And We'll Watch Christmas TV (Quinn/Rachel)
Name: And We'll Watch Christmas TV
Rating: PG-13
Length: 3000
Spoilers: none
Summary: Quinn visits New York City to visit Rachel for Christmas
Author's Note: This is a prequel to A Pocket Full of Problems and a Pocket Full of Seeds, and was written around a month ago now for lynnearlington 's birthday. I figured I'd save it for the rest of you folk after she read it and give everyone a Christmas present! I have to admit, it's not very Christmas-y. But it's pretty snuggle-y. So, tradeoff?
For some reason, the plane is taking far too long to taxi.
This is Quinn's primary thought as she flips her cell phone to 'on' and barely avoids elbowing the person sitting next to her. There's one simple message already waiting for her when the phone finally boots up, from Rachel.
Already at the hotel, see you there ;)
Yes, the plane was taking far too long to taxi, Quinn was pretty sure. Because her girlfriend was somewhere in the most expensive hotel room in the history of Manhattan (and Quinn would know because she doled out all the money for it) and probably wearing lacy lingerie. Or satiny lingerie. Or -
Yes. The plane was taking much much too long.
By the time they pull into the gate, Quinn is about ready to start a fight to get off the plane first but graciously allows a small family off in front of her even though she can practically picture the lingerie that Rachel is wearing.
It's a very distracting image that gets lodged in her brain as she anxiously stands in the line at the taxi stand, shuffling her bags forward in the cold winter air. By the time she finally shouts the address of her hotel at the cab driver her patience levels are dwindling into the negatives, and the trip across the bridge and into Manhattan take far too long on top of that.
She allows the hustle and bustle of the city to distract her - something about this city entrances her. She likes cities, as a kid who grew up in small-town Lima, and knowing that New York will be her home only eight or so long months from now only adds to her love. She's going to live amongst the graffiti and grime and shouting and honking and she's going to have Rachel Berry at her side.
She'd really like to have Rachel Berry at her side right now, in fact. Her gloved hands are clasped together in her lap and she closes her eyes for a second and imagines that it's Rachel holding her hand, sitting next to her as they fly through the city on their way to somewhere, somewhere big and important, or somewhere small and useless, but together all the same.
The hotel is bustling with people when she gets there, and she picks up the one key waiting for her down at the desk with a happy smile, bouncing to the elevator and ignoring people's general New York unhappiness. She gets to see her Rachel and that makes her deliriously, ridiculously happy. God she was such a sap.
By the time she gets to her hotel room door, she's shaking with anticipation. The lingerie sounds spectacularly nice and it's all just on the other side of the door - the girl she intends to spend her whole life with is waiting for her on the other side.
When she opens the door, she is not greeted by lingerie.
Rachel is sprawled out on the bed, tangled up in the sheets, totally asleep. At the foot of the bed is Rachel's suitcase for the week and her shoes are neatly placed next to it. But Rachel herself is totally and completely knocked out.
And quite possibly snoring a little, Quinn thinks, closing the door quietly behind her and dropping her bags in the closet by the entryway, kicking off her own shoes. Admittedly, she had fully prepared to be assaulted upon her arrival, but really? Rachel Berry was kind of cute all curled up the way she was, one hand flung out across the far side of the bed. And Quinn was kind of tired...
So she crawled into bed and smiled as Rachel snuggled up to her, letting out a large sigh of contentment in the process.
Quinn couldn't wait for this to be her forever.
//
"This is a holiday institution, Quinn! You must participate!" Rachel shouts, weaving through the crowd of people at Rockefeller Center, her fingers laced through Quinn's. Quinn is really still distracted by this morning's activities, and really honestly could deal with still being in bed at the moment. But no, Rachel Berry has plans for her.
"Rach, you can't even ice skate," Quinn shouts back, pulling ahead of Rachel and pulling her through the crowd when the smaller girl gets jostled by crazy tourists knocking people around, making sure to shove her shoulder "accidentally" into one or two of them in return.
