All This Time [3/5]
Title: All This Time
Pairings/Characters: Quinn/Puck, Rachel/Quinn, Rachel/Quinn/Puck friendship, implied Puck/Original Character
Mentions past: Rachel/Finn, Rachel/Puck, Quinn/Others, Puck/Others
Other Minor Characters: Russell & Judy Fabray, Rebekah Fabray Puckerman, New Directions, Rachel's dads - Stan & Alex Berry, other charactersRating: R
Length: ~5,300/ ~30,000 (subject to change)
Summary: AU Quinn Fabray comes to Lima, Ohio and enrolls at McKinley as a seventeen year old senior. She quickly befriends and falls in love with Rachel Berry but Quinn's deepest secret, shared with none other than Noah "Puck" Puckerman, has made her life almost impossible to live and she knows that she and Rachel can never be. However, when Rachel accidentally stumbles upon said secret it turns Quinn's life on its head and she finds herself breaking her own rules of survival to be by Rachel's side.
Warnings: Minor drug use, scenes involving war and bodily harm, character death.
Part I | Part II
-Part III-
The months passed, Quinn barely noticed. The snow melted away and the smell of the beginning of spring was wafting through the air. The nights were still cold but the days were getting warmer. That was all Quinn needed to know. She knew she would have to leave soon but the question weighed down on her mind of where she’d go.
Rachel would ask her random questions, things Quinn chuckled at and answered to the best of her knowledge.
“Why do you eat?”
Quinn shrugged. “It’s strange. I can’t die from starvation but I get hungry.”
“What if someone were to cut off a limb entirely…or your head?!”
“I don’t know, it’s never happened.”
“Does it work on animals?”
“I have no idea. I’ve never tried it.”
“There’s a stray cat…”
“Rachel, I’m not going to experiment on a stray cat.”
“It would be a perfectly legitimate…”
“No.”
Rachel sighed. Quinn chuckled and pulled her curious girlfriend in for a kiss.
The brunette didn’t ask about the scars very often but when she did, Quinn told her the story. She told her of being on The Britannic, the fire in Chicago, and summers as a young girl running through the cotton fields before her life changed. Mostly the questions were asked when they were both coming down from the high of their afternoons and nights of passion. Rachel would press a kiss to a scar and always whisper the same words and Quinn would softly recall that day’s events. Rachel would kiss away the inevitable tears and respond with a story of her own.
-*-*-*-*-*-
Quinn perched herself on the edge of the cliff overlooking Lima. The sun was going down, the lights of the city were twinkling in the distance. She wasn’t sure how long she stayed there but it was dark and cold by the time she considered leaving. She had watched the lights go out little by little as people shut them off to sleep. She’d looked over Savannah like that a few times when Puck had convinced her to come with him beyond the edge of the forest. The glow was much dimmer but it was still there. They would watch as the candles in windows were blown out and by the light of the moon they would sneak back to her house.
“Quinn?”
The blonde hadn’t even heard the car pull up. She smiled at the familiar soft voice.
“How did you know I’d be here?”
“Noah…he told me you used to do this in Savannah. There’s only one cliff overlooking Lima and so I thought I would find you here.”
Quinn nodded. “Come sit.”
She heard Rachel’s footsteps echo off and the car door open and shut again. The brunette appeared beside her and spread a blanket out on the ground and wrapped half of another around Quinn’s shoulders. She snuggled in close to the blonde and Quinn wrapped an arm around her.
“Why did you and Noah end things, Quinn?”
Quinn sighed. It was one thing Rachel had never asked about. The brunette hadn’t ever brought it up and Quinn was a little grateful but now that the question was asked, she gave her answer.
“We drifted apart a long time before we split up. The only reason we stayed together as long as we did was to protect the secret. It wasn’t the same after Rebekah but he protected me. He was safety. After the war he wanted to go west and settle on some land and just stay there to protect the secret. I wanted to travel and see as much of the world as I could. So, quietly, we went back to Virginia and filed for divorce.” Quinn tightened her grip on Rachel’s shoulder and choked back a sob.
“I saw…so much death in the States’ war, Rachel. I was at Gettysburg and the field was literally red. All of it. If there wasn’t a body on the ground then there was blood. After that I wasn’t going to just sit in a cabin and do house work for the rest of eternity. So many never got the chance to do what they wanted and I had the chance and I wasn’t going to waste it.”
“If you could…figure out how to stop it…how to be m-mortal again…”
“In a heartbeat,” Quinn sighed.
“Where will you go after this?”
Quinn grinned. “I’ve always loved New York.”
Rachel nodded a little and reached over and unbuttoned a few buttons on the blonde’s shirt. Her fingers moved over Quinn’s neck and down, just under the right side of her collarbone, to a small circular scar that the blonde had felt Rachel’s lips on several times but Rachel had never asked.
“Tell me,” Rachel whispered.
-*-*-*-*-*-
November 22, 1963
Dallas, Texas
She’d seen Lincoln speak at Gettysburg. She’d seen Truman speak on his whistle stop campaign in California. She had the opportunity to see yet another president while she was living in Dallas and even though he wasn’t going to be speaking, she figured she might as well. It was just a parade, it probably wouldn’t even make the headline news out of Dallas, she thought.
She was in high school, again. It had been a while since she’d been and quite a bit had changed. She was slowly but surely learning to type on a typewriter. Math had gotten harder, there was a lot more to learn. History was always the same, though, as was English. Her teachers commented on her beautiful script and the older ones always said the same thing, they wished the other students could take more pride in their writing. Fashion had changed, the skirts were getting shorter. It was uncomfortable at first with having been raised in a home where your skirts were to always touch the floor, but Quinn got used to it. She needed to blend in. She’d joined a cheerleading squad and was actually having a lot of fun.
Quinn skipped school with a few friends to go to Dealey Plaza that day; they knew that would be the best spot for catching a glimpse of the young president and his beautiful wife. Her friends were always going on about First Lady Kennedy and her amazing fashion sense and how beautiful she was. They definitely commented on her handsome husband and of course his brothers. Quinn partook in their discussions not only about the President but of course, John, Paul, George, and Ringo. She’d join her friends to listen to their Beatles records and talk about how dreamy each of the four young men were.
The group of four girls managed to get a spot right next to the street. They sat on the grassy knoll and chatted animatedly about the excitement. When the motorcade started coming through, Quinn stood and watched with eager anticipation as the cars rolled through. Her friend Susan spotted the presidential limousine first and pointed excitedly. Quinn stood up on her tip-toes to try and see. She caught a glimpse of the First Lady and her husband and grinned with excitement. The excitement left when shots rang out and screams started echoing through the plaza. She felt the pain in her chest and she grimaced and hit the ground just like everyone else.
“Quinn, are you alright?!” Susan gasped. The brunette pointed to the hole in Quinn’s dress once they had cautiously stood up.
Quinn looked down and swallowed hard. “I must’ve torn it,” she sighed. “What do you suppose happened?”
Susan shrugged and they watched the others in the plaza slowly get up and officers started running into a building across the road. The four girls quickly made their way out of the plaza, Quinn stayed a few steps behind and kept her fingers over the wound that was pushing the bullet out on its own. When she could she grasped it and pulled. She dropped the piece of metal in the street and watched it roll into a sewer line. Surely a single bullet couldn’t be that important.
-*-*-*-*-*-
Rachel pressed her lips to the scar again. “How have you managed to be present at some of the most historical things to ever happen to our country?”
Quinn shrugged. “I would say that I’m lucky but watching those things isn’t what I would consider luck. We’ll just go with coincidence.”
“Every time you tell me something I become more fascinated by you, Quinn. And…and I think every day I fall a little more in love with you.” Rachel gripped onto Quinn’s shoulder and kissed up her neck.
“We should go home,” the blonde whispered.
Rachel nodded.
-*-*-*-*-*-
The nights started getting warmer, Quinn had almost run out of scars for Rachel to inquire about but there were still plenty of stories to tell. She talked about the places she’d been in Europe and climbing to the top of the Eiffel Tower and touring The Louvre. She recalled the months she spent in Italy tasting the finest Italian food anyone could ever imagine and learning how to cook from a chef in a small village. She talked about being submerged in cultures and learning languages not from textbooks but from the natives themselves.
Graduation loomed closer, Quinn was beginning to think about packing her bags. She hadn’t told Rachel she’d be leaving before finals, just that they’d be together in New York. Quinn had every intention of going to New York, she honestly did. She just didn’t know if Rachel would believe her or not.
The pair lay awake as they often did late into the night after a particularly passionate evening. Quinn was on her back with Rachel curled into her side. The blonde had one arm wrapped around Rachel’s shoulders, the other behind her own head.
“How much do you remember, Quinn? I’ve done some research on neuroscience and the human brain hasn’t shown to be capable of the amount of information you must have stored.”
“I don’t remember everything. Obviously I remember the scars but other than that most of it’s hazy. I guess because I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it. It’s almost like…every time I switch who I’m around my brain gets rid of all of the other memories.”
“It seems as though you only remember things that have hurt you both physically and emotionally.”
Quinn shrugged. “Love and pain are the strongest emotions, aren’t they? It only makes sense that I’d remember those.”
Rachel made a soft affirmative noise and nuzzled a little deeper into Quinn’s side. The blonde almost thought her girlfriend had fallen asleep until she spoke again.
“Do you think people have the capability of being in love forever?” Rachel asked quietly, her fingertips began tracing over Quinn’s bare torso.
Quinn sighed. She knew this was coming. She’d never gone through it before but somehow, after she’d revealed her secret to Rachel, she knew it was coming.
“I don’t know. I’ve only been in love twice.”
“Noah and…” Rachel trailed off, Quinn could hear the smile.
“You, of course.”
Rachel giggled and buried her face into Quinn’s neck and brushed her lips over pale skin. “I love you, too.”
“I know what you’re going to ask of me, Rachel.”
The brunette was silent. Quinn sighed and turned to face her lover. She propped herself up on her elbow and reached forward with the other hand to push Rachel’s hair back out of her face.
“Immortality, Rachel…I know it sounds great, living forever. It sounds even better when you’re in love and you want it to last forever. But there is death for a reason. Everything has to turn, you see? Death has to happen if life wants to continue. If everyone…”
“But it wouldn’t be everyone,” Rachel insisted. “Just…us. And Noah.”
Quinn shook her head. “The world is already getting smaller for Puck and me. It’s getting harder to find a way to live comfortably. I don’t want this for you.”
“I want this, Quinn. I want to be with you forever…”
“Rachel you know I love you. You know I do but we have to be realistic…who’s to say that we’ll last forever? If we don’t you’ll be stuck, just like me.”
“You don’t think we can make it?” Rachel’s soft eyes filled with tears.
Quinn wiped her thumb over the water droplets escaping Rachel’s eyes and kissed her forehead.
“What I know,” Quinn whispered, “is that I love you and I want to protect you. I don’t live, Rachel…I just…am. I’m stuck.”
“Why not have someone to be stuck with?”
Quinn smiled a little. “I’ve got Puck for that. We manage to find each other every now and then.”
Rachel sighed and rolled over onto her back.
“Rachel you would lose so much…you would lose everything, don’t you understand?” Quinn scooted closer to her lover and wrapped her arm around the smaller girl’s tan torso. “You couldn’t live out your dreams.”
Rachel turned her head and furrowed her eyebrows. “What?”
“Think about it. If you were ever on stage or famous you would only be able to do it for so long. You’d have to stop eventually and you couldn’t do it again.”
“People would forget…”
“No, they wouldn’t. With photographs and video…you’d be immortalized in more than one way. You do your Broadway thing, retire, and if you tried to come back the chances that someone would find out you performed already are so, so great. You found a picture of me I didn’t even know existed and it’s dangerous, Rachel. I never thought about those things I did. I never knew that something like the internet would ever exist and that with a single picture I could be found out.”
Rachel was silent again and Quinn leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to her lips.
“I won’t do it, Rachel. I’m sorry, but I can’t. It’s for your own good.”
Rachel sighed and rolled back over to curl into Quinn’s front. The blonde pressed a kiss to the top of her girlfriend’s head and settled down to sleep with Rachel clinging onto her.
“I love you, Quinn,” Rachel whimpered. “I love you so much.”
“I love you too, Rach.”
-*-*-*-*-*-
A week before finals, Quinn started packing her things. She did it slowly, hoping Rachel wouldn’t notice. She knew it wouldn’t work. If there was one thing she’d learned about Rachel it was that the brunette was extremely observant. If Rachel was clueless, she didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. When she walked in on Quinn tucking away another outfit in her suitcase it was proof enough.
“Quinn…”
“It’s not what you think, I swear.”
“You’re packing your things. Generally speaking, when one packs their things it is an indication that they’re preparing to leave.”
“Okay, it’s exactly what it looks like.” Quinn dropped the shirt in her hand and started cleaning out the rest of her drawer.
“Why are you doing it?”
“I can’t graduate and it’s pointless to take the finals. I thought I’d go ahead to New York and start scouting for a job where they won’t do a background check and maybe look at a couple places.”
“But…I…”
Quinn furrowed her eyebrows and looked up at the brunette who had her lower lip tucked between her teeth and was nervously wringing her hands.
“What is it, babe?”
“I thought maybe we could take a road trip this summer.”
“A…road trip?”
