OKAY GUYS, I'M NOT SURE WHERE THIS IS COMING FROM BUT I'M FINDING MYSELF A LIL OBSESSED WITH QUINNTANA. I LITERALLY CAN'T STOP COMING UP WITH IDEAS. HOPE YOU ALL LIKE THIS AS MUCH AS THE OTHERS : )
FOLLOW MY TUMBLR? I'M NEW (sgt-awesome) WE CAN TALK AN STUFF...
A fresh start is defined as an opportunity to start over without prejudice. That's what attending Yale University is for Quinn Fabray, a fresh start. The chance to be whoever she wants to be. A chance to leave behind all her painful memories and start anew. The decision to go to Yale, which was over 2500 miles from Tucson, was an easy one. She could have gone to Arizona state and stayed closer to the place she's called home since she was 15, but that wasn't something she remotely desired. Quinn wanted a second chance, she wanted something new, and something far away from the place she was forced to live.
Her sister, who's 11 years her senior, took her in when she had nowhere else to go. Francine, or Frannie as most people called her, was married by 20 and following her husband to Arizona by 22. She made Quinn an aunt when she was just 23, and when Francine was 25 she got a phone call that changed their lives. There were two options, allow her 15 year old sister to come live with her, her husband and three year old daughter, or allow her to become a property of the state of Ohio. She chose the former. So before Quinn could say Tucson, she was on an airplane with her life packed up in two suitcases and three boxes. Living in Arizona was a far cry from Cleveland. It was the middle of November three years ago when she was last in Ohio. It was 40 degrees outside. When she walked out of the airport to meet Frannie's husband, Jake, it was 73 degrees. Far cry indeed.
It wasn't that she didn't like Tucson, it wasn't that she didn't like her sister or even her brother in law. She just preferred to stay to herself. Her parents wanted her to go to their alma mater, Ole Miss, so that's where she was going. But when they were no longer around to tell her what she should or shouldn't be doing, she decided she'd try to get into an ivy league. To do that, she had to keep her nose in her books, and that's exactly what she did. Her room became her sanctuary where she spent endless hours studying and reading, sometimes for leisure, but mostly to put herself ahead of the curve. She graduated with a 4.0, received a 2300 on her SATs, and had her pick of Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Cornell, and Columbia. Cornell and Columbia were immediately eliminated because she had no desire to be in a big city like New York, she applied just to see if she could get in. Harvard, Princeton, or Yale would do, so she wrote each university down on a piece of paper and stuck the selections in a hat, she had her almost six year old niece pick. Yale it was.
Quinn didn't have much of a social life, which worried Frannie, who was a social butterfly. Frannie tried to get her to go to school functions, but Quinn told her she needed to study. When junior prom came around Frannie insisted she should go, but with no date prospects, she declined. When senior prom rolled around Frannie begged her to go, once again she was dateless so she emphatically told her she would not be attending, and that she had better things to do than by an expensive dress and drink punch. One day after a long meeting with her school newspaper crew, she came home to a house she thought was empty. That was until she heard her big sister sobbing, she gingerly tip toed up the steps and poke her head in their master bedroom. Frannie was on the floor with her husband at the foot of her bed. He had his arms secured tightly round her as he tried to sooth her. What truly broke Quinn's heart was the picture of her family Frannie was clutching. Her heart shattered when she heard Frannie talk about why she was so upset.
"Mom would hate me if she could see Quinnie, she'd say I failed her!"
"No baby." Jake tried. "You've done a fantastic job with her, are you kidding me? She gets straight A's she's never been in trouble, she got an early acceptance into Yale. Your mom and dad would be proud."
