Still off the Key of Reason
Chapter 35: Nothing Never Ends
Age 10
Quinn spent her birthday exploring the backyard of Aunt Lisa's house. She'd only lived there for a few weeks, but she'd already deemed the garden much more fun than the cold, still interior. She liked to climb and dig and hide—pretend she was an explorer or archaeologist or Tarzan. Spring had only just broken, and Quinn's long-sleeved purple t-shirt wasn't really sufficient to fight the chill.
She refused to go back inside though, where there was nothing to do except newspaper word jumbles and mindless television.
Quinn crouched near a tree at the back fence of the yard and smiled to herself. She brushed the tangled, blonde hair out of her eyes before carefully reaching out to pick up a small frog. He hopped away at the first touch of her finger, and she sighed and tipped backwards to sit fully in the dirt. There had to be more frogs around. For a moment, she thought about running back inside to grab her copy of The Wind in the Willows, just to read about Mr. Toad again.
She dug her small fingers into the dirt and hummed absently. Mr. Toad was rich, so he was able to explore every passing fancy, every obsession of his, from boating to motorcars. If Quinn had that power—maybe she would one day; she was only ten, after all—she'd visit the great Kodiak bears she'd read about in Alaska.
She'd be up close with a mighty tiger's teeth, with a lumbering polar bear's paw, and she'd be free to travel and bake and have her own puppy, like Apple next door.
Maybe one day.
Quinn stared at a lizard scuttling around the roots of the tree. She remembered that Mr. Toad had friends—Badger, Rat and Mole—to help him along. That was another difference between them. She puffed out her cheeks and hummed an old tune, wondering if she'd be lucky enough to have cake today.
"Quinn!"
The voice was exasperated, coming from the sliding glass door. Quinn stood up quickly and brushed the dirt off her jeans.
"What are you doing out here?" Lisa asked, stalking to the edge of the patio, hands on her hips. She was decorous, with her blonde hair in a neat bun and a proper floral skirt that ended just below her knees.
Quinn jammed her hands in her pockets to hide the dirt under her nails.
"Just exploring." She said quickly, hurrying towards her aunt.
Lisa dropped her hands from her hips and motioned for Quinn to follow her back inside. "We're going out."
Quinn ignored the familiar swelling of anxiety she felt at those words. "Where?"
Lisa gestured for Quinn to take off her muddy shoes and then eyed her critically. "Anywhere that will keep you from crawling around in the dirt on your birthday, Quinn."
Quinn struggled wordlessly with a knot in her laces.
"Have you even spoken to anybody this week? Your classmates?" Lisa pressed, eyebrow raised, before shaking her head. "That's not normal. It's not normal at all."
Quinn felt her cheeks flush.
"I want you outside in the real world." Lisa continued sharply, looking down at her. "You're a ten year old girl. You should be social or you'll never have friends."
Quinn gave up picking at the knot and just pried off her tied shoe. She swallowed thickly and gazed at the bright blue pumps Lisa had on her feet.
Lisa threw up her hands after a moment of silence, laughing humorlessly. "Even now, you won't say anything! There has to be something wrong with-"
"Sorry." Quinn said abruptly. "I'm…It's-it's not-" She shook her hair around because she just could not think of anything to say. The words wouldn't come.
It was all blurred pictures and toads and blue shoes.
"Where-where are we going?" she managed, as politely as possible because she could feel Lisa's gaze boring into her.
"We'll go shopping. Is there anybody you'd like to invite?"
Quinn shook her head and whispered, "No, thank you."
Her eyes burned when Lisa nodded, unsurprised, and left her to get ready.
~ooooooooooooo~
Present
It was a nightmare. A literal, waking, walking nightmare. Rachel was wheeled away moments after losing consciousness, the baby was passed off in the opposite direction, and Quinn was shuttled out to the waiting room with one of the nurses trying ineffectively to explain what was going on.
It was a jumble in Quinn's head, stuck on the breath she couldn't seem to catch and the half-moon nail marks Rachel had left in her forearm. She sat next to Kurt in the plastic waiting room chairs—hot and anxious and nauseous—as the nurse talked about "surgical extraction of the placenta" and "excessive bleeding."
Quinn recognized the words. She'd delivered elephant calves, bovine calves, foals, wolf pups, regular pups. She'd stitched up many prolapsed uteri without a second thought.
