Fic: No Wise Words Gonna Stop the Bleeding [Part Five]
Title: No Wise Words Gonna Stop the Bleeding [Part Five]
Rating: NC-17
Words: little over 10k
Notes in Part One
Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four
--
Quinn married Rachel on the twelfth day of the third month of the year in a small, unassuming courthouse not ten blocks from where they lived.
At first Rachel had wanted a big, huge, star-worthy (Rachel's words, not Quinn's) ceremony but Quinn had talked her down off that ledge and they had managed to compromise. Quinn would get her small, clandestine courthouse wedding that her parents would not be attending and Rachel would get her massive, fabulous, grandiose reception the week after.
When they left the courthouse, Quinn checked her watch, tangling her fingers with Rachel and glancing up into the light rain that was drizzling over the city. Rachel moved to turn right towards their building but Quinn tugged her in the other direction, smiling at the way Rachel bounced backwards with the pull and let out a surprised yelp.
"Quinn!" Rachel gasped indignantly. "What are you-"
"Surprise," Quinn interrupted, walking backwards as she held Rachel's hand. "Go with it."
The honeymoon wasn't planned for a few more weeks - it made more sense with their work schedules, - but Quinn couldn't resist giving them this at least. She was greedy by nature and she'd like to have her wife to herself for a few days before she had to really share her with the world. Plus, Rachel planned the honeymoon and Quinn just…she just needed to give Rachel something.
Rachel shook her head, but smiled and leaned into Quinn's side when she turned to face forward. They walked briskly down the sidewalk and Quinn waited for Rachel to figure out where they were headed. It was kind of a long walk, but it was a familiar one and Quinn knew it'd be worth it.
Ten minutes into their stroll, Rachel finally realized where they were going and she gave a little jump as they walked, an excited laugh erupting out of her that put an even larger grin on Quinn's face. "The Plaza?"
Quinn nodded and grinned at Rachel. "The Plaza."
"Like Eloise," Rachel breathed.
"Like Eloise," Quinn repeated, still chuckling softly.
"I love the Plaza," Rachel continued, practically bouncing as they walked down the sidewalk.
"I know you do."
"Why are we going to a hotel?" Rachel asked suddenly.
They crossed an intersection and Quinn looked up into the sky before smiling down at Rachel. "Maybe I just want you to myself for a few days."
Rachel beamed at her, bumping into her side and humming softly. "We're staying there a few days?"
"Until Monday," Quinn answered.
They reached the grandiose entrance of the historic hotel and Quinn held the door open as Rachel stepped into the lobby, her wife's eyes going wide as she took in her surroundings as if it were her first time here.
Check-in was quick and Quinn led Rachel to the suite she had picked out months and months ago. As they walked up to the set of white double doors, Quinn wrapped her arm around Rachel's shoulders and bent over to scoop her up with another arm under her knees.
Rachel let out a surprised sound before wrapping her arms around Quinn's neck and laughing. "What are you doing?"
"Tradition," Quinn responded, bending down a little to get one of her hands around the doorknob and pushing it forward.
"In case you hadn't noticed," Rachel whispered as if she were telling Quinn a deep, dark secret. "This marriage isn't exactly traditional."
Quinn laughed and walked into the gigantic suite, kicking the door shut behind her. "Humor me."
Rachel turned and looked around as Quinn set her back on her feet. "What are we going to do here for four days?"
Blowing out a deep breath, Quinn wrapped her arms around Rachel from behind and pressed a kiss to her shoulder. "There are about six rooms in the place and a terrace," she answered. "I plan to make good use of every single one of them."
Her palms slid over Rachel's stomach and around to her back as the girl spun in her arms. Rachel twined her fingers together behind Quinn's head and gave her the sexiest smile Quinn had ever seen. Her knees went weak a little and she backed her wife up against a nearby wall.
"A terrace, you say?" It was an understatement that Rachel had a strong attachment to anything but the norm on the sexual playing field. Terraces were a particular weakness Quinn had discovered on a vacation to Miami in their first year of dating.
"Yup," she replied, kissing a trail down Rachel's jaw and onto her neck.
"Can we start there?"
Laughing, Quinn bit down lightly on soft flesh and ran her hand down Rachel's back to settle on her ass. "We have four days, what do you say we give this entryway a go?"
Rachel's neck moved under Quinn's lips as the other girl swallowed and she smiled into the flesh, scraping her teeth down the smooth column. "Yeah that could work for me."
"I thought so," Quinn replied, pulling away to look at her wife. Just thinking with that word, looking at Rachel and realizing they were married was pumping hot desperation all through Quinn's body. It was an overpowering feeling and she didn't resist it all.
"I love you," she whispered against Rachel's lips.
"Good thing," Rachel replied, pressing their lips together hard and quick. "Because you're kind of stuck with me now."
A wide grin spread across Quinn's face and she found herself lost in smiling brown eyes.
"Sounds perfect," she said, before sliding her palm up Rachel's back to pull down the zipper of her dress.
By Monday morning they did hit all six rooms (Rachel was always diligent about to-do lists), and they got to the terrace. Five times.
--
In the first twenty minutes after Rachel gets wheeled into her hospital room, all Quinn does is stare. Her eyes have trouble blinking and her body can’t move and it hurts to swallow. She just stares straight ahead, keeping her eyes focused on Rachel’s face, on the way she can see her chest moving up and down and the faint beeping from her heart monitor.
She can still hear the doctor’s words in her ear. Your wife should be fine, we’re keeping an eye on the baby, but we’ll know better in the morning. We'll know better if she wakes up.
Her knee starts to shake.
She feels her face contort in pain and she can’t handle it anymore.
It’s completely, utterly ridiculous. She’s stood toe-to-toe with serial killers, stared down the most intimidating CEOs, and has endured a stab wound to her thigh without so much as wincing. Yet here she is completely toppled by a short brunette lying in a bed in a stark white hospital gown.
Standing, she walks over to the bed, running fingertips over Rachel’s arm slowly when she gets there.
In reality, it shouldn’t shock her so much. This was all bound to happen.
She can hear Santana and Puck outside the room talking about Pike and witnesses and the car that hit Rachel and Quinn tries hard to block them out. She knows it was Pike. She knows exactly what happened without taking any witness statements or reading any reports.
