Boats in the Sky (1b/4)
Title: Boats in the Sky
Pairing: Rachel/Quinn
Rating: M
Spoilers: 3x08
Authors Note: This is just my imagining of Faberry in college without a certain person around to control and poison people around him.
Summary: The lines couldn’t blur with Rachel. They hadn’t. Quinn would close her eyes and think that it was just like the times she was on vacation and see the boats so far in the distance that they looked like they were in the sky. It was impossible. Nothing more than a trick of the mind.
Spring came and went and summer was spent kind of like the way Lucy and Rachel had both daydreamed about as children; with best friends. They went on a week’s vacation the first week and made a pact not to mention Yale or NYADA at any point. Forfeit would be something terrible. The exact punishment wasn’t ever stated but they managed to make it sound ominous and, well, no chances were going to be taken.
Sometimes they were off with other friends, describing adventures as soon as they saw each other again. Quinn went to visit Brittany and Santana and Rachel spent a week with Tina, Mercedes, Puck and Mike. When conversation shifted from Finn, the army and his new girlfriend, it moved to Rachel and New York. They were all surprised to hear how close she and Quinn were. Quinn had softened in her senior year but it was nothing compared to the way she had grown up at Yale. It had changed her as much as Rachel had ever hoped. Quinn was a wonderful friend.
Sometimes Quinn and Rachel spent a couple of weeks in New York at a time, some at Quinn's apartment, exploring the city with a more relaxed pace than usual. They weren’t on a timer anymore.
There were three separate days where Rachel pointed out to Quinn that if she’d have put the sunscreen on when she’d reminded her to then her skin wouldn’t have been burned to a crisp. Quinn had thanked her very much -very sarcastically- for her input each time.
They got drunk the third time Quinn got burned. It was the first time either of them had had a drink in a while.
When Quinn started crying, Rachel couldn’t find it within to decline her request for alcohol to numb her pain and promptly opened a bottle of wine. It wasn’t anything special but it got the job done. As predicted, Quinn's eyes were glazing over after her third glass and Rachel looked at her fondly. Even she held her alcohol better. How did that work?
They got through two bottles before they were gripping the kitchen counter tightly, peering into the wine cooler Rachel had invested in at some point during the year.
“We can’t,” Rachel muttered.
“We can,” Quinn whispered.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Graduation,” Rachel explained. “We’re not wearing our gowns. It’s for after.”
“After what?”
“Graduation. You’re so drunk,” she chastised lightly.
Quinn scoffed. “I’ll replace it. And you’ll still graduate.”
“What if we don’t? What if we drink it and drop out?” Rachel looked indignant all of a sudden. “My dads trust me.”
“Do you want to drop out, Rachel? Throw all this away?” Quinn asked, sounding like she was having a serious conversation. Her burned face and glassy eyes made her look ridiculous.
Rachel closed her eyes and shook her head. “No.”
“Then it’s fine.”
She opened her eyes in time to see Quinn reaching inside the cooler, eyes trained on hers. Rachel frowned. “No,” she repeated half-heartedly.
Quinn didn’t stop. She nodded and watched Rachel bite her lip as soon as her fingers touched the cold bottle of champagne. It was costly. Quinn remembered her father’s company having this at some Christmas parties. Her hand wrapped around it and pulled it out slowly, like it would shatter if she wasn’t careful.
Rachel snatched it from Quinn's hands as soon as it was free.
“I’m drinking from the bottle!”
They managed half of it until they were asleep in the living room. The music was left blaring until the album finished.
A week later when Rachel was telling that particular story to Kurt, who had just come back from visiting Burt and Carole, Quinn's head shot up from the book she’d been reading.
“I didn’t cry!”
* * *
Rachel's fathers couldn’t manage the same vacation days from work in October so Rachel flew out to see them instead. It was strange, not spending the weekend with Quinn and her friends in New York. She was so used to planning her time with Quinn in it now. When Rachel offered Quinn to fly with her, she politely declined. Quinn had so much work to get through that weekend that she doubted she’d be sleeping at any point during it anyway. She would have had to take all of it with her to New York if Rachel hadn’t have gone away.
Rachel wasn’t too disappointed. It was a treat to spend a full day with her Dad, and then her Daddy. She was spoiled rotten and didn’t mind one bit. Of course, she didn’t go empty-handed herself. She spotted celebrities frequently now that she was a city girl. Her Daddy had almost died when she handed him an autograph and told him about the time she met Al Pacino and signed him an autograph in return, leaving out his bewildered expression as she walked away.
While Rachel was watching some of her childhood favourite musicals with her Dad later that night, Quinn was at her kitchen table, slamming her laptop screen shut using just shy of the amount of strength it would have taken to crack the screen.
“Go away,” she said when there was a knock at her door. Connor and Jamie were staying at his dorm room because his roommate was away for the weekend.
“You’ll regret saying that when you see what I have in my hands.”
It was Max from next door.
Quinn made her way to the door. “Are you being gross?”
“In front of a lady?”
She smiled. “Is it food?”
“Open the door and find out,” he said.
Quinn kept the chain on, only peeking out to glance down. Max had take-out and beer. There wasn’t really a choice to be made but she did tell him that all she had time for was something to eat and one beer. Limiting herself to no more than one drink, she also found that when she wasn’t drunk he wasn’t annoying. Max was actually sweet and funny and, if she was shallow for a second, nice to look at. He was a catch, she was sure of it.
Her mother would certainly approve.
When they’d finished dinner and had been talking for longer than Quinn realised, she shook her almost empty bottle. “You have to go.”
Max looked surprised. “Now?”
“Did you expect to stay longer because you brought me dinner and drinks?”
