Hi Gleeks! Thanks as always for the awesome feedback; I love all your ideas! FYI, this chap has a mild angst warning (you knew it was coming eventually, right…?) But as always, happy endings prevail. Enjoy!
-JW
Snapshots: Dorm Days
October 2012
…
Quinn was exhausted when she came back from her Medieval European Art History midterm, flopping onto her bed with a plaintive sigh and trying not to think of the three other midterms still requiring her attention.
"Ruddy chipper under stress, aren't you pet?" The cheerfully sarcastic voice of her roommate was audible even through the pillow Quinn had just pulled over her head.
"Sod off, Steph," the blonde girl grumbled, making the other girl chuckle from across the small dorm room.
"Ooh, cheeky! Picked up a few proper English phrases, have you? I suppose that means I'm having a bit of an impact, after all."
"You're nothing if not high-impact, Stephanie Yu, and you damn well know it," Quinn smirked wearily, pulling the pillow off her face and stretching out languorously on her bed with a huge yawn. "Ughhh, midterms are making my brain go splat."
"Right, time for a study break, then." The other girl smiled conspiratorially, pulling a bottle and two shot glasses from her top drawer.
"No way, I've got three more midterms this week," Quinn shook her head wearily. "Gotta study…"
"And that is precisely the type of dreary Protestant work ethic that's destroying this country of yours," Stephanie nodded sagely, bouncing onto Quinn's bed, bottle in hand, with an enormous smirk. "You Yanks aren't satisfied you're working hard enough unless you're bloody miserable about it. Come on then, just a few drinks and a game of cards, right? Then you'll be well sorted to take on the rest of those nasty midterms." Stephanie grinned and wiggled her eyebrows, and Quinn sighed, blowing her bangs off her face and rolling her eyes in apparent submission.
"As long as this isn't one of those times when study break is code for let's throw a party. I'm so fucking serious, Steph—one hour, then I'm going back into my bubble." Quinn cracked a small grin, and her roommate cheered and bounced onto her bed.
One hour turned into two, and Quinn had to admit that she did feel a hell of a lot more relaxed once she stopped compulsively checking her watch every five minutes and agonizing over the adjustments to her study schedule. Columbia was a lot more challenging than McKinley High, and she'd thought she was being smart when she tried mimicking her girlfriend's study habits during their first semester of college; but she was starting to figure out that drawing up an excruciatingly precise study schedule didn't have the same calming effect on her that it did for Rachel. In fact, it made her want to primal scream and tear all her hair out.
The blonde girl was pleasantly tipsy and absorbed in her game of spit, laughing as she sat cross-legged on her bed across from her roommate, both of them slapping haphazardly at the card pile between them, when a knock on the door drew her attention away.
"Aha!" Stephanie squealed delightedly, taking advantage of Quinn's distraction to smack the card pile first.
"No way! That was so cheating," Quinn shook her head, laughing as she yelled "Come in!" over her shoulder. When she looked up and saw her girlfriend's face peeking through the door, her stomach gave a happy little wiggle; but it twisted a little when the expression of hurt surprise registered on Rachel's face, as she stood in the doorway holding a bunch of daisies tied with a little bow.
"Hey Rach," the blonde girl smiled innocently.
"Well I guess you don't need me to help you through your midterm anxiety fit, after all," Rachel said stiffly, her voice frosty and remote.
"I always need you, baby," Quinn smiled softly and cocked her head to one side, a move that usually made Rachel go all gooey. But right now, it didn't seem to be having the desired effect, as the dark-haired girl just huffed indignantly and threw her flowers down on the floor. "Rachel! What the hell?" Quinn exclaimed indignantly.
"I'm the one who should be saying what the hell," Rachel snapped, crossing her arms and glaring at her girlfriend. "We've barely seen each other in weeks, and you told me you couldn't hang out all weekend because you couldn't afford any distractions from midterms. When exactly did you turn into a liar, Quinn Fabray?"
"Look, mate, it's just a game of cards," Stephanie started to say, but Rachel cut her off with a furious glare.
"I'm not talking to you, Posh Spice," the little diva snapped, and Quinn's face flushed bright pink in embarrassment.
"Right then. I'm going out for a coffee." Stephanie rolled her eyes, getting up off Quinn's bed and grabbing her wallet and coat from her desk. "Call me when this week's episode of Gossip Girl is over, pet." She winked at Quinn, brushing past Rachel on her way out the door.
