Epologue
Sandi Griffin woke up with a start. She was sitting up in her bed, drenched in a cold sweat. She'd been having these nightmares for months now. First, she dreamed that Linda had arbitrarily grounded her for the whole summer. Then came the dreams about discovering her mother had mob ties. Soon, she was dreaming about the mob trying to kill her for knowing too much and Linda being complicit. The dreams about her mother having an extra-marital affair with a mob boss. All of these nightmares. Now, she had one about being shot in the heart while visiting her parents graves. Each nightmare felt real, yet none of it ever happened. Linda had no realtionship, either personal or professional, with the mob. Both of Sandi's parents were alive. There was no mob involvement in the corruption that had gotten Ms. Li arrested. Barch and O'Neil were alive. The only part of that dream that was true was Kevin and Brittany being back together.
Sandi wondered why she was having such dreams. She shook her head as she remembered exactly why: she was afraid and resentful of Linda. She resented her mothers repeated attempts to mold her into a power hungry bitch. She was afraid of her mother learning her deepest, darkest secret. She knew her mother would shun her if she knew. Sandi dreaded her mother finding out, especially since she herself had only very recently accepted the truth about herself. She also hoped her friends would understand if they knew, but feared that they wouldn't. She herself didn't understand it. She didn't even realize it until a month into her first semester at Carter Community College. She met a classmate whom she was now in love with. She kept the relationship a secret out of fear, fortunately her new lover understood. Sandi was fearful of her secret getting out: that Sandi Griffin was a closeted bisexual.
Author's Notes
This story was originally supposed to be an angsty romance drama. I wrote it right after I'd finished the first season of Quinn. The original plot was supposed to be that Sandi discovers she's bisexual when she falls in love with a female classmate during her first semester at college. It ends with Linda finding out and disowning Sandi. I soon decided that the original plot was too far fetched and decided to go with a crime drama instead.
I originally wasn't going to kill Sandi but it soon became apparent that I would have to in order for this story to work. By then I had decided to make Quinn an ongoing series instead of a mini series as I had originally intended. Since I would have to bring Sandi back for that I rushed through chapter 9 of Heart of the Griffin and added the epilogue where it's revealed to be a bad dream. By then I had also decided that a bisexual Sandi wasn't so far fetched after all. (My original plot for Heart of the Griffin resurfaces in highly abridged form in the Quinn episode Sandi's Secrets.) I didn't think this story was very good so I just finished it and put it on PPMB with the intention of never posting it elsewhere.
I changed my mind when Heart of the Griffin was nominated for a Daria Fanwork Award (favorite drama). When the winners are announced they're posted in the order of how many votes they got. Heart of the Griffin came in second. That convinced me to post it here as well. I don't think it's good but the majority of those who have read it clearly disagree. Thank you to the people at PPMB for seeing potential in this story that I myself could not see and thinking it not only worthy of nomination but being so good that it almost won.