Deus Ex Machina [god in the machine]
Rachel Berry was not a forgetful girl. It simply was not programmed within her superior DNA to forget things that were important. Ever since she was six months old she had kept track of exactly when her birthday was; everything down to the exact minute (4:48 A.M.) to the moon cycle on that day. That's why, when Rachel woke up the morning after her encounter with Quinn, she was shocked to see balloons and streamers surrounding her bed and her overeager fathers at the foot of her bed, staring at her.
"What's going on?" Rachel groggily questioned as she pushed herself onto her elbows and blew her bangs out of her eyes.
Hiram feigned a gasp and clutched his hand over his heart as he turned to his husband and said, scandalized, "Leroy, I think the little teenager has forgotten her own birthday!"
Leroy looked down at his husband with equally with eyes and said, "I believe you're right, darling! Does that mean we can take back the music note styled vegan birthday cake that we ordered special?"
Rachel gasped as she launched herself out of bed and skidded across her room in her footy pajamas towards her calendar. The little diva gasped again as her finger stopped on the circled date, December 18th, her birthday, indeed. "I forgot my own birthday," she whispered to herself under her breath as her eyes stayed glued to the calendar, "How did I forget my own birthday?" She guessed her plans of meeting Quinn at the school auditorium would have to be pushed to another day.
"Sweetie, I do believe that's what happens when you put someone before yourself and focus on them more," Leroy said, mumbling the "oomph" he let out when Hiram elbowed him in the ribs.
"What your father means," Hiram delineated, "is that you've put Quinn and those ungrateful glee children before your own needs, and that's how you forgot your own birthday. There's a first time for everything."
Rachel slowly turned from the calendar and, as if she had heard known of what they had just said, and enquired, "Did you say vegan birthday cake?" as she made her way out of the room and down the stairs, leaving her fathers behind her.
Rachel heard their laughter trailing behind her as she skipped down the stairs. However, halfway down the stairs, her father's laughter seemed to sound as if it was too far away, and Rachel's feet seemed to slow down as she bounded down the stairs. Just as if time had completely slowed down, Rachel furrowed her brows in confusion as a wind tunnel opened itself up and pounded on her eardrums as she silently wondered why it was taking her so long to get down the stairs and what was going on.
That thought had no sooner coiled around her brain when a black figure stepped around the corner and stood at the foot of the staircase, staring directly at Rachel. The brunette briefly wondered if her fathers were behind her, and she thought that she should probably check to see if they were, but as soon as her eyes locked on the face of the man, where his eyes should have been if he'd had any, the wind tunnel she had been hearing was immediately replaced with the sound of a sickly shriek.
Unable to stop herself, Rachel helplessly began to fall as she lost her footing and began plummeting towards the black figure. Just its presence alone had her filled with unspeakable horror, and Rachel briefly wondered if she was about to die and if her fathers really could get a refund on that cake.
Suddenly, there was a loud cry that drowned out the black figure's death shriek, and Rachel recognized this new voice as soon as she heard it. Within a second, the black figure was gone and Rachel was engulfed in complete torturous pins and needles again before hitting the wall across the small hallway from the staircase. She only hit it with a dull thud, though, because she hit something that slowed her down.
"Ra-" Rachel heard, foggily and distant, "Rach-Rachel open your eyes." So Rachel did, slowly. She blinked up at her fathers' worried faces from flat on her back.
"Rachel," Hiram breathed out in relief, "Are you all right? My goodness, that was quite the fall. Here, Leroy, get her up."
Leroy bent down and used his strong arms to help Rachel up and into a chair in the dining room. For her part, the brunette was still trying to process what had just happened and wrap her mind around the fact that it had all happened in the span of about five seconds.
"Did you see that?" Rachel quietly asked Leroy as Hiram puttered around the sink, getting Rachel a class of water.
"See you fall? Yes, baby, I saw that."
"No," Rachel urged, "Did you see anything at the bottom of the stairs?"
Leroy stared at Rachel carefully before shaking his head. "No, I didn't," he said, "we were right behind you, Rachel; we would've seen if there had been anything down there."
Rachel nodded slowly, blinking rapidly as her gaze lowered to the glass of water that Hiram had just set on the table. She took a drink of the water and shuddered as she felt path that the ice coldness took throughout her body. She didn't bring up the black figure again, but she did wonder where Quinn went.
Three hours and two pieces of cake later, Rachel finally went upstairs to change. Alone in her room, she cautiously looked around to make sure she was actually alone. Closet, check. Under the bed, check. Behind her doors, check. Check. Check. Check. Finally, Rachel flopped onto her bed and let out a shaky sigh. There was only one explanation for what that thing had been, though Rachel didn't want to believe it.
Regardless, only one word was flashing in her mind: Ombra. She tried to push it away, push it back and lock it away in the back of her mind so she wouldn't think of it. Quinn's words flashed through her mind, telling her that thinking about them was like calling them. Still, from the second the black figure stepped in front of her, Rachel had the nagging notion at the back of her mind that they had found her, this was it.
Quinn. Quinn had saved her, again. The voice Rachel had heard was Quinn's, and the Ombra had disappeared after the cry had been shouted. "Quinn!" Rachel nearly yelled at the empty room as she sat up on her bed with her feet dangling off the edge, "Quinn."
Nothing. The hopeful smile that had appeared on Rachel's face slowly faded. "Quinn?" she repeated, quieter. Nothing.
