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Georgetown doesn’t come cheap.
It’s a final year of high school full of bi-weekly dinners with her father and his new wife, where she grits out picture perfect smiles through her teeth, and the endless resentment of her mother, who wouldn’t have been able to afford to send her anywhere without Russell’s approval.
Santana thinks she's just doing it on a whim, and doesn’t talk to her for almost a month when she finds out that Quinn got basically a full ride on cheerleading to UCLA, but declined it to go in favor of art history at Georgetown. Her boyfriend, a whole year younger than her and the latest addition to Rachel’s collection of muppets in Glee--which she’s not even in anymore, but it’s not like he had “Show Choir” written on his forehead when he asked her out at a party at Brittany’s over Christmas break--just questions her choices, because there isn’t a whole lot of money in art history.
The thing is, there’s not a whole lot of money in being miserable either, and there isn’t any money whatsoever in love; Sam and Mercedes, for instance, are over the moon with each other, and Finn and Rachel somehow are making plans to stay together even though he’s going to be at OSU and she’s going--obviously--to New York. They’re all broke, and while Trent is exactly the kind of guy that her parents hope she’d end up with, she finds that she actually kind of loathes him.
Breaking up with him is public and easy. Nobody even asks her what she wants anymore, because they all think she has no idea. They’re only about half right.
In the end, she packs the trunk of her car with the things that don’t just scream Lucy or Lima or I have no idea what I’m doing, and drives over to DC in a day and a half; when she gets there, she feels a strange kind of freedom. It settles and then bursts in her chest when she meets her roommate--an economics major named Liz, who awkwardly pushes her glasses up her nose before introducing herself and then says, “You know, Darnall has the reputation of being the most sexually active hall of residence at the entire university.”
“It’s women’s only,” is the first thing Quinn can think to say. “How does that even...”
“I just wanted to let you know that as far as I’m concerned, our room is going to personally destroy that myth. Like, so help me, if I ever find a sock on our door--”
“You won’t,” Quinn says, and then laughs a little helplessly. “I’m abstinent.”
Liz gives her an assessing look and then seemingly decides she’s serious. “Yeah, I’m just into boundaries and respect, but I can work with abstinence.”
Boundaries and respect.
She’s never had either. She could get used them.
*
Okay, so Pace isn’t exactly the best school in the world, but it’s one that he gets into, and it’s within easy travel distance from Rachel, which is awesome, because the whole long distance thing was starting to give him hives a little bit. Not literally, obviously, but--it was getting to them, to the point where even making out wasn’t distracting him from it anymore.
But, the letter comes one day in spring, and he hugs his mother and Burt and even air-kisses Kurt just because it’s that kind of good news, and then basically runs all the way over to Rachel’s house--and it takes a good thirty minutes, but whatever--to give her the good news.
Rachel’s dads look a little disturbed, if he’s honest, and yeah, he’s not dumb. They were hoping she’d outgrow her country time high school boyfriend and find some awesome new guy in New York, probably some lawyer in training at Columbia or whatever. Sometimes, it’s like they have more concerns about like, if Rachel is going to be okay financially than if she’s going to be happy, and as someone who’s never had a lot of money, Finn just can’t really get behind that idea.
They head up together, and kiss a very temporary goodbye outside of his dorm in Westchester--where Rachel bounces up on her toes, and he knows his new roommates or whatever are probably watching him, wondering where he even found a girlfriend so pocket-sized.
He lives with a guy named Ben from Nebraska who’s majoring in film studies, and tells Ben that he’s majoring in childhood education; he half expects Ben to laugh the same way Puck had, when he’d told him, but Ben just says, “Cool--so, want to play some CoD?” and it’s basically exactly like Lima, except a little colder and nobody’s going to be making dinner for him.
Rachel calls later that night and says that she’s living with a musical theory major named Mallorie, like in the Babysitter’s Club, and he has no idea what that even means, so he just asks if Mallorie’s cool. “Oh--fantastic,” Rachel says, and then calls out to someone else and wishes him a good night, with a soft, “I love you” that’s half-whispered when she’s already hanging up.
“Girlfriend, huh,” Ben asks, from where he’s watching a movie on his laptop on the other side of the room.
“Yeah, she’s pretty amazing,” Finn says, and unmutes the football game he’s got on in the small television that Burt gave him to take with him to school.
He figures at this rate that they’ll probably be together forever; maybe doing their own thing, but the only real obstacle that they ever had between them was that Rachel was going to be a star and he was going to be in Lima forever. Now?
Yeah, they’re unstoppable.
*
The first year at Georgetown passes in a blur. Liz is actually a great roommate, because she’s clean, quiet, and not incapable of having fun when she’s dragged away from her textbooks (and just looking at those make Quinn want to kill herself, honestly, which is how she knows she did the right thing by majoring in art history).
DC is small enough to feel like a town, as far as cities go, and Georgetown is an even smaller bubble within that larger town--full of great Mexican food, and she puts on a freshman fifteen in enchiladas rather than alcohol. She actually manages to go without getting absolutely hammered until after January exams, when Liz and some of Liz’s friends from the business school drag her to an Irish sports bar to see if Guinness is in fact as filling as a sandwich, and she discovers she kind of likes dark beers.
They don’t remind her of home, the way scotch and G&Ts do, and they don’t remind her of her boyfriends either, who never actually got much beyond Miller Lite.
Her own friends join her on excursions to the gym and trips of scouring the shops around DuPont circle for cheap second-hand classic novels that she likes to read as an accompaniment to the things that she studies in classes; one time, in March, she and her friend Charlotte end up getting their eyebrows threaded by this tiny Vietnamese woman who operates from the basement of a book store, and Quinn flinches the entire time until it’s clear that she’s not actually going to come out looking like a total idiot.
