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a murder, but not a crime
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“It’s only three in the afternoon, Rach, you might wanna slow down a bit,” Quinn comments, watching as the other woman chugs down a beer.
“Alcohol only just returned to my list of ‘can’s three months ago, Quinn,” Rachel responds, picking at the label of her bottle. “Don’t be a party-pooper. Besides, I think today calls for a little unwinding, if any day does.”
Quinn doesn’t even fight that. “Fine, okay,” she says, sipping her own drink. “How did it go, by the way?”
Rachel shrugs. “It was as amicable as it could be, considering the circumstances. We didn’t actually have to be in the same room as one another, thank goodness. Just had to sign some papers. Dot some ‘T’s.”
She smirks at her own joke and takes another drink.
“That’s good, at least,” Quinn says. “It’s over.”
“That it is.”
The ‘it’ they’re referring just so happens to be her and Jesse’s marriage. It had lasted all of nine months, while their relationship clocked in at around sixteen months.
A personal record for Jesse.
And, well, Rachel, if you’re only counting relationships that don’t have the occasional half-a-year break.
It didn’t even have the decency to be particularly original when it ended either.
It was actually completely predictable—he’d been withdrawn since around the time she agreed to be Kurt and Blaine’s surrogate; he began asking Rachel’s costar, Bridget, to stay after rehearsals for notes (that went on for about two months); he’d often come home and immediately excuse himself to the shower; his eyes would linger on her stomach; he began to say Kurt, Blaine, and Quinn’s names with an animosity that hadn’t been there before.
It was, really, what you would expect.
He’d even added a single, minute tremble to his voice when he’d admitted, “I’m having an affair,” after dinner one night.
And, Rachel, who was trying to wash dishes around her protruding stomach, had done what any suffering wife would do in such a situation; she threw her shoe at the wall by his head and stormed out.
Less than a month after winning her first Tony, just weeks before her due date, Rachel was alone on a sidewalk with only one shoe and very, very pregnant.
She’d gone to Quinn, of course, who she’d become close to over the past few years since Quinn graduated and moved to New York.
Which was convenient when the doctor had planted Quinn’s egg in her uterus.
Especially when Rachel had needed someone to rub her feet or back or go on midnight ‘cravings’ runs, because she hadn’t wanted to bother Jesse when the child wasn’t even his.
Quinn had always complied without complaining too much, sometimes even taking Rachel’s feet into her lap without Rachel even asking—just doing it mindlessly when they sat on Quinn’s couch watching a movie, or when they were Santana and Brittany’s or Kurt and Blaine’s.
She’d eagerly offered for Rachel to move in when she’d left Jesse, which was convenient when Rachel’s water had broken in the middle of making pancakes one morning.
But now they’re sitting in a bar on a Tuesday afternoon because Rachel ducked out of Jane Austen Sings! right after her and Jesse split and has been on a new show—the musical version of Dracula—and doesn’t have a shows on Tuesdays and Quinn had snuck out of work the moment Rachel had texted her asking her to.
Sure, she’d had to ask Mr. Bailey, the 10th grade English teacher, to cover her last class during his free period and he was a bit of a jerk-off, but it was worth it to be sitting here now.
“I’m sorry, Rachel,” Quinn says for the hundredth time since they split up.
Swallowing another drink, Rachel waves the comment away.
“It’s okay, I mean…” She shrugs. “Not a big surprise. Like you said, it’s over and I, for one, am glad for it.”
“Are you?” Quinn asks.
Rachel shrugs again. “I don’t know yet. We’ll see. I mean, I am single at the wonderful age of twenty-six. That’s not too old, is it? I’ll be fine. Even if I do have stretch marks now.”
They don’t usually discuss anything having to do with Austin unless they’re immediately with him, so it’s strange for Quinn and she tries not to let it settle and set the mood for the rest of the night.
“Well, I’ve had stretch marks for ten years, and I’ve done alright,” she comments and Rachel snorts when she laughs.
“You’ve done more than alright, if I may say so,” her voice is dramatically deep, put on, and she jokingly leers at Quinn.
Quinn poses for her with one arm bent like a chicken wing, hand on the back of her head, other hand on her waist and Rachel just laughs harder.
When they’ve calmed down, Rachel sighs wistfully.
“We’ll see if I have enough game left for anyone to ask me out,” she says and the way her eyes linger on a still-smiling Quinn before quickly darting away is the only sign that there’s something deeper going on.
They haven’t talked about it—what happened in that delivery room—when Quinn has holding Rachel’s hand and telling her, “You’re doing amazing, Rach, one more push!” and Kurt and Blaine were waiting in the waiting room with their parents and Rachel’s dads because they, “Didn’t want to see all that,” but they wanted the resulting child, still.
There had been a moment when Austin was crowning and Rachel had wanted nothing more than to stop right there.
She’d pushed herself back into the bed and said, “Quinn, no, I can’t. Please, I can’t.”
