Pairing: Rachel/Quinn
Notes: Faberry centric chapter! Loosely Christmas themed. Hope you like it.
Warning:
Disclaimer: I own nothings, but the random ramblings of which occur in my brain. Glee and any other copyrighted content used belongs to their respective owners.
"I still don't understand what was wrong with the outfit in the last shop," Quinn commented as she pushed Beth's stroller through the mall.
"Because," Rachel said exasperatedly, "It has to be perfect."
"It was a cute outfit," she pointed out.
"But not perfect!" The young mother knew they were getting stares; it wasn't often she supposed to see two young women, both with children of their own in Lima Mall.
"You're stressing about this too much baby."
"It's a big deal," she countered as if it were obvious, "and not just because it's Charlie's first Christmas."
"You know you don't have to make an effort, you can just be yourself."
"This is the first time your mom has formally invited me over, everything has to be perfect."
The blonde stopped and pulled on her girlfriends elbow, "Rach," she looked into the other girls eyes, "She loves you as you are, you don't have to go all out just for her. All that matters is that you're comfortable."
Rachel looked down at her feet, "I just want it all to be perfect," she muttered feebly.
"And it will be," Quinn tilted her girlfriends face upwards, "I promise but it doesn't matter what you wear, ok? We're going to have a nice relaxed Christmas."
"What does a nice relaxed Christmas entail exactly?"
"I..." she thought about it for a moment before letting out a short laugh, "I honestly have no idea, but those were mom's words. Nice relaxed Christmas. In fairness any Christmas without my dad is going to be relaxed. He always made a big thing about being dressed up and making mom cook this huge meal, he'd invite people from work over and we all had to be proper and perfect...it was anything but relaxed."
"I'm sorry you had to go through that," Rachel laced her fingers with her girlfriends.
"It doesn't matter, not anymore," she offered a small smile; "He's not part of our lives anymore. His reign of tyranny has come to an end."
"I can't imagine what it must've been like for you to live like that."
"Don't," Quinn said simply, "You've been through enough without having to imagine living that way."
Charlie began to wail from her pram, "I think someone's hungry..."
"Apparently, why don't we head over to the food court? I'm not sure about you but I could do with something to eat and I'm almost certain this little monkey," she nodded at Beth, "wouldn't turn down the opportunity to suck a pretzel to death."
They made their way over to the food court and found a table.
"You watch the girls and I'll go get the bottle warmed up for Char and a pretzel for Madame," Quinn said as she retrieved a bottle from the baby bag.
"Thanks," Rachel smiled. It was nice being out of the house all four of them; it was very rare that they went out like this. She carefully lifted Charlie from her pram and cradled her close to her chest, "Shhh baby, it's ok." Rachel gently rocked her daughter in attempt to soothe her as she waited for her blonde counterpart to return with the bottle, "It's on its way sweetheart," she looked up and noticed Quinn weaving in and out of the tables back towards her, "See? Here it comes now."
"Hey, sorry," Quinn handed the bottle over to Rachel, "There was a line at the pretzel stand. On the plus side I think the bottle will be cool enough for her to feed now." She broke up the pretzel and handed a piece to Beth, laughing at the eagerness of which her daughter grabbed for it.
Charlie silenced as soon as the bottle reached her lips and she suckled hungrily. "That's much better," Rachel sighed, she looked up at her girlfriend and noticed a woman sat the table behind her staring, "Has nobody taught you it's rude to stare?" she asked rather loudly.
Quinn turned around to see who Rachel was talking and laughed at the way the woman's face had turned crimson, "Now now Rach, play nice."
"I was being nice," Rachel stated, "She shouldn't have been staring in the first place. We're entitled to feed our children."
"I know," she reached over and placed a hand on her girlfriends knee, "I know it's not fair that people stare, but..."
"But we're both young and have babies and people are going to judge us regardless," she finished.
"Yeah..."
Rachel shifted Charlie in her arms a little, "Ok, let's not think about that otherwise we'll just spoil our day".
"That is very true."
"Have you heard anything from Santana?" she asked, the Latina had moved back home after a phone call from her parents.
"Yeah, she's ok," she tore off another piece of pretzel and handed it to Beth, "things are a bit weird at home. Her mom is being great about it apparently, her dad hasn't really said much about it."
"And her grandmother?"
"Still isn't talking to her," she said sadly.
"I hate that Finn did that to her, he had no right."
"I know. She seems to be doing ok though, she told me that she's glad she no longer has to hide it and that she can't wait to get out of Lima and start living more freely at college."
