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There are mortifying moments (having slushies thrown at oneself, choking on auditions, losing at Regionals) and there are inconvenient moments (forgetting your keys, being asked to sing at an event without a song prepared, falling for the wrong person), and then there is being left at a Christmas tree farm after a very good George Michael duet, which is both.
It’s cold - of course it’s cold, it’s December and late in December to boot; school doesn’t let out until the nineteenth - and Rachel can only take so much pacing before the patrons start to look at her funny. Mercedes is busy, Tina is too young to drive, and there’s something about having to tell her two gay dads that her boyfriend left her at a Christmas tree farm that’s just too embarrassing (she’s sixteen, or will be in a few days, she isn’t a helpless little girl anymore), which unfortunately leaves her with just one option.
With no small amount of trepidation, Rachel slips off one glove and types Quinn Fabray’s name.
***
Quinn doesn’t know what to expect when her phone starts ringing - it’s a scam, probably, or Coach Sylvester imploring her to come back to the Cheerios once again. But she’s bored, and the numbers on this calc set have been swimming in front of her eyes for something like an hour now, so she picks up.
“Quinn,” Rachel - Rachel? - says on the other line. “I understand that I’m quite possibly the last person you’d like to talk to right now but there’s been some - difficulty - at the tree farm and it appears, for the moment, that I have been…stranded.”
“What?”
“Finn drove me there, and then he drove away, without me, and if I tell my two gay dads it’ll be an entire thing so if you could please just come and pick me up - it’s the one on Norcross Road, right next to the sketchy pharmacy.”
“It’s eight P.M.”
“And I am very cold and it’ll reflect badly on the entire Glee Club should its star member fall ill just before we’re set to perform for those children, Quinn, I promise you that I’ll owe you one after this.”
The snow howls outside - actually howls, even though Quinn had always thought that was just an expression - and it makes her shiver to think of Rachel- to think of anyone alone in that weather.
“Fine,” she bites out. “But you’re paying for the gas.”
“That’s fine. I have sixty dollars in club funding that apparently are not going to a new tree, unless you’re in possession of a car that can carry one.”
Quinn is not. She’s not even in possession of a car at all, but she does know how to drive and she does know that Judy doesn’t have anywhere to be tonight, so before she knows what she’s doing there’s a red scarf wrapped around her neck and a set of car keys in her hand and she’s driving out into the snow for Rachel Berry of all people.
***
“I think that I could live here,” Rachel tells a wide-eyed little boy, having set up a spot for herself below one of the larger trees. It’s not much, in terms of protection from the cold, but it’s something. Probably safer than the pharmacy at any rate. “Would it that I was less of an ambitious sort, of course.”
“Your hat looks like a snowflake.”
“Why, thank you!” Rachel holds a hand to her chest. “How sweet of you - now, do you have a mama or papa waiting for you?”
“I’m waiting for ‘em to buy the tree.” The boy looks around. “Do you?”
“I have two papas, but they’re busy putting away our Hanukkah decorations.” Rachel looks out to the parking lot, not sure what she’s looking for - it isn’t as if Quinn has ever driven her anywhere before, or as if they’ve even hung out outside of school.
“Then how’re you getting home?” The boy’s eyes go even wider. “You’re gonna live here forever.”
“I- no, of course not.” Though, considering the amount of snow that’s started to coalesce around her ankles, it’s starting to feel like it. Quinn can’t live that far away - Lima is a fairly small school district, all things considered. “My…friend is picking me up.”
“Okay.” The boy nods, satisfied with the answer, and walks away. Not even a goodbye or a thank you for the wisdom, I’ll tell my friends when you’re famous that I met you before all that, though perhaps that last one is a bit wordy for a six-year-old.
“Rachel?” Quinn stomps through the snow, still wearing little more than one of those thin mom sweaters, half her face covered by a scarf. Rachel shoots upwards, shaking off the snow as she does so, and it feels altogether much too romantic, all of this, for what it is - a thing of convenience.
“Quinn, I’m over here!”
“Great - I parked over there, have you just been standing in the snow this whole time?”
“I was familiarizing myself with the locals.” Rachel dusts some snow off her coat. They could be matching, herself and Quinn, if you didn’t look too closely. “Networking, if you will.”
“Sure.” Quinn looks at her, and maybe it’s the light from the space heaters that don’t work, but she looks like she’s glowing. Then something tightens in her face. “Finn really left you here alone?”
“I can take care of myself fine.” Rachel holds herself taut, drawing herself up to her full height which still isn’t very tall all things considered. “But he did, yes. It was juvenile, but both of us were juvenile and besides you’re here now so it’s all fine, really. Where did you park again?”
“By the display.”
