The Parent Trap, 4/?
Title: The Parent Trap (4/?)
Author: IrisAyame
Pairing: Rachel/Quinn
Rating: PG-13
Length: 2620 for this chapter, 8001 total
Spoilers: Quinn's eggo
Disclaimer: I don't own Glee.
Summary: AU. Based on glee_fluff_meme prompt. Prompt was: Rachel and Quinn get married. Instead of Quinn having one kid, she has twins, because, duh, that's like the whole point of the story :) They get divorced, quinn takes one daughter and rachel takes the other. They agree to not tell the girls about each other. Rachel lives in New York and Quinn lives in Lima. Their daughters end up meeting at summer camp and plan to get faberry back together.
Author's Note: Wow. I love those reviews. If I could eat them, I bet they'd taste like cookies :) CHOCOLATE CHIP cookies! So this is the part where they find out. Dramatically. Tumtumtum. I hope you like it, I tried, I don't know if I like it yet, but well... I sure hope you do! Read. Review? *puppydog eyes*
[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part3]
Information, Realization
Allie stood in front of Cabin 13. The Cabin looked frightening to her. There was only a stroke of lightning missing from the picture to her.
8:00 PM.
8:01 PM.
8:02 PM
8:03 PM
8:04 PM
8:05 PM
Charlotte walked up to her.
"You're really going to have to go in there, Allie."
"I can't. I swear, I can't. I'll kill myself, or I'll kill her. I know I can be harsh, but never actually violent. She makes me want to smash stuff. I hate it that she looks like me. I never could imagine myself being so horrible."
"You know, she's not that bad. If you let her in."
"How am I going to let her in? It's so freaky!"
"I gotta say, I was very skeptic of you when you said you didn't know each other. You look exactly alike."
"Except for--"
"Except for your freckle of course. But you look so much alike, that you easily could have been sisters. Twins, even. Have you told her where you're from?"
"No, why should I?"
"When enrolling into Camp Sunshine, you have to fill in where you were born. Her birthplace is Lima, Ohio."
Allie looked up so suddenly, it made Charlotte jump. There were tears in the blondes eyes. Despite her length, Charlotte was still taller and easily put her arm around Allie's shoulders.
"You know what's even worse? Have you compared our birthdays? They're the same! August 25! How does this stupid girl dare to show up here, with my face, my birthday and my birthplace?"
Charlotte's eyes went wide. There was a thing like too much coincidence, and she knew that this was definitely it. No, actually, they had passed that point way before, around the time that two girls with the same face showed up to the same camp. But this was too coincidental to actually be coincidence. She didn't know what else it could be, but she thought it was a wise thing to leave it up to the girls.
"I get that you're confused right now. But maybe you just need to go in there and figure things out?"
Allie's shoulders slumped. She wasn't looking forward to this. But she knew it was the only option.
"Be a little bit nicer to her," Charlotte quickly added. She might never get another chance where Allie would actually listen to her.
"I'll try. She's alright, I guess." Charlotte smiled at the unexpected words and Allie's shrug.
"Go in there. You're face-mate is waiting."
Allie nodded, stood for another minute to get a grip on her tear ducts, and nodded again, more confident this time. She loosened herself from Charlotte's grip, and became the Allie that never backs off from any challenge, walking to the Cabin. Charlotte grinned at herself proudly. Sometimes these girls needed someone like a lion-tamer, well, most of the times, but occasionally they just needed a little guidance. This girl needed a little guidance, a push, to lead her into the Cabin. And it worked. Because when she saw the door slam shut behind Allison, Charlotte knew that, for better or worse, at least something would be changing.
Allie was surprised that when she walked into the Cabin, it was warm, light, and smelled nice. Pretty much the opposite what she would have expected from the feared Cabin 13. She saw Susie making her way through the room, busy with... whatever. The girl was always busy.
"Hi," She said hesitantly.
Susie stopped in her step, turned, and replied:
"Hello."
"It's kinda nice here."
"Thank you."
