and shakes her head. "Blondie, you've got the wrong girl."

"Why?"

"Because I'm a werewolf."

Blondie's face screws up. "A what?"

"A werewolf."

At the girl's continued blank stare, Red explains. "You know, bloodthirsty crazy animal during the full moon?" Still nothing. Red rolls her eyes. Whatever. "A lot more frightening than anything you'll come in contact with, trust me."

"So you're a wolf?" the blonde questions slowly, trying to make sense of things. Red watches as Goldilocks tilts her head, trying to look behind her.

Red swears to god the girl was searching for a tail.

Red nearly laughs. "Part wolf, anyways." She chooses not to be offended that this girl had no fucking idea what a werewolf is. (She knows they're practically extinct, but still). "My point is I'm like ten times more dangerous than any ruffian or thug that you'll ever meet."

Blondie frowns. "You don't look so dangerous."

"Yeah, well looks can be deceiving." Red mutters, shifting uncomfortably. Her wolf was starting to get antsy. "Now please do us both a favor and get me out of your hair before I accidentally wolf out. Restraints are not my friend."

Goldilocks hesitates for a moment, then comes over to Red and begins unwrapping her hair from around her. Red stands once she's free to do so and balks at all the miles of blonde hair on the floor.

"How the hell can you stand to have so much hair?"

"I can manipulate the length." Blondie explains simply.

Red jerks back when the girl's hair starts to move and retract like a serpent.

Oh what the hell?

Red can barely believe her eyes as all that hair disappears off the floor, retracting until the length only spanned the blonde's back.

"That's, uh, neat."

She honestly doesn't know what else to say to that.

"Thanks."

They fall in an awkward silence. Red looks around for a way of exit beside the window. (She never had a problem climbing up things, but climbing down things was always less uh, easy).

When she realizes that, yeah, there definitely were no secret entrances to this place, Red looks back at Blondie curiously. "You've left this tower before, right?"

"Uh, no actually." Blondie looks down with embarrassment and shakes her head. "My mother says it's too dangerous out there for someone as naive and gullible as me. She says I wouldn't last five minutes out there."

Red pulls a frown. "I don't know about that. You seem to handle yourself pretty well with a frying pan."

"I just grabbed the first thing I could find." Blondie shrugs off, glancing down at the metal in her hand. "I almost threw Pascal but I didn't want to hurt him."

"Yeah, but in the short time I've known you, you managed to knock me unconscious, tie me to a chair, threaten me, and make demands of me. I don't care what your mother says, you are not helpless."

Blondie doesn't say anything to that, seemingly considering her words.

"And speaking of help," Red walks closer to the window, then glances back at the blonde. "You think you can help a girl out with that magic hair of yours? Not that I can't climb down myself, but if I fall, I can guarantee I won't land on my feet like a cat."

"Sure." Blondie joins her at the window and begins growing her hair back out. When it's long enough, she throws it out the window and hooks it on a lantern holder that Red quickly realizes would help her act as a rope and pulley system.

Red turns back to the blonde to comment on her ingenious but, after seeing her stare longing at the outside, says instead, "Hey. You don't need my help or protection to get to those lanterns. You're capable of doing it all on your own. The world is not as scary as your mom makes it out to be."

"So there aren't large bugs and monsters and men with pointy teeth and cannibals and poison ivy everywhere?"

Red blinks for a second.

Wow, okay.

"Well, I'd be lying if I said there wasn't any scary shit out there, cause there definitely is. But it's nothing worth keeping yourself locked in a tower over. I mean, the world isn't perfect, and it's filled with plenty of bad people. But it's also filled with plenty of good people too." Red can't help but make a face at her own words. God, she was so not the person to be giving reassuring speeches. Or speeches at all.

Insults were her jam.

Insults and sarcastic comments.

"Look, your mother comes and goes as she pleases and she's fine every time, right?" Blondie nods. "Right. So why can't you? Go see your lanterns and find the answers you're looking for."

Blondie stares at her contemplatively. Before Red can ask what she's thinking, Blondie just smiles and nods at her, deciding, "I like you. I like werewolves."

Red just laughs.

She hops up on the window sill, ready to be lowered down. But before she goes, she turns back to the blonde, and asks, "What's your name, Goldilocks?"

"Rapunzel." the blonde says brightly.

"Gesundheit."

Rapunzel furrows her brow for a moment before smiling and asking in return, "What's your name?"

"Red."

Rapunzel grins.

"Gesundheit."

Red furrows her brow, head tilting curiously.

Rapunzel makes a slight face. "Is that not something you say after someone tells you their name?"

Red chuckles and shakes her head.

"Later, Rapunzel." she says as the blonde's lowering her down to the ground. "If you ever decide to step out into the world. Look me up."

"Will do." Rapunzel smiles. On her shoulder sits Pascal and he waves to her goodbye.

Red walks back to the forest with a slight smile on her face. She sure attracts the strangest chicks.

First Snow, now Rapunzel. What weirdo was next?

Red walks alongside the main road back to home, humoring herself with the possibilities.

"Well, well, well look who came out of hiding."

Red stops dead in her tracks and whips around.

Aw, crap. It's the goons from earlier.

"I told you brother," says the taller one with the eye patch, "You wait long enough and the pup will eventually try to make her way back home."

Red wrinkles her nose in disgust as the shorter one with the gold teeth grins at her crookedly, "Hiya, Red."

Red steps back, but only because she was gonna need some room if she was gonna get a head start on these losers.

"You try anything and I'll fucking kill you." she warns, despite knowing her words won't make shit difference. These guys make their living hunting magical creatures and selling their hides off on the black market. They aren't gonna stop until they've done the same with her.

So needless to say she isn't surprised when they come barreling toward her.

They're not a smart pair but they're ballsy, she'll give them that.

Gold Tooth comes at her first with his knife and she dodges him easily. Then comes Eye Patch and she moves to kick him but he reacts just as sharply, grabbing her leg and throwing her aside.

Red gets up fast but he manages to get in a hit, knocking her off balance again. Gold Tooth takes the opportunity and grabs her from behind. She fights him off, bashing her head back into his already crooked nose and elbowing him in the stomach. She then whips around and kicks him in the junk. But before she can plan her next move, Eye Patch tackles her to the ground. Hard.

Fuck. She was definitely gonna feel that in the morning.

"Hey, leave her alone!"

Next thing Red hears is the unmistakable thump of a frying pan against a skull.

Red winces at the reverberating sound, all too familiar with that feeling.

And down goes Eye Patch.

"You get off of her right now you!"

WHACK!

And just like that Gold Tooth drops to the side like a dead bird to reveal a frying pan wielding Rapunzel.

Red stares up at her in amazement. "You sure like that frying pan, huh, Goldilocks?"

"It's effective." Rapunzel shrugs. She leans over and offers Red her hand.

It's as Rapunzel's pulling her up that Red suddenly realizes, "Holy shit. You left your tower."

To be quite honest she didn't think the blonde would actually do it. Or at least so soon.

"My mother made it very clear that I'm never going to leave that tower." Rapunzel sighs. "I love her but I can't keep living like caged up like a bird. Even if the outside is full of ruffians and thugs."

Rapunzel looks down at the pair at their feet and Red automatically feels bad that Rapunzel's mother was currently being proved right. "Trouble likes to follow me around." she feels the need to explain. "It's not always like this."

Rapunzel laughs shortly. "I'll take your word for it."

Red dusts herself off. "Thanks for having my back." she smiles. "Even though I didn't need it."

"I'm sure you didn't." Rapunzel side-eyes her knowingly before a teasing smile breaks out across her face. "You know, of the two of us, maybe you're the one who needs the protecting."

Red scoffs back at her. "I do not need protecting."

"I dunno." Rapunzel raises her shoulders, unconvinced. Her smile turns smug as she twirls the handle of her frying pan around in her hand but the smile quickly drops off her face the second she loses her grip and clumsily drops the pan right on her foot.

"OW!"

It takes everything Red has to not fucking laugh out loud.

"So you're really gonna go and see your lanterns?" Red manages to question after the novelty of watching Rapunzel hop around dies down. But even then she's still pretty amused. "That is, if you can still walk?" she teases.

Rapunzel nods, still grimacing through her pain. "You have any idea which way?"

Red can't help but chuckle at Rapunzel's strained voice. "Yeah, just follow this road down that way until you reach the forkand turn right. A few miles down you'll pass a tavern, The Snuggly Duckling—"

"Ooh, Snuggly!" Rapunzel perks up, momentarily forgetting all about bashing her big toe. "Do they really have ducklings?"

"—But don't go in there." Red finishes firmly. "Don't be fooled by the cute name, it's not a place girls like you should be hanging out in."

"Hey, I thought you said I was capable." Rapunzel frowns indignantly.

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean you should go looking for trouble."

"I still say you should come with me."

"Not gonna happen." Red steps over the thugs and starts to walk away.

"But...you kind of owe me now, don't you?" Rapunzel subtly points out, right on her heels. "I mean I just saved your life."

Red whips back around. Her narrows her eyes incredulously. Was Blondie really trying to guilt-trip her right now?

"You didn't save my life. You gave me a helping hand. An unnecessary helping hand."

"You sure are stubborn." Rapunzel smiles, unfazed by her attitude. "Is that a wolf thing or just a Red thing?"

"Bye, Blondie. Good luck with your candles."

"Lanterns." Rapunzel corrects with a laugh before registering Red was walking away from her again. "Hey, wait! Please don't go!"

Red rolls her eyes to herself and reluctantly stops in her tracks.

She turns around but instantly regrets it.

"Please come with me."

Red groans internally. Fuck, she just looks so pathetic.

"Fine." Red huffs. "But I'm not doing it for you." she says quickly, her eyes narrowing. "I'm doing it for me. After the things I've done, I could do with some good karma."

And to be honest it's not like she had much of a reason to return home anyways.

Things have gone to shit ever since people found out she was a wolf. And a murdering wolf at that. When she wasn't being threatened to her face, she was being whispered about behind her back. Which wasn't a surprising reaction, she totally understood it. It just fucking sucked.

The only reason she hasn't already been run out of town was because...well she didn't know why exactly. But she knew it was only a matter of time before the pitchforks and torches started up.

People can only handle so much fear.

She'd probably be doing her abuela a favor if she didn't come back for a while.

Or at all.

"Are you serious?"

Rapunzel's looking at her, obviously trying not to look or sound too hopeful.

"Do I look like I'm joking?" Red deadpans.

Blondie squeals suddenly in triumph. Then sweeps Red up in her arms and proceeds to squeeze the hell out of her.

Jesus this girl was strong.

Red gasps for breath.

Realizing the embrace was pretty much one-sided, Rapunzel pulls back. "Not a hugger?" she guesses.

"Nope."

Rapunzel smiles sheepishly and gently puts her back down. "Sorry."

Red shakes off the hug. "Anyways. Before this goes any further, there's something you should know."

"Shoot."

"Don't, under any circumstances, piss me off. You piss me off and I wolf out. I wolf out and you get eaten. You get eaten and you don't get to see your candles."

"Lanterns." Rapunzel corrects once again.

"Whatever. Are we clear?"

To her credit Rapunzel only looks slightly terrified. "Yeah."

"Good. Let's get going. We got a long way's ahead."

Rapunzel obediently follows her back into the forest. Red figures it'll be safer than walking along the main road.

For a while they just walk.

Well, Red walks. Rapunzel fawns.

Fawns over the grass, the trees, the flowers. You name it.

Red has to remind herself that this girl's been in a tower all her life and to be a little considerate but patience has never been and probably never will be her strong suit.

"Dude!" she finally snaps. "Hurry up or Imma ditch your ass."

"Coming, coming!"

Rapunzel skips up beside Red and suddenly takes her hand, swinging it back and forth. Red stares at her for like half second before snatching her hand back. "Don't do that." she scowls.

Rapunzel looks a little crestfallen. "How about just pinkies?" she offers instead, her smile hopeful.

Red rolls her eyes and sighs, allowing the blonde to link their pinkies.

"Just don't get used to this, Blondie."

Santana startles out of her daze when the bell rings.

She sits up straighter at her desk and glances around.

Ugh. School.

Well. At least her daydreams were more pleasant than her dreams at night.

"You okay?"

Santana looks over to see Brittany staring at her with some concern.

"You looked spacey."

"Yeah," Santana nods and begins gathering her things. "Just tired."

"You'd think no longer being cursed would mean no more restless nights." Brittany shrugs on her backpack and leans against her desk, waiting on Santana.

"Yeah, well with remembering all the good memories comes remembering all the bad ones." Santana responds. "And my brain especially likes to revisit the bad ones for some fucked up reason."

Brittany follows her out of the classroom. "Your brain's just not getting enough sleep."

Santana exhales in frustration. "Yeah and it's not getting enough sleep because of the dreams. It's a catch-22 situation."

"You wanna sign up for a yoga class?" Brittany offers, slipping her pinky around Santana's. "I've read yoga and meditation are good for stress and clearing your head."

Santana shakes her head. "I doubt downward dog is gonna help me, B."

"Well you can at least cut down on your caffeine intake. It's probably not helping you any either."

Santana immediately perks up. "Speaking of café." She stops them at the hallway intersection and glances around for an exit. "I needs an afternoon pick me up. So what do you say? You down to play hooky?"

"Your body needs less caffeine, Santana." Brittany sighs. "Your diet of caffeine, breadsticks, and other unhealthy foods is probably catching up to you. I mean you're a werewolf. You need to be taking care of your body."

"Not a wolf anymore." Santana mutters under her breath. "And you sound like Quinn right now."

Brittany lightly shoves at her shoulder. "So listen to your blondes then!" she laughs. "We can't both be wrong."

Santana smiles in spite of herself. "C'mon, B." she pleads, playfully bumping her shoulder back. "Let's go get coffee. I'll buy you a donut."

"Fine but you have to order decaf."

Santana balks at the request. "Decaf defeats the entire purpose of coffee! It literally makes no sense."

"Fine. No coffee at all then."

"Fine. I'll be going without you then." Santana retorts in the same smart-ass manner.

Brittany raises her brow at her and Santana automatically pulls a face. It's moments like this where she can see the family resemblance between Brittany and Quinn and it's always hella weird.

"I will throw you over my shoulder and carry you to my next class if I have to, Santana."

She would've laughed if she didn't know Brittany was being completely serious and totally capable of doing that.

Brittany takes her silence and shakes her head incredulously. "You have a serious problem." she laughs.

Santana scoffs a laugh. Brittany knows her so damn well. Knows she'd been seriously debating running away from her right now just to get some fucking coffee.

It's not like she couldn't do it, she's fast.

It's just, ugh. That required effort.

"No me gusta."

"I'm just looking out for you, S." Brittany chuckles, throwing an arm around her shoulder and starting them off toward class. "It's what I do best."

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever." she dismisses. "But just remember, if I cut a bitch next period, it'll be on you."

—

Quinn is working on her homework when she hears a knock at the front door. Marshmallow instantly takes off from her bed, barking and skidding across the wood floor in his excitement.

Shaking her head, Quinn closes her textbook and follows at a much calmer pace. She unlocks the front door and pulls it open.

"Hey you." she greets. She steps aside to let Santana in.

"Hey." Santana greets her with a kiss. "You ready?"

"Just about." Quinn closes the door behind her and Santana follows her back through the hallway, into her bedroom. "What did you tell Brittany we were doing?"

"Oh, you know, just hanging out. Mike came over to study with her so I don't think she suspects anything."

Quinn walks over to her closet and grabs a pair of shoes. When she goes to sit on the bed, she notices Santana leaning against the doorway, smirking to herself.

"What?" Quinn automatically smiles.

Santana steps back and gestures behind her, across the hallway to Anna's bedroom. Her door was, as always, left open so Anna could be easily seen as she danced around her room obliviously to Quinn's ipod.

"You guys have the same taste in music?" Santana guesses.

Quinn laughs softly and shakes her head. "She skips every other song. But every once and a while she'll find a song that will make her do, well, that." Quinn gestures vaguely to whatever it was that Anna was doing now.

"She's picked up some of Brittany's dance moves." Santana observes.

In that moment Anna slips backward on her socks with a squawk. She steadies herself at the last second though.

