So, this is the end from me for now! I just want to thank everybody for reading. This was a quick little story that had been in my head for some time and wouldn't leave me alone until it was written, so thank you to everybody who entertained my muse! And thanks to everybody who sent me messages and reviews along the way. It means a lot! Until next time.
Epilogue:
The next morning, Quinn wakes up with Rachel's head burrowed in the center of her chest; exactly where she had fallen asleep last night.
Quinn stays awake for nearly an hour without moving. Instead, she watches Rachel sleep, wondering how she could have gotten so lucky even as she's looking at Rachel's head move gently up and down in time with her own breathing.
Quinn is so concentrated on Rachel that she jumps a little bit when she hears the door to her hotel room bang open. Meanwhile, Rachel is in such a deep sleep that she doesn't even flinch.
At the door is Shelby, spare room key in hand and a stern look on her face. She doesn't hesitate before informing Quinn that both her and Rachel need to hurry up and get dressed because Rachel's fathers had just arrived.
It is only after the words are out of Shelby's mouth that she seems to notice the position that she had just caught Quinn and Rachel in.
The blonde's face glows bright red as Shelby's eyes scan the two teens. Shelby looks like she knows exactly what happened between the two girls last night. It's probably written inside of Quinn's face. Plus, Shelby's maternal instincts are on high alert at the moment. They would not let her down.
Quinn is just glad that they're both fully dressed…
"You have ten minutes, Quinn," Shelby tells the blonde sharply and then she turns on her heels and slams the hotel room door behind her.
This time, Rachel does stir at the sound. Her head raises off Quinn's chest and Quinn has to actively hold back her groan of disappointment.
"Time to wake up, Rach," Quinn coaxes the girl, drumming her fingers gently along the brunette's narrow back as her eyes blink slowly open.
"Five more minutes," Rachel grumbles, pressing her head back into the center of Quinn's chest where she had been the most comfortable.
Quinn feels her heart roar with approval. This is where Rachel felt the safest. She made Rachel feel safe. Maybe Rachel was right. What would five more minutes hurt?
But no… Shelby was angry enough with them already, and Quinn doubted very much that Rachel's fathers would be any less angry. The sooner they got this over with, the better.
"Your dads just got here," Quinn informs Rachel and this time, the brunette understands Quinn's haste.
She lifts her head up and looks at Quinn. Her eyes are much more awake now, and just a little frightened. Her hair is wild; a thick, brown mane surrounding her entire head. Quinn doesn't think she has ever loved Rachel more than she does now; so raw, so natural.
"Can it wait?" Rachel asks. It sounds almost like a plea.
"I don't think so," Quinn shakes her head sympathetically. "It's only a matter of time before they bust in here and drag you out, and we already traumatized Shelby with our... arrangement."
"Shelby saw us?" Rachel gasps.
Quinn cringes and nods her head.
"Under normal circumstances, I would say that she has to let it go because she owes you one, but I think that you used up literally every bit of leverage that you had over Shelby last night, so…"
Quinn trails off as Rachel rolls out of the bed, her cheeks bright red in her embarrassment.
"I can't believe that my mother just caught us in bed together."
"Would you rather it be your dads?" Quinn teases.
"Ugh. Please stop talking."
Quinn shrugs, but agrees to keep quiet. Besides, she has more important things she would like to do with her mouth at the moment.
Reaching forward, she grabs onto Rachel's hips and pulls her back onto the mattress, not quite ready to release the warmth of her just yet.
"You said we're on a time limit," Rachel protests, but her actions do not match her words as she rolls on top of Quinn and dips her head, resting her lips against Quinn's and pulling her bottom lip in between her teeth.
Quinn leans into the kiss, reciprocating it as softly as possible, treating Rachel's mouth as though it were breakable.
"I think that I just heard Shelby outside the door," Quinn can't help but tease, laughing into the brunette's mouth. She regrets that immediately however, when Rachel pulls away from Quinn and smacks her against the shoulder; playful, but still hard.
"I know that mine and Shelby's relationship is far from normal, but for the record, that doesn't mean I want to have a mental image of her inside of my head, or your head for that matter, while we are making out."
