Author's Note: 1) I started this right after I Am Unicorn and was working off of that and the preview for Asian F, so the divisive minutea is a result of that (as opposed to the divisive everything else, which comes from my mind). 2) This was intended to be...oh, about 1,000 words initially.
Other Author's Note: Somehow, when I posted this the first time, an entire scene at the end got chopped out. Good on me for noticing a week later. I figured since I had to reload the whole thing, I'd just bite the bullet and break it out into six chapters, just for formatting's sake, even though in my head it's still a oneshot.
Her first rehearsal back in the glee club is almost more uncomfortable than the first week of July, when she took her nose ring and freshly-dyed hair and set off on a carefully planned campaign to take over the disorganized trio of angry girls who had laid claim to the smoking spot beneath the bleachers. Then, she had to pretend that she didn't care for herself; now, she has to pretend that she does.
Mack was the hardest of the skanks to win over, and in the end all it took was a fake ID and helping her lift two bottles of cheap vodka from a liquor store the next town over. Compared to impressing Coach Sylvester enough to make cheer captain as a sophomore—which had involved five AM wind sprints and surviving three weeks on nothing but water and the Sue Sylvester Master Cleanse—Mack is a pushover. Glee, though, is a whole other level of difficult.
The first steps are easy because she's done them before: her mother is more than happy to drop the money to have a blonde daughter again, her old clothes are still hanging in her closet—in a room that was left untouched and unchanged over the summer, partly because she was never there and partly because ever since being allowed back in it, she's been terrified to change anything—and she never really liked the nose ring all that much.
After that, it's intimidating but not impossible to approach the half of the club stuck in Mike's and Mr. Scheu's boot camp. Mercedes is there with open arms—and it takes all of the control Quinn has not to sneer at Mr. Scheu when Mercedes greets her back so happily, because proving his accusations wrong is less important than getting Beth back— and Finn looks happy that she seems less likely to spray him with a fire extinguisher than she had the day before; Mike smiles easily and Kurt giggles, and Puck looks at her with something like approval flickering across his face.
The next day, though, is the challenge. Because in the full club, there's everyone else: Tina and her quite intuition; Brittany, so distant without Santana; and Rachel, who is always so terrifyingly perceptive and obnoxiously persistent. Mr. Scheu announces her return with a smile, as if he hadn't been ripping her a new one less than a week earlier, and she lets herself flush and duck her eyes and murmur something stupid and appropriate just to keep their eyes off of her.
She doesn't know which is harder, just like she doesn't know if it hurts more to look in the mirror and see herself hidden behind a practiced mask of perfection or a calculated façade of apathy. At least this way, she has a chance to get Beth back and fix the worst mistake she ever made.
She ingratiates herself into the life she had the year before. Coach Sylvester ignores her, but Santana and Brittany welcome her back into the inexplicably solid friendship the three of them had once shared, and less than a week after she rejoins the glee club, she finds herself helping Brittany choreograph a dance number for the upcoming senior class assembly, in support of the other girl's run for class president.
She hates how much she had missed everything that went into being Brittany's friend—the spontaneity, the cheerfulness, the never-ending movement—almost as much as she hates the way Puck is constantly watching her out of the corner of his eye. He hasn't spoken to her since her first rehearsal back, and she does her best to ignore him, because she doesn't need him to get Beth back.
When she takes the lead with Brittany and Santana for the brief second in the performance, when everyone else falls to the floor, she forgets for the most fleeting moment that all of this—the blonde hair, the cardigans and sundresses, the glee club, everything that had made up her old life—is all to get Beth back, and just for that second it feels fun. Brittany, even when she's serious, is infectiously happy, and Santana is happy as long as Brittany is happy, and even when her mind is focused on trying to come up with ways to regain custody of her daughter, Quinn finds herself smiling and laughing along with them.
When Mr. Scheu, in all of his usual pretentiousness, gets up to sing after them, she slips away from the crowds and makes her way to an empty spot behind the gym because the last thing she wants to do is listen to him sing Coldplay. She can never smoke at home without her mom knowing and the skanks still lay claim to the bleachers, but there's an alcove where the fencing that rings around the football field meets the emergency exit with the broken alarm, and she can stand there and smoke in peace.
