Title: Second Chances
Author: Quatorz
Rating: PG-13 (language)
Word Count: 1,747
Summary: Set a couple years after they graduate. Quinn tracks down Rachel to tell her how she feels. This, however, is the day after that...
A/N: This is a one shot that I wrote a while ago. I debated about even posting it because now this is so far out of what I consider canon: i.e., that Quinn tells Rachel how she feels once they're out of Lima (she didn't give her those train passes for nothing you know!).
Quinn felt the urge to let it all out: to finally say what was in her heart. So she stopped dead in her tracks, took a deep breath, and spoke a terrifying truth out loud for the very first time:
"Rachel Berry, I think I'm in love with you! I'm sorry I was so shitty to you for all those years. It was immature, and I was too scared to admit how I really felt, but if you'd give me a chance I'd do everything I could to make it up to you."
Her words echoed in the night air, decaying slowly. Her breath came out in wispy streams, visible on this October night. "Who-who are you talking to?" her friend Gina asked.
Yeaaaahhhh...the problem was the courage to say all of those things arrived about twenty-four hours too late.
"She's talking to the person she had lunch with yesterday," her other friend Monica replied. "Aren't you?" she inquired of Quinn.
Quinn just nodded.
"She's not talking to you, ma'am!" Gina called out to the confused looking woman about to step into a taxi cab. The woman said something back, but Quinn wasn't really listening. "Is your name Rachel?" Gina challenged, "Then it's none o' your business. Get outta here!"
Lord, Gina could get into a fight at church. It made her alternately a lot of fun and a pain in the ass to go clubbing with. Gina's most famous line ever (when she got kicked out of a party): "We gotta leave," she'd told them, "we're being an asshole."
'We're'-as in the group collectively. Not just her. But they still left together because that's what being friends was all about.
"Well, call this Rachel up," Gina regrouped. "Ask her out again and tell her then." As if it were that simple.
"Its not that easy," Monica said. "Rachel's on Broadway-"
"What?" Gina scoffed: "She too good for you or somethin'?"
"No," Monica explained in that tone of voice she used with small children-and Gina, "it took forever to even coordinate going for coffee last night. They had to keep rescheduling because of rehearsals and stuff."
"Oh," Gina replied.
"Yeah. I blew it," Quinn sighed. "I had one shot, and I didn't have the guts to-"
"Quinn, there is such a thing as second chances," Monica argued.
"That was my second chance." She just shook her head. How did she explain to them? How could they understand what high school was like for her-and what it was like for Rachel, often because of her?
"I said some pretty mean things to her in high school. I-"
"Everybody gets picked on in high school, Quinn," Gina laughed. "It's just-" she paused, groping for the right words. "Its high school," she shrugged.
Again: it wasn't that simple. But she didn't have the courage to relate to them her history of targeted assaults on the future diva, doing whatever she could to tear the other girl down. But it never worked.
Not in public anyway, but she often wondered how many nights Rachel Berry had cried herself to sleep because of her? Was there any point in telling her how she felt? There was no way Rachel could reciprocate her feelings, no way she could forgive Quinn for years of relentless tortu-
Stop, she told herself. She was spiraling, and she had to pull herself out of it before she fell into the well of depression. Her therapist taught her to recognize the signs and some techniques to keep from drowning in her own self-loathing when it happened.
One was to recognize the truth: it wasn't always bad between the two of them. There were times when things were downright civil between them-especially as they were leaving for college. The party at Artie's house that summer: where they got drunk and sang their second duet together? That was fun.
Quinn took a sip of her coffee. Pleasant memories and the liquid's searing heat warded off the chill cascading down her spine.
"What makes you think you were in love with her?" Gina asked.
Monica fielded that one: "Because I've never seen Quinn so excited about meeting someone for coffee before. And I remember how depressed you were when she had to reschedule last week.
"Now it all makes sense," the girl smiled. Monica was a dyed in the wool, soul mate-believing, true romantic at heart.
"I think she's always made me feel that way," Quinn confessed. "Even in high school: she always made me just...feel more than I did about anything or anybody else.
