All This Time [4A/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: ~3,500/~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
Author's Note: I split this up because as a whole, it moves too quickly. So I'm doing A & B.
Banner by: insaneantics21 Click through for hi-res!
-Part IV A-
August 2012
New York City, New York
Puck did migrate with Quinn and Rachel to New York City and they did consent to let him move in with them into a very small one bedroom apartment. Puck slept on the pullout couch in the living room, Rachel and Quinn in the bedroom. Rachel made him sign a contract stating he would, under no circumstances, drill holes in the wall or place any kind of recording devices in the apartment lest he be thrown out onto the street with nothing but the clothes on his back and since Puck had a habit of walking around the apartment in only his boxers, he signed.
Rachel attended her classes at Julliard and worked an on-campus job; Puck just left during the days and came home with money. He assured Quinn he wasn’t doing anything illegal so she just rolled her eyes and gave him a grocery list. Quinn found a job at a dark, suspicious looking bar where the owner only required her name, a phone number, and an emergency contact. Quinn wrote it all down, putting the number for Puck’s pay by the minute phone he’d come home with one afternoon. The bar owner stated that if Quinn didn’t ask questions, neither would he. The system worked.
It was rare that the three of them got to spend time together, someone was always working or going to class, their free time rarely overlapped but when it did they were Quinn’s favorite moments. She and Rachel would snuggle up on the couch, Puck would stretch out on the floor, they’d make a giant bowl of popcorn, and settle down to watch whatever was on TV or catch up on TiVo (the one splurge they’d agreed on).
It was a Sunday afternoon in October, just before Rachel and Quinn’s anniversary. The brunette had insisted on being the big spoon that day when the trio went through their ritual. Quinn was relaxed back against Rachel with her head tucked under the brunette’s chin and her fingers entwined with Rachel’s on her stomach. Puck, seated on the floor and leaning against the couch, flipped through the TV channels and finally settled on a documentary about the 1960’s since there was nothing else on.
“We were there,” Puck said, pointing to the TV. On the screen were scenes from Woodstock.
Quinn groaned. “Oh God, can we please not talk about that?”
“You went to Woodstock? Like…actual Woodstock?”
“You never told her about that?” Puck smirked and turned to look at the pair. Quinn narrowed her eyes at him.
“No!” she hissed.
“Q had her first taste of LSD.”
“Shut up, Puck.”
Rachel furrowed her eyebrows. “You’ve experimented with drugs?”
“Then and then only. It was Woodstock, Rachel. What else was I going to do? I haven’t touched it or anything else except for alcohol since then.”
“Which is a total bummer. She was a horndog when she was on acid.”
Rachel spit out the drink of water she had just taken, soaking Quinn. The blonde shot up out of Rachel’s embrace and grabbed napkins off the coffee table to dry herself off.
“What?!” Rachel looked back and forth between her girlfriend and her friend.
“Puck.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m going to kill you.”
“Rach, it was like…” Puck furrowed his eyebrows and counted on his fingers. “Twenty-five years before you were born. Seriously, no big deal. It was the last time we did it.”
“Well yes but I was under the assumption you had discontinued your relationship long before then.”
“Sex isn’t dating,” Puck laughed. “Like I said, it was the last time.”
“The last time you saw each other?” Rachel inquired, pulling Quinn to lean against her and re-wrapping her arms around the blonde.
“No. When was it Q?”
“I don’t know, sometime in the nineties. Denver, at that diner. I had just come back from Europe.”
“You bitched at the waitress about the lasagna.”
“I was used to actual Italian food. Not diner food. Give me a break.”
Rachel giggled and pulled Quinn’s hair away to kiss the back of her neck.
“Wait, wait!” Quinn sat up and pointed at the TV. “Give me that.” She grabbed the remote out of Puck’s hand and hit ‘rewind’. She hit play when she found what she was looking for and the clip that flashed on the screen was only a couple of seconds long but Quinn had spotted something familiar. She laughed when she saw it. “Look!”
She played the clip again and hit pause. On the screen was Quinn in mid twirl with a joint in one hand and Puck’s hand in the other as he leered at her.
“Oh my God, Quinn!” Rachel squealed. “You were a hippie! A complete hippie!”
“Dude, that is awesome.”
“That must’ve been right after you gave me the acid. I look so spaced out.”
Rachel grinned and pressed a kiss to Quinn’s cheek. “You look beautiful.”