Quinn, at a loss with Rachel crying and begging like that, had turned to the doctor, who was waiting for her to say something reassuring.
So she’d brushed away some of Rachel’s sweaty hair, leaned down, and briefly pressed her lips to the other woman’s—just long enough for it to matter, long enough for Rachel to kiss her back.
Just long enough for the both of them—hazy and exhausted as Rachel had been, anxious and on edge as Quinn had been—to be certain that it could be everything they’ve ever wanted.
“You can do it, sweetie,” she’d said when she’d drawn back. “Come on!”
Rachel looked more dazed than she had been before, but she had done it. Austin was out and in her arms--then Quinn's, then Kurt and Blaine's arms--in fifteen minutes.
But they had yet to discuss it.
Even when they’d returned to their apartment, they hadn’t said a word.
“I’m sure it’ll happen,” Quinn tells her.
“I hope so.”
Rachel lets the words linger just long enough before she says, “I guess Jesse and Bridget are still dating.”
Quinn glances up at her. “Yeah?”
Rachel nods. “She was waiting for him when he came out. I passed her.”
“I’m sorry, Rachel."
“Quinn, hon, please stop apologizing on his behalf, okay? It’s fine.” She pauses. “Well, not fine, but it’s definitely not your fault.”
“No, but you thought it was your fault for about a week, remember?” Quinn asks.
Rachel had. When she’d shown up at Quinn’s apartment wearing only one shoe, Quinn had immediately taken her in and tried to comfort her.
The entire time she was crying, though, Rachel just kept insisting that it was all her fault Jesse cheated—that he had every reason when she looked like she did and it wasn’t for him.
This had only furtherd Quinn’s insistence that the man needed punched in the face.
“I remember,” Rachel replies. “I also remember that he more than got his after that.”
“Oh, God,” Quinn says when it clicks. “I always forget about that. It’s like PTSD or something. I’ve seen too much.”
Rachel laughs. “Hey, you’re not the one who did it! I’m the one with the metaphorical blood of a dozen baby chicks on my hands, not you. As well as those poor tires I mutilated.”
“Okay, well the tires are—were—inanimate, so no hard feelings there,” Quinn says. “But seriously, we could have been arrested for that.”
“Then I guess it’s a good thing no one saw us. Besides, I think they would have understood. I could have just said, ‘My husband is a cheating asshole,’ and they would been like, ‘Fair enough. Carry on.’”
Quinn giggles and wipes some of the condensation on her beer bottle off with her thumb. “That’s not how it works, Rachel, as ideal as that sounds.”
“Then I would have fought them. I did have that kitchen knife handy for the tires.”
She puts up her fists in the typical ‘why-I-oughta’ stance, which makes Quinn grin and bite her lip.
“You are such a bad girl,” she says, shaking her head. “Divorce has turned you into some sort of ‘screw-the-man’ criminal.”
Rachel seems to like the sound of that and straightens her shoulders proudly. “You know, I sniffed a Sharpie once,” she whispers conspiratorially and Quinn fake-swoons with the back of her hand pressed into her forehead.
“My stars!” she exclaims in a theatrical voice. “What a rebel!”
“Yep. For four seconds.”
Quinn, who’s joking voice has now become slightly Southern, just says, “Take me now!”
A few of the other patrons look at them when this is heard and Rachel’s eyes are darker than Quinn thinks she’s ever seen them.
“Don’t tempt me,” she warns and Quinn shivers, scooting back into her side of the booth.
Feeling gutsy at the way Rachel is eyeing her, Quinn says, “Maybe I like tempting you.”
There have been a lot of ‘almosts’ since their kiss at the hospital—when they were babysitting Austin for his dads and stood by his crib while he was sleeping and Quinn had said, “Look at him,” and they’d been standing so close; when Quinn couldn’t sleep and Rachel found her in the living room early in the morning with the TV on and shook her awake to say, “Just come to my room, I’ll snuggle you back to sleep,” before fulfilling her promise; when Quinn had come to Rachel’s opening night for her new show and brought flowers to her dressing room, and, when they’d pulled out of their hugs their mouths were closer than they’d planned on them being.
Moments that are almost like the world telling them to slow down, to breathe. There’s no hurry because they’re not going anywhere.
And this flirting is not new.
It happens a lot, actually—one of them hinting that the other should make a move, the other hinting that they want to, but then never going through with it.
It’s Jesse probably; he idles.
It’s not that Quinn minds, exactly, because Rachel was married to him for almost a year, but she thought of him is a mood-killer and he’s sort of a hard thing to ignore.
She sort of needs Rachel to make a move.
But Rachel just says, “He painted the car too, by the way. So our beautiful message is gone.”
Quinn shakes her head. “What a pansy. I thought it looked nice,” she says and Rachel nods with faux seriousness.
