Thanks to FeelingGrey for betaing my story from the beginning.
Chapter 10 :5 Year Anniversary
It was the night after the picnic. Rachel and Quinn were hanging out at Rachel's house watching a movie. Quinn sees two friends in the movie linking their necklaces. She looks at Rachel and smiles a little. "Do you remember our five year friendship anniversary?" Quinn stared into the brown eyes of Rachel.
"Yeah, you totally forgot about it that day" Rachel smirked.
Flashback Second Semester Grade 6…
Barbra is walking down the hallway during break trying to find Lucy and finds her playing with a white rose, sitting on a bench. She smiles brightly and goes to sit down next to her.
"You know we aren't supposed to pick the flowers at school, right?" Barbra gives her a slight frown with a smile.
Lucy shakes her head "I didn't know that. But I like this one, it's so beautiful and it smells nice." She smiles and takes a whiff of the rose. "You give it a whiff?" She holds the rose out to Barbra.
Barbra takes the rose and smells it "It does smell nice, Luce." She gives the flower back but Lucy just smiles and shakes her head.
"You keep it, I got it for you because you're my best friend and I never want to lose you." Lucy was blushing slightly.
"Why thank you Luce." Barbra gave her a megawatt smile before hugging her. Lucy was smiling and hugging her back.
"It's nothing really." Lucy shrugged
"It is! Don't you remember what today is?" Barbra stops hugging her and shakes her head slightly.
"It's Thursday?" Lucy looked puzzled
"No, today five years ago…" Barbra started.
Realization hits Lucy "Was the day we met."
"Today is our five year friend anniversary!" Barbra shrieked.
"Then I gave you the perfect gift." Lucy felt proud of herself for doing something subconsciously.
"It's better than mine." Barbra sighed.
"I'm sure it's wonderful, Barbs." Lucy gave her an encouraging smile.
Barbra takes out a small box out of her pocket and opens it. Inside is a small medallion shaped like a rainbow that has assorted color stripes on it which splits into two necklaces. "It's friendship necklaces. I wanted something that would remind us of each other," Barbra said.
Lucy smiled "It's very nice. I love it!" Lucy picks up the one half of the medallion. "How can you say it's better than mine?" Lucy frowns a little.
"Yours is just so unique and special. Mine is store bought." Barbra looks sad.
"It's the thought that makes it special. You said you didn't just buy the first one you saw, you actually searched for this one." Lucy smiles while she is holding the half rainbow necklace in the air.
"There was only one of them in the store. I had to go looking through a few stores to find it." Barbra smiles a little.
"See, you had to go find it, that makes it special." Lucy was looking at the back of the small rainbow and saw "Is my name on this?" Lucy smiled brightly as she looked at Barbra. Barbra just nods. "The rose is nothing compared to this, Barbs." Lucy sighed a little but still smiled.
"The rose was handpicked for me, that makes it really special. I couldn't have asked for a better gift." Barbra hugs Lucy again. "Thank you."
A tear escaped Lucy's eye "Thank you for the necklace. It's something I'll hold onto for the rest of my life."
They pull back. "Lucy, are you crying?" Barbra's expression fell.
"No, I'm just really happy to have you as a friend." Lucy smiled.
"I'm happy I got chased away from those other kids. I would never have had such an amazing best friend." Tears were starting to form in her eyes while a few tears were rolling down Lucy's cheeks.
"You are such an amazing friend, Barbs. I don't know why they chased you away, I can't think of a better friend than you." Lucy was smiling shyly. Barbra was wiping away the tears on Lucy's face.
They put on the necklaces and held the half rainbow in the air and locked it with the other. "Barbra and Lucy forever," Lucy smiled looking at the rainbow as Rachel said the words.
"Doesn't it look better together than apart?" Lucy wondered why the colors looked brighter when they were linked up.
"Yes it does, like us. Better together." Barbra took her hand in a friendly manner.
"Let's promise to never lose each other. This will be our token to remind us of this promise." Lucy said.
"Promise," They both said simultaneously.
Then the bell rang.
They both stood up and walked to their classes. Lucy hugged Barbra goodbye and went to her class which was on the upper floor.
End of Flashback
Quinn takes out the rainbow necklace and holds it in front of her. "I always kept this to remind me that as long as I have this, you're not gone to me. It looks like you have found me after all."
Rachel starts to tear up.
"What's wrong, Rach?" Quinn frowns.
"I threw mine away, the day after I heard you were gone. I regret it to this day. When you disappeared without saying goodbye, I took it as you didn't want to be friends anymore." Rachel cried leaning on Quinn's shoulder. Hiram and Leroy walks into the room. They were watching them the whole time.
"Sweetie, you haven't lost it," Hiram said dangling the rainbow necklace in front of Rachel.
Rachel looks at the necklace warily. She takes it and examines it. "It's mine. Where did you find it?" She looks up at him with tear filled eyes.
