Ten Years, Two Thousand Stomach Aches
A/N: Saywhatbuck gave me this prompt almost a year ago, and I think I finally did it justice. Hope you all enjoy!
Present
There's not much to complain about in Quinn Fabray's life, really.
She has a good job, a decent apartment. She likes where she lives. She has friends, a pretty good relationship with her family—well, with her mother, anyway.
She's heading home on the Green Line, back to her Brookline apartment. This is the worst part of her journey; the Green Line is old, and squeaky, and bumpy, and there usually isn't anywhere to sit, considering Quinn rides it just about when rush hour starts every day. The MBTA has said many times that it's going to update the Green Line, but it never happens.
But Quinn likes where she lives. Mostly. She still wishes she could've lived in Jamaica Plain again. Or even Somerville. But the apartment is cheaper and nicer in Brookline, and her roommate eventually convinced her to go there. And really, Quinn isn't financially able to be that picky.
Which, she definitely loves her job. That's a definite. It's just…it really doesn't pay well. It's rewarding in so many other ways, though, that Quinn tries to overlook the pay.
She works for a nonprofit in Boston that aims to bring opportunities for the dramatic arts to underprivileged Boston public schools. It wasn't what Quinn dreamed of doing with her English degree with a Theater minor, but when she'd ended up moving to Boston with some friends after finishing up at Yale, it was one of the few relevant career opportunities she'd found. And there are public schools that need drama opportunities. Specifically the ones that aren't exam schools, the schools parents of any kind of means pushed their kids to get into. The public school system is pretty divided, gentrified.
But watching a kid discover his or her own passion for acting is pretty gratifying. Almost as gratifying as a raise might be.
When she finally gets off the Green Line after what feels like an hour, but is really maybe twenty minutes at most, she briskly walks the seven minutes to her apartment. It's a warm spring afternoon, not hot yet, with air that's pleasantly moist, not yet uncomfortably humid. Brookline is full of old buildings, brownstones all along the streets with apartments on every floor, huge old apartment complexes with turreted attics and courtyards modernized just enough to make them charming, and shops all along the main streets, chains alongside local businesses, that bring down a protective metal rolling shutter at closing time. It's plainer than a lot of downtown Boston—more symmetrical, more patterned, more dull colors—but it's convenient. It's a nice little walk-able area to live, which is good, because Quinn doesn't want to pay anywhere between $50 to $250 a month to park there. She hasn't owned a car in years, and isn't looking to buy one.
She gets to her building, checks her mailbox, and climbs the wide wooden staircase to her second-floor apartment. Once inside, she sighs. She always feels better when she gets home. Her roommate isn't home yet, so Quinn takes the opportunity to turn on the public radio app on the TV and listens to it while she unwinds from her day with a cup of tea.
Her roommate comes home about an hour later, striding in and calling, "I brought Boloco!"
Quinn lifts her head. She's actually been dozing in her chair a little, lulled by Terry Gross's soothing interview with some soft-spoken man. She blinks until she feels more alert, then turns and calls sleepily, "Are they even still warm?"
Her roommate, Kristi, tosses her a burrito, "See for yourself."
"Thanks," Quinn manages to catch the burrito, despite her drowsiness, "What's the occasion?"
"I felt like Boloco tonight, figured you'd be all jealous if I didn't get you one," Kristi grins.
"Sounds about right," Quinn responds lightly, unwrapping her burrito. Teriyaki chicken. Her favorite. "Thanks."
"You already thanked me," Kristi sits on the chair across the room. "Least I can do considering you do most of the cooking."
"Well, after you managed to warp one of my pans, I figured it was safest to ban you from the kitchen." The banter is easy. She's known Kristi for almost ten years now. After struggling for two years to find her place at Yale, she'd finally met her and most of her other college friends in her Junior year. Kristi happens to be the friend she lives best with. She's clean, aside from a few major kitchen disasters, and laid-back, but responsible enough to never be late with rent or bill paying. They both still have other friends living in the city, though several have moved elsewhere for other opportunities, but Quinn had discovered with their other friends that they couldn't live together without risking ruining the friendship.