Rachel nodded. “I thought perhaps we could…I don’t want to sound like I’m interfering or trying to…” Rachel sighed and wrung her hands. “You see, you speak of…well you…I would never force you to do anything that would make you uncomfortable or perhaps bring up unpleasant memories but I was thinking that we might…if you wanted…”
Quinn chuckled a little and pulled out another shirt to pack. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you speechless like this, Rach.”
Rachel took a deep breath. “I was wondering if you’d like to go…to Virginia. To…Centreville.”
Quinn’s heart dropped and she froze folding the t-shirt in her hands. She’d never been back there, no matter how many times she wanted to. She’d never been back. She knew Puck had, he’d told her about it. He said the cemetery Rebekah was buried in was still there, still small. It was kept by a family that had been in the area since the war, Quinn had recognized the name but long since forgotten it.
“Quinn, I’m so sorry.”
Rachel was in front of her now, kneeling with her hands on Quinn’s shoulders. Quinn blinked a few times and Rachel slipped her hands up to cup the blonde’s face. Quinn nuzzled into the touch by force of habit.
“It still hurts, Rachel,” the blonde whispered. She felt the tears slipping out of her eyes and Rachel wiped them away with her thumb and then leaned in to kiss away the tracks.
“I shouldn’t have suggested it…please don’t cry, Quinn.”
Quinn launched herself forward, needing Rachel’s comfort more than ever at that moment. She held on tight to her and sobbed into her shoulder. It was partially out of mourning, as it always was, but something else was tugging at her heart. Rachel had thought about this…had thought about her. She was only trying to help and Quinn fell a little more in love with her.
“We’ll go,” the words slipped out of her mouth. “I want to go.”
Rachel’s hands tensed up on her back a little at the agreement.
“Really?”
Quinn nodded. It was time.
“Would…”Quinn sniffled. “Would you kill me if I asked you if Puck could come? H-he knows the area better. He’s been there a few times since…everything.”
“Whatever you want, Quinn.”
Quinn left with Rachel the mornings of finals but aimlessly wandered around Lima instead of going in to class. She did talk to Puck about the trip and he agreed to it. They both snuck underneath the bleachers to watch McKinley’s graduation.
Two weeks later, Rachel’s car was packed up with their things and Quinn was sitting nervously in the front seat. Puck sprawled out in the back and Rachel had volunteered to drive the first leg of the nine hour drive to Centreville. Quinn took over after the first three hours, the last three were Puck’s. Rachel and Quinn crawled in the back seat together and Quinn snuggled up to her girlfriend with one arm hugged around her waist and her head settled on the brunette’s shoulder.
“It’s not too late to turn back,” Rachel whispered. “We can go back.”
Quinn shook her head. “It’s time, Rach.”
“Okay.”
“I’ve thought…I’ve thought a lot about what I would’ve done if she hadn’t died,” Quinn choked. “If we’d moved to Pennsylvania, all three of us…if I would’ve let her do it or not. Let her touch it…God I would’ve loved to have seen her grown up, Rachel. I would’ve waited to let her make the choice, I think. I wanted to watch her grow up so bad…It doesn’t get easier.”
“We don’t have to do this…”
Quinn snuggled closer to her girlfriend’s side. “I told you, it’s time.”
The remainder of Puck’s drive was silent, mostly due to the fact that both Rachel and Quinn fell asleep. The next thing Quinn was aware of was Puck nudging her awake outside a small hotel.
“I got us checked in and everything,” he said, handing Quinn a room key. “We only have enough for one room, it’s two beds.”
Quinn yawned and shook Rachel awake to get their things into the hotel room. It was nice for something out of the way. Quinn dropped her bag on the bed furthest from the door and went to the sink to splash cold water over her face.
“Do you want to go tonight or wait?” Puck asked as he grabbed the TV remote.
“Tomorrow,” Quinn sighed. “It’ll be dark soon.”
“We passed a diner on the way in, we’ll go there for dinner,” he said. “This TV doesn’t get shit for channels.”
“You survived the majority of your life without television, Noah,” Rachel cut in, “and you’re complaining?”
“Yeah and it totally sucked. Life before scrambled porn was boring.”
“Proof that the male brain never changes,” Quinn said as she dried her face off.
“Never, babe. So like, if you guys wanted to get a little freaky…”
“No, Puck.”
“Absolutely not, Noah!”
“Hey, no harm in asking.”
Quinn rolled her eyes and dropped the towel on the sink then joined Rachel on their bed.
“Boys,” the blonde mumbled, settling her head on Rachel’s shoulder. “Puck, you’re a daily reminder of why I haven’t dated a guy since the seventies.”
Rachel giggled a little and Quinn pressed a gentle kiss to her neck.
-*-*-*-*-*-
Quinn didn’t sleep that night. She lay awake staring up at the ceiling while Rachel cuddled up next to her and slept soundly. The blonde looked over at Puck’s bed a few times, he was doing the exact same. He looked over at Quinn and stretched his arm across the gap between the two beds, Quinn did the same and took his hand in hers.
“How bad will it hurt to see it?” Quinn asked in a whisper.
“Pretty bad.”
“Thanks for coming with us.”
Puck squeezed Quinn’s hand and let go, rolling over with his back to her. Quinn focused her attention on the girl snuggled up to her other side and ran her fingers through Rachel’s dark brown locks and kissed the top of her head.
“I love you, Rachel,” she whispered.
Rachel mumbled something in her sleep and clung tighter to her girlfriend.
-*-*-*-*-*-
Quinn paced the hotel room floor back and forth while Puck and Rachel sat on their respective beds and waited patiently. The blonde thought she was prepared for this, she really did. But facing the fact that it would happen in less than an hour had her more nervous than she’d been in her entire existence. She paced a few more times before stopping in front of the hotel room door, taking a deep breath, and putting her hand on the handle.
“Okay. Let’s go.”
Puck drove through the streets of Centreville; it looked nothing like it had, of course. Quinn stared out the window and the buildings disappeared as they drove along and pavement turned into gravel. She saw barns and livestock and finally a barbed wire fence surrounding a small plot of land with stones sticking out of the ground. There was a house off in the distance on the same land. She wasn’t sure when she’d gotten out of the car, but she had. Puck was on her left side with his arm wrapped around her waist and Rachel was on her right side with Quinn’s hand clasped tightly in her own.
Puck grabbed onto the top string of barbed wire and stepped on the one below it for Quinn and Rachel to duck through. He climbed over the fence and resumed his position of having an arm around Quinn’s waist as he led them to one of the far corners of the cemetery where a fairly new looking headstone was sticking out of the ground.
“The original stone is hard to read,” he said. “So I took all the money I had last time I was here and bought a new one to put up.”
Quinn dropped to her knees and put a hand over the tattoo on her chest and the other against the flat stone on the ground and looked up and down between it and the headstone protruding from the grass.
