She shouldn't be doing this. She really, really shouldn't be doing this, but yet she was. She had traced the steps back and forth between her hotel room and Quinn's at least four times before finally mustering up the courage to knock.
It was the night before the woman's marriage and Rachel hadn't so much as said a single word to her in five years. She had absolutely no right to see her now of all times, but she actually had no right to see her at all, not after she'd walked out of Quinn's life.
But Quinn answered the door, so Rachel's lack of rights was irrelevant.
"I had to see you before you got married," Rachel said, the words pouring out practically at the same time.
Quinn let her in without a word, without a raised eyebrow, without a questioning glance. She shut the door behind them and Rachel almost laughed, thinking that if Quinn knew why she was here she wouldn't dare to close that door.
Quinn sat down on her bed and cocked her head to the side questioningly. She was the epitome of calm and relaxed beauty in her pajamas and hair up in a messy bun and legs crossed elegantly. How did she manage to look like that even this late at night the day before the biggest moment of her life? Well, one of many. Rachel wasn't sure if giving birth counted as bigger than marriage. She'd have to come back to pondering that one.
Rachel took a deep breath. She could do this. She had to do this. If she didn't do this, she would force herself to forevermore be a promise-breaker, to never fulfill any of her dreams that truly mattered, and she would ultimately regret it.
She paced Quinn's hotel room floor, taking note that there was a note on her dresser. Was it from her soon-to-be wife? What even was the woman's name? Rachel had forgotten already… or maybe she'd forced herself to never learn.
Finally she turned to meet Quinn's eye. "I know that we lost touch and it was my fault," Rachel began, knowing it was no adequate way to start this, but it was all she had. She didn't have time to prepare a Powerpoint on what to say. She didn't have time to think of how she would feel after this night either, how she probably wouldn't be able to attend the wedding tomorrow out of shame.
"We did. And it was," Quinn replied quietly. It broke Rachel a little that Quinn so readily agreed with her sentiment, not because it wasn't true, but because part of her wanted Quinn to fight her, to fight for her. It was a childish fantasy, but Rachel had always loved fairytales.
Rachel felt tears threaten to take to her eyes when she noticed that Quinn showed absolutely no sign of sadness. She was just as poised as ever.
"I promised myself things when it came to you, so many things," Rachel murmured. She hadn't meant to speak that aloud, but Quinn was right in front of her and Rachel was more accustomed to speaking to herself about Quinn than actually speaking to Quinn. Mistakes were inevitable.
There was the raised eyebrow. "Was one of those things never answering any of my calls and effectively removing yourself from my life after I expressed interest in keeping you there?" Quinn asked like it didn't tear Rachel's heart in two to hear. No, Quinn asked it like she was asking about the weather or a sports game or some other stupid thing people who knew each other well talked about on a lazy Sunday morning.
This wasn't a Sunday morning even though it technically was. It was past midnight, making it Sunday, but Rachel refused to consider it morning until the sun rose. And the sun would not rise until Rachel did what she'd promised herself she'd do.
"Yes, actually," Rachel breathed. Still, Quinn showed no sign of hurt as Rachel confessed and cried silently. Rachel wanted to scream at Quinn to feel something, but that would remind her too much of when Finn had asked the beautiful girl if she even felt anything at all anymore. Rachel knew for a fact she did, but none of those feelings were reserved for her. She held no claim.
Quinn just nodded. "Well, congratulations. You kept your promise."
Rachel's mouth opened but no words came out. She wanted to tell Quinn to take her congratulatory words back, but her lack of rights included telling Quinn what to do. So she rid herself of the plight of wordlessness and continued on.
"I didn't want to. I promised myself other things when it came to you, better things. But I'm a coward at heart, as much as I like to try to convince people otherwise," Rachel said. Her mind was becoming more and more scattered by the second. Had she breathed in the past minute? Did it even matter? "My dads took me to Vegas for my 21st birthday, but I couldn't do any of the slot machines or play a single game of poker. I've always been afraid to gamble."
Rachel was sure she made no sense to Quinn, but Quinn did not ask for any explanations. Perhaps she didn't want one.
"I debated for days on whether or not to send you an invitation to my wedding. Kaity asked me what was so special about you and I told her that we used to be friends in high school but you completely cut me out of your life after the summer after senior year. She told me to just not invite you, but in the end I thought it would be my one last shot. One last experiment, to see if you'd come. I didn't expect you to," Quinn admitted. So that was the woman's name. Rachel didn't actually care, she found.
Rachel wanted Quinn to be so sure that she was coming. She wanted Quinn to know that there was nothing in the world that would stop her from making it to the wedding. But that was a completely unrealistic expectation. Rachel hated unrealistic expectations, but she had them so often that she had branded herself a hypocrite.
