summary: Because Quinn's a postmodernist and Rachel wants to sing infinitely. Mortality is important. Faberry drabble, just post-omw, in college, and with fababies. Functions as a continuation of "your absence has gone through me" from Rachel's POV.
an (1): i'm very tired and also i love postmodernism even though i think sometimes it's absolutely ridiculous. hopefully you feel the same :)
an (2): title from ellie goulding's 'anything could happen.' references from don delillo's white noise.
...
after the war we said we'd fight together (i guess we thought that's just what humans do)
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what is there to say? the sunsets linger and so do we.
...
(isn't death the boundary we need? doesn't death give a precious texture to life?)
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The courthouse smells like a mausoleum. In a way, Rachel supposes, it is not much different: The dead are everywhere, in marble tile and in the squeak of black soles against it. People are here to complete something.
"We'd have felt it if she died," Brittany murmurs to Santana, then takes Santana's keys out of her trembling hand.
The dead have a presence, Rachel remembers, Quinn's voice in her head. Perhaps we are what they dream.
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Hospitals smell alive. This is both interesting and terribly mundane. Hospitals, in fact, smell horrifically alive, throbbing with blood and wounds, vomit and infection, along the desperate fight against this.
Hospitals smell like humanity.
Quinn has had a hole drilled in her skull. Quinn has had her chest cut open and held back with retractors; her lung has been stitched together from where her ribs tore through it. The skin above Quinn's spine has been sliced through, the tiny vertebrae there have been reset with screws, drilled and sawed and shaped and reinforced. Bruises have appeared everywhere; Quinn is bleeding beneath her skin.
None of these things are metaphors.
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Medicine is able to be pumped directly into Quinn's heart. Nothing about this has anything to do with poetry, and this makes Rachel angry.
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She watches television when it's on. The screen is dusty. When she wipes it off, the dust clings to her hand. Dead skin coats her own, and she can't tell if it's really any different.
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Quinn's brain starts to heal itself.
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Quinn wakes up for the first time in the middle of the morning. She does not emerge with the sunrise, and she does not sleep with the sunset—she is erratic, this confused default. But she is awake sometimes, and her skin smells like soap.
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"I should have died," Quinn says. Her voice sounds like a gasp. She says she has a constant headache. Her legs refuse to move. It is not a question.
"You didn't," Rachel says. Rachel takes her hand. It is the middle of the night, and she has to make sure. "Quinn, you didn't."
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"Do you think it's worse for the people left behind?" Quinn asks. She leans back in bed, disappearing in a mass of pillows. "Is our fear of death the same as our fear of disappointment, only larger, unfixable, permanent?"
Santana sighs and rubs the crease that runs between her eyes. Rachel feels tired.
Quinn fidgets and flutters her fingers against the monitor that is still stuck in her scull. "Why are we scared of something that happens to everyone?"
Brittany rolls her eyes. "Because, Quinn," she says, gently taking Quinn's restless hand in her own, "people hate to die."
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Quinn wakes up from surgery in which the doctors removed the little pressure monitor. "My head hurts like a bitch," she groans.
"I'm sorry," Rachel tells her, then runs a hand gently through Quinn's hair.
Quinn sighs. Quinn relaxes. Quinn blinks slowly. "I've been morbid. Sorry."
"You had a lot of thinking to do."
"It was a confusing time. Mortality sucks."
Rachel laughs.
"Postmodernism is my favorite and I also hate it," Quinn says. "Literary movements can say a lot about a person, you know."
"Quinn?"
Rachel kisses her cheek. "I'm just really glad you didn't die."
Quinn smiles. Quinn closes her eyes. "God," she says, "me too."
...
(wish for more, for something bigger, grander, more sweeping)
.
The first time Rachel goes to visit Quinn at Yale, Quinn is so bright Rachel can't stop smiling. Quinn is messier; Quinn has started to unravel, an infinitely expanding universe. Quinn wears jeans and oversized sweaters and riding boots, and Quinn is beautiful. Quinn takes Rachel to the roof of her dorm in the middle of the night.
"A meteor shower," she says. She sets down a blanket and lies back against it. Rachel does too. "Whatever you do," Quinn instructs, "don't stop wishing."
Rachel watches shooting stars reflect, unfocused, uncertain, multiplied by two, in Quinn's eyes.
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"I'm going to do a philosophy minor," Quinn says. She flinches without purpose as a truck zooms by them while they wait to cross the road.
"That sounds perfect," Rachel says.
"Mainly it'll just serve to piss my father off further." Quinn laughs. She straightens and takes Rachel's hand. "But I'm buried in student loans anyway."
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"Love isn't stronger than death," Quinn says. "At least not in the human sense. Loving someone doesn't make them immortal."
"Unless you sing about them," Rachel finds herself whispering into Quinn's collarbone.
Quinn laughs.
"If it's recorded," Rachel ventures, "it's preserved."
"I'll make a postmodernist of you after all, Rachel Berry."
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Rachel wonders lots of things in the middle of the night. "What would life be like without you in it?"
Quinn groans. "I'd sleep better," she mumbles.
Rachel's pulse races. "Take it back," she says.
"I love you," Quinn says instead.
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The next morning, Rachel wakes up. Quinn is hugging her. Quinn's eyes are blinking.
"Do you remember?" Quinn asks.
Rachel leans forward and wonders if it's okay. It is the morning. The lights everywhere are bright. "I love you too," she says.
She kisses Quinn. Quinn kisses her back.
The bed smells like them both, full of life.
...
(we were a magic act, adults and children together, sharing unaccountable things)
.
For a moment it's confusing, because Rachel forgets where she is (a tiny glimpse of infinity, she thinks, a false perception, according to Quinn, and then she laughs).
"Mommy," Felix sniffles, dragging his blanket to Rachel's side of the bed. His white-blond hair is silver in the moonlight. Quinn doesn't stir beneath Rachel, her breathing even and deep.
Rachel smiles and sits up. "Did you have a nightmare?"
Felix nods purposefully. He's four, and this has been a common occurrence lately. Rachel has learned that Quinn possesses the ability to sleep through fire alarms (it happened once at NYADA).
"People killed me," Felix says. He wobbles. His eyes are green even in the dark.
"Come here," Rachel says, and she scoops him up, runs her fingers through his hair. He looks like Quinn, especially now, when sleep has removed her wisdom. "You're safe," she tells Felix. "Here." She takes his hand and puts it against his chest. Her fingers feel his furiously beating heart. This is, Rachel understands now, because she carried him inside of her—after months of unsuccessful IVF—and felt him grow, felt him become. "Do you feel how alive you are?"
Felix grins. "Cool," he says.
Quinn turns over beside the two of them and grasps for Rachel, her brow furrowing.
Felix laughs.
"Do you feel better now?" Rachel asks. "Want to go back to bed?"
"Yeah," Felix says. Rachel gets up and carries him, situates him against her hip and then places him in his bed.
"Sing," he says.
Rachel smiles. She does.
Felix falls asleep soundly.
When Rachel gets back to her room, Quinn is sitting up in bed. Quinn looks sleepy.
"None of my grad students are as wise as our four year old," she says.
Rachel smiles. Quinn kisses her neck. Rachel presses her front against Quinn's (healed) back.
"Four year olds aren't caught up in philosophy or metaphor," Quinn says. "People are just people."
"He's so much like you."
Quinn snuggles further into Rachel's embrace. It's practiced behaviour now, because Rachel likes the feeling of Quinn's breaths.
Rachel says, "Children make us immortal."
"I will unravel the stars for you," Quinn mumbles.
.
They awaken after the sunrise, when it is already bright.