"I resent that accusation!" Rachel says, tugging Quinn back so they're walking next to each other.
"You resemble that accusation," Quinn mutters, finally finding an open bench to put the skates she's been carrying around on. Crashing onto it and trying to pull of her shoes and put on her skates as efficiently as possible, she's distracted by Rachel kissing her on the cheek.
Turning to look at the girl while she wrestles on her first skate and starts lacing it up, she's met with a watery smile that makes her drop the laces immediately and reach for Rachel.
Even things like this, like touching her, mean so much. Being able to reach out and grab ahold of the girl and feel her there meant the world to Quinn.
"What's up?" Quinn asks, sliding her gloved hand down Rachel's side and smiling as Rachel leans forward to thunk her head onto Quinn's shoulder and turns in towards her neck, just breathing there.
"I love you," Rachel whispers, and Quinn's smile is too large to contain.
It's kind of ridiculous how in love she is.
//
It was odd how comfortable this was. Rachel was softly singing to herself as she flipped through the channels of the television mounted on the wall opposite the hotel room's bed. Quinn was curled up next to her, her forehead pressed into Rachel's hip, half-awake.
Being away for months at a time and only being together through things like texting and Skype made it an interesting relationship when they were together - they could hardly ever keep away from each other when they were within reach of each other. But it was odd how easily Quinn slipped into this physical relationship without even trying. She always expected it to be hard, and it never was.
She found herself waiting for the other shoe to drop most of the time. But it never came.
"Just put it back on the news," she mumbles into the skin of Rachel's hip, while she played with the hem of Rachel's shirt on the girl's stomach.
"You know how I feel about the news, Quinn Fabray. They are far too depressing for this hour in the morning."
"It's eleven."
"All the same! I do not wish to hear about the assorted murders and drug cartels. I'd much rather hear about...the Broadway channel on the radio," Rachel finishes, settling on said channel and sinking down further in the sheets so her face is level with Quinn's.
"You're so predictable," Quinn mutters, as Rachel rolls over and faces away from her, pressing back up against her. "We need to make sure our kids get a balanced education in life, not all Broadway and dancing."
"Music education is very important, Quinn. I will not allow any future children of ours to live without it!"
Quinn giggles, pressing further into the skin at Rachel's neck and laying a soft kiss there.
"At least they'll be cute," she whispers, smiling when Rachel shivers against her.
"Well, of course," Rachel whispers back, lacing the fingers Quinn still has on her stomach with one of her hands. "How could they not be?"
Quinn only hums in contentment, suddenly too warm to think about much of anything. Rachel's here, the blankets are warm and she's still sleepy - everything is perfect. She falls asleep.
//
"Here's your present," Rachel mumbles from her place snuggled into Quinn's side. In her hand is a box , wrapped in cheerful Santa and snowman wrapping paper with a large bow on top. It isn't very big, and when Quinn takes it from her girlfriend, it doesn't weigh a large amount.
She pulls off the bow and places it on Rachel's forehead, giggling as Rachel huffs in feigned annoyance at Quinn's childishness, and rips into the wrapping paper, earning true scoffs this time at the mistreatment of Rachel's gorgeous wrapping.
It's Christmas and they're holed up in their hotel room while the whole city below them roars its holiday spirit. They have hot chocolate and have been listening to Christmas music and dancing along to it for hours now and finally they've gotten around to gift-giving. Quinn can feel her present for Rachel burning its way through the coffee table.
When she finally pops the box open, what greets her is a binder labeled MERRY CHRISTMAS QUINN. When she opens it up, she gasps.
Inside is a table of contents running from around the day she left for college to about a week ago - and as she flips through the pages she can't help but be grateful for Rachel's raging sentimentality. There are chat conversations printed out and screencaps from Skype conversations of Quinn doing ridiculous things. She catches one of her asleep and another where she's got a paintbrush on her face. There are pictures of the times when they were together - many of them of Quinn while sleeping. There are a few letters that they wrote back and forth sophomore year when Quinn's computer broke down and died.