Quinn shook her head and smiled and again leaned back against Rachel. Puck hit ‘play’ and Quinn snuggled with her girlfriend while they finished watching the remainder of the documentary. The smile left her face when she sighed and looked up at her girlfriend, now fully engrossed in whatever was on the screen. All of the people dancing at Woodstock had aged. The generation that said they’d never get old was now running banks and retiring. Sometimes it was difficult to remember that everyone around her was going to age, other times she was reminded of it all the time. She was reminded of it when she looked at Rachel. She was reminded of it when Rachel pointed at something in a store window that she wanted for her birthday.
Quinn sighed and pressed a kiss to the underside of Rachel’s jaw.
“I love you,” Quinn whispered.
“I love you, too.”
-*-*-*-*-*-
Quinn kicked Puck out of the apartment for Halloween. When Rachel got home from her classes and job at the library that afternoon she was greeted with chocolates, candles, and sparkling cider. The pair ended up tangled in bed and snuggled close together. Rachel had kissed every single scar on Quinn’s body, the blonde had noticed. It was as if the brunette girl was trying to heal them or erase the memories that still haunted her.
“Quinn?” Rachel’s head was on Quinn’s chest, her arm holding tight around the blonde’s waist as if she were afraid to let go.
“Yeah baby?”
“If I ask you something will you promise not to be angry with me?”
“I’ll try.” Quinn knew what was coming. She closed her eyes and tightened her grip on Rachel’s shoulder.
“I want to do it.”
“Rachel…”
“Please, please just listen to me!”
“We’ve been over this…”
Rachel pulled away and got out of bed. Quinn groaned as she watched the brunette scramble around for her clothes. She found her shorts and grabbed Quinn’s t-shirt.
“Rachel, please-“
“You won’t listen to me! I’m not a child, Quinn Fabray! I may not hold the knowledge of the world like you believe you do but I’m not a child. I’m a mature, responsible young adult and this should be my decision.”
“You don’t know what this is like, Rachel!” Quinn threw the sheets back and started searching for her own shorts and a shirt. Rachel stormed out of the bedroom, Quinn gave up on the clothing search and pulled the sheet off of the bed to wrap herself in. “Get back here!” She stumbled over the sheet a few times as she made her way to the kitchen.
“You think I haven’t thought about it?” Rachel opened and then slammed a cabinet door. “Do you honestly think I haven’t given it hours, quite possibly even days, of thought? Of what it would be like?” She opened and slammed another cabinet shut. Quinn jumped a little. “I know we’ve only been together for a year and I know that I’m only eighteen-“
“Seventeen,” Quinn mumbled.
“Close enough! I’m old enough and intelligent enough to make my own decisions! I skipped a grade, if you recall me telling you. My intelligence is higher than that of-”
“You skipped kindergarten!”
Rachel slammed yet another cabinet shut and Quinn growled.
“What the hell are you looking for?!”
“I don’t know!” Rachel shouted, clenching her fists at her sides. “I don’t know! I’m just…I’m frustrated! I need to do something! I just…I don’t know! I love you! I love you and I want to be with you, why is that so fucking bad? Why, Quinn?!”
Quinn shook her head. “Because I don’t want you to give up-“
Suddenly, Rachel was nose to nose with Quinn with a look of fury in her eyes that Quinn had never seen.
“I would give up everything for you, Quinn,” Rachel hissed. “I love you.”
“And that’s why I can’t-“
Rachel let out a loud, frustrated growl and went back to the kitchen and started pacing. “Do you remember what you told me this summer? On our way to Virginia?”
Quinn winced.
“Do you remember, Quinn? You told me that you would’ve given Rebekah the choice as to whether or not she wished to become immortal when you believed she was old enough. Do you remember that conversation?”
Quinn nodded and wrapped her arms around her body.
“Why then, Quinn, can I not be afforded the same luxury of choosing for myself whether I live forever or die? Why can I not choose what I wish to give up in order to spend eternity with you like you would’ve let her?”
Quinn had no answer. She felt a few tears slip out of her eyes as Rachel stopped pacing and stared up at her.
“You may have a good hundred and fifty years on me but that doesn’t mean I’m incapable of making intelligent and informed decisions. I’m not a moron.”
“You’re not,” Quinn whispered. “You’re not a moron but-“
“’But’ nothing, Quinn. I want to make the decision on my own. That’s all I’m asking you for is to let the decision lie with me. ” Rachel clenched her jaw shut, Quinn could see the muscles twitching. “Until you grant me that then I believe it would be wise for you to find somewhere else to sleep.”
