Simple Parts
Chapter Ten- Raze the City
And you don't even realize
you could raze the city to the ground
Lasso down the moon for you
If you walk by me.
QFRB
If Alex was a puppy then Morgan was a full grown guard dog. Something fierce like a German Shepard or a Rottweiler.
As soon as Rachel led Quinn back into the basement he had his arm over her shoulder and was leading her away from the brunette to sit between him and Alice on a separate sofa.
The room was lit with a soft golden glow and it radiated a sense of warmth just like the rest of the Fabray house did. Quinn felt very comfortable there in the basement trapped between her two future children despite the fact that Finn had clasped Rachel tightly to his side as soon as she sat down by him.
Finn wasn't looking at Quinn at all, his gaze was focused on Rachel entirely, and his attitude wasn't smug or jealous. Whatever Rachel had said to him had clearly gotten through. He was just possessive and so was Quinn, so there was still a huge tension between them that the boy was attempting to ignore.
"So does anyone know where the others ended up?" Kurt asked as Quinn settled in. "I know Mercedes is in Atlanta doing some sort of show."
"Artie's in space," Brittany offered up. "I used to think he was a robot, but now I know he helped built the pyramids."
"He's an astronaut," Santana clarified with an irritated eye roll when the blonde beside her received several confused looks.
"Yeah, he's looking for other aliens. I don't know why he has to be in space though. They live among us."
"Sam says that all the time," Morgan added. "Maybe he should have Artie on his show."
"That would be so badass!" Alex agreed, sitting forward and fixing his wide brown eyes on his older brother. "We should ask at Christmakkuh."
"What are you weirdoes talking about?" Finn asked, his face twisting in confusion.
"Hey!" Quinn sat up straighter, Morgan's arm still comfortably around her shoulders. "Don't call my kids weirdoes."
Quinn almost found it interesting that everything that Finn did seemed unattractive and borderline offensive to her now. She could clearly remember a time with the boy's confused expression would have been cute or endearing, or sometimes just frustrating, but now it just pissed her off. Everything about him pissed her off. His hair, his clothes, his grin, his voice, his stupid arm slung over Rachel's delicate shoulders. Everything.
But to the blonde's pleasure, Rachel was just as irritated it seemed, because she smacked his leg hard.
"Ow! I was just teasing."
"Anyway," Morgan cut in before any further abuse could occur, "Sam Evans has an occult television show. He searches for mythical creatures and aliens and ghosts. It's pretty entertaining."
"Oh wow, has he found unicorns yet?
Morgan smiled indulgently at Brittany. "Not yet, but they're very shy."
"Yeah," Brittany nodded sagely, "they don't like boys very much either."
"What about you Brittany?" Kurt asked in an effort to get away from unicorn conversations. "What are you doing now?"
Everyone knew how excited Brittany was about the future. They had all gotten the same exact earful about how she was married to Santana and they had kids and there were hover boards, but she hadn't talked about more than that.
"I own a dance studio!"
"Hey, so do I!" Mike enthused. The two dancers gave each other exuberant high fives.
"And I coach the Cheerios." Brittany kept her wide blue eyes locked on Mike, as if she expected him to reveal that he coached a cheerleading team too.
"Oh, I don't do that."
It turned out that Brittany and Mike had both ended up at UCLA for dance. Mike moved on to New York and worked as a dancer and occasional actor on stage for a long time. It was only as he started to age that he went from dancing to teaching and he and Tina moved to Chicago and had stayed there for the past eight years. The couple had been together without a break since they first began dating. Mike's first year of college had been trying on their relationship, but they had made it through and were made all the stronger from it.
Brittany had taken a different track, dropping out of college after only a year, and ended up as a dancer for Beyoncé and then Lady Gaga. She met her first husband at some sort of fancy party and had a child with him. She left him eventually and got together with Santana who was a lawyer in New York. They had eventually moved to Boston and then to Lima when Sue Sylvester broke her hip and ended up confined to a wheelchair for an indeterminate amount of time.
Santana had gone to a private school in the south that gave her a full ride and then to Columbia for law school. She was now a civil rights lawyer.
"I was super confused when I got here though. Cause like, I thought for sure that Sugar was my child sent from the future, but apparently she's not." Brittany shrugged. Santana hugged Brittany consolingly.
"Maybe she's from an alternate universe?" Alex suggested helpfully.
Kurt had ended up on Broadway just like Rachel, and was currently single and not necessarily looking for anything serious.
Puck had started a moderately successful band called More Than Us in college and spent several years touring. When the band split up he returned to Lima and opened his own smoke shop which he still ran. He met his wife in that very shop.
Finn was lame and stayed in Lima where he tricked a woman into marrying him and having his kids. At least, that was the uncharitable way that Quinn interpreted his story. She barely managed to keep the "yeah, no one cares," from slipping out.
"What's it like, living with two Rachels?" Santana asked, interrupting Finn's irritating story about what awesome new video games there were in the future. Other than him, only Puck seemed disappointed in the change of conversation.
"It's more like five Rachels really," Quinn replied in a low drone. Morgan squeezed her shoulder and she tried to smile for him. "It gets pretty loud."
Morgan laughed. "We grew up in New York," he said by way of explanation.
"I'd probably purposefully burst my ear drums," Santana snarked.
"I kind of like it." Quinn shrugged at the looks of surprise and disbelief that several people cast her way. She was more interested in the shy, adoring look that Rachel gave her.
About six seconds later Finn seemed to realize that his girlfriend had been subtly insulted. "Hey, Rachel isn't so bad," he piped up, an offended look settling over him slowly. He glared at Santana.
"Whoa, Lurch, slow down before you hurt yourself."
Finn scowled and opened his mouth to retort but Rachel stroked his arm and whispered something in his ear. He snapped his mouth closed and sat there pouting while to conversation carried on without him.
They eventually ran out of things to talk about and returned to the original plan of watching Easy A. Someone hit the lights and someone else started the movie back up. The boys and Santana rediscovered the food and all was quiet and calm for a while.
Quinn just wished she could actually focus on the movie.
