...Except When They Do [Epilogue]
Title: ...Except When They Do
Pairing: Rachel/Quinn
Rating: PG-13 for a few swears and mentions of sexytimes
Length: ~4,400
Summary: The aftermath of Quinn and Rachel's unexpected wedding.
Author's Note: I was asked by a few people to do an epilogue for ...Except When They Do and since that story was so fluffy and the epilogue is quite happy as well I figure I'll post it for Valentine's Day even if I am a few hours late. Better late than never though, right?! Right.
Rachel snuggled into Quinn’s side in the car on the way back from Boston the day after the wedding. The brunette nodded off for about an hour and woke up to Quinn’s fingers running through her hair. The blonde was smiling down at her and Rachel buried her nose into Quinn’s neck and pressed a gentle kiss to the delicate skin.
“Hey there Sleeping Beauty.”
“Mmmm hey baby,” Rachel mumbled. “Love you.”
“Love you, too Rach.”
Rachel sat up and dug her phone out of her purse. “I need to call my dads. They might want to know what happened.”
“Oh this ought to be priceless,” Kate said from the front seat. “Hey, Dads! Totally got hitched yesterday to that bitch that tortured me in high school!”
“Thanks for that, Kate,” Quinn said.
“Put this on speaker, I’ve got to hear it. I’m pretty sure my mom would reach through the phone and smack the shit out of me if I did this.”
“Yet you encouraged it,” Rachel said. She scrolled through her contacts to find the land line number to her dads’ house.
“I was living vicariously through you.”
Rachel tapped the screen a few times and held the phone up. Quinn rested her head on Rachel’s shoulder and grinned. It rang twice before someone picked up.
“Hello?”
Quinn recognized Daniel’s voice.
“Hi Dad!” Rachel said brightly.
“Hey sweetie, how are you?”
“I’m doing great! Can you put it on speaker, I want to talk to you and Daddy both.”
“Sure, give me a second.”
There were a couple of clicks followed by Jason’s voice.
“Hey baby girl, what’s going on? Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s great, Daddy. I have some surprising news, though. Are you both sitting?”
“Yes…” Daniel said.
“Okay, well,” Rachel took a deep breath and Quinn nodded. “I kind of got married yesterday.”
There was a silence. Quinn suppressed a giggle. She knew it wasn’t the right time but really, she’d just married Rachel Berry and it was very hard to contain herself.
“Rachel,” Jason said, “Rachel, that’s not funny.”
“You remember Quinn Fabray? A couple of days ago she came to my show and after a series of rather bizarre events that she’ll explain to you later her friend drove us to Boston to get married.”
“Rachel, are you on drugs?” Daniel’s voice was slightly panicked. “Did you drink something that someone gave you? Honey, should you call one of your friends to take you to the emergency room? No telling what you could’ve been…”
“Hi Daniel,” Quinn said with a smile. “Hi Jason! Sorry I didn’t ask for your permission first but Rachel was the one that asked me…and we kind of got caught up in getting to know each other again on the drive to Boston.”
“Oh my God, you’re not kidding,” Daniel gasped. “You’re really serious?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t call you guys but like Quinn said, we were catching up on the last couple years.”
“Well…I…huh,” was all Jason could say.
“We’ll give you the details when we come see you,” Quinn said. “After I get all of my stuff moved into Rachel’s place we’re coming to Lima to visit.”
“Well um…congratulations!” Daniel said. “I…Welcome to the family, Quinn.”
“Thanks,” Quinn said with a bright smile. “I took Rachel’s name, by the way. Hope you don’t mind.”
“No…” Jason said, “No of course we don’t mind. That’s fantastic. It’s…just very sudden.”
“And very unexpected,” Daniel chimed in. “But don’t misinterpret or anything, we’re happy for you if this is what you want.”
“It’s what I want,” Rachel said. “I’ve never been surer of anything before.”
Quinn smiled and pecked Rachel’s cheek. “I love you,” she whispered. Rachel smiled.
“I’ll call you when we know when we’re coming into town, okay?”
“Okay honey,” Daniel said. “Love you guys!”
“Love you too!” Rachel and Quinn chimed together.
Rachel hung up the phone and Quinn smiled and attacked Rachel with her lips.
“Damn,” Kate said. “I was hoping for more drama.” There was no response; Kate glanced in her rear view mirror. “Hey! Hey! Knock it off back there! If you two can’t keep your hands off each other I’ll find some shitty motel to stop at for a few hours, okay?! Jesus!”
Rachel laughed and Quinn leaned between the seats and planted a kiss on Kate’s cheek. “Love ya, Kate! And uh…if you do happen to see a motel that doesn’t remind you of Psycho, feel free to stop.”
“Get back there with your wife, Fabray.”
“It’s not ‘Fabray’ anymore, remember?”
“Fine, Q-Berry. Get your ass back there and stop distracting me.”
Rachel pulled Quinn back and kissed her again and the two giggled.
-*-*-*-*-*-
It had been a month since they’d been to Boston. They argued over Rachel waking up at six in the morning to exercise, they argued over which Chinese place to order take-out from, they argued over where Quinn’s mass amount of stuffed animals would be put in the apartment, they argued over whole vs. skim milk. And they both loved every single moment of it. The arguments more often than not ended up in bed.
-*-*-*-*-*-
The ten hour drive from New York to Lima was surprisingly quiet. They’d asked if Kate wanted to go with them and the girl just laughed.
“You guys can barely bother to pry yourselves apart when you come over for dinner,” Kate said, shaking her head. “I don’t even want to know what will happen with ten hours in a car.”
Quinn had called her parents the day before they left and told them she was coming. They were completely in the dark of anything going on which was how Quinn wanted it. There were a few close calls when Rachel answered Quinn’s phone early one morning and when Quinn had to explain why she was moving out of her apartment building to live above a restaurant.