"It wasn't a compliment to you, Berry."
Be nice!
"Sorry," She finished quickly.
Susie's blonde eyebrows arched surprised at the apology, and she said:
"Actually it was a compliment to me. It was cold, dark and smelly when I walked in here, so I decided to make it more pleasant by turning up the heat, closing the window, switching on all of the lights and putting my strawberry-vanilla room spray to use."
"Is that what makes our Cabin smell different from all the other ones?"
"You don't like it?" Susie said, and bit her lip.
God, this girl was one giant clump of insecurities!
"I do! It's better than wet clothes and stuff. So thanks. This time, to you."
"Okay," Susie nodded, taking in the compliment.
"I made my bed on the left side, the right side is all yours. I brought a book. I assume you brought something to do as well. We don't have to talk to each other at all. But I would like to say, before we lapse into silence, that I won't contribute to the prank war from now on. I have taken it too far, and now Charlotte was the unrightful victim. I apologize for returning the bad behavior that you extracted to me. From now on, it would be easiest to ignore each other. We can practice tonight."
Good sign, Allie's ears didn't hurt from the Susie-language.
"We don't have to. We can talk."
"...I don't think so. Do you think so?"
"I want to," Allie said, convincing both herself and Susie. To empower her statement, she placed herself on Susie's bed, legs crossed Indian style.
Susie got an excited glint in her eyes, and Allie patted the spot across her. Susie placed herself on the bed, still a bit weary, but also curious and excited.
"What do you want to talk about?"
"I don't know," Susie said. "Why don't you tell me something about yourself?"
"What do you want to know?" Allie complied willingly.
"Uh... Where are you from?"
Allie immediately frowned. With the information she had just received in mind, she knew that this wasn't the ideal icebreaker.
"Oh come on, you can't chicken out already! That was the easiest question!"
Allie puffed out a huff of air.
"Fine. I'm from Lima, Ohio."
Susie's mouth dropped, like in the cartoons, and Allie closed her eyes.
"You know, don't you? That I was born there? That's why you're looking like you want to throw yourself out of the window right now."
"Yeah, Charlotte just told me."
"Lima, wow. Do you go to McKinley?"
Okay, WAY freaky!
"I will be after this summer!"
"My mom went there, and it's like, one of the 2 or 3 big High Schools in Lima, right? Let me guess, you wanna be a Cheerio?"
Now Allie's mouth was the one dropping. How did this girl know about Cheerio's?
"My mom told me a lot about her High School years. She said that it taught her a lot about life. She apparently had some trouble with the Cheerio's. Cruel. Judgmental. Popular."
"And you naturally think of me?" Allie joked. Susie blushed.
"I'm sorry, that's not what I meant. I've been to Lima quite a few times, visiting my grandparents. My mother has always been as close to her fathers as I have been to her."
"Fathers?"
"Yes. They are homosexual."
Quickly, Allie ran through all the gay people in her town. There weren't very many. Suddenly she gasped.
"Berry! I should have seen... You're the grandchild of Mr. and Mr. Berry!"
"Do you know them?"
"Not really. My mom avoids them."
"She doesn't like gays?"
"No. It's more like the opposite. She's always very fierce about them, always defends them when someone says something bad about them. So I think she does likes them, but just avoids them."
"That doesn't make sense."
"Whatever," Allie shrugged, before turning the tables on Susie.
"My turn. You're from NYC, right?"
"I am."
"And you're close to your parents?"
"Parent," Susie corrected her.
"Oh, I'm sorry." Allie said, reflexively.
"Why?"
"Well, that means your dad must have died or something, right?"
"No, I never even knew him. I love my mother enough for two."
Stupid. She didn't know her father herself, but that didn't mean he had some kind of tragic accident.
"Actually," Susie added, "I am adopted."
"You were adopted?"
"Well, I guess you could call it that. My mother is 5"2 and has brown hair, tan skin and brown eyes. Look at me. I asked once why I didn't look like my mommy, and she first said it was a blonde daddy, but she can't lie or really keep a secret, so she promised to tell me some stuff when I turned 10. She said that she knew my mother, loved my mother, but split up with her for personal reasons and took me with her to New York. I cried so hard after that."