Silence. Rachel's eyes flickered across the room as she waited for a sign, anything, any noise from the girl, but she was met with nothing.
Ten minutes of agonizing silence passed before Rachel noiselessly got up and headed to her closet. She pulled on a pair of Capri's and a pink sweater with a terrier on it. Rachel clipped her bangs back with a pink barrette and slipped on her Hush Puppies. She crossed over her keyboard rug and leaned on her vanity counter as she gazed into the mirror at herself.
Rachel met her own eyes and almost didn't recognize herself. She couldn't remember a time where she had such dark rings under her eyes from lack of sleep, which she felt was ironic, because she had spent the past two weeks not leaving her bed.
Her thoughts were interrupted as she heard the doorbell from downstairs followed by her father calling her downstairs.
Great, she thought as she cast one more look at herself before making her way downstairs. She took the steps two at a time until she hit the first floor and stopped dead in her tracks.
"Noah?" Rachel questioned hesitantly, "What are you doing here?"
Leroy hesitantly left them alone in the alcove by the front door, and Rachel leaned against the table by the door as she watched Puck run a nervous hand over his mohawk.
"Well, two reasons," Puck began, not leaving the doorway, "First is this." He pulled his other hand out from inside his brown suede jacket and handed Rachel a rectangular shaped box wrapped in Star Wars wrapping paper. "Happy birthday," he said, almost whispering, "I bet you thought I forgot, huh? Well I didn't 'cause I'm a friggan awesome Jewbro."
Rachel involuntarily smiled as she took the box from Puck. Delicately, she unwrapped it and pulled out a gleaming, golden Star of David necklace. Rachel bit her lip as a few stray tears welled up in her eyes. "Thank you so much, Noah," the brunette breathed out as she reached up and put the necklace on. She brushed her fingers against the star as she looked up at Puck, "And the second reason?"
Puck licked his lips nervously as he looked around and over Rachel's head, making sure they were alone. "Can I talk to you, in private?"
Rachel nodded as she nodded towards her room. Puck shut the door behind him as he followed her up the stairs and into her room. Rachel watched him take a deep breath and take in his surroundings before running his hand over his mohawk again.
"Have a seat," Rachel urged as Puck took off his jacket and scratched his chest over his black collared shirt.
"What can I do for-"
"It's about Quinn," Puck said bluntly, his mouth moving wordlessly after, as if he was shocked that he'd managed to say those three words.
Rachel stopped pacing dead in her tracks as she met Puck's eyes from across the room. She took a seat in her wooden chair and stared across at Puck who was seated on the edge of her bed.
"Quinn?" Rachel repeated, dumbly.
Puck rolled his eyes and frowned. "Don't play stupid, Berry-"
"I'm not playing anything, Puckerman," Rachel snapped abruptly, fed up with being talked down to by her teammates, "It's an honest question because right now I'm wondering why you came to talk to me about-"
"A dead chick?" Puck said, taking his turn in interrupting her.
Rachel blinked, momentarily taken aback by the use of the term dead when referring to Quinn. "Yes," she whispered after a brief hesitation, never leaving Puck's eyes, "a dead chick."
Puck stared hard into Rachel's eyes before stating, not asking, "She's your ghost, isn't she? Finn says you're insane because you've been hunting and now hanging out with a ghost, but I believe you. Shit, I think I believed you when your dads showed up at the hospital to save you and you said we dragged you from Quinn's house. The night I told you about the Fabray's ghost, I never said her name."
Rachel cocked her head and creased her forehead as she looked at Puck in complete shock. "Y-you actually believe me?"
"I have an older brother, you know," he said, as if changing the subject.
Rachel's chest tightened but she remained quiet as she waited for Puck to continue. "He's twenty-six now," Puck added, "Maybe twenty-seven, I don't know, it's been years since I've seen him."
"I didn't know that, no. However, I'm not-"
"When he was a sophomore in high school he was involved in a really bad car crash," Puck said as he broke their gaze and glanced at his hands in his lap. Rachel couldn't breathe as the gears in her mind started turning out of control. No…it couldn't be.
"His name's Michael," Puck said, abruptly bringing his eyes back to meet Rachel's.
As if he knew that was the last puzzle piece Rachel needed, he leaned back on his elbows and waited for her to react.
"Your brother killed Quinn," Rachel exhaled.
Puck said nothing as Rachel's teary eyes met his.
"What happened, Noah? Was he charged with anything?"
Puck sat back up and shrugged. "He was underage, I mean it's not like they could'a sent him to prison for murder. He was kicked out of McKinley and sent to juvie until he hit 18. I was only eight, but I remember that once he was out of there, he never came home. He just ran. I saw him once at the mini-mart by my house before he left. Mike was…" Puck trailed off, shuddering at the memory, "he was fucked up. He kept talking about being haunted and seeing Quinn everywhere and that he needed to get out of Lima. So he did, and I haven't seen him since."
Rachel wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand and brought her hands up to rest at the bridge of her nose. Puck waited in silence for Rachel to process everything.
Eventually, she raised her eyes to meet his. "I think I love her, Noah."
The boy's eyebrows shot up as he dropped his widened eyes to the floor. Rachel briefly wondered if maybe she had said too much, but then Puck smiled.
"I remember her, you know. She was hot," he said through a laugh and smiling when he earned a small laugh from Rachel, "I mean, hot by an eight-year-old's standards but, whatever."