But this was Rachel, and Quinn was lost, and she watched the nurse walk back through the doors while Kurt rubbed her shoulder and told her to focus and breathe. Santana sat on Quinn's other side, struggling to tie back her blonde hair while Quinn fidgeted.
"She'll be fine, Quinn. She'll be just fine." Kurt murmured.
Blaine nodded quickly, struggling with the vending machine in the corner of the room. "The nurse was very optimistic."
Quinn blew shortly out of her nose. Optimism meant nothing. Statistics meant nothing. She groaned and dropped her head into her hands. Santana gave up trying to pull back her hair and settled for tucking it messily behind Quinn's ears.
"She was having such a hard time." Quinn remarked, muffled and hoarse.
Kurt rubbed her back soothingly.
"She'll be fine." Santana insisted. She pried Quinn's fingers away from her face and squeezed to hold them still. "You know Berry. You can't keep her down. Like a Furby."
Quinn coughed raggedly. She twisted in her seat and breathed shallowly, and Kurt shared a worried glance with Santana. Every blink flashed a new picture of Rachel before Quinn's eyes.
In the morning, sleepy and mumbly, all dark, tangled hair and warm cheeks and soft smiles. Or a few weeks ago, dancing around the kitchen with a spatula and loudly singing a made-up song about cantaloupe and watermelon to James. Huffy and annoyed and tired after a particularly long day, when she'd cross her arms and flip her hair and roll her eyes, and then curl up to Quinn in the middle of the night and tug on her ears and whisper an apology.
Quinn whined lowly, crumbling from the inside out. She traced the lines in the tiled floor to keep herself from fading out completely.
"I read about a zonkey today!" Kurt proclaimed abruptly, eyes wide and a little desperate.
Brittany nodded sagely, strolling back into the room with Puck at her side and James on her hip—all three looked unsettled and exhausted.
"A zebra donkey." Brittany remarked. "Rachel would like them. They're adorable."
"Is there one around here? I want to see one too." Blaine mused. He stepped in front of Quinn and held out his offering of vending machine snacks—Kit-Kat, Cheetos, M & Ms, pretzels, and a granola bar.
Quinn shook her head slightly, but Kurt took the M & Ms and dumped them into a napkin in his hand, sending several bouncing brightly across the plain floor.
"So you can pick some out if you like." Kurt explained softly. "You should eat."
"Zebroids are sterile." Quinn muttered roughly.
Kurt blinked at her, and then smiled slightly.
Quinn ran through them all in her mind—zonkey, zony, zorse, zebrule, and hinny. She saw them all, and she stared hard at the floor tiles and listened critically to the light conversation.
"So they can't breed." Santana shrugged. "Probably for the best."
Quinn hummed and nodded. A nurse came through the door at that point and panic gripped Quinn's chest, hot and anxious. She sat up straight, breathing staggered, and dug her nails into her knees. She barely registered Santana's soothing hands on her shoulders.
The nurse smiled warmly. "Would you like to come meet your daughter?"
Quinn faltered. Rachel had been first on her mind. Rachel. Her mouth dropped open, but she said nothing, and Santana squeezed her sweaty hand.
"We love you, Quinn. We're here with you." She reminded gently.
Quinn swallowed thickly—she felt like she couldn't process anything by herself—nodded, and stood to follow after the nurse with Kurt and Santana.
~oooooooooooo~
Age 13
Quinn balled her hands up in her dress pockets and tried to stand still. She'd made it through her presentation—talking far too quickly, she knew—about the World War II invasion of North Africa, and was now supposed to accept questions. Her eyes scanned the small class, lips pressed together.
There was only one student with his hand up, and Quinn smiled slightly and pointed to him.
"Why was it called Operation Torch?" he queried.
Quinn rocked on the balls of her feet. She fixed her eyes thoughtfully on a spot at the back of the classroom. "It's-it doesn't-they don't-"
She shook her head and cut herself off to try again. Her classmates' faces weren't hard or judgmental. They were mostly bored, maybe intent, but Quinn couldn't seem to ever get her words out smoothly.
"It's-it was originally called Operation Gymnast." She said. She pulled a hand from her pocket to drag the long hair out of her eyes. "The name doesn't really-it doesn't mean anything. But some say the landing area was known as torch."
