summary: 'They're doing disco. Once upon a time, this would've been fine. But now, at that exact moment when she can't get on that dance floor, she can't breathe.' Faberry post 3x16. Mostly future stuff. Angsty, happy.

an (1): well. quinn wasn't in the episode at all. which meant finn got lots of time to be, well, finn, and it was pretty easy to write fanfiction about quinn in this ep because, why not? lol. anyway, i hope you all enjoy this and get your quinn fix until the writers give her more than, like, two seconds of screen time. (rant over, lol.) because you know how much i love them (like ukuleles and spring rains), you guys should review :) thank you bunches!

an (2): because i mention it (and it's perfect). recommended listening: "vcr" by the xx.

(in our bedroom) after the war

i fell in love with her courage, her sincerity, and her flaming self-respect. and it's these things i'd believe in, even if the whole world indulged in wild suspicions that she wasn't all she should be. i love her and it is the beginning of everything.
—f. scott fitzgerald

...

one. you are all a lost generation

.

The first day after they tell her that she can't walk, that she might never be able to again, the first day when she's coherent enough to really understand what's going on, Quinn asks her mother quietly to bring her The Sun Also Rises.

For the next few weeks, when she's alone in the hospital, she finds comfort in the pages of the Modern. It's not because they're happy, or encouraging. They're beautiful, but not in the way she'd loved before. They're haunting and sometimes disturbing and always sad.

In fact, after she's finished The Great Gatsby and The Age of Innocence and Day of the Locust, Quinn's pretty sure that none of these people believed in happy endings.

Like, at all.

The thing that magnetizes her insides is more the fact that they're nostalgic for something that never existed. They're part of the lost generation. They've lived through a war—a war—and they're struggling.

They long for things, which is their ultimate downfall.

When Rachel comes to visit, Quinn's really just comforted because she's sure that people have understood exactly how she feels.

(They're broken, too. Only they don't get put back together.)

.

two. i lie to myself all the time, but i never believe me

.

They're doing disco. Which means a combination of crappy music and lots of dancing.

Once upon a time, this would've been fine. Quinn would've scoffed, granted, and maybe even voiced a complaint accompanied by a raised eyebrow, but really, it would've been fine.

But now, at that exact moment when she can't get on that dance floor, she can't breathe. It feels like when she first woke up, when she still had a tube snaking from her chest to drain extra fluid from her battered lung, except for the hurt this time is different.

It's bigger. It's more tangible. Quinn isn't confused; she isn't swimming in pain meds this time. She can place it.

So the next morning, when her mom comes down to her room (or really, the guest bedroom) to help her get ready for school, Quinn says her back is really, really sore and she doesn't feel good at all.

Judy doesn't explicitly believe her, not anymore, but she just sits down on the side of Quinn's bed and rubs her back softly.

Quinn wants to cry, but she doesn't.

"Okay," Judy says—grants—because Quinn's sure that somewhere in Judy's head this whole thing is partly Judy's fault. (It's not.)

"Thanks," Quinn whispers, and then Judy gets up to leave, placing a kiss to Quinn's forehead.

When Rachel comes by that afternoon to bring Quinn her homework, as Judy goes to answer the door, Quinn slumps over on the couch, puts down The Bell Jar and turns up the Gossip Girl rerun she'd had passively playing on their TV, and closes her eyes, pretends to be napping.

She's not, but lying has become easier than breathing by now.

Quinn hears Rachel say, "We missed her dancing today."

(Also, lies hurt less.)

...

three. there are two types of people in the world: those who prefer to be sad among others, and those who prefer to be sad alone

.

There are only so many brave things she can do in one day, and today happens to be devoted to taking a step.

One step.

It's pretty much the hardest thing she's ever done, harder than hundreds of ballet classes or gymnastics competitions or cheer stunts or even having a child.

This is terrifying.

For whatever reason, Joe offers to come with her to physical therapy, and Quinn lets him, because his hands clapping, there to catch her, are better than no hands at all.

And then—it's slow motion and infuriating, but so wonderful Quinn cries—she moves her right foot in front of her left, and her physical therapist and Joe cheer, and even the parallel bars encapsulating her body do nothing to curb her joy.

Her arms are shaking with effort, even though they've gotten much stronger, and it feels like Yale and it feels like dancing.

(And all she wants to do is tell Rachel.)

...

four. 'why do beautiful songs make you sad?' 'because they aren't true.' 'never?' 'nothing is beautiful and true.'

.

Rachel and Finn break up just after graduation.