"Noah," Rachel whispered, only half-chastising.
"Sorry, Berry."
"Thank you for believing me," she added firmly.
Puck shrugged. "Just let me know if I can do anything to help. I bet it sucks balls to be in love with a ghost. I just have two favors."
Rachel arched an eyebrow, ignoring his in love remark. "And they would be?"
"One," Puck counted off on his fingers, "Let me talk to her sometime. Two," he added another finger, "Don't go doing anything stupid so you can be with her-"
This immediately caught Rachel's attention. So much so, that she completely tuned Puck out when he added a third favor of making out in exchange for giving her the information that he did. Don't do anything stupid to be with Quinn? What if that was it? What if that was why Quinn was there? Maybe Rachel was dying, or meant to die, and Quinn was there to take her to her life after death!
"Rach? Is that a no to making out?"
"Rachel," Finn greeted, almost in relief, as he opened the front door to his home and saw the tiny brunette standing there on the porch.
Rachel glanced back to Leroy, who was in the car waiting for her at the end of the Hudson driveway, and wrapped her coat tighter around her. "Finn, I need to have a word with you."
Finn's grin faltered as he looked over her head at Leroy and then stepped aside. "Do you want to come in? Kurt's down in his room with Blaine and mom and Burt are out."
Rachel nodded as she worried her lip between her gleaming teeth, agreeing, "All right, Finn," and followed him inside. She kept her head high as she walked past him and into his kitchen where she took a seat at their table.
Finn dragged a chair up next to her, turned it around, straddling it as he sat down, and faced her. Rachel inwardly winced against the hopeful gleam in his eyes as he asked, "How are you? You look tired as hell."
"I'm all right, Finn," Rachel said as she suppressed an eye roll at his tactlessness, "but I did not actually come here to talk about myself."
Finn looked a little surprised but nodded seriously. "All right, what's up then, Rach?"
"We're over, right?" Rachel vocalized, blunter than she'd meant to.
Finn paused. "I mean, you did call me mentally unstable and tell me I needed help and then physically dragged me against my will to a hospital to get me locked up and I did say you needed to find another girlfriend so, I am correct in inferring from all of that that we are still over, right?"
Finn seemed to gape before looking down at his hands then back at Rachel. "I really care about you, Rachel; I just wanted to help you…."
"And I understand and even appreciate that, Finn," she clarified, "but that doesn't change the fact that you went behind my back and lied to me over dealing with Quinn, then going behind my back again to get me locked up because you legitimately think I'm crazy."
"I think you broke up with me unfairly," he stammered out, almost angrily.
Rachel's gaze softened as she smiled briefly. "Because you were only trying to help me, right?" she supplied.
"Right," Finn said, grabbing onto the lifeline with relief.
"What day is it today, Finn?"
"Uh, Friday?"
The brunette smiled and took his hand in her own. "Finn, you know you're one of my best friends, and you have been for a while. However, I think that's it, I believe that we're just better as friends."
Confusion and acceptance crossed Finn's features as he gently pulled his hand from Rachel's. "I admit I screwed up a few times, but there's always hope for us, Rach."
"I just came to make sure that it was over, Finn, on both sides. I need it to be over, I need to move on. I think we're taking two separate directions in life now and want different things. Think of it this way, now you don't have me and my crazy holding you back from being prom king and being the glee stud that you want to be," Rachel said with no hostility in her voice.
Finn frowned as he shook his head. "I don't want to let you go," he said firmly.
"I'm not going anywhere," Rachel replied as she placed her right hand on his cheek and smiled, "You know as well as I do that we lost our chance and we're better off as friends now."
"I love you," Finn said firmly, not trying to coerce Rachel into anything, just so she'd know. And she did.
"I know," Rachel said sweetly, moving her hand from his cheek to his neck as she pulled him in for a hug. "We'll be great friends, I think."
"We always have been," Finn said with a weak smile as he watched Rachel stand up to go.
"It's her, huh?" he questioned as Rachel felt his eyes on her back.
She turned and met his gaze as she stood in the doorway of the kitchen. Finn continued, "You fell in love with her, didn't you?"
Rachel's chin rose a little higher as she dropped Finn's gaze and smiled to herself. "Then, for your sake, I hope that she's real, ghost or not, because it would be just like you to fall in love with yourself or some split personality of yourself," Finn said through a soft, playful grin.
Rachel squinted her eyes in a mock glare and huffed as she stormed out of the kitchen. There were few things in life that Rachel was grateful for at that time, but one of the big ones was being okay with Finn.
"Happy birthday," was whispered into Rachel's ear at exactly 11:37 P.M.
"Cutting it a bit close, Quinn, aren't you?" Rachel asked as she cracked one eye open and glanced at the clock on her nightstand.
"You're lucky I made it back this soon," Quinn said from her new spot on Rachel's bed, next to her.
Rachel opened her other eye and rolled her head to the right where she thought Quinn was. "Thank you," the brunette stated firmly, "for saving me from the Ombra earlier."
Hesitation lingered in the air as Rachel's eyes searched for Quinn. "How did you know it was an Ombra?"
Rachel's forehead creased in confusion before she rubbed some sleep out of her eyes. Blinking sleepily, Rachel tried to wake herself up as she mumbled, "So, I was correct?"
She heard a frustrated exhale from Quinn before a bit out, "Rachel, you need to tell me what happened and how you knew it was an Ombra."