"Fair," Quinn smirks, managing one last, quick kiss before Rachel stands up from the bed with a wide stretch.
She turns around and smiles once at Quinn. Despite the day that they had yesterday, Quinn still manages to help. Rachel needs that. She is certain that Quinn does too. She just hopes that it can last once her fathers get through with her.
Hiram and LeRoy meet Rachel outside in the lobby.
The second they see Rachel, whole and in one piece, they rush her. Quinn hangs back. She doesn't want to interfere.
The Berry man stare at Rachel as though they are seeing a ghost. It is obvious that they are relieved that she is okay because they grab her and hug her tight and run their hands over her hair and her shoulders and the wound on her arm just to make sure she is really here and in tact, but it's not all teary greetings and sentiments of relief…
There is a sharpness to their touches, to their words. It's their way of reminding Rachel that while they are relieved she is okay, they are still terribly mad at her.
They have a conversation over a sub-par continental breakfast.
At first, Hiram and LeRoy try to skirt around the issue of Peter. They try to read Rachel and play their own cards close to their chests so she will reveal first just how much she knows, but Rachel is quick to put an end to that.
She tells them about her conversation with Shelby last night. She tells them that there's no point to skirting around this anymore; the only thing doing that has led them to so far was trouble. The need to be secretive had died last night alongside Peter.
"Where did you come up with the turkey baster story?" Rachel asks shyly as she picks at a plate of powdered eggs that she doesn't have the stomach to eat.
"We did try it," Hiram insists. His hands are folded into his body. He is pressed tight inside of himself. He has looked like this since he sat down. "We read a few books on the subject, and they all insisted that it was a relatively reliable method… We found a couple of women who were willing to try, but it never stuck. We tried a few times, but after a while it got too much to bear. We stopped trying."
"Then you found Shelby?" Rachel asks, attempting to piece together this complicated puzzle.
Her fathers glance at each other and then slowly turn back to her. Simultaneously, they both nod their heads.
"We were living in a bad neighborhood in Lima Heights at the time," Hiram continues. "I was struggling to get my law firm off the ground. People didn't know for sure about LeRoy and I, but you know how Lima is; people talk. Nobody wanted a family lawyer who was rumored to be gay. You have to understand Rachel, it was a different time. People didn't understand us. They wanted nothing to do with us. We tried an adoption agency once and we were removed by security before we could even say a word… And then we met Shelby, and she was just a kid; she was your age. She was terrified, but for the first time, it wasn't a person who was terrified of us. She was only afraid that her child was in danger, and she was willing to do anything she could to protect her."
Rachel hangs her head, no longer able to meet her fathers' eyes out of shame.
"Your father and I paid for the expenses out of pocket and we agreed to put my name on the birth certificate because I was the lawyer, and we knew that that would make the issue of custody less complex. We made Shelby sign the contract rescinding her parental rights and agreeing to stay away from you because we saw how much it hurt her to give you up. We were afraid that if she ever did decide that she wanted you back and took us to court that any judge in Ohio would hold the fact that we were an unmarried gay couple against us. We would never be able to keep custody of you. We gave Shelby a lump sum to support her in New York for a year so that Peter wouldn't be able to find her. We didn't hear from her at all until your sophomore year."
"Were you ever going to tell me?" Rachel asks, swallowing the lump that has formed inside of her throat.
"We were going to tell you when you turned sixteen," her father LeRoy interjects with a nod.
"What happened?" Rachel risks asking.
"Shelby got to you first," LeRoy smiles sadly. "Although she swore to us at the time that running into you at Sectionals was an accident…"
Rachel shoots her head up, struck by her father's words.
"Wait, you talked to her back then?"
She glances between her two fathers, watching them frown at the understanding of the fact that they had been keeping yet another secret from her.
Rachel had no idea that her fathers had sought out Shelby during her sophomore year. She thought that all they had done was double the frequency of her therapy sessions and leave it at that.
