Once again, thank you for reading and review. In particular, those of you who leave in-depth reviews regularly as anonymous people (jock, I'm looking at you) because I can't thank you individually, please accept my thanks here instead! :)
'Q? Are you awake? Quick, I'm getting on a plane.'
Quinn makes a noise, and checks the clock on her bedside table.
'San, it's half past five, why do you hate me enough to call me at this time?'
'Shit, I haven't got time to list all that. So you're awake?'
Quinn sits up, and turns on the bedside light, squinting.
'Awake, yes. Aware… not so much.'
Santana blows some air at her, and then there's the sound of an announcement, too tinny to be understood. Santana sighs in relief.
'Ahhh, finally. That's me. So listen, Brittany thinks you want to go spend some time in Brooklyn; something about you and Rachel not getting along too great? I don't know if she's just invented this, but; my room is free, if you need it. You've still got my spare key from the last time, and I've told the girls you might be there.'
It's too early for this. Quinn pushes some hair out of her face, and tries to figure out what is happening. What has Brittany said to Santana?
'Rachel and I are the same as usual San, I don't really see why…'
Santana cuts across her, and it now sounds like Santana has pressed her phone between her cheek and her shoulder in order to lift something.
'Oh, whatever, sometimes Brittany's psychic vibrations get the wrong end of the stick. It's available anyway, okay? If you want to go shopping or take some photos of tourists taking photos. Whatever it is you like doing. But I'm going to Brit's for the weekend, so it is all yours. Please don't hook up with any strangers in my bed.'
Quinn snorts at her, even as she rolls her eyes.
'Santana, I don't know where you are getting this twisted view of my love life, but…'
'Yeah, yeah Nun Fabray, don't need your life story. Later.'
Quinn glances at her screen for a second after she realizes the phone line has gone dead. There's a message waiting from Rachel.
Thanks for the advice. Brittany certainly is good to talk to.
Quinn could have sworn that usually, before all this, Rachel would have signed that message with a smiley face. Or an exclamation mark. Or a kiss. Quinn is not sure how she feels about contributing to this less excited Rachel. Maybe Rachel's right. Maybe this is a bad idea for everyone.
There's another message. This one is from Brittany.
I'm being helpful now, by the way. Go see Rachel. Decide if you want to risk having your heart beaten up for some happiness.
Quinn closes her eyes, and tries to salvage what is left of her sleep in.
…
She really shouldn't go, Quinn decides. The list of arguments against it feels endless.
Brody offers Rachel everything that has always seemed important to her; love, support, faithfulness. Brody thinks she's talented and wonderful, and understands the world she is trying to immerse herself in. These things are valuable.
Rachel is supposed to be graduating in a few months' time, and pursuing a career full time. Quinn can't help but feel that she has probably been nothing but a distraction, this past month.
Quinn doesn't know what she is doing next year. Her grant application has been submitted to the post-grad office, but Quinn doesn't even know whether she wants it. Maybe it is best to get out now. She'd be able to find a job anywhere, she's sure of it.
Quinn's track record in relationships is horrendous. She's always been happiest when she's alone, without the pressure of being perfect all the time. She doesn't even know if she can do a happy relationship.
And this…feeling is not one Quinn thinks she has experienced before. She feels less than rational, as if constantly thinking about Rachel is numbing her senses, blurring her thought processes, until Quinn cannot tell if she acting ethically, or selfishly. It is debilitating, somehow, and Quinn feels uneasy, like the ground keeps pitching in a rhythm she can't quite grasp.
She really shouldn't take up Santana's offer. In fact, it would be self-indulgent of her to go. Rachel might not even want to see her. Maybe long-distance flirting is one thing, but turning up on Rachel's doorstep would be quite another.
She shouldn't go. That's the answer.
Quinn comes to this conclusion as her train pulls into an all too familiar station, and Quinn stands up on auto-pilot, reaching above her head to tug her backpack from the overhead shelf.
The central station is always busy, and Quinn finds that she can't walk in a straight line for more than seven paces without having to dodge left or right, succumbing to forces beyond her control.
