AN: In a Faberry high following the last episode I wrote something else with a letter. Then I took the part I liked and wrote this. Inspired to be more angsty by this.
It hit her so suddenly as she spoke to Rachel, it threatened to bury her like an avalanche. It had been building slowly through their years at McKinley, a tower of glances and smiles and "kind ofs" and "maybes" and "I don't hate yous." So slowly she hadn't noticed it. Trying to balance her hopes and fears for Rachel's future caused a collapse, and, all at once, it hit her.
Quinn was in love with Rachel Berry.
The tears welled in her eyes as she spoke. Quinn was glad she had rehearsed this speech three times at home and twice in the hallway before her performance. Her brain had enough trouble remembering words. If it had been asked to form them in that moment, they probably would have sounded like key mashing.
Quinn's heart was setting and breaking records, refusing to slow as she sat through the rest of the Glee meeting. She tried to keep her eyes off of Rachel, but they were stuck. They couldn't see anything else.
When she finally stepped into her house, ran up to her room, and shut the door, she took a deep breath. The first deep breath she had taken in two hours. Her mind was clearer away from Rachel. She could breathe again away from Rachel.
Quinn's stomach dropped in what she could now identify as jealousy, mixed with honest anxiety about the mistake she was making, when Rachel walked into their next Glee meeting with a sparkling diamond wrapped around her finger. She tried to smile, but her eyes betrayed her disappointment.
Rachel tried to catch her after Glee, to explain.
"Quinn, wait…"
"I have to go, Rachel."
Quinn turned, heart pounding, tears threatening to break free and break her cover. She wouldn't let that happen.
"You'll regret this," she managed to speak, without a hint of a tremble, before her throat closed entirely.
Quinn didn't hear Rachel's reply. Her shoes clacked against the floor as loudly as she could make them. She started sobbing as soon as she landed on her bed at home.
She knew she couldn't tell Rachel how she felt. It would turn all of her advice, the things she hoped Rachel would eventually hear and heed, into selfish manipulation. Rachel would never leave Finn, never make it to New York then. She couldn't tell anyone else either. She didn't trust anyone else at McKinley like she trusted Rachel.
So she wrote a letter. Quinn never intended to send it, but she tossed eight crumpled drafts into the trash before settling on the perfect letter, the one that would explain everything to Rachel, absolve Quinn of suspicions of selfishness, and at the very least, tell Rachel the one thing Quinn wanted her to hear above all else: that Quinn loved her. Quinn loved her truly, deeply, without hope or expectation. Save the expectation that Rachel follow and fulfill her dreams and see her name in lights on Broadway.
She folded the letter and set it on her desk. Her heart remained steady more often when she saw Rachel. She could dance and laugh and enjoy Glee again. She could breathe.
After much internal deliberation, Quinn decided that she would hand Rachel the letter at the end of their very last Glee meeting. She needed Rachel to know.
Quinn began to imagine Rachel chasing her into the parking lot, telling Quinn that she had the same feelings, that she didn't want to marry Finn after all. Quinn even allowed herself to fantasize about Rachel's lips on hers, Rachel's hands tangled in her hair, Rachel's hands and lips everywhere.
Quinn carried that letter into the choir room, running her fingers along the creases as she turned the letter in her hands nervously. Then Rachel and Finn walked in, arm-in-arm, that goddamn gold ring glinting in the light, still wrapped around that perfect finger. Rachel was smiling, happy. Quinn quietly tucked the letter into her bag.
As much as Quinn wanted to pull Rachel aside and remind her that Finn would just weigh her down, she bit her tongue and pulled her face into something resembling a grin. She congratulated them again.
At the end of the meeting, she hugged each member goodbye, and glanced back as she walked out the door. Rachel was touching Finn's chest, discussing something intently.
Suddenly, that tower toppled over onto Quinn as well.
Rachel and Finn were getting married. Rachel would never love her back.
Rachel wasn't even watching her walk away.