The Beginning [1/3]
Title: The Beginning
Pairings: Santana/Brittany, Rachel/Quinn, Puck/Anna (OC) Minor/Mentions: Quinn/Finn, Santana/Finn, Rachel/Finn, Rachel/Jesse, Quinn/Puck, Brittany/OC
Minor Characters: Allison Fabray, Rachel’s dads, Rachel’s “Pop” Berry
Rating: PG-13
Length: ~4,700 for this part. ~14,700 total.
Summary: Before their lives were perfect there were a few bumps in the road.
Warning: Minor character death
Author’s Note: *Puppy-verse #15* I’ve been working on this for forever and I’m really glad to be getting it put up.
Preceded by:
Puppy | My Girl(s) | Perfection | Decisions | Baby Love
Baby Love 2 | Slushies: The Next Generation | Little Gold Stars
Change | Baby Just Say Yes | (Not Quite) Nine Months
Double Trouble | Bigger is Better | Miracles
Directory | Timeline | Original Character Bios
--August 1999 - Fall 2010--
Santana and Brittany
Santana and Brittany’s relationship was fairly drama-free in the beginning. Like most of the kids in Lima, they met on their first day of kindergarten. It was nothing spectacular, Brittany drew Santana’s name out of a bowl to be her “buddy” for the school year. Santana would later look back on it as a little bit of fate because it seemed as though that every single time either girl had to draw someone’s name out at random they always ended up together. Well, she may have cheated the system a few times. But only a few.
The pivotal turn in their relationship didn’t come until the summer after their freshman year of high school. They’d both survived their first year of Cheerios and had reluctantly let Quinn into their little bubble. Santana was relieved when the head Cheerio started dating Finn because that meant more time for her and Brittany.
It was the middle of June, the temperature was high for early in the summer and both girls were in their bikinis relaxing on inflatable chairs in Brittany’s pool.
“Have you ever kissed anyone, S?” Brittany broke the silence.
“B, you’re my best friend, if I had kissed someone I would’ve told you.”
“Oh. I kind of don’t want to kiss anyone. I’m afraid I’ll be bad at it.”
“Is that even possible?”
“I don’t know. What if it’s like Cheerios and if we practice we’ll be good at it? My mom always says that practice makes perfect.”
Santana shrugged. An hour later she was half-naked on top of her best friend with her tongue in Brittany’s mouth and she could feel the blonde smiling into the sloppy, extremely uncoordinated kisses. By the end of the summer they weren’t sloppy and their coordination had improved drastically. Brittany was right, practice made perfect.
Santana wasn’t ready to commit and so the deal was settled upon that “sex is not dating”. However, after glee club sectionals and all of the baby drama and the brewing relationship drama with Finn and Rachel bouncing from him to that impostor Jesse St. James, Santana was beginning to see the benefits of monogamy. After the extremely awkward “encounter” (she wasn’t sure that thirty two-seconds even counted as sex) with Finn, Santana gave up. The boy had spouted something about not feeling anything and the Latina pretended to shrug it off but she knew there was only one person in the world that made her feel something when they slept together.
“I don’t want to sleep with anyone else anymore, B,” she told Brittany the next day. She had showed up at the blonde’s house with a rubber duck and a yellow rose. “I want to like, try being exclusive or whatever. I want to be yours and I want you to be mine.”
Brittany shrugged. “I’ve always been yours, S,” the blonde said.
So that was it. The pair transitioned from friends with benefits to full on girlfriends. The only thing that changed was Santana stopped sleeping with other people. It wasn’t awkward and they didn’t make a list of pros and cons or sit down and seriously think about it. It just happened.
--September 2010 - May 2012--
Rachel and Quinn
Rachel and Quinn were not like Brittany and Santana. Rachel was complicated and Quinn hated Rachel. Really, Quinn hated her. Puck could make suggestions about unresolved sexual tension all day long but the truth of the matter was that Quinn honestly did not like Rachel. She wasn’t jealous of her, she wasn’t harboring secret feelings of love and she wasn’t in denial. Rachel irritated the hell out of her. Period.
After sectionals, Quinn found her things packed away neatly in her duffel bag at Finn’s house. His mother didn’t say a word to her and he just scowled as she called Brittany. The next Monday at school Rachel timidly came up to Quinn and offered her the guest room. Quinn actually laughed.
“You’re insane, Berry. I’d kill you in five minutes.”
Rachel sighed and nodded and let Quinn know that her offer stood whenever she might need it. Quinn resisted a snotty comment and instead settled for rolling her eyes and walking in the opposite direction. She stayed on Brittany’s couch for two weeks and then moved on to Santana’s for a few days. Rachel offered the guest room yet again.
“I don’t want to have my baby in prison after killing you.”
Quinn attempted to reign in Puck and try to get him to entertain the idea of being faithful and she even resorted to moving in with him for a little while. Her second night in his house he brought home some slutty Cheerio and barely gave a glance to the blonde who was sitting on the couch watching TV when he pulled the girl to his room. It was obvious it wasn't the last time that was going to happen. Quinn packed her bags the next day. This time, Rachel demanded that Quinn move in with her.
“You’re psychotic. No.”
Kurt reluctantly took Quinn in after that but when his dad and Finn’s mother started having family dinners and Finn was around quite often, well…awkward wasn’t a strong enough word to describe the situation. Quinn went back to Brittany and then again to Santana. Santana’s house wouldn’t have been so bad if Quinn weren’t in her eighth month of pregnancy and her bladder wasn’t being used as a pillow by the human inside of her. Sharing a single bathroom with three other people wasn’t exactly the ideal situation.
While Quinn was packing and unpacking and living out of a bag and off of other people’s charity, Rachel got the one thing she had wanted since he first joined glee club. She started dating Finn and made calendars of their dates and she was really, very happy…until he told her it was over. Rachel was more angry than sad at Finn’s lack of confidence and she let him know exactly that. It was only a few days later that Jesse St. James caught her eye and she happily took his offered arm. He was, after all, very talented. And Rachel would know.
