They walked in mutual silence to the nearest Starbucks. Quinn kept her eyes firmly planted on the ground, following her new companion more on instinct than on sight. At first, Rachel had tried to make conversation - about everything she possibly could. Quinn had kept her answers succinct, and - in most cases - non-verbal. A grunt or a snort conveyed her message in ways words could not - it gave something of an indifferent air to her.
And that was truly how she felt - indifferent. Maybe she could get away with just getting coffee, then throw herself off of Rachel's apartment building. Perhaps she could figure out what window that old lady would be stargazing on and throw herself off the opposite side of the building, just to keep from ruining the night sky for her.
A part of Quinn wanted her to see. Mortality was a fact of life - it happened. It happened young and old, and she should just be counting her lucky stars (Quinn snorted at this, and Rachel gave her an odd, sideways look) that it hadn't hit her, yet. Maybe this was Quinn's time, so what? She'd mostly come to terms with that, the idea that soon she would cease to exist.
Lucy Quinn Fabray would be a smear on the sidewalk and in the memories of those that knew her. Bitchy head cheerleader or disappointment daughter or cheating girlfriend - everyone had their own ideas about her. Quinn's own impression wasn't much different. She thought of herself as a composite - a part of all those horrible things was her, and they came together to make a being that was cruel more than kind. Self-absorbed and self-confident was what everyone - and Quinn - saw her as, most of the time. Admitting, even to her own conscious, that she wasn't was just creating another fault to be covered up.
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They reached the coffee shop soon enough. Rachel opened the door for her, ushering Quinn into the warmth.
It was late enough that the store was only manned by one. A man, probably around Quinn's age, doing whatever he could with his work attire to make himself look outrageous. "Kurt!" Rachel chimed, coming forward to hug him over the counter.
"What are you doing here?" He asked, leaning back to glance over at something. "You aren't rostered on until next week. Thought you'd want to put as much distance between you and work as possible." Kurt said with a laugh, matched by Rachel's.
"I'm coming to visit my favourite barista, of course." Rachel beamed, then stuck one hand out to beckon Quinn forward. She trudged towards the pair. "This is my friend, Quinn." Rachel said, gesturing between the both of them. "This is Kurt, we work together."
"And NYADA buddies." Kurt chimed in from behind her, leaning forward to offer Quinn a gloved hand, the fabric torn in some supposedly artsy way. Quinn shook his hand loosely.
"Of course." Rachel said, and they spent a moment gushing, discussing some tutorial or something. She then seemed to come to her senses - a good thing, too, as Quinn was contemplating leaving. "Anyway, we just came to grab some coffee."
"Sure thing." Kurt said, and they both placed their orders. Well, Rachel didn't have to place an order - Kurt knew on instinct. Quinn took a black coffee, just to keep things simple.
They sat down in two fluffy armchairs in the corner. Kurt took a few minutes to make up their drinks, setting down some oddly coloured, cream-topped monstrosity before Rachel, and a plain coffee in front of Quinn. She liked her coffee black. Something about the taste of coffee, not diluted by creamer or sugar just appealed to her. It was the raw - the unchanged form.
"So..." Rachel started. "You're going to kill yourself?" She did have the decency to look awkward at what she said, but the curiosity was evidently there.
"Seems that way." Quinn responded, taking a sip of her steaming coffee, ignoring the burn on her tongue.
"Why?" Rachel asked, tilting her head to the side as she messed about with her straw.
Quinn sighed loudly. "Because I want to." She ground out, feeling like coming out for coffee was actually a really bad idea. At first Quinn hadn't known whether Rachel was going to be a good or bad thing - she seemed both concerned yet willing to ignore the gravity of the situation in favour of good company. Now she was proving she could be direct in a manner that would make Santana proud. The latina had never wasted a breath on words that didn't need saying, but would spare plenty if she had questions to ask - nice or not.
"Your life can't be that bad." Rachel's tone was light, unbearably so.
"You don't know anything." Quinn bit back, not entirely sure what Rachel was playing at. Was she just trying to gloat about her life over someone who had been driven to the literal edge? Was that going to make her life that much better? Quinn sighed again.
"Tell me. Then I'll know." Rachel offered diplomatically.
Quinn had her mouth open, caught on a scathing remark, braced to up and leave. But she didn't. Instead, she spoke. It wasn't a complete life story - what would that take, a few days? - but it was close. She spoke vaguely of details: the head cheerleader with the star quarterback, the cheating, the pregnancy, Beth... the ridiculous Glee club she had joined, the details of which Rachel seemed intrigued by. Names were changed, just in case Rachel might know any of her peers - Quinn had heard talk amongst them of getting into NYADA, but had never cared enough to see if they achieved that dream. She did not want to risk someone finding out through a lucky connection of Rachel's.
Lucy, however, was a topic completely left out of the story. That was a life Quinn did not want to relive. Ever.
"I was in Glee, too." Rachel said, once Quinn had finished her story. Of all the responses, it was the most unexpected.
"We never really got far." Quinn stated, offhandedly, sipping the now-cooled coffee. She had joined just to sabotage the club, but there hadn't been much need. They had hardly any good singers, and their choreography was tragic. It often took the three Cheerio's in the team to step in and sort out some dance moves. If nothing else, the three of them had been the saving grace for the Glee Club.
"What was your club called?" Rachel asked, leaning down to lick cream off of her plastic spoon.
Quinn's feigned memory loss on the name of the club. She couldn't think of something witty enough on the spot, so she went with the easiest solution - forget. In reality she could have just combined one inspiring word with one musically-inclined one, which seemed to be the trend in Glee Club naming. Somehow, though, Quinn felt Rachel was the kind of girl to know every Glee Club in the country by name.
