Still off the Key of Reason
Chapter 15: Making Our Way Back from Mars
Rachel wondered why graduations always fell on the hottest day of the year. She didn't even care that Quinn's vet school commencement ceremony would be held indoors, because they were outdoors right now and Rachel felt like she was living in an oven.
She'd shared this with Quinn and her wife had compared her to a gingerbread man. And then mused about what it would be like to live as gingerbread people.
Rachel learned to just keep her thoughts about the weather to herself.
It was an intense, dry heat, and Rachel was grateful for the shade of the forest path on which she and Quinn were walking. A short adventure before graduation, Quinn had said, and Rachel had agreed because her wife was an hour away from becoming a doctor.
Rachel didn't even care that her feet were aching because she never wore the right fucking shoes. She still hadn't learned.
But she was in the mindset where she was ready to drape herself across a puddle if Quinn asked. She'd be Quinn's footrest. Fetch her drinks, fluff her hair, because Quinn was graduating vet school and Rachel had never been so proud of anybody in her life.
So Rachel nodded and smiled and laughed as Quinn walked with her through the forest path, pointing out lizards and nice flowers and daring her to eat mushrooms and wishing that they would come across a wild bear.
There was nobody else on the leafy path, and Rachel could barely see the sky because of the tree canopy. She wondered if she would be able to survive if she was stranded out there.
Definitely not. She'd end up in a tree, starving and dehydrated and dying from the elements.
Quinn would probably survive because she'd just have all the animals take care of her.
Then Rachel tripped on a root and Quinn caught her arm and steadied her with a laugh.
"Careful, little bear." She chuckled into Rachel's ear.
Rachel leaned into her side, eyeing the greenery along the path to make sure nothing was about to slither out and attack her. "Guess what?" she asked playfully, poking Quinn in the ribs.
Quinn's eyes were bright. "What, sweetheart?"
"You'll be a doctor in an hour." Rachel stated. She'd been counting down the days, and then the hours, and she'd probably be doing the minutes while Quinn was up on that stage.
Quinn flushed and nodded. "That's true."
Rachel moved in front of Quinn and started walking backwards. She knew Quinn wouldn't let her trip.
"Doctor Quinn Berry-Fabray." Rachel recited with a grin.
Quinn tried to contain her smile. "Are you proud of me, baby?"
Rachel stopped walking on a small wooden bridge that went over a dried-up creek. Quinn continued right into her arms.
"Every day, bear." Rachel assured, hugging her wife tightly. "You're so smart and you've worked so hard and you deserve this so much. And all of your friends are proud, and our animals, and Pooh Bear would be proud, but I'm the proudest." Rachel said resolutely. "And don't ever forget that."
Quinn kissed Rachel's forehead and backed her up so that she was leaning against the wooden railing. She tapped Rachel's lips and then grabbed her ears. "It's because of you." She said earnestly. "You make everything better. If I hadn't met you and Barnaby, this never would've happened."
Rachel tilted her head. "That goes both ways." She stated, letting Quinn kiss both of her cheeks.
As many nights as Rachel had stayed up with Quinn to study and schedule, Quinn had done the same, losing sleep in favor of singing and dancing and practicing.
Quinn swayed Rachel from side to side by her ears. "I knew when I met you an adventure was going to happen." She proclaimed fondly.
Rachel smiled. "Really?"
Quinn nodded, eyes sparkling. "You told me you were psychotic. Of course an adventure was bound to happen. Crazy person."
Rachel scoffed jokingly and shoved at Quinn's chest. Instead of backing away, Quinn leaned down and caught Rachel's lips, trapping the bottom one between her teeth. Rachel hummed softly and opened her mouth, and Quinn stepped forward until she was pressed fully against her wife.
Rachel was only a little bit worried about flipping backwards over the railing. It was a five foot drop into a pit of mud. Which would be fun.
"Quinn…we're in public." Rachel reminded thickly as Quinn's hands trailed down her hips.
Quinn chuckled and nibbled at Rachel's ear. "This is on my bucket list." She whispered.
Rachel was certain that one of them would have a heat stroke before they got out of the forest. It would probably be Rachel, which would definitely be an adventure.
"People might see." Rachel tried again, only half-heartedly. She made no effort to stop Quinn's trailing hands or her soft lips.