Maybe Quinn is picky. But her apartment has always been her safe haven, and she's always been particular about how it looks. And this particular apartment is one of her favorites that she's lived in. Hardwood floors in nice shape, with some of her mother's old oriental rugs on the floors. Walls decorated sparsely and tastefully, comfortable furniture in the living room, two bedrooms of decent enough size for them both to have a little desk and workspace inside, and a bathroom with an old-fashioned claw-footed tub. The kitchen is tiny and pushes right up against the also-tiny living room, but it's a small inconvenience.
They eat in companionable silence. After they're both finished, Kristi gathers up the trash and then, a few moments later, retreats to her bedroom to take a phone call. Quinn doesn't listen much, just starts looking around on Netflix for something to watch.
A few minutes later, Kristi comes out of her room. She's taken off her work shirt and is buttoning up a different shirt; only by living with her so long has Quinn learned to tell the difference between a work button-up and a casual one. "Hey, wanna go out with the girls tonight?" she asks casually.
Quinn twists her mouth, "Eh. I dunno."
"Aww, c'mon! It's Thursday, it's Queeraoke night! And there are plenty of places to hit before it starts!" She pouts, "I swear, you haven't been out with us since that Dyke Night last October with that girl with the legs who you never called…"
"I've been too tired," Quinn defends, "You know Spring is musical season for me and the kids, and that's even more time-consuming and intense."
"Uh huh," Kristi says, with the air of someone who's heard this before and isn't buying it, "The girls miss you."
"Please. They're over here all the time."
"Yeah, for movie night. But you never come out to them."
"I'm sorry. Tell them next time, okay?"
"Yeah. Sure." Kristi calls from the bathroom, where she's certainly fixing her hair, probably putting it into the wild wave she saves for nights out. She works at a domestic violence hotline, but, even though no one is ever going to see her hair, she keeps it combed down and tame for work.
Quinn has never understood how someone who deals with such stressful and horrifying things on a daily basis can be so cheerful at home.
Kristi comes out of the bathroom, hair swiped up, adjusting her button-up. "We're just worried about you, a little," she confesses. Quinn looks up at her darkly. "I mean, I know you're not still grieving for Lara, it's been almost two years, so…why not go out and meet some women, right?"
"I haven't got time for a woman," Quinn grunts, "And I'm fine," she adds. "I have to work tomorrow, so I'd really rather not go out."
Kristi shrugs, "Most of us work tomorrow. But okay. I'll catch you later. Leave the kitchen light on for me?"
"Of course. Have fun. Tell everyone hi!"
"Will do. 'Night, Quinn."
"'Night."
She's left in her lovely, quiet apartment with her Netflix and her comfy armchair.
She stays up too late getting sucked into some show she watched parts of in college. When it's ten o'clock and she still isn't sleepy, she switches to a book and a glass of wine. Finally, around eleven, she's ready to try to sleep.
She climbs into her bed, silently planning for tomorrow.
Quinn Fabray's life is pretty good. She doesn't have too many complaints, really.
She's fine by herself. Really.
.
When Quinn's alarm goes off, she's sure that it's a mistake, because she hasn't used "O-o-h Child" as an alarm in years. But that doesn't mean she couldn't have accidentally set it last night. Somehow.
She reaches her hand out to grab for her phone and smacks it into her bedside table, hard. She curses, lifting her head, blinking. Her comforter is a different color, the bedside table is certainly higher than she remembers, yet it's familiar. Did Kristi play some kind of prank on her? She gropes on her beside table for her glasses, finding a pair that she doesn't even recognize, but when she puts them on, she can see.
"Oh, holy fuck," she utters. She looks around. It's got to be the most vivid dream she's ever had, and, she realizes, she must be lucid dreaming for the first time in her life, because she's absolutely sure that's what's happening.
She's in her bedroom in her mother's old house. The one her mother moved out of when she went to college. Her high school bedroom.
And the detail is exquisite.
She had no idea her memory could possibly have recreated the kind of detail she's seeing right now. The posters on the wall, the furniture, even the clothes on the floor that must've missed her laundry hamper when she must've tossed them the previous night—except, of course, that last night she was in her apartment in Brookline.
