Quinn was eight years old when she first discovered Freide. She was running desperately out of her house, trying to escape yet another fight between her parents. Her blonde hair whipped in the chill February breeze as her feet pounded the ground beneath her. She hated it, the feeling of hostility, constantly in the air. She clung more tightly to the lamb that she had pressed against her chest, trying to fight the feeling of the cold wind and sadness. Her sister had given her the lamb a few months before, on a night that wasn't too different than that night. Their parents were fighting, Quinn was crying, and Bevin was home from college for the weekend. Bevin had taken Quinn out, and bought her hot chocolate and a stuffed lamb in hopes to make the night less miserable for her little sister. Quinn had kept that lamb close by ever since, in hopes that it could bring her the same feeling of safety that Bevin had that day.
But that night, Bevin was hundreds of miles away and Quinn was running, running to anywhere. The woods behind her house were thick, and Quinn quickly grew tired of stumbling over tree limbs in the dark of the night. She leaned her back against a tree and slid down to a seated position, her lamb now squished between her knees and her chest, with her thin arms wrapped tightly around her legs. She rested her head on her knees and allowed herself to finally slip into dreams in the relative peace of the night.
Quinn woke up freezing with a dusting of frost on the shoulders and hood of her nice winter coat. She knew that she would be in trouble when she arrived home. Most parents don't approve of their children running off into the woods in the middle of night or ruining their Sunday morning coat, and the Fabrays rarely approved of anything.
Quinn didn't mind much about the impending lecture though. As her eyes slid open, she found herself seated in what she believed to be the most beautiful place that she'd ever been. The early morning sun illuminated the woods with a soft yellow glow, and there were tree branches bent into archways above her. She was in a clearing, perfectly circular, filled up with mushrooms in the shape of fairy rings and leaves yellowed by the crisp winter weather. She decided, then and there, that the Fabray household wasn't her home. That this would be her home, her place to feel safe. A few weeks later on Bevin's next visit home, Quinn decided on the name Freide for her pretty, flowery land. She discovered the name while nested into Bevin's lap, reading along in Bevin's German textbook. It was a strong sounding name, but still feminine enough to account for all of the fairies that Quinn was sure lived there. And best of all, it meant peace, and peace was suddenly all that Quinn wanted in her world.
"Quinn Fabray! I demand to know where you're taking me!" Rachel demanded, her gold flats, once more, causing her to trip over leaves and land on her hands and knees in the middle of the woods.
"Come on Rach, I've run down this trail barefoot a hundred times, look where you're going. And I can't tell you, then it wouldn't be a surprise!" Quinn giggled and pulled her disgruntled girlfriend up off of the ground, trying to drag her a little faster through the trees.
"Carry me," Rachel demanded, suddenly stopping in her tracks.
"What?"
"You heard me, carry me. If you can run down here barefoot so much, then you should have no problems walking it once holding me," Rachel stated impetuously.
"Ugh, fine," Quinn complied, rolling her eyes.
Rachel beamed and immediately hopped up onto Quinn's back, burying her face into her girlfriend's soft blonde hair. Quinn drudged on down the path, a little slower now, but still grinning.
"Okay, we're almost there," she finally said, unceremoniously dropping Rachel off of her back. Rachel grunted as she landed on the hard ground, grabbing Quinn's hand to pull herself back into a standing position for at least the twentieth time that day. Quinn grinned at Rachel and pulled her just a few more feet down the path and through an especially close cluster of pine trees.
"Quinn! Don't yank!" she began to complain, but quickly dropped off as she observed her surroundings.
"Wow. Quinn. This is," Rachel again left off mid-paragraph as she took in the lovely little land that her girlfriend had taken her to.
"This is Freide," Quinn said.
It was springtime, so wild daisies had popped up inside the mushroom lined fairy rings. The leaves were a vibrant green and the clearing had special touches that Quinn had added to it among the years. There were lines from Quinn's favorite poems scrawled across tree trunks in various colors of Sharpie markers and in various stages of Quinn's developing handwriting. Laminated photographs of Bevin and her daughter were tacked onto trees, next to some of Rachel and a few other assorted drawings and pictures. Beth's sonogram was at the very bottom of one tree with a few lines of William Blake's "The Lamb," scrawled in pink ink next to it.
Quinn pulled out her own worn out lamb from the bag that she had toted into the woods with her and settled it down next to a tree where, as evidenced by the lamb shaped mark in the ground, it had been placed many time.
"Quinn, this is beautiful," Rachel said, still a little unsure, but certain that this meant something special to Quinn.
"When I was little, when my parents would fight, I would run down here," Quinn stated simply. "It sort of became my place to go when I needed to feel safe."
"Oh Quinn," Rachel breathed, pulling Quinn to her, suddenly feeling the need to hold her unexpectedly fragile looking girlfriend.
"Thank you for showing me."
Quinn nodded, tightening her grip around the tiny brunette whom she was still clinging to.
Rachel looked up, putting her hand against Quinn's face and gently guiding her girlfriend's eyes to meet her own. She stood on her tip-toes, placing a light kiss onto Quinn's soft lips. Quinn hungrily kissed back, lowering Rachel onto the ground and balancing herself lightly on top of her girlfriend, basking in the touch.
"I love you so much Rachel."
"I love you too Quinn."
"And you love Lamb Chop," Quinn said, motioning towards the somewhat dilapidated lamb.
"And I love Lamb Chop."
"Good," Quinn smiled, "Because Lamb Chop loves you too."