"I'm glad she's ok, I felt so bad about what happened."
"It wasn't your fault, you know that right?"
"I guess. I don't know Quinn. It's kind of hard not to feel like I'm partly to blame..."
"I know but it really isn't your fault sweetie. You said it yourself, he's filled with hate and that's what's to blame. Not you."
Rachel chewed on her lower lip, "Ok, again I say new subject. This time, something good preferably."
"Well I've got something I want to talk to you about," Quinn said nervously, "I was going to wait until we got home but I guess I can tell you now..."
"Oh?" Rachel arched an eyebrow, "Why do you look so serious?"
"It's a good thing, at least I hope it's a good thing," she babbled.
"Quinn, what is it?"
She took a steadying breath, "I haven't told anyone yet because I wanted you to be the first one to know."
"Ok?"
"I sent of my applications for college."
"That's amazing!" Rachel all but squealed, "Why'd you have to tell me this why I have Charlie in my arms so I can't hug you?!"
"So you're ok with this?"
"Of course I am!" she looked at her girlfriend as though she'd lost her mind, "Quinn I told you, wherever you go to school we'll come with you. Just because I'm not going to continue school straight away doesn't mean you have to put your life on hold. This is a good thing, I promise you."
"I was worried it would upset you," Quinn admitted sheepishly.
"I'm not upset, I'm proud of you." Rachel looked at Quinn, "I've watched you change and grow Quinn, I've seen you go from untouchable head Cheerio to a girl who lost everything to an amazing mom and friend and I couldn't be prouder to call you my girlfriend. You deserve good things Quinn. You've worked so hard at school to keep your GPA as high as it is and you still manage to raise Beth."
The blonde swallowed the sudden lump that had formed in her throat, "You're seriously going to make me cry in a public place?" she asked with a watery laugh.
"Sorry," Rachel blushed slightly, "I wasn't intending to make you cry at all, but I mean every word Quinn. When she's older and understands everything that you had to go through, Beth is going to be so proud to call you her mom."
"The same could be said for you, you know," Quinn pointed out.
"I'm just trying to make it through senior year."
"Aren't we all?"
"You know what I mean..."
"You should be proud of yourself Rach."
She looked down at the babe in her arms, "She's asleep," she didn't want to think about the reasons she should be proud of herself, "so what schools did you apply to?"
"I applied to Ohio State," Quinn could see the look of disapproval forming on her girlfriends face, "but I applied to schools out of state as well...New York, LA, Texas, all over really. I figured the more schools I apply to the more choice I'll have when it actually comes down to picking what school to go to. Plus I looked at what other programmes they offered, Puck said he wouldn't mind going into landscaping or something like that and," she bit her lower lip as she toyed with whether or not she should be honest about the next part, "I may have looked at what performing arts programmes were available..."
"Quinn..."
She held up her hands, "I know, you're not going to college after high school, at least not straight away. I just figured that it'd be good to know what was on offer close by in case after a year or whatever you wanted to get back to performing."
"I really don't think that's going to happen, but I do appreciate that you thought of me."
"Well it's good to know anyway." Beth started babbling as if weighing in on the conversation. "Why don't we take this pair home? I'll make us some lunch there."
"Sounds good," Rachel smiled as she placed Charlie back in her pram, "I've had enough of people staring at us anyway."
Author's note: Hi guys, you should all go thank my twin RosalieTheBeautyQueen for helping me out with this chapter. Normally I don't write this early on in the day and Davis B.P reads through for me and MikA-FaberryLuver4395 proofreads for me but apparently my head is full of ideas that I need to write now and I'm impatient and want to post them straight away LOL anyways you should check out all three of these lovely people because they are awesome and have all helped at one point or another with this story.
So the general consensus seems to be that after Long Way to Happy is finished you all would like to see maybe a series of one shots or whatever of the Rachel, Quinn and their girls throughout various stages of their lives, yes? Just wanted to get a rough idea of how many of you would be interested or not so I know whether or not I should be seriously thinking about the ideas that pop into my head.
I did say there would be a Christmas themed chapter and I'm aware that this is a very loose Christmas themed chapter but what you gonna do? lol this chapter ended up in a completely different direction than I had intended it to.
The next chapter should in theory be the last of the non-faberry centric chapters for a while. I would have it be a faberry centric chapter but what I have planned in my head involves violence and I really don't want to bring violence into faberry. So there you go, you have been warned so please don't complain about the lack of faberry. There is a point to everything I do and it's all building up to other stuff.