She knew it the moment she held the picture in her hand.
It’s hard not to make it more than it is. There’s a paranoia deep inside her that says Rachel getting hit isn’t random, that it isn’t just Roger Pike being a crazy bastard, but she stamps the feeling down hard. If it’s true, if her worst fears are actually coming true, than this is far from over and the implications are staggering.
Rachel’s eyes are closed and her breathing is even as Quinn trails her fingers down to clasp her wife’s hand. Now that she’s calmed down past the initial shock and despair all she can feel is pain and the desperate need for revenge. A thousand scenarios flit through her brain - most of them involving her unregistered pistol and an abandoned warehouse on the edge of town.
If Rachel were awake right now she’d probably have something wise and comforting to say and she’d remind Quinn that everything was going to work out just fine and through all Quinn’s cynicism and natural distrust in this world, Rachel would make her believe.
But Rachel’s not awake. She’s pale and unmoving and Quinn feels the urge to kill something, to make something bleed just to even the score. It’s a scary, overpowering feeling and Quinn has to sit down again, pulling the chair she had abandoned close to the bed. All she can do is sit, and hold her wife’s hand.
And she sits there for a long time, the beeping from the monitors sounding loud in a room full of Rachel’s silence.
It gets to the point where she can’t stand it anymore and she just needs to leave. She needs to be as far away as possible because she’s angry and pissed and scared and about two seconds from a breakdown. She needs to get away despite wanting to do nothing but lock the door and crawl into bed next to her wife and hold her until she wakes up.
She bolts upward and strides out of the room. Her three friends are all standing there and she stops to stare at them, her eyes traveling down to see Brittany’s hand firmly clasped in Santana’s.
It’s a dark, terrible moment but Quinn hates the sight of Brittany so close to Santana, hates the calm that’s starting to be restored in Santana’s face and the love she still sees in Brittany. She hates it because her friends fucking had a chance, they had thirteen years of chances and happiness and Quinn feels like it’s so unfair.
So unfair that Santana can just give up, can just throw Brittany away like that and it all comes back together, it just fixes itself and Santana’s world is restored.
She turns to leave before she says something terrible.
Santana’s voice calls after her. “Where are you going?”
“Taking a walk,” she bites out, turning slightly.
“Fabray,” Santana starts but Quinn needs to leave. She needs to leave and she can’t have Santana follow her.
So she puts up a hand to stop her best friend. “No, Santana. I really am just going to take a walk. I could use the air.” It’s half-truth half-lie but Quinn just needs it to stop Santana.
It works. “Okay.”
Quinn turns back to the hospital room and her eyes start to tear up as she sees Rachel again. “Could you just watch Rachel please?”
Brittany responds affirmatively but Quinn can’t look at her, can’t look at the way she’s cuddled up next to Santana.
She turns again and walks away as fast as she can, trying as hard as she can to think of anything but Rachel and failing miserably.
--
When Rachel finally said yes to her proposal and meant it (seven times after the first try), the day wasn’t really special at all.
It was a nothing day. An absolutely, boring, ordinary, insignificant day.
Neither of them had to go into work and they had spent the day being lazy - something so rare for them that Quinn marveled at the simplicity of it all. The sun streamed in through the window and she could almost feel the seconds tick away slowly on the grandfather clock two floors below them.
At the moment, Quinn was in bed - the place she had actually spent the last five hours in. A half-done crossword from the morning paper was propped against her knees and Rachel had her head on Quinn’s stomach, a script held over her eyes for some small part she got on a procedural drama. Her girlfriend had exactly seven lines in the whole episode yet all Rachel had done that day was read over those lines, reciting them under her breath more times than Quinn could count.
She shifted the newspaper to the side and ran her fingers over the brown hair falling across her stomach. Rachel didn’t acknowledge her, but her head moved slightly to the side, leaning discreetly into Quinn’s touch as her eyes moved rapidly over the white pages in front of her.
Doing something so mundane as reading the paper and lounging in bed felt like the most perfect moment in Quinn’s life and she was overcome with the need for it to be permanent, for Rachel to have a place in her life as solid as the heart in Quinn’s chest and blood pumping in her veins.
Rachel must have sensed Quinn’s stare because she turned her head to look up at her, the script in her hands falling to her lap as she arched an eyebrow.
“Whatcha doing?”
Quinn swallowed and let her eyes roam over Rachel’s face, her fingers still tangled in long brown hair. “You have to marry me,” she said, her voice deep and soft and full of all the love she had ever felt for this girl in their bed.
Rachel’s brow furrowed and she shifted slightly to study Quinn better. Their gazes locked and a smile played over Rachel’s lips.
White teeth scraped across Rachel’s bottom lip. “Yeah?”
Quinn smirked and tilted her head to the side. “Say yes.”
Pursing her lips, Rachel thought about it for a moment. “Interesting approach.”
Quinn turned and reached into her nightstand drawer, pulling out a small black box and setting it on her chest for Rachel to look at.
“I can’t live without you,” Quinn intoned. “Marry me.”
There was no down-on-one-knee, no jazz band behind her, no epic poem or video slideshow or anything other than the rumpled sheets of their bed and the sound of cars rushing outside their window.
Rachel took a deep breath before pressing her lips against Quinn’s.
The whispered “Yes,” that came after was one of the greatest moments of Quinn’s life.
--
She makes it out the back of the hospital near the emergency room doors and veers left, passing the psych ward door before collapsing around the corner, sheltered in the small alleyway between the hospital and the children’s hospital.
Her head pounds, overwhelmed with thoughts and pain and memories and Quinn has a hard time seeing straight. To the right, just past the end of the alley, she can make out the small playground that sits outside the children’s ward. There are a few kids out there today, taking advantage of the small reprieve from the rain. Quinn looks up and observes the sky. They don’t have much longer until it starts pouring again.
She looks at the kids again and she can’t help it. Thoughts about her own kid rush into her brain. Of what it will look like, how it will act, all the things she wants to teach it. She didn’t want a baby when Rachel first proposed the idea. It was actually the last thing she wanted. The idea of having a baby, of being responsible for something, of bringing a person into this terrible world they all live in had been terrifying.
But when Brittany left and everything Quinn ever believed in broke, she needed something to hope for again. And most of all, she wanted to give Rachel absolutely everything she wanted. Everything.
