A disclaimer-I don't own glee its characters, Dr. Seuss, or Bob Marley.
Author's notes: Thanks for the reviews they were amazing like always. I do take any suggestions or questions if you PM me. All mistakes are my own… I try to find as many as I can.
Late Morning Lullaby
To say Quinn slept well that night was a vast understatement. Her brain seemed to be over thinking today's events, which in term was preventing her from falling to sleep. 'Who was it that said, "You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams" I think it was Doctor Seuss. Is that what's happening to me? Am I falling in love with Rachel?' Quinn thinks as she tries to fall asleep alone in her giant king sized bed. She looks to the left, to the empty space next to her; it was always empty and it never really bothered her until now. She couldn't help but fill in that space with the one person who was sleeping down the hall. If Rachel were here, she could hold her in her arms. 'Wait… Quinn stop. No more thinking about Rachel. Just focus on counting sheep or whatever.' She thinks to herself as she rolls onto her back and stares at the ceiling. Finally, after what seemed like hours of lying in bed, she was able to fall asleep. Unfortunately, her subconscious mind decided to plague her dreams with the one person she was trying to forget. She tossed and turned throughout the night, until about five a.m. when she woke up from yet another dream with Rachel in it. 'This is ridiculous.' She thinks as she stares at the clock next to her, watching the minutes go by. It was the weekend after all, there was no reason she should be up at five a.m... She rolls onto her side and tries to force herself back to sleep. Lying with her eyes closed, she silently wills herself to fall back asleep, but after what seemed like hours with no such luck she opens her eyes and looks at her clock again. 'Five ten… this is such crap.' She thinks. Her mind wanders to the person who was still asleep down the hall in her guest room. 'I wonder if Rachel slept well?' she thinks as she stares at the ceiling of her room. Surely, she had to have slept better than herself, she thinks.
"A person with insomnia could have slept better than me." She grumbles to no one in particular. "Great, this is just fantastic."
Now that she was fully awake, she couldn't help but think back to last night. She had almost kissed Rachel. 'It felt so right.' She thinks as she remembers Rachel leaning into her as she wiped away the pizza sauce from her face. She was sure Rachel had been staring at her lips just before she herself started to lean. The worst part was after Beth had interrupted their moment the room seemed to overfill with tension. She wanted to sleep for as long as possible to avoid that awkwardness she was sure was going to be present.
Looking back at the clock it was now five thirty. Quinn lets out a groan before throwing back the blankets and getting out of bed. There was no use staying in bed if all she was going to do was think about what could have happened yesterday. Instead, she climbs out of her comfy bed, and gets ready for the day.
The shower was amazing, like all morning showers are. She could relax and let her mind go blank as the water drowned out any and all thoughts, trying to pry their way into her mind. She hummed softly to herself as she lathered, rinsed, and repeated.
Stepping out of her shower into her steam filled bathroom, she wraps herself in a big towel. Her fingers find the fogged up mirror. She can't help but draw a smiley face in the condensation before wiping it all away. "God dang." She mutters as she looks at herself in the mirror. It was weird looking into a mirror and seeing yourself. You notice the changes as if they just appeared in front of your eyes.
She leans in, opens her mouth, and sticks out her tongue. "Aaaaah." Quinn can't help but roll her eyes at herself. It was a little too early for her to be acting so lively.
After drying herself off. Quinn steps into her closet, and pulls on her old worn-out blue jeans, and a tattered Yale T-shirt. After getting dressed, she looks back at her alarm clock it was now six thirty. She quickly cleans up her room before venturing into the rest of the house. Per usually she finds herself in the kitchen preparing her morning cup of coffee. Beth had still been sleeping soundly when she snuck past her room and downstairs. She couldn't even bring herself to think about if Rachel was still asleep. Even though she was half tempted to open the door, and peek inside. 'Such a creeper' she thinks as she sips her scalding hot coffee.
After her sixth cup of coffee, Quinn was ready to start her day. She knew they were going to be busy moving in the rest of Rachel's stuff. Not to mention the decorating they were going to do beforehand. It was going to be a long weekend, but in the end, Rachel would be living under the same roof.
A smile graces her face. It made her happy knowing the nanny was going to be here.
