Work Text:
It's a strange feeling, floating in and out of consciousness. The air around her feels light against her eyelids, heavy in her lungs. There are voices she can't quite make out, but they sound like her mother's, her sister's, and once, her father's. The words are garbled, but Quinn hears the fear, the desperation, the quiet heartbreak.
Here's what Quinn knows: she was in a car accident. She was on her way to Rachel's wedding. Rachel Berry is getting married. Maybe already married; she's not sure. The medication they're pumping into her must be strong because her body is numb and she feels little pain. Something is helping her breathe. She feels like she's been sleeping for days, but she's exhausted. Someone's crying. She tries to lift her arm or open her mouth to comfort them, but she just doesn't have the energy.
Night and day bleed into each other. Once in a while, someone holds her hand or touches her cheek, and she wants to tell them never to let go, but they always do.
--
"Quinnie? Oh god, sweetie, you're awake."
Quinn's eyes flutter open and try to focus on her mother's face, but it's so damn bright, and the image remains heavily blurred, so she shuts her eyes again. There's suddenly commotion around her bed – doctors and nurses checking her vital signs and prodding her with needles, speaking to each other with terminology she doesn't understand, but the sounds are clearer now.
She tries to open her eyes again a moment later, but her face feels swollen. She has so many questions, but no energy to ask them. She feels her mother's hand slip around hers and a light but teary kiss pressed to her forehead.
All Quinn can think about is how she doesn't remember the last time her mother kissed her.
--
When Quinn comes to again, the lights in the room are dimmed, and there are two voices murmuring to each other a few feet from her bed. They've taken her off the breathing tube, but she's still connected to about five different machines. She tries to say something, but her throat feels parched, and she only manages a strangled sound. The two figures next to her bed immediately fall silent and turn to her.
"Q? Holy shit, Q!"
"Keep your voice down, Santana."
"Shut your gigantic lady lips," Santana fires back, but she does lower her volume.
A moment later, Santana and Sam are at her bedside, staring down at her with worried eyes.
"Hey," Santana whispers, reaching out to hold her hand.
"Why," Quinn rasps. She swallows, her throat constricting painfully. "Why are you here?"
"'Cause we've both got gigantic gay crushes on you," Santana deadpans.
That's the first time Quinn learns that smiling with bruises on your face hurts.
"We've been taking shifts on the weekends watching you so your mom gets a chance to go home and sleep," Sam explains.
Quinn's head starts to spin again. She breathes laboriously. "Weekends… plural?"
Sam and Santana share a look before Sam clears his throat. "You should, uh, we should probably wait for the doctor and your mom to be here before—"
"No," Quinn interrupts. "Tell me."
"Do you—do you remember what happened?" Santana asks, as gently as Quinn as ever seen her.
"Just driving," Quinn croaks out. "I just remember driving, and my phone kept buzzing, and—" She shuts her eyes against the partial memory. "How long has it been?"
"It's March," Sam answers quietly. "You've been under for almost two weeks."
"You were in really rough shape, Q," Santana adds, giving her hand a squeeze. "They induced a coma to help with the swelling in your brain. You might have to stay here another week or two."
"Do you know if…" Quinn's eyes wander down the length of her own body, helpless and vegetating on the hospital bed. One of her arms feels like a brick. She doesn't know how to ask because she's not sure she wants to know. "Does everything still work?"
Sam and Santana share another glance.
Sam motions toward the door. "Are you sure you don't want to wait for—"
"I'd rather you two tell me," Quinn replies, her voice shaking with fear no matter how hard she tries to rein it in. "Please."
Santana nods solemnly. "Other than the visible injuries, you cracked a couple ribs and punctured one of your lungs. Your left arm is broken, but there was no spinal injury, thank god, so no paralysis. With some physical therapy, you should be up and running soon. There was some damage to your internal organs, but nothing's gone out of commission. There was also some swelling in your brain, and they had to shave a bit of your hair to operate, so…"
"Damn, and I was just starting to grow it out."
Santana forces out a smile, but even in her state of semi-consciousness, Quinn knows it's just to humor her. Santana squeezes her hand again. "You lost a lot of blood, Quinn. We didn't know if—"
Sam nudges Santana with his elbow, and she shuts up and looks down.
"We're going to get the nurses to come do some quick tests, okay?" Sam asks gently. "And we're going to call your mom. She'll be happy to know you're conscious and talking."
Quinn swallows thickly. "Okay."