Lima was fairly quiet when they drove into town. They went to Rachel’s first to drop off their bags and were met with hugs and flowers. They told their story from the beginning, Rachel’s dads smiled and nodded when they talked about the fifth grade. They glossed over high school and skipped to the night Quinn went to the theater and the night she went back. Quinn started getting anxious and they decided it would be a good idea to talk to Quinn’s parents as soon as they could.
“We’ll be back for dinner,” Rachel said when they started to leave. “Hopefully alive.”
Quinn only smiled and pulled Rachel out to the car.
“Nervous at all, baby?” Rachel asked while on the way to the Fabray house.
“A little. I thought about it on the way here and I don’t really have much to be worried about, you know? I haven’t asked them for money at all so I have nothing to pay back. School is taken care of with scholarships and everything else is taken care of with my job. And I can’t say I’ll be too disappointed if they disown me…again. You’re all I need, Rach.”
Rachel took a deep breath and nodded. Quinn reached over and took a small hand into her own and brought it to her mouth and kissed the tan skin. They pulled into the Fabray’s driveway and Quinn’s mother poked her head out the front door and looked at them quizzically. When Rachel rounded the front of the car Quinn took her hand again and pulled her to the front door.
“Hi, Mom. You remember Rachel Berry, right?”
“I…I do…come in, both of you.”
Quinn nodded and kept Rachel’s hand clenched in her own as she pulled her over the threshold and into the foyer. Quinn’s heart was racing and the adrenaline was coursing through her veins like a natural upper. She wondered maybe if this is how Rachel and the others felt when they took the pseudoephedrine that Terri Schuester gave them. Whatever it was, it gave her confidence she didn’t know she had and she liked it.
“Russell!” Judy called out. “Russell, Quinn’s here…and she’s brought a friend.”
Quinn’s father emerged from his study with a smile that quickly faded when he saw the short brunette standing next to his daughter. Quinn’s smile stayed and she let go of Rachel’s hand only to wrap an arm around the shorter girl’s waist. Rachel’s hand immediately went to Quinn’s back and held on tight.
“Quinn, what is this?”
“This is Rachel. Surely you remember her, Daddy. We were best friends when we first moved here.”
Rachel blushed and mumbled.
“Speak up,” Russell said. “You have something to say then say it.”
Rachel looked up at him square in the eye. “What I said, Mr. Fabray, was that our relationship at the time was slightly more complex.”
Quinn nodded and clutched onto Rachel a little tighter.
“You were ten,” Russell scoffed. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked down at the pair disapprovingly. “Whatever you think was complex meant nothing.”
“It meant everything, Daddy.” Quinn growled.
“You were…”
“Rachel meant everything to me!” Quinn yelled. She’d held it in for ten years and she wasn’t about to let it go on any further. She balled her hand that wasn’t holding Rachel’s waist into a fist and swallowed hard. “She made me happy and you ripped her away from me! Everything that ever made me happy was torn away from me because of you!”
Quinn took a deep breath and her eyes darted back and forth between her parents.
“Rachel and I were so in love,” Quinn lowered her voice. “I know it sounds impossible but we were so in love…and you took that away from me.”
“Are,” Rachel corrected her. “We are in love.”
Quinn looked at Rachel and bounced a few times and her smile returned momentarily. “That, too.” Her grimace returned when she faced her father again. “And you…just because you’re cold and heartless doesn’t mean everyone around you has to be the same. Rachel was the first person that ever showed me what it was like to be loved unconditionally and you tore it away from me and I will never forgive you for that. I will never forgive you for making me waste ten years I could’ve had with her. I love her. I’ve loved her for ten years and I will love her for the rest of my life come hell or high water.”
She took another deep breath. “And we got married,” Quinn said. “Last month.” She lifted up her left hand to show them the silver band resting on her ring finger.
Russell’s jaw dropped. Judy blinked.
“We went to Boston and…”
Quinn was cut off by a sharp pain on her cheek and a shriek from Rachel who jumped back and covered her mouth with her hands. Quinn turned her head back to look up at her father. He was purple and his eyes were narrowed so much that Quinn wasn’t sure he could see. She reached up to touch the warm skin on her face and winced a little at the soreness.
“How dare you?” he growled. “First you defile this family by getting knocked up and now…now you tell us that you’re a raging dyke?!”
Quinn’s adrenaline rush faded. Her confidence shrank down back to that ten year old little girl that she was when her father first told her she was forbidden to see Rachel anymore.
“I…I…”
“You’re getting it annulled,” he thundered. “Wherever you had it done, you’re going back there and having this abomination annulled and you’re moving back here and going to OSU!”
Quinn looked over at Rachel who looked positively horrified.
“Russell, I think we need to sit down and talk about this,” Judy said.
“No!” he yelled. He started pacing the floor in the foyer. “I will not allow her to disgrace this family again! I won’t have it! How could this happen? Kerry turned out perfect! Quinn was well on her way to perfect until…” Russell stopped. He turned on his heel and looked down at Rachel. “You,” he growled. “She was fine until she met you.”
Rachel blinked a few times. “All I ever did was love her.”
Russell raised his hand and Rachel flinched and shut her eyes tight. Quinn’s eyes widened and she lunged forward and grabbed her father’s wrist.
“Daddy,” Quinn said, low and with a growl. “You can raise your hand at me all you want and I’ll take it but don’t you ever think about touching her. She never did anything wrong. I fell in love with her, too. You can either accept that I’m an adult and I will do what I want to do,” Quinn released him, “or I will walk through that door,” she pointed to the front doors, “and I won’t ever come back.”
Russell dropped his hand to his side and glanced back and forth between Quinn and Rachel. Quinn wrapped her arm around Rachel’s waist again and pulled her in close. She leaned down and pressed her lips to Rachel’s temple.
