Still off the Key of Reason
Chapter 34: We Might've Started Singing Just a Little Soon
"Put the needle down, Rachel!" Quinn shouted from the kitchen.
Rachel scoffed to herself and leaned lower over her project, muttering unintelligibly. She'd been at it for five hours, and there was no way she was quitting now. Her fingers ached and bled, which would've been alarming if she'd been in her right mind, and her head throbbed and she couldn't seem to stop sweating.
She'd lost all control of the Superman costume she was supposed to be sewing for James about four hours ago, and was now left with rumpled swaths of red and blue fabric haphazardly sewn together with green thread and sticking to the table.
"Jesus, mother of-." Rachel mumbled to herself with another stab to her thumb.
Her fingers were finally turning white and going numb, and she smiled ridiculously when she saw that this prick brought no blood. She kept up her grumbling, mostly stream of consciousness strung together with profanity, and ripped apart two pieces of blue cloth that she'd accidentally glued to the coffee table.
Quinn ducked to see out of the breakfast bar, eyes narrowed. "Rachel." She warned.
"Darling."
"Put the needle down."
"I can fix it!" Rachel promised, nearly manic. "It's not so bad. It's like a minor costume repair. I do those all the time."
She'd been spouting the same line all day. Honestly, she'd never done a minor costume repair in her life because she was the star of her shows, but they seemed easy enough. A needle, a little thread, a tomato shaped pin cushion. Of course her next step was to fabricate an entire Halloween costume for her son from scratch without a sewing machine.
Quinn stormed out of the kitchen with a plate of tuna and a jar of peanut butter on a tray. She dropped them onto the coffee table and leaned over to pry the needle and fabric out of Rachel's hands.
"No, wait, Quinn-I'm-it's almost done." Rachel protested, snatching at her wife's arm.
"You need to take a break." Quinn frowned at the mess Rachel had made of the costume. She held it up and tipped her head, and Rachel was almost pleased because at least she could recognize two clearly defined sleeves.
Or maybe those were for the legs? Rachel wasn't worried. She could put either James's arms or his legs in those holes and he couldn't stop her.
Rachel blinked rapidly and rubbed at her bleary eyes. "It's almost finished, bear." She implored. "Just let me finish it."
She could cry, use all of her pet names, rub all up on Quinn or kiss her all over. She was deciding which strategy to use when Quinn pointed at the plate of food.
"Eat your smelly fish." Quinn instructed sternly.
Rachel pursed her lips and crossed her arms petulantly. Quinn frowned at the movement and seized one of her abnormally white, clammy hands, expression fading to concern. Rachel watched her check each finger, brow furrowed, before Quinn switched to the other hand and did the same.
"You're a moron, little bear." She said softly.
Rachel scoffed and attempted to yank her hands away, but Quinn managed to hold on and kiss each of her palms.
"If you'd just let me finish the costume…" Rachel muttered.
Quinn straightened up, mostly amused. She smiled indulgently. "Then you'd have even more tiny little holes in your tiny little fingers."
Rachel scoffed again. She eyed the tuna and peanut butter but refused to ask her wife to pass it to her.
Quinn sat on the coffee table and handed the tray to Rachel, mindful of her growing bump. Rachel dove right into the tuna. Quinn's grimace at the smell was particularly satisfying.
"Fine. You know what, you make the costume." Rachel proclaimed, mouth full. She waved her fork around dramatically. "I'm done with it."
"Baby, we'll just buy-"
"Why even get a costume at all?" Rachel continued shrilly. "Maybe we'll just skip Halloween this year. Or tie a blanket around his neck and call it a cape."
Quinn rolled her eyes and covered her nose. Only two foods in the world could make her nauseous, and they were tuna and corned beef. Rachel had been craving tuna for three weeks. She thought about asking for corned beef right now just to mess with her wife.
"Don't you roll your eyes at me! You're the one-"
"You're hurting yourself, Rachel." Quinn interjected, annoyed. "Just…"
Honestly, if Quinn's next words were "calm down," Rachel was prepped to fly off the couch in a fit of irrational rage.