"Of course we talked to her Rachel…" Hiram sighs. "You came home from school one day and told us that you had met your mother and we knew immediately that we had to find her. The three of us met and she told us that she saw you while she was scoping out her competition and that she knew who you were just by looking at you. We planned on telling you on your sixteenth birthday about Peter, but the way that yours and Shelby's last meeting ended… We saw how much that hurt you, and we didn't want to re-open those old wounds. We… we thought that we were protecting you. It was wrong. We know that now. We never wanted to hurt you, sweetheart. We're sorry."
Rachel nods her head slowly.
Two days ago, she had been blaming her fathers for everything. Now, it's hard for her to blame them for anything at all.
"I'm sorry too," Rachel tells them, and she watches her fathers return the nod in unison; a mutual understanding.
Quinn is sitting at the far end of the lobby by herself, watching Rachel talk to her dads with an intensity like she is watching a good movie.
She has a plate of food from the breakfast buffet in front of her, but she hasn't touched it aside from slipping a few slices of bacon to the dog laying at her feet.
"It really sucks."
Quinn hears a voice directed towards her and raises her head just in time to watch Shelby slip into an empty seat across from her.
"What sucks?" Quinn asks, trying to pretend like she doesn't already know.
"Watching somebody else raise your kid."
Quinn's eyes flicker up to meet Shelby's. For the first time, she sees the same look in Shelby's eyes that she feels every time she looks at Beth and wonders if she will one day be as good as Shelby at putting on that mask to convince the rest of the world that she is fine.
"You'll tell yourself over and over again that you did the right thing…" Shelby continues with a sigh. "And maybe it was the right thing, but it doesn't make it hurt any less when its staring you in the face."
Quinn only nods, afraid that if she opens her mouth to say anything, she will start to cry.
"Anyway, I came over here to tell you that you have a phone call," Shelby tells Quinn, sliding her cell phone across the table towards the blonde.
Quinn looks up at Shelby with a cocked eyebrow.
"A phone call?" she asks. She doesn't know who would be calling her right now. She especially doesn't know who would be calling her from Shelby's phone.
"Apparently you don't answer your own phone," Shelby nods. Quinn flushes. Her own phone has a shattered screen. She hasn't even bothered to charge it in days. It's probably dead. "And your mother didn't know how else to reach you. The Berry men gave her my number."
Shelby watches relief spread across Quinn's face at the mention of her mother. She thought that Judy had forgotten about her.
Quinn snatches up Shelby's phone quickly, trying and failing to mask the joy in her voice that there is somebody out there who actually cares about her like she cares about Beth, like the Berry men and Shelby care about Rachel… There is somebody out there who was worried about her, who misses her, who wants to tell her that everything is going to be okay…
"Mom?" Quinn breathes into the phone.
"Oh Quinn, thank God…" she hears her mother's voice greet her immediately. The tone is frantic and full of worry and Quinn almost feels bad for the way that it makes her heart soar.
The police give them the clear to leave Nebraska the next day. Shelby even gets her Range Rover back even though it has a dent in the front from where Rachel had hit Darlene.
The Berry men had bought Rachel a ticket for their flight back to Lima, but Rachel had insisted that Quinn could not drive by herself so, after a lot of arguing, they had agreed to let Rachel and Quinn drive together. The only stipulation was that Rachel had to hold onto her father Hiram's cell phone to replace the one that Quinn had thrown out the window and answer whenever LeRoy called. They were also only allowed to stop when Shelby – who would be following behind them – stopped with them.
The drive is long and uneventful. They get home at dawn, but Rachel's dads still make her go to school the next day. They tell her that this road trip had been her idea; she can deal with the consequences.
She still doesn't have a cell phone, so she can't text Quinn to ask if she will be in school today too. She doubts her fathers will replace her phone any time soon either, especially not after they had told her that she was grounded for "the foreseeable future."
Rachel is nervous when she walks into school the next morning. She doesn't particularly want to see anybody; not the glee club, not her classmates, and certainly not The Skanks.
Luckily, the first person she runs into is Quinn, which knocks a huge weight off her shoulders.
"Your dads made you come to school today too?" Quinn asks, watching as the exhausted brunette slowly approaches her.
