Christmas Morning, a glee fanfic

Disclaimer: You really think I own Glee? Don't be silly now...

"Quinn."

Rachel frowned, flopping back onto her pillow with a small huff of frustration. 'This is maddening,' she thought to herself as her eyes slid to the digital clock on her bedside table, the red numbers almost taunting her as they displayed the time.

7:23am.

She'd actually gotten a lot better at sleeping in. After the first few times Quinn had shoved her bodily out of bed before burying her head beneath her pillow, her 6am wake-up routine had quickly been relegated to the past. It had gotten to the point where high school Rachel would have been disgusted at her older self's habits: anything before midday was pretty much a lost cause for the pair on weekends and holidays, a concept that at first had been foreign to the brunette. But, she figured, it was the least she could do - only this week, Rachel had caught Quinn staring longingly at a packet of bacon.

And yet here she was, lying awake on Christmas morning and staring at her unconscious girlfriend, no amount of counting sheep able to send her back into a similar state. 'Who even thought counting sheep would be an effective manner to induce someone to sleep?' Rachel grumbled to herself as she watched the steady rise and fall of Quinn's (admittedly rather nice to gaze at) chest. Frankly, she didn't understand. It was Christmas morning. Didn't people wake at the crack of dawn to race to their Christmas tree on a single-minded quest to turn their living room into a wrapping paper emporium? At least, that's what several PowerPoint's worth of research on how to throw the perfect Christmas had taught her...

(Quinn's attempts to get Rachel to give up PowerPointing hadn't been quite as successful as changing her sleeping habits, but what the blonde didn't know wouldn't hurt her, and she wasn't about to let their first Christmas living together be a disaster. Though she had immediately handed all responsibilities for turkey cooking to Quinn once she found out what turkey stuffing actually entailed.)

"Quinn," she tried again, a little louder this time.

"Nghhh...wha?"

"It's Christmas!" she whispered excitedly, shaking the blonde's arm gently. If her Jewish girlfriend was this excited, surely this would have Quinn bolting from the bed.

Apparently not, as the only reaction she garnered from the blonde was a barely intelligible instruction to sleep.

Rachel bristled at the instruction. She didn't want to sleep, not after all the effort she'd put into this Christmas, and was preparing to shake the blonde awake before she realised that maybe this was Quinn's tradition for the holiday. It was only fair, she supposed, to let her girlfriend sleep in, especially after she'd indulged all of Rachel's crazy Hanukkah traditions. No amount of questioning Noah about the holiday could have prepared the blonde for her 8 day set menu, or insistence that she join Rachel in wearing a different colour each day (but at least now the blonde understood why she owned animal jumpers in so many colours).

Fine; she, Rachel Berry, was nothing if not a good girlfriend (she had several PowerPoints worth of evidence to prove it). If Quinn wanted to sleep in with her girlfriend on Christmas morning, then so she would. She closed her eyes and somehow, maybe through the sheer force of determination, drifted into a doze.

Eyes fluttering open, Rachel yawned, glancing at her still sleeping girlfriend before twisting her head to look at her clock, fully expecting it to be at least past nine.

7:46am.

She'd never been a particularly violent person (conveniently forgetting the time she'd slapped a Yale student that kept hitting on Quinn in front of her), but only the thought that Christmas wouldn't be the best time to change that kept her from launching the clock, with its stupid red letters, at the wall.

The brunette sighed, glancing at the clock again in the vain hope it would have suddenly skipped forward two hours before turning back to Quinn. Good girlfriend or not, she was waking up the blonde.

"Quinn," she said, no longer bothering to keep her voice down as she accompanied her words with a prod. She was pleased to get a response from the blonde, even if it was only a very sleepy "What?".

"I'm wearing nothing but tinsel, want to see?"

