A/N: Thanks so much for reading everyone! I love your reviews, especially grape slushee! They make me smile!
I Can See For Miles
Chapter 3
Quinn awoke the next morning to an air raid alarm. Or what sounded like it. Seriously, since when were hotel phones so obnoxiously loud? Everybody in the room was stirring, although they hadn't been jolted out of their peaceful slumber and stricken with irrational fear by the sound that was still ringing. Quinn was the closest to the phone, aside from Rachel, who was groaning into her pillow tiredly, and the others hadn't seemed to have gathered their wits about them yet.
She then realized that she was already half on top of Rachel anyway, however that happened, and just draped the rest of her body over her in a tired haze to reach that damn phone.
Quinn grunted in greeting and watched as Rachel felt around her, trying to figure out what was happening.
"Hello!"
Quinn already wanted to murder this overly peppy disembodied voice.
"This is your six AM wake-up call!"
Quinn just grunted her thanks and hung up, missing the receiver and allowing the phone to drop to the floor. She let her head fall where it was, and could have easily gone back to sleep draped sideways over Rachel.
But then a small hand palmed her face and felt over her shoulders, until it started shaking her a little.
"Quiiiin," the hand whined, "we have to get up."
Quinn finally registered the other movement in the room and the yelling coming from the one next door. Finn was helping Artie back into his wheelchair and Tina was rolling Mike out of bed. She caught random words coming from the commotion next door, such as "shut up," "suffocated," "peppy," "kill you," "bitch," and "cat."
Quinn reluctantly forced herself to sit up and watched as Rachel sprung out of bed like she had never been asleep. The smaller girl made her way over to her suitcase, expertly feeling her way around, and Quinn tumbled herself out of bed to help extract Finn's arm from stuck inside the fold-up couch.
The door that connected the rooms opened and Mercedes strolled in, looking around.
"Hey are y'all up?" she asked. "Kurt's having an aneurysm, says we need to be on the road in half an hour ."
"Yes! We are all awake and getting ready!" Rachel called enthusiastically from where she locked herself in the closet to change. Finn and Quinn both grunted.
Before Mercedes turned to leave, Quinn registered the cat hair dancing around the girl's face and plastered to her pajama top. Were those scratches on her neck?
"Breakfast time!" Kurt called from next door, and Quinn finally grabbed her clothes to get dressed.
-oooooooooo-
"Muffins Rach?" Quinn asked as they stood in line for the hotel's continental breakfast.
"What kind?"
"Um, blueberry or…" Quinn hesitantly took a bite of the other, nondescript muffin. She coughed violently and Rachel clapped her on the back. She cleared her throat, "Just blueberry. I don't even want to know what's in that."
"Okay. Blueberry's good." Rachel smiled and relinked her arm with Quinn's, allowing the taller girl to lead them back to the glee table in the lobby. Quinn ate her muffin and listened to the excited conversations around her.
"No Brittany, that's Neverland." Artie explained. "You know, the place in Peter Pan. Never grow up, forever a child…"
"Wait, then where are we going?"
"Graceland!" Mike cut in. "Home of Elvis Presley."
"But…is that the place with the Ferris wheel? And the toys and game rooms and fun stuff?"
"No…" Artie said slowly, before grinning in realization. "You're thinking of Neverland Ranch Brittany. Michael Jackson's place."
"Ohhhh." Brittany nodded slowly. "I want to go there."
"Pretty sure you don't hon." Santana said, and distracted the girl with some grapes.
"I'll pull the bus up out front." Finn announced loudly. The glee clubbers exchanged glances, cringing a little, but smiling and nodding vaguely. Quinn was pretty sure her blood pressure shot up to critical levels when Finn said the word "bus." Nevertheless, she grabbed hers and Rachel's bags and made her way outside with everyone else.
They successfully rolled out of the parking lot on the minibus, only hitting a large traffic cone and narrowly avoiding a pedestrian in the process.
