you know she'll break you in two: quinn/rachel, pg-13
Title: You Know She'll Break You In Two
Author: Kelsey / marliskelsey
Pairing,Character(s): Quinn/Rachel, appearance by Santana
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: Approx. 5,200
Spoilers: Very, very minor spoilers for Season 2.
Disclaimer: I do not own Glee. I can only dream.
Summary: She doesn’t want to go home. Not to that home, at least, the home that is empty and dull without her in it, singing and laughing and filling it with life.
A/N: Written for this prompt on the glee_angst_meme. Based on the some "Sometime After Midnight" by The Airborne Toxic Event. Unbeta'd so all mistakes are mine, be gentle with me. Hope you like it!
And it starts
Sometime around midnight
Or at least that's when
You lose yourself
For a minute or two
The twinkle lights draped across the bar are starting to blur together, like a constellation of stars. Quinn knows she shouldn’t be drinking - nothing good in her life has ever come from the bottom of a bottle - but the feeling of the wine glass in her hand and the warmth coursing through her body is too familiar, too comforting to stop. She takes another sip and glances at the clock over the bar. It’s midnight. She should just find Santana somewhere in the throng of bar patrons and leave before she makes a fool of herself. Appearance is everything, she can hear her mother saying. Old Fabray ways die hard, she supposes. She should go home.
She doesn’t want to go home. Not to that home, at least, the home that is empty and dull without her in it, singing and laughing and filling it with life.
Quinn stares at the grooves in the wood, making patterns beneath her glass and her hands until it blurs together. She’s caught up in the same feelings from the night it ended, the feelings that overcome her every time Quinn catches a whiff of her perfume left in the armoire. Heart in her throat, tears threatening to fall, breathing as laboured as if she’d just run a mile. She blinks rapidly, and shakes her head.
Quinn takes another sip of her drink. It’s her last sip.
She can’t afford to break apart all alone in a bar because Rachel Berry is gone and she has no idea what to do with herself, or even how to be without the woman she fell in love with.
--
As you stand
Under the bar lights
And the band plays some song
About forgetting yourself for a while
And the piano’s this melancholy soundtrack
To her smile
And that white dress she’s wearing
You haven’t seen her
For a while
Quinn puts her drink back down on the bar - if she tells herself it’s to prevent her from getting full-on drunk, it’s only to mask the fact that it’s because her hands are shaking too badly to hold it steady.
The band in this place is alright - the singer thinks he’s the greatest thing to happen to the music scene, but the musicians have legitimate talent. They’re some hometown ensemble that only plays here because the uncle of the lead singer’s girlfriend’s brother is the assistant manager, and Quinn finds herself thinking that the Glee Club in high school could sing circles around them. She thinks about Glee Club more often than not, really, trying to remember a time when she and Rachel were truly happy, even just as friends. When Quinn had a meaning to her life beyond going to work and coming home and watching the TV shows they used to watch together. It’s funny how a high school club could give Quinn more purpose and satisfaction than a job as a high-powered lawyer, but it did and it still does.
Quinn glances around one last time for Santana. She really needs to get out of this bar - music and alcohol just make her sentimental, which makes her more depressed than she already is.
“Alright, patrons and lovers, we’re going to wind it down a bit.” Quinn rolls her eyes.
The band’s song slows, quick drumbeats melding into rhythmic hits of the bass. The guitars play a story of love - thick, rich, melodious.
The song reminds Quinn of Rachel, as most things do.
It’s the type of song Rachel always loved, when she wasn’t in the mood for Broadway. A little jazzy, a little folk. She would insist they dance to it in the middle of a restaurant because the mood struck her to do so. It was slow and quiet, like a lazy Sunday morning, or like Rachel’s smile - the one that Quinn liked the best. It started with a twitch at the corners of her mouth, before spreading slowly across her face until it reached her eyes, big and dark and shiny.
The same smile Quinn was greeted with after their first kiss, together on the dance floor at the Homecoming dance their senior year of high school, the relationship still a mix of confusion and intense feelings. Quinn had been so filled with anticipation afterwards - for the first time, she could actually imagine them together and she wanted it so bad that Quinn even surprised herself.
Her parents - her father, really, but Judy would never utter a word against him - had informed Quinn her entire life that homosexuality was a sin. But then, she wasn’t gay. She still liked boys, still felt wanted and satisfied and comfortable when she was with Finn and then Sam. She liked their shoulders, the flat plane of their chests. But there were still the feelings deep down inside of Quinn that confused her more than anything, a stirring in the pit of her stomach around the girls at school, an unnamed feeling that Quinn would later identify as wanting. Something about the curve of a girl’s waist and hips. Quinn hadn’t even comprehended the possibility of liking both genders at the same time. Her parents had told her nothing about that.
And then she fell for Rachel. She was ready for the surge of feelings that come with a new love, but not the extra feelings that come with the first person of the opposite gender that you find yourself with. This - this was something new, different from every relationship that Quinn had ever had.
Quinn quickly realized - a realization that she came to through many sleepless nights, tossing and turning and thinking about Rachel - that what she felt couldn’t be wrong. It felt too perfect.
Quinn squeezes her eyes shut. Don’t think about it, don’t think about it, just get out of here.
She gets up to leave, clutching the bar to keep from teetering. She knows Santana’s had a few drinks tonight, and there’s no way that Quinn can drive home like this. It’s her duty to be responsible; Quinn’s always fallen into the role.
She pulls her coat on and fishes in her purse for her cell phone in order to call a cab. Her fingers seize the cool metal momentarily before it falls with a clatter to the floor. “Crap,” she murmurs, stooping to pick it up.
There’s a flash of a white dress from the corner of her eye. Simple and fitted with two tan legs emerging from the bottom. It only takes a moment of searching for her to remember that it’s a dress Quinn has seen a million times. Enough times, at least, to instantly connect a person to those legs and that dress. A person Quinn knows very well, standing across the bar floor at that very instant.
And just thinking about the woman wearing that dress makes Quinn woozier than the alcohol ever could.
--
But you know
That she’s watching
She’s laughing, she’s turning
She’s holding her tonic like a crux
The room suddenly spinning
She walks up and asks how you are
So you can smell her perfume
You can see her lying naked in your arms
Quinn can only equate the feeling of being in the same room as Rachel again to feeling like she’s trapped inside a bubble that contains only them. The music, the voices of others, they’re all dulled to an even drone. She stands, looking around to catch another glimpse.
Rachel’s laugh is crystal clear across the room. If Quinn could bear to look at her face and confirm that, yes, that is Rachel Berry across the bar, Rachel would probably look the same as she always has. Dark eyes, dark hair, the tiny star necklace that Rachel has worn since she was a little bundle in a bassinet, waiting to be transformed from Shelby Corcoran’s baby into Adam and Gregory Berry’s little star-in-the-making.