In the blue light of the television Quinn could just see where Rachel and Finn were sitting. Finn had pulled Rachel further into him so that she was nearly in his lap. She wanted to look away, because it was clear that Finn was using the cover of dark as an excuse to feel Rachel up. The small brunette looked like she was discouraging his advances, but Quinn would bet money that Finn had that smug smirk of his plastered on his face.
She hated his fucking smirk.
Rachel moved one of Finn's hands from her thigh and whispered something in his ear. Whatever it was caused Finn to nod enthusiastically. He wrapped his awkward arms around her and pulled her fully into his lap, where she proceeded to tuck her head under his chin.
Quinn's lip curled in distaste and she looked away. But she couldn't focus on the movie and before too long her eyes were straying back to the duo on the couch.
She looked back just in time to see Finn tilt Rachel's head back and plant his lips on hers.
Rachel didn't know Quinn was watching. Even though she had become acclimated to the feeling of the blonde's eyes on her years ago, she was more focused on keeping Finn from making another scene. His pleading whines of "why won't you let me touch you," had been getting louder and more insistent with every advance she deferred. When he kissed her and she allowed it, she didn't hear or see Quinn bolt from the room.
Rachel tried to focus on the way Finn made her feel. But instead of the rush of adrenaline and arousal that she was expecting, she mostly just felt physically uncomfortable. She had always been aware that he was a large boy, but she hadn't ever noticed how ill-fitting they were together. He had to uncomfortable with the angle that he neck made in order to kiss her properly.
When his stubble scratched over her cheek and chin, instead of feeling excited at the physical reminder of his masculinity, she remembered the smooth softness of Quinn's cheek under her lips. And, God! The way Quinn smelled. It was nothing at all like the mixture of sweat, musk, and turkey that Finn was exuding. It wasn't entirely his fault, she could rationalize that, he couldn't help that his sweat was unattractive to her.
She couldn't get the feeling back. She knew what it felt like, but she couldn't even really remember it. Not fully. It was just an echo of how she was supposed to feel.
She allowed Finn to kiss her for a few more seconds. When he frowned at her retreat she pointedly reminded him that they were in public and returned her attention to the movie.
QFRB
Quinn hadn't had the opportunity so far to step out into the back yard. The back porch was deep and covered, to the left there was a handsome outdoor kitchen, the shiny top of the grill peeking over the edge of the granite toped counter.
The grass was all dead, but it looked like it was usually a lush green. In the middle of the yard was a fair sized swimming pool with an artificial waterfall built on. The water wasn't currently running, probably due to the near freezing temperatures.
She sat in one of the outdoor loveseats that were kept out of direct contact with the weather and tried to relax. Her stomach was rolling and the cold helped to calm her racing heart and mind. It was nice to be alone.
Really, she should have expected to be interrupted.
"Finally! I've been looking for you everywhere. This house is fucking huge. You must be seriously loaded."
"Hello Santana," Quinn sighed.
"Why the long face?"
Quinn gave Santana a flat stare. The caustic girl found this more amusing than anything else. She sat down at the edge of the lounger, her hip butting up against Quinn's knee.
"You and Brittany huh?"
Santana looked down at her lap, flushing a little. "Yeah. Pretty wild."
"I expected it. It was more surprising to hear that she had a husband."
The darker girl huffed loudly and watched her clouded breath float away. "He's such a fuckin' douche. He called yesterday and said some sort of shit that made Brittany cry and then yelled at their kid 'cause he didn't go visit for the holiday or something."
"Jerk," Quinn agreed.
"Yeah, but get this," Santana smacked the blonde's leg and leaned closer like she about to divulge a juicy secret. "I'm not a divorce lawyer or whatever, but Brittany came to me to get her out of her marriage so she could keep her kid. Her dick of an ex-husband was going to paint her as an unfit mother or something, cause she seems slow to people that don't know her, but I just got proof that he was sleeping around and he was the real unfit parent and stuff. Apparently it worked." Santana shrugged like it wasn't a big deal. The bashfulness lurking around the corners of her dark eyes said otherwise.
"That's great for you, I guess," Quinn muttered, side glancing at her frienemy. She was acting really weird. Santana wasn't usually very talkative.
Santana shrugged again and careful arranged her face into a neutral expression. "So, Big Bad Quinn Fabray is just a Big Ol' Gay now. I would congratulate you on not being the size of a house, but that mostly just pisses me off so…"
And the point emerges.
"I'm not gay."
"Um, I know we used to call Berry a tranny and shit, but she's seriously all girl. So yeah, you married to her? Way gay."
"Look, I'm not gay, alright? It's just Rachel."
"You can't pull that shit with me. I see you leer at girls' legs and asses all the time. Don't even try to say it's some weird girly self-conscious issue with your body or anything either. I leer at them too, so I totally know what it looks like."
"I'm not gay."
"Whatever."
"I'm not."
"Sure."
"Santana!"
"You still end up married to the dwarf, so I'm pretty sure I win at life."
"Shut up, you've had a crush on her forever."
"Alright, listen here grasshopper, I don't have a crush on her. I just want to fuck her."
Quinn stared at her, surprised by her frankness.
"What? If you ignore her personality she's pretty fucking hot. Plus she has a huge mouth, can hold one note for, like, thirty seconds or some shit and she's mastered circular breathing. So yeah, I wouldn't even be a little nervous above trying to smother her with my pussy. Bet she'd go to town."
Quinn, torn between embarrassment, jealousy, and disgust, felt her face burn and knew she had turned bright red. Santana's smirk didn't improve her mood. "You're disgusting."
The darker girl shrugged. "Except now you're thinking about it."
There was no way for her to know for sure, but she felt like her cheeks were about to explode. It couldn't possibly be healthy to blush so much in such a short time span. "I'm not gay," she insisted, once her mouth was back under her control.
Santana frowned and angled her body so she was facing Quinn fully. She reached out and grabbed Quinn's hands, holding on tightly when the blonde instinctively tried to pull away. "Quinn."
The blonde quit struggling and slumped a little. "What?"