So now here she is and she should have known it would all break again. Everything breaks, nothing is stable.
Her wife is in a hospital bed and they’re having a baby. She’s having a baby. With Rachel.
Or she was. She doesn’t know now. She doesn’t know anything.
Life is so fragile and she feels it breaking like a crack in her chest.
“I might deserve this,” Quinn seethes, talking to no one. “I might deserve this but she doesn’t. She doesn’t deserve this.”
The clouds are silent as she looks upward and feels contempt for a God she’s believed in nearly all her life.
“She doesn’t deserve this, you bastard. What the hell did she do to you, huh? Fucking nothing.”
With a low breath she looks down again, twirling until she’s facing the brick wall. She’d give anything to be the one in the hospital bed right now, she’d give anything.
“It’s me right?” Quinn asks, chuckling darkly as her fists clench and her foot kicks out against brick. She pushes closer and presses her forehead against the wall, the brick cutting into her forehead. The pain feels good and Quinn presses harder, unable to stop hot tears from dropping down her cheeks. “This is punishment for being happy, right? For one fucking second of happiness. One thing.”
A choked sob escapes as she drops to her knees.
She’d sacrifice anything to make Rachel okay, absolutely anything. Even if it meant she never met Rachel, had never fallen in love, never gotten married, never decided to start a family together.
--
The first time Quinn asked Rachel to marry her was an accident. And she didn’t really ask so much as she suggested.
Yeah, it was pretty much a disaster from the get-go.
In her defense, it totally was not Quinn’s fault. At all. In fact, Quinn’s pretty sure it was Rachel’s fault. If Rachel didn’t act like they were already married in the first place Quinn wouldn’t have had unnecessary word vomit with the partners at her firm. So yeah. Totally Rachel’s fault.
It happened in a millisecond. One minute she was chatting with her boss about where she went to school and how her father was doing when he asked if she was married. She said yes without thinking and by the time Quinn thought to backtrack or correct herself her boss was already inviting her and Rachel to his weekend home next month.
So whatever, they were pretty much already married in the first place. Quinn didn’t really see what the big deal was with just walking over to city hall and making it official in the next few days. She’d get to tie the knot with the love of her life and save face with the boss. It was win-win.
And, okay, sure. Maybe the way she presented the whole idea wasn’t the most eloquent thing she’s ever done. And yeah, maybe she should have known better after nearly three years of being with Rachel Berry but honestly she was really more concerned with the man who signs her paychecks seeing through her embarrassing lie.
She was pretty sure that in a few years they’d all sit around and laugh about this. Rachel, however (and Quinn should have expected this), didn’t feel the same way.
“What did you just say to me?” Rachel stepped off her elliptical machine and pressed the off button on the stereo near her work out equipment.
“I said we should get married,” Quinn repeated, wringing her hands together.
Rachel’s mouth dropped open, then closed again and Quinn found herself talking before she could stop it.
“It’s just, we’re practically already married. And I sort of already told some people at work that we were married and we might as well just put it all down on paper and call it a day. I love you, you love me. What’s to think about?”
Rachel blinked and her mouth dropped open again as she crossed her arms over her chest. “I can’t believe you.”
Not the tone Quinn really wanted to hear. That tone usually meant bad things. Like the couch and lectures and silent treatments. “What?”
Brown eyes narrowed into a glare. “Was that a proposal? Are you under the impression that was a marriage proposal?”
“Um,” Quinn stuttered. “Yes?”
“No.”
“No,” Quinn repeated.
“Quinn Fabray!” Rachel exclaimed. “I’m sweaty and gross and it’s the middle of the afternoon and asking me to marry you so you can cover for some ridiculous Freudian slip does not constitute as an adequate proposal!”
“Rachel,” Quinn tried, propping her hands on her hips.
“Do you really want the story of our marriage to start that way? Is that the tale you want to tell the celebrity gossip pages?” Rachel took a step towards her and mirrored her pose. “Or the society section of the Sunday paper?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“That proposal is not befitting the star I am nor the star I will become, and if you can’t come up with anything better than that then you’ve clearly learned nothing over the course of our courtship.”
“Did you really just say courtship?” Quinn chuckled. She tried not to focus on the part where she was pretty sure her marriage proposal-suggestion thing was getting rejected.
“Quinn, either try again or call your boss up right now and tell him the truth,” Rachel huffed.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Rachel.”
“I’m not being ridiculous!” Rachel exclaimed. “Excuse me for wanting to feel like my future spouse actually wants to spend the rest of their life with me instead of proposing as some sort of atrocious cover up!”
That completely sobered Quinn and she dropped her arms to the side and stared straight at her girlfriend. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want that,” she whispered.
Rachel’s shoulders sagged and she’d smiled softly before stepping up to Quinn and and pressing the sweetest kiss to her lips.
“Then ask me again sometime,” Rachel whispered. “When you get it right I’ll say yes.”
--
It takes her a long time before she regains her composure, but she channels all her depression and all her desperation into anger. She lets it pump silent, calm rage through her and it puts strength into her legs as she stands. She can make it back inside. She can go and sit next to Rachel and hope for the best and wait it out. She can do it without breaking down now.
Plans. Plans are good. Plans help her focus.
She’ll make sure her wife is okay. She’ll make sure her kid is okay. Then she’ll fucking find Roger Pike and put a bullet between his eyes.
A raindrop hits her cheek as she stands and takes a deep breath. The sound of laughter whips her head to the right again and she watches a little boy chase his friend around a slide.
She needs to calm down. She’s got a wife and a kid and a career and it would be beyond stupid to let some obsessive need for revenge take all that away. The desire is there but she grabs a hold of it before it consumes her. She can almost hear Rachel’s voice in her head lecturing her on how ridiculous she's being.
She spares another glance towards the playground before turning to walk back inside the hospital, a new plan forming in her head. She might not be able to kill Pike herself, but she knows someone who could - who would do anything for her.
It feels wrong, horribly wrong, that she would ask this of her best friend but really, it’s her only option.
--
Santana is coming out of Rachel’s room when Quinn steps around the corner. She beelines for her without hesitation and grabs her arm, pulling them both towards the nearest door and out into an empty stairwell.
“What the hell, Q?”
