Still off the Key of Reason
Chapter 23: Small Bump
Rachel sat on the bed, slowly increasing the pressure of her knees in Quinn's back to see how long it would take for her wife to wake up. It was cold, and it was Rachel's birthday, and Quinn had slept for a good ten hours, so Rachel had no qualms about playing games with her slumber.
Quinn was sprawled with her two left limbs dangling haphazardly over the edge of the bed. If Rachel pushed hard enough with her knees, she could flop her wife right down to the ground.
Turn her into a puppet, maybe, because that's how deeply Quinn slept.
Quinn, her pregnant wife, who didn't need to be propelled to the floor at the moment.
Rachel sat back and settled on another method. She could really only see Quinn's cheek because Quinn's hair was splayed out-where Rachel had been running her hands through it, trying to get it to stand up-and the rest of her body was cocooned in blankets.
It really was very cold. Rachel wrapped a fleece around her own shoulders and then leaned forward, careful not to tip herself over Quinn and right off the bed.
"Baby." Rachel whispered, prodding Quinn's cheek with a cold finger.
No response.
"Baby, sweetie, sugar-pie, cutie, darling, honey-bunch, lovely, bear."
Quinn's nose scrunched up.
Rachel ran cool fingers over her cheek. "Are you awake? I know you're awake."
"Go 'way." Quinn grumbled, tipping herself further off the edge.
Rachel lifted an eyebrow and seized a handful of Quinn's blankets to prevent her from slipping to the floor.
"It's my birthday." Rachel remarked right in Quinn's ear.
Quinn groaned. "Rachel, get lost."
Rachel scoffed. She moved from Quinn's head to her belly, or where her belly was supposed to be, because really it was just a mountain of downy comforter and fleece and red pajamas, but she managed to find the small bump. She rested her hand on it fondly.
"Mommy's being grumpy, isn't she baby?" She made sure her voice was loud enough for Quinn to hear. "And she's about to roll herself right over the edge of the bed. That'll be fun, won't it? Like your first roller coaster ride!"
Quinn shifted slightly, surreptitiously, backwards, and Rachel smirked.
"She's irritating as well." Rachel informed their baby, lifting up a little to see Quinn's face. "She steals all the blankets and then throws them on the floor when she gets too hot, so I wake up freezing and have to get out of bed at three in the morning to pick them all back up."
Quinn blindly flailed an arm backwards, catching Rachel in the head before more gently patting down her dark hair, like an apology. Rachel squirmed away from the hand like it had a mind of its own.
"But it's okay if you're just like her." Rachel whispered, leaning up a little to pry the covers away from Quinn's upper body without Quinn noticing. It was a task.
"I can't wait to meet you. For you to squeeze my thumb and smile at me for the first time."
The baby could do anything really, punch her in the face with its tiny little fist, and Rachel would break down in tears of joy.
Rachel peeled back the quilt, the sheet, two fleece blankets, and a robe, and finally found Quinn's body. Quinn's protests had died down, but her face was turning redder from hanging over the bed.
Rachel settled lightly on top of her, supporting most of her own weight, and palmed Quinn's cheek.
"Your hands are freezing." Quinn mumbled, rolling onto her back and blinking up at Rachel. "What are you-have you been playing in ice water?"
Yes. That's exactly how Rachel liked to spend her mornings.
"Bear, it's my birthday."
Quinn licked her lips. "I'm aware."
"You told me to get lost."
"And you didn't."
Rachel grinned. "I'm very persistent." She brushed the hair out of Quinn's eyes and tilted forward so that their noses brushed together.
Quinn hummed. "Like a chronic illness."
Rachel exaggerated her gasp.
"You just keep coming back." Quinn's eyes sparkled. "You're always here. Don't you have anything better to do?"
"Not really." Rachel shrugged. "My other wife and kids aren't nearly as needy as you are."
