fic: life's a show 2/?
Title: Life's a Show
Author: takeanotherturn
Rating: PG-13
Length: 4000+
Spoilers: Up to and including all of season 3.
Summary: Everyone thought that Rachel would be the one to be discovered. They all thought that Rachel would be the one to become a star. They were wrong.
The house seemed so much smaller than she remembered.
Maybe it was because she was so used to being surrounded by the lavishly large mansions of the rich and famous in LA. Or maybe it was because she wasn't a scared teenager anymore.
Quinn's hand moved to the hollow of her throat, reaching for the golden cross that hadn't rested there in years, as she remembered the last time she'd stood in that exact spot of the driveway, luggage in hand -sixteen years old, pregnant and homeless- wondering if she'd ever see the inside of her home again. It had seemed so big and imposing then.
Shaking herself out of her bad memories, Quinn made her way across the grass and up onto the porch, dragging her rolling suitcase behind her. She rang the bell and chuckled to herself when she heard church bells echoing through the house. Some things never changed.
The heavy oak door swung open and Quinn laid eyes on her mother for the first time in over two years. Time -and copious amounts of botox- had been kind to Judy Fabray. “Quinnie!” was all the warning Quinn got before she was engulfed in a tight hug by her mother. “Oh, it's so good to see you!”
“Hey, mom,” Quinn whispered, returning the hug. “It's good to see you too.”
All too soon, Quinn was released and was being ushered inside. “Come in, come in. I wish you'd called me when your flight landed,” Judy fussed. “I could have picked you up from the airport.”
“Mom, it's fine. I didn't mind driving myself.”
After being stuck for almost an hour in line behind an unfortunate college student who'd gotten stopped and had his laptop and iPod searched and then subsequently confiscated for having illegally downloaded content on them, the last thing Quinn wanted was to spend anymore time in the airport, so she hired a car and drove herself.
“You've redecorated,” she observed as she followed her mother into the living room.
Judy looked confused for a moment. “Oh, yes. I had the whole house done almost three years ago. Now why don't you sit down and I'll fix you something to eat. I can't imagine eating that horrible airline food, you must be starving,” she said, flitting off towards the kitchen before Quinn could object.
“Not really,” Quinn muttered at her mother's departing back. The food served in first class nowadays was better than you'd find in most restaurants.
She sat down on the couch and dug her fingers into the stiff leather. She was being treated like a guest instead of family and she hated it. She hated that she didn't know how to change it.
So Quinn sat, twiddling her thumbs, waiting for her mother to return with a completely unnecessary snack. The silence only broken by the tick-tocking of the antique Grandfather clock until Judy returned, plate and two steaming mugs in hand.
“Here, I made your favorite,” she said, setting down the BLT laden plate and drinks down on the coffee table in front of her daughter then taking a seat across from her.
“Thank you,” Quinn said, politely. She didn't have the heart to tell her mother that she'd been a vegetarian for almost two years now. Instead she reached forward and claimed her coffee, hoping she'd be able to stall on having to eat the bacon filled sandwich.
“So is it true?” Judy asked, eagerly leaning forward ready to gossip.
Quinn raised an eyebrow. “Is what true?”
“That you've signed on to be the star in the new James Cameron movie.”
Quinn sighed and took a sip of her coffee. “Where'd you hear about that?”
“Fern Talbot told me that she read it in US Weekly.”
Of course. “Mom, how many times do I have to tell you that you can't believe anything they say in the tabloids?”
Judy looked crestfallen. “So you're not going to be in it?”
“I've auditioned for it but haven't heard anything back,” Quinn admitted. “My agent thinks they're probably going to go with Emma Stone.”
Judy shook her head disapprovingly. “You know, I've never liked that girl.”
Quinn smirked into her mug, she was fairly certain that her mother had no idea who Emma Stone actually was. “I know.”
She didn't know what to say after that and apparently neither did Judy, so they both focused on their coffees -one a little more Irish than the other- and let the grandfather clock fill in the silence. Tick. Tock.
“You know, it's really too bad that you couldn't make it back home for Christmas,” said Judy, breaking the awkward silence. “But I suppose I understand, I probably would've chosen Maui over Ohio too, if I had the choice. The weather looked lovely in the pictures I saw of you in the magazines.”
Quinn smiled softly. “Yeah, it was nice.”
“And Jack looked very...handsome. So tanned and muscular...” Quinn cringed internally as her mother trailed off, no doubt lost in a post-menopausal fantasy about the wet, shirtless form of her co-star. Gross.
Judy shivered, snapping out of her daydream and slapping an overly wide smile on her face. “How is he these days?”
“He's good.” Quinn paused and cleared her throat before continuing. “He would've come with me but he's busy filming his new movie in New York.”
“Oh, well that's a shame. You two have been dating for so long and I've only met the man once.”