"Your mom is gay, too?"
"Bisexual."
"You know, I've been to New York too," Allie said.
"Everyone has to come there at least once in their lives, I wholly believe that."
"Well I have."
"What did you think of it?"
Allie sat and thought for a minute.
"Loud. Busy."
"What did you do there?"
"The tourist stuff, and I went to Broadway."
Oh God. The magic B-word.
"Broadway! That is amazing! Of course I have been to Broadway many a-time. My mother is actually a Broadway star."
She had obviously been dying to say that, and Allie kept in her chuckle at the pride.
"Really? Who has she played? Maybe I have seen it!"
"Well, do you remember when I really wanted to be Elphaba that night when we sang together?"
"I went to Wicked! My mom wanted to go with me!" Allie's eyes were shining.
"I went too. My mom was Elphaba in the Broadway revival."
"You're mom was Elphaba?!" Allie said, her voice growing louder.
"That is just... WAY cool!"
"She was pretty awesome in it, wasn't she?" Susie said nodding, but not sounding like she was bragging.
"She was. But... I didn't really see her well, I was all the way in the back, but I think... she was really young to be your mom! I mean, I was... we were 11 when the Broadway revival was on, and she didn't look older than 30!"
"She wasn't. She just turned 30. She was 27."
"But that means she had to be, like... under 20 when she got you. Whoa. Just like my mom."
"Is that why you reacted so fiercely to the whole teen pregnancy comment?"
Allie glared at the memory.
"It was REALLY not cool of you to say that, Susie. Getting pregnant is not a joke. My mommy always says that she never regretted me, and that she loves me and that she doesn't regret having me, but she also always tells me to never get pregnant at a young age, and to be careful and use contraception. I mean, that really hit a nerve, Berry. Especially coming from you, when your mom had you at a young age, too."
"Well, she didn't really have me. I'm sorry about that comment."
"It just, I know that there's probably nothing I could do that would disappoint my mom more than getting pregnant as a teenager."
"I'm sorry. I apologize profusely." Susie said, before changing the subject back to Allie.
"Well, what about your parents?" Susie asked.
"Well, I've only got my mom, too."
"I'm... sorry?"
"Don't be. Never knew my father."
"Just like me!" Susie smiled, but it turned upside down into a frown.
"I'm sorry, I know that's not exactly a positive thing, it's just that, this means we have something of great importance in common."
"Well, yeah. I don't really know about my dad. My mom always says that I'm too young, but she promised to tell me the whole story around my birth the first day of Freshman year."
"That's by the end of this summer!"
"I know. I'm so anxious to finally hear it!"
"You know, if our mothers are the same age, and both went to the same High School in Lima... maybe they know each other."
"Nah, I don't think so. There is such a thing as too much coincidence."
Susie's brow arched.
"Don't you think we're past coincidence now?"
"What are you talking about?" Allie asked, confused.
Susie scraped her throat.
"Let's talk frank, Allie. We look a lot like each other. Our mothers are both from Lima. I do not know either of my birth parents, and you only know one. We're born on the same day, in the same town. I once thought, that if I didn't know any better, I would have thought we were sisters. But now I think of it, I don't know any better."
Allie shook her head, pulling away.
"You're crazy, Berry. We can't be sisters."
Susie's eyebrow arched, and she gestured to the mirror across the room. They were sitting in the same position, only mirrored. It looked like someone had copy-pasted one of them next to the other, only mirrored.
"My mom's name is Rachel, just like your middle name," Susie said out of the blue. Allie shook her head. There couldn't be any connection between her and this... person. This stranger. This girl that she didn't know. But Susie asked, ruthlessly:
"What is your mother's name?"
Allie shut her eyes tightly, and said reluctantly:
"Quinn."
Susie nodded, but didn't even seem surprised at this point.