She looks out the window to make sure no one followed them because she needs to get through to Santana and she needs it to stay here, stay secret.
Twirling to face her friend, Quinn grabs her friend and pushes her into the wall, pressing close and staring unblinking into Santana’s eyes. She pumps as much seriousness into her gaze as she can and pleads with Santana silently to understand.
“You find this guy,” she commands in a low voice. “You find him and you kill him. Slowly and with a great deal of pain. I don’t care how, just do it. Promise me he’ll feel it, promise me you’ll end it.”
She needs Santana to understand. Needs her to understand exactly what she’s saying. It’s not about justice anymore it’s about revenge and she needs Santana to do what Quinn can’t - as much as it’s killing her.
She sees it register on Santana’s face, sees the way her friend breathes in and nods a little before bringing her hands up to Quinn’s cheeks.
“I promise,” Santana says, her voice calm and steady. “I promise.”
Quinn exhales in relief and in the empty silence of the stairwell, with her best friend holding on to her and her wife across the hall in a bed, Quinn breaks completely.
--
Barely a month after becoming official with Rachel, they actually broke up. Rachel blamed Quinn. Quinn blamed law school.
Well, more accurately. Quinn blamed finals.
Finals were hard. The first year of law school was all about weeding out those that weren't really serious about the endeavor they had embarked on and as a result the first two semesters are the most difficult - the most reading, the toughest classes, the most impossible finals.
Quinn was smart. Like off the charts smart and she had a natural aptitude for the kinds of tasks she faced in law school. But she was also not so great at managing stress at this point in her life and when the pressure of finals settled firmly on her shoulders, she snapped. And Rachel ended up drawing the short end of the stick.
It had been about a week, four days, seven hours, thirty-six minutes and fifteen seconds since Rachel threw her hands up, said "We're through" and stormed out of Quinn's apartment. Quinn had been miserable for about a week, four days, seven hours, thirty-five minutes and fifteen seconds of that time.
Having Rachel around all the time had driven her insane at the beginning of finals period. She felt like Rachel was this extra obligation that she had to entertain and feed and deal with and it was just taking up too much time and she lost it. But now, in her apartment with the silence and the lack of Rachel she felt totally empty and she was actually having a harder time concentrating.
It sucked. It absolutely sucked.
Not to mention, she never realized how much of a stress reliever Rachel was. When Quinn studied at home, Rachel would make her lunch, buy her these energy drinks Quinn knew she disapproved of, or give her the best head massages she'd ever had. Then, when Quinn lost track of time and the birds outside started their morning chirping, Rachel would tug her upstairs and put her to bed and there would be snuggling - Rachel was really good at snuggling - and she just missed the girl.
Quinn missed Rachel and she didn't know what to do about it. It's not like her friends were any help either. Santana had just laughed and laughed and laughed until Quinn pushed her over into a snow bank and Brittany just tilted her head to the side, all confused and said "Well why don't you just go find her and apologize?"
She stared at the clock near her desk and tapped her highlighter against her open book. It was nearly three in the afternoon and she was hungry and bored and if she had to read another word about vicarious liability she was going to scratch her eyes out.
Yawning, she threw her highlighter down and shut her book, stretching as she stood and turned to leave.
It was cold outside and she had to watch where she was walking so she didn't slip on ice and fall on her ass. Two blocks later and she made it to her favorite little market, rubbing her hands as she stepped inside and smiled at George behind the counter.
The freezers were in the back so Quinn headed straight there to grab a drink and a box of Hot Pockets. It wasn't a steak and a glass of wine, but it was cheap and easy and Quinn just wanted to buy her stuff and go back to her apartment where she was going to spend the rest of her afternoon depressed over Rachel and how she was totally going to fail out of law school.
But then, like God just enjoyed causing her pain, the most adorable sound hit Quinn's ears and her chest squeezed as her heart recognized the laughter.
Sure enough, as she turned back to the front counter, a box of Hot Pockets and a can of Red Bull in her left hand, her now ex-girlfriend was standing there, laughing at George and hitting him on the arm endearingly. Quinn just stared in shock and despite her brain screaming at her to move before Rachel saw her, her feet wouldn't obey. Rachel was bundled head to toe, a light flush to her cheeks, a hat pulled over her ears, and a scarf hanging down over her jacket and the breath flew right out of Quinn as she took in how cute and sexy Rachel managed to look at the same time. Her eyes were starved for the sight and Quinn blinked slowly as she just stood there.
As her laughter peeled off, Rachel turned, her jaw dropping as she saw Quinn.
"Quinn," Rachel breathed.
With a shake of her head, Quinn recovered and managed a weak, "Hey," as she moved to set her things next to the cash register.
Rachel looked around the store and at George before turning back to Quinn again. "I was just," she stuttered and Quinn narrowed her eyes at the hesitant tone she wasn't used to hearing from Rachel. "George and Harriet came to one of my shows this week, I just came by to say hello," she finished.
And that's when Quinn realized that this little market was way out of Rachel's neighborhood and the likelihood of them running into each other here was slim to none. She hadn't even thought of that before.
"Oh," she said, glancing at George. "Cool."
She felt totally lame and anxious so she shoved a $20 bill at George before grabbing her stuff and making a move for the exit. "Nice to see you," she shot at Rachel.
It wasn't that she didn't want to be around Rachel. On the contrary, she wanted it more than anything, but standing next to her, knowing that they weren't together anymore was too painful at the moment and she felt like between her overstressed nerves and her lack of sleep she'd do something stupid like cry.
So instead, she was running away before anything ridiculous happened.
Rachel caught up to her a block back towards her apartment.
"Quinn!"
She thought about not turning around. Honestly. She thought about it for about three seconds but her stupid feet decided turning was her best option and she was facing Rachel before she could stop herself.
"What's up?"
Rachel opened her mouth and closed it and seriously, when did Rachel Berry become hesitant and stuttering and speechless? Quinn felt a flutter of hope that maybe the reason was because Rachel was just as depressed and confused over their break up as Quinn was.
"I just," Rachel started, stuffing mitten-hidden hands in her jacket pockets. "How have you been?"
She didn't mean to say it. She meant to say fine. She meant to say good, how are you?, but instead, like a lovesick idiot she said, "I miss you."
Rachel's eyes went wide and her jaw dropped open and Quinn nearly hit herself with the box of Hot Pockets she was holding but she'd already made enough of a fool out of herself. She needed to get home before she said something even more ridiculous.
But before Quinn could turn and walk away again, Rachel took a step towards her on the ice and looked up into Quinn's eyes.
"I miss you too," she whispered, her words almost lost in the cold wind that blew past them.
It took a heartbeat for the words to sink in but when they did, Quinn didn't hesitate. She saw an opening and she dove into it.
Her Hot Pockets and Red Bull hit the sidewalk with a crash as she stepped forward swiftly and pulled Rachel into her body, pressing their lips together. Warmth shot through her whole body as Rachel moaned at the assault and brought her hands out of her pockets to cup Quinn's face, the soft material of the mittens rubbing against her cheeks.
Feeling Rachel's lips against her own was like a shock to her entire system and she felt exhaustion and hunger rush out of her and all she was aware of was Rachel's warm lips against hers and the way her laughter sounded and the way Rachel's coat felt clenched in her fists.
Quinn didn't know how long they stood there on the cold, desolate sidewalk near her building but Quinn didn't care. Rachel was kissing her and her hands were pulling their faces closer together and she could really give a crap about anything else.
She could feel a smile stretch against Rachel's lips as their kisses slowed and Rachel laughed, the sound settling deep in Quinn's heart.
"I'm sorry," Quinn whispered into Rachel's lips. "I'm so sorry."
Rachel shook her head and kissed her again. "Let's not break up again."
This time Quinn smiled, wide and brilliant and she felt it all throughout her body. "Deal," she agreed.
"Deals have to be sealed," Rachel suggested, rocking on her feet and grabbing the front of Quinn's heavy sweatshirt.
Now, a different kind of warmth shot through Quinn and her heart flipped over. She grabbed Rachel's hand and turned to make her way back down the sidewalk. "Come on."
Hours later, in a bed of rumpled sheets as Rachel hummed a soft tune into Quinn's hair, she remembered her discarded bag of Hot Pockets and Red Bull still lying out on the sidewalk and laughed.
By January, when fall semester grades came out, Quinn was at the top of her class.
--
Her knuckles hurt from punching Santana in the stairwell, though she only vaguely remembers the entire altercation, and her eyes ache from the sobbing. The back of her throat is dry and raw and Quinn feels like she’s run suicides for hours.
Brittany and Santana had already left and for that she’s actually happy. It hurts to see them together and she feels guilty for even feeling that way. It makes her hate Roger Pike all the more. She hates him for what he did to Rachel, for what he’s doing to Quinn and she hates him because she wants to be happy about her two friends getting back together after so long and she can’t be.
She wants to appreciate the way Brittany hugged her before she left, the way she told her in low, soothing tones that Rachel would be okay but all she could think about was how Brittany and Santana got to go home to their apartment and get into bed together while she was stuck in a spartan hospital room watching her wife’s heartbeat on a computer screen.
Quinn ran her hand over the sheets of the bed and let her eyes focus in and out on the blood over her knuckles. Santana’s blood.
Her chest aches and she needs Rachel to wake up before she goes crazy.
She gets up because sitting is making her crazy and walks out of the room. Coffee. Coffee would be good.
But just as she turns out of the door she comes face to face with Noah Puckerman, a cocky smirk on his face and holding a cup of coffee.
“Puck,” she greets, making no effort to cover the surprise in her tone.
He hands over the cup of coffee towards her. “Here.”
“Thanks,” she replies, even more surprised now. “What are you doing here?”
He glances towards the door she just walked out of before looking back at her, his smirk dropping a little. “Eh,” he says nonchalantly. “You know. Just thought I’d stick around.”
He says it like he has nothing better to do, but Quinn knows otherwise and she almost yells at him for not doing something productive like finding the psycho that just hit Rachel with a car. But he’s staring at her with concerned eyes and the coffee he handed her is hot and delicious and she’s just so glad that there’s someone here that doesn’t make her stomach turn over with guilt or worry or fear that she doesn’t mind.
Without volition her head falls forward into his chest and she breathes deep for a moment. “Thanks,” she whispers.
He brings a hesitant hand up to rub against her back and she can feel the muscles in his torso move as he shrugs. “Whatever,” he says. “Berry’s crazy but she’s our crazy.”
She knows it’s so much more than that and she almost laughs because Puck is so much like Santana sometimes it’s uncanny. Neither of them are ever emotional or upfront about their feelings but they’re unwaveringly loyal and strong and they’ve always been around when Quinn needed them. For a second, her thoughts drift to kid on the playground again and she wonders what her own kid will be like, how it’ll be affected by all the people in their life.
She soaks in the warmth from Puck’s hand on her back and breathes in the scent of his leather jacket and his spicy aftershave and lets herself be still for a long moment.
--
Rachel wasn’t supposed to be anything more than a Friday night hook-up. Admittedly, that hook-up hadn’t all the way hooked, so they had met again and finished what they started. And sure, the conversation was enjoyable, the sex was awesome and Rachel would probably make a really fun girlfriend but Quinn had a firm no-relationship policy. They hadn’t served her well in the past and she wasn’t going to let dating affect her concentration in law school - she had goals, a plan and a new girlfriend didn’t really work in to it.
Quinn was perfectly fine with that. Apparently Rachel wasn’t.
She figured this out about the fifth time Rachel just happened to be in the same place Quinn - places Quinn would never expect Rachel to be. She brushed the first few times off as a coincidence (though seeing the Jewish girl at Quinn's church one Sunday was pretty telling), but when Rachel happened to show up in the law library on a Saturday morning Quinn started to get suspicious.
Green highlighter in one hand, and a cold cup of coffee near her other, Quinn had her civ pro book open in front of her as she ran over the notes she had written in the margins. There weren’t many people in the library this early so when someone passed her desk not once, but twice, Quinn took notice out of curiosity.
It took a second for her to recognize the other girl but on the second pass-by Quinn was able to put the short skirt, tan legs and long brown hair together.
“Rachel?”
Rachel jumped in surprise and turned towards Quinn, a wide-eyed look of innocence on her face. “Quinn! What are you doing here?”
Leaning back in her chair, Quinn narrowed her eyes in confusion. “What are you doing here?”
Rachel tilted her head to the side and chuckled. Shrugging, she took a step towards Quinn and leaned her hip against the side of Quinn’s desk. “I’m researching a role,” Rachel explained.
“A role,” Quinn repeated.
“Yes.”
“What role?” Quinn asked with a quirk of her eyebrow.
Rachel bit her lip and her eyebrows came together for a second. “Elle Woods. From Legally Blonde. It’s a musical you know.”
“You’re going to be Elle Woods?” Quinn threw her highlighter on the desk before crossing her arms and staring up at the brunette.
“Well, no. But it’s always good to be prepared. Should I be given the opportunity to audition for the role I want any competitive advantage I can get. It only makes sense to start acquiring whatever skill sets I may need in my future as an actress,” Rachel said.
Quinn nodded, her eyes flickering towards Rachel’s legs before returning to her face. “Right.”
“How have you been?” Rachel’s fingers played with the bottom of her sweater.
“Good,” Quinn drew out.
Rachel glanced down to the textbook Quinn had been reading. “Studying?”
“That’s what normal people do in a library, yes,” Quinn replied.
Another step forward and Quinn had to fight the urge to look at Rachel’s legs again. The memories of their multiple times together were springing fresh to her mind, quickly and with a thoroughly distracting amount of clarity.
Rachel reached over and closed the textbook before sitting down on the desk, her feet bumping against Quinn’s legs and her skirt riding up. She leaned forward, an elbow on her knee, as she crossed her legs and Quinn swallowed as she pressed her back further into the chair and forced her eyes to stay on Rachel’s face.
“You want to take a break?” Rachel offered, smiling.
Quinn bit her lip and weighed her options. She should probably be a little put off by the fact that Rachel was showing all the signs of some creepy, obsessive ninja stalker but in all honesty, Quinn was mostly flattered. Plus, Rachel was good in bed. Like, really good, and Quinn was a big fan of whatever stress reliever she could find.
It wasn’t like hanging out with the girl meant they had to get married. They could be friends. Friends that have sex occasionally. Quinn could work with that and she was pretty sure she could get Rachel to agree to it to.
“Yeah, sure. You want to get something to eat?” Quinn grabbed her bag off the floor and moved to put her book away.
Rachel shrugged as she hopped off the desk and waited until Quinn had her messenger bag slung over her shoulder. She held a hand out and Quinn grabbed it out of instinct.
“Why don’t we go to your place instead?” Rachel countered with a wink.
It shot arousal straight through to her groin and Quinn just nodded as she tugged Rachel out of the library. Yeah, friends with benefits. This could work.
Rachel laughed as they raced out of the library and down the block towards Quinn’s building. She didn’t stop laughing until they made it into Quinn’s apartment and Quinn shut her up by pressing her hard into the wall of the entryway as she dropped her bag to the floor.
--
Hours later, Quinn woke up from her post-coital nap and stretched out under the sheets of her bed, a comfortable ache lingering in her body. Rachel sat on the edge of the bed, her naked back facing Quinn as she fiddled with something in front of her.
Quinn peered around the girl to see her own phone held in small hands.
“What are you doing with my phone?” Quinn croaked, clearing her throat as she said it.
“Putting my number in,” Rachel answered as she pressed a few buttons.
“Why?” Quinn asked, wincing at how the question sounded.
Rachel set the phone the bedside table and turned back into the bed, scooting back under the covers until she was pressed up against Quinn again. A smooth thigh slid over her own as Rachel palmed her stomach and pressed a warm kiss to her lips.
“We’re good at this,” she whispered, her hand sliding up to rest between Quinn’s breasts.
Quinn hummed and slid a hand behind Rachel’s neck, fisting the hair there and pulling her down into another kiss.
“I figured,” Rachel said, between kisses. “You’d be amenable to doing it again.”
Quinn laughed as if the answer to that should be obvious.
“Having my phone number,” Rachel whispered, her fingers tracing distracting patterns across Quinn’s collarbone. “Will make getting together easier. It’s a matter of efficiency.”
Quinn wanted to say something intelligent or maybe give Rachel a nice reminder that she didn’t want to be in a relationship but Rachel’s lips were really close to her own and her thigh was warm where it rested between her legs and really Quinn was having a pretty hard time concentrating.
Years later, when she thought about all the times Rachel randomly bumped into her, about how each time it ended in hot, sweaty sex at Quinn’s apartment, and days later Quinn would find some property of Rachel’s laying around her bedroom (a shirt, an earring, her iPod, a shoe), Quinn could only laugh.
It took years of getting to know her but eventually she realized Rachel had an agenda all along. And really, she kind of loved her for it.
--
Hospitals chairs aren’t the most comfy thing Quinn has ever experienced but she barely notices the pains and aches in her body at this point. Her head is propped up on her fist, an elbow on the chair arm as she stares at Rachel’s face, the fingers of her left hand twirling her wedding ring around on her finger. Pain shoots through her bruised knuckles but she ignores it.
Puck is parked outside in the hallway - despite it being way past visitor hours (boy had a way with nurses) - and she can hear the faint sound of his snoring from inside. It’s silent and still now, but Quinn feels like there’s a storm going on inside her.
The rain beats heavily against the window on the side of the room and she tries to let its rhythm lull her to sleep. But she’s always been terrible at sleeping anywhere but in her bed, next to her wife, and she’d be concerned with how co-dependent that sounds but she really doesn’t care.
She drops her head forward until it’s resting against the mattress of the bed near Rachel’s hand and she closes her eyes.
“Please wake up,” she whispers into the blankets. “Please wake up. You have to wake up, Rach. I can’t do this without you, please just wake up and be fine. Please, please.”
She presses her forehead further into the bed and squeezes her eyes shut tight. “I swear I’ll do anything, just please wake up. I need you to be okay. I need you to be okay.”
It’s fervent, mindless rambling and Quinn is only half aware of what she’s saying. She’s lost in paranoia and fear and all the other emotions left in her now that the anger and the thirst for revenge have left.
“You can’t take her. You can’t take her from me. Please don’t, please make her wake up. You can have anything, just not her.”
She’s so caught up in her pleading that she nearly jumps right out of her chair when a hand touches her hair and a soft, scratchy voice whispers her name.
Her eyes snap open and her head whips up and her chest tightens when she sees wide, gorgeous brown eyes staring right back at her.