All these things would probably be true, if Quinn could just look at her face. But she can’t.
She settles for staring at Rachel’s form below the chin. She’s clutching a glass of clear liquid - tonic water, if Quinn remembers correctly (she remembers perfectly, actually) because Rachel would never drink straight alcohol like that. Potential vocal chord damage, not in the mood, not interested in inebriation. Quinn had heard a host of excuses from Rachel in the time they were together. She didn’t question them, but she knew - Rachel didn’t ever want to lose control. Rachel needed control to survive, in Broadway and in life. The prospect of having no say in her own actions was terrifying to Rachel. Quinn helped her with that, loosened her up in other aspects and it was one of the things Quinn was proud to say she did when they were together - and even so, Rachel never touched a drop.
Quinn didn’t mind. Rachel could probably get wasted every single night of her adult life and Quinn would love her the exact same. It was actually inspiring.
Quinn and her alcohol were a different story - she was not her parents, who turned to alcohol to fill the gaps they couldn’t bare to face - but there was nothing like a glass of red wine after a long day of facing down judges and defendants alike.
Almost unconsciously, Quinn’s head cranes for a better view, desperate to drink in the image of Rachel while she still could, while they were together again in some capacity. She wasn’t dumb enough to believe that there would be a time after this in which to do it. While other patrons are leaning against the wall, Rachel has the same perfect posture as always, hands clasped in front of her, feet together. It comforts Quinn to know that that hasn’t changed.
Quinn’s not expecting it when Rachel begins to walk away from the wall. She tenses, worry flashing through her mind for a quick moment. “Don’t leave, please don’t leave,” Quinn whispers. But Rachel’s still moving, legs carrying her across the bar and, of course, in Quinn’s direction. She’s coming towards Quinn, on purpose. Rachel’s seen her, and staring like a lovesick puppy no less. Quinn balances herself on the bar - her knuckles grow white with force as she clutches the wood for support.
For the entire time - Quinn’s sure it’s only seconds but it feels like hours, ticking away mockingly - she still can’t even look at Rachel’s face. Not until she’s close enough that Quinn can smell her perfume.
She’s radiant. It’s like looking into a sun for the second time after you have glanced into it once before - painful and difficult to focus from the initial shock, but as beautiful as if it had never injured you at all.
Quinn looks at Rachel. Rachel looks at Quinn.
She has to fight the urge to reach out and pull the other woman into her arms and hold onto her tight, because as much as Quinn wishes it to be false, they are not together anymore and that wouldn’t be appropriate.
It would also probably scare Rachel away. And of all the things Quinn wants right now, that is last on the list.
Luckily - or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it - Rachel doesn’t give Quinn a choice. Her face is uncertain, emotions playing across it too fast for Quinn to recognise them, but Rachel’s body seems to act without consulting her brain. The smaller woman shoots forward with staggering speed and throws her arms around Quinn’s shoulders, fingers digging into her shoulder blades. The force of Rachel’s assault almost knocks Quinn off-balance but Rachel doesn’t seem to notice and the only coherent thought Quinn can form is that she wonders if Rachel can feel how hard her heart is beating.
When Rachel pulls away, she looks pained. She looks like she knows that she shouldn’t have done that. Rachel smoothes the skirt of her dress, and Quinn recognizes Rachel’s nervous habit, memories of Homecoming and their first date and graduation and Nationals in their Senior Year presenting themselves in her brain like flash cards as proof.
Rachel blinks several times before offering the softest of smiles. “Quinn,” she murmurs, voice melancholy and laden with months of maturity that Quinn hasn’t been around to notice.
But it still sounds just as good to hear Rachel say her name as the day they became friends at the end of Junior Year.
Quinn tries to smile, but it probably comes out as more of a grimace, because Rachel’s expression becomes even more sheepish than it already is. “Rachel Berry,” she replies, trying to keep her tone light and friendly. The last thing she wants to say with her voice is I need you, I miss you, I love you, please come back to me. Not now, not when they’re finally seeing each other after the fact.
“How - how have you been? I mean, how are you?”
Quinn wonders if the victims of a recent break-up ever really have an answer to that question.
There are things that Quinn could say that are generic and predictable, and probably more pleasant. She could tell Rachel that she’s fine, keeping busy and moving on. It’s a tricky answer, of course - there’s always the chance that Rachel is hurt by the fact that she’s moved on so fast. Or it could provide Rachel comfort, assurance that she hasn’t scarred Quinn for the rest of her life.
That answer is also a complete lie. Quinn could always tell the real truth.
But somehow, Quinn knows that if she tells the truth, that she is utterly, despairingly, hopelessly miserable without Rachel, and that she still sleeps with Rachel’s NYU sweater clutched to her chest pathetically, Rachel wouldn’t know how to react. She would feel guilty - the good part of Quinn doesn’t ever want Rachel to feel guilty. The bad part, the part of Quinn that’s still bruised by Rachel’s exit from her life, wants Rachel to feel everything.
In the end, Quinn would rather lie than hurt Rachel. So she gives the generic answer.
“I’m fine - just trying to keep busy.”
When’s Rachel’s face morphs from sheepish to suspicious, Quinn feels stupid for even thinking that Rachel wouldn’t see right through the lies. They were together for too long.
Quinn smiles weakly and Rachel still doesn’t look convinced. “How are you, Rachel?”
With the attention turned back to her - Quinn chuckles a little at the sheer Rachel-ness - a ghost of a smile flits across Rachel’s lips. “Thank you for asking, Quinn. I’ve recently taken up a minor speaking role in a community production of Grease. It’s not a major part, but I think it’s a substantial foot in the door towards my goals of becoming a Broadway superstar,” she pauses, glancing at the floor, “but you remember, obviously. I’ve also been volunteering in an animal shelter.” Quinn quirks an eyebrow, intrigued. Rachel grins, obviously pleased that Quinn is interested. “Did you know of one thousand shelters surveyed in 1997, 4.3 million animals were handled? Or that nine point six million animals are euthanized annually in the United States? It is a very serious problem that must be dealt with.”
Quinn can’t help but chuckle - her long speeches are yet another thing that hasn’t changed about Rachel and it satisfies Quinn to know that the Rachel she remembers is the Rachel that’s in front of her. The brunette smiles in response to Quinn.
They stand there not speaking as a few moments beat by, still in their bubble - the amiable mood slowly dissipates. It’s awkward, Quinn realizes. It’s never been awkward before, and she hates it.