“No, but I thought you’d warm to me after I told you three embarrassing stories. Wasn’t that worth one more beer?”
Quinn smiled. “Maybe. But not tonight.”
Max saw defeat. “Want help cleaning up?”
“I’ll take care of it.”
He held out his hand and pulled Quinn off the couch. Her skin was softer than he’d imagined. “This is where I say thanks for opening your door,” Max said.
“Thanks for knocking. And feeding me.”
“I wasn’t sure you’d be here,” he said as they walked towards the door. “But I heard a rumour that you were staying home this weekend and thought I’d try my luck. First time in a while you’ve been in, right?”
“It’s because of that,” Quinn explained, moving her outstretched hand in a circle around the kitchen table. “That big mess there.”
“Well, you’re all fuelled up now,” Max shrugged. “Should be easier to work through. But some advice from a pre-med?” Quinn looked at him expectantly. “It’s always more fun to write with two beers instead of one.”
Quinn nodded curtly. “Noted.”
“Goodnight?” he guessed when they arrived at the door.
“Now I know why you got into Yale.”
Max laughed. “My skills of deduction are something to envy.”
“Goodnight,” Quinn said, tiptoeing to hug him. She realised then that she was so used to leaning down a few inches for a hug that this felt like old times with Finn. But different in the way that Max was an inch shorter than Finn and clearly worked out.
“Wait,” Max protested when Quinn was saying goodnight on the other side of her now open door. He looked down to the bottle in her hand. “You said dinner and a beer. Judging from how long it’s taken you to drink three quarters of that, I have, what, another thirty minutes to prove that I’m not a creep?”
Quinn smiled, bringing the bottle to her lips. She downed three-and-a-half mouthfuls in one go.
“That wasn’t fair,” Max said in a daze. She was perfect.
“Goodnight.”
When there was a knock at her door not even thirty seconds later, Quinn laughed and picked up his jacket that was still slung across the back of one of the kitchen chairs and opened the door.
“You forgot your jacket, I kn-”
Max pulled her into a kiss before she could finish that.
* * *
Lying in her childhood bed the next night, Rachel did something she’d wanted to do hundreds of times during high school, she called Quinn.
“My dads miss you,” she opened with.
“I know,” Quinn said with a smile. “I got a text.”
“I think they miss you more than they missed me.”
“It’s possible.”
“What are you doing?” Rachel asked. “Am I interrupting one of your papers?”
“I’m almost done.”
“Yeah?” Rachel sounded as surprised as she felt. “I figured you’d be pulling another all-nighter. Yesterday you said you didn’t even have a worthy introduction.”
“My fingers have been glued to the keys for a disgusting amount of hours. I took a break last night and, I don’t know, everything flowed better after that.”
Rachel pulled a stuffed monkey off her headboard, cuddling it tightly as she turned over. She’d almost forgotten about Maurice in the time she’d been away. “What’d you do?”
“Dinner and drinks,” Quinn said easily. “Well, one drink.”
“By yourself?” Rachel smiled. “I told you that drinking alone increases the chance of depression by-”
“No, uh, Max came over. He wouldn’t go away and well, he had food, so.”
“Pre-med Max, the one at your party?”
“Yeah. He’s, um, usually better behaved than that. He was drunk,” Quinn said, sounding nervous to Rachel's ears. The way she had sounded the first weekend Rachel's fathers were in New York the same weekend she was last year.
“Did he kiss you?” Rachel didn’t know why she was asking or why, in the time it took Quinn to respond, she felt the three thumps of her heart as powerfully as she did.
“Yeah.”
“What was it like?”
Quinn laughed quietly. “I don’t know. Nice?”
“Fireworks?”
“No, just nice.”
“You kissed Max?!” Rachel heard Jamie screech in the background. It almost made her smile.
“I think Jamie has a thing for him,” Quinn concluded quietly after going to her bedroom for some privacy. “You should have seen her face just now.”
There was some rustling and Rachel knew exactly how Quinn would be lying in her bed. She could see it without even closing her eyes.
“Will you be at my place next week?” Rachel asked.
“Unless you’ve changed your locks.”
That made Rachel feel better.
Sort of.
* * *
She heard Quinn gasp before anything else.
“You’ve grown!”
“That’s biologically impossible given my age,” Rachel said, turning to the direction of Quinn's voice. She smiled when she saw her. Quinn had cut her hair in the three days since she’d seen her face on her computer screen. “No changes with you, I see.”
“No.” Quinn shook her head. She pulled Rachel closer and used her hand to gauge the difference between Rachel's head and her own. “You’ve grown.”
“It’s only been a month since we’ve seen each other.” She looked up to Quinn's eyes, the same short distance she’d always had to. “But you’ve obviously gone crazy without me around.”
“Didn’t I always?”
“True.”
“And I still want to hug you,” Quinn said bemused, leaning down to wrap her arms around her friend. She held on for a while longer. “I missed you,” she whispered against the same part of Rachel's neck she always did.
Rachel's expression was close to neutral when they parted. “I missed you too, of course. Now, let’s get going. We have to drop your things off at home and I have a hundred things I want to do today.” Rachel looked up at Quinn as they walked out of Grand Central. She finally smiled. “I like your hair, Quinn.”
Rachel was the insane one, Quinn decided that night when she was lying in her bed. She couldn’t move without hurting. They had walked the length of the city twice and nothing would convince her feet otherwise.
Closing her bedroom door, Rachel saw Quinn's smile before she turned the light off. “I thought you said you and your feet were, and I quote, in excruciating pain?”
“I am, and they are.”
“Then why were you smiling? Weirdo.”
Quinn tried to move her feet but a pain shot through them. “Ow,” she complained but it didn’t totally remove the amusement from her expression. “Ever see Misery?”