“Why are you single?” is the most common thing she gets asked.
“Because I have to learn how to be,” is the answer she never gives, instead demurring with some pointed comments about scholarships and earning her keep.
The thing is, the kind of boys she knows how to date wouldn’t be interested in her these days anymore; she’s not the status symbol she once was in high school, but just a girl who goes to a Feist concert in an Anthropologie dress and 30 buck flats that she got on zappos.com, and the strangest thing of all is that she likes her life like that just fine.
*
It’s February when Rachel calls, in tears, and says that she’s sorry.
Finn wonders immediately if an anniversary passed and he forgot about it, but then why would she be apologizing? It only takes him another few seconds to realize that Rachel’s not apologizing for something pointless, or stupid, and then the story flows out: it’s something about wine coolers, and how she was just trying something and everyone else is so liberal and free and she just feels so small town sometime and it didn’t mean anything and....
He hangs up, before he finds out what the guy’s name is.
He finds out two days later that the guy’s name is Allison, actually, and it takes him another three days to realize that that’s even harder for him to look past, because...
“The Rachel I know doesn’t do stuff like that,” he says, and he means it; it’s not like Santana hadn’t offered plenty of times in senior year, and if she could say no to Santana Lopez--who, well, was smoking hot--then what the fuck was this about?
It’s a week after she calls that he realizes that he doesn’t actually want an explanation; he just wants to hit something, and joins Ben at his kick-boxing club for a free lesson. His knuckles come away bruised and the tops of his feet ache after he gets shown some basic moves, and he hasn’t felt better in a long time.
Ben and his film partner, Scott, take him out to get wasted; some other guy in the dorms sets them all up with fake IDs, and the boys just remind him that he’s young and there’s a lot of other girls out there, and he’ll find someone.
They have no idea how special Rachel is, and how incredibly weird it always has been that she ever wanted him at all, but it takes him at least seven beers to forget.
The fact that he wakes up outside without a shirt on and actually has to use his phone’s GPS to try to figure out where the fuck he is--yeah, that feels like a good way to put an end to a really serious relationship.
“I’m not mad, but this isn’t going to work,” he tells her, when he’s finally wandered back to his dorm, also missing a shoe and his watch, which is just great, and she cries and begs him to change his mind, and he lets her. He owes her that much, but...
He’s going back to Ohio, some day, and she’s just not, and while ten months ago that would’ve made him really fucking upset, now it just makes him a little sad.
Honestly, he’s more worried about what happened to his watch--it belonged to his dad, it’s like fucking all he had of his dad--than what will happen to him and Rachel, and that’s how he knows it’s time to pull the plug.
“I still love you,” he says, and sighs. “It’s not that I don’t love you, but like... our lives just don’t match up, Rachel.”
She eventually gives up, and he only cries when Ben says, “Hey--the band on this snapped, so I pocketed it before you could lose it somewhere” and hands him back the clockwork.
He’s not even really sure what he’s crying about.
*
It seems inevitable, that at some point in college she’d make out with a girl; the circumstances in which it happens are still kind of strange, though, because she’s just watching a one-woman show at an art gallery when the artist randomly wanders over to her and kisses her.
Like, kisses her. Checks for tonsils kisses her.
It’s not unpleasant, but more than anything, it just reminds her that it’s been more than a year since she’s even kissed someone. There was a close call, with Puck, at a pool party at Santana’s when she’d gone home for the first time in a year, but there are some mistakes that she won’t ever repeat, and her bad boy phase is so far in the past that it’s almost funny.
The kind of guys she notices wear skinny jeans, or stroll up and down the Mall in suits without looking up from their Blackberries. It’s almost impossible to hook up with anyone in the city and actually land a semi-local; Charlotte complains that every guy she makes out with ends up being some douchey intern from the Midwest who is just going to go back home after three months again, and Quinn just smiles and goes back to her textbook on the Renaissance, which is frankly of more interest to her than all the skinny jeans and suits in the world.
The Smithsonian organizes random things on the mall, like a food tasting festival each summer, and she finds that it’s those kinds of things that she looks forward to now.
It’s not a lonely existence, because she’s happier than she’s ever been. She’s just also not entirely sure who she is anymore, but according to the counselor she’s started seeing lately--it was about time, because with enough distance from Ohio, some things were easier to suppress until a baby sock was dropped from a stroller in front of her one day, right in front of a bus, and she burst into tears for reasons she couldn’t articulate to the few strangers who asked if she was okay--that’s totally normal for a girl who’s about to turn twenty and has had to shed a lot of expectations.
“DC sounds fucking boring,” Santana says, almost outmatched by the sound of the ocean behind her; and if Quinn closes her eyes, she can just about imagine Brittany next to her, watching a game of beach volleyball until she’s memorized enough rules to go and join in.
She can see the third spot they were saving there for her, too--but it’s on the outside, looking in, and it feels a little like all three of them are starting to realize that there’s not much left of their unintended trinity, even after this small amount of time passing.
“I’m boring,” she says, easily.
“Well, yeah, but there’s boring and boring, Q,” Santana says.
She knows what’s coming next; some pointed advice about how, now that she’s on the pill and has also discovered the joy of condoms, there’s really nothing stopping her from getting laid.
“I know,” she says, because Santana sends her “I love you”s in vulgarity, and there is no point in rejecting the idea that sex could be good for her.
She’s not even really denying that to herself. She just doesn’t think it could be better for her than not being at all dependent on anyone else, and until that changes, it just doesn’t seem worth it.