"Another coincidence. My mom always calls me Susie Q. Mostly because almost every girl with a Susanne-like name is called Susie Q, but also because my middle name is Quinn."
Allie nodded, staring blankly. There was no activity in her mind going to put the puzzle pieces together.
"Okay, so what do YOU think happened?" Allie said in a daring tone.
"How does your mother feel about females?"
"You've got to be kidding me."
"I'm not! Just, say it."
Allie frowned, and thought.
"She always tells me that it's okay to be gay. I know she once fell in love with a girl when she was pregnant with me and after I was born, but it didn't lead anywhere so they split up."
Susie had a secretive, excited look on her face.
"What would you say, if I told you, that I think our moms used to date?"
Allie laughed.
"Don't laugh, Allie. I'm serious."
Allie stopped laughing and looked at Susie, doubting.
"I... I know that I used to call her... girlfriend or whatever mom, too. That would make us sisters. Your biological mother would be the same as mine, and your mom would be kind of like my mom. But... I've.. I've got one picture of my... what would be your mother," Allie said, pushing through the hard part. She called the girl that her mom had told her about in her mind always her Other Mother, but had never told anyone about her.
"I've got one picture of my biological mom. I look a lot like her."
"People always say that I look a lot like my mom."
"And we look a lot alike. But," Susie said, biting her lip, "It's like, a rather old picture. When she was pregnant."
Not speculating any longer, she grabbed the picture of her biological mother that her mom had given her after telling her about the adoption.
Allie reached behind her for her bag, and quickly found the picture she had stolen from her mom's photo-album from the time she was pregnant. After Quinn found out that Allie had found it, Allie had never seen it again, but the damage was done; half of a picture with a smiling brunette was missing from the album, and Allie always took it with her. She wasn't sure if she would ever find out more about her Other Mother, and she'd take everything she could.
They both hid it behind their backs, scared, but excited.
"On the count of 3," Susie said.
"1...2...3!"
Simultaneously they showed each other the picture. Simultaneously they gasped. Simultaneously, they called out:
"MOM!"
Part 5!
Author: IrisAyame
Pairing: Rachel/Quinn
Rating: PG-13
Length: 2620 for this chapter, 8001 total
Spoilers: Quinn's eggo
Disclaimer: I don't own Glee.
Summary: AU. Based on glee_fluff_meme prompt. Prompt was: Rachel and Quinn get married. Instead of Quinn having one kid, she has twins, because, duh, that's like the whole point of the story :) They get divorced, quinn takes one daughter and rachel takes the other. They agree to not tell the girls about each other. Rachel lives in New York and Quinn lives in Lima. Their daughters end up meeting at summer camp and plan to get faberry back together.
Author's Note: Wow. I love those reviews. If I could eat them, I bet they'd taste like cookies :) CHOCOLATE CHIP cookies! So this is the part where they find out. Dramatically. Tumtumtum. I hope you like it, I tried, I don't know if I like it yet, but well... I sure hope you do! Read. Review? *puppydog eyes*
[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part3]
Information, Realization
Allie stood in front of Cabin 13. The Cabin looked frightening to her. There was only a stroke of lightning missing from the picture to her.
8:00 PM.
8:01 PM.
8:02 PM
8:03 PM
8:04 PM
8:05 PM
Charlotte walked up to her.
"You're really going to have to go in there, Allie."
"I can't. I swear, I can't. I'll kill myself, or I'll kill her. I know I can be harsh, but never actually violent. She makes me want to smash stuff. I hate it that she looks like me. I never could imagine myself being so horrible."
"You know, she's not that bad. If you let her in."
"How am I going to let her in? It's so freaky!"
"I gotta say, I was very skeptic of you when you said you didn't know each other. You look exactly alike."
"Except for--"
"Except for your freckle of course. But you look so much alike, that you easily could have been sisters. Twins, even. Have you told her where you're from?"
"No, why should I?"
"When enrolling into Camp Sunshine, you have to fill in where you were born. Her birthplace is Lima, Ohio."