Rebekah Fabray Puckerman
Born
5-16-1860
Died
7-21-1861
She traced her fingertips over the weathered and worn rock where her daughter’s name was barely visible. Puck was right, it hurt. All of the physical pain she’d ever gone through was nothing compared to the stabbing in her chest and the feeling that her airways were closing. She gasped for air a few times before finally crying out and pressing her palm flat against the cold rock. Everything was real. It wasn’t just a dream and she wasn’t going to wake up from it all. It happened, all of it happened and it meant that it was going to keep happening and there wasn’t going to be an end to it.
The blonde felt a soft hand on her right shoulder and what possessed her to do it, she didn’t know, but she shrugged away from it and leaned to her left into stronger arms that held her while she cried into his chest.
“I’ll…go wait in the car,” she heard a soft voice say, filled with what could only be called rejection.
Quinn didn’t have the energy to run after her, only to cling on to Puck a little harder and pray that Rachel would forgive her because at the moment she needed someone who got it. Someone who had been there with her and without her but had been there.
“I want it to stop,” Quinn whimpered. “I want it to stop, Puck…please just make it stop.”
“We gotta go,” Puck said softly. “We gotta go…”
“No…no I can’t leave her.”
“It’s just a grave.”
“Stop saying that. You don’t believe it.”
“You’re right, I don’t,” he said. He pulled Quinn away by her shoulders and the blonde looked up into Puck’s matching red eyes. “But there’s another girl that needs you to tell her everything’s gonna be okay right now.”
Quinn turned her head to the car that was waiting on the gravel road. Rachel was sitting in the back, behind the passenger seat, staring straight ahead.
“She d-doesn’t unders-s-stand.”
“No, she doesn’t. But she wants to and she loves you and she’s here, Q. Rachel is here.”
Quinn turned back to the two stones once more and touched her head to the cool rock before pressing a kiss to it and letting a few more tears fall. She stood and Puck helped her through the fence again and back to the car. The blonde slid into the back seat next to her girlfriend and reached over to take Rachel’s hand. The brunette winced a little.
“I’m sorry, Rachel…I’m so sorry.”
Rachel was quiet the entire drive back to the hotel. When they got there, Puck kicked the two girls out of the car and took off with it leaving the blonde and the brunette alone in the room. Quinn sat in the middle of one bed, Rachel on the other.
“You still love him, don’t you?”
Quinn nodded. “I’ll always love him but it’s not…he’s the father of my baby…he’s the only one who has ever known what I was going through. He’s the only one that knows what it’s like to want it to end. I’ll always be connected to him. But I love you, Rachel…I want to be with you. I don’t want to be with him.”
“I could know as well, Quinn, if you’d let me.”
Quinn dropped her head and threaded her fingers through her hair. “Rachel…”
“I meant I wish that you would at least discuss it with me.”
“What do you want me to tell you? I lost a child, Rachel. No one knows what that is like until they’ve lived it. No one. No matter how much talking I do or how much I let you in there are some things you’re never going to understand, okay?”
Rachel whimpered a little.
“You’re born, you live, you die,” Quinn mumbled. “I was born and now here I am. I’ll look like this forever. You’re going to age, you’re going to live life knowing that each day could be your last. I’m going to lose everyone I care about except for Puck. I know you only know him as this guy that likes to chase women but he’s a lot more than that to me. He’s sweet and romantic and he was my first love and the father of our child so I’m sorry but we’ll always have that.”
“Are you breaking up with me?”
“No!” Quinn snapped her head up and jumped off of her bed over to Rachel. She cupped the girl’s face in her hands and shook her head. “I love you, Rachel. I love you I’m just trying to get you to understand why sometimes…sometimes I might go to him to talk instead of you. I’ll try to talk to you about it but sometimes I need someone who gets it, alright?”
Rachel nodded. "I understand."
“We’re okay, right?” Quinn tucked Rachel’s hair back behind her ears. “New York City?”
“New York City,” Rachel whispered, closing the gap between them to press a kiss to Quinn’s lips.
Quinn smiled into the kiss and Rachel pulled her back on the bed. Quinn settled her hips in between her girlfriend’s legs and ran her hands up the sides of Rachel’s shirt and was almost to her goal when the hotel room door flung open.
“Damn!” Puck growled. “Shoulda waited like five more minutes!”
Quinn rolled her eyes and sat up. “You are not watching us have sex, Puck.”
Puck dropped a few bags and a tray of cups on the small hotel room table. “Got dinner, burgers and fries. I didn’t know what kind of shakes you guys wanted so I got one of each.” He gestured to the three cups.
“You’re still not watching.”
“I bought you dinner!”
“Noah, spending fifteen dollars on artery clogging grease sandwiches does not constitute buying us dinner. Even if it did, the answer is still no.”
“You guys suck.”
Quinn smirked and Rachel shook her head.
Puck sat on the bed while Rachel and Quinn each took a chair at the small table to eat their dinners. It was mostly silent aside from the sound of the TV, Puck had finally managed to pick up something halfway decent on TV.
“So you guys figure your shit out?” he asked when the reception went out again.
Quinn nodded. “I think so.”
“We’ve come to the understanding that there are certain emotional supports that only you are able to provide Quinn with but that I am most certainly her partner of choice. She’s assured me that she’ll attempt to confide in me but I realize that there are aspects of her past that I won’t be able to relate to.”
“So…you’re cool?”
“Yes, Noah, we’re cool.”
“Sweet. You guys are going to New York after this, right?”
Quinn grabbed Rachel’s strawberry shake and took a drink. “Yeah, why?”
Rachel squeaked as the blonde returned the drink. “Quinn, that’s unsanit-“
“I just had my tongue in your mouth less than half an hour ago, sweetie. You really want to talk about sharing straws?”
Rachel growled and retaliated by taking a drink of Quinn’s chocolate shake and smirking in triumph.
Puck smirked. “Thought maybe I’d tag along to New York. I’ve never been.”
“Noah, you mean to tell me you’ve spent well over a century and a half on this Earth and you’ve never been to New York City?”
“Nope,” Puck shrugged. “Q’s the travel expert. I mostly stuck out west except for Woodstock.”
“If you want to come,” Quinn said with a shrug, “fine with me. You’re getting your own place, though.”
“Quinn, living in New York City is very expensive. It would be difficult for Noah to find a decent living space on one income.”
“He’d drill holes in the wall so he could watch us and he’d probably try to bug our room with cameras.”
Rachel narrowed her eyes at Puck who looked away from the pair and whistled. The brunette threw a few French fries at the young man on the bed.
“Hey!”
“Perhaps Quinn is right, you should find your own living space.”
Puck threw the fries back toward the table. “I’m a dude. You guys are hot. Seriously, can you blame me?”
Quinn and Rachel each threw a handful of fries and Puck tried to shield them but failed miserably.