One month to the day of her due date and with a three day long back spasm, Quinn picked up the phone. She honestly couldn’t believe what she was about to do but she was out of options. She wanted a bed and her own bathroom and only one person could offer that to her. Only one person had offered that to her.
“Rachel Berry, future Tony Award winning actress speaking, how can I help you?” Rachel answered her phone.
Quinn could actually hear the smile. She might have found it just a little bit endearing. Just a little bit.
“Rachel…Rachel, it’s Quinn.”
“Hello, Quinn! How are you feeling?”
“I…my back hurts a lot. Santana’s couch isn’t really comfortable.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Would you like the name of Daddy’s chiropractor? It’s in his rolodex, I can…”
“Rachel, I need somewhere to stay,” Quinn blurted out. “I don’t have anywhere else to go,” she mumbled. “I need your help.”
There was an audible gasp from Rachel. “I’ll be there in seven minutes.”
Exactly seven minutes after Quinn hit ‘end call’, the Lopez’ doorbell rang and on the other side of the door stood Rachel with car keys and a huge smile. She wrestled Quinn’s duffel bag out of her hands, insisting the blonde didn’t need to be doing any heavy lifting. Quinn finally gave up and let the brunette carry the duffel bag. She didn’t regret it because if anything, it was entertaining to watch the short girl try to haul the bag that probably weighed as much as she did to her car and try to lift it into the trunk.
The ride to the Berry house was surprisingly silent. Rachel let Quinn help her carry the duffel bag into the house and up the stairs.
“You have your own bathroom,” Rachel said when Quinn dropped her bag on the floor. “It’s that door,” Rachel gestured to a sliding door next to what Quinn assumed was the closet door. “My bedroom is down the hall, the master suite is across the hall. If…if you decide to stay and you…you keep the baby then I think we still have my baby furniture in storage. We’ll find a way to make it fit in here.”
“I don’t know,” Quinn said quietly. She sat down on the bed and jumped a little at the softness. “I don’t know what I’ll do. Thanks…for this. I’ll try really hard to not kill you.”
“I’ll stay out of your way,” Rachel offered. “But if you need anything you know where to find me.”
Quinn acclimated to her surroundings rather quickly. If Rachel’s dads disagreed with the situation they didn’t say anything. Quinn felt and was sure she probably looked as if she could burst into tears at any moment which was probably a contributing factor to the two men never protesting her presence. Her life had completely detoured from where she thought it would be and she was living with Rachel Berry and, God help her, she was starting to find the girl actually tolerable. Eventually she decided that, despite the detour, life wasn’t too horrible. It could’ve been worse, she could still be sleeping on someone’s couch.
Baby basics like diapers, toys, wipes, lotions, blankets, bottles, and tiny pink outfits began appearing in Quinn’s room on a daily basis almost by magic and all three Berrys had a different story as to how the items came to be.
“They fell off of a truck,” Rachel’s Dad said as he turned to the next page of the catalog in front of him. The page was filled with red circles around nursery decorations. Quinn eyed the red sharpie on the table next to it.
“I won a drawing at the baby store,” Rachel said. She shrugged and flipped to the next page of her book. Quinn shook her head at the title. The Expectant Father.
“Fairies,” Rachel Daddy said with a huge grin. His eyes darted to his husband and Quinn couldn’t help but crack a smile.
A box with a playpen pictured on the side migrated into the Berry’s living room.
“It’s just in case,” Rachel said when Quinn told her and her dads to please stop buying things. “We’re not trying to persuade you but we think it’s best if you’re prepared. If you choose to give her up for adoption then we will pack everything up and give it all to her new parents.”
Quinn’s water broke at eight in the evening while she and Berrys were enjoying ice cream sundaes and watching re-runs of “The Golden Girls” on TV. Rachel never once left her side through labor and birth. When the brunette was still wincing every time she moved her left hand six hours later one of the nurses made her leave to get x-rays. She returned to Quinn’s room with a bright pink cast. If Quinn hadn’t been so exhausted she would have apologized profusely but all the blonde wanted to do at that point was sleep and so Rachel sat in the chair next to Quinn’s bed and rubbed her back until she finally got some well-deserved rest.
After the ultimatum, argument, and eventual complete disownment by her parents Quinn was left in a daze. When she got home with Allie in her car seat and took her upstairs her room had been re-arranged to accommodate Rachel’s old crib and changing table and she recognized the decorations as those that had red circles around them. Quinn cried. She blamed the hormones but she knew it had absolutely nothing to do with them. Rachel hugged her and told her she was their family now and Quinn’s daze quickly dissipated and that was when she first started to maybe fall a little bit in love with Rachel Berry.
When Jesse defected and went back to Vocal Adrenaline just days before regionals leaving Rachel heartbroken it was one of the most humiliating moments in the diva’s life. Nothing compared to it. The rest of the glee club wasn’t shocked but none of them were heartless enough to give Rachel a big “I told you so” and so they left her alone. Rachel, after a twenty-four hour grief period in which she locked herself in her room and didn’t answer Quinn begging her to come out, bucked up and was hell bent on not only beating Vocal Adrenaline but letting them know that Rachel Berry didn’t get mad, she got even; a complete backfire of what she was sure Jesse had intended to do. No one dared stand in her way. In fact, they generously offered to help.
After their performance at regionals, Vocal Adrenaline retreated to their dressing room to find it packed floor to ceiling with balloons and an inch thick layer of tiny, glittery gold stars on the floor. New Directions received perfect scores from the judges.
Nationals was difficult and they ultimately placed tenth out of fifty choirs, definitely something to be proud of, Mr. Schuester assured them.
The summer was spent with Quinn getting a job at a retail store and trying to force Rachel to take money for babysitting Allie but Rachel was adamant in her refusals. Quinn resorted to occasionally slipping cash into Rachel’s wallet or into her pink piggy bank she kept on her dresser.