Unable to sit still any longer, thanks to the coffee, Quinn decides to go downstairs and start moving her crap into the far back room of the basement.
Seven forty six, Rachel sits up in bed after hearing what sounded like a knock on her door. She wasn't sure if that's what it was, or if she had dreamed it. She rubs the sleep from her eyes and waits as the door slowly opens.
"Rachel?" A voice whispers to her. "Are you awake?" Rachel can't help but smile as the five year old wild child sticks her head into her room ever so slowly.
Beth didn't want to wake her up if she was still sleeping, so she entered with caution. When she peeks in she notices Rachel is sitting up in her bed.
"Yeah I'm up." Rachel whispers back, she wasn't sure why she was whispering, but oh well. Beth opens the door and dashes into Rachel's room and jumps onto her bed. Rachel notices she barely makes it since the bed is elevated high off the floor. Beth practically has to climb her way into the large bed. The room is filled with laughter. Beth then snuggles under the blanket with Rachel. "What's up wild child?" Rachel asks, she was a little confused as to why the little blonde child was up so early, and why she came to her room before going to her moms.
Beth shrugs. "I couldn't sleep anymore." She says simply.
Rachel quirks her eyebrow. "Really, huh. Neither can I." Rachel says as she starts to tickle the young girls' sides. Beth shrieks and squirms away from Rachel. She almost falls off the bed in her attempt to escape Rachel's attack. Rachel stops once she notices the girl on the edge of the bed. She lets the young girl catch her breath before asking, "Is your mom up?"
"I think she's down stairs, cuz when I went to wake her up so we could watch cartoons, she wasn't there, and her bed was already made." Beth explains.
"Wow… she beat you and me up." 'That's odd.' Rachel thinks. She then jumps out of bed, "that has to be a first," she says with some humor. Beth follows her out of bed. "Well, shall we go see if she's downstairs, maybe she's cooking us breakfast."
"Yea!" Beth says as she grabs Rachel's hand and drags her down stairs leaving a very messing looking bed unmade. The two of them make it into the kitchen half expecting Quinn to be making them pancakes or something, but instead they find the room empty.
Rachel notices the freshly made coffee, so she knew Quinn was up, she just wasn't in this room. 'Where is she?'
"She's not here Rachel." Beth states the obvious.
"I'm sure she's around here somewhere. Why don't you sit down and I'll make you a bowl of farina with some fresh fruit."
Beth's face instantly lights up at the mention of food. She wasn't sure what farina was exactly, but it was soooo yummy. Beth hops up on a breakfast stool to watch Rachel prepare her breakfast.
Rachel moved around the kitchen with ease. She even made banana and strawberry smoothies to go along with the farina.
Five minutes later, Beth was eating a warm bowl of… whatever it was happy. "S'good." Beth's says as she spoons another mouthful into her mouth.
Rachel can help but smile. "It's because of the brown sugar I put in it. Don't tell your mother." She adds. Speaking of Quinn, she still hadn't seen her this morning. Rachel's face falls, normally she enjoyed her morning conversations with Quinn. It was as if she was missing something without her here. "Beth I'm going to go find your mother okay." She says as she grabs her smoothie and walks towards the basement. 'It was the only place she could be without hearing the two of them,' Rachel thinks as she walks down the stairs.
As she opens the basement door, she is taken away by the soft music emitting from the piano in the corner.
Quinn had started moving out some of her stuff out of the main room Rachel was going to be moving into, but after a while she found herself sitting at her white piano playing the first thing that came to her. It so happened to be a piece from Mozart's 12th sonata. She couldn't quite recall the name of it, but for some reason she knew the piece by heart. Quinn didn't notice she had an audience until she heard a loud squeal erupt from the doorway. Beth had snuck down with Rachel to see what her mom was doing. She's never seen her mom play before.
Quinn jumps a little when she hears the five year old's excitement. Her head jerks up from the keys and to the doorway. Beth runs in and practically jumps into her mom.
"We found you mama." She says as she hugs her mom. It was as though the three were playing an ultimate game of hide-and-seek, and Beth had just found her.
"I see that." Quinn says as she tries to regain composure. Rachel walks into the room too. She claps softly, which makes Quinn blush slightly.