"Even though we didn't get home until four a.m.," Rachel groans, tiredly, plucking at the combination lock attached to her locker. "I'm exhausted."
"Same," Quinn nods, but when Rachel turns towards her, the blonde is still smiling with a silly sort of grin and Rachel can't help but notice that she doesn't look exhausted as long as she is looking at her.
"Did your mom let you keep the dog?" Rachel forces herself to ask, trying not to get herself worked up over Quinn while they are standing in the middle of their crowded high school hallway.
"I finally got her to say maybe the third time I asked," Quinn shrugs. "But I think she's warming up about him."
Rachel nods and then lets her face fall suddenly.
"Did you tell her about us?" she asks Quinn quietly, picking at a loose thread in the strap of her backpack. Out of the corner of her eye, she watches Quinn's smile fade. Only now does she notice the exhaustion.
"I didn't really know what to say," Quinn admits. "Did you tell your dads?"
Rachel shakes her head.
"Maybe we can go to the mall or out to eat later?" Quinn suggests. "We can talk it over?"
"I can't," Rachel sighs. "I'm grounded for the rest of my life."
"Oh yeah…" Quinn breathes like she had actually forgotten everything that her and Rachel had just been through. "I am too."
Rachel watches Quinn's face fall and feels a sudden need to reverse it. She perks herself up again and leans as close into Quinn as she dares to without enticing too much talk around the school.
"But my dads are making me do chores around the house until I can pay them back for the hotel room and the plane tickets. Tonight, I get to clean out the garden for the winter, so if you want to sneak into my neighbor's backyard, I can whisper really quietly through the fence and ask you to be my girlfriend there and we can sort everything out."
Quinn smiles down at Rachel. It takes every ounce of self-control for her not to lean down and kiss her right here in front of everybody.
"That won't work for me," the blonde teases, and Rachel cocks an eyebrow.
"Why not?"
"Because I was totally going to ask you to be my girlfriend."
The two lean in close, for a half second forgetting about their present company. They pull back just before their lips can meet, cheeks flaming red and eyes darting through the crowd trying to make sure that nobody noticed.
"I guess we can work on that part later," Rachel tells Quinn shyly, pulling her hair back and averting the blonde's eyes. She finds it incredible that after everything her and Quinn faced together, she is still terrified of her classmates finding out about her newfound relationship than she had been about
"I'm not embarrassed by you, you know," Quinn tells Rachel as though she is reading her mind.
"I'm not embarrassed by you either," Rachel assures Quinn, and she means it.
"Hey Blondie. Berry."
The two jump apart at the sound of their names and turn just in time to see Genesis approaching them from down the hall.
"I heard that you two had a little adventure." Genesis smiles slyly at the two girls in front of her, leaning up against the lockers in between them.
"How did you know that?" Quinn asks, raising an eyebrow at Genesis' seemingly endless resourcefulness.
"Little bird," the girl shrugs, but she reveals no more information.
"Where are the rest of The Skanks?" Rachel risks asking. Reuniting with The Skanks is the one thing that Rachel has been looking forward to the least.
"You didn't hear?" Genesis asks, shocked.
Quinn and Rachel feel their eyebrows cock, silently imploring. Of course they hadn't heard. They have spent the last week cellphone-less in Nebraska. They were out of the loop.
"The Skanks got busted earlier this week," Genesis explains. "They tried to rob some liquor store in Lima Heights, but the cops were waiting for them. When they patted Jasmine down, they found a knife in her pocket. Armed robbery. Instant felony."
"How did they get caught?" Quinn asks. It sounds too good to be true. In the brief amount of time that Quinn had been hanging out with the Skanks, she had watched them steal from Lima Heights Liquors a thousand times. What made the last time different?
"Somebody tipped the cops off," Genesis shrugs. "They knew they were coming."
"Who tipped them off?" Quinn asks. Her eyes narrow in on Genesis. She had been suspicious that Genesis has been trying to sabotage The Skanks from the inside out since she met her. Genesis however looks offended that Quinn would even suggest such a thing.