Allie looked up so suddenly, it made Charlotte jump. There were tears in the blondes eyes. Despite her length, Charlotte was still taller and easily put her arm around Allie's shoulders.
"You know what's even worse? Have you compared our birthdays? They're the same! August 25! How does this stupid girl dare to show up here, with my face, my birthday and my birthplace?"
Charlotte's eyes went wide. There was a thing like too much coincidence, and she knew that this was definitely it. No, actually, they had passed that point way before, around the time that two girls with the same face showed up to the same camp. But this was too coincidental to actually be coincidence. She didn't know what else it could be, but she thought it was a wise thing to leave it up to the girls.
"I get that you're confused right now. But maybe you just need to go in there and figure things out?"
Allie's shoulders slumped. She wasn't looking forward to this. But she knew it was the only option.
"Be a little bit nicer to her," Charlotte quickly added. She might never get another chance where Allie would actually listen to her.
"I'll try. She's alright, I guess." Charlotte smiled at the unexpected words and Allie's shrug.
"Go in there. You're face-mate is waiting."
Allie nodded, stood for another minute to get a grip on her tear ducts, and nodded again, more confident this time. She loosened herself from Charlotte's grip, and became the Allie that never backs off from any challenge, walking to the Cabin. Charlotte grinned at herself proudly. Sometimes these girls needed someone like a lion-tamer, well, most of the times, but occasionally they just needed a little guidance. This girl needed a little guidance, a push, to lead her into the Cabin. And it worked. Because when she saw the door slam shut behind Allison, Charlotte knew that, for better or worse, at least something would be changing.
Allie was surprised that when she walked into the Cabin, it was warm, light, and smelled nice. Pretty much the opposite what she would have expected from the feared Cabin 13. She saw Susie making her way through the room, busy with... whatever. The girl was always busy.
"Hi," She said hesitantly.
Susie stopped in her step, turned, and replied:
"Hello."
"It's kinda nice here."
"Thank you."
"It wasn't a compliment to you, Berry."
Be nice!
"Sorry," She finished quickly.
Susie's blonde eyebrows arched surprised at the apology, and she said:
"Actually it was a compliment to me. It was cold, dark and smelly when I walked in here, so I decided to make it more pleasant by turning up the heat, closing the window, switching on all of the lights and putting my strawberry-vanilla room spray to use."
"Is that what makes our Cabin smell different from all the other ones?"
"You don't like it?" Susie said, and bit her lip.
God, this girl was one giant clump of insecurities!
"I do! It's better than wet clothes and stuff. So thanks. This time, to you."
"Okay," Susie nodded, taking in the compliment.
"I made my bed on the left side, the right side is all yours. I brought a book. I assume you brought something to do as well. We don't have to talk to each other at all. But I would like to say, before we lapse into silence, that I won't contribute to the prank war from now on. I have taken it too far, and now Charlotte was the unrightful victim. I apologize for returning the bad behavior that you extracted to me. From now on, it would be easiest to ignore each other. We can practice tonight."
Good sign, Allie's ears didn't hurt from the Susie-language.
"We don't have to. We can talk."
"...I don't think so. Do you think so?"
"I want to," Allie said, convincing both herself and Susie. To empower her statement, she placed herself on Susie's bed, legs crossed Indian style.
Susie got an excited glint in her eyes, and Allie patted the spot across her. Susie placed herself on the bed, still a bit weary, but also curious and excited.
"What do you want to talk about?"
"I don't know," Susie said. "Why don't you tell me something about yourself?"
"What do you want to know?" Allie complied willingly.
"Uh... Where are you from?"
Allie immediately frowned. With the information she had just received in mind, she knew that this wasn't the ideal icebreaker.
"Oh come on, you can't chicken out already! That was the easiest question!"
Allie puffed out a huff of air.
"Fine. I'm from Lima, Ohio."
Susie's mouth dropped, like in the cartoons, and Allie closed her eyes.
"You know, don't you? That I was born there? That's why you're looking like you want to throw yourself out of the window right now."
