Part 2

Indiana to Kansas

Finn rolled them up to a McDonald's in the morning for breakfast, after Rachel and Quinn had safely extracted themselves from their little nest and the couch had been put back together. Mercedes shot out of her seat when she realized he was going to try to fit through the drive thru.

"No, Finn, you need to park." She demanded. "Stop yourself right here."

He grinned back at her and gestured up to a sign at the entrance of the drive thru. "Relax, Mercedes. The clearance is 12'2." We're only 12.'"

She stared at him like she couldn't decide if he was being serious or not.

"Yeah, uh, that's only two inches Finn." Artie contributed. "I wouldn't risk it."

Quinn watched Rachel and Brittany pick up the four rolls of toilet paper Lord Tubbington had shredded in the night when he'd realized he couldn't reach Mercedes. To maul her.

"Dude, we'll drive away without a roof. Or with McDonald's on our back." Puck remarked, though he looked delighted at the prospect.

"It'll take forever if we all go inside." Finn complained.

Quinn pressed her fingers to her temples. "You know, even if you could fit under it, you wouldn't be able to round that corner, so we'd either tip over and roll down the hill, or end up in their kitchen, so…"

Finn parked, and everybody ate breakfast except for Rachel because McDonald's was a "despicable establishment," and Quinn went back to the RV with her for fruit and toast. Finn side-swiped a trashcan on the way out of the lot and received many congratulations that he'd made it all the way to Indiana before he finally hit something.

The world's largest ball of paint was exactly as boring as it sounded. Puck seemed ashamed that he'd recommended it, and they left after Brittany's loud suggestion of "Can we roll it down the hill?"

They stopped at a giant lady's leg sundial, which just really shouldn't exist, and Quinn was surprised to find that it fit its name perfectly. A giant plastic leg planted in the ground, acting as a sundial.

Puck hugged the thigh of the massive bent leg and forced everybody to take his picture.

"This is a real woman!" He shouted, gaining the attention of other tourists and causing Quinn, Rachel, Tina, and Kurt to turn on their heels and walk away.

"She doesn't have any arms." Brittany countered loudly. She had Lord Tubbington on a leash and was struggling to keep him from scaling the leg. "Or a right leg. Or a body, actually…Puck, it's a leg."

Quinn figured that the sooner they got out of oddity-packed central Indiana, the better.

A gravel road took them to the Wizard of Oz Museum and Gift Shop, and Rachel's smile grew with every jolt and rumble of the bus. She squealed when she saw the wooden cut-outs of the characters standing on the front lawn.

Quinn silently thanked God that it wasn't some sketchy, dilapidated old shack museum turned meth lab.

"Quinn!" Rachel exclaimed, as brightly as ever, draped over the arm chair with her face pressed to the window.

Quinn, and everybody else who'd missed seeing her like that, watched her fondly.

Puck laughed loudly, pointing at the scarecrow cut-out. "Oh man, look, it's Finn."

Rachel was humming "If I Only Had a Brain" before she even stepped foot off the bus. "Let's take a picture with Dorothy!" she requested, dragging Quinn over to the cut-out.

Dorothy seemed to be having a few problems, because she was missing half of her arm and tilting sideways like she'd been wasted last night, but Rachel didn't seem to care.

Quinn smiled and pointed down at Toto. "A little dog we can take home."

Rachel laughed, but Puck crouched down and pulled on the terrier cut-out.

"Don't un-earth it!" Kurt shrieked.

"Is this like, glued into the ground or something? Cemented down?"

"It's probably stakes." Mike offered. "Like a tent."

Kurt kicked at Puck's wrists. "You'll snap it in half! They're in bad enough condition already!"

Rachel left that mess in the yard and entered the museum, which was only one room-large and connected to a cozy gift shop. The floor was ugly yellow tile, probably supposed to resemble the Yellow Brick Road, and the walls were covered in movie stills and homemade memorabilia.

It wasn't a particularly nice museum, but Rachel could see it, and the little wooden flying monkeys and blue checkered dresses, and that was enough for Quinn to just sit back and watch her girlfriend enjoy it all.