“Right.” Someone jingles a bell in the distance, and Rachel hopes that it isn’t the Salvation Army; hopes even more strongly that if it is then Quinn will walk past them. It startles her that she doesn’t know for sure if she will. “Are you cold?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“You were outside for a while.”
“I’ve endured worse.”
“I’m not going to ask what you meant by that.” Quinn clicks the car key in the direction of a bulky thing, not at all what Rachel would expect from her - or from Judy Fabray, who she knows very little about but dislikes immensely on principle - and hands her the scarf like it’s nothing, like it means nothing, and Rachel doesn’t know how she’s supposed to take that.
“I do appreciate you doing this,” Rachel hastens to add, sliding into the passenger seat. “Taking time out of what I imagine is a hectic period, since it is for me - everybody always said that exams were the hardest junior year but I didn’t know just how true that would be.”
“I didn’t want it on my conscience if you froze to death out there.” Quinn’s voice has that nasally lilt to it that makes everything sound a little mean, and so Rachel really can’t tell if she’s being genuine or not. She slams the door closed hard enough that the car rocks a tiny bit, and Rachel takes the time to take inventory of it. No personal touches beyond one of those little hula girls bobbing back and forth on the dashboard, no food on the floor or anything. She imagines that it’s probably Judy Fabray’s, then.
“Well, I appreciate that.” The car rumbles to life - actually rumbles - and Rachel lets herself sink into the warmth of the heated seats. Already she can feel the snow melting, the heat slowly returning to her body. Quinn doesn’t say anything, just keeps her eyes on the road, her hair spilling out in a tangled tumble, so very focused. Rachel bites her lip.
“Where’s your house again?”
“Oh, it’s a few blocks away from the school - if you know where the convenience store is, then you take a right- actually, do you have a GPS? That might be easier.”
“Right here, yeah.” Quinn hands her the device, bulky and strangely heavy, and Rachel figures that it’s just because she’s spent forty-five minutes waiting in the cold, that Quinn’s hands feel like this, so warm, so soft.
“Thanks.” Rachel bites her lip again, pulls some skin from it. She feels like she’s supposed to like the winter more than she does, but really it just makes her hunger for something more cinematic - for the snow to be lit up by buildings, or something to that effect.
Quinn turns up the radio, and it’s playing a modern cover of “Jingle Bells,” crackly and distant in that way stations not at all close to the car tend to be. Rachel sings along.
“Why do you care about this?” Quinn asks. “If you’re…”
“Jewish? I enjoy the fun, secular parts of it - the presents, the tree, that sort of thing. Do I wish that people paid more attention to literally any other holiday, or gave me the option not to decorate the tree in the choir room? Sure, of course I do, but I’m not against some caroling.”
“Oh.” They pass a streetlight, and Quinn’s briefly illuminated, again. “I didn’t know that.”
“You never asked.” Rachel would like to leave it at that - she thinks it’d be a nice, solid end to it - but she doesn’t, can’t. “There isn’t very much traffic.”
“Were you expecting it?”
“I figured that you must’ve been caught up in a snowstorm or something, considering how long it took you to get here.”
“No.” Quinn grips the steering wheel tighter. “I just don’t live close by.”
“Oh.” Rachel drums her hands in her lap. The radio host tells her to spend these holidays with someone special, which she finds very funny for a multitude of reasons, and might be part of why she turns to Quinn at the stoplight. “Do you have anywhere else to be tonight?”
“I was going to study more, but other than that…no.”
“Perfect.”
***
They arrive at the Lima Bean, the only coffee shop in this entire sad town, and Quinn keeps her eyes on the light fixtures so as not to see Rachel in her scarf, so as not to see anyone she knows. It would be the easiest thing in the world for one of the younger Cheerios to notice her and blab.
Not that it matters anymore, not really, but Santana would give her hell and she’d rather not deal with that for now.
“They’re open every day until midnight,” Rachel says, hands in her pockets, tracking snow inside as she leads Quinn to the line. The place is bustling, as one would expect considering the weather, full of people from school who don’t care enough to give them a second glance and people Quinn’s never met and never plans to.
Though she will, probably, at some point. There are only so many houses, and she’ll need to fight for clients. The thought leaves a bitter taste in her mouth - would she be one of those people who sends cards to her constituents, terribly Photoshopped lights tacked digitally onto a nice-looking house she herself would never want to own?
“Two hot chocolates, one vegan, one…” Rachel turns back to Quinn. “Are you allergic to milk?”
“No.”
“Great, one regular, then.” Rachel slaps a crisp five-dollar bill onto the counter. The barista - a college kid, Quinn thinks, someone of indeterminate gender who gives her a look like they understand - takes the money and turns around. “I was hoping to take Finn here afterwards, but plans change.”
“That they do.” Quinn grabs a table. “This time last year I was still part of the Cheerios.”