Even in the dark, Rachel looked apologetic. And then she didn’t. “I suppose I’m the crazed lunatic?”
“You did drag me all over New York in those shoes.”
“Well, why were you wearing them in the first place? The vertically challenged are the only ones who should be wearing anything with a heel.”
“I wanted to look nice.”
“You don’t have to do anything special to impress me, Quinn.”
Quinn laughed. “Good to know.”
Rachel was quiet for almost a full minute. When she did speak again, it was so loud and unexpected that it jolted Quinn. “Blaine carried you from the taxi to the elevator!”
“Shut up, I’m right here,” Quinn said, nudging her. “And yeah, when the damage had already been done. The only reason we didn’t walk back here after dinner -after you made us skip lunch- was because Kurt was practically in a food coma and insisted on sharing and paying for the ride home.”
“You should have said something,” Rachel said softly.
“I thought my limp spoke volumes.”
“You’re making me feel terrible,” she huffed. “And you know I can’t sleep when I’m in emotional turmoil.”
“How does my pain turn into your pain?”
“You’re my best friend,” Rachel said simply. “What you feel, I feel. It’s one of the downsides to a deep friendship.”
How different this picture was. Lying in bed with Rachel Berry, being her best friend... Quinn had fought against this so hard in high school and now she had no idea why.
“I’m fine, Rachel,” Quinn said quietly. “Just pulling your little leg.”
“Clearly I mean a great deal to you, too.”
Quinn laughed through the pain when she put her ice-cold foot on Rachel's for warmth, earning a sharp intake of breath and screeched cry. And then she was kicked in the shins.
“What was that?!”
“My foot. What else is it going to be?”
“I think you need to see a chiropodist. Your circulation is horrifying.”
“It’s because the window is open so wide. The building isn’t on fire, you know. We don’t have to jump.”
“My body temperature elevates at night, okay? I won’t apologise for something I have no control over.”
“It’s okay,” Quinn said, sliding her foot back over the sheets until she met Rachel's again. “This can be your penance.”
Rachel cringed at the temperature but didn’t give a second thought to sliding her foot up and down Quinn's after a while. It didn’t fully register that she was doing it. “When was the last time you had a foot massage?”
“Probably around the time you last used pumice, so, a while ago?”
“There’s nothing wrong with my feet.”
Quinn didn’t mean to move either but there was a warm spot right below Rachel's ankle that felt better than anything else she could imagine. It was warming her toes up in no time. “I didn’t say there was.”
Several minutes later when both of Quinn's feet were comfortably warm again, Rachel turned over, sliding her other foot out until it touched Quinn's.
“Just in case,” she said. “Goodnight, Quinn.”
“Night, Rachel.”
It was Sunday morning when they were on their way to Grand Central once again that things changed. Quinn turned to look behind Rachel when they both heard a series of honked horns and the early-morning sun illuminated her face perfectly. It was only a brief moment in the scheme of things but Rachel's lips parted with the constriction in her chest.
That was the first time Rachel knew she was truly screwed.
* * *
Nine days later, Quinn left the bathroom in a towel and Connor politely averted his eyes as soon as he saw naked glistening skin. He couldn’t quite remove his smile as quickly though.
“Quinneth!” Jamie hollered over her shoulder. She was surfing the internet on the couch. “Come here.”
Quinn hesitated but held the towel tighter around her body and made her way behind Jamie. “Don’t call me that, and what?”
Jamie was on Rachel's Facebook page. She had been tagged in a new album. Jamie knew it was going to be perfect the second she saw it. “You didn’t tell me Rachel knew how to dance like that.”
The pictures, all thirty-seven of them, had Rachel dancing intimately with guys Quinn had never met before. She frowned and her voice came out quiet but annoyed. “She told me she was sick last weekend...”
Quinn had been feeling overwhelmed and stressed with college and needed Rachel's optimism to help her get over it. Only, when she’d called, it went unanswered. A few minutes later she’d received a text from Rachel telling her that she was sick and did she call for anything important. Of course Quinn didn’t tell her yes. She wished Rachel felt better soon and told her to call if she needed anything.
“Why do you think she blew you off?” Jamie asked innocently.
Quinn's face look like it had been slapped, and the smile looked to almost break it. “To be with hot guys?”
“They are pretty hot.” Jamie chewed her lip, watching Quinn's face intently as she clicked through the pictures. “There’s this guy coming up though, easily beats them all.”
When Quinn saw Rachel's legs spread over some guy’s she didn’t even know, looking at his large hands all over her body with his tongue shoved down Rachel’s throat, a look so cold and hard appeared on her face that Jamie’s little smile disappeared.
“What are you doing?” Quinn demanded.
Jamie moved back imperceptibly and shook her head, in a state of fear and shock. “Nothing.”
“No, what are you doing?”
“Quinn, I-” Jamie moved again and the laptop fell sideways, forcing Quinn's eyes to it again. She rushed to close it.
“Are you trying to embarrass her, because the only person who should be embarrassed is the idiot who uploaded those for everyone to see.”
“No! Jesus, Quinn.”
Quinn focused her intense glare on her roommate for a few seconds longer and then stormed away, slamming her bedroom door shut so hard that Connor flinched.
Jamie’s mouth was hanging open. “Oh my God!” she mouthed through a laugh, still terrified. She’d never seen that Quinn before. “What the fuck was that?”
Connor had more sense than to laugh. What if Quinn saw? He raised his hands in the air. “I’m gone.”
“What? You can’t leave me. What if she comes back out and bludgeons me to death?”