Rachel completely rolled over onto her side so she was facing Quinn. "Where are you?" Rachel whispered, her voice cracking before she cleared her throat.
A quiet sigh was followed by a brief tingling of Rachel's left cheek that trailed down to her left hand that was tucked up under her chin by her pillow. "I'm right here, Rachel," the brunette heard, and by the placement of Quinn's voice, Rachel could tell that Quinn was at eye-level with her, mirroring her position on the bed.
"I just knew," Rachel began once she was sure of Quinn's position and where her eyes were, "it was at the back of my mind from the moment it stepped in front of me at the bottom of the staircase."
Quinn remained silent as Rachel began to feel the tension radiating off her. After a minute, the brunette tentatively broke through the silence with, "Quinn, I understand that we can't discuss these things for fear of them finding us, and I do mean us because I know that you've been trying to protect me from them for a while. However, I think it's time you tell me what I need to do, because they have found me."
There was a brush of electricity across Rachel's forehead where her bangs were, as always, clinging to her forehead and falling into her eyes. Rachel brought her hand up and gently brushed them away for Quinn, as she imagined that's what Quinn was doing.
"I wish I could still feel…." the ghost said quietly, reluctantly, and Rachel didn't miss the clandestine way Quinn hid the "you" at the end of her breath, laced into the way the blond's exhale hitched a moment later.
Rachel suddenly wanted to take Quinn's pain away, to remove the hurt that she heard in the blond's voice. She briefly allowed the Ombra to slip onto the back burner as she scooted a little closer to the patch of freezing air. "I went to Finn's today," Rachel began.
"…oh," Quinn breathed out in surprise as her voice cracked on the questioning inflection she half-heartedly attempted to add to the word.
"Mhmm," Rachel continued, her eyes raking over where Quinn's face would be and inwardly imaging the girl's features, "I wanted to discuss the nature of our relationship and where we stood at this-"
"I can't-" Quinn interrupted.
"Point in time," Rachel added, annoyed at being interrupted.
"Rachel, if you're seriously about to give me the details about you and Finn being back-"
"I wanted to make sure that he and I were on the same page about being broken up and I wanted him to understand that I needed to," Rachel paused, her gaze searching for a broken thought in the space across the room before she smiled and continued, "that I have moved on."
The brunette adjusted her position on the bed a bit as she waited for Quinn to respond.
A soft, "Oh," was all she was graced with.
"Were you really thinking that I was going to tell you that Finn and I were back together? Especially after that-"
"Rach," Quinn interrupted. The brunette's mouth snapped shut as Quinn continued, "As much as I would love to hear this - and trust me, I would love to hear this - I can't. Not right now. Not when the only thing I can focus on is the fact that you were almost taken today and it's driving me insane because I can't figure out how to keep you safe."
Rachel's gaze lingered on the indent on the bed where - "Quinn," she said suddenly.
"Hm?" the blond questioned, clearly buried under her own thoughts.
"You're indenting again."
"Oh, sorry - Wait, what?"
Rachel laughed almost involuntarily as the tears in her eyes took her by surprise. "I can see your indent, now," she said as she tentatively reached her hand out and smiled as her fingertips brushed against a solid cheek.
"This better not be the same crap as last time," Rachel heard Quinn mutter as the blond rolled her face so her nose was nuzzling the brunette's palm. Quinn placed a kiss there.
"Language, Quinn," Rachel chastised as she felt Quinn bring both hands up to grasp Rachel's. Rachel scooted closer, as Quinn did the same, bringing their foreheads together.
"I'm solid again and you're worried about the language I'm using?" Quinn scoffed. Rachel felt the blond's legs curl up to gently press her knees into Rachel's stomach, searching for all possible contact.
"There are other ways to communicate your feelings without using curse words," Rachel murmured sternly as she fumbled for and gripped the hem of Quinn's shirt with both hands and let her knuckles feather against the bare skin underneath. Rachel noted that Quinn was cold to the touch. Not ice cold, but chilly. As if someone had held their hand out of the car window for too long and pulled it back in, only to feel how numb it had gotten.
"I'll leave the long-winded explanations up to you, then, thanks," Rachel heard Quinn murmur, her lips an inch from the brunette's.
Quinn had her eyes tightly closed as she let herself re-memorize the feel of Rachel's skin pressed against her own. Maybe it was because it had been ten years since anyone had been pressed against her like that, or maybe it was just because it was Rachel, but Quinn felt like she actually had warmth in her body. Like she had taken a long drink from a steaming cup of hot chocolate after being in the cold for hours. Every touch Rachel placed against her skin (was it skin? This ghost thing was so complicated) seemed to boil the blood beneath the girl's fingertips.
"How long do you think it will last this time?" Rachel asked with the air of the question traveling into Quinn's parted lips. Quinn let the question bounce around her mouth and felt how it tasted on her tongue as she let her fingers skim over the goosebumps on Rachel's arms.
"Not long enough," Quinn replied as her eyes fluttered up to stare into Rachel's. She watched the fascination dimmer a bit in Rachel's eyes as the brunette processed her words. Quinn didn't like the way the gleam in her eyes dimmed. "We can enjoy it now, though," the ghost added quickly to soothe Rachel's disappointment.
Rachel closed the miniscule gap between their parted lips and swiftly kissed Quinn. Before her eyes slid closed, Quinn noticed the tears freeing themselves from underneath Rachel's closed eyelids.