"It's cool, isn't it?" Quinn mused once Rachel moved into the gift shop.

Rachel held Quinn's hand and tilted her head. "It smells odd, and it might fall down tomorrow, but it is very pleasant and I'm glad I could see it all."

Quinn nodded. It probably would fall down tomorrow.

"So thank you for bringing me here, baby." Rachel said, a little quieter. "I needed it."

Quinn stopped and caught Rachel's eye and presented her with a music box. Rachel looked at it like it was an engagement ring.

It was bright-if not a little tacky-on the inside, with a yellow plastic road and a tiny green Oz and a picture of all the characters skipping along, but it played "Somewhere over the Rainbow," and Quinn knew that's what would matter to Rachel.

Rachel pressed her lips together and surged forward to hug Quinn, clutching the box tightly in one hand.

"Your souvenir." Quinn chuckled into her ear.

"I love you so much, baby." Rachel murmured. "Thank you so much."

Quinn left the museum with a stuffed Toto, pleased to find that the wooden Toto on the front lawn hadn't been snapped in half by Noah Puckerman. Brittany left with some kind of mechanical flying monkey that would end up on the side of the interstate within an hour because of the noises it made, and Mike left without his hat because he'd put it on the Tin Man to take a picture with him.

Finn turned them around to retrieve it, and Quinn took the opportunity to take a picture with the Cowardly Lion, wrapping her arms around him and gazing up at him like a lover because it made Rachel laugh.

And then they left Indiana, and its array of useless oddities, and drifted right into Illinois.

~ooooooooooooo~

Quinn rolled out of the bunk in the middle of the night on day three. It had only been a matter of time.

She'd declined Kurt and Mercedes' offer to sleep in the bed with them because she liked the closeness with Rachel in the tiny bunk. It reminded her of Key Largo. Of taking care of her buddy. And so it was nobody's fault but her own when she rolled in her sleep and fell eight feet to the floor at two in the morning.

She was shocked, for a moment, and she didn't know where she was or why her ankle was throbbing, but then the lights flipped on and tired voices cried out from the fold-out couch and she realized exactly what had happened.

"Shit." Quinn groaned, right as Rachel's sleepy, mussed head peeked over the edge of the bunk, wide-eyed and worried.

"Oh my God, are you okay?!" Tina cried, blearily rising from the armchair.

"Holy-what was that?"

"Did something fall through the roof?" Brittany's thick voice questioned.

"Jesus-shit." Quinn hissed, clutching her ankle. "Rachel, back up." she called up to the overhead bunk, picturing her girlfriend pitching headfirst over the edge and landing on Quinn's stomach. "Be careful."

Puck emerged from the bedroom, tipping sideways into the countertop. "Oh, dude, it's Quinn."

Quinn lay in a heap, staring at the ceiling and blinking against the light, and several confused faces appeared in her peripheral vision, with lines in them from pillows and blankets and violent cases of bedhead.

"Did you fall?" Finn asked, crouching down in front of her.

Quinn rolled her eyes. "No. I jumped. I decided to leap out of bed in the middle of the night."

Finn nodded warily.

"Quinn?" Rachel's soft, disembodied voice called. "Are you alright? Should I come down?"

"It looks like she's sleeping on the floor tonight, Rachel." Kurt answered.

Quinn scoffed. "I'm fine, babe. I just sprained my ankle a little."

"How do you sprain your ankle a little?" Santana asked, trying to free one of Brittany's legs from the mechanism of the fold-out couch.

"Well, it's not twisted all the way off, so-"

"Okay, I'm coming down." Rachel stated resolutely.

Puck got up to catch her before Quinn even gave him the order, and Mike moved Quinn to the armchair with some ice and a blanket for shock, at Kurt's instruction. Rachel dropped their pillows and blankets into Puck's arms, and then carefully plucked her way down the little ladder.

"Somebody turn the lights back off." Santana complained, dubbing the situation boring enough to ignore now.

Finn complied, and Rachel tripped into the armchair with Quinn, hissing at the ice, and Mike took the overhead bunk while Tina moved to sleep in the dining booth.