"Eat your smelly food. I put olive oil on it like you like."
Rachel unclenched. She nodded shortly and ate her tuna. Quinn sighed and traced Rachel's knees with her fingers. It was admittedly soothing. Rachel bit into a chunk of onion and realized that Quinn had spent half an hour combining some of her least favorite foods to make Rachel's dinner.
"Thanks, bear." Rachel said stiffly, quietly.
Quinn smiled at her. Her phone rang, and she tipped forward off the coffee table to pull it out of her back pocket. She settled on the couch next to Rachel and batted a forkful of tuna away so forcefully that it fell to the floor for Cornelius.
"Hey, Santana." Quinn answered while Rachel shoved Cornelius and Cloud away with her feet. She caught Cornelius in the face, and he sat down with such a sullen expression that Rachel felt bad and offered him another bite of tuna.
"Right now?" Quinn questioned, eyes wide.
Rachel glanced at her and reached for the jar of peanut butter. "What? What?" Rachel mouthed.
Quinn covered her nose and turned Rachel's chin to face away from her. "In the bathtub?" she asked a moment later.
Rachel put all of her food down, intrigued. She prodded Quinn's ribs and tugged on the wispy blonde hair at the back of Quinn's neck. "Tell me." She whispered.
"Okay, we'll be-we'll be there soon." Quinn assured, smiling widely at Rachel. "And I'm sure someone will catch Flappy. I don't think-I don't think a domestic duck would fly south unless it's become feral."
Rachel narrowed her eyes. She pressed her head against the phone to listen right as Quinn hung up.
Quinn grasped Rachel's chin again and gently turned her face away. Rachel rolled her eyes and closed her mouth to stop herself from breathing on her wife, only mildly offended. Quinn sloppily kissed her cheek and stood up, holding a hand out for Rachel.
"Let's wake-we need to-we need to wake Jay up and head to the hospital." Quinn stuttered excitedly, backing clumsily into the coffee table.
Rachel's eyes widened.
"Britt's having the baby."
~ooooooooooo~
Rachel paced around the waiting room while Quinn sat on the floor near the toy box playing with a squealing James. Santana had been sporadically bursting through the swinging doors with declarations of "She's pushing!" and "We can see the head!"
And then a doctor strode calmly through the doors and informed Rachel and Quinn that their friend had passed out, but would be perfectly alright, and a baby boy had been delivered. That had been twenty minutes ago. Rachel did the math and determined that labor had only lasted about five hours for Brittany, which was incredibly short for a first time mother, and Rachel was incredibly jealous.
She hadn't even had her baby yet, but she already knew her little girl would drag the event out to make it as hellish and unbearable and long as possible. Rachel groaned to herself and completed another circle of the waiting room.
"Mama." James called, eyeing her calmly from the floor.
He was still in his footsie pajamas, paired with a miniature denim jacket, and his fluffy blonde hair was a mess from where he'd been sleeping on it. Rachel crossed the room and he stared up at her seriously.
"Yes, sweetheart?"
Rachel stood behind Quinn and dragged her fingers through her wife's loose hair. Quinn leaned back into her legs without looking up.
"Cow." James announced, holding up a plastic Holstein.
Rachel smiled warmly. "Yes, that's a cow, baby."
Quinn tipped her head back to look up at Rachel. "No, he wants you to make the noise." She squeezed Rachel's feet through her boots. "He thinks you do it best."
"Really?" Rachel gave an exaggerated gasp and began absently tying Quinn's hair into uneven braids. She leaned forward and grinned at James. "I make better cow sounds than mommy?"
James nodded stoically, still holding out the cow. One of his eyebrows may have risen.
Quinn shook her head. "Nobody makes better cow sounds than mommy."
"Hush mommy." Rachel tugged on Quinn's hair. "Jay knows what he's talking about."
James shook the cow around, unamused with Rachel's dilly-dallying. Rachel cleared her throat and "mooed" loudly. She did it without opening her mouth, and Quinn snorted quietly and looked up again to see her face. James dropped his solemn expression and shrieked with laughter, deep belly laughter that caused Rachel's sound effects to falter.