“Rachel,” she breathes.
Rachel’s brow furrows and she winces before she’s smiling. “Ouch,” her wife lets out, raising her eyebrows.
Quinn grabs Rachel’s hand and despite tears of relief that are currently streaming down her face, she laughs. It’s this weird awkward moment of crying and laughing and Quinn’s head falls forward against the bed again, her hand still clutching at Rachel’s as she forces air into her lungs.
“Baby,” Rachel croaks, her voice getting stronger.
Quinn picks her head up and brings Rachel’s hand to her lips, smiling into the skin there as she looks at her wife. “Hi,” she whispers.
“Hey,” Rachel replies with a crooked smile. “You okay?”
Quinn barks out a laugh at the question and swallows against tears. “Yeah,” she says, pressing Rachel’s hand into her cheek. “I’m glad you’re awake.”
“A car hit me,” Rachel says, her forehead scrunching up again as she looks around. “That was rude.”
The memory of Rachel spread out across the pavement punches back into her and Quinn inhales sharply as she squeezes her wife’s hand harder.
“Quinn?” Rachel asks, her eyes narrowed and alert all of a sudden.
“Yeah,” Quinn says, her voice cracking and the tears coming on stronger.
“Come here,” Rachel orders, tugging on Quinn’s hand and shifting a little in the hospital bed.
Quinn shakes her head and stays put. “Rachel.”
“Come. Here.” Rachel’s expression is firm and resolved and it only makes Quinn want to cry some more.
“You’ve got cracked ribs and - ” Quinn starts.
“Quinn, I swear to God. Get in this bed. You look absolutely terrible.”
Quinn arches an eyebrow as she stands up, shifting to lay on the bed next to Rachel but taking care to avoid all the various wires and other important looking things spread around.
Rachel wraps a hand around Quinn’s neck and pulls her down, kissing her on the forehead before tugging her face into Rachel’s neck and holding her there.
Eyes wide, Quinn breathes in against Rachel’s skin and lets the terror of the last few hours wash out of her. The tears come again and she can’t stop them. But this time, a small hand strokes down her back and the soft sound of humming resounds in her ears.
Rachel’s lips are against her hair and she’s singing under her breath, an absent habit that puts a lump in Quinn’s throat and makes her stomach turn over. It’s Rachel’s morning song, the one she sings in the shower or when she’s making breakfast and the same song Quinn couldn’t stop hearing when all she saw was the life bleeding out of her wife and her whole world crashing around her.
The notes are disjointed and soft but they brand themselves over Quinn’s heart and lull her into a hazy warmth that shoots the cold desolation of earlier straight out of her.
She presses further into Rachel’s neck and smiles soft and easy.
--
The summer before Quinn's first year in law school and Santana's fourth year as a cop, Rick's closed for a week. Something about renovating the bar, installing new taps and Joe going on a much-needed vacation but whatever the reason, Quinn and Santana were left without their usual spot. There were other bars in the city, sure, but Rick's was theirs and going somewhere else just seemed wrong.
But alas, they had to go somewhere, so they ended up at some small joint about four blocks away from where Rick's was. It wasn’t too bad - it was dark and smoky just like Rick's, but a little classier. The tables were cleaner, the floors less littered and in one corner there was a small stage, a black piano and single microphone stand.
The first night they were there, it was just a piano player on stage, a melancholy tune emanating from his fingertips. It took a little to get used to, as there wasn’t often music at Rick's aside from the clinking of glasses and the murmuring of low voices, but after a while the music began to sort of wash over them softly and became a comfortable background noise as Quinn stared across the table at Santana. It annoyed Santana, of course, who would much rather drink in silence, but with little to no other options her friend remained silent about it.
The second night they were there, though, it was a Tuesday and while they were sitting there that evening, some time after her third beer but before Santana started ordering tequila, a short brunette girl got up in front of the mic. Santana observed her with a skeptical eyebrow before turning to Quinn and shaking her head.
"Great, now we get to spend the night listening to some piss-poor amateur karaoke version of Billy Joel," she commented to Quinn. "How hard is it to drink in peace these days?"
Quinn looked over where the girl was standing in a short black dress and heels and watched as she leaned over the piano and talked in a low whisper to the man seated at the bench. Her long brown hair flowed forward and Quinn couldn’t stop staring for a minute.
"She might be good," she replied, not looking at Santana.
Her friend scoffed, popped a pretzel in her mouth from the bowl on the table. "Yeah, sure Q."
She stopped watching the singer when the brunette headed to the bar and turned her attention back to Santana. "So how's Britt?"
Santana leaned back and crossed her arms. "Driving me crazy," she said.
Quinn laughed. "Yeah?"
"Her and Mike have legit taken over my entire living room trying to do some new fucking interpretive dance. Whatever that means," Santana replied, uncrossing her arms to gesture wildly.
"Why are they in your living room and not the studio?"
"That's what I said!" Santana exclaimed, dropping her hand on the edge of the table. "Something about their boss not letting them have studio time or whatever."
"That sucks," Quinn added.
Santana leaned back forward and propped her elbows on the table, grasping her beer with one hand. "I'm seriously this close," she held up her index and thumb close together. "To just buying that damn studio for her so they can get the hell out of my apartment."
Quinn nodded slowly and picked up her own beer, bringing it to her lips as the soft sound of the piano started to drift towards them. She glanced back towards the stage to see the brunette from earlier setting a drink down on a low stool and stepping up to the microphone, adjusting the stand before smiling softly at the man behind her.
"Great," Santana said when she followed Quinn's gaze. "Here we go."
The singer smiled across the room, but there weren’t that many people there anyway. Just a few businessmen in rumpled suits at the bar and a few couples scattered over the tables. Not many were really paying attention to the stage, most of them had their heads buried into the glass on the table in front of them.
Quinn smiled and laughed at her friend's cynicism, but she felt her breath stop in her throat when the first few notes out of the singer's mouth reached her ears. It seemed to shoot across the entire bar like wildfire and even the drunk at the end of the bar, the one Quinn suspected had a permanent stool at this establishment, picked his head up and stared at the girl on stage in awe.
