Archive of Our Own

There were many things Lucy Quinn Fabray regrets doing in her twenty-four years of life, and as she stood leaning against her rental car in the middle of an unsettlingly quiet empty street in Lima, Ohio, she couldn’t quite remember why coming back here had ever seemed like a good idea in the first place.

It wasn’t as though she had forgotten what this place felt like. If anything, Lima had a way of embedding itself into a person, the way they carried themselves and the expectations they learned to live up to or spend years trying to unlearn, and Quinn had spent a significant portion of her life doing the latter. Leaving this quaint but so archaic small town had been a necessity in her life, a clean slate for her to be whoever she wanted without the weight of everyone else around her who thought they knew what she stood for. 

And her ticket out was presented in the most perfect of presents, an early admission into Yale.

The news had come in the form of an email, one even her overflowing confidence made her reread a dozen times before it felt real, and, for reasons she hadn’t quite analyzed at the time, Rachel Berry had been the first person she told.

It had been a strange, fleeting moment of honesty, one where Quinn had let something genuine slip past the carefully maintained version of herself she offered the world. She remembers trying, in her own way, to suggest that there could be something more waiting for both of them beyond boys, reputations and their hometown. It had been, in hindsight, a naive attempt at causing impact in the life of the most stubborn girl she knew.

Because what followed had been exactly what she expected, even after her long fight against it. A “yes” and a ring Rachel shared with the boy she loved, the boy who Quinn knew as clear as day would not fight as hard to show Rachel everything she deserved.

In the end, though he kind of did, venturing to send Rachel off to New York with nothing in her way. Quinn had told herself that it didn’t bother her.

It wasn’t until much later, somewhere between late nights in New Haven, unused train tickets and the slow, disorienting process of becoming someone new, that she realized just how much it had.

And, from a distance, it was easy enough to recognize the inevitability of it all. Rachel Berry had always been meant for something bigger than Lima, for stages and spotlights and rooms that knew how to hold her ambition without trying to shrink it.

In the end, thankfully, she got exactly that.

As for New Haven, it had given Quinn more than just the turning of a new page. It gave her space to exist and figure life out. And to open doors that made it impossible to ignore the parts of herself she had once so easily set aside, or simply never allowed herself to question in the first place. At eighteen, she had arrived at Yale with a plan to be an English major, trusting her skills would put her in the spotlight while still being seen as respectable and polished enough of a choice. But it hadn’t taken long before she started reaching beyond that, signing up for screenwriting workshops on a whim when a bright pink sign up sheet reminded her of her passion for cinema. It turned out she was good at it, or at the very least, good enough to be taken seriously, which was the confidence boost she needed. Her upbringing filled with formal conversations and traditional customs made her an expert in the art of networking.

Which was exactly how she had ended up back here. In her hometown, right on Thanksgiving break.

A second book had been her idea, mostly. The push for a final draft, however, had not. Her publisher’s emails had grown increasingly persistent over the past few weeks, filled with words like results and adaptation and marketability, as if any of that would make the blinking cursor on her laptop feel less maddening. The story itself had come easily at first, unfolding in a setting that felt suspiciously familiar, following a narrative she had seen firsthand. No one but the people closest to her could know, but Quinn would be lying if she said her teenage suffering wasn’t the main inspiration behind this project.

So she had convinced herself that coming back would help. That immersing herself in the ways of her past could better put into words what her character was feeling and seeing. Because there is no better way to close out a book than to seek closure for a physical space that she feels insults her very existence. 

That might have been her first mistake. 

She had even made a point of telling the few people who might think to check in — Santana, Britt, a handful of others, not to expect to hear from her. A week, she'd said. No calls, no texts, don't bother me. She needed the quiet more than she needed virtual company, and the people who knew her well knew better than to argue with Quinn when she had made up her mind about something. The manuscript deserved her full attention, and Lima, for all its faults, deserved to be experienced without the noise of her now-perfect life bleeding into it.

It had seemed, at the time, like a perfectly reasonable plan.

But the second, as it turned out, was trusting Sam Evans to be reliable.

Quinn glanced down at her phone again, thumb hovering over the screen as if that would change the contents of the last text she received from Sam. The exchange had happened over thirty minutes ago, with Quinn letting him know she arrived in Lima, thanking him once again for letting her stay at his place while he visited Mercedes in Los Angeles.

And then she went to grab the key, which for sure I left it under the potted plant, Sam said, only it wasn’t there. That realization led to another string of panicked texts to him, which got her the most Sam Evans reply ever:

Samuel (6:02 pm)

Omg Quinn i’m so sorry

I just checked my pocket and the keys are here

Really i’m so sorry pal

This is so yuck i literally left u icecream for the week

I feel so bad ik you don’t want to stay at ur moms place

Try calling Rach ? I think she’s in town, she could help u out!

And then a string of emojis that felt very far from reassuring.

She scoffed at the words on the screen, sure that Sam knew damn well what he was doing when he suggested calling a certain someone. 

But she had more options, though none of them particularly appealing.

A hotel was the most logical choice, but the idea of sitting alone in a crappy room with nothing but the smell of old carpet and her unfinished manuscript for company made truly unsettling. Calling her mother wasn’t an option at all, not one she was willing to consider, except maybe if the world was ending.

And then there was the other option.

Quinn exhaled slowly, tilting her head back for a moment before forcing herself to look at her phone again, this time navigating to a contact she hadn’t touched in years. Didn’t even know if it was still attached to the right number.

Of course Rachel Berry would be in Lima for Thanksgiving. But then, why was she here? 

From what Quinn knew, Rachel was in the middle of a Broadway revival of Evita, a role she had once declared to be a life goal. It didn’t quite add up, that someone like Rachel would have an entire week free in the middle of something like that, but then again, Quinn had long since accepted that she no longer had any real understanding of how Rachel’s life worked.

Sam had mentioned it in passing, in the casual tone he, and everyone else, seemed to adopt whenever Rachel came up, as if disguising the intention for them to reconnect could make it less obvious. Quinn had shrugged it off just as easily, long past entertaining his thinly veiled attempts at pushing them back into each other’s orbit.

Standing here now, with the sky growing darker and the temperature dropping by the minute, maintaining the same indifference was proving to be… difficult.

Because, inconveniently enough, she had no more options.

And it was becoming increasingly clear that she might have to do the one thing she had spent years avoiding, not because Rachel Berry was unreachable, but because she never had been. The Rachel Quinn had known had always been open, earnest and far too forgiving, clear in her desire to be seen as something closer to a friend than Quinn had ever allowed.

Somewhere along the way, that had shifted, subtly at first, and then all at once, until whatever had existed between them became easier to leave behind than to fight for.

Reaching out had never been the problem.

Quinn just hadn’t wanted to find out what would happen if she did, not when she had been too busy untangling parts of herself that were buried for years.

And they had both changed. Enough, she hoped, to make whatever they had once been irrelevant.

But there was no guarantee those changes would make them fit together any better than they once had, or worse, that they might fit a little too well.

Nevertheless, Quinn wasn’t one to overthink, and this was starting to get ridiculous. She exhales through her nose, the sound sharp in the quiet, before pushing herself off the side of the car and sliding into the driver’s seat. The door shuts with a solid click, muting the chill that had begun seeping through her clothes, and for a moment she simply sits there, phone still in hand.

Rachel’s name comes up easily, since there aren’t many of those in her life—and Quinn presses the call button before she can make it into anything more than it is. Her explanation is already forming in her head: she just needs a place to stay, it’s temporary, she doesn't know who else to call. The ridiculous predicament she found herself in could be explained after she had a place to sleep that wasn’t the red hot rental car she was currently in.

The line rings once.

Twice.

On the third, it clicks.

There’s a brief rustle on the other end, paper shifting, a quiet sniffle, and then—

“Hi?”

Quinn stills, something in her chest feeling funny. Rachel’s voice is soft, just as she remembers, but rougher around the edges, like she’s either just woken up or has been speaking too much for too long.

Quinn straightens slightly in her seat, pulling one leg up without thinking, the movement instinctive enough to ground her.

“Hi, Rachel! Sorry for the sudden call.”

A moment of silence passes.

“…Quinn?”

There’s a shift on the other end of the line, like a swish of air, as if Rachel has straightened wherever she is, suddenly more alert than she had been when she picked up.

“Hey,” Quinn repeats, quieter this time, as if confirming it. “Yeah. It’s me.”

“Well,” Rachel says, and there’s something careful in the word, “this is… unexpected.”

Quinn huffs a small breath through her nose, almost a laugh, but not quite. “I couldn't agree more, actually.”

The blonde can only hear faint sounds in the brief moments it takes for the other to say something back, fabric shifting again, maybe footsteps this time, is Rachel  pacing?—and when Rachel speaks again, her voice is a little clearer.

“Is everything alright?” she asks, and it’s not overly dramatic the way it might have once been, but there’s still that unmistakable Berry-note-of-concern threaded through it. “You don’t usually—” she stops herself. “It’s just been a while.”

“That’s one way to put it,” Quinn replies, glancing out through the windshield at the empty street while feeling the awkwardness she knew was inevitable.

She exhales, deciding against easing into it. “I’m in Lima.”

One sentence that takes Rachel by surprise in ways she didn't expect.

“You’re—” Rachel starts, then stops, like she’s reworking the sentence in real time. A huff can be heard, probably her frustration at her own stuttering. Because Rachel Berry does not stutter. “You’re in Lima now?”

“Mhm.”

“For Thanksgiving?”

“Something like that.”

Another pause, not uncomfortable, but it shows how much the two women are being careful to not say the wrong thing.

“I’m here too,” Rachel says, unnecessarily.

Quinn’s lips press together briefly. “Yeah, I know.”

“Of course you do,” Rachel murmurs, and there’s the faintest hint of something familiar there—something that almost sounds like amusement.

Quinn shifts in her seat, tightening her grip on her phone for a second before forcing herself to relax it. “Look, I wouldn’t have called if I had literally any other option,” she says, tone turning more practical, more direct. “But I’m currently locked out of Sam’s house, which I was supposed to be staying at, and he is—shockingly—not helpful from across the country.”

“…You’re locked out?” Rachel repeats, and now there’s no mistaking the concern. “Quinn, it’s freezing!”

“I’m aware,” Quinn says, glancing at the fog beginning to gather faintly on the edges of the windshield. She holds back the urge to draw silly hearts with her finger on it. “I’m managing.”

A brief inhale on the other end, like Rachel is about to say several things at once and has to choose.

“Where are you?” she settles on instead.

“About ten minutes from your dad’s house, if I remember correctly. Parked in front of Sam’s house for the last hour or so.

“Stay where you are,” Rachel says immediately, the words coming out with a kind of certainty that feels both familiar and new. “I’ll come get you.”

Quinn frowns slightly. “But I have a car, Rach—”

“I know,” Rachel cuts in, not sharply, but firmly enough to stop her. “But I’m going to, Quinn. You’ll be my guest for now on, it’s only what’s expected from me as a host.”

Quinn smiles at her lengthy sentences, and feels herself a few years younger realizing that Rachel never changed, not totally at least.

“Since I know there is no arguing with you, I’ll allow it.”

“Good, ‘cause I am already on my way,” Rachel declares, voice gaining a bit more strength despite the lingering roughness. “Honestly, that Sam— I will be having words with him the next time I see him. Who leaves a woman stranded outside in this weather? It’s completely absurd.”

Quinn huffs, a real one this time. “I’m sure he’ll be devastated to learn he’s fallen out of your good graces.”