*
He doesn’t honestly know why he’s still in New York, except that he likes his friends and transfering is kind of a pain. Pace is probably a better school than OSU anyway, and whatever, he’s over halfway done with his degree by the time it occurs to him that New York kind of smells like a wet dog--even over in Westchester--and he could probably just talk to his friends over Skype or whatever, if he really wanted to.
Puck comes to visit over the summer and talks about the way the fields around Lima change colors with the seasons and it actually fucking hurts him that he has to close his eyes to picture it; like two years away have changed so much that he can’t even remember.
“Saw Quinn a week ago,” Puck then says, out of nowhere, before taking another sip of Coors and fishing around for the last bits of Doritos in the bag.
He doesn’t know if he should be thinking about her more, but it still surprises him when Puck says her name and he just suddenly remembers things: the way she used to not even be able to touch him without him basically coming in his pants; the constant look of disapproval on her face when he did anything either too predictable or wrong; and the anguish on her face when he’d dumped her for the last time.
“Yeah?” he finally just says.
Puck nods and runs his tongue past his teeth. “She’s changed, man. Like--if you thought she was out of my league before, and I know you did, so don’t even...”
“Whatever, dude,” Finn says, and then trains his eyes back on the television, where his soldier is trying to snipe Puck’s off a building.
“Yeah,” Puck finally just says. “She’s like... gone and grown up, or something. She’s fucking hotter than ever, though, I’ll say that much.”
It’s not until he’s in bed later that night, and Puck’s sawing away on the floor in his bedroom, that it hits him that he can barely even remember what Quinn looks like.
He looks her up on Facebook, and just gets a locked profile with one of those anonymous people icons in place, which is probably for the best, because it’s not like he has anything to say to her, really. “I like your face” isn’t much of an introduction after all this time.
The weird thing is, he’s also starting to forget what Rachel looks like, except that he’s pretty damn sure that one day soon, if he doesn’t get the fuck away from the city, her face is going to be plastered on things all around him.
That’s when he starts thinking about transfering.
In the end, it’s not nearly as big a pain in the ass as he thinks it is, and by the end of summer, he and Burt are driving a U-Haul to Cleveland, which is kind of in between of the other places he’s lived so far in terms of size and scope.
It’s not until he actually takes a walk around the city and realizes he doesn’t feel like he’s drowning, and until later that day he drives out of the city and lands pretty much immediately in the countryside he’s considered home all of his life, that he realizes just how long he’s been holding his breath in New York.
CSU calls what he wants to do “middle childhood education”, and even though he spent most of high school thinking that Rachel’s obsession with metaphor was kind of ridiculous, there’s something very poetic about how all of this is lining up.
He’s not as small town as people think he is, but the middle--yeah, that’s kind of where he fits.
*
It figures that even when she’s on the other side of the country, her parents would find a way to screw with her life in unpredictable ways; and if that isn’t the single most un-Christian, uncharitable thought she’s ever had, she doesn’t know what is.
She heads to confession almost immediately, in one of the downtown DC churches that she hasn’t set foot in once since she moved there--and it takes her ten minutes to even decide if she’s technically Presbyterian or Lutheran now that she doesn’t practice at all anymore--and in the end, all that matters is that the Lutheran church she does set foot in has a confession facility set up.
All of this is so automatic to her that she gets through it without any grief, except that the priest actually sucks in a breath when she says the words out loud:
“My mother has cancer, and all I can think about is how I don’t want to move back to Ohio.”
Saying it makes it go away, though; that terrible part of her that relishes being selfish, after so many years of only living up to other people’s dreams and hopes for her. Maybe there is no God after all; the proof’s in this pudding for sure, because even with her not-quite-newfound awareness that medicine has very little to do with religion, somehow it’s managing to pull her life out from under her just fine.
Liz gives her a giant hug on her last day and says, “Maybe Cleveland won’t be so bad.”
It’s not like Case Western is the worst school she could be going to, and this is the compromise they’d all agreed on; her mother’s best chances of care are in Cleveland to begin with, and so they’re off, in a complete contradiction of the way she was raised--two women fending for themselves in a city they’re not familiar with.
It’s not until she’s angrily painting the hallway a color that’s called blue cloud, like there’s any such thing, that she finally realizes that she’s being ridiculous, and that there isn’t any reason why she can’t still be herself--and really, the discovery of who that is is starting to feel imminent, even if this temporary regression back into head cheerleader and utter asshole Quinn has thrown her--even if she’s back in Ohio.
It’s a new part of Ohio, and so she puts down the paint roller and goes to find her mother, frail like a bird and make-up less, like a corpse, and gives her a hug that she actually means, for possibly the first time ever.
“I have never done right by you,” her mother whispers, through chapped lips and tears that feel honest and real.
“It’s not too late,” Quinn promises, and when her mother knots their hands together like they’re praying, she lets her, even though her own faith is more shaken than ever.
It figures that her first class of the new year is on the German Gothic movement. It feels oddly appropriate.
*
He doesn’t even recognize her at first; the dress is familiar, but the way she carries herself is so different that it takes him three seconds of blinking and then a slow lowering of his sunglasses to realize that yes, that is in fact his ex-girlfriend, standing around and waiting for a bus outside of Whole Foods.
His feet are locked solid, because all he can do is look; she’s on the phone to someone and there’s a smile on her face about something, which then slips out of nowhere. He watches silently as she pulls out earphones and slips them into her ears, and then sits down on the bench by the stop, pulls out a novel, crosses her legs at the ankle and starts to read.
