Quinn woke up to Rachel's arm heavy across her stomach and a gummy feeling in her mouth from not brushing her teeth before going to sleep. She snapped into consciousness suddenly, bypassing the slow and groggy process she normally went through between being roused from sleep and being a functional human being; she was unable to place what it was that had woken her, but she remained hyperaware of the weight of Rachel's arm over her body, the sound of Rachel's breaths, even the soft ticking of Rachel's ugly clock. She lay there for a full ten minutes, unmoving out of a fear of waking a probably-hungover Rachel, before restlessness and an overpowering need to move prompted her to ease her way out of the bed. Without even thinking about it, she tugged the blanket up over Rachel's shoulders.
Rachel, active even in her sleep, mumbled something incoherent and rolled over so suddenly it startled Quinn. She kicked the covers off and curled up in the center of the bed, dark hair spread in a disastrous tangle over her shoulders; her knees came towards her chest, her hands tucking under her chin, and Quinn watched with amusement and half of an expectation that Rachel would start sucking on her thumb. She stared at Rachel, who remained blissfully asleep and curled up into the fetal position, for a long while before the jittery feeling in her limbs prompted her to slip out of the room and down the hall to her own.
Half an hour of yoga in the small spot of empty floor in her bedroom did nothing to calm her; Quinn gave in to her energy and padded down the stairs quietly, heading out into the early morning light carrying her iPod and running shoes. She laced up her shoes and stretched carefully, pausing briefly at the lingering ache in her abdomen before she started down the sidewalk at a brisk pace.
As she made her way along her usual route, her feet carrying her along the familiar streets, her thoughts stayed back at the Berry household, with a brunette curled into the fetal position and the conversation they'd had the night before. She had been painfully honest in everything she said to Rachel; she honestly did think that she was ready to give whatever had risen between them a try. Her discomfort at the possible complications—the judgment of others, the constantly close proximity of herself and Rachel, the vast amount of emotional baggage she was lugging around with her sore stomach and the risk for disaster that came along with it—was, as Kurt had so aptly acknowledged, distant second priority to the fact that every time Rachel had kissed her, Quinn had experienced the closest thing to comfort in her own skin since the miscarriage. Though she had all but sworn off romance after the multiply-compounded fiasco with Finn and Puck, it would be pointless to deny what Santana had laid out for her the night before: so far, the only thing that had helped hold her together had been Rachel, and Quinn would be an idiot not to acknowledge that.
Disjointed thoughts churned through her head, matching pace with her feet as she looped around the perimeter of the park and passed the swingset that marked the end of the second mile. Though she was still far from capable of the six and eight mile runs she used to take when she just wanted to be away from everything in her life, she was working her way back up to them. She would never be a marathon runner, but the hundreds of military-grade workouts Coach Sylvester had subjected them to had kept Quinn in excellent athletic shape, and her own stubbornness had kept her as close as possible to that level throughout her pregnancy. Rachel had complained mightily—though good-naturedly—when Quinn had all but claimed exclusive rights to the brunette's elliptical every night with her headphones and study guides.
Her thoughts once more looped back to the brunette she'd left still asleep, and Quinn's attempts to focus on her steps and carrying a long, even running stride broke; she stumbled over a crack in the sidewalk and barely caught herself before she careened into a bench. Thoughts of Rachel vanished from her head as a curse slipped between her teeth at her clumsiness, and she let herself collapse listlessly onto the same bench she'd almost run into. Her breath came out in crystallized puffs, the Ohio spring still frosty in the mornings.
She lasted through two songs playing on her iPod before the jittery feeling returned, seeping back into her limbs in tandem with thoughts of Rachel creeping back into her mind. With a frustrated sigh, she pushed herself back up off the bench and started off back towards the Berry's house. It would be useless to try and deny that the anxious feeling driving her to exercise was caused by anything but nerves about the conversation she would inevitably be having with Rachel. The obstinacy that so often defined Quinn prodded her to, as Santana had so eloquently said, grow some balls and just talk to Rachel about it.
Her determination carried her all the way back to the house, fatigue from her run not even registering in her mind, through the stretching routine that was all but habitual, and up the stairs to the door to Rachel's room; it faltered only when she raised a hand to knock and irrational fear locked around her stomach. She stood frozen, hand still raised to knock, and was a split second from sprinting down the hall to hide in her own room when the door opened anyways, a sleepy Rachel jerking to a halt at the sight of Quinn still standing there with one fist in the air.
