AN: I apologize for any grammatical mistakes. English isn't my first language and this is my first story (that I publish) that is in English. So if there are any mistakes, please let me know so I can correct them.
I hear some incessant knocking at the door, but I'm barely awake to do something about. Maybe Kurt will get up and answer it. I close my eyes and try to sleep, but I can't. What if the person outside is injured? What if is some urgency? What if they are my dads wanting to do a surprise to me? No, not my dads. They would have called beforehand. The knocking stops. Maybe they went home. I'll just wait for a few seconds and if I don't hear anything, I'll sleep. Okay. Well, no knocking. Just as I closed my eyes again I hear it. And not just knocking but my name being yelled by a female voice. Now I got to go.
Nothing could ever prepare me for what I saw behind the door when I finally opened it. The female voice belonged to a blonde woman that I know well. The last time that I saw her was when I got in the train to New York City. The blonde that I was 'kind of friends' with. Yes. Quinn Fabray was outside my door, currently sitting on the floor with her right hand ready to knock again. She was looking at me from where she was and I couldn't understand what she was doing here.
"Quinn? Come on in."
She stays at the same position, though. I can see her duffel bag by her side so I grab it and carry inside. When I come back, Quinn had lowered her hand, but that was it. No change. She's acting weird. Very weird. So I decide to help her get up and I grab her hands. She's cold and I wonder how long she was out there. I took maybe fifteen minutes to get up from my bed and answer the door. That wasn't long enough to make her freeze this way. With my help she was up at her feet but when I took one step she wobbled.
"Are you drunk?" – I ask her already knowing the answer. She just nods her head and then groan at her action. I half drag her inside and sit her on the couch that Kurt and I had bought last week. I tell her that I'll be at the kitchen for a minute and she gives me thumbs up. And then started to stare at her thumb. Quickly I make some toasts with nutella, grab water and find some aspirins. I go back to the living room and Quinn has her eyes closed but I can see that she is not sleeping yet.
"Quinn? Open your eyes, please?" – I ask and she does. I can see that she is sad, but there is something else in her eyes that I don't quite get. – "Look, I made some toasts and I have water and aspirin here. Could you try to eat?"
Looking at me she grabs one of the toasts and slowly starts to nibble on it. Then her stomach rumbles and she devours the rest. After, she takes the medicine and drinks the water. It's only then that she decides to talk.
"Hi, Rachel."
Hi? Is that all that she has to say? Quinn must have seen my frown because she talks again.
"I know that you want to know what happened but can we please talk tomorrow? I promise that I will tell you everything, but today was a long day and I just need to sleep."
I agree with her. Sure, I wanted to talk but everyone can see that Quinn is beyond tired. "Do you want to take a bath before sleeping?" I try to be the best hostess ever. It's not every day that Quinn Fabray knocks at my door. Actually, it's the first time and I'll try my best to not be the last.
"Yeah, I could take a bath. If you don't mind, that is."
Even drunk and sad she is polite. I lead her to my bedroom, taking her duffel bag in one hand and passing my arm around her shoulders with mine so she can have more stability. I sit her on my bed, put the bag at her side and go to the bathroom leaving the door open while I start to prepare the bath. She keeps looking at me and I can't help but compare this time to the other time I'd seen her drunk. And it's unnerving how different Quinn is acting right now. I thought that she was an angry drunk but she's barely talking. She just observes. I put a relaxing bath salt and shake my hands on the water to make bubbles.
I go back then to Quinn and ask her if she needs help to undress. I really hope she says no, but I'm not that lucky. She's way too drunk to do anything. So I take her to the bathroom, help her to undress while staring furiously at the wall in front of me and help her in the bathtub.
"I'll just go grab some fresh clothes to you, okay?"
And she nods and groans again like she did just minutes ago. Minutes that seems like hours. I search in her bag but I can't find pajamas, so I pick one of mine that are a little big on me. I'm halfway to the bathroom when I remember to bring Quinn some underwear. I look for it in her bag and when I see some boy shorts I take it, not without blushing though.
I get in the bathroom and it seems like Quinn had just finished scrubbing herself. It's only then that I realize that it was stupid leaving a drunken girl in a bathtub all alone. She could have drowned! Quinn finishes rinsing the soap and asks for a towel. I help her get up and out of the tub before involving her with it. The bath made her a little sober so she dries and puts on the fresh clothes without my help. I respectfully stand by her side but looking away, so if she needs me she can hold on me.
"Thank you." – I hear her say. I look at her and she looks less tired, but still sad. I just nod and lead her to my bed. She lies down and I tell her goodnight. When I cross the doorway, she talks again.