Since they broke up, Quinn has grown to hate the silence. Mostly it’s because her brain works overtime to fill the void, supplying her fresh memories of Rachel that she had forgotten they made, and each new one feels like a slap.
The most pathetic reason is because silence is the space Rachel used to fill - with her music and with her words.
All Quinn can think about in the silence now - with Rachel standing in front of her for real, and so close that all Quinn has to do to close the gap is take a step forward - is that she misses her. With every fibre of her being, she misses Rachel.
--
And so there’s a change
In your emotions
And all of these memories come rushing
Like feral waves in your mind
Of the curl of your bodies
Like two perfect circles entwined
And you feel hopeless, and homeless
And lost in the haze
Of the wine
Quinn remembers everything about their relationship with stark, stinging clarity.
Being around Rachel again, standing across from her at a bar, makes those memories fresher than ever, crashing in her head like waves and fighting to the surface.
She remembers the night of the Homecoming dance, after the kiss, when everything was still up in the air and new, and Quinn wasn’t certain about anything anymore. They drove in Quinn’s car to the parking lot of the pita place on Hickory, and just sat in the quiet for ten minutes, the only sound the faint melodies of the music playing from Quinn’s car radio. Quinn had known that Rachel wanted her to say something. She didn’t want to be the one who had to talk, for once.
Quinn just couldn’t. She couldn’t make the words form to express how she was feeling at that moment. Elated, unsure, afraid, comfortable. All fit, but none went together.
Rachel, realizing that Quinn could sit in this car for hours without uttering a word, spoke up.
“I don’t regret it, Quinn. I - I’m sure it’s confusing for you. I’ve known who I am for a while now, but I imagine the feelings are quite a shock to you. But I also know that everything probably makes a lot more sense now.”
Quinn nodded, the words still escaping her.
Rachel continues, hesitating a moment before laying a hand over Quinn’s hand, the one that was gripping the stick shift like a vice. “I hope you don’t regret it either, Quinn. I don’t know if I could handle the rejection.”
She wasn’t going to reject her - Quinn shook her head, a small, almost imperceptible movement, and her brows furrowed. There was no way she would reject Rachel. Not now. She shook her head again, stronger this time, so that Rachel saw it. “I’m not going to reject you,” she whispered. Rachel grinned, that beautiful grin. “I know,” she whispered, hand tightening on Quinn’s.
She remembers the night they said I love you - a snowstorm over Winter Break had barricaded them inside, without Rachel’s dads, without interference from the outside world. The three most important words were uttered by lips that were turning blue, in front of a fire with hot cocoa clutched in gloved hands. Those few days are still some of the best of Quinn’s life so far.
She remembers coming out to her mother, to the school. Quinn remembers the abuse at the hands of the student population like it was yesterday, rude names floating down the hallway towards them, cleaning slushies out of Rachel’s hair until she eventually stashed a suitcase of extra clothes in the choir room. She remembers wishing, for one horrible, awful day that she didn’t feel like this about another girl - to protect both Rachel and herself - and then feeling terrible about it as Rachel kissed the tears on her cheeks. She remembers Rachel assuring her that they’d get out someday.
Quinn glances across the bar now, at Rachel’s hand around her glass of tonic. Her nails are painted red - another thing that hasn’t changed. Quinn can probably even name the shade, arranged according to number on the vanity.
She remembers their first apartment together. It was cramped and smelled like kung pao chicken all the time, but it was a home. They made it one, at least, adding a couch and throw cushions and buying up a box of air-fresheners. They hung paper lanterns around the living room. They bought a double bed - Quinn had never had a double bed, yet alone one to share with someone. And then the reality hit her even harder. She had her own apartment, with her girlfriend, in New York City - it finally hit home how real this all was.
The bed is still in the apartment. Quinn glances at Rachel, whose dark eyes are trained on her face, and has to look away. She can still see Rachel beside her, hair splayed across the pillow, darkest brown on stark white. Feel the weight of her body, asleep and resting against Quinn’s side.
Most of all, Quinn remembers the night Rachel left. Like she could ever forget the look on Rachel’s face as she buttoned her coat and pressed one last kiss to Quinn’s cheek.
Quinn was sick of people telling her that she was only confused, that clearly she was straight and experimental, or clearly she was gay and just wanted to keep the perks that came with being heterosexual in this judgemental world. Some people even questioned her ability to be in a monogamous relationship. It was too much, too many people telling her too many different things.
And as much as she tried to fight it, to remain in her happy little bubble with Rachel, who she loved, Quinn couldn’t help the feeling like maybe they had valid points - she became less sure of herself, Rachel, everything. She hated herself because she felt that way.
Rachel figured it out.
“You’re still afraid of us, Quinn.” No preamble, no skirting the truth - she laid it out like she was stating fact.
“Rachel, I…”
Rachel had shaken her head. She pulled the key off of her key ring and laid it on the sideboard. “I get that you’re confused and I really hope that someday, you’ll come to terms with yourself. I want that for you. I still love you, Quinn. And I know that you still love me. But I can’t be with you if you’re scared to be with me. Maybe, eventually, we’ll figure out a way to be without each other.”
She distinctly remembers the moments after Rachel utters those words, and then leaves. She remembers her head going totally blank. She remembers her mouth drying so that she couldn’t speak. And she remembers the sharp, excrutiating pain in her chest - like her heart had quite literally broken.
Quinn knew that wasn’t true, of course. Her heart was currently walking down the street, away from Quinn and away from the life they had built together.
These are the things that Quinn remembers the most.
--
And she leaves
With someone you don’t know
But she makes sure you saw her
She looks right at you and bolts
As she walks out the door
Your blood boiling
Your stomach in ropes
And when your friends say, “What is it?”
You look like you’ve seen a ghost
Rachel drains the rest of her drink and stands. Quinn realizes that they’ve been there all of five minutes, five of the longest minutes of Quinn’s life - and deep down inside, she knows that she would have been content to sit there with Rachel for even longer. Hell, this was the woman she had intended to spend her life with and they were reduced to chance meetings in a bar that they used to frequent together.
The twinkle lights that had once been a blurry tangle of stars are now bright and clear when Quinn realizes that Rachel is about to leave.
“Do you really have to go?” The question, almost childish, slips from her lips before she can stop them.
Rachel blinks at Quinn, before her features melt into a pained frown and with a pang, Quinn realizes that this is what it looks like to be heartbroken. The guarded calm from before is gone. It never occurred to Quinn that Rachel could be hurting as much as she is - after all, it was Rachel that left in the first place. But she is. Rachel is hurting just as badly - she’s just more skilled at hiding it.
The first reaction that pumps through Quinn’s body is anger.