“Russell, it’s not that big of a deal,” Judy tried to reason. “They’re in love…don’t you remember…”
“Stop talking.”
“Russ, honey, Rachel is a nice girl and Quinn’s happy.”
“Judy, if you are going to condone this then you can leave with them.”
Quinn blinked a few times. “So I’m leaving and not coming back?”
“Get out of my house you filthy whore,” Russell growled at Quinn. “You and that disgusting abomination of a human.”
“Don’t ever speak about her like that,” Quinn growled. She let go of Rachel again to step in front of her. “Rachel is a fantastic human being and I love her whether you like it or not. She is my wife and you will treat her with respect.”
“Get out of my house.”
Quinn nodded and turned back to Rachel. “Come on, babe.”
Rachel took a deep breath and stepped around Quinn to walk up to Russell.
“I know it doesn’t matter to you,” Rachel said softly, “but I want you to know that I’m going to take care of her. I won’t hurt her and I’ll do anything and everything I can to make sure she gets everything I know she deserves.”
“Out.”
Rachel nodded and walked back to Quinn.
“Girls, wait,” Judy said. “I want to meet Rachel’s fathers, properly.”
“Judy, I meant what I said. If you condone this…”
“Fine,” Judy said to her husband. She turned back to Rachel and Quinn. “I’ll need to pack my things and find a hotel but I’ll call you, Quinnie, when I’m settled.”
“You’re welcome to come for dinner,” Rachel said. “We’re having roasted chicken.”
“I’d love to, thank you.”
“Judy if you walk out that door I’ll…”
“You’ll what, Russ? Divorce me? Isn’t that considered a sin, too? What would your friends say? I’ll let you think about that while I’m at the hotel.”
Quinn and Rachel left and drove back to Rachel’s house in silence. When they got inside there was still silence. They dropped to the sofa and Daniel and Jason each took a recliner. Quinn stared at the wall at Rachel’s fifth grade picture that was hanging above the TV.
“So…my mother is coming over for dinner,” Quinn said after a few minutes of silence. “She…kind of walked out on my father.”
“Oh my,” Jason said. “Are you alright, Quinn?”
“Yeah, I’m fine…” Quinn’s gaze fell on Rachel. “She did it for me. For us.” Quinn squeezed Rachel’s hand. “I’m just trying to process all of it right now.”
Daniel nodded. “We understand sweetie. It’s a lot to take in.”
Quinn just nodded and threw hear head back on the couch. Daniel and Jason went to the kitchen to finish dinner and Rachel snuggled into Quinn’s side and kissed the blonde’s neck.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” Rachel whispered. “I definitely did not see that one coming.”
“I’m just as shocked as you are.”
At six-thirty Quinn’s phone rang and she gave her mother directions to Rachel’s house. Judy was at the door with a smile and bottle of wine a few minutes later. Daniel and Jason greeted her and she thanked them profusely for allowing her the pleasure of having dinner with them.
“You have a very lovely home,” Judy said at dinner. “And this chicken is fantastic!”
“My mother’s recipe,” Daniel said. “She was an amazing cook.”
Silence, save for the clanking of forks hitting plates, lingered in the air for a few minutes. Quinn finally took a deep breath and set her fork down.
“Did…did he say anything else after we left?” Quinn asked.
Judy sighed. “Not really. He locked himself in his study and so I just left with enough things to live for about a week and if it goes longer, I’ll go back and get more. I told him before I left that he could either get over this and accept it or the arrangement would become permanent.”
“Mom you can’t leave him over this. It’s just how he is.”
“It’s not just this, honey. The way he treated you when you got pregnant… that was horrible and I should never have allowed it. He’s not the man I married. I married a very loving, caring man and the obsession with appearances happened slowly and I got drawn into it. When he hit you and threatened Rachel like that though…”
Both Daniel and Jason’s forks landed on their plates with a clatter.
“He hit you?!” Jason asked with a growl. “And he threatened Rachel!? That son of a…”
“Jason, it’s okay,” Quinn said. “I took care of it.”
“It really is fine, Daddy. Quinn defended me.”
“That still doesn’t mean I can’t go over there and give him a piece of my mind. You may be married but you’re my baby girl and I have a duty to confront anyone that thinks about hurting you.”
“Actually, Daddy, I think that duty was passed on when we said ‘I do’. And Quinn did an excellent job of it.”
Jason just grumbled and went back to picking at his chicken. “Don’t get me wrong, Quinn, I love you and I’m very glad to have you as a daughter-in-law but it will take a bit of getting used to…Rachel being married.”
“Don’t worry,” Quinn said. “I’m still kind of getting used to it myself.”
Judy left after dessert and again profusely thanked Rachel’s dads for having her and she promised they’d all get together again before the girls left. Rachel and Quinn snuggled up on the couch for a movie in the living room with Rachel’s dads and then adjourned to bed in Rachel’s old room. Quinn hadn’t really looked at it when they dropped their bags there earlier but now she looked around and smiled. It was exactly as she remembered it.
“You know, for someone who can’t stand a little change like redecorating your room you sure are spontaneous,” Quinn said with a smile. “You won’t change your childhood bedroom but you’ll marry someone at the drop of a hat.”
Rachel shrugged. “I thought about it a few times but everything I looked at reminded me of something involving us.”
“Well,” Quinn said, sauntering over to the smiling brunette, “What do you say we make a few new memories…” she kissed Rachel’s neck. “On the bed.” Another kiss. “Or on the floor.” A nip at the earlobe. “Or against the wall.” A lick at Rachel’s collarbone.
Rachel moaned. “Bed…When we were in high school I always had this fantasy of you just coming into my room in the middle of the night and…”
Quinn didn’t wait for her to finish the sentence.