"There's nobody out here except bears." Quinn informed huskily.
That was reassuring.
"And I'm about to become a doctor." Quinn continued, brushing the dark hair off of Rachel's sticky forehead and eyeing her sneakily. "Doctor Berry-Fabray, DVM."
That definitely turned Rachel on a little bit. A hot doctor wife. How could it not? Quinn was an expert at pushing all of Rachel's buttons by now.
Rachel just groaned and let go and leaned fully back against the wooden rail. If somebody saw, well…hopefully it would be worth it. It probably would be. It always was.
Quinn chuckled into Rachel's neck when she realized she'd won, grinning innocently even while her hands roamed over Rachel's breasts. Rachel watched Quinn's delighted face as she squeezed them, unable to stop herself from smiling because her boobs just seemed to make Quinn so happy.
Rachel probably needed to go flipping backwards over the railing. At least the mud would cool her down.
"You know black bears don't have to be black." Quinn informed breathily, sucking on a spot on Rachel's throat. Rachel squirmed beneath her. "They-they can be brown and white and cinnamon and blonde."
Rachel hummed absently. "Blonde bears like you." She remarked, focused on trying to undo Quinn's jeans.
Quinn nodded, batting her hands away. "I'm the one graduating. I get to do what I want today." she informed with a smile. "Please." She tacked on, probably in case what she said came off as pushy or impolite.
Rachel snorted and nodded. She didn't really care who did what, as long as somebody did something. Quinn unbuttoned Rachel's pants and slid a hand down the front, under the hem of Rachel's underwear.
She looked pleased with herself and she kissed Rachel's lips adoringly. "Somebody's excited." She proclaimed loudly.
Yes, tell all the forest creatures that Rachel Berry was aroused.
"Quinn." Rachel pleaded, squeezing her fingers into Quinn's hips. "If you're-if you're gonna do it, do it now."
Quinn obliged and Rachel moaned, clasping a hand over her mouth because she didn't want to yell into a quiet, echoing forest. She might scare the cinnamon bears, and then they would attack her with her pants around her thighs. That would be a fun story.
The only sounds came from birds chirping and wind rustling the trees. Rachel was fully expecting somebody to waltz around the curve in the path, and her plan if that happened was just to flip backwards and hope for the best.
"And the white black bears are easily distinguishable from polar bears." Quinn continued like she was talking to herself. But then she brushed Rachel's hair away from her face and leaned in to whisper in her ear. "You're so beautiful, baby."
Quinn wrapped her free arm around Rachel's back where it was digging into the railing.
Rachel's toes tingled. She choked out an "I love you," and then clutched desperately at Quinn's body to keep herself on the right side of the bridge railing as she came.
Quinn held up her up, grinning brightly, and buttoned her pants up and kissed all over Rachel's face until Rachel could breathe again.
"And black bears can climb trees." Quinn said like she'd never stopped talking. She held Rachel tightly and pressed her nose into dark hair. "They could be above us right now. Grizzlies aren't as arboreal because they're too big."
And then all Rachel could picture was a bear in the trees watching them have sex. It was odd. And then terrifying.
So Rachel climbed onto Quinn's back because her own legs were too wobbly, and she let her wife carry her back to campus for graduation.
Rachel sat with Sam after she'd changed into a summer dress and fixed her admittedly wild sex hair. Quinn had done the same. They'd see the rest of their friends in New York in a week, so Sam was the only one who'd driven up.
Quinn was not pleased about saying goodbye to free trips to SeaWorld.
There were only a hundred graduates and Quinn's name was about halfway through. When it was called, Quinn Berry-Fabray, it was magnificent and momentous and a landmark occasion because Quinn had successfully completed six years of school with Rachel by her side and a dream in her mind.
And Rachel knew what it was like to finally achieve your dreams.
She watched with tears in her eyes as her gorgeous, golden-haired, kind-hearted, brilliantly smiling wife accepted her doctorate of veterinary medicine.
And then Rachel found her voice and she screamed her head off, clapping as loudly as possible and making a fool of herself and trying to avoid being deafened by Sam's ear-piercing whistles.
"That's my girl!" Sam yelled, pumping a fist.
Rachel elbowed him in the ribs. "That's my bear!" She screamed, aware that her voice could travel further than Sam's and Quinn could pick it out in a crowd.
