I wake early the next morning, exhausted despite the few hours of sleep I've gotten. Rachel is still asleep in the bed beside me, gently snoring, like she always does when she's been crying. I just want her to wake up and enlighten me with her smile and kiss me good morning. I want to stroke that beautiful brown hair and have her tell me that everything will be okay so that I can get through another day.
"Ugh."
She begins to stir in her bed and I realize I should look away before she notices that I'm staring. I stand up and make my bed as she rolls over and looks at me through tired eyes.
"Oh shit," she curses in realization, "I'm still here, this is happening."
"Unfortunately," I sigh. "You're memory hasn't come back yet by any chance?"
"No," she hisses defensively, as if I have offended her. She hastily gets out of her bed and leaves the room.
"Rachel!" A voice cries outside, it's Carol. "Oh my god!"
"Oh Carol! Kurt! Blaine!" She cries. "I'm so glad you're here!"
I chase after her so I can explain the situation to them. They are stand there with faces filled with joy and tears, with Kurt embracing Rachel warmly. "Good morning Quinn," Carol says, "How come you didn't tell us she was back?"
"Well it was 3 a.m, but there's also a complication," I inform them.
"What do you mean?"
"She doesn't remember anything that's happened since Nationals," I reply.
"Nationals?" Kurt's eyes widen. "As in Senior Year?"
I nod in response.
"Wow," Kurt whispers.
"I'm guessing there's a lot of stuff I don't know about then," Rachel mutters.
"Oh yes," Kurt nods. "I don't even know where to begin."
"Can we do it at a more reasonable hour?" Santana groans, emerging from her room with an excited looking Brittany. The blonde runs straight over to Rachel and hugs her.
"I knew you'd be okay!" She tells her.
"How are you feeling?" Carol asks.
"Hungry," Rachel replies.
"Where can we get food?" I demand, seeing as I missed the introduction to the compound yesterday evening.
"There's these kitchens scattered around the place, they're like cafeterias, we get three meals a day, basic stuff, it's just to make sure that everybody gets the same share." Santana explains, "Breakfast is served from 7 to 8. It's 7 10 now."
"Let's go then," I say, "Rachel needs to get her strength up before Dr. Smith calls for her."
"Fine," Rachel mumbles coldly, I don't understand this attitude towards me, we weren't exactly enemies back at Nationals and she has woken up thinking it is just a day later, why does she hate me all of a sudden?
"Come on," Santana beckons. "I'll show you the way."
We follow to a large grey building which looks like pretty much any other of the large buildings in this compound, this one however is marked with the ID "8a".
"We live in section 8 of the compound," Santana explains to us. "But there's like a hundred other sections, all identical to ours."
The doors are already open, revealing the large kitchen in progress inside. There must be over two hundred people in there, between those sitting down and those collecting bowls of food with their plastic trays. It's all so organised and rule -based, I watch people all follow the same patter- grab a tray, collect a bowl, sit down, eat, return their trays and leave. But there's this look on each and everyone on their faces that warms my heart they look hopeful, despite the visible scars on their faces, the broken bones or the missing limbs. People smile and gently converse over their meals and others help the injured to walk. Outside it was every man for themselves but here, humanity has been restored.
"You okay Quinn?" Santana asks.
"It's incredible Santana," I whisper.
"I know, it just feels so safe. You should try the food, it's not so bad, they have huge farms where they grow their own food! Come on, let's go line up."
Our trays are filled with bowls of oatmeal with some type of fruits mixed in and cups of water, I barely remember seeing food so hot that it lets out steam. Santana leads us to some chairs at one of the less occupied long table. I pull out a chair for Rachel, but she ignores it, choosing to sit at the other side of the table beside Brittany. I try to catch her eye to find out what's wrong with her, but she's purposely avoiding me.
Kurt and Blaine join us with Puck an Beth behind them. What really kills me about this place so far is that Beth seems to be one of the youngest people around, at least in this section anyway, there are very few babies and toddlers. There's not even that many children, I guess they were the least immune to the virus. I don't even want to think about how many innocent kids were killed.