"I remember the day all too well. It was the last day of grade school. Your eyes were red from crying. I thought you were just emotional because it was the last day. When you arrived home, you stormed to the backyard. I watched you through the window. You were cursing as you yelled to the skies. You were at it for an hour when I saw you yank the chain off your neck, toss it to the ground and yelled something harsh and stormed into the house and into your room." Rachel was blushing and Quinn was silently crying.
"We kept this necklace. Maybe one day you would find her again and you did. We knew what the necklace meant to you and what she was meant to you. You two didn't know it but you two had chemistry. Even your friends said it when we made small chat with them. That red head said she never thought two girls can set the room so on fire. Not only did you sound amazing but it was like you could see the vibe between you two. The blonde girl said she hopes things work out between you." Both girls were blushing heavily at this point. "I think I have said enough. I'll leave you two to talk." He gestured Leroy upstairs to give them some privacy and up they went.
Quinn was starting to cry "I'm really sorry for making you feel that way when I left. I didn't mean to hurt you Rachel. I was just fed up with the bullying and when my dad said we're moving, I was glad in a selfish way to get away from them, forgetting that I'm leaving you with them. I felt so bad about it and I still haven't forgiven myself for doing that to you." Quinn was crying heavily at this point.
"How would you have known that was going to happen back then? Those three got expelled in middle school. I wasn't bullied. So don't have any regrets about that. If you didn't go, I wouldn't have dedicated myself to my singing and wouldn't have had this amazing vocal range. I used the sadness and anger to keep myself going stronger and stronger with my voice. I refuse to let you torture yourself over this. It's not worth it." She looks Quinn straight in the eyes.
Quinn holds her gaze and smiles "I can't just forget about it, Rach."
Rachel smiled "Just wait here, I have to get something quickly." She stands up and walks to the bookshelf. She takes a scrapbook and opens it on a page with a dried-up white rose and shows it to Quinn.
"You kept it all these years?" Quinn smiles while looking at it.
"I put this in the book as soon as it began to wilt and have kept it here. I couldn't forget how happy I felt that day. We were crazy about each other then, huh?" Rachel blushed.
Quinn puts the book on the table. She leans toward her and whispers "We still are," and gives her a soft kiss on the lips. Rachel kisses her back and they both pull back. Quinn sits down and picks up the book again and realizes it's a scrapbook from their last year together.
"These are the photos of the last sleepover. I didn't know you had these. Remember when we tricked Ruby into thinking we were all gone?" Quinn smiled staring down at the photo.
"Yeah, she was totally upset about it, but luckily Shola convinced her to come back." Rachel smiled. "Most of the photos in this book were taken by you. The skill you had for taking photos was amazing. You knew how to take a photo to make the most of it." Rachel beamed at her.
"Oh and you loved that, Miss I-love-being-in-every-photo. You loved the camera, knowing exactly how to work it." Quinn smirked.
"No I didn't, you always looked so pretty in photos. Speaking of photos, I saw a poster of school with a Lucy Fabray on it but the girl on the photo is fat, you didn't look like that when we were friends. You were a little overweight but not fat. That photo was photo shopped, Quinn. If I find that person I'll personally hurt them myself." Rachel's face was contorted with anger.
The blonde put a hand on the brunette's shoulder "Calm down Rach, I already took care of that. She said she was sorry and I forgave her. Yes, that photo was photo shopped but it's over now so please just forget about it." The blonde pleaded a little.
"Okay" Rachel sighed "but just tell me who did it?"
"Why?" Quinn looked confused.
Rachel pouted a little "Because it's important to me to know, I just need to."
Quinn sighed "Okay, it was Lauran Zeizes. I was mean to her and she decided to retaliate by putting that photo shopped poster of me up at school. It didn't quite have the effect she wanted it to have. She wanted less people to vote for me for Prom Queen." Quinn took Rachel's hands "but I don't care about Prom Queen anymore," Quinn says honestly.
"But wasn't it always your dream to be Prom Queen?" Rachel asks looking into her eyes.
"It was but not anymore, it doesn't matter to me at all." Quinn gets off the couch and crouches in front of Rachel. "Rachel Barbra Berry, will you go to Prom with me?"
"I thought we were going to keep us a secret for now?" Rachel frowned.
"Yes, to us it will be as a couple, but we're just going as friends to others." Quinn smiled a bit.
"Then yes Quinn Lucy Fabray, I will go to Prom with you." Rachel beamed and hugged Quinn tightly and the book falls off her lap on the floor.
"You really are the best girlfriend ever," Quinn whispered in Rachel's ear. Quinn looks down at the book. "It fell open on the photo of us singing." They pulled apart and Rachel picked up the book.
"Were we really that oblivious to each other? You could see from a mile away that I was in love with you."