Quinn swallowed. The boy who'd asked the question nodded, satisfied with that answer, and Quinn headed back to her seat.
"Thank you, Quinn. See me after class, please." Her history teacher called over the light, routine applause.
Quinn settled in her chair. Already her breathing was evening out, her heart rate was slowing. She kept her clammy hands in her pockets and basked in relief.
"Quinn."
Quinn twisted slightly to see the girl sitting behind her—Maddie Hays, dark-haired, bright-eyed, and incredibly kind. She was smiling warmly, and Quinn flushed like she always did when Maddie spoke to her.
"Good job. I liked your presentation."
Quinn smiled and quietly said, "Thank you."
After class, she stood in front of Mr. Wilson's large, wooden desk, and tugged absently on her backpack straps until the classroom was empty. Mr. Wilson, a middle-aged, self-proclaimed "go-getter" with no hair, watched her from behind his glasses. He was generally a well-meaning teacher, but he seemed to get a lot of things wrong.
Quinn would never tell him she thought he was an idiot.
He spun slightly in his chair and tipped his head. "Do you know what you'd like to do when you're older, Quinn? What you want to be when you grow up?"
Quinn shifted on her feet and glanced towards the door. "Not…really." She hesitated. "I like-maybe some-something with animals or books."
Mr. Wilson nodded indulgently. "That's good. You don't need to know right now what you want to do with the rest of your life."
Quinn stared uncertainly at the bicycles on his tie.
"What you do need to do is lose that stutter."
Quinn blinked, surprised.
"When you get older, it'll be seen as unprofessional, Quinn, a handicap, and you need to start working on it now." Mr. Wilson observed her.
Quinn glanced at the door again and wished she were anywhere else.
Her teacher snapped his fingers. "And you need to look me in the eyes, because you're being rude."
Quinn's face flushed as she met his amused gaze. Telling him he was a dumbass would be rude. Punching him in the face would be rude. Quinn stared at him, helpless to do anything else.
"My point is you'll get nowhere if you can't speak properly." Mr. Wilson concluded. He winked at her. "We're not all as forgiving as high school history teachers."
Quinn left the room baffled and despondent, and still a little relieved that she'd finished her presentation. She wondered how to fix how she spoke, how to slow her thoughts, how to meet peoples' eyes without shrinking. She wondered just how many things were actually wrong with her.
Maddie was kissing her boyfriend—in the thirteen-year-old sense of the term—as Quinn walked by, and Quinn sighed and looked away and headed towards the football field, where she could eat her peanut butter sandwich without being bothered.
~oooooooooooo~
Present
Her daughter was gorgeous. Pink and chubby, with an impressive grip on Quinn's finger and a shock of dark, curly hair. She was over eight pounds—a large baby, especially for Rachel—and she had wide brown eyes so similar to her wife's that Quinn was crying as soon as she saw them.
"How do you have the cutest babies?" Santana complained quietly, peering over Quinn's shoulder. "Marcus looked like a reptile."
Kurt gasped. "Santana."
"Well he doesn't anymore." She rolled her eyes.
Tears dripped from Quinn's nose onto the soft, pink baby blanket. "Hi, sweet girl." She breathed, smiling slightly. She stroked her finger lightly along the baby's cheek. "I'm mommy."
She'd realized quickly that her daughter was louder than James. She breathed noisily and cooed constantly, always drawing the attention back to herself. Her grip on Quinn's index finger still hadn't lessened.
"What's her name?" Santana whispered, finally able to tie Quinn's hair back.
Quinn looked up, smiling proudly. She rubbed at her eyes. "Emmie Mae."
Kurt processed for a moment, and then laughed quietly. "Oh God." He murmured.
"Emmie Mae Berry-Fabray." Santana said bluntly, staring at the side of Quinn's head. "Are you-I can't." She shook her head.
"I like the rhyme. It's cute." Kurt offered.
"It's after my mother." Quinn said absently. She couldn't take her eyes off Emmie's face. "She's-she's so-she's just like Rachel."
Quinn took a deep shuddery breath and looked up at Kurt. He smiled softly and nodded, and Santana scoffed lightly behind them.
"She's beautiful." She said shortly, possibly a little bitter.
Kurt chuckled. "Marcus is very handsome now."