“He calls himself a Broadway enthusiast and then paints over such iconic song lyrics from a Broadway show that his Broadway star ex-wife and her…best friend—” She looks away at this word, sounding unsure if it’s the correct term. “—lovingly wrote for him.”
Quinn, unable to keep up the charade, snorts into her bottle as she goes to take a sip. “Rachel, ‘you had it coming, you only have yourself to blame’ written in Sharpie on the hood of his egg-covered car can hardly be considered a ‘loving’ message.”
Rachel starts laughing, too, garnering some more looks from the others sitting nearby, as few of them as there are. “You’re right,” she says when she’s caught her breath. “But still. How else can I prove my criminal rep to everyone so I can revive my street cred? The evidence is gone.”
“The easist way would be to get caught doing a minor felony. Like public urination—” Rachel makes a face. “—or indecent exposure.”
Now her eyes light up. “Ooh.” She settles back in thought for a moment. “Well, I guess it would depend on who I was getting indecently exposed with.”
Quinn gets another knowing glance with that and, strangley embolded from the frequency of their impuslive flirting, says, “Well, we’ll see what I can do, okay?”
Rachel gives her a smile made up of pressed lips and and a shyly amused expression. “Yeah?” she asks.
Quinn shrugs. “It’s the least I can do for my, baby mama.”
Rachel’s mouth drops at this and she reaches across the table to lightly smack Quinn’s arm. “Don’t you dare turn into Puckerman, Quinn Fabray.”
Quinn holds her hands up in surrender, laughing at how quickly Rachel had gotten offended. “I was only kidding.”
“Sure you were.”
It gets still, then, with the only sound coming from around them—the jukebox in the corner quietly churning out another grainy love song, the clink of glass at the bar, squeaky chairs.
Things have changed a lot in the past ten years and there a lot of different options, but maybe they could both agree that the moments like these are their favorites.
When they’re, mostly, alone and it’s quiet—Rachel’s quiet breathing; Quinn’s hands moving forward, fingers flexing as if going to touch the other woman and backing out at the last second; the way their ankles brush under the table but neither pulls away.
It’s how, when Quinn finally does have the courage to reach out, to take Rachel’s hand, Rachel doesn’t pull away. She grips on loosley, giving Quinn the space and freedom to leave if she needs it.
It’s remembering the triumphant look on Rachel’s face when Quinn had pulled that Sharpie out of her purse and started to write on the hood of Jesse’s car; the way it had dissolved into tears that hadn’t stopped until after Austin was out and living with his dads; the way Quinn immediately started buying vegan food for Rachel the moment she moved in and Rachel took over making meals that weren't canned or frozen; or how she’ll come home from shows to find Quinn asleep at her desk, drooling a little on test papers that she should be grading.
It’s learning, after all these years, that they still fit into each other’s lives like cogs on a machine that had stopped working while they were apart—that they’re able to fill any rifts or cracks for one another, always.
“Hey,” Rachel says, drawing Quinn’s eyes back up. “If I say something and you don’t react how I want you to react, just know I was kidding, okay? It was only a joke.”
Quinn is confused, but nods for Rachel to continue.
And Rachel does. She takes a deep breath, looking down to gather herself, and then returns to their eye contact to say, “Maybe we could go home and I could show you my stretch marks? You could tell me if I’m still…not…unattractive with them.”
A pause.
“I mean, it was kind of your kid that did this to me.”
She looks scared, but Quinn looks pleasantly surprised as she nods, clearing her throat. “Yeah, um…Rachel…I could definitely do that.”
Based on the look her face gets, Rachel wasn’t expecting that. “Really?”
And she looks so cute and unsure that Quinn says, “Really. Now, come on, before I take you right here, you insurgent anarchist.”
Rachel laughs and gets to her feet. “You like bad girls, huh?”
Standing in front of her, Quinn rolls her eyes. “You have no idea,” she jokes.
“Well, maybe it’s my turn to dye my hair pink then. Maybe take up too much leather as a hobby.”
Quinn shoves her playfully on their way out the door. “Don’t you dare. Then the souls of more than just unborn baby chicks would be on your conscious.”
On the sidewalk, as they wait for the cab they’ve hailed to stop, Rachel seems to consider this. “That’s an excellent point.” She opens the door for Quinn and then follows the other woman inside. “You know, I was tardy to class twice my junior year,” she says.
Quinn lets out a fake, breathy sigh and closes the door around Rachel. “You delinquent, you.”
Rachel just laughs as the taxi pulls away and kisses Quinn at last, just barely.
A brush of the lips.
But Quinn is quick to keep her there with a firm hand on the back of her head.
And there are a lot of things to choose from, but this is definitely at the top of their list of favorites.
Because, swerving in and out of traffic with Rachel sighing contentedly into Quinn’s mouth and Quinn shifting closer even if it all ended—the ride, their lives, the world, everything—it wouldn’t matter, because nothing could ever be this culminating and simple again anyway.
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