memoryofamemory

Angeles (Chapter 10)

2012-11-25T00:53:46Z

The Day The Sky Caught Fire

Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten: Someone’s Always Coming Round Here

London, England, 1348

Something shifts in the air, and Rachel tenses before she is even fully awake. She knows without opening her eyes that she is no longer alone in the room. Something had shimmered in, clumsily at that, and the wooden floor had creaked.

“Oh come on,” the voice says, “I know you’re awake, you’re nowhere near as good at pretending as you think you are.”

Rachel glances over and there’s a teenage boy, with the bluest eyes she’s ever seen, staring at her, unblinking.

He has the same sort of build, of implicit perfection that she’s seen before, but she can’t quite place it, and the frustration brings tears to her eyes.

“Oh, don’t cry,” the boy says disapprovingly. “Crying never solves anything. Why do you mortals always resort to that?”

“Who are you?” Rachel asks. “And why are you here?”

“You can call me Kurt,” the boy says, and Rachel is momentarily thrown by his strange emphasis. “And I’m here to take care of that little memory loss you seem to be suffering from.”

Rachel blinks in confusion. Kurt gives her a small smile. She’s not sure if it’s meant to be comforting, and Kurt doesn’t seem certain either.

“What do you want from me?” Rachel whispers.

Kurt looks at her and sighs. There’s a flicker of sympathy that flashes across his face. They might have been friends, once. He always did have a soft spot for lost causes.

“I don’t want anything,” he tells her. “I never do. It’s what makes me so good at what I do. I’ve learned not to have desires. If you don’t want anything then it doesn’t hurt if it gets taken away. You don’t notice when it’s gone because you didn’t notice when it was there.”

“What…” Her voice trails off. “What does that have to do with me?”

“Oh,” Kurt shrugs, “you don’t realize it right now, but your memory is kind of important in the grand scheme of things. Now, some would argue that it might be better if you don’t remember, because it might upset the status quo and all, but me? I mean, really, what’s the harm in a trip through time?”

Rachel stares at him, aghast.

“Come, pet,” Kurt says, “we’re going to figure out just what it is everyone is making sure you don’t remember about your precious Quinntus.”

He grabs Rachel with one hand and flickers his other wrist; a shimmering porthole appears in front of them. Rachel freezes in terror.

“Come on then,” Kurt says as he tugs her towards it, “we don’t have all night.”

& & &

Rachel stumbles when they land. She looks around her but she doesn’t recognize it at all.

“Where are we?” She asks as she looks around. It is cold, and dark, and she just knows she is very far from home.

“Nepal,” Kurt shrugs. “Or what was of it. What will become of it. Time doesn’t really matter for us, we’re just here to observe.”

He doesn’t seem particularly impressed with the environment, isn’t shivering from the cold. It is not as comforting as Rachel expects it to be.

“Why are we here?” She asks timidly.

“You’ll see,” Kurt sighs. “They’ll show up soon enough. They always do.”

He leans back against the rock. Rachel wants to believe Kurt isn’t focusing on anything, that he is just staring into the distance. But there’s something about the way his eyes keep flickering back and forth, as if he is tracking something.

“Who are we waiting for?” Rachel presses.

“You’ll see,” he answers dismissively. “In time you’ll see it all. Just have some patience. It’s not that hard, I promise.”

He settles back down against the rocks, watching the skyline begin to change. Dawn is coming, and the morning light seems to dance across the sky. It would be peaceful, almost, if he didn’t already know what was going to happen.

“There you are,” he says quietly to himself, and Rachel tries to find what he is looking at, but all she can see is a dark blue sky and the faintest hint of the sun.

Suddenly, a blonde girl crashes onto the rocks a short distance in front of them. She stumbles for a moment, dazed, then shakes her head, and Rachel finds herself looking into the clearest hazel eyes she has ever seen.

Her breath catches in her throat, and she glances at Kurt, who is watching them with thinly disguised curiosity.

“Can she see us?” Rachel whispers.

“No,” Kurt answers. “And you don’t have to whisper, she can’t hear you either.”

“But she’s looking right at us,” Rachel argues, torn between wanting to hide behind Kurt and approach the beautiful stranger who fell from the sky.

“She can sense you,” Kurt says. He leans back against the rock and closes his eyes. “She can feel you here, because you’re connected like that, but she can’t see you. She can’t hear you. She just feels this pull, because it’s what you two do. You push and pull each other and each side fights to maintain the status quo.”

“What are you talking about?” Rachel asks.

“That’s Quinn,” Kurt answers. “You’ll figure out the rest, just watch.”

Quinn shakes her head again, moving away from the rocks and closer to the edge of the cliff. But her eyes keep darting back to the rocks, to where Rachel and Kurt are sitting, and Rachel just knows.

Kurt is wrong – this push and pull they share is somehow defying time and space. Quinn knows she is here, and yet –

Rachel lets out a strangled gasp as Quinn steps even closer to the edge.

“No!” She shouts as Quinn prepares to jump.

Quinn jerks back, momentarily thrown, and suddenly another girl is on the rocks, too. She glances back to where Kurt and Rachel are standing and there’s a hint of curiosity mixed with in the flagrant disapproval.

“Quinn,” the girl says, “step away from the edge, yeah?”

“Santana,” Quinn sighs. “I should have known you’d appear.”

Santana shrugs and moves towards the edge of the cliff, towards Quinn. From her vantage point Rachel can sense the unease, how much Santana wants Quinn to step away, and yet in a show of perfect solidarity, she sits down on the edge next to the other girl.

“She’ll come back,” Santana sighs quietly. “She always does. That’s the one good thing that’s come out of all of this. The one certainty is – she will come back.”

Quinn doesn’t say anything. Rachel wonders briefly if maybe like desperation, Quinn also wears silence as a shield.

“How many – “ Quinn’s voice breaks briefly. “How many more times do I have to go through this?”

Santana doesn’t respond at first, but her eyes flicker briefly towards where Rachel and Kurt are sitting. Her gaze lingers there.

“I don’t know,” she says, but there is an implication behind it that Rachel hears clearly – but they might.

“When Sue –“ Quinn stumbles over her words. “When Sue made that deal, it was my fault, really. I wasn’t paying attention to the words and I should have, really, because she’s a prophet, and she loves playing with words, but…”

“But you were too focused on saving Rachel’s life,” Santana continues for her. “You can’t blame yourself. Sue tricked you. She tricked all of us, it’s what she does. She finds your weakness and she exploits it, manipulates it. It wasn’t your fault.”

“It was either cruel or brilliant, you know,” Quinn admits. “I mean she chose the one thing that she knows will always keep me from going against her. And she found a way to constantly remind me of that.”

Quinn picks up a loose stone and throws it over the edge.

“What fools these mortals be,” she says as she stands up. “Come, Santana, I’m bored.” A ruthless, sinister smiles flickers across the blonde’s face. “Let’s find something to entertain us.”

But before they step into the air, Quinn turns around and looks straight at Rachel. Santana hesitates, glancing between Quinn and where she is looking. Even Kurt seems to hold his breath for a moment.

Then Quinn shakes her head, and they go away.

“Interesting,” Kurt says to himself. “I’ve never seen a bond that strong before. No wonder everyone is getting so worked up over it.”

“What are you talking about?” Rachel asks. “And please, stop talking in riddles and just tell me!”

“You mean you seriously haven’t figured it out?” Kurt starts chewing on his lower lip. “They’re talking about you, pet.”

“You see, Quinn, bless her … soul, she’s been having quite the hard time, you died, again, and she hasn’t been taking it real well.”

Rachel blinks in shock.

“Oh, wow, you really haven’t figured it out, have you? I would have thought Finn would have handed it to you. He loves to bait you. He’s been doing it for centuries, but I guess sometimes it’s a little hard to connect the dots when you don’t remember them.”

“I died?” Rachel repeats. “Again?”

“Indeed you did,” Kurt sounds almost chipper as he says it. “Don’t worry, you come back, it’s … for a little while that you go away, a few days at most. Come, let’s go see what Quinn does while she waits around for you to be reborn. Have you ever visited Athens?”

& & &

“Quinn said that the prophet came up with the deal to keep her in line,” Rachel says.

Kurt doesn’t say anything, merely shakes his head as he looks around. His hair is too short to fall into his eyes and yet his movements suggest he is struggling to see clearly.

She doesn’t quite know what to make of that.

“What deal?” Rachel prompts, but Kurt continues to ignore her. “What are you looking for? Where are we even going?”

“The thing they don’t tell you about time travel,” Kurt says, “is that the time of origin, if you want to call it that? It moves forward, too. It’s the only way the universe can keep itself balanced. So things are just a tad different than the last time I was here – ah, wait, here it is.”

Rachel looks around, but they are just in the middle of a field on a hill. There is nobody else around, apart from them.

“Come, pet,” Kurt says as he sits down on the grass. “Just lay down and enjoy the sun for a bit. You’ll see what I mean soon enough.”

She does as he says and closes her eyes. They’re isolated from the city of Athens but if she listens hard enough she can still hear the murmurs of a distance crowd. The faintest breeze licks over her body, whispering secrets of lost lovers and the dead. It is calm, almost peaceful, and –

“Oh my God,” Rachel shrieks. “I died here!”

She scrambles up, looking around her. “I can’t believe you brought me here,” she gasps. “I can’t believe you brought me to where I died –“

“Ah,” Kurt says, “so you do remember something, after all. That’s good. Now sit back down and stop being so melodramatic, you’ll miss the next part.”

Rachel hesitates, unconvinced. But Kurt just closes his eyes and lies back down, and Rachel is almost tempted to believe he has fallen asleep. So she follows his lead, lies down, closes her eyes and just waits.

She senses more than hears Quinn lying down next to her. Although she has more or less determined that the angel won’t hurt her, it doesn’t stop her breath from catching or her body from tensing.

“It’s okay,” Kurt says softly. “She’s just sleeping.”

“I didn’t know angels slept,” Rachel whispers. She glances over at Quinn but the angel’s features aren’t peaceful at all, they are the perfect painting of anguish, of pain.

“They usually don’t,” Kurt tells her. “Quinn especially, she – she doesn’t like it, you know, because her mind, glorious thing that it is, it plays tricks on her when she sleeps.”

“So why does she do it?” She asks.

Kurt sighs and shifts into a sitting position to look at Quinn. Rachel hesitates for a second, then struggles into a similar position.

“It makes her miserable, but she does this sometimes, you know,” Kurt says. He moves his hand as if to reach out to Quinn but then seems to think better of it. “She’ll sleep for days, just waiting for you to be reborn.”

“Sometimes I think she does it to punish herself, because when she sleeps she remembers everything, and that plagues her, you know. Even though she has no soul and she constantly struggles to keep her humanity in check – don’t you find it fascinating that something that trivial can both save her and destroy her?”

“Where’s the other angel? Santana?”

“She likes to give Quinntus space, when she gets like this,” Kurt sniffs. “As if ‘space’ will help.”

He looks over at Quinn. “I don’t know, maybe it does.”

“Will she…” Rachel’s voice trails off. “How long does it take, for her to feel better?”

“Depends,” Kurt shrugs. “She takes some of your deaths harder than others. Athens was particularly bad.” He gestures his head at something. “Finn will explain.”

Rachel doesn’t know why but the sight of Finn provokes a sudden feeling of jealousy in her. The new angel just watches Quinn on the ground and so many emotions are flickering across his face.

Finn seems torn between waking Quinn up or letting her sleep and he shifts back and forth a bit. The uncertainty shows and for the first time Rachel notices the wings fluttering on his back.

He looks like he wants to lie down next to Quinn but hesitates again. Rachel finds it curious, the difference between the two angels; Quinn simply doesn’t want to care anymore, Finn looks like he wants to care but doesn’t know how.

“Get out of my head,” Quinn whispers, and for a moment Rachel thinks she is the one being addressed. But it is Finn who looks slightly guilty instead.

“Come home,” he says quietly. It is almost as if he is begging and the soft desperation seems to sway Quinn for a moment.

“I will in a bit,” she tells him. “Just not right now.”

Her answer seems to irritate him.

“She’s dead,” Finn snaps. The gentleness is gone from his voice and darkness swirls in his eyes. “And she’s a human, stop acting so pathetic.” Something flickers across his face, a cross between rage and desperation.

“You can make it go away, you know,” he taunts. “You don’t have to feel like this anymore. You’re choosing to be this miserable when there’s a very simple way for it to stop.”

Quinn doesn’t say anything, but she holds herself completely still. Rachel wonders if she is preparing herself for future pain or just to feel nothing at all.

“I don’t get it, you know,” Finn snaps. “I don’t get why you choose to believe in this mortal more than you believe in God. It’s that very choice that kills her every single time. Choose them, Quinntus, then it’ll stop. Just for once choose them and then you’ll never have to feel like this again.” His face softens slightly. “Say you’ll consider it, Quinntus, please?”

“I am saying no!” The sudden anger takes Rachel by surprise, and she scrambles up to her feet. Quinn is now sitting up but even though she is positioned lower than Finn, her anger is makes her seem more powerful.

Quinn clenches her jaw, visibly fighting back words. Finn’s face lights up in delight.

“You are a lost cause,” he laughs. “Well, it’s okay, I guess. We both know we have plenty of time.” Finn shrugs as he starts to move away from Quinn. “He won’t forgive you forever, you know. Eventually he’ll get tired of you constantly choosing someone other than him and then what will you do, when even God decides he’s had enough of you?”

“At least I’ll have –“ And Quinn’s voice catches slightly.

“Maybe,” Finn smiles. “But she won’t remember you. They’ll make sure of that. Hardly seems fair, really, on either of you.”

“You can at least pretend you’re not enjoying this so much,” Quinn snarls.

“Oh, come on Quinntus,” Finn chuckles. “You did this to yourself. Of course I’m going to enjoy it.” He tilts his head at her, suddenly frowning. “Do you get the impression we’re not alone?”

“Well, you’re here, so I’m not alone, no matter how hard I wish I were.”

Finn scowls at her. “No,” he says, “there’s something else. Something is … off.” He glances around, and next to her, Kurt goes very, very still.

“What’s wrong?” Rachel whispers.

“I’m not sure,” Kurt says softly, “but we should probably go. No need to stick around, hopefully you got the premise of it all.”

He pulls her closer and they shimmer off. The last thing Rachel sees before they disappear is Quinn finally looking away from Finn, towards where they had just been lying. Quinn’s hand extends to the exact spot where Rachel had been, her fingers brushing the grass, reaching for someone who is no longer there.

& & &

“Where are we?” Rachel asks, looking around. They aren’t home. She looks around but she doesn’t recognize the place at all. There’s a lake, and trees, and the faintest hint of fog.

“At the beginning,” Kurt says. He shrugs, looking around. He climbs onto a rock and pats a spot next to him. “Come on, pet, the best view is right here.”

The rock is cool under her hand, and smooth, and almost comforting. There’s something almost familiar about this place, as if she knows she has seen it before, but she can’t quite remember when.

“What’s special about this place?” She asks.

“I told you,” Kurt sighs, “it’s the beginning.”

He doesn’t say of what and there’s a part of Rachel that doesn’t want to know. So she leans back, and watches.

What she sees is a younger version of Quinn.

Even in her youth Quinn wore tragedy like a shield. There’s something about the way she’s holding herself – she is Midas, Rachel thinks, but not in the way that everything she touches turns to gold. As in everything she touches because a material, solid, and so she can’t have a person because they aren’t real.

Tragic loneliness, Rachel thinks to herself.

“Oh, sweetie, no,” Kurt shakes his head. “We’re not here to watch Quinn. We’re here to watch you.”

She blinks, confused, but a moment later she hears – herself? Her younger version steps out of the woods, Shelby a few steps behind.

“What –“ Rachel starts, but she can’t quite find the words she wants.

“You’ll see,” Kurt shrugs. “You’ll see.”

Younger Rachel looks out across the river. “She’s very pretty,” she says, looking at a younger version of Quinn. “I’ve never seen anything so pretty.”

“Yes,” Shelby says quietly, “but she’s also doomed.”

They leave and Rachel blinks up at Kurt.

“I don’t… understand,” she says. “Are you trying to tell me I’ve always loved Quinn? Is that it?”

Kurt traces a crack in the rock, the only visible imperfection around them.

“Not quite,” he says. “Just that… it’s always been doomed. Even before you had a choice in it. Except maybe you didn’t? It’s very complicated, no one really knows. Well, the prophet does, but no one knows why she knows.”

Kurt sighs again, leaning back against the rock. “The prophet hates them, you know,” he tells her. “She has hated them for a very long time. Everyone knows she wants to destroy them, and everyone knows that Quinn is the way to do it. And yet she keeps bringing you back. She was very firm in making that part of the deal. And because of that one clause, Quinn won’t destroy them.”

“Why?” Rachel asks. “Why is my life so important to her?”

“Because you… have a say in things.” He glances up at her. “Even when you’re not saying anything at all – even when you don’t remember – you still have a say.”

“Your… voice, I guess, matters.”

He shakes his head and stands up. “Come along, pet, we need to get you home.”

& & &

Quinn eyes Santana, an expression of boredom across her face.

“Entertain me,” she sighs, exasperated. Santana doesn’t even open her eyes.

“You have a pet to do that,” she snaps. “Play with him instead.”

Quinn looks over at Blaine, visibly unimpressed. “But he doesn’t do much,” she pouts. “I thought he’d be much more interesting but it turns out he’s not.”

“Then make him interesting,” Santana growls. “Preferably away from me. I need to concentrate. Unlike you, I actually want to get to the bottom of this.”

Quinn eyes Blaine with a sudden look of interest, and Santana sighs in defeat.

“Blaine,” Quinn says in an almost musical voice, and he looks over. His face is completely blank, and Quinn smiles in victory. She flicks her wrist and he drops to his knees, clutching his head in agony.

“Good pet,” Quinn says quietly. She looks up at Santana. “So, where are we with the prophet?”

“Which one?” Santana asks dryly. “We have quite a few interested in that little pet of yours. And your soul. Neither of which I can truthfully see the appeal of.”

Quinn’s eyes narrow and it starts to rain heavily directly on stop of Santana. She rolls her eyes in response.

“Don’t be so petty,” Santana snarls, but it’s too soft to be vicious. Quinn blinks and a moment later the rain disappears.

“Right then,” she says as she shakes her head, “we know that Emma saw us coming, which is surprising because let’s be honest, she was more … Her so-called visions weren’t the most reliable. And yet she saw us, but for some reason, because of Shelby, Sue couldn’t.”

“Thanks for the history lesson, Santana, but I was there.”

“No, no, you’re missing the point,” Santana presses. “Sue couldn’t see us. We assumed it was because of Shelby, because the Gods wanted to protect her whereas Sue had been the one pushing for her exile, so it would make sense, you know, that there was that veil.”

“But what if we were looking at it the wrong way?” She continues. “What if the reason Emma could see us coming and Sue couldn’t find us – or so we thought – was because Emma wasn’t the one seeing us? What if somehow Sue was using Emma for the visions?”

“Doesn’t work that way,” Quinn says immediately. “It would drive anyone insane.”

“But it wouldn’t be the first time,” Santana argues. “Come on, Finn couldn’t have found us on his own, he said himself that he took care of the prophet. We know it wasn’t Sue. What if it was Emma?”

“There’s just one problem then,” Quinn says quietly as she looks up at Santana. “If Finn was in Emma’s head before, and Sue maybe at the beginning… Then who is in her head now?”

“Why would anyone be in her head?” Santana asks.

Quinn becomes quiet. She starts flicking her wrist back and forth, a nervous tick, and the winds change direction at whim.

“Because she’s still alive,” Quinn says quietly. “If she was left alone with her thoughts, she would have been driven insane by now. She would have tried to kill herself. But she’s still alive. Which means someone is in her head to stop her from going mad.”

& & &

Rachel blinks when she wakes up. This time she knows she is alone, and she just stares at the wall.

There’s a part of her that knows something happened, something important, and she’s trying to remember what it was, exactly. But she can’t quite remember, nor can she get back to sleep, so instead she quietly gets up and moves towards the fireplace.

She sits down in front of it and watches the flames lick at the wood.

It is comforting in a manner she doesn’t quite understand.

She feels more than hears someone come into the room and turns to find her mother leaning against the wall, watching her.

“You came back,” Rachel breathes.

“Yes,” Shelby smiles. “I know I was gone for a long time, but I’m back now. Is everything okay?”

Rachel nods, looking back at the fire. Shelby moves closer to her daughter and sits down next to her.

“I just… miss her,” Rachel breathes. “I don’t – I don’t understand who I’m missing, or why, exactly, I just… know that I do.”

A knock on the door startles them both, and they move towards opening it.

Emma stands on the other side, her hair damp from the rain. Rachel is hit with a sudden sense of unease.

“Emma?” Shelby prompts. “Are you okay?”

Emma shakes her head, her eyes fixed on Rachel. Something about the way she’s looking at her daughter concerns her, and Shelby blocks Rachel from Emma’s line of sight.

“I know where you’ve been,” Emma breathes, but her voice sounds off, as if someone is trying to speak for her.

Shelby’s eyes glance behind her briefly at Rachel, then back at Emma.

“It’s going to be because of you, you know,” Emma continues. “Because you couldn’t just leave it alone.”

“What’s going to happen?” Shelby presses. Finally, Emma’s gaze breaks away from where she thinks Rachel is standing and towards Shelby.

“The end of the world.”

Disclaimers:
- Sorry for the delay in getting this up
- Special thanks to Erika for looking it over
- Like I'd want to own Glee at this point
- Title taken from "Angeles" by Elliott Smith
- The scene with Quinn lying on the ground where Rachel died is written in memory of Jeff (my best friend's brother, who died 10 days before his birthday. He would have been 22)

The Kids Are Alright

2012-11-03T21:09:08Z

They’re a ridiculously young team.

Sometimes, it’s tempting to forget that. Because they’re flashy, and talented, and can pass really well and when it all clicks they score pretty goals.

