Fic: Redemption 1/1
Title: Redemption
Genre: Angst/Drama
Pairing: None, Mercedes/Quinn friendship.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 800
Summary: For the glee_angst_meme prompt here. Quinn realizes that her father’s new daughter is what she could never be.
The words hurt, deeper than anything he has ever said or done to her. Yes, this does include kicking her out of the house for her pregnancy. Quinn closes her eyes and tries to make the words go away but they won't. Those words are going to stick with her forever.
She had just asked how her father's daughter was doing, the baby born only a few short months after her own child. She had only been trying to bridge the long ago shattered gap between herself and her father. She had been doing the right thing.
His answer?
"She's perfect. This is my last chance to get parenting right."
Quinn winces, unable to let it go. Her phone buzzes. Sam. Asking if she's mad at him since she hasn't talked to him in hours. Why are her boyfriends always so insecure? She knows the answer. It's because she's used both steady boyfriends she's had for security, insecure boys being simply easier to manipulate.
Maybe her daddy is right. He went wrong with her, so wrong. Maybe his pretty baby, little Kaitlin is his second chance.
She thinks about texting Sam back but doesn't. She flips through the contacts on her phone. Mercedes. She's failed as Mercedes' friend, something she promised to be. The girl was there for Beth's birth, took her in when she needed it and she's ignored her since.
Not right. Also not right to need her but she calls anyway.
"Quinn?" the girl answers. "What's up? You ok?"
She practically starts bawling then and there. "No..." she whispers. "Can I come over? Please. I'm so sorry. I just need..."
"Of course babe," Mercedes says without thought.
She is almost too hysterical to drive. When she gets out of the car, she's thankful she didn't die on the way. It was a very real possibility. She doesn’t even remember the drive over. Mercedes is outside on the front porch and quickly pulls her into a hug. "Baby girl, what's wrong?"
It's so wrong, her still being such a good, loving friend.
"I saw my dad," she gasps. "I asked him about the baby."
Mercedes is the only person outside of her family who knows about the baby. The girl takes her inside. "I'm home alone but Mama said you're more than welcome."
Mercedes sits them on the couch. "He said she was," Quinn rasped, "he said she was...his second chance to do parenting right. Like I'm this horrible thing he wants to forget and replace with his adorable infant. I knew he hated me but I saw him and thought we could mend. I could be his baby again..."
Mercedes holds her close and she babbles. She can’t stop babbling on and on, crying silently, then sobbing, then holding Mercedes tighter. "He has a baby now. A new family that's right, good...she won't get knocked up sixteen years down the road and mess up his life." She looks up, in tears. "I can't decide if...all the times he said he loved me were lies, or if love is that damned conditional."
Mercedes seems floored but speaks softly. "Shouldn't be," she admits. "Love should never be conditional, Quinn. Honestly, I dunno what the hell is wrong with that man."
She sighs deep.
"Maybe he's right. Where am I now? Back where I started. Living in that house with a mother who tries but is painfully self-absorbed. Head of the Cheerios, a position I'm clinging to like life depends on it even though I learned last year it doesn't. I'm a failure."
"You wanna know the difference between your dad and most people?" she asks, tilting her head. "Most people practice forgiveness and accept the fact that mistakes are human and don't define a person. He's gonna be sorely hurtin' when that baby grows up outta angelic infancy. Babies can be these innocent creatures but people will never be."
Quinn smiles at that. "I don't get why you're nice to me, sometimes, but I knew you would be."
The girl just hugs her tighter. "I love you, girl. Also, I'm one of those people. I forgive. I keep my friends close even when they don't stay that way." She looks sad, insecure beneath her comforting. Quinn feels awful for not noticing that before.
She sighs, hoping she can find redemption with that forgiveness. She certainly needs something that she doesn’t have a trace of. She’s only human. She can recover. She can help her best friend maybe.