-*-*-*-*-*-
The next morning the pair was up early to the smell of French toast coming from the kitchen. Daniel and Jason greeted them with smiles.
“Sleep well?” Daniel asked.
“Oh you have no idea,” Quinn said with a smirk. Rachel elbowed her and Quinn laughed. “Coffee, babe?”
“Please.” Rachel sat down at the kitchen table and picked up the newspaper.
“Splash of cream, two spoonfuls of sugar.”
“Mmhmm. Thanks, love.”
Jason shook his head and chuckled.
“What?” Rachel asked curiously, eyebrow arched.
“It took your dad three years to get my coffee order right.”
Rachel smiled. Quinn dropped down next to Rachel, two cups of coffee in hand and pecked the brunette on the cheek. Rachel smiled and took her cup. She sampled it and let out a sigh.
“Perfect, as always.”
“Just like you.” Quinn tucked a few loose strands of Rachel’s hair back behind her ear.
“You’re so cheesy.”
“But you love it.”
“I love you.”
Quinn giggled and kissed her wife. Jason cleared his throat and chucked again.
“You two…I swear. You’re the definition of ‘meant to be’.”
Quinn blushed.
Later that afternoon Quinn and Rachel went to the hotel where Quinn’s mother was staying to check on her. Judy hadn’t heard anything from Russell but she said she was doing just fine and thinking about looking for a job to fill her time with whether she went back to her husband or not. Quinn hugged her and said she was proud of her mother for being such a strong woman and she cried when Judy said her strength was inspired from Quinn.
Judy joined the Berrys for dinner again that night, Chinese take-out. She sat with Quinn in the study while Quinn made the phone call to her sister to tell her about the marriage. Surprisingly, Kerry was more receptive to the idea than either woman thought she’d be.
“So you’re really okay with this, Kerry?”
“Q, you’re my baby sister. Just because I’ve done everything Dad ever expected of me doesn’t mean I’m going to think like him, too. I’ve done all of it and I am truly happy with where my life is and you should be, too. If you’re honestly happy then that’s all that matters.”
“I am happy, Ker. I’ve never been anywhere close to this happy before.”
“You have to bring her out here to Sacramento so I can meet her again, okay? We’ll go down to San Francisco and I’ll get an ‘I love my gay sister’ bumper sticker or something. And you’ve got to see how big Elijah and Emily have gotten since you saw them last, it’s amazing. I’ll get them ‘I love my gay aunt’ shirts.”
Quinn laughed. “I promise, the first chance we get we’ll come visit.”
“Awesome, tell Mom I say hi and to hang in there and she knows she’s welcome to come out here anytime, okay?”
“I will. Love you.”
“Love you too, sis.”
-*-*-*-*-*-
Quinn and Rachel returned to the city a week later. Quinn’s mother was still in the hotel and looking for apartments. She called them just after Quinn started school again to tell her that she’d served Russell with divorce papers and was thinking about moving out to Sacramento to be close to Kerry and her husband and kids. Quinn helped her move over winter break and she and Rachel went with her to California to help her mother get settled and to see her niece and nephew.
Quinn and Rachel babysat the twins while Kerry and her husband took Judy out apartment hunting and Quinn couldn’t remember a time when she’d felt so at home and perfect.
“We’ll have some someday, right?” she whispered to Rachel after they put the kids down for their nap.
“Of course we will,” Rachel said. “Not for a while, of course. You need to finish school and we’ll need to find a bigger place and…”
Quinn shushed her with a kiss. “A simple ‘yes’ would’ve sufficed,” she said with a smile.
-*-*-*-*-*-
“She hasn't changed hardly at all from what I remember of her,” Kerry said that night while Rachel was showering. “She still talks too much sometimes but other than that, she’s still really cool.”
“She is pretty spectacular.”
“I see the way she looks at you and it’s just incredible. It’s hard to believe that even when you were a kid you knew.”
“You know she was the one I was talking about when I called you that night? Remember?”
Kerry chuckled. “I do remember. I didn’t put the pieces together right away but after you called me this summer it all kind of clicked. I’m so happy for you, Q. I really, really am.”
“Thanks, Ker. I’m pretty happy for me, too,” Quinn said with a smile.
Rachel and Quinn returned back to New York just in time for New Year’s Eve and they spent it in a packed Times Square and kissed when the ball dropped. They got a few catcalls and some glares but they didn’t care. They were lost in each other and that was all either of them cared about.
Quinn’s parents’ divorce was official the next spring and every time Quinn or Rachel talked to Kerry it seemed like Judy was happier. She’d moved into her own place and had a job managing a high-end clothing store. Quinn hadn’t heard from her father at all and the times she and Rachel spent in Lima she didn’t bother going to his house. They saw him in restaurant a while they were there once and he only shook his head and glared. She knew she’d never win him over but she was okay with that. She had two dads in Daniel and Jason and they were more her fathers than her own had ever been.
-*-*-*-*-*-
“What were you doing a year ago tonight?” Rachel asked two nights before their one year-anniversary. They were cuddled in bed and sweating and both had satisfied smiles on their faces.
“Puking my guts up in a trashcan in the lobby of the theater you were performing in.”
Rachel giggled and pressed a kiss to Quinn’s sternum. “You’re amazing even when you’re slightly disgusting.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“I wish I didn’t have to work the next couple of nights,” Rachel sighed.
“We’ll have all day before you have to work, though.”
“I don’t want to waste a minute of it.”
“I don’t plan on it.”
Quinn rolled over on top of her wife and smiled.
“I love you Mrs. Berry,” the blonde said before pressing her lips to Rachel’s.
“I love you too, Mrs. Berry,” Rachel said with a wink.
Quinn giggled and ducked underneath the covers.
They still argued about stuffed animals and take-out and Rachel’s ungodly waking hours and milk but they both agreed that they would never want it any other way.
