ABSENCE~EPILOGUE part 3
Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Glee or to any product/song mentioned in this story.
Driving in the snow, she cried. She slammed the stupid steering wheel. Her nose was running and she didn't care. She hated herself, hated herself for making Sam feel that way, for keeping the kids a secret for so long. When they were younger, it seemed like the right thing to do. Now, she realized, she had hurt Sam, her kids were missing out on knowing their father, she had hurt herself.
She honked outside her aunt's house and Clarice and Beckett came slipping and sliding out to the car.
"Mom?" Beckett asked her. "Am I in trouble?"
Quinn sniffed. "Nope...all is good." She tried to smile.
Clarice flipped on the radio. Here's an oldie but goodie from 2011, a Katy Perry hit, The One That Got Away!
Quinn began humming along to the song; she remembered hearing it then.
"Mom, you like Katy Perry?" Clar asked her. "She just had another baby! Can you believe it?"
Quinn nodded, listening to the words and then began singing along. The kids loved it when she sang to the radio:
In another life,
I would be your girl,
We'd keep all our promises,
Be us against the world...
In another life,
I would make you stay,
So I don't have to say,
You were the one that got away...
"Mom, don't cry. What's wrong?" Beckett asked her. He always could sense if something was amiss with her.
"Nothing...nothing's wrong...just Katy Perry had another baby..." she whispered. Who was she kidding? They knew something was up. She was going to have to talk to them eventually.
At home, she locked up the place and sunk into a hot bubble bath. Her head ached. Her face ached from crying. She needed to formulate a plan or maybe she didn't, she didn't know what to do. Maybe Clar and Beck would take the news of meeting their dad fine. Maybe they wouldn't. Maybe they'd hate her as much as Sam did.
xxxxx
He needed to calm down. He watched her pull away from the school parking lot, her hand to her face. He had made her cry and he wasn't sorry for that, not one bit. He was angry, angry at her for lying to him, angry at himself for not trying harder to find her 8 years ago. He finished up his paperwork at the school and left for his apartment.
He changed into cold weather running clothes and took off on a jog. He ran down to the trail along the Ohio River and just started running. He didn't care how far he went or how cold he was; he just wanted to run.
Just keep runnin', Sam...isn't that what you've always done? he asked himself. No! I never ran from Quinn after that night...god, the night she said was soooo special to her too...Maybe you shoulda tried harder to run back to her then...maybe she was running from me then...you ran from Tiff, you ran from your engagement, hell you ran from Purdue...you ran straight to Cincy when Stevie was in his accident...you're always running! I tried, though, I tried over and over to meet her and she dissed me every single time and now it's clear why...how...how did this even happen? I had a condom on that night! Are they not my kids? They look just like me, act just like me...oh fuck...I need answers from her.
He turned around finally and ran back, exhausted and freezing. He stood under a hot shower in his apartment trying to make sense of her reaction when she came to his classroom. After his initial shock had worn off when first meeting Beck, then Clarice, he was enjoying getting to know the kids. He knew his time there was short, though, so he had scheduled the conference with Quinn, knowing she'd show up. When she saw him in the classroom, she had looked terrified, like a bunny caught in some headlights. She had a look of knowing, knowing she had been caught in her lie. He knew he had acted irrationally, he supposed, but it would've been impossible not to.
Jesus Christ, I have kids...two kids...two 8-year-old kids...oh my god...oh my god...I've missed so much... This realization hit him after he had curled up in his bed. How could she keep them from me? I missed them being born, their first words, their first steps, god their first day of school...how could she do this to me?
He couldn't sleep, so he got up and went to his computer and began writing.
xxxxx
A week or so after their blow-up at the kids' school, he received an email from her that included attachments. He honestly did not even want to know what she had sent. The subject line read pictures so he opened the message. The body of the email only read: thought you'd like these. It was Clar and Beck's school pictures from that year. He saved them to his hard drive and had wallet-sized copies made at Wal-Mart, which he promptly put in his wallet. But, he didn't respond to Quinn.
She saw him in the therapy department with his little brother after she sent him the pictures. He ignored her completely. She even tried to speak to him, but he was like a brick wall, humiliating herself in front of Stevie and the other therapist.
She left him voicemails and tried sending more email, but it became obvious after a couple months that Sam did not want to have anything to do with her. It killed him not to answer his phone or emails or stop by her place because he desperately wanted to see the kids as their dad, not their substitute teacher. He was still upset about it and knew if he talked to Quinn face-to-face it would be another argument.