"How many times do I have to tell you, Fabray? I don't snitch."
Genesis makes this insistence, but her eyes continue to glisten in a way that makes it so Quinn doesn't believe her. Quinn knows that it had been her who tipped the police off about The Skanks. She is also suspicious that Genesis is the reason why Shelby had managed to find them so quickly in Nebraska as well.
Considering the fact that if this is true, Genesis would have saved her life twice now, Quinn decides to let it go.
"Thanks for everything, Genesis," Quinn nods her head sharply. Genesis reciprocates the motion before pulling herself off the locker and turning back down the hall. That is what Quinn likes the most about Genesis. She is a straight-talker; a girl who got down to business and left it at that. There were no loose ends with her, no questions, just business.
"Whatever. Just get a room next time the two of you are thinking about making out in the hallway," Genesis tells them and both girls immediately feel their faces glow. "Not even The Skanks being sent to prison will out-gossip the fact that the cheerleader and the glee princess are hooking up."
"We're not-" Rachel starts, but Genesis cuts her off immediately with a quick glare, silently telling her not to bother.
"Yeah," Genesis tells her, an all-knowing glint in her eye. "Whatever."
And with that, she is gone.
Quinn shakes her head at Genesis' striking personality before turning back to face Rachel, whose face has grown as red as an apple.
"Genesis is right, you know," Quinn points out to Rachel.
"About getting a room?" Rachel raises an eyebrow at her. Quinn only shrugs.
"We already did that," she reminds Rachel, who flushes somehow darker red. "But at least let me give you a ride home after school. My windows are tinted."
This time when Rachel's cheeks flush, Quinn knows it has nothing to do with her embarrassment.
"Sure," Rachel nods shyly, but before she can get too caught up on the bubbling in her stomach, she spots something over Quinn's shoulder that immediately distracts her.
Quinn flips around, following Rachel's eyes across the hallway where Shelby is pushing through the crowd of students with an extra-large coffee cup clutched inside of her hands.
The woman is dressed to perfection and is made up just as well, but she still looks exhausted behind all that.
Rachel and Quinn are just surprised to see her at school today. She had gotten home just as late as they had and Shelby didn't even have pissed off parents to punish her by forcing her to go to school on only a few hours of sleep.
Shelby spots them staring and pauses.
All three are looking at each other, an unspoken bond between them. There is a pause in time that feels like an eternity and then Shelby nods at them and they nod back, and Shelby turns down the hallway and out of sight. A million words are spoken between them amidst all that silence.
"I'm gonna go catch up with Shelby quick," Rachel announces quickly. "I'll see you in class, okay?"
"What about that ride?" Quinn calls after the brunette, who turns over her shoulder and forces a sideways smile at Quinn.
"Meet me at my locker after school!" Rachel waves one more time over her shoulder before turning to jog down the hallway so that she can catch up with Shelby before she loses her.
Rachel rushes around the corner and manages to catch a quick glimpse of Shelby's back just as the woman makes a sharp turn into the teacher's lounge.
Rachel knows that technically, she is not allowed inside of there, but she knocks tentatively on the door before inviting herself inside anyway.
Luckily, the homeroom bell is close enough to ringing that all the teachers have retreated to their classrooms already. Shelby and Rachel are the only ones here.
Rachel watches Shelby's eyes dart up from behind a sip from her coffee mug upon hearing somebody else enter the room. She looks surprised to see Rachel standing in the doorway. The girl swallows but stands her ground.
"Hi…" Rachel chirps awkwardly. Shelby smiles at her politely and puts her coffee mug down on the table to give Rachel her full attention.
"Hi Rachel."
"I can come back later if you have class right now…" Rachel swallows. Shelby just shakes her head.
"No, I'm free first period," Shelby assures the girl, gesturing towards the empty seat across from her.
She watches Rachel hike her backpack higher against her shoulder before tentatively lowering herself in her seat.
"Do you have class right now?" Shelby turns the question onto Rachel, her voice growing suddenly maternal like she is looking for something to add to Rachel's growing list of indiscretions.