She wants to ask about Rachel's wedding so badly – the question is at the tip of her tongue – but she shuts her eyes and forces her curiosity away. She doesn't know if she's ready to know.
--
Of all the members of glee club, Rachel is the last to visit her. Quinn's so swept up in everyone crying and showering her with attention that she doesn't even realize it until Rachel shows up at her hospital room door three days after she wakes up, eyes red-rimmed like she's been crying for weeks.
"Hey," Quinn greets, her voice still a little gravelly. Her heart is pounding so fast in her chest, and she hates that the heart monitor at her side betrays that to Rachel.
Rachel takes slow steps to her bedside. "Quinn," she breathes out.
Quinn's eyes trace Rachel's features, down the curve of her neck, her shoulder, her arm, until she sees Rachel's hand, ring finger bare. Quinn shuts her eyes against the memory of Rachel in her arms hours before the wedding, the sinking feeling in her stomach as she realized it'd be the last time she'd hug Rachel before she'd become someone else's wife. Stubborn tears sting Quinn's eyes.
"I'm sorry," they say in unison.
Quinn's eyes snap open. "Don't be sorry. Why are you sorry?"
Rachel wrings her hands nervously. "I was—stupid. I shouldn't have texted you. I shouldn't have rushed you. Getting married isn't worth your life, Quinn."
"Rachel, stop." Quinn breathes hard. "This isn't your fault." She can't stop herself from glancing at Rachel's ring-less hand again. "I'm sorry I interrupted your wedding. You don't have to wait for me to recover."
"I'm not getting married without you there," Rachel says firmly.
Quinn's stomach lurches. "Rachel," she breathes, "what happened to your engagement ring?"
Rachel's gaze falls to Quinn's bed sheets, to the IV needle sticking out of her arm, to everywhere but Quinn's face. When she finally speaks, her voice is tiny and twisted in pain.
"Don't worry about that."
Quinn takes a deep breath as a slow tear rolls down her cheek. Another when she realizes she's crying from relief. "Does he blame me?"
Rachel's eyes widen. "What? No. No. Finn lacks social finesse on occasion, but that thought would never cross his mind."
Rachel brushes the back of her hand across Quinn's tear-streaked cheeks. Rachel's skin is soft and warm and Quinn wants so much to wrap herself in the feeling of being close to her. But being inundated with so much is exhausting, and Quinn feels her head grow heavy, drowsy.
"You should get some rest," Rachel murmurs, tucking Quinn's blanket carefully under her chin. "We'll talk later, okay?"
"Rachel, could you—" Quinn doesn't know how to ask her to stay until she falls asleep.
But Rachel pulls up a chair and takes a seat, leaning her weight against the edge of the bed. She gets this look on her face that Quinn can't exactly place.
"I'm not going anywhere, Quinn."
--
Santana's the one who fills Quinn in a few days later, legs propped up against the table at Quinn's bedside as she tears her way through a pad thai.
"Frankenteen was pressing Rachel to perform the ceremony without you, but she wasn't having any of it. She wanted to wait for you, even if it meant missing her slot and having to postpone the wedding." Santana rolls her eyes. "Like I was going to put on that hideous pink dress more than once."
"The dresses were pretty," Quinn comments. "It was going to be a beautiful ceremony." Her chest hurts at the thought, and Santana immediately eyes Quinn's heart monitor when the number displayed across it jumps.
Santana points her chopsticks at the beeping machine. "Yeah, that's basically a polygraph."
Quinn presses down against her pillow, trying to refocus. "What happened after? Why wasn't Rachel wearing her engagement ring?"
"She kinda freaked out when she saw you lying here," Santana replies, concentrating as though she's putting effort into word selection. "Britt and Tina had to take her away and calm her down. The way Britt tells it, Finn followed them and made the mistake of bringing up the wedding. Not in a cruel way or anything; he just mentioned that they'd have to reschedule, and Rachel flipped her tits and called him insensitive." Santana shrugs. "Anyway, you know Finn. Always on the defensive and a complete moron with his words. Rachel wasn't wearing her ring when she got back."
"What does that… mean?"
"It means you've got a shot at getting in her granny panties once you're back on your feet, Fabray. Congrats."
Quinn flushes, feeling the warmth rush to her cheeks. "Santana."
Santana chuckles. "Save it, Quinn. We all know you have awful taste in chicks."
Quinn smiles a little, her cheeks less sore now. Slowly, her smile fades. "You didn't think I'd show at the wedding."
"I totally knew you wouldn't." Santana frowns at her own words. "But for another reason entirely," she adds quickly. "I mean, if I'd known—"
"Yeah," Quinn cuts her off. She doesn't have the strength to hear it yet.
Chewing on a piece of chicken, Santana throws Quinn a questioning look. "How'd you come around? Last I heard, you wanted nothing to do with the ceremony."
Quinn lets out as long a breath as her weakened lungs can hold. "I just—I just want her to be happy. If that's with Finn…"
"That's pathetic, Q."
Quinn groans. "She was ready to marry him, Santana. What was I supposed to do?"
"Uh, do you want that list alphabetically or sorted by category? Because I mean, you let me get to second base once, and that was way hotter than sleeping with the Jolly Green Giant. Just saying. I could write you a reference letter. Rachel totally gets a boner from all that bureaucratic shit." Santana quiets momentarily, chews thoughtfully at her noodles. "You could've just told her, Q."
But Quinn knows that Santana's been there, and knows that sometimes it's just not that easy, especially in small town Lima. After a moment, Santana reaches over and squeezes Quinn's hand, and Quinn knows that from Santana, it's an act of solidarity.
--
"Already sitting up?"
Quinn turns to the voice and smiles when Rachel skips into the hospital room carrying a bouquet of pink balloons with her beaming face printed on each one. She ties the balloons to the foot of Quinn's hospital bed and walks up to the head.
Quinn eyes the balloons suspiciously, almost expecting them to come to life. Maybe it'd be easier with two Rachel Berrys roaming the streets belting show tunes. But Quinn's pretty sure that there could be ten Rachels and she might never get the chance with any of them. Not if she can't find the words. Not if she doesn't know how to show Rachel everything she feels all the time.
"Did you just have those lying around? Balloons with your face on them?"
"Left over from my seventeenth birthday dinner with my fathers," Rachel replies, brimming with pride. "Had them custom printed."
"They're… charming."
Rachel smiles. "How are you feeling?"
"Good. Better. Doctors say I've been recovering quicker than expected. They're mostly worried about my head, but my scans have come back clean. I might be able to go home soon." Quinn looks down at her arm, covered in a cast and resting on a sling. "I'll be carrying that around for another six weeks, but you know, small price to pay."
Quinn makes an effort to shift on the bed to make room for Rachel, but she groans when her muscles, once strong and toned, stiffen under her weight. Immediately, Rachel reaches out to help her, hands sliding to Quinn's torso to steady her.
Once Quinn finds a comfortable sitting position, she motions at the empty side of the bed. Rachel hesitates, glancing nervously out the door for nurses before climbing onto Quinn's bed, kicking off her shoes in the process.
"We shouldn't be doing this," Rachel whispers, mischievous glint in her eyes.
Quinn smiles faintly. "Feels good, doesn't it?"
Rachel laughs, her head instinctively leaning toward Quinn's. "Breaking the rules is exciting!"
It's Quinn's turn to laugh, but when she does, she ends up breaking out into a fitful cough, her chest aching and straining against her still-broken ribs. Rachel twists her body and presses her palms to Quinn's shoulders, careful to avoid her heaving chest.
"Quinn, Quinn," comes Rachel's panicked voice. "Do I need to call a nurse?"
Quinn shakes her head, her cast pressed against her abdomen as she curls around it in agony. A few sharp stabs of pain later, her cough gives out, and she's left trying to catch her breath and negotiate the throbbing. When the pain finally fades to tolerable, Quinn meets Rachel's eye.
"I'm fine," she manages to croak out before wincing.
"Quinn—"
"I'm alive," Quinn says, as though that explains everything.
Slowly, Rachel nods in understanding. "I'm glad you are."
Quinn leans back against the pillows, and Rachel follows. Rachel's head presses lightly against Quinn's shoulder, her hand seeking out Quinn's.
"I don't know what I would've done if you weren't," Rachel whispers, eyes squeezed shut. "If I were just… the last person to hug you, the last person to communicate with you. If the last thing I told you was to hurry, to rush to some stupid wedding that I wasn't even sure about, and—"
"Rachel." Quinn blinks back tears. "Stop blaming yourself for my accident. I was reckless, and the truck that hit me was going thirty over the limit. You didn't orchestrate this, and you couldn't have known. So please stop carrying around all this guilt. It'll eat you up inside; trust me, I know."
Rachel sniffles, then, quietly, almost brokenly, "I don't think I'm marrying Finn."