The best laid plans, she thinks, ruefully.
…
Rachel can't help but feel like she is living in a daydream.
On the outside, she's moving in with Brody. Kurt had hugged her. Brody had told his parents. Rachel had announced that she would only be moving if all of her posters were coming with her, which Brody had very graciously conceded to.
On the inside, she's breaking up with Brody. And kissing Quinn.
It's ridiculous. Her mind ends up in these half-baked fantasies that always seem to involve Quinn turning up to a show with flowers, and sweeping Rachel off her feet, and the two them happily ever after-ing off into the future, with the odd pornographic detour.
Rachel firmly reminds herself that Quinn is thus far a completely unknown quantity as far as a romantic partner goes, beyond the kissing, and they might be terrible for each other. They probably are terrible for each other. Quinn might leave toast crumbs in bed, and be sarcastic when Rachel wants to watch bad television.
She's moving in with Brody. This is a symptom of… some kind of cold feet.
Rachel worries that her daydreams are becoming increasingly elaborate, but never seem to fully address the moment in which Rachel leaves Brody, because she has realized that she prefers a daydream Quinn to a real Brody.
How on earth can a real anybody match up to day dream perfection?
So instead Rachel daydreams. Now, when she sings, Quinn is at the back, in shadows, watching her. It certainly adds a little…flavor, to proceedings.
She's on the subway, heading back to the place that has to stop being her home, soon, thinking about Quinn.
And then firmly reminding herself that infatuations pass.
And then thinking about Quinn.
When Rachel emerges, blinking in the midday sun, her phone beeps.
I'm in New York. Meet me somewhere?
Rachel feels as if her heart is going to fall out of her chest. Meet me somewhere? It's half a request, half a demand, and she's flustered, thinking about how Quinn might need to meet her, to the extent that she cannot possibly afford to give Rachel the chance to politely decline.
Something tired in her brain tries to wave, and say that this is probably not a good idea, but she's out of self-restraint.
Besides, friends meet up. Where's the harm?
Rachel looks down at her gym gear, and then dashes home to change.
…
Quinn's nervous.
She's drumming on the table in front of her, when she realizes that this must be really annoying for everyone whose heart doesn't have a bpm matching the pace of her finger tips, and so stills. She folds her hands in her lap, but even that isn't enough, and so rests her elbows on the table in front of her and cups her chin.
This coffee shop is one of the first ones her and Rachel met in, during their first year away from Lima. Quinn thinks Santana was there, she isn't sure if that came later. It is just on the outskirts of Manhattan, not really close to where Rachel lives at all. Quinn thinks Rachel might have been nervous, and trying to impress her with how metropolitan her life had become. It feels like a long time ago.
The crowds outside the window look comfortingly anonymous. They could be anywhere. They could be anyone.
She almost didn't message Rachel. She almost stayed in Santana's room for the whole day. It was only after coming to the conclusion that she wasn't that much of the coward did Quinn actually pick up her phone.
After another two minutes of nothing, Quinn reaches into her bag, and digs out her book. She has read it several times, which means she can skim whole pages at a time and still have a vague notion that there is a story line, somewhere.
Every time the door opens she looks up.
The time that Rachel walks in, Quinn looks up, looks back at her book, looks again in order to check it actually is Rachel, stares at her book while she tries to decide whether to acknowledge Rachel or pretend she's really cool about the situation and isn't looking out for Rachel at all, then remembers she's traveled for over two hours to come and see Rachel, and so playing it cool isn't going to convince anyone, half stands, half waves, and almost collapses with relief when Rachel just grins at her, and then points at the counter and mimes an enquiry about whether Quinn wants another drink.
Quinn doesn't know the mime for just an airlift out of here, before I can embarrass myself further, and so shakes her head, and tries to collect herself before Rachel sits down.
Jesus.
Rachel, when she sits down opposite, looks refreshingly Rachel-like, which helps Quinn breath a bit easier. She knows how to speak to Rachel.