“He should be,” Rachel replies primly, though there’s a hint of a smile in it. “I take these things very seriously.”

“Clearly.”

For a few moments all Quinn can hear is a rush of wind sneaking through the window and the sound of tires on the street, coming from the other side of the call.

“I’m almost there,” Rachel breaks the silence. “You’re on… wait, are you near Maple Street or?”

“Elm,” Quinn supplies automatically. “Corner house with the weird Star Wars lawn ornaments.”

“Oh,” Rachel says, and Quinn can hear the recognition in it. “Yes, I know exactly where you are. That light saber has been there for years now.”

“Classic Samuel.”

“I don't know how he ever let you get away with us thinking he was actually named that,” Rachel murmurs, voice laced with humor, reminiscing on their time at school.

Quinn only chuckles, and shrugs, though her movement is clearly not being seen by the brunette.

Then, she shifts slightly in her seat, pressing her shoulder back against the leather, eyes flicking briefly to the rearview mirror out of habit more than anything else. “You really don’t have to rush,” she says, defaulting back to impartial conversation. “I can wait.”

“I’m already on my way,” Rachel replies, a touch more firmly. “And for the record, I’m not rushing. I’m driving at a perfectly safe and reasonable speed.”

“Of course you are.”

“I am.”

“Rachel.”

“I am, you know I hate speeding,” she repeats, with just enough emphasis to make Quinn almost smile.

“Do I? It’s been years, maybe now you’re aspiring to be a race car driver and I’d never know.”

There’s the faint sound of a turn signal clicking somewhere on Rachel’s end, followed by a soft sniffle that she clearly tries, and fails, to muffle.

Quinn’s brow furrows slightly. “You know, you sound—”

The line cuts.

Quinn pulls the phone away from her ear, frowning at the screen.

Call ended.

“…Rachel?” she says, even though there’s no one there to hear it.

For a second, she considers calling back, thumb already hovering over the screen again, irritation mixing with worry. Then flashbacks of a road and numbing silence creep into the front of her mind, cars were racing and a phone had been involved then, too. It couldn’t be, right?

A sharp tap against the driver’s side window makes her flinch.

Quinn turns, startled, and—

Rachel.

Standing just outside the car, one hand still raised from where she’d knocked against the glass, looking very much like she had, in fact, not been driving at a “perfectly reasonable speed” to get here this quickly.

For a moment, Quinn doesn’t move.

It’s not as though she hasn’t seen Rachel recently. There have been photos, interviews, occasional bootleg clips that show up on her feed—honestly, how does her algorithm even know?—enough to know what she looks like now, how she carries herself, the way success seems to have settled into her without softening any of the sharper edges.

But this is different.

Rachel is dressed in something unmistakably her, a structured black coat, grey scarf wrapped just slightly too carefully, hair loose in her classic waves, paired with bangs, of course. And even with the faint flush of illness in her cheeks and the lingering tiredness around her eyes, she looks…

Quinn exhales, the breath catching halfway out.

She’s fucked.

Rachel tilts her head slightly, peering in through the window, brows drawing together just a bit. She wipes the condensation of the car window with gloved hands. Then, softer, though Quinn can’t hear it through the glass:

“Quinn?”

That’s what finally snaps her out of it.

She reaches for the handle, hand slipping slightly before she manages to push the door open and step out into the cold. The air hits her instantly, sharper than before, but it barely registers.

Rachel takes a small step back to give her space, hands now tucked into the pockets of her coat like she needs it to stay still.

“Hi,” she says, and it sounds different out here, so real.

“Hi,” Quinn echoes, closing the car door behind her with a soft thud.

For a second, they just… look at each other.

It’s not uncomfortable, exactly. Just the two of them getting used to the sight of each other.

Rachel clears her throat lightly, shifting her weight. “You look so different—” she starts, then stops, shakes her head with a light smile on her face. “It’s good to see you.”

Quinn’s lips press together briefly, something almost like a smile threatening before she reins it in. “You too.”

Rachel exhales, a small puff of air visible in the cold, and then, with the same quiet certainty she’d had on the phone, she steps forward.

“I’m going to hug you now,” she says, as if announcing it makes it less of a decision.

Quinn lets out a short, surprised breath that turns into something softer before she can stop it. “Bring it on.”

Rachel’s arms wrap around her, warm despite the chill, firm and familiar in a way that Quinn hadn’t quite been prepared for. It takes her half a second before she returns it, one hand coming up to Rachel’s back, grounding herself in the familiarity and newness of this contact all at the same time.

They separate just as naturally, though not quite as quickly as they probably should. Her fingers linger by the thick fabric of Rachel’s coat.

Rachel sniffles again and rolls her eyes, visibly annoyed at her current state. “Okay, I came to rescue you, so let’s actually go now.”

“Right,” Quinn says dryly, though there’s no real bite to it. “My hero.”

Rachel’s smile softens at that before she glances past her toward the car. “Is this yours?”

“Rental,” Quinn confirms, following her gaze. “Picked it up at the airport. Seems a little unnecessary now.”

Rachel shakes her head slightly, already thinking two steps ahead. “We’ll come back for it. Tomorrow, maybe,” she adds, gesturing vaguely to the quiet street around them. “When it’s less… bleak. And we can catch up because I know I’m curious about what Quinn Fabray is doing in Lima.”

Quinn huffs lightly. “I could say the same thing, you know.”

“So we can talk, I’d love to talk,” Rachel replies without missing a beat.

“Yeah, me too.”

“Do you have bags?” Rachel asks, wanting to be of service, she steps to the side.

Quinn nods toward the backseat. “Just that. I don’t plan on staying here long.”

Rachel doesn’t comment on that, but something in her expression shifts before she reaches for the door handle.

“I’ve got it,” she says, already pulling it open before Quinn can argue.

Quinn steps back slightly, watching as Rachel leans in to grab her dufflebag, and emerges with it on her shoulder, looking like she didn't expect it to be this heavy.

“Give me the bag, Rach, you don't have to carry it for me or anything.” Quinn starts.

“I know,” Rachel replies, not looking at her as she lifts it out. “But I’m already doing it,” she intones.

Just because of the absurdity of their situation, and Rachel’s clear amusement, there’s no real way to argue with that.

Quinn settles for closing the door once Rachel steps back, their hands brushing for the briefest second on the handle, and it feels silly, but Quinn swears she felt a twitch.

Rachel moves toward her car, already unlocking it with a soft beep, and Quinn follows a step behind, slipping into the passenger seat this time without discussion.

The silence settles almost immediately.

It’s not tense, but makes it clear that both of them have their minds full. Like there is so much to say that they are not interested in choosing the first one. Thankfully, and as expected, Rachel has her phone connected to the CarPlay, and a soft song starts playing, accompanied by her humming.

Quinn can only stare at her peaceful state, as the light posts shine a warm light on her face, and she wonders how it took her going to college to realize what the funny feeling she felt when she looked at Rachel really meant. She also wonders how she ever thought it could go away with time.

The drive to 241 Birch Hill Road is short.

By the time they pull into the driveway, Quinn feels almost like she has been rocked to sleep, a comfort washing over her. Probably due to being able to relax after a long trip followed by the stress Sam put her through.

Rachel cuts the engine and exhales. “Okay,” she says, unbuckling. “We’re here.”

Quinn nods, already reaching for the door.

Inside, the house is warm.

Not just in temperature, though that’s the first thing Quinn notices by the sudden urge to take off her coat, but also in a way that feels lived-in. It is not what she would find walking into another house a couple of blocks away from this one. 

Rachel sets Quinn’s bag down near the entry before shrugging off her coat.

“Do you want something warm?” she asks, glancing back over her shoulder. “I can make hot chocolate. With oat milk, of course. Though I suppose I could find whole milk somewhere if you’d prefer.”

Quinn arches a brow faintly. “Oat milk is fine… hot chocolate sounds good.”

Rachel nods once, satisfied, already turning toward the kitchen. “Good. You can sit” she gestures vaguely toward the living room, “Or accompany me. Up to you.”

Quinn lingers where she is for a second before following Rachel into the kitchen.

“So,” she says, tone casual, almost offhand, “your dads aren’t here?”

Rachel pauses briefly at the counter, back turned. “No, they—” a small shrug. “Daddy is on a work trip. He’s, um, renovating a house in Columbus.”

It’s said simply, but there’s something in the way she delivers it that makes it clear there are things left unsaid. Despite her curiosity, Quinn doesn’t push.

“That’s nice. For him, I guess. Not so nice that you’re here alone, though,” she adds a little too quickly.

Rachel hums lightly, pulling a mug from the cabinet. “I get it. It’s a nice opportunity, yes.”

She moves almost automatically, reaching for a small saucepan, the fridge, ingredients lining up in a way that suggests this is a routine she performs often.

Quinn leans back against the counter, arms loosely crossed, watching her. The sound of milk pouring fills the space, followed by the soft click of the stove.

Quinn shifts her weight. “So,” she says, attempting small talk while still getting answers, “how long are you in town?”

“Just the week, I got in yesterday,” Rachel replies. “Doctor’s orders, actually. I wasn’t supposed to push my voice any further. It was convenient that Thanksgiving was right around the corner, so I could come home with an excuse.”

Quinn’s gaze flicks up immediately. “You’re sick?”

“It’s nothing serious,” Rachel assures her quickly. “Just a cold. But my understudy has been thrilled about the extra shows, so I suppose it worked out for everyone.”

“Mm,” Quinn hums, not entirely convinced but choosing not to push. “Rachel Berry willingly giving her understudy a chance to shine… consider me shocked.”

“I’ve changed a little since high school,” Rachel replies, a hint of a smile in her voice, “but let’s not go that far.”

The pause that follows is lighter this time, and when they both let out a quiet laugh, it comes easily.

Quinn glances around again, feeling the tension ease by the minute. “You come back here often?”

Rachel shakes her head, stirring slowly. “Not really. My job keeps me busy,” she shrugs. “But I try to come at least twice a year to keep Daddy company. It’s unfortunate that he had to be away for the revival of our Thanksgiving extravaganza.”

Quinn nods, just to show she’s listening.Quinn nods, just to show she’s listening.

There’s a soft clink as Rachel sets the spoon down, reaching for another mug before turning toward her.

“Here,” she says, stepping closer, offering it out.

Quinn uncrosses her arms to take it, fingers brushing briefly against Rachel’s as she does, and it seems intentional on Rachel’s part this time. Like she is itching to be in contact with Quinn. Though that could be Quinn projecting.

“Thanks.”

Rachel nods, taking a small sip from her own before leaning back slightly against the counter, mirroring Quinn without seeming to notice.

For a moment, neither of them speaks. Then Quinn cannot fight the urge to reveal something:

“I saw you,” Quinn says, like it’s an afterthought.

Rachel blinks. “Saw…?”

“Evita,” Quinn clarifies, lifting the mug slightly. “A few months ago.”

There’s a flicker of something across Rachel’s face, she is surprised, then looks conflicted, and something else that Quinn cannot decipher.

“You did?” she asks, and there’s no hiding the shift in her tone now. “Why did I not know this? When?”

“The first month it was running. I was in the city,” Quinn says, like that explains anything.

Rachel lets out a small, incredulous breath. “Quinn, I know you live in the city.”

Quinn’s lips twitch slightly. “Well.”

Rachel shakes her head, but there’s a faint smile tugging at her mouth. “You could have come backstage. Or waited at the stage door, I would’ve loved to see you,” she adds, softer now, not quite accusatory, but not entirely neutral either.