“I know, mom. Maybe you could come out to LA for Thanksgiving or something-”
“Oh, I couldn't do that,” Judy dismissed the idea easily. “Spending the holidays with your sister and my grandchildren is so important to me, Quinnie, you know that.”
“Okay, well, some other time then,” Quinn said, graciously. “Just let me know and I'll pay for your ticket.”
“That's very generous of you, darling, but you don't need to do that.”
“Mom, I don't mind,” she insisted, trying to be a good daughter. “Really, it's not like I can't afford it.”
“You should be saving your money, Quinnie. Acting is not a financially stable profession, look at what happened to that Lohan girl. She made all that money when she was young and now she's completely penniless and living on the streets!” Judy warned. She'd never kept her disapproval of Quinn's chosen profession a secret.
Quinn had to bite back an acerbic retort about how all of Lindsay's career and financial problems stemmed from her being a drug addict. The last thing she needed to do was bring up drugs around her mother, who was under the bizarre impression that there were mountains of cocaine and bowls of prescription pills just laid out for consumption at every party in Hollywood. “A plane ticket is hardly going to bankrupt me.”
“I'd prefer to pay my own way, Quinn,” Judy said, the slight edge to her words made it clear that this wasn't an argument her daughter would win and Quinn knew there was no point in pressing the issue.
“Okay. Well, like I said, just let me know.”
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
Quinn couldn't have been more relieved to hear her phone chime away in her pocket. “Sorry,” she apologized demurely to her mother as she pulled it out and unlocked the screen. It was a text message from Santana. Mini glee reunion 2nite 7:30 @ Benchwarmers. Be there bitch. Quinn smiled to herself as she typed out her affirmative response. She'd been home less than thirty minutes and already she couldn't wait to get out of the house.
“Is that from Jack?” Judy inquired.
“No, it's from Santana. She was just letting me know that a bunch of glee kids are getting together for drinks tonight.”
“You still speak to that girl?”
Judy Fabray had never been particularly fond of Santana Lopez but she had always called her by name until the day she saw the ad that had outed Santana to not only the whole of Ohio but, thanks to the internet, the entire world. From that day forward, Santana had only been referred to as 'that girl' by Quinn's mother.
“Yeah, sometimes. It's not that big of a deal,” said Quinn. She didn't want to have to sit there and listen to the speech her mom always gave whenever Santana's name came up, where she went on and on about how disappointed and ashamed Santana's parents must be of her, she already knew it off by heart. “You know, I'm kind of tired. I think I'll go upstairs and take a nap. If that's okay.”
Judy pursed her lips, not looking at all pleased but didn't object. “Of course, dear.”
Quinn nodded and grabbed the handle of her rolling suitcase, dragging it behind her as she trudged up the stairs to her room. Or what used to be her room.
Her mother had meant it when she said she'd redecorated the whole house. Gone was the patterned wallpaper and old furniture, along with all of the personal effects that Quinn had left behind when she'd left for college. Best case scenario, they'd been boxed and stored in the attic but more likely they'd been donated to Goodwill or simply just thrown away. Her mother was not one to be sentimental about material things unless they were plastic crowns.
Quinn ditched her luggage by the door and collapsed back on the bed, pressing the heels of her palms tightly to her eyes and exhaling heavily.
She wished that she and her mother could talk like a normal mother and daughter. Hell, she wished she and her mother could just talk like normal people, instead of the awkward, stilted conversations that they always found themselves engaged in these days, completely unable to relate to each other. It was bad enough when they spoke over the phone but in person it was almost unbearable.
Three days. She just had to make it through three days and then she'd be out of Lima, on the next plane back to New York, where all her fans thought she was spending this little mini-break, so she could make another public appearance with Jack and then back home to LA. Three days, she told herself, that was practically no time at all.
-
Unfortunately, Quinn had forgotten how slowly time moved in small towns like Lima. Even after she'd napped, showered and changed it was still barely after six in the afternoon.
The sun was still out and the weather was nice, a gentle breeze kept the temperature comfortably warm for that time of year and Quinn couldn't wait a moment longer to get out of the house, so she decided to walk to Benchwarmers; she wasn't planning on drinking much but it was best to err on the side of caution, her publicist would kill her if she got a DUI, and it would give her a chance to explore her old hometown in a way that driving wouldn't.
It seemed that the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. Walking down the main street Quinn felt like she'd stepped into a time warp back to her senior year as she passed by all the same stores, run by the same people. The only major change she noticed, with no small amount of sadness, was that Mrs Dupont's dance studio had been replaced by a Taco Bell. She wondered what had happened to her old dance teacher, had she been forced out by the rising cost of rent or had simply chosen to retire?
Quinn was hyper aware of the odd looks and double takes she received from people as she passed by. She was used to being stared at, even before she was famous her looks got her a certain amount of attention from strangers, but it still made her wary.
