Her heart's in her throat before she even clicks to open the message. It's not like Rachel hasn't been texting her nonstop since getting on that train but she can just feel there's something different about this one. And then she reads the words - I'm back in Lima! NYC is so amazing! Let's get lunch tomorrow!
Her eyes immediately shoot to the time just above the message though she already knows it's right around dinnertime and her mom will surely be calling her down for yet another culinary experiment, probably that chicken cordon bleu recipe she was eyeing earlier, and Rachel's probably had a long day of travelling - It's not that far from New York to Lima, her mind interjects - but her fingers are tapping out a reply before she can stop them.
Come over tonight instead?
Santana's been needling her for days - weeks if she's being honest, because that snark at prom couldn't have been any more obvious, really - about just how much she's avoided that conversation with Rachel. Hell, she nearly got herself killed instead of saying those words, even if there wasn't any real guarantee they'd have stopped the wedding. And she'd still probably be with Finn regardless. But now she's not. He pushed her on that train and bailed out to Georgia the next day and not even Kurt's heard anything from him since.
She has a chance.
Maybe.
There's always the possibility some Broadway stud or NYADA heartthrob-to-be managed to balladeer his way into her heart in those scant few days. But she's still back in Lima now and Quinn can't waste this chance. Probably the last one she'll ever really have before the real world sweeps them both away.
Her phone vibrates - I don't know, Quinn, I'm kind of tired and I'm about to meet Kurt for dinner… I'd still love to see you, though. Maybe a sleepover?
Her heart's back in her throat - did it ever really leave? - as she punches out an affirmative with shaky hands. Sleepover could be a good thing, if that conversation goes well. Or awkward, if it doesn't and Rachel stays anyway. Or bad, if Rachel leaves and her only comfort in the night is a tear-soaked pillow. In any case, she only has…three hours as of Rachel's last message to gather her thoughts and wits - and maybe sneak a sip or few of that fancy vodka her mom keeps in the wine rack, just in case a more natural form of 'courage' starts to fail her. She needs to do this tonight, to do it before she gets to Yale and realizes she's already lost Rachel to bright lights and big cities.
Dinner tastes like cardboard and her mom is unexpectedly delighted to hear that Rachel's coming over later and it's all just an enormous blur until she's sitting on her bed - moved downstairs with the rest of her bedroom after The Accident, since that grand staircase isn't exactly wheelchair-friendly - and staring at the wall and trying to form about a hundred speeches in her head. The words mish-mash together, forming some amorphous gruel-like blob. A vibration tickles at her leg and she glances down to see a text from Santana - Christ, just tell her you love her. It's not that damn hard. The girl is uncanny.
The doorbell rings.
She's glued to the bed by the weight of her stupid, stupid anxieties, not that it matters as she hears her mom scurry across the foyer to let Rachel inside. Their cheery words are muffled through her closed bedroom door but she's sure Rachel is just all aflutter at how wonderful New York City is, and her mom is undoubtedly thrilled to soak in all that enthusiasm. But maybe the door isn't muffling sounds all that well because she hears, "Quinn's in her room. You girls have fun!" clear as day, like someone had whispered them into her ear.
The door inches open and Rachel's stupid head pokes around the edge as soon as there's enough space, brandishing the broadest smile ever imagined. Quinn can barely stand to greet her and force a smile before her arms are full of giddy five-foot-nothing brunette. "Ohmygod, Quinn!" she shrieks, face buried into Quinn's shoulder. "I know hasn't been that long since I left but it's so, so, so good to see you in person again!"
Quinn just chokes on a summery scent and her arms creak around to return the hug. All those words, all those speeches and "pep talks" - both Santana- and Brittany-style - vanish into the ether the second Rachel is wrapped around her. "Y-Yeah…" she wheezes, and blinks furiously to gather her wits. Come on, Quinn! she berates herself. You got into Yale, for crying out loud! If you can't handle this, how the Hell will you survive Ivy League! She leans back for a little separation and glances down at the exact moment that Rachel lifts her gleaming eyes. "So New York went well, I take it?"
Oh, the small talk.