Quinn shrugs, eyes dropping briefly to her mug. “Didn’t really seem like my scene. It would've been presumptuous of me to think I could just go backstage, too.”

Rachel watches her for a second longer than necessary, like she’s trying to figure out this new version of the blonde that doesn’t think the world would part for her to pass by.

She lets it go.

“Well,” she says instead, straightening slightly, “I’m glad you saw it. Hope you liked it, I’m very proud of this project.”

“It was good,” Quinn replies, and the simplicity of it somehow makes it land more. “You were… really good.”

Rachel’s smile softens into something quieter, more genuine. “Thank you, Quinn.”

They settle in a comfortable silence, just looking at each other and sipping on their hot chocolates.

Quinn exhales lightly, shifting her weight again, the warmth of the house finally starting to settle into her bones. The adrenaline from earlier fades just enough for something heavier to take its place.

She yawns.

Rachel notices immediately.

“You’re tired,” she says gently, “Ugh, and here I am going on and on about me as usual… you probably just want to rest.”

“I’m fine,” Quinn starts automatically, then pauses. “…Okay, maybe a little.”

Rachel smiles, setting her mug down. “Come on. I’ll show you the guest room.”

Quinn nods, pushing herself off the counter and following without argument this time.

“I’m sorry it’s not exactly prepared,” Rachel continues as she leads her down the hallway. “I wasn’t expecting—well.” A small shrug. “You.”

Quinn huffs softly. “Neither was I.”

Rachel glances back at her briefly, something amused flickering across her expression before she pushes open a door.

“It should have everything you need,” she says, stepping aside to let Quinn in first. “Clean sheets, extra blankets, though hopefully unnecessary.”

Quinn steps into the room, taking it in with a quick glance. It’s simple, but warm. 

“It’s perfect,” she says, turning back toward her.

Rachel lingers in the doorway for a moment, like she’s about to say something else.

She doesn’t.

“Well,” she settles on instead, a little softer now, “get some rest. We can… talk more tomorrow.”

Quinn nods.

“Yeah. Tomorrow.”

Rachel lingers for half a second longer, like she might add something else, but then she doesn’t. The door closes softly behind her, the sound settling into the room in a way that feels louder than it should.

And just like that, Quinn is alone again.

For a moment, she doesn’t move.

She stands there, taking in the space properly this time. The neatly made bed, the soft lighting, the little trinkets here and there, even in a room that probably isn’t used all that often.

Eventually, she exhales and steps further inside, setting her mug down on the bedside table before dropping her coat and bag on the bed. Quinn sits on the edge of the matress, hands resting loosely in her lap, eyes unfocused as her mind catches up to everything that’s happened.

Because, objectively, this is ridiculous.

She came back to Lima for something so simple, just a poor attempt of revisiting her past for the sake of her art. A change of scenery to finish her book, and leave again without letting the place mean anything more than it already had.

And instead she’s here.

In Rachel Berry’s house.

After not speaking to her for years, avoiding her, deliberately, consistently, even when proximity had made it almost effortless not to.

That’s for sure revisiting her past, alright.

Quinn lets out a quiet breath, tipping her head back slightly as she stares up at the ceiling.

There had always been an option. There is an universe where maybe she is in this house during this holiday, but not in these circumstances, and that lingers in her head.

It stopped being about circumstances, our timing a long time ago. Sure the non-use of those metro passes had meant something back then. But two people existing in the same city, orbiting similar spaces, knowing enough about each other’s lives to recognize the shape of them, and still choosing not to reach out was a heck of a choice.

But she knew that was safer, and that after painful realizations a few years ago, she thought best to leave some feelings in the past. It’s not like Rachel ever made an effort to reconnect.

Quinn closes her eyes briefly, the faintest hint of a smile pulling at her lips despite herself.

And now she’s here because Sam forgot to leave a key behind.

It’s like the universe is playing a trick on her. She just has to embrace it to the fullest.

Her gaze drifts toward the door, like she can still see through it, like Rachel might still be standing just on the other side of it instead of somewhere down the hall, washing the dishes or organizing something or doing whatever it is Rachel Berry does when she’s trying not to think too much.

They had changed enough, Quinn had once thought, to make them strangers enough to be irrelevant to each other.

But standing in that driveway, hearing her voice again, being pulled into a hug like no time had passed at all, their weird and never-deciphered dynamic seemed untouched by it all. 

Quinn exhales slowly, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees, gaze dropping to the floor.

This was temporary.

A few days in a town that no longer housed either of them, a shared space out of kindness and need, a handful of conversations that would stay comfortably on the surface, and then she would be back in New York, unaware of Rachel’s address and routine and back to the version of her life that had been built on new tracks.

Quinn nods to herself, once, like that settles it.

Then she stands, finally, reaching for her dufflebag and finding her pajamas, putting them on and pulling back the covers. She is tired and tomorrow will come soon enough, whether she knows what will happen then or not.

***

Light peeks through curtains Quinn forgot to close in her tired motions last night, thus waking her up in the ungodly hour of 6 in the morning, she confirms by checking her phone. She tucks her tangled hair behind her ears and lets her brain and body sync, just part of her routine. Then, after the stillness of the morning sets, she hears something coming from downstairs.

Pots and pans clinking as Rachel sings a song softly. She then remembers mentions of Rachel’s crazy morning routine, and thinks of how she’s probably kept it up since then, ever the diva. Quinn decides then that maybe it is not that early to get up, and starts tidying herself up to look more presentable. Because just because she is a little looser nowadays doesn't mean that she’s become sloppy, duh. 

When she finally reaches the entry to the kitchen, Rachel is still singing while making pancakes, coffee dripping from the filter onto a thermal carafe. Quinn stops there in the archway and observes the domestic scene. 

“What you would do if

You were the one who was spending the night

Oh, I wish that I was looking into your eyes”

Rachel flips a pancake with practiced ease, barely missing a beat as she continues under her breath, voice softer now, singing more for herself than anything else.

“He kissed my lips, I taste your mouth, oh

He pulled me in, I was disgusted with myself

'Cause when I'm with him, I am thinking of you”

Quinn shifts her weight against the doorway, arms loosely crossed, and for a moment she lets herself just watch. It’s disarming, Rachel, in an oversized sweater and socks sliding slightly against the kitchen floor, hair half-pinned back and already escaping in loose waves while she sings the craziest song she could’ve been singing.

She knows that, if she were the delusional type, it would be alarmingly easy to read into this, turn it into something that’s not, but she is not, so she doesn’t.

Quinn clears her throat lightly.

Rachel startles, just barely, before turning around, spatula still in hand, eyes widening for half a second before recognition settles in.

“Oh, good morning,” she says, a little breathless, like she’d been caught. Her voice is clearer than last night, the roughness mostly gone, though not entirely. “Sorry if I woke you, I was just making us breakfast.”

“Morning,” Quinn replies, pushing herself off the doorframe and stepping further into the kitchen. “Didn’t mean to interrupt your… concert.”

Rachel huffs a small laugh, rolling her eyes as she turns back to the stove. “It’s hardly a concert, Quinn. And you didn’t interrupt anything,” she adds, a little more quickly. “I just didn’t realize you were awake.”

“Hard not to be,” Quinn says, nodding slightly toward the stove. “You’ve been busy.”

Rachel glances over her shoulder, just briefly. “I like mornings. And you didn’t have dinner last night, I assume, so a proper breakfast felt necessary.”

“Thanks,” Quinn murmurs, stepping closer to the counter. She pauses, then adds, almost offhand, “This, after everything last night… have you always been this nice and I was just too much of a bitch to notice?”

There’s a small pause.

“You were hardly a bitch by senior year,” Rachel replies, measured, before flipping another pancake. “And I’m simply being a good host.” She gestures vaguely toward the coffee. “There’s coffee, if you want. I wasn’t sure how you would take it.”

“Black is fine,” Quinn cuts in, already reaching for a mug.

Rachel nods, like she expected that. “I thought so.”

Quinn pours herself a cup, leaning back against the counter as she takes a small sip, eyes drifting back toward Rachel despite herself.

“Weren’t you on vocal rest?” she asks, tone light, almost teasing.

Rachel smiles faintly to herself. “Come on, I was hardly belting.”

Quinn hums, and decides against commenting on her choice of song to start the day.

She takes another sip of her coffee, watching as Rachel moves around the kitchen before placing two plates of neatly stacked pancakes on the table.

“Okay, chef,” Quinn says, eyeing them. “Are those vegan too?”

Rachel hums, almost smug. “Actually, no. I eat eggs now.”

Quinn’s brows lift, startled, and Rachel immediately laughs at the reaction.

“I know, shocking,” she continues. “But they’re practical, they have excellent nutritional value, and let’s be honest, banana pancakes simply don’t taste the same without them.”

She shrugs, and Quinn lifts her hands in surrender. “Okay, I see I’ve hit a nerve.”

“It’s just that I had to endure far too much from Kurt about this,” Rachel replies, a hint of exasperation slipping in. “All the I knew you’d cave eventually and you’re just proving I was right—honestly, it’s exhausting. He’s lucky he’s still my best friend.”

Quinn lets out a quiet laugh, shaking her head as she cuts into the pancakes. She takes a bite, chews, then gives a small, approving nod when Rachel glances at her expectantly.

“They’re good.”

“Of course they are,” Rachel replies, entirely unsurprised. “So,” Rachel continues, setting her fork down, “I was thinking… I’m not nearly as congested as I was yesterday, so we could go for a walk. Retrieve your rental car.”

Quinn nods, taking a sip of her coffee. “That sounds good. It’d be nice to walk around town a bit for research.”

“You’re researching Lima?” Rachel asks lightly, confusion painted on her face.

Quinn’s lips twitch. “Not exactly… I’ll tell you about it some other time.”

Rachel nods, accepting the non-answer. “Alright. Does 10:30 work?”

“Sure. I don’t have much planned,” Quinn replies, aware of how evasive that sounds but not particularly inclined to elaborate.

Rachel doesn’t push.

The conversation drifts after that, about small things like the weather and how annoying the flight from New York to Lima always is. And yet, underneath it, there’s an awareness that they’re skirting around something. Like one wrong step might shift the entire balance of their newfound dynamic.

After finishing her breakfast, Quinn excuses herself back to the guest room.

She pauses there for a moment, then decides not to change, deeming her outfit good enough for a walk. A quick glance at her phone tells her she has a few hours to spare.

Enough time to write.

Her laptop opens, fingers already moving before she’s fully decided what she’s putting down.

A story about a blonde girl in a small town, complicated and controlled by everyone’s expectations, who finds herself unexpectedly drawn to someone she never quite let herself have.

A little brunette who sings like her life depends on it, of course.

Quinn ignores the obviousness of it, the way the last twenty-four hours seem to be doing half the work for her. Or at least, she tries to.

Time passes quickly after that and by the time she checks the clock again, it’s nearly 10:30. Quinn saves her work, closes her laptop, and reaches for her coat before heading downstairs.

Rachel is already in the living room, no longer in her oversized sweater but just as put together as the night before, structured coat, hair tamed just enough.

“Hey,” Rachel says, looking up. “Are you ready? I didn’t want to interrupt you, but I admit I was getting a little antsy.”

 Quinn adjusts the sleeve of her coat as she steps fully into the room, glancing at Rachel in a way that is meant to be casual and ends up lingering just a second too long.