She looks around. Should she even be able to read the posters on her wall? She thought she'd read somewhere that this was much harder in dreams, that words and letters didn't tend to stay consistent, but every time she looks, they say the same. She dives toward her bedside table again, and picks up the book on it. It's Jane Eyre, and she flips through it, and, yeah, there's no way she could remember some of the things she's reading in this book right now.
Something clicks in her mind. Jane Eyre. What year did she read this? That's right. Senior year English class, in the spring, they read it. It was the subject of one of her last papers for the class.
She looks around again, more. There's no way she's dreaming, but she can't possibly explain how she's woken up in the bedroom of her high school senior year. Is she losing her mind? Even so, everything is too real, too detailed for this to be some kind of hallucination.
It occurs to her, then, and she scrambles to grab her phone from her bedside table again. She clicks it on, and…
February 24th, 2012
February 24th, 2012
It can't be. There's no way. She just somehow lost twelve years of her life. Could she have dreamt them? No. They were too long, too detailed, too true. The Quinn Fabray she was in high school was absolutely deeply in the closet, too deep to even fully admit to herself that her feelings for girls were more than a passing thing, too deep to even admit to herself that she might be gay…
There's something odd, here, but she can't quite put her finger on it. Other than the obvious fact that she's either intensely dreaming right now or she has been intensely dreaming the last decade or more of her life.
Quinn doesn't brush it off, but she can't stay in bed, either. A part of her needs to see how deep this reality goes. If she's insane, there must be cracks in this reality. If the years she's sure have passed were not real, she must be able to find evidence of their falsehood.
She gets out of bed. She's wearing a sheer, light blue nightgown—the kind her mother always bought for her and Frannie for Christmas every year. The kind that really didn't cover much, yet somehow evoked chastity and purity. It's deeply uncomfortable as soon as she notices it, given that she's spent years now sleeping in worn out t-shirts or tank tops and boxer shorts. So she hustles to her bathroom to take a shower.
There isn't much about her high school self's bathroom that throws her off too much. Except that she'd forgotten what the labels on some products used to look like, and she'd forgotten that she used to use certain brands. She can't possibly have reimagined how the Herbal Essences logo and branding would change, could she?
She takes off her nightgown, and she's in for a shock.
First, she's shocked at just how skinny she is at this age. Not that she's ever really been fat in her adult life—she's always found exercise to be rewarding—but there's a difference between her thirty-year-old lean trimness and her gawky teenage youthful skinniness. She looks weird. Her breasts are definitely smaller; they'd gotten a little rounder when she was finishing college, though they've never been big, per se. She looks honestly underdeveloped and kind of grotesque. She doesn't even feel like she's looking at herself, but at some strange teenage girl's body that she shouldn't be privy to.
And secondly, she's shocked because there are no scars lining the left side of her body.
It's then that it hits her: this is pre-accident.
And then, it hits her again, why the date seemed to nudge something in the back of her brain, and she has to sit hard on the toilet.
She is 90% sure that this date seemed familiar to her because this is the date that she nearly died driving to Rachel and Finn's wedding.
.
Quinn has always tried to see some kind of cosmic benevolence at work in her life; if she didn't, she's sure, she would have given up a long time ago. The accident is no exception. Sure, it left her with scars, physical and mental, but it taught her important lessons, about driving safety, and about what was valuable in life. It saved her relationship with her mother, which had been cold and distant until the accident and Quinn's subsequent recovery forced them to interact closely. There was certainly some good in the accident.
That doesn't mean it's something Quinn is necessarily happy about in her past. Though the scars are not as numerous or disfiguring as they could have been, they are present, and they do sometimes interrupt intimate moments. There are definitely times Quinn wishes she didn't have them and didn't have to explain them. And as much as she feels like her struggle to regain the ability to walk and dance and run taught her a lot about life, she often feels like the pain and fear she went through should never have to be experienced by anyone as young as her.
Of course, she feels that way about her pregnancy, too. But while Beth is an obvious, beautiful outcome of that experience, sometimes Quinn feels like all she has been left with after her accident are hard life lessons and pain. Nothing as rewarding as Beth.