Connor nodded towards the door. “Let’s go.” When they were almost through it, he gave her a disapproving look. “You know you were asking for that though, right? It’s been forever. You have to let this go and apologise.”
Quinn's body had dried totally by the time the nausea had gone. It was Jamie she was angry with but when Rachel called her two hours later, Quinn didn’t pick up.
One a.m. that night, she decided that, no, she was equally as furious with Rachel.
Three days later, when Rachel had talked herself into such a state that she was considering hopping on a train to New Haven at close to midnight, Jamie walked into Quinn's bedroom without even knocking.
She had looked brighter.
Jamie’s voice was laced with sleep. “I know you’re still pissed at me but she won’t stop calling, and unless you talk to her she says she’ll continue to call until you do. So, here.” Jamie tossed the phone on Quinn's bed and closed the door after her.
“You know I won’t,” Quinn heard, muffled by the comforter. Eighty miles couldn’t silence Rachel, apparently.
Quinn snatched up Jamie’s phone. She’d been asleep herself. “I was asleep.”
Rachel sighed in relief. “Have you been asleep for the past few days? I’d have to insist on you seeing a doctor if-”
“What’s up?” Quinn broke in aloofly.
“Where have you been?”
“Nowhere. Here. Where have you been?”
Rachel frowned. “Are you okay?” she asked quietly. “You sound...”
“It’s late, Rachel. I’m tired.”
“Did something happen?”
Quinn's glare was focused on the pillow Rachel slept on. It was almost like glaring at her. “Yeah, you woke me up.”
“Is it me? Did I do something?” Rachel asked. “I don’t know if it’s my paranoia or if the signs really are all pointing towards you being mad at me.”
“You weren’t sick last weekend,” Quinn responded sharply.
“Quinn...”
“What? You were too sick to talk to me but well enough that you couldn’t refuse an offer to go dancing?”
“Come on,” Rachel said soothingly, “you tell me everything you do?”
“No, but I don’t lie about it.”
Rachel's confusion was carved into her face. “But you said your call could wait, that it wasn’t important.”
“It doesn’t matter. Who cares if I was calling you to tell you someone had died or I’d stubbed my toe? The point is you lied to me.”
“Over going out,” Rachel said, losing a little of her patience. “God, Quinn, why is this turning into a fight? I was worried about you.”
“And Jamie thought the photos were ridiculous,” Quinn said, seeing no point in fighting the urge. “Tasteless.”
Rachel sighed. “Am I still visiting Friday?”
“I don’t care.” Quinn's answer came out so abruptly that she didn’t think about it. Her face was twisted stubbornly, until the thick silence and then dial-tone left her deflated and full of regret.
She burst into Jamie’s room and threw the phone at her. It clonked off her head.
“Ow!”
“This is your fault,” Quinn accused, and slammed the door shut.
Things didn’t improve with a good night’s sleep. Quinn's stomach twisted unpleasantly at the sight of breakfast the next morning, and then in remorse when she saw the faint bruise on Jamie’s hairline. An apology was on the tip of the tongue but she couldn’t make it pass through her lips.
And there was her phone, glued to her hand in case she missed a call or text from Rachel. But she couldn’t initiate contact herself. God, what would she even say? Sorry I was a raging bitch without good reason. How’s the weather?
The tension in the apartment was suffocating her, so as soon as Jamie went to get dressed Quinn left a bottle of water and two pain-killers on the counter next to her coffee and set out an hour early to her morning class.
The day didn’t improve.
Max stopped by without an invitation that night and this time he did annoy Quinn but she returned his kiss when he leaned in. They’d been out on two casual dates since the time he’d come over with beer and take-out. This was the first time they’d kissed like this and she let him guide her down against the couch as his kisses grew deeper.
Quinn wanted this but she wanted it differently. She wanted rougher hands and harder kisses. Her teeth scraped against his neck sharply and she gripped the back of his neck when he kissed her lips the way she wanted him to, until it hurt.
It wasn’t too long later that his hips were slowly working against hers.
“Do you want to...?” Max asked unsurely. Quinn hadn’t pushed him away but she didn’t look half as interested as he was either.
“No.” Quinn seemed to snap out of something and she shook her head. “No. God, I’m sorry.”
He sighed, moving off her. “Call me if you want to, Quinn.”
When the apartment door closed, it was seconds until Quinn covered her face with her hands. What was she doing?
She didn’t make it to her afternoon class the next day, too anxious to sit through a lecture. Rachel still hadn’t tried to call or text, and the one time Quinn worked up the courage to call Rachel first, her phone died as soon as her thumb pushed the button. She took it as a sign and decided to wait, at least until her phone had fully-charged again.
Thinking about it rationally, a phone call was probably too much to ask after how strained things has become. A text would be better.
She sent it at 4.07p.m.
Are you still coming today?
As soon as ten minutes passed without a reply, Quinn gritted her teeth. Rachel never took that long to reply. She must be beyond words. Quinn didn’t even want to think about how bad she’d messed up if she’d caused Rachel to be in such a state.
Mostly to keep from going insane, Quinn went to take a shower. Connor and Jamie were in the living room watching TV when she was finished.
Connor choked on a Dorito when Quinn stood in front of the TV in nothing but a towel.
Quinn's eyes were fixed on Jamie. “I’m sorry,” she said, obviously in pain at being the first one to apologise. It didn’t happen often. “I don’t know why I’ve been such a bitch. I know you’d never insult Rachel like that.”
Jamie smiled. “It’s cool,” she shrugged. “I’m sorry too. Really.”
Quinn went to her bedroom to get dressed and sighed when she saw only one text message, not from Rachel.
Still, it was deserved so she would suck it up and head out to Union Station the same time she did every second Friday of the month and wait to see if Rachel would show.
