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Chapter 33 – Songs for Baby Girls
That day after school, both Quinn and Rachel had Doctor's appointments to attend. Matt had quietly insisted on coming along to support Quinn and the mother-to-be hadn't bothered arguing the matter. Artie had come along for Rachel and sat beside his girlfriend holding her hand.
"Could you get me some water?" Rachel asked Artie in a whisper and he pressed a kiss to her hand before crossing the waiting room to fill a plastic cup at the water fountain.
Looking around the waiting room, Rachel found it odd that everybody seemed as quiet as a mouse as they avoided eye-contact with each other. To a regular person, the waiting room would seem a quiet place save for the elderly man with a cough. However, to Rachel, the waiting room was far from quiet. The worried thoughts of patients and their loved ones were providing Rachel with one of her more severe headaches. Her vision was becoming slightly blurred and she was seeing white spots of light.
"Here," Artie whispered as he returned to Rachel's side with her water.
"Thank you," Rachel said softly closing her eyes and taking a long gulp. She kept her eyes closed, hoping the darkness would sooth the ache in her brain.
The thoughts of those around her were still piercing her mind and she knew her friends were exchanging worried glances with one another and that Quinn in particular was watching her like a hawk rather than reading the magazine in her hands.
A doctor called for Quinn and the blonde stood with Matt at her side, the boy quietly following after the girl carrying his child.
"I still have no idea how things happened between them," Rachel commented to Artie. "I'm not even sure if they're actually friends. I mean, I know they are friends, but they're not especially close friends and certainly not friends who have sex with each other. I mean, they did, obviously, but it still doesn't make sense to me."
"Maybe they got drunk," Artie shrugged.
"Maybe," Rachel replied, her eyes still shut tight. "But neither of them really seems the type to get drunk and have a one-night stand."
"I guess sometimes these things just happen," Artie responded shifting closer to his girlfriend and running a hand gently through her hair. "Friends and lovers can be found in unexpected places and unexpected people. Matt and Quinn, Kurt and Puck, you and me."
"You make a valid point," Rachel observed forcing her eyes open and drinking some more water before letting out a whimpered moan.
"How bad is it, Rach?" Artie asked. "And tell me honestly this time."
"I really just wish I could make it all stop," Rachel answered quietly so only he could hear. "Sometimes it hurts so much I feel like I'm dying. Well, actually, that's just me being overdramatic. But it really is painful, Artie. I don't think I can handle it much longer. I don't think the pain is enough to kill me but if it carries on or gets worse it may actually drive me insane and I am not being a drama-queen diva when I say that. I can never fully turn the voices off anymore. I really don't know what the Doctor can do to help me."
"Well that's what we're here to find out," Artie told her kissing her temple. "Don't worry. You're gonna be ok. I promise."
Finally, yet much too soon at the same time, Rachel's name was called out and it took her more effort than was necessary to stand to her feet.
"Stay," Rachel instructed Artie as he stood up with her. "I need to do this alone," she said before heading into the room with the Doctor and leaving her boyfriend in the waiting room so he could pretend to look through the pages of an out of date magazine.
XXX
After pretending to read an article on how to relieve menstrual cramps, Artie dropped the magazine back onto the table and looked up at the ceiling and began counting the tiles. He had counted as far as seventeen when Matt and Quinn returned.
"Hey, how is everything?" he asked as they joined him.
"Fine," Quinn smiled. "We're fine," she rested her hand on her stomach. "All healthy aren't we baby girl."
"The baby's a girl?" Artie asked. "Congratulations. Have you thought about names yet? You should definitely enrol her in ballet or some kind of dance class. Maybe next week, once Regionals are out of the way, we could devote a week of Glee to sing songs about baby girls. Any baby made by you two has got to be super cute I mean its some pretty good genes you guys are passing on, yo. Did I ask you if you thought about names yet? For the record I think you guys would make pretty cool parents."
"Calm down, Artie, it's not like we're keeping the baby," Quinn pointed out. "She'll be adopted by a good family with a nice home and they can take her to dance classes and pick her name."
"I always liked the name Amber," Matt said.
"That's pretty," Artie agreed.
"Can we stop talking about baby names, we're not keeping the baby," Quinn snarled glaring daggers at the two boys who immediately fell silent and averted their eyes to the floor.
The silence continued between the three teenagers for some time before Matt broke it.
"Rachel's been gone a long time," he pointed out.
"I'm sure she'll be out any minute," Quinn said, her tone considerably gentler than it had been before.
"She's ok," Artie insisted. "It's all gonna be ok. No big deal."
XXX
While Quinn and Rachel had their Doctor's appointments, Mercedes and Tina were at the mall picking out some last minute accessories for everybody's costumes for Regionals.
"Which colour tie do you think looks better?" Tina asked holding up one in midnight-blue and one in baby-blue. "Or do we get both and have half the guys in a dark colour and half in the lighter blue?"
"I guess both could work," Mercedes shrugged feeling the fabric of the midnight-blue tie. "But if we do two different colours for the guys then us girls need to have different colours too."
"We all look good in red," Tina pointed out as a suggestion moving towards a rack of headbands.
"True, but Kurt will kill us if we pick red and blue as colours," Mercedes replied. "He thinks red and blue together are too Private-School-Preppy and pretentious."