He almost says hello, except that he’s finally at the part of his degree where he has to teach, and so he has on this ridiculous short-sleeved dress shirt and a too-short tie that make him look like a giant... and he’s already not feeling too great about this, because even third grade math isn’t exactly his best subject. (History, on the other hand, he can sell like it’s going out of style.)
But, she’s on one side of the street, reading a book, and he’s on the other, trying to not fall over his own feet before catching a bus and heading over to a primary school in the richest suburb of Cleveland.
For one totally stupid minute, he actually thinks that this is completely in reverse, and he’s just an impostor and she should be taking his place, because Quinn’s always been about money and looking like everything is in control even when it’s not...
… but the girl across the street is wiping at her eyes, and then gazing off into the distance, and fuck, he doesn’t know what he’s thinking.
The bus pulls up in front of him, and he gets on because there isn’t enough time to make a different decision.
Only when he’s done with his teaching for the day, somehow having gotten covered in ink with an exploding pen and covered in chalk from wiping his forehead with his own dust-covered hand, does he stop to think about the fact that she’s in Cleveland.
He wouldn’t know who to ask about that, anymore. It’s not like Quinn stayed in touch with anyone, or ever came back to Lima except for that one time when she’d apparently come back and not told anyone.
It’s just like her, actually, to just slip in unnoticed and still send Puck’s head into a tailspin.
In what he considers to be his first adult decision ever, pretty much, Finn decides he doesn’t need that shit to happen to him yet again, and so he heads off to a garden party at his friend Keith’s house, where he kisses a girl who’s majoring in Early Childhood Education.
All of that’s totally on, until she demonstrates excellent karaoke skills, and he gets queasy so fast that he just has to get out of there.
*
The first time she sees him, he’s carrying a child.
It’s so fucking disorienting that she almost drops the bag of medicine she’s carrying, which would be awkward, because she’d look like an addict of some kind with how many pills she has on her; and of course the logical explanation is, “It’s not for me, Judy has cancer”--and yes, that’s new, but they both decided they needed a fresh start and so now she’s calling her mother Judy and watching Food Network shows with her and honestly, it would be nice if not for the constant reminder that the only reason any of this is happening is because her mother is dying--but she doesn’t want to get into that in public anyway.
Her hands save her, without her consent, and clutch the bag tightly, even as Finn--across the street--ushers a small horde of paired children into a building, before kneeling and having a quiet but serious-looking conversation with the boy he was carrying.
The boy nods a few times, in that exaggerated way that only children can, and Finn ruffles his hair before patting him on the shoulder and sending him after his peers.
Only then does he get back up and take a deep breath that almost makes her laugh, but there’s nothing funny about how the visual of Finn Hudson--who was in New York, so God only knows what he’s doing in Cleveland with children--with a small child reminds her of the worst thing she’s ever tried to do.
Even if all it does is remind her of why.
“Are you going to use that or--” someone asks behind her, impatiently, and she quickly steps up to the ATM and cashes her dad’s monthly child support cheque; he might have been an unscrupulous hypocritical bastard, but at least he was doing the Christian thing about this, even though she turned 21 last month and his obligations technically lapsed.
The bag of medicine has never felt heavier by the time she gets home, and finds that Judy hasn’t even gotten out of bed; it’s one of those days, and she makes them both a bowl of ice cream before settling in bed next to her.
“It’s not long now,” Judy says, in the middle of an episode of Nigella doing something or other, and Quinn’s spoon clatters from her hand.
“Don’t say that--”
“Quinn...” her mother says, and then pauses, her breath wheezing weakly for a moment. “No. I’m having this conversation with my daughter, and her name is Lucy. Her name is Lucy, and she’s never needed to be be anything but that.”
Her tears must be hot, because they’re melting the ice cream so quickly that it’s nothing but a puddle in a bowl by the time she looks again.
“Please don’t do this,” she asks, and then flinches when her mother’s knotted, thin hand wraps around her own and squeezes it tightly.
“Sometimes, we only get one chance to set things right,” Judy says, and talks about all the hopes and dreams she had before she married Russell, and how she now has hopes and dreams for Quinn and her sister, but mostly for Quinn, because, “You’re more free than any of us, sweetheart, and I don’t ever want you to stop looking for it.”
“For what?” she asks, brokenly, the bowl forgotten on her lap.
“Whatever it is that will make you happy.”
Two weeks later, she’s carrying the same bag of medication through the front door, and calls out Judy’s name, and gets absolutely nothing in response.
She sinks down against the front door, cries for ten minutes, and then throws every single bottle and strip of pills she’s holding against the wall as hard as she can.
Then, she calls her father, and tells him to deal with the arrangements, because he owes her that much.
*
He’s one exam away from graduating, and really just needs a break from studying, which is why he’s reading the comics section of the paper, and whatever sadistic asshole thought that it would be great to put Garfield right across from the obituaries really needs to get slapped upside the head.
Of course, that’s a pretty damn selfish thing to think, and he realizes as much when he sees that they’re burying Judith Mary Fabray (nee Chancey) this upcoming Saturday, and that she will be very much missed and loved by her daughters Francine and Lucy.
It’s the stress, really, that has him bursting into tears.
He’s not sure what it is that has him putting on his only real suit and his most formal, boring tie on Saturday, or polishing his shoes with a dish towel until they’re mostly okay-looking, or taking a bus over to Lake View Cemetary, except.... he does all of those things anyway, shrugging when Keith gives him a funny look on his way out.
He doesn’t recognize Quinn immediately, and it’s because she’s cut her hair again; he still expects it to be long, even though it probably hasn’t been for years now.
She wears red at funerals. He remembers that clearly, and she stands out like a bleeding heart in a sea of black.
