Daddy's Girl
Reina sat on the beanbag chair in her room, thinking. Today's date had been like the sword of Damocles, hanging over both Reina and her mom's heads for quite some time. Reina got the feeling her best friend Stewart would try to comfort her, despite the fact that she told him not to bring it up. Her mom would be depressed, and the neighbors would ask questions, and then her mom would get passive-aggressive. It was the same as it had been every year since Reina was five.
Chin up, Reina, she'd tell herself in the morning. It's Quahog, Rhode Island. Land of complete illogical weirdness. Something's bound to get your mind off of Dad's death.
But nothing ever did.
Reina sighed, standing up and rooting around her closet for something to wear for the day. She threw some jeans on the ground haphazardly, other thoughts occupying her mind. Today was the big track meet, after all. She couldn't let depressing thoughts get to her today. Her performance might be affected. She tucked some of her curly black hair behind her ear as she took a white tank top out of her closet. Good. An outfit.
Reaching for a hair tie on her nightstand, Reina glanced at a family picture, taken right before her dad took ill. Reina definitely was their child – apparently it wasn't quite certain early on, if Stewart's sister's ramblings were correct. Black hair, just like her parents. She also had her father's eyes, and her mother's build. Reina sighed. Today was going to be hard.
Reina wandered out of her room, wearing little more than a bra and boy shorts while clutching more clothing. The hallway was dark, as always. Chances were Mom wasn't up.
THUD. Oh, there she was. Reina felt along the wall, finally reaching a doorknob as a slight moan escaped from a different room.
"Are you all right, Ma?" Reina called down the hallway.
"Shut up," came the response. Yeah, she was all right. Reina turned the doorknob and walked into the bathroom, dropping her clothes on the floor and turning on the light.
Looking in the mirror, Reina noticed that her hair needed some serious brushing. She reached for a brush on the counter right before her.
"Reina, you have a track meet today, don't you?" a voice yelled across the hall.
"Yeah," Reina responded, moving her clothes with her right foot. It hit the wall right by the toilet. "Can you come?"
"Unfortunately, no," her mom responded. "Work."
Reina
looked at the ground. "I understand."
"I love you Reina,"
her mom offered.
Reina smirked as she grabbed the brush and combed her hair. "…I love you too, Ma."
-i-
"Oh my God, Reina, you're amazing!"
Reina laughed lightly, still trying to regain use of her lungs. She leaned against the fence dividing the track and the bleachers. Stewart was staring right at her. She was already red from running, but now – holy crap, she was flushed!
She'd blame hormones, but romance floored her so quickly she couldn't really take it seriously. She'd say it was genetic, but, as far as she knew, neither of her parents were habitual perverts. Her mom was flighty, sure, but not perverted. And Dad died when she was five. He didn't seem weird back then.
"…Not really," Reina wheezed, waving it off.
"You just set a new district record," Stewart gaped, his long blonde-brown hair slicked with sweat. "You're so amazing!"
"Oh, come on, Stewart," Reina shook her head, trying desperately not to look into his eyes. If she did, it'd be a night full of cold sweat and wet dreams. "I'm just part of a team –"
Just then a blonde teammate of Reina's came out. "Oh mai Gawd, Reina, we just qualified for the State Competition!" She ran away screaming to some other teammates, leaving Reina flummoxed.
Stewart smirked at Reina.
"You were saying?"
"What, I can't be modest?" Reina questioned. She noticed Stewart's head was a bit weird-looking. Kind of like a football. She inhaled again, trying to even her breathing.
Stewart cocked his head to get a better look at Reina. "…Are you feeling all right?"
"Fine, totally fine."
"But today is –"
Reina glared at him. Although he shut up instantly, Reina looked into his eyes. Oops. Good-bye, sleep.
Stewart looked at the ground awkwardly. Reina glanced at the milling people, all celebrating another track victory for James Woods High School. It was as if they lived in their own bubble.
Stewart suddenly got an idea. "Hey, wanna come over to my house? I'm sure my mom will want to hear about your record."
Reina smiled in spite of herself. She hated being at the Griffin's house, mostly because of her feelings for Stewart. Another part was Mrs. Griffin's annoying tendency to remind Reina that her mom was barely 19 when she married her dad. Mrs. Griffin found it sweet. Reina found it unimportant and embarrassing.
"Sure, why not?" Reina shrugged. "Ma will probably want to be alone today, anyways."
Another awkward silence. Stewart opened his mouth to say something, but changed his mind. Reina silently thanked God for that.
-i-
"Oh my God, Reina!"
Reina shifted nervously in her seat on the Griffin's couch, smiling. "…It's not that big a deal, Mrs. Griffin."