The blonde forced her eyes open slightly at that, rolling over slowly onto her side to look at Rachel as a hand shot out to pat over her chest. "Liar," she muttered before yawning, Rachel clearly wearing pyjamas meant to look like a decorated Christmas tree. At the back of her mind, she enjoyed how excited her girlfriend was getting over her first Christmas, but right now all she wanted to do was close her eyes. "Go back to sleep."

Rachel huffed. This was proving harder than she thought, watching as Quinn's eyes drifted shut once more. Normally, once Quinn was awake, she couldn't get back to sleep, even it was much earlier than her usual waking time. This wasn't fair, why did Quinn have to sleep in today? After she'd spent so long explaining to Rachel all the fun things she did on Christmas, the brunette would have expected her girlfriend to be out of bed as soon as possible.

"Quinn," she tried again, much sterner this time, and frowned as the blonde pulled the covers over her head at the sound of her name. "It's Christmas, a very important day, and we don't want to waste the day by sleeping."

A muffled sigh of exasperation came from somewhere beneath the covers. "Rachel," Quinn groaned (Rachel tried not to smirk, but her girlfriend definitely sounded more awake), "You're Jewish. Go back to sleep."

Rachel huffed and crossed her arms, biting the inside of her cheek as she stared at the ceiling. Right now, kicking Quinn in the shins until she woke up seemed like a very acceptable action, until she remembered her previous no-violence-at-Christmas pledge. After all, they weren't living in some ridiculous Vince Vaughn festive movie which ended with everyone wearing matching jumpers.

Okay, maybe she'd watched every Christmas movie she could get her hands on to prepare for the holidays. Rachel Berry was nothing if not thorough.

She had no idea if Quinn had dropped back to sleep, the covers still pulled over her face, but her girlfriend's lack of movement suggested she had. Or that she was at least feigning sleep to get Rachel to leave her alone (that had happened a few times...turns out the Yale drama department hadn't taught its students how to convincingly act asleep when being tickled by their girlfriend). Huffing dramatically, a last ditch attempt to wake up the blonde, she resolved to run through all her preparations for today, making sure she'd done everything to ensure their first Christmas together was better than any movie. Well, maybe not Elf, but Rachel been banned from watching that for the last week, Quinn going as far as to confiscate the DVD after finding her girlfriend watching it for the fifth time in two days, surrounded by candy canes. Who'd have thought a Will Ferrell movie would be her new Funny Girl?

'No, Rachel, focus!' she scolded herself. The food was all prepared, they'd bought enough drink for when Brittany and Santana were coming round later, and she'd wrapped all her presents and snuck out of the room last night to lay them under the tree. Everything, in short, was perfect - like she'd accept at less - apart from one thing.

She sighed, biting her lip as she rolled onto her side to face the bundle of covers Quinn was currently hiding behind. Was it such a crime to want to spend the entire day with her girlfriend, on what was meant to be the most enjoyable days of the year?

"Quinn," she murmured softly, resting her hand where the assumed the girl's hip was. "It's our first Christmas together...I just want to spend the whole day with you and for it to be perfect, not spent with you asleep while I'm lying next to you, thinking about turkey..."

Rachel wasn't above a little guilt trip now and again.

The covers flopped down as a decidedly pink-faced Quinn emerged, glaring playfully at Rachel. "I hate you," she moaned, unable to keep a small smile from playing across her lips as she pushed herself to lean back against the headboard.

"No you don't. You love me," the brunette corrected with a grin. "And you'll love me even more when I go and make you candy cane hot chocolate."

Quinn chuckled, for once not cursing that damn Will Ferrell movie for her girlfriend's new found obsession with candy canes, and pulled her in for a quick kiss before the brunette clambered out of bed. "Merry Christmas, babe," she smiled, her grin growing as Rachel switched on Christmas lights she must have strung up around the room after she went to went to sleep last night before heading for the kitchen, humming 'Rocking Around the Christmas Tree'.

Yes: spending it with her enthusiastic, Jewish perfectionist of a girlfriend who could still survive on little sleep was definitely the way to do Christmas.

Author's note: So, how's that for a first story?