AN: Look at that, you wait weeks for an update and then two come along almost on top of each other! Thank you for the reviews of the last chapter, it means a lot. We're really nearing the end of this story now, but we're not quite there yet. Hope you enjoy this chapter :)
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Fairy Tales and Fantasies
Dress shopping with Rachel and Kurt proved to be every bit the nightmare Quinn had anticipated. Over several hours, they made her try on a huge array of increasingly hideous dresses, refusing to accept that the wedding was intended to be a low-key, casual affair, and that a simple shift dress would suffice. Quinn knew they meant well, but, as she stared at her reflection in a ridiculous white prom dress with rhinestones on the bodice and a stiff, scratchy skirt that fell to just above the knee, she'd had about all she could take.
"That's it," she announced, fighting with the zipper, and dropping the dress unceremoniously onto the floor in a discarded heap. "I'm done."
"But you haven't even shown us!" Kurt cried in dismay from the other side of the curtain.
"We're coming in," announced Rachel, and, before Quinn could object on the grounds that she was clad only in her bra and panties, the curtain shifted and Kurt and Rachel joined her in the enclosed space, both of them pouting at her and reminding her forcibly of Beth when Quinn wouldn't let her stay up late or watch TV. "You're being impossible," Rachel informed her as Quinn clutched her red and black tea-dress against her chest in a fruitless attempt to protect her modesty.
"You need a dress, Quinn," Kurt reasoned, fixing his bright blue eyes on her determinedly. "I don't expect you to like everything we pick out but surely they can't all be bad?"
Quinn tugged her dress over her head so that she could avoid looking at her friends for a few moments. Kurt's words were true – okay, the last dress should definitely be burnt, but a few of the dresses she'd tried on had looked good. The problem was, they were too dressy. She felt highly uncomfortable about the idea of standing in a line and paying twenty-five dollars for a basic wedding ceremony whilst wearing a cocktail dress. She wanted simplicity. It was all or nothing with Rachel and Kurt – she couldn't make them understand why she didn't want to dress up like a barbie doll.
"Are you sure you want to go through with this, Quinn?" Rachel asked, mistaking her reticence for cold feet.
Quinn nodded fervently. "I love Santana," she said simply. "I need to show her how much before she moves out to LA. I need her to know I'm committed to her – to us."
"There are ways to do that other than getting married," Rachel said softly, her dark eyes wide with concern. "You don't have to rush into something you're not ready for."
Quinn couldn't contain the derisive snort that bubbled up at Rachel's words. Anger seeped through her veins at the diva's inference that she was rushing into marriage. She'd expected Rachel, of all people, to understand. Any other time, she would've been able to hold back and put her point across calmly and rationally, but her emotions were fraught right now, and her temper got the better of her.
"Says the girl who was going to get married in high school," she said bitterly. "If I hadn't been hit by a truck, how do you think that would've ended?"
She regretted her words instantly as a wounded look flashed across Rachel's face.
"Maybe we should go get a nice cup of coffee and calm things down a little?" Kurt suggested, desperately trying to keep the peace. Rachel looked near to tears and Quinn was almost ready to bolt. The afternoon wasn't going the way any of them had planned. "Rachel, please?" he added gently, and Quinn frowned in confusion as the two of them shared a glance. She couldn't help but feel like she was missing something.
"Okay," Rachel agreed with a reluctant sigh, "but Quinn's buying."
"Okay," echoed Quinn, trying to look contrite. She really hadn't meant to hurt Rachel, even if her friend's comments had been a little thoughtless. She knew that any mention of Finn, especially in a negative context, had to hit Rachel like a punch in the stomach. She finished zipping up her dress and slipped her feet into her sandals before exiting the changing room, flanked by her friends. The sales assistant gave them a scowl as they passed, obviously wondering what the three of them had been doing together in the dressing room. Quinn glared back, offloading a little of her frustration onto the woman and unaccountably feeling a bit better for it.
Kurt insisted he knew the perfect place to get coffee, bypassing several chains as he marched them ten blocks downtown. Quinn expected Rachel to start protesting after a while but she remained strangely quiet and serene, making Quinn feel decidedly perturbed and wrong-footed. Finally, Kurt drew to a halt outside a branch of Starbucks and Quinn frowned in confusion as he pushed open the door and ushered them inside.
"Kurt, why on earth did you drag us all the way down town?" she demanded, as they fought their way to a small table at the back of the coffee house. "We must've passed three Starbucks on the way here."
"This one gives extra syrup," Kurt said dismissively, before holding out his hand and looking at Quinn expectantly.
"What?" Quinn frowned at him, struggling to keep a lid on her irritation.