"I have study hall," Rachel lies, but is immediately overcome will guilt about it and sinks slightly in her seat. "Actually, I have Biology. I can come back later."
Rachel finds herself suddenly scrambling to gather her things and leave. She is embarrassed that she thought this would be a good idea. Before she can disappear, Shelby reaches over the table and latches onto her wrist, silently telling her to slow down.
"I'll write you a pass," Shelby assures her.
Rachel nods shallowly, slowly lowering herself back down into her seat.
"How's your arm?" Shelby asks after a moment, trying to find a starting point to this conversation.
"Oh, it's fine," Rachel answers politely. She even gives her arm a small wiggle as though trying to prove her point. "I don't even feel it anymore. I just have to keep it covered for a few more days."
"And everything else?" Shelby presses. "How are you doing?"
"I'm okay…" Rachel breathes, and then realizes that it is yet another lie she has caught herself telling Shelby.
The truth is that as the reality of what happened to them has more time to sink in, the worse Rachel feels about it. Every time she has a second alone with her thoughts to think about it, her mind goes into overdrive and it makes her feel like she's losing control so she stops.
The weirdest part about it, Rachel thinks, is that it isn't even what happened at Darlene's house that haunts her. It's the conversation with Shelby that had happened after that keeps her up at night.
"Actually, I'm not okay," Rachel corrects herself firmly. "I keep thinking about what I said to you in that hotel room, after you told me… you know… everything. I guess it's more about what I didn't say to you really."
"What do you mean?" Shelby implores, cocking her head to the side.
Rachel swallows, turning over her shoulder towards the closed teacher's lounge door, just to make sure that they're still alone before continuing.
"I mean that I just sat there…"
Realization spreads across Shelby's face as she watches her daughter hang her head as though she has anything to be ashamed about. Shelby can feel her face mold, heartbroken that Rachel would ever think that she owes her anything for her candor the other night. Shelby hadn't meant for it to be a transaction.
"Rachel…" Shelby breathes, but she doesn't know what else to say, and before she can get anything out, Rachel is shaking her head hard at her.
"If I were you, I don't know what I would have done," Rachel tells her. She still won't look Shelby in the eye. "I don't think that I would ever be able to look at me, knowing how I was born. Is that why you left the first time?"
Shelby swallows. She hadn't been expecting that question.
"You have his eyes…" she finally breathes after a moment. "I wasn't expecting that. When I saw you at Sectionals, you were so thoroughly and completely me that I didn't expect to see the pieces of him there too when I looked a little bit closer."
Rachel's head falls.
"I'm sorry for putting you through all that," she whispers, refusing to look up at her mother even when Shelby reaches across the table, grabs onto Rachel's hand, and squeezes it tightly.
"Rachel, you have absolutely nothing to be sorry for," Shelby tells her firmly. "You did nothing wrong. I'm the one who should be apologizing to you for making you shoulder my mistakes. My parents did that to me when I was your age, and it was awful. I always said that I would be different from my them. I guess we're just more prone to becoming our parents than any of us want to believe."
"At least you have Beth to make up for it."
Shelby takes a deep breath and squeezes Rachel's hand a little bit tighter.
"If it's okay with you, I would like to make up for that with you too."
Rachel looks up, astonished by the offer. For a moment, she is at a loss for word.
"Peter had a big heart, Rachel, one that he unfortunately forgot to listen to somewhere down the road…" Shelby nods through Rachel's silence. "You have that big heart too and unfortunately, like his, yours has some scars on it now. The difference is that you have something that Peter never had, something that might make all the difference."
"What?" Rachel asks curiously.
"A lot of people who love you no matter what," Shelby nods. "Including me."
"Really?" Rachel perks. She didn't know how badly she needed to hear her mother say those words until she finally heard them.
"I know that it's a lot to take in," Shelby tells the girl. "And I know that it might be hard for you to believe it, but Rachel, you being born was the one bright spot when my life got turned upside down. Keeping you safe kept me going. If it hadn't been for you, I don't know what would have happened to me. Who knows, I could have ended up in that trailer in Nebraska with Peter, still too afraid to stand up for myself."