"Yeah, Charlotte just told me."
"Lima, wow. Do you go to McKinley?"
Okay, WAY freaky!
"I will be after this summer!"
"My mom went there, and it's like, one of the 2 or 3 big High Schools in Lima, right? Let me guess, you wanna be a Cheerio?"
Now Allie's mouth was the one dropping. How did this girl know about Cheerio's?
"My mom told me a lot about her High School years. She said that it taught her a lot about life. She apparently had some trouble with the Cheerio's. Cruel. Judgmental. Popular."
"And you naturally think of me?" Allie joked. Susie blushed.
"I'm sorry, that's not what I meant. I've been to Lima quite a few times, visiting my grandparents. My mother has always been as close to her fathers as I have been to her."
"Fathers?"
"Yes. They are homosexual."
Quickly, Allie ran through all the gay people in her town. There weren't very many. Suddenly she gasped.
"Berry! I should have seen... You're the grandchild of Mr. and Mr. Berry!"
"Do you know them?"
"Not really. My mom avoids them."
"She doesn't like gays?"
"No. It's more like the opposite. She's always very fierce about them, always defends them when someone says something bad about them. So I think she does likes them, but just avoids them."
"That doesn't make sense."
"Whatever," Allie shrugged, before turning the tables on Susie.
"My turn. You're from NYC, right?"
"I am."
"And you're close to your parents?"
"Parent," Susie corrected her.
"Oh, I'm sorry." Allie said, reflexively.
"Why?"
"Well, that means your dad must have died or something, right?"
"No, I never even knew him. I love my mother enough for two."
Stupid. She didn't know her father herself, but that didn't mean he had some kind of tragic accident.
"Actually," Susie added, "I am adopted."
"You were adopted?"
"Well, I guess you could call it that. My mother is 5"2 and has brown hair, tan skin and brown eyes. Look at me. I asked once why I didn't look like my mommy, and she first said it was a blonde daddy, but she can't lie or really keep a secret, so she promised to tell me some stuff when I turned 10. She said that she knew my mother, loved my mother, but split up with her for personal reasons and took me with her to New York. I cried so hard after that."
"Your mom is gay, too?"
"Bisexual."
"You know, I've been to New York too," Allie said.
"Everyone has to come there at least once in their lives, I wholly believe that."
"Well I have."
"What did you think of it?"
Allie sat and thought for a minute.
"Loud. Busy."
"What did you do there?"
"The tourist stuff, and I went to Broadway."
Oh God. The magic B-word.
"Broadway! That is amazing! Of course I have been to Broadway many a-time. My mother is actually a Broadway star."
She had obviously been dying to say that, and Allie kept in her chuckle at the pride.
"Really? Who has she played? Maybe I have seen it!"
"Well, do you remember when I really wanted to be Elphaba that night when we sang together?"
"I went to Wicked! My mom wanted to go with me!" Allie's eyes were shining.
"I went too. My mom was Elphaba in the Broadway revival."
"You're mom was Elphaba?!" Allie said, her voice growing louder.
"That is just... WAY cool!"
"She was pretty awesome in it, wasn't she?" Susie said nodding, but not sounding like she was bragging.
"She was. But... I didn't really see her well, I was all the way in the back, but I think... she was really young to be your mom! I mean, I was... we were 11 when the Broadway revival was on, and she didn't look older than 30!"
"She wasn't. She just turned 30. She was 27."
"But that means she had to be, like... under 20 when she got you. Whoa. Just like my mom."
"Is that why you reacted so fiercely to the whole teen pregnancy comment?"
Allie glared at the memory.
"It was REALLY not cool of you to say that, Susie. Getting pregnant is not a joke. My mommy always says that she never regretted me, and that she loves me and that she doesn't regret having me, but she also always tells me to never get pregnant at a young age, and to be careful and use contraception. I mean, that really hit a nerve, Berry. Especially coming from you, when your mom had you at a young age, too."
"Well, she didn't really have me. I'm sorry about that comment."