"Rachel…" Quinn sighed when the door was closed, and she was alone with her furious girlfriend. "That was really rude."
"Oh, well let me just throw myself at her feet in apology," Rachel huffed sarcastically, pacing furiously around the little dorm room as her nervous energy began to spiral into a fever pitch. "Clearly, being polite to the girl who thinks my girlfriend is her pet should be my top priority."
"She's British! She calls everyone pet!" Quinn snapped impatiently. "You're acting like a psycho, Rach, and I do not have the available resources to deal with you like this right now. I know your midterms were finished days ago, but I'm still in the middle of mine, and you just pissed all over the only study break I've had in a week. So can we please drop this? I'll give you all the attention you want in another five days, okay?"
"You can't even bother to deny it, can you?" Rachel's angry expression crumpled, and she started to cry. Quinn sighed and closed her eyes wearily. Then she got up off her bed, and took her girlfriend's face gently between her hands, stroking a few tears away with her thumbs.
"I'm not messing around with my roommate, Rachel. We're just friends. I would never, ever cheat on you, okay? And you should damn well know it."
"But she's all sexy and exotic," Rachel sniffed, wiping her eyes on her back of her hand. "She's biracial, for God's sake. And she has a fucking British accent! How can I compete with that?"
"Jesus Rachel, are you even listening to me? There is no competition. I only love you. Why does it seem like I have to keep convincing you of that lately? Have you thought at all about how it makes me feel to suddenly have you constantly doubting me, for no reason? Because let me tell you— it's fucking shitty, okay?"
"No reason?" Rachel repeated, pulling away and crossing her arms defensively again. "Methinks the lady doth protest too much. I'm pretty sure lying and sneaking around behind my back qualifies as grounds for reasonable doubt, Quinn."
"I wasn't lying, and I wasn't sneaking!" Quinn yelled, feeling her face heat up in time with her pounding heartbeat. "I did have this whole weekend blocked off for studying. I just came home in a funk, and Steph convinced me that a little break would help me concentrate in the long run, so I said okay. I don't have to explain or justify myself to you for taking a damn study break in my own dorm room. You're not the boss of me, Rachel Berry."
"I never thought I was the boss of you," Rachel replied in a hurt voice, now quivering with suppressed tears. "I was simply under the mistaken impression that you liked spending your free time with me. I guess I'm just not as interesting in New York as I was in Ohio, huh?"
"Oh, don't," Quinn shook her head furiously, starting to pace around the room in agitation. "Don't you dare throw yourself a pity party. If either one of us should be feeling insecure about our relationship right now, it's me. You've the freaking flavor of the month in the Juilliard theater department! They drool all over you; they're practically throwing rose petals at your feet, and you lap it all up. Maybe I should be jealous, huh?"
"Well why aren't you?" Rachel demanded, stamping her foot. "Don't you care?" Quinn just stared at her girlfriend in silent shock, tears pooling in her exhausted hazel eyes. Rachel stared back in hurt defiance, neither of them bothering to wipe away the tears streaming down their flushed cheeks.
"Get out," Quinn whispered, her voice trembling.
"Quinn, please…"
"I can't. Not right now. I can't even look at you." Quinn was staring at the floor, tears streaming down her face and blurring her vision; but she couldn't keep herself from hearing Rachel's broken sob as the dark-haired starlet ran from the room, slamming the heavy oak door behind her.
….
Rachel was a mess at rehearsal that night, and it didn't take much for her new Juilliard theater friends to convince her to come out for a drink and forget her troubles. In good drama department solidarity, they all agreed that Quinn should appreciate her more and have the decency to at least act jealous sometimes (though they hemmed and hawed somewhat over the question of whether Rachel had, in fact, overreacted to begin with). One drink turned into four, and then the dark-haired diva lost count all together. She was content to nurse her wounds indulgently in the company of her new friends, who listened so raptly and treated her so deferentially, and paid her so much more attention than she was used to from her high school friends. She knew she was letting it go to her head a little…but without Quinn's attention focused only on her, she was lonely and insecure, and she let herself wallow.
When her phone vibrated a little after 3am, she jumped on it, even as her friends harangued her to ignore it and let Quinn suffer a little longer. Rachel ignored the clamor around her and dived for the vibrating phone; but it turned out to be an unknown number, so she just let it go to voicemail.