-oooooooooo-
The minibus pulled up in the Graceland parking lot thirty minutes later and the glee clubbers unloaded and made their way to the mansion for an early tour.
"Dude, it would be so cool to live on Elvis Presley Boulevard. I would just tell everybody I meet my address. Yeah, I live on Elvis Presley Boulevard. That is the Puckmaster's humble abode."
"Yeah, except you live on 4th Street in Lima, Ohio, so that's not gonna happen."
"Shut up Santana."
As the Glee kids met their tour guide, Quinn decided she would rather spend the next hour with the peppy wake-up bitch from the hotel. How could somebody make the king of rock'n'roll sound so boring. Seriously, this lady had no soul, and the rest of their group seemed to agree. Finn, Puck, and Mike snuck away to find the Pink Cadillac while Tina, Mercedes, and Artie tried to do subtle impersonations while the woman's back was turned. It didn't involve much; just speaking monotonously and looking like you're seconds from death. Santana seemed like she wanted to kill herself.
Quinn smiled when she looked at Rachel though. The smaller girl's face was attentive and thoughtful and she appeared to be hanging on to the robot-woman's every word. Quinn swung their hands between them and Rachel glanced up in her direction with a grin.
Forty-five minutes later Quinn was sure she had slipped into some kind of conscious-comatose-walking state of insanity. The only thing keeping her in a semi-right state of mind was Rachel's hand, which had never left her own. When the woman said, "Thank you, we hope you come again," it felt like Christmas. A New Year, a new hope for the future. Rejoice!
"Well, that was very interesting!" Rachel remarked brightly.
"Playing it a little fast and loose with the word interesting there, aren't we Berry." Santana scoffed. "Somebody kill me now."
"It's over." Tina said, seemingly experiencing the same feeling of euphoria that Quinn was, now that the tour had ended. "Let's go find the guys."
Quinn pulled out her phone to call Finn, letting go of Rachel's hand and trailing behind the others by a few feet.
As they exited the mansion, Rachel stepped a little wide, running right into some guy with a drink in his hand, spilling it over the both of them. Rachel gasped and faltered backwards in shock.
"Watch where you're going dumbass!"
"Hey!" Santana raised her voice, striding around so she stood in front of Rachel, who was sputtering out an apology. She realized the drink was coffee; not a pleasant beverage to be soaked in. Ironically, the exact opposite of a Slushee.
"Hold on Finn." Quinn stated into the phone and quickly caught up to take Rachel's hand, allowing Santana deal with the belligerent man.
"Wait Quinn, who was that? What just happened?"
Brittany grabbed Santana's arm as Quinn wiped the coffee from Rachel's face.
"Are you okay Rach? Did it burn you?" She asked concernedly, checking every inch of exposed skin.
Rachel shook her head, which was cast down, and the guy seemed to register her unseeing eyes.
"Wait, is she blind?" The asshole looked like he was about to start laughing. Santana shoved him and Kurt joined Brittany, grabbing the Latina's other arm and turning around to head outside.
"Get a fucking soul!" Santana yelled as she stomped down the steps, Brittany and Kurt at her side. Quinn led Rachel out right behind them; she saw the tears in the brunette's eyes and headed for a bathroom, catching sight of Finn, Puck, and Mike jogging up to the others.
Quinn stood Rachel in front of the mirror and wiped the smaller girl's face with wet paper towels. "Did it burn you Rach?" Quinn asked again, gently wiping away her tears.
"Mmm, No." Rachel mumbled.
Quinn studied her for a moment. "That guy's an asshole. Really, I'm pretty sure I saw him kicking puppies and shoving grandmothers earlier. I'll push him down the stairs if you want?"
Rachel smiled slightly. "It seemed like you would've resorted to that earlier to get out of that tour."
Quinn chuckled now that Rachel had given her a smile. "Yes! Hide your puppies, hide your grandmothers; Quinn Fabray is bored out of her mind."