"Hi," Quinn said awkwardly, whipping her hand down to hide behind her back shyly. A flush that had nothing to do with the four miles she'd just run swept across her cheeks and the back of her neck, and she wished suddenly that she'd given herself a chance to clean up and shower before this; serious, heartfelt conversations should hardly be sullied by the sweat and stink that accompanied exercise.
"Good morning," Rachel said. Her voice was husky with sleep, but her tone forever cordial. She fidgeted for a long few moments, visibly uncomfortable, before clearing her throat and stepping back. "Do you want to come in?"
"Yeah," Quinn mumbled. She slipped past Rachel, automatically pulling the Velcro around her upper arm loose and wrapping her headphones around her iPod. Rachel closed the door behind her and stood awkwardly where she was for a long moment, before taking an audibly deep breath and seating herself on the edge of her already-made bed. Quinn remained standing, tracing her fingers up and down one of the handles on Rachel's elliptical without thinking.
"One of us should probably say something," Rachel said eventually. "I realize that there is plenty for us to talk about and to consider, and that I should most likely be the one to initiate the conversation as I was the one who initiated this entire situation in the first place." She rose from her seat, fingers twined together, and started to pace up and down the small space in her room; Quinn remained motionless and eternally thankful (for once) that Rachel could talk uninterrupted for hours.
"I understand that you may be confused about all of this," Rachel went on. "And I respect that it is yet another significant change to your life and your way of thinking, and perhaps a challenge to your view of the world, given your childhood and your upbringing and everything you've gone through in the past months. If you want time to organize your thoughts or consult your friends or just want space, I absolutely understand." She faltered in her speech, and Quinn—still standing silent by the elliptical, her own confusion forgotten in the face of Rachel's anxiety—could see immediately that the last thing Rachel wanted to hear was that Quinn needed time or space.
"Rachel," Quinn said, cutting off Rachel before she started rambling again. "Breathe." She moved away from the elliptical, tossing her iPod onto Rachel's bed and taking a seat at the foot. She patted the spot next to her, motioning for Rachel to take a seat.
The brunette did as she was bidden, perching delicately with her knees crossed and hands folded atop them as she looked at Quinn with what Quinn was certain was meant to be expectancy, but in actuality came across as nervousness. Quinn stared at Rachel for a long few seconds, unnerved by how uncomfortable it didn't actually feel, before speaking.
"What do you want out of all of this?" she said finally.
"What do you mean?"
Quinn took a deep breath. "You kissed me," she said. "You said you could give me time to think about what I want, but you never said what you're looking for."
"Oh," Rachel said softly. Her eyes drifted down towards her hands, her shoulders slumping the tiniest bit. "I don't really know," she admitted. "I don't know that I ever thought that far ahead."
"You didn't think ahead?" Quinn said teasingly. "Rachel, you have a corkboard in your closet planning out your life until the age of 36."
"I know!" Rachel said. She groaned in frustration, pushing her hands through her hair and leaping back to her feet to resume her pacing. "I normally know exactly what I want out of things, but not here. I didn't expect that we would become friends, nor that we would be become close, and certainly not that I would have Kurt Hummel telling me in the hallway that I needed to come to terms with the fact that I'd developed romantic feelings for you. I thought that I wanted Finn, for goodness' sake; at least that made sense." She cut herself off suddenly, teeth clacking shut audibly, and stopped her pacing to face Quinn; the blonde watched her with level eyes that did little to betray her own uncertainty.
"You weren't a part of my plan," Rachel said softly. "Everything got turned upside down."
"It wasn't really part of my plan, either," Quinn said. "Any of this, any of the last year."
"I know," Rachel said. She bit her lip, fiddling absently with the Star of David on her necklace. "I think that I want… I think that I want to know what you're okay with, and what you need, and then as things progress I'll figure out what exactly it is that I'm looking for."
"Well, that hardly seems fair," Quinn said snippily, her innate sarcasm pushing to the forefront in an unintentional attempt at levity. "Why do I have to know what I want if you don't?"
"Because," Rachel said, brown eyes far too serious to be swayed by Quinn's sarcasm. "You're holding all the cards."