Nobody else cries, and nobody does or says anything in particular to Quinn, who stays behind long after the coffin is lowered into the ground and stares at the patch of earth covering it, like it’s going to talk back to her.
This really isn’t how he pictured talking to her for the first time in almost four years, except he loses his opportunity to back out when she finally turns and looks right at him.
“I read. In the paper,” he says, as an explanation. “I... didn’t really know what the right thing to do was, except that I did know her, and …”
“She always liked you, Finn. Even when you were singing about how you knocked me up,” Quinn says, with a wry, wet smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “She told me, just a few weeks before.”
“I liked her too,” he says. He’s not sure he means it, and he’s not sure it matters when Quinn just swipes past her eyes again, dragging some mascara with the motion, and... it’s the most disheveled he’s ever seen her.
“What is it about you and me and funerals?” she finally asks him, and he laughs, not wanting to, but also not able to stop it.
“I was... well, I mean, I obviously can’t break up with you again, and I was just planning on offering to buy you a drink. Do you drink? I--” he sort of stutters, and then just sighs when she gives him a very recognizable look; the my boyfriend, the moron look that she always did much better than Rachel ever could have.
“I could use a Guinness,” she finally says, in a quiet but sure voice that doesn’t remind him of anything.
“Really?”
She sort of flickers in and out of a smile and then says, “It’s been a long time, Finn. If your offer’s sincere, get me to an Irish pub and let me drink what I want.”
He nods, after a moment, and then helps her away from one of the worst days of her life.
She drinks three Guinness and somehow stays completely sober; he has one, out of solidarity just in case this is something about her mother, and feels like he’s going to tip off the bar stool he’s on. She laughs at that, a little, and says, “Still drinking Miller Lite?”
“I actually really like screwdrivers,” he confesses, when he figures she needs the amusement more than he needs his stupid dignity. “It’s Kurt’s fault, but I mean...”
She just sort of smiles at him, and maybe she’s not entirely sober after all, but the next round, she gets him a screwdriver, and herself another Guinness, and he briefly thinks that this is probably the nicest time he’s ever had with her at all.
And they’re getting wasted together because her mother died a slow, painful death.
If that’s not a sign, he doesn’t know what is.
*
The job at the museum is technically completely out of her league; being an assistant curator isn’t something that people without a PhD in a subject normally land, but good letters of recommendation from both of her European Painting and European Sculpture professors (and from two different, but equally good universities) make a massive difference, as it turns out.
Her boss, Cathy, tells her that she comes so highly recommended that they thought the letters were a hoax, at first; she doesn’t know whether to smile or be offended.
“Case sponsors alumni who wish to continue onwards; you do know that, right?” she urges, after only two weeks, and if the thought of running up more debt while still dealing with the fall-out of having to sell the house and find a place to rent within the period of about a month didn’t make her want to set her head on fire, she’d be considering it.
She loves the work, though, and throws herself in it like she does have the necessary qualifications: like there is no way to fail.
Judy would’ve wanted her to, is how she explains it to Finn over dinner, a month and a half later. Somewhere along time, he’s discovered how to chew with his mouth closed and how to listen, and she makes a mental note to make fun of him for having apparently learned more from a set of third graders than from either of his hard-working ex-girlfriends.
Rachel is a non-topic between them; she doesn’t ask, and he really doesn’t seem inclined to offer, but then at some in the spring, when she finds out through Santana that Rachel’s starring in some off-off Broadway production that all of Lima is wetting themselves over--their little star, is what they’re calling her, and she can just about picture Rachel preening at it--she feels obligated to do something, even if that is misplaced and naive.
In the end, she just calls Finn and invites him over for a night of sports and drinking.
“I thought you hated basketball,” he says, looking ginormous on her tiny two-seater, and then also ridiculous in his work clothes, holding a screwdriver with an umbrella in it.
“I like the pro game. It’s the only one my dad wasn’t obsessed with,” she says, folding her legs under her body and picking at the label on her bottle of cider.
“Are you... talking to him?” Finn finally asks, after some of the most comfortable minutes of silence she’s ever spent in another person’s presence.
“When I need money,” she says, trying to smile, but it doesn’t really work. “So--not really. Not now that I have a job.”
She watches as some rookie on the Cavs dunks for the third time in a row and they both sort of whistle through their teeth at the same time. “Might actually make it to the play-offs this time,” Finn notes, before slurping up some more of his drink, and there’s something about how he’s so comfortable with looking so stupid that has her finally asking.
“What happened with you and Berry?”
He tenses, and then eases into a slow smile. “You can’t seriously still think of her as Berry after all these years.”
“Honestly, until we started … being friends again, I hadn’t thought of her at all in forever.” It’s not a lie, either; Rachel became a non-issue as soon as it was clear that in the eternal battle for Finn’s half-assed attention, Quinn would never come out in front. “But I can call her Rachel, if it makes a difference.”
“It doesn’t,” Finn says, a little stiltedly, and then just exhales and slumps down further on the couch. “I guess I … I mean, whatever. It’s been years. I can talk about this.”
She knows she hides her surprise well when he glances over and then just keeps going.
“We didn’t even make it past our freshman year. I lived like, twenty minutes away from her, and she cheated on me.”
“What?” she can’t help but ask. “After all the fucking pining over you for years, she--”
He shoots her an amused look. “Look at you, with the bad language.”
She rolls her eyes at him a little but then just frowns. “I honestly don’t know what to say. I mean, …”
“It gets better,” Finn says, sighing and running a hand up and down his face. “She cheated on me with a girl.”
She clamps down on her laughter a little too late, but then it bubbles up again, and after a second Finn grins as well.
“I’m sorry; it’s really not funny.”
