The plane lands at night.
There isn't a connecting flight in between Lima and NYC for obvious reasons, so instead they wait for their bus at the Columbus International Airport entrance. In a stroke of luck, they actually managed to make it to their meeting point on time. The bus didn't. They have a two hour ride ahead of them before Quinn even gets to her car in the parking lot, so this isn't exactly the greatest news. This being the fact that no matter how many times Mr. Schue has called the number he was given, it's going straight to voice mail every time.
The Glee club separates into three sections, after that. The first is headed by Rachel Never Knows When To Quit Berry, who has decided to fight Mr. Schuester into renting a bus to be able to make it home before midnight. Hand gestures are being made and foots are being stomped down and Quinn is pretty sure Rachel has said the words "injustice" and "ridiculous" in at least three different ways.
"Mr. Schue, I'm not trying to be a bother, but you have twelve underage minors under your care right now and with all due respect, this is extremely irresponsible. I know it's not your fault that our ride isn't here, but it's very well your fault that you're just content to sit here aimlessly until we all fall asleep from sheer exhaustion!"
Quinn can't help but raise her eye at that.
"Rachel, calm down. We're fine." Mr. Schue rolls his eyes. Which, maybe Rachel has a point with the whole Will Schue obviously has a preference for certain people in the club thing. She doesn't think it's Rachel-specific, but it could very well be gender specific.
Rachel throws her arms in the air at that, and Quinn holds back a smile. She can't ever really take Rachel mad seriously, and in fact would be a part of the second Glee faction (the ones watching Rachel and Mr. Schue with morbid curiosity) except for the fact that they're all being idiots. It seems a little excessive to look for another ride when for all they know, the one they have is just a few minutes out. But she also thinks their teacher is being particularly annoying too. Hence the third group.
She sits down a ways down on a bench next to Tina, and nods absentmindedly in greetings before looking around and taking in the scenery. There isn't really much to look at, though. The roads split off just before the building stars, not counting the road that goes right above them for the incoming parking. The sky is dark and a complete blanket overhead, no stars to speak of. Quinn keeps her eyes up and tries to find even one, but there's nothing there no matter how hard she concentrates.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?"
Quinn furrows her brow, and even though it would be so easy to ignore Tina's attempt at conversation, she doesn't.
"But there are no stars."
Tina shrugs. "There's the moon. That's enough for me."
Quinn presses. "But it's... it's just a rock. Floating in the sky."
Tina abruptly laughs, and it's such a strange sound that Quinn can't help but question it. "What? What's so funny?"
"Sorry, I... I just had one of those weird philosophical-type moments, I wasn't expecting it."
Hmm. "What, like... aren't we all just floating in the sky?"
Tina turns around from facing forward and stares at her for a moment, wearing a strange smile. "Yeah... yeah, something like that."
"Well, that's stupid." Quinn replies bluntly.
The other girl laughs again. "Yeah. Yeah, maybe it is."
For the next half hour, Quinn and Tina silently watch Rachel take over the rest of the night's operations, Tina with bemusement and Quinn just staring blankly at the pacing and the phone calls and the progressively more antic pacing.
Quinn has no idea where Mr. Schue even is at this point, and maybe it's for the best. He used to be one of her favorite teachers during freshman and sophomore year. Not because he was particularly gifted at Spanish, because he was not. But he did seem to care about his students. He would talk to anyone in class who was having a hard time academically, and she still remembers the talk they had after he found out about the Glist.
But that guy... it was hard for her to retain any kind of sympathy when she realized how much alike Finn and him really were. She didn't have patience for people with indecisiveness to the point of ridicule, and they were both brimming with it. Finding out that both of them were sweet as can be until it stopped suiting them definitely had an effect on how much she cared about either.
(It also gave her more sympathy for one Terri Del Monico, which was crazy considering that woman drugged the Glee Club. The idea of her respecting her more as a person of authority really said something about Mr. Schue's complete obliviousness this past year.)
She has no idea what Rachel does or who Rachel talks to, but ten minutes later and the bus is there. Quinn isn't sure if it was the one they were supposed to be on or a completely different situation all together, but Rachel is preening until everyone walks past her without a word of thanks. Her air deflates, until she makes eye contact with Quinn and straightens her shoulders. She walks into the bus behind almost everyone else, and Quinn sighs. When did she have the urge to care that Rachel Berry was upset?