Rachel just starts bouncing around and clapping her hands and launches into probably the unabridged version of the tale she spun Quinn's mom upon arrival. She's heard most of it before, through all those messages over the past week, so at least she can tune out and regain control of the situation, and her head. Just as long as Rachel doesn't say any of the Forbidden Words - even if she doesn't actually know they're forbidden - she'll be fi-
"So have you heard from Finn?"
Quinn, to her credit, doesn't immediately throw herself to the ground in a tantrum upon hearing that name, and instead merely sits daintily on the edge of her bed and crosses her legs. "No, Rachel, none of us have," she answers, then mutters under her breath, "Just like the last twenty times you asked…"
Rachel sighs and sits next to her, some of that glitter leaving her eyes. "I know it's silly," she says as she twiddles her fingers together. "We broke up, right? I just keep thinking-"
Quinn blurts out the first word that comes to mind, just to stave off the impending pity party. "Movie?" Sure, she may seem like less than a stellar friend by not indulging Rachel's fifty reasons why her and Finn are Meant To Be - for the fiftieth time, no less - but she'd really rather not spend the entire evening reminiscing about just how "wonderful" he was or any other myriad Finn-adjacent topics. Not when she has to suck up all her courage and barrel head-long into her own romantic foibles before she loses the nerve.
Rachel just blinks owlishly at her.
Quinn clears her throat. "I mean, do you want to watch one?" Maybe a nice, classic Sleepless in Seattle to set the mood. Or When Harry Met Sally. Or maybe a horror flick to send Rachel scurrying into her arms. Well, maybe not. That might make The Talk a little more difficult. Maybe.
Rachel's eyes brighten again. "Oh, I-sure!" she says around like a billion bright, perfect teeth. "A movie sounds great! Do you have snacks?"
Fifteen minutes of popcorn-making and carrot-stick-cutting and water-pouring later, they're curled up on Quinn's bed with plates of everything arranged around them and some musical Rachel picked out playing on the television. Quinn hadn't really paid attention to the actual title but it had some lady killing her husband or boyfriend or something near the beginning so it's probably going to be a weird backdrop to The Talk. She gulps water like she's seconds from death by dehydration and crams popcorn into her mouth all the while, but the glasses aren't that big and Rachel's starting to eyeball her voracious snack consumption and it's rapidly approaching time to stop fiddling and fidgeting and start saying the words.
She clears her throat and tilts her head in Rachel's direction and murmurs her name over the din of the movie. When Rachel makes a hum in the back of her throat and glances at her, Quinn's fingers intertwine and clench around each other. "I…uh…you still have those Metro passes?"
Are you serious? her brain and heart jointly roar at her.
Rachel furrows her brow and turns more fully to look at her. "Of course!" she replies. "You…still want me to use them, right?"
She nods furiously, her blonde hair flailing every which way. "Y-Yes, absolutely," she stammers. Someone in the movie breaks out into very aggressive song, which just sucks Rachel's focus back to it. Quinn groans and uses all the strength she has left to not bury her face in her hands and scream. Instead, she growls, "Rachel, turn off the damn movie!"
Well, that certainly should get her attention.
Rachel stares at her wide-eyed as she reaches for the remote and hits the pause button. "What's wrong?" she asks in a quiet voice.
Now or never.
Quinn sits upright and crosses her legs and meets Rachel's stare head-on. Pussy-footing around this might have gotten her to some sort of 'best friend' status but even half the glee club - though especially Santana and Brittany - could tell it wasn't what she really wanted. "I just…" She stops and clears her throat again. "I need to tell you something, and it's going to be hard for me to say so I need you to not interrupt until I'm done, okay?"
Rachel just nods, and Quinn's pretty sure the girl hasn't blinked since pausing that movie.
"Look…" she starts. All of those 'speeches' she tried to form earlier in her head have fled the building and she's left with something akin to brutal honesty. "We were enemies, and then we were sort-of friends, and then we were actual friends, right?" She waits for another nod before continuing. "At…some point it kind of became more than that for me. And I need to know if there's even a chance you might feel the same way, because if there is…" She breaks gaze and looks down at her lap and rakes a hand through her hair. "I'd really like to take you on a date."
