Quinn slept until after lunch on Sunday, waking only when Rachel shook her shoulders gently and made her get up to eat. She charmed an uncertain Rachel into spending the rest of the day watching trashy television with her, and didn't leave the tiny dorm room the entire time.
Monday, Rachel's workshop classes started again, and Rachel prepared a novel-length email for each of her instructors explaining why she would be absent. Quinn managed to talk her out of sending them, insisting that she would be fine while Rachel went to her classes.
"Are you sure?" Rachel asked dubiously, even though she was halfway out the door, bag in hand.
"Positive," Quinn said. "I have a book and my laptop and my iPod and—"
"Quinn Fabray, if you even think about going for a run today, I will padlock you in the basement as soon as we get home."
Quinn blinked, staring at Rachel with a twinge of apprehension. "You're psychotic," she said matter-of-factly. The no-nonsense look in Rachel's eyes redoubled. "I didn't even bring my running shoes."
"Good," Rachel said cheerfully. She glanced at her watch and winced. Grabbing Quinn's hand, she pulled the blonde in for a brief kiss. "Stay out of trouble, okay?"
"Yes, mother," Quinn said, rolling her eyes. "Go away."
"I resent you referring to me as anything even remotely maternal," Rachel said distastefully. "It begs a whole host of disturbing questions and—"
"Oh, my God, why do I like you?" Quinn deadpanned. "Go away!" She kissed Rachel once more before shoving her out the door.
"Stay out of trouble!" Rachel half-shouted as Quinn shut the door in her face. Quinn rolled her eyes, turning back into the room and moving to settle on Rachel's bed after digging her laptop out of her bag.
Before her laptop was even fully running, her eyes drifted over to the cover of her prayer book, sitting haphazardly atop a stack of clothes from where she'd dug her laptop out of her bag. Without even thinking about it, she stretched out and grabbed it, pulling it towards her reverently. Her fingers traced of the gold cross embossed on the leather of the front cover, her name imprinted in matching gold on the bottom right corner. She slid her fingers through the pages, flipping through them absently. Notes and highlighting covered almost every sheet of paper; aside from the Bible gifted to her at age six by her grandmother—the Bible she had carried with her to every Sunday service, every Christ Crusader meeting, every Bible study group— the prayer book held more wear and tear, more handwritten notations, more dog-eared pages and worn edges than any other book she owned.
The cross that still hung around her neck felt heavy and cumbersome the moment her fingers traced over the matching insignia on the cover. Tearing her eyes away from the book in her hands, she glanced up at the gigantic wall map of Chicago that Rachel's roommate—who had stumbled into the room sometime around midnight, dumped her bag on her bed, and then made her way down the hall to a friend's room and not returned— had put up; she dug through her memories to the one trip to the city her family had taken when she was in grade school, the stop they'd made at Old St. Patrick's cathedral on their last day, and before she even noticed it, she was on her feet and sliding her prayer book delicately into her backpack. She scrawled out a note to Rachel and was out the door in less than a minute.
She got lost on the trains twice and was ignored by no less than a dozen people before someone was kind enough to give her proper directions. When she finally made it, grandiose stone architecture towered over her, and she felt infinitely tiny in its shadow; she shivered before making her way cautiously inside, stepping carefully with a fear of smiting that felt only a little bit ridiculous as she tugged her headphones out of her ears and stowed her iPod in her bag.
There were only two other people inside, a dozen pews apart with heads bowed silently in prayer. Quinn slipped into the first pew she came to, the hard wood uncomfortable and wonderfully familiar at her back. Hands resting limply in her lap, she stared at the crucifix in the front, flickering in the edges of the candlelight.
Carefully, she slid forward, dropping to her knees. Her hands came to rest automatically on the pew in front of her, fingers wound together, and her head slumped forward until her forehead rested on her arms. The familiar position opened the door to dozens upon dozens of unbidden memories of church services as a child, sandwiched between her sister and her father while they all prayed in a packed church, and her stomach clenched painfully tighter as each memory rolled through her.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled towards her knees. She didn't even know what specifically she was apologizing for—sleeping with Puck, lying to Finn, breaking apart her family, losing her child, dating a girl—but every one of her father's zealous accusations she was remembering broke her apart until the only thing that felt appropriate was to apologize to the God they had been fighting over.