Chapter 2A
Pairing: Rachel/Quinn
Rating: M
Spoilers: 3x08
Authors Note: This is just my imagining of Faberry in college without a certain person around to control and poison people around him.
Summary: The lines couldn’t blur with Rachel. They hadn’t. Quinn would close her eyes and think that it was just like the times she was on vacation and see the boats so far in the distance that they looked like they were in the sky. It was impossible. Nothing more than a trick of the mind.
Spring came and went and summer was spent kind of like the way Lucy and Rachel had both daydreamed about as children; with best friends. They went on a week’s vacation the first week and made a pact not to mention Yale or NYADA at any point. Forfeit would be something terrible. The exact punishment wasn’t ever stated but they managed to make it sound ominous and, well, no chances were going to be taken.
Sometimes they were off with other friends, describing adventures as soon as they saw each other again. Quinn went to visit Brittany and Santana and Rachel spent a week with Tina, Mercedes, Puck and Mike. When conversation shifted from Finn, the army and his new girlfriend, it moved to Rachel and New York. They were all surprised to hear how close she and Quinn were. Quinn had softened in her senior year but it was nothing compared to the way she had grown up at Yale. It had changed her as much as Rachel had ever hoped. Quinn was a wonderful friend.
Sometimes Quinn and Rachel spent a couple of weeks in New York at a time, some at Quinn's apartment, exploring the city with a more relaxed pace than usual. They weren’t on a timer anymore.
There were three separate days where Rachel pointed out to Quinn that if she’d have put the sunscreen on when she’d reminded her to then her skin wouldn’t have been burned to a crisp. Quinn had thanked her very much -very sarcastically- for her input each time.
They got drunk the third time Quinn got burned. It was the first time either of them had had a drink in a while.
When Quinn started crying, Rachel couldn’t find it within to decline her request for alcohol to numb her pain and promptly opened a bottle of wine. It wasn’t anything special but it got the job done. As predicted, Quinn's eyes were glazing over after her third glass and Rachel looked at her fondly. Even she held her alcohol better. How did that work?
They got through two bottles before they were gripping the kitchen counter tightly, peering into the wine cooler Rachel had invested in at some point during the year.
“We can’t,” Rachel muttered.
“We can,” Quinn whispered.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Graduation,” Rachel explained. “We’re not wearing our gowns. It’s for after.”
“After what?”
“Graduation. You’re so drunk,” she chastised lightly.
Quinn scoffed. “I’ll replace it. And you’ll still graduate.”
“What if we don’t? What if we drink it and drop out?” Rachel looked indignant all of a sudden. “My dads trust me.”
“Do you want to drop out, Rachel? Throw all this away?” Quinn asked, sounding like she was having a serious conversation. Her burned face and glassy eyes made her look ridiculous.
Rachel closed her eyes and shook her head. “No.”
“Then it’s fine.”
She opened her eyes in time to see Quinn reaching inside the cooler, eyes trained on hers. Rachel frowned. “No,” she repeated half-heartedly.
Quinn didn’t stop. She nodded and watched Rachel bite her lip as soon as her fingers touched the cold bottle of champagne. It was costly. Quinn remembered her father’s company having this at some Christmas parties. Her hand wrapped around it and pulled it out slowly, like it would shatter if she wasn’t careful.
Rachel snatched it from Quinn's hands as soon as it was free.
“I’m drinking from the bottle!”
They managed half of it until they were asleep in the living room. The music was left blaring until the album finished.
A week later when Rachel was telling that particular story to Kurt, who had just come back from visiting Burt and Carole, Quinn's head shot up from the book she’d been reading.
“I didn’t cry!”
* * *
Rachel's fathers couldn’t manage the same vacation days from work in October so Rachel flew out to see them instead. It was strange, not spending the weekend with Quinn and her friends in New York. She was so used to planning her time with Quinn in it now. When Rachel offered Quinn to fly with her, she politely declined. Quinn had so much work to get through that weekend that she doubted she’d be sleeping at any point during it anyway. She would have had to take all of it with her to New York if Rachel hadn’t have gone away.
Rachel wasn’t too disappointed. It was a treat to spend a full day with her Dad, and then her Daddy. She was spoiled rotten and didn’t mind one bit. Of course, she didn’t go empty-handed herself. She spotted celebrities frequently now that she was a city girl. Her Daddy had almost died when she handed him an autograph and told him about the time she met Al Pacino and signed him an autograph in return, leaving out his bewildered expression as she walked away.
While Rachel was watching some of her childhood favourite musicals with her Dad later that night, Quinn was at her kitchen table, slamming her laptop screen shut using just shy of the amount of strength it would have taken to crack the screen.
“Go away,” she said when there was a knock at her door. Connor and Jamie were staying at his dorm room because his roommate was away for the weekend.
“You’ll regret saying that when you see what I have in my hands.”
It was Max from next door.
Quinn made her way to the door. “Are you being gross?”
“In front of a lady?”
She smiled. “Is it food?”
“Open the door and find out,” he said.
Quinn kept the chain on, only peeking out to glance down. Max had take-out and beer. There wasn’t really a choice to be made but she did tell him that all she had time for was something to eat and one beer. Limiting herself to no more than one drink, she also found that when she wasn’t drunk he wasn’t annoying. Max was actually sweet and funny and, if she was shallow for a second, nice to look at. He was a catch, she was sure of it.
Her mother would certainly approve.
When they’d finished dinner and had been talking for longer than Quinn realised, she shook her almost empty bottle. “You have to go.”
Max looked surprised. “Now?”
“Did you expect to stay longer because you brought me dinner and drinks?”