It wasn't really a "yelling" kind of ceremony, but Rachel had never been one for self-control.
Quinn flushed and smiled at her from the stage, nose scrunched up and head shaking, and Rachel mouthed "I love you." Quinn's eyes were shining and Rachel was crying and Sam was yelling and Doctor Quinn Berry-Fabray was ready to take on the world.
~ooooooooooooooo~
Unfortunately, Doctor Quinn Berry-Fabray woke up with pink eye on the day she and Rachel were due to begin their 3000 mile drive to New York with Char and Benjamin in the backseat.
Rachel was fumbling around in the bathroom at five a.m., trying to figure out how to brush her teeth and wondering why the fuck she was up at five a.m. and if they had any towels left that hadn't been packed, when Quinn came stumbling in, pawing pathetically at her eye and swaying sideways into the doorway.
"Rachel, I'm blind." She proclaimed dramatically, hair a fluffy mess and red lines on her face from where she'd been pressed into Rachel and the covers.
Rachel's first reaction was to laugh. She turned around and gently grabbed Quinn's wrist to pry the hand off her face. She grimaced immediately. Even at five in the morning she could tell it was pink eye. And it was gross. Quinn's eye was sealed shut.
Quinn puffed out her cheeks and tried to step forward to give Rachel a hug, but Rachel put a hand on her chest and held her at bay.
"No, baby." She said sympathetically, slowly waking up because her wife was contagious and would probably infect their whole house if she didn't do something about it. "You have conjunctivitis."
Quinn nodded. "I know. Open my eye, please."
Rachel grimaced again. That was not a fun instruction to receive. She sat Quinn on the toilet seat and kissed her head, figuring that was a non-toxic area, and wet a cloth with warm water to dab around Quinn's eye. Quinn played with the strings on Rachel's pajama pants.
As Rachel wiped away the crust, which was just a word that made her want to vomit, Quinn was able to blink her eye open. It was red and watery, as expected, and a little scary. Like a Rage virus victim.
"I don't know how I got it." Quinn murmured. "I haven't seen anybody else with it."
Rachel hummed and awwed sympathetically while washed the area. And then she pulled Quinn's pajamas off and stood her wife in the shower.
"Wash it all off, baby." Rachel instructed, thoroughly disinfecting her hands in the sink. "Don't touch your eye, and don't touch anything when you get out, like doorknobs, okay?"
Quinn nodded. "I know how to deal with pink eye, Rachel." She drawled, rolling her eyes and rubbing absently at the red one.
Rachel pointed at the motion with a raised eyebrow. "You have eight pets and one wife. Do not give us your disease, please."
Quinn's lips twitched. She shook her head.
And Rachel should've known that she was doomed from the start. Somebody was bound to get it. No 3000 mile journey could possibly go well.
Charizard vomited in the backseat in Nevada, and Rachel shut her fingers in the car door in Wyoming, but Quinn's eye had stopped crusting by the time they reached Nebraska. It was still red and watery and itchy, but not quite so disgusting.
Rachel was willing to get within arm's reach of it.
"Baby, lie back and go to sleep." Rachel instructed when Quinn offered to drive for the tenth time. "Rest your eye."
It was an odd statement. Quinn scrunched up her face at it.
"Sleeping doesn't help pink eye, Rachel." Quinn countered with a smile. "And driving for hours on end literally makes people insane."
Rachel squinted ahead at the empty road lit by her headlights. "Sleeping helps everything."
And she was kind of a lost cause in the insanity department.
Quinn glanced behind her at the peacefully slumbering dog in the backseat. The rabbit in the small kennel next to him was sitting and watching Quinn with wide, unblinking eyes like he'd been stalking her all night.
Quinn swiveled back around and pawed at her eye.
"Quinn!" Rachel chided loudly.
Quinn's hands automatically shot to the hand sanitizer in the drink holder. Rachel had been plastering it over everything during the drive. Quinn shook her head around and slumped back in her seat. "Sorry." She murmured quietly. "It's instinct. We're animals, babe."
Rachel sighed exasperatedly and reached over to squeeze Quinn's thigh. It was under a blanket, which covered everything except Quinn's head. She looked warm and soft and Rachel would kiss all over her face if she wasn't so sure she'd end up diseased.