She’s angry that Rachel would put them through this, that she’d leave if it only caused them both so much pain. She’s angry because they both know that given the choice, they’d be together in a heart beat. She’s angry because she knows that there is no choice like that.
Then, as quickly as the fury comes on, a creeping sorrow spreads through Quinn’s bones like lead because Rachel - her Rachel, always her Rachel - is just as hurt as Quinn. And the kind of misery that Quinn is in, that she can’t escape from, is the kind that Quinn wouldn’t wish on her worst enemies. Quinn wants to break down - she wants to cry and cry until there is no more anger or sadness, until there is nothing left in her body but happiness, and she wants to hold Rachel, allow her to do the same.
Knowing this, Quinn gains the resolve she’s lacked for the past few months. She clenches a fist and stares into Rachel’s eyes as hard as she can muster.
“Don’t go, Rachel. Don’t go.”
Rachel shakes her head, eyes wide now. She fiddles with her fingers, breathing speeding up. She looks torn and panicked and mournful. “Quinn, I can’t. I - I want to, but I can’t. I’m sorry, Quinn.” She casts a glance at the direction she came from, and Quinn furrows her eyebrows. “Why not?” Rachel turns back to her, eyes pleading. “You don’t understand, Quinn, I can’t. I just - I just can’t.”
She tries to glance over Rachel’s shoulder but is blocked by the force of Rachel’s embrace.
Rachel bundles her fists in Quinn’s dress and presses her face into her chest. She squeezes as hard as she can. At first, Quinn is bewildered. Then, like a river rushing through the floodgates, she lets go. She lets go of all the pain and the hurt and just hugs Rachel with all her might. Quinn rests her cheek against Rachel’s hair. She tries to express six months of hurt and apologies and longing, tries to tell Rachel how much she is sorry that she ever let her get away. Quinn tries to tell Rachel all of this, and most of all, that Quinn still loves her.
“Please take care of yourself - I left that message for a reason,” Rachel whispers into Quinn’s dress, in a voice so soft that Quinn has to strain to hear it.
She knits her eyebrows together in confusion, wondering what Rachel means.
When Rachel lets go, there is a wet spot where her face was. It takes Quinn a moment to place it as tears, because Rachel’s already dried her face and smoothed her skirt again. She tries to smile.
“I’m so sorry, Quinn. It - it was lovely to see you again.” Quinn nods and Rachel’s smile widens slightly.
“Bye, Rach.”
And then she turns and she’s gone, disappeared into the sea of faces. Sound rushes back, the bubble broken, and suddenly Quinn can’t hear her own thoughts against the deafening roar of the bar. She glances at her glass of wine and downs the rest. She reaches for her purse again, searching for her phone, trying to remember that she should leave, she should go home and try not to think about the way Rachel smells and looks and feels exactly the same. Quinn glances towards the door, searching for Santana.
And she sees Rachel. And she sees the arm around her waist, and then the woman attached to that arm, a beautiful dark-haired woman with an air of confidence that Quinn has lost. She’s with someone else. She’s with someone.
Someone that is not Quinn.
Rachel’s eyes connect with Quinn’s and her mouth is set into a line, eyebrows angled with apologies. This is why she had to leave, why she couldn’t stay with Quinn in this bar, because she’s got to home with her new girlfriend, who probably realizes what exactly she has in Rachel.
Quinn feels like her heart is going to beat its way out of her chest. Or break into pieces. It’s probably both.
She stares at Rachel and then the door until they’ve been gone for at least three minutes.
Suddenly, a hand comes to rest on Quinn’s shoulder. She whips around, unable to escape the whisper of hope that flutters in her chest, and comes face to face with Santana, who raises an eyebrow uncertainly. Quinn can’t help the frown that settles onto her face.
Santana looks as concerned as Santana can ever look. “You okay, Q? What is it?” Quinn shakes her head. “Nothing,” she whispers, and her voice is muffled, unsure, slowed down under the phantom weight of Rachel’s arms around her shoulders.
Quinn catches the eye of the bartender and signals for another.
--
And you walk
Under the streetlights
And you’re too drunk to notice
That everyone is staring at you
And you so care what you look like
The world is falling
Around you
It’s snowing. Each snowflake that lands on the exposed skin of Quinn’s neck and hands feels like a cold little pinprick. The snow is beginning to accumulate on her coat.
She’s aware she’s probably getting a few sideways glances. She hasn’t noticed. She probably looks a little crazy, wandering under the streetlights in the middle of the night while the snow falls around her, sticks in her hair. She probably looks like she’s got the weight of the world on her shoulders. It’s because she does, the weight of knowing that the woman she’s still in love with is with someone else and that - Quinn’s half-sure of this - despite it, Rachel is still in love with her.
And it’s not even enough. It’s not going to change anything - they can love each other with everything in them and it won’t make a difference. Quinn is still as miserable as when she walked into the bar. Rachel is still with that woman.
This is wrong, Quinn thinks, this is not how this is supposed to work out.
With every step, snow crunching, it feels like the Earth is shattering a little more under Quinn’s feet. She’s left to wonder when it’s going to break for good - when she’s going to fall apart into a pit she can’t climb out of.
Quinn looks at the sky - the tears pool in her eyes.
When she looks back down, the street signs catch her eye, highlighted by the moon and the street lamps, and Quinn halts in the middle of the sidewalk. She puts two and two together.
Rachel’s new apartment is only a few blocks away. She knows the address - written in loopy script on a yellow star Post-It that was stuck on the fridge after Rachel’s departure, informing Quinn that it ‘was in case of an emergency’, the same Post-It Quinn carried crumpled in her wallet.
She bites her lip before turning in the direction of Rachel’s apartment, her new life. She wonders if Rachel lives with that woman.
And then Quinn remembers what Rachel had breathed into her ear earlier.
I left that message for a reason.
She wanted Quinn to find her when she left that Post-It. Quinn fishes for the paper in her wallet, producing it in a fluorescent yellow clump, spreading it carefully with her numb fingers.
She knows that it is stupid and desperate, and she knows that it will only bring more pain, for the both of them. That it will never go beyond a glorious night, a momentary lapse in the resolute silence of the past six months. Quinn knows that no matter how much she deludes herself into thinking its right, Rachel will feel horrible about it. Quinn knows that she will only emerge with more memories and a heart so damaged there’s no hope of repairing it.
Quinn also knows that all she wants is to be as close to Rachel as humanly possible. She wants Rachel, more than breathing, more than life itself.
Quinn reads the address one more time before shoving it into her coat pocket. This is an emergency.
--
You just have to see her
You just have to see her
You just have to see her
You just have to see her
You just have to see her
And you know that she’ll break you in two.