"That was amazing Quinn. You can really play." She says. This was the second time she'd heard Quinn play, and she was still amazed at the beautiful sounds Quinn was able to create.
"Thanks… but that really wasn't anything…" Quinn can't find the words. Truthfully, the moment saw Rachel she thought she was going to be overcome with embarrassment like last night. However, as she met the brunette's gaze, she didn't see any sign of awkwardness from Rachel. It was almost as though yesterday hadn't happened. Maybe Rachel had forgotten, or maybe she was just playing it off as if nothing happened. Either way, as soon as Quinn notices this, she relaxes slightly.
"So what are you doing down in my new room." Rachel asks after she notices some of the stuff that had been in the room had been moved somewhere else. 'Quinn must have been cleaning.'
"I have been… getting a jump start on this project of ours." Quinn says, 'and I couldn't sleep anymore because of you, so I had to keep busy somehow.' She thinks the last part. "Well, I started, and then I got kind of distracted." She explains even though it was obvious. She hadn't touched the piano in months, and now she couldn't keep herself from it. It had been screaming to her as soon as she entered the basement. She deduced that it was probably thanks to a certain dream she had the other night. She blushes at the thought.
"Do you need any help?" Rachel asks as she picks up one of the boxes next to the piano. Looking down, she notices that it's filled with odd trinkets, and something that looked like a photo album. "What's this?" She sets down the box and grabs the album from it.
Quinn recognizes it right away. "It's just some old photos." She gets up from the piano and tries to grab it from Rachel.
"Oh no you don't." Rachel avoids her. She keeps the blonde an arm's length away.
"Rachel really… they aren't that amazing or anything. They're just some old photos of me from high school, and college." Quinn explains as she again tries to take the album away from the nanny.
Curiosity was just itching at Rachel. She had this very distinctive image in her head of what Quinn was like in high school, and she wanted to know what she looked like before they'd ever met, and now she had an opportunity to do so. She again avoids Quinn's attempt to grab the book from her.
" I want to see it too!" Beth says as she joins in to try to get the book away from Rachel.
Quinn practically chases the nanny around the basement, before she is able to get a hold of Rachel. It turns out Rachel is more scrappy than she looks. 'It's those damn abs.' Quinn was sure. With her arms around Rachel's waist, she falls to the ground in an attempt to get the book from her. If she had taken the time to really think about what was happening, she might not have put herself in such a compromising position; which was her straddling the brunette's back in an attempt to keep the girl from fleeing with the photo album. She was also tackled by a five year old, and pushed fully on top of Rachel. "Oh my god, what are you an MMA fighter." Rachel laughs from underneath her, as she squirms to get away from Quinn. This probably would have been so much easier if she hadn't been wrestling a five year old at the same time. Finally, after a brief struggle, Quinn manages to get her hands on the book. "Aaahaa." She gleams as she struggles away from the two attackers, though her triumph is short lived due to the frowns she notices on both Rachel and Beth's faces. 'Crap. Well, so much for winning.' She already knows what's about to happen and braces herself for the onslaught.
"But… I want to look at the pictures." Beth says as she pouts.
Quinn can't take it, and gives into the two's pouts. 'It's not fair.' "Fine… we can look at it. Let's just go upstairs okay." Quinn huffs in defeat, but is instantly rewarded with two happy faces. Beth runs up the stairs first, followed by Quinn then Rachel. The three of them all sit down on the couch. Rachel sat on one side while Beth sits on Quinn's lap. "Okay, now what you're about to see is something you will never, ever talk about again." Quinn says all too seriously. She opens the album to the first page.
Right away both Rachel and Beth gasp. The first picture in the album is of a girl with pink hair.
"Is that you!" Rachel asks in utter shock knowing that the young punk rock girl in the photo resembled Quinn perfectly. Quinn can only nod. "Oh my goodness… you have a nose ring." Rachel exclaims.
"That's not you mommy… your hair looks like mine." Beth says as she studies the picture.
"It was a very… confusing time for me okay. I was going through a phase or something." She tries to justify.
"How old are you?" Rachel questions.
"It was… my senior year of high school okay." She breathes out. Rachel can't help but laugh.
Quinn shuts the book.