She pointed to the pile of rest stop candy at Quinn's feet. "Maybe eat some of that, baby. Distract yourself."
Quinn dove right into the M&Ms.
Rachel kept her eyes on the road. There was something in the middle of it, rapidly approaching. A small, dark lump, and Rachel lined up the car so that she wouldn't run over whatever it was. When it was finally illuminated in the headlights, Quinn gasped and shot up straight in her seat.
"Babe, Rachel, that's a turtle!" she cried, quickly twisting in her seat to watch the animal disappear behind them. "Can we get it out of the road?"
Rachel only pulled over at ninety miles an hour because there were no other cars on the highway. She rolled her eyes a bit because they'd passed a lot of road kill on their trip so far, and there would only be more to come. Possums, armadillos, raccoons, cats, skunks.
But Quinn wanted to save a turtle.
Quinn dumped her blanket and Pooh Bear and her pillow and her sweatshirt and the bags of candy in Rachel's lap and exited the car without looking back. Rachel could only laugh. She took the opportunity to make sure Char was still breathing and to rub hand sanitizer on Quinn's seatbelt.
Then she twisted around to look out her window and smiled when she saw Quinn crouched down in the middle of the road, probably talking to the turtle. She picked him up, keeping him as low to the ground as possible, and jogged him over the road in the direction he'd been heading. He was deposited on the other side of a low fence so that he could get to the retention pond, and Quinn stood and watched him for a few seconds to make sure he would get there without help.
Rachel smiled to herself when Quinn said something else to the turtle and returned to the car.
"You just saved your first animal as a vet, Quinn." Rachel remarked, dumping all of Quinn's stuff back into her lap.
Quinn grinned. "That doesn't count. Anyone could've done that."
Her eye was red, a little demonic, and her hair stuck up from where she'd been sleeping against the window, but she looked pleased that she'd helped a turtle have a nicer day. Rachel had to lean over the center console and kiss her.
And then she hand-sanitized her hands and arms and face, even though she wasn't sure if that was safe or not, but really, how poisonous could Purell be? And then she started the car again to pull back out onto the highway.
Quinn rubbed sleepily at her itchy, red eye.
~ooooooooooooo~
Quinn lost her sunglasses at a rest stop in Iowa, and Benjamin escaped his cage at the hotel in Indiana, but they all arrived safely in New York City after only four days of driving. Rachel contracted conjunctivitis, of course, as did Quinn's other eye, and nobody was surprised.
The first thing they did after the moving van and animals arrived was go to IKEA to pick out a new bed because theirs was ten years old.
From one hell to another.
Rachel was lost. There was no doubt about that, because everybody got lost in IKEA. It was physically impossible to walk through the store without losing yourself. Losing your mind and a bit of your soul and stuffing your face with meatballs before having a breakdown in the children's department.
Rachel stood with Puck and Brittany in the kitchen department, spinning in one spot and texting Quinn for directions to the beds. Quinn was there with Santana. Somehow they'd found their way.
Rachel was stuck with her two idiot friends who'd just had to stop for meatballs.
"You look like a crazy person, Rachel." Puck remarked, leaning easily against a kitchen table. He gestured to her red eye and her spinning. "Like an escaped mental patient. People think you're gonna kill them."
Brittany hummed agreeably. She was trying to juggle three plastic apples. "Like a zombie." She commented.
Rachel huffed and stood in one spot, glaring furiously at her phone.
Quinn: Where are you?
Rachel: Kitchen department.
Quinn: Why are you there?
Rachel: I DON'T KNOW, QUINN. HELP ME.
Quinn: Baby.
Quinn: We didn't even go through the kitchen department. Can you go back the way you came?
Rachel was standing literally in the middle of the store with four different directions to choose from. They all looked the same. Retracing her steps was not an option.
Rachel: No.
Quinn: :(
Quinn: Santana says we took a shortcut through the dining department. Can you find that?
Puck laughed at Rachel's expression. She seized one of the apples from Brittany's hands and threw it at his chest. He only laughed harder.
Rachel: NO. WE CAN'T FIND ANYTHING.
Rachel: I THINK I'M GOING TO DIE IN HERE. GET ME OUT, BABY.
They'd find her body under a tiny kitchen table, surrounded by plastic fruit and mountains of plates and silverware. Rachel had accepted it.