"Well as strong as I am these days I'm not prepared to face the wrath of Kurt Hummel by getting the colour-scheme wrong," Tina said.
"Maybe we could have the guys in midnight-blue and us girls in baby-blue and… hot guy over there," Mercedes whispered and Tina turned to look.
"Eww, 'Cedes, he's like a hundred years old," Tina sneered in disgust looking at an old fat man in a red tracksuit with a bushy white beard.
"Not Santa Claus you moron, I'm talking about Goldilocks over there," she pointed Tina in the direction of a muscular blonde who was doing an impression of Matthew Mcconaughey in the mirror.
"He has really big lips," Tina commented cocking her head to the side. As she looked, the boy's hair began to blow behind him and his shirt blew up showing off his abs. "But there isn't any wind," Tina thought in confusion before quirking her eyebrow and looking to the girl beside her. "You're using your powers to sexually objectify that boy, Santana would be so proud if she wasn't secretly gay for Brittany."
"I'm just having a bit of fun," Mercedes replied making the blowing wind stop. "Do you think Santana will ever admit she's into Brittany?"
"In her own time," Tina shrugged. "I mean even Kurt took a long time to come out as gay and he's like the bravest person at McKinley. Santana acts tough but where she's so used to being popular people's opinions really matter to her. Anyway, why don't you go and talk to that guy, he's pretty cute, kind of a dork, but he's got a great body and I think I saw him looking over at you."
"A girl like me can't walk up to a guy like that," Mercedes said. "Don't get me wrong, I know I'm beautiful in my own way but it'll be a while before I meet a guy smart enough to see that. Do you think Kurt will let us wear false eyelashes?"
Allowing her friend to change the subject, Tina focused her attention back on picking out accessories. From the corner of her eye, she could see the blonde boy glancing over at Mercedes a few times. At one point, she thought he might actually make his way over and talk to her but he accidentally knocked down a display of sunglasses and seemed to lose his nerve.
XXX
That night, Rachel and Quinn made a cosy fort out of their pillows and bed-sheets and cuddled up with some of Rachel's stuffed animals and nibbled on a batch of her delicious chocolate-chip and butterscotch cookies.
"Ok, that one hurt, little Princess," Quinn laughed as the baby kicked at her stomach.
"But it's good to know that she's healthy, right?" Rachel asked laying her own hand on Quinn's stomach.
"It is," Quinn agreed.
"It feels different now doesn't it?" Rachel said hearing fragments of Quinn's thoughts. "Now that you know she's a girl."
"It's so strange," Quinn replied. "But knowing the baby's a girl just makes it seem so much more real. I mean, I knew I was pregnant, obviously… but now I know she's a girl I feel more connected with her."
"Does that change things?" Rachel asked.
"No," Quinn shook her head. "I'm still taking the adoption route. But in a way it does make it a little harder. The Doctor told me she was a girl and I looked to Matt and he grabbed my hand and had this huge smile on his face. Then in that moment I could see her. I saw myself holding her, singing her to sleep with her tiny hand wrapped around my finger; I could see her crawling and hear her making nonsense baby talk. For a few seconds I really wanted it. I wanted it all. But keeping her would be selfish. I can't rely on you and your dads for everything and I certainly can't raise a baby without any kind of help and it wouldn't be fair to Matt either. He and I are never going to be a couple but he's already proved he's not the type of guy to turn away from the responsibility of a baby. If I kept her then Matt would make sure he's there for her in every way possible and I think he would be a good father but… eventually he'll meet some girl and he'll really like her but things won't work out because this baby will be extra baggage that other teenage girls want nothing to do with. She needs to go to proper parents, adults. She deserves to have a real family. That's the right thing to do. I know it is because the right way is usually the hardest and most painful."
"You would make a great mum though," Rachel told her. "You know that, right?"
"Well hopefully one day I will," Quinn said. "Just not with her," she smiled sadly. "Now, come on, you've been avoiding it all night. What did the Doctor's say?"
Rachel looked away and held her stuffed pink monkey close for comfort.
"Rachel?" Quinn prodded after a few minutes of silence.
"I'm going back for a cat-scan," Rachel answered. "I don't really know what that means. The Doctor had a lot of theories going through his mind. He considered diabetes but he ruled that out after taking my blood sugar levels."
"What were the other theories?" Quinn asked.
"A bump on the head from dancing or cheerleading," Rachel shrugged. "A brain tumour, that I'm making it up, some kind of tissue damage and some Doctor language that I didn't understand, an abscess, just a really bad a headache and I'm being overdramatic or I'm simply insane. But he showed no signs of wanting to lock me up in a laboratory and experiment on me so that's nice."
"It's all going to be ok," Quinn told her. "I know it is."
XXX
Friday had arrived and the New Directions were going through a final rehearsal with Mr. Schuester before they were due to perform at Regionals the following day. Meanwhile, Burt Hummel was gleefully setting things up for Friday night dinner. Checking his watch, he estimated that Kurt and Puck would be another thirty minutes or so. He had everything planned. The boys would come in, he'd politely ask about their day, fetch them a drink and have them sit at the table. Then he'd launch straight into the sex talk and they'd have an amusingly uncomfortable dinner together afterwards.
To Be Continued…
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