Part IV A
Pairings/Characters: Quinn/Puck, Rachel/Quinn, Rachel/Quinn/Puck friendship, implied Puck/Original Character
Mentions past: Rachel/Finn, Rachel/Puck, Quinn/Others, Puck/Others
Other Minor Characters: Russell & Judy Fabray, Rebekah Fabray Puckerman, New Directions, Rachel's dads - Stan & Alex Berry, other charactersRating: R
Length: ~5,300/ ~30,000 (subject to change)
Summary: AU Quinn Fabray comes to Lima, Ohio and enrolls at McKinley as a seventeen year old senior. She quickly befriends and falls in love with Rachel Berry but Quinn's deepest secret, shared with none other than Noah "Puck" Puckerman, has made her life almost impossible to live and she knows that she and Rachel can never be. However, when Rachel accidentally stumbles upon said secret it turns Quinn's life on its head and she finds herself breaking her own rules of survival to be by Rachel's side.
Warnings: Minor drug use, scenes involving war and bodily harm, character death.
Part I | Part II
-Part III-
The months passed, Quinn barely noticed. The snow melted away and the smell of the beginning of spring was wafting through the air. The nights were still cold but the days were getting warmer. That was all Quinn needed to know. She knew she would have to leave soon but the question weighed down on her mind of where she’d go.
Rachel would ask her random questions, things Quinn chuckled at and answered to the best of her knowledge.
“Why do you eat?”
Quinn shrugged. “It’s strange. I can’t die from starvation but I get hungry.”
“What if someone were to cut off a limb entirely…or your head?!”
“I don’t know, it’s never happened.”
“Does it work on animals?”
“I have no idea. I’ve never tried it.”
“There’s a stray cat…”
“Rachel, I’m not going to experiment on a stray cat.”
“It would be a perfectly legitimate…”
“No.”
Rachel sighed. Quinn chuckled and pulled her curious girlfriend in for a kiss.
The brunette didn’t ask about the scars very often but when she did, Quinn told her the story. She told her of being on The Britannic, the fire in Chicago, and summers as a young girl running through the cotton fields before her life changed. Mostly the questions were asked when they were both coming down from the high of their afternoons and nights of passion. Rachel would press a kiss to a scar and always whisper the same words and Quinn would softly recall that day’s events. Rachel would kiss away the inevitable tears and respond with a story of her own.
-*-*-*-*-*-
Quinn perched herself on the edge of the cliff overlooking Lima. The sun was going down, the lights of the city were twinkling in the distance. She wasn’t sure how long she stayed there but it was dark and cold by the time she considered leaving. She had watched the lights go out little by little as people shut them off to sleep. She’d looked over Savannah like that a few times when Puck had convinced her to come with him beyond the edge of the forest. The glow was much dimmer but it was still there. They would watch as the candles in windows were blown out and by the light of the moon they would sneak back to her house.
“Quinn?”
The blonde hadn’t even heard the car pull up. She smiled at the familiar soft voice.
“How did you know I’d be here?”
“Noah…he told me you used to do this in Savannah. There’s only one cliff overlooking Lima and so I thought I would find you here.”
Quinn nodded. “Come sit.”
She heard Rachel’s footsteps echo off and the car door open and shut again. The brunette appeared beside her and spread a blanket out on the ground and wrapped half of another around Quinn’s shoulders. She snuggled in close to the blonde and Quinn wrapped an arm around her.
“Why did you and Noah end things, Quinn?”
Quinn sighed. It was one thing Rachel had never asked about. The brunette hadn’t ever brought it up and Quinn was a little grateful but now that the question was asked, she gave her answer.
“We drifted apart a long time before we split up. The only reason we stayed together as long as we did was to protect the secret. It wasn’t the same after Rebekah but he protected me. He was safety. After the war he wanted to go west and settle on some land and just stay there to protect the secret. I wanted to travel and see as much of the world as I could. So, quietly, we went back to Virginia and filed for divorce.” Quinn tightened her grip on Rachel’s shoulder and choked back a sob.
“I saw…so much death in the States’ war, Rachel. I was at Gettysburg and the field was literally red. All of it. If there wasn’t a body on the ground then there was blood. After that I wasn’t going to just sit in a cabin and do house work for the rest of eternity. So many never got the chance to do what they wanted and I had the chance and I wasn’t going to waste it.”
“If you could…figure out how to stop it…how to be m-mortal again…”
“In a heartbeat,” Quinn sighed.
“Where will you go after this?”
Quinn grinned. “I’ve always loved New York.”
Rachel nodded a little and reached over and unbuttoned a few buttons on the blonde’s shirt. Her fingers moved over Quinn’s neck and down, just under the right side of her collarbone, to a small circular scar that the blonde had felt Rachel’s lips on several times but Rachel had never asked.
“Tell me,” Rachel whispered.
-*-*-*-*-*-
November 22, 1963
Dallas, Texas
She’d seen Lincoln speak at Gettysburg. She’d seen Truman speak on his whistle stop campaign in California. She had the opportunity to see yet another president while she was living in Dallas and even though he wasn’t going to be speaking, she figured she might as well. It was just a parade, it probably wouldn’t even make the headline news out of Dallas, she thought.
She was in high school, again. It had been a while since she’d been and quite a bit had changed. She was slowly but surely learning to type on a typewriter. Math had gotten harder, there was a lot more to learn. History was always the same, though, as was English. Her teachers commented on her beautiful script and the older ones always said the same thing, they wished the other students could take more pride in their writing. Fashion had changed, the skirts were getting shorter. It was uncomfortable at first with having been raised in a home where your skirts were to always touch the floor, but Quinn got used to it. She needed to blend in. She’d joined a cheerleading squad and was actually having a lot of fun.
Quinn skipped school with a few friends to go to Dealey Plaza that day; they knew that would be the best spot for catching a glimpse of the young president and his beautiful wife. Her friends were always going on about First Lady Kennedy and her amazing fashion sense and how beautiful she was. They definitely commented on her handsome husband and of course his brothers. Quinn partook in their discussions not only about the President but of course, John, Paul, George, and Ringo. She’d join her friends to listen to their Beatles records and talk about how dreamy each of the four young men were.
The group of four girls managed to get a spot right next to the street. They sat on the grassy knoll and chatted animatedly about the excitement. When the motorcade started coming through, Quinn stood and watched with eager anticipation as the cars rolled through. Her friend Susan spotted the presidential limousine first and pointed excitedly. Quinn stood up on her tip-toes to try and see. She caught a glimpse of the First Lady and her husband and grinned with excitement. The excitement left when shots rang out and screams started echoing through the plaza. She felt the pain in her chest and she grimaced and hit the ground just like everyone else.
“Quinn, are you alright?!” Susan gasped. The brunette pointed to the hole in Quinn’s dress once they had cautiously stood up.