And then everybody went back to sleep. Because nothing had fallen from the sky.

Quinn had just plummeted to the ground and hurt herself, like she'd predicted on day one.

~ooooooooooooo~

Puck rolled the RV through Illinois without stopping, and they made it halfway through Missouri before running low on gas. Quinn was pleasantly surprised that they didn't actually run out in the middle of the highway. Sputter pathetically and then roll to a halt on the side of the road.

At the gas station, Quinn watched with much amusement as Rachel nearly had an aneurysm when she saw that it cost over four hundred dollars to fill up the tank.

"It's diesel, Rachel. This thing's a beast." Puck explained, banging his fist fondly against the orange siding.

"Hey, shut it!" Someone yelled out of the open window.

Brittany's head appeared there a minute later, and she threw a banana peel in Quinn's direction. "Can you throw this away for me, please?" she called out loudly.

Quinn stared at where her face had been. "There's a trash can in there, Britt."

A pink sock-clad foot appeared in the window, which meant that Brittany was either doing a hand stand on the couch or she'd been dismembered. "Artie put his tuna in there, and I don't want to take the top off because it'll make Tina throw up, and if she throws up then Kurt will throw up, and it'll all be a lot worse than a banana peel on the floor."

Rachel picked the peel off the ground and threw it away, and then she bought juice for herself and Sour Patch Kids for Quinn, and they settled back on the bus for the short trip to Kansas City.

Finn's plan was to see a Royals game, but Quinn figured they'd get lost in the middle of the city and give up on that halfway through the night.

Two hours later, they rumbled off Interstate 70 and pulled into Kauffmann Stadium parking.

Puck stood up while the bus chugged through the long line of traffic. "On our left, we have Arrowhead Stadium," he gestured like a tour guide, "home to the incredibly awful Kansas City Chiefs, and on our right, we have Kauffman, home to the equally incredibly awful Kansas City Royals. Welcome to the home of shit sports teams, people."

"How much is parking here?" Tina called out, ignoring him completely. "Seven hundred dollars?"

Mercedes laughed. "Is there a hideous orange bus fee too? Do we have to pay the medical bills of the people who are blinded by our RV?"

"Wait, dude, seriously, where's parking?" Finn asked loudly, leaning low over the steering wheel and squinting his eyes at all the little signs.

He started swerving to the right. "We're a commercial vehicle, right?"

Quinn almost punched her hand through the glass window.

"Finn, we are not a commercial vehicle." She stated slowly, resisting the urge to smack him.

"Oh yeah, we didn't get weighed."

Mike squinted out the window. "It says cars over two tons go right."

"Maybe we should've gotten weighed."

Quinn held both her hands up and glanced around, looking for some sense, because she really couldn't believe the people surrounding her. Rachel ran a hand along her forearm and smiled at her softly, and Quinn relaxed.

"Does anyone have a costume?" Santana asked loudly, digging through her bags at the back of the bus. "I don't want any of these people to see me climbing out of this dumbass bus."

Kurt rolled his eyes. "Because everybody knows you in Kansas City."

Rachel walked up to the front of the RV and crouched between the two seats. "We're over two tons, Finn, so go right." She instructed. "It'll be twenty dollars, and just follow the sign for buses and park in that line of coaches over there, okay?"

Quinn thanked God every day for her sensible, helpful girlfriend.

"Thank you, Rachel." She said with a smile when Rachel sat back down with her.

Rachel grinned. "I've never been to a baseball game before. This is exciting. It's like a show, but less staged and more audience-interactive."

Quinn hummed sagely. "So you'll be streaking, then? Right through the outfield? Completely naked?"

Rachel's ears turned red, and she pressed her lips together and smacked Quinn's shoulder.

"Because that's a show I'd like to see." Quinn laughed, trying to grab onto a squirming Rachel to kiss her cheek.

Rachel relented, and Quinn kissed her cheek, and then her barely suppressed smile, and pulled away to find Santana standing by the couch wearing a brunette bob wig and dark, reflective sunglasses.

Quinn stayed silent. She was not touching that situation with a ten foot pole.