She was just glad that nobody stopped her to try and get her autograph. Not that she was opposed to interacting with her fans, it's just that situations like that tended to snowball and she could've very easily ended up being mobbed by overzealous fans and nosy onlookers alike which she just wasn't in the mood to deal with. She just wanted to relax and catch up with her old friends while she was home.
Stepping into Benchwarmers, Quinn spotted Brittany and Santana right away. The were playing -and she used that term loosely since it appeared that they were just competing to see who could get the closest to the bullseye rather than actually keeping score- darts with Sam Evans and a auburn haired woman that Quinn didn't recognize.
Brittany was the first to spot her hovering in the entrance way. “Quinn!” she yelled, bounding over to hug her.
Even as she returned the enthusiastic embrace, Quinn's eyes instinctively darted around the bar to see if Britttany's outburst had gained her any unwanted attention. Luckily it seemed that, besides their group, Benchwarmers' only customers were a few middle aged men who were hunched over their beers at the bar; hardly her demographic.
She was hugged by Santana and then Sam in quick succession and introduced to Sam's girlfriend, Alyson, who was apparently a huge fan of Quinn's and Quinn was more than happy to indulge her request for a picture and autograph.
Mike and Tina arrived a few minutes later with an African American man in tow who looked familiar to Quinn but she didn't recognize until Mike introduced him to Sam as Matt Rutherford.
They ended up pushing two tables together and ordering two pitchers of beer along with baskets of onion rings, curly fries and buffalo wings. Santana took it upon herself to order a round of tequila shots so they could perform a toast and was very put out when Tina refused to participate.
“Santana, I'm the designated driver.”
“C'mon, Girl Chang, it's just one shot, stop being such a pussy. I wants to gets my drink on.”
“Really, Santana?” Quinn chuckled, diverting the attention away from a blushing Tina, who's hand, Quinn noticed, was now protectively placed over her abdomen. She'd congratulate her later in private. “You're back for one day and you've already gone all Lima Heights Adjacent again.”
“You know what they say, you can take the girl out of Lima Heights Adjacent but you can't take the Lima Heights Adjacent out of the girl or whatever.”
“Uh-huh, sure,” Quinn said, raising an eyebrow while Sam tried to explain to his girlfriend why Santana was talking like that. “Never mind that you've never actually spent more than five minutes there in your entire life.”
“It was enough,” Santana shot back defensively.
“Look, Tina doesn't have to drink if she doesn't want to. Why don't you just take the extra shot, since you're so eager to gets your drink on.?”
“Fine,” Santana agreed, snatching the shot from the table in front of Tina and holding it up high, indicating it was time for her toast. “To Chang Squared and the New Directions!”
“Chang Squared and the New Directions,” they cheered in unison, clinking their shot glasses together before throwing back the liquor.
Quinn winced and wheezed a little as the tequila burned it's way down her throat and went straight to her beer for a chaser. So much for not drinking much.
-
After the toast, conversation turned towards sharing what everyone was doing with themselves these days. Nobody bothered to ask Quinn what she was up to, they felt like they didn't need to since every detail of her life was constantly splashed across the pages of tabloids for all to see.
Sam had joined the police force and had been dating Alyson, who was a kindergarten teacher, for almost a year now. Matt Rutherford was even quieter than Quinn remembered and all they got out of him was that worked in a library -later on when Matt took a bathroom break, Mike apologized for his friend's sullenness and explained that Matt was going through a terrible break up- and Mike and Tina owned and operated their own dance studio in Miami and did choreography work on the side. Mike had even formed his own hip hop dance troupe called The Banditz, who's flashmob routines were quite the sensation on YouTube.
Somehow the conversation had eventually turned to who was the better pool player, leading Santana to challenge Mike to a game.
Quinn leaned back on her elbows against the bar, nursing a white wine and watching her old friends squabble over the which length cues they should be using.
She smiled at Sam as he sidled up to join her. His hair was clipped short and a darker blond than it used to be and it made her sad to see that he'd lost some of his boyish innocence, which only made sense considering his line of work, Quinn supposed, but Sam was still as handsome as he'd ever been.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“Alyson seems really nice.”
Sam grinned widely at the mention of girlfriend. “Yeah, she's awesome. We met because of you, you know?”
“How?”
“We were at Comic-Con, she was in front of me in line to get into the Among Us panel,” Sam explained. “We got to talking and I told her that I used to date you. She didn't believe me until I showed her a picture. Anyway the hall got filled up and the line got cut off right in front of us, so I invited her to go get coffee instead and we totally hit it off. So really it's all thanks you.”
“Well, you're welcome, I guess. So how does she deal with you being a cop? And how did that happen anyway? I never knew you had an interest in law enforcement.”
Sam ducked his head and blushed. “Yeah, well, I get to put on a uniform and fight crime, I figured that being a cop was the closest I'm ever going to get to being a superhero.”
Quinn chuckled and nudged him affectionately. “Figures.”