Author: Kelsey / marliskelsey
Pairing,Character(s): Quinn/Rachel, appearance by Santana
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: Approx. 5,200
Spoilers: Very, very minor spoilers for Season 2.
Disclaimer: I do not own Glee. I can only dream.
Summary: She doesn’t want to go home. Not to that home, at least, the home that is empty and dull without her in it, singing and laughing and filling it with life.
A/N: Written for this prompt on the glee_angst_meme. Based on the some "Sometime After Midnight" by The Airborne Toxic Event. Unbeta'd so all mistakes are mine, be gentle with me. Hope you like it!
And it starts
Sometime around midnight
Or at least that's when
You lose yourself
For a minute or two
The twinkle lights draped across the bar are starting to blur together, like a constellation of stars. Quinn knows she shouldn’t be drinking - nothing good in her life has ever come from the bottom of a bottle - but the feeling of the wine glass in her hand and the warmth coursing through her body is too familiar, too comforting to stop. She takes another sip and glances at the clock over the bar. It’s midnight. She should just find Santana somewhere in the throng of bar patrons and leave before she makes a fool of herself. Appearance is everything, she can hear her mother saying. Old Fabray ways die hard, she supposes. She should go home.
She doesn’t want to go home. Not to that home, at least, the home that is empty and dull without her in it, singing and laughing and filling it with life.
Quinn stares at the grooves in the wood, making patterns beneath her glass and her hands until it blurs together. She’s caught up in the same feelings from the night it ended, the feelings that overcome her every time Quinn catches a whiff of her perfume left in the armoire. Heart in her throat, tears threatening to fall, breathing as laboured as if she’d just run a mile. She blinks rapidly, and shakes her head.
Quinn takes another sip of her drink. It’s her last sip.
She can’t afford to break apart all alone in a bar because Rachel Berry is gone and she has no idea what to do with herself, or even how to be without the woman she fell in love with.
--
As you stand
Under the bar lights
And the band plays some song
About forgetting yourself for a while
And the piano’s this melancholy soundtrack
To her smile
And that white dress she’s wearing
You haven’t seen her
For a while
Quinn puts her drink back down on the bar - if she tells herself it’s to prevent her from getting full-on drunk, it’s only to mask the fact that it’s because her hands are shaking too badly to hold it steady.
The band in this place is alright - the singer thinks he’s the greatest thing to happen to the music scene, but the musicians have legitimate talent. They’re some hometown ensemble that only plays here because the uncle of the lead singer’s girlfriend’s brother is the assistant manager, and Quinn finds herself thinking that the Glee Club in high school could sing circles around them. She thinks about Glee Club more often than not, really, trying to remember a time when she and Rachel were truly happy, even just as friends. When Quinn had a meaning to her life beyond going to work and coming home and watching the TV shows they used to watch together. It’s funny how a high school club could give Quinn more purpose and satisfaction than a job as a high-powered lawyer, but it did and it still does.
Quinn glances around one last time for Santana. She really needs to get out of this bar - music and alcohol just make her sentimental, which makes her more depressed than she already is.
“Alright, patrons and lovers, we’re going to wind it down a bit.” Quinn rolls her eyes.
The band’s song slows, quick drumbeats melding into rhythmic hits of the bass. The guitars play a story of love - thick, rich, melodious.
The song reminds Quinn of Rachel, as most things do.
It’s the type of song Rachel always loved, when she wasn’t in the mood for Broadway. A little jazzy, a little folk. She would insist they dance to it in the middle of a restaurant because the mood struck her to do so. It was slow and quiet, like a lazy Sunday morning, or like Rachel’s smile - the one that Quinn liked the best. It started with a twitch at the corners of her mouth, before spreading slowly across her face until it reached her eyes, big and dark and shiny.
The same smile Quinn was greeted with after their first kiss, together on the dance floor at the Homecoming dance their senior year of high school, the relationship still a mix of confusion and intense feelings. Quinn had been so filled with anticipation afterwards - for the first time, she could actually imagine them together and she wanted it so bad that Quinn even surprised herself.
Her parents - her father, really, but Judy would never utter a word against him - had informed Quinn her entire life that homosexuality was a sin. But then, she wasn’t gay. She still liked boys, still felt wanted and satisfied and comfortable when she was with Finn and then Sam. She liked their shoulders, the flat plane of their chests. But there were still the feelings deep down inside of Quinn that confused her more than anything, a stirring in the pit of her stomach around the girls at school, an unnamed feeling that Quinn would later identify as wanting. Something about the curve of a girl’s waist and hips. Quinn hadn’t even comprehended the possibility of liking both genders at the same time. Her parents had told her nothing about that.
And then she fell for Rachel. She was ready for the surge of feelings that come with a new love, but not the extra feelings that come with the first person of the opposite gender that you find yourself with. This - this was something new, different from every relationship that Quinn had ever had.
Quinn quickly realized - a realization that she came to through many sleepless nights, tossing and turning and thinking about Rachel - that what she felt couldn’t be wrong. It felt too perfect.
Quinn squeezes her eyes shut. Don’t think about it, don’t think about it, just get out of here.
She gets up to leave, clutching the bar to keep from teetering. She knows Santana’s had a few drinks tonight, and there’s no way that Quinn can drive home like this. It’s her duty to be responsible; Quinn’s always fallen into the role.
She pulls her coat on and fishes in her purse for her cell phone in order to call a cab. Her fingers seize the cool metal momentarily before it falls with a clatter to the floor. “Crap,” she murmurs, stooping to pick it up.
There’s a flash of a white dress from the corner of her eye. Simple and fitted with two tan legs emerging from the bottom. It only takes a moment of searching for her to remember that it’s a dress Quinn has seen a million times. Enough times, at least, to instantly connect a person to those legs and that dress. A person Quinn knows very well, standing across the bar floor at that very instant.
And just thinking about the woman wearing that dress makes Quinn woozier than the alcohol ever could.
--
But you know
That she’s watching
She’s laughing, she’s turning
She’s holding her tonic like a crux
The room suddenly spinning
She walks up and asks how you are
So you can smell her perfume
You can see her lying naked in your arms
Quinn can only equate the feeling of being in the same room as Rachel again to feeling like she’s trapped inside a bubble that contains only them. The music, the voices of others, they’re all dulled to an even drone. She stands, looking around to catch another glimpse.
Rachel’s laugh is crystal clear across the room. If Quinn could bear to look at her face and confirm that, yes, that is Rachel Berry across the bar, Rachel would probably look the same as she always has. Dark eyes, dark hair, the tiny star necklace that Rachel has worn since she was a little bundle in a bassinet, waiting to be transformed from Shelby Corcoran’s baby into Adam and Gregory Berry’s little star-in-the-making.