Finn parked, and everybody disembarked and walked about nine miles-according to Kurt- to get their tickets. Quinn hobbled, supported by Rachel, Mike, and a cheerleading brace around her ankle.

Brittany had to go back to the bus because she'd left one of the windows open and Lord Tubbington was bound to escape, and Puck had to go back because he had a pocket knife, a fork, a Gerber tool, and a lighter in various compartments in his pants, and Quinn wondered briefly if he was trying to get arrested.

Their seats were on the first-base line, and Rachel was far more fascinated with the fountain show beyond right field than with anything happening on the clay.

Quinn was ready to dive into the fountain by the end of the first inning.

"I really thought the middle of the country would be cooler." Artie lamented.

Mike frowned. "Why would you think that?"

Artie tilted his head like he wasn't sure. "Well, like, the deeper you go into a steak, the more frozen it gets."

Sound logic.

"But if you drill into the Earth, you reach a hot ball of magma." Tina countered.

Artie nodded resolutely. "So what we've done here is drilled into a steak and reached a hot ball of magma known as Kansas City."

Rachel rubbed at her forehead, and Quinn watched her closely.

"You okay, bud?" she whispered, knocking her shoulder into Rachel's over the blue plastic armrest.

Rachel's smile was tight. "It's just very hot. And it's sort of hurting my eyes."

Quinn turned to face her more fully, ready to run for ice or a wet cloth or migraine pills or whatever Rachel needed. "Does your head hurt too?"

Rachel hesitated, but nodded.

Quinn stood up immediately and held her hand out for Rachel. "Come on, sweetheart. I'll get you a frozen lemonade and we'll sit in the shade for a bit."

Rachel looked grateful for that, and she took Quinn's hand and followed her, squeezing past their line of friends.

"Don't touch her." Quinn warned, slipping past Puck and Finn.

They grinned and held their hands up innocently.

"That guy keeps spitting over the fence." Kurt stated, nose scrunched up and pointing at somebody in the home dugout. "It's disgusting."

Santana scoffed. "They're all disgusting. That one hasn't let go of his balls since he walked on the field."

"Why have you been staring at his balls the whole time?" Quinn questioned, knocking into Santana's knee as she passed.

"I'll shove your girlfriend in the fountain, Fabray."

Quinn raised an eyebrow at her. "Me too, please."

Mercedes groaned. "Oh God, you're right. Why is he holding himself like that?"

"You guys, my seat's so hot I think I'll be branded if I lean back." Puck drawled.

"Just-oh my God! If you'd put your shirt back on!"

It was the last thing Quinn heard as she walked up the steps with Rachel. She plowed right through a pile of peanut shells, and then a river of soda, watching Rachel's feet to make sure she didn't trip and fall backwards.

"I like their outfits." Rachel commented over her shoulder.

Quinn put a hand on the small of her back. "The colors? Or the design?"

"The baby blue is pleasant." Rachel replied, stopping at the top of the steps so that Quinn could walk next to her. "And I like the Twins' colors too. They're very patriotic."

Quinn smiled because her girlfriend had a greater appreciation for colors than anybody she'd ever met.

"I'm not sure what a Twin is, other than one half of a biological duo, but their outfits are lovely."

"Twin cities, Rach. Minneapolis and St. Paul." Quinn supplied with a laugh, heading off to the frozen lemonade stand.

She bought an original for Rachel and a strawberry for herself, and they were walking over to a plastic picnic table right outside their section when a guy moving way too fast in the opposite direction, in a ketchup-stained Minnesota jersey and beer hat, knocked Rachel's shoulder hard enough for her to drop her drink.

It was frozen, and the top was on, so it just rolled anti-climactically off a few feet to the right, and Rachel crouched down quietly to pick it back up.

Quinn spun around and almost flung her own beverage at the back of the guy's head. "Watch it!" she cried instead.

He looked back with raised eyebrows and a laugh, and then kept on his way.

Quinn figured that his team was about to be shut out by one of the worst teams in the league, so that would be punishment enough. No reason to attack him at the moment.