"Come here," Quinn said after pulling back from Rachel.
She watched the brunette furrow her brows before looking amused. "Quinn," Rachel said, "I don't believe I can get much closer."
Quinn rolled her eyes before looping her arms around Rachel's neck and pulling their foreheads apart as she tucked the brunette into her collarbone, under her neck.
"What are you doing, Quinn?" Rachel whispered into the underside of Quinn's jaw before Quinn felt her lean up and place her lips there, briefly, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for Rachel to do. As if it was the most natural thing in the world for Quinn to smile about.
"Making the most of this," Quinn replied decidedly.
"What about the Ombra? You said-"
"I know what I said, Rach. Just-"
"Shut up?"
"No," Quinn said, slightly taken aback, "Just talk about something other than all of the bad things going on. Just close your eyes and pretend-"
"I don't need to pretend anything, Quinn," Rachel began, the tone of her voice making Quinn's neck tingle, "you're right here."
The ghost blinked back tears as she held Rachel tighter. After three minutes of counting the seconds and listening to Rachel talk about what she did on her birthday, Quinn stopped counting seconds and began counting the breaths Rachel took. Every time Quinn felt the rise and fall of Rachel's chest under her arms, she exhaled her own forced breath of relief.
Hours later, when Rachel's birthday had been a matter of hours prior, Quinn was still awake. Rachel had fallen asleep in her arms. In her arms. The blond raised an eyebrow to the sky as she said under her breath, "Thank you."
Rachel shifted in Quinn's arms and Quinn smiled. Whatever this was between her and Rachel, whatever happened, one thing was for sure…. Dead or alive, no one had ever touched her the way Rachel had. God help her for when the sun rose and Quinn had to leave her personal Heaven to deal with her own personal Hell; the Hell that Rachel had been dragged into courtesy of the Ombra and the God above her that Quinn was seriously starting to doubt knew what He was actually doing.
The brunette suddenly stirred in Quinn's arms, whimpering in her sleep and Quinn immediately ducked her head down to see the pained creases in Rachel's forehead. She was having a nightmare, and it was probably the Ombra's doing.
Quinn sighed and let out a shaky breath as she stared up at Rachel's dark ceiling, tears welling up in her eyes. She couldn't protect Rachel; Quinn was no superman. She was literally nothing. How could she protect the tiny brunette asleep in her arms?
Another whimper escaped Rachel's lips. The blond stayed staring at the ceiling, pursing her lips as invisible tears cascaded down her cheeks and hit the bed with no mark. Quinn was no hero. Rachel needed a hero. Hell, if it weren't for Quinn, Rachel wouldn't have even been in that position.
"God," Quinn breathed out painfully.
"Quinn?" Rachel questioned the empty air after sitting up in her bed. The sunlight was streaming in through her curtains and Rachel sighed. "Or not."
"You're a year older than me now," was suddenly heard from the chair in front of Rachel's desk. Her laptop was open and on. Google was on the screen and the keyboard seemed to be moving on its own.
"Technically you're nine years older than me," Rachel amended off-handedly as she sat and blinked groggily towards Quinn. "I see you're still solid."
"Damn it," Rachel heard Quinn mutter quietly before she seemed to respond absent-mindedly, "Oh, yeah, sort of."
"Sort of?" Rachel asked, frustrated at Quinn's standoffish behavior.
"Yeah, Rachel, sort of."
Fine, Rachel thought. The brunette pushed her hair back and dropped her bare feet onto the white carpet. Padding across the room, she stood behind Quinn and leaned against the back of her shoulders as she read the computer screen.
"You're Googling ghosts?"
Rachel felt a tingling of hair briefly cross her arms as she imagined Quinn turning to look back at her. "I've never really been able to use this Google thing before, but it's so cool. I'm Googling physically solid ghosts."
Rachel bit her lip and turned away. She lifted her arms from Quinn's shoulders and turned to sit on the edge of her bed. "Quinn."
"What?" Rachel got in response.
"Please turn off Google and come have a conversation with me."
"I can't, Rachel. I keep flickering on and off solid wise and I'm having an 'on' moment so I need to keep looking-"
"Quinn!" Rachel yelled sternly. The typing on the keyboard abruptly stopped. The empty chair swiveled to face Rachel.
"What?" Quinn asked calmly, her question hanging thickly in the air.
"What's wrong?" the brunette asked.
"Nothing."
"Quinn."
"Stop it, Rachel."
"No, Quinn."
"I said stop it!" Quinn yelled which caused Rachel's hair to billow from the force of the ghost's energy.
Rachel remained completely stoic. She fixed her hair and met where she thought Quinn's eyes were. "What's going on?"
"Have you looked in a mirror lately, Rachel?" Quinn asked her. Rachel's jaw dropped. "No, Rach, I'm not calling you ugly. But how long has it been since you've actually slept without nightmares? Since you've actually gotten a full night of sleep?"
Rachel's mouth moved wordlessly as she tried to come up with an adequate lie.
"That's what I thought," Quinn continued, "You look like you have two black eyes because your bags are so deep. Rachel, we need to end this."
In that moment it was as if time slowed down as a wave of realization washed over Rachel and across her features. What had Quinn planned while she had slept? Why did she suddenly have an innate sense of fear?
"End what, Quinn?"
"The only reason you're being haunted right now is because of me!" Quinn snapped, "This could seriously screw you up, Rach. It could end you."