“And Alyson's really good about it, very supportive. I mean, she worries, of course, but....” he trailed off, seemingly lost in thought. “I see stuff, you know. A lot of bad stuff, the kind of stuff that stays with you, but then I come home and Aly's there and she's always so happy and she's got all these funny stories about what the kids in her class have done that day and she makes all that bad stuff better...I'm gonna ask her to marry me.”
“Sam, that's great! I'm so happy for you,” Quinn said, throwing her arms around her ex-boyfriend in an impulsive hug. She was happy for him, of course, but this was just another remind her that she was at the age where all of her friends were starting settle down. She was surprised that Santana hadn't popped the question to Brittany yet “When are you going to ask her?”
“I dunno, I haven't really thought that far ahead yet. I haven't even gotten her a ring,” he admitted sheepishly. “I just feel like it's time, you know? We love each other and we're already living together and our families get along great. It feels right, like it's the sensible thing to do.”
“Well, all I can say is that Alyson's a very lucky girl,” Quinn said sincerely. “And speaking of your family, how are they doing?”
By the time graduation had rolled around, the Evans were just on the verge of finally crawling out of underneath a mountain of debt and Quinn just hoped that life had gotten better for them.
“Dad hurt his shoulder at work and had to go on disability so Mom's started working again but they're doing okay. I send part of every paycheck I get back home to go towards Steve and Stacey's college funds.”
“So it's Steve now, huh?” Quinn drawled, remembering Sam's adorable towheaded little brother.
“Yeah,” Sam laughed. “Well, he's a teenager now, practically a man! And Stevie's a kid's name.”
“He'll always be Stevie to me,” Quinn teased.
“I think you're probably the only person in the world who could get away with calling him that nowadays. He's always bragging to his friends about how he used to be babysat by Quinn Fabray. He has all your movies on blu-ray, got posters of you covering his walls.”
Quinn grimaced at the thought of what that implied. “That's...sweet.”
Sam let out a full-bellied laugh. He hadn't even mentioned the box of magazines with Quinn on the cover that Steve kept under his bed. “Yeah. Sweet.”
“We've done alright for ourselves, haven't we?” Quinn mused.
They'd both been through a lot at a young age, shared the experiences of being homeless, of having to grow up faster than any teenager should and here they were five years later. Successful. Rich...well, in Quinn's case anyway. Happy doing jobs they loved.
Sam threw his arm around Quinn's shoulders and pulled her close to his side. “Yeah, I'd say we've done pretty damn good.”
-
Once it had been proven beyond a reasonable doubt -although Santana and Brittany would vehemently disagree- that Mike was the superior pool player, the group had returned to their table and had begun reminiscing over the glory days of glee club and all the drama that they'd been through together.
Talking about the time Puck got sent to juvie for attempting to steal an ATM revealed that
he wouldn't be making it to the wedding due to him being in jail for fraud of all things, apparently he'd being running a reasonably successful pyramid scheme until he got busted by the cops. At least he was moving up in the world.
Discussing how Kurt had to leave McKinley to attend Dalton and ended up falling in love with Blaine Anderson lead to Tina admitting that Blaine hadn't been invited to the wedding, thanks to the incredibly bitter break up he had with Kurt during Kurt's sophomore year at NYADA. Even though Kurt was pretty much entirely to blame for the split, he had been their friend first so they felt like their loyalty had to lie with him.
They were in the middle of informing Matt and Alyson about the complete fiasco that was their junior prom when Quinn couldn't keep her burning question inside anymore, she just had to ask.
“Hey, what ever happened to Rachel Berry?” It was a question that had plagued her over the years. At first she thought that Rachel was just concentrating on her studies at NYADA and that's why Quinn hadn't heard anything about her taking Broadway by storm but it had been five years now and nothing. A few weeks ago, fulled by boredom and curiosity, Quinn had checked Rachel's facebook page but that hadn't helped to shed any light on Rachel's current status. Rachel had it set on completely private and the only thing Quinn could see was her picture that hadn't changed since her freshman year of college.
The laughter and chatter ceased immediately and a tingle of dread went up Quinn's spine. Why would they react like that to a simple question? Had something horrible happened to Rachel? Had she died? No, if Rachel had died someone would have told her, surely.
“Oh my God,” Santana said, smirking mischievously. “You guys have to let me tell her.”
Okay, she's smiling. That's good. Santana wouldn't be smiling if Rachel was dead. “Tell me what?”
“Okay, so Britts and me got into town yesterday and it's been way too long since I've gotten my 'Stix on-”
“Seriously, why are talking like that?” Quinn interrupted. She knew that Santana was fully capable of using correct grammar and talking like an intelligent human being. Being Lima must've been making her regress dramatically.
“Shut it, Lucifer.” Yep, Santana was definitely regressing back to her high school persona. “Anyways, so we go to Breadstix for dinner and guess who our waitress was-”
No way. There was just no way.