'Hi…nice to see you.'
It's the understatement of the year, but Rachel smiles, and tucks some hair behind her ear before smiling at her coffee like she understood the sentiment behind it, anyway.
'Hey, this is a surprise. A really good surprise; I nearly made a peculiar noise when you messaged me but then restrained myself because I was out in public.'
Quinn decides that one of the things that she has always very much liked about Rachel is the fact that she makes everything easy. Her emotions are always available for anyone to read, she doesn't twist words and leave Quinn wondering whether she could have come, whether Rachel is secretly sitting there wishing Quinn was far away, in a place suitably distant where a flirty text message can just be harmless fun.
Quinn wants harmless fun. She also wants… a great deal more, right now. She makes herself laugh easily, and just grins for a moment.
'At least you didn't walk into a sign post, that would have been embarrassing.'
Rachel grins back at Quinn's words, or maybe just at Quinn, and presses her lips together, looking away after a second.
'What brings you to New York?'
There are several possible answers, ones to do with needing some space, or time away from distractions to complete an essay, or a bizarre phone call from Santana, or emergency shopping, but all the correct answers are sitting opposite her. Quinn decides to go for the truth, and looks steadily at Rachel until Rachel looks back at her.
'You. You bring me here.'
…
Kurt comes home to an empty apartment, and dumps his groceries on their kitchen table. Humming a half tune, he roots through his purchases for something that he can use to create a meal.
He'd been far too hungry as he had gone around the store, and consequentially his bags are full of items that no one in their right mind would want to eat. Heavily sugared goods in lurid packaging lurk accusingly. Kurt turns away, and puts the kettle on to boil, deciding that pasta smothered in cheese surely must be less sinful than inhaling Oreo cookies.
On his second entry into the fridge, he notices the note pinned to it.
B and I out tonight for a meal, might be back late. PS I used some of your tomatoes, I'll replace them x
Kurt smiles at it for a second, and then checks the fridge to see if anything other than tomatoes are running low, but it looks like they're good.
It is annoying, he supposes, that he's going to have to find somewhere new, but he can't find it in his heart to be actively annoyed, as it were. Brody and Rachel living together has had a stately feel of inevitability to it ever since their six month anniversary, and the moment has always been when, not if, from Kurt's point of view. He's embraced it wholehearted, because good lord it could have been Finn, and that doesn't really bear thinking about.
Besides, maybe he and Rachel have been getting in each other's hair, recently. He feels like he's permanently on a different page to her. It will probably be good for their friendship, to have a little breathing space.
The pasta boils over, somewhere towards the end of this line of thought, and Kurt swears under his breath, before almost scalding himself in an effort to not make a mess on the stove.
…
They spend the afternoon together. Rachel's giddy, entirely giddy.
They don't go anywhere to eat, but instead take the subway uptown, getting off a stop early to walk the distance to Central Park. They stop in a corner store, and buy provisions for an al fresco dinner. As the day light starts to disappear, Quinn gets cold, and so buys herself a bobble hat from a street vendor. It looks simultaneously ridiculous and adorable, particularly because, the last time Rachel checked it was nearly May, and Rachel can't help but laugh. Quinn glowers at her until she breaks, and pulls a funny face, and Rachel feels like her heart is singing.
Rachel doesn't feel cold. In fact she's never felt so warm.
Quinn pulls up short before they enter the park, and inspects the contents of the shopping bag she's carrying.
'Last chance then? Dinner outside? Or shall we be normal, and go and eat somewhere with a roof and walls.'
Rachel doesn't want to say eating outside is more romantic, even though it is, and so just loops and arm through Quinn's, and guides her away from the temptation of being normal.
'No, come on, this way is better. There's more to see.'
Quinn grumbles something good-naturedly about frostbite and pneumonia, and Rachel laughs, sliding her hand down to check the temperature of Quinn's fingers.
'Quinn, it is reasonably mild out. I don't think anyone has ever contracted pneumonia from being outside in the early evening in Central Park. In late April. In a woolly hat.'