The weeks turned into months and the calls and emails stopped coming. He knew they would; she was not one to bother someone else if she thought it was, well, bothering them so she'd just give up. He met a woman at one of the schools he was subbing at and they went to a Cincinnati Reds game but everywhere he looked he saw blonde-haired kids and just knew Clar and Beck were there; it was almost like he could feel them there. They actually were there but across the stadium from him, with Quinn and her date, a man who worked at the hospital with her.
After the game, the fans were milling around the front of the stadium, buying souvenirs, when they all ran into one another.
"Hey Mr. Evans! Hi!" he heard a tiny voice call from behind him. He turned and was face to face with Quinn, a strange man, Clarice, and Beckett.
"Uh, hi there Beck! Did you enjoy the game?" Sam asked, trying to come across as happy. He glanced at Quinn.
"We sure did! Tony bought us hot dogs and popcorn and fingers..."
The man with Quinn laughed. "Foam fingers...you know, we're #1..."
"Awesome…what'd you think of the game, Clar?" Sam asked, knowing she was a tomboy through-and-through.
"That homer when the bases were loaded was bananas!" she exclaimed, making Quinn smile.
"It was, wasn't it?" Sam replied.
There was an awkward pause then. Sam mumbled nice seeing you all and maneuvered his date through the crowd, away from his children.
Quinn later had to explain to her date that Sam was an old friend. Something about the way they looked at one another set off alarms for Tony, and he didn't ask her out again.
xxxxx
Finally, Quinn sent a message to Sam. Please meet me at the Childrens Museum on Saturday, if you're not busy. We need to talk.
It was summer vacation, so Sam's schedule was open. He had long since stopped seeing the girl he took to the Reds game, just wasn't happy with her.
He replied what time? with the kids?
She told him 11 o'clock, in the lobby, they'll be there.
He said Fine, I'll be there.
The day before the museum trip, Quinn called Clarice and Beckett into their living room.
"Sit down, guys, I need to talk to you two," she said. They sat side by side on the couch, looking very much like twins. Only when they were babies had she dressed them alike, but now that they were older and dressed themselves she didn't enforce matching outfits but most days they wore similar clothes. Today, they were both wearing mostly blue. Clarice's knees were scraped up, her fingernails dirty, her hair in the usual messy ponytail. Beckett's hair was a little on the shaggy side, his glasses forever slipping down his thin nose, impeccably clean.
Quinn sat down on the ottoman, facing them. "We're meeting someone at the museum tomorrow, an old friend of mine."
The kids looked at each other, smiling. They usually liked their mom's friends.
"I knew this person in high school…he's special in your lives too," she said slowly.
"He?" Clarice asked.
Quinn nodded. "I know you've asked before, about your dad, who he is, where he is…your dad was…is…was a good friend of mine."
She heard herself stammering over her words.
"We're gonna meet our dad?" Beckett asked quietly, leaning forward, his eyes wide.
She took a deep breath and nodded. "Yes, tomorrow."
xxxxx
There were three bedrooms in the Fabray townhouse. When they were younger, the twins shared a room but since they started in second grade they separated and each took a room. Most nights though, Clarice would sneak into Beckett's room and they'd whisper about their classmates, their mom and her aunt and Uncle Charlie, about sports, about fun things they had done or seen. The night before the museum trip, she snuck into his room and onto his bed.
"Are you nervous, Beck? About meeting our dad? What do you think he's like?" she whispered in the dark.
He lay on his back, staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars and planets on his ceiling. He loved astronomy.
"I dunno, Clar. Do you think he's like us? Do you think he'll like us?"
"What's not to like?" she giggled, sounding a lot like Quinn.
"What if he calls me four-eyes?"
"He's a grown-up, silly! Grown-ups don't call kids names. If he does, I'll kick him in the…"
Beckett gasped in shock.
"The shins…goober! What did you think I was going to say?"
That made them both giggle.
"Well, he must've liked mom at some point. Do you think they'll tell us why they never got married?" she wondered.
He shrugged. "Do you think we'll see him again? After the museum?"
"If we like him, I hope we see him again. If we don't like him, then he can go jump in the river! What if him and mom start dating?" she asked.
"Oh, I dunno…if we don't like him, I doubt she will," Beckett said. "I'm goin' to sleep. Big day t'morrow."
"G'night, baby brother!" She slugged him in the arm playfully and scampered back to her room.
A/N: Just wanted to thank all my readers, for your helpful reviews and for being patient while I work on my other stories along with this one. I know I've said it before but it bears repeating: you guys ROCK! Thanks for keeping the Fabrevans dream alive!