"Rachel," Puck greets formally.
"Puck," She beams, unaware of their recent past.
"Kurt explained to me about your memory," He says, sitting down.
"Oh yeah," she whispers before having her eye caught by the little girl sitting a few seats down from her. "Is this really Beth? We really are two years ahead. She's so big, she looks so like-, wait, what happened to Shelby?" She drops her voice so that the four year old can't hear.
"She got caught behind, in a building with some people," Santana whispers sadly, thinking about her old short term choir teacher. "There was a huge crowd of zombies heading their way."
"Oh," Rachel whispers. "That's terrible. Do you think she's okay?"
Her voice is concerned, but I know if she had her memory back she'd be even more upset.
"I hope so," Puck sighs from down the table.
We continue eating, Rachel tries to catch up on all that she can't remember by talking to Brittany, she doesn't even look at me once. All I want to know is what have one wrong? I know that she didn't want me to be the person she woke up to see and I was the one that had to tell her about Finn and her dads, but t's like I've dne something to offend her personally.
"Good morning," A voice says from behind me, I turn my head to see Maritza in her military uniform behind me. "Dont forget you need to go to your admin building by 5pm to submit your chosen work assignment, if you haven't decided yet the full list of availabilities is there. Rachel, a car from the science department is picking up from your lodging in ten minutes, Quinn I want to talk with you then if that's okay?"
I nod in response, not able to say the word "yes" because she has already moved on before I can open my mouth.
"Well if we're all finished here," Carol says picking up her tray, "let's go so somebody else can sit down."
We follow her lead, picking up our empty trays and placing them on the designated tables near the exit door. "You know I need something like that to keep me buy, maybe I'll see if they have any work vacancies in the kitchen."
Work assignments, how are we expected to think about so soon? Rachel will barely look at me, I planned on going to the same place as her to watch over her but the last thing I want to do is annoy her by being in her space all the time, as much as I want to be there myself.
I need to talk to her before she leaves for the science department. As we reach the door of our house I watch Rachel go inside, heading towards our room before i turn to Santana. "I need to talk to her Santana, can you give us a minute?"
"Sure, Carol has gone for a walk with Mom anyway, we'll just join them," She smiles understandingly. I smile gratefully back before entering the house and following the brunette into our bedroom.
"Rachel?" I call out as I open the door, she's making her bed but she's crying about something. "Rachel what's wrong?"
"Stay away from me Quinn!" She warns.
"Rachel, can I please talk to you?"
"Don't bother! I know what you're going to say! Do you know how hard this is Quinn? Waking up to find out that it's two years later than you remember, and I'm in some sort of apocalyptic world being turned into some sort of fucking science project? As well as that, I find out m parents are dead and so is my fiance, and worse yet I'm somehow dating you!"
I freeze in place with my mouth wide open. "How did you know?"
"I heard you and Santana talking last night!" She hisses. "I don't know how this even happened!I'm not gay Quinn! What sort of person are you? How did you do it Quinn, how did you seduce me, was it when I was grieving Finn's death when he was killed by zombies or whatever or did you wait until after my dads?"
It feels like my heart has been punctured again, I'm finding it hard to breathe, "No Rachel," I shake my head, panting, I walk over to her and look into her eyes so we are merely an inch apart. "Finn died before this even began, he died over a year ago, we started dating a few months later. We got seperated just before the virus, you were in New York and you came all the way to Lima to find me. Rachel please, I love you and somewhere in your mind you love me too, you just have to remember!"
My hand, of it's own accord, wraps itself around her neck and pulls her head to mine so I can lace a kiss on her lips.
She instantly jerks away, crying. "No! I don't love you! Leave me alone Quinn!" She forcefully pushes me, causing me to hit my head painfully off the hard wooden wall.