Quinn looked down and swallowed hard. “I must’ve torn it,” she sighed. “What do you suppose happened?”
Susan shrugged and they watched the others in the plaza slowly get up and officers started running into a building across the road. The four girls quickly made their way out of the plaza, Quinn stayed a few steps behind and kept her fingers over the wound that was pushing the bullet out on its own. When she could she grasped it and pulled. She dropped the piece of metal in the street and watched it roll into a sewer line. Surely a single bullet couldn’t be that important.
-*-*-*-*-*-
Rachel pressed her lips to the scar again. “How have you managed to be present at some of the most historical things to ever happen to our country?”
Quinn shrugged. “I would say that I’m lucky but watching those things isn’t what I would consider luck. We’ll just go with coincidence.”
“Every time you tell me something I become more fascinated by you, Quinn. And…and I think every day I fall a little more in love with you.” Rachel gripped onto Quinn’s shoulder and kissed up her neck.
“We should go home,” the blonde whispered.
Rachel nodded.
-*-*-*-*-*-
The nights started getting warmer, Quinn had almost run out of scars for Rachel to inquire about but there were still plenty of stories to tell. She talked about the places she’d been in Europe and climbing to the top of the Eiffel Tower and touring The Louvre. She recalled the months she spent in Italy tasting the finest Italian food anyone could ever imagine and learning how to cook from a chef in a small village. She talked about being submerged in cultures and learning languages not from textbooks but from the natives themselves.
Graduation loomed closer, Quinn was beginning to think about packing her bags. She hadn’t told Rachel she’d be leaving before finals, just that they’d be together in New York. Quinn had every intention of going to New York, she honestly did. She just didn’t know if Rachel would believe her or not.
The pair lay awake as they often did late into the night after a particularly passionate evening. Quinn was on her back with Rachel curled into her side. The blonde had one arm wrapped around Rachel’s shoulders, the other behind her own head.
“How much do you remember, Quinn? I’ve done some research on neuroscience and the human brain hasn’t shown to be capable of the amount of information you must have stored.”
“I don’t remember everything. Obviously I remember the scars but other than that most of it’s hazy. I guess because I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it. It’s almost like…every time I switch who I’m around my brain gets rid of all of the other memories.”
“It seems as though you only remember things that have hurt you both physically and emotionally.”
Quinn shrugged. “Love and pain are the strongest emotions, aren’t they? It only makes sense that I’d remember those.”
Rachel made a soft affirmative noise and nuzzled a little deeper into Quinn’s side. The blonde almost thought her girlfriend had fallen asleep until she spoke again.
“Do you think people have the capability of being in love forever?” Rachel asked quietly, her fingertips began tracing over Quinn’s bare torso.
Quinn sighed. She knew this was coming. She’d never gone through it before but somehow, after she’d revealed her secret to Rachel, she knew it was coming.
“I don’t know. I’ve only been in love twice.”
“Noah and…” Rachel trailed off, Quinn could hear the smile.
“You, of course.”
Rachel giggled and buried her face into Quinn’s neck and brushed her lips over pale skin. “I love you, too.”
“I know what you’re going to ask of me, Rachel.”
The brunette was silent. Quinn sighed and turned to face her lover. She propped herself up on her elbow and reached forward with the other hand to push Rachel’s hair back out of her face.
“Immortality, Rachel…I know it sounds great, living forever. It sounds even better when you’re in love and you want it to last forever. But there is death for a reason. Everything has to turn, you see? Death has to happen if life wants to continue. If everyone…”
“But it wouldn’t be everyone,” Rachel insisted. “Just…us. And Noah.”
Quinn shook her head. “The world is already getting smaller for Puck and me. It’s getting harder to find a way to live comfortably. I don’t want this for you.”
“I want this, Quinn. I want to be with you forever…”
“Rachel you know I love you. You know I do but we have to be realistic…who’s to say that we’ll last forever? If we don’t you’ll be stuck, just like me.”
“You don’t think we can make it?” Rachel’s soft eyes filled with tears.
Quinn wiped her thumb over the water droplets escaping Rachel’s eyes and kissed her forehead.
“What I know,” Quinn whispered, “is that I love you and I want to protect you. I don’t live, Rachel…I just…am. I’m stuck.”
“Why not have someone to be stuck with?”
Quinn smiled a little. “I’ve got Puck for that. We manage to find each other every now and then.”
Rachel sighed and rolled over onto her back.
“Rachel you would lose so much…you would lose everything, don’t you understand?” Quinn scooted closer to her lover and wrapped her arm around the smaller girl’s tan torso. “You couldn’t live out your dreams.”
Rachel turned her head and furrowed her eyebrows. “What?”
“Think about it. If you were ever on stage or famous you would only be able to do it for so long. You’d have to stop eventually and you couldn’t do it again.”
“People would forget…”
“No, they wouldn’t. With photographs and video…you’d be immortalized in more than one way. You do your Broadway thing, retire, and if you tried to come back the chances that someone would find out you performed already are so, so great. You found a picture of me I didn’t even know existed and it’s dangerous, Rachel. I never thought about those things I did. I never knew that something like the internet would ever exist and that with a single picture I could be found out.”
Rachel was silent again and Quinn leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to her lips.
“I won’t do it, Rachel. I’m sorry, but I can’t. It’s for your own good.”
Rachel sighed and rolled back over to curl into Quinn’s front. The blonde pressed a kiss to the top of her girlfriend’s head and settled down to sleep with Rachel clinging onto her.
“I love you, Quinn,” Rachel whimpered. “I love you so much.”
“I love you too, Rach.”
-*-*-*-*-*-
A week before finals, Quinn started packing her things. She did it slowly, hoping Rachel wouldn’t notice. She knew it wouldn’t work. If there was one thing she’d learned about Rachel it was that the brunette was extremely observant. If Rachel was clueless, she didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. When she walked in on Quinn tucking away another outfit in her suitcase it was proof enough.
“Quinn…”
“It’s not what you think, I swear.”
“You’re packing your things. Generally speaking, when one packs their things it is an indication that they’re preparing to leave.”
“Okay, it’s exactly what it looks like.” Quinn dropped the shirt in her hand and started cleaning out the rest of her drawer.
“Why are you doing it?”
“I can’t graduate and it’s pointless to take the finals. I thought I’d go ahead to New York and start scouting for a job where they won’t do a background check and maybe look at a couple places.”
“But…I…”
Quinn furrowed her eyebrows and looked up at the brunette who had her lower lip tucked between her teeth and was nervously wringing her hands.
“What is it, babe?”
“I thought maybe we could take a road trip this summer.”
“A…road trip?”