Tina stands up so she follows to the door. Tina drops in the front row to share a seat with Kurt, but she walks past and chooses a seat roughly in the middle. (She pointedly ignores Tina's slight frown.) Most of the boys have already taken up space in the back, and she's not really in the mood to deal with playing peacemaker to the drama that's going on the front. The middle is safe that way. She can find her own seat and lean her head against the window without being worried that someone's going to sit next to her. Quinn can feel the engine's vibrations against her face, and she can close her eyes enough to pretend that things are okay.
Her eyes open after a while, and she stares out the window instead. The sky is dark like before, but she can spot stars now and then. In between exits there's nothing but headlights and an empty road. She puts in her headphones and presses play, and Future queues up and begins to play. The quiet drum beat and guitar feels like a nice soundtrack for the drive. Her hands are tightly wrapped around the strap of her purse, and she can feel her fingernails digging into her palms on the other side.
Hayley's voice is comforting in a way that she isn't in her other albums, or other songs even. It feels like she's singing directly to her, and it's... her eyes watered the first time she's heard this song, but she's not letting herself concentrate too much on the words to have it happen again. Instead, she just goes along with it and feels her heart pump progressively louder and louder as the end of the song arrives. The music gets so loud she can feel it pumping in her bloodstream. She wonders if she would cry if she heard this song live. Draughts a note down to maybe look up tour dates near her, but then remembers that it's probably unlikely. Still.
Quinn doesn't know what she expects when she gets back to Lima, but that antsy feeling won't go away then either.
(She's almost tired of living her life waiting for something.)
In the back of the bus, all of her exes are talking and laughing about things she can't find herself to ever care about. The sound of Finn and Puck's mingled voices gives her this strong urge to find a ponytail and pull her hair back up, before she remembers that't not going to be possible for a while. Instead, she just scratches a certain spot behind her ear and that's enough for now. Her hands fumble around in her lap looking to do something.
Quinn can feel Sam's heavy stare on her back through rows and rows of chairs. She doesn't let herself look back. He would see it.
She lets Hayley sing her home.
"Mom?"
The lights are on around the house, but the crypt silence leaves little to the imagination. She walks to the kitchen and scrambles around for some dinner. She bypasses the note on the fridge and opens it to see if there are any leftovers. She's not hungry, but there's some pasta on a plate so she pulls it out anyway. There are a few clean pots above the stove, so she dumps it in there instead of the microwave and heats it up that way, pouring some milk in every few minutes to make it taste fresh.
A quiet beat has been stuck in her head for the past few minutes, and she can't help but sway to it in between mixing. And thinks.
(Part of her wants to see the note that her mother left, but it feels pointless when she knows exactly what it says. Dinner in the fridge. Working late. She wonders if her mom thinks she's oblivious or just stupid. But at least she hasn't brought her father over to the house. At least there's that.)
There's not much time left before the end of junior year, and summer starts for real. Being alone when you're alone is much easier to bear with than being alone around other people. She's not naive, she knows what she's like and she knows that she should probably get used to the idea of being alone. She doesn't have it in her to mold herself to suit other people, anymore, when she's already so molded and bent out of shape already. But she should know better than anyone that people don't care about excuses, and people know one Quinn Fabray and that girl doesn't need friends.
She doesn't need anyone at all. Which explains why she has no one.
Quinn's heart clenches, and her hands reach out for her phone; she pulls up her contacts and scrolls through them. Three messages are sent to the boys whose hearts she broke. The silence of the house has become deafening, and her hands shake slightly. Her eyes are glued to her phone screen. The time between the mistake and the balm is only minutes but feels like an abyss. She doesn't know which one she wants to reply, or any of them at all. But she just wants one to. That's all it would take for her breathing to get back to normal.
She almost doesn't put her phone down, but her food is done and she hasn't eaten in hours. She puts the phone down in the mean time and doesn't let herself look at it while she makes her food on a plate. The pasta is back on the plate it was on before and in minutes she's already done eating it, but no replies have been sent. She just saw them less than an hour ago, but her ghost house doesn't care about that.
Quinn grabs her phone and sees the quiet nothing. Her finger hovers back to the contacts to look for someone else. Nestled in between Puck and Sam's contact is a bright smile and a star. Her fingers hover over it for a moment too long. Just maybe-
Her phone finally vibrates, and she almost laughs in relief. She almost-
She plays text tag for a few minutes.
can you come over?
it's kind of late q. what do you want?
i didn't ask if it was late.
... are you okay?
just... please?
