Fic: Back to the Start (4/?)
Title: Back to the Start (4/?)
Rating: PG/PG-13
Pairing: Quinn/Rachel (eventually)
Premise: Quinn decided to use her first name 'Lucy' at college
Spoilers/Timeline: Season 1&2 are fair game, I've got most of this planned out in my head so I may be ignoring Season Three
Authors Notes/Rables: I've got most of the fic in my head but for some reason it's not getting out of my head very easily.
I expect to have things wrapped up in under ten parts though. I may or may not then add an epilogue and a smutty side story.
Rachel's head is throbbing and her neck hurts from sleeping at an odd angle but decides she doesn't feel too bad, all thing considered. She blinks a few times and realises she in't in her own bed. After a breif moment of panic she remembers where she is. Cassie had invited her back to the apartment she shared with Quinn, she'd insisted. The other brunette could be quite convincing, somehow they didn't head home until very early in the morning when Cassie was satified with dancing. Cassie had then spent some time drunkenly trying to remember how to ge the couch to fold out while Rachel absently looked around the apartment. Thinking about how she was now in the home of one Lucy Quinn Fabray. Once Cassie had finished her battle with the couch Rachel had pretty much passed out. Cassie had been generous in buying drinks and they had taken a toll on the shorter girl.
There is now a delicous smell wafting through the living room and she realises there are noises coming from the kitchen. Rachel pokes her head over the back of the couch and can see Quinn moving around the kitchen. The blonde turns in time to spot the disheaveld brunette and breaks into a giant grin.
“Morning Rachel” She chuckles “Did you have fun with Cassie?”
Rachel narrows her eyes “What time is it?”
“Nine” Quinn replies with a shrug. “Do you want some coffee?”
“Nine?!” Rachel exclaims, but she clambers off her makeshift bed, she's not getting back to sleep anyway “Who gets up at nine on a Sunday?” She pads over to the kitchen. Quinn notices now Rachel is wearing one of Cassie's old Columbia shirts, she realises the boxers are her own ones that had gone missing when she last did laundry. They must have gotten mixed up with Cassies things. Quinn shrugs and grabs a mug from the cupboard.
“So coffee, or juice?” She asks Rachel
“Coffee” Rachel replies as she leans on the counter to watch Quinn move around the small kitchen. Whatever she is cooking smells amazing, Rachel can't remember the last time she had a homecooked breakfast. Kurt usually made a McDonalds run for his hangovers and she'd just drink a strong coffee. “What are you making?” she askes, leaning to try and get a better look.
“Tofu scramble” Quinn replies as she pours a big mug of coffee for her guest “I wasn't sure if you were still vegan, so I figured it would be a good breakfast option”
“Thank you Quinn” Rachel grins as Quinn hands her the coffee “I'm surprised you remember. Yes I am still a vegan, although not a very strict one. I don't quite have the budget to adhere to a proper vegan diet. To be honest I also make a exception for a slice of pizza every now and then”
Quinn chuckles “Of course I remember Rachel, I'm not surprised you're still trying to uphold it, I expected you'd at least be a vegetarian”
“Well, I'm hoping that since you have tofu in your apartment you have seen the error of your ways and adhere to at least a vegatiran diet yourself”
“Nope” Quinn grins, opening the oven to allow the smell of bacon crisping under the grill to waft out. Rachel crinkles her nose in displeasure. “I'm having a side of bacon with mine”
“I should've have expected as much” Rachel adds a disapointed tone to her voice, but her smile betrays her. “Still eating animal carcus” she shakes her head.
Quinn laughs “Well I did go through a bit of a phase in my first year of college. I was vegan for about a month, then vegetarian for awhile, then Cassie dumped me and I pretty much gorged on meat to spite her” Quinn laughs at the memory, not noticing that Rachel is digesting this new information she continues “I actually found I prefer soy milk, well now Cassie and I share food I actually tend to be on a vegetarian diet because it's easier. She's a bit of a fussy eater though, doesn't like eggs or milk, loves cheese though. So tofu and soy milk are always around, we're a pretty vegan friendly home”
“You dated Cassie?” Rachel returns to this new information, not too worried about Quinns current eatng habits. Quinn turns from where she has started to dish up the food.