"Too bad she didn't pick up her coordination." Quinn murmurs with a fond sigh.

Santana laughs a little at that and pushes away from the wall. Quinn watches as Santana closes the door behind her and moves further into the room, her expression turning a little anxious.

"Hey, so, I gotta tell you something."

"You talk to Shelby again while my back was turned?" Her tone is teasing but she's also serious. Santana only seemed to get that distressed look on her face when Shelby was concerned.

Or Cassie July.

Quinn quickly pushes that memory from her mind.

"No, actually." Santana comes around and joins her on the side of the bed. "I talked to Rachel."

"Oh?" Quinn straightens up from lacing her shoes. She'd had the feeling something was on Santana's mind today, with the way she'd been acting. Brittany said Santana just needed sleep but something told Quinn there was more to it than just nightmares and a lack of sleep.

"I, uh," Santana hesitates. "Well, I kind of gave Rachel the tape. The one on Shelby." She looks back at Quinn, braced for her reaction.

"Kind of?" Quinn arches her brow skeptically.

Santana rolls her eyes. "You know what I mean." she sighs.

"So you gave it to her." Quinn nods and looks at her to continue. "Then what?"

Santana just shrugs. "I left it up to her."

"You don't know if she listened to it?"

Santana shakes her head. "I thought for sure her hobbit curiosity would have gotten the better of her and she'd listen to it in between classes or something and track me down before school ended but that didn't end up happening."

Quinn nods in understanding. "She probably wanted to do it at home, where she could process things on her own."

"Yeah." Santana murmurs. "That's what I figured."

"Are you worried Rachel will tell Shelby about it?"

Santana looks back at her, brow raised. "Are you?"

"Well," Quinn raises her shoulders a little. "After the incident with Miss Pillsbury..." She allows her words to trail off, figuring Santana would understand where her concern was coming from.

"I trust that she won't."

Santana looks a little surprised with herself that those words came out of her mouth considering. "I mean, I know Rachel's gonna confront Shelby eventually, I just hope she has enough sense not to do it now."

"And what if she doesn't?" Quinn dares ask. She didn't want to sound like such a pessimist but it was hard to ignore the fact that the things that could go wrong for them often did. "What if she does confront Shelby?"

"Well then it's a good thing this place doesn't have magic." Santana chuckles humorlessly. "Otherwise Shelby would probably incinerate us with one of her fireballs."

"Shelby doesn't need magic to make our lives a living hell." Quinn feels the need to point out.

"I trust Rachel to do the right thing. She might not believe us but she's...I trust her." Santana then shakes her head to herself, muttering, "God knows why."

"She's your friend." Quinn answers simply. "She might make mistakes but at the end of the day she is your friend."

Santana doesn't say anything to that. But she doesn't have to. She already knows. She knows it just as well as Quinn.

"What if Rachel still doesn't believe us even after she hears the tape?" Santana asks after a silent pause.

Quinn hesitates, unsure of how to answer that. If physical proof can't make Rachel see the truth she honestly doesn't know what will. "I don't know." she sighs. "We could show her the storybook too. See if that helps."

"Probably won't though."

Quinn only shrugs.

"Does Brittany know?"

"Not yet." Santana sighs. "I didn't want to give her something to worry over when she's so looking forward to her date with Mackenzie."

"Speaking of which." Quinn places a hand on Santana's knee before pushing upright. "Come. We have some intimidating to do, don't we?"

Santana stands up at the reminder, a faint smile on her face. "Right. Let's go."

Quinn opens her door and walks into Anna's bedroom. "Anna." she calls out. "Anna!" She waves until she gets the other girl's attention. "We're leaving now." she says when Anna finally turns around and takes off her headphones. "We'll be back in a little while."

"Where are you guys going?" Anna asks curiously.

"To interrogate a ginger." Santana answers.

"As long as it's not me." Anna shrugs and waves them off. "Have fun!"

Santana laces her fingers with Quinn as they walk out of the apartment building.

Neither of them in any particular mood to have another Shelby or curse related conversation, they talk about inconsequential things on their way down to the waterfront.

"We should go to the beach one day." Quinn comments.

She breathes in the sea air and smiles to herself, reminded of Arendelle.

"The beach is overrated."

Quinn looks back at Santana curiously. "Why?"

"There are always too many damn people and sand and trash all over the place." Santana shakes her head, her scowl deepening, "And don't get me started on all those shifty little creatures that like to float around in the water..."

"You mean sharks?"

"No, children."

Quinn laughs and shakes her head.

"In spite of all those things," she continues, "I'd like to at least experience one day at the beach. You know, go in the water. Make a sandcastle. Get a tan."

Santana snorts a laugh at that last one. "Sorry, snowflake." she says immediately after noticing Quinn's frowned look. "But girls like you don't tan. You burn. We'd have to buy up like every bottle of sunscreen Storybrooke has and slather you in it just to keep you from frying and even then I'm not sure it'd be enough."

"Maybe it's not the greatest idea." Quinn admits with a slight chuckle. "It's not like I can swim anyways."

"Just stick to bathtubs. They're safer and way more fun."

"You do love a good bubble bath." Quinn teases.

"I love 'em even more when I have company." Santana smirks, waggling her eyebrow.

Quinn shakes her head at the memory. "I'm still mad at you for that, by the way."

The incident had happened fairly recently. Santana had been taking a bath in Quinn's apartment because Brittany's house didn't have a tub and she claimed she needed her 'tub time'. She'd conveniently forgotten a towel though and asked Quinn to grab her one. At the time Quinn didn't think anything of it, but in hindsight she really should have known from Santana's sugary sweet tone and oh so cheeky smile that the Latina was up to no good. Because as soon as Quinn had gotten close enough, Santana had pulled her, clothes and all, into the tub.

"As if." Santana scoffs, grinning at her. "You so loved it."

"I wouldn't have minded it if I wasn't on my way to the shelter!" Quinn exclaims, smiling in spite of herself. "You made me late for work!"

Santana rolls her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, but you got to see me naked so it was totally worth it, right?"

"So not totally worth it."

Santana just laughs.

"You're a terrible liar, snowflake."

Quinn just playfully nudges her shoulder.

As Santana leads the way to the warehouse, Quinn feels her smile fade and her nerves start to kick in.

"Relax, babe." Santana says knowingly, stealing a glance at her. "I'm not leading you to your death, I promise."

Quinn looks away in embarrassment. Her unease must be written all over her face. "I know. I'm just..." Quinn shakes her head to herself. "Meeting new people is not my forte."

"It'll be fine." Santana assures. "Dani's so chill you'd think she was the snow queen."

Quinn makes a slight face, unsure of if she was okay with that comparison, but follows Santana inside nevertheless.

Girls in skates were everywhere, some actually practicing but most just hanging out and talking with each other. How they could even hear themselves think, let alone speak, over the loud music, Quinn didn't know.

Quinn reluctantly follows as Santana tugs her along. She's pretty sure she's never felt more out of place than she did here.

Except, well, on her throne.

Beside her Santana stops and scans the room. "Dani!" she calls out, spotting who she was looking for.

Quinn follows Santana's line of vision and appraises the cheery girl skating up to them.

So Santana wasn't kidding about the blue hair.

As soon as the shorter girl was close enough, Santana greets her. "Hey, smurfette." she teases.

"Whatever, dude." Dani laughs, stopping in front of them. "You're just jealous you can't rock colored hair like I can."

Santana just shakes her head and turns to Quinn, introducing them both. "Dani, this is Quinn. Quinn, Dani."

"So you're Santana's infamous snowflake!" Dani grins, her gaze settling on Quinn.

Quinn smiles bashfully. "Uh, yeah." she nods. "That's me."

"It's nice to finally meet you." Dani smiles. "You're like ten times prettier than Santana described you."

Santana snorts. "Save the charm for someone single, Dani."

"You can't turn this charm off, Santana." Dani playfully sighs, gesturing to herself. "You know that. It's like a permanent state of being for me."

"Whatever." Santana dismisses with a fond smile. "Just keep it in your pants."

"Only if you can." Dani shoots back with a laugh. "If you're as gushy about Quinn when she's around as you are when she's not, I might have to walk away right now just to spare myself."

Quinn quirks her brow at Santana. "You, gushy?" she teases.

Santana narrows her eyes at her. "Santana Lopez doesn't gush." Quinn just smiles when Santana turns back at Dani. "I didn't bring my girl here so you could embarrass me in front of her, Dan. We came here because we wanted to talk to your girl Mackenzie."

"Ah." Dani suddenly understands. "Big sisters come to interrogate the prospective girlfriend." Dani chuckles. "That explains Brittany's absence."

"So give us the scoop." Santana folds her arms across her chest and looks at Dani expectantly. "Does this girl have a criminal record? Any weird fetishes? A twin?"

Both Dani and Quinn furrow their brow at that last one.

"What?" Santana notices their looks and shrugs. "Twins freak me out. I blame the Shining."

Dani shakes her head, laughing quietly. "Not that I know of." she answers. "And I know Mackenzie pretty well."

"She a heart-breaker?" Santana presses. "A sex addict? A Mormon?"

Beside her, Quinn can only smile and shake her head.

Oh, Santana.

"She's a good kid." Dani promises, turning herself around. "A pain in the ass but a good kid." Quinn and Santana follow her closer to the rink.

Dani stops at the railing and calls out to the group skating around, "Yo Mackenzie!"

One of the girls stops and rolls over to them. Quinn watches the girl spit her mouth guard out into her hand and proceed to take off her helmet, shaking out a mass of unruly red hair unlike anything Quinn's ever seen.

Santana and Quinn share a look with each other, obviously both thinking the same thing. That's a lot of hair.

"Like Mufasa." Santana mutters under her breath.

Quinn throws her a look. "Santana."

"It's the Circle of Life..." Santana quietly sings.

Quinn subtly elbows her in the ribs.

Thankfully Mackenzie doesn't hear either one of them. She nods at Dani. "What's up?"

"This is Quinn and Santana." Dani introduces. "Brittany's friends."

Mackenzie looks at them and smiles, instantly recognizing their names. "Nice to meet you both. Mackenzie Ferguson." She reaches out and gives Quinn's hand such a firm shake that it nearly jerks her arm out of its socket.

Mackenzie turns to do the same to Santana but stops at the Latina's uh, lukewarm reception.

"Okay, let's cut to the chase, Braveheart." Santana has no problem stepping Mackenzie's personal space while giving her the once over. "What are your intentions with Brittany?"

Quinn sighs to herself, wishing her girlfriend had a little more tact. "Excuse her. She's a tad overprotective."

Santana's gaze doesn't stray from Mackenzie. "Babe, I'm just letting Mackenzie here know that if she hurts Brittany at any given time, she will then quickly become a strange smell in someone's attic. Without question."

Mackenzie just blinks in response. For a second there Quinn thinks Santana had successfully put the fear of God in her, but then Mackenzie breaks and starts laughing.

(Much to Santana's chagrin. Laughter isn't exactly a reaction she likes to her threats.)

"Brittany warned me about you two." Mackenzie says through her laughter. "Though to be quite honest I thought she was just pulling my leg."

"Exactly what did Brittany say about us?" Quinn asks, curious to know.

Mackenzie chuckles. "That Santana will most definitely make fun of me for being a ginger and for being Scottish, but that I shouldn't get too offended. And that Santana acts like a tough bitch but she's actually a cinnamon roll—"

"What the —I am not a cinnamon roll!"

"No, definitely more like a churro." Quinn agrees sagely.

Santana's head snaps back to Quinn at the same time Dani snorts a laugh. "That is offensive. No me gusta!"

Quinn just smiles and shrugs.

Santana whips back around to face Mackenzie. "What did Britt say about Quinn?" she demands to know.

"That she is much more polite than you are but that she can be just as scrappy if you get on her bad side." Mackenzie responds, regarding Quinn with some intrigue.

Quinn shakes her head, flushing a little with embarrassment. "One incident and people never let you forget it." she murmurs, slightly exasperated.

"Let it go, snowflake."

Quinn throws Santana a look.

Santana only shrugs, smiling that cheeky dimpled smile of hers.

Quinn rolls her eyes, cracking a smile in spite of herself.

Okay, fine, she walked into that one.

"Anyways." Quinn returns her attention to the freckled redhead in front of her. "In all seriousness, we are here because we care about Brittany's well being, and since this is a first date, there are ground rules." Mackenzie raises her brow. "First, you are to bring Brittany home at a reasonable hour—"

"If you don't, we'll have no problem shipping you back home to Scotland Yard in a body bag." Santana cuts in.

Mackenzie just stares at Santana.

Sighing, Quinn leans into Santana's side and whispers, "Scotland Yard is in London."

Santana rolls her eyes at the correction. "Whatever."

Dani shakes her head and laughs, highly entertained by the pair of them. "Hey Quinn," Dani turns toward her smilingly. "Can I talk to you for a sec?"

Caught off-guard by the request, Quinn blinks then glances at Santana.

"You don't mind if I borrow her, do you San?" Dani teases, also looking at Santana.

"As long as that's all you do." Santana replies half-jokingly. "My snowflake is not for keeps."

Dani rolls her eyes and smiles. "So you've only mentioned for the millionth time."

Though she chuckles, Santana steals a sidelong glance at Quinn to make sure she didn't mind. Quinn gives her a small reassuring nod.

"Okay then." Santana turns and firmly clasps Mackenzie on the shoulder. "C'mon, Carrot Top. Time for a walk with Auntie Snix."

"With who?"

Santana rolls her eyes. "Just walk with me. Er, roll, I mean." she amends after a glance at Mackenzie's skates.

Dani and Quinn watch as they leave. "She is such a dork." Dani chuckles.

"Yeah, yeah she is." Quinn agrees with a soft smile of her own.

Dani slowly turns around to face her.

"So..." she exhales.

"So..." Quinn echoes the sentiment, not quite sure what to expect from this girl now that they were alone.

"I just wanted to clarify some things." Dani says right off the bat. "Santana's just a friend to me, so you don't have to worry about me trying to steal your girl or anything. That's not my style."

Okay.

Quinn could honestly say she wasn't expecting that.

As a result, Quinn doesn't have the words to respond.

"Wow, this is embarrassing." she eventually manages.

Was she really so transparent?

"Sorry." Dani cringes. "Santana mentioned that I seemed to be a weird subject for you and I figured it was because you thought I was into her. And then you came here, obviously on your guard, and I just felt I should say something."

Quinn exhales deeply, feeling awful that Dani felt the need to explain herself, especially when she had no reason to. "If anyone should be apologizing it's me." she says with a guilty shake of her head. "I don't dislike you, Dani."

The girl made her uneasy, sure, but that was Quinn's own doing. She's always been prone to self-doubt, as much as she tried not to be, and every time Santana mentioned Dani, she couldn't help but be reminded of that unsettled feeling she'd gotten when she first learned of their friendship. Dani just seemed to win over Santana so easily and then for her to introduce Santana to a world of cool derby girls Quinn knew she'd never fit into, when at the time Quinn's own relationship with Santana was so confusing and tense, admittedly it made her a little resentful.

"I guess I'm just not very good with having competition."

"I'm not your competition, Quinn." Dani assures her with a light shake of her head.

"I realize that now." Quinn turns her head slightly, shying away from her own embarrassment. "But when you feel like you're not good enough for someone everyone can feel like competition."

"Santana loves you." Dani smiles earnestly.

Quinn knew that too. And believed in it more firmly now that she remembered all that they've gone through. Her and Santana obviously had a special bond that was not easily breakable.

"I know." she nods. "And I know my insecurities aren't rational."

"It's nothing to be ashamed of." Dani assures with a soft smile. "We all have them. Trust me."

Quinn manages a kind smile in return. "Thank you for always being such a good friend to Santana." she says sincerely. "She doesn't let many people into her life."

Dani only shrugs. "She's just as good a friend to me as I am to her. I'm just glad to finally meet the last member of the Unholy Trinity."

Quinn quietly laughs at the name, shaking her head to herself.

"I'm sorry for not wanting to meet you sooner." Quinn softly adds. "And for thinking you were into Santana and kind of judging you for it."

"Look, we've all been there." Dani laughs, waving it off. "It's cool."