Quinn: D:
Quinn: Just follow the blue line around until you get to us. It has to happen eventually.
Rachel: HOW ABOUT WE GO HOME? WE DON'T NEED A BED. WE CAN SLEEP ON THE FLOOR.
Rachel: Oh wait, we just found the dining area.
Puck had found the dining area and dragged an uncooperative Rachel along behind him. Rachel could already see a sign for the bed section. IKEA was just designed to make her crazy. To send her around and around until she gave up and bought everything in sight. It was genius.
Quinn: Good :D
Quinn: San says to keep Brittany away from the plastic grapes when you go through the dining department.
Quinn: Also, xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo.
Rachel smiled at her phone and relayed the message to Puck. And then she caught sight of Quinn and Santana and just barely restrained herself from running into her wife's arms.
God, she'd been on a journey.
Santana pulled a face when Quinn wrapped Rachel in a hug. "What a nice diseased pair you two are." She drawled, gesturing at their eyes.
Quinn's was fading, but Rachel's was still bright red and watery and she tried to look angry at Santana, but it just came off as pathetic. Quinn kissed her head.
"I just barely stopped Sunny Delight from buying a racecar bed." Santana continued, nodding her head in Quinn's direction. "She was ready to take it home and everything."
Rachel smiled.
Quinn shook her head around and shoved Santana's shoulder. "I didn't want to buy it. I just said it was cool." She put an arm around Rachel's shoulders. "For when we have kids. I know I would've liked a racecar bed."
"Me too, bear." Rachel assured. She'd actually had a princess bed until she was ten. She grew too big for it, and extremely attached to it, and her fathers had to sneak it out of the house while Rachel was at school to replace it with a normal bed. Rachel had thrown a tantrum and slept on the floor for three days straight.
"So, what sort of activities will you be using your bed for?" Puck asked reasonably, gazing thoughtfully at the line of mattresses and trying to keep a straight face.
Rachel rolled her eyes.
"King-sized and soft, so that you sink into it." Quinn described obliviously. "Like a marshmallow." Her eyes widened at the thought and Rachel laughed.
"And they need to be able to bounce on it." Brittany contributed.
Puck wiggled his eyebrows at Santana. "Is that what you do on yours?"
Rachel didn't know why she'd brought these people along. She turned to Quinn, who was pressing her hand repeatedly into a Tempurpedic pillow, fascinated. Quinn winked at Rachel when she noticed her wife watching.
"If we got one of these it would mold around your pretty little head forever." Quinn mused. "And then when you're gone, like at work, I'd have a cast of your face. Like how people make statues."
Rachel faltered because that was extremely unnerving and creepy, and then she imagined a statue made with a mold of her face and figured that it would be the most beautiful thing in the world.
Quinn laughed at her expression. "Somebody will make a statue of you someday, Rachel."
Oh, Rachel would make sure of it. She smiled and put a hand on the small of Quinn's back. "Do you want a special mattress, baby? Like memory foam or one that you can move up or down or anything?"
Quinn shook her head and tapped Rachel's cheek. "As long as you're in it, that's all I need."
Santana gagged. Brittany shoved her lightly and she fell sideways into a large cage of pillows, which rolled several feet while Santana clung to it and tried to regain her balance. When she was steady again, she brushed herself off and glanced around nonchalantly like it had never happened.
Picking the mattress was easy. They all looked the same, so Rachel and Quinn selected the softest one at the best price and followed the little blue line all the way out of IKEA. They'd almost had to hold hands like an elementary school class, but Puck had protested and said that it was every man for himself.
If somebody was left in the store, they were lost for good.
Nobody got left behind.
In fact, everybody was at the Carnegie Hill apartment trying to maneuver a brand new mattress up the narrow staircase. It was reminiscent of moving out of their first apartment, so Rachel was nostalgic, but she was also on the brink of insanity.
"TWIST!" Santana yelled, eyes wild and hair frizzy and balancing precariously on a step near the top of the mattress. "TWIST IT AROUND!"
Rachel was pressed into the wall at the bottom of the mattress. She had no power to "twist" anything. Puck seemed to be "twisting" enough for all of them, if how he was draped over the banister was any indication.