"I used to be broken up about it back in freshman year. I would ask Santana how you were doing, if she could get you to call me," Quinn continued confessing.
It broke Rachel's heart to hear that. She felt immensely guilty that she'd kept in touch with Santana over Quinn, that she'd kept in touch with anyone over Quinn. That summer, that one bright shining summer after senior year, she'd finally gotten to be a close friend to Quinn. And then she'd thrown it away out of fear that the "something more" she wanted would be impossible. She made it impossible by running away.
"Santana stopped asking me by second semester why I wasn't calling you," Rachel spoke softly. It was true- originally the Latina had harassed her for why she was ignoring Quinn. But she gave up.
"That's because I told her to stop. I didn't need to know why, I needed to know if I could fix it. Obviously I couldn't," Quinn responded. She glanced at the clock, probably counting down the hours until she said the two words that made Rachel physically ill if she thought about them for too long.
Rachel couldn't hold it in any longer. "I was in love with you."
Quinn didn't blink. She didn't even move, but not because she was frozen. She showed utterly no sign of surprise and zero reaction of any kind. She just looked.
"Of course you are," Quinn replied. It was the absolute worst thing that she could have said and Rachel's world came crashing down around her. She wondered if she was dehydrated yet from how many tears she'd cried.
After all these years, Quinn knew. And she didn't care.
"Y-you knew? How?" Rachel stuttered. She had to know. There was no part of her that could successfully leave this little hotel room until she knew.
Quinn sighed. It was the closest thing Rachel had seen to emotion since she entered Quinn's room and she'd closed the door.
"I never asked Santana why you cut me off because I already knew. You weren't exactly subtle. That's not to say that anyone else picked up on it, except possibly Brittany, but I noticed it that summer," Quinn answered. Rachel would have blushed if she hadn't already been flushed from crying. She knew subtly wasn't her strong suit, but she was convinced Quinn had never noticed.
"When I finally told Santana that you were in love with me she didn't believe me at first. But she came to understand. You were in love with me. So?" Quinn asked. The one word question sounded harsh, almost bordering on irritated. Rachel was getting Quinn to express emotion. It wasn't the one she wanted to receive, but it was something, and Rachel took some sort of sick pleasure in that.
"So? It was everything," Rachel scoffed.
"No, it was something. Something we could have worked through. It didn't mean you had to run away and hide where you never let me find you again," Quinn corrected. Rachel shook her head.
"It wasn't something I could work through. Just looking at you hurt because I loved you so much and you would never look twice at any girl, no less me," Rachel explained. She caught her error too late.
"Right, and that's why I'm getting married tomorrow. To a woman," Quinn deadpanned. There, Quinn had finally brought it up, the elephant in the room. Her marriage. Her sexuality, for that matter, as well.
Rachel bit her lip, worrying it between her teeth like it might ground her.
"I didn't know," Rachel whispered. "But you did. You knew that I was in love with you and you didn't say anything. I didn't know, so you can't blame me. If anything, you were the one keeping secrets." Her grief was expressing itself through anger now. Is that what she was doing? Grieving Quinn?
Quinn stood up. It was one motion, not a large one, but in comparison to the rest of her actions, it was enormous.
"What was I supposed to do, inform you that you were in love with me? No, I waited for you to tell me so that we could move past it together. I wouldn't cut you off for something like love. I would have still valued your friendship," Quinn retorted.
And Rachel exploded.
"Don't you get it? I didn't want you to 'value my friendship!' I wanted you! And guess what? Why do you think I'm here today?" Rachel yelled, hoping the walls were somewhat soundproof.
Quinn took a step toward her so they were eye to eye, though Rachel had to look up somewhat. Her hazel eyes were issuing her a challenge, one that Rachel couldn't quite interpret.
"Why are you here?" Quinn questioned. There was her challenge, but what answer could she possibly be looking for?
Rachel figured that she'd already fucked up her chances of this whole thing going well that she may as well go for broke. It was her chance to get rid of all the secrets she'd kept.
"Because I'm still in love with you," Rachel confessed without a waver in her voice. There was never a waver of doubt in her love, so why should there be a waver in her voice when she admitted it? It was faulty logic, but it worked for her.
Quinn's eyes widened just a fraction. Rachel doubted she would even notice if they had been at a normal distance from one another, but they had just been yelling in each other's faces. She'd finally managed to surprise Quinn Fabray, and it felt good.
But surprise faded into anger with narrowed eyes. "And you come here on the eve of my wedding day to tell me that? What do you expect to happen here?"