Quinn babbled to Emmie, mostly nonsense, and was halfway through a teary story about a great whale named Wallace when a nurse came through the door. She cut herself off and wiped her face, and Santana set a hand on the top of her head.
"Rachel is stable and waking up now." The nurse informed, smiling.
Kurt and Santana heaved matching sighs of relief. Quinn let go of a sob that had been stuck in her throat for hours and pressed a watery kiss to Emmie's forehead. She could think again; she could breathe. She allowed herself a moment of relief and then stood on wobbly legs to follow the nurse to her wife's room.
"Give her a kiss for us." Kurt requested, grinning. He and Santana hugged Quinn and walked in the opposite direction to the waiting room.
Rachel's new room was slightly smaller. It was white—Quinn preferred the sunshine yellow—and lined on one wall with machines that hadn't been present in the delivery room. Quinn's breath caught at the sight of Rachel—pale but awake, barely—and she hurried to sit in the chair at the side of her bed.
Rachel's eyes opened and closed sluggishly, a bright brown against her pallid face, and Quinn wasn't sure how lucid she actually was.
"Rachel." Quinn murmured, watching carefully. "Little bear."
She took one of Rachel's hands and kissed her knuckles. Rachel's hazy gaze landed on her, brow furrowed slightly in concentration.
"You." Rachel finally proclaimed, grinning lopsidedly.
Quinn smiled at the slur in her voice.
"There you go." Rachel mumbled. She pulled her hand out of Quinn's and reached for Quinn's cheek, but missed and waved clumsily through the air instead. Quinn caught it and kissed it again, holding back tears. She kept her lips pressed to Rachel's hand until she could speak.
"Rachel, baby. This is our daughter." Emmie slept peacefully in her arms, squeaking with every other breath.
Rachel blinked and frowned. Quinn watched the emotions play across her face. Trust, confusion, realization, wonder, love. Quinn stood up so that she could safely place Emmie in Rachel's arms.
"This is mama." She cooed. She pressed a kiss to Rachel's forehead as she pulled back.
Rachel held Emmie carefully and looked at Quinn with wide, cloudy eyes. "She's so big." She whispered loudly. "Why's she so big?"
Quinn snorted lightly. She dragged a hand through Rachel's hair and shook her head. "I don't know, baby. You did so well."
"I did. She's huge." Rachel said absently.
She really wasn't. She was a normal sized baby, but Rachel looked so fascinated with her enormity that all Quinn could do was laugh. She was pleased that Rachel didn't seem to be in any pain at the moment.
Rachel chuckled when Emmie seized her finger. "I love you, baby girl."
"She looks just like you, Rachel." Quinn said fondly, watching her wife. "Those-she's got your eyes and your nose. And she's noisy."
Rachel scoffed and hugged Emmie closer. "I am not noisy, bear."
"You're the noisiest person I know."
Rachel ignored her, staring thoughtfully at Emmie's scrunched-up, chubby face. "She sounds like…a cat." She nodded resolutely, happy with her choice. "A baby cat. Purring."
Quinn pictured cubs, not kittens, and sat forward in her chair. Rachel eyed her patiently, like even in her jumbled state she knew exactly what was coming.
"Big cats—lion cubs—are much-they're smaller." Quinn informed, still dragging a hand through Rachel's hair. Her knee bounced excitedly. "Smaller than human babies, anyway. They're-they can be a foot long, and only weigh a pound. And there's-they're covered with fur from birth."
Rachel nodded, smiling. She reached a hand out and Quinn got up and sat on the edge of the bed so that she could give her wife a proper hug. She twisted awkwardly to wrap her arms around Rachel's shoulders without trapping Emmie, and then slid further onto the bed and melted into her warm embrace.
"I love you. She's perfect." Quinn mumbled into her messy hair. "You're perfect."
Rachel smiled against her ear. "She is. You are too, baby."
~ooooooooooooo~
Age 17
Quinn chewed slowly on her last bite of vegetables—cauliflower in a cheese sauce—before setting her fork down and eyeing the dishes of food on the table before her. She was reaching for more potatoes when her aunt looked up from her own plate and cleared her throat.
Quinn dropped her hand. She knew what was coming.
"I would hold off if I were you, Quinn." Lisa stated, eyeing her critically. "I think you've had enough."