“You do realize the only other place to sleep in this apartment is on the couch with Puck?”
Rachel shrugged. “Do what you like.”
-*-*-*-*-*-
November 3, 2012
New York, New York
Quinn hopped up on a bar stool and stretched her neck a little, the bartender slid her a shot and she smiled appreciatively at him. It had been a long night. Rachel was working late and even though the diva still wasn’t speaking to the blonde, Quinn didn’t want to go home to an empty apartment so she killed a few minutes by shooting the breeze with the bartender. He left after a few minutes, leaving the blonde to close up. Before the blonde could move to the main door to lock it, it opened. A nervous looking young man stepped inside.
“We’re closed,” Quinn said. “Sorry buddy.”
The man didn’t say anything, just pulled out a gun and aimed it at her.
“Open the register,” he said. He shook his weapon insistently. “Open it!”
“Kiss my ass,” the blonde spat.
“You open it or I shoot you and then I open it.”
Quinn smirked. “Go ahead.”
The man fired, Quinn felt the momentary searing pain in her shoulder but she remained stoic. He fired a second and third time, the shots hit her square in the chest.
“Are you done now?” the blonde inquired.
The man stood where he was, absolutely stunned. Quinn reached behind the bar and pressed the alarm button and grabbed the pistol residing there. The man dropped his weapon and gaped at her. Quinn felt the bullets push themselves out of her skin and she pulled them out and they hit the floor, the criminal still standing dumbfounded.
Within minutes the police were there and Quinn answered their questions until one of them noticed the small red spots on her white work shirt where the blood had oozed out a little. Another pointed out the three empty casings on the ground as well as three bloody bullets.
“You were shot?” the female cop said, her eyebrow arched.
Quinn blinked and found herself nodding. “I’m fine.”
“You…were shot…three times.”
Quinn wrung her hands. She hadn’t been thinking about the aftermath when she stood up to the almost-felon.
“I’ve given my statement, can I go?”
“You should have the paramedics…”
“I told you, I’m fine.”
“Stay right here,” the woman said.
Quinn watched nervously as the cop went over to another officer and pointed in her direction, whispering to the man. A third officer joined them and the woman did it again. Quinn’s eyes darted to all of the exits but they were all blocked. The third officer walked away from the other pair to an officer that was at the doorway.
“Just a few more minutes,” the woman said as she cautiously approached the blonde. “It’s protocol to have medical come to the scene.”
“I told you…”
“You just…need to stay here.”
Quinn’s eyes darted to the doors again, all of the officers were looking at her. She waited until the medical team got there and the man escorted her to the ambulance outside, a few officers stood by.
“There’s no blood coming from these wounds,” the paramedic noted. “Just the stains…”
“Can I please leave?”
“Let me take a look at the wounds…”
Quinn shook her head. “No.”
“Ma’am, I really should…”
Quinn shook her head again. One of the officers pulled the paramedic away and whispered to him. The paramedic returned and reached out to touch Quinn’s shoulder where one of the stains was. The blonde shrugged away.
“I told you no. I have the right to refuse medical attention!” Quinn jumped off the back of the ambulance and started walking, an officer grabbed her arm before she could take three steps.
“We’re not finished questioning you.”
“I gave my statement!”
“We need you to come with us,” the large man said.
“N-no…”
“Then I’ll book you on refusal to cooperate.”
Quinn found herself in the back of a police car headed to the station. She was put into an interrogation room and she stared up at the mirror in the room and tried to remain calm. She wasn’t sure how long she waited but she knew it was a long damn time. An hour or two at least. Two men in suits came into the room and sat opposite her, one of them handed her a cup of water.
“You’re looking quite well for someone who was just shot in the chest three times,” one man said. “FBI, in case you’re wondering.”
“I’m not talking to you,” Quinn said, jaw clenched shut.
“We reviewed the security tapes from the bar,” the other man said. “You barely flinched when those bullets hit you. Even someone with a Kevlar vest usually at least gets the wind knocked out of them. The man we arrested said he saw you pull the bullets out of your wounds and drop them on the ground. Care to provide an explanation?”
Quinn shook her head.
“We’ve tried to do a background check based on the records the bar owner gave us,” the first man said. “All we have is a name and the cell phone number of a one Mr. Noah Puckerman who is listed as your emergency contact. You want to tell us why there’s nothing else?”