"Aw come on, it's not that bad." Rachel stops laughing. Quinn gives her a sideways glance. "I guess I shouldn't be laughing. Since I too went through a similar phase." Rachel admits. Quinn was shocked at the confession. The thought of Rachel dressing up like a punk was… well it was weird. "Of course, I went with the Goth look over the bad girl look, and had blue stripes instead of pink." Both Beth and Quinn look surprised. "What?"
Quinn gets lost in thought. She tries to picture Rachel dressed in all black. It wasn't until Rachel slaps her arm that she answers her. "Nothing… I am just trying to picture you with blue hair." She says honestly.
"Well, it was… an interesting part of my life. Sure, I don't miss trying to wipe off that heavy dark eyeliner, but the clothes were fun. I use to wear these black laced gloves, and the principal always avoided me because he thought I was a vampire" She tries to justify.
"Rachel is a vampire?" Beth whispers to herself.
"How long did you dress like a punk?" Rachel changes the subject back to Quinn.
"Um I don't know... Two weeks maybe. I think I went back it normal after my pink hair started to fade. What about you?"
"All of freshmen year, until I decided to join the glee club."
"Glee club?" the words were foreign to her.
"Yeah, show choir. We were just a small group of misfits, and not the most popular kids in school. However, we did win nationals my senior year." She smiles at the memory. Quinn can only imagine Rachel singing on stage.
'Wow' Quinn thinks she then opens the album back up. "Well as short lived as my rebellious stage was it was mostly due to the fact I was kicked off the Cheerleading team. Once I was allowed back on, it was back to Cheerleading uniforms and blonde hair." Quinn flips the page and sure enough, there she was with some friends from school dressed in her Cheerleading outfit. Rachel couldn't help but stare. "I was captain on and off throughout my high school career, and thanks to a homicidally insane Cheerleading coach we won four national championships in a row."
"Wow." Rachel mumbles. Beth flips the next page. Quinn comments on a few of them, however, there was one that really caught her eye. It was of Quinn sitting in a wheel chair at a skate park. "Whoa… is that you too? Are you in a wheelchair?" Quinn runs her fingers over the picture. It was one of those memories she didn't talk about often.
"This was taken a couple weeks after my car accident." She says simply. Rachel gasps.
"You were in a car accident mama?" Beth looks up at her mom worriedly. "Are you okay?"
"Yes, I'm fine Bethy, It was during my senior year again. I was t-boned at an intersection by a truck," she explains.
"What happened," Rachel asks. "I mean, if you want to talk about it." Quinn thinks about it for a moment.
"Well, I was in a rush to get to the court house for… gosh, I don't even remember why I was in a hurry, and I came to a stop light. I guess I was distracted by one of my friends texting me, normally I never touched my phone while I drove, but I was at a stop light so I didn't think it would hurt just to check, you know. Anyway, the light turned green and I put down my phone and accelerated, then everything went dark. I woke up in the hospital. I was lucky; most survivors probably would have been permanently paralyzed if they'd survived at all. Luckily the doctors said I only severely compressed my spine, and that I would be paralyzed from the waist down until it healed." She exhales. "And while the doctors were optimistic on my recovery, it took me until the end of the school year to even walk."
"Oh my god, Quinn."
"It's fine, really. I mean I'm totally healed, and it was so long ago, I sometimes forget it even happened." She flips the page. "I even danced at my senior prom, see." She shows them the picture of her and her date dancing. "See, that was the first time I tried to do anything without my wheelchair, and I was so worried I was going to fall and I don't know embarrass myself or something. My date was there to keep me upright for one song, thank god." She flips another page. "I even walked across the stage to receive my diploma." She shows them a picture of her shaking what Rachel assumes is the principal's hand while receiving her diploma. "It was a pretty crazy year." Quinn goes to close the book but Rachel stops her.
"Wait a minute, there's still more." Honestly Rachel just wanted to learn more about Quinn. She was already shocked at how much she didn't know about her. Sure, they talked, but it was usually about present stuff. Rachel was now hooked on learning about the blondes past.
"The rest are just of me in college, and being pregnant with this one." Quinn explains. Truthfully, she was a little shy about showing Rachel pictures from her past.
"Please mom, just a couple more." Beth grins up at her.