Quinn blew the choppy hair out of her eyes and sighed quietly.
"You really need to watch what you eat. You want to look your best for those senior boys, don't you?"
Quinn managed not to roll her eyes. No, she wanted to say. She did not care for the senior boys. She cared for the charlotte potatoes sitting in the middle of the table. She cared that her aunt hadn't made any dessert in a month because of some asinine, shallow reasoning that Quinn couldn't wrap her mind around. People should eat what they like because they only have one shot at this life—simple as that.
Quinn glanced down at her stomach, still rumbling under her soft, green sweater, and thought longingly of the Oreo pie in the freezer. If she ever made it out of this house, she'd have ice cream and cookies as often as possible.
"Sit up straight, Quinn." Lisa instructed.
Quinn obliged. She watched Lisa daintily chew her food. "Would you like me to get the pie out of the freezer?"
"No desserts." Lisa shook her head without looking up. "You'll get fat. It's a shame you never joined a team at school. With your body type, you would've made such a good cheerleader."
Quinn stared at her empty plate and mumbled, "I'm glad I didn't."
"Why?" Lisa wondered—eyebrow raised—even though she knew the answer.
"I would've been terrible at it." Quinn stuck her hands in her pants pockets and crossed her legs. "And I don't like the cheerleaders."
They weren't hateful or mean, just generally loud and obsessive over things Quinn found idiotic. The same went for a lot of the student body.
"Boys like the cheerleaders." Lisa remarked.
Quinn balled her hands up in her pockets. "I don't like boys."
"You keep saying that, but-"
"And it won't-it's not going to change." She stared hard at the small, gold cross around her aunt's neck. She'd easily reconciled her faith and her sexuality years ago—God is love, after all. It just seemed to be taking a while for her aunt to do the same.
Lisa sighed, exasperated. She shook her head wordlessly.
"May I be excused?" Quinn entreated quietly.
Her aunt nodded, and Quinn stood quickly and walked towards the living room, hands still shoved in her pockets. She halted abruptly in the doorway and spun to face Lisa.
"When's the next time we'll be having dessert?" she wondered on a whim.
"Honestly." Lisa rolled her eyes. "Sort out your priorities, Quinn."
Quinn pursed her lips. She felt her priorities were just fine. She was planning on graduating high school and getting a job in the city, preferably with animals, because college just didn't seem like an option for her. Boys and body weight were at the bottom of her list.
So what if cupcakes were number one?
~ooooooooooooo~
Present
Quinn strode into the hospital room with James on her hip, aware of the matching green frosting around their mouths from the cupcake squeezed in James's hand. Brittany, Blaine, and Kurt were all crammed at the foot of Rachel's bed, cooing over Emmie in her bassinet, and Quinn shuffled past them to sit near the head.
Rachel hummed and licked at the icing when Quinn gave her a kiss.
"Your dads are on the way." Quinn informed, dropping a small cardboard bakery box onto the bed before her. She opened the lid and spun it so that Rachel could see. "I got you two cupcakes—one lemon, one vanilla."
She would've gotten more, but she only had one free hand. James held the green frosted cupcake towards her face and Quinn took a sloppy bite, showering both of them in crumbs.
"Mommy." He chuckled, palming her cheek.
Rachel smiled affectionately and reached up to wipe away the frosting he'd streaked across Quinn's face.
"And I got twelve cookies." Quinn continued with a hand over her mouth. "What would you like first, baby?"
Rachel was staring at her, lips tipped up. Quinn figured she'd pick the lemon cupcake. It was her favorite, and it was topped with blueberry icing that she could eat by itself. Quinn was pulling it out of the box when Rachel gently grasped her wrist and shook her head.
"In a minute, Quinn."
"Cake, mama?" James offered, nuzzling his blonde head into Quinn's neck and holding out the last bite of squished up, crumbly cupcake to Rachel.
Rachel sat up and craned forward so that she could kiss his cheek. "No thanks, Jimbo. I need to talk to mommy."
Quinn lifted a brow at that. Kurt stood from the foot of the bed and held his arms out for James, who went willingly, giggling around his mouthful of cupcake and kicking his tiny toddler boots against Kurt's chest.
Ow, Kurt mouthed, before swinging him up and onto his shoulders.