So it’s easy to forget how young they are – that their defense has never played together, or that this is the first time the offense has really felt the burden of responsibility, or that their goalkeeper had to come in from the cold.

It’s easy to forget that.

Sometimes they make mistakes and you’re reminded of how young they are. Growing pains are horrible to watch for a team you’ve grown somewhat fond of, but sometimes, just sometimes, they’re necessary.

Because the advantage of such a young team? They’re still going to be around next year.

And next year – they will already know what it’s like to be in pressure situations. They will know how to handle it because they have that year of experience behind that. They will have been there before, and they will have learnt from that, and those kind of life lessons aren’t taught on the training field.

No, they’re the type of lessons you learn during a double over-time loss to your rival, or what happens when your attention slips midgame and you let something get away. They’re the type of lessons you learn when you have to play in the middle of a snowstorm, or when the rain is falling so hard you’re relying on instinct to get across the field.

They’ll go home, now, and lick their wounds for bit because that trophy had been theirs for years and now it belongs to someone else.

But in the spring, when training resumes, when the sun is shining again…

They’ll remember the rain and cold and – we have learnt from this.

The kids will have grown up.

Angeles (Chapter Nine)

2012-07-28T09:10:01Z

The Day The Sky Caught Fire

Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine: I Saw Your Face

London, England, 1348

She’s seen this happen before.

She hasn’t seen Tina before (or is her name Cassandra?), but Rachel knows that she has been in this situation before. She can’t remember it exactly, but there’s something about her… Something about the way she holds herself, about how she isn’t quite sure the body belongs to her. Tina’s movements are awkward, as if she is struggling to understand what has become of her.

As if she doesn’t quite belong, or understand, and it both terrifies and comforts Rachel.

She has seen this before, the memory buried deep in her subconscious.

“Have we met?” Rachel asks. Tina looks up, bewildered.

“I don’t think so,” she answers, “but my memory isn’t right, you know, so maybe we have. I just can’t remember.”

She pauses, and tilts her head towards Brittany. “I don’t remember anything,” Tina says softly, but something about the way she says it suggests that she expects Brittany to prompt her memory.

Brittany’s eyes flicker towards Tina and something catches in Rachel’s throat.

It terrifies Rachel, the sudden look of complete indifference in Brittany’s because it isn’t like Brittany to feel nothing. And yet she is, leaning against the doorway, not even close to being a victim of curiosity.

“Brittany,” Rachel breathes, trying to break the trance, trying to make her sister feel something. Where was the empathy from just moments before? “Brittany!”

“I’ve heard about you,” Brittany says quietly. “They talked about you, you know.”

“What did they say?” Tina asks. She is torn between being intrigued or cautious.

“That you frighten them,” she tells Tina. “You frightened them before, when you were right, and now that they don’t know if you are correct or not, that frightens them even more.”

Rachel stares at them, aghast.

“Who are they, Brittany?” Rachel asks quietly. “Who have you been talking to?”

Brittany tilts her head, puzzled.

“I don’t remember. I could hear them before, but now I can’t.” She pauses, looking at the ground. “I guess they went away,” she says softly.

Something is wrong, Rachel realizes, because although Brittany isn’t explicitly stating it, she knows her sister well enough to know how to read between the lines. She has spent enough time with Brittany that if strangers had spoken about Tina, she would have been there, she would have remembered the conversation.

Which means either Brittany has been out in the night, when she should be asleep, or, the other possibility… that these conversations have been taking place in Brittany’s head.

And judging by the distant look in those clear blue eyes, Rachel has a fairly strong idea which one actually happened.

Rachel can almost feel the impact of the shock as it hits her, forcing her to take a step back. She stares, bewildered, at Brittany, but movement from Tina turns her attention back to the guest.

“You hear them, too?” Tina asks.

“Not anymore,” Brittany responds, and Rachel hates how hopeful Brittany looks, hates this stranger for coming into her home and suggesting the voices in Brittany’s head could be real, that they could come back.

They aren’t real. They can’t be, because then what does that say about Brittany?

“You used to believe,” Tina says softly, and it takes Rachel a second to understand she is the one being addressed.

“I don’t know what I believe, anymore,” she confesses, and Tina simply stares back at her, unblinking.

“You used to believe,” she repeats. “Doesn’t it strike you as strange that you don’t, anymore?”

& & &

Santana finds Quinn at the edge of the moor. At first glance Quinn doesn’t appear to be really doing anything, but when she gets closer, she realizes that isn’t exactly the case.

From this vantage point, Quinn had a perfect line of sight to the path leading away from the village to… whatever lies beyond it. There isn’t anything particularly interesting – Santana has been there many, many times before – and so it takes Santana a moment to locate whatever it is that has captured Quinn’s interest.

A boy, a soldier.

He is shorter than Finn is. Even from this distance Santana can tell he is ordinary at best. But he is a mere mortal, and so she isn’t quite sure why Quinn is so intrigued with him.

The angel’s thoughts are completely closed off, Santana notices with a huff as she sits down next to Quinn and watches the boy walk along.

It is only then that Santana notices how much Quinn is fidgeting with her hands. She knows what it means. Disguised as casual boredom, it is in fact a sign of ruthlessness, the kind Quinn had embraced for almost 500 years.

“Why him?” Santana asks quietly.

Quinn doesn’t respond at first, seemingly content with toying with the boy from afar. He is calm, unsuspecting of the horrors Quinn is casually building. He is so completely unaware that he is about to be driven insane from the comfort of his own mind.

“Why not?” Quinn responds, but there’s something else, something behind it that suggests that maybe Santana was wrong, that maybe this boy was not really chosen at random.

“He hasn’t done anything to us,” Santana offers. “Surely there must be another way to elevate your boredom than playing with a pet? One you’re not even interested in keeping in the long term.”

“He hasn’t done anything to us,” Quinn repeats, looking as if she’s thinking about smiling. It’s dangerous. “But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t done anything to someone else.”

“Still doesn’t quite explain why you’re so interested in him,” Santana shrugs. “I mean, sorry Quinntus, but he’s hardly your type at all, and I mean that in every sense of the term.”

This time Quinn actually does smile.

“Is anyone ever truly innocent, Santana?” She asks. “Is there such a thing as a pure state?”

“Of course not,” Santana replies. “Everyone is guilty of something. But whatever crime you’re convinced he committed, let it go. He didn’t do it to us. He’s just a human, ignore it, let it go.”

“I don’t know…” Quinn looks at him with renewed interest. “He might prove to be entertaining, if his use is… limited.”

“He’s a pet,” Santana snaps. “Let him be.”

Quinn sighs, seemingly releasing her grip on the boy’s mind. Santana realizes her mistake a fraction of a second too late.

“Blaine,” Quinn says quietly, her voice barely audible above the wind, “I’m bored now. Entertain me.”

The boy drops to his knees, clutching his head. When he finally gets back to his feet, his mind is no longer his own. He stares up at them, his eyes completely empty.

“Good pet,” Quinn smiles. Santana watches on, impassive.

& & &

“Quinn is slipping,” Santana says brusquely as she appears next to Sue. “And I absolutely loathe being summoned, so please don’t do that again.”

“You do as I tell you,” Sue shrugs, “and sometimes that means appearing when I tell you to. But your obedience isn’t the issue here, apparently.”

“She stripped a boy of his mind earlier today,” the angel explains as she leans against a wall.

“I fail to see why that would bother you. You’ve done that on more than one occasion, if my memory is correct.”

Santana scoffs. “That’s beside the point. Quinn did it because she had nothing better to do. She did it because she was bored.”

“And you believe that?” Sue raises an eyebrow. “Surely you know Quinntus better than that. I mean, yes, she positively loathes boredom and yet I cannot help but feel there is more to it, don’t you?”

Santana hesitates as she drops her eyes to the floor.

Could it be that simple, after all? Could Quinn really have been motivated by something other than sheer boredom? It is tempting to believe as much, and yet, and yet…

“You took away her soul,” Santana says quietly. “Her concept of right and wrong is almost gone because of what you did.”

“I think it’s more because of what you did,” Sue reminds her almost gleefully. “Again, Santana, I almost have to applaud you because you were one of the first to realize it, you know, that that little pet of hers was a weakness.”

“You see it, too,” Santana defends.

Sue smiles at her. “I saw it because of you. I had my suspicions, of course, because what would I be if I didn’t? You, my darling angel, you were the one who made me see clearly. Quinntus was created by the Gods but they were so blinded by their own ambition they didn’t see their mistake.”

“Quinntus is their perfect creation,” Sue continues, “but even perfect things get broken.”

“So fix her,” Santana bargains.

Sue raises an eyebrow. “Now why would I do that? I rather like her the way she is.”

“You want her to crave darkness, don’t you?” She’s desperate and it shows in the way her voice is slowly becoming hysterical. “Then give her back her soul, make her switch her humanity back on. Quinn is giving into her dark side now because it’s there, but eventually she will get bored and she will find something else do to. Like disappear.”

“She won’t go over the edge if she doesn’t care,” Santana says, watching Sue closely, for a sign that her attempt at negotiation is working. “Give her something to care about, then take that thing away from her.”

“You mean Rachel.”

Sue’s voice is flat, but there’s something about her eyes that makes Santana flinch.

“Yes,” Santana says softly, resigned. “I mean Rachel.”

& & &

Rachel’s headache is agonizing.

She stares at the ceiling of the farmhouse, convinced that if she can somehow regulate her breathing maybe the pounding will stop.

It doesn’t, and instead blurry memories start to dance in her subconscious.

A girl.

An angel, she has to be, with features like that. But there’s something else about her, how she wears tragedy like a shield, and Rachel has never seen someone so addicted to darkness and yet so incredibly beautiful.

Or maybe, Rachel thinks, this fallen angel is so gorgeous precisely because of her love affair with tragedies.

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” A voice whispers next to Rachel. She turns to locate the source.

For some reason, Rachel knows this woman isn’t completely real – she can’t be, and yet… She struggles to understand but the woman makes a gesture with her wrist, and the fight starts to fade.

“Hello, love,” Sue smiles at Rachel. “I think it’s time we had a chat, don’t you?”

Rachel hesitates. She’s seen this woman before – that day at the market, with the bread – but there’s something about her that makes her want to flee, to take a step back. She turns around, prepared to flee, only to find she can’t even move.

“Don’t do that,” Sue sighs, “it’s rather unbecoming, for lack of a better word.”

Rachel stares at her, completely terrified. Her mind is shrieking at her to run, to get as far away as she can, and yet the only step she can take is towards the older woman.

“Good pet,” she smiles, “I see now why Quinntus was so fond of you.”

“Who is Quinntus?” Rachel manages to ask. “And what do you want from me?”

“You’ve been quite the thorn in my side, you know,” Sue says as she circles around Rachel. “They say I should have seen you coming, and, you know, I did. I knew exactly what would happen because of you, and they just refused to listen.”

Wide, terrified eyes follow her movements. It makes Sue feel powerful.

“I know what you’re going to say,” Sue continues. “It wasn’t your fault, you weren’t to know, it wasn’t anything you did, and all that is true, you know. It really wasn’t your fault, sometimes things just… happen.”

“Please,” Rachel whimpers. “Please, just let me go. I’m nothing special, I promise…”

“That’s precisely the point, darling,” Sue says as she shakes her head. “You’re not special, but you could be. Don’t you want that?”

Rachel hesitates and Sue seizes the opportunity. “You could actually do something with your life,” she whispers into Rachel’s ear. “Leave this filthy mediocre lifestyle behind and do something great.”

Rachel finally looks up at Sue.

“You already know what I’m going to choose, don’t you?” She asks.

“Well,” Sue smiles, “I don’t like making predictions if I know I’m going to be wrong about someone. Come along, pet, I have great plans for you.”

& & &

Brittany senses something is different when Rachel comes into the kitchen the next morning, but she can’t quite place what it is. Her sister is holding herself differently. Even her eyes have changed, as if Rachel is seeing the world from another perspective, and it unsettles Brittany.

Rachel’s belief in the world had been unwavering for so long that she doesn’t know what to make of the fact that something might have changed that.

“Rachel?” Brittany asks quietly. “Is everything okay?”

Her question prompts Tina to look over at them, and the fallen prophet can see the shift as well. Rachel’s eyes slide towards her and the molecules seem to shift around them.

Brittany can almost feel the struggle as two destinies suddenly collide with each other.

Tina just watches on quietly. If anything, it is Rachel who seems to be struggling, trying desperately to hold onto something that neither Tina nor Brittany can fully comprehend.

“She didn’t mean it, you know,” Tina eventually says. “Whatever it is that the Original Prophet promised you, it wasn’t for your benefit, it was for hers.”

“And how would you know?” Rachel asks.

Tina raises an eyebrow. “How many do you think have come before you, Rachel?” She takes a step away from the wall. “How many other girls, Rachel, do you think the prophet has played just to see how her precious Quinntus will react? She might have promised you were special but you’re just a pawn in her game.”

“And what are you?” Rachel snarls. “What makes you so special, Cassandra?”

Something flickers across Tina’s face, as if she is trying her best not to smile.

“I’m the only vision she didn’t understand.”

“So you do remember,” Rachel breathes.

“I’m starting to,” Tina says. “But the real question, Rachel, is why haven’t you started remembering?”

She wants to say more, but then she notices the figure approaching the farmhouse. She suddenly holds herself completely still. She doesn’t even breathe, but it is not enough to make herself become invisible.

Rachel is focused on Tina, so she misses it, but Brittany sees the way the stranger’s eyes flicker towards Tina. It is a look of someone who has seen the person before, but there are traces of lingering regret, of remorse.

For reasons she doesn’t quite understand, it triggers feelings of jealousy in her.

“I’m really sorry,” the stranger apologizes, “but I left something here, a long time ago, and I need to take it back. She said it was okay.”

“Did Mother say what it was?” Rachel asks, but her focus is still on Tina.

“Mother?” The stranger repeats, and the one word is enough to break her concentration away from Tina.

“Mother,” Rachel affirms. “Shelby?”

“Of course,” the stranger says distracted. “No, she said it was fine if I looked around. You don’t mind if I do, do you?”

It was asked as a question but there’s a part of Rachel that knows better than to argue. She steps aside and lets the stranger in. The stranger’s skin is warm, almost too warm considering the current weather conditions outside.

“I didn’t get your name,” Rachel stammers. “Just in case Mother comes back, you know.”

“I think she’s rather… distracted at the moment,” the stranger says. Then shrugs. “Not that it matters that much. You may call me Santana.”

& & &

There is a brief moment when Rachel thinks about fighting back.

She is watching Santana walk quickly through the farmhouse. It’s obvious the stranger is looking for something but Rachel can’t quite figure out what it is, and from the way Santana is growing increasingly frustrated, neither can she.

Santana emerges from one of the bedrooms and the frustration has turned into anger.

“What did you do with it?” She growls.

Rachel takes a step away from her, shaking her head. She doesn’t know what Santana is talking about.

“Yes, you do!” Santana snaps, and Rachel’s eyes widen because she is positive she didn’t say that out loud. She keeps backing up and now she is against the wall with a volatile stranger pacing in front of her.

“Where is it?” Santana growls. “Stop lying to me and tell me where it is!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Rachel cries. “Please, stop it, you’re scaring me…”

“It’s rather pathetic,” Santana growls, “that you think I even care how you feel right now.”

She exhales harshly, her eyes completely emotionless. “I can smell it on you, you know,” Santana whispers harshly into Rachel’s ear. “I can smell exactly what the prophet did to you. You might be able to fool your sister but you can’t fool me and you sure as hell can’t fool –“

She takes a step back, and the anger suddenly changes into curiosity. Rachel stares at her, wide-eyed.

“Huh,” Santana says quietly. “Interesting.”

& & &

“Blaine,” Quinn says in a sing-song voice, “I’m bored again. Entertain me some more.”

The boy turns to her, afraid again, and Quinn’s only response is to raise an eyebrow. Still overcome with fear, Blaine drops to his knees. He is shaking.

“Good pet,” Quinn smiles. “You’re learning far quicker than I thought you would.”

Then a look of boredom takes over her face, and with a flick of her wrist, she starts manipulating his body into different positions. It is just shy of being painful, and Blaine starts whimpering. Quinn, however, starts to smile.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to play with your toys like that?” Santana sighs as she appears next to Quinn.

It’s enough to break Quinn’s concentration and Blaine falls to the ground. Quinn takes in a breath, looking at Santana.

“You smell like her,” Quinn says quietly, and Santana has to look away from the heartbreak so visible in those hazel eyes. “Why do you smell like her, Santana?”

“Because I thought your little pet had something I wanted,” Santana replies, then scoffs when she sees the look on Quinn’s face. “Don’t work yourself up, Quinntus. It turns out my trip to the farmhouse was in vain. Well, sort of.”

Quinn raises an eyebrow. She is obviously unimpressed.

“Cassandra’s there, but apparently goes by Tina now,” she sniffs.

“Did she recognize you?” Quinn asks. Although she is annoyed at Santana, she is also concerned. She remembers vividly the destruction Santana had caused when she toyed with that girl’s mind.

Sometimes, the guilt plagues them both.

“She pretended not to,” Santana shrugs. “But you know how these things are. Even if you want someone’s mind completely clean there is still a part of them that remembers. The human mind is rather strange, in that way.”

“And Rachel?”

There it is, that trace of hopefulness that reminds Santana that even stripped of her soul, there will always be a part of Quinn that cares. She will always be tempted to put Rachel first, even if she doesn’t understand why she is doing it.

Quinn’s obsession with Rachel goes back centuries, and Santana suspects that it won’t fade any time soon.

“Do you ever wonder why Sue is so interested in Rachel?” Santana asks.

Quinn glances at her. Her hazel eyes are so guided, and Santana tries briefly to read Quinn’s mind, but it is closed off. Santana sighs and then leans back, looking over the moor.

“I mean, the only one in all this is probably more interested in Rachel’s welfare than you is, well, Sue,” Santana continues. “I can understand your obsession with the pet but why hers? Why is the Original Prophet so interested in a mere mortal? Is it because of your obsession or is it something else?”

“What are you saying?” Quinn asks, careful to keep her voice completely neutral.

“Rachel is the only thing that is keeping you from rebelling against the Gods,” Santana says. “And we know there is nothing Sue would love more to do than to dethrone them. And Sue had the opportunity to do so, yet didn’t take it.”

“How do you know?” Quinn growls. Above them, lightening flashes across the sky, but there is no rain.

“Because I offered her Rachel,” Santana says, and she moves half a second before Quinn lunges for her.

“Knock it off,” she growls, “Sue didn’t take it. Your pet is safe.”

“She is not something you bargain with!” Quinn shouts.

“Why not?” Santana responds. “I get that you love her because at the end of the day, you never really had a choice. You were always going to love her and the Gods knew that! Everyone knew that!”

“What’s your point?” Quinn growls, and it’s an eerie echo of an earlier conversation.

“Your love for Rachel defies the Gods,” Santana says. “Everyone knows how inconvenient it is for them, including Sue, and yet she goes to extraordinary lengths to make sure your pet is safe and sound.”

Quinn stares at her, a muscle twitching in her jaw. “Don’t you ever wonder why Sue constantly goes to such lengths?” Santana prompts.

Chapter 10

Disclaimers:
- I don't own Glee and have no particular desire to
- Title of the chapter is a line from "Angeles" by Elliott Smith
- Not a Blaine fan
- Special thanks to Erika for looking it over

Love Is Dead

2012-07-22T17:18:56Z

Love is dead.

Ask me how I am feeling right now and the primary answer is hurt.

And angry. And disappointed. And confused. And lost.

And hurt.

The White Tie Affair once wrote “every time I come around you’re ready for the letdown” and there is much more truth to that either you or I care to admit. What happens when we are perpetually disappointed by someone?

It’s one thing when we are scorned from our lover but what happens when it’s a family member? What happens when you can’t look at your own father without feeling hurt, or disappointment, or a multitude of other emotions?

On February 25^th, when he threatened to disown me in an email because I spoke out against it to my mother, of course I was hurt. I did not see that email coming because I was, quite literally, 6,000 miles away when her conversation with him took place. I wasn’t even in the same country!

And yet I was the one who was called “disgusting”? Because why – I had said to my mother that I had enough of his drunken phone calls?

I have lived with the guilt long enough. A part of me does and will always blame myself for my father’s alcoholism, irrational as that may be. It’s there and it’s just something I have accepted.

But I am angry, too.

In April, my father had flown to the U.S. for about a week to visit his father (my grandfather). Not once did he call me. When I mentioned this to a friend, she asked me “but did you really want him to call?”

And that’s the thing – if he had called, I cannot say with all due certainty that I would have picked up.

April came and went and the disappointment lingers, as it does when you realize that while you are not worth a phone call, you also didn’t want it anyway. Maybe there is truth, too, to Train’s lyrics: “you say you don’t need my secret midnight call”.

And I don’t.

Flash forward to June when someone asked him “but you do love him, don’t you?”

And I said, “I don’t know”.

Do I hate him? I’m not sure; honestly right now I don’t feel much of anything towards him.

Except maybe resentment, and hurt, and a touch of anger.

I’m still sitting here fuming and although I should probably just drink a Dr Pepper or look at pretty pictures I also accept I’m not completely done writing this out. I apologize if you’ve gotten this part and asked yourself “but what’s the point in this?” because at this point, I don’t know either.

Except maybe to say I refuse to be blamed for his drinking.

So yes. You know what? He can say I’m being out of line or pushing him away or whatever his accusation of the day is.

I will plead guilty to all of it.

But I will also plead guilty for wanting to get the fuck away from it and having absolutely zero intention of coming back.

He wants to put his alcoholism on me? Fine. But I will put not coming back on him.

Thoughts on the Aurora shootings

2012-07-20T20:59:25Z

“What kind of person brings an AK-47 into a classroom?” Grey’s Anatomy (7x11, Disarm)

It’s been about a year and a half since I saw that episode of Grey’s Anatomy but I think any recent college graduate knows what it means. Virginia Tech was only a little over five years ago but we still remember it, and to a certain degree, that simple question – what kind of person does bring an AK-47 into a classroom? – resonates with us.