Beth. She thinks now, about Beth, and about what she knows will happen as Beth slowly becomes a teenager. How Beth will grow up musically inclined, but with a passion for animals that will make her convinced she wants to be a vet someday. How she'll excel in science classes, but also in art, and will feel torn about following in the footsteps of both Shelby and her biological parents, or wanting to strike out on her own and become a scientist. How she's still too young to really be sure of what her future will hold, but how she's a teenager now, with a more fully-formed sense of self and intellect, and talking to her is engaging and joyful and difficult all at once.
For the first time, Quinn worries that somehow, she has traveled back in time, and will be forced to relive the next twelve years, and that everything that has happened will be different, and that she and that particular incarnation of Beth will never speak again.
Okay, Quinn thinks, Don't change anything. But then she thinks about the fact that she appears to be sent back to the day of her accident, and how this can't be a coincidence.
Certainly, she is supposed to change some things.
Starting with her accident. Maybe, with all the knowledge and lessons she's already learned from that struggle, she can go through life not actually having to experience the event in her past that she wishes most that she could change.
So Quinn decides to get moving, and go through her day as normally as she can. She showers quickly and gets dressed in one of the strange baby doll dresses she finds in her closet, and heads downstairs, trying to remember what she used to have for breakfast at this age. Not coffee, she doesn't think. Toast? A banana? Nothing?
Her mother is nursing a cup of tea, and Quinn stops when she sees her. She's forgotten what her mother used to look like when she was in high school, how her mother's hair was still so blonde, and how she wore it back tightly, and how she still dressed impeccably and wore so much makeup. Now, or, well, the "now" of Quinn's reality at thirty, she's remarried and retired, and wears jeans instead of dresses or dress slacks, minimal make-up, and has her silvery hair cut fashionably short. She carries herself with so much less rigidity, too.
Mostly, she forgot how young her mother still was. And how hard life was for her now. A single parent, with limited help from her estranged ex-husband, working an administrative assistant job she really didn't like to keep them afloat.
Judy looks up at her, frowning slightly. "What?" she asks, a little sourly, as Quinn has been staring.
Quinn shakes her head. "Nothing. Good morning, Mom," she replies warmly. In her adult life, she really only sees her mother a few times a year, and it's good to see her now.
Judy shoots her a puzzled, hurt scowl, which stifles Quinn's impulse to hug her and, heart sinking, Quinn remembers. Judy's a single parent of a daughter who, ostensibly, hates her.
That had been one good thing about the accident, forcing them to be closer. Quinn at this age was terrified of her mother finding out she was gay (not that she even could really articulate what she was hiding from them both, she just knew she resented each effort of her mother's to bring them closer). Heart sinking, Quinn wonders if she can repair that relationship without a disaster, but deep down, she knows she must. That's why she's here, isn't it?
So she opens the fridge and the cupboard and looks around. A glass of orange juice and a banana seems like a safe choice, though Quinn's brain is screaming for coffee. Not in a caffeine-deprived way that she would be on a morning as an adult, but in the way that it's been so routine for Quinn, for so many years, that it's hard to fathom starting a day without it.
She sits next to her mother to eat breakfast. Judy shoots her a wary look, as if certain that Quinn is going to levy some kind of insult or complaint at her, and Quinn inwardly cringes. She's not long past her Skank phase, if she remembers correctly, and she treated her mother absolutely vilely during that time. It hurts to remember it, to be reminded by her mother's face, just how she had wounded her.
After she eats, she goes upstairs to brush her teeth and gather her school things. She honestly doesn't remember when she's even supposed to be at school, not precisely. Nor exactly what she should bring. She packs Jane Eyre, all of the folders she finds on her desk, and the Spanish textbook that's still in her backpack and hopes for the best.
She stops at the bottom of the stairs. "I'm going to school now," she tells her mother tentatively.
Judy is sorting through some papers on the counter and looks up uncertainly as Quinn speaks. Warily, she says, "Okay."
"Have a good day," Quinn offers just as warily.
"You, too," Judy returns automatically then, after a hesitation, she says, "Good luck."