“I am,” she replies, reaching for the scarf she’d left draped over the back of a chair. “I wasn’t going to forget about our walk.”

Rachel huffs lightly, smoothing down the front of her coat in a practiced motion. “I’m not saying you were. I just don’t like being late to things.”

Quinn’s lips twitch. “We’re walking down the street, Rachel.”

“Yes, but we’ve scheduled it,” she counters, already reaching for her keys from the small bowl near the door.

There’s something almost familiar about it, the way Rachel says it, like she’s moaning about someone being late to rehearsal or not knowing the choreography. Quinn recognizes it immediately, and for a moment, it feels like no time has passed at all.

She follows her toward the door, watching as Rachel double-checks that everything is in place, phone, keys, gloves—before finally opening it and letting the cold air slip back inside.

“After you,” Rachel says, stepping aside.

Quinn raises a brow, but doesn’t argue, stepping out onto the porch and pulling her coat a little tighter around herself as she waits for Rachel to join her.

The air is colder than it had been the night before, sharper, the kind that makes you squint your eyes a little. Rachel pulls her scarf a little higher against her throat without comment, probably protecting her voice, which Quinn notices.

Rachel locks the door behind them, then moves to stand beside her, close enough that Quinn can feel the shift in temperature where their arms almost brush. Rachel almost links their arms together, but fights the urge, and is glad that Quinn didn’t notice a thing.

“Okay,” Rachel says, exhaling lightly. “Lead the way. The force will guide you to the light sabers.”

Quinn glances at her. “Wow, it’s almost as if Sam is right here.” She says dryly.

“I’ll let you know I am still planning on giving him a stern talk about not letting women down,” Rachel replies. “Sorry for making you abandon your car last night, I just wanted you to stay the least amount of time waiting around."

Quinn lets out a quiet laugh, shaking her head as she starts down the street. “It’s Lima, not Manhattan. I think it survived.”

Rachel falls into step beside her easily, matching her pace without comment.

For a while, they walk in silence.

Their footsteps fall into an easy rhythm against the pavement, breath visible in the cold air, shoulders occasionally brushing. Quinn glances around as they walk, taking in the street with a more attentive eye this time, the houses that haven’t changed, the ones that have, the small details she knows she’ll end up filing away later.

They turn the corner, the street opening up, and Quinn can already spot the car a few houses down, exactly where she left it.

“See?” she says, gesturing slightly. “Still there.”

Rachel hums, unimpressed. “Thrilling.”

Quinn slows as they approach it, pulling her keys from her pocket, but she doesn’t unlock it immediately.

Instead, she lingers there for a second, not even sure what she would do with it besides driving back to the airport in a few days.

“You don’t have to take it back right away,” Rachel says, “It could stay here for a bit.”

Quinn glances at her. “I know.”

A small pause.

“I just… probably should, just to make the money worth it,” she adds, though there’s no real urgency behind it.

Rachel nods, accepting that answer for what it is.

“Okay,” she says lightly. “You could drive us to The Lima Bean, I’d love some tea right now.”

Quinn rolls her eyes, but there’s a faint smile there as she unlocks the car.

“I have a funny feeling you just wanted someone to drive you places, Ms. Berry.”

That earns her a shrug and a laugh as Rachel circles around to the passenger side and slips into the car without ceremony. And then they are on their way to the hotspot of hangouts of their teenage years. It’s like Rachel knows exactly what places Quinn has to be for inspiration to come, and she will not be complaining.

“Honestly, I think it’s very generous of me to provide you with direction,” she says, adjusting the heat with quick, efficient movements. “You could get lost.”

“In Lima?” Quinn glances at her, unimpressed. “I think I’ll manage.”

Rachel hums, unconvinced, but lets it go, turning slightly in her seat to face forward again. The car fills with the low hum of the engine, the faint rush of warm air pushing back against the cold that had clung to them outside.

Quinn pulls away from the curb, easing the car into the street, muscle memory taking over as she navigates roads she hasn’t driven in years but somehow still knows by heart.

It’s strange how easily it comes back.

Beside her, Rachel leans her head back against the seat, eyes drifting toward the window as the familiar scenery starts passing by. There’s something quieter about her now, like the movement of the car has given her an excuse to pause.

Quinn glances at her briefly, then back to the road.

“Are you always this trusting?” she asks after a moment. “Getting into cars with people you haven’t spoken to in years, that have a history of being involved in car accidents?” Over the years her accident had become something she could joke about, but she wasn’t sure this specific sensitive audience would find it funny.

Rachel doesn’t look at her when she answers, just lets out a soft breath that might be a laugh. “Please. You drove Santana and Britt around all the time, and they’re still alive.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“And yet,” Rachel says simply.

Quinn slows slightly at a stop sign, fingers tapping once against the wheel before going still again.

“The Lima Bean, huh?” she asks, though she already knows.

Rachel nods. “Unless you know of any other place we can g here.”

Quinn huffs. “In Lima? No.”

“That’s what I thought.”

There’s a faint smile in Rachel’s voice, and Quinn catches it, even without looking.

The building comes into view a minute later, exactly as it always had been, maybe a little more worn around the edges and a little smaller than she remembers.

Quinn pulls into a spot nearby, shifting the car into park but not immediately moving to get out. She just sits there for a few seconds.

Rachel notices, of course.

“What?” she asks, turning slightly toward her.

Quinn shakes her head once, already reaching for the door handle. “Nothing. It’s just so weird.”

Rachel studies her for a moment, like she might press, but then she doesn’t. Instead, she just nods, clear understanding behind her eyes.

“Yeah,” she says. “I get that.”

They step out of the car together, the cold hitting them again, sharper this time after the brief warmth inside.

Rachel adjusts her scarf as they walk toward the entrance, pausing just long enough to hold the door open, doing a curtsy at the same time. 

Quinn rolls her eyes, but there’s no resistance as she steps inside.

The warmth of the café wraps around them immediately, along with the low murmur of voices and the familiar scent of coffee and something sweet baking in the background.

They step up to the counter without much discussion, falling into an easy rhythm, Rachel scanning the menu halfheartedly, Quinn hanging back to let her order first.

“I’ll have a chamomile tea,” Rachel says, voice slipping effortlessly into the polite tone she uses with strangers, “and, oh, actually, do you still have the blueberry scones?”

Quinn watches her for a second, something faintly amused pulling at her expression before she steps forward. “I’ll have a latte,” she adds simply.

They move aside to wait, and Rachel turns toward her almost immediately, “So,” she says, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear, “how is New York treating you?”

Quinn leans lightly against the counter behind her, one shoulder resting against it. “It’s good,” she answers, easy. “I like how busy it keeps me.”

Rachel nods, attentive in that very Rachel way. “I imagine it suits you.”

“It does,” Quinn admits, glancing briefly toward the window before her gaze returns. “It’s a nice distance from here, and no one really cares who you were before. You can just… be.”

Rachel hums softly at that, like she understands more than she’s saying. “Yes,” she agrees. “That part is nice.”

“And you?” Quinn tilts her head slightly. “Broadway revivals, lead roles, understudies living their dreams in your absence…”

Rachel smiles, just a little. “It’s a lot. In a good way,” she says, smoothing her sleeve absentmindedly. “Everything I ever dreamed of has come to fruition,” she trails off for a second, something softer flickering through her expression, “I suppose I have you to thank for that, sort of.”

Quinn shakes her head. “That’s nonsense, you’ve always been destined to the stage. With or without me fighting for it to happen.”

Rachel stills.

“I’d say otherwise, but fine.” she asks, almost too quickly.

Quinn shrugs lightly. “You’re really humbling yourself here, I’m getting scared.”

Rachel looks at her like she wants to argue, like there are about ten different responses lined up, but none of them quite make it out. Instead, she exhales softly, shaking her head just a fraction.

“Well,” she says, quieter now, “whatever.”

"I read your book, by the way," Rachel adds, almost offhand. "The first one, of course. I thought it was really good."

Quinn looks at her. "When?"

"When it came out," Rachel says simply. "I've been keeping up."

Quinn looks at her for a second longer than necessary. "I didn't know that," she says, quieter than she means to.

Their drinks are called before either of them has to decide what to do with that, the moment slipping just slightly out of reach as Rachel turns to grab them, handing Quinn her coffee with a smile.

They settle at a table by the window, the conversation continuing.

Rachel talks about rehearsals, about directors and fan encounters and the strange pressure of living up to something that has existed long before you step into it, and Quinn listens, occasionally asking questions, occasionally offering something back.

And then it comes, “What about you?” Rachel asks, wrapping both hands around her tea. “What are you working on now?”

Quinn exhales lightly through her nose, almost like she expected that. “My second book,” she says.

Rachel’s eyes light up immediately. “Really? That’s incredible, Quinn.”

“It’s… a work in progress,” Quinn replies, lips twitching. “Publisher’s been on me about it. I’m too close to the deadline.”

“What’s it about?” Rachel asks, leaning in just slightly, curiosity immediate and unfiltered.

Quinn hesitates, just for a second.

“A small town,” she says finally. “And characters who yearn for more than the place can offer.”

Rachel tilts her head, studying her. “So you came back here for that?”

Quinn nods once. “Thought it might help. Being in it again.”

There’s a brief pause before she adds, “That’s the whole reason I’d be house-sitting for Sam. Thought the quiet routine could keep me grounded to finish my draft.”

Rachel’s brows knit together immediately. “Sorry if staying with me makes that harder.”

Quinn huffs a quiet laugh. “Don’t worry about it, Rach. If anything, it’s helping me, really.”

“Oh. I’m glad then,” Rachel smiles. “I promise to be out of your hair in the next days.”

“Don’t,” Quinn continues, almost cutting across it. “I’m starting to think it was a sign that you were the only person I knew that was in town.”

That lands.

Rachel stills, something shifting in her expression as she looks at Quinn properly now, like she’s trying to read something beneath the surface of that statement.

“And you called me,” she says, softer.

Quinn shrugs, like it was simple. “I guess I did.”

Rachel’s gaze doesn’t waver. For a second, it feels like she might say something else but instead, she reaches out, almost without thinking, her hand brushing Quinn’s wrist before grabbing her hand that was resting on the table.

Quinn stills.

“I’m glad you knew you could count on me,” Rachel says, holding her gaze. “As a friend, still.”

Quinn’s throat tightens just slightly, something in her chest shifting in a way she doesn’t quite like. “Yeah,” she says, quieter now. “Friends.”

Rachel’s brows draw together immediately. “What?” she asks.

Quinn blinks, caught off guard. “What?”

“That—” Rachel gestures vaguely between them, her hand still resting against Quinn’s wrist, “you don't consider us friends?”

Quinn lets out a small breath, something almost like a laugh but not quite.

“It’s not that,” she says, a little too quickly.

Rachel doesn’t pull her hand away, “Quinn.”

There’s something in the way she says her name that makes it harder to brush off. That paired with her hand feeling like it’s on fire in Rachel’s grasp makes Quinn look at her for a long time, and for a second it feels like she’s standing in that space again, the one she’s been avoiding stepping into since yesterday.

Rachel was never one to back down, so she keeps eye contact, though her expression is soft. For someone that prides herself on being really good at reading people, Quinn feels lost at her struggle to decipher what is being said through Rachel’s eyes. Like she is hoping for something to come out.

“It’s just—” Quinn starts, then stops, shaking her head once. “It’s been years, Rachel. That’s all.”

Rachel studies her, searching for something she’s not quite getting.