Quinn finally laughed and wrapped her arms around Rachel's body, squeezing tightly. "No, you love me best." She said into Rachel's hair.
"Only if you get out of bed for my birthday." Rachel responded, muffled by the pillow.
Quinn squeezed tighter.
Rachel chuckled. "I love you best. Most. You and only you. And our baby who likes onions."
"That shouldn't be a descriptive factor of our child."
"It's the only thing we know about it." Rachel argued, wriggling out of Quinn's hug, only to go back in for a kiss.
Quinn hummed against Rachel's lips, and she was so warm and that little bump was right there, and Rachel gently tugged up her shirt, revealing a swelling of smooth pale skin. Quinn lurched when the shirt passed her breasts, hissing, and Rachel thought for a moment that she was about to be flung off the bed.
"What is it? Are you going to be sick?" She questioned hurriedly, already calculating if she could flip over the edge of the bed and land on her feet in time to grab the small trash can.
Like a cat. Rachel was nimble. She could do it.
Quinn looked distractedly up at her. "I haven't been sick in two weeks. My…boobs are sore."
She looked confused at this revelation, even though they'd both expected it.
Rachel's gaze dropped automatically to her wife's bare chest. She narrowed her eyes at the nipples. They didn't look like they would be sore, maybe just a little red. Rachel ran her fingers along the swell to check.
"Stop examining them." Quinn whispered.
Rachel tapped a finger against Quinn's sternum. "Sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you, baby."
Quinn smiled. "You couldn't hurt me."
"I could, but I never would." Rachel corrected. "You smile like sunbeams and save me loads of money on vet bills."
Quinn laughed loudly. "Get lost, Rachel. Leave me alone."
"How do we do this?" Rachel asked, ignoring the statement and gesturing vaguely down at their bodies.
Quinn's laughter faded to a smile, and she sat up abruptly and rolled Rachel over, and Rachel was stricken with panic for a second that she was finally being tossed over the edge of the bed. But Quinn pulled her back and climbed down to Rachel's knees, and Rachel's eyes widened when Quinn's fingers hooked in the waistband of her pajama pants.
"Baby, you don't have to-"
"It's your birthday." Quinn interrupted, carefully pulling the pajamas over Rachel's feet without taking the wooly socks with them. She feigned confusion. "Didn't you know that?"
Rachel snorted.
"Just…don't touch…" Quinn trailed off and glanced down at her own breasts.
"Don't touch your boobies." Rachel recited, nodding. She smiled when Quinn's cheeks turned red, because really, was Quinn not aware of where her head was right now?
"I love you. And happy birthday." Quinn said, finally.
And Rachel would've responded, but she had to suck in a breath of air instead. It was off to a good start.
~oooooooooo~
"I balanced our budget."
Rachel blinked across the table, strewn with placemats and empty appetizer plates, and wondered how this was a birthday present. Maybe Quinn had bought something so massive that it required the overhaul of their finances.
"I…looked at our income and savings and expenses, and factored in basic baby costs, overestimating because that's better than coming up short, and I came up with a budget and a plan for the nursery."
Rachel processed this. She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes in thought. "That's-why has that never crossed my mind?"
"What?"
"A budget!" Rachel's eyes grew wide. What had she been planning on doing, flinging cash at their baby? "I never even considered that! Oh my-"
"Rachel." Quinn reached across the table and stilled Rachel's flailing hand.
"And we should be saving for college." Rachel plowed right on. "Should we start a trust fund? How expensive are toddler dance classes these days? Oh my God, Quinn, college costs hundreds of thousands of dollars!"
Quinn looked alarmed. "Rachel, baby, stop."
Rachel's mouth hung open and she stared at her wife.
"We have plenty-we're not lacking in any department when it comes to finances." Quinn explained slowly. "I just wanted to delineate it all so I have it right in front of me."
Rachel closed her mouth.
"Just to be prepared, right?" Quinn asked, smiling slightly. "I thought you'd like that. I know-I know you've been too busy to do it yourself."