"Are you kidding? Stewie's never done anything like that!" Mrs. Griffin exclaimed, waving a hand. Reina couldn't help but be amazed that Mrs. Griffin looked astounding, even though she was nearing sixty years old. Sure, her reddish hair was graying, but other than that, nothing had changed, judging from the pictures Reina had seen.
Stewart grumbled. "Stewart, mom."
Mrs. Griffin ignored Stewart completely. "I mean, I wouldn't expect the child of Cassandra to be a runner, but you proved us wrong."
"Sometimes I wonder…" Reina joked. Stewart laughed, but Mrs. Griffin was tight-lipped.
"Why would you even wonder?" Stewart said between giggles. "You look just like your mom, after all."
Reina smiled at Stewart, doing her best to keep her emotions back. Today was shaping up to be terrible. How much longer could she pretend not to care? Was puberty really this awful?
"Well, in that same respect, I look just like my dad, too," Reina offered. "…I mean, I have his eyes, don't I?"
Mrs. Griffin still didn't speak.
Stewart laughed. "Yeah, yeah. I mean, from pictures…" Stewart pulled a photo album out from underneath an ancient television in front of the couch, flipping through it. "Yeah, see? Here, you can really tell."
Reina narrowed her eyes as she looked at the picture before squealing. "What are -?!"
Stewart looked closer. "I believe that's your dad… um… actually, I don't know what he's doing."
Reina was bright red and stammering.
"He could be… trying to take your mom's pants off…" Stewart offered. "But maybe not. Ah well. I'll get you some water."
Reina needed it. As Stewart walked out, she gaped at Mrs. Griffin, breathing heavily.
"…Are you all right, Reina?" Mrs. Griffin ventured to ask.
"Of course not!" Reina responded harshly.
The chink of glassware floated into the living room. Then the crash of glassware. Stewart poked his head through the open doorway between the kitchen and the living room.
"Mom, Mr. Swanson's fallen out of his wheelchair!" Stewart yelled. "I'm gonna go help him!"
"Go!" Mrs. Griffin urged. Stewart ran out of the house, door slamming behind him. Mrs. Griffin redirected her attention to Reina, who was sweaty, red, and clutching her chest.
"I don't really understand," Mrs. Griffin said.
"Oh come on! You took a picture of my dad feeling up my mom!" Reina sputtered out. "Why the hell would you do that?!"
"…In case you haven't noticed, there's also pictures of all of us drunk and crazy in that book," Mrs. Griffin covered. "That particular party was a bit of a mess."
"My parents weren't like that!" Reina pressed.
Mrs. Griffin narrowed her eyes. "Really."
"No!
They were normal!" Reina asserted. In an undertone, she added, "Not
like me."
"Not like you?" Mrs. Griffin questioned. Reina
got the feeling she was missing a joke, but continued.
"Yeah. T-that looks… looks like something I might try to do to s – someone," Reina quickly covered. "It's embarrassing to talk about, okay? Let's pretend I never said anything."
Mrs. Griffin stared at Reina. She braced herself for the tongue-lashing.
"So you're saying you're a bit of a pervert?" Mrs. Griffin summarized.
"Yeah, pretend I never said anything," Reina muttered.
"Sarcastic, too. Well, that settles it, you're definitely his kid," Mrs. Griffin murmured to herself. Reina turned even redder.
"There was doubt?!" Reina cried.
"Well… for a little bit, we thought… you didn't really look too much like either of them…" Mrs. Griffin explained vaguely.
Reina was now more distraught than ever. "Mrs. Griffin, what's –"
"I can't believe Cassandra hasn't talked to you about this yet," Mrs. Griffin said coldly. "Then again, you get flustered easily…"
"What are you talking about, Mrs. Griffin?!" Reina begged, clutching her legs.
Mrs. Griffin rolled her eyes before folding her hands. "You're flustered already. Okay, there's no real gentle way of saying this, so brace yourself. Your mom, Cassandra? She was brilliant."
"That's not bad," Reina pointed out.
"She was so brilliant that she figured out a way to hide the fact that she was a bit of a pervert," Mrs. Griffin finished.
Reina gulped, thinking fast. "Well, that's not… she wasn't a huge pervert, was she? I mean, she doesn't act it at all! That's no reason for me to be dreaming about psychotically bizarre sexu – um, no reason for me to feel like I have issues."
Mrs. Griffin stared directly at Reina, deciphering her exact meaning from the look on her face. "No, your mom's genes wouldn't suggest you'd have dreams like that."
"So why am -?"
"Glenn's would, though."
Reina thought for a second, letting go of her legs. "Glenn… You mean my dad?" Reina went quiet again. "I'm not really following."
Mrs. Griffin sighed. "None of this is shocking because your dad was a nymphomaniac."