Their whole last four years is sitting in the binder, painstakingly put together and lovingly so. It would almost be creepy if it weren't so sweet - Rachel Berry is certainly a pro at walking that line handily.
"I, uh, took out most of the inappropriate conversations. I figured...it's sort of like a photo album? We obviously weren't together for much of this time so it isn't exactly the same. Not that it isn't just as real. Maybe this was a stupid idea - "
"I love it, okay. Shush, babe," Quinn says, flipping through pages and smiling at a photobooth strip that she and Rachel had taken together their junior year.
"Oh. Good," Rachel mutters, relaxing back into Quinn's side and giggling at a random Skype photo of Quinn dancing.
"I love you," Quinn whispers, pressing a kiss to Rachel's forehead. "Thank you for this."
"You're very welcome. Although I did accrue many paper cuts when I assembled it. I think I deserve some sort of compensation for that," Rachel says, leaning forward and reaching for the present still sitting on the coffee table.
"You're so subtle," Quinn mutters, rolling her eyes. "It's not as good as yours, whatever."
Rachel scoffs again, and pulls off the bow only to place it on Quinn's forehead. After she meticulously pulls away the wrapping paper and delicately pops open the small box, she pulls out the small key necklace stashed inside.
"I should probably explain what's going on here," Quinn says, turning to face Rachel more fully. "That's a real key. I mean, it's like a symbolic key too, but it's a real real key. Like it opens things."
"Like what things?" Rachel asks, holding the key up between them and spinning it in the light.
"Uh...things like our apartment?"
There's a small silence as Rachel drops her hand and stares at Quinn. Quinn immediately feels the need to backtrack.
"It's not ours yet I mean. It like, its lease is ending when the summer starts and I'm already at the top of the list to get it and I, uh...it's a really nice apartment, I can end the agreement at any time totally. If you don't want it. I mean you haven't seen it so I don't know really. Um. I got you a key though?"
Rachel continues to stare at Quinn.
"Uh...Rachel, are you ok - "
Quinn doesn't mind the feeling of the couch arm thunking against the back of her head because Rachel Berry is on top of her, kissing her furiously.
//
They are at the airport and it sucks. Quinn's flight is supposed to leave today but it's been delayed by two hours and she's been sitting in JFK for three hours now. The only thing saving her from falling asleep in her misery is Rachel, who has made a new friend.
The woman sitting next to them in the terminal had three kids and one of them was quite the adventurous wanderer - his name was Jack and he had wandered straight over to the two girls and started babbling. At first the woman had tried to curb this habit, but Rachel had more or less stolen the child at this point - he was currently sitting on Quinn's lap, while Rachel was turned toward them, playing peekaboo with him.
Jack seemed to like climbing on Quinn for some reason, but he was far more entertained by Rachel's antics. When Rachel declared that she had to go to the bathroom and that Quinn must not lose the child, Quinn was left alone with Jack.
The boy sitting in her lap gurgled up at her, reaching for her messy hair and tugging on it just a little.
"You like her, don't you?" Quinn asked, and Jack giggled a little, his hand sliding to grip the collar of Quinn's sweatshirt and tugging at that. "Well, good. I like her too. I love her, actually."
Jack smiled up at her, reminding Quinn distantly of little Beth, who she now saw occasionally - the boy's small hands still tugged at her collar.
"In fact, I'm going to marry her. I decided that ages ago. You think that's a good plan?" she asks, and Jack laughs up at her.
"I think so too," Quinn says, leaning forward to set her forehead against the boy's smaller one, and smiling at him.
When she looks up, Rachel is standing there, looking down at them with a familiar watery smile on her face. Quinn has decided to interpret it as the "I am so fucking in love with you," smile.
Before she can open her mouth to ask if Rachel heard what she had said, a voice comes over the intercom and announces her flight is canceled.