“No, but I thought you’d warm to me after I told you three embarrassing stories. Wasn’t that worth one more beer?”
Quinn smiled. “Maybe. But not tonight.”
Max saw defeat. “Want help cleaning up?”
“I’ll take care of it.”
He held out his hand and pulled Quinn off the couch. Her skin was softer than he’d imagined. “This is where I say thanks for opening your door,” Max said.
“Thanks for knocking. And feeding me.”
“I wasn’t sure you’d be here,” he said as they walked towards the door. “But I heard a rumour that you were staying home this weekend and thought I’d try my luck. First time in a while you’ve been in, right?”
“It’s because of that,” Quinn explained, moving her outstretched hand in a circle around the kitchen table. “That big mess there.”
“Well, you’re all fuelled up now,” Max shrugged. “Should be easier to work through. But some advice from a pre-med?” Quinn looked at him expectantly. “It’s always more fun to write with two beers instead of one.”
Quinn nodded curtly. “Noted.”
“Goodnight?” he guessed when they arrived at the door.
“Now I know why you got into Yale.”
Max laughed. “My skills of deduction are something to envy.”
“Goodnight,” Quinn said, tiptoeing to hug him. She realised then that she was so used to leaning down a few inches for a hug that this felt like old times with Finn. But different in the way that Max was an inch shorter than Finn and clearly worked out.
“Wait,” Max protested when Quinn was saying goodnight on the other side of her now open door. He looked down to the bottle in her hand. “You said dinner and a beer. Judging from how long it’s taken you to drink three quarters of that, I have, what, another thirty minutes to prove that I’m not a creep?”
Quinn smiled, bringing the bottle to her lips. She downed three-and-a-half mouthfuls in one go.
“That wasn’t fair,” Max said in a daze. She was perfect.
“Goodnight.”
When there was a knock at her door not even thirty seconds later, Quinn laughed and picked up his jacket that was still slung across the back of one of the kitchen chairs and opened the door.
“You forgot your jacket, I kn-”
Max pulled her into a kiss before she could finish that.
* * *
Lying in her childhood bed the next night, Rachel did something she’d wanted to do hundreds of times during high school, she called Quinn.
“My dads miss you,” she opened with.
“I know,” Quinn said with a smile. “I got a text.”
“I think they miss you more than they missed me.”
“It’s possible.”
“What are you doing?” Rachel asked. “Am I interrupting one of your papers?”
“I’m almost done.”
“Yeah?” Rachel sounded as surprised as she felt. “I figured you’d be pulling another all-nighter. Yesterday you said you didn’t even have a worthy introduction.”
“My fingers have been glued to the keys for a disgusting amount of hours. I took a break last night and, I don’t know, everything flowed better after that.”
Rachel pulled a stuffed monkey off her headboard, cuddling it tightly as she turned over. She’d almost forgotten about Maurice in the time she’d been away. “What’d you do?”
“Dinner and drinks,” Quinn said easily. “Well, one drink.”
“By yourself?” Rachel smiled. “I told you that drinking alone increases the chance of depression by-”
“No, uh, Max came over. He wouldn’t go away and well, he had food, so.”
“Pre-med Max, the one at your party?”
“Yeah. He’s, um, usually better behaved than that. He was drunk,” Quinn said, sounding nervous to Rachel's ears. The way she had sounded the first weekend Rachel's fathers were in New York the same weekend she was last year.
“Did he kiss you?” Rachel didn’t know why she was asking or why, in the time it took Quinn to respond, she felt the three thumps of her heart as powerfully as she did.
“Yeah.”
“What was it like?”
Quinn laughed quietly. “I don’t know. Nice?”
“Fireworks?”
“No, just nice.”
“You kissed Max?!” Rachel heard Jamie screech in the background. It almost made her smile.
“I think Jamie has a thing for him,” Quinn concluded quietly after going to her bedroom for some privacy. “You should have seen her face just now.”
There was some rustling and Rachel knew exactly how Quinn would be lying in her bed. She could see it without even closing her eyes.
“Will you be at my place next week?” Rachel asked.
“Unless you’ve changed your locks.”
That made Rachel feel better.
Sort of.
* * *
She heard Quinn gasp before anything else.
“You’ve grown!”
“That’s biologically impossible given my age,” Rachel said, turning to the direction of Quinn's voice. She smiled when she saw her. Quinn had cut her hair in the three days since she’d seen her face on her computer screen. “No changes with you, I see.”
“No.” Quinn shook her head. She pulled Rachel closer and used her hand to gauge the difference between Rachel's head and her own. “You’ve grown.”
“It’s only been a month since we’ve seen each other.” She looked up to Quinn's eyes, the same short distance she’d always had to. “But you’ve obviously gone crazy without me around.”
“Didn’t I always?”
“True.”
“And I still want to hug you,” Quinn said bemused, leaning down to wrap her arms around her friend. She held on for a while longer. “I missed you,” she whispered against the same part of Rachel's neck she always did.
Rachel's expression was close to neutral when they parted. “I missed you too, of course. Now, let’s get going. We have to drop your things off at home and I have a hundred things I want to do today.” Rachel looked up at Quinn as they walked out of Grand Central. She finally smiled. “I like your hair, Quinn.”
Rachel was the insane one, Quinn decided that night when she was lying in her bed. She couldn’t move without hurting. They had walked the length of the city twice and nothing would convince her feet otherwise.
Closing her bedroom door, Rachel saw Quinn's smile before she turned the light off. “I thought you said you and your feet were, and I quote, in excruciating pain?”
“I am, and they are.”
“Then why were you smiling? Weirdo.”
Quinn tried to move her feet but a pain shot through them. “Ow,” she complained but it didn’t totally remove the amusement from her expression. “Ever see Misery?”
