Senior Year of College
It's the jet black sky just before the rain. But my window is broken.
Six months passed like molasses as Rachel sat on her planet ticket to visit her girlfriend, her abroad and hardly around girlfriend. Their plan to schedule skype dates, talk on the phone more often, and pick up their emailing lasted about three weeks.
After which, it deteriorated. "Nobody's Business" took off in the theatre world. Rachel went from young ingénue to sought-after leading lady. Fighting for roles turned into picking and choosing her roles. Her dream was at her doorstep, knocking loudly and waiting for her to open the door.
And through all of that, all she could think was Madrid and two more months, one more month, two more weeks, one more week, two more days, and now one more day. Finally, tomorrow she hopped a plane to Spain to fight for her love. They hadn't spoken in three weeks. She hadn't spoken to her girlfriend in three weeks.
What kind of normalcy was that?
What kind of travesty was that?
She wondered what it would be like. She wondered how her Bee was. She wondered if Quinn was even still her Bee.
She just wondered, because she had nothing else.
She was officially out of the loop and Rachel Berry was never out of the loop. And yet here she was, so far out of the loop she didn't know how Quinn spent her last three weeks.
Travesty, heartbreaking travesty.
The last time they spoke, Quinn was delving into her senior year portfolio to apply for graduation. And Rachel was balancing Broadway offers with the senior showcase of which she starred.
It was all very easy, starring in things and leading things and singing.
Being away from Quinn and wondering, not so easy.
And she was fed up.
So tomorrow, she would fly to Madrid and surprise the so-called love of her life. Tomorrow, she would go see about a girl. And hopefully, if all went well, she'd fly back with resolve, comfort, and optimism.
Because frankly, she had none otherwise.
Quinn's desk in Statom Books overflowed with a multitude of things: Arna's next draft in her series, her senior thesis, books from the library, manuscripts from wannabe talent, and letters from her mother. It was her favorite mountain of words in which she lost herself daily. And today was no different.
She combed through what had to have been the two hundredth notebook of Arna's, searching for other short stories to fill her second volume.
She imagined a theme of love unseen this round. Arna's first volume pounded in the notion of love lost. And the blonde envisioned the third to be love found, like a trifecta of emotion when thrown together, seen full and read with depth. But when pulled back and looked at alone, they read as gut-wrenching initially, and secondly hopeful, and lastly, romantic.
Arna loved it, as did she, and as did Statom.
"You do good work," he'd said last week after she spent a sixteen hour Saturday pouring through story after story.
She searched for the love unseen stories. She searched endlessly.
Because only when she finished love unseen did she get to love found.
She had to get to love found. It was pulsing through her veins, pounding in her chest and racing around her mind. She needed to get to the third volume. She needed it to be done. She needed her baby to stand tall, breathe and make a statement. She needed the story to end as she prayed all love stories ended.
And hopefully it would.
And hopefully people loved it.
The first volume sold wildly throughout Madrid, but only Madrid.
Statom envisioned Europe for volume two and international for volume three. He had hopes, hopes that Quinn had to fulfill. It was a constant weight on her shoulders as she searched for stories that wrecked her in one way or another. She needed stories that lightened her soul, emblazoned a smile across her face, or wrenched tears from her eyes.
She accepted nothing less and she lost herself in it.
And Arna, well she wrote. She upgraded her apartment with the money she made, but she still street-walked. She still wrote. She still buried her face in slightly nicer cloth and mumbled about her mother and spoke few words and just lived. She was perfect to Quinn.
And she was astounding to Statom, just as Quinn was.
"Thanks," she'd said to him that afternoon. "That means a lot. I try hard. I'm trying really hard."
"It's noticed," he'd stated, quirked up his mouth in a slight smile, and headed out for the evening.
It's the way they went about things. She buried herself in the office and he threw little, impactful statements at her. He was the perfect boss, she realized. The moment they met, he'd given her wings. If she could fly, she could write her path. He gave her the power. If she failed, it was no one's fault but her own.
And there she was, writing her path and giving Arna a voice.
It was everything she never dreamed.
And she most certainly was not failing. She smiled thinking over her project while sitting at her usual desk in the usual low light at the usual late hour as Statom stood to leave.
"It's late, Quinn."
