Disclaimer: I do not own the characters in this story, they belong to Ryan Murphy. I'm just playing with them for a while. This story is pretty tame so welcome all readers!
A/N: First of all, to all the other people who reviewed/read/fave'd my other story, thank you so much, I really appreciate it. This is a friendship Faberry story and I hope that you will enjoy it. Review if you feel so inclined and if you want to be brutal, I encourage you to do so. Enjoy. :)
She sometimes wakes up with her hands twisted in her nightgown.
They twist and turn and search for something isn't there except in her dreams. She feels around for the mound and it's not there, instead, it's the flat stomach she was given because she was young and her body had almost immediately snapped back into its original shape. But on those nights when the bed covers are down around her feet and her nightgown bunched around her stomach, she wishes she couldn't see over her stomach.
One night, when it gets particularly bad and the dreams overwhelm her to the point of tears, she walks downstairs to get a glass of water, hoping that it'll soothe her nerves enough to have a dreamless sleep. Her mother is sitting at the kitchen table, a cup of tea nestled in her hands, the steam rising gamely and then disappearing in soft wisps around her face. She looks at Quinn as she pads her way to the fridge and gets her glass of water. Quinn sits down across from her mother and watches the way she plays with the wedding ring on her finger. She hasn't taken it off yet and Quinn figures she might not ever.
"When I was gone, did you miss me?" Quinn asked softly, making her mother look up at her in surprise.
"Of course I did, Quinny," her mother says, but her voice still holds that tone, the one that is expected of her, the tone that says that she is this girl's mother and must answer in an appropriate motherly fashion.
"No, I mean, did you really miss me?" Quinn presses. "Like...did you sit up at night and think about me, wonder where I was? Did you go around and ask about me, find out where I was? When I was with Finn, did you call his mother to ask if I was doing okay, if the baby was alright? Did you when I was at Mercedes? Or Puck's?"
The way her mother looked down gives Quinn all the answer she needs. She doesn't say anything for a long while, not sure how to respond to that, but her mother apparently felt the need to speak up her defense, "Quinn, you don't know how it was when you left. We were just so disappointed in you. It wasn't how we raised you-"
"So you ignored my existence?" Quinn asks, knowing that was how her father had handled the situation. Out of sight, out of mind. He didn't want a daughter who wasn't absolutely perfect in every way and so when she screwed up, she was gone. Now he was literally gone and he hadn't even inquired about her since. "You forgot I even was your daughter, while I was out there, trying to find a place to sleep?"
"Quinn, you're very popular, I'm sure you had no shortage of friends who were willing to take you in." She says this in a way that Quinn finds disgusting, like setting your pregnant daughter free at 16 was okay as long as your daughter was popular and could find a spare room somewhere. Quinn had not grown up with a sense of human decency like most other people. She saw that bad in people so often and was taught to exploit it to her own benefit so when she was the one who needed bestowing upon, it had humbled her, taught her that she needed to start looking for the good because there was so much good.
"Yes, except for the people who raised me right?" Quinn tries so hard not to get angry, but when her hand presses to her empty stomach and she feels the weight of her even emptier arms, she feels a flush of anger rising up in her like she never felt before. Her skin feels clammy and her nightgown sticks to her. Her anger clings to her like filth and she wishes she could wash it all away and forgive her mother, but her mother is no mother at all, but simply a person to whom she is charged until she can get out of his hell hole.
"Quinny, you're a very capable girl."
"I was scared!" Quinn erupts, but it's only a small one, controlled and lacking the fire that it should. She's been so controlled her entire life and even now, when the anger threatens to swallow her up, she still controls it, tight-lipped, but the fire still brews behind her hazel eyes. "I was scared and alone and you left me! You are my mother and you left me!"
She thinks, perhaps, she's projecting just a tiny bit. She thinks that missing a child is like phantom limb syndrome. When someone loses an arm or a leg, they can still feel it. They can feel its pain and its movement and then it's not there when you look. She feels that way a lot and that's why she wakes up with her arms twisting and searching for that missing limb because isn't that what a child is supposed to be to you? Isn't it supposed to be an extension of you?
Why didn't they tell her that adoption was going to be so hard? Why didn't they warn her that night after night she would pine for that missing limb and that some nights she felt as if she could hear her daughter breathing, but when she looked, there was nothing there? Shouldn't someone have told her how hard it was going to be? Were their pamphlets, classes, lectures, anything that could let her know if this feeling would ever pass? Because she was missing a limb and it was killing her and she thought, hoped, that her own mother might have felt it too when she was gone, but her mother clearly does not understand that she's missing part of her, that she can still feel what is no longer there because to her mother, she is not an appendage, not an extension of her, but a separate entity, a pretty vase she gets to trot out when there's company over and then put away when she has no more use for it.
Her mother's hand shakes as she brings the cooling liquid to her lips and takes a sip. Quinn has nothing more to say at the moment and she goes upstairs and climbs into bed and stares at the bare wall. She's unknowingly clutching at her stomach and then she closes her eyes and tries to think of a better tomorrow than the today she is currently having. Dreams come and pass, but thankfully, she wakes up and her hands are not twisted into her nightgown.