Quinn felt her chest pinch at Rachel's words, the earnest look on the other girl's face piercing straight into her. "Oh," she said weakly, after a long pause. This conversation was going in an entirely opposite direction than she had expected. She had anticipated Rachel having their entire situation sorted out in her head, from the agenda for their first date to how they would handle it if Quinn's parents found out to how they could break the news to the glee club without Finn punching something or Puck being hurt or Matt and Mike going comatose; that Rachel was as lost in this as Quinn was anything but comforting. She had been counting on Rachel to guide her through the mess of emotions and thoughts she was caught in, and to find out that Rachel was expecting the same of her hit like a suckerpunch to the windpipe.
"I'm scared," she blurted out. The words escaped her lips before they'd even really crossed her mind, hovering in the air between them heavily. Rachel watched Quinn with appraising eyes, seeming to consider the blonde's exclamation, before she returned to sit crosslegged on the foot of the bed, facing Quinn.
"Of what?" she asked.
Quinn took a deep breath, mentally cataloguing her list of fears and concerns. She slumped back on the bed, falling back across Rachel's comforter with one forearm resting over her eyes. Hidden beneath the darkness of her own arm, her anxiety seemed to shrink into the background, and she slowly began to speak.
"I'm a mess," she started carefully. "I know that I keep saying that I'm not broken, and you keep insisting that I am. I don't know if I'm as broken as people think, or even how broken you think I am, but I do know that I still have nightmares and still get depressed and still want to cry at random times, and I don't know when that's going to change. Sometimes I feel like someone cracked my chest open and sucked everything inside of me out with a vacuum and it hurts and I don't know how to handle that."
She paused, her throat welling painfully as horribly familiar daydreams of Sarah Noelle Puckerman flashed into the darkness of her eyelids. "I know that the last relationship I tried was an unmitigated disaster, and that the closest thing to a relationship I've had since then was with Puck, and that came apart because of me, too. I know that I screwed things up with both of them even before the—" Her voice hitched, and she felt the feather-light weight of Rachel's familiar hand atop hers.
"Before the hospital," she forged on. Her fingers twitched unintentionally, sliding between Rachel's. "And now that I'm a mess from all that, I'm scared that anyone who gets too close will get dragged down with me and it'll all end horribly." She paused again; Rachel's fingers tightened around hers and she took a slow breath. "I know that I don't want to hurt anyone like that, or like I hurt Finn or Puck or my family, ever again. And I really don't want to hurt you like that, because you've been incredible to me and you've helped me so much and you're really a better person than I ever was and someone like you shouldn't be hurt any more by someone like me."
Quinn finally moved her arm from over her eyes, squinting in the light and chancing a look at Rachel. The other girl was staring thoughtfully down at their joined hands, eyes unfocused. Quinn watched her for a long minute, finally daring to move as she propped herself up on her elbows, breaking the connection between their hands and Rachel's intense concentration.
"I also know," she said quietly, once Rachel had raised her eyes to finally meet Quinn's. "That every time you kiss me, things feel—okay again. Or like they can be okay again. Because I know they aren't yet, and I know I'm not yet, but when you kissed me I felt for the first time like I wasn't always going to be this messed up." She cocked one eyebrow, ignoring the flush the felt spreading across her cheeks. "I'm terrified that I'll hurt you like I hurt everyone else, but I'm almost more scared that you're the only one who can put me back together from where I am now."
"You don't need me," Rachel said forcefully, the strength in her soft words catching Quinn off guard. "You're far stronger than you give yourself credit for, Quinn. You don't need me." She locked her eyes on Quinn's, staring the blonde down until she could do nothing but nod meekly and swallow any protests she felt like voicing. Rachel's gaze softened, and she shifted to sit next to where Quinn lay propped on her elbows.
"And you don't need to protect me," she said. Her voice was barely above a whisper. "You're not the jinx that you think you are, but even if you were, I would know what I was getting myself into. I've known what you're capable of for years, Quinn, and it doesn't scare me."
"So where does that leave us?" Quinn half-whispered.
"I don't know," Rachel admitted. "All I know right now is that I want to kiss you again." She flushed darkly as soon as she'd spoken, and Quinn felt a blush of her own spreading across her face once more. Neither of them spoke, Quinn biting down on her lip and focusing her eyes on a spot on the wall behind Rachel's head as she struggled to formulate what could pass as an appropriate response.
