Red
Quinn dreams.
Quinn dreams, and she dreams of red.
It's…It's weird, distorted and murky and ever-changing, and through her lucid haze she can barely make out the different shifts within them, confusing and flashing and making her head ache.
Vaguely, she wonders if she's dying.
Because the red blinding her seems to resurface old, buried and burned memories into the forefront of her mind, flickering between the state of being conscious and unconscious, and she can't make sense of any of it, feeling like she's suffocating as she drowns in an endless sea of red.
She remembers nothing of how she's gotten here, but it's like she can't move, can't breathe, can't do anything, and it's then that she recognizes one of the shades as Cheerio red, aggressive and oppressive and bold.
Something in her jerks and tugs, breaks and pulls and pushes, and she- she remembers.
She remembers a lifetime of regret and pain and hard work to no avail, and she remembers how she had fought for her Cheerio red far too many times to count. She remembers the last time she had dawned it, and- and then nothing.
There's…There's a warm feeling waiting to be held onto there, and she was- she was talking to someone, wasn't she? Agreeing to something, and through the fog clouding everything, Quinn tries to reach onto the memory, reach onto a blinding smile that somehow filled her with dread.
But then it hurts everywhere, and she snaps out of the memory in a shock, a sudden angst pushing and running through her.
There is nothing to be found, nothing to be done, nothing to be.
What- What is going on?
No time, a strange echo pierces through her, and Quinn has no time of her own to process or make of anything that's happening, before a phantom pain strikes against the crevices of her mind again, overriding her numbing ache.
This time, the red makes her blood run cold.
Because…it's her blood.
There's a blood-stained remembrance of a car, full of red, tinted with red, drowning in red, and Quinn feels her lower body scream, and then there is nothing again.
Fighting this time against the cold harsh red, she feels something tear out of her throat – a choked, garbled sound that represents itself in throes of red in her mind – but she pushes through the ever-raging storm of asphyxiation, to remember.
Something in her is telling her that is this important, and she forces herself to channel that Cheerio red to push through.
…She wishes she didn't.
Whatever mental block that's been glazing her with miasma is shattered by a speeding truck, and pain comes at her once more, excruciating and curling within her very core, as if to leech onto her and drain her of what little she has left.
The belated epiphany of a wedding rushes through the red, cutting through it and cutting through Quinn, and the red shifts into something darker, dried up and almost like an old scorn.
A desperation and frustration Quinn doesn't know when happened seems to dry up along with it, and for a second, she dreams of letting go.
She doesn't want to pursue this any longer, doesn't want to suffer any longer, doesn't want to see Rachel marrying-
The red surges forward, and it warms.
The red warms, and Quinn warms too, the pain receding into a blunted one at- at memory.
She remembers a red cardigan clashing with her blue as a duet was sung, full of empathy and meaning, and she remembers a red coat on Valentine's day, as she had sung a love song on the behalf of another grudgingly, thinking that it was the only chance that she would have to do so.
The nothingness of unrelenting red is overpowered, and then there is only-
Rachel.
Rachel.
And Quinn fights, because the once cruel and unforgiving red is now comforting and welcoming and- and warm, and she has to get- has to get to the wedding to stop it, to stop the woman she loved from making the biggest mistake of her life, but she- she can't, and it hurts, it hurts everywhere, and then-
Quinn, wake up.
She opens her eyes, and she sees Rachel.
She blinks groggily, a disoriented pain shooting and jolting all across her body, and her eyes focus on Rachel, who's sitting on a chair beside her with a stunned look on her face.
She's on a hospital bed, and Quinn wonders if she's dreaming again, but Rachel is still wearing her wedding dress and still looking like an angel sent from above to collect her, as beautiful and radiant as the first time, and she…she breathes.
When Rachel seems to finally register the fact that she's awake, the brunette surges forward to her feet, and a desperate something flickers across soft features. It's almost like she's about to reach forward to touch Quinn before she thinks better of it, and she chooses to simply hover and linger there, an apprehensive glint in worried brown eyes.
The air between them is heavy, charged. But at the same time, Quinn feels like everything is falling into place too.
Rachel isn't wearing her ring.
Doe eyes tear from Quinn's body to hazels instead, and Rachel visibly swallows, eyes seeming to shine. "Hi."
Quinn takes in a breath, and she exhales.
For the first time in a long while, a remnant of a smile quirks onto her lips, and she lets go of the red.
"Hi."