“…Okay,” she says finally, though it’s clear she’s not entirely convinced.

But she lets it go.

Rachel pulls her hand back.

It's subtle, a small shift in her posture, fingers retreating to her own lap, eyes dropping briefly to her tea. But it isn't accidental, and Quinn notices, because she notices everything Rachel does and misses every absence she leaves in her life, even if it’s only a hand on top of hers.

"Right," Rachel says, and her voice is carefully even. "Of course."

She lifts her cup again, something to occupy her hands, and takes a sip that Quinn suspects is mostly just to keep her from questioning things further.

The conversation doesn't die exactly, but the air around it changes. They stay for another half hour, talking about things that are easier, a new restaurant near Rachel's apartment, the employee they recognized that seems to still be working here, and it sounds almost normal, almost like two people who didn't just say the wrong thing at the right moment.

Almost.

Quinn watches Rachel laugh at something, easy and bright, and thinks: she pulled away. Thinks: she was holding my hand and I made her pull away. Thinks, with something that sits uncomfortably in her chest: what does that even mean?

The drive back is shorter than it should be, or maybe it's just that neither of them fills it with enough to make it feel long.

Rachel connects her phone to the car again but her humming almost blends in, weak. Quinn keeps her eyes on the road. The same streets, the same light posts, the same familiar nothing of Lima. 

Quinn pulls into the driveway and cuts the engine. For a moment they just sit there.

"Thank you for the tea," Quinn says finally, which is a ridiculous thing to say, but it's what comes out.

Rachel gives her a small smile. "You bought it yourself."

"Right. Well, thanks anyway."

They get out of the car.

Inside, the house feels warmer than it did this morning, or maybe that's just the contrast with the cold they've been carrying since the Lima Bean. Rachel shrugs off her coat by the door, already thinking two steps ahead to whatever she's making for dinner, to her evening routine, to anything that isn't the table they were just sitting at.

"I'll let you get some work done," she says, not quite looking at her. "I know you wanted to write."

Quinn nods, grateful for the out. "Yeah. I should."

"I'll knock if I need anything, or you can just give me a shout," Rachel adds, which doesn't entirely make sense as a sentence but Quinn doesn't say so.

"Sure."

She takes the stairs in quick steps.

The guest room is exactly how she left it this morning, bed made just as she left it, the pillows thrown halfheartedly on top of the duvet, and Quinn closes the door behind her with a soft, decisive click.

She sits on the edge of the bed for exactly three seconds before reaching for her laptop.

The document opens to where she left off: a blonde girl in a small town, a brunette who sings like her life depends on it. Quinn stares at the blinking cursor until the first words come to her mind like a permission to start typing. It’s all about details now in the final draft, so she skims paragraphs, skips pages, adds particular features that make every sentence sting a little bit more.

The message is about the specific kind of missing that doesn't go away just because the person is sitting across from you. She thinks about Rachel the whole time.

She writes until the grey afternoon darkens outside, until her fingers slow and her thoughts start blurring at the edges, until the document is longer than it's been in weeks and she's not sure if she could do any better than what she is looking at.

Then she closes the laptop and lies back on the bed without bothering to change, staring at the ceiling, and falls asleep before she can think of anything else.

***

Downstairs, Rachel makes pasta.

It is, objectively, a perfectly reasonable dinner for a person on a Monday evening. She puts on music, something low, instrumental, deliberately chosen not to require her voice and ends up bothering Quinn. She plates it carefully, because Rachel Berry will not eat out of a pot, not even when there is no one to see her. She pours herself a small glass of wine. She sits at the kitchen table, which fits four people, and waits for a few minutes to see if she’ll be joined by company.

When that doesn’t happen, she eats her depressing pasta, alone.

As a friend, still, she had said.

And Quinn had said friends back like the word had a strange weight to it, like it was something tried on and didn’t want it to fit, and Rachel had thought…

She takes a sip of wine.

It doesn't matter what she thought. She'd been projecting, clearly. Quinn had been nothing but honest about the fact that years had passed and things had simply not been maintained, and if she wanted them not to change, she would’ve reached out when she moved alone to the city Rachel lived in, right? But Rachel had sat across from her in the Lima Bean reading significance into every look and word she heard from the blonde, because that was apparently still something she was capable of, embarrassingly enough, even at twenty-four.

She twirls her pasta with the least amount of enthusiasm ever.

Outside, the street is quiet and dark and she misses the buzz outside her apartment in New York, though she still appreciates the serenity on Lima nights like this.

She finishes her dinner. She washes her plate.

And then she goes to bed too, in a room down the hall from Quinn Fabray, which is somehow both the strangest and most inevitable place she's found herself in years.

***

Tuesday carries over from Monday without much interruption. Rachel wakes up sounding almost entirely like herself again, which she announces to no one in particular while making coffee, and by the time they're sitting across from each other at breakfast, something has shifted between them. It’s subtle, but things feel kind of still. Rachel is doing Quinn a favor. Quinn is doing what she came back to Lima to do: finish the draft and leave.

By mid-morning, Quinn is stretched out on the couch with her laptop balanced against her thighs, the manuscript open in front of her. She’s been circling the same paragraph for the better part of twenty minutes, rereading a sentence until it loses all meaning and then changing a single word, only to change it back again. It’s frustrating work, and it makes her feel like she’ll not reach her deadline in time.

Rachel is in the basement, which Quinn knows—courtesy of the Rachel Berry House Party Train Wreck Extravaganza—is fully equipped with a stage, a piano, and enough soundproofing to not disturb the rest of the house. Apparently, though, the insulation isn’t perfect, because every so often something slips through. At first it’s easy to ignore, just the faint outline of a scale held long enough, softened by distance. But Rachel’s voice has never been something Quinn is particularly good at tuning out, and before long she finds herself pausing in the middle of a sentence without realizing it, waiting for the note to resolve before she keeps going.

She leans back against the arm of the couch and closes her eyes for a moment, letting out a slow breath as another note drifts up, clearer this time, and then disappears just as suddenly as it came. The quiet that follows feels heavier than it should, enough to pull her fully out of the loop she’s been stuck in, and when she opens her eyes again Rachel is standing in front of her.

“Can I ask you something?”

Quinn tips her head back against the couch cushion and lets her eyes fall shut again for a second. “Sure, Rach.”

Rachel moves to the other end of the couch, tucking her legs beneath her as she settles in. “What’s the book really about?”

“I told you yesterday.”

“You told me it was about a small town and people who want more than it can offer,” Rachel says, her tone edging toward pointed. “Which feels like a very surface-level answer. And you know I don’t do well with surface-level answers, so I’m asking what it’s actually about.”

Quinn reaches forward to save her document and lets the laptop fall halfway closed, buying herself a second before answering. “It follows a girl,” she says finally. “She grows up in a small town with a very clear idea of who she’s supposed to be, perfect grades, perfect family, perfect boyfriend, head cheerleader. She has all of it, and she’s miserable.” She pauses briefly, then adds, “And it turns out she’s miserable because she’s gay.”

Rachel doesn’t interrupt, just watches her.

"She figures it out in high school, comes out, loses some things and wins others, and it ends well. Like it should’ve."

Rachel tilts her head, something softening in her expression. “That’s really lovely, Quinn.”

“Don’t make it weird.”

“I’m not making it weird,” Rachel says, drawing one knee up a little closer to her chest. “I’m saying it’s lovely. So that’s why you’re here, the setting, and,” She hesitates for a fraction of a second, “the character. Is she drawn from…”

“It’s fiction, Rachel.”

“I know it’s fiction,” Rachel replies evenly. “Is she drawn from you?”

Quinn holds her gaze for a beat before answering. “Loosely.”

Rachel nods once, and when she speaks again her voice is quieter. “When did you know? For you, I mean.”

Quinn doesn’t have to think about it. “College,” she says, shifting slightly where she sits. “I got to Yale, and no one knew me, and I went to a party and kissed a girl. And no one cared.” She lets out a small breath. “There wasn’t a big moment where everything clicked into place. It just… made sense one day, and then I realized it explained a lot of my behavior in high school, answered a lot of questions I didn't even know I had.”

Rachel sits with that for a second, her expression unreadable. “Okay,” she says eventually, before straightening a little, like she’s bracing herself. “Then why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“I did,” Quinn says, frowning slightly.

“You told people,” Rachel corrects, her voice tightening. “Like glee club people? And I’m finding out like this? You’ve obviously told Santana, so Kurt must know.” She pauses, recalibrating mid-thought. “Did you ask them not to tell me?”

Quinn doesn’t answer, which is answer enough.

“Quinn.”

“It’s not that simple,” Quinn says, dragging a hand through her hair.

“Then explain it to me,” Rachel presses, and there’s something just shy of hurt in her voice now. "Because from where I'm sitting it looks like everyone who was in our lives decided together that I specifically didn't need to know, and I'd like to understand why. Did you—" she pauses, like she's choosing the word carefully, "did you not want me to know? Was it something about me, about you regretting our reconciliation? That would explain your lack of use of the metro passes…" Rachel’s voice lowers with each word she says, until it is nothing but a whisper.

“It wasn’t about you,” Quinn says automatically, and even to her own ears it sounds thin.

“Then what was it about?”

Quinn meets her eyes and immediately regrets it, because Rachel has always been difficult to lie to when she’s looking at her like that. “I just wasn’t ready for everyone to know,” she says after a moment. “And everyone knowing meant you knowing. It was easier to keep it separate.”

Rachel studies her for a long second, like she’s deciding whether or not to push, and then, unexpectedly, she lets it go. She straightens instead, reorganizing her feelings to take control of the unpleasant situation.

“Furthermore,” Rachel says, with the unmistakable cadence of someone making a formal argument, “I would like it noted that I have two gay fathers, that Kurt Hummel calls me before he calls his own father, and that I am, objectively, one of the safest people you could have told.”

Quinn huffs out a quiet breath. “Mhm.”

Rachel insists, “Additionally, this is not an entirely foreign territory for me either, so the idea that you thought I would have any issue with it is frankly absurd.”

Quinn stills slightly. “What do you mean, not entirely foreign territory?”

Rachel blinks, her posture shifting just enough to give her away. She smooths a hand down her sleeve before answering. “I just mean that I’ve… there have been a few girls,” she says, making a small gesture with her hand that somehow communicates the entire sentence. “It wasn’t anything much, but I’ve never really labeled myself.”

Quinn watches her for a second longer than she should. “Okay,” she says, dragging the “o” vowel and nodding once. “I didn’t know that.”

Rachel nods back, like that settles it, and then her voice softens when she adds, “I just would have liked to know. That’s all.”

Quinn’s gaze lingers on her, on the way she’s picking at the edge of her sleeve instead of looking directly at her now. “Yeah,” she says more quietly. “I’m sorry.”

Rachel accepts that with a small nod, then reaches over without hesitation and pulls the throw blanket off the back of the couch into her lap, settling in. 

“So,” she says, glancing toward the TV, “are you almost done? Because I would really like to watch a movie.”

Quinn looks at her for a moment, then reaches for her laptop again before pushing it aside. “I’m in the last few chapters,” she says. “I guess a movie wouldn’t hurt.”

Rachel hums, satisfied. “Alright.”

“But I pick,” Quinn adds. “No Barbra today.”

Rachel’s mouth curves, pleased in a way she doesn’t bother to hide. “Okay.”