Reina blinked before dabbing at the sweat on the side of her head, face still red. She began to giggle.
"Heh. Funny joke, Mrs. Griffin," Reina said, her voice sounding hollow. She began to sweat more profusely. "… It WAS a joke, right?"
"No, Glenn was a raging nymphomaniac," Mrs. Griffin said again. "It only makes sense that you'd be at least slightly perverted."
Reina's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates, and her shoulders tensed up. Mrs. Griffin sighed.
"Your mom really didn't tell you about this?" Mrs. Griffin asked again.
"Who tells their daughter stuff like that?!" Reina asked incredulously. "And why'd you have to bring it up today?!"
Mrs. Griffin sighed again, putting the photo album back in Reina's hands. "…You obviously don't remember your dad very well."
"I remember him being normal," Reina countered, her voice breathy.
"Like I said." Mrs. Griffin stood up. "I'm going to see if Joe is all right."
She exited, leaving Reina alone with the photo album. Reina was mortified. Nymphomania?! That meant her dad was more than a pervert! And that meant that she was…
Reina walked out the front door without so much as a word, sneaking back to her own house.
-i-
"Ma!" Reina called out. It was well past four-thirty; her mom would definitely be home. She sat down on one of the sixties-esque couches in her living room, looking around. Usually her mom was behind the record player, or vacuuming, or something. It didn't look like that was happening today.
"Ma?" Reina called again, standing up. She peered down the hallway. No one there, either. Reina walked down the hall, to her mom's room. The door was closed. Reina wasn't sure whether this was a good sign or not. She gently nudged the door a bit. No noises from the inside. Now she was convinced that wasn't a good sign. She should've come straight –
Reina opened the door. Her mom was sitting on her bed, looking at pictures, trash can full of tissues next to the mattress. She looked all cried out, as Stewart would say. Cassandra looked up quickly, curly black hair falling into her face. No wonder Stewart said she was a MILF, Reina realized before shaking her head in shock. Genetic perversion. She couldn't believe it.
"Hey, baby girl," Cassandra said, patting her bed. Reina, understanding, sat down next to her. The bed rocked a bit. Reina giggled. She loved water beds.
But then her brain got in the right place again. "Mom, I need to talk to you about… things."
"I know. Lois called me," Cassandra said blankly, flipping the page of a photo album. "So, you got the gene."
Reina's face turned chalk white. "You sound so casual."
"Well, I kind of knew it was coming," Cassandra mused. "Neither of us was in a right state of mind when we married. It took a while for us to figure it out. I think it was when we had to keep you in the hospital for a few days after you were born to make sure you didn't have any of Glenn's diseases. That straightened him out for sure."
Reina stared, wide-eyed, at Cassandra. "Diseases? What – no. I don't want to know. What I want to know is why the hell everyone assumes I'm going to be a pervert! And for God's sake, don't lie like Mrs. Griffin did!"
"Story?" Cassandra repeated.
"Yeah. She said Dad was a nymphomaniac."
"Technically, she did lie," Cassandra murmured. "'Nymphomaniac' is an understatement."
Reina gaped at her. Cassandra stared at the ceiling awkwardly.
"I always imagined he'd be the one to tell you about this," Cassandra sighed.
"He's been dead ten years," Reina said incredulously.
"I thought maybe he'd come to you in a dream."
"Ma, you need help. This whole thing is ridiculous… He wasn't a pervert. I'd remember something like that. He wasn't."
Cassandra began thumbing through the photo album, ignoring Reina. Reina glanced over at the mirror on the wall, noticing her hair was curlier than usual. She hated her curly hair.
Cassandra suddenly shoved the photo album in Reina's face. "If this doesn't prove to you that she wasn't lying –"
Reina screamed and fell off the bed. "MY GOD, MA! WHY THE HELL DO YOU HAVE PICTURES LIKE THAT?!"
"Glenn took them," Cassandra explained, flipping the page quickly. "It was like he was trying to get me to dump him when we first started dating."
Reina was still sprawled on the floor. "Oh God in Heaven, tell me I'm not going to start taking pornographic pictures of my dates for fun."
"Well, I think you'll just be a moderate pervert," Cassandra shrugged. "I mean, I was a bit sexually repressed and your dad… well, he was wanted in the state of Oregon for something."
"This isn't the greatest way to remember Dad," Reina murmured, sitting up and leaning against the side of the water bed.
"I'm sorry if you're a late bloomer," Cassandra shrugged, sarcasm dripping from every word. "Besides, how'd you figure out you were a perv?"
"Every time I see Stewart, I want to screw him," Reina answered plainly.
"…And…?"
"…That's it."
"Now you're talking!" Cassandra squealed, leaning over the side of the bed.