Santana looked her right in the eye as if she was trying to see inside her soul. Quinn shrank away a little. She hadn't seen Santana so quietly serious before. It wasn't the same brand as her usual angry seriousness, which she had sampled first-hand when they were all freshman and Quinn had called Brittany stupid.
"That's not fucking cool," Santana spat right in her face, a little spit flecking the blonde's cheek.
At the time Quinn hadn't quite grown in to her bitchiness yet, so she had just replied with a "Sorry, geeze," and walked away.
No, this was determined and honest, calm.
"I'm gay."
Quinn's brow furrowed. "Uh…I know?"
"I'm gay," she repeated, squeezing Quinn's hands for emphasis. "Gay, gay, gay, gay, gay, gay, gay, gay, gay, gay, gay, gaygaygaygay."
"Yeah I got it, okay? Can you stop that now?"
"I'm gay…and so are you."
This time Quinn was successful in removing her hands from Santana's. "God, Santana!"
"What do I need to do? What do I need to do to get you to understand yourself? You're so in denial that even seeing yourself in the future, completely fucking gay, doesn't affect your vision of yourself. Do I need to slap you? I will."
"What do you want from me?" She wanted to be angry. She wanted to yell and fight and punch Santana right in the middle of her supportive expression. Instead she said it quietly. Everyone wanted something from her so it didn't make since to keep getting upset over it.
Santana surprised her though. She took Quinn's face between her hands and looked her directly in the eyes when she spoke. "I just want you to be happy, Q! And you're not. You're not happy. You're scared, and I get it. I get it one hundred percent. I am right there with you. But if you can't even be honest with me, when I'm in the exact same boat as you, then I don't know if you're going to make it."
"I'm being honest!" she lied. "I'm not gay."
"Prove it."
Quinn jerked back. "What?"
Santana rolled her eyes. "Prove it."
"How the-"
"Just kiss me or something."
"You are insane."
"No, I'm a freaking genius."
"Right."
"Don't get snarky, that's my job."
"I don't want to kiss you."
"Oh, and I want to kiss you?" Santana sneered and gave her a very offensive once over. "You look like a hobo."
"You brought it up. And these clothes are clean and super comfortable and warm."
"Oh please, I have my own hot blonde just waiting for my sweet lady kisses right downstairs. I'm just trying to do a good deed."
"How would that prove anything anyway?"
"I'm noting your deflection but moving past it. Hello, if you like kissing me even just a little bit more than you liked kissing those disgusting boys you used to date, then you're at least a little gay."
"There's no way I would enjoy kissing you, for any reason."
"Come on, prove it. Or are you just going to keep on being a coward for you whole miserable life?"
Quinn bristled. People calling her a coward was starting to get really annoying. Decision made for that very reason, she leaned forward until Santana's triumphant expression halted her. She hesitated, not entirely capable of keeping the apprehensive look off her face. Santana noticed and rolled her eyes so hard that it looked like they stuck for a few seconds.
"Oh my God. Seriously? Just do it already."
Quinn's lip curled and she took Santana's face between her hands a little harder than necessary and leaned in.
For all the force Quinn used to start out, their mouths slid against each other's softly. Santana was sure and steady and allowed Quinn's tentative lips to explore hers freely, only moving where Quinn directed. The blonde had never kissed someone so soft. It wasn't just her lips either, which could be rivaled by Sam's. It was the smooth skin of her cheeks and the press of their bodies together, the small hands in her hair, and even the way she smelled, like some sort of flower.
It was, without a doubt, the best kiss Quinn had ever experienced. Awkward for sure, because she couldn't get over the fact that she was kissing Santana Lopez, of all people, but still basically pleasant. And at least Santana was respectful enough to not stick her tongue down Quinn's throat too, unlike most of the boys she had kissed.
She opened her mouth a little and tilted her head, deepening the kiss. That was the point that Santana decided to be really irritating.
She smirked.
Quinn pulled away immediately as soon as she felt it, a scowl already sketching over her face. She licked her lips and met the smug brunette's eyes.
"Not gay, huh?"
She didn't say anything at first. Her brain was still trying to wrap around what had just happened. "I'd really like to be alone now," Quinn whispered into the cold air between them after a minute, a cloud of vapor forming and disappearing. It burned to see the quickly masked hurt in Santana's eyes, but she held the brunette's gaze. Santana nodded, tucking her bottom lip under her teeth in a quick and unconscious move. Quinn wondered if the other girl's lips were still tingling like mad the way hers were.
"Don't runaway, Quinn. We all know you can be brave." Quinn looked away. She sure as hell didn't feel brave. Santana sighed once and then used the blonde's shoulder to steady her as she stood up, giving it a quick squeeze before she let go. "Feel better," she muttered with affected disinterest.
"Hey, Santana," Quinn called before the other girl could close the back door behind her, "congratulations on not being the size of a house."
Santana scoffed. "Yeah, thanks. Bitch."
Quinn kind of smiled at Santana's back until she disappeared inside. As soon as she was gone, the smile slid off of the blonde's face. She could feel a crushing realization settling in her brain and then rattling in her chest with a deep breath of freezing air.
I'm so gay.
QFBR
Quinn barely made it to the upstairs bathroom before she threw up.
The toothbrushes that she and Rachel had been given for their stay taunted her from their place on the counter. Rachel's purple one (She had snatched that one before Quinn even had a chance to make a move. The blonde was fine with it, she preferred the green one anyway, but it had been kind of cute.) was leaning against hers.
She threw up again.
The really remarkable thing about throwing up was that, unless she was pregnant, it made her feel better. Sure, it was a hollow kind of victory when she had been in the Cherrios and it had been a part of her culture, but now that the only time she had to throw up was when she was legitimately sick, it was good.
The queasiness dissipated and she replaced the sour in her mouth with mint from the toothpaste and made her way to Morgan's room.
She felt better, but there was no way she was going back to the basement when the source of her nausea was still present.
True to the course her life had taken so far, she didn't get very much time to herself before someone knocked on the door.
"Come in," she allowed reluctantly.
Quinn sighed heavily when the open door revealed her older self on the other side. Of course.
"So, why are you up here?"
"Don't act like you don't know."