Quinn can't help bristling at this, perhaps due to teenage hormones. She wants to tell her mother she doesn't need luck to get through a day of school, but she stifles it, and her rational, adult brain kicks in to remind herself of how much she loves her mother. So she leaves the house.
She stops in her tracks as soon as she sees her red Bug. She can't help it, because she had loved this little car, and mostly she just remembers the pictures she saw from the accident, of it smashed, totaled, with blood streaks on the window. Yet here it is, whole.
Quinn hasn't driven for many years now, but she remembers how. Still, she's shaking a little as she starts her car. The interior is almost laughable. Cars have improved immensely since this car was made, but it's still familiar, it still feels right to drive. This is too surreal.
The way to school is still almost instinctive, though Quinn second-guesses the drive the whole way. She gets there and struggles to remember where she's supposed to park. Eventually, she just chooses a spot that looks right and figures she'll find a way to HBIC her way out of trouble if it's the wrong spot.
On her way into school, she notices Sam, who gives her a subdued smile. He looks remarkably the same, although as an adult he has a more flattering haircut. They haven't been close for years, but they've kept in touch, and she is happy to see him. "Better hurry. You don't want to be late," is all Sam says.
Quinn glances and checks one of the clocks on the wall. She doesn't exactly remember when homeroom starts, but she guesses it must be soon. Time to try to find her locker.
She thinks she remembers which hallway it was in, at least. But she has no clue which one is hers, or what her combination is. She can still pick the lock on it, she's pretty sure, but it just has to be the right one.
She spots Brittany, who is without Santana for once. Last time she saw Brittany, she'd had a faux hawk. But she figures this is a good opportunity. "Hey," she greets Brittany, trying to sound casual.
"Hi, Quinn," Brittany answers, "I'm waiting for Santana."
Quinn nods, "I get it. Listen, you ever have that day where you can't remember which locker is yours?"
Brittany nods solemnly, "It happens to me all the time," she says candidly.
Quinn shrugs conciliatorily, "Well, today's my day. Can you help me out?"
"Sure," Brittany nods, "But I thought this couldn't happen to you because you're not a real blonde."
Quinn twists her mouth, trying not to laugh, "I guess the dyes are seeping into my brain."
"Probably," Brittany answers, "Or maybe there's just too much in your brain. That's what happens to me. And you've been thinking a lot lately. I can tell."
"I guess," Quinn answers, as Brittany finally points her to her locker. She spins the knob a few times, pretending to guess her combination, then sighs, "It doesn't want to cooperate with me today. Guess I'll have to break in," and gets out a bobbie pin.
"I'll cover you," Brittany says, angling her body.
Quinn works in silence for about half a minute, trying to get a feel for the old lock, and Brittany finally asks, "Are you ready for today?"
"I guess," Quinn answers noncommittally.
"I am. I'm ready to dance. But we have to hurry."
Quinn makes a distracted hum, "In a minute," she replies, as the pin catches and the lock pops open.
The school intercom crackles on, and the weird cranky woman in Figgins's office nearly shouts, "All members of the New Directions, please report to the choir room!"
At that moment, Quinn notices the black dress with the gold belt hanging in her locker, and she remembers.
"Oh, fuck. It's Regionals today," she mutters.
"Well, yeah," Brittany stares at her, "Come on, Santana must already be down there. We have a routine to learn before we get onstage!"
.
The choir room looks old and small. Quinn spends a lot of her time in high schools with her current job, mostly high schools that haven't been updated in decades, but the McKinley High choir room still looks older. Maybe it's because she hasn't been here in so long, and everyone in it looks strange and young.
Brittany heads right over to stand with Santana, who looks pretty similar—same hair, same way of scowling passively—just without the posture that indicates true contentment with life. Puck is nearby, chatting with Sam, and he looks almost laughable with his floppy, unkempt Mohawk; she's glad he eventually outgrew that terrible haircut.
Everyone is familiar and yet strangely young. Even if they don't seem to have changed much, it's amazing how young they look. There are also those two younger kids whose names she can't really remember: the weird rich girl and the weird Irish kid. She's definitely lost touch with them.