The heart monitor starts beeping rapidly, and Quinn flushes when Rachel laughs, the sound muffled against Quinn's shoulder.
"I always told you not to," Quinn replies in the same hushed tone, afraid of breaking the spell otherwise. She tries not to smile because that's rude, but she just knows her entire face is lighting up at the thought that maybe, just maybe…
Rachel's fingers twine through Quinn's as she shifts against her shoulder. "I think I broke his heart."
"He'll bounce back." Quinn tries to keep her breathing even, although she's on the verge of tears. She hadn't expected to feel this yearning, this pull, this flicker of hope. "Does it hurt?" she asks quietly. "To be away from him?"
Rachel is silent for a moment. "A little." She lifts her head and meets Quinn's eyes. Her cheeks are damp, and she takes a deep breath. "You know how I knew? I was standing in this beautiful white wedding gown, surrounded by these gorgeous ladies in pink bridesmaids dresses, the supposed love of my life standing three feet away from me. My dads were there, dressed up in these fancy suits. I was minutes away from marrying the boy I'd been chasing since freshman year. But…" Rachel trails off and reaches up to wipe away fresh tears. "But all I could think about was wanting you there. Wanting you… to do something, to say something. To smile and laugh and dance. I wanted you to—to dance with me."
"Rachel…"
"It's silly," Rachel insists, berating herself. "It's childish. I always want what I don't have, can't have."
"Rachel," Quinn tries again. She can barely see through her tears, but she doesn't have the strength to lift her hand and wipe them away. "Rachel, I—"
"I should go," Rachel decides suddenly, unceremoniously sliding off the bed and picking her shoes up off the floor. She slips them on with ease and races out the door before Quinn has a chance to stop her.
--
"Are you sure you weren't running a fever? Or like maybe they gave you too many meds and it fucked up your eyes."
"Santana, I'm sure I didn't hallucinate Rachel Berry coming in here, crawling in bed with me, and crying her eyes out." Quinn glances instinctively at the heart monitor, but then she remembers that she's not connected to it anymore.
Santana studies her for a moment. "What are you going to do?"
Quinn looks down. "I don't know."
"Wait, so you're telling me that you finally have the little freak within grasp and you're totally dropping the ball?"
"Well, if you're such an expert at this, what do you think I should do?" Quinn fires back.
"Invite her over and put on the skimpiest outfit you own." Santana frowns, apparently reconsidering. "Correction: skimpiest outfit I own. And you can keep it because no way am I touching anything after you and Berry have been through with it." Santana shudders. "Oh God, vomit."
Quinn tries to lift her broken arm and winces. "I'm sure this cast only adds to the allure."
Santana grins. "Whatever, I'd hit it."
Against her will, Quinn blushes. "Coach Sylvester let me rejoin the Cheerios, you know. Promised her I'd win a national championship for her this year." She looks down at her cast again. "My arm will probably recover in time, but it won't have the strength to do any of the routines."
"We'll find a way to get Coach to include you," Santana insists, "even if you have to just sit there and meditate. You're part of the team, Q."
Quinn looks down to hide her tears. "Thanks, Santana."
Santana nods. "Listen, about Rachel. Just… be honest with her. Don't play games. Don't make promises you can't keep."
"So basically everything you didn't do with Brittany."
Quinn expects Santana to get angry, but instead, she just looks sad. "Yeah. Hurting her to protect yourself isn't worth it." Santana bites her lip. "Anyway, thanks for not dying. Brittany would've cried non-stop for like ten years."
Quinn smiles a little. "Love you too, Santana."
Quinn's mother walks in then, and she stares awkwardly at Santana before clearing her throat. "Quinnie, I just spoke to your doctor. She's cleared you. There are some release papers to sign, and then we can go home."
Quinn slowly shuffles off the bed. Santana pushes up a wheelchair, which Quinn slowly works herself into. She's been walking around her room for the past few days, but after being bedridden for so long, her muscles are frail, her energy levels low. Quinn's mother leans down to help Quinn with her shoes, while Santana detaches Rachel's balloons and ties them to the back of her wheelchair.
Santana leans down next to Quinn's ear and whispers, "These balloons are totally creepy by the way. Like, the loser you're in love with is completely batshit insane."
Quinn swats Santana away with her good hand.
--
The weekend before Quinn's set to return to school, she invites Rachel over. They haven't seen each other since that day Rachel walked out on her, and between physical therapy and managing her medication and the residue effects of her concussion, she hasn't had much time or energy to think hard about where she stands with Rachel.