It was really like nothing she'd ever heard before. Quinn wouldn't call herself an aficionado of music or anything, but she was raised to have an appreciation in the finer things in life and she could recognize something special pretty easily. She remembered the piano lessons as a little girl and the hours of music theory she was forced to take in high school and through all the hours of listening to thousands of people sing, of entertaining her parents' friends at cocktail parties with conversation about classical composers and hearing the soft lull of vocal entertainment at many charity functions, Quinn gained an ear for music.
And this girl? Well, Quinn had only heard her sing for a minute now but she was pretty sure she could listen to her voice for the rest of forever. The singer locked eyes with Quinn across the bar and it was like a jolt shooting straight through her as they stared at each other. The other girl smiled softly as she sang, letting her gaze linger on Quinn's for a heavy moment before turning away and observing the rest of the crowd, motion seeming to restart around Quinn without the dark brown eyes on her.
"She's good," Quinn let out on a breath, low and quiet, and for a second she thought Santana maybe didn't hear her. The low sound of the singing flowed over her, some jazzy tune appropriate for the dark smoky atmosphere of the bar and she almost closed her eyes at the feeling.
But then her friend scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Whatever," Santana replied. "There are a hundred of her in this city, all trying to make it big. Maybe two of them will succeed, the other 98 end up on my watch, coked out of their mind and sitting on a bench down at the station."
Quinn laughed and looked at her friend. "You're such a joy to be around, Santana."
Santana smiled, wide and cheeky, tipping her beer bottle towards Quinn. "I know."
Quinn shook her head and leaned back in her chair. She looked back at the girl on stage and had a hard time turning her eyes away.
About an hour or two later (Quinn wasn't really keeping track, just enjoying it) the music ended and by that time Santana had taken to sexting Brittany like they were fifteen year olds again, which meant Quinn was bored. Really bored. She shook the ice in her glass around on the table and blew out a heavy breath, trying to ignore the drunken chuckle Santana let out as her phone beeped again.
"Why don't you just go home," Quinn said, her eyes following the singer from before as she walked out from the back room and made her way to the bar.
"We're drinking," Santana answered, her head still bowed over her phone.
Quinn turned to look at her. "I'm not drinking," she said, holding her empty glass up under Santana's face and jiggling it until the ice made a loud clinking noise.
Santana jerked away and glared at Quinn. "Then go get a fucking drink. What do you want from me?"
"I'd like to not be involved in your sick foreplay with Brittany," Quinn said as she sat her glass down on the table.
"You're not involved," Santana retorted, pocketing her phone and picking up her beer. "And it's not foreplay."
Quinn rolled her eyes and slid her glass away from her. Leaning back in her seat, her eyes found the brunette singer again, sitting at a stool at the bar, bare legs crossed over each other. When Santana's phone beeped again, Quinn sighed and stood up.
"I’m going to get a drink, you want one?"
Santana waved her off. "Yeah, sure, whatever."
Because Quinn was bored and because she always felt it was important to show appreciation for things, she walked up to the bar and leaned her forearms against it, right next to the girl who's voice had distracted her all night long. She might as well get something out of this night.
It wasn't Quinn's best opening line, but it was late and she had a significant amount of liquor in her system and really she just taking a shot in the dark for lack of anything better to do. So she ordered herself a Tom Collins (with a lime not a lemon) and turned her head to look at the girl on her right. "Hey."
Brown hair shifted as the girl turned and Quinn's gaze flickered down to smooth, tan legs that were a great source of distraction when the girl had been singing earlier. What? Quinn liked legs and this girl had clearly been given a top of the line pair.
"Hello," she replied, smiling slightly at Quinn and twirling a straw around in her drink. The glass was only about a quarter full so Quinn put on the most charming smile she could muster and pointed at it, raising an eyebrow.
"Buy you a drink?" Okay, that was about as unoriginal as you can get really but hey, classics are classics for a reason, right?
The other girl laughed and if Quinn liked the way she sounded when she sang, she loved the way she sounded when she laughed. "Very original," she replied and Quinn took a moment to be grateful that her obvious come on didn't devolve into an awkward I'm not gay, but thanks conversation.
She shrugged and turned to lean her hip on the bar, extending her hand. "Quinn Fabray," she stated.
The other girl smiled and shifted further to face Quinn, reaching out to clasp her hand and pump it up and down. "Rachel Berry," she replied.
"Nice to meet you, Rachel," Quinn said, enjoying the way Rachel's palm felt warm and smooth against her own. "You were really good up there."
Rachel kept their hands locked together and her eyes moved down Quinn's body before moving up again. "I'm really good a lot of places."
Surprised laughter shot out of her and Rachel joined in before Quinn let go of Rachel's hand and smiled warmly at the other girl. "Let me buy you a drink and you can tell me about it."
"I suppose I can agree to those terms," Rachel replied, leaning closer to Quinn.
Quinn stepped forward and bit her lip. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Rachel said, licking her lips and eying Quinn’s mouth. Warmth swirled around in her stomach and she took in the scent of Rachel’s perfume and the way the dim lights of the bar made her hair shine.
Quinn ran a hand through her hair and chuckled. “Well okay then,” she replied, her voice sounding deep and scratchy. “What are you drinking?”
And that was that.
It would be two weeks and three days until Quinn would find out exactly just how good Rachel really was, but that night over a Tom Collins and a vodka and diet tonic, Quinn found out a lot of things about Rachel Berry. She found out she had great legs, an incredible voice, two gay dads that lived in Ohio, a very promising musical theater career and a surprising affinity for blackberry brandy.
Quinn had never had blackberry brandy before, but later that night, between the pay phone bank and the door to the men's restroom she found out just how good it tasted off of Rachel Berry's tongue.
--
By the time Quinn has calmed down and her breathing has evened out against Rachel’s neck, she' forgotten the world around them, choosing instead to focus on her bright spot, her wife and breathing her in. The silence of the room is comforting even with the light bustling noises outside and the click of machinery on either side of them.
All Quinn feels is peace and love, until Rachel shifts slightly, her hand clenching tighter to the small of Quinn’s back, and turns her head to thunk against Quinn’s lightly. Her voice is timid and unsure and so unlike Rachel that Quinn feels a long-running and practically constant feeling of protectiveness flit through her as her body goes cold and her hands itch to find Roger Pike and tear him apart with her bare hands.
“What about the baby?”
Part Six