Rachel licked her lips- she couldn't help it. They tasted like tears and she knew there was a reason for that. She also knew there was an inappropriate reason she'd taken the small action; she'd always been attracted to a powerful Quinn, even when she was angry. It was wrong, she knew, especially considering Quinn was engaged, that Rachel was in her hotel room alone with her. Rachel wondered why Quinn had closed the door if she'd known the brunette was in love with her. She probably didn't expect Rachel to still be clinging to those age-old affections.
"I fully expect you to throw me out of your room and uninvite to your ceremony tomorrow," Rachel replied quickly and honestly. Quinn did not back down.
"Well, prepare to have your expectations not met," Quinn fired back. Rachel felt suddenly dizzy. Quinn wasn't going to throw her out. She hadn't planned for that. Well, she hadn't planned for any of this. But still. "I'm not giving you an excuse to go running off again so you can blame it on me. You want to run away still? Fine. But you can't point your finger at me. I'm not giving you an easy way out by uninviting you."
What was that supposed to mean? Quinn wanted her to make the decision of whether or not to come to the wedding based on her own feelings, not because she was forbidden to attend? That just… wasn't fair. Rachel realized that Quinn was exactly right, that she was looking for a way out of going tomorrow. She didn't know if she would be able to stand watching Quinn marry someone else, especially now that she knew Quinn knew.
"Quinn, do you have any idea how difficult it will be for me to watch you marry some girl when I've been in love with you for nine years?" Rachel questioned with her arms crossed.
She'd made another mistake and it took Quinn's look of pure shock- not hiding it this time- to realize it. So Quinn didn't know that Rachel had fallen in love with her as early as-
"Freshman year," Quinn breathed out.
Oops.
Rachel stayed in her defensive posture of arms crossed over her chest. This didn't change anything, not really. Quinn already knew Rachel was in love with her for years. The actual duration didn't really matter.
"But I was awful to you back then," Quinn spluttered out, her words finally losing their precision. Rachel found victory in that. Quinn was slowly coming undone in front of her, and Rachel wanted nothing more than that. Albeit she imagined the coming undone would happen simultaneously with a loss of clothing, but this wasn't one of her dreams.
"Yup. Guess I'm a masochist of some kind," Rachel confirmed, popping the first word with her lips, trying to pretend that this was all nonchalant. It wasn't.
"I thought it happened senior year when we started being friends," Quinn mused. She was confused. Good- now she knew how Rachel felt for the first part of this encounter. "How did you know you were in love with me?"
It felt like a test. Quinn seemed nervous, and Rachel couldn't figure out why for the life of her. Pre-wedding jitters? She was asking about love, after all.
Rachel just shrugged. "I could never help myself when it came to you. From the moment I first saw you I knew I could so easily fall in love with someone like you and no matter how hard I tried to stop it, it was futile."
Rachel still attempted to keep up the act of indifference, pretend that this wasn't her spilling out parts of her soul that she'd never showed anyone before. Quinn probably assumed that Rachel's talked to someone about this before- maybe Kurt or a friend from college. But she hasn't. She's let it all bottle up inside of her.
"But… you never had an uncertainty?" Quinn asked in pure confusion, brows furrowed. Rachel was stunned. Quinn had experienced doubts about her current relationship, that was the only explanation. Even if they were just fleeting, it showed a stark difference in Rachel's affections versus Kaity's. Dammit. Rachel's hadn't wanted use the woman's name. It was childish, but so very Rachel Berry style.
"Not even once. That doesn't mean I didn't try to stop feeling-"
"You had to try to stop? Not try to… continue?" Quinn cut her off. Rachel said nothing for a moment.
"Why would I force myself to continue being in love with you when you didn't feel the same?" Rachel asked drolly. It was almost funny, really. She was so far into this situation that she was starting to find humor in it.
Quinn was staring at her like she was seeing her for the first time. She was studying her and Rachel tried not to squirm under the scrutiny.
"When you came here tonight…" Quinn trailed off, but Rachel waited patiently for the rest of her sentence that would probably end up being a question. "Did you want me to tell you I'm not getting married tomorrow?"
And Rachel laughed.
She laughed fully, cruelly, because that question was probably the most ridiculous thing she'd ever heard. Quinn stared at her, bewildered. When Rachel finally calmed down, she responded.
"I don't have that high of an opinion of myself," Rachel answered with a smirk. "I didn't expect you to give up your nice, stable relationship because the girl who abandoned you years ago showed up on the night before your wedding and told you she's in love with you."
Quinn wiped her face of all expression, and Rachel hated it. She liked seeing Quinn show emotion through the cracks in her emotional armor. She liked watching Quinn lose herself, fall apart in a sort of way.