"I believe Rachel said you'd pay," Kurt reminded her with a grin. "I'll go order for us but it's your shout."
Groaning, Quinn reached into her purse and pulled out a twenty and a ten.
"I want the change," she said grouchily. They'd been for coffee enough times that they all knew each other's preferences so Kurt didn't have to ask for their orders before slipping off into the crowded mass of table towards the counter to get their drinks.
By the time they'd finished their drinks, Rachel and Quinn's harsh words had been forgotten, and Quinn had finally managed to convince her friends to let her wear the dress she'd worn to her mom's wedding.
"I know she won't be there but if I wear that dress, it's like a part of her is with me," she explained, to a chorus of awwsfrom Kurt and Rachel.
As they headed out in the direction of the nearest subway station, Quinn was a little lost in her own thoughts and she didn't notice Kurt and Rachel had stopped until she looked around and couldn't see them. Scanning the sidewalk, she saw them about fifty feet away, gazing reverently into a store window. She backtracked and realized that they were looking at a little independent bridal boutique. Several elegant and beautiful gowns adorned the window display. They really were breath-taking and Quinn couldn't help but fantasize about how she'd look in one of them.
"Let's go in," Rachel said suddenly, grinning like a Cheshire cat.
"Down the rabbit hole, Alice," muttered Quinn under her breath as, without waiting for a response, Rachel and Kurt literally skipped into the store.
"Oh my gosh, Quinn, look!" Rachel squealed with undisguised delight as Quinn stepped over the threshold and glanced around her at their surroundings. She had to admit, she'd never seen so many beautiful dresses in her life. There were none of the traditional meringue-style dresses here, these were simple, elegant, stunning gowns.
Kurt was already deep in conversation with the sales clerk as Rachel dragged Quinn over to a rack of dresses by the window, and began to study them wondrously.
"You'd look so beautiful in this one," she gushed, holding up a long ivory dress with a strapless bodice and diamante detailing around the waist.
"It's pretty," Quinn agreed, fingering the dress lightly as Kurt and the sales clerk joined them.
"Would you like to try it on?" the clerk asked, offering Quinn a soft smile. "Your friend here tells me you're getting married soon."
"Oh, I am, but we're not dressing up," Quinn replied, a little apologetically. "It really is a lovely dress though."
"Please try it on, Quinn?" wheedled Kurt, and Rachel fixed her best puppy dog expression firmly on her features as she silently pleaded with Quinn. "Even if you don't need the dress right now, didn't you say you were going to have a bigger wedding next summer?"
"It's a slow afternoon," the clerk said helpfully. "Feel free to try on any of our dresses."
Quinn was torn. She didn't want to cause the clerk an afternoon of work for no good reason, and she really wasn't looking to buy a wedding dress, but the wannabe prom queen in her loved any opportunity to get dressed up like a princess.
"Okay," she said, blushing slightly as Rachel thrust the dress into her arms and pushed her enthusiastically towards the dressing room.
The following hour was paradoxical in relation to the rest of the afternoon. Kurt, Rachel, and the sales clerk selected one stunning gown after another and insisted Quinn model each one, enthusing over how beautiful she looked. She'd come a long way since high school, but Quinn accepted that she was still vain enough to feel buoyed by her friends gasps and delighted smiles each time she emerged from behind the curtain. She'd never felt more like a princess in a fairy tale. Six or seven dresses down the line however, her mood abruptly dipped. As she slipped out of a slinky ivory gown and placed it back on the hanger, she suddenly came crashing back to reality. The dresses were gorgeous, but completely inappropriate for the wedding she and Santana had planned. It had been fun to pretend for the afternoon, but she suddenly wanted nothing more than to go home to her beautiful fiancée and curl up in her arms.
"Quinn?" Rachel called softly from the other side of the curtain. "I brought you another dress. You have to see it."
Quinn poked her head out of the curtain and smiled apologetically at her friend.
"I think I'm done, Rach," she admitted with a sigh. "I'm just going to get dressed and then we can head out."
"Last one, I promise," Rachel pleaded. "Come on, Quinn, please? Would you really deprive us of the opportunity of seeing you look like a real bride?"
Quinn shook her head, not sure which part of Rachel's question to address first. She'd just spent the past hour dressing up like a real bride, for heaven's sake, and what exactly constituted a real bride anyway? She opened her mouth to make a pithy comment and then she glanced at the dress in Rachel's arms and forgot what she was going to say. This gown made the others she'd just try on look like rags in comparison. It was the single most exquisite dress she'd ever laid eyes on. Pure whire, with a form-fitted bodice with diamante spaghetti straps, and a skirt made up of floaty layers of chiffon cascading like a waterfall, longer at the back to create a slight train. It was simple, elegant, and in essence, it was Quinn's fantasy wedding dress.