She looked up at the crucifix in front of her, eyes feeling weighted with tears that wanted to spill over. "Out of the shadows I cry to you," she whispered. Her mind scrambled for the words she had memorized as a child. "Lord, hear my voice, let your ears be attentive."
She faltered, her throat tightening, and she swallowed the sob that was pushing its way up from her chest, and the rest of the psalm fell silent, her lips unable to produce the words she still knew by heart. Her head dropped down once more, chin coming to rest on her chest, and she gave up on speaking; instead, for the first time since her parents threw her out the year before, she prayed.
She had prayed every day of her life, until the night her father kicked her out of his house. Afterwards, bouncing from homeless to Finn's to Rachel's to the hospital, she had deliberately stopped her prayers, as certain that she needed find her way alone as she was that God would really come out to punish her if she dared ask for his help. She had gone to church a few times since then, but never once actually prayed, instead pursing her lips and ducking her chin as she silently emptied her mind while everyone else bowed their heads and asked God for forgiveness.
But now, slumped on her knees in a church in a strange city—torn between hating her father for hitting her and hating herself for falling so far short of his standards, between realizing that she was falling for Rachel and the persistent echo of her father's voice that said what they were doing was wrong, between determination to find her own way and the unbearable need to break down and beg God for forgiveness and help—she prayed. Though her voice eluded her, her lips moved with the words, breath coming shallowly and slowly between verses as she stumbled through prayer after prayer, psalm after psalm.
The ache in her knees and twinge between her shoulder blades told her she had been there for a long time when she felt someone slide into the pew next to her. Her shoulders tightened and she prepared herself for the smooth voice of an unfamiliar priest, and instead was surprised when a familiar hand reached out to cover where both of hers still rested on the pew in front of her.
"What are you doing here?" Quinn mumbled, not looking up.
"I found your note," Rachel said simply. "You didn't answer your phone, so I thought I'd see if you were still here."
Quinn finally looked up, pulling herself back to sit in the pew once more. She winced at the ache from kneeling on the stone floor. Rachel's hand stayed atop hers as she let them fall to her lap. "What time is it?" she asked.
"Almost three," Rachel said. She looked up at the crucifix for a long time, her thumb sliding absently along the back of Quinn's hand. "Are you okay?" she asked eventually.
"I guess," Quinn mumbled.
"Why did you come here?" Rachel asked.
Quinn shrugged automatically. "I don't know," she said slowly. "When I was little, we came up to Chicago, the week between Christmas and New Years. I think my dad had some business guy he needed to meet with or something. The last day, before we left, we came here and we all lit a candle and said a prayer."
"What are the candles for?" Rachel asked.
"Prayers," Quinn said. "Memories. People you've lost." Her eyes stayed locked on an empty pew six rows up and across the aisle from them, but she felt Rachel nod next to her.
"It's over," Quinn choked out suddenly. She swallowed. "He won't ever talk to me again."
Rachel stayed silent, gripping Quinn's hands tightly.
"Oh, God," Quinn said, her voice strangled and echoing in a church that was now empty except for them. "He's done with me. My mother's going to leave him. Devon won't speak to him, not if Mom tells her that he hit me. I broke my whole family apart."
"That's not true," Rachel said sharply.
"It doesn't matter," Quinn said. She sniffed. "It's done now, anyways."
"It does matter, because you can't blame yourself for other peoples' mistakes," Rachel insisted.
"It doesn't matter," Quinn said again. She looked tiredly over at Rachel, and the utterly helpless look on the brunette's face unexpectedly brought a half-smile to her own. She could practically see the cogs working in Rachel's head as the brunette struggled for something to say, and Quinn turned one of her hands over gently, lacing their fingers together.
"I'm going to be okay, Rach," she said softly.
