Title: Death of a Tony
Author: Hippo_Crat
Rating: PG
Length: 952 words
Spoilers: Pilot
Summary: Post-graduation. Rachel returns home from a business trip to find Tony dead.
Pairing: Quinn/Rachel, Featuring Drizzle!
A/N: This is not what I intended on writing today, but whatevs.
Rachel breathed a sigh of relief as she turned the key in the lock and entered her brownstone. It was good to be home after more than a week away doing press releases, TV shows, radio interviews and a photo shoot. All she wanted was to crawl in bed with her two girls and cuddle until jetlag was a thing of the past.
All was quiet in the entryway; Rachel frowned as she pulled her luggage inside and placed her purse and keys on the small table. She looked at her watch wondering if it was later than she thought. No it was only 7pm, Quinn and Liza should still be having dinner. The petite actress cautiously entered the living room, half expecting to spring some sort of trap (Taken had been playing on the flight home, and it's not irrational paranoia if it could actually happen to you!).
What she found was her wife and daughter, both quite subdued, waiting patiently for her on the couch. Liza kicked her legs in the air nervously, trying to smile at her mother. Quinn looked, for the most part, serene with only a touch of nervousness evident in her posture.
Rachel, satisfied that neither girl was signaling for help with their eyes, smiled at the two most important women in her life. "You know, this isn't precisely the greeting I had in mind—" The sentence was left hovering in the air, unfinished, as Liza rushed forward and hurtled herself at her mother, sobbing loudly.
"I'm s-s-sorry, it was an ac-c-cident." The seven year old gripped the brunette women as hard as she could as sobs wracked her body.
Reflexively Rachel closed her arms around the little girl and cradled her while making soothing sounds. Terribly confused, she looked up at her wife trying to figure out what had Elizabeth so upset. Quinn smiled apologetically and gestured to the coffee table. On it sat a Tony Award—in three pieces.
Rachel crouched down and gently lifted Liza's head so she could look her daughter in the eyes. "Liza, look at me." Sad hazel eyes met warm brown ones. "There is nothing irreparable in this world. There's nothing broken that you, your mother—," Rachel looked at the broken award and winced. "Google and I can't fix."
Liza's tears petered off into gentle hiccups and through the hiccups she managed to explain how she had broken her mom's first Tony. Rachel smiled and listened attentively to the explanation the energetic seven year old gave her.
("So I was watching RENT, right? And "La Vie Boehme" came on…")
Rachel watched Quinn enter the kitchen.
("And Mark was dancing on the table…")
Quinn smiled fondly at her daughter as she half-listened to the chatter while she set up dinner.
("So then I moved into fifth position but I couldn't balance the soccer ball…")
The take-out food had been warming in the oven, it was from Rachel's favorite Italian place but she never got to go because Quinn hated the food there always claiming it gave her heartburn.
("But I managed to catch the Grammy and the Drama Desk Award landed on Bette—she's totally okay…")
Later, much later, after Liza had been put to bed and Rachel and Quinn were alone in their bedroom Rachel turned to her wife calmly.
"So, what did you have to bribe our daughter with to take the fall for the award?"
Quinn froze, her face comically stuck between surprise and horror. "What are you talking about?"
"Despite my best efforts and Liza's musical upbringing, she has shown zero interest in musical theater or ballet, so you expect me to believe it was a combination of these two things that culminated in the untimely death of my favorite award?"
Quinn leapt out of bed with a dramatic flair that could only be the result of years of close contact with the pint-sized diva. "Are you implying I murdered your Tony? And that I then cowardly coerced our daughter into lying about it to emotionally manipulate you into not being upset! That is outrageous!"
Rachel chuckled at her wife's histrionics, it wasn't often she got to be the less dramatic one. She patted the spot on the bed Quinn had vacated and coaxed the blonde back into her arms.
The words, "I'm sorry" got mumbled into the fabric of Rachel's pajamas.
"It's okay Quinn. It's just stuff, all easily fixed or replaceable."
Suspicious hazel eyes darted up to meet coffee ones. "You're taking this surprisingly well."
"Like I said, the damage is repairable. Why cry over what's been done?"
Somewhat mollified Quinn settled back down. When Rachel felt the tension ease out of her wife's body she spoke again.
"Bette didn't chew up your limited edition Strider action figure. I accidently knocked it off the mantle and got it caught in the vacuum. I covered in it peanut butter to get Bette to chew on it before I washed it off and put it in her bed." Rachel winced and then relaxed. Boy was it good to get that off her chest.
Quinn sat up and stared at Rachel with wide, disbelieving eyes. "You framed my dog?" Wide eyes grew incrementally wider. "That'swhy you bought me the Narsil replica sword and brought Viggo Mortensen to dinner for my birthday!" She swatted her wife ineffectually as the smaller woman shielded herself with a pillow.
"Hey, at least I didn't drop an award on the dog."
"If you're not careful someone will drop a house on you." Quinn muttered mutinously, unable to believe that Rachel had managed to con her for two years.
Rachel, who was set to play Elphaba in the live action movie Wicked, wasn't amused.