“You quit willingly this time.” Rachel sits across from her, shoving her gloves into her pockets, keeping her eye on the barista like they’ll disappear with her order if she’s not careful.
“I know.” Quinn pauses, rephrases. It’s easier to look at the basket of stuffed reindeer than at Rachel. “This time last year, the entire school didn’t know me as the pregnant girl. The school pariah. Take your pick - just because I squeezed back into that uniform and stood on the pyramid a couple more times, that didn’t change the rest of it.”
“Rachelle?” the barista yells.
“Close enough,” Rachel sighs, standing up and effectively ending the conversation. Quinn waits, dinking around on her phone. A missed call from Judy, a photo from Brittany that won’t load. She likes the BlackBerry, even if no one else does. It’s a brick, but it’s a useful brick, and it probably won’t break anytime soon.
Two women feed each other whipped cream and giggle like schoolgirls a few tables over, and something in Quinn’s chest twists more strongly than it should.
“Here we go!” Rachel plonks down two mismatched mugs (the Lima Bean is wanting for a lot of things, including mugs, apparently) and slides one towards Quinn. “There’s a decent chance that it’s hot enough to scald your tongue, but it works.”
“Okay.” Quinn inhales the scent of the drink, sweet and hot and rich, and tries not to enjoy this too much. Soon enough - too soon, junior year has been flying by like a blur - she’ll be sitting across the table from some well-to-do man, and the thought makes her feel ill, again. She lifts the mug to sniff the hot chocolate again, knows that a tiny bit of whipped cream will probably land on her nose. She’s letting herself not care just this once. Tomorrow they’ll be back at school and they’ll pretend this never happened. For now? She’d like to at least act like a regular teenager. “Maybe I should pick up stranded girls more often, if you’re going to treat me to something like this.”
Rachel laughs, even though the joke wasn’t that funny, and Quinn’s breath hitches. Fireworks, that had been such a thing, but right now it’s- what, exactly? They’re sitting a foot apart, not even touching, and this is so far beyond fireworks. This is an explosion of the highest proportions, the world ending and remaking itself - Quinn thinks her heart might go out at any second.
Which begs the question of what the hell is she supposed to do about that.
“Quinn?” Rachel blinks, and Quinn blinks, and the moment is gone.
“Nothing. I just think we should get going in case the blizzard picks up.” Quinn downs the rest of the hot chocolate, and it does burn, but she doesn’t mind the feeling. Rachel doesn’t need to know that she lives an hour away. Rachel raises her eyebrows, but she follows her out anyway, back into the cold, back into the world.
***
Taylor Swift’s cover of “Last Christmas” blares on the generic pop station, and Rachel will admit that she’s tired of it at this point, especially since, in her opinion, her version was better.
“She’s from Pennsylvania,” Quinn says without looking at the radio. “I think she’s faking the accent.”
“Taylor Swift?”
“I do research, sometimes.” Quinn turns the music down. “Most sites are blocked on the school wifi, but not Wikipedia, so between practices or whatever…” She trails off. “I like knowing an artist’s background before I spend time on their thing.”
“Sometimes I really don’t know what to do with you, Quinn,” Rachel says, intending it as a compliment, knowing it won’t come across that way. If you told her last year - if you told her last week - that the most fun she’s had all holiday season was with Quinn Fabray, of all people, she wouldn’t believe it.
“You owe me one, remember?” Quinn chortles, a deep and throaty noise. Her voice always throws Rachel for a loop - low and husky and not at all the waifish sound she’d expect from a girl like her. But that’s Quinn - a woman of contradictions. “I’ll hold you to it.”
“I know that you will.” Rachel pauses. “That’s part of why I respect you.”
“You shouldn’t. Respect me. I’m an asshole most of the time.”
“Sure, but so are most of the boys at this school and everybody gives them a free pass, all the time. There’s something refreshing about being around fellow young women who aren’t afraid to hold their own and know what they want and demand it.”
Quinn’s eyes go glassy, and Rachel figures she’s said the wrong thing but doesn’t apologize.
“Thank you,” she finally says, too quiet. “This is your street, right?”
“I- yes.” Rachel shakes her head. The snow’s all but gone, now. “Thank you.”
“No, I was just going to strand you at the Lima Bean after going to all that trouble,” Quinn deadpans, and the car rolls up to Rachel’s house, purrs to a stop. Rachel lays her hand on the door but doesn’t open it, yet.
“Happy holidays, Quinn.”
“Merry- happy holidays, Rachel.” Quinn takes a sharp breath and gives her a weird little half-wave. Rachel will take it. She hops out of the car, steps carefully down the thin sidewalk leading up to her house, gives Quinn one final nod before heading inside.
***
Quinn drives back home with the radio blaring and the snow howling and the car feeling strangely, strangely empty.
She finds herself excited for tomorrow.