“Oh yea” She remembers that Rachel hadn't been told this “She was my first serious girlfriend”
“So you're just friends now?” Rachel asks, accepting a plate of Quinn's cooking.
Quinn just nods as she muches on her bacon. Cassie suddenly decides to join them, essentially stumbling from her bedroom towards the kitchen. She has a hand pressed against her temple but perks up the instant she realises there is food waiting for her
“Yum, breakfast” She grabs a plate and starts to shovel tofu into her mouth.
“Cassie, manners, you brought home a guest” Quinn chides her playfully.
“mmfph” Cassie mumbles around her breakfast and waves at Rachel.
Quinn rolls her eyes and queitly continues to eat her breakfast.
“Quinn, would you like to do something today?” Rachel asks hopefully.
“Sorry, I've got to study, then go to work”
“Oh” she can see Rachel's face fall a bit, she knows the other girl wants to try and rekindle the old high school memories but she isn't about to dorp her plans. Even if her plans are to spend most of her day at university getting some study done away from her distracting flatmate.
“I'm free!” Cassie butts in, already cleaning off her plate, having practically inhaled her food. “Hangover Sunday's always call for a day of watching musicals, if you'd like to join me”
Rachels eyes light up and Quinn eye Cassie suspicouslly, while Cassie usually curled up in front of the TV on a Sunday musicals were hardly her first choice.
“That sounds great” Rachel beams at her new friends as she digs into her own breakfast.
“We can go harras Lucy Q at work later on also” Cassie grins at her flatmate who is rolling her eyes.
“I'm going to get you barred from the premisis one day Cassie, I swear you're going to get me fired”
Cassie laughs “Please, I'm your best paying customer”
“Terrible tipper though”
Rachel watches the easy banter between the two girls and immediately feels a sting of jelousy. She didn't have close friends like they obviously were. She did have Kurt, but she didn't have girl friends. She may never admit it to anyone but she also felt a bit bitter that she never had that sort of friendship with Quinn. She'd often accepted that Quinn wasn't really close to anyone, not even Santana and Britney. But watching her with Cassie she was seeing a whole different side of the girl she knew in high school. She'd always wanted to be closer to Quinn, even if it wasn't until college that she finally put her finger on the exact nature of her interest in the other girl.
Quinn is glad her shift has been slow. She enjoys working Sunday afternoons, the coffee shop doubled as a bar on her evening shifts, Sunday afternoons were just coffee and shutting up early. Usually it was just few regualars who lived around the area and was queit enough to get some study done. That was until the two brunettes showed up once they finished their musical marathon. It wouldn't have been so bad if Cassie had hung around, instead the older girl had left Quinn and Rachel to catch up as she headed out to meet up with James to get the gossip on last night. So Quinn is sitting at her favourite table, books open but ignored as she listenes to Rachel chat away, keeping an eye out in case any customers need attention.
“And then we watched Funny Girl, apparenlty Cassie hadn't seen it” Rachel smiles as she recounts her day to Quinn. “Cassie is really fun, you have great friends”
“How about you Rachel?” She asks “You've met a bunch of my friends, but I don't much about what's going on with you” She watches Rachels smile faulter slightly.
“Well I'm living with Kurt in a ridicously small apartment, I'm finishing up my BFA this year” She sips at her coffee “I've been focused on my craft so there hasn't been much else going on” Rachel shrugs and Quinn is surpised the other girl hasn't launched into a half hour ramble about her new life.
“So what ever happened with you and Finn?” She's heard stories from Mike but was curious to hear Rachels side of the story.
“He was an ass, we were trying the long distance and he cheated on me” Rachel lets out an angry breath and Quinn realises she hit a nerve. She honestly thought it would be water under the bridge by now. “I felt so angry that no-one though felt they should tell me what he was doing, I came all the way out to Ohio to catch him with another girl”
Quinn feels her blood boil, Finn was such an ass, and Rachel's story differed enough to make it obivious he was even more of a dick.
“They didn't know” She wonders if it's a good idea to bring this up now, this all happened years ago and she didn't have anything to do with it.
“What?”
“Well, I still talk to Mike, apparently Finn told them he dumped you, over the phone, right after he first realised he had a chance with some other girl. They didn't tell you because he lied to them”
“Oh” Rachel looked a little relieved to discover they weren't intentionally covering for Finn “well I suppose it's a relief that at least my friends weren't trying to protect him” She stares down at her coffee. It had been years but that betrayal still felt like a kick in the guts.