Rachel thrust the dress into Quinn's arms before she could object.
"We'll be just outside," she said, giving Quinn a gentle shove back into the dressing room.
With slightly trembling fingers Quinn unfastened several of the tiny pearl buttons that adorned the back of the gown and stepped into it, adjusting the straps on her shoulders, and smoothing out the skirt. She'd known from the moment she saw the dress that she wouldn't be able to resist trying it on and she wasn't disappointed. It was perfect. As she gazed transfixed at her reflection, she suddenly felt inexplicably close to tears. Ignoring Kurt and Rachel as they called to her to come out so they could see her, she stripped off the gown hurriedly and put her own dress back on.
When she stepped out of the dressing room in her own clothes, Kurt and Rachel both pouted at her and Rachel opened her mouth to protest before shutting it quickly when she looked into Quinn's dejected face.
"It was that good, huh?" she asked softly, in a rare moment of intuition.
"Better," Quinn said quietly as she handed the dress back to the sales clerk. "Thank you so much for letting me try on your beautiful dresses."
"You're welcome," the clerk said, offering Quinn a genuine smile. "Good luck with your wedding, Quinn. You're going to be a beautiful bride, whatever you wear."
Over the next couple of days, Quinn forgot all about wedding dresses and instead focussed on the time she had left with Santana before the brunette was due to leave for California. Beth had been begging and pleading to go to the zoo, so that's what they did, setting out early one morning in a vain attempt to avoid the crowds. Beth was thrilled to see all of the different animals and literally dragged Quinn and Santana from one enclosure to the next, holding tight to their hands and swinging or skipping every other step. Quinn was just relieved to get some stress free family time, and Beth's exuberance kept her so occupied that she didn't have time to dwell on the deadline of Santana's departure.
By four o'clock however, Beth was exhausted and whiny, and Quinn and Santana were equally exhausted, hot, sticky, and irritable after hours of dealing with crowds, so they headed back home. As they dealt with the rush hour throng on the subway, Santana inexplicably found her second wind and started talking animatedly about a somewhat bizarre sounding Mexican dish that she'd been craving and was determined to make for dinner.
"My Abuelita used to make it for me when I was a little girl," she explained to Beth when the five year old frowned at her distrustfully. "It's yummy, I promise."
"Can't we have pizza?" Beth asked doubtfully and Quinn chuckled, despite her own misgivings about her fiancée's recipe.
"No we cannot," she said, shaking her head. "San, are you sure you can cook this dish? It sounds pretty complicated – especially for the girl who couldn't cook scrambled eggs when we got together."
"It'll be fine." Santana waved her hand dismissively. "Trust me, Q."
Santana's proclamation, as Quinn feared, turned out to be somewhat inaccurate. Within thirty minutes of getting home, she had what seemed like every dish and pan they owned out of the kitchen cupboards, along with a multitude of ingredients scattered across the countertop. She had flour on her nose and in her hair and was muttering to herself crossly in Spanish when Quinn went to check on her progress.
"Do we have any achiote paste?" she asked shortly, as Quinn peered anxiously into a pan that was simmering on the stove.
"I've never even heard of achiote paste," admitted Quinn with a frown. "Why would we have it?"
"I need it for my dish," Santana continued, ignoring Quinn's question as she messily diced tomatoes. "And I need romerito and papalo."
Quinn shook her head blankly. "I don't know what those things are either," she confessed, watching Santana start to open and close cupboards at random. "I'm pretty sure you're not going to find them in the cabinets." She sighed. "Is there anything else you can use as a substitute?"
Santana huffed and banged the cabinet door shut with more force than necessary, causing Quinn to roll her eyes indulgently.
"Do you need me to go to the store?" she asked in resignation. She was tired and hungry, and she really didn't want to go scouring the city for ingredients she'd never heard of, but it seemed to be bafflingly important to Santana.
"You'll need to go to the Spanish market on fifty-ninth street," the brunette advised, grabbing a pen and paper to make a list for Quinn who suddenly realized what she'd agreed to.
"That's over thirty blocks away, San," she whined, pressing wearily into her fiancée's side and resting her head on her shoulder. "Seriously, isn't there anywhere closer?"
"Nope." Santana was unrepentant. She grinned at Quinn as she thrust the list into her hands before wrapping her arms around her waist and kissing her lightly on the lips. "Did I tell you that you're the best fiancée ever?" she asked teasingly.
"You suck, Lopez," was Quinn's grumbling reply.