Older Quinn smirked. "You said that my smug attitude was unattractive, I thought I would stop acting all-knowing while I was around you, but if you'd rather I answer everything you want to say with 'I know,' I can."
"Just shut up."
Older Quinn laughed and removed herself from where she was leaning back against the door to move around the room, trailing her fingers over the chest of drawers and then settling in front of the dandelion painting that hung on the wall. "This painting," she indicated, "I did it."
"Really?"
"Yeah, while I was pregnant with Morgan. It was in his nursery and when he turned twelve I got it tattooed next to the oak tree on my back. The little florets turn into birds about half way to my shoulder for Alice."
"Can I see?"
The older blonde took her sweater, and then her long-sleeved undershirt off, and then the short-sleeved shirt after that.
"Why do you wear so many clothes?" Quinn asked as the older woman approached in just her bra.
"You know, my wife frequently asks me that very question. Usually when she's trying to get in my pants." Quinn frowned but tried to keep from reacting further. She knew her older self was just trying to get a rise out of her, and it was irritating that it worked so easily. She had played it correctly. When she didn't say anything the older blonde lost her little smirk and answered honestly. "I get cold easily. One of the side effects I've noticed from my misspent youth." She sat on the edge of the bed, her back to the time traveler and allowed the young girl to look at the ink on her back.
"Why is that?" Quinn asked absently as she observed the scene on what would become her back. Along her spine was an oak sapling, thin and small with five leaves. The trunk of the tree was solid, but the leaves were made of words and phrases. "Thou mayest" took position as the bottommost leaf.
Quinn traced the letters and drew a shiver out of her older self. "What's 'thou mayest'?"
"It's from East of Eden. I read it when I was recovering. As for why I get cold, it had a lot to do with my lack of a healthy diet. My eating disorder troubles were mostly resolved even after Beth was born, as you're well aware, but eating just wasn't important to me when I was on the drugs. I lost a lot of weight very quickly. Even though I wasn't anorexic, I had an anorexic's body. I got back in shape but I've always been a little cold natured since then."
The younger blonde bit her lip and ignored the direction the conversation had gone. Instead she read the rest of the leaves. After "thou mayest" there was "this is the story I've made it, it's hard to contain it," and then "I will not falter," in the middle. The top two leaves read "this time I'll show you what I can become," and the last "in diversity there is beauty and strength."
At the foot of the little sapling was the tattoo equivalent of the painting on the wall, the seeds started to turn into birds half way up. Mixed in with the birds was "we're all mad here," and "DON'T PANIC."
"What did your shirt say?" Quinn had caught a very fleeting glance at it before the older woman had tossed it aside, but now that she was putting it back on she wanted to know what it said. Most of the stuff she and Rachel had borrowed to sleep and work out in had the names of their colleges on it. In fact, the sweatshirt that Older Quinn had walked in wearing had Julliard over the chest.
Older Quinn laughed and held the shirt up so her younger self could read it. It was a stylized picture of the Madonna and child and said "Abstinence: 99.99 percent effective."
"That's offensive."
"A lot of the funniest things are."
Quinn rolled her eyes and lay back down, deciding to not start a fight with herself.
The older woman finished getting redressed and then sat back down where she had been earlier. "So, faking sick, huh?"
"I'm not faking. I really threw up."
"Yeah, I remember. Sucks." Quinn didn't feel the need to reply, so she just lay there silently. "At least they aren't having sex yet though."
Every cell in her body froze solid. "What?" It was a useless question really. There hadn't been much room for false interpretation of the older blonde's statement. She didn't want to believe it though. It seemed impossible.
Older Quinn's eyes were unfocused and Young Quinn knew that she was stuck in the past. "I remember when I found out. They weren't flaunting it or anything, or Rachel wasn't. I'm sure Finn told all of his friends about what a stud he was. I said some pretty terrible things to her though." She shook her head and looked down to meet stricken hazel eyes. "It really hurt, and I thought it was because I was still attracted to Finn at the time, which was really weird because I didn't fixate on him at all until after I found out. I had pretty much forgotten he existed. Looking back now, I know it was because I felt betrayed by Rachel. It's just all so messed up." She ran a hand through her hair in irritation. "It was irrational, but I wasn't exactly all there. I wish I could have gotten help in high school instead of waiting until I nearly killed myself."
They sat in silence together until Quinn's eyelids started to droop. She wasn't really thinking much of anything, just feeling formless emotions swirl around and ache in her chest. It was almost an unconscious realization that it didn't hurt as bad as usual.
She didn't react at first when Older Quinn stood and stretched. It was only when she noticed that the woman was preparing to leave that she spoke. "Is it worth it?" She sounded so much like a child that it made her feel even smaller.
Older Quinn smiled and carefully moved her younger self's hair out of her eyes. "Yeah. It's definitely worth it."
Quinn nodded. Older Quinn left.
There was so much she had to think about.
She didn't want to.
Not now. Not yet.
But one thing she couldn't stop thinking about was what Rachel, the girl she was going to marry and make lady babies with, was going to have sex with Finn Hudson. Before she came to the future, he had been nearly invisible to her, after seeing what she would be with Rachel he had turned in to a kind of silent tragic villain, but now, now he was undesirable number one.
Part of her didn't want to acknowledge that it was a big deal. She got the girl in the end, so it shouldn't matter who had gotten her before. It did though. It mattered a fucking lot. It gnawed at the edges of her consciousness that Finn Hudson would always have a part of Rachel Berry that she never would. And sure, Rachel would never have that part of Quinn Fabray, but that didn't matter as much to her. Maybe it was a double standard, but she really couldn't bring herself to care.
She felt sick again.
QFRB
She didn't know how much time had passed exactly, but she had heard the doorbell ring several times, and the light that filtered in through the single window turned grey and then dark blue, until it was almost too dark to see anything. She could barely make out the outlines of the furniture. She was pretty sure she had dozed, falling in and out of light slumber every time a noise would echo through the large house.
No one had bothered her since she had talked to her older self, and for that she was grateful. It was nice to finally be able to sit alone and breathe without people pressuring her to do something.
Naturally, just as she thought it, someone came knocking.