"Huh." Rachel said, and was thoughtful a minute, before shaking that smile back onto her face. "We won a couple of times. I, obviously, was the strongest voice there. Kurt and I got most of the duets." At mention of his name, the barista waved one hand at them both. Rachel gave him a tiny, but enthusiastic, wave back.
Once that exchange was over, Rachel spoke of Glee with renewed vigour. She basically gave Quinn an entire list of songs they had ever performed, elaborately describing their outfits and dance moves. Whilst she spoke, Quinn drifted off, allowing the background droning of Rachel's voice to lull her in to some kind of trance.
Rachel was everything Quinn would have hated in school. Passionate about Glee (she maintained to this day that she had only been there on Sue's word), wore dorky clothes (judging by the ugly sweater Quinn had spent the past ten minutes studying, her high school fashion couldn't have been much better), and intent on maintaining high grades. She was the driven, proud peer Quinn would have had slushied on a daily basis.
"Okay there?" Rachel asked at last, and Quinn's head snapped up. "You look like you were falling asleep." There was a faint reprimand in her speech, but she seemed used to that sort of reaction. "I apologise for getting so carried away. Performing has always been my passion."
As if Quinn hadn't noticed that already. "It's fine." She said, blinking herself back to the waking world of coffee and too-bright indoor lighting.
She was tired in a way that no twelve hour sleep could ever alleviate. She felt exhausted to her very core, the feeling embedded in the marrow of her bones. Quinn yawned, holding one hand up over her mouth. The only rest she would get would be death. Sleep was just a formality - the motion her body had to go through by nature. Her mind didn't desire sleep, where dreams could snatch and haunt her. Death was the final, ultimate peace.
"Do you, ah... have somewhere to go?" Rachel ventured, as Kurt came by and picked up both their mugs, carting them back up to the counter.
Quinn bit her lip. "I'll find someplace." She'd been kicked off Yale campus for failing all her units for the semester earlier that week. Some might say that was the tipping point, but Quinn felt she'd been headed for the streets of New York city for a long time - in a way more literal than one would first assume. She couldn't bring herself to go back to Lima, to see all the old places she'd once ruled over, to have to be in the same town as the woman who claimed Beth as her own, to be around all those people who'd never escaped like she had. She wasn't going to sulk back there with her tail between her legs. Quinn had made something of herself. Even if that something was a failed year at Yale and a spot on the New York pavement, it was better than Lima. To die in Lima would be to never truly escape that small town. Here she could be one of many, gone to a better place, hopefully an unknown. If she hit the ground with enough force, surely she would be obliterated. She didn't want to be held to Lima by a meaningless obituary in the paper, or the remains of her body scraped up and shipped back to that tiny, dead-grass cemetery.
Quinn wanted to die right now in New York. She had no where to go but down.
"I don't know if you should be out on your own." Quinn wasn't certain if Rachel had spoken to her earlier, or had only just opened her mouth. She didn't exactly strike Quinn as the sort to manage more than a few minutes of silence. Her statement felt as if it should be connected to something else - a prelude about her personal concern, perhaps.
Pressing her tongue to the back of her teeth - a habit formed to keep from speaking out of turn when she used to butt heads with Sue Sylvester as a sophomore - Quinn took a steadying breath. "I'll be fine."
"You can spend the night at my place." Rachel offered, worrying her lip with her teeth for a brief moment.
"I told you I'll be fine." Quinn echoed her earlier sentiment, getting to her feet. Rachel followed her lead, brushing down the front of her sweater and heavy skirt.
"Please just consider what you're doing." Rachel said, reaching out one hand to pat Quinn on the arm, before thinking better of it. "Sleep on it?"
Quinn looked down. "I know what I want." She said, feeling more sure about this than anything else she had before. More sure than the decision she had made to keep Beth, and then give her up to Shelby. More sure than she had been, cradled in the tight confines of her Cheerio's outfit as she strode around McKinley High, Queen of her castle. She was sure.
"Just give it the night." Rachel repeated, fiddling with the hem on her sweater.
Quinn closed her eyes, inhaling long through her nose. "One night?" She had always played into what others wanted her to be, in one way or another. In the end, the manipulative, lying girl Quinn Fabray had been was always somehow turned to the will of others. Someone always gained joy where she lost. No one ever had the guts to call her weak-willed to her face, but she felt that shiver along her arms and she knew people whispered it behind her back. Maybe that was why she hadn't jumped yet? She relished the choice so much she didn't want to give it up. Weak.
"Of course!" Rachel chirped, linking arms with Quinn as a habit. The blonde flinched and shifted away, but the arm was locked tight with hers. "I always have a spare bed for when people stay over." Rachel spoke with a strange wistfulness - Quinn doubted she ever really had people stay over.
As she was dragged out into the street, Quinn was contending with her mind. It screamed at her from all places, telling her she had made the wrong choice. She should've jumped, she was weak, run. Rachel didn't notice, instead yammering on about some particularly outstanding Glee performance in which she had nailed the vocals.
It was looking to be the longest night of Quinn's life.
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author's notes: this is more of a set-up chapter for coming ones. sorry that there wasn't much really happening - we'll get to that later. this is an au, in which rachel and a handful of other glee kids (kurt at the minute) didn't attend mckinley. i'll try to make it obvious where each student ended up in future chapters, but just let me know if you find it too vague. :) otherwise, thank you to all the wonderful reviews, and i hope you enjoy!