“No, it kind of is. I mean, I hope someone breaks her nose on stage some day, but whatever. First she hooks up with my best friend, which, okay, I won’t talk about that because I’m pretty sure that’s still kind of a sensitive subject,” he says, rolling his eyes at her a little, and she laughs again, “and then she cheats on me with a chick. It’s hilarious. I moved cross-country for her, and she decided to express that she’s an artist by hooking up with some girl, or whatever the fuck she called it.”
It’s clear that he’s mostly over it, and that he’s kidding, but there’s also the part where she knows him, and how he used to kick chairs over and pitch fits about Kurt’s clothing, and yeah--Finn’s ability to be totally petty isn’t something that she should like about him, but she kind of does.
Maybe more than all the parts that make him a good guy, even, because that small part of him that’s kind of a jerk; that’s always been the part that’s not too good to be with someone like her.
She’s still watching him when he lamely claps at something on screen, and then he turns to look at her with a sad little smile. “She’s doing great. I hate that about her. Has a boyfriend; Kurt says he’s the spitting image of Jesse St. James. And me...”
“Are you seeing someone?” she asks, because they’ve been doing this occasional drinks and dinner thing for a while now, but it’s always felt too invasive.
He shakes his head. “Haven’t since then, basically. I mean.... I haven’t been like, you know, a priest. … wait. Do they get to have sex, or...”
She smiles. “So many years of dating a born-again virgin, and you still don’t know.”
“You still one of those?” he asks.
“Circumstantially,” she says, after taking another sip of her cider and thinking about it for a moment. “I’m not really that into … doing what God wants me to anymore, but... yeah. Then there’s finding the right guy, and that’s also not really happened.”
“You’ve had a really crappy last two years, though, haven’t you,” he points out, and she just sort of shrugs.
“They’re over now, though.”
He tilts his head at her a little and says, “Let me set you up with one of my coworkers.”
“Finn--”
“No, I’m serious; Tony’s a great guy and like, we obviously know he’s not a pedophile because everyone gets checked--”
She laughs. “Okay, are you trying to sell him to me?”
“He’s also not balding, he has a job, he gets paid, and I think he’s Catholic, though he could also be Jewish,” Finn says, ticking off Tony’s better quality on one hand.
She reaches for that hand before she can stop herself, and smiles unwillingly. “I don’t need you to set me up with someone, Finn.”
“Well, you might not, but Tony pretty much does,” he says, with a boyish grin that for just a second sets something off in her chest; it reminds her of a moment from years ago, when he’d flipped a picture of Lucy over in his wallet, and for once was sure he’d done the right thing.
“Get me another,” she tells him, trying to be stern, and he salutes her before heading off into her kitchen, ducking his head in the doorway, because the low ceilings in her apartment are a complete health hazard for him.
It sort of evens out how she’s starting to think that maybe, he’s a bit of a health hazard for her, because if there’s one thing she definitely doesn’t want to do, it’s screw up the only decent guy in her life by forcing him to have to deal with all of her crap.
Of course, then he has to go and whistle A Horse With No Name in her kitchen, before returning her bottle of Kopparberg to her with another umbrella in it.
“It feels good to be out of the rain,” he says, clinking their glasses together.
Maybe she doesn’t care about him quite enough to protect him, but he’s lucky anyway; she never has known how to chase after things she wants, and the years of all of those things wanting her almost by definition are long gone.
*
Quinn is fun now.
He has to actually say the words out loud until he believes them, but she’s fun; she sends him emails with dirty pictures--and yeah, okay, maybe it’s 17th century French art or whatever, but a naked lady is a naked lady--with sarcastic comments about how women wished their boobs bounced that high after they turn thirty, and he laughs at them on his lunch break before turning his screen away from Tony and Anna.
“So when do we get to meet her?” Anna finally asks, when he’s cracking up at a picture of a guy mounting a girl on a horse that just has DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME written underneath it.
“Hm?” he asks, before hurriedly swallowing the rest of his PB&J sandwich. He finds that it helps to eat the same things as the kids, so that if their parents forget to give them their packed lunch, he can swap in easily; and it’s not like it kills him to have the occasional greasy burrito from down the block, so that’s fine.
“Your girlfriend,” Anna sort of sing-songs at him. She’s pretty, in a really Irish way, but also totally married to this accountant guy who works for PwC downtown, and mostly they just bond over how hard it is to get kids of various ages to be quiet and work.
“I don’t have a girlfriend,” he says, wiping at his mouth. “Um. Do you mean Quinn?”
“If that’s who you talk to on the phone every other day and who sends you those educational emails, then yes, I mean Quinn.”
Tony laughs and says, “Yeah--I mean, a woman who invites you over for drinks to watch basketball games, makes your boring as hell work day pass faster, and apparently doesn’t mind that you’re nothing but a big kid yourself--Finn, if you’re not going to start seeing her, can I have her number?”
It’s been like, a month and a half since he jokingly suggested to Quinn that he could set her up, and Tony’s cool enough--not at all balding, and he kind of looks like John Cusack, but younger; chicks dig that, apparently.
Tony’s cool, and he did offer to set them up, and... none of that explains why his immediate reaction is to frown. “Yeah, no, she wouldn’t be up for that.”
“Is she seeing someone?” Anna asks, a little pointedly.
“No, she’s like busy with her job or whatever. She’s working full time and getting a Masters degree in some... museum stuff. I forget what it’s called. I mean, she barely has time to see me, so--”
Anna and Tony look at each other.
“So do we get to meet her?”
Finn makes a face. “She’s not my girlfriend.”
“She’s your best friend; you’ve met mine,” Tony points out.
“Uh, have I?”