Rachel nods. She understands. Without what happened, Rachel's life as she knows it might not be. She could have grown up with Peter as a father and with Shelby as little more than a shell of a woman by his side. She could have been in foster care like The Skanks. Or most likely, she may not even have been born at all.
"Can I ask you something?" Rachel finally asks after a long moment.
"Sure," Shelby nods.
"Did you ever think that you couldn't love me like a normal mom? I mean because… because of where I came from." the girl swallows, almost embarrassed to be asking such a personal question.
"Rachel," Shelby says firmly, forcing the girl to meet her eyes through her tone alone. "Not once did I ever think that. I was never afraid that I wouldn't be able to love you."
"Okay…" Rachel nods through a watery smile.
"Are you sure?" Shelby cocks an eyebrow, because she needs to be absolutely sure that Rachel understands this more than anything else.
"I'm sure," Rachel insists, wiping the dampness from under her eyes and, like magic, any string of doubt disappears from her face. "Can I ask you one more thing?"
"Okay…"
"My dads wanted to know if maybe you want to come over for dinner tonight."
"Your dads?" Shelby raises an eyebrow, surprised by the offer.
"And me," Rachel shrugs as though she knows that this is the validation that Shelby has been looking for the entire time. "You can bring Beth. My dads moved my therapist back into our spare room, so you can meet her too. She already knows pretty much everything about you anyway. And, I was thinking… I know that I'm almost eighteen anyway, but… well, maybe we can modify that contract a little bit?"
"What do you mean?"
"Stop pretending that we don't know one another?" Rachel asks the question tentatively.
Shelby smiles softly. "I'd like that," she tells Rachel. "You're sure that your dads are okay with it?"
"I'm sure," Rachel nods. She takes a deep breath and then pushes away from the table. Her hand slides out from underneath Shelby's and the woman has to make a conscious effort not to pull her back in. "Anyway, I should probably get to class."
"Let me write you a pass," Shelby offers. "My excused slips are in my office."
Shelby guides Rachel out of the teacher's lounge, holding the door open for her and guiding her into the hallway which is now completely empty with the exception of one blonde who is waiting right across from the door.
"Quinn?" Rachel asks, surprised to see the blonde. "Why aren't you in class?"
"Biology is totally boring without you," Quinn shrugs through her excuse.
"Can you write her a pass too?" Rachel turns to Shelby and makes the request. She knows that she has been asking her mother for a lot of favors lately, but she genuinely hopes that Shelby will give her just one last pass.
Shelby evaluates the two girls standing in front of her very carefully. She doesn't know what's going on between the two of them, but she can tell that it is certainly something.
The woman puts that conversation in her back pocket for later. This is hardly the time or the place.
"Sure," she nods, guiding the two girls back to her office where she makes quick work of scribbling Rachel and Quinn's names down on the excused slip before signing it.
Shelby hands the slip to Quinn. The blonde girl grabs for it, but Shelby holds on for an extra moment, not surrendering it to Quinn just yet.
"You take care of her Quinn," she tells the blonde, who beams at the order, enticed by a mission that she knows she can keep.
"I always do, Ms. C."
Rachel takes up Quinn on her offer to drive her home after school.
She only lives a few blocks away, but Quinn takes the long way. Even still, when she pulls up to the front of Rachel's house, she still doesn't want to let the girl go. She is grounded and so is Rachel. The idea of not being able to see her again until Monday feels like a piece of her is being physically removed.
She throws her car into park and turns towards Rachel, staring at her like she is trying to memorize every inch of her.
The weather had turned at some point throughout the course of the day. What had started as a warm morning had gone cold around the edges. Quinn swallows and watches Rachel fold herself into her sweater, trying to prepare for the impending chill.
"I'm gonna miss you," the blonde finally breathes. Rachel offers her a shy smile, pretending not to be flattered. She turns her eyes away from Quinn so that the blonde cannot see her heart melting and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.
"It's only for the weekend," she reminds Quinn, and then pauses and reconsiders. "But I'm gonna miss you too."