"Hey, what you girls talking about?"

Santana comes up behind Quinn and moves to stand at her side. She looks at them expectantly, lips pulled up in a smirk. "Me and my sexy bod?"

"Talking about Quinn's sexy bod, actually." Dani answers, giving Quinn a playful wink.

"Hey, hey, now." Santana jokingly warns, her arm automatically wrapping around Quinn. "She's taken. Find your own cutie."

Dani just rolls her eyes, laughing at the display. Quinn smiles to herself, feeling significantly more at ease. Jealousy or longing or whatever she thought she might find in Dani couldn't be more non-existent.

"Well I better get going." Dani gestures to the rink behind her. "Practice and all. Maybe next time Quinn we'll get you in a pair of skates. God knows I've tried with this one already." she says, teasing Santana.

"I don't skate." Quinn politely declines.

"Yeah, you do." Santana nudges. "She just prefers the ice." she says back to Dani.

Dani raises her brow, impressed. "Cool."

"Dani!" Santana groans.

Dani catches herself at the same time. "Sorry." she laughs, grinning sheepishly. "Pun totally not intended."

Quinn just smiles. "It was nice meeting you, Dani." And she truly meant it.

Dani nods in agreement. "Don't be a stranger now, Fabray."

"I'll try not to be."

"Bye, Dani." Santana waves. "Talk to you later."

Once the blue haired girl is gone, Quinn turns around to face Santana. "So did you intimidate Mackenzie enough to your liking?"

Santana meets her gaze and shrugs. "Eh. I would've enjoyed it more had Britt not given her a head's up and really caught her off-guard."

"Brittany knows you all too well." Quinn chuckles.

Santana just smiles and takes her hand, walking them toward the exit. "So what did you think of Dani?"

"She's sweet, confident, and funny." Quinn replies. She steals a side-long glance at the Latina, smiling, "Reminds me a lot of you actually."

Santana tilts her head, obviously not expecting that response. "Really?"

Quinn nods. Not only that, she found that Dani was like a weird combination of both Santana and Brittany. She had Brittany's happy-go-lucky attitude and Santana's sass — it was no wonder she found it so incredibly hard to not like her.

"Yeah, she's also got a charming smile." Quinn adds, if only just to tease Santana. "And dimples!"

"But I'm way hotter."

Quinn rolls her eyes smilingly. "Yes, yes you are." she nods, leaning into Santana's side. "Both figuratively and literally. But don't let that go to your head."

As soon as the words leave her mouth, Quinn shakes her head, already knowing what Santana's response to that will be.

"Too late." they both say.

Quinn and Santana turn their heads at that simultaneous response and promptly bust up laughing.

God they're such dorks.

Shaking their heads, they continue down the dock, still smiling.

Santana moves her arm around Quinn's shoulders. "So, I was thinking," she says after a while, "When Brittany has her date night, we should have one of our own."

"Sounds tempting." But as much as Quinn liked the idea, she couldn't help but think of more pressing matters that should be their focus right now. They couldn't exactly put it off forever, as much as they wanted to. "But what about Shelby?"

"You want to include the Evil Queen on our date night? Gross, no thanks."

"You know what I mean, Santana." Quinn sighs. "She knows that we know and we need to—"

"I know what we need to do." Santana interrupts, mildly exasperated. "But my current evidence against Shelby is with Rachel right now so it's not like we can do anything right now. Unless you've got some genius plan under your sleeve that you haven't yet told me about?"

"No, unfortunately." Quinn murmurs, as much as she wished otherwise. "So what did you have in mind then, for our date?" she asks instead. "Dinner and a movie?"

Santana shakes her head slowly. "Actually I was thinking something a little different." She smiles back at Quinn hopefully. "What do you say? You in?"

"Depends on what exactly we're doing." Quinn replies, though smiling. (Albeit cautiously).

"You'll enjoy yourself, I promise." Santana assures.

Quinn had no doubt about that but still she plays the part of the skeptic. "Yet you won't tell me because...?"

"Because it's meant to be a surprise!" Santana exclaims with a laugh. "And yes, I know you don't like surprises, but you'll like this one."

"Can you at least give me a hint?"

Santana cocks her head thoughtfully. "I could but I don't want to. With your smarts you'd probably figure it out."

"Well does Brittany know?"

Santana furrows her brow. "What's she got to do with anything?"

"Well if she knows what you have planned then I can potentially get information out of her." Quinn explains with a slight shoulder raise.

Santana shakes her head at her, incredulous. "Brittany won't talk." she says confidently. "She's hardcore."

"Under the right circumstances, she can be persuaded." Quinn lightly disagrees, throwing Santana a sly little smirk.

"Leave her alone, babe." Santana warns.

"Fine."

Santana quirks an skeptical eyebrow at her.

"What?" Quinn's eyes widen. "Scouts honor!"

To prove her point, she does the three finger salute and gives Santana an earnest smile.

(A little too earnest, maybe).

"Uh huh." Santana narrows her eyes and closes the distance between them. She takes Quinn's other hand out from behind her back, exposing her crossed fingers. "Nice try, not-so-sneaky snowflake." she smirks.

Quinn's smile quickly turns sheepish. "Whoops." she laughs.

Santana shakes her head at her, smiling in spite of herself. "C'mon." She gives Quinn's fingers a quick kiss before clasping their hands together and bringing them down to their sides.

A couple seconds pass. Quinn can't help herself.

"Okay, but seriously, what are we doing?"

Santana just rolls her eyes and keeps walking.

—

The day had started ordinarily enough, full of meetings and paperwork, and continued that way up until the afternoon.

Shelby had been having lunch with Rachel, who had utilized her off-campus eating privileges for the day, at her office. They had been chatting about the usual — work, school, and such when Shelby spilled a little vinaigrette from her salad onto her blouse. Nothing particularly serious but an annoyance just the same. Rachel had dashed off to the restroom to get her wet paper towels, but not before mentioning she might have a packet of tissues in her bag in the meanwhile.

Shelby had thought nothing of it when she picked up Rachel's bag, searching for the tissues.

Then something caught her attention.

A tape recorder.

Rachel had one, Shelby remembered from when she conducted their interview, but hers had a gold star sticker on the front and a Property of Rachel Berry label on the side. This one had none of those identifiers.

Now Shelby knew better than to violate Rachel's privacy but something about the device had raised red flags. So she'd picked it up and pressed play.

When she'd heard Santana and then her own recorded voice, admittedly it caught her off-guard.

Not just over the fact that Santana had recorded them but that she did it, then gave said recording to Rachel, thereby ignoring Shelby's warning to keep her out of this.

Apparently words were not enough to get through that thick skull of Santana's.

That or she just didn't care.

Shelby had ended the recording just as fast as she'd started it and promptly erased it, slipping it back in the bag. Though instinct told her that erasing the conversation would be too suspicious, especially if Rachel had already heard what was on it, Shelby decided against it. Rachel would have been bursting at the seams to confront her about it if she knew what was truly going on.

She loathed to use what little magic she had left, but she couldn't take any chances. It felt like things were beginning to unravel. Like she was losing control.

And she couldn't have that.

She would not have her world imploding on her. She would not let them bring back all that darkness.

Shelby slows her pace when her phone starts ringing and reaches into her purse.

"Any news?"

"Nope. Nothing out of the ordinary." Jesse answers. "School. Work. Home. Same as usual. If you want my opinion we should ditch Jacob and install microphones in their homes to hear what they're actually plotting. I can find a guy—"

"Too risky." Shelby cuts off. "They're on guard enough as it is." She hesitates as a couple walks past her. "Look, I've got to go." She couldn't continue this conversation in public. "Be aware, you're on call tonight." They can never take too many precautions.

"As you wish, Madame Mayor."

Shelby hangs up and slips her phone back into her purse.

She turns and walks into the market, her heels clicking against the linoleum floor. She goes over to the produce aisle and up to the young man currently restocking apples.

"Excuse me."

The young man she knows to be Biff McIntosh turns around and immediately straightens at her presence. "Madam Mayor." he smiles politely. "How can I help you today?"

Shelby surveys the selection, responding with a smile, "I'm in need of some of your freshest apples. You see I'm breaking out an old family recipe."

—

Santana's washing up in the bathroom when she hears an all too familiar song come on in the other room.

Ugh.

With a roll of her eyes, she dries her hands and opens the door, heading out into the hallway.

She walks into Quinn's bedroom just as the singing starts and immediately goes over to the nightstand.

"Just a small town girl, living in a lonely world—"

Santana shuts off the radio. She's heard that song more than enough for one lifetime, thanks.

"Hey!" Brittany turns her head in protest.

Santana raises her shoulders unapologetically. "Schuester has ruined Journey for me. And every other white rock band of the 80's."

"Could he really ruin what you already hated?" Quinn skeptically smiles.

"True." Santana turns her attention back to Quinn's bed and starts to gather up the rejected date outfits Brittany had gone through.

"So what did you decide for tonight?" Quinn asks of Brittany.

"Nothing fancy." Brittany's sitting at Quinn's vanity while Quinn stands behind her, braiding her hair. "I'm thinking fish and chips on the waterfront or pizza at the pizza parlor. Then after I was thinking bowling or laser tag, or both, depending how good things are going."

"Sounds like fun." Quinn smiles.

"Yeah, I hope so." Brittany exhales nervously.

Santana smiles over at her, finding this rare showcase of nerves endearing. "What are you so nervous for, B? Tonight's gonna be awesome."

"I know." Brittany shrugs. "It's just...I've never really done this before. As Brittany or Rapunzel. I just really want this to go well."

"And it will." Quinn makes eye contact with Brittany in the mirror and gives her shoulders a reassuring squeeze. "Just be yourself and have fun."

"And if things don't work out, just remember that there are plenty of other girls in the lady pond. Or guys in the dude swamp."

"Santana!" Quinn admonishes over her shoulder.

"What? There's a reason her hair's so big. It's full of secrets."

Brittany snorts at the Mean Girls reference. "Your overprotectiveness is showing again, San." she teases.

Santana just shrugs. "I only speak the truth." She turns back to Quinn's closet and hangs up the rest of Brittany's clothes so they didn't wrinkle. "I mean, did you even figure out who Mackenzie was back in the Forest?" she asks over her shoulder.

"Princess of DunBroch." Quinn automatically answers, to Santana and Brittany's surprise.

"How'd you know?" Brittany frowns, twisting around in her chair. "I only just figured it out."

"I used to be queen." Quinn says simply. "I knew of the neighboring kingdoms and their royal families. Granted I never got the chance to meet them in person but—"

"No way that girl is royalty." Santana cuts in, her head shaking in disbelief.

"Being royalty doesn't always mean you're the epitome of grace and poise." Quinn points out to her.

"Yeah, true." Santana eventually concedes. "Take Anna for example."

Just then Anna comes striding through the bedroom door. "What am I an example of?" she asks, hearing only that tail end remark.

"A person who doesn't know how to knock?"

Anna rolls eyes at Santana and knocks on the door. "There, happy?" she smiles.

Quinn pointedly glances back at Santana. "That sass she gets from you by the way."

Santana just shakes her head.

Puh-lease. Anna was a master of sass long before they'd even met.

Anna skips over and flops onto Quinn's bed, instantly making herself comfortable. Marshmallow, who'd been in Anna's room with her, hops up and joins her.

Quinn raises an inquiring brow at her sister. "Have you finished your homework?"

"I'm taking a break." Anna sighs, giving her sister a playful eye roll in return. "I'll get it done." she assures.

"Get it done tonight so don't have to worry about it tomorrow."

"I will, I will, Mom." Anna teases. She rolls onto her stomach and props her chin up with her hands, legs kicking behind her. "So...when are you guys leaving?" she inquires with no subtlety whatsoever.

Quinn looks at her sister through the mirror, eyebrow quirked. "Why are you so keen to know?"

"You planning on throwing a rager while big sister's gone?" Santana grins. Cause that's totally what she would do.

"Uh, no." Anna scoffs unconvincingly. "I was just curious, yeesh. It's not everyday the warden leaves me alone with the place to myself." she teases, smiling back at Quinn.

"What? No babysitter." Brittany teases too.

"Anna's a big girl. And, as it turns out, I can leave her alone without fear of the apartment burning down." Quinn smirks back at Anna.

Anna sticks her tongue out at her older sister. "Whatever. The only reason you're leaving me alone is because you wanna make out with Santana without me overhearing it for once." Anna makes exaggerated kissing noises, resulting in an eye roll from Quinn.

But Anna isn't done. She takes it a step further, sitting up and pretending to make out with herself, all the while mocking them with her obnoxious high pitched voices. "Ooh, Santana, you're the best. Ooh Quinn, you're my snowflake and I LUV YOU."

Santana comes around and whacks Anna with a pillow, knocking her sideways.

"Don't you have fractions to get back to, baby Fabray?"

"Fine." Anna relents with a laugh, rolling off the bed all together and landing on her feet. "I can take a hint. C'mon, Marshmallow fluff. Let's go raid the kitchen for snacks." At her beckoning, Marshmallow promptly jumps off the bed and follows Anna out of the room.

Brittany, who had been cracking up all through Anna's theatrics, wipes away a tear, her body still shaking. "Oh man, those impressions were spot on."

Scowling, Quinn and Santana round on her and each smack her on the arm.

"Kidding, kidding!" Brittany laughs, raising her hands against any further assault. "Jerks."

"You better hurry up, Britt." Quinn says suddenly, catching a glimpse of the time. "You don't want to be late."

"Okay, okay." Brittany gets up and steps into the open space of the room, doing a little demonstrative twirl. "How do I look?"

Santana shares an emotional look with Quinn. "Our baby's all grown up." she utters dramatically, fake crying. Quinn places a hand over her heart and leans into Santana's side for support.

Brittany rolls her eyes at the pair of them. "Guys." she whines. "Seriously. I need to know now if I need to make a last minute outfit change."

"You're beautiful, Britt." Quinn assures. "As you always are."

"You're a total babe." agrees Santana, her eyes roving the blonde to ensure the outfit was just right. And it was. "It's perfect. Casual but still dressed up enough that it works for a date."

Even with their reassurances, Brittany still looks hesitant.

Quinn's smile fades in concern. "What's wrong?"

"I'm just...what if I say something I shouldn't? Like what if I say something that has to do with her past life in the Forest?"

"Not like she'll know, B." Santana shrugs. "She's cursed."

Brittany isn't appeased with that answer. "Yeah but what's she gonna say when the curse breaks?"

"Probably 'What the fuck?' like the rest of the town." Santana responds. "But like in Scottish."

Brittany shakes her head and crosses her arms self-consciously. "I never should've read into her past. Even if she doesn't remember it, it still feels too much like an invasion of privacy. From now on you guys are keeping the storybook!" she declares, pointing back at them.

"Everything will be fine, Britt." Quinn soothes, coming closer and rubbing her shoulders. "Just focus on the present. Not on what happened in the past or what might happen in the future. Just be in the moment with her."

"Exactly." Santana gently turns the blonde around and begins ushering her out of Quinn's bedroom.

"But just remember, if Braveheart tries anything funny, you break her face."

"Santana!"

Santana scoffs right back at Quinn. "Like you didn't give her pepper spray."

"It's a good thing to have." Quinn defends.

Santana makes a face at her. "You sound like Berry. No me gusta."

Quinn rolls her eyes and returns her attention to Brittany. "Your phone is charged?" she checks.

"Yeah, and you have cash on you?" adds Santana. "Your id?"

"Yes, moms." Brittany sighs, exaggeratedly dropping her shoulders in mock exasperation. "Can I go now? Or do you need to sit me down for the Talk?"

"I don't know, do we?" Santana questions lowly, raising her brow.

"Leaving now!" Brittany exclaims, shaking her head and grabbing her purse. "Bye, Anna!" she waves quickly to the redhead currently pigging out in the kitchen.

"Bye, Brittany!" Anna speaks around a mouthful.

"Wait." Just as Brittany opens the door, she whips around. "Trinity hug for luck!" she declares quickly, opening her arms for a hug. Quinn and Santana happily walk into her embrace, squeezing tight.

"Bye Brittany." they say in unison.

"Okay, bye for real this time!" Brittany steps out of their arms and swiftly exits.