Quinn spends the next few weeks doing simple things with Rachel, things that allow them to hold hands every now and then, or talk about nothing for hours. They get coffee and go shopping a lot—Quinn drags Rachel into Anthropologie and Urban Outfitters, and a music place that has a pretty decent collection of vinyl, and her favourite used book store—and Rachel seems to gradually brighten.

Partly, it's because Quinn's walking. Not well, and not with any sort of actual stamina, but she makes it around slowly and unsteadily, with Rachel's help whenever they're together.

At the end of these days Quinn is exhausted. Completely worn out.

But it's worth it, because on the fourth of July, at Puck's barbecue, it gets dark and Quinn starts singing "VCR" by The xx (it's just the best). Rachel hands her a sparkler with a smile, and Quinn twirls around with it, dancing.

Everyone goes to watch Puck and Sam set off some fireworks in the street, and Rachel follows Quinn to the dark, to the side of Puck's house, and with the ooohs and aaahs and booms behind them, smoke and the smell of sulfur, they kiss for the first time.

Quinn almost wants to laugh, because there really are fireworks.

But instead she breaks their kiss and says, "Do you mean it?"

And Rachel doesn't skip a beat when she whispers, "Yes," and kisses Quinn again.

(Rachel hums a little of "VCR" as they drive home that night. She knows it because Quinn's taught her, and Rachel's voice is overwhelming, and it's the saddest, most perfect song Quinn's ever heard.)

...

five. but the thing about remembering is that you don't forget

.

A few times after she wakes from nightmares during her first semester at Yale, when she can't fall back asleep, Quinn calls Santana, even though Santana's at Louisville and (probably) sleeping. It's only on the especially bad nights, when she can't breathe she's so scared, when she can't bear the idea of Rachel's patient, sad silence and quicksand of guilt filling both of their bodies—usually after nightmares she does call Rachel, who sings her a lullaby—Quinn picks up the phone and wraps herself in her comforter, making sure not to wake Hazel, her roommate, and limps out into the hallway.

"The fuck, Q?" Santana answers, faithfully, every time, although the sleepy gravel in her voice and the soft way she sighs before she says anything betray her.

"I'm sorry," Quinn says.

"Don't you sleep? Goddamn hipster."

"I'm not a hipster," Quinn says.

Santana laughs sleepily. "Let's be real, Q."

"Fine," Quinn grumbles. "But I do sleep."

Then Santana's quiet, always, and Quinn listens to her soft breathing.

"I had another nightmare," Quinn finally tells Santana.

Santana waits.

"I just felt it again. I saw the truck and everything."

"You're okay." The way Santana says it—the way Santana always says it—is so certain that Quinn immediately calms down.

They stay on the phone together, Quinn listening to Santana's steady breaths, for however long it takes for Quinn to finally whisper, "San?"

And then Santana says, "I'm still here."

"Thanks," Quinn says.

"I hate you, fucking hipster."

"I love you, too."

Santana laughs, and then Santana yawns.

"Do you think I'll ever forget?" Quinn asks. She already knows the answer, because her legs will never regain all of the feeling they had before, and she has scars everywhere.

Santana says, "No."

"I won't."

"You shouldn't forget, though. None of us should," Santana says, and even though they're both really sleepy, Quinn knows exactly what she means. (Quinn is precious. Quinn is here.)

"I'm going to go back to sleep," Quinn says. "Thanks again for—you know."

Santana mumbles, "Eloquent. Yale must be so proud," and then sighs. "Sleep well, Q."

"You too."

And then those nights, Quinn can sleep, because she can imagine Santana's strong arms around her, and Brittany squishing her other side, that one time in New York, at every Cheerio's practice, all of those times in the hospital.

(She needs to remember, because, even though sometimes it seems like it, it wasn't a nightmare. It just was.)

...

six. i don't know what they are called, the spaces between seconds–but i think of you always in those intervals

.

Quinn and Rachel break up the spring semester of their sophomore year. They kind of just start arguing one weekend when Quinn's in New York—it's the kind of fight that really doesn't have anything to do with anything—and within the span of twenty minutes, both Quinn and Rachel are screaming at each other.

When Rachel slumps on the couch and says, "I just need a break," Quinn's pretty sure she's going to implode.

It's a sink hole, her chest. She tries to backtrack but Rachel just shakes her head miserably in her hands.

They don't talk for three weeks. Quinn goes through the motions in class and gets all As—her professors adore her—and she talks to Santana once one the phone, crying for a little while.

The nightmares are horrible. They're not any different from the ones Quinn always has, but they're much more frequent and now she can't call Rachel for a lullaby, and Santana's with Brittany most of these nights anyway.