"Only a fool could not see that we were mad about each other."
"Looks like we were the fools, huh?" Rachel smiled looking at Quinn.
"I guess so. We even got the top score in Alone, 9990 on hard." Quinn smirks.
"I never heard you sing like that before that night. It was as if you were throwing everything into the song." Rachel beamed.
"I never thought I could sing like that." Quinn blushes "Do you remember how we acted during the song?"
Rachel smiles "Like two lost lovers. How ironic that we really were lost lovers."
Quinn shakes her head "Why did we even choose that song?"
"We couldn't agree on a song and just chose random and it gave us that song."
"A damn love song we both knew pretty well. Like the universe was trying to tell us something. Only that we didn't listen to it." Quinn frowned. "Remember how those five looked at us when we finished the song?"
"They were staring at us with goofy smiles like they knew something and they did, Suné standing at the doorway with my Dads. They saw what we didn't. I just thought we were so good that they couldn't stop watching us." Rachel shrugged.
"I thought we really screwed up the song until I saw the score and saw we got 9990. I never thought anyone could get that high of a score." Quinn smirked.
"The closest I ever came to that score was 9700. But that night, no one, not even me got close to 9500. Even on easy."
"Blame it on the sexual tension." Quinn shakes her head and laughs a little.
"Yeah it probably was." Rachel grinned.
"I don't know if you ever thought of this but don't you think that Shola and Ruby were like the kid versions of San and Britt?" Quinn pointed to a photo of Shola hugging Ruby.
"Now that you mention it… Yeah I do. Ruby was the unstable one and Shola the stable smart one, in some ways. Shola was like Britt and Ruby was like Santana. Shola was stronger all round but was flawed, while Ruby was intense but easily faltered when things got tough and Shola was the one she trusted more than anyone else. They were each other's shield. Ruby protected Shola and vice versa." Rachel smiled.
"It's funny how we learned so much from them and about them in less than two weeks. You could see how without each other they were lost. Shola kept Ruby from going over the edge and without Ruby, Shola would get easily hurt. They counteracted each other's flaws and became something of a unity." Tears were welling up in Quinn's eyes and she's trying to keep them in but a tear escapes her left eye.
"Quinn, are you crying?" Rachel asks wiping away the tear.
"I miss them Rachel. If those two brothers of Elith didn't show up that last week and screw everything up, we might have still been friends. I would have done everything I could to keep myself with you and those three, and keep my dad from taking the transfer. We could have been friends during middle school." The tears were streaming down Quinn's face and Rachel pulled her into a hug.
"It's okay, Quinn." Rachel tried to comfort her and pulls her into a hug.
"No, it's not Rachel. If I wasn't a fucking coward I wouldn't have ran away like I did. I was your best friend…" Quinn's voice breaking, "I should've stayed with you and we could've gotten through things like a best friend should. Not leave and not even say goodbye," Quinn said through the tears, her chin resting on Rachel's shoulder.
"I don't resent you, Quinn, and please stop getting down on yourself for things that happened years ago." Rachel pleaded with Quinn "You and I are here now, things happen for a reason."
"You know, you're the most amazing person in the world, Rachel and you're right, you can't change the past but you can let go." Quinn smiled a little while the tears lessened.
"I always knew there was something good in you Quinn. I was just fighting the bad side to get to what's really inside of you. On some levels you were just like Santana, you know?" Rachel immediately regretted blurting out that last line.
"What do you mean I'm like Santana?" Quinn asks confused.
"You also have this bitchy side to you for defense. You also liked to hurt others especially during freshman year. I could see why coach Sylvester wanted you as head cheerleader. You could make anyone feel insignificant." Rachel stated.
Quinn felt awful inside "You really see me that way Rachel?"
"No, you've changed or rather you changed back to your old self. The girl I love." Rachel smiled.
Quinn sighs in relief "For a moment I still thought I was a heartless bitch."
"I never thought that of you." Rachel smiles and takes one of the blonde's hands in her own.
Quinn pulls back and smashes her lips into Rachel. The kiss lasts longer than any of their kisses before. When the kiss ended Quinn pulls back. They sit in silence a little before Quinn speaks.
"We tell them tomorrow," she says staring at the ground.
"Tell who, what?" Rachel looked at the blonde in confusion.
Quinn takes a deep breath "We tell Finn and Sam tomorrow about us as we break up with them." The blonde says as she looks at Rachel.
Rachel nods in agreement "The sooner the better, we should get this over and done with. I think we should each break up with them on our own."
"Are you sure you want to do it that way?" Quinn frowns.
"Yeah, we have to be able to handle things on our own. I just can't handle you being there with me when I break up with Sam. You understand what I mean right?" Rachel gives the blonde a small smile.
"Yeah, I also want to break up with Finn on my own." Quinn nods.
Rachel nods "Then tomorrow we break up with them."