"It just, I know that there's probably nothing I could do that would disappoint my mom more than getting pregnant as a teenager."
"I'm sorry. I apologize profusely." Susie said, before changing the subject back to Allie.
"Well, what about your parents?" Susie asked.
"Well, I've only got my mom, too."
"I'm... sorry?"
"Don't be. Never knew my father."
"Just like me!" Susie smiled, but it turned upside down into a frown.
"I'm sorry, I know that's not exactly a positive thing, it's just that, this means we have something of great importance in common."
"Well, yeah. I don't really know about my dad. My mom always says that I'm too young, but she promised to tell me the whole story around my birth the first day of Freshman year."
"That's by the end of this summer!"
"I know. I'm so anxious to finally hear it!"
"You know, if our mothers are the same age, and both went to the same High School in Lima... maybe they know each other."
"Nah, I don't think so. There is such a thing as too much coincidence."
Susie's brow arched.
"Don't you think we're past coincidence now?"
"What are you talking about?" Allie asked, confused.
Susie scraped her throat.
"Let's talk frank, Allie. We look a lot like each other. Our mothers are both from Lima. I do not know either of my birth parents, and you only know one. We're born on the same day, in the same town. I once thought, that if I didn't know any better, I would have thought we were sisters. But now I think of it, I don't know any better."
Allie shook her head, pulling away.
"You're crazy, Berry. We can't be sisters."
Susie's eyebrow arched, and she gestured to the mirror across the room. They were sitting in the same position, only mirrored. It looked like someone had copy-pasted one of them next to the other, only mirrored.
"My mom's name is Rachel, just like your middle name," Susie said out of the blue. Allie shook her head. There couldn't be any connection between her and this... person. This stranger. This girl that she didn't know. But Susie asked, ruthlessly:
"What is your mother's name?"
Allie shut her eyes tightly, and said reluctantly:
"Quinn."
Susie nodded, but didn't even seem surprised at this point.
"Another coincidence. My mom always calls me Susie Q. Mostly because almost every girl with a Susanne-like name is called Susie Q, but also because my middle name is Quinn."
Allie nodded, staring blankly. There was no activity in her mind going to put the puzzle pieces together.
"Okay, so what do YOU think happened?" Allie said in a daring tone.
"How does your mother feel about females?"
"You've got to be kidding me."
"I'm not! Just, say it."
Allie frowned, and thought.
"She always tells me that it's okay to be gay. I know she once fell in love with a girl when she was pregnant with me and after I was born, but it didn't lead anywhere so they split up."
Susie had a secretive, excited look on her face.
"What would you say, if I told you, that I think our moms used to date?"
Allie laughed.
"Don't laugh, Allie. I'm serious."
Allie stopped laughing and looked at Susie, doubting.
"I... I know that I used to call her... girlfriend or whatever mom, too. That would make us sisters. Your biological mother would be the same as mine, and your mom would be kind of like my mom. But... I've.. I've got one picture of my... what would be your mother," Allie said, pushing through the hard part. She called the girl that her mom had told her about in her mind always her Other Mother, but had never told anyone about her.
"I've got one picture of my biological mom. I look a lot like her."
"People always say that I look a lot like my mom."
"And we look a lot alike. But," Susie said, biting her lip, "It's like, a rather old picture. When she was pregnant."
Not speculating any longer, she grabbed the picture of her biological mother that her mom had given her after telling her about the adoption.
Allie reached behind her for her bag, and quickly found the picture she had stolen from her mom's photo-album from the time she was pregnant. After Quinn found out that Allie had found it, Allie had never seen it again, but the damage was done; half of a picture with a smiling brunette was missing from the album, and Allie always took it with her. She wasn't sure if she would ever find out more about her Other Mother, and she'd take everything she could.
They both hid it behind their backs, scared, but excited.
"On the count of 3," Susie said.
"1...2...3!"
Simultaneously they showed each other the picture. Simultaneously they gasped. Simultaneously, they called out:
"MOM!"
Part 5!