"You don't get it Jake! That's all she does is school work, she doesn't care about having friends or dating. I can't even get her to go on her prom. Mom would kill me if she knew Quinnie wasn't going on her prom, she was so excited when I went and I remember her specifically saying how anxious she was for Quinn's. Mom and dad would think I'm a failure because since she's come to live with me..." She trailed off and her sobs took control of her. Jake held her tighter, the couple unaware of Quinn crying silently in the doorway. "Since she's been here...I haven't helped her Jake, I haven't made sure she was okay...emotionally. She just stays in her room, and reads! I'm such a crappy big sister, they hate me, I know they do!"
Quinn went back downstairs and slipped out the front door. She jogged to her Prius and drove to her favorite place to escape besides her bedroom, silver bell lake. She sat on the edge of the lake with her feet in the water for endless hours, thinking. Once she left she realized she'd left her phone in her car, she unlocked the screen to see a dozen missed calls and a few dozen texts, all from Frannie. She called her to say she was okay and on her way home. When she walked through the door her sister threw her arms around her and squeezed her so tight, she had trouble breathing.
Quinn stood in their foyer and told her sister she decided to go to prom stag and needed her help to find a dress, she received a second hug, tighter than the first. Frannie took too many pictures and gave her enough hugs and kisses to last her for a year. Quinn drove herself and had a great time during her prom. She sat at her favorite spot at the lake and fished all night. Her alarm went off at midnight and she packed up and headed home. Frannie was waiting for her in the family room and was bouncing in her seat waiting to hear about Quinn's night. Quinn wasn't a liar, she detested dishonest people, but the lies she told her sister about prom night were well worth the smile it put on her only sister's face.
Quinn's things had already been shipped to Yale so she set her mind on driving. She left Tucson the day her dorms opened, it would take her two days to make the trip, but it was worth it to have her car with her in New Haven. Frannie cried far longer than Quinn liked, she hugged her tight and asked her one last time if she'd reconsider Arizona state. Jake told his wife she was out of her mind because their little sister was going to be a fancy Yale grad someday, and he was proud. Leaving Tucson, Frannie, and Jake wasn't hard, she welcomed the distance from the constant reminder of her parents. Leaving Lucy was hard, her sweet little niece that was named after her. When Quinn was 7 she insisted on being called by her middle name because it was "different", so after a few tantrums, no one called her Lucy anymore, and her mom even enrolled her in school by Quinn. Frannie had named her Lucy, so when she stopped going by the name, she named her daughter after her.
Quinn was sure that the only person on the planet that actually understood her was little Lucy, when they had discussions, she'd forget she was talking to a six year old. Children were easy, her peers were hard, so if there was anything she was regretting leaving behind, it was Lucy. She promised her she'd Skype her as often as possible as she wiped away a few of her niece's tears. She stood up, gave all her family one last hug and walked out the door. If it wasn't for her niece and her nephew that was on the way, she knew she'd never return to Arizona. She'd have to go back eventually, but one thing she was certain of, that was no time soon.
The 37 hour trip took her 50 to complete, with a couple of stops to eat or sleep and she was finally at Yale. She walked into her dorm building and up the steps to her apartment style dorm room, where she would have three roommates. Quinn was dead set on getting an off campus apartment since she'd be able to afford it with the lump sum of money she received on her 18th birthday, but Frannie convinced her otherwise. She made her pinky promise she'd give it at least one semester of having roommates. If there's one thing Quinn Fabray doesn't do, its break a pinky promise. She said she'd give it one semester and that's what she'll do. The second the winter break begins, she planned on living in her new apartment.
She stood outside of the light wood door and checked her face in her compact mirror, which Frannie thought she'd give her to make her more interested in make up, which it did not. She looked at her greenish hazel eyes and they looked tired. She ran a hand through her shoulder length blonde hair and closed her compact. She tried the doorknob and it was open. The first room she was in was a very small kitchen, there was a two burner stove, and a mini refrigerator and some cabinet space above the counter that held the microwave. She walked further into the apartment to see two girls sitting on a burgundy dorm style couch. On either side of the couch were two matching chairs. Directly to her left was a small dining area with a table and two chairs opposite each other. To her right was a room that she could clearly see had both beds occupied. The girls stopped mid conversation to look at her. One girl was Asian with midnight blue hair, the other girl was petite with olive skin and big dooey brown eyes. She smiled at Quinn and her teeth were perfectly straight. The Asian girl stayed seated on the couch while the tiny one hopped up and bounced over, extending her hand.