//
"I love you," Rachel whispers against her lips, and Quinn tries to draw herself closer to the girl in an attempt to sponge up her sadness. They're in the airport again and this time, Quinn's flight is not canceled. And it hurts.
Leaving Rachel and not seeing her kills her - everywhere she goes, she imagines Rachel with her, being able to hold her hand and kiss her cheek whenever she wanted to. It's the most painful experience of her entire life. And she's given birth to a child.
She's in love with this girl. She wants to spend the rest of her life with her. She's known this since she was just a kid, really - when she looks back over the course of events that led her here, she thinks she should've known. Rachel Berry was going to be with her all along.
And that's the only comfort she can glean from leaving Rachel, as she wanders through the loading gate and Rachel disappears from view, tears sliding down her beautiful face. Rachel Berry was always going to be with her.
No matter what.
//
six months later
"When in the hell did you find the time to own all this stuff? Your dorm is freaking tiny!" Quinn shouts from the back room she's putting Rachel's boxes into. There's a veritable mountain developing there.
"I could say much the same for you," Rachel grunts, dropping a box next to Quinn.
They're moving in together, finally. The apartment Quinn had signed up for way back in December had been reviewed and approved by Rachel at long last, and now they were finally here.
They walk out of the room together, hands brushing each other's. Quinn stops to glance at the pictures Rachel had made it imperative to hang upon their arrival, a whole wealth of memories lined up on their living room wall.
And gosh, "their" was just such a great possessive pronoun, especially when used in a plural sense. This was theirs.
"Are you going to carry in the rest of your fifty ton boxes in or are you going to stare at the walls?" Rachel asks, her small amount of snark shining through for just a moment. Quinn smiles as she turns her eyes back to her girlfriend's.
Well. Fiance, she corrects, looking down to the ring on Rachel's hand for just a moment before she locks her eyes back to Rachel's.
"Yeah, I'm coming," she says, walking forward and reaching for Rachel's hand, leading them down the hallway to the stairs.
With her hand in Rachel's, she stepped out onto the New York City street and smiled.
She was home.
the end.
Rating: PG-13
Length: 3000
Spoilers: none
Summary: Quinn visits New York City to visit Rachel for Christmas
Author's Note: This is a prequel to A Pocket Full of Problems and a Pocket Full of Seeds, and was written around a month ago now for lynnearlington 's birthday. I figured I'd save it for the rest of you folk after she read it and give everyone a Christmas present! I have to admit, it's not very Christmas-y. But it's pretty snuggle-y. So, tradeoff?
For some reason, the plane is taking far too long to taxi.
This is Quinn's primary thought as she flips her cell phone to 'on' and barely avoids elbowing the person sitting next to her. There's one simple message already waiting for her when the phone finally boots up, from Rachel.
Already at the hotel, see you there ;)
Yes, the plane was taking far too long to taxi, Quinn was pretty sure. Because her girlfriend was somewhere in the most expensive hotel room in the history of Manhattan (and Quinn would know because she doled out all the money for it) and probably wearing lacy lingerie. Or satiny lingerie. Or -
Yes. The plane was taking much much too long.
By the time they pull into the gate, Quinn is about ready to start a fight to get off the plane first but graciously allows a small family off in front of her even though she can practically picture the lingerie that Rachel is wearing.
It's a very distracting image that gets lodged in her brain as she anxiously stands in the line at the taxi stand, shuffling her bags forward in the cold winter air. By the time she finally shouts the address of her hotel at the cab driver her patience levels are dwindling into the negatives, and the trip across the bridge and into Manhattan take far too long on top of that.
She allows the hustle and bustle of the city to distract her - something about this city entrances her. She likes cities, as a kid who grew up in small-town Lima, and knowing that New York will be her home only eight or so long months from now only adds to her love. She's going to live amongst the graffiti and grime and shouting and honking and she's going to have Rachel Berry at her side.