"What the hell -?"
Cassandra poked Reina's cheek. "You have no idea how glad I am! I was afraid that maybe you'd been sleeping around like a whore for a second. And of course Lois didn't know much about why… she wouldn't. She didn't understand Glenn, she didn't understand me, and she sure as hell won't understand you."
Reina's lip quivered. "Ma, I'm really scared."
"You shouldn't be. Far as I can tell, you haven't tried to sleep with any animals –"
"WHAT?!"
" – and apparently that's how Glenn's mom figured it out."
Reina didn't know what to say, so she stared at a light socket in the wall. Cassandra was quick to notice this.
"I know you're probably freaking out right now."
"Ahah?" Reina spat out unintelligibly.
"Okay,
you're freaking out right now," Cassandra revised. "But Reina,
you have to understand that being a bit of a pervert – and the word
doesn't even fit you, that's how modest you are – doesn't
make you a freak."
"I'm not worried about me anymore,"
Reina admitted.
"Well, I'm glad."
"It's Dad."
"…Well, Glenn was… Glenn. It wasn't as if I cured him or whatever. You did."
Reina's jaw dropped.
"Is that why my memory of preschool is a blank -?!"
"Okay, I set myself up for that one," Cassandra muttered to herself before raising her voice. "And no. The reason for that is Chris Griffin dropping you on your head during a game of tag. I mean that… having a kid… a legitimate kid… something clicked in his brain. And then this –" Cassie flashed a picture in front of Reina, who immediately gulped. " – became this." Another picture. Reina smiled in relief.
"Dad."
"Yeah. You really loved hats."
Cassandra and Reina smiled at each other.
"I think I'm going to go do my homework," Reina said.
Cassie nodded. "Good idea."
Reina walked out of the master bedroom and went down the hall, leaving Cassandra alone with her photo album.
Reina poked her head back in. "I just thought of something. So how did Dad die?"
"…You don't want to know," Cassandra responded.
"AIDS?"
"No."
"VD?"
"No."
"Then –"
"Rectal trauma."
Reina retreated, looking disgusted.
"I told you didn't want to know!" Cassandra called as Reina closed the door. She sank back into the bed and sighed, staring up at the ceiling.
"Thanks for all your help," Cassandra said in a low voice. But she was smiling.
-i-
Reina rapped against the side of her wall. It sounded oddly hollow. There it was, then. She hit the wall quickly before running to the opposite side of her room. Her bed popped out of the wall, landing on the ground with a thud. Reina thought for a second. Maybe she should question the fact that her bed conveniently popped back into the wall every morning. Who designed something like that?
Reina flopped down on her bed and sighed. So the anniversary of her dad's death wasn't as depressing as she thought, but it was a lot scarier. By far.
She grabbed at her own photo album, full of random pictures she'd salvaged from just about everyone she'd ever met. She'd made it in a fit of sadness after Glenn died, and since then had added to it in a more tranquil fashion.
The first few pictures were of the family. But Reina wasn't looking for those. She flipped to the back, where she kept the really weird pictures Mr. Griffin had given her. They were pictures that Cleveland took when everyone was drunk, according to Mr. Griffin, and they were some of Reina's favorites. Especially that one… there it was.
It was her dad and her mom, sitting at the bar at the Drunken Clam, clinking their glasses and staring, deadpan, into the camera. Cassandra's hair was still straight and cut into a bob; there wasn't a ring on Glenn's finger, so it was before they got married. She took the picture out of the photo album and went to the picture frame by her bedside. The family picture had to go. She took it out and replaced it with the subtly mocking barroom picture, smirking. She glanced at the back of the picture. "The Quagmires – 03/27/2019", written in Cassandra's lazy cursive. Reina smirked as she put it in the back of the photo album.
"Maybe this whole slightly-perverted thing isn't so bad," Reina shrugged. "As long as I don't go totally Gossip Girl." Reina smiled wider. "Heh. Wasn't bad for a retro show. And Chase Crawford! Hahahaha – oh God, am I talking to myself?"
The silence was answer enough.
"…Oh well. Chase Crawford! Giggidy -"
Reina paused.
"What the hell kind of word is that?"
Fin.
A/N: So I was going to write this story after I finished Griffin's Eleven, but there was a contest on Writer's Anonymous that totally fit this story. Basically, it was write a story that takes place in either the past or the future. The idea of Quagmire's child is one I've played around with in my head before, but the resulting OC – Reina – was one of the weirdest characters I'd ever made. Hopefully you enjoyed this foray into her bizarre-as-hell life.
A/N 2: Many thanks to Rachelprue for betaing, as always.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Family Guy, though both Cassandra (Ma) and Reina are my own characters.