Pairing: Rachel/Quinn
Rating: PG-13 for a few swears and mentions of sexytimes
Length: ~4,400
Summary: The aftermath of Quinn and Rachel's unexpected wedding.
Author's Note: I was asked by a few people to do an epilogue for ...Except When They Do and since that story was so fluffy and the epilogue is quite happy as well I figure I'll post it for Valentine's Day even if I am a few hours late. Better late than never though, right?! Right.
Rachel snuggled into Quinn’s side in the car on the way back from Boston the day after the wedding. The brunette nodded off for about an hour and woke up to Quinn’s fingers running through her hair. The blonde was smiling down at her and Rachel buried her nose into Quinn’s neck and pressed a gentle kiss to the delicate skin.
“Hey there Sleeping Beauty.”
“Mmmm hey baby,” Rachel mumbled. “Love you.”
“Love you, too Rach.”
Rachel sat up and dug her phone out of her purse. “I need to call my dads. They might want to know what happened.”
“Oh this ought to be priceless,” Kate said from the front seat. “Hey, Dads! Totally got hitched yesterday to that bitch that tortured me in high school!”
“Thanks for that, Kate,” Quinn said.
“Put this on speaker, I’ve got to hear it. I’m pretty sure my mom would reach through the phone and smack the shit out of me if I did this.”
“Yet you encouraged it,” Rachel said. She scrolled through her contacts to find the land line number to her dads’ house.
“I was living vicariously through you.”
Rachel tapped the screen a few times and held the phone up. Quinn rested her head on Rachel’s shoulder and grinned. It rang twice before someone picked up.
“Hello?”
Quinn recognized Daniel’s voice.
“Hi Dad!” Rachel said brightly.
“Hey sweetie, how are you?”
“I’m doing great! Can you put it on speaker, I want to talk to you and Daddy both.”
“Sure, give me a second.”
There were a couple of clicks followed by Jason’s voice.
“Hey baby girl, what’s going on? Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s great, Daddy. I have some surprising news, though. Are you both sitting?”
“Yes…” Daniel said.
“Okay, well,” Rachel took a deep breath and Quinn nodded. “I kind of got married yesterday.”
There was a silence. Quinn suppressed a giggle. She knew it wasn’t the right time but really, she’d just married Rachel Berry and it was very hard to contain herself.
“Rachel,” Jason said, “Rachel, that’s not funny.”
“You remember Quinn Fabray? A couple of days ago she came to my show and after a series of rather bizarre events that she’ll explain to you later her friend drove us to Boston to get married.”
“Rachel, are you on drugs?” Daniel’s voice was slightly panicked. “Did you drink something that someone gave you? Honey, should you call one of your friends to take you to the emergency room? No telling what you could’ve been…”
“Hi Daniel,” Quinn said with a smile. “Hi Jason! Sorry I didn’t ask for your permission first but Rachel was the one that asked me…and we kind of got caught up in getting to know each other again on the drive to Boston.”
“Oh my God, you’re not kidding,” Daniel gasped. “You’re really serious?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t call you guys but like Quinn said, we were catching up on the last couple years.”
“Well…I…huh,” was all Jason could say.
“We’ll give you the details when we come see you,” Quinn said. “After I get all of my stuff moved into Rachel’s place we’re coming to Lima to visit.”
“Well um…congratulations!” Daniel said. “I…Welcome to the family, Quinn.”
“Thanks,” Quinn said with a bright smile. “I took Rachel’s name, by the way. Hope you don’t mind.”
“No…” Jason said, “No of course we don’t mind. That’s fantastic. It’s…just very sudden.”
“And very unexpected,” Daniel chimed in. “But don’t misinterpret or anything, we’re happy for you if this is what you want.”
“It’s what I want,” Rachel said. “I’ve never been surer of anything before.”
Quinn smiled and pecked Rachel’s cheek. “I love you,” she whispered. Rachel smiled.
“I’ll call you when we know when we’re coming into town, okay?”
“Okay honey,” Daniel said. “Love you guys!”
“Love you too!” Rachel and Quinn chimed together.
Rachel hung up the phone and Quinn smiled and attacked Rachel with her lips.
“Damn,” Kate said. “I was hoping for more drama.” There was no response; Kate glanced in her rear view mirror. “Hey! Hey! Knock it off back there! If you two can’t keep your hands off each other I’ll find some shitty motel to stop at for a few hours, okay?! Jesus!”
Rachel laughed and Quinn leaned between the seats and planted a kiss on Kate’s cheek. “Love ya, Kate! And uh…if you do happen to see a motel that doesn’t remind you of Psycho, feel free to stop.”
“Get back there with your wife, Fabray.”
“It’s not ‘Fabray’ anymore, remember?”
“Fine, Q-Berry. Get your ass back there and stop distracting me.”
Rachel pulled Quinn back and kissed her again and the two giggled.
-*-*-*-*-*-
It had been a month since they’d been to Boston. They argued over Rachel waking up at six in the morning to exercise, they argued over which Chinese place to order take-out from, they argued over where Quinn’s mass amount of stuffed animals would be put in the apartment, they argued over whole vs. skim milk. And they both loved every single moment of it. The arguments more often than not ended up in bed.
-*-*-*-*-*-
The ten hour drive from New York to Lima was surprisingly quiet. They’d asked if Kate wanted to go with them and the girl just laughed.
“You guys can barely bother to pry yourselves apart when you come over for dinner,” Kate said, shaking her head. “I don’t even want to know what will happen with ten hours in a car.”
Quinn had called her parents the day before they left and told them she was coming. They were completely in the dark of anything going on which was how Quinn wanted it. There were a few close calls when Rachel answered Quinn’s phone early one morning and when Quinn had to explain why she was moving out of her apartment building to live above a restaurant.