"Rachel had been shaking her head throughout Quinn's entire mini-rant. "No, no Quinn you're wrong. None of this is your fault-"
"Yes, it is!" Quinn cut her off, yelling again.
"Would you please refrain from both interrupting me and screeching at me?" Rachel yelled in exasperation as she threw her hands up into the air and grasped at the air with her hands in frustration.
"Not when what you're going to say is wrong."
"That's it, Quinn Fabray," Rachel seethed as she stood up abruptly and loomed over Quinn, "I don't care about any noble and undoubtedly stupid plan that you have. I don't care if you think you leaving or passing on will save me, because I'm going to assume that's what you're thinking. I don't think you grasp the fact that you are what saved me! You are infuriating, Quinn Fabray, because you think I'm dying now, when I didn't even know how to appreciate or love life until you came along!" Rachel's chest heaved as she listened to the stung silence after her tirade. She couldn't take the silence after a few seconds, and so Rachel turned and fled from her room and into her bathroom, locking the door behind her.
Rachel leaned against her marble sink as she took in her reflection in the mirror. Quinn was right, the bags under Rachel's eyes almost looked like two bruised eyes. Rachel gingerly traced the shades of black under her eyes as she sniffed lightly. She wasn't going to let herself cry.
"Here," Rachel heard whispered into her left ear as a tissue floated in the air in front of her. She let out a choked laugh while simultaneously not being able to fight her tears anymore. Rachel felt a solid form press into her back as a chin was laid onto her left shoulder. Staring into the mirror, Rachel only saw her own reflection. She cried harder.
"Rachel, maybe it's time for me to move on."
The snow blanketing the sidewalk crunched under Rachel's pink, plastic boots as she walked to her favorite park a week later. Christmas day for non-Jews and other non-Christian religions, Rachel thought. To her? Just a quiet day where she could wander around a peaceful Lima and smile at the adorable reindeer and pretty colored lights adorning the neighborhood's houses.
She sniffed against the chilly wind that had kicked up on an otherwise calm, cloudy day as she adjusted the strap of her duffle bag higher on her shoulder. Rachel reached the park and immediately made her way over to the swing-sets. After brushing some snow off both of the seats, Rachel sat on one and began gently swinging.
"Hey," a familiar voice said, ghosting through the wind as the swing next to Rachel moved in the breeze.
Rachel turned her head to the right, her yellow beret dipping low on her head before she pushed it back up with a thumb. "Merry Christmas, Quinn."
"Merry Christmas, Rachel," Quinn returned as Rachel felt the familiar pins and needles wash over her right side. She leaned her head into it and smiled as she closed her eyes, imagining the hug. When the tingling left, Rachel stuck her hand out towards the swing next to her and groped the air before her right hand started tingling. Quinn touched her hand.
"Today's an off day, I see," Rachel said sadly as she stared at Quinn.
There was a beat of silence where Rachel imagined Quinn nodding. "Looks that way," the blond said, "That's okay, though. It's Christmas, you know? This is the first year that the house has had lights and a tree and everything," Quinn said silently, ending in a whisper, and Rachel could imagine the accompanied shrug that went with that statement.
"I enjoyed doing that with you though, you know," Rachel said as she smiled at the memory of her dragging a fir tree into the Fabray household in the dead of night with Leroy's help and Quinn and Hiram shouting orders from inside the house.
Quinn laughed loudly and Rachel reflexively smiled. "That was wonderful, especially when you got lost in the tree on the way in."
"Yes, hilarious," Rachel deadpanned as she rolled her eyes while cracking a small smile, "Speaking of, my fathers gave me permission to stay over tonight."
Quinn was silent and Rachel turned her head and furrowed her brows. "Unless you've changed your mind and wish to-"
"No, no it's not that," Quinn quickly cut in, "it's just weird to think that exactly a week ago I was telling you that I was planning on moving on and now here we are."
"Here we are," Rachel whispered as the chill of the air made her breath swirl in front of her. She thought back on how she had sobbed in the bathroom and how Quinn had held her. How Rachel hadn't been able to say to Quinn what she had wanted to, what she knew would keep Quinn with her. But it had been as if Quinn had heard it anyway, because she stayed with Rachel all day. And then came back the next day. And then answered the door two days later when Rachel came knocking.
It was like Quinn had understood what Rachel hadn't been ready to say, and by Quinn sticking around, it had been like Quinn's heart had said it back.
The brunette cleared her throat and shook her head. "None of that, now, come on! It's Christmas day, a jolly day, indeed. It may be a non-solid day for you, but I consider it a - what do you call it? - Christmas miracle, that's it, that you are still having solid days. Let's head to your house now. I'll build a fire and put on It's A Wonderful Life and you can open your present."
She heard a groan from next to her. "Seriously? You're going to force me to watch a movie about a man who is basically turned into a ghost. And wait, I told you not to get me anything."
Rachel rolled her eyes as she hopped off the swing and stopped Quinn's swing from blowing in the wind so the ghost could get off (even if that was undoubtedly unnecessary). "I'm making you watch a timeless classic, Quinn. I'm appalled that you, being the big classic movie buff, haven't seen it yet," she said, ignoring the present part of Quinn's statement.
"I tend to avoid movies that remind me of my own existence," Quinn said from next to Rachel as they fell into step together as they made their way to Quinn's.
"That's certainly no excuse, Quinn," Rachel said, ignoring the snort of amusement from next to her. "Besides, I've never celebrated Christmas, so of course I Googled it and made a PowerPoint on the proper methods."