"Are you?" Rachel asked, her voice somehow even quieter than Quinn's, so uncertain and quiet it seemed to disappear in the vast emptiness of the church. "You've been through so much in the last year. You lost a lot and—and this weekend was just—"
"I'm going to be okay," Quinn repeated. She sounded calm enough to surprise herself, and was even more startled to realize that she actually felt as calm as she sounded. Somewhere in her hours of kneeling painfully, in the recitation of verses she thought she had forgotten mixed in with desperate pleas for forgiveness, she stumbled across a feeling of peace that she had only felt in the past months when Rachel kissed her, a feeling that had swept over her every time she stepped into a church as a child, one that had been painfully absent for months. "I'll be fine."
"But how?" Rachel asked desperately. "I don't mean to be cruel in saying it, but you've lost almost everything, and—"
"No, I haven't," Quinn interjected. She took a deep breath. "Look, you're half right, okay? Things have been really bad, with my family Finn and Puck and the baby and…"
Her voice trailed off, and her free hand habitually moved to press against her emptied stomach. She took another deep breath. "But look what I haven't lost. I've got my two best friends, even if they're off humping like bunnies half the time. I'm friends with Finn now, and having him as a friend might be even better than being in love with him. I've got a relationship with my mom and my sister that I'd never had before. I lost my dad, but I think both of yours are better at being my father than he ever was." She paused, tightening her grip on Rachel's hand and daring a glance up at the other girl; she was staring at Quinn, open and afraid with wide eyes and quiet tears.
"I found you," Quinn went on, voice trailing off to a whisper. "And you're more than I ever could have asked for or deserved." She moved her free hand over to where her other one grasped Rachel's, holding on tightly. "So, yeah, I think I'm going to be okay."
Rachel stared at her for long, slow moments, looking torn between incredulous and crying.
"I was right," she said suddenly. An impish smile spread across her lips. "You really are stronger than you think."
Quinn flushed, looking down at her knees. As she looked up to speak, hesitating as she debated between continuing to be sappy and switching to sarcasm, Rachel's phone suddenly rang shrilly, the polyphonic tones bouncing off of the countless hard surfaces of the church.
"Rachel!" Quinn hissed, mortified. "This is a church!"
"Sorry!" Rachel shot back, blushing brightly and digging in her purse for her phone. She fumbled with it, and it slipped out of her grip, dropping to the floor. A few of the flashy plastic jewels on it cracked off. "Shit," Rachel muttered, reaching down to retrieve them.
"Rachel!" Quinn said again. She looked around fervently, hoping desperately that no one else had walked in; thankfully, they remained alone in the empty building. "Don't swear in a church!"
"Sorry, sorry," Rachel muttered. "Jeez." She flipped the phone open, rolling her eyes at the missed call.
"That was Finn," she informed Quinn, sliding the phone back into her bag. "He's called me seven times today. He's very concerned. I think he wants an excuse to go commit more felonious acts against your father."
"Of course he does," Quinn groaned as she stood up. "He's been friends with Puck for too long."
Rachel stood as well, reaching out automatically and taking Quinn's hand once more. "They balance one another out," she said as she started to lead Quinn out of the church.
Quinn paused in the aisle, hand dangling from Rachel's, and looked back up at the crucifix. Untangling her fingers from Rachel's, she made her way up to the front of the church, where rows of unlit candles sat. Kneeling on the worn pillows, she extracted a long match from the holster and lit it, holding it to the wick of one of the candles until it flickered to life. She cast her eyes upwards, thinking of her unborn daughter, before moving to extinguish the match.
She paused, and lit a second candle. Looking up once more, she thought a silent prayer for her father, as much for her own sake as his, before putting out the match. Rachel was waiting back where Quinn had left her, and pulled Quinn's hand up to her lips for a moment before they made their way out of the church. As they made their way towards the train station, hands linked, they traded analyses of Finn and Puck's friendship and who had been more of an influence on whom.
After they had exited the train and were walking back up to Rachel's dorm, Rachel paused on the sidewalk.
"Can I ask you something?" she asked abruptly.
"Uh," Quinn said. "Sure?"
"You're okay with us," she said bluntly. "You were the president of the Celibacy Club, all about the Christ Crusaders and Sunday school. You used to quote the Bible at me and Noah whenever Passover came around."