Quinn lets Rachel touch enquiringly at her fingers, and then wraps Rachel's hand up in her own. Rachel looks down at their linked hands, and Quinn coughs nervously after a moment.
'I think I should hold your hand for a bit, to warm up. Yours is much warmer than mine.'
Rachel smiles at this explanation, and then a thought strikes her.
'Do you want to hold the other one as well? For heating purposes?'
Quinn frowns down at her, before saying 'How would that work exactly? It'll slow us down I think, if both of my hands are holding both of yours.'
Rachel scrunches up her face, because she knew that, obviously, and then decides to tuck their joined hands into her coat pocket, for extra warmth. Inside her pocket she can play with Quinn's fingers, stroke the pad of her thumb down the back of Quinn's hand. After a moment Quinn sighs, and squeezes at Rachel's fingers.
'I now look like the world's least subtle pickpocket.'
Rachel snorts, and shushes her, until they just walk in silence, through the trees.
…
She guides them to a bench, after twenty minutes, just off the main path they'd been following. When Rachel had been younger, she'd had dizzying visions of having meaningful conversations with people on every single bench in Central Park.
She'll be content if her and Quinn do nothing except talk about the weather.
She isn't going to think about Brody. Rachel doesn't have any spare space in her head for anything other than Quinn's hand, still holding hers, quite warm now.
Quinn places their provisions on the end of the bench, and then motions at Rachel to sit. She starts delving through the bag.
'Here, what do you want? We're kind of limited unless you are really desiring potato chips and dip, in which case it's your lucky night.'
Rachel pats the bench next to her, encouraging Quinn to join her, who does so after a second.
'I'm not really hungry yet, are you?'
Quinn smiles at her, and then rubs her hands together absently. 'Not really, I guess. But what do we do if we don't eat?'
Rachel shrugs, and reaches out her hands, to cup both of Quinn's, trying to protect them from the cold. She's reminded of a party, and the dizzying after-effect of a kiss.
'Talk about something meaningless, we could. Talk about which of our friends has changed the most since high school. Or the least. Or what we'd want to do again, if we had a chance to change.'
Quinn looks down at their hands, and then frowns softly.
'That doesn't sound very…meaningless, if I'm honest, Rach.'
Rachel shrugs.
'It's good to pretend.'
Quinn's fingers slide up the insides of her wrists, and Rachel feels her eyelids flutter. When she recovers, Quinn is watching her carefully.
'Is that what we're doing? Pretending?'
Rachel wants to kiss her, so much, but recognizes that some issues cannot be addressed simply by kissing the concerned party.
'I think… I think we're just trying. To see. Whether this might work.'
Quinn bites her lip, and Rachel becomes acutely conscious of how they're sat, of the warmth of Quinn pressed into her side. She changes the position of her hands, so she is touching Quinn's fingers instead, stroking the length of her index finger. Quinn clears her throat.
'And… do you think it might?'
Rachel closes her eyes, looking at Quinn is a bit like looking at the sun, all of a sudden.
'I think, it might. It's just whether… I can do it.'
Quinn squeezes at her fingers, after a second, making Rachel look at her.
'I'm scared too, if that helps. Of whether I can do this. I'm not… very good, at being in a relationship. Or whatever this could be.'
Quinn looks like she is picking words really carefully, so that Rachel cannot find false meaning or misinterpret.
It's scary, this tide of emotion she feels like she is fighting against.
Quinn must read it in her eyes, because she leans forward and presses her mouth to Rachel's.
It's so much easier, to kiss back, than to try and talk.
Besides, if kissing feels like this, maybe Rachel could do without words altogether.
…
He's into his second bowl (what?) when his phone starts ringing.
It's Brody.
'Hello?'
'Hey Kurt, sorry to bother you? Is Rachel around, I can't seem to get hold of her?'
Kurt stands up, frowning, and checks the note on the fridge again.
'Did you guys have plans, or…?'
'No, I thought I was staying late here, but something got cancelled, so I'm freed up.'