“Well, you've moved on my now I'm sure” Quinn smiles, she's not sure if she wants to hear about Rachels' new boyfriends. It always felt weird hearing about Finn and Rachel's love life from Mike. She thought she had escpaed all the Lima drama but the gossip still followed. The idea of hearing Rachels new dating history brought up the same unease.
“Honestly I haven't really dated much since Finn, nothing serious anyway. I've been fousing on my career”
Somehow Quinn isn't too surprised, but doubts that Rachel has been completely out of the game. She decides it's best to drop the subject of their love lives anyway.
“So are you still in touch with anyone else from New Directions?” Quinn hopes this isn't a sore spot either.
“Not very well, I keep up with a few of them with emails, Tina and Mercedes mostly”
“What ever happened to Blaine? Kurt seemed very into him”
“They managed the long distance thing during Kurts first year any NYU but when Blaine moved here everything seemed to crumble. Kurt had grown up a lot and Blaine struggled not being the centre of his universe.” Rachel shrugs “I think a lot of us grew apart”
Quinn smiles “It's strange though, I think I'm better friends with Brit and Santana since high school, but we were never really that close back then”
“You're still friends with them?” Rachel is a little surprised, although they had been the unholy trinity it had been aparent that Santana and Britney were closer to each other than either had really been to Quinn. She'd ended up at Mercedes place in sophmore year for a reason.
“Yea, they're living in LA now, but we keep in touch. They've always been my best friends and I think part of growing up we somehow grew closer” She didn't want to admit it but coming out at college had probably cemented her friendship with Santanta, both girls finally found that freedom when they escaped high school.
“Do you talk to your mom much?” Quinn is curious, Shelby barely mentions Rachel and she's always been curious if it just never came up.
“Emails now and then, why?” Rachels brow furrows “Do you still talk to Shelby?”
“Yea” Quinn stares down at her coffee, she feels odd that she probably has a better relationship with Shelby than Rachel does. “We talk maybe once a week, Skype usually, I get to talk to Beth”
“I remember Finn mentioned Puck was still quite involved in her life”
“I try to be, but at the end of the day, Shelby is her mom”
“I'm sure you'll have a better relationship with her than Shelby and I do, you're still trying to be there” Rachel smiles ruefully, it's a complicated situation and as much as she loves her Dads she always felt like Shelby just tossed her aside when they'd tried to reconnect.
“She doesn't need me as much though, she has a mom, and she has Puck” Quinn grips her coffee, she doens't talk about her daughter often. Especially not to someone who has such a strong connection to both her old life and the reality of being adopted. They stare into their coffee for awhile, both contemplating about their strange relationship until Rachel decides to return to lighter topics.
“So what are Brittney and Santana up to?”
“Well Brit is a profesional dancer” a sly grin creeps across Rachels face, Quinn notices and chuckles “Seriously, not a stripper. She does music videos and things, she was doing it part time but when she got put on academic probation she decided to just drop out of college and focus on it”
“And I suppose her and Santana are still close?”
“They're going through one of their on patches”
“On patches?” Rachel queires.
“They cycle between between bestfriends, fuck buddies, girlfriends and not speaking” Quinn laughs a little at the somewhat predictable nature of her friends, always being drawn back together “I think they managed to get through an entire cycle in less than a day once”
“So they're dating?” Rachel smiles, glad to know the girls somewhat rocky relationship worked out. It would also add two more to Kurts scorecard, although he probably already counted them both in his queer degrees of New Directions.
“Yea, I think it's getting close to a solid year now” Quinn smiles “I visited them last summer when they patched thing ups” Quinn hopes that Cassie doesn't ever decide to recruit Rachel in her game of iliciting more information about that specific trip to California.
“So is Santana still at UCLA?” So far their old high school friends have been a safe topic so she decides to stick with it
“Yea, she's finishing up her undergraduate in some sort of communications degree, she's still trying to decide what she wants to do but was talking about PR most recently”
“I could see her doing something like that, being the rep for some super-star and cutting down the press with a scathing glare and a 'no comment'” Rachel chuckles to herself.