Rachel laughed now, and Quinn enveloped her in a hug, breathing in her coffee-scented hair, not caring that it was soaking through to her own shirt. They left the bathroom, joined their friends, who were full of creative insults for the coffee-drinking-asshole-guy, and loaded onto the minibus for the final leg of their trip.
Ten minutes later they realized they had forgotten Kurt, turned around, picked him up, and then started the final leg of the trip.
-oooooooooo-
"What state are we in?"
"Texas."
"Arkansas."
"Florida."
"Ohio."
"Kentucky."
"Mexico."
"Ummm…I don't know who to believe."
"We're in Mississippi, Noah." Rachel broke in, a little unnerved by how little her teammates knew about geography. If they broke down, they were fucked.
"How is Rachel the only one who knows where we are? She can't even see the signs."
Rachel beamed proudly.
-oooooooooo-
"Finn, if you don't stop singing Hound Dog, I will open the emergency door and throw you off this bus."
"Mercedes, we're a glee club, we should be singing!"
"He's been impersonating Elvis for six damn hours Rachel. That is not acceptable!" Mercedes raged. "Where's your cat Brittany? Maybe I can train it to attack him…seeing as it loves making its presence known on people's faces."
"Mercedes! He has enough trouble driving as it is. He doesn't need to be fighting off some fatso cat as well." Artie interjected.
"Wait, where is Tubby?" Brittany asked. Everybody looked around blankly; Mercedes looked a little too overjoyed at the possibility that the cat was gone.
"Britts, where's the last place you saw him?" Santana asked.
"Um…I took him to the bathroom at the last rest stop…I put him down for a second and…Oh my God." Brittany looked horrified.
"Turn around!" Santana yelled. "Finn, get off at the next stop and turn around!"
"This is what happens when we have to stop seven thousand times for the bathroom…" Puck muttered.
"Wait, maybe we shouldn't go back…" Mercedes trailed off as Santana glared at her.
Finn ran up the curb of the rest area ten minutes later and Brittany was in the bathroom before the bus even stopped. Mercedes sighed resignedly as she emerged with the massive cat in her arms, and they were back on the road in the next few minutes.
-oooooooooo-
"Can you turn up the AC Finn?" Mike called.
"God, yes! Please, I'm sweating balls back here."
"Wow, Santana, that's wonderful. Perfect. Just what I wanted to hear right now."
"Shut up Hummel. I'm delirious from heat exhaustion. It's like a freaking sauna in here. No, actually this is hell. It is literally hell in here."
"Well, you should feel right at home." Quinn remarked.
"I'm actually pretty cold."
"Another word, Wheels, and you'll have to roll yourself all the way to Key Largo."
Artie shut up and Finn blasted the AC, after, of course, accidentally turning on the windshield wipers, hazard lights, indicators, and radio.
-oooooooooo-
"We should not have eaten at that crapshack in Alabama." Puck stated. "I think someone's about to blow chunks all over this bus."
Quinn could feel him eyeing her, but focused instead on keeping her lunch down. She knew this was a losing battle; it was only a matter of time. She kept her eyes focused on a spot on the seat in front of her.
"Quinn, are you alright?" Rachel asked warily. "You're not going to vomit on me right?"
"No."
"No, you're not alright or no you're not going to vomit on me?"
"No."
"Umm, can someone pass us a…bag or bucket or something please." Rachel called out.
Kurt handed them a brown paper bag, revulsion apparent in his face. "I can't watch it. If I watch it, I'll do it too."
"Oh my God, me too!"
"Ugh, Quinn, you're gonna start a never-ending circle of vomit. I hope you're happy."
"Very. I'm actually overjoyed at the moment." Okay, it's time. This is happening. Right now.
Quinn curled over and threw up in the brown bag. Kurt covered his eyes and groaned while Rachel rubbed her back soothingly.
"Just let it out sweetie. I knew there was something wrong with that bacon…Too soon? Okay, sorry. It's okay sweetie, let it out."
Quinn leaned back and shut her eyes.
"Better?"
She nodded numbly, wrapping up the paper bag before Kurt could start a chain reaction of hurling all over the bus.