"Hey, jollies, knock it off."
Rachel turned at the sound of her friend's voice. Santana stood in the doorway with a wide smile, despite her tone. She looked like she'd just run a marathon. And then spilled something brown and orange down herself and run another marathon. Rachel grimaced.
Quinn stood up immediately, James on her hip.
"You seem sort of pale, Santana." She remarked with a grin.
A harrowing look passed over Santana's face. Terror and distress and nausea. Santana glanced behind her, presumably to where the delivery room was. She turned back around and narrowed her eyes at Quinn, whose smile faltered.
"You just wait, sunshine." She said lowly. James jammed the plastic cow painfully into Quinn's cheek and Santana's smile re-emerged. "You just wait."
"What-wait for what?" Rachel wondered, frightened.
Quinn held James's arm away from her face. "I've observed elephant and rhinoceros parturition." She said proudly. "I'm not going to pass out."
Rachel frowned. "Don't compare me to an elephant." She spoke meekly, growing more afraid because yes, she'd witnessed a birth before, but that was over a year ago and she was sure that most of the horrors had been blocked from her mind.
Santana was examining her shirt, obviously answering a question for Quinn.
"I don't know." She gazed at the orange and brown stain with interest. "Maybe soup. Or pumpkin. Bodily fluids."
Rachel actually covered her mouth with her hand. She took several deep breaths while Santana chuckled, and Quinn rubbed a soothing hand over her back.
"Hey mama." James shoved his plastic cow in Rachel's face and she accepted it gratefully.
Quinn watched Rachel as they followed Santana back to Brittany's room. Rachel was genuinely frightened about what would happen to her during the birthing process. She'd heard stories. What terrible things could possibly be going down that would make Santana pass out?
"We'll be fine, baby." Quinn assured quietly, catching Rachel's hand.
James absently hummed his agreement.
Rachel's hips were not wide enough for a baby's head to pass through. There was no way. Where would her small body even find the strength to expel another human?
"Rachel, I promise." Quinn continued softly, guiding Rachel around a few carts in the hallway. Rachel stared ahead, wide-eyed. "It's a natural process. Your body will know what to do."
Something would rupture. It was bound to. Rupture and splatter and spew. And it would last at least forty-eight hours, because that was just the direction this pregnancy was going.
"Baby…" Quinn trailed off, watching with concern as Rachel followed Santana into Brittany's room.
A hushed "There they are!" came from the bed, and Rachel's eyes welled up at the sight of a flushed, exhausted Brittany and her baby boy. James made a curious humming noise at the back of his throat, and it finally struck Rachel that after labor she'd have this beautiful, brand new prize to share with her wife. There was a point to it all.
Santana crossed the room and kissed the top of Brittany's head and then settled on the bed.
"Rachel, Quinn, Jon Bon, this is Marcus." Brittany introduced softly. She looked down at the newborn's face. "Marcus, this is Rachel, Quinn, and your new best friend James."
"War-like." Quinn remarked, warily eyeing Santana. "I'm not surprised."
Santana shrugged. "Either that or Nacho Fosco. We went with war."
Rachel bit her lip and ran a hand over her bump. Marcus was tiny and pink, with darker skin and a dash of black hair. She could tell he'd look just like Santana, and she laughed to herself at the thought.
"How was it?" Quinn whispered to Brittany. "It was short, right?"
Her gaze dropped and she spoke quietly, to nobody in particular. "Like bears. They only take a few hours."
Brittany smiled softly up at them all. Santana brushed the hair out of her eyes.
"Sometimes even less." Quinn murmured, bouncing a sleepy James on her hip. She met Rachel's amused gaze. "Compared to adult body weight, grizzly bears have-they have the smallest neonates out of all placental mammals. So parturition's-it's relatively easy."
"Bear." Rachel murmured, squeezing Quinn's hand before she could get carried away.
Brittany and Santana were too engrossed in their baby to even notice.
"It was great. Everything's great." Brittany answered distractedly, playing with Marcus's fingers.
Quinn hugged James closer and kissed his head. Rachel decided that hours of spewing and splattering would be worth it to have this again.