"You must be Lucy, I'm Rachel Berry and this is Tina Chang." She motioned towards the still seated girl who waved and offered a shy smile.
"No one calls me Lucy, please Quinn." She politely said and offered both girls a smile.
"Okay Quinn, so nice to meet you, let me show you to your room." They walked the short distance to the other bedroom, Rachel pointed out the bathroom on their way. There were two sinks, convenient, she thought. She walked into the room and saw her roommate had already set up on the left side of the room. There was a desk at the foot of both beds with three long drawers, only one night stand, which separated the mattresses, and a large closet. The beds were much closer than Quinn would have liked but she knew she'd spend most of her time at the desk anyway, and if she was lucky, her roommate would spend her time out and about.
"I guess I should let you get settled, now that you're here we just have to wait on out other roomie to return so we can have a meeting."
"Uh, what's that?" Quinn asked, pointing to a box on her bed.
"Oh, your personal roomie brought all of us one of those after she laid down on the bed and said, and I quote, "fuck this shit." She got up and stormed out, she came back a half an hour later with one for each of us. It's a memory foam top, it's incredibly comfy." Explained Rachel.
"Oh, okay. Do you know how long she'll be?"
"Not exactly but she's been gone a while, shouldn't be much longer. Do you need any help?" The smile on Rachel's face hadn't disappear since Quinn walked in.
"Oh no. Thank you though."
"Holler if you need anything." Rachel called from over her shoulder as she walked out, closing the door behind her.
Quinn looked at her roommate's side of the room. An acoustic guitar laid across her bed, her comforter was black and so were a the rest of her linens. She had a push-pin board hung directly above her bed. There were plenty of pictures, so Quinn went over to get a closer look. Mostly the pictures were of three girl's, she wondered which was her roommate. There was a blonde with striking blue eyes, a dark haired girl with the fullest lips Quinn had ever seen, and a very pretty girl with auburn brown hair and light bluish grey eyes. As Quinn looked over the pictures her eyes widened at the sight of the girl with black hair kissing the girl with brown hair. She looked closer and saw a few more intimate pictures of the two and quickly looked away, feeling like she was invaded the girl's privacy.
In two hours Quinn's side of the room was completely organized and so was her side of the closet. She laid down on the bed with her memory foam and was suddenly very grateful to her apparently generous roommate. Her eyes closed and she tried to not think about the fact that her roommate was more than likely a lesbian. The knock on her door interrupted her thoughts.
"Come in."
"Hey." Rachel came in and still had a smile plastered on her face. "You all done?"
"Yep, pretty much."
"Here," Rachel handed Quinn a cell phone. "Put your number in there and hand me yours." Quinn did as she was told and they exchanged phones back. "Now I'll text you our other roommate's numbers so we all have each other's."
"Okay, thank you."
"You're very welcome Quinn. Would you like to come out and chat with us?"
"Uh..." Quinn thought about Frannie's last words to her. Quinn please, for the love of God please try to be more social. College should be an experience of a lifetime. But what exactly will you be experiencing if you live in the library? "Um, yeah, sure." Quinn got up and walked out to the living room area. She sat in one of the armchairs and Rachel asked her about herself. After giving vague answers about herself she asked Rachel and Tina similar questions about their lives. In the middle of one of Rachel's run on sentences, the door opened. Apparently it was the girl with the long black hair that was her other roommate. She was wearing cut off blue jean shorts and a grey tank top that had Jimi Hendrix on it. Her black Doc Martens were untied and a beat up brown wide brim fedora donned her head. She had a full sleeve of tattoos on her right arm and her left arm was catching up. There were a pair of comedy tragedy mask on either of her hands and her knuckled had letters Quinn couldn't read. There was a large anchor on the right side of her neck with the words me, myself, and I on the bottom of it. Both her thighs were covered, on the side of her right thigh there was a large lion crawling upwards. Her left thigh was almost scene for scene Alice in wonderland, circa 2010. From her ankle up on her left leg was nothing but words, some of them looked like scriptures, Quinn thought. The side of her calf on her right leg had a picture of Jesus with the words King of Kings over top of it.