"Fine." Quinn resumes flipping the pages. There was a couple of her and Santana while they were dating. Beth had asked why she was kissing the weird lady's cheek in one of them. Not wanting to explain in detail about her and Santana's brief relationship, she plays it off as a friendly thing.
Rachel on the other hand doesn't look convinced that the kiss was just friendly. The next couple of pictures were of a man. Rachel hadn't recognized him from pervious photos. He looked like the muscle head with his weird looking Mohawk. "Who's this?" She inquires.
"That's my dad." Beth says with joy. Quinn had obviously talked about the man before.
"Yup, that's Puck." Quinn says.
"Puck?"
"Well Noah, yup after me and Santana daa… anyway Puck and I… we dated on an off throughout college." Quinn finishes. That was a lie, truthfully she never really dated Puck, it was more of a friends with benefits relationship. They used each other throughout college until Quinn got pregnant. However, she never told Beth that, in Beth's mind Puck was a good man, and Quinn wasn't going to say otherwise.
Rachel obviously caught the whole dating Santana thing, but instead of asking more about it, like she wanted to she kept her mouth closed. She also wanted to ask more about Beth's father, but didn't want to say anything that might upset Beth. She wasn't sure if they had a relationship and bringing it up in front of her might not be the best thing.
Quinn can tell Rachel wants to ask more questions, she's relieved that she doesn't. As much as she wants to get close to the nanny, she didn't want to bring up all of her skeletons in front of her daughter.
Quinn quickly flips through the pictures until she is stopped yet again by Rachel. Of course it was a picture of her nine months pregnant. She still can't believe how big she looked considering how small Beth was when she was born.
Rachel can't help but get lost in the picture. 'Quinn looked so…'
"Mama you belly was big!" Beth exclaims.
"Yeah, no thanks to you." She jokes and pokes Beth's side making her giggle.
"Glowing" Rachel gasps to herself.
"Huh?" Quinn looks over at the brunette who was still looking at the picture. "Rachel?"
"Huh… oh sorry I was. It's just that you're so lucky to have pictures like these." Rachel says as she turns the page. "When I was young I always wanted to see pictures of me and my mom, but because I was adopted I didn't get that chance." Rachel gets lost in her past.
"Mom.. What's adopted mean?" Beth asks.
"Um…" she looks at Rachel. Silently asking if it was okay to talk about. "You see sometimes instead of keeping…" she trails off not really sure how to explain it to her daughter.
"Sometimes even though a mommy and daddy love you they can't keep you, so they give you to another family you can give you the love and care you need. So my daddies adopted me and took care of me instead." Rachel explains.
Beth looks confused.
"So does that mean you have two families?"
"Kind of, while I consider my daddies my family, I still have my birth mom, who in some ways is family as well." Beth still looked confused.
Quinn quickly flips the last page, which just happened to be of her holding Beth as a baby.
"Well, that's that, now why don't we get this moving party moving." Quinn says as she puts the photo album on the end table.
"Ok right, I totally forgot we were moving all my stuff in today." Rachel says. "I'll be right back. I need to change quickly, oh we still need to grab the paint from your car." Rachel says before walking towards the stairs. Before Quinn can say she already grab it Rachel was bounding up the stairs.
"Well, we might as well get you change too." Quinn says as she leads Beth upstairs to help pick out an outfit to wear. The two of them were back downstairs before Rachel, so Quinn decided to finish moving the rest of the boxes from the basement. Beth also insisted on helping. It wasn't until they carried the last box into the back that Rachel joined them down stairs. At first, Quinn lets out a small giggle.
Rachel was dressed like… well she looked like a construction worker. She even had a tool belt complete with pink tools around her waist.
"Rachel looks like Bob the builder." Beth says.
"I see that… what are you…"
"Now now Miss Fabray, I've had this outfit in my bag ever since I moved in here, and I am going to wear it while we do all this… construction."
Quinn smiles. "But we're not going to be demolishing anything… we're just painting right?"
"Yes, I know, but I needed an excuse to buy this tool belt so I'm going to wear it." With that said the three of them finish clearing out the basement, minus the white piano. They then lay down a sheet against one of the walls that was going to be painted. Beth was busy playing with Rachel's measuring tape while Rachel and Quinn were prepping the wall for paint.