Lima was fairly quiet when they drove into town. They went to Rachel’s first to drop off their bags and were met with hugs and flowers. They told their story from the beginning, Rachel’s dads smiled and nodded when they talked about the fifth grade. They glossed over high school and skipped to the night Quinn went to the theater and the night she went back. Quinn started getting anxious and they decided it would be a good idea to talk to Quinn’s parents as soon as they could.
“We’ll be back for dinner,” Rachel said when they started to leave. “Hopefully alive.”
Quinn only smiled and pulled Rachel out to the car.
“Nervous at all, baby?” Rachel asked while on the way to the Fabray house.
“A little. I thought about it on the way here and I don’t really have much to be worried about, you know? I haven’t asked them for money at all so I have nothing to pay back. School is taken care of with scholarships and everything else is taken care of with my job. And I can’t say I’ll be too disappointed if they disown me…again. You’re all I need, Rach.”
Rachel took a deep breath and nodded. Quinn reached over and took a small hand into her own and brought it to her mouth and kissed the tan skin. They pulled into the Fabray’s driveway and Quinn’s mother poked her head out the front door and looked at them quizzically. When Rachel rounded the front of the car Quinn took her hand again and pulled her to the front door.
“Hi, Mom. You remember Rachel Berry, right?”
“I…I do…come in, both of you.”
Quinn nodded and kept Rachel’s hand clenched in her own as she pulled her over the threshold and into the foyer. Quinn’s heart was racing and the adrenaline was coursing through her veins like a natural upper. She wondered maybe if this is how Rachel and the others felt when they took the pseudoephedrine that Terri Schuester gave them. Whatever it was, it gave her confidence she didn’t know she had and she liked it.
“Russell!” Judy called out. “Russell, Quinn’s here…and she’s brought a friend.”
Quinn’s father emerged from his study with a smile that quickly faded when he saw the short brunette standing next to his daughter. Quinn’s smile stayed and she let go of Rachel’s hand only to wrap an arm around the shorter girl’s waist. Rachel’s hand immediately went to Quinn’s back and held on tight.
“Quinn, what is this?”
“This is Rachel. Surely you remember her, Daddy. We were best friends when we first moved here.”
Rachel blushed and mumbled.
“Speak up,” Russell said. “You have something to say then say it.”
Rachel looked up at him square in the eye. “What I said, Mr. Fabray, was that our relationship at the time was slightly more complex.”
Quinn nodded and clutched onto Rachel a little tighter.
“You were ten,” Russell scoffed. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked down at the pair disapprovingly. “Whatever you think was complex meant nothing.”
“It meant everything, Daddy.” Quinn growled.
“You were…”
“Rachel meant everything to me!” Quinn yelled. She’d held it in for ten years and she wasn’t about to let it go on any further. She balled her hand that wasn’t holding Rachel’s waist into a fist and swallowed hard. “She made me happy and you ripped her away from me! Everything that ever made me happy was torn away from me because of you!”
Quinn took a deep breath and her eyes darted back and forth between her parents.
“Rachel and I were so in love,” Quinn lowered her voice. “I know it sounds impossible but we were so in love…and you took that away from me.”
“Are,” Rachel corrected her. “We are in love.”
Quinn looked at Rachel and bounced a few times and her smile returned momentarily. “That, too.” Her grimace returned when she faced her father again. “And you…just because you’re cold and heartless doesn’t mean everyone around you has to be the same. Rachel was the first person that ever showed me what it was like to be loved unconditionally and you tore it away from me and I will never forgive you for that. I will never forgive you for making me waste ten years I could’ve had with her. I love her. I’ve loved her for ten years and I will love her for the rest of my life come hell or high water.”
She took another deep breath. “And we got married,” Quinn said. “Last month.” She lifted up her left hand to show them the silver band resting on her ring finger.
Russell’s jaw dropped. Judy blinked.
“We went to Boston and…”
Quinn was cut off by a sharp pain on her cheek and a shriek from Rachel who jumped back and covered her mouth with her hands. Quinn turned her head back to look up at her father. He was purple and his eyes were narrowed so much that Quinn wasn’t sure he could see. She reached up to touch the warm skin on her face and winced a little at the soreness.
“How dare you?” he growled. “First you defile this family by getting knocked up and now…now you tell us that you’re a raging dyke?!”
Quinn’s adrenaline rush faded. Her confidence shrank down back to that ten year old little girl that she was when her father first told her she was forbidden to see Rachel anymore.
“I…I…”
“You’re getting it annulled,” he thundered. “Wherever you had it done, you’re going back there and having this abomination annulled and you’re moving back here and going to OSU!”
Quinn looked over at Rachel who looked positively horrified.
“Russell, I think we need to sit down and talk about this,” Judy said.
“No!” he yelled. He started pacing the floor in the foyer. “I will not allow her to disgrace this family again! I won’t have it! How could this happen? Kerry turned out perfect! Quinn was well on her way to perfect until…” Russell stopped. He turned on his heel and looked down at Rachel. “You,” he growled. “She was fine until she met you.”
Rachel blinked a few times. “All I ever did was love her.”
Russell raised his hand and Rachel flinched and shut her eyes tight. Quinn’s eyes widened and she lunged forward and grabbed her father’s wrist.
“Daddy,” Quinn said, low and with a growl. “You can raise your hand at me all you want and I’ll take it but don’t you ever think about touching her. She never did anything wrong. I fell in love with her, too. You can either accept that I’m an adult and I will do what I want to do,” Quinn released him, “or I will walk through that door,” she pointed to the front doors, “and I won’t ever come back.”
Russell dropped his hand to his side and glanced back and forth between Quinn and Rachel. Quinn wrapped her arm around Rachel’s waist again and pulled her in close. She leaned down and pressed her lips to Rachel’s temple.
