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Rachel finds her sitting on the ledge of a quaint little house.
“This is the third time I’ve caught you over here,” she murmurs. “I think you should tell me what’s going on now, Quinn.”
The blonde barely moves, her hair remaining unaffected by the slight breeze as she speaks. “You’d think a ghost could get some privacy.”
Rachel smiles softly, and when she sits down on the ledge, Quinn doesn’t move away. She counts it as a victory. “From me? Never.”
They fall into an easy silence, somehow, but Rachel’s aware of movement in the house, and she needs to come up with a reason to be here, or she’s going to get in trouble soon. She’s about to say as much to Quinn, when the girl finally speaks.
“My daughter lives here.” Ah, yes. The daughter that Quinn gave up. The daughter that Quinn so badly wanted to keep. The daughter that Quinn completely missed out on, due to her untimely death. That daughter.
Rachel heaves a sigh, and nods. “I know that.”
“My daughter lives here. Five miles away from my childhood house. And I couldn’t… I refused to even acknowledge her existence. Told myself it would hurt too much.” She gives a short, mirthless laugh, and Rachel is desperate to wipe the tears from her eyes. “Who knew, right?”
The brunette doesn’t know what to say to that, so she starts with what she knows is true. “The boys are worried about you, Quinn. I’m worried about you.”
Quinn shrugs, dusting imaginary dirt off her skirt as she stands up to leave. “I’m fine, Rachel. Let’s go-”
“I get it.”
Dangerous hazel eyes meet chocolate ones as Rachel interrupts her, but she stands her ground, watching as Quinn’s arms cross against her stomach. Rachel suddenly understands the girl’s nervous tic.
“I know how hard it is. The way your stomach turns when you desperately want to speak to someone you love, and can’t? I feel that every day.”
Quinn looks at her feet, her brow furrowing in frustration. “She can’t hear me, Rachel. And even if she could, I don’t know what the hell I’d tell her.”
Rachel pulls an old, tattered piece of notebook paper out of her back pocket, and unfolds it, holding it out for the other girl to see. “Yes, you do. You’ve already said it. Now, do you trust me?”
Quinn’s eyes well with tears, but she nods, and turns towards the door again, ringing the doorbell with a firm push of her finger.
There’s a slight commotion from behind the door, before it’s pulled open, and Rachel comes face to face with the prettiest woman she’s ever seen.
Well. Second-prettiest.
It’s obvious that this is Quinn’s daughter. Her hair is light brown instead of blonde, and she’s quite a bit taller than Quinn, but her eyes are still that breathtaking shade of hazel. Her mouth - that’s Quinn’s mouth. And that’s definitely Quinn’s brow.
She stares down at Rachel, tilting her head in confusion. “Hello, can I help you?”
The girl takes a deep breath, refolding the note and nodding. “Hi. I’m Rachel. You’re the daughter of Quinn Fabray, right?”
Beth’s eyes do a funny little dance as she gives Rachel a once-over. “Yes. And… I’m sorry, what’s your name?”
“Rachel Berry,” she provides. “Your mom’s band used to play in my family’s garage.”
Beth nods, a little nonplussed at the information, and Rachel holds up the piece of paper. “I came across this song that she wrote, and I thought… Well, I figured you might want to read it-”
“Mommy, can I have juice?”
Quinn gasps softly beside her, and Rachel can’t help but beam at the little boy that appears behind the woman.
“What? Oh. Yes, baby.” Beth looks up, completely flustered, and opens the door wider. “Rachel, come in. Please. I’m-I’m Beth.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” she says, entering the house.
Quinn slips in soon thereafter, giving Rachel a somber look as the door shut behind them.
The little boy - who can’t be older than four - traipses after his mom into the kitchen, but the girls stop in the living room, glancing at their surroundings.
There’s pictures everywhere, and Rachel lets her fingers graze across a few frames, smiling at the different members of the family.
She tries to surpass the one of Beth and Quinn’s mom at some sort of graduation ceremony, but Quinn notices it anyway, her face growing sadder by the second.
Beth sits on the yellow couch with her son in her lap, holding a sippy cup full of orange juice, and Rachel gives him a little wave. “How old are you?”
“I’m free!” he answers, holding up four fingers.
Quinn laughs softly, and stands behind Rachel in one of the overstuffed chairs, her hands tense along the edge.
“And what’s your name?” Rachel asks, leaning forward to capture the child’s attention.
He looks to his mother first, who nods, and then gives Rachel a cheesy grin, puffing out his tiny chest. “Quinn!”
And, yeah, that one hurts. That one hurts big time.
The smile on her face falls, and she looks up at Beth, who sighs and scoots the child off her lap before asking him to go play in his room. She turns back to Rachel once he’s safely made his way around the corner, and clasps her hands together, leaning forward with squinted eyes. “So, you said you have… what, a song for me? That Quinn wrote?”
Rachel nods, and lets the piece of paper fall on the coffee table between them. “It’s a song about a girl named… Well, the song says ‘Ellie,’ but you can see that she crossed out ‘Beth,’ and then ‘Elizabeth.’ And you’re the only Beth that she…”
Rachel trails off, because Beth seems to be getting the message. She touches the paper softly, before snatching it off the table and unfolding it.
“There was sheet music attached to it, but I… I left it at home. I can bring it another time.”
Beth’s head shoots up, and Rachel’s surprised at the sheer amount of tears her eyes seem to hold without spilling over. “Do you know how it went?”
The teenager nods, tilting her head as she tries to find the right key. She sings it in her head, before humming it louder, and Beth laughs softly as she starts to sing along.
“If I could take us back - if I could just do that. And write, in every empty space, the words ‘I love you’ in replace, then maybe time would not erase me.”
She sounds just like Quinn, albeit a little raspier through the crying, and Rachel can’t stop her own tears from falling as the blonde behind her joins, although she’s deeply confused. “How do you already know...”
“When I was a baby,” Beth explains, “I had a tape that my birth mother - that Quinn - recorded for me. And it wasn’t… There were no words, but there was a melody that she would sing. I used to listen to it on repeat. And I think these are the words.”
She cries a little harder as she keeps going, nodding her head. What she’s singing isn’t really intelligible, but Quinn is as clear as ever.
“If you could only know, I never let you go. And the words I most regret are the ones I never meant to leave. Unsaid Ellie.”
And, God, it must be weird. Seeing your daughter, whom you last saw as a newborn baby, as a full-fledged adult, with a child and everything. She’s older than her mom, for crying out loud.
But the girl doesn’t display any signs of discomfort as she crosses the space, gently sitting next to her daughter. She reaches out a hand, and when it falls through her daughter’s, without even the slightest acknowledgement on the woman’s face, Rachel’s pretty sure she knows what complete devastation is.
With Beth, though, she’s witnessing pure gratitude.
“I hope you know how much your mother…” Rachel wipes at her eyes, before catching Quinn’s. She gives her the tiniest of nods, before looking back to Beth. “Your mother loved you more than anything in the world. I’m sure she would give anything to have given you that song herself.”
Quinn flashes away with no warning, and Rachel feels a little bit breathless at the sudden chill that the room seems to take on.
Beth doesn’t notice, though, hugging the paper to her chest as she scoffs. “Are you gonna call me crazy if I say that it feels like she did?”
She did, thinks Rachel, and she gives the woman a melancholic grin. “Not at all.”