After finalizing the color they were going to paint the accent wall the two of them start to paint. Beth had wandered back upstairs to watch cartoons. The two of them work in silence, that is until Quinn feels something cold hit her cheek. She looks over at Rachel, who has a shit eating smirk on her face along with a wet paint brush.
Quinn gasps when she realizes what just happened. "You didn't." She exclaims as she runs her fingers over her cheek. Sure enough, there is blue paint on them. Rachel laughs hysterically. "That's not funny." She says as she threatens the brunette with her rolling brush.
"You wouldn't." Rachel dares as she eyes the blue brush. She then runs as soon as Quinn attempts to get her with the paint brush.
Finally, two hours later the one wall is painted, although they seemed to get more paint on each other than the wall.
With the painting done Rachel moves on to the lighting fixtures. While Rachel did that Quinn finished cleaning up the painting materials. She decided to store the rest of the supplies in the garage. Once she enters down stairs two things stick out. One: Rachel was currently attempting to change out the first light fixture using a step ladder, and two: she was too short to actually reach the light without standing on the top tear on her tip toes.
Which is what it look like she was doing.
"Rachel!" Quinn yells, and startles the girl on the ladder.
Rachel loses her balance, and for a moment Quinn thinks the girl is about to fall off the ladder. Out of instinct Quinn quickly attempts to catch her. Luckily Rachel manages to regain her balance before falling. After she was sure she'd steadied herself, she turns and looks at Quinn.
"Probably not a good idea to scare a person when they are currently standing on a ladder, don't you think," she says light heartily. Giving Quinn crap.
"I'm sorry Rach, it's just… you can't be standing on top of a ladder like that. You could fall."
"Clearly," Rachel says with a wink.
"Look you can't even reach. Why don't you come down and I'll switch out the lights." Quinn offers.
"What… no I can do it, and did you just imply I'm short. I am not short, five three is a normal, respectable height." She exclaims as she wobbles on the ladder.
"Would you just come down here please. You are making me nervous up there. Just let me do it." She goes to help Rachel down.
"No, you said you didn't know how to change a fixture, remember."
'Oh right, there was that.' she thinks. "So, you can walk me through it." She justifies.
"Look Quinn I'm fine, really, if you want to help you can hold onto me so I don't fall. But look, I can so reach it if I'm on my tippy toes." She goes to show Quinn.
"Wait!" Quinn says as she grabs the girl's hips to steady her.
"See I can reach." Rachel says as she starts to unscrew the light fixture. "Who knew those Cheerleading skills would come in handy in the real world." Rachel says as she finishes removing the first light. She hands it down to Quinn, who in term hands up the new light.
Quinn was just trying to make sure Rachel didn't fall. The fact that her hands were holding Rachel's hips didn't even register.
'Crap I'm holding her hips.' She finally realizes this. Her grip becomes tighter as she tenses up. Rachel looks down at her to make sure she was okay.
"There… all done." She announces. "Only five more to go."
With that Quinn helps Rachel with the next light. Her thoughts are still on her hands. 'Her hips are nice.' She thinks.
"Quinn?"
"Huh."
"You can let go I'm done with this one." Rachel says.
Quinn blushes. "Right, sorry." She mumbles After they installed the new lights they ventured back upstairs for lunch. Beth decided that they were going to have sandwiches, so that's what they had.
By one thirty Quinn was standing outside the Berry residence with her neighbor's truck and trailer.
"Are you ready?" Rachel asks as they walk up to the front porch. Quinn was a little worried, the last time she talked to the Berry men things got a little heated. "All of my stuff is packed, we just need to move it to the truck."
"Can I help?" Beth asks, taking hold of Rachel's hand.
"Of course, we'll need all the help we can get."
Rachel opens the front door and invites them in. "Dad… Daddy, I'm home." She says as they enter the living room.
"We're upstairs!" A voice calls to them. Rachel leads them up to what used to be her room.
"Hey sweetheart. We were just double checking to make sure we packed everything you needed." Leroy says as they enter Rachel's old room. It was weird to see Rachel's childhood bedroom. Granted, most of the stuff packed away. "Quinn… it's good to see you again."
"You too."
