AN: Many apologies for taking so long with this next chapter! I've been insanely busy this summer. Aren't summers meant for relaxing...and writing fanfic? :P
I'm pretty accustomed to writing Tina and Artie (and even Finn or Kurt), but Quinn is new to me. I hope I did her justice! I find her a really interesting character. This one is also set post-To Sir with Love - a little different from the previous ones. Anyway, enough of my rambling - just enjoy! And go ahead and hit that review button if you like it :)
Quinn fingered the little pink onesie that she hadn't been able to resist buying, then placed it into the box she was putting together for Beth. Shelby had asked her if she wanted to put together something for Beth – so that Beth could have a glimpse into what her birth mother was like when she was older.
Quinn had rejected the offer flat out at first, preferring to make a clean break. She had made up her mind long ago that she was going to give up her baby for adoption and she was afraid that if she even so much as named the kid, she'd lose her nerve. Puck had insisted on the name Beth anyway, and a small part of Quinn was touched. Puck might be as crass and thick-skulled as they come sometimes – but, on occasion, he surprised her with just how thoughtful he could be.
But Shelby had insisted she at least think about. She told Quinn about how much she regretted having to resort to using Jesse to get the tape of her singing to Rachel, how much she wished that she could have at least left a small impression on Rachel's life when she was younger.
Quinn didn't want any regret left in her life from this experience. She was positive that she wasn't going to regret giving Beth to someone who could take better care of her than Quinn could at this point in her life. But…she wasn't sure that she wanted to be erased from Beth's life entirely, either.
So here she was, putting together a shoe box of stuff. Stuff that would give Beth a clue to who her birth mother was. In addition to the onesie, Quinn added a picture of her and Puck, and a picture of the Glee club at Regionals, just hours before she gave birth. But…what else?
Quinn's eyes roamed over her room, looking for other things to put in the box. She'd been back with her mother for a week now, but her room still felt…foreign to her. It was crazy – this was the house she grew up in. Hell, this was the room she lost her virginity in. But somehow, after everything Quinn had been through this year, the pink dust ruffle on her bed and the yellow gingham curtains felt...childish, and wrong. She was probably going to need to enlist Kurt to help her redecorate this summer. This room belonged to a different Quinn – the B.G. and B.B. Quinn (before Glee, and before baby). Glee, and pregnancy, had changed Quinn irrevocably, and she'd clearly outgrown this room.
Even the rows of gold Cheerio trophies and ribbons felt out of place. They were a reminder of who Quinn was before Glee. Overachieving, type-A, queen bitch Quinn. They were a reminder of every person she'd stepped on to get to the top of that proverbial Cheerios pyramid, without a single thought to their feelings or who they were.
She was top dog before she fell to the bottom of the heap. Funny thing was, she saw so much more, and saw so much clearer at the bottom than she ever did with her vantage point at the top. When she was Head Cheerio, she was too damn busy looking down the length of her nose at anyone she felt was inferior to her, that she never even thought of them as three-dimensional people.
At the beginning of the year, Quinn joined Glee to keep tabs on her boyfriend. But by the end of the year, it was everyone else that she'd learned a lot more about.
She finally saw Artie as the boy in the wheelchair, and not as the boy defined only by the wheelchair. Quinn saw his warmth, laughed at his spot-on witty comebacks, and smiled at the way he would reach for Tina's hand during Glee practice when he thought no one was looking.
She finally saw Tina as more than the sum of her parts – the safety pins, the colored streaks, the dark eye makeup. Quinn saw her as a whole person, struggling to overcome her shyness. She saw the way Tina would take care of everyone in her quiet, unassuming way – cajoling Mercedes to eat and take care of herself, pushing Artie around gently and carefully, even forking over cash to help Quinn pay for her prenatals that time they bumped into each other at the pharmacy and she was short on money.
And Mercedes. Quinn was so glad and grateful that she'd taken her blinders off and gotten a chance to really see Mercedes for who she is. Before Glee, Mercedes was that loud, fat, black girl that you couldn't pay Quinn to hang out with. Now? Now Mercedes had become one of her best and closest friends. She could always count on Mercedes to tell her the truth, and not let her wallow in a pool of self-pity. What would she have done these last few weeks without the fiercely loyal, fiercely protective, Mama Mercedes in her corner?
Quinn reached into a random box of stuff that her parents had packed up after she was kicked out when Finn spilled the beans about her being pregnant. Christ…that felt like forever ago. Quinn shook her head ruefully as she saw what was in the box. She pulled out her Cheerios pom-poms and her Cheerios uniform. She chuckled to herself just a little. Of course the first thing she reached for in her unpacking would be the ugly reminder of her past. She stuffed them back into the box, sealing it back up with determination.
What was it that Mr. Schue had said to her after he found about the Glist? Something about how her life wouldn't go back to exactly as it was before her pregnancy…but that it would be better, and fuller? Quinn never put much stock in the hokey lessons teachers tried to impress upon their students, but she couldn't deny that Mr. Schue was right this time around. If she hadn't joined Glee to keep tabs on Finn, and if she hadn't fallen to the bottom of the social ladder at McKinley, she never would have found so many true friends. Friends that were there for her, no questions asked.
Quinn no longer felt like she had to constantly keep one eye open, watching her back, making sure she wasn't going to get stabbed by some supposed "friend," in an attempt to undermine her and take the top position from her, the way she used to when she was Head Cheerio. Every girl wanted what she had, and if she even let her guard down for a second, they'd swoop in and take it from her.
Now, Quinn could just…be. As much as she missed being a cheerleader, the actual cheering part, that is, not the politics– she'd take real friends like Mercedes, Santana, Brittany, Artie, Kurt, Tina, and hell even Rachel, over having to sleep with one eye open again. It was easier to just live when you didn't feel like you had so much to lose.
Quinn's eyes lingered on the box with all her Cheerios stuff in it –the one that she had, just a moment ago, been so determined to keep in the back of her closet. She peeled away the tape again, and pulled out her Cheerios skirt. Standing up, Quinn held the skirt up to her body and glanced at her reflection in the mirror.
OK, so she wasn't quite back to her pre-pregnancy figure. Yet. She could work this summer though – get back to her routine of running and weight-training. She could fit into the skirt again…she could be a cheerleader again…right? As much as Quinn loved her new life, and as much as she was looking forward to getting back to Glee next year – thank goodness they'd been granted a stay of execution for another year – she couldn't quite repress her desire to be a Cheerio again. She couldn't deny that she wanted to jump and kick as high as she could, to do a series of cartwheels and handsprings the length of the football field. It was an adrenaline rush, and Quinn missed it.
Maybe she could do both. Kurt did – and his ego wasn't any bigger than it was before he joined the Cheerios. Maybe Coach Sylvester would let her back on. She could be Cheerio Quinn and Glee Club Quinn. Just so long as she didn't revert back to Captain-of-the-Cheerios-Queen-Bitch Quinn.
Quinn smiled to herself. Mercedes would never take any shit from her. And Mercedes would cut off Quinn's high ponytail before you could even say "Go Titans!" if there was ever any hint that Quinn was reverting to her former self.
Quinn carefully dusted off her Cheerios uniform, and hung it up next to her gold Regionals dress. She then took her pom-poms and crammed them into the shoebox for Beth. On top of her pom-poms, she placed the last item. A CD, with her singing "It's a Man's Man's Man's World" that Artie had helped her record. Quinn wanted Beth to know that she loved both – cheerleading and singing. And that they didn't have to be mutually exclusive.
There was a lot to look forward to – next year's Quinn would be way better than last year's Head Cheerio Quinn.
"I used to be Captain of the Cheerios."