“Russell, it’s not that big of a deal,” Judy tried to reason. “They’re in love…don’t you remember…”
“Stop talking.”
“Russ, honey, Rachel is a nice girl and Quinn’s happy.”
“Judy, if you are going to condone this then you can leave with them.”
Quinn blinked a few times. “So I’m leaving and not coming back?”
“Get out of my house you filthy whore,” Russell growled at Quinn. “You and that disgusting abomination of a human.”
“Don’t ever speak about her like that,” Quinn growled. She let go of Rachel again to step in front of her. “Rachel is a fantastic human being and I love her whether you like it or not. She is my wife and you will treat her with respect.”
“Get out of my house.”
Quinn nodded and turned back to Rachel. “Come on, babe.”
Rachel took a deep breath and stepped around Quinn to walk up to Russell.
“I know it doesn’t matter to you,” Rachel said softly, “but I want you to know that I’m going to take care of her. I won’t hurt her and I’ll do anything and everything I can to make sure she gets everything I know she deserves.”
“Out.”
Rachel nodded and walked back to Quinn.
“Girls, wait,” Judy said. “I want to meet Rachel’s fathers, properly.”
“Judy, I meant what I said. If you condone this…”
“Fine,” Judy said to her husband. She turned back to Rachel and Quinn. “I’ll need to pack my things and find a hotel but I’ll call you, Quinnie, when I’m settled.”
“You’re welcome to come for dinner,” Rachel said. “We’re having roasted chicken.”
“I’d love to, thank you.”
“Judy if you walk out that door I’ll…”
“You’ll what, Russ? Divorce me? Isn’t that considered a sin, too? What would your friends say? I’ll let you think about that while I’m at the hotel.”
Quinn and Rachel left and drove back to Rachel’s house in silence. When they got inside there was still silence. They dropped to the sofa and Daniel and Jason each took a recliner. Quinn stared at the wall at Rachel’s fifth grade picture that was hanging above the TV.
“So…my mother is coming over for dinner,” Quinn said after a few minutes of silence. “She…kind of walked out on my father.”
“Oh my,” Jason said. “Are you alright, Quinn?”
“Yeah, I’m fine…” Quinn’s gaze fell on Rachel. “She did it for me. For us.” Quinn squeezed Rachel’s hand. “I’m just trying to process all of it right now.”
Daniel nodded. “We understand sweetie. It’s a lot to take in.”
Quinn just nodded and threw hear head back on the couch. Daniel and Jason went to the kitchen to finish dinner and Rachel snuggled into Quinn’s side and kissed the blonde’s neck.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” Rachel whispered. “I definitely did not see that one coming.”
“I’m just as shocked as you are.”
At six-thirty Quinn’s phone rang and she gave her mother directions to Rachel’s house. Judy was at the door with a smile and bottle of wine a few minutes later. Daniel and Jason greeted her and she thanked them profusely for allowing her the pleasure of having dinner with them.
“You have a very lovely home,” Judy said at dinner. “And this chicken is fantastic!”
“My mother’s recipe,” Daniel said. “She was an amazing cook.”
Silence, save for the clanking of forks hitting plates, lingered in the air for a few minutes. Quinn finally took a deep breath and set her fork down.
“Did…did he say anything else after we left?” Quinn asked.
Judy sighed. “Not really. He locked himself in his study and so I just left with enough things to live for about a week and if it goes longer, I’ll go back and get more. I told him before I left that he could either get over this and accept it or the arrangement would become permanent.”
“Mom you can’t leave him over this. It’s just how he is.”
“It’s not just this, honey. The way he treated you when you got pregnant… that was horrible and I should never have allowed it. He’s not the man I married. I married a very loving, caring man and the obsession with appearances happened slowly and I got drawn into it. When he hit you and threatened Rachel like that though…”
Both Daniel and Jason’s forks landed on their plates with a clatter.
“He hit you?!” Jason asked with a growl. “And he threatened Rachel!? That son of a…”
“Jason, it’s okay,” Quinn said. “I took care of it.”
“It really is fine, Daddy. Quinn defended me.”
“That still doesn’t mean I can’t go over there and give him a piece of my mind. You may be married but you’re my baby girl and I have a duty to confront anyone that thinks about hurting you.”
“Actually, Daddy, I think that duty was passed on when we said ‘I do’. And Quinn did an excellent job of it.”
Jason just grumbled and went back to picking at his chicken. “Don’t get me wrong, Quinn, I love you and I’m very glad to have you as a daughter-in-law but it will take a bit of getting used to…Rachel being married.”
“Don’t worry,” Quinn said. “I’m still kind of getting used to it myself.”
Judy left after dessert and again profusely thanked Rachel’s dads for having her and she promised they’d all get together again before the girls left. Rachel and Quinn snuggled up on the couch for a movie in the living room with Rachel’s dads and then adjourned to bed in Rachel’s old room. Quinn hadn’t really looked at it when they dropped their bags there earlier but now she looked around and smiled. It was exactly as she remembered it.
“You know, for someone who can’t stand a little change like redecorating your room you sure are spontaneous,” Quinn said with a smile. “You won’t change your childhood bedroom but you’ll marry someone at the drop of a hat.”
Rachel shrugged. “I thought about it a few times but everything I looked at reminded me of something involving us.”
“Well,” Quinn said, sauntering over to the smiling brunette, “What do you say we make a few new memories…” she kissed Rachel’s neck. “On the bed.” Another kiss. “Or on the floor.” A nip at the earlobe. “Or against the wall.” A lick at Rachel’s collarbone.
Rachel moaned. “Bed…When we were in high school I always had this fantasy of you just coming into my room in the middle of the night and…”
Quinn didn’t wait for her to finish the sentence.