~oooooooooooo~
Rachel's last show was in November, right before Thanksgiving, when the audience was wrapped in wool blankets and scarves and the theatre Rachel called home was a warm haven. She was six months pregnant, swelling up and slowing down. Dolly was not pregnant, and Rachel's bump was becoming impossible to conceal, so it was natural that she'd take her leave.
Every night Rachel sang like she'd never be on stage again. This performance was no different, except for the tears and hugs from cast and crew, her altered center of gravity, and her large mob of friends and family in the audience.
Rachel started crying halfway through the reprise of "Hello, Dolly."
She had her Tony. Maybe there was a chance she'd never be on a stage like this again. Maybe she'd be able to switch her focus to the "EGO" of "EGOT." Rachel pushed through the finale, singing through her tears and trying not to fall over. At curtain call, the cast members ran out one by one. Rachel always followed the actors who played Horace and Cornelius, her friends, and always received the most applause.
Tonight was no different. Rachel was floored by the wall of sound that greeted her on stage. She was openly crying now, and she linked arms with her co-stars for their bow. She realized that somebody had handed her a microphone at some point.
"Thank you for coming to our show." Rachel managed, unnaturally high-pitched. "Thank you for welcoming me and letting me sing for you every night."
She took a deep, shuddering breath and blinked to clear her vision. The audience only clapped louder with her words. Quinn was in the front row of course, applauding fiercely, with Puck and Santana hollering next to her. Kurt and Blaine were there with Simba, along with Artie, Brittany, Tina, and Tom.
"Thank you so much!" Rachel exclaimed after another bow. "All of you. This-this beautiful cast and crew, my friends and my family." Rachel swallowed thickly. "My wife."
She gave a watery laugh. "God, I can't stop crying."
That incited another wave of applause. Rachel gave a final wave, blew a kiss, and followed the rest of her cast backstage. She blindly hugged every warm body she came in contact with. Patrick, the microphone guy who'd saved her once when her batteries had fallen out on stage. Erica, the costume director who'd been gradually letting out Rachel's dresses over the past six months. Erica could probably construct a Superman costume.
During one of her hugs, Rachel realized that her face was buried in soft, blonde hair. It was warm and familiar, and Quinn kissed her cheek when she started crying again.
"I can't stop crying." Rachel whined, clinging to Quinn's scarf.
Quinn chuckled lightly. "Oh, baby." She kissed Rachel's ear. "I'm so proud of you."
"Pull yourself together, woman." Puck joked, leading their pack of friends. Rachel stepped back from Quinn, not far, and Quinn kept hold of her hand and played with her fingers. Rachel wiped hopelessly at her eyes.
"Congratulations, Rachel."
She was handed a bouquet of colorful flowers by Tom and several balloons by Brittany. Rachel held them all with her free hand. She glanced down when Simba tugged on her dress and graciously accepted the stuffed bear and package of jellybeans he was eagerly offering.
"Auntie Quinn told me your favorite flavors." He explained proudly.
Kurt nodded sagely. "Do you know how expensive specialty jellybeans are, Rachel?" He shook his head in disbelief. "Honestly…"
Rachel laughed, but tuned Kurt out because she felt Quinn slip a ringer onto her finger. She glanced suspiciously up at her wife, who was speaking nonchalantly with Brittany about Marcus, and then at the hand which had finally been set free. Rachel gasped in surprise. There was definitely a new ring on her finger. It was simple and silver, with a sparkling, round-cut diamond surrounded by a teardrop of black and white diamonds.
Rachel hugged all of her goodies to her, fully expecting the balloons to end up at the ceiling, and stared wide-eyed at her finger.
"I tried-I wanted one that would stand out from your other ones." Quinn explained quietly, almost drowned out by Santana's proclamation of "Girl got that bling!"
"And James picked it out." Quinn added.
Rachel choked a laugh. She looked up and smiled fondly at Quinn. "James did not pick this out, you liar."
Quinn's eyebrow lifted. She tapped Rachel's lips with her finger.