And then, as she takes a seat next to Brittany, she sees Finn stride in, followed by Rachel, and her breath stops.
While she notices that Finn is strangely fresh-faced, it's Rachel who she can't keep her eyes off of. Rachel, who looks so small and young that she reminds Quinn of a fragile baby bird. She's gripping Finn's hand like it's a lifeline. Quinn's stomach churns and her heart turns over.
Rachel Berry has a bright future ahead of her; Quinn knows that. She sees the Facebook posts, the links to news articles about her shows. She hasn't been able to bring herself to attend a show, but she knows Rachel is happy and successful.
She also knows that Finn is a detour in Rachel's life that complicates it, that causes unnecessary heartbreak and angst. They talked some throughout college, and it was always about Finn, always about his inability to let go of the girl he almost married, and about how Rachel could never fully leave him behind.
Why the universe was forcing her to rewatch their twisted engagement, Quinn can't imagine.
Rachel beams at the group at large, and the two take a seat as Mr. Schue comes in. He strides up to the whiteboard and lists out their three performances.
"Okay, guys. In light of what happened to David Karofsky, these are the pieces we've decided on for Inspiration. Now, if I could have Brittany and Mike's help, we can finish putting together our choreography."
Quinn realizes she'd completely forgotten about Karofsky, and feels bad for a moment, but then figures, with the fact that she'd have been in a horrible car accident later in the day, that forgetting him is kind of excusable. The two lithe teens stride up, and they start what is apparently a review of choreography they've learned before, but of course, Quinn can't remember choreography from twelve years ago.
Quinn muddles through it until about halfway through the song, when Rachel runs straight into her. They steady themselves, and Rachel blurts a quick, awkward apology and moves away. Frowning, Mr. Schue stops them. "Wait, guys. Quinn, are you okay?"
Quinn nods, feeling horribly embarrassed. Even as an adult, being singled out by an authority still bothers her. "Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm not sure why I can't seem to get this down."
"You were fine yesterday," Brittany frowns. Mike nods his assent.
Quinn shrugs, unable to come up with a good excuse for how she could've forgotten the choreography overnight. She continues to muddle through the moves. Parts feel familiar, and it's like her body remembers what to do, but mostly, she just tries to mimic, a half step behind, the moves of the person next to her.
Then, they're working on some new choreography for one of the songs, and Quinn is relieved to be on the same page as everyone again. She'd forgotten how much of their performances were rushed and last minute and is amazed, for a moment, that they ever won anything.
They practice for as long as they can, until it's time to change and get ready for the competition. At least it's taking place at McKinley, so they don't have to go far. After the Warblers perform what turns out to be a moving setlist, and the weird a capella choral group confuses everyone, the New Directions get ready to take the stage.
Backstage, as they're all changed and getting pumped to perform, Finn makes an announcement. "I know it's kind of short notice, but…after the competition, Rachel and I are gonna get married, at the justice of the peace at the Lima Municipal Center."
Rachel jumps in excitedly, "There will be some light refreshments afterwards. My dads and I were rolling finger sandwiches all night long."
"With everything that's happened lately," Finn continues pensively, "we thought a lot about what Mr. Schue said. We didn't want to wait anymore. We just want to live every day like it's our last. So we want to thank a lot of you guys that were supportive of our decision to get married."
Sounding more tentative, Rachel continues, "And for those of you who maybe weren't the biggest fans of our impending nuptials, we thank you also." Quinn feels more than sees Rachel's eyes flick to her with those words. She chews her lip unconsciously. "So after we win, we'd really love it if all of you would come to our wedding." Back in this moment, when all she could see was Rachel's future falling away, Quinn feels all those same feelings once again: the anxiety, the anger, the fear. She remembers, vaguely, that earlier in that week they had been helping Rachel choose her wedding dress, and she had stormed out. Or had that been a dream?
Quinn muddles through the choreography with everyone else, feeling relieved that performers like Rachel do much work to take the focus away from her. She keeps up reasonably well.
And, considering how much Quinn feels like the performance is sloppy, their win is actually somewhat of a surprise. She's not sure how everything might change if she'd managed to make them lose Regionals, but she's glad they didn't.