"Of course you did," Quinn responded blandly, "Please tell me you don't have any fruit cake on you."
Rachel let out a "Pfft" followed by a quick, nervous laugh as her eyes darted down to her duffle bag and then back to the sidewalk in front of her, "Nonsense."
There was a loud groan from Quinn as the familiar cherry tree, now covered in snow, came into view. Rachel stifled a giggle as they made their way up the front steps and she opened the door, holding it open for Quinn so the ghost didn't have to walk through it.
"Thanks," was whispered into the air as Rachel nodded and shut the door behind herself as she walked in after Quinn.
The Fabray house had been decorated, indeed. It had been Rachel's idea, days after Quinn had decided to stick around, to give Quinn a proper Christmas. It hadn't even occurred to her until four days before Christmas, when she saw a TV program about a dancing snowman that Quinn hadn't had anyone to celebrate Christmas with in ten years, and how lonely that must have made her feel. Once Rachel had thoroughly researched the holiday and drawn up a PowerPoint, she presented her ideas to her fathers. They had readily agreed and helped Rachel show up at Quinn's with the biggest Christmas tree that the Berry's could find. Admittedly, a nine-foot tall fir tree had been a bit much, but Rachel had insisted only the best for Quinn.
After the tree had been placed and Quinn had reluctantly shown them where the other decorations were, the Berry's made a night and day of adorning the Fabray house. If the neighbors questioned why the only Jewish, gay male couple in town and their 5'2" daughter had gone out at midnight and comically hung up lights on the Fabray house while singing classics such as Jingle Bells and Deck the House, they didn't show it.
It took Rachel falling off the roof once to decide she was better fit to decorate the inside with Quinn. And decorate she did. There were golden and silver lights strung up around the entire house, mixed with wreaths and holly. Little animated Santas and reindeer statues were neatly placed around the house. The regular (non-used) silverware and plates were replaced with Christmas (non-used) silverware and plates.
Both Rachel and Quinn had decorated the Christmas tree itself on a day where Quinn had been solid. The girls had taken turns hanging up the many Christmas ornaments after Quinn had strung the colored lights onto it. Rachel had asked Quinn what the story behind each ornament was, and so Quinn told the stories behind each as best as she could remember.
Rachel had also saved the putting up of the manger for when Quinn had been solid, and she pretended to not notice the tears that laced Quinn's voice as the blond had thanked her for the gesture.
As the girls walked into the highly decorated house, Rachel smiled. While she didn't celebrate Christmas, she had to admit that the decorations were beautiful. "Do you want anything to drink?" Quinn asked her from in the kitchen, "You still have your almond milk crap in my fridge and some other fruit, water drink things."
Rachel rolled her eyes as she locked the front door and shrugged out of her red pea coat a took off her yellow beanie, hanging them both on the coat hanger. She slipped out of her pink boots and set her duffle bag by them before padding in her socks towards the kitchen.
Rachel stopped when something in the living room caught her gaze.
There were three presents under the Christmas tree, instead of just the one from Rachel. The curious brunette turned and headed into the living room instead of the kitchen and bent down to inspect the tags. Rachel clutched at her chest as tears welled up in her eyes. Under Quinn's Christmas tree sat the present from her, as she had placed it, and two new ones. To Quinn, Love Leroy; To Quinnie, Love Hiram. "I love you, both," the brunette whispered aloud before she jumped a little.
"Are those-" she heard from behind her. Rachel nodded as she turned to smile up at Quinn with teary eyes.
"From my fathers? Yes, they are. Actually…." Rachel trailed off, straightening up and biting her lip. "There's one more, as well." Quinn sighed and said something about not needing any presents as Rachel moved past her to the duffle bag by the doorway. That morning, when she had gotten up and was getting ready to go, there had been a knock at the Berry door.
When Rachel was called down, she was met with Puck standing there, shifting his weight from one foot to another as he nervously clutched a good-sized package wrapped in newspaper. "Can you give this to her?" was all that he had said before briefly hugging Rachel and briskly walking away before he could be rejected. As if Rachel would've rejected it.
She pulled the package out of her bag and placed it under the tree, the silence in the air heavy.
"This is from Noah," Rachel said evenly, slowly, as she kept her gaze on the present.
She hadn't told Quinn about her encounter with him before and she certainly hadn't told Quinn that she was friends (and had dated) the younger brother of the boy that had killed her.
"By Noah I assume you mean Puck," Quinn said.
"Yes," Rachel breathed out, "you know-"
A patch of frigid air passed by Rachel as Quinn moved in closer to the present before speaking, "I know who he is, and I knew about you two, Rachel, if that's what you're nervous about. I'm not a moron, I remember him from when he was younger. He was a cool kid," she finished and then added, "I'm not mad that you know. I'm…glad that he remembers me and believes you."
Rachel moved her gaze to Quinn's face, "You're really not mad?"
"I'm relieved someone remembers me," was the quiet answer Rachel received.
"If it were up to me, Quinn, everyone in the town would know of your existence," Rachel stated firmly, reaching out until she felt a tingling sensation in her hand.