Rachel nodded. “I thought perhaps we could…I don’t want to sound like I’m interfering or trying to…” Rachel sighed and wrung her hands. “You see, you speak of…well you…I would never force you to do anything that would make you uncomfortable or perhaps bring up unpleasant memories but I was thinking that we might…if you wanted…”
Quinn chuckled a little and pulled out another shirt to pack. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you speechless like this, Rach.”
Rachel took a deep breath. “I was wondering if you’d like to go…to Virginia. To…Centreville.”
Quinn’s heart dropped and she froze folding the t-shirt in her hands. She’d never been back there, no matter how many times she wanted to. She’d never been back. She knew Puck had, he’d told her about it. He said the cemetery Rebekah was buried in was still there, still small. It was kept by a family that had been in the area since the war, Quinn had recognized the name but long since forgotten it.
“Quinn, I’m so sorry.”
Rachel was in front of her now, kneeling with her hands on Quinn’s shoulders. Quinn blinked a few times and Rachel slipped her hands up to cup the blonde’s face. Quinn nuzzled into the touch by force of habit.
“It still hurts, Rachel,” the blonde whispered. She felt the tears slipping out of her eyes and Rachel wiped them away with her thumb and then leaned in to kiss away the tracks.
“I shouldn’t have suggested it…please don’t cry, Quinn.”
Quinn launched herself forward, needing Rachel’s comfort more than ever at that moment. She held on tight to her and sobbed into her shoulder. It was partially out of mourning, as it always was, but something else was tugging at her heart. Rachel had thought about this…had thought about her. She was only trying to help and Quinn fell a little more in love with her.
“We’ll go,” the words slipped out of her mouth. “I want to go.”
Rachel’s hands tensed up on her back a little at the agreement.
“Really?”
Quinn nodded. It was time.
“Would…”Quinn sniffled. “Would you kill me if I asked you if Puck could come? H-he knows the area better. He’s been there a few times since…everything.”
“Whatever you want, Quinn.”
Quinn left with Rachel the mornings of finals but aimlessly wandered around Lima instead of going in to class. She did talk to Puck about the trip and he agreed to it. They both snuck underneath the bleachers to watch McKinley’s graduation.
Two weeks later, Rachel’s car was packed up with their things and Quinn was sitting nervously in the front seat. Puck sprawled out in the back and Rachel had volunteered to drive the first leg of the nine hour drive to Centreville. Quinn took over after the first three hours, the last three were Puck’s. Rachel and Quinn crawled in the back seat together and Quinn snuggled up to her girlfriend with one arm hugged around her waist and her head settled on the brunette’s shoulder.
“It’s not too late to turn back,” Rachel whispered. “We can go back.”
Quinn shook her head. “It’s time, Rach.”
“Okay.”
“I’ve thought…I’ve thought a lot about what I would’ve done if she hadn’t died,” Quinn choked. “If we’d moved to Pennsylvania, all three of us…if I would’ve let her do it or not. Let her touch it…God I would’ve loved to have seen her grown up, Rachel. I would’ve waited to let her make the choice, I think. I wanted to watch her grow up so bad…It doesn’t get easier.”
“We don’t have to do this…”
Quinn snuggled closer to her girlfriend’s side. “I told you, it’s time.”
The remainder of Puck’s drive was silent, mostly due to the fact that both Rachel and Quinn fell asleep. The next thing Quinn was aware of was Puck nudging her awake outside a small hotel.
“I got us checked in and everything,” he said, handing Quinn a room key. “We only have enough for one room, it’s two beds.”
Quinn yawned and shook Rachel awake to get their things into the hotel room. It was nice for something out of the way. Quinn dropped her bag on the bed furthest from the door and went to the sink to splash cold water over her face.
“Do you want to go tonight or wait?” Puck asked as he grabbed the TV remote.
“Tomorrow,” Quinn sighed. “It’ll be dark soon.”
“We passed a diner on the way in, we’ll go there for dinner,” he said. “This TV doesn’t get shit for channels.”
“You survived the majority of your life without television, Noah,” Rachel cut in, “and you’re complaining?”
“Yeah and it totally sucked. Life before scrambled porn was boring.”
“Proof that the male brain never changes,” Quinn said as she dried her face off.
“Never, babe. So like, if you guys wanted to get a little freaky…”
“No, Puck.”
“Absolutely not, Noah!”
“Hey, no harm in asking.”
Quinn rolled her eyes and dropped the towel on the sink then joined Rachel on their bed.
“Boys,” the blonde mumbled, settling her head on Rachel’s shoulder. “Puck, you’re a daily reminder of why I haven’t dated a guy since the seventies.”
Rachel giggled a little and Quinn pressed a gentle kiss to her neck.
-*-*-*-*-*-
Quinn didn’t sleep that night. She lay awake staring up at the ceiling while Rachel cuddled up next to her and slept soundly. The blonde looked over at Puck’s bed a few times, he was doing the exact same. He looked over at Quinn and stretched his arm across the gap between the two beds, Quinn did the same and took his hand in hers.
“How bad will it hurt to see it?” Quinn asked in a whisper.
“Pretty bad.”
“Thanks for coming with us.”
Puck squeezed Quinn’s hand and let go, rolling over with his back to her. Quinn focused her attention on the girl snuggled up to her other side and ran her fingers through Rachel’s dark brown locks and kissed the top of her head.
“I love you, Rachel,” she whispered.
Rachel mumbled something in her sleep and clung tighter to her girlfriend.
-*-*-*-*-*-
Quinn paced the hotel room floor back and forth while Puck and Rachel sat on their respective beds and waited patiently. The blonde thought she was prepared for this, she really did. But facing the fact that it would happen in less than an hour had her more nervous than she’d been in her entire existence. She paced a few more times before stopping in front of the hotel room door, taking a deep breath, and putting her hand on the handle.
“Okay. Let’s go.”
Puck drove through the streets of Centreville; it looked nothing like it had, of course. Quinn stared out the window and the buildings disappeared as they drove along and pavement turned into gravel. She saw barns and livestock and finally a barbed wire fence surrounding a small plot of land with stones sticking out of the ground. There was a house off in the distance on the same land. She wasn’t sure when she’d gotten out of the car, but she had. Puck was on her left side with his arm wrapped around her waist and Rachel was on her right side with Quinn’s hand clasped tightly in her own.
Puck grabbed onto the top string of barbed wire and stepped on the one below it for Quinn and Rachel to duck through. He climbed over the fence and resumed his position of having an arm around Quinn’s waist as he led them to one of the far corners of the cemetery where a fairly new looking headstone was sticking out of the ground.
“The original stone is hard to read,” he said. “So I took all the money I had last time I was here and bought a new one to put up.”
Quinn dropped to her knees and put a hand over the tattoo on her chest and the other against the flat stone on the ground and looked up and down between it and the headstone protruding from the grass.