“Well maybe you should hire her when you become famous” Quinn smiles, she's teasing a little but she does believe Rachel will achieve big things
“Thanks” Quinn watches the brunette blush and thinks how adorable modesty looks on Rachel Berry. “I don't know if I'll ever be hugely famous” modest indeed Quinn thinks, wondering when Rachel Barbara Berry had taken her dreams down from nothing short of superstardom.
“That dead person play you did was fantastic though” As soon as she mentions it Quinn realises what she has said. Rachels smile falls of her face and Quinn realises she has reminded the other girl that not only had they been in the same city all this time but that Quinn knew. That up until yesterday Quinn had actually been pretty good at avoiding the other girl.
“You saw that?” Rachel stares right at her, Quinn can see the thinly vieled pain.
“Yea, it was good” She looks down at her coffee. It had been a random date, she hadn't known Rachel Berry would be in that play. She'd debated waiting to see her after the play, or contacting her in the days after. But once again she'd talked herself out of it, just like every other time the thought of Rachel had surfaced she'd pushed it away.
“I should go” Rachel stands up, the reality and hurt is plain to see on her face.
“Wait” Quinn grabs her hand as she also stands “I'm sorry Rachel, I'm sorry about everyhing okay. Believe me when I say I cannot apologise enough. Do you think would could try and go back to the start?”
A smirk plays across Rachels lips as Quinns words trigger some vauge recolection, but she watches the blondes face and realises there is complete sincerity. For whatever reason Quinn had been avoiding her during their years in New York the other girl was sincere in wanting to reconnect now their lives had been thrust back togather. Rachel extends her hand, decdiding to play along with the fresh start.
“Hi, I'm Rachel Berry, aspirisng broadway actress” Rachel smirks
“I'm Lucy Fabray, undergraduate at Columbia with asperations to be a laywer” She grabs her hand and shakes it. They smile at each other and Quinn adds “You can call me Quinn, my best friends use some varation of my middle name” She smiles warmly “I think we'll be good friends” she hopes they can patch things up enough for it to be true. But it would at least be less confusing for Rachel.
“I'm going to hug you now” Rachel declares and pulls Quinn into a warm embrace.
Rating: PG/PG-13
Pairing: Quinn/Rachel (eventually)
Premise: Quinn decided to use her first name 'Lucy' at college
Spoilers/Timeline: Season 1&2 are fair game, I've got most of this planned out in my head so I may be ignoring Season Three
Authors Notes/Rables: I've got most of the fic in my head but for some reason it's not getting out of my head very easily.
I expect to have things wrapped up in under ten parts though. I may or may not then add an epilogue and a smutty side story.
Rachel's head is throbbing and her neck hurts from sleeping at an odd angle but decides she doesn't feel too bad, all thing considered. She blinks a few times and realises she in't in her own bed. After a breif moment of panic she remembers where she is. Cassie had invited her back to the apartment she shared with Quinn, she'd insisted. The other brunette could be quite convincing, somehow they didn't head home until very early in the morning when Cassie was satified with dancing. Cassie had then spent some time drunkenly trying to remember how to ge the couch to fold out while Rachel absently looked around the apartment. Thinking about how she was now in the home of one Lucy Quinn Fabray. Once Cassie had finished her battle with the couch Rachel had pretty much passed out. Cassie had been generous in buying drinks and they had taken a toll on the shorter girl.
There is now a delicous smell wafting through the living room and she realises there are noises coming from the kitchen. Rachel pokes her head over the back of the couch and can see Quinn moving around the kitchen. The blonde turns in time to spot the disheaveld brunette and breaks into a giant grin.
“Morning Rachel” She chuckles “Did you have fun with Cassie?”
Rachel narrows her eyes “What time is it?”
“Nine” Quinn replies with a shrug. “Do you want some coffee?”
“Nine?!” Rachel exclaims, but she clambers off her makeshift bed, she's not getting back to sleep anyway “Who gets up at nine on a Sunday?” She pads over to the kitchen. Quinn notices now Rachel is wearing one of Cassie's old Columbia shirts, she realises the boxers are her own ones that had gone missing when she last did laundry. They must have gotten mixed up with Cassies things. Quinn shrugs and grabs a mug from the cupboard.