But she has to face the entire school in a few days, and she doesn't want to sweep Rachel's confession under the rug. She needs to know if Rachel's words had been spoken out of fear, panic, sheer delirium, or if they'd been genuine. Quinn feels like she's been harboring this stupid attraction for the longest time, but she'd never imagined the possibility of it being reciprocated.
Rachel shows up in the early afternoon wearing a dark blue dress, matching headband in her hair. The weather in Ohio is starting to warm up, and Rachel carries a light breeze into the house.
They make their way to the living room and sit down on the couch, a respectable distance between their bodies. Quinn cradles her cast protectively against her chest. The air is too thick, and her head starts hurting again.
"How's your arm?" Rachel asks politely. "Any idea when they can remove the cast?"
"It'll be off before Nationals," Quinn replies with a hint of discomfort.
Rachel's head whips back and forth quickly. "Oh, Quinn, I'm not concerned about that. I just want you to have a quick and full recovery, and besides, we could always—" Rachel bites her lip, reconsidering. "Never mind."
"We could always work it into the choreography?" Quinn supplies with a faint smile.
Rachel smiles sheepishly, and Quinn nods, eyes trailing down to Rachel's ring finger again, still bare. She reaches over and runs her finger gently over where the ring would be.
"A month ago," Quinn starts. "I almost lost my life."
Rachel twitches. "I know."
Quinn takes a deep breath. Her chest still hurts where her ribs haven't healed, but she tries to push it away, tries to picture the way Rachel had looked a week ago as she poured out her heart, looking tiny and vulnerable and open. Quinn tries to find the words.
"You know what I spent the first three years of high school doing? Negotiating with myself. Trying to convince myself that the greatest sin wasn't wanting what you had, wanting you." Quinn pauses, gathering her thoughts. "And then I found out about Santana, watched her and Brittany, and I met Kurt, and then Blaine, and… that all shifted in my mind. But if it wasn't a struggle with that, it was something else. It was how I could possibly make it up to you, what I could possibly do to deserve your kindness, your… affection."
Rachel shakes her head. "Quinn…"
"Let me finish?" Quinn interjects gently.
Rachel nods.
"Getting into Yale was for me, but there was always a part of me that wanted to be closer to you. You have this energy, Rachel, this determination. It's infectious." With her good hand, Quinn reaches up to wipe away a few stray tears. "I wanted to wait until I – until we – got out of Lima. I didn't want to make your life harder than it already was, and I wasn't ready to make mine tougher either. N-not to say anything would've happened, I just—" Quinn shakes her head, squeezing the tears out of her eyes and pushing herself to continue. "That's why I was so… angry with myself when you told me you were marrying Finn. Angry that I hadn't said anything earlier because now I'd never get the chance. I always had this fantasy that once we got out of here and settled into college… I don't know." Quinn bites back a sob, ignoring the searing pain in her chest as she does. "You're too good for Finn, but you're too good for me, too, and—"
"Don't say that," Rachel admonishes.
"No, it's true. But you made me want to be a better person. You made me want to be a person who does deserve you." Quinn tries for a smile. "And I—I got a little lost on the way, but I turned my life around. I kept telling myself I just have to make it through the summer, and come fall, come NYADA and Yale and the rest of our lives, I'd finally get a chance to show you, to kiss you."
Rachel, tears rolling down her face, leans closer until her lips are hovering above Quinn's. The puffs of air between them are warm and comforting, and Quinn shuts her eyes, feeling Rachel's palms press against her cheeks.
"Show me," Rachel whispers, her lips brushing Quinn's as she speaks. "Kiss me."
Quinn's mouth is tentative as she tilts her head up to meet Rachel's lips, soft and plump and warm. Quinn sighs into the kiss, reaching up with one hand and wishing she could use the other to pull Rachel closer. But Quinn's body is still fragile, and Rachel seems to sense Quinn's physical discomfort, so she settles for pulling away after a moment and pressing quick, soft kisses against Quinn's lips, her cheeks, her jaw.
After, Rachel holds on to Quinn as tightly as she can without hurting her, and Quinn rests her head against Rachel's shoulder.
"This isn't going to be easy," Quinn can't help but verbalize, because it won't. Because there are still a thousand things to talk about and consider. There's history between them, and people they'll have to face and offer explanations to, and an entire world that's waiting to tear them down.
"Love never is," Rachel replies with a quiet certainty.
Quinn beams, and this time, the ache in her chest has nothing to do with her broken bones.
fin