[just a little quinn/judy future oneshot, talking about mostly fluffy faberry things. ffn.]
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dreamy bruises (to see all the ways i care)
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ohio small road/ colored lights in the night/ find some hand to hold/ let the car coast with no lights
—sylvan esso
Quinn is pensive about something, which you can tell—you've always been able to tell, really, even when you'd ignored her quicksilver moods when she was younger, the sadness that dragged at her shoulders, the way she fought them back up every time.
Right now she's curled up on the couch, studying a notebook full of her meticulous handwriting, petting her cat—Karamazov, which Rachel teases Quinn daily for, but you think it's quite fitting in a funny way—as he sits on her lap quietly purring.
It's always been one of your favorite sights: Quinn (Lucy), small and beautiful and brave, folded up and lost in some other world. There's always been something so gentle about it, about your daughter and the way she exists in the world, even when she was all facade, all ripped and rough edges.
You kiss the top of her head with a smile and put her tea down on the coffee table before you sit down in the armchair next to the couch, and she looks up from her notes and smiles. Her apartment in New York is tiny and beautiful, full of these simple, clean lines and soft colors, nothing like the austere house she grew up in. She's been here for a little over a year, and you know it's not her absolute favorite place in the world, but you know why she's here: Rachel Berry. They don't live together in the strictest sense of the phrase—Quinn still wants her own place, which is completely unsurprising—but you know they spend most nights together in one bed or the other, and there are remnants of Rachel scattered all throughout Quinn's apartment: the NYADA sweatshirt Quinn has on, a fridge full of vegan food, a stack of musical theater books in Quinn's designated performativity bookcase, long brown hair in a brush on the counter in the bathroom.
As you look at Quinn now, so grown, still so small and brave and fierce, you know she wouldn't give those little things—and the big things that go along with them—for anything.
You flip through one of Quinn's academic papers she'd gotten back—98, Great work as always, Quinn—the professor had written at the top, and you don't really understand much of what she's talking about, but it makes you just as proud to see her work as it did when she was six and came home with A plusses on math exams, in high school when she got 5s on her AP exams.
She takes off her glasses and rubs her eyes with a little groan and five or six pops of her back—you try not to think of either of your daughter's backs in the first place, all of the scars you should've stopped; but with Quinn, you try especially hard not to think of that day, when you'd gotten a phone call every parent dreads more than anything on earth, or the blindingly terrifying few days that had followed, where there were so many unknowns. Sometimes you have flashes of nightmares of Quinn's bruised face, eye swollen shut, all of the stitched-together future-scars that you'd eventually seen when you helped her change or shower in the following months. They're still there, only added to and faded at once, and you're pulled from those darker thoughts when Quinn puts down her notebook and smiles tiredly at you.
"We can go to bed if we want," she says. "Rachel doesn't ever mind when I go to sleep before she gets in; her shows run pretty late."
You smile a little at the domesticity of the exchange. For a while you weren't entirely thrilled about the prospect of Quinn dating women, let alone Rachel Berry, although when you look back on what Quinn told you while she was in high school, the little information you did know mostly revolved around her GPA, the Cheerios, and Rachel—always Rachel. And for whatever discomfort you initially had about Quinn's sexuality, after a few talks with (lectures from) Frannie, meeting with your pastor at the new church you'd found after your divorce, and actually spending time with Rachel, seeing the way she and Quinn interacted, how patient and gentle they were with each other, how happy Quinn has been over the past year—you are so glad for her in your daughter's life.
"I don't mind waiting up," you say. "We don't have an early morning, right?"
Quinn shakes her head. "Just brunch. Rachel and I usually try to walk through the park after that or something because, you know, brunch."
You laugh a little. "That sounds lovely."
Quinn bites her lip with a small nod, and then all of a sudden you can see her fight back tears, swallow heavily and stare at her hand as she rubs lazy circles between Karamazov's ears.
"Honey," you say, alarmed—you'll never lose your worry for her—"what's wrong?"
She presses her eyes closed and shakes her head.
"Quinn," you try gently, sitting down next to her on the couch.
"I'm really happy," she says, voice breaking, and then looks up at you. "I'm so okay, Mom, and I just—I'm so scared."
You force yourself not to cry, because Quinn's vulnerability is a rare thing for you to really witness. "Of what, sweetheart?"
"Sometimes I still think that—" she shrugs—"I don't know, that whenever I'm happy, really terrible things happen. Like the universe thinks, Oh, Quinn is happy, can't let that happen."
It rips you to pieces, that she says something like that so coherently. You tuck a strand of her short hair behind her ear and shake your head. "You've had enough pain for so many lifetimes," you say, "and now you get to have this." You gesture around her apartment. "And your school, and Rachel."