She thinks that she had to be the head Cheerio again because she needs something in her life to care for, now that Beth is not here. Most everyone thinks it's because she needs her former status as HBIC, but it's not that at all, not really. Sure, it's nice knowing that you're in charge and you have everyone below you, but that thought and that disposition can only be fleeting in the long run. Being pregnant gives you the foresight to know that high school is just that, high school and the real world is separate from this clique-laden oasis of horrible behavior.
She just wants something that she can hold onto and it won't disappear from her hands. Cheering and being on top and winning national titles is something that she can hang onto right now. That's all it is though and was it worth the sacrifice of losing a friend in Santana? Yes, it was because at least she's somewhat filling the emptiness that Beth left behind. No, it's not like she's gained an arm, but it is like she's gained a pinky. So she walks around and lets everyone judge her because they were going to do it anyways and they don't know what goes on in her head and they never need to because she's Quinn Fabray and she's in control, tight control.
But every night, her hands search in her sleep, groping and tossing and turning for something that isn't there. When she thinks about it, there's only one person she thinks might get this feeling. One night, when she wakes up and her hair is matted to her forehead and her eyes already moist without even opening them, she goes to her closet and pulls on a sweatshirt and some track pants, slipping her feet into her trainers and she runs out the door, not caring that the sound will echo through the house. Her mother is probably down for the count, her sleeping pills kicking in hours ago.
It's raining when she does this and the sound of it on her windshield distracts her from the embarrassment she might have felt running to the person she's running to. When she gets to the house, one she's never been to, she jogs to the front door and she's soaking by the time she gets to it, the rain getting heavier as the night wears on, like the weight gets heavier on her shoulders as each day passes. She rings the doorbell, not realizing or caring really that it's the middle of the night and this is going to be a nuisance for sure. The door opens later and it's a man she doesn't recognize, but under his arm, she sees Rachel, peeking her brunette head out and then her eyes widen as she sees who it is.
"Quinn?"
"You know her?" her father asks suspiciously.
"We're in New Directions together, Daddy, it's okay," Rachel says, pushing her father out of the way. "Quinn, is everything okay? Oh my God, is it Finn? Is he okay? Wait, wait, did Sue do something to the Glee room, did the school burn down? Oh no, where are we going to practice for Regionals? Okay, Daddy, I need to get on the phone with the synagogue, the acoustics are fantastic in there-"
Quinn briefly wonders why Rachel just assumes that she would run over here to tell her that the school burned down, but she shakes her head, "It's not that, any of that, can I just…can I come in and talk to you?"
"It's two-thirty in the morning."
"It's Friday."
"Oh yeah, I mean, who needs beauty sleep, right?" Rachel tries to joke, but it falls flat to everyone but her father.
"Is she not the funniest thing?" he says proudly and Quinn finds herself longing for a parent that would laugh over a stupid joke.
"Come in, come in," Rachel says, ushering her in. "You're soaked, why don't we go up to my room and we can talk and maybe you can wear something of mine."
Quinn can almost see Rachel steeling herself for a verbal blow and when one doesn't come, she just ushers Quinn upstairs. "I have a nightgown on under this, it should be dry."
"Okay, it can be like a pajama party," Rachel tries to lighten the mood again, but she's confused and Quinn is a little confused as well because she can't tell if this is the right idea. But if Rachel can't understand, then who will?
"I'm sorry to just barge in here, I know we're not friends."
"Only because…well, never-mind," Rachel says as Quinn takes off her sweatshirt and track pants, leaving her in the long white nightgown she'd worn to bed that night. "Cute nightgown."
"Thanks."
"Here, sit down," Rachel pats the bed next to her and Quinn sits down and looks at the pink carpet of the room. Before she can say anything else, her father walks in with a plate of cookies and some hot chocolate. "Thanks, Daddy."
"I thought your friend could use something warm to drink after being out in the rain."
"Thank you, Mr. Berry," Quinn says politely.
"If you girls need anything, you just let me or your dad know, okay, Rachie?"
"Okay, Daddy, goodnight, I love you."
"Love you too, Strawberry."
Rachel blushes, but she has nothing to blush about. Quinny is the only nickname she's ever had from her parents and that was only from her mother and only in that whining, WASP-y tone of hers. One of her teachers in grade school used to call her Miss FABulous because the first syllable of her last name was Fab, but that was grade school and for so long now, she'd just been Quinn. She'd never been anyone's strawberry.
"Sorry about my dad, but cookie?" Rachel offers up the plate and it's then that Quinn just bursts into tears. "You…don't like cookies."
"My mother has never baked a day in her life," Quinn says, staring at the plate of homemade cookies. "You made these, didn't you?"
"I love to bake," Rachel tells her with a shrug. She sets the plate down on her nightstand next to the two glasses of hot cocoa and she scoots forward a little, hesitantly reaching her arms for Quinn. Quinn makes no attempt to move, but Rachel does. She keeps moving and she keeps moving until her arms are securely around Quinn and Rachel just holds her as she cries.