Even in the dark, Rachel looked apologetic. And then she didn’t. “I suppose I’m the crazed lunatic?”
“You did drag me all over New York in those shoes.”
“Well, why were you wearing them in the first place? The vertically challenged are the only ones who should be wearing anything with a heel.”
“I wanted to look nice.”
“You don’t have to do anything special to impress me, Quinn.”
Quinn laughed. “Good to know.”
Rachel was quiet for almost a full minute. When she did speak again, it was so loud and unexpected that it jolted Quinn. “Blaine carried you from the taxi to the elevator!”
“Shut up, I’m right here,” Quinn said, nudging her. “And yeah, when the damage had already been done. The only reason we didn’t walk back here after dinner -after you made us skip lunch- was because Kurt was practically in a food coma and insisted on sharing and paying for the ride home.”
“You should have said something,” Rachel said softly.
“I thought my limp spoke volumes.”
“You’re making me feel terrible,” she huffed. “And you know I can’t sleep when I’m in emotional turmoil.”
“How does my pain turn into your pain?”
“You’re my best friend,” Rachel said simply. “What you feel, I feel. It’s one of the downsides to a deep friendship.”
How different this picture was. Lying in bed with Rachel Berry, being her best friend... Quinn had fought against this so hard in high school and now she had no idea why.
“I’m fine, Rachel,” Quinn said quietly. “Just pulling your little leg.”
“Clearly I mean a great deal to you, too.”
Quinn laughed through the pain when she put her ice-cold foot on Rachel's for warmth, earning a sharp intake of breath and screeched cry. And then she was kicked in the shins.
“What was that?!”
“My foot. What else is it going to be?”
“I think you need to see a chiropodist. Your circulation is horrifying.”
“It’s because the window is open so wide. The building isn’t on fire, you know. We don’t have to jump.”
“My body temperature elevates at night, okay? I won’t apologise for something I have no control over.”
“It’s okay,” Quinn said, sliding her foot back over the sheets until she met Rachel's again. “This can be your penance.”
Rachel cringed at the temperature but didn’t give a second thought to sliding her foot up and down Quinn's after a while. It didn’t fully register that she was doing it. “When was the last time you had a foot massage?”
“Probably around the time you last used pumice, so, a while ago?”
“There’s nothing wrong with my feet.”
Quinn didn’t mean to move either but there was a warm spot right below Rachel's ankle that felt better than anything else she could imagine. It was warming her toes up in no time. “I didn’t say there was.”
Several minutes later when both of Quinn's feet were comfortably warm again, Rachel turned over, sliding her other foot out until it touched Quinn's.
“Just in case,” she said. “Goodnight, Quinn.”
“Night, Rachel.”
It was Sunday morning when they were on their way to Grand Central once again that things changed. Quinn turned to look behind Rachel when they both heard a series of honked horns and the early-morning sun illuminated her face perfectly. It was only a brief moment in the scheme of things but Rachel's lips parted with the constriction in her chest.
That was the first time Rachel knew she was truly screwed.
* * *
Nine days later, Quinn left the bathroom in a towel and Connor politely averted his eyes as soon as he saw naked glistening skin. He couldn’t quite remove his smile as quickly though.
“Quinneth!” Jamie hollered over her shoulder. She was surfing the internet on the couch. “Come here.”
Quinn hesitated but held the towel tighter around her body and made her way behind Jamie. “Don’t call me that, and what?”
Jamie was on Rachel's Facebook page. She had been tagged in a new album. Jamie knew it was going to be perfect the second she saw it. “You didn’t tell me Rachel knew how to dance like that.”
The pictures, all thirty-seven of them, had Rachel dancing intimately with guys Quinn had never met before. She frowned and her voice came out quiet but annoyed. “She told me she was sick last weekend...”
Quinn had been feeling overwhelmed and stressed with college and needed Rachel's optimism to help her get over it. Only, when she’d called, it went unanswered. A few minutes later she’d received a text from Rachel telling her that she was sick and did she call for anything important. Of course Quinn didn’t tell her yes. She wished Rachel felt better soon and told her to call if she needed anything.
“Why do you think she blew you off?” Jamie asked innocently.
Quinn's face look like it had been slapped, and the smile looked to almost break it. “To be with hot guys?”
“They are pretty hot.” Jamie chewed her lip, watching Quinn's face intently as she clicked through the pictures. “There’s this guy coming up though, easily beats them all.”
When Quinn saw Rachel's legs spread over some guy’s she didn’t even know, looking at his large hands all over her body with his tongue shoved down Rachel’s throat, a look so cold and hard appeared on her face that Jamie’s little smile disappeared.
“What are you doing?” Quinn demanded.
Jamie moved back imperceptibly and shook her head, in a state of fear and shock. “Nothing.”
“No, what are you doing?”
“Quinn, I-” Jamie moved again and the laptop fell sideways, forcing Quinn's eyes to it again. She rushed to close it.
“Are you trying to embarrass her, because the only person who should be embarrassed is the idiot who uploaded those for everyone to see.”
“No! Jesus, Quinn.”
Quinn focused her intense glare on her roommate for a few seconds longer and then stormed away, slamming her bedroom door shut so hard that Connor flinched.
Jamie’s mouth was hanging open. “Oh my God!” she mouthed through a laugh, still terrified. She’d never seen that Quinn before. “What the fuck was that?”
Connor had more sense than to laugh. What if Quinn saw? He raised his hands in the air. “I’m gone.”
“What? You can’t leave me. What if she comes back out and bludgeons me to death?”
Connor nodded towards the door. “Let’s go.” When they were almost through it, he gave her a disapproving look. “You know you were asking for that though, right? It’s been forever. You have to let this go and apologise.”