"I thought you quit."
Rachel's voice surprises her, and she almost drops the cigarette. A few flecks of ash flutter down and cling to the hem of her dress, and Quinn stares down at the disinterestedly.
"What are you doing here?" She's avoided Rachel since rejoining the club, even though a conversation seemed inevitable, and she's too tired right now to deal with Rachel's good intentions and earnest eyes.
"Mr. Scheu didn't want backing vocals," Rachel offers as an explanation, and Quinn laughs quietly. Of course he didn't.
Rachel takes her laughter as mockery, and sets her shoulders defiantly, half-glaring at Quinn. "It was supposed to be my song, you know," she says firmly. "I suggested it, I did the instrumentation, but he said that it would be better to have a teacher sing so as not to distract from the other students performing in the pep rally and—"
"That song was your idea?" Quinn looks at her curiously, her practiced mask slipping in surprise, and something about the way Rachel suddenly flushes and looks so terribly uncomfortable makes Quinn feel something in her stomach that she can't quite identify.
"It—felt appropriate," Rachel mumbles, and Quinn can't stop herself from staring, even when Rachel starts to fidget uncomfortably.
"I hope you don't smoke too often," Rachel says quietly after long seconds on the receiving end of Quinn's appraising gaze. "Ideally, not at all, but if you need to then I just hope you don't make a real habit out of it because—"
"It'll hurt my voice, right?" Quinn interrupts. She throws a pointed, exasperated look Rachel's way before inhaling the smoke into her lungs slowly.
"Because it hurts all of you," Rachel says. She sighs, shifting to lean against the cool brick wall at her side. "You looked like you were having fun in there," she adds on after a moment. "With Brittany and Santana."
Quinn shrugs, staring intently down at the cigarette in her hand.
"You didn't used to look like you enjoyed dancing with the Cheerios," Rachel plows on, and Quinn's head snaps up at the words, making Rachel shrink back. "I just mean that you dance like you want to be dancing now, not because you have to. Like you don't care what people think."
The words swirl around and leave her shivering in the silence, and she can't find it in herself to move, except to bring the cigarette back up to her lips.
"You looked happy, is all," Rachel says slowly. "It was a really good performance, everything about it. Everyone really loved it."
"Shouldn't you be angry that Britt's going to beat your new best friend?"
Rachel shrugs neutrally. "I love Kurt and I'd love to see him win, because he'd be good for the school, but he's running for himself. And even if he deserves it, Brittany's running for everyone. As far as I can tell, regardless of which one of them wins, we don't lose."
Quinn wants to roll her eyes and scoff, but just like always, Rachel's honesty is overwhelming, and all she can manage is a slow, measured exhale of smoke. She shifts to the side, leaning back against the wall as well, and stares blankly towards the football field.
"Aren't you going to ask?" she says eventually, slotting a measured look over towards Rachel. "You clearly want to."
"I want to know, but that doesn't mean I want to ask," Rachel says. "I'm glad that you came back to glee, Quinn. I really am, even if I don't know what changed you mind. But when I said 'whenever you're ready', I actually meant it."
She pushes away from the wall and dusts of her hands, staring at Quinn earnestly. "I'll see you in class," she offers, and disappears through the doors. Quinn stares at the spot Rachel had occupied until the remnants of her cigarette burn against her fingers, and she simply stubs it out—against the no smoking sign, just because she can and she misses being able to say she doesn't give a shit— before striding towards her car.
Hi, Beth. I—I'm hoping you know my voice still, but just in case you don't, this is Quinn. I'm your…well, Shelby is your mom, but I'm your birth mom. I had to give you up when you were born, because I couldn't be who you needed me to be, but I've been a part of your life for the last few months now. I hope I still am by the time you're old enough to maybe want to hear this, but if I'm not, I wanted you to have something from now. From when Shelby and me and Puck—Noah—your dad—are all here with you, and we all love you, so much.