Rebekah Fabray Puckerman
Born
5-16-1860
Died
7-21-1861
She traced her fingertips over the weathered and worn rock where her daughter’s name was barely visible. Puck was right, it hurt. All of the physical pain she’d ever gone through was nothing compared to the stabbing in her chest and the feeling that her airways were closing. She gasped for air a few times before finally crying out and pressing her palm flat against the cold rock. Everything was real. It wasn’t just a dream and she wasn’t going to wake up from it all. It happened, all of it happened and it meant that it was going to keep happening and there wasn’t going to be an end to it.
The blonde felt a soft hand on her right shoulder and what possessed her to do it, she didn’t know, but she shrugged away from it and leaned to her left into stronger arms that held her while she cried into his chest.
“I’ll…go wait in the car,” she heard a soft voice say, filled with what could only be called rejection.
Quinn didn’t have the energy to run after her, only to cling on to Puck a little harder and pray that Rachel would forgive her because at the moment she needed someone who got it. Someone who had been there with her and without her but had been there.
“I want it to stop,” Quinn whimpered. “I want it to stop, Puck…please just make it stop.”
“We gotta go,” Puck said softly. “We gotta go…”
“No…no I can’t leave her.”
“It’s just a grave.”
“Stop saying that. You don’t believe it.”
“You’re right, I don’t,” he said. He pulled Quinn away by her shoulders and the blonde looked up into Puck’s matching red eyes. “But there’s another girl that needs you to tell her everything’s gonna be okay right now.”
Quinn turned her head to the car that was waiting on the gravel road. Rachel was sitting in the back, behind the passenger seat, staring straight ahead.
“She d-doesn’t unders-s-stand.”
“No, she doesn’t. But she wants to and she loves you and she’s here, Q. Rachel is here.”
Quinn turned back to the two stones once more and touched her head to the cool rock before pressing a kiss to it and letting a few more tears fall. She stood and Puck helped her through the fence again and back to the car. The blonde slid into the back seat next to her girlfriend and reached over to take Rachel’s hand. The brunette winced a little.
“I’m sorry, Rachel…I’m so sorry.”
Rachel was quiet the entire drive back to the hotel. When they got there, Puck kicked the two girls out of the car and took off with it leaving the blonde and the brunette alone in the room. Quinn sat in the middle of one bed, Rachel on the other.
“You still love him, don’t you?”
Quinn nodded. “I’ll always love him but it’s not…he’s the father of my baby…he’s the only one who has ever known what I was going through. He’s the only one that knows what it’s like to want it to end. I’ll always be connected to him. But I love you, Rachel…I want to be with you. I don’t want to be with him.”
“I could know as well, Quinn, if you’d let me.”
Quinn dropped her head and threaded her fingers through her hair. “Rachel…”
“I meant I wish that you would at least discuss it with me.”
“What do you want me to tell you? I lost a child, Rachel. No one knows what that is like until they’ve lived it. No one. No matter how much talking I do or how much I let you in there are some things you’re never going to understand, okay?”
Rachel whimpered a little.
“You’re born, you live, you die,” Quinn mumbled. “I was born and now here I am. I’ll look like this forever. You’re going to age, you’re going to live life knowing that each day could be your last. I’m going to lose everyone I care about except for Puck. I know you only know him as this guy that likes to chase women but he’s a lot more than that to me. He’s sweet and romantic and he was my first love and the father of our child so I’m sorry but we’ll always have that.”
“Are you breaking up with me?”
“No!” Quinn snapped her head up and jumped off of her bed over to Rachel. She cupped the girl’s face in her hands and shook her head. “I love you, Rachel. I love you I’m just trying to get you to understand why sometimes…sometimes I might go to him to talk instead of you. I’ll try to talk to you about it but sometimes I need someone who gets it, alright?”
Rachel nodded. "I understand."
“We’re okay, right?” Quinn tucked Rachel’s hair back behind her ears. “New York City?”
“New York City,” Rachel whispered, closing the gap between them to press a kiss to Quinn’s lips.
Quinn smiled into the kiss and Rachel pulled her back on the bed. Quinn settled her hips in between her girlfriend’s legs and ran her hands up the sides of Rachel’s shirt and was almost to her goal when the hotel room door flung open.
“Damn!” Puck growled. “Shoulda waited like five more minutes!”
Quinn rolled her eyes and sat up. “You are not watching us have sex, Puck.”
Puck dropped a few bags and a tray of cups on the small hotel room table. “Got dinner, burgers and fries. I didn’t know what kind of shakes you guys wanted so I got one of each.” He gestured to the three cups.
“You’re still not watching.”
“I bought you dinner!”
“Noah, spending fifteen dollars on artery clogging grease sandwiches does not constitute buying us dinner. Even if it did, the answer is still no.”
“You guys suck.”
Quinn smirked and Rachel shook her head.
Puck sat on the bed while Rachel and Quinn each took a chair at the small table to eat their dinners. It was mostly silent aside from the sound of the TV, Puck had finally managed to pick up something halfway decent on TV.
“So you guys figure your shit out?” he asked when the reception went out again.
Quinn nodded. “I think so.”
“We’ve come to the understanding that there are certain emotional supports that only you are able to provide Quinn with but that I am most certainly her partner of choice. She’s assured me that she’ll attempt to confide in me but I realize that there are aspects of her past that I won’t be able to relate to.”
“So…you’re cool?”
“Yes, Noah, we’re cool.”
“Sweet. You guys are going to New York after this, right?”
Quinn grabbed Rachel’s strawberry shake and took a drink. “Yeah, why?”
Rachel squeaked as the blonde returned the drink. “Quinn, that’s unsanit-“
“I just had my tongue in your mouth less than half an hour ago, sweetie. You really want to talk about sharing straws?”
Rachel growled and retaliated by taking a drink of Quinn’s chocolate shake and smirking in triumph.
Puck smirked. “Thought maybe I’d tag along to New York. I’ve never been.”
“Noah, you mean to tell me you’ve spent well over a century and a half on this Earth and you’ve never been to New York City?”
“Nope,” Puck shrugged. “Q’s the travel expert. I mostly stuck out west except for Woodstock.”
“If you want to come,” Quinn said with a shrug, “fine with me. You’re getting your own place, though.”
“Quinn, living in New York City is very expensive. It would be difficult for Noah to find a decent living space on one income.”
“He’d drill holes in the wall so he could watch us and he’d probably try to bug our room with cameras.”
Rachel narrowed her eyes at Puck who looked away from the pair and whistled. The brunette threw a few French fries at the young man on the bed.
“Hey!”
“Perhaps Quinn is right, you should find your own living space.”
Puck threw the fries back toward the table. “I’m a dude. You guys are hot. Seriously, can you blame me?”
Quinn and Rachel each threw a handful of fries and Puck tried to shield them but failed miserably.
Part IV A