"I'm scared I'll mess it up," she admits, more tears falling down her cheeks.
"You won't," you say, and you do very much trust that—Quinn has never been anything but beyond capable at academics; Rachel and Quinn both put in the work together to have a strong, healthy relationship. "You've been so strong, baby, and you deserve this wonderful life you have."
Her chin trembles. "I've been a bitch to Rachel the past few days. Santana tells me it's a coping mechanism, distance and all of that."
Your chest warms a bit at that—Santana Lopez, in her first year of law school, no less, has been a better, more determined friend to your child than you could've ever dreamed when they were younger, and for that you are so grateful. "Well, Santana is probably right, and you should probably apologize—but you also know what you're scared of is okay. But Quinn? You do have so many good things, and someone who loves you very much, and you don't deserve any of that to be taken away."
She takes a deep breath. "I guess," she mumbles, fighting the words out with a tiny, watery smile.
"I'm your mother," you say, tickling her in her side and laughing lightly when she squirms away from you and Karamazov jumps down from her lap. "I'm always right about these things."
Quinn rolls her eyes with a grin, and she asks, "Do you want to watch something until Rach gets home?"
"Sure," you say, because you know that's Quinn's signal that she's had enough emotional opening-up for the night—some things never change.
She turns on the television and her Netflix, hands you the remote and says, "You can pick. Do you mind if I have a glass of wine?" she asks. She's careful with alcohol, and she's especially cautious and sweetly conscientious around you, but you've stayed on the wagon since she was seventeen.
"Not at all," you say, and she nods, untucks her legs and pads into the kitchen. You choose some action movie that doesn't appear to be about lesbians but is still on Quinn's queue—you may be supportive of your daughter's happiness, and you are fond of her girlfriend, but you do have your limits, after all.
Quinn sits down next to you again with a large glass of white wine, and you have a feeling she might drink more if you weren't here when she looks at you sheepishly and mutters, "I've obviously been extra stressed," before taking a sip.
You laugh and pat her leg. "You're just fine, sweetheart," you assure her, and she nods.
She laughs at your choice of movie but watches happily, immediately drawn into the story, just like always. She quietly adds little asides about the director, a friend from Yale, and her cinematographic choices, one of the actors that'd gone to school with Rachel.
She finishes her wine about halfway through, and once she puts down the glass, she starts to lean against you a bit more, her soft hair tickling your neck. Not soon after her breathing evens out and you know she's fallen asleep before you look down at her. It's one of the most precious things you know, seeing either of your children sleep, and you've only cherished it more as they've gotten older.
You actually are interested in the movie at this point, so you keep watching, only pausing it when you hear Rachel's key in the lock. She walks in, simple in a pair of jeans and a cardigan, her damp hair piled into a bun on the top of her head, no makeup on, and when she sees you and Quinn, her already contented little smile at being home blooms into a grin.
Quinn's eyes are puffy and you're pretty sure that once Rachel sees the empty glass of wine she knows that Quinn had cried and probably told you some honest and heartbreaking thing that Rachel had been trying to get out of her for days.
"She loves you a lot, you know," you say quietly, and Rachel drops her bag on a chair before sitting down on your other side on the couch.
"I know," she says, and her face softens almost imperceptibly, and she really is beautiful. She looks at you seriously. "I am so in love with her, Judy," she tells you seriously, calmly.
You nod. "I've no doubts."
She smiles and sits back a little, propping her feet up on the table with a sigh. "I know she's scared about being happy or something like that," she says. "I mean, she's Quinn, so—"
You nod. "She just wants to be good to you."
Rachel looks over at Quinn then, and the corners of her lips turn up softly. "She's not the worst, I guess."
You laugh softly.
"Really," she says, "she's the best thing that's ever happened to me."
In that moment, you've no doubt that one day you'll watch them get married, maybe even have children—but in any way, certainly have a long, full life together. "I think she'd say the same about you," you tell her.
Rachel glances down shyly at the compliment, but then she stands and rubs Quinn's shoulder softly.
"Hey baby," she says.
"Mmmmm," Quinn mumbles, then sits up and smiles at Rachel, gives her a quick kiss. "How was your show?"
"I was perfect, as per usual," Rachel says, and Quinn rolls her eyes with a sleepy laugh.
Rachel helps Quinn up and then Quinn gives you a long, tight hug. "I love you, Mom," she says quietly.
"I love you too," you tell her.
Rachel hugs you too, thanks you sincerely for being there for Quinn.
You thank her for the same thing.
You watch Rachel lead a sleepy, messy, suddenly so young version of your baby girl down the hallway to their bedroom. Rachel looks at Quinn like she hung the moon, and really, that's all you've really wanted for Quinn anyway.