After the quick pleasantries they immediately got to work moving Rachel essentials to the truck. Note to self-bring more people when moving heavy workout equipment. By the time they had all of Rachel stuff loaded up the sun was starting to go down.
Rachel was saying her final goodbyes to her fathers while Quinn was busy strapping Beth into her car seat.
"Are you sure about moving in with her." Hiram asks as he hugs Rachel.
"Yeah, I'm sure dad." There was no doubt in her mind.
"Okay, well… if you ever change your mind pumpkin our door is always open." Hiram says as he gives Rachel on last squeeze. Rachel hugs Leroy next who is practically in tears.
"Dad, it's okay… I'm going to be just fine, plus I'm like ten minutes away so it's not like we won't see each other."
"No… I know. It's just. You know how I get." He wraps his arms around her hugs her close. "I just want you to be happy, and do what you love, and if this is what you love to do then… I'm all for it." He says into her hair. "God it's like you're all grown up now." He says dramatically.
"Dad, I've been twenty two for like four months now." She says. "I've been all grown up for a while now."
"Well to us you will always be out baby girl."
Quinn walks back over to the three of them after starting the truck.
"Mr. Berry's I still want to invite you to our Sunday dinners. My mom keeps calling to remind me to tell you guys." Quinn says.
"It'll be like a family dinner once a week." Hiram says. The two men seem to cheer up instantly.
"Quinn is there any way we can host one of these dinners your mom is so famous for?"
"I don't see why not, maybe we can to a rotation of some sort."
"Aw, this will be fantastic." Leroy says.
"So we'll see you two tomorrow at seven then, at Miss Fabray's house." Rachel says.
After saying one last goodbye Quinn drives them back to her house. They decide to eat dinner before starting to unpack the truck. Not really in the mood to make anything the three of them decided to eat the leftover pizza from yesterday. Quinn's neighbor Mike… or was it Nick. Whoever decided to help them unpack after dinner. Which was a godsend..
'Thank goodness.' Quinn's back appreciated it.
It was always easier to unpack than it was to pack for some reason. Now that all of Rachel's stuff was downstairs in the newly painted basement. They could at least set up the essentials, like Rachel's bed.
"Thanks Mike, for the help and your truck." Quinn calls to her neighbor who was now carrying a six-pack of beer as payment, and some gas money for the truck.
"It's Ike, and no problem." He waves goodbye in his truck and leaves.
Quinn shut the front door and locks it. "Ike… right. I knew that." She mutters to herself as she goes downstairs to help Rachel and Beth put some of her stuff away.
The lighting in the room looks fantastic, and the dark blue accent wall makes the piano stand out more. Rachel and Beth were making her bed for the night. Rachel was insisting that she sleeps downstairs tonight since they were working so hard to get the area set up.
"There that should be good enough for tonight." Rachel finishes some last touches. She still had clothes to put away but they still had all tomorrow to work on that.
"The place looks good." Quinn says as she flops down on the freshly made bed. She was exhausted.
"Yea, I think it looks good too Rachel." Beth says as she crawls onto the bed. The young girl was tired. Quinn looks down at her watch. It was way past Beth's bed time.
"Come here you, it's time for bed." Quinn says as she scoops the sleepy girl into her arms. "I'll see you tomorrow morning Rachel." Quinn says as she's about to leave. Rachel on the other hand starts to follow her.
"Actually, there is one last box upstairs, I should grab before I go to bed." She says as she's about to follow Quinn up stairs.
"Oh, I can grab it for you. Just let me put this one to bed, and I'll be right back down okay."
"That really isn't necessary-" Rachel starts to say.
"Look its fine. You just keep unpacking and I'll grab this last box for you."
"Fine… it's on the far side of the bed." Quinn wasn't taking no for an answer.
Quinn leaves with Beth in her arms. The girl was practically asleep by the time she reached the top of the stairs.
Getting Beth changed and into bed, was a lot harder than it should be, but considering how tired the little girl was it made everything harder.