“Sure,” Tony says, before wiggling his right hand across the room. Anna pelts a piece of wadded paper towards him, and then the bells ring.
“Bring her around to Friday drinks at some point,” Anna finally just says, before smiling knowingly. “I’d like to meet the girl that you’re definitely not dating.”
The thing is: he really isn’t, and he knows from way too much experience that things are only good between them now because there’s a clear separation between Quinn’s crazy and his business, which is why she’s fun.
He glances at his email one more time, and sees another message for him there; this one isn’t a picture, but instead a short email that says, we’re working on a weaponry exhibit that I think your kids would like--want to talk about a field trip?
It’s for the best that he immediately gets a flashback to Quinn in planning mode, which had mostly involved bullying him into a baby blue cummerbund and needing Rachel’s advice on how to make him something other than the worst boyfriend ever.
If this is going to go along similar lines, he’ll probably end up punching a third grader in the face for looking at Quinn the wrong way or--
Oh, shit.
*
He still can’t dance worth a goddamn, which is why it’s hilarious that his colleagues apparently think it’s great fun to go salsa dancing after work on Fridays.
Still, even though Finn dances like a gorilla on steroids, all of his female coworkers like taking him onto the floor anyway because he makes them laugh.
She’s next to Tony at the bar, encouraging him to not stare at her cleavage--which, honestly, compared to most of the other girls in the bar, there isn’t even really anything to look at--while carrying on a conversation about educational strategies in museum management.
Finn was kind of right, about Tony possibly being a good match, except for the part where she’s having a fascinating conversation with Tony about something she’s actually genuinely interested in, and all she can think of is that if Finn’s hand dips any lower, he’s going to be cupping sixth grade chemistry teacher Laura’s ass in a way that is definitely not friendly.
“Want me to take that glass away from you before you shatter it?” Tony asks, mildly, before recoiling at the look she directs at him. “Or not.”
The damage is already done, though, and she excuses herself before heading outside for some much needed air.
The fact that Finn is bizarrely tall is emphasized without warning when he shows up next to her and literally puts her in a small pocket of shadow, blacking out the neon lights that advertise the bar’s name.
“Dance with me,” he says, his voice a little thick, and when she looks up at his face, she knows he’s had a little too much--which explains the hand, but not the way he’s looking at her right now.
“You’re still a terrible dancer,” she says, and he smiles in a way that disarms her completely.
“You’ve had more practice at not getting stepped on than anyone here.”
“It’s been a long time.”
“You’ve had more practice than anyone ever,” he then says, and even though this is just another demonstration of his complete inability to deal with math, the fact that he’s serious and he thinks he’s right is a little charming anyway.
“Finn--what are you doing?” she finally just asks, when he leans against the wall, crosses his legs at the ankle, and stares at her some more.
“Tony has really bad breath after lunch,” he says, instead of answering her question, and when she rolls her eyes at him, he says, “‘strue. It can’t be tamed. I buy him Polo mints like, every other day, and yet it’s like he’s Oscar the Grouch or something.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because--he’s smart, and knows about museums and whatever, and I just wanted to warn you. He’s not right for you.”
She knows that, but also knows that this is not how she wants to be having this conversation with Finn, if she wants to be having it at all, and that realization slams the brakes on so hard that she can’t even help but say it. “And who is? The guy who dumped me at a funeral for a girl who never really thought he was good enough for her?”
The hurt on Finn’s face makes her want to physically scramble for the words, tuck them back in her mouth, and swallow them whole--but of course, life isn’t about those kinds of second chances.
“Wow,” he finally says, and turns away from her, tipping his head back against the wall for a moment before pushing off it and heading back inside.
She doesn’t go after him, because apparently, they’re still very good at being exactly how they were as teenagers, except that the thing that’s wrenching them apart isn’t that obnoxious, disrespectful bitch Rachel.
It’s just her.
*
She’s such a bitch.
She was a bitch when they dated, she was a bitch when he was getting over her, and now he’s not even with her in the slightest and she’s still just a bitch.
Puck just looks at him after a moment and says, “No, really, Finn. Tell me how you actually feel.”
“Fuck, dude,” Finn finally snaps, before slamming another dart into the board.
“You know, I always wondered about all of that shit between you and her and Rachel,” Puck says, taking another sip of whiskey and then lining up to take his own shots. “Because--you always only wanted the one you didn’t have, when it came down to it.”
“Dude, I was seventeen. What the fuck did I know about relationships? Quinn lied to me about … well, you know,” he says, swallowing past the moment as quickly as he can. “And then Rachel like, hooked up with you, and whatever.”
“Why did you get back together with Q, that second time?” Puck finally asks, before turning to look at him pointedly. “You weren’t over Rachel. You like, weren’t even trying to get over Rachel. You were just into Rachel, and with Quinn.”
It’s a fair question. He hasn’t asked himself that in a few years time, but the answer hasn’t changed.
“Because … I wanted her to be into me. I just wanted her to … want me enough to not cheat on me again.”
Puck laughs dryly and says, “Yeah, that worked out well.”
“She did,” Finn says, and then feels like shit out of nowhere. “I just... didn’t want her, then.”
“And now?”
He finishes what’s left of his beer, because he’ll be damned if he lets Puck see him with his actual drink of choice, and then just looks at the dart board again. “Now, she’s making me pay for that.”
“Quinn’s vindictive,” Puck says. “Always has been.”
“Dude, you don’t even know her anymore,” Finn says, automatically annoyed with him, and when Puck just sort of smirks in response, he sighs. “... fuck.”
“You know how I got over her?”
“I’m not knocking her up,” Finn says, not even able to stop from glaring.