... fifteen minutes.
She tests out his name in the air. It's a mistake. But frankly, she doesn't give a damn. Maybe she is selfish like everyone says she is.
She just needs...
"Why did you ask me here? I mean, it's not like we've been talking lately. Don't you have someone else you can ask over?"
Quinn doesn't bother to correct him. Instead, she just stares at him and exhales.
Sam.
She doesn't know why he bothered to reply to this message when he hasn't been talking to her much, but that would be a lie. She's been avoiding him. It's been easier than she thought it would be. He's been busy hanging out with the other Glee kids more and more. She never realized how little he was talking with them when they dated. Or maybe he always was and she just never noticed. She can't decide which one she wants it to be.
"Quinn?"
"If you're going to keep asking stupid questions, then you can just leave."
He stands up. Shit.
"I mean... don't go. I just wanted you here, okay?" Him. Someone.
Sam doesn't walk away, but he doesn't sit back down. Instead, he just hovers around her while she sits on the uncomfortably stiff living room couch.
"That's all you had to say."
"Oh, really?" She can't believe that. That would be too easy, and as nice as Sam is, it's never that simple.
He shrugs. "Yeah. I mean... we're friends. Aren't we?" His blue eyes look so earnest, and all she can remember is his arms wrapped around her as she promised to not tell anyone that his family life wasn't as perfect as everyone thought. It would be so much easier to use him as needed when she didn't remember that he was a person.
But honestly? She doesn't have friends. She has emergency calls. "Sure."
He doesn't seem to believe her though. "Are you okay, Quinn? You've been ignoring me for weeks. And I mean, I'm going to come over because I care about you, but you're acting even weirder than normal."
"Weird?" Thanks for that. She stiffens up.
"You know what I mean. Don't do that thing, where you try to mix my words around until they're trying to hurt you. If I didn't care, then I wouldn't be here. I don't get out of bed at midnight for anybody, ya know."
Part of her wishes Puck had shown up instead. He would have been a jerk of the highest order, but at least he knew Quinn well enough to know when to let things lie. They'd been in the same circle for the past year and he still hasn't made her talk about - if that isn't some twisted form of love, she doesn't know what is. Quinn stands up to kill time, and then replies. "If you mean something besides what you're saying, then say that instead."
"I don't really know how much clearer I can be. And are you really lecturing me about talking about how you feel? Really?"
"Sam, just... shut up." Please. Having someone here with her helps, but just barely. It's hard to hide as needed when there's only one other person here, and when the other person is the kind of guy who doesn't have it in him to deal with your crap anymore.
He sighs. "If you didn't invite me over here to talk, then why did you invite me over?"
She doesn't know. Only she does. She feels like she's about to start crying, but that's not an option and it never will be. Instead, she takes a step closer. He smells so familiar, and that bubbling feeling of safety that she always felt around him pulsates in her chest. It's Sam. The only decent guy she really knew, lately. The one who showed her the stars and made her smile again when she was almost as bad as she was now. She had hurt him when he didn't do anything to deserve it just for the familiar of Finn Hudson, and he was still here. He was the only one here.
All she has to do is lean over and-
Their lips don't touch. Sam instantly steps back, and her heart stumbles.
"What the- are you drunk?"
Her hands reach out in the air in front of her that used to hold a boy in love and boy in indifference. Her eyes water- "I just-"
He almost takes a step forward, but it's too much. He takes one step back, then another.
"This was a mistake. I shouldn't have- I don't know what I- I can't be here."
He walks away, and the chill of the air finally hits when she hears her front door slam shut.
I am such a fuck-up.
She wonders if Finn or Puck would have stayed.
She knows Rachel would have, and the thought makes her want to vomit.
In her dreams, she's wanted.
The locale always changes, but that's never the memorable part. She's surrounded by people, and there's a person always vying for her attention.
But in her dreams, she feels something back. Her heart flutters with something close to love. Nothing compared to what she feels when she thinks about Beth, but that is more akin to heartbreak. This feels like hope.
That's the only thing that lingers in her chest when she wakes up, limbs curled as she stretches out from a tight ball on her too-big bed.
She hates knowing what she doesn't have.
Thank you so much for reading and reviewing this story! I hope that every update gets progressively better and longer. Please feel free to leave me creative feedback and things. The whole point of this story (besides Quinn angst and healing) is to improve.
Also, sidenote: I know that Future didn't come out until this year so it doesn't fit with the time, but let's pretend, okay?