“So coffee, or juice?” She asks Rachel
“Coffee” Rachel replies as she leans on the counter to watch Quinn move around the small kitchen. Whatever she is cooking smells amazing, Rachel can't remember the last time she had a homecooked breakfast. Kurt usually made a McDonalds run for his hangovers and she'd just drink a strong coffee. “What are you making?” she askes, leaning to try and get a better look.
“Tofu scramble” Quinn replies as she pours a big mug of coffee for her guest “I wasn't sure if you were still vegan, so I figured it would be a good breakfast option”
“Thank you Quinn” Rachel grins as Quinn hands her the coffee “I'm surprised you remember. Yes I am still a vegan, although not a very strict one. I don't quite have the budget to adhere to a proper vegan diet. To be honest I also make a exception for a slice of pizza every now and then”
Quinn chuckles “Of course I remember Rachel, I'm not surprised you're still trying to uphold it, I expected you'd at least be a vegetarian”
“Well, I'm hoping that since you have tofu in your apartment you have seen the error of your ways and adhere to at least a vegatiran diet yourself”
“Nope” Quinn grins, opening the oven to allow the smell of bacon crisping under the grill to waft out. Rachel crinkles her nose in displeasure. “I'm having a side of bacon with mine”
“I should've have expected as much” Rachel adds a disapointed tone to her voice, but her smile betrays her. “Still eating animal carcus” she shakes her head.
Quinn laughs “Well I did go through a bit of a phase in my first year of college. I was vegan for about a month, then vegetarian for awhile, then Cassie dumped me and I pretty much gorged on meat to spite her” Quinn laughs at the memory, not noticing that Rachel is digesting this new information she continues “I actually found I prefer soy milk, well now Cassie and I share food I actually tend to be on a vegetarian diet because it's easier. She's a bit of a fussy eater though, doesn't like eggs or milk, loves cheese though. So tofu and soy milk are always around, we're a pretty vegan friendly home”
“You dated Cassie?” Rachel returns to this new information, not too worried about Quinns current eatng habits. Quinn turns from where she has started to dish up the food.
“Oh yea” She remembers that Rachel hadn't been told this “She was my first serious girlfriend”
“So you're just friends now?” Rachel asks, accepting a plate of Quinn's cooking.
Quinn just nods as she muches on her bacon. Cassie suddenly decides to join them, essentially stumbling from her bedroom towards the kitchen. She has a hand pressed against her temple but perks up the instant she realises there is food waiting for her
“Yum, breakfast” She grabs a plate and starts to shovel tofu into her mouth.
“Cassie, manners, you brought home a guest” Quinn chides her playfully.
“mmfph” Cassie mumbles around her breakfast and waves at Rachel.
Quinn rolls her eyes and queitly continues to eat her breakfast.
“Quinn, would you like to do something today?” Rachel asks hopefully.
“Sorry, I've got to study, then go to work”
“Oh” she can see Rachel's face fall a bit, she knows the other girl wants to try and rekindle the old high school memories but she isn't about to dorp her plans. Even if her plans are to spend most of her day at university getting some study done away from her distracting flatmate.
“I'm free!” Cassie butts in, already cleaning off her plate, having practically inhaled her food. “Hangover Sunday's always call for a day of watching musicals, if you'd like to join me”
Rachels eyes light up and Quinn eye Cassie suspicouslly, while Cassie usually curled up in front of the TV on a Sunday musicals were hardly her first choice.
“That sounds great” Rachel beams at her new friends as she digs into her own breakfast.
“We can go harras Lucy Q at work later on also” Cassie grins at her flatmate who is rolling her eyes.
“I'm going to get you barred from the premisis one day Cassie, I swear you're going to get me fired”
Cassie laughs “Please, I'm your best paying customer”
“Terrible tipper though”
Rachel watches the easy banter between the two girls and immediately feels a sting of jelousy. She didn't have close friends like they obviously were. She did have Kurt, but she didn't have girl friends. She may never admit it to anyone but she also felt a bit bitter that she never had that sort of friendship with Quinn. She'd often accepted that Quinn wasn't really close to anyone, not even Santana and Britney. But watching her with Cassie she was seeing a whole different side of the girl she knew in high school. She'd always wanted to be closer to Quinn, even if it wasn't until college that she finally put her finger on the exact nature of her interest in the other girl.