"We'll be in the cafeteria!" Blaine called, shuttling everybody out the door.
Rachel sat up straighter in bed. She patted her hands over the blankets on her lap and fiddled with her fingers. Quinn could see her eyes flickering around, tracing patterns, thinking. She put the box of baked goods to the side and waited patiently.
When several moments had passed and Rachel hadn't said anything, Quinn ducked forward to catch her gaze. "Ra-"
"I won't be carrying any more babies." Rachel said, smiling ruefully. She picked at her blankets.
Quinn closed her mouth.
"I don't think I'd be comfortable with it after this whole…" Rachel waved a hand around and sighed. "Experience. And also the doctor—this morning, when Puck and Kurt took you to breakfast—advised against it."
Rachel didn't look crushed. She wasn't broken up about it, Quinn could tell. She was just tired and pained from this whole ordeal. Her eyes were soft and heavy and warily watching Quinn.
"Do you want more babies?" Quinn wondered, standing up.
Rachel scooted over in the bed when she realized that Quinn was trying to climb in next to her. Her eyes landed on the swaddled pink newborn in the bassinet. "I don't know yet." She breathed. "We should probably work with what we have first."
Quinn hummed distractedly. She rolled halfway on top of Rachel in the narrow bed—so that her face was jammed against Rachel's head, smothered by her dark hair—and sighed contentedly.
"It's so roomy in here." She drawled. "Why are the beds so big?"
Quinn caught Rachel's smile out of the corner of her eye and grinned, pleased with herself.
Rachel wrapped an arm around Quinn's back, just to keep her from tumbling over the edge. She pulled her closer until they were pressed and twined together, and mumbled, "It's not made for two."
Quinn picked her head up, saw that she'd gotten green frosting in Rachel's hair, and wiped at it discreetly. Rachel mewled—probably under the impression that Quinn was playing with her hair—and it was so gentle and sweet and enchanting that Quinn stopped and looked at her. She propped herself up on an elbow while Rachel observed her wordlessly.
Quinn spun a lock of dark hair around her finger. "If we have more," she said slowly, "I'll carry them, and if we don't, that's perfectly fine."
Rachel's eyes danced over her face. "We're only five away from the Von Trapps."
Quinn smiled and leaned closer, inches from Rachel's face. She lightly tickled up Rachel's side and whispered, "If you make me have five more babies, you're the one who'll have to deal with me when I turn into a whale."
She remembered Wallace from the story she was telling earlier—a vegetarian whale who ate so much seaweed that all of the otters who lived in the kelp beds lost their homes. Wallace realized his mistake and swam with the otters across the world to find a new place for them to live. They ran into turtles and sharks and an enthusiastic seal named Rachel before settling near Australia.
Rachel tucked a hand under Quinn's sweater. "I like whales."
"I like you." Quinn returned.
Rachel nuzzled into Quinn's neck. Her gaze shifted and Quinn followed it to Emmie, asleep and breathing peacefully with all sorts of grunts and squeaks. Quinn thought about what she'd be doing right now if Rachel hadn't woken up. It was dark and terrifying and heavy on her chest. Her cheeks burned and her eyes watered at the thought that the small, warm body tucked up against her had been in so much danger.
She tipped her head and pressed her lips to Rachel's hair.
"Rachel." She whispered thickly.
Rachel hummed. She tapped Quinn's stomach.
Quinn cleared her throat. "I love you. I don't know what I'd do if we were apart."
"Well." Rachel tilted her head up to kiss Quinn's chin. "We'd find our way back together again."
She said it like it was obvious, like it was ridiculous to think otherwise, like it was implicit in their ten years together. It was the warmest, happiest feeling that only Rachel could inspire.
"A trail of cupcakes would probably work for you." Rachel mused. Quinn laughed silently and it bounced her head around. "Maybe a trap—one of those boxes with the stick holding it up—with cookies as bait."
"Shut it, Rachel." Quinn mumbled, smiling. "You wouldn't be able to catch me. I'm clever."
"You're not clever."
"I am." Quinn insisted. She pressed her nose into Rachel's cheek. "I'm clever."
Rachel shut her eyes. She kept up her rubbing of Quinn's stomach and said, "Tell me a clever story."
Quinn knew just the one.
"Once upon a time, there was an enthusiastic seal named Rachel Berry…"