"Good night little lion." She says as she tucks the girl into her bed. Beth mumbles a Goodnight and grasps her pillow. Quinn leaves the door cracked as she leaves. Walking into the guest room the first thing she notices is the slightly messy bed. 'Rachel must have forgotten to make it this morning.' She thinks as she searches for the last box. Finding it where Rachel had said it would be she grabs it and starts to head for the door. And just as she thought she was clear she trips over the unmade bed. She lands with a hard oomph and manages to dump the stuff out of the box. "Great… just great." She thinks as she looks at the mess. Good thing there wasn't anything breakable in the box. Pulling herself up off the ground, Quinn manages to collect little trinkets Rachel had stashed in the box. Things like her hair brush and hard cover copy of Wicked. There was also a small red notebook with argyle print on the front. 'Rachel would have a book with argyle on it.' She thinks as she flips it open. She regrets instantly doing that. The first words were: Do not read this unless you are Rachel Barbra Berry.
It was Rachel's diary, and from the looks of it, it was old. Morally, what Quinn was doing was a big major no no, but then again who kept a diary anymore. Looking at the dates on the first day she realized this was from Rachel's freshman year of high school. She looks at the handwriting and notices most of it was in scripture. Except for the occasional lyrics written in the margins. 'This is so wrong.' She flips a couple pages and stops when she sees a heading that says Get it Right. She briefly looks over at what seemed to be the lyrics to a song, a song Quinn didn't recognize. That's when she realizes Rachel had written them. She kept staring at the chorus. The words seem to haunt her. She could almost hear a slow piano playing as she read the words.
'What can you do when your good isn't good enough. And all that you touch tumbles down? Cause my best intentions Keep making a mess of things, I just wanna fix it somehow But how many times will it take? Oh, how many times will it take for me to get it right, to get it right?'
Quinn could almost hear Rachel voice singing the sad lyrics. The girl seemed to be struggling with something at this point. Finally tearing away from the sad song she flips to the last entry. For some reason she had to know. And there it was an entry about her.
'I don't know what to do, as much as I believe that once in your life, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you've never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can't wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition, but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. And that's how I'm feeling about Quinn. She inspires me, and at the same time confuses me beyond fathom. I find myself wanting to know more about her and at the same time I'm scared of getting too close. I want to get it right for once, and have that true love you can only find in stories. I know now that it's not just a crush, or admiration, is something more than that. I just don't know how to make it more without putting myself completely out there for her. I want to open my heart, but knowing that it could easily be broken scares me.'
Quinn stops reading and shuts the notebook. Rachel was falling for her, more so than she thought, but judging from the words she was afraid to make the first move. Quinn quickly grabs the rest of the discarded stuff and puts it in the box. When she enters the basement, she sees Rachel rearranging her night stand with a light and alarm clock. Quinn was staring at the red notebook in the box still. There was a part of her that wanted to fess up and say she read it, and that her words were beautiful, yet at the same time she knew taking that privacy from Rachel would probably hurt her more than make her open up.
"There you are… you found it I see." Rachel points to the box.
"Uh... yeah, it was right where you said it would be." Quinn says as she meets Rachel's gaze.
"Thanks again for helping me today… Quinn?" Rachel notices the distant look on her face. "Are you okay. You look…"
"I'm fine." She hands Rachel the box. "I should go back upstairs…"
"Oh, okay. I'll see you tomorrow morning." Rachel says quietly as she watches Quinn leave.
"Yeah," Quinn goes to leave. "You are, you know." She says, as she reaches the door.
"Huh?"
"Getting it right." Quinn says as she opens the door to the basement and leaves.
Rachel stands frozen for a moment. She wasn't quite sure what Quinn had said, or what it was supposed to mean. That's when she looks down in the box and notices her stuff was placed in there differently. More importantly, she noticed her diary was out of place. 'Get it right.' That's when she realizes what she meant. Quinn is gone before she can put her thoughts together.
It was Rachel's turn to toss and turn all night. As she kept hearing Quinn's words over and over she kept over thinking every outcome of what could happen tomorrow.
End
Done for now… yeah! So what do you think. It's alright in my opinion, but I'd like to hear yours. Also a special thanks to the guest who mentioned the diary. I liked the idea so I used it, and I think It worked out alright. I also added some things that actually happened in the show, such as punk/Quinn and Tina/Rachel because everyone goes through a phase. Tell me what you think.
So what's going to happen at the family dinner… confrontations maybe or confessions? I'm not sure yet, but it should be good.