"Come on, baby." She murmured, taking the frozen drink from Rachel's hands and wiping off the grit.

They sat on the same side of the picnic table, and Rachel rubbed her eyes and struggled to open her plastic spoon.

Quinn stuck her own spoon in Rachel's lemonade and then felt her girlfriend's forehead. "Are you okay, Rachel?" she asked quietly. "That guy was an asshole."

"He was just in a hurry." Rachel chided softly.

Quinn watched her shut her eyes tightly.

"Should we go lie down?" she whispered.

Rachel shook her head and glanced at her, and then carved a small scoop of frozen lemonade out of her cup. "I'm okay. It was just too sunny for a minute."

She held the spoon out in front of Quinn's face, and Quinn eyed it warily.

"Just taste it." Rachel prodded, lips twitching.

Quinn narrowed her eyes. "Why? So you can see if it's poisoned?"

Rachel sighed and dropped her spoon back down, and Quinn took pity on her pout and grabbed her wrist, guiding the lemonade into her mouth. She chomped down around it and made exaggerated "mmm" noises, glad to elicit a smile from Rachel.

"Can we stay out here?" Rachel asked in a small voice, and Quinn stopped slurping her drink and looked at her girlfriend seriously.

"Of course we can, baby. It's not too bright?"

Rachel shook her head.

Quinn scooted closer and leaned into her side. "Just let me know if you want to go back to the bus, okay?" she urged. "We can eat all Kurt's food and fool around in the bed if you like."

Rachel's lips quirked up.

Quinn held out a spoonful of frozen pink drink, half-smiling. "Now eat this and tell me if it's poisoned, buddy."

They watched the rest of the game on the big TVs, joined intermittently by their friends, and Quinn wished she could find that guy who'd knocked into Rachel earlier because his team lost 8-0 and she just really wanted to rub it in his stupid ketchup face.

Her friends emerged from their seats bright red and sweaty, peeling clothes off their body and gum off their shoes, and pointing at the small crown logo now branded into Puck's back because he'd refused to listen to reason.

"So, my thighs welded to my seat and I'm pretty sure I ripped off half my skin just standing up."

"Oh my God, Santana!" Mercedes looked disgusted.

"At least you weren't wearing jeans. I don't think these are ever coming off." Kurt proclaimed, pulling at his waistband.

Quinn turned away because she didn't want to witness anything that could possibly happen at the moment.

They returned to the bus, with a foul ball Finn said he caught, but Tina claimed he'd fallen down two sets of bleachers to steal it from a Twins fan, and Quinn lay down with Rachel in the bed, even though Rachel protested at first, and everybody left them alone so that they could fall asleep for a few hours.

Quinn dragged her hands through Rachel's hair because she knew it was soothing and it would take away her headache, and Rachel sighed contentedly when she finally got to shut her eyes.

~ooooooooooooo~

That evening, they ate barbecue out of plastic trays on the edge of one of the many municipal fountains in downtown Kansas City. Rachel stuck with coleslaw and pasta salad, and Quinn shamelessly funneled ribs and macaroni into her mouth.

It was better than Pop-Tarts and frozen dinners. She would take advantage.

"Tubby wants to go swimming." Brittany informed, clutching the cat in her arms so that he couldn't dive into the fountain.

Kurt shook his head and wiped at his face with a napkin. "He just doesn't know there's water in there."

"Let him go." Mercedes suggested, pointing a fork at Brittany. "He's a demon. He might dissolve in there."

She could only hope.

Artie frowned. "I think the water has to be holy for that to happen."

"Whoa, dude, what's this yellow stuff in the beans?" Puck prodded curiously at his food. "Plastic? Or like-"

Quinn rolled her eyes and swallowed her mouthful. "It's corn. The vegetable?"

Puck nodded in relief that it wasn't toxic or foreign, and Quinn felt pressure on her cheek and turned to see that Rachel was trying to wipe her mouth with a napkin, lit by the shops and street lights.

"You have barbecue sauce all over your face, baby." Rachel informed, smiling fondly.

Quinn pursed her lips and let Rachel wipe it away, and then squirmed away when Rachel took too long.