"I had nobody else to go to that would understand," Quinn sobs out as Rachel tentatively strokes her hair in a calming gesture. It helps but Quinn is so unused to the feeling of genuine comfort that she can't really identify the feeling other than the fact that it feels nice. Rachel eventually eases her down to the mattress and she's lying on her side and Rachel is sitting behind her and still stroking her hair down.
"Understand what?" Rachel finally asks when Quinn's sobs have died down to soft, mewling cries.
"You know, you're such a mom," Quinn says through her tears and Rachel has been more of a mom to her in 20 minutes than her mother has been in years.
"A mom?"
"Yes," she says and then she starts her confession. "I don't think I would have been good for Beth."
Rachel's hand stills and Quinn knows that she understands now why Quinn has come here. But then the hand starts stroking her hair again and this time Quinn can feel a firmer press against her scalp. "I'm sure you would have been a great mom."
"No, I don't think so. I didn't have a great mom. She just never cared like I think a mom should. I don't think I could have been what Beth needed. I know that it was the right thing to do to let her go, but I never thought it was going to be so hard and nobody cares."
"That's not true, Quinn," Rachel tells her, but she's wrong and even if she doesn't realize it, Quinn does.
"No, they don't. You think I have all these friends, everyone thinks I have all these friends, but when I was pregnant with Beth, where were they? Everyone on the Cheerios abandoned me except Brittany because she's too nice to know better. The glee club pretended to care, but didn't. I was already eight months pregnant when any of you even invited me over to your homes. Puck only took me in because he got me pregnant and afterwards, has he asked how I've been, does he show any regret for giving Beth up? No, he doesn't, none of you care."
"Believe me, I care," Rachel tells her calmly.
"Yeah, because your mom has my daughter," Quinn says bitterly.
"I know," Rachel answers and she still has that calm voice of reason that a mother should have. Here Quinn is, acting like a child and Rachel is the adult. Rachel should have been Beth's mother, not her.
"None of you even act like I had a kid."
"We didn't know," Rachel explains. "If we'd known."
"You'd have done nothing."
"Quinn?"
"Yes?" she asks, wondering what Rachel is going to say to her, what she could possibly say to her.
"If you had asked, said anything, I would have absolutely helped or invited you over or checked up on you. I know it's hard, but sometimes you need to ask," Rachel says and God, she's such a mother and Quinn wants that so badly that she's here, lying on Rachel's bed, her cheeks dried with tears and she's pathetic.
"I only took back the Cheerios because I needed something to fill the void that Beth left."
"Do you know why I got so mad over losing the solo, when everyone wanted their chance at it?"
"Why?" Quinn asks, sniffling as Rachel brushes her hair over her ear.
"Because that's the something that I do to fill the void."
"What?"
She doesn't have to see Rachel shrug to know that she does. "My dads have given me everything I've ever wanted…except a mom. I always figured that if I could do something great, something really, truly spectacular that my mom would find out and be proud of me and I grew up thinking this and now that I know who she is, now that I know that she loves theater and singing and the stage, if I still do that, if I still be the best, be the star, maybe my mom will be proud of me."
"I'm sure she is."
"I hope so."
"How can you be so nice to her when she essentially said she didn't want you?"
She thinks about Beth, years and years from now, maybe finding out that her mother was Quinn, and she wonders if she'll feel the same way, that she has to do something to make Quinn want her. Quinn did, does, and always will want her, but it wasn't best for her Beth. She might have called her Bethy Bear, a nickname a real one. She doesn't want her Beth to believe she has to be everything to make her proud. She was proud the moment her Beth knew how to blink.
"Because she still went through the trouble of having me and that's something."
"So Beth will just be grateful I had her?"
"Well, living is pretty good a lot of the time, Quinn," Rachel says and Quinn laughs.
"You know, I speak as a mother right now," Quinn says, not looking at Rachel, but reaching up to grab her hand and hold it, "but you don't need to control every little aspect of your life and flip out about solos to make your mom proud. I think she's been proud of you since the day you were born, just for being Rachel."
Rachel says nothing and Quinn thinks she might have overstepped her bounds a little. But then Rachel speaks. "And you say you couldn't be a mom."
Quinn laughs and turns on her back and looks at Rachel and there are tears in both their eyes. "I'm not."
"Except you are," Rachel says and nods vigorously, trying to keep her tears at bay. "We're both lucky that we have who we had, for however brief a time, right? My dad says to always be thankful that you met all the people you've met in your life because they have made you into who you are and you should never be sorry for who you are. So they're lucky they both know us."
"Is that how you go on being you?" Quinn asks teasingly.
"You betcha," Rachel says brightly, squeezing Quinn's hand.
"Can I stay here tonight?" Quinn wonders, hoping she and Rachel could continue to talk and share their feelings of mutual abandonment and abandoning.
"Of course," Rachel tells her. "You know, I have my mom's phone number…if you ever want to call, check up on Beth. It might not feel like you're really her mom, but it's something, right?"
"Thank you," Quinn says genuinely. "I just sometimes feel like I'm missing an arm or a leg when I think about Beth."
Rachel holds up her hand. "Feel free to borrow my arm whenever you want, okay?"
Quinn was right, only Rachel could have ever understood.