I Can See For Miles
Chapter 10
What is she doing? Can she see me? Oh my God. Oh my God. She sees me. She can see me now. She can see me now! Oh my God. Ohmygodohmygod. She can see me!
-oooooooooo-
Quinn had read somewhere that humans blink at least once every ten seconds, maybe a few times a minute if the person is focused on something. Either way, she was sure Rachel hadn't blinked in, like, twenty minutes. God, her girlfriend's eyes were going to dry out and she would be blind again. It was sweet though, and adorable and endearing that Rachel refused to close her eyes for even a millisecond when her body didn't force her. Why would she, when she could walk around with her eyes fixed on her gorgeous blonde girlfriend. She was only catching up after a decade of blindness.
A week after Rachel's surgery, Quinn had yet to pull herself together. She had managed to keep her heart beating and maintain consciousness but God, she was a mess. A crazy, happy, hot mess that Rachel could now witness with her own eyes! Every time Rachel met her eyes Quinn dissolved into the sappy heap from the hospital room; every time Rachel said 'you have fluff in your hair' or 'I want the blue plate' or 'Ahhh! Daddy a spider!' Quinn lost it. She never thought she would hear those simple things.
She was currently trying to pull herself together enough to get the both of them down these damn stairs. Rachel simply would not remove her gaze from Quinn's face.
"Rach, you're going to fall down the stairs." Quinn stated, trying to be stern, but smiling like a fool instead. Rachel didn't reply.
"Sweetie, you have eyes now. Use them to make sure you don't go crashing down the staircase."
Rachel still didn't shift her gaze from Quinn's face, so the blonde gripped her girlfriend's arm tighter and led her down the stairs. Yet again. She would never get tired of leading this girl anywhere, which was good, because apparently Rachel would never get tired of staring at Quinn's face. Seriously, it should be uncomfortable by now, but all Quinn felt was joy and love when she caught her girlfriend doing it, which was every time she looked at her.
Crash.
Oh shit. Where were we? What were we doing? She can see me!
"Rachel!" Quinn rushed down the few stairs to where Rachel had fallen.
"Sweetie, I told you, you would fall!"
Rachel just whined as Quinn ran her hands over the shorter girl's arms.
"I thought you were watching where I was going."
"I was watching you watch me." Quinn pulled Rachel up gently and walked them into the foyer. God, who the hell invented stairs? If everything was just on one damn level life would be so much easier.
"Are you okay?"
Rachel ignored the question. "You're supposed to lead me around." She said, rubbing where her butt had landed on the step.
"Really? Still?" Quinn said, fake-exasperatedly, chuckling when Rachel shoved her.
"Yes! Always!"
Quinn smiled and pulled Rachel into a hug. "I know Buddy." Rachel relaxed into her, brown eyes still boring into the side of Quinn's head. Quinn couldn't exactly blame her; Rachel had turned into somewhat of a I'm-four-years-old-and-I-need-to-see-everything-right-now child, in the past week. She had forced Quinn to show her all of her baby pictures, something Judy had been far too excited to do. She had attacked Quinn with grapes and her fathers with pizza dough, and the four of them had watched musical after musical, smiling fondly at Rachel's awestruck face out of the corners of their eyes.
Quinn pulled back and met Rachel's deep, brown wonderfully expressive and alive eyes.
"You ready Rach?"
Rachel nodded.
"Yeah? Headache's gone? You don't feel sick anymore?"
"I feel fine Quinn. Who's picking us up?"
"…Um, everyone. I thought I told you, Finn rented a minibus this time so we could all ride together and-Sweetheart are you okay?" Quinn asked with concern.
Rachel had looked momentarily stricken with horror. Quinn didn't really blame her; she had, after all, used "Finn" and "minibus" in the same sentence.
Rachel nodded slowly and spoke a moment later. "This time, I won't be able to say ignorance is bliss."
Quinn laughed. "Close your eyes. And tell your dads they're going to need to buy a new mailbox."
"Do you think they'll be mad?"
"About losing a mailbox? They'll get over it."
"No. Glee club. Do you think they'll be mad I didn't tell them?" Rachel asked, finally averting her gaze so that it rested on her clasped hands. Quinn ducked her head to catch it again.
"No baby, they'll be overjoyed!" Quinn took both Rachel's hands and swung them together, making Rachel smile. They turned when they heard a crash and some frantic yelling coming from outside. "And the crazies have arrived." They grabbed their bags with towels and sun screen and headed out the door.
"-did it again Finn! What the hell is wrong with you?"
"It's not me! It's this bus!"
"Oh yeah, the bus was thinking, 'Hey there's a mailbox I haven't completely demolished yet, let me go over there and finish the job."
"Hey Quinn! Rachel!" Artie called happily out the window, ignoring the scene before him.