She'd really like to have Rachel Berry at her side right now, in fact. Her gloved hands are clasped together in her lap and she closes her eyes for a second and imagines that it's Rachel holding her hand, sitting next to her as they fly through the city on their way to somewhere, somewhere big and important, or somewhere small and useless, but together all the same.
The hotel is bustling with people when she gets there, and she picks up the one key waiting for her down at the desk with a happy smile, bouncing to the elevator and ignoring people's general New York unhappiness. She gets to see her Rachel and that makes her deliriously, ridiculously happy. God she was such a sap.
By the time she gets to her hotel room door, she's shaking with anticipation. The lingerie sounds spectacularly nice and it's all just on the other side of the door - the girl she intends to spend her whole life with is waiting for her on the other side.
When she opens the door, she is not greeted by lingerie.
Rachel is sprawled out on the bed, tangled up in the sheets, totally asleep. At the foot of the bed is Rachel's suitcase for the week and her shoes are neatly placed next to it. But Rachel herself is totally and completely knocked out.
And quite possibly snoring a little, Quinn thinks, closing the door quietly behind her and dropping her bags in the closet by the entryway, kicking off her own shoes. Admittedly, she had fully prepared to be assaulted upon her arrival, but really? Rachel Berry was kind of cute all curled up the way she was, one hand flung out across the far side of the bed. And Quinn was kind of tired...
So she crawled into bed and smiled as Rachel snuggled up to her, letting out a large sigh of contentment in the process.
Quinn couldn't wait for this to be her forever.
//
"This is a holiday institution, Quinn! You must participate!" Rachel shouts, weaving through the crowd of people at Rockefeller Center, her fingers laced through Quinn's. Quinn is really still distracted by this morning's activities, and really honestly could deal with still being in bed at the moment. But no, Rachel Berry has plans for her.
"Rach, you can't even ice skate," Quinn shouts back, pulling ahead of Rachel and pulling her through the crowd when the smaller girl gets jostled by crazy tourists knocking people around, making sure to shove her shoulder "accidentally" into one or two of them in return.
"I resent that accusation!" Rachel says, tugging Quinn back so they're walking next to each other.
"You resemble that accusation," Quinn mutters, finally finding an open bench to put the skates she's been carrying around on. Crashing onto it and trying to pull of her shoes and put on her skates as efficiently as possible, she's distracted by Rachel kissing her on the cheek.
Turning to look at the girl while she wrestles on her first skate and starts lacing it up, she's met with a watery smile that makes her drop the laces immediately and reach for Rachel.
Even things like this, like touching her, mean so much. Being able to reach out and grab ahold of the girl and feel her there meant the world to Quinn.
"What's up?" Quinn asks, sliding her gloved hand down Rachel's side and smiling as Rachel leans forward to thunk her head onto Quinn's shoulder and turns in towards her neck, just breathing there.
"I love you," Rachel whispers, and Quinn's smile is too large to contain.
It's kind of ridiculous how in love she is.
//
It was odd how comfortable this was. Rachel was softly singing to herself as she flipped through the channels of the television mounted on the wall opposite the hotel room's bed. Quinn was curled up next to her, her forehead pressed into Rachel's hip, half-awake.
Being away for months at a time and only being together through things like texting and Skype made it an interesting relationship when they were together - they could hardly ever keep away from each other when they were within reach of each other. But it was odd how easily Quinn slipped into this physical relationship without even trying. She always expected it to be hard, and it never was.
She found herself waiting for the other shoe to drop most of the time. But it never came.
"Just put it back on the news," she mumbles into the skin of Rachel's hip, while she played with the hem of Rachel's shirt on the girl's stomach.
"You know how I feel about the news, Quinn Fabray. They are far too depressing for this hour in the morning."
"It's eleven."
"All the same! I do not wish to hear about the assorted murders and drug cartels. I'd much rather hear about...the Broadway channel on the radio," Rachel finishes, settling on said channel and sinking down further in the sheets so her face is level with Quinn's.