Quinn's body had dried totally by the time the nausea had gone. It was Jamie she was angry with but when Rachel called her two hours later, Quinn didn’t pick up.
One a.m. that night, she decided that, no, she was equally as furious with Rachel.
Three days later, when Rachel had talked herself into such a state that she was considering hopping on a train to New Haven at close to midnight, Jamie walked into Quinn's bedroom without even knocking.
She had looked brighter.
Jamie’s voice was laced with sleep. “I know you’re still pissed at me but she won’t stop calling, and unless you talk to her she says she’ll continue to call until you do. So, here.” Jamie tossed the phone on Quinn's bed and closed the door after her.
“You know I won’t,” Quinn heard, muffled by the comforter. Eighty miles couldn’t silence Rachel, apparently.
Quinn snatched up Jamie’s phone. She’d been asleep herself. “I was asleep.”
Rachel sighed in relief. “Have you been asleep for the past few days? I’d have to insist on you seeing a doctor if-”
“What’s up?” Quinn broke in aloofly.
“Where have you been?”
“Nowhere. Here. Where have you been?”
Rachel frowned. “Are you okay?” she asked quietly. “You sound...”
“It’s late, Rachel. I’m tired.”
“Did something happen?”
Quinn's glare was focused on the pillow Rachel slept on. It was almost like glaring at her. “Yeah, you woke me up.”
“Is it me? Did I do something?” Rachel asked. “I don’t know if it’s my paranoia or if the signs really are all pointing towards you being mad at me.”
“You weren’t sick last weekend,” Quinn responded sharply.
“Quinn...”
“What? You were too sick to talk to me but well enough that you couldn’t refuse an offer to go dancing?”
“Come on,” Rachel said soothingly, “you tell me everything you do?”
“No, but I don’t lie about it.”
Rachel's confusion was carved into her face. “But you said your call could wait, that it wasn’t important.”
“It doesn’t matter. Who cares if I was calling you to tell you someone had died or I’d stubbed my toe? The point is you lied to me.”
“Over going out,” Rachel said, losing a little of her patience. “God, Quinn, why is this turning into a fight? I was worried about you.”
“And Jamie thought the photos were ridiculous,” Quinn said, seeing no point in fighting the urge. “Tasteless.”
Rachel sighed. “Am I still visiting Friday?”
“I don’t care.” Quinn's answer came out so abruptly that she didn’t think about it. Her face was twisted stubbornly, until the thick silence and then dial-tone left her deflated and full of regret.
She burst into Jamie’s room and threw the phone at her. It clonked off her head.
“Ow!”
“This is your fault,” Quinn accused, and slammed the door shut.
Things didn’t improve with a good night’s sleep. Quinn's stomach twisted unpleasantly at the sight of breakfast the next morning, and then in remorse when she saw the faint bruise on Jamie’s hairline. An apology was on the tip of the tongue but she couldn’t make it pass through her lips.
And there was her phone, glued to her hand in case she missed a call or text from Rachel. But she couldn’t initiate contact herself. God, what would she even say? Sorry I was a raging bitch without good reason. How’s the weather?
The tension in the apartment was suffocating her, so as soon as Jamie went to get dressed Quinn left a bottle of water and two pain-killers on the counter next to her coffee and set out an hour early to her morning class.
The day didn’t improve.
Max stopped by without an invitation that night and this time he did annoy Quinn but she returned his kiss when he leaned in. They’d been out on two casual dates since the time he’d come over with beer and take-out. This was the first time they’d kissed like this and she let him guide her down against the couch as his kisses grew deeper.
Quinn wanted this but she wanted it differently. She wanted rougher hands and harder kisses. Her teeth scraped against his neck sharply and she gripped the back of his neck when he kissed her lips the way she wanted him to, until it hurt.
It wasn’t too long later that his hips were slowly working against hers.
“Do you want to...?” Max asked unsurely. Quinn hadn’t pushed him away but she didn’t look half as interested as he was either.
“No.” Quinn seemed to snap out of something and she shook her head. “No. God, I’m sorry.”
He sighed, moving off her. “Call me if you want to, Quinn.”
When the apartment door closed, it was seconds until Quinn covered her face with her hands. What was she doing?
She didn’t make it to her afternoon class the next day, too anxious to sit through a lecture. Rachel still hadn’t tried to call or text, and the one time Quinn worked up the courage to call Rachel first, her phone died as soon as her thumb pushed the button. She took it as a sign and decided to wait, at least until her phone had fully-charged again.
Thinking about it rationally, a phone call was probably too much to ask after how strained things has become. A text would be better.
She sent it at 4.07p.m.
Are you still coming today?
As soon as ten minutes passed without a reply, Quinn gritted her teeth. Rachel never took that long to reply. She must be beyond words. Quinn didn’t even want to think about how bad she’d messed up if she’d caused Rachel to be in such a state.
Mostly to keep from going insane, Quinn went to take a shower. Connor and Jamie were in the living room watching TV when she was finished.
Connor choked on a Dorito when Quinn stood in front of the TV in nothing but a towel.
Quinn's eyes were fixed on Jamie. “I’m sorry,” she said, obviously in pain at being the first one to apologise. It didn’t happen often. “I don’t know why I’ve been such a bitch. I know you’d never insult Rachel like that.”
Jamie smiled. “It’s cool,” she shrugged. “I’m sorry too. Really.”
Quinn went to her bedroom to get dressed and sighed when she saw only one text message, not from Rachel.
Still, it was deserved so she would suck it up and head out to Union Station the same time she did every second Friday of the month and wait to see if Rachel would show.
Chapter 2A