Santana steps forward and waits until the blonde was out of sight before coming back into the apartment. She closes the door behind her.

"Is it weird that I've got butterflies for her?" Quinn says with a slight laugh, her hand moving to her stomach.

"Right?" Santana was glad she wasn't alone on this. She's had this weird nervous, yet excited feeling all damn day. You'd this was her first date. "Like fucking sympathy pains. It's making me super..." Santana shimmies a little, feeling wigged out. Her nose scrunches up. "No me gusta."

Quinn laughs and steps into Santana's space. She raises her brow inquiringly. "So, how about that date?"

"Right. Our date." Santana grins.

Quinn rocks up on her heels happily. "Yes, our date!"

Santana chuckles. "Eager are we?" she teases.

"To see what you've got planned for us, yes I am." Quinn nods.

Santana smirks as she slowly leans in for a kiss.

"Still in the room!" Anna loudly warns, startling them both. She comes around the kitchen counter with her arms full of snacks, shaking her head in disgust. "Take that nonsense to Quinn's bedroom if you have to."

Santana lightly scoffs. "And that's our cue to leave." she mutters, reluctantly pulling away from Quinn. She turns around and grabs her purse from off the coat rack. "C'mon, snowflake. The sooner we leave, the sooner I get your clothes off."

Quinn nods and starts back to her room.

"Okay, just let me get my— wait, what?"

—

"Santana, would you please tell me what exactly we're doing here?"

Quinn looks around and unconsciously squeezes Santana's hand tighter. Roaming the halls in the dark with only Santana's phone flashlight to guide them was not at all what she'd had in mind for their date tonight. "This is how, like, every teen horror movie starts out. You know that, right?"

Santana chuckles back at her. "Relax, Q. The only Big Bad around here you have to worry about is me."

"Is that the reason you brought me here?" Quinn teases, quirking her brow. "To eat me up?"

"Wanky, Fabray." Santana smirks.

Quinn smiles for a moment. Then Santana starts pulling her along again and it fades. "I'd rather not get arrested again, Santana." she murmurs seriously, and meanwhile picking up her pace because, hallways at night? Totally creepy. "Especially for something as dumb as breaking into our school."

"So you'd be less opposed to getting yourself arrested again if it were for a better reason?" Santana questions, and even though her back is to her, Quinn can hear the thoughtful smirk. "Huh."

Quinn just shakes her head.

Admittedly she crowds behind Santana when she suddenly hears something come from down the hall.

Santana turns her head and immediately raises her brow at Quinn's closeness. "Didn't realize I'd brought along such a scaredy cat." she teases.

"I am not a scaredy cat." Quinn scowls. "I just would like to know where exactly you're taking me."

It was so dark and Santana had taken so many turns that she'd lost track of where they were ages ago.

Santana lets go of Quinn's hand and digs into her jacket pocket to produce a set of keys. "Are we going to the choir room?" Quinn asks.

"Ew no. I'm pretty sure Berry nests there on the weekends."

Quinn laughs quietly in response. "That would explain the noises I've been hearing." she murmurs, anxiously glancing over her shoulder again.

Santana laughs and stops in front of a set of double doors. Which one Quinn couldn't say.

Santana unlocks the door and eases it open. She nods at Quinn to enter first. "Go ahead, babe."

Quinn stares back at her, naturally hesitant.

"If something pops out at me, Santana." she warns.

Santana just rolls her eyes and gives Quinn a light push through the doorway.

It takes a few steps before Quinn realizes their location.

"What—?"

Quinn stops short at the sight of the school's glowing swimming pool.

She looks back at Santana questioningly.

Santana smiles a little as she explains, "The other day you brought up the beach and not being able to swim and it reminded me of something." Quinn tilts her head curiously. "A long time ago, I promised to teach you how to swim." Santana finally gets out. "So this is just me keeping that promise." She glances at the pool, then back at Quinn, shrugging slightly. "Better late than never, right?"

Quinn releases the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding and smiles affectionately at Santana. She remembered that moment clearly, the one Santana referred to. They'd been on a ship to Arendelle when Santana -er, Red - had made that promise to her. It was one of the many sweet moments with Red that made Elsa look forward to sharing her future with her.

Quinn can feel herself getting teary-eyed just thinking about it. Because, with all the drama then, she hadn't been entirely sure she would ever get that chance with Red. Then, of course, the curse had hit and all hope of a life with Red seemed lost. But now here they were.

In another world, living another life, but still together.

Quinn swallows thickly. Any second now she might start crying.

Which Santana totally catches onto. "Aw, don't go getting all sentimental and weepy on me, snowflake." she teases softly, moving closer and taking Quinn into her arms.

"I'm not." Quinn promises. Though she's sure her sniffling makes it seem otherwise.

"C'mon." Santana gently beckons. "Let's go."

Quinn wipes at her eyes as Santana takes her other hand, leading her toward the locker room. "I didn't bring a bathing suit." she remembers suddenly.

Santana chuckles over her shoulder. "You think I didn't come prepared?"

Santana turns back around and unlocks the locker room door with the same set of keys from earlier. Quinn still wants to know how on earth she managed to get those.

But then again, maybe she didn't.

"You really had this all planned out, didn't you?" Quinn realizes as Santana flips on the lights.

"How else was I gonna surprise you?"

Quinn watches curiously as Santana disappears around a row of lockers. She returns a second later carrying a large duffel bag in one hand and two neon colored pool noodles under the crook of her other arm. "If I'd come over with this stuff you would've put two and two together instantly."

"True. But what happens if we get caught?"

Santana sets down the duffel bag on the nearest bench and begins pulling out towels and such. "We'll be fine." she assures. "But if we do get caught, we'll just say we were working on a school project or something."

"What kind of project would require us to break into school after hours and go swimming?" Quinn questions skeptically.

"I dunno." Santana looks up and smirks at her. "A science experiment to see how buoyant snowflakes are?"

Quinn shakes her head. She looks on as Santana continues to rifle through the duffel bag. Her brow furrows when Santana pulls out a tangled up mess of strings and triangular cloth that looks suspiciously like what Quinn hopes is not.

"Uh, what are those?"

"They're our bathing suits. Duh." Santana disentangles the blue bikini from the red bikini and tosses the former to Quinn. "Suit up, snowflake."

"This thing is tiny." Quinn protests, staring back at Santana with incredulous eyes. "This is not a bathing suit!"

"It's either that or swimming au naturale." Santana shrugs, fighting an amused smile. "I don't have anything else. Sorry, not sorry."

Quinn only scowls at her.

"Now, hurry up and get naked." Santana gestures. "We don't got all night."

Quinn reluctantly takes one of the towels Santana had brought and goes to change behind the other row of lockers. She wasn't about to give Santana the satisfaction of seeing her change.

A few silent moments pass as they each get into their bathing suits.

"Don't worry so much, snowflake." Santana suddenly says from behind her row of lockers. "This will be fun."

Quinn pauses. "How did you know I was worrying?"

"Because I know you, Quinn." Santana chuckles.

"Yes, well, with everything going on, the last thing we need is getting into more trouble, Santana."

"Don't worry about that." Quinn can practically hear Santana's eye roll. "We'll be fine. Just think about something else."

"Like what?" she can't help but scoff.

"Like me in all my teeny tiny bikini glory. But don't get too caught up though, I know how you get when it comes to my hotness." Santana teases.

"I've seen you naked before, Santana." Quinn huffs in return. "A bikini is not that big a deal."

"As if." Santana scoffs. "I know for a fact the second I finish changing, you'll take one look at me and get all dazed and breathless and then flustered like you always do when you see me in any state of undress. Not that I'm complaining or anything."

"That doesn't happen every time." Quinn murmurs, looking down at herself and trying to adjust her too small bikini top.

"Oh no?"

Quinn lifts her head and jumps back when she sees Santana standing there.

She swallows thickly, feeling her brain short-circuit. She already knew it, but red was so Santana's color.

And wow, this bikini.

It was...wow.

Santana's smile spreads in triumph. "Totally called it."

Quinn closes her gaping mouth, then scowls at how flushed her face feels.

Damnit.

"C'mon, snowflake." Santana laughs and turns on her heel, all but strutting her way out the door.

Quinn takes a moment to admire the view before hurriedly following her. Even with the lights on this place was still creepy after hours.

By the time Quinn gets to the pool, Santana is already by the side of it, tossing the pool noodles out into the water. The bright shimmering water distracts Quinn from Santana for a second and all too abruptly she's brought back to reality.

She'd have to get in that.

Suddenly the swimming pool looks twice its size and far more intimidating than it did before. Quinn swallows thickly against the copper taste of panic rising in her throat and forces herself over to the shallow end where the steps and railing are.

Santana, meanwhile, stays over by the deep end and dives into the pool from there. Quinn watches, mesmerized, as she cuts through the water like a pro.

Show off.

Santana resurfaces near the shallow end of the pool and throws her head back, sending water droplets everywhere. Quinn swears the whole moment plays out in slow motion before her very eyes, like in a movie.

Quinn shakes her head to herself, forcing herself to breath out.

Good Lord.

If Santana keeps up this sexy behavior, she's not going to make it into the pool at all.

"C'mon, babe." Santana implores, catching her breathless look and drawing a smirk. "The water's perfect."

That's not the only thing, Quinn thinks.

"Santana, I don't know about this."

Santana frowns and swims closer to her. "The water's heated, don't worry."

"It's not the temperature of the water that I'm worried about." Quinn murmurs, hugging her towel to her body and staring at the water apprehensively. Elsa's aversion to large bodies of water was kicking in full force right now.

Santana sighs. "It's not gonna kill you, Quinn."

Quinn tears her gaze away from the water, her brow raising just slightly. "You do realize you're talking to a girl whose parents drowned, right?"

Santana's expression falters. She straightens up and walks through the shallow water, then climbs up onto the steps. "Babe, I'm not gonna let anything bad happen to you. I promise."

"I know that." Quinn murmurs, feeling silly for being so hesitant. This was just a swimming pool after all. Not the ocean.

And even then, water was just...water. Nothing to be so scared about, right?

"Think of it like this." Santana says and holds out her hands to Quinn. "Ice is your element, right?"

Quinn nods slightly. It was, technically.

"Well this is just ice but in liquid form. So it's your still like your element. It's not gonna hurt you."

Quinn looks back at the water, then at Santana, and exhales deeply. She trusted Santana and she knew she was right.

So she reluctantly gets rid of her towel and takes a hold of Santana's extended hand. She follows Santana down the pool steps one at a time until her lower half is submerged in water.

"See? It's not so bad." Santana flashes her an encouraging smile. "And I guarantee there are no sharks."

Quinn walks around the shallow end of the pool tentatively. As she tries to acclimate herself, Santana follows her around, keeping their fingers interlocked the entire time.

"You good?" Santana asks, when Quinn finally turns back around to face her.

Quinn nods.

For now anyways.

"Okay. First thing's first. We're gonna teach you how to float."

Before Quinn can say anything to that, Santana scoops her up bridal style and explains, "So I want you to extend your body flat and tilt your chin up. My hands are going to go under your back so I'm gonna keep contact with you the entire time, okay?"

Quinn nods in understanding, though still a little nervous. "Okay."

"Even if something happens, we're in the shallow end so you can just push yourself upright. So just try to relax."

Easier said than done, Quinn thinks, as Santana eases her back against the water. "Now extend your legs. Good. You're doing great."

Quinn closes her eyes, trying to keep herself from overthinking things and just let herself float. But in her attempt to do so, her head accidentally dips too far back and water rushes over her face, up into her nose, making her freak out. "Easy, easy." Santana pulls her up quickly. "It's okay. I got you."

Quinn coughs as Santana pushes the hair out of her face. Santana patiently waits for her to recover.

"Try that again?"

Quinn nods.

It takes time before she's able to comfortably float and breathe easy while doing it, and even longer before she stops using Santana as a safety net, but eventually she does it.

"Now you can float." Santana grins, watching her. "That's half the battle."

Quinn keeps her gaze up toward the ceiling. "And the rest of the battle, pray tell?"

"Treading water."

Oh joy.

Quinn straightens up with Santana's help.

"Shouldn't we be doing this by the edge?" she questions, after Santana demonstrates how to move her arms and legs under the water. "Just in case I need something to grab onto?"

"I'm right here, babe." Santana outstretches her arms as a point. "I got you."

Quinn nods and hesitantly begins moving as Santana instructed. She does well for a few seconds, but then her chin dips a little too low into the water and she begins to panic and flail again, choking on the chlorine.

Santana helps her up and gently pats her on the back. "You're okay, you're okay. Just keep your mouth closed so you don't accidentally swallow the water." she advises as Quinn recovers. "And try not to splash up so much, you psych yourself out doing that."

Quinn exhales deeply, frustrated with herself.

It was so humiliating having Santana see her struggle with a simple task six year-olds could manage.

"You know," Quinn turns her head and coughs the last of the chlorine out of her lungs. "Date nights are typically supposed to be fun for both parties."

"If you wanna stop, we can." Santana offers with a slight smile.

Quinn narrows her eyes at her. "You're enjoying this far too much."

Santana laughs. "Can I help it if you're super hella cute when you're learning to swim?"

"Good to know I'm so endearing to you while trying not to kill myself!" Quinn exclaims, shaking her head at her.

Santana rolls her eyes smilingly and pulls Quinn closer to her. "You're doing a lot better than you give yourself credit for, snowflake."

Quinn wraps her arms around Santana's neck. "If that's true, then, can I get a reward for all the hard work I've been doing?" she asks innocently.

"Hmm." Santana cocks her head thoughtfully. "I guess I could give you a little something."

Quinn's smile widens when Santana leans in to kiss her, but it quickly fades when Santana just gives her a kiss on the cheek.

Quinn arches her brow at that less than satisfying exchange. Hell it wasn't even an exchange.

"How about a little something more?"

"Once you finish learning how to swim, then we'll talk." Santana smirks.

Quinn huffs at her. "Talking's the last thing on my mind."

"So focus on swimming then." Santana teases, lightly pushing her forehead into hers.

Quinn exaggerates a sigh and reluctantly moves out of Santana's arms. "Fine. If I have to."

They continue with their treading water lesson. Again it takes much practice but Quinn isn't one to give up until she's successfully got it down. When that moment comes, Quinn exhales in relief.

"Congrats, snowflake." Quinn musters a smile, the pride on Santana's face almost worth nearly drowning herself. "You're mastering this shit like way sooner than I thought you would."

Quinn scoffs and nudges Santana's shoulder. "Excuse you?"

"Just kidding, babe." Santana laughs.

Quinn just shakes her head. "Now what?"

"Now to master the doggy paddle." Santana grins. "Basically what you were doing before, just horizontally. You're gonna kick with your legs and paddle with your hands and feet."

Santana backs up a little as she speaks, giving them enough room to try it out. Quinn does as she says and it's not so bad. She's pretty sure she has about as much grace of a golden retriever but hey, at least she's swimming.

As soon as Quinn finishes her current lap, Santana does a dorky little cheer for her and claps her hands. "You're practically a mermaid!"

Quinn scoffs and grabs a hold of the pool noodle floating nearby, hugging it close to her chest. A mermaid with a defective tail, maybe. "Are we done yet?" she asks breathlessly.

Santana chuckles and shakes her head. "Not yet."

Santana pushes backward and Quinn looks on curiously as Santana disappears under the water. The brunette doesn't resurface until she's reached the far end of the pool.

"For your final lesson, snowflake," Santana declares. "You have to doggy paddle your way over to me."

"Are you kidding me?" Quinn's voice climbs an octave. "Way over there?"

Santana chuckles at her reaction. "I'll make it interesting!" she promises.

"Oh yeah?" Quinn scoffs. "How?"

Santana doesn't respond.

That is, with words.

No, Santana just pulls at the strings of her bikini.

Before Quinn could even comprehend what her girlfriend thought she was doing, a blur of red fabric is suddenly being flung onto the side of the deck.

Quinn nearly loses grip on her pool noodle.

"Santana!"

"What?" Santana laughs at her again. "You need motivation." She glances down at her bare chest and shrugs to herself. "And what better motivation than my awesome rack?"

"That's so not fair!" Quinn complains.