"Santana, you're just in time." Rachel said.
"For?" She asked with little interest.
"Our roommate meeting. This is Quinn." Rachel pointed at Quinn who nodded and smiled in Santana's direction.
"Hey. Uh, I guess we can have this silly meeting but make it fast, I'm depressed." Santana crossed her arms and leaned against the wall.
"Oh no, what's wrong?" Rachel looked and sounded genuinely concerned.
"I've been out there for like three hours and couldn't find any quality snatch. I'll have to search harder tomorrow."
"Snatch?" Rachel asked, confused, looking up a Santana from her position on the couch next to Tina.
Santana's head flew back as she laughed loudly, when no one else laughed with her, he face returned to normal. "Oh, you were serious? Well snatch is a crude way to refer to lady parts." Santana pointed in the direction of Rachel's crouch.
"Oh. Ohhhh, Okay, I see. Snatch, gotcha."
"Is that a problem Berry?"
"I'd assume since you couldn't find any, it is indeed a problem for you. Better luck tomorrow." Rachel smiled and Quinn couldn't tell if she was being serious or not.
"You making fun of me for being gay? That's a semi hate crime." Tina snickered a bit at Santana's words. Santana scowled at Rachel. "I could report you."
"I assure you I wasn't making fun of you, don't be absurd. I fully support the LGBT community. I'm sorry you could not find a random girl to share a dalliance with. And I'd really like to see you report me when I have two dads, they'd laugh at you."
"You were raised by two men?" Tina asked.
"Wanky." Santana said with a smirk. She finally moved from the wall and sat in the chair across from Quinn.
"Yes, I have the best dads in the world. You will all meet them this Friday for family weekend. Now let's get to the rules we shall set for the dorm." Quinn could tell Rachel was used to being in charge.
After a laundry list of dos and don'ts they all headed to their rooms to turn in for the night. Santana flopped on the top of her mattress while Quinn sat at her desk and opened her laptop. She logged onto Skype and sent a text to her sister.
"Hey Santana?"
"Yep?"
"Thank you. For the memory foam, it was very sweet of you."
"No probs blondie."
"Excuse me?"
"You're blonde right? So your new name is blondie."
"My name is Quinn and I appreciate being called by it."
"You're name is Lucy, you go by Quinn and I'll be calling you blondie, or Q. Yeah I like that, I'll alternate."
Before Quinn could say anything else to her new roommate her sister's call came through on her laptop, so she turned away from Santana and answered the call.
"Aunt Quinnie! I miss you so much already. Mommy doesn't let me have gummy bears with my movie like you do."
"Ask daddy L.J., I'm sure he'll sneak you a few." She winked at her niece. She felt Santana come up behind her.
"And who's this cutie?"
"I'm Lucy! Hi! Are you my aunt Quinnie's roommate?"
"I sure am. Wait, your name is Lucy too?" Santana asked with excitement while Quinn was growing irritated with her lack of respect for personal space. Even though Santana smelled incredible, she wanted her to back up.
The little girl nodded. "Yep, my mommy named me after her since she doesn't use it anymore, so it became mine."
"Aw, that's so sweet Lucy."
"Yeah, aunt Quinnie is the sweetest. You're so pretty, are you a princess? Aunt Quinnie do you have a princess for a roommate at college?!