There was an hour long yelling match when, in November, Rachel opened the bottom of her piggy bank and was met with an almost never-ending string of twenty-dollar bills that she had to fish out and a note in Quinn’s handwriting that read:
“Don’t even think about giving it back. Use it for Julliard or something. Thanks for everything :)”
On top of the small gifts such as outfits and new toys that Quinn was alright with the Berrys getting Allie for Hanukkah, the baby got a state-of-the-art stroller for Christmas. The tag on the box read “From Santa” but Quinn took one look at the gold star on the label and dragged Rachel up to her bedroom and began demanding that Rachel take it back and put that money in her college fund. Rachel grinned and said that, clearly, Santa was generous that year.
It was obvious to Quinn after Allie was born that she had somehow managed to go from hating Rachel, to tolerating her, to considering her a friend, to possibly liking her a little, to definitely liking her. When Rachel wasn’t doing one of the million other things that Rachel did, the brunette was playing with Allie and using up the rest of her energy and memory on her video camera on the tiny blonde. Quinn would watch from doorways or the couch as Rachel blew raspberries on the baby’s stomach eliciting sweet high-pitched giggles from Allie that Quinn never got tired of hearing. The scenes looked very natural, Quinn noticed. So natural, in fact, that Quinn caught herself a few times daydreaming of tiny brunette babies running around a different house and Rachel chasing after them. This was when Quinn realized that her feelings might’ve been a little stronger than she thought.
When Santana and Brittany would come over the four teenagers and the baby would spread out on the living room floor and watch Disney classics together. Brittany almost always called baby snuggling rights and Santana always called Brittany snuggling rights which left Rachel and Quinn. Quinn didn’t complain and that was her downfall in trying to keep her little crush under wraps.
“Oh my God,” Santana whispered when Rachel went to get more popcorn. “You totally have a thing for Berry.”
“What?!”
Quinn’s shriek was loud enough that she, Santana, and Brittany looked toward the kitchen for a few seconds to make sure Rachel was still humming and the popcorn was still popping.
“You make love eyes at her,” Brittany said.
“What are you talking about? You’re both completely insane.”
Brittany grinned. “She makes love eyes at you, too.”
Quinn blushed. Santana smirked. Brittany squeaked. Allie babbled incoherently.
“It’s disgusting, but she really does,” Santana said. “She’s been doing it all night. She totally likes you.”
“Quinn you should totally-“ Brittany’s mouth snapped shut when Rachel bounced into the living room with the large bowl of popcorn.
“Quinn should what?” the brunette asked as she dropped down next to the current subject of discussion. “Extra salt,” she said with a shy smile, “just like you like it.”
“Brittany says I should uh…”
“Sing a solo,” Santana cut in. “In glee club. She says Quinn should get more solos.”
“I’m sure that can be arranged.” Rachel nodded furiously. “I could talk to Mr. Schuester if you desire more solos, Quinn. Your voice is very unique, you know? I believe you’d be very well suited for jazz or something from a catalog of classics.”
Quinn, Brittany, and Santana stared at Rachel in disbelief.
“You’re actually offering to give someone else a chance to sing?” Santana finally asked. “Did someone knock you on the head?”
Rachel turned red. “N-no. I believe everyone should have an equal opportunity for stardom.”
“So say I wanted a solo,” Santana smirked, “what would you tell Mr. Schue I’m good at?”
Rachel’s mouth opened and closed, very obviously showing she’d never thought about it. Quinn’s red matched Rachel’s and she grabbed the remote and pressed play for Finding Nemo to start. At some point during the movie the bowl of popcorn had been passed to Brittany and never returned to its spot between Quinn and Rachel. The gap got smaller and Rachel ended up with her head on Quinn’s shoulder. The blonde looked over to her two best friends, Santana smirked and Brittany grinned. That was when Quinn knew she was definitely a little bit in love with Rachel Berry.
The night Rachel crawled into her bed sniffling and quietly sobbing about a nightmare and quietly asked Quinn to just hold her for the night, the blonde obliged. It was only two nights after her talk with Brittany and Santana, Quinn was still a little unsure of their observations and idea that Rachel actually liked her. Rachel snuggled into her front and tucked her head under Quinn’s chin and wrapped her arm around Quinn’s waist.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Quinn whispered once Rachel had settled down.
Rachel shook her head. “No.”
“Was it that one where you were about to get Barbra’s autograph and she turned into Kanye West and stole your Tony Award?”
Rachel let out a soft giggle. “No. And you promised you wouldn’t ever tease me for that.”
“What was it, Rach? Tell me, please.”
“I can’t,” Rachel whispered.
“I swear I won’t make fun of you.”
“That’s not what I’m concerned about.”
“Then what is it?”
Rachel sniffled and tightened her grip on Quinn’s waist. “If I have to tell you then you must promise that you’ll keep an open mind.”
“I promise.”
“I…I dreamed that I lost you. You got angry and you left and took Allie with you and I never saw you again.”
Quinn furrowed her eyebrows and pulled away a little. She tilted Rachel’s chin up and the brunette chewed on her lower lip.
“Why would I be angry about that, Rachel?”
“Because,” Rachel whispered. “Because the reason you left was that I told you something deeply important.”
“What did you tell me?”
Quinn felt Rachel grab a fistful of her t-shirt and the girl turned her head and mumbled something into the pillow. Quinn moved closer to try and hear but the words were muffled. She again slipped her fingers under Rachel’s chin and pulled her to look up.
“What did you tell me, Rachel?”
“I told you…I told you I was inclined to kiss you.”
Quinn blinked a few times. Santana and Brittany had been right.
“I’m sorry,” Rachel whimpered. She let go of Quinn’s waist and moved to get out of the bed but Quinn caught her wrist and sat up.
“What if…” Quinn took a deep breath. “What if I said I wanted to kiss you, too?”
“Then I would be positively elated.” Rachel nodded.
Quinn trailed her fingers up Rachel’s arm and settled her hand on the brunette’s neck.
“Good, because I really want to.”
“Okay,” Rachel nodded furiously. “Are we…are we going to now or should I ask you on a date? Proper etiquette requires me…”
And that was when Quinn found out the single most effective way to get Rachel to stop talking.