"I know, but-"
"Take a night off. Go home. Go to dinner. Meet some friends. You have friends, right? What about that girlfriend? She still around?"
"I have friends, yes," she guffawed. "And yes the girlfriend, so hush."
"Go talk to them, do them, whatever. But just go do," he smiled and placed his weathered fedora atop his head. His glassy blue eyes sparkled below and after plopping his tooth pick between his lips, he turned on his heel and left. The door fluttered shut with a ringing jingle and she sighed with a content smile, her eyes peeling back to journal five hundred thousand.
"Love unseen, love unseen," she murmured and flipped another page.
The door jingled again and she huffed.
"We're not a bookstore," she muttered into the book.
"I'm not shopping for books."
Quinn whipped around, that voice familiar any day of the week in any time zone on any continent.
"Rachel," she gasped. Sight of the brunette crushed her in her seat.
"Bee."
Quinn took to her feet, paced across the room and jerked the girl into her arms. The embrace tightened by the second, familiarity flooding over their unfamiliar bodies. Rachel felt thinner in her arms.
Quinn felt meatier in Rachel's.
But they felt.
God, they felt.
Rachel opened her mouth to suck in much needed air and buried her face in long, straightened blonde hair.
"You smell like heaven," she panted.
"I can't- you're here- what are- I missed you," Quinn stuttered into her shoulder. Rachel was there. Rachel was there in Statom Books. Her mind didn't want to believe it, but her heart already felt it. It pounded beneath her chest, poking out and grasping at Rachel's.
She pulled her in tighter, sliding a hand up and into her beautiful wavy hair. Her fingers clenched tight. Her eyes clenched tighter. And her heart clenched tightest. She was there. Rachel was there.
Rachel sighed into her shoulders, turned her head and buried her face into the blonde's neck. She inhaled all she could inhale, just needing to remember it. She needed every feeling engrained in memory: the smell of her love, the feel of her skin, the beat of her heart, the sound of her breath, and the ever familiar of sense of home in her arms.
She placed a kiss on her neck, and then another and another until they were lingering there because she couldn't pull them away. She tightened her arms around her waist, squeezed tight and pressed harder, aching to sink into her skin and curl up inside her.
She felt Quinn's pulse rocketing under her lips. She felt her panting.
She felt her losing herself.
"I can't believe you're here," she heard.
"I can't believe how much I love you," she answered.
She needed her more than air, more than bread, more than water.
She needed her more than singing and more than life itself.
When time released them, however long later, air returned to the room. Space returned to the room. Peripheral sight and feeling and life returned to the room. And Quinn smiled shyly and stepped away, arms falling from Rachel.
They missed her immediately.
"Hey girlfriend," Rachel whispered with a smile.
"Hey girlfriend," she grinned and it sent a flutter of joy over the brunette. Her eyes landed on those hazel anchors and those cheek bones and wide smile. She'd almost forgotten how striking Quinn was. She'd almost forgotten how just the sight of her turned her heart inside out.
She'd almost forgotten.
Because of Quinn.
She pulled her eyes away and let them fall over the shop. Books lined shelves, stacked in corners, splayed over tables and mainly just collected dust.
"So this is your… office? Is it called an office?" Rachel smirked, taking a few much needed steps away from the blonde and running her finger over a tabletop littered with a slight layer of dust, lived-in dust, the kind of dust that gave things character.
"We call it the shop," she shrugged. "And yes. This is practically where I live day in and day out."
"How are your friends?"
"Which ones?"
"Oh, um… Palo?"
"He went back to Barcelona a couple months ago. We email occasionally. He actually may be in the States soon. You could meet him."
"Oh, that'd be great. We could compare shoes."
"Mhm," Quinn smiled and perched on the desk by the door, watching as Rachel slowly floated from tabletop to shelf to desk, eyes finding everything but Quinn.
"And Maria?"
"Back to Argentina. She opened a dance studio with her sister. They call it the Tango Twins," she smirked.
"Clever," Rachel laughed. "I didn't know she had a twin."
"Not identical or anything."
"And Arna?" Rachel asked, picking up a book to inspect its cover. She read the title, mused for a moment, and then placed it back down. Quinn arched an eyebrow at the dismissal.
"What was wrong with that one?" she laughed.
"Huh?"
"That book, you just dismissed it by the cover alone."
"What? Oh, no I'm just looking around," she laughed furtively.
"Mhm…"
"So Arna?"
"She's good, living the same with a bit more money. It's why Statom adores her. She writes and keeps her mouth shut, never asks for anything. But people connect with her, I guess."
"Like you did."
"Yeah, like I did."
"And it's selling well?"
"Yeah, through Madrid. It's a small market, but acceptable for a start and a private publisher."
Rachel pulled her eyes up to the blonde, the changes becoming more apparent as words fell from her mouth. She spoke with knowledge. She spoke with confidence about something Rachel had never seen her speak about. She even hovered against the desk in a way Rachel had never seen her hover, as if, as if it she'd hovered there enough for it to be an unconscious act.
She pulled her eyes away.
"Where do you… like… make the books?" she asked, looking around curiously. Quinn giggled and shook her head.
"We outsource that. We're more, how would you say it, liaisons. We search out talent, strike deals, etcetera. And then a separate company makes the books."
"Oh. Interesting," Rachel mused and finished her tour by landing in Quinn's desk chair. She leaned back, settling into it, stretching her arms over the side rests and giving it a few squeaks left and right before she finally pulled her eyes back up to Quinn's. "Nice chair."
"Thanks," she smiled.
"You hungry? Have you eaten? I'm starving," Rachel asked, out of questions otherwise. What was her plan again? She was here to take back her love, but where was her love? How does one take back something she can't find?
"I could eat. Let me grab my jacket and we'll grab some food," Quinn stated and hopped off the table before heading towards Rachel and the coat tree behind the desk.
As she passed her, a small hand whipped out and gripped her wrist.
The intimate touch froze Quinn and her eyes fluttered shut. She missed that touch. She missed the electricity it shot through her body. She missed the heat it flamed over her skin.
"Quinn?" came murmuring from below.
"Yes," she husked out over a breath.
"I love you."
More electricity spread throughout her, snapping and replenishing every nerve it touched. It reminded her of what she had and what she left in New York. It reminded her of high school, of dates, of their first, of reading in the loveseat in Rachel's living room. And instantly, her perfectly clear vision of her life now clouded up and over and all she saw was grey and Rachel's eyes.
She pulled her wrist free and grabbed her coat.
"Ready?" she chirped, voice laced with faux excitement and dripping with fear, hesitation and doubt.
Rachel looked on, seeing it all and seeing it clearly.
And it was the first time she saw the beginning of the end.
"This is delicious," she purred over her pasta. "Is it because we're closer to Italy and it's more authentic or is it just that I've been living in New York for too long where all I eat are vegetables, Chinese noodles and sushi rolls?"
"Probably the latter," Quinn grinned.
"Ah," she muttered and sank back into her chair.
The restaurant Quinn chose struck her as quaint and charming. An old Italian woman slaved behind the counter, shouting huffy Italian barks at whom Rachel assumed was her husband in the kitchen.
Or at least, she hoped he was her husband. It was sweet if he was her husband, but abusive if he was a worker. Somehow, that made sense in her head.
Worn wooden plank tables lined the restaurant and two saucer candles lit each of their centers. They were adorned with red and white checkered napkins and the full, wall length windows to their left allowed the moonlight to peer in from the night's sky.
The ambience created by all of the above set the epitome of romance and glancing across the table, staring at the blonde who looked a little less like the blonde she remembered, Rachel wasn't sure what to think. Her thoughts felt like a rollercoaster of knots, like a pretzel doing somersaults with a fire hose; one thing winded into the next and the next and nothing came out looking like it was or feeling like it should.
She didn't know how to navigate this territory.
"You look good," the blonde smiled. Her eyes seemed more sure, less innocent and fiery. Her posture touted confidence. The calm hands in her lap and the lack of flicking with her crossed leg told Rachel she was content there in that restaurant; it was a sort of home?
"You come here a lot?"
"No."
"Oh," she frowned.
Again, she felt lost. She knew of nothing.
"How's singing going?" Quinn asked, refolding her napkin over her lap and smiling at the brunette.
"Going well."
"Well…?"
"Yes, well. I've been offered a few roles and the senior showcase will star yours truly," she said.
"Why do you not seem elated and what offers!" Quinn gushed.
"Just a few roles that are out there."
"Out where?"
"Broadway."
Quinn gasped and her hands shot to the table.
"You're getting offers for Broadway?"
Rachel blushed and pushed some fresh basil around her plate before nodding. Quinn gaped.
"Rachel! Why- what- I can't believe this! This is awesome. This is it; Broadway's your dream!"
"This is true," Rachel muttered.
Quinn gasped at the lack of response and then collapsed into her seat, confused eyes falling over the forlorn girl across the table. Who was she?
"Why, why are you not excited?"
Rachel grabbed her napkin, wiped her lips and brought her eyes up.
"You wanna get out of here? I'm feeling a little stuffy and full and I'd like to see your place. See how you live and where and stuff," Rachel deflected and forced a smile. It was the smile Quinn saw when Leroy got sick. It was the smile that exploded across her face but never reached her eyes.
It was the Rachel façade.
And the realization and memories that came with it knocked Quinn over the head and squeezed her lungs free of air.
She locked her gaze on the tiny girl, the tiny girl with her well kempt hair and perfect skin and immaculate make-up. She was the spitting image of stardom, right down to the hollow smile.
"Sure," she finally muttered. "We can get out of here."
Quinn's apartment was nothing like Rachel imagined. She pictured piles of books, maybe some paintings, and maybe some drawings. Did the blonde keep drawing?
But what she found was pristine organization. She found old, wooden, brightly shined furniture, an antique red couch, tan walls and a few photographs: one of them from sophomore year of high school at the park and one of them with their parents at the lake.
It was the picture they both had. It was the picture all five of them had.
Rachel picked it up and ran a finger over her smiling daddy holding Quinn, her arms stretched out and joy emitting from every inch.
She missed the lake house. It seemed like ages ago, lifetimes ago, when in fact it was four and a half years. They were almost twenty-two and adults, making their own lives and decisions. In the picture, they were seventeen without a clue or care in the world.
She kissed her finger, placed it to Leroy's face and set the frame down.
Quinn hovered in the tiny kitchen, white washed cabinets illuminating brightly against the tan walls. A red dream catcher hung from the small wooden chandelier above her head. It lit the blonde like an angel from above.
Rachel let her eyes fall over her. She wore dark jeans crusted with fashionable holes, one at her knee, and another on her thigh. She topped it with a white short-sleeve blouse, buttoned up the front and mini pockets on the sleeves. A dark green, sheer scarf bunched over her chest and fell beautifully to her pelvis. And her long, vibrant hair fell softly over her shoulders.
She'd grown up. She'd grown up and Rachel had missed it.
And whose fault was that?
"Tea?" Quinn called.
"Since when do you drink tea?"
"I guess about a year ago. I tried it one night with Palo. He went on and on about this so-called English tea and wouldn't stop. So I tried it and subsequently fell in love. Would you like some? You'll like it."
"No, thank you," she smiled.
"So Broadway, huh?" Quinn beamed and brought her cup back over to the table. She pulled out a chair and took seat.
Okay, so they were sitting.
Rachel wandered over, pulled out the opposite chair and sat down.
"I don't want to talk about Broadway."
"Oh."
"Sorry."
"Can I ask why?"
"Doesn't feel like I thought it would," she muttered.
"What's that mean?"
"Exactly what I said," Rachel chided and brought her eyes up to Quinn's.
How was she to fly to Madrid and fight for a girl who didn't exist anymore? How was she to come home with hope and optimism for their future when she couldn't for the life of her envision it?
Tension burned between them, Rachel quickly growing angrier at the blonde's life decisions and Quinn growing more aware of that anger.
"I didn't mean to hit a sore spot," Quinn whispered.
"It's not a sore spot. It's my life."
"Okay. Okay. Sorry."
"Stop apologizing."
"Okay."
Uncomfortable silence fell over them as Quinn sipped her tea and Rachel watched. The blonde burned under the unfaltering gaze. Even those hazel eyes shined a bit differently. She'd changed. Of course, she'd changed. It'd been two years. But two years of change without witnessing it and growing with it and changing with it only left a canyon of space between them.
Rachel wanted to hit her. She wanted to step forward and hit her, smack the past out of her and demand a redo. Why did she do this to them?
"Do you like it here?" she muttered, needing to know even though she already knew. She could read it on the blonde from a mile away and something in that should make Rachel happy. And it would've made her happy had Quinn not needed to sacrifice Rachel to attain said happiness.
How was that love?
"I do, very much so. I feel like, I don't know, like I matter?"
"You always mattered," Rachel mumbled, eyes falling to her lap.
"I guess I mean in the bigger scheme of things."
"When will you come home?"
"Graduation in May. So that's what? Four months away?" Quinn smiled. "It'll be here before we know it."
"And you're staying, there in New York, right?"
"Yes."
"You'll publish Arna's books from there?"
"I'll have them organized for print before I go. And Statom has agreed to keep me on a form of branched off staff, except I'll be searching out talent in New York instead," she smiled. "So I'll be opening my own shop as sister publisher. Statom-Fabray Books. Nice ring, right?"
"Very."
"Be proud of me," Quinn pleaded and Rachel snapped her eyes up.
"Do you feel grand yet?"
Quinn balked, her mouth snapping shut.
"Yes," she whispered.
"Was it worth it?" Rachel added and Quinn sucked in a breath.
"Time will tell, I guess."
Rachel nodded with attitude, her eyes refusing to leave the blonde. Quinn gulped under the stare and implications and blame. When the suitcase on her chest became too grave, she clawed her way out and stood, choosing to take refuge in the living room. Maybe she'd have better luck there.
But as she passed by Rachel, yet another hand whipped out to grasp at her wrist. It stung this time. It stung and Rachel's touch never stung.
"Bee," Rachel breathed, fear and regret and sadness falling out.
"Yeah?" she exhaled, eyes fluttering shut and wishing for refuge.
"Can I kiss you?" Rachel pleaded. She pleaded for something that had always been her right. The fact she felt the need to ask ripped Quinn's heart in two. She pulled her arm through Rachel's grasp until their fingers landed together and laced tightly.
And then she yanked on the hot hand, dragged Rachel up to her feet with it and brought their lips together. Trembling lips met trembling lips and the world vanished. Quinn dropped her arm around Rachel, their connected hands landing on her shoulder, and pulled her closer.
Rachel whimpered into her lips, the feeling of all she wanted and dreamed and thought of over the past two years finally letting her breathe. It'd been two god damn years.
"Open your mouth," she pleaded into those lips. Quinn moaned, pulled her lips apart and let Rachel slip inside.
Their tongues met and her ignition set fire. She snapped her other hand to the back of Rachel's head and held her steady, delving their tongues into each other and re-exploring every millimeter they already knew, but didn't know.
Nothing had changed, yet everything changed.
She wrenched Rachel closer, falling back into the wall and bringing the girl with her. Rachel groaned, slammed her hips into Quinn and squeezed tighter against the fingers trapped between her own on her shoulder. Her arm suffocated without space between their bodies, but she didn't care. She pressed harder into Quinn, needing more proximity. She yearned for proximity.
Quinn yanked her hands free, whipped off her scarf and pulled those lips back into hers. She kissed Rachel like she used to dream of kissing Rachel. She kissed her like she fantasized about kissing her that day at Noah Puckerman's. She wanted to slam her into the wall, claim her mouth and never let her go.
So she did.
She spun them around, backed Rachel into the wall and gripped at her thighs, pulling one up and onto each hip after the other. Each time she did, Rachel whined against her tongue and it sent shivers straight down her spine, through her cheeks and exploding onto her sex.
"I need you," she begged.
"Then prove it," Rachel countered, pushing her off and backing Quinn into the kitchen table. Her backside hit it with thud and she yelped in pain before stretching back and bringing Rachel with her.
Limbs cracked against the table as they crawled their way on top, Rachel towering over her with pure unadulterated lust and want on the mind. Quinn quivered under her, lay fully back and stretched out, smacking her tea cup and sending it crashing to the floor.
Rachel smirked, pulled up to her knees and ripped her shirt over her head. Quinn watched a perfectly sculpted body come into view and gaped. She was- she was-
"What?" Rachel muttered.
"You- you're- your body."
"My play had a partial nude scene."
