Made, and Used, and Wasted
A Quinn/Beth oneshot. I was listening to I Dreamed a Dream sung by Rachel and Shelby, and couldn't get it out of my head how it would also make sense for Quinn and Beth. Someone should totally make a glee music video about it (with Dakota Fanning as grown up Beth… yes, this really is what I think of in my spare time, haha)… BUT since I can't do that, I decided to write about it! I didn't put too many of the lyrics in (stories with the entire song in there annoy me, unless it serves a vital purpose), but this is based off the song and I listened it constantly while writing (you should listen to it while you read! But I'll shut up now). Enjoy!
"I dreamed a dream in time gone by, when hope was high and life worth living…"
Emotionally, year one is most difficult for the mother and easiest for the child. That's what Quinn thinks in hindsight, anyway. Or perhaps it was simply her attitude.
She spends year one trying to act as if the year before had never happened. It isn't easy. Puck is still there and Miss Corcoran lives across town. She is afraid to go to the grocery store on the chance that she'll see the woman buying baby formula. She can't even call it irrational, because it isn't. It's real, and that is the terrifying part. All of it is real.
Her father never comes home and her mother tries to make up for lost time and Puck likes to sing what he's feeling instead of telling her. By the time the new school year rolls around, she's lost all her pregnancy fat and walks with the same purpose in her stride, and it's almost like this will work. It's like nothing ever changed and-
But there are reminders. So many reminders. She spends her showers glaring at the stretch marks on her stomach, and late on a particularly bad night in August burns all her Cheerios pictures. She listens to Puck strum on his guitar and pretends that they had sex but everything was fine and no, she didn't break all the rules and fall from grace…
Except there is a baby, a baby that is hers but does not belong to her, and how's that for an oxymoron, and she's starting to realize that no matter how far she runs or how many pills she takes to erase it, the past is always going to be there.
On the brightside, she passes English class with flying colors. The teacher loves her new found oxymorons (and general childless angst, she is without her child, but children do not have children, and there she goes again…)
Beth doesn't remember year one, and in hindsight maybe that's a good thing. If newborns could protest, what would happen to all the mothers giving their babies a chance at a better life? They could never give a way a child fighting back (or maybe they could, she doesn't know much about being on the other end of the spectrum).
Then again, is the innocence just as hard? Is it just as difficult to watch the smallest (and largest) piece of you leave without knowing, and she will never remember your face or know your voice?
She wishes she had someone to ask.
But time passes and children grow up. The past stays put and choices don't change, and the future is a blur of stars indefinable. It doesn't matter if Quinn graduates or goes to college or even moves to the other end of the world. She still dreams, and she is reminded of that fleeting moment in high school when she questioned her judgment.
What if I kept her?
And her dreams (nightmares?) are suddenly filled with little pink bows and cribs and toys. She is Statistic A: good girl gone wrong, Statistic B: religious hypocrite, Statistic C: teenage mother. There is a baby and exhaustion and anger and she could never love her in those moments, it's too hard and the hate festering inside would never wash away.
So she gave her to someone else to love, and it was hard and it hurts and it still hurts but hopefully everyone is better because of that…
Dreams are dreams. Some of them are not supposed to come true.
But what if she was a mother and she was good at it and everyone got along and her daughter grew up safe in her arms-
She can't dwell on these things. Dwelling on what could have been only makes it harder. It doesn't help anyone. It only rips open the gaping hole in her chest once more.
Still, when she kisses Puck or she watches the pages fall off the calendar, each Christmas and birthday and Easter pass by, each milestone, she wonders…
Beth grows from an infant to an adolescent, living and loving a mother that is not her mother, but that never mattered much because it was all she knew.
Except she knew more, she should've known much more, and what is a world where mother and daughter don't know each other's deepest fears (but maybe they know because maybe they share it)?
What could have (should have) been is scary business.
Her mother always told her she was adopted since day one. It wasn't a secret. She told her all she could, but she didn't know enough. Beth wanted more.
Did her real mother even care? Did she remember her? Were her and her father still together? Did they think about her?
Her mother says her other mother (Quinn, her name is), picked out her name for her. Something about a song, but she doesn't remember the details, and suddenly her name means something more and if she picked a name why couldn't she just keep her…
Not that she doesn't love her (adoptive) mother. It'd just be nice to know why her hair is blonde and her eyes are green. It'd be nice to know what could've happened.
She desperately wants to find her. To see her. And yet she is afraid, because adoption means she didn't want her.
So she dreams of a world where she knows her real mother, and she is wonderful and beautiful with blonde hair and green eyes and laughs all the time. She likes these images in her mind because they can be everything she hopes with nothing to prove her wrong. There is a certain freedom in the unknown, pure and glossy and safe.
Perhaps she is a dreamer like her mother. Perhaps they both love the ideal. One still dreams while the other, lost of innocence, now just looks back on broken dreams, on unfulfilled (impossible) promises.
A what should have been that never should have been. And it never was.
"But there are dreams that cannot be, and there are storms we cannot weather… Now life has killed the dream I dreamed."
Hope you liked it! Review please.