Santana rolls her eyes at her. "Just swim your little snowflake butt over here and you've got unlimited access to the Evas." she says simply, gesturing to said ladies like they were game show prizes.

"I'm going to die!"

"In the pursuit of the world's best boobs." Santana snorts. "Like, how are you even hesitating right now?"

Quinn raises her brow at her. "Really, Santana?"

"C'mon, snowflake." Santana sighs. She then curls her finger and beckons Quinn closer with a sly, dimpled smile. "Ven acá."

Quinn's gaze flits to the ceiling.

If she drowns because of this, she's so gonna kill Santana.

Taking a deep breath, Quinn lets go of her pool noodle. She then cups her hands and begins doing the digging motion Santana had taught her while her legs kick to propel herself forward.

When Quinn makes it all the way across the pool to her, Santana wraps her up in a bear hug, squeezing and kissing each cheek. "See you didn't die." she murmurs happily.

"Not yet anyways." Quinn pants, tired but proud of herself.

"I'm proud of you." Santana pulls back and brushes the wet strands of hair out of Quinn's face. "You did really fucking good. You didn't go under or panic once."

"Thanks." Quinn's gaze dips as she blushes, still a little embarrassed over how much time it took for her.

"Hey, my eyes are up here, Fabray."

Quinn snaps to attention. She hadn't even realized she had gotten completely distracted by Santana's er, assets.

"Sorry." She looks up and nearly rolls her eyes at Santana's shit-eating grin.

"You are such a raging Santanasexual. I love it."

"Well of course you do." Quinn laughs along with her, shaking her head.

Santana just chuckles and pulls her in. Quinn hums pleasantly, easily melting into the kiss.

So much better than a peck on the cheek.

Santana must agree because she kisses her over and over, until things turn into a full blown make out session.

Santana's hands slide down Quinn's waist to grip the back of her thighs. She presses Quinn against her, encouraging the blonde to hook her legs around her waist. Which Quinn readily does.

They kiss for a while more, with no intentions of stopping, even when Santana murmurs, "You know what I've just realized?"

"Hmm?"

"That you're getting better at keeping pace with me these days."

Quinn moans softly, Santana's tongue licking into her mouth, and nods agreeingly. "Mmm-hmm. Practice."

Santana chuckles against her lips.

"I don't know how I feel about that." Santana pulls back enough to look into Quinn's eyes, her smile drawing a smirk. "I think I've gotta up my game."

"Well," Quinn sighs and leans forward, giving Santana's bottom lip a playful nip. "If you must."

Santana returns her grin and captures Quinn's lips in a mind-numbing kiss. The intensity of it catches Quinn off-guard but she recovers soon enough, kissing Santana back with as much fervor as she did her. They each give and take, tease and demand, passionately working each other up in a way they couldn't seem to avoid lately.

Quinn grips Santana's shoulders, needing the support. As good as she's gotten exhaling through her nose, Quinn was starting to feel a little lightheaded. Fortunately Santana could always sense when she wasn't getting enough oxygen and pulls away from her at just the right second.

Quinn exhales deeply, trying to catch her breath and calm the fire in her belly that Santana had ignited.

Her moment of respite doesn't last long though, not that she thought it would, as Santana quickly moves her attention to her neck. Quinn automatically dips her head back to allow her further exploration. Santana alternates different pressures on her pulse point, sucking gently at first then gradually getting harder. Quinn's a fan of it all. Santana's mouth travels past Quinn's collarbone and down across her chest, kissing as much uncovered skin as she could reach.

Quinn involuntarily jumps and clenches her thighs around Santana when the Latina adds her tongue to the mix of things, licking between her cleavage. Santana growls a little at her small gasp of pleasure and oh god, Quinn has to pull Santana back up from her chest because it's somehow too much and yet not enough all at once.

She reunites their mouths hungrily, her body practically vibrating from the arousal.

(Maybe making out in swimming pools should be a regular thing for them from now on).

As they kiss, Quinn vaguely feels Santana's fingers begin to toy with her bikini strings.

"Can I?"

Quinn shivers at the feel of Santana's hot panting breath on her skin and eagerly nods. She pushes into their kiss, further indicating her want.

Santana moans deeply into her mouth and wastes no time in dragging apart the loosely tied strings.

She's just about to do the same with Quinn's halter strings when a booming voice comes out nowhere, shattering the silence.

"What in the hell do you two think you're doing? Shenanigans in my pool?"

Quinn and Santana instinctively spring apart as the lights turn on.

"Young lesbians, this is not the set of Wild Things! Readjust your seashells and u-haul yourselves out of the water! NOW!" orders Roz Washington, the school's synchronized swimming coach. Beyond mortified, Quinn and Santana don't hesitate to pull themselves up out of the water.

As they're hurrying back to the locker room, Coach Washington calls after them. "If I find out either one of you peed in my pool, I will personally throw you into the ocean where all the little nemos and dorys will feast on your poor unfortunate souls!"

—

"Man, oh man my arm's sore." Brittany laughs, but seriously rubs at her shoulder. She definitely should've stretched first.

Or at least bowled with a lighter ball.

"I've never seen anyone bowl so many strikes on other people's lanes before." Mackenzie shakes her head, still obviously amazed by the feat.

Brittany shrugs as she walks along side her. "What can I say? I'm skilled."

"I call witchcraft."

Brittany just sticks her tongue out at her.

Mackenzie laughs.

"You sure you don't bowl often?"

Brittany shakes her head. "Nah." If she did her arm would probably fall off. "Bowling's fun but I don't want to get one big Popeye arm and be all lopsided. It would make dancing a little hard."

"You gonna be a dancer when you finish school?" Mackenzie asks. "Like a proper one? Go off and tour with Beyoncé?"

"I'd love to, definitely, but we'll see." Brittany tries to be as honest as she can without revealing certain truths. "There are some things that need to be taken care of before that can happen."

"So mysterious." Mackenzie teases. "What is it that's always got you so occupied?"

Brittany just shakes her head.

"If I told you, you wouldn't believe me."

Mackenzie smiles and leads the way back to her apartment. Her building's not quite as nice as the one Quinn lives in but Brittany likes it just the same. From what she gathered when she first came to pick Mackenzie up, the place was home to a bunch of colorful characters.

"Are your roommates still here?" Brittany asks as they make their way up the creaky stairs.

Mackenzie had three roommates that Brittany had briefly met earlier — all guys.

There was Callum, a shy beast of a guy whose accent Brittany couldn't understand in the slightest, Cameron, an athletic guy melodramatic enough to give Rachel Berry a run for her money, and Lewis, the smallest of the three and as pale as a unicorn. He was also kind of spacey in that Stoner Brett kind of way, just without the stoner part.

They were a sweet bunch of misfits.

It was crazy to think that the three of them had meant to be Mackenzie's suitors in their last life and were now her roommates in this one.

"Nah, I made them scram." Mackenzie fishes her keys out of her jean pocket and as they reach her front door. "Didn't want them to be around in case we decided to come back here."

"I don't put out on the first date, just so you know." Brittany teases with a sidelong smirk.

Mackenzie flushes the color of her hair and fumbles with the doorknob for a second before pushing her way inside.

Brittany follows her. "Ay, I leave the place for two seconds and the place's back to being a sty." Mackenzie huffs in embarrassment. "Sorry about the mess."

"No worries." The space just looks lived in, Brittany thinks. "My bedroom alone makes this place look like an ad in an IKEA catalogue."

Honestly with three guys living here, she'd expect it to be much worse.

Mackenzie chuckles. "Then by all means make yourself at home."

Brittany shrugs off her jacket and drops it with her purse on the nearest chair.

Without the boys here and Mackenzie not so insisting of dragging her out out of the room, Brittany takes stock of the apartment in full. Unlike Quinn's place, there was a lot of stuff visually going on. The living room alone was jam packed with cool novelty items. Prop replicas of swords and shields were mounted on one wall and on another was a familiar roller derby flyer was blown up to poster size. In one corner above the lamp was the blue and white flag of Scotland. Closer to the door was a dartboard with Justin Bieber's picture tacked up in the middle, his eyes and mouth full of darts. (Santana would definitely appreciate that).

Brittany pulls her gaze away and walks over to sit on the couch.

Mackenzie plops herself down beside her. "So you had fun tonight?"

"You make it sound like this date is almost over." Brittany chuckles, looking over at her.

Mackenzie quirks her brow. "Isn't it?"

Brittany shakes her head, exclaiming, "The night is still young! I still have things planned. The only reason we're here is to refuel and rehydrate. You promised me pie, remember?"

Mackenzie grins and throws her head back gleefully. "Finally someone who can keep up with me!"

"What your roomies aren't the party animals they claim themselves to be after all?" Brittany teases.

"The boys are such homebody's." Mackenzie groans, throwing her head back in mock exasperation. "Rather be here playing their video games. I keep tellin' em if they keep it up they're never gonna meet any girls."

"The derby girls are fun though." Brittany brings up, thinking of all the times she's hung out with Dani and her friends.

"A lot of grannies, they are." Mackenzie scoffs.

"What? No way!" Brittany laughs. "They're a blast!"

"Ah, that's just a front." Mackenzie waves off, grinning.

Brittany shakes her head disbelievingly. Those girls were arguably the most entertaining group this town had. "I know the feeling though." she sighs, leaning her head back against the cushions. "Quinn and Santana are such homebodys." It didn't make her love them any less but boy, they could be real sticks in the mud sometimes.

Mackenzie turns toward her, head resting against hand. "Is it weird being friends with them?" she asks curiously. "Since they're together?"

Brittany furrows her brow and immediately shakes her head at the question.

"Really? You don't ever feel like a third wheel?"

Brittany shakes her head again. "Not at all." she responds honestly. "We were all friends before they got together and nothing's really changed in that sense. I mean Quinn and Santana aren't the obnoxious couple type, you know? They still act the same as before they got together. Now they're just more at ease, I think. I never feel left out. Sometimes Quinn and I will do stuff together. Sometimes it's just me and Santana. We each have our own relationships with each other. We're like puzzle pieces, we just all go together."

"That's really cool." Mackenzie smiles.

"Like you and the guys." Brittany comments.

"Eh, they're a band of misfits I more or less have taken under my wing." Mackenzie smirks. "I made the mistake of feeding them once. Now I'm stuck with them."

Brittany chuckles. Then she notices Mackenzie's prolonged stare.

"What?"

Mackenzie shrugs a little, the side of her mouth pulling up even more. "I just like you is all. A lot."

Brittany grins, her stomach getting that warm fuzzy feeling. "I like you too. A lot."

Mackenzie's smile turns pleased. "You ready for that dessert?"

"As long as it's not a euphemism and is actual food." Brittany grins. "Then totally."

Mackenzie laughs and nods, quickly getting up from the couch. Brittany does the same, following her into the small kitchen. She sits herself down at the counter, smiling to herself as she moves Mackenzie's archery bow off to the side.

"I'm honestly surprised the boys didn't get into this." Mackenzie pulls out the plastic container and grabs two plates. "They'll eat everything in their path."

Brittany laughs. "Even with the post-it note saying, TOUCH THIS AND YE DIE!" She reaches across the counter and plucks the yellow sticky note off the top, shaking her head.

"I hope yer not against store bought desserts." Mackenzie quickly serves them a slice each. "I confess I'm a shit cook."

"I'm not much of a cook either." Brittany assures, watching her put the plate in the microwave to warm the pie up a little. "So no worries. Besides, dessert is dessert. As long as it tastes good, I don't care where it comes from."

Mackenzie grabs the vanilla ice cream out of the freezer and puts it on the counter, popping off the lid. Then the microwave dings.

"I love pies." Brittany sighs, deeply inhaling the awesome smell. "And not just dessert pies. Chicken pot pies, pie charts, the number Pi. That book Life of Pi, even though it wasn't about what I originally thought it'd be. And if I was a My Little Pony, I'd definitely be Pinkie Pie."

Mackenzie stops for a moment, merely shaking her head at her. "You're awesome."

"And a cutie pie." Brittany smiles cheekily. "Now pie me, please."

Mackenzie slaps two scoops of ice cream onto the plate and sets it down in front of her. Brittany wastes no time digging in.

Mackenzie watches her closely. "How is it?"

Brittany chews for a moment, savoring the warm cinnamon-y apple and cold vanilla goodness, then swallows and nods. "Amazing." she grins.

She quickly goes in for another bite but stops, overcome by the funniest feeling.

Next thing Brittany knows, everything's gone black.

—

Quinn and Santana rush out of the building, door slamming behind them.

Neither one of them stops until they were far from school grounds. They didn't honestly think Coach Washington would be chasing after them, but still, better to be safe than sorry.

"I can't believe that just happened." Quinn pants, leaning against the light post while she caught her breath.

"I know." Santana huffs in annoyance. "Talk about nippleference."

Quinn glances back at her incredulously. Was she really more concerned about that?

Shaking her head, Quinn exhales deeply. "I really hope Coach Washington doesn't rat us out to Figgins. Or worse to Sheriff Beiste. We were technically breaking and entering."

"Technically I had a key." reminds Santana through a grimace. A wet bikini under dry clothes was not the greatest feeling.

"Where did you get those keys anyways?" Quinn wonders.

"Brittany."

Quinn raises her brow. "And where did she get them?"

"Sue."

"Sue?" Quinn repeats, rightfully surprised.

Santana continues to shift uncomfortably from her clothes as she nods, telling her that, "Brittany told her she needed them for her takedown and you know Sue, she doesn't give a damn about the rules. And I think she was secretly hoping Brittany was gonna desecrate the place in someway." At Quinn's furrowed brow, Santana further explains, "Sue hates Coach Roz almost as much as she hates Mr. Schue."

"Should we be okay with Brittany being pals with Rumplestilskin?"

"Not like we can really stop her at this point." Santana shrugs, though obviously sharing her concern. "Britts is good friends with Becky — that automatically gets her an in with Sue, whether she wants it or not."

"Well it's good she uses it to her advantage, I suppose." Quinn still felt uncertain about it though. Whether as Sue or Rumplestilskin, Quinn felt that woman really shouldn't be trifled with unless absolutely necessary.

"C'mon." Santana beckons, tired of standing around in wet clothes. "Let's go home and change."

Quinn nods in agreement and continues alongside Santana down the street. They walk in silence.

"Beautiful night." Quinn says absentmindedly, glancing up at the clear sky. It's moments like this when she was glad they lived in a small enough town where you could actually see the stars.

"Yeah." comes Santana's naked reply.

Quinn looks over at Santana and watches her stare up at the moon. "It's coming up soon." she mentions. "The full moon."

Santana falters for a split second, but recovers, quickly slipping on a mask of indifference.

"Yeah, so?" Santana tries and fails to sound casual.

"Well, we did break our curse. Maybe—"

"Magic doesn't exist here." Santana interrupts her. "If it did you'd be back to making blizzards already, wouldn't you?"

"Not necessarily." Quinn replies. "My powers were used to make this curse. They probably wouldn't come back until the curse over the entire town breaks. Or maybe not." she adds on second thought, shrugging to herself. She didn't know how curses worked exactly. "Maybe they won't come back at all."

Quinn glances back at Santana, waiting for her to say something more but Santana was obviously going to wait until Quinn dropped the subject altogether. Quinn quietly sighs. As much as she didn't want to make Santana uncomfortable - well, even more so - she knew they should talk about this.

"I know you've been having nightmares, Santana."

"They're not nightmares." Santana sighs in annoyance. "Just...bad memories resurfacing. It's no big deal."

"I've been having them too, if it's any consolation."

Judging by Santana's silence, it's not.

Shaking her head, Quinn gently grabs Santana's wrist, making her stop and turn around. "Santana, whatever it is you don't want to talk to me about, you know I'm not gonna judge you."

Santana takes her hand back but doesn't meet her gaze. "Yeah, I know that."

"And yet." Quinn raises her brow expectantly.

"And yet?" Santana's eyes flash with anger as she snaps, "Look, just because we're dating doesn't mean I have to disclose my every thought to you."

"Hey," Quinn frowns at her gently, willing her to simmer down. "There's no need to get so defensive. It's just me."