"You're so predictable," Quinn mutters, as Rachel rolls over and faces away from her, pressing back up against her. "We need to make sure our kids get a balanced education in life, not all Broadway and dancing."
"Music education is very important, Quinn. I will not allow any future children of ours to live without it!"
Quinn giggles, pressing further into the skin at Rachel's neck and laying a soft kiss there.
"At least they'll be cute," she whispers, smiling when Rachel shivers against her.
"Well, of course," Rachel whispers back, lacing the fingers Quinn still has on her stomach with one of her hands. "How could they not be?"
Quinn only hums in contentment, suddenly too warm to think about much of anything. Rachel's here, the blankets are warm and she's still sleepy - everything is perfect. She falls asleep.
//
"Here's your present," Rachel mumbles from her place snuggled into Quinn's side. In her hand is a box , wrapped in cheerful Santa and snowman wrapping paper with a large bow on top. It isn't very big, and when Quinn takes it from her girlfriend, it doesn't weigh a large amount.
She pulls off the bow and places it on Rachel's forehead, giggling as Rachel huffs in feigned annoyance at Quinn's childishness, and rips into the wrapping paper, earning true scoffs this time at the mistreatment of Rachel's gorgeous wrapping.
It's Christmas and they're holed up in their hotel room while the whole city below them roars its holiday spirit. They have hot chocolate and have been listening to Christmas music and dancing along to it for hours now and finally they've gotten around to gift-giving. Quinn can feel her present for Rachel burning its way through the coffee table.
When she finally pops the box open, what greets her is a binder labeled MERRY CHRISTMAS QUINN. When she opens it up, she gasps.
Inside is a table of contents running from around the day she left for college to about a week ago - and as she flips through the pages she can't help but be grateful for Rachel's raging sentimentality. There are chat conversations printed out and screencaps from Skype conversations of Quinn doing ridiculous things. She catches one of her asleep and another where she's got a paintbrush on her face. There are pictures of the times when they were together - many of them of Quinn while sleeping. There are a few letters that they wrote back and forth sophomore year when Quinn's computer broke down and died.
Their whole last four years is sitting in the binder, painstakingly put together and lovingly so. It would almost be creepy if it weren't so sweet - Rachel Berry is certainly a pro at walking that line handily.
"I, uh, took out most of the inappropriate conversations. I figured...it's sort of like a photo album? We obviously weren't together for much of this time so it isn't exactly the same. Not that it isn't just as real. Maybe this was a stupid idea - "
"I love it, okay. Shush, babe," Quinn says, flipping through pages and smiling at a photobooth strip that she and Rachel had taken together their junior year.
"Oh. Good," Rachel mutters, relaxing back into Quinn's side and giggling at a random Skype photo of Quinn dancing.
"I love you," Quinn whispers, pressing a kiss to Rachel's forehead. "Thank you for this."
"You're very welcome. Although I did accrue many paper cuts when I assembled it. I think I deserve some sort of compensation for that," Rachel says, leaning forward and reaching for the present still sitting on the coffee table.
"You're so subtle," Quinn mutters, rolling her eyes. "It's not as good as yours, whatever."
Rachel scoffs again, and pulls off the bow only to place it on Quinn's forehead. After she meticulously pulls away the wrapping paper and delicately pops open the small box, she pulls out the small key necklace stashed inside.
"I should probably explain what's going on here," Quinn says, turning to face Rachel more fully. "That's a real key. I mean, it's like a symbolic key too, but it's a real real key. Like it opens things."
"Like what things?" Rachel asks, holding the key up between them and spinning it in the light.
"Uh...things like our apartment?"
There's a small silence as Rachel drops her hand and stares at Quinn. Quinn immediately feels the need to backtrack.
"It's not ours yet I mean. It like, its lease is ending when the summer starts and I'm already at the top of the list to get it and I, uh...it's a really nice apartment, I can end the agreement at any time totally. If you don't want it. I mean you haven't seen it so I don't know really. Um. I got you a key though?"
Rachel continues to stare at Quinn.