"Rachel, I'm so sorry! I promise I'll fix it!"
"Yeah, you've become sort an expert now haven't you." Santana muttered.
Rachel and Quinn climbed up the stairs and stood in the aisle next to the driver's seat. Rachel just looked at everyone, taking them all in and trying to catch a few eyes. She wanted to see if anybody realized.
"Good Lord, sit down!"
"She looks like she's going to break out into song."
"Oh God."
"Quinn, seat your girlfriend, she's creeping us out."
"Hey, shut up!" Quinn wrapped her arms around Rachel from behind, smiling as she realized the girl had entered a staring contest with an unwitting Kurt.
Kurt looked a little freaked out. Okay, a lot freaked out. God, he felt like he was about to be murdered. This was very, very odd. Why was he reminded of a horror movie so often when he went anywhere with the Glee Club?
"Go, Hudson! Get a move on! They'll be fine if they get knocked down and fall out the door! We won't be moving that fast."
"Santana, shut up!" Kurt yelled, standing up and approaching Rachel. He glanced at Quinn, who just smiled softly at him, still holding Rachel from behind. He flicked his gaze from left to right and Rachel's eyes followed his own.
"Oh my God." He whispered. "Ohmygod! You can see! Rachel!" Kurt shrieked, pulling both Rachel and Quinn in to his arms, Rachel crying silently through her massive smile. The bus erupted into a chorus of confusion.
"What!"
"What the fuck?"
"Are you high?"
"What did he say?"
"What happened?"
"What state are we in?"
"What did he say!"
Quinn slid down the aisle and answered everybody's questions while Rachel returned heaps of hugs, laughing joyfully with her fellow glee clubbers. Most of them had gone silent in shock and thought. Rachel's eyes roved over all their faces, matching them with their voices and personalities. Every single one of them was perfect. She smiled when she realized, yes, they were overjoyed, and then beamed when she finally turned back to Quinn and saw that the blonde had been watching her the whole time.
Rachel stood up in her seat.
"Berry-Oh God I can't even tell you to sit down. I've lost it." Santana said and ashamedly hid her face in her hands; Rachel grinned brightly.
"Let's play I Spy!"
-oooooooooo-
"Let's sit here." Kurt suggested, dropping his bags under a canopy in front of the water park's wave pool.
"Cool."
"Psshht, no way, Kurt. Just because you turn into Po when you're exposed to daylight doesn't mean the rest of us don't want some sun." Santana stated, striding past him and closer to the water's edge. "Here." She said confidently, stopping next to a row of loungers.
"Yeah, there's vomit under that chair Santana."
Tina looked disgusted. "Why are we always surrounded by vomit?"
"Hey, what about over there?" Finn gestured.
"Oh hell no. I need at least a ten foot radius from all small children."
"Can I have a ten foot radius from you?" Quinn asked, smiling sweetly at Santana.
"Let's go over there!" Rachel declared excitedly, dragging Quinn and the rest of the club to her spot.
"This is actually perfect." Puck stated. "Good lookin' out, Rach."
-oooooooooo-
Halfway through the day at the waterpark, Quinn had seen some things. Things she helped Rachel to avoid, but would never be able to erase from her own mind. Really, why do elderly, overweight men who look like they've never seen the sun insist on wearing Speedos to swim.
"It's their preference, Quinn. Leave them alone." Rachel remarked from her perch in the inflatable ring, Quinn gripping on to the side.
"You didn't see it Rachel. You can't understand. I've been traumatized."
"Only because you shoved me in the Lazy River so that I couldn't possibly see."
Quinn scowled and moved her floating girlfriend so that she would drift under the approaching waterfall.
-oooooooooo-
"Finn, just get some ice, sit down-"
"Sit down! Dude, I'll never be able to sit down again!" Finn cried, his voice slightly of a slightly higher pitch than usual.
"What happened to him?" Mercedes asked as Artie rolled up next to the group and Finn toddled away towards the restrooms.
Artie grinned. "He went down that twelve-story free-fall slide and his shorts sort of rode up…Well, not so much rode up, as, vanished completely from sight." Artie seemed immensely amused by this.
"Oh boy, don't even get me started." Mercedes jumped in. "Brittany and Santana went down the tunnel slide, you know the one that's dark all the way down, and when they came out the end Santana was topless and Brittany was gone. She came shooting out the end like five minutes later."
"Oh God, these people…" Quinn groaned, but dissolved into laughter as Finn came back out, smiling embarrassedly and taking very small steps.
"Sort yourself out?" Artie asked, trying oh-so-hard to contain his laughter, but failing miserably.
Finn gave a slight nod. He refused to meet anyone's eyes.
"Okay then!" Mike clapped his hands together. "Let's ride the family raft!"