"We have hundreds of thousands of dollars for college?" Rachel checked, leaning in, wide-eyed.
Quinn tapped each of her knuckles. "We'll have enough, little bear. I found absolutely nothing to worry about."
"What if college costs a million dollars by the time the baby grows up?"
Quinn looked amused. "College will not cost a million dollars, Rachel."
Rachel was skeptical. She remembered Quinn asking Lisa for help to pay for NYU. If Lisa hadn't said yes, Rachel probably would've anonymously wired the money to the school just so that Quinn could attend. Slithered in through a window and added it to the records
"Even if it does, our baby's still going." Rachel said resolutely.
Quinn nodded. "If he or she wants."
"Even if we have to rob a bank."
Quinn hooked her feet around Rachel's ankle under the table.
"Did you say you planned the nursery?" Rachel asked, letting her hand go limp so that Quinn could play with her wedding band.
Quinn bit her lip. "I-had some help from Kurt. I just wanted-we make-we made some drawings, of the walls and furniture placement, and then you and I would do all the details, of course."
Rachel smiled softly. "You have drawings?"
Quinn cleared her throat and pulled her hand away from Rachel's to reach into her bag. She came out with several folded sheets of paper, but made no move to show them to Rachel.
Rachel watched her expectantly.
"You don't-I mean, you don't even need to see them. They're probably-"
"That's my birthday present, right?" Rachel questioned, eyeing the papers.
Quinn hesitated. "It's not…a very good one."
Rachel had to smile. She leaned across the table, careful not to dip her clothing in their drinks, and took Quinn's hand. "Bear, you're carrying our baby." She whispered.
"That's not a present." Quinn rolled her eyes.
"Quinn! That's-that's better than any present. It's a life. It's-" Rachel waved an arm through the air. "I don't even know. You're giving me a person."
Quinn tried to suppress her smile. "I'm just making another one of me who can love you better than I can."
Rachel almost burst into tears on the drawings that were being unfolded in front of her.
"This one's for a boy." Quinn began, not noticing how hard Rachel was working to contain herself. Rachel swallowed everything down and watched Quinn's face, which was focused on the paper.
"There are pastel walls, pale green or blue, and whatever color we don't use will the color of the animal outlines." Quinn described. "We have-we have a dinosaur on one wall and an elephant on the other, all as tall as the ceiling, and Kurt has all these posters, like Beauty and the Beast and Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang."
Rachel finally dropped her eyes to the drawings, immediately pleased with what she saw. And immediately on the cusp of another breakdown.
"And I've-I've only looked online, but they have these classic Pooh Bear borders to match baby linens, and they have some with penguins and other things, and did you know that duck billed platypuses can store six hundred worms in their cheeks?"
The only thing that came bursting out of Rachel's mouth is "I love you," and Quinn seemed surprised, but pleased.
"And, for a girl, we have green or yellow, with a giraffe and a star, and the same linens and everything."
"It's perfect."
"Really? Because-"
"No, I want this. Can we paint it ourselves?"
Quinn nodded quickly. "Absolutely!"
"It's beautiful, Quinn."
"And I think we should pay for your fathers' house." Quinn blurted. She shook her head around and curled her hand into a fist like that leap had been unplanned.
Rachel furrowed her brow. "You-what? Really?"
"Just-they-they won't be working as much, and we're really set, so I thought we could help."
"I've tried sending money home, Quinn," Rachel smiled wryly. "They really don't want it. They're perfectly fine."
Quinn nodded slightly and then dropped her gaze to her drink.
"Okay. What about-maybe we could do it for Lisa?"
Rachel hummed thoughtfully, a little surprised. She watched Quinn's eyes trace the ice cubes in her lemonade.
"Hey." She said after a minute when Quinn still hadn't looked up. "Bear. Do I have chocolate on my face?"
Quinn met her eyes automatically, and then snorted lightly when Rachel grinned.