She rolled her eyes. I keep jinxing it. I should probably just stop thinking altogether.
"Come in," Quinn called reluctantly, hoping it wouldn't be her older self, come back to toss more hurtful revelations at her. She didn't really want to deal with herself at the moment. She wasn't entirely sure if that counted as irony or not because she was too emotionally drained to use energy for thinking.
Her luck was coming back it seemed, because it was Rachel the Young that entered the room, a concerned gleam in her eye. "They're all gone now. Everyone said they hope you feel better soon." The blonde didn't say anything, but she must have looked confused because Rachel elaborated. "Um, Older Quinn came to tell us that you were sick and didn't want to be bothered."
Quinn just hummed in acknowledgement. She doubted Finn had wished her well, but she was too tired to start something over it.
"Do you still feel nauseous?" Rachel approached slowly, as if afraid that Quinn was just going to suddenly sit up and spew chunks all over the floor.
The blonde unwrapped one arm from around her stomach and held up her thumb and index finger as a measurement. It probably would have been easier to say "just a little," but it would have come out as "only when I think of him touching you."
"Story time starts in an hour. Do you think you'll feel better in time?"
Quinn shrugged. She didn't want to go. She just wanted to lay there and wallow in her misery.
"Well, I hope you get to feeling better," Rachel said finally. She couldn't think of a reason to stay in the other girl's presence when it was rather obvious that she wanted to be alone. She turned around with the full intent of leaving.
"No, don't leave," Quinn called out when Rachel turned toward the door. The smaller girl glanced back and Quinn sat up on her elbow a little, scooting back toward the wall a little. "Stay. Talk to me."
Rachel hesitated.
"I'm not going to bite or anything," Quinn said while trying to suppress a pout. She didn't want to seem desperate.
Rachel grinned sheepishly. She sat on the edge of the bed and then lay down after a quiet minute of hesitation. "Are you mad at me?" she asked once she had settled on her side facing Quinn.
Quinn's brow furrowed. "No, why would I be?" Her heart was pounding out of her chest from nerves at being so close to Rachel in a bed. A tiny bed that barely allowed them room to breathe without brushing against each other.
"Because of Finn."
Quinn looked away. "No, I'm not mad. Why would you think that?"
Rachel shrugged. "Santana might have said something to that effect.
"Santana doesn't know everything."
"Well she was paying attention to you when I should've been. I'm sorry you were uncomfortable." When Quinn didn't say anything she continued, "I'm sorry you were unhappy."
"It's not like you can be expected to watch me every second, Rachel. You were busy with Finn. It was for the best that you kept him from throwing a fit and storming out."
They were silent for a moment, both avoiding eye contact as much as possible.
"Is it weird that I missed you?" Rachel breathed into the space between them after a moment.
Quinn wasn't someone that frequently thought about sex, in general. She was a teenager, and her hormones did like to play cruel games on her occasionally, like making her extremely horny when she had no outlet available. Her current predicament could be considered cruel and unusual punishment. Rachel's breathy tone did nothing to help her figure out anything.
Just because she was gay didn't mean she accepted it or knew what to do with the information.
She swallowed. "Only if it's weird that I missed you too."
"I don't understand you sometimes, Quinn." Rachel scoffed at her own words. "Most of the time actually."
"What do you mean?"
"How can you see all of this, all of these wonderful things that are going to happen for you, and still have doubt?"
Quinn swallowed hard and looked away from the deep brown eyes that were piercing her soul. She ended up staring at Rachel's collar bones. "I don't deserve it," she whispered finally. She reached across the space between them and nearly traced one of those bones with a finger, but she pulled back before she could touch the girl beside her.
"Everyone deserves love Quinn."
The blonde twitched at the word love, but was otherwise still and silent.
Rachel wasn't having near the angst that Quinn was. It was very easy for her to accept thing things she saw as factual and rearrange her world view for them. She saw this future. She experienced it. She knew that her older self was successful and happy and loved. It was obvious. The life she had naively planned with Finn in the picture was fuzzy and indistinct, but this was real and it was something she could cling to, even with Quinn being an idiot about it. Rachel scoffed. "This sounds familiar. Have we had this conversation before?"
Quinn bristled. "I don't know." She was anticipating an attack, but Rachel's next words were in the same even, tired tone she had been speaking in.
"Maybe that's part of the problem we have. Everything is circular and we end up going nowhere. Nothing is changed."
"I want to change."
"So do it."
"It's not that easy."
"Yes, it really is."
"Well it's not for me!" Quinn sat up and moved away from Rachel, fully intending on leaving the room. Rachel caught her by the arm though and pulled her back down onto the bed.
"Stop running from me," Rachel demanded, rolling to hover over Quinn.
Quinn's lip curled. "Stop-" she cut herself off and just growled angrily.
"Why? Why should I stop anything I'm doing? So you don't have to confront anything? Well I'm not going to let you do that. Not anymore."
Quinn pushed the smaller girl in the center of her chest and tried to sit up. "No one gives a fuck about me!"
Rachel shoved her back with a hand on each of the blonde's shoulders and held her down. "I give a fuck!"
"Why?" Quinn demanded from her place on her back. She was too worked up to even be surprised at Rachel's use of such foul language. "Why? I've done nothing but treat you like shit the entire time we've known each other."
"I've forgiven you for that. It's not even true; we've been almost friends a few times before."
"You're worth so much more than that?"
"Oh, you think so do you?"
"Of course!"
"Then why can't I think the same about you? You're worth more than you seem to believe." The fight fled from Rachel and she dropped down beside Quinn instead of hovering over her. "I just wish I could make you see it. Somehow."
Quinn watched Rachel's face while she thought. She couldn't really comprehend why Rachel would be at all interested in her. Sure she was conventionally pretty, but she had a terrible personality, when she had one at all. Her Lucy days were probably the last time she had any character traits that weren't inherently terrible and those had been wiped away by years of crippling self-doubt and hatred. Quinn was a chameleon, an octopus; she added and subtracted traits as they were necessary for her survival. She had nothing that she could give Rachel in return. She had life skills; she could cook and clean and knew plenty about babies without having to study piles of baby books. Rachel could find those skills in anyone though, it wouldn't be necessary to keep Quinn for just that. If Rachel only wanted love, that would be easy enough to find elsewhere as well. Quinn just couldn't think of any one thing about herself that anyone, and especially Rachel, would find to be special about her. Something that warranted the type of devotion she could see reflected in this future, where she and Rachel would still have to keep from jumping each other like newlyweds when they had been married for nearly thirty years.