Santana exhales, her expression faltering. "Sorry." She looks away for a moment, her jaw tense. She shakes her head. "It's just, you're not gonna like what I have to say."

"That shouldn't stop you from telling me how you feel. Now or ever. It's okay, Santana." Quinn assures, staring at her earnestly. "I want you to say what's on your mind."

Santana exhales deeply.

Quinn patiently waits.

"What if breaking the curse isn't the best thing to do?" Santana eventually says, her words coming out anxious and rushed. "What if we're better off like this?"

Quinn blinks, then frowns.

"Like this..." she repeats, not quite following.

"We don't know what will happen if we break the curse." Santana continues, barreling on without explanation.

"No, we don't." Quinn agrees, albeit cautiously.

"And let's be real, life here isn't bad. I mean we have our memories."

"We have our memories, yes." Quinn points out with a slow nod. "But the rest of the town doesn't."

Santana rolls her eyes. "So what, who cares about them?"

Her eyebrows must shoot up fast, because Santana immediately pulls a face, clearly regretting her choice of words.

"Are you forgetting about our friends, my sister? Brittany? The only reason we found each other in this life and the last is because of her." Quinn stares at Santana incredulously, hoping she was just misunderstanding what the Latina was trying to say. "You'd dare keep her from getting her memories back, from remembering her true self?"

"She has the storybook." Santana argues weakly. "She knows what happened. She believes in it."

"Santana," Quinn shakes her head at her, stunned. She couldn't believe they were actually having this conversation. "Reading your life out of a book is not the same as remembering it for yourself. You and I of all people should know that."

"If this curse breaks, who's to say magic won't come back? And if magic comes back, we'll turn back into—"

Santana stops herself from finishing that sentence but Quinn already knew what she was going to say.

"What?" Quinn narrows her eyes. "We'll turn back into what? Freaks? Monsters?" Suddenly worked up, Quinn doesn't allow Santana the chance to respond. "You and I are not monsters. In the Forest, you always used to tell me that we were not monsters."

Quinn turns her head and swallows thickly, cursing how emotional she suddenly felt. She didn't even have magic anymore and yet the subject still affected her deeply.

"And we're not." Santana agrees. "You and I are not monsters. But you have to admit we have to capability to be dangerous."

"Yes, yes we do." Quinn admits, returning her gaze to her. "But that doesn't mean we will be."

Santana shakes her head back at her, sighing deeply. "You've seen how badly I've been losing my temper here, Quinn. It's making me nuts. And that rage? That's all the wolf. It's been suppressed and caged up and it's stewing inside me and as soon as it gets free, all hell will break loose and I won't be able to control it."

Quinn's shoulders deflate, the anger leaving her body as quickly as it'd came. "You can handle your wolf, Santana," she utters gently. "I know you."

"It's probably gone stir crazy by now." Santana disagrees, the anguish on her face clear. "The wolf I used to have is definitely not going to be the same wolf I'll have when magic comes back and it gets free."

"Santana, you and I are in the same boat." Quinn tries to get her to see. "I'm just as scared as you are. If I'm being honest with myself, I don't want magic to come back either. I don't want my ice powers. I know Elsa came to accept who she was, but I like the way I am now. I'm okay with not being able to cause emotional snowstorms anymore and I definitely don't miss sneezing out snowflakes whenever I exhaust myself!"

"So we don't break the curse." Santana says, looking relieved now that she and Quinn seemed to be on the same page. "Easy as that."

"But this isn't about what I want, Santana." Quinn continues, shaking her head. "My people are here living a cursed existence because I wasn't strong enough protect them. I have to do everything that I can to do right by them and that starts with returning their memories."

"You're not a queen anymore." Santana argues, quickly getting upset again. "You don't owe them anything."

"Whether we like it or not, breaking the curse is the right thing to do."

"The right thing to do is to keep people safe." Santana counters. "I can't guarantee anyone's safety if I become a wolf again. Not even yours."

"It's like you said, we don't know what will happen if we break the curse. This world is so different from ours. Magic may not even return." Quinn points out again, trying to put Santana at ease. And maybe herself too. "For all we know we could be sent back to the Forest or we could remain here. From your conversation with Shelby, she didn't even sound like she herself knew for certain what would happen."

"You didn't know me back before I got control." Santana says quietly, her expression still pained. "You didn't see how bad it was. And I never told you the extent of it. It took me so fucking long to keep control of myself. To not want to hurt everything that crossed my path. Whatever control I had is gonna be long gone."

"You don't know that it won't." Quinn shakes her head. It killed her to see Santana like this, especially since she's been in her shoes, she knows exactly what it feels like to have fear cloud your judgment, to make you second guess everything you thought about yourself.

"You don't know that it will."

"Hey," Quinn moves closer and gently cups her face. "Whatever happens, you won't have to deal with it alone."

"And let you put your life at risk?" Santana laughs humorlessly and steps out of her touch, shaking her head. "No fucking way."

"Santana," she sighs. "It's okay to be scared, but you can't let the fear control you. Isn't that what you always told me?"

"This is different, Quinn. This isn't some irrational fear. Wolves are predators, killing is in our blood."

"For survival, not for sport." she disagrees.

"Werewolves are different." Santana shakes her head, frustrated. "They're savage. Shit, why do you think they were so goddamn rare back home? They went extinct because they were so out of control. People had to put them down."

"You are stronger than you think." Quinn maintains. "You're the strongest person I know."

"I'm not strong enough."

"Yes you are." Quinn cries in frustration.

"No I'm not." Santana snaps. "Know why? Because when it comes down to it, I enjoy hurting people. I do. I don't feel bad about it. Or at least not as much as I should. I never wanted to admit it but—" Santana couldn't finish. "Those dreams, they're not scary because of what I do in them but because a part of me actually craves that feeling. How fucked up is that?"

Before Quinn can attempt to respond, Santana continues, "Call me selfish all you want but I just want to keep you and Brittany and Anna safe. I hate," Santana's voice cracks. "I hate that it comes at the cost of them remembering but I wouldn't be able to live with myself if something happened to you."

Quinn shakes her head at her. "Santana, I understand your fear, but you don't hurt the people you care about. You never have." She cups Santana's face again, making her hold her gaze this time.

"Just because I never have doesn't mean I never will." Santana murmurs.

"This is Shelby's doing. She put it in your head that you're dangerous, that you might not have control of your wolf. Just so you wouldn't want the curse to break. I heard your guys' conversation. I remember what she said. She wanted to rattle you and she did."

Santana shakes her head tearfully, wishing that was the case. "Quinn, I was worried about this shit long before I spoke with Shelby."

Quinn slowly removes her hands from Santana's face. "Does Brittany know how you feel about the curse?" she asks quietly. "Does she know that you don't want to break it?"

Santana looks away. It's more of an answer than an actual response.

Quinn shakes her head to herself, at a loss. She was not expecting this.

"So what?" Quinn swallows thickly, emotional, not just because of Santana's stance, but because Santana was obviously scared and Quinn didn't know how to help her, what more to say. So many things were uncertain. "You're not going to help us break this curse?"

"Them remembering will be for nothing if they end up hurt because of me."

In the resulting silence, Santana's cell phone goes off.

Santana fishes it out of her bag and answers irately.

"What?" she barks.

Santana's expression quickly changes. Her breath catches when Santana visibly pales in front of her, feeling herself react in kind.

"What is it?" she desperately asks when Santana finally hangs up.

"Brittany's in the hospital."

—

The hospital isn't far from where they are but the town seems to go on endlessly, keeping them just out of reach of their destination.

Neither one of them stops until they've reached the entrance and barrelled their way through the automatic doors.

Santana stops and looks around the waiting room. Then storms over to the redhead that comes into view.

"What the hell happened?"

Mackenzie snaps out of her daze and quickly pushes herself upright. She looked relieved to see them.

"Brittany ate this apple pie I bought and the next thing I know she just collapsed." Mackenzie explains, pushing her hair back out of her flushed face and blinking back tears. "I didn't know she was allergic to apples."

"She's not!" Santana shakes her head, staring at Mackenzie like she's a moron. "What'd you do drug her?"

Mackenzie's expression morphs into something fierce as she steps into Santana's space. "Hey, watch your mouth. I don't go around drugging the people I care about."

Before Santana can push back, Quinn manages to get in between them. "Okay, okay, take it easy you two." she says sternly to them both, but throwing Santana in particular a warning look.

Santana isn't willing to back down though. She knows, in spite of what it looked, she was not being unreasonably aggressive. She shakes her head at Quinn, trying to get her to see that, but only ends up raging at her, "We leave Brittany alone with her for two seconds and—"

"I know, I know." Quinn interrupts, looking at her calmly. "We'll figure this out." After successfully guiding Santana back a few paces away from Mackenzie, Quinn turns over her shoulder and asks, "Where are Brittany's parents?"

Mackenzie simply jerks her head toward the emergency entrance. "Nurses won't let anyone that's not family through though."

"Good thing we are family." Santana pushes past the redhead and swiftly makes her through the double doors, ignoring the protest of the receptionist.

Santana looks around. When she recognizes the doctor who'd treated her broken hand, Doctor Wu, consulting with some nurses down the hallway, she rushes over to him, Quinn and Mackenzie right on her heels.

"Hey!"

Doctor Wu looks back.

"Doctor, I'm so sorry—" the receptionist begins to apologize.

Doctor Wu simply holds up his hand and nods, indicating that it's fine. "Ms. Lopez. Ms. Fabray." He turns around fully, unsurprised to see them.

Santana steps forward. "We need to see Brittany. Is she alright? What happened?"

"According to Ms. Ferguson here, Ms. Pierce consumed a bite of an apple pie she provided and collapsed." Doctor Wu turns to Mackenzie. "Now, Ms. Ferguson was their any convulsion or disorientation from Ms. Pierce after the ingestion? Did she vomit?"

"No, I told you!" Mackenzie snaps. Apparently they've gone over this all already. "She just collapsed!"

"She eats apples all the time, this can't be an allergy." Quinn speaks up.

"Was there poison in it?" Santana directs the question at the doctor but keeps her heated gaze locked on Mackenzie. "Bleach, arsenic, ammonia?"

Mackenzie's nostrils flare at the insinuation. "If I'd poisoned her you think I'd be standing around here, waiting to make sure she's alright?"

"To throw us off the scent, yes, I do!" Santana shouts furiously, forcing Quinn to once again to get between them. "So help me if you turn out to be some kind of Poison Ivy—"

"Whatever is going on with Ms. Pierce is not the result of neurotoxins." Dr. Wu assures, raising his voice above theirs. "She hasn't the signs nor the symptoms."

Santana's gaze snaps back to him. "Run those tests anyway." she demands.

"Running those tests will only rule out neurotoxins as the culprit." Doctor Wu explains, speaking to all of them. "They won't reveal anything else. And we can't afford to waste time confirming things we already know."

"Can't afford?" Santana's voice catches, her stomach dropping. Her head begins to shake incredulously. "You make it sound like she's dying."

Doctor Wu noticeably hesitates. "We don't know what the problem is so we don't know what it is we need to be treating, making it difficult to stabilize her."

"That doesn't make any sense." Mackenzie scoffs. "A girl doesn't just drop to the ground after eating something she's not in the slightest bit allergic to!"

"I agree." Doctor Wu sighs. "The thing is that Ms. Pierce's vital signs indicate that she is a perfectly healthy young woman. Yet here we are. It's like..." his words trail off, at a loss.

"It's like magic." Santana mutters under her breath, the realization hitting her like a ton of bricks.

Suddenly things made sense.

Quinn's gaze snaps back to her, hearing that remark all too clearly. Santana meets her incredulous stare and without a second thought, grabs her arm and takes her aside.

Quinn is already shaking her head at her. "Santana, it's impossible."

Santana keeps her voice low. "Nothing's impossible here, remember?"

"But there's no magic." Quinn whispers back. "How could anyone possibly manage that?"

Santana shakes her head, without an answer. "Look, all I know is that there's only one person here in this town who's ever had a history with poisoned apples."

Quinn's expression falters.

"And she's right outside."

Santana whips around.

Sure enough, visible through the window of the emergency doors, was Shelby speaking to the receptionist out in the waiting room.

One glimpse of her is all it takes.

"Santana, don't!"

Santana ignores Quinn and keeps walking. She pushes the door open and storms over to the unsuspecting Shelby.

And just hits her.

The sound reverberates nicely. The few people that were in the waiting room audibly react while nurses shout for security.

"You did this!" Livid, Santana pulls against Quinn's sudden hold on her. "Poison apples are your game!" she roars, sent reeling at the sight of Rachel there with Shelby, currently helping the woman off the floor.

"Santana—!" Quinn tries to get her to calm down.

"Back off I've got her." Santana hears Quinn then warn to the two approaching security guards.

"What the hell is going on here?" Doctor Wu demands over the commotion.

Shelby calmly straightens up.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Santana." Jaw in hand, Shelby waves off the nurse's attempts to take a look at her.

Santana, unable to look at the woman without completely losing her fucking mind, shifts her attention elsewhere. "What is she even doing here, Rachel?"

"As mayor Shelby is notified of any concerning health issues that might come through the hospital." Rachel calmly explains. "She needs to be able to plan accordingly if it turns out to be something more like Swine flu 2.0 or—"

Santana was done listening. "Rachel, didn't you listen to the tape?"

Why was she still hanging around Shelby? It didn't make sense.

Rachel just looks at her in that are you kidding me? manner of hers.

"Santana the tape was blank."

"What the hell are you talking about, hobbit?"

Was Rachel really so fucking in denial she wouldn't listen to hard proof?

Rachel rolls her eyes and takes the device out of her bag. Santana snatches the tape recorder out of her hand and presses play.

And nothing.

Her conversation with Shelby was gone.

"She erased it. That bitch erased it!" Santana lunges at Shelby but Quinn quickly stops her.

"I did no such thing Santana." Shelby sighs, looking exasperated.

"Conversations just don't disappear on their own." Quinn scoffs, growing aggravated herself. "Though when you're involved, things more often than not get conveniently swept under the rug, I'm sure."

Shaking her head, Santana rounds on Rachel. "Rachel, why the fuck would I give you a blank tape? Huh? Even you gotta admit that makes no sense. It would just make me look like a fucking moron!"

Rachel, to her credit, actually looked a little doubtful.

"I understand this is a stressful situation for you both but there is no need to take your grief out on us." Shelby intervenes. "Please escort these two ladies out of the building." she requests of the security guards still standing by. "They are obviously distraught and need some air to calm down. Let's not have them distressing the other patients any further."

Santana feels Quinn being pulled away from her and whips around only to be man-handled herself.

"Don't touch me!" Santana yanks her arm out of their grasp, all but baring her teeth.

"Okay, okay! We're moving." Quinn snaps irritably, grabbing a hold of Santana before they were completely ushered out.

Once outside, it takes everything Santana has not to fucking scream.

Shaking her head, she settles for tossing the tape recorder as far as she could throw.

"C'mon." She says to Quinn, trying to compose herself. For Brittany's sake. "Let's go."

They needed to figure out how to fix this and fast.

"Where are you going?"

Santana barely turns her head at the sound of Rachel's voice. She just couldn't with her, right now.

"Berry, for your sake, just go back inside. Or better yet, just go home."

"Brittany's inside." Rachel reminds as if they'd forgotten. "She needs you—"

"Don't talk to me about what my best friend needs right now!" Santana shouts forcefully, her temper quickly boiling over again.

Quinn puts a cautious hand on her shoulder but Santana's already turning to leave. She retakes Quinn's hand.

"Your mother better be gone when we get back, hobbit."

—

Santana doesn't get far before she feels Quinn tugging on her hand. Thinking it was because she was walking so fast, she reluctantly slows her pace. A little. They were kind of on a time crunch.

When Quinn doesn't let up and actually makes her stop, Santana whips around and stares at her like she's lost her mind, "What are you doing? Why are you stopping? We need to go—"

"No, you need to stop for two seconds and take an actual breath." Quinn interrupts with that firm Fabray stare, matching Santana's tone and effectively shutting her up.

Quinn didn't raise her voice often so when she did Santana knew she'd better comply.

Santana closes her eyes, taking several deep breaths. With every calming exhale, her heart rate begins its return to a normal healthy pace while her muscles slowly ease up for the first time since they found out about Brittany.