"Does Lisa need help?" Rachel asked while she had Quinn's attention. "Or would you just like to take care of her?"
"She has medical bills."
Rachel frowned. Had she blocked something out of her memory? "What kind of medical bills? Is she alright? Why didn't I know about this?"
Quinn took Rachel's hand and interlocked their fingers. "She's having kidney problems. She's had several tests and I'd just like to help her."
"Why didn't you tell me?" Rachel asked again, eyes flitting between Quinn's..
Quinn faltered. "I don't-I'm not used to having a family to tell you about, even though I tell you everything; it just never…occurs to me, I guess. And I don't know what the…protocol is."
Rachel pressed her toes against Quinn's boots. "Protocol?"
Quinn shook her head around. "It's not-coming out-this isn't-"
Rachel let her work it out.
"Like-how-how do I talk to her? When I go and see her, do I make moronic small talk, and who do I tell? Do I pay for it all? Does anybody care? And if they do care, are they just faux sympathetic dumbasses who don't really care?"
"Quinn, baby."
Quinn flushed and played with her straw, clamping her mouth shut.
"That's why you should've told me." Rachel remarked softly. "I can help. I can talk you through it, like you do with me. I care, and our friends care, and it would be lovely if we could help your aunt."
Quinn smiled slightly. "Thank you."
Rachel shook her head. "Don't thank me. This is what family does. That little baby of ours is going to be the one taking care of us when we're old like elephants and eat nothing but chocolate pudding."
"And roll in the mud, right?" Quinn knocked her boot into Rachel's leg.
Rachel was about to respond when she saw a fleet of waitresses making their way through the restaurant towards her table.
"We'll-I'm sure we can help Lisa out, Quinn." She said distractedly.
There was no way they could be doing this. Wasn't it a formal restaurant? Had they no shame? She eyed the cake in the waitresses' hands and the sparkle in Quinn's eyes and just let it roll. Throw it out there and let it go.
This was happening.
She wore the crown they gave her and sang along to their birthday song, because she was Rachel Berry, and it was like the whole thing had been customized around her personality. Shining and glittering and over-the-top and just a little bit obnoxious. She'd never gotten a crown before.
Of course Quinn would be the first to give her one.
~oooooooooooo~
Rachel was always up for new experiences. New ways to spend the day and new people to meet, new things to eat, and she'd always find the good in these experiences, even if there wasn't much and the best she could come up with was well, at least the Cajun clams only kept me vomiting for a couple hours.
So Rachel was only mildly frustrated when Quinn was called on Christmas day to assist in emergency tooth extraction surgery for a tiger.
It was a brand new experience. A novel Christmas. Standing in a veterinary field house watching Quinn don her scrubs and eyeing the massive anesthetized cat draped over the surgery table in the next room.
It was a large room, white and stainless steel, much like a human hospital, except the surgery table here was about three times as wide and could hold eight hundred pounds. A bear. A tiger. There were slings hanging from the ceiling to assist in moving the animals, and Quinn stood next to a tray holding various saws and knives.
Not scalpels. Actual knives. Large, heavy-duty butcher knives. Serial killer knives. A set of clamps that looked like they could fit around Rachel's head.
"Will this hurt him?" Rachel asked one of the vet techs who stood with her on the other side of the glass.
"He's knocked out. He won't feel a thing."
"He doesn't look-I mean, he looks alright. Healthy." Rachel ventured cautiously. "Did this really have to happen on Christmas?"
The woman nodded. "He has an abscessed tooth infection. Hasn't eaten for a week."
Rachel frowned. That was no fun. Just this morning Cornelius had eaten a carton of leftover Chinese, eggshells from the trash, and strips of Christmas ham in his breakfast.
"Dr. Fabray and Dr. Martin are just taking the tooth out."
Berry-Fabray, Rachel almost corrected.
Quinn had a gloved hand wrapped around the tiger's tongue. Rachel winced at how she man-handled it, tugging and twisting until it was secured outside of the mouth.