She couldn't comprehend why, but for some reason Rachel wanted her anyway, and she wanted Rachel, despite everything. More than anything, more than their history, more than her raising, more than her own self-loathing, Quinn just knew that they wanted each other.
Why bother stopping it.
Quinn took Rachel's shoulder in hand and forcefully turned the other girl to face her so they were both lying on their sides. Rachel started to protest but was cut off by the intense look in Quinn's eyes. And then Quinn stalled, like she had only thought that far and was now out of ideas, which was pretty close to the truth of the matter.
"I want to kiss you," Rachel said, pushing the silence away. She leaned closer just enough and then waited.
They hovered there in that in between, with their faces so close that they were breathing the same air. Quinn's eyes were wide and panicked, but she hadn't run yet. That was good. She was spooked but not badly. It told Rachel that they could make it through this, no matter the outcome. It wasn't long ago that if confronted Quinn would lash out and then run. It was her MO. Now she was wary and watchful, an easily startled fawn or rabbit instead of a lion.
"I'm not…going to force myself on you. You have to tell me," she cut off and looked away. The emotion of the moment was just too big to contain and she had to blink away some tears before she could continue. "You have to tell me that you want it."
To Quinn, it felt like there was no air in her lungs. She tried to breathe but there was only an empty whistling sound, no relief. She was silent for so long that Rachel feared she had misinterpreted the moment and ducked her head in shame. "Do it," Quinn said, when she saw Rachel's head dip. She could practically see the doubt radiating off the smaller girl and it killed her that she had caused it.
Rachel looked up so fast that Quinn thought her head might just keep going and fly right off her neck.
"What?"
Quinn drew in a shuddering breath and then let it out, fixing her determined eyes on Rachel's. "I want you to kiss me." It was so quiet that Rachel had to struggle to hear it, but the vulnerability and sincerity of the statement was clear. Quinn's determinism faded into bashfulness after a few seconds and she tacked on a heartbreaking, "please."
Rachel didn't need to be asked more than twice. Within seconds there was no long any space between their lips. She could feel her heart swelling and rending apart even with such a gentle touch and it made her marvel at the fact that it would get better when they were more passionately entangled. That understanding alone made her ache and want for it.
When Quinn tilted her head to deepen the kiss, her mouth sliding open just enough for their lips to connect more completely, she felt like they were trading souls, could almost feel hers leaving her body.
They were moving on instinct. There was no calculation in either of them. Just feeling.
For Quinn, kissing Santana had been good. But kissing Rachel was everything. It was all she was and would be and wanted to be and life and the universe and her head and heart and body were just too full and too everything to even words.
Her brain died a small death and then exploded in color and a riot of glee that even the negative aspects for her mental process couldn't override.
Neither of them were able to tell who pulled away first. It was just an organic progression of the moment. They just pulled apart slowly, their separation marked by the tiniest of noises, and then their eyes opened and they stared at each other silently.
Until Rachel just couldn't stand it anymore and her brain, buzzing to capacity, let loose.
"We're really remarkably similar. We're both desperately clinging to the idea that not only are we unlovable but also to the fact that all we want is love." She gasped a little. "And really, it's a little absurd to think that way and we both know it, or at least I do, but that doesn't make it easier to stop that line of thinking. I'll have to bring this up with my therapist when we get back to our time. Oh! But I won't remember. I wonder if there's some sort of way I can carry along a note or something that will prompt this to become an issue for me without freaking myself out."
"Rachel?"
"Yeah?"
"Stop talking."
Rachel smiled. She couldn't count how many times she had heard that phrase in her life, even from Quinn Fabray. But she had never heard it with that tone or with those deep hazel eyes with blown pupils staring back at her. So yeah, this time she smiled instead of huffing and storming out. And then she leaned in to kiss some sanity back into Quinn Fabray.
QFRB
They really hadn't kissed for very long before they were both feeling too tired to carry on at the pace they had set. Quinn fell into a doze first after she moved away and curled into a fetal position, her hands tightened into fists under her chin. Rachel followed, much more relaxed, only moments later.
Her head was in that heavy place where it felt like she had either been asleep for a few minutes or for a few long days. She couldn't identify what had woken her either, until the door to the room opened, spilling light across the darkness and revealing Older Quinn in the opening.
Rachel just blinked owlishly at her for a few seconds.
"I was going to ask if you were coming down to story time, but you look really comfortable."
"I believe Quinn needs to sleep. I don't mind coming downstairs though."
"No, you should stay." Older Quinn sat on the edge of the bed and leaned over them, running her fingers though her younger self's hair. "She's going to wake up soon anyway."
It was then that Rachel noticed they had shifted in their sleep, Quinn's fetal position had fallen away and she was instead flush against Rachel with her head tucked under the shorter girl's chin. Rachel could feel the blonde's hot breath on her neck and it raised goose bumps all over her body. When Quinn's body registered the hand in her hair she shifted closer, her partially open lips making contact with Rachel's throat. Rachel gasped and stiffened and Older Quinn chuckled quietly.
"Sorry. I really like getting my head touched or my hair played with. It feels good."
"It's okay."
"Well, come down if she feels like it."
When the door closed behind the older woman, Rachel took over running her fingers through as much of the short blonde hair as she could reach. It wasn't long before Quinn stirred against her again, this time actually waking up.
The first thing Quinn did was breathe deeply through her mouth. There was a gurgling sound that accompanied it and Rachel was pretty certain she had just been drooled on. She tilted her neck at an awkward angle in order to get a better look. Sure enough, there was a wet spot on her shirt. Rachel was interested to note that she wasn't grossed out, but rather thought it was cute.
"Morning," she whispered to the top of Quinn's head when she returned her head to where it had been.