Quinn doesn’t look at her as she turns on the TV, but she shifts just slightly closer as the movie starts, and Rachel doesn’t move away. By the time they’re halfway through, the blanket has been pulled over both of them, their legs pressed together without either of them acknowledging it, and when Rachel leans in to murmur that she wants pizza, Quinn agrees without taking her eyes off the screen.

Rachel makes the call from the kitchen, her voice carrying easily through the apartment, warm and animated in a way that makes it clear she’s enjoying herself, and when she comes back she settles into the same spot, tugging the blanket back into place.

The pizza arrives, and Rachel eats hers with a fork while stealing one of Quinn’s slices without asking. They even work their way through a bottle of wine, slowly, more out of habit than anything else, just something to do with their hands while they sit close enough to notice it.

By the time the credits roll, neither of them makes any move to get up. At some point Rachel has leaned into her, her head resting against Quinn’s shoulder, and Quinn becomes aware of it at the same time she realizes Rachel has fallen asleep.

She stays very still, listening to the even rhythm of Rachel’s breathing. The TV screen fades back to the menu, casting the room in a dim light, and Quinn sits there longer than she means to, her thoughts drifting to many places.

Yale, distance, the version of herself that felt so certain. Rachel’s voice earlier, the way she’d said I just would have liked to know. Everything that happened in high school, everything she’s spent years not thinking about, and how easily it all seems to resurface now that she’s back here.

After a while, she lets her head tilt just slightly until it rests against Rachel’s, keeping it there for a few seconds before she pulls back again, careful not to wake her. Then she reaches up and nudges her shoulder lightly.

“Hey,” she says quietly. “Rach.”

Rachel stirs, blinking her eyes open slowly as she lifts her head. “Hi,” she mumbles.

“Thought I should probably wake you,” Quinn says.

Rachel glances at the TV, then back at her. “The movie ended.”

“A while ago.”

“Oh.” She smooths her hair back into place automatically. “Was it good?”

“You saw most of it.”

“Right.” Rachel shifts upright, gathering the blanket around her before folding it neatly and setting it between them. “I should go to bed.”

“Me too.”

They move through the small acts of cleaning up, Rachel putting away the pizza, Quinn rinsing out the glasses—and it feels so normal that Quinn has to remind herself where she is.

At the bottom of the stairs Rachel pauses and turns back slightly. “Goodnight, Quinn.”

“Night.”

Rachel heads upstairs first, and Quinn follows a few seconds later. At the top, just before they split off in opposite directions, Quinn closes the distance between them in two quick steps and presses a brief kiss to Rachel’s cheek before she has time to think about it. Like the atmosphere of the last few hours possessed her.

Rachel stills, just for a second.

Then she keeps walking.

Later, lying in the dark, Quinn stares up at the ceiling and thinks about the girl in her book, who always knew, who didn’t waste years figuring it out, who got to be brave at the right time.

Lucky her.

***

The next morning, the feeling lingers.

It follows them through the quiet of the house, through the tea Rachel sets down in front of Quinn without being asked to, and easy smile she offers from across the room. It’s still there by early afternoon, when the sky outside turns pale and still and Rachel suggests a walk, already reaching for her scarf like she knows Quinn won’t say no.

It even makes it halfway through their time at Ottawa Metro Park. The path along the water is bare and grey, almost pretty in its emptiness, and their breath clouds in the cold as they walk side by side. Quinn finds herself talking in that unguarded way she slips into more frequently these days, words coming easily about New Haven, her publisher, the writing residency upstate she tried during her senior year at Yale.

“There was this guy,” Quinn says, glancing ahead. “Completely insufferable. He kept going on about how there’s ‘too much diversity’ in the media now.”

Rachel scoffs, like she can picture him already, having met many alike.

“And then he points at me, literally, and goes, ‘this is what people actually want to see.’” She rolls her eyes. “Blonde, pretty, whatever. Like I’m some kind of muse.”

Rachel’s eyebrows lift. “You’re kidding.”

“I wish,” Quinn says. “So I told him if his entire understanding of storytelling depends on people looking like me, then maybe the problem is that he was an asshole.” A small pause. “He didn’t love that.”

Rachel laughs, brighter this time.

Quinn glances at her, a hint of a smile pulling at her mouth. “I actually thought about texting you about that. It was ridiculous.”

Rachel hums. “Wow.”

“You would’ve destroyed him,” Quinn adds, easy, almost fond, not thinking about it until it’s already out in the air between them.

Rachel goes quiet beside her.

Quinn feels it, the shift in the air, the way Rachel's steps slow almost imperceptibly.

"Sorry," Rachel says, lightly, in the tone that means the opposite. "I just find it funny."

Quinn glances at her. "What?"

"That you thought about texting me." Rachel keeps her eyes on the path. "From a residency I didn't know you were at, doing something I didn't even know about. In a life I've had absolutely no part in."

"Rachel—"

"I had sent you many emails," Rachel says, and there it is, the thing underneath the lightness, rising to the surface whether she wants it to or not. "Remember, in those early days in college, when we did stupid weekly updates. That last one I wrote… I had my first real callback and you were one of the people I wanted to tell and you just. You never replied."

"I know," Quinn says.

"You know," Rachel repeats. "Right. You know." She stops walking. Quinn stops a step after her. "Quinn, why didn't you reply?"

"It's complicated."

"It's an email," Rachel says, and her voice is climbing now, the composure starting to fray at the edges. "It didn't require much effort." she gestures, frustrated, at nothing in particular. "We’ve been in the same city for two years now. We have the same friends. You came to see my show and didn't even know, I don't understand what I did that made you decide I wasn't worth it."

"You didn't do anything," Quinn says, sharper than she means to.

"Then what?" Rachel's voice cracks slightly on the word. "Because from where I'm standing it looks like everyone kept in touch and I was the only one you cut off and I'd really like to know why, Quinn. I deserve to know why, after I put so much effort into being your friend."

Quinn's jaw tightens. She looks at the water. The cold is sharper now, or maybe that's just her.

"Can we not do this right now?"

"When, then?" Rachel asks. "When would be a good time for you? Because I've been waiting for an answer for some time now and I've gotten very patient but I'm—" she stops, pressing her lips together. "I'm standing here and the last few days have been so…" her voice drops and picks back up, "don't you see how nice it's been? And we could have had this, Quinn. Years of this. If things had just kept being normal."

"Normal! Oh my god, Rachel." Quinn turns to face her, and something snaps, the way things do when you've been holding them too long. "Why are you so upset about this? You’re right, it’s been years. People stop talking all the time. Get over it."

She mutters the last part.

"I know I did."

The silence that follows is the loudest thing Quinn has ever heard.

Rachel stares at her, tears overflowing her eyes.

Quinn stares back, and she can feel the words sitting in the air between them and knows she can't take them back and isn't sure she would.

"You—" Rachel starts. Something is moving across her face that Quinn has never seen before, or maybe has always seen and never let herself name. "It’s funny, you know."

Quinn says nothing.

Rachel takes a step toward her, and her voice has changed entirely now, the argument draining out of it and something rawer taking its place. "You still know just the right thing to say to make me feel the worst."

"Don't," Quinn says quietly.

"Because, call me stupid, but I haven't gotten over it," Rachel says, and it comes out like something that's been waiting a very long time to be said. "I have tried. I have dated people and been in the city and I have my career and my life and I have genuinely, honestly tried, and I haven't. Not like I’m over Finn, or Jesse, or fucking Brody." 

Her voice is steady but her eyes are bright and she's not looking away. "And Kurt is the only person who's ever known that, and maybe I should've said something, maybe I was a coward about it, but I wasn't going to make it weird between us when things were finally working out. And thank goodness I didn’t say anything, at least I just delayed your rejection towards me for a few years." she stops. Shakes her head. "Finn told me once that kissing you was like fireworks. And I have thought about that since I was seventeen years old, Quinn."

Quinn's chest feels like something has taken hold of it and won't let go.

"I'm not telling you this to make you feel guilty," Rachel continues, quieter now. "I'm telling you because you just said you got over it and I need to understand what that means, and I need to understand why you disappeared on me," she exhales. "Because it would've changed everything."

Quinn looks at her.

Rachel looks back.

And Quinn has approximately a thousand things she could say right now, true things, things that have been sitting in her chest since Sunday night when Rachel knocked on a car window in the cold, since Yale, since longer than that, and she can feel all of them right there.

She says none of them.

"I need to go," she says instead.

Rachel blinks.

Quinn is already turning back toward the path, hands in her pockets, jaw set, walking with amounts of determination only she could muster.

Rachel doesn't follow.

She stands by the water for a moment, alone, and lets the cold air hit her face. It stings her eyes a little, as she shakes her head until tears stop falling.

Then she follows, a few steps behind, and they walk back to the car in silence. The sky is dark now, and it’s perfect so that Rachel can’t see the devastated expression Quinn has so clearly.

***

The thing about Quinn Fabray is that Rachel Berry has never been able to let her go entirely.

She has tried. She is, by most measures, an organized person, she keeps her DVD collection in alphabetical order, she has systems for her sheet music and her rehearsal schedules, and her feelings, generally, which she processes with the same discipline she applies to everything else. But Quinn has always resisted categorization, slipping out of whatever box Rachel builds for her.

It started, if she's being honest, before she had the language for it.

There was a version of it even in the early days of her freshman year, before Lucy Quinn was Quinn Fabray, Head Bitch in Charge, when she was just a girl in Rachel's class who looked at her sometimes with an expression Rachel couldn't read. Then something happened, and Quinn became untouchable and Rachel became a target, and the look turned into scorning, and words became weapons that Rachel thankfully knew how to fire back, though it left a confusing taste on her tongue that Rachel spent years trying to figure out.

Because here is the thing about being bullied by someone: you are not supposed to feel so thrilled by them. You are not supposed to notice the way they move through a room or the specific register of their laugh or the fact that when they are cruel to you they are also, somehow, always paying attention to you in a way that nobody else does. Rachel noticed all of it and hated herself for noticing and buried it under ambition and Finn and the reasonable certainty that she was simply projecting.

Then junior year happened, and the slushies stopped, and Quinn started looking at her differently. Not kindly, exactly, because Quinn was not kind, not then, not in any straightforward way.

But she paid attention differently. She showed up to things she didn't have to. She sang next to Rachel in rooms that required her to be honest in ways her daily life didn't, and Rachel, who had been performing for audiences since she could walk, recognized what it looked like when someone was saying something true through a song even when they couldn't say it any other way.

She noticed, around this time, how jealous she was of Quinn and Finn.

She told herself it was about Finn. That she liked him, he liked Quinn, ergo the jealousy was about wanting what Quinn had. The perfect person to fill the role of leading man in her life. This was reasonable and Rachel held onto it with both hands because the alternative seemed too absurd, even for her. But there were moments, small ones, where the feeling didn't quite line up with the explanation. Where she would catch herself watching Quinn. Where the specific sting of seeing them together had less to do with him and more to do with her.

She went after Finn anyway.

Looking back now, in the pale quiet of a Thursday morning with Quinn down the hall, Rachel thinks back to when she realized that she just had wanted to be close to Quinn and Finn was the only door she knew how to open. It is not a particularly flattering thing to understand about yourself. She had loved Finn, she had, genuinely, in the real and uncomplicated way you love someone who is kind to you in the way he was. But underneath it, was something else entirely.

She asked him once what it had been like to kiss Quinn.

She had framed it as jealousy, being freshly rejected by him at the time, and Finn had answered with the uncomplicated openness that worked so well for him: fireworks, he'd said. 