Allie’s first birthday was at the park in order to accommodate all of the guests. Rachel and Quinn had been dancing around the idea of a relationship for a few weeks after the kiss and even more kisses…and a pretty heavy make-out session the night before the party that ended up somewhere around second base before Rachel’s Daddy walked in. Brittany and Santana were urging them to “just do it already” but Rachel and Quinn were a little hesitant. Rachel was still dead-set on moving to New York after her senior year and Quinn wasn’t entirely sure what she wanted to do.
Finn was holding Allie and bouncing her up and down when Rachel approached him with a smile and tickled the tiny blonde’s stomach. The young girl lit up and reached for Rachel.
“Ma!”
Rachel’s jaw dropped. Quinn was at her side in less than a second.
“Did she just…”
“Quinn, I swear I never…”
When Rachel didn’t respond to her, Allie turned to Quinn and stretched her arms out again.
“Mama!”
Every single party guest was silent now, staring at Finn still holding Allie and Rachel and Quinn with their mouths hanging open. Allie grunted and tried to wiggle out of Finn’s grip and when Rachel reached for her the baby squealed.
“Ma!”
Rachel held Allie close to her and the baby settled her head on Rachel’s shoulder and the brunette turned to Quinn who was still slack-jawed and in utter shock.
“She called you ‘Ma’…”
Rachel nodded. “I heard.”
“And she called me ‘Mama’.”
“Maybe 'Ma' will evolve to ‘Rachel’?”
-*-*-*-*-*-
The pair did decide to give it a go at an actual relationship after Allie's birthday and things went pretty smoothly for a while. Their first fight was over something so incredibly stupid that neither one of them remembered what it was about by the time they got around to speaking to each other again three days later. Quinn was preparing to go give her white flag of surrender when Rachel appeared in her bedroom doorway.
“Were you planning on going to Noah’s Independence Day party this afternoon?” Rachel asked.
Quinn shrugged. “I wasn’t planning on it. I’d have to find a babysitter for Allie and since everyone is going I figured I would just stay home.”
“I wasn’t planning on going, either.”
“You should,” Quinn said with a smile. “Get out, have some fun.”
“I thought maybe my dads could take Allie and we could go to the park and watch the fireworks.”
Quinn would have preferred not to watch the fireworks, not because she didn’t like them but because she would rather have had her lips on Rachel’s. However, because it was Lima they just held hands and watched the colors explode in the air. Quinn stayed in Rachel’s room that night and saw her own fireworks. Rachel saw stars.
“I love you,” Rachel whispered as she brushed her lips over Quinn’s neck.
“I love you, too.”
“Ma” evolved to “Mom” by the end of the summer no matter how much Rachel tried to get Allie to say “Rachel” or even “Ray”. Quinn finally made the brunette stop trying after Brittany said that maybe Allie was smarter than everyone thought she was.
Quinn picked up applications for NYU and Columbia when the recruiters came to McKinley in October. Her acceptance letter for NYU came in on Allie’s second birthday. She put off telling Puck for a week and then finally broke down and invited him over while Rachel’s dads took Allie out for ice cream.
“Puck, we’re not taking her away from you!” Quinn pleaded when he stood up from the couch and started pacing after she’d dropped the bomb.
“Noah, please! Sit down!”
“No! You’re taking her away! I won’t let you do it!”
“Puck, we’ll be home for every single holiday, I promise.”
“That’s not good enough!” Puck slammed his fist down on the top of the Berrys’ entertainment center. “She’s my daughter! I told you I wouldn’t be a deadbeat dad and I won’t!”
“Noah, Noah you’re an excellent father. This isn’t punishment.”
“Leave her here, then! Leave her with me. You’ll be in school, you won’t have time for her.”
“I’m not leaving her here, Puck.” Quinn stood and tried to stop him from pacing but he shrugged away. “I swear to you, she will still be your daughter and you will get to see her. I don’t want her growing up here…I just don’t. We’re supposed to want better for her than what we had, right?”
Puck looked down at the floor and Quinn snapped her fingers.
“Look at me, Puck. You want better for her than Lima, Ohio. You know you do.”
Puck reluctantly nodded and ran a hand over his head. “Berry,” he growled, “you better take care of them, got it?”
Rachel nodded. “Of course I will, Noah.”
Puck bought a new laptop and Rachel showed him how to use the camera so they could video chat and they promised to send pictures every single day.
Rachel’s Dad had a cousin and her husband in New York City that always offered Rachel their basement if she ever came to college there. It was a bit tricky convincing them to let Rachel, her girlfriend, and her girlfriend’s daughter move in with her but it was done by the time the end of the school year rolled around.
-*-*-*-*-*-
It was two days before graduation, Rachel and Quinn were cuddled in Rachel’s bed sleeping heavily when Quinn was roused by the sound of horrendous coughing and wheezing. She looked over at Rachel who was breathing softly and then realized the sound was coming from the baby monitor on her nightstand. She panicked and jumped out of bed and ran to Allie’s room and picked up the sweat-soaked and burning up toddler.
“Oh God…”
Quinn quickly turned on the light and rummaged around for the ear thermometer, Allie had started crying and Quinn had to hold her down to get the thermometer to properly take her temperature.
“Quinn?” Rachel asked with a yawn from the door. “What’s wrong?”
The thermometer beeped and Quinn almost fainted at the 104 that flashed on the screen.
“We have to go to the hospital.”
Quinn cried when they took Allie in for chest x-rays and Rachel held the inconsolable blonde while Puck paced back and forth.
“I thought it was just a cold,” Quinn cried. “I gave her cold medicine like I did for the last one…”
“It’s fine, sweetie. She’ll be fine, okay?”
Allie was in the hospital for an entire week while the doctors pumped her full of antibiotics. Quinn left the room to eat and use the bathroom but that was about it. She missed her graduation ceremony but Rachel’s dads made sure to have two video cameras going. Rachel insisted she get to stay at the hospital with her but Quinn threatened to withhold if the brunette didn’t go to the ceremony. Rachel sighed and stated that she knew Quinn would never do that but she got the point. Quinn told Puck to go as well and he lied and said he would. He showed up at the hospital that day and refused to leave.
It took what seemed like forever for Allie to fully get over the pneumonia and even longer for Quinn to sleep through the night and not wake up at every sound that came from the baby monitor.
Part 2
Pairings: Santana/Brittany, Rachel/Quinn, Puck/Anna (OC) Minor/Mentions: Quinn/Finn, Santana/Finn, Rachel/Finn, Rachel/Jesse, Quinn/Puck, Brittany/OC
Minor Characters: Allison Fabray, Rachel’s dads, Rachel’s “Pop” Berry
Rating: PG-13
Length: ~4,700 for this part. ~14,700 total.
Summary: Before their lives were perfect there were a few bumps in the road.
Warning: Minor character death
Author’s Note: *Puppy-verse #15* I’ve been working on this for forever and I’m really glad to be getting it put up.
Preceded by:
Puppy | My Girl(s) | Perfection | Decisions | Baby Love
Baby Love 2 | Slushies: The Next Generation | Little Gold Stars
Change | Baby Just Say Yes | (Not Quite) Nine Months
Double Trouble | Bigger is Better | Miracles
Directory | Timeline | Original Character Bios
--August 1999 - Fall 2010--
Santana and Brittany
Santana and Brittany’s relationship was fairly drama-free in the beginning. Like most of the kids in Lima, they met on their first day of kindergarten. It was nothing spectacular, Brittany drew Santana’s name out of a bowl to be her “buddy” for the school year. Santana would later look back on it as a little bit of fate because it seemed as though that every single time either girl had to draw someone’s name out at random they always ended up together. Well, she may have cheated the system a few times. But only a few.
The pivotal turn in their relationship didn’t come until the summer after their freshman year of high school. They’d both survived their first year of Cheerios and had reluctantly let Quinn into their little bubble. Santana was relieved when the head Cheerio started dating Finn because that meant more time for her and Brittany.
It was the middle of June, the temperature was high for early in the summer and both girls were in their bikinis relaxing on inflatable chairs in Brittany’s pool.
“Have you ever kissed anyone, S?” Brittany broke the silence.
“B, you’re my best friend, if I had kissed someone I would’ve told you.”
“Oh. I kind of don’t want to kiss anyone. I’m afraid I’ll be bad at it.”
“Is that even possible?”
“I don’t know. What if it’s like Cheerios and if we practice we’ll be good at it? My mom always says that practice makes perfect.”
Santana shrugged. An hour later she was half-naked on top of her best friend with her tongue in Brittany’s mouth and she could feel the blonde smiling into the sloppy, extremely uncoordinated kisses. By the end of the summer they weren’t sloppy and their coordination had improved drastically. Brittany was right, practice made perfect.
Santana wasn’t ready to commit and so the deal was settled upon that “sex is not dating”. However, after glee club sectionals and all of the baby drama and the brewing relationship drama with Finn and Rachel bouncing from him to that impostor Jesse St. James, Santana was beginning to see the benefits of monogamy. After the extremely awkward “encounter” (she wasn’t sure that thirty two-seconds even counted as sex) with Finn, Santana gave up. The boy had spouted something about not feeling anything and the Latina pretended to shrug it off but she knew there was only one person in the world that made her feel something when they slept together.
“I don’t want to sleep with anyone else anymore, B,” she told Brittany the next day. She had showed up at the blonde’s house with a rubber duck and a yellow rose. “I want to like, try being exclusive or whatever. I want to be yours and I want you to be mine.”
Brittany shrugged. “I’ve always been yours, S,” the blonde said.
So that was it. The pair transitioned from friends with benefits to full on girlfriends. The only thing that changed was Santana stopped sleeping with other people. It wasn’t awkward and they didn’t make a list of pros and cons or sit down and seriously think about it. It just happened.
--September 2010 - May 2012--
Rachel and Quinn
Rachel and Quinn were not like Brittany and Santana. Rachel was complicated and Quinn hated Rachel. Really, Quinn hated her. Puck could make suggestions about unresolved sexual tension all day long but the truth of the matter was that Quinn honestly did not like Rachel. She wasn’t jealous of her, she wasn’t harboring secret feelings of love and she wasn’t in denial. Rachel irritated the hell out of her. Period.
After sectionals, Quinn found her things packed away neatly in her duffel bag at Finn’s house. His mother didn’t say a word to her and he just scowled as she called Brittany. The next Monday at school Rachel timidly came up to Quinn and offered her the guest room. Quinn actually laughed.
“You’re insane, Berry. I’d kill you in five minutes.”
Rachel sighed and nodded and let Quinn know that her offer stood whenever she might need it. Quinn resisted a snotty comment and instead settled for rolling her eyes and walking in the opposite direction. She stayed on Brittany’s couch for two weeks and then moved on to Santana’s for a few days. Rachel offered the guest room yet again.
“I don’t want to have my baby in prison after killing you.”
Quinn attempted to reign in Puck and try to get him to entertain the idea of being faithful and she even resorted to moving in with him for a little while. Her second night in his house he brought home some slutty Cheerio and barely gave a glance to the blonde who was sitting on the couch watching TV when he pulled the girl to his room. It was obvious it wasn't the last time that was going to happen. Quinn packed her bags the next day. This time, Rachel demanded that Quinn move in with her.
“You’re psychotic. No.”
Kurt reluctantly took Quinn in after that but when his dad and Finn’s mother started having family dinners and Finn was around quite often, well…awkward wasn’t a strong enough word to describe the situation. Quinn went back to Brittany and then again to Santana. Santana’s house wouldn’t have been so bad if Quinn weren’t in her eighth month of pregnancy and her bladder wasn’t being used as a pillow by the human inside of her. Sharing a single bathroom with three other people wasn’t exactly the ideal situation.
While Quinn was packing and unpacking and living out of a bag and off of other people’s charity, Rachel got the one thing she had wanted since he first joined glee club. She started dating Finn and made calendars of their dates and she was really, very happy…until he told her it was over. Rachel was more angry than sad at Finn’s lack of confidence and she let him know exactly that. It was only a few days later that Jesse St. James caught her eye and she happily took his offered arm. He was, after all, very talented. And Rachel would know.
One month to the day of her due date and with a three day long back spasm, Quinn picked up the phone. She honestly couldn’t believe what she was about to do but she was out of options. She wanted a bed and her own bathroom and only one person could offer that to her. Only one person had offered that to her.
“Rachel Berry, future Tony Award winning actress speaking, how can I help you?” Rachel answered her phone.
Quinn could actually hear the smile. She might have found it just a little bit endearing. Just a little bit.
“Rachel…Rachel, it’s Quinn.”
“Hello, Quinn! How are you feeling?”
“I…my back hurts a lot. Santana’s couch isn’t really comfortable.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Would you like the name of Daddy’s chiropractor? It’s in his rolodex, I can…”
“Rachel, I need somewhere to stay,” Quinn blurted out. “I don’t have anywhere else to go,” she mumbled. “I need your help.”
There was an audible gasp from Rachel. “I’ll be there in seven minutes.”
Exactly seven minutes after Quinn hit ‘end call’, the Lopez’ doorbell rang and on the other side of the door stood Rachel with car keys and a huge smile. She wrestled Quinn’s duffel bag out of her hands, insisting the blonde didn’t need to be doing any heavy lifting. Quinn finally gave up and let the brunette carry the duffel bag. She didn’t regret it because if anything, it was entertaining to watch the short girl try to haul the bag that probably weighed as much as she did to her car and try to lift it into the trunk.
The ride to the Berry house was surprisingly silent. Rachel let Quinn help her carry the duffel bag into the house and up the stairs.
“You have your own bathroom,” Rachel said when Quinn dropped her bag on the floor. “It’s that door,” Rachel gestured to a sliding door next to what Quinn assumed was the closet door. “My bedroom is down the hall, the master suite is across the hall. If…if you decide to stay and you…you keep the baby then I think we still have my baby furniture in storage. We’ll find a way to make it fit in here.”
“I don’t know,” Quinn said quietly. She sat down on the bed and jumped a little at the softness. “I don’t know what I’ll do. Thanks…for this. I’ll try really hard to not kill you.”
“I’ll stay out of your way,” Rachel offered. “But if you need anything you know where to find me.”
Quinn acclimated to her surroundings rather quickly. If Rachel’s dads disagreed with the situation they didn’t say anything. Quinn felt and was sure she probably looked as if she could burst into tears at any moment which was probably a contributing factor to the two men never protesting her presence. Her life had completely detoured from where she thought it would be and she was living with Rachel Berry and, God help her, she was starting to find the girl actually tolerable. Eventually she decided that, despite the detour, life wasn’t too horrible. It could’ve been worse, she could still be sleeping on someone’s couch.
Baby basics like diapers, toys, wipes, lotions, blankets, bottles, and tiny pink outfits began appearing in Quinn’s room on a daily basis almost by magic and all three Berrys had a different story as to how the items came to be.
“They fell off of a truck,” Rachel’s Dad said as he turned to the next page of the catalog in front of him. The page was filled with red circles around nursery decorations. Quinn eyed the red sharpie on the table next to it.
“I won a drawing at the baby store,” Rachel said. She shrugged and flipped to the next page of her book. Quinn shook her head at the title. The Expectant Father.
“Fairies,” Rachel Daddy said with a huge grin. His eyes darted to his husband and Quinn couldn’t help but crack a smile.
A box with a playpen pictured on the side migrated into the Berry’s living room.
“It’s just in case,” Rachel said when Quinn told her and her dads to please stop buying things. “We’re not trying to persuade you but we think it’s best if you’re prepared. If you choose to give her up for adoption then we will pack everything up and give it all to her new parents.”
Quinn’s water broke at eight in the evening while she and Berrys were enjoying ice cream sundaes and watching re-runs of “The Golden Girls” on TV. Rachel never once left her side through labor and birth. When the brunette was still wincing every time she moved her left hand six hours later one of the nurses made her leave to get x-rays. She returned to Quinn’s room with a bright pink cast. If Quinn hadn’t been so exhausted she would have apologized profusely but all the blonde wanted to do at that point was sleep and so Rachel sat in the chair next to Quinn’s bed and rubbed her back until she finally got some well-deserved rest.
After the ultimatum, argument, and eventual complete disownment by her parents Quinn was left in a daze. When she got home with Allie in her car seat and took her upstairs her room had been re-arranged to accommodate Rachel’s old crib and changing table and she recognized the decorations as those that had red circles around them. Quinn cried. She blamed the hormones but she knew it had absolutely nothing to do with them. Rachel hugged her and told her she was their family now and Quinn’s daze quickly dissipated and that was when she first started to maybe fall a little bit in love with Rachel Berry.
When Jesse defected and went back to Vocal Adrenaline just days before regionals leaving Rachel heartbroken it was one of the most humiliating moments in the diva’s life. Nothing compared to it. The rest of the glee club wasn’t shocked but none of them were heartless enough to give Rachel a big “I told you so” and so they left her alone. Rachel, after a twenty-four hour grief period in which she locked herself in her room and didn’t answer Quinn begging her to come out, bucked up and was hell bent on not only beating Vocal Adrenaline but letting them know that Rachel Berry didn’t get mad, she got even; a complete backfire of what she was sure Jesse had intended to do. No one dared stand in her way. In fact, they generously offered to help.
After their performance at regionals, Vocal Adrenaline retreated to their dressing room to find it packed floor to ceiling with balloons and an inch thick layer of tiny, glittery gold stars on the floor. New Directions received perfect scores from the judges.
Nationals was difficult and they ultimately placed tenth out of fifty choirs, definitely something to be proud of, Mr. Schuester assured them.
The summer was spent with Quinn getting a job at a retail store and trying to force Rachel to take money for babysitting Allie but Rachel was adamant in her refusals. Quinn resorted to occasionally slipping cash into Rachel’s wallet or into her pink piggy bank she kept on her dresser.