Quinn is glad her shift has been slow. She enjoys working Sunday afternoons, the coffee shop doubled as a bar on her evening shifts, Sunday afternoons were just coffee and shutting up early. Usually it was just few regualars who lived around the area and was queit enough to get some study done. That was until the two brunettes showed up once they finished their musical marathon. It wouldn't have been so bad if Cassie had hung around, instead the older girl had left Quinn and Rachel to catch up as she headed out to meet up with James to get the gossip on last night. So Quinn is sitting at her favourite table, books open but ignored as she listenes to Rachel chat away, keeping an eye out in case any customers need attention.
“And then we watched Funny Girl, apparenlty Cassie hadn't seen it” Rachel smiles as she recounts her day to Quinn. “Cassie is really fun, you have great friends”
“How about you Rachel?” She asks “You've met a bunch of my friends, but I don't much about what's going on with you” She watches Rachels smile faulter slightly.
“Well I'm living with Kurt in a ridicously small apartment, I'm finishing up my BFA this year” She sips at her coffee “I've been focused on my craft so there hasn't been much else going on” Rachel shrugs and Quinn is surpised the other girl hasn't launched into a half hour ramble about her new life.
“So what ever happened with you and Finn?” She's heard stories from Mike but was curious to hear Rachels side of the story.
“He was an ass, we were trying the long distance and he cheated on me” Rachel lets out an angry breath and Quinn realises she hit a nerve. She honestly thought it would be water under the bridge by now. “I felt so angry that no-one though felt they should tell me what he was doing, I came all the way out to Ohio to catch him with another girl”
Quinn feels her blood boil, Finn was such an ass, and Rachel's story differed enough to make it obivious he was even more of a dick.
“They didn't know” She wonders if it's a good idea to bring this up now, this all happened years ago and she didn't have anything to do with it.
“What?”
“Well, I still talk to Mike, apparently Finn told them he dumped you, over the phone, right after he first realised he had a chance with some other girl. They didn't tell you because he lied to them”
“Oh” Rachel looked a little relieved to discover they weren't intentionally covering for Finn “well I suppose it's a relief that at least my friends weren't trying to protect him” She stares down at her coffee. It had been years but that betrayal still felt like a kick in the guts.
“Well, you've moved on my now I'm sure” Quinn smiles, she's not sure if she wants to hear about Rachels' new boyfriends. It always felt weird hearing about Finn and Rachel's love life from Mike. She thought she had escpaed all the Lima drama but the gossip still followed. The idea of hearing Rachels new dating history brought up the same unease.
“Honestly I haven't really dated much since Finn, nothing serious anyway. I've been fousing on my career”
Somehow Quinn isn't too surprised, but doubts that Rachel has been completely out of the game. She decides it's best to drop the subject of their love lives anyway.
“So are you still in touch with anyone else from New Directions?” Quinn hopes this isn't a sore spot either.
“Not very well, I keep up with a few of them with emails, Tina and Mercedes mostly”
“What ever happened to Blaine? Kurt seemed very into him”
“They managed the long distance thing during Kurts first year any NYU but when Blaine moved here everything seemed to crumble. Kurt had grown up a lot and Blaine struggled not being the centre of his universe.” Rachel shrugs “I think a lot of us grew apart”
Quinn smiles “It's strange though, I think I'm better friends with Brit and Santana since high school, but we were never really that close back then”
“You're still friends with them?” Rachel is a little surprised, although they had been the unholy trinity it had been aparent that Santana and Britney were closer to each other than either had really been to Quinn. She'd ended up at Mercedes place in sophmore year for a reason.
“Yea, they're living in LA now, but we keep in touch. They've always been my best friends and I think part of growing up we somehow grew closer” She didn't want to admit it but coming out at college had probably cemented her friendship with Santanta, both girls finally found that freedom when they escaped high school.
“Do you talk to your mom much?” Quinn is curious, Shelby barely mentions Rachel and she's always been curious if it just never came up.
“Emails now and then, why?” Rachels brow furrows “Do you still talk to Shelby?”