"How's your head?" she hears Quinn ask.

"Fine." she lies. Truthfully, without the adrenaline, she was beginning to feel a migraine coming on. And the pain of her jaw from clenching too hard definitely wasn't helping any.

"I'm amazed you didn't give yourself an aneurysm. Or crack a tooth."

Santana smiles faintly to herself. Then feels Quinn take her hand. It twitches a little at the contact. "I don't know whether I want to kiss you or smack you for hitting Shelby." she hears Quinn murmur.

Santana opens her eyes to find Quinn inspecting her knuckles. "Definitely the latter." she decides, disapproval in her shaky voice. "You literally just got your cast off."

Santana's smile fades when Quinn lifts her head, registering the unshed tears in her eyes for the first time. "Hey." she utters gently, reaching out. She knew that overwhelmed look.

"I'm fine. I'm fine." Quinn sniffles. She looks down and away, quickly wiping at her cheeks. "It's just a lot."

"That's definitely an understatement." Santana murmurs. She guides her into her arms, hugging her like they both needed. She closes her eyes against the feeling of Quinn sniffling and shaking against her, trying and failing to hold herself together. "We're going to fix this." Santana promises against her shoulder.

Quinn grips her a little tighter for support. "I know we are."

But they both knew it didn't make this situation any less terrifying.

Santana holds her silently for a moment.

Then.

"We're chaperoning every date she has from now on."

"And taste testing all her fucking food."

Santana laughs at Quinn's uncharacteristic cursing and sniffles, blinking back her own tears. "We'll drive her crazy."

"She'll just have to deal with it." Santana hears the smile in Quinn's voice. "Or find herself new best friends."

"As if."

Quinn pulls away from the embrace, her head lifting a little higher.

"We need to get going."

Santana nods in agreement and swipes at her wet eyes, composing herself similarly. "Let's go."

She takes Quinn's hand but the two end up pulling each other in different directions.

"Are we not going back to the hospital?" Quinn frowns back at her.

Santana shakes her head. "No, we need to go find Sue."

Quinn drops her hand and fully turns around. "Sue? Why? We don't even know if she remembers."

"Rumplestilskin was just as powerful as the Evil Queen back in the Forest and Shelby remembers." Santana explains. "Besides Brittany always thought Rumple had her own fail safe against the curse and how many times has Brittany been wrong lately?"

"It would explain why Rumple was always so blasé about the curse whenever it was brought it up."

Santana nods. "And if she does remember, then we'll make her help us. If she doesn't, then it's just one more person who thinks we're batshit crazy. Either way we've got nothing to lose."

"Don't be so sure." Quinn cautions. "If Rumple does remember, she's going to want to make a deal and we'll have nothing to offer her."

"Not unless she wants more of our hair."

Which by the way, they still had no idea what that'd been for.

Shaking her head, Santana starts them off again. They hurry through town.

"What are we doing back here?" Quinn asks, perplexed when they find themselves back at school.

"I followed Sue's scent."

Quinn looks back at Santana, not expecting that response.

Santana stops short also, realizing she wasn't supposed to be able to do that anymore. "Whatever." She shakes her head, dismissing the thought as quickly as it'd came. "Come on."

Surprisingly, Sue's scent leads them to the choir room and not to her office, as one would expect.

Looking at each other, Quinn and Santana cautiously open the door to the darkened room and step inside. Just as Santana turns to flick on the lights, she sees the light on in Mr. Schue's office.

Through the window they could Sue inside with Becky Jackson.

Whatever they were doing, Santana probably didn't want to know, but they were gonna find out anyways.

Santana walks over to the open doorway, Quinn at her side, and peers inside.

"What the hell." Santana reacts under her breath.

With their latex gloves and bucket, and Sue hunched over, appearing to be scrubbing something onto Mr. Schue's chair, it almost seemed as if her and Becky were cleaning but Quinn and Santana both knew better than to think Sue would come to school after hours to do Mr. Schue an act of kindness.

"Uh, Coach Sylvester?"

Becky admittedly jumps a little at the sudden sound of Quinn's voice but Sue doesn't so much as flinch, too engrossed in her work.

"You two look like drowned rats."

Santana narrows her eyes, considering Sue hadn't even looked up from what she was doing.

"What are you doing?" Santana peers over Mr. Schue's desk to see what exactly Sue was doing, but Sue straightens up in the same instance.

"If you must know, Becky and I are rubbing some habanero peppers all over Schuester's things." Sue holds up a small orange pepper between her gloved fingers. "So that when he ultimately touches his face, he will be met with a burning sensation so horrifying his eyeballs will fall out of his head. Rendering him incapable of teaching and seeing."

Santana just shakes her head, unwilling to deal with that ridiculousness right now. "Brittany's sick. We need your help."

Sue comes around the desk. "Pretty sure a doctor would be of better help than a cheerleading coach." Sue gestures for Santana to get out of her path. "Move it, Boobs McGee. I need to rub this pepper on all the dry erase markers so that when William goes to writes random words on the white board that are more befitting tv episode titles than anything else he will begin to cry like the weepy little shue baby that he is."

Santana doesn't budge from the doorway. "We know about the curse. And we know you're Rumplestilskin. So let's all just cut the crap."

Sue stops and stares at them for a long moment and for a second, Santana wonders if they had got it wrong, that she was just as cursed as everyone else, but then Sue releases a contemptuous snort. "Well it took you two dimwits long enough." She shoves past them, Becky on her heels. "You two should be wetting yourselves with shame."

"You guys are pathetic." adds Becky, dutifully carrying a bucket filled with even more habanero peppers.

"How long have you known?" Quinn demands, turning around and following the older woman.

"Awhile." Sue shrugs, walking over to the white board and grabbing a handful of markers. "Not that it's any of your business."

"Look," Quinn stops in front of her and snatches the markers out of Sue's hand. "Brittany's in the hospital after eating a slice of apple pie and the doctors don't know what's wrong with her. We think Shelby might have poisoned her somehow."

"You sure young Brittany didn't just shove a crayon too far up her nose and accidentally puncture her brain?"

Santana shakes her head. "Forget this." she mutters. She barely had the patience for Sue's humor on a good day, let alone today. "Quinn, this is a waste of time. Come on."

"You are so impatient." Sue rolls her eyes. "You'd think someone was on their deathbed."

Quinn and Santana stare at her incredulously, prompting another annoyed eye roll from Sue.

She pushes past them and grabs a handful of fresh habanero peppers from Becky, while posing the question, "When the Evil Queen poisoned an apple back in the Forest, what was the intended effect?"

"It was a sleeping curse, meant for Snow White." Santana answers, her brow furrowed.

"Exactly." Sue rips apart one pepper and proceeds to rub it all along the piano keys. "So your Brittany S. Pierce is under a sleeping curse. There, mystery solved." Shaking her head at them, Sue then shares a brief look with Becky. "These two may be the stupidest teens we've ever encountered."

Becky nods in agreement. "It's always the pretty ones, Coach."

"Okay, so if Brittany's under a sleeping curse, how do we break it here with no fucking magic?" Santana inquires.

"Well, Red Fanta girl, how did you break your curse?"

"True Love's kiss." Quinn answers for her.

"So have her true love plant one on her and there you go!" Sue remedies with mild exasperation.

"But Brittany doesn't have a true love." Santana points out.

"Well that's just too bad." Sue laments for like a second. Then moves on from the piano.

Quinn and Santana follow her over to the risers.

"There must be some other way to break the sleeping curse." Quinn says.

"We're not leaving until you talk." adds Santana.

Sue stops for a moment and looks back at them with a hint of a smirk on her face.

"Well there is something."

"Now is not the time be vague and mysterious." Santana warns her. "Brittany could be dying."

"Fine. Ruin my fun." Sue looks visibly annoyed. She shifts her eyes between the two of them. "You ladies remember me taking strands of your gorgeous effervescent locks way back when?" At Quinn and Santana's nod, she continues, "Well, fun fact, when you combine the hairs of two true loves, you can make a nifty little potion out of it which can replicate the effect of true love's kiss. True love in a bottle - capable of breaking any curse."

"And what? It's here?" Santana frowns. "How? I thought magic didn't exist in this world."

"That's how it appears. But magic is everywhere if you're willing to see it. I'm sure it hasn't gone unnoticed by you two especially." Sue's gaze slides to Quinn. "The cold never quite bothered you here, did it Fabray? Even without your powers. And Lopez, I've seen you hanging around in detention enough to know that aggressive wolf temperament of yours never really left." Before either one could contend to that, Sue adds, "If there was truly no magic capable of existing in this world, there would be no curse. It's simple physics."

"Uh, no? It's not." Santana frowns.

"Irrelevant."

"But then why is your true love potion the only magic here?" Quinn wonders, her eyes still narrowed skeptically.

"True love is the most powerful magic." Sue informs, now mindlessly rubbing habanero peppers all over the band equipment. "It has the capability to cross any dimension."

"That doesn't explain how Shelby would be able to keep a sleeping curse on hand."

"That's nature for you." Sue huffs, sounding none too pleased. "There's always got to be a balance. For every disease there is a cure. For every incompetent butt-chined, ramen noodle haired 'teacher', there is a strong, awe-inspiring lustrous golden-haired goddess."

Santana resists a snort.

"So what do you want for this potion then?" she impatiently asks. "More hair?"

Sue glares at Santana for that sneering remark. "No price this time around, Huckleberry Hound."

Both girls scoff and exchange looks with each other, rightfully doubtful of such a claim.

Santana returns her attention to the older woman first. "You're shitting us."

Sue shakes her head. "Nope. Brittany is a friend to Becky, which means she's a friend to me."

Santana and Quinn just stare, no less convinced, and wait.

"But."

Quinn and Santana nod to themselves, seeing that 'but' coming from a mile away.

"The thing is, I don't have the potion on me. You'd have to go get it."

Santana knows better than to ask but she does it anyways. For Brittany.

"So where is it then?"

—

"It's always the forest." Santana mutters, staring up at the trees before them and shaking her head. "She couldn't have kept it in her closet, tucked away in a shoe box or something, could she?"

"She said didn't want anyone accidentally discovering it." Quinn responds.

"Like anyone would have broken into her home." Santana scoffs, tearing her gaze from the forest. She looks over at the map Quinn had in her hands, illuminated by the flashlight on the blonde's phone.

"Sue said she put it in a pond." Quinn says. "Off of the White Pine Trail."

"That's gonna take forever." Santana quietly groans. She shakes her head. "Well, c'mon." she sighs. "Let's get going."

Together they follow the hiking trail into the forest. The deeper they go, admittedly, the more unease Santana feels.

"Does this feel too easy or is it just me?" Quinn speaks up. "We need an antidote and Sue just happens to have one?"

"There are undoubtedly strings attached, whether she'll fess up to them or not." Santana agrees. Magic always comes with a price after all. "But Brittany needs us. Whatever price we'll have to pay, we'll just have to do it."

"I don't disagree, I just..." Quinn trails off but Santana nods, understanding her worry and definitely sharing it. "Let's just focus on helping Brittany." she decides, shaking her head and sighing. "We'll deal with everything else later."

"That we will."

After diverting from the hiking trail and wandering around for what what feels like hours, they finally stumble across the pond.

"Gah." Santana grimaces at the sight of it. "This looks like the kind of watering hole people find dead bodies in."

"It probably just seems that way because it's dark."

Santana isn't convinced but whatever. At least she better understands why Sue would choose to hide her magic here. No one in their right mind would come near this place unless they had a death wish.

Quinn walks over to the edge and shines her phone's flashlight down onto the water. It takes some sweeping before Santana catches a glint of something unnatural lying at the bottom of the forest pool.

"You think that's it?" Quinn questions, also spotting it.

"It better be." Santana mutters, already shrugging out of her jacket. As far as she could judge, the water was not deep, but to reach the bottom they would have to actually get in there. Which fucking sucked for her, but at least she still had her bathing suit underneath her clothes. "How much you wanna bet there's a Barracuda in here?"

"Barracudas live in saltwater."

Santana rolls her eyes and peels off her shirt. "Then the freshwater version of a Barracuda. A Piranha."

Quinn turns her head just as Santana's unzipping her jeans. "Santana, let me do it." she protests. "Kidding aside, we don't know what else is in there."

Santana kicks aside her jeans, shaking her head. "I appreciate the offer but you literally just learned how to swim. I'm not about risking you accidentally drowning in there."

Once she's back down to her bikini, Santana walks over to the water and experimentally skims the surface with her toes. She waits for a second, half expecting some bizarre one-eyed creature to surface and try and pull her in.

When that doesn't happen, she forces herself not to think twice about it before jumping right in.

She pulls a severely disgusted face as soon as she's submerged. "Oh hell, this water better not give me an infection."

"Santana." Quinn sighs at her dramatics.

"Excuse you, Fabray, this should be a concern for you too if you plan to have your wicked snowflake way with me anytime soon. I might be getting an STD right as we speak."

"Santana." Quinn prompts again, throwing her a fondly exasperated look. "The potion?"

"Right." Santana pulls another grimace, so not looking forward to this. "If I die, you're obligated to avenge me."

"What?"

"Girlfriend code." Santana utters quickly before taking a breath and dunking herself underwater.

Not wanting to be in this polluted fish tank any longer than she had to, Santana instantly pushes through the murky water to get to the bottom. She grasps for the little glowing bottle. As soon as her fingers close around it, she turns herself around to push off the ground.

Only to yelp when something punctures her foot.

Motherfucking shit!

In spite of the pain, Santana manages to resurface before accidentally drowning herself.

"Oh god, are you okay?" Quinn's kneeling at the water's edge, helping her out in an instant.

Santana doubles over onto the ground, gasping and coughing the water out from her lungs. "Something in the water fucking bit me!" she exclaims furiously. She rolls onto her back and sure enough her foot was fucking bleeding. "I knew she had a fucking Piranha!"

"Okay, let me see." Quinn soothes, calmly examining broken skin. "When we get back to the hospital we'll have it checked out."

"She probably bought it off Ebay and threw it in there." Santana continues ranting. "No me gusta!"

"Some Big Bad Wolf." Quinn teasingly murmurs.

Santana just glares at her.

"Bite me, Fabray."

Quinn smirks. "Think you've had enough of that for one night."

"Whatever, snowflake. ¡Ayúdame!"

"Come on." Quinn helps Santana to stand before handing her clothes back to her one at a time.

As she finishes dressing, Santana hears some faint rustling behind the trees. Her head snaps up.

Quinn stops, hearing it too. "Animal?" she guesses.

Santana shakes her head, knowing better than that. She slowly picks the potion off the ground and pockets it. "Whoever you are, come out. We know you're there."

Santana squares her stance as a figure emerged from the shadows.

"Hello, ladies." Jesse St. James greets them. As if it were totally normal for him to be here.

"What do you want?" Santana asks, despite already knowing.

As Shelby's lackey there had to be only one reason he was here.

Jesse simply steps forward, his hand outstretched.

"Hand it over."

Santana just stares at him.

"Uh, no."

Jesse sighs. "Hand over the bottle, Santana, and neither of you will get hurt."

"I did not jump in that disease infested water just so I could get jacked by you, St. James." she glares, scoffing at him. "Fuck off."

"Santana." Quinn quietly warns her.

Jesse rolls his eyes in annoyance.

"I won't ask for it a third time."

Santana feels her heart seize when he pulls a gun on them.

Jesus Christ.

What kind of soap opera nonsense was this?

"Alright, alright. Take it easy, Jesse." Quinn calmly says, her hands held up to appease. "Just put the gun down." She turns her head and nods toward Jesse. "Santana, give him the potion."

Santana stares at Quinn like she's lost her mind.

"Over my dead body!"

"That's exactly what's going to happen if you don't give it to him." Quinn quietly counters, but while sporting that trust me look on her face.

Oh. Santana realizes.

Shaking her head, Quinn exasperatedly reaches into Santana's jacket pocket and pulls the potion out. "Here." She turns to Jesse and steps toward him, her arm outstretched.

Jesse eyes them warily before taking cautious steps to meet her.