-*-*-*-*-*-
The next morning the pair was up early to the smell of French toast coming from the kitchen. Daniel and Jason greeted them with smiles.
“Sleep well?” Daniel asked.
“Oh you have no idea,” Quinn said with a smirk. Rachel elbowed her and Quinn laughed. “Coffee, babe?”
“Please.” Rachel sat down at the kitchen table and picked up the newspaper.
“Splash of cream, two spoonfuls of sugar.”
“Mmhmm. Thanks, love.”
Jason shook his head and chuckled.
“What?” Rachel asked curiously, eyebrow arched.
“It took your dad three years to get my coffee order right.”
Rachel smiled. Quinn dropped down next to Rachel, two cups of coffee in hand and pecked the brunette on the cheek. Rachel smiled and took her cup. She sampled it and let out a sigh.
“Perfect, as always.”
“Just like you.” Quinn tucked a few loose strands of Rachel’s hair back behind her ear.
“You’re so cheesy.”
“But you love it.”
“I love you.”
Quinn giggled and kissed her wife. Jason cleared his throat and chucked again.
“You two…I swear. You’re the definition of ‘meant to be’.”
Quinn blushed.
Later that afternoon Quinn and Rachel went to the hotel where Quinn’s mother was staying to check on her. Judy hadn’t heard anything from Russell but she said she was doing just fine and thinking about looking for a job to fill her time with whether she went back to her husband or not. Quinn hugged her and said she was proud of her mother for being such a strong woman and she cried when Judy said her strength was inspired from Quinn.
Judy joined the Berrys for dinner again that night, Chinese take-out. She sat with Quinn in the study while Quinn made the phone call to her sister to tell her about the marriage. Surprisingly, Kerry was more receptive to the idea than either woman thought she’d be.
“So you’re really okay with this, Kerry?”
“Q, you’re my baby sister. Just because I’ve done everything Dad ever expected of me doesn’t mean I’m going to think like him, too. I’ve done all of it and I am truly happy with where my life is and you should be, too. If you’re honestly happy then that’s all that matters.”
“I am happy, Ker. I’ve never been anywhere close to this happy before.”
“You have to bring her out here to Sacramento so I can meet her again, okay? We’ll go down to San Francisco and I’ll get an ‘I love my gay sister’ bumper sticker or something. And you’ve got to see how big Elijah and Emily have gotten since you saw them last, it’s amazing. I’ll get them ‘I love my gay aunt’ shirts.”
Quinn laughed. “I promise, the first chance we get we’ll come visit.”
“Awesome, tell Mom I say hi and to hang in there and she knows she’s welcome to come out here anytime, okay?”
“I will. Love you.”
“Love you too, sis.”
-*-*-*-*-*-
Quinn and Rachel returned to the city a week later. Quinn’s mother was still in the hotel and looking for apartments. She called them just after Quinn started school again to tell her that she’d served Russell with divorce papers and was thinking about moving out to Sacramento to be close to Kerry and her husband and kids. Quinn helped her move over winter break and she and Rachel went with her to California to help her mother get settled and to see her niece and nephew.
Quinn and Rachel babysat the twins while Kerry and her husband took Judy out apartment hunting and Quinn couldn’t remember a time when she’d felt so at home and perfect.
“We’ll have some someday, right?” she whispered to Rachel after they put the kids down for their nap.
“Of course we will,” Rachel said. “Not for a while, of course. You need to finish school and we’ll need to find a bigger place and…”
Quinn shushed her with a kiss. “A simple ‘yes’ would’ve sufficed,” she said with a smile.
-*-*-*-*-*-
“She hasn't changed hardly at all from what I remember of her,” Kerry said that night while Rachel was showering. “She still talks too much sometimes but other than that, she’s still really cool.”
“She is pretty spectacular.”
“I see the way she looks at you and it’s just incredible. It’s hard to believe that even when you were a kid you knew.”
“You know she was the one I was talking about when I called you that night? Remember?”
Kerry chuckled. “I do remember. I didn’t put the pieces together right away but after you called me this summer it all kind of clicked. I’m so happy for you, Q. I really, really am.”
“Thanks, Ker. I’m pretty happy for me, too,” Quinn said with a smile.
Rachel and Quinn returned back to New York just in time for New Year’s Eve and they spent it in a packed Times Square and kissed when the ball dropped. They got a few catcalls and some glares but they didn’t care. They were lost in each other and that was all either of them cared about.
Quinn’s parents’ divorce was official the next spring and every time Quinn or Rachel talked to Kerry it seemed like Judy was happier. She’d moved into her own place and had a job managing a high-end clothing store. Quinn hadn’t heard from her father at all and the times she and Rachel spent in Lima she didn’t bother going to his house. They saw him in restaurant a while they were there once and he only shook his head and glared. She knew she’d never win him over but she was okay with that. She had two dads in Daniel and Jason and they were more her fathers than her own had ever been.
-*-*-*-*-*-
“What were you doing a year ago tonight?” Rachel asked two nights before their one year-anniversary. They were cuddled in bed and sweating and both had satisfied smiles on their faces.
“Puking my guts up in a trashcan in the lobby of the theater you were performing in.”
Rachel giggled and pressed a kiss to Quinn’s sternum. “You’re amazing even when you’re slightly disgusting.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“I wish I didn’t have to work the next couple of nights,” Rachel sighed.
“We’ll have all day before you have to work, though.”
“I don’t want to waste a minute of it.”
“I don’t plan on it.”
Quinn rolled over on top of her wife and smiled.
“I love you Mrs. Berry,” the blonde said before pressing her lips to Rachel’s.
“I love you too, Mrs. Berry,” Rachel said with a wink.
Quinn giggled and ducked underneath the covers.
They still argued about stuffed animals and take-out and Rachel’s ungodly waking hours and milk but they both agreed that they would never want it any other way.