She had thought about that word for seven years.

Senior year things shifted again, the way they kept shifting with Quinn, never settling into anything Rachel could really hold. Quinn fought for her in ways that confused her. Told her to say no to Finn's proposal. Told her she was going to New York to become everything she was meant to be, said it with some much conviction. Rachel had cried writing a song that night and hadn't examined why Quinn's words were the ones that broke her open.

She remembers the moment in the bridal shop, all the girls in their bridesmaid dresses, and Quinn standing there refusing to smile, saying I won't watch you ruin your life. Rachel had been angry, even uninvited her. And later, much later, she understood that Quinn had been the only one brave enough to say what everyone else was too polite or too distracted to say, not because she wanted to hurt Rachel, but because she couldn't stand to watch her disappear into a life that wasn't big enough for her.

And then the accident.

Rachel doesn't let herself stay in that memory long. It still sits wrong in her chest, along with the guilt she carries for it, no matter how many times Quinn had told her not to feel responsible for the outcome of that day. What she remembers most, from the weeks after, is Quinn's hand in hers in a hospital room, and Quinn telling her it was okay, and the specific sincerity of Quinn's voice then.

She had graduated and gotten on a train to New York and told herself that chapter was closed. And it helped.

NYADA was consuming in exactly the way she needed, and the city was vast and indifferent, therefore giving her the freedom she wanted so much. She built a life that was genuinely hers. She was lonely at first, to be surrounded by ambitious strangers with no support system around, and in those early months she had written Quinn emails, weekly at first, then whenever something happened that she wanted to share, small dispatches from her new life that she told herself were just friendship maintenance.

Quinn wrote back almost every time.

Then Kurt came to New York, and the loneliness receded, and Rachel's life filled in around its edges, and the emails naturally became less frequent. She was doing well. She was happy, mostly. Then, she sent Quinn an email about a callback, her first real one, because Quinn was still on the list of people she wanted to tell things to, had never quite come off it, and she wrote it carefully and pressed send and waited.

There was nothing but silent.

She had sat with her phone for a long time. Then she put it face down on her desk and tried to get on with her life. She had things to do, a callback to prepare for, classes to attend, and instead found herself quietly undone in a way she couldn't immediately account for.

It was Kurt who noticed, showing up one evening with takeout and finding her in the same position he left her on the couch in the morning. He had set the food down and looked at her and asked, simply, what was wrong.

She had opened her mouth to say nothing and instead started crying.

It came out in pieces, Quinn not writing back, the years of their dance around being friends, and underneath all of it something she hadn't known was there until she heard herself saying it out loud, which was that she had missed Quinn for longer than Quinn had been gone. That the missing had a specific shape to it that had nothing to do with friendship and everything to do with something she had been calling by the wrong name for years.

Kurt had sat with her through all of it, helping her figure the kind of grieving that she was feeling.

He hadn't asked about Quinn again after that night.

Not once, in all the years since, not when Quinn's name came up through Santana, not when they found out she was moving to the city, not ever. He had simply respected Rachel’s feelings and knew to leave the existence of the blonde alone.

She understands now that it was its own kind of love, something he rarely did unless he thought matters were truly serious.

She had pulled herself together after that night, and got on with her life. She learned how to take a hint very quickly.

Years passed and she was genuinely fine, busy  building something real, and if sometimes she thought about a drawing with hearts in the margins, or a metro pass handed over in a school bathroom, well. That was just the tax you paid for having felt things too strongly when you were young.

And then Sunday happened.

Her phone rang and she almost didn't answer — she was half asleep, wrapped in the specific self-pity of being sick and alone over a holiday — and then she saw the name on the screen and sat up so fast she knocked her book off the nightstand.

Quinn Fabray.

And Quinn had been so Quinn about it, dry and asking for help with no acknowledgment of years passing, just I'm in Lima and I need somewhere to stay, and Rachel had gotten in her car before she'd finished processing what was happening.

She had stood by Sam’s house in the cold and watched Quinn unfold herself from a rental car and felt, with a clarity that was almost embarrassing, that nothing had changed inside her. That she had simply been waiting for exactly this.

She told herself it was just surprise.

Every morning Quinn had her coffee. Every afternoon she sat on the couch with her laptop and her manuscript and quietly worked on what she did best. And Rachel found reasons to be in the same room as her, every day. Every evening when something small happened, a hand on a wrist or a cheek kiss in a dim hallway, Rachel added it to the list of things that had to mean something.

She was self-deluding, she knows.

Quinn had said herself, standing by grey water with her jaw set and her hands in her pockets, that it was nothing more than time passing. Whatever it was, and Rachel knows what it was, or what it could’ve been, Quinn got over it and Rachel is here with the baggage of seven years she never managed to put down.

And that is what she spends her whole Thanksgiving Thursday thinking about, while Quinn stays holed up in the guest bedroom. 

Rachel shoots a few thankful messages to close friends, co-stars, and to both of her dads, who despite everything, are still her biggest fans. She waits for replies, updates her manager on her well-being, and how she’s more than ready to get back on stage. Her dad replies quickly, a voice memo instead of a text because he has never quite liked typing, and she listens to it twice. He sounds good. She is so glad. Lastly, she decides to also text her understudy happy Thanksgiving, and gets back three exclamation points and a string of emojis that she takes as confirmation that the show is in good hands. She puts her phone away, feeling lighter about it than she expected.

Then, decides to do something useful as the sun threatens to set.

Upstairs, Quinn finishes her book.

When she gets to the last edits of the final chapter, she just knows that there is nothing left to add, that the story has arrived somewhere true and she has said what she came to say. She reads the last page back once more, her eyes catching on a line she wrote somewhere in the middle of the week, something about the particular courage it takes to want something you have spent your whole live believing you don't deserve.

She had written it about her character.

She closes the laptop.

The room is very quiet. Outside the window the sky is the flat white of a November late afternoon, the picture perfect for the feeling of stillness. Quinn sits on the edge of the bed, hands loose in her lap, and for once she doesn't reach for anything to put between herself and whatever is happening in her chest.

She thinks about Rachel downstairs, and all the words she’d said yesterday, words she refused to really think about until now. Because it couldn’t be. 

She thinks about seven years.

And then, she starts crying.

It is not dramatic, but quiet and the release her body and mind and heart longed for. She cries for the version of herself at eighteen, who left Lima in a clean straight line away from everything and thought that was the same as being free. The choices that girl made, after figuring out what she felt when she looked at Rachel Berry for too long, was. The decision of putting as much distance as possible between them so she didn't get more upset and hurt than she already was, believing that if she stayed close she would have to see Rachel stand next to another Finn Hudson of the world, and to not be able to do anything about it.

She cries until she doesn't anymore.

Then she sits there for a while in the aftermath of it, until she remembers she can do something. And it could potentially end well, after all.

The flat white sky outside has shifted toward the grey of late afternoon.

Quinn looks at the closed door.

She thinks: she has always been right there. So she stands up and decides to do the thing she's been the most scared of doing ever.

The stairs have never felt this long.

Quinn takes them one at a time, which is not how she usually takes stairs, but her heart is going too fast and she feels like she has to slow down physically for it to work. The smell of whatever Rachel is cooking reaches her halfway down, something warm and sweet, and she stops on the second to last step and stands there for exactly one second before deciding that she has spent enough of her life standing on the wrong side of things.

She steps into the kitchen.

Rachel is at the counter, back to her, stirring something on the stove absentmindedly. She's wearing a grey knitted sweater and pants set, hair half up, and she's humming again, like she can’t work without music.

Quinn stands in the doorway, almost mirroring her first morning here.

"Hey," she says.

Rachel turns. She reads Quinn's face immediately, Quinn knows she does because Rachel can read her better than almost anyone, which is part of why she spent so many years making sure Rachel didn't get close enough to try. Something in her expression opens up, but only for a moment, like she is tired of being hopeful.

"Hi," Rachel says quietly. She sets the spoon down.

Quinn crosses the kitchen.

She stops close, almost hip to hip with the brunette, and Rachel goes very still. Then, Quinn looks at her for a long moment, takes a long breath and just starts.

"I need to say something and I need you to let me finish because if you interrupt me I will lose my nerve and there have been many incidents this week already."

Rachel opens her mouth.

"I mean it, Rach."

Rachel closes it.

"I have been in love with you," she says, "since I was probably sixteen years old and didn't have the first idea what to do with that, obviously. So I did what I did, which was be awful to you and then go and be with guys to see if that changed anything, and we all know how that turned out. Then, I was your almost-friend and left and put as much distance between us as I possibly could because being near you was the most complicated thing I had ever experienced and I was eighteen and I didn't know how to be near something I wanted that much without—" she stops, breathes, keeps going, "—without it being obvious, and I couldn't be obvious because you were with Finn and then you weren't and then you were going to marry him and I wanted to shake you, Rachel, I wanted to shake you so hard because you were so talented and so much and you were going to give all of that up for a life in Lima and I couldn't—" her voice catches slightly, she pushes through it, "—I couldn't watch that. And then you didn't and you went to New York and I went to New Haven and I thought, okay. It's done. She's gone and I'm gone and I just have to get over it."

Rachel tries to say something.

"I'm not finished," Quinn continues.

"I tried," Quinn confesses. "I really tried. I didn't answer your email because reading it felt like, I don't know, like if I just didn't respond I could make myself stop feeling like that. But it didn't work. It has never worked. I came back here to write a book about a girl who figures out who she is and gets the ending she deserves and I spent every single day writing about you and thinking about you and sitting in the same room as you and trying to convince myself that it meant nothing." She shakes her head. "It was not nothing."

She stops, and the kitchen is completely quiet except for something bubbling softly on the stove.

"And I know that I handled all of it badly," Quinn says, quieter now, running out of momentum, arriving at the part that costs the most. "The distance and the questions and yesterday at the park. I know I hurt you. And I know that I disappeared when I should have stayed and I know that six years is a long time and things are different now and maybe this is…" she gestures vaguely at the space between them, "Maybe this is too late or too complicated or just too much, and if it is you can tell me and I will go back upstairs, pack my bags and we will have Thanksgiving dinner and I will never mention it again." She meets Rachel's eyes, holds them. "But I needed you to know. I needed to actually say it, out loud, to you, instead of to a document, because I had to create this story and these people when you are right here and I am so tired of pretending that I don't know exactly what I want."

She is finished.

The silence that follows is the longest of Quinn's life, or at least it feels that way, standing almost glued to Rachel Berry, in her kitchen on Thanksgiving, with her heart completely outside her body.

Rachel just looks at her, mouth agape.

"So," Quinn says, and her voice comes out smaller than she intends. "Say something. Please. So I know whether to… I can leave if you want. Just, say something."

Rachel looks at her for one more moment.

Then she says, very simply: "Come here."

And Quinn does.

She crosses the last inches of distance between them and Rachel meets her halfway and Quinn kisses her. Finally, after seventeen and twenty-four and every age in between, with one hand coming up to Rachel's face and the other finding the counter behind her, it is not tentative, but the opposite. The kind of kiss that has been waiting a long time and knows it.

Rachel kisses her back with both hands in Quinn's hair, as if she’s dreamed about leaving them there, like she has been waiting just as long and is done being patient about it.

They stay there, against the kitchen counter, in the warmth of the house, fitting together perfectly, for a long time.

When they finally separate, barely, Rachel keeps her hands where they are and looks at Quinn from very close and says, a little breathless, "For the record, I was going to say something."