"What's his name?" she wondered, spiraling into some kind of love with this giant cat. She'd take him home for Christmas, give him all the food he could eat.
"Baloo."
Rachel smiled automatically. "Like the bear."
A sloth bear, according to Quinn.
"He lives at a rescue upstate. Somebody previously had him as a pet, and he was neglected and then seized by animal control."
Maybe Rachel wouldn't take him home.
Quinn now had her entire fist in the tiger's mouth. Her pregnant wife had her hand in a tiger's mouth. Baloo's paw, larger than Rachel's face, dangled slightly over the edge of the table and grazed Quinn's thigh.
Rachel was a little anxious.
"And there's-there's no chance he could wake up?" she checked with the tech, already imagining the tiger rising and swiping and taking Quinn out with a single blow. Maybe shutting his mouth and catching Quinn's arm halfway down his throat.
"These people know what they're doing."
Baloo wouldn't hurt anybody. Rachel chose to trust her striking, stripy new best friend with the giant teeth.
"Do you have many animal…accidents?" Rachel asked, not really sure if she wanted to hear the answer. It could send her around the bend. Quinn being mauled by a bear had previously only been a laughable impossibility.
If anybody here was going to get mauled by a bear, it would be Quinn.
"We anesthetize any large mammals we work on," the tech said, gesturing at the tiger, "and getting a dart in them can be dangerous. We've all been kicked by the petting zoo animals, and bitten and pecked by the penguins, and a few weeks ago one of our red pandas caught somebody's arm with her claws, and she had to have that stitched up."
Okay. Rachel breathed deeply. Quinn was working in a deathtrap.
"And I'm sure Quinn told you about the sea lion that knocked her down. Massive bruise that left on her back."
Rachel gasped.
The woman's eyes went wide. "It's all minor, though. It comes with the job. You know, wild animals."
Quinn was sawing away at something inside Baloo's mouth, brow furrowed and face covered by her mask, and Rachel was proud, but really, why couldn't Quinn have gone into small animals instead? Like rabbits. Toothless rabbits.
Or lizards, non-poisonous and non-bitey.
Butterflies.
The doctors extracted the tooth, and Quinn took a soldering iron to the nerves, and Rachel was just a little bit horrified, but then Quinn finished and suctioned away the blood and finally took her hands out of Baloo's mouth, and Rachel could breathe again.
Quinn stepped out of the surgery room and peeled off the mask and scrubs and bandana holding her hair back, and approached Rachel with a smile, which faded rapidly because Rachel was making some kind of facial expression she had no control over.
"Quinn Fabray." Rachel said sharply, pulling her wife off to the side.
Quinn's eyes went wide. Wide and confused.
"Don't you look at me like that." Rachel instructed. She felt like grabbing Quinn's scrub top and pushing her against the wall to make this more dramatic.
"Rachel, what-"
"You were shoved by a sea lion?!" Rachel screeched, belatedly realizing how ridiculous that sounded.
Quinn's mouth dropped open.
"You were knocked down by a sea lion, and you received a quote massive bruise, and you didn't tell me?!"
"Who are you quoting?" Quinn asked incredulously.
"Don't change the subject!"
Quinn bit her tongue, looking very much like she was trying not to laugh. She fixed her expression and gazed somberly down at Rachel.
"Why didn't you tell me you were attacked by an animal?!" Rachel demanded, lowering her voice a bit.
Quinn scoffed. "I wasn't attacked, Rachel. Sea lions like to throw their weight around."
Like fuel to the fire.
Rachel reached for the hem of Quinn's shirt. "I never saw that bruise. Was it-"
"No, baby, it was months ago." Quinn cut her off and gently encircled Rachel's wrist, preventing her from lifting her shirt for all to see.
Rachel pouted, losing a bit of her fire.
"It was only there for a couple days." Quinn assured, lips twitching. "Your informant was exaggerating."