“Yea” Quinn stares down at her coffee, she feels odd that she probably has a better relationship with Shelby than Rachel does. “We talk maybe once a week, Skype usually, I get to talk to Beth”
“I remember Finn mentioned Puck was still quite involved in her life”
“I try to be, but at the end of the day, Shelby is her mom”
“I'm sure you'll have a better relationship with her than Shelby and I do, you're still trying to be there” Rachel smiles ruefully, it's a complicated situation and as much as she loves her Dads she always felt like Shelby just tossed her aside when they'd tried to reconnect.
“She doesn't need me as much though, she has a mom, and she has Puck” Quinn grips her coffee, she doens't talk about her daughter often. Especially not to someone who has such a strong connection to both her old life and the reality of being adopted. They stare into their coffee for awhile, both contemplating about their strange relationship until Rachel decides to return to lighter topics.
“So what are Brittney and Santana up to?”
“Well Brit is a profesional dancer” a sly grin creeps across Rachels face, Quinn notices and chuckles “Seriously, not a stripper. She does music videos and things, she was doing it part time but when she got put on academic probation she decided to just drop out of college and focus on it”
“And I suppose her and Santana are still close?”
“They're going through one of their on patches”
“On patches?” Rachel queires.
“They cycle between between bestfriends, fuck buddies, girlfriends and not speaking” Quinn laughs a little at the somewhat predictable nature of her friends, always being drawn back together “I think they managed to get through an entire cycle in less than a day once”
“So they're dating?” Rachel smiles, glad to know the girls somewhat rocky relationship worked out. It would also add two more to Kurts scorecard, although he probably already counted them both in his queer degrees of New Directions.
“Yea, I think it's getting close to a solid year now” Quinn smiles “I visited them last summer when they patched thing ups” Quinn hopes that Cassie doesn't ever decide to recruit Rachel in her game of iliciting more information about that specific trip to California.
“So is Santana still at UCLA?” So far their old high school friends have been a safe topic so she decides to stick with it
“Yea, she's finishing up her undergraduate in some sort of communications degree, she's still trying to decide what she wants to do but was talking about PR most recently”
“I could see her doing something like that, being the rep for some super-star and cutting down the press with a scathing glare and a 'no comment'” Rachel chuckles to herself.
“Well maybe you should hire her when you become famous” Quinn smiles, she's teasing a little but she does believe Rachel will achieve big things
“Thanks” Quinn watches the brunette blush and thinks how adorable modesty looks on Rachel Berry. “I don't know if I'll ever be hugely famous” modest indeed Quinn thinks, wondering when Rachel Barbara Berry had taken her dreams down from nothing short of superstardom.
“That dead person play you did was fantastic though” As soon as she mentions it Quinn realises what she has said. Rachels smile falls of her face and Quinn realises she has reminded the other girl that not only had they been in the same city all this time but that Quinn knew. That up until yesterday Quinn had actually been pretty good at avoiding the other girl.
“You saw that?” Rachel stares right at her, Quinn can see the thinly vieled pain.
“Yea, it was good” She looks down at her coffee. It had been a random date, she hadn't known Rachel Berry would be in that play. She'd debated waiting to see her after the play, or contacting her in the days after. But once again she'd talked herself out of it, just like every other time the thought of Rachel had surfaced she'd pushed it away.
“I should go” Rachel stands up, the reality and hurt is plain to see on her face.
“Wait” Quinn grabs her hand as she also stands “I'm sorry Rachel, I'm sorry about everyhing okay. Believe me when I say I cannot apologise enough. Do you think would could try and go back to the start?”
A smirk plays across Rachels lips as Quinns words trigger some vauge recolection, but she watches the blondes face and realises there is complete sincerity. For whatever reason Quinn had been avoiding her during their years in New York the other girl was sincere in wanting to reconnect now their lives had been thrust back togather. Rachel extends her hand, decdiding to play along with the fresh start.
“Hi, I'm Rachel Berry, aspirisng broadway actress” Rachel smirks
“I'm Lucy Fabray, undergraduate at Columbia with asperations to be a laywer” She grabs her hand and shakes it. They smile at each other and Quinn adds “You can call me Quinn, my best friends use some varation of my middle name” She smiles warmly “I think we'll be good friends” she hopes they can patch things up enough for it to be true. But it would at least be less confusing for Rachel.
“I'm going to hug you now” Rachel declares and pulls Quinn into a warm embrace.