“-Rachel freaking Berry!”
Author: takeanotherturn
Rating: PG-13
Length: 4000+
Spoilers: Up to and including all of season 3.
Summary: Everyone thought that Rachel would be the one to be discovered. They all thought that Rachel would be the one to become a star. They were wrong.
The house seemed so much smaller than she remembered.
Maybe it was because she was so used to being surrounded by the lavishly large mansions of the rich and famous in LA. Or maybe it was because she wasn't a scared teenager anymore.
Quinn's hand moved to the hollow of her throat, reaching for the golden cross that hadn't rested there in years, as she remembered the last time she'd stood in that exact spot of the driveway, luggage in hand -sixteen years old, pregnant and homeless- wondering if she'd ever see the inside of her home again. It had seemed so big and imposing then.
Shaking herself out of her bad memories, Quinn made her way across the grass and up onto the porch, dragging her rolling suitcase behind her. She rang the bell and chuckled to herself when she heard church bells echoing through the house. Some things never changed.
The heavy oak door swung open and Quinn laid eyes on her mother for the first time in over two years. Time -and copious amounts of botox- had been kind to Judy Fabray. “Quinnie!” was all the warning Quinn got before she was engulfed in a tight hug by her mother. “Oh, it's so good to see you!”
“Hey, mom,” Quinn whispered, returning the hug. “It's good to see you too.”
All too soon, Quinn was released and was being ushered inside. “Come in, come in. I wish you'd called me when your flight landed,” Judy fussed. “I could have picked you up from the airport.”
“Mom, it's fine. I didn't mind driving myself.”
After being stuck for almost an hour in line behind an unfortunate college student who'd gotten stopped and had his laptop and iPod searched and then subsequently confiscated for having illegally downloaded content on them, the last thing Quinn wanted was to spend anymore time in the airport, so she hired a car and drove herself.
“You've redecorated,” she observed as she followed her mother into the living room.
Judy looked confused for a moment. “Oh, yes. I had the whole house done almost three years ago. Now why don't you sit down and I'll fix you something to eat. I can't imagine eating that horrible airline food, you must be starving,” she said, flitting off towards the kitchen before Quinn could object.
“Not really,” Quinn muttered at her mother's departing back. The food served in first class nowadays was better than you'd find in most restaurants.
She sat down on the couch and dug her fingers into the stiff leather. She was being treated like a guest instead of family and she hated it. She hated that she didn't know how to change it.
So Quinn sat, twiddling her thumbs, waiting for her mother to return with a completely unnecessary snack. The silence only broken by the tick-tocking of the antique Grandfather clock until Judy returned, plate and two steaming mugs in hand.
“Here, I made your favorite,” she said, setting down the BLT laden plate and drinks down on the coffee table in front of her daughter then taking a seat across from her.
“Thank you,” Quinn said, politely. She didn't have the heart to tell her mother that she'd been a vegetarian for almost two years now. Instead she reached forward and claimed her coffee, hoping she'd be able to stall on having to eat the bacon filled sandwich.
“So is it true?” Judy asked, eagerly leaning forward ready to gossip.
Quinn raised an eyebrow. “Is what true?”
“That you've signed on to be the star in the new James Cameron movie.”
Quinn sighed and took a sip of her coffee. “Where'd you hear about that?”
“Fern Talbot told me that she read it in US Weekly.”
Of course. “Mom, how many times do I have to tell you that you can't believe anything they say in the tabloids?”
Judy looked crestfallen. “So you're not going to be in it?”
“I've auditioned for it but haven't heard anything back,” Quinn admitted. “My agent thinks they're probably going to go with Emma Stone.”
Judy shook her head disapprovingly. “You know, I've never liked that girl.”
Quinn smirked into her mug, she was fairly certain that her mother had no idea who Emma Stone actually was. “I know.”
She didn't know what to say after that and apparently neither did Judy, so they both focused on their coffees -one a little more Irish than the other- and let the grandfather clock fill in the silence. Tick. Tock.
“You know, it's really too bad that you couldn't make it back home for Christmas,” said Judy, breaking the awkward silence. “But I suppose I understand, I probably would've chosen Maui over Ohio too, if I had the choice. The weather looked lovely in the pictures I saw of you in the magazines.”
Quinn smiled softly. “Yeah, it was nice.”
“And Jack looked very...handsome. So tanned and muscular...” Quinn cringed internally as her mother trailed off, no doubt lost in a post-menopausal fantasy about the wet, shirtless form of her co-star. Gross.
Judy shivered, snapping out of her daydream and slapping an overly wide smile on her face. “How is he these days?”
“He's good.” Quinn paused and cleared her throat before continuing. “He would've come with me but he's busy filming his new movie in New York.”
“Oh, well that's a shame. You two have been dating for so long and I've only met the man once.”