"Hmm, sometimes," agreed the brunette congenially, as she captured Quinn's lips once more in a languid kiss. They allowed their hands to roam lazily as they lost themselves in each other for a few moments, before Santana playfully slapped Quinn on the rear and broke the kiss with a chuckle.
"Get going, Fabray," she urged. "I want to eat before midnight."
By the time she'd found the market, located the ingredients, and contended with four separate subway trains, Quinn had somewhat lost her appetite as she trudged the last couple of blocks back to their apartment. Despite Santana's insistence, she was certain that there must have been a closer store she could've used and she was trying very hard not to waste the precious time they had left together being mad at her fiancée.
Wearily, she put her key in the lock and pushed open the apartment door, her brow furrowing immediately. The apartment was dark, all the curtains closed to shut out the twilight. There were no cooking scents and the kitchen, which had been hot and stuffy when she left, was now cool and empty. Turning on the light, she saw that the countertops were clean and there was no evidence of Santana's cooking.
"San?" she called out apprehensively as she dumped the grocery bag on the counter. "Beth?" There was no answer. Quinn fished her phone out of her pocket, wondering if Santana's dish had turned into a disaster leading the brunette to make other plans, perhaps running out to get take-out, but there was no message from her fiancée. Suddenly, Quinn started to get nervous. Maybe something had happened to Beth or Santana – could they be at an emergency room somewhere? She hurried into the living area, her stomach churning, and the first thing she saw was Santana's suitcase in the middle of the floor. She looked up and there was Santana, beaming at her from ear to ear. Beth stood beside her, jumping up and down excitedly. Both of them were wearing identical grins and strings of multi-colored flowers around their necks. Santana was inexplicably dressed in a tropical print bikini and she gave Beth a gentle nudge.
"Now," she whispered as Quinn stood perplexed, trying to figure out what was going on.
Beth giggled and held up a brightly painted sign for Quinn to read. Will you marry us?
"I don't understand," Quinn said, shaking her head, even as a nervous giggle escaped her lips. "I'm pretty sure I agreed to that already."
"Turn it over," Santana instructed, and Beth did as she was told, holding the card high so that Quinn could read it.
… In Hawaii, read the sign. Quinn's heart started to pound and she was at a loss for words. She gazed at Santana, open-mouthed, waiting for clarification as the brunette swept her into her arms and spun her around, kissing her eagerly as Beth giggled and clapped.
"Did we surprise you, Mama?" she asked eagerly, her blonde curls bouncing.
"You did," Quinn confirmed, beaming first at her daughter, then at her fiancée. It was difficult to say which of the two of them looked more pleased with themselves. "You really did," she murmured against Santana's lips. Hormones were flooding through her at the sight of Santana in her tiny bikini, and if Beth hadn't been there, it would have been impossible for Quinn to keep her hands to herself.
"We fly out tomorrow," Santana explained. "It's all arranged."
A million questions raced through Quinn's mind. How could they afford it? Would they be back in time for Quinn and Beth to start school the following week? Had Santana thought of everything they'd need to pack? Beth would need sunscreen and water-wings for a start. "But I don't have a dress," was what finally tumbled out of her mouth. Her bridesmaid's dress from her mom's wedding was fine for a wedding at the city clerk's office but it wasn't at all appropriate for a Hawaiian wedding.
"It's all arranged," Santana said with a chuckle. She waved her hand in the direction of their bedroom doorway, where a long garment bag was hooked over the door. "I haven't peeked, but Rachel assures me it's the one."
Quinn's eyes brimmed with tears as her heart swelled. She'd been in love with Santana for so long now, but she'd never felt so overcome with emotion in her entire life.
"I can't believe you did all this," she whispered in an awed tone.
"Just because you don't need your dream wedding doesn't mean you don't deserve it, Q," Santana responded gently, tears slipping silently down her cheeks. "I love you."
"I love you," Quinn told her, tears of joy streaming down her face. "I love you so much, both of you." She beckoned to Beth and pulled her into a giggling, damp group hug. "But there's one thing I don't understand," she added, sniffing away her tears. "Why does the sign say marry us?"
Beth rolled her eyes as Santana explained. "Well, Beth felt that, as she was in on the surprise, and as she will be an integral part of the wedding, she deserved to be included in the sign."
"Oh, of course," Quinn said, rumpling her daughter's hair, "I get it now. And she's absolutely right."
"You still didn't answer the question, Mama," Beth told her urgently, her small face serious. "Will you marry us?"
Quinn lifted Beth into her arms so that they were all eye to eye. "Yes," she said solemnly, gazing at the two people who meant more to her than anything in the world. "I'll marry you."