At one point in her life, Quinn probably would've insisted on being the "stronger" person. On never relenting, on waiting for Rachel to cave. But she's already proved her worth now, she figures, more than enough times.

So she goes shopping and buys a dress that would make any person on the planet want to simultaneously hug her and fuck her senseless, and she goes to the salon, makes sure her hair is perfectly highlighted and cut (a little shorter in the back, because Rachel liked her neck), and makes reservations at Rachel's favourite (and most expensive) restaurant in New York.

She turns in her last final portfolio three days early and takes the train to New York. Kurt has been involved in this plan from the beginning, and, true to his word, makes sure Rachel's at the restaurant on time.

She doesn't smile when she sees Quinn, but Quinn doesn't waste a second before walking up to her and saying, "I'm sorry."

And then Rachel's in her arms and they're both crying.

Dinner is perfect and they make love that night for hours, tender and soft, their fingers mapping each other, relearning divots and ridges, skin.

(It's the strongest Quinn's ever felt. It has nothing to do with being stubborn and everything to do with being wise.)

...

seven. i hope no one has been quite as miserable as Susan and Lucy were that night; but if you have been - if you've been up all night and cried till you have no more tears left in you - you will know that there comes in the end a sort of quietness

.

After Quinn graduates from Yale and moves to New York to get her MFA in Creative Writing from NYU, her days with Rachel are simple, quiet. They rent a little apartment on the Upper West Side together, and every morning they wake up curled in each other as well as the fluffy white duvet, and they have breakfast; Quinn reads the New Yorker or Atlantic and Rachel always does the crossword in the Times. They go to their respective classes and rehearsals, and sometimes they go out, but most nights are spent laughing over vegan pad thai and then a slow, sensuous, wonderful trip from the kitchen to their bedroom (or couch, or various chairs, or sometimes they just stay in the kitchen).

Some days are just hard, though, and Rachel's always there for them. She doesn't look guilty anymore, though, Quinn thinks, when she holds her and whispers sweet nothings in Quinn's ear after a nightmare, or when she playfully ruffles Quinn's hair after Quinn comes home exhausted, sore, and discouraged after a run.

In February, after Quinn's been in New York for eight months, she falls, slips on a stray patch of ice, while taking their garbage out. She knows in the instant she hears the snap before a sickening roll of pain hits that her left wrist is broken, and when she worries about Rachel's reaction before her own pain, she almost laughs.

They spend their Valentine's Day in the ER, with Quinn's arm in a sling and Rachel pacing the small, white room they're in constantly before Quinn says, drowsily, "You're making me dizzy."

"The pain meds they gave you are making you dizzy."

Quinn rolls her eyes. "Come here," she says, and, as always, Rachel obliges, kissing Quinn's forehead and then sitting next to her on the little exam table.

It's all too familiar but also very, very different, and a doctor comes in.

He tells them that it was a clean break, and then he pulls up a picture of the X-ray on the computer.

"This isn't the first time you've broken your wrist," he says, and Quinn shakes her head.

"Once before."

He nods. "There's evidence of remodeling, so I just wanted to make sure."

"I remember it," she says.

He sort of laughs, then tells them some things about elevating it and how often Quinn's allowed to take the pain meds he's prescribed her, and then an ortho tech comes in to put Quinn's wrist in a cast.

She chooses pink and holds Rachel's hand, but the meds are so strong she starts to fall asleep despite her wrist being enveloped in a cast.

Quinn stares at the X-ray that the doctor had left up on the computer, and she traces the little white squiggles, slightly darker than the rest of her bones, that signify the healed fault lines of the break that'd happened during the accident.

But Rachel's there as her eyes flutter closed and for once she's just smiling quietly and not talking, and that longing has never gone away.

It's really a nice thing now though, and it's just the prism of yesterdays and tomorrows and eternity and a thousand different colours—she knows them all—of cracks in all of her bones.

She still loves the Modern, but she understands better now, what maybe they really meant. It doesn't matter whether or not she's broken, because that's undeniable. She was. She is.

What matters, what always mattered, is that someone love the pieces, no matter how fragmented they are.

Rachel hums to her in the haze of the cab ride back to their apartment, and Quinn is fantastically whole when Rachel curls up behind her in bed. A stained glass window, pieced together into something amazing.

It's a paradox, a beginning and an end, and it's silent as she falls asleep, but it's the truth.

(Of that, Quinn is sure.)

references. (yay for books!—and one song, lol)

title. "In Our Bedroom After the War" by Stars.
one. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway.
two. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton.
three. A History of Love by Nicole Krauss
four. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer.
five. The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien.
six. The People of Paper by Salvador Plascencia
seven. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis