Simple Parts
Chapter 12- Multiply Divide
Push all the air out of your lungs
A year is a lifetime
When you're young
And clearly lifetimes will be spent
Wondering just where our time went
QFRB
Rachel came into awareness in that fuzzy space between wakefulness and deep sleep. She was warm and happy, and the pillow under her ear carried a steady beat into her brain that kept her calm and made her feel safe. It smelled good too.
It was only when her pillow shifted that she was forced to wake up a little more and she realized that her pillow was actually Quinn's chest. Now fully awake, she didn't remove herself from the situation, but curled closer and relished it. She didn't know how much longer she would get to enjoy that kind of closeness with Quinn and there was no way she was going to take it for granted.
Even if there was a creeping feeling of dread lurking around her belly.
It was familiar, that feeling. Frightening and close. She can easily remember the way the she felt on the day she arrived in the future. It was the same.
Her grip on Quinn tightened reflexively.
She scooted away a little so that she wasn't entirely on top of Quinn and shook her a little. Quinn groaned and her brow furrowed in an adorable attempt to stay asleep.
"Quinn?" Rachel tested in a whisper, trying to keep the smile out of her voice. She didn't want Quinn to think she was being teased. She was just so cute though, with her wild bed-head and blurry eyes and the tiny little squeak she made when she yawned and stretched.
When Quinn went limp again, still on her back, eyes still closed, Rachel thought she hadn't been heard and was about to repeat herself when Quinn breathed out a quiet "Yeah?"
For a moment Rachel chewed on her bottom lip and just looked at Quinn. "Today's the day."
Quinn shifted her left hand over her stomach, rubbing it in absent-minded concentration. Then she turned her head so that her forehead met Rachel's gently. Rachel's eyes were too close to focus on so she closed her own and breathed deeply. Rachel watched her, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Quinn's hand clench in the fabric over her belly. "Yeah," she whispered finally.
Settling in behind the nausea there was a profound sadness. A submissiveness that settled in them and between them like stone. Unmovable. It wouldn't have mattered if it was removable, neither of them had the energy for such an undertaking.
Quinn thought that must be the ultimate truth of humanity, knowing when to give up. Not like in the movies where the underdog fights back against unwinnable odds and somehow secures a victory. What was the use in fighting when there was nothing that could be done anyway and no one to prove a point to?
Her fist clenched tighter and then released. She reached out for Rachel instead and her hand met silky brown hair. She opened her eyes. "I'm glad all of this happened," she confessed in an almost light tone. She smiled a little at the way Rachel's eyes widened. "I don't entirely . . . well, I don't understand some of it, and it's hard for me to accept. But I've been happier here than . . . I don't think I've ever been this happy, and I guess part of that is because of you."
"Quinn," Rachel started, but Quinn shook her head.
"I just wanted to say thank you."
Rachel thought of several things she could say to that, but she didn't use any of them. She just nodded and smiled and leaned in to deposit a chaste peck on Quinn's perfect lips.
"We should get up."
Quinn pouted dramatically and tossed her head around. Then she abruptly flipped onto her stomach and wrapped her arms around her head. "No."
It took Rachel a few seconds to realize that Quinn was being playful. She smiled. Playful Quinn was fun. "Why not?"
"I'm tired of running." Quinn's proclamation was muffled by the pillow under her face, but Rachel still thought she could hear something other than the obvious lurking in the tone. Her smile grew. Rachel rolled on top of Quinn and laid her head in the middle of Quinn's back, right between her shoulder blades.
"Finally."
QFRB
Somehow both Rachel and Quinn managed to fall asleep once again, despite the occasional resurgence of nausea and an unusual worry that pricked at their brains.
They were woken by a knock at the door, which had become pretty standard over the last few days. But when Quinn cracked one eye open, it was to find that the room was lit much brighter than it usually was when Older Quinn would come knocking.
"Come in," Quinn called as she sat up, carefully moving Rachel off her chest.
The door was nudged open and Older Rachel entered, a stack of clothes in one hand, all folded neatly. "I have your clothes for you," Older Rachel told them without even batting an eye at their positioning on the bed. One thing both Young Quinn and Rachel appreciated was that Older Rachel didn't tease them as mercilessly as Older Quinn did. "They're washed and ready, exactly as they came." She placed them on the desk.
"So it is today," Young Rachel said more to herself than the others.
Older Rachel smiled sadly at them. "Yes." She sighed. "Well, if you want breakfast, it's nearly ready. Don't feel like you have to come down though, if you aren't hungry."
Young Rachel waited until her older self had disappeared back into the hallway before she pulled Quinn back down. Quinn smiled shyly at Rachel's pouting face. "I don't want to go out there," Rachel whispered like she was sharing a secret. "I want to stay here like this and wallow in my misery and just…feel you and see you like this for a few more hours." Quinn opened her mouth to speak and was halted by fingers at her lips. "I'm sad that I won't even be able to miss you."
The tightness that had already been pressing in Quinn's chest rose up into her throat and she felt like she was actually choking. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes, but she held them back. She already felt like crap, she didn't want to cry anymore.
"We might not miss each other, but we don't know if the others will miss us. We really shouldn't deprive your future children of your greatness if we don't have to."
Rachel smiled sadly. "You make a valid point."
"I'll go change in the bathroom."
Twenty minutes later, Rachel and Quinn entered the kitchen to find that everyone was already seated except for Older Rachel and Older Quinn, the latter wasn't yet present and the former was at the kitchen counter preparing her coffee. Food was already on the table and disappearing rapidly into Alex, and not so rapidly into Shannon and Alice.
As Quinn and Rachel sat down, Older Quinn arrived and went straight to Older Rachel. She wrapped her arms around her wife, ducking her chin down on Rachel's shoulder. Rachel leaned back in the embrace briefly and then went back to stirring her coffee. As soon as she removed the spoon and picked the mug up to take her first sip, Quinn grabbed her wrist and directed the cup up to her mouth instead.
"I wouldn't if I were you," Older Rachel warned playfully, but Quinn already had the lip of the mug in her mouth.
As soon as she had a taste of what was in the mug, Quinn's face scrunched up in disgust. She held Rachel's wrist in place and tried to spit the coffee back in the mug, it mostly ended up dribbling out of her mouth.
"Oh God, that was nasty." Older Quinn wiped her chin.
Older Rachel chuckled and brought the mug to her lips instead. "That's what you get." She took a long sip and hummed happily. "I think it's delicious."
"Yeah well, we all know you're freaky." Quinn made another disgusted face. "There's an aftertaste. I think I'm going to cry."
"Stop being a baby." Rachel shook Quinn off her back and moved to sit at her spot at the table. "You should have learned by now not to put strange things in your mouth."
Older Quinn raised one eyebrow as she watched her wife retreat.
"Hmm, yeah, I'll have to remember that for next time we do what we did last night."
Older Rachel looked over her shoulder. "Don't be an ass."
"I shall endeavor." Quinn poured her own coffee and joined everyone at the table. "You're all very quiet this morning."
"Tired," Alice muttered.
"Tired," Shay agreed.
Alex said something unintelligible around a mouthful of food.
When Young Quinn and Rachel didn't offer their own explanations right away two expectant pairs of eyes turned to them.
Quinn, picking at the eggs she had scooped onto her plate, looked up through her eyelashes. "I don't feel good."
Rachel nodded in agreement.
After that, it was nearly silent, only Older Quinn and Rachel talked, and just about the plan for the day. Alice ate very lightly and then disappeared upstairs again before everyone else was finished, citing the need to prepare for her dance class, leaving Alex and Shannon to clean up.
For Rachel it felt like time and awareness was a sieve. One minute she was lucid and aware of every detail, like the taste of her orange juice and the comforting contact of Quinn's forearm against hers, and then the next she realized she was no longer at the table and was instead washing dishes beside an irritable Alex.
It was the same for Quinn and so she wasn't entirely sure how it happened, but she ended up in Alex's messy room playing video games with him. He reluctantly let her try her luck after a few minutes of watching him shoot aliens. Unfortunately, just watching wasn't enough to actually make her good at the game. She had played Super Mario Brothers before, Zelda and Pokemon too, but that had been years ago, when she was Alex's age, and none of those titles really prepared her for mowing down monsters with a shotgun.
Every time she would die, usually horrifically in fire, Alex would look at her with a very familiar glare. She could remember practicing it in the mirror when she was his age. She was just starting to get really good at avoiding falling into pits of lava and acid when Alex insisted she hand the controls over to him.
"The next part is really tough. You've already messed up my perfect record; I don't want you dying during a big mission too."
"It's not like I've ever done this before or anything. I think I'm doing pretty good," Quinn huffed.
Alex snorted. "If you were five, maybe."
Quinn passed over the controller. "I'm going to go find Rachel."
"Yeah, yeah. Go make out. Whatever."
Rolling her eyes, Quinn stood and ruffled Alex's hair on her way out.
She decided to look downstairs first, but the whole of the first floor appeared to be deserted. She looked out into the backyard, found nothing, and then headed for the stairs, slightly irritated with herself for not checking up there first since she had already been there.
"Quinn, just the girl I was looking for. Will you go get Rachel and meet me up at my studio?"
Quinn jerked to a stop and looked back to see her older self leaning out of Older Rachel's office, hair wild and glasses slipping down her nose. "Uh…sure."
"Great, thanks." With that, Older Quinn disappeared back around the corner, and to Young Quinn's embarrassment, a short burst of giggles floated out of the room not long after. She scurried away quickly.
Quinn found Rachel in Shay's room, up to her eyeballs in dolls and stuffed animals, literally. Shay's largest dollhouse, the one Quinn had been so amazed by, was almost as tall as Rachel. Quinn stood in the doorway and just watched for a moment. Shay was dictating something to Rachel and moving a few of her dolls around the house. Quinn didn't understand why there were so many in the house in the first place unless Shannon was trying to pull off a party scene, she could see that there was a Ken doll and two Barbie's in one of the bed rooms.
"Hey, Barbie?" Quinn called, barely remembering to use Rachel's fake name. Rachel looked up in surprise. "Quinn wants to talk to us for a minute."
"Oh, ok. I'll be back later Shay." Rachel handed over the dolls she was holding to the pouting young girl. Once they were in the hallway Rachel whispered, "You just now thought of saving me? I've been in there for an hour."
Quinn smothered a giggle at Rachel's displeased expression. "Sorry. Older Quinn really does want to talk to us though."
Rachel huffed. "It's so wonderful that you care about my wellbeing so much that you didn't even come up with a plan yourself, you just waited for someone else to need me first."
"Are we fighting?" Quinn asked, grinning.
Rachel marched forward, scowling, and Quinn laughed quietly behind her. By the time Quinn caught up with Rachel, she was standing in front of Older Quinn's door, hand raised to knock. She hesitated briefly and then brought her fist down on the wood twice in quick succession. They only had to wait a second for a response.
"Come in, come in," Older Quinn's muffled voice called out distractedly.
Rachel cast a slightly nervous glance back at Quinn and then turned the handle and pushed the door open.
The studio was a bedroom that had been converted into an office. The floors were hardwood and the walls were bare white. The normal lights had been removed and replaced with bright florescent panels. All the lights were down though; the late morning sun lit the room nicely on its own.
Most of the room was empty; there were only three large drafting tables along one wall, a tall bookcase on another with a small filing cabinet beside it, and an empty easel in the middle sitting on top of a paint splattered tarp. Under the drafting tables there were several rolling carts with clear drawers that appeared to hold art supplies. All three of the tables had piles of colored folders stacked along the edges in messy piles.
Older Quinn was at the middle table, and she waved them over when she saw them. "Close the door behind you."
"Why is this room always closed off to everyone else?" Young Quinn asked as she complied.
"I don't want any of the kids getting in my stuff and moving it around. Shannon is really the only one I still have to worry about. I know it looks messy, but there is a method. Every color stands for a certain thing; they're in various orders, depending on which table they're at. It's all very organized and neat and I don't want someone coming in shifting stuff around and messing up my schedule because of it." She waved her hands around her head as if batting away a fly. "I brought you in for something else." She looked around for a second, trying to gather her thoughts. She snapped her fingers a few times absent-mindedly. "Oh! Right. I wanted to do something to commemorate your visit," Older Quinn explained as she shifted various supplies out of her way and pulled a purple folder out of the pile on the table in front of her, "so I sketched this up." She flipped the folder open and drew out a single sheet of paper and laid it in front of them. "What do you think?"
The sketch was of two figures sitting on a set of stairs, their knees and foreheads were touching, and their faces were obscured by their hair. The sketch wasn't colored, so the only way to distinguish between the two figures was by the length of their hair. The stairs led up behind the figures to the top of a rabbit hole where a stylized bunny was peeking out.
"I'm thinking," Older Quinn continued while they looked over the picture, "that the top part, with the rabbit, will be at the bottom of my back and the stairs will curve around over my hip so this part," she circled the two girls with her finger, "will be on my thigh."
"It looks really good. I didn't know you were such a good artist Quinn," Rachel commented, nudging the younger Quinn with her hip. "I've only ever seen your doodles."
Quinn winced. She knew Rachel had seen more than the little hearts and flowers she drew in the margins of her notes, but for some reason she didn't bring it up. Not really desiring a fight when she was already feeling sick to her stomach, Quinn decided to follow Rachel's lead. "It was always just a hobby. I guess something changes later."
Older Quinn shrugged and put the drawing away. "When I was recovering there would be times when I got too stressed or especially needed a fix. I'd get jittery and irritable, and I had to find something to distract me until I could center myself again. Kenny had left one of her note books out one day and I just started drawing. I drew two pages full of owls and it made me feel better, so I kept it up."
"So what was the rabbit for? Another Alice in Wonderland thing?" Rachel asked.
Older Quinn shrugged. "Yeah, it's also for Shannon. She's the grounded one out of all of us, very stable. A little self-absorbed maybe, but she takes after her mother." She smirked playfully at Rachel.
"I hate you both."
QFRB
After lunch, Older Rachel bundled Shannon up and took her to one of her friend's houses. Shannon was excited about the chance to spend time with her friend, which meant that she was distracted enough to not hear Older Quinn tell Alex and Alice that they just didn't want her asking awkward questions about why Young Rachel and Quinn just suddenly disappeared.
When it was mentioned that "Charlie and Barbie" would probably have to go home before Shannon returned, the little girl pulled them both into fierce hugs.
"I really liked meeting you," she confessed. "Thanks for playing with me. Alice and Alex won't anymore."
Quinn dropped to her knees and hugged Shannon tighter. "I loved playing with you. I know what it's like to be the youngest. I'm glad we could have fun."
Shannon smiled softly at her. "You don't look so sad anymore."
Quinn remembered the way Shannon had offered to hug her the first day she and Rachel arrived. It almost felt like a life time had passed since then. "I'm not."
"Good." Shannon leaned down and kissed her cheek.
Rachel received a similar treatment and then Shannon was lead out by Older Rachel.
Quinn waved when Shannon looked back at them and then turned and headed for the back yard. She needed some air. Something to shock her system. She felt sluggish, dizzy, and hot, especially around her ears.
She exited on to the porch and found that she wasn't alone. Older Quinn was sitting on one of the lounge chairs, wrapped up in several layers and holding a lit cigarette between the fingers of her right hand. A thin stream of smoke curled into the icy air and a much less delicate looking plume exited Older Quinn's mouth when she exhaled.
"I didn't know we smoked," Quinn said to announce her presence.
"Mm, the one addiction I never completely kicked. I stopped for a while when Rach and I were having the kids, but I picked it back up a few years ago."
"I can't imagine Rachel approves." Quinn sat down on the chair closet to Older Quinn.
The older blonde arched an eyebrow and shot Quinn a sly glance. "She doesn't appreciate the smell, but she thinks it's sexy. Don't let her little act fool you, she does like to follow the rules, but that doesn't mean she's innocent. She enjoys that I'm a total badass."
"Right, yeah, badass is honestly how I would describe myself."
"Ok, fine. How about Lady Killer." Older Quinn waggled her eyebrows. "That one is totally true. I still have girls throwing themselves at me."
Quinn hid her face in her hands briefly. She tried not to smile. She didn't want to encourage herself. "You're such a perv."
"I can't help it. All the ladies want on my dick." Older Quinn shrugged and then stubbed out her cigarette. "Isn't that right, Rachel?"
"No comment."
Quinn's head whipped around in surprise. She hadn't heard the door open.
"Well," Older Quinn stood and stretched, "I'm going to leave you to it. Got some work to do on that concept. Don't do anything I wouldn't do."
"Which pretty much leaves us open to do anything, right?" Rachel queried.
"No meth," Older Quinn ordered playfully with an authoritative finger point. "But otherwise, go for it."
Rachel joined Quinn on her lounge chair and curled up against her, pulling Quinn down so they were facing each other. "I got lonely," she explained before Quinn could ask. She just nodded and wrapped an arm around Rachel's waist to share her warmth. They didn't speak further, just listened to the sound of falling snow.
Once it was just too cold to stay out any longer, even with being as close to each other as possible without taking their clothes off, Rachel insisted that they go back inside. Quinn finally agreed when she realized her fingers were so numb that she didn't even know where they were for a few seconds.
Walking back into the warm house was shocking and a little painful. The sounds of Alice's bright laughter could be heard from the sitting room, along with the television. Once they both had feeling in their feet again, Quinn and Rachel followed the sound.
"What are you watching?" Rachel asked, leading Quinn into the sitting room by her wrist.
"This old show called Drama. It's pretty good. My moms really liked it when they were in college," Alex said, glancing back at them briefly. Alice shushed him, her gaze locked on the television screen. "Shut up, you've seen this episode a dozen times."
Alice punched his shoulder. "Exactly and my favorite part is coming up. Stop talking."
Silence fell over them as the characters on screen carried on in their bizarre adventure. "What is this show even about?" Quinn demanded as soon as Alice stopped laughing entirely too loudly.
Alex shrugged. "Initially it was about this rag-tag bunch of kids that wanted a Drama club and their completely unmotivated teacher, but I'm not really sure anymore. I think the writers lost sight of its original direction somewhere in the middle of the second season."
Rachel nodded sagely. "It happens to the best of us."
"Shut up," Alice ordered. "This show is amazing."
"And yet she doesn't like Skins," Older Quinn said to announce her presence. She threw herself over the back of the couch and lay there in an undignified sprawl like she had been there the whole time.
Alice rolled her eyes and shushed everyone again.
Rachel tried to concentrate on the television show, but she was having trouble focusing on any one thing. Her body was thrumming with an almost electric pulse. She could feel her heartbeat in the tips of her fingers. She thought she might even be able to hear it.
Something shifted in the air and the tension ratcheted up several notches. Rachel suddenly found it a little harder to breathe. Without taking her eyes off the screen, she moved her hand around blindly in search of Quinn's and when she found it, she entwined their fingers and held on tight. Quinn seized Rachel's hand just as tightly and it was surprisingly easier to breathe because of it.
There was something freeing about the fact that Quinn could just hold Rachel's hand and be afraid, and not be judged for it, or questioned endlessly, because Rachel understood in a way that no one else in that house could. They were the only ones truly experiencing something, and everyone around them was reacting accordingly to the pressure that floated around them like a dark cloud.
Everyone was anxious, expectant. Alice had turned the sound on the television down, but she and Alex continued to watch. At least, they were facing the screen and not talking, but when Quinn shifted next to Rachel, she caught a glimpse of Alice's unfocused eyes. Alex was hunched forward, his shoulders rolled up close to his ears, and his arms locked tight around his legs.
"It's happening," Rachel said suddenly, standing on reflex. Before the words had even finished leaving her mouth Quinn felt the same pain licking at her fingers, nose, ears, toes, and then moving up along her extremities faster than a real fire could spread.
Rachel felt like her head was about to split open right down the center. She put pressure on her temples but the pain didn't ease. Everything hurt, even her eyes burned in their sockets.
Quinn was experienced something similar, but with the added displeasure of commentary. Rachel's head hurt too much for her to have much of a thought beyond "ow." But Quinn was used to pain, and it wasn't as bad as it had been when they had traveled the first time.
It's over. It's over, it's over, it's over. Quinn wondered why she felt like she would rather die than go back to what was before. She could barely remember it. Just five days had passed and it felt like a life time. She could feel her comfort and happiness being stripped away like skin from an onion.
"Rachel," she managed through clenched teeth.
Rachel threw herself across the small space that separated them and into the blonde's arms with no further prompting. She kept moving until she was flush against her, as much of her body touching Quinn as possible, and it still wasn't enough. She wanted to climb inside her and make them one person.
The fire was intensifying. Any second now they were going to lose all of the progress and trust and foundation they had built. It was going to be torn away and everything would be exactly as it had been before. They wouldn't even be able to miss it.
Rachel cried out when the pain just under her skin grew more unbearable. She felt Quinn's lips on her face, first on her cheeks and then her chin and forehead, like a hot brand. She wished she had been branded, she wished her skin would carry black marks where Quinn's lips had touched; if only so she could have something of this left.
It was no good, she knew. So she ducked her head against Quinn's neck and just held on for dear life, and Quinn held her back with a force that nearly hurt.
It was good pain that tried to edge out the burning. It didn't quite manage.
And then it got worse.
QFRB
Unfold the maps up in my head
To all the islands we haven't found yet
Make up for my unsteadiness
You take the wheel, I'll get the mast
Is this really my prime?
Mundane or divine
When you're how I solve for "X"
My calculations do align.
A/N: And so it ends.
Before you all freak out, the epilogue is coming, but I want the very end to stand alone, so there won't be any author's notes then. I'm just getting it all out of the way now.
I wanted this chapter to feel hazy and fast and a little disjointed, but I also wanted it to still maintain the feel of a Simple Parts update. This is probably the shortest chapter, just behind the first one, also something I did on purpose, so I'm very sorry you didn't get 10,000 words out of me this time.
I'd like to dedicate this chapter to EllsBells for harassing me so hard this past week or so. She's been a real trooper, putting up with my whining about this chapter. Also to Kben, for Drama and for being awesome this whole time. Also also to Elabstracto, one last reference to Quinn's MASSIVE penis just for you.
Thanks to everyone for sticking with it, or if you're new and just now reading, thanks for joining me.
Please tell me what you thought.
The epilogue will be up within 24 hours.
Chapter song: Multiply Divide by Vanity Theft
Epilogue song: A Thousand Years by Christina Perry
.
.
.
The sequel/prequel will begin soon. I want to have a few chapters finished as a buffer before I post it, but keep an eye out for Common Mistake.