Rachel took her hand back and played with the string on Quinn's scrub pants.
"I can't believe you were attacked." She muttered.
Quinn chuckled and ducked to catch her eyes. "I wasn't attacked. I'm never going to put myself in a position to be attacked."
"I don't want you to get hurt." Rachel put a hand on Quinn's bump. "Or baby."
Quinn brushed the dark hair out of Rachel's eyes.
"Maybe you could start taking time off soon." Rachel suggested sheepishly. "I know you're only twelve weeks along, but-"
"Rachel." Quinn interrupted. "No, babe. I've been here for less than a year. I can't take time off until I need it. At least a few more months."
Rachel exhaled sharply, frustrated. "Then tell me when sea lions hit you."
Quinn bit her cheek.
"Tell me, please, and I won't fret, or go crazy, or do whatever you expected me do."
"I didn't want to worry you." Quinn leaned sideways into the wall and watched Rachel's small fingers mess with her pants.
"I just want to give you ice, and maybe some Band-Aids, and make you cookies, and make you feel better." Rachel stated. "And if you refuse to take time off-"
"You really can't expect me to do that." Quinn remarked, smiling slightly. "Rachel, if you were carrying this baby, I would have to drag you off stage just so you could give birth."
Rachel narrowed her eyes and dropped Quinn's pants string.
"I am not so unreasonable, Quinn."
"I thought you were going to punch me when I walked out here."
Rachel turned to look through the glass so that Quinn wouldn't see her smile. Quinn stepped closer and put her hands on Rachel's hips.
"I come home every single day. I'm safe." She assured. She shifted her hands to pull the fuzzy mittens out of Rachel's jacket pockets, and then she put them on and tapped Rachel's nose.
Rachel snorted a laugh. "You just had your hands in a tiger's mouth. And those are too small for you."
Quinn squeezed Rachel's cheeks together. "Would you like to see the polar bears, behind the scenes?" she asked with a smile. "You can check all of our safety equipment firsthand."
Of course Rachel did. What better way to spend Christmas?
~ooooooooooooo~
Blaine and Kurt's wedding took place at the Loeb Boathouse in Central Park. French doors and a deck overlooking the water- frozen now, but not strong enough for ice skating- gave Blaine his outdoor wedding, and quelled Kurt's fears about swarms of locusts and back-country wildlife.
Rachel stood near Kurt, sandwiched between Puck and Santana, and stared across the aisle at Quinn. They all wore mid-length royal blue dresses which matched Blaine's bow-tie and Kurt's vest, and they held bouquets of white flowers infested with some kind of insect, which Rachel kept flicking towards Santana.
Santana couldn't protest out loud because Kurt had already threatened to throw her out of the wedding for telling the ring-bearer that it was safe to go sliding on the thin ice.
Blaine's little cousin hadn't been stupid enough to believe her.
Santana flicked the bugs on her own bouquet right back at Rachel.
The room was quiet while Blaine and Kurt put the rings on each other's fingers. Rachel looked down at her own gold band and smiled smugly because no wedding could beat hers. Mostly because of who she married.
"Oh my God."
Rachel head shot up at Quinn's voice, murmured but audible in the empty room. Quinn's eyes were wide and focused on the floor, a hand on her belly, flowers off to the side.
Rachel almost lunged across the altar.
Blaine and Kurt had only faltered for a second, eyeing Quinn before finishing with their rings, and Quinn flushed to her ears when she realized that everybody was looking at her.
Rachel telepathically tried to get her attention across the aisle, frantically widening her eyes and humming like Quinn would be able to pick up a frequency that nobody else could.
Santana looked at her like she was ridiculous. "You're gonna give yourself an aneurysm." She muttered into Rachel's ear.
Rachel ignored her. What if Quinn was having the baby? At fifteen weeks, and Rachel would have to deliver her premature child on the altar of the Anderson-Hummel wedding.
Brittany elbowed Quinn and Quinn finally looked up and caught Rachel's eye, a little taken aback by her urgent, intense, soul-piercing expression.
Rachel mouthed, Are you okay?
Quinn nodded and moved her lips, but it was too complicated for Rachel to read. She shook her head, and Quinn pointed at her belly and then made a motion with her hands that Rachel didn't understand. She glanced at Santana to find that she was watching Quinn with the same expression of what the fuck.
Quinn frowned at them. It moved, she mouthed, enunciating carefully and tapping her belly again.
Rachel gasped, drawing the attention of Kurt, who eyed Santana suspiciously. Santana didn't notice because she was occupied with preventing Rachel from diving across the aisle to her little moving baby.
Quinn held her hand up to say stop yourself. Rachel complied.
She waited for the end of the vows and cried when Blaine kissed Kurt, and then spun him, dipped him, and kissed him again. She cheered when they turned to walk back down the aisle, shoved away the insect bouquet Santana was shaking in her face, and made it to Quinn in two short strides.
"You felt it move?!" She questioned, far too loudly because she'd been holding it in so long.
Quinn grinned and nodded, bending forward a little so that Rachel wouldn't feel the need to yell.
"But it's-I want to feel!" Rachel declared, reaching a hand out. "It's not kicking, right?"
Santana popped up at her side. "It'll kick you if it has any sense."
"It's not kicking anybody." Quinn held her small bump protectively. "It just-I felt it move. Like a flutter."
"So you interrupted the ceremony to let everybody know."
"Santana, she didn't interrupt-"
"Maybe you imagined it." Brittany offered helpfully. She watched a bug crawl up her arm, obviously having decided that they were harmless. "Or maybe it's trying to climb out of you."
Quinn stared at her and then caught Rachel's eye. "I didn't imagine it."
Rachel stepped forward and blocked out Santana, who gasped in horror at the insects on Brittany's forearm.
"It moved, Rachel. Twice. I know what I felt." Quinn defended. "It was a surprise. I didn't-I didn't mean to say anything. That was…spontaneous and out of my control."
Rachel smiled and tapped the bump, and then rested her hand there. "Baby's playing games. Just like mommy."
"I said spontaneous and out of control." Quinn repeated with a straight face. "That's you."
Rachel wasn't offended in the least.
"But the baby was rolling around at a wedding." She countered mirthfully. "Dancing. Having fun. Probably feeling around in the dark for cookies and cake."
Quinn bit her tongue. Rachel watched her eyes, grinning expectantly because she knew exactly what was coming.
"Do you know if Kurt and Blaine are having cookies at the reception?"
Rachel took her hand and started following the crowd out of the wedding hall. "All kinds. Mostly because of you, Kurt told me."
Quinn looked pleased.
"Bear, there's a baby in there." Rachel said after a moment, hand back on Quinn's bump. "Moving around."
Quinn chuckled softly. "I know there is."
Rachel nodded. "It likes Jell-O and onions and games."
"Are you keeping track?"
"I'm going to be prepared when he or she enters the world."
"With Jell-O and onions and games." Quinn clarified, watching Rachel fondly.
"That baby is going to love me." Rachel informed seriously.
Quinn pulled her off to the side where they could see Kurt and Blaine having flowers and snow thrown at them outside the building. Santana and Puck were throwing snowballs.
"It's coming out of me, little bear. It's basically designed to love you."
Rachel flushed and stood on her tiptoes and kissed Quinn. She'd still use Jell-O and onions and games to whatever advantage she could.
Quinn tilted forward a second later, off in her own head. "Can we build a snowman now?" she whispered.
Yes. Yes they could. Multiple, even. One with a bow-tie, one with a blue vest. One with angry eyes and branches for claws, next to one adorned with flowers and a snow duck. And then a comically small one, out of a single ball, next to one with yellow straw for hair and a wide smile.
And a small bump under the pebble buttons.