But then it buzzed again less than a minute later; and when she continued to ignore it, it buzzed again. Uneasily, Rachel slipped off her bar stool and answered it, walking out into the relative quiet of the late-night city street to avoid the din inside the bar.
"Hello, who is this?" she demanded sharply, arms wrapped around herself to ward off the cold night air.
"R-rach…? *Sniff!*"
"Quinn?" Rachel hunched over with the phone pressed to her ear, a painful jolt shooting straight to her stomach at the broken sound of her girlfriend crying through the phone line. "Why are you calling me from a strange phone? Are you okay? Where are you?"
"I'm…" Quinn's voice dissolved into soft, breathless sobs. Rachel felt her heart rip open and turn itself inside out; but there was nothing she could do but wait for the other girl to calm down enough to get her words out. "I'm in the ER at Columbia-Presbyterian. I'm okay, mostly. I…*sniff!*…I just got mugged. I know you're mad at me right now, but…I really need you, starlight…"
"I'm coming," Rachel choked out, gripping the phone so hard her knuckles turned white.
The little diva almost left the bar without even bothering to tell her friends where she was going; only the realization that she needed to go back inside the bar for her wallet so she could pay for a cab made her stop and think and gather her wits. But she still left her jacket sitting on a bar stool, grabbing just her purse and dashing out again with barely a word to her puzzled friends before making a mad dash for Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital. Traffic going uptown was light, considering the late hour; but it still felt far too slow to Rachel, who sat hunched over in the back of the cab with her fingers clamped around her gold star locket—the one Quinn had given her for their first anniversary—and trying to hold in the primal scream that was twisting her insides at the thought of her sweet angel being attacked on the street in the dead of night, all alone and hurt.
She kept replaying her last words to the blonde girl in her head…accusing her of not caring about their relationship…and she hadn't even meant it. She was just furious and wanted to get a reaction, wanted Quinn to be as invested in the fight as she was. Well, she'd certainly gotten her wish now…and she'd do anything if she could just take it back.
When she finally made it to the hospital entrance, the dark-haired girl was in full gold-star-diva-fury mode, tearing around like a maniac until she found the ER waiting room. She harassed the receptionist systematically until she was granted admittance to the labyrinthine row of curtain-partitioned beds behind the swinging ER doors; and finally, there was Quinn, curled up on herself with her face pressed to her knees on a sterile white hospital bed, blood streaked through her mussed blond hair.
"Quinnie?" the dark-haired girl murmured, terrified, as she reached out and touched her girlfriend's blood-spattered hair. The blonde girl lifted her head, and with a spasm of horror Rachel saw a splash of bright red blood drying across her cheek and the side of her neck, streaked with drying tear tracks and a smudge of dirt. But there was no indication of the source, no gouge or tear in her skin; and the little diva's stomach unclenched slightly.
"Rachel," Quinn whimpered, her eyes filling with fresh tears. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry…"
"Shh, baby, I'm here," Rachel whispered, climbing onto the stiff hospital bed beside her shaking girlfriend and immediately gathering her into a tight embrace. Quinn collapsed wordlessly against her, and they held each other in fierce silence for a few long moments, punctuated only by the sound of both their quiet sobs. "Where are you hurt, angel?" Rachel finally managed to ask, wiping her eyes and examining Quinn's bloodstains more closely. "Where's all this blood coming from?" Quinn held out her hand in answer, wrapped haphazardly in a bloody roll of gauze.
"I got stabbed with a broken bottle," the blonde girl said hollowly, sounding suddenly emotionless and shell-shocked. "I have to get a Tetanus shot." Rachel took Quinn's damaged hand gently in her own and cradled it, kissing the blood-soaked gauze.
"Oh, baby…" Rachel shook her head, tears spilling unchecked down her cheeks as she cradled Quinn's damaged hand protectively.
"It's not so bad," Quinn sighed woozily, rubbing her bloodshot eyes with her free hand. "We're New Yorkers now; something like this was bound to happen eventually. Could've been a lot worse if I didn't have that pepper spray…you know, the one you make me keep on my keychain…I got him right in the eyes as he was coming at me. Really messed him up. I think he meant to stab me in the neck."
"Oh, Quinn…" Rachel shook her head, fresh tears streaming down her face as she hugged and kissed her shell-shocked girlfriend, rocking her and holding her tight, not even noticing her own violent shivering.