They are allowed a brief celebration, and then they're sent back to class. For Quinn, it's a free period, and while she looks through her class notes, trying to remember anything she might need to know, she's called to Sue Sylvester's office.
She enters, and Coach eyes her, a particular gleam in her eye, and begins to talk about how much she admires her. Quinn smiles as it all comes back to her, and Coach presents her with a uniform. She remembers how excited she was to have the uniform again. And how she has to show Rachel.
She finds Rachel easily, and even though it's been so long, and even though she knows the answer, she asks, again, the same question that nearly broke her over a decade ago, "When you were singing that song…you were singing it to Finn and only Finn…right?"
She's frustrated and sad that the anxiety is still there in her body, the hope that Rachel's answer might be different, somehow. But there it is, still, the most miniscule nod, and Quinn can't handle any further response than that, so she rushes on, about how he makes her happy, and how she'd love to come to the wedding.
And then, Quinn thinks, it should be easy from here.
She attends Cheerios practice; she can't get kicked off the team the first day she makes it back on. Afterwards, Coach keeps her longer than any of the other cheerleaders to discuss strategy, and Quinn is glancing at her watch. She doesn't need Cheerios, she knows, but she had wanted it, and maybe, being able to stay on the team will give her something she's missing.
She heads home to get her bridesmaids dress. She's late, but she's careful, now. She knows she can get there without crashing.
Yet again, she's stuck behind a tractor. Her heart rate increases.
A cold sweat breaks out on her skin when she hears her phone beeping in the passenger's seat. This time, however, she makes it to the stop sign and stops before tapping back a response.
A truck blows past. Quinn has no idea if it's the same truck that hit her, years ago. Her breath comes out in a whoosh, and she sits at the stop sign for another few moments, collecting herself. Then, she continues on, taking her time. Last time, Rachel waited too long for her, and the marriage couldn't happen. She doesn't want to risk getting there in time for the wedding to actually happen.
All she wants to change is the accident.
She parks and hurries in for show, toward the group of pink and black-clad students. Rachel turns to look at her, in her white dress, and her face splits into a smile. "You made it."
"Yeah," Quinn nods. "Sorry I'm late."
"It's okay," Rachel says quickly.
"It's not," Finn answers dully from behind her. He's towering over her, hard eyes fixed on Quinn. "It's too late, Rachel. They won't let us in now."
"No, they will," Rachel says decisively. "They know we've been waiting."
"I'm sorry, sweetie, but they won't," one of Rachel's dads cuts in delicately. "They're locking up. They said we're welcome to come back Monday, but they really need us to leave."
"How can they do this?" Rachel asks, scandalized. "We want…we just want to get married!" Finn's body is rigid with tension. Kurt approaches and places a hand on his shoulder, but he shrugs it off forcefully and strides away.
"I know, baby girl, but it's too late. You can do it again another time." He draws his daughter toward him, and Quinn watches, heart constricting, as her first tears start to fall. "Maybe it was too rushed. Too soon. It's absolutely okay to wait," he murmurs softly.
Rachel blinks away tears and nods, once. Quinn is sure she's the only one who sees it, and Rachel meets her eye for a brief moment, as if ensuring Quinn's secrecy.
"You're telling me I have to wear this thing twice?" Santana asks rhetorically, breaking the tension. Rachel pulls away from her father to give Santana a watery smile.
They all start filing out in a sober crowd. Finn remains behind with his parents and Kurt; at one point, Quinn is sure she hears his angry, unintelligible shout. Beside her, Rachel closes her eyes for a moment, but continues to walk with the group.
At the door, though, she stops. "I want to wait for Finn," she tells her fathers.
"Okay," one of them says soothingly, "I'm sure he's coming."
Rachel turns to the departing wedding entourage. "Thank you for coming," she tells them all, dully.
"Sure. Let's do it again sometime," Santana says, half sincere.
"Rachel, I'm…so sorry," Quinn says. She's not, not at all, but she can't keep watching Rachel fall apart without acknowledging her role in it. Behind her, the rest of the Glee club is leaving, eager to get away from the awkward moment.