All these things would probably be true, if Quinn could just look at her face. But she can’t.
She settles for staring at Rachel’s form below the chin. She’s clutching a glass of clear liquid - tonic water, if Quinn remembers correctly (she remembers perfectly, actually) because Rachel would never drink straight alcohol like that. Potential vocal chord damage, not in the mood, not interested in inebriation. Quinn had heard a host of excuses from Rachel in the time they were together. She didn’t question them, but she knew - Rachel didn’t ever want to lose control. Rachel needed control to survive, in Broadway and in life. The prospect of having no say in her own actions was terrifying to Rachel. Quinn helped her with that, loosened her up in other aspects and it was one of the things Quinn was proud to say she did when they were together - and even so, Rachel never touched a drop.
Quinn didn’t mind. Rachel could probably get wasted every single night of her adult life and Quinn would love her the exact same. It was actually inspiring.
Quinn and her alcohol were a different story - she was not her parents, who turned to alcohol to fill the gaps they couldn’t bare to face - but there was nothing like a glass of red wine after a long day of facing down judges and defendants alike.
Almost unconsciously, Quinn’s head cranes for a better view, desperate to drink in the image of Rachel while she still could, while they were together again in some capacity. She wasn’t dumb enough to believe that there would be a time after this in which to do it. While other patrons are leaning against the wall, Rachel has the same perfect posture as always, hands clasped in front of her, feet together. It comforts Quinn to know that that hasn’t changed.
Quinn’s not expecting it when Rachel begins to walk away from the wall. She tenses, worry flashing through her mind for a quick moment. “Don’t leave, please don’t leave,” Quinn whispers. But Rachel’s still moving, legs carrying her across the bar and, of course, in Quinn’s direction. She’s coming towards Quinn, on purpose. Rachel’s seen her, and staring like a lovesick puppy no less. Quinn balances herself on the bar - her knuckles grow white with force as she clutches the wood for support.
For the entire time - Quinn’s sure it’s only seconds but it feels like hours, ticking away mockingly - she still can’t even look at Rachel’s face. Not until she’s close enough that Quinn can smell her perfume.
She’s radiant. It’s like looking into a sun for the second time after you have glanced into it once before - painful and difficult to focus from the initial shock, but as beautiful as if it had never injured you at all.
Quinn looks at Rachel. Rachel looks at Quinn.
She has to fight the urge to reach out and pull the other woman into her arms and hold onto her tight, because as much as Quinn wishes it to be false, they are not together anymore and that wouldn’t be appropriate.
It would also probably scare Rachel away. And of all the things Quinn wants right now, that is last on the list.
Luckily - or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it - Rachel doesn’t give Quinn a choice. Her face is uncertain, emotions playing across it too fast for Quinn to recognise them, but Rachel’s body seems to act without consulting her brain. The smaller woman shoots forward with staggering speed and throws her arms around Quinn’s shoulders, fingers digging into her shoulder blades. The force of Rachel’s assault almost knocks Quinn off-balance but Rachel doesn’t seem to notice and the only coherent thought Quinn can form is that she wonders if Rachel can feel how hard her heart is beating.
When Rachel pulls away, she looks pained. She looks like she knows that she shouldn’t have done that. Rachel smoothes the skirt of her dress, and Quinn recognizes Rachel’s nervous habit, memories of Homecoming and their first date and graduation and Nationals in their Senior Year presenting themselves in her brain like flash cards as proof.
Rachel blinks several times before offering the softest of smiles. “Quinn,” she murmurs, voice melancholy and laden with months of maturity that Quinn hasn’t been around to notice.
But it still sounds just as good to hear Rachel say her name as the day they became friends at the end of Junior Year.
Quinn tries to smile, but it probably comes out as more of a grimace, because Rachel’s expression becomes even more sheepish than it already is. “Rachel Berry,” she replies, trying to keep her tone light and friendly. The last thing she wants to say with her voice is I need you, I miss you, I love you, please come back to me. Not now, not when they’re finally seeing each other after the fact.
“How - how have you been? I mean, how are you?”
Quinn wonders if the victims of a recent break-up ever really have an answer to that question.
There are things that Quinn could say that are generic and predictable, and probably more pleasant. She could tell Rachel that she’s fine, keeping busy and moving on. It’s a tricky answer, of course - there’s always the chance that Rachel is hurt by the fact that she’s moved on so fast. Or it could provide Rachel comfort, assurance that she hasn’t scarred Quinn for the rest of her life.
That answer is also a complete lie. Quinn could always tell the real truth.
But somehow, Quinn knows that if she tells the truth, that she is utterly, despairingly, hopelessly miserable without Rachel, and that she still sleeps with Rachel’s NYU sweater clutched to her chest pathetically, Rachel wouldn’t know how to react. She would feel guilty - the good part of Quinn doesn’t ever want Rachel to feel guilty. The bad part, the part of Quinn that’s still bruised by Rachel’s exit from her life, wants Rachel to feel everything.
In the end, Quinn would rather lie than hurt Rachel. So she gives the generic answer.
“I’m fine - just trying to keep busy.”
When’s Rachel’s face morphs from sheepish to suspicious, Quinn feels stupid for even thinking that Rachel wouldn’t see right through the lies. They were together for too long.
Quinn smiles weakly and Rachel still doesn’t look convinced. “How are you, Rachel?”
With the attention turned back to her - Quinn chuckles a little at the sheer Rachel-ness - a ghost of a smile flits across Rachel’s lips. “Thank you for asking, Quinn. I’ve recently taken up a minor speaking role in a community production of Grease. It’s not a major part, but I think it’s a substantial foot in the door towards my goals of becoming a Broadway superstar,” she pauses, glancing at the floor, “but you remember, obviously. I’ve also been volunteering in an animal shelter.” Quinn quirks an eyebrow, intrigued. Rachel grins, obviously pleased that Quinn is interested. “Did you know of one thousand shelters surveyed in 1997, 4.3 million animals were handled? Or that nine point six million animals are euthanized annually in the United States? It is a very serious problem that must be dealt with.”
Quinn can’t help but chuckle - her long speeches are yet another thing that hasn’t changed about Rachel and it satisfies Quinn to know that the Rachel she remembers is the Rachel that’s in front of her. The brunette smiles in response to Quinn.
They stand there not speaking as a few moments beat by, still in their bubble - the amiable mood slowly dissipates. It’s awkward, Quinn realizes. It’s never been awkward before, and she hates it.