“I know, mom. Maybe you could come out to LA for Thanksgiving or something-”
“Oh, I couldn't do that,” Judy dismissed the idea easily. “Spending the holidays with your sister and my grandchildren is so important to me, Quinnie, you know that.”
“Okay, well, some other time then,” Quinn said, graciously. “Just let me know and I'll pay for your ticket.”
“That's very generous of you, darling, but you don't need to do that.”
“Mom, I don't mind,” she insisted, trying to be a good daughter. “Really, it's not like I can't afford it.”
“You should be saving your money, Quinnie. Acting is not a financially stable profession, look at what happened to that Lohan girl. She made all that money when she was young and now she's completely penniless and living on the streets!” Judy warned. She'd never kept her disapproval of Quinn's chosen profession a secret.
Quinn had to bite back an acerbic retort about how all of Lindsay's career and financial problems stemmed from her being a drug addict. The last thing she needed to do was bring up drugs around her mother, who was under the bizarre impression that there were mountains of cocaine and bowls of prescription pills just laid out for consumption at every party in Hollywood. “A plane ticket is hardly going to bankrupt me.”
“I'd prefer to pay my own way, Quinn,” Judy said, the slight edge to her words made it clear that this wasn't an argument her daughter would win and Quinn knew there was no point in pressing the issue.
“Okay. Well, like I said, just let me know.”
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
Quinn couldn't have been more relieved to hear her phone chime away in her pocket. “Sorry,” she apologized demurely to her mother as she pulled it out and unlocked the screen. It was a text message from Santana. Mini glee reunion 2nite 7:30 @ Benchwarmers. Be there bitch. Quinn smiled to herself as she typed out her affirmative response. She'd been home less than thirty minutes and already she couldn't wait to get out of the house.
“Is that from Jack?” Judy inquired.
“No, it's from Santana. She was just letting me know that a bunch of glee kids are getting together for drinks tonight.”
“You still speak to that girl?”
Judy Fabray had never been particularly fond of Santana Lopez but she had always called her by name until the day she saw the ad that had outed Santana to not only the whole of Ohio but, thanks to the internet, the entire world. From that day forward, Santana had only been referred to as 'that girl' by Quinn's mother.
“Yeah, sometimes. It's not that big of a deal,” said Quinn. She didn't want to have to sit there and listen to the speech her mom always gave whenever Santana's name came up, where she went on and on about how disappointed and ashamed Santana's parents must be of her, she already knew it off by heart. “You know, I'm kind of tired. I think I'll go upstairs and take a nap. If that's okay.”
Judy pursed her lips, not looking at all pleased but didn't object. “Of course, dear.”
Quinn nodded and grabbed the handle of her rolling suitcase, dragging it behind her as she trudged up the stairs to her room. Or what used to be her room.
Her mother had meant it when she said she'd redecorated the whole house. Gone was the patterned wallpaper and old furniture, along with all of the personal effects that Quinn had left behind when she'd left for college. Best case scenario, they'd been boxed and stored in the attic but more likely they'd been donated to Goodwill or simply just thrown away. Her mother was not one to be sentimental about material things unless they were plastic crowns.
Quinn ditched her luggage by the door and collapsed back on the bed, pressing the heels of her palms tightly to her eyes and exhaling heavily.
She wished that she and her mother could talk like a normal mother and daughter. Hell, she wished she and her mother could just talk like normal people, instead of the awkward, stilted conversations that they always found themselves engaged in these days, completely unable to relate to each other. It was bad enough when they spoke over the phone but in person it was almost unbearable.
Three days. She just had to make it through three days and then she'd be out of Lima, on the next plane back to New York, where all her fans thought she was spending this little mini-break, so she could make another public appearance with Jack and then back home to LA. Three days, she told herself, that was practically no time at all.
-
Unfortunately, Quinn had forgotten how slowly time moved in small towns like Lima. Even after she'd napped, showered and changed it was still barely after six in the afternoon.
The sun was still out and the weather was nice, a gentle breeze kept the temperature comfortably warm for that time of year and Quinn couldn't wait a moment longer to get out of the house, so she decided to walk to Benchwarmers; she wasn't planning on drinking much but it was best to err on the side of caution, her publicist would kill her if she got a DUI, and it would give her a chance to explore her old hometown in a way that driving wouldn't.
It seemed that the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. Walking down the main street Quinn felt like she'd stepped into a time warp back to her senior year as she passed by all the same stores, run by the same people. The only major change she noticed, with no small amount of sadness, was that Mrs Dupont's dance studio had been replaced by a Taco Bell. She wondered what had happened to her old dance teacher, had she been forced out by the rising cost of rent or had simply chosen to retire?
Quinn was hyper aware of the odd looks and double takes she received from people as she passed by. She was used to being stared at, even before she was famous her looks got her a certain amount of attention from strangers, but it still made her wary.