Quinn jerked then and sat up, blinking at Rachel in an entirely adorable way. "'sit mornin'?" she mumbled with her fists at her eyes and her back bowed.
Rachel grinned. "No. It's story time."
Quinn yawned. "Oh."
"Do you want to go?"
The blonde nodded and then yawned again.
"You're cute when you wake up."
Quinn blushed and Rachel watched the pink path travel over smooth porcelain skin.
"You ready to go?" Rachel asked after Quinn just sat there for a minute, mussed hair falling over her eyes.
Blonde hair fanned out in the air when Quinn shook her head to clear the sleep fog. "I shouldn't have slept in my contacts. I'm going to go take them out and I'll meet you down there."
Rachel nodded and left to make her way down to the living room. She found that everyone else had already taken all the good seats and sat down on the far end of the coffee table after taking a small bowl of popcorn from her older counterpart.
Quinn was the last to enter only a few minutes later, her glasses in place. Everyone else was fully settled in and waiting on the story to start. She was surprised to see that Nicole Lopez was curled up against Alice's side on the love seat. She hadn't realized that the girl was staying over, or that she was that close with Alice. She had deduced that they were friends when she had first been introduced to the girl, but looking at her mildly uncomfortable expression when Alice slung an arm over her shoulder, she thought it might be a little bit more than friendship that kept Nicole so close.
Quinn nervously sat down beside Young Rachel, careful to make sure they weren't touching. Rachel smiled shyly at her, her cheeks just a little flushed, and reached up to tip Quinn's glasses crooked.
They sat quietly next to each other through Older Rachel reading the second half of Winnie the Pooh at Shannon's request. Shannon apparently favored Rachel reading because she gave the character's voices, and had at some point perfected the voice of Pooh Bear.
When Winnie the Pooh ended, Shannon shoved a much thinner and much more raged book into Rachel's hands. Everyone from the future, including Nicole, sighed heavily but kindly when Rachel read the title. "The Important Book," Shannon wiggled in her mother's lap. "The important thing about a spoon is that you eat with it. It's like a little shovel, you hold it in your hand, you can put it in your mouth, it isn't flat, it's hollow, and it spoons things up. But the important thing about a spoon is that you eat with it."
The short book carried on in the same vain for a little while, describing apples and daisies and snow. When it was over Rachel put the book aside and hugged a very sleepy Shannon to her.
"What's the important thing about me, Mommy?" Shannon asked quietly.
"Hmm," Rachel hummed as she thought, running her fingers gently through her youngest child's long dark hair. "The important thing about Shannon is that she is strong." Here Shannon sat up and flexed her biceps impressively. Sleepy laughter trickled around the room. "She is little, and she likes karate, and she loves kittens and puppies, and her favorite color is yellow, and her favorite subject is history. But the important thing about Shannon is that she is strong."
"You have to do all of us now," Alex insisted, scooting forward on his butt so that he was closer to the couch.
Rachel smiled indulgently at him and reached over to finger comb his messy hair. "The important thing about Alex is that he is smart. He likes airplanes, and wants to be an engineer, and he's very good at math, and he has big hands, and he loves his moms. But the important thing about Alex is that he is smart." Alex seemed very pleased with this assessment. He sat up straighter, affecting smugness, and glanced around importantly. Until his mother pulled on his hair and told him not to be a jerk.
"The important thing about Alice is that she is loyal." Alice rolled her eyes a little, but not unhappily. "She's on the honor roll, and she is a cheerleader, and she likes to dance, and she likes birds, and she has a beautiful smile. But the important thing about Alice is that she is loyal."
"The important thing about Nicole is that she listens." Nicole jumped at the sound of her name and sat up completely straight from where she had been leaning comfortably against Alice's shoulder. She ducked her head bashfully and picked at the hem of her friend's pajama pants when Older Rachel continued. "She's a dancer, and she is Alice's best friend, and she is allergic to sad people, and her favorite book is Peter Pan, and she doesn't speak often. But the important thing about Nicole is that she listens." It was hard to tell with Nicole's darker skin-tone, but it appeared as though she was blushing. It was amazing to Rachel (and to Quinn at a lesser extent) how different Nicole was from Santana when she looked almost like a carbon copy of her. Alice grinned at her friend's obvious embarrassment and poked her around the ribs until she was giggling and swatting at her hands.
Carmen hushed to two teens when it was clear that her turn was next. She lit up under the attention. "The important thing about Carman is that she is honest. She hates Lima, and she gets angry easily, her favorite food is peanut butter, and she loves scary movies, and she's very talented. But the important thing about Carmen is that she is honest."
"The important thing about Morgan is that he is funny." Morgan looked incredulous but his mother just wrinkled her nose at him. "He lives in LA, and he wants to be an actor, and he loves to go fishing, he still picks dandelions, and he works very hard. But the important thing about Morgan is that he is funny."
Here she paused as if she was done, but then she looked at her wife and continued with a more emotional tone. "The important thing about Quinn is that she loves me. She is witty, and she is beautiful, and she is an awe inspiring artist, and she can rap Look At Me Now perfectly, and her favorite food is bacon. But the important thing about Quinn is that she loves me."
Older Quinn grinned almost shyly at her wife and nudged her hip with her foot.
"The important thing about Rachel is that she loves me. She talks a lot, and she can be overly dramatic, and she is a magnificent singer, and she's a sore loser, and she's a vegan. But the important thing about Rachel is that she loves me."
The room was nearly silent. Older Rachel was wiping away tears, Older Quinn was smiling softly at her wife, and all the children were suspended in an awkward tension, like they had just seen something they shouldn't have. Alice broke it.
"God, that was horrible. I can feel my teeth rotting as we sit here. If I get cavities from that, I'm going to be so pissed."
Older Quinn rolled her eyes. "Morgan, smack your sister for me."
Morgan was only too happy to comply.
"Ow. Come on Nic. I'm not going to take any of this abuse."
Alice left the room with Nicole in tow and Older Quinn and Rachel started to wrangle Shannon up to bed as well. Carmen was interested in watching more home movies and quickly got Morgan and Alex on board. Younger Quinn begged off, citing tiredness, and after a quick glance at Rachel she left the room. Rachel claimed the same and followed the other girl's lead.