She was saved the trouble when Rachel suddenly leaned forward and kissed her. Quinn responded immediately and without even meaning to, her eyes slipping shut and chin tilting up to accommodate the kiss. Her focus narrowed to the feel of Rachel's lips against hers, Rachel's fingers skimming along her jaw and up into blonde hair that was still sweaty from her run. Sometime after she blindly noted that Rachel's other hand had found a tight grip on her hip, Quinn's arms—tired from her propping herself up for so long—started to tremble, and she unthinkingly shifted, falling down onto her back and letting her hands wrap around Rachel's neck to pull her along.
By the time they parted, Quinn was bordering on breathless and fairly certain that she may have squashed her iPod, given how it was digging into her shoulder blade. Rachel's head fell to rest against Quinn's neck, her breathing as labored as Quinn's. Quinn finally let her eyes flutter open, taking in the bright white of Rachel's ceiling, slats of light patterning across where early morning sunlight leaked through the blinds.
"So," Quinn said eventually, after her breathing her returned to normal. "Did we actually figure anything out?"
Rachel mumbled something intelligible, her words muffled against the skin of Quinn's neck.
"I have no idea what you just said, man hands," Quinn snarked, wiggling her shoulder playfully. She giggled when Rachel swatted at her blindly, a noise of indignation rising from the brunette; Quinn pinched her, and it quickly escalated into an all-out tickle war that ended only when Rachel, with a surprised squeak, tried to twist away from Quinn and rolled right to the floor with a loud thump.
"Ow," Rachel muttered indignantly. Quinn peered over the edge of the bed, biting down on her lip to hide her amusement.
"You okay?" she asked nonchalantly.
"Perfectly fine," Rachel said, indignation giving way to her own amusement as she hopped to her feet. Catching sight of herself in the mirror, she grimaced and grabbed for the hairbrush sitting on her bedside table. "You turned my hair into a bird's nest," she complained.
"I did not!" Quinn shot back. She pushed herself to her feet, unconsciously checking her own hair in the mirror. It remained in its ponytail, still sweaty from her run but nowhere near as wild and tangled as Rachel's. "It looked like that when I walked in here. You have crazy bed-head."
"Everybody has bed-head, Quinn," Rachel said with a long-suffering sigh. "But this is not bed-head. This is I-just-made-out-with-Quinn-Fabray-head."
Quinn grimaced. "Did you seriously have to use my full name?"
"It added some necessary weight to the claim, I think," Rachel said distractedly, not taking her eyes from her hair in the mirror as she worked the hairbrush through a tangle.
"Of course it did," Quinn muttered. She rolled her eyes. "I'm going to go take a shower."
"Hey!" Rachel said. "Why do you get the shower first?"
"Because I got up first?"
"It's not my fault you felt the need to go running at sunrise. Besides, you got the shower first yesterday."
"Rachel, seriously, I'm gross," Quinn complained. "I ran like five miles this morning and did yoga and got molested. I really need a shower."
"Molested?" Rachel stared at Quinn in the mirror with raised eyebrows.
"Something like that," Quinn mumbled. Rachel set the hairbrush down, spinning around to stand toe-to-toe with Quinn. Quinn flushed under Rachel's intense stare, and wondered if she had actually offended the brunette with her turn of phrase.
"Molested," Rachel muttered. She shook her head, a dark look in her eyes, before smiling brightly and bouncing up on her toes to kiss Quinn on the cheek. "You only wish."
"Yeah, right," Quinn responded automatically. "And anyways, that's not the point. I'm going to go shower—"
She was cut off by Rachel reaching up and pulling her down for a heavy kiss. Coherent thought flew out of Quinn's head in an instant, and her iPod slipped from her fingers as her hands dropped to Rachel's hips. She fell into the weight of Rachel's arms around her neck, the material of Rachel's t-shirt bunching in her fingers, and could do little to hold back the soft whimper that escaped her lips when Rachel suddenly broke away and danced out of Quinn's reach. The brunette grabbed the towel hanging from the hook on her bedroom door, stuck out her tongue at Quinn, and all but sprinted out the door to the bathroom.
Quinn stood dumbstruck in the middle of Rachel's room, staring stupidly at the open door. She finally uprooted her feet and stalked to the bathroom door. "That's totally cheating!" She called through the closed door, glaring as if Rachel could see her, before making her way downstairs and towards the smell of coffee.