-oooooooooo-
At eleven o'clock that night, the minibus crossed into Monroe County, Florida; they followed US 1, the Overseas Highway, and came upon Key Largo. Final destination.
"Dude, you really should've outfitted this beast with GPS."
"It's not our car, Puck. That would be vandalism. Or something."
"Well it's better than driving around lost on a freaking island in the dark."
"Islands in the sun, that is what we are…"
"Rachel! Now is not the appropriate time to start singing."
Quinn glared at Kurt and rubbed Rachel's shoulder reassuringly.
"Turn left!"
The bus swerved, catapulting everybody out of their seats and knocking Rachel's head against the window. "Mmmm." She hummed, wincing. Quinn grabbed her chin and turned her head to examine the bump. In the dark. So all she really saw were two large, brown, wonderful eyes. She dropped her hand from Rachel's face and decided to focus on navigation.
"What does your Grandma's house look like, Kurt? And are we even on the right road?"
"What state are we in?" Brittany called from the back.
"Uhh, small, green, one-story, and…I have no idea."
"How small are we talking here Kurt?"
"Oh! There it is! That's it! Turn Finn, turn!" Kurt jumped up and down excitedly, bracing himself in the aisle for the violent turn.
They were prepared this time. Quinn held Rachel's head to her shoulder as the minibus pitched left and into a narrow driveway. In awe, everyone moved slowly once they rolled to a stop, not quite believing they had actually reached their destination. Quinn couldn't quite believe it either. She figured they would get to Kentucky, maybe Alabama, suffer a flat tire or a massive argument and turn around as things descended into chaos and all plays went terribly awry. This was a pleasant surprise.
The glee clubbers all started grabbing their things, and Quinn described what she saw for Rachel, who was sitting quietly next to her.
"Well, this house certainly looks…cozy, Rach. Let's see, it's sea green, which is actually kinda cool. Maybe Kurt's Grandma is a hipster. Uh, one-story; there's a little yard out front. Two-car garage. It looks like it backs right up onto the beach, but it's really dark, I can't really see."
Rachel nodded excitedly. "Come on, get up! Let's go!" She jumped up, nudging Quinn with her knee.
Everybody tumbled off the bus and up to the front door, which opened, revealing a small, thin woman with curly gray hair and a massive smile on her face.
"Kurt!" she called out excitedly and the boy pushed forward to greet her.
"Hi Grandma!" he gave her a careful hug, smiling widely. "How are you doing?"
"I'm wonderful! Introduce me to your gorgeous group of friends, the glee club right?"
Kurt nodded and ushered everybody forward, pointing to them and naming them one by one. Mrs. Hummel led them into her home and started sorted out sleeping arrangements. "I know you kids must be tired after such a long drive." They could only grunt agreeably.
Santana and Brittany claimed a guest room with a double bed, while Mercedes and Kurt collapsed onto the living room's fold out couch. Puck called the smaller couch in the same room and fell asleep before anybody could protest. That left a single room with two twin bunk beds.
"Oh Lord, Kurt was right when he said we'd be getting to know each other."
"Come on guys, this'll be cool. It's like camp!" Finn proclaimed, climbing onto the top of one of the bunks. Mike and Tina glanced at each other and shrugged, speaking simultaneously. "We'll fit." They claimed the bottom of the bunk, while Artie did the same with the other one.
"What's left Quinn?" Rachel asked softly, clinging to Quinn's side as she was led around.
"Umm…well you can have the top bunk and I'll put a sleeping bag on the floor."
"Like camping!" Finn called out, half-asleep.
"What? No! You're not sleeping on the floor Quinn. We can share. I'm small, we'll make you fit."
"What are you saying Berry? Is making me fit a challenge?" Quinn asked jokingly.
"I'm saying…I'm too tired to think straight, so can we please go to sleep." Rachel pouted and Quinn led her to the ladder smiling. "Yes. Of course. Tomorrow, Key Largo awaits!"