Blaine decided to interrupt, voice strained. "I think we need to set this down, and think calmly for-"
"We can't set it down!" Kurt screeched. "It will slide backwards and crush us!"
"Okay, maybe-"
"TWIST!" Santana screamed.
"BABY, SHUT UP!" Brittany yelled from her spot next to Rachel.
Santana quieted. Rachel hoped she hadn't collapsed.
Rachel managed to smile when Quinn's soft voice joined the fray. "Maybe we should make it vertical?" she called out uncertainly.
"Why did you buy the fucking biggest mattress in the store?" Santana cried out.
"Language." Quinn chided from wherever she was.
"Hey." Puck interrupted. "Listen to the doctor. Let's do it vertical."
He smirked at that, but then Blaine and Rachel shifted their side of the mattress up and Puck found himself bent backwards over the handrail.
"This is not a good idea." Kurt sang out.
The mattress wouldn't stand vertically because it was too tall for the staircase. Rachel rolled her eyes and resorted back to their first plan. "Twist it!" she yelled. "TWIST!"
She heard Santana laughing hopelessly from up ahead.
But then the first half of the mattress went around the bend, and Rachel was only mildly alarmed because really, was her mattress supposed to bend like that? Her end followed, and then the trip up to the second landing and into the bedroom was easy. Or relatively easily, because it was still lugging a three hundred pound mattress up the stairs.
It was dark by the time everything was settled. Rachel and Quinn's friends fled with ice packs for their hands and for Puck's back and Blaine's face, and Rachel promised to help them move if they ever needed it, secure in the knowledge that that wouldn't be happening any time soon.
And when Rachel finally fell into bed that night, it was home. In New York with Barnaby and Cornelius at her feet and Jelly at her side and Quinn bundled up next to her, red eye watering but smiling tiredly.
Quinn wrapped her arms around Rachel and blew a raspberry into her neck. Rachel squealed delightedly into Quinn's shoulder and Quinn held herself up with her elbows and grinned down at her wife.
"I'm sorry I gave you conjunctivitis." She said, not sounding very apologetic.
Rachel narrowed her eyes playfully.
"But it makes your eyes really shiny and cute." Quinn complimented, tapping a thumb against Rachel's cheek. "It brings out the brown."
Rachel hummed. "I'm sure."
"Give me a kiss." Quinn demanded, pursing her lips and lowering her head.
Rachel turned away playfully, pressing her face into the Dalmatian pillow. She mumbled unintelligibly into it and Quinn tickled her sides. When Rachel still didn't respond, Quinn stopped supporting her own weight and lay fully on top of her wife.
Rachel groaned into fluffy blonde hair. "Big bear." She laughed.
Quinn picked her head up. "I think I've almost got an interview at the Central Park Zoo." She informed with a smile. "So you have to give me a kiss for that."
Rachel gasped and wrapped her arms around Quinn's back. "Really?"
Quinn nodded proudly.
"What about the Bronx?" Rachel questioned, tapping Quinn's lips.
Quinn shrugged. "Central Park has a polar bear. I'll get to the Bronx eventually."
Rachel hummed excitedly and brought Quinn's head down to kiss her lips. "Of course you will."
Quinn pressed her nose into Rachel's cheek. "And you'll be auditioning soon and back on Broadway, and I'm just so proud of us, little bear."
Rachel laughed. "Us and our red eyes."
"We're a pair." Quinn murmured, nodding in agreement. "We go together. Forever, like albatrosses. Or beavers. You're stuck with me for the rest of your life."
Rachel reached up and squished Quinn's cheeks together. "Promise?" she asked, making her wife smile and pout and frown and pull the fishy face.
Quinn nodded. Rachel let go of her cheeks.
"I like our bed." Quinn whispered loudly. Her eyes sparkled. "I like this part best." She gestured down at Rachel's body. "This cuddly, warm, beautiful little thing that came with it. Did that cost extra?"
Rachel flushed and pushed at Quinn's grinning face. Quinn rolled off of her and wrapped her up in her limbs and pressed her face into Rachel's neck. Rachel breathed deeply. Cornelius crawled up to lie at her side next to Jelly and Barnaby stretched out over Quinn's legs.
"Goodnight, little bear." Quinn murmured sleepily. "Love you."
And Rachel responded in kind, and they were finally home.