Since they broke up, Quinn has grown to hate the silence. Mostly it’s because her brain works overtime to fill the void, supplying her fresh memories of Rachel that she had forgotten they made, and each new one feels like a slap.
The most pathetic reason is because silence is the space Rachel used to fill - with her music and with her words.
All Quinn can think about in the silence now - with Rachel standing in front of her for real, and so close that all Quinn has to do to close the gap is take a step forward - is that she misses her. With every fibre of her being, she misses Rachel.
--
And so there’s a change
In your emotions
And all of these memories come rushing
Like feral waves in your mind
Of the curl of your bodies
Like two perfect circles entwined
And you feel hopeless, and homeless
And lost in the haze
Of the wine
Quinn remembers everything about their relationship with stark, stinging clarity.
Being around Rachel again, standing across from her at a bar, makes those memories fresher than ever, crashing in her head like waves and fighting to the surface.
She remembers the night of the Homecoming dance, after the kiss, when everything was still up in the air and new, and Quinn wasn’t certain about anything anymore. They drove in Quinn’s car to the parking lot of the pita place on Hickory, and just sat in the quiet for ten minutes, the only sound the faint melodies of the music playing from Quinn’s car radio. Quinn had known that Rachel wanted her to say something. She didn’t want to be the one who had to talk, for once.
Quinn just couldn’t. She couldn’t make the words form to express how she was feeling at that moment. Elated, unsure, afraid, comfortable. All fit, but none went together.
Rachel, realizing that Quinn could sit in this car for hours without uttering a word, spoke up.
“I don’t regret it, Quinn. I - I’m sure it’s confusing for you. I’ve known who I am for a while now, but I imagine the feelings are quite a shock to you. But I also know that everything probably makes a lot more sense now.”
Quinn nodded, the words still escaping her.
Rachel continues, hesitating a moment before laying a hand over Quinn’s hand, the one that was gripping the stick shift like a vice. “I hope you don’t regret it either, Quinn. I don’t know if I could handle the rejection.”
She wasn’t going to reject her - Quinn shook her head, a small, almost imperceptible movement, and her brows furrowed. There was no way she would reject Rachel. Not now. She shook her head again, stronger this time, so that Rachel saw it. “I’m not going to reject you,” she whispered. Rachel grinned, that beautiful grin. “I know,” she whispered, hand tightening on Quinn’s.
She remembers the night they said I love you - a snowstorm over Winter Break had barricaded them inside, without Rachel’s dads, without interference from the outside world. The three most important words were uttered by lips that were turning blue, in front of a fire with hot cocoa clutched in gloved hands. Those few days are still some of the best of Quinn’s life so far.
She remembers coming out to her mother, to the school. Quinn remembers the abuse at the hands of the student population like it was yesterday, rude names floating down the hallway towards them, cleaning slushies out of Rachel’s hair until she eventually stashed a suitcase of extra clothes in the choir room. She remembers wishing, for one horrible, awful day that she didn’t feel like this about another girl - to protect both Rachel and herself - and then feeling terrible about it as Rachel kissed the tears on her cheeks. She remembers Rachel assuring her that they’d get out someday.
Quinn glances across the bar now, at Rachel’s hand around her glass of tonic. Her nails are painted red - another thing that hasn’t changed. Quinn can probably even name the shade, arranged according to number on the vanity.
She remembers their first apartment together. It was cramped and smelled like kung pao chicken all the time, but it was a home. They made it one, at least, adding a couch and throw cushions and buying up a box of air-fresheners. They hung paper lanterns around the living room. They bought a double bed - Quinn had never had a double bed, yet alone one to share with someone. And then the reality hit her even harder. She had her own apartment, with her girlfriend, in New York City - it finally hit home how real this all was.
The bed is still in the apartment. Quinn glances at Rachel, whose dark eyes are trained on her face, and has to look away. She can still see Rachel beside her, hair splayed across the pillow, darkest brown on stark white. Feel the weight of her body, asleep and resting against Quinn’s side.
Most of all, Quinn remembers the night Rachel left. Like she could ever forget the look on Rachel’s face as she buttoned her coat and pressed one last kiss to Quinn’s cheek.
Quinn was sick of people telling her that she was only confused, that clearly she was straight and experimental, or clearly she was gay and just wanted to keep the perks that came with being heterosexual in this judgemental world. Some people even questioned her ability to be in a monogamous relationship. It was too much, too many people telling her too many different things.
And as much as she tried to fight it, to remain in her happy little bubble with Rachel, who she loved, Quinn couldn’t help the feeling like maybe they had valid points - she became less sure of herself, Rachel, everything. She hated herself because she felt that way.
Rachel figured it out.
“You’re still afraid of us, Quinn.” No preamble, no skirting the truth - she laid it out like she was stating fact.
“Rachel, I…”
Rachel had shaken her head. She pulled the key off of her key ring and laid it on the sideboard. “I get that you’re confused and I really hope that someday, you’ll come to terms with yourself. I want that for you. I still love you, Quinn. And I know that you still love me. But I can’t be with you if you’re scared to be with me. Maybe, eventually, we’ll figure out a way to be without each other.”
She distinctly remembers the moments after Rachel utters those words, and then leaves. She remembers her head going totally blank. She remembers her mouth drying so that she couldn’t speak. And she remembers the sharp, excrutiating pain in her chest - like her heart had quite literally broken.
Quinn knew that wasn’t true, of course. Her heart was currently walking down the street, away from Quinn and away from the life they had built together.
These are the things that Quinn remembers the most.
--
And she leaves
With someone you don’t know
But she makes sure you saw her
She looks right at you and bolts
As she walks out the door
Your blood boiling
Your stomach in ropes
And when your friends say, “What is it?”
You look like you’ve seen a ghost
Rachel drains the rest of her drink and stands. Quinn realizes that they’ve been there all of five minutes, five of the longest minutes of Quinn’s life - and deep down inside, she knows that she would have been content to sit there with Rachel for even longer. Hell, this was the woman she had intended to spend her life with and they were reduced to chance meetings in a bar that they used to frequent together.
The twinkle lights that had once been a blurry tangle of stars are now bright and clear when Quinn realizes that Rachel is about to leave.
“Do you really have to go?” The question, almost childish, slips from her lips before she can stop them.
Rachel blinks at Quinn, before her features melt into a pained frown and with a pang, Quinn realizes that this is what it looks like to be heartbroken. The guarded calm from before is gone. It never occurred to Quinn that Rachel could be hurting as much as she is - after all, it was Rachel that left in the first place. But she is. Rachel is hurting just as badly - she’s just more skilled at hiding it.
The first reaction that pumps through Quinn’s body is anger.
She’s angry that Rachel would put them through this, that she’d leave if it only caused them both so much pain. She’s angry because they both know that given the choice, they’d be together in a heart beat. She’s angry because she knows that there is no choice like that.
Then, as quickly as the fury comes on, a creeping sorrow spreads through Quinn’s bones like lead because Rachel - her Rachel, always her Rachel - is just as hurt as Quinn. And the kind of misery that Quinn is in, that she can’t escape from, is the kind that Quinn wouldn’t wish on her worst enemies. Quinn wants to break down - she wants to cry and cry until there is no more anger or sadness, until there is nothing left in her body but happiness, and she wants to hold Rachel, allow her to do the same.
Knowing this, Quinn gains the resolve she’s lacked for the past few months. She clenches a fist and stares into Rachel’s eyes as hard as she can muster.
“Don’t go, Rachel. Don’t go.”
Rachel shakes her head, eyes wide now. She fiddles with her fingers, breathing speeding up. She looks torn and panicked and mournful. “Quinn, I can’t. I - I want to, but I can’t. I’m sorry, Quinn.” She casts a glance at the direction she came from, and Quinn furrows her eyebrows. “Why not?” Rachel turns back to her, eyes pleading. “You don’t understand, Quinn, I can’t. I just - I just can’t.”
She tries to glance over Rachel’s shoulder but is blocked by the force of Rachel’s embrace.
Rachel bundles her fists in Quinn’s dress and presses her face into her chest. She squeezes as hard as she can. At first, Quinn is bewildered. Then, like a river rushing through the floodgates, she lets go. She lets go of all the pain and the hurt and just hugs Rachel with all her might. Quinn rests her cheek against Rachel’s hair. She tries to express six months of hurt and apologies and longing, tries to tell Rachel how much she is sorry that she ever let her get away. Quinn tries to tell Rachel all of this, and most of all, that Quinn still loves her.
“Please take care of yourself - I left that message for a reason,” Rachel whispers into Quinn’s dress, in a voice so soft that Quinn has to strain to hear it.
She knits her eyebrows together in confusion, wondering what Rachel means.
When Rachel lets go, there is a wet spot where her face was. It takes Quinn a moment to place it as tears, because Rachel’s already dried her face and smoothed her skirt again. She tries to smile.
“I’m so sorry, Quinn. It - it was lovely to see you again.” Quinn nods and Rachel’s smile widens slightly.
“Bye, Rach.”
And then she turns and she’s gone, disappeared into the sea of faces. Sound rushes back, the bubble broken, and suddenly Quinn can’t hear her own thoughts against the deafening roar of the bar. She glances at her glass of wine and downs the rest. She reaches for her purse again, searching for her phone, trying to remember that she should leave, she should go home and try not to think about the way Rachel smells and looks and feels exactly the same. Quinn glances towards the door, searching for Santana.
And she sees Rachel. And she sees the arm around her waist, and then the woman attached to that arm, a beautiful dark-haired woman with an air of confidence that Quinn has lost. She’s with someone else. She’s with someone.
Someone that is not Quinn.
Rachel’s eyes connect with Quinn’s and her mouth is set into a line, eyebrows angled with apologies. This is why she had to leave, why she couldn’t stay with Quinn in this bar, because she’s got to home with her new girlfriend, who probably realizes what exactly she has in Rachel.
Quinn feels like her heart is going to beat its way out of her chest. Or break into pieces. It’s probably both.
She stares at Rachel and then the door until they’ve been gone for at least three minutes.
Suddenly, a hand comes to rest on Quinn’s shoulder. She whips around, unable to escape the whisper of hope that flutters in her chest, and comes face to face with Santana, who raises an eyebrow uncertainly. Quinn can’t help the frown that settles onto her face.
Santana looks as concerned as Santana can ever look. “You okay, Q? What is it?” Quinn shakes her head. “Nothing,” she whispers, and her voice is muffled, unsure, slowed down under the phantom weight of Rachel’s arms around her shoulders.
Quinn catches the eye of the bartender and signals for another.
--
And you walk
Under the streetlights
And you’re too drunk to notice
That everyone is staring at you
And you so care what you look like
The world is falling
Around you
It’s snowing. Each snowflake that lands on the exposed skin of Quinn’s neck and hands feels like a cold little pinprick. The snow is beginning to accumulate on her coat.
She’s aware she’s probably getting a few sideways glances. She hasn’t noticed. She probably looks a little crazy, wandering under the streetlights in the middle of the night while the snow falls around her, sticks in her hair. She probably looks like she’s got the weight of the world on her shoulders. It’s because she does, the weight of knowing that the woman she’s still in love with is with someone else and that - Quinn’s half-sure of this - despite it, Rachel is still in love with her.
And it’s not even enough. It’s not going to change anything - they can love each other with everything in them and it won’t make a difference. Quinn is still as miserable as when she walked into the bar. Rachel is still with that woman.
This is wrong, Quinn thinks, this is not how this is supposed to work out.
With every step, snow crunching, it feels like the Earth is shattering a little more under Quinn’s feet. She’s left to wonder when it’s going to break for good - when she’s going to fall apart into a pit she can’t climb out of.
Quinn looks at the sky - the tears pool in her eyes.
When she looks back down, the street signs catch her eye, highlighted by the moon and the street lamps, and Quinn halts in the middle of the sidewalk. She puts two and two together.
Rachel’s new apartment is only a few blocks away. She knows the address - written in loopy script on a yellow star Post-It that was stuck on the fridge after Rachel’s departure, informing Quinn that it ‘was in case of an emergency’, the same Post-It Quinn carried crumpled in her wallet.
She bites her lip before turning in the direction of Rachel’s apartment, her new life. She wonders if Rachel lives with that woman.
And then Quinn remembers what Rachel had breathed into her ear earlier.
I left that message for a reason.
She wanted Quinn to find her when she left that Post-It. Quinn fishes for the paper in her wallet, producing it in a fluorescent yellow clump, spreading it carefully with her numb fingers.
She knows that it is stupid and desperate, and she knows that it will only bring more pain, for the both of them. That it will never go beyond a glorious night, a momentary lapse in the resolute silence of the past six months. Quinn knows that no matter how much she deludes herself into thinking its right, Rachel will feel horrible about it. Quinn knows that she will only emerge with more memories and a heart so damaged there’s no hope of repairing it.
Quinn also knows that all she wants is to be as close to Rachel as humanly possible. She wants Rachel, more than breathing, more than life itself.
Quinn reads the address one more time before shoving it into her coat pocket. This is an emergency.
--
You just have to see her
You just have to see her
You just have to see her
You just have to see her
You just have to see her
And you know that she’ll break you in two.