After climbing up ten stories to reach the top of the flume, Quinn got into a raft with Rachel, of course, along with Finn, Mercedes, and Kurt. They sat in a circle, Finn smiling again, Rachel holding Quinn's hand, and Mercedes and Kurt talking to each other about the seventy-five year old woman they had just witnessed wearing a thong. The lifeguard lugged them out of the "boarding zone" and down into the first drop.
Everyone was laughing; all was good; Quinn was splashing Rachel, and Kurt had his hand outside of the raft and running along the smooth surface of the slide. Then they got into the maze of violent twists and sharp turns.
"Hey Finn, it's like your driving!" Kurt called out. Finn opened his mouth to respond, but never got the chance, as they went up a particularly sharp turn, going so high on the bank that the raft nearly sandwiched completely in half, dumping Finn out of his seat and onto Rachel.
"Finn!"
"Guys hold on-"
Now that nobody was holding on anymore, the five glee clubbers were tossed around like marbles in their little raft, laughing, maybe screaming, possibly painfully, definitely hysterically.
Quinn was pretty sure somebody's knee was in her eye socket as the float came out the end of the slide and landed in the pool.
"Okay," Mercedes looked around, trying to get her bearings. "Yeah, we definitely lost Kurt."
The four remaining people on the raft turned around just in time to see Kurt barreling down the slide behind them. Behind him, they caught sight of a raft holding only Puck and Tina. It had previously contained Mike, Santana, and Brittany as well.
-oooooooooo-
"So," Finn began, swimming around the wave pool with Quinn and Rachel, "when they fixed your eyes, did they, like, put something in there?"
Rachel glanced at Quinn, not quite sure how to respond. Quinn just shrugged. She figured Finn just wanted to know if Rachel was now the Bionic Woman.
Finn seemed to sense their confusion. "I was just wondering if you're, like, bionic now. That would be so cool."
Quinn inhaled some water, congratulating herself on her… psychicness? Psychosis? That was probably more fitting. Rachel smiled at her, thumping her on the back repeatedly.
"I don't have "super" vision now, Finn, if that's what you're asking." Finn looked slightly disappointed. "Or x-ray vision. Actually, my eyes kind of hurt now. It's really bright out here."
Quinn immediately stopped trying to body-surf into unsuspecting ten-year-olds and turned back to Rachel looking very concerned.
"Rachel, you should've said something." She said, feeling Rachel's forehead, not that that would tell her anything. Purely instinctual.
"It hasn't been that long. They're just sort of throbbing."
"Throbbing!" Quinn looked frantic. Her formerly blind girlfriend's eyes were throbbing!
Rachel chuckled at her expression. "Calm yourself, Quinn. I'll just put on some sunglasses."
Yeah, some damn sunglasses; plus, a layer of clothes, a towel, a sun hat, SPF 100 sun screen, ice, cucumber slices, whatever the hell it takes. Rachel led the way back to the Glee loungers, put on Quinn's new sunglasses, and smiled brightly at her girlfriend.
"See? Better."
"Mmm. I like those. I think I have a similar pair." Quinn said with a small smile.
Rachel stood on her tip-toes and kissed her. "I don't think so. These are mine." Rachel kissed her again and then looked over Quinn's shoulder and grimaced.
"What?"
"I just the saw gentleman who traumatized you outside the Lazy River."
Quinn laughed. "Being able to see is so overrated."
-oooooooooo-
The great thing about not being in Florida anymore was that lighting storms were no longer a daily occurrence. Quinn didn't have to worry about being struck to her death, standing on top of the two-person tunnel flume that Santana had flashed earlier. She had her arms around Rachel's waist, her head on top of the smaller girl's, and they both looked out over the railing, taking in the view.
"Wanna play I Spy?" Quinn asked, jokingly.
Rachel shook her head. "What can you see?" she asked quietly.
"Hmmm. I see the stadium in the distance…I see…the car park. I can totally make out the minibus from here."
"The one with the massive dent in the front bumper."
"Mhmm. I see a grown-up dancing around in the Kiddie Zone…Oh wait, that's Brittany… I see… lots of kids, lots of people, having fun, living their lives."
Rachel tightened her hold on Quinn's arms.
"There's a life guard running around down there…and there's a plane up in the sky."
Rachel tilted her head up to look and Quinn nuzzled into her neck.
"And I see the most beautiful girl in the world…Oh, wait, I lost her. Where did she go? Oh, yeah, she's right here." Quinn turned Rachel around and kissed her, grinning at Rachel's blush and shy smile.
"What can you see, Buddy?" Quinn asked her.
Rachel turned back to the view and smiled, bringing Quinn's arms back around her. She sighed contentedly when Quinn kissed her head.
"I can see for miles."