She was just glad that nobody stopped her to try and get her autograph. Not that she was opposed to interacting with her fans, it's just that situations like that tended to snowball and she could've very easily ended up being mobbed by overzealous fans and nosy onlookers alike which she just wasn't in the mood to deal with. She just wanted to relax and catch up with her old friends while she was home.
Stepping into Benchwarmers, Quinn spotted Brittany and Santana right away. The were playing -and she used that term loosely since it appeared that they were just competing to see who could get the closest to the bullseye rather than actually keeping score- darts with Sam Evans and a auburn haired woman that Quinn didn't recognize.
Brittany was the first to spot her hovering in the entrance way. “Quinn!” she yelled, bounding over to hug her.
Even as she returned the enthusiastic embrace, Quinn's eyes instinctively darted around the bar to see if Britttany's outburst had gained her any unwanted attention. Luckily it seemed that, besides their group, Benchwarmers' only customers were a few middle aged men who were hunched over their beers at the bar; hardly her demographic.
She was hugged by Santana and then Sam in quick succession and introduced to Sam's girlfriend, Alyson, who was apparently a huge fan of Quinn's and Quinn was more than happy to indulge her request for a picture and autograph.
Mike and Tina arrived a few minutes later with an African American man in tow who looked familiar to Quinn but she didn't recognize until Mike introduced him to Sam as Matt Rutherford.
They ended up pushing two tables together and ordering two pitchers of beer along with baskets of onion rings, curly fries and buffalo wings. Santana took it upon herself to order a round of tequila shots so they could perform a toast and was very put out when Tina refused to participate.
“Santana, I'm the designated driver.”
“C'mon, Girl Chang, it's just one shot, stop being such a pussy. I wants to gets my drink on.”
“Really, Santana?” Quinn chuckled, diverting the attention away from a blushing Tina, who's hand, Quinn noticed, was now protectively placed over her abdomen. She'd congratulate her later in private. “You're back for one day and you've already gone all Lima Heights Adjacent again.”
“You know what they say, you can take the girl out of Lima Heights Adjacent but you can't take the Lima Heights Adjacent out of the girl or whatever.”
“Uh-huh, sure,” Quinn said, raising an eyebrow while Sam tried to explain to his girlfriend why Santana was talking like that. “Never mind that you've never actually spent more than five minutes there in your entire life.”
“It was enough,” Santana shot back defensively.
“Look, Tina doesn't have to drink if she doesn't want to. Why don't you just take the extra shot, since you're so eager to gets your drink on.?”
“Fine,” Santana agreed, snatching the shot from the table in front of Tina and holding it up high, indicating it was time for her toast. “To Chang Squared and the New Directions!”
“Chang Squared and the New Directions,” they cheered in unison, clinking their shot glasses together before throwing back the liquor.
Quinn winced and wheezed a little as the tequila burned it's way down her throat and went straight to her beer for a chaser. So much for not drinking much.
-
After the toast, conversation turned towards sharing what everyone was doing with themselves these days. Nobody bothered to ask Quinn what she was up to, they felt like they didn't need to since every detail of her life was constantly splashed across the pages of tabloids for all to see.
Sam had joined the police force and had been dating Alyson, who was a kindergarten teacher, for almost a year now. Matt Rutherford was even quieter than Quinn remembered and all they got out of him was that worked in a library -later on when Matt took a bathroom break, Mike apologized for his friend's sullenness and explained that Matt was going through a terrible break up- and Mike and Tina owned and operated their own dance studio in Miami and did choreography work on the side. Mike had even formed his own hip hop dance troupe called The Banditz, who's flashmob routines were quite the sensation on YouTube.
Somehow the conversation had eventually turned to who was the better pool player, leading Santana to challenge Mike to a game.
Quinn leaned back on her elbows against the bar, nursing a white wine and watching her old friends squabble over the which length cues they should be using.
She smiled at Sam as he sidled up to join her. His hair was clipped short and a darker blond than it used to be and it made her sad to see that he'd lost some of his boyish innocence, which only made sense considering his line of work, Quinn supposed, but Sam was still as handsome as he'd ever been.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“Alyson seems really nice.”
Sam grinned widely at the mention of girlfriend. “Yeah, she's awesome. We met because of you, you know?”
“How?”
“We were at Comic-Con, she was in front of me in line to get into the Among Us panel,” Sam explained. “We got to talking and I told her that I used to date you. She didn't believe me until I showed her a picture. Anyway the hall got filled up and the line got cut off right in front of us, so I invited her to go get coffee instead and we totally hit it off. So really it's all thanks you.”
“Well, you're welcome, I guess. So how does she deal with you being a cop? And how did that happen anyway? I never knew you had an interest in law enforcement.”
Sam ducked his head and blushed. “Yeah, well, I get to put on a uniform and fight crime, I figured that being a cop was the closest I'm ever going to get to being a superhero.”
Quinn chuckled and nudged him affectionately. “Figures.”