"Her name kept coming up in therapy and finally-"
"You're in therapy?" Gina blurted out, but then found something terribly interesting about her right shoe. "Can't imagine why..."
Monica rolled her eyes but Quinn just snickered. "You two fought a lot in high school?" Monica asked.
Truth? "No," Quinn shook her head, "I was dreadful to her, and made it my mission to make her life miserable because I thought that she thought she was soooo talented and destined for fame and fortune.
"Which she was," she admitted. "And in retaliation she told me on multiple occasions that I was pretty and capable of anything I wanted to achieve...
"Basically," she summed up, "she was the first person in my life-including my parents-who consistently told me I was worth something."
"No wonder you're in therapy."
"Christ, Gina!" Monica snapped.
"Sorry! It-it just slipped out!"
"Its okay, guys," Quinn smiled. "I know. And I know its probably emotional suicide to even tell her. But I want too anyway. I don't know if she could ever get past how I treated her, but she has a right to know that I didn't hate her in high school. Just the opposite."
"Maybe," she shrugged, "maybe it would help her get over some of her own hurt if she knew where it had come from-and why."
She took another deep breath and wondered if the second time would be any easier: "I'm in love with Rachel Berry, and I have been for years. And she may never feel-"
"Quinn?" a new voice inserted itself into their conversation.
Quinn spun around, mortified. She hadn't heard the bell on the shop door ring when it opened behind them-and couldn't imagine for the life of her why a certain McKinley High alumni was there at the exact moment she-
"Rachel!" Quinn stammered. "W-What are you doing here?"
Rachel indicated the Louis Vuitton clutch in her hand. "I-I forgot my purse yesterday when we met for coffee," she explained. "I came back to get it."
The Diva smiled shyly, and it felt like Indian Summer in New York all of a sudden. Must be the coffee, Quinn reasoned.
"Well," Monica piped up. "We've actually gotta go. Gina was just saying she has an early meeting to prepare for."
"Oh! Right," Gina nodded.
Rachel just grinned. "It was nice meeting you both. Hopefully we'll have a chance to get to know one another better.
"In the future," she added.
Future? Was that a good sign?
"Later," Monica waved to them, dragging Gina away with her.
And then they were alone.
Rachel looked beautiful, of course. She was wearing one of her vintage, hipster outfits-a style she gravitated toward in their senior year of high school. It was perfect for New York. She looked so bohemian-like a starving artist. But judging from the Louis Vuitton purse being on Broadway paid pretty well. So it was the best of both worlds, really. Bohemian bling.
"Um-" Quinn could feel her confidence waning just as it had yesterday afternoon, deflating like a punctured tire.
She grasped at something to say, and what came out of her mouth was instantly nominated for the single dumbest statement in the history of mankind:
"Wanna get some coffee?"
Fuck! Really, Quinn? she chastised herself as she spied the cup in Rachel's hand-probably from the shop she just exited (the one that sold coffee)-not to mention the cup she was holding in her own hand. She would face palm herself if it wouldn't cover her in scalding hot liquid.
But there were stars in the diva's eyes. "I'd like that.
"Mine's cold anyway," she added, eyes only darting once to the steam wafting off the lid.
"Mine too," Quinn lied, and dropped hers into a handy receptacle.
A few moments later they walked down the street, their hands in such close proximity Quinn could feel the static arc between them.
The bricks of the pavement glistened like an impressionist masterpiece, and halos clung to all the streetlamps-the night awash in amber hues. And as Quinn took a sip of her coffee she couldn't help but thank her good fortune in replacing her old one. She'd opted for a cappuccino this time, and it was far and away the best damn cappuccino she'd had in years. Years.
And then it dawned on her: it wasn't the coffee. It was just like she'd explained to her friends.
It was the way in which a typical New York evening had transformed-before her eyes-into a Gershwin melody come to life, or how an ordinary blend of steamed milk and espresso became ambrosia.
It was the way her heart hammered in her chest when the diva turned that shy smile her way again.
She just felt everything: joy, sorrow, contentment, excitement, anger, life...
She just felt it more when Rachel Berry was around.