Rachel shakes her head forcefully. "No, it's…it's okay," she says softly. She glances behind her, probably looking for Finn, before saying, "It's probably for the best." Then, so quietly that Quinn almost doesn't hear it, she says, "Maybe I wasn't ready."
Quinn isn't sure what to say, so she just nods and leaves. Santana and Brittany are getting into the car parked next to hers, and Santana leans out the car window as Quinn approaches.
"So. Rachel couldn't get married without you there. What's that about?"
"I…don't know," Quinn tells her honestly.
"Uh huh," Santana answers, searching Quinn's face. Quinn glares back. Santana smirks, but doesn't say anything else, and she drives away. Quinn sighs, gets in her own car, and drives home.
She's not sure what to do with the rest of her night. So much of her school day was taken up by Regionals that she still has barely any inkling of what's going on in her classes. Besides, it's Friday. Didn't she used to do things on Friday nights?
Her mother comes home in the evening and, for lack of anything else to do, she goes downstairs to see her. She's fixed the accident, but the accident fixed her relationship with her mother. That part is up to her now.
"Hey," Quinn tells her.
Her mother stiffens slightly. She's sorting through the mail. "Hello."
"Do you want me to help with dinner?" Quinn asks.
Judy turns to regard her curiously for a moment before saying, "Sure."
It's awkward, the two of them cooking together, being so tentative in each others' company. But it keeps Quinn busy.
So busy that she has no idea her phone is blowing up until she escapes back up to her room after dinner to get away from the awkward tension.
She picks up her phone to see she has about fifteen missed calls from Finn, as well as a few voicemails.
She can only listen to the first few seconds of the first voicemail, which is just Finn angrily shouting, before she turns it off.
The doorbell rings.
A horrible feeling in her stomach, Quinn hurries downstairs to get to the door before her mother. But as she rounds the corner to the staircase, Judy's already opening the door and saying, "Oh, hello, Finn."
"Where's Quinn?" he growls.
"I'll get her," Judy turns to shout for her, but then sees her, frozen in the middle of the staircase.
Finn pushes past Judy, not violently, but in that way he has where he seems to forget just how big he is. "How could you?" he says. His voice isn't the shouting rage she heard on her phone, but cold, and rigid.
"What are you talking about?"
"What did you say to Rachel?" he asks.
"I…didn't say anything."
"She doesn't want to get married anymore. At least, not soon. She wants to wait and she says you made her realize."
"She said what?"
"The engagement is off!" Finn yells, "Or, at least, delayed, for a long time." His voice is a little quieter now, an edge of confusion in it, as if he's not really sure if he's still engaged to her or not. His hands are balled into fists. "What did you say to her?!"
"I didn't say anything!" Quinn shouts back, adrenaline coursing through her. She's still only halfway down the stairs, but having a furious Finn Hudson staring up at her fills her with fear. She's never been afraid of him before now. But then, even when he's been angry before, she's never seen him look quite like this. She has no idea if he's even aware of how threatening he's being.
Her mother approaches Finn warily; evidently she, too, is a little afraid of him. "Finn?" she says cautiously, "I'm going to have to ask you to please leave."
He glances at her, and maybe her expression brings some sense to him, because his shoulders relax somewhat. But he looks back up at Quinn. "Rachel's all I have," he tells her piteously, "If you've taken her from me…"
"How can I take her from you?" Quinn asks bitterly.
He stares at her, but then nods, once. "She couldn't marry me without you there. Why? Why are you so important to her? More important than me?" He spits the words.
"Finn," Judy says, warning in her voice. He raises both his hands in a gesture of surrender, then turns and leaves, slamming the door behind him.
Judy turns her gaze to Quinn. "What on earth happened?" she asks.
Quinn sits down heavily on the stairs. "I don't know," she says honestly. "That was…a little scary."
"Yes," Judy agrees. She watches Quinn for a moment. "You don't want him to marry that girl, do you?"
"No," Quinn says honestly, "But it's more I don't want that girl to marry him." She stands up and walks back to her room before her mom might be able to piece together exactly what she means. Her heart hammers. It takes her a long time to fall asleep, as much as she tries to distract herself with the nostalgia of old television.