Quinn had waited at the foot of the stairs and the smile that spread across her face when she saw Rachel leave the living room was magnificent. They walked up the stairs together and Rachel escorted Quinn to her door as she wasn't entirely sure where she would sleep that night anyway and she didn't want to say goodbye quite yet either.
They stood in front of the door as an awkward silence settled over them.
"Will you stay with me tonight?" Quinn blurted. Her eyes were on the carpet between their feet and her voice was so quiet that Rachel had to take a few seconds to process what had actually been said.
"We just kissed a few hours ago Quinn. I don't think-"
Quinn's cheeks pinked and Rachel's breath caught. "Please? I didn't mean I wanted to do anything or…anything. I just…want you around."
The blonde was looking up at Rachel through her long lashes and the brunette felt her heart stutter in response. How would she ever say no to this woman? Especially when she used lines like that. "Okay."
Quinn smiled shyly and looked away. "I'm…gonna go use the restroom."
"Okay."
Rachel watched Quinn walk away, her eyes slowly drifting down over her back and to her ass before she caught herself and turned away, fumbling for the doorknob to Morgan's old room.
She closed the door behind her and leaned back on it after flicking the light on absentmindedly. Her hands cupped her hot flushing cheeks in an attempt to cool them but it didn't seem to help. She could just feel everything. Her body was alive with sensation, just from looking at Quinn's cute bashful face. Everything that had seemed so intimidating about the blonde had been replaced with something crushingly adorable.
She moved her hands to cover her full face and then down to press over where her heart was trying to chisel through bone and leap out of her chest.
When she managed to take a deep breath she stepped away from the door and dropped onto the bed, not bothering to pull the covers back. Rolling onto her belly, she pressed her face into the pillow and squealed loudly, flailing her arms and kicking her feet in a mild fit of excitement and happiness. After about thirty seconds of vigorous activity she relaxed completely and turned her head to face the door.
Quinn was taking similar advantage of her privacy to jump up and down in celebration in the bathroom. She had stuffed part of her hand in her mouth to keep from screaming with joy and/or extreme giddiness. Once she calmed down through the use of deep breathing and splashing her face with cold water she was able to leave the room and walk back to Morgan's without losing her composure.
She entered the room just as Rachel turned her head to look at the door and it occurred to her that she probably should have knocked and had only gotten lucky that time that Rachel wasn't in some compromising position. She wondered if that's why everyone knocked in this house, because she certainly didn't get that consideration at her own.
"Quinn?"
Quinn jumped at the sound of her name and realized she'd been standing silently in the door way like creeper for too long. "Uh, maybe you should get under the covers."
"Okay."
"I'll get the lights."
Rachel pulled back the sheets with shaking hands and Quinn raised an equally trembling appendage to flick off the lights, throwing the room into darkness.
Rachel was pretty sure she wasn't supposed to feel like a new bride when it was fully understood by both of them that they were just going to sleep.
She climbed in between the sheets first and got close to the wall while she waited for Quinn to follow her lead.
When Quinn had stumbled back to the bed and fumbled her way under the sheets, her inner turmoil strikingly similar to her bed mate's, she tried to find a way to get comfortable that didn't involve her facing Rachel right away.
It didn't work and so she ended up facing the other girl, her flushed cheeks mercifully hidden by the lack of light.
Rachel stared at the blonde's face in the dark, completely aware of hazel eyes thoroughly cataloguing her own features. They had stared at each other in similar ways before, but never before in the dark, lying next to each other on a tiny bed with the memory of an earthshattering kiss still fresh in their minds. They were both surprised that their mouths weren't fused together every available second.
Quinn really wanted to test Santana's hypothesis about Rachel's breath control.
"You look so different without makeup," the brunette whispered into the still air before the blonde could act on her impulses.
Quinn groaned. "Ugh, I know. I look horrible." She moved her hands from under her chin to cover her face but Rachel grabbed them and held her at bay.
"No you don't. Stop saying things like that. You're so pretty all the time. This is just a different pretty. You're, I don't know…softer. More accessible." She reached up and cradled Quinn's face in her palms and drew a sigh out of the other girl. That one sigh launched a thorough exploration of the blonde's face with Rachel's fingers, starting with her perfect cheekbones and then over the perfect bridge of her nose and to the arch of her eyebrows and so on. Rachel explored with a quiet intensity that made Quinn breathe faster than normal and made her heart ache in her chest. In the process of tracing the underside of the blonde's jaw that she felt a round dip in the soft skin. "What's this?" Rachel trailed her finger over the spot again.
Quinn's breathing was still erratic, but she managed to answer. "Scar. From chicken pox. I had it when I was three and then again when I was five. The second time was a lot worse. There's a few more in other places, on my back and chest mostly. There's one here on my shoulder." She pointed the area out and Rachel could barely see the eraser sized mark in the dark.
Quinn didn't know how it was possible to tremble harder than she already was, but when Rachel finished tracing the outline of her face, finished setting fire to her skin, and cupped her cheeks again, she felt like she was about to shake apart. "Will you kiss me goodnight?" she asked in a tiny voice. She was too scared by her own feelings to open her eyes, but she could feel Rachel's breath on her cheek and then at the corner of her mouth and then directly over her lips. Quinn licked them reflexively and got a taste of Rachel in the air.
Rachel gave her a sweet chaste kiss. It only lasted a few fleeting seconds, but it sent her soul spiraling into the sky.
"Good night, Quinn."
"Good night, Rachel."
QFRB
Forget my way back home
When you walk by me.
This girl is gonna break my heart
And there's nothing I can do about it.
A/N: Jesus this was long. I hope that made up for the wait. I had way too much school to struggle through. I'm still not entirely done, but hopefully the next chapter won't be so beastly and I get it out faster.
Thanks to all my peeps on tumblr who badgered me along and kept me working. Special thanks to TouristSeason, as my biggest badger-er.
Okay, I hope you liked it. Now review it. I'm way too tired to write out a huge note here.
Chapter Song: Raze the City by Finding Jupiter