“And Alyson's really good about it, very supportive. I mean, she worries, of course, but....” he trailed off, seemingly lost in thought. “I see stuff, you know. A lot of bad stuff, the kind of stuff that stays with you, but then I come home and Aly's there and she's always so happy and she's got all these funny stories about what the kids in her class have done that day and she makes all that bad stuff better...I'm gonna ask her to marry me.”
“Sam, that's great! I'm so happy for you,” Quinn said, throwing her arms around her ex-boyfriend in an impulsive hug. She was happy for him, of course, but this was just another remind her that she was at the age where all of her friends were starting settle down. She was surprised that Santana hadn't popped the question to Brittany yet “When are you going to ask her?”
“I dunno, I haven't really thought that far ahead yet. I haven't even gotten her a ring,” he admitted sheepishly. “I just feel like it's time, you know? We love each other and we're already living together and our families get along great. It feels right, like it's the sensible thing to do.”
“Well, all I can say is that Alyson's a very lucky girl,” Quinn said sincerely. “And speaking of your family, how are they doing?”
By the time graduation had rolled around, the Evans were just on the verge of finally crawling out of underneath a mountain of debt and Quinn just hoped that life had gotten better for them.
“Dad hurt his shoulder at work and had to go on disability so Mom's started working again but they're doing okay. I send part of every paycheck I get back home to go towards Steve and Stacey's college funds.”
“So it's Steve now, huh?” Quinn drawled, remembering Sam's adorable towheaded little brother.
“Yeah,” Sam laughed. “Well, he's a teenager now, practically a man! And Stevie's a kid's name.”
“He'll always be Stevie to me,” Quinn teased.
“I think you're probably the only person in the world who could get away with calling him that nowadays. He's always bragging to his friends about how he used to be babysat by Quinn Fabray. He has all your movies on blu-ray, got posters of you covering his walls.”
Quinn grimaced at the thought of what that implied. “That's...sweet.”
Sam let out a full-bellied laugh. He hadn't even mentioned the box of magazines with Quinn on the cover that Steve kept under his bed. “Yeah. Sweet.”
“We've done alright for ourselves, haven't we?” Quinn mused.
They'd both been through a lot at a young age, shared the experiences of being homeless, of having to grow up faster than any teenager should and here they were five years later. Successful. Rich...well, in Quinn's case anyway. Happy doing jobs they loved.
Sam threw his arm around Quinn's shoulders and pulled her close to his side. “Yeah, I'd say we've done pretty damn good.”
-
Once it had been proven beyond a reasonable doubt -although Santana and Brittany would vehemently disagree- that Mike was the superior pool player, the group had returned to their table and had begun reminiscing over the glory days of glee club and all the drama that they'd been through together.
Talking about the time Puck got sent to juvie for attempting to steal an ATM revealed that
he wouldn't be making it to the wedding due to him being in jail for fraud of all things, apparently he'd being running a reasonably successful pyramid scheme until he got busted by the cops. At least he was moving up in the world.
Discussing how Kurt had to leave McKinley to attend Dalton and ended up falling in love with Blaine Anderson lead to Tina admitting that Blaine hadn't been invited to the wedding, thanks to the incredibly bitter break up he had with Kurt during Kurt's sophomore year at NYADA. Even though Kurt was pretty much entirely to blame for the split, he had been their friend first so they felt like their loyalty had to lie with him.
They were in the middle of informing Matt and Alyson about the complete fiasco that was their junior prom when Quinn couldn't keep her burning question inside anymore, she just had to ask.
“Hey, what ever happened to Rachel Berry?” It was a question that had plagued her over the years. At first she thought that Rachel was just concentrating on her studies at NYADA and that's why Quinn hadn't heard anything about her taking Broadway by storm but it had been five years now and nothing. A few weeks ago, fulled by boredom and curiosity, Quinn had checked Rachel's facebook page but that hadn't helped to shed any light on Rachel's current status. Rachel had it set on completely private and the only thing Quinn could see was her picture that hadn't changed since her freshman year of college.
The laughter and chatter ceased immediately and a tingle of dread went up Quinn's spine. Why would they react like that to a simple question? Had something horrible happened to Rachel? Had she died? No, if Rachel had died someone would have told her, surely.
“Oh my God,” Santana said, smirking mischievously. “You guys have to let me tell her.”
Okay, she's smiling. That's good. Santana wouldn't be smiling if Rachel was dead. “Tell me what?”
“Okay, so Britts and me got into town yesterday and it's been way too long since I've gotten my 'Stix on-”
“Seriously, why are talking like that?” Quinn interrupted. She knew that Santana was fully capable of using correct grammar and talking like an intelligent human being. Being Lima must've been making her regress dramatically.
“Shut it, Lucifer.” Yep, Santana was definitely regressing back to her high school persona. “Anyways, so we go to Breadstix for dinner and guess who our waitress was-”
No way. There was just no way.
“-Rachel freaking Berry!”