"Uh...Rachel, are you ok - "
Quinn doesn't mind the feeling of the couch arm thunking against the back of her head because Rachel Berry is on top of her, kissing her furiously.
//
They are at the airport and it sucks. Quinn's flight is supposed to leave today but it's been delayed by two hours and she's been sitting in JFK for three hours now. The only thing saving her from falling asleep in her misery is Rachel, who has made a new friend.
The woman sitting next to them in the terminal had three kids and one of them was quite the adventurous wanderer - his name was Jack and he had wandered straight over to the two girls and started babbling. At first the woman had tried to curb this habit, but Rachel had more or less stolen the child at this point - he was currently sitting on Quinn's lap, while Rachel was turned toward them, playing peekaboo with him.
Jack seemed to like climbing on Quinn for some reason, but he was far more entertained by Rachel's antics. When Rachel declared that she had to go to the bathroom and that Quinn must not lose the child, Quinn was left alone with Jack.
The boy sitting in her lap gurgled up at her, reaching for her messy hair and tugging on it just a little.
"You like her, don't you?" Quinn asked, and Jack giggled a little, his hand sliding to grip the collar of Quinn's sweatshirt and tugging at that. "Well, good. I like her too. I love her, actually."
Jack smiled up at her, reminding Quinn distantly of little Beth, who she now saw occasionally - the boy's small hands still tugged at her collar.
"In fact, I'm going to marry her. I decided that ages ago. You think that's a good plan?" she asks, and Jack laughs up at her.
"I think so too," Quinn says, leaning forward to set her forehead against the boy's smaller one, and smiling at him.
When she looks up, Rachel is standing there, looking down at them with a familiar watery smile on her face. Quinn has decided to interpret it as the "I am so fucking in love with you," smile.
Before she can open her mouth to ask if Rachel heard what she had said, a voice comes over the intercom and announces her flight is canceled.
//
"I love you," Rachel whispers against her lips, and Quinn tries to draw herself closer to the girl in an attempt to sponge up her sadness. They're in the airport again and this time, Quinn's flight is not canceled. And it hurts.
Leaving Rachel and not seeing her kills her - everywhere she goes, she imagines Rachel with her, being able to hold her hand and kiss her cheek whenever she wanted to. It's the most painful experience of her entire life. And she's given birth to a child.
She's in love with this girl. She wants to spend the rest of her life with her. She's known this since she was just a kid, really - when she looks back over the course of events that led her here, she thinks she should've known. Rachel Berry was going to be with her all along.
And that's the only comfort she can glean from leaving Rachel, as she wanders through the loading gate and Rachel disappears from view, tears sliding down her beautiful face. Rachel Berry was always going to be with her.
No matter what.
//
six months later
"When in the hell did you find the time to own all this stuff? Your dorm is freaking tiny!" Quinn shouts from the back room she's putting Rachel's boxes into. There's a veritable mountain developing there.
"I could say much the same for you," Rachel grunts, dropping a box next to Quinn.
They're moving in together, finally. The apartment Quinn had signed up for way back in December had been reviewed and approved by Rachel at long last, and now they were finally here.
They walk out of the room together, hands brushing each other's. Quinn stops to glance at the pictures Rachel had made it imperative to hang upon their arrival, a whole wealth of memories lined up on their living room wall.
And gosh, "their" was just such a great possessive pronoun, especially when used in a plural sense. This was theirs.
"Are you going to carry in the rest of your fifty ton boxes in or are you going to stare at the walls?" Rachel asks, her small amount of snark shining through for just a moment. Quinn smiles as she turns her eyes back to her girlfriend's.
Well. Fiance, she corrects, looking down to the ring on Rachel's hand for just a moment before she locks her eyes back to Rachel's.
"Yeah, I'm coming," she says, walking forward and reaching for Rachel's hand, leading them down the hallway to the stairs.
With her hand in Rachel's, she stepped out onto the New York City street and smiled.
She was home.
the end.