For all the worrying and fretting and all manner of synonymous verbs she's been doing lately, a zen calm settles over her. She's done it, said the words. She feels like she's soaring through clouds and even if her wings vanish or melt like Icarus, at least she said the words. It might not be everything - certainly no need to drop the l-word if she doesn't even have a shot at a date - but it's enough to get the ball rolling if possible. If not…
She feels a featherlight touch on her shoulder and looks up to see…exactly what she hoped she wouldn't. Rachel's eyes brim with both tears and pity. "Quinn…" she says softly, then pauses like she's desperately trying to find her own words.
Quinn's already shaking her head. Foolish, foolish, foolish, echo the words in her mind. Can't believe I let Santana talk me into this. "N-No, please don't…" she says and tries not to just fall to pieces. "I don't need you to say-"
"You have no idea how much you mean to me," Rachel says and reaches for one of her hands, "but… I'm sorry, Quinn… I just can't…"
The next moments are a blur as she finds the strength sapped from her very bones and flops over into a ball on her side, hugging a pillow to her chest. The tear dam is breaking. She can feel the sting in her eyes, and the ache in her chest. There's no way she can choke it all back to a smile and a, "Just thought I'd check! How about that movie!" Not tonight. "Please go…" she whimpers into the pillow, though from how Rachel starts rambling she's not entirely sure the girl heard her.
"Y-You'll still come visit in the fall, won't you?" she says. "I don't think I could stand you not being there…"
Quinn clears her throat and says those two words louder this time and from how the bed shifts and settles, she's pretty sure Rachel just climbed off. She hears another, "I'm so sorry…" murmured from somewhere behind her, and the rustling of something that sounds an awful lot like paper, and then the door clicks shut.
Her face crumples, and the tears flow, and there's absolutely no way she's going to respond to that vibrating phone that's probably another Santana message asking her how it went - that she also probably isn't expecting to be answered until tomorrow anyway - because her everything hurts far, far worse right now than it ever did from that car accident.
She's on the edge of sleep, with tear salt caked all over her face, when she hears the door open and someone gather up all the leftover snacks and click the television off. "It'll be okay, sweetie…" a voice murmurs, and it sounds an awful lot like her mom, before something presses lightly to her forehead.
She's asleep seconds later.
In the morning, she forces herself through the motions of taking a shower and getting dressed and staring balefully at a breakfast she doesn't have the stomach to eat at that moment, no matter how much her mom urges. She doesn't even notice the star-shaped post-it stuck to her dresser mirror until she crawls back into bed that afternoon. Two words are scrawled on it, in impecable penmanship -
"I'm sorry."
Summer passes and no matter how much Santana needles at her in typical Santana fashion or Brittany threatens her with hugs and lollipops and internet meme'd pictures of Lord Tubbington, she can't quite…heal. It still hurts, days and even weeks later. She still hears all those words echoing in her head. And they try to console her, that at least she took a shot even if the answer was no, but she doesn't want to keep discussing just how badly she fucked up a pretty damn good friendship by reaching for even a little bit more.
And Rachel hasn't been texting her either, though she hears from Kurt - by way of Mercedes - that at least she's stopped asking about Finn every five seconds and instead feels so incredibly morose at how thoroughly she kicked Quinn in the heart and won't Quinn just at least let her know that everything will be okay eventually?
She works out, a lot, instead, puts all her energy into staying fit even with the scars and perpetual leg pain that requires she still use a cane often. Santana joins her most days and their joint workouts quickly devolve into them relaxing on the front lawn of her house while Santana makes fun of passers-by. Eventually she even starts to smile at some of the jokes, and crack a grin or two when Brittany rolls up on her bike with Lord Tubbington just barely crammed into the relatively tiny wicker basket.
Fall comes quickly, though, and she's well on her way to New Haven - by train, of course - before she realizes that gaping hole in her chest doesn't feel quite so empty anymore, that she can pull out her cell and scroll through her contact list and not feel like she just wants to die when she sees the name Rachel Berry. That she can bring herself to thumb across "Send Message" and regain that friendship.