"Show us, Rachel!" Tina requested, crowding forward with Brittany and Kurt climbing over her shoulders. Kurt seized Rachel's wrist and held it up so that everybody could see, and Quinn took some of the gifts from Rachel's arms before she could drop them all in her excitement.
"I love it, Quinn." Rachel assured her while their friends fawned over her ring.
Quinn flushed, pleased.
Artie fought his way through the fray and rolled up with a book on his lap, which he presented to Rachel with a smile. "We made you a scrapbook."
Rachel's mouth fell open again. A scrapbook. All the years of being mocked for her love of scrapbooking came rushing back. She had approximately fourteen at the moment: one for every three years of her life, one for Quinn's childhood pictures, and two for James.
"It has Funny Girl and Hello, Dolly, mostly behind the scenes pictures, and there's space for more shows or whatever you decide to do next." Artie explained.
"Oh, my…" Rachel murmured, hands shaking. She flipped to the first page and smiled immediately. There she was holding a puppy version of Barnaby, tipping back in the make-up chair in her dressing room and grinning widely at the camera. She was in full Fanny Brice costume.
She actually remembered sneaking Barnaby into the building on that occasion because he'd destroyed her DVD player the day before and she didn't trust him at home.
It was ten years ago. Quinn "awwed" softly and Puck shoved his way closer to see. Blaine lifted Simba, and Tina and Brittany and Santana all gathered around.
Tom smiled warmly at Rachel. "Look how fluffy Barnes is."
"Whoa, look at your eyebrows." Santana remarked. "Are those make-up? Because they are wild as-"
Quinn's glare cut her off. Santana didn't seem particularly threatened, smiling innocently.
"You look so young." Kurt observed, glancing between the picture and Rachel.
Quinn pulled Rachel closer, offended on her behalf. Really, it was only ten years. It was a girlfriend becoming a wife becoming a mother, a move to California and back, eight pets, three houses, two Broadway shows, a baby boy, and a girl on the way.
"Thank you guys." Rachel murmured, gazing at her own face.
She'd been a couple years out of college then. Ten years later, she'd accomplished every goal she'd set.
~ooooooooooo~
Rachel's due date came and went. Her sanity and civility went right along with it. Thankfully, at forty-two weeks pregnant, her body seemed to reach critical mass.
Her breasts had grown to Herculean proportions. She tossed and turned all night, when she wasn't rushing to the bathroom, and if she did fall asleep she'd wake up with numb fingers or spasming feet, the strangest things. With the way things were heading, she wouldn't be surprised to wake up with a missing limb. Maybe one morning she'd find that her unborn child had turned her body purple during the night.
Rachel's ankles were barely discernible, despite them being elevated literally twenty-four hours a day. She honestly couldn't bring herself to do much more than roll around in bed and complain from the couch all day.
"She'll come soon, baby." Quinn assured every time Rachel demanded something from her.
Food, a pillow, the television remote, something to scream at, sex to speed the damn process along. Rachel had made herself sick a week after her due date by eating numerous bowls of spicy chili to incite labor. And then she'd cried pathetically in Quinn's arms while she vomited fire all night.
She intimately got to know her animals. She learned that Jelly would steal food from the dogs' bowls about four hours after breakfast every day, and Charizard's breathing was actually quiet if he slept upside down on the hardwood in the corner of the living room. Barnaby had taken to sleeping near Rachel, especially if she was in a particularly grumpy mood.
It was late February when Rachel woke up in the middle of the night. Her eyes snapped open abruptly, and she realized she was in the midst of some kind of terrible cramp starting in her back and radiating to her stomach. She groaned loudly, a sudden rumble in the stillness of the dark room, and rubbed her at her sides.
Quinn stirred next to her. "'Kay, baby?" she slurred, attempting to prop up onto her elbow.
Rachel stared up into the dark, moaning internally. It was like a charley horse in her abdomen. "No." she managed tightly.
Quinn was silent.
Rachel turned to look at her, but couldn't read her wife's expression in the dark. She was probably half asleep because Quinn was always half asleep.
"Quinn, bear, wake- shit." Rachel struggled, gripping at her belly. She ground her teeth together. "Wake up. We need to go to the hospital."
