When Madison Alexa Fabray is born, Rachel thinks she might just be the most perfect girl in the world; second to Quinn, of course. She tells Quinn this, minus the part about her. Their strictly platonic relationship calls for only comments like that, strictly platonic. She's not stupid though, or blind. She'd noticed the looks and caught the double entendres. There was something else going on, something more and it'd been there the entire time. She knew because she'd felt it too.

Rachel had decided long ago to let fate take its course, though. She'd let Quinn figure things out while she figured it out for herself, and if they happen to come to the same conclusion…or if Rachel finally got sick of waiting…then they would go from there.

So while she sits there in the rocking chair next to Quinn's hospital bed, holding the [second] most perfect girl in the world, she bides her time by counting and recounting all of Madison's fingers and toes—ten every time—and whispering every outing she has planned—at least six a year until Madison turns 18, because she hasn't had enough time to write all of them down yet.

Quinn, half asleep, hears the plans and can't help but smile a little. She smiles at never going through childbirth again without the epidural—she'd almost broken Rachel's hand several times. She smiles at the knowledge that her baby girl is healthy and has ten fingers and toes. She smiles at how happy she is that Rachel isn't going anywhere.

That means she has time.

---

The girls finally made their move on one another at Madison's first birthday party.

They'd been getting the little one ready for the festivities when it happened. Rachel handed Madison off to Quinn; the little brunette giggled and out it came.

"Mama!"

Quinn and Rachel stopped immediately and looked at each other, Madison just continued to giggle.

"Did she just-"

"Mama!" Madison yelled again.

"Oh my god," Quinn gasped and pulled her daughter tighter.

It was her first word and she couldn't help the tears in her eyes. Quinn felt a bit ridiculous, but after going through such anguish with the decision whether to keep her baby or not, she figured it was ok. It's not like she was bawling or anything.

Rachel came up to her side and rested a hand on the small of Quinn's back.

"You, little Maddie, just mad your mommy very happy," the singer said as she kissed the little girl's head.

The teens locked eyes again and Rachel wiped away an errant tear streaking its way down the blonde's cheek. She kept her hand in place with their eyes still locked and Rachel's thumb slowly brushing the skin underneath it.

Neither Quinn nor Rachel knows who leaned in first, so they just say it was a same time kind of thing.

It was slow and innocent and just…nice. There was no suffocating on unwanted tongues and no drowning on excess slobber. It wasn't rushed. No one interrupted them, not even Madison.

When they pulled back there wasn't a need for words. It was already understood what it meant.

Rachel looked down to the littlest Fabray—she'd inherited Quinn's eyes and smile and Puck's hair color (no Mohawk, to his dismay) and nose ("Definitely a good looking Jew," Rachel joked with him)—to be met with a poke to the cheek and a toothy grin.

"I think she approves," Quinn laughed.

---

Their relationship wasn't perfect, by any means. After all, they were still Quinn Fabray and Rachel Berry. There were bound to be arguments and quarrels and there definitely were. They'd agreed from the start, though, that they wouldn't be that couple—the one that breaks up and then gets back together hours or days later.

They made it through high school—taking New Directions to Nationals twice and winning both (they missed out their first year)—and both ended up in New York.

That was a very carefully planned affair. It had to be with Maddie involved.

Quinn's sister and brother in law had moved to Greenwich Village a few years prior, and when they heard Quinn had been accepted into NYU, they immediately offered her their spare room. It was great luck, really; she would only be a few minutes from school, her sister had offered to take care of Madison while she was in class and Rachel was about twenty minutes away at Julliard.

Rachel was a frequent visitor—as frequently as she could, anyway—and Maddie loved seeing her Auntie Rachel.

The plans the singer made for Madison when she was born hadn't changed all that much. She knew they'd end up in New York, all three of them. The only changes were the dates, since she couldn't have planned for tests or anything of the sort, even if she was kind of psychic.

They mostly did things that were free; it was New York after all. They took walks in Central Park and up and down the Great White Way. They saw Maddie's first Broadway show when she was ten. They poked around FAO Schwartz a few times. They saw the giant Christmas tree every year before they went back to Lima to spend the holidays with Puck and the Berry's. All the tourist attractions were taken in, along with numerous photos.

Whenever Puck made it out to New York for a visit, he would take the girls to a Yankees' game.

Madison was 12 when she dropped the Aunt from Rachel's name. It was a little strange at first; Quinn and Rachel were so used to hearing it come from the little girl's lips.

It had always been, "Aunt Rachel, can I have a cookie?" "Aunt Rachel, Mom says you're in trouble for acting like a vampire last night. What does that mean?" "Mom, Aunt Rachel needs to go to the hospital again. She tried to be like Rachael Ray again, you know with all the carrying a bunch of stuff? And she dropped the turkey on her foot."