Quinn shook her head again, this time with tears in her eyes.
“You do know that because we can’t find anything we can assume that you’re an illegal citizen and keep you for as long as we like?”
“And there’s the matter of the fact that you’re alive after tonight’s events.”
“I want to make a phone call,” Quinn finally mumbled.
The two men looked at each other and nodded, one of them gripped onto Quinn’s arm and led her out of the room and to a desk. He slid a phone in front of her and Quinn took a deep breath before dialing the number.
“Hello?”
“Puck?”
“Q? Is that you? Where the hell are you calling me from?”
“I’m in trouble.”
There was a pause. “What kind of trouble?”
“The bad kind. I’m sitting in a police station. I don’t know what to do, Puck. I…I don’t know. They’re running a background check. I was shot and...there was a witness.”
“Fuck. Fuck! Shit! Why didn’t you shoot him back!?”
“I didn’t think about it! What the hell am I supposed to do?!” Quinn tried to keep quiet so the nearby officers couldn’t hear.
“Which station are you at?”
Quinn looked around the station. “I don’t know…it’s close to the bar, though. Only a few blocks.”
“Okay…just stay calm, alright?”
“I will.”
“Just hang in there and don’t tell them anything, okay?”
Quinn nodded. “Okay.”
The blonde hung up the phone and one of the men in a suit was at her side a moment later, escorting her back to the interrogation room.
“We let you have your phone call,” the man said. “Now you get to cooperate. Are you a citizen of this country?”
Quinn swallowed hard but remained silent and still.
“Answer the question!”
More silence.
“How did you survive the gunshot wounds?”
Silence.
“God damn it!” The man slammed his fist down on the table. “Answer me!”
Quinn looked down at her lap.
“You know if your friend is a citizen we can bring him in and throw him in jail for aiding an illegal citizen, right? Or just deport him if he’s with you. So you better start talking.”
“Fuck you.”
Before the man could say anything there was shouting outside the door. Just as he stepped to open it the door burst open, knocking him in the face and causing him to pass out on the floor. Puck slammed the door shut behind him and locked it. Quinn leapt out of her chair and into his arms and he held her as the door rattled. Puck let go to search the man in the suit’s pockets and he found a pen. He grabbed a sheet of paper off the desk, glanced up at the two-way mirror momentarily, and stared writing.
”I’m going to get the shit tasered out of me when I open that door but you have to run. Rachel’s waiting with a bag and some cash for you outside. Make a left when you get out of here, she’s in the alley. Get to the bus station and just get whatever ticket you can and get the fuck out of here.”
“I can’t come back here if I leave.” Quinn wrote.
“I know.”
“Rachel?”
“I lied to her and told her we’d follow you because you would call us when you got to wherever. You can’t call her.”
“I know.” Quinn sniffled.
The door stopped rattling and Puck looked out of the interrogation room through the small door window. There were officers waiting around the door. Quinn grabbed another sheet of paper from the file folder and flipped it over and started writing. When she finished she folded it up and shoved it in her pocket.
“Remember,” Puck whispered, glancing back at the two way mirror. “Run.”
“I’ll miss you,” Quinn mumbled. “Be careful, okay?”
Puck nodded. “I’ll be fine. Probably see you again soon.”
Quinn smiled and hugged him. Puck unlocked the door and took a deep breath, he stepped out first and Quinn bolted, not looking back. She successfully evaded the officers in the police station and got outside. She almost missed the alleyway but skidded and turned just in time. She nearly slammed into Rachel. The short brunette flung her arms around the blonde and sobbed into her shoulder.
“Quinn…are you okay? Wh-what happened?!”
“I don’t have time…you’ll see it all on the news. Right now I have to get out of here, okay?”
“You’ll call me? Tell me where you are so I can come find you, right?”
Quinn leaned down and pressed a heated kiss to Rachel’s lips. She gripped onto the girl’s hips and poured every bit of her heart and soul into the kiss. She felt Rachel’s tears streaming and she knew her own were joining them.
“I love you,” the blonde said when she pulled away. She pulled the note out of her pocket and put it into Rachel’s hand. “Don’t open this until I’m gone, promise?”
Rachel nodded. “I love you, too. There’s all the money you had saved in an envelope in your bag and Noah put in everything he had on him…I think I got enough clothes for you for a while.”
“I have to go. I love you.”
Quinn pressed one more kiss to Rachel’s lips and looked one last time into dark brown eyes before she turned and started running again.
Part IV B
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: ~3,500/~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
Author's Note: I split this up because as a whole, it moves too quickly. So I'm doing A & B.
Banner by: insaneantics21 Click through for hi-res!
-Part IV A-
August 2012
New York City, New York
Puck did migrate with Quinn and Rachel to New York City and they did consent to let him move in with them into a very small one bedroom apartment. Puck slept on the pullout couch in the living room, Rachel and Quinn in the bedroom. Rachel made him sign a contract stating he would, under no circumstances, drill holes in the wall or place any kind of recording devices in the apartment lest he be thrown out onto the street with nothing but the clothes on his back and since Puck had a habit of walking around the apartment in only his boxers, he signed.
Rachel attended her classes at Julliard and worked an on-campus job; Puck just left during the days and came home with money. He assured Quinn he wasn’t doing anything illegal so she just rolled her eyes and gave him a grocery list. Quinn found a job at a dark, suspicious looking bar where the owner only required her name, a phone number, and an emergency contact. Quinn wrote it all down, putting the number for Puck’s pay by the minute phone he’d come home with one afternoon. The bar owner stated that if Quinn didn’t ask questions, neither would he. The system worked.
It was rare that the three of them got to spend time together, someone was always working or going to class, their free time rarely overlapped but when it did they were Quinn’s favorite moments. She and Rachel would snuggle up on the couch, Puck would stretch out on the floor, they’d make a giant bowl of popcorn, and settle down to watch whatever was on TV or catch up on TiVo (the one splurge they’d agreed on).
It was a Sunday afternoon in October, just before Rachel and Quinn’s anniversary. The brunette had insisted on being the big spoon that day when the trio went through their ritual. Quinn was relaxed back against Rachel with her head tucked under the brunette’s chin and her fingers entwined with Rachel’s on her stomach. Puck, seated on the floor and leaning against the couch, flipped through the TV channels and finally settled on a documentary about the 1960’s since there was nothing else on.
“We were there,” Puck said, pointing to the TV. On the screen were scenes from Woodstock.
Quinn groaned. “Oh God, can we please not talk about that?”
“You went to Woodstock? Like…actual Woodstock?”
“You never told her about that?” Puck smirked and turned to look at the pair. Quinn narrowed her eyes at him.
“No!” she hissed.
“Q had her first taste of LSD.”
“Shut up, Puck.”
Rachel furrowed her eyebrows. “You’ve experimented with drugs?”
“Then and then only. It was Woodstock, Rachel. What else was I going to do? I haven’t touched it or anything else except for alcohol since then.”
“Which is a total bummer. She was a horndog when she was on acid.”
Rachel spit out the drink of water she had just taken, soaking Quinn. The blonde shot up out of Rachel’s embrace and grabbed napkins off the coffee table to dry herself off.
“What?!” Rachel looked back and forth between her girlfriend and her friend.
“Puck.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m going to kill you.”
“Rach, it was like…” Puck furrowed his eyebrows and counted on his fingers. “Twenty-five years before you were born. Seriously, no big deal. It was the last time we did it.”
“Well yes but I was under the assumption you had discontinued your relationship long before then.”
“Sex isn’t dating,” Puck laughed. “Like I said, it was the last time.”
“The last time you saw each other?” Rachel inquired, pulling Quinn to lean against her and re-wrapping her arms around the blonde.
“No. When was it Q?”
“I don’t know, sometime in the nineties. Denver, at that diner. I had just come back from Europe.”
“You bitched at the waitress about the lasagna.”
“I was used to actual Italian food. Not diner food. Give me a break.”
Rachel giggled and pulled Quinn’s hair away to kiss the back of her neck.
“Wait, wait!” Quinn sat up and pointed at the TV. “Give me that.” She grabbed the remote out of Puck’s hand and hit ‘rewind’. She hit play when she found what she was looking for and the clip that flashed on the screen was only a couple of seconds long but Quinn had spotted something familiar. She laughed when she saw it. “Look!”
She played the clip again and hit pause. On the screen was Quinn in mid twirl with a joint in one hand and Puck’s hand in the other as he leered at her.
“Oh my God, Quinn!” Rachel squealed. “You were a hippie! A complete hippie!”
“Dude, that is awesome.”
“That must’ve been right after you gave me the acid. I look so spaced out.”
Rachel grinned and pressed a kiss to Quinn’s cheek. “You look beautiful.”
Quinn shook her head and smiled and again leaned back against Rachel. Puck hit ‘play’ and Quinn snuggled with her girlfriend while they finished watching the remainder of the documentary. The smile left her face when she sighed and looked up at her girlfriend, now fully engrossed in whatever was on the screen. All of the people dancing at Woodstock had aged. The generation that said they’d never get old was now running banks and retiring. Sometimes it was difficult to remember that everyone around her was going to age, other times she was reminded of it all the time. She was reminded of it when she looked at Rachel. She was reminded of it when Rachel pointed at something in a store window that she wanted for her birthday.
Quinn sighed and pressed a kiss to the underside of Rachel’s jaw.
“I love you,” Quinn whispered.
“I love you, too.”
-*-*-*-*-*-
Quinn kicked Puck out of the apartment for Halloween. When Rachel got home from her classes and job at the library that afternoon she was greeted with chocolates, candles, and sparkling cider. The pair ended up tangled in bed and snuggled close together. Rachel had kissed every single scar on Quinn’s body, the blonde had noticed. It was as if the brunette girl was trying to heal them or erase the memories that still haunted her.
“Quinn?” Rachel’s head was on Quinn’s chest, her arm holding tight around the blonde’s waist as if she were afraid to let go.
“Yeah baby?”
“If I ask you something will you promise not to be angry with me?”
“I’ll try.” Quinn knew what was coming. She closed her eyes and tightened her grip on Rachel’s shoulder.
“I want to do it.”
“Rachel…”
“Please, please just listen to me!”
“We’ve been over this…”
Rachel pulled away and got out of bed. Quinn groaned as she watched the brunette scramble around for her clothes. She found her shorts and grabbed Quinn’s t-shirt.
“Rachel, please-“
“You won’t listen to me! I’m not a child, Quinn Fabray! I may not hold the knowledge of the world like you believe you do but I’m not a child. I’m a mature, responsible young adult and this should be my decision.”
“You don’t know what this is like, Rachel!” Quinn threw the sheets back and started searching for her own shorts and a shirt. Rachel stormed out of the bedroom, Quinn gave up on the clothing search and pulled the sheet off of the bed to wrap herself in. “Get back here!” She stumbled over the sheet a few times as she made her way to the kitchen.
“You think I haven’t thought about it?” Rachel opened and then slammed a cabinet door. “Do you honestly think I haven’t given it hours, quite possibly even days, of thought? Of what it would be like?” She opened and slammed another cabinet shut. Quinn jumped a little. “I know we’ve only been together for a year and I know that I’m only eighteen-“
“Seventeen,” Quinn mumbled.
“Close enough! I’m old enough and intelligent enough to make my own decisions! I skipped a grade, if you recall me telling you. My intelligence is higher than that of-”
“You skipped kindergarten!”
Rachel slammed yet another cabinet shut and Quinn growled.
“What the hell are you looking for?!”
“I don’t know!” Rachel shouted, clenching her fists at her sides. “I don’t know! I’m just…I’m frustrated! I need to do something! I just…I don’t know! I love you! I love you and I want to be with you, why is that so fucking bad? Why, Quinn?!”
Quinn shook her head. “Because I don’t want you to give up-“
Suddenly, Rachel was nose to nose with Quinn with a look of fury in her eyes that Quinn had never seen.
“I would give up everything for you, Quinn,” Rachel hissed. “I love you.”
“And that’s why I can’t-“
Rachel let out a loud, frustrated growl and went back to the kitchen and started pacing. “Do you remember what you told me this summer? On our way to Virginia?”
Quinn winced.
“Do you remember, Quinn? You told me that you would’ve given Rebekah the choice as to whether or not she wished to become immortal when you believed she was old enough. Do you remember that conversation?”
Quinn nodded and wrapped her arms around her body.
“Why then, Quinn, can I not be afforded the same luxury of choosing for myself whether I live forever or die? Why can I not choose what I wish to give up in order to spend eternity with you like you would’ve let her?”
Quinn had no answer. She felt a few tears slip out of her eyes as Rachel stopped pacing and stared up at her.
“You may have a good hundred and fifty years on me but that doesn’t mean I’m incapable of making intelligent and informed decisions. I’m not a moron.”
“You’re not,” Quinn whispered. “You’re not a moron but-“
“’But’ nothing, Quinn. I want to make the decision on my own. That’s all I’m asking you for is to let the decision lie with me. ” Rachel clenched her jaw shut, Quinn could see the muscles twitching. “Until you grant me that then I believe it would be wise for you to find somewhere else to sleep.”