"Rachel, where are you going?"
"To the couch. I'll sleep there so you can be confortable." - She doesn't look satisfied with my answer.
"Could you sleep with me please? I know it's too much to ask and I know that you are dying to know why I'm here and why I drank so much but could you just... please?"
She doesn't finish her sentence and I'm curious so I oblige her and lie by her side.
"Goodnight, Rach. Thanks."
"'Night, Quinn."
I open my eyes in the morning and I don't see Quinn. I jump out of the bed and start to freak out, running out of the bedroom looking for Quinn. I don't go too far because I see her in the kitchen wearing the apron my dads gave me in the last Hanukkah day. In the first one I won cooking lessons and I'm proud to say that I'm learning to cook and since the New Year's Eve I haven't burned anything. The apron says "Kiss the Chef".
Quinn turns and sees me. She smiles and tells me to sit. I do and she puts a plate with pancakes, fruits and a mug with coffee in front of me. "All vegan", she promises and I just beam and dig in. She puts a plate with the same things in front of her and starts eating. We finished eating and Quinn insisted that she would do the dishes and made me go watch some tv while she was washing the plates, cups and pans.
She finished, sat by my side and I turned off the tv. I just looked at her. I knew that she wanted to explain herself and I was too curious to pretend that I didn't want to know.
"I came out to my mom".
That's how she decided to start the conversation. I couldn't think or breathe or blink. Quinn just told me she came out to her mother. I didn't even knew she was gay! Before I could say anything she continues talking.
"I knew I was gay since I was fourteen. I couldn't accept it, but I knew I was. I looked at girls differently. My eyes always lingered on then more. Plus, whenever I went to swim and the lifeguard was a guy, I went back home. If it was the girl, I would stay at the pool until it closed. Anyway, I knew I was gay for a long time, but I couldn't face it and it killed me inside. I could never be myself because my family would never accept me and people would be mean at me. So I became the bully. I thought that if I was on the top, nobody would care. When I got there I realized that staying on top was harder than getting on top and I knew that I couldn't come out. Then I got pregnant and homeless. Dyed my hair pink. Then there was the accident and the wheelchair and I never found the right moment to talk about it with someone, you know?"
I nod, hold her hand and let her continue.
"Yale was my fresh start. No one knew Quinn Fabray. No one knew who I was and what I been through. It was good. So I started to be myself. I looked at girls and I didn't felt guilty. I felt truly happy, Rach. So yesterday I went home to visit my mom and I told her. I was ready. I thought that everything would be okay. So I told her. She, let's say, didn't took it well. She refused to believe and told me it was just a phase. I just had to get out of there. So I went back to Columbus and caught the first flight to New York. I was going back to New Haven but I passed through a bar and I needed to drink something to take away the pain. One drink became too many, so I decided to come here. Kurt had given me the address some weeks before, so I took a cab and came. The rest of it you know. I'm sorry, Rach. I shouldn't have showed up that way in the middle of the night, but I knew that you, out of everyone would take care of me, would help me and would understand. The alcohol was supposed to make me forget, but it didn't work out well because I remember everything."
I didn't know what to do so I acted with my instincts and hugged Quinn. We stayed there for a long time, she crying and me hugging her, rubbing her back and whispering that it was okay. After a while she calmed down and asked me how I was doing at NYADA and I understood that she didn't wanted to talk more about it, so I just told her all about my classes and how I really felt that I was meant to be there, even with some evil teachers.
In that afternoon Quinn left and I was glad that she came after me and trusted me. She was one of the bravest people I knew.
It was two weeks after that night when Quinn came over that I heard some incessant knocking on the door again. I jumped out of the bed and answered it. It was Quinn again and again she was drunk. I led her inside, laid her on my bed and joined her. I haven't said anything and neither did she. I knew that she needed some time.
I was drifting to the sleep land when I felt Quinn hands on my hair. I let her play with it. But then I felt her lips on my throat.
"Quinn, stop please. You are drunk."
"Yes, I'm drunk. And you're beautiful. And tomorrow morning, I'll be sober but you'll still be beautiful".
So I let her kiss me. And I kissed her back. The next morning I woke up with an amazing breakfast. She was sober and she kissed me again. And it felt perfect.
AN²: So, I got inspiration to write this story by looking at this gif on tumblr: 25 . media . tumblr / tumblr_mbrcl75Yz11qisfbpo1_500 . gif (take off the spaces) and I thought "How it would be this gif if it were Quinn and Rachel?" Then the story came up.