Then all of a sudden it was, "Mom, Rachel says you're in trouble for straining her back and making her miss rehearsal! How'd you hurt her back?" "Rachel, can you take me to get a tattoo? Mom already said it was ok, I swear." "Daddy, Rachel's cheating at Dreidel and stealing all the Gelt! And she's ruining Hanukkah!"

It was the first real sign that Madison wasn't so little anymore. She was growing up, and they had to grudgingly accept it.

---

Madison was 19 when it happened.

Quinn had called her while she was out with friends. They'd just finished Midterms and were out for dinner before taking in a new Off-Broadway show that'd been getting pretty good reviews.

"Maddie, Rachel's been in an accident. We're at St. Luke's, off 10th and 59th."

She'd rushed off, barely telling her friends goodbye. She felt numb the entire way to the hospital. She had the worst possible scenarios running through her head. There was no possible way it was Rachel's time to go.

Madison got to St. Luke's in record time. At least, that's how it seemed to Quinn. Time seemed to be malfunctioning ever since the accident.

"Mom, where is she? Is she ok? What happened? She's not dead, right? She can't die. It's not her time, right?"

Quinn pulled her hysterical daughter into a tight embrace and stroked her hair in an attempt to calm her.

"Maddie, shh. Calm down, she's not dead. Her taxi was T-Boned on her way to the theater. She's in her room and-"

That was all she had to hear. She pulled away from Quinn and burst into the room. The tears pricked at her eyes and she bit her lip in a last ditch effort not to let them fall.

Rachel was hooked up to monitors—thankfully not a respirator—and had cuts on her face, as well as a bandage wrapped around her head.

Madison approached the bed slowly, not wanting to wake her up if she was asleep—praying to whatever God happened to be listening at the time that she was just asleep and it wasn't a coma.

She stood there for a few minutes and just stared.

"I don't even get a hello from you?"

Madison's eyes went wide and she gasped. Rachel slowly opened her eyes and smiled a little.

"Madison Alexa Fabray, I'm positive your mother taught you better than that. In fact, I kn-"

Rachel couldn't finish her thought because Madison had practically launched herself onto the bed and was hugging the crap out of her. As well as cutting off most of her air supply.

"Oh my god, Mom. You're ok! You're not dead or comatose!"

"Mads," Rachel croaked out. "Can't breathe."

"Oh crap. I'm sorry, Mom. I just was glad you weren't…you know."

"No, sweetie, I'm fine. It was just-" Rachel paused mid thought, did she hear right? "Wait. What did you call me?"

The younger brunette looked around the room and bit her lip. She hadn't meant for it to come out like that. Sure, she'd always thought of Rachel as a second mom, but there was always hesitancy about expressing it. She didn't know how Rachel would take it and she didn't want Quinn to be upset either.

"I may or may not have called you Mom. I hope that's ok. I mean, I know you're not my actual mom, because duh. But you've just always felt like another mom and everything. And, ugh now I'm rambling. A trait I totally got from you, by the way, because Momma Q does not suffer from verbal diarrhea. But I just wanted you to know because it would suck if you died and didn't know that I do love you like my mother."

Rachel laughed loudly, only wincing slightly at the small pain in her head.

"Maddie, I'm not dying. I'm not going to die. I was on the opposite side of the car from where the impact was. I hit my head pretty hard on the window and the spray of glass got me pretty well, but it's nothing life threatening. Geez, what did your mother tell you?"

"I didn't get to tell her anything. She ran in here before I could. It was all very dramatic. She could give you a run for your money, Rach," Quinn smirked at her two girls and then walked to her girlfriend's other side and gently kissed her on the head.

"Oh could she? Well I taught her almost everything she knows. We each owe Noah fifty dollars by the way."

The blonde looked a bit irritated at that.

"I told you we should've picked hospital visit instead of wedding day!"

Madison, entirely confused, piped in, "What are you guys talking about? Why do you owe Dad money?"

"We've had a running bet since you were about five about when you'd drop the 'M' word," Rachel said.

Madison's jaw dropped slightly.

"What am I, your guys' personal Clydesdale? A greyhound? A Keno game? Something else that can be bet on?!"

Madison continued her rant for a little while longer while Quinn and Rachel watched with small smiles on their faces.

"Looks like we made our money back," the blonde whispered.

"Yep, 20 indignant rants before she turned 20. It has to be some kind of record. We'd better not tell her about any of the other ones though."

Quinn reached down for Rachel's hand and held it tightly in her own.

"You're right. It's not as much fun if she knows about it."

They both made mental notes to check off two of the items on their 'Baby Bets with Puck' lists when they got home.