"Agh!" I cry out in pain, they weren't lying when they said she was strong. She shakes her head before running out of the room, slamming the door. I hear her running outside angrily while a bump is beginning to form on my head. I sigh, I'm annoyed with myself, knowing that I've made things worse than they were. Why did I have to be so selfish, as if she wasn't going through enough already. How could I be so stupid?
"Quinn!" A voice calls.
I groan as the ache in my head begins to throb, "Who is it?" I try to pick myself off the ground so I don't look to pathetic to whoever is calling my name.
"Quinn?" The voice repeats from outside the door.
"I'm coming," I answer, slowly making my way out of the room. Maritza is standing there waiting.
Her face falls. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I just fell," I reply.
"Rachel told me you were inside, is everything okay between you two."
"Not at the moment, but it will be fine," I lie.
"Well I wanted to talk to you about work assignments," She informs me. I raise an eyebrow.
"I know you said you weren't interested in joining our military forces but I'd really like you to reconsider, you mentioned you've been on these scavenging trips all by yourself, Quinn you have courage and a lot of strength, we need people like you. A lot of people get here and they don't want to be strong anymore, they don't join the force because they want to forget about the world outside. But now that our scientists are close to a cure, we can go out and try to find survivors or find people who have been infected and try to cure them while still finding things to expand our compound and make it more secure. I know it's dangerous outside the compund, but we need someone like you who has had experience living there for longer than any of us."
I look at her, it sounds like a good distraction but also exciting, adrenaline pumping and brave, something I never would have seeked before this whole crisis, and I want to help people aside from my group but even after her flipping out, I still want to watch over Rachel.
"Taylor told me they're keeping Rachel for a while to help them with the cure, they're trying to get her memory back and see what went wrong, they're suggesting she joins the military once they're finished because of her new strength but that's completely her own choice and I thought your friend Noah would join but he seems to very pre-occupied with that little girl. Quinn, we need you in our forces, I know you'll help us so much because I know you want this cure to work as much as I do, you'll still be protecting Rachel this way."
She's right, I'll be out of Rachel's way but I'll still be one of the people making sure this is a safe place for her, and all our friends to live.
"Okay," I whisper, before letting the excited smile flash across my face. "I'll do it, I'll join your forces."
She smiles back. "Welcome aboard soldier."
By 7pm, I've gotten to learn more about the compound and the people living here, most of them are Canadian or from Michigan. There's hundreds of buildings and thousands of small houses like ours to facilitate everyone living here. Everybody has already chosen their work assignments, Carol and Maribel have found work in the kitchen in section, while Kurt and Blaine have to decide to embrace the agricultural life by working on one of the collective farms where vegetables are grown in makeshift greenhouses. Puck has decided to join construction ,as he will be able to leave Beth at one of the school/library complexes that Santana and Brittany have both found work at.
Who thought that a bunch of college students mostly pursuing degrees in performing arts could get jobs so useful to society? Nobody has exactly taken the news of my work assignment that well, they think I'm being foolish, that I'm putting myself at risk just as we've become safe, but I'm trying not to pay attention, I can take care of myself.
Rachel still hasn't returned yet and it's making me anxious, what will she say? She won't want to share the same house as me, let alone the same room. I've really fucked up.
We've all been sent back to our house to relax and rest before we are introduced to our new jobs tomorrow morning. There's the sound of a vehicle breaking outside and I instantly know what this means. As does Santana, wo has been told a shorter, less detailed version of this morning's event.
"Quinn, all you have to do is apologise," she reminds me. "It's going to be okay."
"I don't know Santana," I mutter as the door opens slowly. Rachel stands there, her eyes red from crying as they scan across the room before freezing on my own.
"Quinn," the word escapes her mouth in one gentle, quiet whisper. She walks over to me and my heart is racing. I don't want to hear her tell me she doesn't love me again, it hurts too much.
"Quinn," she repeats, this time almost choking on her words as she collapses into my arm crying. "I'm sorry Quinn, I'm sorry."
"Rachel?" I question, stroking her long brown hair in comfort. "What is it?"
"I remember everything."