“You do realize the only other place to sleep in this apartment is on the couch with Puck?”
Rachel shrugged. “Do what you like.”
-*-*-*-*-*-
November 3, 2012
New York, New York
Quinn hopped up on a bar stool and stretched her neck a little, the bartender slid her a shot and she smiled appreciatively at him. It had been a long night. Rachel was working late and even though the diva still wasn’t speaking to the blonde, Quinn didn’t want to go home to an empty apartment so she killed a few minutes by shooting the breeze with the bartender. He left after a few minutes, leaving the blonde to close up. Before the blonde could move to the main door to lock it, it opened. A nervous looking young man stepped inside.
“We’re closed,” Quinn said. “Sorry buddy.”
The man didn’t say anything, just pulled out a gun and aimed it at her.
“Open the register,” he said. He shook his weapon insistently. “Open it!”
“Kiss my ass,” the blonde spat.
“You open it or I shoot you and then I open it.”
Quinn smirked. “Go ahead.”
The man fired, Quinn felt the momentary searing pain in her shoulder but she remained stoic. He fired a second and third time, the shots hit her square in the chest.
“Are you done now?” the blonde inquired.
The man stood where he was, absolutely stunned. Quinn reached behind the bar and pressed the alarm button and grabbed the pistol residing there. The man dropped his weapon and gaped at her. Quinn felt the bullets push themselves out of her skin and she pulled them out and they hit the floor, the criminal still standing dumbfounded.
Within minutes the police were there and Quinn answered their questions until one of them noticed the small red spots on her white work shirt where the blood had oozed out a little. Another pointed out the three empty casings on the ground as well as three bloody bullets.
“You were shot?” the female cop said, her eyebrow arched.
Quinn blinked and found herself nodding. “I’m fine.”
“You…were shot…three times.”
Quinn wrung her hands. She hadn’t been thinking about the aftermath when she stood up to the almost-felon.
“I’ve given my statement, can I go?”
“You should have the paramedics…”
“I told you, I’m fine.”
“Stay right here,” the woman said.
Quinn watched nervously as the cop went over to another officer and pointed in her direction, whispering to the man. A third officer joined them and the woman did it again. Quinn’s eyes darted to all of the exits but they were all blocked. The third officer walked away from the other pair to an officer that was at the doorway.
“Just a few more minutes,” the woman said as she cautiously approached the blonde. “It’s protocol to have medical come to the scene.”
“I told you…”
“You just…need to stay here.”
Quinn’s eyes darted to the doors again, all of the officers were looking at her. She waited until the medical team got there and the man escorted her to the ambulance outside, a few officers stood by.
“There’s no blood coming from these wounds,” the paramedic noted. “Just the stains…”
“Can I please leave?”
“Let me take a look at the wounds…”
Quinn shook her head. “No.”
“Ma’am, I really should…”
Quinn shook her head again. One of the officers pulled the paramedic away and whispered to him. The paramedic returned and reached out to touch Quinn’s shoulder where one of the stains was. The blonde shrugged away.
“I told you no. I have the right to refuse medical attention!” Quinn jumped off the back of the ambulance and started walking, an officer grabbed her arm before she could take three steps.
“We’re not finished questioning you.”
“I gave my statement!”
“We need you to come with us,” the large man said.
“N-no…”
“Then I’ll book you on refusal to cooperate.”
Quinn found herself in the back of a police car headed to the station. She was put into an interrogation room and she stared up at the mirror in the room and tried to remain calm. She wasn’t sure how long she waited but she knew it was a long damn time. An hour or two at least. Two men in suits came into the room and sat opposite her, one of them handed her a cup of water.
“You’re looking quite well for someone who was just shot in the chest three times,” one man said. “FBI, in case you’re wondering.”
“I’m not talking to you,” Quinn said, jaw clenched shut.
“We reviewed the security tapes from the bar,” the other man said. “You barely flinched when those bullets hit you. Even someone with a Kevlar vest usually at least gets the wind knocked out of them. The man we arrested said he saw you pull the bullets out of your wounds and drop them on the ground. Care to provide an explanation?”
Quinn shook her head.
“We’ve tried to do a background check based on the records the bar owner gave us,” the first man said. “All we have is a name and the cell phone number of a one Mr. Noah Puckerman who is listed as your emergency contact. You want to tell us why there’s nothing else?”