"Guys, when does school even start?" Tina asked, looking around at everybody in general.

Rachel dropped her napkin and turned her gaze back to her coleslaw, like she was annoyed. Quinn watched her.

Finn laughed. "I don't even know what day it is."

Quinn was actually unsure about what month it was. She discreetly checked her phone and saw that they were halfway through July. She wouldn't be surprised if she was stranded in some desert in Arizona with her friends while Yale started the fall semester in late August.

"August twenty-second." Santana informed, pointing at Finn. "Deliver me home alive, Hudson."

Brittany let go of Lord Tubbington, and he slid himself right over the blind edge of the fountain and landed in the water. It was only a fraction of a second before he violently scrabbled his way out, clawing at Brittany's back and knocking Styrofoam containers of food onto the ground.

"Mine's the same. Rachel's is a week later." Quinn spoke up like that hadn't just happened.

Brittany held her cat down by his scruff, breathing heavily.

Quinn glanced at Rachel. "I thought we could go to Red Rocks, since we'll be in Colorado soon." She suggested to the group. "It's where-I mean, The Beatles, U2, Rush, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Nicks have all performed there. And, I know you like Carole King, Rachel."

Rachel looked up and met her gaze, almost resignedly.

"Concert in the mountains. That sounds awesome." Mike agreed.

Quinn nodded. "And then in Denver, there's a theater performance of-"

"Quinn, don't plan things just for me." Rachel interrupted quietly.

Quinn blinked at her. "Well, not just for you. But you'd enjoy it. It's-"

Rachel was shaking her head, and Quinn cut herself off and frowned. She glanced at Mike and Tina, who shrugged and went back to their pulled pork.

"Rachel, what's wrong?" she asked, reaching out to still Rachel's wrist because coleslaw could wait.

Rachel shook her head, but stared at her fork. "I'm fine, baby."

"You're not fine." Puck called out from Quinn's other side, and Quinn nodded her agreement. "You're like a little shell these past few months. Not fine, dude."

Rachel sighed heavily. "Can we just have dinner, please?" she requested sharply.

Quinn shook her head shortly. "Tell me what's wrong."

"Nothing's wrong."

"Then we'll go to the musical in Denver, and to Red Rocks, and then-"

"I don't want to do those things, Quinn!" Rachel exclaimed angrily. "Stop trying-I don't-I don't know what I want, okay? Maybe I shouldn't be so obsessed with musical theater, or maybe I shouldn't go to NYADA, so please don't drag me to those places and tell me that that's what I'm supposed to like!"

Rachel's little plastic fork snapped in half and Quinn's eyes dropped to the sound. She was very confused.

"Look, Rachel, if you don't want-"

"I used to be blind." Rachel said bluntly. Loudly, so that a few strangers turned. "I was blind, but I could sing, so I was special. I knew exactly who I was and what I could do and where I was going, because there was nobody like me. But now I'm going to a school with thousands of people just like me, and I have no idea who I'm supposed to be."

It was like cloudy waters clearing right in front of Quinn's eyes. Rachel's chest heaved and her eyes watered, and Quinn just watched.

"Don't suggest places for me, or tell me what you think I'll like even though I'll probably like it, because I need to just be along on this trip." Rachel sounded desperate, eyes boring through her coleslaw. "To just go where it takes me, and find out who I'm supposed to be now that I can see, and I just really, really need to see the Pacific ocean."

Quinn swallowed. Nobody said anything.

"I don't know why." Rachel muttered, poking at her food again with a broken fork. "I just need to see it. And then…I'll decide."

Quinn sat for a minute, processing that, and she didn't even turn when Lord Tubbington jumped back in the fountain, taking Brittany's barbecue chicken with him.

Quinn gently took the broken fork out of Rachel's hand and replaced it with her own, and Rachel didn't look at her, but she didn't lean away either.

"I vote whitewater rafting." Puck proclaimed, easing the tension.

And Quinn agreed. Everybody was watching her like they expected her to fix Rachel. She'd get her girlfriend to the Pacific, and she'd make the journey one to remember.