"Why are you so cold?" Quinn mumbled after a minute. "Where's your jacket?" Rachel blinked and looked around herself in surprise, like she'd just woken up from a long nap.
"I dunno. Must've left it at the bar."
"Rachel! It's like fifty degrees outside…"
"Well yeah, I was kind of in a rush to get here," Rachel sniffed, wiping her eyes and shaking off the daze of shock and alcohol. "And you're bleeding all over the ER," She added, rubbing her eyes and glaring around indignantly at the sea of anonymous medical professionals bustling up and down the hall. "What are they waiting for, anyway? Is this a test to see how much blood you can lose before you pass out? Hello! We need a doctor in here! My girlfriend is bleeding!"
"Rach, it's okay," Quinn sniffed, smiling weakly and cocking her head to the side, calming the dark-haired girl instantly with the familiar and loving gesture. "I already got checked by a triage nurse. Nothing's broken, they're just gonna stitch me up and give me a Tetanus booster. I haven't been waiting that long. Please, just stay with me…"
"Of course I'll stay with you, baby," Rachel cooed, cuddling up closer to her exhausted girlfriend and pulling her back into a reclining position against the raised hospital bed. "Close your eyes and rest a little, okay? I'll be right here."
"I can't rest, not yet," Quinn shook her head woozily, rubbing her eyes with her uninjured hand. "I can't stop thinking about what happened today…Rach, I'm so sorry, I was acting like a jerk…"
"No you weren't," Rachel disagreed, her thumb grazing tenderly over the dried blood on Quinn's cheek. "You were just trying to get through your midterms; I was the one acting crazy. You told me what you needed and I wouldn't listen…I pushed you…it was all my fault, I was such a possessive psycho…"
"No, I love it when you're a little possessive—you always make me feel like the most special, important person in the world, and I love that, Rach. It was just a little too much, and bad timing, I guess. You know I'm not cheating on you, right?"
"I know, babe," Rachel hummed, leaning down to give Quinn's injured hand another soft kiss. "I never really thought you were…I just felt all crazy and insecure, like your attention was slipping away, and I had to get it back by any means necessary. If I'd known it would lead to this…well, I would've locked myself in the closet and thrown away the key."
"It's not your fault I got mugged, Rach," Quinn sighed, nuzzling into her girlfriend's silky hair with a soft yawn. "I knew better than to take the subway by myself at this hour, but I was angry and I just wanted to be alone, and I got reckless. This was me being stupid. We just have to get used to how much bigger our world is now…we just can't expect to share everything, the way we did in high school."
"I know, you're right," Rachel agreed quietly, sifting her fingers through Quinn's hair and grazing the back of her neck. That always calmed the blonde girl, and the little starlet wasn't surprised when she heard her girlfriend yawn again. "I promise, from now on I'll give you room to grow; and I'll try not to be so possessive."
"Room for both of us to grow," Quinn countered, and Rachel could hear the heaviness in her voice as the blonde girl started to relax. "And I like when you're a little possessive…" she yawned again, and Rachel gently played with her hair. "Oh, fuck, I have a Biology midterm at 9am…what time is it, Rach?"
"Shh, forget about it honey. We'll talk to your dean in the morning and get you some extensions. I'm sure this qualifies as reasonable extenuating circumstances. I'll take care of everything, okay sunshine? You just relax, now."
"Mmm…'kay," Quinn yawned, nuzzling into Rachel's throat. By the time the doctor arrived to attend to Quinn's injury, the blonde girl was more asleep than awake, and she let Rachel do most of the talking for her. And when the doctor began actually stitching up Quinn's hand, Rachel sang to her and kept her attention away from the blood and the needles until the job was done, with a fresh bandage neatly wrapped around the wound. The dark-haired girl also paid rapt attention to the doctor's instructions for the cleaning and care of the injury, promising to attend to the necessary follow-up appointments with Quinn's campus health center over the next few weeks.
"Ready to go home, angel?" Rachel asked quietly, gently shaking Quinn out of her semi-daze after the doctor announced that they were free to go.
"Mmm…home with you," Quinn murmured, her eyes barely open.
"Okay baby," Rachel nodded happily, not bothering to mention that she had in fact already been assuming that anyway. It didn't matter whose idea it was first, and who was just following along…Rachel didn't care about being in charge anymore. All she cared about was right here beside her, half asleep on her shoulder as they made their way slowly out of the hospital and down to the street to catch a cab. Everything else could wait until tomorrow.