Puck laughs after a moment and says, “I was going to say by making out with your other ex, man, but... I like your ambition.”
He basically hates everything right now, but most of all how none of this is ever easy, and he’s always completely in the middle of all this drama that he really doesn’t want or need.
*
She’s not expecting anyone, which is why she’s in yoga pants and one of her dad’s old dress shirts that she found back at the house in Lima, when they packed it up, and there’s probably some paint on her forehead, but if all she’s doing is signing for a delivery, then--
“Oh,” she says, stupidly, when Finn just sort of stares at her, his jaw working furiously.
“You don’t get to fucking hold that against me forever,” he says, and pushes the door open a little further, until he’s in her hallway. “We all screw up, Quinn. If I can get over the whole baby thing, then you can damn well get over the fact that I was a seventeen year old kid with a lot of messed up feelings who didn’t know how to make everyone happy, and tried in the dumbest way possible.”
She deflates, and lets him past. “I know.”
“And... all that shit back then? It’s not important anymore now. You were the head cheerleader, I was the quarterback, and now... now, I’m a teacher and you’re a curator or whatever, and we’re not in Lima anymore and--”
She can see his fists clench, but doesn’t stop him, because it’s another thing she can’t help; he’ll always be the talker, and she’ll always just sit there and take it.
“Why did you do it? Why did you sleep with Puck?” he finally asks, turning to look at her.
She can’t really look at him. “I thought you were saying that everything was a long time ago, and--”
“How do I know you’re not going to do it again?” he cuts her off, and then she can’t not look at him. “Because--fuck it, you’re kind of the first girl I’ve actually wanted to be around in years, and all I can do is sit here and tell myself that it’s not worth it because you’re just going to break my heart again, or whatever.”
“I didn’t break you heart then,” she says, before slumping against the wall and sinking down it. He sits down on the arm rest of her comfy chair, and rubs his palms up and down his jeans. “We were just kids. I bruised your ego, and screwed you over by lying about what your responsibilities were, but your heart was already with her then.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not now,” Finn says, sharply.
She doesn’t know why she starts crying, but she does; silently, obviously, because he’s in her house and she has a certain standard of behavior to uphold, except he just heads to the fridge and digs out a bottle of cider for her and slaps the cap off on her counter, which she hates because it just chips the decor, and then he’s sitting down next to her, and she laughs unwillingly when he can’t even stretch his legs out because he’s so stupidly tall.
“Did I break you heart?” he asks, handing the bottle over; the condensation on it makes her shiver when her fingers swipe past it, and she takes a few sips before wondering what the truth is.
“You were all I had,” she finally says, before closing her eyes. “My family was awful; I didn’t think I was going to college, and … all I had left was you. Especially after prom.”
“That’s not love,” he says, before stealing the bottle and drinking some. “... man, this is really delicious.”
He’s a grown man, who’s talking about love and what’s real and what’s not, and stealing her cider and talking about it like he’s discovering the joys of Snapple for the first time, and she feels it, this time; whatever was missing between them before is there now.
“I’m still high strung, and really demanding, and … to make things worse, I’ve gotten used to being on my own, so I’m going to be unaccommodating and incredibly bitchy if you try to get into my space. Even though I want you there.”
He squints at the ingredients in the cider, before handing it back with a placid expression. “I still chew with my mouth open unless I think you’re watching me.”
She laughs helplessly, especially when he unbuttons his shirt sleeve and uses a flap of cotton to wipe at her eyes, and then cups basically her entire head with one of his gigantic hands and says, “I’m going to try to get into your space now, okay. Don’t hit me.”
All she can do is nod, and let him.
*
It’s not fireworks.
It’s more like that feeling on Christmas morning, when he gets downstairs and sees a tree with a massive load of presents underneath it. And yeah, maybe it’s kind of lame that he still gets excited, but there’s nothing lame about the way Quinn cups his face and deepens the kiss a little, pressing into his side and then pulling away with a small wet pop.
Fuck fireworks, honestly.
She tips her forehead onto his shoulder when they’re done kissing, and it’s a little familiar but then also not at all, because she says, “You’ve learned things, since we last did this.”
“Not... well, yeah, okay,” he concedes. “A few.”
“I haven’t,” she admits, and then presses her hand against his chest, and curling it in his shirt. “And I mean, I’m not going to make you pray after we make out anymore--”
He chuckles. “Remind me to tell you how I can’t go to church without thinking about having a boner, because that’s all your fault and it was really fantastic at my great aunt’s funeral three years ago.”
She sort of sighs and laughs at the same time and then pulls back just enough to look at him, and fuck, she is so pretty when she’s not trying so hard, it kind of kills him a little. “Just don’t ever compare me to her.”
“Quinn, seriously--I don’t think I could, if I wanted to. I barely even remember what she looks like, but I could probably draw you on command, if I had to,” he says, and it’s probably the fact that he means every word that has her reach up and rub her knuckles on his cheek.
“I didn’t know you could draw.”
“I can’t; but I mean, it would be a totally representative blonde stick figure,” he says, before twisting his head and kissing her palm; it’s the kind of thing he never would’ve thought about doing before, but she has this way of talking with her hands when she gets excited about something, and he loves it. He loves it because it’s all her, and it’s new, and now it’s his.
She smiles after a second, and then says, “The Cavs are playing the Bulls tonight.”
“Awesome,” he says, before holding out his hand for a good luck high five, because secretly, he suspects she kind of likes that he hasn’t changed that much; and when she rolls her eyes but her smile widens when she half-heartedly slaps their hands together, he figures that maybe they’re finally on the same page.
If he had to guess, he’d say it was one somewhere in the middle.