"I… that's not a question," Quinn said defensively.
"How are you okay with us now?" Rachel said. "I mean, were you always just hiding your repressed sexuality with rude comments, or did you really believe it to be wrong, or do you still believe that? Are you going to have a crisis of faith if a priest or pastor tells you you're going to hell because you're with me?"
Quinn shrugged. "No," she said simply.
"'No'?" Rachel asked, skepticism clear in her voice.
"No," Quinn confirmed. She shrugged again. "I… there was a lot I didn't know. Right up at the top of that list was what God and church and all are really about."
"Please don't use that quote from the Gospel of John," Rachel interjected. "I get so terribly sick of people throwing that at me about why I should abandon Judaism and—"
Quinn cut her off, leaning in to press a soft kiss to her lips. Pulling back enough to speak, she said, "No, not that one." She pulled back a little further, regarding Rachel levelly, with a sense of calm she wasn't sure how to handle but was overwhelmingly grateful for nonetheless.
"That one's about how everyone should love God because we owe him," she said. She shrugged. "I was going to go with 'above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins,' actually."
Rachel blinked again, clearly uncertain. "What's the difference?"
"It's not about how you think about God that matters," Quinn said simply. "It's what you think about other people. You can't love God if you don't love other people." She tucked an errant lock of hair behind her ear, brow furrowing as she struggled to translate her thoughts into words.
"The way I grew up, I thought that God was all about existing within the rules, bending them without breaking them. It's not about that. It's about people and how they interact with one another as people, not as competition for a spot in Heaven. If you love the people in your life, even when they make your life miserable, then it doesn't matter so much if you mess up or break some of the rules sometimes, because even if you do, you're probably doing it with good intentions."
Rachel gaped blatantly at her, mouth hanging slightly open. Quinn blushed, looking down at her shoes. "Does that answer your question?" she asked shyly.
"Yeah," Rachel breathed out. She flung her arms around Quinn's neck, gripping her tightly in a hug, face buried against Quinn's shoulder. Quinn's arms went instinctively around Rachel's waist, holding her just as tightly.
"I love you," Rachel whispered almost inaudibly in Quinn's ear. Quinn stiffened unintentionally, but Rachel kept her arms tight about Quinn's neck. "I'm not asking you to say you feel the same way," she added. "But I just wanted you to know."
Quinn stayed silent, simply tightening her arms around Rachel's waist, fingers digging lightly into Rachel's back through the material of her shirt.
They didn't move until Rachel's phone shrieked indignantly at them when Finn called for the ninth time that day and Quinn swiftly grabbed it from Rachel to convince him and Puck that stuffing her father's car with condoms filled with shaving cream and setting his mailbox on fire was unnecessary.
Author's Note: If you're curious about the religious references in here, Quinn is quoting 1 Peter 4:8 to Rachel. If you're wondering about semantic differences, it's probably because I pulled it from the New Oxford Annotated NRSV (New Revised Standard Version) instead of the King James that most people are familiar with. Because I was, like, a religion major, and that's what we used.
And the recitation earlier in the chapter is the beginning of Psalm 130, which I've always found to be one of the more poetic and beautiful Biblical passages around ("Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered. I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning..."). Of all of the songs of ascents in the Bible that I read over the course of my academic career, that one has always stuck with me, and seemed eerily applicable to the position Quinn has found herself in. She's been through all sorts of shenanigans, the kind that would probably make Job wince at times, and slipped in her faith significantly, but the way I look at it, when someone that devout slips up and loses that much, things go one of two ways. She either turns away from God and religion entirely, considering it a base of most of her problems, or she turns back to face it and embrace it with a newer and more mature understanding.
Frankly, the way her character's been developed on the show and grown in this story, I could see her going either way; I dont' control a lot of what the characters in this story do (seriously... they have minds of their own. It's very distracting), but I did choose which way she turned in this circumstance. Because I don't think she'd ever really be entirely happy in her life if she turned her back on the faith that was such a huge part of her life for so long, and gosh darn it, I want her to be happy. Because she is made of win.
Also, angels.