Quinn shook her head again, this time with tears in her eyes.
“You do know that because we can’t find anything we can assume that you’re an illegal citizen and keep you for as long as we like?”
“And there’s the matter of the fact that you’re alive after tonight’s events.”
“I want to make a phone call,” Quinn finally mumbled.
The two men looked at each other and nodded, one of them gripped onto Quinn’s arm and led her out of the room and to a desk. He slid a phone in front of her and Quinn took a deep breath before dialing the number.
“Hello?”
“Puck?”
“Q? Is that you? Where the hell are you calling me from?”
“I’m in trouble.”
There was a pause. “What kind of trouble?”
“The bad kind. I’m sitting in a police station. I don’t know what to do, Puck. I…I don’t know. They’re running a background check. I was shot and...there was a witness.”
“Fuck. Fuck! Shit! Why didn’t you shoot him back!?”
“I didn’t think about it! What the hell am I supposed to do?!” Quinn tried to keep quiet so the nearby officers couldn’t hear.
“Which station are you at?”
Quinn looked around the station. “I don’t know…it’s close to the bar, though. Only a few blocks.”
“Okay…just stay calm, alright?”
“I will.”
“Just hang in there and don’t tell them anything, okay?”
Quinn nodded. “Okay.”
The blonde hung up the phone and one of the men in a suit was at her side a moment later, escorting her back to the interrogation room.
“We let you have your phone call,” the man said. “Now you get to cooperate. Are you a citizen of this country?”
Quinn swallowed hard but remained silent and still.
“Answer the question!”
More silence.
“How did you survive the gunshot wounds?”
Silence.
“God damn it!” The man slammed his fist down on the table. “Answer me!”
Quinn looked down at her lap.
“You know if your friend is a citizen we can bring him in and throw him in jail for aiding an illegal citizen, right? Or just deport him if he’s with you. So you better start talking.”
“Fuck you.”
Before the man could say anything there was shouting outside the door. Just as he stepped to open it the door burst open, knocking him in the face and causing him to pass out on the floor. Puck slammed the door shut behind him and locked it. Quinn leapt out of her chair and into his arms and he held her as the door rattled. Puck let go to search the man in the suit’s pockets and he found a pen. He grabbed a sheet of paper off the desk, glanced up at the two-way mirror momentarily, and stared writing.
”I’m going to get the shit tasered out of me when I open that door but you have to run. Rachel’s waiting with a bag and some cash for you outside. Make a left when you get out of here, she’s in the alley. Get to the bus station and just get whatever ticket you can and get the fuck out of here.”
“I can’t come back here if I leave.” Quinn wrote.
“I know.”
“Rachel?”
“I lied to her and told her we’d follow you because you would call us when you got to wherever. You can’t call her.”
“I know.” Quinn sniffled.
The door stopped rattling and Puck looked out of the interrogation room through the small door window. There were officers waiting around the door. Quinn grabbed another sheet of paper from the file folder and flipped it over and started writing. When she finished she folded it up and shoved it in her pocket.
“Remember,” Puck whispered, glancing back at the two way mirror. “Run.”
“I’ll miss you,” Quinn mumbled. “Be careful, okay?”
Puck nodded. “I’ll be fine. Probably see you again soon.”
Quinn smiled and hugged him. Puck unlocked the door and took a deep breath, he stepped out first and Quinn bolted, not looking back. She successfully evaded the officers in the police station and got outside. She almost missed the alleyway but skidded and turned just in time. She nearly slammed into Rachel. The short brunette flung her arms around the blonde and sobbed into her shoulder.
“Quinn…are you okay? Wh-what happened?!”
“I don’t have time…you’ll see it all on the news. Right now I have to get out of here, okay?”
“You’ll call me? Tell me where you are so I can come find you, right?”
Quinn leaned down and pressed a heated kiss to Rachel’s lips. She gripped onto the girl’s hips and poured every bit of her heart and soul into the kiss. She felt Rachel’s tears streaming and she knew her own were joining them.
“I love you,” the blonde said when she pulled away. She pulled the note out of her pocket and put it into Rachel’s hand. “Don’t open this until I’m gone, promise?”
Rachel nodded. “I love you, too. There’s all the money you had saved in an envelope in your bag and Noah put in everything he had on him…I think I got enough clothes for you for a while.”
“I have to go. I love you.”
Quinn pressed one more kiss to Rachel’s lips and looked one last time into dark brown eyes before she turned and started running again.
Part IV B