There was an hour long yelling match when, in November, Rachel opened the bottom of her piggy bank and was met with an almost never-ending string of twenty-dollar bills that she had to fish out and a note in Quinn’s handwriting that read:
“Don’t even think about giving it back. Use it for Julliard or something. Thanks for everything :)”
On top of the small gifts such as outfits and new toys that Quinn was alright with the Berrys getting Allie for Hanukkah, the baby got a state-of-the-art stroller for Christmas. The tag on the box read “From Santa” but Quinn took one look at the gold star on the label and dragged Rachel up to her bedroom and began demanding that Rachel take it back and put that money in her college fund. Rachel grinned and said that, clearly, Santa was generous that year.
It was obvious to Quinn after Allie was born that she had somehow managed to go from hating Rachel, to tolerating her, to considering her a friend, to possibly liking her a little, to definitely liking her. When Rachel wasn’t doing one of the million other things that Rachel did, the brunette was playing with Allie and using up the rest of her energy and memory on her video camera on the tiny blonde. Quinn would watch from doorways or the couch as Rachel blew raspberries on the baby’s stomach eliciting sweet high-pitched giggles from Allie that Quinn never got tired of hearing. The scenes looked very natural, Quinn noticed. So natural, in fact, that Quinn caught herself a few times daydreaming of tiny brunette babies running around a different house and Rachel chasing after them. This was when Quinn realized that her feelings might’ve been a little stronger than she thought.
When Santana and Brittany would come over the four teenagers and the baby would spread out on the living room floor and watch Disney classics together. Brittany almost always called baby snuggling rights and Santana always called Brittany snuggling rights which left Rachel and Quinn. Quinn didn’t complain and that was her downfall in trying to keep her little crush under wraps.
“Oh my God,” Santana whispered when Rachel went to get more popcorn. “You totally have a thing for Berry.”
“What?!”
Quinn’s shriek was loud enough that she, Santana, and Brittany looked toward the kitchen for a few seconds to make sure Rachel was still humming and the popcorn was still popping.
“You make love eyes at her,” Brittany said.
“What are you talking about? You’re both completely insane.”
Brittany grinned. “She makes love eyes at you, too.”
Quinn blushed. Santana smirked. Brittany squeaked. Allie babbled incoherently.
“It’s disgusting, but she really does,” Santana said. “She’s been doing it all night. She totally likes you.”
“Quinn you should totally-“ Brittany’s mouth snapped shut when Rachel bounced into the living room with the large bowl of popcorn.
“Quinn should what?” the brunette asked as she dropped down next to the current subject of discussion. “Extra salt,” she said with a shy smile, “just like you like it.”
“Brittany says I should uh…”
“Sing a solo,” Santana cut in. “In glee club. She says Quinn should get more solos.”
“I’m sure that can be arranged.” Rachel nodded furiously. “I could talk to Mr. Schuester if you desire more solos, Quinn. Your voice is very unique, you know? I believe you’d be very well suited for jazz or something from a catalog of classics.”
Quinn, Brittany, and Santana stared at Rachel in disbelief.
“You’re actually offering to give someone else a chance to sing?” Santana finally asked. “Did someone knock you on the head?”
Rachel turned red. “N-no. I believe everyone should have an equal opportunity for stardom.”
“So say I wanted a solo,” Santana smirked, “what would you tell Mr. Schue I’m good at?”
Rachel’s mouth opened and closed, very obviously showing she’d never thought about it. Quinn’s red matched Rachel’s and she grabbed the remote and pressed play for Finding Nemo to start. At some point during the movie the bowl of popcorn had been passed to Brittany and never returned to its spot between Quinn and Rachel. The gap got smaller and Rachel ended up with her head on Quinn’s shoulder. The blonde looked over to her two best friends, Santana smirked and Brittany grinned. That was when Quinn knew she was definitely a little bit in love with Rachel Berry.
The night Rachel crawled into her bed sniffling and quietly sobbing about a nightmare and quietly asked Quinn to just hold her for the night, the blonde obliged. It was only two nights after her talk with Brittany and Santana, Quinn was still a little unsure of their observations and idea that Rachel actually liked her. Rachel snuggled into her front and tucked her head under Quinn’s chin and wrapped her arm around Quinn’s waist.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Quinn whispered once Rachel had settled down.
Rachel shook her head. “No.”
“Was it that one where you were about to get Barbra’s autograph and she turned into Kanye West and stole your Tony Award?”
Rachel let out a soft giggle. “No. And you promised you wouldn’t ever tease me for that.”
“What was it, Rach? Tell me, please.”
“I can’t,” Rachel whispered.
“I swear I won’t make fun of you.”
“That’s not what I’m concerned about.”
“Then what is it?”
Rachel sniffled and tightened her grip on Quinn’s waist. “If I have to tell you then you must promise that you’ll keep an open mind.”
“I promise.”
“I…I dreamed that I lost you. You got angry and you left and took Allie with you and I never saw you again.”
Quinn furrowed her eyebrows and pulled away a little. She tilted Rachel’s chin up and the brunette chewed on her lower lip.
“Why would I be angry about that, Rachel?”
“Because,” Rachel whispered. “Because the reason you left was that I told you something deeply important.”
“What did you tell me?”
Quinn felt Rachel grab a fistful of her t-shirt and the girl turned her head and mumbled something into the pillow. Quinn moved closer to try and hear but the words were muffled. She again slipped her fingers under Rachel’s chin and pulled her to look up.
“What did you tell me, Rachel?”
“I told you…I told you I was inclined to kiss you.”
Quinn blinked a few times. Santana and Brittany had been right.
“I’m sorry,” Rachel whimpered. She let go of Quinn’s waist and moved to get out of the bed but Quinn caught her wrist and sat up.
“What if…” Quinn took a deep breath. “What if I said I wanted to kiss you, too?”
“Then I would be positively elated.” Rachel nodded.
Quinn trailed her fingers up Rachel’s arm and settled her hand on the brunette’s neck.
“Good, because I really want to.”
“Okay,” Rachel nodded furiously. “Are we…are we going to now or should I ask you on a date? Proper etiquette requires me…”
And that was when Quinn found out the single most effective way to get Rachel to stop talking.