"It had a wha-" she gasped as Rachel smothered the shock away with her lips and laced her tongue around Quinn's. She probed deep, sucked on it, caressed it, and then popped free.
"Problem with that?"
"Just wasn't aware."
"There's a lot you aren't aware of."
"Meaning?"
"Nothing," she muttered and reattached their lips. "Stop talking and take your clothes off."
"Take them off yourself," Quinn purred and spread her legs beneath Rachel. Her brown eyes dragged down, down, and down between them to see Quinn open and eager and begging.
Rachel reached down, snapped her jeans open and pulled them apart.
And then she realized she'd have to crawl off Quinn to remove them and that was just too much. She needed to feel her and she needed to feel her now.
So she reached back up and found the blonde unbuttoning her shirt. Rachel reached for the bottom and met her halfway, ripping the shirt off afterwards. Cold hair hit her skin and Quinn leaned up to unclasp her bra, finding Rachel without patience as she reached forward and pushed the cups up and off her breasts, fingers dripping back down to immediately attach to her nipples.
Quinn collapsed back onto the table, her head cracking against the wood and eyes snapping shut.
"Oh, god," she groaned. "God, I miss this. Two years is too long."
Rachel cringed at the words falling out of Quinn's mouth. Of course two years was too long, but whose fucking choice was that?
She pulled hard, eliciting a yelp from the girl, and then leaned forward to attach her lips around the right. She sucked hard, biting harder, and then moved to the left to repeat it. Quinn came apart underneath her and it gave her such satisfaction she didn't know how to handle it.
She circled her tongue around that beautiful peak and felt her own wet thong rub against her other lips as she shifted her body to the breasts. She was soaked just thinking about touching Quinn.
But what else was new?
She bit down hard yet again and hands snapped onto her hair, gripping tight and yanking her closer as a moan ripped from Quinn's lips.
And it was all too much. Here she was, hovering above the love of her life- right?- and it was all too much. Two years was too long. Two years changed things. It was all different.
Quinn looked different, acted different, and spoke different.
She carried herself different.
It was all so different.
Rachel stopped.
Because there was one thing that would never feel different.
And she needed it. She needed to be taken back. She needed to feel like she was home again. She needed to feel something that reminded her of them and how life used to be. And there was one thing that would never feel different. It would never, ever feel different.
She slid her hand down Quinn's stomach, squeezing lightly, and then shoved it past her open jeans and into the blonde's underwear, searching for the familiarity.
"Oh, fuck," she moaned as her fingers arrived, because even that was different. "You're waxed," she panted again. "You wax bare now?"
"Sometimes," Quinn gasped and lulled her head back onto the table, Rachel's familiar fingers researching her like new. They pulled over her, between her lips, around her clit and dipped low between her legs. It drove Quinn wild.
And the slick, silky smooth feeling drove Rachel wild.
She needed to touch it. She needed to see it.
She needed to run her tongue over it.
She pulled back off Quinn, off the table, and her legs hit the floor. She smacked two palms to her jeans and yanked them off. Hasty, fiery and desperate, she reached up, grabbed her thong and disposed of it as well.
And then she saw her.
And she froze.
Everything was new. Everything was different.
She was beautiful, but a stranger.
Rachel's eyes moistened like her underwear and her chest heaved.
"Rach?" Quinn whimpered, head craned up from the table and weight supported on her elbows. "Baby, you okay?"
Baby.
"Fine," she murmured, sank to her knees and dragged Quinn to edge of the table. Her mouth found lips and her tongue ran up the length of them.
Quinn's head gave way again, smacking onto the table with a loud crack.
It hurt. It hurt so, so good.
Rachel clenched her eyes closed and made love to Quinn with her mouth, with her tongue, with her teeth. She made love to the stranger lips between the stranger legs on the stranger table in that stranger apartment.
And all of it, even the familiar yet unfamiliar taste of the girl who once took her virginity, once badly drove her to a drive-in, once took her to Homecoming: Scared Homosexual Style, and once gave her the courage to chase her dreams, made her want to cry.
Because as her tongue slid inside Quinn for the umpteenth time, she knew it and she felt it in her bones, in her heart, and finally in her head.
It was the beginning of the end.
And how long would it take before Quinn walked away?
How long would it take this time?