Umm, hey. I-I'm back..?
Quinn Fabray was still her name, and this time, she was so used to introducing herself as so that she has finally forgotten the burden that her name once gave her. No longer was Quinn ashamed to be a Fabray and instead, the way she wore her name can be viewed as pride, that finally, she made something of herself.
She was standing in the gorgeous hall for the annual Time 100 gala. Quinn still found herself overwhelmed by the reception that her stories gathered for her. It's been two years since she typed that final word, since she consulted Anna about it, and since it was published, in print with actual pages recreating her story with every turn of the page. It was all so new, so vibrant, that Quinn had to stop every now and then, to smell the flowers and the familiar scent of the summer-turning-autumn breeze.
"I adore your novels!" Someone tore Quinn away from her moment of humility. Mia Wasikowska came up to her, holding two champagne flutes filled with sparkling drink. She handed one to Quinn who accepted it with a soft thanks. "I have them all and I read them everywhere I go! You're a very inspiring author, Miss. Fabray."
"I-it's Quinn," she replied with a smile. "And I must say the same for you, Miss Wasikowska—"
"Call me Mia," the actress chuckled. "I'll call you Quinn and you'll call me Mia, how about it?"
"Right," Quinn nodded, sipping at her champagne. "I love all of your films, but Alice in Wonderland is one of the best."
"Of course, the all-time favourite." Mia looped her free arm around Quinn's, taking her for a walk around the gallery, waving at other people who were labelled as Time 100's Most Influential. Every now and then, Mia stopped them both to talk to a cluster of powerful figures, introducing them both in the process. By the time they are both done with their champagne, Quinn met Barack Obama, the seventeenth Dalai Lama, David Karp, and more.
"You have to slow down, Mia." Quinn cried, trading her empty flute for another one. "I'm new at this thing, you know. I can't handle meeting the combo breaker president, the Dalai Lama AND the creator of Tumblr in less than half an hour!"
Mia giggled as she snacks on a shrimp cocktail. "You really are new at this."
Quinn huffed, looking around the room for the familiar faces she once believed that can only be seen on television or gloss-stained pages in magazines. Standing with these influential people, being considered as one of them… It's all so surreal.
Hazel eyes travelled, only to perform an emergency crash landing against a pair of chocolate brown eyes. Quinn gulped, her stomach lining seemed to melt away, and her heart began to palpitate in a constant rhythm against her chest. It was nothing new. Quinn experienced the same things time and again, every moment she sees Rachel take Broadway—and most recently, television—by a hurricane.
"Wow," Quinn muttered in some form of reverence while attempting to look away, to pass off as nonchalant, but it required too much effort. It was more than a gravitational pull that attracted her to Rachel. Now, it was more of an ache, a crystal glass begging to be filled.
"Quinn? Quinn, are you okay?" Mia asked, tugging at the hem of her sleeve. Quinn did not dare to let go of Rachel's stare, not when it was the only thing that she's been wishing for all this time. "You look like you just saw the Cheshire Cat!"
"I guess I have." Quinn said, wide-eyed. Mia followed the direction of her gaze, beaming upon seeing Rachel. She waved the brunette over, patting Quinn in a semblance of comfort as the singer invaded their three-foot radius. "Rachel."
To say Rachel's name to address her, and not just to fill the expanse left in Quinn's lungs was an exhilarating experience. The way her name rolls off of Quinn's tongue, symbolizing something more than the being of the woman that made her question herself, sent the writer into a standstill.
"Quinn," the singer smiled tenderly, and the instantaneous explosion of emotions within the blonde caused her to stagger beneath its weight. "How have you been?"
"Do you two know each other?" Mia inquired, looking at Quinn then to Rachel.
"Briefly," Rachel supplied when Quinn didn't say a thing. "But lately we've been busy with our own careers." She turned to the blonde who was still watching her in morbid fascination, like an endangered animal. "You're published."
A mere statement of fact. Quinn wondered if she should do the same and it wouldn't be as harmful to anything or to anyone.
"I'll leave you two alone…" Mia sing-sang, but neither woman noticed.
"I am," Quinn nodded. "You're famous."
"I am," Rachel mirrored Quinn's actions. "H-how are you?"
"Better now." Quinn said, smiling. "I'm glad that I'm finally making more than enough to pay the bills but it feels weird. Being recognized for doing what I love."
Rachel grinned and clinked their champagne flutes together. "I get what you're trying to say."
"Of course you do," the blonde's hazel eyes softened. "Singing is your calling and now… Now your voice has inspired kids to join their glee clubs and school plays… Be more involved with the arts."
"It's what I'm born to do. It's the same with you and the things you write." Rachel beamed. "I have your books, you know. All of them."
"All two of them you mean." Quinn grinned, and Rachel bobs her head up and down.
"Hey! Two books in two years? That's a lot!" Rachel grinned, swatting Quinn's arm playfully. She immediately sobered up, the melodious hum of her voice dripped with honesty. "You really are an amazing writer." Rachel murmured. "I said it then, I'll say it now. You're a beautiful woman, Quinn."