Quinn doesn't need to hear anymore. Instead, she reaches across the center console towards Rachel and touches her arm. She can feel the bandage underneath the girl's sweater, covering the cut left behind from the bullet that had come mere inches away from taking Rachel away from her forever.
As much as Quinn tries not to think about that, the memory is still fresh. It seeps through the cracks frequently. She feels herself shudder despite herself.
"Are you okay?"
The motion doesn't go unnoticed by Rachel, whose face falls with concern. She watches Quinn shake her head from the thoughts of that night and reminds herself to concentrate on what did happen, not what could have happened.
"I'm just glad you're okay," Quinn forces a smile.
"I'm glad you're okay too," Rachel tells her, color flushing high into her cheeks.
The brunette leans forward across the console and presses her lips into Quinn's. The kiss is soft and subtle and the both of them have to crane their necks painfully, but they connect anyway and once they do, they will be hard pressed to be forced apart again.
They fit together like a puzzle, and Quinn suddenly wonders how they spent so much time forcing themselves into pieces that didn't fit without even realizing that their perfect match was standing right in front of them the entire time.
Seconds feel like hours feel like days feel like weeks and both girls find themselves wishing they can spend their entire weekend right here.
"My mom lets me out of the house to walk the dog," Quinn gasps into Rachel's mouth. "I can walk past your house while you're doing chores. We can pretend it was an accident."
"You live four miles away," Rachel reminds Quinn.
"Doesn't matter," Quinn breathes, struggling to catch her breath. She presses her forehead against Rachel's. The brunette's dark eyes find Quinn's hazel ones and stay there. Quinn reaches up and weaves her fingers through Rachel's hair, smooth as silk.
"What will you tell your mom?" Rachel teases. She loves how Quinn scrutinizes her so carefully, like it's the last time she will ever see her every time. She loves how Quinn works to memorize every detail of her, like she is trying to make up for all the years she missed. She loves that Quinn still looks at her like she is seeing color for the first time despite knowing the extent of her flaws better than anybody.
"I'll tell her the truth."
"And what is that?"
"That you're a bad influence on me Berry." Quinn offers Rachel a sideways smile. She forces herself to pull away from Rachel, afraid that if she doesn't do it now, she never will.
"We both know that the only bad influence is you," Rachel teases and, with a dramatic flip of her hair, she helps herself out of Quinn's car, wriggling her hips purposefully just to leave Quinn writhing.
"That's really how you're going to leave me?" Quinn shouts after Rachel.
"It will give you something to think about during your four mile walk tomorrow," Rachel winks as she turns around and hangs inside of the open window. Quinn smiles slyly.
"Hey, I'm just trying to get my dog exercise!" Quinn lies, that mischievous smile curled prominently against her lips.
She can tell that Rachel has something smart to say in return, but whatever that something is, it is swallowed by the front door of Rachel's house opening and Rachel's father Hiram stepping out onto the porch.
The man's face is stern, his arms crossed over his chest as though to remind Rachel that she is grounded and shouldn't be out here socializing with anybody, let alone her partner in crime.
"Say goodnight, Rachel," he calls to her and Rachel feels color flood high inside of her face. She wonders how long her father had been standing at the front door watching her and Quinn…
"Goodnight," Rachel breathes to the blonde. She reaches through the open car door towards Quinn and Quinn reaches back. Their fingers graze quickly against each other's and then Rachel turns away, slams the door, and jogs up the front path towards her house.
Her father intercepts her, guiding her inside. Rachel has just enough time to turn around inside of the doorway to give Quinn one last wave before she is swallowed by the belly of her house.
Quinn sits at the curb for just a moment longer. She feels a smile lingering against her face and knows that she probably looks like an idiot, but she doesn't care. She is proud of Rachel's resilience. She is proud of her resilience. She finds that it is much easier to be strong now that she knows she doesn't have to do so on her own.
Forcing her eyes back to the road, Quinn shifts her car into gear before pulling away from Rachel's house. She is already counting the minutes until she can return and realizes that she can get used to this feeling of being excited for the prospect of tomorrow.