"I'm pretty content with just you and a few others knowing, Rach," Quinn said with a laugh, "but I'm just…shocked that people cared enough, you know? These presents…they're more than I've had in.…"
Rachel heard Quinn begin to choke up and she immediately pulled Quinn close to her, not even being affected by the fact that something had changed in the air and Quinn was solid again. Rachel hugged Quinn and allowed the blond to cry into her shoulder as she rubbed her back. Quinn was switching from solid to non-solid at the blink of an eye those days, so it was nothing for Rachel to automatically gravitate to the blond when she was about to turn solid again.
Rachel let Quinn cry until there were no more dry tears in the ghost's body.
For the first time in ten years, Quinn was celebrating Christmas. She just hadn't allowed herself to before because, really, what did she have to celebrate? That year Quinn had something to celebrate, though. She had a reason to smile at the twinkling colored lights on her house and a reason to sing along with the Christmas music coming from her favorite wind-up Santa.
Late that evening, the ghost gazed at Rachel, in a green and red reindeer sweater, sitting on the floor with Quinn's wrapped presents in front of her with the TV behind her blaring Christmas Vacation and scrunching her nose up in contempt at every curse word from Chevy Chase's mouth. Quinn cocked her head as the fireplace from across the room shone light on Rachel's gorgeous features. Rachel looked up at where she knew Quinn was, and smiled. Quinn smiled back.
"Come open your presents, Quinn." And so she did. Quinn opened Hiram's gift of about a dozen classic books that she had mentioned in passing to Rachel once about her wanting to read them. That made her cry. She then opened Leroy's gift and carefully read the title of the twenty classic horror films that the man had given her. Once again, she cried. Tentatively, Quinn opened Puck's present, and Rachel scooted a little closer to Quinn as she opened it. Once the newspaper wrapping was torn away, Quinn ran her fingers over the material of her varsity Cheerio jacket from high school. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she looked up at Rachel, who also had tears in her eyes as she saw the word 'Fabray' printed on the back.
"He stole this from me a few days before the crash," Quinn explained, "He had a crush on me and half of the time he and I got along better than Michael and I did. He promised he'd give me it back when he was old enough to date me. I remember calling him a little shit and making him promise to not make any voodoo dolls out of the material," she finished with a laugh.
Rachel had tears in her eyes, Quinn noticed, but a smile on her face. "That sounds like Noah," she said, "I just can't believe he kept it."
"I can," Quinn said while nodding, "he was little, but we were friends. He probably felt like he had to keep it to keep the promise." She saw Rachel nod her head and bite her lip, and Quinn got an idea.
The blond leaned over and placed the jacket on Rachel's shoulders. Rachel whipped her head and stared at Quinn with her huge, shocked, brown eyes. Quinn smiled. "It looks better on you."
Rachel nodded her head numbly as she pulled the jacket off her shoulders and turned it over in her hands. Quinn couldn't explain the tightening in her chest as Rachel ran her fingers over Quinn's last name on the back. "Merry Christmas, Rachel," Quinn said in an attempt to break the silence.
"Thank you, Quinn," Rachel said through tears. Quinn couldn't remember the last time she'd had such an emotional Christmas.
Finally, Quinn opened Rachel's present and gasped. "You got me a record player," she said in shock as she carefully lifted the machine out of the box.
"I was having the hardest time figuring out what to get you," Rachel admitted, "Until I saw all of the records up in the attic here in a giant box with your name printed on it. I'm sure I wasn't actually supposed to open it but of course, I did anyway, and I was shocked at what I found. However, I couldn't find a record player to play it on, and trust me, I scoured the entire house."
Quinn laughed at Rachel's bluntness as she ran her hand over the old player before cocking her eyebrow in realization. "This is yours."
"It is," Rachel agreed, "along with all of the vinyl at the bottom of that box."
Quinn stared at Rachel in shock before looking into the box and seeing, just as Rachel said, dozens of records. "Also," Rachel added, "I brought down all of yours from the attic and cleaned them all up. Now, they're all organized in the empty cabinet space under the TV. I left space for your movies and books there, as well."
Quinn's vision was blurry as she finally tore her gaze from the vinyl and over to Rachel's face. "How did you-"
"You love music, Quinn, almost as much as I do, which I didn't think was possible. I figured someone like you wouldn't have all of those albums unless they truly loved them, and to not have something to play them on is a shame in itself."
"But this is yours Rach and now-"
"And now it's where it belongs, its home," Rachel finished for Quinn, her eyebrows raised and nodding to reaffirm her point.
Quinn took one look at Rachel, now wearing her old varsity jacket before looking down at the record player on her lap. She looked around at the lights in the house and the blaring TV, into the kitchen across the hall with food on the counter and then over to the roaring fire. She was suddenly overcome with something strong, something powerful enough to cause huge sobs to wrack through her body, something that felt similar to a heart beating in her chest, hard.
As if Rachel knew, as if they'd done it a million times before, she reached over, placed her hand on the back of Quinn's neck, and drew her in for a brief kiss. This was home, Quinn thought. The house she had been hiding from the world in for ten years was finally a home. Her home. With Rachel there, with the life Rachel had brought into it, it was finally a home. Quinn ignored the ever darkening bags under the Rachel's eyes and the nagging fear at the back of her mind as she leaned over and kissed Rachel again, tugging at her bottom lip with both of her own.
She had someone who remembered her, two men who cared about her, and a girl who (Quinn hoped to God) loved her. Quinn hoped to God that Rachel loved her, because Quinn had never loved someone more in her life than she loved Rachel. Maybe she couldn't always protect Rachel, but she could love her. For then, that was enough.