"Can you keep a secret Lucy?" Lucy nodded and leaned closer to the screen. "I am a princess, but you can't tell anyone."
"Cool!" She dragged out the word.
Quinn looked over at Santana, whose face was a mere inches from her own. Her scent flitted inside her nostrils even stronger. She smelled like lilacs and strawberries. "Santana, do you mind?"
"Quinnie!" Frannie's face appeared in the screen. "I told her to wait for me but you know kids these days, she can work this thing better than I can. Oh hello." Frannie's eyes fell on Santana.
"Hey there. Bout to make Q an aunt for the second time?"
"Yes, and I can't wait til he gets here. I'm Frannie."
"Santana."
"My roommate and apparent princess." Lucy smiled at her aunt, while Santana chuckled lightly.
Santana looked at Quinn briefly and smiled at her agitation. "So what are you gonna name this one?"
"I'm naming him after Quinn. Quinton Russell Fabray-Cross."
"You're what?" Quinn asked. "Why didn't you tell me?"
Frannie shrugged. "You didn't ask."
"Wow, you must really love your baby sis huh?"
"I do." She looked at Quinn lovingly.
"What will you name the next one? Q only has two names."
"Santana, honey, there will be no next one. I'm done."
"You excited to be a big sister Luce?" Quinn shot Santana a look that she didn't see.
"Yeah! I can't wait princess Santana." Santana erupted in laughter.
"Santana, if you'll excuse me." Quinn got up and opened the door.
"Bye Frannie, bye Luce!" Santana yelled after the retreating Quinn.
"Bye princess Santana."
Quinn walked out into the hallway and leaned against the wall across from the door. "You already like my roommate better than me and you haven't even officially met her?"
"Oh stop being melodramatic Quinnie. She seems nice, and my God is she a looker! I bet there will be a sock on your door a lot." Frannie laughed. Once she talked to Jake, Frannie and Lucy she hung up and went back into the apartment. Santana was in the shower so she prepared herself for bed. She pulled out her toiletries, towel and pajamas. Quinn glanced over at Santana's pictures again, she had put more up. Santana came back into the room in just her towel, and still very wet. She put her wet hair into a bun and looked at Quinn.
"Marley, and Brittney. My ex and my two best friends." Santana offered.
"You were in a relationship with your best friend?"
"Well I wouldn't call what Marley and me had a conventional relationship. We started experimenting when we were 15 with just kissing." Santana moved into the small space between the two girl's beds, standing right next to Quinn. The strawberry smell was even stronger. "And we kept on experimenting, the kisses turned into necking, necking turned into touching, and touching turned into touching with no clothes on. But I knew she wasn't gay, I've known the girl since kindergarten, Britt too. I know them better than I know myself."
Quinn turned so that she was fully in front of Santana. "Then why go there with her?"
Santana stared at a picture for a few moments before answering. "I wanted her. She was the first and only girl I ever had feelings for. I just wanted her and I took what I could get. So a whole two years of us getting busy and last year she meets some fairy douche named Jacob. He's a ballerina, how the fuck do you fall in love with a ballerina with a dick? Anyway they fell in love or whatever and like three months into their relationship she told me we had to stop getting busy. So we did. They're still together. He goes to Tisch and she's at Julliard."
"Wow." Quinn looks back at the pictures and notices one of a young man wearing the same brown hat Santana had on earlier, just in much better condition. "Who's that?"
"My papi." Santana dropped her towel and climbs in her bed, brushing past a very stunned Quinn. Her body was a masterpiece. "You don't mind if I sleep naked do you? I really hate sleeping with clothes on."
"Uh, I um, no you can...that's, uh, fine." Quinn managed to get out. Santana had tattoos that covered almost all of her skin, but Quinn only caught a glimpse. Quinn gathered her things for her shower, including her pajamas.
"Hey Q?" Quinn turned around. "You got a real nice family." She turned in her bed to face the wall not waiting for a reply and Quinn left to shower.