They shared two seconds of silence, and Quinn wondered if Rachel was thinking the same thing as she was. When their eyes met, Quinn's desires were reaffirmed. But she dared not speak of it for fear, for caution. Instead she took Rachel's hand in hers, squeezing it. It was as soft as she remembered, but then again, Quinn doesn't remember anything else.
She wondered if Rachel's lips were as sweet, as tantalizing as before.
Quinn hoped so.
Letting go of the silk hand, Quinn caught Rachel's gaze. Soft yet firm, fleeting yet permanent. Another mix of contrasts, just like them. A girl who liked attention and a girl who hid away from it.
Opening up her fingers, Quinn drew away from Rachel with caution. Rachel allowed her, until she didn't. Muscles tensing, Rachel gripped Quinn's hand back into her firm hold. They dropped their empty glasses on to a nearby table and both walked out of the ballroom and into the chill arms of nature. Fingers loosely held each other's; Rachel pulled Quinn into a hug.
"I've wanted to do that since I saw your name all emblazoned in the front cover of World of Glass," Rachel breathed against Quinn's dress, the blonde's arms engulfed Rachel whole, never wanting to let go. "I-I missed you so much, Quinn."
"I miss you too," Quinn laughed against Rachel's thick mass of hair. "You had no idea."
Rachel giggled and pulled away for a brief moment to look at Quinn's face. It felt as if it was the first time that Quinn was seeing the girl in her arms—the girl who held her heart in the very palm that was resting lightly against the small of her back.
Their conversations were light and very general. It occasionally breached the past, but even then it wasn't heavy or depressing. Everything was casual. They found out things about each other that seemed so trifle, and yet it made all the difference in the world, like Rachel's preference of white chocolate over milk chocolate or Quinn's obsession with potatoes. The blonde felt the fuzzy and incessant butterflies in her stomach slowly dissipating, and instead, her gut was filled with comfort—a most welcomed feeling.
Quinn and Rachel shared a limousine together when it was time to go home. Saying goodbye to their influential peers—Quinn still found it absolutely insane to refer to Amy Poehler as a peer—Rachel rode with Quinn back to her apartment. Quinn opened the car door for Rachel, and walked her up to the front of the brunette's apartment building.
"We still need to talk." Rachel said, her voice escaped her in a low rumble that if her diaphragm wasn't pressed against Quinn's, she wouldn't have known that Rachel was speaking.
"I know," Quinn answered with a small nod.
"Coffee and breakfast tomorrow?" the singer asked, and immediately Quinn offered an affirmative. "Good night, Quinn."
Quinn smiled and she lifted up Rachel's hand that was in hers, up to her lips, brushing them against her knuckles delicately. It was a promise as much as a romantic gesture, and when Rachel's cheeks took on a blanket of pink, Quinn knew that her heart was perfect where it was; that her chances with Rachel existed. That was all she could ask for.
"I miss you," Quinn breathed; her lips never left Rachel's knuckles. "I just had to say that again.
Rachel's eyes softened at Quinn's words, a tear wanted nothing more to escape from beneath her eyelids. "Okay…" Rachel sighed. "I missed you too."
Quinn smiled and squeezed Rachel's hand again. "Tomorrow? Breakfast and coffee?"
"Yes, of course! You still have my phone number, correct?"
"I do… You never changed it?" Quinn asked in surprise. She gulped, remembering the nights when she stared at the digits, and Rachel's name. How she would type a sentence or two, watching the cursor blink, before erasing it all to start again.
The singer bit her lip and nodded slowly. "I-I wanted that knowledge—the idea that you can still contact me whenever you wanted. I know it sounds silly but—"
"It doesn't," Quinn assured her. "I have to go; I think our driver is getting impatient." Rachel chuckled and bobbed her head up and down. She paused, turning to Quinn with an inhibited look in her eye. Quinn saw this before—knows that she looked exactly the same way while staring at Rachel with her hazel eyes that longed to never stray.
They were both looking for each other, wanting something, yet cannot have it.
"Good night Quinn." Rachel said, leaning forward to press her lips against Quinn's cheek.
"Good night Rachel," Quinn sighed, her eyelashes fluttering to a close, spreading a butterfly's kiss against Rachel's skin.
/
Quinn arrived at her new apartment, a lesser cramped version of her past home. She stripped off her clothes and laid down on her bed with nothing but a shirt and a pair of shorts. She closed her eyes, replaying the night in her head.
It's been two years since the night she finished her first novel; World of Glass. Two years since Rachel left her, two years since she developed a permanent truce with Charlie. When those days passed by, her life moved in a constant flare of change. Even her feelings for Rachel, they have changed. Not in the way that diminishes, or vanishing into thin air due to her absence.
No, in fact, her love ran deeper, cutting through her with memories she wished to relive every night and day as the ache that Rachel left morphs her into a sadder individual. Now that she's been given a second chance, she grasped it by the throat, never letting it go.
You know, with fanfiction like SHAfD, I still wonder why I bother when I will never, ever be as good as that... But anyways..!
