an (1): fabrastings drabble part two. because i've been imagining this conversation for a very, very long time.

an (2): title from anis mojgani's 'shake the dust.' listen to gem club's 'in wavelengths.']

...

winter. do not let a moment go by that doesn't remind you that your heart beats 900 times a day and that there are enough gallons of blood to make you an ocean. (do not settle for letting these waves settle and the dust to collect in your veins.)

.

One night, you let Quinn convince you to watch The Tree of Life—Aria had tried for months and you staunchly refused—and you try to understand it for about thirty minutes before you give up and grab a bottle of red wine from your fridge.

As you pass it back and forth, you find yourself completely overwhelmed—with the feel of Quinn's skin against your fingers, with the smell of her shampoo, with the flicker of light from the screen of your television, the immense life swelling to fill all of the gaps in the darkness, the aching somewhere in the spaces between your teeth, pounding into the vertebrae of Quinn's spine, which are slightly misaligned.

"I'm sorry," you tell her, over and over again, whispers.

Quinn shakes her head and kisses you and smiles sleepily afterward and you fall asleep with her, draped in a blanket of knit, shrouded safety, one you've never even known before, your heart caught somewhere in the warm space between staying awake to watch the sunrise and beginning to dream, and you believe you've found the place of nature and of grace, because you will remember her always, no matter what, and, despite yourself, she forgives you for all you've ever done.

.

"What are you watching?" Santana asks, handing you a cup of coffee—black—as she sits down in the chair next to yours.

"The Thin Red Line." You shrug. "Quinn loves Terrence Malick."

Santana looks away from the laptop resting on the tray table to Quinn's sleeping form. "She does, huh?"

"I have no idea why," you say.

Santana laughs. "He's like her confusing brain in film form."

You nod. "And then, like, if I try to turn it off, or change it, I swear to God she wakes up."

"It's her sixth sense." Santana takes Quinn's hand, and the gesture seems so automatic. "When we'd watch movies together at sleepovers, she could be asleep for the entire thing, but she'd wake up the second the credits started playing."

You don't say anything, but instead you watch Quinn. She's lying on her side, curled up, an oxygen mask over her mouth and nose, around her head, rumpling her hair. She looks infinitely younger, dwarfed by all of the monitors around her, by the white room, by the snow outside the window.

"She doesn't talk about it, does she?" Santana asks; it's soft, unobtrusive, although Santana seems completely comfortable around all of the tubes and wires and blood.

"Not really," you tell her. "I mean, I've seen her scars and sometimes she has nightmares and I know that—No."

Santana nods, rubbing her thumb over the top of Quinn's. You wait for an indeterminately long time, idly watching World War II depicted in the most beautiful, painful fashion you've ever seen on Quinn's laptop.

"The worst part was when we were waiting," Santana says. She doesn't look at you. "There was bleeding in her brain, and they had no way of knowing whether or not it'd resolve on it's own, whether or not she'd need brain surgery or if there'd be permanent damage."

Quinn scrunches her nose in her sleep.

"They had to put in this little monitor, to make sure the pressure didn't get too high, and they shaved just this tiny part of her hair, on the side. We waited and waited and she woke up, and when she saw that she was so pissed." Santana laughs softly. "I don't think I've ever been so happy to see her be mad."

Santana smooths back Quinn's bangs.

She says, "The only thing worse to imagine than Quinn being dead is Quinn not being Quinn." She shrugs. "The whole time she was rehabbing or whatever, it was sad but she was exactly the same and there was a part of me that was so happy." Santana closes her eyes, like she's trying to use her eyelids as a mirror. "Do you know what it's like to lose your best friend?"

You say, "My best friend died when I was fifteen."

Santana sucks in a breath.

"You don't ever stop missing them," you tell her. "No matter how mad they made you; no matter how much you hated them. They're in your cells. You'll be walking down the street and you'll smell them, or you'll hear their laugh, or you'll see their favourite sweater. Like the world was suddenly constructed entirely from the things they loved."

Santana looks at their intertwined hands.

"Then some days you feel like you're forgetting them, when you don't feel out of breath when you smell their perfume or hear their favourite song. I used to think it was a bad thing, to forget."

You put your hand on the top of Santana's, spread your fingers so that you can feel Quinn's too.

"I love her, you know."

"That's why I haven't kicked your ass yet."

You smile, then squeeze her hand. "When we're together, it's like I'm finding out new things that maybe I'll never have to forget." You swallow. "And it's a really good thing, to feel like that."

"You must've been so scared, last night," she says.

And you were, blindingly terrified in the moment when Quinn couldn't breathe. It felt different than all the times you'd been scared before—which was a lot—because this wasn't something you understood; this wasn't something you could ever fix; you would never be smart enough to make this go away.

"If anything happened to Brittany, I—" Santana shakes her head.

"She's going to be okay." You say it for your own benefit as well. "I won't ever hurt her."

"I know," Santana says. She sits back and so do you. Quinn snores a little and you smooth down her hair, then kiss her forehead. You're suddenly overwhelmingly happy that she exists, that she will always be out there somewhere in the world, in the way her voice sounds when she wakes up and the way she splashes in puddles when it rains, the way she drinks tea.

Remembering is suddenly the most comforting notion you know.

The film quietly proclaims, Love. Where does it come from? Who lit this flame in us? No war can put it out, conquer it. I was a prisoner. You set me free.

"It's good to know that there are people that remind us that we haven't died yet, huh?"

"Yes," you say. "It is."

...

references. because i went on a terrence malick kick yesterday and also today, the thin red line and the tree of life.