There was another beat of silence.
"You-" Quinn shifted rapidly. She rolled to turn on the light, and then sat on her knees and loomed over Rachel, blinking in the sudden brightness. "Is-has your water broken? How do you feel?"
Like her stomach was tightening into a tiny little ball. Rachel squeezed Quinn's forearm. "Like I need to go to the hospital."
Quinn nodded quickly, bouncing her messy hair around. Her eyes shone with concern and she kissed Rachel's forehead and scrambled off the bed. Rachel was in sweats and a hoody, despite the heat in the apartment, because her body had apparently lost its ability to thermoregulate. Quinn changed quickly into jeans and a sweatshirt. She rushed out of the room and came back with a sleepy, soon-to-be grumpy James on her hip and Rachel's pre-packed back slung over her shoulder.
Barnaby sat next to the bed on Rachel's side, waiting patiently, wide awake.
"Can you sit up, baby?" Quinn asked, breathless.
It was either that or lie in bed and wait for her uterus to explode. Rachel nodded and clawed her way into a sitting position. Quinn helped her slip on some shoes, and Rachel was halfway standing up when she felt a small gush of water run down her legs.
"Quinn, wipe-wipe that." She pointed behind her as she and Quinn, with James on Quinn's hip, staggered towards the door. "Don't let it-it'll ruin the hardwood."
Quinn glanced back, shaking her head. She ushered the dogs out of the room and shut the bedroom door, snatched the keys from the kitchen counter, and hitched James up higher onto her hip.
"Oh my-holy mother of-" Rachel bit into her lip at the pain radiating from her back. She pressed her face into Quinn's shoulder and focused on not tumbling down the stairs. Quinn's arm tightened around her.
"You're okay, baby." Quinn assured smoothly. She wrapped a scarf around Rachel's neck at the base of the stairs.
"Why is the-oh God," Rachel scrunched up her face in the freezing air. Something was spasming again. Her back? Her feet? James started crying. "Why is the car always…miles away?"
Quinn didn't bother answering. They bumbled slowly along the sidewalk, hunched against the cold, probably waking all of their neighbors with James's cries.
"Here we go, honey." Quinn announced when they'd walked the block to Rachel's car. Quinn was breathing heavily and flushed, supporting the weight of Rachel, James, a small duffel bag, and her own purse.
She deposited Rachel in the front seat, James in his car seat, and jammed her finger climbing into the driver's seat. Frankly, Rachel was surprised it wasn't snowing. Blizzarding. Thankfully her dear, sweet unborn child had no control of the weather.
The cramping was only getting worse. Their baby girl was now slamming into Rachel's uterus with a sledgehammer, maybe a hot fire poker. Rachel groaned shamelessly and rocked back and forth in her seat.
"Baby, sit still. Sit still." Quinn entreated, worried. She reached over and squeezed Rachel's thigh.
Rachel knocked her head against the window at each stoplight. "This was a terrible, terrible idea." She muttered to nobody in particular. "We already have one. Why do we need- ugh, oh God-why do we need two? Quinn, let's just go back to bed. I don't want to do this anymore."
Quinn pulled up to the hospital and smiled softly at her. "Too late for that, baby."
Rachel was put in a wheelchair as soon as she stepped through the hospital doors. James was taken to childcare and Rachel and Quinn were situated in a sunny, yellow delivery room.
"Quinn, it's crawling out of my back." Rachel whined ridiculously.
Alarmed, Quinn looked at the nurse filling a hot water bottle.
"Back pain's very common, Mrs. Berry." The nurse informed warmly. She handed the water bottle to Quinn, who placed it at the small of Rachel's back. "You should do whatever makes you comfortable. Maybe get up and walk around, switch to a cold compress, try kneeling or getting on all fours."
Rachel stared at this woman.
"It's-you can stay in bed, baby. Just lie there." Quinn said quickly, quietly, before Rachel could go off on the nurse.
Rachel was too hot and far too distressed for this. It didn't feel normal or natural at all. Quinn tied Rachel's hair back and then sat down on the edge of the bed and squeezed her hand.