Quinn laughs. Actually laughs, the sound coming straight from her chest. "I know."

"You never let me talk."

"You talk too much."

"Well, you were the one talking today."

"Rachel."

Rachel looks at her. Then she smiles, slow and completely unguarded. Quinn cannot resist the urge to cup Rachel’s face in her hands, letting go of the counter, therefore almost resting her whole weight against Rachel’s body.

"Hi," Rachel says softly, like they're meeting for the first time. 

Quinn's chest does something that feels really close to a heart attack.

"Hi," she says back.

Rachel tugs her back by the waist before she can get far.

It's a small movement, unhurried, just her fingers finding the fabric of Quinn's skirt and pulling gently, and Quinn comes back without resistance, and Rachel kisses her again, so slowly and with clear intentions.

Quinn pulls back after a moment, just enough.

"Aren't you going to treat me to dinner first, Ms. Berry?"

Rachel opens her eyes. Looks at her. "We are literally standing in front of a stove."

"That's not the point. I am not that easy, thought you knew that."

Rachel rolls her eyes, but she's smiling, and she turns back to the counter as she gently pushes Quinn away as a joke, with a composure that fools neither of them. "Fine. Sit down."

Quinn sits on one of the stools by the counter with a pleasant smile on her face, until she hears Rachel mutter “It's all about the teasing and not about the pleasing”. It’s safe to say Quinn has a laugh at that.

Dinner is Thanksgiving food, except there is no turkey, still which means there is too much for two people and neither of them minds. They sit across from each other at the kitchen table that fits four, with candles Rachel lit because Rachel is Rachel, and they eat slowly in a way that has nothing to do with the food and everything to do with not wanting to look away.

They talk about little things, the mood feeling lighter than ever. Quinn makes Rachel laugh twice with anecdotes about her life. Rachel tells Quinn about an awful director she worked with last year and does an impression of him that is genuinely devastating.

At some point Rachel reaches across the table and rests her hand over Quinn's, loosely, like it's the most natural thing.

Quinn turns her hand over underneath it and plays with Rachel’s rings.

"We still have a lot to talk about," Rachel says, eventually, looking at their hands.

"I know," Quinn says.

"Not tonight though." Rachel looks up. "Tonight I just want—" she pauses, searching for the word. "This. Just this."

Quinn looks at her across the candlelight and the remnants of Thanksgiving dinner and thinks about her character, who got the ending she deserved, and thinks: yeah.

"Yeah," she says. "Me too."

They do the dishes together, which takes longer than it should because Rachel has a system and Quinn keeps not following it and Rachel keeps correcting her and Quinn keeps doing it wrong on purpose just to hear her say something about it. Also Rachel gets handsy by the sink at one point, which catches Quinn by surprise. By the time the kitchen is clean it is late and they stand at the bottom of the stairs with interlinked hands.

Rachel looks at her.

Quinn looks back.

"Come on," Rachel says simply, and takes her hand, and leads her up the stairs.

They get ready for bed in their respective rooms. Rachel washes her face and does her overcomplicated skin care, then brushes her hair. Quinn shows up to borrow some toothpaste and doesn't even address how many products are arranged on the bathroom counter, which Rachel appreciates.

They get into bed.

Rachel turns the lamp off.

In the dark, Quinn shifts onto her side. Rachel moves toward her without discussing it, settling against her easily, and Quinn puts her arm around her, and that is that.

"Quinn," Rachel says, into the dark.

"Mm."

A small pause. "I'm glad you're here."

Quinn presses her lips briefly to the top of Rachel's head. "Me too."

Rachel exhales, slow and settled.

They fall asleep, though Quinn already felt like she was dreaming.

***

Quinn wakes to her phone buzzing on the nightstand with aggressive persistence.

She reaches for it without fully opening her eyes, squinting at the screen.

Santana.

She glances at Rachel, still asleep beside her, wavy hair across the pillow, entirely unbothered by the world. Quinn slides carefully out from under the covers, answering just before it goes to voicemail.

"Hey—"

"Okay, hermit, your week of solitude is officially over." Santana's voice comes through at a volume that is startling for 8am. "How's Lima? How's the book? Are you heading to the airport? And why are you whispering?"

Quinn looks around for a second before deciding to pad toward the bathroom. "I'm not whispering."

"You are absolutely whispering. Are you still at Sam's?"

"Not exactly."

"What does that mean, not exactly. Where are you?"

"I'm still in Lima, I just—" she keeps her voice low, "hold on, let me just go to the bathroom so I don't wake Rachel." Quinn steps into the bathroom and pulls the door most of the way closed behind her. 

Three full seconds of silence.

"So you don't wake," Santana says, very carefully, "Rachel."

"Santana—"

"Rachel Berry."

"Yes…"

"Who is asleep?"

"Santana, I swear to God."

"Midget. In your bed."

"It's her house, Santana, it's her—"

"Wait, wait, wait." Quinn can hear her sitting up, fully alert now. "Why are you at Rachel's house? You were supposed to be at Sam's."

"I know."

"Did something happen?"

"Everything is fine, Sam just—" Quinn sits on the edge of the bathtub, "—he forgot to leave the key."

A pause that lasts exactly long enough for Santana to process this fully.

"He forgot," she says flatly.

"He had it in his pocket."

"Samuel Evans forgot the key and the only other person you knew in town was Rachel."

"Correct."

"Quinn." Santana's voice has shifted into something dangerously measured. "I know Rachel is in Lima this week. I talked to her before she left. Are you telling me that you have been staying at Rachel Berry's house this entire week and you didn't tell me."

"I told you I’d go no contact to help my writing process."

"Your writing process can go to—"

"I needed to focus on the book."

"Quinn."

"—and things were fine, as fine as you’d expect, but last night we just—"

"You just what."

"We talked a lot. And had dinner. We also watched a movie earlier in the week and—"

"And she's in your bed."

"Her bed."

"Blondie."

"—and we kissed, okay?" Quinn hisses, dropping her voice to almost nothing on the last word. "We kissed and I told her everything and she… Well, and now I'm not sure I’m getting on the two o'clock flight so can you please stop yelling."

Silence.

Then, very quietly, in a voice that is almost unrecognizable as Santana Lopez: "You told her everything."

"Yes."

"Like. Everything everything."

"Yes."

Another silence. Quinn waits.

"Hold on." Santana's voice sharpens. "I need the full story. From the key. Walk me through it."

"It's a long story, San. I wouldn't want to bore you with it."

"Spare me the dramatics, Q. I gots to know what's going on. Spill."

Quinn sighs. "Okay. So Sam forgets the key. I'm standing outside his house in the cold with nowhere to go, and he texts me suggesting I call Rachel—"

"Of course he did." Santana sounds deeply unsurprised. "That man is a golden retriever in a human suit. He did that on purpose."

"I think so, too."

"And Rachel?"

"Rachel drove across town in the cold to come get me and then made me hot chocolate," Quinn says, and she can hear how fond she sounds and decides she doesn't care anymore.

"Quinn," Santana says, and her voice has gone somewhere softer, "how long has this been going on."

"This week has been tumultuous."

"But the kiss."

Quinn looks at the bathroom door. "Just last night," she says quietly. "I’m really happy, San."

"Yeah," Santana says. "I know." A beat. "Does she know how long you’ve been waiting for this? How important this is to you."

"She does now."

"Dios mío." A sharp exhale. "And she…"

"She feels the same way."

The sound that comes from Santana's end is something Quinn has never heard from her before and will never be able to describe accurately. It lasts approximately two seconds and is immediately followed by: "You didn't hear that."

"Heard every bit of it."

"I will take it to my grave, Barbie." Her voice comes back full force. "I knew it. I told Britt, I had a feeling. She said I was projecting and I said something is going to happen with those two eventually and now look."

"Are you done—"

"I am not even close to done. Six years of watching you make that face every time someone mentioned her name, six years of avoiding mentioning every news I had about her," she stops. "Wait. Does this mean she's not straight? Because I always had a feeling, you know."

"She's not, said she's never put a label on it," Quinn says. "But she's been there too. The feelings. It wasn't one-sided."

"Ha." Santana says it like a word, flat and satisfied. "I knew that too. I never said it because I didn't want to get your hopes up but I absolutely knew that."

"Sure you did."

"I did, Quinn, I have excellent instincts, and an amazing gaydar."

"You told me she was straight as recently as last year—"

"I was being cautious," Santana says, without missing a beat. "It's called being a good friend. So what happens now? Are you coming back together? Quinn, I gots to know everything."

"I’m not sure yet," Quinn says. "We didn’t talk about much last night."

Another sound. More contained this time, but only just.

"Gross, Lucy Q," Santana says, pulling herself together with visible effort. "I don’t need to know about that, please keep that to yourself." 

“What? I didn’t mean it like that! We just cuddled.”

“Suuuuuure, Q. I take that back, I need details. Is Berrrylicious good in bed?”

Quinn chuckles in a specific way she only does when she is embarrassed, “Please stop.”

“I’m kidding, chica.” A pause, and then her voice drops. "Are you happy, Quinn?"

Quinn is quiet for a moment.

Outside the bathroom window Lima is pale and still and entirely itself, and outside the bathroom Rachel is asleep, peacefully herself, too.

"Yeah," she says. "I really am."

"Good." A beat. Then, fully back: "Because if Berry hurts you I will make her life a living nightmare and I don't care how many Tonys she wins."

"She's not going to hurt me."

"My Lima Heights Adjacent experiences don't have an expiration date, that's all I'm saying."

"Noted." Quinn stands, glancing at the door. "I have to go."

"Fine. Debrief. In person. Next week. You're buying food."

"Goodbye, Santana."

"Tell Berry I said she has good taste. And that I'm watching her."

"I'm hanging up now."

"Bésame el—"

Quinn ends the call.

She stands in the bathroom for a moment, phone in hand, smiling at the floor like a teenager.

Then she pushes the door open and finds Rachel lying exactly where she left her, but awake, with the expression of someone who has heard considerably more than she was supposed to and is only barely containing it.

Quinn looks at her.

"I was not straight last year, you know," Rachel says gravely.

Quinn drops back onto the bed and puts the pillow over her face.

Rachel laughs, bright and real and entirely at her expense, and Quinn feels the mattress shift as she moves closer, and then Rachel's hand finds her arm and pulls the pillow away and she is right there, morning light and wavy hair and the smile that Quinn has been storing up for years.

"Hi," Rachel says.

"She said you have good taste," Quinn says. "And that she's watching you."

"How reassuring." Rachel tilts her head. "Does this mean you're staying?"

Quinn looks at her.

"My manager is very good at her job, we could put you on my flight tomorrow" Rachel adds.

"I wouldn't want to impose."

Rachel raises an eyebrow, waiting.

"Call her," Quinn says.

Rachel smiles and reaches for her phone, and Quinn lies back and looks at the ceiling, thinking of her newfound appreciation for this town, and how in approximately twenty-four hours neither of them will be in it.

The rental car that has been sitting in the driveway since Monday, which will have to wait one more day to move.

She knows they have a lot to figure out, but for a moment, with Rachel Berry's hand on her hair, laying down by her side, she allows herself to just be. They have the rest of their lives to talk, and to fall in love all over again, to make mistakes and to forgive each other. She thinks: thank goodness that the universe brought her to Lima, and thank goodness for Sam Evans.

She thinks about her book, finished on the desk upstairs. Already emailed to the publisher. A girl who gets the ending she deserves.

She thinks: yeah.

Yeah, she does.