Allie’s first birthday was at the park in order to accommodate all of the guests. Rachel and Quinn had been dancing around the idea of a relationship for a few weeks after the kiss and even more kisses…and a pretty heavy make-out session the night before the party that ended up somewhere around second base before Rachel’s Daddy walked in. Brittany and Santana were urging them to “just do it already” but Rachel and Quinn were a little hesitant. Rachel was still dead-set on moving to New York after her senior year and Quinn wasn’t entirely sure what she wanted to do.
Finn was holding Allie and bouncing her up and down when Rachel approached him with a smile and tickled the tiny blonde’s stomach. The young girl lit up and reached for Rachel.
“Ma!”
Rachel’s jaw dropped. Quinn was at her side in less than a second.
“Did she just…”
“Quinn, I swear I never…”
When Rachel didn’t respond to her, Allie turned to Quinn and stretched her arms out again.
“Mama!”
Every single party guest was silent now, staring at Finn still holding Allie and Rachel and Quinn with their mouths hanging open. Allie grunted and tried to wiggle out of Finn’s grip and when Rachel reached for her the baby squealed.
“Ma!”
Rachel held Allie close to her and the baby settled her head on Rachel’s shoulder and the brunette turned to Quinn who was still slack-jawed and in utter shock.
“She called you ‘Ma’…”
Rachel nodded. “I heard.”
“And she called me ‘Mama’.”
“Maybe 'Ma' will evolve to ‘Rachel’?”
-*-*-*-*-*-
The pair did decide to give it a go at an actual relationship after Allie's birthday and things went pretty smoothly for a while. Their first fight was over something so incredibly stupid that neither one of them remembered what it was about by the time they got around to speaking to each other again three days later. Quinn was preparing to go give her white flag of surrender when Rachel appeared in her bedroom doorway.
“Were you planning on going to Noah’s Independence Day party this afternoon?” Rachel asked.
Quinn shrugged. “I wasn’t planning on it. I’d have to find a babysitter for Allie and since everyone is going I figured I would just stay home.”
“I wasn’t planning on going, either.”
“You should,” Quinn said with a smile. “Get out, have some fun.”
“I thought maybe my dads could take Allie and we could go to the park and watch the fireworks.”
Quinn would have preferred not to watch the fireworks, not because she didn’t like them but because she would rather have had her lips on Rachel’s. However, because it was Lima they just held hands and watched the colors explode in the air. Quinn stayed in Rachel’s room that night and saw her own fireworks. Rachel saw stars.
“I love you,” Rachel whispered as she brushed her lips over Quinn’s neck.
“I love you, too.”
“Ma” evolved to “Mom” by the end of the summer no matter how much Rachel tried to get Allie to say “Rachel” or even “Ray”. Quinn finally made the brunette stop trying after Brittany said that maybe Allie was smarter than everyone thought she was.
Quinn picked up applications for NYU and Columbia when the recruiters came to McKinley in October. Her acceptance letter for NYU came in on Allie’s second birthday. She put off telling Puck for a week and then finally broke down and invited him over while Rachel’s dads took Allie out for ice cream.
“Puck, we’re not taking her away from you!” Quinn pleaded when he stood up from the couch and started pacing after she’d dropped the bomb.
“Noah, please! Sit down!”
“No! You’re taking her away! I won’t let you do it!”
“Puck, we’ll be home for every single holiday, I promise.”
“That’s not good enough!” Puck slammed his fist down on the top of the Berrys’ entertainment center. “She’s my daughter! I told you I wouldn’t be a deadbeat dad and I won’t!”
“Noah, Noah you’re an excellent father. This isn’t punishment.”
“Leave her here, then! Leave her with me. You’ll be in school, you won’t have time for her.”
“I’m not leaving her here, Puck.” Quinn stood and tried to stop him from pacing but he shrugged away. “I swear to you, she will still be your daughter and you will get to see her. I don’t want her growing up here…I just don’t. We’re supposed to want better for her than what we had, right?”
Puck looked down at the floor and Quinn snapped her fingers.
“Look at me, Puck. You want better for her than Lima, Ohio. You know you do.”
Puck reluctantly nodded and ran a hand over his head. “Berry,” he growled, “you better take care of them, got it?”
Rachel nodded. “Of course I will, Noah.”
Puck bought a new laptop and Rachel showed him how to use the camera so they could video chat and they promised to send pictures every single day.
Rachel’s Dad had a cousin and her husband in New York City that always offered Rachel their basement if she ever came to college there. It was a bit tricky convincing them to let Rachel, her girlfriend, and her girlfriend’s daughter move in with her but it was done by the time the end of the school year rolled around.
-*-*-*-*-*-
It was two days before graduation, Rachel and Quinn were cuddled in Rachel’s bed sleeping heavily when Quinn was roused by the sound of horrendous coughing and wheezing. She looked over at Rachel who was breathing softly and then realized the sound was coming from the baby monitor on her nightstand. She panicked and jumped out of bed and ran to Allie’s room and picked up the sweat-soaked and burning up toddler.
“Oh God…”
Quinn quickly turned on the light and rummaged around for the ear thermometer, Allie had started crying and Quinn had to hold her down to get the thermometer to properly take her temperature.
“Quinn?” Rachel asked with a yawn from the door. “What’s wrong?”
The thermometer beeped and Quinn almost fainted at the 104 that flashed on the screen.
“We have to go to the hospital.”
Quinn cried when they took Allie in for chest x-rays and Rachel held the inconsolable blonde while Puck paced back and forth.
“I thought it was just a cold,” Quinn cried. “I gave her cold medicine like I did for the last one…”
“It’s fine, sweetie. She’ll be fine, okay?”
Allie was in the hospital for an entire week while the doctors pumped her full of antibiotics. Quinn left the room to eat and use the bathroom but that was about it. She missed her graduation ceremony but Rachel’s dads made sure to have two video cameras going. Rachel insisted she get to stay at the hospital with her but Quinn threatened to withhold if the brunette didn’t go to the ceremony. Rachel sighed and stated that she knew Quinn would never do that but she got the point. Quinn told Puck to go as well and he lied and said he would. He showed up at the hospital that day and refused to leave.
It took what seemed like forever for Allie to fully get over the pneumonia and even longer for Quinn to sleep through the night and not wake up at every sound that came from the baby monitor.
Part 2