"Just take it out now." Rachel requested hopefully. She nodded to herself. "It'll save time. Let's just-yeah, let's do that." She rolled onto her side, staring pleadingly at her wife.
Quinn looked pained, like it was killing her not to say yes, that was a fabulous idea and Rachel would be pain-free in no time. She leaned closer to Rachel, just inches away. "Baby, you are okay." She said slowly, hazel eyes shining. "You will be okay. I promise. Later today, when the sun's up, we'll have a beautiful baby girl."
Rachel wasn't so sure it was a child coming out of her. Clawing its way out of her back.
"Talk to me, bear." Rachel requested, holding desperately to Quinn's hand. She needed something to focus on that wasn't what was about to happen to her poor, small body.
Quinn tipped forward and kissed her softly. "Of course."
She started by telling Rachel about the latest chapter she'd finished for her book. She talked about the differences between zebras and horses, between gelato and ice cream, and sang "Toot sweets" from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. And then she talked about Dick van Dyke, and how Rachel would make a fabulous Mary Poppins, and how the zoo would be getting twelve new penguins within a year.
Quinn had never talked so much in her life. Rachel knew she wasn't a talker, so she appreciated it that much more. There was never a lull, never a chance for Rachel to wail about her cramps, which had morphed into full-on contractions.
And then six hours in, Rachel learned she was only four centimeters dilated, and she nearly started bawling into her pillow. The sun had come up, the contractions had strengthened, Quinn looked like a disheveled bum, and the baby hadn't budged.
Naturally, Quinn kept talking. She fed Rachel ice and water, almost forcibly, held her hand, and refilled her hot water bottle. She created a game, a lyric game where she'd sing the first half of a lyric from her iPod and Rachel would finish it.
Even six hours into the worst experience of her life, Rachel had perfect pitch.
Time passed and nurses flitted in and out, timing Rachel's contractions and checking her vitals. Rachel tested a few useless breathing exercises and Quinn called their friends, who popped up around lunch time, ten hours into the whole ordeal, to offer their support.
Rachel refused to let anybody in the room though, so Quinn greeted them outside and promised to keep them updated.
"Santana got James out of childcare." She told Rachel. "So he's with family. Just focus on this, baby."
The sun set, and Rachel was still in labor after twenty-two hours. The doctor described it as "prolonged latent labor." Rachel honestly did not care what the hell its name was. She needed this child out, and she was pushing as soon as she heard that she was dilated enough. Her vision was blurry, and she was nauseous and so sweaty it was like she'd been swimming.
She imagined those movies where a character has to repeat one day over and over again. Thinking about doing that with this day was driving her into an irrational panic.
Rachel had nearly dragged Quinn onto the bed, with her hands in a vice grip. Quinn kissed her head repeatedly, whispering encouraging words and nonsense and constantly reminding Rachel that she wasn't alone. Rachel grunted painfully. She felt dizzy.
Quinn's eyes were bloodshot and her hair was loose, and Rachel wasn't sure she'd eaten all day.
"Baby, they're giving you oxytocin to help strengthen the contractions, okay?" Quinn murmured, pushing Rachel's hair back.
Rachel cried openly. "Stren-strengthen them? They're already-"
"They're coming at the right time, but they're really weak." Quinn tried to explain. "Do you trust me?"
Rachel nodded helplessly.
"Baby, I'm here." Quinn whispered, and Rachel could feel her wife's breath on her face. "I'm here. Whatever happens, you're okay. I promise. I love you so much."
When Rachel thought the cutting pain in her back couldn't get any worse, it was split wide open.
"That's it. Push, Rachel." The doctor instructed loudly. "Just one more."
"Let's go, baby." Quinn urged, ignoring the crushing damage Rachel was doing to her hand. "You're doing so well."
Rachel gave a final push, silent in its intensity. For a moment she thought she'd gone deaf, ruptured something, like a blanket had been thrown over the room. And then she recognized a small uproar of noise, excitement, maybe a cry. A baby girl. She could feel soft hands on her forehead and her cheeks, kissing her, saying her name.
And then the noise faded abruptly. The lights went out, and Rachel could finally sleep.