Classrooms are supposed to be sacred.

You might disagree with your college. Not all of us will love our university unconditionally. But there is a part of us, somewhere deep inside, that believes that a university is sacred. That learning is sacred.

Knowledge is power has been engrained so deeply into us that the very thought of not believing that – or worse, believing in the contrary! – bothers us. Maybe even disturbs us.

Because there’s an implication behind that statement: if you strip away our knowledge, then we are powerless.

And yet the point of this post is not Grey’s Anatomy’s writing, or Virginia Tech, or even the philosophical debates behind “knowledge is power”, but something far more recent, and in some ways, something that hits far closer to home: the shootings in Aurora.

Before I really begin I want to express my thoughts, sympathies, and prayers to the families and victims of the shootings. What happened was an absolute tragedy, and there aren’t words that are adequate enough to express my condolences.

Second is, I understand how hard it is right now. Both to understand on a cognitive level what happened, and also, just to accept what happened.

I don’t remember Columbine well – I think I was too young at the time to fully comprehend the magnitude of the events that transpired that day. But the impacts of Columbine had a ripple affect throughout the world and eventually it hit Geneva, Switzerland.

But I was 11 years old, and still didn’t quite understand why the professors suddenly so quiet, or why my parents were so quiet at dinner. Something was wrong, and something terrible had happened, but the who or why or how – that would take much longer to understand.

In some ways it would take Virginia Tech to fully be able to understand why people were asking “but how could this happen to me?”

There are some things, which are completely trivial, that we also believe to be sacred. I’m not using “sacred” in the traditional sense of the term but more “we believe that nothing can touch us in this environment”.

Something mundane like going to class in high school, or an early morning class at university, or, even, like the premiere of a movie.

There’s a part of me that believes the shootings in Aurora affect us so profoundly because it is so easily not just to pretend but to believe that it could have been of us. Because we are all been there.

We have all been to high school. Most of us have had an early morning class at university. Most of us have, at some point in our lives, seen the premiere showing of a movie.

We have, at some point in our lives, been there before.

Maybe that’s why writing this is so hard for me. I have the word document open, true, but it’s not the only thing – CNN is playing not quite as background noise but almost, and I have Twitter open at the same time.

I’m writing this as confirmation of Jessica Ghawi’s death is hitting the wires.

Confession: I couldn’t write that sentence without tearing up a little.

I didn’t know her, and I won’t pretend to. I glanced at her twitter and there’s a part of me that wishes I hadn’t because is there really anything more heartbreaking than reading someone’s final words to the world?

She was an aspiring sports journalist, eager to see the premiere of the new Batman movie, and now she’s dead.

I don’t quite know what to make of that.

I mean, realistically I do.

She’s dead. That’s simple, right? She was shot twice, one in the lower body (correct?), and once in the head. The odds of surviving something like that is not in your favor. And that’s tragic, in every sense of the term.

The other part, the one that’s sobering for me, is how easily it could have been me.

Because to a certain extent, I’ve been her.

I’ve been that aspiring journalist.

Haven’t we all?

Haven’t we all wanted something in our life? Haven’t we all had dreams, or ambitions, or the like? I remember what it was like, starting out. I remember having plans. Having dreams. Not only knowing what I wanted in life, but also how to get there.

I remember it because it wasn’t that long ago. 6 months. A year. Two, at the most, and yet, with the news reports in the background, it feels like yesterday.

My eyes are still stinging a little as I write this, because the sharp realization – I’ve been that journalist, it could so easily have been me, it’s still there, it hasn’t faded.

It’s so incredibly sobering that a few thousands miles – simply being in a different country – is really what separates us.

I wasn’t there, she was. I didn’t know her, and yet I can’t help but feel affected by her death.

Grey’s Anatomy once famously asked “what kind of person brings an AK-47 into a classroom?”

It’s a valid question, but the events in Aurora raise a separate kind of issue.

It goes beyond “what kind of person brings an AK-47 into a movie theatre?” and more “what kind of person does that at all?”

Reports are drifting in, little by little. His name is James Holmes. He is in his 20’s. He was a neuroscience student at University of Colorado. He was, according to French press, a “recluse”.

He was a lot of things, but primarily, he was someone who walked into a crowded theatre and opened fire.

The saying goes knowledge is power, but the question remains the same.

What kind of person brings an Ak-47 into a classroom, and what kind of person brings those kind of weapons into a theatre?

I don’t understand. I don’t know, either.

And I just feel a little lost.

Gin musings

2012-07-07T15:58:42Z

Sitting here on the couch, with a Gin & Tonic, writing Angeles.

It could be a lot worse.

"But if good means right, I will end this fight"

2012-07-02T14:49:25Z

Confession number 23

2012-07-02T14:40:48Z

It's cold and rainy and I think I might miss you, after all.

"Walking on priceless art"

2012-06-20T03:10:25Z

Angeles (Chapter Eight)

2012-06-01T17:57:53Z

The Day The Sky Caught Fire

Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight: All Your Secret Wishes

London, England, 1348

She knows they’re watching her.

Rachel can feel their eyes on her as she walks towards the market. It is cold, and wet, and she can’t remember the last time she saw the sun.

Rachel stumbles a little as she tries to remember. It isn’t the first time she felt like that, as if there was a memory just out of her reach. Something about the sun… She glances towards the sky but there is nothing but grey mist above her.

Whatever thought she was struggling to find remains out of reach.

Rachel stands still for a moment, listening for something, but she doesn’t know what it is. It is eerily quiet, and yet she closes her eyes and just listens.

She makes a point of breathing quietly. She wants whatever it is to come to her. So she just focuses on her senses, on the fog nipping at her clothes, on the feeling of the drizzle against her face. There is no wind, nothing to make the noise, but she can still feel the shift in the atmosphere.

When Rachel looks up again, there is a young man standing a few feet in front of her. He tilts his head in confusion.

“Hello, pet,” Finn says, and there’s a trace of something that sounds strangely like affection in his voice. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“Have we met?” Rachel asks, looking up at him. He’s tall, tall enough that her neck almost hurts to look at him, and there’s something about his eyes – she doesn’t know what to make of it.

“Huh,” Finn says as he tilts his head. “Interesting. They did quite the number on you, didn’t they?”

Rachel takes a step back. She’s confused, and a little afraid, but the boy is just standing there, watching her. She doesn’t know what to make of him, and the way he’s looking at her suggests he feels the same.

“I mean, I’ve heard about what happened, because, well, who hasn’t?” He muses out loud. “I guess I just didn’t think it would happen to you, of all mortals, if you know what I mean.”

“I don’t understand,” Rachel says. “What do you mean, of all mortals?”

Finn blinks at her.

“Exactly what you think I mean, pet,” he says. “Do you honestly have no memory at all?” He sniffs her direction then tilts his head. “I guess not.”

“Who are you?” Rachel asks. She wants to flee, get away from this stranger and his familiar darkness.

“Exactly who you think I am, pet,” he answers. His eyes flicker slightly and blackness swirls in them. A second later, they return to the original color, and Rachel is left wondering if she imagined it to begin with.

“I don’t know you,” Rachel says. “I never met you before, I swear. I promise I would remember if I had…”

Finn gives her a crooked half-smile.

“The ironic thing is, pet,” Finn says quietly, almost as if taunting her, “is that isn’t the first time you believed that.”

“Only mortals can do that, you know,” he says as he starts to disappear back into the fog. “Only they think they can believe in something only once. Others know better.”

Rachel stays where she is, watching him leave until she can no longer see his outline. She can feel the subtle shift in the atmosphere, as if something is changing but she doesn’t know what it is.

The cold continues to nip at her as Rachel starts walking towards the market.

& & &

The older blonde woman tilts her head as Rachel approaches.

“I’d like some bread, please,” Rachel says politely.

The woman hands it over to her and there’s something about her eyes, so blue, so clear, so… haunting? She doesn’t say anything but Rachel can’t help but wonder if there is some sort of test, that this woman is expecting something from her.

For a moment time seems to stand still around them. It feels as if something very, very important is happening, except that Rachel doesn’t understand any of it; she doesn’t know what is happening or how to stop it.

“Who are you?” Rachel whispers quietly. It is the same question she asked the boy on the way here.

The woman doesn’t answer and Rachel begins to suspect the woman didn’t hear her question. She turns to leave but she catches the woman’s eye one more time. The same look of quiet intrigue is in her eyes. As if she’s waiting for something again.

Rachel moves away, keeping eye contact with her the entire time.

Rachel doesn’t notice the blonde girl with hazel eyes standing a little to the side of the older woman. The girl is watching her, too.

& & &

“Well, Quinntus, I don’t know about you, but I find the human mind rather fascinating sometimes,” Sue comments as she watches Rachel make her way through the market.

Quinn grunts in acknowledgement but otherwise doesn’t say anything. Her gaze flickers back and forth between Rachel and the bread on the table. She wants to see Rachel but it hurts to look. It hurts to remember that Rachel doesn’t even know she exists anymore.

Every memory, every emotion had all been erased.

“She knows you’re here,” Sue says quietly, almost as a casual afterthought, but it’s enough to get Quinn’s attention. Sue glances at her then continues to track Rachel with her eyes.

“I mean, she doesn’t know you are here, but she knows someone is,” she continues. “That’s the thing about the human mind. Even when something has been erased there is still a trace that lingers. Some would say that taints the human mind and there’s certainly cause for that, but me, I find fascinating.”

Quinn stays silent, but Sue can tell from the way her jaw is clenched that the conversation is getting to her.

“Or maybe she finds it haunting,” Sue muses. “As I said, I find it fascinating. This acute sense of loss… It consumes her. It confuses her. It confuses them, too, sometimes, and maybe they’re not wrong, for once. How can you miss something you don’t remember?”

“I remember,” Quinn says quietly. “I remember everything.”

Sue glances at her. “Yes, so I’ve gathered. All you do is mope these days, like some star-crossed lover or something. A pity, really, you are such a magnificent creature and look what has become of you. Pathetic.”

“You made this happen,” Quinn snaps.

Anger flashes across Sue’s face.

“No, Quinntus,” she hisses. “You made this happen. You chose to make the deal. You could have said no, you could have refused, but you didn’t.” A moment later, Sue’s face softens. “Whatever became of Santana, Quinntus? The two of you were legendary together. Now look around you, she’s nowhere to be found.”

A muscle tightens in Quinn’s jaw.

“Now, now, Quinntus,” Sue smiles, “I thought we agreed not to lie to each other anymore. Where is Santana? Do tell…”

“She went away,” Quinn answers.

“That’s not what I asked,” Sue responds. “I asked where she is, not what she did.”

Quinn stays silent.

“Very well then,” Sue smiles. “She’s not here because you and I would both be able sense her if she was. She’s not in danger because if she was, you’d feel it, and with your emotions being the state that they are, even common mortals would be able to recognize something was wrong. Which leaves the two humans…”

“But no, she’s not with them,” she continues. “Not without you. She’s far too rash and unpredictable without you to keep her in line. Even Brittany wouldn’t be able to control her, and loss of control would endanger your little pet, and there’s no way you’d let that happen. So tell me, Quinntus, where is Santana?”

“I don’t know,” Quinn says through gritted teeth. “I told you, she went away.”

“And I told you not to lie to me,” Sue smiles as she leans forward towards Quinn. “Tell me where Santana is, Quinn. I do believe you when you say she went away but surely you must know where she went.”

“Why do you even care?” Quinn growls. Her body is almost vibrating from tension. Sue can barely contain her glee.

“Because I do, love,” she answers. “I foresaw great plans for her and I have every intention of her seeing them through. But I need to know where she is to… check on her progress, if you will.”

“What are you saying?”

“Exactly what you think I am, love.” Sue smirks at her. “Now tell me, Quinntus, where is Santana?”

“She went to pray,” Quinn answers. “She went to find a chapel and she went to pray.”

Horror crosses Sue’s face.

“Pray?” She repeats. “Santana went to pray? How… demeaning.”

“You took Brittany away from her,” Quinn reminds her. “It’s not like she has a lot left to believe in.”

Sue chuckles. “How cute,” she says, “that you think that Santana praying has anything to do with that little pet of hers. You and I both know better.”

“She loves Brittany,” Quinn defends.

“She hates Them,” Sue says. “Santana hates anything that takes away her independence. While I’m sure she feels affection for that human, it’s nothing in comparison to what she feels for Them. I mean she convinced you to switch off your humanity just because she knew just how much They’d hate it, and you want me to believe she loves Brittany more than that?”

“She wants to save Brittany.”

“Brittany makes her feel,” Sue corrects, “but what Santana wants more than anything is to feel nothing. Empathy makes her weak. Santana knows that. She can pray all she wants but empathy makes her human. She’s a lot of things but Santana is never that. You can’t pray away humanity, Quinntus, you should know that better than anyone.”

& & &

Quinn’s whole body is almost vibrating from tension as she stands at the entrance of the chapel.

She hates it, she positively hates it. She hates the memories she is associating with this place – her desperate need for forgiveness, the deal she made with Sue, forfeiting Rachel just to guarantee the sisters would live…

Quinn doesn’t have any good memories of the church; she isn’t convinced that will change today.

She pushes the door open and finds Santana lying on the bench, eyes closed. It is a quiet moment, almost even peaceful, but Quinn knows better. She knows that Santana is merely pretending, that there is no such thing as absolute salvation because it is both their nature, to seek something they can never have.

Love, forgiveness, is there really a difference between the two?

“You think too much,” Santana says, interrupting Quinn’s inner monologue.

“You don’t think enough,” Quinn points out as she sits down on the floor. It’s dirty, dusty, but also comforting. “Did you really think that Sue wouldn’t realize what you were doing?”

“I figured she’d have other things on her mind,” she answers, gesturing loosely in Quinn’s general direction. Her eyes are finally open but she’s looking at the ceiling.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh come on,” Santana sighs, “I can almost smell the remorse on you. You miss your little pet so much it’s starting to eat away at you. Your soul is gone and yet… You’re hurting. You miss something that doesn’t even remember you. I’d say it’s beneath you, if we haven’t been here before.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Quinn growls, but it’s weak. She doesn’t mean it.

“The human mind is incredibly fragile,” Santana comments. “It’s ridiculously easy for the likes of you and me to manipulate it. It’s something so, so sacred to them but we can bend it at a whim. But their soul – their very essence – that is far, far more interesting. Especially when it becomes tethered and the like.”

“You feel it, don’t you?” She continues. “It’s a part of you right now, this … emptiness. It hurts. And you’re not supposed to feel. Neither of us. And yet we do. It’s no wonder, really, that we’re here right now, in this church, because we are the most powerful creatures and yet we are feeling.”

“Sue said you wanted to pray away your humanity,” Quinn says softly. “Do you?”

“Don’t you?”

“No,” Quinn answers after a moment. “I don’t. I don’t… like feeling like this, but it will fade, it always does. And then it’ll be like before.”

“They come back, Santana,” she says as she moves towards the door. “They always do. You and I have always been able to hold onto that much. They always come back to us. We just need to… wait it out, or something.”

“Don’t give me that self-righteous crap!” Santana snaps. “They don’t always come back.”

“It was one time,” Quinn says as she walks back towards where Santana is still lying on the bench. “It was one time, and we … It was one time. It was a mistake, and it won’t happen again.”

“Don’t give me that,” Santana repeats. “You and I both know it could, and will, happen again because you crave it, that darkness is a part of you and you can’t stay away from it. It’s like a … drug to you, or something.”

“The trouble with soul mates,” Santana says quietly, “is that there’s the word soul in there. And you don’t have one anymore.”

Quinn shakes her head as she gets up and moves towards the exit. Her jaw is clenched, anger and frustration clearly written on her face. She pushes the door open and almost knocks into a girl on the other hand.

“Sorry,” she says, without even looking at her.

Brittany watches her go, confused, before turning and walking back to the farmhouse.

& & &

“There was this girl in front of the chapel on the moor,” Brittany says to Rachel as they light the fire in the farmhouse. “She looked rather sad.”

“Did you talk to her?” Rachel asks.

“No,” Brittany answers. “But she still looked very sad. It was in her eyes, I could tell.”

Rachel hums in agreement but doesn’t say anything. Her mind is still on the encounter in the market. She wants to talk about it but doesn’t really know what it all means: the tall boy with his mocking words, the familiar blonde woman with blue eyes, the word games they were both set on playing with her…

“Tell me about this girl,” Rachel says. She needs the distraction.

“I don’t think I’ve seen her before, but she still looked familiar,” Brittany says. “She looked like she wanted to be anywhere but there but something was keeping her there, and although she wanted to run far away from London there was a reason she had to stay. And she both hates and loves that reason.”

“You could tell all that just by looking at her, Brittany?” Rachel laughs softly.

“It was in her eyes,” Brittany insists. “It was this mixture of green and gold, I’ve never seen it before. I’ve never seen sadness that intense before.”

“Good thing she was in the chapel, then,” Rachel comments. “Maybe she will find whatever she’s looking for.”

“I don’t think so,” Brittany says, looking at the fire. Rachel glances at her from the corner of her eye, and Brittany’s head is tilted, almost as if she is listening to what the fire had to say. “She didn’t seem like the person who would speak to God, you know.”

“So why was she there?” Rachel asks.

“I don’t know,” Brittany says. “Her eyes were just very sad. I’ve never seen sadness that intense before. It was like her… soul was hurting, or something.”

She glances at Rachel, who has one hand on her heart, as if it is hurting, too.

& & &

“Well, I don’t know about you, Santana, but just being here makes me feel filthy,” Sue Sylvester says as she appears next to the angel. “Honestly, it feels like the desperation is tainting my very soul.”

“You have no soul,” Santana points out. She doesn’t open her eyes. She can sense Sue right next to her.

“Mere technicality,” Sue shrugs, “it’s not like it has stopped me before from sensing things, if you know what I mean.”

“Why are you here?” Santana asks. “Quinn already came.”

For a moment, Sue doesn’t answer, seemingly content with just observing the chapel. She sits very still next to Santana, almost as if she is letting the air move around them. Santana continues to keep her eyes closed.

“I’ve heard about it, you know,” Sue says quietly, “everyone has. The girl who listened to angels – that doesn’t happen very often, you know, so of course when it did… One notices these sorts of things. But what I thought was interesting was, well, no one really wondered what happened when the angels stopped talking back.”

“There’s noise all around us,” she continues casually. “You and I hear so, so much more than the common human so one has to wonder how they feel about silence. There’s always noise, even in complete silence.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Santana protests.

“Your little human listened to angels,” she says. “It made the Gods most uncomfortable, but really, the question they should have been asking is what happened to her when the angels stopped talking back? What happened to those voices?”

Santana doesn’t say anything, keeps her eyes closed. She starts to count in her head. One, two, three. She doesn’t know what exactly it is that she is counting, just that the rhythm is important.

She feels more than sees Sue getting impatient and begin to pace.

“I don’t have time for games,” Sue growls.

“You still haven’t told me what you wanted,” Santana says quietly.

“I shouldn’t have to!”

Santana keeps herself very, very still. She wishes – she wishes that Quinn were there, because the other angel was always better at handling Sue when she was like this. Right now Sue is angry, ready to lash out over something Santana doesn’t quite understand, and she doesn’t know how to read the signs.

Quinntus always could.

“You are so pathetic,” Sue snarls at Santana. “Look at you, praying among this disgusting filth as if it will somehow erase the harm you have caused. As if you can somehow be redeemed for your sins.”

“Have you forgotten what you have done?” Sue continues. “Do you want me to remind you? I haven’t forgotten, Santana, in fact I remember everything, do you?”

“Do you remember Troy?” She taunts. “Oh, Santana, it was glorious, the way you played with that girl’s head. What was her name again? Cassandra, was it not? Oh, really, how you gave her that gift of foresight but it wasn’t that that destroyed her, was it? No, Santana, you were brilliant, really, you were, how you made sure no one would believe her visions…”

“Stop it,” Santana says. It is a plea more than a demand.

“No wonder Quinn’s little pet expressed such concern when she found her sister was talking to angels.” Sue continues as if she hadn’t been interrupted. “You know, what with having been there before in a previous life and all that.”

“Brittany isn’t Cassandra,” Santana defends weakly. “Neither of them are.”

“Let’s hope not, I mean, we both know how that particular story plays out,” Sue shrugs. “But you have to give yourself credit. I mean, you accused Quinntus of being addicted to darkness but it is nothing compared to your enjoyment of simply… watching what happens when others are stripped of their minds.”

“We both find the human mind fascinating,” Sue concludes. “At the end of the day, we have at least that much in common.”

“What do you want,” Santana pleads. She just wants it to stop. She lives with the guilt enough as it is without constantly being reminded of what she has done.

“The pets don’t remember you and honestly I think that is for the best,” Sue nods to herself. “I mean, really, think of it like this, if they remember then they’ll start to question things, and it is just so much harder to control someone’s destiny when they are going around talking about fate and the like.”

“I don’t understand,” Santana says.

Sue smiles.

“I don’t think they should remember,” she repeats. “But if their memory were to… say, receive a jolt, I wouldn’t be opposed to that.” A look of confusion flashes across Santana’s face.

“Be creative,” Sue says. “I remember how much you like it when you’re given free reign.”

& & &

Rachel and Brittany are still sitting in front of the fire when they hear a knock on the door.

“Is it Mother?” Brittany asks. Rachel frowns.

“I don’t think so,” she answers. “She said she wouldn’t be back for another few days.”

They wait a little longer, and almost believe whoever it was has gone away before the knocking resumes.

“We should go see who it is,” Brittany presses. “They might need something.”

“I don’t know…” Rachel hesitates. There is something just on the edge of her memory. Something tells her they have been before, but she can’t remember what it is or why it is so important.

The memory stays just beyond her grasp.

“We should answer the door,” Brittany repeats, as the knocking continues.

Rachel sighs as she moves towards the door, Brittany lurking behind her. It is raining outside, as it has been the past few weeks. Another memory… Something to do with rain… But it is gone once more.

They open the door to find a girl with dark hair and brown eyes staring back at them.

She looks pitiful, and miserable, and so completely alone that Brittany knows they will be inviting her in before Rachel even steps aside.

“What’s your name?” Rachel asks politely. The girl hesitates, looking at her hand. It is a similar look of confusion, of intrigue, and Rachel struggles to remember where she has seen it before.

A blonde girl with hazel eyes, watching the rain… But the memory escapes before she can fully comprehend it.

“Tina,” the girl answers. Another look of confusion passes across her features. “But I think my real name is Cassandra.”

Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten

Disclaimers:
- Don't own Glee. Don't want to own Glee
- Title of the chapter is taken from the song "Angeles" by Elliot Smith
- Special thanks to Erika for looking it over
- Cassandra is taken from the line from Oscar Wilde: "Cassandra saw the future but was never believed". It's a Greek tale which takes place during the battle of Troy. Apollo had fallen in love with Cassandra but she rejected his advances, as punishment he gave the gift of foresight but cursed her so she would never be believed until it was too late. It drove her to insanity.

"Death is not the end"

2012-05-09T22:52:42Z

memoryofamemory @ 2012-04-26T08:56:00

2012-04-26T15:56:06Z

Currently listening to this cover as I'm writing Angeles.

In Dreams (Part 2/2)

2012-04-04T22:22:34Z

Part 1

Your first instinct was to believe Quinn’s text had been an accident.

She must have known other people in New York City. Kurt had wandered over to your city of blinding lights and Blaine had eventually followed as well. Maybe Quinn had known another Rachel in New York City.

But by the time you got home, you realized that your initial instinct was wrong.

Quinn Fabray didn’t make those type of mistakes. She had always been so meticulous, so cautious, so deliberate in her actions that to believe it had been an accident would have been a mistake.

Your second instinct, therefore, was one of anger.

Quinn would come back into your atmosphere, just like that Train song from so many years ago claimed she would. She came back into your city of dreams and it wasn’t enough for her to haunt you in your dreams, now she was back as well, in person to remind you of the nights she wouldn’t leave you alone.

Why now? Why, after all those months of complete silence, was Quinn wandering into your city? You thought the terms of separation had been clear after graduation. You got New York City and Broadway, and in return, Quinn would build her own empire in New Haven.

Your worlds were never meant to intertwine after graduation but then again fate had never really been in your corner either.

Perhaps the most infuriating part of it, though, was Quinn’s radio silence after her initial text.

You had responded, of course, because proper phone etiquette dictated you should.

It had taken you a little longer than it should have to find the right words to respond to Quinn’s text, but could you really be blamed for that? Quinn had seemingly been content with building a new kingdom at Yale. She had never given any indication that she was even interested in leaving her fortress.

And now –

Now, for whatever reason, she had been tempted out of her kingdom, and had landed in your city.

Your text to Quinn was both welcoming and hesitant, because her words didn’t give away anything other than she was in New York. As so often with Quinn, you were expected to play a specific role, but she had yet to give you her script.

And then it was complete silence.

It was as if Quinn had never texted you at all and the complete lack of communication started to drive you to distraction.

It used to be that you would only think of Quinn in your dreams but now she was on your mind during the day. You would find yourself staring at passersby when you were in Starbucks and slowly their features would merge into Quinn’s.

Your professors would talk and even though you were enough into the semester to know their voices, they would still blend into a husky tone that you hadn’t really heard after high school.

She was everywhere, except where you wanted her to be.

It wasn’t really a question of you wanting her to acknowledge you, because you had honestly been doing fine since you last spoke to Quinn. High school was behind you and you were fine with accepting that.

But you felt you had a right to know. Yes, you were aware of the exact number of people living in New York City but you still had a right to know why she was here. Why she had contacted you after so many months of making sure everyone knew how happy she was at Yale.

I am fine without all of you, Quinn had seemed intent of broadcasting to everyone, I don’t need you at all.

And yet she was here, in your city, with either a peace offering or a declaration of war.

You had the right to know what it was that Quinn wanted from you, because nothing Quinn did was by accident. Her entire empire at McKinley had been built with a very strategic purpose, even if it was simply burying Lucy and any reminder of that lifestyle.

Quinn didn’t send mass texts. And she didn’t send that text to you by accident. So what did she want, exactly?

Did she want you to know she now considered New York as rightfully “hers”? Had she finally grown bored of New Haven and that she wanted to expand her kingdom? Yale had been hers by its very definition of elitism so did she now crave something more?

At some point everyone was seduced by the idea of dreams. So was that why she came to take away yours?

Your relationship with Quinn had always been complicated at best because she had the ability to install such complete confidence in you and make you question everything at the same time. Her presence in New York was jarring for that precise reason.

You weren’t at your best at rehearsal that night.

You could sense the director’s irritation growing and under normal circumstances you would channel his frustration into being better now it just added to your insecurities.

If he can get under your skin so effectively, what did that say about the damage Quinn could do should she decide to include New York in her empire? The relationship between you two was far too complex; no matter the size of New York, it wouldn’t be big enough if both of you wanted it.

The rehearsal kept going until late. You were exhausted, physically and emotionally, when the director finally ended the rehearsal; by this time it was close to 2 a.m.

You felt her before you saw her. You had heard the saying countless times before, about how time would allegedly come to a stop; how every single detail is frozen in time before it is completely amplified.

How in one moment, a fraction of a second, you could feel everything and in that moment, as the molecules, these thousands of little particles, suddenly crashed into place, you were cursed with absolute clarity.

She was leaning against the wall, just as you had imagined she would. To anyone else, she would look relaxed, but you knew Quinn well enough to know it was simply an act. She wasn’t at ease at all; if anything she was bracing herself for rejection.

There was something enchanting about Quinn when she allowed herself to feel vulnerable. She had always seen it as a sign of weakness so when flickers of insecurity shone through it meant the world.

She hesitated briefly when she saw set out of the room, and started shifting her weight back and forth. Her backpack – one you had never seen in high school – laid at her feet. To anyone else, she looked every inch of a traditional college student, but for you, she was the image of royalty.

Quinn stared at you, and all you could do was simply blink in return.

“Hi,” she breathed quietly.

& & &

There were so many questions you wanted to ask Quinn.

Why now? You wanted to ask. After all this time, why are you coming back into my life now? After all we’ve been through, after so many months of not thinking of you at all, why did you decide to crash into my atmosphere now?

I was fine, dreaming without you, but now you’re back in my life and you and I both know that will change everything.

Instead –

Instead, you asked something completely different.

“What do you want from me?” You asked quietly. You couldn’t bring yourself to look at her in the eyes, your gaze fixed on her backpack.

She had changed so much, and yet she was also the same person from before, and you didn’t know what to make of that.

“Same thing anyone wants at 2 a.m. in New York City,” she answered as she seemingly thought about smiling. “Coffee and pie.”

You still didn’t look up, keeping your focus on the ground. You knew she was sincere if only from the sound of her voice. She sounded so uncertain, so awkward, and if she was there to hurt you in any shape or form she wouldn’t have sounded so unsure of herself.

In a strange way this was Quinn’s version of a compromise, of a peace offering coming about four years too late.

She would never really be able to redeem herself for everything she put you through but here she was, on your turf, at your university, asking for a pardon without ever saying those words.

But here she was, trying, and maybe that was what mattered most. Quinn had never been about grand gestures and it would be unfair to expect her to start now. But this – these little details; of a college student wanting to be forgiven for her own past – that was the start of something.

This wasn’t the girl who ruled an empire, but the girl with dreams of doing something with her life while trapped in a castle. You could be friends, you thought to yourself, with this girl.

“I know this place a couple of blocks from here,” you said, finally looking at Quinn in the eyes. “They have really good pie, too.”

Quinn seemed to think about smiling again and picked up her backpack, following you half a step behind.

You didn’t really talk on the way there. Even at 2 a.m. New York was filled with life, constant movement and blinding lights all around you. You were grateful for the distraction as it provided Quinn something to focus on other than yourself.

You just needed to be alone with your thoughts for a little bit longer, trying to come to terms with the fact that your precious renegade came in from the cold. Quinn was a little like a renegade but in the general sense of the term – she hadn’t deserted Lima so far as she had simply fallen in love with a different allegiance.

Yale had always been her kingdom but you couldn’t help but wonder if the reason she ended up leaning against the door outside of your rehearsal was because she felt that something was missing.

I feel it too, you told her silently, the words never making it past your subconscious. I felt something was missing, too, and that feeling of emptiness always disappears when you are on my mind; do you feel it, too?

You glanced at Quinn, but she wasn’t looking at you. She was focused on the lights all around the two of you and that look of open admiration on her face was almost breathtaking. You had always known Quinn was incredibly good-looking but in this instance she had the kind of beauty the Ancient Gods would have been jealous of.

The kind of beauty poets would write sonnets about, really.

You came to a stop in front of the diner and immediately Quinn’s nerves came back. Gone was look of admiration, replaced instead with a look of uncertainty.

Quinn might have been the queen of her empire, but the revolution was getting harder to contain.

“The pie here is good,” you offered as a way to calm her nerves.

“They serve vegan pies here?” Quinn’s traditional eyebrow raise brought a level of comfort that perhaps wasn’t entirely intentional but by then you had learnt to take the little things.

“Yeah,” you smiled, “they do.”

There had been a sarcastic remark at the tip of your tongue but instead of fighting with Quinn you found yourself wanting to reassure her. You weren’t a psychology major but you didn’t have to be to see how close she was to giving in to her fight or flight response.

It was quiet, for the most part.

Quinn had always been someone who chose her words carefully and you couldn’t help but wonder if maybe her silence was simply her rewriting your script in her head.

You were still expected to play a role with Quinn, but she had yet to play the part of your director.

While you waited, you took the time to really observe her. Yale had treated Quinn well, as you expected it would. Although her body seemed tense there was still calmness in her expression. Even miles from home she still found comfort in her empire.

“I needed to see it for myself,” she eventually said, breaking the silence.

Out of everything you thought Quinn would say, it definitely wasn’t that.

It?

You stared at her, confused, but Quinn’s gaze was on the coffee cup in front of her. You stared counting the seconds off in your head, and when it got to a minute, you wondered if perhaps Quinn was simply waiting for her key to continue.

“It?” You repeated. “What did you need to see, exactly?”

“They – well, Blaine, actually – he told me you had been cast in a school production, that it was quite an honor, especially as a freshman.” She hesitated, seemingly thought about looking at you, then decided against it.

“I always knew you were going places, you know,” she continued quietly. “I knew it before you did, in some ways. But I just wanted to make sure that your dreams really were coming true.”

“You couldn’t have just asked me?” Quinn blinked at you and you imagined it wasn’t the response she probably had been expecting. “I would have been honest with you, Quinn, really, I would have. I would have told you the truth.”

“I know.” And finally, for the first time since you saw her in the hallway, Quinn Fabray actually smiled. “But like I said, I just wanted to see for myself.”

She stood up from the table. “Well, would you look at the time. I need to get back to New Haven.”

“It’s late,” you responded immediately. “You can just stay with me, you know. It’s okay, you don’t have to go back so late.”

She shook her head. “No,” she said quietly, “I need to get back, Santana – she won’t be happy that I was even here. But it was good seeing you, Rachel, and I’m glad your dreams are working out for you. Have a good night.”

You assumed she meant a cab, because there weren’t any trains this late at night, and you were still mulling it over as Quinn walked into the darkness outside.

& & &

You didn’t sleep at all that night.

& & &

When you finally did – when slumber finally claimed you after having eluded you for two consecutive nights – it wasn’t the dream you expected.

You thought, perhaps foolishly, that in your exhausted state you wouldn’t dream at all. That since your subconscious had been whispered Quinn’s words at you for so long that even it would have be driven mad from the endless echo of I just needed to see for myself.

You kept hearing those words during the day and even for the next two nights they were all you could think about.

Because it suggested Quinn actually cared, and this was one of the first times she ever said the words in person. In high school, yes, she had implied it when she claimed you were destined for something greater than Lima but this –

This was out of character, even for someone with as many personas as Quinn.

But eventually Quinn’s voice in your head softened. It didn’t fade completely, but it was quiet enough that you could close your eyes and wouldn’t feel as if Quinn was right next to you.

You closed your eyes and then –

And then you were greeted with “your” Broadway stage.

This you could handle; this you were familiar with.

You had been here many, many times before and your first instinct was to believe that Quinn would be nowhere to be found. You were simply following a sequence of events you had created long before Quinn Fabray ever wandered into your dreams.

Your stage, your songs, your captivated audience.

This was exactly how you had imagined it would be.

It made you feel alive again, which was necessary because the constant insecurity caused by Quinn’s visit was starting to kill you inside. Maybe you needed this, maybe you needed to have this dream again if only because it made you feel so much more again.

It was your visions of greatness, of belonging, of meaning, of –

Quinn?

Even in your dream state you couldn’t help but stumble slightly towards the audience. You had only dreamt of Quinn in the audience once before, and you weren’t sure whether you were just having a repeat dream or if this was something completely different.

But she really was there, watching you, and this time it wasn’t so much admiration on her face so much as curiosity? But even that word wasn’t quite right. It was as if she was trying to understand something, but no one knew what questions she was asking of you.

You could feel your eyes widen in panic, and even though the audience was on their feet giving you a standing ovation – Quinn Fabray included – you could still hear her words perfectly.

It’s okay, love, she said, smiling, I just needed to see it for myself.

You jerked awake, gasping for breath and your heart pounding.

The clock read 2 a.m., and you didn’t get back to sleep for the rest of the night.

& & &

Weeks later, it was a phone call from Santana that started to torture your subconscious.

You had exchanged texts your freshman year at university but they had been polite and emotionally distant at best. Both of you had made a point of leaving Lima behind, and in some ways the presence of each other was simply a reminder of the past.

Pretending to be close was simply too painful for either of you.

So you were surprised when, one cold April night, your cell phone vibrated and an obviously intoxicated Santana was on the other line.

“Why is it always you?” She slurred at you, and you froze, completely thrown off guard.

“You know you’re calling Rachel Berry, right, Santana?” You asked, not sure of where this conversation was supposed to be going.

“It’s always you,” she repeated. There was something about her tone – this wasn’t a lover’s confession about how there had never been anyone else. No, this was penance, an accusation for something you weren’t quite sure you had done.

“I… never pretended to be anyone else?” You offered as a compromise. “I’m sorry, Santana, I just don’t know what you want from me right now.”

“Quinn has Yale,” Santana slurred, and you wondered how this conversation suddenly became about Quinn’s academic career because it certainly wasn’t about Brittany. You really didn’t know what to expect anymore.

“Indeed she does,” you agreed, staring up at the ceiling. “I’ve heard New Haven is quite lovely this time of year, if you feel so inclined as to visit her.”

“Quinn has Yale,” she repeated, “and you have Quinn.”

“Well, I would hardly go that far,” you told her. “At most I have Quinn’s cell phone number. Is that why you’re calling me? Because you need her number?”

“She wants to save you, you know.”

And even though Santana’s words were barely above a whisper, you heard her perfectly. You held your breath, waiting for her to continue.

“You’re the only one Quinn actually believes in.” The accusation was harsh, biting. “You don’t even know her like I do but you’re the one she cares about most. She shouldn’t notice you at all, you know, but now you have New York, and she has Yale, and it’s unfair because she’s been pushing you to succeed but me?”

“Me, she just doesn’t care.” The crimes you wanted to plead guilty to kept piling up, and you were at lost for a defense.

“Tell me, dwarf, what is so special about you that you’re the only one Quinn will believe in?” Santana continued to snarl at you, her voice barely above a whisper. “What’s so special about you that she puts you above me and Brittany?”

You didn’t respond, instead, you stared up at the ceiling wondering if perhaps you stared hard enough, the answers you were seeking would write themselves on the wall.

“I’m sorry,” you said, very quietly, very softly. “I don’t know what I did to deserve this treatment from you but whatever it is, I’m sorry. I didn’t ask Quinn to choose me, I really didn’t…”

“That’s exactly the problem!” Santana snapped at you. “You never asked her to choose and yet she is constantly picking you. She cares about you. She wants to save you. And you don’t even need saving.”

“That’s not-“

“You have New York.” The words were harsh, biting. “You think you are even going to remember who Quinn is when you start getting roles on Broadway? You think you’re going to remember any of us? Don’t lie, Berry. It was never your intention to remember us.”

“But Quinn will remember you.” Santana stopped, and you could hear how hard she was breathing over the phone. You could picture it almost clearly, the way she would look at you with so much resentment and it took you this long to understand why.

“Quinn will remember you,” she repeated softly, “and I hope, if nothing else, that is what will haunt you in your dreams.”

She hung up the phone, after that, leaving you alone with her words echoing in your head.

& & &

Your dreams shifted after Santana’s phone call.

If before Quinn played the part of the audience in your dreams, always on the edge, always observing you, after hearing the biting accusations she was constantly leaving you, and you were the one chasing after her.

You had always seen Quinn as the girl who would always be out of your reach, and in your dreams, she was exactly that.

Santana had accused of you of leaving the others behind but in your dreams, you were the one whose only friend was solitude.

The dreams would start out in a familiar fashion. You were on your stage, with your audience and the ever present feeling that this was how it was meant to be – on your stage with your musical and the sense that you finally found something that belonged to you alone.

The first time you had this dream, there was a sense of comfort in running through the set list. You knew these songs, knew the dialogue, knew the choreography. It had become a part of you, much as the role was just another part of your identity.

You felt complete at first. You were happy, believing this was how it was always meant to be, and you were tricked, somewhere between the songs and the stage lights, that it was a feeling you would always have.

And then, and then…

And then you would see Quinn.

At first, the sight of Quinn Fabray would provide you with a sense of comfort. It wasn’t the first time Quinn had ever wandered into your dreams and so her presence didn’t throw you off that much. She was just there, as she had been on occasion in the past.

You knew how this sequence would play out. You had, after all, been here before.

The musical ended, and you stepped out onto the stage to claim the standing ovation that was rightfully yours. Your eyes swept over the audience.

You didn’t know why you sought out Quinn when she was there. There was the comfort of seeing a familiar face, of course, but there was also something else, something that went a little deeper than that. Something that reminded you a lot of understanding, or maybe fate, or other words you didn’t know why you associated with the sight of Quinn but you still did it anyway.

And she would be there, looking up at you with that look in her eyes and smiling at you, and the dream would be complete.

Or at least, that was how your dreams used to go.

They changed, after Santana’s phone call.

Yes, Quinn was still there in your dreams. She still sat in the far left corner, watching you during the show. There was that same open-look of curiosity bordering on admiration, as if she was intrigued by something she had actually understood all along.

But she never stayed anymore.

She would always leave right after your final solo. You didn’t know why it hurt so much except that it did. It hurt in ways you didn’t know could hurt. You felt betrayed, and lonely, and abandoned – and all those little insecurities you had once associated with Quinn suddenly came back.

Why did she leave? Were you suddenly not good enough? Had your spell over the audience been broken? Was there someone else, another singer, another show, another stage that somehow meant more to you?

Did Quinn look at you and no longer feel like this stage was yours by right? Did she – did she think it should belong to someone else?

You wanted answers. You wanted to know the reasons for her constant departures, why if she came to watch the show she never stayed to the very end. You had so many questions, so many insecurities, and they could go away if Quinn would just stay and look at you the way she did before.

You needed her to stay, just one time, but instead, she always left you behind.

She would always leave, and the loneliness you felt on the stage would still linger when you woke up. Out of instinct, you would reach out, your hand searching for someone you already knew wasn’t there.

The loneliness hurt, but at least it reminded you that you could still feel.

It was something, at least.

& & &

They talked all the time about fate and tragedy in your drama class.

The real tragedies, your professor told the class, were the ones where the audience knew from the beginning how it was going to end and yet were powerless throughout to change it.

“A tragedy should make you feel hopeless,” he said. “Your role as actors is to portray that convincingly. You should make the audience want to change something that is completely beyond their control. You should make them want to defy the Gods.”

He paused, looking out at the class.

“A good tragedy,” he continued, “is also about raw emotion. It is about the very essence of the soul. And if – if you are exceptionally talented, you will be so convincing that the audience will believe that with every breath you exhale, you are losing a little bit of your soul. Your moral compass can be lost with something as simple, as basic, as breathing.”

He paused, looking at the class. “Can you imagine that? Losing the one thing that makes you good by doing as simple as breathing? Good. Now write it. You’ll be acting this out next week. Class dismissed.”

It wasn’t as if you were short on inspiration, and that weekend, you were sitting in Starbucks with your laptop ready to write your tragic scene.

But the point of a tragedy was being at the mercy of fate, and destiny had never been kind to you in the past.

Just at that moment, Quinn Fabray walked into your city, your Starbucks, for the second time in a month.

She didn’t spot you at first, her attention focused on ordering the drink. You were completely still, wondering if you didn’t move at all, maybe Quinn wouldn’t notice you at all.

But you still looked at her. She had that same casual elegance about her, the one you had noticed the last time you saw her: the one that spoke of power and vulnerability at the same time. Like a queen in charge of an entire empire but still wanted to please her subjects.

A smile to the cashier. A quick smile – Quinn was obviously distracted by something but still wanted to come across as being polite. A move to the end to get the coffee. She drummed her fingers against the counter. Her impatience was rising. Coffee arrived.

She stopped for a moment, and you held your breath before glancing down at your laptop. The page was blank. You exhaled softly, until you felt more than saw Quinn standing next to you.

“Is this seat taken?” She asked softly.

The trouble with tragedies was the audience already knew how it was going to end.

& & &

She didn’t say why she was in New York and you didn’t ask.

Even in the middle of a tragedy you couldn’t help but want to keep the stolen moments to yourself. You didn’t want to share what was happening between you two. And you didn’t want Quinn to break the spell, either, so instead you tried your best to keep this moment between the two of you.

So you stayed there, just the two of you, as you typed on your laptop and Quinn scribbled notes in the margin of a book. A glance at the title didn’t say anything to you except that Quinn’s fondness for abstract novels hadn’t faded with time.

She looked like any other college student, but she was here, with you, and there was a part of you that craved for it to mean something.

You just wanted to know why, again. Why here, why now, why you? Why, after all this time, was Quinn so intent on making sure you wouldn’t forget her in your dreams?

Instead, though, you didn’t say anything at all. You just watched her out of the corner of your eye as you built an entire world around her. She would never know, of course, maybe there was an element of tragedy in it after all but it also made it so much more real, so much personal…

Your eyes kept flickering back and forth between the screen and Quinn, and so the first time you actually caught her looking at you, you assumed your subconscious was just trying to trick you.

The second time, though, as you glanced up, hazel eyes were definitely there, watching you.

It was that same look of open curiosity that you had seen on Quinn in your dreams, the one that, in the right light, bordered on being admiration. The one that promised maybe things could be different, depending on if you rolled the dice and won.

“You came back,” you said quietly.

“I did.”

Quinn had never been careless with words. There was a reason, a motivation for everything she did, for every action she took. She spoke the way she moved: with a subtle motivation, her intentions revealed only to herself.

She was graceful in that lethal kind of way, the kind authors so often described as poetic but was it really that if it could only end in heartbreak?

It became quiet again, as you suspected Quinn knew it would.

In time, maybe, she’d give you answers but for now she seemed content with making you wonder.

That was intrigue at its best, was it not? Always knowing the question and yet never being able to answer it, never even being able to fully put it into words. It was always there, lingering in your subconscious, touching upon thoughts you assumed you had buried – but would never live.

Maybe, you thought to yourself, that was actually romance.

Romance in the form of Quinn Fabray – it was the type of things tragedies could only dream of.

You weren’t bitter, not really.

But you wanted answers, and Quinn was the only one who had them, and she was just sitting there opposite you reading a book.

You were foolish, really, to think that Quinn would just show up at NYADA one day and explain her actions out of the blue – she didn’t do those sorts of gestures. What she did was just be there, occasionally, like the thought you could never quite grasp and never quite shake off, until it became all you thought about.

And then she would just look at you and you’d understand you had been thinking of her the entire time.

But sometimes you just wished Quinn would let the outside world into her head, if only so you could just understand.

Understand why she was here, in front of all, after all this time.

“Do you think I need saving?” You blurted out, and your words were enough to pull her out of her silence.

“You made it to New York, didn’t you?” Quinn responded. You blinked at her, and she simply smiled in return. “Not sure you needed much saving. You got here in the end.”

“Because of you,” you said softly. It was only three words but it was enough for Quinn to actually put the book down and pay attention to what you were saying.

“I didn’t do anything,” she said. “You’re the one who applied. You’re the one who auditioned. That was you, Rachel, not me.”

You looked at her. Could it really be that simple?

It wasn’t, and you knew it.

Yes, it was your voice that got this far. It was your voice, your drive that made you roll the dice enough times for it to eventually fall in your favor. You were the one that gambled and won.

But it was because of Quinn that you even picked up the dice to begin with.

“You made me believe in myself again,” you said, your voice barely above a whisper. And yet you knew she still heard you, even though Quinn’s familiar mask was beginning to settle over her face.

It was precisely because of that – because Quinn was putting so much effort into making you believe she wasn’t feeling anything at all – that you knew she was feeling something. Quinn was capable of many things but complete indifference was a form of self-defense.

“It’s not…” She trailed off, her eyes glancing between the coffee cup, you, and the page.

It was interesting, seeing Quinn work through her thoughts, carefully selecting how to put them into words.

Coffee, you, words. There was a link in her mind, a sequence of events only her subconscious could really understand, while everyone else got precisely this – glimpses, fragments even she could not hide.

“You just made me believe in something,” she eventually settled on.

“I lost my faith and then – then you came along, with your hopes and dreams and it sounds a little cliché but sometimes I feel like we met when I didn’t believe at all and you just – you gave me something to hold on to, something to believe in. Your dreams of New York were the one certainty I had in my life at one point.”

It was a strangely intimate confession coming from somebody like Quinn, who so often was prone to not confessing anything at all.

Except, you corrected yourself, that wasn’t quite right.

You remembered another time, when Quinn had talked about certainties and faith, but the setting was completely different. It had been high school, in front of that piano, and you remembered, too, the dreams that came with it.

How Quinn had seemed so certain that you would leave Lima, and how certain she had been that she would stay.

How times changed.

You were both here, now, and maybe that was really what Quinn was trying to imply – that you believed in each other enough to make a difference, enough to want to believe in something when all else was taking away from you.

“I’m not really a dreamer by nature,” Quinn confessed quietly.

She was looking at the book and this was the Quinn you cherished the most – the quiet Quinn, the one with hidden vulnerabilities, the one who spoke quietly from heart if only so others wouldn’t hear her confessions.

“I’m not really a dreamer by nature,” she repeated softly, “but you make me believe that sometimes, dreams happen for a reason.”

“Is…” You trailed off. “Is that why Santana is so upset with me? Because I’m the one who made her believe, not her?”

“Santana and I believe in different things.”

It wasn’t quite the answer you were hoping for but as with most things with Quinn, you learnt to compromise.

She would tell you, in time. She always did.

For the next hour, you simply pretended to work on a play and Quinn pretended to read. Quinn was the drama major but really you were both acting in this instance.

You were both at the mercy of something neither of you could define, and maybe, something neither of you wanted to define.

Was this moment really meant to be put into words? Did such a thing exist? Would either of you be able to do this moment justice if you tried to explain it?

“I always knew you were going to make it, you know,” Quinn continued, but she was still looking at the book. “It was one of the few certainties I’ve always had. You were always going to be in New York. I knew before you did, really.”

“How?” You asked. “How could you be so certain?”

Quinn smiled to herself as she got up and started putting things away, ready to escape back to her castle in New Haven.

“I saw it in a dream,” she said.

& & &

She didn’t visit you again during your freshman year and you actually a little grateful. You didn’t want any distractions as the year-ending musical approached.

It was just you and your thirst for perfection and it just felt so good to have something that was yours again.

This play was good for you. You needed it, really, the reminder of what you thought you could become in high school, before you lost sight of your own ambition. This was the perfect reminder that talent had a purpose behind it – that you could be something, if you really wanted.

You missed this – the sheer adrenaline rush that you only ever associated with performing.

It was like fire was running through your veins, this burning sensation throughout your body as your heart rate doubled, tripled.

Even your director and choreographer had noticed how suddenly you came to care again. Because this was it, you thought to yourself, this was what was meant to be all along.

It wasn’t Broadway but it was a stepping stone, a way to get there. It was part of your plan, really, and that was good enough – it still gave you that rush, that reason to live that evolved around you and nobody else.

“You’re going to be something great, kid,” your director said, and there was something in his tone that led you to believe he didn’t say it often – and more importantly, that this time, he really meant it.

In the back of your mind you added the rest of the sentence – you’re going to be a star because you had once believed in, then doubted, and then believed in again.

You were laughing and smiling and happy because you belonged to something special, and that question you had once asked in Glee, “being a part of something special makes you special, right?” was actually proven to be true.

You were special, and you were a part of something special.

It wasn’t Broadway, it wasn’t Funny Girl, but it was still something you wanted to describe as rightfully yours. Something you had loved, you had become a part of; something you had cried over and laughed over. It was your child, the one you had come to care for and love and cherish.

It was yours.

And so, come opening night, you felt the same flicker of nerves you had felt before the likes of Nationals and even Regionals, but something else too – something close to anticipation, something that fueled a belief of understanding fate. Or perhaps wanting to tempt fate, of wanting to roll the dice as many times as it would take just to see what the outcomes would be.

You almost skipped to your dressing room on opening night where you were greeted by one of your costars staring at a bouquet of flowers.

“What’s going on?” You asked, confused.

“These were delivered for you earlier,” your costar said, torn between sounding impressed and jealous.

“Who are the flowers from?”

Your costar squinted into the bouquet. “Don’t know, there isn’t a card. They’re pretty, regardless.”

You nodded, still feeling a little confused. You knew they weren’t from your fathers because they had flowers delivered to your dorm, and you weren’t close enough to anyone else to have merited such a gift.

“Well, I better get changed,” you prompted, glancing between your costar and the door.

“Of course,” your costar smiled. “I never knew you liked gardenias, Rachel.”

You were thankful your costar had already turned their back to leave and they didn’t see your face.

You would have had difficulty explaining the panicked expression on your face, or how it genuinely felt that your heart just stopped.

You knew that Quinn wouldn’t be there – you had done your research; Yale was in the middle of finals when your opening night took place – but it didn’t stop you from still looking into the crowd. You wanted to win the audience over, remind them of why they came here, but you wanted to see her, to show her that you believed in yourself again, that the dreams the two of you had been having were right all along.

You wanted someone to see that the girl you had been during sophomore year had been right. That her dreams were bigger than Lima and that this moment was all about that.

You wanted Quinn to be here because there had been a time when she had believed in your dreams when you hadn’t, and this opening night could have dedicated to that.

Look, you wanted to show her, look, look, do you see? Your faith in me paid off. You were right to believe in me because look at how far I’ve gotten. Look, I’m on stage again. I’m performing again, and it’s all because one day you decided to roll the dice and won.

You wanted to have someone who would understand the subtle messages in your song and Quinn had always been so good at reading you, that you knew if she had been here she would have realized it.

She would have understood the meaning of a song just by watching you perform it. That subtle intimacy between the audience and a performer was simply something that couldn’t be faked, particularly if it was a relationship that was built over time.

Instead, though, all you saw were strangers whose paths you had occasionally crossed.

You saw students, and teachers, and performers. You saw the student from your English class, the TA from your Drama elective, the desk receptionist in your dorm. You saw others, but you didn’t see her.

The disappointment you felt hurled itself against the adrenaline rushing through your body, neither side gaining a clear advantage. Yes, you were living your dream, but so often you had dreamt of Quinn being in the audience that the fact she wasn’t left your world feeling a little off-center.

She had just always been there in your dreams, one of the few constants in your life, and suddenly she wasn’t there.

Reality had a way of being a disappointment.

But then you had your closing act, and your solo, and even with the dimmed lights you could see the effect your voice was having on the audience.

The lights came on, you heard their applause and you got the standing ovation you so rightfully deserved.

Somewhere between the lights and the flash photography, somewhere between trying to catch your breath and giving your final bow, you turned your head to the side and caught the silhouette. You could only see the profile as you were staring directly into the lights.

Quinn was in New Haven. It was Finals Week.

But for a moment, you could have sworn she was in the back row on opening night.

The gardenias gave a different meaning when you returned to your dressing room. You looked at them, trying to decipher Quinn’s motivations – who else could it have been?

A part of you wondered if Quinn’s intentions were malicious. She had never really confessed if she knew you were behind her corsage for Junior Prom and you never really had it in you to tell her the truth. She had needed something to hang on to, at the time, and so you kept quiet about the truth.

And yet now you were confronted with the possibility that maybe Quinn really had known – or at suspected – the truth all along.

It wasn’t just about a secret love because that would imply no one would ever know, and as complex as your relationship with Quinn was, it had never been a secret. You were always in each other’s orbits and try as either of you would to fight it, some connections could simply never be broken.

You traced the tip of the flowers. To a certain extent, there was a comfort in the uncertainty of what they were meant to represent.

Secret love, maybe – but was what the secret? What weren’t you meant to discover? What was the one thing Quinn could be so intent that no one, particularly you, should discover?

You leant against the counter, just looking at the gardenias, trying to see what Quinn would have been thinking of when she sent them.

You noticed a small card on the floor and bent down to pick it up. There was a note written in Quinn’s handwriting. Nine words greeted you, making you frown because it didn’t help you understand Quinn’s motivations any better.

I figured it was time I return the favor. X Quinn

& & &

You read once that dreams were merely a manifestation of your subconscious, that it was a way to express something you probably knew all along but didn’t realize you actually realize you knew.

It had been Quinn. In a way, it had always been Quinn, even when you couldn’t imagine dreaming of anyone other than Finn Hudson. She had just been there, both of the side and on your side.

She believed in you, and you believed in her, and somewhere along the way the two started to intertwine.

Although you wanted to, you didn’t text her after the show, and Quinn didn’t contact you, either. But you kept her note in your purse, and occasionally, you would reach in and just touch it. It was comforting in a manner you could never quite explain.

It was just there for you, something that could be called yours, and Quinn was so guarded there was actually relatively little of hers that could be yours at all.

But she still gave little parts of her to you, over time, until you suddenly found yourself with pieces of Quinn Fabray and it was up to you to either put them together or just throw them away entirely.

Quinn had always been many things to you.

She had been the girl who had it all, the girl who lost it all, the girl who believed in you, the girl with dreams, the girl who left.

She could have had it all, lost it, and got it back – and throughout it all, she still believed in your dream coming true.

You sighed as you eventually got to your dorm and looked up at the ceiling. There wasn’t really anything to look at but you wondered if sometimes, Quinn would look up at the ceiling in her dorm and wonder why you were constantly in each other’s orbits.

Eventually, exhaustion began to take over, and you closed your eyes. You knew you would dream of Quinn before you were even fully asleep.

“Hi,” she smiled at you.

Disclaimers:
- Unpaid interns don't own Glee
- Special thanks to Erika for looking it over

In Dreams (Part 1/2)

2012-04-04T22:17:52Z

Title: In Dreams

Author: memoryofamemory

Pairing(s) or Character(s): Rachel/Quinn

Word Count: 15,250 words

Rating: R for implied situations

Warnings: Light angst?

Summary: You used to dream about Broadway.

You remember those dreams vividly. You can see the details clearly, the lines of the stage, the lighting flickering across the crowd (lighting that will later prove to be your downfall). You remember hearing the applause coming from the crowd, and it would linger in the back of your mind when you woke up the next morning. At least, that was how the dreams used to go.

Except now, Quinn is in your dreams, rewriting the details. She is watching you on stage, and it is her applause your mind remembers, not the crowd’s.

Link to Art: http://www.pictureshack.us/images/6971indreams.png (courtesy of drums-of-death)

You were 15 the first time you dreamt of Quinn Fabray.

It was a mistake, or so you convinced yourself at the time.

It wasn’t like you meant to dream about her, because you really hadn’t intended on it at all. You didn’t even know her that well at the time. She was just the head cheerleader, the president of the Celibacy Club, Finn Hudson’s girlfriend.

Yes, she was gorgeous, but that didn’t mean anything, not really. It just said you had noticed her looks – it wasn’t any different that you noticing Finn Hudson, for example. And it was only because you had A.P. Biology with Quinn that afternoon that she had been on your mind at all.

That was the only reason you dreamed about her. It was the sole reason when, as you sang the closing notes to Funny Girl on the Broadway stage in your dream, you had even noticed her in the crowd to begin with.

Quinn hadn’t even done anything in your dream. The crowd was clapping all around her but she stayed sitting in her seat, watching you. She didn’t move, just watched you, and there was something in her eyes but you didn’t know what to make of it.

You had never seen that look on her before. It bordered on curiosity, on being admiration but it felt like there was something else behind it; something you couldn’t define no matter how hard you tried searching for the right word.

The look was just there, as if she was truly seeing you for the first time, as if you were seeing her for the first time – and neither of you really understood it. Neither of you could make sense of it.

You could hear the applause in the crowd all around her but your attention was still focused on this one girl with blonde hair and hazel eyes, the one looking at you for answers neither of you could give.

It felt important, like something was happening, but neither of you were sure what it was.

Eventually your alarm rang, bringing you out of the dream, and you were left with the feeling that something in your life was about to change.

It bothered you all morning, to the point that you actually wanted to see her in the hallway. You waited as she walked down the hallway, two other cheerleaders – Brittany and Santana – by her side.

For a moment, your eyes caught hers. There was something about Quinn’s face – her look wasn’t all that different from what you had seen from the stage in your dreams – and her step faltered, not very much but enough so that you noticed it.

Santana did, too, her eyes glancing between you and Quinn as she tried to understand what had caught Quinn’s attention. Her eyes narrowed briefly as she took you in. Brittany, for her part, missed the exchange completely.

You looked down at the ground. You understood your place in the hierarchy of high school and sharing a look with the head cheerleader wasn’t acceptable. You sighed, but it wasn’t anything really worth challenging. You didn’t think anything of the fact that Quinn had been looking at you, either.

That night, you dreamed of Broadway again, but you ignored the feeling of emptiness when the crowd cheered at the end, and how lonely you felt when she wasn’t there.

& & &

The second time you dreamed of Quinn Fabray, you were 16 and her pregnancy had just been revealed to the entire school.

She looked so completely broken that really, it shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise to you that night she was present in your dreams.

It followed the same format as last year’s dream except – she looked even more broken. She looked lost, and yet, and yet – and yet she looked like watching you on stage was the only thing that was holding her together.

This is wrong, your subconscious whispered to you in your dream, this isn’t how it is supposed to go.

You were supposed to be the one finding purpose in performing on a Broadway stage. This was supposed to be your salvation, not Quinn’s. So why was she looking at you on this stage as if it was the only thing left in her life that made sense?

There was a touch of longing, of desperation in her eyes and it looked so much like defeat that you almost wanted to cry. Almost, though, because even though you and Quinn weren’t particularly close, you knew her well enough to know that it wasn’t defeat.

You weren’t fluent in the prose of Quinn Fabray, but you knew enough to know that look was actually one of pride.

Quinn Fabray’s state of mind was complex enough that you knew she was capable of feeling something, even if this marked the moment when she began to perfect her mask of indifference.

She cared, sometimes, even if it was easier for her to pretend to feel nothing.

And so – whatever it was she was feeling for you in your dream – it was both in character for Quinn and also completely alien. She tolerated you sometimes at most. But pride? Admiration?

You weren’t sure Quinn was even capable of feeling that anymore.

She hated admiration, hated pride the same way a fallen Greek God would. Because that look of open admiration used to be directed at her – faithful servants looking up at their adored queen. But then the revolution had taken over, and now Quinn hated anything that resembled what she used to have.

So it felt a little confusing, to say the very least, to have Quinn look at you the way so many used to look at her.

The confusion you felt in that moment still lingered when you woke up the next morning. You didn’t know what you were expecting but you still wanted – well, you weren’t quite sure what you wanted, exactly.

Finn Hudson, your subconscious whispered to you, but it didn’t sound as convincing as it had in the past. Because in the short time you’d known Finn, he had never, not once, watched you sing the way Quinn had looked at you in your dream.

You watched Quinn at school the next day. The same element of defeat that you had seen in your dream – that trace of someone broken beyond repair and they just began to accept it – was still wrapped around her, and it was fitting in so many ways that Quinn wore tragedy as a shield.

“Quinn,” you called out, walking towards her. She looked up from her locker, surprised that you had even acknowledged her at all.

“What is it?” She sighed, and your heart broke all over again at how exhausted she looked. You wanted the old Quinn Fabray back, the one who was manipulating and cunning, the one who believed the world was still at her fingertips.

“I just wanted to ask if you were okay,” you confessed, and something flickered in those hazel eyes – something akin to hope. Something tightened in your chest and you struggled for a moment to breathe. “And I just wanted to say I – I am here if you ever need someone to talk to, or something.”

“I’m fine,” she said.

“I know,” you told her, even though you knew she was lying. “But I just wanted to remind you, you’re not alone, Quinn. You don’t have to pretend you don’t have anyone who cares about you because you do. You have Glee Club, and we’re always going to be there for you. So if you ever want to –“

“She said she’s fine, dwarf,” Santana snarled at you as she appeared by Quinn’s side.

Quinn glanced between the two of you and you wondered how on Earth anyone could believe Quinn wasn’t about to break when she was looking at you like that.

“She said she’s fine,” Santana repeated, more firmly this time, and you tilted your head, wondering when Santana suddenly became so possessive of someone whose lead she probably only followed out of convenience.

“Okay,” you nodded. “Okay then. Bye Quinn, bye Santana.”

You didn’t know why you glanced behind you as you walked away, but you did, and the image of Quinn watching you as if – as if someone was walking away with the last thing she believed in – was forever burnt into your brain.

& & &

You were 17 the next time Quinn wandered into your dreams.

It was different than the first. By now you knew Quinn, perhaps not well enough to consider yourselves truly as friends but you definitely understood each other better than most supposed high school rivals did.

You knew her weakness, or so you thought. You thought Quinn was just about control. She was a perfectionist but not in the traditional sense of the term; Quinn craved perfection because she had been told that anything less simply wasn’t acceptable. Her parents took something from her, that day when they demanded she change to fit their model image, and Quinn had been too young at the time to even think about resisting.

Which lead to the here and now, and how Quinn craved perfection stronger than most addictions crave their drug of choice. Then again, you saw what happened to Quinn when perfection was taken from her – her fall from grace was breathtaking if only in its tragedy – and perhaps it shouldn’t have come as a surprise, after all, that she resented Beth as much as she did.

Quinn resented anything that wasn’t perfection and resented everything that reminded her of perfection.

She was – your perfect contradiction of terms, but for reasons you still didn’t quite understand. Perhaps it was because she was so gorgeous but so broken at the same time – how was anyone supposed to resist such a tragic appeal?

It was the night after the whole Prom fiasco ended, and maybe that was why you were dreaming of Quinn to begin with. She had just looked so majestic in her perfect dress and her perfect corsage and that was what had originally made you hesitate when you first saw her – because it was the corsage you had suggested to Finn.

It was a corsage that highlighted her perfection and for a moment, with the way she was looking at her boyfriend, you wondered if maybe she wanted to freeze the moment because it was everything she was told she could be.

But then – then it all fell apart, and you saw Quinn Fabray for the first time.

No wonder, really, that you dreamt of her that night. But she wasn’t watching you on a Broadway stage; instead, she was standing in that bathroom with you. It was almost exactly the same conversation you had with her earlier that night except –

“Save me,” Dream!Quinn said to you, very softly, very quietly, as it was meant to be a secret whispered solely to your subconscious. “Please.”

Your desperate craving for Quinn’s approval didn’t fade over time so you tried to seek her out at school the next day.

She looked the same way she did in the bathroom right after she slapped you – confused, remorseful, beautiful and tragic.

Her words in your dream – save me, please – echoed in your mind and you watched her, wondering how you were supposed to save someone so enamored with self-destruction.

& & &

You were still 17 and at the beginning of your senior year when Quinn reclaimed her starring role in your dreams.

The scene wasn’t that different from what happened in real life, and even in your subconscious you could still smell the nicotine on her, still feel the resentment from the other girls burning into you as one of them accused you of smelling of -soap?- and another put a ten-dollar bounty on your head.

You relived all that in your dream.

But just like in real life, you were focused on Quinn’s silence. You saw it in perfect clarity and that was the only difference between your dream and what happened in reality – in real life, you were focused on finding the right words, but in the here and now, you focused on Quinn’s reaction.

You focused on her lack of words, on her physical reactions. She was just watching you.

It wasn’t the way she used to look at you, when it was because you represented something she needed so desperately – the word lifeline lingered for a moment, but you quickly dismissed it – but something else, something almost a little darker.

Something very similar to salvation.

Because at this point, you did know Quinn. You knew her well enough to be able to read into the silence and the look in her eyes when you told her you were sad that she wasn’t in the choir room said much more to you than Quinn might have possibly intended.

In that moment, Quinn had managed to look both hopeful and heartbroken, and even in your dream you weren’t certain what to make of that.

Why does she even care, you thought to yourself, but it wasn’t exactly bitter. It was just – curious, because you just wanted to know why such a simple sentence could affect Quinn so much.

You had been telling in the truth in that moment – “I’m sad not seeing you in the choir room” – because things were just different without her. You were friends, once, but this – whatever it was – was a little more complex; a little deeper than just friendship.

She represented something, a mystery, that no one could ever solve, and something in Quinn’s eyes made you want to try. You wanted to understand her, which is why you kept coming back to her, time and again, when everyone else had given up on her.

Quinn didn’t necessarily want someone to break into the complexity of her mind. She kept her thoughts so guarded, so private that often the sheer effort it would take to break down the fortress was enough to keep people at bay.

But she was different with you. She didn’t always try to hide the cracks in her armor; around you, she wore them on her sleeve.

“Come back whenever you’re ready,” you promised, and that – that look right there said it all.

You’d wait for her just like she’d wait for you, because that was what the two of you did – you didn’t always manage to stop each other from falling, but you’d always be there for each other in case they needed help getting back up. You left, then, because you couldn’t find the words anymore, and neither could she.

It was quiet, too, when you woke up in the middle of the night, and it must be your subconscious but you could swear you could smell the lingering scent of nicotine in your bedroom.

& & &

You were always saving each other, so perhaps it was fate that you’d dream of her after Sectionals your senior year.

You didn’t perform because you were suspended but – she was there, and no matter what, New Directions was still your team. You were never going to be anywhere else, not when you had invested so much in them.

It was spiraling out of control, Quinn and Puck and Shelby, and you just – you needed her to understand her entire future wasn’t worth this rebellion of hers. And so you ran after her because that was what you two did, you followed each other in the hope of finding the light.

“I know what it’s like to do the wrong thing and it’s awful,” you confessed to her and there was something about the look in her eyes just then that made you wish you could rephrase your argument.

She looked broken, and maybe it was because indirectly you were accusing her of being the wrong thing; she wasn’t and could never be a mistake for you. Quinn was the flawed type of perfect, like an angel with clipped wings and other metaphors poets wrote on a lonely winter day.

But you knew, too.

She didn’t have to say it but you knew if push came to shove she’d choose you. She always chose you, even when she didn’t mean to. You had always wondered what that said about your dynamic, when you both are constantly choosing the other if when they aren’t really an option.

You knew she’d choose you.

And you were so pleased when you walked out of Figgins’ office and she was sitting there, waiting for you. She was there, waiting, for you, and that made sense. You saved each other because even though you weren’t particularly close you needed each other’s drive to succeed.

You had known Quinn for long enough that you shouldn’t have felt so awestruck by her beauty and yet it still did something to you, after all this time. She was gorgeous. She was also tragic, and maybe that was the true appeal of it.

“We’re kind of friends now,” you offered, and there was a reason you said it was ‘kind of’ a friendship. At the end of the day, whatever it was you two shared, it wasn’t – it wasn’t friendship. Friendship was too simple, too easy, but this push-and-pull you two were forever intertwined with –

That wasn’t friendship. It could never be friendship, even if you didn’t understand it at the time.

“Kind of,” Quinn breathed in response, and something – something changed, then.

It wasn’t until that night, when Quinn was back in your dreams, that you began to wonder why that statement bothered you so much.

& & &

“You can’t,” she told you after you confessed Finn had proposed.

“I got accepted to Yale,” she said, showing you that she was the one whose future was guaranteed. The implication was clear – come fall, I’m leaving here. Lima will just be a bad memory.

You’re going to be just fine. Don’t give up on your dreams was the message she was trying to get you to understand.

On the spot, you didn’t.

Because in that moment, you felt you had nothing left except for Finn.

True love had never felt so depressing.

The thought of settling for something other than Broadway made you feel sick. You had always just been so, so certain that you would get New York, Broadway, the whole nine yards – it was all meant to be rightfully yours. They had promised.

And now – you were left with a love you suspected wasn’t enough, a future that wasn’t yours, and messages you couldn’t quite make sense of.

Finn Hudson was all you had left.

Something tightened in your chest and you choked back a sob. True love, promises of forever – they all came at a price. You were spending the rest of your life with Finn because you couldn’t have Broadway.

Because the one thing you had always believed in was being taken away from you, and now, the ring on your finger was just weighing you down, a subtle reminder of what you could no longer have.

You cried yourself to sleep that night, mourning the loss of Broadway, and while you were expecting to dream of Finn and the look on his face when you finally said yes, it was Quinn who greeted your subconscious.

You were back in the bathroom when you confessed Finn had proposed and the irony almost made you smile – it seemed most of your conversations with Quinn happened in this bathroom.

“I was waiting for you,” Dream Quinn said, and you frowned – usually your subconscious paralleled what happened in real life. You had actively gone after Quinn; she hadn’t been waiting for you.

“I believe in you,” she said, and this was all wrong because Quinn had implied it but she hadn’t said it out loud.

“I believe that you can be great,” she continued. “I believe that one day you will be singing solos on Broadway because that stage is rightfully yours. I believe that when you set your mind to something, there is relatively little you can’t do. I believe that one day, they will rename these halls after you.”

“I don’t believe in many things.” Dream Quinn paused. “Or maybe I do, I’m not quite sure. But I am sure that I believe in you. I am sure that you are capable of such great things. Just as I’m sure that saying yes would mean you would have to give up on all of your dreams. Is Finn really worth that, Rachel? Is anyone really worth giving up your future for?”

When this conversation initially took place, Quinn had seemed so self-assured. She had Yale’s acceptance letter with her and she was leaving Lima behind. In your dreams, though, she was different – less sure of herself, but still a firm believer in you. That much, you thought, remained the same.

“You could have it all, you know that,” she said. “You could have anything you ever wanted and there was a time you believed that. There was a time when you promised you would never give up on your dreams; that they were bigger than anything else out there.”

“What happened to that girl, Rachel?” Dream Quinn asked. “Because that girl would never settle for anyone, even it’s Finn. That girl had so much potential to be something in life. Where did she go, Rachel? Where did you bury her?”

She blinked at you and you were struck by the color of her eyes, how the hazel kept flickering in the light. It was gorgeous, breathtakingly beautiful, and not for the first time, you were reminded just how pretty Quinn Fabray really was.

“It would be a shame if that girl was gone for good,” she said.

“Finn loves me,” you defended yourself. “And he’s all I have left, I… I just don’t want to be alone without my dreams.”

“It’s not love,” she said, “if it’s suffocating you this much. This isn’t what love is, Rachel. Love shouldn’t be about holding someone back from what they have wanted their entire lives.”

“You’ve wanted to perform on Broadway your entire life.“ She hesitated once more, then took a step back, heading towards the exit and away from you. “For as long as I’ve known you that’s been a dream of yours.”

“You should believe in your dreams again, Rachel,” she said. “But while you’re waiting to find yourself again, I’ll believe in them for you.”

You woke up that morning feeling disoriented and heartbroken. On the stand next to your bed, Finn’s engagement ring is glittering in the sunlight, a gentle reminder of the life you had resigned yourself to.

The sight of it brought you to tears, and you couldn’t help but remember Quinn’s words in your dreams, when she said love wasn’t about keeping someone to themselves.

When you saw Quinn at school, there was that look of open curiosity mixed with resignation, and it was enough to bring you to tears once more.

You escaped to the bathroom and sobbed for your broken dreams. You kept glancing at the door, waiting for Quinn to walk in after you. It was what the two of you did, after you – you saved each other, made each other believe again, and you really needed her right now.

She wouldn’t have to say anything, you offered as a silent compromise. Sometimes, you just needed to know Quinn was there. A silent guardian of dreams you were too afraid to let go of, the same dreams you were no longer sure you could claim as yours.

The door stayed shut and you started sobbing so hard it was borderline hysterical, and Quinn chose that moment to eventually walk in with a semi-raised eyebrow.

And then the hysteria took over.

“I just don’t know what I’m doing,” you sobbed into her shoulder. “It feels like my whole life is falling apart and I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t want to believe that marrying Finn is a mistake but I don’t know anymore. I don’t know what has happened to me…”

Quinn simply held you closer as you continued to cry.

“It’s okay,” she whispered into your hair, “it’s okay, I believe in you. You’re going to be fine, promise.”

How Quinn believed in you so much when you struggled to believe in anything at all made you cry even harder.

Love wasn’t supposed to feel like this.

& & &

You didn’t dream of her after the accident.

You didn’t dream at all.

You couldn’t sleep because every time you did, every time you shut your eyes, all you could see was the accusation I’m not going to stand around and watch you ruin your life by marrying Finn Hudson.

The suffocating guilt that it wasn’t your life that had been ruined by your actions but Quinn’s.

Quinn, who had compromised because she honestly thought you were happy.

Quinn, who had said that Lima would be nothing but a bad memory in the future.

Quinn, the graceful dancer who held her entire future at the tip of her fingers.

Quinn had paid the price of a rushed wedding.

And now it was all you could see.

You didn’t believe in God, not the way that Quinn did – or used to, you weren’t that sure about her religious convictions anymore. But there was still a part of you that wondered if maybe you didn’t deserve this as punishment for your sins.

A wedding was supposed to be about unity, but what if you really were tethered to someone else?

It took days for Quinn to come out of the medically induced coma and the entire time you were too afraid to fall asleep.

You were already suffocating from the guilt. You didn’t need your dream version of Quinn to remind you how responsible you were of the accident.

& & &

You were expecting to dream of her after graduation.

Why wouldn’t you, after all? She had wandered into your dreams for every other significant moment in high school so surely graduation, your last goodbye, would have been a safe bet. You tracked her throughout the ceremony, trying to commit every detail to memory because you needed this more than you cared to admit – you needed the details so that you would remember them in your dreams.

And yet –

When the rush had faded, when the adrenaline finally left your body, when you shut your eyes and let sleep overtake you, you didn’t dream of your friendship with Quinn at all.

You dreamed of performances in Glee Club, but they were so discontinued, so random, that you weren’t sure what to make of them. You dreamed of Push It but Quinn wasn’t even in Glee Club at the time; Keep Holding On was more about Quinn’s pregnancy and the feeling of a world falling apart than your friendship with her.

They didn’t have anything to do with her specifically, and that terrible feeling of sheer loneliness, of solitude, continued to follow you as different performances played on repeat in your subconscious.

Lucky wasn’t there. Neither was I Feel Pretty/Unpretty. I Say A Little Prayer and It’s A Man’s, Man’s World were also missing. Instead, what lingered were fractured performances and a sense that you were missing something important.

When you woke up the next morning, a box was sitting on your kitchen table. You were hesitant when you originally opened it, but then again you never were that good at resisting temptation in the first place.

Inside, you found a box with a corsage in it. It wasn’t the same one as the one from your Junior Year, the one you had suggested Finn get for Quinn, but the similarities were still there. Same flower, same type of ribbon, just a slightly different shade. You stared at it, confused.

“That Quinn girl came by last night to drop it off,” Leroy said as he walked into the room. “But you had already gone to bed. She left a note, too.”

He lingered in the hallway, hesitating. “You’d tell us, wouldn’t you?” He asked. You looked up, confused. “If there was something going on, something we should know about, you’d tell us, right?”

“Yes,” you answered, but you weren’t sure what, exactly, you were admitting to until you opened the note. “Of course I would.”

No matter how long you stared at the words, you still couldn’t understand the cryptic meaning behind them. You didn’t understand why Quinn chose last night of all nights to confess to those memories.

You had dreamt of her, that night after Prom your Junior year, but – why now? Especially as her confession had nothing to do with anything that happened that night. There was nothing about how broken she was, about how you had made her believe she was capable of more, nothing – nothing to make sense that the three words scribbled in that cursive writing you had come to know so well.

I remember now. X Quinn

& & &

Quinn was completely silent in your dreams the night before you left for New York.

You were both quiet, in the beginning. That was unusual in itself. There had always been something before; murmurs of a forgotten conversation, fragmented verses in performances, something. This was silent in the pure sense of the word, silent as in the absence of even the purest noise.

Before, in your dreams, Quinn had simply been quiet for the sake of being quiet. She needed the absence of noise, sometimes, simply to work through her thoughts and so for the longest time in your dream state you were content with simply letting her work through whatever was tormenting her at the time.

You had been here before, and something told you that you would be here again.

But this time was different. Quinn was looking at you and there was something in her eyes and you wanted to ask, you wanted to understand, but the words simply weren’t there. There was just that unusual quiet, that complete stillness in the air, and as unsettling as you found it you also couldn’t find it in you to break it.

You wanted to know. There weren’t words for how badly you wanted her to explain the look in those hazel eyes because you had never seen Quinn look at anyone the way she was looking at you, and that – that included Finn, and Puck, and Sam, and even –

Even Beth.

You felt sick, and anxious, and excited, and overwhelmed, and concerned, and –

You didn’t know what you felt, except that you were feeling everything at once, and still Quinn wasn’t saying anything. Still there was that complete absence of noise as your heart was pounding so loudly in your chest you were convinced you were moments away from cardiac arrest and still –

And still neither of you said anything.

It was just so completely quiet as the two of you stood just facing each other, taking each other in, and in that moment you understood perfectly what this dream was about.

This was about remembering. This was about goodbye. This was the possibility that neither of you would see each other again. This was the final scene in a Greek tragedy, the closing monologue of the chorus as they surveyed the wreckage of a doomed love.

This wasn’t about new beginnings or hope for the lost or any other anecdote scribbled in a jaded poet’s notebook. This was about what could have been if you had just seen what was in front of you all along; if you had simply read the signs for what they were instead of appealing to the Greek Gods for meanings they might not have intended to be there in the first place.

This wasn’t about finding your true love. This was about realizing that they were in front of you all along, but only after they’d left.

Quinn stayed completely silent, completely still as your epiphany took place and there simply weren’t words for how it ripped you apart from the inside. Every single molecule inside of you met its opposite and instead of coming together, as Physics would like you to dictate, they fled.

The expression to be ripped apart from the inside wasn’t actually a metaphor. It wasn’t simply the consequence of a writer desperate to recapture the sensations of a lost love. It was –

It was horrible. It was absolutely horrible.

It was the destruction of everything you thought you knew, vanishing in front of you just slow enough that you were acutely aware of every detail before they were erased. And that – that is precisely what hurt so much, the reminder of what could have been as it was erased.

You could have had it all, and that was what this dream was all about.

You just stood in front of each other as these little moments played all around the two of you. You were alone with each other in a three dimension room, echoes of memories haunting you both as the eternal question- why didn’t you see the signs? – kept on tormenting you.

You could have had it all, the wind whispered to both of you, don’t you see that? You could have had it all and now look at you, look at what has become of you. Look at what you are leaving behind. Look at what you are offering to forget.

Your memories will fade eventually, the wind continued to whisper to you, but it’s okay, your dreams will still be there. They will remind you; they won’t allow you to forget anything…

You could see the panic in Quinn’s eyes as the words began to take effect. Her eyes widened and you could see her inner battle as she tried to break out of this dream state and yet, just like with you, something made her stay.

The wind of regret died down and it was suddenly just like it started, with the two of you staring at each other still at lost for words.

It should be easier for you, you thought to yourself. It should be easier to demand answers for whatever it was happening, to just demand why Quinn wouldn’t leave you alone in your dreams or why now neither of you could say anything at all.

The word love lingered but you couldn’t say it out loud, neither could Quinn, but again there was that look in her eyes and although you didn’t really know why, your chest tightened at the sight of it.

Eventually, the edges around Quinn began to blur as you accepted the dream was at its end. You woke up to the sound of your alarm going off and your father lingering in the doorway.

You weren’t originally planning on it, but you ended up taking the corsage Quinn left with you to New York. Maybe in the city of blinding lights you’d finally understand what it was Quinn remembered.

& & &

It took you 7 months in New York to dream of Quinn again.

It surprised you, really, that it took that long – 213 nights of the Eugene O’Neill Theatre, of bright lights and standing ovations; 213 nights of realizing the phrase meant to be wasn’t just a poet’s sentimental reflections.

It was perfect and yet – so incredibly lonely, and that felt so incredibly strange. A star by definition was always meant to be alone. But yes, sometimes you read about it in interviews, about how Broadway singers in particularl were constantly torn between their roles on stage and their own identity. They were eternally torn between belonging on that stage and being seen for themselves, and the two rarely went together.

213 nights of being so certain that you had the answers you were looking for.

Until one random night in March, Quinn Fabray wandered back into your dreams.

The other times, you had a fairly good idea why Quinn made a guest appearance. There were moments, incidents, triggers – just things which explained why you weren’t alone. Here in New York City, you were free of reminders of Quinn Fabray.

Your day had been like the others. Your dream had started like the others, too. You were there on the Wicked stage, with your audience staring at you like they finally understood what watching a Broadway play was really about. The lights were switched on and they all had that look in their eyes, the one that said you made a difference in my life.

And then –

Then you saw her, and the clichéd expression of time standing still suddenly came true.

It didn’t slow down; there was no slow motion in high definition detail. Time had just come to a brutal stop as the edges were blurred, and the only thing you could focus on was Quinn herself.

She was just standing there, watching you. There was something about her eyes, a hint of warmth, a hint of pride, in those hazel eyes that usually revealed nothing. She was standing in the middle of your dream as your dreams came true and she looked so beautiful and yet nothing like you had ever seen before.

She looked so perfect and so tragic at the same time. In that moment, you just knew – this, this right here? This was how being on Broadway was supposed to be. The real Broadway experience wasn’t just about being on that stage with the bright lights and adoring fans and the knowledge you made it, after all.

It was also about something else.

Quinn was the reason you were even in New York in the first place and maybe – maybe that was why she was there, in your dreams, watching you on the stage she had once had to remind you was yours by right.

“You don’t belong here,” she had snapped at you, and even though she had never explicitly mentioned New York by name you still knew what she was referring to. Quinn had condemned herself to a life of solitude and it took Yale and its promises of something more for her to believe in something again.

Or maybe, the selfish part of you whispered to your subconscious, it took Yale for Quinn Fabray to believe in something other than your own potential. Perhaps Quinn really had been your truest believer all along, and maybe, just maybe, that was why she was featured so predominantly in your dream tonight.

Because if it hadn’t been for Quinn Fabray, you wouldn’t be able to speak with complete certainty when you said you had known all along you’d be on this stage.

Something changed – maybe the rain hit a little harder against your bedroom window, maybe it was something else – whatever it was, it was enough to shift your focus back to the dream.

Back to the feeling that it wasn’t just being on the Broadway stage that made you feel like you finally belonged but rather that Quinn was also there, watching you.

You wanted to pull back, to focus on something other than that look in her eyes but you couldn’t, and the image of Quinn Fabray looking up at you and clapping was burnt into your memory.

When your alarm went off the next morning, you laid in bed a little while longer, staring up at the ceiling as the echo of Quinn’s hands clapping in the crowd continued to ring in your ears.

It wasn’t real, your subconscious whispered to you, but what really hurt was that a part of you had expected it to be. Yet as far as you knew, Quinn Fabray had not set foot in New York City since attending Yale.

It wasn’t real, your subconscious repeated. You closed your eyes and took a deep breath.

But I want it to be, you responded. It could be, maybe, one day…

& & &

You weren’t your best at rehearsals and you blamed Quinn for that.

Even when she wasn’t with you, Quinn still had this ability to make you feel so incredibly insecure, so full of doubt even if she believed in you the most.

Because even when Quinn looked at you, all you could think of was who else she might have been looking at before you. Who else saw that pride, that hint of nostalgia, that trace of longing? Who else heard the words “You don’t belong here” and realized they were meant for something more?

Had you been replaced? Was that the real reason Quinn hadn’t been to New York City – because she found another fallen star, one that had shone brighter, one that was even more damaged?

Quinn had never been intrigued by glamour because so often it represented the life that had deserted her. Yes, she wore diamonds and you would be lying if you hadn’t noticed the gold necklace but the statements they held were one of loss. This is what I no longer have rather than This is all mine.

No, Quinn wasn’t like that, not many. It was a different time of glamour Quinn was attracted to now: the appeal of a tragedy, the allure of destruction, the desperation of a suddenly powerless Greek choir.

Quinn saw beauty in things that were broken, now.

Quinn craved that about you – that never-ending desire to please her, to live up to her own expectations – and now that you had, perhaps it was to be expected, really, that she’d find someone else. You were never alone, really, in craving Quinn’s approval so your replacement should have been easy to find.

And yet it still bothered you.

You had never really wanted to think of yourself as replaceable so why was it so easy for Quinn to avoid you, avoid this city so completely? To a certain extent New York City had always been yours but that didn’t mean it could never belong to her, too. She’d see the appeal; surely, because you knew her. You knew she craved the intellectual challenge as much as you craved the stage.

But Quinn still refused to come to New York City, and now the result of her self-imposed exile and your dream from last night had left you shaken in ways you hadn’t felt since high school.

“I don’t know what’s bothering you, but snap out of it!” Your director told you. It was the first time he had ever used that tone with you and it was enough for you to take a step back in shock.

His face immediately softened.

“Come on, love,” he told you, “this is New York, this is the big time – whatever you want, you can have, but you have to want it. Drop whatever it is that is distracting you and just focus, okay love?”

You nodded again.

You wouldn’t say the rest of rehearsal went smoothly per say but you managed to focus enough that your director didn’t snap at you again, and the pitying glances from your costars faded before the next break.

You could almost convince yourself it was a one-time thing, that you’d never let Quinn play with your head again, until you looked at your phone.

Quinn Fabray had just texted you. She was in New York.

Part 2

"Pour You a Glass of Wine (You're Looking Tired)" (one-shot)

2012-03-17T06:01:52Z

Title: Pour You a Glass of Wine (You're Looking Tired)
Author: memoryofamemory
Length: 3,840 words
Rating: R for implied situations
Spoilers: 3x14, speculation for 3x15
Notes: 1) This is not fluff. This does not have a happy ending. 2) based on a discussion with a friend over the car accident scene, and possible parallels with the plot of Friday Night Lights.

Survivor’s guilt isn’t just applicable to the victim.

& & &

They find out about the accident at 5:07 p.m.

Santana’s phone rings, interrupting the silence in the room. They turn to look at her, wondering if it’s Quinn calling to explain why she’s so late.

It’s Brittany who first notices something is wrong. She watches as Santana physically switches her emotions off and the person in front of her becomes a perfect stranger, incapable of feeling anything at all.

It is Sugar who notices the complete lack of emotion on Santana’s face as she turns to face Rachel. How there is absolutely nothing in Santana’s eyes.

It is as if Santana is speaking to the dead.

“It’s Quinn,” Santana starts. “There’s been an accident. She’s in surgery now.”

“She suffered extensive trauma,” she says. “The doctors are trying their best, but they say it’s better if we prepare ourselves for the worse.”

Sugar wonders briefly if maybe that’s why Santana sounds so emotionless. The dead cannot grieve.

& & &

The engagement ring burns.

Rachel keeps it on as a reminder of the guilt. She sees in it in Judy’s eyes the moment they arrive at the hospital.

This is on you is written on Judy’s face somewhere between the despair and fear of losing her daughter for the second time.

Judy doesn’t say anything, of course. She doesn’t scream or hurl accusations as to why it’s Rachel’s fault her youngest daughter is lying on an operating table with a slim chance of survival. She doesn’t demand why Rachel simply couldn’t wait instead of putting pressure on Quinn.

She doesn’t do anything, really, except glance occasionally at the engagement ring on Rachel’s left hand. Occasionally a muscle jumps in her jaw. Someone – Burt Hummel – offers to get her a coffee.

Judy declines. Instead, her eyes, so full of resentment, flicker back towards Rachel. This time the younger girl notices. She covers the ring with her right hand. It feels like the metal is burning into the palm that’s hiding it, a reminder of her sins. She wants to cry out, to sob, but instead she follows Judy’s lead and says nothing at all.

The silence in the waiting room is not quite as comforting as Rachel hoped it would be.

& & &

It is a little before midnight when Rachel realizes that Santana is mouthing the words to a Spanish prayer.

She stays straight ahead and ignores how Kaddish keeps coming to the forefront of her subconscious. Eventually it drowns out Santana next to her.

It is not that she thinks praying will help Quinn survive. It’s that a part of her believes that this – the agony of waiting – is just the beginning of her penance.

& & &

The surgeon comes out at 2:07 a.m.

Brittany doesn’t look at him. To a casual observer it would seem as if she was reading a magazine but Santana knows her, and knows how her eyes are fixed on the same spot on the page. She isn’t ignoring the surgeon.

She just doesn’t want to see his face when he tells them the news.

He’s here to tell us about Quinn, Brittany thinks, he has to show compassion for her, she’s Quinn. That has to matter to someone.

“She survived,” the surgeon says, and Judy exhales loudly.

At that point Brittany makes the mistake of looking up and there’s a flash of pity in the surgeon’s eyes, even though his gaze is directed at Judy. At that point Brittany knows what he is going to say before he even utters the words.

“There were some complications,” he continues, and there’s a trace of something in his voice, but Brittany doesn’t quite understand what it is. “She suffered severe spinal trauma. We did what we could, but the damage was so severe… It’s unlikely she’ll walk again.”

Brittany looks away and her gaze falls on Santana, but she isn’t looking at the doctor. Instead, Santana is looking at Rachel, and Brittany finally understands what it was that the doctor was feeling.

Resentment.

& & &

Rachel doesn’t cry.

She can hear Judy sobbing, the breathless “my baby, my poor baby, what did she do to deserve this? What God could be so cruel?” forever imprinted in her memory. Equally heartbreaking is the sight of Kurt, his hands joined together as he prays to a God he doesn’t believe in.

She catches Santana looking at her and she wants to look away but the resentment has never been clearer, and she figures she deserves whatever pain Santana is ready to unleash on her.

This is all your fault remains unspoken, but Rachel accepts it anyway. She stays quiet, her eyes fixed to the clock on the other side of the room as Judy continues to cry beside her.

The clock turns from 2:07 to 2:08, and she’s the only one who notices.

& & &

“She’s awake,” a nurse says at 4:02 a.m.

“She’s in a lot of pain,” she says. “So we are going to put her in medically induced coma to help her heal.”

“Family members can come in though,” she says, “but only for a short while.”

Judy gets up. She’s the only family member there. She only makes it to the door before she starts crying, and for a moment, the nurse looks a little lost as to what she’s supposed to do. Santana watches from the other side of the hallway

Santana’s voice is barely above a whisper, but it’s the loudest thing Rachel has ever heard.

“It should be you in that bed.”

Rachel doesn’t refute it.

& & &

By the time Judy comes back to the waiting room, most of the Glee Club members have fallen asleep. Will has already left, along with Burt, Carole and Finn. Sue Sylvester stayed partly out of misplaced obligation.

Quinn was her prodigal child.

Santana stirs as Judy sits down, and blinks sleepily at her.

“She looks so fragile,” Judy cries. “She used to be so strong and now she’s broken, my little girl is broken.”

Santana shifts and presses against her. The move is both comforting and needy.

Sitting in the opposite chairs, Sue watches quietly but doesn’t say anything.

Rachel finds it unnerving.

& & &

“We should get coffee,” Santana tells Rachel when the sun rises.

She wants to contest but she figures Santana deserves whatever she wants, so she stumbles towards the cafeteria with her. Her limbs are stiff from being in the same waiting chair for so long, but Santana’s movements are loose, almost predatory.

The elevator ride to the cafeteria is quiet and that begins to unnerve Rachel. She knows Santana didn’t just invite her along for a caffeine fix.

They’re in line, waiting to pay for the beverage, when Santana finally delivers the blow.

“Others are asking why God did this to Quinn,” she says as the line finally starts to move. “But you and I both know you’re the one responsible.”

She turns and looks at Rachel, and her expression is just as emotionless as when she broke the news about the accident. “After all,” she says, “it wasn’t God who texted her, was it?”

& & &

It takes two days for Quinn to come out of the medically induced coma.

Rachel doesn’t go in to see her during those two days. She just sits in the waiting room and watches the hands move around the clock.

Sometimes Santana sits with her, sometimes she doesn’t. At first it feels like a hostile silence, and Rachel knows Santana isn’t making any effort to hide the resentment she’s feeling.

But it’s comforting, too, in a way it should be. Because in this waiting room, waiting as time goes by, they are no longer alone. They understand each other’s pain.

They don’t talk because they know there is nothing left to say. Rachel had been texting Quinn, and she was insistent enough that Quinn chose to respond while driving.

Rachel hadn’t been driving the truck, but it doesn’t make her feel any less guilty.

Sometimes Sue waits with them, sometimes she doesn’t. Neither Rachel nor Santana really know why she’s there. They know, on some level, that Sue considered Quinn to be the prodigal child of the Cheerios but it suggests something else behind it.

Like on some level, Sue Sylvester might feel a little responsible for the accident as well, but she doesn’t want to think of the implications of that statement.

So sometimes she sits with them in sullen silence, watching as the world goes by and wondering how Quinn is going to handle her broken future.

& & &

Santana goes in to see Quinn first.

She comes back out about an hour later, looking unhappy and exhausted. She sits down next to Rachel and the sudden proximity puts her on the edge. They’ve always kept their distance and this new closeness is unnerving.

Santana doesn’t say anything at first, just stares straight ahead a muscle jumps in her jaw. She’s miserable, and Rachel wonders briefly where Brittany is and if she should call her. But before she can make a decision, Santana sighs and begins to speak.

“It’s not permanent,” she says, and Rachel looks at her in confusion. “The damage to her spinal cord, it’s not permanent, so I mean, she will walk again. So that’s good.”

Sue finally tears her eyes away from the clock and looks at them. There’s an unspoken question in her eyes that only Santana can read.

“She’ll be in a wheel chair for a while,” Santana tells her. “And she’ll probably not be the same athlete she was before. But she’ll be able to walk again, eventually. So I guess it’s the little things.”

“That’s terrible,” Rachel says, very softly, almost as an after-thought.

Santana falls silent after that, looking at the ground. When she finally looks at Rachel, her face is blank. For a moment Rachel envies how easy it is for Santana to turn her emotions off.

“So is unrequited love,” she responds.

& & &

It is raining outside when Rachel finally goes in to see Quinn.

The only sound in the room is the heart monitor beeping, and the rain falling gently against the window. It is the perfect picture of a quiet tragedy. Rachel lingers a little in the doorway, just taking in the scene in front of her.

She thought she was prepared to see Quinn like this. She was wrong.

Judy had described Quinn as being broken after she first saw her and it is only now, upon seeing the scene in front of her, that Rachel actually understands the full extent of how broken Quinn really is.

Quinn is an athlete. She craves movement as much as an addict craves their drug of choice. But here, she is completely immobile. On her back, her arm in a cast, bruises all over her face, and wires running down her body, the only movement Quinn is making is as she inhales and exhales.

Eventually Rachel steps in the room. There’s a chair against the wall with some magazines lying on it, the only evidence that someone else has been in the room. For a moment Rachel contemplates reading it but then decides against it.

She is here for Quinn, not to catch up on The Atlantic.

She moves the chair next to the left side of the bed and picks up Quinn’s hand. It is warm, and comforting in its subtle reminder that Quinn is still alive.

“They didn’t say if we should talk to you or not,” Rachel begins. “But maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s just about saying it, anyway.”

“I don’t know how to say it, though.” She hesitates, tracing figures into Quinn’s palm. “I don’t know how to say you saved me and this – this is what became of you. You saved me, and I don’t know to save you. I wanted you there, I needed you to stop me, but I never thought this would happen to you.”

“You saved me,” Rachel whispers. “You saved me and you’re the one who got hurt because of it. I did this to you.”

“I wish you would wake up, Quinn,” she says. “I need someone to save me because I feel like I’m drowning without you. I don’t know what to do, Quinn, you have to wake up, I’m lost without you.”

Rachel squeezes Quinn’s hand. “You have to wake up,” she says softly. “I don’t know how to live without you.”

Rachel feels the faintest pressure on her hand and she gasps, turning towards Quinn’s face. Hazel eyes look back at her, unfocused, unfeeling.

“I wish I was dead,” Quinn says.

& & &

Rachel’s face is a blank mask when Santana walks into the room.

Santana glances briefly at Quinn’s heart monitor. She can hear it, but she needed the visual confirmation that her friend is still alive.

Quinn is still breathing, but Rachel looks like her world ended.

She is staring at Quinn and her face reveals absolutely nothing and it’s all wrong, Santana thinks, because Rachel is one of the most expressive people she knows. Rachel wears her emotions on her sleeve and right now she is feeling nothing.

Rachel is the one who is supposed to remind them of sunshine and hope and that there is still something good left in the world.

Rachel is the only one who believes in the good; so why does it mean when that faith is gone?

Santana lingers awkwardly for a moment, waiting for Rachel to finally speak, but the girl says nothing. So Santana sits down and picks up The Atlantic. She isn’t really reading the articles but it gives her something to pass the time as she wonders whether to say something to Rachel.

She does blame her for the accident. She blames the fact that the wedding was even a possibility on Rachel, because if she had just listened, if she hadn’t gone against Quinn’s advice time after time, they wouldn’t be sitting here in the room.

How many times would Rachel have to be reminded of her dreams before they disappeared completely?

How many more times does Quinn have to believe in those dreams before her faith isn’t enough for them to become a reality.

Rachel is still staring at Quinn as if she holds all the answers, though, so Santana lets her be. Maybe she’ll find her hope again when Quinn wakes up.

& & &

Quinn’s eyes are hazy when she opens them again. Rachel instantly starts crying. Santana stops turning the page and concentrates on listening. The beginning of the end, she thinks.

“I’m sorry,” Rachel sobs. “I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry, I never meant for you to get hurt…”

Quinn looks down at the cast then up at Rachel.

“You did this to me,” she says quietly. Santana looks up from her magazine. She doesn’t make any effort to hide the interest in her eyes.

“What?” Rachel stutters, taking a step back. Quinn’s eyes are cold, emotionless.

“I’m broken,” Quinn says, and her voice is so flat, so emotionless. “You broke me. You did this to me. I remember it now. I was texting you and then got hit by a truck.”

“I’m sorry,” Rachel cries, her entire body shaking with the force of her sobs. “You don’t understand how terrible I feel, I really do, I am so sor-”

“Don’t.”

Something about the way Quinn says it makes Rachel stop, and she looks at Quinn.

“You did this to me,” Quinn continues, and her voice is barely above a whisper but it is all Rachel can hear. “You took my life away from me. You took my future away from me. Everything I held dear, you took from me. All because you could not be patient.”

The venom in Quinn’s words is deadly, but Rachel doesn’t have it in her to even pretend to fight.

“What do you want me to do?” She whispers. “Tell me how to make it up to you and I will, I swear, anything you want…”

“Anything?” Quinn repeats, but it isn’t a smile on her face, it’s a declaration of war.

“Yes,” Rachel whispers.

“Your voice.”

For a minute, the only sound that can be heard is the heart monitor. Santana’s eyes flicker back and forth between Quinn and Rachel. She had suspected it would come to this.

“I’m sorry?” Rachel’s voice cracks.

“I want you to never sing again.” Quinn’s voice remains completely quiet. “You took my future away from me. You want to make it up to me? Forfeit your voice. It’s the only way you could possibly understand a fraction of what I am feeling right now.”

& & &

She can’t see Rachel’s eyes – they’re focused on Quinn – but Santana can still read her body language.

She knows how vicious Quinn can be. She knows she’s only making those demands because right now Quinn is resenting the fact she can even breathe. Her religion speaks of hell and this is it for Quinn right now- trapped in this crippled body while her mind is still in tact.

How much easier it would be, Santana thinks, if Quinn could simply forget it all. No wonder she’s lashing out, demanding that Rachel forfeit what makes her dreams a possibility.

And so Rachel Santana chooses to focus on Rachel instead.

She’s not sure what exactly she had expected Rachel to do. Cry, definitely. Sing a song maybe about the injustice of Quinn’s demand. Storm out of the room while refusing to talk to Quinn when she was in such a vengeful state of mind.

Santana had anticipated a lot of different reactions.

But Rachel actually contemplating Quinn’s request?

That, she hadn’t thought would happen.

But Rachel is contemplating it. Santana doesn’t have to see her face to know that Rachel Berry – who had once believed that Broadway was rightfully hers- is actually weighing up the consequences of giving up her dream.

Santana had always thought Finn’s lack of dreams would be the reason Rachel wouldn’t leave but maybe it was a different kind of tether that could shatter Rachel’s dreams.

The kind that involved a girl lying in a hospital bed.

It’s frightening, Santana thinks suddenly. It’s frightening because Rachel is actually considering it. She is actually thinking about giving up her dream because the girl who pushed her to believe in them no longer does.

There’s a part of Santana that wants to protest.

She’s only saying that because she’s hurting, Santana pleads silently to Rachel, can’t you see that? She doesn’t mean it, not really. She just can’t feel her legs, and she doesn’t know how long that is going to last, no one knows, and she just needs someone to pay for that.

She’d blame God if she could, Santana continues in her mind, but that God abandoned Quinn when she was 16, you were the only thing she had left to believe in, and look at her now. It’s no wonder she’s blaming you, Rachel.

“I’m not saying no,” Rachel whispers, very quietly. Her voice is almost drowned by the heart monitor.

“That’s not good enough,” Quinn snaps.

“It’s all I can give you right now,” Rachel says softly. Santana almost wishes that Rachel would raise her voice, at least pretend to fight, because she’s never seen her this defeated, and it’s almost a little scary.

“I know you blame me,” Rachel continues, “and you have every right to, I swear, I’m not saying you shouldn’t. But you are asking an awful lot of me and I just need time to think it over. I’m not saying no, Quinn, I’m really not saying I won’t do it but I just need to think about it. Please.”

“Time?” Quinn repeats bitterly. “How much time do you need, Rachel? Because I am physically not going anywhere. So take all the time you need, but remember this. You owe me.”

Her good hand gestures along the length of her body.

“You owe me,” Quinn repeats. “You did this to me. You put me in this situation, where I am a fucking cripple, and I wish I was dead. I wish with all my might that every breath I take will be my last.”

“You had your chance at living your dream and you chose Finn,” Quinn spits out. “I chose to believe in what you could and I will end up in a wheel chair. How is this fair? You could have anything you wanted and you chose to become nothing! I had a future and because of you, I am a cripple!”

“You owe me!” Quinn shrieks, and Santana’s eyes flicker towards the heart monitor. Although her voice has risen, the heart rate remains the same. The rain is still falling. Nothing has changed, except that Quinn has –finally?- found her voice.

The dead cannot grieve, Santana reminds herself.

“You owe me. You owe me your voice!”

And still Rachel won’t say no, no matter how hard Santana wishes she would. There is no explicit denial about how her dream is worth more than empty demands issued from a cripple in a hospital bed.

Quinn’s future may have died the day of the accident, Santana thinks, but the girl who believed so vividly in her Broadway aspirations was buried long before Quinn decided to pick up her phone while driving.

Maybe that’s why Rachel isn’t fighting back. It isn’t because she believes Quinn’s demands are unreasonable. It is because she thinks it’s the least she could do.

We all have different views on what our penance should be, and this is hers.

“I need time,” Rachel repeats, and it sounds just as defeated as the first time she said it. “I’m not saying no, I’m just saying I need some time.” She falls silent for the better part of a minute and watches Quinn’s heart monitor. There is no irregularity, nothing to suggest the speech is affecting Quinn at all.

“I’m not saying no,” she says quietly, “that’s all I can give you right now. I hope that’s enough.”

Santana drops her eyes to the magazine. She knows how this will play out. It’s written all over Rachel’s body language. Rachel has always chosen Quinn; there isn’t any reason to believe this will be any different.

“This isn’t supposed to hurt so much,” Rachel says, very quietly.

“You don’t get to play the victim,” Quinn snaps back.

“I wasn’t –” Rachel hesitates and looks over at Santana for comfort, or answers. Santana isn’t sure.

But what she does see in Rachel’s eyes surprise her, because out of everyone, she wasn’t expecting to see it in Rachel. Or maybe she had seen it before, but had confused it for something else.

The moment ends, and Rachel turns off her emotions. Santana can’t blame her.

The dead cannot feel, she reminds herself.

Disclaimers:
- Don't own Glee, don't want to own Glee
- Special thanks to Erika for looking this over
- Title is taking from a song by Winterkids called "I'm Not Used to You"

"But shhh, it's a secret. No one can ever know"

2012-03-11T05:06:17Z

Special thanks to -bawsten for having creating this wonderful photoset. For those wondering, the quotes are a part of Quinn's speech in How You Came to Leave.

"Is that a soul in there?"

2012-02-28T01:56:18Z

On being the daughter of an alcoholic

2012-02-26T17:17:39Z

Yesterday my alcoholic father threatened to disown me.

I’ve joked before that writing is therapeutic for me and this is it – this is me trying to make sense of what just happened. I’m trying to come to terms with what he said to me, trying to make sense of it all, but I can’t.

Words fail me right now, no matter how hard I try to find them.

It’s in human nature to want to please. Some call it “empathy” but I think it runs a little deeper than simply understand what another person is feeling. It is basic human instinct to want to live up to the expectations set forth by your parents.

So how do you reconcile human nature with being told “you are disgusting” and “I am ashamed of you” with living up to expectations?

I did not come out as gay to conservative parents. I am not pregnant, nor am I running off to get married with Joe the Homeless Guy on Market and 5th. I am not dropping out of school. I have not done anything to merit being threatened with being disowned.

I am not a bad kid.

I am 24 years old. I have an internship with KQED, an organization I love deeply. I work long hours and actually enjoy it. I love sports and that I mean I love my teams unconditionally – even when they lose, which is becoming rather frequent. I graduated from undergrad in December 2010, did a couple of internships to help build my resume while I have one eye on grad school and another on a professional career.

I am not, as I said before, a bad kid.

I’m not perfect but I try to be. I don’t ask them to pay for my own phone bill. I don’t demand spending money so I can buy the latest Versace dress, nor am I throwing ultimatums so that they will send me to Las Vegas every other weekend. When I’m home, I don’t go out partying every night, nor do I listen to music obnoxiously loudly.

I’m a private person anyway and although there are some things I am open with, I am also pretty private about my personal life. There are some things I don’t like talking about; being the daughter of an alcoholic father is one of them.

They don’t always talk about what it’s like to be on the other side. When you see something slowly unravel in front of you and you’re so powerless to stop it, to intervene: it’s an absolutely horrible feeling. It’s as if you are suffocating, but it’s even worse than that.

In your head, you’re screaming, but you can’t say anything. You’re powerless. All you have is this – sensation that you are slowly losing your grip on sanity… that it’s drifting away from you.

Your mind is the most precious thing you have. The capacity to reason is one of the fundamental aspects of being human. You can rationalize something. Cognitive reasoning is proof of humanity. So what happens when it fails you?

What happens when you appeal to reason and you don’t find any answers? What happens when you ask yourself ‘but is it something I did?’ and even though rationally, you know the answer is “no”, there is still a lingering doubt in the back of your mind. Rationally, you know you are not to blame, that it’s a disease – but you still wonder if it would still affect your father if it wasn’t for you.

I do not claim to be perfect but I claim to want to be. Human nature again – to want to be better, to want to improve.

So is guilt part of human nature, too?

If I had been better somehow, would he still be drinking today? If I had a 4.0 GPA, or was at an Ivy League, or had a high paying job straight out of college, or had been on a full scholarship – would he still be drinking?

From a scientific perspective, the answer is still yes. Rationally I know that. I know that I am not to blame, that the disease was there long before I even knew what alcoholism was. It was a part of him my entire life – I am not to blame.

And yet to be told “you are disgusting” because I once said his drinking bothered me. Well – are there words for that?

It was said in an email, which hurt even more.

To see it plainly in black and white: “you are disgusting” “I am ashamed of you” “If it bothers you that much I can think of a very simple solution of you not seeing it”.

It’s there, right in front of me. It doesn’t go away. I can’t even pretend it does. The same way I can’t pretend the title of the email isn’t “Disgusting children”.

He wants me to respond but how? How on Earth am I expected to formulate a response to that?

I can’t.

I can’t do a lot of things right now, and I wish I could. I wish I could put into words what I’m feeling right now: lost, and hurt, and confused, and so completely alone. I wish there was a way to turn off human emotions like Klaus does so effectively in Vampire Diaries because if I could, I would.

Not feeling at all has to be better than feeling like this.

This guilt is suffocating. It’s horrible, it’s absolutely horrible. And it hurts.

I don’t deserve it. I didn’t do anything to deserve it. It’s not fair.

I am not a bad kid. I did not do something that would make my parents be ashamed of me.

And yet my father still threatened to disown me, because I said that his drinking bothered me.

Ain’t humanity grand?

Angeles (Chapter Seven)

2012-02-23T05:24:12Z

The Day The Sky Caught Fire

Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six

Chapter Seven: So Pleased To Meet You

London, England, 1348

“Hello, love,” Sue Silvester says quietly, “I’ve actually been looking for you.”

Brittany looks at the woman in confusion. Santana has gone completely silent in her head and she isn’t sure if it’s because her angel has simply given up or if it’s because of the woman standing in front of her.

There is something different about this woman. She holds herself different than other humans, but different from angels as well. She looks powerful, but it’s not like with Santana and Quinn.

Santana looks powerful because she doesn’t know what it means; Quinn looks powerful because she knows exactly what it means.

This woman looks powerful because it is a status that rightfully belongs to her. Power is something that comes to her naturally; something that is a part of her as much as darkness is a part of Quinn, as much as misguided empathy is a part of Santana.

It is just something that is there, a part of them no matter how hard they try to turn it off, no matter how often they like to pretend it isn’t present.

Sue continues to watch Brittany with a look of open curiosity. She can see the struggle going on in this mortal’s conscience and it is both humorous and sickening at once.

How ironic, Sue thinks, that this mortal believes she even has a choice in the matter.

“What do you want from me?” Brittany asks. She wants to run but there is something about her eyes that is making her stay.

She has never seen blue quite that clear before.

“Your angels,” Sue answers. “They have something that is rightfully mine, you see, and I just want it back. I’ve been looking for it for a very long time.”

“No,” Brittany says, and Sue’s widen in surprise.

“No?” She repeats. “What do you mean no? Don’t you know who I am?”

Brittany doesn’t say anything, just continues to look at the woman in front of her. Sue grits her teeth, frustrated at being defied by this mortal.

“Tell me,” Sue snarls. “Tell me where they are. I demand it!”

“No,” Brittany repeats quietly.

“Tell me!” Sue roars in response. “Tell me or I will destroy everyone you have ever cared about!” Brittany’s lack of frustration merely aggravates her even more.

“I am giving you one more chance,” Sue says, placing one hand on Brittany’s chest, just above her lungs. “Tell me where your precious angels are hiding or I promise you I will make good on my word and you will suffer like never before.”

“No.”

“Very well then,” Sue smiles, but it is more the act of baring her teeth in a declaration of war. “As you wish… Brittany.”

Brittany’s eyes widen slightly – how does this woman know her name? – but apart from that, she doesn’t really react, and the woman steps away from her and walks back into the fog.

She tries not to think anything of it, but Brittany can’t quite shake a cough as she walks back to the farmhouse.

& & &

Santana and Quinn look up as soon as she arrives.

“What’s wrong with you?” Quinn snaps at Brittany.

“Nothing,” Brittany responds. Her throat feels slightly sore. “I saw someone. She was looking for you two.”

“No, really, what’s wrong with you?” Quinn repeats, and there’s something about the way she asks – as if she’s trying to dismiss her own concerns instead of Brittany’s. She tilts her head, looking closely at Brittany.

“What do you mean?” Brittany asks.

“Your breathing is all over the place,” Santana answers, getting up and walking over to Brittany. “It’s… different. It doesn’t sound like it usually does.”

“You know what our breathing sounds like?” Rachel asks as she walks into the room with her angels. “That’s creepy.”

“Our hearing is better than yours,” Quinn tells her. She glances between Rachel and Brittany before finally landing on Santana.

“Do you hear it, too?” She asks Santana.

The other angel nods but doesn’t say anything.

Rachel finds her silence disconcerting. She isn’t used to her angels acting like this, so uncertain, so confused about something. They are always so sure they have all the answers and yet here they are, perplexed over the rhythm of Brittany’s lungs.

Rachel glances towards Quinn and her angel’s body language is fascinating. She is tense, every muscle in her body completely rigid as if she is preparing herself for battle. Her eyes keep flickering and it takes Rachel a moment to realize Quinn is simply trying to memorize Brittany’s new breathing pattern.

Brittany coughs, and suddenly everything changes.

A look of horror, of despair washes over Santana. For a moment, Quinn looks completely defeated, but a second later she schools her features to reveal nothing at all.

A heartbeat later, Santana lunges at Quinn and throws the angel against the wall, one hand wrapped around her throat.

“We had a deal,” Santana screams at Quinn. “We had a deal! We had a deal!”

“Santana, stop it!” Rachel cries. Brittany remains frozen in place. Neither can believe the scene in front of them: Santana’s pain, and how Quinn isn’t even trying to defend herself.

“You promised this wouldn’t happen!” Santana screams. “You promised she would always be safe! You swore that Sue would never go after her! We had a deal, Quinntus. I saved your miserable life in exchange for keeping her safe! We had a deal, don’t you remember!”

“Stop it, what are you doing?” Rachel says as she tries desperately to get Santana away from Quinn. “Santana, please, stop!”

But Santana is too full of anger, of desperation, and she shrugs Rachel off easily.

Quinn still isn’t fighting back and that’s what makes it so frightening for Rachel. She’s just standing there, taking it as Santana unleashes her anger on her. Quinn wears tragedy extremely well but defeat, combined with guilt, is what makes her look so heartbreaking.

It fades eventually, and the crazed look has left Santana and is replaced by just anguish.

“You can’t let it end like this,” she begs Quinn quietly. “Please, you have to do something. She will listen to you.”

“It doesn’t…” It’s the first time Rachel has really seen Quinn struggle for words around Santana. Usually they know what each other is thinking, a consequence of a thousand year friendship.

“It doesn’t work like that,” Quinn whispers. “You know that, Santana.”

“Stop lying to me!” Santana cries. “You can do it, I know you can. You just don’t want to do anything! You’re always motivated by your self-interest but what about mine?”

“I don’t control Sue!” Quinn snaps back, finally showing an emotion other than anger. “You know I can’t do that!”

“It’s your soul she’s after,” Santana snarls. “So you are in a position to negotiate, Quinntus. But since you are only interested in yourself, why don’t we up the stakes of negotiation?”

A flash later she is in front of Rachel, and then suddenly, Rachel is breathing the same air as Brittany. She struggles against Santana’s grip, trying to escape.

“Breathe Brittany’s air,” Santana hisses in her ear, “or I will snap your neck.”

“Santana, no!”

But it’s too late, and Rachel is gasping for breath, more because she is struggling against Santana than because she is obeying the angel’s request.

“That’s my girl,” Santana whispers as Rachel stumbles back.

Quinn’s look is one of horror. Rachel has never seen her angel look like that.

“There,” Santana snarls, “now you finally have something to motivate you.”

& & &

Quinn is sitting at the moor when Finn finds her.

She is just sitting there, her jaw clenched, as she stares out into the vast openness in front of her. There is nothing there, and yet Finn knows that Quinn still sees something.

She is imagining how her future is playing out in front of her, weighing up which choices she would make, and who will fall as a consequence.

“She’s a human, you know,” Finn says quietly. Quinn just nods. “So in the long term, that won’t change anything. It won’t be any different than what you’ve already been through.”

“I know,” Quinn sighs.

“And what’s a mortal lifetime compared to eternity? It’s nothing for you and me,” he continues. “You remember how it is, Quinntus. We don’t even notice time, not like they count it. The odds of you even remembering this lifetime are just so slim…”

She doesn’t respond. He shifts just a little closer to her and she leans into him. The warmth used to be comforting but for now it reminds him of defeat.

“What’s a lifetime in exchange for eternity?” He asks softly. “One lifetime but there are others, you know that.”

“It’s not…” Quinn trails off. “Sue will do it, you know. She’ll save both of them if I ask her to.”

“So what’s the problem?” Finn asks. “You make the deal and she saves your precious little pet.”

“Because I know what she’s going to ask as a price,” Quinn tells him. “And I don’t know how I’m supposed to pay it.”

“She’s just a pet, Quinntus,” he says. “Would it really be that hard to let her go?”

“It’s been over a thousand years,” Quinn says, “and you still haven’t let me go.”

Quinn closes her eyes and allows herself to drift into Rachel’s mind. She just wants to see her before she makes her decision. She wants to feel her love once more. Quinn can feel the state Rachel is in, can feel the sickness slowly taking over her body.

“Oh, Quinntus,” Finn whispers. He doesn’t say anything, just pulls her into his body. When she eventually opens her eyes again, Finn is gone.

Alone, she steps into the chapel.

& & &

“Forgive me Father,” Quinn whispers quietly as she prays on her knees, “for I have sinned…”

“Quinntus?” Sue asks as she appears behind Quinn. “I’d say I never thought I’d see the day you pray again but you and I both know that isn’t quite true.”

Quinn doesn’t say anything as she continues to stare at the cross in front of her. Her jaw is clenched, the only sign she is feeling any emotion at all.

“How much pain does a creature like you have to be in to be brought to your knees?” Sue muses as she paces around Quinn. “I mean, I can hardly imagine what it must be like for you right now, hating something as much as you do and yet the one you love being at their mercy. Such delicious agony.”

“Oh, don’t give me that look,” Sue says as Quinn tears her eyes away from the cross and looks at Sue in surprise. “You and I both know this was coming. It was in the prophecy, after all.”

Sue stops her monologue long enough to sit down in front of Quinn. It’s enough to make the angel flinch slightly under the scrutiny.

“Such a gorgeous creature, you are,” Sue ponders. “You really were created by the Gods. Now look at you, brought to your knees, praying to the same ones that exiled you just to save the life of some mortal. It’s like you never learn.”

“Is this what this is about?” Quinn asks, breaking her silence. “Finally getting back at them for what happened all those years ago?”

“Quinntus,” Sue sighs. “Quinntus, Quinntus, Quinntus.” She smirks at the angel. “Do you really believe you found yourself by that lake all those years ago because of your own free will? Are you actually that naïve?”

“No,” Quinn shakes her head. “That’s impossible. I chose to be there. I did that.”

“Is it?” Sue gets up and resumes pacing around Quinn. “You should know by now that I wouldn’t lie to you.”

“Say it,” Quinn requests. “You know why I’m here so say it. Say what you want from me, name your price. Stop playing games with me and just say it.”

Sue draws something on the ground next to Quinn, and hazel eyes flicker towards the ground, trying to understand the pattern. Eventually the figure becomes clear, and Quinn closes her eyes in pain. If she can’t see it, maybe it will go away.

“It’s no secret what I want from you,” Sue tells Quinn. “But you’re asking me for an awfully big favor, so why don’t we make the price as… appropriate?”

“Anything,” Quinn answers, but her voice is barely above a whisper. “Anything you want, the answer is yes, just make sure they live.”

& & &

“Anything?” Sue can barely contain the glee in her voice.

“Yes,” Quinn whispers. “Anything.”

“As you wish.” Sue almost prances as she moves around the chapel, but then something washes over her face. She stops looking menacing and looks more like the Original Prophet.

It is comforting for Quinn in a manner it shouldn’t be.

“You know, your love for this mortal has defied the Gods for so long now I don’t think they even remember why it bothers them so much,” Sue says. “I’m not even convinced that you remember. But I do, and maybe that’s what matters. I remember.”

“I mean, yes, I made sure you would be by the lake that day – oh, Quinntus, really, stop looking at me like that, it can’t be that surprising – but the rest was really all you. I made sure you were there… But you’re the one who chose to come back to the lake after that.”

“This love you feel for her-“ Sue almost sneers at the word – “well, really, it upsets them because they can’t control it. It was born out of free will, even if you both needed a little push to get it started. But over the course of the past thousand years, your true choice remains the same – you have always chosen to love this one little mortal of yours.”

Quinn’s eyes widen as her gaze flickers between the ground, the prophet, and the cross. She doesn’t know what to believe, and is struggling to anticipate what, exactly, Sue will demand as payment for saving Rachel and Brittany’s life.

Her soul?

But that won’t be enough. If she was bargaining for one person alone it would be sufficient payment but the Original Prophet has always been about quid pro quo, and the price of two lives saved will be two items forfeited.

What could possibly be worth more than her soul?

“Quinntus, come on now, don’t be dense,” Sue comments, “I’m sure you could come up with something that matches the price of your soul.”

“Your soul will save Brittany’s life…” She continues. “But it’s that mortal, you know, she’s just been a constant thorn in everybody’s side. So hard to make plans with her around, if you know what I mean.”

“No!” Quinn snaps, hazel eyes flashing with anger. “She lives! I will not negotiate on that!”

“Neither will I,” Sue responds. “Your human lives.”

“So what it is? What do you want from me?”

“I keep telling you, Quinntus,” Sue smiles. “The only thing stronger than your hatred of the Gods is your love for this one girl. So some would say the payment for her life… should be exactly that.”

The force of the prophet’s words is enough to make Quinn take a step back in shock.

“You have no idea what you’re asking of me,” Quinn whispers.

“I think I have a fairly good idea,” Sue counters. “And you’re not really in a position to make demands, are you? I hear that cough is quite… inconvenient for humans.” She looks up and her eyes have hardened.

“She will die without my help, Quinntus. So if you want her to live you will make this deal. Their lives will be spared, and in exchange you forfeit your love and your soul.”

“Do we have a deal then, Quinntus?” Sue asks. “Her life in exchange for her love?”

& & &

Santana finds Quinn sitting on the edge of a path.

It is raining, and Quinn looks completely miserable. Santana knows without asking that it is done, that Quinn made good on her word and that Brittany and Rachel are safe.

But she can’t help but wonder what, exactly, it had been that Sue had demanded of Quinn, what the final price was that Quinn had to pay. She glances over Quinn but apart from the misery written all over the angel’s face, there isn’t much to suggest she is feeling anything else.

No guilt, no resentment, nothing.

And in that moment, Santana starts to suspect what it was that Sue had been after.

“I didn’t know,” Santana whispers. “I didn’t know what she would ask of you, I really didn’t. I just –“

“You wanted to save Brittany,” Quinn cuts her off. A muscle twitches in her jaw but a second later, her face becomes a blank mask. “I get it, I do. You wanted to save her and you just did what you had to do to make sure she would be safe.”

Her voice sounds so flat, so defeated, Santana thinks. As if even speaking is taking all of Quinn’s energy.

She wishes the other angel would sound angry, or bitter, or upset – anything other than this passive monotone Quinn is currently using. Because she just sounds so weak and it is something Santana never thought she’d associate with Quinn.

Quinn’s hand traces something in the dirt.

“We fell here, you know,” Quinn says quietly. “Right in this very spot. They pushed me out because they couldn’t take the idea that I might love something more than them, and they – they threw me out, and I lashed out, and now we’re both trapped here with no way home.”

“Home?” Santana repeats. “I thought we agreed the farmhouse was home now.”

“I don’t-“ Quinn voice cracks, just as a little, as the misery creeps into her voice. “I don’t think I can back there again.”

“Sure you can,” Santana presses. “Look whatever it was, you’ll win, okay? You’ll get it back, you always do. It’s Rachel. She always comes back to you. It’s how things go, okay, even Sue can’t change that. No one can.”

But Quinn just looks so lost, so miserable, that Santana feels the confidence in her words fading the more she tries to convince Quinn everything will be fine.

“What did Sue want from you?” Santana asks, even though a part of her doesn’t want to know.

“There were two lives to save,” Quinn answers. “Quid pro quo and all of that. A life for a life.” The same muscle twitches in her jaw again before the angel regains control of her emotions.

Quinn traces something in the dirt. “My soul in exchange for saving Brittany’s life… And something to save Rachel’s. Quid. Pro. Quo.”

& & &

Shelby walks into the kitchen, exhausted.

She has been gone for over a week, trying to find medicine to help the sickness that has overcome the village.

“Brittany? Rachel?” She calls out.

Her daughters must be around, she thinks. Something is brewing in a pot – potatoes, if the smell is any indication – as well as various herbs are lying around. It is messy, the first indication the angels aren’t around.

Shelby walks around the farmhouse, trying to locate everyone. They must be here somewhere, she thinks to herself.

She hesitates in the foyer. A fire is burning but something feels out of place. It feels like something is missing, like something has been erased, but she can’t quite place what it is.

It feels different- like a memory just out of her grasp.

Shelby stops suddenly and listens. She can hear laughter from outside. A moment later, the door opens, and she can hear Brittany and Rachel come in from the rain outside.

The angels, however, are still missing.

“Mother,” Rachel laughs, “there you are, Brittany and I have been worried.”

“Girls,” Shelby nods. Her eyes glance behind them, towards the door, then back towards her daughters.

“Is something the matter, Mother?” Brittany asks.

“Where are Quinn and Santana?” Shelby says. Her daughters stare back at her, confused.

“The angels,” she prompts. “Where are they? Did they go to the moor or something?”

“Angels?” Rachel repeats. “Whatever are you talking about, Mother?”

“Quinn and Santana,” Shelby says, growing a little bit more desperate. “The angels who fell from the sky, you found them, Brittany. Where are they?”

“Mother, you must be exhausted from your trip,” Brittany attempts in an effort to defuse the rapidly rising tension. “You must be confused, here, have some dinner, we prepared it…”

Shelby jerks away from Brittany and turns towards Rachel.

“The angels,” she repeats. “The ones who fell from the sky. Where did they go?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about, Mother,” Rachel says, and this time she sounds almost uncertain. She glances between Shelby and Brittany, and it hurts Shelby to see it, because Rachel looks almost afraid of her own mother.

“There were never any angels, Ma,” Rachel says.

Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten

Disclaimers:
- Unpaid interns don't own Glee
- Special thanks to Erika for having looked it over. #NotNowJess
- Parts of Santana's speech is taken from Klaus' character in Vampire Diaries
- In case people haven't been picking up on the hints: the plague hit England in 1348. Sue is referring to the plague when she says the cough is "inconvenient" for humans.
- Title of the chapter is taken from Elliott Smith's "Angeles"

Confession number 63

2012-02-21T06:37:31Z

That song still reminds me of you

Erasing the Past

2012-02-16T17:17:12Z

They remember that gym well.

They remember the lead they had, then lost.

They remember shots that they used to be able to make in their sleep hitting the rim, or the board, or – nothing.

They remember how the lead vanished. How much it hurt when it did. How it felt to see another team a trophy they had considered to be rightfully theirs.

They remember it well.

So it was telling, in so many ways, that they came back the way they did on Wednesday night. Because it was in that gym, against that team, who had that lead.

But this time, the odds were in their favor, and they’re the ones who erased a 15-point deficit. They saw their shots going on.

“Thank you for creating a good memory in that awful gym,” she told them after the game.

History felt good when it was on their side.

Motivation

2012-02-14T03:54:36Z

White wine and Angeles. Let's do this. :-)

Oh, Angeles, I know you sometimes feel like the middle child but I do love you, I swear I do - and for the next few days, it's just going to be you and me love.

Charmed

2012-02-11T18:26:00Z

This is probably going to sound either overly sentimental or just really shallow, so I apologize in advance for that.

I have really, really amazing friends. My closest friends (Lauren, Amanda, Eric) - they're just some of the nicest people in the world and I really can't imagine what my life would be without them. You hear sometimes about meeting people who just change your life somehow and they are DEFINITELY those people. Amazing, amazing people to have in my life.

Lauren's just an amazing friend. We met freshmen year in college and we've been really close ever since. I joke about this but I really do feel she made me into a better student - our study habits just played off each other very well. :) And now, several years later - there are talks about coffee and work and boyfriends and we just understand each other really well.

I have a ridiculously charmed life sometimes. :-)

"You're real torn about it"

2012-02-02T21:25:18Z

One of my favorite things about The OC was the music on that show - so, so amazing. Say what you will about Josh Schwartz, but his partnership with Stephanie Savage is really something pretty special.

Here's to the show that always found the perfect song to describe a scene.

Everything

2012-01-29T19:00:14Z