Just as the potion exchange hands, Quinn catches Jesse off guard by making a last second grab for his gun. She directs his aim to the sky, inadvertently making the gun go off, while Santana tackles Jesse to the ground. Quinn joins her and together they're able to wrestle the gun out of his hand.

Santana pulls her fist back, ready to pound his pretty boy face in, but Quinn swoops in at the last second, grabbing a nearby rock and bashing him across the head with it.

And goddamn, it's brutal.

(Also very, very hot).

Jesse now successfully knocked out, Quinn and Santana release their hold on him and fall back, heaving shared sighs of relief.

"I can't believe he actually fell for that." Quinn murmurs breathlessly.

"Must be all the hair gel." Santana re-pockets the potion and pushes herself upright. Her foot makes her slightly wince. "That stuff seeps into your brain."

"So are we just gonna leave him here?" Quinn asks.

"Well I'm not dragging his ass back to town." Santana scoffs, turning to leave. "Let Shelby do that."

As Santana starts to walk away, she hears a faint 'pop'. Her brow furrows.

Santana turns her head in time to see Quinn flinch and grab at the side of her neck. "What on ear—?"

Before Santana can even react to Quinn pulling what looked like a tranquilizer dart out of her neck, the blonde's eyes are rolling up back into her head.

Santana's eyes widen.

"Quinn!"

She lunges to catch her.

Another 'pop'.

"The fuck!?"

Santana pulls the dart out of her neck just as fast as it'd nailed her. She tosses it aside in annoyance and rushes over to Quinn.

But by the time she reaches her, her feet had given out on her and everything had gone dark.

—

"See Becky," Sue steps out of the brush with air rifle in hand and Becky Jackson on her heels. "This is why you always get other people to do your work for you. You never know what kind of trouble is hot on your trail."

She narrows her eyes in contempt at the St. James kid at her feet. With the heel of her foot, Sue rolls his unconscious self onto his back so her eyes no longer had to be assaulted by his horrifyingly Schuester-like facial features.

Becky sets down her bucket and walks over to where Lopez and Fabray lie.

"Are they dead, Coach?"

She picks up a stick and experimentally pokes Santana with it.

Sue rests her air rifle against one shoulder and surveys the two girls, her head shaking, "No, Becky. The tranquilizer darts I used will simply put them in a momentary sleep. It will be as if they stumbled upon an episode of Mad Men."

Reaching down, Sue swipes the true love potion out of Santana's pocket.

"I don't understand, Coach." Becky frowns, watching Sue pocket the potion for herself. "Why wait until now to get the potion? Why not get it when you first remembered?"

Sue turns her head. "Because Becky that would have been too easy and absolutely no fun. There's nothing I enjoy more than stealing from people and making them suffer —aside from giving them false hope and, of course, shooting them for sport. All of which I got to do today."

"It's been a good day." Becky agrees.

"Exactly." Sue smiles. "And besides, I don't do manual labor. Or anything that would risk my tracksuit getting wet." Sue nods her head toward the pond. "That water is nothing but a hotbed of fish urine and algae. It might permanently stain the fabric."

"But what about Brittany?" Becky asks in concern. "She's my friend."

"She'll be alright, Becky. You have my word." Sue assures, placing a comforting hand on her head. "That is, as long as Ellen and Portia here don't screw things up." she adds under her breath, glancing back at the two teenagers.

Shaking her head, Sue straightens her posture. "Now, Becky, quickly empty out that bucket of chum so we can feed my tiger fish, Doris, so we can get out of here. We've still got work to do."

"On it, Coach." Becky scurries to the edge and dumps the chum into the pond.

"Good job. Let's go."

Sue sharply turns on her heel and takes off in a brisk pace, leaving Becky to hurry to catch up with her long strides.

—

"Santana."

"Santana!"

Santana groans to herself as she feels consciousness return to her. Her eyes blink open slowly. She feels disoriented and groggy. And her head felt like it weighed a hundred pounds.

"Santana!"

Suddenly aware someone was shaking her, Santana pulls a frown and tries to swat them away. "Bitch, I ain't no shake n' bake." she grumbles.

"Sorry." Quinn helps her to sit up. It makes Santana's vision spin.

Santana grabs the side of her head, annoyed by her own drowsiness. "What the fuck?"

"My thought exactly." Quinn murmurs.

Santana looks over, watching the blonde struggle to get to her feet. "You still have the potion, right?" Quinn asks, slightly breathless.

Santana nods and reaches into her pocket. "Yeah, I—"

Santana stops. She's feeling around and around, but nothing.

Heart racing, she checks her other pocket. "It's gone."

"Gone?"

Santana twists around, eyes frantically searching the ground. "How the hell—?"

She literally just had it.

"How much you want to bet Jesse took it?"

Santana looks over her shoulder and swears out loud. "Fucking hell."

Sure enough, Jesse was gone.

Santana scrambles to her feet and sways under the sudden vertigo.

"But who the hell drugged us, then?" she still wanted to know. "That jerk was out cold when we both got hit. It couldn't have been him."

"It was probably Shelby." Quinn shakes her head in frustration. "Or someone else working for her."

Suddenly one of their phone's chimes with an text message.

Santana pats her jacket pockets before remembering her cell phone was in her bag. She walks over and swipes it off the ground, but by then Quinn had already retrieved her phone and was staring at the screen.

Santana feels herself go tense when she hears Quinn's breath audibly catch.

"Rachel sent me half a dozen text messages." Quinn shakily responds, answering her unspoken question. "We need to get back to the hospital."

Santana shakes her head against the idea. "We have to track down Jesse and get the potion back first."

Quinn doesn't go into the details and for that Santana was glad. She wasn't sure she'd be able to handle details.

"No, Santana. We have to go now."

The stricken look on Quinn's face said it all.

They were too late.

Santana's hit with déjà vu as they rush through the hospital entrance for the second time tonight.

She slows to a stop, suddenly nauseous. The god awful smell of the hospital combined with the adrenaline of running here, and whatever drug she had in her system, made for one nasty cocktail.

Santana exhales deeply, forcing herself to fight the overwhelming feeling and keep it together.

Quinn looks over her shoulder, sensing Santana's hesitation, and comes over, taking Santana's hand. "Come on." she gently directs.

Shelby was nowhere to be seen, thankfully, but in the waiting room sat Mackenzie, her head in her hands, with Rachel beside her, obviously trying to comfort her.

Dread seeps into Santana's bones like no other.

As Quinn leads the way over to the double doors, Rachel happens to look up and notices their return. She quickly straightens up and pushes out of her chair.

"Santana—" Rachel opens her mouth but Quinn cuts her off.

"Not now, Rachel."

Quinn doesn't spare the girl a second glance as she strides through the emergency doors, once again ignoring the protest of the receptionist.

They don't know where exactly Brittany is but the hospital is small and they manage to find her room fairly easily. Her parents are waiting outside the door.

Santana swallows thickly at the sight of them.

Quinn's hand slips out of hers as she goes over Brittany's mom. The older woman quickly embraces her in a hug.

Santana reluctantly walks over too. Brittany's dad meets her. He says something to her, but Santana doesn't process his words, too distracted by the sight of Brittany lying on the hospital bed.

Her B.

Santana exhales raggedly, finding it hard to breathe properly. This was like Elsa getting hurt all over again.

Brittany's parents leave to give them a moment.

Looking at each other, Quinn and Santana carefully step into the room.

They move to stand at opposite sides of Brittany's bed and stare at her for the longest time.

She looks so pale.

Santana sits down on the edge of the bed and takes Brittany's hand. "She's cold."

Too cold.

"She's just under a sleeping curse." Quinn reminds, for both their sakes probably. "She's not really..."

Santana just stares at the heart monitor, watching the barely there activity.

Maybe back in the Forest it was just a sleeping curse, but here in this world, it was actually killing her.

Santana shakes her head of the thought and pushes away from the bed.

She couldn't just stand here and watch this play out. There was still a chance to save Brittany.

"I'm gonna find Shelby." she declares.

"Santana." Quinn hurries to stop her.

"We need that potion, Quinn."

Quinn cuts her off, blocking the door. "We don't even know for sure that she has it, Santana."

"Who else but her would steal it from us?" Santana huffs.

"Okay, fine, but at least come up with a plan first." Quinn sighs. "If Shelby's crazy enough to give Jesse a gun, she might also have one herself."

"There's no time for a fucking plan. I gotta—" Santana chokes up, quickly becoming overwhelmed by her emotions. She shakes her head as tears flood her eyes, frustrated that she could literally not keep it together for even two seconds.

She angrily swipes at her tears. "I'm not sure which I hate more right now: Shelby or fucking magic."

Santana kicks aside the chair closest to her. Then shakes her head to herself.

Did she really just pull a Finn Hudson?

"Hating both is perfectly acceptable." Quinn murmurs, coming up beside her.

Santana exhales deeply, unwilling to let her temper get the better of her again. "If only we could kiss this curse away like we did ours." she murmurs.

Quinn smiles for a moment. Then stops, realizing something, "Wait, Santana."

"What?"

"Sue said the potion was basically the equivalent to true love's kiss, right?" Quinn asks quickly. "Able to break any curse?"

Santana slowly nods. "Yeah, so?"

Quinn just raises her brow at her. "Santana, who's to say true love can only be romantic?"

"Only every tv, movie, and book in existence." she deadpans.

Quinn lightly shakes her head, sighing, "It was my love for my sister that was able melt her frozen heart."

"Okay?"

Santana needed her to connect the dots more clearly.

"Sue's potion was made from us, from our love." Quinn says, her eyes growing with excitement. "We love Brittany as much as we love each other, right? So why wouldn't our kiss work?"

Santana furrows her brow, still not quite understanding. "So you're saying we should kiss each other again?"

"Not each other, Santana." Quinn laughs, shaking her head. "Her. We kiss Brittany."

Santana quirks her brow. "You forgetting she's your cousin? Incest much?"

Quinn rolls her eyes and gives her a light smack.

"Santana. I'm being serious. Why wouldn't it work?"

Santana had no good answer to that.

Her gaze falls back to Brittany. "Well it's definitely worth a shot." she mutters.

She follows Quinn back over to Brittany's bed, each of them taking a side.

Quinn goes first. She leans down. "I love you, Brittany." she whispers, pressing a kiss to Brittany's forehead.

Santana watches her pull away. She hesitates only slightly before taking a fortifying breath.

Please God let this work.

Closing her eyes, Santana leans over Brittany. "Love you, B."

She kisses the same spot Quinn had.

The second Santana makes contact, something happens.

A gentle burst of air fans out around them, so warm and reassuring that Santana momentarily forgets herself.

Woah.

She pulls back, a little dazed, and then the next thing she knows, Brittany's sitting up and gasping like she just got life breathed back into her.

Her eyes widen.

Holy fuck—

"Woah, that was weird."

Santana just blinks, utterly shocked that'd even worked.

"You're awake."

Quinn takes the words right out of her mouth.

"What happened?" Brittany looks around, frowning at her surroundings. "Why am I here?"

"You ate poisoned apple pie, Britt." Quinn responds, still staring at her incredulously.

Brittany's brow furrows. "What? No way, it tasted great!"

Santana scoffs a laugh, her eyes suddenly brimming with tears. "You nearly died, Britt. You legit looked like death."

Brittany's mouth drops open in offense. "Jee thanks, Red. You know, you don't exactly look like Sleeping Beauty when you're napping either."

Santana stops and looks at her.

"Wait, what'd you just call me?"

It clicks for Brittany the same time it does for Santana. Her eyes widen in realization. "Oh my god, oh my god, I remember!"

Brittany's excited gaze falls back on Quinn. "Cousin!" she exclaims. Before Quinn can properly react, Brittany happily pulls her into her arms and squeezes her tight. "Elsa!"

"Hey you!" Quinn greets back laughingly, still in awe.

It takes Santana a second to snap out of her daze. This all just happened so fucking fast, her head was left spinning.

"Okay, okay, separate!"

She breaks up the two blondes and grabs a hold of Brittany, yanking her close.

"Oh, no doggy slobber!" Brittany playfully groans as Santana begins kissing all over her face.

"Shut up, Britt." she mumbles, so no crying right now.

Just then Brittany's mom rushes into the room.

"Rapunzel!" she sobs in relief, Brittany's father right on her heels.

Santana pulls back and turns toward to the older woman, sure she'd heard wrong.

Did she just?

Santana glances over her shoulder, sharing a bewildered look with Quinn.

"Wait, Mom." Brittany pulls back from her mother's embrace, just as confused. "You know who I am?"

"Of course I do, sweetheart." Mrs. Pierce gently laughs.

Santana just shakes her head, unwilling to believe what conclusion her mind was currently jumping to.

They couldn't have.

Santana turns on her heel and promptly walks out into the hallway.

Quinn follows suit. "What's going on, Santana?"

Santana just stares at the crowd of doctors, nurses, and patients. Their murmuring was hard to make out but judging by everyone's suddenly astonished expressions, they were also awake.

They remembered.

"How in the hell?" she whispers.

"You guys broke the curse." Brittany realizes, redirecting Quinn and Santana's gazes. They quickly step back into the room and walk over to her.

"But how?" Quinn frowns. "We only meant to break your sleeping curse."

Brittany thinks about it for a moment. Then her gaze slides up to her forehead. She nearly makes herself go cross-eyed as she touches the spot Quinn and Santana had just kissed. "Huh." Brittany's hand drops as she looks back at them. "Apparently your guy's kisses are more potent than we thought."

"No way." Santana couldn't believe it.

It couldn't have been them.

Something else had to have happened while they broke Brittany's curse. Shelby must've done something and it backfired or maybe Sue...

Oh god.

The curse was really broken.

So did that mean...?

All too quickly Santana feels the dread wash back over her.

She quickly turns to Quinn and frantically pulls her out of the room, leaving Brittany wrapped up in her parents.

"What's wrong?" Quinn asks, puzzled by her sudden desperation. "Are you okay?"

Santana just takes a hold of Quinn's hand and turns it over, palm up. She feels around the center with her fingers.

Quinn watches her in slight concern. "What are you doing?"

The center of her palm was always the coldest part of Elsa. But with Quinn, it didn't feel any different than the rest of her.

Still, Santana had to make sure.

"Do your magic."

"What?" Quinn quickly seizes up.

Santana looks up from her hands. "If the curse is broken, we need to know if magic is back too." she explains. "So see if you have your powers again."

Quinn hesitates for the longest time but ultimately complies. She holds out her hands and closes her eyes, taking a deep breath.

Nothing happens.

Quinn cracks open an eye, then visibly deflates. Whether out of relief or disappointment, Santana wasn't quite sure.

"Well, that's a good sign, right?" Quinn murmurs.

Santana releases the breath she had been holding and nods. "Yeah, yeah it is."

—

Sue feels the sickening rush of love and warmth in the air and she knows.

The curse was broken.

"Rumplestilskin?"

Sue decides to allow for a moment of sentiment. She turns around and looks down at her trusty ward, the younger girl finally with her memories as she should.

"Bo Peep." she greets back.

Becky smiles widely as Sue leans down and pulls her in for a hug.

Sue pulls away after a moment and promptly straightens up. "Okay, enough of that. Follow me."

Becky does as she asks and the two of them continue their trek through the forest.

"What are we doing here?" Becky asks when Sue finally stops.

She imagines Becky's never been to this particular spot before. Sue walks over to stand in front of the town's wishing well.

"You see this well, Becky?" Becky nods and moves closer. "The water below us is magical. With the power to return what is lost." Sue points to the placard that says as much. Then retrieves the true love potion out of her pocket. She pops the top off. "Now does anyone really believe this? Of course not. People in this world are far too cynical. They see it as nothing more than small town folklore. And a place to take selfies by. But with the help of this nifty little potion, this water is going to be much more useful."

Sue pours out the contents of the true love potion into the well.

Becky watches as the water begins to bubble and turn into smoke, then takes a cautious step back as the purple smoke begins to rise up out of the well, spilling onto the ground.

"What are you going to bring back?"

"Why magic of course." Sue says with a gleaming smile.

AN: Oh the things still to come!

Once again, thank you guys for the continued support!

And P.S. To the curious guest who wanted to know — I'm majoring in graphic design and I've only got one more class to go, so I'd say school was going pretty well. :)