Kurt blinks at the note for several seconds, and tries to get the cogs in his brain to mesh. Brody coughs after a moment, startling Kurt in action.
'Kurt?'
'Yes, hello, sorry, something on the television distracted me. Um, she's asleep, she was complaining of a headache, went to her room talking about trying to catch up on sleep. Heavy day, apparently.'
He is over-embellishing, and brings his sentence to an abrupt halt. Brody doesn't seem to notice that there is anything wrong, and answers easily.
'Ah, poor thing. She's probably put her phone on silent. Don't worry, I'll see her tomorrow. Thanks Kurt, take it easy.'
Kurt mumbles a farewell, and then rests his phone on the table. After a minute or so he goes to check the note again, but there is no other conclusion beyond the one his brain is currently fighting against.
…
They end up at a subway station. One side of the platform heads towards Rachel's place. The other side heads towards Santana's bed.
They are both aware of this.
Quinn must not ask. She knows that if she does Rachel might just look at her, and then Quinn will be forced to kiss her, and then Quinn knows that she'll have taken the decision right out of Rachel's hands, because neither of them will be able to think until they're in a place with a door that can be closed, so they can both breathe and just be.
Rachel is wearing a coat that looks nothing like Quinn's blazer, in all honesty, but it still makes Quinn want to reach out and tug her towards her, so that she doesn't even have to figure out how to phrase the question, but instead can just communicate it directly onto Rachel's lips.
Quinn feels Rachel's hand grope for hers, and then they are just standing here, looking at the map of the subway line as if they don't know how to get to where they want to go, holding hands.
It's dark outside, now, or as dark as it ever gets in the city, and Quinn has a vision of this being how it is, of Quinn coming to visit so they can spend the weekend together, before she has to get back to teach a class, and Rachel can't leave because she has a show to perform in, but that's okay because there is always next weekend.
After a moment Rachel reaches for her, and hugs her, the sort of hug that lasts too long and burns, from head to toe.
Quinn can feel Rachel's lungs expand deep a couple of times, and on the third time a voice accompanies the exhale.
'I don't know what I'm doing, right now.'
Neither does Quinn. All she needs is a crystal ball, she'll be able to see in the future, see if this will be worth the heartbreak, and decide what to do.
'I'm not sure I know what I'm doing either. I mean, generally. I know what I'm doing right now.'
Rachel leans back a touch, until she's looking at her, and Quinn feels her heart clench in response.
'What's that?'
Quinn takes a deep breath.
'Being hugged by someone who I really want to kiss. But being too scared to kiss that someone because of where it might lead.'
Rachel blinks at her, and licks her lips, but Quinn continues, free falling.
'I mean, I want it to lead where I think it might lead, but equally I'm not sure if we can do this, yet. I'm not sure if I can.'
Rachel looks down, and then nearly dissolves Quinn by reaching up to brush a thumb across Quinn's cheekbone. She murmurs, following the path of her thumb with her eyes, 'We aren't teenagers, anymore.'
Quinn can't help it, and huffs a laugh at her.
'Thank lord, I was a horrible teenager.'
Rachel smiles at her a second later, and then nods, grinning shyly.
'You really were.'
Quinn bites the inside of her lower lip, and then decides that one false step could ruin everything, but a high wire has never felt so easy before.
'I want to see you. More of you. I mean, more regularly, that is. Like we have been today.'
Rachel's fingers shift between hers a little bit, and then Rachel pitches upwards, to press soft lips to the corner of her mouth, just on the line of safety.
'I'd like that. I… want that, too. It would seem I'm not very good at knowing what I want, right now, but I do know that I want that.'
Quinn doesn't know how to say please don't leave your perfectly good relationship, I'll only fuck this up somehow, so just mimics Rachel's kiss back, and pretends, for a little longer.
'I'll wake up in this city, if you find yourself available, tomorrow morning.'
They both know what find yourself available means. Rachel nods, and takes a step back.
'Sweet dreams, Quinn.'
Quinn presses her lips together in response.
'They will be.'
...