"If you did, I would have been beyond shocked and you would've probably had to resuscitate me. But the fact that I knew you wouldn't? I don't care. I had to tell you. I couldn't keep it from you any longer," Rachel admitted.
Quinn was biting her lip and Rachel knew she'd succeeded in cracking through her armor again. It was her only goal.
"You are absolutely infuriating," Quinn muttered.
Rachel's eyebrows furrowed. "Really? We're resorting to insults? I mean, if you wanted a trip down memory lane, you didn't have to pick sophomore year." She was teasing, but it wasn't exactly a nice type of teasing. She was being honest.
Quinn rolled her eyes. "I'm not insulting you. I'm trying to convey how I feel."
Rachel was a little bit stunned. Quinn was… feelings… that shut her up. She outstretched her arms as a gesture for the blonde to continue.
"When I heard the knock on the door, I knew it was you. I figured you were here to apologize for stepping out of my life and, well, to tell me it was because you used to be in love with me. I didn't expect for you to…"
Rachel waited for the rest of the sentence. She waited for Quinn to summarize what had just happened between the two of them. She glanced at the clock, noting that it was already one in the morning. Quinn would probably be sporting bloodshot eyes in her wedding pictures if she didn't go to sleep soon. Rachel felt a small sort of vengeance in that, the fact that Quinn's wedding wouldn't be perfect because of her.
Apparently Quinn wasn't in any rush to finish her sentence, so Rachel did it for her. "For me to tell you that I'm still in love with you? That I have been since freshman year?"
Quinn nodded but then quickly turned it into shaking her head. "Yes and no. I didn't expect that, for sure, but that's not what I was referring to. I wasn't expecting you to waltz in here and show me just how much I don't know."
Okay. That was… different.
"Within less than an hour you've managed to bring every doubt I've ever had into my mind and remind me that some things in life are absolute. I've only been dating Kaity for a year and a half, but when she proposed I thought… I thought it was a chance for me to get my happy ending. I've never been sure about her, though. Not the day she first asked me on a date, not a month later when I finally accepted, and not a few months ago when she proposed," Quinn explained, now taking to pacing.
Rachel tried to process exactly what was happening here. And then something came to her, an idea. It was both selfish and hopefully helpful, and Rachel couldn't help it.
"I'm going to do something, Quinn. And experiment, if you will. I know this will probably ruin our friendship forever, but I already lost you, on purpose, so I guess I've got nothing else to lose at this point. I promise there's a point to this, and I think you'll understand in a short amount of time," Rachel explicated.
Quinn gave her that look of confusion, and Rachel tossed her inhibition out of the window. She gave up on any hope of rekindling a friendship with Quinn like she might have been able to do without this part. It had been a small possibility, but after what she was about to do, she would reduce that chance to zero.
Rachel stepped up to Quinn, grabbing her by the shoulders, and kissed her strongly.
To Quinn's credit, she didn't shove Rachel away violently like she'd been expecting. Instead she seemed rather frozen. Rachel didn't make the woman suffer for very long- only a few seconds- before pulling away.
"Now think about how sure you are before you marry her," Rachel said as parting words before leaving Quinn absolutely dumbfounded in her hotel room, closing the door between them.
Rachel got back to her room and cried. She didn't go to the wedding the next day and turned off her phone so she wouldn't hear from anyone if it had even happened or not. She hadn't kissed Quinn to get her for herself; she'd kissed Quinn to make sure the blonde was ready to give herself fully to someone else. As much as she'd like to say it was a selfish choice to make sure that come hell or high water she got a chance to kiss Quinn before she died, but it really wasn't. It was for Quinn's future with Kaity.
If Quinn felt nothing from the kiss, if she was disappointed that it happened, if she regretted ever letting Rachel into her room that night… she could get married to Kaity without a second thought.
But if she felt the tiniest of things stirring within her? If her doubts were at all increased? She couldn't marry her, at least not tomorrow. Not until she was sure.
Rachel heard a furious knocking on the door around twelve, when the wedding was supposed to start. She supposed it was Santana or Kurt trying to rouse her to make it for the wedding. It was either that or one of them trying to inform her that the wedding was cancelled.
But Rachel forced herself to not wonder, to try not to care.
She failed, but she didn't allow herself the satisfaction of knowing. She would find out eventually, but her heart couldn't take it that day.
A/N: So I really wanted this to be a one- or two-shot... but I think it shall end up being a three-shot. To quote Rachel, oops. I wanted to write something angsty and unrequited, which is why I wrote a one-shot, but I couldn't leave it there. The conversation between Quinn and Rachel started running through my head and forced itself to be written.
Check for updates of "Hunger Within." And the last chapter of this.